DupiVcat© Northwestern University _ Library OF THE U N I VERS ITY or ILLINOIS 9e0.05 'P'74-IS ie>8b,N/.\ PLUTARCH’S LIVES OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN. fRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY JOHN DRYDEN AND OTHERS. THE WHOLE CAREFULLY REVISED AND CORRECTED, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A LIFE OF PLUTARCH. In Foluines. VOLUME I. REPRINTED FROM THE LATEST ENGLISH EDITIONS. NEW YORK: JAMES B. MIJ^LAR & CO., PUBLISHERS. 1885. WINKLER , JUL 1 4 I943 q 2 F?*/ ‘ . '/-s-s r ' V.l ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF THE LIVES. VOL. page. VOL. page ^MILIUS PaULUS . - - I. 410 Galba ----- - - -III. Agesilaus - - - - - - - II. 320 Caius Gracchus - - -III. 122 Agis ------ - - -III. 61 Tiberius Gracchus - - -III. 104 Alcibiadbs - - - - - . I. 299 Lucullus - - - - - - - II. 167 Alexander - - - - - - II. 435 Lycukgus - - - - - - - I. 66 Antony ----- - - -III. 249 Lysander - - - - - - - II. 81 Aratus ----- - - -III. 399 Marcellus - - - - - - I. 470 Aristides - - - - - - - I. 500 Marius ----- - - - 11. 4* Artaxerxes - - - - - -III. 437 Nicias ----- 211 Brutus ----- - - -III. 354 Numa Pompilius - - - -III. 98 CiBSAR ----- - - - II. 503 Otho ------ 482 ('amillus - - - - 199 Pelopidas - - - - 443 Cato the Censor - - - - I. 526 234 Cato the Younger - - . - III. 7 Philopcemen - - - 556 ■^Cicero ----- - - -III. 165 Phocion ----- - - - II. 555 ^ CiMON ----- - - - II. 147 POMPEY ----- - - - 11 . 355 ^ Cleomenbs - - - - - -III. 76 Poplicola - - - - - - - I. 152 , Coriolanus - - - - - - I. 336 Pyrrhus ----- - - - II. 7 Crassus ----- 241 34 .Demetrius - - - 207 Sertorius - - - - - - - II. 276 Demosthenes - - - - -III. 141 127 ^ Dion ------ - - -III. 3M Sylla ----- - - - II. X07 Eumenbs - - - - - - - II. 30 r Themistocles - - - - - I. 171 ' — ^ Fabius ----- - - - I. 272 Theseus ----- - - - I. 7 Flamininus - - - - - - I. 574 Timoleon - - - - - - - I. 37S ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF THE COMPARISONS. VOL. page. Agesilaus and Pompey - - II. 430 Agis and Cleomenes and the Gracchi - - - - - III. 138 Alcibiadbs and Coriolanus I. 371 Aristides and Marcus Cato I. 552 CiMON AND Lucullus - - II. 208 •Demetrius and Antony - III. 3II ^ Demosthenes and Cicero - III. 203 Dion and Brutus - - - - III. 396 Lycurgus and Numa- - - I. 121 ‘"0 Lysander and Sylla - - II. 143 VOl- PACK. Nicias and Crassus - - - II. 272 Pelopidas and Marcellus I. 497 Pericles and Fabius- - - 1. 297 Philopcemen and Flamini- NUS --------- 1. 595 Sertorius and Eumenbs - II. 318 Solon and Poplicola - - I. 168 Theseus and Romulus - - I. 62 Timoleon and ^Emilius Paulus ------- I. 44 i CONTENTS. VOLUME I. MQfl i-ife of H utarch 5 Theseus. . 7 Romulus 34 Comparison of Romulus with Theseus 62 Lycurgus 66 Numa Pompilius ; 98 Comparison of Numa with Lycurgus 121 Solon 127 Poplicola 152 Comparison of Poplicola with Solon 168 Themistocles 171 Camillus 199 Pericles 234 Fabius 272 Comparison of Fabius with Pericles 297 Alcibiades 299 Coriolanus 336 Comparison of Alcibiades with Coriolanus 371 Timoleon . . 375 ^niiliua Paulus 410 Comparison of Timoleon with iCmilius Paul is 441 Pelopidas .... 443 Marcellus .. . 470 Comparison of Pelopidas with Marcellus 497 Aristides 5C0 Marcus Cato . . 526 Comparison of Aristides with Marcus Cato 552 Philopoemen 556 Flamininus 574 Comparison of Philopoemen with Flamininus 595 LIFE OF PLUTARCH As, in the progress of life, we first pass through scenes of innoc«ii:e, peace, and fancy, and afterwards encounter the disorders of society, so we shall here amuse ourselves awhile in the peaceful solitude of the philosopher, before we proceed to those more animated, but less pleasing objects he describes. Nor will the view of a philosopher’s life be less instructive than his labors. If the latter teach us how great vices, accompanied with great abilities, may tend to the ruin of a state ; if they inform us how Ambition attended with magnanimity, how Avarice directed by political sagacity, how Envy and Revenge armed with personal valor and popular support, will destroy the most sacred establishments, and break through every bar- rier of human repose and safety ; the former will convince us that equa- nimity is more desirable than the highest privileges of mind, and that the most distinguished situations in life are less to be envied than those quiet allotments, where Science is the support of Virtue. Pindar and Epaminondas had, long before Plutarch’s time, redeemed, in some measure, the credit of Boeotia, and rescued the inhabitants of that country from the proverbial imputation of stupidity. When Plutarch ap- peared, he confirmed the reputation it had recovered. He showed that genius is not the growth of any particular soil ; and that its cultivation re- quires no peculiar qualities of climate. Chaeronea, a town in Boeotia, between Phocis and Attica, had the honor to give him birth. This place was remarkable for nothing but the lameness and servility of its inhabitants, whom Athony’s soldiers made l)easts of burthen, and obliged to carry their corn upon their shoulders to the coast. As it lay between two seas, and was partly shut up by mountains, the air, of course, was heavy, and truly Boeotian. But situations as little favored by nature as Chaeronea have given birth to the greatest men ; of which the celebrated Locke and many others are instances. Plutarch himself acknowledges the stupidity of the Boeotians in gen eral ; but he imputes it rather to their diet than to their air; for, in^his Treatise on Animal Food, he intimates, that a gross indulgence in lhal article, which was usual with his countrymen, contributes greatly to ob- scure the intellectual faculties. It is not easy to ascertain in what year he was born. Ruauld places it about the micfdle of the reign of Claudius; others, towards the end of it The following circumstance is the only foundation they have for iheii conjectures. VI LIFE OF PLUTARCH. Plutarch sa/s, that he studied philosophy under Ammonius, at Delphi^ when Nero made his progress into Greece. This, we know, was in the twelfth year of that Emperor's reign, in the consulship of Paulinus Sue- tonius and Pontius Telesinus, the second year of the Olympiad 21 1, and the sixty-sixth of the Christian era. Dacier observes that Plutarch must have been seventeen or eighteen at least, when he was engaged in the ab- struse studies of philosophy ; and he, therefore, fixes his birth about five or six years before the death of Claudius. This, however, is bare suppo- sition ; and that, in our opinion, not of the most probable kind. The youth of Greece studied under the philosophers very early ; for their works, with those of the poets and rhetoricians, formed their chief course of discipline. Put to determine whether he was borne under the reign of Claudius, or in the early part of Nero’s reign (which we the rather believe, as he says him- self that he was very young when Nero entered Greece); to make it clearly understood, whether he studied at Delphi at ten, or at eighteen years of age, is of much less consequence than it is to know by what means, and under what auspices, he acquired that humane and rational philosophy which is distinguished in his works. Ammonius was his^ preceptor ; but of him we know little more than what his scholar has accidentally let fall concerning him. He mentions a singular instance of his manner of correcting his pupils. “Our master (says he) having one day observed that we had indulged ourselves too luxuriously at dinner, at his afternoon lecture ordered his Ereedman to give his own son the discipline of the whip, in our presence ; sig- nifying, at the same time, that he suffered this punishment because he could not eat his victuals without sauce. The philos’opher all the while had his eye upon us, and we knew well for whom this example of punish- ment was intended.” This circumstance show's, at least, that Ammo- nius was not of the school of Epicurus. The severity of his discipline, indeed, seems rather of the Stoic cast ; but it is most probable that he belonged to the Academicians ; for their schools, at that time, had the greatest reputation in Greece. It was a happy circumstance in the discipline of those schools, that the parent only had the power of corporal punishment ; the rod and the ferule were snatched from the hand of the petty tyrant; his office alone was to inform the mind ; he had no authority to dastardize the spirit ; he had no powder to extinguish the generous flame of freedom, or to break down the noble independency of soul, by the slavish, debasing, and de- grading application of the rod. This mode of punishment in our public .schools is one of the worst remains of barbarism that prevails among us. Sensible minds, how^ever volatile and inattentive in early years, may be drawn to their duty by many means, which shame, and fears of a more liberal nature than those of corporal punishment, will supply. Where there is but little sensibility, the effect w'hich that mode of punishment produces is not more happy. It destroys that little ; though it should be the first care and labor of the preceptor to increase it. To beat the body is to debase the mind. Nothing so soon, or so totally, abolishes the sense of shame; and yet that sense is at once the best preservative of virtue, n.d the greatest incentive to every species of excellence. Another principal advantage, which the ancient mode of the Greek education gave its pupils, was their early access to every branch of philb Bophical learning. They did not, like us, employ their youth in the ac- quisition of w^ords ; they w'ere engaged in pursuits of a higher nature, in acquiring the knowledge of things. They did not, like us, spend seven tr LIFE OF PLUTARCH. ViJ ren years of scholasti : labor, in making a general acquaintance v^-ith two dead languages. Those years were employed in the study of nature, and in gaining the elements of philosophical knowledge from her original econ- omy and laws. Hence all that Dacier has observed concerning the prob- ability of Plutarch’s being seventeen or eighteen years of age when hfi studied under Ammonias is without the least weight. The way to mathematical and philosophical knowledge was, indeed, much more easy among the ancient Greeks than it can ever be with us. Those, and every other science, are bound up in terms which we can never understand precisely, till we become acquainted with the language* from which they are derived. Plutarch, when he learned the Roman lan- guage, which was not till he was somewhat advanced in life, observed that he got the knowledge of words from his knowledge of things. Put we lie under thejiecessity of reversing his method ; and before we can arrive at the knowledge of things, we must first labor to obtain the knowledge cf words. However, though the Greeks had access to science without the ac- quisition of other languages, they were, nevertheless, sufficiently attentive to the cultivation of their own. Philology, after the mathematics and philosophy, was one of their principal studies; and they applied them- selves considerably to critical investigation. A proof of this we find in that Dissertation which Plutarch hath given us on the word et, engraved on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In this tract he introduces the scholastic disputes, wherein he makes a principal figure. After giving us the various significations which others assigned to this word, he adds his own idea of it; and that is of some consequence to us, because it shows us that he w as not a polytheist. says he. Thou art ; as if it were Thou art one, I mean not in the aggregate sense, as we say, one army, or one body of men, composed of many individuals ; but that which exists distinctly must necessarily be one ; and the very idea of Being implies individuality. One is that wffiich is a simple Being, free from mixture and composition. To be one, therefore, in this sense, is consistent only wuth a nature entire in its first principle, and incapable of alteration or decay.^’ So far we are perfectly satisfied whth Plutarch’s creed, but not with his criticism. To suppose that the w'ord ei should signify the existence of one God only, is to hazard too much upon conjecture ; and the whole tenor of the Heathen theology makes against it. Nor can w^e be better pleased with the other interpretations of this celebrr.ted word. We can never suppose that it barely signifies^,* inti- mating thereby, that the business of those wffio visited the temple w'as in- quiry, and that they came to ask the Deity if such events should come to pass. I'his construction is too much forced ; and it would do as well, oi even better, W'ere the et interpreted, if you make large presents to tLc God. if SOM pay the priest. Were not this inscription an object of attention among the learned, we should i ot, at this distant period of time, have thought it worth mention- ing, otl.erwise than as it gives us an idea of one branch of Plutarch’s edu- cation.^ But as a single word, inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, cannot but be a matter of curiosity w'ith those wffio carry their in- q lilies into remote antiquity, we shall not scruple to add one more to the other conjectures concerning it. We will siq)pose, then, that the word was here used, in the Ionic dialect, for eide, 1 7uish. This perfectlv expressed the state of mind of all that entered the temple on the business of coi. saltation ; and it might bf LIFE OF PLUTARCH. mi no .ess empl'atical in the Greek than Virgil’s Quanquam O ! was in the Latin. If we carry this conjecture farther, and think it probable, that this word might, as the initial word of a celebrated line in the third book of the Odyssey, stand there to signify the whole line, we shall reach a degree of probability almost bordering on certainty. The verse we allud to is this : — Et yap e/xoc yoo’crrji'Se ^eot Svvaixiv rrapaOeiev I “ O that the Gods would empower me to obtain my wishes ! ” What prayer more proper on entering the temples of the Gods, particularly with the view of consulting them on the events of life. If it should be thought that the initial word is insufficient to represent a whole verse, we have to answer, that it was agreeable to the custom of the ancients. They not only conveyed the sense of particular verses by their initial words, but frequently of large passages by the quotation of a single line, or even of half a line ; some instances of which occur in the following Lives. The reason of this is obvious. The works of their best poets were almost universally committed to memory ; and the smallest quotation was sufficient to convey the sense of a whole passage. These observations are matters of mere curiosity, indeed ; but they have had their use ; for they have naturally pointed out to us another instance of the excellence of that education which formed our young philosopher. This was the improvement of the memory, by means of exercise. Mr. Locke has justly, though obviously enough, observed, that noth- ing so much strengthens this faculty as the employment of it. The Greek mode of education must have had a wonderful effect in this case. The continual exercise of the memory, in laying up the treasures of their poets, the precepts of the philosophers, and the prob- lems of their mathematicians, must have given it that mechanical power of retention, which nothing could easily escape. Thus Pliny * tells us of a Greek called Charmidas, who could repeat from memory the contents of the largest library. The advantages Plutarch derived from this exercise appear in every part of his work. As the writings of poets lived in his memory, they were ready for use and application on every apposite occasion. They were always at hand, either to confirm the sentiments and justify the principles of his heroes, to support his own, or to illustrate both. By the aid of a cultivated memory, too, he was enabled to write a number of contemporary Lives, and to assign to each such a portion of nusiness in the general transactions of the times, as might be sufficient to delineate the character, without repeated details of the same actions and negotiations. This made a very difficult part of his work ; and he ac- quitted himself here with great management and address. Sometimes, in- deed, he has repeated the same circumstances in contemporary lives ; but it was hardly avoidable. The great wonder is, that he has done it so sel- dom. But though an improved memory might, in this respect, be of senrice to him, as undoubtedly it was, there were others in which it was uather a disadvantage. By trusting too much to it, he has fallen into inaccuracies and inconsistencies, where he was professedly drawing from preceding writers. If Plutarch might properly be said to belong to any sect of philoso phers, his education, the rationality of his principles, and the modesty oi * Hist. Nat. lib. vii*. cao. 24. LIFE OF PLUTARCH. 1 % his doctrines, would incline us to place him with the latter academy. At least, when he left his master, Ammonius, and came into society, it is more than probable that he ranked particularly with that sect. His writings, however, furnish us with many reasons f®r thinking, that he afterwards became a citizen of the philosophical world. He appears to have examined every sect with a calm and unprejudiced attention; to have selected what he found of use for the purposes of virtue and happi- ness ; and to have left the rest for the portion of those whose narrowness of mind could think either science or felicity confined to any denomination of men. From the Academicians he took their modesty of opinion, and left them their original skepticism : he borrowed their rational theology, and gave up to them, in a great measure, their metaphysical refinements, to- gether with their vain, though seductive, enthusiasm. With the Peripatetics, he walked in search of natural science and of logic, but, satisfied with whatever practical knowledge might be acquired, he left them to dream over the hypothetical part of the former, and to chase the shadows of reason through the mazes of the latter. To the Stoics, he was indebted to the belief of a particular Providence ; but he could not enter into their idea of future rewards and punishments. He knew not how to reconcile the present agency of the Supreme Being with his judicial character hereafter ; though Theodoret tells us, he had heard of the Christian religion, and inserted several of its mysteries in his works.* From the Stoics, too, he borrowed the doctrine of fortitude ; but he rejected the unnatural foundation on which they erected that virtue. ^^e went back to Socrates for principles whereon to rest it. With the Epicureans he does not seem to have had much intercourse, though the accommodating philosophy of Aristippus entered frequently into his politics, and sometimes into the general economy of his life. In the little states of Greece that philosophy had not much to do ; but had it been adopted in the more violent measures of the Roman Administration, our celebrated biographer would not have had such scenes of blood and ruin to describe ; for emulation, prejudice, and opposition, upon whatever principles they might plead their apology, first struck out the fire that laid the commonwealth in ashes. If Plutarch borrowed any thing more from Epicurus, it was his rational idea of enjoyment. That such was his idea, it is more than probable ; for it is impossible to believe the tales that the Heathen bigots have told of him, or to suppose that the cultivated mind of a philosopher should pursue its happiness out of the temperate order of nature. His irreligious opinions he left to him, as he had left to the other sects their vanities and absurdities. But when we bring him to the school of Pythagoras, w^hat idea shall we entertain of him ? Shall we consider him any longer as a a Academi- cian, or as a citizen of the philosophical world ? Naturally benevolent ind humane, he finds a system of divinity and philosophy perfectly adapted to his natural sentiments. The whole animal creation he had originally looked upon with an instructive tenderness; but when the amiable Pytha- g 07 as, the priest of Nature, in defence of the common privileges of her creatures, had called religion into their cause; — when he sought to soften the cruelty that man had exercised against them, by the honest art of insinuating the doc:rine of transmigration, how could the humane and benevolent Plutarch refuse to serve under this priest of Nature. It was • Nothing of Plutarch's is now extant, from which \re can infer that be was acquainted with the Christian religion. X LIFE OF PLUTARCH. impossible. He adopted the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. He entered into the merciful scheme of Pythagoras, and, like him, diverted the ciuelty of the human species, by appealing to the selfish qualities of their nature, by subduing their pride, and exciting their sympathy, while he showed them that their future existence might be the condition of a reptile. This spirit and disposition break strongly from him in his observations on the elder Cato. And as nothing can exhibit a more lively picture of him than these paintings of his own, we shall not scruple to introduce them here ; “For my part, I cannot but charge his using his servants like so many beasts of bui den, and turning them off, or selling them when they gr >w old, to the account of a mean and ungenerous spirit, which thinkf that the sole tie between man and man is interest or necessity. But goodness moves in a larger sphere than justice. The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species ; and these still flow from the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that issue from the living fountain. A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service. Thus the people at Athens, when they had finished the Temple called Hecatompedon, set at liberty the beasts of burden that had been chiefly employed in the work, suffering them to pasture at large, free from any other service. It is said, that one of these afterwards came of its own accord to work, and putting itself at the head of the laboring cattle, marched before them to the citadel. This pleased the people, and they made a decree, that it should be kept at the public charge so long as it lived. The graves of Cimon's mares, with which he thrice conquered at the Olympic games, are still to be seen near his own tomb. Many have shown particular marks of regard, in burying the dogs which they cherished and been fond of ; and amongst the rest, Xantippus of old, whose dog swam by the side of his galley tu Salamis, when the Athenians were forced to abandon their city, and was afterwards buried by him upon a promontory, which to this day is called the Dog^s Grave. We certainly ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household goods, which, when worn out with use, we throw away ; and were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures. For my own part, I would not sell even an old ox that had labored for me ; much less would I remove for the sake of a little money, a man grown old in my service, from his usual lodgings and diet ; for to him, poor man ! it would be as bad as banishment, since he could be of no more use to the buyer than he was to the seller. But Cato, as if he took a pride in these things, tells us, that when const I, he left his war-horse in Spain, to save the public the charge of his conveyance. Whether such things as these are instances of greatness or littleness of soul, let the reader judge for himself.’' What an amiable idea of our benevolent philosopher 1 How worthy the instructions of the priest of Nature! How honorable to that great master of truth and universal science, whose sentiments are decisive m every doubtful matter, and whose maxims were received with silent con- viction ! * Wherefore should we wonder to find Plutarch more particularly at- tached to the opinions of this great man ? Whether we consider the im- mensity of his erudition, or the benevolence of his system, the motives for that attachment were equally powerful. Pythagoras had collected all the stores of human learning, and had reduced them into one rational and useful body of science. Like our glorious Bacon, he led Philosophy • Val Max. lib. viii. cap. 1 1, LIFE OF PT.UTARCH. xi torth from the jargon of schools, and the fopperies of sects. He made her what she was originally designed to be, the handmaid of Nature I friendly to her creatures, and faithful to her laws. Whatever knowledge could be gained by human industry, by the most extensive inquiry and observation, he had every means and opportunity to obtain. The priests of Egypt unfolded to him their mysteries and their learning; they led him through the records of the remotest antiquity, and opened all those stores of science that had been amassing through a multitude of ages. The Magi of Persia co-operated with the priests of Egypt in the instruction oi this wonderful philosopher. They taught him those higher parts of Science, by which they were themselves so much distinguished, astronomy and the system of the universe. The laws of moral life, and the institu- tions of civil societies, with their several excellencies and defects, he learned from the various states and establishments of Greece. Thus ac- complished, when he came to dispute in the Olympic contests, he was considered as a prodigy of wisdom and learning ; but when the choice of his title was left to him, he modestly declined the appellation of a wise maft, and was contented only to be called a lover of wisdom.^ Shall not Plutarch, then, meet wdth all imaginable indulgence, if, in his veneration for this great man, he not only adopted the nobler parts of his philosophy, but (what he had avoided with regard to the other sects) followed him, too, in his errors ? Such, in particular, was his doctrine of dreams ! to which our biographer, we must confess, has paid too much attention. Yet absolutely to condemn him for this would, perhaps, be hazarding as much as totally to defend him. We must acknowledge, with the elder Pliny, Si exemplis agatur^ profecto paria fiant ; t or, in the lan- guage of honest wSir Robert de Coverley, “ Much may be said on both sides.” However, if Pliny, whose complaisance for the credit of the mar- vellous in particular was very great, could be doubtful about this matter, we of little faith may be allowed to be more so. Yet Plutarch, in his Treatise on the Oracles, has maintained his doctrine by such powerful testi- monies, that if any regard is to be paid to his veracity, some attention should be given to his opinion. We shall therefore leave the point, where Mr. Addison thought proper to leave a more improbable doctrine, in sus- pense. When Zeno consulted the oracle in what manner he should live, the answer was, that he should inquire of the dead. Assiduous and indefat- igable application to reading make a considerable part of the Greek education ; and in this our biographer seems to have exerted the greatest industry. The number of books he has quoted, to which he has referred, and from which he has written, seems almost incredible, when it is con- sidered, that the art of printing was not known in his time and that the purchase of manuscripts was difficult and dear. His family, indeed, was not without wealth ; in his Symposiacs, he tells us, that it was ancient in Chaeronea ; and that his ancestors had been invested with the most considerable offices in the magistracy. He men- tions in particular his great-grandfather, Nicharchus, whom he had the happiness of knowing ; and relates, from his authority, the misfortunes of his fellow-citizens, under the severe discipline of Athony^s soldiers. Plis grandfather, Lamprias, he tells us, was a man of great eloquence, and of a brilliant imagination. He was distinguished by his merit as a convivial companion ; and was one of those happy mortals, w'ho, when they sacrifice to Bacchus, are favored bv Mercury. His good-humor and pleas* antry increased with his cups ; ana he used to say, that wine had the same ♦ Val. Max. lib. viii. cap. 7. t Hist- Nat. lib. x. cap. 75. LIFE OF PLUTARCH. Kll effect upon nim that fire had on incense, which causes the finest and richest essences to evaporate. Plutarch has mentioned his father likewise ; but has :iot given us his name in any of those writings that are come down to us. However, he has borne honorable testimony to his memory; for he tells 'us, that he was a learned and a virtuous man, well acquainted with the philosophy and theology of his time, and conversant with the works of the Poets, P'utarch, in his Political Precepts, mentions an instance of his father’s d scretion, which does him great honor. ‘H remember,” says he, “that I was sent, when a very young man, along with another citizen of Chaeronea. on an embassy to the proconsul. My colleague being, by some accident, ^’jbliged to slop in the way, I proceeded without him, and executed our commission. Upon my return to Chaeronea, when I was to give an ac- count in public of my negotiation, my father took me aside, and said. My son, take care that in the account you are about to give, you do not men- tion yourself distinctly, but jointly with your colleague. Say not, I went^ I spoke^ I executed ; but we went^ we spake, we executed. Thus, though your colleague was incapable of attending you, he will share in the honor of your success, as well as in that of your appointment ; and you will avoid that envy which necessarily follows all arrogated merit.” Plutarch had two brothers, whose names were Timon and Lamprias. These were his associates in study and amusement; and he always speaks of them with pleasure and affection. Of Timon in particular he says, “ Though Fortune has, on many occasions, been favorable to me, yet I have no obligations to her so great as the enjoyment of my brother Timon’s invariable friendship and kindness.” Lamprias, too, he mentions as inher- iting the lively disposition and good-humor of his grandfather, who bore the same name. Some writers have asserted, that Plutarch passed into Egypt. Others allege, that there is no authority for that assertion ; and it is true, that we have no written record concerning it. Nevertheless, we incline to believe that he did travel into that country; and we found our opinion on the fol- lowing reasons. In the first place, this tour was a part of liberal educa- tion among the Greeks ; and Plutarch, being descended from a family of distinction, was, therefore, likely to enjoy such a privilege. In the next place, his treatise of Isis and Osiris shows that he had a more than com mon knowledge of the religious mysteries of the Egyptians ; and it is, therefore, highly probable that he obtained this knowledge by being conversant amongst them. To have written a treatise on so abstruse a subject, without some more evident advantage than other writers might afford him, could not have been agreeable to the genius, or consistent with the modesty, of Plutarch. However, supposing it doubtful whether he passed into Egypt, there is no doubt set all that he travelled into Italy. Ui>on what occasion he visited that country, is not quite so certain ; but he probably w’ent to Rome in a public capacity, on the business of the Chaeroneans ; for, in the life of Demosthenes, he tells us, that be had no leisure in his journey to Italy to learn the Latin language, on the account of public business. As the passage here referred to affords us further matter of speculation for the life of Plutarch, we shall give it as we find it. “ An author who would write a history of events which happened in a foreign country, and cannot be come at in his own, as he has his materials to collect from a va- riety of books, dispersed in different libraries, his first care should be to take up his residence in some populous town which has an, ambition foi literature. There he will meet with many curious and vMuable books ; LIFE OF PLUTARCH, xiil and the pai ticiilars that are wanting in writers he r.aay, upon inquiry, be supplied with, by those who have laid them up in tlie faithful reposittry of memory. This will prevent his work from being defective in any ma- terial point. As to myself, I live in a little town ; and I choose to live there, lest it should become still less. When I was in Rome, and nthei parts of Italy, I had not leisure to study the Latin tongue, on account of the public commission with which I was charged, and the number of peo- ple who came to be instructed by me in philosophy. It was not, there- fore, till a late period in life, that I began to read the Roman authors.'^ From this short account we may collect, with tolerable certainty, the following circumstances : — In the first place, Plutarch tells us, that while he was resident in Rome, public business and lectures in philosophy left him no time for Laming the Latin language ; and yet, a little before, he had observed, that those who write a history of foreign characters and events, ought to be conversant with the historians of that country where the character existed, and the scene is laid ; but he acknowledges, that he did not learn the Latin language till he was late in life, because, when at Ron»c, he had not time for that purpose. We may, therefore, conclude, that he wrote his Morals at Rome, and his Lives atChasronea. For the composition of the former, the knowledge of the Roman language was not necessary : the Greek tongue was then generally understood in Rome ; and he had no necessity of making use of any other, when he delivered his lectures of philosophy to the people. Those lectures, it is more than probable, made up that collection of Mor- als which is come down to us. Though he could not avail himself of the Roman historians, in the great purpose of writing his Lives, for want of a competent acquaintance with the language in which they wrote, yet, by conversing with the princi- pal citizens in the Greek tongue, he must have collected many essential circumstances, and anecdotes of characters and events, that promoted his design, and enriched the plan of his work. The treasures he acquires of this kind he secured by means of a commonplace-book, which he con- stantly carried about with him : and as it appears that he was at Rome, and in other parts of Italy, from the beginning of Vespasian’s reign to the end of Trajan’s, he must have had sufficient time and opportunity to procure materials of every kind ; for this was a period of almost forty years. We shall more readily enter in the belief that Plutarch collected his materials chiefly from conversation, when we consider in what manner, and on what subjects, the ancients used to converse. The discourse of people of cducaticn and distinction in those days was somewhat different from ours. It was not on the i)owers or ))edigree of a horse — it was not a match )f travelling between geese and turkeys — it was not on a race of maggots, itarted against each other on the table, when they first came* to day-light rom the shell of a filbert — it was not by what part you may suspend a (ijjaniel the longest without making him whine — it was not on the exqui- site finesse, and the highest manoeuvres of man. The old Romans had no ambition for attainments of this nature. They had no such masters in science as Heber and Hoyle. The taste of their day did not run so high. The powers of poetry and philosophy — the economy of human life and manners — the cultivation of the intellectual faculties — the enlargement of the mind — historical and political discussions on the events of their coun- try ; these, and such subjects as these, made the principal part of their con- versation. Of this Plutarch has given us at once a proof and a specimen in what he calls his Sympcsiacs ; or, as our Selden calls it, his Table-talk XIV LIFE OF PLUTARCH. From such conversations as these, then, we cannot wonder that he was able to collect such treasures as were necessary for the maintenance of his biographical undertaking. In the sequel of the last quoted passage, we find another argument which confirms us in the opinion that Plutarch’s knowledge of the Roman history was chiefly of colloquial acquisition. “ My method of learning the Roman language,” says he, “ may seem strange ; and yet it is very true. I u^d not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the knowledge I had of things.” This plainly implies, that h< was previously acquainted with the events described in the laneruage h< was learning. It must be owned that the Roman history had been already written in Greek by Polybius ; and that, indeed, somewhat invalidates the last-men tioned argument. Nevertheless, it has still sufficient evidence for its sup port. There are a thousand circumstances in Plutarch’s Lives, which could iiOt be collected from Polybius; audit is clear to us, that he did not make much use of his Latin reading. lie acknowledges that he did not apply himself to the acquisition bt that language till he was far advanced in life ; possibly it might be about the latter part of the reign of Trajan, whose kind disposition towards his country, rendered the weight of public and political business easy to him. But whenever he might begin to learn the language of Rome, it is cer- tain that he made no great progress in it. This appears as well from the little comments he has occasionally given us on certain Latin words, as from some passages in his Lives, where he has professedly followed the Latin historians, and yet followed them in an uncertain and erroneous manner. That he wrote the lives of Demosthenes and Cicero at Chaeronea, it is clear from his own account ; and it is more than probable, too, that the rest of his Lives were written in that retirement ; for if, while he was at Rome, he could scarcely find time to learn the language, it is hardly to be supposed that he could do more than lay up materials for composi- tion. A circumstance arises here, which confirms to us an opinion we have long entertained, that the Book of Apophthegms, which is said to have been written by Plutarch, is really not his work. This book is dedicated to Trajan; and the dedicator, assuming the name and character of Plu- tarch, says he had, before this, written the Lives of illustrious men : but Plutarch wrote those Lives at Chaeronea; and he did not retire to Chae- ronea till after the death of Trajan. There are other proofs, if others were necessary, to show that this work was suppositious ; for, in this dedication to Trajan, not the Iea.sl mention is made of Plutarch’s having been his preceptor, of his being raised by him to the consular dignity, or of his being appointed governo af Illyria. Dacier, observing this, has drawn a wrong conclusion from it and, contrary to the assertion of Suidas, will have it, that Plutarch wai neither preceptor to Trajan, nor honored with any appointments under him. Had it occurred to him that the Book of Apophthegms could not be Plutarch’s book, but that it was merely an extract made from his real works, by some industrious grammarian, he would not have been under the necessity of hazarding so much against the received opinion of his connections with Trajan ; nor would he have found it necessary to allow him so little credit to his letter addressed to that emperor, which wc have upon record. The letter is as follows : — LIFE OF PLUTARCH. PLUTARCH TO TRAJAN. ** I am sensible that you sought not the empire. Your natural mod- esty would not suffer you to apply for a distinction to which you were always entitled by the excellency of your manners. That modesty, how- ever, makes you still more worthy of those honors you had no ambition to solicit. Should your future government prove in any degree answer able to your former merit, I shall have reason to congratulate both your virtue and my own good fortune on this great event ; but if otherwisCj you have exposed yourself to danger, and me to obloquy; for Rome will never endure an emperor unv/orthy of her ; and the faults of the scholar will be imputed to the master. Seneca is reproached, and his fame still Buffers, for the vices of Nero ; the reputation of Quintilian is hurt by the ill conduct of his scholars ; and even Socrates is accused of negligence in the education of Alcibiades. Of you, however, I have better hopes, and flatter myself that your administration will do honor to your virtues. Only continue to be what you are. Let your government commence in your breast ; and lay the foundation of it in the commands of your pas- sions. If you make virtue the rule of your conduct, and the end of your actions, every thing will proceed in harmony and order. I have ex- plained to you the spirit of those laws and constitutions that were estab- lished by your predecessors ; and you have nothing to do but to carry them into execution. If this should be the case, I shall have the glory of having formed an emperor to virtue ; but if otherwise, let this letter remain a testimony with succeeding ages, that you did not ruin the Ra- man empire under pretence of the counsels or the authority of Plutarch.” Why Dacier should think that this letter is neither worthy of the pen, nor written in the manner of Plutarch, it is not easy to conceive, for it has all the spirit, the manly freedom, and the sentimental turn of that philosopher. We shall find it no very difficult matter to account for his connections with Trajan, if we attend to the manner in which he lived, and to the re- ception he met with in Rome. During his residence in that city, his house was the resort of the principal citizens. All that were distin- guished by their rank, taste, learning, or politeness sought his conversa- tion, and attended his lectures. The study of the Greek language and philosophy were, at that time, the greatest pursuits of the Roman nobil- ity, and even the emperors honored the most celebrated professors with their presence and support. Plutarch, in his Treatise on Curiosity, has introduced a circumstance which places the attention that was paid to his lectures in a very strong light. ‘‘ It once happened,” says he, “ that when I was speaking in public at Rome, Arulenus Rusticus, the same ^hom Domitian, through envy of his growing reputation, afterwards put to death, was one of my hearers. When I was in the middle of my dis” couisc, a soldier came in, and brought him a letter from the emperor. Upon this there was a general silence through the audience, and I stopped to give him time to peruse this letter ; but he would not suffer It ; nor did he open the letter till I had finished my lecture, and the au- dience was dispersed.” To understand the importance of this compliment, it will be necessary to consider the quality and character of the person who paid it. Arule- nus was one of the greatest men in Rome ; distinguished as well by the lustre of his family, as by an honorable ambition and thirst of glory. He was tribune of the people when Nero caused Pjetus and Soranu.s to bo capitally condemned by a decree of the senate. When Soranus was dc^ XVI LIFE OF PLUTARCH. liberating with his friends, whether he should attempt, or give up his tcnce, Arulenus had the spirit to propose an opposition to the decree oi the senate, in his capacity of tribune ; and he would have carried it into execution, had he not been overruled by Paetus, who remonstrated, that by such a measure he would destroy himself, without the satisfaction of serving his friend. He was afterwards praetor after Vitellius, whose in- terests he followed with the greatest fidelity. But his spirit and magnan- imity do him the greatest honor, in that eulogy which he wrote on Paetts and Helvidius Priscus. His whole conduct was regulated by the pre- cepts of philosophy ; and the respect he showed to Plutarch on this oc- casion was a proof of his attachment to it. Such was the man wno post- poned the letter of a prince to the lecture of a philosopher. But Plutarch was not only treated with general marks of distinction by the superior people in Rome ; he had particular and very respectable friendships. Sossius Senecio, who was four times consul, once under Nerva, and thrice under Trajan, was his most intimate friend. To him he addresses his Lives, except that of Aratus, which is inscribed to PolV' crates of Sicyon, the grandson of Aratus. With Senecio he not only lived in the strictest friendship whilst he was in Rome, but corresponded with him after he retired to Greece. And is it not easy to believe, that through the interest of this zealous and powerful friend, Plutarch might not only be appointed tutor to Trajan, but be advanced likewise to the consular dignity ? When we consider Plutarch’s eminence in Rome as a teacher of philosophy, nothing can be more probable than the former : when we remember the consular interest of Senecio under Trajan, and his distinguished regard for Plutarch, nothing can be more likely than the latter. The honor of being preceptor to such a virtuous prince as Trajan, is so important a point in the life of Plutarch, that it must not hastily be given up. Suidas has asserted it. The letter above quoted, if it be, as we have no doubt of its being, the genuine composition of Plutarch, has confirmed it. Petrarch has maintained it. Dacier only has doubted, or rather denied it. But upon what evidence has he grounded his opinion ? Plutarch, he says, was but three or four years older than Trajan, and therefore was unfit to be his preceptor in philosophy. Now let us in- quire into the force of this argument. Trajan spent the early part of his life in arms : Plutarch in the study of the sciences. When that prince applied himself to literary pursuits, he was somewhat advanced in life : Plutarch must have been more so. And why a man of science should be an unfit preceptor in philosophy to a military man, though no more than four years older, the reason, we apprehend, will be somewhat difficult to discover. Dacier, moreover, is reduced to a petitio prmcipii^ when he says that Plutarch was only four years older than Trajan ; for we have seen that it Is impossible to ascertain the time of Plutarch’s birth, and the date which Dacier assigns it is purely conjectural ; we will therefore conclude, with those learned men who have formerly allowed Plutarch the honor of be- ing preceptor to Trajan, that he certainly was so. There is little doubt that they grounded their assertions upon proper authority ; and, indeed, the internal evidence arising from the nature and effects of that educa- tion, which did honor to the scholar and to the master, comes in aid of the argument. Some chronologers have taken upon them to ascertain the time w'hen Plutarch’s reputation was established in Rome. Peter of Alexandria fixes it in the thirteenth- year of the reign of Nero, in the consulate of LIFE OF PLUTARCIL xvii Gapito and Rufus : LdC’'in/^ says he, ** was, at this time, in great repu- tation amongst the Romans ; and Musonius and Plutarch were well known/' Eusebius brings it one year lower, and tells us, that, in the fourteenth year of Nero's reign, Musonius and Plutarch were in great reputation. Both these writers are palpably mistaken. We have seen, that in the twelfth year of Nero, Plutarch was yet at school under Ain- monius ; and it is not very probable that a school-boy should be cele- brated as a philosopher in Rome within a year or two after. Indeed, Eusebius contradicts himself ; for, on another occasion, he places him in the reign of Adrian, the third year of the Olympiad 224, of the Christian asra 120. ‘^In this year,” says he, “ the philosophers Plutarch of Chse- ronea, Sextus, and Agathobulus, flourished.” Thus he carries him as much too low, as he had before placed him too high. It is certain that he first grew into reputation under the reign of Vespasian, and that his philosophical fame was established in the time of Trajan. It seems that the Greek and Latin writers of those times were either little acquainted with each other’s works, or that there were some literary jealousies and animosities between them. When Plutarch flourished, there were several contemporary writers of distinguished abilities : Per- seus, Lucan, Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, the younger Pliny, Solinus, Martial, Quintilian, and many more. Yet none of those have made the least mention of him. Was this envy? or was it Roman pride? Pos- sibly they could not bear that a Greek sophist, a native of such a con- temptible town as Chaeronea, should enjoy the palm of literary praise in Rome. It must be observed, at the same time, that the principal Roman writers had conceived a jealousy of the Greek philosophers, which was very prevailing in that age. Of this we find a strong testimony in the elder Pliny, where, speaking of Cato the Censor’s disapproving and dis- missing the Grecian orators, and of the younger Cato’s bringing in triumph a sophist from Greece, he exclaims in terms that signified con- tempt, quanta mortem commutatiol Ilowever, to be undistinguished by the encomiums of contemporary writers, was by no means a thing peculiar to Plutarch. It has been, and still is, the fate of superior genius, to be beheld either with silent or abusive envy. It makes its way like the sun, which we look upon with pain, unless something passes over him that obscures his glory. We then view with eagerness the shadow, the cloud, or the spot, and are pleased with what eclipses the brightness we otherwise cannot bear. Yet, if Plutarch, like other great men, found “ Envy never conquered but by death,” his manes have been appeased by the amplest atone- ments. Amongst the many that have done honor to his memory, the following eulogiums deserve to be recorded : — Aulus Gellius compliments him with the highest distinction in icicnce.* Taurus, quoted by Gellius, calls him a man of the most consummate , karning and wisdom.t Eusebius places him at the head of the Greek philosophers.|: Sardianus, in his preface to the Lives of the Philosophers, calls him the most divine Plutarch, the beauty and harmony of philosophy. Petrarch, in his moral writings, frequently distinguishes him by the title of ihe great Plutarch. Honor has been done to him likewise by Origen, Himerius the Sophist, Cyrillus, Theodoret, Suidas, Photius, Xiphilinus, Joannes, Salis- • A. GelHua, lib. iv. cap. 7. t Cell. lib. i. cap. a6. t Euaeb Praep. lib. iii. init. xviil LIFE OF PLUTARCH. beriensis, Victorias, Lipsius, and Agathias, in the epigram which is that translated by Dryden : — Cliaeronean PI jtarch, to thy deathless praise Does martial Rome this grateful statue raise ; Because both Greece and she thy fame have shared ; Their heroes written, and their lives compared. But thou thyself couldst never write thy own : Their lives have parallels, but thine has none. But this is perfectly extravagant. We are much better pleased with the Greek verses of the honest metropolitan under Constantine Monomachus.. Vhay deserve to be translated. Lord of that light, that living power, to save Which her lost sons no Heathen Science gave ; If aught of these thy mercy means to spare. Yield Plato, Lord, — yield Plutarch to my prayer. Led by no grace, no new conversion wrought. They felt thy own divinity of thought. That grace exerted, spare the partial rod : The last, best witness, that thou art their God 1 Theodore Gaza, who was a man of considerable learning, and a greal reviver of letters, had a particular attachment to our biographer. When he was asked, in case of a general destruction of books, what author he should wish to save from the ruin, he answered, Plutarch. He consid- ered his historical and philosophical writings as the most beneficial to society, and, of course, the best substitute for all other books. Were it necessary to produce further suffrages for the merit of Plu- tarch, it would be sufificient to say that he has been praised by Mon- taigne, St. Evremont and Montesquieu, the best critics and the ablest writers of their time. After receiving the most distinguished honors that a philosopher could enjoy ; after the godlike office of teaching wisdom and goodness to the metropolis of the world ; after having formed an emperor to virtue ; and after beholding the effects of his precepts in the happiness of human- kind, Plutarch retired to his native country. The death of his illustrious prince and pupil, to a man of his sensibility, must have rendered Rome even painful ; for whatever influence philosophy may have on the cultiva- tion of the mind, we find that it has very little power over the interests of the heart. It must have been in the decline of life that Plutarch retired to Chae- ronea. But though he withdrew from the busier scenes of the world, he fled not to an unprofitable or inactive solitude. In that retirement he formed the great work for which he had so long been preparing mate- rials, his Lives of Illustrious Men ; a work which, as Scaliger says, non wlum fuit in 77ianibus honiinum^ at etiam humani generis meinoriavi occupa^ i it. T o recommend by encomiums what has been received with universal approbation, '•would be superfluous. But to observe where the biographer has excelled, and in what he has failed ; to make a due estimate as well of the defects as of the merits of his work, may have its use. Lipsius has observed that he does not write history, but scraps of history; no7t historiam^ sed particulas historic. This is said of his Lives, and, in one sense, it is true. No single life that he has written will af- ford a sufficient history of its proper period ; neither was it possible that it should do so. As his plan comprised a number of cotemporary lives, most of which were in public characters, the business of their period was LIFl£ OF PLUTARCH. XIX to be divided amongst them. The general history of the time was to be thrown into separate portions ; and those portions were to be allotted to such characters as had the principal interest in the several events. This was, in some measure, done by Plutarch ; but it was not done with great art or accuracy. At the same time, as we have already ob- served, it was not to be wondered if there were some repetitions, w’hen the part which the several characters bore in the principal events waf necessary to be pointed out. Yet these scraps of history, thus divided and dispersed, when seen in a collective form, make no very imperfect narrative of the times wnthin tlreir view. Their biographer’s attention to the minuter circumstar ces of character, his disquisitions of principles and manners, and his political and philosophical discussions, lead us in an easy and intelligent manne/ to the events he describes. It is not to be denied that his narratives are sometimes disorderly, and too often encumbered with impertinent digressions. By pursuing with too much indulgence the train of ideas, he has frequently destroyed the order of facts, brought together events that lay at a distance from each other, called forward those circumstances to which he should have made a regular progress, and made no other apology for these idle ex- cursions, but by telling us that he is out of the order of time. Notes, in the time of Plutarch, were not in use. Had he known the convenience of marginal writing, he \vould certainly have thrown the greatest part of his digressions into that form. They are, undoubtedly, tedious and disgustful ; and all we can do to reconcile ourselves to them, is to remember that, in the first place, marginal writing was a thing un- known ; and that the benevolent desire of conveying instruction was the greatest motive with the biographer in introducing them. This appears, at least, from the nature of them ; for they are chiefly disquisitions in natural history and philosophy. In painting the manners of men, Plutarch is truly excellent. Nothing can be more clear than his moral distinctions ; not&ing finer than the de- lineations of the mind. The spirit of philosophical observation and inquiry, which, whee properly directed, is the great ornament and excellence of historical com- position, Plutarch possessed in an eminent degree. His biographical writings teach philosophy at once by precept and by example. His mor- als and his characters mutually explain and give force to each other. His sentiments Df the duty of a historian were peculiarly just and delicate. This w^ill appear from his strictures on those historians who wrote of Philistus, “ It is plain,” says he, “ that Timaeus takes every oc- casion, from Philistus’s known adherence to arbitrary power, to load him with the heaviest reproaches. Those whom he injured are in some de- gree excusable, if, in their resentment, they treated him with indignities after death. But wherefore should his biographers, whom he never im jured, and who have had the benefit of his works ; wherefore should they esh bit him with all the exaggerations of scurrility, in those scenes of distress to which fortune sometimes reduces the best of men } On the other hand, Ephorus is no less extravagant in his encomiums on PhHis- tus. He knows w'ell how to throw into shades the foibles of the human charactei, and to give an air of plausibility to the most indefensible con- duct ; but w'ith all his elegance, with all his art, he cannot rescue Philis- tus from the imputation of being the most strenuous supporter of arbi- trary power, of being the fondest follower and admirer of the luxury, the magnificence, the alliance of tyrants Upon the whole, he who neither XIFE OF PLUTARCH. tx Ltie principles of Philistus, nor insults over his misfortunes, will best discharge the duties of the historian.” There is such a thing as constitutional religion. There is a certain temper and frame of mind naturally productive of devotion. There are men who are born with the original principles of piety ; and in this class we need not hesitate to place Plutarch. If this disposition has sometimes made him too indulgent to supersti- tion, and too attentive to the less rational circumstances of the heathen theology, it is not to be wondered. But, upon the whole, he had consis* tent and honorable notions of the Supreme Being. That he believed the unity of the Divine Nature, we have already seen m his observations on the word et, engraved on Apollo’s temple. The same opinion too is found in his “Treatise on the Cessation of Or?sles;” where in the character of a Platonist, he argued against the Stoics who deniefi the plurality of worlds. “If there are many worlds, said the Stoics, why then is there only one Fate, and one Providence to guide them ? for the Platonists allow that there is but one. Why should not many Jiipiters, or Gods, be necessary for the government of many worlds.?” To this Plutarch answers, “ Where is the necessity of sup- posing many Jupiters for this plurality of worlds ? Is not one Excellent Being, endued with reason and intelligence, such as He is whom we ac- knowledge to be the Father and Lord of all things, sufficient to direct and rule these worlds ? If there were more supreme agents, their decrees would be vain, and contradictory to each other.” But though Plutarch acknowledged the individuality of the Supreme Being, he believed, nevertheless, in the existence of intermediate beings of an inferior order, between the divine and the human nature. These beings he calls genii, or daemons. It is impossible, he thinks, from the general order and principles of creation, that there should be no mean betwixt the two extremes of a mortal and immortal being ; that there can- not be in nature so great a vacuum, without some intermediate species of fife, which might in some measure partake of both. And as we find the connection between soul and body to be made by ‘means of the animai spirits, so these daemons are intelligences between divinity and humanity Their nature, however, is believed to be progressive. At first they are supposed to have been virtuous men, whose souls, being refined from the gross parts of their former existence, are admitted into the higher order of genii, and are from thence either raised to a more exalted mode of ethereal being, or degraded to mortal forms, according to their merit or their degeneracy. One order of these genii, he supposes, presided over oracles ; others administered, under the Supreme Being, the affairs and the fortunes of men, supporting the virtuous, punishing the bad, and Eomstimes even communicating with the best and purest natures. Thus Llie genius of Socrates still warned him of approaching danger, and taught him to avoid it It is this order of beings which the late Mr. Thomson, who in eii« thusiasm was a Platonist, and in benevolence a Pythagorean, has so beautifully described, in his Seasons : and as if the good bard had be- lieved the doctrine, he pathetically invokes a favorite spirit which had lately forsaken its former mansion : — And art thou, Stanley, of that sacred band ? Alas I for us too soon ! Such were Plutarch’s religious principles; and as a proof that he thought them of consequence, he entered, after his retirement, into a sacred character, and was consecrated priest of Apollo. LIFE OF PLUTARCH. XXI This was not his sole appointment, when he returned to Chaeronea. He united the sacerdotal with the magistratial character, and devoted himself at once to the service of the gods, and to the duties of society. He did not think that philosophy, or the pursuit of letters, ought to ex- empt any man from personal service in the community to which he (be- longed : and though his literary labors were of the greatest importance to the woild, he sought no excuse in those from discharging offices of pub- lic trust in his little city of Chaeronea. It appears that he passed through several of these offices, and that he was, at last, appointed archon, or chief magistrate of the city. Whether he retained his superintendency of Illyria after the death of Trajan, we do not certainly know ; but, in this humble sphere, it will be worth our while to inquire in what manner a philosopher would administer justice. With regard to the inferior offices that he bore, he looked upon them in the same light as the great Epaminondas had done, wffio, when he was appointed to a commission beneath his rank, observed ** that no office could give dignity to him that held it ; but that he who held it might give dignity to any office.’* It is not unentertaining to hear our philos- opher apologize for his employment when he discharges the office of commissioners of sewers and public buildings. “ I make no doubt,” says /le, “ that the citizens of Chaeronea often smile, w'hen they see me em- ployed in such offices as these. On such occasions, I generally call to mind what is said of Antisthenes : when he was bringing home, in his own hands, a dirty fish from the market, some, who observed it, ex- pressed their surprise ; ‘It is for myself,’ said Antisthenes, ‘ that I carry this fish.’ On the contrary, for my own part, when I am rallied for measuring tiles, or for calculating a quantity of stones or mortar, I an- swer, that it is not for myself I do these things, but for my country. For, in all things of this nature, the public utility takes off the disgrace ; and the meaner the office you sustain may be, the greater is the compliment that you pay to the public.” Plutarch, in the capacity of a public magistrate, was indefatigable ia recommending unanimity to the citizens. To carry this point more ef- fectually, he lays it down as a first principle, that a magistrate should be affable and easy of access ; that his house should always be open as a place of refuge for those wffio sought for justice ; and that he should not satisfy himself merely with allotting certain hours of the day to sit for the despatch of business, but that he should employ a part of his time in private negotiations, in making up domestic quarrels, and reconciling divided friends. This employment he regarded as one of the principal parts of his office ; and, indeed, he might properly consider it in a polit- ical lignt ; for it too frequently happens, that the most dangerous public factions are at first kindled by private misunderstandings. Thus, in one part of his works, he falls into the same sentiment; “As public confia- graiions,” says he, “ do not always begin in public edifices, but are caused more frequer.tly by some lamp neglected in a private house ; so in the administration of states, it does not always happen that the flame of sedi- tion arises from political differences, but from private dissentions, which, running through a long chain of connections, at length affect the whole body of the people. For this reason, it is one of the principal duties ol a minister of state or magistrate, to heal these private animosities, and to prevent them from growing into public divisions.” After these observa- tions, he mentions several states and cities which had owed their ruin to the same little causes ; and then adds, that we ought not by any means to be inattentive to the roisunderstandirgs of private men, but apply to them LIFE OF PLUTARCH. K^W the mo‘ t timely remedies ; for, by proper care, as Cato observes, what is great becomes little ; and what is little is reduced to nothing. Of the truth of these observations, the annals of our own country we wish we had no reason to say our own times, have presented us with many melancholy instances. As Plutarch observed that it was a fashionable fault amongst men of fortune to refuse a proper respect to magistrates of inferior rank, he en- deavored to remove this impolitic evil as w’ell by precept as by example “To learn obedience and deference to the magistrate,” says he, “is onai i had obliged her to undergo an incision. Yet, when the child, a eared with so much tender pain and difficulty, died, those who went to visit her on the melancholy occasion, found her house in no more dis- order than if nothing distressful had happened. She received her friends as Admetus entertained Hercules, who, the same day that he buried Alceste, betrayed not the least confusion before his heroic guest. AVith a woman of so much dignity of mind and excellence of disposi- tion, a man of Plutarch’s wisdom and humanity must have been infinitely happy: and, indeed, it appears from those precepts of conjugal happiness and affection which he has left us, that he has drawn his observations from experience, and that the rules he recommended had been previously exemplified in his own family. It is said that Plutarch had some misunderstanding with his wife's XXIV LIFE OF PLUTARCH. relations ; upon which Timoxena, fearing that it might affect their had duty and religion enough to go as far as Mount Helicon and sacri- fice to Love, who had a celebrated temple there. He left two sons, Plutarch and Lamprius. The latter appears to have been a philosopher, and it is to him we are indebted for a catalogue of his father’s writings ; which, however, one cannot look upon, as Mr. Dryden says, without the same emotions that a merchant must fee] in perusing a bill of freight after he has lost his vessel. The writings no longer extant are these : The Lives of — Hercules, Hesiod, Pindar, Crates and Daiphantusj with a Parallel, Leonidas, Foiu* Books of Commentaries on Homer. Four Books of Commentaries on Hesiod. Five Books to Empedocles, on the Quintes- sence. Five Books of Essays. Three Books of Fables. Three Books of Rhetoric. Three Bocks on the Introduction of the Soul. Two Books of Extracts from the Philosophers. Three Books on Sense. Three Books on the great Actions of Cities. Two Books on Politics. Caligula, Vitellius, Epaminondas and tha Elder Scipio, with a Parallel. An Essay on C^portunity, to Theophras- tus. F our Books on the Obsolete Parts History. Two Books of Proverbs. Eight Books on the Topics of Aristotle. Three Books on Justice, to Chrysippos. An Essay on Poetry. A Dissertation on the Difference be- tween the Pyrrhonians and the Academicians. A Treatise to prove that there was but one Academy of Plato. Aristomenes, Scipio Africanus Junior, and Me tell us, Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Aulus Gellius has taken a long story from Taurus, about Plutarch’s method of correcting a slave, in which there is nothing more than this, that he punished him like a philosopher, and gave him his discipline without being out of temper. Plutarch had a nephew named Sextus, who bci-e a considerable repu- ' — ^^worid' of letters, and taught the Greek language and learn- ing to Marcus Antonius. The character which that philosopher hai given him, in his First Book of Reflections, may, with great propriety, be applied to his uncle. “ Sextus, by his example, taught me mildness and humanity ; to govern my house like a good father of a family ; to fal! into an easy and unaffected gravity of manners ; to live agreeably to na- ture ; to find out the art of discovering and preventing the wants .)£ my friends ; to connive at the noisy follies of the ignorant and impertinent ; and to comply with the understandings and the humors of men.” One of the rewards of philosophy is long life ; and it is clear that rintaich enjoyed this; but of the time, or the circumstances of his death# m have no satisfactory account. J. AND W. LANGHORNE PLUTARCH’S LIVES VOLUME I. THESEUS. As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scyth* ian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing iii, I might very well say of those that are farther off. Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables : there is no credit, or certainty any farther. Yet, after publishing an account of Lycurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, I thought I might, not without reason, ascend as high as to Romulus, being brought by my history so near to his time. Considering therefore with my- self — Whom shall I set so great a man to face ? Or whom oppose ? Who’s equal to the place ? (as .^schylus expresses it), I found none so fit as him that peopled the beautiful and far-famed city of Athens, to be sei in opposition with the father of the invincible and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that Fable may, in what shall fol- low, so submit to the purifying processes of Reason as to take the character of exact history. In any case, however, where it shall be found contumaciously slighting credibility, and re- fusing to be reduced to any thing like probable fact, we shall beg that we may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with indulgence the stories of antiquity. 8 THESEUS. Theseus seemed to me to resemble Romulus in many par- ticulars. Both of them, born out of wedlock and of uncertain parentage, had the repute of being sprung from the gods. Both warriors ; that by all the world’s allowed. Both of them united with strength of body an equal vigor A mind ; and of the two most famous cities of the world, the one built Rome, and the other made Athens be inhabited. Both stand charged with the rape of women ; neither of them could avoid domestic misfortunes nor jealousy at home ; but towards the close of their lives are both of them said to have incurred great odium with their countrymen, if, that is, we may take the stories least like poetry as our guide to the truth. The lineage of Theseus, by his father’s side, ascends as high as to Erechtheus and the first inhabitants of Attica. By his mother’s side he was descended of Pelops. For Pelops was the most powerful of all the kings of Peloponnesus, not so much by the greatness of his riches as the multitude of his children, having married many daughters to chief men, and put many sons in places of command in the towns round about him. One of whom, named Pittheus, grandfather to Theseus, was governor of the small city of the I'roezenians, and had the repute of a man of the greatest knowledge and wisdom of his time ; which then, it seems, consisted chiefly in grave maxims, such as the poet Hesiod got his great fame by, in his book oi Works and Days. And, indeed, among these is one that they ascribe to Pittheus, — Unto a friend suffice A stipulated price ; which, also, Aristotle mentions. And Euripides, by calling Hippolytus scholar of the holy Pittheus,” shows the opinion that the world had of him. ^Egeus, being desirous of children, and consulting the oracle of Delphi, received the celebrated answer which forbade him the company of any woman before his return to Athens, But the oracle being so obscure as not to satisfy him that he was clearly forbid this, he went to Troezen, and communicated to Pittheus the voice of the god, which was in this manner,— Loose not the wine-skin foot, thou chief of men, Until to Athens thou art come again. Pittheus, therefore, taking advantage from the obscurity of the oracle, prevailed upon him, it is uncertain whether by per THESEUS. 9 suasion or deceit, to lie with his daughter ^thia. ^geus afterwards, knowing her whom he had lain with to be Pittheus^s daughter, and suspecting her to be with child by him, left a sword and a pair of shoes, hiding them under a great stone that had a hollow in it exactly fitting them ; and went away making her only privy to it, and commanding her, if she brought forth a son who, when he came to man’s estate, sliouli be able to lift up the stone and take away what he had left there, she should send him away to him with those things with all seciesy, and with injunctions to him as much as possible to conceal his journey from every one; for he greatly feared the Pallan- tidae, who were continually mutinying against him, and de- spised him for his want of children, they themselves being fifty brothers, all sons of Pallas. When ^thra was delivered of a son, some say that he was immediately named Theseus, from the tokens which his father had put under the stone ; others that he had received his name afterwards at Athens, when ^geus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under his grandfather Pittheus, and h^d a tutor and attendant set over him named Connidas, to whom the Athenians even to this time, the day before the feast that is dedicated to Theseus, sacrifice a ram, giving this honor to his memory upon much juster grounds than to Silanio and Parrhasius for making pictures and statues of Theseus. There being then a custom for the Grecian youth, upon their first coming to man’s estate, to go to Delphi and offer first-fruits of their hair to the god, Theseus, also went thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer says the Abanles did. And this sort of tonsure was from him named Theseus. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they weic a warlike people, and used to close fighting, and ab^ve all other nations accustomed to engage hand to hand ; as Archilochus testifies in these verses : — Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly, When on the plain the battle joins; but swords, Man against man, the deadly conflict tr)^ As is the practice of Euboea^s lords Skilled with the spear. I'herefore that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair, they cut it in this manner. They write also that tills was the reason why Alexander gave command to his cap 10 THESEUS. tains that all the beards of the Macedonians should be shaved^ as being the readiest hold for an enemy. ^thra for some time concealed the true parentage ol Theseus, and a report was given out by Pittheus that he was begotten by Neptune ; for the Troezenians pay Neptune the highest veneration. He is their tutelar god ; to him they offer all their first-fruits, and in his honor stamp their money with a trident. Theseus displaying not only great strength of body, but equal bravery, and a quickness alike and force of understand- ing, his mother ^thra, conducting him to the stone, and in- forming him who was his true father, commanded him take from thence the tokens that ^geus had left, and sail to Athens. He without any difficulty set himself to the stone and lifted it up ; but refused to take his journey by sea, though it was much the safer way, and though his mother and grand- father begged him to do so. For it was at that time very dan- gerous to go by land on the road to Athens, no part cf it being free from robbers and murderers. That age produced a sort of men, in force of hand, and swiftness of foot, and stren^h of body, excelling the ordinary rate and wholly incapable of fatigue ; making use, however, of these gifts of nature to no good or profitable purpose for mankind, but rejoicing and priding themselves in insolence, and taking the benefit of their superior strength in the exercise of inhumanity and cruelty, and in seizing, forcing, and committing all manner of outrages upon every thing that fell into tlieir hands ; all respect for others, all justice, they thought, all equity and humanity, though naturally lauded by common people, either out of want of courage to commit injuries or fear to receive them, yet no way concerned those who were strong enough to win for them- selves. Some of these, Hercules destroyed and cut off in his passage through these countries ; but some, escaping his notice while he was passing by, fled and hid themselves, or else were spared by him in contempt of their abject submis- sion : and after that Hercules fell into misfortune, and, having slain Ipliitus, retired to Lydia, and for a long time was there slave to Omphale, a punishment which he had imposed upon himself for the murder : then, indeed, Lydia enjoyed high peace and security, but in Greece and the countries about it the like villanies again revived and broke out, there being none to repress or chastise them. It was therefore a very hazardous journey to travel by land from Athens to Pelopon- nesus ; and Pittheus, giving him an exact account of each of THESEUS. I] these robbers and villains, their strength, and the cruelty they used to all strangers^ tried to persuade Theseus to go by sea. But he, it seems, had long since been secretly bred by the glory of Hercules, held him in the highest estimation, and was never more satisfied than in listening to any that gave an account of him ; especially those that had seen him, or had been present at any action or saying of his. So that he was altogether in the same state of feeling as, in after ages. The- mistocles was, when he said that he could not sieep foi the trophy of Miltiades ; entertaining such admiration for the virtue of Hercules, that in the night his dreams were all of that heroes actions, and in the day a continual emulation stirred h’m up to perforin the like. Besides, they were related, being born of cousins-german. For Hithra was daughter of Pittheus, and Alcmena of Lysidice ; and Lysidice and Pittheus- were brother and sister, children of Hippodamia and Pelops. He thought it therefore a dishonorable thing, and not to be en- dured, that Hercules should go out everywhere, and purge both land and sea from wicked men, and he himself should fly from the like adventures that actually came in his way ; disgracing his reputed father by a mean flight by sea, and not showing his true one as good evidence of the greatness of his birth by noble and worthy actions, as by the token that he brought with him, the shoes and the sword. With this mind and these thoughts, he set forward with a design to do injury to nobody, but to repel and revenge him- self of all those that should offer any. And first of all, in a set combat, he slew Periphetes, in the neighborhood of Epi- daurus, who used a club for his arms, and from thence had the name of Corynetes, or the club-bearer ; who seized upon him, and forbade him to go forward in his journey. Being pleased with the club, he took it, and made it his weapon, continuing to use it as Hercules did the lion’s skin, on whose shoulders that served to prove how huge a beast he had killed ; and to the same end Theseus carried about him thin club ; overcome indeed by him, but, now, in his handSj in^ vincible. Passing on further towards the Isthmus of Peloponnesus, he slew Sinnis, often surnamed the Bender of Pines, after the same manner in which he himself had destroyed many others before. And this he did without having either practised or ever learnt the art of bending these trees, to show that natural strength is above all art. This Sinnis had a daughter of remarkable beauty and stature, called Perigune, who, when 12 THESEUS. her father was killed, fled, and was sought after everywhere by Theseus ; and coming into a place overgrown with brush' wood, shrubs, and asparagus-thorn, there, in a childlike, innocent manner, prayed and begged them, as if they under- stood her, to give her shelter, with vows that if she escaped she would never cut them down nor burn them. But Theseus calling upon her, and giving her his promise that he would use her with respect, and offer li^r no injury, she came fortli, and in due time bore him a son, named Melanippus ; but afterwards was married to Deioneus, the son of Eurytiis, the CEchalian, Theseus himself giving her to him. loxus, the son of this Melanippus, who was borne to Theseus, accom- panied Ornytus in the colony that he carried with him into Caria, whence it is a family usage amongst the people called loxids, both male and female, never to burn either shrubs oi asparagus-thorn, but to respect and honor them. The Crymm)’onian sow, which they called Phaea, was a savage and formidable wild beast, by no means an enemy to be despised. Theseus killed her, going out of his way on purpose to meet and engage her, so that he might not seem to perform all his great exploits out of mere necessity ; being also of opinion that it was the part of a brave man to chas- tise villanous and wicked men when attacked by them, but to seek out and overcome the more noble wild beasts. Others relate that Phaea was a woman, a robber full of cruelty and lust, that lived in Crommyon, and had the name of Sow given her from the foulness of her life and manners, and afterwards was killed by Theseus. He slew also Sciron, upon the bor- ders of Megara, casting him down from the rocks, being, as most report, a notorious robber of all passengers, and as others add, accustomed, out of insolence and wanton ness, to stietch forth his feet to strangers commanding them to wash them, and then while they did it, with a kick to send them down the rock into the sea. The writers of Megara, how- ever, in contradiction to the received report, and, as Simonides expresses it, ‘‘fighting with all antiquity,” contend that Sciron was neither a robber nor doer of violence, but a punisher of all such, and the relative and friend of good and just men; for ^acus, they say, was ever esteemed a man of the greatest sanctity of all the Greeks ; and Cychreus, the Salaminian, was honored at Athens with divine worship; and the virtues of Peleus and Telamon were not unknown to any one. Now Sciron was son-in-law to Cychreus, father-in-law to ^acus, and grandfather to Peleus and Telamon, who were both ol THESEUS. 13 them sons of Endeis, the daughter of Sciron and Chaiiclo : it was not probable, therefore, that the best of men should make these alliances with one who was worst, giving and re- ceiving mutually what was of greatest value and most dear to them. Theseus, by their account, did not slay Sciron in his first journey to Athens, but afterwards, when he took Eleusis. a city of the Megarians, having circumvented Diodes, the governor. Such are the contradictions in this stoty. In Eleusis he killed Cercyon, the Arcadian, in a wrestling match. And going on a little farther, in Erineus, he slew Dainastes, otherwise called Procrustes, forcing his body to the size of his owr bed, as he himself was used to do with all strangers : this he did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned upon his assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him ; sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in single combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces (whence, they say, comes the proverb of ^‘a Ter- merian mischief”), for it seems Termerus killed passengers that he met by running with his head against them. And so also Theseus proceeded in the punishment of evil men, who underwent the same violence from him which they had in- flicted upon others, justly suffering after the manner of their own injustice. As he went forward on his journey, and was come as far as the river Cephisus, some of the race of the Phytalidaa met him and saluted him, and, upon his desire to use the purifications, then in custom, they performed them with all the usual ceremonies, and, having offered propitiatory sacri- fices to the gods, invited him and entertained him at their house, a kindness which, in all his journey hitherto, he had not met. On the eighth day of Cronius, now called Hecatombaeon, he arrived at Athens, where he found the public affairs full of all confusion, and divided into parties and factions, Hilgeus also, and his whole private family, laboring under the same distemper ; for Medea, having fled from Corinth, and prom- ised ^geus to make him, by her art, capable of having children, was living with him. She first was aware of Theseus, whom as yet ^geus did not know, and he being in years, full of jealousies and suspicions, and fearing every thing by reason of the faction that was then in the city, she easily persuaded him to kill him by poison at a banquet, to which he was to be invited as a stranger. He, coming to the entertainment, thought it not fit to discover himself at once, but willing tg THESEUS, ^4 give his father the occasion of first finding him out, the meat being on the table, he drew his sword as if he designed to cut with it ; yEgeus, at once recognizing the token, threw down the cup of poison, and, questioning his son, embraced him, and having gathered together all his citizens, owned him publicly before them, who, on their part, received him gladly for the fame of his greatness and bravery ; and it is said, that when the cup fell, the poison was spilt there where now is the enclosed space in the Delphinium ; for in that place stood /Egeus’s house, and the figure of Mercury on the east side of the temple is called the Mercury of ^geus’s gate. The sons of Pallas, who before were quiet, upon expec- tat on of recovering the kingdom after ^geus^s death, who was without issue, as soon as Theseus appeared and was acknowledged the successor, highly resenting that ^geus first, an adopted son only of Pandion, and not at all related to the family of Erechtheus, should be holding the kingdom, and that after him, Theseus, a visitor and stranger, should be destined to succeed to it, broke out into open war. And dividing themselves into two companies, one part of them marched openly from Sphettus, with their father, against the city, the other, hiding themselves in the village of Gargettus, lay in ambush, with a design to set upon the enemy on both sides. They had with them a crier of the township of Agnus, named Leos, who discovered to Theseus all the designs of the Pallantidae. He immediately fell upon those that lay in ambuscade, and cut them all off ; upon tidings of which Pallas and his company fled and were dispersed. From hence they say is derived the custom among the people of the township of Pallene to have no marriages or any alliance with the people of Agnus, nor to suffer the criers to pronounce in their proclamations the words used in all other parts of the country, Acouete Leoi (Hear ye people), hating the very sound of Leo, because of the treason of ! iCOS. Theseus, longing to be in action, and desirous also to m ike himself popular, left Athens to fight with the bull of Marathon, which did no small mischief to the inhabitants of Tetrapolis. And having overcome it, he brought it alive in triumph through the city, and afterwards sacrificed it to the Delphinian Apollo. The story of Hecale, also, of her re- ceiving and entertaining Theseus in this expedition, seems to be not altogether void of truth; for the townsh^’ps round about, meeting upon a certain day, used to offei a saerjfice, THESEUS. IS which they called Hecalesia, to Jupiter Hecaleius, and to pay honor to Hecale, whom, by a diminutive name, they called Hecalene, because she, while entertaining Theseus, who was quite a youth, addressed him, as old people do, with similar endearing diminutives ; and having made a vow to Jupiter for him as he was going to the fight, that, if he returned in safety, she would offer sacrifices in thanks of it, and dying before he came back, she had these honors given her by way of return for her hospitality, by the command of Theseus, as Philochorous tells us. Not long after arrived the third time from Crete the col- lectors of the tribute which the Athenians paid them upon the following occasion. Androgens having been treacherously murdered in the confines of Attica, not only Minos, his father, put the Athenians to extreme distress by a perpetual war, but the gods also laid waste their country ; both famine and pestilence lay heavy upon them, and even their rivers were dried up. Being told by the oracle that, if they appeased and reconciled Minos, the anger of the gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the miseries they labored under, they sent heralds, and with much supplication were at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many virgins, as most writers agree in stating ; and the most poetical story adds, that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in the labyrinth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they miserably ended their lives there ; and that this Minotaur was (as Euripides hath it) A mingled form where two strange shapes combined, And different natures, bull and man, were joined. But Philochorus says that the Cretans will by no means allow the truth of this, but say that the labyrinth was only an ordinary prison, having no other bad quality but that it secured the prisoners from escaping, and that Minos, having instituted games in honor of Androgens, gave, as a reward to the victors, these youths, who in the mean time were kent in the labyrinth ; and that the first that overcame in those games was one of the greatest power and command among them, named Taurus, a man of no merciful or gentle disposition, who treated the Athenians that were made his prize in a proud and cruel manner. Also Aristotle himself, in the account that he giv^es of the form of government of the Botticeans, is manifestly of opinion that the youths \v(‘re not i6 THESEUS. slain by Minos, but spent the remainder of their days in slavery in Crete ; that the Cretans, in former times, to acquit themselves of an ancient vow which they had made, were used to send an offering of the first-fruits of their men to Delphi, and that some descendants of these Athenian slaves were mingled with them and sent amongst them, and, unable to get their living there, removed from thence, first into Italy, and settled about Japygia ; from thence again, that they removed to Thrace, and were named Bottiaeans ; and that this is the reason why, in a certain sacrifice, the Bottiaean girls sing a hymn beginning Let us go to Athens, This may show us how dangerous it is to incur the hostility of a city that is mistress of eloquence and song. For Minos was always ill spoken of, and represented ever as a very wicked man, in the Athenian theatres ; neither did Hesiod avail him by calling him “the most royal Minos, nor Homer, who styles him “ yupiter^s familiar frie?id ; the tragedians got the better, and from the vantage ground of the stage showered down obloquy upon him, as a man of cruelty and violence \ whereas, in fact, he appears to have been a king and a law- giver, and Rhadamanthus, a judge under him, administering the statutes that he ordained. Now, when the time of the third tribute was come, and the fathers who had any young men for their sons were to proceed by lot to the choice of those that were to be sent, there arose fresh discontents and accusations against ^geus among the people, who were full of grief and indignation that he who was the cause of all their miseries was the only person exempt from the punishment ; adopting and settling his kingdom upon a bastard and foreign son, he took no thought, they said, of their destitution and loss, not of bastards, but lawful children. These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to disregard, but rathei partake of, the sufferings of his fellow-citizens, offered him- self for one without any lot. All else were struck with admiration for the nobleness and with love for the goodness of the act ; and ^geus, after prayers and entreaties, finding him inflexible and not to be persuaded, proceeded to the choosing of the rest by lot. Hellanicus, however, tells us that the Athenians did not send the young men and virgins by lot, but that Minos himself used to come and make his own choice, and pitched upon Theseus before all others ; according to the conditions agreed upon between them, namely, that the Athenians should furnish them with a ship, THESEUS. n and that the young men that were to sail with him should carry no weapons of war ; but that if the Minotaur was destroyed, the tribute should cease. On the two former occasions of the payment of the tribute, entertaining no hopes of safety or return, they sent out the ship with a black sail, as to unavoidable destruction ; but now, I'heseus encouraging his father, and speaking greatly of himself, as confident that he should kill the Minotaur, he gave the pilot another sail, which was white, commanding hi/iij as he returned, if Theseus were safe, to make use of that ; but if rot, to sail wilh the black one, and to hang out that sign his misfortune. Simonides says that the sail which .^geus Leliveied to the pilot was not white, but Scarlet, in the juicy bloom Of the living oak-tree steeped, and thct this was to be the sign of their escape. Phereclus, son of AiUi^rsyas, according to Simonides, was pilot of the ship. But Thilochorus says Theseus had sent him by Scirus, from Salamis, Nausitholis to be his steersman, and Phaeax his look-out-man in the prow, the Athenians having as yet not applied themselves to navigation ; and that Scirus did this because one of the young men, Menesthes, was his daughter’s son ; and this the chapels of Nausithoiis and Phasax, buiT by Theseus near the temple of Scirus, confirm. He adds, also, that the feast named Cybernesia was in honor of Ihem. The lot being cast, and Theseus having received out of the Prytaneiim those upon whom it fell, he went to the Delphinium, and made an offering for them to Apollo of liis suppliant’s badge, which was a bough of a con- seciated olive tree, with white wool tied about it. Having thus performed his devotion, he went to sea, the >ixth day of Munychion, on which day even to this time the \lhenianr» send their virgins to the same temple to make j supplication to the gods. It is farther reported that he was commanded by the oracle of Delphi to make Venus his guide, and to invoke her as the companion and conductress of his voyage, and that, as he was sacrificing a she goat to her by the sea-side, it was suddenly changed into a he, and for this cause tliat goddess had the name of Epitragia. When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient histori- ans as well as poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, and being 3 i8 THESEUS. instructed by her how to use it so as to conduct him through the windings of the labyrinth, he escaped out of it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back, taking along with him Ariadne and the young Athenian captives, Pherecydes adds that he bored holes in the bottom of the Cretan ships to hinder their pursuit. Demon writes that Taurus, the chief captain of Minos, was slain by Theseus at the mouth of the port, in a naval combat as he was sailing out for Athens. But Philochorus gives lu the story thus : That at the setting forth of the yearly games ^ by King Minos, Taurus was expected to carry away the prize, as he had done before ; and was much grudged the honor. His character and manners made his power hateful, and he was accused moreover of too near familiarity with Pasiphae^ for which reason, when Theseus desired the combat, Minos readily complied. And as it was a custom in Crete that the women also should be admitted to the sight of these games, Ariadne, being present, was struck with admiration of the manly beauty of Theseus, and the vigor and address which he showed in the combat, overcoming all that encountered with him. Minos, too, being extremely pleased with him, especially because he had overthrown and disgraced Taurus, voluntarily gave up the young captives to Theseus, and remitted the tribute to the Athenians. Clidemus gives an account peculiar to himself, very ambitiously, and beginning a great way back ; That it was a decree consented to by all Greece, that no vessel from any place, containing above five persons, should be permitted to sail, Jason only excepted, who was made captain of the great ship Argo, to sail about and scour the sea of pirates. But Daedalus having escaped from Crete, and flying by sea to Athens, Minos, contrary to this decree, pursued him with his ships of war, was forced by a storm upon Sicily, and there ended his life. After his decease, Deucalion, his son, desiring a quarrel with the Athe- nians, sent to them, demanding that they should deliver up Daedalus to him, threatening upon their refusal, to put to death all the young Athenians whom his father had received as hostages from the city. To this angry message Theseus returned a very gentle answer, excusing himself that he could not deliver up Daedalus, who was nearly related to him, being his cousin-german, his mother being Merope, the daughter of Erechtheus. In the mean wliile he secretly prepared a navy, part of it at home near the village of the Thymoetadae, a place of no resort, and far from any common roads, the other part by his grandfather Pittheus’s means at Troezen, that so THESEUS. 19 his design might be carried on with the greatest secresy. As soon as ever his fleet was in readiness, he set sail, having with him Daedalus and other exiles from Crete for liis guides ; and n;)ne of the Cretans having any knowledge of his com- ing, but imagining when they saw his fleet that they were friends and vessels of their own, he soon made himself master of the port, and immediately making a descent, reached Gncssus before any notice of his coming, and, in a battle before the gates of the labyrinth, put Deucalion and all his guards to the sword. The government by this means falling to Ariadne, he made a league with her, and received the cap- tives of her, and ratified a perpetual friendship between the Athenians and the Cretans, whom he engaged under an oath never again to commence any war with Athens. There are yet many other traditions about these things, and as many concerning Ariadne, all inconsistent with each other. Some relate that she hung herself, being deserted by Theseus. Others that she was carried away by his sailors to the isle of Naxos, and married to GEnarus, priest of Bacchus j and that Theseus left her because he fell in love with an- other. For Angle's love yas burning in his breast ; a verse which Hereas, the Megarian, says was formerly in the poet Hesiod’s works, but put out by Pisistratus, in like man- ner as he added in Homer’s Raising of the Dead, to gratify the Athenians, the line Theseus, Pirithous, mighty son of gods. Others say Ariadne had sons also by Theseus, CEnopion and Staphylus ; and among these is the poet Ion of Chios, who writes of his own native city Which once fEnopion, son of Tlicseus built. But the more famous of the legendary' stories everybody (as I may say) has in his mouth. In Pteon, however, the Ama- Ihusian, there is a story given, differing from the rest. For he writes' that Theseus, being driven by a storm upon the is!e of Cyprus, and having aboard with him Ariadne, big with child, and extremely discomposed with the rolling of the sea, set her on shore, and left her there alone, to return himself and help the ship, when, on a sudden, a violent wind carried him again out to sea. That the women of the island received Ari- adne very kindly, and did all they could to console and alleviate her distress at being left behind. That they counterfeited kind 20 THESEUS. letters, and delivered them to her, as sent from Theseus, and, when she fell in labor, were diligent in performing to her every needful service ; but that*she died before she could be delivered, and was honorably interred. That soon after Theseus returned, and was greatly afflicted for her loss, and at his departure left a sum of money among the people of the island, ordering them to do sacrifice to Ariadne ; and caused two little images to be made and dedicated to her, one of silver and the other of brass. Moreover, that on the second day of Gorpiaeus, which is sacred to Ariadne, they have this ceremony among their sacrifices, to have a youth lie down and with his voice and gesture represent the pains of a woman in travail ; and that the Amathusians call the grove in which they show her tomb, the grove of Venus Ariadne. Differing yet from this account, some of the Naxians write that there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, one of whom, they say, was married to Bacchus, in the isle of Naxos, and bore the children Staphylus and his brother ; but that the other, of a later age, was carried off by Theseus, and, being afterwards deserted by him, retired to Naxos, with her nurse Corcyna, whose grave they yet show. That this Ariadne also died there, and was worshipped by the island, but in a differ- ent manner from the former ; for her day is celebrated with general joy and revelling, but all the sacrifices performed to the latter are attended with mourning and gloom. Now Theseus, in his return from Crete, put in at Delos, and having sacrificed to the god of the island, dedicated to the temple the image of Venus which Ariadne had given him, and danced with the young Athenians a dance that, in memory of him, they say is still preserved among the inhabitants of Delos, consisting in certain measured turnings and returnings, imitative of the windings and twistings of the labyrinth. And this dance, as Dicaearchus writes, is called among the Delians, the Crane. This he danced around the Ceratonian Altar, so caLed from its consistyig of horns taken from the left side of the head. They say also that he instituted games in. Delos, where he was the first that began the custom of giving a palm to the victors. When they were come near the coast of Attica, so great was the joy for the happy success of their voyage, that neither Theseus himself nor the pilot remembered to hang out the sail which should have been the token of their safety to yEgeus, who, in despair at the sight, threw himself head' long from a rock, and perished in the sea. But I'lieseus THESEUS. 21 being arrived at the port of Phalerum, paid there the sacri- fices which he had vowed to the gods at his setting out lo sea, and sent a herald to the city to carry the news of his safe re- turn. At his entrance, the herald found the people for the most part full of grief for the loss of their king ; others., as may well be believed, as full of joy for the tidings that he brought, and eager to welcome him and crown him with gar- lands for his good news, which he indeed accepted of, l>ut hung them upon his herald's staff ; and thus returning to the seaside before Theseus had finished his libation to the gods, he stayed apart for fear of disturbing the holy rites ; but, as socn as the libation was ended, went up and related the king's death, upon the hearing of which, with great lamentations and a confused tumult of grief, they ran with all haste to the city. And from hence, they say, it comes that at this day, in the feast of Oschophoria, the herald is not crowned, but his staff, and all who are present at the libation cry out eleleu^ ioii^ iou, the first of which confused sounds is commonly used by men in haste, or at a triumph, the other is proper to people in consternation or disorder of mind. Theseus, af.er the funeral of his father, paid his vows to Apollo the seventh day of Pyanepsion ; for on that day the youth that returned with him safe from Crete made their entry into the city. They say, also, that the custom of boil- ing pulse at this feast is derived from hence ; because the young men that escaped put all that was left of their provision together, and, boiling it in one common pot, feasted themselves with it, and ate it all up together. Hence, also, they carry in procession an olive branch bound about with v.ool (such as they then made use of in their supplications), which they call Eiresione, crowned with all sorts of fruits, to signify that scarcity and barrenness was ceased, singing in their pioces- sion this song : — Eiresione bring figs, and Eiresione bring loaves ; JJring us honey in pints, and oil to rub on our bodies, And a strong flagon of wine, for all to go mellow to bed cn. Altliough some hold opinion that this ceremony is retained in memory of the Heraclidse, who were thus entertained and brought up by the Athenians. But most are of the opinion which we have given above. The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalercus, for they took 22 THESEUS. away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow ; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same. The feast called Oschophoria, or the feast of boughs, which to this day the Athenians celebrate, was then first instituted by Theseus. For he took not with him the full number of virgins which by lot were to be carried a’way, but selected two youths of his acquaintance, of fair and womanish faces, but of a manly and forward spirit, and having, by frequent baths, and avoiding the heat and scorching of the sun, with a constant use of all the ointments and washes and dresses that serve to the adorning of the head or smoothing the skin or improving the complexion, in a manner changed them from what they were before, and having taught them farther to counterfeit the very voice and carriage and gait of virgins so that there could not be the least difference perceived, he, undiscovered by any, put them into the number of the Athenian maids designed for Crete. At his return, he and these two youths led up a solemn procession, in the same habit that is now worn by those who carry the vine-branches. These branches they carry in honor of Bacchus and Ariadne, for the sake of their story before related ; or rather because they happened to re- turn in autumn, the time of gathering the grapes. The women, whom they call Deipnopherae, or supper-carriers, are taken into these ceremonies, and assist at the sacrifice, in remembrance and imitation of the mothers of the young men and virgins upon whom the lot fell, for thus they ran about bringing bread and meat to their children ; and because the women then told their sons and daughters many tales and stories, to comfort and encourage them under the danger they were going upon, it has still continued a custom that at this feast old fables and tales should be told. For these particularities Ke are indebted to the history of Demon. There was then a place chosen out, and a temple erected in it to Theseus, and those families out of whom the tribute of the youth was gathered were appointed to pay a tax to the temple for sacri- fices to him. And the house of the Phytalidae had the overseeing of these sacrihces, Theseus doing them that honor in recompense of their former hospitality. Now, after the death of his father ^geus, forming in nis mind a great and wonderful design, he gathered together all THESEUS. 23 the inhabitants of Attica into one town, and made them one people of one city, whereas before they lived dispersed, ana were not easy to assemble upon any affair for the common in- terest. Nay, differences and even wars often occurred between them, which he by his persuasions appeased, going from township to township, and from tribe to tribe. And those of a more private and mean condition readily embracing such good advice, to those of greater power he promised a commonwealth without monarchy, a democracy, or people^s government, in which he should only be continued as their commander in war and the protector of their laws, all things else being equally distributed among them ; — and by this means brought a part of them over to his proposal. The rest, fearing his power, which was already grown very formidable, and knowing his courage and resolution, chose rather to be persuaded than forced into a compliance. He then dissolved all the distinct state-houses, council halls, and magistracies, and built one common state-house and council hall on the site of the present upper town, and gave the name of Athens to the whole state, ordaining a common feast and sacrifice, which he called Panathencea, or the sacrifice of all the united Athenians. He instituted also another sacrifice called Me- tcecia, or Feast of Migration, which is yet celebrated on the sixteenth day of Hecatombaeon. Then, as he had promised, he laid down his regal power and proceeded to order a com- monwealth, entering upon this great work not without advice from the gods. For having sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the fortune of his new government and city, he received this answer : — Son of the Pitthean maid, To your town the terms and fates, My father gives of many states, i^e not anxious nor afraid ; The bladder will not fail to swim On the waves that compass him. Which oracle, they say, one of the sybils long after did in a manner lepeat to the Athenians, in this verse : — The bladder may be dipt, but not be drowned. Farther yet designing to enlarge his city, he invited all strangers to come and enjoy equal privileges with the natives, and it is said that the common form, hither^ all ys was the words that Theseus proclaimed when he thus set up a commonwealth, in a manner, for all nations. Yet he 24 THESEUS, did not suffer his state, by the promiscuous multitude that flowed in, to be turned into confusion and be left without any order or degree, but was the first that divided the Com monwealth into three distinct ranks, the noblemen, the hus- bandmen, and artificers. To the nobility he committed the care of religion, the choice of magistrates, the teaching and dispensing of the laws, and interpretation and direction in all sacred matters ; the whole city being, as it were, reduced to an exact equality, the nobles excelling the rest in honor, the husbandmen in profit, and the artificers in number. And that Theseus was the first, who, as Aristotle says, out of an inclination to popular government, parted with the regal power, Homer also seems to testify, in his catalogue of the ships, where he gives the name of People to the Athenians only. He also coined money, and stamped it with the image of an ox, either in memory of the Marathonian bull, or of Taurus, whom he vanquished, or else to put his people in mind to follow husbandry ; and from this coin came the expression so frequent among the Greeks, of a thing being worth ten or a hundred oxen. After this he joined Megara to Attica, and erected that famous pillar on the Isthmus, which bears an inscription of two lines, showing the bounds of the two countries that meet there. On the east side the inscription is, — Peloponnesus there, Ionia here, and on the west side, — Peloponnesus here, Ionia tneiC. He also instituted the games, in emulation of Hercules, being ambitious that as the Greeks, by that hero’s appointment, celebrated the Olympian games to the honor of Jupiter, so by his institution, they should celebrate the Isthmian to the honor of Neptune. For those that were there before observed, dedi- cated to Melicerta, were performed privately in the night, and had the form rather of a religions rite than of an open spectacle or public feast. There are some who say that the Isthmian games were first instituted in inemory of Sciron, Theseus thus making expiation for his death, upon account of the nearness of kindred between them, Sciron being the son of Canethus and Heniocha, the daughter of Pittheus ; though others write that Sinnis, not Sciron, was their son, and that to his honor, and not to the otlier’s, these games were ordained by Theseus THESEUS. 2.S At the same ’me he made an agreement with the Corinthians, that they should alk)w those that came from Athens to the celebration of the Isthmian games as much space of honor before the rest to behold the spectacle in, as the sail of the ship that brought them thither, stretched to its full extent, could cover ; so Hellanicus and Andro of Halicarnassus have established. Concerning his voyage into the Euxine Sea, Philochorus and some others write that he made it with Hercules, offering him his service in the war against the Amazons, and had Ant: ope given him for the reward of his valor ; but the greater number, of whom are Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and Herodorus.. writes that he made this voyage many years after Hercules, with a navy under his own command, and took the Amazon prisoner — the more probable story, for we do not read that any other, of all those that accompanied him in this action, took any Amazon prisoner. Bion adds, that, to take her, he had to use deceit and fly away ; for the Amazons, he says, being naturally lovers of men, were so far from avoiding Theseus when he touched upon their coasts, that they sent him presents to his ship ; but he, having invited Antiope, who brought them, to come aboard, immediately set sail and car- ried her away. An author named Menecrates, that wrote the History of Nicae in Bithynia, adds, that Theseus, having An- tiope aboard his vessel, cruised for some time about those coasts, and that there were in the same ship three young men of Athens, that accompanied him in this voyage, all brothers, whose names were Euneos, Thoas, and Soloon. The last of these fell desperately in love with Antiope, and, escaping the notice of the rest, revealed the secret only to one of his most intimate acquaintances, and employed him to disclose his passion to Antiope, she rejected his pretences with a very positive denial, yet treated the matter with much gentleness and discretion, and made no complaint to Theseus of any thing that had happened ; but Soloon, the thing being desperate, leaped into a river near the seaside and drowned himself. As soon as Theseus was acquainted with his death, and his un- happy love that was the cause of it, he was extremely dis- tressed, and, in the height of his grief, an oracle which he had formerly received at Delphi came into his mind ; for he had been commanded by the priestess of Apollo Pythius, that wherever in a strange land he was most sorrowful and under the greatest affliction, he should build a city there, and leave some of his followers to be governors of the place. For this 26 THESEUS. cause he there founded a city, which he called, fiom the name of Apollo, Pythopolis, and, in honor of the unfortunate youth, he named the river that runs by it Soloon, and left the two surviving brothers intrusted with the care of the government and laws, joining with them Hermus, one of the nobility of Athens, from whom a place in the city is called the House of Hermus ; though by an error in the accent it has been taken for the House of Hermes, or Mercury, and the honor that was designed to the hero, transferred to the god. '^I'his was the origin and cause of the Amazonian invasion of Attica, which would seem to have been no slight or woman- ish enterprise. For it is impossible that they should have placed their camp in the very city, and joined battle close by the Pnyx and the hill called Museum, unless, having first conquered the country round about, they had thus with impu- nity advanced to the city. That they made so long a journey by land, and passed the Cimmerian Bosphorus, when frozen, as Hellanicus writes, is difficult to be believed. That they encamped all but in the city is certain, and may be sufficiently confirmed by the names that the places hereabout yet retain, and the graves and monuments of those that fell in the battle. Both armies being in sight, there was a long pause and doubt on each side which should give the first onset ; at last Theseus, having sacrificed to Fear, in obedience to the command of an oracle he had received, gave them battle ; and this happen- ed in the month of Boedromion, in which to this very day the Athenians celebrate the Feast Boedromia. Clidemus, desirous to be very circumstantial, writes that the left wing of the Ama- zons moved towards the place which is yet called Amazonium and the right towards the Pnyx, near Chrysa, that with this wing the Athenians, issuing from behind the Museum, en- gaged, and that the graves of those that were slain are to be seen in the street that leads to the gate called the Piraic, by the chapel of the hero Chalcodon ; and that here the Athenians were routed, and gave way before the women, as far as to the temple of the Furies, but, fresh supplies coming in from the Palladium, Ardettus, and the Lyceum, they charged their right wing, and beat them back into their tents, in which action a, great number of the Amazons were slain. At length, after four months, a peace was concluded between them by the mediation of Hippolyta (for so this historian calls the Amazon whom Theseus married, and not Antiope), though others write that she was slain with a dart by Molpadia, while fight- ing by Theseus’s side, and that the pillar which stands by the THESEUS. 2 ? temple of Olympian Earth was erected to her honor. Nor is it to be wondered at, that in events of such antiquity, history should be in disorder. For indeed we are also told that those of the Amazons that were wounded were privately sent away by Antiope to Chalcis, where many by her care recov- ered, but some that died were buried there in the place that is to this time called Amazonium. That this war, howeveq was ended by a treaty is evident, both from the name of ihe place adjoining to the temple of Theseus, called, from tiie solemn oath there taken, Horcomosium ; and also from the ancient sacrifice which used to be celebrated to the Amazons the day before the Feast of Theseus. The Megarians also show a spot in their city where some Amazons were buried, on the way from the market to a place called Rhus, where the building in the shape of a lozenge stands. It is said, likewise, that others of them were slain near Chaeronea, and buried near the little rivulet formerly called Thermodon, but now Haemon, of which an account is given in the life of Demosthenes. It appears further that the passage of the Amazons through Thessaly was not without opposition, for there are yet shown many tombs of them near Scotussa and Cynoscephalae. This is as much as is worth telling concerning the Amazons. For the account which the author of the poem called the Theseid gives of this rising of the Amazons, how Antiope, to revenge herself upon Theseus for refusing her and marrying Phaedra, came down upon the city with her train of Amazons, whom Hercules slew, is manifestly nothing else but fable and invention. It is true, indeed, that Theseus married Phaedra, but that was after the death of Antiope, by whom he had a son called Hippolytus, or, as Pindra writes, Demophon. The calamities which befel Phindra and this son, since none of the historians have contradicted the tragic poets that have written of them, vve must suppose happened as rejDresented uniformly by them. There are also other traditions of the marriages of Theseus, neither honorable in their occasions nor fortunate in their events, which yet were never represented in the Greek plays. For he is said to have carried off Anaxo, a Trcezenian, and, having slain Sinnis and Cercyon, to have ravished theii daughters ; to have married Periboea, the mother of Ajax, and then Phereboea, and then lope, the daughter of Iphicles., And further, he is accused of deserting Ariadne (as is before related), being in love with Higgle, the daughter of Panopeus, 28 THESEUS. neither justly nor honorably ; and lastly, of the rape of Helen, which filled all Attica with war and blood, and was in the end the occasion of his banishment and death, as will presently be related. Herodoriis is of opinion, that though there were many famous expeditions undertaken by the bravest men of his time, yet Theseus never joined in any of them, once oril}' ex- cepted, with the Lapithae, in their war against the Centaurs ; but others say that he accompanied Jason to Colchis and Meleager to the slaying of the Calydonian boar, and that hence it came to be a proverb. Not without Theseus ; that he himself, however, without aid of any one, performed many glorious exploits, and that from him began the saying, He is a second Hercnles. He also joined Adrastus in recov^ering the bodies of those that were slain before Thebe.s, but not as Euripides in his tragedy says, by force of arms, but by per- suasion and mutual agreement and composition, for so the greater part of the historians write ; Philochorus adds further that this was the first treaty that ever was made for the re- covering the bodies of the dead, but in the history of Hercules, it is shown that it was he who first gave leave to his enemies to carry off their slain. The bury ing-pl aces of the most part are yet to be seen in the village called Eleutherae ; those of the commanders, at Eleusis, where Theseus allotted them a place, to oblige Adrastus. The story of Euripides in his Suppliants is disproved by ^schylus in his Eleusinians, where Theseus himself relates the facts as here told. The celebrated friendship between Theseus and Pirithoiis is said to have been thus begun : the fame of the strength and valor of Theseus being spread through Greece, Pfiithoiis was desirous to make a trial and proof of it himself, and to this end seized a herd of oxen which belonged to Theseus, and was driving them away from Marathon, and, when the news was brought that Theseus pursued him in arms, he did not fly, but turned back and went to meet him. But as soon they had viewed one another, each so admired the gracefulness and beauty, and was seized with such respect for the courage of the other, that they forgot all thoughts of fighting ; and Pirithoiis, first stretching out his hand to Theseus, bade him be judge in this case himself, and promised to submit willingly to any penalty he should impose. But Theseus not only for- gave him all, but entreated him to be his friend and brother arms ; Aiid they ratified their friendship by oaths. After this Pirithoiis married Deidamia, and invited Theseus to th^ THESEUb. 29 wedding, entreating him to come and see his country, and make acquaintance with the Lapithae; he had at the same time invited the Centaurs to the feast, who growing hot with wine and beginning to be insolent and wild, and offering violence to the women, the Lapithae took immediate revenge upon them, slaying many of them upon the place, and afterwards, having overcome them in battle, drove the whole race of them out of their countr}’’, Theseus all along taking their part and fighting on their side. But Herodorus gives a different relation of these things ; that Theseus came not to the assistance of the Lapithae till the war was already begun ; and that it was in this journey that he had the first sight of Hercules, having made it his business to find him out at Trachis, where he had chosen to rest himself after all his wanderings and his labors ; and that this interview was honorably performed on each part, with extreme respect, and good-will, and admiration of each other. Yet it is more credible, as others write, that there were, before, frequent interviews between them, and that it was by the means of Theseus that Hercules was initiated at Eleusis, and purified before initiation, upon ac- count of several rash actions of his former life. Theseus was now fifty years old, as Hellanicus states, when he carried off Helen, who was yet too young to be married. Some writers, to take away this accusation of one of the greatest crimes, laid to his charge, say, that he did not steal away Helen himself, but that Idas and Lynceus were the ravishers, who brought her to him, and committed her to his charge, and that, therefore, he refused to restore her at the demand of Castor and Bollux; or, indeed, they say her own father, Tyndarus, had sent her to be kept by him, for fear of Enarophorus, the son of Hippocoon, who would have carried her away by force when she was yet a child. But the most prob- able account, and that which has most witnesses on its side, is this; Theseus and Pirithoiis went both together to Sparta, and, having seized the young lady as she was dancing in the temple Diana Orthia, fled away with her. There were presently men sent in arms to pursue, but they followed no further than to I'egea; and Theseus and Pirithoiis, being now out of danger, having passed through Peloponnesus, made an agree- ment between themselves, that he to whom the lot should fall should have Helen to his wife, but should be obliged to assist in procuring another for his friend. The lot fell upon The seu3, who conveyed her to Aphidnas, not being yet marriage^ able, and delivered her to one of his allies, called Aphidnus, 30 THESEUS. and, having sent his mother, ^thra after to take care of her, desired him to keep them so secretly, that none might know where they were ; which done, to return the same service to his friend Pirithoiis he accompanied him in his journey to Epirus, in order to steal away the king of the Molossians’ daughter. The king, his own name being Aidoneus, or Pluto, called his wife Proserpina, and his daughther Cora, and a gieat dog, which he kept, Cerberus, with whom he ordered all that came as suitors to his daughter to fight, and promised her to him that should overcome the beast. But having been informed that the design of Pirithoiis and his companion was not to court his daughter, but to force her away, he caused them both to be seized, and threw Pirithoiis to be torn in pieces by his dog, and put Theseus into prison, and kept him. About this time, Menestheus, the son of Peteus, grand- son of Orneus, and great-grandson to Erechtheus, the first man that is recorded to have affected popularity and ingrati- ated himself with the multitude, stirred up and exasperated the most eminent men of the city, who had long borne a secret grudge to Theseus, conceiving that he had robbed them of their several little kingdoms and lordships, and having pent them all up in one city, was using them as his subjects and slaves. He put also the meaner people into commotion, telling them, that, deluded with a mere dream of liberty, though indeed they were deprived of both of that and of their proper homes and religious usages, instead of many good and gracious kings of their owm, they had given them- selves up to be lorded over by a new-comer and a stranger. Whilst he was thus busied in infecting the minds of the citizens, the \var that Castor and Pollux brought against Athens came very opportunely to further the sedition he had been promoting, and some say that by his persuasions was wholly the cause of their invading the city. At their first approach, they committed no acts of hostility, but peaceably demanded their sister Helen; but the Athenians returning answer that they neither had her there nor knew where she was disposed of, they prepared to assault the city, when Academus, having by whatever means, found it out, disclosed to them that she was secretly kept at Aphidnse. For which reason he was both highly honored during his life by Castor and Pollux, and the Lacedaemonians, when often in aftertimes they made incursions into Attica, and destroyed all the coun- try round about, spared the Academy for the sake of Acade THESEUS. 31 mus. But Dicrearchus writes that there were two Arcadians in the army of Castor and Pollux, the one called Echedemus, and the other Marathus ; from the first that which is now called Academia was then named Echedemia, and the village Marathon had its name from the other, who, to fulfil some oraclC; voluntarily offered himself to be made a sacrifice be- fore battle. As soon as they were arrived at Aphidnse, they overcame their enemies in a set battle, and then assaulted and took the town. And here, they say, Alycus, the son of Sciroii, w’-as slain, of the party of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux), from whorh a place in Megara, where he was buried, is called Alycus to this day. And Hereas writes that it was Theseus himself that killed him, in witness of w^hich he cites these verses concerning Alycus, And Alycus upon Aphidnae’s plain, By Theseus in the cause of Helen slain. Though it is not at all probable that Theseus himself was there when both the city and his mother were taken. Aphidnae being won by Castor and Pollux, and the city of Athens being in consternation, Menestheus persuaded the people to open their gates, and receive them with all manner of friendship, for they were, he told them, at enmity with none but Theseus, who had first injured them, and were benefac- tors and saviors to all mankind beside. And their behavior gave credit to those promises ; for, having made themselves absolute masters of the place, they demanded no more than to be initiated, since they were as nearly related to the city as Hercules was, who had received, the same honor. This their desire they easily obtained, and w^ere adopted by Aphidnus, as Hercules had been by Pylius. They were honored also like gods, and were called by a new name, Anaces, either from the cessation of the war, or from the care they took that none should suffer any injury, though there wms so great an army within the walls ; for the phrase andkos ckhein is used of those who look to or care for any thing ; kings for this reason, perhaps, are called a7iactes. Others say, that from tne ap pearance of their star in the heavens, they were thus called, for in the Attic dialect this name comes very near the words rhat signify above. Some say that ^thra, Theseus^s mother, was here taken prisoner, and carried to Lacedaemon, and from thence went away with Helen to Troy, alleging this verse of Homer, to prove that she waited upon Helen, 32 THESEUS. iEthra of Pittheus born, and large-eyed Clymene. Others reject this verse as none of Homer’s, as they do like- wise the whole fable of Munychus, who, the story says, was the son of Demophon and Laodice, born secretly, and brought up by ^thra at Troy. But Ister, in the thirteenth book of his Attic History, gives us an account of ^thra, different yet from all the rest : that Achilles and Patroclus overcame Paris in Thessaly, near the river Sperciiius, but that Hector took and plundered the city of the Troezenians, and made ^thra prisoner there. But this seems a groundless tale. Now Hercules, passing by the Molossians, was entertained in his way by Aidoneus the king, who, in conversation, acci- dentally spoke of the journey of Theseus and Pirithoiis into his country, of what they had designed to do, and what they were forced to suffer. Hercules was much grieved for the inglori- ous death of the one and the miserable condition of the other. As for Pirithoiis, he thought it useless to complain ; but begged to have Theseus released for his sake, and obtained that favor from the king. Theseus, being thus set at liberty, returned to Athens, where his friends were not yet wholly suppressed, and dedicated to Hercules all the sacred places which the city had set apart for himself, changing their names from Thesea to Heraclea, four only excepted, as Philocho- rus writes. And wishing immediately to resume the first place in the commonwealth, and manage the state as before, he soon found himself involved in factions and troubles ; those who long had hated him had now added to their hatred contempt ; and the minds of the people were so gener- ally corrupted, that, instead of obeying commands with silence, they expected to be flattered into their duty. He had some thoughts to have reduced them by force, but was overpowered by demagogues and factions. And at last, de- spairing of any good success of his affairs in Athens, he sent away his children privately to Euboea, commending them to the care of Elephenor, the son of Chalcodoii ; and he himself having solemnly cursed the people of Athens in the village of Gargettus, in which there yet remains the place called Ara- terion, or the place of cursing, sailed to Scyros, where he had lands left him by his father, and friendship, as he thought, with those of the island. Lycomedes was then king of Scyros. The- seus, therefore, addressed himself to him and desired to have his lands put into his possession, as designing to settle and to dwell there, though others say that he came to beg his assist- THESEUS. 33 ance against the Athenians. But Lycomedes, either jealous of the glory of so great a man, or to gratify Menestheus, having led him up to the highest cliff of the island, on pre- tence of showing him from thence the lands that he desired, threw him headlong down from the rock, and killed him. Others say he fell down of himself by a slip of his foot, as he was walking there, according to his custom, after supper. At chat time there was no notice taken, nor were any concerned for his death, but Menestheus quietly possessed the kingdom of Athens. His sons were brought up in a private condition; and accompanied Elephenor to the Trojan war, but, after the decease of Menestheus in that expedition, returned to Athens, and recovered the government. But in succeeding ages, besides several other circumstances that moved the Athenians to honor Theseus as a demigod, in the battle which was fought at Marathon against the Medes, many of the soldiers believed they saw an apparition of Theseus in arms, rushing on at the head of them against the barbarians. And after the Median war, Phaedo being archon of Athens, the Athe- nians, consulting the oracle at Delphi, were commanded to gather together the bones of Theseus, and, laying them in some honorable place, keep them as sacred in the city. But it was very difficult to recover these relics, or so much as to ^nd out the place where they lay, on account of the inhospit- able and savage temper of the barbarous people that inhabit- ed the island. Nevertheless, afterwards, when Cimon took the island (as is related in his life), and had a great ambition to find out the place where Theseus was buried, he, by chance, spied an eagle upon a rising ground pecking with her beak and tearing up I he earth with her talons, when on the sudden it came into his mind, as it were by some divine inspiration, to dig there, and search for the bones of Theseus. There were found in that place a coffin of a man of more than ordi- nary size, and a brazen spear-head, and a sword lying by it, all which he took aboard his galley and brought with him to Athens. Upon which the Athenians, greatly delighted, went out to meet and receive the relics with splendid processions and sacrifices, as if it were Theseus himself returning alive to the city. He lies interred in the middle of the city, near the present gymnasium. His tomb is a sarctuary and refuge for slaves, and all those of mean condition that fly from the per- secution of men in power, in memory that Theseus while he lived was an assister and protector of the distressed, and never refused the petitions of the afflicted that fled to him. 3 34 ROMULUS. TPie chief and most solemn sacrifice which they celebrate to him is kept on the eighth day of Pyanepsion, on which he re- turned with the Athenian young men from Crete. Besides which they sacrifice to him on the eighth day of every month, either because he returned from Troezen the eighth day of Hecatombaeon, as Diodorus the geographer writes, or else thinking that number to be proper to him, because he vas re- puted to be born of Neptune, because they sacrifice to Nep- tune on the eighth day of every month. The number eight being the first cube of an even number, and the double of the first square, seemed to be an emblem of the steadfast and im- movable power of this god, who from thence has the names of Asphalius and Gaeiochus, that is, the establisher and stayei of the earth. ROMULUS. From whom, and for what reason, the city of Rome, a name so great in glory, and famous in the mouths of all men, was so first called, authors do not agree. Some are of opinion that the Pelasgians, wandering over the greater part of the habitable world, and subduing numerous nations, fixed them- selves here, and, from tlieir own great strength in war, called the city Rome. Others, that at the taking of Troy, some few that escaped and met with shipping, put to sea, and, driven by winds, were carried upon the coasts of Tuscany, and came to anchor off the mouth of the river Tiber, where their women, out of heart and weary with the sea, on its being proposed by one of the highest birth and best understanding amongst them, whose name was Roma, burnt the ships. With which act the men at first were angry, but afterwards, of necessity, seating themselves near Palatium, where things in a short while succeeded far better than they could hope, in that they found the country very good, and the people courteous, they not only did the lady Roma other honors, but added also this, of calling after her name the city which she had been the occasion of their founding. From this, they say, has come down that custom at Rome for women to salute their kinsmen and husbands with kisses ; because these women, after the>' had burnt the ships, made use of such endearments when en treating and pacifying their husbands. ROMULUS. 35 Gome Rgain say that Roma, from whom this city was sc called, was daughter of Italus and Leucaria ; or, by another accoiinl, of Telaphiis, Hercules's son, and that she was mar- ried to H^neas, or, according to others again, to Ascanius, /Eneas’s son. Some tell us that PvOmanus, the son of Ulysses and Circe, built it ; some, Romus, the son of Emathion, Uiomede, having sent him from Troy ; and others, Romus, king of the Latins, after driving out the Tyrrhenians, who had come from Thessaly into Lydia, and from thence into Italy. Those very authors, too, who, in accordance with the safest account, make Romulus give the name of the city, yet differ concerning his birth and family. For some say, he was son to /Eneas and Dexithea, daughter of Phorbas, and was, with his brother Remus, in their infancy, carried into Italy, and being on the river when the waters came down in a flood, all the vessels were cast away except only that where the young children were, which being gently landed on a level bank of the river, they were both unexpectedly saved, and from them the place was called Rome. Some say, Roma, daughter of the Trojan lady above mentioned, was married to Latinus, Telemachus’s son, and became mother to Romulus ; others, that Emilia, daughter of ^neas and Lavinia, had him by the god Mars ; and others give you mere fables of his origin. For to Tarchetius, they say, king of Alba, who was a most wicked and cruel man, there appeared in his own house a strange vision, a male figure that rose out of a hearth, and stayed there for many days. There was an oracle of Tethys in Tuscany which Tarchetius consulted, and received an an- swer that a virgin should give herself to the apparition, and that a son should be born of her, highly renowned, eminent for valor, good fortune, and strength of body. Tarchetius told the prophecy to one of his own daughters, and command- ed her to do this thing ; which she avoiding as an indignity, sent her handmaid. Tarchetius, hearing this, in great anger imprisoned them both, purposing to put them to death ; but being deterred from murder by the goddess Vesta in a dream, enjoined them for their punishment the working a web of cloth, in their chains as they were, which when they finished, they should be suffered to marry ; but whatever they worked by day, Tarchetius commanded others to unravel in the night. In the mean time, the waiting-woman was delivered of two boys, whom Tarchetius gave into the hands of one Teratius, with command to destroy them ; he, however, carried and laid them by the river side, where a wolf came and continued 36 ROMULUS to suckle them, while birds of various sorts brought little morsels of food, which they put into their mouths ; till a cow- herd, spying them, was first strangely surprised, but, venturing to draw nearer, took the children lip in his arms. Thus they were saved, and when they grew up, set upon Tarchetius and overcame him. This one Promathion says, who compiled a history of Italy. But the story which is most believed and has the greatest number of vouchers was first published, in its chief particu* lars, amongst the Greeks by Diodes of Peparethus, whom Fabius Pictor also follows in most points. Here again there are variations, but in general outline it runs thus : the kings of Alba reigned in lineal descent from ^neas, and the suc- cession devolved at length upon two brothers, Numitor and Amulius. Amulius proposed to divide things into two equal shares, and set as equivalent to the kingdom the treasure and gold that were brought from Troy. Numitor chose the king- dom ; but Amulius, having the money, and being able to do more with that than Numitor, took his kingdom from him with great ease, and, fearing lest his daughter might have children, made her a Vestal, bound in that condition forever to live a single and maiden life. This lady some call Ilia, others Rhea, and others Silvia; however, not long after, she was, contrary to the established laws of the Vestals, discover- ed to be with child, and should have suffered the most cruel punishment, had not Antho, the king’s daughter, mediated with her father for her ; nevertheless, she was confined, and debarred all company, that she might not be delivered with- out the king’s knowledge. In time she brought forth two boys, of more than human size and beauty, whom Amulius, becoming yet more alarmed, commanded a servant to take and cast away; this man some call Faustulus, others say Fau- stulus was the man who brought them up. He put the chil- dren, however, in a small trough, and went towards the river with a design to cast them in ; but, seeing the waters much swollen and coming violently down, was afraid to go nearer, and dropping the children near the bank, went away. The river overflowing, the flood at last bore up the trough, and, gently wafting it, landed them on a smooth piece of ground, which they now called Cermanus, formerly Germanus, per- haps from Germanic which signifies brothers. Near this place grew a wild fig-tree, which they called Ruminalis, either from Romulus (as it is vulgarly thought), or from ruminating^ because cattle did usually in the heat o/ ROMULUS. 37 the day seek cover under it, and there chew the cud ; or, better, ^from the suckling of these children there, for the an ciehts called the dug or teat of any creature / and there is a tutelar goddess of the rearing of children whom they still call Rumilia, in sacrificing to whom they use no wine, but make libations of milk. While the infants lay here, history tells us, a she-wolf nursed them, and a woodpecker constant- ly fed and watched them ; these creatures are esteemed holy to the god A'lars : the woodpecker the Latins still especially worship and honor. Which things, as much as any, gave credit to what the mother of the children said, that their father was the god Mars ; though some say that it was a mis- take put upon her by Amulius, who himself had come to her dressed up in armor. Others think that the first rise of this fable came from the children’s nurse, through the ambiguity of her name ; for the Latins not only called wolves but also women of loose life ; and such an one was the wife of Faustulus, who nurtured these children, Acca Larentia by name. To her the Romans offer sacrifices, and in the month of April the priest of Mars makes libations there ; it is called the Larentian Feast. They honor also another Larentia, for the following reason : the keeper of Hercules’s temple having, it seems, little else to do, proposed to his deity a game at dice, laying down that, if he himself won, he would have something valuable of the god ; but if he were beaten, he would spread him a noble table, and procure him a fair lady’s company. Upon these terms, throwing first for the god and then for himself, he found him- self beaten. Wishing to pay his stakes honorably, and hold- ing himself bound by what he had said, he both provided the deity a good supper, and giving money to Larentia, then in her beauty, though not publicly known, gave her a feast in the temple, where he had also laid a bed, and after supper locked her in, as if the god were really to come to her. And indeed, it is said, the deity did truly visit her, and comnanck ed her in the morning to walk to the market-place, and, what- ever man she met first, to salute him, and make him her friend. She met one named Tarrutius, who was a man ad* vanced in years, fairly rich, without children, and had always lived a single life. He received Larentia, and loved her well, and at his death left her sole heir of all his large and fair possessions, most of which she, in her last will and tes- tament, bequeathed to the people. It was reported of her, being now celebrated and esleemed the mistress of a god» 38 ROMULUS. that she suddenly disappeared near the place where the firsi Larentia lay buried ; the spot is at this day called Velabrum, because, the river frequently overflowing, they went over in ferry-boats somewhere hereabouts to the forum, the Latin word for ferrying being velatura. Others derive the name from velum^ a sail ; because the exhibitors of public shows used to hang the road that leads from the forum to the Circus Maxi- mus with sails, beginning at this spot. Upon these accounts the second Larentia is honored at Home. Meantime Faustulus, Amulius’s swineherd, brought up the children without any man^s knowledge ; or, as those say who wish to keep closer to probabilities, with the knowledge and secret assistance of Numitor ; for it is said, they went to school at Gabii, and were well instructed in letters, and other accomplishments befitting their birth. And they were called Romulus and Remus, (from riima^ the dug,) as we had before, because they were found sucking the wolf. In their very in- fancy, the size and beauty of their bodies intimated their nat- ural superiority ; and when they grew up, they both proved brave and manly, attempting all enterprises that seemed haz- ardous, and showing in them a courage altogether undaunted. But Romulus seemed rather to act by counsel, and to show the sagacity of a statesmen, and in all his dealings with their neighbors, whether relating to feeding of flocks or to hunting, gave the idea of being born rather to rule than to obey. To their comrades and inferiors they were therefore dear ; but the king’s servants, his bailiffs and overseers, as being in nothing better men than themselves, they despised and slighted, nor were the least concerned at their commands and menaces. They used honest pastimes and liberal studies, not esteeming sloth and idleness honest and liberal, but rather such exercises as hunting and running, repelling robbers, taking of thieves, and delivering the wronged and oppressed from injury. For doing such things they became famous. A quarrel occurring betwixt Numitor’s and Amulius’s cow- herds, the latter, not enduring the driving away of their cattle by the others, fell upon them and put them to flight, and res- cued the greatest part of the prey. At which Numitor being highly incensed, they little regarded it, but collected and took into their company a number of needy men and runaway slaves, — acts which looked like the first stages of rebellion. It so happened, that when Romulus was attending a sacrifice, being fond of sacred rites and divination, Numitor’s herds- men, meeting with Remus on a journey with few companions, ROMULUS. 39 fer upon him, and after some %hting, look him ptlsoneT; carried hm before Numitor, and there accused him. Numi- tor would not punish him himself, fearing his brother’s anger, but went to Amulius, and desired justice, as he was Amulius’s brother and was affronted by Amulius’s servants. The men of Alba likewise resenting the thing, and thinking he had been dishonorably used, Amulius was induced to deliver Remus up into Numitor’s hands, to use him as he thought fit. He therefore took and carried him home, and, being struck with admiration of the youth’s person, in stature and strength of body exceeding all men, and perceiving in his very coun- tenance the courage and force of his mind, which stood un- subdued and unmoved by his present circumstances, and hearing further that all the enterprises and actions of his life were answerable to what he saw of him, but chiefly, as it seemed, a divine influence aiding and directing the first steps that were to lead to great results, out of the mere thought of his mind, and casually, as it were, he put his hand upon the fact, and, in gentle terms and with a kind aspect, to inspire him with confidence and hope, asked him who he was, and whence he was derived. He, taking heart, spoke thus : ‘‘ I will hide nothing from you, for you seem to be of a more princely temper than Amulius, in that you give a hearing and examine before you punish, while he condemns before the cause is heard. Formerly, then, we (for we are twins) thought ourselves the sons of Faustulus and Larentia, the king’s ser- vants ; but since we have been accused and aspersed with calumnies, and brought in peril of our lives here before you, we hear great things of ourselves, the truth of which my pres- ent danger is likely to bring to the test. Our birth is said to have been secret, our fostering and nurture in our infancy still more strange ; by birds and beasts, to whom we were cast out, we were fed, by the milk of a wolf, and the morsels of a woodpecker, as we lay in a little trough by the side of the river. The trough is still in being, and is preserved, with ^ brass plates round it, and an inscription in letters almost efi faced, which may prove hereafter unavailing tokens to oui parents when we are dead and gone.” Numitor, upon these words, and computing the dates by the young man’s looks, slighted not the hope that flattered him, but considered how to come at his daughter privately (for she was still kept under restraint), to talk with her concerning these matters. Faustulus, hearing Remus was taken and delivered up, called on Romulus to assist in his rescue, informing him ther? 40 ROMULUS. placinly of the particulars of his birth, not but he had before given hints of it, and told as much as an attentive man might make no small conclusions from ; he himself, full of concern and fear of not coming in time, took the trough, and ran in- stantly to Numitor ; but giving a suspicion to some of the king^s sentry at h^s gate, and being gazed upon by them and perplexed with their questions, he let it be seen that he was hiding the trough under his cloak. By chance there was one among them who was at the exposing of the children, and was one employed in the office ; he, seeing the trough and knowing it by its make and inscription, guessed it the busi- ness, and, without further delay, telling the king of it, brought in the man to be examined. Faustulus, hard beset, did not show himself altogether proof against terror ; nor yet was he wholly forced out of all ; confessed indeed the children were alive, but lived, he said, as shepherds, a great way from Alba ; he himself was going to carry the trough to Ilia, who had often greatly desired to see and handle it, for a confirmation of her hopes of her children. As men generally do who are troubled in mind and act either in fear or passion, it so fell out Amulius now did ; for he sent in haste as a messenger, a man, otherwise honest, and friendly to Numitor, with com- mands to learn from Numitor whether any tidings were come to him of the children’s being alive. He, coming and seeing how little Remus wanted of being received into the arms and embraces of Numitor, both gave him surer confidence in his hope, and advised them, with all expedition, to proceed to action ; himself too joining and assisting them, and indeed, had they wished it, the time would not have let them demur. For Romulus was now come very near, and many of the citi- zens, out of fear and hatred of Amulius, were running out to join him ; besides, he brought great forces with him, divided into companies each of an hundred men, every captain carrying a small bundle of grass and shrubs tied to a pole. The Latins call such bundles ma7iipuli^ and from hence it h that in their armies still they call their captains maiiipulares. Remus rousing the citizens within to revolt, and Romulus making attacks from without, the tyrant, not knowing either what to do, or what expedient to think of for his security, in this perplexity and confusion was taken and put to death. This narrative for the most part given by Fabius and Diodes of Peparethus, who seem to be the earliest historians of the foundation of Rome, is suspected by some, because of its dramatic and fictitious appearance ; but ’t would not wholly ROMULUS. 4Tr De disbelieved, if men would remember what a poet fortune sometimes shows herself, and consider that the Roman power w^ould hardly have reached so high a pitch without a divinely ordered origin, attended with great and extraordinary circumstances. Amulius now being dead and matters quietly disposed, the two brothers would neither dwell in Alba without governing there, nor take the government into their own hands during the life of their grandfather. Having therefore delivered the dominion up into his hands, and paid their mother befitting honor, they resolved to live by themselves, and build a city ill the same place where they were in their infancy brought up. This seems the most honorable reason for their depart- ure ; though perhaps it was necessary, having such a body of slaves and fugitives collected about them, either to come to nothing by dispersing them, or if not so, then to live with them elsewhere. For that the inhabitants of Alba did not think fugitives worthy of being received and incorporated as citizens among them plainly appears from the matter of the women, an attempt made not wantonly but of necessity, be- cause they could not get wives by good-will. For they cer- tainly paid unusual respect and honor to those whom they thus forcibly seized. Not long after the first foundation of the city, they opened a sanctuary of refuge for all fugitives, which they called the temple of the god Asylaeus, where they received and protected all, delivering none back, neither the servant to his master, the debtor to his creditor, nor the murderer into the hands of the magistrate, saying it was a privileged place, and they could so maintain it by an order of the holy oracle ; insomuch that the city grew presently very populous, for they say, it con- sisted at first of no more than a thousand houses. But of that hereafter. Their minds being full bent upon building, there arose presently a difference about the place where. Romulus chose what was called Roma Quadrata, or the Square Rome, and would have the city there. Remus laid out a piece of ground on the Aventine Mount, well fortified by nature, which was from him called Remonium, but now Rignarium. Concluding at last to decide the contest by a divination from a flight of birds, and placing themselves apart at some distance. Remus, they say, saw six vultures, and Romulus double that number ; others say, Remus did truly see his number, and that Romulus feigned his, but when Remus came to him, that then he didl< 42 ROMULUS. indeed, see twelve. Hence it is that the Romans, in theii divinations from birds, chiefly regard the vulture, though Herodorus Ponticus relates that Hercules was always very joyful when a vulture appeared to him upon any action. For it is a creature the least hurtful of any, pernicious neither to corn, fruit-tree, nor cattle ; it preys only upon carrion, and never kills or hurts any living thing ; and as for birds, it touches not them, though they are dead, as being of its own species, whereas eagles, owls, and hawks mangle and kill their own fellow-creatures ; yet, as ^schylus says, — What bird is clean that preys on fellow bird ? Besides, all other birds are, so to say, never out of our eyes ; they let themselves be seen of us continually ; but a vultuie is a very rare sight, and you can seldom meet with a man that has seen their young ; their rarity and infrequency has raised a strange opinion in some, that they come to us from some other world ; as soothsayers ascribe a divine origination to all things not produced either of nature or of themselves. When Remus knew the cheat, he was much displeased ; and as Romulus was casting up a ditch, where he designed the foundation of the city-wall, he turned some pieces of the work to ridicule, and obstructed others ; at last, as he was in con- tempt leaping over it, some say Romulus himself struck him, others Celer, one of his companions ; he fell, however, and in the scuffle Faiistulus also was slain, and Piistinys,'who, being Faustulus^s brother, story tells us, helped to bring up Romulus. Celer upon this fled instantly into Tuscany, and from him the Romans call all men that are swift of feet Celeres ; and because Quintus Metellus, at his father^s funeral, in a few days* time gave the people a show of gladiators, admiring his expe- dition in getting it ready, they gave him the name of Celer. Romulus, having buried his brother Remus, together with his two foster-fathers, on the mount Remonia, set to building his city; and sent for men out of Tuscany, who directed him by sacred usages and written rules in all the ceremonies to be observed, as in a religious rite. First, they dug a round trench about that which is now the Comitium, or Court of Assembly, and into it solemnly threw the first-fruits of all things either good by custom or necessary by nature ; lastly, every man taking a small piece of earth of the country from whence he came, they all threw in promiscuously together. This trench they call, as they do the heavens, Mundus ; mak- ing which their centre, they described the city in a circle round ROMULUS. 43 it Then the founder fitted to a plough a brazen ploughshare, a :d, yoking together a bull and a cow, drove himself a deep hne or furrow round the bounds ; while the business of those that followed after was to see that whatever earth was thrown up should be turned all inwards towards the city ; and not to let any clod lie outside. With this line they described the wall, and called it, by a contraction, Pomoerium, that is, murmn, after or beside the wall ; and where they designed to make a gate, there they took out the share, carried the plough over, and left a space; for which reason they consider the whole wall as holy, except where the gates are ; for had they adjudged them also sacred, they could not, without offence to religion, have given free ingress and egress for the necessaries of human life, some of which are in themselves unclean. As for the day they began to build the city, it is universally agreed to have been the twenty-first of April, and that day the Romans annually keep holy, calling it their country's birth- day. At first, they say, they sacrificed no living creature on this day, thinking it fit to preserve the least of their country’s birth-day pure and without stain of blood. Yet before ever the city was built, there was a feast of herdsmen and shep- herds kept on this day, which went by the name of Palilia. The Roman and Greek months have now little or no agree- ment ; they say, however^ the day on which Romulus began to build was quite certainly the thirtieth of the month, at which time there was an eclipse of the sun which they conceived to be that seen by Antimachus, the Teian poet, in the third year of the sixth Olympiad. In the times of Varro the philosopher, a man deeply read in Roman history, lived one Tarrutius, his familiar acquaintance, a good philosopher and mathematician, and one, too, that out of curiosity had studied the way of drawing schemes and tables, and was thought to be a jDroficient in the art ; to him Varro propounded to cast Romulus’s na- tiv ty, even to the first day and hour, making his deductions from the several events of the man’s life which he should be informed of, exactly as in working back a geometrical prob- lem ; for it belonged, he said, to the same science both to foretell a man’s life by knowing the time of his birth, and also to find out his birth by the knowledge of his life. This task d'arrutius undertook, and first looking into the actions and casualties of the man, together with the time of his life and manner of his death, and then comparing all these remarks together, he very confidently and positively pronounced that Romulus was conceived in his mother’s womb the first year 44 ROMULUS. of the second Olympiad, the twenty-third day of the month the Egyptians call Choeac, and the third hour after sunset, at which time there was a total eclipse of the sun ; that :e was born the twenty-first day of the month Thoth, about sum rising ; and that the first stone of Rome was laid by him the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi, between the second and third hour. For the fortunes of cities as well as of men, they think, have their certain periods of time prefixed, which may be collected and foreknown from the position of the stars at their first foundation. But these and the like relations may perhaps not so much take and delight the reader with their novelty and curiosity, as offend him by their extrav agance. The city now being built, Romulus enlisted all that were of age to bear arms into military companies, each company consisting of three thousand footmen and three hundred horse. These companies were called legions, because they were the choicest and most select of the people for fighting men. The rest of the multitude he called the people ; an hundred of the most eminent he chose for counsellors ; these he styled patri- cians, and their assembly the senate, which signifies a council of elders. The patricians, some say, were so called because they were the fathers of lawful children ; others, because they could give a good account who their own fathers were, which not every one of the rabble that poured into the city at first could do j others, from patronage, their word for protection of inferiors, the origin of which they attribute to Patron, one oi those that came over with Evander, who was a great protector and defender of the weak and needy. But perhaps the most probable judgment might be, that Romulus, esteeming it the duty of the chiefest and wealthiest men, with a fatherly care and concern to look after the meaner, and also encouraging the commonalty not to dread or be aggrieved at the honors of their superiors, but to love and respect them, and to think and call them their fathers, might from hence give them the name of patricians. For at this very time all foreigners give sena- tors the style of lords ; but the Romans, making use of a mere honorable and less invidious name, call them Patres Com script! j at first indeed, simply Patres, but afterwards, more being added, Patres Conscript!. By this more imposing title he distinguished the senate from the populace ; and in other ways also separated the nobles and the commons, — calling them patrons, and these their clients, — by which means he created wonderful love and amity betwixt them, productiv’^e of great justice in their dealings. For they were always their ROMULUS. 45 client’s counsellors in law cases, their advocates in courts of justice, in fine their advisers and supporters in all affairs what- e\^er. These again faithfully served their patrons, not only p?ying them all respect and deference, but also, in case of poverty, helping them to portion their daughters and pay off their debts ; and for a patron to witness against his client, or a client against his patron, was what no law nor magistrate could enforce. In after-times, all other duties subsisting still between them, it was thought mean and dishonorable for the better sort to take money from their inferiors. And so much of these matters. In the fourth month, after the city was built, as Fabias writes, the adventure of stealing the women was attempted ; and some say Romulus himself, being naturally a martial man, and predisposed too, perhaps by certain oracles, to believe the fates had ordained the future growth and greatness of Rome should depend upon the benefit of war, upon these ac- counts first offered violence to the Sabines, since he took away only thirty virgins, more to give an occasion of war than out of any want of women. But this is not very prob- able ; it would seem rather that, observing his city to be filled by a confluence of foreigners, few of whom had wives, and that the multitude in general, consisting of a mixture of mean and obscure men, fell under contempt, and seemed to be of no long continuance together, and hoping farther, after the women were appeased, to make this injury in some measure an occasion of confederacy and mutual commerce with the Sabines, he took in hand this exploit after this manner. First, he gave it out as if he had found an altar of a certain god hid under ground; the god they called Consus, eithei the god of counsel (for they still call a consultation consilium^ and their chief magistrates consules^ namely, counsellors), or else the equestrian Neptune, for the altar is kept covered in the circus maximus at all other times, and only at horse-races is exposed to public view ; others merely say that this god had his altar hid under ground because counsel ought to be secret and concealed. Upon discovery of this altar, Rom ulus, by proclamation, appointed a day for a splendid sacrifice, and for public games and shows, to entertain all sorts of people : many flocked thither, and he himself sate in front, amidst his nobles, clad in purple. Now the signal for their falling on was to be whenever he rose and gathered up his robe and threw it over his body ; his men stood all ready aimed, with their eyes intent upon him, and when tlic sign 46 ROMULUS. was given, drawing their swords and falling on with a great shout, they ravished away the daughters of the Sabines, they themselves flying without any let or hindrance. They say there were but thirty taken, and from them the Curiae or Fraternities were named ; but Valerius Antias says five hun- dred and twenty-seven, Juba, six hundred and eighty-three virgins : which was indeed the greatest excuse Romulus could allege, namely, that they had taken no married woman, save one only, Hersilia by name, and her too unknowingly ; which showed that they did not commit this rape wantonly, but with a design purely of forming alliance with their neighbors by the greatest and surest bonds. This Hersilia some say Hostilius married, a most eminent man among the Romans : others, Romulus himself, and that she bore two children to him, a daughter, by reason of primogeniture called Prima, and one only son, whom, from the great concourse of citizens to him at that time, he called Aollius, but after ages Abillius. But Zenodotus the Troezenian, in giving this account, is con- tradicted by many. Among those who committed this rape upon the virgins, there were, they say, as it so then happened, some of the meaner sort of men, who were carrying off a damsel, excelling all in beauty and comeliness and stature, whom when some of superior rank that met them attempted to take away, they cried out they were carrying her to Talasius, a young man, indeed, but brave and worthy ; hearing that, they commended and applauded them loudly, and also some, turning back, accompanied them with good-will and pleasure , shouting out the name of Talasius. Hence the Romans to this very time, at their weddings, sing Talasius for their nuptial word, as the Greeks do Hymenseus, because they say Talasius was very happy in his marriage. But Sextius Sylla the Carthaginian, a man wanting neither learning nor ingenuity, told me Rom- ulus gave this word as a sign when to begin the onset ; every- body, therefore, who made prize of a maiden, cried out, 'Palasius ; and for that reason the custom continues so now a" marriages. But most are of opinion (of whom Juba par- ticularly is one) that this word was used to new-married women by way of incitement to good housewifery and talasia (spinning), as we say in Greek, Greek words at that time not being as yet overpowered by Italian. But if this be the case, and if the Romans did at time use the word talasia as we do, a man might fancy a more probable reason of the custom. For when the Sabines, after the war against the Romans, ROMULUS 47 were reconciled, conditions were made concerning theii women, that they should be obliged to do no other servile offices to their husbands but what concerned spinning ; it was customary, therefore, ever after, at weddings, for those that gave the bride or escorted her or otherwise were present , sportingly to say Talasius, intimating that she was henceforth to serve in spinning and no more. It continues also a custom at this very day for the bride not of herself to pass her hus- band’s threshold, but to be lifted over, in memory that the Sabine virgins were carried in by violence, and did not go in of their own will. Some say, too, the custom of parting the bride’s hair with the head of a spear was in token their mar- riages began at first by war and acts of hostility, of which I nave spoken more fully in my book of Questions. This rape was committed on the eighteenth day of the month Sextilis, now called August, on which the solemnities of the Consualia are kept. The Sabines were a numerous and martial people, but lived in small, unfortified villages, as it befitted, they thought, a colony of the Lacedaemonians to be bold and fearless ; nevertheless, seeing themselves bound by such hostages to their good behavior, and being solicitous for their daughters, they sent ambassadors to Romulus with fair and equitable requests, that he would return their young women and recall that act of violence, and afterwards, by persuasion and law- ful means, seek friendly correspondence between both nations. Romulus would not part with the young women, yet proposed to the Sabines to enter into an alliance with them ; upon which point some consulted and demurred long, but Acron, king of the Ceninenses, a man of high spirit and a good warrior, who had all along a jealousy of Romulus’s bold attempts, and considering particularly from this exploit upon the women, that he was growing formidable to all people, and indeed in- sufferable, were he not chastised, first rose up in arms, and with a powerful army advanced against him. Romulus like- wise prepared to receive him ; but when they came within sight and viewed each other, they made a challenge to fight a single duel, the armies standing by under arms, without par- ticipation. And Romulus, making a vow to Jupiter, if he should conquer, to carry, himself, and dedicate his adversary’s armor to his honor, overcame him in combat, and a battle ensuing, routed his army also, and then took his city ; but did those he found in it no injury, only commanded them to de- molish the place and attend him to Rome, there to be admitted 48 ROMULUS. to all the privileges of citizens. And indeed there was no- thing did more advance the greatness of Rome, than that she did always unite and incorporate those whom she conquered into herself. Romulus, that he might perform his vow in the most acceptable manner to Jupiter, and withal make the pomp of it delightful to the eye of the city, cut down a tall oak which he saw growing in the camp, which he trimmed to the shape of a trophy, and fastened on it Acron^s whole suit of armor disposed in proper form; then he himself, girding bis dothes about him, and crowning his head with a laurel gar- land, his hair gracefully flowing, carried the trophy resting erect upon his right shoulder, and so marched on, singing songs of triumph, and his whole army following after, the citizens all receiving him with acclamations of joy and wonder. The procession of this day was the origin and model of all after triumphs. This trophy was styled an offering to Jupiter Feretrius, from ferire^ which in Latin is to smite ; for Rom- ulus prayed he might smite and overthrow his enemy ; and the spoils were called or royal spoils, says Varro, from their richness, which the word opes signifies ; though one would more probably conjecture from opus^ an act ; for it is only to the general of an army who with his own hand kills his enemies’ general that this honor is granted of offering the opima spolia. And three only of the Roman captains have had it conferred on them : first, Romulus, upon killing Acron the Ceninensian ; next, Cornelius Cossus, for slaying To- lumnius the Tuscan ; and lastly, Claudius Marcellus, upon his conquering Viridomarus, king of the Gauls. The two latter, Cossus and Marcellus, made their entries in triumphant chariots, bearing their trophies themselves ; but that Rom- ulus made use of a chariot, Dionysius is wrong in asserting. History says, Tarquinius, Damaratus’s son, was the first that brought triumphs to this great pomp and grandeur ; others, that Publicola was the first that rode in triumph. The statues of Romulus in triumph are, as may be seen in Rome, all on foot. After the overthrow of the Ceninensians, the other Sa- bines still protracting the time in preparations, the people of Fidenae, Crustumerium, and Antemna, joined their forces against the Romans ; they in like manner were defeated in battle, and surrendered up to Romulus their cities to be seized, their lands and territories to be divided, and them- selves to be transplanted to Rome. All the lands which Romulus acquired, he distributed among the citizens, except Qnly what the parents of the stolen virgins had ; these he suf- ROMULUS. 49 fered to possess their own. The rest of the Sabines, enraged hereat, choosing Tatius their captain, marched straight against Rome. The city was almost inaccessible, having for its fort- ress that which is now the Capitol, where a strong guard was placed, and Tarpeius their captain ; not Tarpeia the virgin, as some say who would make Romulus a fool. But Tarpeia, daughter to the captain, coveting the golden bracelet's she saw them wear, betrayed the fort into the Sabines’ hands, and asked, in reward of her treachery, the things they wore on their left arms. Tatius conditioning thus with her, in the night she opened one of the gates, and received the Sabines in. And truly Antigonus, it would seem, was not solitary in saying, he loved betrayers, but hated those who had betrayed ; nor Caesar, who told Rhymitalces the Thracian, that he loved the treason, but hated the traitor ; but it is the general feel- ing of all who have occasion for wicked men’s service, as people have for the poison of venomous beasts ; they are glad of them while they are of use, and abhor their baseness wh^n it is over. And so then did Tatius behave towards Tarpeia, for he commanded the Sabines, in regard to their contract, not to refuse her the least part of what they wore on their left arms ; and he himself first took his bracelet off his arm, and threw that, together with his buckler, at her ; and all the rest following, she, being borne down and quite buried with the multitude of gold and their shields, died under the weight and pressure of them ; Tarpeius also himself, being prose- cuted by Romulus, was found guilty of treason, as Juba says Sulpicius Galba relates; Those who write otherwise con- cerning Tarpeia, as that she was the daughter of Tatiiis, the Sabine captain, and being- forcibly detained by Romulus, acted and suffered thus by her father’s contrivance, speak veiy absurdly, of whom Antigonus is one. And Simylus, the poet, who thinks Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol, not to the Sabines, but the Gauls, having fallen in love with their king, talks mere folly, saying thus : — Tar])eia kwas, who, dwelling close therebvi Laid open Rome unto the enemy, She, for the love of the besieging Gaul, Betrayed the city’s strength, the Capitol. \nd a little after, speaking of her death The numerous nations of the Celtic foe Bore her not living to the banks of Po ; Their heavy shields upon the maid they threw, And with their splendid gifts entombed at once and slew. so ROMULUS. Tarpeia afterwards was buried there, and the h 11 from her was called Tarpeius, until the reign of king larquin, who dedicated the place to Jupiter, at ^vhich time her bones were removed, and so it lost her name, except only that part of the Capitol which they still called the Tarpeian Rock, from which they used to cast down malefactors. Tlie Sabines being possessed of the hill, Romulus, in great fury, bade them battle, and Tatius was confident to accept it, perceiving, if they were overpowered, that they had behind them a secure retreat. The level in the middle, where they were to join battle, being surrounded with many little hills seemed to enforce both parties to a sharp and desperate con- flict, by reason of the difficulties of the place, which had but a few outlets, inconvenient either for refuge or pursuit. It happened, too, the river having overflowed not many days before, there was left behind in the plain, where now the forum stands, a deep blind mud and slime, which, though it did not appear much to the eye, and was not easily avoided, at bottom was deceitful and dangerous ; upon which the Sabines being unwarily about to enter, met with a piece of good fortune ; for Curtius, a gallant man, eager of honor, and of aspiring thoughts, being mounted on horseback, was gal- loping on before the rest, and mired his horse here, aPxd, endeavoring for a while, by whip and spur and voice to dis- entangle him, but finding it impossible, quitted him and saved himself ; the place from him to this very time is called the Curtian Lake. The Sabines, having avoided this danger, began the fight very smartly, the fortune of the day being very dubious, though many were slain ; amongst whom was Hos- tilius, who, they say, was husband to Hersilia, and grand- father to that Hostilius who reigned after Numa. There were many other brief conflicts, we may suppose, but the most memorable was the last, in which Romulus having received a wound on his head by a stone, and being almost felled to the ground by it, and disabled, the Romans gave way, and, being driven out of the level ground, fled towards the Pala* tium. Romulus, by this time recovering from his wound a little, turned about to renew the battle, and, facing the fliers, with a loud voice encouraged them to stand and fight. But being overborne with numbers, and nobody daring to face about, stretching out his hands to heaven, he pra 3 ^ed to Jupi- ter to stop the army, and not to neglect, but maintain the Roman cause, now in extreme danger. The prayer was no sooner made, than shame and respect for ffieir king checked ROMULUS. many ; the fears of the fugitives' changed suddenly into confi dence. The place they first stood at was where now is the temple of Jupiter Stator (which may be translated the Stayer) j there they rallied again into ranks and repulsed the Sabines to the place called now Regia, and to the temple of Vesta ; where both parties, preparing to begin a second battle, were prevented by a spectacle, strange to behold, and defying description. For the daughters of the Sabines, who had been carried off, came running, in great confusion, some on this side, some on that, with miserable cries and lamentations, like creatures possessed, in the midst of the army and among the dead bodies, to come at their husbands and their fathers, some with their young babes in their arms, others their hair loose about their ears, but all calling, now upon the Sabines, now upon the Romans, in the most tender and endearing words. Hereupon both melted into compassion, and fell back, to make room for them betwixt the armies. The sight of the women carried sorrow and commiseration upon both sides into the hearts of all, but still more their words, which began with expostulation and upbraiding, and ended with entreaty and supplication. “Wherein,’’ say they, “have we injured or offended you, as to deserve such sufferings past and present? We were ravished away unjustly and violently by those whose now we are ; that being done, we were so long neglected by our fathers, our brothers and countrymen, that time, having now by the strictest bonds united us to those we once mortally hated, has made it impossible for us not to tremble at the danger and weep at the death of the very men who once used violence to us. You did not come to vindicate our honor, while we were virgins, against our assailants ; but do come now to force away wives from their husbands and mothers from their children, a succor more grievous to its wretched objects than the former betrayal and neglect of them. Which shall we call the worst, their love-making or your com’ passion ? If you were making war upon any other occasion^ for our sakes you ought to withhold your hands from those to whom we have made you fathers-in-law and grandsires. If it be for our own cause, then take us, and with us your sons-in- law and grandchildren. Restore to us our parents and kin- dred, but do not rob us of our children and husbands. Make us not, we entreat you, twice captives.” Hersilia having spoken many such words as these, and the others earnestly praying, a truce was made, and the chief officers came to a 52 ROMULUS. parley ; the women, in the mean time, brought and presented their husbands and children to their fathers and brothers ; gave those that wanted, meat and drink, and carried the wounded home to be cured, and showed also how much tliey governed within doors, and how indulgent their husbands were to them, in demeaning themselves towards them with all kindness and respect imaginable. Upon this, conditions were agreed upon, that what women pleased might stay where they were, exempt, as aforesaid, from all drudgery and labor but spinning ; that the Romans and Sabines should inhabit the city together ; that the city should be called Rome from Romulus ; but the Romans, Quirites, from the country ofTatius; and that they both should govern and command in common. The place of the ratification is still called Comitium, from coire^ to meet. The city being thus doubled in number, an hundred of the Sabines were elected senators, and the legions were increased to six thousand foot and six hundred horse ; then they divided the people into three tribes ; the first, from Romulus, named Ramnenses ; the second, from Tatius, Tatienses ; the third Luceres, from the lucus^ or grove, where the Asylum stood, whither many fled for sanctuary, and were received into the city. And that they were just three, the very name of tribe and tribune seems to show ; each tribe contained ten curiae, or brotherhoods, which, some say, took their names from the Sabine women ; but that seems to be false, because many had their names from various places. Though it is true, they then constituted many things in honor to the women ; as to give them the way wherever they met them \ to speak no ill word in their presence ; not to appear naked before them, or else be liable to prosecution before the judge, of homicide; that their children should wear an ornament about their necks called the bulla (because it was like a bubble), and the prcetexta^ a gown edged with purple. The princes did not immediately join in council together, but at first each met with his own hundred ; afterwards all assembled together. Tatius dwelt where now the temple of Moneta stands, and Romulus, close by the steps, as they call them, of the Fair Shore, near the descent from the Mount Palatine to the Circus Maximus. There, they say, grew the lioly cornel tree, of which they report, that Romulus once, to try his strength, threw a dart from the Aventine Mount, the staff of which was made of cornel, which struck so deep into the ground, that no one of many that tried could pluck it up • ROMULUS. S3 and the soil, being fertile, gave nourishment to the wood, which sent forth branches, and produced a cornel stock of considerable bigness. This did posterity preserve and wor- ship as one of the most sacred things ; and therefore walled it about ; and if to any one it appeared not green nor flourish ing, but inclining to pine and wither, he immediately made outcry to all he met, and they, like people hearing of a houst; on fire, with one accord would cry for water, and run from all parts with buckets full to the place. But when Caius Caesar, they say, was repairing the steps about it, some of the labor- ers digging too close, the roots were destroyed, and the tree withered. The Sabines adopted the Roman months, of which what- ever is remarkable is mentioned in the Life of Numa. Romulus, on the other hand, adopted their long shields, and changed his own armor and that of all the Romans, who before wore round targets of the Argive pattern. Feasts and sacrifices they partook of in common, not abolishing any which either nation observed before, and instituting several new ones ; of which one was the Matronalia, instituted in honor of the women, for their extinction of the war ; likewise the Carmentalia. This Carmenta some think a deity pre- siding over human birth ; for which reason she is much honored by mothers. Others say she was the wife of Evan- der, the Arcadian, being a prophetess, and wont to deliver her oracles in verse, and from carmen^ a verse, was called Car- menta ; her proper name being Nicostrata. Others more probably derive Carmenta from carens meiite^ or insane, in allusion to her prophetic frenzies. Of the Feast of Palilia we have spoken before. The Lupercalia, by the time of its celebration, may seem to be a feast of purification, for it is solemnized on the dies 7iefasti^ or non-court days, of (he month February, which name signifies purification, and (lie very day of the feast was anciently called Februata ; but its name is equivalent to the Greek Lycaea \ and it seems thus to be of great antiquity, and brought in by the Arcadians who came with Evander. Yet tliis .s but dubious, for it may come as well from the wolf that nursed Romulus ; and w'e see the Luperci, the priests, begin their course from the place where they say Romulus was exposed. But the ceremonies performed in it render the origin of the thing more difficult to be guessed at ; for there are goats killed, then, two young noblemen’s sons being brought, some are to stain their fore- heads with the bloody knife, others presently to wipe it ofl 54 ROMULUS. with wool dipped in milk ; then the young boys must laugh after their foreheads are wiped ; that done, having cut the goats' skins into thongs, they run about naked, only with something about their middle, lashing all they meet ; and the young wives do not avoid their strokes, fancying they will help conception and childbirth. Another thing peculiar to this feast is for the Luperci to sacrifice a dog. But, as a certain poet who wrote fabulous explanations of Roman cus - toms in elegiac verses, says, that Romulus and Remus, aftei the conquest of Amulius, ran joyfully to the place where the wolf gave them suck ; and that in imitation of that, this feas^ was held, and two young noblemen ran — Striking at all, as when from Alba town, With sword in hand, the twins came hurrying down ; and that the bloody knife applied to their foreheads was a sign of the danger and bloodshed of that day ; the cleansing of them in milk, a remembrance of their food and nourishment. Caius Acil’us writes, that, before the city was built, the cattle of Romulus and Remus one day going astray, they, praying to the god Faunus, ran out to seek them naked, wishing not to be troubled with sweat, and that this is why the Luperci run naked. If the sacrifice be by way of purification, a dog might very well be sacrificed, for the Greeks, in their illustrations, carry out young dogs, and frequently use this ceremony of periscylacismus^ as they call it. Or if again it is a sacrifice of gratitude to the wolf that nourished and preserved Romulus, there is good reason in killing a dog, as being an enemy to wolves. Unless, indeed, after all, the creature is punished for hindering the Luperci in their running. They say, too, Romulus was the first that consecrated holy fire, and instituted holy virgins to keep it, called vestals ; others ascribe it to Numa Pompilius ; agreeing, however, that Romulus was otherwise eminently religious, and skilled in divination, and for that reason carried the lituus^ a crooked rod with which soothsayers describe the quarters of the heavens, when they sit to observe the flights of birds. This of his, being kept in the Palatium, was lost when the city was taken by the Gauls ; and afterwards, that rarbarous people being driven out, was found in the ruins, under a great heap of ashes, untouched by the fire, all things about it being con- sumed and burnt. He instituted also certain laws, one of which is somewhat severe, which suffers not a wife to leave her husband, but grants a husband power to turn off his wife ROMULUS. 55 either upon poisoning her children, or counterfeiting his keys, or for adultery; but if the husband upon any other occasion put her away, he ordered one moiety of his es tate to be given to the wife, the other to fall to the goddess Ceres ; and whoever cast off his wife, to make an atonement by sacrifice to the gods of the dead. This, too, is observable as a singular thing in Romulus, that he appointed no punish- ment for real parricide, but called all murder so, thinking the one an accursed thing, but the other a thing impossible ; and^ for a long time, his judgment seemed to have been right ; foi in almost six hundred years together, nobody committed (1 e like in Rome ; and Lucius Hostius, after the wars of Hanni- bal, is recorded to have been the first parricide. Let thus much suffice concerning these matters. In the fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his friends and kinsmen, meeting ambassadors coming from Laurentuin to Rome, attempted on the road to take away their money by force, and, upon their resistance, killed them. So great a villany having been committed Romulus thought the mal- efactors ought at once to be punished, but Tatius shuffled off and deferred the execution of it ; and this one thing was the beginning of open quarrel betwixt them ; in all other re- spects they were very careful of their conduct, and adminis- tered affairs together with great unanimity. The relations of the slain, being debarred of lawful satisfaction by reason of Tatius, fell upon him as he was sacrificing with Romulus at Lavinium, and slew him ; but escorted Romulus home, com- mending and extolling him for a just prince. Romulus took the body of Tatius, and buried it very splendidly in the Aventine Mount, near the place called Armilustrium, but al- together neglected revenging his murder. Some authors write, the city of Laurentuin, fearing the consequences, de- livered up the murderers of Tatius ; but Romulus dismissed them, saying, one murder was requited with another. This gave occasion of talk and jealousy, as if he were well pleased at the removal of his co-partner in the government. Nothing of these things, however, raised any sort of feud or disturb- ance among the Sabines ; but some out of love to him, others out I'.f fear of his power, some again reverencing him as a god, they all continued living peacefully in admiration and awe of him ; many foreign nations, too, showed respect to Romulus ; the Ancient Latins sent, and entered into league and confed- eracy with him. Fidenae he took, a neighboring city to Rome, by a partv of horse, as some say, whom he sent before 56 KOMULUS- with commands to cut down the hinges of the gates, him self afterwards uiiexpectedly coming up. Others say, they having first made the invasion, plundering and ravaging the country and suburbs, Romulus lay in ambush for them, and having killed many of their men, took the city ; but, neverthe- less, did not raze or demolish it, but made it a Roman colony, and sent thither, on the Ides of April, two thousand five hun* died inhabitants. Soon after a plague broke out, causing sudden death without any previous sickness ; it infected also the corn with unfruitfulness, and cattle with barrenness ; there rained blood, too, in the city ; so that, to their actual sufferings, fear of the wrath of the gods was added. But when the same mischiefs fell upon Laurentum, then everybody judged it was divine vengeance that fell upon both cities, for the neglect of executing justice upon the murder of 1 atius and the ambassa- dors. But the murderers on both sides being delivered up and punished, the pestilence visibly abated ; and Romulus purified the cities with lustrations, which, they say, even now, are performed at the wood called Ferentina. But before the plague ceased, the Camertines invaded the Romans and overran the country, thinking them, by reason of the distem- per, unable to resist; but Romulus at once made head against them, and gained the victory, with the slaughter of six thousand men, then took their city, and brought half of those he found there to Rome, sending from Rome to Cameriurn double the number he left there. This was done the first of August. So many citizens had he to spare, in sixteen years^ time from his first founding Rome. Among other spoils, he took a brazen four-horse chariot from Cameriurn, which he placed in the temple of Vulcan, setting on it his own statue, with a figure of victory crowning him. The Roman cause thus daily gathering strength, their weaker neighbors shrunk away, and were thankful to be left untouched ; but the stronger, out of fear or env}% thought tney ought not to give way to Romulus, but to curb and put a stop to his growing greatness. The first were the Veientes, a people of Tuscany, who had large possessions, and dwelt in a spacious city ; they took occasion to commence a w^ar, by claiming Fidenae as belonging to them ; a thing not only very unreasonable, but very ridiculous, that they, who did not assist them in the greatest extremities, but permitted them to be slain, should challenge their lands and houses when in the hands of others. But being scornfully retorted upon bj ROMULUS. 57 Romulus in his answers, they divided themselves into two bodies ; with one they attacked the garrison of Fidenae, the other marched against Romulus ; that which went against Fidenae got the victory, and slew two thousand Romans ; the other was worsted by Romulus, with the loss of eight thou- sand men. A fresh battle was fought near Fidenae, and here all men acknowledge the day’s success to have been chiefly the work of Romulus himself, who showed the highest skill as well as courage, and seemed to manifest a strength and swiftness more than human. But what some write, that, of fourteen thousand that fell that day, above half were slain by Romulus’s own hand, verges too near to fable, and is, indeed, simply incredible ; since even the Messenians are thought to go tou far in saying that Aristomenes three times offered sacrifice for the death of a hundred enemies, Lacedaemonians, slain by himself. I'he army being thus routed, Romulus, suffering those that were left to make their escape, led his forces against the city ; they, having suffered such great losses, did not venture to oppose, but, humbly suing to him, made a league and friendship for an hundred years ; surren- dering also a large district of land called Septempagium, that is, the seven parts, as also their salt-works upon the river, and fifty noblemen for hostages. He made his triumph for this on the Ides of October, leading, among the rest of his many captives, the general of the Veientes, an elderly man, but who had not, it seemed, acted with the prudence of age j whence even now, in sacrifices for victories, they lead an old man through the market-place to the Capitol, apparelled in purple, with a bulla^ or child’s toy, tied to it, and the crier cries, Sardians to be sold ; for the Tuscans are said to be a colony of the Sardians, and the Veientes are a city of Tus- cany. This was the last battle Romulus ever fought ; afterwards he, as most, nay all men, very few excepted, do, who are raised by great and miraculous good-haps of fortune to power .%nd greatness, so, I say, did he ; relying upon his own great actions, and growing of an haughtier mind, he forsook his popular behavior for kingly arrogance, odious to the people ; to whom in particular the state which he assumed was hate- ful. For he dressed in scarlet, with the purple-bordered robe over it ; he gave audience on a couch of state, having always about him some young men called Celeres,irom their swiftness in doing commissions ; there went before him otliers with staves, to make room, with leather thongs tied on their bodies, ROMULUS. S8 to bind on the moment whomever he commanded. The Latins formerly used ligare in the same sense as now alligare^ to bind, whence the name licfors^ for these officers, and bactila^ or staves, for their rods, because staves were then used. It is probable, however, they were first called litores^ afterw^ards^ by putting in a c, lictores^ or, in Greek, liturgi^ or people^s of- ficers, for leitos is still Greek for the commons, and Laos foi the people in general. But when, after the death of his grandfather Numitor in Alba, the throne devolving upon Romulus, he, to court the people, put the government into their owm hands, and appoint- ed an ajinual magistrate over the Albans, this taught the great men of Rome to seek after a free and anti-monarchical state, wherein all might in turn be subjects and rulers. For neither w^ere the patricians any longer admitted to state affairs, only had the name and title left them, convening in council rather for fashion’s sake than advice, where they heard in silence the king’s commands, and so departed, exceeding the commonalty only in hearing first what was done. These and the like were matters of small moment ; but w^hen he of his own ac- cord parted among his soldiers wLat lands were acquired by war, and restored the Veientes their hostages, the senate neither consenting nor approving of it, then, indeed, he seemed to put a great affront upon them ; so that, on his sudden and strange disappearance a short while after, the senate fell under suspicion and calumny. He disappeared on the Nones of JuR, as they now call the month w^hich was then Quintilis, leaving nothing of certainty to be related of his death ; only the time, as just mentioned, for on that day many ceremonies are still performed in representation of what happened. Neither is this uncertainty to be thought strange, seeing the manner of the death of Scipio Africanus, who died at his own home after supper, has been found capable neither of proof or disproof ; for some say he died a natural death, being of ^ sickly habit ; others, that he poisoned himself ; others again, that his enemies, breaking in upon him in the night, stifled him. Yet Scipio’s dead body lay open to be seen of all, and any one, from his own observation, might form his suspicions and conjectures , whereas Romulus, when he vanished, left neither the least part of his body, nor any remnant of his clothes to be seen. So that some fancied, the senators, having fallen upon him in the temple of Vulcan, cut his body into pieces, and took each a part away in his bosom ; others thiuk his disappearance was neither in the temple of Vulcan, noi ROMULUS 59 with the senators only by, but that it came to pass that, as he was haranguing the people without the city, near a place called the Goat’s Marsh, on a sudden strange and unaccount- able disorders and alterations took place in the air; the face of the sun was darkened, and the day turned into night, and that, too, no quiet, peaceable night, but with terrible thunder- ings, and boisterous winds from all quarters ; during which the common people dispersed and fled, but the senators kep^ close together. The tempest being over and the light break* ing out, when the people gathered again, they missed and inquired for their king; the senators suffered them not to search, or busy themselves about the matter, but commanded them to honor and worship Romulus as one taken up to the gods, and about to be to them, in the place of a good prince, now a propitious god. The multitude, hearing this, went away believing and rejoicing in hopes of good things from him ; but there were some, who, canvassing the matter in a hostile temper, accused and aspersed the patricians, as men that persuaded the people to believe ridiculous tales, when they themselves were the murderers of the king. Things being in this disorder, one, they say, of the patri- cians, of noble family and approved good character, and a faithful and familiar friend of Romulus himself, having come with him from Alba, Julius Proculus by name, presented himself in the forum ; and, taking a most sacred oath, pro- tested before them all, that, as he was travelling on the road, he had seen Romulus coming to meet him, looking taller and comelier than ever, dressed in shining and flaming armor; and he, being affrighted at the apparition, said, ‘‘ Why, O king, or for what purpose have you abandoned us to unjust and wicked surmises, and the whole city to bereavement and endless sorrow } ” and that he made answer, It pleased the gods, 0 Proculus, that we, who came from them, should re- main so long a time amongst men as we did ; and, having buiit a city to be the greatest in the world for empire and gloiy, should again return to heaven. But farewell ; and tell the Romans, that, by the exercise of temperance and forti- tude, they shall attain the height of human power ; we will be to you the propitious god Quirinus.” This seemed credi- ble to the Romans, upon the honesty and oath of the rclater, and indeed, too, there mingled with it a certain divine passion, some preternatural influence similar to possession by a dign- ity ; nobody contradicted it, but, laying aside all jealousies and detractions, they prayed to Quirinus and saluted him as a god. 6o ROMULUS. This is like some of the Greek fables of Aristeas tne Pro connesian, and Cleomedes the Astypalsean ; for they say Aristeas died in a fuller’s work-shop, and his friends coming to look for him, found his body vanished ; and that some presently after, coming from abroad, said they met him travel- ling towards Croton. And that Cleomedes, being an extra- ordinarily strong and gigantic man, but also wild and mad, committed many desperate freaks ; and at last, in a school- house, striking a pillar that sustained the roof with his fist, broke it in the middle, so that the house fell and destroyed the children in it ; and being pursued, he fled into a great chest, and, shutting to the lid, held it so fast, that many men, with their united strength, could not force it open ; after- wards, breaking the chest to pieces, the found no man in it alive or dead ; in astonishment at which, they sent to consult the oracle at Delphi ; to whom the prophetess made this an- swer, Of all the heroes, Cleomede is last. They say, too, the body of Alcmena, as they were carrying her to her grave, vanished, and a stone was found lying on the bier. And many such improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures naturally mortal ; for though altogether to disown a divine nature in human virtue were impious and base, so again to mix heaven with earth is ridic- ulous. Let us believe with Pindar, that All human bodies yield to Death’s decree, The soul survives to all eternity. For that alone is derived from the gods, thence comes, and thither returns ; not with the body, but when most disengaged and separated from it, and when most entirely pure and clean and free from the flesh: for the most perfect soul, says Hera- clitus, is a dry light, which flies out of the body as light- ning breaks from a .cloud ; but that which is clogged and surfeited with body is like gross and humid incense, slow to kindle and ascend. We must not, therefore, contrary to cature, send the bodies, too, of good men to heaven ; but we must really believe that, according to their divine nature and law, their virtue and their souls are translated out of men into heroes, out of heroes into demi-gods, out of demi-gods, after passing, as in the rite of initiation, through a final cleansing and sanctification, and so freeing themselves from all that pertains to mortality and sense, are thus, not by hu- man decree, but really and according to right reason, elevated ROMULUS. 6i into gods admitted thus to the greatest and most blessed per- fection. Romulus’s surname Quirinus, some say, is equivalent to Mars ; others, that he was so called because the citizens were called Quirites ; others, because the ancients called a dart or spear Quiris ; thus, the statue of Juno resting on a spear is called Quiritis, and the dart in the Regia is addressed as Mars, and those that were distinguished in war were usually presented with a dart; that, therefore, Romulus being a martial god, or a god of darts, was called Quirinus. A tem- ple is certainly built to his honor on the mount called from him Quirinalis. The day he vanished on is called the Flight of the People, and the Nones of the Goats, because they go then out of the city and sacrifice at the Goat’s Marsh, and, as they go, they shout out some of the Roman names, as Marcus, Lucius, Caius, imitating the way in which they then fled and called upon one another in that fright and hurry. Some, however, say this was not in imitation of a flight, but of a quick and hasty onset, referring it to the following occasion : after the Gauls who had taken Rome were driven out by Camillus, and the city was scarcely as yet recovering her strength, many of the Latins, under the command of Livius Postumius, took this time to march against her. Postumius, halting not far from Rome, sent a herald, signifying that the Latins were desirous to renew their former alliance and affinity (that was now almost decayed) by contracting new marriages between both nations ; if, therefore, they would send forth a good num- ber of their virgins and widows, they should have peace and friendship, such as the Sabines had formerly had on the like conditions. The Romans, hearing this, dreaded a war, yet thought a surrender of their women little better than mere captivity. Being in this doubt, a servant-maid called Philotis (or, as some say, Tutola), advised them to do neither, but, by a stratagem, avoid both fighting and the giving up of such pledges. The stratagem was this, that they should send her- self, with other well-looking servant-maids, to the enemy, in the dress of free-born virgins, and she should in the night light up a fire signal, at which the Romans should come armed and surprise them asleep. The Latins were thus de- ceived, and accordingly Philotis set up a torch in a wild fig- tree, screening it behind with curtains and coverlets from the sight of the enemy, while visible to the Romans. They, when th<^v sav it, eagerly ran out of the gates, calling in theij b2 COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS. baste tc each other as they went out, and so, falling in unex- pectedly upon the enemy, they defeated them, and upon that made a feast of triumph, called the Nones of the Goats, be- cause of the wild fig-tree, called by the Romans Caprificus, or the goat-fig. They feast the women without the city in arbors made of fig-tree boughs, and the maid-servants gather to- gether and run about playing ; afterwards they fight in sport, and throw stones one at another, in memory that they then aided and assisted the Roman men in fight. This only a few authors admit for true ; for the calling upon one another's names by day and the going out to the Goat's Marsh to do sacrifice seem to agree more with the former story, unless, in- deed, we shall say that both the actions might have happened on the same day in different years. It was in the fifty-fourth year of his age and the thirty-eighth of his reign that Romu- lus, they tell us, left the world. COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS. This is what I have learnt of Romulus and Theseus, worthy of memory. It seems, first of all, that Theseus, out of his own free-will, without any compulsion, when he might have reigned in security at Troezen in the enjoyment of no inglorious empire, of his own motion affected great actions, whereas the other, to escape present servitude and a punish- ment that threatened him (according to Plato’s phrase), grew valiant purely out of fear, and dreading the extremest inflic- tions, attempted great enterprises out of mere necessity. Again, his greatest action was only the killing of one king of Alba ; while, as mere by-adventures and preludes, the other can name Sciron, Sinnis, Procrustes, and Corynetes ; by reducing and killing of whom, he rid Greece of terrible oppressors, before any of them that were relieved knew who did it ; moreover, he might without any trouble as well have gone to Athens by sea, considering he himself never was in the least injured by those robbers ; whereas Romulus could not but be in trouble whilst Amulius lived. Add to this, the fact that Theseus, for no wrong done to himself, but for the sake of others, fell upon these villains ; but Romulus and Remus, as long as they themselves suffered no ill by the COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS. 63 tyrant, permitted him to oppress all others. And if it be a great thing to have been wounded in battle by the Sabines, to have killed king Acron, and to have conquered many enemies, we may oppose to these actions the battle with the Centaurs and the feats done against the Amazons. But what Theseus adventured, in offering himself voluntarily with young boys and virgins, as part of the tribute unto Crete, either to be a prey to a monster or a victim upon the tomb of Androgens, or, according to the mildest form of the stoiy, to live vilely and dishonorably in slavery to insulting and cruel men j it is not to be expressed what an act of courage, mag- nanimity, or justice to the public, or of love for honor and braver}^, that was. So that methinks the philosophers did not ill define love to be the provision of the gods for the care and preservation of the young ; for the love of Ariadne, above all, seems to have been the proper work and design of some god in order to preserve Theseus ; and, indeed, we ought not to blame her for loving him, but rather wonder all men and women were not alike affected towards him j and if she alone were so, truly I dare pronounce her worthy of the love of a god, who was herself so great a lover of virtue and goodness, and the bravest man. Both Theseus and Romulus were by nature meant for governors ; yet neither lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one into popularity, the other into tyranny, falling both into the same fault out of different passions. For a ruler’s first end is to maintain his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by observ- ing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other of pride and severity. If men’s calamities, again, are not to be wholly imputed to fortune, but refer themselves to differences of character, who will acquit either Theseus of rash and unreasonable anger against his son, or Romulus against his brother Look- ing at motives, we more easily excuse the anger wffiich a stronger cause, like a severer blow, provoked. Romulus, having disagreed with his brother advisedly and deliberately on puolic matters, one w'ould think could not on a sudden have b'ien put into so great a passion ; but love and jealousy and tie complaints of his wife, which few men can avoid being moved by, seduced Theseus to commit that outrage 64 COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH TPIESEUS. upon his son. And what is more, Romulus, in his anger, committed an action of unfortunate consequence ; but that of Theseus ended only in words, some evil speaking, and an old man’s curse ; the rest of the youth’s disasters seem to have proceeded from fortune ; so that so far, a man would give his vote on Theseus’s part. But Romulus has, first of all, one great plea, that his per* formances proceeded from very small beginnings ; for both the brothers being thought servants and the sons of swine- herds, before becoming freemen themselves, gave liberty to almost all the Latins, obtaining at once all the most honor- able titles, as destroyers of their country’s enemies, preservers of their friends and kindred, princes of the people, founders of cities, not removers, like Theseus, who raised and com- piled only one house out of many, demolishing many cities bearing the names of ancient kings and heroes. Romulus, indeed, did the same afterwards, forcing his enemies to deface and ruin their own dwellings, and to sojourn with their con- querors ; but at first, not by removal, or increase of an exist- ing city, but by foundation of a new one, he obtained himself lands, a country, a kingdom, wives, children, and relations. And, in so doing, he killed or destroyed nobody, but benefited, those that wanted houses and homes and were willing to be of a society and become citizens. Robbers and male- factors he slew not ; but he subdued nations, he overthrew cities, he triumphed over kings and commanders. As to Remus, it is doubtful by whose hand he fell ; it is generally imputed to others. His mother he clearly retrieved from death, and placed his grandfather, who was brought under base and dishonorable vassalage, on the ancient throne of ^neas, to whom he did voluntarily many good offices, but never did him harm even inadvertently. But Theseus, in his forgetfulness and neglect of the command concerning the flag, can scarcely, methinks, by any excuses, or before the most indulgent judges, avoid the imputation of parricide. And, indeed, one of the Attic writers, perceiving it to be very hard to make an excuse for this, feigns that ^Lgeus, at the ap- proach of the ship, running hastily to the Acropolis to see what news, slipped and fell down, as if he had no servants, or none would attend him on his way to the shore. And, indeed, the faults committed in the rapes of women admit of no plausible excuse in Theseus. First, because of the often repetition of the crime ; for he stole Ariadne, Anti- ope, Anaxo the Troezenian, at last Helen, when he was an COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS, 65 old man, and she not marriageable ; she a child, and he at an age past even lawful wedlock. Then, on account of the cause ; for the Troezenian, Lacedaemonian, and Amazonian virgins, beside that they were not betrothed to him, were not worthier to raise children by than the Athenian women, de- rived from Erechtheus and Cecrops ; but it is to be suspected these things were done out of wantonness and lust. Romu- lus^ when he had taken near eight hundred women, chose not all, but only Hersilia, as they say, for himself ; the rest he divided among the chief of the city ; and afterwards, by the respect and tenderness and justice shown towards them, he made it clear that this violence and injury was a commend- able and politic exploit to establish a society ; by which he intermixed and united both nations, and made it the fountain of after friendship and public stability. And to the reverence and love and constancy he established in matrimony, time can witness ; for in two hundred and thirty years, neither any husband deserted his wife, nor any wife her husband ; but, as the curious among the Greeks can name the first case of par- ricide or matricide, so the Romans all well know that Spurius Carvilius was the first who put away his wife, accusing her of barrenness. The immediate results were similar ; for upon those marriages the two princes shared in the dominion, and both nations fell under the same government. But from the marriages of Theseus proceeded nothing of friendship or cor- respondence for the advantage of commerce, but enmities and wars and the slaughter of citizens, and, at last, the loss of the city Aphidnae, when only out of the compassion of the enemy, whom they entreated and caressed like gods, they escaped suffering what Troy did by Pafis. Theseus^s mother, how- ever, was not only in danger, but suffered actually what Hecuba did^ deserted and neglected by her son, unless her captivity be not a fiction, as I could wish both that and other things were. The circumstances of the divine intervention, said to have preceded or accompanied their births, are also in contrast ; for Romulus was preserved by the special favor of the gods ; but the oracle given to^geus, commanding him to abstain, seems to demonstrate that the birth of Theseus was not agreeable to the will of the gods. e iLi 66 LYCURGUS. LYCURGUS. There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which his* torians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely any thing is asserted by one of them which is not called into question or contradicted by the rest. Their sen- timents are quite different as to the family he came of, the voyages he undertook, the place and manner of his death, but most of all when they speak of the laws he made and the commonwealth which he founded. They cannot, by any means, be brought to an agreement as to the very age in which he lived ; for some of them say that he flourished in the time of Iphitus, and that they two jointly contrived the ordinance for the cessation of arms during the solemnity of the Olympic games. Of this opinion was Aristotle ; and for confirmation of it, he alleges an inscription upon one of the copper quoits used in those sports, upon which the name of Lycurgus continued uneffaced to his time. But Eratosthenes and Apollodorus and other chronologers, computing the time by the successions of the Spartan kings, pretend to demon- strate that he was much more incient than the institution of the Olympic games. Timaeus conjectures that there were two of ^his name, and in diverse times, but that the one" of them being much more famous than the other, men gave to him the glory of the exploits of both ; the elder of the two, according to him, was not long after Homer ; and some are so particular as to say that he had seen him. But that he was of great antiquity may be gathered from a passage in Xenophon, where he makes him contemporary with the He- raclidas. By descent, indeed, the very last kings of Sparta were Heraclid^ too ; but he seems in that place to speak of the first and more immediate successors of Hercules. But notwithstanding this confusion and obscurity, we shall en- deavor to compose the history of his life, adhering to those St atements which are least contradicted, and depending upon those Authors who are most worthy of credit. The poet Simonides will have it that Lycurgus was the son of Prytanis, and not of Eunomus ; but in this opinion he is singular, for all the rest deduce the genealogy of them both ■ as follows : — LYCURGUS. 6r Aristodemus. I Patrocics. I Soils. I Eiirypon. I Eunomus. ^ Ml ^ Pplydectes by his Lycurgus by Dionassa first wife. his second. Dieuchidas says he was the sixth from Patrocles and the eleventh from Hercules. Be this as it will, Solis certainly was the most renowned of all his ancestors, under whose con- duct the Spartans made slaves of the Helots, and added to their dominions, by conquest, a good part of Arcadia. There goes a story of this king Solis, that, being besieged by the Clitorians in a dry and stony place so that he could come at no water, he was at last constrained to agree with them upon these terms, that he would restore to them all his conquests, provided that himself and all his men should drink of the nearest spring. After the usual oaths and ratifications, he called his soldiers together, and offered to him that would forbear drinking, his kingdom for a reward ; and when not a man of them was able to forbear, in short, when they had all drunk their fill, at last comes king Solis himself to the spring, and, having sprinkled his face only, without swallowing one drop, marches off in the face of his enemies, refusing to yield up his conquests, because himself and all his men had not, according to the articles, drunk of their water. Although he was justly had in admiration on this account, yet his family was not surnamed from him, but from his son Eurypon (of whom they were called Eurypontids) ; the reason of which was that Eurypon relaxed the rigor of the monarchy, seeking favor and popularity with the many. They, after this first step, grew bolder ; and the succeeding kings partly in- curred hatred with their people by trying to use force, or, for popularity's sake and through weakness, gave way ; and anar- chy and confusion long prevailed in Sparta, causing, moreover, the death of the father of Lycurgus. For as he was endeav- oring to quell a riot, he was stabbed with a butcher's knife, and left the title of king to his eldest son, Polydectes. He, too, dying soon after, the right of succession (as every one thought) rested in Lycurgus ; and reign he did. until \l 68 LYCURGUS. was found that the queen, his sister-in-law, was with child; upon which he immediately declared that the kingdom be- longed to her issue, provided it were male, and that he him- self exercised the regal jurisdiction only as his guardian ; the Spartan name for which office is prodicus. Soon after, an overture was made to him by the queen, that she would her- self in some way destroy the infant, upon condition that he would marry her when he came to the crown. Abhorring the woman^s wickedness, he nevertheless did not reject her pro- posal, but, making show of closing with her, despatched the messenger with thanks and expressions of joy, but dissuaded her earnestly from procuring herself to miscarry, which would impair her health, if not endanger her life ; he himself, he said, would see to it, that the child, as soon as born, should be taken out of the way. By such artifices having drawn on the woman to the time of her lying-in, as soon as he heard that she was in labor, he sent persons to be by and observe all that passed, with orders that if it were a girl they should de- liver it to the w^omen, but if a boy, should bring it to him wheresoever he were, and whatsoever doing. It so fell out that when he was at supper wdth the principal magistrates the queen w^as brought to bed of a boy, who was soon after pre- sented to him as he was at the table ; he, taking him into his arms, said to those about him, “ Men of Sparta, here is a king born unto us;’^ this said, he laid him down in the king’s place, and named him Charilaus, that is, the joy of the peo- ple ; because that all were transported with joy and with wonder at his noble and just spirit. His reign had lasted only eight months, but he was honored on other accounts by the citizens, and there were more who obeyed him because of his eminent virtues, than because he was regent to the king and had the royal power in his hands. Some, however, envied and sought to impede his growing influence while he w^as still young ; chiefly the kindred and friends of the queen-mother, who pretended to have been dealt with injuriously. Her brother Leonidas, in a warm debate which fell out betwixt him and Lycurgus, went so far as to tell him to his face that he was well assured that ere long he should see him king ; suggesting suspicions and preparing the way for an accusation of him, as though he had made away with his nephew, if the child should chance to fail, though by a natural death. Words of the like import were designedly cast abroad by the queen- mother and her adherents. Troubled at this, and not knowing what it might come to LYCURCUS. 69 he thought it his wisest course to avoid their envy by a volun- tary exile, and to travel from place to place until his nephew came to marriageable years, and, by having a son, had se- cured the succession ; setting sail, therefore, with this resolu- tion, he first arrived at Crete^ where, having considered their several forms of government, and got an acquaintance with the principal men amongst them, some of their laws he very much approved of, and resolved to make use of them in his own country ; a good part he rejected as useless. Amongst the persons there the most renowned for their learning and their wisdom in state matters w^as one Thales, whom Lycur- gus, by importunities and assurances of friendship, persuaded to go over to Lacedaemon ; where, though by his outward ap- pearance and his own profession he seemed to be no other than a lyric poet, in reality he performed the part of one of the ablest law-givers in the world. The very songs which he composed w'ere exhortations to obedience and concord, and the very measure and cadence of the verse, conveying im- pressions of order and tranquillity, had so great an influence on the minds of the listeners, that they w^ere insensibly soft- ened and civilized, insomuch that they renounced their pri- vate feuds and animosities, and were reunited in a common admiration of virtue. So that it may truly be said that Thales prepared the way for the discipline introduced by Lycurgus. From Crete he sailed to Asia, with design, as is said, to examine the difference betwixt the manners and rules of life of the Cretans, which were very sober and temperate, and those of the lonians, a people of sumptuous and delicate habits^ and so to form a judgment ; just as physicians do by comparing healthy and diseased bodies. Here he had the first sight of Homer’s works, in the hands, we may suppose, of the posterity of Creophylus ; and, having observed that the few loose expressions and actions of ill example which are to be found in his poems were much outweighed by serious lessous of state and rules of morality, he set himself eagerly to transcribe and digest them into order, as thinking they would be of good use in his own country. They had, indeed, already obtained some slight repute amongst the Greeks, and scattered portions, as chance conveyed them, were in the hands of individuals ; but Lycurgus first made them really known. The Eg}^ptians say that he took a voyage into EgyjDt, and that, being much taken with their way of separating the soh diery from the rest of the nation, he transferred it from them 70 LYCURGUS. to Sparta, a removal from contact with those employed in low and mechanical occupations giving high refinement and beauty to the state. Some Greek writers also record this. But as for his voyages into Spain, Africa, and the Indies, and hiS conferences there with the Gymnosophists, the whole re- lation, as far as I can find, rests on the single credit of the Spartan Aristocrates, the son of Hipparchus. Lycurgus was much missed at Sparta, and often sent for, “ for kings indeed we have,” they said, “ who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be dis- tinguished from their subjects ; ” adding, that in him alone was the true foundation of sovereignty to be seen, a nature made to rule, and a genius to gain obedience. Nor were the kings themselves averse to see him back, for they looked upon his presence as a bulwark against the insolence of the people. Things being in this posture at his return, he applied him- self, without loss of time, to a thorough reformation, and re- solved to change the whole face of the commonwealth ; for what could a few particular laws and a partial alteration avail ? He must act as wise physicians do, in the case of one who labors under a complication of diseases, by force of medicines reduce and exhaust him, change his whole temper- ament, and then set him upon a totally new regimen of diet. Having thus projected things, away he goes to Delphi to con- sult Apollo there ; which having done, and offered his sacri- fice, he returned with that renowned oracle, in which he is called beloved of God, and rather God than man ; that his prayers were heard, that his laws should be the best, and the commonwealth which observed them the most famous in the world. Encouraged by these things he set himself to bring over to his side the leading men of Sparta, exhorting them to give him a helping hand in his great undertaking ; he broke it first to his particular friends, and then by degrees gained others, and animated them all to put his design in execution. When things were ripe for action, he gave order to thirty of the principal men of Sparta to be ready armed at the market- place by break of day, to the end that he might strike a terror into the opposite party. Hermippus hath set down the names of twenty of the most eminent of them ; but the name of him whom Lycurgus most confided in, and who was of most use to him, both in making his laws and putting them in execu- tion was Arthmiadas. Things growing to a tumult, king Charilaus, apprehending that it was a conspiracy against his LYCURGUS. n person, took sanctuary in the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House ; but, being soon after undeceived, and having taken an oath of them that they had no designs against him, he quitted his refuge, and himself also entered into the confeder- acy with them ; of so gentle and flexible a disposition he wis, to which Archelaus, his brother-king, alluded, when, hearing him extolled for his goodness, he said, “Who can say he is any thing but good ? he is so even to the bad/’ Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycur- gus made, the first and of greatest importance was the es- tablishment of the senate, which having a power equal to the kings’ in matters of great consequence, and, as Plato express- es it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the ‘ royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth. For the state, which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the better, found in this es- tablishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium ; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy. As for the determinate number of twenty-eight, Aristotle states, that it so fell out because two of the original associates, for want of courage, fell off from the enterprise ; but Sphaerus assures us that there were but twenty-eight of the confederates at first ; perhaps there is some mystery in the number, which consists of seven multiplied by four, and is the first of perfect numbers after six, being, as that is, equal to all its parts. For my part, I believe Lycurgus fixed upon the num- ber of twenty-eight, that, the two kings being reckoned amongst them, they might be thirty in all. So eagerly set was he upon this establishment, that he took the trouble to obtain an oracle about it from Delphi, the Rhetra, which runs thus: “ After that you have built a temple to Jupiter Hella* nius, and to Minerva Hellania, and after that you have thyle' d the people into phyles^ and obdd them into obes^ you shall establish a council of thirty elders, the leaders included, and shall, from time to time, apdlazein the people betwixt Babyca and Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote, 'The commons have the final voice and decision.” By phylei and obes are meant the divisions of the people ; by tir: leaders^ the two kings ; apellazem^ referring to the Pythian Apollo, 72 lYCURGUS. signifies to assemble ; Babyca and Cnacion they now cal! CEnus ; Aristotle says Cnacion is a river, and Babyca a bridge. Betwixt this Babyca and Cnacion, their assemblies were held, for they had no council-house or building to meet in. Lycurgus was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their counsels, that they were rather an hinderance, by diverting their attention from the business before them to statutes and pictures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of such places amongst the other Greeks. The people then being thus assembled in the open air, it was not allowed to any one of their order to give his advice, but only either to ratify or reject what should be propounded to them by the king or senate. But because it fell out afterwards that the people, by adding or omitting words, distorted and perverted the sense of propositions, kings Polydorus and Theopompus inserted into the Rhetra, or grand covenant, the following clause : “ That if the people decide crookedly it should be lawful for the elders and leaders to dissolve ; ’’ that is to say, refuse ratification, and dismiss the people as depravers and perverters of their coun- sel. It passed among the people, by their management, as being equally authentic with the rest of the Rhetra, as appears by these verses of Tyrtaeus, — These oracles they from Apollo heard, And brought from Pytho home the perfect word : The heaven-appointed kings, who love the land. Shall foremost in the nation^s council stand ; The elders next to them ; the commons last ; Let a straight Rhetra among all be passed. Although Lycurgus had, in this manner, used all the qualifications possible in the constitution of his common- wealth, yet those who succeeded him found the oligarchical element still too strong and dominant, and to check its high temper and its violence, put, as Plato says, a bit in its mouth, which was the power of the ephori, established an hundred and thirty years after the death of Lycurgus. Elatus and his colleagues were the first who had this dignity con- ferred upon them in the reign of king Theopompus, who, when his queen upbraided him one day that he would leave the regal power to his children less than he had received it from his ancestors, said in answer, “ No, greater ; for it will last longer.’^ For, indeed, their prerogative being thus reduced within reasonable bounds, the Spartan kings were at once freed from all further jealousies and consequent danger, and LYCURGUrt. 73 never experienced the calamities of their neighbors at Mes- sene and Argos, who, by maintaining their prerogative too strictly, for want of yielding a little to the populace, lost it all. Indeed, whosoever shall look at the sedition and misgov* ernmen^ which befell these bordering nations to whom they were a5 near related in blood as situation, will find in them the best reason to admire the wisdom and foresight of Lycurgus. For these three states, in their first rise, were equal, or, if there were any odds, they lay on the side of the Messenians and Argives, who, in the first allotment, were thought to have been luckier than the Spartans ; yet was their happiness of but small continuance, partly the tyran- nical temper of their kings and partly the ungovernableness of the people quickly bringing upon them such disorders, and so complete an overthrow of all existing institutions, as clearly to show how truly divine a blessing the Spartans had had in that wise lawgiver who gave their government its happy balance and temper. But of this I shall say more in its due place. After the creation of the thirty senators, his next task, and, indeed, the most hazardous he ever undertook, was the making a new division of their lands. For there was an extreme inequality amongst them, and their state was over- loaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous persons, while its whole wealth had centred upon a very few. To the end, therefore, that he might expel from the state arrogance and envy, luxury and crime, and those yet more inveterate dis- eases of want and superfluity, he obtained of them to renounce their properties, and to consent to a new division of the land, and that they should live all together on an equal footing ; merit to be their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference between man and man. Upon their consent to these proposals, proceeding at once to put them into execution, he divided the country of Laconia in general into thirty thousand equal shares, and the part attached to the city of Sparta into nine thousand ; these he distributed among the Spartans, as he did the others to the country citizens. Some authors say that he made but six thousand lots for the citizens of Sparta, and that king Poly- dorus added three thousand more. Others say that Polydo- rus doubled the number Lycurgus had made, which, ac- cording to them, was but four thousand five hundred. A lot was so much as to yield, one year with another, abou^ 74 LYCURGUS. seventy bushels of grain for the master of the family, and twelve for his wife, with a suitable proportion of oil and wine. And this he thought sufficient to keep their bodies in good health and strength ; superfluities they were better without. It is reported, that, as he returned from a journey shortly after the division of the lands, in harvest time, the ground being newly reaped, seeing the stacks all standing equal and alike, he smiled, and said to those about him, Methinks all Laconia looks like one family estate just divided among a number of brothers/’ Not contented with this, he resolved to make a division of their movables too, that there might be no odious distinc- tion or inequality left amongst them ; but finding that it would be very dangerous to go about it openly, he took an- other course, and defeated their avarice by the following stratagem : he commanded that all gold and silver coin should be called in, and that only a sort of money made of iron should be current, a great weight and quantity of which was very little worth ; so that to lay up twenty or thirty pounds there was required a pretty large closet, and, to re- move it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. With the diffu- sion of this money, at once a number of vices were banished from Lacedaemon ; for who would rob another of such a coin ? Who would unjustly detain or take by force, or accept as a bribe, a thing which it was not easy to hide, nor a credit to have, nor indeed of any use to cut in pieces ? For when it was just red hot, they quenched it in vinegar, and by that means spoilt it, and made it almost incapable of being worked. In the next place, he declared an outlawry of all needless and superfluous arts ; but here he might almost have spared his proclamation ; for they of themselves would have gone after the gold and silver, the money which remained being not so proper payment for curious work ; for, being of iron, it was scarcely portable, neither, if they should take the means to export it, would it pass amongst the other Greeks, who ridiculed it. So there was now no more means of pur- chasing foreign goods and small wares ; merchants sent no shiploads into Laconian ports ; no rhetoric-master, no itiner- ant fortune-teller, no harlot-monger, or gold or silversmith, engraver, or jeweller, set foot in a country which had no money ; so that luxury, deprived little by little of that which fed and fomented it, wasted to nothing and died away of itself. For the rich had no advantage here over the poor, as their wealth and abundance had no road to come abroad by^ LYCURGUS. 7S but were shut up at home doing nothing. And in this way they became excellent artists in common, necessary things : bedsteads, chairs, and tables, and such like staple utensils in a family, were admirably well made there ; their cup, particularly, was very much in fashion, and eagerly bought up by soldiers, as Critias reports ; for its color was such as to pi event water, dunk upon necessity and disagreeable to look at, from beinsf noticed ; and the shape of it was such that the mud stuck to the sides, so that only the purer part came to the drinker’s mouth. For this, also, they had to thank their lawgiver, who, by relieving the artisans of the trouble of making useless things, set them to show their skill in giving beauty to those of daily and indispensable use. The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which he struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of riches, was the ordinance he made, that they should all eat in common, of the same bread and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and should not spend their lives at home, laid on costly couches at splendid tables, delivering themselves up into the hands of their trades- men and cooks, to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes, and to ruin not their minds only but their very bodies, which, enfeebled by indulgence and excess, would stand in need of long sleep, warm bathing, freedom from work, and, in a word, of as much care and attendance as if they were continually sick. It was certainly an extraordinary thing to have brought about such a result as this, but a greater yet to have taken away from wealth, as Theophrastus observes, not merely the property of being coveted, but its very nature of being wealth. For the rich, being obliged to go to the same table with the poor, could not make use of or enjoy their abundance, nor so much as please their vanity by looking at or displaying it. So that the common proverb, that Plutus, the god of riches, is blind, was nowhere in all the world literally verified but in Sparta. There, indeed, he was not only blind, but like a pic- ture, without either life or motion. Ilor were they allowed to take food at home first, and then attend the public tables, for every one had an eye upon those who did not eat and drink like the rest, and reproached them with being dainty and effeminate. This last ordinance in particular exasperated the wealthier men. They collected in a body against Lycurgus, and from ill words came to throwing stones, so that at length he was forced to run out of the market-place, and make to sanctuary 76 LYCURGUS. to save his life ; by good-hap he outran all, excepting one Al- cander, a young man otherwise not ill accomplished, but hasty and violent, who came up so close to him, that when he turned to see who was so near him, he struck him upon the face with his stick, and put out one of his eyes. Lycurgus, so far from being daunted and discouraged by this accident, stopped short and showed his disfigured face and eye beat out to his country- men ; they, dismayed and ashamed at the sight, delivered Al« cander into his hands to be punished, and escorted him home, with expressions of great concern for his ill usage. Lycurgus, havdng thanked them for their care of his person, dismissed them all, excepting only Alcander ; and, taking him with him into his house, neither did nor said any thing severely to him, but, dismissing those whose place it was, bade Alcander to wait upon him at table. The young man, who was of an in- genuous temper, without murmuring did as he was command- ed ; and being thus admitted to live with Lycurgus, he had an opportunity to observe in him, besides his gentleness and calm- ness of temper, an extraordinary sobriety and an indefatigable industry, and so, from an enemy, became one of his most zeal- ous admirers, and told his friends and relations that Lycurgus was not that morose and ill-natured man they had formerly taken him for, but the one mild and gentle character of the world. And thus did Lycurgus, for chastisement of his fault, make of a wild and passionate young man one of the dis- creetest citizens of Sparta. In memory of this accident, Lycurgus built a temple to Minerva, surnamed Optiletis ; oJfh'/ushQingthe Doric of these parts for ophthalmiis^ the eye. Some authors, however, of whom Dioscorides is one (who wrote a treatise on the com- monwealth of Sparta), say that he was wounded, indeed, but did not lose his eye with the blow ; and that he built the tem- ple in gratitude for the cure. Be this as it will, certain it is, that, after this misadventure, the Lacedaemonians made it a rule never to carry so much as a staff into their public assem- blies. But to return to their public repasts ; — these had several names in Greek ; the Cretans called a^idria^ because the men only came to them. The Lacedaemonians called them phiditia^ that is, by changing / into d^ the same as philitia^ love feasts, because that, by eating and drinking together, they had opportunity of making friends. Or perhaps from phido^ pa>" simony, because they were so many schools of sobriety \ or perhaps the first letter is an addition, and the word at first LYCURGUS. 77 was editia, from edode^ eating. They met by companies oi fifteen, more or less, and each of them stood bound to bring in monthly a bushel of meal, eight gallons of wine, five pounds of cheese, two pounds and a half of figs, and some very small sum of money to buy flesh or fish with. Besides this, when any of them made sacrifice to the gods, they always sent a dole to the common hall ; and, likewise, when any of then? had been a hunting, he sent thither a part of the venison, he h;id killed : for these two occasions were the only excuses al- lowed tor supping at home. The custom of eating together was observed strictly for a great while afterwards \ insomuch thai king Agis himself, after having vanquished the Atheni- ans, sending for his commons at his return home, because he desi.ed to eat privately with his .queen, was refused them by the polemarchs ; which refusal when he resented so lAuch as to omit next day the sacrifice due for a war happily ended, they made him pay a fine. They used to send their children to these tables as to schools of temperance ; here they were instructed in state affairs by listening to experienced statesmen ; here they learnt to converse with pleasantry, to make jests without scurrility, and take them without ill humor. In this point of good breeding, the Lacedaemonians excelled particularly, but if any * man were uneasy under it, upon the least hint given, there was no more to be said to him. It was customary also for the eldest man in the company to say to each of them, as they came in, “Through this’’ (pointing to the door), “no words go out.” When any one had a desire to be admitted into any of these little societies, he was to go through the following probation : each man in the company took a little ball of soft bread, which they were to throw into a deep basin, which a waiter carried round upon his head ; those that liked the per- son to be chosen dropped their ball into the basin without altering its figure, and those who disliked him pressed it be- twixt their fingers, and made it flat ; and this signified as much as a negative voice. And if there were but one of these flat- tened pieces in the basin, the suitor was rejected, so desirous were they that all the members of the company should be agreeable to each other. The basin was called caddichus^ and the rejected candidate had a name thence derived. Their most famous dish was the black broth, which was so much valued that the elderly men fed only upon that, leaving what flesh there was to the younger. They say that a certain king of Pontus, having heard much LYCURGUS. 7S of this black broth of theirs, sent for a Lacedaemonian cook on purpose to make him some, but had no sooner tasted it than he found it extremely bad, which the cook observing, told him, “ Sir, to make this broth relish, you should have bathed your- self first in the river Eurotas/’ After drinking moderatel)^, every man went to his home without lights, for the use of them vras, on all occasions, for- bid, to die end that they might accustom themselves to march boldly in the dark. Such was thecommon fashion of their meals. Lycurgus would never reduce his laws into writing; nay there is a Rhetra expressly to forbid it. For he thought that the most material points, and such as most directly tended to the public welfare, being imprinted on the hearts of their youth by a good discipline, would be sure to remain, and would find a Stronger security, than any compulsion would be, in the principles of action formed in them by their best lawgiver, education. And as for things of lesser importance, as pecu- niary contracts, and such like, the forms of which have to be changed as occasion requires, he thought it the best way to prescribe no positive rule or inviolable usage in such cases, willing that their manner and form should be altered accord- ing to the circumstances of time, and determinations of men of sound judgment. Every end and object of law and enactment it was his design education should effect. One, then, of the Rhetras was, that their laws should not be written ; another is particularly levelled against luxury and expensiveness, for by it it was ordained that the ceilings of their houses should only be wrought by the axe, and their gates and doors smoothed only by the saw. Epaminondas's famous dictum about his own table, that “Treason and a dinner like this do not keep company together,’^ may be said to have been anticipated by Lycurgus. Luxury and a house of this kind could not well be companions. For a man must have a less than ordinary share of sense that would furnish such plain and common rooms with silver-footed couches and purple coverlets and gold and silver plate. Doubtless he had good reason to think that they would proportion their beds to their houses, and their coverlets to their beds, and the rest of their goods and furniture to these. It is reported that king Leotychides, the first of that name, was so little used to the sight of any other kind of work, that, being enter- tained at Corinth in a stately room, he was much surprised to see the timber and ceiling so finely carved and panelled and asked his host whether the trees grew so in his country. LYCURGUS. 79 A third ordina.Qce or Rhetra was, that they should not make war often, or long, with the same enemy, lest that they should train and instruct them in war, by habituating them to defend themselves. And this is what Agesilaus was much blamed for, a long time after ; it being thought, that, by his continual incursions into Boeotia, he made the Thebans a match for the Lacedaemonians ; and therefore Antalcidas, seeing him wounded one day, said to him, that he was very well paid for taking such pains to make the Thebans good soldiers, whether they would or no. These laws were called the Rhetras, to intimate that they were divine sanctions and revelations. In order to the good education of their youth (which, as I said before, he thought the most important and noblest work of a lawgiver), he went so far back as to take into con- sideration their very conception and birth, by regulating their marriages. For Aristotle is wrong in saying, that, after he had tried all ways to reduce the women to more modesty and sobriety, he was at last forced to leave them as they were, because that in the absence of their husbands, who spent the best part of their lives in the wars, their wives, whom they were obliged to leave absolute mistresses at home, took great liberties and assumed the superiority ; and were treated with overmuch respect and called by the title of lady or queen. The truth is, he took in their case, also, all the care that was possible ; he ordered the maidens to exercise themselves with wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the end that the fruit they conceived might, in strong and healthy bodies, take firmer root and find better growth, and withal that they, with this greater vigor, might be the more able to undergo the pains of child-bearing. And to the end he might take away their over-great tenderness and fear of exposure to the air, and all acquired womanishness, he or- dered that the young women should go naked in the proces- sions, as well as the young men, and dance, too, in that con- dition, at certain solemn feasts, singing certain songs, whilst the young men stood around, seeing and hearing them. On these occasions, they now and then made, by jests, a befitting reflection upon those who had misbehaved themselves in the wars ; and again sang encomiums upon those who had done any gallant action, and by these means inspired the younger sort with an emulation of their glory. Those that were thus commended went away proud, elated, and gratified with their honor among the maidens ; and those who were rallied were 8o LYCURGUS. as sensibly touched with it as if they had been formally repri manded ; and so much the more, because the kings and the elders, as well as the rest of the city, saw and heard all that passed. Nor was there any thing shameful in this nakedness of the young women ; modesty attended them, and ail wan- tonness was excluded. It taught them simplicity and a care for good health, and gave them some taste of higher feelings, admitted as they thus were to the field of noble action and glory. Hence it was natural for them to think and speak as Gorgo, for example, the wife Leonidas, is said to have done, when some foreign lady, as it would seem, told her that the women of Lacedaemon were the only women in the world who could rule men; ‘‘With good reason,” she said, “for we are the only women who bring forth men,” These public processions of the maidens, and their ap- pearing naked in their exercises and dancings, were incite- ments to marriage, operating upon the young with the rigor and certainty, as Plato says, of love, if not of mathematics. But besides all this, to promote it yet more effectually, those who continued bachelors were in a degree disfranchised by law ; for they were excluded from the sight of those public processions in which the young men and maidens danced naked, and, in winter-time, the officers compelled them to march naked themselves round the market-place, singing as they went a certain song to their own disgrace, that they justly suffered this punishment for disobeying the laws. Moreover, they were denied that respect and observance which the younger men paid their elders ; and no man, for example, found fault with what was said to Dercyllidas, though so emi- nent a commander ; upon whose approach one day, a young man, instead of rising, retained his seat, remarking, “ No child of yours will make room for me.” In their marriages, the husband carried off his bride by a sort of force ; nor were their brides ever small and of tender years, but in their full bloom and ripeness. After this, she who superintended the wedding comes and clips the hair of the bride close round her head, dresses her up in man’s clothes, and leaves her upon a mattress in the dark ; after- wards comes the bridegroom, in his every-day clothes, sober and composed, as having supped at the common table, and, entering privately into the room where the bride lies, unties her virgin zone, and takes her to himself ; and, after staying some time together, he returns composedly to his own apart- merit, to sleep as usual with the other young men. And so LYCUR0US. 8i he continues to do, spending his days, and, indeed, his nights with them, visiting his bride in fear and shame, and with circumspection, when he thought he should not be observed ; she, also, on her part, using her wit to help and find favorable opportunities for their meeting, when company was out of the way. In this manner they lived a long time, insomuch that they sometimes had children by their wives before ever they saw their faces by daylight. Their interviews, being thus difficult and rare, served not only for continual exercise of their self-control, but brought them together with their bodies healthy and vigorous, and their affections fresh and lively, unsated and undulled by easy access and long con- tinuance with each other; while their partings were always early enough to leave behind unextinguished in each of them some remainder fire of longing and mutual delight. After guarding marriage with this modesty and reserve, he was equally careful to banish empty and womamsn jealousy. For this object, excluding all licentious disorders, he made it, nevertheless, honorable for men to give the use of their wives to those whom they should think fit, that so they might have children by them ; ridiculing those in whose opinion such fa- vors are so unfit for participation as to fight and shed blood and go to war about it. Lycurgus allowed a man who was advanced in years and had a young wife to recommend some virtuous and approved young man, that she might have a child by him, who might inherit the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On the other side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the well-favoredness of her children, might, without formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise, as it were, from this plot of good ground, worthy and well-allied children for himself. And indeed, Lycurgus was of a persuasion that children were not so much the prop- erty of their parents as of the whole commonwealth, and, therefore, would not have his citizens begot by the first- comers, but by the best men that could be found ; the laws of other nations seemed to him very absurd and inconsistent, where people, would be so solicitous for their dogs and horses as to exert interest and to pay money to procure fine breed- ing, and yet kept their wives shut up, to be made mothers only by themselves, who might be foolish, infirm, or diseased ; as if it were not apparent that children of a bad breed would prove their bad qualities first upon those who kept and were rearing them, and well-born children, in like manner, ih^ *2 LYGURGUS. good qualities. These regulations,- founded on natural and social grounds, were certainly so far from that scandalous liberty which was afterwards charged upon their women, that they knew not what adultery meant. It is told, for in- stance, of Geradas, a very ancient Spartan, that, being asked by a stranger what punishment their law had appointed for adulterers, he answered, There are no adulterers in our country.’^ “ But,’’ replied the stranger, “ suppose there were ? ” Then,” answered he, the offender would have to give the plaintiff a bull with a neck so long as that he might drink from the top of Taygetus of the Eurotas river below it.” The man, surprised at this, said, Why, ’tis im- possible to find such a bull.” Geradas smilingly replied, “ ’Tis as possible as to find an adulterer in Sparta.” So much I had to say of their marriages. Nor was it. in the power of the father to dispose of the child as he thought fit ; he was obliged to carry it before cer- tain triers at a place called Lesche ; these were some of the elders of the tribe to which the child belonged ; their busi- ness it was carefully to view the infant, and, if they found it stout and well made, they gave order for its rearing, and al- lotted to it one of the nine thousand shares of land above mentioned for its maintenance, but, if they found it puny and ill-shaped, ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetas, a sort of chasm under Taygetus ; as thinking it neither for the good of the child itself, nor for the public in- terest, that it should be brought up, if it did not, from the very outset, appear made to be healthy and vigorous. Upon the same account, the women did not bathe the new-born children with water, as is the custom in all other countries, but with wine, to prove the temper and complexion of their bodies ; from a notion they had that epileptic and weakly children faint and waste away upon their being thus bathed, while, on the contrary, those of a strong and vigorous habit acquire firmness and get a temper by it, like steel. There was much care and art, too, used by the nurses ; they had no swaddling bands ; the children grew up free and uncon- strained in limb and form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food ; not afraid in the dark, or of being left alone ; and without peevishness, or ill-humor or crying. Upon this account, Spartan nurses were often bought up, or hired by people of other countries ; and it is recorded that she who suckled Alcibiades was a Spartan ; who, however, if fortunate in his nurse, was not so in his preceptor ; his guardian, Peri- LYCURGUS. 83 cles, as Plato telfs us, chose a servant for that ofBce called Zopyrus, no better than any common slave. Lycurgus was of another mind ; he would not have mas- ters bought out of the market for his young Spartans, nor such as should sell their pains ; nor was it lawful, indeed, for the father himself to breed up the children after his own fancy ; but as soon as they were seven years old they were to be enrolled in certain companies and classes, where they all lived under the same order and discipline, doing their exer- cises and taking their play together. Of these, he who showed the most conduct and courage was made captain , they had their eyes always upon him, obeyed his orders, and underwent patiently whatsoever punishment he inflicted ; so that the whole course of their education was one continued exercise of a ready and perfect obedience. The old men, too, were spectators of their performances, and often raised quarrels and disputes among them, to have a good opportu- nity of finding out their different characters, and of seeing which would be valiant, which a coward, when they should come to more dangerous encounters. Reading and writing they gave them, just enough to serve their turn ; their chief care was to make them good subjects, and to teach them to endure pain and conquer in battle. To this end, as they grew in years, their discipline was proportionately increased; their heads were close-clipped, they were accustomed to go barefoot, and for the most part to play naked. After they were twelve years old, they were no longer al- lowed to wear any undergarment ; they had one coat to serve them a year; their bodies were hard and dry, with but little acquaintance of baths and unguents ; these human indul- gences they were allowed only on some few particular days in the year. They lodged together in little bands upon beds made of the rushes which grew by the banks of the river Eurotas, which they were to break off with their hands with- out a knife ; if it were winter, they mingled some thistle- down with their rushes, which it was thought had the prop- erty of giving warmth. By the time they were come to this age there was not any of the more hopeful boys who had not a lover to bear him company. The old men, too, had an eye upon them, coming often to the grounds to hear and see them contend either in wit or strength with one another, and this as seriously and with as much concern as if they were their fathers, their tutors, or their magistrates ; so that there scarcely was any time or place without some one present td 84 LYCURGUS. put them in mind of their duty, and punish them if they had neglected it. Besides all this, there was always one of the best and honestest men in the city appointed to undertake the charge and governance of them ; he again arranged them into their several bands, and set over each of them for their captain the most temperate and boldest of those they called Irens, who were usually twenty years old, two years out of the boys ; and the oldest of the boys, again, were Mell-Irens, as much as to say, who would shortly be men. This young man, therefore, was their captain when they fought and their mas- ter at home, using them for the offices of his house ; sending the eldest of them to fetch wood, and the weaker and less able, to gather salads and herbs, and these they must either go without or steal ; which they did by creeping into the gardens, or conveying themselves cunningly and closely into the eating-houses ; if they were taken in the fact, they were whipped without mercy, for thieving so ill and awkwardly They stole, too, all other meat they could lay thei-r hands on, looking out and watching all opportunities, when people were asleep or more careless than usual. If they were caught, they were not only punished with whipping, but hunger, too, being reduced to their ordinary allowance, which was but very slender, and so contrived on purpose, that they might set about to help themselves, and be forced to exercise their energy and address. This was the principal design of their hard fare ; there was another not inconsiderable, that they might grow taller ; for the vital spirits, not being overbur- dened and oppressed by too great a quantity of nourish- ment, which necessarily discharges itself into thickness and breadth, do, by their natural lightness, rise ; and the body, giving and yielding because it is plaint, grows in height. The same thing seems, also, to conduce to beauty of shape ; a dry and lean habit is a better subject for nature’s configuia* tiori, which the gross and over-fed are too heavy to submit to properly. Just as we find that women who take physic whilst they are with child, bear leaner and smaller but better- shaped and prettier children ; the material they come of having been more pliable and easily moulded. The reason, however, I leave others to determine. To return from whence we have digressed. So seriously did the Lacedaemonian children go about their stealing, that a youth, having stolen a young fox and hid it under his coat, suffered it to tear out his very bowels with its teeth and claw^ LYCURGUS. 8s and died upon the place, rather than let it be seen. What is practised to this very clay in Lacedaemon is enough to gain credit to this story, for I myself have seen several of the youths endure whipping to death at the foot of the altar of Diana surnamed Orthia. The Iren, or under-master, used to stay a little with them after supper, and one of them he bade to sing a song, to another he put a question which required an advised and de- liberate answer ; for example. Who was the best man in the city? What he thought of such an action of such a man? They used them thus early to pass a right judgment upon persons and things, and to inform themselves of the abilities or defects of their countrymen. If they had not an answer ready to the question. Who was a good or who an ill-reputed citizen, they were looked upon as of a dull and careless dis- position, and to have little or no sense of virtue and honor ; besides this, they were to give a good reason for what they said, and in as few words and as comprehensive as might be ; he that failed of this, or answered not to the purpose, had his thumb bit by the master. Sometimes the Iren did this in the presence of the old men and magistrates, that they might see whether he punished them justly and in due measure or not, and when he did amiss, they would not reprove him be- fore the boys, but, when they were gone, he was called to an account and underwent correction, if he had run far into either of the extremes of indulgence or severity. Their lovers and favorers, too, had a share in the young boy’s honor or disgrace ; and there goes a story that one of them was fined by the magistrate, because the lad whom he loved cried out effeminately as he was fighting. And though this sort of love was so approved among them, that the most virtuous matrons would make professions of it to young girls, yet rivalry did not exist, and if several men’s fancies met in one person, it was rather the beginning of an intimate friend- ship, whilst they all jointly conspired to render the object of their affection as accomplished as possible. They taught them, also, to speak with a natural and graceful raillery, and to comprehend much matter of thought in few words. For Lycurgus, who ordered, a® >e saw, that a great piece of money should be but of an inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and curious sense ; children in Sparta, by a habit of long silence, came to give just and sententious answers ; for, indeed, as 86 LYCURGUS. loose and incontinent livers are seldom fathers of many chil< dren, so loose and incontinent talkers seldom originate many sensible words. King Agis, when some Athenian laughed at their short swords, and said that the jugglers on the stage swallowed them with ease, answered him. “ We find them long enough to reach our enemies with ; ” and as their swords were short and sharp, so, it seems to me, were their sayings. Ihey reach the point and arrest the attention of the hearers better than any. Lycurgus himself seems to have been short and sententious, if we may trust the anecdotes of him ; as appears by his answer to one who by all means would set up a democracy in Lacedaemon. “ Begin, friend,’^ said he, ‘‘and set it up in your family.’’ Another asked him why he allowed of such mean and trivial sacrifices to the gods. He replied, “ That we may always have something to offer to them.” Being asked what sort of martial exercises or combats he ap- proved of, he answered, “ All sorts, except that in which you stretch out your hands.” Similar answers, addressed to his countrymen by letter, are ascribed to him ; as, being con- sulted how they might best oppose an invasion of their ene- mies, he returned this answer, “ By continuing poor, and not coveting each man to be greater than his fellow.” Being consulted again whether it were requisite to enclose the - city with a wall, he sent them word, “ The city is well fortified which hath a wall of men instead of brick.” But whether these letters are counterfeit or not is not easy to determine. Of their dislike to talkativeness, the following apophthegms are evidence. King Leonidas said to one who held him in discourse upon some useful matter, but not in due time and place, “ Much to the purpose. Sir, elsewhere.” King Chari- laus, the nephew of Lycurgus, being asked why his uncle had made so few laws, answered, “ Men of few words require but few laws.” When one blamed Hecataeus the sophist, because that, being invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time, Archidamidas answered in his vindica- tion, “ He who knows how to speak, knows also when” The sharp and yet not ungraceful retorts which I men > tioned may be instanced as follows. Demaratus, being asked in a troubiebCme manner by an importunate fellow. Who was the best man in Lacedaemon ? answered at last, “ He, Sir, that is the least like you.” Some, in company where Agis was, much extolled the Eleans for their just and honorable management of the Olympic games ; “ Indeed,” said Agis, “ they are highly to be commended if they can do justice on€ LYCURGUS. 87 day in five years.” Theopompus answered a stranger wtio talked much of his affection to the Lacedaemonians, and said that his countrymen called him Philolacon (a lover of the Lacedaemonians), that it had been more for his honor if they had called him Philopolites (a lover of his own countrymen). And Plistoanax, the son of Pausanias, when an orator oi Athens said the Lacedaemonians had no learning, told him, You say true. Sir ; we alone of all the Greeks have learned none of your bad qualities.” One asked Archidamidas what number there might be ''of the Spartans, he answered: “ Enough, Sir, to keep out wicked men.” We may see their character, too, in their very jests. For they did not throw them out at random, but the very wit of them was grounded upon something or other worth thinking about. For instance, one, being asked to go hear a man who exactly counterfeited the voice of a nightingale, answered, ‘‘ Sir, I have heard the nightingale itself.” Another, having read the following inscription upon a tomb. Seeking to quench a cruel tyranny, They, at Selinus, did in battle die, said, it served them right ; for instead of trying to quench the tyranny, they should have let it burn out. A lad, being offered some game-cocks that would die upon the spot, said that he cared not for cocks that would die, but for such that would live and kill others. Another, seeing people easing themselves on seats, said, “ God forbid I should sit where I could not get up to salute my elders.” In short, their an- swers were so sententious and pertinent, that one said well that intellectual much more truly than athletic exercise was the Spartan characteristic. Nor was their instruction in music and verse less carefully attended to than their habits of grace and good-breeding in conversation. And their very songs had a life and spirit in them that inflamed and possessed men^s minds with an enthu- jsiasm and ardor for action ; the style of them was plain and ' /;j.thout affectation ; the subject always serious and moral ; most usually, it was in praise of such men as had died in de- fence of their country, or in derision of those that had been cowards ; the former they declared happy and glorified ; the life of the latter they described as most miserable and abject. There were also vaunts of what they would do, and boasts of what they had done, varying with the various ages, as, for example, they had three choirs in their solemn festivals, the 88 LYCURGUS. first of the old men, the second of the young men, and the last of the children ; the old men began thus : We once were young, and brave, and strong; the young men answered them, singing : And we're so now, come on and try ; the children came last and said, But we'll be strongest by and by. Indeed, if we will take the pains to consider their com* positions, some of which were still extant in our days, and the airs on the flute to which they marched when going to battle, we shall find that Terpander and Pindar had reason to say that musing and valor were allied. The first says of Lacedaemon — The spear and song in her do meet. And Justice walks about her street ; And Pindar — Councils of wise elders here, And the young men's conquering spear. And dance, and song, and joy appear ; both describing the Spartans as no less musical than war- like ; in the words of one of their own poets — With the iron stern and sharp. Comes the playing on the harp. For, indeed, before they engaged in battle, the king first did sacrifice to the Muses, in all likelihood to put them in mind of the manner of their education, and of the judgment that would be passed upon their actions, and thereby to ani- mate them to the performance of exploits that should deserve a record. At such times, too, the Lacedaemonians abated a little the severity of their manners in favor of iheir young men, suffering them to curl and adorn their hair, and to have costly arms, and fine clothes ; and were well pleased to see them, like proud horses, neighing and pressing to the course. And, therefore, as soon as they came to be well-grown, they took a great deal of care of their hair, to have it parted and trimmed, especially against a day of battle, pursuant to a saying recorded of their lawgiver, that a large head of hair added beauty to a good face, and terror to an ugly one. When they were in the field, their exercises were generally more moderate, their fare not so hard, nor so strict a hani LYCURGUS. 89 held over them by their officers, so that they were the only people in the world to whom war gave repose. When their army was drawn up in battle array, and the enemy near, the king sacrificed a goat, commanded the soldiers to set their garlands upon their heads, and the pipers to play the tune of the hymn to Castor, and himself began the paean of advance. It was at once a magnificent and a terrible sight to see them march on to the tune of their flutes, without any disorder in their ranks, any discomposure in their minds, or change in their countenances, calmly and cheerfully moving with toe music to the deadly fight. Men, in this temper, were not likely to be possessed with fear or any transport of fury, but with the deliberate valor of hope and assurance, as if some divinity were attending and conducting them. The king had always about his person some one who had been crowned in the Olympic games ; and upon this account a Lace- daemonian is said to have refused a considerable present, which was offered to him upon condition that he would not come into the lists ; and when he had with much to-do thrown his antagonist, some of the spectators saying to him, ‘‘ And now, Sir Lacedaemonian, what are you the better for your victory ? ’’ he answered, smiling, I shall fight next the king.’’ After they had routed an enemy, they pursued him till they were well assured of the victory, and then they sounded a re- treat, thinking it base and unworthy of a Grecian people to cut men in pieces, who had given up and abandoned all re- sistance. This manner of dealing with their enemies did not only show magnanimity, but was politic too ; for, knowing that they killed only those who made resistance, and gave quarter to the rest, men generally thought it their best way to consult their safety by flight. Hippius the sophist says that Lycurgus himself was a great soldier and an experienced commander. Philostephanus at- tributes to him the first division of the cavalry into troops of fifties in a square body ; but Demetrius the Phaleriari says quite the contrary, and that he made all his laws in a con- tinued peace. And, indeed, the Olympic holy truce, or ces- sation of arms, that was procured by his means and manage- ment, inclines me to think him a kind-natured man, and one that loved quietness and peace. Notwithstanding all this, Hermippus tells us that he had no hand in the ordinance , that Iphitus made it, and l>ycurgus came only as a spectator, and that by mere accident too. Being there, he heard as ii were a man’s voice behind him, blaming and wondering ai 90 LYCURGUS. him that he did not encourage his countr}^men to resort to the assembly, and, turning about and seeing no man, concluded that it was a voice from heaven, and upon this immediately went to Iphitus and assisted him in ordering the ceremonies of that feast, which, by his means, were better established, and with more repute than before. To return to the Lacedaemonians. Their discipline con- tinued still after they were full-grown men. No one was al- lowed to live after his own fancy ; but the city was a sort of camp, in which every man had his share of provisions and business set out, and looked upon himself not so much born to serve his own ends as the interest of his country. There- fore if they were commanded nothing else, they went to see the boys perform their exercises, to teach them something use- ful or to learn it themselves of those who knew better. And indeed one of the greatest and highest blessings Lycurgus pro- cured his people was the abundance of leisure which pro- ceeded from his forbidding to them the exercise of any mean tnd mechanical trade. Of the money-making that depends jn troublesome going about and seeing people and doing i’usiness, they had no need at all in a state where wealth ob- tained no honor or respect. The Helots tilled their ground Cor them, and paid them yearly in kind the appointed quandty, Afithout any trouble of theirs. To this purpose there goes a story of a Lacedaemonian who, happening to be at Athens when the courts were sitting, was told of a citizen that had been £ned for living an idle life, and was being escorted home in much distress of mind by his condoling friends ; the Lacedaemonian was much surprised at it and desired his friend to show him the man who was condemned for living like a freeman. Sc much beneath them did they esteem the frivolous devotion of time and attention to the mechanical arts and to money-making. It need not be said that upon the prohibition of gold and silver, all lawsuits immediately ceased, for there was now neither avarice nor poverty amongst them, but equality, where every one’s wants were supplied, and independence, because those wants were so small. All their time, except when they were in the field, was taken up by the choral dances and th« festivals, in hunting, and in attendance on the exercise- grounds and the places of public conversation. Those who were under thirty years of age were not allowed to go into the market-place, but had the necessaries of their family supplied by the care of their relations and lovers j nor was it for the LYCURGUS. 9 * credit of elderly men to be seen too often in the market-place ; it was esteemed more suitable for them to frequent the exer- cise-grounds and places of conversation, where they spent their leisure rationally in conversation, not on money-making and market-prices, but for the most part iu passing judgment on some action worth considering ; extolling the good, and censuring those who were otherwise, and that in a light and sportive manner, conveying, without too much gravity, h ssons •of advice and improvement. Nor was Lycurgus himself un- duly austere ; it was he who dedicated, says Sosibius, the little statue of Laughter. Mirth, introduced seasonably at their suppers and places of common entertainment, was to serve as a sort of sweetmeat to accompany their strict and hard life. To conclude, he bred up his citizens in such a way that they neither would or could live by themselves ; they were to make themselves one with the public good, and, clustering like bees around their commander, be by their zeal and public spirit carried all but out of themselves, and devoted wholly to their country. What their sentiments were will better appear by a few of their sayings. Pcedaretus, not being admitted into the list of the three hundred, returned home with a joyful face, well pleased to find that there were in Sparta three hun- dred better men than himself. And Polycratidas, being sent with some others ambassador to the lieutenants of the king of Persia, being asked by them whether they came in a private or in a public character, answered, “In a public, if we succeed j if not, in a private character.’’ Argileoni^j, asking some who came from Amphipolis if her son Brasidas died courageously and as became a Spartan, on their beginning to praise him to a high degree, and saying there was not such another left in Sparta, answered, “ Do not say so ; Brasidas was a good and brave man, but there are in Sparta many bet- ter than he.” The senate, as I said before, consisted of those who were Lycurgus’s chief aiders and assistants in his plans. The vacancies he ordered to be supplied out of the best and most deserving men past sixty years old, and we need not wonder if there was much striving for it ; for what more glorious com- petition could there be amongst men, than one in which it was not contested who was swiftest among the swift or strongest of the strong, but who of many wise and good was wisest and best, and fittest to be intrusted for ever after, as the reward of his merits, with the supreme authority of the common- wealth, and Mith power over the lives, franchises, and highest 92 LYCURGUS. interests of all his countrymen ? The manner of their elec- tion was as follows : the people being called together, some selected persons were locked up in a room near the place of election, so contrived that they could neither see nor be seen, but could only hear the noise of the assembly without; for they decided this, as most other affairs of moment, by the shouts of the people. This done, the competitors were not brought in and presented all together, but one after another by lot, and passed in order through the assembly without speaking a word. Those who were locked up had writing - tables with them, in which they recorded and marked each shout by its loudness, without knowing in favor of which can didate each of them was made, but merely that they came first, second, third, and so forth. He who was found to have the most and loudest acclamations was declared senator duly elected. Upon this he had a garland set upon his head, and went in procession to all the temples to give thanks to the gods j a great number of young men followed him with ap- plauses, and women, also, singing verses in his honor, and extolling the virtue and happiness of his life. As he went round the city in this manner, each of his relations and friends set a table before him, saying, “ The city honors you with this banquet ; but he, instead of accepting, passed round to the common table where he formerly used to eat, and was served as before, excepting that now he had a sec- ond allowance, which he took and put by. By the time sup- per was ended, the women who were of kin to him had come about the door ; and he, beckoning to her whom he most es- teemed, presented to her the portion he had saved, saying, that it had been a mark of esteem to him, and was so now to her ; upon which she was triumphantly waited upon home by the women. Touching burials, Lycurgus made very wise regulations ; for, first of all, to cut off all superstition, he allowed them to bury .heir dead within the city, and even round about their temples, to the end that their youth might be accustomed to such spectacles, and not be afraid to see a dead body, or im- agine that to touch a corpse or to tread upon a grave would defile a man. In the next place, he commanded them to put nothing into the ground with them, except if they pleased, a few olive leaves, and the scarlet cloth that they were wrapped in. He would not suffer the names to be inscribed, except only of men who fell in the wars, or women who died in a sacred office. The time, too, appointed for mourning, was LTCURGUS. 93 very short, eleven days ; on the twelfth, they were to do sacri- fice to Ceres, and leave it off ; so that we may see, that as he cut off all superfluity, so in things necessary there was nothing so small and trivial which did not express some hom- age of virtue or scorn of vice. He filled Lacedaemon all through with proofs and examples of good conduct ; with the constant sight of which from their youth up, the people would hardly fail to be gradually formed and advanced in virtue. And this was the reason w'hy he forbade them to travc 1 Abroad, and go about acquainting themselves with foreign rulers of morality, the habits of ill-educated people, and dif- ferent views of government. Withal he banished from Lace- daemon all strangers who would not give a very good reason for their coming thither ; not because he was afraid lest they should inform themselves of and imitate his manner of gov- ernment (as Thucydides says), or learn any thing to their good ; but rather lest they should introduce something con- trary'- to good manners. With strange people, strange words must be admitted ; these novelties produce novelties in thought ; and on these follow views and feelings whose dis- cordant character destroys the harmony of the state. He was as careful to save his city from the infection of foreign bad habits, as men usually are to prevent the introduction of a pestilence. Hitherto I, for my part, see no sign of injustice or want of equity in the laws of Lycurgus, though some who admit them to be well contrived to make good soldiers, pronounce them defective in point of justice. The Cryptia, perhaps (if it were one of Lycurgus’s ordinances, as Aristotle says it was), gave both him and Plato, too, this opinion alike of the lawgiver and his government. By this ordinance, the magistrates de- spatched privately some of the ablest of the young men into the country, from time to time, armed only with their daggers, and taking a little necessary provision with them ; in the daytime, they hid themselves in out-of-the-way places, and there lay close, but, in the night issued out into the highways, and killed all the Helots they could light upon ; sometimes they set upon them by day, as they were at work in the fields, and murdered them. As, also, Thucydides, in his history of the Peloponnesian war, tells us, that a good number of them, after being singled out for their bravery by the Spartans, gar- landed, as enfranchised persons, and led about to all the temples in token of honors, shortly after disappeared all of a sudden, being about the number of two thousand ; and nc 94 LYCURGUS. man either then or since could give an account how they came by their deaths. And Aristotle, in particular, adds, that the ephori, so soon as they were entered into their office, used to declare war against them, that they might be massa- cred without a breach of religion. It is confessed, on all hands, that the Spartans dealt with them very hardly ; for it was a common thing to force them to drink to excess, and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is ; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs, forbid ding them expressly to meddle with any of a better kind And accordingly, when the Thebans made their invasion into Laconia, and took a great number of the Helots, they could by no means persuade them to sing the verses of Terpander, Aleman, or Spendon, “ For,^’ said they, “ the masters do not like it.’^ So that it was truly observed by one, that in Sparta he who was free was most so, and he that was a slave there, the greatest slave in the w^orld. For my part, I am of opin- ion that these outrages and cruelties began to be exercised in Sparta at a later time, especially after the great earthquake, when the Helots made a general insurrection, and, joining wath the Messenians, laid the country waste, and brought the greatest danger upon the city. For 1 cannot persuade myself to ascribe to Lycurgus so wicked and barbarous a course, judging of him from the gentleness of his disposition and jus- tice upon all other occasions ; to which the oracle also testi- fied. When he perceived that his more important institutions had taken root in the minds of his countrymen, that custom had rendered them familiar and easy, that his commonwealth was now grown up and able to go alone, then, as Plato some- where tells us, the Maker of the world, when first he saw it existing and beginning its motion, felt joy, even so Lycurgus, viewing with joy and satisfaction the greatness and beauty of his political structure, now fairly at work and in motion, con- ceived the thought to make it immortal too, and, as far as human forecast could reach, to deliver it down unchangeable to posterity. He called an extraordinary assembly of all the people, and told them that he now thought every thing reason- ably well established, both for the happiness and the virtue of the state ; but that there was one thing still behind, of the greatest importance, which he thought not fit to impart untiJ. he had consulted the oracle ; in the mean time, his desire was that they would observe the laws without any the least LYCUKGUS 95 alteration until his return, and then he would do as the god should direct him. They all consented readily, and bade him hasten his journey ; but, before he departed, he administered an oath to the two kings, the senate, and the whole commons, to abide by and maintain the established form of polity until Lycurgus should be come back. This done, he set out foi Delphi, and, having sacrificed to Apollo, asked him whether the laws he had established were good, and sufficient for a people’s happiness and virtue. The oracle answered that the laws were excellent, and that the people, while it observed them, should live in the height of renown. Lycurgus took the oracle in writing, and sent it over to Sparta ; and, having sacrificed the second time to Apollo, and taken leave of his friends and his son, he resolved that the Spartans should not be released from the oath they had taken, and that he would, of his own act, close his life where he was. He was now about that age in which life was still tolerable, and yet might be quitted without regret. Every thing, moreover, about him was in a sufficiently prosperous condition. He therefore made an end of himself by a total abstinence from food, thinking it a statesman’s duty to make his very death, if pos- sible, an act of service to the state, and even in the end of his life to give some example of virtue and effect some useful purpose. He would, on the one hand, crown and consummate his own happiness by a death suitable to so honorable a life, and, on the other hand, would secure to his countrymen the enjoyment of the advantages he had spent ids life in obtain- ing for them, since they had solemnly sworn the maintenance of his institutions until his return. Nor was he deceived in his expectations, for the city of Lacedaemon continued the chief city of all Greece for the space of five hundred years, in strict observance of Lycurgus’s laws ; in all which time there was no manner of alteration made, during the reign of four- teen kings down to the time of Agis, the son of Archidamus. For the new creation of the ephori, though thought to be in favor of the people, was so far from diminishing, that it very much heightened, the aristocratical character of the govern- ment. In the time of Agis, gold and silver first flowed into Sparta, and with them all those mischiefs which attend the immoder- ate desire of riches. Lysander promoted this disorder ; for by bringing in rich spoils from the wars, although himself in- corrupt, he yet by this means filled his country with avarice and luxury, and subverted the laws and ordinances of Lycur 96 LYCURGUS. gus ; SO long as which were in force, the aspect presented by Sparta was rather that of a rule of life followed by one wise and temperate man, than of the political government of a nation. And as the poets feign of Hercules, that, with his lion’s skin and his club, he went over the world, punishing lawless and cruel tyrants, so may it be said of the Lacedae^ monians, that, with a common staff and a coarse coat, they gained the willing and joyful obedience of Greece, through whose whole extent they suppressed unjust usurpations and despotisms, arbitrated in war, and composed civil dissem sions ; and this often without so much as taking down one buckler, but barely by sending some one single deputy to whose direction all at once submitted, like bees swarming and taking their places around their prince. Such a fund of order and equity, enough and to spare for others, existed in their state. And therefore I cannot but wonder at those who say thal the Spartans were good subjects, but bad governors, and for proof of it allege a saying of king Theopompus, who, when one said that Sparta held up so long because their kings could command so well, replied, “ Nay, rather because the people know so well how to obey.” For people do not obey, unless rulers know how to command ; obedience is a lesson taught by commanders. A true leader himself creates the obedience of his own followers ; as it is the last attainment in the art of riding to make a horse gentle and tractable, so is it of the science of government, to inspire men with a wil- lingness to obey. The Lacedaemonians inspired men not with' a mere willingness, but with an absolute desire to be their subjects. For they did not send petitions to them for ships or money, or a supply of armed men, but only for a Spartan commander ; and, having obtained one, used him with honor and reverence ; so the Sicilians behaved to Gylippus, the Chalcidians to Brasidas, and all the Greeks in Asia to Ly- Sander, Callicratidas, and Agesilaus ; they styled them the composers and chasteners of each people or prince they were sent to, and had their eyes always fixed upon the city of Sparta itself, as the perfect model of good manners and wise government. The rest seemed as scholars, they the masters of Greece ; and to this Stratonicus pleasantly alluded, when in jest he pretended to make a law that the Athenians should conduct religious processions and the mysteries, the Eleans should preside at the Olympic games, and, if either did amiss, the Lacedaemonians be beaten. Antisthenes, too, one of the LYCURGUS. 97 scholars of Socrates, said, in earnest, of the Thebans, when they were elated by their victory at Leuctra, that they looked like schoolboys who had beaten their master. However, it was not the design of Lycurgus that his city should govern a great many others ; he thought rather that the happiness of a state, as a private man, consisted chiefly in the exercise of \ irtue, and in the concord of the inhabi- tants ; his aim, therefore, in all his arrangements, was to make and keep them free-minded, self-dependent, and temperate. And therefore all those who have written well on politics, as Plato, Diogenes, and Zeno, have taken Lycurgus for their model, leaving behind* them, however, mere projects and words ; whereas Lycurgus was the author, not in writing but in reality, of a government which none else could so much as copy ; and while men in general have treated the individual philosophic character as unattainable, he, by the example of a complete philosophic state, raised himself high above all other lawgivers of Greece. And so Aristotle says they did him less honor at Lacedaemon after his death than he deserved, although he has a temple there, and they offer sacrifices yearly to him as to a god. It is reported that when his bones were brought home to Sparta his tomb was struck with lightning, an accident which befell no eminent person but himself and Euripides, who was buried at Arethusa in Macedonia ; and it may serve that poet^s admirers as a testimony in his favor, that he had in this the same fate with that holy man and favorite of the gods. Some say Lycurgus died in Cirrha ; Apollothemis says, after he had come to Elis ; Timaeus and Aristoxenus, that he end- ed his life in Crete ; Aristoxenus adds that his tomb is shown by the Cretans in the district of Pergamus, near the strangers’ road. He left an only son, Antiorus, on whose death without issue his family became extinct. But his relations and friends kept up an annual commemoration of him down to a long time after ;-and the days of the meeting were called Lycur- gides. Aristocrates, the son of Hipparchus, says that he died in Crete, and that his Cretan friends, in accordance with his own request, when they had burned his body, scattered the ashes into the sea ; for fear lest, if his relics should be trans- ported to Lacedaemon, the people might pretend to be re- leased from their oaths, and make innovations in the govern- ment. Thus much may suffice for the life and actions of Lycurgus. 7 98 NUMA POMPILIUS. NUMA POMPILIUS. Though the pedigrees of noble families of R(>me go back in exact form as far as Numa Pompilius, yet there is great diversity amongst historians concerning the time in which he reigned ; a certain writer called Clodius, in a book of his entitled Strictures on Chronology, avers that the an* cient registers of Rome were lost when the city was sacked by the Gauls, and that those which are now extant were counterfeited, to flatter and serve the humor of some men who wished to have themselves derived from some ancient and noble lineage, though in reality with no claim to it. And though it be commonly reported that Numa was a scholar and a familiar acquaintance of Pythagoras, yet it is again contradicted by others, who affirm, that he was ac- quainted with neither the Greek language nor learning, and that he was a person of that natural talent and ability as of himself to attain to virtue, or else that he found some bar- barian instructor superior to Pythagoras. Some affirm, also, that Pythagoras was not contemporary with Numa, but lived at least five generations after him ; and that some other Pythagoras, a native of Sparta, who, in the sixteenth Olym- piad, in the third year of which Numa became king, won a prize at the Olympic race, might, in his travel through Italy, have gained acquaintance with Numa, and assisted him in the constitution of his kingdom ; whence it comes that many Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman in- stitutions. Yet, in any case, Numa w^as descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony of the Lace- daemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain ; es- pecially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games, which were published at a late period by Plippias the Elean, and rest on no positive authority. Commencing, how- ever, at a convenient point, we will proceed to give the most noticeable events that are recorded of the life of Numa. It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the founda- tion of Rome, when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month of July, called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the Goat^s Marsh, in presence of the sen- ate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky was darkened, a NUMA POMPtLIUb. 99 thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth ; the com- mon people fled in affright, and were dispersed ; and in this whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found either living or dead. A foul suspicion presently attached to the patricians, and rumors were current among the people as if that they, weary of kindly government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of Romulus towards them, had plotted against his life and made him away, that so the\ might assume the authority and government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decree® ing divine honors to Romulus, as to one not dead but trans- lated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name of Quirinus. This trouble, being appeased, was followed by another, about the election of a new king ; for the minds of the origh nal Romans and the new inhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of temper, but that there were diversi- ties of factions amongst the commonalty, and jealousies and emulations amongst the senators ; for though all agreed that it was necessary to have a king, yet what person or of which nation, was matter of dispute. For those who had been builders of the city with Romulus, and had already yielded a share of their lands and dwellings to the Sabines, were indig- nant at any pretension on their part to rule over their bene- factors. On the other side, the Sabines could plausibly allege, that, at their king Tatius’s decease, they had peaceably sub- mitted to the sole command of Romulus ; so now their turn was come to have a king chosen out of their own nation ; nor did they esteem themselves to have combined with the Ro- mans as inferiors, nor to have contributed less than they to the increase of Rome, which, without their numbers and asso- ciation, could scarcely have merited the name of a city. Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause ; but lest meanwhile discord, in the absence of all command, should occasion general confusion, it was agreed that the hundied and fifty senators should interchangeably execute the office of supreme magistrate, and each in succession, with the ensigns of royalty, should offer the solemn sacrifices and despatch public business for the space of six hours by day and six by night ; which vicissitude and equal distribution of power would preclude all rivalry amongst the senators and envy from the people, when they should behold one, -plev^ited to roo NUMA POMPILIUS. the degree of a king, levelled within the space of a day to the condition of a private citizen. This form of government is termed, by the Romans, interregnum. Nor yet could they, by this plausible and modest way of rule, escape suspicion and clamor of the vulgar, as though they were changing the form of government to an oligarchy, and designing to keep the supreme power in a sort of wardship under themselveSj without ever proceeding to choose a king. Both parties came at length to the conclusion that the one should choose a king out of the body of the other ; the Romans make choice of a Sabine, or the Sabines name a Roman ; this was esteemed vhe best expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince who should be chosen would have an equal affection ^o the one party as his electors and to the other as his kins- men. The Sabines remitted the choice to the original Ro- mans, and they, too, on their part, were more inclinable to receive a Sabine king elected by themselves than to see a Roman exalted by the Sabines. Consultations being accord- ''ngly held, they named Numa Pompilius, of the Sabine race, H person of that high reputation for excellence, that, though Ve were not actually residing at Rome, yet he was no sooner nominated than accepted by the Sabines, with acclamation almost greater than that of the electors themselves. The choice being declared and made known to the people; principal men of both parties were appointed to visit and en- treat him, that he would accept the administration of the govornment. Numa resided at a famous city of the Sabines called Cures, whence the Romans and Sabines gave them- selve.i the joint name of Quirites. Pomponius, an illustrious persoa, was his father, and he the youngest of his four sons, being (as it had been divinely ordered) born on the twenty- first day of April, the day of the foundation of Rome. He was endued with a soul rarely tempered by nature, and dis- posed to virtue, which he had yet more subdued by discipline, a severe life, and the study of philosophy ; means which had not only succeeded in expelling the baser passions, but also the violent and rapacious temper which barbarians are apt to think highly of ; true bravery, in his judgment, was regarded as consisting in the subjugation of our passions by reason. He banished all luxury and softness from his own home, and while citizens alike and strangers found in him an incor- ruptible judge and counsellor, in private he devoted himself not to amusement or lucre, but to the worship of the immor- tal gods, and rational contemplation of their divine power NUMA POMPILIUS. lOI and nature. So famous was he, that Tatius, the colleague ot Romulus, chose him for his son-in-law, and gave him his only daughter, which, however, did not stimulate his vanity to desire to dwell with his father-in-law at Rome ; he rather chose to inhabit with his Sabines, and cherish his own father in his old age ; and Tatia, also, preferred the private condi- tion of her husband before the honors and splendor she might have enjoyed with her father. She is said to have died after she had been married thirteen years, and then Numa, leaving the conversation of the town, betook himself to a country life, and in a solitary manner frequented the groves and fields consecrated to the gods, passing his life in desert places. And this in particular gave occasion to the story about the goddess, namely, that Numa did not retire from human socie- ty out of any melancholy or disorder of mind, but because he had tasted the joys of more elevated intercourse, and, admit- ted to celestial wedlock in the love and converse of the god^ dess Egeria, had attained to blessedness, and to a divine wisdom. The story evidently resembles those very ancient fables which the Phrygians have received and still recount of Attis, the Bithynians of Herodotus, the Arcadians of Endymion, not to mention several others who were thought blessed and be- loved of the gods ; nor does it seem strange if God, a lover, not of horses or birds, but men, should not disdain to dwell with the virtuous and converse with the wise and temperate soul, though it be altogether hard, indeed, to believe, that any god or daemon is capable of a sensual or bodily love and passion for any human form or beauty. Though, indeed, the wise Egyptians do not plausibly make the distinction, that it may be possible for a divine spirit so to apply itself to the nature of a woman, as to imbreed in her the first beginnings of generation, while on the other side they conclude it impos- sible for the male kind to have any intercourse or mixture by the body with any divinity, not considering, however, that what takes place on the one side must also take place on the other; intermixture, by force of terms, is reciprocal. Not that it is otherwise than befitting to suppose that the gods feel towards men affection, and love, in the sense of affection, and in the form of care and solicitude for their virtue and their good dispositions. And, therefore, it was no error of those who feigned, that Phorbas, Hyacinthus, and Admetus were beloved by Apollo ; or that Hippolytus the Sicyonian was so much in his favor, that, as often as he sailed from 102 NUMA POMPILIUS. Sicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian prophetess uttered this heioic verse, expressive of the god’s attention and joy : Now doth Ilippolytus return again, And venture his dear life upon the main. It is reported, also, that Fan became enamored of Pindar for his verses, and the divine power rendered honor to Hesiod and Archilochus after their death for the sake of the Muses ; there is a statement, also, that ^sculapius sojourned with Sophocles in his lifetime, of which many proofs still exist, and that, when he was dead, another deity took care for his funeral rites. And so if any credit may be given to these in- stances, why should we judge it incongruous, that alike spirit of the gods should visit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Lycurgus, and Numa, the controllers of kingdoms, and the legislators for commonv/ealths Nay, it may be reasonable to believe, that the gods, with a serious purpose, assist at the councils and serious debates of such men, to inspire and direct them ; and visit poets and musicians, if at all, in their more sportive moods j but, for difference of opinion here, as Bacchylides said, “the road is broad.^’ For there is no absurdity in the account also given, that Lycurgus and Numa, and other fa- mous law-givers, having the task of subduing perverse and refractory multitudes, and of introducing great innovations, themselves made this pretension to divine authority, which, if not true, assuredly was expedient for the interests of those it imposed upon. Numa was about forty years of age when the ambassadors came to make him offers of the kingdom ; the speakers were Pro- cuius and Velesus, one or other of whom it had been thought the people would elect as their new king ; the original Ro- mans being for Proculus, and the Sabines for Velesus. Their speech was very short, supposing that, when they came to tender a kingdom, there needed little to persuade to an ac- ceptance ; but, contrary to their expectations, they found that they had to use many reasons and entreaties to induce one, that lived in peace and quietness, to accept the government of a city whose foundation and increase had been made, in a manner, in war. In presence of his father and his kinsman Marcius, he returned answer that “ Every alteration of a man’s life is dangerous to him ; but madness only could in- duce one who needs nothing, and is satisfied with every thing, to quit a life he is accustomed to ; which, whatever else it is deficient in, at any rate has the advantage of certainty ovei NUMA POMPILIUS. 103 one wholly doubtful and unknown. Though, indeed, the dif< ficulties of this government cannot even be called unknown; Romulus, who first held it, did not escape the suspicion having plotted against the life of his colleague Tatius ; nor the senate the like accusation, of having treasonably mur dered Romulus. Yet Romulus had the advantage to be thought divinely born and miraculously preserved and nur- tured. My birth was mortal; I was reared and instructed by men that are known to you. The very points of my charac- ter that are most commended mark me as unfit to reign, — • love of retirement and of studies inconsistent with business, a passion that has become inveterate in me for peace, for unwarlike occupations, and for the society of men whose meetings are but those of worship and of kindly intercourse, whose lives in general are spent upon their farms and their pastures. I should but be, methinks, a laughing-stock, while I should go about to inculcate the w'orship of the gods and give lessons in the love of justice and the abhorrence of vio- lence and war, to a city whose needs are rather for a captain than for a king.’’ The Romans, perceiving by these words that he was de- clining to accept the kingdom, were the more instant and urgent with him that he would not forsake and desert them in this condition, and suffer them to relapse, as they must, into their former sedition and civil discord, there being no person on whom both parties could accord but on himself. And, at length, his father and Marcius, taking him aside, persuaded him to accept a gift so noble in itself, and tendered to him rather from heaven than from men. “ Though,” said they, “ you neither desire riches, being content with what you have, nor court the fame of authority, as having already the more valuable fame of virtue, yet you will consider that government itself is a service of God, who now calls out into action your qualities of justice and wisdom, which were not meant to be left useless and unemployed. Cease, therefore, to avoid and turn your back upon an office which, to a wise man, is a field for great and honorable actions, for the magnificent worship of the gods, and for the introduction of habits of piety, which authority alone can effect amongst a people. Tatius, though a foreigner, was beloved, and the memory of Romulus has received divine honors ; and who knows but that this people, being victorious, may be satiated with war, and, content with the trophies and spoils they have acquired, may be^ above all things, desirous to have a pacific and justice-loving NUMA POMPILIUS. ro4 prince to lead them to good order and quiet? But if, indeed, their desires are uncontrollably and madly set on war, were it not better, then, to have the reins held by such a moderating hand as is able to divert the fury another way, and that your native city and the whole Sabine nation should possess in you a bond of good-will and friendship with this young and growing power ? With these reasons and persuasions several auspicious omens are said to have concurred, and the zeal, also, of his fellow-citizens, who, on understanding what message the Ro- man ambassadors had brought him, entreated him to accom- pany them, and to accept the kingdom as a means to unan- imity and concord between the nations. Numa, yielding to these inducements, having first per- formed divine sacrifice, proceeded to Rome, being met in his way by the senate and people, who, with an impatient desire, came forth to receive him ; the women, also, welcomed him with joyful acclamations, and sacrifices were offered for him in all the temples, and so universal was the joy, that they seemed to be receiving, not a new king, but a new kingdom. In this manner he descended into the forum, where Spurius Vettius, whose turn it was to be interrex at that hour, put it to the vote and all declared him king. Then the regalities and robes of authority were brought to him ; but he refused to be invested with them until he had first consulted and been confirmed by the gods ; so being accompanied by the priests and augurs, he ascended the Capitol, which at that time the Romans called the Tarpeian Hill. Then the chief of the augurs covered Numa’s head, and turned his face towards the south, and, standing behind him, laid his right hand on his head, and prayed, turning his eyes every way, in expecta- tion of some auspicious signal from the gods. It was won- derful, meantime, with what silence and devotion the multi- tude stood assembled in the forum, in similar expectation and suspense, till auspicious birds appeared and passed on the right. Then Numa, apparelling himself in his royal robes^ descended from the hill to the people, by whom he was re- ceived and congratulated with shouts and acclamations of welcome, as a holy king, and beloved of all the gods. The first thing he did at his entrance into government was to dismiss the band of three hundred men which had been Romulus’s life-guard, called by him Celeres, saying that he would not distrust those who put confidence in him ; nor rule over a people that distrusted him. The next NUMA POMPILIUS. 105 thing he did was to add to the two priests of Jupiter and Mars a third, in honor of Romulus, whom he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The Romans anciently called their priests Flamines, by corruption of the word Pilamines, from a certain cap which they wore, called Pileus. In those times Greek words were more mixed with the Latin than at present ; thus also the royal robe, which is called Laena, Juba says, is the same as the Greek Chlaena ; and that the name of Caniil- Ills, given to the boy with both his parents living, who serves in the temple of Jupiter, was taken from the name given by some Greeks to Mercury, denoting his office of attendance on the gods. When Numa had, by such measures, won the favor and affection of the people, he set himself without delay, to the task of bringing the hard and iron Roman temper to some- what more of gentleness and equity. Plato’s expression of a city in high fever was never more applicable than to Rome at that time ; in its origin formed by daring and warlike spirits, whom bold and desperate adventure brought thither from every quarter, it had found in perpetual wars and incur- sions on its neighbors its after sustenance and means of growth, and in conflict with danger the source of new strength ; like piles, which the blows of the hammer serve to fix into the ground. Wherefore Numa, judging it no slight undertak- ing to mollify and bend to peace the presumptuous and stub- born spirits of this people, began to operate upon them with the sanctions of religion. He sacrificed often and used processions and religious dances, in which most commonly he officiated in person ; by such combinations of solemnity with refined and humanizing pleasures, seeking to win over and mitigate their fiery and warlike tempers. At times, also, he filled their imaginations with religious terrors, professing that strange apparitions had been seen, and dreadful voices heard j hus subduing and humbling their minds by a sense of super- latural fears. This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been much conversant with Pythagoras ; for in the philosopny of the one, as in the policy of the other, man’s re- lations to the deity occupy a great place. It is said, also, that the solemnity of his exterior garb and gestures was adopted by him from the same feeling with Pythagoras. For it is said of Pythagoras, that he had taught an eagle to come at his call, and stoop down to him in its flight ; and that, as he passed among the people assembled at the Olympic games, NUMA POMPILIUS., xo6 he showed them his golden thigh ; besides many other strange and miraculous seeming practices, on which Timon the Philasian wrote the distich, — Who, of the glory of a juggler proud, With solemn talk imposed upon the crowd. In like manner Numa spoke of a certain goddess or mountain nymph that was in love with him, and met him in secret, as before related ; and professed that he entertained familiar conversation with the Muses, to whose teaching he ascribed the greatest part of his revelations ; and amongst them, above all, he recommended to the veneration of the Romans one in particular, whom he named Tacita, the silent ; which he did perhaps in imitation and honor of the Pythagorean silence. His opinion, also, of images is very agreeable to the doctrine of Pythagoras ; who conceived of the first principle of being as transcending sense and passion, invisible and in- corrupt, and only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence. So Numa forbade the Romans to represent God in the form of man or beast, nor was there any painted or graven image of a deity admitted amongst them for the space of the first hundred and seventy years, all which time their temples and chapels were kept free and pure from images ; to such baser objects they deemed it impious to liken the highest, and all access to God impossible, except by the pure act of the intel- lect. His sacrifices, also, had great similitude to the cere- monial of Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated with ef- fusion of blood, but consisted of flour, wine, and the least costly offerings. Other external proofs, too, are urged to show the connection Numa had with Pythagoras. The comic writer Epicharmus, an ancient author, and of the school of Pythagoras, in a book of his dedicated to Antenor, records that Pythagoras was made a freeman of Rome. Again, Numa gave to one of his four sons the name of Mamercus, which was the name of one of the sons of Pythagoras ; from whence, as they say, sprang that ancient patrician family of the ^milii, fci that the king gave him in sport the surname of ^milius, for his engaging and graceful manner in speaking. I remember, too, that when I was at Rome, I heard many say, that, when the oracle directed two statues to be raised, one to the wisest, and another to the most valiant man in Greece, they erected two of brass, one representing Alcibiades, and the other Pythagoras. But to pass by these matters, which are full of uncertainty NUMA POMPILIUS. 107 and not so important as to be worth our time to insist on them, the original constitution of the priests, called Pontihces, is ascribed unto Numa, and he himself was, it is said, the first of them ; and that they have the name of Pontifices from potcfis^ powerful, because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and commarxi over all. Others make the ^ word refer to exceptions of impossible cases ; the priests were to perform all the duties possible to them ; if any thing lay beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. 1'he most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons^ and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood. It was accounted not simply un- lawful, but a positive sacrilege, to pull down the wooden bridge ; which moreover is said, in obedience to an oracle, to have been built entirely of timber and fastened wfith wooden pins, without nails or cramps of iron. The stone bridge was built a very long time after, when ^milius was quaestor, and they do, indeed, say also that the wooden bridge was not so old as Numa’s time, but was finished by Ancus Marcius, when he was king, who was the grandson of Numa by his daughter. The office of Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, was to declare and interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred rites ; he not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated the sacrifices of private persons, not suffering them to vary from established custom, and giving information to every one of what was requisite for purposes of worship or supplication. He was also guardian of the vestal virgins, the institution of whom, and of their perpetual fire, was attributed to Numa, who, perhaps, fancied the charge of pure and uncorrupted flames would be fitly intrusted to chaste and unpolluted persons, or that fire, which consumes, but produces nothing, bears an analogy to the virgin estate. In Greece, wherever a perpetual holy fire is kept, as at Del- phi and Athens, the charge of it is committed, not to virgins, but widows past the time of marriage. And in case by any accident it should happen that this fire became extinct, as the holy lamp was at Athens under the tyranny of Aristion, and at Delphi, when that temple was burnt by the Medes, as also in the time of the Mithridatic and Roman civil war, when not only the fire was extinguished, but the altar demolished. NUMA POMPILIUS. io8 then, afterwards, in kindling this fire again, it was esteemed an impiety to light it from common sparks or flame, or from any thing but the pure and unpolluted rays of the sun, which they usually effect by concave mirrors, of a figure formed by the revolution of an isosceles rectangular triangle, all the lines from the circumference of which meeting in a centre, by holding it in the light of the sun they can collect and con- centrate all its rays at this one point of convergence ; where the air will now become rarefied, and any light, dry, combus- tible matter will kindle as soon as applied, under the effect of the rays, which here acquired the substance and active force of fire. Some are of opinion that these vestals had no other business than the preservation of this fire ; but others conceive that they were keepers of other divine secrets, concealed from all but themselves, of which we have told all that may lawfully be asked or told, in the life of Camil- lus. Gegania and Verenia, it is recorded, were the names of the first two virgins consecrated and ordained by Numa^ Canuleia and Tarpeia succeeded ; Servius afterwards added two, and the number of four has continued to the present time. The statutes prescribed by Numa for the vestals were these : that they should take a vow of virginity for the space of thirty years, the first ten of which they were to spend in learning their duties, the second ten in performing them, and the remaining ten in teaching and instructing others. Thus the whole term being completed, it was lawful for them to marry, and, leaving the sacred order, to choose any condition of life that pleased them ; but this permission few, as they say, made use of ; and in cases where they did so, it was ob- served that their change was not a happy one, but accom- panied ever after with regret and melancholy; so that the greater number, from religious fears and scruples, forbore, and continued to old age and death in the strict observance of a single life. For this condition he compensated by great privileges and prerogatives; as that they had power to make a will in the lifetime of their father ; that they had a free administration of their own affairs without guardian or tutor, which was the privilege of women who were the mothers of three children ; when they go abroad, they have the fasces carried before them ; and if in their walks they chance to meet a criminal on his way to execution, it saves his life, upon oath made that the meeting was an accidental one, and not concerted or of set purpose. Any one who presses upon the chair or NUMA POMPILIUS. 109 which they are carried, is put to death. If these vestals com- mit any minor fault, they are punishable by the high-priest only, who scourges the offender, sometimes with her clothes off," in a dark place, with a curtain drawn between ; but she that has broken her vow is buried alive near the gate called Collina, where a little mound of earth stands, inside the city, reaching some little distance, called in Latin agger ; under it a narrow room is constructed, to which a descent is made by stairs ; here they prepare a bed, and light a lamp, and leave a small quantity of victuals, such as bread, water, a pail of milk, and some oil ; that so that body which had been conse- crated and devoted to the most sacred service of religion might not be said to perish by such a death as famine. The culprit herself is put in a litter, which they cover over, and tie her down with cords on it, so that nothing she utters may be heard. They then take her to the forum ; all people silently go out of the way as she passes, and such as follow accompany the bier with solemn and speechless sorrow ; and, indeed, there is not any spectacle more appalling, nor any day observed by the city with greater appearance of gloom and sadness. When they come to the place of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high-priest, lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certain prayers to himself before the act ; then he brings out the prisoner, being still covered, and placing her upon the steps that lead down to the cell, turns away his face with the rest of the priests ; the stairs are drawn up after she has gone down, and a quantity of earth is heaped up over the entrance to the cell, so as to prevent it from being distinguished from the rest of the mound. This is the punishment of those who break their vow of virginity. It is said, also, that Numa built the temple of Vesta, which was intended for a repository of the holy fire, of a cir- cular form, not to represent the figure of the earth, as if that were the same as Vesta, but that of the general universe, in the centre of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire, and give it the name of Vesta and the unit; and do not hold that the earth is immovable, or that it is situated in the centre of the globe, but that it keeps a circular motion about the seat of hre, and is not in the number of the pri- mary elements . in this agreeing with the opinion of Plato, who, they say, in his iater life, conceived that the earth held a lateral position, and that the central and sovereign space was reserved for some nobler body. XIO NUMA POMPILIUS. There was yet a farther use of the priests, and that was to give people directions in the national usages at funeral rites. Numa taught them to regard these offices, not as a pollution, but as a duty paid to the gods below, into whose hands the better part of us is transmitted ; especially they were to worship the goddess Libitina, who presided over all the ceremonies performed at burials ; whether they meant hereby Proserpina, or, as the most learned of the Romans conceive, Venus, not inaptly attributing the beginning and end of man’s life to the agency of one and the same deity. Numa also prescribed rules for regulating the days of mourn- ing, according to certain times and ages. As, for example^ a child of three years was not to be mourned for at all ; one older, up to ten years, for as many months as it was years old ; and the longest time of mourning for any person what- soever was not to exceed the term of ten months ; which was the time appointed for women that lost their husbands to continue in widowhood. If any married again before that time, by the laws of Numa she was to sacrifice a cow big with calf. Numa, also, was founder of several other orders of priests, two of which I shall mention, the Salii and the Feciales, which are among the clearest proofs of the devoutness and sanctity of his character. These Fecials, or guardians of peace, seem to have had their name from their office, which was to put a stop to disputes by conference and speech ; for it was not allowable to take up arms until they had declared all hopes of accommodation to be at an end, for in Greek, too, we call it peace when disputes are settled by words, and not by force. The Romans commonly de- spatched the Fecials, or heralds, to those who had offered them injury, requesting satisfaction ; and, in case they re- fused, they then called the gods to witness, and, with impre- cations upon themselves and their country should they be acting unjustly, so declared war ; against their will, or with- out their consent, it was lawful neither for soldier nor king to take up arms ; the war was begun with them, and when they had first handed it over to the commander as a just quairel, then his business was to deliberate of the manner and ways to carry it on. It is believed that the slaughter and destruction which the Gauls made of the Romans was a judgment on the city for neglect of this religious proceeding ; for that when these barbarians besieged the Clusinians, Fabius Ambustus was despatched to their camp to negotiate AUMA POMPILIUS. Ill peace for the besieged ; and, on their returning a rude refusal, Fabius imagined that his office of ambassador was at an end, and, rashly engaging on the side of the Clusinians, challenged the bravest of the enemy to a single combat. It was the fortune of Fabius to kill his adversary, and to take his spoils ; but when the Gauls discovered it, they sent a herald to Rome to complain against him ; since, before war was declared, he had, against the law of nations, made a breach of the peace. The matter being debated in the senate, the Fecials were of opinion that Fabius ought to be consigned into the hands of the Gauls ; but he, being forewarned of their judgment, fled to the people, by whose protection and favor he escaped the sentence. On this, the Gauls marched with their army to Rome, where having taken the capitol, they sacked the city. The particulars of all which are fully given in the history of Camillus. The origin of the Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reign of Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewise the city of Rome ; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, a brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into hands of Numa, who gave them this marvellous account of it : that Egeria and the Muses had assured him it was sent from heaven for the cure and safety of the city, and that, to keep it secure, he was ordered by them to make eleven others, so like in dimensions and form to the original that no thief should be able to distinguish the true from the counterfeit. He farther declared, that he was commanded to consecrate to the Muses the place, and the fields about it, where they had been chiefly wont to meet with him, and that the spring which watered the fields should be hallowed for the use of the vestal virgins, who were to wash and cleanse the penetralia of their sanctuary with those holy waters. The truth of all which was speedily verified by the cessation of the pestilence. Numa displayed the target to the artificers, and bade them show their skill in making others like it; all j despaired, until at length one Mamurius Veturius, an excel- ’ lent workman, happily hit upon it, and made all so exactly the same that Numa himself was at a loss, and could not distin- guish. The keeping of these targets was committed to the charge of certain priests, called Salii, who did not receive their name, as some tell the story, from Salius, a dancing- master, born in Samothrace, or at Mantinea, who taught the way of dancing in arms ; but more truly from that jumping dance which the Salii themselves use, when in the month of II2 NUMA POMPILIUS. March they carry the sacred targets through the city ; at which procession they are habited in short frocks of pur- ple, girt with a broad belt studded with brass ; on their heads they wear a brass helmet, and carry in their hands short dag- gers, which they clash every now and then against the targets. But the chief thing is the dance itself. They move with much grace, performing, in quick time and close order, various in- tricate figures, with a great display of strength and agility. ^J'he targets were called Ancilia from their form ; for they are not made round, nor like proper targets, of a complete cir- cumference, but are cut out into a wavy line, the ends of which are rounded off and turned in at the thickest part to- wards each other ; so that their shape is curvilinear, or in Greek, ancylon ; or the name may come from a7icon^ the elbow, on which they are carried. Thus Juba writes, who is eager to make it Greek. But it might be for that matter, from its having come down anecathen^ from above ; or from its akesis, or cure of diseases ; or aiichmoji lysis ^ because it put an end to a drought ; or from its anaschesis^ or relief from calamities, which is the origin of the Athenian name Anaces, given to Castor and Pollux ; if we must, that is, reduce it to Greek. The reward which Mamurius received for his art was to be mentioned and commemorated in the verses which the Salii sang, as they danced in their arms through the city ; though some will have it that they do not say Veturium Mamurium, but Veterem Memoriam, ancient remembrance. After Numa had in this manner instituted these several orders of priests, he erected, near the temple of Vesta, what is called to this day Regia, or king’s house, where he spent the most part of his time, performing divine service, instruct- ing the priests, or conversing with them on sacred subjects. He had another house upon the Mount Quirinalis, the s-ite of which they show to this day. In all public processions and solemn prayers, criers were sent before to give notice to the people that they should forbear their work, and rest. They say that the Pythagoreans did not allow people to worship and pray to their gods by the way, but would have them go out from their houses direct, with their minds set upon the duty, and so Numa, in like manner, wished that his citizens should neither see nor hear any religious service in a per- functory and inattentive manner, but, laying aside all other occupations, should apply their minds to religion as to a most serious business ; and that the streets should be free from all noises and cries that accompany manual labor, and clear for NUMA POMPILIUS. 1 13 the sacred solemnity. Some traces of this custom remain at Rome to this day, for, when the consul begins to take auspi- ces or do sacrifice, they call out to the people, Hoc age^ At- tend to this, whereby the auditors then present are admonish- ed to compose and recollect themselves. Many other ot his pre- cepts resemble those of the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans said, for example, “ Thou shalt not make a peck-measure thy seat to sit on. Thou shalt not stir the fire with a sword. When thou goest out upon a journey, look not behind thee. When thou sacrificest to the celestial gods, let it be with an odd number, and when to the terrestrial, with even.’’ The significance of each of which precepts they would not commonly disclose. So some of Numa’s traditions have no obvious meaning. “ Thou shalt not make libation to the gods of wine from an unpruned vine. No sacrifices shall be performed without meal. Turn round to pay adoration to the gods ; sit after you have worshipped.” The first two directions seem to de- note the cultivation and subduing of the earth as a part of religion ; and as to the turning which the worshippers are to use in divine adoration, it is said to represent the rota- tory motion of the world. But, in my opinion, the meaning rather is, that the worshipper, since the temples front the east, enters with his back to the rising sun ; there, faces round to the east, and so turns back to the god of the temple, by this circular movement referring the fulfilment of his pray- ers to both divinities. Unless, indeed, this change of posture may have a mystical meaning, like the Egyptian wheels, and signify to us the instability of human fortune, and that, in whatever way God changes and turns our lot and condition, we should rest contented, and accept it as right and fitting. They say, also, that the sitting after worship was to be by way of omen of their petitions being granted, and the bless- ing they asked assured to them. Again, as different courses of actions are divided by intervals of rest, they might seat themselves after the completion of what they had dcte. to seek favor of the gods for beginning something else. And this would very well suit with what we had before ; the law- giver wants to habituate us to make our petitions to the deity not by the way, and as it were, in a hurry, when we have other things to do, but with time and leisure to attend to it. By such discipline and schooling in religion, the city passed insensibly into such a submissiveness of temper, and stood in such awe and reverence of the virtue of Numa, that they re- ceived, with an undoubted assurance, whatever he delivered. 8 NUMA POMPILIUS. II4 though never so fabulous, and thought nothing incredible 01 impossible from him. There goes a story that he once invited a great number of citizens to an entertainment, at which the dishes in which the meat was served were very homely and plain, and the re- past itself poor and ordinary fare ; the guests seated, he be- gan to tell them that the goddess that consulted with him was then at that time come to him ; when on a sudden the room was furnished with all sorts of costly drinking-vessels, and the tables loaded with rich meats, and a most sumptuous en- tertainment. But the dialogue which is reported to have passed between him and Jupiter surpasses all the fabulous legends that were ever invented. They say that before Mount Aventine was inhabited or enclosed within the walls of the city, two demigods, Picus and Faunus, frequented the springs and thick shades of that place ; which might be two satyrs, or Pans, except that they went about Italy playing the same sorts of tricks, by skill in drugs and magic, as are ascribed by the Greeks to the Dactyli of Mount Ida. Numa contrived one day to surprise these demi-gods, by mixing wine and honey in the waters of the spring of which they usually drank. On finding themselves ensnared, they changed themselves. into various shapes, dropping their own form and assuming every kind of unusual and hideous appearance ; but when they saw they were safely entrapped, and in no possibility of getting free, they revealed to him many secrets and future events ; and particularly a charm for thunder and lightning, still in use, performed with onions and hair and pilchards. Some say they did not tell him the charm, but by their magic brought down Jupiter out of heaven ; and that he then, in an angry manner answering the inquiries, told Numa, that, if he would charm the thunder and lightning, he must do it with heads. “ How,” said Numa, “ with the heads of onions ? ^‘No,” replied Jupiter, “of men.” But Numa, willing to elude the cruelty of this receipt, turned it another way, say- ing, “ Your meaning is, the hairs of men’s heads.” “ No,” replied Jupiter, “ with living” “ pilchards,” said Numa, interrupting him. These answers he had learnt from Egeria. Jupiter returned again to heaven, pacified an or pro- pitious. The place was, in remembrance of him, called Ilici- um, from this Greek word ; and the spell in this manner effected. These stories, laughable as they are, show us the feelings which people then, by force of habit, entertained towards the NUMA POMPILIUS. deity. And Numa’s own thoughts are sa‘d to have been fixed to that degree on divine objects, that he once, when a message v/as brought to him that “ Enemies are approach- ing,’’ answered with a smile, “ And I am sacrificing.” It was he, also, that built the temples of Faith and Terminus, and taught the Romans that the name of Faith was the most solemn oath that they could swear. They still use it ; and to the god Terminus, or Boundary, they offer to this day both pul)- lie and private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-marks o{ their land ; living victims now, though anciently those sacrifices were solemnized without blood ; for Numa reasoned that the god of boundaries, who watched over peace, and testified to fair dealing, should have no concern with blood. It is very clear that it was this king who first prescribed bounds to the territory of Rome ; for Romulus would but have openly be- trayed how much he had encroached on his neighbors’ lands, had he ever set limits to his own ; for boundaries are, indeed, a defence to those who choose to observe them, but are only a testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through them. The truth is, the portion of lands which the Romans possessed at the beginning was very narrow, until Romulus enlarged them by war ; all those acquisitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to dis- honesty, and, by turning the people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their lands, into better order. For there is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all that kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in defence of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agri- culture would be a sort of charm to captivate the affections of his people to peace, and viewing it rather as a means to moral than to economical profit, divided all the lands into sev- eral parcels, to which be gave the name of pagiis^ or parish, and over every one of them he ordained chief overseers \ and, taking a delight sometimes to inspect his colonies in person, he formed his judgment of every man’s habits by the results ; of which being witness himself, he preferred those to honors and employments who had done well, and by re- bukes and reproaches incited the indolent and careless to im- provement. But of all his measures the most commended was his distribution of the people by their trades into com- panies or guilds ; for as the city consisted, or rather did no! ri6 NUMA POMPILIUS. consist of, but was divided into, two different tribes, the diver- sity between which could not be effaced and in the mean time prevented all unity and caused perpetual tumult and ilh blood, reflecting how hard substances that do not readily mix when in the lump may, by being beaten into powder, in that minute form be combined, he resolved to divide the whole population into a number of small divisions, and thus hoped, by introducing other distinctions, to obliterate the original and great distinction, which would be lost among the smaller. So, distinguishing the whole people by the several arts and trades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters ; and all other handicraftsmen he composed and reduced into a single company, appointing every one their proper courts, councils, and religious observances, In this manner all fac- tious distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use, no person any longer being either thought of or spoken of under the notion of a Sabine or a Roman, a Romulian or a Tatian ; and the new division became a source of general harmony and intermixture. He is also much to be commended for the repeal, or rather amendment, of that law which gives power to fathers to sell their children ; he exempted such as were married, condition- ally that it had been with the liking and consent of their pa- rents ; for it seemed a hard thing that a woman who had given herself in marriage to a man whom she judged free should afterwards find herself living with a slave. He attempted, also, the formation of a calendar, not with absolute exactness, yet not without some scientific knowledge. During the reign of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equal term ; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five, others more; they had no. sort of knowledge of the inequality in the motions of the sun and moon ; they only kept to the one rule that the \vhole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days. Numa, calculating the difference between the lunar and the solar year at eleven days, for that the moon completed her anni- versary course in three hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongru- ity doubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of twenty- two days, and called by the Romans the month Mercedi- nus. This amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came \o need other amendments. He also altered the order NUMA POMPILIUS. 117 of the months ; for March, which was reckoned the first, he put into the third place ; and January, which was the eleventh, he made the first ; and February, which was the twelfth and last, the second. Many will have it, that it was Numa, also, who added the two months of January and February ; for in the beginning they had had a year of ten months ; as there are barbarians who count only three ; the Arcadians, in Greece, had but four ; the Acarnanians, six. The Egyptian year at first, they say, was of one month ; afterwards, of four ; and so, though they live in the newest of all countries, they have the credit of being a more ancient nation than any, and reckon, in their genealogies, a prodigious number of years, counting months, that is, as years. That the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and not twelve months, plainly appears by the name of the last, December, meaning the tenth month ; and that March was the first is likewise evident, for the fifth month after it was called Quin- tills, and the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if Janu- ary and February had, in this account, preceded March, Quintilis would have been fifth in name and seventh in reck- oning. It was also natural that March, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus’s first, and April, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month ; in it they sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with myrtle garlands on their heads. But others, because of its being / and not ///, will not allow of the derivation of this word from Aphrodite, but say it is called April from aperio^ Latin for to open, because that this month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers. The next is called May, from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom it is sacred ; then June follows, so called from Juno ; some, how- ever, derive them from the two ages, old and young, majo7'es^ being their name for older, and juniores for younger men. To the other months they gave denominations according to their order ; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis the sixth, and the rest, September, October, November, and December. Afterwards Quintilis received the name of Julius, from Caesar, who defeated Pompey ; as also Sextilis that of Augustus, from the .second Caesar, who had that title. Domitian, also, in imi- tation, gave the two other following months his own names, of Gerrnanicus and Domitianus ; but, on his being slain, they recovered their ancient denominations of September and Oc- tober. The two last are the only ones that have kept their names throughout without any alteration. Of the months NUMA POMPILIUS. ii8 which were added or transposed in their order by Numa, February comes from februa ; and is as much as Purification month ; in it they make offerings to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which, in most points, resembles a purification. January was so called from Janus, and precedence given to it by Numa before March, which was dedicated to the god Mars ; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every op- portunity of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be preferred before those of war. For this Janus, whether in remote antiquity he were a demigod or a king, was certainly a great lover of civil and social unity, and one who reclaimed men from brutal and savage living ; for which reason they figure him with two faces, to represent the two states and conditions out of the one of which he brought mankind, to lead them into the other. His temple at Rome has two gates, which they call the gates of war, because they stand open in the time of war, and shut in the times of peace , of which latter there was very seldom an example, for, as the Roman empire was enlarged and extended, it was so en- compassed with barbarous nations and enemies to be resisted, that it was seldom or never at peace. Only in the time of Augustus Caesar, after he had overcome Antony, this temple was shut ; as likewise once before, when Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius were consuls ; but then it was not long before, wars breaking out, the gates were again opened. But, during the reign of Numa, those gates were never seen open a single day, but continued constantly shut for a space of forty-three years together ; such an entire and universal cessation of war existed. For not only had the people of Rome itself been softened and charmed into a peaceful temper by the just and mild rule of a pacific prince, but even the neighboring cities, as if some salubrious and gentle air had blown from Rome upon them, began to experience a change of feeling, and par- took in the general longing for the sweets of peace and order, and for life employed in the quiet tillage of soil, bringing up of children, and worship of the gods. Festival days and sports, and the secure and peaceful interchange of friendly visits and hospitalities prevailed all through the whole of Italy. The love of virtue and justice flowed from Numa’s wisdom as from a fountain, and the serenity of his spirit dif- fused itself, like a calm, on all sides ; so that the hyperboles of poets were flat and tame to express what then existed ; as that Over the iron shield the spiders hang their threads, NUMA POMPILIUS. II9 or that Rust eats the pointed spear and double-edged sword. No more is heard the trumpet’s brazen roar, Sweet sleep is banished from our eyes no more. Fot; during the whole reign of Numa, there was neither war, nor sedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill- will to his person, nor plot or conspiracy from views of am- bition. Either fear of the gods that were thought to watch over him, or reverence for his virtue, or a divine felicity of fortune that in his days preserved human innocence, made his reign, by whatever means, a living example and verifica- tion of that saying which Plato, long afterwards, ventured to pronounce, that the sole and only hope of respite or remedy for human evils was in some happy conjunction of events, which should unite in a single person the power of a king and the wisdom of a philosopher, so as to elevate virtue to con- trol and mastery over vice. The wise man is blessed in himself, and blessed also are the auditors who can hear and receive those words which flow from his mouth ; and perhaps, too, there is no need of compulsion or menaces to affect the multitude, for the mere sight itself of a shining and conspic- uous example of virtue in the life of their prince will bring them spontaneously to virtue, and to a conformity with that blameless and blessed life of good-will and mutual concord, supported by temperance and justice, which is the highest benefit that human means can confer ; and he is the truest ruler who can best introduce it into the hearts and practice of his subjects. It is the praise of Numa that no one seems ever to have discerned this so clearly as he. As to his children and wives, there is a diversity of reports by several authors ; some will have it that he never had any other wife than Tatia ; nor more children than one daughter called Pompilia ; others will have it that he left also four sons, namely, Pompo, Pinus, Calpus, and Mamercus, every one of whom had issue, and from them descended the noble and illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took also the surname of Rex, or King. But there is a third set of writers who say that these pedigrees are but a piece of flattery used by writers who, to gain favor with these great families, made them ficti- tious genealogies from the lineage of Numa ; and that Pom- pilia was not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife whom he married after he came to his kingdom ; how- ever, all of them agree in opinion that she was married to 120 NUMA POMPILIUS. the son of that Marcius who persuaded him to accept the gov ernment, and accompanied him to Rome, where, as a mark of honor, he was chosen into the senate, and after the death of Numa, standing in competition with Tullus Ilostiliiis for the kingdom, and being disappointed of the election, in discon- tent killed himself ; his son Marcius, however, who had mar- ried Pompilia, contiruing at Rome, was the father of Ancus Marcius, who succee led Tullus Hostilius in the kingdom, and was but five years of age when Numa died. Numa lived something above eighty years, and then, as Piso writes, was not taken out of the world by a sudden or acute disease, but died of old age and by a gradual and gen- tle decline. At his funeral all the glories of his life were con- summated, when all the neighboring states in alliance and amity with Rome met to honor and grace the rites of his in- terment with garlands and public presents ; the senators carried the bier on which his corpse was laid, and the priests followed and accompanied the solemn procession ; while a general crowd, in which women and children took part, fol- lowed with such cries and weeping as if they had bewailed the death and loss of some most dear relation taken away in the flower of age, and not an old and worn out king. It is said that his body, by his particular command, was not burnt, but that they made, in conformity with his order, two stone coffins, and buried both under the hill Janiculum, in one of which his body was laid, and the other his sacred books, which, as the Greek legislators their tables, he had written out for himself, but had so long inculcated the contents of them, whilst he lived, into the minds and hearts of the priests, that their understandings became fully possessed with the whole spirit and purpose of them; and he therefore bade that they should be buried with his body, as though such holy precepts could not without irreverence be left to circulate in mere lifeless writings. For this very reason, they say, the Pythagoreans bade that their precepts should not be commit- ted to paper, but rather preserved in the living memories of those who were worthy to receive them ; and when some of their out-of-the-way and abstruse geometrical processes had been divulged to an unworthy person, they said the gods threatened to punish this wickedness and profanity by a signal and wide-spreading calamity. With these several instances concurring to show a similarity in the lives of Numa and Py- thagoras, we may easily pardon those who seek to establish the fact of a real acquaintance between them. COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS. 121 Valerius Antias writes that the books which were buried in the- aforesaid chest or coffin of stone were twelve volumes of holy writ and twelve others of Greek philosophy, and that about four hundred years afterwards, when P. Cornelius and M. Bsebius were consuls, in a time of heavy rains, a violent torrent washed away the earth, and dislodged the chests of stone ; and, their covers falling off, one of them was found wholly empty, without the least relic of any human body ; in the other were the books before mentioned, which the praetor Petilius having read and perused, made oath in the senate, that, in his opinion, it was not fit for their contents to be made public to the people ; whereupon the volumes were all carried to the Comitium, and there burnt. It is the fortune of all good men that their virtue rises in glory after their deaths, and that the envy which evil men con- ceive against them never outlives them long ; some have the happiness even to see it die before them ; but in Numa’s case, also, the fortunes of the succeeding kings served as foils to set off the brightness of his reputation. For after him there were five kings, the last of whom ended his old age in banish- ment, being deposed from his crown; of the other four, three were assassinated and murdered by treason; the other, who was Tullus Hostilius, that immediately succeeded Numa, derided his virtues, and especially his devotion to religious worship, as a cowardly and mean-spirited occupation, and diverted the minds of the people to war ; but was checked in these youthful insolences, and was himself driven by an acute and tormenting disease into superstitions wholly different from Numa’s piety, and left others also to participate in these terrors when he died by the stroke of a thunderbolt COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LY- CURGUS. Having thus finished the lives of Lycurgus and Numa, we shall now, though the work be difficult, put together their points of difference as they lie here before our view. Their points of likeness are obvious ; their moderation their re ligion, their capacity of government and discipline, their both deriving their laws and constitutions from the gods. Yet in their common glories there are circumstances of diversity ; 122 COMPARISON OF N UMA WITH LYCURGUS. for first Numa accepted and Lycurgus resigned a kingdom ; Numa received without desiring it, Lycurgus had it and gave it up ; the one from a private person and a stranger was raised by others to be their king ; the other from the condition of a prince voluntarily descended to the state of privacy. It was glorious to acquire a throne by justice, yet more glori- ous to prefer justice before a throne ; the same virtue which made the one appear worthy of regal power exalted the other to the disregard of it. Lastly, as the musicians tune their harps, so the one let down the high-flown spirits of the people at Rome to a lower key, as the other screwed them up at Sparta to a higher note, when they were sunken low by dissoluteness and riot. The haider task was that of Lycur- gus ; for it was not so much his business to persuade his citizens to put off their armor or ungird their swords, as to cast away their gold or silver, and abandon costly furniture and rich tables ; nor was it necessary to preach to them, that, laying aside their arms, they should observe the festivals, and sacrifice to the gods, but rather, that, giving up feasting and drinking, they should employ their time in laborious and martial exercises ; so that while the one effected all by per- suasions and his people’s love for him, the other, with danger and hazard of his person, scarcely in the end succeeded. Numa’s muse was a gentle and loving inspiration, fitting him well to turn and sooth his people into peace and justice out of their violent and fiery tempers ; whereas, if we must admit the treatment of the Helots to be a part of Lycur- gus’s legislation, a most cruel and iniquitous proceeding, we must own that Numa was by a great deal the more humane and Greek-like legislator, granting even to actual slaves a license to sit at meat with their masters at the feast of Saturn, that they also might have some taste and relish to the sweets of liberty. For this custom, too, is ascribed to Numa, whose wish was, they conceive, to give a place in the enjoyment of the yearly fruits of the soil to those who had helped to pro- duce them. Others will have it to be in remembrance of the age of Saturn, when there was no distinction between master and slave, but all lived as brothers and as equals in a condition of equality. In general, it seems that both aimed at the same design and intent, which was to bring their peop’e to moderation and frugality ; but of other virtues, the one set his affection most on fortitude, and the other on justice ; unless we will attribute their different ways to the different habits and tem COMPARISON OF NUMA WnH LYCURGUS. 123 peraments which they had to work upon by their enactments ; for Numa did not out of cowardice or fear affect peace, but because he would not be guilty of injustice ; nor did Lycur- gus promote a spirit of war in his people that they might do injustice to others, but that they might protect themselves by it. In bringing the habits they formed in their people to a just and happy mean, mitigating them where they exceeded, and strengthening them where they were deficient, both were compelled to make great innovations. The frame of govern- ment which Numa formed was democratic and popular to the last extreme, goldsmiths and flute-players and shoemakers constituting his promiscuous, many - colored commonalty. Lycurgus was rigid and aristocratical, banishing all the base and mechanic arts to the company of servants and strangers, and allowing the true citizens no implements but the spear and shield, the trade of war only, and the service of Mars, and no other knowledge or study but that of obe- dience to their commanding officers, and victory over their enemies. Every sort of money-making was forbid them as freemen ; and to make them thoroughly so and keep them so through their whole lives, every conceivable concern with money was handed over, with the cooking and the waiting at table, to slaves and helots. But Numa made none of these distinctions ; he only suppressed military rapacity, allowing free scope to every other means of obtaining wealth ; nor did he endeavor to do away with inequality in this respect, but per#iitted riches to be amassed to any extent, and paid no attention to the gradual and continual augmentation and in- flux of poverty; which it was his business at the outset, whilst there was no great disparity in the estates of men, and whilst people still lived much in one manner, to obviate, as Lycurgus did, and take measures of precaution against the mischiefs of avarice, mischiefs not of small importance, but the real seed and first beginning of all the great and exten- sive evils of after times. The re-division of estates, Lycurgus is not, it seems to me, to be blamed for making, nor Numa lor omitting ; this equality was the basis and foundation of the one commonwealth ; but at Rome, where the lands had been lately divided, there was nothing to urge any re-division or any disturbance of the first arrangement, which was probably still in existence. With respect to wives and children, and that community which both, with a sound policy, appointed, to prevent aU 124 COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS. jealousy, their methods, however, were different. For when a Roman thought himself to have a sufficient number of chil- dren, in case his neighbor who had none should come and request his wife of him, he had a lawful power to give her up to him who desired her, either for a certain time, or for good. The Lacedaemonian husband, on the other hand, might allow the use of his wife to any other that desired to have children by her, and yet still keep her in his house, the original mar- riage obligation still subsisting as at first. Nay, many husbands, as we have said, would invite men whom they thought likely to procure them fine and good looking children into their houses. What is the difference, then, between the two cus- toms ? Shall we say that the Lacedaemonian system is one of an extreme and entire unconcern about their wives, and would cause most people endless disquiet and annoyance with pangs and jealousies ? the Roman course wears an air of a more delicate acquiescence, draws the veil of a new con- tract over the change, and concedes the general insupport- ableness of mere community.^ Numa’s directions, too, for the care of young women, are better adapted to the female sex and to propriety ; Lycurgus’s are altogether unreserved and unfeminine, and have given a great handle to the poets, whc call them (Ibycus, for example) Phcenomerides^ bare-thighed \ and give them the character (as does Euripides) of being wild after husbands ; These with the young men from the house go out, With thighs that show, and robes that fly about. For in fact the skirts of the frock worn by unmarried girls were not sewn together at the lower part, but used to fly back and show the whole thigh bare as they walked. The thing is most distinctly given by Sophocles. — She, also, the young maid, Whose frock, no robe yet o’er it laid. Folding back, leaves her bare thigh free, Hermione. And so their women, it is said, were bold and masculine, overbearing to their husbands in the first place, absolute mis- tresses in their houses, giving their opinions about public matters freely, and speaking openly even on the most im- portant subjects. But the matrons, under the government of Numa, still indeed received from their husbands all that high respect and honor which had been paid them under Romulus as a sort of atonement for the violence done to them ; never- COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS. 1 25 theless, great modesty was enjoined upon them ; all busy intermeddling forbidden, sobriety insisted on, and silence made habitual. Wine they were not to touch at all, nor to speak, except in their husband’s company, even on the most ordinary subjects. So that once when a woman had the con- fidence to plead her own cause in a court of judicature, the senate, it is said, sent to inquire of the oracle what the prodigy did portend ; and, indeed, their general good behavior and subniissiveness is justly proved by the record of those that were otherwise ; for as the Greek historians record in their annals the names of those who first unsheathed the sword of civil war, or murdered their brothers, or were parricides, or killed their mothers, so the Roman writers report it as the first example, that Spurius Carvilius divorced his wife, being a case that never before happened, in the space of two hun- dred and thirty years from the foundation of the city ; and that one Thalaea, the wife of Pinarius, had a quarrel (the first instance of the kind) with her mother-in-law, Gegania, in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus ; so successful was the legislator in securing order and good conduct in the mar- riage relation. Their respective regulations for marrying the young women are in accordance with those for their educa- tion. Lycurgus made them brides when they were of full age and inclination for it. Intercourse, where nature was thus consulted, would produce, he thought, love and tender- ness, instead of the dislike and fear attending an unnatural compulsion ; and their bodies, also, would be better able to bear the trials of breeding and of bearing children, in his judgment the one end of marriage. The Romans, on the other hand, gave their daughters in marriage as early as twelve years old, or even under ; thus they thought their bodies alike and minds would be delivered to the future husband pure and undefiled. The way of Lycurgus seems the more natural with a view to the birth of children ; the other, looking to a life to be spent together, is more moral. However, the rules which Lycurgus drew up for superintendence of children, their collection into com- panies, their discipline and association, as also his exact regulations for their meals, exercises, and sports, argue Numa no more than an ordinary lawgiver. Numa left the whole matter simply to be decided by the parent’s wishes or neces- sities ; he might, if he pleased, make his son a husbandman or carpenter, coppersmith or musician ; as if it were of nr importance for them to be directed and trained up from th^ 126 COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS. beginning to one and the same common end, or as though it would do for them to be like passengers on shipboard, brought thither each for his own ends and by his own choice, uniting to act for the common good only in time of danger upon occasion of their private fears, in general looking simply to their own interest. We may forbear, indeed, to blame common legislators, who may be deficient in power or knowledge. But a wise man like Numa had received the sovereignty over a rew and docile people, was there any thing that would better de- serve his attention than the education of children, and the training up of the young, not to contrariety and discordance of character, but to the unity of the common model of virtue, to which from their cradle they should have been formed and moulded ? One benefit among many that Lycurgus obtained by his course was the permanence which it secured to his laws. The obligation of oaths to preserve them would have availed but little, if he had not, by discipline and education, infused them into the children’s characters, and imbued their whole early life with a love of his government. The result was that the main points and fundamentals of his legislation continued for above five hundred years, like some deep and thoroughly ingrained tincture, retaining their hold upon the nation. But Numa’s whole design and aim, the continuance of peace and good-will, on his death vanished with him ; no sooner did he expire his last breath than the gates of Janus’s temple flew wide open, and, as if war had, indeed, been kept and caged up within those walls, it rushed forth to fill all Italy with blood and slaughter ; and thus that best and justest fabric of things wns of no long continuance, because it wanted that cement which should have kept all together, education. What, then, some may say, has not Rome been advanced and bettered by her wars ? A question that will need a long answer, if it is to be one to satisfy men who take the better to consist in riches, luxury, and dominion, rather than in security, gentleness, and that independence which is accompanied by justice. PIow- ever, it makes much for Lycurgus, that, after the Romans had deserted the doctrine and discipline of Numa, their empire grew and their power increased so much ; whereas so soon as the Lacedemonians fell from the institutions of Lycurgus, they sank from the highest to the lowest state, and, after forfeiting their supremacy over the rest of Greece, were themselves in danger of absolute extirpation. Thus much, meantime, was peculiarly signal and almost divine in the circumstances of SOLON. 12.7 Numa, that he was an alien, and yet courted to come and ac* cept a kingdom, the frame of which though he entirely altered, yet he performed it by mere persuasion, and ruled a city that as yet had scarce become one city, without recurring to arms or any violence (such as Lycurgus used, supporting himself by the aid of the nobler citizens against the commonalty), but, by mere force of wisdom and justice, established union and harmony amongst all. SOLON. Didymus, the grammarian, in his answei to Asclepiades concerning Solon’s Tables of Law, mentions a passage of one Philocles, who states that Solon’s father’s name was Eupho- rion, contrary to the opinion of all others who have written concerning him ; for they generally agree that he was the son of Execestides, a man of moderate wealth and power in the city, but of a most noble stock, being descended from Codrus ; his mother, as Heraclides Ponticus affirms, was cousin to Pisistratus’s mother, and the two at first were great friends, partly because they were akin, and partly because of Pisis- tratus’s noble qualities and beauty. And they say Solon loved him ; and that is the reason, I suppose, that when afterwards they differed about the government, their enmity never produced any hot and violent passion, they remembered their old kindnesses, and retained — Still in its embers living the strong fire of their love and dear affection. For that Solon was not proof against beauty, nor of courage to stand up to passion and meet it. Hand to hand as in the ring — we may conjecture by his poems, and one of his laws, in which there are practices forbidden to slaves, which he would appear, therefore, to recommend to freemen. Pisistratus, it is stated, was similarly attached to one Charmus ; he it was who dedicated the figure of Love in the Academy, where the runners in the sacred torch race light their torches. Solon, as Hermippus writes, when his father had ruined his estate in doing benefits and kindnesses to other men, though he haa 128 SOLON. friends enough that were willing to contribute to his relief, yet was ashamed to be beholden to others, since he was de- scended from a family who were accustomed to do kindnesses rather than receive them ; and therefore applied himself to merchandise in his youth ; though others assure us that he travelled rather to get learning and experience than to make money. It is certain that he was a lover of knowledge, for when he was old he would say, that he Each day grew older, and learnt something new ; and yet no admirer of riches, esteeming as equally wealthy the man, — Who hath both gold and silver in his hand, Horses and mules, and acres of wheat-land, And him whose all is decent food to eat, Clothes to his back and shoes upon his feet. And a young wife and child, since so ^twill be, And no more years than will with that agree ; and in another place, — Wealth I would have, but wealth by wrong procure I would not ; justice, e’en if slow, is sure. And it is perfectly possible for a good man and a statesman, without being solicitous for superfluities, to show some con- cern for competent necessaries. In his time, as Hesiod says, — Work was a shame to none,’’ nor was any distinction made with respect to trade, but merchandise was a noble calling, which brought home the good things which the bar- barous nations enjoyed, was the occasion of friendship with their kings, and a great source of experience. Some mer- chants have built great cities, as Protis,the founder of Massilia, to whom the Gauls, near the Rhone, were much attached. Some report, also, that Thales and Hippocrates the mathema- tician traded ; and that Plato defrayed the charges of his travels by selling oil in Egypt. Solon’s softness and profuse- ness, his popular rather than philosophical tone about pleasure in his poems, have been ascribed to his trading life ; for, having suffered a thousand dangers, it was natural they should be recompensed with some gratifications and enjoyments ; but that he accounted himself rather poor than rich is evident from the lines, Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor, We will not change our virtue for their store ; Virtue’s a thing that none can take away ; But money changes owners all the day. SOLON. 129 At first he used his poetry only m trifles, not for any seri- ous purpose, but simply to pass away his -die hours; but afterwards he introduced moral sentences and state matters, which he did, not to record them merely as an historian, but to justify his own actions, and sometimes to correct, chastise, and stir up the Athenians to noble performances. Some re- port that he designed to put his laws into heroic verse, am that they began thus, — We humbly beg a blessing on our laws From mighty Jove, and honor, and applause. In philosophy, as most of the wise men then, he chiefly esteemed the political part of morals ; in physics, he was very plain and antiquated, as appears by this, — It is the clouds that make the snow and hail, And thunder comes from lightning without fail ; The sea is stormy when the winds have blown. But it deals fairly when ’tis left alone. And, indeed, it is probable that at that time Thales alone had raised philosophy above mere practice into speculation ; and the rest of the wise men were so called from prudence in political concerns. It is said, that they had an interview at Delphi, and another at Corinth, by the procurement of Peri- ander, who made a meeting for them, and a supper. But their reputation was chiefly raised by sending the tripod to them all, by their modest refusal, and complaisant yielding to one another. For, as the story goes, some of the Coans fishing with a net, some strangers, Milesians, bought the draught at a venture ; the net brought up a golden tripod, which, they say, Helen, at her return from Troy, upon the remembrance of an old prophecy, threw in there. Now, the strangers at first contesting with the fishers about the tripod, and the cities espousing the quarrel so far as to engage them- selves in a war, Apollo decided the controversy by command- ing to present it to the wisest man ; and first it was sent to Miletus to Thales, the Coans freely presenting him with that for which they fought against the whole body of the Milesi- ans ; but Thales declaring Bias the wiser person, it was sent to him; fiom him to another; and so, going round them all, it came to Thales a second time ; and, at last, being car- ried from Miletus to Thebes, was there dedicated to Apollo Ismenius. Theophrastus writes that it was first presented to Bias at Prienc ; and next to Thales at Miletus, and so 9 130 SOLON. through all it returned to Bias, and was afterwards sent to Delphi. This is the general report, only some, instead of a tripod, say this present was a cup sent by Croesus ; others, a piece of plate that one Bathycles had left. It is- stated, that Anacharsis and Solon, and Solon and Thales, were familiarly acquainted, and some have delivered parts of their discourse ; for, they say, Anacharsis, coming to Athens, knocked at Solon’s door, and told him, that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him ; and Solon replying, “ It is better to make friends at home,” Ana* charsis replied, ‘‘ Then you that are at home make friend- ship with me.” Solon, somewhat surprised at the readiness of the repartee, received him kindly, and kept him some time with him, being already engaged in public business and the compilation of his laws ; which, when Anacharsis understood, he laughed at him for imagining the dishonesty and covetous- ness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were like spiders’ webs, and would catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and rich. To this Solon rejoined that men keep their promises when neither side can get any thing by the breaking of them ; and he would so fit his laws to the citizens, that all should under- stand it was more eligible to be just than to break the laws. But the event rather agreed with the conjecture of Anacharsis than Solon’s hope. Anacharsis, being once at the Assembly, expressed his wonder at the fact that in Greece wise men spoke and fools decided. Solon went, they say, to Thales, at Miletus, and wondered that Thales took no care to get him a wife and children. To this, Thales made no answer for the present ; but a few days after procured a stranger to pretend that he had left Athens ten days ago ; and Solon inquiring what news there, the man according to his instructions, replied, None but a young man’s funeral, which the whole city attended ; for he was the son, they said, of an honorable man, the most virtuous of the citizens, who was not then at home, but had been travelling a long time.” Solon replied, “ What a miserable man is he 1 But what was his name ? ” I have heard it,” says tie man, but have now forgotten it, only there was a great talk of his wisdom and his justice.” Thus Solon was drawn on by every answer, and his fears heightened, till at last, being extremely concerned, he mentioned his own name, and asked the stranger if that young man was called Solon’s son ; and the stranger assenting he began to beat his head, and to do and SOLON. say all that is usual with men in transports of grief. But Thales took his hand, and, with a smile said, ‘‘ These things, Solon, keep me from marriage and rearing children, which are too great for even your constancy to support ; however, be not concerned at the report, for it is a fiction/’ This Hermippus relates, from Pataecus, who boasted that he had ^sop’s soul. However, it is irrational and poor-spirited not to seek conveniences for fear of losing them, for upon the same ac count we should not allow ourselves to like wealth, glory, or wisdom, since we may fear to be deprived of all these ; nay, even virtue itself, than which there is no greater nor more desirable possession, is often suspended by sickness or drugs. Now Thales, though unmarried, could not be free from solici- tude, unless he likewise felt no care for his friends, his kins- man or his country ; yet we are told he adopted Cybisthus, his sister’s son. For the soul, having a principle of kindness in itself, and being born to love, as well as perceive, think, or remember, inclines and fixes upon some stranger, when a man has none of his own to embrace. And alien or illegiti- mate objects insinuate themselves into his affections, as into some estate that lacks lawful heirs ; and with affection come anxiety and care ; insomuch that you may see men that use the strongest language against the marriage-bed and the fruit of it, when some servants’ or concubine’s child is sick or dies, almost killed with grief, and abjectly lamenting. Some have given way to shameful and desperate sorrow at the loss of a dog or horse ; others have borne the death of virtuous chil- dren without any extravagant or unbecoming grief, have passed the rest of their lives like men, and according to the principles of reason. It is not affection, it is weakness that brings men, unarmed against fortune by reason, into these endless pains and terrors ; and they indeed have not even the present enjoyment of what they doat upon, the possibility of the future loss causing them continual pangs, tremors, and distresses. We must not provide against the loss of wealth by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of children by having none, but by morality and reason. But of this too much. Now, when the Athenians were tired with a tedious and difficult war that they conducted against the Megarians for the island Salamis, and made a law that it should be death for any man, by writing or speaking, to assert that the city ought to endeavor to recover it, Solon, vexed at the dis SOLON, ^32 grace, and perceiving thousands of the youth wished for somebody to begin, but did not dare to stir first for fear of the law, counterfeited a distraction, and by his own family it was spread about the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem extempore, ran out into the mar- ket-place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald’s stand, and sang that elsgy which begins thus : — I am a herald come from Salamis the fair, My news from thence my verses shall declare. The poem is called Salamis ; it contains an hundred verses very elegantly written ; when it had been sung, his friends commended it, and especially Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey his directions ; insomuch that they recalled the law, and renewed the war under Solon’s conduct. The popular tale is, that with Pisistratus he sailed to Colias, and, finding the women, according to the custom of the country there, sacrificing to Ceres, he sent a trusty friend to Salamis, who should pretend himself a renegade, and advise them, if they desired to seize the chief Athenian women, to come with him at once to Colias ; the Megarians presently sent off men in the vessel vtnth him ; and Solon, seeing it put off from the island, commanded the women to be gone, and some beardless youths, dressed in their clothes, their shoes and caps, and privately armed with daggers, to dance and play near the shore till the enemies had landed and the vessel was in their power. Things being thus ordered, the Megarians were lured with the appearance, and, coming to the shore, jumped out, eager who should first seize a prize, so that not one of them escaped ; and the Athenians set sail for the island and took it. Others say that it was not taken this way but that he first rereived this oracle from Delphi : Those heroes that in fair Asopia rest, All buried with their faces to the west. Go and appease with offerings of the best ; and that Solon, sailing by night to the island, sacrificed to the heroes Periphemus and Cychreus, and then taking five hun- dred Athenian volunteers (a law having passed that those that took the island should be highest in the government), with a number of fisher-boats and one thirty-oared ship, anchored in a bay of Salamis that looks towards Nisaea ; and the Me SOLON 133 garians that were then in the island, hearing only an uncer- tain report, hurried to their arms, and sent a ship to recon- noitre the enemies. This ship Solon took, and, securing the Megarians, manned it with Athenians, and gave them orders to sail to the island with as much privacy as possible ; mean- time he, with the other soldiers, marched against the Mega-* rians by land, and whilst they were fighting, those from the ship took the city. And this narrative is confirmed by the following solemnity, that was afterwards observed : an Athe- nian ship used to sail silently at first to the island, then, with noise and a great shout, one leapt out armed, and with a loud cry ran to the promontory Sciradium to meet those that ap- proached upon the land. And just by there stands a temple which Solon dedicated to Mars. For he beat the Megarians, and as many as were not killed in the battle he sent away upon conditions. The Megarians, however, still contending, and both sides having received considerable losses, they chose the Spartans for arbitrators. Now, many affirm that Homer^s authority did Solon a considerable kindness, and that, introducing a line into the Catalogue of Ships, when the matter was to be determined, he read the passage as follows : Twelve ships from Sal amis stout Ajax brought, And ranked his men where the Athenians fought. The Athenians, however, call this but an idle story, and re- port that Solon made it appear to the judges, that Philaeus and Eurysaces, the sons of Ajax, being made citizens of Athens, gave them the island, and that one of them dwelt at Brauron in Attica, the other at Melite ; and they have a town- ship of Philaidae, to which Pisistratus belonged, deriving its name from this Philaeus. Solon took a farther argument against the Megarians from the dead bodies, which, he said, were not buried after their fashion, but according to the Athe- nian ; for the Megarians turn the corpse to the east, the Athenians to the west. But Hereas the Megarian, denies this, and affirms that they likewise turn the body to the west, and also that the Athenians have a separate tomb for every- body, but the Megarians put two or three into one. How- ever, some of Apollons oracles, where he calls Salamis Ionian, made much for Solon. This matter was determined by five Spartans, Critolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsechidas, Anaxilas, and Cleomenes. For this, Solon grew famed and powerful ; but his advice 134 SOLON. in favor of defending the oracle at Delphi, to give aid, and not to suffer the Cirrhaeans to profane it, but to maintain the honor of the god, got him most repute among the Greeks ; for upon his persuasion the Amphictyons undertook the war, as 'amongst others, Aristotle affirms, in his enumeration of the victors at the Pythian games, where he makes Solon the author of this counsel. Solon, however, was not general in that expedition, as Hermippus states, out of Evanthes the Samian ; for ^schines the orator says no such thing, and, in the Delphian register, Alcmceon, not Solon, is named as com* mander of the Athenians. Now the Cylonian pollution had a long while disturbed the commonwealth, ever since the time when Megacles the archon persuaded the conspirators with Cylon that took sane tuary in Minerva’s temple to come down and stand to a fair trial. And they, tying a thread to the image, and holding one end of it, went down to the tribunal ; but when they came to the temple of the Furies, the thread broke of its own ac- cord, upon which, as if the goddess had refused them protec- tion, they were seized by Megacles and the other magistrates ; as many as were without the temples were stoned, those that fled for sanctuary were butchered at the altar, and only those escaped who made supplication to the wives of the magis- trates. But they from that time were considered under pollu- tion, and regarded with hatred. The remainder of the faction of Cylon grew strong again, and had continual quarrels with the family of Megacles ; and now the quarrel being at its height, and the people divided, Solon, being in reputation, interposed with the chiefest of the Athenians, and by entreaty and admonition persuaded the polluted to submit to a trial and the decision of three hundred noble citizens. And My- ron of Phlya being their accuser, they were found guilty, and as many as were then alive were banished, and the bodies of the dead were dug up, and scattered beyond the confines of the country. In the midst of these distractions, the Megarians falling upon them, they lost Nisaea and Salamis again ; be- sides, the city was disturbed with superstitious fears and strange appearances, and the priests declared that the sacri- fices intimated some villanies and pollutions that were to be expiated. Upon this, they sent for Epimenides the Phaestian from Crete, who is counted the seventh wise man by those that will not admit Periander into the number. He seems to have been thought a favorite of heaven, possessed of knowl- edge in all the supernatural and ritual parts of religion ; and SOLON. ^ 3 £ therefore, the men of his age called him a new Cures, and son of a nymph named Balte. When he came to Athens, and grew acquainted with Solon, he served* him in many instances, and prepared the way for his legislation. He made them moderate in their forms of worship, and abated their mourn- ing by ordering some sacrifices presently after the funeral, and taking off those severe and barbarous ceremonies ^\hich the women usually practised ; but the greatest benefit was his purifying and sanctifying the city, by certain propitiatory and expiatory lustrations, and foundations of sacred buildings, by that means making them more submissive to justice, and more inclined to harmony. It is reported that, looking upon Munychia, and considering a long while, he said to those that stood by, “ How blind is man in future things ! for did the Athenians foresee what mischief this would do their city, they would even eat it with their own teeth to be rid of it.^^ A similar anticipation is ascribed to Thales ; they say he commanded his friends lo bury him in an obscure and con- temned quarter of the territory of Miletus, saying that it should some day be the market-place of the Milesians. Epi menides, being much honored, and receiving from the city rich offers of large gifts and privileges, requested but one branch of the sacred olive, and, on that being granted, re- turned. The Athenians, now the Cylonian sedition was over and the polluted gone into banishment, fell into their old quarrels about the government, there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the country. The Hill quarter favored democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and those that lived by the Sea-side stood for a mixed sort of government, and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, also reached its height ; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it, to be possible but a despotic power. All the people were indebted to the rich ; and either they tilled their land for their creditors, pay- ing them a sixth part of the increase, and were, therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged their body for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home, or sold to strangers ; some (for no law for- bade it) were forced to sell their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their creditors ; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine together and encour- 136 SOLON. age one another to stand to it, to choose a leader, to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land, and change the government. Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men the only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in the exactions of the rich, and was not, involved in the necessities of the poor, pressed him to succor the commonwealth and compose the differences. Though Phanias the Lesbian affirms, that Solon, to save his country, put a trick upon both parties, and privately promised the poor a division of the lands, and the rich, security for their debts. Solon, however, himself says, that it was reluctantly at first that he engaged in state affairs, being afraid of the pride of one party and the greediness of the other ; he was chosen archon, however, after Philombrotus, and empowered to be an arbitrator and lawgiver ; the rich consenting be- cause he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest. There was a saying of his current before the election, that when things are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties, the wealthy and the poor ; the one conceiving him to mean, when all have their fair proportion ; the others, when all are absolutely equal. Thus, there being great hopes on both sides, the chief men pressed Solon to take the gov- ernment into his own hands, and, when he was once settled, manage the business freely and according to his pleasure ; and many of the commons, perceiving it would be a difficult change to be effected by law and reason, were willing to have one wise and just man set over the affairs ; and some say that Solon had this oracle from Apollo — Take the mid-seat, and be the vessel's guide ; Many in Athens are upon your side. But chiefly his familiar friends chid him for disaffecting mon- archy only because of the name, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make it a lawful form ; Euboea had made this ex- periment when it chose Tynnondas, and Mitylene, which had made Pittacus its prince ; yet this could not shake Solon's resolution ; but, as they say, he replied to his friends, that it was true a tyranny was a very fair spot, but it had no way down from it ; and in a copy of verses to Phocus he writes—* — that I spared my land, And withheld from usurpation and from violence my hand, And forbore to fix a stain and a disgrace on my good name, I regret not ; I believe that it will be my chiefest fame. SOLON. 137 From which it is manifest that he was a man of great reputa- tion before he gave his laws. The several mocks that were put upon him for refusing the power, he records in these words, — Solon surely was a dreamer, and a man of simple mind ; When the gods would give him fortune, he of his own will declined ; When the net was full of fishes, over-heavy thinking it ; He declined to haul it up, through want of heart and want of wit. Had but I that chance of riches and of kingship, for one day, I would give my skin for flaying, and my house to die away. Thus he makes the many and the low people speak of him. Yet, though he refused the government, he was not too mild in the affair ; he did not show himself mean and sub- missive to the powerful, nor make his laws to pleasure those that choose him. For it was well before, he applied no remedy, nor altered any thing, for fear least. Overthrowing altogether and disordering the state, he should be too weak to new-model and recompose it to a tolerable condition ; but what he thought he could effect by persuasion upon the pliable, and by force upon the stubborn, this he did, as he himself says, With force and justice working both in one. And, therefore, when he was afterwards asked if he had left the Athenians the best laws that could be given, he replied, ^‘The best they could receive.’’ The way which, the moderns say, the Athenians have of softening the badness of a thing, by ingeniously giving it some pretty and innocent appellation, calling harlots, for example, mistresses, tributes customs, a garrison a guard, and the jail the chamber, seem originally to have been Solon’s contrivance, who called cancelling debts Seisacthea, a relief, or disencumbrance. For the first thing which he settled was, that what debts remained should be for- given, and no man, for the future, should engage the b<'dy of his debtor for security. Though some, as Androtion, affirm that the debts were not cancelled, but the interest only lessened, which sufficiently pleased the people ; so that they named this benefit the Seisacthea, together with the enlarging their measures, and raising the value of their money ; for he made a pound, which before passed for seventy-three drach- mas, go for a hundred ; so that, though the number of pieces in the payment was equal, the value was less ; which proved a considerable benefit to those that were to discharge great SOLON. 138 debts, and no loss to the creditors. But most agree that it was the taking off the debts that was called Seisacthea, which is confirmed by some places in his poem, where he takes honor to himself, that The mortgage-stones that covered her, by me Removed, — the land that was a slave is free : that some who had been seized for their debts he had brought back from other countries, where — so far their lot to roam, They had forgot the language of their home ; and some he had set at liberty, — Who here in shameful servitude were held. While he was designing this, a most vexatious thing hap- pened ; for when he had resolved to take off the debts, and was considering the proper form and fit beginning for it, he told some of his friends, Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus, in whom he had a great deal of confidence, that he would not meddle with the lands, but only free the people from their debts ; upon which, they, using their advantage, made haste and borrowed some considerable sums of money, and pur- chased some large farms ; and when the law was enacted, they kept the possessions, and would not return the money ; which brought Solon into great suspicion and dislike, as if he himself had not been abused, but was concerned in the con- trivance. But he presently stopped this suspicion, by releas- ing his debtors of five talents (for he had lent so much), ac- cording to the law ; others, as Polyzelus the Rhodian, say fifteen ; his friends, however, were ever afterward called Chreocopidae, repudiators. In this he pleased neither party, for the rich were angry for their money, and the poor that the land was not divided, and, as Lycurgus ordered in his commonwealth, all men re- duced to equality. He, it is true, being the eleventh from Hercules, and having reigned many years in Lacedaemon, had got a great reputation and friends and power, which he could use in modelling his state ; and applying force more than per- suasion, insomuch that he lost his eye in the scuffle, was able to employ the most effectual means for the safety and harmony of a state, by not permitting" any to be poor or rich in his commonwealth. Solon could not rise to that in his polity, be- ing but a citizen of the middle classes ; yet he acted fully up to the height of his power, having nothing but the good-will SOLON. 139 and good opinion of his citizens to rely on ; and that he offended the most part, who looked for another result, he declares in the words, Formerly they boasted of me vainly ; with averted eyes Now they look askance upon me ; friends no more, but enemies. And yet had any other man, he says, received the same pow er, He would not have forborne, nor let alone, But made the fattest of the milk his own. Soon, how^ever, becoming sensible of the good that was done, they laid by their grudges, made a public sacrifice, calling it Seisacthea, and chose Solon to new-model and makes laws for the commonwealth, giving him the entire j)ower over every thing, their magistracies, their assemblies, courts, and councils ; that he should appoint the number, times of meet- ing, and what estate they must have that could be capable of these, and dissolve or continue any of the present constitu- tions, according to his pleasure. First, then, he repealed all Dracoes laws, except those concerning homicide, because they were too severe, and the punishments too great ; for death was appointed for almost all offences, insomuch that those that were convicted of idleness were to die, and those that stole a cabbage or an apple to suffer even as villains that committed sacrilege or murder. So that Demades, in after time, was thought to have said very happily, that Draco’s laws were written not with ink but blood ; and he himself, being once asked why he made death the punishment of most offences, replied, “ Small ones deserve that, and I have no higher for the greater crimes.” ^ Next, Solon, being willing to continue the magistracies in the hands of the rich men, and yet receive the people into the other part of the government, took an account of the citizen’s estates, and those that were worth five hundred measures of fruit, dry and liquid, he placed in the first rank, calling them Pentacosiomedimni ; those that could keep an horse, or were worth three hundred measures, were named Hippada Teluntes, and made the second class ; the Zeugitae, that had two hundred measures, were in the third ; and all the others were called Thetes, who were not admitted to any office, but could come to the assembly, and act as jurors ; which at first seemed nothing, but afterwards was found an enormous privilege, as almost every matter of dispute came before them in this latter capacity. Even in the cases which SOLON, 140 he assigned to the archon’s cognizance^ he allowed an appeal to the courts. Besides, it is said that he was obscure and ambiguous in the wording of his laws, on purpose to increase the honor of his courts ; for since their differences could not be adjusted by the letter, they would have to bring all their causes to the judges, who thus were in a manner masters of the Jaws. Of this equalization he himself makes mention :n this manner : Such power I gave the people as might do, Abridged not what they had, now lavished new. Those that were great in wealth and high in place, My counsel likewise kept from all disgrace. Before them both I held my shield of might. And let not either touch the other’s right. And for the greater security of the weak commons, he gave general liberty of indicting for an act of injury ; if any one was beaten, maimed, or suffered any violence, any man that would and was able, might prosecute the wrongdoer ; intend- ing by this to accustom the citizens, like members of the same body, to resent and be sensible of one another’s injuries. And there is a saying of his agreeable to his law, for, being asked what city was best modelfea, That,” said he, where those that are not injured try and punish the unjust as much as those that are.” When he had constituted the Areopagus of those who had been yearly archons of which he himself was a member therefore, observing that the people, now free from their debts, were unsettled and imperious, he formed another coun- cil of four hundred, a hundred out of each of the four tribes, A^hich was to inspect all matters before they were propounded to the people, and to take care that nothing but what had been first examined should be brought before the general assembly. The upper council, or Areopagus, he made in- spectors and keepers of the laws, conceiving that the com monwealth, held by these two councils, like anchors, would be less liable to be tossed by tumults, and the people be more quiet. Such is the general statement, that Solon insti- tuted the Areopagus ; which seems to be confirmed, because Draco makes no mention of the Areopagites, but in all causes of blood refers to the Ephetae ; yet Solon’s thirteenth table. contains the eighth law set down in these very words : ‘‘ Wno- ever before Solon’s archonship were disfranchised, let them be restored, except those that, being condemned by the Are< opagus. Ephetae, or in the Prytaneum by the kings, f i>r homi SOLON. I4I cide, murder, or designs against the government, were in banishment when this law was made ; ” and these words seem to show that the Areopagus existed before Solon^s laws, for who could be condemned by that council before his time, if he was the first that instituted the court? unless, which is probable, there is some ellipsis, or want of precision in the language, and it should run thus : — “ Those that are con- victed of such offences as belong to the cognizance of the Areopagites, Ephetae, or the Prytanes, when this law was made, ^ shall remain still in disgrace, whilst others are re- stored; of this the reader must judge. Amongst his others laws, one is very peculiar and sur- prising, which disfranchises all who stand neuter in a sedi- tion ; for it seems he would not have any one remain insen- sible and regardless of the public good, and securing his private affairs, glory that he has no feeling of the distempers of his country; but at once join with the good party and those that have the right upon their side, assist and venture with them, rather than keep out of harm’s way and watch who would get the better. It seems an absurd and foolish law which permits an heiress, if her lawful husband fail her, to take his nearest kinsman ; yet some say this law was well contrived against those who, conscious of their own unfitness, yet, for the sake of the- portion, would match with heiresses, and make use of law to put a violence upon nature ; for now, since she can quit him for whom she pleases, they would either abstain from such marriages, or continue them with disgrace, and suffer for their covetousness and designed affront ; it is well done, moreover, to confine her to her hus- band’s nearest kinsman, that the children may be of the same family. Agreeable to this is the law that the bride and bridegroom shall be shut into a chamber, and eat a quince together ; and that the husband of an heiress shall consort with her thrice a month ; for though there be no children, yet it is an honor and due affection which an husband ought to pay to a virtuous, chaste wife ; it takes off all petty differ- ences, and will not permit their little quarrels to proceed to a rupture. In all other marriages he forbade dowries to be given ; the wife was to have three suits of clothes, a little inconsider- able household stuff, and that was all ; for he would not have marriages contracted for gain or an estate, but for pure love, kind affection, and birth of children. When the mother of Dionysius desired him to marry her to one of his citizens 142 SOLON. “Indeed/’ said he, “by my tyranny I have broken my coun- try's laws, but cannot put a violence upon those of nature by an unseasonable marriage.” Such disorder is never to be suf- fered in a commonwealth, nor such unseasonable and unlov- ing and unperforming marriages, which attain no due end or fruit j any provident governor or lawgiver might say to an old man that takes a young wife what is said to Philoctetes in the tragedy,— Truly, in a fit state thou to marry ! and if he finds a young man, with a rich and elderly wife, growing fat in his place, like the partridges, remove him to a young woman of proper age. And of this enough. Another commendable law of Solon’s is that which forbids men to speak evil of the dead ; for it is pious to think the de- ceased sacred, and just, not to meddle with those that are gone, and politic, to prevent the perpetuity of discord. He likewise forbade them to speak evil of the living in the tem- ples, the courts of justice, the public offices, or at the games, or else to pay three drachmas to the person, and two to the public. For never to be able to control passion shows a weak nature and ill-breeding ; and always to moderate it is very hard, and to some impossible. And laws must look to possibilities, if the maker designs to punish few in order to their amendment, and not many to no purpose. He is likewise much commended for his law concerning wills ; for before him none could be made, but all the wealth and estate of the deceased belonged to his family ; but he by per- mitting them, if they had no children, to bestow it on whom they pleased, showed that he esteemed friendship a stronger tie than kindred, and affection than necessity; and made every man’s estate truly his own. Yet he allowed not all sorts of legacies, but those only which were not extorted by the frenzy of a disease, charms, imprisonment, force, or the persuasions of a wife ; with good reason thinking that being seduced into wrong was as bad as being forced, and that be- tween deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion, theit. was little difference, since both may equally suspend the ex- ercise of reason. He regulated the walks, feasts, and mourning of the women, and took away every thing that was either unbecom- ing or immodest ; when they walked abroad, no more than three articles of dress were allowed them ; an obol’s worth of meat and drink ; and no basket above a cubit high ; and at SOLON. M3 night they were not to go about unless in a chariot with a torch before them. Mourners tearing themselves to raise pity, and set wailings, and at one man’s funeral to lament for another, he forbade. To oifer an ox at the grave was not permitted, nor to bury above three pieces of dress with the body, or visit the tombs of any besides their own family, un- less at the very funeral ; most of which are likewise forbidden by our laws, but this is further added in ours, that those that are convicted of extravagance in their mournings, are to be punished as soft and effeminate by the censors of women. Observing the city to be filled with persons that flocked from all parts into Attica for security of living, and that most of the country was barren and unfruitful, and that traders at sea import nothing to those that could give them nothing in exchange, he turned his citizens to trade, and made a law that no son be obliged to relieve a father who had not bred him up to any calling. It is true, Lycurgus, having a city free from all strangers, and land, according to Euripides, Large for large hosts, for twice their number much, and, above all, an abundance of laborers about Sparta, who should not be left idle, but be kept down with continual toil and work, did well to take off his citizens from laborious and mechanical occupations, and keep them to their arms, and teach them only the art of war. But Solon, fitting his laws to the state of things, and not making things to suit his laws, and finding the ground scarce rich enough to maintain the husbandmen, and altogether incapable of feeding an unoc- cupied and leisured multitude, brought trades into credit, and ordered the Areopagites to examine how every man got his living, and chastise the idle. But that law was yet more rigid which, as Heraclides Ponticus delivers, declared the sons of unmarried mothers not obliged to relieve their fathers ; for he that avoids the honorable form of union shows that he does net take a woman for children, but for pleasure, and thus geib his just reward, and has taken away from himself every title to upbraid his children, to whom he has made their very birth a scandal and reproach. Solon’s laws in general about women are his strangest ; for he permitted any one to kill an adulterer that found him in the act ; but if any one forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine ; if he enticed her, twenty ; except those that sell themselves openly, that is, harlots, whe go openly to those that hire them. He made it unlawful to sell 144 SOLON. a daughter or a sister, unless, being yet unmarried, she was found wanton. Now it is irrational to punish the same crime sometimes very severely and without remorse, and sometimes very lightly, and as it were in sport, with a trivial fine ; unless there being little money then in Athens, scarcity made those mulcts the more grievous punishment. In the valuation for sacrifices, a sheep and a bushel were both estimated at a drachma ; the victor in the Isthmian games, was to have foi reward an hundred drachmas ; the conqueror in the Olympian, five hundred ; he that brought a wolf, five drachmas ; for a whelp, one ; the former sum, as Demetrius the Phalerian as- serts, was the value of an ox, the latter, of a sheep. The prices which Solon, in his sixteenth table, sets on choice vic- tims, were naturally far greater ; yet they, too, are very low in comparison of the present. The Athenians were, from the beginning, great enemies to wolves, their fields being better for pasture than corn. Some affirm their tribes did not take their names from the sons of Ion, but from the dif- ferent sorts of occupation that they followed ; the soldiers were called Hoplitae, the craftsmen Ergades, and, of the re- maining two, the farmers Gedeontes, and the shepherds and graziers ^gicores. Since the country has but few rivers, lakes, or large springs, and many used wells which they had dug, there was a law made, that, where there was a public well within a hippi- con^ that is, four furlongs, all should draw at that ; but when it was farther off, they should try and procure a well of their own ; and if they had dug ten fathom deep and could find no water, they had liberty to fetch a pitcherful of four gallons and a half in a day from their neighbors’ j for he thought it prudent to make provision against want, but not to supply laziness. He showed skill in his orders about planting, for any one that would plant another tree was not to set it within five feet of his neighbor’s field ; but if a fig or an olive, not within nine ; for their roots spread farther, nor can they be planted near all sorts of trees without damage, for they draw away the nourishment, and in some cases are noxious by their effluvia. He that would dig a pit or a ditch was to dig it at the distance of its own depth from his neighbor’s ground and he that would raise stocks of bees was not to place them within three hundred feet of those which another had already raised. He permitted only oil to be exported, and those that ex- ported any other fruit, the archon was solemnly to curse, or SOLOK. 145 ilse pay an hundred drachmas himself; and this law was written in his first table, and, therefore, let none think it in- credible, as some affirm, that the exportation of figs was once unlawful, and the informer against the delinquents called a sycophant. He made a law, also, concerning hurts and inju- ries from beasts, in which he commands the master of any dog that bit a man to deliver him up with a log about his neck, four and a half feet long ; a happy device for men’s security. The law concerning naturalizing strangers is of doubtful character; he permitted only those to be made free of Athens who were in perpetual exile from their own country, or came with their whole family to trade there ; this he did, not to discourage • strangers, but rather to invite them to a permanent participa- tion in the privileges of the government ; and, besides, he thought those would prove the more faithful citizens who had been forced from their own country, or voluntarily forsook it. The law of public entertainment {Jyarasitein is his name for it) is also peculiarly Solon’s ; for if any man came often, or if he that was invited refused, they were punished, for he con- cluded that one was greedy, the other a contemner of the state. All his laws he established for an hundred years, and wrote them on wooden tables or rollers, named axones, which might be turned round in oblong cases ; some of their relics were in my time still to be seen in the Prytaneum, or common hall, at Athens. These, as Aristotle states, were called cyr- bes, and there is a passage of Cratinus the comedian, By Solon, and by Draco, if you please, Whose Cyrbes make the fires that parch our peas. But some say those are properly cyrbes, which contain laws concerning sacrifices and the rites of religion, and all the others axones. The council all jointly swore to confirm the laws, and every one of the Thesmothetse vowed for himself at the stone in the market-place, that if he broke any of the statutes, he would dedicate a golden statue, as big as himself, at Delphi. Observing the irregularity of the months, and that the moon does not always rise and set with the sun, but often in the same day overtakes and gets before him, he ordered the day should be named the Old and New, attributing that part of it which was before the conjunction to the old moon, and the rest to the new, he being the first, it seems, that under- stood that verse of Homer, The end and the beginning of the month. 146 sc LOK. and the following day he called the new moon. After the twentieth he did not count by addition, but, like the moon itself in its wane, by subtraction ; thus up to the thirtieth. Now when these laws were enacted, and some came to So- lon every day, to commend or dispraise them, and to advise, if possible, to leave out, or put in something, and many criti- cised, and desire him to explain, and tell the meaning of such and such a passage, he, knowing that to do it was useless, and not to do it would get him ill-will, and desirous to bring him- self out of all straits, and to escape all displeasure and ex- ceptions, it being a hard thing, as he himself says, In great affairs to satisfy all sides, as an excuse for travelling, bought a trading vessel, and, having leave for ten years’ absence, departed, hoping that by that time his laws would have become familiar. His first voyage was for Egypt, and he lived, as he himself says. Near Nilus' mouth, by fair Canopus’ shore, and spent some time in study with Psenophis of Heliopolis, and Sonchis the Saite, the most learned of all the priests ; from whom, as Plato says, getting knowledge of the Atlantic story, he put it into a poem, and proposed to bring it to the knowledge of the Greeks. From thence he sailed to Cyprus, where he was made much of by Philocyprus, one of the kings there, who had a small city built by Demophon, Theseus’s son, near the river Clarius, in a strong situation, but incom- modius and uneasy of access. Solon persuaded him, since there lay a fair plain below, to remove, and build there a pleasanter and more spacious city. And he stayed himself, and assisted in gathering inhabitants, and in fitting it both for defence and convenience of living ; insomuch that many flocked to Philocyprus, and the other kings imitated the design ; and, therefore, to honor Solon, he called the city Soli, which was formerly named -^pea. And Solon himself, in his Elegies, addressing Philocyprus, mentions this founda- tion in these words — Long may you live, and fill the Solian throne, Succeeded still by children of your own ; And from your happy island while I sail. Let Cyprus send for me a favoring gale ; May she advance, and bless your new command, Prosper your town, and send me safe to land. That Solon should discourse with Croesus, some think not $OI.ON. U7 agreeable with chronology ; but I cannot reject so famous and well-attested a narrative, and, what is more, so agreeable to Solon’s temper, and so worthy his wisdom and greatness of mind, because, forsooth, it does not agree with some chronological canons, which thousands have endeavored to regulate, and yet, to this day, could never bring their differ- ing opinions to any agreement. They say, therefore, that Solon coming to Croesus at his request, was in the same condition as an inland man when first he goes to see the sea ; for as he fancies every river he meets with to be the ocean, so Solon, as he passed through the court, and saw a great many nobles richly dressed, and proudly attended with a multitude of guards and footboys, thought every one had been the king, till he was brought to Croesus, who was decked with every possible rarity and curiosity, in ornaments of jewels, purple, and gold, that could make a grand and gorgeous spectacle of him. Now when Solon came before him, and seemed not at all surprised, nor gave Croesus those compliments he expect- ed, but showed himself to all discerning eyes to be a man that despised the gaudiness and petty ostentation of it, he commanded them to open all his treasure houses, and carry him to see his sumptuous furniture and luxuries, though he did not wish it / Solon could judge of him well enough by the first sight of him ; and, when he returned from viewing all, Croesus asked him if ever he had known a happier man than he. And when Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his own, and told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring the life and death of a private and mean man before so much power and empire. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any other man more happy. And Solon replying. Yes, Cleobis and Biton, who were loving brothers, and extremely dutiful sons to their mother, and, when the oxen delayed her, harnessed themselves to the wagon, and drew her to Juno’s temple, her neighbors all calling her happy, and she herself rejoicing ; then, after sacrificing and feasting, they went to rest, and never rose again, but died in the midst of their honor a painless and tranquil death, ‘‘ What,” said Croesus, angrily, and dost not thou reckon us amongst the happy men at all ?” Solon, unwilling either to flatter or exasperate him more, replied, “ The gods, O king^ 148 SOLON. have given the Greeks all other gifts in moderate degree ; and so our wisdom, too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly wisdom ; and this, observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions, forbids us to grow in- solent upon our present e ijoyments, or to admire any man’s happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with every possible variety of fortune ; and him only to whom the divinity has continued happiness unto the end, we call happy ; to salute as happy one that is still in the midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe and conclusive as to crown and proclaim as victorious the wrestler that is yet in the ring.” After this, he was dismissed, having given Croesus some pain, but no instruction. ^sop, who wrote the fables, being then at Sardis upon Croesus’s invitation, and very much esteemed, was concerned that Solon was so ill received, and gave him this advice : Solon, let your converse with kings be either short or sea- sonable.” “ Nay, rather,” replied Solon, “either short or rea- sonable.” So at this time Croesus despised Solon ; but when he was overcome by Cyrus, had lost his city, was taken alive, condemned to be burnt, and laid bound upon the pile before all the Persians and Cyrus himself, he cried out as loud as possibly he could three times, “ O Solon ! ” and Cyrus being surprised, and sending some to inquire what man or god this Solon was, who alone he invoked in this extermity, Croesus told him the whole story, saying, “ He was one of the wise men of Greece, whom I sent for, not to be instructed, or to learn any thing that I wanted, but that he should see and be a witness of my happiness ; the loss of which was, it seems, to be a greater evil than the enjoyment was a good ; for when I had them they were goods only in opinion, but now the loss of them has brought upon me intolerable and real evils. And he, conjecturing from what then was, this that now is, bade look to the end of my life, and not rely and grow proud upon uncertainties.” When this was told Cyrus, who was a wiser man then Croesus, and saw in the present example Solon’s maxim confirmed, he not only freed Croesus from punishment, but honored him as long as he lived ; and Solon had the glory, by the same saying, to save one king and instruct an- other. WHien Solon was gone, the citizens began to quarrel; Lycurgus headed the Plain ; Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, those to the Sea-side ; and Pisistratus the Hill-party, in which SOLON. 149 were the poorest people, the Thetes, and greatest enemies to the rich ; insomuch that, though the city still used the new laws, yet all looked for and desired a change of government, hoping severally that the change would be better for them, and put them above the contrary faction. Affairs standing thus, Solon returned, and was reverenced by all, and honored ; f but his old age would not permit him to be as active, and to speak in public, as formerly ; yet, by privately conferring with the heads of the factions, he endeavored to compose the dif- ferences, Pisistratus appearing the most tractable ; for he was extremely smooth and engaging in his language, a great friend to the poor, and moderate in his resentments ; and what nature had not given him, he had the skill to imitate ; so that he was trusted more than the others, being accounted a pru- dent and orderly man, one that loved equality, and would be an enemy to any that moved against the present settlement. Thus he deceived the majority of people ; but Solon quickly discovered his character, and found out his design before any one else ; yet did not hate him upon this, but endeavored to humble him, and bring him off from his ambition, and often told him and others, that if any one could banish the passion for preeminence from his mind, and cure him of his desire of absolute power, none would make a more virtuous man or a more excellent citizen. Thespis, at this time, beginning to act tragedies, and the thing, because it was new, taking very much with the multitude, though it was not yet made a matter of competition, Solon, being by nature fond of hearing and learning something new, and now, in his old age, living idly, and enjoying himself, indeed, with music and with wine, went to see Thespis himself, as the ancient custom was, act : and after the play was done, he addressed him, and asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before such a number of people ; and Thespis replying that it was no harm to say or do so in play, Solon vehemently struck his staff against the ground : “ Ah,’’ said he, “ if we honor and commend such play as this, we shall find it some day in our business.’^ Now when Pisistratus, having wounded himself, was brought into the market-place in a chariot, and stirred up the people, as if he had been thus treated by his opponents be- cause of his political conduct, and a great many were enraged and cried out, Solon, coming close to him, said, “ This, O son of Hippocrates, is a bad copy of Homer’s Ulysses ; you do, to trick 3 our countrymen, what he did to deceive his enemies.’’ After this, the people were eager to protect Pisistratus, and SOLON. ISO met in an assembly, where one Ariston making a motion that they should allow Pisistratus fifty clubmen for a guard to his person, Solon opposed it, and said much to the same purport as what he has left us in his poems. You doat upon his words and taking phrase : and again, — True, you are singly each a crafty soul, But all together make one empty fool. 1ju‘ observing the poor men bent to gratify Pisistratus, and tumultuous, and the rich fearful and getting out of harm’s way, he departed, saying he was wiser than some and stouter than others ; wiser than those that did not understand the design, stouter than those that, though they understood it, were afraid to oppose the tyranny. Now, the people, having passed the law, were not nice with Pisistratus about the number of his clubmen, but took no notice of it, though he enlisted and kept as many as he would, until he seized the Acropolis. When that was done, and the city in an uproar, Megacles, with all his family, at once fled ; but Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to back him, yet came into the market place and made a speech to the citizens, partly blaming their inadvertency and meanness of spirit, and in part urging and exhorting them not thus tamely to lose their liberty ; and likewise then spoke that memorable say- ing, that, before, it was an easier task to stop the rising tyran- ny, but now the greater and more glorious action to destroy it, when it was begun already, and had gathered strength. But all being afraid to side with him, he returned home, and, taking his arms, he brought them out and laid them in the porch before his door, with these words : ‘‘ I have done my part to maintain my country and my laws,” and then he busied himself no more. His friends advising him to fly, he refused, but wrote poems, and thus reproached the Athenians in them, — If now you suffer, do not blame the Powers, For they are good, and all the fault was ours. All the strongholds you put into his hands, And now his slaves must do what he commands. And many telling him that the tyrant would take his life lor this, and asking what he trusted to, that he ventured to speak so boldly, he replied, “ To my old age.” But Pisistratus, having got the command, so extremely courted Solon, so hon- ored him, obliged him, and sent to see him, that Solon gave. SOLOX. him his advice, and approved many of his actions ; for he retained most of Solon’s laws, observed them himself, and compel’ ed his friends to obey. And he himself, though already absolute ruler, being accused of murder before the Areopagus, came quietly to clear himself ; but his accuser did not appear. And he added other laws, one of which is that the maimed in the wars should be maintained at the public charge ; this Heraclides Ponticus records, and that Pisistratus followed Solon’s example in this, who had decreed it in the case of one Thersippus, that was maimed ; and The- ophrastus asserts that it was Pisistratus, not Solon, that made that law against laziness, which was the reason that the country was more productive, and the city tranquiller. Now Solon, having begun the great work in verse, the history or fable of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men in Sais, and thought convenient for the Athenians to know, abandoned it ; not as Plato says, by reason of want of time, but because of his age, and being dis- couraged at the greatness of the task ; for that he had leisure enough, such verses testify, as Each day grow older, and learn something new ; and again, — But now the Powers, of Beauty, Song, and Wine, Which are most men’s delights, are also mine. Plato, willing to improve the story of the Atlantic Isla’nd, as if it were a fair estate that wanted an heir and came with some title to him, formed, indeed, stately entrances, noble enclosures, large courts, such as never yet introduced any story, fable, or poetic fiction ; but, beginning it late, ended his life before his work ; and the reader’s regret, for the un- finished part is the greater, as the satisfaction he takes in that which is complete is extraordinary. For as the city of Athens left only the temple of Jupiter Olympius unfinished, so Plato, amongst all his excellent works, left this only piece about the Atlantic Island imperfect. Solon lived after Pisis- tratus seized the government, as Heraclides Ponticus asserts, a long time ; but Phanias the Eresian says not two full years ; for Pisistratus began his tyranny when Comias was archon, and Phanias says Solon died under Hegestratus, who suc- ceeded Comias. The story that his ashes were scattered about the island Salamis is too strange to be easily believed, or be thought any thing but a mere fable ; and yet it is given, amongst other good authors, by Aristotle, the philosopher. 152 POrLICOLA. POPLICOLA. Such, was Solon. To him we compare Poplicola, who ceived this later title from the Roman people for his merit, as a noble accession to his former name, Publius Valerius. lie descended from Valerius, a man amongst the early citizens, reputed the principal reconciler of the differences betwixt the Romans and Sabines, and one that was most instru- mental in persuading their kings to assent to peace and union. Thus descended, Publius Valerius, as it is said, whilst Rome remained under its kingly government, obtained as great a name from his eloquence as from his riches, chari- tably employing the one in liberal aid to the poor, the other with integrity and freedom in the service of justice ; thereby giving assurance, that, should the government fall into a re- public, he would become a chief man in the community. The illegal and wicked accession of Tarquinius Superbus to the crown, with his making it, instead of kingly rule, the in- strument of insolence and tyranny, having inspired the people with a hatred to his reign, upon the death of Lucre tia (she killing herself after violence had been done to her), they took an occasion of revolt ; and Lucius Brutus, engaging in the change, came to Valerius before all others, and, with his zealous assistance, deposed the kings. And whilst the peo- ple inclined towards the electing one leader instead of their king, Valerius acquiesced, that to rule was rather Brutus’s due, as the author of the democracy. But when the name of monarchy was odious to the people, and a divided power appeared more grateful in the prospect, and two were chosen to hold it, Valerius, entertaining hopes that he might be elected consul with Brutus, was disappointed ; for, instead of Valerius, notwithstanding the endeavors of Brutus, Taiquin- ius Collatinus was chosen, the husband of Lucretia, a man noways his superior in merit. But the nobles, dreading the return of their kings, who still used all endeavors abroad and solicitations at home, were resolved upon a chieftain of an intense hatred to them, and noways likely to yield. Now Valerius was troubled, that his desire to serve his country should be doubted, because he had sustained no private injury from the insolence of the tyrants. He with- drew from the senate and practice of the bar, quitting all POPLICOLA. IS3 public concerns ; which gave ap occasion of discourse, and fear, too, lest his anger should reconcile him to the king’s side, and he should prove the ruin of the state, tottering as* yet under the uncertainties of a change. But Brutus bein^ doubtful of some others, and determined to give the test to the senate upon the altars, upon the day appointed Valerius came with cheerfulness into the forum, and was the first man that took the oath, in no way to submit or yield to Tarquin’s propositions, but rigorously to maintain liberty ; which gave great satisfaction to the senate and assurance to the consuls, his actions soon after showing the sincerity of his oath. For ambassadors came from Tarquin, with popular and spe- cious proposals, whereby they thought to seduce the people, as though the king had cast off all insolence, and made mod- eration the only measure of his desires. To this embassy the consuls thought fit to give public audience, but Valerius opposed it, and would not permit that the poorer people, who entertained more fear of war than of tyranny, should have any occasion offered them, or any temptations to new designs. Afterwards other ambassadors arrived, who declared their king would recede from his crown, and lay down his arms, only capitulating for a restitution to himself, his friends, and allies, of their moneys and estates to support them in their banish- ment. Now, several inclining to the request, and Collatinus in particular favoring it, Brutus, a man of vehement and un- bending nature, rushed into the forum, there proclaiming his fellow-consul to be a traitor, in granting subsidies to tyranny, and supplies for a war to those to whom it was monstrous to allow so much as subsistence in exile. This caused an as- sembly of the citizens, amongst whom the first that spake was Caius Minucius, a private man, who advised Brutus, and urged the Romans to keep the property, and employ it against the tyrants, rather than to remit it to the tyrants, to be used against themselves. The Romans, however, decided that whilst they had enjoyed the liberty they had fought for, they should not sacrifice peace for the sake of money, but send out the tyrants’ property after them. This ques- tion, however, of his property, was the least part of Tar- quin’s design; the demand sounded the feelings of the people, and was preparatory to a conspiracy which the am- bassadors endeavored to excite, delaying their return, under pretence of selling some of the goods and reserving others to be sent away, till, in fine, they corrupted two of the most em- inent lamilies in Rome, the Aquillian, which had three, and 154 POPLICOLA. the Vitellian, which had two senators. These all were, by the mother’s side, nephews to Collatinus ; besides which Brutus had a special alliance to the Vitellii from his marriage with their sister, by whom he had several children ; two of whom, of their own age, their near relations and daily com- panions, the Vitellii seduced to join in the plot, to ally them- selves to the great house and royal hopes of the Tarquins, and gain emancipation from the violence and imbecility united of their father, whose austerity to offenders they termed vio- lence, while the imbecility which he had long feigned, to protect himself from the tyrants, still, it appears, was, in name at least, ascribed to him. When upon these inducements the youths came to confer with the Aquillii, all thought it conve- nient to bind themselves in a solemn and dreadful oath, by tasting the blood of a murdered man, and touching his en- trails. For which design they met at the house of the Aquillii. The building chosen for the transaction was, as was natural, dark and unfrequented, and a slave named Vindicius had, as it chanced, concealed himself there, not out of design or any intelligence of the affair, but, accidentally being with- in, seeing with how much haste and concern they came in, he was afraid to be discovered, and placed himself behind a chest, where he was able to observe their actions and over- hear their debates. Their resolutions were to kill the consuls, and they wrote letters to Tarquin to this effect, and gave them to the ambassadors, who were lodging upon the spot with the Aquillii, and were present at the consultation. Upon their departure, Vindicius secretly quitted the house, but was at a loss what to do in the matter, for to arraign the sons before the father Brutus, or the nephews before the uncle Collatinus, seemed equally (as indeed it was) shock- ing ; yet he knew no private Roman to whom he could in- trust secrets of such importance. Unable, however, to keep silence, and burdened with his knowledge, he went and ad- dressed himself to Valerius, whose known freedom and kind- ness of temper were an inducement ; as he was a person to whom the needy had easy access, and who never shut his gates against the petitions or indigences of humble people. But when Vindicius came and made a complete discovery to him, his brother Marcus and his own wife being present, Valerius was struck with amazement, and by no means would dismiss the discoverer, but confined him to the room, and placed his wife as a guard to the door, sending his brother in the interim to beset the king’s palace, and seize, if possible, the writing? POPLICOLA. ISS there, and secure the domestics, whilst he, with his constant attendance of clients and friends, and a great retinue of at- tendants, repaired to the house of the Aquillii, who were, as it chanced, absent from home ; and so, forcing an entrance through the gates, they lit upon the letters then lying in the lodgings of the ambassadors. Meantime the Aquillii returned in all haste, and, coming to blows about the gate, endeavored a recovery of the letters. The other party made a resistance, ^ind throwing their gowns around their opponents’ necks, at ast, after much struggling on both sides, made their way with their prisoners through the streets into the forum. The like engagement happened about the king’s palace, where Marcus seized some other letters which it was designed should be conveyed away in the goods, and, laying hands on such of the king’s people as he could find, dragged them also into the forum. When the consuls had quieted the tumult, Vin- dicius was brought out by the orders of Valerius, and the accusation stated, and the letters were opened, to which the traitors could make no plea. Most of the people standing mute and sorrowful, some only, out of kindness to Brutus, mentioning banishment, the tears of Collatinus, attended with Valerius’s silence, gave some hopes of mercy. But Brutus, calling his two sons by their names, “ Canst not thou,” said he, ‘‘ O Titus, or thou, Tiberius, make any defence against the indictment?” The question being thrice pro- posed, and no reply made, he turned himself to the lictors and cried, “ What remains is your duty.” They immediately seized the youths, and, stripping them of their clothes, bound their hands behind them and scourged their bodies with their rods ; too tragical a scene for others too look at ; Brutus, however, is said not to have turned aside his face, nor allow- ed the least glance of pity to soften and smoothe his aspect of rigor and austerity ; but sternly watched his children suf- fer, even till the lictors, extending them on the ground, cut off their heads with an axe ; then departed, committing the rest to the judgment of his colleague. An action truly open alike to the highest commendation and the strongest censure ; for either the greatness of his virtue raised him above the impressions of sorrow, or the extravagance of his misery took away all sense of it ; but neither seemed com- mon, or the result of humanity, but either divine or brutish. Yet it is more reasonable that our judgment should yield to his reputation, than that his merit should suffer detraction by the weakness of our judgment ; in the Roman’s opinion^ POPLICOLA. Brutus did a greater work in the establishment of the govern- ment than Romulus in the foundation of the city. Upon Brutus’s departure out of the forum, consternatio, horror, and silence for some time possessed all that reflectev^ on what was done ; the easiness and tardiness, however, of Collatinus, gave confidence to the Aquillii to request some time to answer their charge, and that Vindicius, their servant, should be remitted into their hands, and no longer harbored amongst their accusers. The consul seemed inclined to their proposal, and was proceeding to dissolve the assembly ; but Valerius would not suffer Vindicius, who was surrounded by his people, to be surrendered, nor the meeting to withdraw without punishing the traitors ; and at length laid violent hands upon the Aquillii, and, calling Brutus to his assistance, exclaimed against the unreasonable course of Collatinus, to impose upon his colleague the necessity of taking away the lives of his own sons, and yet have thoughts of gratifying some women with the lives of traitors and public enemies. Collatinus, displeased at this, and commanding Vindicius to be taken away, the lictors made their way through the crowd and seized their man, and struck all who endeavored a res- cue. Valerius’s friends headed the resistance, and the peo- ple cried out for Brutus, who, returning, on silence being made, told them he had been competent to pass sentence by himself upon his own sons, but left the rest to the suffrages of the free citizens: “Let every man speak that washes, and persuade whom he can.” But there w^as no need of oratory, for, it being referred to the vote, they were returned condemned by all the suffrages, and were accordingly beheaded. Collatinus’s relationship to the kings had, ii.'deed, already rendered him suspicious, and his second name, too, had made him obnoxious to the people, who were loth to hear the very sound of Tarquin ; but after this had happened, perceiving himself an offence to every one, he relinquished his chaige and departed from the city. At the new elections in his room, Valerius obtained, with high honor, the consulship, as a just reward of his zeal ; of which he thought Vindicius de- served a share, whom he made, first of all freedmen, a citizen of Rome, and gave him the privilege of voting in what tribe soever he was pleased to be enrolled ; other freedmen re ceived the right of suffrage a long time after from Appius, who thus courted popularity ; and from this Vindicius, a per feet manumission is called to this day vindicta. This done, the goods of the kings were exposed to plunder, and the pal ace to ruin. POPLICOLA. ^57 The pleasantest part of the field jf Mars, which Tarqain had owned, was devoted to the service of that god ; but, it happening to be harvest season, and the sheaves yet being on the ground, they thought it not proper to commit them to the flail, or unsanctify them with any use ; and, therefore, carrying them to the riverside, and trees withal that were cut down, they cast all into the water, dedicating the soil, free from all occupation, to the deity. Now, these thrown in, one upon another, and closing together, the stream did not bear them far, but where the first were carried down and came to a bottom, the remainder, finding no farther conveyance, were stopped and interwoven one with another ; the stream work- ing the mass into a firmness, and washing down fresh mud. This, settling there, became an accession of matter, as well as cement, to the rubbish, insomuch that the violence of the waters could not remove it, but forced and compressed it all together. Thus its bulk and solidity gained it new subsidies, which gave it extension enough to stop on its way most of what the stream brought down. This is now a sacred island, lying by the city, adorned with the temples of the gods, and walks, and is called in the Latin tongue inter duos pontes. Though some say this did not happen at the dedication of Tarquin^s field, but in aftertimes, when Tarquinia, a vestal priestess, gave an adjacent field to the public, and obtained great honors in consequence, as, amongst the rest, that of all women her testimony alone should be received ; she had also the liberty to marry, but refused it ; thus some tell the story. Tarquin, despairing of a return to his kingdom by the conspiracy, found a kind reception amongst the Tuscans, who, with a great army, proceeded to restore him. The consuls headed the Romans against them, and made their rendezvous in certain holy places, the one called the Arsian grove, the other the ^suvian meadow. When they came into action, Aruns, the son of Tarquin, and Brutus, the Roman consul, not acci- dentally encountering each other, but out of hatred and rage, the one to avenge tyranny and enmity to his country, the other his banishment, set spurs to their horses, and, engaging with more fury than forethought, disregarding their own se- curity, fell together in the combat. This dreadful onset hardly was followed by a more favorable end ; both armies, doing and receiving equal damage, were separated by a storm. Valerius was much concerned, not knowing what the result ^f the day was, and seeing his men as well dismayed at POPLICOLA. ^S8 the sight of their own dead, as rejoiced at the loss of the enemy ; so apparently equal in the number was the slaughter on e'ther side. Each party, however, felt surer of defeat from the actual sight of their own dead, than they could feel of victory from conjecture about those of their adversaries. The night being come (and such as one may presume must follow such a battle), and the armies laid to rest, they say that the grove shook, and uttered a voice, saying that the Tuscans had lost one man more than the Romans ; clearly a divine announcement; and the Romans at once received it with shouts and expressions of joy ; whilst the Tuscans, through fear and amazement, deserted their tents, and were for the most part dispersed. The Romans, falling upon the remainder, amounting to nearly five thousand, took them pris- oners, and plundered the camp ; when they numbered the dead, they found on the Tuscans^ side eleven thousand and three hundred, exceeding their own loss but by one man. This fight happened upon the last day of February, and Va- lerius triumphed in honor of it, being the first consul that drove in with a four-horse chariot ; which sight both appear- ed magnificent, and was received with an admiration free from envy or offence (as some suggest) on the part of the spectators ; it would not otherwise have been continued with so much eagerness and emulation through all the after ages. The people applauded likewise the honors he did to his col- league, in adding to his obsequies a funeral oration : which was so much liked by the Romans, and found so good a re- ception, that it became customary for the best men to cele- brate the funerals of great citizens with speeches in their commendation ; and their antiquity in Rome is affirmed to be greater than in Greece, unless, with the orator Anaximenes, we make Solon the first author. Yet some part of Valerius’s behavior did give offence and disgust to the people, because Brutus, whom they esteemed the father of their liberty, had not presumed to rule without a colleague, but united one and then another to him in his commission; while Valerius, they said, centreing all authority in himself, seemed not in any sense a successor to Brutus in the consulship, but to Tarquin in the tyranny ; he might make verbal harangues to Brutus’s memory, yet, when he was attended with all the rods and axes, proceeding down from a house than which the king’s house that he had demol- ished had not been statelier, those actions showed him an imitator of Tarquin. For, indeed, his dwelling-house on the POPLICOLA. ^59 Velia was somewhat imposing in appearance, hanging over the forum, and overlooking all transactions there ; the access to it was hard, and to see him far off coming down, a stately and royal spectacle. But Valerius showed how well it were for men in power and gi^at offices to have ears that give admittance to truth before flattery ; for upon his friends tell- ing him that he displeased the people, he contended not, neither resented it, but while it was still night, sending for a number of work-people, pulled down his house and levelled it with the ground ; so that in the morning the people, seeing and flocking together, expressed their wonder and their re- spect for his magnanimity, and their sorrow, as though it had been a human being, for the large and beautiful house which was thus lost to them by an unfounded jealousy, while its owner, their consul, without a roof of his own, had to beg a lodging with his friends. For his friends received him, till a place the people gave him was furnished with a house, though less stately than his own, where now stands the temple, as it is called, of Vica Pota. He resolved to render the government, as well as himself, instead of terrible, familiar and pleasant to the people, and parted the axes from the rods, and always, upon his entrance into the assembly, lowered these also to the people, to show, in the strongest way, the republican foundation of the gov- ernment ; and this the consuls observe to this day. But the humility of the man was but a means, not, as they thought, of lessening himself, but merely to abate their envy by this moderation ; for whatever he detracted from his authority he added to his real power, the people still submitting with sat- isfaction, which they expressed by calling him Poplicola, or people-lover, which name had the preeminence of the rest, and, therefore, in the sequel of his narrative we shall use no other. He gave free leave to any to sue for the counsulship ; but before the admittance of a colleague, mistrusting the j chances, lest emulation or ignorance should cross his designs, by his sole authority enacted his best and most important measures. First, he supplied the vacancies of the senators, whom either Tarquin long before had put to death, or the war lately cut off ; those that he enrolled, they write, amounted to a hundred and sixty-four ; afterwards he made several laws which added much to the people^s liberty, in particular one granting offenders the liberty of appealing to the people from the judgment of the consuls j a second, that made it death to i6o POPLICOLA. usurp any magistracy without the people’s consent ; a third, for the relief of poor citizens, which, taking off their taxes, encouraged their labors ; another, against disobedience to the consuls, which was no less popular than the rest, and rather to the benefit of the commonalty than to the advantage of the nobles, for it imposed upon disobedience the penalty of ten oxen and two sheep ; the price of a sheep being ten obols; of an ox, an hundred. For the use of money was then infrequent amongst the Romans, but their wealth in cattle great ; even now pieces of property are called peculia^ from pecus, cattle \ and they had stamped upon their most ancient money an ox, a sheep, or a hog ; and surnamed their sons Suillii, Bubulci, Caprarii, and Porcii, from caprcz^ goats, and porci^ hogs. Amidst this mildness and moderation, for one excessive fault he instituted one excessive punishment ; for he made it lawful without trial to take away any man’s life that aspired to a tyranny, and acquitted the slayer, if he produced evi- dence of the crime ; for though it was not probable for a man, whose designs were so great, to escape all notice ; yet be- cause it was possible he might, although observed, by force anticipate judgment, which the usurpation itself would then preclude, he gave a license to any to anticipate the usurper. He was honored likewise for the law touching the treasury j for because it was necessary for the citizens to contribute out of their estates to the maintenance of wars, and he was unwil- ling himself to be concerned in the care of it, or to permit his friends, or indeed to let the public money pass into any private house, he allotted the temple of Saturn for the treas- ury, in which to this day they deposit the tribute-money, and granted the people the liberty of choosing two young men as quaestors, or treasurers. The first were Publius Veturius and Marcus Minucius ; and a large sum was collected, for they assessed one hundred and thirty thousand, excusing orphans and widows from the payment. After these dispositions, he admitted Lucretius, the father of Lucretia, as his colleague, and gave him the precedence in the government, by resigning the fasces to him, as due to his years, which privilege of seniority continued to our time. But within a few days Lucretius died, and in a new election Marcus Horatius suc- ceeded in that honor, and continued consul for the remainder ©f the year. Now, whilst Tarquin was making preparations in Tuscany for a second war against the Romans, it is said a great POPLICOLA. i6t portent occurred. When Tarquin was king, and had all but completed the buildings of the Capitol, designing, whether from oracular advice or his own pleasure, to erect an earthen chariot upon the top, he intrusted the workmanship to Tus- cans of the city Veii, but soon after lost his kingdom. The work thus modelled, the Tuscans set in a furnace, but the clay showed not those passive qualities which usually attend its nature, to subside and be condensed upon the evaporation of the moisture, but rose and swelled out to that bulk, that, when solid and firm, notwithstanding the removal of the roof and opening the walls of the furnace, it could not be taken out without much difficulty. The soothsayers looked upon this as a divine prognostic of success and power to those that should possess it ; and the Tuscans resolved not to deliver it to the Romans, who demanded it, but answered that it rather belonged to Tarquin than to those who had sent him into exile. A few days after, they had a horse-race there, with the usual shows and solemnities, and as the charioteer with his garland on his head, was quietly driving the victorious chariot out of the ring, the horses, upon no apparent occasion, taking fright, either by divine instigation or by accident, hurried away their driver at full speed to Rome ; neither did his holding them in prevail, nor his voice, but he was forced along with violence till, coming to the Capitol, he was thrown out by the gate called Ratumena. This occurrence raised wonder and fear in the Veientines, who now permitted the delivery of the chariot. The building of the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter had been vowed by Tarquin, the son of Demaratus, when warring with the Sabines ; Tarquinius Superbus, his son or grandson, built, but could not dedicate it, because he lost his kingdom before it was quite finished. And now that it was completed with all its ornaments, Poplicola was ambitious to dedicate it ; but the nobility envied him that honor, as, indeed, also, in some degree, those his prudence in making laws and conduct in wars entitled him to. Grudging him, at any rate, the addition of this, they urged Horatius to sue for the ded- ication, and, whilst Poplicola was engaged in some military expedition, voted it to Horatius, and conducted him to the Capitol, as though, were Poplicola present, they could not have carried it. Yet, some write, Poplicola was by lot des- tined against his will to the expedition, the other to the ded- ication ; and what happened in the performance seems to intimate some ground for this conjecture ; for, upon the Ides i 62 POPLICOLA. of September, which happens about the full moon of the month Metagitnion, the people having assembled at the Capitol and silence being enjoined, Horatius, after the per formance of other ceremonies, holding the doors, according to custom, was proceeding to pronounce the words of ded- ication, when Marcus, the brother of Poplicola, who had got a place on purpose beforehand near the door, observing his opportunity, cried, “ O consul, thy son lies dead in the camp ; ’’ which made a great impression upon all others who heard it, yet in nowise discomposed Horatius, who le turned merely the reply, ‘‘ Cast the dead out whither you please ^ I am not a mourner ; ” and so completed the dedication. The news was not true, but Marcus thought the lie might avert him from his performance ; but it argues him a man of wonderful self-possession, whether he at once saw through the cheat, or, believing it as true, showed no discomposure. The same fortune attended the dedication of the second temple ; the first, as has been said, was built by Tarquin, and dedicated by Horatius ; it was burnt down in the civil wars. The second, Sylla built, and, dying before the dedication, left that honor to Catulus ; and when this was demolished in the Vitellian sedition, Vespasian, with the same success that attended him in other things, began a third and lived to see it finished, but did not live to see it again destroyed, as it presently was ; but was as fortunate in dying before its de- struction, as Sylla was the reverse in dying before the ded- ication of his. For immediately after Vespasian^s death it was consumed by fire. The fourth, which now exists, was both built and dedicated by Domitia^n. It is said Tarquin expended forty thousand pounds of silver in the very founda- tions ; but the whole wealth of the richest private man in Rome would not discharge the cost of the gilding of this temple in our days, it amounting to above twelve thousand talents ; the pillars were cut out of Pentelican marble, of a length most happily proportioned to their thickness ; these we saw at Athens ; but when they were cut anew at Rome and polished, they did not gain so much in embellishment, as they lost in symmetry, being rendered too taper and slender. Should any one who wonders at the costliness of the Capitol visit any one gallery in Domitian’s palace, or hall, or bath, oi the apartmeTits of his concubines, Epicharmus’s remark upon the prodigal, that ^Tis not beneficence, but, truth to say, A mere disease U giving things away, POPLICOLA. 163 would be in his mouth in application to Domitian. It is neither piety, he would say, nor magnificence, but, indeed, a mere disease of building, and a desire, like Midas, of convert- ing every thing into gold or stone. And thus much for this matter. Tarquin, after the great battle wherein he lost his son in combat with Brutus, fled to Clusium, and sought aid from Lars Porsenna, then one of those most powerful princes of Italy, and a man of worth and generosity ; who assured him of assistance, immediately sending his commands to Rome that they should receive Tarquin as their king, and, upon the Romans’ refusal, proclaimed war, and, having signified the time and place where he intended his attack, approached with a great army. Poplicola was, in his absence, chosen consul a second time, and Titus Lucretius his colleague, and, re- turning to Rome, to show a spirit yet loftier than Por- senna’s, built the city Sigliura when Porsenna was already in the neighborhood ; and walling it at great expense, there placed a colony of seven hundred men, as being little con- cerned at the war. Nevertheless, Porsenna, making a sharp assault, obliged the defendants to retire to Rome, who had almost in their entrance admitted the enemy into the city with them ; only Poplicola by sallying out at the gate prevented them, and, joining battle by Tiber side, opposed the enemy, that pressed on with their multitude, but at last, sinking under desperate wounds, was carried out of the fight. The same fortune fell upon Lucretius, so that the Romans, being dis- mayed, retreated into the city for their security, and Rome was in great hazard of being taken, the enemy forcing their way on to the wooden bridge, where Horatius Codes, seconded by two of the first men in Rome, Herminius and Lartius, made head against them. Horatius obtained this name from the loss of one of his eyes in the wars, or, as others write, from the depressure of his nose, which, leaving nothing in the middle to separate them, made both eyes appear but as one ; and hence, intending to say Cyclops, by a mispronunci- ation they called him Codes. This Codes kept the bridge, and held back the enemy, till his own party broke it down behind, and then with his armor dropped into the river, and swam to the hither side, with a wound in his hip from a Tus- can spear. Poplicola, admiring his courage, proposed at once that the Romans should every one make him a present of a day’s provisions, and afterwards give him as much land as he could plow round in one day, and besides erected a brazen 164 POPLICOLA. Statute to his honor in the temple of Vulcan, as a requital fot the lameness caused by his wound. But Porsenna laying close siege to the city, and a famine raging amongst the Romans, also a new army ot the Tuscans making incursions into the country, Poplicola, a third time chosen consul, designed to make, without sallying out, his de- fence against Porsenna, but, privately stealing forth against the new army of the Tuscans, put them to flight and slew five thousand. The story of Mucius is variously given ; we, like others, must follow the commonly received statement. He was a man endowed with every virtue, but most eminent in war j and, resolving to kill Porsenna, attired himself in the Tuscan habit, and using the Tuscan language, came to the camp, and approaching the seat where the king sat amongst his nobles, but not certainly knowing the king, and fearful to inquire, drew out his sword, and stabbed one who he thought had most the appearance of king. Mucius was taken in the act, and whilst he was under examination, a pan of fire was brought to the king, who intended to sacrifice ; Mucius thrust his right hand into the flame, and whilst it burnt stood look- ing at Porsenna with a steadfast and undaunted countenance : Porsenna at last in admiration dismissed him, and returned his sword, reaching it from his seat ; Mucius received it in his left hand, which occasioned the name of Scaevola, left-handed, and said, I have overcome the terrors of Porsenna, yet am vanquished by his generosity, and gratitude obliges me to disclose what no punishment could extort and assured him then, that three hundred Romans, all of the same resolution, lurked about his camp, only waiting for an opportunity ; he, by lot appointed to the enterprise, was not sorry that he had miscarried in it, because so brave and good a man deserved rather to be a friend to the Romans than an enemy. To this Porsenna gave credit, and thereupon expressed an inclination to a truce, not, I presume, so much out of fear of the three hundred Romans, as in admiration of the Roman courage. A.11 other writers call this man Mucius Scaevola, yet Athen- dorus, son of Sandon, in a book addressed to Octavia, Caesar’s sister, avers he was also called Postumus. Poplicola, not so much esteeming Porsenna’s enmity dan- gerous to Roman as his friendship and alliance serviceable, was induced to refer the controversy with Tarquin to his arbi- tration, and several times undertook to prove Tarquin the worst of men, and justly deprived of his kingdom. But Tar- quin proudly replied he would admit no judge, much less POPLICOLA. 1^5 Porsenna, that had fallen away from his engagements ; and Porsenna, resenting this answer, and mistrusting the equity of his cause, moved also by the solicitations of his son Aruns, who was earnest for the Roman interest, made a peace on these conditions, that they should resign the land they had taken frorri the Tuscans, and restore all prisoners and receive back their deserters. To confirm the peace, the Romans gave as hostages ten sons of patrician parents, and as many daughters, amongst whom was Valeria, the daughter of Pop- licola. Upon these assurances, Porsenna ceased from all acts of hostility, and the young girls went down to the river to bathe, at that part where the winding of the bank formed a bay and made the waters stiller and quieter ; and, seeing no guard, nor any one coming or going over, they were encouraged to swim over, notwithstanding the depth and violence of the stream. Some affirm that one of them, by name Cloelia, passing over on horseback, persuaded the rest to swim after ; but, upon their safe arrival, presenting themselves to Poplicola, he neither praised nor approved their return, but was concerned lest he should appear less faithful than Porsenna, and this boldness in the maidens should argue treachery in the Romans ; so that, apprehending them, he sent them back to Porsenna. But Tarquin’s men, having intelligence of this, laid a strong ambuscade on the other side for those that conducted them ; and while these were skirmishing together, Valeria, the daughter of Poplicola, rushed through the enemy, and fled, and with the assistance of three of her attendants made good her escape, whilst the rest were dangerously hedged in by the soldiers ; but Aruns, Porsenna’s son, upon tidings of it, hastened to their rescue, and, putting the enemy to flight, delivered the Romans. When Porsenna saw the maidens returned, demanding who was the author and adviser of the act, and understanding Cloelia to be the person, he looked on her with a cheerful and benignant countenance, and, com- manding one of his horses to be brought, sumptuously adorned, made her a present of it. This is produced as evi- dence b^ those who affirm that only Clcelia passed the river on horseback ; those who deny it call it only the honor the Tuscan did to her courage ; a figure, however, on horseback, stands in the Via Sacra, as you go to the Palatium^ which some say is the statue of Cloelia, others of Valeria. t‘orsenna, thus reconciled to the Romans, gave them a fresh instance of his generosity, and commanded his soldiers to i66 POPLICOLA. quit the camp merely with their arms, leaving their tents, full of corn and other stores, as a gift to the Romans. Hence, even down to our time, when there is a public sale of goods, they cry Porsenna’s first, by way of perpetual commemoration of his kindness. There stood, also, by the senate-house, a brazen statue of him, of plain and antique workmanship. Afterwards, the Sabines, making incursions upon the Ro- mans, Marcus Valerius, brother to Poplicola, was made consul, and with him Postumius Tubertus. Marcus, through the management of affairs by the conduct and direct assistance of Poplicola, obtained two great victories, in the latter of which he slew thirteen thousand Sabines without the loss of one Roman, and was honored, as an accession to his triumph, with an house built in the Palatium at the public charge ; and whereas the doors of other houses opened inward into the house, they made this to open outward into the street, to in- timate their perpetual public recognition of his merit by thus continually making way for him. The same fashion in their doors the Greeks, they say, had of old universally, which ap- pears from their comedies, where those that are going out make a noise at the door within, to give notice to those that pass by or stand near the door, that the opening the door into the street might occasion no surprisal. The year after, Poplicola was made consul the fourth time, when a confederacy of the Sabines and Latins threat- ened a war ; a superstitious fear also overran the city on the occasion of general miscarriages of their women, no single birth coming to its due time. Poplicola, upon consultation of the Sibylline books, sacrificing to Pluto, and renewing cer- tain games commanded by Apollo, restored the city to more cheerful assurance in the gods, and then prepared against the menaces of men. There were appearances of great prepara- tion, and of a formidable confederacy. Amongst the Sabines there was one Appius Clausus, a man of a great wealth and strength of body, but most eminent for his high character and for his eloquence ; yet, as is usually the fate of great men, he could not escape the envy of others, which was much occasioned by his dissuading the war, and seeming to pro- mote the Roman interest, with a view, it is thought, to‘obtain- ing absolute power in his own country for himself. Knowing how welcome these reports would be to the multitude, and how offensive to the army and the abettors of the war, he was afraid to stand a trial, but, having a considerable body of friends and allies to assist him, raised a tumult amongst the POPLICOLA. 167 Sabines, which delayed the war. Neither was Poplicola wanting, not only to understand the grounds of the sedition, but to promote and increase it, and he despatched emissaries with instructions to Clausus, that Poplicola was assured of his goooness and justice, and thought it indeed unworthy in any man, however injured, to seek revenge upon his fellow- citizens ; yet if he pleased, for his owm security, 40 leave his enemies ana come to Rome, he should be received, both in public and private, with the honor his merit deserved, anci their own glory required. Appius seriously weighing the mat- ter, came to the conclusion that it was the best resource which necessity left him, and advising wdth his friends, and they in- viting again others in the same manner, he came to Rome, bringing five thousand families, with their wives and children , people of the quieretesf and steadiest temper of all the Sabines. Poplicola, informed of their approach, received them with all the kind offices ot a friend, and admitted them at once to the franchise, allotting to every one two acres of land by the river Anio, but to Clausus twenty-five acres, and gave him a place in the senate ; a commencement of political power which he used so wisely, tnat he rose to the highest reputation, was very influential, and left the Glaudian house behind him, inferior to none in Rome. The departure of these men rendered things quiet amongst the Sabines ; yet the chief of the community would not suffer them to settle into peace, but resented that Clausus now, by turning deserter, should disappoint that revenge upon the Ro- mans, which, while at home, he had unsuccessfully opposed. Coming with a great army, they sat down before Fidenae, and placed an ambuscade of tw'o thousand men near Rome, in wooded and hollow spots, with a design that some few horsemen, as soon as it was day, should go out and ravage the country, commanding them upon their approach to the town so to retreat as to draw the enemy into the ambush. Poplicola, however, soon advertised of these designs by de- serters, disposed his forces to their respective charges. Pos- tumius Balbus, his son-in-law, going out with three thousand men in the evening, was ordered to take the hills, under which the ambush lay, there to observe their motions ; his colleague, Lucretius, attended with a body of the lightest and boldest men, was appointed to meet the Sabine horse ; whilst he. with the rest of the army, encompassed the enemy. And a thick mist rising accidentally, Postumius, early in the morn- ing, with shouts from the hills, assailed the ambuscadci i68 COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON. Lucretius charged the light-horse, and Poplicola besieged the camp; so that on all sides defeat and ruin came upon the Sabines, and without any resistance the Romans killed them in their flight, their very hopes leading them to their death, for each division, presuming that the other was safe, gave up all thought of fighting or keeping their ground; and these quitting the camp to retire to the ambuscade, and the ambus- cade flying to the camp, fugitives thus met fugitives, and found those from whom they expected succor as much in need of succor from themselves. The nearness, however, of the city Fidenae was the preservation of the Sabines, especially those that fled from the camp ; those that could not gain the city either perished in the field, or were taken prisoners. This victory, the Romans, though usually ascribing such suc- cess to some god, attributed to the conduct of one captain; and it was observed to be heard amongst the soldiers, that Poplicola had delivered their enemies lame and blind, and only not in chains, to be despatched by their swords. From the spoil and prisoners great wealth accrued to the people. Poplicola, having completed his triumph, and bequeathed the city to the care of the succeeding consuls, died; thus closing a life which, so far as human life may be, had been full of all that is good and honorable. The people, as though they had not duly rewarded his deserts when alive, but still were in his debt, decreed him a public interment, every one contributing his quadrans towards the charge ; the women, besides, by private consent, mourned a whole year, a signal mark of honor to his memory. He was buried, by the peo- ple’s desire, within the city, in the part called Velia, where his posterity had likewise privilege of burial ; now, however, none of the family are interred there, but the body is carried thither and set down, and some one places a burning torch under it and immediately takes it away, as an attestation of the deceased’s privilege, and his receding from his honor ; •fter which the body is removed. COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON. There is something singular in the present parallel which has not occurred in any other of the lives ; that the one should be the imitator of the other, and the other his best COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON. 169 evidence. Upon the survey of Solon’s sentence to Croesus in favor of Tellus’s happiness, it seems more applicable to Pop- licola ; for Tellus, whose virtuous life and dying well had gained him the name of the happiest man, yet was never cele- brated in Solon’s poems for a good man, nor have his children or any magistracy of his deserved a memorial ; but Poplicola s life was the most eminent amongst the Romans, as well for the greatness of his virtue as his power, and also since his death many amongst the distinguished families, even in our days, the Poplicolae, Messalae, and Valerii, after a lapse of six hun- dred years, acknowledge him as the fountain of their honor. Besides, Tellus, though keeping his post and fighting like a valiant soldier, was yet slain by his enemies ; but Poplicola, the better fortune, slew his, and saw his country victorious under his command. And his honors and triumphs brought him, which was Solon’s ambition, to a happy end ; the ejaculation which, in his verses against Mimnermus about the continuance of man’s life, he himself made, Mourned let me die ; and may I, when life ends, Occasion sighs and sorrows to my friends, is evidence to Poplicola’s happiness ; his death did not only draw tears from his friends and acquaintance, but was the object of universal regret and sorrow through the whole city, the women deplored his loss as that of a son, brother, or common father. “ Wealth I would have,” said Solon, “ but wealth by wrong procure would not,” because punishment would follow. ButPoplicola’s riches were not only justly his, but he spent them nobly in doing good to the distressed. So that if Solon was reputed the wisest man, we must allow Poplicola to be the happi- est ; for what Solon wished for as the greatest and most perfect good, this Poplicola had, and used and enjoyed to his death. And as Solon may thus be said to have contributed to Poplicola’s glory, so did also Poplicola to his, by his choice of him as his model in the formation of republican institu- tions ; in reducing, for example, the excessive powers and as- sumption of the consulship. Several of his laws, indeed, he actually transferred to Rome, as his empowering the people to elect their officers, and allowing offenders the liberty of appealing to the people, as Solon did to the jurors. He did not, indeed, create a new senate, as Solon did, but augment- ed the old to almost double its number. The appointment of treasurers again, the quaestors, has a like origin ; with the intent that the chief magistrate should not, if of good charao 170 COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON, ter, be withdrawn from greater matters ; or, if bad, have the greater temptation to injustice, by holding both the govern- ment and treasury in his hands. The aversion to tyranny was stronger in Poplicola ; any one who attempted usurpation could, by Solon’s law, only be punished upon conviction ; but Poplicola made it death before a trial. And though Solor. justly gloried, that, when arbitrary power was absolutely of- fered to him by circumstances, and when his countrymen would have willingly seen him accept it, he yet declined it ; still Poplicola merited no less, who, receiving a despotic com- mand, converted it to a popular office, and did not employ the whole legal power which he held. We must allow, in- deed. that Solon was before Poplicola in observing that A people always minds its rulers best When it is neither humored nor oppressed. The remission of debts was peculiar to Solon ; it was his great means for confirming the citizens’ liberty ; for a mere law to give all men equal rights is but useless, if the poor must sacrifice those rights to their debts, and, in the very seats and sanctuaries of equality, the courts of justice, the offices of state, and the public discussions, be more than any- where at the beck and bidding of the rich. A yet more ex- traordinary success was, that, although usually civil violence is caused by any remission of debts, upon this one occasion this dangerous but powerful remedy actually put an end to civil violence already existing, Solon’s own private worth and reputation overbalancing all the ordinary ill-repute and dis- credit of the change. The beginning of his government was more glorious, for he was entirely original, and followed no man’s example, and, without the aid of any ally, achieved his most important measures by his own conduct ; yet the close of Poplicola’s life was more happy and desirable, for Solon saw the dissolution of his own commonwealth, Poplicola’a maintained the state in good order down to the civil wars. Solon, leaving his laws, as soon as he had made them, en- graven in wood, but destitute of a defender, departed from Athens; whilst Poplicola, remaining, both in and out of office, labored to establish the government, Solon, though he actually knew of Pisistratus’s ambition, yet was not able to suppress it, but had to yield to usurpation in its infancy ; whereas Poplicola utterly subverted and dissolved a potent monarchy, strongly settled by long continuance ; uniting thus to virtues equal to those, and purposes identical with those ol THEMISTOCLES. 171 Solon, the good fortune and the power that alone could make them effective. In military exploits, Daimachus of Plataea will not even allow Solon the conduct of the war against the Megarians, as was before intimated ; but Poplico^la was victorious in the most important conflicts, both as a private soldier and com- mander. In domestic politics, also, Solon, in play, as it were, and by counterfeiting madness, induced the enterprise against Salaniis; whereas Poplicola, in the very beginning, exposed himself to the greatest risk, took arms against Tarquin, de- tected the conspiracy, and, being principally concerned both in preventing the escape of and afterwards punishing the trai- tors, not only expelled the tyrants from the city, but extirpated their very hopes. And as, in cases calling for contest and resistance and manful opposition, he behaved with courage and resolution, so, in instances where peaceable language, persuasion, and concession were requisite, he was yet more to be commended ; and succeeded in gaining happily to rec- onciliation and friendship, Porsenna, a terrible and invincible enemy. Some may, perhaps, object, that Solon recovered Salamis, which they had lost, for the Athenians ; whereas Poplicola receded from part of what the Romans were at that time possessed of ; but judgment is to be made of actions ac- cording to the times in which they were performed. The conduct of a wise politician is ever suited to the present pos- ture of affairs ; often by foregoing a part he saves the whole, and by yielding in a small matter secures a greater ; and so Poplicola, by restoring wdiat the Romans had lately usurped, saved their undoubted patrimony, and procured, moreover, the stores of the enemy for those who were only too thankful to secure their city. Permitting the decision of the contro- versy to his adversary, he not only got the victory, but like- wise what he himself would willingly have given to purchase the victory, Porsenna putting an end to the war, and leaving them all the provision of his camp, from the sense of the vir- tue and gallant disposition of the Romans which their consul had impressed upon him. THEMISTOCLES. The birth of Themistocles was somewhat too obscure to do him honor. His father, Neocles, was not of the distin* 172 THEMISTOCLES. guished people of Athens, but of the township of Phrearrhi, and of the tribe Leontis ; and by his mother^s side, as it is re ported, he was base-born. I am not of the noble Grecian race, I’m poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace * Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please, I was the mother of Themistocles. Yet Phanias writes that the mother of Themistocles was not of Thrace, but of Caria, and that her name was not Abroto- non, but Euterpe ; and Neanthes adds farther that she was of Halicarnassus in Caria. And, as illegitimate children, includ- ing those that were of the half-blood or had but one parent an Athenian, had to attend at the Cynosarges (a wrestling- place outside the gates, dedicated to Hercules, who was also of half-blood amongst the gods, having had a mortal woman for his mother), Themistocles persuaded several of the young men of high birth to accompany him to anoint and exercise themselves together at Cynosarges ; an ingenious device for destroying the distinction between the noble and the base- born, and between those of the whole and those of the half- blood of Athens. However, it is certain that he was related to the house of the Lycomedae ; for Simonides records, that he rebuilt the chapel of Phlya, belonging to that family, and beautified it with pictures and other ornaments, after it had been burnt by the Persians. It h confessed by all that from his youth he was of a vehe- ment and impetuous nature, of a quick apprehension, and a strong and aspiring bent for action and great affairs. The holidays and intervals in his studies he did not spend in play or idleness, as other children, but would be always inventing or arranging some oration or declamation to himself, the sub- ject of which was generally the excusing or accusing his com- panions, so that his master would often say to him, “ You, my boy, will be nothing small, but great one way or other, for good or else for bad.’’ He received reluctantly and carelessly m- ^ structions given him to improve his manners and behavior, or to teach him any pleasing or graceful accomplishment, but whatever was said to improve him in sagacity, or in manage- ment of affairs, he would give attention to, beyond one of his years, from confidence in his natural capacities for such things. And thus afterwards, when in company where people engaged themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements, he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who considered themselves THEMISTOCLES. 173 higlily accomplished, by the somewhat arrogant ictort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument, could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this, Stesiin- brotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus, con trary to chronology ; Melissus commanded the Samians in the siege by Pericles, who was much Themistocles’s junior ; and with Pericles, also, Anaxagoras was intimate. They, therefore, might rather be credited, who report, that Themis- tocles was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, who was neither rhetorician nor natural philosopher, but a pro- fessor of that which was then called wisdom, consisting in a sort of political shrewdness and practical sagacity, which had begun and continued, almost like a sect of philosophy, from Solon : but those who came afterwards, and mixed it with pleadings and legal artifices, and transformed the practical part of it into a mere art of speaking and an exercise of words, were generally called sophists. Themistocles resorted to Mnesiphilus when he had already embarked in politics. In the first essays of his youth he was not regular nor happily ballanced ; he allowed himself to follow mere natural character, which, without the control of reason and instruc- tion, is apt to hurry, upon either side, into sudden and violent courses, and very often to break away and determine upon the worst ; as he afterwards owned himself, saying, that the wildest colts make the best horses, if they only get properly trained and broken in. But those who upon this fasten stories of their own invention, as of his being disowned by his father, and that his mother died for grief of her son’s ill fame, cer- tainly calumniate him ; and there are others who relate, on the contrary, how that to deter him from public business, and to let him see how the vulgar behave themselves towards their leaders when they have at last no farther use of them, his father showed him the old galleys as they lay forsaken and cast about upon the sea-shore. Yet it is evident that his mind was early imbued with the keenest interest in public affairs, and the most passionate am- bition for distinction. Eager from the first to obtain the highest place, he unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and infiuential leaders in the city, but more especially of Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, who always opposed him. And yet all this great enmity between them arose, it appears, from a very boyish occasion, both being *74 THEMISTOCLES. attached to the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, as Aiiston the phi- losopher tells us ; ever after which they took opposite sides, and were rivals in politics. Not but that the incompatibility of their lives and manners may seem to have increased the difference, for Aristides was of a mild nature, and of a nobler sort of character, and, in public matters, acting always with a view, not to glory or popularity, but to the best interest of the state consistently with safety and honesty, he was often forced to oppose Themistocles, and interfere against the in* crease of his influence, seeing him stirring up the people to all kinds of enterprises, and introducing various innovations. For it is said that Themistocles was so transported with the thoughts of glory, and so inflamed with the passion for great actions, that, though he was still young when the battle of Marathon was fought against the Persians, upon the skilful conduct of the general, Miltiades, being everywhere talked about, he was observed to be thoughtful, and reserved, alone by himself ; he passed the nights without sleep, and avoided all his usual places of recreation, and to those who wondered at the change, and inquired the reason of it, he gave the an- swer, that “ the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep.” And when others were of opinion that the battle of Marathon would be an end to the war, Themistocles thought that it was but the beginning of far greater conflicts, and for these, to the benefit of all Greece, he kept himself in continual readiness, and his city also in proper training, foreseeing from far before what would happen. And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he was the only man that durst propose to the people that this distribution should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to make war against the ^ginetans, who were the most flourishing people in all Greece, and by the number of their ships held the sovereignty of the sea ; and Themistocles thus was more easily able to persuade them, avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Per- sians, who were at a great distance, and their coming very un- certain, and at that time not much to be feared ; but, by a seasonable employment of the emulation and anger felt by the Athenians against the ^ginetans, he induced them to preparation. So that with this money an huuvlred ships were built, with which they afterwards fought against Xerxes. And, henceforward, little by little, turning and drawing the city down towards the sea, in the belief that, whereas by land they THEMISTOCLES. ^75 were not a fit match for their next neighbors, with their ships they might be able to repel the Persians and command Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned them into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for the reproach against him, that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar. These measures he carried in the assem- bly, against the opposition, as Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltia- des ; and whether or no he hereby injured the purity and true balance of government, may be a question for philosophers, but that the deliverance of Greece came at that time from the sea, and that these galleys restored Athens again after it was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes aimself would be suffi- cient evidence, who, though his land-forces were still entire, after his defeat at sea, fled away, and thought himself no longer able to encounter the Greeks ; and, as it seems to me, left Mardonius behind him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring them into subjection, but to hinder them from pursuing him. Themistocles is said to have been eager in the acquisition of riches, according to some, that he might be the more liberal ; for loving to sacrifice often, and to be splendid in his entertainment of strangers, he required a plentiful revenue ; yet he is accused by others of having been parsimonious and sordid to that degree that he would sell provisions which were sent to him as a present. He desired Diphilides, who was a breeder of horses, to give him a colt, and when he re- fused it, threatened that in a short time he would turn his house into a wooden horse, intimating that he would stir up dispute and litigation between him and some of his relations. He went beyond all men in the passion for distinction. When he was still young and unknown in the world, he en- treated Episcles of Hermione, who had a good hand at the lute and was much sought after by the Athenians, to come and practise at home with him, being ambitious of having people inquire after his house and frequent his company. When he came to the Olympic games, and was so splendid in his equipage and entertainments, in his rich tents, and furni- ture, that he strove to outdo Cimon, he displeased the Greeks, who thought that such magnificence might be allowed in one who was a young man and of a great family but was a great piece of insolence in one as yet undistinguished, and without title or means for making any such display. Irr a dramatic contest, the play he paid for won the prize, which was then a 176 THEMISTOCLKS. matter that excited much emulation ; he put up a tablet in rec- ord of it, with the inscription. “ Themistocles of Phrearrhi Vv^as at the charge of it ; Phrynichus made it ; Adimantus was archon.’’ He was well liked by the common people, would salute every particular citizen by his own name, and always show himself a just judge in questions of business between private men ; he said to Simonides, the poet of Ceos, who desired something of him, when he was commander of the army, that was not reasonable, ‘‘ Simonides, you would be no good poet if you wrote false measure, nor should I be a good magistrate if forfkvor I made false law.”. And at another time, laughing at Simonides, he said, that he was a man of little judgment to speak against the Corinthians, who were inhabi- tants of a great city, and to have his own picture drawn so often, having so ill-looking a face. Gradually growing to be great, and winning the favor of the people, he at last gained the day with his faction over that of Aristides, and procured his banishment by ostracism. When the king of Persia was now advancing against Greece, and the Athenians were in consultation who should be gen- eral, and many withdrew themselves of their own accord, being terrified with the greatness of the danger, there was one Epicydes, a popular speaker, son to Euphemides, a man of an eloquent tongue, but of a faint heart, and a slave to riches, who was desirous of the command, and was looked upon to be in a fair way to carry it by the number of votes ; but Themistocles, fearing that, if the command should fall into such hands, all would be lost, bought off Epicydes and his pretensions, it is said, for a sum of money. When the king of Persia sent messengers into Greece, with an interpreter, to demand earth and water, as an ac- knowledgment of subjection, Themistocles, by the consent of the people, seized upon the interpreter, and put him to death, for presuming to publish the barbarian orders and decrees in the Greek language ; this is one of the actions he is com- mended for, as also for what he did to Arthmius of Zelea, who brought gold from the king of Persia to corrupt the Greeks, and was, by an order from Themistocles, degraded and disfranchised, he and his children and his posterity : but that which most of all redounded to his credit was, that he put an end to all the civil wars of Greece, composed their differences, and persuaded them to lay aside all enmity dur- ing the war with the Persians ; and in this great work, Chileus Arcadian was, it is said, of great assistance to him. THEMISTOCLES. *77 Having taken upon himself the command of the Athenian forces, he immediately endeavored to persuade the citizens to leave the city, and to embark upon their galleys, and meet with the Persians at a great distance from Greece ; but many being against this, he led a large force, together with the Lacedasmonians, into Tempe, that in this pass they might maintain the safety of Thessaly, which had not as yet declared for the king ; but when they returned without performing any thing, and it was known that not only the Thessalians, but all as far as Boeotia, was going over to Xerxes, then the Athenians more willingly hearkened to the advice of Themistocles to fight by sea, and sent him with a fleet to guard the straits of Artemisium. When the contingents met here, the Greeks would have the Lacedaemonians to command, and Eurybiades to be their admiral ; but the Athenians, who surpassed all the rest together in number of vessels, would not submit to come after any other, till Themistocles, perceiving the danger of this contest, yielded his own command to Eurybiades, and got the Athenians to submit, extenuating the loss by persuad- ing them, that if in this war they behaved themselves like men, he would answer for it after that, that the Greeks, of their own will, would submit to their command. And by this modera- tion of his, it is evident that he was the chief mean^ of the deliverance of Greece, and gained the Athenians the glory of alike surpassing their enemies in valor, and their confederates in wisdom. As soon as the Persian armada arrived at Aphetse, Eury- biades was astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before hirn, and being informed that two hundred more were sailing round jDehind the island of Sciathus, he immediately determined to retire farther into Greece, and to sail back into some part of Peloponnesus, where their land army and then fleet might join, for he looked upon the Persian forces to be altogether unassailable by sea. But the Euboeans, fearing that the Greeks would forsake them, and leave them to the mercy of the enemy, sent Pelagon to confer privately with Themistocles, taking with him a good sum of money, which, as Herodotus reports, he accepted and gave to Eurybiades. In this alfair none of his own countrymen opposed him so much as Archi teles, captain of the sacred galley, who, having no money to supply his seamen, was eager to go home ; but Themistocles so incensed the Athenians against him, that they set upon him and left him not so much as his supper, at which Architeles 12 *78 THEMISTOCLES. was much surprised, and took it very ill ; but Themistocles im* mediately sent him in a chest a service of provisions, and at the bottom of it a talent of silver, desiring him to sup to-night, and to-morrow provided for his seamen ; if not, he would report it among the Athenians that he had received money from the enemy. So Phanias the Lesbian tells the story. Though the fights between the Greeks and Persians in the straits of Euboea were not so important as to make any final decision of the war, yet the experience which the Greeks obtained in them was of great advantage ; for thus, by actual trial and in real danger, they found out that neither number of ships, nor riches and ornaments, nor boasting shouts, nor barbarous songs of victory, were any way terrible to men that knew how to fight, and were resolved to come hand to hand with their enemies ; these things they were to despise, and to come up close and grapple with their foes. This, Pindar appears to have seen, and says justly enough of the fight at Artemisium, that There the sons of Athens set The stone that freedom stands on yet. For the first step towards victory undoubtedly is to gain courage. Artemisium is in Euboea, beyond the city of Histiaea, a sea-beach open to the north ; most nearly opposite to it stands Olizon, in the country which formerly was under Philoctetes ; there is a small temple there, dedicated to Diana, surnamed of the Dawn, and trees about it, around which again stand pillars of white marble ; and if you rub them with your hand, they send forth both the smell and color of saffron. On one of these pillars these verses are engraved,— With numerous tribes from Asians region brought The sons of Athens on these waters fought ; Erecting, after they had quelled the Mede, To Artemis this record of the deed. There is a place still to be seen upon this shore, where, m the middle of a great heap of sand, they take out from the bot- tom a dark powder like ashes, or something that has passed the fire ; and here, it is supposed, the shipwrecks and bodies of the dead were burnt. But when news came from Thermopylae to Artemisium, informing them that king Leonidas was slain, and that Xerxes had made himself master of all the passages by land, they returned back to the interior of Greece, the Athenians having THEMISTOCLES. 1 79 the command of the rear, the place of honor and danger, and much elated by what had been done. As Themistocles sailed along the coasts, he took notice of the harbors and fit places for the enemy’s ships to come to land at, and engraved large letters in such stones as he found there by chance, as also in others which he set up on purpose near to the landing-places, or where they were to water ; iu which inscriptions he called upon the lonians to forsake the Medes, if it were possible, and come over to the Greeks, who were their proper founders and fathers, and were now hazard- ing all for their liberties ; but, if this could not be done, at any rate to impede and disturb the Persians in all engage- ments. He hoped that these writings would prevail with the lonians to revolt, or raise some trouble by making their fidel- ity doubtful to the Persians. Now, though Xerxes had already passed through Doris and invaded the country of Phocis, and was burning and de- stroying the cities of the Phocians, yet the Greeks sent them no relief ; and, though the Athenians earnestly desired them to meet the Persians in Boeotia, before they could come into Attica, as they themselves had come forward by sea at Ar- temisium, they gave no ear to their request, being wholly in- tent upon Peloponnesus, and resolved to gather all their forces together within the Isthmus, and to build a wall from sea to sea in that narrow neck of land ; so that the Athe- nians were enraged to see themselves betrayed, and at the same time afflicted and dejected at their own destitution. For to fight alone against such a numerous army was to no pur- pose, and the only expedient now left them was to leave their city and cling to their ships ; which the people were very un- willing to submit to, imagining that it would signify little now to gain a victory, and not understanding how there could be deliverance any longer after they had once forsaken the tem- ples of their gods and exposed the tombs and monuments of their ancestors to the fury of their enemies. Themistocles, being at a loss, and not able to draw the people over to his opinion by any human reason, set his machines to work, as in a theatre, and employed prodigies and oracles. The serpent of Minerva, kept in the inner part of her temple, disappeared ; the priests gave it out to the people that the offerings which were set for it were found un- touched, and declared, by the suggestion of Themistocles, that the goddess had left the city, and taken her flight before them towards the sea. And he often urged them with the l8o THEMISTOCLES. oracle which bade them trust to walls of wood, showing them that walls of wood could signify nothing else but ships ; and that the island of Salamis was termed in it, not miserable or unhappy, but had the epithet of divine, for that it should one day be associated with a great good fortune of the Greeks. At length his opinion prevailed, and he obtained a decree that the city should be committed to the protection of Mi- nerva, queen of Athens ; ” that they who were of age tc bear arms should embark, and that each should see to send- ing away his children, women, and slaves where he could. This decree being confirmed, most of the Athenians removed their parents, wives, and children to Troezen, where they were received with eager good-will by the Troezenians, who passed a vote that they should be maintained at the public charge, by a daily payment of two obols to every one, and leave be given to the children to gather fruit where they pleased, and schoolmasters paid to instruct them. This vote was pro- posed by Nicagoras. There was no public treasure at that time in Athens ; but the council of Areopagus, as Aristotle says, distributed to every one that served, eight drachmas, which was a great help to the manning of the fleet ; but Clidemus ascribes this also to the art of Themistocles. When the Athenians were on their way down to the haven of Piraeus, the shield with the head of Medusa was missing ; and he, under the pretext of searching for it, ransacked alb places, and found among their goods considerable sums of money concealed, which he ap- plied to the public use ; and with this the soldiers and sea- men were well provided for their voyage. When the whole city of Athens were going on board, it afforded a spectacle worthy of pity alike and admiration, to see them thus send away their fathers and children before them, and, unmoved with their cries and tears, passed over Vnto the island. But that which stirred compassion most of all was, that many old men, by reason of their great age, were left behind ; and even the tame domestic animals could not be seen without some pity, running about the town and howl- ing, as desirous to be carried along with their masters that had kept tliem ; among which it is reported that Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, had a dog that would not endure' to stay behind, but leaped into the sea, and swam along by the galley's side till he came to the island of Salamis, where he fainted away and died, and that spot in the island, which ii still called the Dog’s Grave, is said to be his. THEMISTOCLES. iSi Among ihe great actions of Themistocles at this crisis^ the recall of Aristides was not the least, for, before the war, he had been ostracized by the party which Themistocles headed, and was in banishment ; but now, perceiving that the people regretted his absence, and were fearful that he might go over to the Persians to revenge himself, and thereby ruin the affairs of Greece, Themistocles proposed a decree that those who were banished for a time might return again, to give assistance by word and deed to the cause of Greece with the rest of their fellow-citizens. Eurybiades, by reason of the greatness of Sparta, was ad- miral of the Greek fleet, but yet was faint-hearted in time of danger, and willing to weigh anchor and set sail for the isth- mus of Corinth, near which the land army lay encamped ; which Themistocles resisted ; and this was the occasion of the well-known words, when Eurybiades, to check his impa- tience, told him that at the Olympic games they that start up before the rest are lashed ; ‘‘ And they,’’ replied Themisto- cles, “ that are left behind are not crowned.” Again, Eury- biades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike Themistocles said, ‘‘ Strike if you will, but hear ; ” Eurybiades, wondering much at his moderation, desired him to speak, and Themistocles now brought him to a better understanding. And when one who stood by him told him that it did not be- come those who had neither city nor house to lose, to per- suade others to relinquish their habitations and forsake their countries, Themistocles gave this reply : “ We have indeed left our houses and our walls, base fellow, not thinking it fit to become slaves for the sake of things that have no life nor soul ; and yet our city is the greatest of all Greece, consist- ing of two hundred galleys, which are here to defend you, if you please ; but if you run away and betray us, as you did once before, the Greeks shall soon hear news of the Athe- nians possessing as fair a country, and as large and free a city, as that they have lost. These expressions of Themisto- cles made Eurybiades suspect that if he retreated the Athe- nians would fall off from him. When one of Eretria began to oppose him, he said, “ Have you any thing to say of war, that are like an ink-fish you have a sword, but no heart.” Some say that while Themistocles was thus speaking things upon the deck, an owl was seen flying to the right hand of the fleet, which came and sate upon the top of the mast ; and this hap- py omen so far disposed the Greeks to follow his advice, that they presently prepared to fight. Yet, when the enemy’s fleet i 82 THEMISTOCLES. was arrived at the haven of Phalerum, upon the coast of Attica, and with the number of their ships concealed all the shore, and when they saw the king himself in person come down with his land army to the sea-side, with all his forces united, then the good counsel of Themistocles was soon forgotten, and the Peloponnesians cast their eyes again towards the isthmus, and took it very ill if any one spoke against their returning home ; and, resolving to depart that night, the pilots had order what course to steer. Themistocles, in great distress that the Greeks should re- tire, and lose the advantage of the narrow seas and strait pas- sage, and slip home every one to his own city, considered with himself, and contrived that stratagem that was carried out by Sicinnus. This Sicinnus was a Persian captive, but a great lover of Themistocles, and the attendant of his children. Upon this occasion, he sent him privately to Xerxes, com- manding him to tell the king, that Themistocles, the admiral of the Athenians, having espoused his interest, wished to be the first to inform him that the Greeks were ready to make their escape, and that he counselled him to hinder their flight, to set upon them while they were in this confusion and at a distance from their land army, and hereby destroy all their forces by sea. Xerxes was very joyful at this message, and received it as from one who wished him all that was good, and immediately issued instructions to the commanders of his ships, that they should instantly set out with two hun- dred galleys to encompass all the islands, and enclose all the straits and passages, that none of the Greeks might escape, and that they should afterwards follow with the rest of their fleet at leisure. This being done, Aristides, the son of Lysi- machus, was the first man that perceived it, and went to the tent of Themistocles, not out of any friendship, for he had been formerly banished by his means, as has been related, but to inform him how they were encompassed by their ene- mies. Themistocles, knowing the generosity of Arisfides, and much struck by his visit at that time, imparted to him all that he had transacted by Sicinnus, and entreated him, that, as he would be more readily believed among the Greeks, he would make use of his credit to help to induce them to stay and fight their enemies in the narrow seas. Aristides applauded Themistocles, and went to the other commanders and captains of the galleys, and encouraged them to engage ; yet they did not perfectly assent to him, till a galley of Tenos, which deserted from the Persians, of which Pansetius was THEMISTOCLES. 183 commander, came in, while they were still doubting, and con- firmed the news that all the straits and passages were beset ; and then their rage and fury, as well as their necessity, pro- voked them all to fight. As soon as it was day, Xerxes placed himself high up, to view his fleet, and how it was set in order. Phanodemus says, he sat upon a promontory above the temple of Her cules, where the coast of Attica is separated from the island by a narrow channel ; but Acestodorus writes, that it was in the confines of Megara, upon those hills which are called the Horns, where he sat in a chair of gold, with many secretaries about him to write down all that was done in the fight. When Themistocles was about to sacrifice, close to the admiral’s galley, there were three prisoners brought to him, fine looking men, and richly dressed in ornamented clothing and gold, said to be the children of Artayctes and Sandauce, sister to Xerxes. As soon as the prophet Euphran tides saw them, and observed that at the same time the fire blazed out from the offerings with a more than ordinary flame, and a man sneezed on the right, which was an intimation of a fortu- nate event, he took Themistocles by the hand, and bade him consecrate the three young men for sacrifice, and offer them up with prayers for victory to Bacchus the Devourer ; so should the Greeks not only save themselves, but also obtain victory. Themistocles was much disturbed at this strange and terrible prophecy, but the common people, who, in any difficult crisis and great exigency, ever look for relief rather to strange and extravagant than to reasonable means, calling upon Bacchus with one voice, led the captives to the altar, and compelled the execution of the sacrifice as the prophet had commanded. This is reported by Phanias the Lesbian, a philosopher well read in history. The number of the enemy’s ships the poet .dEschylus gives in his tragedy called the Persians, as on his certain knowl- edge, in the following words — Xerxes, I know, did into battle lead One thousand ships ; of more than usual speed Seven and two hundred. So it is agreed. The Athenians had a hundred and eighty ; in every ship eighteen men fought upon the deck, four of whom were archers and the rest men at arms. As Themistocles had fixed upon the most advantageous place, so, with no less sagacity, he chose the best time of fighting j for he would not run the prows of his galleys 184 THEMISTOCLES. against the Persians, nor begin the fight till the time of day was come, when there regularly blows in a fresh breeze from the open sea, and brings in with it a strong swell into the channel ; which was no inconvenience to the Greek ships, which were low-built, and little above the water, but did much hurt to the Persians, which had high sterns and lofty decks, and were heavy and cumbrous in their movements, as it presented them broadside to the quick charges of the Greeks, who kept their eyes upon the motions of Themistocles, as their best example, and more particularly because, opposed to his ship, Ariamenes, admiral to Xerxes, a brave man, and by far the best and worthiest of the king’s brothers, was seen throwing darts and shooting arrows from his huge galley, as from the walls of a castle. Aminias the Decelean and Sos- icles the Pedian, who sailed in the same vessel, upon the ships meeting stem to stem, and transfixing each the other with their brazen prows, so that they were fastened together, when Ariamenes attempted to board theirs, ran at him with their pikes, and thrust him into the sea ; his body, as it floated amongst other shipwrecks, was known to Artemisia, and car- ried to Xerxes. It is reported that, in the middle of the fight, a great flame rose into the air above the city of Eleusis, and that sounds and voices were heard through all the Thriasian plain, as far as the sea, sounding like a number of men accompanying and escorting the mystic lacchus, and that a mist seemed to form and rise from the place from whence the sounds came, and, passing forward, fell upon the galleys. Others believed that they saw apparitions, in the shape of armed men, reaching out their hands from the island of ^Egina before the Grecian galleys ; and supposed they were the ^acidae, whom they had invoked to their aid before the battle. The first man that took a ship was Lycomedes the Athenian, captain of a galley, who cut down its ensign, and dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-crowned. And as the Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could bring but part of their fleet to fight, and fell foul of one another, the Greeks thus equalled them in strength, and fought with them till the evening forced them back, and obtained, as says Simonides, that noble and famous victory, than which neither amongst the Greeks nor barbarians was ever known more glorious exploit on the seas ; by the joint valor, indeed, and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom and sagacity of Themistocles. After this sea-fight, Xerxes, enraged at his illTortune^ THEMISTOCLES. iSc attempted, by casting great heaps of earth and stones into the sea, to stop up the channel and to make a dam, upon which he might lead his land-forces over into the island of Salamis. Themistocles, being desirous to try the opinion of Aris- tides, told him that he proposed to set sail for the Hellespont, to break the bridge of ships, so as to shut up, he said, Asia a prisoner within Europe ; but Aristides, disliking the design, said, “ We have hitherto fought with an enemy who has re- garded little else but his pleasure and luxury ; but if we shut him up within Greece, and drive him to necessity, he that is master of such great forces will no longer sit quietly with an umbrella of gold over his head, looking upon the fight for his pleasure ; but in such a strait will attempt all things ; he will be resolute, and appear himself in person upon all oc- casions, he will soon correct his errors, and supply what he has formerly omitted through remissness, and will be better advised in all things. Therefore, it is noways our interest, Themistocles,’’ he said, “ to take away the bridge that is already made, but rather to build another, if it were possible that he might make his retreat with the more expedition.” To which Themistocles answered, “ If this be requisite, we must immediately use all diligence, art, and industry, to rid ourselves of him as soon as may be ; ” and to this purpose he found out among the captives one of the king of Persia’s eunuchs, named Arnaces, whom he sent to the king, to in- form him that the Greeks, being now victorious by sea, had decreed to sail to the Hellespont, where the boats were fastened together, and destroy the bridge ; but that The- mistocles, being concerned for the king, revealed this to him, that he might hasten towards the Asiatic seas, and pass over into his own dominions ; and in the mean time would cause delays and hinder the confederates from pursuing him. Xerxes no sooner heard this, but, being very much terrified, he proceeded to retreat out of Greece with all speed. The prudence of Themistocles and Aristides in this was afterwards more f ally understood at the battle of Plataea, where Mar- dorimus, with a very small fraction of the forces of Xerxes, put the Greeks in danger of losing all. Herodotus writes, that of all the cities of Greece, ^gina was held to have performed the best service in the war ; while all single men yielded to Themistocles, though, out of envy, unwillingly ; and when they returned to the entrance of Peloponnesus, where the several commanders delivered their suffrages at the altar, to determine who was most worthyj i86 THEMISTOCLES. every one gave the first vote for himself and the second for Themistocles. The Lacedaemonians carried him with them to Sparta, where, giving the rewards of valor to Eurybiades, and of wisdom and conduct to Themistocles, they crowned him with olive, presented him with the best chariot in the city, and sent three hundred young men to accompany him to the confines of their country. And at the next Olympic games, when Themistocles entered the course, the spectators took no farther notice of those who were contesting the prizes, but spent the whole day in looking upon him, showing him to the strangers, admiring him, and applauding him by clapping their hands, and other expressions of joy, so that he himself, much gratified, confessed to his friends that he then reaped the fruit of all his labors for the Greeks. He was, indeed by nature, a great lover of honor, as is evident from the anecdotes recorded of him. When chosen admiral by the Athenians, he would not quite conclude any single matter of business, either public or private, but deferred all till the day they were to set sail, that, by despatching a great quantity of business, all at once, and having to meet a great variety of people, he might make an appearance of greatness and power. Viewing the dead bodies cast up by the sea, he perceived bracelets and necklaces of gold about them, yet passed on, only showing them to a friend that followed him, saying, “ Take you these things, for you are not Themistocles.’’ He said to Antiphates, a handsome young man, who had formerly avoided, but now in his glory courted him, Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson.” He said that the Athenians did not honor him or admire him, but made, as it were, a sort of plane-tree of him ; sheltered themselves under him in bad weather, and as soon as it was fine, plucked his leaves and cut his branches. When the Seriphian told him that he had not obtained this honor by himself, but by the greatness of the city, he replied, ‘‘ You speak truth ; I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus; nor you, -had you been of Athens.” When another of the generals, who thought he had performed con- siderable service for the Athenians, boastingly compared his actions with those of Themistocles, he told him that once upon a time the Day after the Festival found fault with the Festival : “ On you there is nothing but hurry and trouble and preparation, but, when I come, everybody sits down quietly and enjoys himself;” which the Festival admitted V^as true, but “ if I had not come first, you would not have THEMISTOCLES. t87 come at all/’ “ Even so,” he said, “ il Theiaistocles had not come before, where had you been now ? ” Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and, by his mother’s means, his father also, to indulge him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece : ‘‘ For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother.” Loving to be singulai in all things, when he had land to sell, he ordered the crier to give notice that there were good neighbors near iU Of two who made love to his daughter, he preferred the man of worth to the one who was rich, saying he desired a man without riches, rather than riches without a man. Such was the character of his sayings. After these things, he began to rebuild and fortify the city of Athens, bribing, asTheopompus reports, the Lacedaemonian ephors not to be against it, but as most relate it, overreaching and deceiving them. For, under the pretext of an embassy, he went to Sparta, where upon the Lacedaemonians charging him with rebuilding the walls, and Poliarchus coming on pur- pose from ^gina to denounce it, he denied the fact, bidding them to send people to Athens to see whether it were so or no ; by which delay he got time for the building of the wall, and also placed these ambassadors in the hands of his coun- trymen as hostages for him ; and so, when the Lacedaemonians knew the truth, they did him no hurt, but, suppressing all display of their anger for the present, sent him away. Next he proceeded to establish the harbor of Piraeus, observing the great natural advantages of the locality, and desirous to unite the whole city with the sea, and to reverse, in a manner, the policy of ancient Athenian kings, who, en- deavoring to withdraw their subjects from the sea, and to accustom them to live, not by sailing about, but by planting and tilling the earth, spread the story of the dispute between Minerva and Neptune for the sovereignty of Athens, in which Minerva, by producing to the judges an olive-tree, was de- clared to have won ; whereas Themistocles did not only knead up, as Aristophanes says, the port and the city into one, but made the city absolutely the dependant and the adjunct of the port, and the land of the sea, which increased the power and confid^mce of the people against the nobility ; the authority coming into the hands of sailors and boatswains and pilots. Thus it was one of the orders of the thirty tyrants, that the hustings in the assembly, which had faced towards the sea, should be turned round towards the land ; implying i88 THEMISTOCLES. their opinion that the empire b)^ sea had been the oiigin of die democracy, and that the farming population were not so much opposed to oligarchy. Themistocles, however, formed yet higher designs with a view to naval supremacy. For, after the departure of Xerxes, when the Grecian fleet was arrived at Pagasas, where they wintered, Themistocles, in a public oration to the people of Athens, told them that he had a design to perform something that would tend greatly to their interests and safety, but was of such a nature, that it could not be made generally public. The Athenians ordered him to impart it to Aristides only ; and, if he approved of it, to put it in practice. And when The- mistocles had discovered to him that his design was to burn the Grecian fleet in the haven of Pagasae, Aristides, coming out to the people, gave this report of the stratagem contrived by Themistocles, that no proposal could be more politic, or more dishonorable ; on v/hich the Athenians commanded Themistocles, to think no farther of it. When the Lacedaemonians proposed, at the general coun cil of the Amphictyonians, that the representatives of those cities which were not in the league, nor had fought against the Persians, should be excluded, Themistocles, fearing that the Thessalians, with those of Thebes, Argos, and others, be- ing thrown out of the council, the Lacedaemonians would be- come wholly masters of the votes, and do what they pleased, supported the deputies of the cities, and prevailed with the members then sitting to alter their opinion in this point, showing them that there were but one and thirty cities which had partaken in the war, and that most of these, also, were very small ; how intolerable would it be, if the rest of Greece should be excluded, and the general council should come to be ruled by two or three great cities. By this, chiefly, he incurred the displeasure of the Lacedaemonians, whose honors and favors were now shown to Cimon, with a view to making him the opponent of the state policy of Themistocles. He was also burdensome to the confederates, sailing about the islands and collecting money from them. Herodotus says, that, requiring money of those of the island of Andros, he told them that he had brought with him two goddesses, Persuasion and Force; and they answered him that they had also two great goddesses, which prohibited them from giving him any money. Poverty and Impossibility. Timocreon, the Rhodian poet, reprehends him somewhat bitterly for being wrought upon by money to let some who w’ere banished re THEMISTOCLES. 1 89 while abandoning himself, who was his guest and friend. I'lie verses are these : — Pausanias may praise, and Xanthippus he be for, For Leutychidas, a third ; Aristides, I proclaim, From the sacred Athens came, The one true man of all ; for Themistocles Latona doth abhor, The liar, traitor, cheat, who, to gain his filthy pay, Timocreon, his friend, neglected to restore To his native Rhodian shore ; Three silver talents took, and departed (curses wdth him) on his way, Restoring people here, expelling there, and killing here. Filling evermore his purse : and at the Isthmus gave a treat. To be laughed at, of cold meat, Which they ate, and prayed the gods some one else might give the feast another year. But after the sentence and banishment of Themistocles, Ti- mocreon reviles him yet more immoderately and wildly in a poem which begins thus : — Unto all the Greeks repair O Muse, and tell these verses there. As is fitting and is fair. The story is, that it was put to the question whether Timocre- on should be banished for siding with the Persians, and The- niistocles gave his vote against him. So when Themistocles was accused of intriguing with the Medes, Timocreon made these lines upon him : — So now Timocreon, indeed, is not the sole friend of the Mede, There are some knaves besides ; nor is it only mine that fails But other foxes have lost tails. — When the citizens of Athens began to listen willingly to those who traduced and reproached him, he was forced, with some- what obnoxious frequency, to put them in mind of the great services he had performed, and ask those who were offended with him whether they were weary with receiving benefits often from the same person, so rendering himself more odious. And he yet more provoked the people by building a temple to Diana with the epithet of Aristobule, or Diana of Best Counsel ; intimating thereby, that he had given the best counsel, not only to the Athenians, but to all Greece. He built this temple near his own house, in the district called Melite, where now the public officers carry out the bodies of such as are executed, and throw the halters and clothes of those that are strangled or otherwise put to death. There is to this day a small figure of Themistocles in the temple of Diana of Best Counsel, which represents him to be a persor THEMISTOCLES. 190 not only of a noLle mind, but also of a most heroic aspect At length the Athenians banished him, making use of thrt ostracism to humble his eminence and authority, as they ordinarily did with all whom they thought too powerful, or, by their greatness, disproportionable to the equality thought requisite in a popular government. For the ostracism was instituted, not so much to punish the offender, as to mitigate and pacify the violence of the envious, who delighted to hum- ble eminent men, and who, by fixing this disgrace upon them, might vent some part of their rancor. Themistocles being banished from Athens, while he stayed at Argos the detection of Pausanias happened, which gave such advantage to his enemies, that Leobotes of Agraule, son of Alcmaeon, indicted him of treason, the Spartans supporting him in the accusation. When Pausanias went about this treasonable design, he concealed it at first from Themistocles, though he were his intimate friend ; but when he saw him expelled out of the commonwealth, and how impatiently he took his banishment, he ventured to communicate it to him, and desired his as- sistance, showing him the king of Persia’s letters, and exas- perating him against the Greeks, as a villanous, ungrateful people. However, Themistocles immediately rejected the proposals of Pausanias, and wholly refused to be a party in the enterprise, though he never revealed his communications, nor disclosed the conspiracy to any man, either hoping that Pausanias would desist from his intentions, or expecting that so inconsiderate an attempt after such chimerical objects would be discovered by other means. After that Pausanias was put to death, letters and writings being found concerning this matter, which rendered Themis- tocles suspected, the Lacedaemonians were clamorous against him, and his enemies among the Athenians accused him ; when, being absent from Athens, he made his defence by letters, especially against the points that had been previously alleged against him. In answer to the malicious detractions of his enemies, he merely wrote to the citizens, urging that he who was always ambitious to govern, and not of a character or a disposition to serve, would never sell himself and his country into slavery to a barbarous and hostile nation. Notwithstanding this, the people, being persuaded by his accusers, sent officers to take him and bring him away to be tried before a council of the Greeks, but, having timely notice of it, he passed over into the island of Corcyra, where the THEMISTOCLES. 191 state was under obligations to him ; for, being chosen as arbitrator in a difference between them and the Corinthians, he decided the controversy by ordering the Corinthians to pay down twenty talents, and declaring the town and island of Leucas a joint colony from both cities. From thence he fled into Epirus, and, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians still pursuing him, he threw himself upon chances of safety that seemed all but desperate. For he fled for refuge to Admetus, king of the Molossians, who had formerly made some request to the Athenians, when Themistocles was in the height of hia authority, and had been disdainfully used and insulted by him, and had let it appear plain enough, that, could he lay hold of him, he would take his revenge. Yet in this misfortune, Themistocles, fearing the recent hatred of his neighbors and fellow-citizens more than the old displeasure of the king, put himself at his mercy, and became an humble suppliant to Admetus, after a peculiar manner, different from the custom of other countries. For taking the king’s son, who was then a child, in his arms, he laid himself down at his hearth, this being the most sacred and only manner of supplication among the Molossians, which was not to be refused. And some say that his wife, Phthia, intimated to Themistocles this way of petitioning, and placed her young son with him before the hearth ; others, that king Admetus, that he might be under a religious obligation not to deliver him up to his pur- suers, prepared and enacted with him a sort of stage-play to this effect. At this time, Epicrates of Acharnoe privately conveyed his wife and children out of Athens, and sent them hither, for which afterwards Cimon condemned him and put him to death ; as Stesimbrotus reports, and yet somehow, either forgetting this himself, or making Themistocles to be little mindful of it, says presently that he sailed into Sicily, and desired in marriage the daughter of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, promising to bring the Greeks under his power ; aiid, on Hiero refusing him, departed thence into Asia ; but this is not probable. For Theophrastus writes, in his work on Monarchy, that when Hiero sent race-horses to the Olympian games, and erected a pavilion sumptuously furnished, Themistocles made an oration to the Greeks, inciting them to pull down the tyrant’s tent, and not to suffer his horses to run. Thucydides says, that, passing over land to the .^gaean Sea, he took ship at Pydna in the bay Therme, not being known to any one in the ship, till, being terrified to see the vessel driven by the 192 THEMISTOCLES. winds near to Naxos, which was then besieged by the Athe- nians, he made himself known to the master and pilot, and partly entreating them, partly threatening that if they went on shore he would accuse them, and make the Athenians to be- lieve that they did not take him in out of ignorance, but that he had corrupted them with money from the beginning, he compelled them to bear off and stand out to sea, and sail for- ward towards the coast of Asia. A great part of his estate was privately conveyed aw^ay by his friends, and sent after him by sea into Asia ; besides which, there was discovered and confiscated to the value of fourscore talents, as Theophrastus writes ; Theopompus says an hundred ; though Themistocles was never worth three talents before he was concerned in public affairs. When he arrived at Cyme, and understood that all along the coast there were many laid wait for him, and particularly Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for the game was worth the hunt- ing for such as were thankful to make money by any means, the king of Persia having offered by public proclamation two hundred talents to him that should take him), he fled to -^gae, a small city of the ^olians, where no one knew him but only his host Nicogenes, who was the richest man in ^olia, and .well known to the great men of Inner Asia. While Themistocles lay hid for some days in his house, one night, after a sacrifice and supper ensuing, Olbius, the attendant upon Nicogenes’s children, fell into a sort of frenzy and fit of inspiration, and cried out in verse, — Night shall speak, and night instruct thee, By the voice of night conduct thee. After this, Themistocles, going to bed, dreamed that he saw a snake coil itself up upon his belly, and so creep to his neck ; then, as soon as it touched his face, it turned into an eagle, which spread its wings over him, and took him up and flew away with him a great distance ; then there appeared a her- ald’s golden wand, and upon this at last it set him down se- curely, after infinite terror and disturbance. His departure was effected by Nicogenes by the following artifice ; the barbarous nations, and amongst them the Persians especially, are extremely jealous, severe, and suspicious about their women, not only their wives, but also their bought slaves and concubines, whom they keep so strictly t^at no one ever sees them abroad ; they spend their lives shut up within doors, and, when they take a journey, are carried ii? close tents, cui- THEMISTOCLES. 193 tained in on all sides, and set upon a wagon. Such a travel- ling carriage being prepared for Themistocles, they hid him in it, and carried him on his journey, and told those whom they met or spoke with upon the road that they were convey- ing a young Greek woman out of Ionia to a nobleman at court. Thucydides and Charon of Lampsacus say that Xerxes was dead, and that Themistocles had an interview with his son ; but Ephorus, Dinon, Clitarchus, Heraclides, and many others, write that he came to Xerxes. The chronological tables better agree with the account of Thucydides, and yet neither can their statements be said to be quite set at rest. When Themistocles was come to the critical point, he ap- plied himself first to Artabanus, commander of a thousand men, telling him that he was a Greek, and desired to speak with the king about important affairs concerning which the king was extremely solicitous. Artabanus answered him, ‘‘ O stranger, the laws of men are different, and one thing is hon- orable to one man, and to others another ; but it is honorable for all to honor and observe their own laws. It is the habit of the Greeks, we are told, to honor, above all things, liberty and equality ; but amongst our many excellent laws, we ac- count this the most excellent, to honor the king, and to wor- ship him, as the image of the great preserver of the universe ; if, then, you shall consent to our laws, and fall down before the king and worship him, you may both see him and speak to him ; but if your mind be otherwise, you must make use of others to intercede for you, for it is not the national custom here for the king to give audience to any one that doth not fall down before him.’’ Themistocles, hearing this, replied, “ Artabanus, I that come hither to increase the power and glory of the king, will not only submit myself to his laws, since so it hath pleased the god who exalteth the Persian empire to this greatness, but will also cause many more to be wor- shippers and adorers of the king. Let not this, therefore, be an impediment why I should not communicate to the king what I have to impart.^’ Artabanus asking him, “ Who must w^e tell him that you are ? for your words signify you to be no ordinary person,^’ Themistocles answered, “No man, 0 Aica- baiius, must be informed of this before the king himself.’’ Thus Phanias relates ; to which Eratosthenes, in his treatise on Riches, adds, that it was by the means of a woman of Eretria, who was kept by Artabanus, that he obtained this audience and interview with him. 13 194 THEMISTOCLES. When he was introduced to the king, and had paid his reverence to him, he stood silent, till the king commanding the interpreter to ask him who he was, he replied, ‘‘ O king, I am Themistocles the Athenian, driven into banishment by the Greeks. The evils that I have done to the Persians are nu- merous ; but my benefits to them yet greater, in withholding the Greeks from pursuit, so soon as the deliverance of my own countr) allowed me to show kindness also to you. I come with a mind suited to my present calamities ; prepared alike for favors and for anger; to welcome your gracious reconciliation^ and to deprecate your wrath. Take my own countrymen for witnesses of the services I have done for Persia, and make use of this occasion to show the world your virtue, rather than to satisfy your indignation. If you save me, you will save your suppliant ; if otherwise, will destroy an enemy of the Greeks.’^ He talked also of divine admonitions, such as the vision which he saw at Nicogenes’s house, and the direction given him by the oracle of Dodona, where Jupiter commanded him to go to him that had a name like his, by which he under- stood that he was sent from Jupiter to him, seeing that they both were great, and had the name of kings. The king heard him attentively, and, though he admired his temper and courage, gave him no answer at that time ; but, when he was with his intimate friends, rejoiced in his great good fortune, and esteemed himself very happy in this, and prayed to his god Arimanius, that all his enemies might be ever of the same mind with the Greeks, to abuse and expel the bravest men amongst them. Then he sacrificed to the gods, and presently fell to drinking, and was so well pleased, that in the night, in the middle of his sleep, he cried out for joy three times, I have Themistocles the Athenian.” In the morning, calling together the chief of his court, he had "J'hemistocles brought before him, who expected no good of it, when he saw, for example, the guards fiercely set against him as soon as they learnt his name, and giving him ill lan- guage. As he came forward towards the king, who was seated, the rest keeping silence, passing by Roxanes, a commander of a thousand men, he heard him, with a slight groan, say, without stirring out of his place, “ You subtle Greek serpent, the king’s good genius hath brought thee hither.” Yet, when he came into the presence, and again fell down, the king saluted him, and spake to him kindly, telling him he was now indebted to him two hundred talents ; for it was just and reasonable that he should receive the reward which was proposed to whoso THEMISTOCLES. 19s ever should bring Themistocles ; and promising much more, and encouraging him, he commanded him to speak freely what he would concerning the affairs of Greece. Themis- tocles replied, that a man's discourse was like to a rich Per- sian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out ; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscure and lost ; and, therefore, he desired time. The king being pleased with the comparison, and bidding him take what time he would, he desired a year ; in which time, having learnt the Persian lan- guage sufficiently, he spoke with the king by himself without the help of an interpreter, it being supposed that he dis- coursed only about the affairs of Greece ; but there hap- pening, at the same time, great alterations at court, and re- movals of the king’s favorites, he drew upon himself the envy of the great people, who imagined that he had taken the boldness to speak concerning them. For the favors shown to other strangers were nothing in comparison with the honors conferred on him ; the king invited him to partake of his own pastimes and recreations both at home and abroad, car- rying him with him a-hunting, and made him his intimate so far that he permitted him to see the queen-mother, and con- verse frequently with her. By the king’s command, he also was made acquainted with the Magian learning. When Demaratus the Lacedaemonian, being ordered by the king to ask whatsoever he pleased, that it should imme- diately be granted him, desired that he might make his public entrance, and be carried in state through the city of Sardis, with the tiara set in the royal manner upon his head, Mithro- panstes, cousin to the king, touched him on the head, and told him that he had no brains for the royal tiara to cover, and if Jupiter should give him his lightning and thunder, he would not any the more be Jupiter for that ; the king also repulsed him with anger, resolving never to be reconciled to him, but to be inexorable to all supplications on his behalf. Yet Themistocles pacified him, and prevailed with him to forgive him. And it is reported, that the succeeding kings, in whose reigns there was a greater communication between the Greeks and Persians, when they invited any considerable Greek into their service, to encourage him, would write, and promise him that he should be as great with them as Themis- tocles had been. They relate, also, how Themistocles, when he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing him- self splendidly served at his table, turned to his children and 196 THEMISTOCLES. said, Children, we had been undone if we had not been undone/^ Most writers say that he had three cities giver him, Magnesia, Myus, and Lampsacus, to maintain him in bread, meat, and wine. Neanthes of Cyzicus, and Phanias, add two more, the city of Pal^scepsis, to provide him with clothes, and Percote, with bedding and furniture for bis house. As he was going down towards the sea-coast to take measures against Greece, a Persian whose name was Epixyes, governor of the upper Phrygia, laid wait to kill him, having for that purpose provided a long time before a number of Pisidians, who were to set upon him when he should stop to rest at a city that is called Lion’s-head. But Themistocles, sleeping in the middle of the day, saw the Mother of the gods appear to him in a dream and say unto him, “ Themisto- cles, keep back from the Lion’s-head, for fear you fall into the lion’s jaws ; for this advice I expect that your daughter Mnesiptolema should be my servant.” Themistocles was much astonished, and when he had made his vows to the goddess, left the broad road, and, making a circuit, went another way, changing his intended station to avoid that place, and at night took up his rest in the fields. But one of the sumpter-horses, which carried the furniture for his tent, having fallen that day into the river, his servants spread out the tapestry, which was wet, and hung .it up to dry ; in the mean time the Pisidians made towards them with their swords drawn, and, not discerning exactly by the moon what it was that was stretched out, thought it to be the tent of Themisto- cles, and that they should find him resting himself within it; but when they came near, and lifted up the hangings, those who watched there fell upon them and took them. Themistocles, having escaped this great danger, in admiration of the good- ness of the goddess that appeared to him, built, in memory of it, a temple in the city of Magnesia, which he dedicated to Dindymene, Mother of the gods, in which he consecrated .and devoted his daughter Mnesiptolema to her service. When he came to Sardis, he visited the temples of the gods, and observing, at his leisure, their buildings, ornaments, and the number of their offerings, he saw in the temple of the Mother of the gods, the statue of a virgin in brass, two cubits high, called the water-bringer. Themistocles had caused this to be made and set up when he was surveyor of the waters at Athens, out of the fines of those whom he detected in draw- ing off and diverting the public water by pipes for their pri- THEMISTOCLES. 197 vate use ; and whether he had some regret to see this image in captivity, or was desirous to let the Athenians see in what great credit and authority he was with the king, he entered into a treaty with the governor of Lydia to persuade him to sene this statue back to Athens, which so enraged the Per- siar offeer, that he told him he would write the king word of ^ it. Themistocles, being affrighted hereat, got access to his wives and concubines, by presents of money to whom, he ap- peased the fury of the governor ; and afterwards behaved with more reserve and circumspection, fearing the envy of the Persians, and did not, as Theopompus writes, continue to travel about Asia, but lived quietly in his own house in Magnesia, where for a long time he passed his days in great security, being courted by all, and enjoying rich presents, and honored equally with the greatest persons in the Persian empire ; the king, at that time, not minding his concerns with Greece, being taken up with the affairs of inner Asia. But when Egypt revolted, being assisted by the Athenians, and the Greek galleys roved about as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Cimon had made himself master of the seas, the king turned his thoughts thither, and, bending his mind chiefly to resist the Greeks, and to check the growth of their power against him, began to raise forces, and send out commanders, and to dispatch messengers to Themistocles at Magnesia, to put him in mind of his promise, and to summon him to act against the Greeks. Yet this did not increase his hatred nor exasperate him against the Athenians, neither was he in any way elevated with the thoughts of the honor and powerful command he was to have in this war ; but judging, perhaps, that the object would not be attained, the Greeks having at that time, beside other great commanders, Cimon, in particu- lar, who was gaining wonderful military successes ; but chiefly, being ashamed to sully the glory of his former great actions, and of his many victories and trophies, he determined to put a conclusion to his life, agreeable to its previous course. He sacrificed to the gods, and invited his friends ; and, having entertained them and shaken hands with them, drank bull's blood, as is the usual story ; as others state, a poison pro- ducing instant death ; and ended his days in the city of Mag- nesia, having lived sixty-five years, most of which he had spent in politics and in the wars, in government and com- mand. The king, being informed of the cause and manner of his death, admired him more than ever, and continued In show kindness to his friends and relations. 198 THEMISTOCLES. Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter tc Lysander of Alopece, — Archeptolis, Polyeuctus, and Cleo- phantus. Plato, the philosopher, mentions the last as a most excellent horseman, but otherwise insignificant person ; of two sons yet older than these, Neocles and Disocles, Neocles died when he was young by the bite of a horse, and Diodes was adopted by his grandfather, Lysander. He had many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, whom he had by a second marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother by another mother ; Italia was married to Panthoides, of the island of Chios ; Sybaris to Nicomedes the Athenian. After the death of Themistocles, his nephew, Phrasicles, went to Mag- nesia, and married, with her brothers’ consent, another daughter, Nicomache, and took charge of her sister Asia, the youngest of all the children. The Magnesians possess a splendid sepulchre of Themis- tocles, placed in the middle of their market-place. It is not worth while taking notice of what Andocides states in his ad- dress to his Friends concerning his remains, how the Athe- nians robbed his tomb, and threw his ashes into the air ; for he feigns this, to exasperate the oligarchical faction against the people ; and there is no man living but knows that Phy- larchus simply invents in his history, where he all but uses an actual stage machine, and brings in Neocles and Demopolis as the sons of Themistocles, to incite or move compassion, as if he were writing a tragedy. Diodorus the cosmographer says, in his work on Tombs, but by conjecture rather than of cer- tain knowledge, that near to the haven of Piraeus where the land runs out like an elbow from the promontory of Alcimus, when you have doubled the cape and passed inward where the sea is always calm, there is a large piece of masonry, and upon this the Tomb of Themistocles, in the shape of an altar j and Plato the comedian confirms this, he believes, in these verses, — Thy tomb is fairly placed upon the strand, Where merchants still shall greet it with the land ; Still in and out’t will see them come and go, And watch the galleys as they race below. Various honors also and privileges were granted to the kindred of Themistocles at Magnesia, which were observed down to our times, and were enjoyed by another Themistocles of Athens, with whom I had an intimate acquaintance and friendship in the house of Ammonius the philosopher. CAMILLUS. 199 CAMILLUS, Among the many remarkable things that are related of Fuiius Camillus, it seems singular and strange above all, that he, who continually was in the highest commands, and ob' lained the greatest successes, was five times chosen dictator, triumphed four times, and was styled a second founder ot Rome, yet never was so much as once consul. The reason of which was the state and temper of the commonwealth at that time ; for the people, being at dissension with the senate, refused to return consuls, but in their stead elected other magistrates, called military tribunes, who acted, indeed, with full consular power, but were thought to exercise a less ob- noxious amount of authority, because it was divided among a larger number ; for to have the management of affairs in- trusted in the hands of six persons rather than two, was some satisfaction to the opponents of oligarchy. This was the con- dition of the times when Camillus was in the height of his actions and glory, and, although the government in the mean time had often proceeded to consular elections, yet he could never persuade himself to be consul against the inclination of the people. In all his other administrations, which were many and various, he so behaved himself, that, when alone in authority, he exercised his power as in common, but the honor of all actions redounded entirely to himself, even when in joint commission with others ; the reason of the for- mer was his moderation in command ; of the latter, his great judgment and wisdom, which gave him without controversy the first place. The house of the Furii was not, at that time, of any con- siderable distinction ; he, by his own acts, first raised him- self to honor, serving under Postumius Tubertis, dictator, in the great battle against the ^quians and Volscians. For riding out from the rest of the army, and in the charge receiv- ing a wound in his thigh, he for all that did not quit the right, but, letting the dart drag in the wound, and engaging with the bravest of the enemy, put them to flight ; for which ac- tion, among other rewards bestowed on him, he was created censor, an office in those days of great repute and authority. During his censorship one very good act of his is recorded, that, whereas the v/ars had made many widows, he obliged such aa 200 CAMILLUS. had no wives, some by fair persuasion, others by threatening to set fines on their heads, to take them in marriag;e ; another necessary one, in causing orphans to be rated, who before were exempted from taxes, the frequent wars requiring more than ordinary expenses to maintain them. What, however, pressed them most was the siege of Veii. Some call this people Veientani. This was the head city of Tuscany, not inferior to Rome, either in number of arms or multitude of soidiers, insomuch that, presuming on her wealth and luxury, and priding herself upon her refinement and sumptuousness, she engaged in many honorable contests with the Romans for glory and empire. But now they had abandoned their former ambitious hopes, having been weakened by great de- feats, so that, having fortified themselves with high and strong walls, and furnished the city with all sorts of weapons offen- sive and defensive, as likewise with corn and all manner of provisions, they cheerfully endured a siege, which, though tedious to them, was no less troublesome and distressing to the besiegers. For the Romans, having never been ac- customed to stay away from home except in summer, and for no great length of time, and constantly to winter at home, were then first compelled by the tribunes to. build forts in the enemy’s country, and raising strong works about their camp, to join winter and summer together. And now, the seventh year of the war drawing to an end, the com- manders began to be suspected as too slow and remiss in driving on the siege, insomuch that they were discharged and others chosen for the war, among whom was Camillus, then second time tribune. But at present he had no hand in the siege, the duties that fell by lot to him being to make war upon the Faliscans and Capenates, who, taking advantage of the Romans being occupied on all hands, had carried rava- ges into their country, and, through all the Tuscan war, given them much annoyance, but were now reduced by Camillus, and with great loss shut up within their walls. And now, in the very heat of the war, a strange j)henome- non in the Alban lake, which, in the absence of any known cause and explanation by natural reasons, seemed as great a prodigy as the most incredible that are reported, occasioned great alarm. It was the beginning of autumn, and the sum- mer now ending had, to all observation, been neither rainy or much troubled with southern winds ; and many of the lakes, brooks, and springs of all sorts with which Italy abounds, some were wholly dried up, others drew very little water with CAMILLUS. 201 them ; all the rivers, as is usual in summer, ran in a very Iom and hollow channel. But the Alban lake, that is fed by no other waters but its own, and is on all sides encircled with fruitful mountains, without any cause, unless it were divine, began visibly to rise and swell, increasing to the feet of the mountains, and by degrees reaching the level of the very tops of them, and all this without any waves or agitation. At first it was the wonder of shepherds and herdsmen ; but when the earth, which, like a great dam, held up the lake from falling into the lower grounds, through the quantity and weight of water was broken down, and in a violent stream it ran through the ploughed fields and plantations to discharge itself in the sea, it not only struck terror into the Romans, but was thought by all the inhabitants of Italy to portend some ex- traordinary event. But the greatest talk of it was in the camp that besieged Veii, so that in the town itself, also, the occurrence became known. As in long sieges it commonly happens that parties on both sides meet often and converse with one another, so it chanced that a Roman had gained much confidence and fa- miliarity with one of the besieged, a man versed in ancient prophecies, and of repute for more than ordinary skill in divination. The Roman, observing him to be overjoyed at the story of the lake, and to mock at the siege, told him that this was not the only prodigy that of late had happened to the Romans ; others more wonderful yet than this had be- fallen them, which he was willing to communicate to him, that he might the better provide for his private interests in these public distempers. The man greedily embraced the proposal, expecting to hear some wonderful secrets ; but when, by little and little, he had led him on in conversation and insensibly drawn him a good way from the gates of the city, he snatched him up by the middle, being stronger than he, and, by the assistance of others that came running from the camp, seized and delivered him to the commanders. The man, reduced to this necessity, and sensible now that destiny was not to be avoided, discovered to them the secret oracles of Veii ; that it was not possible the city should be taken, until the Alban lake, which now broke forth and had found out new passages, was drawn back from that course, and so diverted that it could not mingle with the sea. The senate, having heard and satisfied themselves about the matter, de- creed to send to Delphi, to ask counsel of the god. The messengers were persons of the highest repute, Liciniua 202 CAMILLirS. Cossus, Valerius Potitus, and Fabius Ambustus ; who, having made their voyage by sea and consulted the god, returned with other answers, particularly that there had been a neglect of some of their national rites relating to the Latin feasts ; but the Alban water the oracle commanded, if it were possi- ble, they should keep from the sea, and shut it up in its an-' cient bounds; but if that was not to be done, then they should carry it off by ditches and trenches into the lower grounds and so dry it up ; which message being delivered, the priests performed what related to the sacrifices, and the people went to work and turned the water. And now the senate, in the tenth year of the war, taking away all other commands, created Camillus dictator, who chose Cornelius Scipio for his general of horse. And in the first place he made vows unto the gods, that, if they would grant a happy conclusion of the war, he would celebrate to their honor the great games, and dedicate a temple to the goddess whom the Romans call Matuta, the Mother, though, from the ceremonies which are used, one would think she was Leucothea. For they take a servant-maid into the secret part of the temple, and there cuff her, and drive her out again, and they embrace their brothers’ children in place of their own ; and, in general, the ceremonies of the sacrifice remind one of the nursing of Bacchus by Ino, and the calamities occasioned by her husband’s concubine. Camillus, having made these vows, marched into the country of the Faliscans, and in a great battle overthrew them and the Capenates, their confederates ; afterwards he turned to the siege of Veii, and, finding that to take it by assault would prove a difficult and hazardous attempt, proceeded to cut mines under ground, the earth about the city being easy to break up, and allowing such depth for the works as would prevent their being dis- covered by the enemy. This design going on in a hopeful way, he openly gave assaults to the enemy, to keep them to the walls, whilst they that worked underground in the mines were, without being perceived, arrived within the citadel, close to the temple of Juno, which was the greatest and most hon- ored in all the city. It is said that the prince of the Tuscans was at that very time at sacrifice, and that the priest, after he had looked into the entrails of the beast, cried out with a loud voice that the gods would give the victory to those that should complete those offerings ; and that the Romans who were in the mines hearing the words, immediately pulled down the floor, and, ascending with noise and clashing of weapons, CAMILLUS. 203 frighted away the enemy, and, snatching up the entrails, car- ried them to Camillus. But this may look like a fable The citv, however, being taking by storm, and the soldiers, busied in pillaging and gathering an infinite quantity of riches and spoil, Camillus, from the high tower, viewing what was done, at first wept for pity ; and when they that were by congratu lated his success, he lifted up his hands to heaven, and broke out into this ])rayer: “ O most mighty Jupiter, and ye gods that are judges of good and evil actions, ye know that not without just cause, but constrained by necessity, we have been forced to revenge ourselves on the city of our unrighteous and wicked enemies. But if, in the vicissitude of things, there may be any calamity due, to counterbalance this great felicity, I beg that it may be diverted from the city and army of the Romans, and fall, with as little hurt as may be, upon my own head.” Having said these words, and just turning about (as the custom of the Romans is to turn to the right after adoration or prayer), he stumbled and fell, to the aston- ishment of all that were present. But, recovering himself presently from the fall, he told them that he had received what he had prayed for, a small mischance, in compensation for the greatest good fortune. Having sacked the city, he resolved, according as he had vowed, to carry Juno’s image to Rome ; and, the workmen being ready for that purpose, he sacrificed to the goddess, and made his supplications that she would be pleased to accept of their devotion toward her, and graciously vouchsafe to ao cept of a place among the gods that presided at Rome ; and the statue, they say, answered in a low voice that she was ready and willing to go. Livy writes, that, in praying, Camil- lus touched the goddess, and invited her, and that some of the standers-by cried out that she was willing and would come. They who stand up for the miracle and endeavor to maintain it, have one great advocate on their side in the wonderful for- tune of the city, which, from a small and contemptible begin- ning, could never have attained to that greatness and power without many signal manifestations of the divine presence and cooperation. Other wonders of the like nature, drops of sweat seen to stand on statues, groans heard from them, the figures seen to turn round and to close their eyes, are recorded by many ancient historians ; and we ourselves could relate divers wonderful things, which we have been told by men of our own time, that are not lightly to be rejected ; but to give too easy credit to such things, or wholly to disbelieve them. CAMILLUS. ^04 is equally dangerous, so incapable is human infirmity of keep- ing any bounds, or exercising command over itself, running off sometimes to superstition and dotage, at other times to the contempt and neglect of all that is supernatural. But moderation is best, and to avoid all extremes. Camillus, however, whether puffed up with the greatness of his achievement in conquering a city that was the rival of Rome, and had held out a ten years’ siege, or exalted with the felicitations of those that were about him, assumed to himself more than became a civil and legal magistrate ; among other things, in the pride and haughtiness of his triumph, driving through Rome in a chariot drawn with four white horses, which no general either before or since ever did ; for the Romans consider such a mode of conveyance to be sacred, and specially set apart to the king and father of the gods. This alienated the hearts of his fellow-citizens, who were not accustomed to such pomp and display. The second pique they had against him was his opposing the law by which the city was to be divided ; for the tribunes of the people brought forward a motion that the people and senate should be divided into two parts, one of which should remain at home, the other, as the lot should decide, remove to the new-taken city. By which means they should not only have much more room, but, by the advantage of two great and magnificent cities, be better able to maintain their terri- tories and their fortunes in general. The people, therefore, who were numerous and indigent, greedily embraced it, and crowded continually to the forum, with tumultuous demands to have it put to the vote. But the senate and the noblest citizens, judging the proceedings of the tribunes to tend rather to a destruction than a division of Rome, greatly averse to it, went to Camillus for assistance, who, fearing the result if it came to a direct contest, contrived to occupy the people with other business, and so staved it off. He thus became unpopular. But the greatest and most apparent cause of their dislike against him arose from the tenths of the spoil ; the multitude having here, if not a just, yet a plausible case against him. For it seems, as he went to the siege of Veii, he had vowed to Apollo that if he took the city he would dedicate to him the tenth of the spoil. The city being taken and sacked, whether he was loath to trouble the soldiers at that time, or that through the multitude of business he had forgotten his vow, he suffered them to enjoy that part of the spoils also. Some time afterwards, when his authority was CAMILLUS. 2 OS laid down, he brought the matter before the senate, and the priests, at the same time, reported, out of the sacrifices, that there were intimations of divine angei, requiring propitiations and offerings. The senate decreed the obligation to be in force. But seeing it was difficult for every one to produce the very same things they had taken, to be divided anew, they ordained that every one upon oath should bring into the pub- lic the tenth part of his gains. This occasioned many annoy- ances and hardships to the soldiers, who were poor men, and had endured much in the war, and now were forced, out of what they had gained and spent, to bring in so great a propor- tion. Camillus, being assaulted by their clamor and tumults, for want of a better excuse, betook himself to the poorest of defences, confessing he had forgotten his vow ; they in turn complained that he had vowed the tenth of the enemy^s goods, and now levied it out of the tenth of the citizens. Neverthe- less, every one having brought in his due proportion, it was de- creed that out of it a bowl of massy gold should be made, and sent to Delphi. And when there was great scarcity of gold in the city, and the magistrates were considering where to get it, the Roman ladies, meeting together and consulting among them- selves, out of the golden ornaments they wore contributed as much as went to the making the offering, which in weight came to eight talents of gold. The senate, to give them the honor they had deserved, ordained that funeral orations should be used at the obsequies of women as well as men, it having never before been a custom that any woman after death should receive any public eulogy. Choosing out, there- fore, three of the noblest citizens as a deputation, they sent them in a vessel of war, well manned and sumptuously adorn- ed. Storm and calm at sea may both, they say, alike be dan- gerous ; as they at this time experienced, being brought al- most to the very brink of destruction, and, beyond all expecta- tion, escaping. For near the isles of ^olus the wind slacking, galleys of the Lipareans came upon them, taking them for pirates ; and, when they held up their hands as suppliants, forbore indeed from violence, but took their ship in tow, and carried her into the harbor, where they exposed to sale their goods and persons as lawful prize, they being pirates ; and scarcely, at last, by the virtue and interest of one man, Tim- asitheus by name, who was in office as general, and used his utmost persuasion, they were, with much ado, dismissed. He, however, himself sent out some of his own vessels with them, 2o6 CAMILLUS. to accompany them in their voyage and assist them at the dedication ; for which he received honors at Rome, as he had deserved. And now the tribunes of the people again resuming their motion for the division of the city, the war against the Falis- cans luckily broke out, giving liberty to the chief citizens to choose what magistrates they pleased, and to appoint Camil» jus military tribune, with five colleagues ; affairs fhen requit- ing a commander of authority and reputation, as well as a v perience. And when the people had ratified the election, he marched with his forces into the territories of the Faliscans, and laid siege to Falerii, a well-fortified city, and plentifully stored with all necessaries of war. And although he perceived it would be no small work to take it, and no little time would be required for it, yet he was willing to exercise the citizens and keep them abroad, that they might have no leisure, idling at home, to follow the tribunes in factions and seditions ; a very common remedy, indeed, with the Romans, who thus carried off, like good physicians, the ill humors of their com- monwealth. The Falerians, trusting in the strength of their city, which was well fortified on all sides, made so little ac- count of the siege, that all, with the exception of those that guarded the walls, as in times of peace, walked about the streets in their common dress ; the boys went to school, and were led by their master to play and exercise about the towm walls ; for the Falerians, like the Greeks, used to have a single teacher for many pupils, wishing their children to live and be brought up from the beginning in each other^s com- pany. This schoolmaster, designing to betray the Falerians by their children, led them out every day under the towm wall, at first but a little way, and, when they had exercised, brought :hem home again. Afterwards by degrees he drew them far- ther and farther, tili by practice he had made them bold and fearless, as if no danger was about them ; and at last, having got them all together, he brought them to the outposts of the Romans, and delivered them up, demanding to be led to Camillus. Where being come, and standing in the middle, he said that he was the master and teacher of these children, but preferring his favor before all other obligations, he was come to deliver up his charge to him, and, in that, the whole city. When Camillus had heard him out, he was astounded at the treachery of the act, and, turning to the standers-by, observed, that “ war, indeed, is of necessity attended with much injustice and violence I Certain laws, however, all good CAMILLUS. 207 men observe even in war itself, nor is victory so great an ob- ject as to induce us to incur for its sake obligations for base and impious acts. A great general should rely on his own virtue, and not on other men’s vices.” Which said, he com- manded the officers to tear off the man’s clothes, and bind his hands behind him, and give the boys rods and scourges, to punish the traitor and drive him back to the city. By this time the Falerians had discovered the treachery of the schooi- master, and the city, as was likely, was full of lamentations and cries for their calarnity, men and women of worth running in distraction about the walls and gates ; when, behold, the boys came whipping their master on, naked and bound, call- ing Camillus their preserver and god and father. Insomuch that it struck not only into the parents, but the rest of the citizens that saw what was done, such admiration and love of Camillus’s justice, that, immediately meeting in assembly, they sent ambassadors to him, to resign whatever they had to his disposal. Camillus sent them to Rome, where, being brought into the senate, they spoke to this purpose : that the Romans, preferring justice before victory, had taught them rather to embrace submission than liberty ; they did not so much con- fess themselves to be inferior in strength, as they must ac- knowledge them to be superior in virtue. The senate remit- ted the whole matter to Camillus, to judge and order as he thought fit ; who, taking a sum of money of the Falerians, and, making a peace with the whole nation of the Faliscans, returned home. But the soldiers, who had expected to have the pillage cf the city, when they came to Rome empty-handed, railed against Camillus among their fellow-citizens, as a hater of the people, and one that grudged all advantage to the poor. Af- terwards, when the tribunes of the people again brought their motion for dividing the city to the vote, Camillus appeared openly against it, shrinking from no unpopularity, and inveigh- ing boldly against the promoters of it, and so urging and con- , straining the multitude, that, contrary to their inclinations, ' tliey rejected the proposal ; but yet hated Camillus. Insomuch that though a great misfortune befell him in his family (one of his two sons dying of a disease), commiseration for this could not in the least make them abate of their malice. And, indeed, he took this loss with immoderate sorrow, being a man naturally of a mild and tender disposition, and, when the accusation was preferred against him, kept his house, and mourned amongst the women of his family. 2o8 CAMILLUS. His accuser was Lucius Apuleius ; the charge, appropria- tion of the Tuscan spoils ; certain brass gates, part of those spoils, were said to be in his possession. The people were exasperated against him, and it was plain they would take hold of any occasion to condemn him. Gathering, therefore, together his friends and fellow-soldiers, and such as had borne command with him, a considerable number in all, he besought them that they would not suffer him to be unjustly overborne by shameful accusations, and left the mock and scorn of his enemies. His friends, having advised and consulted among themselves, made answer, that, as to the sentence, they did not see how they could help him, but that they would contrib- ute to whatsoever fine should be set upon him. Not able to endure so great an indignity, he resolved, in his anger, to leave the city and go into exile ; and so, having taken leave of his wife and his son, he went silently to the gate of the city, and, there stopping and turning round, stretched out his hands to the Capitol, and prayed to the gods, that if, without any fault of his own, but merely through the malice and vio- lence of the people, he was driven out into banishment, the Romans might quickly repent of it ; and that all mankind might witness their need for the assistance, and desire for the return of Camillus. Thus, like Achilles, having left his imprecations on the citizens, he went into banishment ; so that, neither appearing nor making defence, he was condemned in the sum of fifteen thousand asses, which, reduced to silver, makes one thousand five hundred drachmas ; for the as was the money of the time, ten of such copper pieces making the denarius, or piece of ten. And there is not a Roman but believes that immediate- ly upon the prayers of Camillus, a sudden judgment followed, and that he received a revenge for the injustice done unto him ; which though we cannot think was pleasant, but raiher grievous and bitter to him, yet was very remarkable, and noised over the whole world ; such a punishment visited the city of Rome, an era of such loss and danger and disgrace so quickly succeeded ; whether it thus fell out by fortune, cr it be the office of some god not to see injured virtue go un- avenged. The first token that seemed to threaten some mischief to ensue was the death of the censor Julius ; for the Romans have a religious reverence for the office of a censor, and es- teem it sacred. The second was, that, just before Camillus went into exile, Marcus Caedicius, a person of no great dis* CAMILLUS. *209 tinction, nor of the rank of senator, but esteemed a good and respectable man, reported to the military tribunes a thing worthy their consideration : that, going along the night before in the street called the New Way, and being called by some body in a loud voice, he turned about, but could see no one, but heard a voice greater than human, which said these words, Go, Marcus Caedicius, and early in the morning tell the mili- tary tribunes that they are shortly to expect the Gauls. But the tribunes made a mock and sport with the story, and a little after came Camillus’s banishment. The Gauls are of the Celtic race, and are reported to have been compelled by their numbers to leave their country, which was insufficient to sustain them all, and to have gone in search of other homes. And being, many thousands of them, young men and able to bear arms, and carrying jvith them a still greater number of women and young children, some of them, passing the Riphaean mountains, fell upon the Northern Ocean, and possessed themselves of the farthest parts of Eu- rope ; others, seating themselves between the Pyrenean moun- tains and the Alps, lived there a considerable time, near to the Senones and Celtorii ; but, afterwards tasting wine which was then first brought them out of Italy, they were all so much taken with the liquor, and transported with the hitherto un- known delight, that, snatching up their arms and taking their families along with them, they marched directly to the Alps, to. find out the country which yielded such fruit, pronouncing all others barren and useless. He that first brought wine among them and was the chief instigator of their coming into Italy is said to have been one Aruns, a Tuscan, a man of no- ble extraction, and not of bad natural character, but involved in the following misfortune. He was guardian to an orphan, one of the richest of the country, and much admired for his beauty, whose name was Lucumo. From his childhood he had been bred up with Aruns in his family, and when now grown up did not leave his house, professing to wish for the enjoyment of his society. And thus for a great while he se- cretly enjoyed Aruns^s wife, corrupting her, and himself cor- rupted by her. But when they were both so far gone in their passion that they could neither refrain their lust nor conceal it, the young man seized the woman and openly sought to carry her away. The husband, going to law, and finding him- self overpowered by the interest and money of his opponent, left his country, and, hearing of the state of the Gauls, went to them, and was the conductor of their expedition into Italy. 210 CAMILLUS. At their first coming they at once possessed themselves of all that country which anciently the Tuscans inhabited, reach- ing from the Alps to both the seas, as the names themselves testify ; for the North or Adriatic Sea is named from the Tus- can city Adria, and that to the south the Tuscan Sea simply The whole country is rich in fruit-trees, has excellent pasture, and is well watered whth rivers. It had eighteen large ana beautiful cities, w^ell provided with all the means for industry and w'ealth, and all the enjoyments and pleasures of life. The Gauls cast out the Tuscans, and seated themselves in them. But this was long before. The Gauls at this time v/ere besieging Clusium, a Tuscan city. The Clusinians sent to the Romans for succor, desiring them to interpose with the barbarians by letters and ambas- sadors. There were sent three of the family of the Fabii, persons of high rank and distinction in the city. The Gauls received them courteously, from respect to the name of Rome, and, giving over the assault which was then making upon the W’alls, came to conference wdth them ; when the ambassadors asking what injury they had received of the Clusinians that they thus invaded their city, Brennus, king of the Gauls, laughed and made answ’er, The Clusinians do us injury, in that, being able only to till a small parcel of ground, they must needs possess a great territory, and will not yield any part to us who are strangers, many in number, and poor. In the same nature, O Romans, formerly the Albans, Fidenates, and Ardeates, and now lately the Veientines and Capenates, and many of the Faliscans and Volscians, did you injury ; upon wFom ye make war if they do not yield you part of what they possess, make slaves of them, w^aste and spoil their country, and ruin their cities ; neither in so doing are cruel or unjust, but follow that most ancient of all laws, which gives the possessions of the feeble to the strong ; which begins with God and endsin the beasts ; since all these, by nature, seek the stronger to have advantage over the weaker. Cease, therefore, to pity the Clusinians whom we besiege, lest ye teach the Gauls to be kind and compassionate to those that are oppressed by you.” By this answer the Romans, perceiving that Brennus was not to be treated with, went into Clusium, and encouraged and stirred up the inhabitants to make a sally with them upon the barbarians, which they did either to try their strength or to show their own. The sally being made, and the fight grow- ing hot about the walls, one of the Fabii, Quintus Ambustus being well mounted, and setting spurs to his horse, made full CAMILLUS. 211 against a Gaul, a man of huge bulk and stature, whom he saw riding out at a distance from the rest. At the first he was not recognized, through the quickness of the conflict and the glittering of his armor, that precluded any view of him ; but when he had overthrown the Gaul, and was going to gather the spoils, Brennus knew him ; and, invoking the gods to be witnesses, that, contrary to the known and common law of nations, which is holily observed by all mankind, he who had come as an ambassador had now engaged in hostility against him, he drew off his men, and bidding Clusium fare- well, led his army directly to Rome. But not wishing that it should look as if they took advantage of that injury, and were ready to embrace any occasion of quarrel, he sent a herald to demand the man in punishment, and in the mean time marched leisurely on. The senate being met at Rome, among many others that spoke against the Fabii, the priests called fecials were the most decided, who, on the religious ground, urged the senate that they should lay the whole guilt and penalty of the fact upon him that committed it, and so exonerate the rest. These fecials Numa Pompilius, the mildest and iustest of kings, constituted guardians of peace, and the judges and deter- miners of all causes by which war may justifiably be made. The senate referring the whole matter to the people, and the priests there, as well as in the senate, pleading against Fabius, the multitude, however, so little regarded their authority, that in scorn and contempt of it they chose Fabius and the rest of his brothers military tribunes. The Gauls, on hearing this, in great rage threw aside every delay, and hastened on with all the speed they could make. The places through which they marched, terrified wath their numbers and the splendor of their preparations for war, and in alarm at their violence and fierceness, began to give up their territories as already lost, with little doubt but their cities would quickly follow ; contrary, however, to expectation, they did no injury as they passed, nor took any thing from the fields ; and, as they went by any city, cried out that they were going to Rome ^ that the Romans only were their enemies, and that they took ail ofners for their friends. Whilst the barbarians were thus hastening with all speed, the military tribunes brought the Romans into the held to be ready to engage them, being not inferior to the Gauls in nuim ber (for they were no less than forty thousand foot), but most of them raw soldiers, and such as had never handled a 212 CAMILLUS. weapon before. Besides, they had wholly neglected all re- ligious usages, had not obtained favorable sacrifices, nor made inquiries of the prophets, natural in danger and before battle. No less did the multitude of commanders distract and con- foutj d their proceedings ; frequently before, upon less occa- sions, they had chosen a single leader, with the title of dicta- tor, being sensible of what great importance it is in critical times to have the soldiers united under one general with the entire an absolute control placed in his hands. Add to all, the remembrance of Camillus’s treatment, which made it now seem a dangerous thing for officers to command without hu- moring their soldiers. In this condition they left the city, and encamped by the river Allia, about ten miles from Rome ; and not far from the place where it falls into the Tiber ; and here the Gauls came upon them, and, after a disgraceful re- sistance, devoid of order and discipline, they were miserably defeated. The left wing was immediately driven into the river, and there destroyed ; the right had less damage by declining the shock, and from the low grounds getting to the tops of the hills, from whence most of them afterwards dropped into the city ; the rest, as many as escaped, the enemy being weary of the slaughter, stole by night to Veii, giving up Rome and all that was in it for lost. This battle was fought about the summer solstice, the moon being at full, the very same day in which the sad disas- ter of the Fabii had happened, when three hundred of that name were at one time cut off by the Tuscans. But from this second loss and defeat the day got the name of Alliensis from the river Allia, and still retains it. The question of unlucky days, whether we should consider any to be so, and whether Heraclitus did well in upbraiding Hesiod for distin- guishing them into fortunate and unfortunate, as ignorant that the nature of every day is the same, I have examined in another place ; but upon occasion of the present subject, I think it will not be amiss to annex a few examples relating to this matter. On the fifth of their month Hippodromius, which corresponds to the Athenian Hecatombaeon, the Boeo- tians gained two signal victories, the one at Leuctra, the other at Ceressus, about three hundred years before, when they overcame Lattamyas and the Thessalians, both which asserted the liberty of Greece. Again, on the Sixth of Boedromion, the Persians were worsted by the Greeks at Marathon ; on the third, at Platea, as also at Mycale ; on the twenty-fifth, at Arbela. The Athenians, about the full moon in Boedro* CAMILLUS. 213 mion, gained their sea-victory at Naxos under the conduct of Chabfias ; on the twentieth, at Salamis, as we have shown in our treatise on Days. Thargelion was a very unfortunate month to the barbarians, for in it Alexander overcame Da- rius's generals on the Granicus ; and the Carthaginians, on the twenty-fourth, were beaten by Timoleon in Sicily, on which same day and month Troy seems to have be^n taken, as Ephorus, Callisthenes, Damastes, and Phylarchus state. On the other hand, the month Metagitnion, which in Boeotia is called Panemus, was not very lucky to the Greeks ; for on its seventh day they were defeated by Antipater, at the battle in Cranon, and utterly ruined ; and before, at Chccronea, were defeated by Philip ; and on the very same day, same month, and same year, those that went with Archidamus into Italy were there cut off by the barbarians. The Carthaginians also observe the twenty-first of the same month, as bringing with it the largest number and the severest of their losses. I am not ignorant, that, about the Feast of Mysteries, Thebes was destroyed the second time by Alexander ; and after that, upon the very twentieth of Boedromion, on which day they lead forth the mystic lacchus, the Athenians received a gar- rison of the Macedonians. On the selfsame day the Romans lost their army under Caepio by the Cimbrians, and in a sub- sequent year, under the conduct of Lucullus, overcame the Armenians and Tigranes. King Attains and Pompey died both on their birthdays. One could reckon up several that have had variety of fortune on the same day. This day, meantime, is one of the unfortunate ones to the Romans, and for its sake two others in every month ; fear and superstition as the custom of it is, more and more prevailing. But I have discussed this more accurately in my Roman Questions. And now, after the battle, had the Gauls immediately pursued those that fled, there had been no remedy but Rome must have wholly been ruined, and those who remained in it utterly destroyed ; such was the terror that those who escaped the battle brought with them into the city, and with such dis- traction and confusion were themselves in turn infected. But the Gauls, not imagining their victory to be so considerable, and overtaken with the present joy, fell to feasting and divid- ing the spoil, by which means they gave leisure to those who were for leaving the city to make their escape, and to those that remained, to anticipate and prepare for tl.eir coming. For they who resolved to stay at Rome, abandoning the rest of the city, betook themselves, to the Capitol, which they fortified 214 CAMILLUS* with the help of missiles and new woiks. One of their prin cipal cares was of their holy things, most of which they com veyed into the Capitol. But the consecrated fire the vestal virgins took, and fled with it, as likewise their other sacred things. Some write that they have nothing in their charge but the ever-living fire which Numa had ordained to be wor- shipped as the principle of all things ; for fire is the most active thing in nature, and all production is either motion, or attended with motion ; all the other parts of matter, so long as they are without w^armth, lie sluggish and dead, and re- quire the accession of a sort of soul or vitality in the princi- ple of heat ; and upon that accession, in whatever way, im- mediately receive a capacity either of acting or being acted upon. And thus Numa, a man curious in such things, and whose wisdom made it thought that he conversed with the Muses, consecrated fire, and ordained it to be kept ever burning, as an image of that eternal power which orders and actuates all things. Others say that this fire was kept burn- ing in front of the holy things, as in Greece, for purification, and that there were other things hid in the most secret part of the temple, which were kept from the view of all, except those virgins whom they call vestals. The most common opinion was, that the image of Pallas, brought into Italy by ^neas, was laid up there ; others say that the Samothracian images lay there, telling a story how that Dardanus carried them to Troy, and, when he had built the city, celebrated those rites, and dedicated those images there ; that after Troy was taken, ^neas stole them away, and kept them till his coming into Italy. But they who profess to know more of the matter affirm that there are two barrels, not of any great size, one of which stands open and has nothing in it, the other full and sealed up ; but that neither of them may be seen but by the most holy virgins. Others think that ihey who say this are misled by the fact that the virgins put most of their holy things into two barrels at this time of the Gaulish invasion, and hid them underground in the temple of Quirinus ; and that from hence that place to this day beari the name of Barrels. However it be, taking the most precious and important things they had, they fled away with them, shaping their course along the river side, where Lucius Albinius, a simple citizen of Rome, who among others was making his escape, overtook them, having his wife, children, and goods in a cart ; and, seeing the virgins dragging along in their arms CAMILLUS. 215 the holy things of the gods, iti a helpless and weary condi- tion, he caused his wife and children to get down, and, taking out his goods, put the virgins in the cart, that they might make their escape to some o^.the Greek cities. This devout act of Albinius, and the respect he showed thus signally to the gods at a time of such extremity, deserved not to be passed over in silence. But the priests that belonged to other gods, and the most elderly of the senators, men who had been consuls and had enjoyed triumphs, could not en- dure to leave the city ; but, putting on their sacred and splen- did robes, Fabius the high-priest performing the office, they made their prayers to the gods, and, devoting themselves, as it were, for their country, sate themselves down in their ivory chairs in the forum, and in that posture expected the event. On the third day after the battle, Brennus appeared with his army at the city, and, finding the gates wide open and no guards upon the walls, first began to suspect it was some de- sign or stratagem, never dreaming that the Romans were in so desperate a condition. But when he found it to be so indeed, he entered at the Colline gate, and took Rome, in the three hundred and sixtieth year, or a little more, after it was built ; if, indeed, it can be supposed probable that an exact chronological statement has been preserved of events which were themselves the cause of chronological difficulties about things of later date ; of the calamity itself, however, and of the fact of the capture, some faint rumors seem to have passed at the time into Greece. Heraclides Ponticus, who lived not long after these times, in his book upon the Soul, relates that a certain report came from the west, that an army, pro- ceeding from the Hyperboreans, had taken a Greek city called Rome, seated somewhere upon the great sea. But I do not wonder that so fabulous and high-flown an author as Heraclides should embellish the truth of the story with ex- pressions about Hyperboreans and the great sea. Aristotle the philosopher appears to have heard a correct statement of the taking of the city by the Gauls, but he calls its deliv- erer Lucius; whereas Camillus’s surname was not Lucius, but Marcus. But this is a matter of conjecture. Brennus, ha\ ing taken possession of Rome, set a strong guard about the Capitol, and, going himself down into the forum, was there struck with amazement at the sight of so many men sitting in that order and silence, observing that they neither rose at his coming, nor so much as changed color or countenance, but remained without fear or concern. 2i6 CAMILLUS. leaning upon their staves, and sitting quietly, looking at each other. The Gauls, for a great while, stood wondering at the strangeness of the sight, not daring to approach or touch them, taking them for an asserably of superior beings. But when one, bolder than the rest, drew near to Marcus Pa- pirius, and putting forth his hand, gently touched his chin and stroked his long beard, Papirius with his staff struck him a severe blow on the head; upon which the barbarian drew his sword and slew him. This was the introduction to the slaughter ; for the rest, following his example, set upon them all and killed them, and dispatched all others that came in their way; and so went on to the sacking and pillaging the houses, which they continued for many days ensuing. After- wards, they burnt them down to the ground and demolished them, being incensed at those who kept the Capitol, because they would not yield to summons ; but, on the contrary, when assailed, had repelled them, with some loss, from their de- fences. This provoked them to ruin the whole city, and to put to the sword all that came to their hands, young and old, men, women, and children. And now, the siege of the Capitol having lasted a good while, the Gauls began to be in want of provision ; and divid- ing their forces, part of them stayed with their king at the siege, the rest went to forage the country, ravaging the towns and villages where they came, but not all together in a body, but in different squadrons and parties ; and to such a confi- dence had success raised them, that they carelessly rambled about without the least fear or apprehension of danger. But the greatest and best ordered body of their forces went to the city of Ardea, where Camillus then sojourned, having, ever since his leaving Rome, sequestered himself from all business, and taken to a private life ; but now he began to rouse up himself, and consider not how to avoid or escape the enemy, but to find out an opportunity to be revenged upon them. And perceiving that the Ardeatians wanted not men, but rather enterprise, through the inexperience and timidity of their officers, he began to speak with the young men, first to the effect that they ought not to ascribe the misfortune of the Romans to the courage of their enemy, nor attribute the losses they sustained by rash counsel to the conduct of men who had no title to victory ; the event had been only an evidence of the power of fortune ; that it was a brave thing even with danger to repel a foreign and barbarous invader whose end in conquering was, like fire, to lay waste and destroy, but U CAMILLUS. 217 they would be courageous and resolute, he was ready to put an opportunity into their hands to gain a victory, without hazard at all. When he found the young men embraced the thing, he went to the magistrates and council of the city, and, having persuaded them also, he mustered all that could bear arms, and drew them up within the walls, that they might not be perceived by the enemy, who was near ; who, having scoured the country, and now returned heavy-laden with booty, lay encamped in the plains in a careless and negligent posture, so that, with the night ensuing upon debauch and drunken- ness, silence prevailed through all the camp. When Camil- lus learned this from his scouts, he drew out the Ardeatians, and in the dead of the night, passing in silence over the ground that lay between, came up to their works, and, com- manding his trumpets to sound and his men to shout and halloo, he struck terror into them from all quarters ; while drunkenness impeded, and sleep retarded their movements. A few, whom fear had sobered, getting into some order, for a while resisted ; and so died with their weapons in their hands. But the greatest part of them, buried in wine and sleep, were surprised without their arms, and despatched ; and as many of them as by the advantage of the night got out of the camp were the next day found scattered abroad and wandering in the fields, and were picked up by the horse that pursued them. The fame of this action soon flew through the neighbor- ing cities, and stirred up the young men from various quarters to come and join themselves with him. But none were so much concerned as those Romans who escaped in the battle of Allia, and were now at Veii, thus lamenting with them- selves, “ O heavens, what a commander has Providence be- reaved Rome of, to honor Ardea with his actions ! And that city, which brought forth and nursed so great a man, is lost and gone, and we, destitute of a leader and shut up within strange walls, sit idle, and see Italy ruined before our eyes. Come, let us send to the Ardeatians to have back our general, or else, with weapons in our hands, let us go thither to him ; for he is no longer a banished man, nor we citizens, having no country but what is in the possession of the en- emy.’’ To this they all agreed, and sent to Camillus to de- siie him to take the command ; but he answered, that he would not, until they that were in the Capitol should legally appoint him ; for he esteemed them, as long as they were in being, to be his country ; that if they should command him» 2i8 CAMILLUS. he would readily obey ; but against their consent he would intermeddle with nothing. When this answer was returned, they admired the modesty and temper of Camillus ; but they could not tell how to find a messenger to carry the intelli- gence to the Capitol, or rather, indeed, it seemed altogether impossible for any one to get to the citadel whilst the enemy was in full possession of the city. But among the young men there was one Pontius Cominius, of ordinary birth, but ambi- tious of honor, who proffered himself to run the hazard, and took no letters with him to those in the Capitol, lest, if he were intercepted, the enemy might learn the intentions of Camillus ; but, putting on a poor dress and carrying corks under it, he boldly travelled the greatest part of the way by day, and came to the city when it was dark ; the bridge he could not pass, as it was guarded by the barbarians ; so that taking his clothes, which were neither many nor heavy, and binding them about his head, he laid his body upon the corks, and swimming with them, got over to the city. And avoiding those quarters where he perceived the enemy was awake, which he guessed at by the lights and noise, he went to the Carmental gate, where there was greatest silence, and where the hill of the Capitol is steepest, and rises with craggy and broken rock. By this way he got up, though with much dif- ficulty, by the hollow of the cliff, and presented himself to the guards, saluting them, and telling them his name ; he was taken in, and carried to the commanders. And a sen- ate being immediately called, he related to them in order the victory of Camillus, which they had not heard of before, and the proceedings of the soldiers, urging them to confirm Ca- millus in the command, as on him alone all the.f fellow- countrymen outside the city would rely. Having heard and consulted of the matter, the senate declared Camillus dictator, and sent back Pontius the same way that he came, who, with the same success as before, got through the enemy without being discovered, and delivered to the Romans outside the decision of the senate, who joyfully received it. Camillus, on his arrival, found twenty thousand of them ready in arms ; with which forces, and those confederates he brought along with him, he prepared to set upon the enemy. But at Rome some of the barbarians, passing by chance near the place at which Pontius by night had got into the Capitol, spied in several places marks of feet and hands, where he had laid hold and clambered, and places where the plar ts that grew to the rock had been rubbed off, and tha CAM ILL US. 2 ig earth had slipped, and went accordingly and reported it to the king, who, coming in person, and viewing it, for the present said nothing, but in the evening, picking out such of the Gauls as were nimblest of body, and by living in the mountains were accustomed to climb, he said to them, The enemy themselves have ‘shown us a way how to come at them, which we knew not of before, and have taught us that it is not so difficult and impossible but that men may over- come it. It would be a great shame, having begun well, to fail in the end, and to give up a place as impregnable, when the enemy himself lets us see the way by which it may be taken ; for where it was easy for one man to get up, it will not be hard for many, one after another ; nay, when many shall undertake it, they will be aid and strength to each other. Rewards and honors shall be bestowed on every man as he shall acquit himself.^’ When the king had thus spoken, the Gauls cheerfully undertook to perform it, and in the dead of night a good party of them together, with great silence, began to climb the rock, clinging to the precipitous and difficult ascent, which yet upon trial offered a way to them, and proved less difficult than they had expected. So that the foremost of them having gained the top of all, and put themselves into order, they all but surprised the outworks, and mastered the watch, who were fast asleep ; for neither man nor dog perceived their coming. But there were sacred geese kept near the temple of Juno, which at other times were plentifully fed, but now, by reason that corn and other provisions were grown scarce for all, were but in a poor condition. The creature is by nature of quick sense, and apprehensive of the least noise, so that these, being moreover watchful through hunger, and restless, immediately discovered the coming of the Gauls, and, running up and down with their noise and cackling, they raised the whole camp, while the barbarians on the other side, per- ceiving themselves discovered, no longer endeavored to con- ceal their attempt, but with shouting and violence advanced to the assault. The Romans, every one in haste snatching up the next weapon that came to hand, did what they could on the sudden occasion. Manlius, a man of consular dignity, of strong body and great spirit, was the first that made head against them, and, engaging with two of the ‘enemy at once, with his sword cut off the right arm of one just as he was lifting up his blade to strike, and, running his target full in the face of the other, tumbled him headlong down the steep 220 CAKILLUS. rock ; then mounting the rampart, and there stand .ng with others that came running to his assistance, drove down the rest of them, who, indeed, to begin, had not been many, and did nothing worthy of so bold an attempt. The Romans, having thus escaped this danger, early in the morning took the captain of the watch and flung him down the rock upon the heads of their enemies, and to Manlius for his victory voted a reward, intended more for honor than advantage, bringing him, each man of them as much as he received for his daily allowance, which was half a pound of bread and one eighth of a pint of wine. Henceforward, the affairs of the Gauls were daily in a worse and worse condition ; they wanted provisions, being withheld [rom foraging through fear of Camillus, and sick- ness also was amongst them, occasioned by the number of carcasses that lay in heaps unburied. Being lodged among the ruins, the ashes, which were very deep, blown about by the winds and combining with the sultry heats, breathed up, so to say, a dry and searching air, the inhalation of which was destructive to their health. But the chief cause was the change from their natural climate, coming as they did out of shady and hilly countries, abounding in means of shelter from the heat, to lodge in low, and, in the autumn season, very un- healthy ground ; added to which was the length and tedious- ness of the siege, as they had now sate seven months before the Capitol. There was, therefore, a great destruction among them, and the number of the dead grew so great, that the living gave up burying them. Neither, indeed, were things on that account any better with the besieged, for famine in- creased upon them, and despondency with not hearing any thing of Camillus, it being impossible to send any one to him, the city was so guarded by the barbarians. Things being in this sad condition on both sides, a motion of treaty was made at first by some of the outposts, as they happened to speak with one another ; which being embraced by the leading men, Sulpicius, tribune of the Romans, came to a parley with Bren- nus, in which it was agreed, that the Romans laying down a thousand weight of gold, the Gauls upon the receipt of it should immediately quit the city and territories. The agreement being confirmed by oath on both sides, and the gold brought forth, the Gauls used false dealing in the weights, secretly at first, but afterwards openly pulled back and disturbed the balance ; at which the Romans indignantly complaining, Brennus, in a scoffing and insulting manner, pulled off his CAMILLUS. 221 sword and belt, and threw them both into the scales ; and when Sulpicius asked what that meant, “What should it mean,’’ says he, “ but woe to the conquered ? ” which after- wards became a proverbial saying. As for the Romans, some were so incensed that they were for taking their gold back again and returning to endure the siege. Others were for ^ passing by and dissembling a petty injury, and not to account that the indignity of the thing lay in paying more than was due, since the paying any thing at all itself a dishonor only submitted to as a necessity of the times. Whilst this difference remained still unsettled, both amongst themselves and with the Gauls, Camillus was at the gates with his army ; and having learned what was going on, commanded the main body of his forces to follow slowly . after him in good order, and himself with the choicest of his men hastening on, went at once to the Romans ; where all giving way to him. and receiving him as their sole magistrate, with profound silence and order, he took the gold out of tlie scales, and delivered it to his officers, and commanded the Gauls to take their weights and scales and depart ; saying that it was customary with the Romans to deliver their country with iron, not with gold. And when Brennus began to rage, and say that he was unjustly dealt with in such a breach of contract, Camillus answered that it was never legally made, and the agreement of no force or obligation ; for that himself being declared dictator, and there being no other magistrate by law, the engagement had been made with men who had no power to enter into it ; but now they might say any thing they had to urge, for he was come with full power by law to grant pardon to such as should ask it, or inflict punish- ment on the guilty, if they did not repent. At this, Brennus broke into violent anger, and an immediate quarrel ensued ; both sides drew their swords and attacked, but in con- fusion, as could not be otherwise amongst houses, and in narrow lanes and places where it was impossible to form in any order. But Brennus, presently recollecting himself, called off his men, and, with the loss of a few only, brought them to their camp ; and rising in the night with all his forces, left the city, and, advancing about eight miles, encamped upon the way to Gabii. As soon as day appeared, Camil- lus came up with him, splendidly armed himself, and his soldiers full of courage and confidence ; and there engaging with him in a sharp conflict, which lasted a long while, over- threw his army with great slaughter, and took their camp 222 CAMILLUS. Of those that fled, some were presently cut off by the pursuers ; others, and these was the greatest number, dispersed hither and thither, and were despatched by the people that came sallying out from the neighboring towns and villages. Thus Rome was strangely taken, and more strangely re- covered, having been seven whole months in the possession of the barbarians, who entered her a little after the Ides of July, and were driven out about the Ides of February following. Camillus triumphed, as he deserved, having saved his country that was lost, and brought the city, so to say, back again to itself. For those that had fled abroad, together with their wives and children, accompanied him as he rode in ; and those who had been shut up in the Capitol, and were reduced almost to the point of perishing with hunger, went out to meet him, embracing each other as they met, and weeping for joy, and, through the excess of the present pleasure, scarce believing in its truth. And when the priests and min- isters of the gods appeared bearing the sacred things, which in their flight they had either hid on the spot, or conveyed away with them, and now openly showed in safety, the citizens who saw the blessed sight felt as if with these the gods themselves were again returned unto Rome. After Camillus had sacrificed to the gods, and purified the city ac- cording to the directions of those properly instructed, he re- stored the existing temples, and erected a new one to Rumour or Voice, informing himself of the spot in which that voice from heaven came by night to Marcus Caedicius, foretelling the coming of the barbarian army. It was a matter of difficulty, and a hard task, amidst so much rubbish, to discover and re-determine the consecrated places ; but by the zeal of Camillus, and the incessant labor of the priests, it was at last accomplished. But when it came also to rebuilding the city, which was wholly demolished, despondency seized the multitude, and a backwardness to engage in a work for which they had no materials ; at a time, too, when they rather needed relief and repose from their oast labors, than any new demands upon their exhausted strength and impaired fortunes. Thus insensibly they turned their thoughts again towards Veii, a city ready-built and well- provided, and gave an opening to the arts of flatterers eager to gratify their desires, and lent their ears to seditious language flung out against Camillus ; as that, out of ambition and self-glory, he withheld them from a city fit to receive them, forcing them to live in the midst of ruins, and to re-erect a CAMILLUS. 223 pile of burnt rubbish, that he might be esteemed not the chief magistrate only and general of Rome, but, to the exclusion of Romulus, its founder also. The senate, therefore, fearing a sedition, would not suffer Camillus, though desirous, to lay down his authority within the year, though no dictator had ever held it above six months. They themselves, meantime, used their best endeavors, by kind persuasions and familiar addresses, to encourage and ap- pease the people, showing them the shrines and tombs of their ancestors, calling to their remembrance the sacred spots and holy places which Romulus and Numa or any other of their kings had consecrated and left to their keeping ; and among the strongest religious arguments, urged the head, newly separated from the body, which was found in laying the foundation of the Capitol, marking it as a place destined by fate to be the head of all Italy ; and the holy fire which had just been rekindled again, since the end of the war, by the vestal virgins ; “ What a disgrace it would be to them to lose and extinguish this, leaving the city it belonged to, to be either inhabited by strangers and new-comers, or left a wild pasture for cattle to graze on } ” Such reasons as these, urged with complaint and expostulation, sometimes in private upon individuals, and sometimes in their public assemblies, were met, on the other hand, by laments and protestations of distress and helplessness ; entreaties, that, reunited as they just were, after a sort of shipwreck, naked and destitute, they would not constrain them to patch up the pieces of a ruined and shattered city, when they had another at hand ready- built and prepared. Camillus thought good to refer it to general deliberation, and himself spoke largely and earnestly in behalf of his country, as also many others. At last, calling to Lucius Lu- cretius, whose place it was to speak first, he commanded him to give his sentence, and the rest as they followed, in order. Silence being made, and Lucretius just about to begin, by chance a centurion passing by outside with his company of the day-guard, called out with a loud voice to the ensign- bearer to halt and fix his standard, for this was the best place to stay in. This voice, coming in that moment of time, and at that crisis of uncertainty and anxiety for the future, was taken as a direction what was to be done ; so that Lucre- tius, assuming an attitude of devotion, gave sentence in con- currence with the gods, as he said, as likewise did all that followed Even among the common people it created a won- 224 CAMILLUS. derful change of feeling ; every one now cheered and en* couraged his neighbor, and set himself to the work, proceed- ing in it, however, not by any regular lines or divisions, but every one pitching upon that plot of ground which came next to hand, or best pleased his fancy ; by which haste and hurry in building, they constructed their city in narrow and ill-de- signed lanes, and \vith houses huddled together one upon another ; for it is said that within the compass of the year the whole city was built up anew, both in its public walls and private buildings. The persons, however, appointed by Ca- inillus to resume and mark out, in this general confusion, all consecrated places, coming, in their way round the Palatium, to the chapel of Mars, found the chapel itself indeed destroyed and burnt to the ground, like every thing else, by the barbari- ans ; but whilst they were clearing the place, and carrying away the rubbish, lit upon Romulus's augural staff, buried under a great heap of ashes. This sort of staff is crooked at one end, and is called Utuus ; they make use of it in quartering out the regions of the heavens when engaged in divination from the flight of birds \ Romulus, who was himself a great diviner, made use of it. But when he disappeared from the earth, the priests took his staff and kept it, as other holy things, from the touch of man ; and when they now found that, whereas all other things were consumed, this staff had alto- gether escaped the flames, they began to conceive happier hopes of Rome, and to augur from this token its future ever- lasting safety. And now they had scarcely got a breathing fime from their trouble, when a new war came upon them ; and the ^quians, Volscians, and Latins all at once invaded their ter- ritories, and the Tuscans besieged Sutrium, their confederate city. The military tribunes who commanded the army, and were encamped about the hill Maecius, being closely besieged by the Latins, and the camp in danger to be lost, sent to Rorne, where Camillus was a third time chosen dictator. Of this war two different accounts are given ; I shall begin with the more fabulous. They say that the Latins (whether out of pretence, or a real design to revive the ancient relationship of the two nations) sent to desire of the Romans some free-born ipaidens in marriage ; that when the Romans were at a loss how to determine (for on one hand they dreaded a war, hav- ing scarcely yet settled and recovered themselves, and on the other side suspected that this asking of wives was, in plain tprms, nothing else but a demand for hostages, though cov CAMILLUS. 225 ered over with the specious name of intermarriage and alli- ance), a certain handmaid, by name Tutula, or as some call her, Philotis, persuaded the magistrates to send with her some of the most youthful and best-looking maid-servants, in the bridal dress of noble vigins, and leave the rest to her care and management ; that the magistrates, consenting, chose out as many as she thought necessary for her purpose, and adorning them with gold and rich clothes, delivered them to the Latins, who were encamped not far from the city ; that at night the rest stole away the enemy’s swords, but Tutula or Philotis, getting to the top of a wild fig-tree, and spreading out a thick woollen cloth behind her, held out a torch towards Rome, which was the signal concerted between her and the. commanders, without the knowledge, however, of any other of the citizens, which was the reason that their issuing out from the city was tumultuous, the officers pushing their men on, and they calling upon one another’s names, and scarce able to bring themselves into order ; that setting upon the enemy’s works, who either were asleep or expected no such matter, they took the camp and destroyed most of them ; and that this was done on the nones of July, which was then called Quintilis, and that the feast that is observed on that day is a commemoration of what was then done. For in it, first, they run out of the city in great crowds, and call out aloud several familiar and common names, Caius, Marcus, Lucius, and the like, in representation of the way in which they called to one another when they went out in such haste. In the next place, the maid-servants, gaily dressed, run about, playing and jesting upon all they meet, and amongst themselves, also, use a kind of skirmishing, to show they helped in the conflict against the Latins ; and while eating and drinking, they sit shaded over with boughs of wild fig-tree, and the day they call Nonae Caprotinae, as some think from that wild fig-tree on which the maid-servant held up her torch, the Roman name for a wild fig-tree being caprificns. Others refer most of what is said or done at this feast to the fate of Romulus, for, on this day, he vanished outside the gates in a sudden dark- ness and storm (some think it an eclipse of the sun), and from this the day was called Nonae Caprotinae, the Latin for a goat being capra^ and the place where he disappeared having the name of Goat’s Marsh, as is stated in his life. Put the general stream of writers prefer the other account of this war, which they thus relate. Camillus, being the third time chosen dictator, and learning that the army under the IS 226 CAMILLUS. tribunes was besieged by the Latins and Volscians^ was con* strained to arm, not only those under, but also those over, the age of service ; and taking a large circuit round the mountain Maecius, undiscovered by the enemy<^ lodged his army on their rear, and then by many fires gave notice of his arrival. The besieged, encouraged by this, prepared to sally forth and join battle ; but the Latins and Volscians, fearing this exposure to an enemy on both sides, drew themselves Anthill their works, and fortified their camp with a strong pal- isade of trees on every side, resolving to wait for more sup- plies from home, and expecting, also, the assistance of the Tuscans, their confederates. Camillus, detecting their object, and fearing to be reduced to the same position to which he had brought them, namely, to be besieged himself, resolved to lose no time: and finding their rampart was all of timber, and observing that a strong wind constantly at sun-rising blew off from the mountains, after having prepared a quan- tity of combustibles, about break of day he drew forth his forces, commanding a part with their missiles to assault the enemy with noise and shouting on the other quarter, whilst he, with those that were to fling in the fire, went to that side of the enemy’s camp to which the wind usually blew, and there wait- ed his opportunity. When the skirmish was begun, and the sun risen, and a strong wind set in from the mountains, he gave the signal of onset ; and heaping in an infinite quantity of fiery matter, filled all their rampart with it, so that the flame being fed by the close timber and wooden palisades, went on and spread into all quarters. The Latins, having nothing ready to keep it off or extinguish it, when the camp was now almost full of fire, weie driven back within a very small compass, and at last forced by necessity to come into their enemy’s hands, who stood before the works ready armed and prepared to receive them ; of these very few escaped, while those that stayed in the camp were all a prey to the fire, until the Romans, to gain the pillage, extinguished it. These things performed, Camillus, leaving his son Lucius in the camp to guard the prisoners and secure the booty, passed into the enemy’s country, where, having taken the city of the .^quians and reduced the Volscians to obedience, he then immediately led his army to Sutrium, not having heard what had befallen the Sutrians, but making haste to assist them, as if they were still in danger and besieged by the Tus- cans. They, however, had already surrendered their city to their enemies, and destitute of all things, with nothing left CAMILLUS. 22 ) but their clothes, met Camillus on the way, leading their wives and children, and bewailing their misfortune. Camillus himself was struck with compassion, and preceiving the sob (iiers weeping, and commiserating their case, while the Sii- trians hung about and clung to them, resolved not to defet revenge, but that very day to lead his army to Sutrium ; con- jecturing that the enemy, having just taken a rich and plenti* £ul city, without an enemy left within it, nor any from without to be expected, would be found abandoned to enjoyment and unguarded. Neither did his opinion fail him ; he not only passed through their country without discovery, but came up to their very gates and possessed himself of the walls, not a man being left to guard them, but their whole army scattered about in the houses, drinking and making merry. Nay, when at last they did perceive that the enemy had seized the city, they were so overloaded with meat and wine, that few were able so much as to endeavor to escape, but either waited shamefully for their death within doors, or surrendered them- selves to the conqueror. Thus the city of the Sutrians was twice taken in one day ; and they who were in possession lost it, and they who had lost regained it, alike by the means of Camillus. For all which actions he received a triumph, which brought him no less honor and reputation than the two former ones ; for those citizens who before most regarded him with an evil eye, and ascribed his successes to a certain luck rather than real merit, were compelled by these last acts of his to allow the whole honor to his great abilities and energy. Of all the adversaries and enviers of his glory, Marcus Manlius was the most distinguished, he who first drove back the Gauls when they made their night attack upon the Capitol, and who for that reason had been named Capitolinus. This man, affecting the first place in the commonwealth, and not able by noble ways to outdo Camillus’s reputation, took that ordinary course towards usurpation of absolute power, namely, to gain the multitude, those of them especially that were in debt ; defending some by pleading their causes against their creditor‘s rescuing others by force, and not suffering the law to proceed against them ; insomuch that in a short time he got great numbers of indigent people about him, whose tumults and uproars in the forum struck terror into the prin- cipal citizens. After that Quintius Capitolinus, who was made dictator to suppress these disorders, had committed Manlius to prison, the people immediately changed their 2^8 CAMILLUS. apparel, a thing never done but in great and public calamities, and the senate, fearing some tumult, ordered him to be re- leased. He, however, when set at liberty, changed not his course, but was rather the more insolent in his proceedings, filling the whole city with faction and sedition. They chose, therefore, Camillus again military tribune ; and a day being appointed for Manlius to answer to his charge, the prospect from the place where his trial was held proved a great impedi- ment to his accusers, for the very spot where Manlius by night fought with the Gauls overlooked the forum from the Capitol, so that, stretching forth his hands that way, and weeping, he called to their remembrance his past actions, raising compassion in all that beheld him. Insomuch that the judges were at a loss what to do, and several times ad- journed the trial, unwilling to acquit him of the crime, which was sufficiently proved, and yet unable to execute the law while his noble action remained, as it were, before their eyes. Camillus, considering this, transferred the court outside the gates to the Peteline Grove, from whence there is no prospect of the Capitol. Here his accuser went on with his charge, and his judges were capable of remembering and duly resent- ing his guilty deeds. He was convicted, carried to the Capitol, and flung headlong from the rock ; so that one and the same spot was thus the witness of his greatest glory, and monument of his most unfortunate end. The Romans, be- sides, razed his house, and built there a temple to the goddess they call Moneta, ordaining for the future that none of the patrician order should ever dwell on the Capitoline. And now Camillus, being called to his sixth tribune-ship, desired to be excused, as being aged, and perhaps not un- fearful of the malice of fortune, and those reverses which seem to ensue upon great prosperity. But the most apparent pretence was the weakness of his body, for he happened at that time to be sick ; the people, however, would admit of no excuses, but, crying that they wanted not his strength for horse or for foot service, but only his counsel and con- duct, constrained him to undertake the command, and with one of his fellow-tribunes to lead the army immediately against the enemy. These were the Praenestines and Vol scians, who, with large forces, were laying waste the territory of the Roman confederates. Having marched out with his army, he sat down and encamped near the enemy, meaning himself to protract the war, or if there should come any ne- cessity or occasion of fighting, in the mean time to regain his CAMILLUS. 279 Strength. But Lucius Furius, his colleague, carried away with the desire of glory, was not to be held in, but, impatient to give battle, inflamed the inferior officers of the army with the same eagerness ; so that Camillus, fearing he might seem out of envy to be wishing to rob the young men of the glory of a noble exploit, consented, though unwillingly, that he should draw out the forces, whilst himself, by reason of weak- ness, stayed behind with a few in the camp. Lucius, engag- ing rashly, was discomfited, when Camillus, perceiving the Romans to give ground and fly, could not contain himself, but, leaping from his bed, with those he had about him ran to meet them at the gates of the camp, making his way through the flyers to oppose the pursuers ; so that those who had got within the camp turned back at once and followed him, and those that came flying from without made head again and gathered about him, exhorting one another not to forsake their general. Thus the enemy, for that time, was stopped in his pursuit. The next day Camillus, drawing out his forces and joining battle with them, overthrew them by main force, and, following close upon them, entered pell-mell with them into their camp, and took it, slaying the greatest part of them. Afterwards, having heard that the city Satricum was taken by the Tuscans, and the inhabitants, all Romans, put to the sword, he sent home to Rome the main body of his forces and heaviest-armed, and taking with him the lightest and most vigorous soldiers, set suddenly upon the Tuscans, who were in the possession of the city, and mastered them, slaying some and expelling the rest ; and so, i^eturning to Rome with great spoils, gave signal evidence of their supe- rior wisdom, who, not mistrusting the weakness and age of a commander endued with courage and conduct, had rather chosen him who was sickly and desirous to be excused, than younger men who were forward and ambitious to command. When, therefore, the revolt of the Tusculans was reported, they gave Camillus the charge of reducing them, choosing one of his five colleagues to go with him. And when every one was eager for the place, contrary to the expectation of all, he passed by the rest and chose Lucius Furius, the very same man who lately, against the judgment of Camillus, had rashly hazarded and nearly lost a battle ; willing, as it should sc'^m, to dissemble that mis-carriage, and free him from the shame of it. The Tusculans, hearing of Camillus^s coming against them, made a cunning attempt at revoking their act of revolt ; theit fields, as in times of highest peace, were full of ploughmen 230 CAMILLUS. and shepherds ; their gates stood wide open, and their chil- dren were being taught in the schools ; of the people, such as were tradesmen, he found in their workshops, busied about their several employments, and the better sort of citizens walking in the public places in their ordinary dress ; the magistrates hurried about to provide quarters for the Romans, as if they stood in fear of no danger and were conscious of no fault. Which arts, though they could not dispossess Camillus of the conviction he had of their treason, yet induced some compassion for their repentance ; he commanded them to go to the senate and deprecate their anger, and joined himself as an intercessor in their behalf, so that their city was acquitted of all guilt and admitted to Roman citizenship. These were the most memorable actions of his sixth tribune- ship. After these things, Licinius Stolo raised a great sedition in the city, and brought the people to dissension with the senate, contending, that of two consuls one should be chosen out of the commons, and not both out of the patricians. Tribunes of the people were chosen, but the election of con- suls was interrupted and prevented by the people. And as this absence of any supreme magistrate was leading to yet further confusion, Camillus was the fourth time created dic- tator by the senate, sorely against the people's will, and not altogether in accordance with his own ; he had little desire for a conflict with men whose past services entitled them to tell him that he had achieved far greater actions in war along with them than in politics with the patricians, who, indeed, had only put him forward now out of envy; that, if success- ful, he might crush the people, or, failing, be crushed himself. However, to provide as good a remedy as he could for the present, knowing the day on which the tribunes of the people intended to prefer the law, he appointed it by proclamation for a general muster, and called the people from the forum into the Campus, threatening to set heavy fines upon such as should not obey. On the other side, the tribunes of the people met his threats by solemnly protesting they would fine him in fifty thousand drachmas of silver, if he persisted in obstructing the people from giving their suffrages for the law. Whether it were, then, that he feared another banishment or condem- nation, which would ill become his age and past great actions, or found himself unable to stem the current of the multitude, which ran strong and violent, he betook himself, for the present, to his house, and afterwards, for some days together CAMTLLUS. 23 professing sickness, finally laid down his dictatorship. The senate created another dictator ; who, choosing Stolo, leader of the sedition, to be his general of horse, suffered that law to be enacted and ratified, which was most grievous to the patricians, namely, that no person whatsoever should possess above five hundred acres of land. Stolo was much distinguished by the victory he had gained ; but, not long after, was found himself to possess more than he had allowed to others, and suffered the penalties of his own law. And now the contention about election of consuls coming on (which was the main point and original cause of "he dis- sension, and had throughout furnished most matter of divis- ion between the senate and the people), certain intelligence arrived, that the Gauls again, proceeding from the Adriatic Sea, were marching in vast numbers upon Rome. On the very heels of the report followed manifest acts also of hostil- ity ; the country through which they marched was all wasted, and such as by flight could not make their escape to Rome were dispersing and scattering among the mountains. The terror of this war quieted the sedition ; nobles and commons, senate and people together unanimously chose Camillus the fifth time dictator ; who, though very aged, not wanting much of fourscore years, yet, considering the danger and necessity of his country^ did not, as before, pretend sickness, or depre- ciate his own capacity, but at once undertook the charge, and enrolled soldiers. And, knowing that the great force of the barbarians lay chiefly in their swords, with which they laid about them in a rude and inartificial manner, hacking and hewing the head and shoulders, he caused head-pieces entire of iron to be made for most of his men, smoothing and polish- ing the outside, that the enemy’s swords, lighting upon them, might either slide off or be broken ; and fitted also their shields with a little rim of brass, the wood itself not being sufficient to bear off the blows. Besides, he taught his sol- diers to use their long javelins in close encounter, and, by j bringing them under their enemy’s swords, to receive their strokes upon them. When the Gauls drew near, about the river Anio, dragging a heavy camp after them, and loaded with infinite spoil, Camillus drew forth his forces, and planted himself upon a hill of easy ascent, and which had many dips in it, with the object that the greatest part of his army might lie concealed, and those who appeared might be thought to have betaken themselves, through fear, to those upper grounds. And the 232 CAMILLUS. more to increase this opinion in them, he suffered them, with- out any disturbance, to spoil and pillage even to his very trenches, keeping himself quiet within his works, which were well fortified ; till, at last, perceiving that part of the enemy were scattered about the country foraging, and that those that were in the camp did nothing day and night but drink and revel, in the night time he drew up his lightest armed men, and sent them out before to impede the enemy while forming into order, and to harass them when they should first issue out of their camp ; and early in the morning brought down his main body, and set them in battle array in the lower grounds, a numerous and courageous army, not, as the bar- barians had supposed, an inconsiderable and fearful division. The first thing that shook the courage of the Gauls was, that their enemies had, contrary to their expectation, the honor of being aggressors. In the next place, the light-armed men, falling upon them before they could get into their usual order or range themselves in their proper squadrons, so disturbed and pressed upon them, that they were obliged to fight at random, without any order at all. But at last, when Camillus brought on his heavy-armed legions, the barbarians, with their swords drawn, went vigorously to engage them ; the Romans, however, opposing their javelins and receiving the force of their blows on those parts of their defences which were well guarded with steel, turned the edge of their weapons, being made of soft and ill-tempered metal, so that their swords bent and doubled up in their hands ; and their shields were pierced through and through, and grew heavy with the jave- lins that stuck upon them. And thus forced to quit their own weapons, they endeavored to take advantage of those of their enemies, laid hold of the javelins with their hands, and tried to pluck them away. But the Romans, perceiving them now naked and defenceless, betook themselves to their swords, which they so well used, that in a little time great slaughter was made in the foremost ranks, while the rest fled over all parts of the level country ; the hills and upper grounds Camil- lus had secured beforehand, and their camp they knew it would not be difficult for the enemy to take, as, through confi- dence of victory, they had left it unguarded. This fight, it is stated, was thirteen years after the sacking of Rome ; and from henceforward the Romans took courage, and surmount- ed the apprehensions they had hitherto entertained of the barbarians, whose previous defeat they had attributed rather to pestilence and a concurrence of mischances than to their CAMILLUS. 233 own superior valor. And, indeed, this fear had been formerly so great that they made a law, that priests should be excused from service in war, unless in an invasion from the Gaul. This was the last military action that ever Camillus per- formed ; for the voluntary surrender of the city of the Veli- trani was but a mere accessory to it. But the greatest of all civil contests, and the hardest to be managed, was still to be iought out against the people ; who returning home full of victory and success, insisted, contrary to established law, to have one of the consuls chosen out of their own body. The senate strongly opposed it, and would not suffer Camillus to lay down his dictatorship, thinking that, under the shelter of his great name and authority, they should be better able to contend for the power of the aristocracy. But when Camillus was sitting upon the tribunal, despatching public affairs, an officer, sent by the tribunes of the people, commanded him to rise and follow him, laying his hand upon him, as ready to seize and carry him away ; upon which, such a noise and tumult as was never heard before, filled the whole forum ; some that were about Camillus thrusting the officer from the bench, and the multitude below calling out to him to bring Camillus down. Being at a loss what to do in these difficulties, he yet laid not down his authority, but, taking the senators along with him, he went to the senate-house ; but before he entered, besought the gods that they would bring these troubles to a happy conclusion, solemnly vowing, when the tumult was end- ed, to build a temple to Concord. A great conflict of op- posite opinions arose in the senate ; but, at last, the most moderate and most acceptable to the people prevailed, and consent was given, that of two consuls, one should be chosen from the commonalty. When the dictator proclaimed this determination of the senate to the people, at the moment, picased and reconciled with the senate, as indeed could not otherwise be, they accompanied Camillus home, with all ex- pressions and acclamations of joy ; and the next day, assem- bling together, they voted a temple of Concord to be built, according to Camillus’s vow, facing the assembly and the forum ] and to the feasts, called the Latin holidays, they add- ed one day more, making four in all ; and ordained that, on the present occasion, the whole people of Rome should sacri- fice with garlands on their heads. In the election of consuls held by Camillus, Marcus ./Emil- ius was chosen of the patricians, and Lucius Sextius the first of the commonalty ; and this was the last of all Camillus’s 234 PERICLES. actions. In the year following, a pestilential sickness infected Rome, which, besides an infinite number of the common people, swept away most of the magistrates, among whom was Camillus ; whose death cannot be called immature, if we consider his great age, or greater actions, yet was he more lamented than all the rest put together that then died of that distemper. PERICLES. CiESAR once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, car- rying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the wo- men in their country were not used to bear children ; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kind- ness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind. With like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on objects un- worthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good. The mere outward sense, being passive in responding to the impression of the objects that come in its way and strike upon it, perhaps cannot help entertaining and taking notice of every thing that addresses it, be it what it will, useful or unuseful ; but, in the exercise of his mental perception, every man, if he chooses, has a natural power to turn himself upon all occasions, and to change and shift with the greatest ease to what he shall himself judge desirable. So that it becomes a man’s duty to pursue and make after the best and choicest of every thing, that he may not only employ his contemplation, but may also be improved by it. For as that color is most suitable to the eye whose freshness and pleasantness stimu- lates and strengthens the sight, so a man ought to apply his intellectual perception to such objects as, with the sense of delight, are apt to call it forth, and allure it to its own proper good and advantage. Such objects we find in the acts of virtue, which also pro- duce in the minds of mere readers about them, an emulation PERICLES. 235 and eagerness that may lead them on to imitation. In other things there does not immediately follow upon the admiration and liking of the thing done, any strong desire of doing the like. Nay, many times, on the very contrary, when we are pleased with the work, we slight and set little by the work- man or artist himself, as, for instance, in perfumes and pur- ple dyes, we are taken with the things themselves well enough, but do not think dyers and perfumers otherwise than low and sordid people. It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when people told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper. “ It may be so,’’ said he, ^‘but he is but a wretched huma^-* being, otherwise he would not have been an excellent piper.” And king Philip, to the same purpose, told his son Alexander, who once at a merry-meeting played a piece of music charm- ingly and skilfully, “ Are you not ashamed, son, to play so well } ” For it is enough for a king or prince to find leisure sometimes to hear others sing, and he does the muses quite honor enough when he pleases to be but present, while others engage in such exercises and trials of skill. He who busies himself in mean occupations produces, in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good. Nor did any generous and ingenuous young man, at the sight of the statue of Jupiter at Pisa, ever desire to be a Phidias, or on seeing that of Juno at Argos, long to be a Polycletus, or feel induced by his pleasure in their poems to wish to be an Anacreon or Philetas or Archi- lochus. For it does not necessarily follow, that, if a piece of work please for its gracefulness, therefore he that wrought it deserves our admiration. Whence it is that neither do such things really profit or advantage the beholders, upon the sight of which no zeal arises for the imitation of them, nor any im- pulse or inclination, Avhich may prompt any desire or endeavor of doing the like. But virtue, by the bare statement of its ac- tions, can so affect men’s minds as to create at once both ad- miration of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess and would enjoy ; those of virtue we long to practice and exercise : we are content to receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from us. Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it inspires an impulse to practise ; and influences the mind and character not by a mere imitation which we look at, but by the statement of the fact, creates a moral purpose wliich we fornu 23 ^ PERICLES. And so we have thought fit to spend our time and pains in writing of the lives of famous persons ; and have composed this tenth book upon that subject, containing the life of Pericles, and that of Fabius Maximus, who carried on the war against Hannibal, men alike, as in their other virtues and good parts, so especially in their mild and upright temper and de- meanor, and in that capacity to bear the cross-grained humors of their fellow-citizens and colleagues in office which made them both most useful and serviceable to the interests of their countries. Whether we take a right aim at our intended purpose, it is left to the reader to judge by what he shall here find. Pericles was of the tribe Acamantis, and the township Cholargus, of the noblest birth both on his father’s and moth- er’s side. Xanthippus, his father, who defeated the king of Persia’s generals in the battle at Mycale, took to wife Agariste, the grandchild of Clisthenes, who drove out the sons of Pisis- tratus, and nobly put an end to their tyrannical usurpation, and, moreover, made a body of laws, and settled a model of government admirably tempered and suited for the harmony and safety of the people. His mother, being near her time, fancied in a dream that she was brought to bed of a lion, and a few days after was delivered of Pericles, in other respects perfectly formed, only his head was somewhat longish and out of proportion. For which reason almost all the images and statues that were made of him have the head covered with a helmet, the work- men apparently being willing not to expose him. The poets of Athens called him Schinocephalos^ or squill-head, from schmos, a squill, or sea-onion. One of the comic poets, Cra* tinus, in the Chirons, tells us that — Old Chronos once took queen Sedition to wife : Which two brought to life . That tyiant far-famed, Whom the gods the supreme skull-compeller have named And, in the Nemesis, addresses him — Come, Jove, thou head of gods. And a second, Teleclides, says, that now, in embairassment with political difficulties, he sits in the city — Fainting underneath the load Of his own head : and now abroad From his huge gallery of a pate Sends forth trouble to the stale. PERICLES. 237 And a third, Eiipolis, in the comedy called the Demi, in a series of questions about each of the demagogues, whom he makes in the play to come up from hell, upon Pericles being named last, exclaims — And here by way of summary, now we’ve done, Behold, in brief the heads of all in one. The master that taught him music, most authors are agreed, was Damon (whose name, they say, ought to be pro- nounced with the first syllable short). Though Aristotle telis us that he was thoroughly practised in all accomplishments of this kind by Pythoclides. Damon, it is not unlikely, being a sophist, out of policy, sheltered himself under the profession of music to conceal from people in general his skill in other things, and under this pretence attended Pericles, the young athlete of polices, so to say, as his training-master in these ex- ercises. Damon’s lyre, however, did not prove altogether a successful blind ; he was banished the country by ostracism for ten years, as a dangerous intermeddler and a favorer of arbitrary power, and, by this means, gave the stage occasion to play upon him. As for instance, Plato, the comic poet, in- troduces a character, who questions him — Tell me, if you please. Since you’re the Chiron who taught Pericles. Pericles, also, was a hearer of Zeno, the Eleatic, who treated of natural philosophy in the same manner as Parmen- ides did, but had also perfected himself in an art of his own for refuting and silencing opponents in argument ; as Timon of Phlius describes it, — Also the two-edged tongue of mighty Zeno, who, Say what one would, could argue it untrue. But he that saw most of Pericles, and furnished him most especiady with a v/eight and grandeur of sense, superior to all arts of popularity, and in general gave him his elevation and sublimity of purpose and of character, was Anaxagoras of Clazomenae ; whom the men of those times called by the name of Nous, that is, mind, or intelligence, whether in admiration of the great and extraordinary gift he had displayed for the science of nature, or because that he was the first of the philosophers who did not refer the first ordering of the world to fortune or chance, nor to necessity or compulsion, but to a pure, unadulterated intelligence, which in all other existing PERICLES. *38 mixed and compound things acts as a principle of discrimina- tion, and of combination of like with like. For this man, Pericles entertained an extraordinary es- teem and admiration, and filling himself with this lofty, and, as they call it, up-in-the-air sort of thought, derived hence not merely, as was natural, elevation of purpose and dignity ot language, raised far above the base and dishonest buffooneries of mob-eloquence, but, besides this, a composure of counte- nance, and a serenity and calmness in all his movements, which no occurrence whilst he was speaking could disturb, a sus- tained and even tone of voice, and various other advantages of a similar kind, which produced the greatest effect on his hearers. Once, after being reviled and ill-spoken of all day long in his own hearing by some vile and abandoned fellow in the open market-place, where he was engaged in the de- spatch of some urgent affair, he continued his business in per- fect silence, and in the evening returned home composedly, the man still dogging him at the heels, and pelting him all the way with abuse and foul language ; and stepping into his house, it being by this time dark, he ordered one of his ser- vants to take a light, and to go along with the man and see him safe home. Ion, it is true, the dramatic poet, says that Pericles’s manner in company was somewhat over-assuming and pompous ; and that into his high-bearing there entered a good deal of slightingness and scorn of others ; he reserves his commendation for Cimon’s ease and pliancy and natural grace in society. Ion, however, who must needs make virtue, like a show of tragedies, include some comic scenes, we shall not altogether rely upon ; Zeno used to bid those who called Pericles’s gravity the affectation of a charlatan, to go and affect the like themselves ; inasmuch as this mere counter- feiting might in time insensibly instil into them a real love and knowledge of those noble qualities. Nor were these the only advantages which Pericles derived from Anaxagoras’s acquaintance ; he seems also to have be- come, by his instructions, superior to that superstition with which an ignorant wonder at appearances, for example, in the heavens, possesses the minds of people unacquainted with their causes, eager for the supernatural, and excitable through an inexperience which the knowledge of natural causes re- moves, replacing wild and timid superstition by the good hope and assurance of an intelligent piety. There is a story, that once Pericles had brought to him from a country farm of his, a ram’s head with one horn, and PERICLES. 239 that Lampon, the diviner, upon seeing the horn grow strong and solid out of the midst of the forehead, gave it as his judgment, that, there being at that time two potent factions, parties, or interests in the city, the one of Thucydides and the other of Pericles, the government would come about to that one of them in whose ground or estate this token or indica- tion of fate had shown itself. But that Anaxagoras, cleaving tlie skull in sunder, showed to the bystanders that the brain had not filled up its natural place, but being oblong, like an egg, had collected from all parts of the vessel which contained it, in a point to that place from whence the root of the horn took its rise. And that, for that time, Anaxagoras was much admired for his explanation by those that were present ; and Lampon no less a little while after, when Thucydides was overpowered, and the whole affairs of the state and govern- ment came into the hands of Pericles. And yet, in my opinion, it is no absurdity to say that they were both in the right, both natural philosopher and diviner, one justly detecting the cause of this event, by which it was produced, the other the end for which it was designed. For it was the business of the one to find out and give an account of what it was made, and in what manner and by what means it grew as it did ; and of the other to foretell to what end and purpose it was so made, and what it might mean or portend. Those who say that to find out the cause of a prodigy is in effect to destroy its supposed signification as such, do not take notice that, at the same time, together with divine prodigies, they also do away with signs and signals of human art and concert, as, for instance, the clashings of quoits, fire-beacons, and the shadows of sun-dials, every one of which has its cause, and by that cause and contrivance is a sign of some- thing else. But these are subjects, perhaps, that would better befit another place. Pericles, while yet but a young man, stood in considerable apprehension of the people, as he was thought in face and figure to be very like the tyrant Pisistratus, and those of great age remarked upon the sweetness of his voice, and his volubility and rapidity in speaking, and were struck with amazement at the resemblance. Reflecting, too, that he had a considerable estate, and was descended of a noble family, and had friends of great influence, he was fearful all this might bring him to be banished as a dangerous person ; and for this reason meddled not at all with state affairs, but in military service showed himself of a brave and intrepid PERICLES. *40 nature. But when Aristides was now dead, and Themistocles driven out, and Cimon was for the most part kept abroad by the expeditions he made in parts out of Greece, Pericles, s ie- ing things in this posture, now advanced and took his side, not with the rich and few, but with the many and poor, con- trary to his natural bent, which was far from democratical ; but, most likely fearing he might fall under suspicion of aim- ing at arbitrary power, and seeing Cimon on the side of the aristocracy, and much beloved by the better and more distin- guished people, he joined the party of the people, with a view at once both to secure himself and procure means against Cimon. He immediately entered, also, on quite a new course of life and management of his time. For he was never seen to walk in any street but that which led to the market- place and the council-hall, and he avoided invitations of friends to supper, and all friendly visiting and intercourse whatever ; in all the time he had to do with the public, which was not a little, he was never known to have gone to any of his friends to a supper, except that once when his near kins- man Euryptolemus married, he remained present till the cere* mony of the drink-offering, and then immediately rose from table and went his way. For these friendly meetings are very quick to defeat any assumed superiority, and in intimate familiarity an exterior of gravity is hard to maintain. Real excellence, indeed, is most recognized when most openly looked into ; and in really good men, nothing which meets the eyes of external observers so truly deserves their admira- tion, as their daily common life does that of their nearer friends. Pericles, however, to avoid any feeling of common- ness, or any satiety on the part of the people, presented him- self at intervals only, not speaking to every business, nor at all times coming into the assembly, but, as Critolaus says, reserving himself, like the Salaminian galley, for great occa- sions, while matters of lesser importance were despatched by friends or other speakers under his direction. And of this number we are told Ephialtes made one, who broke the power of the council of Areopagus, giving the people, accord- ing to Platons expression, so copious and so strong a draught of liberty, that growing wild and unruly, like an unmanageable horse, it, as the comic poets say, — ** got beyond all keeping in, Champing at Euboea, and among the islands leaping in.” PERICLES. 241 The style of speaking most consonant to his form of life and the dignity of his views he found, so to say, in the tones of that instrument with which Anaxagoras had furnished him ; of his teaching he continually availed himself, and deepened the colors of rhetoric with the dye of natural science. For liaving, in addition to his great natural genius, attained, by the study of nature, to use the words of the divine Plato, this height of intelligence, and this universal consummating power, and drawing hence whatever might oe of advantage to him in the art of speaking, he showed himself far superior to all others. Upon which account, they say, he had his nickname given him, though some are of opinion he was named the Olympian from the public buildings with which he adorned the city ; and others again, from his great power in public affairs, whether of war or peace. Nor is it unlikely that the confluence of many attributes may have conferred it on him. However, the comedies represented at the time, which, both in good earnest and in merriment, let fly many hard words at him, plainly show that he got that appellation especially from his speaking ; they speak of his “ thundering and lightning when he harangued the people, and of his wielding a dreadful thunderbolt in his tongue. A saying also of Thucydides, the son of Melesias, stands on record, spoken by him by way of pleasantry upon Pericleses dexterity. Thucydides was one of the noble and distin- guished citizens, and had been his greatest opponent ; and, when Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, asked him whether he or Pericles were the better wrestler, he made this answer : ‘‘ When I,” said he, “ have thrown him and given him a fair fall, by persisting that he had no fall, he gets the better of me, and makes the bystanders, in spite of their own eyes, believe him.’^ The truth, however, is, that Pericles himself was very careful what and how he was to speak, insomuch that, whenever he went up to the hustings, he prayed the gods that no one word might unawares slip from hirm unsuitable to the matter and the occasion. He has left nothing in writing behind him, except some decrees ; and there are but very few of his sayings recorded ; one, for example, is, that he said Hilgina must, like a gather- ing in a man’s eye, be removed from Piraeus ; and another, that he said he saw already war moving on its way towards them out of Peloponnesus. Again, when on a time Sophocles, who was his fellow-commissioner in the generalship, was going on board with him, and praised the beauty of a youth they mel 16 242 PEKICLES. with ill the way to the ship, “ Sophocles,^' said he, “ a general ought not only to have clean hands, but also clean eyes.” And Stesimbrotus tells us, that, in his encomium on those who fell in battle at Samos, he said they were become immortal, as the gods were. “ For,” said he, we do not see them them- selves, but only by the honors we pay them, and by the bene- fits they do us, attribute to them immortality ; and the like attributes belong also to those that die in the service of their country.” Since Thucydides describes the rule of Pericles as an aris- tocratical government, that went by the name of a democracy, but was, indeed, the supremacy of a single great man, while many others say, on the contrary, that by him the common people were first encouraged and led on to such evils as appropriations of subject territory ; allowances for attending theatres, payments for performing public duties, and by these bad habits were, under the influence of his public measures, changed from a sober, thrifty people, that maintained them- selves by their own labors, to lovers of expense, intemperance, and license, let us examine the cause of this change by the actual matters of fact. At the first, as has been said, when he set himself against Cimon’s great authority, he did caress the people. Finding himself come short of his competitor in wealth and money, by which advantages the other was enabled to take care of the poor, inviting every day some one or other of the citizens that was in want to supper, and bestowing clothes on the aged people, and breaking down the hedges and enclosures of his grounds, that all that would might freely gather what fruit they pleased, Pericles, thus outdone in popular arts, by the advice of one Damonides of (Ea, as Aristotle states, turned to the distribution of the public moneys ; and in a short time having bought the people over, what with moneys allowed for shows and for service on juries, and what with other forms of pay and largess, he made use of them against the council of Areopagus, of which he himself was no member, as having never been appointed by lot either chief archon, or lawgiver, or king, or captain. For from of old these offices were conferred on persons by lot, and they who had acquitted themselves duly in the discharge of them were advanced to the court of Areopagus. And so Pericles, having secured his power and interest with the populace, directed the exertions of his party against this council with such success, that mos^ of these causes and matters which had been used to be triei. PERICLES. 243 Ihere, were, by the agency of Ephialtes, removed from its cog- nizance ; Cimon, also, was banished by ostracism as a favorer of the Lacedaemonians and a hater of the people, though in wealth and noble birth he was among the first, and had won several most glorious victories over the barbarians, and had filled the city with money and spoils of war ; as is recorded in the history of his life. So vast an authority had Pericles obtained among the people. The ostracism was limited by law to ten years ; but the Lacedaemonians, in the mean time, entering with a great army into the territory of Tanagra, and the Athenians going out against them, Cimon, coming from his banishment before his time was out, put himself in arms and array with those of his fellow-citizens that were of his own tribe, and desired by his deeds to wipe off the suspicion of his favoring the Lacedae- monians, by venturing his own person along with his country- men. But Pericleses friends, gathering in a body, forced him to retire as a banished man. For which cause also Pericles seems to have exerted himself more in that than in any battle, and to have been conspicuous above all for his exposure of himself to danger. All Cimon’s friends, also, to a man, fell together side by side, whom Pericles had accused with him of taking part with the Lacedaemonians. Defeated in this battle on their own frontiers, and expecting a new and peril- ous attack with return of spring, the Athenians now felt regret and sorrow for the loss of Cimon, and repentance for their expulsion of him. Pericles, being sensible of their feelings, did not hesitate or delay to gratify it, and himself made the motion for recalling him home. He, upon his return, con- cluded a peace betwixt the two cities ; for the Lacedaemonians entertained as kindly feelings towards him as they did the reverse towards Pericles and the other popular leaders. Yet some there are who say that Pericles did not propose the order for Cimon's return till some private articles of agreement had been made between them, and this by means of Elpinice, Cimon^s sister ; that Cimon, namely, should go out to sea with a fleet of two hundred ships, and be com- mander-in-chief abroad, with a design to reduce the king of Persia’s territories, and that Pericles should have the power at home. This Elpinice, it was thought, had before this time procured some favor for her brother Cimon at Pericles’s hands, and in- duced him to be more remiss and gentle in urging the charge when Cimon was tried for his life ; for Pericles was one of the 244 PERICLES. committee appointed by the commons to plead against him. And when Elpinice came and besought him in her brother’s behalf, he answered, with a smile, “ O Elpinice, you are too old a woman to undertake such business as this.” But, when he appeared to impeach him, he stood up but once to speak, merely to acquit himself of his commission, and went out of court, having done Cimon the least prejudice of any of his ac- cusers. How, then, can one believe Idomeneus, who charges l^ericles as if he had by treachery procured the murder of Ephialtes, the popular statesman, one who was his friend, and of his own party in all his political course, out of jealousy, forsooth, and envy of his great reputation ? This historian, it seems, having raked up these stories, I know not whence, has befouled with them a man who, perchance, was not alto- gether free from fault or blame, but yet had a noble spirit, and a soul that was bent on honor ; and where such qualities are, there can no such cruel and brutal passion find harbor or gain admittance. As to Ephialtes, the truth of the story, as Aristotle has told it, is this ; that having made himself for- midable to the oligarchical party, by being an uncompromis- ing asserter of the people’s rights in calling to account and prosecuting those who any way wronged them, his enemies, lying in wait for him, by the means of Aristodicus the Tana- graean, privately despatched him. Cimon, while he was admiral, ended his days in the Isle of Cyprus. And the aristocratical party, seeing that Pericles was already before this grown to be the greatest and foremost man of all the city, but nevertheless wishing there should be somebody set up against him, to blunt and turn the edge of his power, that it might not altogether prove a monarchy, put forward Thucydides of Alopece, a discreet person, and a near kinsman of Cimon’s, to conduct the opposition against him ; who, indeed, though less skilled in warlike alfairs than Cimon was, yet was better versed in speaking and political busi- ifiess. and keeping close guard in the city, and engaging with Pericles on the hustings, in a short time brought the govern- ment to an equality of parties. For he would not suffer those who were called the honest and good (persons of worth and distinction) to be scattered up and down and mix themselves and be lost among the populace, as formerly, diminishing and obscuring their superiority amongst the masses ; but taking them apart by themselves and uniting them in one body, by their combined weight he was able, as it were upon the bal ance, to make a counterpoise to the other party. PERICLES. 245 For, indeed, there was from the beginning a sort of con- cealed split, or seam, as it might be in a piece of iron, mark- ing the different popular and aristocratical tendencies ; but the open rivalry and contention of these two opponents made the gash deep, and severed the city into the two parties of the people and the few. And so Pericles, at that time more than ^ at any other, let loose the reins to the people, and made his policy subservient to their pleasure, contriving continually to have some great public show or solemnity, some banquet, or some procession or other in the town to please them, coaxing his countrymen like children, with such delights and pleasures as were not, however, unedifying. Besides that every year he sent out threescore galleys, on board of which there went numbers of the citizens, who were in pay eight months, learn- ing at the same time and practising the art of seamanship. He sent, moreover, a thousand of them into the Cherso- nese as planters, to share the land among them by lot, and five hundred more into the isle of Naxos, and half that num- ber to Andros, a thousand into Thrace to dwell among the Bisaltce, and others into Italy, when the city Sybaris, which now was called Thurii, was to be repeopled. And this he did to ease and discharge the city of an idle, and, by reason of their idleness, a busy, meddling crowd of people ; and at the same time to meet the necessities and restore the fortunes of the poor townsmen, and to intimidate, also, and check their allies from attempting any change, by posting such gar- risons, as it were, in the midst of them. That which gave most pleasure and ornament to the city of Athens, and the greatest admiration and even astonish- ment to all strangers, and that which now is Greece’s only evidence that the power she boasts of and her ancient wealth are no romance or idle story, was his construction of the pub- lic and sacred buildings. Yet this was that of all his actions in the government which his enemies most looked askance upon and cavilled at in the popular assemblies, crying out how that the commonwealth of Athens had lost its reputation and was ill-spoken of abroad for removing the common treas- ure of the Greeks from the isle of Delos into their own cus- tody ; and how that their fairest excuse for so doing, narnely, that they took it away for fear the barbarians should seize it, and on purpose to secure it in a safe place, this Pericles had made unavailable, and how that “ Greece cannot but resent it as an insufferable affront, and consider herself to be tyran- nized over openly, when she sees the treasure, which wa» 246 PERICLES. contributed by her upon a necessity for the war, wantonly lavished out by us upon our city, to gild her all over, and to adorn and set her forth, as it were some vain woman, hung round with precious stones and figures and temples, which cost a world of money.’’ Pericles, on the other hand, informed the people, that they were in no way obliged to give any account of those moneys to their allies, so long as they maintained their de- fence, and kept off the barbarians from attacking them ; while in the mean flme they did not so much as supply one horse or man or ship, but only found money for the service ; which money,” said he, “ is not theirs that give it, but theirs that re- ceive it, if so be they perform the conditions upon which they receive it.” And that it was good reason, that, now the city was sufficiently provided and stored with all things necessary for the war, they should convert the overplus of its wealth to such undertakings as would hereafter, when completed, give them eternal honor, and, for the present, while in process, freely supply all the inhabitants with plenty. With their variety of workmanship and of occasions for service, which summon all arts and trades and require all hands to be em- ployed about them, they do actually put the whole city, in a manner, into state-pay ; while at the same time she is both beautified and maintained by herself. For as those who are of age and strength for war are provided for and maintained in the armaments abroad by their pay out of the public stock, so, it being his desire and design that the undisciplined mechanic multitude that stayed at home should not go with- out their share of public salaries, and yet should not have them given them for sitting still and doing nothing, to that end he thought fit to bring in among them, with the approba- tion of the people, these vast projects of buildings and de- signs of works, that would be of some continuance before they were finished, and would give employment to numerous arts, so that the part of the people that stayed at home might, no less than those that were at sea or in garrisons or on expe- ditions, have a fair and just occasion of receiving the benefit and having their share of the public moneys. The materials were stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress- wood j and the arts or trades that wrought and fashioned them were smiths and carpenters, moulders, founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, paint- ers, embroiderers, turners ; those again that conveyed them to the town for use, merchants and mariners and ship-masters PERICLES. 247 by sea, and by land, Cartwrights, cattle-breeders, wagoners, rope-makers, flax-workers, shoemakers and leather-dressers, road-makers, miners. And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of journeymen and laborers belonging to it banded together as in array, to be as it were the instrument and body for the performance of the service. Thus, to say all in a word, the occasions and ser- vices of these public works distributed plenty through every age and condition. As then grew the works up, no less stately in size than ex- quisite in form, the workmen striving to outvie the material and the design with the beauty of their workmanship, yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of their execu- tion. Undertakings, any one of which singly might have required, they thought, for their completion, several succes- sions and ages of men, were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man’s political service. Although they say, too, that Zeuxis once, having heard Agatharchus the painter boast of despatching his work with speed and ease, replied, ‘‘ I take a long time.” For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty ; the expenditure of time allowed to a man’s pains beforehand for the production of a thing is repaid by way of interest with a vital force for the preservation when once pro- duced. For which reason Pericles’s works are especially ad- mired, as having been made quickly, to last long. For every particular piece of his work was immediately, even at that time, for its beauty and elegance, antique ; and yet in its vigor and freshness looks to this day as if it were just execu- ted. There is a sort of bloom of newness upon those works of his, preserving them from the touch of time, as if they had some perennial spirit and undying vitality mingled in the CQ mj^osition of them. Phidias had the oversight of all the works, and was sur- reyor-general, though upon the various portions other great masters and workmen were employed. For Callicrates and Ictinus built the Parthenon ; tlie chapel at Eleusis, where the mysteries were celebrated, was begun by Coroebus, who erect- ed the pillars that stand upon the floor or pavement, and joined them to the architraves ; and after his death Metagenes of Xypete added the frieze and the upper line of columns , Xenocles of Cholargus roofed or arched the lantern on top of the temple of Castor and Pollux ; and the long wall, which / 248 PERICLES. Socrates says he himself heard Pericles propose to the people, was undertaken by Callicrates. This work Cratinus ridicules, as long in finishing, — ’Tis long since Pericles, if words would do it, Talked up the wall; yet adds not one mite to it. The Odeum, or music-room, which in its interior was full of seats and ranges of pillars, and outside had its roof made to slope and descend from one single point at the top, was constructed, we are told, in imitation of the king of Persia’s Pavilion ; this likewise by Pericles’s order ; which Cratinus again, in his comedy called the Thracian Women, made an occasion of raillery, — So, we see here, Jupiter Long-pate Pericles appear. Since ostracism time, he’s laid aside his head. And wears the new Odeum in its stead. Pericles, also eager for distinction, then first obtained the decree for a contest in musical skill to be held yearly at the Panathencea, and he himself, being chosen judge, arranged the order and method in which the competitors should 5ing and play on the flute and on the harp. And both at that time, and at other times also, they sat in this music-room to see and hear all such trials of skill. The propylaea, or entrances to the Acropolis, were finished in five years’ time, Mnesicles being the principal architect. A strange accident happened in the course of building, which showed that the goddess was not averse to the work, but was aiding and cooperating to bring it to perfection. One of the artificers, the quickest and the handiest workman among them all, with a slip of his foot fell down from a great height, and lay in a miserablv. condition, the physicians having no hopes of his recovery. When Pericles was in distress about this, Minerva appeared to him at night in a dream, and ordered a course of treatment, which he applied, and in a short time and with great ease cured the man. And upon this occasion it was that he set up a brass statue of Minerva, surnamed Health, in the citadel near the altar, which they say was there before. Put it was Phidias who wrought the goddess’s image in gold, and he has his name inscribed on the pedestal as the workman of it ; and indeed the whole work in a manner was under his charge, and he had, as we have said already, the oversight over all the artists and workmen, through Pericles’s PERICLES. 2 19 friendship for him ; and this, indeed, made him much envied, and his patron shamefully slandered with stories, as if Phid ias were in the habit of receiving, for Pericles’s use, freeborn women that came to see the works. The comic writers of the town, when they had got hold of this story, made much of it, and bespattered him with all the ribaldry they could invent, charging him falsely with the wife of Menippus, one who was liis friend and served as lieutenant under him in the wars ; and with the birds kept by Pyrilampes, an acquaintance of Pericles, who, they pretended, used to give presents of pea- cocks to Pericles’s female friends. And how can one wonder at any number of strange assertions from men whose whole lives were devoted to mockery, and who were ready at any time to sacrifice the reputation of their superiors to vulgar envy and spite, as to some evil genius, when even Stesimbro- tus the Thrasian has dared to lay to the charge of Pericles a monstrous and fabulous piece of criminality with his son’s wife ? So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of any thing by history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwards write it find long periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and ill-will, 'tart- ly through favor and flattery, pervert and distort truth. When the orators, who sided with Thucydides and his party, were at one time crying out, as their custom was, against Pericles, as one who squandered away the public money, and made havoc of the state revenues, he rose in the open assem- bly and put the question to the people, whether they thought that he had laid out much ; and they saying, ‘‘ Too much, a great deal,” “Then,” said he, “since it is so, let the cost not go to your account, but to mine ; and let the inscription upon the buildings stand in my name.” When they heard him say thus, whether it were out of a surprise to see the greatness of his spirit, or out of emulation of the glory of the works, they cried alo id, bidding him to spend on, and lay out what he thought fit from the public purse, and to spare no cost, till all were finished. At length, coming to a final contest with Thucydides, which of the two should ostracize the other out of the country, and having gone through this peril, he threw his antagonist out, and broke up the confederacy that had been organized against him. So that now all schism and division being at an end, and the city brought to evenness and unity, he got all Athens ind all affairs that pertained to the Athenians into PERICLES. his own hands, their tributes, their armies, and their galleyS; the islands, the sea, and their wide-extended power, partly over other Greeks and partly over barbarians, and all that empire, which they possessed, founded and fortified upon sub- ject nations and royal friendships and alliances. After this he was no longer the same man he had been be- fore, nor as tame and gentle and familiar as formerly with the populace, so as readily to yield to their pleasures and to com- ply with the desires of the multitude, as a steersman shifts with the winds. Quitting that loose, remiss, and, in some cases, licentious court of the popular will, he turned those soft and flowery modulations to the austerity of aristocratical and regal rule ; and employing this uprightly and undevia- tingly for the country’s best interests he was able generally to lead the people along, with their own wills and consents, by persuading and showing them what was to be done ; and sometimes, too, urging and pressing them forward extremely against their will, he made them, whether they would or no. yield submission to what was for their advantage. In which, to say the truth, he did but like a skilful physician, who, in a complicated and chronic disease, as he sees occasion, at one while allows his patient the moderate use of such things as please him, at another while gives him keen pains and drugs to work the cure. For there arising and growing up, as was natural, all manner of distempered feelings among a people which had so vast a command and dominion, he alone, as a great master, knowing how to handle and deal fitly with each one of them, and, in an especial manner, making that use of hopes and fears, as his two chief rudders, with the one to check the career of their confidence at any time, with the other to raise them up and cheer them when under any dis- couragement, plainly showed by this, that rhetoric, or the art of speaking, is, in Plato’s language, the government of the souls of men, and that her chief business is to address the affections and passions, which are as it were the strings and keys to the soul, and require a skilful and careful touch to be played on as they should be. The source of this predomi- nance was not barely his power of language, but, as Thucy- dides assures us, the reputation of his life, and the confidence felt in his character ; his manifest freedom from every kind of corruption, and superiority to all considerations of money. Notwithstanding he had made the city Athens, which was great of itself, as great and rich as can be imagined, and though he were himself in power and interest more than equal PERICLES. 251 to many kings and absolute rulers, who some of them also bequeathed by will their power to their children, he, for his part, did not make the patrimony his father left him greater than it was by one drachma. Thucydides, indeed, gives a plain statement of the great- ness of his power ; and the comic poets, in their spiteful man- ner, more than hint at it, styling his companions and friends ^ the new Pisistratidae, and calling on him to abjure any inten- tion of usurpation, as one whose eminence was too great to be any longer proportionable to and compatible with a de- mocracy or popular government. And Teleclides says the Athenians had surrendered up to him — The tribute of the cities, and with them, the cities too, to do with them as he pleases, and undo ; To build up, if he likes, stone walls around a town ; and again, if so he likes, to pull them down ; Their treaties and alliances, power, empire, peace, and war, their wealth and their success forever more. Nor was all this the luck of some happy occasion ; nor was it the mere bloom and grace of a policy that flourished for a season ; but having for forty years together maintained the first place among statesmen such as Ephialtes and Leo- crates and Myronides and Cimon and Tolmides and Thucy- dides were, after the defeat and banishment of Thucydides, for no less than fifteen years longer, in the exercise of one continuous unintermitted command in the office, to which he was annually reelected, of General, he preserved his integrity unspotted ; though otherwise he was not altogether idle or careless in looking after his pecuniary advantage ; his pater- nal estate, which of right belonged to him, he so ordered that it might neither through negligence be wasted or lessened, nor yet, being so full of business as he was, cost him any great trouble or time with taking care of it ; and put it into such a way of management as he thought to be the most easy for himself, and the most exact. All his yearly products and profits he sold together in a lump, and supplied his household needs afterwards by buying every thing that he or his family wanted out of the market. Upon which account, his children, when they grew to age, were not well pleased with his man- agement, and the women that lived with him were treated with little cost, and complained of this way of housekeeping, where every thing was ordered and set down from day to day, and reduced to the greatest exactness ; since there was not there, as is usual in a great family and a plentiful estate, an) «S2 PERICLES, thing to spare, or over and above ; but all that went out or came in, all disbursements and all receipts, proceeded as it were by number and measure. His manager in all this was a single servant, Evangelus by name, a man either naturally gifted or instructed by Pericles so as to excel every one in this art of domestic economy. All this, in truth, was very little in harmony with Anax- agorases wisdom ; if, indeed, it be true that he, by a kind ol divine impulse and greatness of spirit, voluntarily quitted his house, and left his land to lie fallow and to be grazed by sheep like a common. But the life of a contemplative phi- losopher and that of an active statesman are, I presume, not the same thing ; for the one merely employs, upon great and good objects of thought, an intelligence that requires no aid of instruments nor supply of any external materials ; whereas the other, who tempers and applies his virtue to human uses, may have occasion for affluence, not as a matter of mere ne- cessit}’’, but as a noble thing ; which was Pericles’s case, who relieved numerous poor citizens. However, there is a story, that Anaxagoras himself, while Pericles was taken up with public affairs, lay neglected, and that, now being grown old, he wrapped himself up with a res- olution to die for want of food ; which being by chance brought to Pericles’s ear, he was horror-struck, and instantly ran thither, and used all the arguments and entreaties he could to him, lamenting not so much Anaxagoras’s condition as his own, should he lose such a counsellor as he had found him to be ; and that, upon this, Anaxagoras unfolded his robe, and showing himself, made answer : “ Pericles,” said he, “ even those who have occasion for a lamp supply it with oil.’’ The Lacedaemonians beginning to show themselves troub- led at the growth of the Athenian power, Pericles, on the other hand, to elevate the people’s spirit yet more, and to raise them to the thought of great actions, proposed a decree, to summon all the Greeks in what part soever, whether of Eu- rope or Asia, every city, little as well as great, to send theii deputies to Athens to a general assembly, or convention, there to consult and advise concerning the Greek temples which the barbarians had burnt down, and the sacrifices which were due from them upon vows they had made to their gods for the safety of Greece when they fought against the barbarians; and also concerning the navigation of the sea, that they might henceforward all of them pass to and fro and trade securely and be at peace among themselves. PERICLES. 253 Upon this errand there were twenty men, of such as were above fifty years of age, sent by commission ; five to summon the lonians and Dorians in Asia, and the islanders as far as Lesbos and Rhodes ; five to visit all the places in the Helles- pont and Thrace, up to Byzantium ; and other five besides these to go to Boeotia and Phocis and Peloponnesus, and from hence to pass through the Locrians over to the neighboring continent as far as Acarnania and Ambracia ; and the rest to take their course through Euboea to the (Etaeans and the Malian Gulf, and to the Achseans of Phthiotis and the Thes- salians ; all of them to treat with the people as they passed, and to persuade them to come and take their part in the de- bates for settling the peace and jointly regulating the affairs of Greece. Nothing was effected, nor did the cities meet by their deputies, as was desired ; the Lacedaemonians, as it is said, crossing the design underhand, and the attempt being disap- pointed and baffled first in Peloponnesus. I thought fit, how- ever, to introduce the mention of it, to show the spirit of the man and the greatness of his thoughts. In his military conduct, he gained a great reputation for wariness ; he would not by his good-will engage in any fight which had much uncertainty or hazard ; he did not envy the glory of generals whose rash adventures fortune favored with brilliant success, however they were admired by others; nor did he think them worthy his imitation, but always used to say to his citizens that, so far as lay in his power, they should continue immortal, and live forever. Seeing Tolmides, the son of Tolmaeus, upon the confidence of his former successes, and flushed with the honor his military actions had procured him, making preparations to attack the Boeotians in their own country when there was no likely opportunity, and that he had prevailed with the bravest and most enterprising of the youth to enlist themselves as volunteers in the service, who besides his other force made up a thousand, he endeavored to withhold him and to advise him from it in the public assem- bly, telling him in a memorable saying of his, which still goes about, that, if he would not take Pericles’s advice, yet he would not CO amiss to wait and be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all. This saying, at that time, was but slightly commended ; but within a few days after, when news was brought that Tolmides himself had been defeated and slain in battle near Coronea, and that many brave citizens had fallen with him, it gained him great repute as well as good-will 254 PERICLES. among the people, for wisdom and for love of his country- men. But of all his expeditions, that to the Chersonese gave most satisfaction and pleasure, having proved the safety of the Greeks who inhabited there. For not only by carrying along with him a thousand fresh citizens of Athens he gave new strength and vigor to the cities, but also by belting the neck of land, which joins the peninsula to the continent with bulwarks and forts from sea to sea, he put a stop to the inroads of the Thracians, who lay all about the Chersonese^ and closed the door against a continual and grievous war, with which that country had been long harassed, lying exposed to the encroachments and influx of barbarous neighbors, and groaning under the evils of a predatory population both upon and within its borders. Nor was he less admired and talked of abroad for his sailing around the Peloponnesus, having set out from Pegae, or The Fountains, the port of Megara, with a hundred gal- leys. For he not only laid waste the sea-coast, as Tolmides had done before, but also, advancing far up into the main land with the soldiers he had onboard, by the terror of his appear- ance drove many within their walls ; and at Nemea, with main force, routed and raised a trophy over the Sicyonians, who stood their ground and joined battle with him. And having taken on board a supply of soldiers into the galleys, out of Achaia, then in league with Athens, he crossed with the fleet to the opposite continent, and, sailing along by the mouth of the river Achelous, overran Acarnania and shut up the CEniadce within their city walls, and having ravaged and wasted their country, weighed anchor for home with the double advantage of having shown himself formidable to his enemies, and at the same time safe and energetic to his fellow- citizens ; for there was not so much as any chance miscarriage that happened, the whole voyage through, to those who were under his charge. Entering also the Euxine Sea with a large and finely equipped fleet, he obtained for the Greek cities any new ar- rangements they wanted, and entered into friendly relations with them ; and to the barbarous nations, and kings and chiefs round about them, displayed the greatness of the power of the Athenians, their perfect ability and confidence to sail wherever they had a mind, and to bring the whole sea under their control. He left the Sinopians thirteen ships of war, with soldiers under the command of Lamachus, to assist them PERICLES. 255 against Timesileus the tyrant ; and when he and his accom plices had been thrown out, obtained a decree that six hundred of the Athenians that were willing should sail to Sinope and plant themselves there with the Sinopians, sharing among them the houses and land which the tyrant and his party had previously held. But in other things he did not comply with the giddy im- pulses of the citizens, nor quit his own resolutions to follow their fancies, when, carried away with the thought of their strength and great success, they were eager to interfere again in Egypt, and to disturb the king of Persia’s maritime do- minions. Nay, there were a good many who were, even then, possessed with that unblest and inauspicious passion for Sicily, which afterward the orators of Alcibiades’s party blew up into a flame. There were some also who dreamt of Tus- cany and Carthage, and not without plausible reason in their present large dominion and prosperous course of their affairs But Pericles curbed this passion for foreign conquest, and unsparingly pruned and cut down their ever busy fancies for a multitude of undertakings ; and directed their power for the most part to securing and consolidating what they had already got, supposing it would be quite enough for them to do, if they could keep the Lacedaemonians in check; to whom he entertained all along a sense of opposition ; which, as upon many other occasions, so he particularly shov/ed by what he did in the time of the holy war. The Lacedaemonians, having gone with an army to Delphi, restored Apollo’s temple, which the Phocians had got into their possession, to the Delphians ; immediately after their departure, Pericles, with another army, came and restored the Phocians. And the Lacedaemonians, having engraven the record of their privilege of consulting the oracle before others, which the Delphians gave them, upon the forehead of the brazen wolf which stands there, he, also, having received from the Phocians the like privilege for the Athenians, had it cut upon the same wolf of brass on his right side. \ That he did well and wisely in thus restraining the exertions ^of the Athenians within the compass of Greece, the events themselves that happened afterward bore sufficient Avitness. For, in the first place, the Euboeans revolted, against whom he passed over with forces ; and then, immediately after, news came that the Megarians were turned their enemies ; and a hostile army was upon the borders of Attica, under the con- duct of Plistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians. Wherefore PERICLES. Pericles carre with his army back again in all haste out of Euboea, to meet the war which threatened at home ; and did not venture to engage a numerous and brave army eager for battle ; but perceiving that Plistoanax was a very young man, and governed himself mostly by the counsel and advice of Cleandrides, whom the ephors had sent with him, by reason of his youth, to be a kind of guardian and assistant to him, he privately made trial of this man’s integrity, and, in a short time, having corrupted him with money, prevailed with him to withdraw the Peloponnesians out of Attica. When the army had retired and dispersed into their several states, the Lace- daemonians in anger fined their king in so large a sum of money, that, unable to pay it, he quitted Lacedaemon ; while Cleandrides fled, and had sentence of death passed upon him in his absence. This was the father of Gylippus, who over- powered the Athenians in Sicily. And it seems that this covetousness was an hereditary disease transmitted from father to son ; for Gylippus also afterwards was caught in foul prac- tices, and expelled from Sparta for it. But this we have told at large in the account of Lysander. When Pericles, in giving up his accounts of this expe- dition, stated a disbursement of ten talents, as laid out upon fit occasion, the people, without any question, nor troubling themselves to investigate the mystery, freely allowed of it. And some historians, in which number is Theophrastus the philosopher, have given it as a truth that Pericles every year used to send privately the sum of ten talents to Sparta, with which he complimented those in office, to keep off the war ; not to purchase peace neither, but time, that he might prepare at leisure, and be the better able to carry on war hereafter. Immediately after this, turning his forces against the revolters, and passing over into the island of Euboea with fifty sail of ships and five thousand men in arms, he reduced their cities, and drove out the citizens of the Chalcidians, called Hippobotae, horse-feeders, the chief persons for wealth and reputation among them ; and removing all the Histiaans out of the country, brought in a plantation of Athenians in their room ; making them his one example of severity, because they had captured an Attic ship and killed all on board. After this, having made a truce between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians for thirty years, he ordered, by public decree, the expedition against the Isle of Samos, on the ground, that, when they were bid to leave off their war with the Milesians, they had not complied. And as these measures PERICLES. 257 against the Samians are thought to have been taken to pleas« Aspasia, this may be a fit point for inquiry about the woman, what art or charming faculty she had that enabled her to cap- tivate, as she did, the greatest statesmen, and to give the phi- losophers occasion to speak so much about her, and that, too, not to her disparagement. That she was a Milesian by birth, the daughter of Axiochus, is a thing acknowledged. And they say it was in emulation of Thargelia, a courtesan of the old Ionian times, that she made her addresses to men of great power. Thargelia was a great beauty, extremely charming, and at the same time sagacious ; she had numerous suitors among the Greeks, and brought all who had to do with her over to the Persian interest, and by their means, being men of the greatest power and station, sowed the seeds of the Median faction up and down in several cities. Aspasia, some say, was courted and caressed by Pericles upon account of her knowl- edge and skill in politics. Socrates himself would sometimes go to visit her, and some of his acquaintance with him ; and those who frequented her company would carry their wives with them to listen to her. Her occupation was any thing but creditable, her house being a home for young courte sans, ^schines tells us also, that Lysicles, a sheep-dealer, a man of low birth and character, by keeping Aspasia company after Pericles’s death, came to be a chief man in Athens. And in Plato’s Menexenus, though we do not take the introduction as quite serious, still thus much seems to be historical, that she had the repute of being resorted to by many of the Athenians for instruction in the art of speaking, Pericles’s inclination for her seems, however, to have rather proceeded from the passion of love. He had a wife that waa near of kin to him, who had been married first to Hipponicus, by whom she had Callias, surnamed the Rich ; and also sh^ brought Pericles, while she lived with him, two sons, Xanthip- pus and Paralus. Afterwards, when they did not well agree, nor like to live together, he parted with her, with her own consent, to another man, and himself took Aspasia, and loved her with wonderful affection ; every day, both as he went out and as he came in from the market-place, he saluted and kissed her. In the comedies she goes by the nicknames of the new Omphale and Deianira, and again is styled Juno. Cratinus, ia downffght terms, calls her a harlot. To find him a Juno the goddess of lust Pore that harlot past shame, Aspasia by name. 17 PERICLES. *S8 It should seem also that he had a son by her ; Eupolis, in his Demi, introduced Pei ides asking after uis safety, and Myronides replying. My son ? “ He lives ; a man he had been long, But that the harlot-mother did him wrong.*’ Aspasia, they say, became so celebrated and renowned, that Cyrus also, who made war against Artaxerxes for the Persian monarchy, gave her whom he loved the best of all his concu- bines the name of Aspasia, who before that was called Mil to. She was a Phociean by birth, the daughter of one Plermotimus, and, when Cyrus fell in battle, was carried to the king, and had great influence at court. These things coming into my memory as I am writing this story, it would be unnatural for me to omit them. Pericles, however, was particularly charged with having proposed to the assembly the war against the Samians, from favor to the Milesians, upon the entreaty of Aspasia. For the two states were at war for the possession of Priene ; and the Samians, getting the better, refused to lay down their arms and to have the controversy betwixt them decided by arbitration before the Athenians. Pericles, therefore, fitting out a fleet, went and broke up the oligarchical government at Samos, and taking fifty of the principal men of the town as hostages, and as many of their children, sent them to the isle of Lemnos, there to be kept, though he had offers, as some relate, of a talent apiece for himself from each one of the hostages, and of many other presents from those who were anxious not to have a democracy. Moreover, Pisuth- nes the Persian, one of the king’s lieutenants, bearing some good-will to the Samians, sent him ten thousand pieces of gold to excuse the city. Pericles, however, would receive none of all this ; but after he had taken that course with the Samians which he thought fit, and set up a democracy among them, sailed back to Athens. But they, however, immediately revolted, Pisuthnes hav- ing privily got away their hostages for them, and provided them with means for the war. Whereupon Pericles came out with a fleet a second time against them, and found them not idle nor slinking away, but manfully resolved to try for the dominion of the sea. The issue was, that after a sharp sea-fight about the island called Tragia, Pericles ob- tained a decisive victory, having with forty-four ships routed seventy of the enemy’s, twenty of which were carrying sol- diers. PERICLES. 2S9 Together with his victory and pursuit, having made him- self master of the port, he laid siege to the Samians, and blocked them up, who yet, one way or another, still ventured to make sallies, and fight under the city walls. But after that another greater fleet from Athens was arrived, and that the Sam.ians were now shut up with a close leaguer on every side, Pericles, taking with him sixty galleys, sailed out into the .main sea, with the intention, as most authors give the account, to meet a squadron of Phoenician ships that were coming foi the Samians’ relief, and to fight them at as great distance as could be from the island ; but as Stesimbrotus says, with a design of putting over to Cyprus ; which does not seem to be probable. But, whichever of the two was his intention, it seems to have been a miscalculation. For on his departure, Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time the general in Samos, despising either the small number of the ships that were left or the inexperience of the com- manders, prevailed with the citizens to attack the Athenians. And the Samians having won the battle, and taken several of the men prisoners, and disabled several of the ships, were masters of the sea, and brought into port all necessaries they wanted for the war, which they had not before. Aristotle says too, that Pericles had been once before this worsted by this Melissus in a sea-fight. The Samians, that they might requite an affront which had before been put upon them, branded the Athenians, whom they took prisoners, in their foreheads, with the figure of an owl. For so the Athenians had marked them before with a Samaena, which is a sort of ship, low and flat in the prow, so as to look snub-nosed, but wide and large and well-spread in the hold, by which it both carries a large cargo and sails well. And it was so called, because the first of that kind was seen at Samos, having been built by order of Polycrates the tyrant. These brands upon the Samians’ foreheads, they say, are the allusion in the passage of Aristophanes, where he says, — For, oh, the Samians are a lettered people. Pericles, as soon as news was brought him of the disaster that had befallen his army, made all the haste he could to come in to their relief, and having defeated Melissus, who bore up against him, and put the enemy to flight, he immedi- ately proceeded to hem them in with a wall, resolving to master them and take the town, rather with some cost and time than with the wounds and hazards of his citizens. But 26 o PERICLES. as it was a hard matter to keep back the Athenians, who were vexed at the delay, and were eagerly bent to fight, he divided the whole multitude into eight parts, and arranged by lot that that part which had the white bean should have leave to feast and take their ease while the other seven were fighting. And this is the reason, they say, that people, when at any time they have been merry, and enjoyed themselves, called 't Mhite day, in allusion to this white bean. Ephorus the historian tells us besides, that Pericles made use of engines of battery in this siege, being much taken with the curiousness of the invention, with the aid and presence of Artemon himself, the engineer, who, being lame, used to be carried about in a litter, where the works required his at- tendance, and for that reason was called Periphoretus. But Heraclides Ponticus disproves this out of Anacreon’s poems, where mention is made of this Artemon Periphoretus several ages before the Samian war, or any of these occurrences. And he says that Artemon, being a man who loved his ease, and had a great apprehension of danger, for the most part kept close within doors, having two of his servants to hold a brazen shield over his head, that nothing might fall upon him from above ; and if he were at any time forced upon necessity to go abroad, that he was carried about in a little hanging bed, close to the very ground, and that for this rea- son he was called Periphoretus. In the ninth month, the Samians surrendering themselves and delivering up the town, Pericles pulled down their walls, and seized their shipping, and set a fine of a large sum of money upon them, part of which" they paid down at once, and they agreed to bring in the rest by a certain time, and gave hostages for security. Duris the Samian, makes a trag- ical drama out of these events, charging the Athenians and Pericles with a great deal of cruelty, which neither Thucy- dides, nor Ephorus, nor Aristotle have given any relation of, and probably with little regard to truth ; how, for example, he brought the captains and soldiers of the galleys into the market-place at Miletus, and there having bound them fast to boards for ten days, then, when they were already all but half dead, gave order to have them killed by beating out their brains with clubs, and their dead bodies to be flung out into the open streets and fields, unburied. Duris, however, who even where he has no private feeling concerned, is not wont to keep his narrative within the limits of truth, is the more likely upon this occasion to have exaggerated the calamities PERICLES. 261 which befell his country, to create odium against the Athenians. Pericles, however, after the reduction of Samos, returning back to Athens, took care that those who died in the war should be honorably buried, and made a funeral harangue, as the custom is, in their commendation at their graves, for which he gained great admiration. As he came down from the stage on which he spoke, the rest of the women came and complimented him, taking him by the hand, and crown- ing him with garlands and ribbons, like a victorious athlete in the games ; but Elpinice, coming near to him, said, “ These are brave deeds, Pericles, that you have done, and such as deserve our chaplets ; who have lost us many a worthy citizen, not in a war with Phoenicians or Medes, like my brother Cimon, but for the overthrow of an allied and kindred city.’’ As Elpinice spoke these words, he, smiling quietly, as it is said, returned her answer with this verse, — Old women should not seek to be perfumed. Ion says of him, that upon this exploit of his, conquering the Samians, he indulged very high and proud thoughts of him- self : whereas Agamemnon was ten years a taking a barbarous city, he had in nine months’ time vanquished and taken the greatest and most powerful of the lonians. And indeed it was not without reason that he assumed this glory to himself, for, in real truth, there was much uncertainty and great hazard in this great war, if so be, as Thucydides tells us, the Samian state were within a very little of wresting the whole power and dominion of the sea out of the Athenians’ hands. After this was over, the Peloponnesian war beginning to break out in full tide, he advised the people to send help to the Corcyraeans, who were attacked by the Corinthians, and to secure to themselves an island possessed of great naval resources, since the Peloponnesians were already all but in actual hostilities against them. * The people readily consent- ing to the motion, and voting an aid and succor for them, he despatched - Lacedaemonius, Cimon’s son, having only ten ships with him, as it were out of a design to affront him ; for there was a great kindness and friendship betwixt Cimon’s family and the Lacedaemonians ; so, in order that Lacedaemo- nius might lie the more open to a charge, or suspicion at least, of favoring the Lacedaemonians and playing false, if 'he performed no considerable exploit in this service, he allowed him a small number of ships, and sent him out against his will ; and indeed he made it somewhat his business to hindei 262 PERICLES. Cimoii’s sons from rising in the state, professing that by their very names they were not to be looked upon as native and true Athenians, but foreigners and strangers, one being called Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, and the third Eleus ; and they were all three of them, it was thought, born of an Arca- dian woman. Being, however, ill spoken of on account oi these ten galleys, as having afforded but a small supply to the people that were in need, and yet given a great advantage to those who might complain of the act of intervention. Peri* cles sent out a larger force afterwards to Corcyra, which ar- rived after the fight was over. And when now the Corinth- ians, angry and indignant with the Athenians, accused them publicly at Lacedaemon, the Megarians joined with them, complaining that they were, contrary to common right and the articles of peace sworn to among the Greeks, kept out and driven away from every market and from all ports under the control of the Athenians. The ^ginetans, also, profess- ing to be ill-used and treated with violence, made supplica- tions in private to the Lacedaemonians for redress, though not daring openly to call the Athenians in question. In the mean time, also, the city Potidaea, under the dominion of the Athenians, but a colony formerly of the Corinthians, had re- volted, and was beset with a formal siege, and was a further occasion of precipitating the war. Yet notwithstanding all this, there being embassies sent to Athens, and Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, endeavoring to bring the greater part of the complaints and matters in dispute to a fair determination, and to pacify and allay the heats of the allies, it is very likely that the war would not upon any other grounds of quarrel have fallen upon the Athenians, could they have been prevailed with to repeal the ordinance against the Megarians, and to be reconciled to them. Upon which account, since Pericles was the man who mainly opposed it, and stirred up the people’s passions to persist in their contention with the Megarians, he was le- garded as the sole cause of the war. They say, moreover, that ambassadors went, by order, from Lacedaemon to Athens about this very business, and that when Pericles was urging a certain law which made it illegal to take down or withdraw the tablet of the decree, one of the ambassadors, Polyalces by name, said, ‘‘ Well, do not take it down then, but turn it ; there is no law, I suppose, which for- bids that ; ” which, though prettily said, did not move Pericles from his resolution. There may have been, in all likelihood, PERICLES. 263 something of a secret grudge and private animosity which he had against the Megarians. Yet, upon a public and open charge against them, that they had appropriated part of the sacred land on the frontier, he proposed a decree that a her- ald should be sent to them, and the same also to the Lacedae- monians, with an accusation of the Megarians ; an order which certainly shows equitable and friendly proceeding enough. And after that the herald who was sent, by name An- themocritus, died, and it was believed that the Megarians had contrived his death, then Charinus proposed a decree against them, that there should be an irreconcilable and implacable enmity thenceforward betwixt the two commonwealths; and that if any one of the Megarians should but set his foot in Attica, he should be put to death ; and that the commanders, when they take the usual oath, should, over and above that, swear that they will twice every year make an inroad into the Megarian country ; and that Anthemocritus should be buried near the Thriasian Gates, which are now called the Dipylon, or Double Gate. On the other hand, the Megarians, utterly denying and disowning the murder of Anthemocritus, throw the whole matter upon Aspasia and Pericles, availing themselves of the famous verses in the Acharnians, To Megara some of our madcaps ran, And stole Simaetha thence, their courtesan. Which exploit the Megarians to outdo. Came to Aspasia's house, and took off two. The true occasion of the quarrel is not so easy to find out. But of inducing the refusal to annul the decree, all alike charge Pericles. Some say he met the request with a posi- tive refusal, out of high spirit and a view of the state’s best interest, accounting that the demand made in those embassies was designed for a trial of their compliance, and that a con- cession would be taken for a confession of weakness as if they durst not do otherwise ; while other some there are who say that it was rather out of arrogance and a wilful spirit of con- tendon, to show his own strength, that he took occasion to slight the ] lacedaemonians. The worst motive of all, which is confirmed by most witnesses, is to the following effect. Phidias the Moulder had, as has before been said, under- taken to make the statue of Minerva. Now he, being ad- mitted to friendship with Pericles, and a great favorite of hiS| had many enemies upon this account, who envied and iiia' 264 PERICLES. ligned him ; who also, to make trial in a case of his, what kind of judges the commons would prove, should there be oc- casion to bring Pericles himself before them, having tampered with Menon, one who had been a workman with Phidias, sta- tioned him in the market-place, with a petition desiring public security upon his discovery and impeachment of Phidias. The people admitting the man to tell his story, and the pros- ecution proceeding in the assembly, there was nothing of theft or cheat proved against him ; for Phidias, from the very first beginning, by the advice of Pericles, had so wrought and wrapt the gold that was used in the work about the statue, that they might take it all off, and make out the just weight of it, which Pericles at that time bade the accusers do. But the reputation of his works was what brought envy upon Phidias, especially that where he represents the fight of the Amazons upon the goddesses' shield, he had introduced a likeness of himself as a bald old man holding up a great stone with both hands, and had put in a very fine representa- tion of Pericles fighting with an Amazon. And the position of the hand which holds out the spear in front of the face, was ingeniously contrived to conceal in some degree the like- ness, which meantime, showed itself on either side. Phidias then was carried away to prison, and tliere died of a disease ; but, as some say, of poison, administered by. the enemies of Pericles, to raise a slander, or a suspicion at least, as though he had procured it. The informer Menon, upon Glycon's proposal, the people made free from payment of taxes and customs, and ordered the generals to take care that nobody should do him any hurt. About the same time, As- pasia was indicted of impiety, upon the complaint of Hermip- pus the comedian, who also laid further to her charge that she received into her house freeborn women for the uses of Pericles. And Diopithes proposed a decree, that public ac- cusations should be laid against persons who neglected reli- gion, or taught new doctrines about things above, directing suspncion, by means of Anaxagoras, against Pericles himself. The people receiving and admitting these accusations and complaints, at length, by this means, they came to enact a decree, at the motion of Dracontides, that Pericles should bring in the accounts of the moneys he had expended, and lodge them with the Prytanes ; and that the judges, carrying their suffrage from the altar in the Acropolis, should examine and determine the business in the city. This last clause Hagnon took out of tlie decree, and moved that the causes PERICLES. 265 should be tried before fifteen hundred jurors, whether they should be styled prosecutions for robbery, or bribery, or any kind of malversation. Aspasia, Pericles begged off, shedding, as ^schines says, many tears at the trial, and personally en- treating the jurors. But fearing how it might go with Anaxag* oras, he sent him out of the city. And finding that in Phid- ias’s case he had miscarried with the people, being afraid of impeachment, he kindled the war, which hitherto had lingered and smothered, and blew it up into a flame ; hoping, by that means, to disperse and scatter these complaints and charges, and to allay their jealousy ; the city usually throwing herself upon him alone, and trusting to his sole conduct, upon the urgency of great affairs and public dangers, by reason of his authority and the sway he bore. These are given out to have been the reasons which in duced Pericles not to suffer the people of Athens to yield to the proposals of the Lacedaemonians ; but their truth is un- certain. The Lacedaemonians, for their part, feeling sure that if they could once remove him, they might be at what terms they pleased with the Athenians, sent them word that they should expel the “ Pollution ” with which Pericles on the mother’s side was tainted, as Thucydides tells us. But the issue proved quite contrary to what those who sent the mes- sage expected ; instead of bringing Pericles under suspicion and reproach, they raised him into yet greater credit and es- teem with the citizens, as a man whom their enemies most hated and feared. In the same way, also, before Archidamus, who was at the head of the Peloponnesians, made his inva- sion into Attica, he told the Athenians beforehand, that if Archidamus, while he laid waste the rest of the country, should forbear and spare his estate, either on the ground of friendship or right of hospitality that was betwixt them, or on purpose to give his enemies an occasion of traducing him ; that men he did freely bestow upon the state all that his land and the buildings upon it for the public use. The Lacedae- monians, therefore, and their allies, with a great army, in- vaded the Athenian territories, under the conduct of king Archidamus, and laying waste the country, marched on as far as Acharnae, and there pitched their camp, presuming that the Athenians would never endure that, but would come out and fight them for their country’s and their honor’s sake. But Pericles looked upon it as dangerous to engage in battle, to the risk of the city itself, against sixty thousand 266 PERICLES. men-at-arms of Peloponnesians and Boeotians ; for so many they were in number that made the inroad at first ; and he endeavored to appease those who were desirous to fight, and were grieved and discontented to see how things went, and gave them good words, saying, that ‘‘ trees, when they are lopped and cut, grow up again in a short time, but men, being once lost, cannot easily be recovered.’^ He did not convene the people into an assembly, for fear lest they should foice him to act against his judgment ; but, like a skilful steersman or pilot of a ship, who, when a sudden squall comes on, out at sea, makes all his arrangements, sees that all is tight and fast, and then follows the dictates of his skill, and minds the business of the ship, taking no notice of the tears and en- treaties of the sea-sick and fearful passengers, so he, having shut up the city gates, and placed guards at all posts for se- curity, followed his own reason and judgment, little regarding those that cried out against him and were angry at his man- agement, although there were a great many of his friends that urged him with requests, and many of his enemies threatened and accused him for doing as he did, and many made songs and lampoons upon him, which were sung about the town to his disgrace, reproaching him with the cowardly exercise of his office of general, and the tame abandonment of every thing to the enemy’s hands. Cleon, also, already was among his assailants, making use of the feeling against him as a step to the leadership of the people, as appears in the anapaestic verses of Hermippus, Satyr-king, instead of swords, Will you always handle words \* Very brave indeed we find them, But a Teles lurks behind them. Yet to gnash your teeth you’re seen. When the little dagger keen, Whetted every day anew. Of sharp Cleon touches you. Pericles, however, was not at all moved by any attacks^ but took all patiently, and submitted in silence to the disgrace they threw upon him and the ill-will they bore him ; and, sending out a fleet of a hundred galleys to Peloponnesus, he did not go along with it in person, but stayed behind, that he might watch at home and keep the city under his own control, till the Peloponnesians broke up their camp and were gone. Yet to soothe the common people, jaded and distressed with the war, he relieved them with distributions of public moneys. PERICLES. 267 and ordained new divisions of subject land. For having turned out all the people of ^gina, he parted the island among the Athenians, according to lot. Some comfort, also, and ease in their miseries, they might receive from what their enemies endured. For the fleet, sailing round the Pelcpon- nese, ravaged a great deal of the country, and pillaged and plundered the towns and smaller cities ; and by land he him^ self entered with an army the Megarian country, and made havoc of it all. Whence it is clear that the Peloponnesians, though they did the Athenians much mischief by land, yet suffering as much themselves from them by sea, would net have protracted the war to such a length, but would quickly have given it over, as Pericles at first foretold they would, had not some divine power crossed human purposes. In the first place, the pestilential disease, or plague, seized upon the city, and ate up all the flower and prime of their youth and strength. Upon occasion of which, the people, distempered and afflicted in their souls, as well as in their bodies, were utterly enraged like madmen against Pericles, and, like patients grown delirious, sought to lay violent hands on their physician, or, as it were, their father. They had been possessed, by his enemies, with the belief that the occasion of the plague was the crowding of the country people together into the town, forced as they were now, in the heat of the summer- weather, to dwell many of them together even as they could, in small tenements and stifling hovels, and to be tied to a lazy course of life within doors, whereas before they lived in a pure, open, and free air. The cause and author of all this, said they, is he who on account of the war has poured a multitude of people from the country in upon us within the walls, and uses all these many men that he has here upon no employ or service, but keeps them pent up like cattle, to be overrun with infection from one another, affording them iieitli er shift of quarters nOi any refreshment. With the design to remedy these evils, and do the enemy some incon venience, Pericles got a hundred and fifty galleys ready, and having embarked many tried soldiers, both foot and horse, was about to sail out, giving great hope to his citi- zens, and no less alarm to his enemies, upon the sight of so great a force. And now the vessels having their complement of men, and Pericles being gone aboard his own galley, it happened that the sun was eclipsed, and it grew dark on a sudden, to the affright of all, for this was looked upon as ex^ tremely ominous. Pericles, therefore, perceiving the steers 268 PERICLES. man seized with fear and at a loss what to do, took his cloak and held it up before the man’s face, and, screening him with it so that he could not see, asked him whether he imagined there was any great hurt, or the sign of any great hurt in this, and he answering No, ‘‘Why,” said he, “and what does that differ from this, only that what has caused that darkness there, is something greater than a cloak ? ” This is a story which philosophers tell their scholars. Pericles, however, after put- ting out to sea, seems not to have done any other exploit be- fitting such preparations, and when he had laid siege to the holy city Epidaurus, which gave him some hope of surrender, miscarried in his design by reason of the sickness. For it not only seized upon the Athenians, but upon all others, too, that held any sort of communication with the army. Finding after this the Athenians ill affected and highly displeased with him, he tried and endeavored what he could to appease and re- encourage them. But he could not pacify or allay their anger, nor persuade or prevail with them any way, till they freely passed their votes upon him, resumed their power, took away his command from him, and fined him in a sum of money; which, by their account that say least, was fifteen talents, while they who reckon most, name fifty. The name prefixed to the accusation was Cleon, as Idomeneus tells us ; Sim- mias, according to Theophrastus ; and Heraclides Ponticus gives it as Lacratidas. After this, public troubles were soon to leave him unmo- lested ; the people, so to say, discharged their passion in their stroke, and lost their stings in the wound. But his domestic concerns were in an unhappy condition, many of his friends and acquaintance having died in the plague time, and those of his family having long since been in disorder and in a kind of mutiny against him. For the eldest his lawfully begot- ten sons, Xanthippus by name, being naturally prodigal, and marrying a young and expensive wife, the daughtherof Tisan- der, son of Epilycus, was highly offended at his father’s econ- ^ omy in making him but a scanty allowance, by little and little at a time. He sent, therefore, to a friend one day, and bor- rowed some money of him in his father Pericles’s name, pre- tending it was by his order. The man coming afterward to demand the debt, Pericles was so far from yielding to pay it, that he entered an action against him. Updn which the 3^oung man, Xanthippus, thought himself so ill used and disobliged, that he openly reviled his father ; telling first, by way of ridi- cule, stories about his conversations at home, and the dis- PERICLES. 2'69 courses he had with the sophists and scholars that came to his house. As for instance, how one who was a practiser of the five games of skill, having with a dart or javelin unawares against his will struck and killed Epitimus the Pharsalian, his father spent a whole day with Protagoras in a serious dispute, whether the javelin, or the man that threw it, or the masters of the games who appointed these sports, were, according to the strictest and best reason, to be accounted the cause of this mischance. Besides this, Stesimbrotus tells us that it was Xanthippus who spread abroad among the people the infa- mous story concerning his own wife ; and in general that this difference of the young man’s with his father, and the breach betwixt them, continued never to be healed or made up till his death. For Xanthippus died in the plague time of the sickness. At which time Pericles also lost his sister, and the greatest part of his relations and friends, and those who had been most useful and serviceable to him in managing the affairs of state. However, he did not shrink or give in upon these occasions, nor betray or lower his high spirit and the greatness of his mind under all his misfortunes ; he was not even so much as seen to weep or to mourn, or even attend the burial of any of his friends or relations, till at last he lost his only remaining legitimate son. Subdued by this blow, and yet striving still, as far as he could, to maintain his prin- ciple, and to preserve and keep up the greatness of his soul, when he came, however, to perform the ceremony of putting a garland of flowers upon the head of the corpse, he was van- quished by his passion at the sight, so that he burst into ex- clamations, and shed v:opious tears, having never done any such thing in all his life before. The city having made trial of other generals for the con- duct of war, and orators for business of state, when they found there was no one who was of weight enough for such a charge, or of authority sufficient to be trusted with so great a com- mand,' regretted the loss of him, and invited him again to ad- dress and advise them, and to reassume the office of general. He, however, lay at home in dejection and mourning ; but was persuaded by Alcibiades and others of his friends to come abroad and show himself to the people ; who having, upon his appearance, made their acknowledgments, and apologized for their untowardly treatment of him, he undertook the pub- 'ic affairs once more ; and, being chosen general, requested that the statute concerning base-born children, which he him- self had formerly caused to be made, might be suspended ; 270 PERICLES. fhat so the name and race of his family might not, for abso- lute want of a lawful heir to succeed, be wholly lost and ex- tinguished. The case of the statute was thus : Pericles, when long ago at the height of his power in the state, having then, as has been said, children lawfully begotten, proposed a law that those only should be reputed true citizens of Athens who were born of such parents as were both Athenians. After this, the king of Egypt having sent to the people, by way of present, forty thousand bushels of wheat, which were to be shared out among the citizens, a great many actions and suits about legitimacy occurred, by virtue of that edict ; cases which, till that time, had not been known nor taken notice of ; and several persons suffered by false accusations. There were little less than five thousand who were convicted and sold for slaves ; those who, enduring the test, remained in the government and passed muster for true Athenians were found upon the poll to be fourteen thousand and forty per- sons in number. It looked strange, that a law, which had been carried so far against so many people, should be cancelled again by the same man that made it ; yet the present calamity and dis- tress which Pericles labored under in his family broke through all objections, and prevailed with the Athenians to pity him, as one whose losses and misfortunes had sufficiently punished his former arrogance and haughtiness. His sufferings de- served, they thought, their pity, and even indignation, and his request was such as became a man to ask and men to grant; they gave him permission to enroll his son in the register of his fraternity, giving him his own name. Th’s son afterward, after having defeated the Peloponnesians at Arginusae, was, with his fellow-generals, put to death by the people. About the time when his son was enrolled, it should seem, the plague seized Pericles, not with sharp and violent fits, as it did others that had but with a dull and lingering dis- temper, attended with various changes and alterations, leisurely, by little and little, wasting the strength of his body, and undermining the noble faculties of his soul. So that Theophrastus, in his Morals, when discussing whether men’s characters change with their circumstances, and their moral habits, disturbed by the ailings of their bodies, start aside from the rules of virtue, has left it upon record, that Pericles, when he was sick, showed one of his friends that came to visit him, an amulet or charm that the women had hung about PERICLES. 271 his neck ; as much as to say, that he was very sick indeed when he would admit of such a foolery as that was. When he was now near his end, the best of the citizens and those of his friends who were left alive, sitting about him, were speaking of the greatness of his merit, and his power, and reckoning up his famous actions and the number of his victories ; for there were no less than nine trophies, which, as their chief commander and conqueror of their enemies, he had set up. for the honor of the city. They talked thus gether among themselves, as though he were unable to under stand or mind what they said, but had now lost his conscious* ness. He had listened, however, all the while, and attended to all, and, speaking out among them, said that he wondered they should commend and take notice of things which were as much owing to fortune as to any thing else, and had hap- pened to many other commanders, and, at the same time, should not speak or make mention of that which was the most excellent and greatest thing of all. “ For,” said he, *‘no Athenian, through my means, ever wore mourning.” He was indeed a character deserving our high admiration, not only for his equitable and mild temper, which all along in the many affairs of his life, and the great animosities which he incurred, he constantly maintained ; but also for the high spirit and feeling which made him regard it the noblest of all his honors that, in the exercise of such immense power, he never had gratified his envy or his passion, nor ever had treated any enemy as irreconcilably opposed to him. And to me it appears that this one thing gives that otherwise childish and arrogant title a fitting and becoming significance ; so dispassionate a temper, a life so pure and unblemished, in the height of power and place, might well be called Olympian, in accordance with our conceptions of the divine beings, to whom, as the natural authors of all good and of nothing evil, we ascribe the rule and government of the world. Not as the poets rep- resent, who, while confounding us with their ignorant fancies, are themselves confuted by their own poems and fictions, and call the place, indeed, where they say the gods make their abode, a secure and quiet seat, free from all hazards and commotions, untroubled with winds or with clouds, and cx^ually through all time illumined with a soft serenity and a pure light as though such were a home most agreeable for a Idessed and immortal nature ; and yet, in the meanwhile, affirm that the gods themselves are full of trouble and enmity ani anger and other passions, which no way become or be- 272 FABIUS. long to even men that have any understanding. But this will perhaps, seem a subject fitter for some other consideration, and that ought to be treated of in some other place. The course of public affairs after his death produced a quick and speedy sense of the loss of Pericles. Those who, while he lived, resented his great authority, as that which eclipsed themselves, presently after his quitting the stage, making trial of other orators and demagogues, readily ac- knowledged that there never had been in nature such a dis- position as his was, more moderate and reasonable in the height of that state he took upon him, or more grave and im- pressive in the mildness which he used. And that invidious arbitrary power, to which formerly they gave the name of monarachy and tyranny, did then appear to have been the chief bulwark of public safety ; so great a corruption and such a flood of mischief and vice followed, which he, by keeping weak and low, had withheld from notice, and had prevented from attaining incurable height through a licentious impunity. FABIUS. Having related the memorable actions of Pericles, our history now proceeds to the life of Fabius. A son of Her- cules and a nymph, or some woman of that country, who brought him forth on the banks of Tiber, was, it is said, the first Fabius, the founder of the numerous and distinguished family of the name. Others will have it that they were first called Fodii, because the first of the race delighted in digging pitfalls for wild fodere being still the Latin for to dig, and fossa for a ditch, and that in process of time, by the change of the two letters they grew to be called Fabii. But be these things true or false, certain it is that this family for a long time yielded a great number of eminent persons- Our Fabius, who was fourth in descent from that Fabius Rullus who first brought the honorable surname of Maximus into his family, was also, by way of personal nickname, called Verrucosus, from a wart on his upper lip ; and in his child- hood they in like manner named him Ovicula, or The Lamb, on account of his extreme mildness of temper. His slowness 273 in speaking, his long labor and pains in learning, his deliber- ation in entering into the sports of other children, his easy submission to everybody, as if he had no will of his own, made those who judged superficially of him, the greater num- ber, esteem him insensible and stupid ; and few only saw Unit this tardiness proceeded from stability, and discerned the greatness of his mind, and the lionlikeness of his temper. But as soon as he came into employments, his virtues exerted and showed themselves ; his reputed want of energy then was recognized by people in general, as a freedom of passion ; his slowness in words and actions, the effect of a true pru- dence j his want of rapidity and his sl”5:gishness, as con- stancy and firmness. Living in a great commonwealth, surrounded by many enemies, he saw the wisdom of inuring his body (nature^s own weapon) to warlike exercises, and disciplining his tongue for public oratory in a style conformable to his life and charac- ter. His eloquence, indeed, had not much of popular orna- ment, nor empty artifice, but there was in it great weight of sense ; it was strong and sententious, much after the way of Thucydides. We have yet extant his funeral oration upon the death of his son, who died consul, which he recited before the people. He was five times consul, and in his first consulship had the honor of a triumph for the victory he gained over the Ligurians, whom he defeated in a set battle, and drove them to take shelter in the Alps, from whence they never after made any inroad or depredation upon their neigh- bors. After this, Hannibal came into Italy, who, at his first entrance, having gained a great battle near the river Trebia, traversed all Tuscany with his victorious army, and, desolating the country round about, filled Rome itself with astonishment and terror. Besides the more common signs of thunder and lightning then happening, the report of several unheard of and utterly strange portents much increas- ed the popular consternation. For it was said that some targets sweated blood ; that at Antium, when they reaped their corn, many of the ears were filled with blood ; that it had rained red-hot stones ; that the Fa^erians had seen the heavens open and several scrolls falling down, in one of which was plainly written, ‘‘ Mars himself stirs his arms.^* But these prodigies had no effect upon the impetuous and fiery temper of the consul Flaminius, whose natural prompt- ness had been much heightened by his late unexpected vie- i8 V4 FABIUS. lory over the Gauls, when he fought them contrary to the order of the senate and the advice of his colleague. Fabius, on the other side, thought it not seasonable to engage with the enemy ; not that he much regarded the prodigies, which he thought too strange to be easily understood, though many were alarmed by them ; but in regard that the Carthaginians were but few, and in want of money and supplies, he deemed it best not to meet in the field a general whose army had been tried in many encounters, and whose object was a bat- tle, but to send aid to their allies, control the movements of the various subject cities, and let the force and vigor of Hannibal waste away and expire, like a flame, for want of aliment. These weighty reasons did not prevail with Flaminius, who protested he would never suffer the advance of the enemy to the city, nor be reduced, like Camillus in former time, to fight for Rome within the walls of Rome. Accord- ingly he ordered the tribunes to draw out the army into the field ; and though he himself, leaping on horseback to go out, was no sooner mounted but the beast, without any apparent cause, fell into so violent a fit of trembling and bounding that he cast his rider headlong on the ground, he was no ways deterred ; but proceeded as he had begun, and marched for- ward up to Hannibal, who was posted near the Lake Thrasy- mene in Tuscany. At the moment of this engagement, there Happen so great an earthquake, that it destroy several towns, altered the course of rivers, and carried off parts of high cliffs, yet such was the eagerness of the combatants, that they were entirely insensible of it. In this battle Flaminius fell, after many proofs of his strength and courage, and round about him all the bravest of the army ; in the whole, fifteen thousand were killed, and as many made prisoners. Hannibal, desirous to bestow funeral honors upon the body of Flaminius, made diligent search after it, but could not find it among the dead, nor was it ever known what became of it. Upon the former engagement near Tre- bia, neither the general who wrote, nor the express who told the news, used straightforward and direct terms, nor related it otherwise than as a drawn battle, with equal loss on either side ; but on this occasion, as soon as Pomponius the praetor had the intelligence, he caused the people to assemble, and, without disguising or dissembling the matter, told them plain ly, *^We are beaten, O Romans, in a great battle ; the consul Flaminius is killed ; think, therefore, what is to be done for FABIUS. 275 your safety.’^ Letting loose his news like a gale of wind upon an open sea, he threw the city into utter confusion : in such consternation, their thoughts found no support or stay. The danger at hand at last awakened their judgments into a res- olution to choose a dictator, who by the sovereign authority of his office, and by his personal wisdom and courage, might be able to manage the public affairs. Their choice unan- ^ imously fell upon Fabius, whose character seemed equal to the greatness of the office ; whose age was so far advanced as to give him experience, without taking from him the vigor of action ; his body could execute what his soul designed ; and his temper was a happy compound of confidence and cautious- ness. Fabius, being thus installed in the office of dictator, in the first place gave the command of the horse to Lucius Minu- cius j and next asked leave of the senate for himself, that in time of battle he might serve on horseback, which by an an- cient law amongst the Romans was forbid to their generals ; whether it were, that, placing their greatest strength in their foot, they would have their commanders-in-chief posted amongst them, or else to let them know, that, how great and absolute soever their authority were, the people and senate were still their masters, of whom they must ask leave. Fabius, however, to make the authority of his charge more observable, and to render the people more submissive and obedient to him, caused himself to be accompanied with the full body of four and twenty lictors ; and, when the surviving consul came to visit him, sent him word to dismiss his lictors with their fasces, the ensigns of authority, and appear before him as a private person. The first solemn action of his dictatorship was very fitly a religious one : an admonition to the people, that their late overthrow had not befallen them through want of courage in their soldiers, but through the neglect of divine ceremonies in the general. He therefore exhorted them not to fear the ei e- my, but by extraordinary honor to propitiate the gods. This he did, not to fill their minds with superstition, but by relig- ious feeling to raise their courage, and lessen their fear of the enemy by inspiring the belief that Heaven was on their side. With this view, the secret prophecies called the Sibyl- line Books were consulted ; sundry predictions found in them were said to refer to the fortunes and events of the time ; but none except the consulter was informed. Presenting himself to the people, the dictator made a vow before them to offer 276 FABIUS. in sacrifice the whole product of the next season, all Italy over, of the cows, goats, swine, sheep, both in the mountains and the plains ; and to celebrate musical festivities with an expenditure of the precise sum of 333 sestertia and 333 dena- rii, with one-third of a denarius over. The sum total of which is, in our money, 83,583 drachmas and 2 obols. What (he mystery might be in that exact number is not easy to de* termine, unless it were in honor of the perfection of the num- ber three, as being the first of odd numbers, the first that con- tains in itself multiplication, with all other properties what- soever belonging to numbers in general. In this manner Fabius having given the people better heart for the future, by making them believe that the gods took their side, for his own part placed his whole confidence in himself, believing that the gods bestowed victory and good fortune by the instrumentality of valor and of prudence ; and thus prepared he set forth to oppose Hannibal, not with in- tention to fight him, but with the purpose of wearing out and wasting the vigor of his arms by lapse of time, of meeting his want of resources by superior means, by large numbers the smallness of his forces. With this design, he always en- camped on the highest grounds, where the enemy’s horse could have no access to him. Still he kept pace with them ; when they marched he followed them ; when they encamped he did the same, but at such a distance as not to be compelled to an engagement, and always keeping upon the hills, free from the insults of their horse ; by which means he gave them no rest, but kept them in a continual alarm. But this his dilatory way gave occasion in his own camp for suspicion of want of courage ; and this opinion prevailed yet more in Hannibal's army. Hannibal was himself the only man who was not deceived, who discerned his skill and de- tected his tactics, and saw, unless he could by art or force bring him to battle, that the Carthaginians, unable to use the arms in which they were superior, and suffering the continual drain of lives and treasure in which they were inferior, would in the end come to nothing. He resolved, therefore, with all the arts and subtilties of war to break his measures, and to bring Fabius to an engagement ; like a cunning wrestler, watching every opportunity to get good hold and close with his adversary. He at one time attacked, and sought to dis- tract his attention, tried to draw him off in various directions, and endeavored in all ways to tempt him from his safe policy. All this artifice, though it had no effect upon the firm judg* FABIUS. 277 merit and conviction of the dictator, yet upon the common sol- dier, and even upon the general of the horse himself, it had too great an operation : Minucius, unseasonably eager for action, bold and confident, humored the soldiery, and him- self contributed to fill them with wild eagerness and empty hopes, which they vented in reproaches upon Fabius, calling him Hannibal’s pedagogue, since he did nothing else but fol- low him up and down and wait upon him. At the same time, they cried up Minucius for the only captain worthy to com- mand the Romans ; whose vanity and presumption rose so high in consequence, that he insolently jested at Fabius’s en- campments upon the mountains, saying that he seated them there as on a theatre, to behold the flames and desolation of their country. And he would sometimes ask the friends of the general, whether it were not his meaning, by thus leading them from mountain to mountain, to carry them at last (hav- ing no hopes on earth) up into heaven, or to hide them in the clouds from Hannibal’s army ? When his friends reported these things to the dictator, persuading him that, to avoid the general obloquy, he should engage the enemy, his answer was, I should be more faint-hearted than they make me, if, through fear of idle reproaches, I should abandon my own convictions. It is no inglorious thing to have fear for the safety of our country, but to be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation, shows a man unfit to hold an office such as this, which, by such con- duct, he makes the slave of those whose errors it is his busi- ness to control.” An oversight of Hannibal occurred soon ofter. Desirous to refresh his horse in some good pasture-grounds, and to draw off his army, he ordered his guides to conduct him to the district of Casinum. They, mistaking his bad pronunciation, led him and his army to the town of Casilinum, on the Ircn- t^'er of Campania which the river Lothronus, called by the Romans Vulturnus, divides in two parts. The country around IS enclosed by mountains, with a valley opening towards the sea, in which the river overflowing forms a quantity of marsh land with deep banks of sand, and discharges itself into the sea on a very unsafe and rough shore. While Hannibal was proceeding hither, Fabius, by his knowledge of the roads, succeeded in making his way around before him, and de- spatched four thousand choice men to seize the exit from it and stop him up, and lodged the rest of his army upon the neighboring hilis in the most advantageous places ; at the FABIUS. 2jS same time detaching a party of his lightest armed men to fall upon Hannibal’s rear ; which they did with such success, that they cut off eight hundred of them, and put the whole army ia disorder. Hannibal, finding the error and the danger he was fallen into, immediately crucified the guides ; but considered the enemy to be so advantageously posted, that there was no hopes of breaking through them ; while his soldiers began to be despondent and terrified, and to think themselves sur« rounded with embarrassments too difficult to be surmounted. Thus reduced, Hannibal had recourse to stratagem ; he caused two thousand head of oxen which he had in his camp, to have torches or dry fagots well fastened to their horns, and lighting them in the beginning of the night, ordered the beasts to be driven on towards the heights commanding the passages out of the valley and the enemy’s posts ; when this was done, he made his army in the dark leisurely march after them. The oxen at first kept a slow orderly pace, and with their lighted heads resembled an army marching by night, astonishing the shepherds and herdsmen of the hills about. But when the fire had burnt down the horns of the beasts to the quick, they no longer observed their sober pace, but, un- ruly and wild with their pain, ran dispersed about, tossing their heads and scattering the fire round about them upon each other and setting light as they passed to the trees. This was a surprising spectacle to the Romans on guard upon the heights. Seeing flames which appeared to come from men advancing with torches, they were possessed with the alarm that the enemy was approaching in various quarters, and that they were being surrounded ; and, quitting their post, aban- doned the pass, and precipitately retired to their camp on the hills. They were no sooner gone, but the light-armed of Han- nibal’s men, according to his order, immediately seized the heights, and soon after the whole army, with all the baggage, came up and safely marched through the passes. Fabius, before the night was over, quickly found out the trick ; for some of the beasts fell into his hands ; but for fear of an ambush in the dark, he kept his men all night to their arms in the camp. As soon as it was day, he attacked the enemy in the rear, where, after a good deal of skirmishing in the uneven ground, the disorder might have become general, but that Hannibal detached from his van a body of Spaniards, who, of themselves active and nimble, were accustomed to the climbing of mountains. These briskly attacked the Roman troops who were in heavy armor, killed a good many, and left FABIUS. 279 Fabius no longer in condition to follow the enemy. This ac- tion brought the extreme of obloquy and contempt upon the dictator ; they said it was now manifest that he was not only inferior to his adversary, as they had always thought, in cour- age, but even in that conduct, foresight, and generalship, by which he had proposed to bring the war to an end. And Hannibal, to enhance their anger against him, marched with his army close to the lands and possessions of Fabius, and, giving orders to his soldiers to burn and destroy all the country about, forbade them to do the least damage in the estates of the Roman general, and placed guards for their security. This, when reported at Rome, had the effect with the people which Hannibal desired. Their tribunes raised a thousand stories against him, chiefly at the instigation of Metilius, who, not so much out of hatred to -him as out of friendship to Minucius, whose kinsman he was, thought by depressing Fabius to raise his friend. The senate on their part were also offended with him for the bargain he had made with Hannibal about the exchange of prisoners, the conditions of which were, that, after exchange made of man for man, if any on either side remained, they should be re- deemed at the price of two hundred and fifty drachmas a head. Upon the whole account, there remained two hundred and forty Romans unexchanged, and the senate now not only refused to allow money for the ransoms, but also reproached Fabius for making a contract, contrary to the honor and in- terest of the commonwealth, for redeeming men whose coward- ice had put them in the hands of the enemy. Fabius heard and endured all this with invincible patience ; and, having no money by him, and on the other side being resolved to keep his word with Hannibal and not to abandon the captives, he despatched his son to Rome to sell land, and to bring with him the price, sufficient to discharge the ransoms ; which was punctually performed by his son, and delivery accordingly made to him of the prisoners, amongst whom many, when they were released, made proposals to repay the money; which Fabius in all cases declined. About this time, he was called to Rome by the priests, to assist, according to the duty of his office, at certain sacrifices, and was thus forced to leave the command of the army with Minucius ; but before he parted, not only charged him as his commander-in-chief, but besought and entreated him not to come, in his absence, to a battle with Hannibal. His com- mands, entreaties, and advice were lost upon Minucius ; for 28 o FABIUS. his back was no sooner turned but the new general immedi- ately sought occasisons to attack the enemy. And notice being brought him that Hannibal had sent out a great party of his army to forage, he fell upon a detachment of the re- mainder, doing great execution, and driving them to their very camp, with no little terror to the rest, who apprehended their breaking in upon them ; and when Hannibal had re- called his scattered forces to the camp, he, nevertheless, without any loss, made his retreat, a success which aggravated his boldness and presumption, and filled the soldiers with rash confidence. The news spread to Rome, where Fabius, on being told it, said that what he most feared was Minucius^s success ; but the people, highly elated, hurried to the forum to listen to an address from Metilius the tribune, in which he infinitely extolled the valor of Minucius, and fell bitterly upon Fabius, accusing him for want not merely of courage, but even of loyalty ; and not only him, but also many other eminent and considerable persons ; saying that it was they that had brought the Carthaginians into Italy, with the design to destroy the liberty of the people ; for which end they had at once put the supreme authority into the hands of a single person, who by his slowness and delays might give Hannibal leisure to establish himself in Italy, and the people of Carthage time and opportunity to supply him with fresh succors to complete his conquest. Fabius came forward with no intention to answer the tribune, but only said, that they should expedite the sacrifices, that so he might speedily return to the army to punish Minu- cius, who had presumed to fight contrary to his orders ; words which immediately possessed the people with the belief that Minucius stood in danger of his life. For it was in the power of the dictator to imprison and to put to death, and they feared that Fabius, of a mild temper in general, would be as hard to be appeased when once irritated, as he was slow to be provoked. Nobody dared to raise his voice in opposition ; Metilius alone, whose office of tribune gave him security to say what he pleased (for in the time of a dictatorship that mag- istrate alone preserves his authority), boldly applied himself to the people in the behalf of Minucius : that they should not suffer him to be made a sacrifice to the enmity of Fabius, nor permit him to be destroyed, like the son of Manlius Torquatus, who was beheaded by his father for a victory fought and triumphantly won against order ; he exhorted them to take away from Fabius that absolute power of a dictator, and to FABIUS. 281 put it into more worthy hands, better able and more inclined to use it for the public good. These impressions very much prevailed upon the people, though not so far as wholly to dispossess Fabius of the dictatorship. But they decreed that Minucius should have an equal authority with the dictator in the conduct of the war ; which was a thing then without pre- cedent, though a little later it was again practised after the disaster at Cannae ; when the dictator, Marcus Junius, being with the army, they chose at Rome Fabius Buteo dictator, that he might create new senators, to supply the numerous places of those who were killed. But as soon as, once acting in public, he had filled those vacant places with a sufficient number, he immediately dismissed his lictors, and withdrew from all his attendance, and mingling like a common person with the rest of the people, quietly went about his own affairs in the forum. The enemies of Fabius thought they had sufficiently humiliated and subdued him by raising Minucius to be his equal in authority ; but they mistook the temper of the man who looked upon their folly as not his loss, but like Diogenes, who, being told that some persons derided him, made answer. But I am not derided,’’ meaning that only those were really insulted on whom such insults made an impression, so Fabius, with^ great * tranquillity and unconcern, submitted to what happened, and contributed a proof to the argument of the philosophers that a just and good man is not capable of being dishonored. His only vexation arose from his fear lest this ill counsel, by supplying opportunities to the diseased military ambition of his subordinate, should damage the public cause. Lest the rashness of Minucius should now at once run head- long into some disaster, he returned back with all privacy and speed to the army ; where he found Minucius so elevated with his new dignity, that, a joint-authority not contenting him, he required by turns to have the command of the army every other day. TTiis Fabius rejected, but was contented that the army should be divided ; thinking each general singly would better command his part, than partially command the whole. The first and fourth legion he took tor his own divis- ion, the second and third he delivered to Minucius; so also of the auxiliary forces each had an equal share. Minucius, thus exalted, could not contain himself from boasting of his success in humiliating the high and powerful office of the dictatorship. Fabius quietly reminded him that it was, in all wisdom, Hannibal, and not Fabius, whom he 282 FABIUS. had to combat ,* but if he must needs contend with his coi« league, it had best be in diligence and care for the preserva- tion of Rome ; that it might not be said, a man so favored by the people served them worse than he who had been ill-treated and disgraced by them. The young general, despising these admonitions as the false humility of age, immediately removed with the body of his army, and encamped by himself. Hannibal, who was not ignorant of all these passages, lay watching his advantage from them. It happened that between his army and that of Minucius there was a certain eminence, which seemed a very advantageous and not difficult post to encamp upon ; the level field around it appeared, from a distance, to be all smooth and even, though it had many inconsiderable ditches and dips in it, not discernible to the eye. Hannibal, had he pleased, could easily have possessed himself of this ground ; but he had reserved it for a bait, or train, in proper season, to draw the Romans to an engagement. Now that Minucius and Fabius were divided, he thought the opportunity fair for his purpose ; and, therefore, having in the night time lodged a convenient number of his men in these ditches and hollow places, early in the morning he sent forth a small detachm.ent, who, in the sight of Minucius, proceeded to possess themselves of the rising ground. According to his expectation, Minucius swallowed the bait, and first sends out his light troops, and after them some horse, to dislodge the enemy ; and, at last, when he saw Hannibal in person advancing to the assistance of his men, marched down with his whole army drawn upv He engaged with the troops on the eminence, and sustained their missiles ; the combat for some time was equal ; but as soon as Hannibal perceived that the whole army was now sufficiently advanced within the toils he had set for them, so that their backs were open to his men whom he had posted in the hollows, he gave the signal ; upon which they rushed forth from various quarters^ and with loud cries furiously at- tacked Minucius in the rear. The surprise and the slaughter was great, and struck universal alarm and disorder through the whole army. Minucius himself lost all his confidence ; he looked from officer to officer, and found all alike unpre- pared to face the danger, and yielding to a flight, which, how- ever, could not end in safety. The Numidian horsemen were already in full victory riding about the plain, cutting down the fugitives. Fabius was not ignorant of this danger of his countrymen FABIUS. 283 he foresaw what would happen from the rashness of Minucius, and the cunning of Hannibal ; and, therefore, kept his men to their arms, in readiness to wait the event ; nor would he trust to the reports of others, but he himself, in front of his camp, viewed all that passed. When, therefore, he saw the army of Minucius encompassed by the enemy, and that by their countenance and shifting their ground, they appeared more disposed to flight than to resistance, with a great sigh, striking his hand upon his thigh, he said to those about him, “ O Hercules ! how much sooner than I expected, though later than he seemed to desire, hath Minucius destroyed him , self ! He then commanded the ensigns to be led forward, and the army to follow, telling them, “We must make haste to rescue Minucius, who is a valiant man, and a lover of his country ; and if he hath been too forward to engage the enemy, at another time we will tell him of it/’ Thus, at the head of his men, Fabius marched up to the enemy, and first cleared the plain of the Numidians ; and next fell upon those who were charging the Romans in the rear, cutting down all that made opposition, and obliging the rest to save themselves by a hasty retreat, lest they should be environed as the Romans had been. Hannibal, seeing so sudden a change of affairs, and Fabius, beyond the force of his age, opening his way through the ranks up the hill-side, that he might join Minucius, warily forbore, sounded a retreat, and drew off his men into their camp ; while the Romans on their part were no less contented to retire in safety. It is reported that upon this occasion Hannibal said jestingly to his friends : “ Did not I tell you, that this cloud which always hovered upon the mountains would, at some time or other, come down with a storm upon us ?” Fabius, after his men had picked up the spoils of the field, retired to his own camp, without saying any harsh or reproachful thing to his colleague ; who, also on his part, gathering his army together, spoke and said to them : “ To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature ; but to learn and improve by the faults we have committed, is that which becomes a good and sensible man. Some reasons I may have to accuse fortune, but I liave many more to thank her ; for in a few hours she hath cured a long mistake, and taught me that I am not the man who should command others, but have need of another to command me ; and that we are not to contend for victory over those to whom it is our advantage to yield. Therefoie 284 FABIUS. in every thing else henceforth the dictator must be your com mander ; only in showing gratitude towards him I will still be your leader, and always be the first to obey his orders/’ Having said this, he commanded the Roman eagles to move forward, and all his men to follow him to the camp of Fabius. The soldiers, then, as he entered, stood amazed at the novelty of the sight, and were anxious and doubtful what the mean- ing might be. When he came near the dictator’s tent, Fabi../s went forth to meet him, on which he at once laid his stand- ards at his feet, calling him with a loud voice his father ; while the soldiers with him saluted the soldiers here as their patrons, the term employed by freedmen to those who gave them their liberty. After silence was obtained, Minucius said, You have this day, O dictator, obtained two victories j one by your valor and conduct over Hannibal, and another by your wisdom and goodness over your colleague j by one victory you preserved, and by the other instructed us ; and when we were already suffering one shameful defeat from Hannibal, by another welcome one from you we were re- stored to honor and safety. I can address you by no nobler name than that of a kind father, though a father’s beneficence falls short of that I have received from you. From a father I individually received the gift of life ; to you I owe its pres- ervation not for myself only, but for ail these who are under me.” After this, he threw himself into the arms of the dicta- tor ; and in the same manner the soldiers of each army embraced one another with gladness and tears of joy. Not long after, Fabius laid down the dictatorship, and consuls were again created. Those who immediately sue ceeded, observed the same method in managing the war, and avoided all occasions of fighting Hannibal in a pitched battle ; they only succored their allies, and preserved the towns from falling off to the enemy. But afterwards, when Terentius Varro, a man of obscure birth, but very popular and bold, had obtained the consulship, he soon made it appear that by his rashness and ignorance he would stake the whole com- monwealth on the hazard. For it was his custom to declaim in all assemblies, that, as long as Rome employed generals like Fabius, there never would be an end of the war; vaunt- ing that whenever he should get sight of the enemy, he would that same day free Italy from the strangers. With these promises he so prevailed, that he raised a greater army than had ever yet been sent out of Rome. There were enlisted eighty-eight thousand fighting men ; but what gave confidence FABIUS. 285 to the populace, only terrified the wise and experienced, and none more than Fabius ; since if so great a body, and the flower of the Roman youth, should be cut off, they could not see any new resource for the safety of Rome. They ad- dressed themselves, therefore, to the other consul, ^milius PauluS; a man of great experience in war, but unpopular, and fearful also of the people, who once before upon some im- peachment had condemned him ; so that he needed encour- agement to withstand his colleague’s temerity. Fabius told him, if he would profitably serve his country, he must no less oppose Varro’s ignorant eagerness than Hannibal’s conscious readiness, since both alike conspired to decide the fate of Rome by a battle. ‘‘ It is more reasonable,” he said to him, “ that you should believe me than Varro, in matters relating to Flannibal, when I tell you that if for this year you abstain from fighting with him, either his army wiW perish of itself, or else he will be glad to depart of his own will. This evidently appears, inasmuch as, notwithstanding his victories, none of the countries or towns of Italy come in to him, and his army is not now the third part of what it was at first.” . To this Paulus is said to have replied, “ Did I only consider myself, I should rather choose to be exposed to the weapons of Han- nibal than once more to the suffrages of my fellow-citizens, who are urgent for what you disapprove ; yet since the cause of Rome is at stake, I will rather seek in my conduct to please and obey Fabius than all the world besides.” These good measures were defeated by the importunity of Varro ; whom, when they were both come to the army, noth- ing would content but a separate command, that each consul should have his day ; and when his turn came, he posted his army close to Hannibal, at a village called Cannae, by the river Aufidus. It was no sooner day, but he set up the scarlet coat flying over his tent, which was the signal of battle. This boldness of the consul, and the numerousness of his army, double theirs, startled the Carthaginians; but Hannibal commanded them to their arms, and with a small train rode out to take a full prospect of the enemy as they were now forming in their ranks, from a rising ground not far distant. One of his followers, called Cisco, a Carthaginian of equal rank with himself, told him that the numbers of the enemy were astonishing; to which Hannibal replied with a serious countenance, “ There is one thing, Cisco, yet more astonishing, which you take no notice of ; ” and when Cisco inquired what, answered, that in all those great numbers 286 FABIUS. before us, there is not one man called Cisco.” This unex- pected jest of their general made all the company laugh, and as they came down from the hill they told it to those whom they met, which caused a general laughter amongst them all, from which they were hardly able to recover themselves. The army, seeing Hannibal’s attendants come back from viewing the enemy in such a laughing condition, concluded that it must be profound contempt of the enemy, that made their general at this moment indulge in such hilarity. According to his usual manner, Hannibal employed strata- gems to advantage liimself. In the first place, he so drew up his men that the wind was at their backs, which at that time blew with a perfect storm of violence, and, sweeping over the great plains of sand, carried before it a cloud of dust over the Carthaginian army into the faces of the Romans, which much disturbed them in the fight. In the next place, all his best men he put into his wings ; and in the body which was some- what more advanced than the wings, placed the worst and the weakest of his army. He commanded those in the wings, that, when the enemy had made a thorough charge upon that middle advanced body, which he knew would recoil, as not being able to withstand their shock, and when the Romans in their pursuit, should be far enough engaged within the two wings, they should, both on the right and the left, charge them in the flank, and endeavor to encompass them. This appears to have been the chief cause of the Roman loss. Pressing upon Hannibal’s front, which gave ground, they re- duced the form of his army into a perfect half-moon, and gave ample opportunity to the captains of the chosen troops to charge them right and left on their flanks, and to cut off and destroy all who did not fall back before the Carthaginian wings united in their rear, To this general calamity, it is also said, that a strange mistake among the cavalry much con- tributed. For the horse of ^milius receiving a hurt and throwing his master, those about him immediately alighted to aid the consul ; and the Roman troops, seeing their com- manders thus quitting their horses, took it for a sign that they should all dismount and charge the enemy on foot. At the sight of this, Hannibal was heard to say, This pleases me better than if they had been delivered to me bound hand and foot.” For the particulars of this engagement, we refer our reader to those authors who have written at large upon the subject. The consul Varro, with a thin company, fled to Ve.nusia ; FABIUS. 287 ^Emilius Paulus, unable any longer to oppose the flight of his men, or the pursuit of the enemy, his body all covered with wounds, and his soul no less wounded with grief, sat himself down upon a stone, expecting the kindness of a despatching blow. His face was so disfigured, and all his person so stained with blood, that his very friends and domestics passing by knew him not. At last Cornelius Len- tulus, a young man of patrician race, perceiving who he was, alighted from his horse, and, tendering it to him, desired him to get up and save a life so necessary to the safety of the commonwealth, which, at this time, would dearly want so great a captain. But nothing could prevail upon him to accept of the offer ; he obliged young Lentulus, with tears in his eyes, to remount his horse ; then standing up, he gave him his hand, and commanded him to tell Fabius Maximus that ^milius Paulus had followed his directions to his very last, and had not in the least deviated from those measures which were agreed between them ; but that it was his hard fate to be overpowered by Varro in the first place, and secondly by Hannibal. Having despatched Lentulus with this commission, he marked where the slaughter was greatest, and there threw himself upon the swords of the enemy. In this battle it is reported that fifty thousand Romans were slain, four thousand prisoners taken in the field, and ten thousand in the camp of both consuls. The friends of Hannibal earnestly persuaded him to follow up his victory, and pursue the flying Romans into the very gates of Rome, assuring him that in five days’ time he might sup in the capitol ; nor is it easy to imagine what consideration hindered him from it. It would seem rather that some su- pernatural or divine intervention caused the hesitation and timidity which he now displayed, and which made Barcas, a Carthaginian, tell him with indignation, You know, Hannibal, how to gain a victory, but not how to use it.” Yet it produced a marvellous revolution in his affairs ; he, wdio hitherto had not one town, market or seaport in his possession, who had nothing for the subsistence of his men but what he pillaged from day to day, who had no place of retreat or basis of opera- tion, but w'as roving, as it w^ere, with a huge troop of ban- ditti, now became master of the best provinces and towns of Italy, and of Capua itself, next to Rome the most flourishing and opulent city, all which came over to him, and submitted to his authority. It is the saying of Euripides, that “ a man is in ill-case FABIUS. 288 when lie must try a friend/’ and so neither, it would seem, is a state in a good one, when it needs an able general. And so it was with the Romans ; the counsels and actions of Fabius, which, before the battle, they had branded as cowardice and fear, now, in the other extreme, they accounted to have been more than human wisdom ; as though nothing but a divine power of intellect could have seen so far, and foretold, contrary to the judgment of all others, a result which, even now it had arrived, was hardly credible. In him, therefore^ they placed their whole remaining hopes ; his wisdom was the sacred altar and temple to which they fled for refuge, and his counsels, more than anything, preserved them from dispersing and deserting their city, as in the time when the Gauls took possession of Rome. He, whom they esteemed fearful and pusillanimous when they were, as they thought, in a prosper, ous condition, was now the only man, in this general and unbounded dejection and confusion, who showed no fear, but walked the streets with an assured and serene countenance, addressed his fellow-citizens, checked the women’s lamenta- tions, and the public gatherings of those who wanted thus to vent their sorrows. He caused the senate to meet, he heart- ened up the magistrates, and was himself as the soul and life of every office. He placed guards at the gates of the city to stop the frighted multitude from flying : he regulated and conflned their mourn- ings for their slain frieiids, both as to time and place ; ordering that each family should perform such observances within private walls, and that they should continue only the space of one month, and then the whole city should be purified. The feast of Ceres happening to fall within this time, it was decreed that the solemnity should be intermitted, lest the fewness, and the sorrowful countenance of those who should celebrate it, might too much expose to the people the greatness of their loss ; besides that, the worship most acceptable to the gods is that which comes from cheerful hearts. But those rights which were proper for appeasing their anger, and procuring auspicious signs and presages, were by the direction of the augurs carefully performed. Fabius Pictor, a near kinsman to Maximus, was sent to consult the oracle of Delphi ; and about the same time, two vestals having been detected to have been violated, the one killed herself, and the other, according to custom, was buried alive. Above all, let us admire the high spirit and equanimity of this Roman commonwealth j that when the consul Varro FABIUS. 289 rame beaten and flying home, full of shame and humiliation, after he had so disgracefully and calamitously managed their affairs, yet the whole senate and people went forth to meet him at the gates of the city, and received him with honor and respect. And, silence being commanded, the magistrates and chief of the senate, Fabius amongst them, commended him before the people, because he did not despair of the safety of the commonwealth, after so great a loss, but was come to take the government into his hands, to execute the laws, and aid his fellow-citizens in their prospect of future deliverance. When word was brought to Rome that Hannibal, after the fight, had marched with his army into other parts of Italy, the hearts of the Romans began to revive, and they proceeded to send out generals and armies. The most distinguished com- mands were held by Fabius Maximus and Claudius Marcellus, both generals of great fame, though upon opposite grounds. For Marcellus, as we have set forth in his life, was a man of action and high spirit, ready and bold with his own hand, and, as Homer describes his warriors, fierce, and delighting in fights. Boldness, enterprise, and daring to match those of Hannibal, constituted his tactics, and marked his engagements. But Fabius adhered to his former principles, still persuaded that, by following close and not fighting him, Hannibal and hm army would at last be tired out and consumed, like a wrestler in too high condition, whose very excess of strength makes him the more likely suddenly to give way and lose it. Posi- donius tells us that the Romans called Marcellus their sword, and Fabius their buckler ; and that the vigor of the one, mixed with the steadiness of the other, made a happy compound that proved the salvation of Rome. So that Hannibal found by experience that encountering the one, he met with a rapid, impetuous river, which drove him back, and still made some breach upon him ; and by the other, though silently and quietly passing by him, he was insensibly washed away and consumed ; and, at last, was brought to this, that he dreaded Marcellus when he was in motion, and Fabius when he sat still. During the whole course of this war, he had still to do with one or both of these generals ; for each of them was five times consul, and, as prjetors or proconsuls or consuls, they had always a part in the government of the army, till, at last, Marcellus fell into the trap which Hannibal had laid for him, and was killed in his fifth consulship. But all his craft and subtlety were unsuccessful upon Fabius, who only once was in some danger of being caught, when counterfeit letters came to him from iQ 2gO FABIUS. the principal inhabitants of Metapontum, with premises to deliver up their town if he would come before it with his army, and intimations that they should expect him. This train had almost drawn him in ; he resolved to march to them with part of his army, and was diverted only by consulting the omens of the birds, which he found to be inauspicious ; and not long after it was discovered that the letters had been forged by Hannibal, who, for his reception, had laid an ambush to entertain him. This, perhaps, we must rather attribute to the favor of the gods than to the prudence of Fabius. In preserving the towns and allies from revolt by fair and gentle treatment, and in not using rigor, or showing a sus- picion upon every light suggestion, his conduct was remark able. It is told of him, that being informed of a certain Marsian, eminent for courage and good birth, who had been speaking underhand with some of the soldiers about deserting, Fabius was so far from using severity against him, that he called for him, and told him he was sensible of the neglect that had been shown to his merit and good service, which, he said, was a great fault in the commanders who reward more by favor than by desert ; ‘‘ but henceforth, whenever you are aggrieved,’’ said Fabius, “ I shall consider it your fault, if, you apply yourself to any one but to me ; ” and when he had so spoken, he bestowed an excellent horse and other presents upon him ; and, from that time forwards, there was not a faithfuller and more trusty man in the whole army. With good reason he judged, that, if those who have the government of horses and dogs endeavor by gentle usage to cure their angry and untractable tempers, rather than by cruelty and beating, much more should those who have the command of men try to bring them to order and discipline by the mildest and fairest means, and not treat them worse than gardeners do those wild plants, which, with care and attention, lose gradually the savageness of their nature, and bear excellent fruit. AJ: another time, some of his officers informed him that tn/e of their men was very often absent from his place, and out at nights ; he asked them what kind of man he was ; they all answered, that the whole army had not a better man, that he was a native of Lucania, and proceeded to speak of several actions which they had seen him perform. Fabius made strict inquiry, and discovered at last that these frequent excur- sions which he ventured upon were to visit a young girl, with whom he was in love. Upon which he gave private order to FABTUS. 291 some of his men to find out the woman and secretly convey her into his own tent ; and then sent for the Lucanian, and, calling him aside, told him, that he very well knew how often he had been out away from the camp at night, which was a capital transgression against military discipline and the Roman laws, but he knew also how brave he was, and the good services he had done ; therefore, in consideration of them, he was willing to forgive him his fault ; but to keep him in good order, he was resolved to place one over him to be his keeper, who should be accountable for his good behavior. Having said this, he produced the woman, and told the soldier, terrified and amazed at the adventure, ‘‘ This is the person who mus^- answer for you ; and by your future behavior we shall see whether your night rambles were on account of love, or for any other worse design.’’ Another passage there was, something of the same kind, which gained him possession of Tarentum. There was a young Tarentine in the army that had a sister in Tarentum, then in possession of the enemy, who entirely loved her brother, and wholly depended upon him. He, being informed that a certain Bruttian, whom Hannibal had made a com- mander of the garrison, was deeply in love with his sister, conceived hopes that he might possibly turn it to the advan- tage of the Romans. And having first communicated his design to Fabius, he left the army as a deserter in show, and went over to Tarentum. The first days passed, and the Bruttian abstained from visiting the sister ; for neither of them knew that the brother had notice of the amour between them. The young Tarentine, however, took an occasion to tell his sister how he had heard that a man of station and authority had made his addresses to her, and desired her, therefore, to tell him who it was ; “ for,” said he, “ if he be a man that has bravery and reputation, it matters not what countryman he is, since at this time the sword mingles all nations, and makes them equal ; compulsion makes all things honorable ; and in a time when right is weak, we maybe thankful if might assumes a form of gentleness.” Upon this the woman sends for her friend, and makes the brother and him acquainted ; and whereas she henceforth showed more countenance to her lover than formerly, in the same degrees that her kindness increased his friendship, also, with the brother advanced. So that at last our Tarentine thought this Bruttian officer well enough prepared to receive the offers he had to make him ; and that it would be easy for a mercenary man, who was in love, to FABIUS. 392 accept, upon the terms proposed, the large rewards promised by Fabius. In conclusion, the bargain was struck, and the promise made of delivering the town. This is the common tradition, though some relate the story otherwise, and say, that this woman, by whom the Bruttian was inveigled to betray the town, was not a native of Tarentum, but a Bruttian born, and was kept by Fabius as his concubine ; and being a countrywoman and an acquaintance of the Bruttian governor^ he priva^ly sent her to him to corrupt him. Whilst these matters were thus in process, to draw off Hannibal from scenting the design, Fabius sends orders to the garrison in Rhegium, that they should waste and spoil the Bruttian country, and should also lay seige to Caulonia, and storm the place with all their might. These were a body of eight thousand men, the worst of the Roman army, who had most of them been runaways, and had been brought home by Marcellus from Sicily, in dishonor, so that the loss of them would not be any great grief to the Romans. Fabius, therefore, threw out these men as a bait for Hannibal, to di- vert him from Tarentum ; who instantly caught at it, and led his forces to Caulonia ; in the mean time, Fabius sat down before Tarentum. On the sixth day of the siege, the young Tarentine slips by night out of the town, and, having carefully observed the place where the Bruttian commander, according to agreement, was to admit the Romans, gave an account of the whole matter to Fabius ; who thought it not safe to rely wholly upon the plot, but, while proceeding with secrecy to the post, gave order for a general assault to be made on the other side of the town, both by land and sea. This being accordingly executed, while the Tarentines hurried to defend the town on the side attacked, Fabius received the signal from the Bruttian, scaled the walls, and entered the town unop- posed. Here, we must confess, ambition seems to have overcome him. To make it appear to the world that he had taken Tar- entum by force and his own prowess, and not by treachery^ he commanded his men to kill the Bruttians before all others ; ye. he did not succeed in establishing the impression he de- sired, but merely gained the character of perfidy and cruelty. Many of the Tarentines were also killed, and thirty thousand of them were sold for slaves ; the army had the plunder of the towm, and there was brought into the treasury three thou- sand talents. Whilst they w^ere carrying off every thing else as plunder, the officer w4io took the inventory asked whal FABIUS. 293 should be done with their gods, meaning the pictures and statues ; Fabius answered, ‘‘ Let us leave their angry gods to the Tarentines.’’ Nevertheless, he removed the colossal statue of Hercules, and had it set up in the capitol, with one of himself on horseback, in brass, near it ; proceedings very different from those of Marcellus on a like occasion, and < which, indeed, very much set off in the eyes of the world his clemency and humanity, as appears in the account of his life. Hannibal, it is said, was within five miles of Tarentum, when he was informed that the town was taken. He said openly, ‘‘ Rome then has also got a Hannibal ; as we won Tarentum, so have we lost it.^’ And, in private with some of his confidants, he told them, for the first time, that he always thought it difficult, but now he held it impossible, with the forces he then had, to master Italy. Upon this success, Fabius had a triumph decreed him at Rome, much more splendid than his first ; they looked upon him now as a champion who had learned to cope with his an- tagonist, and could now easily foil his arts and prove his best skill ineffectual. And, indeed, the army of Hannibal was at this time partly worn away with continual action, and partly weakened and become dissolute with overabundance and lux- ury. Marcus Livius, who was governor of Tarentum when it was betrayed to Hannibal, and then retired into the citadel, which he kept till the town was retaken, was annoyed at these honors and distinctions, and, on one occasion, openly declared in the senate, that by his resistance, more than by any action of Fabius, Tarentum had been recovered ; on which Fabius laughingly replied : “You say very true, for if Marcus Livius had not lost Tarentum, Fabius Maximus had never recovered it.’’ The people, amongst other marks of gratitude, gave his son the consulship of the next year ; shortly after whose en- trance upon his office, there being some business on foot about provision for the war, his father, either by reason of age and infirmity, or perhaps out of design to try his son, came up to him on horseback. While he was still at a distance, the young consul observed it, and bade one of his lictors com- mand his father to alight, and tell him if he had any business with the consul, he should come on foot. The standers by seemed offended at the imperiousness of the son towards a father so venerable for his age and his authority, and turned their eyes in silence towards Fabius. He, however, instantly alighted from his horse, and with open arms came up, almost 294 FABIUS. running, and embraced his son, saying, ^^Yes, my son, you do well, and understand well what authority you have re- ceived, and over whom you are to use it. This was the way by which we and our forefathers advanced the dignity of Rome, preferring ever her honor and service to our own fathers and children.'* And, in fact, it is told that the great-grandfather of our Fabius, who was undoubtedly the greatest man of Rome in his time, both in reputation and authority, who had been five times consul, and had been honored with several triumphs for victories obtained by him, took pleasure in serving as lieuten- ant under his own son, when he went as consul to his com inand. And when afterwards his son had a triumph bestowed upon him for his good service, the old man follow^ed, on horse- back, his triumphant chariot, as one of his attendants ; and made it his glory, that while he really was, and was acknowl- edged to be, the greatest man in Rome, and held a father’s full power over his son, he yet submitted himself to the law^s and the magistrate. But the praises of our Fabius are not bounded here. He afterwards lost this son, and was remarkable for bearing the loss with the moderation becoming a pious father and a wise man, and as it was the custom amongst the Romans, upon the death of any illustrious person, to have a funeral oration recited by some of the nearest relations, he took upon himself that office, and delivered a speech in the forum, which he committed afterwards to writing. After Cornelius Scipio, who was sent into Spain, had driven the Carthaginians, defeated by him in many battles, out of the country, and had gained over to Rome many towns and nations with large resources, he was received at his com- ing home with unexampled joy and acclamation of the peo- ple ; who, to show their gratitude, elected him consul for the year ensuing. Knowing what high expectation they had of him, he thought the occupation of contesting Italy with Han- nibal a mere old man’s employment, and proposed no less a task to himself than to make Carthage the seat of the war, fill Africa with arms and devastation, and so oblige Hannibal, instead of invading the countries of others, to draw back and defend his own. And to this end he proceeded to exert all the influence he had with the people. Fabius, on the other side, opposed the undertaking with all his might, alarming the city, and telling them that nothing but the temerity of a hot young man could inspire them with such dangerous coun FABIUS. 295 sels, and sparing no means, by word or deed, to prevent it. He prevailed with the senate to espouse his sentiments ; but the common people thought that he envied the fame of Scipio, and that he was afraid lest this young conqueror should achieve some great and noble exploit, and have the glory, per- haps, of driving Hannibal out of Italy, or even of ending the war, which had for so many years continued and been pro tracted under his management. To say the truth, when Fabius first opposed this project of Scipio, he probably did it out of caution and prudence, in consideration only of the public safety, and of the danger which the commonwealth might incur ; but when he found Scipio every day increasing in the esteem of the people, ri- valry and ambition led him further, and made him violent and personal in his opposition. For he even applied to Crassus, the colleague of Scipio, and urged him not to yield the com- mand to Scipio, but that, if his inclinations were for it, he should himself in person lead the army to Carthage. He also hindered the giving money to Scipio for the war ; so that he was forced to raise it upon his own credit and interest from the cities of Etruria, which were extremely attached to him. On the other side, Crassus would not stir against him, nor remove out of Italy, being, in his own nature, averse to all contention, and also having, by his office of high priest, relig- ious duties to retain him. Fabius, therefore, tried other ways to oppose the design ; he impeded the levies, and he declaimed, both in the senate and to the people, that Scipio was not only himself flying from Hannibal, but was also endeavoring to drain Italy of all its forces, and to spirit away the youth of the country to a foreign war, leaving behind them their parents, wives, and children, and the city itself, a defenceless prey to the conquering and undefeated enemy at their doors. With this he so far alarmed the people, that at last they would only allow Scipio for the war the legions which were in Sicily, and three hundred, whom he particularly trusted, of those men who had served with hinf in Spain. In these transac* tions, Fabius seems to have followed the dictates of his own wary temper. But, after that Scipio was gone over into Africa, when news almost immediately came to Rome of wonderful exploits and victories, of which the fame was confirmed by the spoils he sent home ; of a Numidian king taken prisoner ; of a vast slaughter of their men ; of two camps of the enemy burnt and destroyed, and in them a great quantity of arms and horses j 296 FABIUS. and when, hereupon, the Carthaginians were compelled to send envoys to Hannibal to call him home, and leave his idle hopes in Italy, to defend Carthage ; when, for such eminent and transcending services, the whole people of Rome cried up and extolled the actions of Scipio ; even then, Fabius contended that a successor should be sent in his place, alleg- ing for it only the old reason of the mutability of fortune, as f she would be weary of long favoring the same person. With this language many did begin to feel offended ; it seem- ed to be morosity and ill-will, the pusillanimity of old age, or a fear, that had now become exaggerated, of the skill of Han- nibal. Nay, when Hannibal had put his army on shipboard, and taken jhis leave of Italy, Fabius still could not forbear to oppose and disturb the universal joy of Rome, expressing his fears and apprehensions, telling them that the commonwealth was never in more danger than now, and that Hannibal was a more formidable enemy under the walls of Carthage than ever he had been in Italy ; that it would be fatal to Rome whenever Scipio should encounter his victorious army, still warm with the blood of so many Roman generals, dictators, and consuls slain. And the people were, in some degree, startled with these declamations, and were brought to believe that the further off Hannibal was, the nearer was their dan- ger. Scipio, however, shortly afterwards fought Hannibal, and utterly defeated him, humbled the pride of Carthage be- neath his feet, gave his countrymen joy and exultation beyond all their hopes, and Long shaken on the seas restored the state.” Fabius Maximus, however, did not live to see the pros- perous end of this war, and the final overthrow of Hannibal, nor to rejoice in the re-established happiness and security of the commonwealth ; for about the time that Hannibal left Italy, he fell sick and died. At Thebes, Epaminondas died so poor that he was buried at the public charge ; one small iron coin was all, it is said, that was found in his house. Fabius did not need this, but the people, as a mark of their affection, defrayed the expenses of his funeral by a private contribution from each citizen of the smallest piece of coin j thus owning him their common father, and making his end no less honorable than his life. PERICLES AND FABIUS. 29? COMPARISON OF FABIUS WITH PERICLES. We have here had two lives rich in examples, both of ci t/ll and military excellence. Let us first compare the two men in their warlike capacity. Pericles presided in his common- wealth when it was in its most flourishing and opulent condi- tion, great and growing in power ; so that it may be thought it was rather the common success and fortune that kept him from any fall or disaster. But the task of Fabius, who under- took the government in the worst and most difficult times, was not to preserve and maintain the well-established felicity of a prosperous state, but to raise and uphold a sinking and ruinous commonwealth. Besides, the victories of Cimon, the trophies of Myronides and Leocrates, with the many famous exploits of Tolmides, were employed by Pericles rather to fill the city with festive entertainments and solemnities than to enlarge and secure its empire. Whereas Fabius, when he took upon him the government, had the frightful object before his eyes of Roman armies destroyed, of their generals and consuls slain, of lakes and plains and forests strewed wdth the dead bodies, and rivers stained with the blood of his fellow- citizens ; and yet, wuth his mature and solid councils, with the firmness of his resolution, he, as it were, put his shoulder to the falling commonwealth, and kept it up from foundering through the failings and weakness of others. Perhaps it may be more easy to govern a city broken and tamed with calami- ties and adversity, and compelled by danger and necessity to lis- ten to w'isdom, than to set a bridle on wantonness and temerity, and rule a people pampered and restive with long prosperity &s were the Athenians when Pericles held the reins of govern- ment. But then again, not to be daunted nor discomposed with the vast heap of calamities under which the people of Rome at that time groaned and succumbed, argues a courage in Fabius and a strength of purpose more than ordinary. We may set Tarentum retaken against Samos won by Peri- cles, and the conquest of Euboea we may well balance with the towns of Campania ; though Capua itself was reduced by the consuls Fulvius and Appius. I do not find that Fabius won any set battle but that against the Ligurians, for which he PERICLES AND FABIUS. 298 had his triumph : whereas Pericles erected nine trophies for as many victories obtained by land and by sea. B it no ac- tion of Pericles can be compared to that memorable rescue of Minucius, when Fabius redeemed both him and his army from utter destruction ; a noble act, combining the highest valor, wisdom, and humanity. On the other side, it does not appear that Pericles was ever so overreached as Fabius was by I'lannibal with his flaming oxen. His enemy there had, without his agency, put himself accidentally into his power, yet Fabius let him slip in the night, and, when day came, was worsted by him, was anticipated in the moment of success, and mastered by his prisoner. If it is the part of a good general, not only to provide for the present, but also to have a clear foresight of things to come, in this point Pericles is the superior ; for he admonished the Athenians, and told them beforehand the ruin the war would bring upon them, by their grasping more than they were able to manage. But Fabius was not so good a prophet, when he denounced to the Romans that the undertaking of Scipio would be the destruc- tion of the commonwealth. So that Pericles was a good prophet of bad success, and Fabius was a bad prophet of success that was good. And, indeed, to lose an advantage through diffidence is no less blamable in a general than to fall into danger for want of foresight ; for both these faults, though of a contrary nature, spring from the same root, want of judgment and experience. As for their civil policy, it is imputed to Pericles that he occasioned the war, since no terms of peace, offered by the Lacedsemonians, would content him. It is true, I presume, that Fabius, also, was not for yielding any point to the Cartha- ginians, but was ready to hazard all, rather than lessen the empire of Rome. The mildness of Fabius towards his col- league Minucius does, by way of comparison, rebuke and condemn the exertions of Pericles to banish Cimon and Thucy- dides, noble, aristocratic men, who by his means suffered ostracisih. The authority of Pericles in Athens was much greater than that of Fabius in Rome. Hence it was more easy for him to prevent miscarriages arising from the mistakes and insufficiency of other officers ; only Tolmides broke loose from him, and contrary to his persuasions, unadvisedly fought with the Boeotians, and was slain. The greatness of his in- fluence made all others submit and conform themselves to his judgment. Whereas Fabius, sure and unerring himself, for want of that general power, had not the means to obviate ALCIBIADES . 299 the miscarriages of others ; but it had been happy for the Romans if his authority had been greater, for so, we may pre- sume, their disasters had been fewer. As to liberality and public spirit, Pericles was eminent in never taking any gifts, and Fabius, for giving his ovn money to ransom his soldiers, though the sum did not exceed six talents. Than Pericles, meantime, no man had ever greater opportunities to enrich himself, having had presents offered him from so many kings and princes and allies, yet no man was ever more free from corruption. And for the beauty and magnificence of temples and public edifices with which he adorned his country, it must be confessed, that all the orna- ments and structures of Rome, to the time of the Caesars, had nothing to compare, either in greatness of design or of ex- pense, with the lustre of those which Pericles only erected at Athens. ALCIBIADES. Alcibiades, as it is supposed, was anciently descended from Eurysaces, the son of Ajax, by his father’s side ; and by his mother’s side from Alcmaeon. Dinomache, his mother, was the daughter of Megacles. His father, Clinias, having fitted out a galley at his own expense, gained great honor in the sea-fight at Artemisinin, and was afterwards slain in the battle of Coronea, fighting against the Boeotians. Pericles and Ariphron, the sons of Xanthippus, nearly related to him, became the guardians of Alcibiades. It has been said not untruly that the friendship which Socrates felt for him has much contributed to his fame ; and certain it is, that, though we have no account from any writer concerning the mother of Nicias or Demosthenes, of Lamachus or Phormion, of Thras- } bulus or Theramenes, notwithstanding these were all illustri- ous men of the same period, yet we know even the nurse of Alcibiades,'that her country was Lacecteemon, and her name Amycla ; and that Zopyrus was his teacher and attendant ; the one being recorded by Antisthenes, and the other by Plato. It is not, perhaps, material to say any thing of the beauty of Alcibiades, only that it bloomed with him in all the, ages of his life, in his infancy, in his youth, and in his manhood ; and, in the peculiar character becoming to each of these 300 ALCIBIADES. periods, gave him, in every one of them, a grace and a charm What Euripides says, that ** Of all fair things the autumn, too, is fair,” is by no means universally true. But it happened so with Alcibiades, amongst few others, by reason of his happy con* stitution and natural vigor of body. It is said that his lisp- ing, when he spoke, became him well, and gave a grace and persuasiveness to his rapid speech. Aristophanes takes no- tice of it in the verses in which he jests at Theorus ; ‘‘ How like a colax he is/’ says Alcibiades, meaning a corax; on which it is remarked, “ How very happily he lisped the truth.” Archippus also alludes to it in a passage where he ridicules the son of Alcibiades : That people may believe him like his father, He walks like one dissolved in luxury, Lets his robe trail behind him on the ground, C arelessly leans his head, and in his talk Affects to lisp.” His conduct displayed many great inconsistencies - and variations, not unnaturally, in accordance with the many and wonderful vicissitudes of his fortunes ; but among the many strong passions of his real character, the one most prevailing of all was his ambition and desire of superiority, which appears in several anecdotes told of his sayings whilst he was a child. Once being hard pressed in wrestling, and fearing to be thrown, he got the hand of his antagonist to his mouth, and bit it with all his force ; and when the other loosed his hold presently, and said, “ You bite, Alcibiades, like a woman.” “No,” replied he, “like a lion.” Another time as he pla}’ed at dice in the street, being then but a child, a loaded cart came that way, when it was his turn to throw ; at first he called to the driver to stop, because he was to throw in the way over which the cart was to pass j but the man giving him no atten^ tion and driving on, when the rest of the boys divided and gave way, Alcibiades threw himself on his face before the cart, and, stretching himself out, bade the carter pass on now if he would j which so startled the man, that he put back his horses, while all that saw it were terrified, and, crying out, ran to assist Alcibiades. When he began to study, he obeyed all his other masters fairly well, but refused to learn upon the flute, as a sordid thing, and not becoming a free citizen \ saying, ALCIBIADES. 301 lhat to play on the lute or the harp does not in any way disfigure a man’s body or face, but one is hardly to be known by the most intimate friends, when playing on the flute. Be- sides, one who plays on the harp may speak or sing at the same time ; but the use of the flute stops the mouth, intercepts the roice, and prevents all articulation. “ Therefore,” said he, let the Theban youths pipe, who do not know how to speak, but we Athenians, as our ancestors have told us, have Minerva for our patroness, and Apollo for our protector, one of whom threw away the flute, and the other stripped the Flute-player of his skin.” Thus, between raillery and good earnest, Alci- biades kept not only himself but others from learning, as it presently became the talk of the young boys, how Alcibiades despised playing on the flute, and ridiculed those who studied it. In consequence of which, it ceased to be reckoned amongst the liberal accomplishments, and became generally neglected. It is stated in the invective which Antiphon wrote against Alcibiades, that once, when he was a boy, he ran away to the house of Democrates, one of those who made a favorite of him, and that Ariphron had determined to cause proclamation to be made for him, had not Pericles diverted him from it, by saying, that if he were dead, the proclaiming of him could only cause it to be discovered one day sooner, and if he were safe, it would be a reproach to him as long as he lived. An- tiphon also says, that he killed one of his own servants with the blow of a staff in Sibyrtius’s wrestling ground. But it is unreasonable to give credit to all that is objected by an enemy, who makes open profession of his design to defame him. It was manifest that the many well-born persons who were continually seeking his company, and making their court to him, were attracted and captivated by his brilliant and ex- traordinary beauty only. But the affection which Socrates entertained for him is a great evidence of the natural noble qualities and good disposition of the boy, which Socrates, in- deed, detected both in and under his personal beauty ; and, fearing that his wealth and station, and the great number both of strangers and Athenians who flattered and caressed him, might at last corrupt him, resolved, if possible, to interpose, and preserve so hopeful a plant from perishing in the flower, before its fruit came to perfection. For never did fortune sur- round and enclose a man with so many of those things which we vulgarly call goods, or so protect him from every weapon of philosophy, and fence him from every access of free and 302 ALCIBIADES. searching words, as she did Alcibiades ; who, from the begin- ning, was exposed to the flatteries of those who sought merely his gratification, such as might well unnerve him, and indis- pose him to listen to any real adviser or instructor. Yet such was the happiness of his genius, that he discerned Socrates from the rest, and admitted him, whilst he drove away the wealthy and the noble who made court to him. And, in a little time, they grew intimate, and Alcibiades, listening now to language entirely free from every thought of unmanly fond- ness and silly displays of affection, finding himself with one who sought to lay open to him the deficiencies of his mind, and repress his vain and foolish arrogance, ** Dropped like the craven cock his conquered wing.” He esteemed these endeavors of Socrates as most truly a means which the gods made use of for the care and preserva- tion of youth, and began to think meanly of himself and to admire him ; to be pleased with his kindness, and to stand in awe of his virtue ; and, un wares to himself, there became form- ed in his mind that reflex image and reciprocation of Love, or Anteros, that Plato talks of. It was a matter of general wonder, when people saw him joining Socrates in his meals and his exercises, living with him in the same tent, whilst he was reserved and rough to all others who made their addresses to him, and acted, indeed, with great insolence to some of them. As in particular to Anytus, the son of Anthemion, one who was very fond of him, and invited him to an entertainment which he had prepared for some strangers. Alcibiades refused the invitation ; but, having drunk to excess at his own house with some of his companions, went thither with them to play some frolic j and, standing at the door of the room where the guests were enjoying themselves, and seeing the tables covered with gold and silver cups, he commanded his servants to take away the one-half of them, and carry them to his own house ; an i then, disdaining so much as to enter into the room himself, as soon as he had done this, went away. The company was indignant, and exclaimed at his rude and insulting conduct ; Anytus, however, said, on the contrary, he had shown great consideration and tenderness in taking only a part when he might have taken all. He behaved in the same manner to all others who courted him except only one stranger, who, as the story is told, having but a small estate, sold it all for about a hundred staters which he presented to Alcibiades, and besougli' . him to accept ALCIBIADES. 303 Alcibiades, smiling and well pleased at the thing, invited him to supper, and, after a very kind entertainment, gave him his gold again, requiring him, moreover, not to fail to be present the next day, when the public revenue was offered to farm, and to outbid all others. The man would have excused him- self, because the contract was so large, and would cost many talents , but Alcibiades, who had at that time a private pique against the existing farmers of the revenue, threatened to have him beaten if he refused. The next morning, the stran- ger, coming to the market-place, offered a talent more than the existing rate ; upon which the farmers, enraged and consulting together, called upon him to name his sureties, concluding that he could find none. The poor man, being startled at the proposal, began to retire ; but Alcibiades, standing at a distance, cried out to the magistrates, ‘‘ Set my name down, he is a friend of mine ; I will be security for him.” When the other bidders heard this, they perceived that all their contrivance was defeated ; for their way was, with the profits of the second year to pay the rent for the year preceding ; so that, not seeing any other way to extricate themselves out of the difficulty, they began to entreat the stranger, and offered him a sum of money. Alcibiades would not suffer him to accept of less than a talent ; but when that was paid down, he commanded him to relinquish the bargain, having by this de- vice relieved his necessity. Though Socrates had many and powerful rivals, yet the natural good qualities of Alcibiades gave his affection the mastery. His words overcame him so much, as to draw tears from his eyes, and to disturb his very soul. Yet sometimes he would abandon himself to flatterers, when they proposed to him varieties of pleasure, and would desert Socrates ; who, then, would .pursue him, as if he had been a fugitive slave. He despised every one else, and had no reverence or awe for anyone but him. Cleanthes the philosopher, speaking of one to whom he was attached, says his only hold on him was by his ears, while his rivals had all the others offered them ; and there is no question that Alcibiades was very easily caught by pleasures; and the expression used by Thucydides about the excesses of his habitual course of living gives occasion to be- lieve so. But those who endeavored to corrupt Alcibiades, took advantage chiefly of his vanity and ambition, and thrust him on unseasonably to undertake great enterprises, persuad- ing him, that as soon as he began to concern himself in public affairs, he would not only obscure tlie rest of the generals and 304 ALCIBIADES. statesmen, but outdo the authority and the reputation which Pericles himself had gained in Greece. But in the same‘man- ner as iron which is softened by the fire grows hard with the cold, and all its parts are closed again ; so, as often as Soc- rates observed Alcibiades to be misled by luxury or pride, he reduced and corrected him by his addresses, and made him humble and modest, by showing him in how many things he was deficient, and how very far from perfection in virtue. When he was past his childhood, he went once to a grammar- school, and asked the master for one of Homer^s books ; and he making answer that he had nothing of Homer’s, Alcibiades gave him a blow with his fist, and went away. Another school- master telling him that he had Homer corrected by himself ; How 1 ” said Alcibiades, “ and do you employ your time in teaching children to read ? You, who are able to amend Homer, may well undertake to instruct men.” Being once desirous to speak with Pericles, he went to his house, and was told there that he was not at leisure, but busied in considering how to give up his accounts to the Athenians ; Alcibiades, as he went away, said, “ It were better for him to consider how he might avoid giving up his accounts at all.” Whilst he was very young, he was a soldier in the expedi- tion against Potidaea, where Socrates lodged in the same tent with him, and stood next to him in battle. Once there hap- pened a sharp skirmish, in which they both behaved with signal bravery ; but Alcibiades receiving a wound, Socrates threw himself before him to defend him, and beyond any question saved him and his arms from the enemy, and so in all justice might have challenged the prize of valor. But the generals appearing eager to adjudge the honor to Alcibiades, because of his rank, Socrates, who desired to increase his thirst after glory of a noble kind, was the first to give evidence for him, and pressed them to crown him, and to decree to him the complete suit of armor. Afterwards, in the battle of Helium, when the Athenians were routed, and Socrates with a few others was retreating on foot, Alcibiades, who was on horse- back, observing it, would not pass on, but stayed to shelter him from the danger, and brought him safe off, though the enemy pressed hard upon them, and cut off many. But this happened some time after. He gave a box on the ear to Hipponicus, the father of Callias, whose birth and wealth made him a person of great influence and repute. And this he did unprovoked by any passion or quarrel between them, but only because, in a frolic, ALCIBIADES. 305 be had agreed with his companions to do it. People were justly offended at this insolence when it became known through the city ; but early the next morning, Alcibiades went to his house and knocked at the door, and being admitted to him, took off his outer garment, and presenting his naked body, desired him to scourge and chastise him as he pleased. Upon this Hipponicus forgot all his resentment, and not only par- doned him, but soon after gave him his daughter Hipparete in marriage Some say that it was not Hipponicus, but his son Callias, who gave Hipparete to Alcibiades, together with a portion of ten talents, and that after, when she had a child, Alcibiades forced him to give ten talents more, upon pretence that such was the agreement if she brought him any children. Afterwards, Callias, for fear of coming to his death by his means, declared, in a full assembly of the people, that, if he should happen to die without children, the state should inherit his house and all his goods. Hipparete was a virtuous and dutiful wife, but, at last, growing impatient of the outrages done to her by her husband’s continual entertaining of court- esans, as well as strangers as Athenians, she departed frorn him and retired to her brother’s house. Alcibiades seemed not at all concerned at this, and lived on still in the same luxury ; but the law requiring that she should deliver to the archon in person, and not by proxy, the instrument by which she claimed a divorce, when, in obedience to the law, she presented herself before him to perform this, Alcibiades came in, caught her up, and carried her home through the market- place, no one daring to oppose him nor to take her from him. She continued with him till her death, which happened not long after, when Alcibiades had gone to Ephesus. Nor is this violence to be thought so very enormous or unmanly.. For the law, in making her who desires to be divorced appear in public, seems to design to give her husband an opportunity of treating with her, and endeavoring to retain her. Alcibiades had a dog which cost him seventy minas, and was a very large one, and very handsome. His tail, which was his principal ornament, he caused to be cut off, and his acquaintances exclaiming at him for it, and telling him that all Athens was sorry for the dog, aud cried out upon him for this action, he laughed, and said, ‘‘Just what I wanted has hap- pened then. I wished tl e Atlienians to talk about this, that they might not say something worse of me.” Jt is said that the first time he came into the assembly was upon occasion of a largess of monc y which he made to 3o6 alcibiades. the people. This was not done by design, but as he passed along he heard a shout, and inquiring the cause, and having learned that there was a donative making to the people, he went in amongst them and gave money also. The multitude thereupon applauding him, and shouting, he was so transport- ed at it, that he forgot a quail which he had under his robe, and the bird, being frighted with the noise, flew off ; upon which the people made louder acclamations than before, and many of them started up to pursue the bird ; and one An- tiochus, a pilot, caught it and restored it to him, for which he was ever after a favorite with Alcibiades. He had great advantages for entering public life ; his noble birth, his riches, the personal courage he had shown in divers battles, and the multitude of his friends and depend- ents, threw open, so to say, folding doors for his admittance. But he did not consent to let his power with the people rest on anything, rather than on his own gift of eloquence. That he was a master in the art of speaking, the comic poets bear him witness ; and the most eloquent of public speakers, in his oration against Midias, allows that Alcibiades, among other perfections, was a most accomplished orator. If, how- ever, we give credit to Theophrastus, who of all philosophers was the most curious inquirer, and the greatest lover of history, we are to understand that Alcibiades had the highest capacity for inventing, for discerning what was the right thing to be said for any purpose, and on any occasion j but aiming not only at saying what was required, but also at saying it well, in respect, that is, of words and phrases, when these did not readily occur, he would often pause in the middle of his discourse for want of the apt word, and would be silent and stop till he could recollect himself, and had considered what to say. His expenses in horses kept for the public games, and in the number of his chariots, were matter of great observation ; never did any one but he, either private person or king, send seven charots to the Olympic games. And to have carried away at once the first, the second, and the fourth prize, as Thucydides says, or the third, as Euripides relates it, outdoes far away every distinction that ever was known or thought of in that kind. Euripides celebrates his success in this man- ner : — — But my song to you, Son of Clinias, is due Victory is noble ; how much more To do as never Greek before ; ALCIBIADES. 3^7 To obtain in the great chariot race The first, the second, and third place ; With easy step advanced to fame. To bid the herald three times claim The olive for one victor’s name.” The emulation displayed by the deputations of various states in the presents which they made to him, rendered this sue cess yet more illustrious. The Ephesians erected a tent fot him, adorned magnificently ; the city of Chios furnished him with provender for his horses and with great numbers of beasts for sacrifice ; and the Lesbians sent him wine and other pro- visions for the many great entertainments which he made. Yet in the midst of all this he escaped not without censure, occasioned either by the ill-nature of his enemies or by Lis own misconduct. For it is said, that one Diomedes, an Athe- nian, a worthy man and a friend to Alcibiades, passionately desiring to obtain the victory at the Olympic games, and having heard much of a chariot which belong to the state at Argos, where he knew that Alcibiades had great power and many friends, prevailed with him to undertake to buy the chariot. Alcibiades did indeed buy it, but then claimed it for his own, leaving Diomedes to rage at him, and to call upon the gods and men to bear witness to the injustice. It would seem there was a suit at law commenced upon this occasion, and there is yet extant an oration concerning the chariot, written by Isocrates in defence of the son of Alcibiades. But the plaintiff in this action is named Tisias, and not Diomedes. As soon as he began to intermeddle in the government, which was when he was very young, he quickly lessened the credit of all who aspired to the confidence of the people, except Phaeax, the son of Erasi stratus, and Nicias, the son of Nicera- tus, who alone could contest it with him. Nicias was arrived at a mature age, and was esteemed their first general. Phaeax was but a rising statesmen like Alcibiades ; he was descended from noble ancestors, but was his inferior, as in many other things, so, principally, in eloquence. He possessed rather the art of persuading in private conversation than of debate before the people, and was, as Eupolis said of him, “ The best of talkers, and of speakers worst.’' There is extant an oration written by Phaeax against Alcibiades, in which, amongst other things, it is said, that Alcibiades made daiiy use at his table of many gold and silver vessels, which belonged to the commonwealth, as if they had been his own, There was a certain llyperbolus, of the township of Peri 3o8 ALCIBIADES. thoedae, whom Thucydides also speaks of as a man of bad character, a general butt for the mockery of all the comic writers of the time, but quite unconcerned at the worst things they could say, and, being careless of glory, also insensible of shame; a temper which some people call boldness and courage, whereas it is indeed impudence and recklessness. He was liked by nobody, yet the people made frequent use of him, when they had a mind to -disgrace or calumniate any persons in authority. At this time, the people, by his persua- sions, were ready to proceed to pronounce the sentence of ten years’ banishment, called ostracism. This they made use of to humiliate and drive out of the city such citizens as out- did the rest in credit and power, indulging not so much per- haps their apprehensions as their jealousies in' this way. And when, at this time, there was no doubt but that the ostracism would fall upon one of those three, Alcibiades con- trived to form a coalition of parties, and, communicating his project to Nicias, turned the sentence upon Hyperbolus him- self. Others say, that it was not with Nicias, but Phseax, that he consulted, and by help of his party, procured the banish- ment of Hyperbolus, when he suspected nothing less. For, before that time, no mean or obscure person had ever fallen under that punishment, so that Plato, the comic poet, speaking of Hyperbolus, might well say. The man deserved the fate ; deny 't who can ? Yes, but the fate did not deserve the man; Not for the like of him and his slave-brands Did Athens put the sherd into our hands.” But we have given elsewhere a fuller statement of what is known to us of the matter. Alcibiades was not less disturbed at the distinctions which Nicias gained amongst the enemies of Athens than at the honors which the Athenians themselves paid to him. For though Alcibiades was the proper appointed person to receive all Lacedaemonians when they came to Athens, and had taken particular care of those that were made prisoners at Pylos, yet, after they had obtained the peace and restitution of the captiVes, by the procurement chiefly of Nicias, they paid him very special attentions. And it was commonly said in Greece, that the war was begun by Pericles, and that Nicias made an end of it, and the peace was generally called the peace of Nicias. Alcibiades was extremely annoyed at this, and being full of envy, set himself to break the league. First therefore, observing tJiat the Argives, as well out of fear as hatred to ALCIBIADES. 309 the Lacedaemonians, sought for protection against them, he gave them a secret assurance of alliance with Athens. And communicating, as well in person as by letters, with the chief advisers of the people there, he encouraged them not to fear the Lacedaemonians, nor make concessions to them, but to wait a little, and keep their eyes on the Athenians, who. already, were all but sorry they had made peace, and would soon give it up. And afterwards, when the Lacedaemonians had made a league with the Boeotians, and had not delivered up Panactum entire, as they ought to have done by the treaty, but only after first destroying it, which gave great offence to the people of Athens, Alcibiades laid hold of that opportunity to exasperate them more highly. He exclaimed fiercely against Nicias, and accused him of many things, which seemed probable enough : as that, when he was general, he made no attempt himself to capture their enemies that were shut up in the isle of Sphacteria, but, when they were afterwards made prisoners by others, he procured their release and sent them back to the Lacedaemonians, only to get favor with them ; that he would not make use of his credit with them, to prevent their entering into this confederacy with the Boeotians and Corinthians, and yet, on the other side, that he sought to stand in the way of those Greeks who were inclined to make an alliance and friendship with Athens, if the Lacedaemonians did not like it. It happened, at the very time when Nicias was by these arts brought into disgrace with the people, that ambassadors arrived from Lacedaemon, who, at their first coming, said what seemed very satisfactory, declaring that they had full powers to arrange all matters in dispute upon fair and equal terms. The council received their propositions, and the people was to assemble on the morrow to give them audience. Alcibiades grew very apprehensive of this, and contrived to gain a secret conference with the ambassadors. When they were met, he said : “ What is it you intend, you men of Sparta ? Can you be ignorant that the council always act with moderation and respect towards ambassadors, but that the people are full of ambition and great desings ? So that, if you let them know ' what full powers your commission gives you, they will urge and press you to unreasonable conditions. Quit, therefore, this indiscreet simplicity, if you expect to obtain equal terms from the Athenians, and would not have things extorted from you contrary to your inclinations, and begin to treat with the people upon some reasonable articles, not avowing yourselvet ALCIBIADES. 3to plenipotentiaries ; and I will be ready to assist vou^ out ol good-will to the Lacedaemonians.’’ When he had said thus, he gave them his oath for the performance of what he prom- ised, and by this way drew them from Nicias to rely entirely upon himself, and left them full of admiration of the dis- cernment and sagacity they had seen in him. The next day, when the people were assembled and the ambassadors intro- duced, Alcibiades, with great apparent courtesy, demanded of them, With what powers they were come ? They made an swer that they were not corne as plenipotentiaries. Instantly upon that, Alcibiades, with a loud voice, as though he had received and not done the wrong, began to call them dishonest prevaricators, and to urge that such men could not possibly come with a purpose to say or do any thing that was sincere. The council was incensed, the people were in a rage, and Nicias, who knew nothing of the deceit and the imposture, was in the greatest confusion, equally surprised and ashamed at such a change in the men. So thus the La- cedaemonian ambassadors were utterly rejected, and Alcibi- ades was declared general, who presently united the Argives, the Eleans, and the people of Mantinea, into a confederacy with the Athenians. No man commended the method by which Alcibiades ef fected all this, yet it was a great political feat 'thus to divide and shake almost all Peloponnesus, and to combine so many men in arms against the Lacedaemonians in one day before Mantinea ; and, moreover, to remove the war and the danger so far from the frontier of the Athenians, that even success would profit the enemy but little, should they be conquerors, whereas, if they were defeated, Sparta itself was hardly safe. After this battle at Matinea, the select thousand of the army of the Argives attempted to overthrow the government of the people in Argos, and make themselves masters of the city 3 and the Lacedaemonians came to their aid and abolished the democ- racv. But the people took arms again, and gained the advan- tage, and Alcibiades came in to their aid and completed the victory, and persuaded them to build long walls, and by that means to join their city to the sea, and so to bring it wholly within the reach of the Athenian power. To this purpose he procured them builders and masons from Athens, and dis- played the greatest zeal for their service, and gained no less honor and power to himself than to the commonwealth of Athens. He also persuaded the people of Patrae to join their city to the sea, by building long walls ; and when some one ALCIBIADES. 311 told them, by way of warning, that the Athenians would swal- low them up at last, Alcibiades made answer, “ Possibly it may be so, but it will be by little and little, and beginning at the feet, whereas the Lacedaemonians will begin at the head and devour you all at once.’’ Nor did he neglect either to advise the Athenians to look to their interests by land, and often put the young men in mind of the oath which they had made at Agraulos, to the effect that they would account wheat and barley, and vines and olives, to be the limits of Attica ; by which they were taught to claim a title to all land that was cultivated and productive. But with all these words and deeds, and with all this sa- gacity and eloquence, he intermingled exorbitant luxury and wantonness, in his eating and drinking and dissolute living j wore long purple robes like a woman, whjch dragged after him as he went through the market-place ; caused the planks of his galley to be cut away, that so he might lie the softer, his bed not being placed on the boards, but hanging upon girths. His shield, again, which was richly gilded, had not the usual ensigns of the Athenians, but a Cupid, holding a thunderbolt in his hand, was painted upon it. The sight of all this made the people of good repute in the city feel disgust and abhorrence, and apprehension also, at his free living, and his contempt of law, as things monstrous in themselves, and indicating designs of usurpation. Aristophanes has well expressed the people’s feeling towards him : — “ They love, and hate, and cannot do without him.’^ And still more strongly, under a figurative expression, “ Best rear no lion in your state, ^tis true ; But treat him like a lion if you do.” ''J'he truth is, his liberalities, his public shows, and other mu- ni licence to the people, which were such as nothing could ex- ceed, the glory of his ancestors, the force of his eloquence, the grace of his person, his strength of body, joined with his great courage and knowledge in military affairs, prevailed upon the Athenians to endure patiently his excesses, to indulge many things to him, and, according to their habit, to give the softest names to his faults, attributing them to youth and good nature. As, for example, he kept Agatharcus, the painter, a prisoner till he had painted his whole house, but then dis- missed him with a reward. Pie publicly struck Taureas, who exhibited certain shows in opposition to him and contended with him for the prize. He selected for himself one of ths 312 ALCIBIADES. captive Melian women, and had a son by her, whom he took care to educate. This the Athenians styled great humanity and yet he was the principal cause of the slaughter of all the inhabitants of the isle of Melos who were of age to bear arms, having spoken in favor of that decree. When Aristophon, the painter, had drawn Nemea sitting and holding Alcibiades in her arms, the multitude seemed pleased with the piece, and thronged to see it, but older people disliked and disrelished it, and looked on these things as enormities, and movements towards tyranny. So that it was not said amiss by Ar- chestratus, that Greece could not support a second Alcibi- ades. Once, when Alcibiades succeeded well in an oration which he made, and the whole assembly attended upon him to do him honor, Timon the misanthrope did not pass slightly by him, nor avoid him, as did others, but purposely met him and taking him by the hand, said, Go on boldly, my son, and in- crease in credit with the people, for thou wilt one day bring them calamities enough.” Some that were present laughed at the saying, and some reviled Timon ; but there were others upon whom it made a deep impression ; so various was the judgment which was made of him, and so irregular his own character. The Athenians, even in the lifetime of Pericles, had al- ready cast a longing eye upon Sicily ; but did not attempt any thing till after his death. Then, under pretence of aiding their confederates, they sent succors upon all occasions to those who were oppressed by the Syracusans, preparing the way for sending over a greater force. But Alcibiades was the person who inflamed this desire of theirs to the height, and prevailed with them no longer to proceed secretly, and by little and little, in their design, but to sail out with a great fleet, and undertake at once to make themselves masters of the island. He possessed the people with great hopes, and he himself entertained yet greater ; and the conquest of Sici- ly, which was the utmost bound of their ambition, was but the mere outset of his expectation. Nicias endeavored to divert the people from the expedition, by representing to them that the taking of S3Tacuse would be a work of great diflicul- ty ; but Alcibiades dreamed of nothing less than the conquest of Catharge and Libya, and by the accession of these con- ceiving himself at once made master of Italy and Peloponne- sus, seemed to look upon Sicily as little more than a magazine for the war. The young men were soon elevated with these hopes, and listened gladly to those of riper years, who talked ALCIKIADES. 3^3 wonders of the countries they were going to ; so that you might see great numbers sitting in the wrestling grounds and public places, drawing on the ground the figure of the island and the situation of Libya and Carthage. Socrates the phi- losopher and Meton the astrologer are said, however, never to have hoped for any good to the commonwealth from this war ; the one, it is to be supposed, presaging what would en- sue, by the intervention of his attendant Genius ; and the other, either upon rational consideration of the project or by use of the art of divination, conceived fears for its issue, and, feigning madness, caught up a burning torch, and seemed as if he would have set his own house on fire. Others report, that he did not take upon him to act the madman, but secret- ly in the night set his house on fire, and the next morning be- sought the people, that for his comfort, after such a calamity, they would spare his son from the expedition. By which ar- tifice, he deceived his fellow-citizens, and obtained of them what he desired. Together with Alcibiades, Nicias, much against his will, was appointed general : and he endeavored to avoid the command, not the less on account of his colleague. But the Athenians thought the war would proceed more prosper- ously, if they did not send Alcibiades free from all restraint, but tempered his heat with the caution of Nicias. This they chose the rather to do, because Lamachus, the third general, though he was of mature years, yet in several battles had ap- peared no less hot and rash than Alcibiades himself. When they began to deliberate of the number of forces, and of the manner of making the necessary provisions, Nicias made another attempt to oppose the design, and to prevent the war ; but Alcibiades contradicted him, and carried his point with the people. And one Demostratus, an orator, propos- ing to give the generals absolute power over the preparations and the whole management of the war, it was presently de- creed so. When all things were fitted for the voyage, many unlucky omens appeared. At that very time the feast of \donis happened in which the women were used to expose, in all parts of the city, images resembling dead men carried out to their burial, and to represent funeral solemnities by la- mentations and mournful songs. The mutilation, however, of the images of Mercury, most of which, in one night, had their faces all disfigured, terrified many persons who were wont to despise most things of that nature. It was given out that it was done by the Corinthians, for the sake of the Syracusans, who ALCIBIADES. 3H were their colony, in hopes that the Athenians, by such prodi- gies, might be induced to delay or abandon the war. But the re- port gained no credit with the people, nor yet the opinion of those who would not believe that there was anything ominous in the matter, but that it was only an extravagant action, commit- ted, in that sort of sport which runs into license, by wild young men coming from a debauch. Alike enraged and terrified at the thing, looking upon it to proceed from a conspiracy of per- sons who designed some commotions in the state, the council, as well as the assembly of the people, which was held fre- quently in a few days’ space, examined diligently every thing that might administer ground for suspicion. During this ex- amination, Androcles, one of the demagogues, j^roduced cer- tain slaves and strangers before them, who accused Alcibiades and' some of his friends of defacing other images in the same manner, and of having profanely acted the sacred mysteries at a drunken meeting, where one Theodorus represented the herald, Polytion the torch-bearer, and Alcibiades the chief priest, while the rest of the party appeared as candidates for initiation, and received the title of Initiates. These were the matters contained in the articles of information, which Thes salus, the son of Cimon, exhibited against Alcibiades, for his impious mockery of the goddesses, Ceres and Proserpine. The people were highly exasperated and incensed against Alcibiades upon this accusation, which being aggravated by Androcles, the most malicious of all his enemies, at first dis turbed his friends exceedingly. But when they perceived that all the seamen designed for Sicily were for him, and the soldiers also, and when the Argive and Mantinean auxiliaries, a thousand men at arms, openly declared that they had un- dertaken this distant maritime expedition for the sake of Alcibiades, and that, if he was ill used, they would all go home, they recovered their courage, and became eager to make use of the present opportunity for justifying him. At this his enemies were again discouraged, fearing lest the people should be more gentle to him in their sentence, be- cause of the occasion they had for his service. Therefore, to obviate this, they contrived that some other orators, who did not appear to be enemies to Alcibiades, but really hated him no less than those who avowed it, should stand up in the as- sembly and say, that it was a very absurd thing that one who was created general of such an army witb absolute power, after his troops were assembled, and the confederates were come, should lose the opportunity, whilst the people were ALCIBIADES. 31S cha.^sing his juoges by iOt, and appointing times for the hear- ing of the cause. And, therefore, let him set sail at once ^ good fortune attend him ; and when the war should be at an end, he might then in person make his defence according to the laws. Alcibiades perceived the malice of this postponement, and, appearing in the assembly, represented that it was monstrous for him to be sent with the command of so large an army, when he lay under such accusations and calumnies ; that he deserved to die, if he could not clear himself of the crimes ob- jected to him ; but when he had so done, and had proved his innocence, he should then cheerfully apply himself to the war, as standing no longer in fear of false accusers. But he could not prevail with the people, who commanded him to sail im- mediately. So he departed, together with the other generals, having with them near 140 galleys, 5,100 men at arms, and about 1,300 archers, slingers and light-armed men, and all the other provisions corresponding. Arriving on the coast of Italy, he landed at Rliegium, and there stated his views of the manner in which they ought to conduct the war. He was opposed by Nicias ; but La- machus being of his opinion, they sailed for Sicily forthwith, and took Catana. This was all that was done while he was there, for he was soon after recalled by the Athenians to abide his trial. At first, as we before said, there were only some slight suspicions advanced against Alcibiades, and ac- cusations by certain slaves and strangers. But afterwards, in his absence, his enemies attacked him more violently, and confounded together the breaking the images with the pro- fanation of the mysteries, as though both had been committed in pursuance of the same conspiracy for changing the govern- ment. The people proceeded to imprison ail that were ac- cused, without distinction, and without hearing them, and re- pented now, considering the importance of the charge, that they had not immediately brought Alcibiades to his trial, and given judgment against him. Any of his friends or acquaint- ance who fell into the people’s hands, whilst they were in this tury, did not fail to meet with very severe usage. Thucydides has omitted to name the informers, but others mention Dio- elides and Teucer. Amongst whom is Phrynichus, the comic poet, in whom we find the following : — O dearest Hermes 1 only do take care, And mind you do not miss your footing there ; Should you get hurt, occasion may arise For a new Dioclides to tell lies.^^ 3i6 alcibiades. To which he makes Mercury return this answer : — I will so, for I feel no inclination T j reward Teucer for more information.’^ The truth is, his accusers alleged nothing that was certain or solid against him. One of them, being asked how he knew the men who defaced the images, replying, that he saw them by the light of the moon, made a palpable mis-state- ment, for it was just new moon when the fact was committed This made all men of understanding cry out upon the thing ; but the people were as eager as ever to receive further ac- cusations, nor was their first heat at all abated, but they in- stantly seized and imprisoned every one that was accused. Amongst those who were detained in prison for their trials was Andocides the orator, whose descent the historian Hel- lanicus deduces from Ulysses. He was always supposed to hate popular government, and to support oligarchy. The chief ground of his being suspected of defacing the images was because the great Mercury, which stood near his house, and was an ancient monument of the tribe ASgei's, w^as almost the only statue of all the remarkable ones, which remained entire. For this cause, it is now called the Mercury of Andocides, all men giving it that name, though the inscrip- tion is evidence to the contrary. It happened that Ando- cides, amongst the rest who where prisoners upon the same account, contracted particular acquaintance and intimacy with one Timaeus, a person infe ior to him in repute, but of remarkable dexterity and boldness. He persuaded Andoci- des to accuse himself and some few others of this crime, urging to him that, upon his confession, he would be, by the decree of the people, secure of his pardon, whereas the event of judgment is uncertain to all men, but to great persons, such as he was, most formidable. So that it was better for him, if he regarded himself, to save his life by a falsity, than to suffer an infamous death, as really guilty of the crime, And if he had regard to the public good, it was commenda- ble to sacrifice a few suspected men, by that means to rescue many excellent persons from the fury of the people. Ando- cides was prevailed upon, and accused himself and some others, and, by the terms of the decree, obtained his pardon, while all the persons named by him, except some few who had saved themselves by flight, suffered death. To gain the greater credit to his information, he accused his own ser- vants amongst others. But notwithstanding this, the people’s ALCIBIADES. 3^7 anger was not m holly appeased ; and being now no longer diverted by the mutilators, they were at leisure to pour out their whole rage upon Alcibiades. And, in conclusion, they sent the galley named Salaminian, to recall him. But they expressly commanded those that were sent, to use no vio- lence, nor seize upon his person, but address themselves to him ir. the mildest terms, requiring him to follow them to Athens in order to abide his trial, and clear himself before the people. For they feared mutiny and sedition in the army in an enemy ^s country, which indeed it would have been easy for Alcibiades to effect, if he had wished it. For the soldiers were dispirited upon his departure, expecting for the future tedious delays, and that the war would be * drawn out into a lazy length by Nicias, when Alcibiades, who was the spur to action, was taken away. For though Laniachus was a soldier, and a man courage, pov^erty deprived him of authority and respect in the army. Alcibia- des, just upon his departure, prevented Messena from falling into the hands of the Athenians. There were some in tha" city who were upon the point of delivering it up, but he, knowing the persons, gave information to some friends of the Syracusans, and so defeated the whole contrivance. When he arrived at Thurii, he went on shore, and concealing him- self there, escaped those who searched after him. But to one who knew him, and asked him if he durst not trust his own native country, he made answer, “ In every thing else, yes ; but in a matter that touches my life, I would not even my own mother, lest she might by mistake throw in the black ball instead of the white.’’ When, afterwards, he was told that the assembly had pronounced judgment of death against him, all he said was, I will make them feel that I am alive.” The information against him was conceived in this form ; — ■ “ Thessalus, the son of Cimon, of the township of Lacia, lays information that Alcibiades, the son of Clinias of the township of the Scambonidae, has committed a crime against the goddess Ce-res. and Proserpine, by representing in derision ihe holy mysteries, and showing them to his companions in his own house. Where, being habited in such robes as are used by the chief priest when he shows the holy things, he named himself the chief priest, Polytion the torch-bearer, and Theodorus, of the township of Phegaea, the hera-ld ; and salu- ted the rest of his company as Initiates and Novices, all which was done contrary to the laws and institutions of the Eumol- pidae, and the heralds and priests of the temple at Eleusis.” 3«8 ALCIBIADES. He was condemned as contumacious upon his not ap- pearing, his property confiscated, and it was decreed that all the priests and priestesses should solemnly curse him. But one of them, Theano, the daughter of Mencn, of the townsliip of Agraule, is said to have opposed that part of the decree, saying that her holy office obliged her to make prayers, but not execrations. Aicibiades, lying under these heavy decrees and sentences, when first he fled from Thurii, passed over into Peloponnesus and remained some time at Argos. But being there in fear of his enemies, and seeing himself utterly hopeless of return to his native country, he sent to Sparta, desiring safe conduct, • and assuring them that he would make them amends by his future services for all the mischief he had done them while he was their enemy. The Spartans giving him the security he desired, he went eagerly, was well received, and, at his very first coming, succeeded in inducing them, without any further caution or delay, to send aid to the Syracusans ; and so roused and excited them, that they forthwith despatched Gylippus into Sicily to crush the forces which the Athenians had in Sicily. A second point was to renew the war upon the Athenians at home. But the third thing, and the most im- portant of all, was to make them fortify Decelea, which above every thing reduced and wasted the resources of the Athe- nians. The renown which he earned by these public services was equalled by the admiration he attracted to his private life ; he captivated and won over everybody by his conformity to Spartan habits. People who saw him wearing his hair close cut, bathing in cold water, eating coarse meal, and dining on black broth, doubted, or rather could not believe, that he ever had a cook in his house, or had ever seen a perfumer, or had worn a mantle of Milesian purple. For he had, as it was observed, this peculiar talent and artifice for gaining men's affections, that he could at once comply with and really em- brace and enter into their habits and ways of life, and change faster than the chameleon. One color, indeed, they say the chameleon cannot assume ; it cannot make itself appear white ; but Aicibiades, whether with gocd men or with bad^ could adapt himself to his company, and equally wear the appearance of virtue or vice. At Sparta, he was devoted to athletic exercises, was frugal and reserved ; in Ionia, luxuri- ous, gay, and indolent ; in Thrace, always drinking; in Thes- saly, ever on horseback ; and when he lived with TiSaphernes ALCIBIADES. 319 the Persian satrap, he exceeded the Persians themselves in magnificence and pomp. Not that his natural disposition changed so easily, nor that his real character was so variable, but. whenever he was sensible that by pursuing his own inclinations he might give offence to those with whom he had occasion to converse, he transformed himself into any shape, and adopted any fashion, that he observed to be most agree- able to them. So that to have seen him at Lacedaemon, a man, judging by the outward appearance, would have said, “ Tis not Achilles’s, son, but he himself ; the very man ’’ that Lycurgus designed to form ; while his real feeling and acts would have rather provoked the exclamation, “ ’Tis the same woman still.” For while king Agis was absent, and abroad with the army, he corrupted his wife Timaea, and had a child born by her. Nor did she even deny it, but when she was brought to bed of a son, called him in public Leotychides, but, amongst her confidants and attendants, would whisper that his name was Alcibiades. To such a degree was she transported by her passion for him. He, on the other side, would say, in his vain way, he had not done this thing out of mere wantonness of insult, nor to gratify a passion, but that his race might one day be kings over the Lacedaemonians. There were many who told Agis that this was so, but time itself gave the greatest confirmation to the story. For Agis, alarmed by an earthquake, had quitted his wife, and for ten months after was never with her ; Leotychides, therefore, being born after these ten months, he would not acknowledge him for his son ; which was the reason that afterwards he was not admitted to the succession. After the defeat which the Athenians received in Sicily, ambassadors were despatched to Sparta at once from Chios and Lesbos and Cyzicus, to signify their purpose of revolting from the Athenians. The Boeotians interposed in favor of the Lesbians, and Pharnabazus of the Cyzicenes, but the Lacedaemonians, at the persuasion of Alcibiades, chose to assist Chios before all others. He himself, also, went in- stantly to sea, procured the immediate revolt of almost all Ionia, and, cooperating with the Lacedaemonian generals, did great mischief to the Athenians. But Agis was his enemy, hating him for having dishonored his wife, and also impatient of his glory, as almost every enterprise and every success was ascribed to Alcibiades. Others, also, of the most powerful and ambitious amongst the Spartans, were possessed with jealousy of him, and at last, prevailed with the magistrates in 320 ALCIBIADES. t-he city to send orders into Ionia that he should be killed. Alcibiades, however, had secret intelligence of this, and in apprehension of the result, while he communicated all affairs to the Lacedaemonians, yet took care not to put himself into their power. At last he retired to Tisaphernes, the king of Persia’s satrap, for his security, and immediately became the first and most influential person about him. For this bar- barian, not being himself sincere, but a lover of guile and u ickedness, admired his address r.nd wonderful subtlety. And, indeed, the charm of daily intercourse with him was more than any character could resist or any disposition escape. Even those who feared and envied him could not but take delight, and have a sort of kindness for him, when they saw him and were in his company. So that Tisaphernes, other- wise a cruel character, and, above all other Persians, a hater of the Greeks, was yet so won by the flatteries of Alcibiades, that he set himself even to exceed him in responding to them. The most beautiful of his parks, containing salubrious streams and meadows, where he had built pavilions, and places of retirement royally and exquisitely adorned, received by his direction the name of Alcibiades, and was always so called and so spoken of. Thus Alcibiades, quitting the interests of the Spartans, whom he could no longer trust, because he stood in fear of Agis, endeavored to do them ill offices, and render them odious to Tisaphernes, who by his means, was hindered from assisting them vigorously, and from finally ruining the Athe- nians. For his advice was to furnish them but sparingly with money, and so wear them out, and consume them insensibly ; when they had wasted their strength upon one another, they would both become ready to submit to the king. Tisaphernes readily pursued his counsel, and so openly expressed the liking and admiration which he had for him, that Alcibiades was looked up to by the Greeks of both parties, and the Athenians, now in their misfortunes, repented them of their severe sentence against him. And he, on the other side, began to be troubled for them, and to fear lest, if that com- monwealth were utterly destroyed, he should fall into the hands of the Lacedaemonians, his enemies. At that time the whole strength of the Athenians was in Samos. Their fleet maintained itself here, and issued from these head -quarters to reduce such as had revolted, and pro- tect the rest of their territories ; in one way or other still contriving to be a match for their enemies at sea. What ALCIBIADES. 321 ^hey stood hi har of W3,$ Tisaphernes and the Phoenician fleet of one hundred and fifty galleys, which was said to be already under sail ; if those came, there remained then no hopes for the commonwealth of Athens. Understanding this, Alcibiades sent secretly to the chief men of the Athenian?, who were then at Samos, giving them hopes that he would fnake Tisaphernes their friend ; he was willing, he implied, to do some favor, not to the people, nor in reliance upon them, but to the better citizens, if only, lil e brave men, they would make the attempt to put down the insolence of the oeople, and, by taking upon them the government, would en- deavor to save the city from ruin. All of them gave a ready ear to the proposal made by Alcibiades, except only Phryni- chus, of the township of Dirades, one of the generals, who suspected, as the truth was, that Alcibiades concerned not himself whether the government were in the people or the better citizens, but only sought by any means to make way for his return into his native country, and to that end inveighed against the people, thereby to gain the others, and to insinu- ate himself into their good opinion. But when Phrynichus found his counsel to be rejected and that he was himself become a declared enemy of Alcibiades, he gave secret intel- ligence to Astyochus, the enemy’s admiral, cautioning him to beware of Alcibiades and to seize him as a double dealer, unaware that one traitor was making discoveries to another. For Astyochus, who was eager to gain the favor of Tisapher- nes, observing the credit Alcibiades had with him, revealed to Alcibiades all that Phrynichus had said against him. Alcibiades at once despatched messengers to Samos, to accuse Phrynichus of the treachery. Upon this, all the commanders were enraged with Phrynichus, and set themselves against him, and he, seeing no other way to extricate himself from the present danger, attempted to remedy one evil by a greater. He sent to Astyochus to reproach him for betraying him, and to make an offer to him at the same time, to deliver into his hands both the army and the navy of the Athenians. This occasioned no damage to the Athenians, because Astyochus repeated his treachery and revealed also this proposal to Alcibiades. But this again was foreseen by Phrynichus, who, expecting a second accusation from Alcibiades, to anticipate him, advertised the Athenians beforehand that the enemy was ready to sail in order to surprise them, and therefore advised them to fortify their camp, and be in a readiness to go aboard their ships. While the Athenians were intent upon 322 ALCIBTADfCS. doin^ these things, they received other letters from Akibia- des, admonishing them to beware of Phrynichus, as one who designed to betray their fleet to the enemy, to which they then gave no credit at all, conceiving that Alcibiades, who knew perfectly the counsels and preparations of the enemy, was merely making use of that knowledge, in order to impose upon them in this false accusation of Phrynichus. Yet, after- wards, when Phrynichus was stabbed with a dagger in the market-place by Hermon, one of the guards, the Athenians, entering into an examination of the cause, solemnly condemned Phrynichus of treason, and decreed crowns to Hermon and his associates. And now the friends of Alcibiades, carrying all before them at Samos, despatched Pisander to Athens, to attempt a change of government, and to encourage the aristocratical citizens to take upon themselves the government, and overthrow the democracy, representing to them, that upon these terms, Alcibiades would procure them the friend- ship and alliance of Tisaphernes. This was the color and pretence made use of by those who desired to change the government of Athens to an oli- garchy. But as soon as they prevailed, and had got the ad- ministration of affairs into their hands, under the name of the Five Thousand (whereas, indeed, they were but four hun- dred), they slighted Alcibiades altogether, and prosecuted the war with less vigor ; partly because they durst not yet trust the citizens, who secretly detested this change, and partly because they thought the Lacedaemonians, who always be- friended the government of the few, would be inclined to give them favorable terms. The people in the city were terrified into submission, many of those who had dared openly to oppose the four hundred having been put to death. But those who were at Samos, indignant when they heard this news, were eager to set sail instantly for the Piraeus ; sending for Alcibiades, they de- clared him general, requiring him to lead them on to put down the tyrants. He, however, in that juncture, did not, as it might have been thought a man would, on being suddenly exalted by the favor of a multitude, think himself under an obligation to gratify and submit to all the wishes of those who, from a fugitive and an exile, had created him general of so great an army, and given him the command of such a fleet. But, as became a great captain, he opposed himself to the precipitate resolutions which their rage led them to, and, by restraining them from the great error they were about to com ALCIBIADES. 323 mit, unequivocally saved the commonwealth. For if they then sailed to Athens, all Ionia and the islands and the Hellespont would have fallen into the enemies’ hands without opposition, while the Athenians, involved in civil war, would have been fighting with one another within the circuit of their own walls. It was Alcibiades alone, or, at least, principally, who prevent- ed all this mischief ; for he not only used persuasion to the whole army, and showed them the danger, but applied him- self to them, one by one, entreating some, and constraining others. He was much assisted, however, by Thrasybulus of Stiria, who having the loudest voice, as we are told, of all the Athenians, went along with him, and cried out to those who were ready to be gone. A second great service which Alcibia- des did for them was, his undertaking that the Phoenician fleet, which the Lacedaemonians expected to be sent to them by the king of Persia, should either come in aid of the Athenians or otherwise should not come at all. He sailed off with all expedition in order to perform this, and the ships, which had already been seen as near as Aspendus, were not brought any further by Tisaphernes, who thus deceived the Lacedae- monians ; and it was by both sides believed that they had been diverted by the procurement of Alcibiades. The Lace- daemonians, in particular, accused him, that he had advised the Barbarian to stand still, and suffer the Greeks to waste and destroy one another, as it was evident that the accession of so great a force to either party would enable them to take away the entire dominion of the sea from the other side. Soon after this, the four hundred usurpers were driven out, the friends of Alcibiades vigorously assisting those who were for the popular government. And now the people in the city not only desired, but commanded Alcibiades to return home from his exile. He, however, desired not to owe his return to the mere grace and commiseration of the people, and resolved to come back, not with empty hands, but with glory, and after some service done. To this end, he sailed from Samos with a few ships, and cruised on the sea of Cnidos, and about the isle of Cos ; but receiving intelligence there that Mindanis, the Sj)artan admiral, had sailed with his whole army into he Hellespont, and that the Athenians had followed him, he hurried back to succor the Athenian commanders, and, by good fortune, arrived with eighteen galleys at a critical time. For both the fleets having engaged near Abydos, the fight between them had lasted till night, the one side having the advantage on one quarter, and the other on another 324 ALCIBIADES. Upon his first appearance, both sides formed a false impres^ sion ; the enemy was encouraged and the Athenians terrified. But Alcibiadcs suddenly raised the Athenian ensign in the ad- miral ship, and fell upon those galleys of the Peloponnesians which had the advantage and were in pursuit. He soon put these to flight, and followed them so close that he forced them on shore, and broke the ships in pieces, the sailors abandon- ing them and swimming away in spite of all the efforts of Pharnabazus, who had come down to their assistance by land, and did what he could to protect them from the shore. In fine, the Athenians, having taken thirty of the enemy’s ships, and recovered all their own, erected a trophy. After the gaining of so glorious a victory, his vanity made him eager to show himself to Tisaphernes, and, having furnished himself with gifts and presents, and an equipage suitable to his dignity, he set out to visit him. But the thing did not succeed as he had im- agined, for Tisaphernes had been long suspected by the Lace- daemonians, and was afraid to fall into disgrace with his king upon that account, and therefore thought that Alcibiades ar- rived very opportunely, and immediately caused him to be seized, and sent away prisoner to Sardis ; fancying, by this act of injustice, to clear himself from all former imputations. But about thirty days after, Alcibiades escaped from his keeping, and having got a horse, fled to Clazomenae, where he procured Tisaphernes additional disgrace by professing he was a party to his escape. From there he sailed to the Athe- nian camp, and, being informed there that Mindarus and Phar- nabazus were together at Cyzicus, he made a speech to the soldiers, telling them that sea-fighting, land-fighting, and, by the gods, fighting against fortified cities too, must be all one for them, as unless they conquered everywhere, there was no money for them. As soon as ever he got them on shipboard, he hasted to Proconnesus, and gave command to seize all the small vessels they met, and guard them safely in the interioi of the fleet, that the enemy might have no notice of his com- ing ; and a great storm of rain, accompanied with thunder and darkness, which happened at the same time, contributed much to the concealment of his enterprise. Indeed, it was not only undiscovered by the enemy, but the Athenians them- selves were ignorant of it, for he commanded them suddenly on board, and set sail when they had abandoned all intention of it. As the darkness presently passed away, the Pelopon- nesian fleet were seen riding out at Sea in front of the harbor of Cyzicus. Fearing, if they discovered the number of hig \LCIBIADES. 325 ships, they might endeavor to save themselves by land, he commanded the rest of the captains to slacken, and follow him slowly, whilst he, advancing with forty ships showed him- self to the enemy, and provoked them to fight. The enemy, being deceived as to their numbers, despised them, and, sup- posing they were to contend with those only, made them- selves ready and began the fight. But as soon as they were engaged, they perceived the other part of the fleet coming down upon them, at which they were so terrified that they fled immediately. Upon that, Alcibiades, breaking through the midst of them with twenty of his best ships, hastened to the shore, disembarked, and pursued those who abandoned their ships and fled to land, and made a great slaughter of them. Mindarus and Pharnabazus, coming to their succor, were utterly defeated. Mindarus was slain upon the place, fight- ing valiantly ; Pharnabazus saved himself by flight. The Athenians slew great numbers of their enemies, won much spoil, and took all their ships. They also made themselves masters of Cyzicus, which was deserted by Pharnabazus, and destroyed its Peloponnesian garrison, and thereby not only secured to themselves the Hellespont, but by force drove the Lacedaemonians from out of all the rest of the sea. They in- tercepted some letters written to the ephors, which gave an account of this fatal overthrow, after their short laconic man- ner. “ Our hopes are at an end. Mindarus is slain. The men starve. We know not what to do.'’ The soldiers who followed Alcibiades in this last fight were so exalted with their success, and felt that degree of pride, that, looking on themselves as invincible, they dis- dained to mix with the other soldiers, who had been often overcome. For it happened not long before, Thrasyllus had received a defeat near Ephesus, and, upon that occasion, the Ephesians erected their brazen trophy to the disgrace of the Athenians. The soldiers of Alcibiades reproached those who %'ere under the command of Thrasyllus with this misfor- tune, at the same time magnifying themselves and their own commander, and it went so far that they would not exercise with them, nor lodge in the same quarters. But soon after, Pharnabazus, with a great force of horse and foot, falling upon the soldiers of Thrasyllus, as they were laying waste the territory of Abydos, Alcibiades came to their aid, routed Pharnabazus, and together with Thrasyllus pursued him till it was night ; and in this action the troops united, and returned together to the camp, rejoicing and congratulating one another. 326 ALCIBIADES. The next day he erected a trophy, and then proceeded to lay waste with fire and sword the whole province which was under Pharnabazus where none ventured to resist ; and he took divers priests and priestesses, but released them without ransom. He prepared next to attack the Chalcedonians, who liad revolted from the Athenians, and had received a Lace- (iremonian governor and garrison. But having intelligence that they had removed their corn and cattle out of the fields, aiid were conveying it all to the Bithynians, who were their friends, he drew down his army to the frontier of the Bithynians, and then sent a herald to charge them with this proceeding. The Bithynians, terrified at his approach, delivered up to him the booty, and entered into alliance with him. Afterwards he proceeded to the siege of Chalcedon, and enclosed it with a wall from sea to sea. Pharnabazus ad- vanced with his forces to raise the siege, and Hippocrates, the governor of the town, at the same time, gathering together all the strength he had, made a sally upon the Athenians. Alcibiades divided his army so as to engage both at once, and not only forced Pharnabazus to a dishonorable flight, but defeated Hippocrates, and killed him and a number of the soldiers with him. After this he sailed into the Hellespont, in order to raise supplies of money, and took the city of Selym- bria, in which action, through his precipitation, he exposed himself to great danger. For some within the town had un- dertaken to betray it into his hands, and, by agreement, were to give him a signal by a lighted torch about midnight. But one of the conspirators beginning to repent himself of the design, the rest, for fear of being discovered, were driven to give the signal before the appointed hour. Alcibiades, as soon as he saw the torch lifted up in the air, though his army was not in readiness to march, ran instantly towards the walls, taking with him about thirty men only, and commanding the rest of the army to follow him with all possible speed. When he came thither, he found the gate opened for him and entered with his thirty men, and about twenty more light-armed men, who were come up to them. They were no sooner in the city, but he perceived the Selymbrians all armed, coming down upon him ; so that there was no hope of escaping if he stayed to receive them ; and, on the other hand, having been always successful till that day, wherever he commanded, he could not endure to be defeated and fly. So, requiring silence by sound of a trumpet, he commanded one of his men to ALCIBIADES. 327 make proclamation that the Selymbrians should not take arms against the Athenians. This cooled such of the inhabitants as were fiercest for the fight, for they supposed that all their enemies were within the walls, and it raised the hopes of others who were disposed to an accommodation. Whilst they were parleying, and propositions making on one side and the other, Alcibiades's whole army came up to the town. And now, conjecturing rightly, that the Selymbrians were well in- clined to peace, and fearing lest the city might be sacked by the Thracians, who came in great numbers to his army to serve as volunteers, out of kindness for him, he commanded them all to retreat without the walls. And upon the submis- sion of the Selymbrians, he saved them from being pillaged, only taking of them a sum of money, and, after placing an Athenian garrison in the town, departed. During this action, the Athenian captains who besieged Chalcedon concluded a treaty with Pharnabazus upon these articles : That he should give them a sum of money ; that the Chalcedonians should return to the subjection of Athens and that the Athenians should make no inroad into the prov- ince whereof Pharnabazus was governor; and Pharnabazus was also to provide safe conducts for the Athenian ambassa- dors to the king of Persia. Afterwards, when Alcibiades re- turned thither, Pharnabazus required that he also should be sworn to the treaty ; but he refused it, unless Pharnabazus would swear at the same time. When the treaty was sworn to on both sides, Alcibiades went against the Byzantines, who had revolted from the Athenians, and drew a line of cir- cumvallation about the city. But Anaxilaus and Lycurgus, together with some others, having undertaken to betray the city to him upon his engagement to preserve the lives and property of the inhabitants, he caused a report to be spread abroad, as if by reason of some unexpected movement in Ionia, he should be obliged to raise the siege. And, accord- ingly, that day he made a show to depart with his whole fleet ; but returned the same night, and went ashore with all his men at arms, and silently and undiscovered, marched up to the walls. At the same time, his ships rowed into the harbor with all possible violence, coming on with much fury, and with great shouts and outcries. The Byzantines, thus surprised and astonished, while they all hurried to the defence of their port and shipping, gave opportunity to those who favored the Athenians, securely to receive Alcibiades into the city. Yet the enterprise was not accomplished without fight- 32S ALCIBIADES. ing, for the Peloponnesians, Boeotians, amd Megarians, not only repulsed those who came out of the ships, and forced them on board again, but, hearing that the Athenians were entered on the other side, drew up in order, and went to meet them. Alcibiades, however, gained the victory after some sharp fighting, in which he himself had the command of the right wing, and Theramenes of the left, and took about three hundred, who survived of the enemy, prisoners of war. After the battle, not one of the Byzantines was slain, or driven out of the city, according to tke terms upon which the city was put into his hands, that they should receive no prejudice in life or property. And thus Anaxilaus, being afterwards accused at Lacedaemon for this treason, neither disowned nor professed to be ashamed of the action ; for he urged that he was not a Lacedaemonian, but a Byzantine, and saw not Sparta, but Byzantium, in extreme danger ; the city so blockaded that it was not possible to bring in any new provisions, and the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, who were in garrison de- vouring the old stores, whilst the B37-zantines, with their v/ives and children, were starving, that he had not, therefore, be- trayed his country to enemies, but had delivered it from the calamities of war, and had but followed the example of the most worthy Lacedaemonians, who esteemed nothing to be honorable and just, but what was profitable for their country. The Lacedaemonians, upon hearing his defence, respected it, and discharged all that were accused. And now Alcibiades began to desire to see his native country again, or rather to show his fellow-citizens a person who had gained so many victories for them. He set sail for Athens, the ship that accompanied him being adorned with great numbers of shields and other spoils, and towing after them many galleys taken from the enemy, and the ensigns and ornaments of many others which he had sunk and de- stroyed j all of them together amounting to two hundred. Little credit, perhaps, can be given to whatDuris the Samian, who professed to be descended from Alcibiades, adds, that Chrysogonus, who had gained a victory at the Pythian games, played upon his flute for the galleys, whilst the oars kept time wdth the music ; and that Callippides, the tragedian, attired in his buskirs, his purple robes, and other ornaments used in the theatre, gave the word to the rowers, and that the admiral galley entered into the port with a purple sail. Neither Theopompus, nor Ephorus, nor Xenophon, mention them. Nor, indeed, is it credible, that one who returned ALCIBIADES. 329 from so long an exile, and such variety of misfortunes, should come home to his countrymen in the style of revellers break- ing up from a drinking-party. On the contrary, he ventured the harbor full of fear, nor would he venture to go on shore, till, standing on the deck, he saw Euryptolemus, his cousin, and others of his friends and acquaintance, who were ready to receive him, and invited him to land. As soon as he was landed, the multitude who came out to meet him scarcely seemed so much as to see any of the other captains, but came in throngs about Alcibiades, and saluted him with loud ac- clamations, and still followed him ; those who could press near him crowned him with garlands, and they who could not come up so close yet stayed to behold him afar off, and the old men pointed him out, and showed him to the young ones. Nevertheless, this public joy was mixed with some tears, and the present happiness was allayed by the remembrances of the miseries they had endured. They made reflections, that they could not have so unfortunately miscarried in Sicily, or been defeated in any of their other expectations, if they had left the management of their affairs formerly, and the com- mand of their forces, to Alcibiades, since, upon his undertak- ing the administration, when they were in a manner driven from the sea, and could scarce defend the suburbs of their city by land, and, at the same time, were miserably distracted with intestine factions, he had raised them up from this low and deplorable condition, and had not only restored them to their ancient dominion of the sea, but had also made them everywhere victorious over their enemies on land. There had been a decree for recalling him from his banish- ment already passed by the people, at the instance of Critias, the son of Callaeschrus, as appears by his elegies, in which he puts Alcibiades in mind of this service : — From my proposal did that edict come, Which from your tedious exile brought you home The public vote at first was moved by me, And my voice put the seal to the decree. The people being summoned to an assembly, Alcibiades came in amongst them, and first bewailed and lamented his own sufferings, and, in gentle terms complaining of the usage he had received, imputed all to his hard fortune, and some ill genius that attended him : then he spoke at large of their prospects, and exhorted them to courage and good hope. The people crowned him with crowns of gold, and created him general, both at land and sea, with absolute power. 330 ALCIBIADES. They also made a decree tliat his estate should be restored to him, and that the Eumolpidae and the holy herald should absolve him from the curses which they had solemnly pro- nounced against him by sentence of the people. Which when all the rest obeyed, Theodorus, the high-priest, excused himself, For,’’ said he, “ if he is innocent, I never cursed him.’^ But notwithstanding the affairs of Alcibiadce went so prosperously, and so mr|ch to his glory, yet many were stih somewhat disturbed, and looked upon the time of his arrival to be ominous. For on the day that he came into the port, the feast of the goddess Minerva, which they call the Plynteria, was kept. It is the twenty-fifth day of Thargelion, when the Praxiergidae solemnize their secret rites, taking all the orna- ments from off her image^ and keeping the part of the temple where it stands close covered. Hence the Athenians esteem this day most inauspicious, and never undertake any thing of importance upon it ; and, therefore, they imagined that the goddess did not receive Alcibiades graciously and propitiously, thus hiding her face and rejecting him. Yet notwithstand Ing, every thing succeeded according to his wish. When the one hundred galleys, that were to return with him, were fitted out and ready to sail, an honorable zeal detained him till the celebration of the mysteries was over. For ever since Decelea had been occupied, as the enemy commanded the roads lead- ing from Athens to Fleusis, the procession, being conducted by sea, had not been performed with any proper solemnity ; they were forced to omit the sacrifices and dances and other holy ceremonies, which had usually been performed in the way, when they led forth lacchus. Alcibiades, therefore, judged it would be a glorious action, which would do honor to the gods and gain him esteem with men, if he restored the ancient splendor to these rites, escorting the procession again by land, and protecting it with his army in the face of the enemy. For either, if Agis stood still and did not oppose, it would very much diminish and obscure his reputation, or, in the other alternative, Alcibiades would engage in a holy war, in the cause of the gods, and in defence of the most sacred and solemn ceremonies ; and this in the sight of his country, where he should have all his fellow-citizens witnesses of his valor. As soon as he had resolved upon this design, and had communicated it to the Fumolpidae and heralds, he placed sentinels on the tops of the hills, and at the break of day sent forth his scouts. Ar.d then taking with him tha ALCIBIADES. 33 * priests and Initiates and the Initators, and encompassing them with his soldiers, he conducted them with great order and profound silence ; an august and venerable procession, wherein all who did not envy him said he performed at once the office of a high-priest and of a general. The enemy did not dare to attempt any thing against them, and thus he brought them back in safety to the city. Upon which, as he was exalted in his own thought, so the opinion which the people had of his conduct was raised to that degree, that they looked upon their armies as irresistible and invincible while he commanded them ; and he so won, indeed, upon the lower and meaner sort of people, that they passionately de- sired to have him tyrant over them, and some of them did not scruple to tell him so, and to advise him to put himself out of the reach of envy, by abolishing the laws and ordinan- ces of the people, and suppressing the idle talkers that w^ere ruining the state, that so he might act and take upon him the management of affairs, without standing in fear of being called to an account. How far his own inclinations led him to usurp sovereign power, is uncertain, but the most considerable persons in the city were so much afraid of it, that they hastened him on ship- board as speedily as they could, appointing the colleagues \vhom he chose, and allov/ing him all other things as he Jesired. Thereupon he set sail with a fleet of one hundred ships, and, arriving at Andros, he there fought with and defeated as well the inhabitants as the Lacedaemonians who assisted them. He did not, however, take the city ; which gave the first occasion to his enemies for all their accusations against him. Certainly, if ever man was ruined by his own glory, it w^as Alcibiades. For his continual success had produced such an idea of his courage and conduct, that if he failed in anything he undertook, it was imputed to his neglect, and no one would believe it was through want of power. For they thought nothing was too hard for him, if he went about it in good earnest. They fancied, every day, that they should hear news of the reduction of Chios, and of the rest of Ionia, and grew impatient that things were not effected as fast and as rapidly as they could wish for them. They never consid- ered how extremely money was wanting, and that, having to carry on war with an enemy who had supplies of all things from a great king, he was often forced to quit his armament, in order to procure money and provisions for the subsistence of his soldiers. This it was which gave occasion for the last 332 ALCIBIADES. accusation which was made against him. For Lysander, being sent from Lacedaemon with a commission to be admiral of their fleet, and being furnished by Cyrus with a great sum of money, gave every sailor four obols a day, whereas before they had but three. Alcibiades could hardly allow his men three obols, and therefore was constrained to go into Caria to furnish himself with money. He left the care of the fleet, in his absence, to Antiochus, an experienced seaman, but rash and inconsiderate, who had express orders from Alcibiades not to engage, though the enemy provoked him. But he slighted and disregarded these directions to that degree, that, having made ready his own galley and another, he stood for Ephesus, where the enemy lay, and, as he sailed before the heads of their galleys, used every provocation possible, both in words and deeds. Lysander at first manned out a few ships, and pursued him. But all the Athenian ships coming in to his assistance, Lysander, also, brought up his whole fleet, which gained an entire victory. He slew Antiochus himself, took many men and ships, and erected a trophy. As soon as Alcibiades heard this news, he returned to Samos, and loosing from hence with his whole fleet, came and offered battle to Lysander. But Lysander, content with the victory he had gained, would not stir. Amongst others in the army who hated Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, the son of Thrason, was his particular enemy, and went purposely to Athens to accuse him, and to exasperate his enemies in the city against him. Addressing the people, he represented that Alcibiades had ruined their affairs and lost their ships by mere self-con- ceited neglect of his duties, committing the government of the army, in his absence, to men who gained his favor by drinking and scurrilous talking, whilst he wandered up and down at pleasure to raise money, giving himself up to every sort of luxury and excess amongst the courtesans of Abydos and Ionia, at a time when the enemy’s navy were on the watch close at hand. It was also objected to him, that he had for- tified a castle near Bisanthe in Thrace, for a safe retreat for himself, as one that either could not, or would not, live in his own country. The Athenians gave credit to these informa- tions, and showed the resentment and displeasure which they had conceived against him, by choosing other generals. As soon as Alcibiades heard of this, he immediately forsook the army, afraid of what might follow ; and, collecting a body of mercenary soldiers, made war upon his own account agairst those Thracians who called themselves free, and ALCIBIADES. 333 acknowledged no king. By this means he amassed to himself a considerable treasure, and, at the same time, secured the bordering Greeks from the incursions of the barbarians. Tydeus, Menander, and Adimantus, the new-made gener- als, were at that time posted at ^gospotami, with all the ships which the Athenians had left. From whence they were used to go out to sea every morning, and offer battle to Lysander, who lay near Lampsacus ; and when they had done so, return- ing back again, lay, all the rest of the day, carelessly and without order, in contempt of the enemy. Alcibiades, who was not far off, did not think so slightly )f their danger, nor neglect to let them know it, but, mounting his horse, came to the generals, and represented to them that they had chosen a very inconvenient station, where there was no safe harbor, and where they were distant from any town ; so that they were constrained to send for their necessary provisions as far as Sestos. He also pointed out to them their carelessness in suffering the soldiers, when they went ashore, to disperse and wander up and down at their pleasure, while the enemy’s fleet, under the command of one general, and strictly obedi- ent to discipline, lay so very near them. He advised them to remove the fleet to Sestos. But the admirals not only disre- garded what he said, but Tydeus, with insulting expressions, commanded him to be gone, saying, that now not he, but others, had the command of the forces. Alcibiades, suspecting some thing of treachery in them, departed, and told his friends, who accompanied him out of the camp, that if the generals had not used him with such insupportable contempt, he would within a few days have forced the Lacedaemonians, however unwilling, either to have fought the Athenians at sea or to have deserted their ships. Some looked upon this as a piece of ostentation only ; others said, the thing was probable, for that he might have brought down by land great numbers of the Thracian cavalry and archers, to assault and disorder them in their camp. The event, however, soon made it evi- dent how rightly he had judged of the errors which the Athe- nians committed. For Lysander fell upon them on a sudden, when they least suspected it, with such fury that Conon alone, with eight galleys, escaped him ; all the rest, which were about two hundred, he took and carried away, together with three thousand prisoners, whom he put to death. And within a short time after, he took Athens itself, burnt all the ships which he found there, and demolished their long walls. After this, Alcibiades, standing in dread of the Lacedae 334 ALCIBIADES. monians, who ^vere now masters both at sea and land, retired into Bithynia. He sent thither great treasure before him, took much with him, but left much more in the castle where he had before resided. But he lost great part of his wealth in Bithynia, being robbed by some Thracians who lived in those parts, and thereupon determined to go to the court of Artaxerxes, not doubting but that the king, if he would make trial of his abilities, would find him not inferior to Thcmisto- cles, besides that he was recommended by a more honorable cause. For he went, not as Themistocles did, to offer his service against his fellow-citizens, but against their enemies, and to implore the king’s aid for the defence of his country. He concluded that Pharnabazus would most readily procure him a safe conduct, and therefore went into Phrygia to him, and continued to dwell there some time, paying him great respect, and being honorably treated by him. The Athenians, in the mean time, were miserably afflicted at their loss ot empire ; but when they were deprived of liberty also, and Lysander set up thirty despotic rulers in the city, in their ruin now they began to turn to those thoughts which, while safety was yet possible, they would not entertain ; they acknowledged and bewailed their former errors and follies, and judged this second ill-usage of Alcibiades to be of all the most inexcusable. For he was rejected without any fault committed by himself, and only because they were incensed against his subordinate for having shamefully lost a few ships, they much more shamefully deprived the commonwealth of its most valiant and accomplished general. Yet in this sad state of affairs, they had still some faint hopes left them, nor would they utterly despair of the Athenian commonwealth, while Alcibiades was safe. For they persuaded themselves that if before, when he was an exile, he could not content himself to live idly and at ease, much less now, if he could find any favorable opportunity, would he endure the insolence of the Lacedaemonians, and the outrages of the Thirty. Nor was it an absurd thing in the people to entertain such imaginations, when the Thirty themselves were so very solicitous to be informed and to get intelligence of all his actions and designs. In fine, Critias represented to Lysander that the Lacedaemoni- ans could never securely enjoy the dominion of Greece, till the Athenian democracy was absolutely destroyed ; and, though now the people of Athens seemed quietly and patiently to submit to so small a number of governors, yet so long as Alcibiades lived, the knowledge of this fact would never suffei them to acquiesce in their present circumstances. A^LCIBIAHES. 335 Yet Lysander would not be prevailed upon by lliese representations, till at last he received secret orders from the magistrates of Lacedaemon, expressly requiring him to get A^lcibiades despatched : whether it was that they feared his energy and boldness in enterprising what was hazardous, or that it was done to gratify king Agis. Upon receipt of this Older, Lysander sent away a messenger to Pharnabaziis, desiring him to put it in execution. Pharnabazus committed the affair to Magseus, his brother, and to his uncle Susa- mithres. Alcibiades resided at that time in a small village in Phrygia, together with Timandra, a mistress of his. As he slept, he had this dream : he thought himself attired in his mistress’s habit, and that she, holding him in her aims, dressed his head and painted his face as if he had been a woman ; others say, he dreamed that he saw Magaeus cut off liis head and burn his body ; at any rate, it was but a little while before his death that he had these visions. Those who were sent to assassinate him had not courage enough to enter the house, but surrounded it first, and set it on fire. Alcibi- ades, as soon as he perceived it, getting together great quan- tities of clothes and furniture, threw them upon the fire to choke it, and, having wrapped his cloak about his left arm, and holding his naked sword in his right, he cast himself into the middle of the fire, and escaped securely through it before his clothes were burnt. The barbarians, as soon as they saw him, retreated, and none of them durst stay to wait for him, or to engage with him, but, standing at a distance, they slew him with their darts and arrows. When he was dead the barbarians departed, and Timandra took up his dead body, and, covering and wrapping it up in her own robes, she buried it as decently and as honorably as her circumstances would allow. It is said, that the famous Lais, who was called the Corinthian, though she was a native of Hyccara, a small town in Sicily, from whence she was brought a captive, was the daughter of this Timandra. There are some who agree with this account of Alcibiades’s death in all points, except that they impute the cause of it neither to Pharnabazus, nor Lysander, nor the Lacedaemonians: but they say, he was keeping with him a young lady of a noble house, whom he had debauched, and that her brothers, not being able to endure the indignity, set fire by night to the house where he was living, and, as he endeavored to save himself from the flames, slew him with their darts, in the manner just related. 336 CORIOLANUS. CORIOLANUS. The patrician house of the Marcii in Rome produced many men of distinction, and among the rest, Ancus Maicius^ grandson to Numa by his daughter, and king after Tullua Hostilius, of the same family were also Publius and Quintus Marcius, which two conveyed into the city the best and most .abundant supply of water they have at Rome. As likewise Censorinus, who, having been twice chosen censor by the people, afterwards himself induced them to make a law that nobody should bear that office twice. But Caius Marcius, of whom I now write, being left an orphan, and brought up under the widowhood of his mother, has shown us by experi ence, that, although the early loss of a father may be attended with other disadvantages, yet it can hinder none from being either virtuous or eminent in the world, and that it is no obstacle to true goodness and excellence ; however bad men may be pleased to lay the blame of their corruptions upon that misfortune and the neglect of them in their minority. Nor is he less an evidence to the truth of their opinion who conceive that a generous and worthy nature without proper discipline, like a rich soil without culture, is apt, v/ith it, better fruits, to produce also much that is bad and faulty. While the force and vigor of his soul, and a persevering con- stancy in all he undertook, led him successfully into many noble achievements, yet, on the other side, also, by indulging the vehemence of his passion, and through an obstinate re- luctance to yield or accommodate his humors and sentiments to those of a people about him, he rendered himself incapable of acting and associating with others. Those who saw with admiration hcv proof his nature was against all the softnesses of pleasure, the hardships of service, and the allurements of gain, while allowing to that universal firmness of his, the respective names of temperance, fortitude, and justice, yet, in the life of the citizen and the statesman, could not choose but be disgusted at the severity and ruggedness of his deport- ment, and with his overbearing, haughty, and imperious tem- per. Education and study, and the favors of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them, than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural CORiOLANUS. 337 qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes. Those were times at Rome in which that kind of worth was most esteemed which displayed itself in military achieve- ments ; one evidence of which we find in the Latin word for virtue, which is properly equivalent to manly courage. As if valor and all virtue had been the same thing, they used as the common term the name of the particular excellence. But Mircius, having a more passionate inclination than any of that age for feats of war, began at once, from his very child- hood, to handle arms ; and feeling that adventitious imple- ments and artificial arms would effect little, and be of small u>s to such as have not their native and natural weapons well fixed and prepared for service, he so exercised and inured his body to all sorts of activity and encounter, that besides the lightness of a racer, he had a weight in close seizures and wrestlings with an enemy, from which it was hard for any to disengage himself ; so that his competitors at home in dis- plays of bravery, loath to own themselves inferior in that respect, were wont to ascribe their deficiencies to his strength of body, which they said no resistance and no fatigue could exhaust. The first time he went out to the wars, being yet a strip- ling, was when Tarquinius Superbus, who had been king of Rome and was afterwards expelled, after many unsuccessful attempts, now entered upon his last effort, and proceeded to hazard all as it were upon a single throw. A great number of the Latins and other people of Italy joined their forces, and were marching with him toward the city, to procure his restoration ; not, however, so much out of a desire to serve and oblige Tarquin, as to gratify their own fear and envy at the increase of the Roman greatness ; which they were anxious to check and reduce. The armies met and engaged in a decisive battle, in the vicissitudes of which, Marcius, while fighting bravely in the dictator’s presence, saw a Roman soldier siruck down at a little distance, and immediately stepped in and stood before him, and slew his assailant. The general, after having gained the victory, crowned him for this act, one of the first, with a garland of oaken branches ; it being the Roman custom thus to adorn those who had saved the life of a citizen ; whether that the law intended some special honor to the oak, in memory of the Arcadians, a people the oracle had made famous by the name of acorn eaters ; or whether the reason of it was because they might 22 33 ^ CORIOl!?fNUS. easily, and in all places where they fought, have plenty of oak for that purpose ; or, finally, whether the oaken wreath, being sacred to Jupiter, the guardian of the city, might, there- fore, be thought a proper ornament for one who preserved a citizen. And the oak, in truth, is the tree which bears the most and the prettiest fruit of any that grow wild, and is the strongest of all that are under cultivation ; its acorns were the principal diet of the first mortals, and the honey found in it gave them drink. I may say, too, it furnished fowl and other creatures as dainties, in producing mistletoe for bird- lime to ensnare them. In this battle, meantime, it is stated that Castor and Pollux appeared, and immediately after the battle, were seen at Rome just by the fountain where their temple now stands, with their horses foaming with sweat, and told the news of the victory to the people in the Forum. The fifteenth of July, being the day of this conquest, became con- sequently a solemn holiday sacred to the Twin Brothers. It may be observed, in general, that when young men arrive early at fame and repute, if they are of a nature but slightly touched with emulation, this early attainment is apt to extinguish their thirst and satiate their small appetite ^ whereas the first distinctions of more solid and weighty char- acters do but stimulate and quicken them and take them away, like a wind, in the pursuit of honor ; they look upon these marks and testimonies to their virtue not as a recoim pense received for what they have already done, but as a pledge given by themselves of what they will perform here- after, ashamed now to forsake or underlive the credit they have won, or, rather, not to exceed and obscure all that is gone before by the lustre of their following actions. Mar- cius, having a spirit of this noble make, was ambitious always to surpass himself, and did nothing, how extraordinary soever, but he thought he was bound to outdo it at the next occa- sion ; and ever desiring to give continual fresh instances of his prowess, he added one exploit to another, and heaped up trophies upon trophies, so as to make it matter of contest also among his commanders, the later still vying with the earlier, which should pay him the greatest honor and speak highest in his commendation. Of all the numerous wars and conflicts in those days there was not one from which he re- turned without laurels and rewards. And, whereas others made glory the end of their daring, the end of his glory was his mother’s gladness; the delight she took to hear him praised and to see him crowned, and her weeping for joy in CORIOLANUS. 33S his embraces, rendered him, in his own thoughts, the most honored and most happy person in the world. Epaminondas is similarly said to have acknowledged his feeling, that it was the greatest felicity of his whole life that his father and mother survived to hear of his successful generalship and his victory at Leuctra. And he had the advantage, indeed, to have both his parents partake with him, and enjoy the pleas- ure of his good fortune. But Marcius, believing himself bound to pay his mother Volumnia all that gratitude and duty which would have belonged to his father, had he also been alive, could never satiate himself in his tenderness and re- spect to her. He took a wife, also, at her request and wisli, and continued, even after he had children, to live still with his mother, without parting families. The repute of his integrity and courage had, by this time, gained him a considerable influence and authority in Rome, when the senate, favoring the wealthier citizens, began to be at variance with the common people, who made sad complaints of the rigorous and inhuman usage they received from the money-lenders. For as many as were behind with them, and had any sort of property, they stripped of all they had, by the way of pledges and sales ; and such as through former exac- tions were reduced already to extreme indigence, and had nothing more to be deprived of, these they led away in person and put their bodies under constraint, notwithstanding the scars and wounds that they could show in attestation of their public services in numerous campaigns ; the last of which had been against the Sabines, which they undertook upon a promise made by their rich creditors that they would treat them with more gentleness for the future, Marcus Valerius, the consul, having, by order from the senate, engaged also for the per- formance of it. But when, after they had fought courageously and beaten the enemy, there was, nevertheless, no moderation or forbearance used, and the senate also professed to remem- ber nothing of that agreement, and sat without testifying the least concern to sec them dragged away like slaves and Iheii goods seized upon as formerly, there began rcw to be open disorders and dangerous meetings in the city ; c.nd the enemy, also, aware of the popular confusion, invaded and laid waste the country. And when the consuls now gave notice, that all who were of an age to bear arms should make their personal appearance, but found no one regard the summons, the mem- oers of the government, then coming to consult what course should be taken, were themselves again divided in opinion ; 340 CORIOLANUS. some thought it most advisable to comply a little in favor ot the poor, by relaxing their overstrained rights, and miagating the extreme rigor of the law, while others withstood this pro- posal ; Marcius in particular, with more vehemence than the rest, alleging that the business of money on either side was not the main thing in question, urged that this disorderly pro- ceeding was but the first insolent step towards open revolt against the laws, which it would become the wisdom of the government to check at the earliest moment. There had been frequent assemblies of the whole senate, within a small compass of time, about this difficulty, but with- out any certain issue ; the poor commonalty, therefore, perceiv- ing there was likely to be no redress of their grievances, on a sudden collected in a body, and encouraging each other in their resolution, forsook the city with one accord, and seizing the hill which is now called the Holy Mount, sat down by the river Anio, without committing any sort of violence or seditious outrage, but merely exclaiming, as they went along, that they had this long time past been, in fact, expelled and excluded from the city by the cruelty of the rich ; that Italy would everywhere afford them the benefit of air and water and a place of burial, which was all they could expect in the city, unless it were, perhaps, the privilege of being wounded and killed in time of war for the defence of their creditors. The senate, apprehending the consequences, sent the most moderate and popular men of their own order to treat with them. Meneniu.^ Agrippa, their chief spokesman, after much en- treaty to the people, and much plain speaking on behalf of the senate, concluded, at length, with the celebrated fable. “ It once happened,’* he said, “ that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part in the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labor to supply and minister to its appetites. The stomach, however, merely ridiculed the silliness of the members, who appeared not to be aware that the stomach certainly does receive the general nourishment, but only to return it again, and redistribute it amongst the rest. Such is the case,” he said, “ ye citizens, between you and the senate. The counsels and plans that are there duly digested, convey and secure to all of you your proper benefit and support.” A reconciliation ensued, the senate acceding to the request’ of the people for the annual election of five protectors for those in need of succor, the same that are now called the CORIOLANUS. 341 tribunes of the people; and the first two they pitched upon were Junius Brutus, and Sicinnius Vellutus, their leaders in the secession. The city being thus united, the commons stood presently to their arms, and followed their commanders to the war with great alacrity. As for Marcius, though he was not a little vexed himself to see the populace prevail so far, and gain ground of the senators, and might observe many other patricians have the same dislike of the late concessions, he yet besought them not to yield at least to the common people in the zeal and for* wardness they now showed for their country’s service, but to prove that they were superior to them, not so much in power and riches, as in merit and worth. The Romans were now at war with the Volscian nation, whose principal city was Corioli ; when, therefore, Cominius the consul had invested this important place, the rest ‘of the Volscians, fearing it would be taken, mustered up whatever force they could from all parts, to relieve it, designing to give the Romans battle before the city, and so attack them on both sides. Cominius, to avoid this inconvenience, divided his army, marching himself with one body to encounter the Volscians on their approach from without and leaving Titus Lartius, one of the bravest Romans of his time, to com- mand the other and continue the siege. Those within Corioli, despising now the smallness of their number, made a sally upon them, and prevailed at first, and pursued the Romans into their trenches. Here it was that Marcius, flying out with a slender company, and cutting those in pieces that first engaged him, obliged the other assailants to slacken their speed ; and then, v/ith loud cries, called upon the Romans to renew the battle. For he had, what Cato thought a great point in a soldier, not only strength of hand and stroke, but also a voice and look that of themselves were a terror to an enemy. Divers of his own party now rallying and making up to him, the enemies soon retreated ; but Marcius, not con tent to see them draw off and retire, pressed hard upon the rear, and drove them, as they fled away in haste, to the very gates of their city ; where, perceiving the Romans to fall back from their pursuit, beaten off by the multitude of darts poured in upon them from the walls, and that none of his followers had the hardiness to think of falling in pell-mell among the fugitives and so entering a city full of enemies in arms, he^ nevertheless, stood and urged them to the attempt, crying out, that fortune had now sat open Corioli, not so much to shelter 342 CORIOLANUS. the vanquished, as to receive the conquerors. Seconded by a few that were willing to venture with him, he bore along through the crowd, made good his passage, and thrust himself into the gate through the midst of them, nobody at first daring to resist him. But when the citizens on looking about, saw that a very small number had entered, they now took courage, and came up and attacked them. A combat ensued of the most extraordinary description, in which Marcius, by strength of hand, and swiftness of foot, and daring of soul, overpower- ing every one that he assailed, succeeded in driving the enemy to seek refuge, for the most part, in the interior of the town, while the remaining submitted, and threw down their arms ; thus affording Lartius abundant opportunity to bring in the rest of the Romans with ease and safety. Corioli being thus surprised and taken, the greater part of the soldiers employed themselves in spoiling and pillaging it, while Marcius indignantly reproached them, and exclaimed that it was a dishonorable and unworthy thing, when the con- sul and their fellow-citizens had now perhaps encountered the other Volscians, and were hazarding their lives in battle, basely to misspend the time in running up and down for booty, and, under a pretence of enriching themselves, keep out of danger. Few paid him any attention, but, putting himself at the head of these, he took the road by which the consul’s army had marched before him, encouraging his companions, and be- seeching them, as they went along, not to give up, and praying often to the gods, too, that he might be so happy as to arrive before the fight was over, and come seasonably up to assist Cominius, and partake in the peril of the action. It was customary with the Romans of that age, when they were moving into battle array, and were on the point of taking up their bucklers, and girding their coats about them, to make at the same time an unwritten will, or verbal testament, and to name who should be their heirs, in the hearing of three or four witnesses. In this precise posture Marcius found them at his arrival, the enemy being advanced within view. They were not a little disturbed by his first appearance, seeing him covered with blood and sweat, and attended with a small train ; but when he hastily made up to the consul with gladness in his looks, giving him his hand, and recounting lo him how the city had been taken, and when they saw Comin- ius also embrace and salute him, every one took fresh heart ; those that were near enough hearing, and those that were at a distance guessing, what had happened ; and all cried out tc CORIOLANUS. 343 be led to battle. First, however, Marcius desired to know of him how the Volscians had arrayed their army, and where they had placed their best men, and on his answering that he took the troops of the Antiates in the centre to be their prime warriors, that would yield to none in bravery, ‘‘ Let me demand and obtain of you,” said Marcius, “ that we may be posted against them.” The consul granted the request, with much admiiation for his gallantry. And when the conflict began by the soldiers darting at each other, and Marcius sallied out before the rest, the Volscians opposed to him were not able to make head against him ; wherever he fell in, he broke their ranks, and made a lane through them ; but the parties turning again, and enclosing him on each side with their weapons, the consul, who observed the danger he was in, despatched some of the choicest men he had for his rescue. The conflict then growing warm and sharp about Marcius, and many fall- ing dead in a little space, the Romans bore so hard upon the enemies, and pressed them with such violence, that they forced them at length to abandon their ground, and to quit the field. And going now to prosecute the victory, they besought Marcius, tired out with his toils, and faint and heavy through the loss of blood, that he would retire to the camp. He re- plied, however, that weariness was not for conquerors, and joined with them in the pursuit. The rest of the Volscian army was in like manner defeated, great numbers killed, and no less taken captive. The day after, when Marcius, with the rest of the army, presented themselves at the consuFs tent, Cominius rose, and having rendered all due acknowledgment to the gods for the success of that enterprise, turned next to Marcius, and first of all delivered the strongest encomium upon his rare exploits which he had partly been an eye-witness of himself, in the late battle, and had partly learned from the testimony of Lar- tius. And then he required him to choose a tenth part of all the treasure and horses and captives that had fallen into their hands, before any division should be made to others ; besides which, he made him the special present of a horse with trap- pings and ornaments, in honor of his actions. The whole army applauded ; Marcius, however, stepped forth, and declaring his thankful acceptance of the horse, and his gratification at the praises of his general, said, that all other things, which he could only legard rather as mercenary advantages than any significations of honor, he must waive, and should be content with the ordinary proportion of such rewards. “ I have only/ 344 CORIOLANUS. said he, one special grace to beg, and this I hope you will not deny me. There was a certain hospitable friend of mine among the Volscians, a man of probity and virtue, who is become a prisoner, and from former wealth and freedom is now reduced to servitude. Among his many misfortunes let my intercession redeem him from the one of being sold as a common slave.’’ Such a refusal and such a request on the part of Marcius were followed with yet louder acclamations ; and he had many more admirers of this generous superiority to avarice, than of the bravery he had shown in battle. The very persons who conceived some envy and despite to see him so specially honored, could not but acknowledge, that one who so nobly could refuse reward, was beyond others worthy to receive it ; and were more charmed with that virtue which made him despise advantage, than with any of those former actions that have gained him his title to it. It is the higher accomplishment to use money well than to use arms ; but not to need it is more noble than to use it. When the noise of approbation and applause ceased, Co- minius, resuming, said, “ It is idle, feJlow-^oldiers, to force and obtrude those other gifts of ours on one who is unwilling to accept them ; let us, therefore, give him one of such a kind that he cannot well reject it; let us pass a vote, I mean, that he shall hereafter be called Coriolanus, unless you think that his performance at Corioli has itself anticipated any such resolu> tion.” Hence, therefore, he had his third name of Coriola- nus, making it all the plainer that Caius was a personal proper name, and the second, or surname, Marcius, one common to his house and family ; the third being a subsequent addition which used to be imposed either from some particular act or fortune, bodily characteristic, or good quality of the bearer. Just as the Greeks, too, gave additional names in old time, in some cases from some achievement, Soter, for example, and Cahinicus ; or personal appearance, as Physcon and Grypus ; good qualities, Euergetes and Philadelphus ; good fortune, Eudaemon, the title of the second Battus. Several monarchs have also had names given them in mockery, as Antigonus was called Doson, and Ptolemy, Latbyrus. This sort of title was yet more common among the Romans. One of the Metelli was surnamed Diadematus, because he walked about for a long time with a bandage on his head to conceal a scar ; and another, of the same family, got the name of Celer, from the rapidity he displayed in giving a funeral entertainment of gladiators within a few days after his father’s death, his speed CORIOLANUS. 34S and energy in doing which was thought extraordinary. There are some too, who even at this day take names from certain casual incidents at their nativity ; a child that is born when his father is away from home is called Proculus ; or Postumus, if after his decease ; and when twins come into the world, and one dies at the birth, the survivor has the name of Vopiscus. From bodily peculiarities they derive not only their Syllas and Nigers, but their Caeci and Claudii ; wisely endeavoring to accustom their people not to reckon either the loss of sight, or any other bodily misfortune, as a matter of disgrace to them, but to answer to such names without shame, as if they were really their own. But this discussion better befits an- other place. The war against the Volscians was no sooner at an end, than the popular orators revived domestic troubles, and raised another sedition, without any new cause or complaint or just grievance to proceed upon, but merely turning the very mischiefs that unavoidably ensued from their former contests into a pretext against the patricians. The greatest part of their arable land had been left unsown and without tillage, and the time of war allowing them no means or leisure to im- port provision from other countries, there was an extreme scarcity. The movers of the people then observing, that there was no corn to be bought, and that, if there had been they had no money to buy it, began to calumniate the wealthy with false stories and whisper it about, as if they, out of their malice, had purposely contrived the famine. Meanwhile, there came an embassy from the Velitrani, proposing to de- liver up their city to the Romans, and desiring they would send some new inhabitants to people it, as a late pestilential disease had swept away so many of the natives, that there was hardly a tenth part remaining of their whole community. This ne- cessity of the Velitrani was considered by all more prudent people as most opportune in the present state of affairs; since the dearth made it needful to ease the city of its super- fluous members, and they were in hope also, at the same time, to dissipate the gathering sedition by ridding themselves of the more violent and heated partisans, and discharging, so to say, the elements of disease and disorder in the state. The consuls, therefore, singled out such citizens to supply the desolation at Velitrae, and gave notice to others, that they should be ready to march against the Volscians, with the politic design of preventing intestine broils by employment abroad, and in the hope, that when rich as well as poor, plebeians and patri 346 CORIOLANUS. cians, should be mingled again in the same army and the same camp, and engage in one common service for the pub- lic, it would mutually dispose them to reconciliation and friend- ship. But Sicinnius and Brutus, the popular orators, interposed, crying out, that the consuls disguised the most cruel and bar- barous action in the world under that mild and plausible name of a colony, and were simply precipitating so many poor citizens into a mere pit of destruction, bidding them settle down in a country where the air was charged with disease, and the ground covered with dead bodies, and expose themselves to the evil influence of a strange and angered deity. And then, as if it would not satisfy their hatred to destroy some by hunger, and offer others to the mercy of a plague, they must proceed to involve them also in a needless war of their own making, that no calamity might be wanting to complete the punishment of the citizens for refusing to submit to that of slavery to the rich. By such addresses, the people were so possessed, that none of them would appear upon the consular summons to be en- listed for the war ; and they showed entire aversion to. the proposal for a new plantation ; so that the senate was at a loss what to say or do. But Marcius, who began now to bear himself higher and to feel confidence in his past actions, con- scious, too, of the admiration of the best and greatest men of Rome, openly took the lead in opposing the favorers of the people. The colony was despatched to Velitrae, those that were chosen by lot being compelled to depart upon high pen- alties ; and when they obstinately persisted in refusing to en- roll themselves for the Volscian service, he mustered up his own clients, and as many others as could be wrought upon by persuasion, and with these made inroad into the territories of the Antiates, where, finding a considerable quantity of corn, and collecting much booty, both of cattle and prisoners, he reserved nothing for himself in private, but returned safe to Rome, while those that ventured out with him were seen la- den with pillage, and driving their prey before them. This sight filled those that had stayed at home with regret for their per- verseness, with envy at their fortunate fellow-citizens, and with feelings of dislike to Marcius, and hostility to his growing reputation and power, which might probably be used against the popular interest. Not long after he stood for the consulship : when, how- ever, the people began to relent and incline to favor him, be- CORIOLANUS. 347 ing sensible what a shame it would be to repulse and affront a man of his birth and merit, after he had done them so many signal services. It was usual for those who stood for offices among them to solicit and address themselves personally to the citizens, presenting themselves in the forum with the toga on alone, and no tunic under it ; either to promote their ^ supplications by the humility of their dress, or that such as had received wounds might more readily display those marks of their fortitude. Certainly, it was not out of suspicion of bribery and corruption that they required all such petitioners for their favor to appear ungirt and open, without any close garment ; as it was much later, and many ages after this, that buying and selling crept in at their elections, and money be- came an ingredient in the public suffrages ; proceeding thence to attempt their tribunals, and even attack their camps, till, by hiring the valiant, and enslaving iron to silver, it grew master of the state, and turned their commonwealth into a monarchy. For it was well and truly said that the first destroyer of the liberties of a people is he who first gave them bounties and largesses. At Rome the mischief seems to have stolen se- cretly in, and by little and little, not being at once discerned and taken notice of. It is not certainly known who the man was that did there first either bribe the citizens, or corrupt the courts ; whereas, in Athens, Anytus, the son of Anthe- mion, is said to have been the first that gave money to the judges, when on his trial, toward the latter end of the Pelo- ponnesian war, for letting the fort of Pylos fall into the hands of the enemy ; in a period while the pure and golden race of men were still in possession of the Roman forum. Marcius, therefore, as the fashion of candidates was, show- ing the scars and gashes that were still visible on his body, from the many conflicts in which he had signalized himself during a service of seventeen years together, they were, so to say, put out of countenance at this display of merit, and told one another that they ought in common modesty to create him consul. But when the day of election was now come, and Marcius appeared in the forum, with a pompous train of sena- tors attending him, and the patricians all manifested greater concern, and seemed to be exerting greater efforts, than they had ever done before on the like occasion, the commons then fell off again from the kindness they had conceived for him, and in the place of their late benevolence, began to feel some- thing of indignation and envy ; passions assisted by the fear they entertained, that if a man of such aristocratic temper; 548 CORIOLANUS. and so influential among the patricians, should be invested with the power which that office would give him, he might employ it to deprive the people of all that liberty which was yet left them. In conclusion, they rejected Marcius. Two other names were announced, to the great mortification of the senators, who felt as if the indignity reflected rather upon themselves than on Marcius. He, for his part, could not bear the affront with any patience. He had always indulged his temper, and had regarded the proud and contentious element of human nature as a sort of nobleness and magnanimity ; reason and discipline had not imbued him with that solidity and equanimity which enters so largely into the virtues of the statesman. He had never learned how essential it is for any one who undertakes public business, and desires to deal with mankind, to avoid above all things that self-will, which, as Plato says, belongs to the family of solitude ; and to pursue, above all things, that capacity so generally ridiculed, of submission to ill-treatment. Marcius, straightforward and direct, and possessed with the idea that to vanquish and over- bear all opposition is the true part of bravery, and never imagin- ing that it was the weakness and womanishness of his nature that broke out, so to say, in these ulcerations of anger, retired, full of fury and bitterness against the people. The young pa- tricians, too, all that were proudest and most conscious of their noble birth, had always been devoted to his interest, and, adhering to him now, with a fidelity that did him no good, aggravated his resentment with the expression of their indigna- tion and condolence. He had been their captain, and their willing instructor in the arts of war, when out upon expedi- tions, and their model in that true emulation and love of ex- cellence which makes men extol, without envy or jealousy, each other’s brave achievements. In the midst of these distempers, a large quantity of corn reached Rome, a great part bought up in Italy, but an equal amount sent as a present from Syracuse, from Gelo,then reigning there. Many began now to hope well of their affairs, suppos- ing the city, by this means, would be delivered at once, both of its want and discord. A council, therefore, being presently held, the people came flocking about the senate-house, eagerly await- ing the issue of that deliberation, expecting that the market- prices would now be less cruel, and that what had come as gift, would be distributed as such. There were some within who so advised the senate ; but Marcius, standing up, sharply in- veighed against those who spoke in favor of the multitude; CORIOLANUS. 349 calling them flatterers of the rabble, traitors to the nobility, and alleging, that, by such gratifications, they did but cherish those ill seeds of boldness and petulance that had been sown among the people, to their own prejudice, which they should have done well to observe and stifle at their first appearance, and not have suffered the plebeians to grow so strong, by granting them magistrates of such authority as the tribunes. They were, indeed, even now formidable to the state, since every thing they desired was granted them ; no constraint was put on their will ; they refused obedience to the consuls, and, overthrowing all law and magistracy, gave the title of magistrate to their private factious leaders. When things are come to such a pass for us to sit here and decree largesses and bounties for them, like those Greeks where the populace is supreme and absolute, what would it be else,’’ said he, ‘‘ but to take their disobedience into pay and maintain it for the common ruin of us all ? They certainly cannot look upon these liberalities as a reward of public service, which they know they have so often deserted ; nor yet of those seces- sions, by which they openly renounced their country ; much less of the calumnies and slanders they have been always so ready to entertain against the senate ; but will rather conclude that a bounty which seems to have no other visible cause or reason, must needs be the effect of our fear and flattery ; and will, therefore, set no limit to their disobedience, nor ever cease from disturbances and sedition. Concession is mere madness ; if we have any wisdom and resolution at all, we shall, on the contrary, never rest till we have recovered from them that tribun ician power they have extorted from us ; as being a plain subversion of the consulship, and a perpetual ground of separation in our city that is no longer one, as heretofore, but has in this received such a wound and rupture, as is never likely to close and unite again, or suffer us to be of one mind, and to give over inflaming our distempers, and being a torment to each other.” Marcius, with much more to this purpose, succeeded, to an extraordinary degree, in inspiring the younger men with the same furious sentiments, and had almost all the wealthy on his side* who cried him up as the only person their city had, superior alike to force and flattery ; some of the older men, however, opposed him, suspecting the consequences. As, in- deed, there came no good of it ; for the tribunes, who were present, perceiving how the proposal of Marcius took, ran out into the crowd with exclamations, calling on the plebeians to CORIOLANUS. 35c Stand together, and come in to their assistance. The assem bly met, and soon become tumultuous. The sum of what Marcius had spoken, having been reported to the people excited them to such fury, that they were ready to break in upon the senate. The tribunes prevented this, by laying all the blame on Coriolanus, whom, therefore, they cited by their messengers to come before them, and defend himself. And when he contemptuously repulsed the officers who brought him the summons, they came themselves, with the ^diles, or . overseers of the market, proposing to carry him away by force, and, accordingly, began to lay hold on his person. The patricians, however, coming to his rescue, not only thrust off the tribunes, but also beat the ^diles, that were their seconds in the quarrel ; night approching, put an end to the contest. But, as soon as it was day, the consuls, observing the people to be highly exasperated, and that they ran from all quarters and gathered in the forum, were afraid for the whole city, so that, convening the senate afresh, they desired them to advise how they might best compose and pacify the incensed multi- tude by equitable language and indulgent decrees ; since, if they wisely considered the state of things, they would find that it was no time to stand upon terms of honor and a mere point of glory ; such a critical conjuncture called for gentle methods, and for temperate and humane counsels. The majority, therefore, of the senators giving way, the consuls proceeded to pacify the people in the best manner they were able, answering gently to such imputations and charges as had been cast upon the senate, and using much tenderness and moderation in the admonitions and reproofs they gave them. On the point of the price of provisions, they said, there should be no difference at all between them. When a great part of the commonalty was grown cool, and it appeared from their orderly and peaceful behavior that they had been very much appeased by what they had heard, the tribunes, stand- ing up, declared, in the name of the people, that since the senate was pleased to act soberly and do them reason, they, J’kewise, should be ready to yield in all that was fair and equitable on their side ; they must insist, however, that Marcius should give in his answer to the several charges as follows : first, could he deny that he instigated the senate to overthrow the government and annul the privileges of the people ? and, in the next place, when called to account for it, did he not disobey the summons ? and, lastly, by the blows and other public affronts to the ^diles, had he not done ail he could to commence a civil war. CORIOLANUS. 351 These articles were brought in against him, with a design either to humble Marcius, and show his submission, if, contrary to his nature, he should now court and sue the people ; or, if he should follow his natural disposition, which they rather expected from their judgment of his character, then that he might thus make the breach final between himself and the people. He came, therefore, as it were, to make his apology, and clear himself j in which belief the people kept silence, and gave him a quiet hearing. But when, instead of the submis- sive and deprecatory language expected from him, he began to use not only an offensive kind of freedom, seeming rather to accuse than apologize, but, as well by the tone of his voice as the air of his countenance, displayed a security that was not far from disdain and contempt of them, the whole multi- tude then became angry, and gave evident signs of impatience and disgust ; and Sicinnius, the most violent of the tribunes, after a little private conference with his colleagues, proceeded solemnly to pronounce before them all, that Marcius was condemned to die by the tribunes of the people, and bid the -^diles take him to the Tarpeian rock, and without delay throw him headlong from the precipice. When they, however, in com- pliance with the order, came to seize upon his body, many, even of the plebeian party, felt it to be a horrible and extravagant act ; the patricians, meantime, wholly beside themselves with distress and horror, hurried up with cries to the rescue ; and while some made actual use of their hands to hinder the arrest, and surrounding Marcius, got him in among them, others, as in so great a tumult no good could be done by words, stretched out theirs, beseeching the multitude that they would not proceed to such furious extremities ; and at length, the friends and acquaintance of the tribunes, wisely perceiving how impossible it would be to carry off Marcius to punish- ment without much bloodshed and slaughter of the nobility, persuaded them to forbear every thing unusual and odious ; j not to despatch him by any sudden violence, or without reg- ular process, but refer the cause to the general suffrage of the people. Sicinnius then, after a little pause, turning to the patricians, demanded what their meaning was, thus forcibly to rescue Marcius out of the people’s hands, as they were going to punish him ; when it was replied by them, on the other side, and the question put, Rather, how came it into your minds, and what is it you design, thus to drag one of the worthiest men of Rome, without trial, to a barbarous and CORIOLANUS. 352 illegal execution ?^’ Very well/^ said Sicinnius, you shall have no ground in this respect for quarrel or complaint against the people The people grant your request, and your parti- san shall be tried. We appoint you, Marcius,’’ directing his speech to him, the third market-day ensuing, to appear and d(ifend yourself, and to try if you can satisfy the Roman citizens of your innocence, who will then judge your case by vote.’’ The patricians were content with such a truce and lespite for that time, and gladly returned home, having for the present brought off Marcius in safety. During the interval before the appointed time (for the Romans hold their sessions every ninth day, which from that cause are called nundince in Latin), a war fell out with the Antiates, likely to be of some continuance, which gave them hope they might one way or other elude the judgment. The people, they presumed, would become tractable, and their in- dignation lessen and languish by degrees in so long a space, it occupation and war did not wholly put it out of their mind. - But when, contrary to expectation, they made a speedy agree- ment with the people of Antium, and the army came back to Rome, the patricians were again in great perplexity, and had frequent meetings to consider how things might be arranged, without either abandoning Marcius, or yet giving occasion to the popular orators to create new disorders. Appius Claudius, whom they counted among the senators most averse to the popular interest, made a solemn declaration, and told them beforehand, that the senate would utterly destroy itself and betray the government, if they should once suffer the people to assume the authority of pronouncing sentence upon any of the patricians ; but the oldest senators and most favorable to the people maintained, on the other side, that the people would not be so harsh and severe upon them, as some were pleased to imagine, but rather become more gentle and humane upon the concession of that power, since it was not contempt c f the f senate, but the impression of being contemned by it which made them pretend to such a prerogative. Let that be once allowed them as a mark of respect and kind feeling, and the mere possession of this power of voting would at once dispos- sess them of their animosity. When, therefore, Marcius saw that the senate was in pain and suspense upon his account, divided, as it were, betwixt their kindness for him and their apprehensions from the people, he desired to know of the tribunes what the crimes were they intended to charge him with, and what the heads of the in- CORIOLAXUS. 353 dictment they would oblige him to plead to before the peo- ple ; and being told by them that he was to be impeached for attempting usurpation, and that they would prove him guilty of designing to establish arbitrary government, stepping forth upon this, “ Let me go then,’’ he said, to clear iwself from that imputation before an assembly of them ; I freely offei myself to any sort of trial, nor do I refuse any kind of punish^ ment whatsoever; only,” he continued, ‘‘ let what you now men- tion be really made my accusation, and do not you play false with the senate.” On their consenting to these terms, he came to his trial. But when the people met together, the tribunes, contrary to all former practice, extorted first, that votes should ])e taken, not by centuries, but tribes ; a change, by which the in- digent and factious rabble, that had no respect for honesty and justice, would be sure to carry it against those who were rich and well known, and accustomed to serve the state in war. In the next place, v/hereas they had engaged to prosecute Marcius upon no other head but that of tyranny, which could never be made out against him, they relinquished this plea, and urged in- stead, his language in the senate against an abasement of the price of corn,’ and for the overthrow of the tribunician power ; adding further, as a new impeachment, the distribution that was made by him of the spoil and booty he had taken from the An- tiates, when he overran their country, which he had divided among those that had followed him, whereas it ought rather to have been brought into the public treasury ; which last ac- cusation did, they say, more discompose Marcius than all the rest, as he had not anticipated he should ever be questioned on that subject, and, therefore, was less provided with any satis- factory answer to it on the sudden. And when, by way of ex- cuse, he began to magnify the merits of those who had been partakers with him in the action, those that had stayed at home, being more numerous than the other, interrupted him with outcries. In conclusion, when they came to vote, a majority of three tribes condemned him ; the penalty being perpetual banishment. The sentence of his condemnation being pro- nounced, the people went away with greater triumph and exultation than they had ever shown for any victory over enemies ; while the senate was in grief and deep dejection, repenting now and vexed to the soul that they had not done and suffered all things rather than give way to the insolence of the people, and permit them to assume and abuse so great an authority. There was no need then to look at men’s dresses, or other marks of distinction, to know one from another ; any 23 3S4 CORIOLANUS. one who was glad was, beyond all doubt, a plebeian, any one who looked sorrowful, a patrician. Marcius alone, himself, was neither stunned nor humiliated. In mien, carriage, and countenance, he bore the appearance of en ire composure, and while all his friends were full of distress^ seemed the only man that was not touched with his misfortune. Not that either reflection taught him, or gentleness of temper made it natural for him, to submit : he was wholly possessed, on the contrary, with a profound and deep-seated fury, which passes with many for no pain at all. And pain, it is true, transmuted, so to say, by its own fiery heat into anger, loses every appearance of depression and febleness ; the angry man makes a show of energy, as the man in a high fever does of natural heat while, in fact, all this action of the soul is but mere diseased palpitation, distension, and inflammation. That such was his distempered state appeared presently plainly enough in his actions. On his return home, after saluting his mother and his wife, who were all in tears and full of loud lamentations, and exhorting them to moderate the sense they had of his calamity, he proceeded at once to the city gates, whither all the nobility came to attend him ; and so, not so much as taking any thing with him, or making any request to the company, he departed from them, having only three or four clients with him. He continued solitary for a few days in a place in the country, distracted with a variety of counsels, such as rage and indignation suggested to him ; and proposing to himself no honorable or useful end, but only how he might best satisfy his revenge on the Romans, he resolved at length to raise up a heavy war against them from their nearest neighbors. He determined, first to make trial of the Volscians, whom he knew to be still vigorous and flourishing, both in men and treasure, and he imagined their force and power was not so much abated as their spite and anger increased, by the late overthrows they had received from the Romans. There was a man of Antium, called Tullus Aufidius who, for li’s wealth and bravery and the splendor of his family, had the respect and privilege of a king among the Volscians, but whom Marcius knew to have a particular hostility to himself, above all other Romans. Frequent menaces and challenges had passed in battle between them, and those exchanges of defiance to which their hot and eager emulation is apt to prompt young soldiers had added private animosity to their national feelings of opposition. Yet for all this, considering GORIOLANUS. 3SS Tullus to have a certain generosity of temper, and knowing that no Volscian, so much as he, desired an occasion to re- quite upon the Romans the evils they had done, he did what much confirms the saying, that Hard and unequal is with wrath the strife, Which makes us buy its pleasure with our life. Putting on such a dress as would make him appear to any whom he might meet most unlike what he really was, like Ulysses, — The town he entered of his mortal foes. His arrival at Antium was about evening, and, though several met him in the streets, yet he passed along without being known to any and went directly to the house of Tullus, and, entering undiscovered, and went up to the fire-hearth, and seated himself there without speaking a word, covering up his head. Those of the family could not but wonder, and yet they were afraid either to raise or question him, for there was a certain air of majesty both in his posture and silence, but they recounted to Tullus, being then at supper, the strangeness of this accident. He immediately rose from table and came in, and asked who he was, and for what business he came thither ; and then Marcius, unmuffiing himself, and pausing awhile, ‘‘ If,” said he, you cannot call me to mind, Tullus, or do not believe your eyes concerning me I must of necessity be my own accuser. I am Caius Marcius, the author of so much mischief to the Volscians ; of which, were I seeking to deny it, the surname of Coriolanus I -^low bear would be a sufficient evidence against me. The one recom- pense I have received for all the hardships and perils I have gone through was the title that proclaims my enmity to yout nation, and this is the only thing which is still left me. Of all other advantages, I have been stripped and deprived by the envy and outrage of the Roman people, and the cowardice and treachery of the magistrates and those of my own order. I am driven out as an exile, and become an humble suppliant at your hearth, not so much for safety and protection (should I have come hither, had I been afraid to die ?) as to seek vengeance against those that expelled me ; which, inethinks, I have already obtained, by putting myself into your hands. If, therefore, you have really a mind to attack your enemies, come then, make use of that affliction you see me in to assist the enterprise, and convert my personal infelicity into a common blessing to the Volscians ; as, indeed, I am likely to be more serviceable in fighting for than against you, with the CORIOLANUS. 3^)6 advantage which I now possess, of knowing all the secrets of the enemy that I am attacking. But if you decline to make any further attempts, I am neither desirous to live my- self, nor will it be well in you to preserve a person who has been your rival and adversary of old, and now, when he offers you his service, appears unprofitable and useless to you/’ Tullus, on hearing this, was extremely rejoiced, and giv ing him his right hand, exclaimed, ‘‘ Rise, Marcius, and be ol good courage ; it is a great happiness you bring to Antium, in the present you make us of yourself ; expect every thing that is good from the Volscians.” He then proceeded to feast and entertain him with every display of kindness, and for several days after they were in close deliberation together on the prospects of a war. While this design was forming, there were great troubles and commotions at Rome, from the animosity of the senators against the people, heightened just now by the late condem- nation of Marcius. Besides that their soothsayers and priests, and even private persons, reported signs and prodi- gies not to be neglected ; one of which is stated to have occurred as follows : Titus Latinus, a man of ordinary con- dition, but of a quiet and virtuous character, free from all superstitious fancies, and yet more from vanity and exaggera- tion, had an apparition in his sleep, as if Jupiter came and bade him tell the senate, that it was with a bad and unac- ceptable dancer that they had headed his procession. Hav- ing beheld the vision, he said, he did not much attend to it at the first appearance ; but after he had seen and slighted it a second and third time, he had lost a hopeful son, and was himself struck with a palsy. He was brought into the sen- ate on a litter to tell this, and the story goes that he had no sooner delivered his message there, but he at once felt his strength return and got upon his legs, and went home alone without need of any support. The senators, in wonder and surprise, made a diligent search into the matter. That which his dream alluded to was this : some citizen had, for some heinous offence given up a servant of his to the rest of his fellows, with charge to whip him first through the market, and then to kill him ; and while they were executing this com- mand, and scourging the wretch who screwed and turned himself into all manner of shapes and unseemly motions, through the pain he was in, the solemn procession in honor of Jupiter chanced to follow at their heels. Several of the at- tendants on which were, indeed, scandalizjsd at the sight, yet CORIOLANUS. 3S7 no one of them interfered, or acted further in the matter than merely to utter some common reproaches and execrations on a master who inflicted so cruel a punishment. For the Romans treated their slaves with great humanity in these times, when, working and laboring themselves, and living together among them, they naturally were more gentle and familar with them. It w^as one of the severest punishments for a slave who had committed a fault to have to take the piece of wood which supports the pole of a wagon, and carry it about through the neighborhood ; a slave who had once undergone the shame of this, and been thus seen by the household and the neighbors, had no longer any trust or credit among them, and had the name of furcifer ; furca being the Latin word for a prop, or support. When, therefore, Latinus had related his dream, and the senators were considering who this disagreeable and ungainly dancer could be, some of the company, having been struck wflth the strangeness of the punishment, called to mind and mentioned the miserable slave who was lashed through the streets and afterwards put to death. The priests, when con- sulted, confirmed the conjecture ; the master was punished \ and orders given for a new celebration of the procession and the spectacles in honor of the god. Numa, in other respects also a wise arranger of religious offices, would seem to hav^e been especially judicious in his direction, with a view to the attentiveness of the people, that, when the magistrates or priests performed any divine worship, a herald should go be- fore, and proclaim with a loud voice. Hoc age^ Do this you are about, and so warn them to mind whatever sacred action they were engaged in, and not suffer any business or worldly avocation to disturb and interrupt it ; most of the things which men do of this kind,, being in a manner forced from them, and effected by constraint. It is usual with the Romans to recommence their sacrifices and processions and specta- cles, not only upon such a cause as this, but for any slighter reason. If but one of the horses which drew the chariots called Tensae, upon which the images of their gods were placed., happened to fail and falter, or if the driver took hold of the reins with his left hand, they would decree that the whole operation should commence anew ; and, in latter ages, one and the same sacrifice was performed thirty times over, because of the occurrence of some defect or mistake or acci- dent in the service. Such was the Roman reverence and caution in religious matters. CORIOLANUS. 35^5 Marcius and Tullus were now secretly discoursing of their project with the chief men of Antium, advising them to invade the Romans while they were at variance among them- selves. And when shame appeared to hinder them from embracing the motion, as they had sworn to a truce and cessa- tion of arms for the space of two years, the Romans themselves soon furnished them with a pretence, by making proclamation, out of some jealousy or slanderous report, in the midst ot the spectacles, that all the Volscians who had come to see them should depart the city before sunset. Some affirm that this was a contrivance of Marcius, who sent a man privately to the consuls, falsely to accuse the Volscians of intending to fall upon the Romans during the games, and to set the city on fire. This public affront roused and inflamed their hostil- ity to the Romans ; and Tullus, perceiving it, made his ad- vantage of it, aggravating the fact, and working on their indignation, till he persuaded them, at last, to dispatch am- bassadors to Rome, requiring the Romans to restore that part of their country and those towns which they had taken from the Volscians in the late war. When the Romans heard the message, they indignantly replied, that the Vol- scians were the first that took up arms, but the Romans would be the last to lay them down. This answer being brought back, Tullus called a general assembly of the Vol- scians ; and the vote passing for a war, he then proposed that they should call in Marcius, laying aside the remem- brance of former grudges, and assuring themselves that the services they should now receive from him as a friend and associate, would abundantly outweigh any harm or damage he had done them when he was their enemy. Marcius was ac- cordingly summoned, and having made his entrance, and spoken to the people, won their good oppinion of his capacity, his skill, counsel, and boldness, not less by his present words than by his past actions. They joined him in commission with Tullus, to have full power as the general of their forces in all that related to the war. And he, fearing lest the time that would be requisite to bring all the Volscians to- gether in full preparation might be so long as to lose him the opportunity of action, left order with the chief persons and magistrates of the city to provide other things, while he him- self, prevailing upon the most forward to assemble and march out with him as volunteers without sta) ing to be eiv rolled, made a sudden inroad into the Roman confines, when nobody expected him, and possessed himself of so much CORIOLANUS. 3S9 booty, that the Volscians found they had more than they could either carry away or use in the camp. The abundance of provision which he gained, and the waste and havoc of the country which he made, were, however, of themselves and in his account, the smallest results of that invasion ; the great mischief he intended, and his special object in all, was to in- crease at Rome the suspicions entertained of the patricians, and to make them upon worse terms with the people. With this view, while spoiling all the fields and destroying the property of other men, he took special care to preserve their farms and lands untouched, and would not allow his soldiers to ravage there, or seize upon anything which belonged to them. From hence their invectives and quarrels against one another broke out afresh, and rose to a greater height than ever ; the senators reproaching those of the commonalty with their late injustice to Marcius ; while the plebeians, on their side, did not hesitate to accuse them of having, out of spite and revenge, solicited him to this enterprise, and thus, when others were involved in the miseries of a war by their means, they sat like unconcerned spectators, as being fur- nished with a guardian and protector abroad of their wealth and fortunes, in the very person of the public enemy. After this incursion and exploit, which was of great advantage to the Volscians, as they learned by it to grow more hardy and to contemn their enemy, Marcius drew them off, and re- turned in safety. But when the whole strength of the Volscians was brought together in the field, with great expedition and alacrity, it ap- peared so considerable a body, that they agreed to leave part in garrison, for the security of their towns, and with the other part to march against the Romans. Marcius now de- sired Tullus to choose which of the two charges would be most agreeable to him. Tullus answered that since he knew Marcius to be equally valiant with himself, and far more for- tunate, he would have him take the command of those that were going out to the war while he made it his care to defend their cities at home, and provide all conveniences for the army abroad. Marcius thus reinforced, and much stronger than before, moved first towards the city called Circaeum, a Roman colony. He received its surrender and did the in- habitants no injury; passing thence, he entered and laid waste the country of the Latins, where he expected the Ro- mans would meet him, as the Latins were their confeder ates and allies, and had often sent to demand succors from 300 CORIOLANUS. them. The people, however, on their part, showing little in clination for the service, and the consuls themselves being unwilling to run the hazard of a battle, when the time of their office was almost ready to expire, they dismissed the Latin ambassadors without any effect ; so that Marcius, find- ing no army to oppose him marched up to their cities, and, having taken by force Toleria, Lavici, Peda, and Bola, all of which offered resistance, not only plundered their houses, but made a prey likewise of their persons. Meantime lie showed particular regard for all such as came over to his party, and, for fear they might sustain any damage against his will, encamped at the greatest distance he could, and wholly abstained from the lands of their property. After, however, that he had made himself master of Bola, a town not above ten miles from Rome, where he found great treasure, and put almost all the adults to the sword; and when, on this, the other Volscians that were ordered to stay behind and protect their cities, hearing of his achievements and success, had not patience to remain any longer at home, but came hastening in their arms to Marcius, saying that he alone was their general and the sole commander they would own ; with all this, his name and renown spread throughout all Italy, and universal wonder prevailed at the sudden and mighty revolution in the fortunes of two nations which the loss and the accession of a single man had effected. All at Rome was in great disorder; they were utterly averse from fighting, and spent their whole time in cabals and disputes and reproaches against each other ; until news was brought that the enemy had laid close siege to Lavinium, where were the images and sacred things of their tutelar gods, and from whence they derived the origin of their nation, that being the first city which ^neas built in Italy. These tid- ings produced a change as universal as it was extraordinary in the thoughts and inclinations of the people but occasioned a yet stranger revulsion of feelings among the patricians. The people now were for repealing the sentence against Mar- cius, and calling him back into the city ; whereas the senate, being assembled to preconsider the decree, opposed and finally rejected the proposal, either out of the mere humor of contradicting and withstanding the people in whatever they should desire, or because they were unwilling, perhaps, that he should own his restoration to their kindness ; or having now conceived a displeasure against Marcius himself, who was bringing distress upon all alike, though he had not been CORIOLANUS. 361 ill treated by all, and was become a declared enemy to his whole country, though he knew well enough that the princi- pal and all the better men condoled with him and suffered in his injuries. This resolution of theirs being made public the people could proceed no further, having no authority to pass any thing by suffrage, and enact it for a law, without a previous decree from the senate. When Marcius heard of this, he was more exasperated than ever, and, quitting the siege of La- vinium, marched furiously towards Rome, and encamped at a place called the Cluilian ditches, about five miles from the city. The nearness of his approach did, indeed, create much terror and disturbance, yet it also ended their dissensions for the present ; as nobody now, whether consul or senator, durst any longer contradict the people in their design of recalling Marcius ; but, seeing their women running affrighted up and down the streets, and the old men at prayer in every temple with tears and supplications, and that in short, there was a general absence among them both of courage and wisdom to provide for their own safety, they came at last to be all of one mind, that the people had been in the right to propose as they did a reconciliation with Marcius, and that the senate was guilty of a fatal error to begin a quarrel with him when it was a time to forget offences, and they should have studied rather to appease him. It was, therefore, unanimously agreed by all parties, that ambassadors should be dispatched, offer- ing him return to his country, and desiring he would free them from the terrors and distresses of the war. The persons sent by the senate with this message were chosen out of his kin- dred and acquaintance, who naturally expected a very kind reception at their first interview, upon the score of that rela- tion and their old familiarity and friendship with him ; in which, however, they were much mistaken. Being led through the enemy’s camp, they found him sitting in state amidst the chief men of the Volscians, looking insupportably proud and arrogant. He bade them declare the cause of their coming, which they did in the most gentle and tender terms, and with a behavior suitable to their language. When they had made an end of speaking, he returned them a sharp answer, full of bitterness and angry resentment, as to what concerned him- self and the ill usage he had received from them ; but as general of the Volscians, he demanded restitution of the cities and the lands which had been seized upon during the late war, and that the same rights and franchises should be grant 362 CORIOLANUS. ed them at Rome, which had been before accorded to the Latins ; since there could be no assurance that a peace would be firm and lasting without fair and just conditions on both sides. He allowed them thirty days to consider and resolve. The ambassadors being departed, he withdrew his forces out of the Roman territory. This, those of the Volscians who had long envied his reputation, and could not endure to see the influence he had with the people, laid hold of, as the first matter of complaint against him. Among them was also Tullus himself, not for any wrong done him personally by Marcius, but through the weakness incident to human na- ture. He could not help feeling mortified to find his own glory thus totally obscured, and himself overlooked and neg- lected now by the Volscians, who had so great an opinion of their new leader, that he alone was all to them, while other captains, they thought, should be content with that share of power, which he might think fit to accord. From hence the first seeds of complaint and accusation were scattered about in secret, and the malcontents met and heightened each other’s indignation, saying, that to retreat as he did, was in effect to betray and deliver up, though not their cities and their arms, yet what was as bad, the critical times and op- portunities for action, on which depend the preservation or the loss of every thing else; since in less than thirty days* space, for which he had given a respite from the war, there might happen the greatest changes in the world. Yet Mar- cius spent not any part of the time idly, but attacked the confederates of the enemy, ravaged their land, and took from them seven great and populous cities in that interval. The Romans, in the meanwhile, durst not venture out to their re- lief ; but were utterly fearful, and showed no more disposi- tion or capacity for action, than if their bodies had been struck with a palsy, and become destitute of sense and mo- tion. But when the thirty days were expired^ and Marcius appeared again with his whole army, they sent another em^ bassy to beseech him that he would moderate his displeasure and would withdraw the Volscian army, and then make any proposals he thought best for both parties ; the Romans would make no concessions to ruenaces, but if it were his opinion that the Volscians ought to have any favor shown them, upon laying down their arms they might obtain all they could in reason desire. The reply of Marcius was, that he should make no an- swer to this as general of the Volscians, but, in the quality CORIOLANUS. 363 still of a Rom?.n citizen, he would advise and exhort them, as the case stood, not to carry it so high, but think rather of just compliance, and return to him, before three days were at an end, with a ratification of his previous demands ; other- wise, they must understand that they could not have any further freedom of passing through his camp upon idle er- rands. When the ambassadors were come back, and had ac- quainted the senate with the answer, seeing the whole state now threatened as it were by a tempest, and the waves ready to overwhelm them, they were forced, as we say in extreme perils, to let down the sacred anchor. A decree was made, that the whole order of their priests, those who initiated in the mysteries or had the custody of them, and those who, ac- cording to the ancient practice of the country, divined from birds, should all and every one of them go in full procession to Marcius with their pontifical array, and the dress and habit which they respectively used in their several functions, and should urge him, as before, to withdraw his forces, and then treat with his countrymen in favor of the Volscians. He con- sented so far, indeed, as to give the deputation an admittance into his camp, but granted nothing at all, nor so much as ex- pres^d himself more mildly; but without capitulating or re- ceding, bade them once for all choose whether they would yield or fight, since the old terms were the only terms of peace. When this solemn application proved ineffectual, the priests, too, returning unsuccessful, they determined to sit still within the city, and keep watch about their walls, intending only to repulse the enemy, should he offer to attack them, and plac- ing their hopes chiefly in time and in extraordinary accidents of fortune ; as to themselves, they felt incapable of doing any thing for their own deliverance ; mere confusion and terror and ill-boding reports possessed the whole city ; till af last a thing happened not unlike what we so often find repre sented, without, however, being accepted as true by people ir general, in Homer. On some great and unusual occasion w( find him say: — But him the blue-eyed goddess did inspire ; and elsewhere : — But some immortal turned my mind away, To think what others of the deed would say; and again : Were’t his own thought or were't a god’s command. 3^4 CORIOLANUS. People are apt, in such passages, to censure and disregard the poet, as if, by the introduction of mere impossibilities and idle fictions, he were denying the action of a man’s own delib erate thought and free choice ; which is not, in the least, the case in Homer’s representation, where the ordinary, prob- able, and habitual conclusions that common reason leads to are continually ascribed to our own direct agency. He cer- tainly says frequently enough : — But I consulted with my own great soul ; or, as in another passage : — He spoke. Achilles, with quick pain possessed^ Resolved two purposes in his strong breast ; and in a third : — — Yet never to her wishes won The just mind of the brave Bellerophon. But where the act is something out of the way and ex- traordinary, and seems in a manner to demand some impulse of divine possession and sudden inspiration to ac^unt for it, here he does introduce divine agency, not to destroy, but to prompt the human will ; not to create in us another agency, but offering images to stimulate our own ; images that in no sort or kind make our action involuntary, but give oc(?asion rather to spontaneous action, aided and sustained by feelings of confidence and hope. For either we must totally dismiss and exclude divine influences from every kind of causality and origination in what we do, or else what other way can we conceive in which divine aid and co-operation can act? Certainly we cannot suppose that the divine beings actually and literally turn our bodies and direct our hands and our feet this way or that, to do what is right : it is obvious that they must actuate the practical and elective element of our nature, by certain initial occasions, by images presented to the imagination, and thoughts suggested to the mind, such either as to excite it to, or avert and withhold it from, any particular course. In the perplexity which I have described, the Roman women went, some to other temples, but the greater part, and the ladies of highest rank, to the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus : Among these suppliants was Valeria, sister to the great Pop- licola, who did the Romans eminent service both in peace and war. Poplicola himself was now deceased, as is told in the history of his life ; but Valeria lived still, and enjoyed CORIOLANUS. 365 great respect and honor at Rome, her life and conduct no way disparaging her birth. She, suddenly seized with the sort of instinct or emotion of mind which I have described, and happily lighting, not without divine guidance, on the right expedient, both rose herself, and bade the others rise, and went directly with them to the house of Volumnia, the mother ^ of Marcius. And coming in and finding her sitting with her daughter-in-law, and with her little grandchildren on her lap, Valeria, then surrounded by her female companions, spoke in the name of them all : — “ We that now make our appearance, O Volumnia, and you, Vergilia, are come as mere women to women, not by direction of the senate, or an order from the consuls, or the appointment of any other magistrate ; but the divine being himself, as I conceive, moved to compassion by our prayers, prompted us to visit you in a body, and request a thing on which our own and the common safety depends, and which, if you consent to it, will raise your glory above that of the daughters of the Sabines, who won over their fathers and their husbands from mortal enmity to peace and friendship. Arise and come with us to Marcius ; join in our supplication, and bear for your country this true and just testimony on her behalf : that, notwithstanding the many mischiefs that have been done her, yet she has never outraged you, nor so much as thought of treating you ill, in all her resentment, but does now restore you safe into his hands, though there be small likelihood she should obtain from him any equitable terms.’’ The words of Valeria were seconded by the acclamations of the other women, to which Volumnia made answer : — “ I and Vergilia, my countrywomen, have an equal share with you all in the common miseries, and we have the addi- tional sorrow, which is wholly ours, that we have lost the mer- it and good fame of Marcius, and see his person confined, rather than protected, by the arms of the enemy. Yet I ac- count this the greatest of all misfortunes, if indeed the affairs of Rome be sunk to so feeble a state as to have their last dependence upon us. For it is hardly imaginable he should have any consideration left for us, when he has no regard for the country which he was wont to prefer before his mother and wife and children. Make use, however, of our service; and lead us, if you please, to him ; we are able, if nothing more, at least to spend our last breath in making suit to him for our country.” Having spoken thus, she took Vergilia by the hand, and 366 CORIOLANUS. the young children, and so accompanied them to the Volscian camp. So lamentable a sight much affected the enemies themselves, who viewed them in respectful silence. Marcius was then sitting in his place, with his chief officers about him, and, seeing the party of women advance toward them, won- dered what should be the matter ; but perceiving at length that his mother was at the head of them, he w^ould fain have hardened himself in his former inexorable temper, but, over- come by his feelings, and confounded at what he saw, he did not endure the)^ should approach him sitting in state, but came down hastily to meet them, saluting his mother first, and embracing her a long time, and then his wife and chil- dren, sparing neither tears nor caresses, but suffering him- self to be borne away and carried headlong, as it were, by the impetuous violence of his passion. When he oad satisfied himself, and observed that his mother Volumma was desirous to say something, the Volscian council being tiiii called in he heard her to the following ef- fect : “ Our dress and our very persons, my son, might tell you, though we should say nothing ourselves, in how forlorn a condition we have lived at home since your banishment and absence from us ; rder and that day as the surest foundation of their liberty, they not only pulled down the castle, but overturned the palaces and monuments adjoining, and what- ever else might preserve any memory of former tyrants. Hav- ing soon levelled and cleared the place, he there presently erected courts for administration of justice, ratifying the citizens by thiS means, and building popular government on the fall and ruin of tyranny. But since he had recovered a city destitute of inhabitants, some of them dead in civil wars and insurrections, and others being fled to escape tyrants, so that through solitude and want of people the great market- place of Syracuse was overgrown with such quantity of rank herbage that it became a pasture for their horses, the grooms lying along in the grass as they fed by them ; while also other towns, very few excepted, were become full of stags and wild boars, so that those who had nothing else to do went frequently a hunting, and found game in the suburbs and about the walls ; and not one of those who possessed themselves of castles, or made garrisons in the country, could be persuaded to quit their present abode, or would accept an invitation to return back into the city, so much did they all dread and abhor the very name of assemblies and forms of government and public speaking, that had produced the greater part of those usurpers who had successively assumed a dominion over them, — Timoleon, therefore, with the Syracusans that remained, con- sidering this vast desolation, and how little hope there was to have it otherwise supplied, thought good to write to the Corinthians, requesting that they would send a colony out of Greece to repeople Syracuse. For else the land about it would lie unimproved ; and besides this, they expected to be involved in a greater war from Africa, having news brought them that Mago had killed himself, and that the Carthaginians, out of rage for his ill conduct in the late expedition, had caused his body to be nailed upon a cross, and that they were raising a mighty force, with design to make their descent upon Sicily the next summer. These letters from Timoleon being delivered at Corinth, and the ambassadors of Syracuse beseeching them at the same time, that they would take upon them the care of their poor city, and once again oecome the founders of it, the Corinthians were not tempted by any feeling of cupidity to lay hold of the advantage. Nor did they seize and appro 396 TIMOLEON. priate the city to themselves, but going about first to the games that are kept as sacred in Greece, and to the most numerously attended religious assemblages, they made pub' lication by heralds, that the Corinthians, having destroyed the usurpation at Syracuse and driven out the tyrant, did thereby invite the Syracusan exiles, and any other Siceliols, to return and inhabit the city, with full enjoyment of freedom under their own laws,, the land being divided among them in just and equal proportions. And after this, sending messengers into Asia and the several islands where they understood that most of the scattered fugitives were then residing, they bade them all repair to Corinth, engaging that the Corinthians would afford them vessels and commanders, and a safe convoy, at their own charges, to Syracuse. Such generous proposals, being thus spread about, gained them the just and honorable recompense of general praise and benediction, for delivering the country from oppressors, and saving it fr^m barbarians, and restoring it at length to the rightful owners of the place. These, when they were assembled at Corinth, and found how insufficient their company was, besought the Corinthians that they might have a supplement of other persons, as well out of their city as the rest of Greece, to go with them as joint colonists ; and so raising themselves to the number of ten thou sand, they sailed together to Syracuse. By this time great multitudes, also, from Italy and Sicily had flocked in to Timoleon, so that, as Athanis reports, their entire body amounted now to sixty thousand men. Among these he divi- ded the whole territory, and sold the houses for a thousand talents ; by which method, he both left it in the power of the old Syracusans to redeem their own, and made it a means also for raising a stock for the community, which had been so much impovershed of late and was so unable to defray other expenses, and especially those of a war, that they exposed their very statues to sale, a regular process being observed, and sentence of auction passed upon each of them by majority of votes, as if they had been so many criminals taking their trial ; in the course of which it is said that while condemna- tion was pronounced upon all other statues, that of the ancient usurper Gelo was exempted, out of admiration and honor and for the sake of the victory he gained over the Car- thaginian forces at the river Himera. Syracuse being thus happily revived, and replenished again by the general concourse of inhabitants from all parts, Timoleon was desirous now to rescue other cities from the TIMOLEON. 397 like bondage, and wholly and once for all to extirpate arbi- trary government out of Sicily. And for this purpose, march- ing into the territories of those that used it, he compelled Hicetes first to renounce the Carthaginian interest, and, demolishing the fortresses which were held by him, to live henceforth among the Leontinians as a private person. Leptines, also, the tyrant of Apollonia and divers other little towns, after some resistance made, seeing the danger he was in of being taken by force, surrendered himself ; upon which Timoleon spared his life, and sent him away to Corinth, count- ing it a glorious thing that the mother city should expose to the view of other Greeks these Sicilian tyrants, living now in an exiled and a low condition. After this he returned to Syracuse, that he might have leisure to attend to the establish- ment of the new constitution, and assist Cephalus and Diony- sius, who were sent from Corinth to make laws, in determining the most important points of it. In the meanwhile, desirous that his hired soldiers should not want action, but might rather enrich themselves by some plunder from the enemy, he despatched Dinarchus and Demaretus with a portion of them into the part of the island belonging to the Carthaginians, where they obliged several cities to revolt from the barbarians, and not only lived in great abundance themselves, but raised money from their spoil to carry on the war. Meantime, the Carthaginians landed at the promontory of Lilybaeum, bringing with them an army of seventy thousand men on board two hundred galleys, besides a thousand other vessels laden with engines of battery, chariots, corn, and other military stores, as if they did not intend to manage the war by piecemeal and in parts as heretofore, but to drive the Greeks altogether and at once out of all Sicily. And indeed it was a force sufficient to overpower the Siceliots, even though they had been at perfect union among themselves, and had never been enfeebled by intestine quarrels. Hearing that part of their subject territory was suffering devastation, they forth- with made toward the Corinthians with great fury, having Asdrubal and Hamilcar for their generals ; the report of whose numbers and strength coming suddenly to Syracuse, the citizens were so terrified, that hardly three thousand^ among so many myriads of them, had the courage to take up arms and join Timoleon. The foreigners, serving for pay, were not above four thousand in all, and about a thousand of these grew faint-hearted by the way, and forsook Timoleon in his march towards the enemy, looking on him as frantic and 398 TIMOLEON. distracted, destitute of the sense which might have been ex- pected from his time of life, thus to venture out against an army of seventy thousand men, with no more than five thou- sand foot and a thousand horse ; and, when he should have kept those forces to defend the city, choosing rather to remove them eight days^ journey from Syracuse, so that if they were beaten from the field, they would have no retreat, nor any burial if they fell upon it. Timoleon, however, reckoned it some kind of advantage, that these had thus discovered them- selves before the battle, and encouraging the rest, led them with all speed to the river Crimesus, where it was told him the Carthaginians were drawn together. As he was marching up an ascent, from the top of which they expected to have a view of the army and of the strength of the enemy, there met him by chance a train of mules loaded with parsley ; which his soldiers conceived to be an ominous occurrence or ill-boding token, because this is the herb with which we not unfrequently adorn the sepulchres of the dead ; and there is a proverb derived from the custom, used of one who is dangerously sick, that he has need of nothing but parsley. So to ease their minds, and free them from any super- stitious thoughts or forebodings of evil, Timoleon halted, and concluded an address, suitable to the occasion, by saying, that a garland of triumph was here luckily brought them, and had fallen into their hands of its own accord, as an anticipa- tion of victory : the same with which the Corinthians crown the victors in the Isthmian games, accounting chaplets of parsley the sacred wreath proper to their country ; parsley being at that time still the emblem of victory at the Isthmian, as it is now at the Nemean sports ; and it is not so very long ago that the pine first began to be used in its place. Timoleon, therefore, having thus bespoke his soldiers, took part of the parsley, and with it made himself a chaplet first, his captains and their companies all following the ex- ample of their leader. The soothsayers then, observing also two eagles on the wing towards them, one of which bore a snake struck through with her talons, and the other, as she tlew, uttered a loud cry indicating boldness and assurance, at once showed them to the soldiers, who with one consent fell to supplicate the gods, and call them in to their assistance. It was now about the beginning of summer, and conclusion of the month called Thargelion, not far from the solstice ; and the river sending up a thick mist, all the adjacent plain was at first darkened with the fog, so that for a while they could TIMOLEON. 399 discern nothing from the enemy’s camp ; only a confused buzz and undistinguished mixture of voices came up to the hill from the distant motions and clamors of so vast a multitude. When the Corinthians had mounted, and stood on the top, and had laid down their bucklers to take breath and repose themselves, the sun coming round and drawing up the vapors from below, the gross foggy air that was now gathered and condensed above formed in a cloud upon the mountains j and, all the under places being clear and open, the river Crimesus appeared to them again, and they could descry the enemies passing over it, first with their formidable four horse chariots of war, and then ten thousand footmen bearing white shields, whom they guessed to be all Carthaginians, from the splendor of their arfns, and the slowness and order of their march. And when now the troops of various other nations, flowing in behind them, began to throng for passage in a tumultuous and unruly manner, Timoleon, perceiving that the river gave them opportunity to single off whatever number of their enemies they had a mind to engage at once, and bid- ding his soldiers observe how their forces were divided into two separate bodies by the intervention of the stream, some being already over, and others still to ford it, gave Demaretus command to fall in upon the Carthaginians with his horse, and disturb their ranks before they should be drawn up into form of battle ; and coming down into the plain himself form- ing his right and left wing of other Sicilians, intermingling only a few strangers in each, he placed the natives of Syra- cuse in the middle, with the stoutest mercenaries he had about his own person ; and, waiting a little to observe the action of his horse, when they saw they were not only hin- dered from grappling with the Carthaginians by the armed chariots that ran to and fro before the army, but forced con- tinually to wheel about to escape having their ranks broken, and so to repeat their charges anew, he took his buckler in his hand, and crying out to the foot that they should follow him with courage and confidence, he seemed to speak with a more than human accent, and a voice stronger than ordinary ; whether it were that he naturally raised it so high in the vehemence and ardor with his mind to assault the enemy, or else, as many then thought, some god or other spoke with him. When his soldiers quickly gave an echo to it, and be- sought him to lead them on without any further delay, he made a sign to the horse, that they should draw off from the front where the chariots were, and pass sidewards to attack 400 TIMOLEON. their enemies in the flank ; then, making his vanguard firm by joining man to man and buckler to buckler, he caused the trumpet to sound, and so bore in upon the Carthaginians. They, for their part, stoutly received and sustained his first onset ; and having their bodies armed with breast-plates of iron, and helmets of brass on their heads, besides great bucklers to cover and secure them, they could easily repel the charge of the Greek spears. But when the business came to a decision by the sword, where mastery depends no less upon art than strength, all on a sudden from the mountain tops violent peals of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning broke out ; following upon which the darkness, that had been hovering about the higher grounds and the crests of the hills, descending to the place of battle and bringing a tempest of rain and of wind and hail along with it, was driven upon the Greeks behind, and fell only at their backs, but discharged itself in the very faces of the barbarians, the rain beating on them, and the lightning dazzling them without cessation ; annoyances that in many ways distressed at any rate the in- experienced, who had not been used to such hardships, and. in particular, the claps of thunder, and the noise of the rain and hail beating on their arms, kept them from hearing the commands of their officers. Besides which, the very mud also was a great hinderance to the Carthaginians, who were not lightly equipped, but, as I said before, loaded with heavy armor; and then their shirts underneath getting drenched, the foldings about the bosom filled with water, grew un- wieldy and cumbersome to them as they fought, and made it easy for the Greeks to throw them down, and, when they were once down, impossible for them, under that weight, to disengage themselves and ris^ again with weapons in their hand. The river Crimesus, too, swollen partly by the rain, and partly by the stoppage of its course with the numbers that were passing through, overflowed its banks ; and the I level ground by the side of it, being so situated as to have a number of small ravines and hollows of the hill-side descend- ing upon it, was now filled with rivulets and currents that had no certain channel, in which the Carthaginians stumbled and rolled about, and found themselves in great difficulty. So that, in fine, the storm bearing still upon them, and the Greeks having cut in pieces four hundred men of their first ranks, the whole body of their army began to fly. Great numbers were overtaken in the plain, and put to the sword there ; and many of them, as they were making their way TIMOLEON. 401 back through the river, falling foul upon others that were yet coming over, were borne away and overwhelmed by the waters ; but the major part, attempting to get up the hill so as to make their escape, were intercepted and destroyed by the light-armed troops. It is said, that of ten thousand who lay dead after the light, three thousand, at least, were Cartha- ginian citizens ; a heavy loss and great grief to their country- men ; those that fell being men inferior to none among them as to birth, wealth, or reputation. Nor do their records men- tion that so many native Carthaginians were ever cut off before in any one battle ; as they usually employed Africans, Spaniards, and Numidians in their wars, so that if they chanced to be defeated, it was still at the cost and damago of other nations. The Greeks easily discovered of what condition and at' count the slain were, by the richness of their spoils ; for whe^ they came to collect the booty, there was little reckoning made either of brass or iron, so abundant were better meta' and so common were silver and gold. Passing over the rivc^ they became masters of their camp and carriages. As for captives, a great many of them were stolen away, and sold privately by the soldiers, but about five thousand were brought in and delivered up for the benefit of the public ; two hundred of their chariots of war were also taken. The tent of Timoleon then presented a most glorious and magnifi- cent appearance, being heaped up and hung round with every variety of spoils and military ornaments, among which there were a thousand breastplates of rare workmanship and beauty, and bucklers to the number of ten thousand. The victors being but few to strip so many that were vanquished, and javing such valuable booty to occupy them, it was the third day after the fight before they could erect and finish the trophy of their conquest. Timoleon sent tidings of his victory to Corinth, with the best and goodliest arms he had taken as a proof of it ; that he thus might render his country an object of emulation to the whole world, when, of all the cities of Greece, men should there alone behold the chief temples adorned, not with Grecian spoils, nor offerings obtained by the bloodshed and plunder of their own countrymen and kindred, and attended, therefore, with sad and unhappy re- membrances, but with such as had been stripped from bar- barians and enemies to their nation, with the noblest titles inscribed upon them, titles telling of the justice as well as fortitude of the conquerors ; namely, that the people of 26 402 ri\rDLEON. Corinth, and Timoleon their general, having redeemed the Greeks of Sicily from Carthaginian bondage, made oblation of these to the gods, in grateful acknowledgment of their favor. Having done this, he left his hired soldiers in the enemy’s country, to drive and carry away all they could throughout the subject-territory of Carthage, and so marched with the rest of his army to Syracuse, where he issued an edict for banishing the thousand mercenaries who had basely deserted him before the battle, and obliged them to quit the city before sunset. They, sailing into Italy, lost their lives there by the hands of the Bruttians, in spite of a public assurance of safety previously given them ; thus receiving, from the divine power, a just reward of their own treachery. Mamercus, how- ever, the tyrant of Catana, and Hicetes, after all, either envy- ing Timoleon the glory of his exploits, or fearing him as one that would keep no agreement, or having any peace with tyrants, made a league with the Carthaginians, and pressed them much to send a new army and commander into Sicily, unless they would be content to hazard all, and to be wholly ejected out of that inland. And in consequence of this, Cisco was despatched with a navy of seventy sail. He took numer- ous Greek mercenaries also into pay, that being the first time they had ever been enlisted for the Carthaginian service ; but then it seems the Carthaginians began to admire them, as the most irresistible soldiers of all mankind. Uniting their forces in the territory of Messena, they cut off four hundred of Timoleon’s paid soldiers, and within the dependencies of Carthage, at a place called Hierae, destroyed, by an ambus- cade, the whole body of mercenaries that served under Euthy- mus the Leucadian ; which accidents, however, made the good fortune of Timoleon accounted all the more remarkable, as these were the men that, with Philomelus of Phocis and Onomarchus, had forcibly broken into the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and were partakers with them in the sacrilege ; so thai: being hated and shunned by all, as persons under a curse, they were constrained to wander about in Pelopon- nesus ; when, for want of others, Timoleon was glad to take them into service in his expedition for Sicily, where they were successful in whatever enterprise they attempted under his conduct. But now, when all the important dangers were past, on his sending them out for the relief and defence of his party in several places, they perished and were destroyed at a distance from him, not all together, but in small parties; TIMOLEON. 403 and the vefTigeance which was destined for them, so accom- modating itself to the good fortune which guarded Tiinoleon as not to allow any harm or prejudice for good men to arise from the punishment of the wicked, the benevolence and kindness which the gods had for Timoleon was thus as dis- tinctly recognized in his disasters as in his successes. What most annoyed the Syracusans was their being insult- ed and mocked by the tyrants ; as, for example, by Mamercus, who valued himself much upon his gift for writing poems and tragedies, and took occasion, when coming to present the gods with the bucklers of the hired soldiers whom he had killed, to make a boast of his victory in an insulting elegiac inscription : These shields with purple, gold, and ivory wrought, Were won by us that but with poor ones fought. After this, while Timoleon marched to Calauria, Hicetes made an inroad into the borders of Syracuse, where he met with considerable booty, and having done much mischief and havoc, returned back by Calauria itself, in contempt of Timo- leon, and the slender force he had then with him. He, suffer- ing Hicetes to pass forward, pursued him with his horsemen and light infantry, which Hicetes perceiving, crossed the river Damyrias, and then stood in a posture to receive him ; the difficulty of the passage, and the height and steepness of the bank on each side, giving advantage enough to make him confident. A strange contention and dispute, meantime, among the officers of Timoleon, a little retarded the conflict ; no one of them was willing to let another pass over before him to engage the enemy ; each man claiming it as a right, to venture first and begin the onset ; so that their fording was likely to be tumultuous and without order, a mere general struggle which should be the foremost. Timoleon, therefora^ desiring to decide the quarrel by lot, took a ring from each of the pretenders, which he cast into his own cloak and, after he had shaken all together, the first he drew out had, by good fortune, the figure of a trophy engraved as a seal upon it ; at the sight of which the young captains all shouted for joy, and, without waiting any longer to see how chance would determine it for the rest, took every man his way through the river with all the speed they could make, and fell to blows with the enemies, who were not able to bear up against the violence of their attack, but fled in haste and left their arms behind them all alike, and a thousand dead upon the place. Not long after, Timoleon, marching up to the city of th# 404 TIMOLEON. I.eontines, took Hicetes alive, and his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, the commander of his horse, who were bound and brought to him by their own soldiers. Hicetes and the stripling his son were then executed as tyrants and traitors ; and Eu- thymus, though a brave man, and one of singular courage, could obtain no mercy, because he was charged with contemptuous language in disparagement of the Corinthians when they first sent their forces into Sicily ; it is said that he told the Leon- tini in a speech, that the news did not sound terrible, nor was any great danger to be feared because of Corinthian woman coming out of doors. So true it is that men are usually more stung and galled by reproachful words than hostile actions ; and they bear an affront with less patience than an injury : to do harm and mischief by deeds is counted pardonable from enemies, as nothing less can be expected in a state of war ; whereas virulent and contume- lious words appear to be the expression of needless hatred, and to proceed from an excess of rancor. When Timoleon came back to Syracuse, the citizens brought the wives and daughters of Hicetes and his son to a public trial, and condemned and put them to death. This seems to be the least pleasing action of Timoleon’s life ; since if he had interposed, the unhappy women would have been spared. He would appear to have disregarded the thing, and to have given them up to the citizens, who were eager to take vengeance for the wrongs done to Dion, who expelled Diony sius ; since it was this very Hicetes, who took Arete the wife and Aristomache the sister of Dion, with a son that had not yet passed his childhood, and threw them all together into the sea alive, as related in the life of Dion. After this, he moved towards Catana against Mamercus, who gave him battle near the river Abolus, and was overthrown and put to flight, losing above two thousand men, a considerable part of whom were the Phoenician troops sent byGisco to h*s assistance. After this defeat, the Carthaginians sued for peace; which was granted on the conditions that they should confine themselves to the country within the river Lycus, that those of the inhabitants who wished to remove to the Syracusan territories should be allowed to depart with their whole fami- lies and fortunes, and, lastly, that Carthage should renounce all engagements to the tyrants. Mamercus, now forsaken and despairing of success, took ship for Italy with the design of bringing in the Lucanians against Timoleon and the people of TIMOLEON. 405 Syracuse ; but the men in his galleys turning back and land' ingagai'" and delivering up Catana to Timoleon, thus obliged him to fly for his own safety to Messena, where Hippo was tyrant. Timoleon, however, coming up against them, and be- sieging the city both by sea and land. Hippo, fearful of the event, endeavored to slip away in a vessel ; which the people of Messena surprised as it was putting off, and seizing on his person, and bringing all their children from school into the theatre, to witness the glorious spectacle of a tyrant punished, they first publicly scourged and then put hirp to death. Mamer* cus made surrender of himself to Timoleon, with the proviso, that he should be tried at Syracuse, and Timoleon should take no part in his accusation. Thither he was brought accord- ingly, and presenting himself to plead before the people, he essayed to pronounce an oration he had long before composed in his own defence ; but finding himself interrupted by noise and clamors, and observing from their aspect and demeanor that the assembly was inexorable, he threw off his upper gar- ment, and running across the theatre as hard as he could, dashed his head against one o:" the stores under the seats with intention to have killed himself ; but he had not the fortune to perish, as he designed, but was taken up alive, and suffered the death of ^ robber. 0 Thus did Timoleon cut the nerves of tyranny, and put a period to the wars ; and, whereas, at his first entering upon Sicily, the island was as it were become wild again, and was hateful to the very natives on account of the evils and miseries they suffered there, he so civilized and restored it, and ren- dered it so desirable to all men, that even strangers now came by sea to inhabit those towns and places which their own cit- izens had formerly forsaken and left desolate. Agrigentum and Gela, two famous cities that had been ruined and laid waste bv the Carthaginians after the Attic war, were then peopled again, the one by Megellus and Pheristus from Elea^ the other by Gorgus, from the island of Ceos, partly with new settlers, partly with the old inhabitants whom they collected again from various parts ; to all of whom Timoleon not only atforded a secure and peaceful abode after so obstinate a war, but was further so zealous in assisting and providing for them that he was honored among them as their founder. Similar feelings also possessed to such a degree all the rest of the Sicilians, that there was no proposal for peace, nor reformation of laws, nor assignation of land, nor reconstitution of govern- ment, which they could think well of, unless he lent his aid as 4o6 TIMOLEON. a chief architect, to finish and adorn the work, and superadd some touches from his own hand, which mi^ht render it pleas- ing both to God and man* Although Greece had in his time produced several persons of extraordinary worth, and much renowned for their achieve- ments, such as Timotheus and Agesilaus and Pelopidas and (Timoleon’s chief model) Epaminondas, yet the lustre of their best actions was obscured by a degree of violence and labor, insomuch that some of them were matter of blame and of re- pentance ; wherea^ there is not any one act of Timoleon's, setting aside the necessity he was placed under in reference to his brother, to which, as Timaeus observes, we may not fitly apply that exclamation of Sophocles : — O gods 1 what Venus, or what grace divine, Did here with human workmanship combiii 2 ? For as the poetry of Antimachus, and the painting of Diony sius, the artists of Colophon, though full of force and vigor, yet appeared to be strained and elaborate in comparison with the pictures of Nicomachus and the verses of Homer, which, besides their general strength and beauty, have the peculiar charm of seeming to have been executed with perfect ease and readiness ; so the expeditions and a^ts of Epaminondas or Agesilaus, that were full of toil and effort, when compared with the easy and natural as well as noble and glorious achieve- ments of Timoleon, compel our fair and unbiassed judgment to pronounce the latter not indeed the effect of fortune, but the success of fortunate merit. Though he himself indeed as- cribed that success to the sole favor of fortune ; and both in the letters which he wrote to his friends at Corinth, and in the speeches he made to the people of Syracuse, he would say, that he was thankful unto God, who, designing to save Sicily, was pleased to honor him with the name and title of the deliver- ance he vouchsafed it. And having built a chapel in his house, he there sacrificed to Good Hap, as a deity that had favored him, and devoted the house itself to the Sacred Genius ; it be- ing a house which the Syracusans- had selected for him, as a special reward and monument of his brave exploits, granting him together with it the most agreeable and beautiful piece of land in the whole country, where he kept his residence for the most part, and enjoyed a private life with his wife and children, who came to him from Corinth. For he returned thither no more, unwilling to be concerned in the broils and tumults of Greece, or to expose himself to public en\7 (the fatal mischief TIMOLEON. 407 which great commanders continually run into, from the insatia- ble appetite for honors and authority) ; but wisely chose to spend the remainder of his days in Sicily, and there partake of the blessings he himself had procured, the greatest of which was to behold so many cities flourish, and so many thousands of people live happy through his means. As, however, not only, as Simonides says, ‘‘ On every laik must grow a crest,’^ but also in every democracy there must spring up a false accuser, so was it at Syracuse : two of their popular spokesmen, Laphystius and Demaenetus by name, fell to slander Timoleon. The former of whom requiring him to put in sureties that he would answer to an indictment that would be brought against him, Timoleon would not suffer the citizens, who were incensed at this demand, to oppose it or hinder the proceeding, since he of his own accord had been, he said, at all that trouble, and run so many dangerous risks for this very end and purpose, that every one who wished to try matters by law should freely have recourse to it. And when Demaenetus, in a full audience of the people, laid several things to his charge which had been done while he was gen- eral, he made no other reply to him, but only said he was much indebted to the gods for granting the request he had so often made them, namely, that he might live to see the Syracusans enjoy that liberty of speech which they now seemed to be masters of. Timoleon, therefore, having by confession of all done the greatest and the noblest things of any Greek of his age, and alone distinguished himself in those actions to which their orators and philosophers, in their harangues and panegyrics at their solemn national assemblies, used to exhort and in- cite the Greeks, and being withdrawn beforehand by happy fortune, unspotted and without blood, from the calamities of civil war, in which ancient Greece was soon after involved ; having also given full proof, as of his sage conduct and manly courage to the barbarians and tyrants, so of his justice and gentleness to the Greeks, and his friends in general ; having raised, too, the greater part of those trophies he won in bat- tle, without any tears shed or any mourning worn by the citizens either of Syracuse or Corinth, and within less than eight years’ space delivered Sicily from its inveterate griev- ances and intestine distempers, and given it up free to the native inhabitants, began, as he was now growing old, to find his eyes fail, and awhile after became perfectly blind. Not that he had done any thing himself which might occasion 4o8 TIMOLEON. this defect, or was deprived of his sight by any outrage ol fortune ; it seems rather to have been some inbred and hered itary weakness that was founded in natural causes, which by length of time came to discover itself. For it is said, that several of his kindred and family were subject to the like gradual decay, and lost all use of their eyes, as he did, in their declining years. Athanis the historian tells us, that even during the war against Hippo and Mamercus, while he was in his camp at Mylae, there appeared a white speck within his eye, from whence all could foresee the deprivation that was coming on him ; this, however, did not hinder him then from continuing the siege, and prosecuting the war, till he got both the tyrants into his power ; but upon his coming back to Syra- cuse, he presently resigned the authority of sole commander, and besought the citzens to excuse him from any further service, since things were already brought to so fair an issue. Nor is it so much to be wondered, that he himself should bear the misfor- tune without any marks of trouble ; but the respect and grati- tude which the Syracusans showed him when he was entirely blind, may justly deserve our admiration. They used to go them- selves to visit him in troops, and brought all the strangers that travelled through their country to his house and manor, that they also might have the pleasure to see their noble benefactor; making it the great matter of their joy and exul- tation, that when, after so many brave and happy exploits, he might have returned with triumph into Greece, he should dis- regard all the glorious preparations that were there made to receive him, and choose rather to stay here and end his days among them. Of the various, things decreed and done in honor of Timoleon, I consider one most signal testimony to have been the vote which they passed, that, whenever they should be at war with any foreign nation, they should make use of none but a Corinthian general. The method, also, of their proceeding in council, was a noble demonstration of the same deference for his person. For, determining matters of less consequence themselves, they always called him to ad- vise in the more difficult cases, and such as were of greater moment. He was, on these occasions, carried through the market-place in a litter, and brought in, sitting, into the .'heatre, where the people with one voice saluted him by his name ; and then, after returning the courtesy, and pausing for a time, till the noise of their gratulations and blessings began to cease, he heard the business in debate, and delivered his opinion. This being confirmed by a general suffrage, his TIMOLEON. 4.09 servants went back with the litter through the midst of the assembly, the people waiting on him out with acclamations and applauses, and then returning to consider other public matters, which they could despatch in his absence. Being thus cherished in his old age, with all the respect and tender- ness due to a common father, he was seized with a very slight indispostion, which, however, was sufficient, with the aid of time, to put a period to his life. There was an allotment then of certain days given, within the space of which the Syracusans were to provide whatever should be necessary for his burial, and all the neighboring country people and strangers were to make their appearance in a body ; so that the funeral pomp was set out with great splendor and magnifi- cence in all other respects, and the bier, decked with orna- ments and trophies, was born by a select body of young men over that ground where the palace and castle of Dionysius stood before they were demolished by Timoleon. There at- tended on the solemnity several thousands of men and women, all crowned with flowers, and arrayed in fresh and clean at- tire, which made it look like the procession of a public festi- val ; while the language of all, and their tears mingling with their praise and benediction of the dead Timoleon, mani- festly showed that it was not any superficial honor, or com- manded homage, which they paid him, but the testimony of a just sorrow for his death, and the expression of true affection. The bier at length being placed upon the pile of wood that was kindled to consume his corpse, Demetrius, one of their loudest criers, proceeded to read a proclamation to the fol- lowing purpose : ‘‘ The people of Syracuse has made a special decree to inter Timoleon, tlie son of Timodemus, the Corinth- ian, at the common expense of two hundred minas, and to honor his memory forever, by the establishment of annual prizes to be competed for in music, and horse-races, and all sorts of bodily exercise ; and this, because he suppressed the tyrants, overthrew the barbarians, replenished the principal cities, that were desolate, with new inhabitants, and then lestored the Sicilian Greeks to the privilege of living by their own laws.’^ Besides this, they made a tomb for him in the market-place, which they afterwards built round with colon- nades, and attached to it places of exercise for the young men, and gave it the name of the Timoleonteum. And keep- ing to that form and order of civil policy and observing those laws and constitutions which he left them, they, lived them* selves a long time in great prosperity. 410 iEMILlUS PAULUS. ^MILIUS PAULUS. Almost all historians agree that the ^rnilii were one of the ancient and patrician houses in Rome ; and those authors who affirm that king Numa was pupil to Pythagoras tell us that the first who gave name to his posterity was Mamercus, the son of Pythagoras, who, for his grace and address in speaking, was called ^milius. Most of this race that have risen through their merit to reputation, also enjoyed good fortune ; and even the misfortune of Lucius Paulus at the battle of Cannae, gave testimony to his wisdom and valor. For, not being able to persuade his colleague not to hazard the battle, he, though against his judgment, joined with him in the contest, but was no companion in his flight : on the con- trary, when he that was so resolute to engage deserted him in the midst of danger, he kept the field, and died fighting. Tnis ^milius had a daughter named ^Emilia, who was married to Scipio the Great, and a son Paulus, who is the subject of my present history. In his early manhood, which fell at a time when Rome was flourishing with illustrious characters, he was distinguish- ed for not attaching himself to the studies usual with the young men of mark of that age, nor treading the same paths to fame. For he did not practise oratory with a view to pleading causes, nor would he stoop to salute, embrace, and entertain the vulgar, which were the usual insinuating arts by which many grew popular. Not that he was incapable of either, but he chose to purchase a much more lasting glory b} his valor, justice, and integrity, and in these virtues he soon outstripped all his equals. The first honorable office he aspired to was that of aedile, which he carried against twelve competitors of such merit, that all of them in process of time were consuls. Being afterwards chosen into the number of priests called augurs, appointed amongst the Romans to observe and register di- vinations made by the flight of birds or prodigies in the air^ he so carefully studied the ancient customs of his country^ and so thoroughly understood the religion of his ancestors, that this office, which was before only esteemed a title of honor and merely upon that account sought after, by his iEMILlUS PAULUS. 411 means rose to the rank of one of the highest arts, and gave a confirmation to the correctness of the definition which some philosophers have given of religion, that it is the science of worshipping the gods. When he performed any part of his duty, he did it with great skill and utmost care, making it, when he was engaged in it, his only business, not omitting any one ceremony, or adding the least circumstance, but al- ways insisting, with his companions of the same order, even on points that might seem inconsiderable, and urging upon them, that though they might think the Deity was easily pacified, and ready to forgive faults of inadvertency, yet any such laxity was a very dangerous thing for a commonwealth to allow; because no man ever began the disturbance of his country’s peace by a notorious breach of its laws ; and those who are careless in trifles, give a precedent for remissness in important duties. Nor was he less severe in requiring and observing the ancient Roman discipline in military af- fairs ; not endeavoring, when he had the command, to ingrati- ate himself with his soldiers by popular flattery, though this custom prevailed at that time amongst many, who, by favor and gentleness to those that were under them in their first employment, sought to be promoted to a second ; but, by instructing them in the laws of military discipline with the same care and exactness a priest would use in teaching cere- monies and dreadful mysteries, and by severity to such as transgressed and contemned those laws, he maintained his country in its former greatness, esteeming victory over ene- mies itself but as an accessory to the proper training and dis- ciplining of the citizens. Whilst the Romans were engaged in war with Antiochus the Great, against whom their most experienced commanders were employed, there arose another war in the west, and they were all up in arms in Spain. Thither they sent ^milius, in the quality of praetor, not with six axes, which number other praetors were accustomed to have carried before them, but witli twelve ; so that in his praetorship he was honored with the dignity of a consul. He twice overcame the bar- barians in battle, thirty thousand of whom were slain : suc- cesses chiefly to be ascribed to the wisdom and conduct of the commander, who by his great skill in choosing the advantage of the ground, and making the onset at the passage of a river, gave his soldiers an easy victory. Having made him- self master of two hundred and fifty cities, whose inhabitants oluntarily yielded, and bound themselves by oath to fidelity, 412 ^MILIUS PAULUS. he left the province in peace, and returned to Rome, not en riching himself a drachma by the war. And, indeed, in general, he was but remiss in making money; though he always lived freely and generously on what he had, which was so far from being excessive, that after his death there was but barely enough left to answer his wife’s dowry. His first wife was Papiria, the daughter of Maso, who had formerly been consul. With her he lived a considerable time in wedlock, and then divorced her, though she had made him the father of noble children, being mother of the renowned Scipio, and Fabius Maximus. The reason of this separation has not come to our knowledge ; but there seems to be a truth conveyed in the account of another Roman’s being divorced from his wife, which may be applicable here. This person being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded. Was she not chaste ? was she not fair ? was she not fruitful ? holding out his shoe, asked them. Whether it was not new ? and well made? Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me. Certain it is, that great and open faults have often led to no separation ; while mere petty repeated annoyances, arising from unpleasantness or incongruity of character, have been the occasion of such estrangement as to make it impos- sible for man and wife to live together with any content. ^milius, having thus put away Papiria, married a second wife, by whom he had two sons, whom he brought up in his own house, transferring the two former into the greatest and the most noble families of Rome. The elder was adopted into the house of Fabius Maximus, who was five times consul ; the younger by the son of Scipio Africanus, his cousin-german, and was by him named Scipio. Of the daughters of ^milius, one was married to the son of Cato, the other to ^Flius Tubero, a most worthy man, and the one Roman who best succeeded in combining liberal habits with poverty. For there were sixteen near relations, all of them of the family of the ^^lii, possessed of but one farm, which sufficed them all, whilst one small house, or rather cottage, contained them, their numerous offspring, and their wives ; amongst whom was the daughter of our ^milius, who, although her father had been twice consul, and had twice triumphed, was not ashamed of her husband’s poverty, but proud of his virtue that kept him poor. Far otherwise it is with the brothers and relations of this age, who, unless whole tracts of land, or at least walls and rivers, part their inherit- ances, and keep them at a distance, never cease from mutual i^^MILIUS PAULUS. 413 quarrels, History suggests a variety of good counsel of this sort, by the way, to those who desire to learn and improve. To proceed : ^milius, being chosen consul, waged wai with the Ligurians, or Ligustines, a people near the Alps. They were a bold and warlike nation, and their neighborhood to the Romans had begun to give them skill in the arts of war. They occupy the further parts of Italy ending under the Alps, and those parts of the Alps themselves which are washed by the Tuscan sea and face toward Africa, mingled there with Gauls and Iberians of the coast. Besides, at that time they had turned their thoughts to the seas, and sailing as far as the Pillars of Hercules in light vessels fitted for that purpose, robbed and destroyed all that traffficked in those parts. They, with an army of forty thousand, waited the coming of ^Emilius, who brought with him not above eight thousand, so that the enemy was five to one when they engaged; yet he vanquished and put them to flight, forcing them to retire into their walled towns, and in this condition offered them fair conditions of accomodation ; it being the policy of the Romans not. utterly to destroy the Ligurians, because they were a sort of guard and bulwark against the frequent attempts of the Gauls to overrun Italy. Trusting wholly therefore to ^milius, they delivered up their towns and shipping into his hands. He, at the utmost, razed only the fortifications, and delivered their towns to them again, but took away all their shipping with him, leaving them no vessels bigger than those of three oars, and set at liberty great numbers of prisoners they had taken both by sea and land, strangers as well as Romans. These were the acts most wor- thy of remark in his first consulship. Afterwards he frequently intimated his desire of being a second time consul, and was once candidate ; but meeting with a repulse and being passed by, he gave up all thought of it, and devoted himself to his duties as augur, and to the education of his children, whom he not only brought up, as he himself had been, in the Roman and ancient discipline, but also with unusual zeal in that of Greece. To this purpose he not only procured masters to teach them grammar, logic, and -hetoric, but had for them also preceptors in modelling and drawing, managers of horses and dogs, and instructors in field sports, all from Greece. And, if he was not hiiidered by public affairs, he himself would be with them at their studies, and see them perform their exercises, being the most affec tionate father in Rome. 414 yEMlLIUS PAULUS. This was the time, in public matters, when the Romans were engaged in war with Perseus, king of the Macedo- nians, and great complaints were made of their commanders, who, either through their want of skill or courage, were con- ducting matters so shamefully, that they did less hurt to the enemy than they received from him. They that not long before had forced Antiochus the Great to quit the rest of Asia, to retire beyond Mount Taurus, and confine himself to S3Tia, glad to buy his peace with fifteen thousand talents,* they that not long since had vanquished king Philip in Thessaly, and freed the Greeks from the Macedonian yoke ; nay, had overcome Hannibal himself, who far surpassed all kings in daring and po\ver, — thought it scorn that Perseus should think himself an enemy fit to match the Romans, and to be able to wage war with them so long on equal terms, with the remainder only of his father's routed forces ; not being aware that Philip after his defeat had greatly improved both the strength and discipline of the Macedonian army. To m>ike which appear, I shall briefly recount the story from the begin- ning. Antigonus, the most powerful amongst the captains and successors of Alexander, having obtained for himself and his posterity the title of king, had a son named Demetrius, fathei to Antigonus, called Gonatas, and he had a son Demetrius, who, reigning some short time, died and left a young son called Philip. The chief men of Macedon, fearing great con- fusion might arise in his minority, called in Antigonus, cousin- german to the late king, and married him to the widow, the mother of Philip. At first they only styled him regent and general, but when they found by experience that he governed the kingdom with moderation and to general advantage, gave him the title of king. This was he that was surnamed Doson, as if he was a great promiser, and a bad performer. To him succeeded Philip, who in his youth gave great hopes of equal- ling the best of kings, and that he one day would restore Macedon to its former state and dignity, and prove himself the one man able to check the power of the Romans, now rising and extending over the whole world. But, being vanquished in a pitched battle by Titus Flamininus near Scotussa, his reso- lution failed, and he yielded himself and all that he had to the mercy of the Romans, well contented that he could escape with paying a small tribute. Yet afterwards, recollecting himself, he bore it with great impatience, and thought he lived rather like a slave that was pleased with ease, than a vEMILIUS PAULUS. 4^5 man of sense and courage, whilst he held his kingdom at the pleasure of his conquerors ; which made hi;n turn his whole mind to war, and prepare himself with as much cunning and privacy as possible. To this end, he left his cities on the high roads and sea-coast ungarrisoned, and almost desolate, that they might seem inconsiderable ; in the meantime, col- lecting large forces up the country, and furnishing his inland posts, strongholds, and towns, with arms, money, and men fit for service, he thus provided himself for war, and yet kept his preparations close. He had in his armory arms for thirty thousand men ; in granaries in places of strength, eight mil- lions of bushels of corn, and as much ready money as would defray the charge of maintaining ten thousand mercenary soldiers for ten years in defence of the country. But before he could put these things into motion, and carry his designs into effect, he died for grief and anguish of mind, being sensi- ble he had put his innocent son Demetrius to death, upon the calumnies of one that was far more guilty. Perseus, his son that survived, inherited his hatred to the Romans as well as his kingdom, but was incompetent to carry out his designs, through want of courage, and the viciousness of a character in which, among faults and diseases of various sorts, covetous- ness bore the chief place. There is a statement also of his not being true born ; that the wife of king Philip took him from his mother, Gnathaenion (a woman of Argos, that earned her living as a seamstress), as soon as he was born, and passed him upon her husband as her own. And this might be the chief cause of his contriving the death of Demetrius ; as he might well fear, that so long as there was a lawful suc- cessor in the family, there was no security that his spurious birth might not be revealed. Notwithstanding all this, and though his spirit was so mean, and temper so sordid, yet trusting to the strength of his resources, he engaged in a war with the Romans, and for a long time maintained it ; repulsing and even vanquishing some generals of consular dignity, and some great armies and fieets. He routed Publius Licinius, who was the first that ^ invaded Macedonia, in a cavalry battle, slew twenty-five hun- idred practised soldiers, and took six hundred prisoners ; and surprising their fleet as they rode at anchor before Orens, he took twenty ships of burden with all their lading, sunk the rest that were freighted with corn, and, besides this, made himself master of four galleys with five banks of oars. He fought a second battle with Hostilius, a consular officer, as ho 4i6 iEMILIUS PAULUS. was making his way into the country at Elimiie, and forced him to retreat ; and, when he afterwards by stealth de* signed an invasion through Thessaly, challenged him to fight, which the other feared to accept. Nay more, to show his contempt to the Romans, and that he wanted employment, as a war by the by, he made an expedition against the Darda- nians, in which he slew ten thousand of those barbarian peo- ple, and brought a great spoil away. He privately, moreover, solicited the Gauls (also called Basternae), a warlike nation, and famous for horsemen, dwelling near the Danube ; and in- cited the Illyrians, by the means of Genthius their king, to join with him in the war. It was also reported that the bar- barians, allured by promise of rewards, were to make an irruption into Italy, through the lower Gaul by the shore of the Adriatic Sea. The Romans, being advertised of these things, thought it necessary no longer to choose their commanders by favor or solicitation, but of their own motion to select a general of wisdom and capacity for the management of great affairs. And such was Paulus ^milius, advanced in years, being nearly threescore, yet vigorous in his own person, and rich in valiant sons and sons-in-law, besides a great number of influ- ential relations and friends, all of whom joined in urging him to yield to the desires of the people, who called him to the consulship. He at first manifested some shyness of the people, and withdrew himself from their importunity, professing re- luctance to hold office ; but, when they daily came to his doors, urging him to come forth to the place of election, and pressing him with noise and clamor, he acceded to their re- quest. When he appeared amongst the candidates, it did not look as if it were to sue for the consulship, but to bring victory and success, that he came down into the Campus ; they all received him there with such hopes and such gladness, unani- mously choosing him a second time consul ; nor would they suffer the lots to be cast, as was usual, to determine which province should fall to his share, but immediately decreed him the command of the Macedonian war. It is told, that when he had been proclaimed general against Perseus, and was honorably accompanied home by great numbers of people, he found his daughter Tertia, a very little girl, weeping, and taking her to him asked her why she was crying. She, catch- ing him about the neck and kissing him, said “ O father, do you not know that Perseus is dead ? meaning a little dog of that name that was brought up in the house with her ; to y^:MTLIUS PAULUS. 417 which ^niilius replied, Good fortune, my daughter ; I em- brace the omen.” This Cicero, the orator, relates in his book on divination. It was the custom for such as were chosen consuls, from a stage designed for such purposes, to address the people, and return them thanks for their favor, ^milius, therefore, hav- ing gathered an assembly, spoke and said that he sued for the fust consulship, because he himself stood in need of such honor ; but for the second, because they wanted a general ; upon which account he thought there was no thanks due : if they judged they could manage the war by any other to more advantage, he would willingly yield up his charge ; but, if they confided in him, they were not to make themselves his colleagues in his office, or raise reports, and criticise his ac- tions, but, without talking, supply him with means and assist- ance necessary to the carrying on of the war ; for if they proposed to command their own commander, they would render this expedition more ridiculous than the former. By this speech he inspired great reverence for him amongst the citizens, and great expectations of future success ; all were well pleased, that they had passed by such as sought to be preferred by flattery, and fixed upon a commander endued with wisdom and ‘courage to tell them the truth. So entirely did the people of Rome, that they might rule, and become masters of the world, yield obedience and service to reason and superior virtue. That ^milius, setting forward to the war, by a prosperous voyage and successful journey, arrived with speed and safety at his camp I attribute to good fortune ; but, when I see how the war under his command was brought to a happy issue, ])artly by his own daring boldness, partly by his good counsel, partly by the ready administration of his friends, partly by his presence of mind and skill to embrace the most proper advice in the extremity of danger, I cannot ascribe any of his remarkable and famous actions (as I can those of ether com- manders) to his so much celebrated good fortune ; unless you will say that the covetousness of Perseus was the good fortune of ^milius. The truth is, Perseus’ fear of spending his money was the destruction and utter ruin of all those splendid and great preparations with which the Macedonians were in high hopes to carry on the war with success. P"or there came at his request ten thousand horsemen of the Basternae, and as many foot, who were to keep pace with them, and supply their places in case of failure ; a’l of them professed soldiers, men 27 4i8 iEMILIUS PAULUS. skilled neither in tilling of land, nor in navigation of ships^ nor able to get their living by grazing, but whose only business and single art and trade it was to fight and conquer all that resisted them. When these came into the district of Maedica ; and encamped and mixed with the king^s soldiers, being men of great stature, admirable at their exercises, great boasters, and loud in their threats against their enemies, they gave new courage to the Macedonians, who were ready to think the Romans would not be able to confront them, but would be struck with terror at their looks and motions, they were so strange and so formidable to behold. When Perseus had thus encouraged his men, and elevated them with these great hopes, as soon as a thousand gold pieces were demanded for each captain, he was so amazed and beside himself at the vastness of the amount, that out of mere stinginess he drew back and let himself lose their assistance, as if he had been some steward, not the enemy of the Romans, and would have to give an exact account of the expenses of the war to those with whom he waged it. Nay when he had his foes as tutors, to instruct him what he had to do, who, besides their other preparations, had a hundred thousand men drawn together and in readiness for their service ; yet he that was to engage against so considerable a force, and in a war that was main- taining such numbers as this, nevertheless doled out his money, and put seals on his bags, and was as fearful of touch- ing it, as if it had belonged to some one else. And all this 'vas done by one not descended from Lydians or Phoenicians, but who could pretend to some share of the virtues of Alex- ander and Philip, whom he was allied to by birth ; men who conquered the world by judging that empire was to be pur- chased by money, not money by empire. Certainly it became a proverb, that not Philip, but his gold, took the cities of Greece. And Alexander, when he undertook his expedition against the Indians, and found his Macedonians encumbered and appear to march heavily with their Persian spoils, first set fire to his own carriages, and thence persuaded the rest to imitate his example, that thus freed they might proceed to the war without hindrance. Whereas Perseus, abounding in wealth, would not preserve himself, his children, and his king- dom, at the expense of a small part of his treasure ; but chose rather to be carried away with numbers of his subjects with the name of the wealthy captive, and show the Romans what great riches he had husbanded and preserved for them. For he not '^nly played false with the Gauls, and sent them away. iEMILIUS PAULUS. 419 but also, after alluring Genthius, king of the Illyrians, by the hopes of three hundred talents, to assist him in the war, he caused the money to be counted out in the presence of his messengers, and to be sealed up. Upon which Genthius, thinking himself possessed of what he desired, committed a wicked and shameful act : he seized and imprisoned the am- bassadors sent to him from the Romans. Whence Perseus, concluding that there was now no need of money to n:ake Genthius an enemy to the Romans, but that he had given a lasting earnest of his enmity, and by his flragrant injustice sufficiently involved himself in the war, defrauded the unfor- tunate king of his three hundred talents, and without any con- cern beheld him, his wife, and children, in a short time after, carried out of their kingdom, as from their nest, by Lucius Anicius, who was sent against him with an army. ^milius, coming against such an adversary, made light indeed of him, but admired his preparation and power. For he had four thousand horse, and not much fewer than forty thousand full-armed foot of the phalanx ; and planting himself along the seaside, at the foot of Mount Olympus, in ground with no access on any side, and on all sides fortified with fences and bulwarks of wood, remained in great security, thinking by delay and expense to weary out ^milius. But he, in the mean time, busy in thought, weighed all counsels and all means of attack, and perceiving his soldiers, from their former want of discipline, to be impatient of delay, and ready on all occasions to teach their general his duty, rebuked them, and bade them not meddle with what was not their concern, but only take care that they and their arms were in readiness, and to use their swords like Romans when their commander should think fit to employ them. Further he or- dered, that the sentinels by night should watch without jave- lins, that thus they might be more careful and surer to resist sleep, having no arms to defend themselves against any attacks of an enemy. What most annoyed the army was the want of water ; for only a little, and that foul, flowed out, or rather came by drops from a spring adjoining the sea ; but ^milius, considering that he was at the foot of the high and woody mountain Olym- pus, and conjecturing by the flourishing growth of the trees that there were springs that had their course under ground, dug a great many holes and wells along the foot of the mountain, which were presently filled with pure water escaping from its confinement into the vacuum they afforded. A^though there 4-20 yEMTLTUS PAULUS. are some, indeed, who deny that there are reservoirs of water iying ready provided out of sight, in the places from whence springs flow, and that when they appear, they merely issue and run out; on the contrary, they say, they are then formed and come into existence for the first time, by the liquefaction of the surrounding matter; and that this change is caused by density and cold, when the moist vapor, by being closely pressed together, becomes fluid. As women’s breasts are no! like vessels full of milk always prepared and ready to flow from them ; but their nourishment being changed in their breasts, is there made milk, and from thence is pressed out. In like manner, places of the earth that are cold and full of springs, do not contain any hidden waters or receptacles which are capable, as from a source always ready and fur- nished, of supplying all the brooks and deep rivers ; but by compressing and condensing the vapors and air, they turn them into that substance. And thus places that are dug open flow by that pressure, and afford the more water (as the breasts of women do milk by their being sucked), the vapor thus moistening and becoming fluid ; whereas ground that remains idle and undug is not capable of producing any water, whilst it wants the motion which is the cause of liquefaction. But those that assert this opinion, give occasion to the doubt- ful to argue, that on the same ground there should be no blood in living creatures, but that it must be formed by the wound, some sort of spirit or flesh being changed into a liquid and flowing matter. Moreover, they are refuted by the fact that men who dig mines, either in sieges or for metals, meet with rivers, which are not collected by little and little (as '*.]ust necessarily be, if they had their being at the very instant the earth was opened), but break out at once with violence ; and upon the cutting through a rock, there often gush out great quantities of water, which then as suddenly cease. But of this enough. /Emilius lay still for some days, and it is said, that there were never two great armies so nigh, that enjoyed so much quiet. When he had tried and considered all things, he was informed that , there was yet one passage left unguarded, through Perrhaebia by the temple of Apollo and the Rock. Gathering, therefore, more hope from the place being left defenceless than fear from the roughness and difficulty of the passage, he proposed it for consultation. Amongst those that were present at the council, Scipio, surnamed Nasica, son-in- law to Scipio Africanus, who afterwards was so powerful in i¥:MILTUS PAULUS. 421 the senate-house, was the first that offered himself to command those that should be sent to encompass the enemy. Next to him, Fabius Maximus, eldest son of ^milius, although yev very young, offered himself with great zeal, ^milius, rejoic- ing, gave them, not so many as Polybius states, but, as Nasica himself tells us in a brief letter which he wrote to one of the kings with an account of the expedition, three thousand Ital- ians :hat were not Romans, and his left wing consisting of five thousand. Taking with him, besides these, one hundred and twenty horsemen, and two hundred Thracians and Cretans intermixed that Harpalus had sent, he began his journey towards the sea, and encamped near the temple of Hercules, as if he designed to embark, and so to sail round and environ the enemy. But when the soldiers had supped and it was dark, he made the captains acquainted with his real intentions, and marching all night in the opposite direction, away from the sea, till he came under the temple of Apollo, there rested his army. At this place Mount Olympus rises in height more than ten furlongs, as appears by the epigram made by the man that measured it : The summit of Olympus, at the site Where stands Apollo’s temple, has a height Of full ten furlongs by the line, and more, Ten furlongs, and one hundred feet, less four Eumelus’s son, Xenagoras, reached the place. Adieu, O king, and do thy pilgrim grace. It is allowed, say the geometricians, that no mountain in height or sea in depth exceeds ten furlongs, and yet it seems probable that Xenagoras did not take his admeasurement carelessly, buCaccording to the rules of art, and with instru- ments for the purpose. Here it was that Nasica passed the night. A Cretan deserted, who fled to the enemy during the march, discovered to Perseus the design which the Romans' had to encompass him : for he, seeing that ^milius lay still, had not suspected any such attempt. He was startled at the news, yet did not put his army in motion, but sent ten thousand mercenary soldiers and two thousand Macedonians, under command of Milo, with order to hasten and possess themselves of the passes. Polybius relates that the Romans found these men asleep when they attacked them ; but Nasica says there was a sharp and severe conflict on the top of the mountain, that he himself encountered a mercenary Thracian, pierced him through with his javelin, and slew him ; and that iEMILIUS PAULUS, 422 the enemy being forced to retreat, Milo stripped to his coal and fled shamefully without his armor, while he followed with- out danger, and conveyed the whole army down into the country. After this event, Perseus, now grown fearful, and fallen from his hopes, removed his camp in all haste ; he was under the necessity either to stop before Pydna^ and there run the Iiazard of a battle, or disperse his army into cities, and there expect the event of the war, which, having once made its way into his country, could not be driven out without great slaughter and bloodshed. But Perseus, being told by his friends that he was much superior in number, and that men fighting in the defence of their wives and children mu§t needs feel all the more courage, especially when all was done in the sight of their king, who himself was engaged in equal danger, was thus again encouraged ; and, pitching his camp, prepared himself to fight, viewed the country, and gave out the com- mands, as if he designed to set upon the Romans as soon as they approached. The place was a field fit for the action of a phalanx, which requires smooth standing and even ground, and also had divers little hills, one joining another, fit for the motions whether in retreat or advance of light troops and skirmishers. Through the middle ran the rivers ^son and Leucus, which, though not very deep, it being the latter end of summer, yet were likely enough to give the Romans some trouble. As soon as ^milius had rejoined Nasica, he advanced in battle array against the enemy ; but when he found how they were drawn up, and the number of their forces, he regarded them with admiration and surprise, and halted, considering within himself. The young commanders, eager to fight, riding along by his side, pressed him not to delay, and most of all Nasica, flushed with his late success on Olympus. To whom .^milius answered with a smile : So would I do were I of your age ; but many victories have taught me the ways in which men are defeated, and forbid me to engage soldiers weary with a long march, against an army drawn up and pre- pared for battle.’’ Then he gave command that the front of his army, and such as were in sight of the enemy, should form as if ready to engage, and those in the rear should cast up the trenches and fortify the camp ; so that the hindmost in succession wheeling off by degrees and withdrawing, their whole order was insen- sibly broken up, and the army encamoed without noise 01 iEMILIUS PAULUS. 423 When it was night, and, supper being over, all were turning to sleep and rest, on a sudden the moon, which was then at full and high in the heavens, grew dark, and by degrees losing her light, passed through various colors, and at length was totally eclipsed. The Romans, according to their custom, clattering brass pans and lifting up fire-brands and torchei into the air, invoked the return of her light ; the Macedonians behaved far otherwise : terror and amazement seized their whole army, and a rumor crept by degrees into their camp that this eclipse portended even that of their king, ^miliuss was no novice in these things, nor was ignorant of the nature of the seeming irregularities of eclipses, — that in a certain revolution of time, the moon in her course enters the shadow of the earth and is there obscured, till, passing the region of darkness, she is again enlightened by the sun. Yet being a devout man, a religious observer of sacrifices and the art of divination, as soon as he perceived the moon beginning to regain her former lustre, he offered up to her eleven heifers. At the break of day he sacrificed as many as twenty in succes^ sion to Hercules, without any token that his offering was ac cepted ; but at the one and twentieth, the signs promised victory to defei^ders. He then vowed a hecatomb and solemn sports to Hercules, and commanded his captains to make ready for battle, staying only till the sun should decline and come round to the west, lest, being in their faces in the morn- ing, it should dazzle the eyes of his soldiers. Thus he whiled away the time in his tent, which was open towards the plain where his enemies were encamped. When it grew towards evening, some tell us, Hilmilius himself used a stratagem to induce the enemy to begin the fight; that he turned loose a horse without a bridle, and sent some of the Romans to catch him, upon whose following the beast the battle began. Others relate that the Thracians, under the command of one Alexander, set upon the Roman beasts of burden that were bringing forage to the camp ; that to oppose these, a party of seven hundred Ligurians were im mediately detached ; and that, relief coming still from both armies, the main bodies at last engaged. Hi^milius, like a wise pilot, foreseeing by the present waves and motion of the armies, the greatness of the following storm, came out of his tent, went through the legions, and encouraged his soldiers. Nasica, in the meantime, wlio had ridden out to the skirmish ers, saw the whole force of the enemy on the point of engaging. First marched llie Thracians, who he liimself tells \\s, inspired iEMILIUS PAULUS. 424 him with most terror ; they were of great stature, with bright and glittering shields and black frocks under them, their legs armed with greaves, and they brandished, as they moved, straight and heavily-ironed spears over their right shoulders. Next the Thracians marched the mercenary soldiers, armed after different fashions ; with these the Paeonians were mingled. 'Fhese were succeeded by a third division, of picked men, native Macedonians, the choicest for courage and strength, in the prime of life, gleaming with gilt armor and-'scarlet coats. As these were taking their places they were followed from the camp by the troops in phalanx called the Brazen Shields, so that the whole plain seemed alive with the flashing of steel and the glistening of brass ; and the hills also with their shouts, as they cheered each other on. In this order they marched, and with such boldness and speed, that those that were first slain died at but two furlongs distance from the Roman camp. The battle being begun, ^milius came in and found that the foremost of the Macedonians had already fixed the ends of their spears into the shields of his Romans, so that it was impossible to come near them with their swords. When he saw this, and observed that the rest of the Ma^cedonians took the targets that hung on their left shoulders, and brought them round before them, and all at once stooped their pikes against their enemies shields, and considered the great strength of this wall of shields, and the formidable appearance of a front thus bristling with arms, he was seized with amazement and alarm : nothing he had ever seen before had been equal to it ; and in after times he frequently used to speak both of the sight and of his own sensations. These, however, he dissembled, and rode through his army without either breast- plate or helmet, with a serene and cheerful countenance. On the contrary, as Polybius relates, no sooner was the battle begun, but the Macedonian king basely withdrew to the city Pydna, under a pretence of sacrificing to Hercules : a god that is not wont to regard the faint offerings of cowards, or to fulfil unsanctioned vows. For truly it can hardly be a thing that heaven would sanction, that he that never shoots should carry away the prize ; he triumph that slinks from the battle ; he that takes no pains meet with success, or the wicked man prosper. But to ^milius’s petitions the god listened ; he prayed for victory with his sword in his hand, and fought while entreating divine assistance. A certain Posidonius, who has at some length written a i^:MILIUS PAULUS. 42f histoiy of Perseus, and professes to have Lved at the time, and to have been himself engaged in these events, denies that Perseus left the field either through fear or pretence of sacrp ficing, but that, the very day before the fight, he received a kick from a horse on his thigh ; that though very much dis- abled, and dissuaded by all his friends, he commanded one of his riding-horses to be brought, and entered the field unarm- ed ; that amongst an infinite number of darts that flew about on all sides, one of iron lighted on him, and though not with the point, yet by a glance struck him with such force on his left side, that it tore his clothes and so bruised his flesh, that the mark remained a long time after. This is what Posidonius says in defence of Perseus. The Romans not being able to make a breach in the pha- lanx, one Salius, a commander of the Pelignians, snatched the ensign of his company and threw it amongst the enemies ; on seeing which, the Pelignians (as amongst the Italians it is always thought the greatest breach of honor to abandon a standard) rushed with great violence towards the place, where the conflict grew very fierce, and the slaughter terrible on both sides. For these endeavored to cut the spears asunder with their swords, or to beat them back with their shields, or put them by with their hands ; and, on the other side, the Macedonians held their long sarissas in both hands, and pierced those that came in their way quite through their armor, no shield or corslet being able to resist the force of that weapon. The Pelignians and Marrucinians were thrown headlong to the ground, having without consideration, with mere animal fury, rushed upon a certain death. Their first ranks being slain, those that were behind were forced to give back ; it cannot be said they fled, but they retreated towards Mount Olocrus. When ^milius saw this, Posidonius relates, he rent his clothes, some of his men being ready to fly, and the rest not willing to engage with a phalanx into which they could not hope to make any entrance, — a sort of palisade, as it were, impregnable and unapproachable, with its close array of long spears everywhere meeting the assailant. Neverthe- less, the unequalness of the ground would not permit a widely extended front to be so exactly drawn up as to have their shields everywhere joined ; and ^milius perceived that there were a great many interstices and breaches in the Macedonian phalanx ; as it usually happens in all great armies, according to the different efforts of the combatants, who in one part press forward with eagerness, and in anothei are forced to fall 426 iEMILIUS PAULUS. back. Taking, therefore, this occasion, with all speed he broke up his men into their cohorts, and gave them order to fall into the intervals and openings of the enemy’s body, and not to make one general attack upon them all, but to engage, as they were divided, in several partial battles. These com- mands -:Emilius gave to his captains, and they to their soldiers ; and no sooner had they entered the spaces and separated their enemies, but they charged them, some on their sides where they were naked and exposed, and others, making a cir- cuit, behind; and thus destroyed the force of the phalanx, which consists in common action and close union. And now, come to light man to man, or in small parties, the Mace- donians smote in vain upon firm and long shields with their little swords, whilst their slight bucklers were not able to sus- tain the weight and force of the Roman swords, which pierced through all their armor to their bodies ; they turned, in fine, and fled. The conflict was obstinate. And here Marcus, the son of Cato, and son-in-law of u^milius, whilst- he showed all possi- ble courage, let fall his sword. Being a young man carefully brought up and disciplined, and, as son of so renowned a father, bound to give proof of more than ordinary virtue, he thought his life but a burden, should he live and permit his enemies to enjoy this spoil. He hurried hither and thither, and wherever he espied a friend or companion, declared his misfortune, and begged their assistance ; a considerable num- ber of brave men being thus collected, with one accord they made their way through their fellows after their leader, and fell upon the enemy ; whom after a sharp conflict, many wounds, and much slaughter, they repulsed, possessed the place that was now deserted and free, and set themselves to search for the sword, which at last they found covered with a great heap of arms and dead bodies. Overjoyed with this success, they raised the song of triumph, and with more eager- ness than ever, charged the foes that yet remained firm and unbroken. In the end, three thousand of the chosen men, who kept their ground and fought valiantly to the last, were all cut in pieces, while the slaughter of such as fled was also very great. The plain and the lower part of the hills were filled with dead bodies, and the water of the river Leucus, which the Romans did not pass till the next day after the battle, was tlien mingled with blood. For it is said there fell more than twenty-five thousand of the enemy; of the Romans, 915 Posidonius relates, a hundred ; as Nasica, only fourscore. iEMILIUS PAULUS. 427 This battle, though so great, was very quickly decided, it beiog three in the afternoon when they first engaged, and not four when the enemy was vanquished ; the rest of the day was spent in pursuit of the fugitives, whom they followed about thirteen or fourteen miles, so that it was far in the night when they returned. All the others were met by their servants with torches, and brought back with joy and great triumph to their tents, which were set out with lights, and decked with wreaths of ivy and laurel. But the general himself was in great grief. Of the two sons that served under him in the war, the youngest was missing, whom he held most dear, and whose courage and good qualities he perceived much to excel those of his brothers. Bold and eager for distinction, and still a mere child in age, he concluded that he had perished, whilst for want of experience he had engaged himself too far amongst his enemies. His sorrow and fears became known to the army ; the soldiers, quitting their suppers, ran about with lights, some to ^milius’s tent, some out of the trenches, to seek him amongst such as were slain in the first onset. There was nothing but grief in the camp, and the plain was filled with the cries of men calling out for Scipio ; for, from his very youth, he was an object of admiration ; endowed above any of his equals with the good qualities requisite either for command or counsel. At length, when it was late, and they almost despaired, he returned from the pursuit with only two or three of his companions all covered with the fresh blood of his enemies, having been, like some dog of noble breed, carried away by the pleasure, greater than he could control, of his first victory. This was that Scipio that afterwards de- stroyed Carthage and Numantia, and was, without dispute, the first of the Romans in merit, and had the greatest author- ity amongst them. Thus Fortune, deferring her displeasure and jealousy of such great success to some other time, let /Emilius at present enjoy this victory, without any detraction or diminution. As for Perseus, from Pydna he fled to Pella with his cavalry, which was as yet almost entire. But when the foot came up with them, and, upbraiding them as cowards and traitors, tried to pull them off their horses, and fell to blows, Perseus, fearing the tumult, forsook the common road, and, lest he should be known, pulled off his purple, and carried it before him, and took his crown in his hand and, that ho might the better converse with his friends, alighted from his 428 ^MILIUS PAULUS. horse and led him. Of those that were about him, one stopped, pretending to tie his shoe that was loose, another to water his horse, a third to drink himself ; and thus lagging behind, by degrees left him, they hadng not so much reason to fear their enemies, as his cruelty ; for he, disordered by his misfortune, sought to clear himself by laying the cause of the overthrow upon everybody else. He arrived at Pella in the night, where Euctus and Eudceus, two of his treasurers, came to him, and, what with their reflecting on his former faults, and their free and ill-timed admonitions and counsels, so exasperated him, that he killed them both, stabbing them with his own dagger. After this, nobody stuck to him but Evander the Cretan, Archedemus the ^tolian, and Neon the Boeotian. Of the common soldiers there followed him only those from Crete, not out of any good-will, but because they were as constant to his riches as the bees to their hive. For he carried a great treasure with him, out of which he had suf- fered them to take cups, bowls, and other vessels of silver and gold, to the value of fifty talents. But when he was come tc Amphipolis, and afterwards to Galepsus, and his fears were a little abated, he relapsed into his old and constitutional dis- ease of covetousness, and lamented to his friends that he had, through inadvertency, allowed some gold plate which had be longed to Alexander the Great to go into the hands of the Cretans, and besought those that had it, with tears in his eyes, to exchange with him again for money. Those that under- stood him thoroughly knew very well that he only played the Cretan with the Cretans, but those that believed him, and re- stored what they had, were cheated ; as he not only did not pay the money, but by craft got thirty talents more of his friends into his hands (wdiich in a short time after fell to the enemy), and with them sailed to Samothrace, and there fled to the temple of Castor and Pollux for refuge. I’he Macedonians were always accounted great lovers ol their kings, but now, as if their chief prop was broken, they all gave way together, and submitted to u^milius, and in two days made him master of their whole country. This seems to confirm the opinion which ascribes whatever he did to good fortune. The omen, also, that happened at Amphi- polis, has a supernatural character. When he was sacri- ficing there, and the holy rites were just begun, on a sudden, lightning fell upon the altar, set the w^ood on fire, and completed the immolation of the sacrifice. The most signal manifestation, however, of preternatural agency appears in yEMILIUS PAULUS. 429 the story of the rumor of his success. Foi on the fourth clay after Perseus was vanquished at Pydiia, whilst the people at Rome were seeing the horse-races, a report suddenly rose at the entrance of the theatre that ^milius had defeated Per- seus in a great battle, and was reducing all Macedonia under his power ; and from thence it spread amongst the people, and created general joy, with shoutings and acclamations for that whole day through the city. But when no certain author v;as found of the news, and every one alike had taken it at random, it was abandoned for the present and thought no more of, until, a few days after, certain intelligence came, and then the first was looked upon as no less than a miracle, hav- ing, under an appearance of fiction, contained what was real and true. It is reported, also, that the news of the battle fought in Italy, near the river Sagra, was conveyed into Pel- oponnesus the same day, and of that at Mycale against the Medes, to Plataea. When the Romans had defeated the Tarquins, who were combined with the Latins, a little after, there were seen at Rome two tall and comely men, who pro fessed to bring the news from the camp. They were con- jectured to be Castor and Pollux. The first man that spoke to them in the forum, near the fountain where they were cool- ing their horses, which were all of a foam, expressed surprise at the report of the victory, when, it is said, they smiled, and gently touched his beard with their hands, the hair of which from being black was, on the spot, changed to yellow. This gave credit to what they said, and fixed the name of Aheno- barbus, or Brazen-beard, on the man. And a thing which happened in our own time will make all these credible. For when Antonius rebelled against Domitian, and Rome was in consternation, expecting great wars from the quarter of Ger- many, all on a sudden, and nobody knows upon what account, ihe people spontaneously gave out a rumor of victory, and the news ran current through the city, that Antonius himself was slain, his whole army destroyed, and not so much as a part of il escaped ; nay, this belief was so strong and positive, that many of the magistrates offered up sacrifice. But when, at lerjgth, the author was sought for, and none was to be found, it vanished by degrees, every one shifting it off from himself to another, and, at last, was lost in the numberless crowd, as in a vast ocean and, having no solid ground to support its credit, was in a short time not so much as named in the city. Nevertiieless, when Domitian marched out with his forces to the war, he met with messengers and letters that gave him a 430 ^iMILIUS PAULUS. relation of the victory; and the rumor, it was found, had come the very day it was gained, though the distance between the places was more than twenty-five hundred miles. The truth of this no man of our time is igno,rant of. But to proceed. Cnaeus Octavius, who was joined in com- mand with ^milius, came to an anchor with his fleet under Samothrace, where, out of respect to the gods, he permitted Perseus to enjoy the benefit of refuge, but took care that he should not escape by sea. Notwithstanding, Perseus secretly persuaded Oroandes of Crete, master of a small vessel, to c )nvey him and his treasure away. He, however, playing the true Cretan, took in the treasure, and bade him come, in the night, with his children and most necessary attendants, to the port by the temple of Ceres ; but, as soon as it was evening, set sail without him. It had been sad enough for Perseus to be forced to let down himself, his wife and children, through a narrow window by a wall, — people altogether unaccustomed to hardship and flying ; but that which drew a far sadder sigh from his heart was, when he was told by a man, as he wan- dered on the shore, that he had seen Oroandes under sail in the main sea ; it being now about daybreak. So, there being no hopes left of escaping, he fled back again to the wall, which he and his wife recovered, though they were seen by the Romans, before they could reach them. His children he himself had delivered into the hands of Ion, one that had been his favorite, but now proved his betrayer, and was the chief cause that forced him (beasts themselves will do so when their young ones are taken) to come and yield himself up to those that had them in their power. His greatest con- fidence was in Nasica, and it was for him he called, but he not being there, he bewailed his misfortune, and, seeing there was no possible remedy, surrendered himself to Octavius. And here, in particular, he made it manifest that he was possessed with a vice more sordid than covetousness itself, namel}^, the fondness of life ; by which he deprived himself even of pity, the only thing that fortune never takes away from the most wretched. He desired to be brought to ^mil- ius, who arose from his seat, and accompanied with his friends went to receive him, with tears in his eyes, as a great man fallen by the anger of the gods and his own ill fortune ; when Perseus — the most shameful of sights — threw himself at his feet, embraced his knees, and uttered unmanly cries and petitions, such as ^milius was not able to bear, ncr would vouchsafe to hear : but looking on him with a sad and angT> yilMlLIUS PAULUS. 43 i countenance he said, Why, unhappy man, do you thus take pains to exonerate fortune of your heaviest charge against her, by conduct that will make it seem that you are not un- justly in calamity, and that it is not your present condition, but your former happiness, that was more than your deserts ? And why depreciate also my victory, and make my conquests insignificant, by proving yourself a coward, and a foe beneath a Roman ? Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from enemies ; but cowardice, though never so successful, from the Romans has always met with scorn.” Yet for all this he took him up, gave him his hand, and delivered him into the custody of Tubero. Meantime, he himself carried his sons, his sons-in-law, and others of chief rank, especially of the younger sort, back with him into ^his tent, where for a long time he sat dov/n without speaking one word, insomuch that they all wondered at him. At last, he began to dis- course of fortune and human affairs. Is it meet,” said he, ^‘for him that knows he is but man, in his greatest prosper- ity to pride himself, and be exalted at the conquest of a city, nation, or kingdom, and not rather well to weigh this change of fortune, in which all warriors may see an example of their common frailty, and learn a lesson that there is nothing dura- ble or constant ? For what time can men select to think themselves secure, when that of victory itself forces us more than any to dread our own fortune ? and a very little con- sideration on the law of things, and how all are hurried round, and each man’s station changed, will introduce sad- ness in the midst of the greatest joy. Or can you, when you see before your eyes the succession of Alexander himself, who arrived at the height of power and ruled the greatest empire, in the short space of an hour trodden under foot, — when you behold a king, that was but even now surrounded with so numerous an army, receiving nourishment to support his life from the hands of his conquerors, — can you, I say, believe there 's any certainty in what we now possess, whilst there is such a thing as chance ? No, young men, cast off that vain pride and empty boast of victory ; sit down with humility, looking always for what is yet to come, and the possible future reverses which the divine displeasure may eventually make the end of our present happiness.” It is said that ^milius, hav- ing spoken much more to the same purpose, dismissed the jroung men properly humbled, and with their vainglory and insolence thoroughly chastened and curbed by his address. When this was done, he put his army into garrisons, to 432 i^MlLIUS PAULUS. refresh themselves, and v;ent himself to visit Greece, and to spend a short time in relaxations equally honorable and numane. For as he passed, he eased the people’s grievances, reformed their governments, and bestowed gifts upon them ; to some, corn, — to others, oil out of the king’s storehouses, in which, they report, there were such vast quantities laid up, that receivers and petitioners were lacking before they could be exhausted. In Delphi he found a great square pillar of vvhite marble, designed for the pedestal of king Perseus' golden statue, on which he commanded his own to be placed, alleging that it was but just that the conquered should give place to the conquerors. In Olympia he is said to have ut- tered the saying everybody has heard, that Phidias had carved Homer’s Jupiter. When the ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he delivered up again to the Macedonians their cities and country, granting them to live at liberty, and according to their own laws, only paying the Romans the tribute of a hundred talents, double which sum they had been wont to pay to their kings. Then he celebrated all manner of shows and games, and sacrifices to the gods, and made great entertain- ments and feasts ; the charge of all which he liberally defray- ed out of the king’s treasury ; and showed that he understood the ordering and placing of his guests, and how every man should be received, answerably to their rank and quality, with such nice exactness, that the Greeks were full of wonder, finding the care of these matters of pleasure did not escape him, and that though involved in such important business, he could observe correctness in these trifles. Nor was it least gratifying to him, that, amidst all the magnificent and splen- did preparations, he himself was always the most grateful sight, and greatest pleasure to those he entertained. And he told those that seemed to wonder at his diligence, that, there was the same spirit shown in marshalling a banquet as an aimy ; in rendering the one formidable to the enemy, the other acceptable to the guests. Nor did men less praise his liberality, and the greatness of his soul, than his other virtues ; for he would not so much as see those great quantities of sil- ver and gold, which were heaped together out of the king’s palaces, but delivered them to the quaestors, to be put into the public treasury. He only permitted his own sons, who were great lovers of learning, to take the king’s books ; and when he distributed rewards due to extraordinary valor, he gave his son-in-law, Hilius Tubero, a bowl that weighed five pounds. Tills is that Tubero we have already mentioned, who was one iEMILIUS PAULUS. 433 of sixteen relations that lived together, and were all main< tained out of one little farm ; and it is said, that this was the first plate that ever entered the house of the ^lii, brought thither as an honor and reward of virtue ; before this time, neither they nor their wives ever made use either of silver or gold. Having thus settlea every thing well, taking his leave of the Greeks, and exhorting the Macedonians, that, mindful of the liberty they had received from the Romans, they should endeavor to maintain it by their obedience to the laws, and concord amongst themselves, he departed for Epirus, having orders from the senate to give the soldiers that followed him in the war against Perseus the pillage of the cities of that country. That he might set upon them all at once by sur- prise and unawares, he summoned ten of the principal men out of each, whom he commanded, on such an appointed day, to bring all the gold and silver they had either in their private houses or temples ; and, with every one of these, as if it were for this very purpose, and under a pretence of searching for and receiving the gold, he sent a centurion and a guard of soldiers ; who, the set day being come, rose all at once, and at the very self-same time fell upon them, and proceeded to ransack the cities ; so that in one hour a hundred and fifty thousand persons were made slaves, and three- score and ten cities sacked. Yet what was given to each soldier, out of so vast a destruction and utter ruin, amounted to no more than eleven drachmas; so that men could only shudder at the issue of a war, where the wealth of a whole nation thus divided, turned to so little advantage and profit to each particular man. When ^milius had done this, — an action perfectly con- trary to his gentle and mild nature, — he went down to Oricus, where he embarked his army for Italy. He sailed up the river Tiber in the king’s galley, that had sixteen banks of oars, and was richly adorned with captured arms and with cloths of purple and scarlet ; so that, the vessel rowing slowly against the stream, the Romans that crowded on the shore to meei him had a foretaste of his following triumph. But the soldiers, wlio had cast a covetous eye on the treasures of Perseus, when they did not obtain as much as they thought they deserved, were secretly enraged and angry with ^milius for this, but openly complained that he had been a severe and tyrannical commander over then ; nor were they ready to show their de- sire of his triumph. When Servius Galba, who was ^milius’* 28 434 ^EMILIUS PAULUS. enemy, though he commanded as tribune under him, under stood this, he had the boldness plainly to affirm that a triumph was not to be allowed him ; and sowed various calumnies amongst the soldiers, which yet further increased their ill-will. Nay more he desired the tribunes of the people, because the four hours that were remaining of the day could not suffice for the accusation, to let him put it off till another. But when the tribunes commanded him to speak then, if he had anything to say, he began a long oration, filled with all manner of re- proaches, in which he spent the remaing part of the time, and the tribunes, when it was dark, dismissed the assembly. The soldiers growing more vehement on this, thronged all to Galba, and entering into a conspiracy, early in the morning beset the Capitol, where the tribunes had appointed the following assem.- bly to be held. As soon as it was day, it was put to the vote, and the first ti'ibe was proceeding to refuse the triumph ; and the news spread amongst the people and to the senate. The people were indeed much grieved that ^milius should meet with such ignominy ; but this was only in words, which had no effect. The chief of the senate exclaimed against it as a base action, and excited one another to repress the boldness and insolence of the soldiers, which would ere long become altogether ungovernable and violent, were they now permitted to deprive j^Emilius of his triumph. Forcing a passage through the crowd, they came up in great numbers, and desired the trib- unes to defer polling, till they had spoken what they had to say to the people. All things thus suspended, and silence l)eing made, Marcus Servilius stood up, a man of consular dignity, and who had killed tv/enty-three of his enemies that had challenged him in single combat. It is now more than ever,’’ said he, clear to my mind how great a commander our ^milius Paulus is, when I see he was able to perform such famous and great exploits with an army so full of sedition and baseness ; nor can I sufficiently wonder, that a people that seemed to glory in the triumphs over Illyrians and Ligurians, should now through envy refuse to see the Macedonian king led alive, and all the glory of Philip and Alexander, in captiv- ity to the Roman power. For is it not a strange thing for you, who upon a slight rumor of victory that came by chance into the city, did offer sacrifices and put up your requests unto the gods that you might see the report verified, now, when the general is returned with an undoubted conquest, to defraud the gods of honor, and yourselves of joy, as if you iEMILIUS PAULUS. 435 feared to behold the greatness of his warlike deed, or were resolved to spare your enemy ? And of the two, much better were it to put a stop to the triumph, out of pity to him, than out of envy to your general ; yet to such a height of power is malice arrived amongst you, that a man without one scar to show on his skin, that is smooth and sleek with ease and home-keeping habits, will undertake to define the office and duties of a general before us, who with our own wounds have been taught how to judge of the valor or the cowardice of commanders/’ And, at the same time, putting aside his gar- ment, he showed an infinite number of scars upon his breast, and, turning about, he exposed some parts of his person which it is usual to conceal ; and, addressing Galba, said : “ You deride me for these, in which I glory before my fellow- citizens, for it is in their service, in which I have ridden night and day, that I received them ; but go collect the votes, whilst I follow after, and note the base and ungrateful, and such as choose rather to be flattered and courted than commanded by their general/’ It is said, this speech so stopped the soldiers’ mouths, and altered their minds, that all the tribes decreed a triumph for ^milius ; which was performed after this man- ner. The people erected scaffolds in the Forum, in the circuses, as they call their buildings for horse-races, and in all other parts of the city where they could best behold the show. The spectators were clad in white garments ; all the temples were open, and full of garlands and perfumes ; the ways were cleared and kept open by numerous officers, who drove back all who crowded into or ran across the main avenue. This triumph lasted three days. On the first, which was scarcely long enough for the sight, were to be seen the statues, pictures, and colossal images, which were taken from the enemy, drawn upon two hundred and fifty chariots. On the second, was carried in a great many wagons the finest and richest armor of the Macedonians, both of brass and steel, all newly polished and glittering ; the pieces of which were piled up and arranged purposely with the greatest art, so as to seem to be tumbled in heaps carelessly and by chance : helmets were thrown upon shields, coats of mail upon greaves ; Cretan targets, and Thracian bucklers and quivers of arrows, lay huddled amongst horses’ bits, and through these there ap- peared the points of naked swords, intermixed with long Macedonian sarissas. All these arms were fastened together with just so much looseness that they struck against one 436 vEMlLIUS PAULUS. another as they were drawn along, and made a harsh and alarming noise, so that, even as spoils of a conquered enemy, they could not be beheld without dread. After these wagons loaded with armor, there followed three thousand men who carried the silver that was coined, in seven hundred and fifty vessels, each of which weighed three talents, and was carried by four men. Others brought silver bowls and goblets and cups, all disposed in such order as to make the best show, and all curious as well for their size as the solidity of their embossed work. On the third day, early in the morning, • first came the trumpeters, who did not sound as they were wont in a pro- cession or solemn entry, but such a charge as the Romans use when they encourage the soldiers to fight. Next followed young men wearing frocks with ornamented borders, who led to the sacrifice a hundred and twenty stalled oxen, with their horns gilded, and their heads adorned with ribbons and gar- lands ; and with these were boys that carried basins for liba- tion, of silver and gold. After this was brought the gold coin, which was divided into vessels that weighed three talents, like those that contained the silver ; they were in number seventy-seven. These were followed by those that brought the consecrated bowl which ^milius had caused to be made, that weighed ten talents, and was set with precious stones. Then were exposed to view the cups of Antigonus and Seleu- cuse, and those of the Thericlean make, and all the gold plate that was used at Perseus’ table. Next to these came Perseus’ chariot, in which his armor was placed, and on that his diadem. And, after a little intermission, the king’s chil- dren were led captives, and with them a train of their attend- ants, masters, and teachers, all shedding tears, and stretching out hands to the spectators, and making the children them- selves also beg and entreat their compassion. There were two sons and a daughter, whose tender age made them but little sensible of the greatness of their misery, which very insensibility of their condition rendered it the more deplora- ble ; insomuch that Perseus himself was scarcely regarded as he went along, whilst pity fixed the eyes of the Romans upon the infants ; and many of them could not forbear tears, and all beheld the sight with a mixture of sorrow and pleasure, until the children were passed. After his children and their attendants came Perseus him- self, clad all in’black, and wearing the boots of his country, and looking like one altogether stunned and deprived of lea- iEMILIUS PAULUS. 43 ? son, through the greatness of his misfortunes. Next followed a great company of his friends and familiars, whose counte- nances were disfigured with grief, and who let the spectators see, by their tears and their continual looking upon Perseus, that it was his fortune they so much lamented, and that they were regardless of their own. Perseus sent to ^milius to entreat that he might not be led in pomp, but be left out of the triumph ; who, deriding, as was but just, his cowardice and fondness of life, sent him this answer, that as for that, it had been before, and was now, in his own power ; giving him to understand that the disgrace could be avoided by death ; which the faint-hearted man not having the spirit for, and made effeminate by I know not what hopes, allowed him- self to appear as a part of his own spoils. After these were carried four hundred crowns, all made of gold, sent from the cities by their respective deputations to ^milius, in honor of his victory. Then he himself came, seated on a chariot mag- nificently adorned (a man well worthy to be looked at, even without these ensigns of power), dressed in a robe of purple, interwoven with gold, and holding a laurel branch in his right hand. All the army, in like manner, with boughs of laurel in their hands, divided into their bands and companies, followed the chariot of their commander ; some singing verses, accord- ing to the usual custom, mingled with raillery ; others, songs of triumph, and the praise of ^milius’s deeds ; who, indeed, was admired and accounted happy by all men, and unenvied by every one that was good ; except so far as it seems the province of some god to lessen that happiness which is too great and inordinate, and so to mingle the affairs of human life that no one should be entirely free and exempt from ca- lamities ; but, as we read in Homer, that those should think themselves truly blessed to whom fortune has given an equal share of good and evil. HZinilius had four sons, of whom Scipio and Fabius, as is already related, were adopted into other families ; the other two, whom he had by a second wife, and who were yet but young, he brought up in his own house. One of these died at fourteen 3"ears of age, five days before his father’s triumph , the other at twelve, three da^^s after ; so that there was no Roman without a deep sense of his suffering, and who did not shudder at the cruelty of fortune, that had not scrupled to bring so much sorrow into a house replenished with happiness, rejoicing, and sacrifices, and to intermingle tears and laments with songs of victory and triumph. 43 ^ iEMILIUS PAULUS. u^milius, however, reasoning justly that courage and reso- lution was net merely to resist armour and spears, but all the shocks of ill fortune, so met and so adapted himself to these mingled and contrasting circumstances, as to outbalance the evil with the good, and his private concerns with those of the public ; and thus did not allow any thing either to take away from the grandeur, or sully the dignity of his victory. For as soon as he had buried the first of his sons (as we have already said), he triumphed ; and the second dying almost as soon as his triumph was over, he gathered together an assembly of the people, and made an oration to them, not like a man that stood in need of comfort from others, but one that undertook to support his fellow-citizens in their grief for the sufferings he himself underwent. “ lie said, ‘‘ who never yet feared any thing that was human, have, amongst such as were divine, always had a dread of fortune as faithless and inconstant ; and, for the very rea- son that in this war she had been as a favorable gale in all my affairs, I still expected some change and reflux of things. In one day I passed the Ionian sea, and reached Corcyra from Brundisium ; thence in five more I sacrificed at Delphi, and in other five days came to my forces in Macedonia, where, after I had finished the usual sacrifices for the. purify- ing of the army, I entered on my duties, and, in the space of fifteen days, put an honorable period to the war. Still retain- ing a jealousy of fortune, even from the smooth current of my affairs, and seeing myself secure and free from the danger of any enemy, I chiefly dreaded the change of the goddess at sea, whilst conveying home my victorious army, vast spoils, and a captive king. Nay, indeed, after I was returned to you safe, and saw the city full of joy, congratulating, and sacrifices, yet still I distrusted, well knowing that fortune never conferred any great benefits that were unmixed and unattended with probabilities of reverse. Nor could any mind, that was still as it were in labor, and always foreseeing something to befall this city, free itself from this fear, until this great misfortime befell me in my own family, and till, in the midst of those days set apart for triumph, I carried two of the best of sons, my only destined successors, one after another to their funerals. Now, therefore, I am myself safe from danger, at least as to what was my greatest care ; and I trust and am verily per- suaded that for the time to come Fortune will prove constant and harmless unto you ; since she has sufficiently wreaked her jealousy at our great successes on me and mine, and has made iEMILIUS PAULUS. 439 the conqueror as marked an example of human instability as the captive whom he led in triumph, with this only difference, that Perseus, though conquered, does yet enjoy his children, while the conqueror, ^milius, is deprived of his/’ This was the generous and magnanimous oration ^^^milius is said to have spoken to the people, from a heart truly sincere and free from all artifice. Although he very much pitied the condition of PerseuSj and studied to befriend him in what he was able, yet he coula procure no other favor, than his removal from the common prison, the Career^ into a more cleanly and humane place of security, where, whilst he was guarded, it is said, he starved himself to death. Others state his death to be of the strang- est and most unusual character : that the soldiers who were his guard, having conceived a spite and hatred against him for some reason, and finding no other w^ay to grieve and afflict him, kept him from sleep, took pains to disturb him when he was disposed to rest, and found out contrivances to keep him continually awake, by which means at length he was utterly worn out, and expired. Two of his children, also, died soon after him ; the third, who was named Alexander, they say proved an exquisite artist in turning and graving small figures and learned so perfectly to speak and write the Roman lan- guage, that he became clerk to the magistrates, and behaved himself in his office with great skill and conduct. They ascribe to ^milius’s conquest of Macedonia, this most acceptable benefit to the people, that he brought so vast a quantity of money into the public treasury, that they never paid any taxes, until Hirtius and Pansa were consuls, which was in the first war between Antony and Caesar. I'his also was peculiar and remarkable in ^milius, that though he was extremely beloved and honored by the people, yet he always sided with the nobles ; nor would he either say or do any thing to ingratiate himself with the multitude, but constantly adhered to the nobility, in all political matters, which in after- times was cast in Scipio Africanus’s teeth by Appius ; these two being in their time the most considerable men in the city, and standing in competition for the office of censor. The one had on his side the nobles and the senate, to which party the Appii were always attached ; the other, although his own in- terest was great, yet made use of the favor and love of the people. When, therefore, Appius saw Scipio come to the market-place, surrounded with men of mean rank, and such as were but newly made free, yet were very fit to manage a 440 i^MILlUS PAULUS. debate, to gather together the rabble, and to carry whatsoever they designed by importunity and noise, crying out with a loud voice : Groan now,” said he, O ^milius Paulus, if you have knowledge in your grave of what is done above, that your son aspires to be censor, by the help of ^milius, the common crier, and Licinius Philonicus.” Scipio always had the good will of the people, because he was constantly heaping favors on them ; but ^milius, although he still took part with the nobles, yet was as much the people’s favorite as those who most sought popularity and used every art to obtain it. This they made manifest, when, amongst other digni- ties, they thought him worthy of the office of censor, a trust ac- counted most sacred and of great authority, as well in other things, as in the strict examination into men’s lives. For the censors had power to expel a senator, and enroll whom they judged most fit in his room, and to disgrace such young men as lived licentiously, by taking away their horses. Besides this, they were to value and assess each man’s estate, and register the number of the people. There were numbered by -Dmilius, 347,452 men. He declared Marcus ^Finilius Lepi- dus first senator, who had already four times held that honor, and he removed from their office three of the senators of the least note. The same moderation he and his fellow censor, Marcius Philippus, used at the muster of the knights. Whilst he was thus busy about many and weighty affairs, he fell sick of a disease, which at first seemed hazardous ; and although after a while it proved without danger, yet was troublesome and difficult to be cured ; so that by the advice of his physicians he sailed to Velia, in South Italy, and there dwelt a long time near the sea, where he enjoyed all possible quietness. The Romans, in the meanwhile, longed for his re- turn, and oftentimes by their expressions in the theatres, gave public testimony of their great desire and impatience to see him. When, therefore, the time drew nigh that a solemn sac- rifice was of necessity to be offered, and he found, as he thought, his body strong enough, he came back again to Rome, and there performed the holy rites with the rest of the priests, the people in the mean time crowding about him, and con- gratulating his return. The next day he sacrificed again to the gods for his recovery ; and, having finished the sacrifice, returned to his house and sat down to dinner, when, all on a sudden and when no change was expected, he fell into a fit of delirium, and, being quite deprived of his senses, the third day after ended a life, in which he had wanted no manner of TIMOLEON AND ^MILIUS PAULUS. 441 thing which is thought to conduce to happiness. Nay, his very funeral pomp had something in it remarkable and to be admired, and his virtue was graced with the most solemn and happy rites at his burial ; consisting, not in gold and ivory, or in the usual sumptuousness and splendor of such prepara- tions, but in the good-will, honor, and love, not only of his fellow citizens, but of his enemies themselves. For as many Spaniards, Ligurians, and Macedonians, as happened to be present at the solemnity, that were young and of vigorous bodies, took up the bier and carried it ; whilst the more aged followed, calling ^milius the benefactor and preserver of their countries. For not only at the time of his conquest had he acted to all with kindness and clemency, but, through the whole course of his life, he continued to do them good and look after their concerns, as if they had been his famil- iars and relations. They report, that the whole of his estate scarce amounted to three hundred and seventy thousand drachmas ; to which he left his two sons co-heirs ; but Scipio, who was the youngest, being adopted into the more wealthy family of Africanus, gave it all to his brother. Such are said to have been the life and manners of ^milius. COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH ^MILIUS PAULUS. Such being the story of these two great men’s lives, without doubt in the comparison very little difference will be found between them. They made war with two powerful enemies : the one against the Macedonians, and the other with the Carthaginians ; and the success was in both cases glori- ous. One conquered Macedon from the seventh succeeding heir of Antigonus ; the other freed Sicily from usurping ty- rants, and restored the island to its former liberty. Unless, inueed, it be made a point of ^milius’s side, that he engaged with Perseus when his forces were entire, and composed of men that had often successfully fought with the Romans ; whereas, Timoleon found Dionysius in a despairing condi- tion, his affairs being reduced to the last extremity : or, on the contrary, it be urged in favor of Timoleon, that he van- quished several tyrants, and a powerful Carthaginian army, with an inconsiderable number of men gathered together 442 TIMOLEON AND .EMILIUS PAULUS. from all parts, not with such an army as ^milius had, of well disciplined soldiers, experienced in war, and accustomed to obey ; but with such as through the hopes of gain restored to him, unskilled in fighting and ungovernable. And when actions are equally glorious, and the means to compass them unequal, the greatest esteem is certainly due to that general who conquers with the smaller power. Both have the reputation of having behaved themselves with an uncorrupted integrity, in all the affairs thay managed ; but ^milius had the advantage of being, from his infancy, by the laws and customs of his country brought up to the proper management of public affairs, which Timoleon brought himself to by his own efforts. And this is plain ; for at that time all the Romans were uniformly orderly and obedient, respectful to the laws and to their fellow-citizens : whereas it is remarkable, that not one of the Greek gererals commanding in Sicily, could keep himself uncorrupted, except Dion, and of him many entertained a jealousy that he would establish a monarchy there, after the Lacedaemonian manner. Timoeus writes, that the Syracusans sent even Gylippus home dis- honorably, and with a reputation lost by the unsalable covetousness he displayed when he commanded the army. And numerous historians tell us of the wicked and perfidious acts committed by Pharax the Spartan, and Callippus the Athenian, with the view of making themselves kings of Sicily. Yet what were these men, and what strength had they, to entertain such a thought ? The first of them was a follower of Dionysius, when he was expelled from Syracuse, and the other a hired captain of foot under Dion, and came into Sicily with him. But Timoleon, at the request and prayers of the Syracusans, was sent to be their general, and had no need to seek for power, but had a perfect title, founded on their own offers, to hold it ; and yet no sooner had he freed Sicily from her oppressors, but he willingly surrendered it. It is truly worthy our admiration in ^milius, that though he conquered so great and so rich a realm as that of Mace- don, yet he would not touch, nor see any of the money, nor did he advantage himself one farthing by it, though he was very generous of his own to others. I would not intend any reflection on Timoleon, for accepting of a house and hand- some estate in the country, which the Syracusans presented him with ; there is no dishonor in accepting ; but yet there is greater glory in a refusal, and the supremest virtue is shown in not wanting what it might fairly take. And as that PELOPIDAS. 443 body is, without doubt, the most strong and healthful, which can the easiest support extreme cold and excessive heat in the chai>ge of seasons, and that the most firm and collected mind which is not puffed up with prosperity, nor dejected with adversity ; so the virtue of ^milius was eminently seen in his countenance and behavior continuing as noble and lofty 'a[)on the loss of two dear sons, as w^hen he achieved his greatest victories and triumphs. But Timoleon, after he had justly punished his brother, a truly heroic action, let his rea- son yield to a causeless sorrow, and humiliated with grief and remorse, forbore for twenty years to appear in any public place, or meddle with any affairs of the commonwealth. It is truly very commendable to abhor and shun the doing any base action ; but to stand in fear of every kind of censure or disrepute, may argue a gentle and open-hearted, but not an heroic temper. PELOPIDAS. Cato Major, hearing some commend one that was rash, and inconsiderately daring in a battle, said, “ There is a dif- ference between a man’s prizing valor at a great rate, and valuing life at little ; ” a very just remark. Antigonus, we know, at least, had a soldier, a venturous fellow, but of wretched health and constitution ; the reason of whose ill .ook he took the trouble to inquire into ; and, on under- standing from him that it was a disease, commanded his physi- cians to employ their utmost skill, and if possible recover him ; which brave hero, when once cured, never afterwards sought danger or showed himself venturous in battle ; and, when Antigonus w^ondered and upbraided him with his change, made no secret of the reason, and said, Sir, you are the cause of my cowardice, by freeing me from those miseries which made me care little for life.” With the same feeling, the Sybarite seems to have said of the Spartans, that it was no commendable thing in them to be so ready to die in the wars, since by that they were freed from such hard labor, and miserable living, in truth, the Sybarites, a soft and dissolute people, might well imagine they hated life, because in their eager pursuit of virtue and glory, they were not afraid to die : but, in fact, the Lacedaemonians found their virtue secured ^44 PELOPIDAS. them happiness alike in living or in dying ; as we see "n the epitaph that says : — They died, but not as lavish of their blood, Or thinking death itself was simply good ; Their wishes neither were to live nor die, But to do both alike commendably. An endeavor to avoid death is not blamable, if we do not basely desire to live ; nor a willingness to die good and virtu* ous, if it proceeds from a contempt of life. And therefore Homer always takes care to bring his bravest and most daring heroes well armed into battle; and the Greek lawgivers ^pun- ished those that threw away their shields, but not him that lost his sword or spear; intimating that self-defence is more a man’s business then offence. This is especially true of a governor of a city, or a general ; for if, as Iphicrates divides it out, the light-armed are the hands ; the horse the feet ; the infantry the breast ; and the general the head ; he, when he puts himself upon danger, not only ventures his own person, but all those whose safety depends on his ; and so on the contrary. Callicratidas, therefore, though otherwise a great man, was wrong in his answer to the augur who advised him, the sacrifice being unlucky, to be careful of his life ; ‘‘ Sparta,’' said he, ‘‘will not miss one man.” It was true, Callicratidas, when simply serving in any engagement either at sea or land, was but a single person, but as a general, he united in his life the lives of all, and could hardly be called one, when his death involved the ruin of so many. The saying of old An- tigonus was better, who, when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, “ The enemy’s ships are more than ours ; ” replied, “ For how many then wilt thou reckon me?” inti- mating that a brave and experienced commander is to be highly valued, one of the first duties of whose office indeed it is to save him on whose safety depends that of others. And therefore I applaud Timotheus, who, when Chares showed the wounds he had received, and his shield pierced Dy a dart, told him, “Yet how ashamed I was, at the seige of Samos, when a dart fell near me, for exposing myself, more like a boy than like a general in command of a large army.” In- deed, where the general’s hazarding himself will go far to decide the result, there he must fight and venture his person, and not mind their maxims, who would have a general die, if not of^ at least in old age ; but when the advantage will be but small if he gets the better, and the loss considerable if PELOPIDAS. 445 lie faLs, who then would desire, at the risk of the commander’s life, a piece of success which a common soldier might obtain > This I thought fit to premise before the lives of Pelopidas and Marcellus, who were both great men, but who both fell by their own rashness. For, being gallant men, and having gained their respective countries great glory and reputation by their conduct in war against terrible enemies, the one, as history relates, overthrowing Hannibal, who was till then invincible ; the other, in a set battle beating the Lacedaemo- nians, then supreme both at sea and land ; they ventured at last too far, and were heedlessly prodigal of their lives, when there was the greatest need of men and commanders such as they. And this agreement in their characters and their dea-h5 is the reason why I compare their lives. Pelopidas, the son of Hippoclus, was descended, as like- wise Epaminondas was, from an honorable family in Thebes ; and, being brought up to opulence, hnd having a fair estate left him whilst he was young, he made it his business to re- lieve the good and deserving amongst the poor, that he might show himself lord and not slave of his estate. For amongst men, as Aristotle observes, some are too narrow-minded to use their wealth, and some are loose and abuse it ; and these live perpetual slaves to their pleasures, as the others to their gain. Others permitted themselves to be obliged by Pelopidas, and thankfully made use of his liberality and kind- ness ; but amongst all his friends, he could never persuade Epaminondas to be a sharer in his wealth. He, however, stepped down into his poverty, and took pleasure in the same poor attire, spare diet, unwearied endurance of hardships, and unshrinking boldness in war : like Capaneus in Euripides, who had Abundant wealth and in that wealth no pride ; he was ashamed any one should think that he spent more upon his person than the meanest Theban. Epaminondas made his familiar and hereditary poverty more light and easy, by his philosophy and single life ; but Pelopidas mar- ried a woman of good family, and had children ; yet still th'nking little of his private interests, and devoting all his time to the public, he ruined his estate : and, when his friends admonished and told him how necessary that money which he neglected was: “ Yes,’’ he replied, “ necessary to N. code- mus,” pointing to a blind cripple. Both seemed equally fitted by nature for all sorts of ex 446 PELOPIDAS. cellence : but bodily exercises chiefly delighted Pelopidas, learning Epaminondas ; and the one spent his spare hours in hunting, and the Palaestra, the other in hearing lectures ot philosophizing. And, amongst a thousand points for praise in both, the judicious esteem nothing equal to that constant benevolence and friendship, which they inviolably preserved in all their expeditions, public actions, and administration of the commonwealth. For if any one looks on the administra- tions of Aristides and Themistocles, of Cimon and Pericles, of Nicias and Alcibiades, what confusion, what envy, what mutual jealousy appears ? And if he then casts his eye on the kindness and reverence that Pelopidas showed Epami- nondas, he must needs confess, that these are more truly and more justly styled colleagues in government and com- manvi than the others, who strove rather to overcome one an- other than their enemies. The true cause of this was their virtue ; whence it came that they did not make their actions aim at wealth aud glory, an endeavor sure to lead to bitter and contentious jealousy; but both from the beginning being inflamed with a divine desire of seeing their country glonous by their exertions, they used to that end one another's excel- .ences as their own. Many, indeed, think this strict and en- tire affection is to be dated from the battle at Mantinea, where they both fought, being part of the succors that were sent from Thebes to the Lacedaemonians, their then friends and allies. For, being placed together amongst the infantry, and engaging the Arcadians, when the Lacedaemonian wing, in which they fought, gave ground, and many fled, they closed their shields together and resisted the assailants. Pelopidas, having received seven wounds in the forepart of his body, fell upon an heap of slain friends and enemies ; but Epami- nondas, though he thought him past recovery, advanced to defend his arms and body, and singly fought a multitude, re- solving rather to die than forsake his helpless Pelopidas. And now, he being much distressed, being wounded in the breast by a spear, and in the arm by a sword, Agesipolis, the king of the Spartans, came to his succor from the other wirg, and beyond hope delivered both. After this the Lacedaemonians pretended to be friends to Thebes, but in truth looked with jealous suspicions on the designs and power of the city, and chiefly hated the party of Ismenias and Androclides, in which Pelopidas also was an associate, as tending to liberty, and the advancement of the commonalty. Therefore Archias, Leontidas, and Philip, all PEI.OPIDAS. 447 rich men, and of oligarchical principles, and immoderately ambitious, urged Plicebidas the Spartan, as he was on his way past the city with a considerable force, to surprise the Cad- mea, and, banishing the contrary faction, to establish an oli- garchy, and by that means subject the city to the supremacy of the Spartans. He, accepting the proposal, at the festival of Ceres unexpectedly fell on the Thebans, and made himself master of the citadel. Ismenias was taken, carried to Sparta, and in a short time murdered ; but Pelopidas, Pherenicus, An droclides, and many more that fled were publicly proclaimed outlaws. Epaminondas stayed at home, being not much looked after, as one whom philosophy had made inactive, and poverty incapable. The Lacedaemonians cashiered Phoebidas, and fined him one hundred thousand drachmas, yet still kept a garrison in the Cadmea ; which made all Greece wonder at their incon- sistency, since they punished the doer, but approved the deed. And though the Thebans, having lost their polity, and being enslaved by Archias and Leontidas, had no hopes to get free from this tyranny, which they saw guarded by the whole mil- itary power of the Spartans, and had no means to break the yoke, unless these could be deposed from their command of sea and land ; yet Leontidas and his associates, understand- ing the exiles lived at Athens in favor with the people, and with honor from all the good and virtuous, formed secret de- signs against their lives, and, suborning some unknown fel- lows, despatched Androclides, but were not successful on the rest- Letters, besides, were sent from Sparta to the Atheni- ans, warning them neither to receive nor countenance the ex- iles but expel them as declared common enemies of the con- federacy. But the Athenians, from their natural hereditary inclination to be kind, and also to make a grateful return to ihe Thebans, who had very much assisted them in restoring Iheir democracy, and had publicly enacted, that if any Athe- nian would march armed through Boeotia against the tyrants, that no Boeotian should either see or hear it, did the Thebans no harm. Pelopidas, though one of the youngest, was active in pri- vately exciting each single exile ; and often told them at iheir meetings, that it was both dishonorable and impious to neglect their enslaved and engarrisoned country, and, lazily contented with, their own lives and safety, depended on the decree of the Athenians, and through fear fawn on every smooth-tongued orator that wtis able to work upon the pea PELOPIDAS. pie : no, they must venture f/or this great prize, taking Thras- ybulus’ bold courage for example, and as he advanced from Thebes and broke the power of the Athenian tyrants, so they should march from Athens and free Thebes. When by this method he had persuaded them, they privately despatched some persons to those friends they had left at Thebes, and acquainted them with their designs. Their plans being ap- proved, Charon, a man of the greatest distinction, offered his house for their reception ; Phillidas contrived to get him- self made secretary to Archias and Philip, who then held the office of polemarch or chief captain ; and Epaminondas had already inflamed the youth. For, in their exercises, he had encouraged them to challenge and wrestle with the Spartans, and again, when he saw them puffed up with victory and sua cess, sharply told them, that it was the greater shame to be such cowards as to serve those whom in strength they so much excelled. The day for action being fixed, it was agreed upon by the exiles, that Pherenicus with the rest should stay at the Thri- asian plain, while some few of the younger men tried the first danger, by endeavoring to get into the city ; and, if they were surprised by their enemies, the others should take care to provide for their children and parents. Pelopidas first offered to undertake the business ; then Melon, Damoclides, and Theopompus, men of noble families, who, in other things loving and faithful to one .another, were rivals constant only in glory and courageous exploits. They were twelve in all, and having taken leave of those that stayed behind, and sent a messenger to Charon, they went forward, clad in short coats, and carrying hounds and hunting poles with them, that they might be taken for hunters beating over the fields, and prevent all suspicion in those that met them on the way. When the messenger came to Charon, and told him they were approaching, he did not change his resolution at the sight of /danger, but being a man of his word, offered them his house. But one Hipposthenidas, a man of no ill principles, a lover of his country, and a friend to the exiles, but not of as much resolution as the shortness of time and the character of the action required, being as it were dizzied at the greatness of the approaching enterprise ; and beginning now for the first time to comprehend that relying on that weak assistance which could be expected from the exiles, they were undertak- ing no less a task than to shake the government, and over- throw the whole power of Sparta ; went privately to his houses PELOPIDAS. 449 and sent a friend to Melon and Pelopidas, desiring them to forbear for the present, to return to Athens and expect a better opportunity. The messenger's name was Chlidon, who, going home in haste and bringing out his horse, asked for the bridle ; but, his wife not knowing where it was, and, when it could not be found, telling him she had lent it to a friend, first they began to chide, then to curse one another, and his wife wished the journey might prove ill to him, and those that sent him ; insomuch that Chlidon’s passion made him waste a great part of the day in this quarrelling, and then, looking on this chance as an omen, he laid aside all thoughts of his journey, and went away to some other business. So nearly had these great and glorious designs, even in their very birth, lost their opportunity. But Pelopidas and his companions, dressing themselves like countrymen, divided, and, whilst it was yet day, entered at different quarters of the city. It was, besides, a windy day, and now it just began to snow, which contributed much to their concealment, because most people- were gone in doors to avoid the weather. Those, however, that were concerned in the design, received them as they came, and conducted them to Charon’s house, where the exiles and others made up forty-eight in number. The tyrants’ affairs stood thus : the secretary, Phillidas, as I have already observed, was an ac- complice in, and privy to all the contrivance of the exiles, and he a while before had invited Archias, with others to an en- tertainment on that day, to drink freely, and meet some wo- men of the town, on purpose that when they were drunk, and given up to their pleasures, he might deliver them over to the conspirators. But befere Archias was thoroughly heated, notice was given him that the exiles were privately in the town ; a true report indeed, but obscure, and not well con- firmed ’ nevertheless, though Phillidas endeavored to di- vert the discourse, Archias sent one of his guards to Cha- ron, and commanded him to attend immediately. It was evening, and Pelopidas and his friends with him in the house were putting themselves into a fit posture for ac- tion, having their breast-plates on already, and their swords girt: but at the sudden knocking at the door, one stepping forth to inquire the matter, and learning from the officer that Charon was sent for by the polemarch, returned in great con- fusion and acquainted those within ; and immediately con- jectured that the whole plot was discovered, and they should be cut in pieces, before so much as achieving any action to do 29 45 ^ PELOPIDAS. credit to their bravery : yet all agreed that Charon should obey, and attend the polein arch, to prevent suspicion. Charon was, indeed, a man of courage and resolution in all dangers, yet in this case he was extremely concerned, lest any should suspect that he was the traitor and the death of so many brave citizens be laid on him. And, therefore, when he was ready to depart, he brought his son out of the women’s apartment, a little boy as yet, but one of the best looking and strongest of all those of his age, and delivered him to Pelopidas with these words : If you find me a traitor, treat the boy as an enemy without any mercy.” The concern which Charon showed, drew tears from many ; but all protested vehemently against his supposing any one of them so mean-spirited and base, at the appearance of appoaching danger, as to suspect or blame him ; and therefore, desired him not to involve his son, but to set him out of harm’s way : that so he, perhaps, escaping the tyrant's power, might live to revenge the city and his friends. Charon, hower, refused to remove him, and asked, ‘‘ What life, what safety could be more honorable, than to die bravely with his father, and such generous companions ? ” Thus, imploring the protection of the gods, and saluting and encouraging them all, he departed, con- sidering with himself, and composing his voice and counte- nance, that he might look as little like as possible to what in fact he really was. When he was come to the door, Archias with Phillidas came out to him, and said, “ I have heard, Charon, that there are some men just come, and lurking in the town, and that some of the citizens are resorting to theip.” Charon was at first dis- turbed, but asking, “ Who are they ? and who conceals them ? ” and finding Archias did not thoroughly understand the matter, he concluded that none of those privy to the design had given this information, and replied, ‘‘ Do not disturb yourselves for an empty rumor : I will look into it, however, for no report in such a case is to be neglected.” Phillidas, who stood by, com- mended him, and leading back Archias, got him deep in drink^ still prolonging the entertainment with the hopes of the women’s company at last. But when Charon returned, and found the men prepared, not as if they hoped for safety and success, but to die bravely and with the slaughter of their enemies, he told Pe- lopidas and his friends the truth, but pretended to others in the house t .iat Archias talked to him about something else, invent- ing a story for the occasion. This storm was just blowing over, when fortune brought another ; for a messenger came with a letter from one Archias, the Hierophant at Athens, tc PET^OPIDAS. 451 his namesake Archias, who was his friend and guest. This did not merely contain a vague conjectural suspicion, but, as it appeared afterwards, disclosed every particular of the de- sign. The messenger being brought in to Archias, who was now pretty well drunk, and delivering the letter, said to him, ‘‘ The writer of this desired it might be read at once ; it is on urgent business.’’ Archias, with a smile, replied, “Urgent business to-morrow,” and so receiving the letter, he put it under his pillow, and returned to what he had been speaking of with Phillidas, and these words of his are a proverb to this day amongst the Greeks. Now when the opportunity seemed convenient for action, they set out in two companies ; Pelopidas and Damoclides with their party went against Leontidas and Hypates, that lived near together ; Charon and Melon against Archias and Philip, having put on women’s apparel over their breastplates, and thick garlands of hr and pine to shade their faces; and so, as soon as they came to the door, the guests clapped and gave an huzza, supposing them to be the women they expected. But when the conspirators had looked about the room, and carefully marked all that were at the entertainment, they drew their swords, and making at Archias and Philip amongst the tables, disclosed who they were. Phillidas persuaded some few of his guests to sit still, and those that got up and endeavored to as- sist the polemarch, being drunk, were easly despatched. But Pelopidas and his party met with a harder task ; as they at- tempted Leontidas, a sober and formidable man, and when they came to his house found his door shut, he being already gone to bed. They knocked a long time before any one would answer, but at last, a servant that heard them, coming out and unbarring the door, as soon as the gate gave way, they rushed in, and, overturning the man, made all haste to Leontidas’s chamber. But Leontidas, guessing at the matter by the noise and running, leaped from his bed and drew his dagg jr, but forgot to put out the lights, and by that means make them fall foul on one another in the dark. As it was, being easily seen by reason of the light, he received them at his chamber doot and stabbed Cephisodorus, the first man that entered : on his falling, the next that he engaged was Pelopidas ; and the pas- sage being narrow and Cephisodorus’s body lying in the way, there was a fierce and dangerous conflict. At last Pelopidas prevailed, and having killed Leontidas, he and his compan- ions went in pursuit of Hypates, and after the same manner broke into his house. He perceived the design, and fled to PELOPIDAS. 462 his neighbors ; but they closely followed, and caught and killed him. This done they joined Melon, and sent to hasten the exiles they had left in Attica : and called upon the citizens to main- tain their liberty, and taking down the spoils from the porches, and breaking open all the armorers’ shops that were near, equipped those that came to their assistance. Epaminondas and Gorgidas came in already armed, with a gallant train of young men, and the best of the old. Now the city was in a great excitement and confusion, a great noise and hurry, lights set up in every house, men running here and there ; however, the people did not as yet gather into a body, but, amazed at the proceedings, and not clearly understanding the matter, waited for the day. And, therefore, the Spartan officers were thought to have been in fault for not falling on at once, since their garrison consisted of about fifteen hundred men, and many of the citizens ran to them ; but alarmed with the noise, the fires, and the confused running of the people, they kept quietly within the Cadmea. As soon as day appeared, the exiles from Attica came in armed, and their was a general assembly of the people. Epaminondas and Gorgidas brought forth Pelopidas and his party, encompassed by the priests, who held out garlands, and exhorted the people to fight for their country and their gods. The assembly, at their appearance, rose up in a body and with shouts and acclamations received the men as their deliverers and benefactors. Then Pelopidas, being chosen chief captain of Boeotia, together with Melon and Charon, proceeded at once to block- ade the citadel, and stormed it on all sides, being extremely desirous to expel the Lacedaemonians, and free the Cadmea, before an army could come from Sparta to their relief. And he just so narrowly succeeded, that they, having surrendered on terms and departed, on their way home met Cleombrotus at Megara marching towards Thebes with a considerable force. The Spartans condemned and executed Herippidas and Arcis- sus, two of their governors at Thebes, and Lysanoridas the third being severely fined, fled to Peloponnesus. This action so closely resembling that of Thrasybulus, in the courage of the actors, the danger, the encounters, and equally crowned with success, was called the sister of it by the Greeks. For we can scarcely find any other examples where so small and weak a party of men by bold courage overcame such numer ous and powerful enemies, or brought greater blessings to their country by so doing. But the subsequent change of affairs PELOriDAS. 4S3 made this action the niDre famous ; for the war which forever ruined the pretensions of Sparta to command, and put an end to the supremacy she then exercised alike by sea and by land, proceeded from that night, in which Pelopidas not surprising any fort, or castle, or citadel, but coming, the twelfth man to a private house, loosed and broke, if we may speak truth in metaphor, the chains of the Spartan sway, which before seemed of adamant and indissoluble. But now the Lacedaemonians invading Boeotia with a great aimy, the Athenians, affrighted at the danger, declared them- selves no allies to Thebes, and prosecuting those that stood for the Boeotain interest, executed some, and banished and fined others : and the cause of Thebes, destitute of allies, seemed in a desperate condition. But Pelopidas and Gorgi- das, holding the office of captains of Boeotia, designing to breed a quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, made this contrivance. One Sphodrias, a Spartan, a man famous indeed for courage in battle, but of no sound judg- ment, full of ungrounded hopes and foolish ambition, was left with an army at Thespiae, to receive and succor the Theban renegad.es. To him Pelopidas and his colleagues privately sent a merchant, one of their friends, with money, and, what proved more efficient, advice, — that it more became a man of his worth to set upon some great enterprise, and that he should, making a sudden incursion on the unprotected Athenians, surprise the Piraeus ; since nothing could be so grateful to Sparta, as to take Athens ; and the Thebans, of course, would not stir to the assistance of men whom they now hated and looked upon as traitors. Sphodrias being at last wrought upon, marched into Attica by night with his army, and advanced as far as Eleusis ; but there his soldiers^ hearts failing, after exposing his project and involving the Spartans in a dangerous war, he retreated to Thespiae. After this the Athenians zealously sent supplies to Thebes and putting to sea, sailed to many places, and offered support and protec- tion to all those of the Greeks who were willing to revolt. The Thebans, meantime, singly, having many skirmishes with the Spartans in Boeotia, and fighting some battles, not great indeed, but important as training and instructing them, thus had their minds raised, and their bodies inured to labor, and gained both experience and courage by these frequent encounters insomuch that we have it related that Antalcidas, the Spartan, said to Agesilaus, returning wounded from Boeo- tia, “ Indeed, the Thebans have paid you handsomely for PELOPIDAS. «4 instructing tliem in the art of war, against their wills.” In real truth, however, Agesilaus was not their master in this, but those that prudently and opportunely, as men do young dogs, set them on their enemies, and brought them safely off after they had tasted the sweets of victory and resolution. Of all those leaders, Pelopidas deserves the most honor : as after they had once chosen him general, he was every year in command as long as he lived ; either cap- tain of the sacred band, or, what was most frequent, chief captain of Boeotia. About Plataea and Thespiae the Spar- tans were routed and put to flight, and Phoebidas, that sur- prised the Cadmea, slain ; and at Tanagra a considerable force was worsted, and the leader Panthoides killed. But these encounters, though they raised the victor’s spirits, did not thoroughly dishearten the unsuccessful ; for there was no set battle, or regular fighting, but mere incursions on advan- tage, in which, according to. occasion, they charged, retired again or pursued. But the battle at Tegyrae, which seemed a prelude to Leuctra, won Pelopidas great reputation ; for none of the other commanders could claim any hand in the design, nor the enemies any show of victory. The city of the Orcho- menians siding with the Spartans, and having received two companies for its guard, he kept a constant eye upon it, and watched his opportunity. Hearing that the garrison had moved into Locris, and hoping to find Orchomenus defenceless, he marched with his sacred band, and some few horsemen. But when he approached the city, and found that a reinforcement of the garrison was on its march from Sparta, he made a cir- cuit round the foot of the mountains, and retreated with his little army through Tegyrae, that being the only way he could pass. For the river Melas, almost as soon as it rises, spreads itself into marshes and navigable pools, and makes all the plain between impassable. A little below the marshes stands the temple and oracle of Apollo Tegyraeus, forsaken not long before that time, having flourished till the Median wars, Echecrates then being priest. Here they profess that the god was born ; the neighboring mountain is called Delos, and there the river Melas comes again into a channel ; behind the temple rises two spring, admirable for the sweetness, abun- dance, and coolness of the streams ; one they called Phoenix, the other Elaea, even to the present time, as if Lucina had not been delivered between two trees, but fountains. A place hard by, called Ptoum, is shown, where they say she was affrighted by the appearance of a boar ; and the stories PELOPIDAS 455 of the Python and Tityus are in like manner appropriated by these localities. I omit many of the points that are used as arguments. For our tradition does not rank this god amongst those that were born, and then made immortal, as Hercules and Bacchus, whom their virtue raised above a mortal and passible condition ; but Apollo is one of the eternal unbegot- ten deities, if we may collect any certainty concerning these things, from the statements of the oldest and wisest in such subjects. As the Thebans were retreating from Orchomenus towards Tegyrae, the Spartans, at the same time marching from Locris, met them. As soon as they came in view, advancing through the straits, one told Pelopidas, ‘‘ We are fallen into our ene- my’s hands ; ” he replied. And why not they into ours ? ” and immediately commanded his horse to come up from the rear and charge, while he himself drew his infantry, being three hundred in number, into a close body, hoping by that means, at whatsoever point he made the attack, to break his way through his more numerous enemies. The Spartans had two companies (the company consisting, as Ephorus states, of five hundred ; Callisthenes says seven hundred ; others, as Polybius, nine hundred) ; and their leaders, Gorgoleon and Theopompus, confident of success, advanced upon the The- bans. The charge being made with much fury, chiefly where the commanders were posted, the Spartan captains that engaged Polopidas were first killed ; and those immediately around them suffering severely, the whole army was thus disheartened, and opened a lane for the Thebans as if they desired to pass through and escape. But when Pelopidas entered, and turn- ing against those that stood their ground, still went on with a bloody slaughter, an open flight ensued amongst the SjDar- tans. The pursuit was carried but a little way, because they feared the neighboring Orchomenians, and the reinforcements from Lacedaemon ; they had succeeded, however, in fighting a way through their enemies, and overpowering their whole force ; and, therefore, erecting a trophy, and spoiling the slain, they returned home extremely encouraged with their achievements. For in all the great wars there had ever been against Greeks or barbarians, the Spartans were never before beaten by a smaller company than tlieir own ; nor, indeed, in a set battle, when their number was equal. Hence their courage was thought irresistible, and their high repute before the battle made a conquest already of enemies, who thought themselves no match for the men of Sparta even on equal 4S6 PELOPIDAS. terms. But this battle first taught the other Greeks, that not only Eurotas, or the country between Babyce and Cnacion, breeds men of courage and resolution, but that where the youth are ashamed of baseness, and ready to venture in a good cause, where they fly disgrace more than danger, there, wherever it be, are found the bravest and most formidable opponents. Gorgidas, according to some, first formed the Sacred Band of three hundred chosen men, to whom, as being a guard for the citadel, the State allowed provision, and all things necessary for exercise : and hence they were called the city band, as citadels of old were usually called cities. Others say that it was composed of young men attached to each other by personal affection, and a pleasant saying of Pammenes is current, that Homer’s Nestor was not well skilled in ordering an army, when he advised the Greeks to rank tribe and tribe, and family and family together, that So tribe might tribe, and kinsmen kinsmen aid, but that he should have joined lovers and their beloved. Foi men of the same tribe or family little value one another when dangers press ; but a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love, is never to be broken, and invincible ; since the lovers, ashamed to be base in sight of their beloved, and the beloved before their lovers, willingly rush into danger for the relief of one another. Nor can that be wondered at since they have more regard for their absent lovers than for others present ; as in the instance of the man, who, when his enemy was going to kill him, earnestly requested him to run him through the breast, that his lover might not blush to see him wounded in the back. It is a tradition likewise, that lolaiis, who assisted Hercules in his labors and fought at his side, was beloved of him ; and Aristotle observes, that even in his time, lovers plighted their faith at lolaiis’s tomb. It is likely, therefore, that this band was called sacred on this account ; as Plato calls a lover a divine friend. It is stated that it was never beaten till the battle at Chaeronea : and when Philip, after the fight, took a view of the slain, and came to the place where the three hundred that fought his phalanx lay dead to- gether, he wondered, and understanding that it was the band of lovers, he shed tears and said, “ Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered any thing that was base.’’ It was not the disaster of Laius, as the poets imagine, that PELOPIDAS. 4S7 first gave rise to this form of attachment amongst the The- bans, but their law-givers, designing to soften whilst they were young, their natural fierceness, brought, for example, the pipe into great esteem, both in serious and sportive occasions, and gave great encouragement to these friendships in the Palaes- tra, to temper the manners and characters of the youth. With a view to this they did well, again, to make Harmony, the daughter of Mars and Venus, their tutelar deity ; since, where force and courage is joined with gracefulness and win- ning behavior, a harmony ensues that combines all the ele- ments of society in perfect consonance and order. Gorgidas distributed this Sacred Band all through the front ranks of the infantry and thus made their gallantry less conspicuous ; not being united in one body, but mingled with so many others of inferior resolution, they had no fair opportunity of showing wfiat they could do. But Pelopidas, having suf- ficiently tried their bravery at Tegyrae where they had fought alone, and around his own person, never afterward divided them, but keeping them entire, and as one man, gave them the first duty in the greatest battles. For as horses run brisker in a chariot than singly, not that their joint force divides the air with greater ease, but because being matched one against the other emulation kindles and inflames their courage ; thus he thought, brave men, provoking one another to noble actions, would prove most serviceable, and most resolute, where all were united together. Now when the Lacedaemonians had made peace with the other Greeks, and united all their strength against the The- bans, only, and their king, Cleombrotus, had passed the fron- tier with ten thousand foot and one thousand horse, and not only subjection, as heretofore, but total dispersion and anni- hilation threatened, and Boeofia was in a greater fear than ever, — Pelopidas, leaving his house, when his wife followed him on his way, and with tears begged him to be carelul of his life, made answer, “ Private men, my wife, should be advised to look to themselves, generals to save others.’ And when he came to the camp, and found the chief captains disagreeing, he, first, joined the side of Epaminondas, who advised to fight the enemy ; though Pelopidas himself was not then in office as chief captain of Bceotia, but in command of the Sacred Band, and trusted as it was fit a man should be, who had given his country such proofs of his zeal for its freedom. And so when a battle was agreed on, and they encamped in front of the Spartans at Leuctra, Pelopidas saw a vision, which much PELOPIDAS. 1-S^ discomposed him. In that plain lie the bodies of the daugh« ters of one Scedasus, called from the place Leuctridae, having been buried there, after having been ravished by some Spartan strangers. When this base and lawless deed was done, and their father could get no satisfaction at Lacedaemon, with bitter imprecations on the Spartans, he killed himself at his daughters’ tombs: and from that time, the prophecies and oracles still warned them to have a great care of the divine vengeance at Leuctra. Many, however, did not understand the meaning, being uncertain about the place, because there was a little maritime town of Laconia called Leuctron, and near Megalopolis in Arcadia a place of the same name ; and the villany was committed long before this battle. Now Pelopidas, being asleep in the camp, thought he saw the maidens weeping about their tombs, and cursing the Spartans, and Scedasus commanding, if they desired the vic- tory, to sacrifice a virgin with chestnut hair to his daughters. Pelopidas loked on this as an harsh and impious injunction, but rose and told it to the prophets and commanders of the army, some of whom contended, that it was fit to obey, and adduced as examples from the ancients, Menoeceus, son of Creon ; Macaria, daughter of Hercules ; and from later times, Pherecydes the philosopher, slain by the Lacedcemonians, and his skin, as the oracles advised, still kept by their kings. Leonidas, again, warned by the oracle, did as it were sacrifice himself for the good of Greece ; Themistocles offered human victims to Bacchus Omestes, before the engagement at Sala- mis ; and success showed their actions to be good. On the contrary, Agesilaus going from the same place, and against the same enemies that Agamemnon did, and being command- ed in a dream at Aulis to sacrifice his daughter, was so weak as to disobey ; the consequence of which was, that his expedi- tion was unsuccessful and inglorious. But some on the other side urged that such a barbarous and impious obligation could not be pleasing to any Superior Beings ; that typhons and giants did not preside over the world, but the general father of gods and men ; that it was absurB to imagine any divinities or powers delighted in slaughter and sacrifices of men ; or, if there were any such, they were to be neglected as weak and unable to assist ; such unreasonable and cruel desires could only proceed from, and live in, weak and de- praved minds. The commanders thus disputing, and Pelopidas being in 1 great perplexity, a mare colt, breaking from the herd, ran PELOPIDAS. 459 through the camp, and when she came to the place where they were, stood still ; and whilst some admired her bright chestnut color, others her mettle, or the strength and fury of her neighing, Theocritus, the augur, took thought, and cried out to Pelopidas, “ O good friend ! look, the sacrifice is come ; expect no other virgin, but use that which the gods have sent thee.’’ With that they took the colt, and, leading her to the maidens’ sepulchres, with the usual solemnity and prayers, offered her with joy, and spread through the whole army the account of Pelopidas’s dream, and how they had given the required sacrifice. In the battle, Epaminondas, bending his phalanx to the left, that, as much as possible, he might divide the right wing, composed of Spartans, from the other Greeks, and distress Cleombrotus by a fierce charge in column on that wing, the enemies perceived the design, and began to change their order, to open and extend their right wing, and, as they far exceeded him in number, to encompass Epaminondas. But Pelopidas with the three hundred came rapidly up, before Cleombrotus could extend his line, and close up his divisions, and so fell upon the Spartans while in disorder ; though the Lacedaemonians, the expertest and most practised soldiers of all mankind, used to train and accustom themselves to noth- ing so much as to keep themselves from confusion upon any change of position, and to follow any leader, or right hand man, and form in order, and fight on what part soever dangers press. In this battle, however, Epaminondas with his phalanx, neglecting the other Greeks, and charging them alone, and Pelopidas coming up with such incredible speed and fury, so broke their courage and baffied their art, that there began such a flight and slaughter amongst the Spartans, as was never before known. And so Pelopidas, though in no high office, but only captain of a small band, got as much reputa- tion by the victory, as Epaminondas, who was general and chief captain of Boeotia. Into Peloponnesus, however, they both advanced together as colleagues in supreme command, and gained the greater part of the nations there from the Spartan confederacy ; Elis, Argos, all Arcadia, and much of Laconia itself. It was the dead of winter, and but few of the last days of the month remained, and, in the beginning of the next, new officers were to succeed, and whoever failed to deliver up his charge, for- feited his head. Therefore, the other chief captains fearing the law, and to avoid the sharpness of the winter, advised a 460 PELOPIDAS. retreat. But Pelopidas joined with Epaminondas, a'jid, encour- aging his countrymen, led them against Sparta, and, passing the Eurotas, took many of the towns, and wasted the countr} as far as the sea. This army consisted of seventy thousand Greeks, of which number the Thebans could not make the twelfth part ; but the reputation of the men made all their allies contented to follow them as leaders, though no articles to that effect had been made. For, indeed, it seems the first and paramount law, that he that wants a defender, is naturally a subject to him that is able to defend : as mariners, though in a calm or in the port they grow insolent, and brave the pilot, yet when a storm comes, and danger is at hand, they all at- tend, and put their hopes in him. So the Argives, Eleans, and Arcadians, in their congresses, would contend with the The- bans for superiority in command, yet in a battle, or any hazardous undertaking, of their own will followed their Theban captains. In this expedition, they united all Arcadia into one body, and expelling the Spartans that inhabited Messenia, they called back the old Messenians, and established them in Ithome in one body ; — and, returning through Cenchreae, they dispersed the Athenians, who designed to set upon them in the straits, and hinder their march. For these exploits, all the other Greeks loved their cour- age, and admired their success ; but among their own citizens, envy, still increasing with their glory, prepared them no pleasing nor agreeable reception. Both were tried for their lives, because they did not deliver up their command in the first month, Bucatius, as the law required, but kept it four months longer, in which time they did these memorable actions in Messenia, Arcadia, and Laconia. Pelopidas was first tried, and therefore in greatest danger, but both were acquitted. Epaminondas bore the accusation and trial very patiently, esteeming it a great and essential part of courage and generosity, not to resent injuries in political life. But Pelopidas, being a man of a fiercer temper, and stirred on , by his friends to revenge the affront, took the following occa- sion. Meneclidas, the orator, was one of those that had met with Melon and Pelopidas at Charon’s house ; but not le- ceiving equal honor, and being powerful in his speech, but loose in his manners, and ill natured, he abused his natural endowments, even after this trial, to accuse and calumniate his betters. He excluded Epaminondas from the chief captaincy, and for a long time kept the upper hand of him ; out he was not powerful enough to bring Pelopidas out of the PELOPIDAS. 461 people’s favor, and therefore endeavored to raise a quarrel between him and Charon. And since it is some contort to the envious to make those men, whom themselves cannot excel, appear worse than others, he studiously enlarged upon Charon’s actions in his speeches to the people, and made panegyrics on his expeditions and victories ; and, of the vie* ^ tory which the horsemen won at Plataea, before the battle at Leuctra, under Charon’s command, he endeavored to make the following sacred memorial. Androcydes, the Cyzicenian, had undertaken to paint a previous battle for the city, and was at work in Thebes ; and when the revolt began, and the war came on, the Thebans kept the picture that was then almost finished. This picture Meneclidas persuaded them to dedicate, inscribed with Charon’s name, designing by that means to obscure the glory of Epaminondas and Pelopidas. This was a ludicrous piece of pretension, to set a single victory, where only one Gerandas, an obscure Spartan, and forty more were slain, above such numerous and important battles. This motion Pelopidas opposed, as contrary to law, alleging that it was not the custom of the Thebans to honor any single man, but to attribute the victory to their country ; yet in all the contest he extremely commended Charon, and confined himself to showing Meneclidas to be a troublesome and envious fellow, asking the Thebans, if they had done nothing that was excellent. . . . insomuch that Meneclidas was severely fined ; and he, being unable to pay, endeavored afterwards to disturb the government. These things give us some light into Pelopidas’s life. Now when Alexander, the tyrant of Pherae, made open war against some of the Thessalians, and had designs against all, the cities sent an embassy to ddiebes, to desire succors and a general ; and Pelopidas, knowing that Epaminondas was detained by the Peloponnesian affairs, offered himself to lead the Thessalians, being unwilling to let his courage and skill lie idle, and thinking it unfit that Epaminondas should be withdrawn from his present duties. When he came into 1 hessaly with his army, he presently took Larissa, and en- deavored to reclaim Alexander, who submitted, and bring him, from being a tyrant, to govern gently, and according to law ; but finding him untractable and brutish, and hearing great complaints of his lust and cruelty, Pelopidas began to be severe, and used him roughly, insomuch that the tyrant stole away privately with his guard. But Pelopidas, leaving the Thessalians fearless of the tyrant, and friends amongst them 462 PELOPIDAS. selves, marched into Macedonia, where Ptolemy was then at war with Alexander, the king of Macedon ; both parties having sent for him to hear and determine their differences, and assist the one that appeared injured. When he came, he reconciled them, calling back the exiles ; and receiving for hostages Philip the king’s brother, and thirty children of the n )bles, he brought them to Thebes ; showing the other Greeks how wide a reputation the Thebans had gained for honesty and courage. This was that Philip who afterwards endeav- ored to enslave the Greeks : then he was a boy, and lived with Pammenes in Thebes ; and hence some conjecture, that he took Epaminondas’s actions for the rule of his own ; and perhaps, indeed, he did take example from his activity and skill in war, which, however, was but a small portion of his virtues ; of his temperance, justice, generosity, and mildness, in which he was truly great, Philip enjoyed no share either by nature or imitation. After this, upon a second complaint of the Thessalians against Alexander of Pherae, as a disturber of the cities, Pelopidas was joined with Ismenias, in an embassy to him • but led no forces from Thebes, not expecting any war, and therefore was necessitated to make use of the Thessalians upon the emergency. At the same time, also, Macedon was in confusion again, as Ptolemy had murdered the king, and seized the government : but the king’s friends sent for Pelop- idas, and he being willing to interpose in the matter, but hav- ing no soldiers of his own, enlisted some mercenaries in the country, and with them marched against Ptolemy. When they faced one another Ptolemy corrupted these mercenaries with a sum of money, and persuaded them to revolt to him : but yet fearing the very name and reputation of Pelopidas, he came to him as his superior, submitted, begged his pardon, and protested that he kept the government only for the brothers of the dead king, and would prove a friend to the friends, and an enemy to the enemies of Thebes ; and, to confirm this, he gave his son, Philoxenus, and fifty of his com- panions, for hostages. These Pelopidas sent to Thebes ; but he himself, being vexed at the treachery of the mercenaries, and understanding that most of their goods, their wives and children, lay at Pharsalus, so that if he could take them, the injury would be sufficiently revenged, got together some of the Thessalians, and marched to Pharsalus. When he just entered the city, Alexander, the tyrant, appeared before it with an army ; but Pelopidas and his friends, thinking that PELOPIDAS. 4^3 He came to clear himself from those crimes that were laid to his charge, went to him ; and though they knew \'ery well that he was profligate and cruel, yet they imagined that the au- thority of Thebes, and their own dignity and reputation, would secure them from violence. But the tyrant, seeing them come unarmed and alone, seized them, and made himself master of ]*harsalus. Upon this his subjects were much intimidated, thinking that aBer so great and so bold an iniquity, he would spare none, but behave himself toward all, and in all matterSj, as one despairing of his life. The Thebans, when they heard of this, were very much enraged, and despatched an army, Epaminondas being then in disgrace, under the command of other leaders. When the tyrant brought Pelopidas to Pheras, at first he permitted those that desired it to speak with him, imagining that this disaster would break his spirit, and make him appear contemptible. But when Pelopidas advised the complaining Pherasans to be comforted, as if the tyrant was now certain in a short time to smart for his injuries, and sent to tell him, “ That it was absurd daily to torment and murder his wretched innocent subjects, and yet spare him, who, he well knew, if ever he got his liberty, would be bitterly revenged ; ’’ the tyrant, won dering at his boldness and freedom of speech, replied, And why is Pelopidas in haste to die ? ’’ He, hearing of it, rejoin- ed, “ That you may be the sooner ruined, being then more hated by the gods than now.'’ From that time he forbade any to converse with him ; but Thebe, the daughter of Jason and wife to Alexander, hearing from the keepers of the bravery and noble behavior of Pelopidas, had a great desire to see and speak with him. Now when she came into the prison, and, as a woman, could not at once discern his greatness in his calamity, only judging by the meanness of his attire and general appeaance, that he was used basely and not befitting a man of his reputation, she wept. Pelopidas, as first not knowing who she was, stood amazed ; but when he under- stood, saluted her by her father's name — Jason and he hav- ing been friends and familiars — and she saying, I pity your <\'ife, Sir,” he replied, “ And I you, that though notin chains, can endure Alexander.” This touched the woman, who al- ready hated Alexander for his cruelty and injustice, for his general debaucheries, and for his abuse of her youngest brother. She, therefore, often went to Pelopidas, and, speak- ing freely of the indignities she suffered, grew more enraged, and more exasperated against Alexander. 464 PELOPIDAS. The Theban generals that were sent into Thessal} aia nothing, but, being either unskilful or unfortunate, made a dishonorable retreat, for which the city fined each of them ten thousand drachmas, and sent Epaminondas with their forces. The Thessalians, inspirited by the fame of this gen- eral, at once began to stir, and the tyrant’s affairs were at the verge of destruction ; so great was the fear that possessed his captains and his friends, and so eager the desire of his subjects to revolt, in hope of his speedy punishment. But Epaminondas, more solicitous for the safety of Pelopidas than his own glory, and fearing that if things came to extremity, Alexander would grow desperate, and, like a wild beast, turn and worry him, did not prosecute the war to the utmost ; but, hovering still over him with his army, he so handled the ty- rant as not to leave him any confidence, and yet not to drive him to despair and fury. He was aware of his savageness, and the little value he had for right and justice, insomuch that sometimes he buried men alive, and sometimes dressed them in bear’s and boar’s skins, and then baited them with dogs, or shot at them for his divertisement. At Meliboea and Scotussa, two cities, his allies, he called all the inhabi- tants to an assembly, and then surrounded them and cut them to pieces with his guards. He consecrated the spear with which he killed his uncle Polyphron, and, crowning it with garlands, sacrificed to it as a god, and called it Tychon. And once seeing a tragedian act Euripides’s Troades, he left the theatre ; but sending for the actor, bade him not to be concerned at his departure, but act as he had been used to do, as it was not in contempt of him that he departed, but because he was ashamed that his citizens should see him who never pitied any man that he murdered, weep at the sufferings of Hecuba and Andromache. This tyrant, however, alarmed at the very name, report, and appearance of an expedition under the conduct of Epaminondas, presently Dropped like a craven cock his conquered wing, and sent an embassy to entreat and offer satisfaction. Epami- nondas refused to admit such a man as an ally to tlie The- bans, but granted him a truce of thirty days, and, Pelopidas and Ismenias being delivered up, returned home. Now the Thebans, understanding that the Spartans and Athenians had sent an embassy to the Persians for assistance, themselves, likewise, sent Pelopidas ; an excellent design to increase his glory, no man having ever before passed through PELOPIDAS. 465 the domimons of the king with greater fame and reputation. For the glory that he won against the Spartans, did not creep slowly or obscurely ; but, after the fame of the first battle at I^euctra was gone abroad, the report of new victories contin- ually following, exceedingly increased, and spread his celeb- rity far and near. Whatever satraps or generals or com- manders he met, he was the object of their wonder and dis- course. “ This is the man,^^ they said, “ who hath beaten the Lacedaemonians from sea and land, and confined that Sparta within Taygetus amd Eurotas, which, but a little before, under the conduct of Agesilaus, was entering upon a war with the great king about Susa and Ecbatana.^’ This pleased Artaxerxes, and he was the more inclined to show Pelopidas attention and honor, being desirous to seem reverenced, and attended by the greatest. But when he saw him and heard his discourse, more solid than the Athenians, and not so haughty as the Spartans, his regard was heightened, and, truly acting like a king, he openly showed the respect that he felt for him ; and this the other ambassadors perceived. Of all other Greeks he had been thought to have done An- talcidas, the Spartan, the greatest honor, by sending him that garland dipped in an unguent, which he himself had worn at an entertainment. Indeed, he did not deal so delicately with Pelopidas, but, according to the custom, gave him the most splendid and considerable presents, and granted him his de- sires, — that the Grecians should be free, Messenia inhabited, and the Thebans accounted the king’s hereditary friends. With these answers, but not accepting one of the presents, except what was a pledge of kindness and good-will, he re- turned. This behavior of Pelopidas ruined the other ambas- sadors ; the Athenians condemned and executed their Timag- oras, and, indeed, if they did it for receiving so many pres- ents from the king, their sentence was just and good ; as he not only took gold and silver, but a rich bed, and slaves to make it, as if the Greeks were unskilful in that art ; besides eighty cows and herdsmen, professing he needed cow’s milk for some distemper ; and, lastly, he was carried in a litter to the seaside, with a present of four talents for his attendants. But the Athenians, perhaps, were not so much irritated at his greediness for the presents. For Epicrates the baggage- carrier not only confessed to the people that he had received gifts from the king, but made a motion, that instead of nine archons, they should yearly choose nine poor citizens to be sent ambassadors to the king, and enriched by his presents, 466 PELOPTDAS. and the people only I aughed at the joke. But they were vexed that the Thebans obtained their desires, never consid- ering that Pelopidas’s fame was more powerful than all their rhetorical discourse, with a man who still inclined to the victorious in arms. This embassy, having obtained the resti- tution of Messenia, and the freedom of the other Greeks, got Pelopidas a great deal of good-will at his return. At this time, Alexander the Pheraean falling back to his old nature, and having seized m*any of the Thessalian cities, and put garrisons upon the Achaeans of Phthiotis, and the Magnesians, the cities, hearing that Pelopidas was returned, sent an embassy to Thebes, requesting succors, and him for their leader. The Thebans willingly granted their desire ; and now when ail things were prepared, and the general be- ginning to march, the sun was eclipsed, and darkness spread over the city at noonday. Now when Pelopidas saw them startled at the prodigy, he did not think it fit to force on men who were afraid and out of heart, nor to hazard seven thou- sand of his citizens ; and therefore with only three hundred horse vohmteers, set forward himself to Thessaly, much against the will of the augurs and his fellow-citizens in gen- eral, who all imagined this marked portent to have reference to this great man. But he was heated against Alexander for the injuries he had received, and hoped likewise, from the discourse which formerly he had with Thebe, that his family by this time was divided and in disorder. But the glory of the expedition chiefly excited him ; for he was extremely de- sirous at this time, when the Lacedaemonians were sending out military officers to assist Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, and the Athenians took Alexander’s pay, and honored him with a brazen statue as a benefactor, that the Thebans should be seen, alone, of all the Greeks, undertaking the cause of those who were oppressed by tyrants, and destroying the violent and illegal forms of government in Greece. When Pelopidas was come to Pharsalus, he formed an army, and presently marched against Alexander ; and Alex- ander understanding that Pelopidas had few Thebans with him, and that his own infantry was double the number of the Thessalians, faced him at Thetidium. Some ojee told Pelopidas, ‘‘The tyrant meets us with a great army “ So much the better,” he replied, “for then we shall overcome the more.” Between the two armies lay some steep high hills about Cynoscephalae, which both parties endeavored to take by their foot. Pelopidas commanded his horse, which were PELOPIDAS. 467 good and many, to'^charge that of the enemies ; they routed and pursued them through the plain. But Alexander mean time, took the hills, and charging the Thessalian foot that came up later, and strove to climb the steep and craggy as- cent, killed the foremost, and the others, much distressed, could do the enemies no harm. Pelopidas, observing this, sounded a retreat to his horse, and gave orders that they sh'Ould charge the enemies that kept their ground ; and he himself, taking his shield, quickly joined those that fought about the hills, and advancing to the front, filled his men with such courage and alacrity, that the enemies imagined they came with other spirits and other bodies to the onset. They stood two or three charges, but Ending these come on stoutly, and the horse, also, returning from the pursuit, gave ground, and retreated in order. Pelopidas now perceiving, from the I rising ground, that the enemy’s army was, though not yet I routed, full of disorder and confusion, stood and looked about for Alexander ; and when he saw him in the right wing, en- couraging and ordering his mercenaries, he could not moder- ate his anger, but inflamed at the sight, and blindly following his passion, regardless alike of his own life and his command, advanced far before his soldiers, crying out and challenging the tyrant who did not dare to receive him, but retreating, hid himself amongst his guard. The foremost of the mer- cenaries that came hand to hand were driven back by Pelopi- das, and some killed ; but many at a distance shot through his armor and wounded him, till the Thessalians, in anxiety for the result, ran down from the hill to his relief, but found him already slain. The horse came up, also, and routed the phalanx, and following the pursuit a great way, filled the whole country with the slain, which were above three thou- sand. No one can wonder that the Thebans then present, should show great grief at the death of Pelopidas, calling him their father, deliverer, and instructor in all that was good and commendable. But the Thessalians and the allies, out-doing HI their public edicts all the just honors that could be paid to human courage, gave, in their display of feeling, yet stronger demonstrations of the kindness they had for him. It is stated, that none of the soldiers, when they heard of his death, would put off their armor, unbridle their horses, or dress their wounds, but still hot and with their arms on, ran to the corpse, and, as if he had been yet alive and could see what they did, heaped up spoils about his body. They cut off 468 PELOPIDIAS. their horses^ manes and their own hair, many kindled no fire in their tents, took no supper, and silence and sadness was spread over all the army ; as if they had not gained the greatest and most glorious victory, but w’ere overcome by the tyrant, and enslaved. As soon as it was known in the cities, the magistrates, youths, children, and priests, came out to meet the body, and brought trophies, crowns, and suits of gold- en armor ; and, when he was to be interred, the elders of the Idiessalians came and begged the Thebans, that they might give the funeral ; and one of them said, ^‘Friends, we ask a favor of you, that will prove both an honor and comfort to us in this our great misfortune. The Thessalians shall never again w^ait on the living Pelopidas, shall never give honors, of \vhich he can be sensible, but if we may have his body, adorn his funeral, and inter him, we shall hope to show, that we esteem his death a greater loss to the Thessalians than to the Thebans. You have lost only a good general, we both a general and our liberty. For how shadl we dare to desire from you another captain, since we cannot restore Pelop- idas } ” The Thebans granted their request, and there was never a more splendid funeral in the opinion of those who do not think the glory of such solemnities consists only in gold, ivory, and purple ; as Philistus did, who extravagantly celebrates the funeral of Dionysius, in which his tyranny concluded like the pompous exit of some great tragedy. Alexander the Great, at the death of Hephaestion, not only cut off the manes of his horses and his mules, but took down the battlements from the city w^alls, that even the towns might seem mourners, and instead of their former beauteous appearance, look bald at his funeral. But such honors, being commanded and forced from the mourners, attended with feelings of jealousy towards those who received them, and of hatred towards those who exacted them, were no testimonies of love and respect, but of the barbaric pride, luxury, and insolence of those who lavished their wealth in these vain and undesirable displays. But that a man of common rank, dying in a strange country, neither his wife, children, nor kinsmen present, none either asking or compelling it, should be attended, buried, and c?. ;wmed by so many cities that strove to exceed one another in the demonstrations of their love, seems to be the sum and completion of happy fortune. For the death of happy men is not, as ^sop observes, most grievous, but most blessed, since it secures their felicity, and puts it out of fortune’s power. PELOPIDAS. 469 And thal Spartan advised well, who, embracing Diagoras, that had himself been crowned in the Olympic Games, and saw his sons and grandchildren victors, said, “ Die, Diagoras, for thou canst not be a god/^ And yet who would compare all the victories in the Pythian and Olympian Games put to- gether, wkh one of those enterprises of Pelopidas, of which he successfully performed so many? Having spent his life in brave and glorious actions, he died at last in the chief command, for the thirteenth time, of the Boeotians, fighting bravely and in the act of slaying a tyrant, in defence of the liberty of the Thessalians. His death, as it brought grief, so likewise it produced advantage to the allies ; for the Thebans, as soon as they heard of his fall delayed not their revenge, but presently sent seven thousand foot and seven hundred horse, under the command of Malcitas and Diogiton. And they, finding Alex- ander weak and without forces, compelled him to restore the cities he had taken, to withdraw his garrisons from the Mag- nesians and Achaeans of Phthiotis, and swear to assist the Thebans against whatsoever enemies they should require. This contented the Thebans, but punishment overtook the tyrant for his wickedness, and the death of Pelopidas was re- venged by Heaven in the following manner. Pelopidas, as I have already mentioned, had taught his wife Thebe not to fear the outward splendor and show of the tyrant’s defences, since she was admitted within them. She, of herself, too, dreaded his inconstancy, and hated his cruelty ; and there- fore, conspiring with her three brothers, Tisiphonus, Pytho- laus, and Lycophron, made the following attempt upon him. All the other apartments were full of the tyrant’s night guards, but their bed-chamber was an upper room, and before the door lay a chained dog to guard it, which would fly at all but the tyrant and his wife and one servant that fed him. When Thebe, therefore, designed to kill her husband, she hid her brothers all day in a room hard by, and she, going in alone, according to her usual custom, to Alexander, who was asleep already, in a little time came out again, and commanded the servant to lead away the dog, for Alexander wished to rest quietly. She covered the stairs with wool, that the young men might make no noise as they came up ; and then, bring- ing up her brothers with their weapons, and leaving them at the chamber door, she went in, and brought away the tyrant’s sword that hung over his head, and showed it them for a confirmation that he was fast asleep. The young men ap' 470 MARCELLUS. pearing fearful, and unwilling to do the murder, she chid them, and angrily vowed she would wake Alexander, and discover the conspiracy ; and so, with a lamp in her hand, she con- ducted them in, they being both ashamed and afraid, and broiight them to the bed ; when one of them caught him by tlie feet, the other pulled him backwards by the hair^ ind the third ran him through. The death was more speedy, perhaps, than was fit ; but, in that he was the first tyrant that was killed by the contrivance of his wife, and as hi^ corpse was abused, thrown out, and trodden under foot by the Pheraeans, he seems to have suffered what his villanies deserved. MARCELLUS. They say that Marcus Claudius, who was five times consul of the Romans, was the son of Marcus ; and that he was th^ first of his family called Marcellus ; that is, martial^ as Posidonius affirms. He was, indeed, by long experience^ skilful in the art of war, of a strong body, valiant of hand, and by natural inclinations addicted to war. This high tem- per and heat he showed conspicuously in battle \ in other respects he was modest and obliging, and so far studious of Greek learning and discipline, as to honor and admire those that excelled in it, though he did not himself attain a pro- ficiency in them equal to his desire, by reason of his employ- ments. For if ever there v/ere any men, whom, as Plomer says. Heaven — From their first youth unto their utmost age Appointed the laborious wars to wage, certainly they were the chief Romans of that time ; who in their youth had war with the Carthaginians in Sicily, in their middle age with the Gauls in the defence of Italy itself ; and, at last, when now grown old, struggled again with Hannibal and the Carthaginians, and wanted in their latest years what is granted to most men, exemption from military toils ; their rank and their great qualities still making them be called upon to undertake the command. Marcellus, ignoiant or unskilful of no kind of fighting, in single combat surpassed himself ; he never declined a chal MARCELLUS. 471 lenge, and never accepted without killing his challenger. In Sicily, he protected and saved his brother Otacilius when surrounded in battle, and slew the enemies that pressed upon him ; for which act he was by the generals, while he was yet but young, presented with crowns and other honorable re- wards ; and, his good qualities more and more displaying themselves, he was created Curule ^dile by the people and by the high-priests Augur ; which is that priesthood to which chiefly the law assigns the observation of auguries. In his sedileship, a certain mischance brought him to the necessity of bringing an impeachment into the senate. He had a son named Marcus, of great beauty, in the flower of his age, and no less admired for the goodness of his character. This youth, Capitolinus, a bold and ill-mannered man, Marcellus’s colleague, sought to abuse. The boy at first himself repelled him ; but when the other again persecuted him, told his father. Marcellus, highly indignant, accused the man in the senate : where he, having appealed to the tribunes of the peo- ple, endeavored by various shifts and exceptions to elude the impeachment ; and, when the tribunes refused their protec- tion, by flat denial rejected the charge. As there was no witness of the fact, the senate thought fit to call the youth himself before them : on witnessing whose blushes and tears, and shame mixed with the highest indignation, seeking no further evidence of the crime, they condemned Capitolinus, and set a fine upon him ; of the money of which, Marcellus caused silver vessels for libation to be made, which he dedi- cated to the gods. After the end of the first Punic war, which lasted dne and twenty years, the seeds of Gallic tumults sprang up, and began again to trouble Rome. The Insubrians, a people inhabiting the subalpine region of Italy, strong in their own forces, raised from among the other Gauls aids of mercenary soldiers, called Gaesatae. And it was a sort of miracle, and special good fortune for Rome, that the Gallic war was not joincident with the Punic, but that the Gauls had with fidelity »itood quiet as spectators, while the Punic war continued, as though they had been under engagements to await and attack the victors, and now only were at liberty to come forward. Still the position itself, and the ancient renown of the Gauls, struck no little fear into the minds of the Romans, who were about to undertake a war so near home and upon their own borders ; and regarded the Gauls, because they had once taken their city, with more apprehension than any people, 472 MARCELLUS. as is apparent from the enactment which from that time forth provided, that the high-priests should enjoy an exemption from all military duty, except only in Gallic insurrections. The great preparations, also, made by the Romans for war (for it is not reported that the people of Rome ever had at one time so many legions in arms, either before or since), and their extraordinary sacrifices, were plain arguments of their fear. For though they were most averse to barbarous and cruel rites, and entertained more than any nation the same pious and reverent sentiments of the gods with the Greeks ; yet, when this war was coming upon them, they then, from some prophecies in the Sibyls’ books, put alive under ground a pair of Greeks, one male, the other female ; and likewise two Gauls, one of each sex, in the market called the beast market : continuing even to this day to offer to these Greeks and Gauls certain ceremonial observances in the month of November. In the beginning of this war, in which the Romans some- times obtained remarkable victories, sometimes were shame- fully beaten, nothing was done toward the determination of the contest, until Flaminius and Furius, being consuls, led large forces against the Insubrians. At the time of their departure, the river that runs through the country of Prcenum was seen flowing with blood ; there was a report, that three moons had been seen at once at Ariminum ; and, in the con- sular assembly, the augurs declared, that the consuls had been unduly and inauspiciously created. The senate, therefore, immediately sent letters to the camp, recalling the consuls to Rome with all possible speed, and commanding them to for- bear from acting against the enemies, and to abdicate the consulship on the first opportunity. These letters being brought to Flaminius, he deferred to open them till, having defeated and put to flight the enemy’s forces, he wasted and ravaged their borders. The people, therefore, did not go ^forth to meet him when he returned with huge spoils ; nay, because he had not instantly obeyed the command in the letters, by which he was recalled, but slighted and contemned them, they were very near denying him the honor of a triumph. Nor was the triumph sooner passed than they deposed him, with his colleague, from the magistracy, and reduced them to the state of private citizens. So much were all things at Rome made to depend upon religion ; they would not allow any contempt of the omens and the ancient rites, even though attended with the highest success : thinking it to be of more MARCELLUS. 473 importance to the public safety, that the magistrates should reverence the gods, than that they should overcome their enemies. Thus Tiberius Sempronius, whom for his probity and virtue the citizens highly esteemed, created Scipio Nasica and Caius Marcius, consuls to succeed him : and when they were gone into their provinces, lit upon books concerning the religious observances, where he found something he had not known before ; which was this. When the consul took his auspices, he sat without the city in a house, or tent, hired for that occasion ; but, if it happened that he, for any urgent cause, returned into the city, without having yet seen any certain signs, he was obliged to leave that first building, or tent, and to seek another to repeat the survey from. Tiberius, it appears, in ignorance of this, had twice used the same build- ing before announcing the new consuls. Now, understanding his error, he referred the matter to the senate : nor did the senate neglect this minute fault, but soon wrote expressly of it to Scipio Nasica and Caius Marcius ; who, leaving their provinces and without delay returning to Rome, laid down their magistracy. This happened at a later period. About the same time, too, the priesthood was taken away from two men of very great honor, Cornelius Cethegus and Quintus Sulpicius : from the former, because he had not rightly held out the entrails of a 'beast slain for sacrifice ; from the latter, because, while he was immolating, the tufted cap which the Flamens wear had fallen from his head. Minucius, the dic- tator, who had already named Caius Flaminius master of the horse, they deposed from his command, because the squeak of a mouse was heard, and put others into their places. And yet, notwithstanding, by observing so anxiously these little niceties they did not run into any superstition, because they never varied from nor exceeded the observances of their ancestors. So soon as Flaminius with his colleague had resigned the consulate, Marcellus was declared consul by the presiding officers called Interrexes ; and, entering into the magistracy, chose Cnaeus Cornelius his colleague. There was a report that, the Gauls proposing a pacification, and the senate also mcliiiing to peace, Marcellus inflamed the people to war ; but a peace appears to have been agreed upon, which the Gaesatae broke; who, passing the Alps, stirred up the Insubrians (they being thirty thousand in number, and the Insubrians more numerous by far ) ; and proud of their strength, marched direct- ly to Acerrae, a city seated on the north of the river Pa 474 MARCELLUS. From thence Britomartus, king of the Gaesatas, taking with him ten thousand soldiers, harassed the country round about. News of which being brought to Marcellus, leaving his col- league at Acerrae with the foot and all the heavy arms and a third part of the horse, and carrying with him the rest of the horse and six hundred light armed foot, marching night and day without remission, he staid not till he came up to these ten thousand near a Gaulish village called Clastidium, which not long before had been reduced under the Roman jurisdic- tion. Nor had he time to refresh his soldiers, or to give them rest. For the barbarians, that were then present, immediate- ly observed his approach, and contemned him, because he had very few foot with him. The Gauls were singularly skilful in horsemanship, and thought to excel in it ; and as at present they also exceeded Marcellus in number, they made no account of him. They, therefore, with their king at their head, instantly charged upon him, as if they would trample him under their horses’ feet, threatening all kind of cruelties. Marcellus, because his men were few, that they might not be encompassed and charged on all sides by the enemy, extended his wings of 1 orse, and, riding about, drew out his wings of foot in length, till he came near to the enemy. Just as he was in the act of turning round to face the enemy, it so hap- pened that his horse, startled with their fierce look and their cries, gave back, and carried him forcibly aside. Fearing lest this accident, if converted into an omen, might discourage his soldiers, he quickly brought his horse round to confront the enemy, and made a gesture of adoration to the sun, as if he had wheeled about not by chance, but for a purpose of devotion. For it was customary to the Romans, when they offered wor- ship to the gods, to turn round ; and in this moment of meet- ing the enemy, he is said to have vowed the best of the arms to Jupiter Feretrius. The king of the Gauls beholding Marcellus, and from the badges of his authority conjecturing hiu to be the general^ advanced some way before his embattled army, and with a loud voice challenged him, and, brandishing his lance, fiercely ran in full career at him ; exceeding the rest of the Gauls in stature, and with his armor, that was adorned with gold and silver and various colors, shining like lightning. These arms seeming to Marcellus, while he viewed the enemy’s arm}' drawn up in battalia, to be the best and fairest, and thinking them to be those he had vowed to Jupiter, he instantly ran upon the king, and pierced through his breastplate with his MARCELLUS. 475 lance ; then pressing upon him with the weight of his horse, threw him to the ground, and with two or three strokes more, slew him. Immediately he leapt from his horse, laid his hand upon the dead king’s arms, and, looking up towards Heaven, thus spoke : ‘‘ O Jupiter Feretrius, arbiter of the exploits of captains, and of the acts of commanders in war and battlcS; be thou witness that I, a general, have slain a general : I, a consul, have slain a king with my own hand, third of all the Romans ; and that to thee 1 consecrate these first and most excellent of the spoils. Grant to us to dispatch the relics of the war, with the same course of fortune.” Then the Roman horse joining battle not only with the enemy’s horse, but also with the foot who attacked them, obtained a singular and un- heard of victory. For never before or since have so few horse defeated such numerous forces of horse and foot to- gether. The enemies being to a great number slain, and the spoils collected, he returned to his colleague, who was conduct- ing the war, with ill success, against the enemies near the greatest and most populous of the Galic cities, Milan. This was their capital, and, therefore, fighting valiantly in defence of it, they were not so much besieged by Cornelius, as they besieged him. But Marcellus having returned, and the Gaesatae retiring as soon as they were certified of the death of the king and the defeat of his army, Milan was taken. The rest of their towns, and all they had, the Gauls delivered up of their own accord to the Romans, and had peace upon equitable conditions granted to them. Marcellus alone, by a decree of the senate, triumphed. The triumph was in magnificence, opulence, spoils, and the gigantic bodies of the captives most remarkable. But the most grateful and most rare spectacle of all was the general himself, carrying the arms of the barbarian king to the god to whom he had vowed them. He had taken a tall and straight stock of an oak, and had lopped and formed it to a trophy. Upon this he fastened and hung about the arms of the king, arranging all the pieces in their suitable places. The pro- cession advancing solemnly, he, carrying this trophy, ascended '.he chariot ; and thus, himself the fairest and most glorious triumphant image, was conveyed into the city. The army adorned with shining armor followed in order, and with verses compDsed for the occasion, and with songs of victory celebrated the praises of Jupiter and of their general. Then entering the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, he dedicated his gift ; the third, and to our memory the last, that ever did so. 4.76 MARCELLUS. The first was Romulus, after having slain Acron, king of thfi Cseninenses : the second, Cornelius Cossus, who slew Tolum- nius the Etruscan : aftej them Marcellus. having killed Britomartus king of the Gauls ; after Marcellus, no man. The god to whom these spoils were consecrated is called Jupiter Feretrms, from the trophy carried on the feretrum^ one of the Greek words which at that time still existed in great numbers in Latin : or, as others say, it is the surname of the Thundering Jupiter, derived from ferire^ to strike. Others there are who would have the name to be deduced from the strokes that are given in fight ; since, even now in battles, when they press upon their enemies, they constantly call out to each other, strike^ in Latin, Spoils in general they call Spolia, and these in particular Opima ; though, indeed, they say that Numa Pompilius, in his commentaries, makes mention of first, second, and third Spolia Opima ; and that he prescribes that the first taken be consecrated to Jupiter Feretrius, the second to Mars, the third to Quirinus ; as also that the reward of the first be three hundred asses ; of the second, two hundred ; of the third, one hundred. The general account, however, pre- vails, that those spoils only are Opima, which the general first takes in set battle, and takes from the enemy^s chief captain whom he has slain with his own hand. But of this enough. The victory and the ending of the war was so welcome to the people of Rome, that they sent to Apollo of Delphi, in testi- mony of their gratitude, a present of a golden cup of an hun- dred pound weight, and gave a great part of the spoil to their associate cities, and took care that many presents should be sent also to Hiero, king of the Syracusans, their friend and ally. When Hannibal invaded Italy, Marcellus w^as despatched with a fleet to Sicily. And when the army had been de- feated at Cannae, and many thousands of them perished, and few had saved themselves by flying to Canusium, and all feared lest Hannibal, who had destroyed the strength of the Roman army, should advance at once with his victorious troops to Rome, Marcellus first sent for the protection of the city fifteen hundred soldiers from the fleet. Then, by decree of the senate, going to Canusium, having heard that many of the soldiers had come together in that place, he led them out of the fortifications to prevent the enemy from ravaging the country. The chief Roman commanders had most of them fallen in battles ; and the citizens complained that the extreme caution of Fabius Maximus, whose integrity and MARCELLUS. 477 wisdom gave him the highest authority, verged upon timidity and inaction. They confided in him to keep them out of danger, but could not expect that he would enable them to re- taliate. Fixing, therefore, their thoughts upon Marcellus, and hoping to combine his boldness, confidence, and promp- titude with Fabius^s caution and prudence, and to temper the one by the other, they sent, sometimes both with consular command, sometimes one as consul, the other a^ proconsul against the enemy. Posidonius writes, that Fabius was called the buckler, Marcellus the sword of Rome. Certainly, Han- nibal himself confessed that he feared Fabius as a school- master, Marcellus as an adversary : the former, lest he should be hindered from doing mischief ; the latter, lest he should receive harm himself. And first, when among Hannibal’s soldiers, proud of their victory, carelessness and boldness had grown to a great height, Marcellus, attacking all their stragglers and plunder- ing parties, cut them off, and by little and little diminished their forces. Then carrying aid to the Neapolitans and Nolans, he confirmed the minds of the former, who, indeed, were of their own accord faithful enough to the Romans ; but in Nola he found a state of discord, the senate not being able to rule and keep in the common people, who were generally favorers of Hannibal. There was in the town one Bantius, a man renowned for his high birth and courage. This man, after he had fought most fiercely at Cannae, and had killed many of the enemies, at last was found lying in a heap of dead bodies, covered with darts, and was brought to Hannibal, who so honored him, that he not only dismissed him without ran- som, but also contracted friendship with him, and made him his guest. In gratitude for this great favor, he became one of the strongest partisans of Hannibal, and urged the people to revolt. Marcellus could not be induced to put to death a man of such eminence, and who had endured such dangers in fighting on the Roman side ; but, knowing himself able, by the general kindliness of his disposition, and in particular by the attractiveness of his address, to gain over a character whose passion was for honor, one day when Bantius saluted him, he asked him who he was ; not that he knew him not before, but seeking an occasion of further conference. When Bantius had told who he was, Marcellus, seeming surprised with joy and wonder, replied: ‘‘Are you that Bantius whom the Romans commend above the rest that fought at Cannae, and praise as the one man that not only did not forsake the 478 MARCELLUS. consul Paulus ^milius, but received in his own body many darts thrown at him ? ’’ Bantius owning himself to be that very man, and showing his scars : Why, then,’’ said Marcel- lus, “ did not you, having such proofs to show of your affec- tion to us, come to me at my first arrival here ? Do you think that we are unwilling to requite with favor those who have well deserved, and who are honored even by our enemies ? ” He followed up his courtesies by a present of a war horse^ and five hundred drachmas in money. From that time Bantius became the most faithful assistant and ally of Marcellus, and a most keen discoverer of those that attempted innovation and sedition. These were many, and had entered into a conspiracy to plunder the baggage of the Romans, when they should make an irruption against the enemy. Marcellus, therefore, having marshalled his army within the city, placed the baggage near to the gates, and, by an edict, forbade the Nolans to go to the walls. Thus, outside the city, no arms could be seen ; by which prudent device he allured Hannibal to move with his army in some disorder to the city, thinking that things were in a tumult there. Then Marcellus, the nearest gate being, as he had commanded, thrown open, issuing forth with the flower of his horse in front, charged the enemy. By and by the foot, sallying out of another gate, with a loud shout joined in the battle. And while Hannibal opposes part of his forces to these, the third gate also is opened, out of which the rest break forth, and on all quarters fall upon the enemies, who were dismayed at this unexpected encounter, and did but feebly resist those with whom they had been first engaged, because of their attack by these others who sallied out later. Here Hannibal’s soldiers, with much bloodshed and many wounds, were beaten back to their camp, and for the first time turned their backs to the Romans. There fell in this action, as it is related, more than five thousand of them ; of the Romans, not above five hundred. Livy does not affirm, that either the victory or the slaughter of the enemy was so great ; but certain it is, that the adventure brought great glory to Marcellus, and to the Romans, after their calamities, a great revival of confidence, as they began now to entertain a hope that the enemy with whom they contended was not in- vincible, but liable like themselves to defeats. Therefore, the other consul being deceased, the people recalled Marcellus, that they might put him into his place ; and, in spite of the magistrates, succeeded in postponing th^ MARCELLUS. 479 election till his arrival, when he was by all the suffrages cre- ated consul. But because it happened to thunder, the augurs accounting that he was not legitimately created, and yet not daring, for fear of the people, to declare their sentence openly, Marcellus voluntarily resigned the consulate, retaining how- ever his command. Being created proconsul, and returning to the camp at Nola, he proceeded to harass those that fol- lowed the party of the Carthaginian ; on whose coming with speed to succor them, Marcellus declined a challenge to a sej, battle, but when Hannibal had sent out a party to plunder, and now expected no fight, he broke out upon him with his army. He had distributed to the foot long lances, such as are commonly used in naval fights ; and instructed them to throw tfiem with great force at convenient distances against the enemies who were inexperienced in that way of darting, and used to fight with short darts hand to hand. This seems to have been the cause of the total rout and open flight of all the Carthaginians who were then engaged ; there fell of them five thousand ; four elephants were killed, and two taken ; but what was of the greatest moment, on the third day after, more than three hundred horse, Spaniards and Numidians mixed, deserted to him, a disaster that had never to that day happened to Hannibal, who had long kept together in har- mony an army of barbarians, collected out of many various and discordant nations. Marcellus and his successors in all this war made good use of the faithful service of these horse- men. He now was a third time created consul, and sailed over into Sicily. For the success of Hannibal had excited the Carthaginians to lay claim to that whole island ; chiefly be- cause, after the murder of the tyrant Hieronymus, all things had been in tumult and confusion at Syracuse. For which reason the Romans also had sent before to that city a force under the conduct of Appius, as praetor. While Marcellus was receiving that army, a number of Roman soldiers cast themselves at his feet, upon occasion of the following calamity. Of those that survived the battle at Cannae, some had es- caped by flight, and some were taken alive by the enemy ; so great a multitude, that it was thought there were not remain- ing Romans enough to defend the walls of the city. And yet the magnanimity and constancy of the city was such, that it would not redeem the captives from Hannibal, though it might have done so for a small ransom ; a decree of the senate forbade it, and chose rather to leave them to be killed 4S0 MARCELLUS. by the enemy, or sold out of Italy ; and commanded that all who had saved themselves by flight should be transpoited into Sicily, and not permitted to return into Italy, until the war with Hannibal should be ended. These, therefore, when Marcellus was arrived in Sicily, addressed themselves to him in great numbers ; and casting themselves at his feet, with much lamentation and tears humbly besought him to admit them to honorable service : and promised to make it appear by their future fidelity and exertions, that that defeat had been received rather by misfortune than by cowardice. Mar- cellus, pitying them, petitioned the senate by letters, that he might have leave at all times to recruit his legions out of them. After much debate about the thing, the senate de- creed they were of opinion that the commonwealth did not require the service of cowardly soldiers, if Marcellus perhaps thought otherwise, he might make use of them, provided no one of them be honored on any occasion with a crown or military gift, as a reward of his virtue or courage. This decree stung Marcellus ; and on his return to Rome, after the Sicilian war was ended, he upbraided the senate, that they had denied to him, who had so highly deserved of the republic, liberty to relieve so great a number of citizens in great calamity. At this time Marcellus, first incensed by injuries done him by Hippocrates, commander of the Syracusans (who to give proof of his good affection to the Carthaginians, and to acquire the tyranny to himself, had killed a number of Romans at Leontini), beseiged and took by force the city of Leontini ; yet violated none of the townsmen ; only desert- ers, as many as he took, he subjected to the punishment of the rods and axe. But Hippocrates, sending a report to Syra- cuse, that Marcellus had put all the adult population to the sv/ord, and then coming upon the Syracusans, who had risen in tumult upon that false leport, made himself master of the city. . Upon this Marcellus moved with his whole army to Syracuse, and encamping near the wall, sent ambassadors into the city to relate to the Syracusans the truth of what had been done in Leontini. When these could not prevail by treaty, the whole power being now in the hands of Hippocrates, he pro- ceeded to attack the city both by land and by sea. The land forces were conducted by Appius : Marcellus, with sixty gal- leys, each with five rows of oars, furnished with all sorts of arms and missiles, and a huge bridge of planks laid upon eight ships chained together, upon which was carried the engine to cast stones and darts, assaulted the wads, relying MARCELLUS. 481 on the abundance and magnificence of his preparations, and on his own previous glory ; all which, however, were, it would seem, but trifles for Archimedes and his machines. These machines he had designed and contrived, not as matters of any importance, but as mere amusements in geometry ; in compliance with king Hiero’s desire and re- quest, some little time before, that he should reduce to prac- tice some part of his admirable speculation in science, and t)y accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use, bring it more within the appreciation of the people in i>eneral. Eudoxus and Archytas had been the first origina- tors of this far-famed and highly prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration of geo- metrical truths, and as means of sustaining experimentally, to the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for oroof by words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the oroblem, so often required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extremes, to find the two mean lines of a pro- portion, both these mathematicians had recourse to the aid of iufStruments, adapting to their purpose certain curves and sections of lines. But what with Plato’s indignation at it, and his invectives against it as the mere corruption and an- nihilation of the one good of geometry, — which was thus shamefully turning its back upon the unembodied objects of pure intelligence to recur to sensation, and to ask help (not to be obtained without base supervisions and depravation) from matter ; so it was that mechanics came to be separated from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philoso- phers, took its place as a military art. Archimedes, however, in writing to king Hiero, whose friend and near relation he was, had stated that given the force, any given weight might be moved, and .even boasted, we are told, relying on the strength of demonstration, that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this. Kiero being struck with amazement at this, and entreating him to make good this problem by actual experiment, and show some great weight moved by a small engine, he fixed accordingly upon a ship of burden out of the king’s arsenal, which could not be drawn out of the dock without great labor and many men ; and, loading her with many passengers and a full freight, sitting himself the while far off, with no great endeavor, but only holding the head of the pulley in his hand and drawing the cords by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The 482 MARCELLUS. king, astonished at this, and convinced of tile power of the art, prevailed upon Archimedes to make him engines accom- modated to all the purposes, offensive and defensive, of a siege. These the king himself never made use of, because he spent almost all hjs life in a profound quiet, and the highest affluence. But the apparatus was, in most opportune time, ready at hand for the Syracusans, and with it also the engineer himself. When, therefore, the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracu- sans, believing that nothing was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down with incredible noise and violence ; against which no man could stand ; for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files. In the meantime huge poles thrust out from the walls over the ships, sunk some by the great weights which they let down from on high upon them ; others they lifted up into the air by an iron hand or beak like a crane’s beak, and, when they had drawn them up by the prow, and set them on end upon the poop, they plunged them to the bottom of the sea ; or else the ships, drawn by engines within, and whirled about, were dashed against steep rocks that stood jutting out under the walls, with great destruction of the soldiers that were aboard them. A ship was frequently lifted up to a great height in the air (a dreadful thing to behold), and was rolled to and fro, and kept swinging, until the mariners were all thrown out, when at length it was dashed against the rocks, or let fall. At the engine that Marcellus brought upon the bridge of ships, which was called Sa7?ibuda, from some resemblance it had to an in- strument of music, while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was discharged a piece of a rock of ten talents’ weight, then a second and a third, which, striking upon it with immense force and a noise like thunder, broke all its founda- tion to pieces, shook out all its fastenings and completely dislodged it from the bridge. So Marcellus, doubtful what counsel to pursue, drew off his ships to a safer distance, and sounded a retreat to his forces on land. They then took a resolution of coming up under the walls, if it were possible, in the night ; thinking that as Archimedes used ropes stretch- ed at length in playing his engines, the soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts would, for want of sufficient MARCELLUS. 4S3 distance to throw them, fly over their heads without effect. But he, it appeared, had long before framed for such occa- sions engines accommodated to any distance, and shorter wea- pons ; and had made numerous small openings in the vralls, through which, with engines of a shorter range, unexpected blows were inflicted on the assailants. Thus, when they who thought to deceive the defenders came close up to the walls, instantly a shower of darts and other missile weapons was again cast upon them. And when stones came tumbling down perpendicularly upon their heads, and, as it were, the whole wall shot out arrows at them, they retired. And now, again, as they were going off, arrows and darts of a longer range inflicted a great slaughter among them, and their ships were driven one against another ; while they themselves were not able to retaliate in any way. For Archimedes had pro- vided and fixed most of his engines immediately under the wall ; whence the Romans, seeing that indefinite mischiefs overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to think they were fighting with the gods. Yet Marcellus escaped unhurt, and deriding his own artifi- cers and engineers, “ What,’’ said he “ must we give up fight- ing with this geometrical Briareus, who plays pitch and toss with our ships, and, with the multitude of darts which he showers at a single moment upon us, really outdoes the hun- dred-handed giants of mythology } ” And doubtless, the rest of the Syracusans were but the body of Archimedes’ designs, one soul moving and governing all ; for, laying aside all other arms, with his alone they infested the Romans, and protected themselves. In fine, when such terror had seized upon the Romans, that, if they did but see a little rope or a piece of wood from the wall, instantly crying out, that there it was again, Archimedes was about to let fly some engine at them, they turned their backs and fled, Marcellus desisted from conflicts and assaults, putting all his hope in a long siege. Yet Archimedes possessed so high a spirit, so profound a soul, and such treasures of scientific knowledge, that though these inventions had now obtained him the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects ; but, repudiat- ing as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineer- ing, and every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life ; studies, the superiority of which to all 4S4 MARCELLUS. Others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can be^ whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve our admiration It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate questions, or more sim- ple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to his natura. genius ; while others think that incredible effort and toil pio- duced these, to all appearances, easy and unlabored results. No amount of investigation of yours would succeed in attain- ing the proof, and yet, once seen, you immediately believe you would have discovered it ; by so smooth and so rapid a path he leads you to the conclusion required. And thus it ceases to be incredible that (as is commonly told of him), the charm of his familiar and domestic Siren made him forget his food and neglect his person, to that degree that when lie was occasionally carried by absolute violence to bathe or have his body anointed, he used to trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and diagrams in the oil on his body, being in a state of entire preoccupation, and, in the truest sense, divine possession with his love and delight in science. His discoveries were numerous and admirable ; but he is said to have requested his friends and relations that when he was dead, they would place over his tomb a sphere containing a cylinder, inscribing it with the ratio which the containing solid bears to the contained. Such was Archimedes, who now showed himself, and so far as lay in him, the city also invincible. While the siege con- tinued, Marcellus took Megara, one of the earliest founded of the Greek cities in Sicily, and capturing also the camp of Hippocrates at Acilae, killed above eight thousand men, hav- ing attacked them whilst they were engaged in forming their fortifications. He overran a great part of Sicily ; gained over many towns from the Carthaginians, and overcame all that dared to encounter him. As the siege went on, one Damippus, a Lacedaemonian, putting to sea in a ship from Syracuse, was taken. When the Syracusans much desired to redeem this man, and there were many meetings and treaties about the matter betwixt them and Marcellus, he had oppor- tunity to notice a tower into which a body of men might be secretly introduced, as the wall near to it was not difficult to surmount, and it was itself carelessly guarded. Coming often thither, and entertaining conferences about the release of Damippus, he had pretty well calculated the height of the tower, and got ladders prepared. The Syracusans celebrated MARCELLUS. 485 a feast to Diana ; this juncture of time, when they were given up entirely to wine and sport, Marcellus laid hold of, and^ before the citizens perceived it, not only possessed himself oi the tower, but, before the break of day, filled the wall around with soldiers, and made his way into the Hexapylum. The Syracusans now beginning to stir, and to be alarmed at the < tumult, he ordered the trumpets everywhere to sound, and thus frightened them all into flight, as if all parts of the city were already won, though the most fortified, and the fairest, and most ample quarter was still ungained. It is called Acradina, and was divided by a wall from the outer city, one part of which they call Neapolis, the other Tycha. Possessing him- self of these, Marcellus, about break of day, entered through the Hexapylum, all his officers congratulating him. But look- ing down from the higher places upon the beautiful and spa- cious city below, he is said to have wept much, commiserating the calamity that hung over it, when his thoughts repre- sented to him, how dismal and foul the face of the city would in a few hours be, when plundered and sacked by the soldiers. For among the officers of his army there was not one man that durst deny the plunder of the city to the soldiers’ demands ; nay, many were instant that it should be set on fire and laid level to the ground : but this Marcellus would not listen to. Yet he granted, but with great unwillingness and reluctance, that the money and slaves should be made prey ; giving ordors, at the same time, that none should violate any free person, nor kill, misuse, or make a slave of any of the Syracusans. Though he had used this moderation, he still esteemed the condition of that city to be pitiable, and, even amidst the congratulations and joy, showed his strong feelings of sym- pathy and commiseration at seeing all the riches accumulated during a long felicity, now dissipated in an hour. For it is related, that no less prey and plunder was taken here, than after- ward in Carthage. For not long after they obtained also the plunder of the other parts of the city, which were taken by treachery ; leaving nothing untouched but the king’s money, which was brought into the public treasury. But nothi_g afflicted Marcellus so much as the death of Archimedes ; who was then, as fate would have it, intent upon working out some problem by a diagram, and having fixed his mind alike and his eyes upon the subject of his speculation, he never noticed the incursion of the Romans, nor that the city was taken. In this transport of study and contemplation, a soldier, unexpectedly coming up to him, commanded him to 486 MARCELLUS. follo\v^ to Marcellus ; which he declining to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration, the soldiei, en- raged, drew his sword and ran him through. Others write, that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him ; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was then at work upon inconclusive and imperfect ; but the soldier, nothing moved by his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as Archim- edes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, and thinking that he carried gold in a vessel, slew him. Cer- tain it is, that his death was very afflicting to Marcellus ; and that Marcellus ever after regarded him that killed him as a murderer ; and that he sought for his kindred and honored them with signal favors. Indeed, foreign nations had held the Romans to be excel- lent soldiers and formidable in battle ; but they had hitherto given no memorable example of gentleness, or humanity, or civil virtue ; and Marcellus seems first to have shown to the Greeks, that his countrymen were most illustrious for their justice. For such was his moderation to all with whom he had any thing to do, and such his benignity also to many cities and private men, that, if any thing hard or severe was decreed concerning the people of Enna, Megara, or Syracuse, the blame was thought to belong rather to those upon whom the storm fell, than to those who brought it upon them. One ex- ample of many I will commemorate. In Sicily there is a town called Eng 3 dum, not indeed great, but very ancient and ennobled by the presence of the goddesses, called the Mothers. The temple, they say, was built by the Cretans ; and they show some spears and brazen helmets, inscribed with the names of Meriones, and (wdth the same spelling as in Latin) of Ulysses, wfflo consecrated them to the goddesses. This city highly favoring the party of the Carthaginians, Nicias, the most eminent of the citizens, counselled them to go over to the Romans ; to that end acting freely and openly in har- angues to their assemblies, arguing the imprudence and mad- ness of the opposite course. They, fearing his power and au- thority, resolved to deliver him in bonds to the Carthaginians. Nicias, detecting the design, and seeing that hi5 person was secretly kept in watch, proceeded to speak irreligiously to the vulgar of the Mothers, and showed many signs of disrespect; MARCELLUS. 487 as if he derxied and contemned the received opinior of the pres- ence of those goddesses; his enemies the while rejoicing, tha he, of his own accord, sought the destruction hanging over his head. When they were just now about to lay hands upon him, an assembly was held, and here Nicias, making a speech to the people concerning some affair then under deliberatioiij in the midst of his address, cast himself upon the ground ; and soon after, while amazement (as usually happens on such surprising occasions) held the assembly immovable, raising and turning his head round, he began in a trembling and deep tone, but by degrees raised and sharpened his voice. When he saw the whole theatre struck with horror and silence, throw- ing off his mantle and rending his tunic, he leaps up half naked, and runs towards the door, crying out aloud that he was driven by the wrath of the Mothers. When no man durst, out of religious fear, lay hands upon him or stop him, but all gave way before him, he ran out of the gate, not omitting any shriek or gesture of men possessed and mad. His wife, con- scious of his counterfeiting, and privy to his design, taking her children with her, first cast herself as a suppliant before the temple of the goddesses; then, pretending to seek her wandering husband, no man hindering her, went out of the town in safety ; and by this means they all escaped to Mar- cellus at Syracuse. After many other such affronts offered him by the men of Eng^num, Marcellus, having taken them all prisoners and cast them into bonds, was preparing to inflict upon them the last punishment ; when Nicias, with tears in his eyes, addressed himself to him. In fine, casting himself at Marcellus’s feet, and deprecating for his citizens, he begged most earnestly their lives, chiefly those of his enemies. Mar- cellus, relenting, set them all at liberty, and rewarded Nicias with ample lands and rich presents. This history is recorded by Posidonius the philosopher. Marcellus, at length recalled by the people of Rome to the immediate war at home, to illustrate his triumph, and adorn the city, carried away with him a great number of the most beautiful ornaments of Syracuse. For, before that, Rome neither had, nor had seen, any of those fine and exquisite rarities ; nor was any pleasure taken in graceful and elegant pieces of workmanship. Stuffed with barbarous arms and spoils stained with blood, and everywhere crowned with trium- phal memorials and trophies, she was no pleasant or delight- ful spectacle for the eyes of peaceful or refined spectators ; but, as Epaminondas named the fields of Boeotia the stage of 488 MARCELT.US. Mars ; and Xenophon called Ephesus the workhouse of wai ^ so in my judgment, may you call Rome, at that time (to us^ the words of Pindar), ‘‘ the precinct of the peaceless Mars/' Whence Maicellus was more popular with the people in general, because he had adorned the city with beautiful objects that had all the charms of Grecian grace and symmetry ; but Fabius Maximus, who neither touched nor brought away any thing of this kind from Tarentum, when he had taken ;t, was more approved of by the elder men. He carried off the money and valuables, but forbade the statues to be moved ; adding, as it is commonly related, “ Let us leave to the Tarentines these offended gods.’^ They blamed Marcellus, first for placing the city in an invidious position, as it seemed now to celebrate victories and lead processions of triumph, not only over men, but also over the gods as captives ; then, that he had diverted to idleness, and vain talk about curious arts and artificers, the common people, which, bred up in wars and agriculture, had never tasted of luxury and sloth, and, as Euripides said of Hercules, had been Rude, unrefined, only for great things good, SO that now they misspent much of their time in examining and criticising trifles. And yet, notwithstanding this repri- mand, Marcellus made it his glory to the Greeks themselves, that he had taught his ignorant countrymen to esteem and admire the elegant and wonderful productions of Greece. But when the envious opposed his being brought trium- phant into the city, because there w^ere some relics of the war in Sicily, and a third triumph would be looked upon with jealousy, he gave way, He triumphed upon the Alban mount, and thence entered the city in ovatio7i^ as it is called in Latin, in Greek eua ; but in this ovation he \vas neither carried in a chariot, nor crowned with laurel, nor ushered by trumpets sounding ; but went afoot with shoes on, many flutes or pipes sounding in concert, while he passed along, wearing a garland of myrtle, in a peaceable aspect, exciting rather love and respect than fear. Whence I am, by conjecture, led to think that, originally, the difference observed betwixt ovation and triumph did not depend upon the greatness of the achieve- ments, but the manner of performing them. For they who, having fought a set battle, and slain the enemy, returned victors, led that martial, terrible triumph, and, as the ordinary custom then was in lustrating the army, adorned the arms and the soldiers with a great dpal of laurel. But they wha MARCELLUS. 489 Without force, by colloquy, persuasion, and reasoning, had done the business, to these captains custom gave the honor of the unmiJitary and festive ovation. For the pipe is the badge of peace, and myrtle the plant of Venus, who more than the rest of the gods and goddesses abhors force and war. Jt is called ovation, not as most think, from the Greek euasmus^ because they act it with shouting and cries of Eua : for so do they also the proper triumphs. The Greeks have wrested the word to their own language, thinking that this honor, also, must have some connection with Bacchus, who in Greek has the titles of Euius and Thriambus. But the thing is otherwise. For it was the custom for commanders, in their triumph, to immolate an ox, but in their ovation, a sheep : hence they named it Ovation^ from the Latin ovis. It is worth observing, how exactly opposite the sacrifices appointed by the Snartan legislator are to those of the Romans. For at Lacedmmon, a captain, who had performed the work he had undertook by cunning, or courteous treaty, on laying down his command, immolated an ox ; he that did the business by battle, offered a cock ; the Lacedaemonians, though most warlike, thinking an exploit performed by reason and wisdom, to be more ex- cellent and more congruous to man, than one effected by mere force and courage. Which of the two is to be pre- ferred I leave to the determination of others. Marcellus being the fourth time consul, his enemies sub- orned the Syracusans to come to Rome to accuse him, and to complain that they had suffered indignities and wrongs, con- trary to the conditions granted them. It happened that Mar- cellus was in the capitol offering sacrifice when the Syracusans petitioned the senate, yet sitting, that they might have leave to accuse him and present their grievances. Marcellus’s col- league, eager to protect him in his absence, put them out of the court. But Marcellus himself came as soon as he heard of it. And first, in his curule chair as consul, he referred to the senate the cognizance of other matters : but when these weie transacted, rising from his seat, he passed as a private man into the place where the accused were wont to make their de- fence, and gave free liberty to the Syracusans to impeach him. But they, struck with consternation by his majesty and confi- dence, stood astonished ; and the power of his presence now, in his robe of state, appeared far more terrible and severe than it had done when he was arrayed in armor. Yet reanimated at length by Marcellus’s rivals, they began their impeachment, and made an oration in which pleas of justice mingled with 490 MARCELLUS. lamentation and complaint ; the sum of which was, that being allies and friends of the people of Rome, they had, notwith- standing, suffered things which other commanders had ab- stained from inflicting upon enemies. To this Marcellus am swered ; that they had committed many acts of hostility against the people of Rome, and had suffered nothing but what enemies conquered and captured in war, cannot possibly be protected from suffering : that it was their own fault they had been made captives, because they refused to give ear to his frequent at- tempts to pursuade them by gentle means : neither were they forced into war by the power of tyrants, but had rather chosen the tyrants themselves for the express object that they might make war. The orations ended, and the Syracusans, accord- ing to the custom, having retired, Marcellus left his colleague to ask the sentences, and withdrawing with the Syracusans, staid expecting at the doors of the senate-house ; not in the least discomposed in spirit, either with alarm at the accusation, or by anger against the Syracusans ; but with perfect calmness and serenity attending the issue of the cause. The sentences at length being all asked, and a decree of the senate made in vindication of Marcellus, the Syracusans, with tears flowing from their eyes, cast themselves at his knees, beseeching him to forgive themselves there present, and to be moved by the misery of the rest of their city, which would ever be mindful of, and grateful for, his benefits. Thus Marcellus, softened by their tears and distress, was not only reconciled to the deputies, but ever afterwards continued to find opportunity of doing kindness to the Syracusans. The liberty which he had restored to them, and their rights, laws, and goods that were left, the senate confirmed. Upon which account the Syracu- sans, besides other signal honors, made a law, that if Marcellus should at any time come into Sicily, or any of his posterity, the Syracusans should wear garlands and offer public sacrifice .o the gods. After this he moved against Hannibal. And whereas the other consuls and commanders, since the defeat received at Cannae, had all made use of the same policy against Hannibal, namely to decline coming to a battle with him ; and none had had the courage to encounter him in the field, and put them- selves to the decision by the sword ; Marcellus entered upon the opposite course, thinking that Italy would be destroyed by the very delay by which they looked to wear out Hannibal ; and that Fabius, who, adhering to his cautious policy, waited to see the war extinguished, while P^ome itself meantime wasted MARC-ELLUS. 491 away (like timid physicians, who, dreading to administer rem- edies, stay waiting, and believe that what is the decay of the patient’s strength is the decline of the disease), was not taking a right course to heal the sickness of his country. And first, the great cities of the Samnites, which had revolted, came into his power ; in which he found a large quantity of corn and I money, and three thousand of Hannibal’s soldiers, that were left for the defence. After this, the proconsu .1 Cnseus Fulvius with eleven tribunes of the soldiers being slain in Apulia, and the greatest part of the army also at the same time cut o-ff, he dispatched letters to Rome, and bade the people be of good courage, for that he was now upon the march against Hannibal, to turn his triumph into sadness. On these letters being read, Livy writes, that the people were not only not encouraged, but more discouraged, than before. For danger, they thought, was but the greater in proportion as Marcellus was of more value than Fulvius. He, as he had written, advancing into the territories of the Litcanians, came up to him at Numistro, and, the enemy keeping himself upon the hills, pitched his camp in a level plain, and the next day drew forth his army in order for fight. Nor did Hannibal refuse the challenge. They fought long and obstinately on both sides, victory yet seeming undecided, when, after three hours’ conflict, night hardly parted them. The next day, as soon as the sun v/as risen, Marcellus again brought forth his troops, and ranged them among the dead bodies of the slain, challenging Hannibal to solve the question by another trial. When he dislodged and drew off, Marcellus, gathering up the spoils of the enemies, and burying the bodies of his slain soldiers, closely followed him. And though Hannibal often used stratagems, and laid ambushes to entrap Marcellus, yet he never could circumvent him. By skirmishes, meantime, in all of which he was supe- rior, Marcellus gained himself such high repute, that, when the time of .he Comitia at Rome was near at hanil, the senate thought fit rather to recall the other consul from Sicily, than to withdraw Marcellus from his conflict with Hannibal ; and 011 1 is arrival they bid him name Quintus Fulvius dictator. For the dictator is created neither by the people, nor by the senate , but the consul or the praetor, before the popular assembly, pro- nounces him to be dictator, whom he himself chooses. Hence he is called dictator, meaning to name. Others say that he is named dictator, because his word is a law^ and he orders what he pleases, without submitting it to the vote. For the Romans call the orders of magistrates, Edicts, 492 MARCELLUS. And now because Marcellus’s colleague, who was recalled from Sicily, had a mind to name another man dictator, and would not be forced to change his opinion, he sailed away by night back to Sicily. So the common people made an order that Quintus Fulvius should be chosen dir tator : and the sen ate, by an express, commanded Marcellus to nominate him. lie obeying proclaimed him dictator according to the order of the people ; but the office of proconsul w^as continued to him- self for a year. And having arranged wdth Fabius Maximus, that while he besieged Tarentum, he himself would, by follow- ing Hannibal and drawing him up and down, detain him from coming to the relief of the Tarentines, he overtook him at Canusium : and as Hannibal often shifted his camp, and still declined the combat, he everywdrere sought to engage him. At last pressing upon him while encamping by light skirmishes he provoked him to a battle ; but night again divided them in the very heat of the conflict. The next day Marcellus again showed himself in arms, and brought up his forces in array. Flannibal, in extreme grief, called his Carthaginians together to an harangue : and vehemently prayed them, to fight to-day worthily of all their former successes ; “ For you see,” said he, “ how, after such great victories, we have not liberty to respire, nor to repose ourselves, though victors ; unless we drive this man back.” Then the two armies joining battle, fought fiercely ; wffien the event of an untimely movement showed Marcellus to have been guilty of an error. The right wing being hard pressed upon, he commanded one of the legions to be brought up to the front. This change disturbing the array and posture of the legions, gave the victory to the enemies ; and the?e fell two thousand seven hundred Romans. Marcellus, after he had retreated into his camp, called his soldiers together; ‘‘I see,” said he, “many Roman aims and bodies, but I see not so much as one Roman.” To their en- treaties for his pardon, he returned a refusal while they remain- ed beaten, but promised to give it so soon as they shou c overcome ; and he resolved to bring them into the field again the next day, that the fame of their victory might arrive at Rome before that of their flight. Dismissing the assembly, he commanded barley instead of wheat to be given to those companies that had turned their backs. These rebukes were so bitter to the soldiers, that though a great number of them were grievously wounded, yet they relate there was not one to whom the general’s oration was not more painful and smart ing than his wounds. MARCELLUS. 493 The day breaking, a scarlet toga, the sign of instant battle, was displayed. The companies marked with ignominy, begged they might be posted in the foremost place, and obtained their request. Then the tribunes bring forth the rest of the forces^ and draw them up. On news of which, ‘‘ O strange ! ’’ said Hannibal, “ what will you do with this man, who can bear neither good nor bad fortune ? He is the only man who neither suffers us to rest when he is victor, nor rests himself when he is overcome. We shall have, it seems, perpetually to fight with him ; as in good success his confidence, and in ill success Ivs shame, still urges him to some further enter- prise ? ” Then the armies engaged. When the fight was doubtful, Hannibal commanded the elephants to be brought into the first battalion, and to be driven upon the van of the Romans. When the beasts, trampling upon many, soon caused disorder, Flavius, a tribune of soldiers, snatching an ensign, meets them, and wounding the first elephant with the spike at the bottom of the ensign staff, puts him to flight. The beast turned around upon the next, and drove back both him and the rest that followed. Marcellus, seeing this, pours in his horse with great force upon the elephants, and upon the enemy disordered by their flight. The horse, mak- ing a fierce impression, pursued the Carthaginians borne to their camp, while the elephants, wounded and running upon their own party, caused a considerable slaughter. It is said, more than eight thousand were slain ; of the Roman army three thousand, and almost all wounded. This gave Hanni- bal opportunity to retire in the silence of the night, and to remove to greater distance from Marcellus ; who was kept from pursuing by the number of his wounded men, and re- moved, by gentle marches, into Campania, and spent the summer at Sinuessa, engaged in restoring them. But as Hannibal, having disentangled himself from Mar- cellus, ranged with his army round about the country, and wasted Italy free from all fear, at Rome Ma^rcellus was evil spoken .of. His detractors induced Publicius Bibulus, tribune of the people, an eloquent and violent man, to undertake his accusation. He, by assiduous harangues, prevailed upon the people to withdraw from Marcellus the command of the army; “Seeing that Marcellus,’^ said he, “after brief exercise in the war, has withdrawn as it might be from the wrestling ground to the warm baths to refresh himself.’’ Marcellus, on hearing this, appointed lieutenants over his camp, and hasted to Rome to refute the charges against him : and there found 494 MARCELLUS. ready drawn up an impeachment consisting of these calumnies. At the day prefixed, in the Flaminian circus, into which place the people had assembled themselves, Bibulus rose and ac^ cused I'iim. Marcellus himself answered, briefly .and simply . but the first and most approved men of the city spoke largely and in high terms, very freely advising the people not to show themselves worse judges than the enemy, condemning Mar- cellus of timidity, from whom alone of all their captains the enemy fled, and as perpetually endeavored to avoid fighting with him, as to fight with others. When they made an end of speaking, the accuser’s hope to obtain judgment so far de- ceived him, that Marcellus was not only absolved, but the fifth time created consul. No sooner had he entered upon this consulate, but he suppressed a great commotion in Etruria, that had proceeded near to revolt, and visited and quieted the cities. Then, when the dedication of the temple, which he had vowed out of his Sicilian spoils to Honor and Virtue, was objected to by the priests, because they denied that one temple could be lawfully dedicated to two gods, he began to adjoin another to it, re- senting the priests’ opposition, and almost converting the thing into an omen. And, truly, many other prodigies also affrighted him ; some temples had been struck with lightning, and in Jupiter’s temple mice had gnawed the gold; it was reported also, that an ox had spoke, and that a boy had been born with a head like an elephant’s. All which prodigies had in- deed been attended to, but due reconciliation had not been obtained from the gods. The aruspices therefore detained him at Rome, glowing and burning with desire to return to the war. For no man was ever inflamed with so great desire of any thing, as was he to fight a battle with Hannibal. It was the subject of his dreams in the night, the topic of all his consultations with his friends and familiars, nor did he pre- sent to the gods any other wish, but that he might meet Hannibal in the field. And I think, that he would most gladly have set upon him, with both armies environed within a single camp. Had he not been even loaded with honors, and had he not given proofs in many ways of hi>s maturity of ludgment and of prudence equal to that of any commander, you might have said, that he was agitated by a youthful am- bition, above what became a man of that age : for he had passed the sixtieth year of his life when he began his fifth consulship. The sacrifices having been offered, and all that belonged MARCELLUS. 49S to the propitiation of the gods performed, according to the prescription of the diviners, he at last with his colleague went forth to carry on the war. He tried all possible means to provoke Hannibal, who at that time had a standing camp be- twixt Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined an engagement, but having obtained intelligence that some troops were on their way to the town of Locri Epizephyrii, placing an ambush under the little hill of Peteiia, he slew two thousand five, hun- dred soldiers. This incensed Marcellus to revenge ; and lie therefore moved nearer Hannibal. Betwixt the two camps was a little hill, a tolerably secure post, covered with wood ; it had steep descents on either side, and there were springs of water seen trickling down. This place was so fit and ad- vantageous, that the Romans wondered that Hannibal, who had come thither before them, had not seized upon it, but had left it to the enemies. But to him the place had seemed com- modious indeed for a camp, but yet more commodious for an ambuscade ; and to that use he chose to put it. So in the wood and the hollows he hid a number of archers and spear- men, confident that the commodiousness of the place would allure the Romans. Nor was he deceived in his expectation. For presently in the Roman camp they talked and disputed, as if they had all been captains, how the place ought to be seized, and what great advantage they should thereby gain upon the enemies, chiefly if they transferred their camp thither, at any rate, if they strengthened the place with a fort. Mar- cellus resolved to go, with a few horse, to view it. Having called a diviner he proceeded to sacrifice. In the first victim the arirspex showed him the liver without a head; in the second the head appeared of unusual size, and all the other indications highly promising. When these seemed sufficient to free them from the dread of the former, the diviners de- clared, that they were all the more terrified by the latter ; because entrails too fair and promising, when they appear after others that are maimed and monstrous, render the change doubtful and suspicious. But Nor fire nor brazen wall can keep out fate; as Pindar observes. Marcellus, therefore, taking with him his colleague Crispinus, and his son, a tribune of soldiers, with two hundred and twenty horse at most (among whom there was not one Roman, but all were Etruscans, except forty Fregellans, of whose courage and fidelity he had on all occasions received full proof), goes to view the place. The hill MARCELLUS. 495 was covered with woods all over ; on the top of it sat a scout concealed from the sight of tl.e enemy, but having the Roman camp exposed to his view. Upon signs received from him, the men that were placed in ambush, stirred not till Marcellus came near ; and then all starting up in an instant, and encompassing him from all sides, attacked him with darts, struck about and wounded the backs of those that fled, and pressed upon those who resisted. These were the forty Fre- gellans. For though the Etruscans fled in the very beginning of the fight, the Fregellans formed themselves into a ring, bravely defending the consuls, till Crispinus, struck with two darts, turned his horse to fly away ; and Marcellus’s side was run through with a lance with a broad head. Then the Fre- gellans, also, the few that remained alive, leaving the fallen consul, and rescuing young Marcellus, who also was wounded, got into the camp by flight. There were slain not much above forty ; five lictors and eighteen horsemen came alive into the enemy’s hands. Crispinus also died of his wounds a few days after. Such a disaster as the loss of both consuls in a single engagement, was one that had never before befallen the Romans. Hannibal, little valuing the other events, as soon as he was told of Marcellus’s death, immediately hasted to the hill. Viewing the body, and continuing for some time to observe its strength and shape, he allowed not a word to fall from him expressive of the least pride or arrogancy, nor did he show in his countenance any sign of gladness, as another perhaps would have done, when his fierce and troublesome enemy had been taken away ; but amazed by so sudden and unexpected an end, taking off nothing but his ring, gave order to have the body properly clad and adorned and honorably burned. The relics put into a silver urn, with a crown of gold to cover it, he sent back to his son. But some of the Numidians set- ting upon these that were carrying the urn, took it from them by force, and cast away the bones ; which being told to Han- nibal, It is impossible, it seems then,” he said, ‘‘ to do any thing against the will of God ? ” He punished the Numidians ; but took no further care of sending or re-collecting the bones ; conceiving that Marcellus so fell, and so lay unburied, by a certain fate. So Cornelius Nepos and Vaerius Maximus have left upon record : but Livy and Augustus Caesar affirm, that the urn was brought to his son, and honored with a magnifi- cent funeral. Besides the monuments raised for him at Rome, there was dedicated to his memory at Catana in Sicily, PELOPIDAS AND MARCELLUS. 497 an ample wrestling place called after him ; statutes and pic- tures, out of those he took from Syracuse, were set up in Samothrace, in the temple of the gods, named Cabiri, and in that of Minerva at Lindus, where also there was a statue of. him says Posidonius, with the following inscription : — This was, O stranger, once Rome’s star divine, Claudius Marcellus of an ancient line ; * To fight her wars seven times her consul made, Low in the dust her enemies he laid. The writer of the inscription, has added to Marcellus's five consulates, his two proconsulates. His progeny continued in high hollar even down to Marcellus, son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, whom she bore to her husband Caius Marceikjs; and who died a bridegroom, in the year of his seaiieship^ having not long before married Caesar's daughter. His mother, Octavia, dedicated the library to his honor and memory, and Caesar, the theatre which bears his name. COMPARISON OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS. These are the memorable things I have found in histo- rians, concerning Marcellus and Pelopidas. Betwixt which two great men, though in natural character and manners, they nearly resembled each other, because both were valiant and diligent, daring and high-spirited, there was yet some di- versity in the one point, that Marcellus in many cities which he reduced under his power, committed great slaughter ; but Epaminondas and Pelopidas never after any victory put men to death, or reduced citizens to slavery. And we are told, too, that the Thebans would not, had these been present, have taken the measures they did, against the Orchomenians. Marcellus’s exploits against the Gauls are admirable and am- ple ; when, accompanied by a few horse, he defeated and put to flight a vast number of horse and foot together (an action you cannot easily in historians find to have been done by any other captain), and took their king prisoner. To which honor Pelopidas aspired, but did not attain ; he was killed by the tyrant in the attempt. But to these you may perhaps oppose those two most glorious battles at Leuctra and Tegyrae ; and we have no statement of any achievment of Marcellus, by 2 ^gS PELOPIDAS AND MARCELLUS. stealth or ambuscade, such as were those of Pelopidas, when he returned from exile, and killed the tyrants at Thebes ; which, indeed, may claim to be called the first in rank of all achieve- ments ever performed by secrecy and cunning. Hannibal was indeed, a most formidable enemy for the Romans ; but so for that matter were the Lacedaemonians for the Thebans. And that these were, in the fights of Leuctra and Tegyrae, beaten and put to flight by Pelopidas, is confessed ; whereas, Poly- bius writes, that Hannibal was never so much as once van- quished by Marcellus, but remained invincible in all encount- ers, till Scipio came. I myself, indeed, have followed rather Livy, Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, and, among the Greeks, king Juba, in stating that the troops of Hannibal were in some en- counters routed and put to flight by Marcellus ; but certainly these defeats conduced little to the sum of the war. It would seem as if they had been merely feints of some sort on the part of the Carthaginians. What was indeed truly and really admirable was, that the Romans, after the defeat of so many armies, the slaughter of so many captains, and, in fine, the confusion of almost the whole Roman empire, still showed a courage equal to their losses, and were as willing as their enemies to engage in new battles. And Marcellus was the one man who overcame the great and inveterate fear and dread, and revived, raised, and confirmed the spirits of the soldiers to that degree of emulation and bravery, that would not lot them easily yield the victory, but made them contend for it to the last. For the same men, whom continual defeats had accustomed to think themselves happy, if they could but save themselves by running from Hannibal, were by him taught to esteem it base and ignomin- ious to return safe but unsuccessful ; to be ashamed to confess that they had yielded one step in the terrors of the fight ; and to grieve to extremity if they were not victorious. In short, as Pelopidas was never overcome in any battle, where himself was present and commanded in chief, and as Marcellus gained more victories than any of his contempora- ries, truly he that could not be easily overcome, considering his many successes, may fairly be compared with him who was undefeated. Marcellus took Syracuse ; whereas Pelopi- das was frustrated of his hope of capturing Sparta. But in my judgment it was more difficult to advance his standard even to the walls of Sparta, and to be the first of mortals that ever passed the river Eurotas in arms, than it was to reduce Sicily ; unless, indeed, we say that that adventure is with more PELOPIDAS AND MARCELLUS. 499 of right to be attributed to Epaminondas, as was also the Leuc- trian battle ; whereas Marcellus’s renown, and the glory of his brave actions came entire and undiminished to him alone. For he alone took Syracuse ; and without his colleague’s help defeated the Gauls, and, when all others declined, alone, with- out one companion, ventured to engage with Hannibal ; and changing the aspect of the war first showed the example of daring to attack him. I cannot commend the death of either of these great men ; the suddenness and strangeness of their ends gives me a feel- ing rather of pain and distress. Hannibal has my admiration, who, in so many severe conflicts, more than can be reckoned in one day, never received so much as one wound. I honor Chrysantes also (in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia), who, having raised his sword in the act of striking his enemy, so soon as a retreat was sounded, left him, and retired sedately and modestly. Yet the anger which provoked Pelopidas to pursue revenge in the heat of fight may excuse him. The first thing for a captain is to gain Safe victory ; the next to be with honor slain. is Euripides says. For then he cannot be said to suffer death ; It is rather to be called an action. The very object, too, of Pelopidas’s victory, which consisted in the slaughter of the tyrant, presenting itself to his eyes, did not wholly carry him away unadvisedly : he could not easily expect again to have another equally glorious occasion for the exercise of his cour- age, in a noble and honorable cause. But Marcellus, when it made little to his advantage, and when no such violent ardor as present danger naturally calls out transported him to passion, throwing himself into danger fell into an unexplored ambush ; he, namely, who had borne five consulates, led three triumphs, won the spoils and glories of kings and victories, to act the part of a mere scout, or sentinel, and to expose all his achievements to be trod under foot by the mercenary Span- iards and Numidians, who sold themselves and their lives to the Carthaginians ; so that even they themselves felt unworthy, and almost grudged themselves the unhoped for success of having cut of, among a few Fregellan scouts, the most valiant, the most potent, and most renowned of the Romans. Let no man think that we have thus spoken out of a design to accuse these noble men ; fit is merely an expression of frank indigna- tion in their own behalf, at seeing them thus wasting all their other virtues upon that of bravery, and throwing away theii 500 ARISTIDES. lives, as if the loss would be only felt by themselves, and not by their country, allies, and friends. After Pelopidas’s death, his friends, for whom he died, made a funeral for him ; the enemies, by whom he had been killed, made one for Marcellus. A noble and happy lot indeed the former ; yet there is something higher and greater in the admi- ration rendered by enemies to the virtue that had been their own obstacle, than in the grateful acknowledgments of friends. Since, in the one case, it is virtue alone that challenges itself the honor ; while, in the other, it may be rather men’s per- sonal profit and advantage that is the real origin of what they do. ARISTIDES. Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, was of the tribe Anti- ochis, and township of Alopece. As to wealth, statements differ ; some say he passed his life in extreme poverty, and left behind him two daughters whose indigence long kept them unmarried ; but Demetrius, the Phalerian, in opposition to this general report, professes in his Socrates, to know a farm at Phalerum going by Aristides’s name, where he was in- terred ; and, as marks of his opulence, adduces first, the office of archon eponymus, which he obtained by the lot of the bean ; which was confined to the highest assessed families, called the Pentacosiomedimni ; second, the ostracism, which was not usually inflicted on the poorer citizens, but on those of great houses, whose station exposed them to envy ; third and last, that he left certain tripods in the temple of Bacchus, of- ferings for his victory in conducting the representation of dra- matic performances, which were even in our age still to be seen, retaining this inscription upon them, The tribe An* tiochis obtained the victory : Aristides defrayed the charges : Archestratus’s play was acted.” But this argument, though in appearance the strongest, is of the least moment of any. For Epaminondas, who all the world knows was educated, and lived his whole life in much poverty, and also Plato, the phi- losopher, exhibited magnificent shows, the one an entertain- ment of flute players, the other of dithyraffibic singers ; Dion, the Syracusan, supplying the expenses of the latter, and Pe- lopidas those of Epaminondas. For good men do not allow ARISTIDES. SO* themselves in any inveterate and irreconcilable hostility to re- ceiving presents from their friends, but while looking upon those that are accepted to be hoarded up and with avaricious intentions, as sordid and mean, they do not refuse such as, apart from all profit, gratify the pure love of honor and mag- nificence. Panaetius, again, shows that Demetrius was de- ceived concerning the tripod by an identity of name. For, from the Persian war to the end of the Peloponnesian, there are upon record only two of the .name of Aristides, who de- frayed the expense of representing plays and gained the prize, neither of which was the same with the son of Lysimarhus ; but the father of the one was Xenophilus, and the other lived at a much later time, as the way of writing, which is that in use since the time of Euclides, and the addition of the name of Archestratus prove, a name which, in the time of the Per- sian war, no writer mentions, but which several, during the Peloponnesian war, record as that of a dramatic poet. The argument of Panaetius requires to be more closely considered. But as for the ostracism, every one was liable to it, whom his reputation, birth, or eloquence raised above the common level ; insomuch that even Damon, preceptor to Pericles, was thus banished, because he seemed a man of more than ordi- nary sense. And, moreover, Idomeneus says, that Aristides was not made archon by the lot of the bean, but the free elec- tion of the people. And if he held the office after the battle of Plataea, as Demetrius himself has written, it is very probable that his great reputation and success in the war, made him be preferred for his virtue to an office which others received in consideration of their wealth. But Demetrius manifestly is eager not only to exempt Aristides, but Socrates likewise, from poverty, as from a great evil ; telling us that the latter had not only a house of his own, but also seventy minae put out at interest with Crito. Aristides being the friend and supporter of that Clisthenes, who settled the government after the expulsion of the tyrants and emulating and admiring Lycurgus, the Lacedaemonian, above all politicians, adhered to the aristocratical prin-ciples of government ; and had Themistocles, son to Neocles, his adversary on the side of the populace. Some say that, being boys and bred up together from their infancy, they were always at variance with each other in all their words and actions as well serious as playful, and that in this their early contention they soon made proof of their natural inclinations ; the one being ready, adventurous, and subtle, engaging readily and 502 ARISTIDES. eagerly in every diing ; the other of a staid and settled temper^ intent on the exercise of justice, not admitting any degree ot falsity, indecorum, or trickery, no, not so much as at his play. Ariston of Chios says the first origin of the enmity which rose to so great a height, was a love affair ; they were rivals for the affection of the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, and were passionate beyond all moderation, and did not lay aside their animosity when the beauty that had excited it passed away : but, as if it had only exercised them in it, immediately carried their heats and differences into public business. Themistocles, therefore, joining an association of partisans, fortified himself with considerable strength ; insomuch that when some one told him that were he impartial, he would make a good magistrate ^ “ I wish,’' replied he, “ I may never sit on that tribunal where my friends shall not plead a greater privilege than strangers.” But Aristides walked, so to say, alone on his own path in politics, being unwilling, in the first place, to go along \yith his associates in ill doing, or to cause them vexation by not gratifying their wishes ; and, secondly, observing that many were encouraged by the support they had in their friends to act injuriously, he was cautious ; being of opinion that the integrity of his words and actions was the only right security for a good citizen. However, Themistocles making many dangerous alterations, and withstanding and interrupting him in the whole series of his actions. Aristides also was necessitated to set himself against all Themistocles did, partly in self-defence, and partly to impede his power from still increasing by the favor of the multitude ; esteeming it better to let slip some public conveiv iences, rather than that he by prevailing should become power- ful in all things. In fine, when he once had opposed Themis- tocles in some measures that were expedient, and had got the better of him, he could not refrain from saying, when he left the assembly, that unless they sent Themistocles and himself to the barathrum, there could be no safety for Athens. Another time, when urging some proposal upon the people, though there were much opposition and stirring against it, he yet was gaining the day ; but just as the president of the assembly was about to put it to the vote, perceiving by what had been said in debate the inexpediency of his advice, he let it fall. Also he often brought in his bills by other persons, lest Themistocles, through party spirit against him, should be any hindrance to the good of the public. In all the vicissitudes of public affairs, the constancy he ARISTIDES. showed was admirable, not being elated with honors, and demeaning himself tranquilly and sedately in adversity ; hold- ing the opinion that he ought to offer himself to the service of his country without mercenary views and irrespectively of any reward, not only of riches, but even of glory itself. Hence it came, probably, that at the recital of these verses of ^schy- lus in the theatre, relating to Amphiaraus, For not at seeming just, but being so lie aims ; and from his depth of soil below Harvests of wise and prudent counsels grow, the eyes of all the spectators turned on Aristides, as if this virtue, in an especial manner, belonged to him. He was a most determined champion for justice, not only against feelings of friendship and favor, but wrath and malice. Thus it is reported of him that when prosecuting the law against one who was his enemy, on the judges after accusation refusing to hear the criminal, and proceeding immediately to pass sentence upon him, he rose in haste from his seat and joined in petition with him for a hearing, and that he might enjoy the privilege of the law. Another time, when judging between two private persons, on the one declaring his adver- sary had very much injured Aristides ; Tell me rather, good friend,’’ he said, what wrong he has done you ; for it is your cause, not my own, which I now sit judge of.” Being chosen to the charge of the public revenue, he made it appear, that not only those of his time, but the preceding officers, had alienated much treasure, and especially Themistocles : — Well known he was an able man to be, But with his fingers apt to be too free. Therefore, Themistocles associating several persons against Aristides, and impeaching him when he gave in his accounts, caused him to be condemned of robbing the public ; so Ido- meneus states ; but the best and chiefest men of the city much resenting it, he was not only exempted from the fine im- posed upon him, but likewise again called to the same employ- ment. Pretending now to repent him to his former practice, and carrying himself with more remissness, he became accept- able to such as pillaged the treasury, by not detecting or calling them to an exact account. So that those who had their fill of the public money began highly to applaud Aristider, and sued to the people making interest to have him once more chosen treasurer. But when they were upon the point of election, he reproved the Athenians. ‘‘ When I discharged 5^4 ARISTIDES my office well and faithfully/’ said he, I was insulted Sxid abused ; but now that I have allowed the public thieves in a variety of malpractices, I am considered an admirable patriot. I am more ashamed, therefore, of this present honor than of the former sentence ; and I commiserate your condition, with whom it is more praiseworthy to oblige ill men than to con- serve the revenue of the public.” Saying thus, and proceed- ing to expose the thefts that had been coihmitted, he stopped the mouths of those who cried him up and vouched for him but gained real and true commendation from the best men. When Datis, being sent by Darius under pretence of pun- ishing the Athenians for their burning of Sardis, but in reality to reduce the Greeks under his dominion, landed at Marathon and laid waste the country, among the ten commanders ap- pointed by the Athenians for the war, Miltiades was of the greatest name ; but the second place, both for reputation and power, was possessed by Aristides : and when his opinion to join battle was added to that of Miltiades, it did much to incline the balance. Every leader by his day having the command in chief when it came to Aristides’ turn, he delivered it into the hands of Miltiades, showing his fellow officers, that it is not dishonorable to obey and follow wise and able men, but, on the contrary, noble and prudent. So appeasing their rivalry, and bringing them to acquiesce in one and the best advice, he confirmed Miltiades in the strength of an undivided and unmolested authority. For now every one, yielding his day of command, looked for orders only to him. During the fight the main body of the Athenians being the hardest put to it, the barbarians, for a long time, making opposition there against the tribes Leontis and Antiochis, Themistocles and Aristides being ranged together, fought valiantly ; the one being of the tribe Leontis, the other of the Antiochis. But after they had beaten the barbarians back to their ships, and perceived that they sailed not for the isles, but were driven in by the force of sea and wind towards the country of Attica, fearing lest they should take the city, unprovided of defence, they hurried away thither with nine tribes, and reached it the same day. Aristides, being left with his tribe at Marathon to guard the plunder and prisoners, did not disappoint the opinion they had of him. Amidst the profusion of gold and silver, all sorts of apparel, and other property, more than can be men- tioned, that were in the tents and the vessels which they had taken, he neither felt the desire to meddle with any thing himself, nor suffered others to do it ; unless it might be some ARISTIDES. 50s who took away any thing unknown to him ; as Callias, the torch-bearer, did. One of the barbarians, it seems, prostrated himself before this man, supposing him to be a king by his hair and fillet ; and, when he had so done, taking him by the hand, showed him a great quantity of gold hid in a ditch. But Callias, most cruel and impious of men, took away the treasure, but slew the man, lest he should tell of him. Hence, they say, the comic poets gave his family the name of Laccch pluti^ or enriched by the ditch, alluding to the place where Callias found the gold. Aristides, immediately after this, was archon ; although Demetrius, the Phelerian, says he field the office a little before he died after the battle of Platma. But in the records of the successors of Xanthippides, 111 whose year Mardonius was overthrown at Plataea, amongst very many there mentioned, there is not so much as one of the same name as Aristides ; while immediately after Phaenippus, during whose term of ofhce they obtained the victory of Marathon, Aristides is registered. Of all his virtues, the common people were most affected with his justice, because of its continual and common use ; and thus, although of mean fortune and ordinary birth, he possessed himself of the most kingly and divine appellation of Just; which kings however and tyrants have never sought after ; but have taken delight to be surnamed besiegers of cities, thunderers, conquerors, or eagles again, and hawks ; affecting, it seems, the reputation which proceeds from power and violence, rather than that of virtue. Although the divinity, to whom they desire to compare and assimilate them- selves, excels, it is supposed, in three things, immortality, power, and virtue ; of which three the noblest and divinest is virtue. For the elements and vacuum have an everlasting existence ; earthquakes, thunders, storms, and torrents have great power ; but in justice and equity nothing participates except by means of reason and the knowledge of that which is divine. And thus, taking the three varieties of feeling commonly entertained towards the deity, the sense of his hap- piness, fear, and honor of him, people would seem to think him blest and happy for his exemption from death and corrup- • tion, to fear and dread him for his power and dominion, but to love, honor, and adore him for his justice. Yet though thus disposed, they covet that immortality which our nature is not capable of, and that power the greatest part of which is at the disposal of fortune ; but give virtue, the only divine good really in our reach, the last place, most unwisely ; since justice ARISTIDES. sob makes the life qf such as are in prosperity, power, and author ity the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast. Aristides, therefore, had at first the fortune to be beloved for this surname, but at length envied. Especially when Themistocles spread a rumor amongst the people, that, by determining and judging all matters privately, he had de- stroyed the courts of judicature, and was secretly making way for a monarchy in his own person, without the assistance of guards. Moreover, the spirit of the people, now grown high, and confident with their late victory, naturally entertained feelings of dislike to all of more than common fame and reputation. Coming together, therefore, from all parts into the city, they banished Aristides by the ostracism, giving their jealousy of his reputation the name of fear of tyranny. For ostracism was not the punishment of any criminal act, but was speciously said to be the mere depression and humili- ation of excessive greatness and power ; and was in fact a gentle relief and mitigation of envious feeling, which was thus allowed to vent itself in inflicting no intolerable injury, only a ten years’ banishment. But after it came to be exer- cised upon base and villanous fellows, they desisted from it ; Hyperbolus being the last whom they banished by the ostracism. The cause of Hyperbolus’s banishment is said to have been this. Alcibiades and Nicias, men that bore the great- est sway in the city, were of different factions. As the people, therefore, were about to vote the ostracism, and obviously to decree it against one of them, consulting together and uniting their parties, they contrived the banishment of Hyperbolus. Upon which the people, being offended, as if some contempt or affront was put upon the thing, left off and quite abolished it. It was performed, to be short, in this manner. Every one taking an ostracoii^ a sherd, that is, or piece of earthen- ware, wrote upon it the citizen’s name he would have ban- ished, and carried it to a certain part of the market-place surrounded with wooden rails. First, the magistrates num- bered all the sherds in gross (for if there were less than six thousand, the ostracism was imperfect) ; then, laying every name by itself, they pronounced him whose name was written • by the larger number, banished for ten years, with the enjoy- ment of his estate. As, therefore, they were writing the names on the sherds, it is reported that an illiterate clownish fellow, giving Aristides his sherd, supposing him a common citizen, begged him to write Aristides upon it ; and he being ARISTIDES. 5^7 surprised and asking if Aristides had ever done him any in- jury, None at all,’’ said he, neither know I the man ; but I am tired of hearing him everywhere called the Just.” Aris- tides, hearing this, is said to have made no reply, but re- turned the sherd with his own name inscribed. At his de- parture from the city, lifting up his hands to heaven, he made a prayer (the reverse, it would seem, of that of Achilles), that the Athenians might never have any occasion which should constrain them to remember Aristides. Nevertheless, three years after, when Xerxes marched through Thessaly and Boeotia into the country of Attica, re- pealing the law, they decreed the return of the banished : chiefly fearing Aristides, lest, joining himself to the enemy, he should corrupt and bring over many of his fellow-citizens to the party of the barbarians; much mistaking the man, who, already before the decree, was exerting himself to excite and encourage the Greeks to the defence of their liberty. And afterwards, when Themistocles was general with absolute power, he assisted him in all ways both in action and coun- sel ; rendering, in consideration of the common security, the greatest enemy he had the most glorious of men. For when Eurybiades was deliberating to desert the isle of Salamis, and the galleys of the barbarians putting out by night to sea sur- rounded and beset the narrow passage and islands, and no- body was aware how they were environed, Aristides, with great hazard, sailed from ^gina through the enemy’s fleet ; and coming by night to Themistocles’s tent, and calling him out by himself ; “If we have any discretion,” said he, “Themistocles, laying aside at this time our vain and childish contention, let us enter upon a safe and honorable dispute, vying with each other for the preservation of Greece ; you in the ruling and commanding, I in the subservient and advising part ; even, indeed, as I now understand you to be alone adhering to the best advice, in counselling without any delay to engage in the straits. And in this, though our own party oppose, the eneifty seems to assist you. For the sea behind, and all around us, is covered with their fleet ; so that we are under a necessity of approving ourselves men of courage, and fighting, whether we will or no; for there is no room left us for flight.” To which Themistocles answered, “I would not willingly, Aristides, be overcome by you on this occasion ; and shall endeavor, in emulation of this good beginning, to outdo it in my actions.” Also relating to him the stratagem he had framed against the barbarians, he entreated him to ARISTIDES. 508 persuade Eurybiades and show him, how it was impossible* they should save themselves without an engagement ; as he was the more likely to be believed. Whence, in the council of war, Cleocritus, the Corinthian, telling Themistocles that Aristides did not like his advice as he was present and said nothing, Aristides answered. That he should not have held his peace, if Themistocles had not been giving the best ad- vice ; and that he was now silent not out of any good-will to the person, but in approbation of his counsel. Thus the Greek captains were employed. But Aristides perceiving Psyttalea, a small island that lies within the straits over against Salamis, to be filled by a body of the enemy, put aboard his small boats the most forward and courageous of his countrymen, and went ashore upon it ; and, joining battle with the barbarians, slew them all, except such more re- markable persons as were taken alive. Amongst these were three children of Sandauce, the king’s sister, whom he im- mediately sent away to Themistocles, and it is stated that in accordance with a ceitain oracle, they were, by the command of Euphrantides, the seer, sacrificed to Bacchus, called Omes- tes, or the devourer. But Aristides, placing armed men all around the island, lay in wait for such as were cast upon it, to the intent that none of his friends should perish, nor an) of his enemies escape. For the closest engagement of the ships, and the main fury of the whole battle, seems to have been about this place ; for which reason a trophy was erected in Psyttalea. After the fight, Themistocles, to sound Aristides, told him they had performed a good piece of service, but there was a better yet to be done, the keeping Asia in Europe, by sailing forthwith to the Hellespont, and cutting in sunder the bridge. But Aristides, with an exclamation, bid him think no more of it, but deliberate and find out means for removing the Mede, as quickly as possible, out of Greece ; lest being enclosed, through want of means to escape, necessity should compel him to force his way with so great an army. " So Themistocles once more despatched Arnaces, the eunuch, his prisoner, giv- ing him in command privately to advertise the king that he had diverted the Greeks from their intention of setting sail for the bridges, out of the desire he felt to preserve him. Xerxes, being much terrified with this, immediately hasted to the Hellespont. But Mardonius was left with the most serviceable part of the army, about three hundred thousand men, and was a formidable enemy, confident in his infantry, ARISTIDES. and writing messages of defiance to the Giceks : You have overcome by sea men accustomed to fight on land, and un- skilled at the oar ; but there lies now the open country of Thessaly ; and the plains of Boeotia offer a broad and worthy field for brave men, either horse or foot, to contend in.’’ But he sent privately to the Athenians, both by letter and word ^ of mouth from the king, promising to rebuild their city, to give them a vast sum of money, and constitute them lords of all Greece, on condition they were not engaged in the war. The Lacedaemonians, receiving news of this, and fearing, despatched an embassy to the Athenians, entreating that they would send their wives and children to Sparta, and re- ceive support from them for their superannuated. For, being despoiled both of their city and country, the people were suffering extreme distress. Having given audience to the ambassadors, they returned an answer, upon the motion of Aristides, worthy of the highest admiration ; declaring, that they forgave their enemies if they thought all things purchas- able by wealth, than which they knew nothing of greater value ; but that they felt offended at the Lacedaemonians, for looking only to their present poverty and exigence, without any remembrance of their valor and magnanimity, offering them their victuals to fight in the cause of Greece. Aris- tides, making this proposal and bringing back the ambas- sadors into the assembly, charged them to tell the Lacedae- monians, that all the treasure on the earth or under it, was of less value with the people of Athens, than the liberty of Greece. And, showing the sun to those who came from Mar- donius, ‘‘ as long as that retains the same course, so long,” said he, shall the citizens of Athens wage war with the Per- sians for the country which has been wasted, and the temples that have been profaned and burnt by them.” Moreover, he proposed a decree, that the priests should anathematize him who sent any herald to the Medes, or deserted the alliance of Greece. When Mardonius made a second incursion into the coun- try of Attica, the people passed over again into the isle or Salamis. Aristides, being sent to Lacedaemon, reproved them for their delay and neglect in abandoning Athens once more to the barbarians ; and demanded their assistance for that part of Greece, which was not yet lost. The Ephori, hearing this, made show of sporting all day, and of carelessly keeping holy day (for they were then celebrating the Hyacin- thian festival), but in the night, selecting five thousand Spar ARISTIDES. 510 tans, each of whom was attended by seven Helots, they sent them forth unknown to those from Athens. And when Aris- tides again reprehended them, they told him in derision that he either doted or dreamed, for the army was already at Oresteum, in their march towards the strangers; as they called the Persians. Aristides answered, that they jested un- seasonably, deluding their friends, instead of their enemies. Thus says Idomeneus. But in the decree of Aristides, not himself, but Cimon, Xanthippus, and Myronides are ap pointed ambassadors. Being chosen general for the war, he repaired to Plalaea, with eight thousand Athenians, where Pausanias, generalis- simo of all Greece, joined him with the Spartans ; and the forces of the other Greeks came into them. The whole en- campment of the barbarians extended all along the bank of the river Asopus, their numbers being so great, there was no enclosing them all, but their baggage and most valuable things were surrounded with a square bulwark, each side of which was the length of ten furlongs. Tisamenus, the Elean, had prophesied to Pausanias and all the Greeks, and foretold them victory if they made no at- tempt upon the enemy, but stood on their defence. But Aris- tides sending to Delphi, the god answered, that the Athenians should overcome their enemies, in case they made supplication to Jupiter and Juno of Cithaeron, Pan, and the nymphs Sphragitides, and sacrificed to the heroes Androcrates, Leu- con, Pisander, Damocrates, Hypsion, Actaeon, and Polyidus ; and if they fought within their own territories in the plain of Ceres Eleusinia and Proserpine. Aristides was perplexed upon the tidings of this oracle ; since the heroes to whom it commanded him to sacrifice had been chieftains of the Platan ans, and the cave of the nymphs Sphragitides was on the top of Mount Cithaeron, on the side facing the setting sun of sum- mer time \ in which place, as the story goes, there was former- ly an oracle, and many that lived in the district were inspired with it, whom they called Nyrnpholepti^ possessed with the nymphs. But the plain of Ceres Eleusinia, and the offer of victory to the Athenians, if they fought in their own territories, recalled them again, and transferred the war into the countr)^ of Attica. In this juncture, Arimnestus, who commanded the Plataeans, dreamed that Jupiter, the Saviour, asked him what .he Greeks had resolved upon ; and that he answered, “ To-morrow my Lord, we march our army to Eleusis, and there give Ihf barbarians battle according to the directions of the oracle o1 ARISIIDES. Apollo.” And that the god replied, they were utterly mis- taken, for ,that the places spoken of by the oracle were within the bounds of Plataea, and if they sought there they should find them. This manifest vision having ap- peared to Arimnestus, when he awoke he sent for the most aged and experienced of his countrymen, with whom commu- nicating and examining the matter, he found that near Hysiae, at the foot of Mount Cithaeron, there was a very ancient temple called the temple of Ceres Eleusinia and Prosernine He therefore forthwith took Aristides to the place, which was very convenient for drawing up an army of foot, because the slopes at the bottom of the mountain Cithaeron rendered the plain, where it comes up to the temple, unfit for the move- ments of cavalry. Also, in the same place, there was the fane of Androcrates, environed with a thick shady grove. And that the oracle might be accomplished in all particulars for the hope of victory, Arimnestus proposed, and the Plataeans decreed, that the frontiers of their country towards Attica should be removed, and the land given to the Athenians, that they might fight in defence of Greece in their own proper territory. This zeal and liberality of the Plataeans became so famous, that Alexander, many years after, when he had ob- tained the dominion of all Asia, upon erecting the walls of Plataea, caused proclamation to be made by the herald at the Olympic games, that the king did the Plataeans this favor in consideration of their nobleness and magnanimity, because, in the war with the Medes, they freely gave up their land and zealously fought with the Greeks. The Tegeatans, contesting the post of honor with the Athe- nians, demanded that, according to custom, the Lacedaemonians being ranged on the right wing of the battle, they might have the left, alleging several matters in commendation of their an- cestors. The Athenians being indignant at the claim, Aristides came forward : “ To contend with the Tegeatans,” said he, ^ for noble descent and valor, the present time permits not ; but this we say to you, O you Spartans, and you the rest of the Greeks, that place neither takes away nor contributes courage ; we shall endeavor by crediting and maintaining the post you assign us, to reflect no dishonor on our former per- formances. P"or we are come, not to differ with our friends, but to fight our enemies ; not to extol our ancestors, but our- selves to behave as valiant men. This battle will manifest how much each city, captain, and private soldier is worth to Greece.” The council of war, upon this address, decided for the Athenians, and gave them the other wing of the battle. ARISTIDES. 5^2 ^ill Greece being in suspense, and especially the affairs of the Athenians unsettled, certain persons of great families and possessions having been impoverished by the war, and seeing all their authority and reputation in the city vanished with their wealthy and others in possession of their honors and places, convened privately at a house in Plataea, and conspired for the dissolution of the democratic government ; and, if the plot should not succeed, to ruin the cause and betray all to the barbarians. These matters being in agitation in the camp, and many persons already corrupted, Aristides, perceiving the design, and dreading the present juncture of time, determined neither to let the business pass unanimadverted upon, nor yet altogether to expose it ; not knowing how many the accusa- tion mdght reach, and willing to set bounds to his justice with a view to the public convenience. Therefore, of many that were concerned, he apprehended eight only, two of whom, who were first proceeded against and most guilty, ^schines of lyampra, and Agesias of Acharnoe, made their escape out ol the camp. The rest he dismissed ; giving opportunity to such as thought themselves concealed, to take courage and repent ; intimating that they had in the war a great tribunal, where they might clear their guilt by manifesting their sincere and good intentions towards their country. After this, Mardonius made trial of the Grecian courage, by sending his whole number of horse, in which he thought him- self much the stronger, against them, while they were all pitched at the foot of Mount Cith^ron, in strong and rocky places, except the Megarians. They, being three thousand in number, were encamped on the plain, where they were damaged by the horse charging and making inroads upon them on all hands. They sent, therefore, in haste to Pausa- nias, demanding relief, as not being able alone to sustain the great numbers of the barbarians. Pausanias, hearing this, and perceiving the tents of the Megarians already hid by the multitude of darts and arrows, and themselves driven together into a narrow space, was at a loss himself how to aid them with his battalion of heavy-armed Lacedaemonians. He pro- posed it, therefore, as a point of emulation in valor and love of distinction, to the commanders and captains who were around him, if any would voluntarily take upon them the de- fence and succor of the Megarians. The rest being back- ward, Aristides undertook the enterprise for the Athenians, and sent Olympiodorus, the most valiant of his inferior offi- cers, with three hundred chosen men and some archers undei ARISTIDES. S13 his command. These being soon in readiness, and running upon the enemy, as soon as Masistius, who commanded the barbarians’ horse, a man of wonderful courage and of extra- ordinary bulk and comeliness of person, perceived it, turning his steed he made towards them. And they sustaining the shock and joining battle with him, there was a sharp conflict, as though by this encounter they were to try the success of the whole war. But after Masistius’s horse received a wound, and flung nim, and he falling could hardly raise himself thrdbgh the weight of his armor, the Athenians, pressing upon him with blows, could not easily get at his person, armed as he was, his breast, his head, and his limbs all over, with gold and brass and iron ; but one of them at last, running him in at the visor of his helmet, slew him ; and the rest of the Per- sians, leaving the body, fled. The greatness of the Greek success was known, not by the multitude of the slain (for an inconsiderable number were killed), but by the sorrow the barbarians expressed. For they shaved themselves, their horses, and mules for the death of Masistius, and filled the plain with howling and lamentation ; having lost a person, who, next to Mardonius himself, was by many degrees the chief among them, both for valor and authority. After this skirmish of the horse, they kept from fight- ing a long time ; for the soothsayers, by the sacrifices, fore- told the victory both to Greeks and Persians, if they stood upon the defensive part only, but if they became aggressors, the contrary. At length Mardonius, when he had but a few days’ provision, and the Greek forces increased continually by some or other that came into them, impatient of delay, de- termined to lie still no longer, but passing Asopus by day- break, to fall unexpectedly upon the Greeks ; and signified the same over night to the captains of his host. But about midnight, a certain horseman stole into the Greek camp, and coming to the watch, desired them to call Aristides, the Athe- nian, to him. He coming speedily ; I am,” said the stranger “Alexander, king of the Macedonians, and am arrived here tdirough the greatest danger in the world for the good-will I bear you, lest a sudden onset should dismay you, so as to be- have in the fight worse than usual. For to-morrow Mardo- nius will give you battle, urged, not by any hope of success or courage, but by want of victuals ; since, indeed, the prophets prohibit him the battle, the sacrifices and oracles being unfa- vorable ; and the army is in despondency and consternation ; but necessity forces him to try his fortune, or sit still and en 33 ARISTIDES. 514 dure tlie last extremity of want.’’ Alexander, thus saying, entreated Aristides to take notice and remember him, but not to tell any other. But he told him, it was not convenient to conceal the matter from Pausanias (because he was general); as for any other, he would keep it secret from them till the battle was fought ; but if the Greeks obtained the victory, that then no one should be ignorant of Alexander’s good-will ard kindness towards them. After this, the king of the Ma cedonians rode back again, and Aristides went to Pausanias’s tent and told him ; and they sent for the rest of the captains and gave orders that the army should be in battle array. Here, according to Herodotus, Pausanias spoke to Aris- tides, desiring him to transfer the Athenians to the right wing of the army opposite to the Persians (as they would do better service against them, having been experienced in their way of combat, and emboldened with former victories), and to give him the left, where the Medizing Greeks were to make their assault. The rest of the Athenian captains regarded this as an arrogant and interfering act on the part of Pausanias ; be- cause, while permitting the rest of the army to keep their stations, he removed them only from place to place, like so many Helots, opposing them to the greatest strength of the enemy. But Aristides said, they were altogether in the wrong. If so short a time ago they contested the left wing with the Tegeatans, and gloried in being preferred before them, now, when the Lacedaemonians give them place in the right, and yield them in a manner the leading of the army, how is it they are discontented with the honor that is done them, and do not look upon it as an advantage to have to fight, not against their countrymen and kindred, but barbari- ans, and such as were by nature their enemies After this, the Athenians very readily changed places with the Lacedae- monians, and there went words amongst them as they were encouraging each other, that the enemy approached with no better arms or stouter hearts than those who fought the battle of Marathon ; but had the same bows and arrows, and the same embroidered coats and gold, and the same delicate bod'es and effeminate minds within ; ‘‘ while we have the same weapons and bodies, and our courage augmented by our victories ; and fight not like others in defence of our country only, but for the trophies of Salamis and Marathon ; that they may not be looked upon as due to Miltiades or fortune, but to the people of Athens.” Thus, therefore, were they making haste to change the order of their battle. But the ARISTIDES. 5^5 Thebans, understanding it by some deserters, forthwith ac- quainted Mardonius ; and he, either for fear of the Atheni ans, or a desire to engage the Lacedaemonians, marched over his Persians to the other wing, and commanded the Greeks of his party to be posted opposite to the Athenians. But this change was observed on the other side, and Pausanias, wheel- ing about again, ranged himself on the right, and Mardonius, also, as at first, took the left wing over against the Lacedce- monians. So the day passed without action. After this, the Greeks determined in council to remove their camp some distance, to possess themselves of a place convenient for watering ; because the springs near them were polluted and destroyed by the barbarian cavalry. But night being come, and the captains setting out towards the place designed for their camping, the soldiers were not very ready to follow, and keep in a body, but, soon as they had quitted their first entrenchments, made towards the city of Plataea ; and there was much tumult and disorder as they dispersed to various quarters and proceeded to pitch their tents. The Lacedaemonians, against their will, had the fortune to be left by the rest. For Amonpharetus, a brave and daring man, who had long been burning with desire of the fight, and re- sented their many fingerings and delays, calling the removal of the camp a mere running away and flight, protested he would not desert his post, but would there remain with his company, and sustain the charge of Mardonius. And when Pausanias came to him and told him he did do these things by the common vote and determination of the Greeks, Amom- pharetus taking up a great stone and flinging it at Pausanias^ feet, and “ by this token,’^ said he, “ do I give my suffrage for the battle, nor have I any concern with the cowardly consul- tations and decrees of other men.’’ Pausanias, not knowing what to do in the present juncture, sent to the Athenians, who were drawing off, to stay to accompany him ; and so he him- self set off with the rest of the army for Plataea, hoping thus to make Amompharetus move. Meantime, day came upon them ; and Mardonius (for he was not ignorant of their deserting their camp) having his army in array, fell upon the Lacedaemonians with great shout- ing and noise of barbarous people, as if they were not about to join battle, but crush the Greeks in their flight. Which within a very little came to pass. For Pausanias, perceiving what was done, made a halt, and commanded every one to put themselves in order for the battle ; but either through his ARISTIDES. anger with Amompharetus, or the disturbance he was in by reason of the sudden approach of the enemy, he forgot to give the signal to the Greeks in general. Whence it was, that they did not come in immediatel}^ or in a body, to theii assistance, but by small companies and straggling, when the fight was already begun. Pausanias, offering sacrifice, could not procure favorable omens, and so commanded the Lace- daemonians, setting down their shields at their feet, to abide quietly and attend his directions, making no resistance to any of their enemies. And he sacrificing again a second time, the horse charged, and some of the Lacedaemonians were wounded. At this time, also, Callicrates, who we are told, was the most comely man in the army, being shot with an arrow and upon the point of expiring, said, that he lamented not his death (for he came from home to lay down his life in the defence of Greece) but that he died without action. The case was indeed hard, and the forbearance of the men won- derful ; for they let the enemy charge without repelling them • and, expecting their proper opportunity from the gods and their general, suffered themselves to be wounded and slain in their ranks. And some say, that while P.ausanias was at sac- rifice and prayers, some space out of the battle-array, certain Lydians, falling suddenly upon him, plundered and scattered the sacrifice : and that Pausanias and his company, having no arms, beat them with staves and whips ; and that in imitation of this attack, the whipping the boys about the altar, and after it the Lydian procf' .sion, are to this day practised in Sparta. Pausanias, therefore, being troubled at these things, while the priest went on rifering one sacrifice after another, turns himself towards th^ temple with tears in his eyes, and lifting up his hands to heaven, besought Juno of Cithaeron, and the other tutelar gods of the Plataeans, if it were not in the fates for the Greek'i to obtain the victory, that they might not per- ish without performing some remarkable thing, and by their actioAis den onstrating to their enemies, that they waged war with men » i courage, and soldiers. While Pausanias was thus in the ac' of supplication, the sacrifices appeared propitiouSj and the soothsayers foretold victory. The word being given, the La jedaemonian battalion of foot seemed, on the sudden, like same one fierce animal, setting up his bristles, and be- takirg himself to the combat; and the barbarians perceived tha they encountered with men who would fight it to the h. Therefore, holding their wicker-shields before them ARISTIDES. 5^7 they shot their anows amongst the Lacedsemonians. But they, keeping together in the order of a phalanx, and falling upon the enemies, forced their shields out of their hands, and, striking with their pikes at the breasts and faces of the Per- sians, overthrew many of them, who, however, fell not either unrevenged or without courage. For taking hold of the spears with their bare hands, they broke many of them, ar.d betook themselves not without effect to the sword ; and mak- ing use of their falchions and scimitars, and wresting the La cedcemonians’ shields from them, and grappling with them, it was a long time that they made resistance. Meanwhile, for some time, the Athenians stood still, wait- ing for the Lacedaemonians to come up. But when they heard much noise as of men engaged in fight, and a messen- ger, they say, came frum Pausanias, to advertise them of what was going on, they soon hasted to their assistance. And as they passed through the plain to the place where the noise was, the Greeks, who took part with the enemy, came upon them. Aristides, as soon as he saw them, going a considera- ble space before the restj cried out to them, conjuring them by the guardian gods of Greece to forbear the fight, and be no impediment or stop to those who were going to succor the defenders of Greece. But when he perceived they gave no attention to him, and had prepared themselves for the battle, then turning from the present relief of the Lacedaemonians, he engaged them, being five thousand in* number. But the greatest part soon gave way and retreated, as the barbarians also were put to flight. The sharpest conflict is said to have been against the Thebans, the chiefest and most powerful persons among them at that time siding zealously with the Medes, and leading the multitude not according to their own inclinations, but as being subjects of an oligarchy. The battle being thus divided, the Lacedaemonians first beat off the Persians ; and a Spartan, named Arimnestus, slew Mardonius by a blow on the head with a stone, as the oracle in the temple of Amphiaraus had foretold to him. Foi Mardonius sent a Lydian thither, and another person, a Ca- rian, to the cave of Trophonius. This latter, the priest of the oracle answered in his own language. But the Lydian sleeping in the temple of Amphiaraus, it seemed to him that a minister of the divinity stood before him and commanded him to be gone ; and on his refusing to do it, flung a great stone at his head, so that he thought himself slain with the blow. Such is the story. — They drove the fliers withia ARISTIDES. 518 their walls of wood ; and, a little time after, the Athenians put the Thebans to flight, killing three hundred of the chiefest and of greatest note among them in the actual fight itself. For when they began to fly, news came that the army of the barbarians was besieged within their palisade j and so giving the Greeks opportunity to save themselves, they marched to assist at the fortifications ; and coming in to the Lacedaemonians, who were altogether unhandy and unexpe- rienced in storming, they took the camp with great slaughter of the enemy. For of three hundred thousand, forty thousand only are said to have escaped with Artabazus ; while on the Greeks’ side there perished in all thirteen hundred and sixty; of which fifty-two were Athenians, all of the tribe Mantis, that fought, says Clidemus, wuth the greatest courage of any; and for this reason the men of this tribe used to offer sacrifice for the victory, as enjoined by the oracle, to the nymphs Sphragitides at the expense of the public ; ninety-one were Lacedaemonians, and sixteen Tegeatans. It is strange, there- fore, upon w^hat grounds Herodotus can say, that they only, and none other, encountered the enemy ; for the number of the slain and their monuments testify that the victory was ob- tained by all in general ; and if the rest had been standing still, while the inhabitants of three cities only had been en- gaged in the fight, they would not have set on the altar the inscription : The Greeks, when by their courage and their might, They had repelled the Persian in the fight, The common altar of freed Greece to be, Reared this to Jupiter who guards the free. They fought this battle on the fourth day of the month Boe- dromion, according to the Athenians, but according to the Boeotians, on the twenty-seventh of Panemus ; — on which day there is still a convention of the Greeks at Plataea, and the Plataeans still offer sacrifice for the victory to Jupiter of free- dom. As for the difference of days, it is not to be wondered at, since even at the present time, when there is a far more accurate knowledge of astronomy, some begin the month at one time, and some at another. After this, the Athenians not yielding the honor of the day to the Lacedaemonians, nor consenting they should erect a trophy, things were not far from being ruined by dissension among the armed Greeks ; had not Aristides, by much sooth- ing and counselling the commanders, especially Leocrates and Myronides, pacified and persuaded them to leave th^ ARISTIDES. 519 thing to the decision of the Greeks. And c-n their proceeding to discuss the matter, Theogiton, the Megarian, declared the honor of the victory was to be given some other city, if they would prevent a civil war; after him Cleocritus of Corinth rising up, made people think he would ask the palm for the Corinthians (for next to Sparta and Athens, Corinth was in greatest estimation) ; but he delivered his opinion, to the general admiration, in favor of the Plataeans ; and counselled to take away all contention by giving them the reward and glory of the victory, whose being honored could be distaste- ful to neither party. This being said, first Aristides gave consent in the name of the Athenians, and Pausanias, then, for the Lacedaemonians. So, being reconciled, they set apart eighty talents for the Plataeans, with which they built the tem- ple and dedicated the image to Minerva, and adorned the temple with pictures, which even to this very day retain their lustre. But the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, each erected a trophy apart by themselves. On their consulting the oracle about offering sacrifice, Apollo answered, that they should dedicate an altar to Jupiter of freedom, but should not sacri- fice till they had extinguished the fires throughout the coun- try, as having been defiled by the barbarians, and had kindled unpolluted fire at the common altar at Delphi. The magis- trates of Greece, therefore, went forthwith and compelled such as had fire to put it out ; and Euchidas, a Plataean, prom- ising to fetch fire, \?ith all possible speed, from the altar of the god, went to Delphi, and having sprinkled and purified his body, crowned himself with laurel ; and taking the fire from the altar ran back to Plataea, and got back there before sunset, performing in one day a journey of a thousand fur- longs ; and saluting his fellow-citizens and delivering them the fire, he immediately fell down, and in a short time after expired. But the Plataeans, taking him up, interred him in the temple of Diana Euclia, setting this inscription over him : ‘‘Euchidas ran to Delphi and back again in one day.” Most people believe that Euclia is Diana, and call her by that name. But some say she was the daughter of Hercules, by Myrto, the daughter of Menoetius, and sister of Patroclus, 1 nd, d3fing a virgin, was worshipped by the Boeotians and Locrians. Her altar and image are set up in all their mark- et-places, and those of both sexes that are about marrying, sacrifice to her before the nuptials. A general assembly of all the Greeks being called, Aristh des proposed a decree, that the deputies and religious repro* 520 ARISTIDES. sentatives of the Greek states should assemble annually at Plataea, and every fifth year celebrate the Eleutheria or games of freedom. And that there should be a levy upon all Greece for the war against the barbarians, of ten thousand spear-mem one thousand horse, and a hundred sail of ships ; but the Plataeans to be exempt, and sacred to the service of the gods, offering sacrifice for the welfare of Greece. These things be- ing ratified, the Platseans undertook the performance of an- nual sacrifice to such as were slain and buried in that place j whicli they still perform in the following manner. On the s.xteenth day of M^macterion (which with the Boeotians is Alalcomenus) they make their procession, which, beginning by break of day, is led by a trumpeter sounding for onset ; then follow certain chariots loaded with myrrh and garlands ; and then a black bull ; then come the young men of free, birth carrying libations of wine and milk in large two-handed ves- sels, and jars of oil and precious ointments, none of servile condition being permitted to have any hand in this ministra- tion, because the men died in defence of freedom ; after all comes the chief magistrate of Plataea (for whom it is unlawful at other times either to touch iron, or wear any other colored garment but white), at that time apparelled in a purple robe ; and, taking a water-pot out of the city record-office, he pro- ceeds, bearing a sword in his hand, through the middle of the town to the sepulchres. Then drawing water out of a spring, he washes and anoints the monuments,* and sacrificing the bull upon a pile of wood, and making supplication to Jupiter and Mercury of the earth, invites those valiant men who per- ished in the defence of Greece, to the banquet and the liba- tions of blood. After this, mixing a bowl of wine, and pour- ing out for himself, he says, ‘‘ I drink to those who lost their lives for the liberty of Greece.’’ These solemnities the Pla- taeans observe to this day. Aristides perceived that the Athenians, after their return into the city, were eager for a democracy ; and deeming the people to deserve consideration on account of their valiant behavior, as also that it was a matter of difficulty, they being well armed, powerful, and full of spirit with their victories, to oppose them by force, he brought forward a decree, that every one might share in the government, and the archons be chosen out of the whole body of the Athenians. And on The- mistocles telling the people in assembly that he had some ad- vice for them, which could not be given in public, but was most important for the advantage and security of the city ARISTIDES. 52 ^ they appointed Aristides alone to hear and consider it with him. And on his acquainting Aristides that his intent was to set fire to the arsenal of the Greeks, for by that means should the Athenians become supreme masters of all Greece, Aristi- des, returning to the assembly, told them, that nothing was more advantageous than what Themistocles designed, and nothing more unjust. The Athenians, hearing this, gave Themistocles order to desist ; such was the love of justice felt by the people, and such the credit and confidence they reposed in Aristides. Being sent in joint commission with Cimon to the war, he took notice that Pausanias and the other Spartan captains made themselves offensive by imperiousness and harshness to the confederates ; and by being himself gentle and consider- ate with them, and by the courtesy and disinterested temper which Cimon, after his example, manifested in the expeditions, he stole away the chief command from the Lacedaemonians, neither by weapons, ships, or horses, but by equity and wise policy. For the Athenians being endeared to the Greeks by the justice of Aristides and by Cimon’s moderation, the tyr- anny and selfishness of Pausanias rendered them yet more desirable. He on all occasions treated the commanders of the confederates haughtily and roughly ; and the common soldiers he punished with stripes, or standing under the iron anchor for a whole day together ; , neither was it permitted for any to provide straw for themselves to lie on, or forage for their horses, or to come near the springs to water before the Spartans were furnished, but servants with whips drove away such as approached. And when Aristides once was about to complain and expostulate with Pausanias, he told him with an angry look, that he was not at leisure, and gave no atten- tion to him. The consequence was that the sea. captains and generals of the Greeks, in particular, the Chians, Samians, and Lesbians, came to Aristides and requested him to be their general, and to receive the confederates into his com- mand, who had long desired to relinquish the Spartans and come over to the Athenians. But he answered, that he saw both equity and necessity in what they said, but their fidelity required the test of some action, the commission of which would make it impossible for the multitude to change their minds again. Upon which Uliades, the Samian, and Antag- oras of Chios, conspiring together, ran in near Byzantium on Pausanias’s galley, getting her between them as she was sail- ing before the rest. But when Pausanias, beholding them, 522 ARISTIDES. arose up and furiously threatened soon to make them knovf that they had been endangering not his galley, but their own countries, they bid him go his way, and thank Fortune that fought for him at Plataea ; for hitherto, in reverence to that, the Greeks had forborne from inflicting on him the punish- ment he deserved. In fine, they all went off and joined the Athenians. And here the magnanimity of the Lacedaemo- nians was wonderful. For when they perceived that their generals were becoming corrupted by the greatness of their authority, they voluntarily laid down the- chief command, and left off sending anymore of them to me wars, choosing rather to have citizens of moderation and consistent in the observ- ance of their customs, than to possess the dominion of all Greece. Even during the command of the Lacedaemonians, the Greeks paid a certain contribution towards the maintenance of the war ; and being desirous to be rated city by city in their due proportion, they desired Aristides of the Athenians, and gave him command, surveying the country and revenue, to assess every one according to their ability and what they were worth. But he, being so largely empowered, Greece as it were submitting all her affairs to his sole management, went out poor, and returned poorer ; laying the tax not only with- out corruption and injustice, but to the satisfaction and con- venience of all. For as the ancients celebrated the age of Saturn, so did the confederates of Athens Aristides’s taxation, terming it the happy time of Greece ; and that more espe- cially, as the sum was in a short time doubled, and afterwards trebled. For the assessment which Aristides made, was four hundred and sixty talents. But to this Pericles added very near one third part more ; for Thucydides says, that in the beginning of ^the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians had com- ing in from their confederates six hundred talents. But af- ter Pericles’s death, the demagogues, increasing by little and little, raised it to the sum of thirteen hundred talents ; not so much through the war’s being so expensive and chargeable either by its length or ill success, as by their alluring the peo- ple to spend upon largesses and play-house allowances, and in erecting statues and temples. Aristides, therefore, having acquired a wonderful and great reputation by this levy of the tribute, Themistocles is said to have derided him, as if this had been not the commendation of a man, but a money-bag j a retaliation, though not in the same kind, for some free words Which Aristides had used. For he, when Themistocles onct ARISTIDES. 523 was saying that he thought the highest virtue of a general was to understand and foreknow the measures the enemy would take, replied, “ This, indeed, Themistocles, is simply neces- sary, but the excellent thing in a general is to keep his hands from taking money.’’ Aristides, moreover, made all the people of Greece swear to keep the league, and himself took the oath in the name of the Athenians, flinging wedges of red-hot iron into the sea, after curses against such as should make breach of their vow. But afterwards, it would seem, when things were in such a state as constrained them to govern with a stronger hand, he bade the Athenians to throw the perjury upon him, and manage affairs as convenience required. And, in general, Theophrastus tells us, that Aristides w*as, in his own private affairs, and those of his fellow-citizens, rig- orously just, but that in public matters he acted often in accordance with his country’s policy, which demanded, some- times, not a little injustice. It is reported of him that he said in a debate, upon the motion of the Samians for re- moving the treasure from Delos to Athens, contrary to the league, that the thing indeed was not just but was expedient. In fine, having established the dominion of his city over so many people, he himself remained indigent ; and always delighted as much in the glory of being poor, as in that of his trophies ; as is evident from the following story. Callias, the ^orch-bearer, was related to him ; and was prosecuted by his enemies in a capital cause, in which, after they had slightly argued the matters on which they indicted him, they proceeded, besides the point, to address the judges : You know,” said they, “ Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, who is the admiration of all Greece. In what a condition do you think his family is in at his house, when you see him appear in public in such a threadbare cloak ? Is it not probable that one who, out of doors, goes thus exposed to the cold, must ^ want food and other necessaries at home ? Callias, the wealthiest of the Athenians, does nothing to relieve either liim or his wife and children in their poverty, though he is his own cousin, and has made use of him in many cases, and often reaped advantage by his interest with you.” But Cal- lias, perceiving the judges were moved more particularly by this, and v/ere exasperated against him, called in Aristides, requiring him to testify that when he frequently offered him divers presents, and entreated him to accept them, he had re- fused, answering, that it became him better to be proud of 524 ARISTIDES. his poverty than Callias of his wealth ; since there are many to be seen that make a good, or a bad use of riches, but it is difficult, comparatively, to meet with one who supports pover- ty in a noble spirit ; those only should be ashamed of it who incurred it against their wills. On Aristides deposing these facts in favor of Callias, there was none who heard them, that went not away desirous rather to be poor like Aristides, than rich as Callias. Thus ^d^schines, the scholar of Socrates, writes. But Plato declares, that of all the great renowned men in the city of Athens, he was the only one worthy of consideration ; for Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles filled the city with porticoes, treasure, and many other vain things but Aristides guided his public life by the rule of justice He showed his moderation very plainly in his conduct to- wards Themistocles himself. For though Themistocles had been his adversary in all his undertakings, and was the cause of his banishment, yet when he afforded a similar opportunity of revenge, being accused to the city, Aristides bore him no malice ; but while Alcmaeon, Cimon, and many others, were prosecuting and impeaching him, Aristides alone, neither did nor said any ill against him, and no more triumphed over his enemy in his adversity, than he had envied him his prosper- Some say Aristides died in Pontus, during a voyage upon the affairs of the public. Others that he died of old age at Athens being in great honor and venenation amongst his fellow-citizens. But Craterus, tlie Macedonian, relates his death as follows. After the banishment of Themistocles, he says, the people growing insolent, there sprung up a number of false and frivolous accusers, impeaching the best and most influential men and exposing them to the envy of the multi- tude, whom their good fortune and power had filled with self- conceit. Amongst these, Aristides was condemned of bribery upon the accusation ofiDiophantus of Amphitrope, for taking money from the lonians when he was collector of the tribute ; and being unable to pay the fine, which was fifty mina^, sailed * to Ionia, and died there. But of this Craterus brings no written proof, neither the sentence of his condemnation, nor the decree of the people; though in general it is toletiably usual with him to set down such things and to cite his authors. Almost all others who have spoken of the misdeeds of the people towards their generals, co-llect them all together, and tell us of the banishment of Themistocles, Miltiades’s bonds, Pericles’s fine, and the death of Paches in the judgment hall| ARISTIDES. S'^S who, upon receiving sentence, killed himself on the hustings, with many things of the like nature. They add the banish- ment of Aristides ; but of this his condemnation, they make no mention. Moreover, his monument is to be seen at Phalerum, which they say was built him by the city, he not having left enough even to defray funeral charges: And it is stated, that his two daughters were publicly married out of the prytaneum, or State-house, by the city, which decreed each of them three thousand drachmas for her portion ; and that upon his son Lysimachus, the people bestowed a hundred minas of money, and as many acres of pla.nted land, and ordered him be- sides, upon the motion of Alcibiades, four drachmas a day. Furthermore, Lysimachus leaving a daughter, named Poly- crite, as Callisthenes says, the people voted her, also, the same allowance for food with those that obtained the vic- tory in the Olympic Games. But Demetrius the Phalerian, Hieronymus the Rhodian, Aristoxenus the musician, and, Aristotle (if the Treatise of Nobility is to be reckoned among the genuine pieces of Aristotle), say that Myrto, Aristides’s granddaughter, lived with Socrates the philosopher, who indeed had another wife, but took her into his house, being a widow, by reason of her indigence, and want of the necessaries of life. But Panaetius sufficiently confutes this in his books concerning Socrates. Demetrius the Phalerian, in his Socrates, says, he knew one Lysimachus, son to the daughter of Aristides, extremely poor, who used to sit near what is called the laccheum, and sustained himself by a table for interpreting dreams ; and that, upon his proposal and rep- resentations, a decree was passed by the people, to give the mother and aunt of this man half a drachma a day. The same Demetrius, when he was legislating himself, decreed each of these women a drachma per diein. And it is not to be wondered at, that the people of Athens should take such care of people living in the city, since hearing the grand* daughter of Aristogiton was in a low condition in the isle of Lemnos, and so poor nobody would marry her, they brought her back to Athens, and, marrying her to a man of good birth, gave a farm at Potamus as her marriage-portion ; and of similar humanity and bounty the city of Athens, even in our age, has g/ven numerous proofs, and is justly admired and respected in consequence. 526 MARCUS CA lO. MARCUS CATO. Ma^rcus Cato, we are told, was born at Tuscnlum, though (till he betook himself to civil and military affairs) he lived and was bred up in the country of the Sabines, where his father’s estate lay. His ancestors seeming almost entirely unknown, he himself praises his father Marcus, as a worthy man and a brave soldier, and Cato, his great-grandfather, too, as one who had often obtained military prizes, and who, having lost five horses under him, received, on the ac- count of his valor, the worth of them out of the public exchequer. Now it being the custom among the Romans to call those who, having no repute by birth, made them- selves eminent by their own exertions, new men or upstarts, they called even Cato himself so, and so he confessed himself to be as to any public distinction or employment, but yet as- serted that in the exploits and virtues of his ancestors he was very ancient. His third name originally was not Cato, but Priscus, though afterwards he had the surname of Cato, by reason of his abilities ; for the Romans call a skilful experienced man Catus. He was of*^ ruddy^colnplexion, "an^ grey-eyed ; as tne^wricer, who, with no good-will, made the following epigram upon him, lets us see : — Porcius, who snarls at all in every place, With his grey eyes, and with his fiery face, Even after death will scarce admitted be Int© the infernal realms by Plecate. He gained, in early life, a good habit of body by working with his own hands, and living temperately, and serving in war ; and seemed to have an equal proportion both of health and strength. And he exerted and practised his eloquence through all the neighborhood and little villages ; thinking it as requisite as a second body, and an all but necessary or- gan to one who looks forward to something above a mere humble and inactive life. He would never refuse to be counsel for those who needed him, and was, indeed, early reckoned a good lawyer, and, ere long, a capable orator. Hence his solidity and depth of character showed itself gradually, more and more to those with whom he was con cerned, and claimed, as it were, employment in great affairs, MARCUS CATO. and places of public command. Nor did he merely abstain from taking fees for his counsel and pleading, but did not even seem to put any high price on the honor which pro- ceeded from such kind of combats seeming much more desir- ous to signalize himself in the camp and in real fights ; and while yet but a youth, had his breast covered with scars he had received from the enemy : being (as he himself says) but seven- teen years old when he made his first campaign ; in the time when Hannibal, in the height of his success, was burning and pillaging all Italy. In engagements he would strike boldly, without flinching, stand firm to his ground, fix a bold coun- tenance upon his enemies, and with a harsh threatening voice accost them, justly thinking himself and telling others, that such a rugged kind of behavior sometimes terrifies the enemy more than the sword itself. In his marches, he bore his own arms on foot, whilst one servant only followed, to carry the provision for his table, with whom he is said never to have been angry or hasty, whilst he made ready his dinner or sup- per, but would, for the most part, when he was free from military duty, assist and help him himself to dress it. When he was with the army, he used to drink only water ; unless, perhaps, when extremely thirsty, he might mingle it with a little vinegar, or if he found his strength fail him, take a little wine. The little country house of Manius Curius, who had been thrice carried in triumph, happened to be near his farm ; so that often going thither, and contemplating the small compass of the place, and plainness of the dwelling, he formed an idea of the mind of the person, who being one of the greatest of the Romans, and having subdued the most warlike nations, nay, had driven Pyrrhus out of Italy, now, after three tri umphs, was contented to dig in so small a piece of ground, and live in such a cottage. Here it was that the ambassadors of the Samnites, finding him boiling turnips in the chimney corner, offered him a present of gold ; but he sent them away with this saying ; that he, who was content with such a sup- per, had no need of gold ; and that he thought it more honor- able to conquer those who possessed the gold, than to possess the gold itself. Cato, after reflecting upon these things, used to return, and reviewing his own farm, his servants, and housekeeping, increase h>s labor, and retrench all superflu- ous expenses. When Fabius Maximus took Tarentum, Cato, being then but a youth, was a soldier under him ; and being lodged with one 5^8 MARCUS CATO. Nearcbus, a Pythagorean, desired to understand some of his doctrine, and hearing from him the language, which Piato also uses, — that pleasure is evil’s chief bait ; the body the principal calamity of the soul ; and that those thoughts which most separate and take it olf from the affections of the body, most enfranchise and purify it ; he fell in love the more with frugality and temperance. With this exception, he is said not to have studied Greek until when he was pretty old ; and in rhetoric, to have then profited a little by Thucydides, but more by Demosthenes ; his writings, however, are consider- ably embellished with Greek sayings and stories; nay, many of these, translated word for word, are placed with his own apophthegms and sentences. d'here was a man of the highest rank, and very influential among the Romans, called Valerius Flaccus, who was singu- larly skilful in discerning excellence yet in the bud, and also much disposed to nourish and advance it. He, it seems, had lands bordering upon Cato’s : nor could he but admire when he understood from his servants the manner of his living, how he labored with his own hands, went on foot be- times in the morning to the courts to assist those who wanted his counsel ; how, returning home again, when it was winter, he would throw a loose frock over his shoulders, and in the summer time would work without any thing on among his domestics, sit down wdth them, eat of the same bread, and drink of the same wine. When they spoke, also, of other good qualities, his fair dealing and moderation, mentioning also some of his wise sayings, he ordered, that he should be invited to supper ; and thus becoming personally assured of his fine temper and his superior character which, like a plant, seemed only to require culture and a better situation, he urged and persuaded him to apply himself to state affairs at Rome. Thither, therefore, he went, and by his pleading soon gained many friends and admirers ; but, Valerius chieflj assisting his promotion, he first of all got appointed tribune ii the army, and afterwards was made quaestor, or treasurer. And now becoming eminent and noted, he passed, with Vale- rius himself, through the greatest commands, being first his colleague as consul, and then censor. But among all the ancient senators, he most attached himself to Fabius Maxi- mus ; not so much for the honor of his person, and the great- ness of his power, as that he might have before him his habit and manner of life, as the best examples to follow ; and so he did not hesitate to oppose Scipio the Great, who, being MARCUS CATO. 529 then but a young man, seemed to set himself against the power of Fabius, and to be envied by him. For being sent together with him as treasurer, when he saw him, according to his natural custom, make great expenses, and distribute among the soldiers without sparing, he freely told him that the expense in itself was not the greatest thing to be consid- ered, but that he was corrupting the frugality of the soldiers, by giving them the means to abandon themselves to unneces- sary pleasures and luxuries. Scipio answered, that he had no need for so accurate a treasurer (bearing on as he was, so to say, full sail to the war), and that he owed the people an account of his actions, and not of the money he spent. Here- upon Cato returned from Sicily and, together with Fabius, made loud complaints in the open senate of Scipio’s lavishing unspeakable sums, and childishly loitering away his time in wrestling matches and comedies, as if he were not to make war, but holiday • and thus succeeded in getting some of the tribunes of the people sent to call him back to Rome, in case the accusations should prove true. But Scipio demonstrating, as it were, to them, by his preparations, the coming victory, and, being found merely to be living pleasantly with his friends, when there was nothing else to do, but in no respect because of that easiness and liberality at all the more negli- gent in things of consequence and moment, without impedi- ment, set sail toward the war. Cato grew more and more powerful by his eloquence, so that he was commonly called the Roman Demosthenes ; but his manner of life was yet more famous and talked of. For oratorical skill was, as an accomplishment, commonly studied and sought after by all young men ; but he was very rare who would cultivate the old habits of bodily labor, or prefer a light supper, and a breakfast: which never saw the fire, or be in love with poor clothes and a homely lodging, or could set k.is ambition rather on doing without luxuries than on possess- ing them. For now the state, unable to keep its purity by season of its greatness, and having so many affairs, and peo- ple from all parts under its government, was fain to admit many mixed customs, and new examples of living. With reason, therefore, everybody admired Cato, when they saw others sink under labors, and grow effeminate by pleasures ; and yet beheld him unconquered by either, and that not only when he was young and desirous of honor, but also when old and grey-headed, after a consulship and triumph; like some famous victor in the games, persevering 'n his exercise and 530 MARCUS CATO. maintaining his character to the very last. He himself says, that he never wore a suit of clothes which cost more than a hundred drachmas ; and that, when he was general and consul, he drank the same wine which his workmen did ; and that the meat or fish which was bought in the meat market for his dinner, did not cost above thirty asses. All which was for the sake of the comnonwealth, that so his body might be the hardier for the war. Having a piece of embroidered Babylo- nian tapestry left him, he sold it ; because none of his farm- houses were so much as plastered. Nor did he ever buy a slave for above fifteen hundred drachmas ; as he did not seek for effeminate and handsome ones, but able sturdy workmen, horse-keepers and cow-herds : and these he thought ought to be sold again, when they grew old, and no useless servants fed in the house. In short, he reckoned nothing a good bar- gain, which was superfluous ; but whatever it was, though sold for a farthing, he would think it a great price, if you had no need of it ; and was for the purchase of lands for sowing and feeding, rather than grounds for sweeping and watering. Some imputed these things to petty avarice, but others approved of him, as if he had only the more strictly denied himself for the rectifying and amending of others. Yet cer tainly, in my judgement, it marks an over-rigid temper, for a man to take the work out of his servants as out of brute ceasts, turning them off and selling them in their old age, and thinking there ought to be no further commerce between man and man, than whilst there arises some profit by it. We see that kindness or humanity has a larger field than bare justice to exercise itself in ; law and justice we cannot, in the nature of things, employ on others than men ; but we may extend our goodness and charity even to irrational creatures ; and such acts flow from a gentle nature, as water from an abundant spring. It is doubtless the part of a kind-natured man to keep even worn-out horses and dogs, and not only take :are of them when they are foals and whelps, but also when they are grown old. The Athenians, when they built their Hecatompedon, turned those mules loose to feed freely, which they had ooserved to have done the hardest labor. One of these (they say) came once of itself to offer its service, and ran along with, nay, and went before, the teams which drew the wagons up to the acropolis, as if it would incite and encourage them to draw more stoutly ; upon which there passed a vote, that the creature should be kept at the public charge even till it died. The graves of Cimon's horses, which MARCUS CATO. S3J thrice won the Olympian races, are yet to be seen close by his own monument. Old Xanthippus, too (amongst many others who buried the dogs they had bred up), entombed his which swam after his galley to Salamis, when the people fled from Athens, on the top of a cliff, which they call the dog’s tomb to this day. Nor are we to use living creatures like old shoes or dishes, and throw them away when they are wcrn out or broken with service ; but if it were for nothing eise, but b) way of study and practice in humanity, a man ought always to prehabituate himself in these things to be of a kind and sweet disposition. As to myself, I would not s© much as sell my draught ox on the account of his age, much less for a small piece of money sell a poor old man, and so chase him, as it were, from his own country, by turning him not only out of the place where he has lived a long while, but also out of the manner of living he has been accustomed to, and that more especially when he would be as useless to the buyer as to the seller. Yet Cato for all this glories that he left that very horse in Spain, which he used in the wars when he was consul, only because he would not put the public to the charge of his freight. Whether these acts are to be ascribed to the greatness or pettiness of his spirit, let every one argue as they please. For his general temperance, however, and self-control, he really deserves the highest admiration. For when he com- manded the army, he never took for himself, and those that belonged to him, above three bushels of wheat for a month, and somewhat less than a bushel and a half a day of barley for his baggage-cattle. And when he entered upon the gov- ernment of Sardinia, where his predecessors had been used to require tents, bedding, and clothes upon tlie public account, and to charge the state heavily with the cost of provisions and entertainments for a great train of servants and friends, the difference he showed in his economy was somethinng in- credible. There was nothing of any sort for which he put the public to expense ; he would walk without a carriage to visit the cities, with one only of fhe common town officers, who carried his dress, and a cup to offer libation with. Yet though he seemed thus easy and sparing to all who we’^e under his power, he, on the other hand, showed most inflexible severity and strictness in what related to public justice, and was rig- orous and precise in what concerned the ordinances of the commonwealth ; so that the Roman government never seemed more terrible, nor yet more mild than under his administration. 532 MARCUS CATO. His ver}" manner of speaking seemed to have such a kind of idea with it ; for it was courteous, and yet forcible ; pleas- ant, yet overwhelming ; facetious, yet austere ; sententious, and yet vehement : lik'e Socrates, in the description of Plato, who seemed outwardly to those about him to be but a simple, talkative, blunt fellow ; whilst at the bottom he was full of such gravity and matter, as would even mcve tears, and touch the very hearts of his auditors. And, therefore, I know not what has persuaded some to say, that Cato’s style was chiefly like that of Lysias. However, let us leave those to judge of these things, who profess most to distinguish between the several kinds of oratorical style in Latin ; whilst we write down some of his memorable sayings ; being of the opinion that a man’s character appears much more by his words, than, as some think it does, by his looks. Being once desirous to dissuade the common people of Rome from their unseasonable and impetuous clamor for largesses and distributions of corn, he began thus to harangue them : “ It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears.” Reproving, also, their sumpt- uous habits, he said, it was hard to preserve a city where a fish sold for more than an ox. He had a saying, also, that the Roman people were like sheep ; for they, when single, do not obey, but when altogether in a flock, they follow their leaders : ‘‘ So you,” said he, “ when you have got together in a body, let yourselves be guided by those whom singly you would never think of being advised by.” Discoursing of the power of women : Men,” said he, “ usually command women ; but we command all men, and the w^omen command us.” But this, indeed, is borrowed from the sayings of Themistocles, who, when his son w^as making many demands of him by means of the mother, said, “ O w^oman, the Athenians govern the Greeks ; I govern the Athenians, but you govern me, and your son governs you-; so let him use his power sparingly, ^nce, simple as he is, he can do more than all the Greeks together.” Another saying of Cato’s was, that the Roman people did not only fix the value of such and such purple dyes, but also of such and such habits of life : ‘‘ For,” said he, as dyers most of all dye such colors as they see to be most agreeable, so the young men learn, and zealously affect wffiat is most popular with you.” He also exhorted them, that if they were grown great by their virtue and temperance, they should not change for the worse ; but if intemperance Z'pA vice had made them great, they should change for the MARCUS CATO. 533 better ; for by that means they were grown indeed quite great enough. He would say, likewise, of men who wanted to be continually in office, that apparently they did not know their road ; since they could not do wdthout beadles to guide them on it. He also reproved the citizens for choosing still the same men as their magistrates : For you will seem,” said he, “ either not to esteem government worth much, or to think few worthy to hold it.” Speaking, too, of a certain enemy of his, who lived a very base and discreditable life i “ It is considered,” he said, “rather as a curse than a bless- ing on him, that this fellow’s mother prays that she may leave him behind her.” Pointing at one who had sold the land which his father had left him, and which lay near* the sea- side, he pretended to express his wonder at his being stronger even than the sea itself; for what it washed away with a great deal of labor, he with a great deal of ease drank away. When the senate, with a great deal of splendor, received king Eumenes on his visit to Rome, and the chief citizens strove who should be most about him, Cato appeared to re- gard hiiii with suspicion and apprehension ; and when one that stood by, too, took occasion to say, that he was a very good prince and a great lover of the Romans : “ It may be so,” said Cato ; “but by nature this same animal of a king, is a king of man-eater ; ” nor, indeed, were there ever kings who deserved to be compared with Epaminodas, Pericles, Themistocles, Manius Curius, or Hamilcar, surnamed Barcas. He used to say, too, that his enemies envied him, because he had to get up every day before light, and neglect his own business to follow that of the public. He would also tell you that he had rather be deprived of the reward for doing well, than not to suffer the punishment for doing ill ; and that he could pardon all offenders but himself. The Romans having sent three ambassadors to Bithynia, of whom one was gouty, another had his skull trepanned, and the other seemed little better than a fool, Cato, laughing, gave out, that the Romans had sent an embassy which had neither feet, head, nor heart. His interest being entreated by Scipio, on account of Polybius, for the Achsean exiles, and there happening to be a great discussion in the senate about it, some being for, and some against their return, Cato, stand- ing up, thus delivered himself: “Here do we sit all day long, as if we had nothing to do, but beat our brains whether these old Greeks should be carried to their graves by the bearers here, or by those in Achsea.” The senate voting their return, 534 MARCUS CATO. it seems that a few days after, Polybius’s friends furthei wished that it should be further moved in the senate, that the said banished persons should receive again the honors which they first had in Ach^a ; and, to this purpose, they sounded Cato for his opinion ; but he, smiling, answered, that Po- lybius, Ulysses like, having escaped out of the Cyclops’ den, wanted, it woukl seem, to go back again because he had left his cajD and belt behind him. He used to assert, also, that wise men profited more by fools, than fools by wise men ; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men. He would pro- fess, too, that he was more taken with young men that blushed, than with those who looked pale ; and that he never desired to have a soldier that moved his hands too much in marching, and his feet too much in fighting ; or snored louder than he shouted. Ridiculing a fat, overgrown man : “What use,” said he, “ can the state turn a man’s body to, when all between the throat and groin is taken up by the belly ? ” When one who was much given to pleasures desired his ac- quaintance, begging his pardon, he said he could not live with a man whose palate was of a quicker sense than his heart. He would likewise say, that the soul of a lover lived in the body of another : and that in his whole life, he most repented of three things ; one was, that he had trusted a secret to a woman ; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land ; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment. Applying him- self to an old man who was committing some vice : “Friend,” said he, “old age has of itself blemishes enough ; do not you add to it the deformity of vice.” Speaking to a tribune, who was reputed a prisoner, and was very violent for the bringing in of a bill, in order to make a certain law: “Young man,” cried he, “ I know not which would be better, to drink what you mix, or confirm what you would put up for a law.” Be- ing reviled by a fellow who lived a profligate and wicked life ; “A contest,” replied he, “is unequal between you and me ; for you can hear ill words easily, and can as easily give them : but it is unpleasant to me to give «uch, and unusual to hear them.” Such was his manner of expressing himself in his memorable sayings. Being chosen consul, with his friend and familiar Valer’us riaccus, the government of that part of Spain which the Romans called the Hither Spain, fell to his lot. Here, as he was engaged in reducing some of the tribes by force, and MARCUS CATO. S35 bringins^ over others by good words, a large aimy of bar- barians fell upon him, so that there was danger of being dis- gracefully forced out again. He therefore called upon his neighbors, the Celtiberians, for help ; and on their demand- ing two hundred talents for their assistance everybody else thought it intolerable, that even the Romans snould promise barbarians a reward for their aid ; but Cato said, there was no discredit or harm in it ; for, if they overcame, they wou.d pay them out of the enemy’s purse, and not out of their own ; but if they were overcome, there would be nobody left either to demand the reward or to pay it. However, he won that battle completely, and after that, all his other affairs suc- ceeded splendidly. Polybius says, that by his command, the walls of all the cities on this side the river Boetis were in one day’s time demolished, and yet there were a great many of them full of brave and warlike men. Cato himself says, that he took more cities than he stayed days in Spain. Neither is this a mere rhodomontade, if it be true, that the number was four hundred. And though the soldiers themselves had got much in the fights, yet he distributed a pound of silver to every man of them, saying, it was better, that many of the Romans should return home with silver, rather than a few with gold. For himself, he affirms, that of all the things that were taken, nothing came to him beyond what he ate and drank. “ Neither do I find fault,” continued he, with those that seek to profit by these spoils, but I had rather compete in valor with the best, than in wealth with the richest, or with the most covetous in love of money.” Nor did he merely keep himself clear from taking any thing, but even all those who more immediately belonged to him. He had five servants with him in the army ; one of whom called Paccus, bought three boys, out of those who were taken captive ; which Cato coming to understand, the man, rather than venture into his presence, hanged himself. Cato sold the boys, and carried the price he got for them into the public exchequer. Scipio the Great, being his enemy, and desiring, whilst he was carrying all things so successfully, to obstruct him, and take the affairs of Spain into his own hands, succeeded in getting himself appointed his successor in the government, and, making all possible haste, put a term to Cato’s au thority. But he, t iking with him a convoy of five cohorts of foot, and five hundred horse to attend him home, over threw by the way the Lacetanians, and taking from them six hundred deserters, caused them all to be beheaded : upon 53 ^ MARCUS CATO. which Scipio seemed to be in indignation, but Cato, in mock disparagement of himself, said, “ Rome would be- come great indeed, if the most honorable and great men would not yield up the first place of valor to those who were more obscure, and when they who were of the commonalty (as he himself was) would contend in valor with those who were most eminent in birth and honor.’’ The senate having voted to change nothing of what had been established by Cato, the government passed away under Scipio to no maniiei of purpose, in idleness and doing nothing ; and so diminished his credit much more than Cato’s. Nor did Cato, who now received a triumph, remit after this and slacken the reins of virtue, as many do, who strive not so much for virtue’s sake, as for vain glory, and having attained the highest honors, as the consulship and triumphs, pass the lest of their life in pleasure and idleness, and quit all public affairs. But he, like those who are just entered upon public life for the first time, and thirst after gaining honor and glory in some new office, strained himself, as if he were but just setting out; and offering still publicly his service to his friends and citizens, would give up neither his pleadings nor his soldiery. He accompained and assisted Tiberius Sempronius, as his lieutenant, when he went into Thrace and to the Danube ; and, in the quality of tribune, went with Manius Acilius into Greece, against Antiochus the Great, who, after Hannibal, more than any one struck terror into the Romans. For hav- ing reduced once more under a single command almost the whole of Asia, all, namely, that Seleucus. Nicator had pos- sessed, and having brought into obedience many warlike na- tions of the barbarians, he longed to fall upon the Romans, as if they only were now worthy to fight with him. So across he came with his forces, pretending, as a specious cause of the war, that it was to free the Greeks, who had indeed no need of it, they having been but newly delivered from the power of king Philip and the Macedonians, and made inde- pendent, with the free use of their own laws, by the goodness of the Romans themselves : so that all Greece was in com- motion and excitement, having been corrupted by the hopes of royal aid which the popular leaders in their cities put them into. Manius, therefore, sent ambassadors to the different cities ; and Titus Flamininus (as is written in the account of him) suppressed and quieted most of the attempts of the in- novators, without any trouble. Cato brought over the Corinth- ians, those of Patrse and of ^gium, and spent a good deal MARCUS CATO. 537 of time at Athens. There is also an oration cf his said to be extant which he spoke in Greek to the people ; in which he expressed his admiration of the virtue of the ancient Athe- nians, and signified that he came with a great deal of pleasure to be a spectator of the beauty and greatness of iheir city. But this is a fiction ; for he spoke to the Athenians by an in- terpreter, though he was able to have spoken himself ; but he wished to observe the usage of his own country, and laughed at those who admired nothing but what was in Greek. Jest- ing upon Postumius Albinus, who had written an historical work in Greek, and requested that allowances might be made for his attempt, he said, that allowance indeed might be made, if he had do'ne it under the express compulsion of an Amphictyonic decree. The Athenians, he says, admired the quickness and vehemence of his speech ; for an interpreter would be very long in repeating what he expressed with a great deal of brevity ; but on the whole he professed to believe, that the words of the Greeks came only from their lips, whilst those of the Romans came from their hearts. Now Antiochus, having occupied with his army the narrow passages about Thermopylae, and added palisades and walls to the natural fortifications of the place, sat down there, think- ing he had done enough to divert the war ; and the Romans, indeed, seemed wholly to despair of forcing the passage ; but Cato, calling to mind the compass and circuit which the Per- sians had formerly made to come at this place, went forth in the night, taking along with him part of the army. Whilst they were climbing up, the guide, who was a prisoner, missed the way, and wandering up and down by impracticable and precipitous paths, filled the soldiers with fear and despond- ency. Cato, perceiving the danger, commanded all the rest to halt, and stay where they were, whilst he himself, taking along with him one Lucius Manlius, a most expert man at climbing mountains, went forward with a great deal of labor and danger, in the dark night, and without the least moon- shine, among the wild olive trees, and steep craggy rocks, there being nothing but precipices and darkness before their eyes, till they struck into a little pass which they thought might lead down into the energy’s camp. There they put up marks upon some conspicuous peaks which surmount the hill called Callidromon, and, returning again, they led the army along with them to the said marks, till they got into their little path again, and there once made a halt; but when they began to go further, the path deserted them at a precipice, where 538 MARCUS CATO. they were in another strait and fear; nor did they perceive that they were all this while near the enemy. And now the day began to give some light, when they seemed to hear a noise, and presently after to see the Greek trenches and the guard at the foot of the rock. Here, therefore, Cato halted Ins forces, and commanded the troops from Firmum only, without the rest, to stick by him, as he had always found them faithful and ready. And when they came up and former] around him in close order, he thus spoke to them. “ I desire,^* he said, to take one of the enemy alive, that so I may un- derstand what men these are who guard the passage ; their number ; and with what discipline, order, and preparation they expect us ; but this feat,” continued he, ‘‘ must be an act of a great deal of quickness and boldness, such as that of lions, when they dart upon some timorous animal.” Cato had no sooner thus expressed himself, but the Firmans forthwith rushed down the mountain, just as they were, upon the guard, and, falling unexpectedly upon them, affrighted and dispersed them all. One armed man they took, and brought to Cato, who quickly learned from him, that the rest of the forces lay in the narrow passage about the king; that those who kept the tops of the rocks were six hundred choice ^tolians. Cato, therefore, despising the smallness of their number and carelessness, forthwith drawing his sword, fell upon them with a great noise of trumpets and shouting. The enem)^, perceiving them thus tumbling, as it were, upon them from the precipices, flew to the main body, and put all things into disorder there. In the mean time, whilst Manius was forcing the works below; and pouring the thickest of his forces into the narrow passages, Antiochus was hit in the mouth with a stone so that his teeth being beaten out by it, he felt such excessive pain, that he was fain to turn away with his horse ; nor did any part of his army stand the shock of the Romans. Yet, though there seemed no reasonable hope of flight, where all patlis were so difficult, and where there were deep marshes and steep rocks, which looked as if they were ready to receive those who should stumble, the fugitives, nevertheless, crowd- ing and pressing together in the narrow passages, destroyed even one another in their terror of the swords and blows of the enemy. Cato (as it plainly appears) was never overspar- ing of his own praises, and seldom shunned boasting of any exploit ; which quality, indeed, he seems to have thought the natural accompaniment of great actions ; and with these par- MARCUS CATO. 539 ticiilar exploits he was highly puffed up ; he says, that those who saw him that day pursuing and slaying the enemies, were ready to assert, that Cato owed not so much to the public, as the public did to Cato ; nay, he adds, that Manius the consul, coming hot from the fight, embraced him for a great while, when both were all in a sweat; and then cried out with joy, that neither he himself, no, nor all the people together, could ^ make him a recompense equal to his actions. After the fight he was sent to Rome, that he himself might be the messenger of it : and so, with a favorable wind, he sailed to Brundusium, and in one day got from thence to Tarentum ; and having travelled four days more, upon the fifth, counting from the time of his landing, he arrived at Rome, and so brought the first news of the victory himself ; and filled the whole city with joy and sacrifices, and the people with the belief, that they w^ere able to conquer every sea and every land. These are pretty nearly all the eminent actions of Cato, relating to military affairs : in civil policy, he was of opinion, that one chief duty consisted in accusing and indicting crimi- nals. He himself prosecuted many, and he would also assist others who prosecuted them, nay would even procure such, as he did the Petilii against Scipio ; but not being able to destroy him, by reason of the nobleness of his family, and the real greatness of his mind, which enabled him to trample all cal- umnies underfoot, Cato at last would meddle no more with him ; yet joining with the accusers against Scipio’s brother Lucius, he succeeded in obtaining a sentence against him, which condemned him to the payment of a large sum of money to the state ; and being insolvent, and in danger of being thrown into jail, he was, by the interposition of the trib- unes of the people, with much ado dismissed. It is also said of Cato, that when he met a certain youth, who had effected the disgrace of one of his father’s enemies, walking in the market-place, he shook him by the hand, telling him, that this was what we ought to sacrifice to our dead parents-— not lambs and goats, but the tears and condemnations of their adversaries. But neither did he himself escape with impunity in his management of affairs ; for if he gave his enemies but the least hold, he was still in danger, and exposed to be brought to justice. He is reported to have escaped at least fifty indictments ; and one above the rest which was the last, when he was eighty-six years old, about which time he uttered the well-known saying, that it was hard for him who had liwid with one generation of men, to plead now before 540 MARCUS CATO. another. Neither did he make this the least of his lawsuits j for, four years after, when he was fourscore and ten, he ac- cused Servilius Galba : so that his life and actions extended, we may say, as Nestor's did, over three ordinary ages of man. For, having had many contests, as we have related, with Scipio the Great, about affairs of state, he continued them down to Scipio the younger, who was the adopted grandson of the former, and the son of that Paulus, who overthrew Per- seus and the Macedonians. Ten years after his consulship, Cato stood for the office of censor, which was indeed the summit of all honor, and in a manner the highest step in civil affairs ; for besides all other power, it had also that of an inquisition into every one's life and manners. For the Romans thought that no marriage or rearing of children, nay, no feast or drinking-bout ought to be permitted ?';cording to everyone's appetite or fancy, without being examined and inquired into ; being indeed of opinion, that a man's character was much sooner perceived in things of this sort than in what is done publicly and in open day. They chose, therefore, two persons, one out of the patri- cians, the other out of the commons, who were to watch, correct, and punish, if any one ran too much into voluptuous- ness, or transgressed the usual manner of life of his country ; and these they called Censors. They had power to take away a horse, or expel out of the senate any one who lived in temperately and out of order. It was also their business to take an estimate of what every one was worth, and to put down in registers everybody's birth and quality ; besides many other prerogatives. And therefore the chief nobility opposed his pretensions to it. Jealousy prompted the patricians, wlio thought that it would be a stain to everybody's nobility, if men of no original honor should rise to the highest dignity and power ; while others conscious of their own evil practices, and of the violation of the laws and customs of their country, were afraid of the austerity of the man ; which, in an office of such great power, was likely to prove most uncompromising and severe. And so, consulting among themselves, they brought forward se/en candidates in opposition to him, who sedulously set themselves to court the people's favor by fair promises, as though what they wished for was indulgent and easy government, ^to, on the contrary, promising no such mildness, but plainly mreatening evil livers, from the very hustings openly declared Tnfhself , and exHaiming, that the city needed a great and thorough purgation, called upon the MARCUS CATO. 541 people, if they were wise, not to choose the gentlest, but the roughest of physicians ; such a one, he said, he was, and Valerius Flaccus, one of the patricians, another; together with him, he doubted not but he should do something worth the while, and that, by cutting to pieces and burning like a hydra, all luxury and voluptuousness. He added, too, that he saw all the rest endeavoring after the office with ill intent, because they were afraid of those who would exercise it justly, as they ought. And so truly great and so worthy of great men to be its leaders was, it would seem, the Roman people, that they did not fear the severity and grim countenance of Cato, but rejecting those smooth promisers who were ready to do all things to ingratiate themselves, they took him, to- gether with Flaccus ; obeying his recommendations not as though he were a candidate, but as if he had had the actual power of commanding and governing already. Cato named as chief of the senate, his friend and col- league Lucius Valerius Flaccus, and expelled, among many others, Lucius Quintius, who had been consul seven years before, and (which was greater honor to him than the consul- ship) brother to that Titus Flamininus. who overthrew king Philip. The reason he had for his expulsion, was this. Lucius, it seems, took along with him in all his commands, a youth, whom he had kept as his companion from the flower of his age, and to whom he gave as much power and respect as to the chiefest of his friends and relations. Now it happened that Lucius being consular governor of one of the provinces, the youth setting himself down by him, as he used to do, among other flatteries with which he played upon him, when he was in his cups, told him he loved him so dearly that, “ though there was a show of gladiators to be seen at Rome, and he said, “ had never beheld one in my life ; and though I, as it were, longed to see a man killed, yet I made all possible haste to come to you.'*’ Upon this Lucius, returning his fondness, replied, “Do not be melancholy on that account ; I can remedy that.” Ordering therefore, forthwith, one of those condemned to die to be brought to the feast, together with the headsman and axe, he asked the youth if he wished to see him executed. The boy answering that he did, Lucius commanded the executioner to cut off his neck ; and this several historians mention ; and Cicero, in- deed, in his dialogue de Seiiectnte^ introduces Cato relating it himself. But Livy says, that he that was killed was a Gaulish deserter, and that Lucius did not execute him by the stroke 542 MARCUS CATO. of the executioner, but with his own hand ; and that it is so stated in Cato’s speech. Lucius being thus expelled out of the senate by Cato, his brother took it very ill, and appealing to the people, desired that Cato should declare liis, reasons ; and when he began to relate this transaction of the feast, Lucius endeavored to deny it ; but Cato challenging him to a formal investigation, he fell off and refused it, so that he was then acknowledged to suffer deservedly. Afterwards, however, when there was some show at the theatre, he passed by the seats where those who had been consuls used to be placed, and taking his seat a great way off, excited the compassion of the common peo- ple, who presently with a great noise ’made him go forward, and as much as they could, tried to set right and salve over what had happened. Manilius, also, who, according to the public expectation, would have been next consul, he threw out of the senate, because, in the presence of his daughter, and in open day, he had kissed his wife. He said, that as for himself, his wife never came into his arms except when there was great thunder ; so that it was for jest with him, that it was a pleasure for him, when Jupiter thundered. His treatment of Lucius, likewise the brother of Scipio, and one who had been honored with a triumph, occasioned some odium against Cato ; for he took his horse from him, and was thought to do it with a design of putting an affront on Scipio Africanus, now dead. But he gave most general annoyance, by retrenc hing people’s lux ury ; for though (most of the youth bemg thereby already corrupted) it seemed almost im- possible jto take it away with an open hand and directly, yet, going, as it were, obliquely around, he caused all dress carriages, women’s ornaments, household furniture, whose price exceeded one thousand five hundred drachmas, to be rated at ten times as much as they were worth ; intending by thus mak ing the assessments greater , to increase t he taxes pa id upon theujLR He also ordained th^H^n every thousand asses oT^property of this kind, three should be paid, so that people, burdened with these extra charges, and seeing others of as good estates, but more frugal and sparing, paying less into the public exchequer, might be tired out of their prod- igality. And thus, on the one side, not only those wer^ dis- gusted at Cato, who bore the taxes for the sake of their lux-* ury, but those, too, who on the other side laid by their luxury for fear of the taxes. For people in general reckon, that an order not to display their riches, is equivalent to the MARCUS CATO. 543 taking away of their riches, because riches are seen much more in superfluous, than in necessary things. Indeed this was what excited the wonder of Ariston the philosopher ; that we account those who possess superfluous things more happy than those who abound with what is necessary and useful. But when one of his friends asked Scopas, the rich Thessalian, to give him some article of no great utility, saying that it was not a thing that he had any great need or use foi himself. ‘‘ In truth,’’ replied he, “ it is just these useless and unnecessary things that make my wealth and happiness.’^ Thus the desire of riches does not proceed from a natural passion within us, but arises rather from vulgar out-of-doors opinion of other people. Cato, notwithstanding, being little solicitous as to those who exclaimed against him, increased his austerity. He caused the pipes, through which some persons brought the public water into their houses and gardens, to be cut, and threw down all buildings which jutted out into the common streets. He beat down also the price in contracts for pubi^ wor ks to * the lowest, and raised it inc^tracts for farming the taxes to the highest sum ; by which proceedings he drew a great deal of hatred upon hmself. Those who were of Titus Flamininus’s party cancelled in the senate all the bargains and contracts made by him for the repairing and carrying on of the sacred and public buildings, as unadvantageous to the commonwealth. They incited also the boldest of the tribunes of the people to accuse him and to fine him tw^o talents. They likewise much opposed him in buil ding the court or bas ilica, which he caused to be erected at the common charge, just by the senate-house, in the market-pTac^'Irn^ca^ by Tiis own name, the Porcian. However, the people, it seems, liked his censorship wondrously well ; for, setting up a statue for him in the temple of the goddess of Health, they put an in- scription under it, not recording his commands in war or his triumph, but to the effect, that this was Cato the Censor, who, by his good discipline and wise and temperate ordinances, reclaimed the Roman commonwealth when it was declining and sinking down into vice. Before this honor was done to himself, he used to laugh at those who loved such kind of things, saying, that they did not see that they were taking pride in the workmanship of brass-founders and painters ; whereas the citizens bore about his best likeness in their breasts. And when any seemed to wonder, that he should have never a statue, while many ordinary persons had one, S44 MARCUS CATU. “ I wouid ’’ said he, much rather be asked, why I ha:ve not one, than why I have one.” In short, he would not have any honest. .citizen endure to be praised, except it might prove advantageous to'thLe''commonwealth. Yet still he had passed the highest commendation on himself ; for he tells us that those who did any thing wrong, and were found fault with, used to say, it was not worth while to blame them ; for they were not Catos. He also adds, that they who awkwardly mimicked some of his actions, were called left-handed Catos ; and that the senate in perilous times would cast their eyes on him, as upon a pilot in a ship, and that often when he was not present they put off affairs of greatest consequence. These things are indeed also testified of him by others; for he had a great authority in the city, alike for his his life, his eloquence, and his age. He was also a good father, an excellent husband to his wife, and an extraordinary economist ; and as he did not manage his affairs of this kind carelessly, and as things of little moment, I think I ought to record a little further whatever was commendable in him in these points. He married a wife more noble than rich ; being of opinion, that the rich and the high-born are equally haughty and proud ; but that those of noble blood, would be more ashamed of base things, and consequent!} more obedient to their husbands in all that was fit and right. A man who beat his wife or child, laid violent hands, he said, on what was most sacred ; and a good husband he reckoned worthy of more praise than a great senator ; and he admired the ancient Socrates for nothing so much, as for having lived a temperate and contented life with a wife who was a scold, and children who were half- whted. As soon as he had a son born, though he had never such urgent business upon his hands, unless it were some public matter, he would be by when his wife washed it, and dressed it in its swaddling clothes. For she herself suckled it, nay, she often too gave her breast to her servants’ children, to pro- duce, by sucking the same milk, a kind of natural love in them to her son. When he began to come to years of discretion, Cato, himself, would teach him to read, although he had a servant, a very good grammarian, called Chilo, who taught many others ; but he thought not fit, as he himself said, to have his son reprimanded by a slave, or pulled, it may be, by the ears when found tardy in his lesson : nor would he have him owe to a servant the obligation of so great a thing as MARCUS CATO. S4S his learning ; he himself, therefore (as we were saying), taught him his grammar, law, and his gymnastic exercises. Nor did he only show him, too, how to throw a dart, to fight in armor, and to ride, but to box also and to endure both heat and cold, and to swim over the most rapid and rough rivers. He says, likewise, that he wrote histories, in large characters, with his own hand, that so his son, without stirring out of the house^ might learn to know about his countrymen and forefathers- nor did he less abstain from speaking any thing obscene before his son, than if it had been in the presence of the sacred vir- gins, called vestals. Nor would he ever go into the bath with him ; which seems indeed to have been the common custom of the Romans. Sons-in-law used to avoid bathing with fathers-in-law, disliking to see one another naked ; but having, in time, learned of the Greeks to strip before men, they have since taught the Greeks to do it even with the women them- selves. Thus, like an excellent work, Cato formed and fashioned his son to virtue ; nor had he any occasion to find fault with his readiness and docility ; but as he proved to be of too weak a constitution for hardships, he did not insist on requir- ing of him any very austere way of living. However, though delicate in health, he proved a stout man in the field, and be- haved himself valiantly when Paulus ^milius fought against Perseus ; where when his sword was struck from him by a blow, or rather slipped out of his hand by reason of its moist- ness, he so keenly resented it, that he turned to some of his friends about him, and taking them along with him again, fell upon the enemy ; and having by a long fight and much force cleared the place, at length found it among great heaps of arms, and the dead bodies of friends as well as enemies piled one upon another. Upon which Paulus, his general, much commended the youth ; and there is a letter of Cato’s to his son, which highly praises his honorable eagerness for the re- covery of his sword. Afterwards he married Tertia, .^milius Paulus’s daughter, and sister to Scipio ; nor was he admitted into this family less for his own worth than his father’s. So that Cato’s care in his son’s education came to a very fitting result. He purchased a great many slaves out of the captives taken in war but chiefly bought up the young ones, who were capable to be, as it were, broken and taught like whelps and colls. None of these ever entered another man’s house, ex cept sent either by Cato himself or his wife. If any one of 546 MARCUS CATO. them were asked what Cato did, they answered merely, that they did not know. When a servant was at home, he was obliged either to do some work or sleep, for indeed Cato loved those most who used to lie down often to sleep, ac- counting them more docile than those who were wakeful, and more fit for any thing when they were refreshed with a little slumber. Being also of opinion, that the great cause of the laziness and misbehavior of slaves was their running after their pleasures, he fixed a certain price for them to pay for permission amongst themselves, but would suffer no connec- tions out of the house. At first, when he was but a poor sol dier, he would not be difficult in any thing which related to his eating, but looked upon it as a pitiful thing to quarrel with a servant for the belly’s sake ; but afterwards, when he grew richer, and made any feasts for his friends and col- leagues in office, as soon as supper was over he used to go with a leathern thong and scourge those who had waited or dressed the meat carelessly. He always contrived, too, that his servants should have some difference one among another, always suspecting and fearing a good understanding between them. Those who had committed any thing worthy of death, he punished if they were found guilty by the verdict of their fellow-servants. But being after all much given to the desire of gain, he looked upon agriculture rather as a pleasure than profit ; resolving, therefore, to lay out his money in safe and solid things, he purchased ponds, hot baths, grounds full of fuller’s earth, remunerative lands, pastures, and woods ; from all which he drew large returns, nor could Jupiter himself, he ased to say, do him much damage. He was also given to the form of usury, which is considered most odious, in traffic by sea ; and that thus : — he desired that those whom he put out his money to, should have many partners ; when the number of them and their ships came to be fifty, he himself took one share through Quintio his freedman, who therefore was to sail with the adventurers, and take a part in all their proceedings ; so tl;at thus there was no danger of losing his whole stock, but only a little part, and that with a prospect of great profit. He likewise lent money to those of his slaves who wished o borrow, with which they bought also other young ones, whom, when they had taught and bred up at his charges, they would sell again at the year’s end ; but some of them Cato would keep for himself, giving just as much for them as another had offered. To incline his son to be of his kind or tem- per, he used to tell him, that it was not like a man, but rather MARCUS CATO. S47 like a widow woman, to lessen an estate. But the strongest indication of Cato’s avaricious humor was when he took the boldness to affirm, that he was a most wonderful, nay, a god- like man, who left more behind him than he had received. He was now grown old, when Carneades the Academic, and Diogenes the Stoic, came as deputies from Athens to Rome, praying for release from a penalty of five hundred tal- ents laid on the Athenians, in a suit, to which they did net appear, in which the Oropians were plaintilfs, and Sicyonians judges. All the most studious youth immediately waited on these philosophers, and frequently, with admiration, heard them spe_ak. But the gracefulness of Carneades’s oratory, whose ability was really greatest, and his reputation equal to it, gathered large and favorable audiences, and ere long filled, like a wind, all the city with the sound of it. So that it soon began to be told, that a Greek, famous even to admiration, winning and carrying all before him, had impressed so strange a love upon the young men, that quitting all their pleasures and pastimes, they ran mad, as it were, after philosophy ; which indeed much pleased the Romans in general ; nor could they but with much pleasure see the youth receive so wel- comely the Greek literature, and frequent the company of learned men. But Cato, on the other side, seeing the passion for words flowing into the city, from the beginning, took it ill, fearing lest the youth should be diverted that way, and so should prefer the glory of speaking well before that of arms, and doing well. And when the fame of the philosophers in- creased in the city, and Caius Acilius, a person of distinction, at his own request, became their interpreter to the senate at their first audience, Cato resolved under some specious pre- tence, to have all philosophers cleared out of the city ; and, coming into the senate, blamed the magistrates for letting these deputies stay so long a time without being despatched, though they were persons that could easily persuade the peo- ple to what they pleased ; that therefore in all haste something should be determined about their petition, that so they might go home again to their own schools, and declaim to the Greek children, and leave the Roman youth, to be obedient, as hith erto, to their own laws and governors. Yet he did this not out of any anger, as some think, to Carneades ; but because he wholly despised philosophy, and out of a kind of pride, scolfed at the Greek studies and liter- ature ; as, for example, he would say, that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did his best to tyrannize over 548 MARCUS CATO, his country, to undermine the ancient customs, and to entice and v/ithdraw the citizens to opinions contrary to the laws. Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add, that his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him, as if they were to use their art and plead causes in the court of Minos in the next world. And to frighten his son from anything that was Greek, in a more vehement tone than became one of his age, he pronounced, as it were, with the voice of an oracle, that the Romans would certainly be de* stroyed when they began once to be infected with Greek liter- ature ; though time indeed has shown the vanity of this his prophecy ; as, in truth, the city of Rome has risen to its high- est fortune, while entertaining Grecian learning. Nor had he an aversion only against the Greek philosophers, but the phy- sicians also ; for having, it seems, heard how Hippocrates, when the king of Persia sent for him, with offers of a fee of several talents, said, that he w^ould never assist barbarians who were enemies to the Greeks ; he affirmed, that this was now become a common oath taken by all physicians, and en- joined his son to have a care and avoid them ; for that he himself had written a little book of prescriptions for curing those who were sick in his family ; he never enjoined fasting to any one, but ordered them either vegetables, or the meat of a duck, pigeon, or leveret ; such kind of diet being of light digestion, and fit for sick folks, only it made those who ate it dream a little too much ; and by the use of this kind of physic, he said, he not only made himself and those about him well, but kept them so. However, for this his presumption, he seemed not to have escaped unpunished ; for he lost both his wife and his son ; though he himself, being of a strong, robust constitution, held out longer ; so that he would often, even in his old days, ad- dress himself to women, and when he was past a lover’s age, married a young woman, upon the following pretence : Having lost his own wife, he married his son to the daughter of Pau- lus H^^milius, who was sister to Scipio; so that being now a widower himself, he had a young girl who came privately to visit him, but the house being very small, and a daughter-in- iaw also in it, this practice was quickly discovered ; for the young woman seeming once to pass through it a little too boldly, the youth, his son, though he said nothing, seemed to look somewhat indignantly upon her. The old man perceiv- ing and understanding that what he did w^as disliked, without finding any fault, or saying a word, went away as his custom MARCUS CATO. 549 was, with his usual companions to the market : and among the rest, he called aloud to one Salonius, who had been a clerk under him, and asked him whether he had married his daughter? He answered, no, nor would he, till he had con- sulted him. Said Cato, ‘‘ Then I have found out a fit son-in- law for you, if he should not displease by reason of his age ; for in all other points there is no fault to be found in him ; but he is indeed, as I said, extremely old.” However, Sa- lonius desired him to undertake the business, and to give the young girl to whom he pleased, she being a humble servant of his, who stood in need of his care and patronage. Upon this Cato, without any more ado, told him, he desired to have the damsel himself. These words, as may well be imagined, at first astonished the man, conceiving that Cato was as far oif from marrying, as he from a likelihood of being allied to the family of one who had been consul, and had triumphed ; but perceiving him in earnest, he consented willingly; and going onwards to the forum, they quickly completed the bar- gain. Whilst the marriage was in hand, Cato’s son, taking some of his friends along with him, went and asked his father if it were for any offence he brought in a step-mother upon him? But Cato cried out, “ Far from it, my son, I have no fault to find with you or any thing of yours ; only I desire to have many children, and to leave the commonwealth more such citizens as you are.” Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, made, they say, this answer to his sons, when they were grown men, when he married his second wife, Timonassa of Argos, by vdiom he had, it is said, lophon and Thessalus. Cato had a son by this second wife, to whom from his mother, he gave the surname of Salonius. In the mean time, his eldest died in his praetorship ; of whom Cato often makes mention in his books, as having been a good man. He is said, however, to have borne the loss moderately, and like a philosopher, and was nothing the more remiss in attending to affairs of state ; BC that he did not, as Lucius Lucullus and Metellus Pius did, grow languid in his old age, as though public business were a duty once to be discharged, and then quitted ; nor did he, like Scipio Africanus, because envy had struck at his glory, turn from the public, and change and pass away the rest of his life without doing any thing ; but as one persuaded Diony- sius, that the most honorable tomb he could have, would be to die in the exercise of his dominion ; so Cato thought that old age to be the most honorable, which was busied in public 550 MARCUS CATO. affairs ; though he would, now and then, when he had leisurf recreate himself v;ith husbandry and writing. And, indeed, he composed various books and histories ; and in his youth, he addicted himself to agriculture for profit’s sake ; for he used to say, he had but two ways of getting — ■ agriculture and parsimony ; and now, in his old age, the first of these gave him both occupation and a subject of study. He wrote one book on country matters, in which he treated particularly even of making cakes, and preserving fruit; it being his ambition to be curious and singular in all things. His suppers, at his country-house, used also to be plentiful; he daily invited his friends and neighbors about him, and passed the time merrily with them ; so that his company was not only agreeable to those of the same age, but even to younger men ; for he had had experience in many things, and had been concerned in much, both by word and deed, that was worth the hearing. He looked upon a good table, as the best place for making friends ; where the commendations of brave and good citizens were usually introduced, and little said of base and unworthy ones ; as Cato would not give leave in his company to have anything, either good or ill, said about them. Some will have the overthrow of Carthage to have been one of his last acts of state ; when, indeed, Scipio the younger, did by his valor give it the last blow, but the war, chiefly by the counsel and advice of Cato, was undertaken on the fol- lowing occasion. Cato was sent to the Carthaginians and Masinissa, king of Numidia, who were at war with one another, to know the cause of their difference. He, it seems, had been a friend of the Romans from the beginning; and they, too, since they were conquered by Scipio, were of the Roman confederacy, having been shorn of their power by loss of territory, and a heavy tax. Finding Carthage, not (as the Romans thought) low and in an ill condition, but well manned, full of riches and all sorts of arms and ammunition, and perceiving the Carthaginians carry it high, he conceived that it was not a time for the Romans to adjust affairs between them and Masinissa; but rather that they themselves would fall into danger, unless they should find means to check this rapid new growth of Rome’s ancient irreconcilable enemy. Therefore, returning quickly to Rome, he acquainted the senate, that the former defeats and blows given to the Carthaginians, had not so much diminished their strength, as it had abated their imprudence and folly ; that they were not become weaker, but more experienced in war, and did only skirmish with the MARCUS CATO. 5S1 Numidians, to exercise themselves the better to cope with the Romans : that the peace and league they had made was but a kind of suspension of war which awaited a fairer opportunity to break out again. Moreover, they say that, shaking his gown, he took oc- casion to let drop some African figs before the senate. And on their admiring the size and beauty of them, he presently added, that the place that bore them was but three days’ sail from Rome. Nay, he never after this gave his opinion, but at the end he would be sure to come out with this sentence, “Also, Carthage, methinks, ought utterly to be de- stroyed.” But Publius Scipio Nasica would always declare his opinion to the contrary, in these words, “ It seems requisite to me that Carthage should still stand.” For seeing his countrymen to be grown wanton and insolent, and the people made, by their prosperity, obstinate and disobedient to the senate, and drawing the whole city, whither they would, after them, he would have had the fear of Carthage to serve as a bit to hold in the contumacy of the multitude ; and he looked upon the Carthaginians as too weak to overcome the Romans, and too great to be despised by them. On the other side, it seemed a perilous thing to Cato, that a city which had been always great, and was now grown sober and wise, by reason of its former calamities, should still lie, as it were, in wait for the follies and dangerous excesses of the over-powerful Roman people ; so that he thought it the wisest course to have all outward dangers removed, when they had so many inward ones among themselves. Thus Cato, they say, stirred up the third and last war against the Carthaginians : but no sooner was the said war begun, than he died, prophesying of the person that should put an end to it, who was then only a young man ; but, being tribune in the army, he in several fights gave proof of his courage and conduct. The news of which being brought to Cato’s ears at Rome, he thus expressed himself: — The only wise man of them all is he, The others e’en as shadows flit and flee. Th.s prophecy Scipio soon confirmed by his actions. Cato left no posterity, except one son by his second wife, who was named, as we said, Cato Salonius ; and a grandson by his eldest son, who died. Cato Salonius died when he was prastor, but his son Marcus was afterwards consul, and he was grandfather of Cato the philosopher, who for virtue and renown was one of the most eminent personages of his time. ARISTIDES AND MARCUS CATO. SS2 COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO. Having mentioned the most memorable actions of these great men, if we now compare the whole life of the one with that of the other, it will not be easy to discern the difference between them, lost as it is amongst such a number of circum- stances in which they resemble each other. If, however, we examine them in detail as we might some piece of poetr}^, or some picture, we shall find this common to them both, that they advanced themselves to great honor and dignity in the commonwealth, by no other means than their own virtue and industry. But it seems when Aristides appeared, Athens was not at its height of grandeur and plenty, the chief magistrates and officers of his time being men only of moderate and equal fortunes among themselves. The estimate of the greatest estates then, was five hundred medimns ; that of the second, or knights, three hundred ; of the third and last called Zeu- gitae, two hundred. But Cato, out of a petty village from a country life, leaped into the commonwealth, as it were into a vast ocean ; at a time when there were no such governors as the Curii, Fabricii, and Hostilii. Poor laboring men were not then advanced from the plough and spade to be governors and magistrates ; but greatness of family, riches, profuse gifts, distributions, and personal application were what the city looked to ; keeping a high hand, and, in a manner, insulting over those that courted preferment. It was not as great a matter to have Themistocles for an adversary, a person of mean extraction and small fortune (for he was not worth, it is said, more than four or five talents when he first applied himself to public affairs), as to contest with a Scipio Africanus, a Servius Galba, and a Quintius Flamininus, having no other aid but a tongue free to assert right. Besides, Aristides at Marathon, and again at Plataea, was but one commander out of ten ; whereas Cato was chosen consul with a single colleague, having many competitors, and with a single colleague, also, was preferred bef">re seven most noble and eminent p'-etenders to be censor. But Aristides ARISTIDES AND MARCUS CATO. 553 was never principal in any action ; for Miltiades carried the day at Marathon, at Salamis, Themistocles, and at Plataea, Herodotus tells us, Pausanias got the glory of that noble victory : and men like Sophanes, and Aminias, Callimachus, and Cynaegyrus, behaved themselves so well in all those en- gagements, as to contest it with Aristides even for the second place. But Cato not only in his consulship was esteemed the chief in courage and conduct in the Spanish war, but even whilst he was only serving as tribune at Thermopylae, under another’s command, he gained the glory of the victory, for having, as it were, opened a wide gate for the Romans to rush in- upon Antiochus, and for having brought the war on his back, whilst he only minded what was before his face. For that victory, which was beyond dispute all Cato’s own work, cleared Asia out of Greece, and by that means made way afterwards for Scipio into Asia. Both of them, indeed, were always victorious in war ; but at home Aristides stumbled, being banished and oppressed by the faction of Themistocles * yet Cato, notwithstanding he had almost all the chief and most powerful of Rome for his adversaries, and wrestled with them even to his old age, kept still his footing. Engaging also in many public suits, sometimes plaintiff, sometimes defendant, he cast the most, and came off clear with all ; thanks to his eloquence, that bulwark and powerful instrument to which more truly, than to chance or his fortune, he owed it, that he sustained himself unhurt to the last. Antipater justly gives it as a high commendation to Aristotle, the philosopher, writing of him after his death, that among his other virtues, he was endowed with a faculty of persuading people which way he pleased. Questionless, there is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue, and of this Economics is commonly esteemed not the least part ; for a city, which is a collection of private households, grows into a stable commonwealth by the private means of prosperous citizens that compose it. T^ycurgus by prohibiting gold and silver in Sparta, and making iron, spoiled by the fire, the only currency, did not by these measures discharge them from minding their household affairs, but cutting off luxury, the corruption and tumor of riches, he provided there should be an abundant sup- ply of all necessary and useful things for all persons, as much as any other law-maker ever did ; being more apprehensive of a poor, needy, and indigent member of a community, than of the rich and haughty. And in this management of domestic 554 ARISTIDES AND MARCUS CATO. concerns, Cato was as great as in the government of public affairs ; for he increased his estate, and became a master to others in economy and husbandry ; upon which subjects he collected in his writings many useful observations. On the contrary Aristides, by his poverty, made justice odious, as if it were the pest and impoverisher of a family, and beneficial to all, rather than to those that were endowed with it. Yet Hesiod urges us alike to just dealing and to care of our house- holds, and inveighs against idleness as the origin of injustice ; and Homer admirably says : — Work was not dear, nor household cares to me, Whose increase rears the thriving family; But well-rigged ships were always iny delight, And wars, and darts, and arrows of the fight : as if the same characters carelessly neglected their own es- tates, and lived by injustice and rapine from others. For it is not as the physicians say of oil, that outwardly applied, it is very wholesome, but taken inwardly detrimental, that thus a just man provides carefully for others, and is heedless of him- self and his own affairs ; but in this Aristides’s political virtues seem to be defective ; since, according to most authors, he took no care to leave his daughters a portion, or himself enough to defray his funeral charges : whereas Cato’s family produced senators and generals to the fourth generation ; his grandchildren, and their children, came to the highest prefer- ments. But Aristides; who was the principal man of Greece, through extreme poverty reduced some of his to get their liv- ing by juggler’s tricks, others, for want, to hold out their hands for public alms ; leaving none means to perform any noble action, or worthy his dignity. Yet why should this needs follow ? since poverty is dishon- orable not in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intem- perance, luxury, and carelessness ; whereas in a person that is temperate, industrious, just, and valiant, and who uses all his virtues for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind. For he has no time for great matters, who concerns himseli with petty ones ; nor can he relieve many needs of others, who himself has many needs of his own. What most of all enables a man to serve the public is not wealth, but content and independence ; which, requiring no superfluity at home, distracts not the mind from the common good. God alone is entirely exempt from all want: of human virtues, that which needs least, is the most absolute and most divine, ARISTIDES AND MARCUS CATO. SS5 For as a body bred to a good habit, requires nothing exqui- site either in clothes or food, so a sound man and a sound household keep themselves up with a small matter. Riches ought to be proportioned to the use we have of them ; for he that scrapes together a great deal, making use of but little, is not independent ; for if he wants them not, it is folly in him to make provision for things which he does not desire ; or if he does desire them, and restrains his enjoyment out of sordidness, he is miserable. I would fain know of Cato him- self, if we seek riches that we may enjoy them, why is he proud of having a great deal, and being contented with little ? But if it be noble, as it is, to feed on coarse bread, and drink the same wine with our hinds, and not to covet purple, and plastered houses, neither Aristides, nor Epaminondas, nor Manius Curius, nor Caius Fabricius wanted necessaries, who took no pains to get those things whose use they approved not. For it was not worth the while of a man who esteemed turnips a most delicate food, and who boiled them himself, whilst his wife made bread, to brag so often of a half-penny, and write a book to show how a man may soonest grow rich ; the very good of being contented with little is because it cuts off at once the desire and the anxiety for superfluities. Hence Aristides, it is told, said, on the trial of Callias, that it was for them to blush at poverty, who were poor against their wills ; they who like him were willingly so might glory in it. For it is ridiculous to think Aristides’s neediness imputable to his sloth, who might fairly enough by the spoil of one bar- barian, or seizing one tent, have become wealthy. But enough of this. Cato’s expeditions added no great matter to tne Roman empire, which already was so great, as that in a manner it could receive no addition ; but those of Aristides are the noblest, most splendid, and distinguished actions the Gre- cians ever did, the battles at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. Nor indeed is Antiochus, nor the destruction of the walls of the Spanish towns, to be compared with Xerxes, and the destruction by sea and land of so many myriads of enemies ; in all of which noble exploits Aristides yielded to none, though he left the glory, and the laurels, like the wealth and money, to those who needed and thirsted more greedily after them : be- cause he was superior to those also. I do not blame Cato for perpetually boasting and preferring himself before all others, though in one of his orations, he says, that it is equally ab- surd to praise and dispraise one’s self: yet he who does not 55 ^ PHILOPCEMEN. SO much as desire others’ praises, seems lo me more perfectly virtuous^ than he who is always extolling himself. A mind free from ambition is a main help to political gentleness ; ambition, on the contrary, is hard-hearted, and the greatest fomenter of envy ; from which Aristides was wholly exempt ; Cato very subject to it. Aristides assisted Themistocles in matters of highest importance, and, as his subordinate officer, in a manner raised Athens : Cato, by opposing Scipio, almost broke and defeated his expedition against the Carthaginians, in which he overthrew Hannibal, who till then was even invincible ; and, at last, by continually raising suspicions and calumnies against him he chased him from the city, and in- flicted a disgraceful sentence on his brother for robbing the state. Finally, that temperance which Cato always highly cried up, Aristides preserved truly pure and untainted. But Cato’s marriage, unbecoming his dignity and age, is a considerable disparagement, in this respect, to his character. For it was not decent for him at that age to bring home to his son and his wife a young woman, the daughter of a common paid clerk in the public service : but whether it were for his own gratification or out of anger at his son, both the fact and the pretence were unworthy. For the reason he pretended to his son was false : for if he desired to get more as worthy chil- dren, he ought to have married a well-born wife ; not to have contented himself, so long as it was unnoticed, with a woman to whom he was not married ; and, when it was discovered, he ought not to have chosen such a father-in-law as was easiest to be got, instead of ono whose affinity might be honorable to him. PHILOPOEMEN. Cleander was a man of high birth and great power in the city of Man tinea, but by the chances of the time happened to be driven from thence. There being an intimate friend- ship betwixt him and Craugis, the father of Philopoemen, who was a person of great distinction, he settled at Megalopolis, where, while his friend lived, he had all he could desire. When Craugis died, he repaid the father’s hospitable kindness in the care of the orphan son ; by which means Philopoemen PHILOPGEMEN. 5S7 was educated by him, as Homer says Achilles was by Phcenix, and from his infancy moulded to lofty and noble fnclinations. But Ecdemus and Demophanes had the principal tuition of him, after he was past the years of childhood. They were both Megalopolitans ; they had been scholars in the academic philosophy, and friends to Arcesilaus, and had, more than ^ any of their contemporaries, brought philosophy to bear upon action, and state affairs. They had freed their country from tyranny by the death of Aristodemus, whom they caused to be killed ; they had assisted Aratus in driving out the tyrant Nicocles from Sicyon ; and, at the request of the Cyreneans, whose city was in a state of extreme disorder and confusion, went thither by sea, and succeeded in establishing good gov- ernment and happily settling their commonwealth. And among their best actions they themselves counted the educa- tion of Philopoemen, thinking they had done a general good to Greece, by giving him the nurture of philosophy. And indeed all Greece (which looked upon him as a kind of lat- ter birth brought forth, after so many noble leaders, in her decrepid age) loved him wonderfully ; and, as his glory grew, increased his power. And one of the Romans, to praise him, calls him the last of the Greeks ; as if after him Greece had produced no great man, nor who deserved the name of Greek. His person was not, as some fancy, deformed ; for his likeness is yet to be seen at Delphi. The mistake of the hostess of Megara was occasioned, it would seem, merely by his easiness of temper and his plain manners. This hostess having word brought her, that the General of the Achaeans was coming to her house in the absence of her husband, was all in a hurry about providing his supper. Philopoemen, in an ordinary cloak, arriving in this point of time, she took him for one of his own train who had been sent on before, and bid him lend her his hand in her household work. He forth- with threw off his cloak, and fell to cutting up the fire-wood. The husband returning, and seeing him at it, “ What,’’ says he, may this mean, O Philopoemen ? ” ‘‘ I am,” replied he in his Doric dialect, “ paying the penalty of my ugly looks.” Titus Flamininus, jesting with him upon his figure, told him one day, he had well-shaped hands and feet, but no belly : and he was indeed slender in the waist. But this raillery was meant to the poverty of his fortune ; for he had good horse and foot, but often wanted money to entertain and pay them. These are common anecdotes told of PhiloDcemen. 5S8 PHILOPCEMEN. The love of honor and distinction was, in his character, not unalloyed with feelings of personal rivalry and resentment. He made Epaminondas his great example, and came not far behind him in activity, sagacity, and incorruptible integrity ; but his hot contentious temper continually carried him out of the bounds of that gentleness, composure, and humanity vi'hich had marked Epaminondas, and this made him thought a pattern rather of military than of civil virtue. He was strongly inclined to the life of a soldier even from his child- hoo:’ and he studied and practised ail that belonged to it, taking great delight in managing of horses, and handling of weapons. Because he was naturally fitted to excel in wrest- ling, some of his friends and tutors recommended his attention to athletic exercises. But he would first be satisfied whether it would not interfere with his becoming a good soldier. They told him, as was the truth, that the one life was directly opposite to the other ; the requisite state of body, the ways of living, and the exercises all different : the professed athlete sleeping much, and feeding plentifully, punctually regular in his set times of exercise and rest, and apt to spoil all by every little excess, or breach of his usual method ; whereas the soldier ought to train himself in every variety of change and irregularity, and, above all, to bring himself to endure hunger and loss of sleep without difficulty. Philopoemen, hearing this, not only laid by all thoughts of wrestling and contemned it then, but wh%n he came to be general, discouraged it by all marks of reproach and dishonor he could imagine, as a thing which made men, otherwise excellently fit for war, to be utterly useless and unable to fight on necessary occasions. When he left off his masters and teachers, and began to bear arms in the incursions which his citizens used to make upon the Lacedsemonians for pillage and plunder, he would always march out the first, and return the last. When there was nothing to do, he sought to harden his body, and make it strong and active by hunting, or laboring in his ground. He had a good estate about twenty furlongs from the town, and thither he would go every day after dinner and supper ; and when night came, throw himself upon the first mattress in his wiy, and there sleep as one of the laborers. At break of day he would rise with the rest, and work either in the vineyard or at the plough ; from thence return again to the town, and employ his time with his friends or the magistrates in public business. What he got in the wars, he laid out on horses, or arms, or in ransoming captives ; but endeavored PHILOP(T.MEN. 559 to improve his own property the justest way, by tillage ; and this not slightly, by way of diversion, but thinking it his strict duty, so to manage his own fortune, as to be out of the temp- tation of wronging others. He spent much time on eloquence and philosophy, but selected his authors, and cared only for those by whom he might profit in virtue. In Homer’s fictions his attention was given to whatever he thought apt to raise the courage. Of all other books he was most devoted to the commentaries of Evangelus on military tactics, and also took delight, at leisure hours, in the histories of Alexander ; thinking that such read- ing, unless undertaken for mere amusement and idle conver- sation, was to the purpose for action. Even in speculations on military subjects it was his habit to neglect maps and diagrams, and to put the theorems to practical proof on the ground itself. He would be exercising his thoughts and con- sidering, as he travelled, and arguing with those about him of the difficulties of steep or broken ground, what might happen at rivers, ditches or mountain-passes, in marching in close or in open, in this or in that particular form of battle. The truth is, he indeed took an immoderate pleasure in military opera- tions and in warfare, to which he devoted himself, as the special means for exercising all sorts of virtue, and utterly contemned those who were not soldiers, as drones and useless in the commonwealth. When he was thirty years of age, Cleomenes, king of the Lacedaemonians, surprised Megalopolis by night, forced the guards, broke in, and seized the market-place. Philopoemen came out upon the alarm, and fought with desperate courage, but could not beat the enemy out again ; yet he succeeded in effecting the escape of the citizens, who got away while he made head against the pursuers, and amused Cleomenes, till, after losing his horse and receiving several wounds, with much ado he Cetme off himself, being the last man in the retreat. The Megalopolitans escaped to Messene, whither Cleomenes sent to offer them their town and goods again, Philopoemen perceiving them to be only too glad at the news, and eager to return, checked them with a speech, in which he made them sensible, that what Cleomenes called restoring the city, was, rather, possessing himself of the citizens ; and through their means securing also the city for the future. The mere solitude would, of itself, ere long force him away, since there was no staying to guard empty houses and naked walls. These reasons withheld the Megalopolitans, but gave 560 PHILOPGEMEN. Cleomenes a pretext to pillage and destroy a great part of the city, and carry away a great booty. Awhile after king Antigonus coming down to succor the Achaeans, they marched with their united forces against Cleomenes ; who, having seized the avenues, lay advantage- ously posted on the hills of Sellasia. Antigonus drew up close by him, with a resolution to force him in his strength. Philopoemen, with his citizens, was that day placed among the horse, next to the Illyrian foot, a numerous body of bold lighters, who completed the line of battle, forming, together with the Achaeans, the reserve. Their orders were to keep their ground, and not engage till from the other wing, where the king fought in person, they should see a red coat lifted up on the point of a spear. The Achaeans obeyed their order and stood fast, but the Illyrians were led on by their com- manders to the attack. Euclides, the brother of Cleomenes, seeing the foot thus severed from the horse, detached the best of his light-armed men, commanding them to wheel about, and charge the unprotected Illyrians in the rear. This charge putting things in confusion, Philopoemen, considering those light-armed men would be easily repelled, went first to the king’s officers to make them sensible what the occasion required. But they not minding what he said, but slighting him as a hair-brained fellow (as indeed he was not yet of any repute sufficient to give credit to a proposal of such impor- tance), he charged with his own citizens, at the first encounter disordered, and soon after put the troops to flight with great slaughter. Then, to encourage the king’s army further, to bring them all upon the enemy while he was in confusion, he quitted his horse, and fighting with extreme difficulty in his heavy horseman’s dress, in rough uneven ground, full of water-courses and hollows, had both his thighs struck through with a thonged javelin. It was thrown with great force, so that the head came out on the other side, and made a severe, though not a mortal, wound. There he stood awhile, as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The fastening which joined the thong to the javelin made it difficult to get it drawn out, nor would any about him venture to do it. But the fight being now at the hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was transported with the desire of partaking in it, and strug- gled and strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that at last he broke the shaft in two ; and thus got the pieces pulled out. Being in this manner set at liberty, he caught up his sword, and running through the PHILOPCEMEN. i:;6l midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks, animated his men, and set them afire with emulation. Antigonus after the victory, asked the Macedonians, to try them how it hap- pened the horse had charged without orders before the signal ? They answering, that they were against their wills forced to it by a young man of Megalopolis, who had fallen in before his time : “ that young man,” replied Antigonus smiling, “ did like an experienced commander.” This, as was natural, brought Philopoemen into great reputa- tion. Antigonus was earnest to have him in his service, and offered him very advantageous conditions, both as to command and pay. But Philopoemen, who knew that his nature brooked not to be under another, would not accept them ; yet not enduring to live idle, and hearing of wars in Crete, for prac- tice sake he passed over thither. He spent some time among those very warlike, and, at the same time, sober and temper- ate men, improving much by experience in all sorts of service ; and then returned with so much fame, that the Achaeans presently chose him commander of the horse. These horse- men at that time had neither experience nor bravery, it being the custom to take any common horses, the first and cheapest they could procure, when they were to march ; and on almost all occasions they did not go themselves, but hired others in their places, and staid at home. Their former commanders winked at this, because, it being an honor among the Achaeans to serve on horseback, these men had great power in the commonwealth, and were able to gratify or molest whom they pleased. Philopoemen, finding them in this condition, yielded not to any such considerations, nor would pass it over as formerly ; but went himself from town to town, where, speak- ing with the young men, one by one, he endeavored to excite a spirit of ambition and love of honor among them, using punishment also, where it was necessary. And then by public exercises, reviews, and contests in the presence of numerous spectators, in a little time he made them wonder- fully strong and bold, and, which is reckoned of greatest consequence in military service, light and agile. With use and industry they grew so perfect, to such a command of their horses, such a ready exactness in wheeling round in their troops, that in any change of posture the whole body seemed to move with all the facility and promptitude, and, as it were, with the single will of one man. In the great battle, which they fought with the ^tolians and Eleans by the river Larissus, he set them an example himself. Damophan- 36 PHILOPCEMEN. 562 tus, general of the Elean horse, singled out Philopoemen, and rode with full speed at him. Philopoemen awaited his charge, and, before receiving the stroke, with a violent blow of his spear threw him dead to the ground : upon whose fall the enemy fled immediately. And now Philopoemen was in every- body's mouth, as a man who in actual fighting with his own hand yielded not to the youngest, nor in good conduct to the oldest, and there came not into the field any better soldier or commander. Aratus, indeed, was the first who raised the Achaeans, in- considerable till then, into reputation and power, by uniting their divided cities into one commonwealth, and establishing amongst them an humane and truly Grecian form of govern- ment; and hence it happened, as in running waters, where, when a few little particles of matter once stop, others stick to them, and one part strengthening another, the whole becomes firm and solid ; so in a general weakness, when every city re- lying only on itself, all Greece was giving way to an easy dis- solution, the Achaeans, first forming themselves into a body, and then drawing in their neighbors round about, some by protection, delivering them from their tyrants, others by peace- ful consent and by naturalization, designed at last to bring all Peloponnesus into one community. Yet while Aratus lived, they depended much on the Macedonians, courting first Ptolemy, then Antigonus and Philip, who all took part con- tinually in whatever concerned the affairs of Greece. But when Philopoemen came to a command, the Achaeans, feel- ing themselves a match for the most powerful of their enemies, declined foreign support. The truth is, Aratus, as we have written in his life, was not of so warlike a temper, but did most by policy and gentleness, and friendships with foreign princes ; but Philopoemen being a man both of execution and command, a great soldier, and fortunate in his first attempts, wonderfully heightened both the power and courage of the .\chaeans, accustomed to victory under his conduct. But first he altered what he found amiss in their arms, and form of battle. Hitherto they had used light, thin bucklers, coo narrow to cover the body, and javelins much shorter than pikes. By which means they were skilful in skirmishing at a distance, but in a close fight had much the disadvantage. Then in drawing their forces up for battle, they were never accustomed to form in regular divisions ; and their line being unprotected either by the thick array of projecting spears or by their shields, as in the Macedonian phalanx, where the PHILOPCEMEN. 5^3 soldiers shoulder close and their shields touch, they were easily opened, and broken. Philopoemen reformed all this, persuading them to change the narrow target and short javelin, into a large shield and long pike ; to arm their heads, bodies, thighs, and legs ; and instead of loose skirmishing, fight firmly and foot to foot. After he had brought them all to wear full armor, and by that means into the confidence of thinking themselves now invincible, he turned what before had been idle profusion and luxury into an honorable expense. For being long used to vie with each other in their dress, the fur- niture of their houses, and service of their tables, and to glory in outdoing one another, the disease by custom was grown in- curable, and there was no possibility of removing it altogether. But he diverted the passion, and brought them, instead of these superfluities, to love useful and more manly display, and reducing their other expenses, to take delight in appearing magnificent in their equipage of war. Nothing then was to be seen in the shops but plate breaking up, or melting down, gilding of breastplate, and studding bucklers and bits with silver ; nothing in the places of exercise, but horses managing, and young men exercising their arms ; nothing in the hands of the women, but helmets and crests of feathers to be dyed, and military cloaks and riding-frocks to be embroidered ; the very sight of all which, quickening and raising their spirits, made them contemn dangers, and feel ready to venture on any honorable dangers. Other kinds of sumptuosity give us pleasure, but make us effeminate ; the tickling of the sense slackening the vigor of the mind ; but magnificence of this kind strengthens and heightens the courage ; as Homer makes Achilles at the sight of his new arms exulting with joy, and on fire to use them. When Philopoemen had obtained of them to arm, and set themselves out in this manner, he pro- ceeded to train them, mustering and exercising them perpetu- ally ; in which they obeyed him with great zeal and eagerness. For they were wonderfully pleased with their new form of battle, which being so knit and cemented together, seemed almost incapable of being broken. And then their arms, which for their riches and beauty they wore with pleasure, be- coming light and easy to them with constant use, they longed for nothing more than to try them with an enemy, and fight in earnest. The Achaeans at that time were at war with Machanidas, the tyrant of Lacedaemon, who, having a strong army, watched all opportunities of becoming entire master of Peloponnesus 5^4 PFIILOPCEMEN. When intelligence came that he was fallen upon the Mantlne ans, Philopoemen forthwith took the field, and 'marched to wards him. They met near IMantinea, and drew up in sight of the city. Both, besides the whole strength of their several cities, had a good number of mercenaries in pay. When they came to fall on, Machanidas, with his hired soldiers, beat the spearmen and the Tarentines whom Philopoemen had placed in the front. But when he should have charged imme- diately into the main battle, which stood close and firm, he hotly followed the chase; and instead of attacking the Achae- ans, passed on beyond them, while they remained drawn up in their place. With so untoward a beginning the rest of the confederates gave themselves up for lost ; but Philopoemen, professing to make it a matter of small consequence, and ob- serving the enemy’s oversight, wdio had thus left an opening in their main body, and exposed their own phalanx, made no sort of motion to oppose them, but let them pursue the chase freely, till they had placed themselves at a great distance from him. Then seeing the Lacedaemonians before him deserted by their horse, with their fianks quite bare, he charged sud- denly, and surprised them without a commander, and not so much as expecting an encounter, as, when they saw Machan- idas driving the beaten enemy before him, they thought the victory already gained. He overthrew them with great slaughter (they report above four thousand killed in the place), and then faced about against Machanidas, who was returning with his mercenaries from the pursuit. There hap- pened to be a broad deep ditch between them, along side of which both rode their horses for awhile, the one trying to get over and fly, the other to hinder him. It looked less like the contest between two generals than like the last defence of some wild beast, brought to bay by the keen huntsman Philo- poemen, and forced to fight for his life. The tyrant’s horse was mettled and strong ; and feeling the bloody spurs in his sides, ventured to take the ditch. He had already so far reached the other side, as to have planted his fore-feet upon it, and was struggling to raise himself with these, when Sim- mias and Polyaenus, who used to fight by the side of Philo- poemen, came up on horseback to his assistance. But Philo- poemen, before either of them, himself met Machanidas ; and perceiving that the horse with his head high reared, covered his master’s body, turned his own a little, and holding his javelin by the middle, drove it against the tyrant with all his force, and tumbled him dead into the ditch. Such is the pre* PHILOPOEMEN. S^S cise posture in which he stands at Delphi in the brazen statue which the Achaeans set up of him, in admiration of his valor in this single combat, and conduct during the whole day. We are told that at the Nemean games, a little after this victory, Philopoemen being then General the second time, and at leisure on the occasion of the solemnity, first showed the Greeks his army drawn up in full array as if they were to fight, and executed with it all the manoeuvres of a battle with wonderful order, strength, and celerity. After which he went into the theatre, while the musicians were singing for the prize, followed by the young soldiers in their military cloaks and their scarlet frocks under their armor, all in the very height of bodily vigor, and much alike in age, showing a high respect to their general ; yet breathing at the same time a noble confidence in themselves, raised by success in many glorious encounters. Just at their coming in, it so happened that the musician Pylades, with a voice well suited to the lofty style of poet, was in the act of commencing the Persians of Timotheus, Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free. The whole theatre at once turned to look at Philopoemen, and clapped with delight ; their hopes venturing once more to re- turn to their country’s former reputation ; and their feelings almost rising to the height of their ancient spirit. It was with the Achseans as with young horses, which go quietly with their usual riders, but grow unruly and restive under strangers. The soldiers, when any service was in hand, and Philopoemen not at their head, grew dejected and looked about for him ; but if he once appeared, came presently to themselves, and recovered their confidence and courage, being sensible that this was the only one of their commanders whom the enemy could not endure to face ; but, as appeared in sev- eral occasions, were frighted with his very name. Thus we find that Philip, king of Macedon, thinking to terrify the Achai- ans intc subjection again, if he could rid his hands of Philo poemen, employed some persons privately to assassinate him. But the treachery coming to light, he became infamous, and lost his character through Greece. The Boeotians besieging Megara, and ready to carry the town by storm, upon a ground- less rumor, that Philopoemen was at hand with succor, ran away, and left their scaling ladders at the wall behind them. Nabis (who was tyrant of Lacedaemon after Machanidas), had surprised Messene at a time when Philopoemen was out S66 PHILOPCiMEN. of command. He tried to persuade Lysippus, then Geneial of the Achaeans, to succor Messene : but not prevailing with him, because, he said, the enemy being now within it, the place was irrecoverably lost, he resolved to go himself, without order or commission, followed merely by his own immediate fellow-citizens who went with him as their general by commis- sion from nature, which had made him fittest to command. Nabis, hearing of his coming, though his army quartered within the town, thought it not convenient to stay ; but steal- ing out of the furthest gate with his men, marched away whh all the speed he could, thinking himself a happy man if he could get off with safety. And he did escape ; but Messene was rescued. All hitherto makes for the praise and honor of Philopoe- men. But when at the request of the Gortynians he went away into Crete to command for them, at a time when his own country was distressed by Nabis, he exposed himself to the charge of either cowardice, or unseasonable ambition of honor amongst foreigners. For the Megalopolitans were then so pressed, that, the enemy being master of the field and en- camping almost at their gates, they were forced to keep them- selves within their walls, and sow their very streets. And he in the mean time, across the seas, waging war and command- ing in chief in a foreign nation, furnished his ill-wishers with matter enough for their reproaches. Some said he took the offer of the Gortynians, because the Achaeans chose other generals, and left him but a private man. For he could not endure to sit still, but looking upon war and command in it as his great business, always coveted to be employed. And this agrees with what he once aptly said of king Ptolemy. Somebody was praising him for keeping his army and himself in an admirable state of discipline and exercise : ‘‘ And what praise,” replied Philopoemen, “ for a king of his years, to be always preparing, and never performing?” However, the Megalopolitans, thinking themselves betrayed, took it so ill, that they were about to banish him. But the Achaeans put an end to that design, by sending their General, Aristaeus, to Megalopolis, who, though he were at difference with Philopoe- men about affairs of the commonwealth, yet would not suffer him to be banished. Philopoemen finding himself upon this account out of favor with his citizens, induced divers of the little neighboring places to renounce obedience to them, sug- gesting to them to urge that from the beginning they were not subject to their taxes, or laws, or any way under theii PHILOPCEMEN 567 command. In these pretences he openly took their part, and fomented seditious movements amongst the Achaeans in general against Megalopolis. But these things happened a while after. While he stayed in Crete, in the service of the Gortynians, he made war not like a Peloponnesian and Arcanian, fairly in the open field, but fought with them at their own weapon,, and turning their stratagems and tricks against themselves, showed them they played craft against skill, and were but children to an experienced soldier. Having acted here with great braveiy, and great reputation to himself, he returned into Peloponnesus, where he found Philip beaten by Titus Quintius, and Nabis at war both with the Romans and Achae- ans. He was at once chosen general against Nabis, but ven- turing to fight by sea, met, like Epaminondas, with a result very contrary to the general expectation, and his own former reputation. Epaminondas, however, according to some state- ments, was backward by design, unwilling to give his coun- trymen an appetite for the advantages of the sea, lest from good soldiers, they should by little and little turn, as Plato says, to ill mariners. And therefore he returned from Asia and the Islands without doing any thing, on purpose. Whereas Philopoemen, thinking his skill in land-service would equally avail at sea, learned how great a part of valor expe- rience is, and how much it imports in the management of things to be accustomed to them. For he was not only put to the worst in the fight for want of skill, but having rigged up an old ship, which had been a famous vessel forty years before, and shipped his citizens in her, she foundering, he was in danger of losing them all. But finding the enemy, as if he had been driven out of the sea, had, in contempt of him, besieged Gythium, he presently set sail again, and taking them unexpectedly, dispersed and careless after their victory, landed in the night, burnt their camp, and killed a great number. A few days after, as he was marching through a rougn country, Nabis came suddenly upon him. The Achaeans were dismayed, and in such difficult ground where the enemy had secured the advantage, despaired to get off with safety. Philopoemen made a little halt, and, viewing the ground, soon made it appear, that the one important thing in war is skill in drawing up an army. For by advancing only a few paces, and, without any confusion or trouble, altering his order according to the natuie of the place, he immediately relieved himscl/ 568 PHILOPtEMEN. • from every difficulty, and then charging, put tl e enemy to flight. But when he saw they fled, not towards the city, but dispersed every man a different way all over the field, which for wood and hills, brooks and hollows was not passable by horse, he sounded a retreat, and encamped by broad daylight. Then foreseeing the enemy would endeavor to steal scatter* ingly into the city in the dark, he posted strong parties of the Achaeans all along the watercourses and sloping ground near the walls. Many of Nabis^s men fell into their hands. For returning not in a body, but as the chance of flight had dis- posed of every one, they were caught like birds ere they could enter into the town. These actions obtained him distinguished marks of affec- tion and honor in all the theatres of Greece, but not without the secret ill-will of Titus Flamininus, who was naturally eager for glory, and thought it but reasonable a consul of Rome should be otherwise esteemed by the Achaeans, than a common Arcadian ; especially as there was no comparison between what he, and what Philopoemen had done for them, he having by one proclamation restored all Greece, as much as had been subject to Philip and the Macedonians, to liberty. After this, Titus made peace with Nabis, and Nabis was cir- cumvented and slain by the ^tolians. Things being then in confusion at Sparta, Philopoemen laid hold of the occasion, and coming upon them with an army, prevailed with some by persuasion, with others by fear, till he brought the whole city over to the Achaeans. As it was no small matter for Sparta to become a member of Achaea, this action gained him infinite praise from the Achaeans, for having strengthened their con- federacy by the addition of so great and powerful a city, and not a little good-will from the nobility of Sparta itself, who hoped they had now procured an ally, who would defend their freedom. Accordingly, having raised a sum of one hun- dred and twenty silver talents by the sale of the house and goods of Nabis, they decreed him the money, and sent a dep- utation in the name of the city to present it. But here the honesty of Philopoemen showed itself clearly to be a real, un counterfeited virtue. For first of all, there was not a man among them who would undertake to make him this offer of a present, but every one excusing himself, and shifting xt off upon his fellow, they laid the office at last on Timolaus, with whom he had lodged at Sparta. Then Timolaus came to Megalopolis, and was entertained by Philopoemen ; but struck into admiration with the dignity of his life and manners, anJ PHILOPCEMEN. 569 the simplicity of his habits, judging him to be utterly inacces- sible to any such considerations, he said nothing, but pretend- ing other business, returned without a word mentioned of the present. He was sent again, and did just as formerly. But the third time with much ado, and faltering in his words, he acquainted Philopoemen with the good-will of the city of Sparta to him. Philopoemen listened obligingly and gladly ; and then went himself to Sparta, where he advised them, not to bribe good men and their friends, of whose virtue they might be sure without charge to themselves ; but to buy off and silence ill citizens, who disquieted the city with their se- ditious speeches in the public assemblies ; for it was better to bar liberty of speech in enemies, than friends. Thus it appeared how much Philopoemen was above bribery. Diophanes being afterwards General of the Achaeans, and hearing the Lacedaemonians were bent on new commotions, resolved to chastise them ; they, on the other side, being set upon war, were embroiling all ‘Peloponnesus. Philopoemen on this occasion did all he could to keep Diophanes quiet and to make him sensible that as the times went, while Anti- ochus and the Romans were disputing their pretensions with vast armies in the heart of Greece, it concerned a man in his position to keep a watchful eye over them, and dissembling, and putting up with any less important grievances, to preserve all quiet at home. Diophanes would not be ruled, but joined with Titus, and both together falling into Daconia, marched directly to Sparta. Philopoemen, upon this, took, in his in- dignation, a step which certainly was not lawful, nor in the strictest sense just, but boldly and loftily conceived. Entering into the town himself, he, a private man as he was, refused admission to both the consul of Rome, and the General of the Achaeans, quieted the disorders in the city, and reunited it on the same terms as before to the Achaean confederacy. Yet afterwards, when he was General himself, upon some new misdemeanor of the Lacedaemonians, he brought back those who had been banished, put, as Polybius writes, eighty, according to Aristocrates three hundred and fifty Spartans to death, razed the walls, took away a good part of their terri- tory and transferred it to the Megalopolitans, forced out of the country and carried into Achaea all who had been made citizens of Sparta by tyrants, except three thousand who would not submit to banishment. These he sold for slaves, and with the money, as if to exult over them, built a colon- nade at Megalopolis. Lastly, unworthily trampling upon the 570 PHILOPCEMEN. Lacedaemonians in their calamities, and gratifying his hostility by a most oppressive and arbitrary action, he abolished th$ laws of Lycurgus, and forced them to educate their children^ and live after the manner of the Achaeans ; as though, while they kept to the discipline of Lycurgus, there was no hum- bling their haughty spirits. In their present distress and ad- versity they allowed Philopoemen thus to cut the sinews of their commonwealth asunder, and behaved themselves humbly and submissively. But afterwards, in no long time, obtaining the support of the Romans, they abandoned their new Achaean citizenship ; and as much as in so miserable and ruined a condition they could, reestablished their ancient discipline. When the war betwixt Antiochus and the Romans broke out in Greece, Philopoemen was a private man. He repined grievously, when he saw Antiochus lay idle at Chalcis, spend- ing his time in unreasonable courtship and weddings, while his men lay dispersed in several towns, without order or com- manders, and minding nothing but their pleasures. He com- plained much that he was not himself in office, and said he envied the Romans their victory ; and that if he had had the fortune to be then in command, he would have surprised and killed the whole army in the taverns. When Antiochus was overcome, the Romans pressed hard- er upon Greece, and encompassed the Achaeans with their power ; the popular leaders in the several cities yielded before them ; and their power speedily, under the divine guidance, advanced to the consummation due to it in the revolutions of fortune. Philopoemen, in this conjuncture, carried himself like a good pilot in a high sea, sometimes shifting sail, and s' me- times yielding, but still steering steady ; and omitting no op- portunity nor effort to keep all who were considerable, whether for eloquence or riches, fast to the defence of their common liberty. Aristaenus, a Megalopolitan of great credit among the Achaeans, but always a favorer of the Romans, saying one day in the senate, that the Romans should not be opposed, or dis- pleased in any way, Philopoemen heard him with an impatient silence ; but at last, not able to hold longer, said angrily to him, “ And why be in such haste, wretched man, to behold the end of Greece ? ” Manius, the Roman consul, after the defeat of Antiochus, requested the Achaeans to restore the banished Lacedaemonians to their country, which motion was seconded and supported by all the interest of Titus. But Philopoemen crossed it, not from ill-will to the men, but that they might be PHILOPCEMEN. 571 beholden to him and the Achaeans, not to Titus and the Romans. For when he came to be General himself, he re- stored them. So impatient was his spirit of any subjection and so prone his nature to contest every thing with men in power. Being now threescore and ten, and the eighth time General, he was in hope to pass in quiet, not only the year of his mag- istracy, but his remaining life. For as our diseases decline, as it is supposed with our declining bodily strength, so the quarreling humor of the Greeks abated much with their failing political greatness. But fortune or some divine retributive power threw him down in the close of his life, like a successful runner who stumbles at the goal. It is reported, that being in company where one was praised for a great commander, he replied, there was no great account to be made of a man, who had suffered himself to be taken alive by his enemies. A few days after, news came that Dinocrates the Messenian^ a particular enemy to Philopoemen, and for his wickedness and villanies generally hated, had induced Messene to revolt from the Achasans, and was about to seize upon a little place called Colonis. Philopoemen lay then sick of a fever at Argos. Upon the news he hasted away, and reached Megalopolis, which was distant above four hundred furlongs, in a day. From thence he immediately led out the horse, the noblest of the city, young men in the vigor of their age, and eager to proffer their service, both from attachment to Philopoemen, and zeal for the cause. As they marched towards Messene, they met with Dinocrates, near the hill of Evander, charged and routed him. But five hundred fresh men, who, being left for a guard to the country, came in late, happening to appear, the flying enemy rallied again about the hills. Philopoemen, fearing to be enclosed, and solicitous for his men, retreated over ground extremely disadvantageous, bringing up the rear himself. As he often faced, and made charges upon the enemy, he drew them upon himself ; though they merely made move- ments at a distance, and shouted about him, nobody daring to approach him. In his care to save every single man, he left his main body so often, that at last he found himself alone among the thickest of his enemies. Yet even then none durst come up to him, but being pelted at a distance, and driven to stony steep places, he had great dhficulty, with much spur- ring, to guide his horse aright. His age was no hindrance to him, for with perpetual exercise it was both strong and active ; but being weakened with sickness, and tired with his long journey, his horse stumbling, he fell encumbered with his 572 PHILOPCExMEN. arm«5, and faint, upon a hard and rugged piece of ground. His nead received such a shock with the fall, that he lay awhile speechless, so that the enemy, thinking him dead, began to turn and strip him. But when they saw him lift up his head and open his eyes, they threw themselves all together upon him, bound his hands behind him, and carried him off, every kind of insult and contumely being lavished on him who truly had never so much as dreamed of being led in triumph by Dinocrates. The Messenians, wonderfully elated with the news, thronged in swarms to the city gates. But when they saw Philopcemeu in a posture so unsuitable to the glory of his great actions and famous victories, most of them, struck with grief and cursing the deceitful vanity of human fortune, even shed tears of compassion at the spectacle. Such tears by little and little turned to kind words, and it was almost in everybody’s mouth that they ought to remember what he had done for them, and how he had preserved the common liberty, by driving away Nabis. Some few, to make their court to Dinocrates, were for torturing and then putting him to death as a dangerous and irreconcilable enemy ; all the more formidable to Dino- crates, who had taken him a prisoner, should he after this misfortune, regain his liberty. The}^ put him at last into a dungeon underground, which they called the treasury, a place into which there came no air nor light from abroad ; and which, having no doors, was closed with a great stone. This they rolled into the entrance and fixed, and placing a guard about it, left him. .In the mean time Philopoemen’s soldiers, recovering themselves after their flight, and fearing he was dead when he appeared nowhere, made a stand, calling him with loud cries, and reproaching one another with their unworthy and shameful escape ; having betrayed their general, who, to preserve their lives, had lost his own. Then returning after much inquiry and search, hearing at last that he was taken, they sent away messengers round about with the news. The Achaeans resented the misfortune deeply, and decreed to se .id and demand him ; and in the mean time, drew their army together for his rescue. While these things passed in Achasa, Dinocrates, feanng that any delay would save Philopoemen, and resolving to be beforehand with the Achaeans, as soon as night had dispersed the multitude, sent in the executioner with poison, with orders not to stir from him till he had taken it. Philopoemen had then laid down, wrapt up in his cloak, not sleeping, but oppres.sed PHir.OPCEMEN 573 with ^rief and trouble ; but seeing light, and a man with poison by him, struggled to sit up ; and, taking the cup, asked the man if lie heard any thing of the horsemen, particularly Lycor- tas ? The fellow answering, that the most part had got off safe, he nodded, and looking cheerfully upon him, It is well,’’ he said, ‘‘ that we have not been every way unfortunate ; and vithout a word more, drank it off, and laid him down again. His weakness offering but little resistance to the poison, it despatched him presently. The news of his death filled all Achcea with grief and lamentation. The youth, with some of the chief of the several cities, met at Megalopolis with a resolution to take revenge without delay. I'hey chose Lycortas general, and falling upon the Messenians, put all to fire and sword, till they all with one consent made their submission. Dinocrates, with as many as had voted for Philopoemen’s death, anticipated their vengeance and killed themselves. Those who would have had him tor- tured, Lycortas put in chains and reserved for severer punish- ment. They burnt his body, and put the ashes into an urn, and then marched homeward, not as in an ordinary march, but with a kind of solemn pomp, half triumph, half funeral, crowns of victory on their heads, and tears in their eyes, and their captive enemies in fetters by them. Polybius, the gen- eral’s son, carried the urn, so covered with garlands and ribbons as scarcely to be visible ; and the noblest of the Achae- ans accompanied him. The soldiers followed fully armed and mounted, with looks neither altogether sad as in mourn- ing, nor lofty as in victory. The people from all towns and villages in their way, flocked out to meet him, as at his return from conquest, and, saluting the urn, fell in with the company and followed on to Megalopolis ; where, when the old men, the women and children were mingled with the rest, the whole city was filled with sighs, complaints and cries, the loss of Philopoemen seeming to them the loss of their own greatness, and of their rank among the Achaeans. Thus he was honora- bly buried according to his worth, and the prisoners were stoned about his tomb. Many statues were set up, and many honors decreed to him by the several cities. One of the Romans in the time of Greece’s affliction, after the destruction of Corinth, publicly accusing Philopoemen, as if he had been still alive, of having been the enemy of Rome, proposed that these memorials should all be removed. A discussion ensued, speeches were made, and Polybius answered the sycophant at large. And S74 FLAMININUS. neither Mummiirs nor the lieutenants would suffer the honor- able monuments of so great a man to be defaced, though he had often crossed both Titus and Manius. They justly dis- tinguished, and as became honest men, betwixt usefulness and virtue, — what is good in itself, and what is profitable to partic- ular parties, — ^judging thanks and reward due to him who does a benefit, from him who receives it, and honor never to be denied by the good to the good. And so much concerning Philopoemen. FLAMININUS. vVhat Titus Quintius Flamininus, whom we select as a parallel to Philopoemen, was in personal appearance, those who are curious may see by the brazen statue of him, which stands in Rome near that of the great Apollo, brought from Carthage, opposite to the Circus Maximus, with a Greek in- scription upon it. The temper of his mind is said to have been of the warmest both in anger and in kindness, not indeed equally so in both respects ; as in punishing, he was ever moderate, never inflexible ; but whatever courtesy or good turn he set about, he went through with it, and was as perpetually kind and oblig- ing to those on whom he had poured his favors, as if they, not he, had been the benefactors : exerting himself for the security and preservation of what he seemed to consider his noblest possessions, those to whom he had done good. But being ever thirsty after honor, and passionate for glory, if any thing of a greater and more extraordinary nature were to be done, he ^vas eager to be the doer of it himself ; and took more pleasure in those that needed, than in those that were capa- ble of conferring favors ; looking on the former as objects for his virtue, and on the latter as competitors in glory. Rome had then many sharp contests going on, and her youth betaking themselves early to the wars, learned betimes the art of commanding; and Flamininus, having passed through the rudiments of soldiery, received his first charge in the war against Hannibal, as tribune under Marcellus, then consul. Marcellus, indeed, falling into an ambuscade, was cut off. But Titus, receiving the appointment of governor, as w^ell of Tarentum, then retaken, as of the country about it, grew no less famous for his administration of justice, than for his mili- tary skill. This obtained him the office of leader and founder FLAMININUS. S7S of two colonies which were sent into the cities of Narnia and Cossa ; which filled him with loftier hopes, and made him aspire to step over those previous honors which it w^as. usual first to pass through, the offices of tribune of the people, prae- tor and aedile, and to level his aim iminedia:ely at the consul- ship. Having these colonies, and all their interest ready at his service, he offered himself as candidate ; but the tribunes of the people, Fulvius and Manius, and their party, strongly opposed him ; alleging how unbecoming a thing it was, that a man of such raw years, one who was yet, as it were, untrained, uninitiated in the first sacred rites and mysteries of govern- ment, should, in contempt of the laws, intrude and force him- self into the sovereignty. However, the senate remitted it to the people’s choice and suffrage ; who elected him (though not then arrived at his thirtieth year) consul with Sextus ^lius. The war against Philip and the Macedonians fell to Titus by lot, and some kind fortune, propitious at that time to the Romans, seems to have so determined it ; as neither the people nor the state of things which were now to be dealt with, were such as to require a general who would always be upon the point of force and mere blows, but rather were accessible to per- suasion and gentle usage. It is true that the kingdom of Macedon furnished supplies enough to Philip for actual battle with the Romans ; but to maintain a long and lingering war, he must call in aid from Greece ; must thence procure his supplies ; there find his means of retreat ; Greece, in a word, would be his resource for all the requisites of his army. Unless, therefore, the Greeks could be withdrawn from siding with Philip, this war with him must not expect its decision from a single battle. Now Greece fwhich had not hitherto held much correspondence with the Romans, but first began an intercourse on this occasion) would not so soon have em- braced a foreign authority, instead of the commanders she had been inured to, had not the general of these strangers been of a kind, gentle nature, one who worked rather by fair means .han force ; of a persuasive address in all applications to others, and no less courteous and open to all addresses of others to him ; and above all bent and determined on justice. But the story of his actions will best illustrate these particu lars. Titus observed that both Sulpicius and Publius, who had been his predecessors in that command, had not taken the field against the Macedonians till late in the year j and then 576 FLAMININUS. too, had not set their hands properly to the war, but had kepi skirmishing and scouting here and there for passes and pro- visions, and never came to close fighting with Philip. He resolved not to trifle away a year, as they had done, at home in ostentation of the honor, and in domestic administration, and only then to join the army, with the pitiful hope of pro- tracting the term of office through a second year, acting as consul in the first, and as general in the latter. He was, moreover, infinitely desirous to employ his authority with effect upon the war, which made him slight those home-honors and prerogatives. Requesting, therefore, of the senate, that his brother Lucius might act with him as admiral of the navy, and taking with him to be the edge, as it were, of the expe- dition three thousand still young and vigorous soldiers, ot those who, under Scipio, had defeated Asdrubal in Spain, and Hannibal in Africa, he got safe into Epirus ; and found Publius encamped with his army, over against Philip, who had long made good the pass over the river Apsus, and the straits there ; Publius not having been able, for the natural strength of the place, to effect any thing against him. Titus therefore took upon himself the conduct of the army, and, having dis- missed Publius, examined the ground. The place is in strength not inferior to Tempe, though it lacks the trees and green woods, and the pleasant meadows and walks that adorn Tempe. The Apsus, making its way between vast and lofty mountains which all but meet above a single deep ravine in the midst, is not unlike the river Peneus, in the rapidity of its current, and in its general appearance. It covers the foot of those hills, and leaves only a craggy, narrow path cut out beside the stream, not easily passable at any time for an army, but not at all when guarded by an enemy. There were some, therefore, who would have had Titus make a circuit through Dassaretis, and take an easy and safe road by the district of Lyncus. But he, fearing that if he should engage himself too far from the sea in barren and untilled countries, and Philip should decline fighting, he might, through want of provisions, be constrained to march back again to the seaside without effecting any thing, as his pre- decessor had done before him, embraced the resolution of forcing his way over the mountains. But Philip, having pos- sessed himself of them with his army, showered down his darts and arrows from all parts upon the Romans. Sharp en- counters took place, and many fell wounded and slain on both sides and there seemed but little likelihood of thus ending the FLAMININUS. 57 ^ war ; when some of the men, who fed their cattle thereabouts, came to Titus with a discovery, that there was a roundabout wav which the enemy neglected to guard ; through which they undertook to conduct his army, and to bring it, within three days at furthest, to the top of the h 11s. To gain the surer credit with him, they said that Charops, son of Machatas, a leading man in Epirus, who was friendly to the Romans, and aided them (though for fear of Philip, secretly), was privT” to the design. Titus gave their information belief, and sent a captain with four thousand foot, and three hundred ,.^yrse ; these herdsmen being their guides, but kept in bonds. In the daytime they lay still under the covert of the hollow and woody places, but in the night they marched by moonlight, the moon being then at the full. Titus, having detached this party, lay quiet with his main body, merely keeping up the attention of the enemy by some slight skirmishing. But when the day arrived, that those who stole round, were expected upon the top of the hill, he drew up his forces early in the morning, as well the light-armed as the heavy, and, dividing them into three parts, himself led the van, marching his men up the narrow passage along the bank, darted at by the Macedonians and engaging, in this difficult ground, hand to hand with his assailants ; whilst the other two divisions on either side of him, threw themselves with great alacrity among the rocks. Whilst they were struggling forward, the sun rose, and a thin smoke, like a mist, hanging on the hills, w'as seen rising at a distance, unperceived by the enemy, being behind them, as they stood on the heights ; and the Romans, also, as yet under suspense, in the toil and difficulty they were in, could only doubtfully construe the sight according to their desires. But as it grew thicker and thicker, blackening the air, and mounting to a greater height, they no longer doubted but it was the fire-signal of their companions ; and, raising a triumphant shout, forcing their way onwards, they drove the enemy back into the roughest ground ; while the other party echoed back their acclamations from the top of the mountain, i The Macedonians fled with all the speed they could make ; there fell, indeed, not more than two thousand of them ; for the difficulties of the place rescued them from pursuit. But the Romans pillaged their camp, seized upon their money and slaves, and, becoming absolute masters of the pass, traversed all Epirus ; but with such order and discipline, with such temperance and moderation, that, though they were far from the sea, at a great distance from their vessels, and stinted of 37 578 FLAMININUS. their monthly allowance of corn, and though they had much difficulty in buying, they nevertheless abstained altogether from plundering the country, which had provisions enough of all sorts in it. For intelligence being received that Philip, making a flight, rather than a march, through Thessaly, forced the inhabitants from the towns to take shelter in the moun- tains, burnt down the towns themselves, and gave up as spoil to his soldiers all the property which it had been found impos- sible to remove, abandoning, as it would seem, the whole country to the Romans, Titus was, therefore, very desirous, and entreated his soldiers that they would pass through it as if it were their own, or as if a place trusted into their hands ; and, indeed, they quickly perceived, by the event, what benefit they derived from this moderate and orderly conduct. For they no sooner set foot in Thessaly, but the cities opened their gates, and the Greeks, within Thermopylae, were all eagerness and excitement to ally themselves with them. The Achaeans abandoned their alliance with Philip, and voted to join with the Romans in actual arms against him ; and the Opuntians, though the ^tolians, who were zealous allies of the Romans, were willing and desirous to undertake the protection of the city, would not listen to proposals from them; but sending for Titus, intrusted and committed themselves to his charge. It is told of Pyrrhus, that when first, from an adjacent hill or watchtower which gave him a prospect of the Roman army, he descried them drawn up in order, he observed, that he saw nothing barbarian-like in this barbarian line of battle. And all who came near Titus, could not choose but say as much of him, at their first view. For they who had been told by the Macedonians of an invader, at the head of a bar- barian army, carrying everywhere slavery and destruction on his sword’s point ; when, in lieu of such an one, they met a man, in the flower of his age, of a gentle and humane aspect, a Greek in his voice and language, and a lover of honor, were wonderfully pleased and attracted ; and when they left him, they filled the cities, wherever they went, with favor- able feelings for him, and with the belief that in him they might find the protector and asserter of their liberties. And when afterwards, on Philip’s professing a desire for peace, Titus made a tender to him of peace and friendship, upon the condition that the Greeks be left to their own laws, and that he should withdraw his garrisons, which he refused to com* ply with, now after these proposals the universal belief even FLAMININUS. 579 of the favorers and partisans of Philip, was, that the Romans came not to fight against the Greeks, but for the Greeks^ against the Macedonians. Accordingly, all the rest of Greece came to peaceable terms with him. But as he marched into Boeotia, without committing the least act of hostility, the nobility and chief men of Thebes came out of their city to meet him, devoted under the influence of Brachylles to the Macedonian alliance, but desirous at the same time to show honor and deference to Titus ; as they were, they conceived, in amity with both parties. Titus received them in the most obliging and cour- teous manner, but kept going gently on, questioning and in- quiring of them, and sometimes entertaining them with narra- tives of his own, till his soldiers might a little recover from the weariness of their journey. Thus passing on, he and the Thebans came together into their city not much to their satis- faction ; but yet they could not well deny him entrance, as a good number of his men attended him in. Titus, however, now he was within, as if he had not had the city at his mercy came forward and addressed them, urging them to join the Roman interest. King Attains followed to the same effect. And he, indeed, trying to play the advocate, beyond what it seems his age could bear, was seized, in the midst of his speech, with a sudden flux or dizziness, and swooned away ; and, not long after, was conveyed by ship into Asia, and died there. The Boeotians joined the Roman alliance. But now, when Philip sent an embassy to Rome, Titus despatched away agents on his part, too, to solicit the senate, if they should continue the war, to continue him in his com- mand, or if they determined an end to that, that he might have the honor of concluding the peace. Having a great passion for distinction, his fear was, that if another general were commissioned to carry on the war, the honor even of what was passed, would be lost to him ; and his friends trans acted matters so well on his behalf, that Philip was unsuc cessful in his proposals, and the management of the war was confirmed in his hands. He no sooner received the senate’s determination, but, big with hopes, he marches directly into Thessaly, to engage Philip ; his army consisting of twenty-S'x thousand men, out of which the -dEtolians furnished six thou- sand foot and four hundred horse. The forces of Philip we^e much about the same number. In this eagerness to encour\. ter, they advanced against each other, till both were ne^ < Scotussa, where they resolved to hazard a battle. Nor 580 FLAMININUS. the approach of these two formidable armies the effect that might have been supposed, to strike into the generals a mu- tual terror of each other ; it rather inspired them with ardor and ambition ; on the Romans’ part, to be the conquerors of Macedon, a name which Alexander had made famous amongst them for strength and valor ; whilst the Macedonians, on the other hand, esteeming of the Romans as an enemy very dif- ferent from the Persians, hoped, if victory stood on their side, to make the name of Philip more glorious than that of Alex- ander. Titus, therefore, called upon his soldiers to play the part of valiant men, because they were now to act their parts upon the most illustrious theatre of the world, Greece, and to contend with the bravest antagonists. And Philip, on the other side, commenced an harangue to his men, as usual be- fore an engagement, and to be the better heard (whether it were merely a mischance, or the result of unseasonable haste, not observing Vv^hat he did), mounted an eminence outside their camp, which proved to be a burying-place ; and much disturbed by the despondency that seized his army at the unluckiness of the omen, all that day kept in his camp, and declined fighting. But on the morrow, as day came on, after a soft and rainy night, the clouds changing into a mist filled all the plain with thick darkness ; and a dense foggy air descending, by the time it was full day, from the adjacent mountains into the ground betwixt the two camps, concealed them from each other’s view. The parties sent out on either side, some for ambuscade, some for discovery, falling in upon one another quickly after they were thus detached, began the fight at what are called the Cynos Cephalae, a number of sharp tops of hills that stand close to one another, and have the name from some resemblance in their shape. Now many vicissi- tudes and changes happening, as may well be expected, in such an uneven field of battle, sometimes hot pursuit, and sometimes as rapid a flight, the generals on both sides kept sending in succors from the main bodies, as they saw their men pressed or giving ground, till at length the heavens clearing up, let them see what was going on, upon which the whole armies engaged. Philip, who was in the right wing, from the advantage of the higher ground which he had, threw on the Romans the whole weight of his pha- lanx, with a force which they were unable to sustain; the dense array of spears, and the pressure of the compact mass overpowering them. But the king’s left wing being broker FLAMINfNUS. 5 ^^ up by the hilliness of the place, Titus observing it, and cher- ishing little or no hopes on that side where his own gave ground, makes in all haste to the other, and there charges in upon the Macedonians ; who, in consequence of the inequal ity and roughness of the ground, could not keep their phalanx entire, nor line their ranks to any great depth ( which is the great point of their strength), but were forced to fight man for man under heavy and unwieldy armor. For the Macedo- nian phalanx is like some single powerful animal, irresistible so long as it is embodied into one, and keeps its order, shield touching shield, all as in a piece ; but if it be once broken, not only is the joint-force lost, but the individual soldiers also who composed it, lose each one his own single strength, be- cause of the nature of their armor ; and because each of them is strong, rather, as he makes a part of the whole, than in himself. When these were routed, some gave chase to the flyers, others charged the Hanks of those Macedonians who were still fighting, so that the conquering wing, also, was quickly disordered, took to flight, and threw down its arms. There were then slain no less than eight thousand, and about five thousand were taken prisoners ; and the u^tolians were blamed as having been the main occasion that Philip himself got safe off. For whilst the Romans were in pursuit, they fell to ravaging and plundering the camp, and did it so com- pletely, that when the others returned, they found no booty in it. This bred at first hard words, quarrels, and misunder- standings betwixt them. But, afterwards, they galled Titus more, by ascribing the victory to themselves, and prepossess- ing the Greeks with reports to that effect ; insomuch that poets, and people in general in the songs that were sung or written in honor of the action, still ranked the ^tolians fore- most. One of the pieces most current was the following epigram : — Naked and tombless see, O passer-by, The thirty thousand men of Thessaly, Slain by the /Ftolians and the Latin band, That came with d'itus from Italia’s land ; Alas for mighty Macedon ! that day, Swift as a roe, king Philip fled away. This was composed by Alcaeus in mockery of Philip, exagger- ating the number of the slaiiL However, being everywhere repeated, and by almost everybody, Titus was more nettled at it than Philip. The latter merely retorted upon Alcaeus with some elegiac verses of his own : — FLAMININUS. kS2 Naked and leafless see, O passer-by, The cross that shall Alcaeus crucify. But such little matters extremely fretted Titus, who was ambi- tious of a reputation among the Greeks ; and he therefore acted in all after-occurrences by himself, paying but very slight re- gard to the^tolians. This offended them in their turn ; and’ when Titus listened to terms of accommodation, and admitted an embassy upon the proffers of the Macedonian king, the ^Tolians made it their business to publish through all the cities of Greece, that this was the conclusion of all ; that he was selling Philip a peace, at a time when it was in his hand to destroy the very roots of the war, and to overthrow the power which had first inflicted servitude upon Greece. But whilst with these and the like rumors, the -^tolians labored to shake the Roman confederates, Philip, making overtures of submission of himself and his kingdom to the discretion of Titus and the Romans, puts an end to those jealousies, as Titus, by accepting them, did to the war. For he reinstated Philip in his kingdom of Macedon, but made it a condition that he should quit Greece, and that he should pay one thou- sand talents ; he took from him also all his shipping, save ten vessels ; and sent away Demetrius, one of his sons, hostage to Rome ; improving his opportunity to the best advantage, and taking wise precautions for the future. For Hannibal the African, a professed enemy to the Romar name, an exile from his own country, and not long since arrived at king Antiochus^s court, was already stimulating that prince, not to be wanting to the good fortune that had been hitherto so propitious to his affairs ; the mag- nitude of his successes having gained him the surname of the Great. He had begun to level his aim at universal monarchy, but above all he was eager to measure himself with the Romans. Had not, therefore, Titus upon a principle of pru- dence and foresight, lent an ear to peace, and had Antiochus found the Romans still at war in Greece with Philip, and had these two, the most powerful and w^arlike princes of that age, confederated for their common interests against the Roman state, Rome might once more have run no less a risk, and been reduced to no less extremities than she had experienced under Hannibal. But now, Titus opportunely introducing this peace between the wars, despatching the present danger before the new one had arrived, at once disappointed Antio- chus of his first hopes, and Philip of his last. When the ten commissioners, delegated to Titus from the FLAMININUS. 583 senate, advised him to restore the rest of Greece to their liberty, but that Corinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias should be kept garrisoned for security against Antiochus ; the ^tolians on this, breaking out into loud accusations, agitated all the cities, calling upon Titus to strike oif the shackles of Greece (so Philip used to term those three cities), and asking the Greeks, whether it were not matter of much consolation to them that, though their chains weighed heavier, yet they were now smoother and better polished than formerly, and whether Titus were not deservedly admired by them as their benefac- tor, who had unshackled the feet of Greece, and tied her up by the neck ; Titus, vexed and angry at this, made it his re- quest to the senate, and at last prevailed in it, that the garri- sons in these cities should be dismissed, that so the Greeks might be no longer debtors to him for a partial, but for an entire favor. It was now the time of the celebration of the Isthmian games ; and the seats around the race-course were crowded with an unusual multitude of spectators ; Greece after long wars, having regained not only peace, but hopes of liberty, and being able once more to keep holiday in safety. A trumpet sounded to command silence ; and the crier, step- ping forth amidst the spectators, made proclamation, that the Roman senate, and Titus Quintius, the proconsular general, having vanquished king Philip and the Macedonians, restored the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Euboeans, Achseans of Phthiotis, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhaebians to their own lands, laws, and liberties ; remitting all impositions upon them, and withdrawing all garrisons from their cities. At first, many heard not at all, and others not distinctly, what was said ; but there was a confused and uncertain stir among the assembled people, some wondering, some asking, some calling out to have it proclaimed again. When, therefore, fresh silence was made, the crier raising his voice, succeeded in making himself generally heard ; and recited the decree again A shout of joy followed it, so loud that it was heard as far as the sea. The whole assembly rose and stood up ; there was no further thought of the entertainment ; all were only eager to leap up and salute and address their thanks to the deliverer and champion of Greece. What we often hear alleged, in proof of the force of human voices, was actually verified upon this occasion. Crows that were accidentally flying over the course, fell down dead into it. The disruption of the air must be the cause of it ; for the voices being numerous, and the acclamation violent, the air breaks with it, 5^4 FLAMININUS. and can no longer give support to the birds ; but lets tliena tumble, like one that should attempt to walk upon a vaciAim ; unless we should rather imagine them to fall and die, shot with the noise as a dart. It is possible, too, that there may be a circular agitation of the air, which, like marine whirl- pools, may have a violent direction of this sort given to it from the excess of its fluctuation. But for Titus ; the sports being now quite at an end, so besef was he on every side, and by such multitudes, that had he not, foreseeing the probable throng and concourse of the people, timely withdrawn, he would scarce, it is thought, have ever got clear of them. When they had tired themselves with acclamations all about his pavilion, and night was now come, wherever friends or fellow-citizens met, they joyfully saluted and embraced each other, and went home to feast and carouse together. And there, no doubt, redoubling their joy, they began to recollect and talk of the state of Greece, what wars she had incurred in defence of her liberty, and yet was never perhaps mistress of a more settled or grateful one than this which other men’s labors had won for her ; almost without one drop of blood, or one citizen’s loss to be mourned for, she had this day had put into her hands the most glorious of rewards, and best worth the contending for. Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce. Such as Agesilaus, Lysander, Nicias, and Alcibiades, knew how to play the general’s part, how to manage a war, how to bring off their men victorious by land and sea ; but how to employ that suc- cess to generous and honest purposes, they had not known. For should a man except the achievement at Marathon, the sea-fight at Salamis, the engagements at Plataea and Ther- mopylae, Cimon’s exploits at Eurymedon, and on the coasts of Cyprus, Greece fought all her battles against, and to enslave, herself ; she erected all her trophies to her own shame and misery, and was brought to ruin and desolation almost wholly by the guilt and ambition of her great men. A foreign pea pie, appearing just to retain some embers, as it were, some faint remainders of a common character derived to them from their ancient sires, a nation from whom it was a mere wonder that Greece should reap any benefit by word or thought, these are they who have retrieved Gieece from her severest dangers and distresses, have rescued her out of the hands of insulting lords and tyrants, and reinstated her in her former liberties. Thus they entertained their tongues and thoughts ; whilst FLAMININUS. 585 Titus by his actions made good what had been proclaimed For%e immediately despatched away Lentulus to Asia, to set the Bargylians free, Titillius to Thrace, to see the garrh sons of Philip removed out of the towns and islands there, while Publius Villius set sail, in order to treat with Antiochus ^about the freedom of the Greeks under him. Titus himself passed on to Chalcis, and sailing thence to Magnesia, dis' mantled the garrisons there, and surrendered the government into the people’s hands. Shortly after, he was appointed at Argos to preside in the Nemean games, and did his part in the management of that solemnity singularly well ; and made a second publication there by the crier, of liberty to the Greeks ; and, visiting all the cities, he exhorted them to the practice of obedience to law, of constant justice, and unity, and friendship one towards another. He suppressed their factions, brought home their political exiles ; and, in short, his conquest ever the Macedonians did not seem to give him a more lively pleasure, than to find himself prevalent in re- conciling Greeks with Greeks j so that their liberty seemed now the least part of the kindness he conferred upon them. The story goes, that when Lycurgus the orator had res- cued Xenocrates the philosopher from the collectors who were hurrying him away to prison for non-payment of the alien tax, and had them punished for the license they had been guilty of, Xenocrates afterwards meeting the children of Lycurgus, “ My sons,” said he, “ I am nobly repaying your father for his kindness ; he has the praises of the whole peo- ple in return for it.” But the returns which attended Titus Quintius and the Romans, for their beneficence to the Greeks, terminated not in empty praises only ; for these proceedings gained them, deservedly, credit and confidence, and thereby power, among all nations, for many not only admitted the Roman commanders, but even sent and entreated to be under their protection ; neither was this done by popular govern- ments alone, or by single cities ; but kings oppressed by kings, cast themselves into these protecting hands. Inso- much that in a very short time (though perchance not without divine influence in it) all the world did homage to them. Titus himself thought more highly of his liberation of Greece than of any other of his actions, as appears by the inscription with which he dedicated some silver targets, together with his own shield, to Apollo at Delphi : — Ye Spartan Tyndarids, twin sons of Jove, Who in swift horsemanship have placed your love, S86 FLAMINIJSUS. Titus, of great ^Eneas' race, leaves this In honor of the liberty of Greece. He offered also to Apollo a golden crown, with this inscrip t:on : — This golden crown upon thy locks divine, O blest Latona’s son, was set to shine By the great captain of the ^Enean name O Phcebus, grant the noble Titus fame 1 The same event has twice occurred to the Greeks in the city of Corinth. Titus, then, and Nero again in our days, both at Corinth, and both alike at the celebration of the Isth- mian games, permitted the Greeks to enjoy their own laws and liberty. The former (as has been said) proclaimed it by the crier ; but Nero did it in the public meeting-place from the tribunal, in a speech which he himself made to the people. This, however, was long after. Titus now engaged in a most gallant and just war upon Nabisj that most profligate and lawless tyrant of the Lacedae- monians, but in the end disappointed the expectations of the Greeks. For when he had an opportunity of taking him, he purposely let it slip, and struck up a peace with him, leaving Sparta to bewail an unworthy slavery ; whether it were that he feared, if the war should be protracted, Rome would send a new general who might rob him of the glory of it ; or that emulation and envy of Philopoemen (who had signalized him- self among the Greeks upon all other occasions, but in that war especially had done wonders both for matter of courage and counsel, and whom the Achaeans magnified in their theatres, and put into the same balance of glory with Titus), touched him to the quick ; and that he scorned that an ordi- nary Arcadian, who had commanded in a few rencounters upon the confines of his native district, should be spoken of in terms of equality with a Roman consul, waging war as the protector of Greece in general. But, besides, Titus was not without an apology too for what he did, namely, that he put an end to the war only when he foresaw that the tyrant’s destruction must have been attended with the ruin of the other Spartans. The Achaeans, by various decrees, did much to show Titus honor : none of these returns, however, seemed to come up to the height of the actions that merited them, unless it were one present they made him, which affected and pleased him beyond all the rest ; which was this. The Romans, who in the war with Hannibal had the misfortune to be taken FLAMININUS. 587 captives, were sold about here and there, and dispersed into slavery; twelve hundred in number were at that time in Greece. The reverse of their fortune always rendered them objects of compassion ; but more particularly, as well might be, when they now met, some with their sons, some with their brothers, others with their acquaintance ; slaves with their free, and-, captives with their victorious countrymen. Titus, though deeply concerned on their behalf, yet took none of them from their masters by constraint. But the Achaeans, re- deeming them at five pounds a man, brought them altogether into one place, and made a present of them to him, as he was just going on shipboard, so that he now sailed away with the fullest satisfaction ; his generous actions having procured him as generous returns, worthy a brave man and a lover of his country. This seemed the most glorious part of all his suc- ceeding triumph ; for these redeemed Romans (as it is the custom for slaves, upon their manumission, to shave their heads and wear felt-hats) followed in that habit in the pro- cession. To add to the glory of this show, there were the Grecian helmets, the Macedonian targets and long spears, borne with the rest of the spoils in public view, besides vast sums of money; Tuditanus says, 3,713 pounds weight of massy gold, 43,270 of silver, 14,514 pieces of coined gold, called Philippics, which was all over and above the thousand talents which Philip owed, and which the Romans were after- wards prevailed upon, chiefly by the mediation of Titus, to remit to Philip, declaring him their ally and confederate, and sending him home his hostage son. Shortly after, Antiochus entered Greece with a numerous fleet and a powerful army, soliciting the cities there to sedi- tion and revolt ; abetted in all and seconded by the ^tolians, who for this long time had borne a grudge and secret enemity to the Romans, and now suggested to him, by the way of a cause and pretext of war, that he came to bring the Greeks liberty. When, indeed, they never wanted it less, as they were free already, but, in lack of really honorable grounds, he was instructed to employ these lofty professions. The Romans, in the interim, in the great apprehension of revolu- tions and revolt in Greece, and of his great reputation for military strengfh, dispatched the consul Manius Acilius to take the charge of the war, and Titus, as his lieutenant, out of regard to the Greeks : some of whom he no sooner saw, but he confirmed them in the Roman interests ; others, who began to falter, like a timely physician , bv the use of the strong remedy 588 FLAMININUS. ot their own affection for himself, he was able to arrest !n the nrst stage of the disease, before they had committed them' selves to any great error. Some few there were whom the .^tolians were beforehand with, and had so wholly pervertea that he could do no good with them ; yet these, however angry and exasperated before, he saved and protected when the en- gagement was over. For Antiochus, receiving a defeat at Thermopylae, not only fled the field, but hoisted sail instantly for Asia. Manius, the consul, himself invaded and besieged a part of the ^tolians, while king Philip had permission to re- duce the rest. Thus while, for instance, the Dolopes and Magnetians on the one hand, the Athamanes and Aperantians on the other, were ransacked by the Macedonians, and while Manius laid Heraclea waste, and besieged Naupactus, then in the ^tolians’ hands, Titus, still with a compassionate care for Greece, sailed across from Peloponnesus to the consul : and began first of all to chide him, that the victory should be owing alone to his arms, and yet he should suffer Philip to bear away the prize and profit of the war, and set wreaking his anger upon a single town, whilst the Macedonians overran several nations and kingdoms. But as he happened to stand then in view of the besieged, they no sooner spied him out, but they call to him from their wall, they stretch forth their hands, they supplicate and entreat him. At the time, he said not a word more, but turning about with tears in his eyes, went his way. Some little while after, he discussed the mat- ter so effectually with Manius, that he won him over from his passion, and prevailed with him to give a truce and time to the ^tolians, to send deputies to Rome to petition the senate for terms of moderation. But the hardest task, and that which put Titus to the greatest difficulty, was to entreat with Manius for the Chalcid- ians, who had incensed him on account of a marriage which Antiochus had made in their city, even whilst the war was on foot ; a match noways suitable in point of age, he an elderly man being enamored with a mere girl ; and as little proper for the time, in the midst of a war. She was the daughter ot one Cleoptolemus, and is said to have been wonderfully beau- tiful. The Chalcidians, in consequence, embraced the king’s interests with zeal and alacrity, and let him make their city the basis of his operations during the war. Thither, therefore, he made with all speed, when he was routed, and fled ; and reaching Chalcis, without making any stay, taking this young lady, and his money and friends with him, away he sails to FLAMININUS. 589 Asia. And now Manius’s indignation carrying him in all haste against the Chalcidians, Titus hurried after him, en- deavoring to pacify and to entreat him ; and at length suc- ceeded both with him and the chief men among the Romans The Chalcidians, thus owing their lives to Titus, dedica- ted to him all the best and most magnificent of their sacred buildings, inscriptions upon which may be seen to run thus to this day: the people dedicate this gymnasium to tit us AND TO HERCULES ; SO again : the people consecrate the DELPHINIUM TO TITUS AND TO HERCULES ; and what is yet more, even in our time, a priest of Titus was formerly elected and declared ; and after sacrifice and libation, they sing a set song, much of which for the length of it we omit, but shall transcribe the closing verses : The Roman Faith, whose aid of yore, Our vows were offered to implore. We worship now and evermore. To Rome, to Titus, and to Jove, O maidens, in the dances move. Dances and lo-Paeans too Unto the Roman Faith are due, O Savior Titus, and to you. Other parts of Greece also heaped honors upon him suit- able to his merits, and what made all those honors true and real, was the surprising good-will and affection which his moderation and equity of character had won for him. For if he were at any time at variance with anybody in mat- ters of business, or out of emulation and rivalry (as with Philopoemen, and again with Diophanes, when in office as general of the Achaeans), his resentment never went far, nor did it ever break out into acts ; but when it had vent- ed itself in some citizen -like freedom of speech, there was an end of it. In fine, nobody charged malice or bitterness upon his nature, though many imputed hastiness and levity to it ; in general, he was the most attractive and agreeable of companions, and could speak too, both with grace, and forcibly. For instance, to divert the Achceans from the conquest of the isle of Zacynthus, “ If,” said he, they put their head too far out of Peloponnesus, they may hazard themselves as much as a tortoise out of its shell.” Again, when he and Philip first met to treat of a cessation and peace, the latter complaining that Titus came with a mighty train, while he himself came alone and unattended, “Yes,” replied 'Fitus, “you have left yourself alone by killing youi 590 FLAMININUS. friends.’^ At another time, Dinocrates, the Messenian, having drunk too much at a merrymeeting in Rome, danced therein woman’s clothes, and the next day addressed himself to Titus for assistance in his design to get Messene out of the hands of the Achaeans. “ This,” replied Titus, “will be matter for consideration ; my only surprise is that a man with such pur- poses on his hands should be able to dance and sing at drink- ing parties.” When, again, the ambassadors of Antiochus were recounting to those of Achaea, the various multitudes com- posing their royal master’s forces, and ran over a long cata- logue of hard names, “ I supped once,” said Titus, “ with a friend, and could not forbear expostulating with him at the number of dishes he had provided, and said I wondered where he had furnished himself with such a variety ; ^ Sir,’ replied he, ‘to confess the truth, it is all hog’s flesh differently cooked.’ And so men of Achaea, when you are told of Antio- chus’s lancers, and pikemen, and foot-guards, I advise you not to be surprised ; since in fact they are all Syrians, differ- ently armed.” After his achievements in Greece, and when the war with Antiochus Avas at an end, Titus was created censor ; the most eminent office, and, in a manner, the highest preferment, in the commonwealth. The son of Marcellus, who had been five times consul, was his colleague. These, by virtue of their office, cashiered four senators of no great distinction, and admitted to the roll of citizens all freeborn residents. But this was more by constraint than their own choice ; for Ter- entius Culeo, then tribune of the people, to spite the nobility, spurred on the populace to order it to be done. At this time, the two greatest and most eminent persons in the city, Afri- canus Scipio and Marcus Cato, were at variance. Titus named Scipio first member of the senate ; and involved him- self in a quarrel with Cato, on the following unhappy occasion. Titus had a brother, Lucius Flamininus, very unlike him in all points of character, and, in particular, low and dissolute in his pleasures, and flagrantly regardless of all decency. He kept as a companion a boy whom he used to carry about with him, not only when he had troops under his charge, but even when the care of a province was committed to him. One day at a drinking-bout, when the youngster was wantoning with Lucius, “ I love you. Sir, so dearly,” said he, “ that pre- ferring your satisfaction to my own, I came away without seeing the gladiators, though I have never seen a man killed in my life.” Lucius, delighted with what the boy said, an- FLAMININUS. S9' swerecl, “ Let not that trouble you ; I can satisfy that longing,’^ and with that, orders a condemned man to be fetched out of the prison, and the executioner to be sent for, and commands him to strike off the man’s head, before they rose from table. Valerius Antias only so far varies the story as to make it a woman for whom he did it. But Livy says that in Cato’s own speech the statement is, that a Gaulish deserter coming with his wife and children to the door, Lucius took him into the ban que ting-room, and killed him with his own hand, to gratify his paramour. Cato, it is probable, might say this by v/ay of aggravation of the crime ; but that the slain was no such fugitive, but a prisoner, and one condemned to die, not to mention other authorities, Cicero tells us in his treatise On Old Age, where he brings in Cato, himself, giving that ac- count of the matter. However, this is certain ; Cato, during his censorship, made a severe scrutiny into the senators’ lives in order to the purg- ing and reforming the house, and expelled Lucius, though he Had been once consul before, and though the punishment seemed to reflect dishonor on his brother also. Both of them presented themselves to the assembly of the people in a sup- pliant manner, not without tears in their eyes, requesting that Cato might show the reason and cause of his fixing such a stain upon so honorable a family. The citizens thought it a modest and moderate request. Cato, however, without any retraction or reserve, at once came forward, and standing up with his colleague interrogated Titus, as to whether he knew the story of the supper. Titus answered in the negative, Cato related it, and challenged Lucius to a formal denial of it. Lucius made no reply, whereupon the people adjudged the disgrace just and suitable, and waited upon Cato home from the tribunal in great state. But Titus still so deeply resented his brother’s degradation, that he allied himself with those who had long borne a grudge against Cato ; and win- ning over a major part of the senate, he revoked and made void the all contracts, leases, and bargains made by Cato, re- lating to -public revenues, and also got numerous actions and accusations brought against him ; carrying on against a law- ful magistrate and excellent citizens, for the sake of one who was indeed his relation, but was unworthy to be so, and had but gotten his deserts, a course of bitter and violent attacks, which it would be hard to say were either right or patriotic. Afterwards, however, at a public spectacle in the theatre, at which the senators appeared as usual, sitting, as became their 592 FLAMININUS. rank, in the first seats, when Lucius was spied at the lower end, seated in a mean, dishonorable place, it made a g^eat impression upon the people, nor could they endure the sight, but kept calling out to him to move, until he did move, and went in among those of consular dignity, who received him into their seats. This natural ambition of Titus was well enough looked upon by the world, whilst the wars we have given a relation of afforded competent fuel to feed it ; as, for instance, when after the expiration of his consulship, he had a command as military tribune, which nobody pressed upon him. But being now out of all employ in the government, and advanced in years, he showed his defects more plainly ; allowing himself, in this inactive remainder of life, to be carried away with the passion for reputation, as uncontrollably as any youth. Some such transport, it is thought, betrayed him into a proceeding against Hannibal, which lost him the regard of many. For Hannibal, having fled his country, first took sanctuary wdth Antiochus ; but he, having been glad to obtain a peace, after the battle in Phrygia, Hannibal was put to shift for himself, by a second flight, and, after wandering through many coun- tries, fixed at length in Bithynia, proffering his service to king Prusias. Every one at Rome knew where he was, but looked upon him, now in his weakness and old age, with no sort of apprehension, as one whom fortune had quite cast off. Titus, however, coming thither as ambassador, though he was sent from the senate to Prusias upon another errand, yet seeing Hannibal resident there, it stirred up resentment in him to find that he was yet alive. And though Prusias used much intercession and entreaties in favor of him, as his suppliant and familiar friend, Titus was not to be entreated. There was an ancient oracle, it seems, which prophesied thus of Hanni- baFs end : — Libyssan earth shall Hannibal inclose. He interpreted this to be meant of the African Libya, and that he should be buried in Carthage ; as if he might yet ex- pect to return and end his life there. But there is a sandy place in Bithynia, bordering on the sea, and near it a little village called Libyssa. It was Hannibal’s chance to be stay- ing here, and, haying ever from the beginning had a distrust of the easiness and cowardice of Prusias, and a fear of the Romans, he had, long before, ordered seven underground passages to be dug from his house, leading from his lodging FLAMININUS. 593 and running a considerable distance in various opposite direc- tions, all undiscernible from without. As soon, therefore, as he heard what Titus had ordered, he attempted to make his escape through these mines ; but finding them beset with the king’s guards, he resolved upon making away with himself. Some say that wrapping his upper garment about his neck, he commanded his servant to set his knee against his back, and not to cease twisting and pulling it, till he had complete- ly strangled him. Other’s say, he drank bull’s blood, after the example of Themistocles and Midas. Livy writes that he had poison in readiness, which he mixed for the purpose, and that taking the cup in his hand, Let us ease, ” said he, the Romans of their continual dread and care, who think it long and tedious to await the death of a hated old man. Yet Titus will not bear away a glorious victory, nor one worthy of those ancestors who sent to caution Pyrrhus, an enemy, and a conqueror too, against the poison prepared for him by traitors.” Thus various are the reports of Hannibal’s death ; but when the news of it came to the senators’ ears, some felt in- dignation against Titus for it, blaming as well his officious- ness as his cruelty ; who when there was nothing to urge it, out of mere appetite for distinction to have it said that he had caused Hannibal’s death, sent him to his grave when he was now like a bird that in its old age has lost its feathers, and incapable of flying is let alone to live tamely without molestation. They began also now to regard with increased admiration the clemency and magnanimity of Scipio Africanus, and called to mind how he, when he had- vanquished in Africa the till then invincible and terrible Hannibal, neither banished him his country, nor exacted of his countrymen that they should give him up. At a parley just before they joined bat- tle, Scipio gave him his hand, and in the peace made after it, he put no hard article upon him, nor insulted over his fallen fortune. It is told, too, that they had another meeting after- wards, at Ephesus, and that when Hannibal, as they were walking together, took the upper hand, Africanus let it pass, and walked on without the least notice of it ; and that then, they began to talk of generals, and Hannibal affirmed that Alexander was the greatest commander the world had seen, next to him Pyrrhus, and the third was himself; Africanus, with a smile, asked, “ What would you have said, if I had not defeated you?” ‘‘I would not then, Scipio,” he replied, 38 594 FLAMININUS. ‘‘have made myself the third, but the first commander.’’ Such conduct was much admired in Scipio, and that of Titus, who had as it were insulted the dead whom another had slain, was no less generally found fault with. Not but that there were some who applauded the action, looking upon a living Han- nibal as a fire, which only wanted blowing to become a flame. For when he was in the prime and flower of his age, it was not his body nor his hand, that had been so formidable, but his consummate skill and experience, together with his innate malice and rancor against the Roman name, things which do not impair with age. For the temper and bent of the soul re- mains constant, while fortune continually varies ; and some new hope might easily rouse to a fresh attempt those whose hatred made them enemies to the last. And what really happened afterwards does to a certain extent tend yet further to the exculpation of Titus. Aristonicus, of the family of a common musician, upon the reputation of being the son of Eumenes, filled all Asia with tumults and rebellion. Then again, Mithridates, after his defeats by Sylla and Fimbria, and vast slaughter as well among his prime officers as common soldiers, made head again, and proved a most dangerous ene- my, against Lucullus, both by sea and land. Hannibal was never reduced to so contemptible a state as Caius Marius ; he had the friendship of a king, and the free exercise of his faculties, employment and charge in the navy, and over the horse and foot, of Prusias ; whereas those who but now were laughing to hear of Marius wandering about Africa, destitute and begging, in no long time after were seen entreating his mercy in Rome, with his rods at their backs, and his axes at their necks. So true it is, that looking to the possible future, we can call nothing that we see either great or small ; as nothing puts an end to the mutability and vicissitude of things, but what puts an end to their very being. Some authors ac- cordingly tell us, that Titus did not do this of his own head, but that he was joined in commission with Lucius Scipio, and that the whole object of the embassy was to effect Hannibal’s death. And now, as we find no further mention in history of any thing done by Titus, either in war or in the administration of the government, but simply that he died in peace ; it is time to look upon him as he stands in comparison with Philopoe- men. PHILOPCEMEN AND FLAMININUS. 595 COMPARISON OF PHILOPCEMEN WITH FLAMININUS. First, then, as for the greatness of the benefits which Titus conferred on Greece, neither Philopoemen, nor maay braver men than he, can make good the parallel. They were Greeks fighting against Greeks, but Titus, a stranger to Greece, fought for her. And at the very time when Philopoe- men went over into Crete, destitute of means to succor his be- sieged countrymen, Titus, by a defeat given to Philip in the heart of Greece, set them, and their cities free. Again, if we examine the battles they fought, Philopoemen, whilstdie was the Achaeans’ general, slew more Greeks than Titus, in aiding the Greeks, slew Macedonians. As to their failings, ambition was Titus’s weak side, and obstinacy Philopoemen’s ; in the former , anger was easily kindled ; in the latter, it was as hardly quenched. Titus reserved to Philip the royal dignity ; he pardoned the ^tolians, and stood their friend ; but Philopoe- men, exasperated against his country, deprived it of its suprem- acy over the adjacent villages. Titus was ever constant to those he had once befriended, the other, upon any offence, as prone to cancel kindnesses. He who had once been a bene- factor to the Lacedaemonians, afterwards laid their walls level with the ground, wasted their country, and in the end changed and destroyed the whole frame of their government. He seems, in truth, to have prodigalled away his own life, through passion and perverseness ; for he fell upon the Messenians, not with that conduct and caution that characterized the movements of Titus, but with unnecessary and unreasonable haste. The many battles he fought, and the many trophies he won, may make us ascribe to Philopoemen the more thorough knowledge of war. Titus decided the matter betwixt Philip and himself in two engagements : but Philopoemen came off victorious in ten thousand encounters, to all which fortune had scarcely any pretence, so much were they owing to his skill. Besides, Titus got his renown, assisted by the power of a flour- ishing Rome ; the other flourished under a declined Greece, so that his successes may be accounted his own ; in Titus’s 59 ® PHILOPCEMEN AND FLAMININUS. glory Rome claims a share. The one had brave men under him, the other made his brave, by being over them. And though Philopoemen was unfortunate certainly, in always be- ing opposed to his countrymen, yet this misfortune is at the same time a proof of his merit. Where the circumstances are the same, superior success can only be ascribed to superior merit. And he had, indeed, to do with the two most warlike nations of all Greece, the Cretans on the one hand, and the Lacedaemonians on the other, and he 'mastered the craftiest of t^em by art and the bravest of them by valor. It may also » be said that Titus, having his men armed and disciplined to his hand, had in a manner his victories made for him ; where- as Philopoemen was forced to introduce a discipline and tac- tics of his own, and to new-mould and model his soldiers ; so that what is of greatest import towards insuring a victory was in his case his own creation, while the other had it ready pro- vided for his benefit. Philopoemen effected many gallant things with his own hand, but Titus none ; so much so that one Archedemus, an ^tolian, made it a jest against him that while he, the ^tolian, was running with his drawn sword, where he saw the Macedonians drawn up closest and fighting hardest, Titus was standing still, and with hands stretched out to heaven, praying to the gods for aid. It is true, Titus acquitted himself admirably, both as ‘a gipvernor and as an ambassador ; but Philopoemen was no less serviceable and useful to the Achaeans in the capacity of a private man, than in ihat of a commander. He was a pri- vate citizen when he restored the Messenians to their liberty, and delivered their city from Nabis ; he was also a private citizen when he rescued the Lacedaemonians, and shut the gates of Sparta against the General Diophanes, and Titus. He had a nature so truly formed for command that he could govern even the laws themselves for the public good ; he did not need to wait for the formality of being elected into com- mand by the governed, but employed their service, if occasion required, at his own discretion ; judging that he who under- stood their real interests, was more truly their supreme mag- istrate, than he whom they had elected to the office. The equity, clemency, and humanity of Titus towards the Greeks, display a great and generous nature ; but the actions of Phil- opoemen, full of courage, and forward to assert his country’s liberty against the Romans, have something yet greater and nobler in them. For it is not as hard a task to gratify the indigent and distressed, as to bear up against, and to dare to » t ii r PHILOPCEMEN AND FLAMININUS. 597 incur the anger of the powerful. 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