The Project Gutenberg Etext of Plutarch's Lives, by A.H. Clough
Also known as "Parallel Lives", written in Greek ~100 A.D.
Includes 50 biographies, 23 Greek, 23 Roman, 2 others.
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Plutarch's Lives
Edited by A.H. Clough
October, 1996 [Etext #674]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Plutarch's Lives, by A.H. Clough
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Plutarch's Lives
The following are the names of the chapters. These names, in all
capitals, are found only once in the text, at the start of the chapter.
THESEUS
ROMULUS
COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS
LYCURGUS
NUMA POMPILIUS
COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS
SOLON
POPLICOLA
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
THEMISTOCLES
CAMILLUS
PERICLES
FABIUS
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
ALCIBIADES
CORIOLANUS
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
TIMOLEON
AEMILIUS PAULUS
COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH AEMILIUS PAULUS
PELOPIDAS
MARCELLUS
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
ARISTIDES
MARCUS CATO
COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO.
PHILOPOEMEN
FLAMININUS
COMPARISON OF PHILOPOEMEN WITH FLAMININUS
PYRRHUS
CAIUS MARIUS
LYSANDER
SYLLA
COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA
CIMON
LUCULLUS
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
NICIAS
CRASSUS
COMPARISON OF CRASSUS WITH NICIAS
SERTORIUS
EUMENES
COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES
AGESILAUS
POMPEY
COMPARISON OF POMPEY AND AGESILAUS
ALEXANDER
CAESAR
PHOCION
CATO THE YOUNGER
AGIS
CLEOMENES
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
CAIUS GRACCHUS
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND CLEOMENES
DEMOSTHENES
CICERO
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
DEMETRIUS
ANTONY
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
DION
MARCUS BRUTUS
COMPARISON OF DION AND BRUTUS
ARATUS
ARTAXERXES
GALBA
OTHO
Tom Trent
[email protected]
*********************************************************************
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, Scythian 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 in, 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 myself
Whom shall I set so great a man to face?
Or whom oppose? who's equal to the place?
(as Aeschylus expresses it), I found none so fit as him that peopled the
beautiful and far-famed city of Athens, to be set in opposition with the
father of the invincible and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that
Fable may, in what shall follow, 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
refusing to be reduced to anything like probable fact, we shall beg
that we may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with
indulgence the stories of antiquity.
Theseus seemed to me to resemble Romulus in many particulars. 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 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 Troezenians, 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 of 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.
Aegeus, 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 persuasion or deceit, to
lie with his daughter Aethra. Aegeus 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, should 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 secrecy, and with injunctions to him as
much as possible to conceal his journey from every one; for he greatly
feared the Pallantidae, who were continually mutinying against him, and
despised him for his want of children, they themselves being fifty
brothers, all sons of Pallas.
When Aethra 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 received his name afterwards at Athens, when
Aegeus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under his
grandfather Pittheus, and had 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 Abantes did.% And this sort of tonsure was from him named
Theseis. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians,
as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike
people, and used to close fighting, and above 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 try,
As is the practice of Euboea's lords
Skilled with the spear.--
Therefore that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair,
they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason
why Alexander gave command to his captains that all the beards of the
Macedonians should be shaved, as being the readiest hold for an enemy.
Aethra for some time concealed the true parentage of 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 understanding, his mother Aethra,
conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father,
commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left, and
to 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 grandfather begged him to
do so. For it was at that time very dangerous to go by land on the road
to Athens, no part of it being free from robbers and murderers. That
age produced a sort of men, in force of hand, and swiftness of foot, and
strength 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 their
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 themselves. 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 submission; and after that Hercules fell into misfortune, and,
having slain Iphitus, 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
Peloponnesus; and Pittheus, giving him an exact account of each of 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 fired 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, Themistocles
was, when he said that he could not sleep for the trophy of Miltiades;
entertaining such admiration for the virtue of Hercules, that in the
night his dreams were all of that hero's actions. and in the day a
continual emulation stirred him up to perform the like. Besides, they
were related, being born of cousins-german. For Aethra 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 endured, 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 tokens 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 himself of all those that
should offer any. And first of all, in a set combat, he slew
Periphetes, in the neighborhood of Epidaurus, 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 this club; overcome indeed by him,
but now, in his hands, invincible.
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 practiced 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
her father was killed, fled, and was sought after everywhere by Theseus;
and coming into a place overgrown with brushwood shrubs, and asparagus-
thorn, there, in a childlike, innocent manner, prayed and begged them,
as if they understood 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 her no injury, she came forth, and in due time bore
him a son, named Melanippus; but afterwards was married to Deioneus, the
son of Eurytus, the Oechalian, Theseus himself giving her to him.
Ioxus, the son of this Melanippus who was born to Theseus, accompanied
Ornytus in the colony that he carried with him into Caria, whence it is
a family usage amongst the people called Ioxids, both male and female,
never to burn either shrubs or asparagus-thorn,
but to respect and honor them.
The Crommyonian 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
chastise villainous 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 borders 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 wantonness, to stretch 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, however, 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 Aeacus, 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 Aeacus, and
grandfather to Peleus and Telamon, who were both of them sons of Endeis,
the daughter of Sciron and Chariclo; it was not probable, therefore,
that the best of men should make these alliances with one who was worst,
giving and receiving 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 Diocles, the governor. Such are the
contradictions in this story. In Eleusis he killed Cercyon, the
Arcadian, in a wrestling match. And going on a little farther, in
Erineus, he slew Damastes, otherwise called Procrustes, forcing his body
to the size of his own 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 Termerian 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 inflicted 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 Phytalidae 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 sacrifices 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, Aegeus also, and his whole private
family, laboring under the same distemper; for Medea, having fled from
Corinth, and promised Aegeus to make him, by her art, capable of having
children, was living with him. She first was aware of Theseus, whom as
yet Aegeus 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 to 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; Aegeus, 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 Aegeus's
house, and the figure of Mercury on the east side of the temple is
called the Mercury of Aegeus's gate.
The sons of Pallas, who before were quiet, upon expectation of
recovering the kingdom after Aegeus's death, who was without issue, as
soon as Theseus appeared and was acknowledged the successor, highly
resenting that Aegeus 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 Leos.
Theseus, longing to be in action, and desirous also to make 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 receiving and entertaining Theseus in this expedition, seems to be
not altogether void of truth; for the townships round about, meeting
upon a certain day, used to offer a sacrifice, 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 Philochorus tells us.
Not long after arrived the third time from Crete the collectors of the
tribute which the Athenians paid them upon the following occasion.
Androgeus 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 Androgeus, gave, as
a reward to the victors, these youths, who in the mean time were kept 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 gives of the form of government of the Bottiaeans, is
manifestly of opinion that the youths were not 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 a thing 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 theaters; neither
did Hesiod avail him by calling him "the most royal Minos," nor Homer,
who styles him "Jupiter's familiar friend;" 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 lawgiver, 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 Aegeus 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 rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow citizens,
offered himself for one without any lot. All else were struck with
admiration for the nobleness and with love for the goodness of the act;
and Aegeus, 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, and that the young men that were to sail with
him should carry no weapon 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, Theseus 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
him, as he returned, if Theseus were safe, to make use of that; but if
not, to sail with the black one, and to hang out that sign of his
misfortune. Simonides says that the sail which Aegeus delivered to the
pilot was not white, but
Scarlet, in the juicy bloom
Of the living oak-tree steeped,
and that this was to be the sign of their escape. Phereclus, son of
Amarsyas, according to Simonides, was pilot of the ship. But
Philochorus says Theseus had sent him by Scirus, from Salamis,
Nausithous 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 Nausithous and Phaeax, built by
Theseus near the temple of Scirus, confirm. He adds, also, that the
feast named Cybernesia was in honor of them. The lot
being cast, and Theseus having received out of the Prytaneum those upon
whom it fell, he went to the Delphinium, and made an offering for them
to Apollo of his suppliant's badge, which was a bough of a consecrated
olive tree, with white wool tied about it.
Having thus performed his devotion, he went to sea, the sixth day of
Munychion, on which day even to this time the Athenians send their
virgins to the same temple to make supplication to the gods. It is
farther reported that he was commanded by the oracle at 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
seaside, it was suddenly changed into a he, and for this cause that
goddess had the name of Epitrapia.
When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient historians as well as
poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne, who had
fallen in love with him, and being 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 bottoms 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 us 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 Athenians, 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 meanwhile 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 his design might be
carried on with the greatest secrecy. As soon as ever his fleet was in
readiness, he set sail, having with him Daedalus and other exiles from
Crete for his guides; and none of the Cretans having any knowledge of
his coming, 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 Gnossus 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 captives 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
Oenarus, priest of Bacchus; and that Theseus left her
because he fell in love with another,
For Aegle's love was 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 manner as he added
in Homer's Raising of the Dead, to gratify the Athenians, the line
Theseus, Pirithous, mighty sons of gods.
Others say Ariadne had sons also by Theseus, Oenopion and Staphylus; and
among these is the poet Ion of Chios, who writes of his own native city
Which once Oenopion, son of Theseus, built.
But the more famous of the legendary stories everybody (as I may say)
has in his mouth. In Paeon, however, the Amathusian, there is a story
given, differing from the rest. For he writes that Theseus, being
driven by a storm upon the isle 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 Ariadne very kindly,
and did all they could to console and alleviate her distress at being
left behind. That they counterfeited kind 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 worshiped by the island, but in a different 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 round the Ceratonian Altar, so
called from its consisting 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 Aegeus, who, in despair at the sight, threw himself
headlong from a rock, and perished in the sea. But Theseus, being
arrived at the port of Phalerum, paid there the sacrifices which he had
vowed to the gods at his setting out to sea, and sent a herald to the
city to carry the news of his safe return. 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 garlands for
his good news, which he indeed accepted of, but 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 soon 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 iou 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, after 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 boiling 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 wool (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 procession this song:
Eiresione bring figs, and Eiresione bring loaves;
Bring us honey in pints, and oil to rub on our bodies,
And a strong flagon of wine, for all to go mellow to bed on.
Although some hold opinion that this ceremony is retained in memory of
the Heraclidae, 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 Phalereus, for they took 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 as to 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 away, 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 return 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 we 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 sacrifices to him. And the
house of the Phytalidae had the overseeing of these sacrifices, Theseus
doing them that honor in recompense of their former hospitality.
Now, after the death of his father Aegeus, forming in his mind a great
and wonderful design, he gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica
into one town, and made them one people of one city, whereas before they
lived dispersed, and were not easy to assemble upon any affair for the
common interest. 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 Panathenaea, or
the sacrifice of all the united Athenians. He instituted also another
sacrifice, called Metoecia, 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
commonwealth, 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.
Be not anxious nor afraid;
The bladder will not fail so swim
On the waves that compass him.
Which oracle, they say, one of the sibyls long after did in a manner
repeat 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, Come hither all ye people, was the words that Theseus
proclaimed when he thus set up a commonwealth, in a manner, for all
nations. Yet he 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 Commonwealth into
three distinct ranks, the noblemen, the husbandmen, 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 there.
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, dedicated to Melicerta, were performed privately
in the night, and had the form rather of a religious rite than of an
open spectacle or public feast. There are some who say that the
Isthmian games were first instituted in memory 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 other's, these games
were ordained by Theseus. At the same time he made an agreement with
the Corinthians, that they should allow 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 Antiope given him for the reward of his
valor; but the greater number, of whom are Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and
Herodorus, write 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 carried her away. An author
named Menecrates, that wrote the History of Nicaea in Bithynia, adds,
that Theseus, having Antiope 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 acquaintance, and
employed him to disclose his passion to Antiope, she rejected his
pretenses 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 unhappy love that was the cause of
it, he was extremely distressed, 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 cause he there founded
a city, which he called, from 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 entrusted 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.
This was the origin and cause of the Amazonian invasion of Attica, which
would seem to have been no slight or womanish 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
impunity 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 thereabout 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 happened 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 Amazons 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, engaged,
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 fighting by Theseus's side, and that the pillar which
stands by the 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 recovered, but some that died were buried there in the
place that is to this time called Amazonium. That this war, however,
was ended by a treaty is evident, both from the name of the place
adjoining to the temple of Theseus, called, from the 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 Pindar writes, Demophon. The calamities which befell
Phaedra and this son, since none of the historians have contradicted the
tragic poets that have written of them, we must suppose happened as
represented 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 Troezenian, and, having slain Sinnis and Cercyon,
to have ravished their daughters; to have married Periboea, the mother
of Ajax, and then Phereboea, and then Iope, the daughter of Iphicles.
And further, he is accused of deserting Ariadne (as is before related),
being in love with Aegle the daughter of Panopeus, 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.
Herodorus 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 only excepted, 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 Hercules. He also joined Adrastus in
recovering the bodies of those that were slain before Thebes, but not as
Euripides in his tragedy says, by force of arms, but by persuasion 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 recovering 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 burying-places 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 Aeschylus in his Eleusinians, where Theseus himself relates the facts
as here told.
The celebrated friendship between Theseus and Pirithous is said to have
been thus begun: the fame of the strength and valor of Theseus being
spread through Greece, Pirithous 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 news was
brought that Theseus pursued him in arms, he did not fly, but turned
back and went to meet him. But as soon as they had viewed one another,
each so admired the gracefulness and beauty, and was seized with such a
respect for the courage, of the other, that they forgot all thoughts of
fighting; and Pirithous, 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 forgave him all, but
entreated him to be his friend and brother in arms; and they ratified
their friendship by oaths. After this Pirithous married Deidamia, and
invited Theseus to the 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 country, 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, 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 account 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 Pollux; 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 probable account, and that which has most witnesses
on its side, is this: Theseus and Pirithous went both together to
Sparta, and, having seized the young lady as she was dancing in the
temple of Diana Orthia, fled away with her. There were presently men in
arms sent to pursue, but they followed no further than to Tegea; and
Theseus and Pirithous, being now out of danger, having passed through
Peloponnesus, made an agreement 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 Theseus,
who conveyed her to Aphidnae, not being yet marriageable, and delivered
her to one of his allies, called Aphidnus, and, having sent his mother
Aethra 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 Pirithous, 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 daughter Cora, and a great 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 Pirithous and his companion was
not to court his daughter, but to force her away, he caused them both to
be seized, and threw Pirithous to be torn in pieces by his dog, and put
Theseus into prison, and kept him.
About this time, Menestheus, the son of Peteus, grandson of Orneus, and
great-grandson to Erechtheus, the first man that is recorded to have
affected popularity and ingratiated 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 both of that and of
their proper homes and religious usages, instead of many good and
gracious kings of their own, they had given themselves 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 war that Castor and Pollux
brought against Athens came very opportunely to further the sedition he
had been promoting, and some say that he 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 Aphidnae. 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 country round about, spared the Academy
for the sake of Academus. But Dicaearchus 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 fulfill some oracle, voluntarily offered himself to be
made a sacrifice before battle. As soon as they were arrived at
Aphidnae, they overcame their enemies in a set battle, and then
assaulted and took the town. And here, they say, Alycus, the son of
Sciron, was slain, of the party of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux),
from whom 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 which he cites these verses concerning Alycus
And Alycus, upon Aphidna'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
benefactors 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 were 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
(Anokhe) of the war, or from the care they took that none should suffer
any injury, though there was so great an army within the walls; for the
phrase anakos ekhein is used of those who look to or care for any thing;
kings for this reason, perhaps, are called anactes. Others say, that
from the appearance of their star in the heavens, they were thus called,
for in the Attic dialect this name comes very near the words
that signify above.
Some say that Aethra, 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,
Aethra of Pittheus born, and large-eyed Clymene.
Others reject this verse as none of Homer's, as they do likewise the
whole fable of Munychus, who, the story says, was the son of Demophon
and Laodice, born secretly, and brought up by Aethra at Troy. But
Ister, in the thirteenth book of his Attic History, gives us an account
of Aethra, different yet from all the rest: that Achilles and Patroclus
overcame Paris in Thessaly, near the river Sperchius, but that Hector
took and plundered the city of the Troezenians, and made Aethra 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, accidentally spoke of the
journey of Theseus and Pirithous into his country, of what they had
designed to do, and what they were forced to suffer. Hercules was much
grieved for the inglorious death of the one and the miserable condition
of the other. As for Pirithous, 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
Philochorus 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 generally 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, despairing 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 Chalcodon; and he himself, having
solemnly cursed the people of Athens in the village of Gargettus, in
which there yet remains the place called Araterion, 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. Theseus, 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
assistance 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 pretense 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 that
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, beside 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 Athenians, 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 find out the place where they lay, on
account of the inhospitable and savage temper of the barbarous people
that inhabited 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 the 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 ordinary
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 with 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 sanctuary and
refuge for slaves, and all those of mean condition that fly from the
persecution 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. The chief and most solemn
sacrifice which they celebrate to him is kept on the eighth day of
Pyanepsion, on which he returned 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 was reputed to be born of Neptune, because
they sacrifice to Neptune 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 immovable
power of this god, who from thence has the names of Asphalius and
Gaeiochus, that is, the establisher and stayer 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 themselves here, and, from their 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 they had burnt the ships, made use of
such endearments when entreating and pacifying their husbands.
Some again say that Roma, from whom this city was so called, was
daughter of Italus and Leucaria; or, by another account, of Telephus,
Hercules's son, and that she was married to Aeneas, or, according to
others again, to Ascanius, Aeneas's son. Some tell us that Romanus, the
son of Ulysses and Circe, built it; some, Romus the son of Emathion,
Diomede 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 to the
city, yet differ concerning his birth and family. For some say, he was
son to Aeneas 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 Aemilia, daughter of
Aeneas 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 answer 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 commanded
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
meantime, 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 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 up 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 particulars, amongst the
Greeks by Diocles 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 Aeneas and the
succession 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 kingdom; 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, discovered 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 without 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 Faustulus was the
man who brought them up. He put the children, 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 call
Cermanes, formerly Germanus, perhaps from Germani,
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 of the day seek cover under it,
and there chew the cud; or, better, from the suckling of these children
there, for the ancients called the dug or teat of any creature ruma, 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 constantly fed and watched them;
these creatures are esteemed holy to the god Mars, 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 mistake 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 lupae, 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 himself
beaten. Wishing to pay his stakes honorably, and holding 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 commanded her in
the morning to walk to the market-place, and, whatever man see met
first, to salute him, and make him her friend. She met one named
Tarrutius, who was a man advanced 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 testament,
bequeathed to the people. It was reported of her, being now celebrated
and esteemed the mistress of a god, that she suddenly disappeared near
the place where the first 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 Maximus with sails, beginning at this spot.
Upon these accounts the second Larentia is honored at Rome.
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 ruma, the dug,) as we had before,
because they were found sucking the wolf. In their very infancy, the size
and beauty of their bodies intimated their natural superiority; and when
they grew up, they both proved brave and manly, attempting all
enterprises that seemed hazardous, and showing in them a courage
altogether undaunted. But Romulus seemed rather to act by counsel, and
to show the sagacity of a statesman, 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 between Numitor's and Amulius's cowherds, the
latter, not enduring the driving away of their cattle by the others,
fell upon them and put them to flight, and rescued 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 herdsmen, meeting with Remus
on a journey with few companions, fell upon him, and, after some
fighting, took him prisoner, carried him before Numitor, and there
accused him. Numitor 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
countenance the courage and force of his mind, which stood unsubdued 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 servants; 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 present 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 effaced; which may prove hereafter unavailing tokens
to our 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 then plainly 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
instantly to Numitor; but giving a suspicion to some of the king's
sentry at his 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 at the
business, 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 commands 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 citizens, 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 manipuli and from hence it is that in their armies still they
call their captains manipulares. 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 Diocles 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 it would not wholly be disbelieved, if men would remember what a
poet fortune sometimes shows herself, and consider that the Roman power
would 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 in the same place where they were in their infancy brought
up. This seems the most honorable reason for their departure; 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, because they
could not get wives by good-will. For they certainly 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
consisted at first of no more than a thousand houses.
But of that hereafter.
Their minds being fully 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 the number; others say Remus did truly see
his number, and that Romulus feigned his, but, when Remus came to him,
that then he did, indeed, see twelve. Hence it is that the Romans, in
their 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 Aeschylus 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 vulture 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 citywall, he
turned some pieces of the work to ridicule, and obstructed others: at
last, as he was in contempt leaping over it, some say Romulus himself
struck him, others Celer, one of his companions; he fell, however, and
in the scuffle Faustulus also was slain, and Plistinus, 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 foot Celeres; and because Quintus Metellus, at his
father's funeral, in a few days' time gave the people a show of
gladiators, admiring his expedition 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
them in promiscuously together. This trench they call, as they do the
heavens, Mundus; making which their center, they described the city in a
circle round it. Then the founder fitted to a plow a brazen plowshare,
and, yoking together a bull and a cow, drove himself a deep line 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, post murum, after or beside the wall; and where they
designed to make a gate, there they took out the share, carried the plow
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 offense 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 birthday. At first, they say,
they sacrificed no living creature on this day, thinking it fit to
preserve the feast of their country's birthday pure and without stain
of blood. Yet before ever the city was built, there was a feast of
herdsmen and shepherds kept on this day, which went by the name of
Palilia. The Roman and Greek months have now little or no agreement;
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 conceive 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 proficient in the
art; to him Varro propounded to cast Romulus's nativity, 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 problem; 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 Tarrutius
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 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 he was born the twenty-first
day of the month Thoth, about sun-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 extravagance.
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; one
hundred of the most eminent he chose for counselors; these he styled
patricians, 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; others, from patronage,
their word for protection of inferiors, the origin of which they
attribute to Patron, one of 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 senators the style of lords; but the Romans, making use of a more
honorable and less invidious name, call them Patres Conscripti; at first
indeed simply Patres, but afterwards, more being added, Patres
Conscripti. 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 between them, productive of great
justice in their dealings. For they were always their clients'
counselors in law cases, their advocates in courts of justice, in fine
their advisers and supporters in all affairs whatever. These again
faithfully served their patrons, not only paying 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 Fabius 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
accounts 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 probable; 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,
either the god of counsel (for they still call a consultation consilium
and their chief magistrates consules, namely, counselors), 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,
Romulus, 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 sat 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 armed, with their eyes intent upon him, and when the sign 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 hundred 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 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
contradicted 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 of
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 Hymenaeus, because, they say, Talasius was very
happy in his marriage. But Sextius Sylla the Carthaginian, a man
wanting neither learning nor ingenuity, told me Romulus gave this word
as a sign when to begin the onset; everybody, therefore, who made prize
of a maiden, cried out, Talasius; and for that reason the custom
continues so now at marriages. But most are of opinion (of whom Juba
particularly 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 that 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, were
reconciled, conditions were made concerning their 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 husband'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 marriages began at first by war and acts of hostility, of
which I have 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 lawful 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 insufferable, were he not
chastised, first rose up in arms, and with a powerful army advanced
against him. Romulus likewise 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 participation.
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
demolish the place and attend him to Rome, there to be admitted to all
the privileges of citizens. And indeed there was nothing 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 his clothes about him, and
crowning his head with a laurel-garland, 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 Romulus prayed he might smite and
overthrow his enemy; and the spoils were called opima, 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
Tolumnius 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 Romulus 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 Sabines 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 themselves to be transplanted to Rome. All the lands which Romulus
acquired, he distributed among the citizens, except only what the
parents of the stolen virgins had; these he suffered 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 fortress 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 bracelets 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 feeling 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 when 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 of 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 prosecuted by Romulus, was found guilty of treason, as
Juba says Sulpicius Galba relates. Those who write otherwise concerning
Tarpeia, as that she was the daughter of Tatius, the Sabine captain,
and, being forcibly detained by Romulus, acted and suffered thus by her
father's contrivance, speak very 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:--
Tarpeia 'twas, who, dwelling close thereby,
Laid open Rome unto the enemy.
She, for the love of the besieging Gaul,
Betrayed the city's strength, the Capitol.
And 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.
Tarpeia afterwards was buried there, and the hill from her was called
Tarpeius, until the reign of king Tarquin, who dedicated the place to
Jupiter, at which time her bones were removed, and so it lost her name,
except only that part of the Capitol which they still call the Tarpeian
Rock, from which they used to cast down malefactors.
The 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 conflict, 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 galloping on before the rest,
and mired his horse here, and, endeavoring for awhile by whip and spur
and voice to disentangle 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 Hostilius, who, they say, was husband to
Hersilia, and grandfather 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 Palatium. 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 prayed to Jupiter 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 their
king checked many; the fears of the fugitives changed suddenly into
confidence. The place they first stood at was where now is the temple
of Jupiter Stator (which may be translated the Stayer); 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 between 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 compassion? 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 kindred,
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 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 they 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 of Tatius; 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, one 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 judges of homicide; that their children should
wear an ornament about their necks called the bulla (because it was like
a bubble), and the praetexta, 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 holy 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; 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
worship as one of the most sacred things; and, therefore, walled it
about; and if to any one it appeared not green nor flourishing, but
inclining to pine and wither, he immediately made outcry to all he met,
and they, like people hearing of a house 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 laborers digging too close, the roots were destroyed,
and the tree withered.
The Sabines adopted the Roman months, of which whatever 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 presiding over human birth; for which reason she is much
honored by mothers. Others say she was the wife of Evander, the
Arcadian, being a prophetess, and wont to deliver her oracles in verse,
and from carmen, a verse, was called Carmenta; her proper name being
Nicostrata. Others more probably derive Carmenta from carens mente, 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
nefasti, or non-court days, of the month February, which name signifies
purification, and the 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 this is but dubious, for it may come as well from the
wolf that nursed Romulus; and we 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 foreheads with the bloody
knife, others presently to wipe it off 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
child-birth. 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 customs in elegiac verses, says, that Romulus and Remus, after
the conquest of Amulius, ran joyfully to the place where the wolf gave
them suck; and that in imitation of that, this feast 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 Acilius 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 lustrations, 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 barbarous people being driven out, was found
in the ruins, under a great heap of ashes, untouched by the fire, all
things about it being consumed 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, 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 estate 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
punishment 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; for in almost six hundred
years together, nobody committed the like in Rome; and Lucius Hostius,
after the wars of Hanibal, 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 Laurentum to Rome, attempted on
the road to take away their money by force, and, upon their resistance,
killed them. So great a villainy having been committed, Romulus thought
the malefactors 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 between them; in all other respects they were very
careful of their conduct, and administered 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,
commending 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 altogether neglected revenging his
murder. Some authors write, the city of Laurentum, fearing the
consequence, delivered 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
copartner in the government. Nothing of these things, however, raised
any sort of feud or disturbance among the Sabines; but some out of love
to him, others out of 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 confederacy with him. Fidenae he
took, a neighboring city to Rome, by a party of horse, as some say, whom
he sent before with commands to cut down the hinges of the gates,
himself afterwards unexpectedly 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, nevertheless, did not raze or demolish
it, but made it a Roman colony, and sent thither, on the Ides of April,
two thousand five hundred 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 Tatius and the ambassadors. 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
distemper, 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 Camerium 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 Camerium, 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 envy, thought they 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 war, 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 by 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 thousand 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 too far in saying that Aristomenes three times offered
sacrifice for the death of a hundred enemies, Lacedaemonians, slain by
himself. The 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; surrendering
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;
whence even now, in sacrifices for victories, they lead an old man
through the market place to the Capitol, appareled 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 Tuscany.
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 and 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
hateful. 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, from their swiftness in doing commissions;
there went before him others with staves, to make room, with leather
thongs tied on their bodies, 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 lictors, for these officers, and
bacula, or staves, for their rods, because staves were then used. It is
probable, however, they were first called litores, afterwards, by
putting in a c, lictores, or, in Greek, liturgi, or people's officers,
for leitos is still Greek for the commons,
and laos for 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 own hands, and appointed an annual 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 were 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 when he of his own accord parted among his soldiers what 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 July, as they now call the month
which 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 a 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 ill the temple of
Vulcan, cut his body into pieces, and took each a part away in his
bosom; others think his disappearance was neither in the temple of
Vulcan, nor 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 unaccountable 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 thunderings, and boisterous winds from all quarters;
during which the common people dispersed and fled, but the senators kept
close together. The tempest being over and the light breaking 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 patricians, 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, protested before them all, that, as he was traveling on the
road, he had seen Romulus coming to meet him, looking taller and
comelier than ever, dressed in shining and faming 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, O Proculus, that we, who came from them, should remain
so long a time amongst men as we did; and, having built a city to be the
greatest in the world for empire and glory, should again return to
heaven. But farewell; and tell the Romans, that, by the exercise of
temperance and fortitude, they shall attain the height of human power;
we will be to you the propitious god Quirinus." This seemed credible to
the Romans, upon the honesty and oath of the relater, and indeed, too,
there mingled with it a certain divine passion, some preternatural
influence similar to possession by a divinity; nobody contradicted it,
but, laying aside all jealousies and detractions, they prayed to
Quirinus and saluted him as a god.
This is like some of the Greek fables of Aristeas the Proconnesian, and
Cleomedes the Astypalaean; 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 traveling towards Croton. And that Cleomedes, being an
extraordinarily 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; afterwards, breaking the chest to pieces, they 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 answer,
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
ridiculous. 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 Heraclitus, is a dry light, which flies out
of the body as lightning 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 nature, 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 human decree, but
really and according to right reason, elevated into gods, admitted thus
to the greatest and most blessed perfection.
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 temple 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 number 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 herself, 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 deceived, 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 they saw it, eagerly ran out of the
gates, calling in their haste to each other as they went out, and so,
falling in unexpectedly upon the enemy, they defeated them, and upon
that made a feast of triumph, called the Nones of the Goats, because 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 together 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, indeed, 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 Romulus, 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 punishment
that threatened him, (according to Plato's phrase) grew valiant purely
out of fear, and dreading the extremest inflictions, 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;
where as 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 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 Androgeus, or, according to the mildest form of
the story, to live vilely and dishonorably in slavery to insulting and
cruel men; it is not to be expressed what an act of courage,
magnanimity, or justice to the public, or of love for honor and bravery,
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; 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
observing 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? Looking at motives, we more easily excuse the
anger which a stronger cause, like a severer blow, provoked. Romulus,
having disagreed with his brother advisedly and deliberately on public
matters, one would think could not on a sudden have been put into so
great a passion; but love and jealousy and the complaints of his wife,
which few men can avoid being moved by, seduced Theseus to commit that
outrage 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 performances
proceeded from very small beginnings; for both the brothers being
thought servants and the sons of swineherds, before becoming freemen
themselves, gave liberty to almost all the Latins, obtaining at once all
the most honorable 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 compiled 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 conquerors; but at first, not by removal, or increase of an
existing 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 malefactors 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 Aeneas, 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 Aegeus, at the approach 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, Antiope, Anaxo the Troezenian, at last
Helen, when he was an 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, derived from Erechtheus and Cecrops; but it
is to be suspected these things were done out of wantonness and lust.
Romulus, 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 commendable 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 parricide 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 correspondence 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 Paris. Theseus's mother, however, 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 Aegeus, commanding him to abstain, seems to demonstrate
that the birth of Theseus was not agreeable to the will of the gods.
LYCURGUS
There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left
us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely anything is
asserted by one of them which is not called into question or
contradicted by the rest. Their sentiments 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 demonstrate that he was much more ancient than the
institution of the Olympic games. Timaeus conjectures that there were
two of this 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 Heraclidae. By
descent, indeed, the very last kings of Sparta were Heraclidae 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 endeavor to compose the history of his life,
adhering to those statements 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:--
Aristodemus
Patrocles
Sous
Eurypon
Eunomus
------------------------------------------
Polydectes by his first wife Lycurgus by Dionassa his second.
Dieuchidas says he was the sixth from Patrocles and the eleventh from
Hercules. Be this as it will, Sous certainly was the most renowned of
all his ancestors, under whose conduct 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 Sous, 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 Sous 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 incurred hatred with their people by trying to use force, or, for
popularity's sake and through weakness, gave way; and anarchy and
confusion long prevailed in Sparta, causing, moreover, the death of the
father of Lycurgus. For as he was endeavoring 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 it was found that
the queen, his sister-in-law, was with child; upon which he immediately
declared that the kingdom belonged to her issue, provided it were male,
and that he himself 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 herself 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 proposal, but, making show of closing with her,
dispatched 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 deliver it to the women, 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 with the principal magistrates the queen was brought to
bed of a boy, who was soon after presented 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
people; 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 was 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, he thought it
his wisest course to avoid their envy by a voluntary exile, and to
travel from place to place until his nephew came to marriageable years,
and, by having a son, had secured the succession; setting sail,
therefore, with this resolution, 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 all their wisdom in state matters
was one Thales, whom Lycurgus, by importunities and assurances of
friendship, persuaded to go over to Lacedaemon; where, though by his
outward appearance 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
lawgivers in the world. The very songs which he composed were
exhortations to obedience and concord, and the very measure and cadence
of the verse, conveying impressions of order and tranquility, had so
great an influence on the minds of the listeners, that they were
insensibly softened and civilized, insomuch that they renounced their
private 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 Ionians, 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 lessons 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 Egyptians say that he took a voyage into Egypt, and that, being much
taken with their way of separating the soldiery from the rest of the
nation, he transferred it from them 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 relation, 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 distinguished 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 insolencies of the people.
Things being in this posture at his return, he applied himself, without
loss of time, to a thorough reformation and resolved 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 temperament, and then
set him upon a totally new regimen of diet. Having thus projected
things, away he goes to Delphi to consult Apollo there; which having
done, and offered his sacrifice, 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
execution, was Arthmiadas. Things growing to a tumult, king Charilaus,
apprehending that it was a conspiracy against his 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
confederacy with them; of so gentle and flexible a disposition he was,
to which Archelaus, his brother-king, alluded, when, hearing him
extolled for his goodness, he said, "Who can say he is anything but
good? he is so even to the bad."
Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first
and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which,
having a power equal to the kings' in matters of great consequence, and,
as Plato expresses 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 establishment 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 number 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 Hellanius, and to Minerva Hellania,
and after that you have phyle'd the people phyles, and obe'd them into
obes, you shall establish a council of thirty elders, the leaders
included, and shall, from time to time, apellazein the people betwixt
Babyca and Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote. The commons
have the final voice and decision. " By phyles and obes are meant the
divisions of the people; by the leaders, the two kings; apellazein,
referring to the Pythian Apollo, signifies to assemble; Babyca and
Cnacion they now call Oenus; 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 hindrance, by diverting their
attention from the business before them to statues 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 counsel. 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 commonwealth, 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
one hundred and thirty years after the death of Lycurgus. Elatus and his
colleagues were the first who had this dignity conferred 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 never experienced the
calamities of their neighbors at Messene 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 misgovernment which
befell these bordering nations to whom they were as 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 but of
small continuance, partly the tyrannical 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 overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous
persons, while its whole wealth had centered 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 diseases 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 Polydorus added
three thousand more. Others say that Polydorus doubled the number
Lycurgus had made, which, according to them, was but four thousand five
hundred. A lot was so much as to yield, one year with another, about
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 distinction or inequality
left amongst them; but finding that it would be very dangerous to go
about it openly, he took another 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 but very little
worth; so that to lay up twenty or thirty pounds there was required a
pretty large closet, and, to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of
oxen. With the diffusion 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 pains to export it, would it pass amongst the other Greeks, who
ridiculed it. So there was now no more means of purchasing foreign
goods and small wares; merchants sent no shiploads into Laconian ports;
no rhetoric-master, no itinerant fortune-teller, no harlot-monger or
gold or silversmith, engraver, or jeweler, 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, 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 prevent
water, drunk upon necessity and disagreeable to look at, from being
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 tradesmen 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 picture,
without either life or motion. Nor 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
marketplace, and make to sanctuary to save his life; by good-hap he
outran all excepting one Alcander, 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 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 countrymen; they, dismayed and
ashamed at the sight, delivered Alcander into his hands to be punished,
and escorted him home, with expressions of great concern for his ill
usage. Lycurgus, having 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 anything 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 ingenuous temper, without murmuring
did as he was commanded; and, being thus admitted to live with Lycurgus,
he had an opportunity to observe in him, besides his gentleness and
calmness of temper, an extraordinary sobriety and an indefatigable
industry, and so, from an enemy, became one of his most zealous
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 discreetest citizens of Sparta.
In memory of this accident, Lycurgus built a temple to Minerva, surnamed
Optiletis; optilus being the Doric of these parts for ophthalmus, the
eye. Some authors, however, of whom Dioscorides is one (who wrote a
treatise on the commonwealth of Sparta), say that he was wounded indeed,
but did not lose his eye with the blow; and that he built the temple 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 assemblies.
But to return to their public repasts;--these had several names in
Greek; the Cretans called them andria, because the men only came to
them. The Lacedaemonians called them phiditia, that is, by changing l
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, parsimony, because they were so many schools of sobriety; or
perhaps the first letter is an addition, and the word at first was
editia, from edode, eating. They met by companies of 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 them had been
a hunting, he sent thither a part of the venison he had killed; for
these two occasions were the only excuses allowed for supping at home.
The custom of eating together was observed strictly for a great while
afterwards; insomuch that king Agis himself, after having vanquished the
Athenians, sending for his commons at his return home, because he
desired to eat privately with his queen, was refused them by the
polemarchs; which refusal when he resented so much 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 person to be chosen
dropped their ball into the basin without altering its figure, and those
who disliked him pressed it between their fingers, and made it flat; and
this signified as much as a negative voice. And if there were but one
of these 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 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 yourself first in the river Eurotas."
After drinking moderately, every man went to his home without lights,
for the use of them was, on all occasions, forbid, to the end that they
might accustom themselves to march boldly in the dark. Such was the
common 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
pecuniary 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 according 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 leveled 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 entertained at Corinth in a stately room, he was much
surprised to see the timber and ceiling so finely carved and paneled,
and asked his host whether the trees grew so in his country.
A third ordinance 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 consideration 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
ordered that the young women should go naked in the processions, as well
as the young men, and dance, too, in that condition, 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 as sensibly touched with it as if they had been formally
reprimanded; 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 all wantonness 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 of 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 of 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 appearing naked in
their exercises and dancings, were incitements 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 wintertime, 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 eminent 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; afterwards 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 apartment, to sleep as usual with the
other young men. And so 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 continuance 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 womanish 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 favors 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 wellfavoredness 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 property 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 pay
money to procure fine breeding, 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, their 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
instance, 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 impossible 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 certain triers at a place
called Lesche; these were some of the elders of the tribe to which the
child belonged; their business it was carefully to view the infant, and,
if they found it stout and well made, they gave order for its rearing,
and allotted 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 Apothetae, a sort
of chasm under Taygetus; as thinking it neither for the good of the
child itself, nor for the public interest, 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 unconstrained in limb and
form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food; not afraid in the
dark, or of being left alone; without any 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, Pericles, as Plato
tells us, chose a servant for that office called Zopyrus,
no better than any common slave.
Lycurgus was of another mind; he would not have masters 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 exercises 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 opportunity 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
proportionably increased; their heads were close-clipped, they were
accustomed to go bare-foot, and for the most part to play naked.
After they were twelve years old, they were no longer allowed to wear
any under-garment; 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 indulgences 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 without a knife; if it were winter,
they mingled some thistle-down with their rushes, which it was thought
had the property 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 someone present to 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 eldest 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 master at home, using them for the offices of his
house; sending the oldest 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 their
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 overburdened and oppressed
by too great a quantity of nourishment; which necessarily discharges
itself into thickness and breadth, do, by their natural lightness, rise;
and the body, giving and yielding because it is pliant, 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 configuration, 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 molded. 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 claws, and died upon the place,
rather than let it be seen. What is practiced to this very day 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 deliberate 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 disposition, 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 his 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
before 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
magistrates, 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 friendship,
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, as we 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 loose and incontinent
livers are seldom fathers of many children, 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. They 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
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 approved 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 consulted how they
might best oppose an invasion of their enemies, 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 apothegms 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 Charilaus, 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 vindication, "He who knows how to speak,
knows also when. "
The sharp and yet not ungraceful retorts which I mentioned may be
instanced as follows. Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome 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 tames; "Indeed," said Agis, "they are highly
to be commended if they can do justice one day in five years."
Theopompus answered a stranger who 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 of 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
answers 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 enthusiasm and ardor for action; the style of them
was plain and without affectation; the subject always serious and moral;
most usually, it was in praise of such men as had died in defense 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 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 compositions, 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 music 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 warlike; 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 animate 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 their 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 hand 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 countenance, calmly and cheerfully moving
with the 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 Lacedaemonian 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 retreat,
thinking it base and unworthy of a Grecian people to cut men in pieces,
who had given up and abandoned all resistance. 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.
Hippias the sophist says that Lycurgus himself was a great soldier and
an experienced commander. Philostephanus attributes to him the first
division of the cavalry into troops of fifties in a square body; but
Demetrius the Phalerian says quite the contrary, and that he made all
his laws in a continued peace. And, indeed, the Olympic holy truce, or
cessation of arms, that was procured by his means and management,
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 Lycurgus came
only as a spectator, and that by mere accident too. Being there, he
heard as it were a man's voice behind him, blaming and wondering at him
that he did not encourage his countrymen 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 continued still after
they were full-grown men. No one was allowed 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. Therefore,
if they were commanded nothing else, they went to see the boys perform
their exercises, to teach them something useful, or to learn it
themselves of those who knew better. And, indeed, one of the greatest
and highest blessings Lycurgus procured his people was the abundance of
leisure, which proceeded from his forbidding to them the exercise of any
mean and mechanical trade. Of the money-making that depends on
troublesome going about and seeing people and doing business, they had
no need at all in a state where wealth obtained no honor or respect.
The Helots tilled their ground for them, and paid them yearly in kind
the appointed quantity, without 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 fined
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. So 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 the 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 marketplace,
but had the necessaries of their family supplied by the care of their
relations and lovers; nor was it for the credit of elderly men to be
seen too often in the marketplace; it was esteemed more suitable for
them to frequent the exercise-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 in 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, lessons of advice and improvement. Nor was
Lycurgus himself unduly 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 nor 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. Paedaretus, 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 hundred 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; if not, in a private character." Argileonis, 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 better 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 competition 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 entrusted for ever after, as the reward of his merits, with the
supreme authority of the commonwealth, and with power over the lives,
franchises, and highest interests of all his countrymen? The manner of
their election 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 candidate 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; a great number
of young men followed him with applauses, 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 second allowance, which he took and put by. By the time
supper was ended, the women who were of kin to him had come about the
door; and he, beckoning to her whom he most esteemed, 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 of all superstition, he allowed them to bury their 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 imagine 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 very short, eleven days; on the twelfth, they were to
do sacrifice 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 homage 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 why he forbade them to travel abroad, and go
about acquainting themselves with foreign rules of morality, the habits
of ill-educated people, and different views of government. Withal he
banished from Lacedaemon all strangers who could 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 government (as
Thucydides says), or learn any thing to their good; but rather lest they
should introduce something contrary 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
discordant 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
dispatched 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, garlanded, 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 no 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 massacred 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, forbidding
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, Alcman, 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 world. For my part, I am of opinion 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 with the Messenians, laid the country waste,
and brought the greatest danger upon the city. For I cannot persuade
myself to ascribe to Lycurgus so wicked and barbarous a course, judging
of him from the gentleness of his disposition and justice upon all other
occasions; to which the oracle also testified.
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 somewhere 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, conceived 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 reasonably 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 until he
had consulted the oracle; in the meantime, his desire was that they
would observe the laws without any the least 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 for 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
possible, 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, would secure
to his countrymen the enjoyment of the advantages he had spent his life
in obtaining 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 fourteen 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 government.
In the time of Agis, gold and silver first flowed into Sparta, and with
them all those mischiefs which attend the immoderate desire of riches.
Lysander promoted this disorder; for, by bringing in rich spoils from
the wars, although himself incorrupt, he yet by this means filled his
country with avarice and luxury, and subverted the laws and ordinances
of Lycurgus; 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 Lacedaemonians, 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 dissensions; 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 that 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 willingness 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 Lysander, 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 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
of a private man, consisted chiefly in the exercise of virtue, and in
the concord of the inhabitants; 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 ended 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 Lycurgides.
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 transported to Lacedaemon, the people might pretend
to be released from their oaths, and make innovations in the government.
Thus much may suffice for the life and actions of Lycurgus.
NUMA POMPILIUS
Though the pedigrees of noble families of Rome 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 ancient 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 acquainted 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 barbarian 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 Olympiad, 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 institutions. Yet, in any case,
Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony
of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain;
especially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games,
which were published at a late period by Hippias the Elean, and rest on
no positive authority. Commencing, however, 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 foundation 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 senate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky
was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the
common 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 kingly
government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of
Romulus towards them, had plotted against his life and made him away,
that so they might assume the authority and government into their own
hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine
honors to Romulus, as to one not dead but translated 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 original Romans and the new
inhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of temper, but
that there were diversities 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 indignant at any pretension on their part
to rule over their benefactors. On the other side, the Sabines could
plausibly allege, that, at their king Tatius's decease, they had
peaceably submitted 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 Romans as inferiors, nor to
have contributed less than they to the increase of Rome, which, without
their numbers and association, 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 hundred 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 dispatch 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, elevated to the degree of a king,
leveled 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 themselves, 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 the best
expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince who should
be chosen would have an equal affection to the one party as his electors
and to the other as his kinsmen. The Sabines remitted the choice to the
original Romans, 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 accordingly held, they named Numa
Pompilius, of the Sabine race, a person of that high reputation for
excellence, that, though he 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 entreat him, that he would
accept the administration of the government. Numa resided at a famous
city of the Sabines called Cures, whence the Romans and Sabines gave
themselves the joint name of Quirites. Pomponius, an illustrious
person, 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 disposed 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 incorruptible judge and
counselor, in private he devoted himself not to amusement or lucre, but
to the worship of the immortal gods, and the rational contemplation of
their divine power and nature. So famous was he, that Tatius, the
colleague of 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 condition 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 society out of any melancholy or disorder of mind.
but because he had tasted the joys of more elevated intercourse, and,
admitted to celestial wedlock in the love and converse of the goddess
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 beloved 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 unplausibly 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
impossible 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 Sicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian prophetess
uttered this heroic verse, expressive of the god's attention and joy:
Now doth Hippolytus return again,
And venture his dear life upon the main.
It is reported, also, that Pan 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
Aesculapius 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
instances, why should we judge it incongruous, that a like spirit of the
gods should visit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Lycurgus, and Numa, the
controllers of kingdoms, and the legislators for commonwealths? 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; 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 famous lawgivers, 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 Proculus and Velesus, one or
other of whom it had been thought the people would elect as their new
king; the original Romans 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 acceptance; but,
contrary to their expectation, 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 induce one who needs
nothing and is satisfied with everything to quit a life he is
accustomed to; which, whatever else it is deficient in, at any rate has
the advantage of certainty over one wholly doubtful and unknown.
Though, indeed, the difficulties of this government cannot even be
called unknown; Romulus, who first held it, did not escape the suspicion
of having plotted against the life of his colleague Tatius; nor the
senate the like accusation, of having treasonably murdered Romulus. Yet
Romulus had the advantage to be thought divinely born and miraculously
preserved and nurtured. My birth was mortal; I was reared and
instructed by men that are known to you. The very points of my
character 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 worship of the gods, and give lessons in the
love of justice and the abhorrence of violence 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 declining 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 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 Roman ambassadors had brought him,
entreated him to accompany them, and to accept the kingdom as a means to
unanimity and concord between the nations.
Numa, yielding to these inducements, having first performed 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 expectation of some auspicious signal from the gods. It was
wonderful, meantime, with what silence and devotion the multitude stood
assembled in the forum in similar expectation and suspense, till
auspicious birds appeared and passed on the right. Then Numa,
appareling himself in his royal robes, descended from the hill to the
people, by whom he was received 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
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 Camillus, 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 somewhat 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 incursions 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 rammer serve
to fix into the ground. Wherefore Numa, judging it no slight
undertaking to mollify and bend to peace the presumptuous and stubborn
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; thus
subduing and humbling their minds by a sense of supernatural fears.
This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been much
conversant with Pythagoras; for in the philosophy of the one, as in the
policy of the other, man's relations 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, he showed them his golden thigh; besides
many other strange and miraculous seeming practices, on which Timon the
Phliasian 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 incorrupt, 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
intellect. His sacrifices, also, had great similitude to the ceremonial
of Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated with effusion 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 Aemilii, for that the king gave him in sport the
surname of Aemilius, 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 of Greece, they erected two of brass,
one representing Alcibiades, and the other Pythagoras.
But to pass by these matters, which are full of uncertainty, and not so
important as to be worth our time to insist on them, the original
constitution of the priests, called Pontifices, is ascribed unto Numa,
and he himself was, it is said, the first of them; and that they have
the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the
service of the gods, who have power and command 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. The 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 unlawful, 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 with wooden pins, without nails or cramps of iron. The stone
bridge was built a very long time after, when Aemilius 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 entrusted to chaste and unpolluted
persons, or that fire, which consumes, but produces nothing, bears all
analogy to the virgin estate. In Greece, wherever a perpetual holy fire
is kept, as at Delphi 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, 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 isoceles rectangular triangle, all the
lines from the circumference of which meeting in a center, by holding it
in the light of the sun they can collect and concentrate all its rays
at this one point of convergence; where the air will now become
rarefied, and any light, dry, combustible matter will kindle as soon as
applied, under the effect of the rays, which here acquire 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 Camillus. 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 observed that their change was
not a happy one, but accompanied 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 on which they are carried, is put to death. If
these vestals commit 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 consecrated 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 circular 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 center 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 center of the globe, but that it keeps a circular motion
about the seat of fire, and is not in the number of the primary
elements; in this agreeing with the opinion of Plato, who, they say, in
his later life, conceived that the earth held a lateral position, and
that the central and sovereign space was reserved for some nobler body.
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
mourning, 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 whatsoever 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 dispatched the Fecials, or heralds, to those who had offered
them injury, requesting satisfaction; and, in case they refused, they
then called the gods to witness, and, with imprecations upon themselves
and their country should they be acting unjustly, so declared war;
against their will, or without 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 quarrel, 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 dispatched to their camp to negotiate 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 Caminus.
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 the hands of Numa who
gave them this marvelous 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 dimension 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 field 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 despaired, until at length one Mamurius
Veturius, an excellent workman, happily hit upon it, and made all so
exactly the same that Numa himself was at a loss, and could not
distinguish. 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 March they carry the sacred targets through the city; at which
procession they are habited in short frocks of purple, girt with a broad
belt studded with brass; on their heads they wear a brass helmet, and
carry in their hands short daggers, 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
intricate figures, with a great display of strength and agility. The
targets were called Ancilia from their form; for they are not made
round, nor like proper targets, of a complete circumference, but are cut
out into a wavy line, the ends of which are rounded off and turned in at
the thickest part towards each other; so that their shape is
curvilinear, or, in Greek, ancylon; or the name may come from ancon, 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
auchmon Iysis, 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, instructing the priests, or conversing with
them on sacred subjects. He had another house upon the Mount
Quirinalis, the site 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
perfunctory 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 the sacred solemnity. Some
traces of this custom remain at Rome to this day, for, when the consul
begins to take auspices or do sacrifice, they call out to the people,
Hoc age, Attend to this, whereby the auditors then present are
admonished to compose and recollect themselves. Many other of his
precepts 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 denote the cultivation and subduing of the
earth as a part of religion; and as to the turning which the worshipers
are to use in divine adoration, it is said to represent the rotatory
motion of the world. But, in my opinion, the meaning rather is, that
the worshiper, 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 fulfillment
of his prayer 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 blessing 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 done, to
seek favor of the gods for beginning something else. And this would
very well suit with what we had before; the lawgiver 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 received, with
an undoubted assurance, whatever he delivered, though never so fabulous,
and thought nothing incredible or 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 repast itself poor and ordinary fare; the
guests seated, he began 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 entertainment. 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 demi-gods, 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, saying, "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 and ilcos, or propitious.
The place was, in remembrance of him, called Ilicium, 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 deity. And Numa's own
thoughts are said to have been fixed to that degree on divine objects,
that he once, when a message was brought to him that "Enemies are
approaching," 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 public and private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-
marks of 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 betrayed how much he had encroached on his
neighbors' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundaries are,
indeed, a defense 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 whose
acquisitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing
to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty,
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
defense of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into
acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agriculture
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 several parcels, to which he gave the
name of pagus, 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 rebukes and reproaches incited the
indolent and careless to improvement. But of all his measures the most
commended was his distribution of the people by their trades into
companies or guilds; for as the city consisted, or rather did not
consist of, but was divided into, two different tribes, the diversity
between which could not be effaced and in the mean time prevented all
unity and caused perpetual tumult and ill-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 factious
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, conditionally that it had been with the
liking and consent of their parents; 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
whole 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 anniversary course in three
hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-
five, to remedy this incongruity 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 Mercedinus. This
amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came to need other
amendments. He also altered the order 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 Quintilis, and
the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if January and February
had, in this account, preceded March, Quintilis would have been fifth in
name and seventh in reckoning. 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 p and not ph,
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, however, derive
them from the two ages, old and young, majores 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 imitation, gave the two other following months his own names, of
Germanicus and Domitianus; but, on his being slain, they recovered their
ancient denominations of September and October. The two last are the
only ones that have kept their names throughout without any alteration.
Of the months 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 opportunity 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 demi-god 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 encompassed 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 partook 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 diffused 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,
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.
For, 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 ambition. 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
verification 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 control 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 conspicuous 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 fictitious genealogies from the lineage of Numa; and
that Pompilia was not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife
whom he married after he came to his kingdom; however, all of them agree
in opinion that she was married to the son of that Marcius who persuaded
him to accept the government, 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 Hostilius for the kingdom, and
being disappointed of the election, in discontent killed himself; his
son Marcius, however, who had married Pompilia, continuing at Rome, was
the father of Ancus Marcius, who succeeded 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 gentle decline. At his funeral all the glories
of his life were consummated, when all the neighboring states in
alliance and amity with Rome met to honor and grace the rites of his
interment 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, followed 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 of 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 in 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 committed
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 Pythagoras, we
may easily pardon those who seek to establish the fact of a real
acquaintance between them.
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. Baebius 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 conceive 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
banishment, 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 LYCURGUS
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 religion, 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;
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
glorious 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 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 harder task was that of Lycurgus; 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 persuasions 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 soothe 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 Lycurgus's
legislations, 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 of 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 produce
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 people 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 temperaments 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 Lycurgus 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 government 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 obedience 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 to 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 permitted riches to be amassed to any extent, and paid
no attention to the gradual and continual augmentation and influx of
poverty; which it was his business at the outset, whilst there was as
yet 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
extensive evils of after times. The re-division of estates, Lycurgus is
not, it seems to me, to be blamed for making, nor Numa for 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 all jealousy, their methods,
however, were different. For when a Roman thought himself to have a
sufficient number of children, 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 marriage obligation still subsisting as
at first. Nay, many husbands, as we have said, would invite men whom
they thought like]y to procure them fine and good-looking children into
their houses. What is the difference, then, between the two customs?
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
contract over the change, and concedes the general insupportableness 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, who call them (Ibycus, for example) Phaenomerides, 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 mistresses in their houses,
giving their opinions about public matters freely, and speaking openly
even on the most important 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; nevertheless, 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 confidence 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 submissiveness 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 hundred 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 marriage relation.
Their respective regulations for marrying the young women are in
accordance with those for their education. 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
tenderness, 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.
Astolos chiton, the under garment, frock, or tunic, without anything,
either himation or peplus, over it.
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 companies, 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 necessities;
he might, if he pleased, make his son a husbandman or carpenter,
coppersmith or musician; as if it were of no importance for them to be
directed and trained up from the 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 when a wise man like Numa had
received the sovereignty over a new and docile people, was there any
thing that would better deserve 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
molded? 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 was 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. However, it makes much for Lycurgus, that, after the Romans
deserted the doctrine and discipline of Numa, their empire grew and
their power increased so much; whereas so soon as the Lacedaemonians
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 Numa, that he was an alien, and yet courted to come and accept 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 answer to Asclepiades concerning Solon's
Tables of Law, mentions a passage of one Philocles, who states that
Solon's father's name was Euphorion, 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 Pisistratus'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 had friends enough
that were willing to contribute to his relief, yet was ashamed to be
beholden to others, since he was descended 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 traveled 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 concern 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 barbarous
nations enjoyed, was the occasion of friendship with their kings, and a
great source of experience. Some merchants have built great cities, as
Protis, the founder of Massilia, to whom the Gauls near the Rhine were
much attached. Some report also that Thales and Hippocrates the
mathematician traded; and that Plato defrayed the charges of his travels
by selling oil in Egypt. Solon's softness and profuseness, 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 call take away,
But money changes owners all the day.
At first he used his poetry only in trifles, not for any serious
purpose, but simply to pass away his idle 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 report that he designed to put his laws into heroic
verse, and 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 Periander, 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 themselves in a war,
Apollo decided the controversy by commanding 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 Milesians; but, Thales declaring Bias the wiser person, it was sent
to him; from him to another; and so, going round them all, it came to
Thales a second time; and, at last, being carried from Miletus to
Thebes, was there dedicated to Apollo Ismenius. Theophrastus writes
that it was first presented to Bias at Priene; and next to Thales at
Miletus, and so 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," Anacharsis
replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship 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
covetousness 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 anything
by the breaking of them; and he would so fit his laws to the
citizens, that all should understand 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 traveling a long time." Solon
replied, "What a miserable man is he! But what was his name?" "I have
heard it," says the man, "but have now forgotten it, only there was
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 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 Aesop's soul.
However, it is irrational and poor-spirited not to seek conveniences for
fear of losing them, for upon the same account 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 solicitude,
unless he likewise felt no care for his friends, his kinsmen, 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
illegitimate 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 servant's 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 deaths of
virtuous children 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 dote
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 disgrace, 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 place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about
him, got upon the herald's stand, and sang that elegy 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 one 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 of men in the vessel with 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 allured 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 received
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 hundred 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 Megarians that were then in the island, hearing only an
uncertain report, hurried to their arms, and sent a ship to reconnoiter
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; meantime he, with the other soldiers, marched
against the Megarians 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 Athenian 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 approached 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 Catalog of Ships, when the matter was
to be determined, he read the passage as follows:
Twelve ships from Salamis stout Ajax brought,
And ranked his men where the Athenians fought.
The Athenians, however, call this but an idle story, and report, 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 township 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 Athenian; 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. However, some
of Apollo's 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 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
Aeschines the orator says no such thing, and, in the Delphian register,
Alcmaeon, not Solon, is named as commander 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 sanctuary 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 accord, upon
which, as if the goddess had refused them protection, 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
magistrates. But they from that time were considered under pollution,
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 Myron 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; besides, the city was disturbed with superstitious fears
and strange appearances, and the priests declared that the sacrifices
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 knowledge in all the supernatural and ritual parts of religion; and,
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 mourning by ordering some sacrifices presently after the
funeral, and taking off those severe and barbarous ceremonies which the
women usually practiced; but the greatest benefit was his purifying and
sanctifying the city, by certain propitiatory and expiatory lustrations,
and foundation 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 to
bury him in an obscure and contemned quarter of the territory of
Miletus, saying that it should some day be the marketplace of the
Milesians. Epimenides, 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, returned.
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, paying 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 forbade 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 encourage 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 because 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 government 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 monarchy only
because of the name, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make it a
lawful form; Euboea had made this experiment 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.
From which it is manifest that he was a man of great reputation 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 submissive to the powerful, nor make his laws to
pleasure those that chose him. For where it was well before, he applied
no remedy, nor altered anything, for fear lest,
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 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, seems
originally to have been Solon's contrivance, who called canceling debts
Seisacthea, a relief, or disencumbrance. For the first thing which he
settled was, that what debts remained should be forgiven, and no man,
for the future, should engage the body of his debtor for security.
Though some, as Androtion, affirm that the debts were not canceled, 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 drachmas, 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 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 happened; 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 purchased 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
contrivance. But he presently stopped this suspicion, by releasing his
debtors of five talents (for he had lent so much), according 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 reduced 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 modeling his state; and, applying force more than
persuasion, 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, being but a citizen of the middle
classes; yet he acted fully up to the height of his power, having
nothing but the good-will 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 power,
He would not have forborne, nor let alone,
But made the fattest of the milk his own.
Soon, however, 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 make laws for the commonwealth, giving him the
entire power over everything, their magistracies, their assemblies,
courts, and councils; that he should appoint the number, times of
meeting, and what estate they must have that could be capable of these,
and dissolve or continue any of the present constitutions,
according to his pleasure.
First, then, he repealed all Draco's laws, except those concerning
homicide, because they were too severe, and the punishments too great;
for death was appointed for almost all offenses, 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 offenses, 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 citizens' estates, and those that
were worth five hundred measures of fruits, 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 he assigned to the
archons' 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 laws. Of
this equalization he himself makes mention in 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; intending 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 this law,
for, being asked what city was best modeled, "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 council of four hundred, a hundred out of each of the
four tribes, which 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 inspectors and keepers of the laws,
conceiving that the commonwealth, held by these two councils, like
anchors, would be less liable to be tossed by tumults, and the people be
more at quiet. Such is the general statement, that Solon instituted 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: "Whoever before Solon's archonship were disfranchised, let
them be restored, except those that, being condemned by the Areopagus,
Ephetae, or in the Prytaneum by the kings, for homicide, 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 convicted of such offenses 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 restored; of this the reader must judge.
Amongst his other laws, one is very peculiar and surprising, which
disfranchises all who stand neuter in a sedition; for it seems he would
not have any one remain insensible 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 husband'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
differences, 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 inconsiderable 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, "Indeed," said he, "by my tyranny I have broken my country's
laws, but cannot put a violence upon those of nature by an unseasonable
marriage." Such disorder is never to be suffered in a commonwealth, nor
such unseasonable and unloving and unperforming marriages, which attain
no due end or fruit; 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 deceased 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 temples, 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 permitting 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 between deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion,
there was little difference, since both may equally suspend
the exercise of reason.
He regulated the walks, feasts, and mourning of the women, and took away
everything that was either unbecoming 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
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 offer 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,
unless 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 should 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 unoccupied and
leisurely 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 not take a woman for children, but for pleasure, and thus gets
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, who
go openly to those that hire them. He made it unlawful to sell 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 for reward a
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 asserts, was the value of an ox, the latter, of
a sheep. The prices which Solon, in his sixteenth table, sets on choice
victims, 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 different sorts of occupation that they followed; the
soldiers were called Hoplitae, the craftsmen Ergades, and, of the
remaining two, the farmers Gedeontes,
and the shepherds and graziers Aegicores.
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 hippicon, 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'; 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 exported any other
fruit, the archon was solemnly to curse, or else pay an hundred drachmas
himself; and this law was written in his first table, and, therefore,
let none think it incredible, 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 injuries 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
participation 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 (parasitein 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 concluded 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 cyrbes, 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
Thesmothetae vowed for himself at the stone in the marketplace, 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 understood that verse of Homer,
The end and the beginning of the month,
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 Solon every day, to
commend or dispraise them, and to advise, if possible, to leave out, or
put in something, and many criticized, and desired 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 himself out of all straits, and to escape all displeasure and
exceptions, it being a hard thing, as he himself says,
In great affairs to satisfy all sides,
as an excuse for traveling, bought a trading vessel, and, having
obtained 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 incommodious 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 defense 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 Aepea.
And Solon himself, in his Elegies, addressing Philocyprus, mentions this
foundation 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 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 differing 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 expected,
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,
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 insolent upon our present enjoyments, 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.
Aesop, 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 seasonable." "Nay, rather," replied Solon, "either
short or reasonable." 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, whom alone he invoked in this extremity, 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 me 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 than 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 another.
When 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 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; 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 differences, 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 prudent 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: "Ay," 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
marketplace in a chariot, and stirred up the people, as if he had been
thus treated by his opponents because 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 your countrymen, what he did to deceive his enemies." After
this, the people were eager to protect Pisistratus, and 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 dote upon his words and taking phrase;
and again,--
True, you are singly each a crafty soul,
But all together make one empty fool.
But 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 marketplace 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 saying, that, before, it was an easier task to
stop the rising tyranny, 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 for 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 honored him, obliged him, and sent to see
him, that Solon gave him his advice, and approved many of his actions;
for he retained most of Solon's laws, observed them himself, and
compelled 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 Theophrastus 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
discouraged 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 Island, 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 unfinished 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 Pisistratus 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 succeeded
Comias. The story that his ashes were scattered about the island
Salamis is too strange to be easily believed, or be thought anything
but a mere fable; and yet it is given, amongst other good authors, by
Aristotle, the philosopher.
POPLICOLA
Such was Solon. To him we compare Poplicola, who received this later
title from the Roman people for his merit, as a noble accession to his
former name, Publius Valerius. He 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
instrumental 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, charitably 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
republic, 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 instrument of insolence and tyranny,
having inspired the people with a hatred to his reign, upon the death of
Lucretia (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 people 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, Tarquinius 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 withdrew from the senate and practice of
the bar, quitting all public concerns; which gave an 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 being doubtful of some
others, and determining 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 specious proposals, whereby they
thought to seduce the people, as though the king had cast off all
insolence, and made moderation 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 banishment. Now, several inclining to the request, and
Collatinus in particular favoring it, Brutus, a man of vehement and
unbending 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 assembly 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 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
question, however, of his property, was the least part of Tarquin's
design; the demand sounded the feelings of the people, and was
preparatory to a conspiracy which the ambassadors endeavored to excite,
delaying their return, under pretense of selling some of the goods and
reserving others to be sent away, till, in fine, they corrupted two of
the most eminent families in Rome, the Aquillian, which had three, and
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 companions, the Vitellii seduced to join in the plot, to ally
themselves 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 violence, 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
convenient to bind themselves in a solemn and dreadful oath, by tasting
the blood of a murdered man, and touching his entrails. 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
within, 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 overhear 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) shocking; yet he knew no private Roman to whom he could
entrust secrets of such importance. Unable, however, to keep silence,
and burdened with his knowledge, he went and addressed himself to
Valerius, whose known freedom and kindness 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 writings there, and secure the domestics, whilst he, with
his constant attendance of clients and friends, and a great retinue of
attendants, 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, and, throwing their gowns round their
opponents' necks, at last, 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, Vindicius 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 defense against
the indictment?" The question being thrice proposed, 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 to look at; Brutus, however,
is said not to have turned aside his face, nor allowed the least glance
of pity to soften and smooth his aspect of rigor and austerity; but
sternly watched his children suffer, 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 common, 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 Romans' opinion, Brutus did a greater
work in the establishment of the government than Romulus in the
foundation of the city.
Upon Brutus's departure out of the forum, consternation, horror, and
silence for some time possessed all that reflected 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 rescue. Valerius's friends headed the
resistance, and the people 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 wishes, and persuade whom he
can." But there was 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, indeed, already rendered him
suspicious, and his second name, too, had made him obnoxious to the
people, who were loath to hear the very sound of Tarquin; but after this
had happened, perceiving himself an offense to every one, he
relinquished his charge 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
deserved 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 received the right of suffrage a
long time after from Appius, who thus courted popularity; and from this
Vindicius, a perfect manumission is called to this day vindicta. This
done, the goods of the kings were exposed to plunder, and the palace to
ruin.
The pleasantest part of the field of Mars, which Tarquin had owned, was
devoted to the service of that god; 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 river side, 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 working 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 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 after-
times, 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 Aesuvian meadow. When they came into action,
Aruns, the son of Tarquin, and Brutus, the Roman consul, not
accidentally 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 security, 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 of the
day was, and seeing his men as well dismayed at the sight of their own
dead, as rejoiced at the loss of the enemy; so apparently equal in the
number was the slaughter on either 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 prisoners, 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 Valerius triumphed in honor
of it, being the first consul that drove in with a four-horse chariot;
which sight both appeared magnificent, and was received with an
admiration free from envy or offense (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 colleague, in adding to his
obsequies a funeral oration; which was so much liked by the Romans, and
found so good a reception, that it became customary for the best men to
celebrate 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 offense 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, centering
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 demolished had not been statelier, those actions showed him
an imitator of Tarquin. For, indeed, his dwelling house on the 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 of coming down, a stately and royal spectacle. But Valerius
showed how well it were for men in power and great offices to have ears
that give admittance to truth before flattery; for upon his friends
telling him that he displeased the people, he contended not, neither
resented it, but while it was still night, sending for a number of
workpeople, pulled down his house and leveled it with the ground; so
that in the morning the people, seeing and flocking together, expressed
their wonder and their respect 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 government; 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 satisfaction, which they
expressed by calling him Poplicola, or people-lover, which name had the
preeminence of the rest, and, therefore, in the sequel of this narrative
we shall use no other.
He gave free leave to any to sue for the consulship; but before the
admittance of a colleague, mistrusting the 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; a
second, that made it death to 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, a 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 caprae, 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 evidence of the crime; for though it was not
probable for a man, whose designs were so great, to escape all notice;
yet because 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; for because it was necessary
for the citizens to contribute out of their estates to the maintenance
of wars, and he was unwilling 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 treasury, 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 succeeded in that honor, and continued consul for the remainder
of the year.
Now, whilst Tarquin was making preparations in Tuscany for a second war
against the Romans, it is said a great 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 entrusted the workmanship to Tuscans of
the city Veii, but soon after lost his kingdom. The work thus modeled,
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 kindom 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 dedication 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 destined against his will to
the expedition, the other to the dedication; and what happened in the
performance seems to intimate some ground for this conjecture; for, upon
the Ides 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 performance of other ceremonies,
holding the doors, according to custom, was proceeding to pronounce the
words of dedication, 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 returned 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 destruction, as
Sylla was the reverse in dying before the dedication of his. For
immediately after Vespasian's death it was consumed by fire. The
fourth, which now exists, was both built and dedicated by Domitian. It
is said Tarquin expended forty thousand pounds of silver in the very
foundations; 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, or the apartments of his
concubines, Epicharmus's remark upon the prodigal, that
'Tis not beneficence, but, truth to say,
A mere disease of giving things away,
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 converting 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
the 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, returning to Rome, to show a spirit yet loftier than
Porsenna's, built the city Sigliuria when Porsenna was already in the
neighborhood; and, walling it at great expense, there placed a colony of
seven hundred men, as being little concerned 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 dismayed, 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 Cocles, 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 mispronunciation
they called him Cocles. This Cocles 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 Tuscan 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 gave him as much land as he could plow round
in one day, and besides erected a brazen statue to his honor in the
temple of Vulcan, as a requital for 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 of the Tuscans making incursions into the
country, Poplicola, a third time chosen consul, designed to make,
without sallying out, his defense 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; 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 looking 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. All other writers call this man Mucius
Scaevola, yet Athenodorus, 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 dangerous to Rome as
his friendship and alliance serviceable, was induced to refer the
controversy with Tarquin to his arbitration, and several times undertook
to prove Tarquin the worst of men, and justly deprived of his kingdom.
But Tarquin proudly replied he would admit no judge, much less 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 from 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 Poplicola.
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, commanding one of his horses to be brought,
sumptuously adorned, made her a present of it. This is produced as
evidence by those who affirm that only Cloelia passed the river or.
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. Porsenna, thus reconciled to the Romans, gave them a fresh
instance of his generosity, and commanded his soldiers to 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 Romans, 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 all 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 intimate 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
appears 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 threatened 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
certain 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 treat preparation, 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 promote the Roman interest,
with a view, it was thought, to obtaining 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 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
dispatched emissaries with instructions to Clausus, that Poplicola was
assured of his goodness 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 own security, to leave his enemies and come to
Rome, he should be received, both in public and private, with the honor
his merit deserved, and their own glory required. Appius, seriously
weighing the matter, came to the conclusion that it was the best
resource which necessity left him, and advising with his friends; and
they inviting again others in the same manner, he came to Rome, bringing
five thousand families, with their wives and children; people of the
quietest and steadiest temper of all the Sabines. Poplicola, informed
of their approach, received them with all the kind offices of 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, that he rose to the highest reputation, was very
influential, and left the Claudian 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 Romans, which, while at home, he had
unsuccessfully opposed. Coming with a great army, they sat down before
Fidenae, and placed an ambuscade of two 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
deserters, disposed his forces to their respective charges. Postumius
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 morning, with
shouts from the hills, assailed the ambuscade, 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 ambuscade 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 success 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 dispatched 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 people'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 someone 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; after 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 evidence. Upon the survey of
Solon's sentence to Croesus in favor of Tellus's happiness, it seems
more applicable to Poplicola; for Tellus, whose virtuous life and dying
well had gained him the name of the happiest man, yet was never
celebrated 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 hundred 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. But Poplicola'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 happiest; 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 institutions; in reducing, for example, the
excessive powers and assumption 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 augmented 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
character, be withdrawn from greater matters; or, if bad, have the
greater temptation to injustice, by holding both the government 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 Solon justly gloried, that, when arbitrary power was
absolutely offered 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 command, converted
it to a popular office, and did not employ the whole legal power which
he held. We must allow, indeed, 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
anywhere at the beck and bidding of the rich. A yet more extraordinary
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 discredit 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's maintained the state in good order down to the
civil wars. Solon, leaving his laws, as soon as he had made them,
engraven 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 of 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
Poplicola was victorious in the most important conflicts, both as a
private soldier and commander. In domestic politics, also, Solon, in
play, as it were, and by counterfeiting madness, induced the enterprise
against Salamis; whereas Poplicola, in the very beginning, exposed
himself to the greatest risk, took arms against Tarquin, detected the
conspiracy, and, being principally concerned both in preventing the
escape of and afterwards punishing the traitors, 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 reconciliation 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
according to the times in which they were performed. The conduct of a
wise politician is ever suited to the present posture 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 what 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 controversy to his
adversary, he not only got the victory, but likewise 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 virtue 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 distinguished people of Athens, but of
the township of Phrearrhi, and of the tribe Leontis; and by his mother's
side, as it is reported, 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 Abrotonon, but Euterpe; and
Neanthes adds farther that she was of Halicarnassus in Caria. And, as
illegitimate children, including 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 is confessed by all that from his youth he was of a vehement 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 subject of which was generally the excusing or accusing his
companions, 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 instructions 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 management 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 highly accomplished, by the somewhat
arrogant retort, 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, Stesimbrotus
says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied
natural philosophy under Melissus, contrary to chronology; for Melissus
commanded the Samians in their 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 Themistocles
was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, who was neither
rhetorician nor natural philosopher, but a professor 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
balanced; he allowed himself to follow mere natural character, which,
without the control of reason and instruction, 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, certainly 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 ambition for
distinction. Eager from the first to obtain the highest place, he
unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and influential
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
attached to the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, as Ariston the philosopher
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
interests of the state consistently with safety and honesty, he was
often forced to oppose Themistocles, and interfere against the increase
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 skillful conduct of the general, Miltiades, being everywhere talked
about, he was observed to be thoughtful, and reserved, alone by him
self; 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 answer, 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 dared propose to the people that this distribution
should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to make war
against the Aeginetans, 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 Persians, who were at
a great distance, and their coming very uncertain, 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 Aeginetans, he induced them to
preparation. So that with this money a hundred 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 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 assembly, against the opposition, as Stesimbrotus
relates, of Miltiades; 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 himself would be sufficient 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 refused 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 entreated Epicles of Hermione,
who had a good hand at the lute and was much sought after by the
Athenians, to come and practice 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 furniture, 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. In a dramatic
contest, the play he paid for won the prize, which was then a matter
that excited much emulation; he put up a tablet in record of it, with
the inscription, "Themistocles of Phrearrhi was 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 for favor 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
inhabitants 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 general, 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 acknowledgment 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 commended 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
during the war with the Persians; and in this great work, Chileus the
Arcadian was, it is said, of great assistance to him.
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 Lacedaemonians, 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 anything; 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 persuading 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 moderation of his, it is evident that he was the chief means
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 Aphetae, Eurybiades was
astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before him, and, being
informed that two hundred more were sailing round behind 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
their 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 affair none of his own countrymen opposed him so
much as Architeles, 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 was much surprised, and took it
very ill; but Themistocles immediately sent him in a chest a service of
provisions, and at the bottom of it a talent of silver, desiring him to
sup tonight, and tomorrow provide for his seamen; if not, he would
report it amongst 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
the pillars these verses are engraved,--
With numerous tribes from Asia's regions 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, in the middle
of a great heap of sand, they take out from the bottom 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 the command of the rear, the place of honor and danger,
and much elated by what had been done.
As Themistocles sailed along the coast, he took notice of the harbors
and fit places for the enemies' 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; in which inscriptions he called upon the Ionians to
forsake the Medes, if it were possible, and come over to the Greeks, who
were their proper founders and fathers, and were now hazarding all for
their liberties; but, if this could not be done, at any rate to impede
and disturb the Persians in all engagements. He hoped that these
writings would prevail with the Ionians to revolt, or raise some trouble
by making their fidelity doubtful to the Persians.
Now, though Xerxes had already passed through Doris and invaded the
country of Phocis, and was burning and destroying 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
Artemisium, they gave no ear to their request, being wholly intent 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 Athenians 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 purpose, and the
only expedient now left them was to leave their city and cling to their
ships; which the people were very unwilling 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
temples 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
theater, 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
untouched, 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 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 Minerva, "queen of Athens;"
that they who were of age to bear arms should embark, and that each
should see to sending 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
proposed 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 all places, and found among their goods
considerable sums of money concealed, which he applied to the public
use; and with this the soldiers and seamen 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, pass over into 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 howling, as
desirous to be carried along with their masters that had kept them;
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 is
still called the Dog's Grave, is said to be his.
Among the 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 admiral of the
Greek fleet, but yet was faint-hearted in time of danger, and willing to
weigh anchor and set sail for the isthmus 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
impatience, told him that at the Olympic games they that start up before
the rest are lashed; "And they," replied Themistocles, "that are left
behind are not crowned." Again, Eurybiades 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 become those who had
neither city nor house to lose, to persuade 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, consisting 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 Athenians possessing as fair a country, and as large
and free a city, as that they have lost." These expressions of
Themistocles made Eurybiades suspect that if he retreated the Athenians
would fall off from him. When one of Eretria began to oppose him, he
said, "Have you anything 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 sat upon the top of the mast; and
this happy omen so far disposed the Greeks to follow his advice, that
they presently prepared to fight. Yet, when the enemy's fleet 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 seaside, 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.
The Teuthis, loligo, or cuttlefish, is said to have a bone or
cartilage shaped like a sword, and was conceived to have no heart.
Themistocles, in great distress that the Greeks should retire, and lose
the advantage of the narrow seas and strait passage, 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,
commanding 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
counseled 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 Yet out with two hundred 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
Lysimachus, 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 enemies. Themistocles, knowing the generosity
of Aristides, 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 Panaetius was commander, came in,
while they were still doubting, and confirmed the news that all the
straits and passages were beset; and then their rage and fury, as well
as their necessity; provoked 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 Hercules, 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
Euphrantides saw them, and observed that at the same time the fire
blazed out from the offerings with a more than ordinary flame, and that
a man sneezed on the right, which was an intimation of a fortunate
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 Aeschylus gives in his tragedy
called the Persians, as on his certain knowledge, in the following
words--
Xerxes, I know, did into battle lead
One thousand ships; of more than usual speed
Seven and two hundred. So is it 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; for he would not run
the prows of his galleys 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 Sosicles 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 carried 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 Iacchus, 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 Aegina before the Grecian galleys; and supposed
they were the Aeacidae, 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 equaled 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 ill-fortune, 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 Aristides, 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 regarded 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 occasions, 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 inform 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 Themistocles, 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 fully understood at the battle of Plataea,
where Mardonius, 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, Aegina 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
worthy, 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
dispatching 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 his 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 considerable
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 was true, but
"if I had not come first, you would not have come at all." "Even so,"
he said, "if Themistocles 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 singular in all things, when he had land to sell,
he ordered the crier to give notice that there were good neighbors near
it. 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, as Theopompus reports, the Lacedaemonian ephors not to be
against it, but, as most relate it, overreaching and deceiving them.
For, under pretest of an embassy, he went to Sparta, where, upon the
Lacedaemonians charging him with rebuilding the walls, and Poliarchus
coming on purpose from Aegina 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 countrymen 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, endeavoring 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 declared 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 dependent and the
adjunct of the port, and the land of the sea, which increased the power
and confidence 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 their opinion that the empire by sea had been the origin
of the 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 Pagasae, 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 Themistocles 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 which the Athenians commanded
Themistocles to think no farther of it.
When the Lacedaemonians proposed, at the general council 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, being thrown out of the council, the Lacedaemonians
would become 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 were banished return, while abandoning himself, who was his
guest and friend. The verses are these:--
Pausanias you 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 with 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, Timocreon 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 Timocreon should
be banished for siding with the Persians, and Themistocles 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 somewhat 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 person, not only of a noble mind,
but also of a most heroic aspect. At length the Athenians banished him,
making use of the 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 humble 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
assistance, showing him the king of Persia's letters, and exasperating
him against the Greeks, as a villainous, 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 Themistocles suspected, the
Lacedaemonians were clamorous against him, and his enemies among the
Athenians accused him; when, being absent from Athens, he made his
defense 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 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 his
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 a 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 pursuers, prepared and
enacted with him a sort of stage-play to this effect. At this time,
Epicrates of Acharnae 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; and, 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 Aegaean Sea, he took
ship at Pydna in the bay of Therme, not being known to any one in the
ship, till, being terrified to see the vessel driven by the winds near
to Naxos, which was then besieged by the Athenians, 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 believe 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 forward
towards the coast of Asia.
A great part of his estate was privately conveyed away 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 a 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 hunting 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 Aegae, a small city of the Aeolians, where no one knew him but only
his host Nicogenes, who was the richest man in Aeolia, 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 herald's golden wand, and upon this at last it set him down
securely, 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 that no one ever sees them abroad; they spend their lives
shut up within doors, and, when they take a journey, are carried in
close tents, curtained in on all sides, and set upon a wagon. Such a
traveling carriage being prepared for Themistocles, they hid him in it,
and carried him on his journeys and told those whom they met or spoke
with upon the road that they were conveying 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 applied 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
honorable 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 account this the most excellent, to honor
the king, and to worship 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 anyone 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
worshippers 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 we tell him that you are? for
your words signify you to be no ordinary person," Themistocles answered,
"No man, O Artabanus, 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.
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 numerous; but my benefits to them yet greater, in
withholding the Greeks from pursuit, so soon as the deliverance of my
own country 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 understood 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
Themistocles 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 language. 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
spoke 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 whosoever should bring Themistocles; and
promising much more, and encouraging him, he commanded him to speak
freely what he would concerning the affairs of Greece. Themistocles
replied, that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian 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
obscured 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 language
sufficiently, he spoke with the king by himself without the help of an
interpreter, it being supposed that he discoursed only about the affairs
of Greece; but there happening, at the same time, great alterations at
court, and removals 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, carrying him with him a-hunting, and made him his intimate so
far that he permitted him to see the queen-mother, and converse
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, and it should immediately 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, Mithropaustes, 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 Themistocles had been. They
relate, also, how Themistocles, when he was in great prosperity, and
courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table turned
to his children and said, "Children, we had been undone if we had not
been undone." Most writers say that he had three cities given him,
Magnesia, Myus, and Lampsacus, to maintain him in bread, meat, and wine.
Neanthes of Cyzicus, and Phanias, add two more, the city of
Palaescepsis, to provide him with clothes, and Percote, with bedding and
furniture for his 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, "Themistocles, 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 Themistocles, 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 goodness 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 waters at Athens, out of the fines of those whom he detected in
drawing off and diverting the public water by pipes for their private
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 send this statue back to Athens, which so
enraged the Persian officer, 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 appeased 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 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 particular, 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 producing
instant death; and ended his days in the city of Magnesia, having lived
sixty-five years, most of which he had spent in politics and in the
wars, in government and command. The king, being informed of the cause
and manner of his death, admired him more than ever, and continued to
show kindness to his friends and relations.
Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter to Lysander of
Alopece, -- Archeptolis, Polyeuctus, and Cleophantus. Plato the
philosopher mentions the last as a most excellent horseman, but
otherwise insignificant person; of two sons yet older than these,
Neocles and Diocles, Neocles died when he was young by the bite of a
horse, and Diocles 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 Magnesia, 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 Themistocles, placed in
the middle of their market-place. It is not worthwhile taking notice
of what Andocides states in his Address to his Friends concerning his
remains, how the Athenians 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 Phylarchus 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 certain 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; 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 'twill 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
Among the many remarkable things that are related of Furius Camillus, it
seems singular and strange above all, that he, who continually was in
the highest commands, and obtained the greatest successes, was five
times chosen dictator, triumphed four times, and was styled a second
founder of 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 obnoxious amount of authority, because it was divided
among a larger number; for to have the management of affairs entrusted
in the hands of six persons rather than two was some satisfaction to the
opponents of oligarchy. This was the condition of the times when
Camillus was in the height of his actions and glory, and, although the
government in the meantime 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 former 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 considerable
distinction; he, by his own acts, first raised himself to honor, serving
under Postumius Tubertus, dictator, in the great battle against the
Aequians and Volscians. For riding out from the rest of the army, and
in the charge receiving a wound in his thigh, he for all that did not
quit the fight, but, letting the dart drag in the wound, and engaging
with the bravest of the enemy, put them to flight; for which action,
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 wars had made many
widows, he obliged such as had no wives, some by fair persuasion, others
by threatening to set fines on their heads, to take them in marriage;
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 soldiers, 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 defeats, so that, having fortified themselves with high and strong
walls, and furnished the city with all sorts of weapons offensive 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 accustomed 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
commanders 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 ravages 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 phenomenon 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 summer now ending had, to all observation, been neither rainy
nor much troubled with southern winds; and of the many lakes, brooks,
and springs of all sorts with which Italy abounds, some were wholly
dried up, others drew very little water with them; all the rivers, as is
usual in summer, ran in a very low 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 plowed 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 extraordinary 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 familiarity 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 befallen 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, decreed to send to
Delphi, to ask counsel of the god. The messengers were persons of the
highest repute, Licinius 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 possible, they should keep from
the sea, and shut it up in its ancient 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
discovered 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 honored 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, frightened away the enemy, and,
snatching up the entrails, carried them to Camillus. But this may look
like a fable. The city, however, being taken 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 congratulated his good
success, he lifted up his hands to heaven, and broke out into this
prayer: "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 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
astonishment 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 accept 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, Camillus 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
fortune of the city, which, from a small and contemptible beginning,
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, is equally
dangerous, so incapable is human infirmity of keeping 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 territories 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 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 anger, 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 public the tenth part of his gains.
This occasioned many annoyances 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 proportion.
Camillus, being assaulted by their clamor and tumults, for want of a
better excuse, betook himself to the poorest of defenses, 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 tenths of the
citizens. Nevertheless, every one having brought in his due proportion,
it was decreed 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 themselves, 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, therefore, three of the noblest citizens
as a deputation, they sent them in a vessel of war, well manned and
sumptuously adorned. Storm and calm at sea may both, they say, alike be
dangerous; as they at this time experienced, being brought almost to the
very brink of destruction, and, beyond all expectation, escaping. For
near the isles of Solus 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, Timesitheus 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, 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 Faliscans luckily broke out,
giving liberty to the chief citizens to choose what magistrates they
pleased, and to appoint Camillus military tribune, with five colleagues;
affairs then requiring a commander of authority and reputation, as well
as experience. And when the people had ratified the election, he
marched with his forces into the territories of the Faliscans, and laid
seige 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 commonwealth.
The Falerians, trusting in the strength of their city, which was well
fortified on all sides, made so little account 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 town
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 company.
This schoolmaster, designing to betray the Falerians by their children,
led them out every day under the town wall, at first but a little way,
and, when they had exercised, brought them home again. Afterwards by
degrees he drew them farther and farther, till 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! Certain laws, however, all good men observe even in war
itself; nor is victory so great an object 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
commanded 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 schoolmaster, and the city, as was
likely, was full of lamentations and cries for their calamity, 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, calling
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 confess themselves
to be inferior in strength, as they must acknowledge them to be superior
in virtue. The senate remitted 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 of 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. Afterwards, 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
inveighing boldly against the promoters of it, and so urging and
constraining the multitude, that, contrary to their inclinations, they
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.
His accuser was Lucius Apuleius; the charge, appropriation 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 contribute 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 violence 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 defense, 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 immediately
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 rather 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, or it be the
office of some god not to see injured virtue go unavenged.
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 esteem it sacred. The second was that,
just before Camillus went into exile, Marcus Caedicius, a person of no
great distinction, 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 somebody 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 military 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 with 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
Europe; others, seating themselves between the Pyrenean mountains 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 unknown 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 noble 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 secretly enjoyed Aruns's wife, corrupting
her, and himself corrupted 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 himself 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.
At their first coming they at once possessed themselves of all that
country which anciently the Tuscans inhabited, reaching from the Alps to
both the seas, as the names themselves testify; for the North or
Adriatic Sea is named from the Tuscan 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 with rivers. It had eighteen
large and beautiful cities, well provided with all the means for
industry and wealth, 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 were besieging Clusium, a Tuscan city. The
Clusinians sent to the Romans for succor desiring them to interpose with
the barbarians by letters and ambassadors. 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 walls, came
to conference with 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 answer, "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 whom ye make war if they do not yield you part of
what they possess, make slaves of them, waste 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 ends in 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 growing hot about the walls,
one of the Fabii, Quintus Ambustus, being well mounted, and setting
spurs to his horse, made full 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 farewell, 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
meantime 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 justest of kings,
constituted guardians of peace, and the judges and determiners 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 with 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 anything 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 all others for their friends.
Whilst the barbarians were thus hastening with all speed, the military
tribunes brought the Romans into the field to be ready to engage them,
being not inferior to the Gauls in number (for they were no less than
forty thousand foot), but most of them raw soldiers, and such as had
never handled a weapon before. Besides, they had wholly neglected all
religious 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 confound their proceedings;
frequently before, upon less occasions, they had chosen a single leader,
with the title of dictator, being sensible of what great importance it
is in critical times to have the soldiers united under one general with
the entire and 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 humoring 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
resistance, 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 disaster 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 distinguishing 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 Boeotians 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 Plataea, as also at Mycale; on the twenty-fifth, at Arbela.
The Athenians, about the full moon in Boedromion, gained their sea-
victory at Naxos under the conduct of Chabrias; 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
Darius'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 been 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 Chaeronea, 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
Iacchus, the Athenians received a garrison of the Macedonians. On the
selfsame day the Romans lost their army under Caepio by the Cimbrians,
and in a subsequent year, under the conduct of Lucullus, overcame the
Armenians and Tigranes. King Attalus 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 all 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 distraction 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 dividing 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 their coming. For they who resolved to stay at Rome,
abandoning the rest of the city, betook themselves to the Capitol, which
they fortified with the help of missiles and new works. One of their
principal cares was of their holy things, most of which they conveyed
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 worshipped 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 warmth, lie sluggish and dead, and require the accession of
a sort of soul or vitality in the principle of heat; and upon that
accession, in whatever way, immediately 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 burning 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 Aeneas, 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, Aeneas 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 they 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 bears 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 the holy
things of the gods, in a helpless and weary condition, 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 of 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 endure to leave the city; but, putting on
their sacred and splendid robes, Fabius the high-priest performing the
office, they made their prayers to the gods, and, devoting themselves,
as it were, for their country, sat 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 design 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,
proceeding 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 expressions 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
deliverer Lucius; whereas Camillus's surname was not Lucius, but Marcus.
But this is a matter of conjecture.
Brennus, having 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, 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 assembly of
superior beings. But when one, bolder than the rest, drew near to
Marcus Papirius, 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. Afterwards, 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 defenses. 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 dividing 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 confidence 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 if 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 drunkenness, silence prevailed through all the camp. When
Camillus 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, commanding 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 awhile
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 dispatched; 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 neighboring 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 themselves, "O heavens, what a commander has Providence bereaved
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 enemy." To this they all
agreed, and sent to Camillus to desire 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, 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 intelligence 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 ambitious 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 traveled 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 difficulty, 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 senate
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 Camillus in the command, as on him
alone all their 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 plants that grew to the rock had been rubbed off, and
the 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 overcome 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 all 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, perceiving themselves discovered, no
longer endeavored to conceal 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 rock; then mounting the rampart, and there standing 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 from foraging through
fear of Camillus, and sickness 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 with 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
unhealthy ground; added to which was the length and tediousness of the
siege, as they had now sat 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
increased 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
Brennus, 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 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 afterwards 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 anything at all
was 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 the 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 anything they had to urge, for he was come with full power by law
to grant pardon to such as should ask it, or inflict punishment 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 confusion, as could not otherwise be amongst houses,
and ill 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, Camillus 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, overthrew his army with
great slaughter, and took their camp. Of those that fled, some were
presently cut off by the pursuers; others, and these were the greatest
number, dispersed hither and thither, and were dispatched by the people
that came sallying out from the neighboring towns and villages.
Thus Rome was strangely taken, and more strangely recovered, 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 ministers 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 according to the
direction of those properly instructed, he restored 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 redetermine 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 past 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 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 other dictator had ever held it above six months.
They themselves, meantime, used their best endeavors, by kind
persuasions and familiar addresses, to encourage and to appease 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 would it 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 Lucretius, 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 Lucretius, assuming an attitude of devotion, gave sentence in
concurrence with the gods, as he said, as likewise did all that
followed. Even among the common people it created a wonderful change of
feeling; every one now cheered and encouraged his neighbor, and set
himself to the work, proceeding 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-designed lanes,
and with houses huddled together one upon another; for it is said that
within the compass of the year the whole city was raised up anew, both
in its public walls and private buildings. The persons, however,
appointed by Camillus 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 everything else, by the barbarians; 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 lituus; 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 altogether escaped the flames, they began to
conceive happier hopes of Rome, and to augur from this token its future
everlasting safety.
And now they had scarcely got a breathing time from their trouble, when
a new war came upon them; and the Aequians, Volscians, and Latins all at
once invaded their territories, 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 Rome, 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 pretense, or a real design to revive the ancient
relationship of the two nations) sent to desire of the Romans some free-
born maidens in marriage; that when the Romans were at a loss how to
determine (for on one hand they dreaded a war, having scarcely yet
settled and recovered themselves, and on the other side suspected that
this asking of wives was, in plain terms, nothing else but a demand for
hostages, though covered over with the specious name of intermarriage
and alliance), 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
virgins, 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 woolen
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
caprificus. 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 darkness 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.
But 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 tribunes was besieged by the Latins
and Volscians, was constrained 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 within their works, and fortified their camp with a
strong palisade of trees on every side, resolving to wait for more
supplies 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 quantity 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 waited 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, were 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 Aequians 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 Tuscans.
They, however, had already surrendered their city to their enemies, and
destitute of all things, with nothing left but their clothes, met
Camillus on the way, leading their wives and children, and bewailing
their misfortune. Camillus himself was struck with compassion, and
perceiving the soldiers weeping, and commiserating their case, while the
Sutrians hung about and clung to them, resolved not to defer revenge,
but that very day to lead his army to Sutrium; conjecturing that the
enemy, having just taken a rich and plentiful 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 themselves 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 creditors,
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 principal citizens. After that Quintius Capitolinus, who was
made dictator to suppress these disorders, had committed Manlius to
prison, the people immediately changed their apparel, a thing never done
but in great and public calamities, and the senate, fearing some tumult,
ordered him to be released. 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 impediment 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 adjourned 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 resenting 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, besides, 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 tribuneship, desired to be
excused, as being aged, and perhaps not unfearful of the malice of
fortune, and those reverses which seem to ensue upon great prosperity.
But the most apparent pretense 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 conduct, 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
Volscians, 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 necessity or occasion of fighting, in the mean
time to regain his 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 weakness, stayed behind with a few in the camp. Lucius,
engaging 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, returning to Rome with
great spoils, gave signal evidence of their superior 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 seem, to dissemble that miscarriage, 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; their fields, as in
times of highest peace, were full of plowman and shepherds; their gates
stood wide open, and their children 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 tribuneship.
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 consuls 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 dictator 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 successful, 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 condemnation 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,
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 the dissension, and had throughtout
furnished most matter of division 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 hostility; 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 depreciate 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 polishing
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 soldiers to use their long javelins in close
encounter, and, by 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 more
to increase this opinion in them, he suffered them, without 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 nighttime 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 barbarians 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 defenses which were well guarded with steel, turned the
edge of their weapons, being made of a 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 javelins 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 defenseless, 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 Camillus had
secured beforehand, and their camp they knew it would not be difficult
for the enemy to take, as, through confidence 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
surmounted 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 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 Gauls.
This was the last military action that ever Camillus performed; for the
voluntary surrender of the city of the Velitrani was but a mere
accessory to it. But the greatest of all civil contests, and the
hardest to be managed, was still to be fought 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, dispatching 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 ended, to build a temple to Concord. A great conflict of
opposite 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, pleased and reconciled with the senate, as indeed could not
otherwise be, they accompanied Camillus home, with all expressions and
acclamations of joy; and the next day, assembling 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 added one day more, making four in all; and ordained that, on the
present occasion, the whole people of Rome should sacrifice with
garlands on their heads.
In the election of consuls held by Camillus, Marcus Aemilius was chosen
of the patricians, and Lucius Sextius the first of the commonalty; and
this was the last of all Camillus's 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
Caesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying 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 women 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 kindness 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 unworthy 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 everything 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 everything,
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 stimulates 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 produce in the
minds of mere readers about them, an emulation 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 workman or
artist himself, as, for instance, in perfumes and purple 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 human 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 charmingly and skillfully, "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 Archilochus. 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 impulse or inclination, which may prompt any desire or
endeavor of doing the like. But virtue, by the bare statement of its
actions, can so affect men's minds as to create at once both admiration
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
practice; 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 which we form.
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 demeanor, 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 mother'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 Pisistratus, 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 workmen
apparently being willing not to expose him. The poets of Athens called
him Schinocephalos, or squill-head, from schinos, a squill, or sea-
onion. One of the comic poets, Cratinus, in the Chirons,
tells us that --
Old Chronos once took queen Sedition to wife;
Which two brought to life
That tyrant 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 embarrassment 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 state.
And a third, Eupolis, 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 pronounced with the first syllable
short). Though Aristotle tells us that he was thoroughly practiced 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 pretense attended Pericles, the young athlete of
politics, so to say, as his training-master in these exercises. 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, introduces 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 Parmenides 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 especially with
a weight 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 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 mixed and compound things acts
as a principle of discrimination, and of combination of like with like.
For this man, Pericles entertained an extraordinary esteem 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 of language, raised far above the base
and dishonest buffooneries of mob-eloquence, but, besides this, a
composure of countenance, and a serenity and calmness in all his
movements, which no occurrence whilst he was speaking could disturb, a
sustained 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 marketplace, where he was
engaged in the dispatch of some urgent affair, he continued his business
in perfect 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 servants 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 counterfeiting might
in time insensibly instill 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 become, 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 removes, 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 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 indication of
fate had shown itself. But that Anaxagoras, cleaving the 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 government 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 on sun-dials, every one of which
things has its cause, and by that cause and contrivance is a sign of
something 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 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, seeing things
in this posture, now advanced and took his side, not with the rich and
few, but with the many and poor, contrary to his natural bent, which was
far from democratical; but, most likely, fearing he might fall under
suspicion of aiming at arbitrary power, and seeing Cimon on the side of
the aristocracy, and much beloved by the better and more distinguished
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 marketplace 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 kinsman Euryptolemus
married, he remained present till the ceremony 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 admiration, as their daily common life
does that of their nearer friends. Pericles, however, to avoid any
feeling of commonness, or any satiety on the part of the people,
presented himself 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 occasions, while matters
of lesser importance were dispatched 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,
according to Plato's 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."
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 having, 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 be 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 Pericles's dexterity.
Thucydides was one of the noble and distinguished 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 him 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 Aegina must, like a gathering 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 met with in 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
themselves, but only by the honors we pay them, and by the benefits 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 aristocratical
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
theaters, 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 themselves 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 Oea, 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 most of those causes and
matters which had been used to be tried there, were, by the agency of
Ephialtes, removed from its cognizance, 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
Lacedaemonians, by venturing his own person along with his country-men.
But Pericles's 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 perilous 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, concluded 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
commander-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 induced him to be
more remiss and gentle in urging the charge when Cimon was tried for his
life; for Pericles was one of the 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 accusers.
How, then, can one believe Idomeneus, who charges Pericles 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 altogether
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 formidable to the oligarchical party, by being an
uncompromising 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 Tanagraean, privately
dispatched 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 affairs than Cimon was, yet was
better versed in speaking and political business, and keeping close
guard in the city, and engaging with Pericles on the hustings, in a
short time brought the government 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 balance, to make a counter-poise to the other
party.
For, indeed, there was from the beginning a sort of concealed split, or
seam, as it might be in a piece of iron, marking 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,
learning at the same time and practicing the art of seamanship.
He sent, moreover, a thousand of them into the Chersonese as planters,
to share the land among them by lot, and five hundred more into the isle
of Naxos, and half that number to Andros, a thousand into Thrace to
dwell among the Bisaltae, 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 garrisons, 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 astonishment 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
public and sacred buildings. Yet this was that of all his actions in
the government which his enemies most looked askance upon and caviled 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 treasure of the Greeks from the isle of Delos into their own
custody; and how that their fairest excuse for so doing, namely, 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 tyrannized over openly,
when she sees the treasure, which was 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 defense, and kept off the barbarians from
attacking them; while in the meantime 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 receive
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 employed
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
without 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 approbation of the people, these
vast projects of buildings and designs 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 expeditions,
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; and
the arts or trades that wrought and fashioned them were smiths and
carpenters, molders, founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers,
goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers, turners; those again
that conveyed them to the town for use, merchants and mariners and ship-
masters by sea, and by land, cartwrights, cattle-breeders, waggoners,
rope-makers, flax-workers, shoe-makers and leather-dressers, roadmakers,
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 services of
these public works distributed plenty through every age and condition.
As then grew the works up, no less stately in size than exquisite 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 execution. Undertakings, any one of which singly
might have required, they thought, for their completion, several
successions 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
dispatching 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 its preservation when once produced.
For which reason Pericles's works are especially admired, 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
executed. 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 composition of them.
Phidias had the oversight of all the works, and was surveyor-general,
though upon the various portions other great masters and workmen were
employed. For Callicrates and Ictinus built the Parthenon; the chapel
at Eleusis, where the mysteries were celebrated, was begun by Coroebus,
who erected 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 the top of the temple of Castor and
Pollux; and the long wall, which 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,
Talk'd 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 Panathenaea, and
he himself, being chosen judge, arranged the order and method in which
the competitors should sing 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 miserable 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. But 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 friendship for him; and this,
indeed, made him much envied, and his patron shamefully slandered with
stories, as if Phidias 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 his 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 peacocks 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 Stesimbrotus the Thasian 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
anything 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, partly 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 assembly 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 aloud, 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 and all affairs that pertained to the Athenians into 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 subject nations and royal friendships and
alliances.
After this he was no longer the same man he had been before, nor as tame
and gentle and familiar as formerly with the populace, so as readily to
yield to their pleasures and to comply 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
undeviatingly 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 skillful
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 discouragement, 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 skillful and careful
touch to be played on as they should be. The source of this
predominance was not barely his power of language, but, as Thucydides
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 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 greatness of his
power; and the comic poets, in their spiteful manner, more than hint at
it, styling his companions and friends the new Pisistratidae, and
calling on him to abjure any intention of usurpation, as one whose
eminence was too great to be any longer proportionable to and compatible
with a democracy 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 forevermore.
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 Leocrates and Myronides and Cimon and Tolmides and
Thucydides 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 paternal 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 afterward by buying everything 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 management, and the
women that lived with him were treated with little cost, and complained
of this way of housekeeping, where everything 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, any
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 Anaxagoras's wisdom;
if, indeed, it be true that he, by a kind of 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 philosopher 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 necessity, 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 resolution 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 counselor 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 troubled 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 Europe or Asia, every city, little as well as great,
to send their 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.
Upon this errand, there were twenty men, of such as were above fifty
years of age, sent by commission; five to summon the Ionians and Dorians
in Asia, and the islanders as far as Lesbos and Rhodes; five to visit
all the places in the Hellespont 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 Oetaeans and the Malian Gulf, and to the
Achaeans of Phthiotis and the Thessalians; all of them to treat with the
people as they passed, and to persuade them to come and take their part
in the debates 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 disappointed and baffled first in
Peloponnesus. I thought fit, however, 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
preparation 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 assembly,
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 do amiss to
wait and be ruled by time, the wisest counselor 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 among the people, for
wisdom and for love of his countrymen.
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 round the
Peloponnesus, having set out from Pegae, or The Fountains, the port of
Megara, with a hundred galleys. For he not only laid waste the sea-
coast, as Tolmides had done before, but also, advancing far up into main
land with the soldiers he had on board, by the terror of his appearance
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 Oeniadae 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 arrangements 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 against Timesileus the
tyrant; and when he and his accomplices 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 impulses 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 dominions. Nay, there were a good many who were, even
then, possessed with that unblessed 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 Tuscany and of Carthage, and not
without plausible reason in their present large dominion and the
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 showed 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 witness. 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
conduct of Plistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians. Wherefore Pericles
came 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
Lacedaemonians 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 overpowered 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
practices, 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 expedition, 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
Histiaeans 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 against the Samians are thought to have been taken to please
Aspasia, this may be a fit point for inquiry about the woman, what art
or charming faculty she had that enabled her to captivate, as she did,
the greatest statesmen, and to give the philosophers 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
knowledge 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 courtesans. Aeschines 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 was near
of kin to him, who had been married first to Hipponicus, by whom she had
Callias, surnamed the Rich; and also she brought Pericles, while she
lived with him, two sons, Xanthippus 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 marketplace, 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, in downright terms, calls
her a harlot.
To find him a Juno the goddess of lust
Bore that harlot past shame,
Aspasia by name.
It should seem, also, that he had a son by her; Eupolis, in his Demi,
introduced Pericles asking after his 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 concubines the name of Aspasia, who before
that was called Milto. She was a Phocaean by birth, the daughter of one
Hermotimus, 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 a piece for himself
from each one of the hostages, and of many other presents from those who
were anxious not to have a democracy. Moreover, Pissuthnes 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, Pissuthnes having 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 obtained a decisive victory,
having with forty-four ships routed seventy of the enemy's, twenty of
which were carrying soldiers.
Together with his victory and pursuit, having made himself master of the
port, he laid siege to the Samians, and blocked them up, who yet, one
way or other, still ventured to make sallies, and fight under the city
walls. But after that another greater fleet from Athens was arrived,
and that the Samians 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 for 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
intent, it seems to have been a miscalculation. For on his departure,
Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time
general in Samos, despising either the small number of the ships that
were left or the inexperience of the commanders, 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 himself 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 immediately 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 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, call it white
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 attendance, 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 reason 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
tragical drama out of these events, charging the Athenians and Pericles
with a great deal of cruelty, which neither Thucydides, 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 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
crownings 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 himself: whereas Agamemnon
was ten years taking a barbarous city, he had in nine months' time
vanquished and taken the greatest and most powerful of the Ionians. 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
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 Corcyrseans, 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
consenting to the motion, and voting an aid and succor for them, he
dispatched 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 Lacedaemonius 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 hinder Cimon'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 Arcadian woman.
Being, however, ill spoken of on account of 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, Pericles sent out a larger force afterward to Corcyra,
which arrived after the fight was over. And when now the Corinthians,
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 Aeginetans, also, professing to
be ill-used and treated with violence, made supplications in private to
the Lacedaemonians for redress, though not daring openly to call the
Athenians in question. In the meantime, also, the city Potidaea, under
the dominion of the Athenians, but a colony formerly of the Corinthians,
had revolted, 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 regarded 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
forbids that;" which, though prettily said, did not move Pericles from
his resolution. There may have been, in all likelihood, 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 herald should be sent to them, and the same also to the
Lacedaemonians, 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 Anthemocritus, 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 positive refusal, out of high spirit
and a view of the state's best interests, accounting that the demand
made in those embassies was designed for a trial of their compliance,
and that a concession 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 willful spirit of contention, 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 Molder had, as has before been said,
undertaken to make the statue of Minerva. Now he, being admitted to
friendship with Pericles, and a great favorite of his, had many enemies
upon this account, who envied and maligned him; who also, to make trial
in a case of his, what kind of judges the commons would prove, should
there be occasion to bring Pericles himself before them, having tampered
with Menon, one who had been a workman with Phidias, stationed him ill
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 prosecution 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 representation 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 likeness, which, meantime, showed itself on either side.
Phidias then was carried away to prison, and there 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, Aspasia was
indicted of impiety, upon the complaint of Hermippus 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 accusation should be laid against persons who
neglected religion, or taught new doctrines about things above,
directing suspicion, 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 the decree, and moved that the causes 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 Aeschines says, many tears at the trial, and
personally entreating the jurors. But fearing how it might go with
Anaxagoras, he sent him out of the city. And finding that in Phidias'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 induced Pericles not
to suffer the people of Athens to yield to the proposals of the
Lacedaemonians; but their truth is uncertain.
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 message
expected; instead of bringing Pericles under suspicion and reproach,
they raised him into yet greater credit and esteem 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
invasion 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 then he did freely bestow upon the state
all that his land and the buildings upon it for the public use. The
Lacedaemonians, therefore, and their allies, with a great army, invaded
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 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 force him to act against his
judgment; but, like a skillful 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
entreaties of the sea-sick and fearful passengers, so he, having shut up
the city gates, and placed guards at all posts for security, followed
his own reason and judgment, little regarding those that cried out
against him and were angry at his management, 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 everything 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, and ordained new
divisions of subject land. For having turned out all the people of
Aegina, 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
Peloponnese, ravaged a great deal of the country, and pillaged and
plundered the towns and smaller cities; and by land he himself 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 not 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 neither shift of quarters nor
any refreshment.
With the design to remedy these evils, and do the enemy some
inconvenience, 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 citizens, 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 extremely ominous.
Pericles, therefore, perceiving the steersman 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 putting out to sea, seems not to have
done any other exploit befitting 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; Simmias, according to Theophrastus; and Heraclides Ponticus
gives it as Lacratidas.
After this, public troubles were soon to leave him unmolested; 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 of his lawfully begotten
sons, Xanthippus by name, being naturally prodigal, and marrying a young
and expensive wife, the daughter of Tisander, son of Epilycus, was
highly offended at his father's economy in making him but a scanty
allowance, by little and little at a time. He sent, therefore, to a
friend one day, and borrowed some money of him in his father Pericles's
name, pretending 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. Upon which the young man, Xanthippus,
thought himself so ill used and disobliged, that he openly reviled his
father; telling first, by way of ridicule, stories about his
conversations at home, and the discourses he had with the sophists and
scholars that came to his house. As for instance, how one who was a
practicer 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 infamous 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 principle 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 vanquished by his
passion at the sight, so that he burst into exclamations, and shed
copious tears, having never done any such thing in all his life before.
The city having made trial of other generals for the conduct 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 command, regretted the loss of him, and invited
him again to address 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 public affairs once more; and, being chosen general,
requested that the statute concerning base-born children, which he
himself had formerly caused to be made, might be suspended; that so the
name and race of his family might not, for absolute want of a lawful
heir to succeed, be wholly lost and extinguished. 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 persons in number.
It looked strange, that a law, which had been carried so far against so
many people, should be canceled again by the same man that made it; yet
the present calamity and distress 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 deserved, 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.
This 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 it, but with a dull and lingering distemper, 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 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
together among themselves, as though he were unable to understand or
mind what they said, but had now lost his consciousness. 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 anything else, and
had happened 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 represent, 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 equally through all time illumined with a
soft serenity and a pure light, as though such were a home most
agreeable for a blessed and immortal nature; and yet, in the meanwhile,
affirm that the gods themselves are full of trouble and enmity and anger
and other passions, which no way become or belong 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 acknowledged that there never had been in nature such a
disposition as his was, more moderate and reasonable in the height of
that state he took upon him, or more grave and impressive in the
mildness which he used. And that invidious arbitrary power, to which
formerly they gave the name of monarchy 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 Hercules 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 beasts, 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 childhood they in
like manner named him Ovicula, or The Lamb, on account of his extreme
mildness of temper. His slowness in speaking, his long labor and pains
in learning, his deliberation 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 number,
esteem him insensible and stupid; and few only saw that 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
prudence; his want of rapidity, and his sluggishness, as constancy 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 comformable
to his life and character. His eloquence, indeed, had not much of
popular ornament, 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 nor depredation upon their neighbors.
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 increased 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 redhot stones; that the Falerians 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 promptness had been much heightened by his late unexpected
victory 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 battle, 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. Accordingly 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 forward up to Hannibal, who was posted near the Lake
Thrasymene in Tuscany. At the moment of this engagement, there happened
so great an earthquake, that it destroyed 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
Trebia, 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 plainly, "We are beaten, O Romans, in a great
battle; the consul Flaminius is killed; think, therefore, what is to be
done for 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 resolution 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 unanimously 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 cautiousness.
Fabius, being thus installed in the office of dictator, in the first
place gave the command of the horse to Lucius Minucius; and next asked
leave of the senate for himself, that in time of battle he might serve
on horseback, which by an ancient 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 enemy, but by extraordinary honor to propitiate the
gods. This he did, not to fill their minds with superstition, but by
religious 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 Sibylline 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 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 denarii, with one third of a denarius over.
The sum total of which is, in our money, 83,583 drachmas and 2 obols.
What the mystery might be in that exact number is not easy to determine,
unless it were in honor of the perfection of the number three, as being
the first of odd numbers, the first that contains in itself
multiplication, with all other properties whatsoever 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
intention 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 encamped 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 detected 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 distract his
attention, tried to draw him off in various directions, endeavored in
all ways to tempt him from his safe policy. All this artifice, though
it had no effect upon the firm judgment and conviction of the dictator.
yet upon the common soldier 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 himself
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 follow him up and down and wait upon him.
At the same time, they cried up Minucius for the only captain worthy to
command the Romans; whose vanity and presumption rose so high in
consequence, that he insolently jested at Fabius's encampments upon the
mountains, saying that he seated them there as on a theater, 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 (having 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 fainthearted 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 conduct, he makes the slave of those whose
errors it is his business to control."
An oversight of Hannibal occurred soon after. 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 frontier 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 dispatched four
thousand choice men to seize the exit from it and stop him up, and
lodged the rest of his army upon the neighboring hills in the most
advantageous places; at the 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
in 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 surrounded 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 herds
men 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,
unruly 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, abandoned the
pass, and precipitately retired to their camp on the hills. They were
no sooner gone, but the light-armed of Hannibal'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 no longer in condition to
follow the enemy. This action 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
courage, 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 redeemed 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 interest of the
commonwealth, for redeeming men whose cowardice 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 dispatched 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 commands, entreaties, and advice were lost upon Minucius; for his
back was no sooner turned but the new general immediately sought
occasions to attack the enemy. And notice being brought him that
Hannibal had sent out a great part of his army to forage, he fell upon a
detachment of the remainder, 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 recalled 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
conquests
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 Minucius, 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 magistrate 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 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 precedent, though a
little later it was again practiced 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 headlong 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. This 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 for his own division, 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 had to combat; but if he must needs contend with his
colleague, it had best be in diligence and care for the preservation 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 detachment, 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 up. 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 attacked 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 unprepared to face
the danger, and yielding to a flight, which, however, 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; 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
himself!" 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 have 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. Therefore in everything else
henceforth the dictator must be your commander; 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 meaning might be.
When he came near the dictator's tent, Fabius went forth to meet him, on
which he at once laid his standards 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; one by your valor and
conduct over Hannibal, and another by your wisdom and goodness over your
colleague; 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 restored 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
preservation not for myself only, but for all these who are under me."
After this, he threw himself into the arms of the dictator; 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 succeeded, 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 commonwealth 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;
vaunting 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 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 addressed themselves,
therefore, to the other consul, Aemilius Paulus, a man of great
experience in war, but unpopular, and fearful also of the people, who
once before upon some impeachment had condemned him; so that he needed
encouragement 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 Hannibal, when I tell you, that if for this year you
abstain from fighting with him, either his army will 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 Hannibal 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, nothing 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 Gisco, 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, Gisco, yet more astonishing, which you take no
notice of;" and when Gisco inquired what, answered, that "in all those
great numbers before us, there is not one man called Gisco." This
unexpected 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 stratagems to advantage
himself. 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 somewhat 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
reduced 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 contributed. For the horse of Aemilius receiving a hurt
and throwing his master, those about him immediately alighted to aid the
consul; and the Roman troops, seeing their commanders 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 Venusia; Aemilius 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
dispatching 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 Lentulus, 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 Aemilius 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 dispatched
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 supernatural 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 marvelous
revolution in his affairs; he, who 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 operation, but was roving, as it were, with a huge troop of
banditti, 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 when he 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 prosperous 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
lamentations, and the public gatherings of those who wanted thus to vent
their sorrows. He caused the senate to meet, he heartened 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 controlled their mournings for their slain
friends, 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 rites 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; that when the consul Varro came 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 commands 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 his 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. Posidonius 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 praetors 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 the principal inhabitants of
Metapontum, with promises 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 suspicion upon every
light suggestion, his conduct was remarkable. 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
henceforward, whenever you are aggrieved," said Fabius, "I shall
consider it your fault, if you apply yourself to any 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.
At another time, some of his officers informed him that one 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 excursions which he
ventured upon were to visit a young girl, with whom he was in love.
Upon which he gave private order to 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 must 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 commander of the
garrison, was deeply in love with his sister, conceived hopes that he
might possibly turn it to the advantage 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 may be 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 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 privately 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 siege 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 divert him from Tarentum; who instantly caught at it,
and led his forces to Caulonia; in the meantime, 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 unopposed.
Here, we must confess, ambition seems to have overcome him. To make it
appear to the world that he had taken Tarentum by force and his own
prowess, and not by treachery, he commanded his men to kill the
Bruttians before all others; yet he did not succeed in establishing the
impression he desired, 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 town, and
there was brought into the treasury three thousand talents. Whilst they
were carrying off everything else as plunder, the officer who took the
inventory asked what 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 antagonist, 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 luxury. 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 entrance 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 command his father
to alight, and tell him that, if be 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 running, and embraced his son, saying, "Yes, my son, you do well,
and understand well what authority you have received, 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 lieutenant under his own son, when he went as consul to his command.
And when afterwards his son had a triumph bestowed upon him for his good
service, the old man followed, on horseback, his triumphant chariot, as
one of his attendants; and made it his glory, that while he really was,
and was acknowledged to be, the greatest man in Rome, and held a
father's full power over his son, he yet submitted himself to the laws
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 coming home with unexampled joy and acclamation of
the people; 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 Hannibal 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 counsels, 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, perhaps, of driving Hannibal out of Italy,
or even of ending the war, which had for so many years continued and
been protracted 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, rivalry 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 command 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, religious 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 defenseless 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 him in Spain. In
these transactions, 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; 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, alleging for it only the old reason of the mutability of fortune,
as if she would be weary of long favoring the same person. With this
language many did begin to feel offended; it seemed to be morosity and
ill-will, the pusillanimity of old age, or a fear, that had now become
exaggerated, of the skill of Hannibal. Nay, when Hannibal had put his
army on shipboard, and taken his 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 danger. Scipio, however, shortly
afterwards fought Hannibal, and utterly defeated him, humbled the pride
of Carthage beneath 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 prosperous end of this
war, and the final overthrow of Hannibal, nor to rejoice in the
reestablished 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; thus owning him their common
father, and making his end no less honorable than his life.
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
We have here had two lives rich in examples, both of civil and military
excellence. Let us first compare the two men in their warlike capacity.
Pericles presided in his commonwealth when it was in its most
flourishing and opulent condition, 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 undertook
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 with the dead bodies, and rivers
stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens; and yet, with his mature
and solid cousels, 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 calamities and
adversity, and compelled by danger and necessity to listen to wisdom,
than to set a bridle on wantonness and temerity, and rule a people
pampered and restive with long prosperity as were the Athenians when
Pericles held the reins of government. 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 Pericles, 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 had his triumph; whereas Pericles erected nine trophies for
as many victories obtained by land and by sea. But no action 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 Hannibal 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
destruction 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 Lacedaemonians, would
content him. It is true, I presume, that Fabius, also, was not for
yielding any point to the Carthaginians, but was ready to hazard all,
rather than lessen the empire of Rome. The mildness of Fabius towards
his colleague Minucius does, by way of comparison, rebuke and condemn
the exertions of Pericles to banish Cimon and Thucydides, noble,
aristocratic men, who by his means suffered ostracism. 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 influence 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 the miscarriages of others; but it had been happy for
the Romans if his authority had been greater, for so, we may presume,
their disasters had been fewer.
As to liberality and public spirit, Pericles was eminent in never taking
any gifts, and Fabius, for giving his own 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 ornaments and structures of
Rome, to the time of the Caesars, had nothing to compare, either in
greatness of design or of expense, with the luster 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 Artemisium, 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 Thrasybulus or Theramenes, notwithstanding these were all illustrious
men of the same period, yet we know even the nurse of Alcibiades, that
her country was Lacedaemon, 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 anything 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 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 constitution and natural
vigor of body. It is said that his lisping, when he spoke, became him
well, and gave a grace and persuasiveness to his rapid speech.
Aristophanes takes notice 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,
Carelessly 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 played 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; but the man
giving him no attention 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; 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, that 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. Besides, 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 voice, 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, Alcibiades 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. Antiphon
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 extraordinary 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,
indeed, 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 surround 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 searching
words, as she did Alcibiades; who, from the beginning, was exposed to
the flatteries of those who sought merely his gratification, such as
might well unnerve him, and indispose 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 fondness 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 preservation 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, unawares to himself,
there became formed 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;
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; and 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 besought him to accept. 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 himself, 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
stranger, coming to the marketplace, 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
device 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 everyone else, and had no reverence or awe for any 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 believe
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, persuading him, that as soon as he began to
concern himself in public affairs, he would not only obscure the rest of
the generals and statesmen, but outdo the authority and the reputation
which Pericles himself had gained in Greece. But in the same manner as
iron which is softened by the fire grows hard with the cold, and all its
parts are closed again; so, as often as Socrates 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 schoolmaster telling him that he had Homer corrected
by himself; "How," 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 expedition against
Potidaea, where Socrates lodged in the same tent with him, and stood
next him in battle. Once there happened 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
Delium, when the Athenians were routed and Socrates with a few others
was retreating on foot, Alcibiades, who was on horseback, 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, he 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 pardoned 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 pretense 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
courtesans, as well strangers as Athenians, she departed from 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 marketplace, 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 of 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 acquaintance exclaiming at him for it, and
telling him that all Athens was sorry for the dog, and cried out upon
him for this action, he laughed, and said, "Just what I wanted has
happened, then. I wished the Athenians to talk about this, that they
might not say something worse of me."
It is said that the first time he came into the assembly was upon
occasion of a largess of money which he made to 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 transported
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 Antiochus, 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 dependents, threw open, so to say, folding
doors for his admittance. But he did not consent to let his power with
the people rest on any thing, 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, however, 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; 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 anyone but
he, either private person or king, send seven chariots 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 manner:--
"--But my song to you, Son of Clinias, is due.
Victory is noble; how much more
To do as never Greek before;
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 success yet more
illustrious. The Ephesians erected a tent for 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 provisions 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 his
own misconduct. For it is said, that one Diomedes, all Athenian, 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 belonged 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 defense 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 Erasistratus, and
Nicias, the son of Niceratus, 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 statesman 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 daily 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 Hyperbolus, of the township of Perithoedae, 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 persuasions, 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 outdid the
rest in credit and power, indulging not so much perhaps 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 contrived to form a coalition of parties, and,
communicating his project to Nicias, turned the sentence upon Hyperbolus
himself. Others say, that it was not with Nicias, but Phaeax, that he
consulted, and, by help of his party, procured the banishment 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 that the Argives, as well out of
fear as hatred to 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 offense 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 designs? 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 yourselves plenipotentiaries; and I will be ready to assist you,
out of good-will to the Lacedaemonians." When he had said thus, he gave
them his oath for the performance of what he promised, and by this way
drew them from Nicias to rely entirely upon himself, and left them full
of admiration of the discernment and sagacity they had seen in him. The
next day, when the people were assembled and the ambassadors introduced,
Alcibiades, with great apparent courtesy, demanded of them, With what
powers they were come? They made answer that they were not come 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 anything 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
Lacedaemonian ambassadors were utterly rejected, and Alcibiades 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 effected 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 Mantinea, 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; and the Lacedaemonians came to
their aid and abolished the democracy. But the people took arms again,
and gained the advantage, 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 displayed 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
told them, by way of warning, that the Athenians would swallow 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 sagacity and
eloquence, he intermingled exorbitant luxury and wantonness in his
eating and drinking and dissolute living; wore long purple robes like a
woman, which 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."
The truth is, his liberalities, his public shows, and other munificence
to the people, which were such as nothing could exceed, 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 dismissed him
with a reward. He publicly struck Taureas, who exhibited certain shows
in opposition to him and contended with him for the prize. He selected
for himself one of the 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 Archestratus, that
Greece could not support a second Alcibiades. 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 he did others, but purposely met him,
and, taking him by the hand, said, "Go on boldly, my son, and increase
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 already cast a
longing eye upon Sicily; but did not attempt any thing till after his
death. Then, under pretense 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 Sicily, 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 Syracuse would be a work of great difficulty; but
Alcibiades dreamed of nothing less than the conquest of Carthage and
Libya, and by the accession of these conceiving himself at once made
master of Italy and of Peloponnesus, 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 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 philosopher 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 ensue, 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 secretly in the night set his house on fire, and the
next morning besought the people, that for his comfort, after such a
calamity, they would spare his son from the expedition. By which
artifice, 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 prosperously, 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 appeared 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, proposing to give the generals
absolute power over the preparations and the whole management of the
war, it was presently decreed so. When all things were fitted for the
voyage, many unlucky omens appeared. At that very time the feast of
Adonis 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 lamentations 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 were
their colony, in hopes that the Athenians, by such prodigies, might be
induced to delay or abandon the war. But the report 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, committed, 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
persons who designed some commotions in the state, the council, as well
as the assembly of the people, which was held frequently in a few days'
space, examined diligently everything that might administer ground for
suspicion. During this examination, Androcles, one of the demagogues,
produced certain 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 Thessalus, 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 disturbed his friends
exceedingly. But when they perceived that all the sea-men 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 undertaken 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, because 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 assembly and say, that
it was a very absurd thing that one who was created general of such an
army with absolute power, after his troops were assembled, and the
confederates were come, should lose the opportunity, whilst the people
were choosing his judges by lot, and appointing times for the hearing 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 defense 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 objected 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 immediately. 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 Rhegium, and there stated
his views of the manner in which they ought to conduct the war. He was
opposed by Nicias, but Lamachus 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 accusations 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 profanation of the mysteries, as though both had been
committed in pursuance of the same conspiracy for changing the
government. The people proceeded to imprison all that were accused,
without distinction, and without hearing them, and repented 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 acquaintance who fell into the people's hands, whilst
they were in this fury, did not fail to meet with very severe usage.
Thucydides has omitted to name the informers, but others mention
Dioclides and Teucer. Amongst whom is Phrynichus, the comic poet, in
whom we find the following:--
"O dearest Hermes! 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."
To which he makes Mercury return this answer:--
"I will so, for I feel no inclination
To 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 misstatement, 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 accusations, nor
was their first heat at all abated, but they instantly 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 Hellanicus 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 Aegeis, was 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 inscription is
evidence to the contrary. It happened that Andocides, amongst the rest
who were prisoners upon the same account, contracted particular
acquaintance and intimacy with one Timaeus, a person inferior to him in
repute, but of remarkable dexterity and boldness. He persuaded
Andocides 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 commendable to
sacrifice a few suspected men, by that means to rescue many excellent
persons from the fury of the people. Andocides 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 servants amongst others.
But notwithstanding this, the people's anger was not wholly 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 the Salaminian, to recall him. But they expressly
commanded those that were sent, to use no violence, nor seize upon his
person, but address themselves to him in 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
Lamachus was a soldier, and a man of courage, poverty deprived him of
authority and respect in the army. Alcibiades, just upon his departure,
prevented Messena from falling into the hands of the Athenians. There
were some in that 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 himself 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 everything
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 goddesses Ceres and Proserpine, by
representing in derision the 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 herald; and saluted the rest of his company as
Initiates and Novices. All which was done contrary to the laws and
institutions of the Eumolpidae, and the heralds and priests of the
temple at Eleusis."
He was condemned as contumacious upon his not appearing, 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
Menon, of the township 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.
Alcibiades, 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 dispatched 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 important of all,
was to make them fortify Decelea, which above everything reduced and
wasted the resources of the Athenians.
The renown which he earned by these public services was equaled 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 embrace 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 Alcibiades, whether with good 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, luxurious, gay, and indolent; in Thrace, always
drinking; in Thessaly, ever on horseback; and when he lived with
Tisaphernes, 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 very variable, but, whenever
he was sensible that by pursuing his own inclinations he might give
offense 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 agreeable 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 feelings 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 those 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 dispatched 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 instantly 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 the 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 barbarian, not being
himself sincere, but a lover of guile and wickedness, admired his
address and 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, otherwise 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 Athenians. 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 commonwealth 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 protect the rest of their territories;
in one way or other still contriving to be a match for their enemies at
sea. What they stood in fear of, was 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 Athenians, who were then at Samos, giving them
hopes that he would make 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, like brave men, they would make the
attempt to put down the insolence of the people, and, by taking upon
them the government, would endeavor to save the city from ruin. All of
them gave a ready ear to the proposal made by Alcibiades, except only
Phrynichus 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 insinuate 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 intelligence 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 Tisaphernes, observing the credit Alcibiades had with him, revealed
to Alcibiades all that Phrynichus had said against him. Alcibiades at
once dispatched 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 to be in a readiness to go aboard their ships.
While the Athenians were intent upon doing these things, they received
other letters from Alcibiades, 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, afterwards, when Phrynichus was stabbed
with a dagger in the market-place by Hermon, one of the guard, 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,
dispatched 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 friendship and
alliance of Tisaphernes.
This was the color and pretense made use of by those who desired to
change the government of Athens to an oligarchy. But as soon as they
prevailed, and had got the administration of affairs into their hands,
under the name of the Five Thousand (whereas, indeed, they were but four
hundred), 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 befriended 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; and, sending for
Alcibiades, they declared 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 commit,
unequivocally saved the commonwealth. For if they then had 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 prevented all this mischief; for he not only used
persuasion to the whole army, and showed them the danger, but applied
himself 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 Alcibiades 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 Lacedaemonians; and it was by both sides believed that they
had been diverted by the procurement of Alcibiades. The Lacedaemonians,
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 Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, had
sailed with his whole army into the 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. Upon his first appearance, both sides formed
a false impression; the enemy was encouraged, and the Athenians
terrified. But Alcibiades suddenly raised the Athenian ensign in the
admiral 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 abandoning 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 imagined, for Tisaphernes had been long suspected by
the Lacedaemonians, and was afraid to fall into disgrace with his king,
upon that account, and therefore thought that Alcibiades arrived 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 keepers, 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 Athenian camp, and, being informed there that
Mindarus and Pharnabazus 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 interior of the fleet, that the enemy might have no notice
of his coming; 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 themselves 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
Peloponnesian fleet were seen riding out at sea in front of the harbor
of Cyzicus. Fearing, if they discovered the number of his 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 himself to the enemy, and provoked them to fight.
The enemy, being deceived as to their numbers; despised them, and,
supposing they were to contend with those only, made themselves 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, fighting 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
intercepted some letters written to the ephors, which gave an account of
this fatal overthrow, after their short laconic manner. "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 disdained 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 were under
the command of Thrasyllus with this misfortune, 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. 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 had revolted from the Athenians,
and had received a Lacedaemonian governor and garrison. But having
intelligence that they had removed their corn and cattle out of the
fields, and 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 advanced 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 them 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 Selymbria, in which action,
through his precipitation, he exposed himself to great danger. For some
within the town had undertaken 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 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 inclined 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
submission 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 province whereof Pharnabazus was governor; and Pharnabazus was also
to provide safe conducts for the Athenian ambassadors to the king of
Persia. Afterwards, when Alcibiades returned 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 circumvallation 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, accordingly, 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 defense 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 fighting, for the Peloponnesians, Boeotians, and
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 the 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, devouring the old stores, whilst
the Byzantines, with their wives and children, were starving; that he
had not, therefore, betrayed 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 defense, 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 ships 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 destroyed; all of them
together amounting to two hundred. Little credit, perhaps, can be given
to what Duris 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 with
the music; and that Callippides, the tragedian, attired in his buskins,
his purple robes, and other ornaments used in the theater, 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 from so long
an exile, and such variety of misfortunes, should come home to his
countrymen in the style of revelers breaking up from a drinking-party.
On the contrary, he entered 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 acclamations, 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
remembrance 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 command of their forces,
to Alcibiades, since, upon his undertaking 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 banishment 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. They also made a decree that his
estate should be restored to him, and that the Eumolpidae and the holy
heralds should absolve him from the curses which they had solemnly
pronounced 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 Alcibiades went so prosperously, and
so much to his glory, yet many were still 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 ornaments 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,
notwithstanding, everything 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 leading from Athens to Eleusis, 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 Iacchus. 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 defense 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 Eumolpidae and heralds, he placed
sentinels on the tops of the hills, and at the break of day sent forth
his scouts. And then taking with him the priests and Initiates and the
Initiators, 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 desired 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
ordinances of the people, and suppressing the idle talkers that were
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 whom he chose, and allowing him all
other things as he desired. 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 was 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 considered 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 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 thence 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-conceited 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 fortified 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 informations, 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 against those Thracians who
called themselves free, and 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 generals, were at that
time posted at Aegospotami, 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, returning 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 of 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 obedient to discipline, lay so very near them. He
advised them to remove the fleet to Sestos. But the admirals not only
disregarded 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 something 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 evident how rightly he had judged of the errors
which the Athenians 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 Lacedaemonians, who
were 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 Themistocles, 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 defense 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 meantime, were miserably afflicted at
their loss of 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 Lacedaemonians 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 suffer them to
acquiesce in their present circumstances.
Yet Lysander would not be prevailed upon by these representations, till
at last he received secret orders from the magistrates of Lacedaemon,
expressly requiring him to get Alcibiades dispatched: 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 order, Lysander sent away a messenger to Pharnabazus, desiring him
to put it in execution. Pharnabazus committed the affair to Magaeus,
his brother, and to his uncle Susamithres. 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 arms, dressed his
head and painted his face as if he had been a woman; others say, he
dreamed that he saw Magaeus cut off his 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.
Alcibiades, as soon as he perceived it, getting together great
quantities 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 expect 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.
CORIOLANUS
The patrician house of the Marcii in Rome produced many men of
distinction, and among the rest, Ancus Marcius, grandson to Numa by his
daughter, and king after Tullus 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 experience, 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, with its better
fruits, to produce also much that is bad and faulty. While the force
and vigor of his soul, and a persevering constancy 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 all
obstinate reluctance to yield or accommodate his humors and sentiments
to those of people about him, he rendered himself incapable of acting
and associating with others. Those who saw with admiration how 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
deportment, and with his overbearing, haughty, and imperious temper.
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 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 achievements; 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
Marcius, having a more passionate inclination than any of that age for
feats of war, began at once, from his very childhood, to handle arms;
and feeling that adventitious implements and artificial arms would
effect little, and be of small use 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 displays 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 stripling, 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 struck 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 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, therefore, be thought a propel 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 birdlime 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 consequently 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 characters 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 recompense received for what they
have already done, but as a pledge given by themselves of what they will
perform hereafter, 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 luster of their following actions. Marcius, 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 occasion; 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 a 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 returned 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 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 pleasure 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 respect to
her. He took a wife, also, at her request and wish, 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 exactions 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 performance 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
remember nothing of that agreement, and sat without testifying the least
concern to see them dragged away like slaves and their goods seized upon
as formerly, there began now to be open disorders and dangerous meetings
in the city; and 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 members of
the government, then coming to consult what course should be taken,
were themselves again divided in opinion: some thought it most
advisable to comply a little in favor of the poor, by relaxing their
overstrained rights, and mitigating the extreme rigor of the law, while
others withstood this proposal; 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
proceeding 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 without any certain issue;
the poor commonalty, therefore, perceiving 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 defense of their creditors. The senate,
apprehending the consequences, sent the most moderate and popular men of
their own order to treat with them.
Menenius Agrippa, their chief spokesman, after much entreaty 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 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
forwardness they now allowed 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 command 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, with 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 content 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 pellmell 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 set open
Corioli, not so much to shelter 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, overpowering 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 remainder 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 consul 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 pretense 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 beseeching 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 to him how the city had been taken, and when
they saw Cominius 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 to 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
center to be their prime warriors, that would yield to none in bravery,
"Let me then demand and obtain of you," said Marcius, "that we may be
posted against them." The consul granted the request, with much
admiration of 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, dispatched some
of the choicest men he had for his rescue. The conflict then growing
warm and sharp about Marcius, and many falling 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 replied,
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 consul's 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 eyewitness
of himself, in the late battle, and had partly learned from the
testimony of Lartius. 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 trappings 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 regard 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," 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 had gained him his title to it.
It is the hither 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, Cominius, resuming,
said, "It is idle, fellow-soldiers, 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 resolution." Hence, therefore, he had his third
name of Coriolanus, 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 Callinicus; 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, Lathyrus. 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 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
another 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 of 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 import 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
malice, had purposely contrived the famine. Meanwhile, there came an
embassy from the Velitrani, proposing to deliver 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 necessity 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 superfluous 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 patricians, should be mingled
again in the same army and the same camp, and engage in one common
service for the public, it would mutually dispose them to reconciliation
and friendship.
But Sicinnius and Brutus, the popular orators, interposed, crying out,
that the consuls disguised the most cruel and barbarous 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 enlisted 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,
conscious, 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 dispatched to Velitrae, those that were chosen by lot being
compelled to depart upon high penalties; and when they obstinately
persisted in refusing to enroll 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 an 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 laden with pillage, and driving their prey before
them. This sight filled those that had stayed at home with regret for
their perverseness, 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, however, the people
began to relent and incline to favor him, being 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 became 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
secretly 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 Anthemion, is said to have been the first
that gave money to the judges, when on his trial, toward the latter end
of the Peloponnesian 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 showing 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 senators 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 something of indignation and envy; passions assisted by the fear
they entertained, that if a man of such aristocratic temper, 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 overbear all apposition is the true part of bravery, and
never imagining 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 patricians, 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 indignation and condolence. He had been their
captain, and their willing instructor in the arts of war, when out upon
expeditions, and their model in that true emulation and love of
excellence 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, supposing 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 awaiting the issue of that deliberation, expecting that the
market prices would now be less cruel, and that what had come as a gift
would be distributed as such. There were some within who so advised the
senate; but Marcius, standing up, sharply inveighed against those who
spoke in favor of the multitude, 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 everything 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 secessions, 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 tribunician 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,
indeed, 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 stand together, and come in to
their assistance. The assembly met, and soon became 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
Aediles, 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 Aediles, that were their seconds in the
quarrel; night, approaching, 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 multitude 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 reproof 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, standing up,
declared, in the name of the people, that since the senate was pleased
to act soberly and do them reason, they, likewise, 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
their summons? and, lastly, by the blows and other public affronts to
the Aediles, had he not done all he could to commence a civil war?
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;
in which belief the people kept silence, and gave him a quiet hearing.
But when, instead of the submissive 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 multitude 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
Aediles take him to the Tarpeian rock, and without delay throw him
headlong from the precipice. When they, however, in compliance 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 punishment without much bloodshed and slaughter of the
nobility, persuaded them to forbear everything unusual and odious; not
to dispatch him by any sudden violence, or without regular 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 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 partisan shall be tried. We appoint you, Marcius," directing
his speech to him, "the third market-day ensuing, to appear and defend
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 respite 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 nundinae 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
indignation lessen and languish by degrees in so long a space, if
occupation and war did not wholly put it out of their mind. But when,
contrary to expectation, they made a speedy agreement 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 of the 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 dispossess 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 indictment they would oblige him to plead to before the
people; 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 myself from that imputation before an assembly
of them; I freely offer myself to any sort of trial, nor do I refuse any
kind of punishment whatsoever; only," he continued, "let what you now
mention 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 be taken, not by centuries,
but tribes; a change, by which the indigent 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, whereas 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 instead,
his language in the senate against an abatement 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 Antiates, 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
accusation 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 satisfactory answer to it on
the sudden. And when, by way of excuse, 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 pronounced, 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 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 entire 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 feebleness; 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,
distention, 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 anything
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 auger increased, by
the late overthrows they had received from the Romans.
There was a man of Antium, called Tullus Aufidius, who, for his 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 Tullus to have a
certain generosity of temper, and knowing that no Volscian, so much as
he, desired an occasion to requite 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, thus, 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, 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 him who
he was, and for what business he came thither; and then Marcius,
unmuffling himself, and pausing awhile, "If," said he, "you cannot yet
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 now bear would be a sufficient evidence
against me. The one recompense I received for all the hardships and
perils I have gone through, was the title that proclaims my enmity to
your 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, methinks, 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 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 myself, 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 giving him his
right hand, exclaimed, "Rise, Marcius, and be of good courage; it is a
great happiness you bring to Antium, in the present you make us of
yourself; expect everything 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 condemnation of Marcius. Besides that,
their soothsayers and priests, and even private persons, reported
signs and prodigies not to be neglected; one of which is stated to have
occurred as follows: Titus Latinus, a man of ordinary condition, but
of a quiet and virtuous character, free from all superstitious fancies,
and yet more from vanity and exaggeration, had an apparition in his
sleep, as if Jupiter came and bade him tell the senate, that it was with
a bad and unacceptable dancer that they had headed his procession.
Having 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
palsy. He was brought into the senate 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 offense, 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 command, 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 attendants on which were, indeed,
scandalized at the sight, yet 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 familiar with them. It was 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 with the strangeness of the punishment,
called to mind and mentioned the miserable slave who was lashed through
the streets and afterward put to death. The priests, when consulted,
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 have 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 before, 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 spectacles, 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 accident in the service. Such
was the Roman reverence and caution in religious matters.
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 themselves. And when shame appeared to hinder
them from embracing the motion, as they had sworn to a truce and
cessation of arms for the space of two years, the Romans themselves soon
furnished them with a pretense, by making proclamation, out of some
jealousy or slanderous report, in the midst of 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 hostility to the
Romans, and Tullus, perceiving it, made his advantage of it, aggravating
the fact, and working on their indignation, till he persuaded them, at
last, to dispatch ambassadors 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 Volscians 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 Volscians;
and the vote passing for a war, he then proposed that they should call
in Marcius, laying aside the remembrance 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 accordingly
summoned, and having made his entrance, and spoken to the people, won
their good opinion 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 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 together 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 himself, prevailing upon the most forward to
assemble and march out with him as volunteers without staying to be
enrolled, made a sudden inroad into the Roman confines, when nobody
expected him, and possessed himself of so much 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 increase 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 furnished
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
returned in safety.
But when the whole strength of the Volscians was brought together into
the field, with great expedition and alacrity, it appeared 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 desired 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 fortunate, 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 inhabitants no
injury; passing thence, he entered and laid waste the country of the
Latins, where he expected the Romans would meet him, as the Latins were
their confederates and allies, and had often sent to demand succors from
them. The people, however, on their part, showing little inclination
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, finding 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, he 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 Aeneas built in Italy. These
tidings produced a change as universal as it was extraordinary in the
thoughts inclinations of the people, but occasioned a yet stranger
revulsion of feeling among the patricians. The people now were for
repealing the sentence against Marcius, an 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 owe 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 ill treated by all, and was become, declared
enemy to his whole country, though he knew well enough that the
principal 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 anything 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
seige of Lavinium, 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 offenses, and they should
have studied rather to appease him. It was, therefore, unanimously
agreed by all parties, that ambassadors should be dispatched, offering
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 kindred and acquaintance, who
naturally expected a very kind reception at their first interview, upon
the score of that relation 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 himself, 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 granted 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 nature. He could
not help feeling mortified to find his own glory thus totally obscured,
and himself overlooked and neglected 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
opportunities for action, on which depend the preservation or the loss
of everything 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 Marcius 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 relief; but were
utterly fearful, and showed no more disposition or capacity for action,
than if their bodies had been struck with a palsy, and become destitute
of sense and motion. But when the thirty days were expired, and Marcius
appeared again with his whole army, they sent another embassy- 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 menaces, 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 answer to this as
general of the Volscians, but, in the quality still of a Roman 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;
otherwise, they must understand that they could not have any further
freedom of passing through his camp upon idle errands.
When the ambassadors were come back, and had acquainted 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, according 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 consented so far, indeed, as to give the deputation an admittance
into his camp, but granted nothing at all, nor so much as expressed
himself more mildly; but, without capitulating or receding, 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 placing
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 at last a thing happened not unlike what we so
often find represented, without, however, being accepted as true by
people in general, in Homer. On some great and unusual occasion we 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.
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 deliberate thought and free
choice; which is not, in the least, the case in Homer's representation,
where the ordinary, probable, and habitual conclusions that common
reason leads to are continually ascribed to our own direct agency. He
certainly says frequently enough: --
But I consulted with my own great soul;
or, as in another passage: --
He spoke. Achilles, with quick pain possessed,
Revolved 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 extraordinary, and
seems in a manner to demand some impulse of divine possession and sudden
inspiration to account 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 occasion 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 cooperation 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 Poplicola, 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 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 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 additional sorrow, which is wholly
ours, that we have lost the merit and good fame of Marcius, and see his
person confined, rather than protected, by the arms of the enemy. Yet I
account 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 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, wondered what should be the matter; but perceiving at length that
his mother was at the head of them, he would fain have hardened himself
in his former inexorable temper, but, overcome by his feelings, and
confounded at what he saw, he did not endure they 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
children, sparing neither tears nor caresses, but suffering himself to
be borne away and carried headlong, as it were, by the impetuous
violence of his passion.
When he had satisfied himself, and observed that his mother Volumnia was
desirous to say something, the Volscian council being first called in,
he heard her to the following effect: "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; and now consider with yourself, whether we may not pass
for the most unfortunate of all women, to have that sight, which should
be the sweetest that we could see, converted, through I know not what
fatality, to one of all others the most formidable and dreadful, --
Volumnia to behold her son, and Vergilia her husband, in arms against
the walls of Rome. Even prayer itself, whence others gain comfort and
relief in all manner of misfortunes, is that which most adds to our
confusion and distress; since our best wishes are inconsistent with
themselves, nor can we at the same time petition the gods for Rome's
victory and your preservation, but what the worst of our enemies would
imprecate as a curse, is the very object of our vows. Your wife and
children are under the sad necessity, that they must either be deprived
of you, or of their native soil. As for myself, I am resolved not to
wait till war shall determine this alternative for me; but if I cannot
prevail with you to prefer amity and concord to quarrel and hostility,
and to be the benefactor to both parties, rather than the destroyer of
one of them, be assured of this from me, and reckon steadfastly upon it,
that you shall not be able to reach your country, unless you trample
first upon the corpse of her that brought you into life. For it will be
ill in me to wait and loiter in the world till the day come wherein I
shall see a child of mine, either led in triumph by his own countrymen,
or triumphing over them. Did I require you to save your country by
ruining the Volscians, then, I confess, my son, the case would be hard
for you to solve. It is base to bring destitution on our fellow-
citizens; it is unjust to betray those who have placed their confidence
in us. But, as it is, we do but desire a deliverance equally expedient
for them and us; only more glorious and honorable on the Volscian side,
who, as superior in arms, will be thought freely to bestow the two
greatest of blessings, peace and friendship, even when they themselves
receive the same. If we obtain these, the common thanks will be chiefly
due to you as the principal cause; but if they be not granted, you alone
must expect to bear the blame from both nations. The chance of all war
is uncertain, yet thus much is certain in the present, that you, by
conquering Rome, will only get the reputation of having undone your
country; but if the Volscians happen to be defeated under your conduct,
then the world will say, that, to satisfy a revengeful humor, you
brought misery on your friends and patrons."
Marcius listened to his mother while she spoke, without answering her a
word; and Volumnia, seeing him stand mute also for a long time after she
had ceased, resumed: "O my son," said she, "what is the meaning of this
silence? Is it a duty to postpone everything to a sense of injuries,
and wrong to gratify a mother in a request like this? Is it the
characteristic of a great man to remember wrongs that have been done
him, and not the part of a great and good man to remember benefits such
as those that children receive from parents, and to requite them with
honor and respect? You, methinks, who are so relentless in the
punishment of the ungrateful, should not be more careless than others to
be grateful yourself. You have punished your country already; you have
not yet paid your debt to me. Nature and religion, surely, unattended
by any constraint, should have won your consent to petitions so worthy
and so just as these; but if it must be so, I will even use my last
resource." Having said this, she threw herself down at his feet, as did
also his wife and children; upon which Marcius, crying out, "O mother!
what is it you have done to me?" raised her up from the ground, and
pressing her right hand with more than ordinary vehemence, "You have
gained a victory," said he, "fortunate enough for the Romans, but
destructive to your son; whom you, though none else, have defeated."
After which, and a little private conference with his mother and his
wife, he sent them back again to Rome, as they desired of him.
The next morning, he broke up his camp, and led the Volscians homeward,
variously affected with what he had done; some of them complaining of
him and condemning his act, others, who were inclined to a peaceful
conclusion, unfavorable to neither. A third party, while much disliking
his proceedings, yet could not look upon Marcius as a treacherous
person, but thought it pardonable in him to be thus shaken and driven to
surrender at last, under such compulsion. None, however, opposed his
commands; they all obediently followed him, though rather from
admiration of his virtue, than any regard they now had to his authority.
The Roman people, meantime, more effectually manifested how much fear
and danger they had been in while the war lasted, by their deportment
after they were freed from it. Those that guarded the walls had no
sooner given notice that the Volscians were dislodged and drawn off, but
they set open all their temples in a moment, and began to crown
themselves with garlands and prepare for sacrifice, as they were wont to
do upon tidings brought of any signal victory. But the joy and
transport of the whole city was chiefly remarkable in the honors and
marks of affection paid to the women, as well by the senate as the
people in general; every one declaring that they were, beyond all
question, the instruments of the public safety. And the senate having
passed a decree that whatsoever they would ask in the way of any favor
or honor should be allowed and done for them by the magistrates, they
demanded simply that a temple might be erected to Female Fortune, the
expense of which they offered to defray out of their own contributions,
if the city would be at the cost of sacrifices, and other matters
pertaining to the due honor of the gods, out of the common treasury.
The senate, much commending their public spirit, caused the temple to be
built and a statue set up in it at the public charge; they, however,
made up a sum among themselves, for a second image of Fortune, which
the Romans say uttered, as it was putting up, words to this effect,
"Blessed of the gods, O women, is your gift."
These words they profess were repeated a second time, expecting our
belief for what seems pretty nearly an impossibility. It may be
possible enough, that statues may seem to sweat, and to run with tears,
and to stand with certain dewy drops of a sanguine color; for timber and
stones are frequently known to contract a kind of scurf and rottenness,
productive of moisture; and various tints may form on the surfaces, both
from within and from the action of the air outside; and by these signs
it is not absurd to imagine that the deity may forewarn us. It may
happen, also, that images and statues may sometimes make a noise not
unlike that of a moan or groan, through a rupture or violent internal
separation of the parts; but that an articulate voice, and such express
words, and language so clear and exact and elaborate, should proceed
from inanimate things, is, in my judgment, a thing utterly out of
possibility. For it was never known that either the soul of man, or the
deity himself, uttered vocal sounds and language, alone, without an
organized body and members fitted for speech. But where history seems
in a manner to force our assent by the concurrence of numerous and
credible witnesses, we are to conclude that an impression distinct from
sensation affects the imaginative part of our nature, and then carries
away the judgment, so as to believe it to be a sensation: just as in
sleep we fancy we see and hear, without really doing either. Persons,
however, whose strong feelings of reverence to the deity, and tenderness
for religion, will not allow them to deny or invalidate anything of
this kind, have certainly a strong argument for their faith, in the
wonderful and transcendent character of the divine power; which admits
no manner of comparison with ours, either in its nature or its action,
the modes or the strength of its operations. It is no contradiction to
reason that it should do things that we cannot do, and effect what for
us is impracticable: differing from us in all respects, in its acts yet
more than in other points we may well believe it to be unlike us and
remote from us. Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as
Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.
When Marcius came back to Antium, Tullus, who thoroughly hated and
greatly feared him, proceeded at once to contrive how he might
immediately dispatch him; as, if he escaped now, he was never likely to
give him such another advantage. Having, therefore, got together and
suborned several partisans against him, he required Marcius to resign
his charge, and give the Volscians all account of his administration.
He, apprehending the danger of a private condition, while Tullus held
the office of general and exercised the greatest power among his fellow-
citizens, made answer, that he was ready to lay down his commission,
whenever those from whose common authority he had received it, should
think fit to recall it; and that in the meantime he was ready to give
the Antiates satisfaction, as to all particulars of his conduct, if they
were desirous of it.
An assembly was called, and popular speakers, as had been concerted,
came forward to exasperate and incense the multitude; but when Marcius
stood up to answer, the more unruly and tumultuous part of the people
became quiet on a sudden, and out of reverence allowed him to speak
without the least disturbance; while all the better people, and such as
were satisfied with a peace, made it evident by their whole behavior,
that they would give him a favorable hearing, and judge and pronounce
according to equity.
Tullus, therefore, began to dread the issue of the defense he was going
to make for himself; for he was an admirable speaker, and the former
services he had done the Volscians had procured and still preserved for
him greater kindness than could be outweighed by any blame for his late
conduct. Indeed, the very accusation itself was a proof and testimony
of the greatness of his merits, since people could never have complained
or thought themselves wronged, because Rome was not brought into their
power, but that by his means they had come so near to taking it. For
these reasons, the conspirators judged it prudent not to make any
further delays, nor to test the general feeling; but the boldest of
their faction, crying out that they ought not to listen to a traitor,
nor allow him still to retain office and play the tyrant among them,
fell upon Marcius in a body, and slew him there, none of those that were
present offering to defend him. But it quickly appeared that the action
was in nowise approved by the majority of the Volscians, who hurried out
of their several cities to show respect to his corpse; to which they
gave honorable interment, adorning his sepulchre with arms and trophies,
as the monument of a noble hero and a famous general. When the Romans
heard tidings of his death, they gave no other signification either of
honor or of anger towards him, but simply granted the request of the
women, that they might put themselves into mourning and bewail him for
ten months, as the usage was upon the loss of a father or a son or a
brother; that being the period fixed for the longest lamentation by the
laws of Numa Pompilius, as is more amply told in the account of him.
Marcius was no sooner deceased, but the Volscians felt the need of his
assistance. They quarreled first with the Aequians, their confederates
and their friends, about the appointment of the general of their joint
forces, and carried their dispute to the length of bloodshed and
slaughter; and were then defeated by the Romans in a pitched battle,
where not only Tullus lost his life, but the principal flower of their
whole army was cut in pieces; so that they were forced to submit and
accept of peace upon very dishonorable terms, becoming subjects of Rome,
and pledging themselves to submission.
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
Having described all their actions that seem to deserve commemoration,
their military ones, we may say, incline the balance very decidedly upon
neither side. They both, in pretty equal measure, displayed on numerous
occasions the daring and courage of the soldier, and the skill and
foresight of the general; unless, indeed, the fact that Alcibiades was
victorious and successful in many contests both by sea and land, ought
to gain him the title of a more complete commander. That so long as
they remained and held command in their respective countries, they
eminently sustained, and when they were driven into exile, yet more
eminently damaged the fortunes of those countries, is common to both.
All the sober citizens felt disgust at the petulance, the low flattery,
and base seductions which Alcibiades, in his public life, allowed
himself to employ with the view of winning the people's favor; and the
ungraciousness, pride, and oligarchical haughtiness which Marcius, on
the other hand, displayed in his, were the abhorrence of the Roman
populace. Neither of these courses can be called commendable; but a man
who ingratiates himself by indulgence and flattery, is hardly so
censurable as one who, to avoid the appearance of flattering, insults.
To seek power by servility to the people is a disgrace, but to maintain
it by terror, violence, and oppression, is not a disgrace only, but an
injustice.
Marcius, according to our common conceptions of his character, was
undoubtedly simple and straightforward; Alcibiades, unscrupulous as a
public man, and false. He is more especially blamed for the
dishonorable and treacherous way in which, as Thucydides relates, he
imposed upon the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, and disturbed the
continuance of the peace. Yet this policy, which engaged the city again
in war, nevertheless placed it in a powerful and formidable position, by
the accession, which Alcibiades obtained for it, of the alliance of
Argos and Mantinea. And Coriolanus also, Dionysius relates, used unfair
means to excite war between the Romans and the Volscians, in the false
report which he spread about the visitors at the Games; and the motive
of this action seems to make it the worse of the two; since it was not
done, like the other, out of ordinary political jealousy, strife, and
competition. Simply to gratify anger, from which, as Ion says, no one
ever yet got any return, he threw whole districts of Italy into
confusion, and sacrificed to his passion against his country numerous
innocent cities. It is true, indeed, that Alcibiades also, by his
resentment, was the occasion of great disasters to his country, but he
relented as soon as he found their feelings to be changed; and after he
was driven out a second time, so far from taking pleasure in the errors
and inadvertencies of their commanders, or being indifferent to the
danger they were thus incurring, he did the very thing that Aristides is
so highly commended for doing to Themistocles: he came to the generals
who were his enemies, and pointed out to them what they ought to do.
Coriolanus, on the other hand, first of all attacked the whole body of
his countrymen, though only one portion of them had done him any wrong,
while the other, the better and nobler portion, had actually suffered,
as well as sympathized, with him. And, secondly, by the obduracy with
which he resisted numerous embassies and supplications, addressed in
propitiation of his single anger and offense, he showed that it had been
to destroy and overthrow, not to recover and regain his country, that he
had excited bitter and implacable hostilities against it. There is,
indeed, one distinction that may be drawn. Alcibiades, it may be said,
was not safe among the Spartans, and had the inducements at once of fear
and of hatred to lead him again to Athens; whereas Marcius could not
honorably have left the Volscians, when they were behaving so well to
him: he, in the command of their forces and the enjoyment of their
entire confidence, was in a very different position from Alcibiades,
whom the Lacedaemonians did not so much wish to adopt into their
service, as to use, and then abandon. Driven about from house to house
in the city, and from general to general in the camp, the latter had no
resort but to place himself in the hands of Tisaphernes; unless, indeed,
we are to suppose that his object in courting favor with him was to
avert the entire destruction of his native city, whither he wished
himself to return.
As regards money, Alcibiades, we are told, was often guilty of procuring
it by accepting bribes, and spent it in in luxury and dissipation.
Coriolanus declined to receive it, even when pressed upon him by his
commanders as all honor; and one great reason for the odium he incurred
with the populace in the discussions about their debts was, that he
trampled upon the poor, not for money's sake, but out of pride and
insolence.
Antipater, in a letter written upon the death of Aristotle the
philosopher, observes, "Amongst his other gifts he had that of
persuasiveness;" and the absence of this in the character of Marcius
made all his great actions and noble qualities unacceptable to those
whom they benefited: pride, and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls
it, of solitude, made him insufferable. With the skill which Alcibiades
on the contrary, possessed to treat every one in the way most agreeable
to him, we cannot wonder that all his successes were attended with the
most exuberant favor and honor; his very errors, at times, being
accompanied by something of grace and felicity. And so, in spite of
great and frequent hurt that he had done the city, he was repeatedly
appointed to office and command; while Coriolanus stood in vain for a
place which his great services had made his due. The one, in spite of
the harm he occasioned, could not make himself hated, nor the other,
with all the admiration he attracted, succeed in being beloved by his
countrymen.
Coriolanus, moreover, it should be said, did not as a general obtain any
successes for his country, but only for his enemies against his country.
Alcibiades was often of service to Athens, both as a soldier and as a
commander. So long as he was personally present, he had the perfect
mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his
absence. Coriolanus was condemned in person at Rome; and in like manner
killed by the Volscians, not indeed with any right or justice, yet not
without some pretext occasioned by his own acts; since, after rejecting
all conditions of peace in public, in private he yielded to the
solicitations of the women, and, without establishing peace, threw up
the favorable chances of war. He ought, before retiring, to have
obtained the consent of those who had placed their trust in him; if
indeed he considered their claims on him to be the strongest. Or, if we
say that he did not care about the Volscians, but merely had prosecuted
the war, which he now abandoned, for the satisfaction of his own
resentment, then the noble thing would have been, not to spare his
country for his mother's sake, but his mother in and with his country;
since both his mother and his wife were part and parcel of that
endangered country. After harshly repelling public supplications, the
entreaties of ambassadors, and the prayers of priests, to concede all as
a private favor to his mother was less an honor to her than a dishonor
to the city which thus escaped, in spite, it would seem, of its own
demerits, through the intercession of a single woman. Such a grace
could, indeed, seem merely invidious, ungracious, and unreasonable in
the eyes of both parties; he retreated without listening to the
persuasions of his opponents, or asking the consent of his friends. The
origin of all lay in his unsociable, supercilious, and self-willed
disposition, which, in all cases, is offensive to most people; and when
combined with a passion for distinction passes into absolute savageness
and mercilessness. Men decline to ask favors of the people, professing
not to need any honors from them; and then are indignant if they do not
obtain them. Metellus, Aristides, and Epaminondas certainly did not beg
favors of the multitude; but that was because they, in real truth, did
not value the gifts which a popular body can either confer or refuse;
and when they were more than once driven into exile, rejected at
elections, and condemned in courts of justice, they showed no resentment
at the ill-humor of their fellow-citizens, but were willing and
contented to return and be reconciled when the feeling altered and they
were wished for. He who least likes courting favor, ought also least to
think of resenting neglect: to feel wounded at being refused a
distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.
Alcibiades never professed to deny that it was pleasant to him to be
honored, and distasteful to him to be overlooked; and, accordingly, he
always tried to place himself upon good terms with all that he met;
Coriolanus's pride forbade him to pay attentions to those who could have
promoted his advancement, and yet his love of distinction made him feel
hurt and angry when he was disregarded. Such are the faulty parts of
his character, which in all other respects was a noble one. For his
temperance, continence, and probity, he might claim to be compared with
the best and purest of the Greeks; not in any sort or kind with
Alcibiades, the least scrupulous and most entirely careless of human
beings in all these points.
TIMOLEON
It was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing
biographies; but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it
for my own; the virtues of these great men serving me as a sort of
looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own
life. Indeed, it can be compared to nothing but daily living and
associating together; we receive, as it were, in our inquiry, and
entertain each successive guest, view
Their stature and their qualities,
and select from their actions all that is noblest and worthiest to
know.
Ah, and what greater pleasure could one have?
or, what more effective means to one's moral improvement? Democritus
tells us we ought to pray that of the phantasms appearing in the
circumambient air, such may present themselves to us as are
propitious, and that we may rather meet with those that are agreeable
to our natures and are good, than the evil and unfortunate; which is
simply introducing into philosophy a doctrine untrue in itself, and
leading to endless superstitions. My method, on the contrary, is, by
the study of history, and by the familiarity acquired in writing, to
habituate my memory to receive and retain images of the best and
worthiest characters. I thus am enabled to free myself from any
ignoble, base, or vicious impressions, contracted from the contagion
of ill company that I may be unavoidably engaged in, by the remedy of
turning my thoughts in a happy and calm temper to view these noble
examples. Of this kind are those of Timoleon the Corinthian, and
Paulus Aemilius, to write whose lives is my present business; men
equally famous, not only for their virtues, but success; insomuch
that they have left it doubtful whether they owe their greatest
achievements to good fortune, or their own prudence and conduct.
The affairs of the Syracusans, before Timoleon was sent into Sicily,
were in this posture: after Dion had driven out Dionysius the
tyrant, he was slain by treachery, and those that had assisted him in
delivering Syracuse were divided among themselves; and thus the city,
by a continual change of governors, and a train of mischiefs that
succeeded each other, became almost abandoned; while of the rest of
Sicily, part was now utterly depopulated and desolate through long
continuance of war, and most of the cities that had been left
standing were in the hands of barbarians and soldiers out of
employment, that were ready to embrace every turn of government.
Such being the state of things, Dionysius takes the opportunity, and
in the tenth year of his banishment, by the help of some mercenary
troops he had got together, forces out Nysaeus, then master of
Syracuse, recovers all afresh, and is again settled in his dominion;
and as at first he had been strangely deprived of the greatest and
most absolute power that ever was, by a very small party, so now in a
yet stranger manner; when in exile and of mean condition, he became
the sovereign of those who had ejected him. All, therefore, that
remained in Syracuse, had to serve under a tyrant, who at the best
was of an ungentle nature, and exasperated now to a degree of
savageness by the late misfortunes and calamities he had suffered.
The better and more distinguished citizens, having timely retired
thence to Hicetes, ruler of the Leontines, put themselves under his
protection, and chose him for their general in the war; not that he
was much preferable to any open and avowed tyrant; but they had no
other sanctuary at present, and it gave them some ground of
confidence, that he was of a Syracusan family, and had forces able to
encounter those of Dionysius.
In the meantime, the Carthaginians appeared before Sicily with a
great navy, watching when and where they might make a descent upon
the island; and terror at this fleet made the Sicilians incline to
send an embassy into Greece to demand succors from the Corinthians,
whom they confided in rather than others, not only upon the account
of their near kindred, and the great benefits they had often received
by trusting them, but because Corinth had ever shown herself attached
to freedom and averse from tyranny, and had engaged in many noble
wars, not for empire or aggrandizement, but for the sole liberty of
the Greeks. But Hicetes, who made it the business of his command not
so much to deliver the Syracusans from other tyrants, as to enslave
them to himself, had already entered into some secret conferences
with those of Carthage, while in public he commended the design of
his Syracusan clients, and dispatched ambassadors from himself,
together with theirs, into Peloponnesus; not that he really desired
any relief to come from there, but, in case the Corinthians, as was
likely enough, on account of the troubles of Greece and occupation at
home, should refuse their assistance, hoping then he should be able
with less difficulty to dispose and incline things for the
Carthaginian interest, and so make use of these foreign pretenders,
as instruments and auxiliaries for himself, either against the
Syracusans or Dionysius, as occasion served. This was discovered a
while after.
The ambassadors being arrived, and their request known, the
Corinthians, who had always a great concern for all their colonies
and plantations, but especially for Syracuse, since by good fortune
there was nothing to molest them in their own country, where they
were enjoying peace and leisure at that time, readily and with one
accord passed a vote for their assistance. And when they were
deliberating about the choice of a captain for the expedition, and
the magistrates were urging the claims of various aspirants for
reputation, one of the crowd stood up and named Timoleon, son of
Timodemus, who had long absented himself from public business, and
had neither any thoughts of, nor the least pretension to, an
employment of that nature. Some god or other, it might rather seem,
had put it in the man's heart to mention him; such favor and
good-will on the part of Fortune seemed at once to be shown in his
election, and to accompany all his following actions, as though it
were on purpose to commend his worth, and add grace and ornament to
his personal virtues. As regards his parentage, both Timodemus his
father, and his mother Demariste, were of high rank in the city; and
as for himself, he was noted for his love of his country, and his
gentleness of temper, except in his extreme hatred to tyrants and
wicked men. His natural abilities for war were so happily tempered,
that while a rare prudence might be seen in all the enterprises of
his younger years, an equal courage showed itself in the last
exploits of his declining age. He had an elder brother, whose name
was Timophanes, who was every way unlike him, being indiscreet and
rash, and infected by the suggestions of some friends and foreign
soldiers, whom he kept always about him, with a passion for absolute
power. He seemed to have a certain force and vehemence in all
military service, and even to delight in dangers, and thus he took
much with the people, and was advanced to the highest charges, as a
vigorous and effective warrior; in the obtaining of which offices and
promotions, Timoleon much assisted him, helping to conceal or at
least to extenuate his errors, embellishing by his praise whatever
was commendable in him, and setting off his good qualities to the
best advantage.
It happened once in the battle fought by the Corinthians against the
forces of Argos and Cleonae, that Timoleon served among the infantry,
when Timophanes, commanding their cavalry, was brought into extreme
danger; as his horse being wounded fell forward, and threw him
headlong amidst the enemies, while part of his companions dispersed
at once in a panic, and the small number that remained, bearing up
against a great multitude, had much ado to maintain any resistance.
As soon, therefore, as Timoleon was aware of the accident, he ran
hastily in to his brother's rescue, and covering the fallen
Timophanes with his buckler, after having received abundance of
darts, and several strokes by the sword upon his body and his armor,
he at length with much difficulty obliged the enemies to retire, and
brought off his brother alive and safe. But when the Corinthians, for
fear of losing their city a second time, as they had once before, by
admitting their allies, made a decree to maintain four hundred
mercenaries for its security, and gave Timophanes the command over
them, he, abandoning all regard to honor and equity, at once
proceeded to put into execution his plans for making himself
absolute, and bringing the place under his own power; and having cut
off many principal citizens, uncondemned and without trial, who were
most likely to hinder his design, he declared himself tyrant of
Corinth; a procedure that infinitely afflicted Timoleon, to whom the
wickedness of such a brother appeared to be his own reproach and
calamity. He undertook to persuade him by reasoning, that, desisting
from that wild and unhappy ambition, he would bethink himself how he
should make the Corinthians some amends, and find out an expedient to
remedy and correct the evils he had done them. When his single
admonition was rejected and contemned by him, he makes a second
attempt, taking with him Aeschylus his kinsman, brother to the wife
of Timophanes, and a certain diviner, that was his friend, whom
Theopompus in his history calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus
mention in theirs by the name of Orthagoras. After a few days, then,
he returns to his brother with this company, all three of them
surrounding and earnestly importuning him upon the same subject, that
now at length he would listen to reason, and be of another mind. But
when Timophanes began first to laugh at the men's simplicity, and
presently broke out into rage and indignation against them, Timoleon
stepped aside from him and stood weeping with his face covered, while
the other two, drawing out their swords, dispatched him in a moment.
On the rumor of this act being soon scattered about, the better and
more generous of the Corinthians highly applauded Timoleon for the
hatred of wrong and the greatness of soul that had made him, though
of a gentle disposition and full of love and kindness for his family,
think the obligations to his country stronger than the ties of
consanguinity, and prefer that which is good and just before gain and
interest and his own particular advantage. For the same brother, who
with so much bravery had been saved by him when he fought valiantly
in the cause of Corinth, he had now as nobly sacrificed for enslaving
her afterward by a base and treacherous usurpation. But then, on the
other side, those that knew not how to live in a democracy, and had
been used to make their humble court to the men of power, though they
openly professed to rejoice at the death of the tyrant, nevertheless,
secretly reviling Timoleon, as one that had committed an impious and
abominable act, drove him into melancholy and dejection. And when he
came to understand how heavily his mother took it, and that she
likewise uttered the saddest complaints and most terrible
imprecations against him, he went to satisfy and comfort her as to
what had happened; and finding that she would not endure so much as
to look upon him, but caused her doors to be shut, that he might have
no admission into her presence, with grief at this he grew so
disordered in his mind and so disconsolate, that he determined to put
an end to his perplexity with his life, by abstaining from all manner
of sustenance. But through the care and diligence of his friends,
who were very instant with him, and added force to their entreaties,
he came to resolve and promise at last, that he would endure living,
provided it might be in solitude, and remote from company; so that,
quitting all civil transactions and commerce with the world, for a
long while after his first retirement he never came into Corinth, but
wandered up and down the fields, full of anxious and tormenting
thoughts, and spent his time in desert places, at the farthest
distance from society and human intercourse. So true it is that the
minds of men are easily shaken and carried off from their own
sentiments through the casual commendation or reproof of others,
unless the judgments that we make, and the purposes we conceive, be
confirmed by reason and philosophy, and thus obtain strength and
steadiness. An action must not only be just and laudable in its own
nature, but it must proceed likewise from solid motives and a lasting
principle, that so we may fully and constantly approve the thing, and
be perfectly satisfied in what we do; for otherwise, after having put
our resolution into practice, we shall out of pure weakness come to
be troubled at the performance, when the grace and goodliness, which
rendered it before so amiable and pleasing to us, begin to decay and
wear out of our fancy; like greedy people, who, seizing on the more
delicious morsels of any dish with a keen appetite, are presently
disgusted when they grow full, and find themselves oppressed and
uneasy now by what they before so greedily desired. For a succeeding
dislike spoils the best of actions, and repentance makes that which
was never so well done, become base and faulty; whereas the choice
that is founded upon knowledge and wise reasoning, does not change by
disappointment, or suffer us to repent, though it happen perchance to
be less prosperous in the issue. And thus Phocion, of Athens, having
always vigorously opposed the measures of Leosthenes, when success
appeared to attend them, and he saw his countrymen rejoicing and
offering sacrifice in honor of their victory, "I should have been as
glad," said he to them, "that I myself had been the author of what
Leosthenes has achieved for you, as I am that I gave you my own
counsel against it." A more vehement reply is recorded to have been
made by Aristides the Locrian, one of Plato's companions, to
Dionysius the elder, who demanded one of his daughters in marriage:
"I had rather," said he to him, "see the virgin in her grave, than in
the palace of a tyrant." And when Dionysius, enraged at the affront,
made his sons be put to death a while after, and then again
insultingly asked, whether he were still in the same mind as to the
disposal of his daughters, his answer was, "I cannot but grieve at
the cruelty of your deeds, but am not sorry for the freedom of my own
words." Such expressions as these may belong perhaps to a more
sublime and accomplished virtue.
The grief, however, of Timoleon at what had been done, whether it
arose from commiseration of his brother's fate, or the reverence he
bore his mother, so shattered and broke his spirits, that for the
space of almost twenty years, he had not offered to concern himself
in any honorable or public action. When, therefore, he was pitched
upon for a general, and joyfully accepted as such by the suffrages of
the people, Teleclides, who was at that time the most powerful and
distinguished man in Corinth, began to exhort him that he would act
now like a man of worth and gallantry: "For," said he, "if you do
bravely in this service, we shall believe that you delivered us from
a tyrant; but if otherwise, that you killed your brother." While he
was yet preparing to set sail, and enlisting soldiers to embark with
him, there came letters to the Corinthians from Hicetes, plainly
disclosing his revolt and treachery. For his ambassadors were no
sooner gone for Corinth, but he openly joined the Carthaginians,
negotiating that they might assist him to throw out Dionysius, and
become master of Syracuse in his room. And fearing he might be
disappointed of his aim, if troops and a commander should come from
Corinth before this were effected, he sent a letter of advice
thither, in all haste, to prevent their setting out, telling them
they need not be at any cost and trouble upon his account, or run the
hazard of a Sicilian voyage, especially since the Carthaginians,
alliance with whom against Dionysius the slowness of their motions
had compelled him to embrace, would dispute their passage, and lay in
wait to attack them with a numerous fleet. This letter being
publicly read, if any had been cold and indifferent before as to the
expedition in hand, the indignation they now conceived against
Hicetes so exasperated and inflamed them all, that they willingly
contributed to supply Timoleon, and endeavored, with one accord, to
hasten his departure.
When the vessels were equipped, and his soldiers every way provided
for, the female priests of Proserpina had a dream or vision, wherein
she and her mother Ceres appeared to them in a traveling garb, and
were heard to say that they were going to sail with Timoleon into
Sicily; whereupon the Corinthians, having built a sacred galley,
devoted it to them, and called it the galley of the goddesses.
Timoleon went in person to Delphi, where he sacrificed to Apollo,
and, descending into the place of prophecy, was surprised with the
following marvelous occurrence. A riband with crowns and figures of
victory embroidered upon it, slipped off from among the gifts that
were there consecrated and hung up in the temple, and fell directly
down upon his head; so that Apollo seemed already to crown him with
success, and send him thence to conquer and triumph. He put to sea
only with seven ships of Corinth, two of Corcyra, and a tenth which
was furnished by the Leucadians; and when he was now entered into the
deep by night, and carried with a prosperous gale, the heaven seemed
all on a sudden to break open, and a bright spreading flame to issue
forth from it, and hover over the ship he was in; and, having formed
itself into a torch, not unlike those that are used in the mysteries,
it began to steer the same course, and run along in their company,
guiding them by its light to that quarter of Italy where they
designed to go ashore. The soothsayers affirmed, that this
apparition agreed with the dream of the holy women, since the
goddesses were now visibly joining in the expedition, and sending
this light from heaven before them: Sicily being thought sacred to
Proserpina, as poets feign that the rape was committed there, and
that the island was given her in dowry when she married Pluto.
These early demonstrations of divine favor greatly encouraged his
whole army; so that, making all the speed they were able, by a voyage
across the open sea, they were soon passing along the coast of Italy.
But the tidings that came from Sicily much perplexed Timoleon, and
disheartened his soldiers. For Hicetes, having already beaten
Dionysius out of the field, and reduced most of the quarters of
Syracuse itself, now hemmed him in and besieged him in the citadel
and what is called the Island, whither he was fled for his last
refuge; while the Carthaginians, by agreement, were to make it their
business to hinder Timoleon from landing in any port of Sicily; so
that he and his party being driven back, they might with ease and at
their own leisure divide the island among themselves. In pursuance
of which design, the Carthaginians sent away twenty of their galleys
to Rhegium, having aboard them certain ambassadors from Hicetes to
Timoleon, who carried instructions suitable to these proceedings,
specious amusements and plausible stories, to color and conceal
dishonest purposes. They had order to propose and demand that
Timoleon himself, if he liked the offer, should come to advise with
Hicetes, and partake of all his conquests, but that he might send
back his ships and forces to Corinth, since the war was in a manner
finished, and the Carthaginians had blocked up the passage,
determined to oppose them if they should try to force their way
towards the shore. When, therefore, the Corinthians met with these
envoys at Rhegium, and received their message, and saw the Phoenician
vessels riding at anchor in the bay, they became keenly sensible of
the abuse that was put upon them, and felt a general indignation
against Hicetes, and great apprehensions for the Siceliots, whom they
now plainly perceived to be as it were a prize and recompense to
Hicetes on one side for his perfidy, and to the Carthaginians on the
other for the sovereign power they secured to him. For it seemed
utterly impossible to force and overbear the Carthaginian ships that
lay before them and were double their number, as also to vanquish the
victorious troops which Hicetes had with him in Syracuse, to take the
lead of which very troops they had undertaken their voyage.
The case being thus, Timoleon, after some conference with the envoys
of Hicetes and the Carthaginian captains, told them he should readily
submit to their proposals (to what purpose would it be to refuse
compliance?): he was desirous only, before his return to Corinth,
that what had passed between them in private might be solemnly
declared before the people of Rhegium, a Greek city, and a common
friend to the parties; this, he said, would very much conduce to his
own security and discharge; and they likewise would more strictly
observe articles of agreement, on behalf of the Syracusans, which
they had obliged themselves to in the presence of so many witnesses.
The design of all which was, only to divert their attention, while he
got an opportunity of slipping away from their fleet: a contrivance
that all the principal Rhegians were privy and assisting to, who had
a great desire that the affairs of Sicily should fall into Corinthian
hands, and dreaded the consequences of having barbarian neighbors.
An assembly was therefore called, and the gates shut, that the
citizens might have no liberty to turn to other business; and a
succession of speakers came forward, addressing the people at great
length, to the same effect, without bringing the subject to any
conclusion, making way each for another and purposely spinning out
the time, till the Corinthian galleys should get clear of the haven;
the Carthaginian commanders being detained there without any
suspicion, as also Timoleon still remained present, and gave signs as
if he were just preparing to make an oration. But upon secret notice
that the rest of the galleys were already gone on, and that his alone
remained waiting for him, by the help and concealment of those
Rhegians that were about the hustings and favored his departure, he
made shift to slip away through the crowd, and, running down to the
port, set sail with all speed; and having reached his other vessels,
they came all safe to Tauromenium in Sicily, whither they had been
formerly invited, and where they were now kindly received by
Andromachus, then ruler of the city. This man was father of Timaeus
the historian, and incomparably the best of all those that bore sway
in Sicily at that time, governing his citizens according to law and
justice, and openly professing an aversion and enmity to all tyrants;
upon which account he gave Timoleon leave to muster up his troops
there, and to make that city the seat of war, persuading the
inhabitants to join their arms with the Corinthian forces, and assist
them in the design of delivering Sicily.
But the Carthaginians who were left in Rhegium perceiving, when the
assembly was dissolved, that Timoleon had given them the go by, were
not a little vexed to see themselves outwitted, much to the amusement
of the Rhegians, who could not but smile to find Phoenicians complain
of being cheated. However, they dispatched a messenger aboard one of
their galleys to Tauromenium, who, after much blustering in the
insolent barbaric way, and many menaces to Andromachus if he did not
forthwith send the Corinthians off, stretched out his hand with the
inside upward, and then turning it down again, threatened he would
handle their city even so, and turn it topsy-turvy in as little time,
and with as much ease. Andromachus, laughing at the man's
confidence, made no other reply, but, imitating his gesture, bid him
hasten his own departure, unless he had a mind to see that kind of
dexterity practiced first upon the galley which brought him thither.
Hicetes, informed that Timoleon had made good his passage, was in
great fear of what might follow, and sent to desire the Carthaginians
that a large number of galleys might be ordered to attend and secure
the coast. And now it was that the Syracusans began wholly to
despair of safety, seeing the Carthaginians possessed of their haven,
Hicetes master of the town, and Dionysius supreme in the citadel;
while Timoleon had as yet but a slender hold of Sicily, as it were by
the fringe or border of it, in the small city of the Tauromenians,
with a feeble hope and a poor company; having but a thousand soldiers
at the most, and no more provisions, either of corn or money, than
were just necessary for the maintenance and the pay of that
inconsiderable number. Nor did the other towns of Sicily confide in
him, overpowered as they were with violence and outrage, and
embittered against all that should offer to lead armies, by the
treacherous conduct chiefly of Callippus, an Athenian, and Pharax, a
Lacedaemonian captain, both of whom, after giving out that the design
of their coming was to introduce liberty and depose tyrants, so
tyrannized themselves, that the reign of former oppressors seemed to
be a golden age in comparison, and the Sicilians began to consider
those more happy who had expired in servitude, than any that had
lived to see such a dismal freedom.
Looking, therefore, for no better usage from the Corinthian general,
but imagining that it was only the same old course of things once
more, specious presences and false professions to allure them by fair
hopes and kind promises into the obedience of a new master, they all,
with one accord, unless it were the people of Adranum, suspected the
exhortations, and rejected the overtures that were made them in his
name. These were inhabitants of a small city, consecrated to
Adranus, a certain god that was in high veneration throughout Sicily,
and, as it happened, they were then at variance among themselves,
insomuch that one party called in Hicetes and the Carthaginians to
assist them, while the other sent proposals to Timoleon. It so fell
out that these auxiliaries, striving which should be soonest, both
arrived at Adranum about the same time; Hicetes bringing with him at
least five thousand fighting men, while all the force Timoleon could
make did not exceed twelve hundred. With these he marched out of
Tauromenium, which was about three hundred and forty furlongs distant
from that city. The first day he moved but slowly, and took up his
quarters betimes after a short journey; but the day following he
quickened his pace, and, having passed through much difficult ground,
towards evening received advice that Hicetes was just approaching
Adranum, and pitching his camp before it; upon which intelligence,
his captains and other officers caused the vanguard to halt, that the
army being refreshed, and having reposed a while, might engage the
enemy with better heart. But Timoleon, coming up in haste, desired
them not to stop for that reason, but rather use all possible
diligence to surprise the enemy, whom probably they would now find in
disorder, as having lately ended their march, and being taken up at
present in erecting tents and preparing supper; which he had no
sooner said, but laying hold of his buckler and putting himself in
the front, he led them on as it were to certain victory. The
braveness of such a leader made them all follow him with like courage
and assurance. They were now within less than thirty furlongs of
Adranum, which they quickly traversed, and immediately fell in upon
the enemy, who were seized with confusion, and began to retire at
their first approaches; one consequence of which was that amidst so
little opposition, and so early and general a flight, there were not
many more than three hundred slain, and about twice the number made
prisoners. Their camp and baggage, however, was all taken. The
fortune of this onset soon induced the Adranitans to unlock their
gates, and embrace the interest of Timoleon, to whom they recounted,
with a mixture of affright and admiration, how, at the very minute of
the encounter, the doors of their temple flew open of their own
accord, that the javelin also, which their god held in his hand, was
observed to tremble at the point, and that drops of sweat had been
seen running down his face: prodigies that not only presaged the
victory then obtained, but were an omen, it seems, of all his future
exploits, to which this first happy action gave the occasion.
For now the neighboring cities and potentates sent deputies, one upon
another, to seek his friendship and make offer of their service.
Among the rest, Mamercus, the tyrant of Catana, an experienced
warrior and a wealthy prince, made proposals of alliance with him,
and, what was of greater importance still, Dionysius himself being
now grown desperate, and wellnigh forced to surrender, despising
Hicetes who had been thus shamefully baffled, and admiring the valor
of Timoleon, found means to advertise him and his Corinthians that he
should be content to deliver up himself and the citadel into their
hands. Timoleon, gladly embracing this unlooked for advantage, sends
away Euclides and Telemachus, two Corinthian captains, with four
hundred men, for the seizure and custody of the castle, with
directions to enter not all at once, or in open view, that being
impracticable so long as the enemy kept guard, but by stealth, and in
small companies. And so they took possession of the fortress, and
the palace of Dionysius, with all the stores and ammunition he had
prepared and laid up to maintain the war. They found a good number
of horses, every variety of engines, a multitude of darts, and
weapons to arm seventy thousand men (a magazine that had been formed
from ancient time), besides two thousand soldiers that were then with
him, whom he gave up with the rest for Timoleon's service. Dionysius
himself, putting his treasure aboard, and taking a few friends,
sailed away unobserved by Hicetes, and being brought to the camp of
Timoleon, there first appeared in the humble dress of a private
person, and was shortly after sent to Corinth with a single ship and
a small sum of money. Born and educated in the most splendid court
and the most absolute monarchy that ever was, which he held and kept
up for the space of ten years succeeding his father's death, he had,
after Dion's expedition, spent twelve other years in a continual
agitation of wars and contests, and great variety of fortune, during
which time all the mischiefs he had committed in his former reign
were more than repaid by the ills he himself then suffered; since he
lived to see the deaths of his sons in the prime and vigor of their
age, and the rape of his daughters in the flower of their virginity,
and the wicked abuse of his sister and his wife, who, after being
first exposed to all the lawless insults of the soldiery, was then
murdered with her children, and cast into the sea; the particulars of
which are more exactly given in the life of Dion.
Upon the news of his landing at Corinth, there was hardly a man in
Greece who had not the curiosity to come and view the late formidable
tyrant, and say some words to him; part, rejoicing at his disasters,
were led thither out of mere spite and hatred, that they might have
the pleasure of trampling, as it were, on the ruins of his broken
fortune; but others, letting their attention and their sympathy turn
rather to the changes and revolutions of his life, could not but see
in them a proof of the strength and potency with which divine and
unseen causes operate amidst the weakness of human and visible
things. For neither art nor nature did in that age produce anything
comparable to this work and wonder of fortune, which showed the very
same man, that was not long before supreme monarch of Sicily,
loitering about perhaps in the fish-market, or sitting in a
perfumer's shop, drinking the diluted wine of taverns, or squabbling
in the street with common women, or pretending to instruct the
singing women of the theater, and seriously disputing with them about
the measure and harmony of pieces of music that were performed there.
Such behavior on his part was variously criticized. He was thought
by many to act thus out of pure compliance with his own natural
indolent and vicious inclinations; while finer judges were of
opinion, that in all this he was playing a politic part, with a
design to be contemned among them, and that the Corinthians might not
feel any apprehension or suspicion of his being uneasy under his
reverse of fortune, or solicitous to retrieve it; to avoid which
dangers, he purposely and against his true nature affected an
appearance of folly and want of spirit in his private life and
amusements.
However it be, there are sayings and repartees of his left still upon
record, which seem to show that he not ignobly accommodated himself
to his present circumstances; as may appear in part from the
ingenuousness of the avowal he made on coming to Leucadia, which, as
well as Syracuse, was a Corinthian colony, where he told the
inhabitants, that he found himself not unlike boys who have been in
fault, who can talk cheerfully with their brothers, but are ashamed
to see their father; so, likewise, he, he said, could gladly reside
with them in that island, whereas he felt a certain awe upon his
mind, which made him averse to the sight of Corinth, that was a
common mother to them both. The thing is further evident from the
reply he once made to a stranger in Corinth, who deriding him in a
rude and scornful manner about the conferences he used to have with
philosophers, whose company had been one of his pleasures while yet a
monarch, and demanding, in fine, what he was the better now for all
those wise and learned discourses of Plato, "Do you think," said he,
"I have made no profit of his philosophy, when you see me bear my
change of fortune as I do?" And when Aristoxenus the musician, and
several others, desired to know how Plato offended him, and what had
been the ground of his displeasure with him, he made answer, that, of
the many evils attaching to the condition of sovereignty, the one
greatest infelicity was that none of those who were accounted friends
would venture to speak freely, or tell the plain truth; and that by
means of such he had been deprived of Plato's kindness. At another
time, when one of those pleasant companions that are desirous to pass
for wits, in mockery to Dionysius, as if he were still the tyrant,
shook out the folds of his cloak, as he was entering into the room
where he was, to show there were no concealed weapons about him,
Dionysius, by way of retort, observed, that he would prefer he would
do so on leaving the room, as a security that he was carrying nothing
off with him. And when Philip of Macedon, at a drinking party, began
to speak in banter about the verses and tragedies which his father,
Dionysius the elder, had left behind him, and pretended to wonder how
he could get any time from his other business to compose such
elaborate and ingenious pieces, he replied, very much to the purpose,
"It was at those leisurable hours, which such as you and I, and those
we call happy men, bestow upon our cups." Plato had not the
opportunity to see Dionysius at Corinth, being already dead before he
came thither; but Diogenes of Sinope, at their first meeting in the
street there, saluted him with the ambiguous expression, "O
Dionysius, how little you deserve your present life!" Upon which
Dionysius stopped and replied, "I thank you, Diogenes, for your
condolence." "Condole with you!" replied Diogenes; "do you not
suppose that, on the contrary, I am indignant that such a slave as
you, who, if you had your due, should have been let alone to grow
old, and die in the state of tyranny, as your father did before you,
should now enjoy the ease of private persons, and be here to sport
and frolic it in our society?" So that when I compare those sad
stories of Philistus, touching the daughters of Leptines, where he
makes pitiful moan on their behalf, as fallen from all the blessings
and advantages of powerful greatness to the miseries of a humble
life, they seem to me like the lamentations of a woman who has lost
her box of ointment, her purple dresses, and her golden trinkets.
Such anecdotes will not, I conceive, be thought either foreign to my
purpose of writing Lives, or unprofitable in themselves, by such
readers as are not in too much haste, or busied and taken up with
other concerns.
But if the misfortune of Dionysius appear strange and extraordinary,
we shall have no less reason to wonder at the good fortune of
Timoleon, who, within fifty days after his landing in Sicily, both
recovered the citadel of Syracuse, and sent Dionysius an exile into
Peloponnesus. This lucky beginning so animated the Corinthians, that
they ordered him a supply of two thousand foot and two hundred horse,
who, reaching Thurii, intended to cross over thence into Sicily; but
finding the whole sea beset with Carthaginian ships, which made their
passage impracticable, they were constrained to stop there, and watch
their opportunity: which time, however, was employed in a noble
action. For the Thurians, going out to war against their Bruttian
enemies, left their city in charge with these Corinthian strangers,
who defended it as carefully as if it had been their own country, and
faithfully resigned it up again.
Hicetes, in the interim, continued still to besiege the castle of
Syracuse, and hindered all provisions from coming in by sea to
relieve the Corinthians that were in it. He had engaged also, and
dispatched towards Adranum, two unknown foreigners to assassinate
Timoleon, who at no time kept any standing guard about his person,
and was then altogether secure, diverting himself, without any
apprehension, among the citizens of the place, it being a festival in
honor of their gods. The two men that were sent, having casually
heard that Timoleon was about to sacrifice, came directly into the
temple with poniards under their cloaks, and pressing in among the
crowd, by little and little got up close to the altar; but, as they
were just looking for a sign from each other to begin the attempt, a
third person struck one of them over the head with a sword, upon
whose sudden fall, neither he that gave the blow, nor the partisan of
him that received it, kept their stations any longer; but the one,
making way with his bloody sword, put no stop to his flight, till he
gained the top of a certain lofty precipice, while the other, laying
hold of the altar, besought Timoleon to spare his life, and he would
reveal to him the whole conspiracy. His pardon being granted, he
confessed that both himself and his dead companion were sent thither
purposely to slay him. While this discovery was made, he that killed
the other conspirator had been fetched down from his sanctuary of the
rock, loudly and often protesting, as he came along, that there was
no injustice in the fact, as he had only taken righteous vengeance
for his father's blood, whom this man had murdered before in the city
of Leontini; the truth of which was attested by several there
present, who could not choose but wonder too at the strange dexterity
of fortune's operations, the facility with which she makes one event
the spring and motion to something wholly different, uniting every
scattered accident and lose particular and remote action, and
interweaving them together to serve her purposes; so that things that
in themselves seem to have no connection or interdependence
whatsoever, become in her hands, so to say, the end and the beginning
of each other. The Corinthians, satisfied as to the innocence of
this seasonable feat, honored and rewarded the author with a present
of ten pounds in their money, since he had, as it were, lent the use
of his just resentment to the tutelar genius that seemed to be
protecting Timoleon, and had not preexpended this anger, so long ago
conceived, but had reserved and deferred, under fortune's guidance,
for his preservation, the revenge of a private quarrel.
But this fortunate escape had effects and consequences beyond the
present, as it inspired the highest hopes and future expectations of
Timoleon, making people reverence and protect him as a sacred person
sent by heaven to avenge and redeem Sicily. Hicetes, having missed
his aim in this enterprise, and perceiving, also, that many went off
and sided with Timoleon, began to chide himself for his foolish
modesty, that, when so considerable a force of the Carthaginians lay
ready to be commanded by him, he had employed them hitherto by
degrees and in small numbers, introducing their reinforcements by
stealth and clandestinely, as if he had been ashamed of the action.
Therefore, now laying aside his former nicety, he calls in Mago,
their admiral, with his whole navy, who presently set sail, and
seized upon the port with a formidable fleet of at least a hundred
and fifty vessels, landing there sixty thousand foot which were all
lodged within the city of Syracuse; so that, in all men's opinion,
the time anciently talked of and long expected, wherein Sicily should
be subjugated by barbarians, was now come to its fatal period. For
in all their preceding wars and many desperate conflicts with Sicily,
the Carthaginians had never been able, before this, to take Syracuse;
whereas Hicetes now receiving them, and putting the city into their
hands, you might see it become now as it were a camp of barbarians.
By this means, the Corinthian soldiers that kept the castle found
themselves brought into great danger and hardship; as, besides that
their provision grew scarce, and they began to be in want, because
the havens were strictly guarded and blocked up, the enemy exercised
them still with skirmishes and combats about their walls, and they
were not only obliged to be continually in arms, but to divide and
prepare themselves for assaults and encounters of every kind, and to
repel every variety of the means of offense employed by a besieging
army.
Timoleon made shift to relieve them in these straits, sending corn
from Catana by small fishing-boats and little skiffs, which commonly
gained a passage through the Carthaginian galleys in times of storm,
stealing up when the blockading ships were driven apart and dispersed
by the stress of weather; which Mago and Hicetes observing, they
agreed to fall upon Catana, from whence these supplies were brought
in to the besieged, and accordingly put off from Syracuse, taking
with them the best soldiers in their whole army. Upon this, Neon the
Corinthian, who was captain of those that kept the citadel, taking
notice that the enemies who stayed there behind were very negligent
and careless in keeping guard, made a sudden sally upon them as they
lay scattered, and, killing some and putting others to flight, he
took and possessed himself of that quarter which they call Acradina,
and was thought to be the strongest and most impregnable part of
Syracuse, a city made up and compacted as it were, of several towns
put together. Having thus stored himself with corn and money, he did
not abandon the place, nor retire again into the castle, but
fortifying the precincts of Acradina, and joining it by works to the
citadel, he undertook the defense of both. Mago and Hicetes were now
come near to Catana, when a horseman, dispatched from Syracuse,
brought them tidings that Acradina was taken; upon which they
returned, in all haste, with great disorder and confusion, having
neither been able to reduce the city they went against, nor to
preserve that they were masters of.
These successes, indeed, were such as might leave foresight and
courage a pretence still of disputing it with fortune, which
contributed most to the result. But the next following event can
scarcely be ascribed to anything but pure felicity. The Corinthian
soldiers who stayed at Thurii, partly for fear of the Carthaginian
galleys which lay in wait for them under the command of Hanno, and
partly because of tempestuous weather which had lasted for many days,
and rendered the sea dangerous, took a resolution to march by land
over the Bruttian territories, and, what with persuasion and force
together, made good their passage through those barbarians to the
city of Rhegium, the sea being still rough and raging as before. But
Hanno, not expecting the Corinthians would venture out, and supposing
it would be useless to wait there any longer, bethought himself, as
he imagined, of a most ingenious and clever stratagem apt to delude
and ensnare the enemy; in pursuance of which he commanded the seamen
to crown themselves with garlands, and, adorning his galleys with
bucklers both of the Greek and Carthaginian make, he sailed away for
Syracuse in this triumphant equipage, and using all his oars as he
passed under the castle with much shouting and laughter, cried out,
on purpose to dishearten the besieged, that he was come from
vanquishing and taking the Corinthian succors, which he fell upon at
sea as they were passing over into Sicily. While he was thus biding
and playing his tricks before Syracuse, the Corinthians, now come as
far as Rhegium, observing the coast clear, and that the wind was laid
as it were by miracle, to afford them in all appearance a quiet and
smooth passage, went immediately aboard on such little barks and
fishing-boats as were then at hand, and got over to Sicily with such
complete safety and in such an extraordinary calm, that they drew
their horses by the reins, swimming along by them as the vessels went
across.
When they were all landed, Timoleon came to receive them, and by
their means at once obtained possession of Messena, from whence he
marched in good order to Syracuse, trusting more to his late
prosperous achievements than his present strength, as the whole army
he had then with him did not exceed the number of four thousand;
Mago, however, was troubled and fearful at the first notice of his
coming, and grew more apprehensive and jealous still upon the
following occasion. The marshes about Syracuse, that receive a great
deal of fresh water, as well from springs as from lakes and rivers
discharging themselves into the sea, breed abundance of eels, which
may be always taken there in great quantities by any that will fish
for them. The mercenary soldiers that served on both sides, were
wont to follow the sport together at their vacant hours, and upon any
cessation of arms, who being all Greeks, and having no cause of
private enmity to each other, as they would venture bravely in fight,
so in times of truce used to meet and converse amicably together.
And at this present time, while engaged about this common business of
fishing, they fell into talk together; and some expressing their
admiration of the neighboring sea, and others telling how much they
were taken with the convenience and commodiousness of the buildings
and public works, one of the Corinthian party took occasion to demand
of the others: "And is it possible that you who are Grecians born,
should be so forward to reduce a city of this greatness, and enjoying
so many rare advantages, into the state of barbarism; and lend your
assistance to plant Carthaginians, that are the worst and bloodiest
of men, so much the nearer to us? whereas you should rather wish
there were many more Sicilies to lie between them and Greece. Have
you so little sense as to believe, that they come hither with an
army, from the Pillars of Hercules and the Atlantic Sea, to hazard
themselves for the establishment of Hicetes? who, if he had had the
consideration which becomes a general, would never have thrown out
his ancestors and founders to bring in the enemies of his country in
the room of them, when he might have enjoyed all suitable honor and
command, with consent of Timoleon and the rest of Corinth." The
Greeks that were in pay with Hicetes, noising these discourses about
their camp, gave Mago some ground to suspect, as indeed he had long
sought for a pretence to be gone, that there was treachery contrived
against him; so that, although Hicetes entreated him to tarry, and
made it appear how much stronger they were than the enemy, yet,
conceiving they came far more short of Timoleon in respect of courage
and fortune, than they surpassed him in number, he presently went
aboard, and set sail for Africa, letting Sicily escape out of his
hands with dishonor to himself, and for such uncertain causes, that
no human reason could give an account of his departure.
The day after he went away, Timoleon came up before the city, in
array for a battle. But when he and his company heard of this sudden
flight, and saw the docks all empty, they could not forbear laughing
at the cowardice of Mago, and in mockery caused proclamation to be
made through the city, that a reward would be given to any one who
could bring them tidings whither the Carthaginian fleet had conveyed
itself from them. However, Hicetes resolving to fight it out alone,
and not quitting his hold of the city, but sticking close to the
quarters he was in possession of, places that were well fortified and
not easy to be attacked, Timoleon divided his forces into three
parts, and fell himself upon the side where the river Anapus ran,
which was most strong and difficult of access; and he commanded those
that were led by Isias, a Corinthian captain, to make their assault
from the post of Acradina, while Dinarchus and Demaretus, that
brought him the last supply from Corinth, were, with a third
division, to attempt the quarter called Epipolae. A considerable
impression being made from every side at once, the soldiers of
Hicetes were beaten off and put to flight; and this, -- that the city
came to be taken by storm, and fall suddenly into their hands, upon
the defeat and rout of the enemy, -- we must in all justice ascribe
to the valor of the assailants, and the wise conduct of their
general; but that not so much as a man of the Corinthians was either
slain or wounded in the action, this the good fortune of Timoleon
seems to challenge for her own work, as though, in a sort of rivalry
with his own personal exertions, she made it her aim to exceed and
obscure his actions by her favors, that those who heard him commended
for his noble deeds might rather admire the happiness, than the merit
of them. For the fame of what was done not only passed through all
Sicily, and filled Italy with wonder, but even Greece itself, after a
few days, came to ring with the greatness of his exploit; insomuch
that those of Corinth, who had as yet no certainty that their
auxiliaries were landed on the island, had tidings brought them at
the same time that they were safe and were conquerors. In so
prosperous a course did affairs run, and such was the speed and
celerity of execution with which fortune, as with a new ornament, set
off the native lustres of the performance.
Timoleon, being master of the citadel, avoided the error which Dion
had been guilty of. He spared not the place for the beauty and
sumptuousness of its fabric, and, keeping clear of those suspicions
which occasioned first the unpopularity and afterwards the fall of
Dion, made a public crier give notice, that all the Syracusans who
were willing to have a hand in the work, should bring pick-axes and
mattocks, and other instruments, and help him to demolish the
fortifications of the tyrants. When they all came up with one
accord, looking upon that order 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 whatever else
might preserve any memory of former tyrants. Having soon leveled and
cleared the place, he there presently erected courts for
administration of justice, gratifying 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
marketplace 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 had
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, considering 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
become 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 appropriate 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 publication 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 Siceliots, 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 from 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
thousand, 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 divided 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 impoverished 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 condemnation 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 Carthaginian 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 like bondage, and wholly
and once for all to extirpate arbitrary government out of Sicily.
And for this purpose, marching 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, counting 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
establishment of the new constitution, and assist Cephalus and
Dionysius, 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 dispatched 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 forthwith 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 fainthearted by the way, and forsook Timoleon in his march
towards the enemy, looking on him as frantic and distracted,
destitute of the sense which might have been expected from his time
of life, thus to venture out against an army of seventy thousand men,
with no more than five thousand 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 themselves 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 superstitious 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 anticipation 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 example 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 flew, 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 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; 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 arms, 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 bidding 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, forming his right and left wing
of other Sicilians, intermingling only a few strangers in each, he
placed the natives of Syracuse 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 he saw they were not only
hindered from grappling with the Carthaginians by the armed chariots
that ran to and fro before the army, but forced continually 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 of 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, all besought 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 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 breastplates 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 dashes 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 inexperienced, 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
hindrance 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 unwieldy 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 rise 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 level ground by the side of it, being so situated as to have a
number of small ravines and hollows of the hill-side descending 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 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 hills and so make their escape, were
intercepted and destroyed by the light-armed troops. It is said,
that of ten thousand who lay dead after the fight, three thousand, at
least, were Carthaginian citizens; a heavy loss and great grief to
their countrymen; those that fell being men inferior to none among
them as to birth, wealth, or reputation. Nor do their records
mention 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 damage of other nations.
The Greeks easily discovered of what condition and account the slain
were, by the richness of their spoils; for when they came to collect
the booty, there was little reckoning made either of brass or iron,
so abundant were better metals, and so common were silver and gold
Passing over the river, 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 magnificent 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 having 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
remembrances, but with such as had been stripped from barbarians 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 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, however, the tyrant of Catana, and Hicetes,
after all, either envying Timoleon the glory of his exploits, or
fearing him as one that would keep no agreement, nor have 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
island. And in consequence of this, Gisco was dispatched with a navy
of seventy sail. He took numerous 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 ambuscade, the
whole body of mercenaries that served under Euthymus 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
that, being hated and shunned by all, as persons under a curse, they
were constrained to wander about in Peloponnesus; 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 defense of his
party in several places, they perished and were destroyed at a
distance from him, not all together, but in small parties; and the
vengeance which was destined for them, so accommodating itself to the
good fortune which guarded Timoleon 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 distinctly recognized in his disasters as in his successes.
What most annoyed the Syracusans was their being insulted 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 Timoleon, and the slender force he
had then with him. He, suffering 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, therefore,
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 the Leontines,
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 Euthymus, 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
Leontini in a speech, that the news did not sound terrible, nor was
any great danger to be feared because of
Corinthian women coming out of doors.
So true is it 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 contumelious 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 Dionysius; 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 by Gisco to his 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 families 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
Syracuse; but the men in his galleys turning back and landing again
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 besieging 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 theater, to witness the glorious spectacle of a tyrant
punished, they first publicly scourged and then put him to death.
Mamercus 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 accordingly, and
presenting himself to plead before the people, he essayed to
pronounce an oration he had long before composed in his own defense;
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 garment, and running across the theater as hard
as he could, dashed his head against one of the stones 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 a robber.
Thus did Timoleon cut the nerves of tyranny, and put a period to
their 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 rendered it so desirable to all
men, that even strangers now came by sea to inhabit those towns and
places which their own citizens had formerly forsaken and left
desolate. Agrigentum and Gela, two famous cities that had been
ruined and laid waste by 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 afforded a secure and
peaceable 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
government, which they could think well of, unless he lent his aid as
a chief architect, to finish and adorn the work, and superadd some
touches from his own hand, which might render it pleasing both to God
and man.
Although Greece had in his time produced several persons of
extraordinary worth, and much renowned for their achievements, 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 repentance; whereas 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! what Venus, or what grace divine,
Did here with human workmanship combine?
For as the poetry of Antimachus, and the painting of Dionysius, 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 acts
of Epaminondas or Agesilaus, that were full of toil and effort, when
compared with the easy and natural as well as noble and glorious
achievements of Timoleon, compel our fair and unbiased judgment to
pronounce the latter not indeed the effect of fortune, but the
success of fortunate merit. Though he himself indeed ascribed 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 deliverance 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 being 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 envy (the fatal mischief which great commanders continually
run into, from the insatiable 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 lark 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 general, 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 incite 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 battle,
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 grievances 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 anything himself which
might occasion this defect, or was deprived of his sight by any
outrage of fortune; it seems rather to have been some inbred and
hereditary 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
Syracuse, he presently resigned the authority of sole commander, and
besought the citizens 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 misfortune without
any marks of trouble; but the respect and gratitude which the
Syracusans showed him when he was entirely blind, may justly deserve
our admiration. They used to go themselves to visit him in troops,
and brought all the strangers that traveled 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
exultation, that when, after so many brave and happy exploits, he
might have returned with triumph into Greece, he should disregard 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 advise 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 theater, 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 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 dispatch in his absence. Being thus cherished in his old
age, with all the respect and tenderness due to a common father, he
was seized with a very slight indisposition, 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 magnificence in all other respects, and
the bier, decked with ornaments and trophies, was borne 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
attended on the solemnity several thousands of men and women, all
crowned with flowers, and arrayed in fresh and clean attire, which
made it look like the procession of a public festival; while the
language of all, and their tears mingling with their praise and
benediction of the dead Timoleon, manifestly showed that it was not
any superficial honor, or commanded 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 following
purpose: "The people of Syracuse has made a special decree to inter
Timoleon, the son of Timodemus, the Corinthian, 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
restored the Sicilian Greeks to the privilege of living by their own
laws." Besides this, they made a tomb for him in the marketplace,
which they afterwards built round with colonnades, and attached to it
places of exercise for the young men, and gave it the name of the
Timoleonteum. And keeping to that form and order of civil policy and
observing those laws and constitutions which he left them, they lived
themselves a long time in great prosperity.
AEMILIUS PAULUS
Almost all historians agree that the Aemilii 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 the name to his
posterity was Mamercus, the son of Pythagoras, who, for his grace and
address in speaking, was called Aemilius. 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 contrary, when he that was so resolute to engage deserted him in the
midst of danger, he kept the field, and died fighting. This Aemilius had
a daughter named Aemilia, 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 distinguished 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 practice 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 by 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 divinations 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 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
worshiping 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 always 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 affairs; not endeavoring, when he
had the command, to ingratiate 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 ceremonies 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 enemies
itself but as an accessory to the proper training and disciplining 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 Aemilius, in the quality of praetor, not with six axes, which number
other praetors were accustomed to have carried before them, but with
twelve; so that in his praetorship he was honored with the dignity of a
consul. He twice overcame the barbarians in battle, thirty thousand of
whom were slain: successes 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 himself master of two
hundred and fifty cities, whose inhabitants voluntarily yielded, and
bound themselves by oath to fidelity, he left the province in peace, and
returned to Rome, not enriching 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 impossible for man and wife to live
together with any content.
Aemilius, 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 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 Aemilius, one was married to the son of Cato, the
other to Aelius 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 Aelii, 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 Aemilius, 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
inheritances, and keep them at a distance, never cease from mutual
quarrels. History suggests a variety of good counsel of this sort, by
the way, to those who desire to learn and improve.
To proceed: Aemilius, being chosen consul, waged war 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 towards Africa, mingled there with Gauls and Iberians
of the coast. Besides, at that time they had turned their thoughts to
the sea, and sailing as far as the Pillars of Hercules in light vessels
fitted for that purpose, robbed and destroyed all that trafficked in
those parts. They, with an army of forty thousand, waited the coming of
Aemilius, 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 accommodation; 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 Aemilius, 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 worthy 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 rhetoric, but had
for them also preceptors in modeling and drawing, managers of horses and
dogs, and instructors in field sports, all from Greece. And, if he was
not hindered by public affairs, he himself would be with them at their
studies, and see them perform their exercises, being the most
affectionate father in Rome.
This was the time, in public matters, when the Romans were engaged in war
with Perseus, king of the Macedonians, and great complaints were made of
their commanders, who, either through their want of skill or courage,
were conducting 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 Syria, 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
power,—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 make which appear, I shall
briefly recount the story from the beginning.
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, father 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
confusion 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 equaling 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
resolution 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 man of sense and courage, whilst he held his
kingdom at the pleasure of his conquerors; which made him 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 mean time, collecting 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 millions of
bushels of corn, and as much ready money as would defray the charge of
maintaining ten thousand mercenary soldiers for ten years in defense 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
sensible 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, covetousness 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
successor 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 fleets. He routed Publius Licinius, who was the first that invaded
Macedonia, in a cavalry battle, slew twenty-five hundred practiced
soldiers, and took six hundred prisoners; and, surprising their fleet as
they rode at anchor before Oreus, 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 he was
making his way into the country at Elimiae, and forced him to retreat;
and, when he afterwards by stealth designed an invasion through Thessaly,
challenged him to fight, which the other feared to accept. Nay more, to
show his contempt of the Romans, and that he wanted employment, as a war
by the by, he made an expedition against the Dardanians, in which he slew
ten thousand of those barbarian people, 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
incited the Illyrians, by the means of Genthius their king, to join with
him in the war. It was also reported, that the barbarians, 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 Aemilius, 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 influential 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 reluctance 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 request. 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,
unanimously 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, catching 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
which Aemilius replied, "Good fortune, my daughter; I embrace 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. Aemilius, therefore, having gathered an assembly, spoke and
said, that he sued for the first 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 criticize his actions, but, without talking, supply him with means
and assistance 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 Aemilius, 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, partly 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 other commanders) to his so much
celebrated good fortune; unless you will say that the covetousness of
Perseus was the good fortune of Aemilius. 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. For 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; all of
them professed soldiers, men skilled neither in tilling of land, nor in
navigation of ships, nor able to get their livings 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 maintaining such
numbers as this, nevertheless doled out his money, and put seals on his
bags, and was as fearful of touching it, as if it had belonged to some
one else. And all this was done by one, not descended from Lydians or
Phoenicians, but who could pretend to some share of the virtues of
Alexander and Philip, whom he was allied to by birth; men who conquered
the world by judging that empire was to be purchased 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 kingdom, 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 only played false with the
Gauls, and sent them away, 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 ambassadors sent to him from the Romans.
Whence Perseus, concluding that there was now no need of money to make
Genthius an enemy to the Romans, but that he had given a lasting earnest
of his enmity, and by his flagrant injustice sufficiently involved
himself in the war, defrauded the unfortunate king of his three hundred
talents, and without any concern 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.
Aemilius, 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 Aemilius. But he, in the meantime, 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 ordered, that the sentinels by night should watch without
javelins, 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 Aemilius, considering that he was at the foot of the high
and woody mountain Olympus, 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. Although there are some, indeed, who deny that
there are reservoirs of water lying 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 not 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 furnished, 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 that motion which is the cause of
liquefaction. But those that assert this opinion, give occasion to the
doubtful 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 must 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.
Aemilius 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 defenseless
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 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 Aemilius, although yet very young,
offered himself with great zeal. Aemilius, rejoicing, 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 Italians that 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' 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, but according to the rules of
art, and with instruments for the purpose. Here it was that Nasica
passed the night.
A Cretan deserter, who fled to the enemy during the march, discovered to
Perseus the design which the Romans had to encompass him: for he, seeing
that Aemilius 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
the enemy being forced to retreat, Milo stripped to his coat and fled
shamefully without his armor, while he followed without 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 hazard 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 defense of
their wives and children must 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 commands, 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 Aeson 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 Aemilius 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 Aemilius
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 prepared 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 insensibly broken up, and the army encamped without noise
or trouble.
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
firebrands and torches 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. Aemilius 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 succession to Hercules, without
any token that his offering was accepted; but at the one and twentieth,
the signs promised victory to defenders. 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 morning, 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, Aemilius 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 immediately detached; and that,
relief coming still from both armies, the main bodies at last engaged.
Aemilius, 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 mean time, who had ridden out to the skirmishers, saw the whole force
of the enemy on the point of engaging. First marched the Thracians, who,
he himself tells us, inspired 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. These 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, Aemilius 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
Macedonians 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 fulfill 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
Aemilius'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 history of
Perseus, and professes to have lived at the time, and to have been
himself engaged in these events, denies that Perseus left the field
either through fear or pretence of sacrificing, but that, the very day
before the fight, he received a kick from a horse on his thigh; that
though very much disabled, and dissuaded by all his friends, he commanded
one of his riding-horses to be brought, and entered the field unarmed;
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 defense of Perseus.
The Romans not being able to make a breach in the phalanx, 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 Aemilius 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.
Nevertheless, 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 Aemilius 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 another
are forced to fall 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 commands Aemilius 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 side where
they were naked and exposed, and others, making a circuit, behind; and
thus destroyed the force of the phalanx, which consisted in common action
and close union. And now, come to fight man to man, or in small parties,
the Macedonians smote in vain upon firm and long shields with their
little swords, whilst their slight bucklers were not able to sustain 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 Aemilius, whilst he showed all possible 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 number 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 eagerness 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 then mingled with blood. For it is said
there fell more than twenty-five thousand of the enemy; of the Romans, as
Posidonius relates, a hundred; as Nasica, only fourscore. This battle,
though so great, was very quickly decided, it being three in the
afternoon when they first engaged, and not four when the enemy was
vanquished; the rest of the day was spent in the 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 Aemilius'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 destroyed Carthage and Numantia, and was, without
dispute, the first of the Romans in merit, and had the greatest authority
amongst them. Thus Fortune, deferring her displeasure and jealousy of
such great success to some other time, let Aemilius 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 he might
the better converse with his friends, alighted from his 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 having 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 Eudaeus, 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 Aetolian, 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 suffered them to take cups, bowls, and other vessels of
silver and gold, to the value of fifty talents. But when he was come to
Amphipolis, and afterwards to Galepsus, and his fears were a little
abated, he relapsed into his old and constitutional disease of
covetousness, and lamented to his friends that he had, through
inadvertency, allowed some gold plate which had belonged 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 understood him thoroughly knew very well he only played the Cretan
with the Cretans, but those that believed him, and restored 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 (which 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.
The Macedonians were always accounted great lovers of their kings, but
now, as if their chief prop was broken, they all gave way together, and
submitted to Aemilius, 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 Amphipolis, has a
supernatural character. When he was sacrificing there, and the holy
rites were just begun, on a sudden, lightning fell upon the altar, set
the wood on fire, and completed the immolation of the sacrifice. The
most signal manifestation, however, of preternatural agency appears in
the story of the rumor of his success. For on the fourth day after
Perseus was vanquished at Pydna, whilst the people at Rome were seeing
the horse-races, a report suddenly arose at the entrance of the theater
that Aemilius had defeated Perseus 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 was 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, having, 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 Peloponnesus 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 professed to bring
the news from the camp. They were conjectured to be Castor and Pollux.
The first man that spoke to them in the forum, near the fountain where
they were cooling 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 Ahenobarbus, 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 Germany, all on a
sudden, and nobody knows upon what account, the 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 it escaped; nay, this belief was so strong and positive, that
many of the magistrates offered up sacrifice. But when, at length, 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. Nevertheless, when Domitian marched out with his forces to the
war, he met with messengers and letters that gave him a 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 ignorant of.
But to proceed. Cnaeus Octavius, who was joined in command with
Aemilius, 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 convey 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 wandered 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 confidence 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, namely, 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 Aemilius, 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 Aemilius was not able to bear, nor would
vouchsafe to hear: but looking on him with a sad and angry 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 unjustly 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
son-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 down without
speaking one word, insomuch that they all wondered at him. At last, he
began to discourse of fortune and human affairs. "Is it meet," said he,
"for him that knows he is but man, in his greatest prosperity 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 durable 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 consideration on
the law of things, and how all are hurried round, and each man's station
changed, will introduce sadness 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 is 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 Aemilius, having spoken much more to the same purpose,
dismissed the young men properly humbled, and with their vain-glory and
insolence thoroughly chastened and curbed by his address.
When this was done, he put his army into garrisons, to refresh
themselves, and went himself to visit Greece, and to spend a short time
in relaxations equally honorable and humane. 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 white 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 uttered 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 entertainments and feasts; the
charge of all which he liberally defrayed 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 bides. Nor was it least gratifying to him, that, amidst all the
magnificent and splendid 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 marshaling a banquet as an army; 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
silver 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, Aelius Tubero, a bowl that
weighed five pounds. This is that Tubero we have already mentioned, who
was one of sixteen relations that lived together, and were all maintained
out of one little farm; and it is said, that this was the first plate
that ever entered the house of the Aelii, 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 settled everything 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 surprise 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 presence 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 threescore 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 Aemilius had done this, -- an action perfectly contrary 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 meet him had a
foretaste of his following triumph. But the soldiers, who 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
Aemilius for this, but openly complained that he had been a severe and
tyrannical commander over them; nor were they ready to show their desire
of his triumph. When Servius Galba, who was Aemilius's enemy, though he
commanded as tribune under him, understood 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 reproaches, in which he spent the
remaining 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 assembly to be
held.
As soon as it was day, it was put to the vote, and the first tribe was
proceeding to refuse the triumph; and the news spread amongst the people
and to the senate. The people were indeed much grieved that Aemilius
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 erelong become altogether ungovernable and violent,
were they now permitted to deprive Aemilius of his triumph. Forcing a
passage through the crowd, they came up in great numbers, and desired the
tribunes to defer polling, till they had spoken what they had to say to
the people. All things thus suspended, and silence being made, Marcus
Servilius stood up, a man of consular dignity, and who had killed
twenty-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 Aemilius 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 captivity 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 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 garment, 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 Aemilius; which was performed after this
manner.
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 appeared 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 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 procession 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 garlands; and with these
were boys that carried basins for libation, 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 Aemilius 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 Seleucus, 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 children were led captives,
and with them a train of their attendants, masters, and teachers, all
shedding tears, and stretching out hands to the spectators, and making
the children themselves 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 deplorable; 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 himself, clad all in
black, and wearing the boots of his country; and looking like one
altogether stunned and deprived of reason, through the greatness of his
misfortunes. Next followed a great company of his friends and familiars,
whose countenances 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 Aemilius 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
fainthearted man not having the spirit for, and made effeminate by I know
not what hopes, allowed himself 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 Aemilius, in honor of his
victory. Then he himself came, seated on a chariot magnificently 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, according to the
usual custom, mingled with raillery; others, songs of triumph, and the
praise of Aemilius'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 calamities; 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.
Aemilius 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 years of age, five days before his father's
triumph; the other at twelve, three days 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.
Aemilius, however, reasoning justly that courage and resolution was not
merely to resist armor 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 anything
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.
"I," he said, "who never yet feared anything that was human, have,
amongst such as were divine, always had a dread of fortune as faithless
and inconstant; and, for the very reason 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 purifying of the army, I entered on
my duties, and, in the space of fifteen days, put an honorable period to
the war. Still retaining 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 my 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 misfortune 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 persuaded, 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 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, Aemilius, is deprived of his." This
was the generous and magnanimous oration Aemilius 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 Perseus, and studied to
befriend him in what he was able, yet he could procure no other favor,
than his removal from the common prison, the Carcer, 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 have been of the
strangest 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 way 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 language, that he became clerk to
the magistrates, and behaved himself in his office with great skill and
conduct.
They ascribe to Aemilius'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.
This also was peculiar and remarkable in Aemilius, 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 anything 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 interest 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
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 Aemilius Paulus, if you have knowledge in your grave of
what is done above, that your son aspires to be censor, by the help of
Aemilius, the common crier, and Licinius Philonicus." Scipio always had
the good-will of the people, because he was constantly heaping favors on
them; but Aemilius, 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 dignities, they thought him worthy of the office of censor, a trust
accounted 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 Aemilius,
337,452 men. He declared Marcus Aemilius Lepidus 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 awhile 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 return, and
oftentimes by their expressions in the theaters, gave public testimony of
their great desire and impatience to see him. When, therefore, the time
drew nigh that a solemn sacrifice 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 congratulating 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 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
preparations, 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 Aemilius 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 familiars 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 coheirs; 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 Aemilius.
COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH AEMILIUS 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 glorious.
One conquered Macedon from the seventh succeeding heir of Antigonus; the
other freed Sicily from usurping tyrants, and restored the island to its
former liberty. Unless, indeed, it be made a point on Aemilius'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 condition, his affairs being reduced to
the last extremity: or, on the contrary, it be urged in favor of
Timoleon, that he vanquished several tyrants, and a powerful Carthaginian
army, with an inconsiderable number of men gathered together from all
parts, not with such an army as Aemilius had, of well disciplined
soldiers, experienced in war, and accustomed to obey; but with such as
through the hopes of gain resorted 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 they managed: but Aemilius 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 generals 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. Timaeus writes, that the Syracusans sent even
Gylippus home dishonorably, and with a reputation lost by the unsatiable
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 Aemilius, that, though he conquered
so great and so rich a realm as that of Macedon, 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 handsome 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 body is, without doubt, the most strong and healthful, which
can the easiest support extreme cold and excessive heat in the change 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 Aemilius
was eminently seen in his countenance and behavior continuing as noble
and lofty upon the loss of two dear sons, as when he achieved his
greatest victories and triumphs. But Timoleon, after he had justly
punished his brother, a truly heroic action, let his reason 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 a heroic temper.
PELOPIDAS
Cato Major, hearing some commend one that was rash, and inconsiderately
daring in a battle, said, "There is a difference 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 looks he took
the trouble to inquire into; and, on understanding from him that it was a
disease, commanded his physicians 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
wondered 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 very 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 them happiness alike in living or in dying; as
we see in 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 virtuous, 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 punished those that threw away their shields, but not him that
lost his sword or spear; intimating that self-defense is more a man's
business than offense. 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 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 Antigonus 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?" intimating 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 by a dart, told him, "Yet how ashamed I was, at the siege
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. "Indeed, 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 he falls, 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
Lacedaemonians, 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 deaths, is the reason why I compare their
lives.
Pelopidas, the son of Hippoclus, was descended, as likewise Epaminondas
was, from an honorable family in Thebes; and, being brought up to
opulence, and having a fair estate left him whilst he was young, he made
it his business to relieve 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
kindness; 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 married a woman of good family, and had children; yet still
thinking 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 Nicodemus," pointing to a blind cripple.
Both seemed equally fitted by nature for all sorts of excellence; 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 or 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 administrations 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 Epaminondas, he must needs
confess, that these are more truly and more justly styled colleagues in
government and command than the others, who strove rather to overcome one
another, than their enemies The true cause of this was their virtue;
whence it came that they did not make their actions aim at wealth and
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 glorious by their exertions, they used to that end one
another's excellences as their own. Many, indeed, think this strict and
entire 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 a heap of slain friends and enemies; but Epaminondas, though he
thought him past recovery, advanced to defend his arms and body, and
singly fought a multitude, resolving 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 wing, 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 rich men, and of oligarchical principles, and immoderately ambitious,
urged Phoebidas the Spartan, as he was on his way past the city with a
considerable force, to surprise the Cadmea, and, banishing the contrary
faction, to establish an oligarchy, 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, Androclides, 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 inconsistency, 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 military 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, understanding that the exiles lived at Athens in favor with
the people, and with honor from all the good and virtuous, formed secret
designs against their lives, and, suborning some unknown fellows,
dispatched Androclides, but were not successful on the rest. Letters,
besides, were sent from Sparta to the Athenians, warning them neither to
receive nor countenance the exiles, but expel them as declared common
enemies of the confederacy. But the Athenians, from their natural
hereditary inclination to be kind, and also to make a grateful return to
the Thebans, who had very much assisted them in restoring their
democracy, and had publicly enacted, that if any Athenian 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 privately exciting
each single exile; and often told them at their meetings, that it was
both dishonorable and impious to neglect their enslaved and engarrisoned
country, and, lazily contented with their own lives and safety, depend on
the decrees of the Athenians, and through fear fawn on every
smooth-tongued orator that was able to work upon the people: now they
must venture for this great prize, taking Thrasybulus' 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 dispatched some
persons to those friends they had left at Thebes, and acquainted them
with their designs. Their plans being approved, Charon, a man of the
greatest distinction, offered his house for their reception; Phillidas
contrived to get himself 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 success, sharply told them, 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 in the Thriasian 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 constant rivals 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 undertaking no less a task than to shake the
government, and overthrow the whole power of Sparta; went privately to
his house, 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 quarreling, 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 it now 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 the others made up forty-eight in number. The
tyrants' affairs stood thus: the secretary, Phillidas, as I have already
observed, was an accomplice in, and privy to all the contrivance of the
exiles, and he a while before had invited Archias, with others, to an
entertainment on that day, to drink freely, and meet some women 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 before
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
confirmed: nevertheless, though Phillidas endeavored to divert the
discourse, Archias sent one of his guard to Charon, 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 action,
having their breastplates 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 polemarchs,
returned in great confusion and acquainted those within; and all
immediately conjectured that the whole plot was discovered, and they
should be cut in pieces, before so much as achieving any action to do
credit to their bravery; yet all agreed that Charon should obey, and
attend the polemarchs, 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 this 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 approaching 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, however, 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, considering with himself, and
composing his voice and countenance, 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
them." Charon was at first disturbed, 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, commended 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 Pelopidas
and his friends the truth, but pretended to others in the house that
Archias talked to him about something else, inventing 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, to his namesake Archias, who was his friend and
guest. This did not merely contain a vague conjectural suspicion, but,
as appeared afterwards, disclosed every particular of the design. 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 tomorrow," 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 fir and pine to shade their faces;
and so, as soon as they came to the door, the guests clapped and gave a
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 assist the polemarchs, being drunk were easily dispatched.
But Pelopidas and his party met with a harder task; as they attempted
Leontidas, a sober and formidable man, and when they came to his house
found his doors 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 dagger, 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 door, and stabbed Cephisodorus, the first man that entered:
on his falling, the next that he engaged was Pelopidas; and the passage
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 companions went in pursuit of Hypates, and after
the same manner broke into his house. He perceived the design, and fled
to 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 maintain 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 there 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 blockade 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 Arcissus, two of their governors@
at Thebes, and Lysanoridas the third being severely fined, fled
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 numerous and powerful enemies, or
brought greater blessings to their country by so doing. But the
subsequent change of affairs made this action the more 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 army, the
Athenians, affrighted at the danger, declared themselves no allies to
Thebes, and prosecuting those that stood for the Boeotian interest,
executed some, and banished and fined others: and the cause of Thebes,
destitute of allies, seemed in a desperate condition. But Pelopidas and
Gorgidas, 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 judgment, full of ungrounded hopes and foolish ambition, was
left with an army at Thespiae, to receive and succor the Theban
renegades. 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 protection 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 Boeotia, "Indeed,
the Thebans have paid you handsomely for instructing them 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 captain of the sacred band, or, what was most frequent, chief
captain of Boeotia. About Plataea and Thespiae the Spartans were
routed and put to flight, and Phoebidas, that surprised 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 advantage, in
which, according to occasion, they charged, retired again, or pursued.
But the battle at Tegyrae, which seemed a prelude to Leuctra, won
Pelopidas a 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 Orchomenians 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 defenseless, 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 circuit 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 rise two springs,
admirable for the sweetness, abundance, and coolness of the streams; one
they call 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 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 passable condition;
but Apollo is one of the eternal unbegotten deities, if we may collect
any certainty concerning these things, from the statements of the oldest
and wisest in such subjects.
As 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 enemy'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 Thebans. The charge being made with much
fury, chiefly where the commanders were posted, the Spartan captains that
engaged Pelopidas 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 turning against those that stood their
ground, still went on with a bloody slaughter, an open fight ensued
amongst the Spartans. The pursuit was carried but a little way, because
they feared the neighboring Orchomenians, and the reinforcement 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 their 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
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. For 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 Iolaus, 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 Iolaus'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 together, 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 anything that was base."
It was not the disaster of Laius, as the poets imagine, that first gave
rise to this form of attachment amongst the Thebans, 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 Palaestra, 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 winning behavior a harmony ensues
that combines all the elements 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 what they could do.
But Pelopidas, having sufficiently 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 Thebans only, and their king,
Cleombrotus, had passed the frontier with ten thousand foot and one
thousand horse, and not only subjection, as heretofore, but total
dispersion and annihilation threatened, and Boeotia 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 careful 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 Boeotia, 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 discomposed him. In that plain lie the bodies of the
daughters 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 villainy 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 victory, to sacrifice a virgin with
chestnut hair to his daughters. Pelopidas looked 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 Lacedaemonians, 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 Salamis; 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 commanded in a dream at Aulis to sacrifice his daughter, was so
weak as to disobey; the consequence of which was, that his expedition was
unsuccessful and inglorious. But some on the other side urged, that such
a barbarous and impious oblation 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 absurd to imagine any
divinities or powers delighted in slaughter and sacrifices of men; or, if
there were an, 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 depraved minds.
The commanders thus disputing, and Pelopidas being in a great perplexity,
a mare colt, breaking from the herd, ran 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 practiced
soldiers of all mankind, used to train and accustom themselves to nothing
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 baffled 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 reputation 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, Argo, 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, forfeited his head.
Therefore, the other chief captains fearing the law, and to avoid the
sharpness of the winter, advised a retreat. But Pelopidas joined with
Epaminondas, and, encouraging his countrymen, led them against Sparta,
and, passing the Eurotas, took many of the towns, and wasted the country
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 attend, and put their
hopes in him. So the Argives, Eleans, and Arcadians, in their
congresses, would contend with the Thebans 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 courage, 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 occasion. Meneclidas,
the orator, was one of those that had met with Melon and Pelopidas at
Charon's house; but not receiving 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; but he was not powerful enough to bring
Pelopidas out of the people's favor, and therefore endeavored to raise a
quarrel between him and Charon. And since it is some comfort 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 victory 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 Thebes, 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 Thessaly with his army, he presently
took Larissa, and endeavored 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 themselves, 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, called back the exiles, and,
receiving for hostages Philip the king's brother, and thirty children of
the nobles, 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 afterward endeavored 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 Pelopidas, and he, being
willing to interpose in the matter, but having 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 companions,
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 had just
entered the city, Alexander, the tyrant, appeared before it with an army;
but Pelopidas and his friends, thinking that he came to clear himself
from those crimes that were laid to his charge, went to him; and though
they knew very well that he was profligate and cruel, yet they imagined
that the authority 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 Pharsalus. Upon this his
subjects were much intimidated, thinking that after so great and so bold
an iniquity, he would spare none, but behave himself toward all, and in
all matters, as one despairing of his life. The Thebans, when they heard
of this, were very much enraged, and dispatched an army, Epaminondas
being then in disgrace, under the command of other leaders. When the
tyrant brought Pelopidas to Pherae, 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 Pheraeans 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, wondering at his
boldness and freedom of speech, replied, "And why is Pelopidas in haste
to die?" He, hearing of it, rejoined, "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 appearance, that he was used basely and not befitting
a man of his reputation, she wept. Pelopidas, at first not knowing who
she was, stood amazed; but when he understood, saluted her by her
father's name -- Jason and he having been friends and familiars -- and
she saying, "I pity your wife, Sir," he replied, "And I you, that though
not in chains, can endure Alexander." This touched the woman, who
already 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, speaking freely of the indignities she
suffered, grew more enraged, and more exasperated against Alexander.
The Theban generals that were sent into Thessaly did nothing, but, being
either unskillful 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
general, 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 tyrant 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 inhabitants 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
theater; 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. Epaminondas
refused to admit such a man as an ally to the Thebans, 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 the dominions 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
Leuctra was gone abroad, the report of new victories continually
following, exceedingly increased, and spread his celebrity far and near.
Whatever satraps or generals or commanders he met, he was the object of
their wonder and discourse; "This is the man," they said, "who hath
beaten the Lacedaemonians from sea and land, and confined that Sparta
within Taygetus and 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 Antalcidas, 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 desires, 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 returned. This
behavior of Pelopidas ruined the other ambassadors: the Athenians
condemned and executed their Timagoras, and, indeed, if they did it for
receiving so many presents 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 unskillful 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, and the people only laughed at
the joke. But they were vexed that the Thebans obtained their desires,
never considering 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 restitution 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 many 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 all things were prepared, and the general beginning 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 thousand of his citizens; and therefore with only three
hundred horse volunteers, set forward himself to Thessaly, much against
the will of the augurs and his fellow-citizens in general, 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 desirous 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 Alexander 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 one 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 good and
many, to charge that of the enemies; they routed and pursued them through
the plain. But Alexander, meantime, took the hills, and charging the
Thessalian foot that came up later, and strove to climb the steep and
craggy ascent, 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 should 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 finding these come on stoutly, and the horse,
also, returning from the pursuit, gave ground, and retreated in order.
Pelopidas now perceiving, from the rising ground, that the enemy's army
was, though not yet routed, full of disorder and confusion, stood and
looked about for Alexander; and when he saw him in the right wing,
encouraging and ordering his mercenaries, he could not moderate 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 mercenaries that came hand to hand were driven back by Pelopidas,
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 thousand.
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 in 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 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 were 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
golden armor; and, when he was to be interred, the elders of the
Thessalians 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 wait on the living Pelopidas, never give
honors, of which 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
shall we dare to desire from you another captain, since we cannot restore
Pelopidas?"
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 walls,
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 crowned 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 Aesop observes, most
grievous, but most blessed, since it secures their felicity, and puts it
out of fortune's power. And that 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 together, with 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 defense 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
Alexander weak and without forces, compelled him to restore the cities he
had taken, to withdraw his garrisons from the Magnesians 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 revenged 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 defenses, since she was admitted within them. She, of
herself, too, dreaded his inconstancy, and hated his cruelty; and,
therefore, conspiring with her three brothers, Tisiphonus, Pytholaus, 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, bringing 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 appearing 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 conducted them in, they being both
ashamed and afraid, and brought them to the bed; when one of them caught
him by the feet, the other pulled him backward by the hair, and 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 his corpse was abused, thrown out, and trodden under foot by
the Pheraeans, he seems to have suffered what his villainies deserved.
MARCELLUS
They say that Marcus Claudius, who was five times consul of the Romans,
was the son of Marcus; and that he was the first of his family called
Marcellus; that is, martial, as Posidonius affirms. He was, indeed, by
long experience skillful in the art of war, of a strong body, valiant of
hand, and by natural inclination addicted to war. This high temper 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 proficiency in them equal to his desire, by reason of his
employments. For if ever there were any men, whom, as Homer 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 defense 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, ignorant or unskillful of no kind of fighting, in single
combat surpassed himself; he never declined a challenge, 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
rewards; and, his good qualities more and more displaying themselves, he
was created Curule Aedile 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 aedileship, 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 people, endeavored by
various shifts and exceptions to elude the impeachment; and, when the
tribunes refused their protection, 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 dedicated to the gods.
After the end of the first Punic war, which lasted one 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 coincident with the
Punic, but that the Gauls had with fidelity stood 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, 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 secret ceremonial observances in the month of November.
In the beginning of this war, in which the Romans sometimes obtained
remarkable victories, sometimes were shamefully 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 Picenum was
seen flowing with blood; there was a report, that three moons had been
seen at once at Ariminum; and, in the consular 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
forbear 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 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 building 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 dictator, 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 inclining 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 directly to Acerrae, a city seated on
the north of the river Po. From thence Britomartus, king of the
Gaesatae, taking with him ten thousand soldiers, harassed the country
round about. News of which being brought to Marcellus, leaving his
colleague 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
jurisdiction. Nor had he time to refresh his soldiers, or to give them
rest. For the barbarians, that were then present, immediately observed
his approach, and contemned him, because he had very few foot with him.
The Gauls were singularly skillful 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 horse, 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 happened 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 worship to the
gods, to turn round; and in this moment of meeting 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 him 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 army 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 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 toward Heaven, thus spoke: "O Jupiter
Feretrius, arbiter of the exploits of captains, and of the acts of
commanders in war and battles, 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 I 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 unheard of victory. For never before or
since have so few horse defeated such numerous forces of horse and foot
together. The enemies being to a great number slain, and the spoils
collected, he returned to his colleague, who was conducting the war, with
ill success, against the enemies near the greatest and most populous of
the Gallic cities, Milan. This was their capital, and, therefore,
fighting valiantly in defense 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 round about the arms of the king, arranging all the pieces in
their suitable places. The procession advancing solemnly, he, carrying
this trophy, ascended the 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 composed 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. The first was Romulus, after having slain Acron, king of the
Caeninenses: the second, Cornelius Cossus, who slew Tolumnius the
Etruscan: after them Marcellus, having killed Britomartus king of the
Gauls; after Marcellus, no man. The god to whom these spoils were
consecrated is called Jupiter Feretrius, 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, feri. 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, prevails, 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 testimony of their
gratitude, a present of a golden cup of a hundred 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 was dispatched with a fleet into
Sicily. And when the army had been defeated 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
solders, 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 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 retaliate. Fixing, therefore, their thoughts upon Marcellus, and
hoping to combine his boldness, confidence, and promptitude 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
as proconsul, against the enemy. Posidonius writes, that Fabius was
called the buckler, Marcellus the sword of Rome. Certainly, Hannibal
himself confessed that he feared Fabius as a schoolmaster, 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 plundering 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 ransom, but also contracted
friendship with him, and made him his guest. In gratitude for this great
favor, he became one of the strongest of the 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 consul Paulus Aemilius, 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 Marcellus, "did not you, having
such proofs to show of your affection 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 marshaled 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 that 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 invincible, 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 the election till his arrival, when
he was by all the suffrages created 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 however his
command. Being created proconsul, and returning to the camp at Nola, he
proceeded to harass those that followed the party of the Carthaginian; on
whose coming with speed to succor them, Marcellus declined a challenge to
a set 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 them with great force at convenient
distance 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 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 harmony 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 horsemen.
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 because 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 escaped by flight, and some were taken alive by the
enemy; so great a multitude, that it was thought there were not remaining
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 by
the enemy, or sold out of Italy; and commanded that all who had saved
themselves by flight should be transported 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. Marcellus, 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
decreed 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 injures 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,) besieged and took by force
the city of Leontini; yet violated none of the townsmen; only deserters,
as many as he took, he subjected to the punishment of the rods and axe.
But Hippocrates, sending a report to Syracuse, that Marcellus had put all
the adult population to the sword, and then coming upon the Syracusans,
who had risen in tumult upon that false report, 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 proceeded to attack the city both by land and by sea. The
land forces were conducted by Appius Marcellus, with sixty galleys, 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
walls, relying 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 request, some little time before, that he should
reduce to practice some part of his admirable speculations in science,
and by accommodating the theoretic truth to sensation and ordinary use,
bring it more within the appreciation of people in general. Eudoxus and
Archytas had been the first originators of this far-famed and highly
prized art of mechanics, which they employed as an elegant illustration
of geometrical truths, and as a means of sustaining experimentally, to
the satisfaction of the senses, conclusions too intricate for proof by
words and diagrams. As, for example, to solve the problem, so often
required in constructing geometrical figures, given the two extreme, to
find the two mean lines of a proportion, both these mathematicians had
recourse to the aid of instruments, 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 annihilation 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 subservience and
depravation) from matter; so it was that mechanics came to be separated
from geometry, and, repudiated and neglected by philosophers, 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. Hiero 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 cord by degrees, he drew the ship in a straight
line, as smoothly and evenly, as if she had been in the sea. The king,
astonished at this, and convinced of the power of the art, prevailed upon
Archimedes to make him engines accommodated to all the purposes,
offensive and defensive, of a siege. These the king himself never made
use of, because he spent almost all his life in a profound quiet, and the
highest affluence. But the apparatus was, in a 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 Syracusans, 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 Sambuca from some resemblance it had to an instrument 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 with a noise like thunder, broke
all its foundation 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 stretched at length in playing his engines, the
soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts would, for want of
sufficient distance to throw them, fly over their heads without effect.
But he, it appeared, had long before framed for such occasion engines
accommodated to any distance, and shorter weapons; and had made numerous
small openings in the walls, 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 indicted 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 provided and fixed most of his
engines immediately under the wall; whence the Romans, seeing that
infinite mischiefs overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to think
they were fighting with the gods.
Yet Marcellus escaped unhurt, and, deriding his own artificers and
engineers, "What," said he, "must we give up fighting 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 hundred-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, repudiating as sordid
and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, 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 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 simple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to his natural
genius; while others think that incredible effort and toil produced
these, to all appearance, easy and unlabored results. No amount of
investigation of yours would succeed in attaining 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 he 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 continued, 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, having 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 opportunity
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 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 of 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 himself of these, Marcellus, about break of day,
entered through the Hexapylum, all his officers congratulating him. But
looking down from the higher places upon the beautiful and spacious city
below, he is said to have wept much, commiserating the calamity that hung
over it, when his thoughts represented 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 orders, 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 sympathy 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 afterward 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 nothing 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 follow to Marcellus; which he
declining to do before he had worked out his problem to a demonstration,
the soldier, enraged, 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
Archimedes 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. Certain 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 excellent 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
anything to do, and such his benignity also to many cities and private
men, that, if anything 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 example of many I will commemorate. In Sicily there is a town called
Engyium, 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 (with the same spelling as in Latin) of
Ulysses, who consecrated them to the goddesses. This city highly
favoring the party of the Carthaginians, Nicias, the most eminent of the
citizens, counseled them to go over to the Romans; to that end acting
freely and openly in harangues to their assemblies, arguing the
imprudence and madness of the opposite course. They, fearing his power
and authority, resolved to deliver him in bonds to the Carthaginians.
Nicias, detecting the design, and seeing that his person was secretly
kept in watch, proceeded to speak irreligiously to the vulgar of the
Mothers, and showed many signs of disrespect, as if he denied and
contemned the received opinion of the presence of those goddesses; his
enemies the while rejoicing, that 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 deliberation, 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 theater struck with horror and silence, throwing
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,
conscious 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 Marcellus at Syracuse. After many other such affronts offered
him by the men of Engyium, 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. Marcellus, 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 triumphal memorials and trophies,
she was no pleasant or delightful spectacle for the eyes of peaceful or
refined spectators: but, as Epaminondas named the fields of Boeotia the
stage of Mars; and Xenophon called Ephesus the workhouse of war; so, in
my judgment, may you call Rome, at that time, (to use the words of
Pindar,) "the precinct of the peaceless Mars." Whence Marcellus 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 anything of
this kind from Tarentum, when he had taken it, 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 criticizing
trifles. And yet, notwithstanding this reprimand, 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 triumphant into the city,
because there were 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 ovation, as it is called in
Latin, in Greek eua; but in this ovation he was 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 achievements, 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 deal of laurel. But they
who, without force, by colloquy, persuasion, and reasoning, had done the
business, to these captains custom gave the honor of the unmilitary 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. It is called ovation, not, as most think, from the Greek
euasmus, because they act it with shouting and cries of Eau: 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 Spartan legislator are,
to those of the Romans. For at Lacedaemon, a captain, who had performed
the work he 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 excellent and more congruous
to man, than one effected by mere force and courage. Which of the two is
to be preferred, I leave to the determination of others.
Marcellus being the fourth time consul, his enemies suborned the
Syracusans to come to Rome to accuse him, and to complain that they had
suffered indignities and wrongs, contrary to the conditions granted them.
It happened that Marcellus 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 colleague, 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 were transacted, rising from his seat, he passed as a private
man into the place where the accused were wont to make their defense, and
gave free liberty to the Syracusans to impeach him. But they, struck
with consternation by his majesty and confidence, 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 lamentation
and complaint; the sum of which was, that being allies and friends of the
people of Rome, they had, notwithstanding, suffered things which other
commanders had abstained from inflicting upon enemies. To this Marcellus
answered; 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 attempts to persuade 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, according 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 Syracusans, besides other signal
honors, made a law, that if Marcellus should at anytime come into Sicily,
or any of his posterity, the Syracusans should wear garlands and offer
public sacrifice to 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
themselves 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 Rome
itself meantime wasted away, (like timid physicians, who, dreading to
administer remedies, 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 money, and three thousand of
Hannibal's soldiers, that were left for the defense. After this, the
proconsul Cnaeus Fulvius with eleven tribunes of the soldiers being slain
in Apulia, and the greatest part of the army also at the same time cut
off, 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 the 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 Lucanians, 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 was 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 could
never circumvent him. By skirmishes, meantime, in all of which he was
superior, Marcellus gained himself such high repute, that, when the time
of the Comitia at Rome was near at hand, the senate thought fit rather to
recall the other consul from Sicily, than to withdraw Marcellus from his
conflict with Hannibal; and on his 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, pronounces him to be dictator, whom he himself chooses. Hence
he is called dictator, dicere 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.
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 dictator:
and the senate, by an express, commanded Marcellus to nominate him. He
obeying proclaimed him dictator according to the order of the people; but
the office of proconsul was continued to himself for a year. And having
arranged with Fabius Maximus, that while he besieged Tarentum, he himself
would, by following 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
everywhere 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. Hannibal, in extreme grief, called his Carthaginians together to
an harangue; and vehemently prayed them, to fight today 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; when 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 there fell two thousand seven
hundred Romans. Marcellus, after he had retreated into his camp, called
his soldiers together; "I see," said he, "many Roman arms and bodies, but
I see not so much as one Roman." To their entreaties for his pardon, he
returned a refusal while they remained beaten, but promised to give it so
soon as they should 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 smarting
than his wounds.
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 his shame, still urges
him to some further enterprise?" 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 round 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, making a fierce impression, pursued the
Carthaginians home 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 Hannibal 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 removed, by gentle marches, into Campania, and spent the summer
at Sinuessa, engaged in restoring them.
But as Hannibal, having disentangled himself from Marcellus, ranged with
his army round about the country, and wasted Italy free from all fear, at
Rome Marcellus 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 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 accused him. 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 Marcellus 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 deceived 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, resenting 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 indeed 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 present 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 his maturity of judgment and
of prudence equal to that of any commander, you might have said, that he
was agitated by a youthful ambition, 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 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 betwixt 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
Petelia, he slew two thousand five hundred soldiers. This incensed
Marcellus to revenge; and he 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 advantageous, 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 commodious 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 spearmen, 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. Marcellus resolved to go, with
a few horse, to view it. Having called a diviner he proceeded to
sacrifice. In the first victim the aruspex 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 declared, 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
was covered with woods all over; on the top of it sat a scout concealed
from the sight of the 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 Fregellans. 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 Fregellans,
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, so soon as he was told of
Marcellus's death, immediately hasted to the hilt. 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 setting upon those that were carrying the urn, took it from
them by force, and cast away the bones; which being told to Hannibal, "It
is impossible, it seems then," he said, "to do anything against the will
of God!" He punished the Numidians; but took no further care of sending
or recollecting the bones; conceiving that Marcellus so fell, and so lay
unburied, by a certain fate. So Cornelius Nepos and Valerius Maximus
have left upon record: but Livy and Augustus Caesar affirm, that the urn
was brought to his son, and honored with a magnificent funeral. Besides
the monuments raised for him at Rome, there was dedicated to his memory
at Catana in Sicily, an ample wrestling place called after him; statues
and pictures, 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 honor even down to
Marcellus, son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, whom she bore to her
husband Caius Marcellus; and who died, a bridegroom, in the year of his
aedileship, having not long before married Caesar's daughter. His
mother, Octavia, dedicated the library to his honor and memory, and
Caesar, the theater which bears his name.
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
These are the memorable things I have found in historians, 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
diversity 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 ample; when,
accompanied by a few horse, he defeated and put to fight 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 achievement of Marcellus, by 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
achievements 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 fight by Pelopidas, is
confessed; whereas, Polybius writes, that Hannibal was never so much as
once vanquished by Marcellus, but remained invincible in all encounters,
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 encounters 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 Carthaginian. 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 let 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 ignominious 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 contemporaries, 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 Pelopidas
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 of right to be attributed to Epaminondas, as was
also the Leuctrian 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, without 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 feeling 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,
as 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 courage, 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
Spaniards 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 off, 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; it is merely an expression of frank indignation
in their own behalf, at seeing them thus wasting all their other virtues
upon that of bravery, and throwing away their 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 admiration 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 personal profit and
advantage that is the real origin of what they do.
ARISTIDES
Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, was of the tribe Antiochis, and
township of Alopece. As to his 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 interred; 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
elation exposed them to envy; third and last, that he left certain
tripods in the temple of Bacchus, offerings for his victory in
conducting the representation of dramatic performances, which were
even in our age still to be seen, retaining this inscription upon
them, "The tribe Antiochis 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 philosopher,
exhibited magnificent shows, the one an entertainment of flute-players
the other of dithyrambic singers; Dion, the Syracusan, supplying the
expenses of the latter, and Pelopidas those of Epaminondas. For good
men do not allow themselves in any inveterate and irreconcilable
hostility to receiving 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 magnificence.
Panaetius, again, shows that Demetrius was deceived 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 defrayed the expense of representing plays and gained
the prize neither of which was the same with the son of Lysimachus;
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 Persian 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, everyone 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 ordinary sense. And,
moreover, Idomeneus says, that Aristides was not made archon by the
lot of the bean, but the free election 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 principles 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
eagerly in everything; the other of a staid and settled temper,
intent on the exercise of justice, not admitting any degree of
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 with 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-defense, and partly to impede his
power from still increasing by the favor of the multitude; esteeming
it better to let slip some public conveniences, rather than that he by
prevailing should become powerful in all things. In fine, when he
once had opposed Themistocles 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 showed was
admirable, not being elated with honors, and demeaning himself
tranquilly and sedately in adversity; holding the opinion that he
ought to offer himself to the service of his country without mercenary
news 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 Aeschylus in the theater, relating to Amphiaraus,
For not at seeming just, but being so
He 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 adversary 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 flee.
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 Idomeneus states; but the
best and chiefest men of the city much resenting it, he was not only
exempted from the fine imposed upon him, but likewise again called to
the same employment. Pretending now to repent him of his former
practice, and carrying himself with more remissness, he became
acceptable 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 Aristides, 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 my office well and faithfully," said he, "I was
insulted and 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 conserve the revenue of the
public." Saying thus, and proceeding to expose the thefts that had
been committed, 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 pretense of punishing 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 appointed by the Athenians for the
war, Militiades 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 everyone, 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 defense,
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 mentioned, that were in the tents and
the vessels which they had taken, he neither felt the desire to meddle
with anything himself, nor suffered others to do it; unless it might
be some who took away anything unknown to him; as Callias, the
torchbearer, 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 Laccopluti, or enriched by the ditch, alluding to the
place where Callias found the gold. Aristides, immediately after
this, was archon; although Demetrius, the Phalerian, says he held the
office a little before he died, after the battle of Plataea. But in
the records of the successors of Xanthippides, in 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 office 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 themselves, 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 happiness, fear, and
honor of him, people would seem to think him blest and happy for his
exemption from death and corruption, 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 makes the life
of such as are in prosperity, power, and authority 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 destroyed 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 humiliation 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 exercised upon base and
villainous 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 greatest 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 ostracon, a sherd, that is, or piece of earthenware,
wrote upon it the citizen's name he would have banished, and carried
it to a certain part of the market-place surrounded with wooden rails.
First, the magistrates numbered 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
enjoyment 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 surprised and asking if
Aristides had ever done him any injury, "None at all," said he,
"neither know I the man; but I am tired of hearing him everywhere
called the Just." Aristides, hearing this, is said to have made no
reply, but returned the sherd with his own name inscribed. At his
departure 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, repealing 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 defense of their liberty. And
afterwards, when Themistocles was general with absolute power, he
assisted him in all ways both in action and counsel; 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 gallies of the barbarians putting out by
night to sea surrounded and beset the narrow passage and islands, and
nobody was aware how they were environed, Aristides, with great
hazard, sailed from Aegina 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 counseling without any delay to engage
in the straits. And in this, though our own party oppose, the enemy
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
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 advice;
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 remarkable persons as were taken alive. Amongst
these were three children of Sandauce, the king's sister, whom he
immediately sent away to Themistocles, and it is stated that in
accordance with a certain oracle, they were, by the command of
Euphrantides, the seer, sacrificed to Bacchus, called Omestes, 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 any 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 dispatched Arnaces, the eunuch, his prisoner, giving 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, and writing messages of defiance to
the Greeks: "You have overcome by sea men accustomed to fight on
land, and unskilled 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, dispatched an embassy to the Athenians, entreating that
they would send their wives and children to Sparta, and receive
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
purchasable 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. Aristides, making this proposal and bringing back
the ambassadors into the assembly, charged them to tell the
Lacedaemonians 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 Mardonius, "as long as
that retains the same course, so long," said he, "shall the citizens
of Athens wage war with the Persians 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 country of Attica, the
people passed over again into the isle of 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 Hyacinthian
festival,) but in the night, selecting five thousand Spartans, each of
whom was attended by seven Helots, they sent them forth unknown to
those from Athens. And when Aristides 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
unseasonably, deluding their friends, instead of their enemies. Thus
says Idomeneus. But in the decree of Aristides, not himself, but
Cimon, Xanthippus, and Myronides are appointed ambassadors.
Being chosen general for the war, he repaired to Plattea, with eight
thousand Athenians, where Pausanias, generalissimo of all Greece,
joined him with the Spartans; and the forces of the other Greeks came
in to them. The whole encampment 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 attempt upon the enemy, but
stood on their defense. But Aristides 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, Leucon,
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 Plataeans, and the cave of the nymphs
Sphragitides was on the top of Mount Cithaeron, on the side facing the
setting sun of summer time; in which place, as the story goes, there
was formerly an oracle, and many that lived in the district were
inspired with it, whom they called Nympholepti, 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 country of Attica. In this
juncture, Arimnestus, who commanded the Plataeans, dreamed that
Jupiter, the Saviour, asked him what the Greeks had resolved upon; and
that he answered, "Tomorrow, my Lord, we march our army to Eleusis,
and there give the barbarians battle according to the directions of
the oracle of Apollo." And that the god replied, they were utterly
mistaken, 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 appeared to Arimnestus, when he awoke he
sent for the most aged and experienced of his countrymen, with whom
communicating 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 Proserpine. 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 movements 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 defense 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 obtained 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 Athenians,
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 ancestors. 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 performances. For we
are come, not to differ with our friends, but to fight our enemies;
not to extol our ancestors, but ourselves 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.
All 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 wealth, 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 accusation might 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, Aeschines of Lampra, and Agesias of Acharnae, made their
escape out of 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 himself much the
stronger, against them, while they were all pitched at the foot of
Mount Cithaeron, 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 Pausanias,
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
proposed 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 defense and succor of the
Megarians. The rest being backward, Aristides undertook the
enterprise for the Athenians, and sent Olympiodorus, the most valiant
of his inferior officers, with three hundred chosen men and some
archers under 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 extraordinary 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 him, and he falling could hardly raise
himself through 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 Persians, 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 fighting a long time;
for the soothsayers, by the sacrifices, foretold 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 in to them, impatient of delay,
determined to lie still no longer, but, passing Asopus by daybreak, 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 Athenian, to him. He coming speedily; "I am,"
said the stranger, "Alexander, king of the Macedonians, and am arrived
here through the greatest danger in the world for the good-will I bear
you, lest a sudden onset should dismay you, so as to behave in the
fight worse than usual. For tomorrow Mardonius 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 unfavorable; and the army is in despondency and
consternation; but necessity forces him to try his fortune, or sit
still and endure the 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 and kindness towards them. After this, the king
of the Macedonians 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 Aristides, 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;
because, 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 barbarians, and such as were by nature
their enemies? After this, the Athenians very readily changed places
with the Lacedaemonians, 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 bodies 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 defense 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 Thebans, understanding it by some deserters,
forthwith acquainted Mardonius; and he, either for fear of the
Athenians, 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, wheeling about again, ranged himself on
the right, and Mardonius, also, as at first, took the left wing over
against the Lacedaemonians. 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 encamping, the soldiers were not
very ready to follow, and keep in a body, but, as 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
Amompharetus, a brave and daring man, who had long been burning with
desire of the fight, and resented their many lingerings 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 these things by the common vote and
determination of the Greeks, Amompharetus 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 consultations 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 himself 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 shouting 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 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 immediately, or in
a body, to their 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
Lacedaemonians, 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 defense of Greece) but that he died without action. The
case was indeed hard, and the forbearance of the men wonderful; 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 Pausanias was at sacrifice 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 procession, are to this day practiced in Sparta.
Pausanias, therefore, being troubled at these things, while the priest
went on offering one sacrifice after another, turns himself towards
the 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 Greeks to obtain the
victory, that they might not perish, without performing some
remarkable thing, and by their actions demonstrating to their enemies,
that they waged war with men of courage, and soldiers. While
Pausanias was thus in the act of supplication, the sacrifices appeared
propitious, and the soothsayers foretold victory. The word being
given, the Lacedaemonian battalion of foot seemed, on the sudden, like
some one fierce animal, setting up his bristles, and betaking himself
to the combat; and the barbarians perceived that they encountered with
men who would fight it to the death. Therefore, holding their
wicker-shields before them, they shot their arrows amongst the
Lacedaemonians. 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
Persians, 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, and betook themselves not
without effect to the sword; and making use of their falchions and
scimitars, and wresting the Lacedaemonians' shields from them, and
grappling with them, it was a long time that they made resistance.
Meanwhile, for some time, the Athenians stood still, waiting for the
Lacedaemonians to come up. But when they heard much noise as of men
engaged in fight, and a messenger, they say, came from 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 considerable space
before the rest, 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. For Mardonius sent a Lydian thither, and another
person, a Carian, 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 within 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: 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 inexperienced 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 Aeantis, that fought,
says Clidemus, with 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, therefore, upon what 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 obtained by all
in general; and if the rest had been standing still, while the
inhabitants of three cities only had been engaged 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 Boedromion,
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 freedom. 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 amongst the armed Greeks; had
not Aristides, by much soothing and counseling the commanders,
especially Leocrates and Myronides, pacified and persuaded them to
leave the thing to the decision of the Greeks. And on 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 counseled to take away all contention by giving them
the reward and glory of the victory, whose being honored could be
distasteful 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 temple and dedicated the
image to Minerva, and adorned the temple with pictures, which even to
this very day retain their luster. 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
sacrifice till they had extinguished the fires throughout the country,
as having been defiled by the barbarians, and had kindled unpolluted
fire at the common altar at Delphi. The magistrates of Greece,
therefore, went forthwith and compelled such as had fire to put it
out; and Euchidas, a Plataean, promising to fetch fire, with 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 furlongs;
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, and, dying
a virgin, was worshipped by the Boeotians and Locrians. Her altar and
image are set up in all their marketplaces, and those of both sexes
that are about marrying, sacrifice to her before the nuptials.
A general assembly of all the Greeks being called, Aristides proposed
a decree, that the deputies and religious representatives 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 spearmen, 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 begin
ratified, the Plataeans undertook the performance of annual sacrifice
to such as were slain and buried in that place; which they still
perform in the following manner. On the sixteenth day of Maemacterion
(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 vessels, and jars of
oil and precious ointments, none of servile condition being permitted
to have any hand in this ministration, because the men died in defense
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 appareled in a purple robe;
and, taking a water-pot out of the city record-office, he proceeds,
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 monument, and sacrificing the bull upon a pile of wood, and
making supplication to Jupiter and Mercury of the earth, invites those
valiant men who perished in the defense of Greece, to the banquet and
the libations of blood. After this, mixing a bowl of wine, and
pouring out for himself, he says, "I drink to those who lost their
lives for the liberty of Greece." These solemnities the Plataeans
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
Themistocles telling the people in assembly that he had some advice
for them, which could not be given in public, but was most important
for the advantage and security of the city, 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, Aristides, 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 considerate 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 tyranny 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 attention 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 command, 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
Antagoras of Chios, conspiring together, ran in near Byzantium on
Pausanias's galley, getting her between them as she was sailing before
the rest. But when Pausanias, beholding them, rose up and furiously
threatened soon to make them know 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 indicting on him the
punishment he deserved. In fine, they all went off and joined the
Athenians. And here the magnanimity of the Lacedaemonians 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 any more of them to the
wars, choosing rather to have citizens of moderation and consistent in
the observance 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 without
corruption and injustice, but to the satisfaction and convenience 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 especially, 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 coming in from
their confederates six hundred talents. But after 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 people 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; a
retaliation, though not in the same kind, for some free words which
Aristides had used. For he, when Themistocles once 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 necessary, 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 was, in his own private affairs,
and those of his fellow-citizens, rigorously just, but that in public
matters he acted often in accordance with his country's policy, which
demanded, sometimes, not a little injustice. It is reported of him
that he said in a debate, upon the motion of the Samians for removing
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 torchbearer, 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, beside 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 him 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 Callias, perceiving the judges were moved
more particularly by this, and were 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 refused,
answering, that it became him better to be proud of 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 poverty 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 Aeschines, the scholar of
Socrates, writes. But Plato declares, that of all the great and
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 towards 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 prosperity.
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 veneration amongst his fellow-citizens. But Craterus, the
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 multitude, whom
their good fortune and power had filled with self-conceit. Amongst
these, Aristides was condemned of bribery, upon the accusation of
Diophantus of Amphitrope, for taking money from the Ionians when he
was collector of the tribute; and being unable to pay the fine, which
was fifty minae, 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
tolerably 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, collect 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, who, upon receiving
sentence, killed himself on the hustings, with many things of the like
nature. They add the banishment 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 planted land, and ordered him besides,
upon the motion of Alcibiades, four drachmas a day. Furthermore,
Lysimachus leaving a daughter, named Polycrite, as Callisthenes says,
the people voted her, also, the same allowance for food with those
that obtained the victory 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 Iaccheum, and sustained himself by a
table for interpreting dreams; and that, upon his proposal and
representations, 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
diem. 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
granddaughter 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 given numerous proofs, and is
justly admired and respected in consequence.
MARCUS CATO
Marcus Cato, we are told, was born at Tusculum, 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 account
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 themselves 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
asserted 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 skillful or experienced man, Catus.
He was of a ruddy complexion, and gray-eyed; as the writer, who, with
no good-will, made the following epigram upon him, lets us see:--
Porcius, who snarls at all in every place,
With his gray eyes, and with his fiery face,
Even after death will scarce admitted be
Into the infernal realms by Hecate.
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 troth of health and strength. And he
exerted and practiced his eloquence through all the neighborhood and
little villages; thinking it as requisite as a second body, and an
all but necessary organ 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 concerned, and claimed, as it
were, employment in great affairs, 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
proceeded from such kind of combats, seeming much more desirous 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 seventeen 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 countenance 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 provisions for his
table, with whom he is said never to have been angry or hasty, whilst
he made ready his dinner or supper, 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 triumphs, 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 supper, had no
need of gold; and that he thought it more honorable 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 his labor, and
retrench all superfluous expenses.
When Fabius Maximus took Tarentum, Cato, being then but a youth, was
a soldier under him; and being lodged with one Nearchus, a
Pythagorean, desired to understand some of his doctrine, and hearing
from him the language, which Plato 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 off 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
rhetoric, to have then profited a little by Thucydides, but more by
Demosthenes: his writings, however, are considerably embellished
with Greek sayings and stories; nay, many of these, translated word
for word, are placed with his own apothegms and sentences.
There was a man of the highest rank, and very influential among the
Romans, called Valerius Flaccus, who was singularly skillful 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 betimes 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 anything on among his domestics, sit down with
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 chiefly assisting his promotion,
he first of all got appointed tribune in the army, and afterwards was
made quaestor, or treasurer. And now becoming eminent and noted, he
passed, with Valerius 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 Maximus; not so
much for the honor of his person, and greatness 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 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 considered, but that he was
corrupting the ancient frugality of the soldiers, by giving them the
means to abandon themselves to unnecessary 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. Hereupon 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
negligent in things of consequence and moment, without impediment,
set sail towards 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 his ambition rather on doing without luxuries than on possessing
them. For now the state, unable to keep its purity by reason of its
greatness, and having so many affairs, and people 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
greyheaded, after a consulship and triumph; like some famous victor
in the games, persevering in his exercise and 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 market
for his dinner, did not cost above thirty asses. All which was for
the sake of the commonwealth, that so his body might be the hardier
for the war. Having a piece of embroidered Babylonian 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 a house. In short, he reckoned nothing a good
bargain, 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 certainly, in my judgment, it
marks an over-rigid temper, for a man to take the work out of his
servants as out of brute beasts, 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 care 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 observed 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
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
worn out or broken with service; but if it were for nothing else, but
by 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 so 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 commanded 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 government of Sardinia, where his predecessors had been used
to require tents, bedding, and clothes upon the 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 something incredible. 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
the 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 were under his power, he, on the other hand, showed most
inflexible severity and strictness, in what related to public
justice, and was rigorous, 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.
His very manner of speaking seemed to have such a kind of idea with
it; for it was courteous, and yet forcible; pleasant, yet
overwhelming; facetious, yet austere; sententious, and yet vehement:
like 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
move 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 sumptuous 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 women command us." But this, indeed, is borrowed from the
sayings of Themistocles, who, when his son was making many demands of
him by means of the mother, said, "O woman, 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, since, 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 what
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 and vice had made them great, they
should change for the 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 without 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: "It is considered," he said, "rather as a curse
than a blessing 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
regard him 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 kind of man-eater;" nor, indeed,
were there ever kings who deserved to be compared with Epaminondas,
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
Achaean exiles, and there happening to be a great discussion in the
senate about it, some being for, and some against their return; Cato,
standing 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 Achaea." The senate voting their return, it seems that a
few days after Polybius's friends further wished that it should be
moved in the senate, that the said banished persons should receive
again the honors which they first had in Achaea; and, to this
purpose, they sounded Cato for his opinion; but he, smiling,
answered, that Polybius, Ulysses-like, having escaped out of the
Cyclops' den, wanted, it would seem, to go back again because he had
left his cap 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 profess, 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 acquaintance, 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 himself 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 poisoner, 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." Being 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 such, and
unusual to hear them." Such was his manner of expressing himself in
his memorable sayings.
Being chosen consul, with his friend and familiar Valerius Flaccus,
the government of that part of Spain which the Romans call the Hither
Spain, fell to his lot. Here, as he was engaged in reducing some of
the tribes by force, and bringing over others by good words, a large
army of barbarians fell upon him, so that there was danger of being
disgracefully forced out again. He therefore called upon his
neighbors, the Celtiberians, for help; and on their demanding two
hundred talents for their assistance, everybody else thought it
intolerable, that ever the Romans should promise barbarians a reward
for their aid; but Cato said, there was no discredit or harm in it;
for if they overcame, they would 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
succeeded splendidly. Polybius says, that by his command the walls
of all the cities, on this side the river Baetis, 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 anything, 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, whiles 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 authority. But he, taking with him a
convoy of five cohorts of foot, and five hundred horse to attend him
home, overthrew by the way the Lacetanians, and salting from them six
hundred deserters, caused them all to be beheaded; upon which Scipio
seemed to be in indignation, but Cato, in mock disparagement of
himself, said, "Rome would become 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 manner 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 vainglory, and having attained the highest honors, as
the consulship and triumphs, pass the rest 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 accompanied 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 anyone struck terror into the
Romans. For having reduced once more under a single command almost
the whole of Asia, all, namely, that Seleucus Nicator had possessed,
and having brought into obedience many warlike nations 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
independent, with the free use of their own laws, by the goodness of
the Romans themselves; so that all Greece was in commotion 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 innovators, without any trouble. Cato brought over
the Corinthians, those of Patrae and of Aegium, and spent a good deal
of time at Athens. There is also an oration of 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 Athenians, and signified
that he came with a great deal of pleasure to be a spectator of the
beauty and greatness of their city. But this is a fiction; for he
spoke to the Athenians by an interpreter, 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. Jesting upon Postumius Albinus, who had written a 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 done
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, thinking 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 Persians 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 despondency.
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 moonshine, 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 enemy'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 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 his 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
formed 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 understand
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 Aetolians. 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 enemy, 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 meantime, 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 paths 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,
crowding 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 oversparing 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 particular 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
traveled 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 were 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 criminals. 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 calumnies 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 tribunes 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 lived with one generation of men, to plead now before
another. Neither did he make this the last of his lawsuits; for,
four years after, when he was fourscore and ten, he accused 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 even to Scipio the younger, who was the
adopted grandson of the former, and the son of that Paulus, who
overthrew Perseus 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 everyone'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 according 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 patricians, the other
out of the commons, who were to watch, correct, and punish, if any
one ran too much into voluptuousness, 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 intemperately and out of order. It was also their business
to take an estimate of what everyone 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, who 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 seven 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. Cato, on the contrary, promising no such mildness, but
plainly threatening evil livers, from the very hustings openly
declared himself; and exclaiming, that the city needed a great and
thorough purgation, called upon the 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 end
grim countenance of Cato, but rejecting those smooth promisers who
were ready to do all things to ingratiate themselves, they took him,
together 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 colleague 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 consulship) 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 wee in
his cups, told him he loved him so dearly that, "though there was a
show of gladiators to be seen at Rome, and I," 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, indeed, in his dialogue de Senectute, 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
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 his 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 theater, 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 people, 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 a
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 retrenching people's luxury; for
though (most of the youth being thereby already corrupted) it seemed
almost impossible to 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 making the assess-ments greater,
to increase the taxes paid upon them. He also ordained that upon
every thousand asses of 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 prodigality.
And thus, on the one side, not only those were disgusted at Cato, who
bore the taxes for the sake of their luxury, 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 taking away 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 for 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 own
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 public works to the lowest, and raised it in contracts
for farming the taxes to the highest sum; by which proceedings he
drew a great deal of hatred on himself. Those who were of Titus
Flamininus's party canceled 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 two talents. They likewise much opposed him in
building the court or basilica, which he caused to be erected at the
common charge, just by the senate-house, in the market-place, and
called by his 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 inscription
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; "I would," said he, "much rather
be asked, why I have 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 the commonwealth. Yet still he had
passed the highest commendation on himself; for he tells us that
those who did anything wrong, and were found fault with, used to
say, it was not worthwhile 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 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
consequently 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-witted.
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 produce, 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 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 anything obscene
before his son, than if it had been in the presence of the sacred
virgins, 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 themselves.
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 requiring of him any very austere way
of living. However, though delicate in health, he proved a stout man
in the field, and behaved himself valiantly when Paulus Aemilius
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 moistness,
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
recovery of his sword. Afterwards he married Tertia, Aemilius
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 colts. None of these ever
entered another man's house, except sent either by Cato himself or
his wife. If any one of 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, accounting them more docile
than those who were wakeful, and more fit for anything 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
connections out of the house. At first, when he was but a poor
soldier, he would not be difficult in anything 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 colleagues 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 anything 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 used 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; and 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 that
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 to 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 this kind of
temper, he used to tell him, that it was not like a man, but rather
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 godlike 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 talents laid on the Athenians, in a suit,
to which they did not appear, in which the Oropians were plaintiffs,
and Sicyonians judges. All the most studious youth immediately
waited on these philosophers, and frequently, with admiration, heard
them speak. But the gracefulness of Carneades's oratory, whose
ability was really greatest, and his reputation equal to it, gathered
large and favorable audiences, and erelong 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
welcomely the Greek literature, and frequent the company of learned
men. But Cato, on the other side, seeing this 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 increased 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 presence, 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 dispatched, though they
were persons that could easily persuade the people 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 hitherto, 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, scoffed at the Greek studies and literature; as, for example,
he would say, that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did
his best to tyrannize over his country, to undermine the ancient
customs, and to entice and withdraw 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 destroyed when they began once to be infected with
Greek literature; though time indeed has shown the vanity of this his
prophecy; as, in truth, the city of Rome has risen to its highest
fortune, while entertaining Grecian learning. Nor had he an aversion
only against the Greek philosophers, but the physicians 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 would
never assist barbarians who were enemies to the Greeks; he affirmed,
that this was now become a common oath taken by all physicians, and
enjoined 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 anyone, 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, address himself to women, and when
he was past a lover's age, married a young woman, upon the following
pretense. Having lost his own wife, he married his son to the
daughter of Paulus Aemilius, 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-law 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 perceiving and understanding that what he did was
disliked, without finding any fault, or saying a word, went away
as his custom 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 consulted 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, Salonius 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 off 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 bargain.
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
offense he brought in a stepmother upon him? But Cato cried out, "Far
from it, my son, I have no fault to find with you nor anything 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
whom he had, it is said, Iophon 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; so 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
anything; but as one persuaded Dionysius, 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 affairs; though he would, now and then, when he had
leisure, recreate himself with 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 following 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 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 occasion 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
destroyed." 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 overpowerful 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.
This 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 praetor, 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.
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 circumstances in which they resemble each
other. If, however, we examine them in detail as we might some piece
of poetry, 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
Zeugitae, 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 plow 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 before seven most noble and eminent pretenders to be
censor. But Aristides 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 engagements, 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. Lycurgus 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 supply of all necessary and
useful things for all persons, as much as any other lawmaker 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 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 households, 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 my delight,
And wars, and darts, and arrows of the fight:
as if the same characters carelessly neglected their own estates, 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 himself 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
preferments. But Aristides, who was the principal man of Greece,
through extreme poverty reduced some of his to get their living 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 dishonorable not
in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intemperance, 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 himself 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. For as a body bred to a good habit requires nothing
exquisite 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 himself, 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 halfpenny,
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 barbarian, or seizing one tent, have become
wealthy. But enough of this.
Cato's expeditions added no great matter to the 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 Grecians 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: because 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 absurd to praise and dispraise one's self:
yet he who does not so much as desire others' praises, seems to 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 inflicted 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
presence were unworthy. For the reason he pretended to his son was
false: for if he desired to get more as worthy children, 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 one whose affinity
might be honorable to him.
PHILOPOEMEN
Cleander was a man of high birth and great power in the city of
Mantinea, but by the chances of the time happened to be driven from
thence. There being an intimate friendship 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
was educated by him, as Homer says Achilles was by Phoenix, and from
his infancy molded to lofty and noble inclinations. 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 government and happily settling their
commonwealth. And among their best actions they themselves counted
the education 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 latter birth brought
forth, after so many noble leaders, in her decrepit 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 forthwith
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 the common anecdotes told of Philopoemen.
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 which 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 childhood, and he studied and practiced all that belonged to it,
taking great delight in managing of horses, and handling of weapons.
Because he was naturally fitted to excel in wrestling, 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
when 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
Lacedaemonians 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 way, 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
plow; 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 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
temptation 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 reading, unless undertaken for mere amusement and idle
conversation, 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 considering, as he traveled,
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 operations 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 marketplace. 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 came 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, erelong force him
away, since there was no staying to guard empty houses and naked
walls. These reasons withheld the Megalopolitans, but gave 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 advantageously 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 fighters, 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 commanders to the attack. Euclidas,
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 hare-brained fellow,
(as indeed he was not yet of any repute sufficient to give credit to
a proposal of such importance,) he charged with his own citizens, and
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 watercourses
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 struggled
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 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 happened 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 reputation.
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 practice' sake he passed over thither.
He spent some time among those very warlike, and, at the same time,
sober and temperate 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 horsemen 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, speaking 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 wonderfully 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 Aetolians and Eleans by the river
Larissus, he set them an example himself. Damophantus, 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 everybody'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 than whom there came not into the field any better
soldier or commander.
Aratus, indeed, was the first who raised the Achaeans, inconsiderable
till then, into reputation and power, by uniting their divided cities
into one commonwealth, and establishing amongst them a humane and
truly Grecian form of government; 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 relying only on itself, all Greece was giving way to an easy
dissolution, the Achaeans, first forming themselves into a body, then
drawing in their neighbors round about, some by protection,
delivering them from their tyrants, others by peaceful 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 continually in whatever concerned the affairs of
Greece. But when Philopoemen came to command, the Achaeans, feeling
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 Achaeans, 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, too narrow to
cover the body, and javelins much shorter than pikes. By which means
they were skillful 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
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
furniture of their houses, and service of their tables, and to glory
in outdoing one another, the disease by custom was grown incurable,
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 breastplates, 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
proceeded to train them, mustering and exercising them perpetually;
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, becoming 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. When intelligence came that
he was fallen upon the Mantineans, Philopoemen forthwith took the
field, and marched towards him. They met near Mantinea, 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 immediately into the main battle,
which stood close and firm, he hotly followed the chase; and instead
of attacking the Achaeans, 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 observing
the enemy's oversight, who 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 flanks
quite bare, he charged suddenly, and surprised them without a
commander, and not so much as expecting an encounter, as, when they
saw Machanidas 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 happened 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 defense of some
wild beast, brought to bay by the keen huntsman Philopoemen, 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 Simmias and Polyaenus, who used to fight by the side
of Philopoemen, came up on horseback to his assistance. But
Philopoemen, before either of them, himself met Machanidas; and
perceiving that the horse with his head high reared, covered his
master's body, he 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 precise 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
maneuvers of a battle with wonderful order, strength, and celerity.
After which he went into the theater, 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 the
poet, was in the act of commencing the Persians of Timotheus,
Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was free.
The whole theater at once turned to look at Philopoemen, and clapped
with delight; their hopes venturing once more to return to their
country's former reputation; and their feelings almost rising to the
height of their ancient spirit.
It was with the Achaeans 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 several occasions, were frighted with his very name.
Thus we find that Philip, king of Macedon, thinking to terrify the
Achaeans into subjection again, if he could rid his hands of
Philopoemen, 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 groundless 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
of command. He tried to persuade Lysippus, then General 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 commission 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
stealing out of the furthest gate with his men, marched away with 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 Philopoemen. 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
encamping almost at their gates, they were forced to keep themselves
within their walls, and sow their very streets. And he in the mean
time, across the seas, waging war and commanding 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 Philopoemen 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,
suggesting to them to urge that from the beginning they were not
subject to their taxes, or laws, or any way under their command. In
these pretenses 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 Arcadian, 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 bravery, 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
Achaeans. He was at once chosen general against Nabis, but venturing
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 statements, was backward by
design, unwilling to give his countrymen 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 experience 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 rough 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 nature of the place, he immediately relieved himself from
every difficulty, and then charging, put the 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 scatteringly 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 disposed of
every one, they were caught like birds ere they could enter into the
town.
These actions obtained him distinguished marks of affection and honor
in all the theaters 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 circumvented and slain by
the Aetolians. 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
confederacy 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 hundred and twenty silver
talents by the sale of the house and goods of Nabis, they decreed him
the money, and sent a deputation in the name of the city to present
it. But here the honesty of Philopoemen showed itself clearly to be
a real, uncounterfeited 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 it 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, and the simplicity of his habits,
judging him to be utterly inaccessible to any such considerations, he
said nothing, but pretending 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 seditious 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 Antiochus 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 Laconia, marched directly to Sparta.
Philopoemen, upon this, took, in his indignation, 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 territory 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 insult over them, built a
colonnade at Megalopolis. Lastly, unworthily trampling upon the
Lacedaemonians in their calamities, and gratifying his hostility by a
most oppressive and arbitrary action, he abolished the 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 humbling their haughty spirits.
In their present distress and adversity 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, spending his time in unseasonable
courtship and weddings, while his men lay dispersed in several towns,
without order or commanders, and minding nothing but their pleasures.
He complained 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 harder 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 sometimes yielding, but still steering steady; and omitting
no opportunity nor effort to keep all who were considerable, whether
for eloquence or riches, fast to the defense 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 displeased 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 beholden to him and the Achaeans, not to Titus and the
Romans. For when he came to be General himself, he restored them.
So impatient was his spirit of any subjection, and so prone his
nature to contest everything 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 magistracy, 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 the in 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 Achaeans, 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
movements 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
difficulty, with much spurring, 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
arms, and faint, upon a hard and rugged piece of ground. His head
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 Philopoemen 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 formitable to Dinocrates, who had
taken him prisoner, should he after this misfortune, regain his
liberty. They 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 send and demand him; and, in the meantime, drew their army
together for his rescue.
While these things passed in Achaea, Dinocrates, fearing 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 oppressed with grief and trouble; but seeing light, and
a man with poison by him, struggled to sit up; and, taking the cup,
asked the man if he heard anything of the horsemen, particularly
Lycortas? 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 without a word
more, drank it off, and laid him down, again. His weakness offering
but little resistance to the poison, it dispatched him presently.
The news of his death filled all Achaea 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. They
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 tortured, Lycortas put in chains and reserved for
severer punishment. 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 general's son, carried the urn, so
covered with garlands and ribbons as scarcely to be visible; and the
noblest of the Achaeans accompanied him. The soldiers followed fully
armed and mounted, with looks neither altogether sad as in mourning,
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 honorably 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 neither Mummius nor the lieutenants would
suffer the honorable monuments of so great a man to be defaced,
though he had often crossed both Titus and Manius. They justly
distinguished, and as became honest men, betwixt usefulness and
virtue, -- what is good in itself, and what is profitable to
particular 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
What 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 inscription 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
obliging 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 anything of a greater and more
extraordinary nature were to be done, he was eager to be the doer of
it himself; and took more pleasure in those that needed, than in
those that were capable 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 well of Tarentum, then retaken, as of the country about
it, grew no less famous for his administration of justice, than for
his military skill. This obtained him the office of leader and
founder 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 was usual first to pass
through, the offices of tribune of the people, praetor and aedile,
and to level his aim immediately at the consulship. 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 government, should, in contempt of the laws, intrude and
force himself 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 Aelius. 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
persuasion 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 (which had not
hitherto held much correspondence with the Romans, but first began an
intercourse on this occasion) would not so soon have embraced 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 than 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 particulars.
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; and then, too, had not set their
hands properly to the war, but had kept skirmishing and scouting here
and there for passes and provisions, 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 protracting 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 expedition three thousand still young and
vigorous soldiers, of 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 anything against him. Titus therefore took upon himself
the conduct of the army, and, having dismissed 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
anything, as his predecessor had done before him, embraced the
resolution of forcing his way over the mountains. But Philip, having
possessed himself of them with his army, showered down his darts and
arrows from all parts upon the Romans. Sharp encounters took place,
and many fell wounded and slain on both sides, and there seemed but
little likelihood of thus ending the war; when some of the men, who
fed their cattle thereabouts, came to Titus with a discovery, that
there was a roundabout way 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 hills. 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 privy to the design.
Titus gave their information belief, and sent a captain with four
thousand foot, and three hundred horse; 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, was 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.
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 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 mountains, burnt down the towns
themselves, and gave up as spoil to his soldiers all the property
which it had been found impossible 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 Aetolians, 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, entrusted 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 barbarian 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 favorable 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 comply with, now after these proposals, the universal belief even
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 courteous
manner, but kept going gently on, questioning and inquiring of them,
and sometimes entertaining them with narratives 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 satisfaction; 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 Attalus 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 dispatched away
agents on his part, too, to solicit the senate, if they should
continue the war, to continue him in his command, 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
transacted matters so well on his behalf, that Philip was
unsuccessful 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-six
thousand men, out of which the Aetolians furnished six thousand foot
and four hundred horse. The forces of Philip were much about the
same number. In this eagerness to encounter, they advanced against
each other, till both were near Scotussa, where they resolved to
hazard a battle. Nor had the approach of these two formidable armies
the effect that might have been supposed, to strike into the generals
a mutual 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 different from the Persians, hoped, if
victory stood on their side, to make the name of Philip more glorious
than that of Alexander. 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 theater 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 before an engagement, and
to be the better heard, (whether it were merely a mischance, or the
result of unseasonable haste, not observing what 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 vicissitudes 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 phalanx, 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 broken up by
the hilliness of the place, Titus observing it, and cherishing 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 inequality 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
Macedonian 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, because 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 flanks 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 Aetolians 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 completely, that when the
others returned, they found no booty in it.
This bred at first hard words, quarrels, and misunderstandings
betwixt them. But, afterwards, they galled Titus more, by ascribing
the victory to themselves, and prepossessing 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 Aetolians foremost. 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 Aetolians and the Latin band,
That came with Titus 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, exaggerating the
number of the slain. 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: --
Naked and leafless see, O passer-by,
The cross that shall Alcaeus crucify.
But such little matters extremely fretted Titus, who was ambitious of
a reputation among the Greeks; and he, therefore, acted in all
after-occurrences by himself, paying but very slight regard to the
Aetolians. 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 Aetolians 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 Aetolians 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 thousand 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 Roman 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 magnitude 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 prudence and foresight, lent all ear to peace, and had
Antiochus found the Romans still at war in Greece with Philip, and
had these two, the most powerful and warlike 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, dispatching the
present danger before the new one had arrived, at once disappointed
Antiochus of his first hopes, and Philip of his last.
When the ten commissioners, delegated to Titus from the 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 Aetolians, on this, breaking out into
loud accusations, agitated all the cities, calling upon Titus to
strike off 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
benefactor, who had unshackled the feet of Greece, and tied her up by
the neck? Titus, vexed and angry at this, made it his request to the
senate, and at last prevailed in it, that the garrisons 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 racecourse 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,
stepping 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, Achaeans 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, and
can no longer give support to the birds; but lets them tumble, like
one that should attempt to walk upon a vacuum; unless we should
rather imagine them to fall and die, shot with the noise as with a
dart. It is possible, too, that there may be a circular agitation of
the air, which, like marine whirlpools, 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 beset 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 defense of her liberty, and yet was never perhaps
mistress of a more settled or grateful one that 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 success 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 Thermopylae, 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 people,
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 Greece 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 Titus by his
actions made good what had been proclaimed. For he immediately
dispatched away Lentulus to Asia, to set the Bargylians free,
Titillius to Thrace, to see the garrisons 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,
dismantled 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 over the Macedonians did not seem to give him
a more lively pleasure, than to find himself prevalent in reconciling
Greeks with Greeks; 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 rescued 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 people
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
governments alone, or by single cities; but kings oppressed by kings,
cast themselves into these protecting hands. Insomuch 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,
Titus, of great Aeneas' race, leaves this
In honor of the liberty of Greece.
He offered also to Apollo a golden crown, with this inscription: --
This golden crown upon thy locks divine,
O blest Latona's son, was set to shine
By the great captain of the Aenean name.
O Phoebus, grant the noble Titus fame!
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 Isthmian 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 Nabis, that
most profligate and lawless tyrant of the Lacedaemonians, 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 himself 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 theaters, and put into the same balance
of glory with Titus,) touched him to the quick; and that he scorned
that an ordinary Arcadian, who had but commanded in a few re-
encounters 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 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, redeeming 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 succeeding 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 procession. 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 afterwards 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 sedition and revolt;
abetted in all and seconded by the Aetolians, who for this long time
had borne a grudge and secret enmity to the Romans, and now suggested
to him, by 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 great apprehension of revolutions and revolt in Greece,
and of his great reputation for military strength, 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, by the use of the strong
remedy of their own affection for himself, he was able to arrest in
the first stage of the disease, before they had committed themselves
to any great error. Some few there were whom the Aetolians were
beforehand with, and had so wholly perverted that he could do no good
with them; yet these, however angry and exasperated before, he saved
and protected when the engagement 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 Aetolians, while king Philip had permission to reduce
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 Aetolians' 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 sit 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 matter so effectually with Manius, that he won him over
from his passion, and prevailed with him to give a truce and time to
the Aetolians, 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 Chalcidians, 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 of one Cleoptolemus, and is said to have been
wonderfully beautiful. 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 Asia. And now Manius's
indignation carrying him in all haste against the Chalcidians, Titus
hurried after him, endeavoring to pacify and to entreat him; and, at
length, succeeded both with him and the chief men among the Romans.
The Chalcidians, thus owing their lives to Titus, dedicated 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 TITUS 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 formally
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 Io-Paeans too
Unto the Roman Faith are due,
O Savior Titus, and to you.
Other parts of Greece also heaped honors upon him suitable 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 matters 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 vented 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 Achaeans 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 Titus, "you have left yourself alone by killing your
friends." At another time, Dinocrates the Messenian, having drunk
too much at a merry-meeting in Rome, danced there in 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 purposes on his hands should be able to dance
and sing at drinking parties." When, again, the ambassadors of
Antiochus were recounting to those of Achaea, the various multitudes
composing their royal master's forces, and ran over a long catalog 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 Antiochus's lancers, and pikemen, and foot guards, I advise
you not to be surprised; since in fact they are all Syrians
differently armed."
After his achievements in Greece, and when the war with Antiochus was
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 Terentius 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,
Africanus Scipio and Marcus Cato, were at variance. Titus named
Scipio first member of the senate; and involved himself 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, preferring
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, answered, "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 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
banqueting-room, and killed him with his own hand, to gratify his
paramour. Cato, it is probable, might say this by way 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 account of the matter.
However, this is certain; Cato during his censorship, made a severe
scrutiny into the senators' lives in order to the purging 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 suppliant 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 answering 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
winning over a major part of the senate, he revoked and made void all
the contracts, leases, and bargains made by Cato, relating to the
public revenues, and also got numerous actions and accusations
brought against him; carrying on against a lawful magistrate and
excellent citizen, 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 theater, at which the senators appeared as usual,
sitting, as became their rank, in the first seats, when Lucius was
spied at the lower end, seated in a mean, dishonorable place, it made
a great 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 with 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 countries, 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 Hannibal's end: --
Libyssan shall Hannibal enclose.
He interpreted this to be meant of the African Libya, and that he
should be buried in Carthage; as if he might yet expect 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 staying here, and having 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, and running a considerable distance in various opposite
directions, 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 completely strangled him. Others 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 into 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 venous are the reports of Hannibal's death; but when the news of
it came to the senators' ears, some felt indignation against Titus
for it, blaming as well his officiousness 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 battle, 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
afterwards, 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,
"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 Hannibal 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 remains 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 enemy, 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 accordingly 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 anything 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
Philopoemen.
COMPARISON OF PHILOPOEMEN WITH FLAMININUS
First, then, as for the greatness of the benefits which Titus
conferred on Greece, neither Philopoemen, nor many 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 Philopoemen went over into Crete, destitute of means
to succor his besieged 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, whilst he 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 Aetolians, and stood their
friend; but Philopoemen, exasperated against his country, deprived it
of its supremacy over the adjacent villages. Titus was ever constant
to those he had once befriended, the other, upon any offense, as
prone to cancel kindnesses. He who had once been a benefactor 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 presence, so much were they owing to
his skill. Besides, Titus got his renown, assisted by the power of a
flourishing Rome; the other flourished under a declined Greece, so
that his successes may be accounted his own; in Titus's 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 being 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 them 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; whereas Philopoemen was forced to
introduce a discipline and tactics of his own, and to new-mold 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 provided for his benefit. Philopoemen effected many
gallant things with his own hand, but Titus none; so much so that one
Archedemus, an Aetolian, made it a jest against him that while he,
the Aetolian, 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 governor,
and as an ambassador; but Philopoemen was no less serviceable and
useful to the Achaeans in the capacity of a private man, than in that
of a commander. He was a private 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 command by the governed, but
employed their service, if occasion required, at his own discretion;
judging that he who understood their real interests, was more truly
their supreme magistrate, 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
Philopoemen, 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 incur the anger of
the powerful. To conclude, since it does not appear to be easy, by
any review or discussion, to establish the true difference of their
merits, and decide to which a preference is due, will it be an unfair
award in the case, if we let the Greek bear away the crown for
military conduct and warlike skill, and the Roman for justice and
clemency?
PYRRHUS
Of the Thesprotians and Molossians after the great inundation, the
first king, according to some historians, was Phaethon, one of those
who came into Epirus with Pelasgus. Others tell us that Deucalion
and Pyrrha, having set up the worship of Jupiter at Dodona, settled
there among the Molossians. In after time, Neoptolemus, Achilles's
son, planting a colony, possessed these parts himself, and left a
succession of kings, who, after him, were named Pyrrhidae; as he in
his youth was called Pyrrhus, and of his legitimate children, one
born of Lanassa, daughter of Cleodaeus, Hyllus's son, had also that
name. From him, Achilles came to have divine honors in Epirus, under
the name of Aspetus, in the language of the country. After these
first kings, those of the following intervening times becoming
barbarous, and insignificant both in their power and their lives,
Tharrhypas is said to have been the first, who by introducing Greek
manners and learning, and humane laws into his cities, left any fame
of himself. Alcetas was the son of Tharrhypas, Arybas of Alcetas,
and of Arybas and Troas his queen, Aeacides: he married Phthia, the
daughter of Menon, the Thessalian, a man of note at the time off the
Lamiac war, and of highest command in the confederate army next to
Leosthenes. To Aeacides were born of Phthia, Deidamia and Troas
daughters, and Pyrrhus a son.
The Molossians, afterwards falling into factions, and expelling
Aeacides, brought in the sons of Neoptolemus, and such friends of
Aeacides as they could take were all cut off; Pyrrhus, yet an infant,
and searched for by the enemy, had been stolen away and carried off
by Androclides end Angelus; who, however, being obliged to take with
them a few servants, and women to nurse the child, were much impeded
and retarded in their flight, and when they were now overtaken, they
delivered the infant to Androcleon, Hippias, and Neander, faithful
and able young fellows, giving them in charge to make for Megara, a
town of Macedon, with all their might, while they themselves, partly
by entreaty, and partly by force, stopped the course of the pursuers
till late in the evening. At last, having hardly forced them back,
they joined those who had the care of Pyrrhus; but the sun being
already set, at the point of attaining their object they suddenly
found themselves cut off from it. For on reaching the river that
runs by the city they found it looking formidable and rough, and
endeavoring to pass over, they discovered it was not fordable; late
rains having heightened the water, and made the current violent. The
darkness of the night added to the horror of all, so that they durst
not venture of themselves to carry over the child and the women that
attended it; but, perceiving some of the country people on the other
side, they desired them to assist their passage, and showed them
Pyrrhus, calling out aloud, and importuning them. They, however,
could not hear for the noise and roaring of the water. Thus time was
spent while those called out, and the others did not understand what
was said, till one recollecting himself, stripped off a piece of bark
from an oak, and wrote on it with the tongue of a buckle, stating the
necessities and the fortunes of the child, and then rolling it about
a stone, which was made use of to give force to the motion, threw it
over to the other side, or, as some say, fastened it to the end of a
javelin, and darted it over. When the men on the other shore read
what was on the bark, and saw how time pressed, without delay they
cut down some trees, and lashing them together, came over to them.
And it so fell out, that he who first got ashore, and took Pyrrhus in
his arms, was named Achilles, the rest being helped over by others as
they came to hand.
Thus being safe, and out of the reach of pursuit, they addressed
themselves to Glaucias, then king of the Illyrians, and finding him
sitting at home with his wife, they laid down the child before them.
The king began to weigh the matter, fearing Cassander, who was a
mortal enemy of Aeacides, and, being in deep consideration, said
nothing for a long time; while Pyrrhus, crawling about on the ground,
gradually got near and laid hold with his hand upon the king's robe,
and so helping himself upon his feet against the knees of Glaucias,
first moved laughter, and then pity, as a little humble, crying
petitioner. Some say he did not throw himself before Glaucias, but
catching hold of an altar of the gods, and spreading his hands about
it, raised himself up by that; and that Glaucias took the act as an
omen. At present, therefore, he gave Pyrrhus into the charge of his
wife, commanding he should be brought up with his own children; and a
little after, the enemies sending to demand him, and Cassander
himself offering two hundred talents, he would not deliver him up;
but when he was twelve years old, bringing him with an army into
Epirus, made him king. Pyrrhus in the air of his face had something
more of the terrors, than of the augustness of kingly power; he had
not a regular set of upper teeth, but in the place of them one
continued bone, with small lines marked on it, resembling the
divisions of a row of teeth. It was a general belief he could cure
the spleen, by sacrificing a white cock, and gently pressing with his
right foot on the spleen of the persons as they lay down on their
backs, nor was any one so poor or inconsiderable as not to be
welcome, if he desired it, to the benefit of his touch. He accepted
the cock for the sacrifice as a reward, and was always much pleased
with the present. The large toe of that foot was said to have a
divine virtue; for after his death, the rest of the body being
consumed, this was found unhurt and untouched by the fire. But of
these things hereafter.
Being now about seventeen years old, and the government in appearance
well settled, he took a journey out of the kingdom to attend the
marriage of one of Glaucias's sons, with whom he was brought up; upon
which opportunity the Molossians again rebelling, turned out all of
his party, plundered his property, and gave themselves up to
Neoptolemus. Pyrrhus, having thus lost the kingdom, and being in
want of all things, applied to Demetrius the son of Antigonus, the
husband of his sister Deidamia, who, while she was but a child, had
been in name the wife of Alexander, son of Roxana, but their affairs
afterwards proving unfortunate, when she came to age, Demetrius
married her. At the great battle of Ipsus, where so many kings were
engaged, Pyrrhus, taking part with Demetrius, though yet but a youth,
routed those that encountered him, and highly signalized himself
among all the soldiery; and afterwards, when Demetrius's fortunes
were low, he did not forsake him then, but secured for him the cities
of Greece with which he was entrusted; and upon articles of agreement
being made between Demetrius and Ptolemy, he went over as an hostage
for him into Egypt, where both in hunting and other exercises, he
gave Ptolemy an ample proof of his courage and strength. Here
observing Berenice in greatest power, and of all Ptolemy's wives
highest in esteem for virtue and understanding, he made his court
principally to her. He had a particular art of gaining over the
great to his own interest, as on the other hand he readily overlooked
such as were below him; and being also well-behaved and temperate in
his life, among all the young princes then at court, he was thought
most fit to have Antigone for his wife, one of the daughters of
Berenice by Philip, before she married Ptolemy.
After this match, advancing in honor, and Antigone being a very good
wife to him, having procured a sum of money, and raised an army, he
so ordered matters as to be sent into his kingdom of Epirus, and
arrived there to the great satisfaction of many, from their hate to
Neoptolemus, who was governing in a violent and arbitrary way. But
fearing lest Neoptolemus should enter into alliance with some
neighboring princes, he came to terms and friendship with him,
agreeing that they should share the government between them. There
were people, however, who, as time went on, secretly exasperated
them, and fomented jealousies between them. The cause chiefly moving
Pyrrhus is said to have had this beginning. It was customary for the
kings to offer sacrifice to Mars, at Passaro, a place in the
Molossian country, and that done to enter into a solemn covenant with
the Epirots; they to govern according to law, these to preserve the
government as by law established. This was performed in the presence
of both kings, who were there with their immediate friends, giving
and receiving many presents; here Gelo, one of the friends of
Neoptolemus, taking Pyrrhus by the hand, presented him with two pair
of draught oxen. Myrtilus, his cup-bearer, being then by, begged
these of Pyrrhus, who not giving them to him, but to another,
Myrtilus extremely resented it, which Gelo took notice of, and,
inviting him to a banquet, (amidst drinking and other excesses, as
some relate, Myrtilus being then in the flower of his youth,) he
entered into discourse, persuading him to adhere to Neoptolemus, and
destroy Pyrrhus by poison. Myrtilus received the design, appearing
to approve and consent to it, but privately discovered it to Pyrrhus,
by whose command he recommended Alexicrates, his chief cup-bearer, to
Gelo, as a fit instrument for their design, Pyrrhus being very
desirous to have proof of the plot by several evidences. So Gelo
being deceived, Neoptolemus, who was no less deceived, imagining the
design went prosperously on, could not forbear, but in his joy spoke
of it among his friends, and once at an entertainment at his sister
Cadmea's, talked openly of it, thinking none heard but themselves.
Nor was anyone there but Phaenarete the wife of Samon, who had the
care of Neoptolemus's flocks and herds. She, turning her face
towards the wall upon a couch, seemed fast asleep, and having heard
all that passed, unsuspected, next day came to Antigone, Pyrrhus's
wife, and told her what she had heard Neoptolemus say to his sister.
On understanding which Pyrrhus for the present said little, but on a
sacrifice day, making an invitation for Neoptolemus, killed him;
being satisfied before that the great men of the Epirots were his
friends, and that they were eager for him to rid himself of
Neoptolemus, and not to content himself with a mere petty share of
the government, but to follow his own natural vocation to great
designs, and now when just ground of suspicion appeared, to
anticipate Neoptolemus by taking him off first.
In memory of Berenice and Ptolemy, he named his son by Antigone,
Ptolemy, and having built a city in the peninsula of Epirus, called
it Berenicis. From this time he began to revolve many and vast
projects in his thoughts; but his first special hope and design lay
near home, and he found means to engage himself in the Macedonian
affairs under the following pretext. Of Cassander's sons, Antipater,
the eldest, killed Thessalonica his mother, and expelled his brother
Alexander, who sent to Demetrius entreating his assistance, and also
called in Pyrrhus; but Demetrius being retarded by multitude of
business, Pyrrhus, coming first, demanded in reward of his service
the districts called Tymphaea and Parauaea in Macedon itself, and, of
their new conquests, Ambracia, Acarnania, and Amphilochia. The young
prince giving way, he took possession of these countries, and secured
them with good garrisons, and proceeded to reduce for Alexander
himself other parts of the kingdom which he gained from Antipater.
Lysimachus, designing to send aid to Antipater, was involved in much
other business, but knowing Pyrrhus would not disoblige Ptolemy, or
deny him anything, sent pretended letters to him as from Ptolemy,
desiring him to give up his expedition, upon the payment of three
hundred talents to him by Antipater. Pyrrhus, opening the letter,
quickly discovered the fraud of Lysimachus; for it had not the
accustomed style of salutation, "The father to the son, health," but
"King Ptolemy to Pyrrhus, the king, health;" and reproaching
Lysimachus, he notwithstanding made a peace, and they all met to
confirm it by a solemn oath upon sacrifice. A goat, a bull, and a
ram being brought out, the ram on a sudden fell dead. The others
laughed, but Theodotus the prophet forbade Pyrrhus to swear,
declaring that Heaven by that portended the death of one of the three
kings, upon which he refused to ratify the peace.
The affairs of Alexander being now in some kind of settlement,
Demetrius arrived, contrary, as soon appeared, to the desire and
indeed not without the alarm of Alexander. After they had been a few
days together, their mutual jealousy led them to conspire against
each other; and Demetrius taking advantage of the first occasion, was
beforehand with the young king, and slew him, and proclaimed himself
king of Macedon. There had been formerly no very good understanding
between him and Pyrrhus; for besides the inroads he made into
Thessaly, the innate disease of princes, ambition of greater empire,
had rendered them formidable and suspected neighbors to each other,
especially since Deidamia's death; and both having seized Macedon,
they came into conflict for the same object, and the difference
between them had the stronger motives. Demetrius having first
attacked the Aetolians and subdued them, left Pantauchus there with a
considerable army, and marched direct against Pyrrhus, and Pyrrhus,
as he thought, against him; but by mistake of the ways they passed by
one another, and Demetrius falling into Epirus wasted the country,
and Pyrrhus, meeting with Pantauchus, prepared for an engagement.
The soldiers fell to, and there was a sharp and terrible conflict,
especially where the generals were. Pantauchus, in courage,
dexterity, and strength of body, being confessedly the best of all
Demetrius's captains, and having both resolution and high spirit,
challenged Pyrrhus to fight hand to hand; on the other side Pyrrhus,
professing not to yield to any king in valor and glory, and esteeming
the fame of Achilles more truly to belong to him for his courage than
for his blood, advanced against Pantauchus through the front of the
army. First they used their lances, then came to a close fight, and
managed their swords both with art and force; Pyrrhus receiving one
wound, but returning two for it, one in the thigh, the other near the
neck, repulsed and overthrew Pantauchus, but did not kill him
outright, as he was rescued by his friends. But the Epirots
exulting in the victory of their king, and admiring his courage,
forced through and cut in pieces the phalanx of the Macedonians, and
pursuing those that fled, killed many, and took five thousand
prisoners.
This fight did not so much exasperate the Macedonians with anger for
their loss, or with hatred to Pyrrhus, as it caused esteem, and
admiration of his valor, and great discourse of him among those that
saw what he did, and were engaged against him in the action. They
thought his countenance, his swiftness, and his motions expressed
those of the great Alexander, and that they beheld here an image and
resemblance of his rapidity and strength in fight; other kings merely
by their purple and their guards, by the formal bending of their
necks, and lofty tone of speech, Pyrrhus only by arms, and in action,
represented Alexander. Of his knowledge of military tactics and the
art of a general, and his great ability that way, we have the best
information from the commentaries he left behind him. Antigonus,
also, we are told, being asked who was the greatest soldier, said,
"Pyrrhus, if he lives to be old," referring only to those of his own
time; but Hannibal of all great commanders esteemed Pyrrhus for skill
and conduct the first, Scipio the second, and himself the third, as
is related in the life of Scipio. In a word, he seemed ever to make
this all his thought and philosophy, as the most kingly part of
learning; other curiosities he held in no account. He is reported,
when asked at a feast whether he thought Python or Caphisias the best
musician, to have said, Polysperchon was the best soldier, as though
it became a king to examine and understand only such things. Towards
his familiars he was mild, and not easily incensed; zealous, and even
vehement in returning kindnesses. Thus when Aeropus was dead, he
could not bear it with moderation, saying, he indeed had suffered
what was common to human nature, but condemning and blaming himself,
that by puttings off and delays he had not returned his kindness in
time. For our debts may be satisfied to the creditor's heirs, but
not to have made the acknowledgment of received favors, while they to
whom it is due can be sensible of it, afflicts a good and a worthy
nature. Some thinking it fit that Pyrrhus should banish a certain
ill-tongued fellow in Ambracia, who had spoken very indecently of
him, "Let him rather," said he, "speak against us here to a few, than
rambling about to a great many." And others who in their wine had
made redactions upon him, being afterward questioned for it, and
asked by him whether they had said such words, on one of the young
fellows answering, "Yes, all that, king; and should have said more if
we had had more wine;" he laughed and discharged them. After
Antigone's death, he married several wives to enlarge his interest
and power. He had the daughter of Autoleon, king of the Paeonians,
Bircenna, Bardyllis the Illyrian's daughter, Lanassa, daughter of
Agathocles the Syracusan, who brought with her in dower the city of
Corcyra which had been taken by Agathocles. By Antigone he had
Ptolemy, Alexander by Lanassa, and Helenus, his youngest son, by
Bircenna; he brought them up all in arms, hot and eager youths, and
by him sharpened and whetted to war from their very infancy. It is
said, when one of them, while yet a child, asked him to which he
would leave the kingdom, he replied, to him that had the sharpest
sword, which indeed was much like that tragical curse of Oedipus to
his sons:
Not by the lot decide.
But with the sword the heritage divide.
So unsocial and wild-beast-like is the nature of ambition and
cupidity.
After this battle Pyrrhus, returning gloriously home, enjoyed his
fame and reputation, and being called "Eagle" by the Epirots, "By
you," said he, "I am an eagle; for how should I not be such, while I
have your arms as wings to sustain me?" A little after, having
intelligence that Demetrius was dangerously sick, he entered on a
sudden into Macedonia, intending only an incursion, and to harass the
country; but was very near seizing upon all, and taking the kingdom
without a blow. He marched as far as Edessa unresisted, great
numbers deserting, and coming in to him. This danger excited
Demetrius beyond his strength, and his friends and commanders in a
short time got a considerable army together, and with all their
forces briskly attacked Pyrrhus, who, coming only to pillage, would
not stand a fight but retreating lost part of his army, as he went
off, by the close pursuit of the Macedonians. Demetrius, however,
although he had easily and quickly forced Pyrrhus out of the country,
yet did not slight him, but having resolved upon great designs, and
to recover his father's kingdom with an army of one hundred thousand
men, and a fleet of five hundred ships, would neither embroil himself
with Pyrrhus, nor leave the Macedonians so active and troublesome a
neighbor; and since he had no leisure to continue the war with him,
he was willing to treat and conclude a peace, and to turn his forces
upon the other kings. Articles being agreed upon, the designs of
Demetrius quickly discovered themselves by the greatness of his
preparation. And the other kings, being alarmed, sent to Pyrrhus
ambassadors and letters, expressing their wonder that he should
choose to let his own opportunity pass by, and wait till Demetrius
could use his; and whereas he was now able to chase him out of
Macedon, involved in designs and disturbed, he should expect till
Demetrius at leisure, and grown great, should bring the war home to
his own door, and make him fight for his temples and sepulchers in
Molossia; especially having so lately, by his means, lost Corcyra and
his wife together. For Lanassa had taken offense at Pyrrhus for too
great an inclination to those wives of his that were barbarians, and
so withdrew to Corcyra, and desiring to marry some king, invited
Demetrius, knowing of all the kings he was most ready to entertain
offers of marriage; so he sailed thither, married Lanassa, and placed
a garrison in the city. The kings having written thus to Pyrrhus,
themselves likewise contrived to find Demetrius work, while he was
delaying and making his preparations. Ptolemy, setting out with a
great fleet, drew off many of the Greek cities. Lysimachus out of
Thrace wasted the upper Macedon; and Pyrrhus, also, taking arms at
the same time, marched to Beroea, expecting, as it fell out, that
Demetrius, collecting his forces against Lysimachus, would leave the
lower country undefended. That very night he seemed in his sleep to
be called by Alexander the Great, and approaching saw him sick abed,
but was received with very kind words and much respect, and promised
zealous assistance. He making bold to reply: "How, Sir, can you,
being sick, assist me?" "With my name," said he, and mounting a
Nisaean horse, seemed to lead the way. At the sight of this vision
he was much assured, and with swift marches overrunning all the
interjacent places, takes Beroea, and making his head-quarters there,
reduced the rest of the country by his commanders. When Demetrius
received intelligence of this, and perceived likewise the Macedonians
ready to mutiny in the army, he was afraid to advance further, lest
coming near Lysimachus, a Macedonian king, and of great fame, they
should revolt to him. So returning, he marched directly against
Pyrrhus, as a stranger, and hated by the Macedonians. But while he
lay encamped there near him, many who came out of Beroea infinitely
praised Pyrrhus as invincible in arms, a glorious warrior, who
treated those he had taken kindly and humanely. Several of these
Pyrrhus himself sent privately, pretending to be Macedonians, and
saying, now was the time to be delivered from the severe government
of Demetrius, by coming over to Pyrrhus, a gracious prince, and a
lover of soldiers. By this artifice a great part of the army was in
a state of excitement, and the soldiers began to look every way
about, inquiring for Pyrrhus. It happened he was without his helmet,
till understanding they did not know him, he put it on again, and so
was quickly recognized by his lofty crest, and the goat's horns he
wore upon it. Then the Macedonians, running to him, desired to be
told his password, and some put oaken boughs upon their heads,
because they saw them worn by the soldiers about him. Some persons
even took the confidence to say to Demetrius himself, that he would
be well advised to withdraw, and lay down the government. And he,
indeed, seeing the mutinous movements of the army to be only too
consistent with what they said, privately got away, disguised in a
broad hat, and a common soldier's coat. So Pyrrhus became master of
the army without fighting, and was declared king of the Macedonians.
But Lysimachus now arriving, and claiming the defeat of Demetrius as
the joint exploit of them both, and that therefore the kingdom should
be shared between them, Pyrrhus, not as yet quite assured of the
Macedonians, and in doubt of their faith, consented to the
proposition of Lysimachus, and divided the country and cities between
them accordingly. This was for the present useful, and prevented a
war; but shortly after they found the partition not so much a
peaceful settlement, as an occasion of further complaint and
difference. For men whose ambition neither seas nor mountains, nor
unpeopled deserts can limit, nor the bounds dividing Europe from Asia
confine their vast desires, it would be hard to expect to forbear
from injuring one another when they touch, and are close together.
These are ever naturally at war, envying and seeking advantages of
one another, and merely make use of those two words, peace and war,
like current coin, to serve their occasions, not as justice but as
expediency suggests, and are really better men when they openly enter
on a war, than when they give to the mere forbearance from doing
wrong, for want of opportunity, the sacred names of justice and
friendship. Pyrrhus was an instance of this; for setting himself
against the rise of Demetrius again, and endeavoring to hinder the
recovery of his power, as it were from a kind of sickness, he
assisted the Greeks, and came to Athens, where, having ascended the
Acropolis, he offered sacrifice to the goddess, and the same day came
down again, and told the Athenians he was much gratified by the
good-will and the confidence they had shown to him; but if they were
wise, he advised them never to let any king come thither again, or
open their city gates to him. He concluded also a peace with
Demetrius, but shortly after he was gone into Asia, at the persuasion
of Lysimachus, he tampered with the Thessalians to revolt, and
besieged his cities in Greece; finding he could better preserve the
attachment of the Macedonians in war than in peace, and being of his
own inclination not much given to rest. At last, after Demetrius had
been overthrown in Syria, Lysimachus, who had secured his affairs,
and had nothing to do, immediately turned his whole forces upon
Pyrrhus, who was in quarters at Edessa, and falling upon and seizing
his convoy of provisions, brought first a great scarcity into the
army; then partly by letters, partly by spreading rumors abroad, he
corrupted the principal officers of the Macedonians, reproaching them
that they had made one their master who was both a stranger and
descended from those who had ever been servants to the Macedonians,
and that they had thrust the old friends and familiars of Alexander
out of the country. The Macedonian soldiers being much prevailed
upon, Pyrrhus withdrew himself with his Epirots and auxiliary forces,
relinquishing Macedon just after the same manner he took it. So
little reason have kings to condemn popular governments for changing
sides as suits their interests, as in this they do but imitate them
who are the great instructors of unfaithfulness and treachery;
holding him the wisest that makes the least account of being an
honest man.
Pyrrhus having thus retired into Epirus, and left Macedon, fortune
gave him a fair occasion of enjoying himself in quiet, and peaceably
governing his own subjects; but he who thought it a nauseous course
of life not to be doing mischief to others, or receiving some from
them, like Achilles, could not endure repose,
-- But sat and languished far,
Desiring battle and the shout of war,
and gratified his inclination by the following pretext for new
troubles. The Romans were at war with the Tarentines, who, not being
able to go on with the war, nor yet, through the foolhardiness and
the viciousness of their popular speakers, to come to terms and give
it up, proposed now to make Pyrrhus their general, and engage him in
it, as of all the neighboring kings the most at leisure, and the most
skillful as a commander. The more grave and discreet citizens
opposing these counsels, were partly overborne by the noise and
violence of the multitude; while others, seeing this, absented
themselves from the assemblies; only one Meton, a very sober man, on
the day this public decree was to be ratified, when the people were
now seating themselves, came dancing into the assembly like one quite
drunk, with a withered garland and a small lamp in his hand, and a
woman playing on a flute before him. And as in great multitudes met
at such popular assemblies, no decorum can be well observed, some
clapped him, others laughed, none forbade him, but called to the
woman to play, and to him to sing to the company, and when they
thought he was going to do so, "'Tis only right of you, O men of
Tarentum," he said, "not to hinder any from making themselves merry,
that have a mind to it, while it is yet in their power; and if you
are wise, you will take out your pleasure of your freedom while you
can, for you must change your course of life, and follow other diet
when Pyrrhus comes to town." These words made a great impression
upon many of the Tarentines, and a confused murmur went about, that
he had spoken much to the purpose; but some who feared they should be
sacrificed if a peace were made with the Romans, reviled the whole
assembly for so tamely suffering themselves to be abused by a drunken
sot, and crowding together upon Meton, thrust him out. So the public
order was passed, and ambassadors sent into Epirus, not only in their
own names, but in those of all the Italian Greeks, carrying presents
to Pyrrhus, and letting him know they wanted a general of reputation
and experience; and that they could furnish him with large forces of
Lucanians, Messapians, Samnites, and Tarentines, amounting to twenty
thousand horse, and three hundred and fifty thousand foot. This did
not only quicken Pyrrhus, but raised an eager desire for the
expedition in the Epirots.
There was one Cineas, a Thessalian, considered to be a man of very
good sense, a disciple of the great orator Demosthenes, who of all
that were famous at that time for speaking well, most seemed, as in a
picture, to revive in the minds of the audience the memory of his
force and vigor of eloquence; and being always about Pyrrhus, and
sent about in his service to several cities, verified the saying of
Euripides, that
-- the force of words
Can do whate'er is done by conquering swords.
And Pyrrhus was used to say, that Cineas had taken more towns with
his words, than he with his arms, and always did him the honor to
employ him in his most important occasions. This person, seeing
Pyrrhus eagerly preparing for Italy, led him one day when he was at
leisure into the following reasonings: "The Romans, sir, are
reported to be great warriors and conquerors of many warlike nations;
if God permit us to overcome them, how should we use our victory?"
"You ask," said Pyrrhus, "a thing evident of itself. The Romans once
conquered, there is neither Greek nor barbarian city that will resist
us, but we shall presently be masters of all Italy, the extent and
resources and strength of which anyone should rather profess to be
ignorant of, than yourself." Cineas, after a little pause, "And
having subdued Italy, what shall we do next?" Pyrrhus not yet
discovering his intention, "Sicily," he replied, "next holds out her
arms to receive us, a wealthy and populous island, and easy to be
gained; for since Agathocles left it, only faction and anarchy, and
the licentious violence of the demagogues prevail." "You speak,"
said Cineas, "what is perfectly probable, but will the possession of
Sicily put an end to the war?" "God grant us," answered Pyrrhus,
"victory and success in that, and we will use these as forerunners of
greater things; who could forbear from Libya and Carthage then within
reach, which Agathocles, even when forced to fly from Syracuse, and
passing the sea only with a few ships, had all but surprised?
These conquests once perfected, will any assert that of the enemies
who now pretend to despise us, anyone will dare to make further
resistance?" "None," replied Cineas, "for then it is manifest we may
with such mighty forces regain Macedon, and make all absolute
conquest of Greece; and when all these are in our power, what shall
we do then?" Said Pyrrhus, smiling, "we will live at our ease, my
dear friend, and drink all day, and divert ourselves with pleasant
conversation." When Cineas had led Pyrrhus with his argument to this
point: "And what hinders us now, sir, if we have a mind to be merry,
and entertain one another, since we have at hand without trouble all
those necessary things, to which through much blood and great labor,
and infinite hazards and mischief done to ourselves and to others, we
design at last to arrive?" Such reasonings rather troubled Pyrrhus
with the thought of the happiness he was quitting, than any way
altered his purpose, being unable to abandon the hopes of what he so
much desired.
And first, he sent away Cineas to the Tarentines with three thousand
men; presently after, many vessels for transport of horse, and
galleys, and flat-bottomed boats of all sorts arriving from Tarentum,
he shipped upon them twenty elephants, three thousand horse, twenty
thousand foot, two thousand archers, and five hundred slingers. All
being thus in readiness, he set sail, and being half way over, was
driven by the wind, blowing, contrary to the season of the year,
violently from the north, and carried from his course, but by the
great skill and resolution of his pilots and seamen, he made the land
with infinite labor, and beyond expectation. The rest of the fleet
could not get up, and some of the dispersed ships, losing the coast
of Italy, were driven into the Libyan and Sicilian Sea; others not
able to double the Cape of Japygium, were overtaken by the night; and
with a boisterous and heavy sea, throwing them upon a dangerous and
rocky shore, they were all very much disabled except the royal
galley. She, while the sea bore upon her sides, resisted with her
bulk and strength, and avoided the force of it, till the wind coming
about, blew directly in their teeth from the shore, and the vessel
keeping up with her head against it, was in danger of going to
pieces; yet on the other hand, to suffer themselves to be driven off
to sea again, which was thus raging and tempestuous, with the wind
shifting about every way, seemed to them the most dreadful of all
their present evils. Pyrrhus, rising up, threw himself overboard.
His friends and guards strove eagerly who should be most ready to
help him, but night and the sea with its noise and violent surge,
made it extremely difficult to do this; so that hardly, when with the
morning the wind began to subside, he got ashore, breathless, and
weakened in body, but with high courage and strength of mind
resisting his hard fortune. The Messapians, upon whose shore they
were thrown by the tempest, came up eagerly to help them in the best
manner they could; and some of the straggling vessels that had
escaped the storm arrived; in which were a very few horse, and not
quite two thousand foot, and two elephants.
With these Pyrrhus marched straight to Tarentum, where Cineas, being
informed of his arrival, led out the troops to meet him. Entering
the town, he did nothing unpleasing to the Tarentines, nor put any
force upon them, till his ships were all in harbor, and the greatest
part of the army got together; but then perceiving that the people,
unless some strong compulsion was used to them, were not capable
either of saving others or being saved themselves, and were rather
intending, while he engaged for them in the field, to remain at home
bathing and feasting themselves, he first shut up the places of
public exercise, and the walks where, in their idle way, they fought
their country's battles and conducted her campaigns in their talk; he
prohibited likewise all festivals, revels, and drinking-parties, as
unseasonable, and summoning them to arms, showed himself rigorous and
inflexible in carrying out the conscription for service in the war.
So that many, not understanding what it was to be commanded, left the
town, calling it mere slavery not to do as they pleased. He now
received intelligence that Laevinus, the Roman consul, was upon his
march with a great army, and plundering Lucania as he went. The
confederate forces were not come up to him, yet he thought it
impossible to suffer so near an approach of an enemy, and drew out
with his army, but first sent an herald to the Romans to know if
before the war they would decide the differences between them and the
Italian Greeks by his arbitrament and mediation. But Laevinus
returning answer, that the Romans neither accepted him as arbitrator.
nor feared him as an enemy, Pyrrhus advanced, and encamped in the
plain between the cities of Pandosia and Heraclea, and having notice
the Romans were near, and lay on the other side of the river Siris,
he rode up to take a view of them, and seeing their order, the
appointment of the watches, their method and the general form of
their encampment, he was amazed, and addressing one of his friends
next to him: "This order," said he, "Megacles, of the barbarians, is
not at all barbarian in character; we shall see presently what they
can do;" and, growing a little more thoughtful of the event, resolved
to expect the arriving of the confederate troops. And to hinder the
Romans, if in the meantime they should endeavor to pass the river,
he planted men all along the bank to oppose them. But they,
hastening to anticipate the coming up of the same forces which he had
determined to wait for, attempted the passage with their infantry,
where it was fordable, and with the horse in several places, so that
the Greeks, fearing to be surrounded, were obliged to retreat, and
Pyrrhus, perceiving this and being much surprised, bade his foot
officers draw their men up in line of battle, and continue in arms,
while he himself, with three thousand horse, advanced, hoping to
attack the Romans as they were coming over, scattered and disordered.
But when he saw a vast number of shields appearing above the water,
and the horse following them in good order, gathering his men in a
closer body, himself at the head of them, he began the charge,
conspicuous by his rich and beautiful armor, and letting it be seen
that his reputation had not outgone what he was able effectually to
perform. While exposing his hands and body in the fight, and bravely
repelling all that engaged him, he still guided the battle with a
steady and undisturbed reason, and such presence of mind, as if he
had been out of the action and watching it from a distance, passing
still from point to point, and assisting those whom he thought most
pressed by the enemy. Here Leonnatus the Macedonian, observing one
of the Italians very intent upon Pyrrhus, riding up towards him, and
changing places as he did, and moving as he moved: "Do you see,
sir," said he, "that barbarian on the black horse with white feet? he
seems to me one that designs some great and dangerous thing, for he
looks constantly at you, and fixes his whole attention, full of
vehement purpose, on you alone, taking no notice of others. Be on
your guard, sir, against him." "Leonnatus," said Pyrrhus, "it is
impossible for any man to avoid his fate; but neither he nor any
other Italian shall have much satisfaction in engaging with me."
While they were in this discourse, the Italian, lowering his spear
and quickening his horse, rode furiously at Pyrrhus, and run his
horse through with his lance; at the same instant Leonnatus ran his
through. Both horses falling, Pyrrhus's friends surrounded him and
brought him off safe, and killed the Italian, bravely defending
himself. He was by birth a Frentanian, captain of a troop, and named
Oplacus.
This made Pyrrhus use greater caution, and now seeing his horse give
ground, he brought up the infantry against the enemy, and changing
his scarf and his arms with Megacles, one of his friends, and,
obscuring himself, as it were, in his, charged upon the Romans, who
received and engaged him, and a great while the success of the battle
remained undetermined; and it is said there were seven turns of
fortune both of pursuing and being pursued. And the change of his
arms was very opportune for the safety of his person, but had like to
have overthrown his cause and lost him the victory; for several
falling upon Megacles, the first that gave him his mortal wound was
one Dexous, who, snatching away his helmet and his robe, rode at
once to Laevinus, holding them up, and saying aloud he had killed
Pyrrhus. These spoils being carried about and shown among the ranks,
the Romans were transported with joy, and shouted aloud; while equal
discouragement and terror prevailed among the Greeks, until Pyrrhus,
understanding what had happened, rode about the army with his face
bare, stretching out his hand to his soldiers, and telling them aloud
it was he. At last, the elephants more particularly began to
distress the Romans, whose horses, before they came near, not
enduring them, went back with their riders; and upon this, he
commanded the Thessalian cavalry to charge them in their disorder,
and routed them with great loss. Dionysius affirms near fifteen
thousand of the Romans fell; Hieronymus, no more than seven thousand.
On Pyrrhus's side, the same Dionysius makes thirteen thousand slain,
the other under four thousand; but they were the flower of his men,
and amongst them his particular friends as well as officers whom he
most trusted and made use of. However, be possessed himself of the
Romans' camp which they deserted, and gained over several confederate
cities, and wasted the country round about, and advanced so far that
he was within about thirty-seven miles of Rome itself. After the
fight many of the Lucanians and Samnites came in and joined him, whom
he chid for their delay, but yet he was evidently well pleased and
raised in his thoughts, that he had defeated so great an army of the
Romans with the assistance of the Tarentines alone.
The Romans did not remove Laevinus from the consulship; though it is
told that Caius Fabricius said, that the Epirots had not beaten the
Romans, but only Pyrrhus, Laevinus; insinuating that their loss was
not through want of valor but of conduct; but filled up their
legions, and enlisted fresh men with all speed, talking high and
boldly of war, which struck Pyrrhus with amazement. He thought it
advisable by sending first to make an experiment whether they had any
inclination to treat, thinking that to take the city and make an
absolute conquest was no work for such an army as his was at that
time, but to settle a friendship, and bring them to terms, would be
highly honorable after his victory. Cineas was dispatched away, and
applied himself to several of the great ones, with presents for
themselves and their ladies from the king; but not a person would
receive any, and answered, as well men as women, that if an agreement
were publicly concluded, they also should be ready, for their parts,
to express their regard to the king. And Cineas, discoursing; with
the senate in the most persuasive and obliging manner in the world,
yet was not heard with kindness or inclination, although Pyrrhus
offered also to return all the prisoners he had taken in the fight
without ransom, and promised his assistance for the entire conquest
of all Italy, asking only their friendship for himself, and security
for the Tarentines, and nothing further. Nevertheless, most were
well-inclined to a peace, having already received one great defeat,
and fearing another from an additional force of the native Italians,
now joining with Pyrrhus. At this point Appius Claudius, a man of
great distinction, but who, because of his great age and loss of
sight, had declined the fatigue of public business, after these
propositions had been made by the king, hearing a report that the
senate was ready to vote the conditions of peace, could not forbear,
but commanding his servants to take him up, was carried in his chair
through the forum to the senate house. When he was set down at the
door, his sons and sons-in-law took him up in their arms, and,
walking close round about him, brought him into the senate. Out of
reverence for so worthy a man, the whole assembly was respectfully
silent.
And a little after raising up himself: "I bore," said he, "until
this time, the misfortune of my eyes with some impatience, but now
while I hear of these dishonorable motions and resolves of yours,
destructive to the glory of Rome, it is my affliction, that being
already blind, I am not deaf too. Where is now that discourse of
yours that became famous in all the world, that if he, the great
Alexander, had come into Italy, and dared to attack us when we were
young men, and our fathers, who were then in their prime, he had not
now been celebrated as invincible, but either flying hence, or
falling here, had left Rome more glorious? You demonstrate now that
all that was but foolish arrogance and vanity, by fearing Molossians
and Chaonians, ever the Macedonian's prey, and by trembling at
Pyrrhus who was himself but a humble servant to one of Alexander's
life-guard, and comes here, not so much to assist the Greeks that
inhabit among us, as to escape from his enemies at home, a wanderer
about Italy, and yet dares to promise you the conquest of it all by
that army which has not been able to preserve for him a little part
of Macedon. Do not persuade yourselves that making him your friend
is the way to send him back, it is the way rather to bring over other
invaders from thence, contemning you as easy to be reduced, if
Pyrrhus goes off without punishment for his outrages on you, but,
on the contrary, with the reward of having enabled the Tarentines and
Samnites to laugh at the Romans." When Appius had done, eagerness
for the war seized on every man, and Cineas was dismissed with this
answer, that when Pyrrhus had withdrawn his forces out of Italy,
then, if he pleased, they would treat with him about friendship and
alliance, but while he stayed there in arms, they were resolved to
prosecute the war against him with all their force, though he should
have defeated a thousand Laevinuses. It is said that Cineas, while
he was managing this affair, made it his business carefully to
inspect the manners of the Romans, and to understand their methods of
government, and having conversed with their noblest citizens, he
afterwards told Pyrrhus, among other things, that the senate seemed
to him an assembly of kings, and as for the people, he feared lest it
might prove that they were fighting with a Lernaean hydra, for the
consul had already raised twice as large an army as the former, and
there were many times over the same number of Romans able to bear
arms.
Then Caius Fabricius came in embassy from the Romans to treat about
the prisoners that were taken, one whom Cineas had reported to be a
man of highest consideration among them as an honest man and a good
soldier, but extremely poor. Pyrrhus received him with much
kindness, and privately would have persuaded him to accept of his
gold, not for any evil purpose, but calling it a mark of respect and
hospitable kindness. Upon Fabricius's refusal, he pressed him no
further, but the next day, having a mind to discompose him, as he had
never seen an elephant before, he commanded one of the largest,
completely armed, to be placed behind the hangings, as they were
talking together. Which being done, upon a sign given the hanging
was drawn aside, and the elephant, raising his trunk over the head of
Fabricius, made an horrid and ugly noise. He, gently turning about
and smiling, said to Pyrrhus, "neither your money yesterday, nor this
beast today make any impression upon me." At supper, amongst all
sorts of things that were discoursed of, but more particularly Greece
and the philosophers there, Cineas, by accident, had occasion to
speak of Epicurus, and explained the opinions his followers hold
about the gods and the commonwealth, and the object of life, placing
the chief happiness of man in pleasure, and declining public affairs
as an injury and disturbance of a happy life, removing the gods afar
off both from kindness or anger, or any concern for us at all, to a
life wholly without business and flowing in pleasures. Before he had
done speaking, "O Hercules!" Fabricius cried out to Pyrrhus, "may
Pyrrhus and the Samnites entertain themselves with this sort of
opinions as long as they are in war with us." Pyrrhus, admiring the
wisdom and gravity of the man, was the more transported with desire
of making friendship instead of war with the city, and entreated him,
personally, after the peace should be concluded, to accept of living
with him as the chief of his ministers and generals. Fabricius
answered quietly, "Sir, this will not be for your advantage, for they
who now honor and admire you, when they have had experience of me,
will rather choose to be governed by me, than by you." Such was
Fabricius. And Pyrrhus received his answer without any resentment or
tyrannic passion; nay, among his friends he highly commended the
great mind of Fabricius, and entrusted the prisoners to him alone, on
condition that if the senate should not vote a peace, after they had
conversed with their friends and celebrated the festival of Saturn,
they should be remanded. And, accordingly, they were sent back after
the holidays; it being decreed pain of death for any that stayed
behind.
After this, Fabricius taking the consulate, a person came with a
letter to the camp written by the king's principal physician,
offering to take off Pyrrhus by poison, and so end the war without
further hazard to the Romans, if he might have a reward
proportionable to his service. Fabricius, hating the villainy of the
man, and disposing the other consul to the same opinion, sent
dispatches immediately to Pyrrhus to caution him against the treason.
His letter was to this effect: "Caius Fabricius and Quintus
Aemilius, consuls of the Romans, to Pyrrhus the king, health. You
seem to have made an ill judgment both of your friends and enemies;
you will understand by reading this letter sent to us, that you are
at war with honest men, and trust villains and knaves. Nor do we
disclose this to you out of any favor to you, but lest your ruin
might bring a reproach upon us, as if we had ended the war by
treachery, as not able to do it by force." When Pyrrhus had read the
letter, and made inquiry into the treason, he punished the physician,
and as an acknowledgment to the Romans sent to Rome the prisoners
without ransom, and again employed Cineas to negotiate a peace for
him. But they, regarding it as at once too great a kindness from an
enemy, and too great a reward of not doing an ill thing to accept
their prisoners so, released in return an equal number of the
Tarentines and Samnites, but would admit of no debate of alliance or
peace until he had removed his arms and forces out of Italy, and
sailed back to Epirus with the same ships that brought him over.
Afterwards, his affairs demanding a second fight, when he had
refreshed his men, he decamped, and met the Romans about the city
Asculum, where, however, he was much incommoded by a woody country
unfit for his horse, and a swift river, so that the elephants, for
want of sure treading, could not get up with the infantry. After
many wounded and many killed, night put an end to the engagement.
Next day, designing to make the fight on even ground, and have the
elephants among the thickest of the enemy, he caused a detachment to
possess themselves of those incommodious grounds, and, mixing
slingers and archers among the elephants, with full strength and
courage, he advanced in a close and well-ordered body. The Romans,
not having those advantages of retreating and falling on as they
pleased, which they had before, were obliged to fight man to man upon
plain ground, and, being anxious to drive back the infantry before
the elephants could get up, they fought fiercely with their swords
among the Macedonian spears, not sparing themselves, thinking only to
wound and kill, without regard of what they suffered. After a long
and obstinate fight, the first giving ground is reported to have been
where Pyrrhus himself engaged with extraordinary courage; but they
were most carried away by the overwhelming force of the elephants,
not being able to make use of their valor, but overthrown as it were
by the irruption of a sea or an earthquake, before which it seemed
better to give way than to die without doing anything, and not gain
the least advantage by suffering the utmost extremity, the retreat to
their camp not being far. Hieronymus says, there fell six thousand
of the Romans, and of Pyrrhus's men, the king's own commentaries
reported three thousand five hundred and fifty lost in this action.
Dionysius, however, neither gives any account of two engagements at
Asculum, nor allows the Romans to have been certainly beaten, stating
that once only, after they had fought till sunset, both armies were
unwillingly separated by the night, Pyrrhus being wounded by a
javelin in the arm, and his baggage plundered by the Samnites, that
in all there died of Pyrrhus's men and the Romans above fifteen
thousand. The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to
one that gave him joy of his victory, that one other such would
utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he
brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal
commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found
the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a
fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was
quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating
in courage for the losses they sustained, but even from their very
anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.
Among these difficulties he fell again into new hopes and projects
distracting his purposes. For at the same time some persons arrived
from Sicily, offering into his hands the cities of Agrigentum,
Syracuse, and Leontini, and begging his assistance to drive out the
Carthaginians, and rid the island of tyrants; and others brought him
news out of Greece that Ptolemy, called Ceraunus, was slain in a
fight, and his army cut in pieces by the Gauls, and that now, above
all others, was his time to offer himself to the Macedonians, in
great need of a king. Complaining much of fortune for bringing him
so many occasions of great things all together at a time, and
thinking that to have both offered to him, was to lose one of them,
he was doubtful, balancing in his thoughts. But the affairs of
Sicily seeming to hold out the greater prospects, Africa lying so
near, he turned himself to them, and presently dispatched away
Cineas, as he used to do, to make terms beforehand with the cities.
Then he placed a garrison in Tarentum, much to the Tarentines'
discontent, who required him either to perform what he came for, and
continue with them in a war against the Romans, or leave the city as
he found it. He returned no pleasing answer, but commanded them to
be quiet and attend his time, and so sailed away. Being arrived in
Sicily, what he had designed in his hopes was confirmed effectually,
and the cities frankly surrendered to him; and wherever his arms and
force were necessary, nothing at first made any considerable
resistance. For advancing with thirty thousand foot, and twenty-five
hundred horse, and two hundred ships, he totally routed the
Phoenicians, and overran their whole province, and Eryx being the
strongest town they held, and having a great garrison in it, he
resolved to take it by storm. The army being in readiness to give
the assault, he put on his arms, and coming to the head of his men,
made a vow of plays and sacrifices in honor to Hercules, if he
signalized himself in that day's action before the Greeks that dwelt
in Sicily, as became his great descent and his fortunes. The sign
being given by sound of trumpet, he first scattered the barbarians
with his shot, and then brought his ladders to the wall, and was the
first that mounted upon it himself, and, the enemy appearing in great
numbers, he beat them back; some he threw down from the walls on each
side, others he laid dead in a heap round about him with his sword,
nor did he receive the least wound, but by his very aspect inspired
terror in the enemy; and gave a clear demonstration that Homer was in
the right, and pronounced according to the truth of fact, that
fortitude alone, of all the virtues, is wont to display itself in
divine transports and frenzies. The city being taken, he offered to
Hercules most magnificently, and exhibited all varieties of shows and
plays.
A sort of barbarous people about Messena, called Mamertines, gave
much trouble to the Greeks, and put several of them under
contribution. These being numerous and valiant (from whence they had
their name, equivalent in the Latin tongue to warlike), he first
intercepted the collectors of the contribution money, and cut them
off, then beat them in open fight, and destroyed many of their places
of strength. The Carthaginians being now inclined to composition,
and offering him a round sum of money, and to furnish him with
shipping, if a peace were concluded, he told them plainly, aspiring
still to greater things, there was but one way for a friendship and
right understanding between them, if they, wholly abandoning Sicily,
would consent to make the African sea the limit between them and the
Greeks. And being elevated with his good fortune, and the strength
of his forces, and pursuing those hopes in prospect of which he first
sailed thither, his immediate aim was at Africa; and as he had
abundance of shipping, but very ill equipped, he collected seamen,
not by fair and gentle dealing with the cities, but by force in a
haughty and insolent way, and menacing them with punishments. And as
at first he had not acted thus, but had been unusually indulgent and
kind, ready to believe, and uneasy to none; now of a popular leader
becoming a tyrant by these severe proceedings, he got the name of an
ungrateful and a faithless man. However, they gave way to these
things as necessary, although they took them very ill from him; and
especially when he began to show suspicion of Thoenon and
Sosistratus, men of the first position in Syracuse, who invited him
over into Sicily, and when he was come, put the cities into his
power, and were most instrumental in all he had done there since his
arrival, whom he now would neither suffer to be about his person, nor
leave at home; and when Sosistratus out of fear withdrew himself, and
then he charged Thoenon, as in a conspiracy with the other, and put
him to death, with this all his prospects changed, not by little and
little, nor in a single place only, but a mortal hatred being raised
in the cities against him, some fell off to the Carthaginians, others
called in the Mamertines. And seeing revolts in all places, and
desires of alteration, and a potent faction against him, at the same
time he received letters from the Samnites and Tarentines, who were
beaten quite out of the field, and scarce able to secure their towns
against the war, earnestly begging his help. This served as a color
to make his relinquishing Sicily no flight, nor a despair of good
success; but in truth not being able to manage Sicily, which was as a
ship laboring in a storm, and willing to be out of her, he suddenly
threw himself over into Italy. It is reported that at his going off
he looked back upon the island, and said to those about him, "How
brave a field of war do we leave, my friends, for the Romans and
Carthaginians to fight in," which, as he then conjectured, fell out
indeed not long after.
When he was sailing off, the barbarians having conspired together, he
was forced to a fight with the Carthaginians in the very road, and
lost many of his ships; with the rest he fled into Italy. There,
about one thousand Mamertines, who had crossed the sea a little
before, though afraid to engage him in open field, setting upon him
where the passages were difficult, put the whole army in confusion.
Two elephants fell, and a great part of his rear was cut off. He,
therefore, coming up in person, repulsed the enemy, but ran into
great danger among men long trained and bold in war. His being
wounded in the head with a sword, and retiring a little out of the
fight, much increased their confidence, and one of them advancing a
good way before the rest, large of body and in bright armor, with an
haughty voice challenged him to come forth if he were alive.
Pyrrhus, in great anger, broke away violently from his guards, and,
in his fury, besmeared with blood, terrible to look upon, made his
way through his own men, and struck the barbarian on the head with
his sword such a blow, as with the strength of his arm, and the
excellent temper of the weapon, passed downward so far that his body
being cut asunder fell in two pieces. This stopped the course of the
barbarians, amazed and confounded at Pyrrhus, as one more than man;
so that continuing his march all the rest of the way undisturbed, he
arrived at Tarentum with twenty thousand foot and three thousand
horse, where, reinforcing himself with the choicest troops of the
Tarentines, he advanced immediately against the Romans, who then lay
encamped in the territories of the Samnites, whose affairs were
extremely shattered, and their counsels broken, having been in many
fights beaten by the Romans. There was also a discontent amongst
them at Pyrrhus for his expedition into Sicily, so that not many came
in to join him.
He divided his army into two parts, and dispatched the first into
Lucania to oppose one of the consuls there, so that he should not
come in to assist the other; the rest he led against Manius Curius,
who had posted himself very advantageously near Beneventum, and
expected the other consul's forces, and partly because the priests
had dissuaded him by unfavorable omens, was resolved to remain
inactive. Pyrrhus, hastening to attack these before the other could
arrive, with his best men, and the most serviceable elephants,
marched in the night toward their camp. But being forced to go round
about, and through a very woody country, their lights failed them,
and the soldiers lost their way. A council of war being called,
while they were in debate, the night was spent, and, at the break of
day, his approach, as he came down the hills, was discovered by the
enemy, and put the whole camp into disorder and tumult. But the
sacrifices being auspicious, and the time absolutely obliging them to
fight, Manius drew his troops out of the trenches, and attacked the
vanguard, and, having routed them all, put the whole army into
consternation, so that many were cut off, and some of the elephants
taken. This success drew on Manius into the level plain, and here,
in open battle, he defeated part of the enemy; but, in other
quarters, finding himself overpowered by the elephants and forced
back to his trenches, he commanded out those who were left to guard
them, a numerous body, standing thick at the ramparts, all in arms
and fresh. These coming down from their strong position, and
charging the elephants, forced them to retire; and they in the flight
turning back upon their own men, caused great disorder and confusion,
and gave into the hands of the Romans the victory, and the future
supremacy. Having obtained from these efforts and these contests the
feeling, as well as the fame of invincible strength, they at once
reduced Italy under their power, and not long after Sicily too.
Thus fell Pyrrhus from his Italian and Sicilian hopes, after he had
consumed six years in these wars, and though unsuccessful in his
affairs, yet preserved his courage unconquerable among all these
misfortunes, and was held, for military experience, and personal
valor and enterprise much the bravest of all the princes of his time,
only what he got by great actions he lost again by vain hopes, and by
new desires of what he had not, kept nothing of what he had. So that
Antigonus used to compare him to a player with dice, who had
excellent throws, but knew not how to use them. He returned into
Epirus with eight thousand foot and five hundred horse, and for want
of money to pay them, was fain to look out for a new war to maintain
the army. Some of the Gauls joining him, he invaded Macedonia, where
Antigonus, son of Demetrius, governed, designing merely to plunder
and waste the country. But after he had made himself master of
several towns, and two thousand men came over to him, he began to
hope for something greater, and adventured upon Antigonus himself,
and meeting him at a narrow passage, put the whole army in disorder.
The Gauls, who brought up Antigonus's rear, were very numerous and
stood firm, but after a sharp encounter, the greatest part of them
were cut off, and they who had the charge of the elephants being
surrounded every way, delivered up both themselves and the beasts.
Pyrrhus, taking this advantage, and advising more with his good
fortune than his reason, boldly set upon the main body of the
Macedonian foot, already surprised with fear, and troubled at the
former loss. They declined any action or engagement with him; and
he, holding out his hand and calling aloud both to the superior and
under officers by name, brought over the foot from Antigonus, who,
flying away secretly, was only able to retain some of the seaport
towns. Pyrrhus, among all these kindnesses of fortune, thinking what
he had effected against the Gauls the most advantageous for his
glory, hung up their richest and goodliest spoils in the temple of
Minerva Itonis, with this inscription: --
Pyrrhus, descendant of Molossian kings,
These shields to thee, Itonian goddess, brings,
Won from the valiant Gauls when in the fight
Antigonus and all his host took flight;
'Tis not today nor yesterday alone
That for brave deeds the Aeacidae are known.
After this victory in the field, he proceeded to secure the cities,
and having possessed himself of Aegae, beside other hardships put
upon the people there, he left in the town a garrison of Gauls, some
of those in his own army, who, being insatiably desirous of wealth,
instantly dug up the tombs of the kings that lay buried there, and
took away the riches, and insolently scattered about their bones.
Pyrrhus, in appearance, made no great matter of it, either deferring
it on account of the pressure of other business, or wholly passing it
by, out of a fear of punishing those barbarians; but this made him
very ill spoken of among the Macedonians, and his affairs being yet
unsettled and brought to no firm consistence, he began to entertain
new hopes and projects, and in raillery called Antigonus a shameless
man, for still wearing his purple and not changing it for an ordinary
dress; but upon Cleonymus, the Spartan, arriving and inviting him to
Lacedaemon, he frankly embraced the overture. Cleonymus was of royal
descent, but seeming too arbitrary and absolute, had no great respect
nor credit at home; and Areus was king there. This was the occasion
of an old and public grudge between him and the citizens; but, beside
that, Cleonymus, in his old age, had married a young lady of great
beauty and royal blood, Chilonis, daughter of Leotychides, who,
falling desperately in love with Acrotatus, Areus's son, a youth in
the flower of manhood, rendered this match both uneasy and
dishonorable to Cleonymus, as there was none of the Spartans who did
not very well know how much his wife slighted him; so these domestic
troubles added to his public discontent. He brought Pyrrhus to
Sparta with an army of twenty-five thousand foot, two thousand horse,
and twenty-four elephants. So great a preparation made it evident to
the whole world, that he came not so much to gain Sparta for
Cleonymus, as to take all Peloponnesus for himself, although he
expressly denied this to the Lacedaemonian ambassadors that came to
him at Megalopolis, affirming he came to deliver the cities from the
slavery of Antigonus, and declaring he would send his younger sons to
Sparta, if he might, to be brought up in Spartan habits, that so they
might be better bred than all other kings. With these pretensions
amusing those who came to meet him in his march, as soon as ever he
entered Laconia, he began to plunder and waste the country, and on
the ambassadors complaining that he began the war upon them before it
was proclaimed: "We know," said he, "very well, that neither do you
Spartans, when you design anything, talk of it beforehand." One
Mandroclidas, then present, told him, in the broad Spartan dialect:
"If you are a god, you will do us no harm, we are wronging no man;
but if you are a man, there may be another stronger than you."
He now marched away directly for Lacedaemon, and being advised by
Cleonymus to give the assault as soon as he arrived, fearing, as it
is said, lest the soldiers, entering by night, should plunder the
city, he answered, they might do it as well next morning, because
there were but few soldiers in town, and those unprovided against his
sudden approach, as Areus was not there in person, but gone to aid
the Gortynians in Crete. And it was this alone that saved the town,
because he despised it as not tenable, and so imagining no defense
would be made, he sat down before it that night. Cleonymus's
friends, and the Helots, his domestic servants, had made great
preparation at his house, as expecting Pyrrhus there at supper. In
the night the Lacedaemonians held a consultation to ship over all the
women into Crete, but they unanimously refused, and Archidamia came
into the senate with a sword in her hand, in the name of them all,
asking if the men expected the women to survive the ruins of Sparta.
It was next resolved to draw a trench in a line directly over against
the enemy's camp, and, here and there in it, to sink wagons in the
ground, as deep as the naves of the wheels, that, so being firmly
fixed, they might obstruct the passage of the elephants. When they
had just begun the work, both maids and women came to them, the
married women with their robes tied like girdles round their
underfrocks, and the unmarried girls in their single frocks only, to
assist the elder men at the work. As for the youth that were next
day to engage, they left them to their rest, and undertaking their
proportion, they themselves finished a third part of the trench,
which was in breadth six cubits, four in depth, and eight hundred
feet long, as Phylarchus says; Hieronymus makes it somewhat less.
The enemy beginning to move by break of day, they brought their arms
to the young men, and giving them also in charge the trench, exhorted
them to defend and keep it bravely, as it would be happy for them to
conquer in the view of their whole country, and glorious to die in
the arms of their mothers and wives, falling as became Spartans. As
for Chilonis, she retired with a halter about her neck, resolving to
die so rather than fall into the hands of Cleonymus, if the city were
taken.
Pyrrhus himself, in person, advanced with his foot to force through
the shields of the Spartans ranged against him, and to get over the
trench, which was scarce passable, because the looseness of the fresh
earth afforded no firm footing for the soldiers. Ptolemy, his son,
with two thousand Gauls, and some choice men of the Chaonians, went
around the trench, and endeavored to get over where the wagons were.
But they, being so deep in the ground, and placed close together, not
only made his passage, but also the defense of the Lacedaemonians
very troublesome. Yet now the Gauls had got the wheels out of the
ground, and were drawing off the wagons toward the river, when young
Acrotatus, seeing the danger, passing through the town with three
hundred men, surrounded Ptolemy undiscerned, taking the advantage of
some slopes of the ground, until he fell upon his rear, and forced
him to wheel about. And thrusting one another into the ditch, and
falling among the wagons, at last with much loss, not without
difficulty, they withdrew. The elderly men and all the women saw
this brave action of Acrotatus, and when he returned back into the
town to his first post, all covered with blood, and fierce and elate
with victory, he seemed to the Spartan women to have become taller
and more beautiful than before, and they envied Chilonis so worthy a
lover. And some of the old men followed him, crying aloud, "Go on,
Acrotatus, be happy with Chilonis, and beget brave sons for Sparta."
Where Pyrrhus himself fought was the hottest of the action, and many
of the Spartans did gallantly, but in particular one Phyllius
signalized himself, made the best resistance, and killed most
assailants; and when he found himself ready to sink with the many
wounds he had received, retiring a little out of his place behind
another, he fell down among his fellow-soldiers, that the enemy might
not carry off his body. The fight ended with the day, and Pyrrhus,
in his sleep, dreamed that he threw thunderbolts upon Lacedaemon, and
set it all on fire, and rejoiced at the sight; and waking, in this
transport of joy, he commanded his officers to get all things ready
for a second assault, and relating his dream among his friends,
supposing it to mean that he should take the town by storm, the rest
assented to it with admiration, but Lysimachus was not pleased with
the dream, and told him he feared, lest as places struck with
lightning are held sacred, and not to be trodden upon, so the gods
might by this let him know the city should not be taken. Pyrrhus
replied, that all these things were but idle talk, full of
uncertainty, and only fit to amuse the vulgar; their thought, with
their swords in their hands, should always be
The one good omen is king Pyrrhus' cause,
and so got up, and drew out his army to the walls by break of day.
The Lacedaemonians, in resolution and courage, made a defense even
beyond their power; the women were all by, helping them to arms, and
bringing bread and drink to those that desired it, and taking care of
the wounded. The Macedonians attempted to fill up the trench,
bringing huge quantities of materials and throwing them upon the arms
and dead bodies, that lay there and were covered over. While the
Lacedaemonians opposed this with all their force, Pyrrhus, in person,
appeared on their side of the trench and the wagons, pressing on
horseback toward the city, at which the men who had that post calling
out, and the women shrieking and running about, while Pyrrhus
violently pushed on, and beat down all that disputed his way, his
horse received a shot in the belly from a Cretan arrow, and, in his
convulsions as he died, threw off Pyrrhus on slippery and steep
ground. And all about him being in confusion at this, the Spartans
came boldly up, and making good use of their missiles, forced them
off again. After this Pyrrhus, in other quarters also, put an end to
the combat, imagining the Lacedaemonians would be inclined to yield,
as almost all of them were wounded, and very great numbers killed
outright; but the good fortune of the city, either satisfied with the
experiment upon the bravery of the citizens, or willing to prove how
much even in the last extremities such interposition may effect,
brought, when the Lacedaemonians had now but very slender hopes left,
Aminias, the Phocian, one of Antigonus's commanders, from Corinth to
their assistance, with a force of mercenaries; and they were no
sooner received into the town, but Areus, their king, arrived there
himself, too, from Crete, with two thousand men more. The women upon
this went all home to their houses, finding it no longer necessary
for them to meddle with the business of the war; and they also were
sent back, who, though not of military age, were by necessity forced
to take arms, while the rest prepared to fight Pyrrhus.
He, upon the coming of these additional forces, was indeed possessed
with a more eager desire and ambition than before, to make himself
master of the town; but his designs not succeeding, and receiving
fresh losses every day, he gave over the siege, and fell to
plundering the country, determining to winter thereabout. But fate
is unavoidable, and a great feud happening at Argos between Aristeas
and Aristippus, two principal citizens, after Aristippus had resolved
to make use of the friendship of Antigonus, Aristeas, to anticipate
him, invited Pyrrhus thither. And he always revolving hopes upon
hopes, and treating all his successes as occasions of more, and his
reverses as defects to be amended by new enterprises, allowed neither
losses nor victories to limit him in his receiving or giving trouble,
and so presently went for Argos. Areus, by frequent ambushes, and
seizing positions where the ways were most unpracticable, harassed
the Gauls and Molossians that brought up the rear. It had been told
Pyrrhus by one of the priests that found the liver of the sacrificed
beast imperfect, that some of his near relations would be lost; in
this tumult and disorder of his rear, forgetting the prediction, he
commanded out his son Ptolemy with some of his guards to their
assistance, while he himself led on the main body rapidly out of the
pass. And the fight being very warm where Ptolemy was, (for the most
select men of the Lacedaemonians, commanded by Evalcus, were there
engaged,) one Oryssus of Aptera in Crete, a stout man and swift of
foot, running on one side of the young prince, as he was fighting
bravely, gave him a mortal wound and slew him. On his fall those
about him turned their backs, and the Lacedaemonian horse, pursuing
and cutting off many, got into the open plain, and found themselves
engaged with the enemy before they were aware, without their
infantry; Pyrrhus, who had received the ill news of his son, and was
in great affliction, drew out his Molossian horse against them, and
charging at the head of his men, satiated himself with the blood and
slaughter of the Lacedaemonians, as indeed he always showed himself a
terrible and invincible hero in actual fight, but now he exceeded all
he had ever done before in courage and force. On his riding his
horse up to Evalcus, he, by declining a little to one side, had
almost cut off Pyrrhus's hand in which he held the reins, but
lighting on the reins, only cut them; at the same instant Pyrrhus,
running him through with his spear, fell from his horse, and there on
foot as he was, proceeded to slaughter all those choice men that
fought about the body of Evalcus; a severe additional loss to Sparta,
incurred after the war itself was now at an end, by the mere
animosity of the commanders. Pyrrhus having thus offered, as it
were, a sacrifice to the ghost of his son, and fought a glorious
battle in honor of his obsequies, and having vented much of his pain
in action against the enemy, marched away to Argos. And having
intelligence that Antigonus was already in possession of the high
grounds, he encamped about Nauplia, and the next day dispatched a
herald to Antigonus, calling him a villain, and challenging him to
descend into the plain field and fight with him for the kingdom. He
answered, that his conduct should be measured by times as well as by
arms, and that if Pyrrhus had no leisure to live, there were ways
enough open to death. To both the kings, also, came ambassadors from
Argos, desiring each party to retreat, and to allow the city to
remain in friendship with both, without falling into the hands of
either. Antigonus was persuaded, and sent his son as a hostage to
the Argives; but, Pyrrhus, although he consented to retire, yet, as
he sent no hostage, was suspected. A remarkable portent happened at
this time to Pyrrhus; the heads of the sacrificed oxen, lying apart
from the bodies, were seen to thrust out their tongues and lick up
their own gore. And in the city of Argos, the priestess of Apollo
Lycius rushed out of the temple, crying she saw the city full of
carcasses and slaughter, and an eagle coming out to fight, and
presently vanishing again.
In the dead of the night, Pyrrhus, approaching the walls, and finding
the gate called Diamperes set open for them by Aristeas, was
undiscovered long enough to allow all his Gauls to enter and take
possession of the marketplace. But the gate being too low to let in
the elephants, they were obliged to take down the towers which they
carried on their backs, and put them on again in the dark and in
disorder, so that time being lost, the city took the alarm, and the
people ran, some to Aspis the chief citadel, and others to other
places of defense, and sent away to Antigonus to assist them. He,
advancing within a short distance, made an halt, but sent in some of
his principal commanders, and his son with a considerable force.
Areus came thither, too, with one thousand Cretans, and some of the
most active men among the Spartans, and all falling on at once upon
the Gauls, put them in great disorder. Pyrrhus, entering in with
noise and shouting near the Cylarabis, when the Gauls returned the
cry, noticed that it did not express courage and assurance, but was
the voice of men distressed, and that had their hands full. He,
therefore, pushed forward in haste the van of his horse that marched
but slowly and dangerously, by reason of the drains and sinks of
which the city is full. In this night engagement, there was infinite
uncertainty as to what was being done, or what orders were given;
there was much mistaking and straggling in the narrow streets; all
generalship was useless in that darkness and noise and pressure; so
both sides continued without doing anything, expecting daylight. At
the first dawn, Pyrrhus, seeing the great citadel Aspis full of
enemies, was disturbed, and remarking, among a variety of figures
dedicated in the market-place, a wolf and bull of brass, as it were
ready to attack one another, he was struck with alarm, recollecting
an oracle that formerly predicted fate had determined his death when
he should see a wolf fighting with a bull. The Argives say, these
figures were set up in record of a thing that long ago had happened
there. For Danaus, at his first landing in the country, near the
Pyramia in Thyreatis, as he was on his way towards Argos, espied a
wolf fighting with a bull, and conceiving the wolf to represent him,
(for this stranger fell upon a native, as he designed to do,) stayed
to see the issue of the fight, and the wolf prevailing, he offered
vows to Apollo Lycius, and thus made his attempt upon the town, and
succeeded; Gelanor, who was then king, being displaced by a faction.
And this was the cause of dedicating those figures.
Pyrrhus, quite out of heart at this sight, and seeing none of his
designs succeed, thought best to retreat, but fearing the narrow
passage at the gate, sent to his son Helenus, who was left without
the town with a great part of his forces, commanding him to break
down part of the wall, and assist the retreat if the enemy pressed
hard upon them. But what with haste and confusion, the person that
was sent delivered nothing clearly; so that quite mistaking, the
young prince with the best of his men and the remaining elephants
marched straight through the gates into the town to assist his
father. Pyrrhus was now making good his retreat, and while the
marketplace afforded them ground enough both to retreat and fight,
frequently repulsed the enemy that bore upon him. But when he was
forced out of that broad place into the narrow street leading to the
gate, and fell in with those who came the other way to his assistance
some did not hear him call out to them to give back, and those who
did, however eager to obey him, were pushed forward by others behind,
who poured in at the gate. Besides, the largest of his elephants
falling down on his side in the very gate, and lying roaring on the
ground, was in the way of those that would have got out. Another of
the elephants already in the town, called Nicon, striving to take up
his rider, who, after many wounds received, was fallen off his back,
bore forward upon those that were retreating, and, thrusting upon
friends as well as enemies, tumbled them all confusedly upon one
another, till having found the body, and taken it up with his trunk,
he carried it on his tusks, and, returning in a fury, trod down all
before him. Being thus pressed and crowded together, not a man could
do anything for himself, but being wedged, as it were, together into
one mass, the whole multitude rolled and swayed this way and that all
together, and did very little execution either upon the enemy in
their rear, or on any of them who were intercepted in the mass, but
very much harm to one another. For he who had either drawn his sword
or directed his lance, could neither restore it again, nor put his
sword up; with these weapons they wounded their own men, as they
happened to come in the way, and they were dying by mere contact with
each other.
Pyrrhus, seeing this storm and confusion of things, took off the
crown he wore upon his helmet, by which he was distinguished, and
gave it to one nearest his person, and trusting to the goodness of
his horse, rode in among the thickest of the enemy, and being wounded
with a lance through his breastplate, but not dangerously, nor indeed
very much, he turned about upon the man who struck him, who was an
Argive, not of any illustrious birth, but the son of a poor old
woman; she was looking upon the fight among other women from the top
of a house, and perceiving her son engaged with Pyrrhus, and
affrighted at the danger he was in, took up a tile with both hands,
and threw it at Pyrrhus. This falling on his head below the helmet,
and bruising the vertebrae of the lower part of the neck, stunned and
blinded him; his hands let go the reins, and sinking down from his
horse, he fell just by the tomb of Licymnius. The common soldiers
knew not who it was; but one Zopyrus, who served under Antigonus, and
two or three others running thither, and knowing it was Pyrrhus,
dragged him to a door way hard by, just as he was recovering a little
from the blow. But when Zopyrus drew out an Illyrian sword, ready to
cut off his head, Pyrrhus gave him so fierce a look, that confounded
with terror, and sometimes his hands trembling, and then again
endeavoring to do it, full of fear and confusion, he could not strike
him right, but cutting over his mouth and chin, it was a long time
before he got off the head. By this time what had happened was known
to a great many, and Alcyoneus hastening to the place, desired to
look upon the head, and see whether he knew it, and taking it in his
hand rode away to his father, and threw it at his feet, while he was
sitting with some of his particular favorites. Antigonus, looking
upon it, and knowing it, thrust his son from him, and struck him with
his staff, calling him wicked and barbarous, and covering his eyes
with his robe, shed tears, thinking of his own father and
grandfather, instances in his own family of the changefulness of
fortune, and caused the head and body of Pyrrhus to be burned with
all due solemnity. After this, Alcyoneus, discovering Helenus under
a mean disguise in a threadbare coat, used him very respectfully, and
brought him to his father. When Antigonus saw him, "This, my son,"
said he, "is better; and yet even now you have not done wholly well
in allowing these clothes to remain, to the disgrace of those who it
seems now are the victors." And treating Helenus with great
kindness, and as became a prince, he restored him to his kingdom of
Epirus, and gave the same obliging reception to all Pyrrhus's
principal commanders, his camp and whole army having fallen into his
hands.
CAIUS MARIUS
We are altogether ignorant of any third name of Caius Marius; as also
of Quintus Sertorius, that possessed himself of Spain; or of Lucius
Mummius that destroyed Corinth, though this last was surnamed
Achaicus from his conquests, as Scipio was called Africanus, and
Metellus, Macedonicus. Hence Posidonius draws his chief argument to
confute those that hold the third to be the Roman proper name, as
Camillus, Marcellus, Cato; as in this case, those that had but two
names would have no proper name at all. He did not, however, observe
that by his own reasoning he must rob the women absolutely of their
names; for none of them have the first, which Posidonius imagines the
proper name with the Romans. Of the other two, one was common to the
whole family, Pompeii, Manlii, Cornelii, (as with us Greeks, the
Heraclidae, and Pelopidae,) the other titular, and personal, taken
either from their natures, or actions, or bodily characteristics, as
Macrinus, Torquatus, Sylla; such as are Mnemon, Grypus, or Callinicus
among the Greeks. On the subject of names, however, the irregularity
of custom, would we insist upon it, might furnish us with discourse
enough.
There is a likeness of Marius in stone at Ravenna, in Gaul, which I
myself saw, quite corresponding with that roughness and harshness of
character that is ascribed to him. Being naturally valiant and
warlike, and more acquainted also with the discipline of the camp
than of the city, he could not moderate his passion when in
authority. He is said never to have either studied Greek, or to have
made use of that language in any matter of consequence; thinking it
ridiculous to bestow time in that learning, the teachers of which
were little better than slaves. So after his second triumph, when at
the dedication of a temple he presented some shows after the Greek
fashion, coming into the theater, he only sat down and immediately
departed. And, accordingly, as Plato often used to say to Xenocrates
the philosopher, who was thought to show more than ordinary harshness
of disposition, "I pray you, good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the
Graces"; so if any could have persuaded Marius to pay his devotions
to the Greek Muses and Graces, he had never brought his incomparable
actions, both in war and peace, to so unworthy a conclusion, or
wrecked himself, so to say, upon an old age of cruelty and
vindictiveness, through passion, ill-timed ambition, and insatiable
cupidity. But this will further appear by and by from the facts.
He was born of parents altogether obscure and indigent, who supported
themselves by their daily labor; his father of the same name with
himself, his mother called Fulcinia. He had spent a considerable
part of his life before he saw and tasted the pleasures of the city;
having passed previously in Cirrhaeaton, a village of the territory
of Arpinum, a life, compared with city delicacies, rude and
unrefined, yet temperate, and conformable to the ancient Roman
severity. He first served as a soldier in the war against the
Celtiberians, when Scipio Africanus besieged Numantia; where he
signalized himself to his general by courage far above his comrades,
and, particularly, by his cheerfully complying with Scipio's
reformation of his army, before almost ruined by pleasures and
luxury. It is stated, too, that he encountered and vanquished an
enemy in single combat, in his general's sight. In consequence of
all this he had several honors conferred upon him; and once when at
an entertainment a question arose about commanders, and one of the
company (whether really desirous to know, or only in complaisance)
asked Scipio where the Romans, after him, should obtain such another
general, Scipio, gently clapping Marius on the shoulder as he sat
next him, replied, "Here, perhaps." So promising was his early youth
of his future greatness, and so discerning was Scipio to detect the
distant future in the present first beginnings. It was this speech
of Scipio, we are told, which, like a divine admonition, chiefly
emboldened Marius to aspire to a political career. He sought, and by
the assistance of Caecilius Metellus, of whose family he as well as
his father were dependents, obtained the office of tribune of the
people. In which place, when he brought forward a bill for the
regulation of voting, which seemed likely to lessen the authority of
the great men in the courts of justice, the consul Cotta opposed him,
and persuaded the senate to declare against the law, and call Marius
to account for it. He, however, when this decree was prepared,
coming into the senate, did not behave like a young man newly and
undeservedly advanced to authority, but, assuming all the courage
that his future actions would have warranted, threatened Cotta unless
he recalled the decree, to throw him into prison. And on his turning
to Metellus, and asking his vote, and Metellus rising up to concur
with the consul, Marius, calling for the officer outside, commanded
him to take Metellus into custody. He appealed to the other
tribunes, but not one of them assisted him; so that the senate,
immediately complying, withdrew the decree. Marius came forth with
glory to the people and confirmed his law, and was henceforth
esteemed a man of undaunted courage and assurance, as well as a
vigorous opposer of the senate in favor of the commons. But he
immediately lost their opinion of him by a contrary action; for when
a law for the distribution of corn was proposed, he vigorously and
successfully resisted it, making himself equally honored by both
parties, in gratifying neither, contrary to the public interest.
After his tribuneship, he was candidate for the office of chief
aedile; there being two orders of them, one the curules, from the
stool with crooked feet on which they sat when they performed their
duty; the other and inferior, called aediles of the people. As soon
as they have chosen the former, they give their voices again for the
latter. Marius, finding he was likely to be put by for the greater,
immediately changed and stood for the less; but because he seemed too
forward and hot, he was disappointed of that also. And yet though he
was in one day twice frustrated of his desired preferment, (which
never happened to any before,) yet he was not at all discouraged, but
a little while after sought for the praetorship, and was nearly
suffering a repulse, and then, too, though he was returned last of
all, was nevertheless accused of bribery.
Cassius Sabaco's servant, who was observed within the rails among
those that voted, chiefly occasioned the suspicion, as Sabaco was an
intimate friend of Marius; but on being called to appear before the
judges, he alleged, that being thirsty by reason of the heat, he
called for cold water, and that his servant brought him a cup, and
as soon as he had drunk, departed; he was, however, excluded from the
senate by the succeeding censors, and not undeservedly either, as was
thought, whether it might be for his false evidence, or his want of
temperance. Caius Herennius was also cited to appear as evidence,
but pleaded that it was not customary for a patron, (the Roman word
for protector,) to witness against his clients, and that the law
excused them from that harsh duty; and both Marius and his parents
had always been clients to the family of the Herennii. And when the
judges would have accepted of this plea, Marius himself opposed it,
and told Herennius, that when he was first created magistrate he
ceased to be his client; which was not altogether true. For it is
not every office that frees clients and their posterity from the
observance due to their patrons, but only those to which the law has
assigned a curule chair. Notwithstanding, though at the beginning of
the suit it went somewhat hard with Marius, and he found the judges
no way favorable to him; yet, at last, their voices being equal,
contrary to all expectation, he was acquitted.
In his praetorship he did not get much honor, yet after it he
obtained the further Spain; which province he is said to have
cleared of robbers, with which it was much infested, the old
barbarous habits still prevailing, and the Spaniards, in those days,
still regarding robbery as a piece of valor. In the city he had
neither riches nor eloquence to trust to, with which the leading men
of the time obtained power with the people, but his vehement
disposition, his indefatigable labors, and his plain way of living,
of themselves gained him esteem and influence; so that he made an
honorable match with Julia, of the distinguished family of the
Caesars, to whom that Caesar was nephew who was afterwards so great
among the Romans, and, in some degree, from his relationship, made
Marius his example, as in his life we have observed.
Marius is praised for both temperance and endurance, of which latter
he gave a decided instance in an operation of surgery. For having,
as it seems, both his legs full of great tumors, and disliking the
deformity, he determined to put himself into the hands of an
operator; when, without being tied, he stretched out one of his legs,
and silently, without changing countenance, endured most excessive
torments in the cutting, never either flinching or complaining; but
when the surgeon went to the other, he declined to have it done,
saying, "I see the cure is not worth the pain."
The consul Caecilius Metellus. being declared general in the war
against Jugurtha in Africa, took with him Marius for lieutenant;
where, eager himself to do great deeds and services that would get
him distinction, he did not, like others, consult Metellus's glory and
the serving his interest, and attributing his honor of lieutenancy
not to Metellus, but to fortune, which had presented him with a
proper opportunity and theater of great actions, he exerted his
utmost courage. That war, too, affording several difficulties, he
neither declined the greatest, nor disdained undertaking the least of
them; but surpassing his equals in counsel and conduct, and matching
the very common soldiers in labor and abstemiousness, he gained great
popularity with them; as indeed any voluntary partaking with people
in their labor is felt as an easing of that labor, as it seems to
take away the constraint and necessity of it. It is the most
obliging sight in the world to the Roman soldier to see a commander
eat the same bread as himself, or lie upon an ordinary bed, or assist
the work in the drawing a trench and raising a bulwark. For they do
not so much admire those that confer honors and riches upon them, as
those that partake of the same labor and danger with themselves; but
love them better that will vouchsafe to join in their work, than
those that encourage their idleness.
Marius thus employed, and thus winning the affections of the
soldiers, before long filled both Africa and Rome with his fame, and
some, too, wrote home from the army that the war with Africa would
never be brought to a conclusion, unless they chose Caius Marius
consul. All which was evidently unpleasing to Metellus; but what
more especially grieved him was the calamity of Turpillius. This
Turpillius had, from his ancestors, been a friend of Metellus, and
kept up constant hospitality with him; and was now serving in the
war, in command of the smiths and carpenters of the army. Having the
charge of a garrison in Vaga, a considerable city, and trusting too
much to the inhabitants, because he treated them civilly and kindly,
he unawares fell into the enemy's hands. They received Jugurtha into
the city; yet, nevertheless, at their request, Turpillius was
dismissed safe and without receiving any injury; whereupon he was
accused of betraying it to the enemy. Marius, being one of the
council of war, was not only violent against him himself, but also
incensed most of the others, so that Metellus was forced, much
against his will, to put him to death. Not long after the accusation
proved false, and when others were comforting Metellus, who took
heavily the loss of his friend, Marius, rather insulting and
arrogating it to himself, boasted in all companies that he had
involved Metellus in the guilt of putting his friend to death.
Henceforward they were at open variance; and it is reported that
Metellus once, when Marius was present, said, insultingly, "You, sir,
design to leave us to go home and stand for the consulship, and will
not be content to wait and be consul with this boy of mine?"
Metellus's son being a mere boy at the time. Yet for all this Marius
being very importunate to be gone, after several delays, he was
dismissed about twelve days before the election of consuls; and
performed that long journey from the camp to the seaport of Utica, in
two days and a night, and there doing sacrifice before he went on
shipboard, it is said the augur told him, that heaven promised him
some incredible good fortune, and such as was beyond all expectation.
Marius, not a little elated with this good omen, began his voyage,
and in four days, with a favorable wind, passed the sea; he was
welcomed with great joy by the people, and being brought into the
assembly by one of the tribunes, sued for the consulship, inveighing
in all ways against Metellus, and promising either to slay Jugurtha
or take him alive.
He was elected triumphantly, and at once proceeded to levy soldiers,
contrary both to law and custom, enlisting slaves and poor people;
whereas former commanders never accepted of such, but bestowed arms,
like other favors, as a matter of distinction, on persons who had the
proper qualification, a man's property being thus a sort of security
for his good behavior. These were not the only occasions of ill-will
against Marius; some haughty speeches, uttered with great arrogance
and contempt, gave great offense to the nobility; as, for example,
his saying that he had carried off the consulship as a spoil from the
effeminacy of the wealthy and high-born citizens, and telling the
people that he gloried in wounds he had himself received for them, as
much as others did in the monuments of dead men and images of their
ancestors. Often speaking of the commanders that had been
unfortunate in Africa, naming Bestia, for example, and Albinus, men
of very good families, but unfit for war, and who had miscarried
through want of experience, he asked the people about him, if they
did not think that the ancestors of these nobles had much rather have
left a descendant like him, since they themselves grew famous not by
nobility, but by their valor and great actions? This he did not say
merely out of vanity and arrogance, or that he were willing, without
any advantage, to offend the nobility; but the people always
delighting in affronts and scurrilous contumelies against the senate,
making boldness of speech their measure of greatness of spirit,
continually encouraged him in it, and strengthened his inclination
not to spare persons of repute, so he might gratify the multitude.
As soon as he arrived again in Africa, Metellus, no longer able to
control his feelings of jealousy, and his indignation that now when
he had really finished the war, and nothing was left but to secure
the person of Jugurtha, Marius, grown great merely through his
ingratitude to him, should come to bereave him both of his victory
and triumph, could not bear to have any interview with him; but
retired himself, whilst Rutilius, his lieutenant, surrendered up the
army to Marius, whose conduct, however, in the end of the war, met
with some sort of retribution, as Sylla deprived him of the glory of
the action, as he had done Metellus. I shall state the circumstances
briefly here, as they are given at large in the life of Sylla.
Bocchus was king of the more distant barbarians, and was
father-in-law to Jugurtha, yet sent him little or no assistance in
his war, professing fears of his unfaithfulness, and really jealous
of his growing power; but after Jugurtha fled, and in his distress
came to him as his last hope, he received him as a suppliant, rather
because ashamed to do otherwise, than out of real kindness; and when
he had him in his power, he openly entreated Marius on his behalf,
and interceded for him with bold words, giving out that he would by
no means deliver him. Yet privately designing to betray him, he sent
for Lucius Sylla, quaestor to Marius, and who had on a previous
occasion befriended Bocchus in the war. When Sylla, relying on his
word, came to him, the African began to doubt and repent of his
purpose, and for several days was unresolved with himself, whether he
should deliver Jugurtha or retain Sylla; at length he fixed upon his
former treachery, and put Jugurtha alive into Sylla's possession.
Thus was the first occasion given of that fierce and implacable
hostility which so nearly ruined the whole Roman empire. For many
that envied Marius, attributed the success wholly to Sylla; and Sylla
himself got a seal made on which was engraved Bocchus betraying
Jugurtha to him, and constantly used it, irritating the hot and
jealous temper of Marius, who was naturally greedy of distinction,
and quick to resent any claim to share in his glory, and whose
enemies took care to promote the quarrel, ascribing the beginning and
chief business of the war to Metellus, and its conclusion to Sylla;
that so the people might give over admiring and esteeming Marius as
the worthiest person.
But these envyings and calumnies were soon dispersed and cleared away
from Marius, by the danger that threatened Italy from the west; when
the city, in great need of a good commander, sought about whom she
might set at the helm, to meet the tempest of so great a war, no one
would have anything to say to any members of noble or potent
families who offered themselves for the consulship, and Marius,
though then absent, was elected.
Jugurtha's apprehension was only just known, when the news of the
invasion of the Teutones and Cimbri began. The accounts at first
exceeded all credit, as to the number and strength of the approaching
army; but in the end, report proved much inferior to the truth, as
they were three hundred thousand effective fighting men, besides a
far greater number of women and children. They professed to be
seeking new countries to sustain these great multitudes, and cities
where they might settle and inhabit, in the same way as they had
heard the Celti before them had driven out the Tyrrhenians, and
possessed themselves of the best part of Italy. Having had no
commerce with the southern nations, and traveling over a wide extent
of country, no man knew what people they were, or whence they came,
that thus like a cloud burst over Gaul and Italy; yet by their gray
eyes and the largeness of their stature, they were conjectured to be
some of the German races dwelling by the northern sea; besides that,
the Germans call plunderers Cimbri.
There are some that say, that the country of the Celti, in its vast
size and extent, reaches from the furthest sea and the arctic regions
to the lake Maeotis eastward, and to that part of Scythia which is
near Pontus, and that there the nations mingle together; that they
did not swarm out of their country all at once, or on a sudden, but
advancing by force of arms, in the summer season, every year, in the
course of time they crossed the whole continent. And thus, though
each party had several appellations, yet the whole army was called by
the common name of Celto-Scythians. Others say that the Cimmerii,
anciently known to the Greeks, were only a small part of the nation,
who were driven out upon some quarrel among the Scythians, and passed
all along from the lake Maeotis to Asia, under the conduct of one
Lygdamis; and that the greater and more warlike part of them still
inhabit the remotest regions lying upon the outer ocean. These, they
say, live in a dark and woody country hardly penetrable by the
sunbeams, the trees are so close and thick, extending into the
interior as far as the Hercynian forest; and their position on the
earth is under that part of heaven, where the pole is so elevated,
that by the declination of the parallels, the zenith of the
inhabitants seems to be but little distant from it; and that their
days and nights being almost of an equal length, they divide their
year into one of each. This was Homer's occasion for the story of
Ulysses calling up the dead, and from this region the people,
anciently called Cimmerii, and afterwards, by an easy change, Cimbri,
came into Italy. All this, however, is rather conjecture than an
authentic history.
Their numbers, most writers agree, were not less, but rather greater
than was reported. They were of invincible strength and fierceness
in their wars, and hurried into battle with the violence of a
devouring flame; none could withstand them; all they assaulted became
their prey. Several of the greatest Roman commanders with their
whole armies, that advanced for the defense of Transalpine Gaul, were
ingloriously overthrown, and, indeed, by their faint resistance,
chiefly gave them the impulse of marching towards Rome. Having
vanquished all they had met, and found abundance of plunder, they
resolved to settle themselves nowhere till they should have razed the
city, and wasted all Italy. The Romans, being from all parts alarmed
with this news, sent for Marius to undertake the war, and nominated
him the second time consul, though the law did not permit any one
that was absent, or that had not waited a certain time after his
first consulship, to be again created. But the people rejected all
opposers; for they considered this was not the first time that the
law gave place to the common interest; nor the present occasion less
urgent than that when, contrary to law, they made Scipio consul, not
in fear for the destruction of their own city, but desiring the ruin
of that of the Carthaginians.
Thus it was decided; and Marius, bringing over his legions out of
Africa on the very first day of January, which the Romans count the
beginning of the year, received the consulship, and then, also,
entered in triumph, showing Jugurtha a prisoner to the people, a
sight they had despaired of ever beholding, nor could any, so long as
he lived, hope to reduce the enemy in Africa; so fertile in
expedients was he to adapt himself to every turn of fortune, and so
bold as well as subtle. When, however, he was led in triumph, it is
said that he fell distracted, and when he was afterwards thrown into
prison, where some tore off his clothes by force, and others, whilst
they struggled for his golden ear-ring, with it pulled off the tip of
his ear, and when he was, after this, cast naked into the dungeon, in
his amazement and confusion, with a ghastly laugh, he cried out, "O
Hercules! how cold your bath is!" Here for six days struggling with
hunger, and to the very last minute desirous of life, he was
overtaken by the just reward of his villainies. In this triumph was
brought, as is stated, of gold three thousand and seven pounds
weight, of silver bullion five thousand seven hundred and
seventy-five, of money in gold and silver coin two hundred and
eighty-seven thousand drachmas. After the solemnity, Marius called
together the senate in the capitol, and entered, whether through
inadvertency or unbecoming exultation with his good fortune, in his
triumphal habit; but presently observing the senate offended at it,
went out, and returned in his ordinary purple-bordered robe.
On the expedition he carefully disciplined and trained his army
whilst on their way, giving them practice in long marches, and
running of every sort, and compelling every man to carry his own
baggage and prepare his own victuals; insomuch that thenceforward
laborious soldiers, who did their work silently without grumbling,
had the name of "Marius's mules." Some, however, think the proverb
had a different occasion; that when Scipio besieged Numantia, and was
careful to inspect not only their horses and arms, but their mules
and carriages too, and see how well equipped and in what readiness
each one's was, Marius brought forth his horse which he had fed
extremely well, and a mule in better case, stronger and gentler than
those of others; that the general was very well pleased, and often
afterwards mentioned Marius's beasts; and that hence the soldiers,
when speaking jestingly in the praise of a drudging, laborious
fellow, called him Marius's mule.
But to proceed; very great good fortune seemed to attend Marius, for
by the enemy in a manner changing their course, and falling first
upon Spain, he had time to exercise his soldiers, and confirm their
courage, and, which was most important, to show them what he himself
was. For that fierce manner of his in command, and inexorableness in
punishing, when his men became used not to do amiss or disobey, was
felt to be wholesome and advantageous, as well as just, and his
violent spirit, stern voice, and harsh aspect, which in a little
while grew familiar to them, they esteemed terrible not to
themselves, but only to their enemies. But his uprightness in
judging, more especially pleased the soldiers, one remarkable
instance of which is as follows. One Caius Lusius, his own nephew,
had a command under him in the army, a man not in other respects of
bad character, but shamefully licentious with young men. He had one
young man under his command called Trebonius, with whom
notwithstanding many solicitations he could never prevail. At length
one night, he sent a messenger for him, and Trebonius came, as it was
not lawful for him to refuse when he was sent for, and being brought
into his tent, when Lusius began to use violence with him, he drew
his sword and ran him through. This was done whilst Marius was
absent. When he returned, he appointed Trebonius a time for his
trial, where, whilst many accused him, and not any one appeared in
his defense, he himself boldly related the whole matter, and brought
witness of his previous conduct to Lusius, who had frequently offered
him considerable presents. Marius, admiring his conduct and much
pleased, commanded the garland, the usual Roman reward of valor, to
be brought, and himself crowned Trebonius with it, as having
performed an excellent action, at a time that very much wanted such
good examples.
This being told at Rome, proved no small help to Marius towards his
third consulship; to which also conduced the expectation of the
barbarians at the summer season, the people being unwilling to trust
their fortunes with any other general but him. However, their
arrival was not so early as was imagined, and the time of Marius's
consulship was again expired. The election coming on, and his
colleague being dead, he left the command of the army to Manius
Aquilius, and hastened to Rome, where, several eminent persons being
candidates for the consulship, Lucius Saturninus, who more than any
of the other tribunes swayed the populace, and of whom Marius himself
was very observant, exerted his eloquence with the people, advising
them to choose Marius consul. He playing the modest part, and
professing to decline the office, Saturninus called him traitor to
his country, if, in such apparent danger, he would avoid command.
And though it was not difficult to discover that he was merely
helping Marius in putting this presence upon the people, yet,
considering that the present juncture much required his skill, and
his good fortune too, they voted him the fourth time consul, and made
Catulus Lutatius his colleague, a man very much esteemed by the
nobility, and not unagreeable to the commons.
Marius, having notice of the enemy's approach, with all expedition
passed the Alps, and pitching his camp by the river Rhone, took care
first for plentiful supplies of victuals; lest at any time he should
be forced to fight at a disadvantage for want of necessaries. The
carriage of provision for the army from the sea, which was formerly
long and expensive, he made speedy and easy. For the mouth of the
Rhone, by the influx of the sea, being barred and almost filled up
with sand and mud mixed with clay, the passage there became narrow,
difficult, and dangerous for the ships that brought their provisions.
Hither, therefore, bringing his army, then at leisure, he drew a
great trench; and by turning the course of great part of the river,
brought it to a convenient point on the shore where the water was
deep enough to receive ships of considerable burden, and where there
was a calm and easy opening to the sea. And this still retains the
name it took from him.
The enemy dividing themselves into two parts, the Cimbri arranged to
go against Catulus higher up through the country of the Norici, and
to force that passage; the Teutones and Ambrones to march against
Marius by the sea-side through Liguria. The Cimbri were a
considerable time in doing their part. But the Teutones and Ambrones
with all expedition passing over the interjacent country, soon came
in sight, in numbers beyond belief, of a terrible aspect, and
uttering strange cries and shouts. Taking up a great part of the
plain with their camp, they challenged Marius to battle; he seemed to
take no notice of them, but kept his soldiers within their
fortifications, and sharply reprehended those that were too forward
and eager to show their courage, and who, out of passion, would needs
be fighting, calling them traitors to their country, and telling them
they were not now to think of the glory of triumphs and trophies, but
rather how they might repel such an impetuous tempest of war, and
save Italy.
Thus he discoursed privately with his officers and equals, but placed
the soldiers by turns upon the bulwarks to survey the enemy, and so
made them familiar with their shape and voice, which were indeed
altogether extravagant and barbarous, and he caused them to observe
their arms, and way of using them, so that in a little time what at
first appeared terrible to their apprehensions, by often viewing,
became familiar. For he very rationally supposed, that the
strangeness of things often makes them seem formidable when they are
not so; and that by our better acquaintance, even things which are
really terrible, lose much of their frightfulness. This daily
converse not only diminished some of the soldiers' fear, but their
indignation warmed and inflamed their courage, when they heard the
threats and insupportable insolence of their enemies; who not only
plundered and depopulated all the country round, but would even
contemptuously and confidently attack the ramparts.
Complaints of the soldiers now began to come to Marius's ears. "What
effeminacy does Marius see in us, that he should thus like women lock
us up from encountering our enemies? Come on, let us show ourselves
men, and ask him if he expects others to fight for Italy; and means
merely to employ us in servile offices, when he would dig trenches,
cleanse places of mud and dirt, and turn the course of rivers? It
was to do such works as these, it seems, that he gave us all our long
training; he will return home, and boast of these great performances
of his consulships to the people. Does the defeat of Carbo and
Caepio, who were vanquished by the enemy, affright him? Surely they
were much inferior to Marius both in glory and valor, and commanded a
much weaker army; at the worst, it is better to be in action, though
we suffer for it like them, than to sit idle spectators of the
destruction of our allies and companions." Marius, not a little
pleased to hear this, gently appeased them, pretending that he did
not distrust their valor, but that he took his measures as to the
time and place of victory from some certain oracles.
And, in fact, he used solemnly to carry about in a litter, a Syrian
woman, called Martha, a supposed prophetess, and to do sacrifice by
her directions. She had formerly been driven away by the senate, to
whom she addressed herself, offering to inform them about these
affairs, and to foretell future events; and after this betook herself
to the women, and gave them proofs of her skill, especially Marius's
wife, at whose feet she sat when she was viewing a contest of
gladiators, and correctly foretold which of them should overcome.
She was for this and the like predictings sent by her to Marius and
the army, where she was very much looked up to, and, for the most
part, carried about in a litter. When she went to sacrifice, she
wore a purple robe lined and buckled up, and had in her hand a little
spear trimmed with ribbons and garlands. This theatrical show made
many question, whether Marius really gave any credit to her himself,
or only played the counterfeit, when he showed her publicly, to
impose upon the soldiers.
What, however, Alexander the Myndian relates about the vultures, does
really deserve admiration; that always before Marius's victories
there appeared two of them, and accompanied the army, which were
known by their brazen collars, (the soldiers having caught them and
put these about their necks, and so let them go, from which time they
in a manner knew and saluted the soldiers,) and whenever these
appeared in their marches, they used to rejoice at it, and thought
themselves sure of some success. Of the many other prodigies that
then were taken notice of, the greater part were but of the ordinary
stamp; it was, however, reported that at Ameria and Tuder, two cities
in Italy, there were seen at nights in the sky, flaming darts and
shields, now waved about, and then again clashing against one
another, all in accordance with the postures and motions soldiers use
in fighting; that at length one party retreating, and the other
pursuing, they all disappeared westward. Much about the same time
came Bataces, one of Cybele's priests, from Pesinus, and reported
how the goddess had declared to him out of her oracle, that the
Romans should obtain the victory. The senate giving credit to him,
and voting the goddess a temple to be built in hopes of the victory,
Aulus Pompeius, a tribune, prevented Bataces, when he would have gone
and told the people this same story, calling him impostor, and
ignominiously pulling him off the hustings; which action in the end
was the main thing that gained credit for the man's story, for Aulus
had scarce dissolved the assembly, and returned home, when a violent
fever seized him, and it was matter of universal remark, and in
everybody's mouth, that he died within a week after.
Now the Teutones, whilst Marius lay quiet, ventured to attack his
camp; from whence, however, being encountered with showers of darts,
and losing several of their men, they determined to march forward,
hoping to reach the other side of the Alps without opposition, and,
packing up their baggage, passed securely by the Roman camp, where
the greatness of their number was especially made evident by the long
time they took in their march, for they were said to be six days
continually going on in passing Marius's fortifications; they marched
pretty near, and revilingly asked the Romans if they would send any
commands by them to their wives, for they would shortly be with them.
As soon as they were passed and had gone on a little distance ahead,
Marius began to move, and follow them at his leisure, always
encamping at some small distance from them; choosing also strong
positions, and carefully fortifying them, that he might quarter with
safety. Thus they marched till they came to the place called
Sextilius's Waters, from whence it was but a short way before being
amidst the Alps, and here Marius put himself in readiness for the
encounter.
He chose a place for his camp of considerable strength, but where
there was a scarcity of water; designing, it is said, by this means,
also, to put an edge on his soldiers' courage; and when several were
not a little distressed, and complained of thirst, pointing to a
river that ran near the enemy's camp: "There," said he, "you may
have drink, if you will buy it with your blood." "Why, then,"
replied they, "do you not lead us to them, before our blood is dried
up in us?" He answered, in a softer tone, "let us first fortify our
camp," and the soldiers, though not without repining, proceeded to
obey. Now a great company of their boys and camp-followers, having
neither drink for themselves nor for their horses, went down to that
river; some taking axes and hatchets, and some, too, swords and darts
with their pitchers, resolving to have water though they fought for
it. These were first encountered by a small party of the enemies;
for most of them had just finished bathing, and were eating and
drinking, and several were still bathing, the country thereabouts
abounding in hot springs; so that the Romans partly fell upon them
whilst they were enjoying themselves, and occupied with the novel
sights and pleasantness of the place. Upon hearing the shouts,
greater numbers still joining in the fight, it was not a little
difficult for Marius to contain his soldiers, who were afraid of
losing the camp-servants; and the more warlike part of the enemies,
who had overthrown Manlius and Caepio, (they were called Ambrones,
and were in number, one with another, above thirty thousand,) taking
the alarm, leaped up and hurried to arms.
These, though they had just been gorging themselves with food, and
were excited and disordered with drink, nevertheless did not advance
with an unruly step, or in mere senseless fury, nor were their shouts
mere inarticulate cries; but clashing their arms in concert, and
keeping time as they leapt and bounded onward, they continually
repeated their own name, "Ambrones!" either to encourage one another,
or to strike the greater terror into their enemies. Of all the
Italians in Marius's army, the Ligurians were the first that charged;
and when they caught the word of the enemy's confused shout, they,
too, returned the same, as it was an ancient name also in their
country, the Ligurians always using it when speaking of their
descent. This acclamation, bandied from one army to the other before
they joined, served to rouse and heighten their fury, while the men
on either side strove, with all possible vehemence, the one to
overshout the other.
The river disordered the Ambrones; before they could draw up all
their army on the other side of it, the Ligurians presently fell upon
the van, and began to charge them hand to hand. The Romans, too,
coming to their assistance, and from the higher ground pouring upon
the enemy, forcibly repelled them, and the most of them (one
thrusting another into the river) were there slain, and filled it
with their blood and dead bodies. Those that got safe over, not
daring to make head, were slain by the Romans, as they fled to their
camp and wagons; where the women meeting them with swords and
hatchets, and making a hideous outcry, set upon those that fled as
well as those that pursued, the one as traitors, the other as
enemies; and, mixing themselves with the combatants, with their bare
arms pulling away the Romans' shields, and laying hold on their
swords, endured the wounds and slashing of their bodies to the very
last, with undaunted resolution. Thus the battle seems to have
happened at that river rather by accident than by the design of the
general.
After the Romans were retired from the great slaughter of the
Ambrones, night came on; but the army was not indulged, as was the
usual custom, with songs of victory, drinking in their tents, and
mutual entertainments, and (what is most welcome to soldiers after
successful fighting) quiet sleep, but they passed that night, above
all others, in fears and alarm. For their camp was without either
rampart or palisade, and there remained thousands upon thousands of
their enemies yet unconquered; to whom were joined as many of the
Ambrones as escaped. There were heard from these, all through the
night, wild bewailings, nothing like the sighs and groans of men, but
a sort of wild-beastlike howling and roaring, joined with threats
and lamentations rising from the vast multitude, and echoed among the
neighboring hills and hollow banks of the river. The whole plain was
filled with hideous noise, insomuch that the Romans were not a little
afraid, and Marius himself was apprehensive of a confused tumultuous
night engagement. But the enemy did not stir either this night or
the next day, but were employed in disposing and drawing themselves
up to the greatest advantage.
Of this occasion Marius made good use; for there were beyond the
enemies some wooded ascents and deep valleys thickly set with trees,
whither he sent Claudius Marcellus, secretly, with three thousand
regular soldiers, giving him orders to post them in ambush there, and
show themselves at the rear of the enemies, when the fight was begun.
The others, refreshed with victuals and sleep, as soon as it was day
he drew up before the camp, and commanded the horse to sally out into
the plain, at the sight of which the Teutones could not contain
themselves till the Romans should come down and fight them on equal
terms, but hastily arming themselves, charged in their fury up the
hill-side. Marius, sending officers to all parts, commanded his men
to stand still and keep their ground; when they came within reach, to
throw their javelins, then use their swords, and, joining their
shields, force them back; pointing out to them that the steepness of
the ground would render the enemy's blows inefficient, nor could
their shields be kept close together, the inequality of the ground
hindering the stability of their footing.
This counsel he gave them, and was the first that followed it; for he
was inferior to none in the use of his body, and far excelled all in
resolution. The Romans accordingly stood for their approach, and,
checking them in their advance upwards, forced them little by little
to give way and yield down the hill, and here, on the level ground no
sooner had the Ambrones begun to restore their van into a posture of
resistance, but they found their rear disordered. For Marcellus had
not let slip the opportunity; but as soon as the shout was raised
among the Romans on the hills, he, setting his men in motion, fell in
upon the enemy behind, at full speed, and with loud cries, and routed
those nearest him, and they, breaking the ranks of those that were
before them, filled the whole army with confusion. They made no long
resistance after they were thus broke in upon, but having lost all
order, fled.
The Romans, pursuing them, slew and took prisoners above one hundred
thousand, and possessing themselves of their spoil, tents, and
carriages, voted all that was not purloined to Marius's share, which,
though so magnificent a present, yet was generally thought less than
his conduct deserved in so great a danger. Other authors give a
different account, both about the division of the plunder and the
number of the slain. They say, however, that the inhabitants of
Massilia made fences round their vineyards with the bones, and that
the ground, enriched by the moisture of the putrefied bodies, (which
soaked in with the rain of the following winter,) yielded at the
season a prodigious crop, and fully justified Archilochus, who said,
that the fallows thus are fattened. It is an observation, also, that
extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles;
whether it be that some divine power thus washes and cleanses the
polluted earth with showers from above, or that moist and heavy
evaporations, steaming forth from the blood and corruption, thicken
the air, which naturally is subject to alteration from the smallest
causes.
After the battle, Marius chose out from amongst the barbarians'
spoils and arms, those that were whole and handsome, and that would
make the greatest show in his triumph; the rest he heaped upon a
large pile, and offered a very splendid sacrifice. Whilst the army
stood round about with their arms and garlands, himself attired
(as the fashion is on such occasions) in the purple-bordered robe,
taking a lighted torch, and with both hands lifting it up towards
heaven, he was then going to put it to the pile, when some friends
were espied with all haste coming towards him on horseback. Upon
which every one remained in silence and expectation. They, upon
their coming up, leapt off and saluted Marius, bringing him the news
of his fifth consulship, and delivered him letters to that effect.
This gave the addition of no small joy to the solemnity; and while
the soldiers clashed their arms and shouted, the officers again
crowned Marius with a laurel-wreath, and he thus set fire to the
pile, and finished his sacrifice.
But whatever it be, which interferes to prevent the enjoyment of
prosperity ever being pure and sincere, and still diversifies human
affairs with the mixture of good and bad, whether fortune or divine
displeasure, or the necessity of the nature of things, within a few
days Marius received an account of his colleague, Catulus, which as a
cloud in serenity and calm, terrified Rome with the apprehension of
another imminent storm. Catulus, who marched against the Cimbri,
despairing of being able to defend the passes of the Alps, lest,
being compelled to divide his forces into several parties, he should
weaken himself, descended again into Italy, and posted his army
behind the river Adige; where he occupied the passages with strong
fortifications on both sides the river, and made a bridge, that so he
might cross to the assistance of his men on the other side, if so be
the enemy, having forced their way through the mountain passes,
should storm the fortresses. The barbarians, however, came on with
such insolence and contempt of their enemies, that to show their
strength and courage, rather than out of any necessity, they went
naked in the showers of snow, and through the ice and deep snow
climbed up to the tops of the hills, and from thence, placing their
broad shields under their bodies, let themselves slide from the
precipices along their vast slippery descents.
When they had pitched their camp at a little distance from the river,
and surveyed the passage, they began to pile it up, giant-like,
tearing down the neighboring hills; and brought trees pulled up by
the roots, and heaps of earth to the river, damming up its course;
and with great heavy materials which they rolled down the stream and
dashed against the bridge, they forced away the beams which supported
it; in consequence of which the greatest part of the Roman soldiers,
much affrighted, left the large camp and fled. Here Catulus showed
himself a generous and noble general, in preferring the glory of his
people before his own; for when he could not prevail with his
soldiers to stand to their colors, but saw how they all deserted
them, he commanded his own standard to be taken up, and running to
the foremost of those that fled, he led them forward, choosing rather
that the disgrace should fall upon himself than upon his country, and
that they should not seem to fly, but, following their captain, to
make a retreat. The barbarians assaulted and took the fortress on
the other side the Adige; where much admiring the few Romans there
left, who had shown extreme courage, and had fought worthily of their
country, they dismissed them upon terms, swearing them upon their
brazen bull, which was afterwards taken in the battle, and carried,
they say, to Catulus's house, as the chief trophy of victory.
Thus falling in upon the country destitute of defense, they wasted it
on all sides. Marius was presently sent for to the city; where, when
he arrived, every one supposing he would triumph, the senate, too,
unanimously voting it, he himself did not think it convenient;
whether that he were not willing to deprive his soldiers and officers
of their share of the glory, or that to encourage the people in this
juncture, he would leave the honor due to his past victory on trust,
as it were, in the hands of the city and its future fortune;
deferring it now, to receive it afterwards with the greater splendor.
Having left such orders as the occasion required, he hastened to
Catulus, whose drooping spirits he much raised, and sent for his own
army from Gaul: and as soon as it came, passing the river Po, he
endeavored to keep the barbarians out of that part of Italy which
lies south of it.
They professed they were in expectation of the Teutones, and, saying
they wondered they were so long in coming, deferred the battle;
either that they were really ignorant of their defeat, or were
willing to seem so. For they certainly much maltreated those that
brought them such news, and, sending to Marius, required some part of
the country for themselves and their brethren, and cities fit for
them to inhabit. When Marius inquired of the ambassadors who their
brethren were, upon their saying, the Teutones, all that were present
began to laugh; and Marius scoffingly answered them, "Do not trouble
yourselves for your brethren, for we have already provided lands for
them, which they shall possess forever." The ambassadors,
understanding the mockery, broke into insults, and threatened that
the Cimbri would make him pay for this, and the Teutones, too, when
they came. "They are not far off," replied Marius, "and it will be
unkindly done of you to go away before greeting your brethren."
Saying so, he commanded the kings of the Teutones to be brought out.
as they were, in chains; for they were taken by the Sequani among the
Alps, before they could make their escape. This was no sooner made
known to the Cimbri, but they with all expedition came against
Marius, who then lay still and guarded his camp.
It is said, that against this battle, Marius first altered the
construction of the Roman javelins. For before, at the place where
the wood was joined to the iron, it was made fast with two iron pins;
but now Marius let one of them alone as it was, and pulling out the
other, put a weak wooden peg in its place, thus contriving, that when
it was driven into the enemy's shield, it should not stand right out,
but the wooden peg breaking, the iron should bend, and so the javelin
should hold fast by its crooked point, and drag. Boeorix, king of
the Cimbri, came with a small party of horse to the Roman camp, and
challenged Marius to appoint the time and place, where they might
meet and fight for the country. Marius answered, that the Romans
never consulted their enemies when to fight; however, he would
gratify the Cimbri so far; and so they fixed upon the third day
after, and for the place, the plain near Vercellae, which was
convenient enough for the Roman horse, and afforded room for the
enemy to display their numbers.
They observed the time appointed, and drew out their forces against
each other. Catulus commanded twenty thousand three hundred, and
Marius thirty-two thousand, who were placed in the two wings, leaving
Catulus the center. Sylla, who was present at the fight, gives this
account; saying, also, that Marius drew up his army in this order,
because he expected that the armies would meet on the wings, since it
generally happens that in such extensive fronts the center falls
back, and thus he would have the whole victory to himself and his
soldiers, and Catulus would not be even engaged. They tell us, also,
that Catulus himself alleged this in vindication of his honor,
accusing, in various ways, the enviousness of Marius. The infantry
of the Cimbri marched quietly out of their fortifications, having
their flanks equal to their front; every side of the army taking up
thirty furlongs. Their horse, that were in number fifteen thousand,
made a very splendid appearance. They wore helmets, made to resemble
the heads and jaws of wild beasts, and other strange shapes, and
heightening these with plumes of feathers, they made themselves
appear taller than they were. They had breastplates of iron, and
white glittering shields; and for their offensive arms, every one had
two darts, and when they came hand to hand, they used large and heavy
swords.
The cavalry did not fall directly upon the front of the Romans, but,
turning to the right, they endeavored to draw them on in that
direction by little and little, so as to get them between themselves
and their infantry, who were placed in the left wing. The Roman
commanders soon perceived the design, but could not contain the
soldiers; for one happening to shout out that the enemy fled, they
all rushed to pursue them, while the whole barbarian foot came on,
moving like a great ocean. Here Marius, having washed his hands, and
lifting them up towards heaven, vowed an hecatomb to the gods; and
Catulus, too, in the same posture, solemnly promised to consecrate a
temple to the "Fortune of that day." They say, too, that Marius,
having the victim showed to him as he was sacrificing, cried out with
a loud voice, "the victory is mine."
However, in the engagement, according to the accounts of Sylla and
his friends, Marius met with what might be called a mark of divine
displeasure. For a great dust being raised, which (as it might very
probably happen) almost covered both the armies, he, leading on his
forces to the pursuit, missed the enemy, and having passed by their
array, moved, for a good space, up and down the field; meanwhile the
enemy, by chance, engaged with Catulus, and the heat of the battle
was chiefly with him and his men, among whom Sylla says he was;
adding, that the Romans had great advantage of the heat and sun that
shone in the faces of the Cimbri. For they, well able to endure cold,
and having been bred up, (as we observed before,) in cold and shady
countries, were overcome with the excessive heat; they sweated
extremely, and were much out of breath, being forced to hold their
shields before their faces; for the battle was fought not long after
the summer solstice, or, as the Romans reckon, upon the third day
before the new moon of the month now called August, and then
Sextilis. The dust, too, gave the Romans no small addition to their
courage, inasmuch as it hid the enemy. For afar off they could not
discover their number; but every one advancing to encounter those
that were nearest to them, they came to fight hand to hand, before
the sight of so vast a multitude had struck terror into them. They
were so much used to labor, and so well exercised, that in all the
heat and toil of the encounter, not one of them was observed either
to sweat, or to be out of breath; so much so, that Catulus himself,
they say, recorded it in commendation of his soldiers.
Here the greatest part and most valiant of the enemies were cut in
pieces; for those that fought in the front, that they might not break
their ranks, were fast tied to one another, with long chains put
through their belts. But as they pursued those that fled to their
camp, they witnessed a most fearful tragedy; the women, standing in
black clothes on their wagons, slew all that fled, some their
husbands, some their brethren, others their fathers; and strangling
their little children with their own hands, threw them under the
wheels, and the feet of the cattle, and then killed themselves. They
tell of one who hung herself from the end of the pole of a wagon,
with her children tied dangling at her heels. The men, for want of
trees, tied themselves, some to the horns of the oxen, others by the
neck to their legs, that so pricking them on, by the starting and
springing of the beasts, they might be torn and trodden to pieces.
Yet for all they thus massacred themselves, above sixty thousand were
taken prisoners, and those that were slain were said to be twice as
many.
The ordinary plunder was taken by Marius's soldiers, but the other
spoils, as ensigns, trumpets, and the like, they say, were brought to
Catulus's camp; which he used for the best argument that the victory
was obtained by himself and his army. Some dissensions arising, as
was natural, among the soldiers, the deputies from Parma being then
present, were made judges of the controversy; whom Catulus's men
carried about among their slain enemies, and manifestly showed them
that they were slain by their javelins, which were known by the
inscriptions, having Catulus's name cut in the wood. Nevertheless,
the whole glory of the action was ascribed to Marius, on account of
his former victory, and under color of his present authority; the
populace more especially styling him the third founder of their city,
as having diverted a danger no less threatening than was that when
the Gauls sacked Rome; and every one, in their feasts and rejoicings
at home with their wives and children, made offerings and libations
in honor of "The Gods and Marius;" and would have had him solely have
the honor of both the triumphs. However, he did not do so, but
triumphed together with Catulus, being desirous to show his
moderation even in such great circumstances of good fortune, besides,
he was not a little afraid of the soldiers in Catulus's army, lest,
if he should wholly bereave their general of the honor, they should
endeavor to hinder him of his triumph.
Marius was now in his fifth consulship, and he sued for his sixth in
such a manner as never any man before him, had done, even for his
first; he courted the people's favor and ingratiated himself with the
multitude by every sort of complaisance; not only derogating from the
state and dignity of his office, but also belying his own character,
by attempting to seem popular and obliging, for which nature had
never designed him. His passion for distinction did, indeed, they
say, make him exceedingly timorous in any political matters, or in
confronting public assemblies; and that undaunted presence of mind he
always showed in battle against the enemy, forsook him when he was to
address the people; he was easily upset by the most ordinary
commendation or dispraise. It is told of him, that having at one
time given the freedom of the city to one thousand men of Camerinum
who had behaved valiantly in this war, and this seeming to be
illegally done, upon some one or other calling him to an account for
it, he answered, that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a
noise of war; yet he himself appeared to be more disconcerted and
overcome by the clamor made in the assemblies. The need they had of
him in time of war procured him power and dignity; but in civil
affairs, when he despaired of getting the first place, he was forced
to betake himself to the favor of the people, never caring to be a
good man, so that he were but a great one.
He thus became very odious to all the nobility; and, above all, he
feared Metellus, who had been so ungratefully used by him, and whose
true virtue made him naturally an enemy to those that sought
influence with the people, not by the honorable course, but by
subservience and complaisance. Marius, therefore, endeavored to
banish him from the city, and for this purpose he contracted a close
alliance with Glaucia and Saturninus, a couple of daring fellows, who
had the great mass of the indigent and seditious multitude at their
control; and by their assistance he enacted various laws, and
bringing the soldiers, also, to attend the assembly, he was enabled
to overpower Metellus. And as Rutilius relates, (in all other
respects a fair and faithful authority, but, indeed, privately an
enemy to Marius,) he obtained his sixth consulship by distributing
vast sums of money among the tribes, and by this bribery kept out
Metellus, and had Valerius Flaccus given him as his instrument,
rather than his colleague, in the consulship. The people had never
before bestowed so many consulships on any one man, except on
Valerius Corvinus only, and he, too, they say, was forty-five years
between his first and last; but Marius, from his first, ran through
five more, with one current of good fortune.
In the last, especially, he contracted a great deal of hatred, by
committing several gross misdemeanors in compliance with the desires
of Saturninus; among which was the murder of Nonius, whom Saturninus
slew, because he stood in competition with him for the tribuneship.
And when, afterwards, Saturninus, on becoming tribune, brought
forward his law for the division of lands, with a clause enacting
that the senate should publicly swear to confirm whatever the people
should vote, and not to oppose them in anything, Marius, in the
senate, cunningly feigned to be against this provision, and said that
he would not take any such oath, nor would any man, he thought, who
was wise; for if there were no ill design in the law, still it would
be an affront to the senate, to be compelled to give their
approbation, and not to do it willingly and upon persuasion. This he
said, not that it was agreeable to his own sentiments, but that he
might entrap Metellus beyond any possibility of escape. For Marius,
in whose ideas virtue and capacity consisted largely in deceit, made
very little account of what he had openly professed to the senate;
and knowing that Metellus was one of a fixed resolution, and, as
Pindar has it, esteemed Truth the first principle of heroic virtue;
he hoped to ensnare him into a declaration before the senate, and on
his refusing, as he was sure to do, afterwards to take the oath, he
expected to bring him into such odium with the people, as should
never be wiped off. The design succeeded to his wish. As soon as
Metellus had declared that he would not swear to it, the senate
adjourned. A few days after, on Saturninus citing the senators to
make their appearance, and take the oath before the people, Marius
stepped forth, amidst a profound silence, every one being intent to
hear him, and bidding farewell to those fine speeches he had before
made in the senate, said, that his back was not so broad that he
should think himself bound, once for all, by any opinion once given
on so important a matter; he would willingly swear and submit to the
law, if so be it were one, a proviso which he added as a mere cover
for his effrontery. The people, in great joy at his taking the oath,
loudly clapped and applauded him, while the nobility stood by ashamed
and vexed at his inconstancy; but they submitted out of fear of the
people, and all in order took the oath, till it came to Metellus's
turn. But he, though his friends begged and entreated him to take
it, and not to plunge himself irrecoverably into the penalties which
Saturninus had provided for those that should refuse it, would not
flinch from his resolution, nor swear; but, according to his fixed
custom, being ready to suffer anything rather than do a base,
unworthy action, he left the forum, telling those that were with him,
that to do a wrong thing is base, and to do well where there is no
danger, common; the good man's characteristic is to do so, where
there is danger.
Hereupon Saturninus put it to the vote, that the consuls should place
Metellus under their interdict, and forbid him fire, water, and
lodging. There were enough, too, of the basest of people ready to
kill him. Nevertheless, when many of the better sort were extremely
concerned, and gathered about Metellus, he would not suffer them to
raise a sedition upon his account, but with this calm reflection left
the city, "Either when the posture of affairs is mended and the
people repent, I shall be recalled, or if things remain in their
present condition, it will be best to be absent." But what great
favor and honor Metellus received in his banishment, and in what
manner he spent his time at Rhodes, in philosophy, will be more fitly
our subject, when we write his life.
Marius, in return for this piece of service, was forced to connive at
Saturninus, now proceeding to the very height of insolence and
violence, and was, without knowing it, the instrument of mischief
beyond endurance, the only course of which was through outrages and
massacres to tyranny and the subversion of the government. Standing
in some awe of the nobility, and, at the same time, eager to court
the commonalty, he was guilty of a most mean and dishonest action.
When some of the great men came to him at night to stir him up
against Saturninus, at the other door, unknown to them, he let him
in; then making the same presence of some disorder of body to both,
he ran from one party to the other, and staying at one time with them
and another with him, he instigated and exasperated them one against
another. At length when the senate and equestrian order concerted
measures together, and openly manifested their resentment, he did
bring his soldiers into the forum, and driving the insurgents into
the capitol, and then cutting off the conduits, forced them to
surrender by want of water. They, in this distress, addressing
themselves to him, surrendered, as it is termed, on the public faith.
He did his utmost to save their lives, but so wholly in vain, that
when they came down into the forum, they were all basely murdered.
Thus he had made himself equally odious both to the nobility and
commons, and when the time was come to create censors, though he was
the most obvious man, yet he did not petition for it; but fearing the
disgrace of being repulsed, permitted others, his inferiors, to be
elected, though he pleased himself by giving out, that he was not
willing to disoblige too many by undertaking a severe inspection into
their lives and conduct.
There was now an edict preferred to recall Metellus from banishment;
this he vigorously, but in vain, opposed both by word and deed, and
was at length obliged to desist. The people unanimously voted for
it; and he, not able to endure the sight of Metellus's return, made a
voyage to Cappadocia and Galatia; giving out that he had to perform
the sacrifices, which he had vowed to Cybele; but actuated really by
other less apparent reasons. For, in fact, being a man altogether
ignorant of civil life and ordinary politics, he received all his
advancement from war; and supposing his power and glory would by
little and little decrease by his lying quietly out of action, he was
eager by every means to excite some new commotions, and hoped that by
setting at variance some of the kings, and by exasperating
Mithridates, especially, who was then apparently making preparations
for war, he himself should be chosen general against him, and so
furnish the city with new matter of triumph, and his own house with
the plunder of Pontus, and the riches of its king. Therefore, though
Mithridates entertained him with all imaginable attention and
respect, yet he was not at all wrought upon or softened by it, but
said, "O king, either endeavor to be stronger than the Romans, or
else quietly submit to their commands." With which he left
Mithridates astonished, as he indeed had often heard the fame of the
bold speaking of the Romans, but now for the first time experienced
it.
When Marius returned again to Rome, he built a house close by the
forum, either, as he himself gave out, that he was not willing his
clients should be tired with going far, or that he imagined distance
was the reason why more did not come. This, however, was not so; the
real reason was, that being inferior to others in agreeableness of
conversation and the arts of political life, like a mere tool and
implement of war, he was thrown aside in time of peace. Amongst all
those whose brightness eclipsed his glory, he was most incensed
against Sylla, who had owed his rise to the hatred which the nobility
bore Marius; and had made his disagreement with him the one principle
of his political life. When Bocchus, king of Numidia, who was styled
the associate of the Romans, dedicated some figures of Victory in the
capitol, and with them a representation in gold, of himself
delivering Jugurtha to Sylla, Marius upon this was almost distracted
with rage and ambition, as though Sylla had arrogated this honor to
himself, and endeavored forcibly to pull down these presents; Sylla,
on the other side, as vigorously resisted him; but the Social War
then on a sudden threatening the city, put a stop to this sedition,
when just ready to break out. For the most warlike and best-peopled
countries of all Italy formed a confederacy together against Rome,
and were within a little of subverting the empire; as they were
indeed strong, not only in their weapons and the valor of their
soldiers, but stood nearly upon equal terms with the Romans, as to
the skill and daring of their commanders.
As much glory and power as this war, so various in its events and so
uncertain as to its success, conferred upon Sylla, so much it took
away from Marius, who was thought tardy, unenterprising, and timid,
whether it were that his age was now quenching his former heat and
vigor, (for he was above sixty-five years old,) or that having, as he
himself said, some distemper that affected his muscles, and his body
being unfit for action, he did service above his strength. Yet, for
all this, he came off victor in a considerable battle, wherein he
slew six thousand of the enemies, and never once gave them any
advantage over him; and when he was surrounded by the works of the
enemy, he contained himself, and though insulted over, and
challenged, did not yield to the provocation. The story is told that
when Publius Silo, a man of the greatest repute and authority among
the enemies, said to him, "If you are indeed a great general, Marius,
leave your camp and fight a battle," he replied, "If you are one,
make me do so." And another time, when the enemy gave them a good
opportunity of a battle, and the Romans through fear durst not
charge, so that both parties retreated, he called an assembly of his
soldiers and said, "It is no small question whether I should call
the enemies, or you, the greater cowards, for neither did they dare
to face your backs, nor you to confront theirs." At length,
professing to be worn out with the infirmity of his body, he laid
down his command.
Afterwards, when the Italians were worsted, there were several
candidates suing, with the aid of the popular leaders, for the chief
command in the war with Mithridates. Sulpicius, tribune of the
people, a bold and confident man, contrary to everybody's
expectation, brought forward Marius, and proposed him as proconsul
and general in that war. The people were divided; some were on
Marius's side, others voted for Sylla, and jeeringly bade Marius go
to his baths at Baiae, to cure his body, worn out, as himself
confessed, with age and catarrhs. Marius had, indeed, there, about
Misenum, a villa more effeminately and luxuriously furnished than
seemed to become one that had seen service in so many and great wars
and expeditions. This same house Cornelia bought for seventy-five
thousand drachmas, and not long after Lucius Lucullus, for two
million five hundred thousand; so rapid and so great was the growth
of Roman sumptuosity. Yet, in spite of all this, out of a mere
boyish passion for distinction, affecting to shake off his age and
weakness, he went down daily to the Campus Martius, and exercising
himself with the youth, showed himself still nimble in his armor,
and expert in riding; though he was undoubtedly grown bulky in his
old age, and inclining to excessive fatness and corpulency.
Some people were pleased with this, and went continually to see him
competing and displaying himself in these exercises; but the better
sort that saw him, pitied the cupidity and ambition that made one who
had risen from utter poverty to extreme wealth, and out of nothing
into greatness, unwilling to admit any limit to his high fortune, or
to be content with being admired, and quietly enjoying what he had
already got: why, as if he still were indigent, should he at so
great an age leave his glory and his triumphs to go into Cappadocia
and the Euxine Sea, to fight Archelaus and Neoptolemus, Mithridates's
generals? Marius's pretenses for this action of his seemed very
ridiculous; for he said he wanted to go and teach his son to be a
general.
The condition of the city, which had long been unsound and diseased,
became hopeless now that Marius found so opportune an instrument for
the public destruction as Sulpicius's insolence. This man professed,
in all other respects, to admire and imitate Saturninus; only he
found fault with him for backwardness and want of spirit in his
designs. He, therefore, to avoid this fault, got six hundred of the
equestrian order about him as his guard, whom he named anti-senators;
and with these confederates he set upon the consuls, whilst they were
at the assembly, and took the son of one of them, who fled from the
forum, and slew him. Sylla, being hotly pursued, took refuge in
Marius's house, which none could suspect, by that means escaping
those that sought him, who hastily passed by there, and, it is said,
was safely conveyed by Marius himself out at the other door, and came
to the camp. Yet Sylla, in his memoirs, positively denies that he
fled to Marius, saying he was carried thither to consult upon the
matters to which Sulpicius would have forced him, against his will,
to consent; that he, surrounding him with drawn swords, hurried him
to Marius, and constrained him thus, till he went thence to the forum
and removed, as they required him to do, the interdict on business.
Sulpicius, having thus obtained the mastery, decreed the command of
the army to Marius, who proceeded to make preparations for his march,
and sent two tribunes to receive the charge of the army from Sylla.
Sylla hereupon exasperating his soldiers, who were about thirty-five
thousand full-armed men, led them towards Rome. First falling upon
the tribunes Marius had sent, they slew them; Marius having done as
much for several of Sylla's friends in Rome, and now offering their
freedom to the slaves on condition of their assistance in the war; of
whom, however, they say, there were but three who accepted his
proposal. For some small time he made head against Sylla's assault,
but was soon overpowered and fled; those that were with him, as soon
as he had escaped out of the city, were dispersed, and night coming
on, he hastened to a country-house of his, called Solonium. Hence he
sent his son to some neighboring farms of his father-in-law, Mucius,
to provide necessaries; he went himself to Ostia, where his friend
Numerius had prepared him a ship, and hence, not staying for his son,
he took with him his son-in-law Granius, and weighed anchor.
Young Marius, coming to Mucius's farms, made his preparations; and
the day breaking, was almost discovered by the enemy. For there came
thither a party of horse that suspected some such matter; but the
farm steward, foreseeing their approach, hid Marius in a cart full of
beans, then yoking in his team and driving toward the city, met
those that were in search of him. Marius, thus conveyed home to his
wife, took with him some necessaries, and came at night to the
sea-side; where, going on board a ship that was bound for Africa, he
went away thither. Marius, the father, when he had put to sea, with
a strong gale passing along the coast of Italy, was in no small
apprehension of one Geminius, a great man at Terracina, and his
enemy; and therefore bade the seamen hold off from that place. They
were, indeed, willing to gratify him, but the wind now blowing in
from the sea, and making the waves swell to a great height, they were
afraid the ship would not be able to weather out the storm, and
Marius, too, being indisposed and seasick, they made for land, and
not without some difficulty reached the shore near Circeium.
The storm now increasing and their victuals failing, they left their
ship and wandered up and down without any certain purpose, simply as
in great distresses people shun the present as the greatest evil, and
rely upon the hopes of uncertainties. For the land and sea were both
equally unsafe for them; it was dangerous to meet with people, and it
was no less so to meet with none, on account of their want of
necessaries. At length, though late, they lighted upon a few poor
shepherds, that had not anything to relieve them; but knowing
Marius, advised him to depart as soon as might be, for they had seen
a little beyond that place a party of horse that were gone in search
of him. Finding himself in a great straight, especially because
those that attended him were not able to go further, being spent with
their long fasting, for the present he turned aside out of the road,
and hid himself in a thick wood, where he passed the night in great
wretchedness. The next day, pinched with hunger, and willing to make
use of the little strength he had, before it were all exhausted, he
traveled by the seaside, encouraging his companions not to fall away
from him before the fulfillment of his final hopes, for which, in
reliance on some old predictions, he professed to be sustaining
himself. For when he was yet but very young, and lived in the
country, he caught in the skirt of his garment an eagle's nest, as it
was falling, in which were seven young ones, which his parents seeing
and much admiring, consulted the augurs about it, who told them that
he should become the greatest man in the world, and that the fates
had decreed he should seven times be possessed of the supreme power
and authority. Some are of opinion that this really happened to
Marius, as we have related it; others say, that those who then and
through the rest of his exile heard him tell these stories, and
believed him, have merely repeated a story that is altogether
fabulous; for an eagle never hatches more than two; and even Musaeus
was deceived, who, speaking of the eagle, says that, --
"She lays three eggs, hatches two, and rears one."
However this be, it is certain Marius, in his exile and greatest
extremities, would often say, that he should attain a seventh
consulship.
When Marius and his company were now about twenty furlongs distant
from Minturnae, a city in Italy, they espied a troop, of horse making
up toward them with all speed, and by chance, also, at the same time,
two ships under sail. Accordingly, they ran every one with what
speed and strength they could to the sea, and plunging into it, swam
to the ships. Those that were with Granius, reaching one of them,
passed over to an island opposite, called Aenaria; Marius himself
whose body was heavy and unwieldy, was with great pains and
difficulty kept above the water by two servants, and put into the
other ship. The soldiers were by this time come to the seaside, and
from thence called out to the seamen to put to shore, or else to
throw out Marius, and then they might go whither they would. Marius
besought them with tears to the contrary, and the masters of the
ship, after frequent changes, in a short space of time, of their
purpose, inclining, first to one, then to the other side, resolved at
length to answer the soldiers, that they would not give up Marius.
As soon as they had ridden off in a rage, the seamen, again changing
their resolution, came to land, and casting anchor at the mouth of
the river Liris, where it overflows and makes a great marsh, they
advised him to land, refresh himself on shore, and take some care of
his discomposed body, till the wind came fairer; which, said they,
will happen at such an hour, when the wind from the sea will calm,
and that from the marshes rise. Marius, following their advice, did
so, and when the sea-men had set him on shore, he laid him down in an
adjacent field, suspecting nothing less than what was to befall him.
They, as soon as they had got into the ship, weighed anchor and
departed, as thinking it neither honorable to deliver Marius into the
hands of those that sought him, nor safe to protect him.
He thus, deserted by all, lay a good while silently on the shore; at
length collecting himself, he advanced with pain and difficulty,
without any path, till, wading through deep bogs and ditches full of
water and mud, he came upon the hut of an old man that worked in the
fens, and falling at his feet besought him to assist and preserve one
who, if he escaped the present danger, would make him returns beyond
his expectation. The poor man, whether he had formerly known him, or
were then moved with his superior aspect, told him that if he wanted
only rest, his cottage would be convenient; but if he were flying
from anybody's search, he would hide him in a more retired place.
Marius desiring him to do so, he carried him into the fens and bade
him hide himself in an hollow place by the river side, where he laid
upon him a great many reeds, and other things that were light, and
would cover, but not oppress him. But within a very short time he
was disturbed with a noise and tumult from the cottage, for Geminius
had sent several from Terracina in pursuit of him; some of whom,
happening to come that way, frightened and threatened the old man for
having entertained and hid an enemy of the Romans. Wherefore Marius,
arising and stripping himself, plunged into a puddle full of thick
muddy water; and even there he could not escape their search, but was
pulled out covered with mire, and carried away naked to Minturnae,
and delivered to the magistrates. For there had been orders sent
through all the towns, to make public search for Marius, and if they
found him to kill him; however, the magistrates thought convenient to
consider a little better of it first, and sent him prisoner to the
house of one Fannia.
This woman was supposed not very well affected towards him upon an
old account. One Tinnius had formerly married this Fannia; from whom
she afterwards being divorced, demanded her portion, which was
considerable, but her husband accused her of adultery; so the
controversy was brought before Marius in his sixth consulship. When
the cause was examined thoroughly, it appeared both that Fannia had
been incontinent, and that her husband knowing her to be so, had
married and lived a considerable time with her. So that Marius was
severe enough with both, commanding him to restore her portion, and
laying a fine of four copper coins upon her by way of disgrace. But
Fannia did not then behave like a woman that had been injured, but as
soon as she saw Marius, remembered nothing less than old affronts;
took care of him according to her ability, and comforted him. He
made her his returns and told her he did not despair, for he had met
with a lucky omen, which was thus. When he was brought to Fannia's
house, as soon as the gate was opened, an ass came running out to
drink at a spring hard by, and giving a bold and encouraging look,
first stood still before him, then brayed aloud and pranced by him.
From which Marius drew his conclusion, and said, that the fates
designed him safety, rather by sea than land, because the ass
neglected his dry fodder, and turned from it to the water. Having
told Fannia this story, he bade the chamber door to be shut and went
to rest.
Meanwhile the magistrates and councilors of Minturnae consulted
together, and determined not to delay any longer, but immediately to
kill Marius; and when none of their citizens durst undertake the
business, a certain soldier, a Gaulish or Cimbrian horseman, (the
story is told both ways,) went in with his sword drawn to him. The
room itself was not very light, that part of it especially where he
then lay was dark, from whence Marius's eyes, they say, seemed to the
fellow to dart out flames at him, and a loud voice to say, out of the
dark, "Fellow, darest thou kill Caius Marius?" The barbarian
hereupon immediately fled, and leaving his sword in the place rushed
out of doors, crying only this, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." At
which they were all at first astonished, and presently began to feel
pity, and remorse, and anger at themselves for making so unjust and
ungrateful a decree against one who had preserved Italy, and whom it
was bad enough not to assist. "Let him go," said they, "where he
please to banishment, and find his fate somewhere else; we only
entreat pardon of the gods for thrusting Marius distressed and
deserted out of our city."
Impelled by thoughts of this kind, they went in a body into the room,
and taking him amongst them, conducted him towards the sea-side; on
his way to which, though everyone was very officious to him, and all
made what haste they could, yet a considerable time was likely to be
lost. For the grove of Marica, (as she is called,) which the people
hold sacred, and make it a point of religion not to let anything
that is once carried into it be taken out, lay just in their road to
the sea, and if they should go round about, they must needs come very
late thither. At length one of the old men cried out and said, there
was no place so sacred, but they might pass through it for Marius's
preservation; and thereupon, first of all, he himself, taking up some
of the baggage that was carried for his accommodation to the ship,
passed through the grove, all the rest immediately, with the same
readiness, accompanying him. And one Belaeus, (who afterwards had a
picture of these things drawn, and put it in a temple at the place of
embarkation,) having by this time provided him a ship, Marius went on
board, and, hoisting sail, was by fortune thrown upon the island
Aenaria, where meeting with Granius, and his other friends, he sailed
with them for Africa. But their water failing them in the way, they
were forced to put in near Eryx, in Sicily, where was a Roman
quaestor on the watch, who all but captured Marius himself on his
landing, and did kill sixteen of his retinue that went to fetch
water. Marius, with all expedition loosing thence, crossed the sea
to the isle of Meninx, where he first heard the news of his son's
escape with Cethegus, and of his going to implore the assistance of
Hiempsal, king of Numidia.
With this news, being somewhat comforted, he ventured to pass from
that isle towards Carthage. Sextilius, a Roman, was then governor in
Africa; one that had never received either any injury or any
kindness from Marius; but who from compassion, it was hoped, might
lend him some help. But he was scarce got ashore with a small
retinue, when an officer met him, and said, "Sextilius, the governor,
forbids you, Marius, to set foot in Africa; if you do, he says, he
will put the decree of the senate in execution, and treat you as an
enemy to the Romans." When Marius heard this, he wanted words to
express his grief and resentment, and for a good while held his
peace, looking sternly upon the messenger, who asked him what he
should say, or what answer he should return to the governor? Marius
answered him with a deep sigh: "Go tell him that you have seen Caius
Marius sitting in exile among the ruins of Carthage;" appositely
applying the example of the fortune of that city to the change of his
own condition.
In the interim, Hiempsal, king of Numidia, dubious of what he should
determine to do, treated young Marius and those that were with him
very honorably; but when they had a mind to depart, he still had some
presence or other to detain them, and it was manifest he made these
delays upon no good design. However, there happened an accident that
made well for their preservation. The hard fortune which attended
young Marius, who was of a comely aspect, touched one of the king's
concubines, and this pity of hers, was the beginning and occasion of
love for him. At first he declined the woman's solicitations, but
when he perceived that there was no other way of escaping, and that
her offers were more serious than for the gratification of
intemperate passion, he accepted her kindness, and she finding means
to convey them away, he escaped with his friends and fled to his
father. As soon as they had saluted each other, and were going by
the sea-side, they saw some scorpions fighting, which Marius took
for an ill omen, whereupon they immediately went on board a little
fisher-boat, and made toward Cercina, an island not far distant from
the continent. They had scarce put off from shore when they espied
some horse, sent after them by the king, with all speed making toward
that very place from which they were just retired. And Marius thus
escaped a danger, it might be said, as great as any he ever incurred.
At Rome news came that Sylla was engaged with Mithridates's generals
in Boeotia; the consuls, from factious opposition, were fallen to
downright fighting, wherein Octavius prevailing, drove Cinna out of
the city for attempting despotic government, and made Cornelius
Merula consul in his stead; while Cinna, raising forces in other
parts of Italy, carried the war against them. As soon as Marius
heard of this, he resolved, with all expedition, to put to sea again,
and taking with him from Africa some Mauritanian horse, and a few of
the refugees out of Italy, all together not above one thousand, he,
with this handful, began his voyage. Arriving at Telamon, in
Etruria, and coming ashore, he proclaimed freedom for the slaves; and
many of the countrymen, also, and shepherds thereabouts, who were
already freemen, at the hearing his name flocked to him to the
sea-side. He persuaded the youngest and strongest to join him, and
in a small time got together a competent force with which he filled
forty ships. Knowing Octavius to be a good man and willing to
execute his office with the greatest justice imaginable, and Cinna to
be suspected by Sylla, and in actual warfare against the established
government, he determined to join himself and his forces with the
latter. He, therefore, sent a message to him, to let him know that
he was ready to obey him as consul.
When Cinna had joyfully received his offer, naming him proconsul, and
sending him the fasces and other ensigns of authority, he said, that
grandeur did not become his present fortune; but wearing an ordinary
habit, and still letting his hair grow as it had done, from that very
day he first went into banishment, and being now above threescore and
ten years old, he came slowly on foot, designing to move people's
compassion; which did not prevent, however, his natural fierceness of
expression from still predominating, and his humiliation still let it
appear that he was not so much dejected as exasperated, by the change
of his condition. Having saluted Cinna and the soldiers, he
immediately prepared for action, and soon made a considerable
alteration in the posture of affairs. He first cut off the provision
ships, and plundering all the merchants, made himself master of the
supplies of corn; then bringing his navy to the seaport towns, he
took them, and at last, becoming master of Ostia by treachery, he
pillaged that town, and slew a multitude of the inhabitants, and,
blocking up the river, took from the enemy all hopes of supply by the
sea; then marched with his army toward the city, and posted himself
upon the hill called Janiculum.
The public interest did not receive so great damage from Octavius's
unskillfulness in his management of affairs, as from his omitting
needful measures, through too strict observance of the law. As when
several advised him to make the slaves free, he said that he would
not give slaves the privilege of the country from which he then, in
defense of the laws, was driving away Marius. When Metellus, son to
that Metellus who was general in the war in Africa, and afterwards
banished through Marius's means, came to Rome, being thought a much
better commander than Octavius, the soldiers, deserting the consul,
came to him and desired him to take the command of them and preserve
the city; that they, when they had got an experienced valiant
commander, should fight courageously, and come off conquerors. But
when Metellus, offended at it, commanded them angrily to return to
the consul, they revolted to the enemy. Metellus, too, seeing the
city in a desperate condition, left it; but a company of Chaldaeans,
sacrificers, and interpreters of the Sibyl's books, persuaded
Octavius that things would turn out happily, and kept him at Rome.
He was, indeed, of all the Romans the most upright and just, and
maintained the honor of the consulate, without cringing or
compliance, as strictly in accordance with ancient laws and usages,
as though they had been immutable mathematical truths; and yet fell,
I know not how, into some weaknesses, giving more observance to
fortune-tellers and diviners, than to men skilled in civil and
military affairs. He therefore, before Marius entered the city, was
pulled down from the rostra, and murdered by those that were sent
before by Marius; and it is reported there was a Chaldaean writing
found in his gown, when he was slain. And it seemed a thing very
unaccountable, that of two famous generals, Marius should be often
successful by the observing divinations, and Octavius ruined by the
same means.
When affairs were in this posture, the senate assembled, and sent a
deputation to Cinna and Marius, desiring them to come into the city
peaceably and spare the citizens. Cinna, as consul, received the
embassy, sitting in the curule chair, and returned a kind answer to
the messengers; Marius stood by him and said nothing, but gave
sufficient testimony by the gloominess of his countenance, and the
sternness of his looks, that he would in a short time fill the city
with blood. As soon as the council arose, they went toward the city,
where Cinna entered with his guards, but Marius stayed at the gates,
and, dissembling his rage, professed that he was then an exile and
banished his country by course of law; that if his presence were
necessary, they must, by a new decree, repeal the former act by which
he was banished; as though he were, indeed, a religious observer of
the laws, and as if he were returning to a city free from fear or
oppression. Hereupon the people were assembled, but before three or
four tribes had given their votes, throwing up his pretenses and his
legal scruples about his banishment, he came into the city with a
select guard of the slaves who had joined him, whom he called
Bardyaei. These proceeded to murder a number of citizens, as he gave
command, partly by word of mouth, partly by the signal of his nod.
At length Ancharius, a senator, and one that had been praetor, coming
to Marius, and not being resaluted by him, they with their drawn
swords slew him before Marius's face; and henceforth this was their
token, immediately to kill all those who met Marius and saluting him
were taken no notice of, nor answered with the like courtesy; so that
his very friends were not without dreadful apprehensions and horror,
whensoever they came to speak with him.
When they had now butchered a great number, Cinna grew more remiss
and cloyed with murders; but Marius's rage continued still fresh and
unsatisfied, and he daily sought for all that were any way suspected
by him. Now was every road and every town filled with those that
pursued and hunted them that fled and hid themselves; and it was
remarkable that there was no more confidence to be placed, as things
stood, either in hospitality or friendship; for there were found but
a very few that did not betray those that fled to them for shelter.
And thus the servants of Cornutus deserve the greater praise and
admiration, who, having concealed their master in the house, took the
body of one of the slain, cut off the head, put a gold ring on the
finger, and showed it to Marius's guards, and buried it with the same
solemnity as if it had been their own master. This trick was
perceived by nobody, and so Cornutus escaped, and was conveyed by his
domestics into Gaul.
Marcus Antonius, the orator, though he, too, found a true friend, had
ill-fortune. The man was but poor and a plebeian, and as he was
entertaining a man of the greatest rank in Rome, trying to provide
for him with the best he could, he sent his servant to get some wine
of neighboring vintner. The servant carefully tasting it and bidding
him draw better, the fellow asked him what was the matter, that he
did not buy new and ordinary wine as he used to do, but richer and of
a greater price; he, without any design, told him as his old friend
and acquaintance, that his master entertained Marcus Antonius, who
was concealed with him. The villainous vintner, as soon as the
servant was gone, went himself to Marius, then at supper, and being
brought into his presence, told him, he would deliver Antonius into
his hands. As soon as he heard it, it is said he gave a great shout,
and clapped his hands for joy, and had very nearly risen up and gone
to the place himself; but being detained by his friends, he sent
Annius, and some soldiers with him, and commanded him to bring
Antonius's head to him with all speed. When they came to the house,
Annius stayed at the door, and the soldiers went up stairs into the
chamber; where, seeing Antonius, they endeavored to shuffle off the
murder from one to another; for so great it seems were the graces and
charms of his oratory, that as soon as he began to speak and beg his
life, none of them durst touch or so much as look upon him; but
hanging down their heads, every one fell a weeping. When their stay
seemed something tedious, Annius came up himself and found Antonius
discoursing, and the soldiers astonished and quite softened by it,
and calling them cowards, went himself and cut off his head.
Catulus Lutatius, who was colleague with Marius, and his partner in
the triumph over the Cimbri, when Marius replied to those that
interceded for him and begged his life, merely with the words, "he
must die," shut himself up in a room, and making a great fire,
smothered himself. When maimed and headless carcasses were now
frequently thrown about and trampled upon in the streets, people were
not so much moved with compassion at the sight, as struck into a kind
of horror and consternation. The outrages of those that were called
Bardyaei, was the greatest grievance. These murdered the masters of
families in their own houses, abused their children, and ravished
their wives, and were uncontrollable in their rapine and murders,
till those of Cinna's and Sertorius's party, taking counsel together,
fell upon them in the camp and killed them every man.
In the interim, as if a change of wind was coming on, there came news
from all parts that Sylla, having put an end to the war with
Mithridates, and taken possession of the provinces, was returning
into Italy with a great army. This gave some small respite and
intermission to these unspeakable calamities. Marius and his friends
believing war to be close at hand, Marius was chosen consul the
seventh time, and appearing on the very calends of January, the
beginning of the year, threw one Sextus Lucinus, from the Tarpeian
precipice; an omen, as it seemed, portending the renewed misfortunes
both of their party and of the city. Marius, himself now worn out
with labor and sinking under the burden of anxieties, could not
sustain his spirits, which shook within him with the apprehension of
a new war and fresh encounters and dangers, the formidable character
of which he knew by his own experience. He was not now to hazard the
war with Octavius or Merula, commanding an inexperienced multitude or
seditious rabble; but Sylla himself was approaching, the same who had
formerly banished him, and since that, had driven Mithridates as far
as the Euxine Sea.
Perplexed with such thoughts as these, and calling to mind his
banishment, and the tedious wanderings and dangers he underwent, both
by sea and land, he fell into despondency, nocturnal frights, and
unquiet sleep, still fancying that he heard some one telling him,
that
-- the lion's lair
Is dangerous, though the lion be not there.
Above all things fearing to lie awake, he gave himself up to drinking
deep and besotting himself at night in a way most unsuitable to his
age; by all means provoking sleep, as a diversion to his thoughts.
At length, on the arrival of a messenger from the sea, he was seized
with new alarms, and so what with his fear for the future, and what
with the burden and satiety of the present, on some slight
predisposing cause, he fell into a pleurisy, as Posidonius the
philosopher relates, who says he visited and conversed with him when
he was sick, about some business relating to his embassy. Caius
Piso, an historian, tells us, that Marius, walking after supper with
his friends, fell into a conversation with them about his past life,
and after reckoning up the several changes of his condition, that
from the beginning had happened to him, said, that it did not become
a prudent man to trust himself any longer with fortune; and,
thereupon, taking leave of those that were with him, he kept his bed
seven days, and then died.
Some say his ambition betrayed itself openly in his sickness. and
that he ran into an extravagant frenzy, fancying himself to be
general in the war against Mithridates, throwing himself into such
postures and motions of his body as he had formerly used when he was
in battle, with frequent shouts and loud cries. With so strong and
invincible a desire of being employed in that business had he been
possessed through his pride and emulation. Though he had now lived
seventy years, and was the first man that ever was chosen seven times
consul, and had an establishment and riches sufficient for many
kings, he yet complained of his ill fortune, that he must now die
before he had attained what he desired. Plato, when he saw his death
approaching, thanked the guiding providence and fortune of his life,
first, that he was born a man and a Grecian, not a barbarian or a
brute, and next, that he happened to live in Socrates's age. And so,
indeed, they say Antipater of Tarsus, in like manner, at his death,
calling to mind the happiness that he had enjoyed, did not so much as
omit his prosperous voyage to Athens; thus recognizing every favor of
his indulgent fortune with the greatest acknowledgments, and
carefully saving all to the last in that safest of human treasure
chambers, the memory. Unmindful and thoughtless persons, on the
contrary, let all that occurs to them slip away from them as time
passes on. Retaining and preserving nothing, they lose the enjoyment
of their present prosperity by fancying something better to come;
whereas by fortune we may be prevented of this, but that cannot be
taken from us. Yet they reject their present success, as though it
did not concern them, and do nothing but dream of future
uncertainties; not indeed unnaturally; as till men have by reason and
education laid good foundation for external superstructures, in the
seeking after and gathering them they can never satisfy the unlimited
desires of their mind.
Thus died Marius on the seventeenth day of his seventh consulship, to
the great joy and content of Rome, which thereby was in good hopes to
be delivered from the calamity of a cruel tyranny; but in a small
time they found, that they had only changed their old and worn-out
master for another young and vigorous; so much cruelty and savageness
did his son Marius show in murdering the noblest and most approved
citizens. At first, being esteemed resolute and daring against his
enemies, he was named the son of Mars, but afterwards, his actions
betraying his contrary disposition, he was called the son of Venus.
At last, besieged by Sylla in Praeneste, where he endeavored in many
ways, but in vain, to save his life, when on the capture of the city
there was no hope of escape, he killed himself with his own hand.
LYSANDER
The treasure-chamber of the Acanthians at Delphi has this
inscription: "The spoils which Brasidas and the Acanthians took from
the Athenians." And, accordingly, many take the marble statue, which
stands within the building by the gates, to be Brasidas's; but,
indeed, it is Lysander's, representing him with his hair at full
length, after the old fashion, and with an ample beard. Neither is
it true, as some give out, that because the Argives, after their
great defeat, shaved themselves for sorrow, that the Spartans
contrariwise triumphing in their achievements, suffered their hair to
grow; neither did the Spartans come to be ambitious of wearing long
hair, because the Bacchiadae, who fled from Corinth to Lacedaemon,
looked mean and unsightly, having their heads all close cut. But
this, also, is indeed one of the ordinances of Lycurgus, who, as it
is reported, was used to say, that long hair made good-looking men
more beautiful, and ill-looking men more terrible.
Lysander's father is said to have been Aristoclitus, who was not
indeed of the royal family, but yet of the stock of the Heraclidae.
He was brought up in poverty, and showed himself obedient and
conformable, as ever anyone did, to the customs of his country; of a
manly spirit, also, and superior to all pleasures, excepting only
that which their good actions bring to those who are honored and
successful; and it is accounted no base thing in Sparta for their
young men to be overcome with this kind of pleasure. For they are
desirous, from the very first, to have their youth susceptible to
good and bad repute, to feel pain at disgrace, and exultation at
being commended; and anyone who is insensible and unaffected in
these respects is thought poor spirited and of no capacity for
virtue. Ambition and the passion for distinction were thus implanted
in his character by his Laconian education, nor, if they continued
there, must we blame his natural disposition much for this. But he
was submissive to great men, beyond what seems agreeable to the
Spartan temper, and could easily bear the haughtiness of those who
were in power, when it was any way for his advantage, which some are
of opinion is no small part of political discretion. Aristotle, who
says all great characters are more or less atrabilious, as Socrates
and Plato and Hercules were, writes, that Lysander, not indeed early
in life, but when he was old, became thus affected. What is singular
in his character is that he endured poverty very well, and that he
was not at all enslaved or corrupted by wealth, and yet he filled his
country with riches and the love of them, and took away from them the
glory of not admiring money; importing amongst them an abundance of
gold and silver after the Athenian war, though keeping not one
drachma for himself. When Dionysius, the tyrant, sent his daughters
some costly gowns of Sicilian manufacture, he would not receive them,
saying he was afraid they would make them look more unhandsome. But
a while after, being sent ambassador from the same city to the same
tyrant, when he had sent him a couple of robes, and bade him choose
which of them he would, and carry to his daughter: "She," said he,
"will be able to choose best for herself," and taking both of them,
went his way.
The Peloponnesian war having now been carried on a long time, and it
being expected, after the disaster of the Athenians in Sicily, that
they would at once lose the mastery of the sea, and erelong be routed
everywhere, Alcibiades, returning from banishment, and taking the
command, produced a great change, and made the Athenians again a
match for their opponents by sea; and the Lacedaemonians, in great
alarm at this, and calling up fresh courage and zeal for the
conflict, feeling the want of an able commander and of a powerful
armament, sent out Lysander to be admiral of the seas. Being at
Ephesus, and finding the city well affected towards him, and
favorable to the Lacedaemonian party, but in ill condition, and in
danger to become barbarized by adopting the manners of the Persians,
who were much mingled among them, the country of Lydia bordering upon
them, and the king's generals being quartered there a long time, he
pitched his camp there, and commanded the merchant ships all about to
put in thither, and proceeded to build ships of war there; and thus
restored their ports by the traffic he created, and their market by
the employment he gave, and filled their private houses and their
workshops with wealth, so that from that time, the city began, first
of all, by Lysander's means, to have some hopes of growing to that
stateliness and grandeur which now it is at.
Understanding that Cyrus, the king's son, was come to Sardis, he went
up to talk with him, and to accuse Tisaphernes, who, receiving a
command to help the Lacedaemonians, and to drive the Athenians from
the sea, was thought, on account of Alcibiades, to have become remiss
and unwilling, and by paying the seamen slenderly to be ruining the
fleet. Now Cyrus was willing that Tisaphernes might be found in
blame, and be ill reported of, as being, indeed, a dishonest man, and
privately at feud with himself. By these means, and by their daily
intercourse together, Lysander, especially by the submissiveness
of his conversation, won the affections of the young prince, and
greatly roused him to carry on the war; and when he would depart,
Cyrus gave him a banquet, and desired him not to refuse his
good-will, but to speak and ask whatever he had a mind to, and that
he should not be refused anything whatsoever: "Since you are so
very kind," replied Lysander, "I earnestly request you to add one
penny to the seamen's pay, that instead of three pence, they may now
receive four pence." Cyrus, delighted with his public spirit, gave
him ten thousand darics, out of which he added the penny to the
seamen's pay, and by the renown of this in a short time emptied the
ships of the enemies, as many would come over to that side which gave
the most pay, and those who remained, being disheartened and
mutinous, daily created trouble to the captains. Yet for all
Lysander had so distracted and weakened his enemies, he was afraid to
engage by sea, Alcibiades being an energetic commander, and having
the superior number of ships, and having been hitherto, in all
battles, unconquered both by sea and land.
But afterwards, when Alcibiades sailed from Samos to Phocaea, leaving
Antiochus, the pilot, in command of all his forces, this Antiochus,
to insult Lysander, sailed with two galleys into the port of the
Ephesians, and with mocking and laughter proudly rowed along before
the place where the ships lay drawn up. Lysander, in indignation,
launched at first a few ships only and pursued him, but as soon as he
saw the Athenians come to his help, he added some other ships, and,
at last, they fell to a set battle together; and Lysander won the
victory, and taking fifteen of their ships, erected a trophy. For
this, the people in the city being angry, put Alcibiades out of
command, and finding himself despised by the soldiers in Samos, and
ill spoken of, he sailed from the army into the Chersonese. And this
battle, although not important in itself, was made remarkable by its
consequences to Alcibiades.
Lysander, meanwhile, inviting to Ephesus such persons in the various
cities as he saw to be bolder and haughtier-spirited than the rest,
proceeded to lay the foundations of that government by bodies of ten,
and those revolutions which afterwards came to pass, stirring up and
urging them to unite in clubs, and apply themselves to public
affairs, since as soon as ever the Athenians should be put down, the
popular governments, he said, should be suppressed, and they should
become supreme in their several countries. And he made them believe
these things by present deeds, promoting those who were his friends
already to great employments, honors, and offices, and, to gratify
their covetousness, making himself a partner in injustice and
wickedness. So much so, that all flocked to him, and courted and
desired him, hoping, if he remained in power, that the highest wishes
they could form would all be gratified. And therefore, from the very
beginning, they could not look pleasantly upon Callicratidas, when he
came to succeed Lysander as admiral; nor, afterwards, when he had
given them experience that he was a most noble and just person, were
they pleased with the manner of his government, and its
straightforward, Dorian, honest character. They did, indeed, admire
his virtue, as they might the beauty of some hero's image; but their
wishes were for Lysander's zealous and profitable support of the
interests of his friends and partisans, and they shed tears, and were
much disheartened when he sailed from them. He himself made them yet
more disaffected to Callicratidas; for what remained of the money
which had been given him to pay the navy, he sent back again to
Sardis, bidding them, if they would, apply to Callicratidas himself,
and see how he was able to maintain the soldiers. And, at the last,
sailing away, he declared to him that he delivered up the fleet in
possession and command of the sea. But Callicratidas, to expose the
emptiness of these high pretensions, said, "In that case, leave Samos
on the left hand, and, sailing to Miletus, there deliver up the ships
to me; for if we are masters of the sea, we need not fear sailing by
our enemies in Samos." To which Lysander answering, that not
himself, but he, commanded the ships, sailed to Peloponnesus, leaving
Callicratidas in great perplexity. For neither had he brought any
money from home with him, nor could he endure to tax the towns or
force them, being in hardship enough. Therefore, the only course
that was to be taken was to go and beg at the doors of the king's
commanders, as Lysander had done; for which he was most unfit of any
man, being of a generous and great spirit, and one who thought it
more becoming for the Greeks to suffer any damage from one another,
than to flatter and wait at the gates of barbarians, who, indeed, had
gold enough, but nothing else that was commendable. But being
compelled by necessity, he proceeded to Lydia, and went at once to
Cyrus's house, and sent in word, that Callicratidas, the admiral, was
there to speak with him; one of those who kept the gates replied,
"Cyrus, O stranger, is not now at leisure, for he is drinking." To
which Callicratidas answered, most innocently, "Very well, I will
wait till he has done his draught." This time, therefore, they took
him for some clownish fellow, and he withdrew, merely laughed at by
the barbarians; but when, afterwards, he came a second time to the
gate, and was not admitted, he took it hardly and set off for
Ephesus, wishing a great many evils to those who first let themselves
be insulted over by these barbarians, and taught them to be insolent
because of their riches; and added vows to those who were present,
that as soon as ever he came back to Sparta, he would do all he could
to reconcile the Greeks, that they might be formidable to barbarians,
and that they should cease henceforth to need their aid against one
another. But Callicratidas, who entertained purposes worthy a
Lacedaemonian, and showed himself worthy to compete with the very
best of Greece, for his justice, his greatness of mind and courage,
not long after, having been beaten in a sea-fight at Arginusae, died.
And now affairs going backwards, the associates in the war sent an
embassy to Sparta, requiring Lysander to be their admiral, professing
themselves ready to undertake the business much more zealously, if he
was commander; and Cyrus, also, sent to request the same thing. But
because they had a law which would not suffer any one to be admiral
twice, and wished, nevertheless, to gratify their allies, they gave
the title of admiral to one Aracus, and sent Lysander nominally as
vice-admiral, but, indeed, with full powers. So he came out, long
wished for by the greatest part of the chief persons and leaders in
the towns, who hoped to grow to greater power still by his means,
when the popular governments should be everywhere destroyed.
But to those who loved honest and noble behavior in their commanders,
Lysander, compared with Callicratidas, seemed cunning and subtle,
managing most things in the war by deceit, extolling what was just
when it was profitable, and when it was not, using that which was
convenient, instead of that which was good; and not judging truth to
be in nature better than falsehood, but setting a value upon both
according to interest. He would laugh at those who thought that
Hercules's posterity ought not to use deceit in war: "For where the
lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's."
Such is the conduct recorded of him in the business about Miletus;
for when his friends and connections, whom he had promised to assist
in suppressing popular government and expelling their political
opponents, had altered their minds, and were reconciled to their
enemies, he pretended openly as if he was pleased with it, and was
desirous to further the reconciliation, but privately he railed at
and abused them, and provoked them to set upon the multitude. And as
soon as ever he perceived a new attempt to be commencing, he at once
came up and entered into the city, and the first of the conspirators
he lit upon, he pretended to rebuke, and spoke roughly, as if he
would punish them; but the others, meantime, he bade be courageous,
and to fear nothing now he was with them. And all this acting and
dissembling was with the object that the most considerable men of the
popular party might not fly away, but might stay in the city and be
killed; which so fell out, for all who believed him were put to
death.
There is a saying, also, recorded by Androclides, which makes him
guilty of great indifference to the obligations of an oath. His
recommendation, according to this account, was to "cheat boys with
dice, and men with oaths," an imitation of Polycrates of Samos, not
very honorable to a lawful commander, to take example, namely, from a
tyrant; nor in character with Laconian usages, to treat gods as ill
as enemies, or, indeed, even more injuriously; since he who
overreaches by an oath admits that he fears his enemy, while he
despises his God.
Cyrus now sent for Lysander to Sardis, and gave him some money, and
promised him some more, youthfully protesting in favor to him, that
if his father gave him nothing, he would supply him of his own; and
if he himself should be destitute of all, he would cut up, he said,
to make money, the very throne upon which he sat to do justice, it
being made of gold and silver; and, at last, on going up into Media
to his father, he ordered that he should receive the tribute of the
towns, and committed his government to him, and so taking his leave,
and desiring him not to fight by sea before he returned, for he would
come back with a great many ships out of Phoenicia and Cilicia,
departed to visit the king.
Lysander's ships were too few for him to venture to fight, and yet
too many to allow of his remaining idle; he set out, therefore, and
reduced some of the islands, and wasted Aegina and Salamis; and from
thence landing in Attica, and saluting Agis, who came from Decelea to
meet him, he made a display to the land-forces of the strength of the
fleet, as though he could sail where he pleased, and were absolute
master by sea. But hearing the Athenians pursued him, he fled
another way through the islands into Asia. And finding the
Hellespont without any defense, he attacked Lampsacus with his ships
by sea; while Thorax, acting in concert with him with the land army,
made an assault on the walls; and so, having taken the city by storm,
he gave it up to his soldiers to plunder. The fleet of the
Athenians, a hundred and eighty ships, had just arrived at Elaeus in
the Chersonese; and hearing the news, that Lampsacus was destroyed,
they presently sailed to Sestos; where, taking in victuals, they
advanced to Aegos Potami, over against their enemies, who were still
stationed about Lampsacus. Amongst other Athenian captains who were
now in command was Philocles, he who persuaded the people to pass a
decree to cut off the right thumb of the captives in the war, that
they should not be able to hold the spear, though they might the oar.
Then they all rested themselves, hoping they should have battle the
next morning. But Lysander had other things in his head; he
commanded the mariners and pilots to go on board at dawn, as if there
should be a battle as soon as it was day, and to sit there in order,
and without any noise, expecting what should be commanded, and in
like manner that the land army should remain quietly in their ranks
by the sea. But the sun rising, and the Athenians sailing up with
their whole fleet in line, and challenging them to battle, he, though
he had had his ships all drawn up and manned before daybreak,
nevertheless did not stir. He merely sent some small boats to those
who lay foremost, and bade them keep still and stay in their order;
not to be disturbed, and none of them to sail out and offer battle.
So about evening, the Athenians sailing back, he would not let the
seamen go out of the ships before two or three, which he had sent to
espy, were returned, after seeing the enemies disembark. And thus
they did the next day, and the third, and so to the fourth. So that
the Athenians grew extremely confident, and disdained their enemies,
as if they had been afraid and daunted. At this time, Alcibiades,
who was in his castle in the Chersonese, came on horseback to the
Athenian army, and found fault with their captains, first of all that
they had pitched their camp neither well nor safely, on an exposed
and open beach, a very bad landing for the ships, and, secondly, that
where they were, they had to fetch all they wanted from Sestos, some
considerable way off; whereas if they sailed round a little way to
the town and harbor of Sestos, they would be at a safer distance from
an enemy, who lay watching their movements, at the command of a
single general, terror of whom made every order rapidly executed.
This advice, however, they would not listen to; and Tydeus angered
disdainfully, that not he, but others, were in office now. So
Alcibiades, who even suspected there must be treachery, departed.
But on the fifth day, the Athenians having sailed towards them, and
gone back again as they were used to do, very proudly and full of
contempt, Lysander sending some ships, as usual, to look out,
commanded the masters of them that when they saw the Athenians go to
land, they should row back again with all their speed, and that when
they were about half-way across, they should lift up a brazen shield
from the foredeck, as the sign of battle. And he himself sailing
round, encouraged the pilots and masters of the ships, and exhorted
them to keep all their men to their places, seamen and soldiers
alike, and as soon as ever the sign should be given, to row up boldly
to their enemies. Accordingly when the shield had been lifted up
from the ships, and the trumpet from the admiral's vessel had sounded
for battle, the ships rowed up, and the foot soldiers strove to get
along by the shore to the promontory. The distance there between the
two continents is fifteen furlongs, which, by the zeal and eagerness
of the rowers, was quickly traversed. Conon, one of the Athenian
commanders, was the first who saw from the land the fleet advancing,
and shouted out to embark, and in the greatest distress bade some and
entreated others, and some he forced to man the ships. But all his
diligence signified nothing, because the men were scattered about;
for as soon as they came out of the ships, expecting no such matter,
some went to market, others walked about the country, or went to
sleep in their tents, or got their dinners ready, being, through
their commanders' want of skill, as far as possible from any thought
of what was to happen; and the enemy now coming up with shouts and
noise, Conon, with eight ships, sailed out, and making his escape,
passed from thence to Cyprus, to Evagores. The Peloponnesians
falling upon the rest, some they took quite empty, and some they
destroyed while they were filling; the men, meantime, coming unarmed
and scattered to help, died at their ships, or, flying by land, were
slain, their enemies disembarking and pursuing them. Lysander took
three thousand prisoners, with the generals, and the whole fleet,
excepting the sacred ship Paralus, and those which fled with Conon.
So taking their ships in tow, and having plundered their tents, with
pipe and songs of victory, he sailed back to Lampsacus, having
accomplished a great work with small pains, and having finished in
one hour, a war which had been protracted in its continuance, and
diversified in its incidents and its fortunes to a degree exceeding
belief, compared with all before it. After altering its shape and
character a thousand times, and after having been the destruction of
more commanders than all the previous wars of Greece put together, it
was now put an end to by the good counsel and ready conduct of one
man.
Some, therefore, looked upon the result as a divine intervention, and
there were certain who affirmed that the stars of Castor and Pollux
were seen on each side of Lysander's ship, when he first set sail
from the haven toward his enemies, shining about the helm; and some
say the stone which fell down was a sign of this slaughter. For a
stone of a great size did fall, according to the common belief, from
heaven, at Aegos Potami, which is shown to this day, and had in great
esteem by the Chersonites. And it is said that Anaxagoras foretold,
that the occurrence of a slip or shake among the bodies fixed in the
heavens, dislodging any one of them, would be followed by the fall of
the whole of them. For no one of the stars is now in the same place
in which it was at first; for they, being, according to him, like
stones and heavy, shine by the refraction of the upper air round
about them, and are carried along forcibly by the violence of the
circular motion by which they were originally withheld from
falling, when cold and heavy bodies were first separated from the
general universe. But there is a more probable opinion than this
maintained by some, who say that falling stars are no effluxes, nor
discharges of ethereal fire, extinguished almost at the instant of
its igniting by the lower air; neither are they the sudden combustion
and blazing up of a quantity of the lower air let loose in great
abundance into the upper region; but the heavenly bodies, by a
relaxation of the force of their circular movement, are carried by an
irregular course, not in general into the inhabited part of the
earth, but for the most part into the wide sea; which is the cause of
their not being observed. Daimachus, in his treatise on Religion.
supports the view of Anaxagoras. He says, that before this stone
fell, for seventy-five days continually, there was seen in the
heavens a vast fiery body, as if it had been a flaming cloud, not
resting, but carried about with several intricate and broken
movements, so that the flaming pieces, which were broken off by this
commotion and running about, were carried in all directions, shining
as falling stars do. But when it afterwards came down to the ground
in this district, and the people of the place recovering from their
fear and astonishment came together, there was no fire to be seen,
neither any sign of it; there was only a stone lying, big indeed, but
which bore no proportion, to speak of, to that fiery compass. It is
manifest that Daimachus needs to have indulgent hearers; but if what
he says be true, he altogether proves those to be wrong who say that
a rock broken off from the top of some mountain, by winds and
tempests, and caught and whirled about like a top, as soon as this
impetus began to slacken and cease, was precipitated and fell to the
ground. Unless, indeed, we choose to say that the phenomenon which
was observed for so many days was really fire, and that the change in
the atmosphere ensuing on its extinction was attended with violent
winds and agitations, which might be the cause of this stone being
carried off. The exacter treatment of this subject belongs, however,
to a different kind of writing.
Lysander, after the three thousand Athenians whom he had taken
prisoners were condemned by the commissioners to die, called
Philocles the general, and asked him what punishment he considered
himself to deserve, for having advised the citizens as he had done,
against the Greeks; but he, being nothing cast down at his calamity,
bade him not accuse him of matters of which nobody was a judge, but
to do to him, now he was a conqueror, as he would have suffered, had
he been overcome. Then washing himself, and putting on a fine cloak,
he led the citizens the way to the slaughter, as Theophrastus writes
in his history. After this Lysander, sailing about to the various
cities, bade all the Athenians he met go into Athens, declaring that
he would spare none, but kill every man whom he found out of the
city, intending thus to cause immediate famine and scarcity there,
that they might not make the siege laborious to him, having
provisions sufficient to endure it. And suppressing the popular
governments and all other constitutions, he left one Lacedaemonian
chief officer in every city, with ten rulers to act with him,
selected out of the societies which he had previously formed in the
different towns. And doing thus as well in the cities of his
enemies, as of his associates, he sailed leisurely on, establishing,
in a manner, for himself supremacy over the whole of Greece. Neither
did he make choice of rulers by birth or by wealth, but bestowed the
offices on his own friends and partisans, doing everything to please
them, and putting absolute power of reward and punishment into their
hands. And thus, personally appearing on many occasions of bloodshed
and massacre, and aiding his friends to expel their opponents, he did
not give the Greeks a favorable specimen of the Lacedaemonian
government; and the expression of Theopompus, the comic poet, seemed
but poor, when he compared the Lacedaemonians to tavern women,
because when the Greeks had first tasted the sweet wine of liberty,
they then poured vinegar into the cup; for from the very first it had
a rough and bitter taste, all government by the people being
suppressed by Lysander, and the boldest and least scrupulous of the
oligarchical party selected to rule the cities.
Having spent some little time about these things, and sent some
before to Lacedaemon to tell them he was arriving with two hundred
ships, he united his forces in Attica with those of the two kings
Agis and Pausanias, hoping to take the city without delay. But when
the Athenians defended themselves, he with his fleet passed again to
Asia, and in like manner destroyed the forms of government in all the
other cities, and placed them under the rule of ten chief persons,
many in every one being killed, and many driven into exile; and in
Samos, he expelled the whole people, and gave their cities to the
exiles whom he brought back. And the Athenians still possessing
Sestos, he took it from them, and suffered not the Sestians
themselves to dwell in it, but gave the city and country to be
divided out among the pilots and masters of the ships under him;
which was his first act that was disallowed by the Lacedaemonians,
who brought the Sestians back again into their country. All Greece,
however, rejoiced to see the Aeginetans, by Lysander's aid, now
again, after a long time, receiving back their cities, and the
Melians and Scionaeans restored, while the Athenians were driven out,
and delivered up the cities.
But when he now understood they were in a bad case in the city
because of the famine, he sailed to Piraeus, and reduced the city,
which was compelled to surrender on what conditions he demanded. One
hears it said by Lacedaemonians that Lysander wrote to the Ephors
thus: "Athens is taken;" and that these magistrates wrote back to
Lysander, "Taken is enough." But this saying was invented for its
neatness' sake; for the true decree of the magistrates was on this
manner: "The government of the Lacedaemonians has made these orders;
pull down the Piraeus and the long walls; quit all the towns, and
keep to your own land; if you do these things, you shall have peace,
if you wish it, restoring also your exiles. As concerning the number
of the ships, whatsoever there be judged necessary to appoint, that
do." This scroll of conditions the Athenians accepted, Theramenes,
son of Hagnon, supporting it. At which time, too, they say that when
Cleomenes, one of the young orators, asked him how he durst act and
speak contrary to Themistocles, delivering up the walls to the
Lacedaemonians, which he had built against the will of the
Lacedaemonians, he said, "O young man, I do nothing contrary to
Themistocles; for he raised these walls for the safety of the
citizens, and we pull them down for their safety; and if walls make a
city happy, then Sparta must be the most wretched of all, as it has
none."
Lysander, as soon as he had taken all the ships except twelve, and
the walls of the Athenians, on the sixteenth day of the month
Munychion, the same on which they had overcome the barbarians at
Salamis, then proceeded to take measures for altering the government.
But the Athenians taking that very unwillingly, and resisting, he
sent to the people and informed them, that he found that the city had
broken the terms, for the walls were standing when the days were past
within which they should have been pulled down. He should,
therefore, consider their case anew, they having broken their first
articles. And some state, in fact, the proposal was made in the
congress of the allies, that the Athenians should all be sold as
slaves; on which occasion, Erianthus, the Theban, gave his vote to
pull down the city, and turn the country into sheep-pasture; yet
afterwards, when there was a meeting of the captains together, a man
of Phocis, singing the first chorus in Euripides's Electra, which
begins,
Electra, Agamemnon's child, I come
Unto thy desert home,
they were all melted with compassion, and it seemed to be a cruel
deed to destroy and pull down a city which had been so famous, and
produced such men.
Accordingly Lysander, the Athenians yielding up everything, sent for
a number of flute-women out of the city, and collected together all
that were in the camp, and pulled down the walls, and burnt the ships
to the sound of the flute, the allies being crowned with garlands,
and making merry together, as counting that day the beginning of
their liberty. He proceeded also at once to alter the government,
placing thirty rulers in the city, and ten in the Piraeus: he put,
also, a garrison into the Acropolis, and made Callibius, a Spartan,
the governor of it; who afterwards taking up his staff to strike
Autolycus, the athlete, about whom Xenophon wrote his "Banquet," on
his tripping up his heels and throwing him to the ground, Lysander
was not vexed at it, but chid Callibius, telling him he did not know
how to govern freemen. The thirty rulers, however, to gain
Callibius's favor, a little after killed Autolycus.
Lysander, after this, sails out to Thrace, and what remained of the
public money, and the gifts and crowns which he had himself received,
numbers of people, as might be expected, being anxious to make
presents to a man of such great power, who was, in a manner, the lord
of Greece, he sends to Lacedaemon by Gylippus, who had commanded
formerly in Sicily. But he, it is reported, unsewed the sacks at the
bottom, took a considerable amount of silver out of every one of
them, and sewed them up again, not knowing there was a writing in
every one stating how much there was. And coming into Sparta, what
he had thus stolen away he hid under the tiles of his house, and
delivered up the sacks to the magistrates, and showed the seals were
upon them. But afterwards, on their opening the sacks and counting
it, the quantity of the silver differed from what the writing
expressed; and the matter causing some perplexity to the magistrates,
Gylippus's servant tells them in a riddle, that under the tiles lay
many owls; for, as it seems, the greatest part of the money then
current, bore the Athenian stamp of the owl. Gylippus having
committed so foul and base a deed, after such great and distinguished
exploits before, removed himself from Lacedaemon.
But the wisest of the Spartans, very much on account of this
occurrence, dreading the influence of money, as being what had
corrupted the greatest citizens, exclaimed against Lysander's
conduct, and declared to the Ephors, that all the silver and gold
should be sent away, as mere "alien mischiefs." These consulted
about it; and Theopompus says, it was Sciraphidas, but Ephorus, that
it was Phlogidas, who declared they ought not to receive any gold or
silver into the city; but to use their own country coin which was
iron, and was first of all dipped in vinegar when it was red hot,
that it might not be worked up anew, but because of the dipping might
be hard and unpliable. It was also, of course, very heavy and
troublesome to carry, and a great deal of it in quantity and
weight was but a little in value. And perhaps all the old money was
so, coin consisting of iron, or in some countries, copper skewers,
whence it comes that we still find a great number of small pieces of
money retain the name of obolus, and the drachma is six of these,
because so much may be grasped in one's hand. But Lysander's friends
being against it, and endeavoring to keep the money in the city, it
was resolved to bring in this sort of money to be used publicly,
enacting, at the same time, that if anyone was found in possession
of any privately, he should be put to death, as if Lycurgus had
feared the coin, and not the covetousness resulting from it, which
they did not repress by letting no private man keep any, so much as
they encouraged it, by allowing the state to possess it; attaching
thereby a sort of dignity to it, over and above its ordinary utility.
Neither was it possible, that what they saw was so much esteemed
publicly, they should privately despise as unprofitable; and that
everyone should think that thing could be nothing worth for his own
personal use, which was so extremely valued and desired for the use
of the state. And moral habits, induced by public practices, are far
quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the
failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at
large. For it is probable that the parts will be rather corrupted by
the whole if that grows bad; while the vices which flow from a part
into the whole, find many correctives and remedies from that which
remains sound. Terror and the law were now to keep guard over the
citizens' houses, to prevent any money entering into them; but their
minds could no longer be expected to remain superior to the desire of
it, when wealth in general was thus set up to be striven after, as a
high and noble object. On this point, however, we have given our
censure of the Lacedaemonians in one of our other writings.
Lysander erected out of the spoils brazen statues at Delphi of
himself, and of every one of the masters of the ships, as also
figures of the golden stars of Castor and Pollux, which vanished
before the battle at Leuctra. In the treasury of Brasidas and the
Acanthians, there was a trireme made of gold and ivory, of two
cubits, which Cyrus sent Lysander in honor of his victory. But
Alexandrides of Delphi writes in his history, that there was also a
deposit of Lysander's, a talent of silver, and fifty-two minas,
besides eleven staters; a statement not consistent with the generally
received account of his poverty. And at that time, Lysander, being
in fact of greater power than any Greek before, was yet thought to
show a pride, and to affect a superiority greater even than his power
warranted. He was the first, as Duris says in his history, among the
Greeks, to whom the cities reared altars as to a god, and sacrificed;
to him were songs of triumph first sung, the beginning of one of
which still remains recorded: --
Great Greece's general from spacious Sparta we
Will celebrate with songs of victory.
And the Samians decreed that their solemnities of Juno should be
called the Lysandria; and out of the poets he had Choerilus always
with him, to extol his achievements in verse; and to Antilochus, who
had made some verses in his commendation, being pleased with them, he
gave a hat full of silver; and when Antimachus of Colophon, and one
Niceratus of Heraclea, competed with each other in a poem on the
deeds of Lysander, he gave the garland to Niceratus; at which
Antimachus, in vexation, suppressed his poem; but Plato, being then a
young man, and admiring Antimachus for his poetry, consoled him for
his defeat by telling him that it is the ignorant who are the
sufferers by ignorance, as truly as the blind by want of sight.
Afterwards, when Aristonus, the musician, who had been a conqueror
six times at the Pythian games, told him as a piece of flattery, that
if he were successful again, he would proclaim himself in the name of
Lysander, "that is," he answered, "as his slave?"
This ambitious temper was indeed only burdensome to the highest
personages and to his equals, but through having so many people
devoted to serve him, an extreme haughtiness and contemptuousness
grew up, together with ambition, in his character. He observed no
sort of moderation, such as befitted a private man, either in
rewarding or in punishing; the recompense of his friends and guests
was absolute power over cities, and irresponsible authority, and the
only satisfaction of his wrath was the destruction of his enemy;
banishment would not suffice. As for example, at a later period,
fearing lest the popular leaders of the Milesians should fly, and
desiring also to discover those who lay hid, he swore he would do
them no harm, and on their believing him and coming forth, he
delivered them up to the oligarchical leaders to be slain, being in
all no less than eight hundred. And, indeed, the slaughter in
general of those of the popular party in the towns exceeded all
computation; as he did not kill only for offenses against himself,
but granted these favors without sparing, and joined in the execution
of them, to gratify the many hatreds, and the much cupidity of his
friends everywhere round about him. From whence the saying of
Eteocles, the Lacedaemonian, came to be famous, that "Greece could
not have borne two Lysanders." Theophrastus says, that Archestratus
said the same thing concerning Alcibiades. But in his case what had
given most offense was a certain licentious and wanton self-will;
Lysander's power was feared and hated because of his unmerciful
disposition. The Lacedaemonians did not at all concern themselves
for any other accusers; but afterwards, when Pharnabazus, having been
injured by him, he having pillaged and wasted his country, sent some
to Sparta to inform against him, the Ephors taking it very ill, put
one of his friends and fellow-captains, Thorax, to death, taking him
with some silver privately in his possession; and they sent him a
scroll, commanding him to return home. This scroll is made up thus;
when the Ephors send an admiral or general on his way, they take two
round pieces of wood, both exactly of a length and thickness, and cut
even to one another; they keep one themselves, and the other they
give to the person they send forth; and these pieces of wood they
call Scytales. When, therefore, they have occasion to communicate
any secret or important matter, making a scroll of parchment long and
narrow like a leathern thong, they roll it about their own staff of
wood, leaving no space void between, but covering the surface of the
staff with the scroll all over. When they have done this, they write
what they please on the scroll, as it is wrapped about the staff; and
when they have written, they take off the scroll, and send it to the
general without the wood. He, when he has received it, can read
nothing of the writing, because the words and letters are not
connected, but all broken up; but taking his own staff, he winds the
slip of the scroll about it, so that this folding, restoring all the
parts into the same order that they were in before, and putting what
comes first into connection with what follows, brings the whole
consecutive contents to view round the outside. And this scroll is
called a staff, after the name of the wood, as a thing measured is by
the name of the measure.
But Lysander, when the staff came to him to the Hellespont, was
troubled, and fearing Pharnabazus's accusations most, made haste to
confer with him, hoping to end the difference by a meeting together.
When they met, he desired him to write another letter to the
magistrates, stating that he had not been wronged, and had no
complaint to prefer. But he was ignorant that Pharnabazus, as it is
in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan; for pretending to do
all that was desired, openly he wrote such a letter as Lysander
wanted, but kept by him another, written privately; and when they
came to put on the seals, changed the tablets, which differed not at
all to look upon, and gave him the letter which had been written
privately. Lysander, accordingly, coming to Lacedaemon, and going,
as the custom is, to the magistrates' office, gave Pharnabazus's
letter to the Ephors, being persuaded that the greatest accusation
against him was now withdrawn; for Pharnabazus was beloved by the
Lacedaemonians, having been the most zealous on their side in the war
of all the king's captains. But after the magistrates had read the
letter they showed it him, and he understanding now that
Others beside Ulysses deep can be,
Not the one wise man of the world is he,
in extreme confusion, left them at the time. But a few days after,
meeting the Ephors, he said he must go to the temple of Ammon, and
offer the god the sacrifices which he had vowed in war. For some
state it as a truth, that when he was besieging the city of Aphytae
in Thrace, Ammon stood by him in his sleep; whereupon raising the
siege, supposing the god had commanded it, he bade the Aphytaeans
sacrifice to Ammon, and resolved to make a journey into Libya to
propitiate the god. But most were of opinion that the god was but
the presence, and that in reality he was afraid of the Ephors, and
that impatience of the yoke at home, and dislike of living under
authority, made him long for some travel and wandering, like a horse
just brought in from open feeding and pasture to the stable, and put
again to his ordinary work. For that which Ephorus states to have
been the cause of this traveling about, I shall relate by and by.
And having hardly and with difficulty obtained leave of the
magistrates to depart, he set sail. But the kings, while he was on
his voyage, considering that keeping, as he did, the cities in
possession by his own friends and partisans, he was in fact their
sovereign and the lord of Greece, took measures for restoring the
power to the people, and for throwing his friends out. Disturbances
commencing again about these things, and, first of all, the Athenians
from Phyle setting upon their thirty rulers and overpowering them,
Lysander, coming home in haste, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to
support the oligarchies and to put down the popular governments, and
to the thirty in Athens, first of all, they sent a hundred talents
for the war, and Lysander himself, as general, to assist them. But
the kings envying him, and fearing lest he should take Athens again,
resolved that one of themselves should take the command. Accordingly
Pausanias went, and in words, indeed, professed as if he had been for
the tyrants against the people, but in reality exerted himself for
peace, that Lysander might not by the means of his friends become
lord of Athens again. This he brought easily to pass; for,
reconciling the Athenians, and quieting the tumults, he defeated the
ambitious hopes of Lysander, though shortly after, on the Athenians
rebelling again, he was censured for having thus taken, as it were,
the bit out of the mouth of the people, which, being freed from the
oligarchy, would now break out again into affronts and insolence; and
Lysander regained the reputation of a person who employed his command
not in gratification of others, nor for applause, but strictly for
the good of Sparta.
His speech, also, was bold and daunting to such as opposed him. The
Argives, for example, contended about the bounds of their land, and
thought they brought juster pleas than the Lacedaemonians; holding
out his sword, "He," said Lysander, "that is master of this, brings
the best argument about the bounds of territory." A man of Megara,
at some conference, taking freedom with him, "This language, my
friend," said he, "should come from a city." To the Boeotians, who
were acting a doubtful part, he put the question, whether he should
pass through their country with spears upright, or leveled. After
the revolt of the Corinthians, when, on coming to their walls, he
perceived the Lacedaemonians hesitating to make the assault, and a
hare was seen to leap through the ditch: "Are you not ashamed," he
said, "to fear an enemy, for whose laziness, the very hares sleep
upon their walls?"
When king Agis died, leaving a brother Agesilaus, and Leotychides,
who was supposed his son, Lysander, being attached to Agesilaus,
persuaded him to lay claim to the kingdom, as being a true descendant
of Hercules; Leotychides lying under the suspicion of being the son
of Alcibiades, who lived privately in familiarity with Timaea, the
wife of Agis, at the time he was a fugitive in Sparta. Agis, they
say, computing the time, satisfied himself that she could not have
conceived by him, and had hitherto always neglected and manifestly
disowned Leotychides; but now when he was carried sick to Heraea,
being ready to die, what by the importunities of the young man
himself, and of his friends, in the presence of many he declared
Leotychides to be his; and desiring those who were present to bear
witness of this to the Lacedaemonians, died. They accordingly did so
testify in favor of Leotychides. And Agesilaus, being otherwise
highly reputed of, and strong in the support of Lysander, was, on the
other hand, prejudiced by Diopithes, a man famous for his knowledge
of oracles, who adduced this prophecy in reference to Agesilaus's
lameness:
Beware, great Sparta, lest there come of thee,
Though sound thyself, an halting sovereignty;
Troubles, both long and unexpected too,
And storms of deadly warfare shall ensue.
When many, therefore, yielded to the oracle, and inclined to
Leotychides, Lysander said that Diopithes did not take the prophecy
rightly; for it was not that the god would be offended if any lame
person ruled over the Lacedaemonians, but that the kingdom would be a
lame one, if bastards and false-born should govern with the posterity
of Hercules. By this argument, and by his great influence among
them, he prevailed, and Agesilaus was made king.
Immediately, therefore, Lysander spurred him on to make an expedition
into Asia, putting him in hopes that he might destroy the Persians,
and attain the height of greatness. And he wrote to his friends in
Asia, bidding them request to have Agesilaus appointed to command
them in the war against the barbarians; which they were persuaded to,
and sent ambassadors to Lacedaemon to entreat it. And this would
seem to be a second favor done Agesilaus by Lysander, not inferior to
his first in obtaining him the kingdom. But with ambitious natures,
otherwise not ill qualified for command, the feeling of jealousy of
those near them in reputation continually stands in the way of the
performance of noble actions; they make those their rivals in virtue,
whom they ought to use as their helpers to it. Agesilaus took
Lysander, among the thirty counselors that accompanied him, with
intentions of using him as his especial friend; but when they were
come into Asia, the inhabitants there, to whom he was but little
known, addressed themselves to him but little and seldom; whereas
Lysander, because of their frequent previous intercourse, was visited
and attended by large numbers, by his friends out of observance, and
by others out of fear; and just as in tragedies it not uncommonly is
the case with the actors, the person who represents a messenger or
servant is much taken notice of, and plays the chief part, while he
who wears the crown and scepter is hardly heard to speak, even so was
it about the counselor, he had all the real honors of the government,
and to the king was left the empty name of power. This
disproportionate ambition ought very likely to have been in some way
softened down, and Lysander should have been reduced to his proper
second place, but wholly to cast off and to insult and affront for
glory's sake, one who was his benefactor and friend, was not worthy
Agesilaus to allow in himself. For, first of all, he gave him no
opportunity for any action, and never set him in any place of
command; then, for whomsoever he perceived him exerting his interest,
these persons he always sent away with a refusal, and with less
attention than any ordinary suitors, thus silently undoing and
weakening his influence.
Lysander, miscarrying in everything, and perceiving that his
diligence for his friends was but a hindrance to them, forbore to
help them, entreating them that they would not address themselves to,
nor observe him, but that they would speak to the king, and to those
who could be of more service to friends than at present he could
most, on hearing this, forbore to trouble him about their concerns;
but continued their observances to him, waiting upon him in the walks
and places of exercise; at which Agesilaus was more annoyed than
ever, envying him the honor; and, finally, when he gave many of the
officers places of command and the governments of cities, he
appointed Lysander carver at his table, adding, by way of insult to
the Ionians, "Let them go now, and pay their court to my carver."
Upon this, Lysander thought fit to come and speak with him; and a
brief laconic dialogue passed between them as follows: "Truly, you
know very well, O Agesilaus, how to depress your friends;" "Those
friends," replied he, "who would be greater than myself; but those
who increase my power, it is just should share in it." "Possibly, O
Agesilaus," answered Lysander, "in all this there may be more said on
your part than done on mine, but I request you, for the sake of
observers from without, to place me in any command under you where
you may judge I shall be the least offensive, and most useful."
Upon this he was sent ambassador to the Hellespont; and though angry
with Agesilaus, yet did not neglect to perform his duty, and having
induced Spithridates the Persian, being offended with Pharnabazus, a
gallant man, and in command of some forces, to revolt, he brought him
to Agesilaus. He was not, however, employed in any other service,
but having completed his time, returned to Sparta, without honor,
angry with Agesilaus, and hating more than ever the whole Spartan
government, and resolved to delay no longer, but while there was yet
time, to put into execution the plans which he appears some time
before to have concerted for a revolution and change in the
constitution. These were as follows. The Heraclidae who joined with
the Dorians, and came into Peloponnesus, became a numerous and
glorious race in Sparta, but not every family belonging to it had the
right of succession in the kingdom, but the kings were chosen out of
two only, called the Eurypontidae and the Agiadae; the rest had no
privilege in the government by their nobility of birth, and the
honors which followed from merit lay open to all who could obtain
them. Lysander, who was born of one of these families, when he had
risen into great renown for his exploits, and had gained great
friends and power, was vexed to see the city which had increased to
what it was by him, ruled by others not at all better descended than
himself, and formed a design to remove the government from the two
families, and to give it in common to all the Heraclidae; or as some
say, not to the Heraclidae only, but to all the Spartans; that the
reward might not belong to the posterity of Hercules, but to those
who were like Hercules, judging by that personal merit which raised
even him to the honor of the Godhead; and he hoped that when the
kingdom was thus to be competed for, no Spartan would be chosen
before himself.
Accordingly he first attempted and prepared to persuade the citizens
privately, and studied an oration composed to this purpose by Cleon,
the Halicarnassian. Afterwards perceiving so unexpected and great an
innovation required bolder means of support, he proceeded as it might
be on the stage, to avail himself of machinery, and to try the
effects of divine agency upon his countrymen. He collected and
arranged for his purpose, answers and oracles from Apollo, not
expecting to get any benefit from Cleon's rhetoric, unless he should
first alarm and overpower the minds of his fellow-citizens by
religious and superstitious terrors, before bringing them to the
consideration of his arguments. Ephorus relates, after he had
endeavored to corrupt the oracle of Apollo, and had again failed to
persuade the priestesses of Dodona by means of Pherecles, that he
went to Ammon, and discoursed with the guardians of the oracle there,
proffering them a great deal of gold, and that they, taking this ill,
sent some to Sparta to accuse Lysander; and on his acquittal the
Libyans, going away, said, "You will find us, O Spartans, better
judges, when you come to dwell with us in Libya," there being a
certain ancient oracle, that the Lacedaemonians should dwell in
Libya. But as the whole intrigue and the course of the contrivance
was no ordinary one, nor lightly- undertaken, but depended as it went
on, like some mathematical proposition, on a variety of important
admissions, and proceeded through a series of intricate and difficult
steps to its conclusion, we will go into it at length, following the
account of one who was at once an historian and a philosopher.
There was a woman in Pontus, who professed to be pregnant by Apollo,
which many, as was natural, disbelieved, and many also gave credit
to, and when she had brought forth a man-child, several, not
unimportant persons, took an interest in its rearing and bringing up.
The name given the boy was Silenus, for some reason or other.
Lysander, taking this for the groundwork, frames and devises the rest
himself, making use of not a few, nor these insignificant champions
of his story, who brought the report of the child's birth into credit
without any suspicion. Another report, also, was procured from
Delphi and circulated in Sparta, that there were some very old
oracles which were kept by the priests in private writings; and they
were not to be meddled with neither was it lawful to read them, till
one in after times should come, descended from Apollo, and, on giving
some known token to the keepers, should take the books in which the
oracles were. Things being thus ordered beforehand, Silenus, it was
intended, should come and ask for the oracles, as being the child of
Apollo and those priests who were privy to the design, were to
profess to search narrowly into all particulars, and to question him
concerning his birth; and, finally, were to be convinced, and, as to
Apollo's son, to deliver up to him the writings. Then he, in the
presence of many witnesses, should read amongst other prophecies,
that which was the object of the whole contrivance, relating to the
office of the kings, that it would be better and more desirable to
the Spartans to choose their kings out of the best citizens. And
now, Silenus being grown up to a youth, and being ready for the
action, Lysander miscarried in his drama through the timidity of one
of his actors, or assistants, who just as he came to the point lost
heart and drew back. Yet nothing was found out while Lysander lived,
but only after his death.
He died before Agesilaus came back from Asia, being involved, or
perhaps more truly having himself involved Greece, in the Boeotian
war. For it is stated both ways; and the cause of it some make to be
himself, others the Thebans, and some both together; the Thebans, on
the one hand, being charged with casting away the sacrifices at
Aulis, and that being bribed with the king's money brought by
Androclides and Amphitheus, they had with the object of entangling
the Lacedaemonians in a Grecian war, set upon the Phocians, and
wasted their country; it being said, on the other hand, that Lysander
was angry that the Thebans had preferred a claim to the tenth part of
the spoils of the war, while the rest of the confederates submitted
without complaint; and because they expressed indignation about the
money which Lysander sent to Sparta, but most especially, because
from them the Athenians had obtained the first opportunity of freeing
themselves from the thirty tyrants, whom Lysander had made, and to
support whom the Lacedaemonians issued a decree that political
refugees from Athens might be arrested in whatever country they were
found, and that those who impeded their arrest should be excluded
from the confederacy. In reply to this the Thebans issued counter
decrees of their own, truly in the spirit and temper of the actions
of Hercules and Bacchus, that every house and city in Boeotia should
be opened to the Athenians who required it, and that he who did not
help a fugitive who was seized, should be fined a talent for damages,
and if any one should bear arms through Boeotia to Attica against the
tyrants, that none of the Thebans should either see or hear of it.
Nor did they pass these humane and truly Greek decrees, without at
the same time making their acts conformable to their words. For
Thrasybulus and those who with him occupied Phyle, set out upon that
enterprise from Thebes, with arms and money, and secrecy and a point
to start from, provided for them by the Thebans. Such were the
causes of complaint Lysander had against Thebes. And being now grown
violent in his temper through the atrabilious tendency which
increased upon him in his old age, he urged the Ephors and persuaded
them to place a garrison in Thebes, and taking the commander's place,
he marched forth with a body of troops. Pausanias, also, the king,
was sent shortly after with an army. Now Pausanias, going round by
Cithaeron, was to invade Boeotia; Lysander, meantime, advanced
through Phocis to meet him,
with a numerous body of soldiers. He took the city of the
Orchomenians, who came over to him of their own accord, and plundered
Lebadea. He dispatched also letters to Pausanias, ordering him to
move from Plataea to meet him at Haliartus, and that himself would be
at the walls of Haliartus by break of day. These letters were
brought to the Thebans, the carrier of them falling into the hands of
some Theban scouts. They, having received aid from Athens, committed
their city to the charge of the Athenian troops, and sallying out
about the first sleep, succeeded in reaching Haliartus a little before
Lysander, and part of them entered into the city. He, upon this,
first of all resolved, posting his army upon a hill, to stay for
Pausanias; then as the day advanced, not being able to rest, he bade
his men take up their arms, and encouraging the allies, led them in a
column along the road to the walls. but those Thebans who had
remained outside, taking the city on the left hand, advanced against
the rear of their enemies, by the fountain which is called Cissusa;
here they tell the story that the nurses washed the infant Bacchus
after his birth; the water of it is of a bright wine color, clear,
and most pleasant to drink; and not far off the Cretan storax grows
all about, which the Haliartians adduce in token of Rhadamanthus
having dwelt there, and they show his sepulchre, calling it Alea.
And the monument also of Alcmena is hard by; for there, as they say,
she was buried, having married Rhadamanthus after Amphitryon's death.
But the Thebans inside the city forming in order of battle with the
Haliartians stood still for some time, but on seeing Lysander with a
party of those who were foremost approaching, on a sudden opening the
gates and falling on, they killed him with the soothsayer at his
side, and a few others; for the greater part immediately fled back to
the main force. But the Thebans not slackening, but closely pursuing
them, the whole body turned to fly towards the hills. There were one
thousand of them slain; there died, also, of the Thebans three
hundred, who were killed with their enemies, while chasing them into
craggy and difficult places. These had been under suspicion of
favoring the Lacedaemonians, and in their eagerness to clear
themselves in the eyes of their fellow-citizens, exposed themselves
in the pursuit, and so met their death. News of the disaster reached
Pausanias as he was on the way from Plataea to Thespiae, and having
set his army in order he came to Haliartus; Thrasybulus, also, came
from Thebes, leading the Athenians.
Pausanias proposing to request the bodies of the dead under truce,
the elders of the Spartans took it ill, and were angry among
themselves, and coming to the king, declared that Lysander should not
be taken away upon any conditions; if they fought it out by arms
about his body, and conquered, then they might bury him; if they were
overcome, it was glorious to die upon the spot with their commander.
When the elders had spoken these things, Pausanias saw it would be a
difficult business to vanquish the Thebans, who had but just been
conquerors; that Lysander's body also lay near the walls, so that it
would be hard for them, though they overcame, to take it away without
a truce; he therefore sent a herald, obtained a truce, and withdrew
his forces, and carrying away the body of Lysander, they buried it in
the first friendly soil they reached on crossing the Boeotian
frontier, in the country of the Panopaeans; where the monument still
stands as you go on the road from Delphi to Chaeronea. Now the army
quartering there, it is said that a person of Phocis, relating the
battle to one who was not in it, said, the enemies fell upon them
just after Lysander had passed over the Hoplites; surprised at which
a Spartan, a friend of Lysander, asked what Hoplites he meant, for he
did not know the name. "It was there," answered the Phocian, "that
the enemy killed the first of us; the rivulet by the city is called
Hoplites." On hearing which the Spartan shed tears and observed, how
impossible it is for any man to avoid his appointed lot; Lysander, it
appears, having received an oracle, as follows: --
Sounding Hoplites see thou bear in mind,
And the earthborn dragon following behind.
Some, however, say that Hoplites does not run by Haliartus, but is a
watercourse near Coronea, falling into the river Philarus, not far
from the town in former times called Hoplias, and now Isomantus.
The man of Haliartus who killed Lysander, by name Neochorus, bore on
his shield the device of a dragon; and this, it was supposed, the
oracle signified. It is said, also, that at the time of the
Peloponnesian war, the Thebans received an oracle from the sanctuary
of Ismenus, referring at once to the battle at Delium, and to this
which thirty years after took place at Haliartus. It ran thus: --
Hunting the wolf, observe the utmost bound,
And the hill Orchalides where foxes most are found.
By the words, "the utmost bound," Delium being intended, where
Boeotia touches Attica, and by Orchalides, the hill now called
Alopecus, which lies in the parts of Haliartus towards Helicon.
But such a death befalling Lysander, the Spartans took it so
grievously at the time, that they put the king to a trial for his
life, which he not daring to await, fled to Tegea, and there lived
out his life in the sanctuary of Minerva. The poverty also of
Lysander being discovered by his death, made his merit more manifest,
since from so much wealth and power, from all the homage of the
cities, and of the Persian kingdom, he had not in the least degree,
so far as money goes, sought any private aggrandizement, as
Theopompus in his history relates, whom anyone may rather give
credit to when he commends, than when he finds fault, as it is more
agreeable to him to blame than to praise. But subsequently, Ephorus
says, some controversy arising among the allies at Sparta, which made
it necessary to consult the writings which Lysander had kept by him,
Agesilaus came to his house, and finding the book in which the
oration on the Spartan constitution was written at length, to the
effect that the kingdom ought to be taken from the Eurypontidae and
Agiadae, and to be offered in common, and a choice made out of the
best citizens, at first he was eager to make it public, and to show
his countrymen the real character of Lysander. But Lacratidas, a
wise man, and at that time chief of the Ephors, hindered Agesilaus,
and said, they ought not to dig up Lysander again, but rather to bury
with him a discourse, composed so plausibly and subtlety. Other
honors, also, were paid him after his death; and amongst these they
imposed a fine upon those who had engaged themselves to marry his
daughters, and then when Lysander was found to be poor, after his
decease, refused them; because when they thought him rich they had
been observant of him, but now his poverty had proved him just and
good, they forsook him. For there was, it seems, in Sparta, a
punishment for not marrying, for a late, and for a bad marriage; and
to the last penalty those were most especially liable, who sought
alliances with the rich instead of with the good and with their
friends. Such is the account we have found given of Lysander.
SYLLA
Lucius Cornelius Sylla was descended of a patrician or noble family.
Of his ancestors, Rufinus, it is said, had been consul, and incurred
a disgrace more signal than his distinction. For being found
possessed of more than ten pounds of silver plate, contrary to the
law, he was for this reason put out of the senate. His posterity
continued ever after in obscurity, nor had Sylla himself any opulent
parentage. In his younger days he lived in hired lodgings, at a low
rate, which in after-times was adduced against him as proof that he
had been fortunate above his quality. When he was boasting and
magnifying himself for his exploits in Libya, a person of noble
station made answer, "And how can you be an honest man, who, since
the death of a father who left you nothing, have become so rich?"
The time in which he lived was no longer an age of pure and upright
manners, but had already declined, and yielded to the appetite for
riches and luxury; yet still, in the general opinion, they who
deserted the hereditary poverty of their family, were as much blamed
as those who had run out a fair patrimonial estate. And afterwards,
when he had seized the power into his hands, and was putting many to
death, a freedman suspected of having concealed one of the
proscribed, and for that reason sentenced to be thrown down the
Tarpeian rock, in a reproachful way recounted, how they had lived
long together under the same roof, himself for the upper rooms paying
two thousand sesterces, and Sylla for the lower three thousand; so
that the difference between their fortunes then was no more than one
thousand sesterces, equivalent in Attic coin to two hundred and fifty
drachmas. And thus much of his early fortune.
His general personal appearance may be known by his statues; only his
blue eyes, of themselves extremely keen and glaring, were rendered
all the more forbidding and terrible by the complexion of his face,
in which white was mixed with rough blotches of fiery red. Hence, it
is said, he was surnamed Sylla, and in allusion to it one of the
scurrilous jesters at Athens made the verse upon him,
Sylla is a mulberry sprinkled o'er with meal.
Nor is it out of place to make use of marks of character like these,
in the case of one who was by nature so addicted to raillery, that in
his youthful obscurer years he would converse freely with players and
professed jesters, and join them in all their low pleasures. And
when supreme master of all, he was often wont to muster together the
most impudent players and stage-followers of the town, and to drink
and bandy jests with them without regard to his age or the dignity of
his place, and to the prejudice of important affairs that required
his attention. When he was once at table, it was not in Sylla's
nature to admit of anything that was serious, and whereas at other
times he was a man of business, and austere of countenance, he
underwent all of a sudden, at his first entrance upon wine and
good-fellowship, a total revolution, and was gentle and tractable
with common singers and dancers, and ready to oblige anyone that
spoke with him. It seems to have been a sort of diseased result of
this laxity, that he was so prone to amorous pleasures, and yielded
without resistance to any temptations of voluptuousness, from which
even ill his old age he could not refrain. He had a long attachment
for Metrobius, a player. In his first amours it happened, that he
made court to a common but rich lady, Nicopolis by name, and, what by
the air of his youth, and what by long intimacy, won so far on her
affections, that she rather than he was the lover, and at her death
she bequeathed him her whole property. He likewise inherited the
estate of a step-mother who loved him as her own son. By these means
he had pretty well advanced his fortunes.
He was chosen quaestor to Marius in his first consulship, and set
sail with him for Libya, to war upon Jugurtha. Here, in general, he
gained approbation; and more especially, by closing in dexterously
with an accidental occasion, made a friend of Bocchus, king of
Numidia. He hospitably entertained the king's ambassadors, on their
escape from some Numidian robbers, and after showing them much
kindness, sent them on their journey with presents, and an escort to
protect them. Bocchus had long hated and dreaded his son-in-law,
Jugurtha, who had now been worsted in the field and had fled to him
for shelter; and it so happened, he was at this time entertaining a
design to betray him. He accordingly invited Sylla to come to him,
wishing the seizure and surrender of Jugurtha to be effected rather
through him, than directly by himself. Sylla, when he had
communicated the business to Marius, and received from him a small
detachment, voluntarily put himself into this imminent danger; and
confiding in a barbarian, who had been unfaithful to his own
relations, to apprehend another man's person, made surrender of his
own. Bocchus, having both of them now in his power, was necessitated
to betray one or other, and after long debate with himself, at last
resolved on his first design, and gave up Jugurtha into the hands of
Sylla.
For this Marius triumphed, but the glory of the enterprise, which
through people's envy of Marius was ascribed to Sylla, secretly
grieved him. And the truth is, Sylla himself was by nature
vainglorious, and this being the first time that from a low and
private condition he had risen to esteem amongst the citizens and
tasted of honor, his appetite for distinction carried him to such a
pitch of ostentation, that he had a representation of this action
engraved on a signet ring; which he carried about with him, and made
use of ever after. The impress was, Bocchus delivering, and Sylla
receiving, Jugurtha. This touched Marius to the quick; however,
judging Sylla to be beneath his rivalry, he made use of him as
lieutenant, in his second consulship, and in his third, as tribune;
and many considerable services were effected by his means. When
acting as lieutenant he took Copillus, chief of the Tectosages,
prisoner, and compelled the Marsians, a great and populous nation,
to become friends and confederates of the Romans.
Henceforward, however, Sylla perceiving that Marius bore a jealous
eye over him, and would no longer afford him opportunities of action,
but rather opposed his advance, attached himself to Catulus, Marius's
colleague, a worthy man, but not energetic enough as a general. And
under this commander, who entrusted him with the highest and most
important commissions, he rose at once to reputation and to power.
He subdued by arms most part of the Alpine barbarians; and when there
was a scarcity in the armies, he took that care upon himself, and
brought in such a store of provisions, as not only to furnish the
soldiers of Catulus with abundance, but likewise to supply Marius.
This, as he writes himself, wounded Marius to the very heart. So
slight and childish were the first occasions and motives of that
enmity between them, which, passing afterwards through a long course
of civil bloodshed and incurable divisions to find its end in
tyranny, and the confusion of the whole State proved Euripides to
have been truly wise and thoroughly acquainted with the causes of
disorders in the body politic, when he forewarned all men to beware
of Ambition, as of all the higher Powers, the most destructive and
pernicious to her votaries.
Sylla, by this time thinking that the reputation of his arms abroad
was sufficient to entitle him to a part in the civil administration,
he took himself immediately from the camp to the assembly, and
offered himself as a candidate for a praetorship, but failed. The
fault of this disappointment he wholly ascribes to the populace, who,
knowing his intimacy with king Bocchus, and for that reason
expecting, that if he was made aedile before his praetorship, he
would then show them magnificent hunting-shows and combats between
Libyan wild beasts, chose other praetors, on purpose to force him
into the aedileship. The vanity of this pretext is sufficiently
disproved by matter-of-fact. For the year following, partly by
flatteries to the people, and partly by money, he got himself elected
praetor. Accordingly, once while he was in office, on his angrily
telling Caesar that he should make use of his authority against him,
Caesar answered him with a smile, "You do well to call it your own,
as you bought it." At the end of his praetorship he was sent over
into Cappadocia, under the presence of reestablishing Ariobarzanes in
his kingdom, but in reality to keep in check the restless movements
of Mithridates, who was gradually procuring himself as vast a new
acquired power and dominion, as was that of his ancient inheritance.
He carried over with him no great forces of his own, but making use
of the cheerful aid of the confederates, succeeded, with considerable
slaughter of the Cappadocians, and yet greater of the Armenian
succors, in expelling Gordius and establishing Ariobarzanes as king.
During his stay on the banks of the Euphrates, there came to him
Orobazus, a Parthian, ambassador from king Arsaces, as yet there
having been no correspondence between the two nations. And this also
we may lay to the account of Sylla's felicity, that he should be the
first Roman, to whom the Parthians made address for alliance and
friendship. At the time of which reception, the story is, that
having ordered three chairs of state to be set, one for Ariobarzanes,
one for Orobazus, and a third for himself, he placed himself in the
middle, and so gave audience. For this the king of Parthia
afterwards put Orobazus to death. Some people commended Sylla for
his lofty carriage towards the barbarians; others again accused him
of arrogance and unseasonable display. It is reported, that a
certain Chaldaean, of Orobazus's retinue, looking Sylla wistfully in
the face, and observing carefully the motions of his mind and body,
and forming a judgment of his nature, according to the rules of his
art, said that it was impossible for him not to become the greatest
of men; it was rather a wonder how he could even then abstain from
being head of all.
At his return, Censorinus impeached him of extortion, for having
exacted a vast sum of money from a well-affected and associate
kingdom. However, Censorinus did not appear at the trial, but
dropped his accusation. His quarrel, meantime, with Marius began to
break out afresh, receiving new material from the ambition of
Bocchus, who, to please the people of Rome, and gratify Sylla, set up
in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus images bearing trophies, and a
representation in gold of the surrender of Jugurtha to Sylla. When
Marius, in great anger, attempted to pull them down, and others aided
Sylla, the whole city would have been in tumult and commotion with
this dispute, had not the Social War, which had long lain smoldering
blazed forth at last, and for the present put an end to the quarrel.
In the course of this war, which had many great changes of fortune,
and which, more than any, afflicted the Romans, and, indeed,
endangered the very being of the Commonwealth, Marius was not able to
signalize his valor in any action, but left behind him a clear proof,
that warlike excellence requires a strong and still vigorous body.
Sylla, on the other hand, by his many achievements, gained himself,
with his fellow-citizens, the name of a great commander, while his
friends thought him the greatest of all commanders, and his enemies
called him the most fortunate. Nor did this make the same sort of
impression on him, as it made on Timotheus the son of Conon, the
Athenian; who, when his adversaries ascribed his successes to his
good luck, and had a painting made, representing him asleep, and
Fortune by his side, casting her nets over the cities, was rough and
violent in his indignation at those who did it, as if by attributing
all to Fortune, they had robbed him of his just honors; and said to
the people on one occasion at his return from war, "In this, ye men
of Athens, Fortune had no part." A piece of boyish petulance, which
the deity, we are told, played back upon Timotheus; who from that
time was never able to achieve anything that was great, but proving
altogether unfortunate in his attempts, and falling into discredit
with the people, was at last banished the city. Sylla, on the
contrary, not only accepted with pleasure the credit of such divine
felicities and favors, but joining himself in extolling and
glorifying what was done, gave the honor of all to Fortune, whether
it were out of boastfulness, or a real feeling of divine agency. He
remarks, in his Memoirs, that of all his well advised actions, none
proved so lucky in the execution, as what he had boldly enterprised,
not by calculation, but upon the moment. And in the character which
he gives of himself, that he was born for fortune rather than war, he
seems to give Fortune a higher place than merit, and in short, makes
himself entirely the creature of a superior power, accounting even
his concord with Metellus, his equal in office, and his connection by
marriage, a piece of preternatural felicity. For expecting to have
met in him a most troublesome, he found him a most accommodating
colleague. Moreover, in the Memoirs which he dedicated to Lucullus,
he admonishes him to esteem nothing more trustworthy, than what the
divine powers advise him by night. And when he was leaving the city
with an army, to fight in the Social War, he relates, that the earth
near the Laverna opened, and a quantity of fire came rushing out of
it, shooting up with a bright flame into the heavens. The
soothsayers upon this foretold, that a person of great qualities, and
of a rare and singular aspect, should take the government in hand,
and quiet the present troubles of the city. Sylla affirms he was the
man, for his golden head of hair made him an extraordinary-looking
man, nor had he any shame, after the great actions he had done, in
testifying to his own great qualities. And thus much of his opinion
as to divine agency.
In general he would seem to have been of a very irregular character,
full of inconsistencies with himself; much given to rapine, to
prodigality yet more; in promoting or disgracing whom he pleased,
alike unaccountable; cringing to those he stood in need of, and
domineering over others who stood in need of him, so that it was hard
to tell, whether his nature had more in it of pride or of servility.
As to his unequal distribution of punishments, as, for example, that
upon slight grounds he would put to the torture, and again would bear
patiently with the greatest wrongs; would readily forgive and be
reconciled after the most heinous acts of enmity, and yet would visit
small and inconsiderable offenses with death, and confiscation of
goods; one might judge, that in himself he was really of a violent
and revengeful nature, which however he could qualify, upon
reflection, for his interest. In this very Social War, when the
soldiers with stones and clubs had killed an officer of praetorian
rank, his own lieutenant, Albinus by name, he passed by this flagrant
crime without any inquiry, giving it out moreover in a boast, that
the soldiers would behave all the better now, to make amends, by some
special bravery, for their breach of discipline. He took no notice
of the clamors of those that cried for justice, but designing already
to supplant Marius, now that he saw the Social War near its end, he
made much of his army, in hopes to get himself declared general of
the forces against Mithridates.
At his return to Rome, he was chosen Consul with Quintus Pompeius, in
the fiftieth year of his age, and made a most distinguished marriage
with Caecilia, daughter of Metellus, the chief priest. The common
people made a variety of verses in ridicule of the marriage, and many
of the nobility also were disgusted at it, esteeming him, as Livy
writes, unworthy of this connection, whom before they thought worthy
of a consulship. This was not his only wife, for first, in his
younger days, he was married to Ilia, by whom he had a daughter;
after her to Aelia; and thirdly to Cloelia, whom he dismissed as
barren, but honorably, and with professions of respect, adding,
moreover, presents. But the match between him and Metella, falling
out a few days after, occasioned suspicions that he had complained of
Cloelia without due cause. To Metella he always showed great
deference, so much so that the people, when anxious for the recall of
the exiles of Marius's party, upon his refusal, entreated the
intercession of Metella. And the Athenians, it is thought, had
harder measure, at the capture of their town, because they used
insulting language to Metella in their jests from the walls during
the siege. But of this hereafter.
At present esteeming the consulship but a small matter in comparison
of things to come, he was impatiently carried away in thought to the
Mithridatic War. Here he was withstood by Marius; who out of mad
affectation of glory and thirst for distinction, those never dying
passions, though he were now unwieldy in body, and had given up
service, on account of his age, during the late campaigns, still
coveted after command in a distant war beyond the seas. And whilst
Sylla was departed for the camp, to order the rest of his affairs
there, he sat brooding at home, and at last hatched that execrable
sedition, which wrought Rome more mischief than all her enemies
together had done, as was indeed foreshown by the gods. For a flame
broke forth of its own accord, from under the staves of the ensigns,
and was with difficulty extinguished. Three ravens brought their
young into the open road, and ate them, carrying the relics into the
nest again. Mice having gnawed the consecrated gold in one of the
temples, the keepers caught one of them, a female, in a trap; and she
bringing forth five young ones in the very trap, devoured three of
them. But what was greatest of all, in a calm and clear sky there
was heard the sound of a trumpet, with such a loud and dismal blast,
as struck terror and amazement into the hearts of the people. The
Etruscan sages affirmed, that this prodigy betokened the mutation of
the age, and a general revolution in the world. For according to
them there are in all eight ages, differing one from another in the
lives and the characters of men, and to each of these God has
allotted a certain measure of time, determined by the circuit of the
great year. And when one age is run out, at the approach of another,
there appears some wonderful sign from earth or heaven, such as makes
it manifest at once to those who have made it their business to study
such things, that there has succeeded in the world a new race of men,
differing in customs and institutes of life, and more or less
regarded by the gods, than the preceding. Amongst other great
changes that happen, as they say, at the turn of ages, the art of
divination, also, at one time rises in esteem, and is more successful
in its predictions, clearer and surer tokens being sent from God, and
then again, in another generation declines as low, becoming mere
guesswork for the most part, and discerning future events by dim and
uncertain intimations. This was the mythology of the wisest of the
Tuscan sages, who were thought to possess a knowledge beyond other
men. Whilst the Senate sat in consultation with the soothsayers,
concerning these prodigies, in the temple of Bellona, a sparrow came
flying in, before them all, with a grasshopper in its mouth, and
letting fall one part of it, flew away with the remainder. The
diviners foreboded commotions and dissension between the great landed
proprietors and the common city populace; the latter, like the
grasshopper, being loud and talkative; while the sparrow might
represent the "dwellers in the field."
Marius had taken into alliance Sulpicius, the tribune, a man second
to none in any villanies, so that it was less the question what
others he surpassed, but rather in what respects he most surpassed
himself in wickedness. He was cruel, bold, rapacious, and in all
these points utterly shameless and unscrupulous; not hesitating to
offer Roman citizenship by public sale to freed slaves and aliens,
and to count out the price on public money-tables in the forum. He
maintained three thousand swordsmen, and had always about him a
company of young men of the equestrian class ready for all occasions,
whom he styled his Anti-Senate. Having had a law enacted, that no
senator should contract a debt of above two thousand drachmas, he
himself, after death, was found indebted three millions. This was
the man whom Marius let in upon the Commonwealth, and who,
confounding all things by force and the sword, made several
ordinances of dangerous consequence, and amongst the rest, one giving
Marius the conduct of the Mithridatic war. Upon this the consuls
proclaimed a public cessation of business, but as they were holding
an assembly near the temple of Castor and Pollux, he let loose the
rabble upon them, and amongst many others slew the consul Pompeius's
young son in the forum, Pompeius himself hardly escaping in the
crowd. Sylla being closely pursued into the house of Marius, was
forced to come forth and dissolve the cessation; and for his doing
this, Sulpicius, having deposed Pompeius, allowed Sylla to continue
his consulship, only transferring the Mithridatic expedition to
Marius.
There were immediately dispatched to Nola tribunes, to receive the
army, and bring it to Marius; but Sylla having got first to the camp,
and the soldiers, upon hearing of the news, having stoned the
tribunes, Marius, in requital, proceeded to put the friends of Sylla
in the city to the sword, and rifled their goods. Every kind of
removal and flight went on, some hastening from the camp to the city,
others from the city to the camp. The senate, no more in its own
power, but wholly governed by the dictates of Marius and Sulpicius,
alarmed at the report of Sylla's advancing with his troops towards
the city, sent forth two of the praetors, Brutus and Servilius, to
forbid his nearer approach. The soldiers would have slain these
praetors in a fury, for their bold language to Sylla; contenting
themselves, however, with breaking their rods, and tearing off their
purple-edged robes, after much contumelious usage they sent them
back, to the sad dejection of the citizens, who beheld their
magistrates despoiled of their badges of office, and announcing to
them, that things were now manifestly come to a rupture past all
cure. Marius put himself in readiness, and Sylla with his colleague
moved from Nola, at the head of six complete legions, all of them
willing to march up directly against the city, though he himself as
yet was doubtful in thought, and apprehensive of the danger. As he
was sacrificing, Postumius the soothsayer, having inspected the
entrails, stretching forth both hands to Sylla, required to be bound
and kept in custody till the battle was over, as willing, if they had
not speedy and complete success, to suffer the utmost punishment. It
is said, also, that there appeared to Sylla himself in a dream, a
certain goddess, whom the Romans learnt to worship from the
Cappadocians, whether it be the Moon, or Pallas, or Bellona. This
same goddess, to his thinking, stood by him, and put into his hand
thunder and lightning, then naming his enemies one by one, bade him
strike them, who, all of them, fell on the discharge and disappeared.
Encouraged by this vision, and relating it to his colleague, next day
he led on towards Rome. About Picinae being met by a deputation,
beseeching him not to attack at once, in the heat of a march, for
that the senate had decreed to do him all the right imaginable, he
consented to halt on the spot, and sent his officers to measure out
the ground, as is usual, for a camp; so that the deputation,
believing it, returned. They were no sooner gone, but he sent a
party on under the command of Lucius Basillus and Caius Mummius, to
secure the city gate, and the walls on the side of the Esquiline
hill, and then close at their heels followed himself with all speed.
Basillus made his way successfully into the city, but the unarmed
multitude, pelting him with stones and tiles from off the houses,
stopped his further progress, and beat him back to the wall. Sylla
by this time was come up, and seeing what was going on, called aloud
to his men to set fire to the houses, and taking a flaming torch, he
himself led the way, and commanded the archers to make use of their
fire-darts, letting fly at the tops of houses; all which he did, not
upon any plan, but simply in his fury, yielding the conduct of that
day's work to passion, and as if all he saw were enemies, without
respect or pity either to friend, relations, or acquaintance, made
his entry by fire, which knows no distinction betwixt friend or foe.
In this conflict, Marius being driven into the temple of
Mother-Earth, thence invited the slaves by proclamation of freedom,
but the enemy coming on he was overpowered and fled the city.
Sylla having called a senate, had sentence of death passed on Marius,
and some few others, amongst whom was Sulpicius, tribune of the
people. Sulpicius was killed, being betrayed by his servant, whom
Sylla first made free, and then threw him headlong down the Tarpeian
rock. As for Marius, he set a price on his life, by proclamation,
neither gratefully nor politicly, if we consider into whose house,
not long before he put himself at mercy, and was safely dismissed.
Had Marius at that time not let Sylla go, but suffered him to be
slain by the hands of Sulpicius, he might have been lord of all;
nevertheless he spared his life, and a few days after, when in a
similar position himself, received a different measure.
By these proceedings, Sylla excited the secret distaste of the
senate; but the displeasure and free indignation of the commonalty
showed itself plainly by their actions. For they ignominiously
rejected Nonius, his nephew, and Servius, who stood for offices of
state by his interest, and elected others as magistrates, by honoring
whom they thought they should most annoy him. He made semblance of
extreme satisfaction at all this, as if the people by his means had
again enjoyed the liberty of doing what seemed best to them. And to
pacify the public hostility, he created Lucius Cinna consul, one of
the adverse party, having first bound him under oaths and
imprecations to be favorable to his interest. For Cinna, ascending
the capitol with a stone in his hand, swore solemnly, and prayed with
direful curses, that he himself, if he were not true to his
friendship with Sylla, might be cast out of the city, as that stone
out of his hand; and thereupon cast the stone to the ground, in the
presence of many people. Nevertheless Cinna had no sooner entered on
his charge, but he took measures to disturb the present settlement,
and having prepared an impeachment against Sylla, got Virginius, one
of the tribunes of the people, to be his accuser; but Sylla, leaving
him and the court of judicature to themselves, set forth against
Mithridates.
About the time that Sylla was making ready to put oft with his forces
from Italy, besides many other omens which befell Mithridates, then
staying at Pergamus, there goes a story that a figure of Victory,
with a crown in her hand, which the Pergamenians by machinery from
above let down on him, when it had almost reached his head, fell to
pieces, and the crown tumbling down into the midst of the theater,
there broke against the ground, occasioning a general alarm among the
populace, and considerably disquieting Mithridates himself, although
his affairs at that time were succeeding beyond expectation. For
having wrested Asia from the Romans, and Bithynia and Cappadocia
from their kings, he made Pergamus his royal seat, distributing among
his friends riches, principalities, and kingdoms. Of his sons, one
residing in Pontus and Bosporus held his ancient realm as far as the
deserts beyond the lake Maeotis, without molestation; while
Ariarathes, another, was reducing Thrace and Macedon, with a great
army, to obedience. His generals, with forces under them, were
establishing his supremacy in other quarters. Archelaus, in
particular, with his fleet, held absolute mastery of the sea, and was
bringing into subjection the Cyclades, and all the other islands as
far as Malea, and had taken Euboea itself. Making Athens his
head-quarters, from thence as far as Thessaly he was withdrawing the
States of Greece from the Roman allegiance, without the least ill
success, except at Chaeronea. For here Bruttius Sura, lieutenant to
Sentius, governor of Macedon, a man of singular valor and prudence,
met him, and, though he came like a torrent pouring over Boeotia,
made stout resistance, and thrice giving him battle near Chaeronea,
repulsed and forced him back to the sea. But being commanded by
Lucius Lucullus to give place to his successor, Sylla, and resign the
war to whom it was decreed, he presently left Boeotia, and retired
back to Sentius, although his success had outgone all hopes, and
Greece was well disposed to a new revolution, upon account of his
gallant behavior. These were the glorious actions of Bruttius.
Sylla, on his arrival, received by their deputations the compliments
of all the cities of Greece, except Athens, against which, as it was
compelled by the tyrant Aristion to hold for the king, he advanced
with all his forces, and investing the Piraeus, laid formal siege to
it, employing every variety of engines, and trying every manner of
assault; whereas, had he forbore but a little while, he might without
hazard have taken the Upper City by famine, it being already reduced
to the last extremity, through want of necessaries. But eager to
return to Rome, and fearing innovation there, at great risk, with
continual fighting and vast expense, he pushed on the war. Besides
other equipage, the very work about the engines of battery was
supplied with no less than ten thousand yoke of mules, employed daily
in that service. And when timber grew scarce, for many of the works
failed, some crushed to pieces by their own weight, others taking
fire by the continual play of the enemy, he had recourse to the
sacred groves, and cut down the trees of the Academy, the shadiest of
all the suburbs, and the Lyceum. And a vast sum of money being
wanted to carry on the war, he broke into the sanctuaries of Greece,
that of Epidaurus and that of Olympia, sending for the most beautiful
and precious offerings deposited there. He wrote, likewise, to the
Amphictyons, at Delphi, that it were better to remit the wealth of
the god to him, for that he would keep it more securely, or in case
he made use of it, restore as much. He sent Caphis, the Phocian, one
of his friends, with this message, commanding him to receive each
item by weight. Caphis came to Delphi, but was loath to touch the
holy things, and with many tears, in the presence of the Amphyctyons,
bewailed the necessity. And on some of them declaring they heard the
sound of a harp from the inner shrine, he, whether he himself
believed it, or was willing to try the effect of religious fear upon
Sylla, sent back an express. To which Sylla replied in a scoffing
way, that it was surprising to him that Caphis did not know that
music was a sign of joy, not anger; he should, therefore, go on
boldly, and accept what a gracious and bountiful god offered.
Other things were sent away without much notice on the part of the
Greeks in general, but in the case of the silver tun, that only relic
of the regal donations, which its weight and bulk made it impossible
for any carriage to receive, the Amphictyons were forced to cut it
into pieces, and called to mind in so doing, how Titus Flamininus,
and Manius Acilius, and again Paulus Aemilius, one of whom drove
Antiochus out of Greece, and the others subdued the Macedonian kings,
had not only abstained from violating the Greek temples, but had even
given them new gifts and honors, and increased the general veneration
for them. They, indeed, the lawful commanders of temperate and
obedient soldiers, and themselves great in soul, and simple in
expenses, lived within the bounds of the ordinary established
charges, accounting it a greater disgrace to seek popularity with
their men, than to feel fear of their enemy. Whereas the commanders
of these times, attaining to superiority by force, not worth, and
having need of arms one against another, rather than against the
public enemy, were constrained to temporize in authority, and in
order to pay for the gratifications with which they purchased the
labor of their soldiers, were driven, before they knew it, to sell
the commonwealth itself, and, to gain the mastery over men better
than themselves, were content to become slaves to the vilest of
wretches. These practices drove Marius into exile, and again brought
him in against Sylla. These made Cinna the assassin of Octavius, and
Fimbria of Flaccus. To which courses Sylla contributed not the
least; for to corrupt and win over those who were under the command
of others, he would be munificent and profuse towards those who were
under his own; and so, while tempting the soldiers of other generals
to treachery, and his own to dissolute living, he was naturally in
want of a large treasury, and especially during that siege.
Sylla had a vehement and an implacable desire to conquer Athens,
whether out of emulation, fighting as it were against the shadow of
the once famous city, or out of anger, at the foul words and
scurrilous jests with which the tyrant Aristion, showing himself
daily, with unseemly gesticulations, upon the walls, had provoked him
and Metella.
The tyrant Aristion had his very being compounded of wantonness and
cruelty, having gathered into himself all the worst of Mithridates's
diseased and vicious qualities, like some fatal malady which the
city, after its deliverance from innumerable wars, many tyrannies and
seditions, was in its last days destined to endure. At the time when
a medimnus of wheat was sold in the city for one thousand drachmas,
and men were forced to live on the feverfew growing round the
citadel, and to boil down shoes and oil-bags for their food, he,
carousing and feasting in the open face of day, then dancing in
armor, and making jokes at the enemy, suffered the holy lamp of the
goddess to expire for want of oil, and to the chief priestess, who
demanded of him the twelfth part of a medimnus of wheat, he sent the
like quantity of pepper. The senators and priests, who came as
suppliants to beg of him to take compassion on the city, and treat
for peace with Sylla, he drove away and dispersed with a flight of
arrows. At last, with much ado, he sent forth two or three of his
reveling companions to parley, to whom Sylla, perceiving that they
made no serious overtures towards an accommodation, but went on
haranguing in praise of Theseus, Eumolpus, and the Median trophies,
replied, "My good friends, you may put up your speeches and be gone.
I was sent by the Romans to Athens, not to take lessons, but to
reduce rebels to obedience."
In the meantime news came to Sylla that some old men, talking in the
Ceramicus, had been overheard to blame the tyrant for not securing
the passages and approaches near the Heptachalcum, the one point
where the enemy might easily get over. Sylla neglected not the
report, but going in the night, and discovering the place to be
assailable, set instantly to work. Sylla himself makes mention in
his Memoirs, that Marcus Teius, the first man who scaled the wall,
meeting with an adversary, and striking him on the headpiece a home
stroke, broke his own sword, but, notwithstanding, did not give
ground, but stood and held him fast. The city was certainly taken
from that quarter, according to the tradition of the oldest of the
Athenians.
When they had thrown down the wall, and made all level betwixt the
Piraic and Sacred Gate, about midnight Sylla entered the breach, with
all the terrors of trumpets and cornets sounding, with the triumphant
shout and cry of an army let loose to spoil and slaughter, and
scouring through the streets with swords drawn. There was no
numbering the slain; the amount is to this day conjectured only from
the space of ground overflowed with blood. For without mentioning
the execution done in other quarters of the city, the blood that was
shed about the marketplace spread over the whole Ceramicus within the
Double-gate, and, according to most writers, passed through the gate
and overflowed the suburb. Nor did the multitudes which fell thus
exceed the number of those, who, out of pity and love for their
country, which they believed was now finally to perish, slew
themselves; the best of them, through despair of their country's
surviving, dreading themselves to survive, expecting neither humanity
nor moderation in Sylla. At length, partly at the instance of Midias
and Calliphon, two exiled men, beseeching and casting themselves at
his feet, partly by the intercession of those senators who followed
the camp, having had his fill of revenge, and making some honorable
mention of the ancient Athenians, "I forgive," said he, "the many for
the sake of the few, the living for the dead." He took Athens,
according to his own Memoirs, on the calends of March, coinciding
pretty nearly with the new moon of Anthesterion, on which day it is
the Athenian usage to perform various acts in commemoration of the
ruins and devastations occasioned by the deluge, that being supposed
to be the time of its occurrence.
At the taking of the town, the tyrant fled into the citadel, and was
there besieged by Curio, who had that charge given him. He held out
a considerable time, but at last yielded himself up for want of
water, and divine power immediately intimated its agency in the
matter. For on the same day and hour that Curio conducted him down,
the clouds gathered in a clear sky, and there came down a great
quantity of rain and filled the citadel with water.
Not long after, Sylla won the Piraeus, and burnt most of it; amongst
the rest, Philo's arsenal, a work very greatly admired.
In the mean time Taxiles, Mithridates's general, coming down from
Thrace and Macedon, with an army of one hundred thousand foot, ten
thousand horse, and ninety chariots, armed with scythes at the
wheels, would have joined Archelaus, who lay with a navy on the coast
near Munychia, reluctant to quit the sea, and yet unwilling to engage
the Romans in battle, but desiring to protract the war and cut off
the enemy's supplies. Which Sylla perceiving much better than
himself, passed with his forces into Boeotia, quitting a barren
district which was inadequate to maintain an army even in time of
peace. He was thought by some to have taken false measures in thus
leaving Attica, a rugged country, and ill suited for cavalry to move
in, and entering the plain and open fields of Boeotia, knowing as he
did the barbarian strength to consist most in horses and chariots.
But as was said before, to avoid famine and scarcity, he was forced
to run the risk of a battle. Moreover he was in anxiety for
Hortensius, a bold and active officer, whom on his way to Sylla with
forces from Thessaly, the barbarians awaited in the straits. For
these reasons Sylla drew off into Boeotia. Hortensius, meantime, was
conducted by Caphis, our countryman, another way unknown to the
barbarians, by Parnassus, just under Tithora, which was then not so
large a town as it is now, but a mere fort, surrounded by steep
precipices, whither the Phocians also, in old time, when flying from
the invasion of Xerxes, carried themselves and their goods and were
saved. Hortensius, encamping here, kept off the enemy by day, and at
night descending by difficult passages to Patronis, joined the forces
of Sylla, who came to meet him. Thus united they posted themselves
on a fertile hill in the middle of the plain of Elatea, shaded with
trees and watered at the foot. It is called Philoboeotus, and its
situation and natural advantages are spoken of with great admiration
by Sylla.
As they lay thus encamped, they seemed to the enemy a contemptible
number, for they were not above fifteen hundred horse, and less than
fifteen thousand foot. Therefore the rest of the commanders,
overpersuading Archelaus, and drawing up the army, covered the plain
with horses, chariots, bucklers, targets. The clamor and cries of so
many nations forming for battle rent the air, nor was the pomp and
ostentation of their costly array altogether idle and unserviceable
for terror; for the brightness of their armor, embellished
magnificently with gold and silver, and the rich colors of their
Median and Scythian coats, intermixed with brass and shining steel,
presented a flaming and terrible sight as they swayed about and moved
in their ranks, so much so that the Romans shrunk within their
trenches, and Sylla, unable by any arguments to remove their fear,
and unwilling to force them to fight against their wills, was fain to
sit down in quiet, ill-brooking to become the subject of barbarian
insolence and laughter. This, however, above all advantaged him, for
the enemy, from contemning of him, fell into disorder amongst
themselves, being already less thoroughly under command, on account
of the number of their leaders. Some few of them remained within the
encampment, but others, the major part, lured out with hopes of prey
and rapine, strayed about the country many days journey from the
camp, and are related to have destroyed the city of Panope, to have
plundered Lebadea, and robbed the oracle without any orders from
their commanders.
Sylla, all this while, chafing and fretting to see the cities all
around destroyed, suffered not the soldiery to remain idle, but
leading them out, compelled them to divert the Cephisus from its
ancient channel by casting up ditches, and giving respite to none,
showed himself rigorous in punishing the remiss, that growing weary
of labor, they might be induced by hardship to embrace danger. Which
fell out accordingly, for on the third day, being hard at work as
Sylla passed by, they begged and clamored to be led against the
enemy. Sylla replied, that this demand of war proceeded rather from
a backwardness to labor than any forwardness to fight, but if they
were in good earnest martially inclined, he bade them take their arms
and get up thither, pointing to the ancient citadel of the
Parapotamians, of which at present, the city being laid waste, there
remained only the rocky hill itself, steep and craggy on all sides,
and severed from Mount Hedylium by the breadth of the river Assus,
which running between, and at the bottom of the same hill falling
into the Cephisus with an impetuous confluence, makes this eminence a
strong position for soldiers to occupy. Observing that the enemy's
division, called the Brazen Shields, were making their way up
thither, Sylla was willing to take first possession, and by the
vigorous efforts of the soldiers, succeeded. Archelaus, driven from
hence, bent his forces upon Chaeronea. The Chaeroneans who bore arms
in the Roman camp beseeching Sylla not to abandon the city, he
dispatched Gabinius, a tribune, with one legion, and sent out also
the Chaeroneans, who endeavored, but were not able to get in before
Gabinius; so active was he, and more zealous to bring relief than
those who had entreated it. Juba writes that Ericius was the man
sent, not Gabinius. Thus narrowly did our native city escape.
From Lebadea and the cave of Trophonius there came favorable rumors
and prophecies of victory to the Romans, of which the inhabitants of
those places give a fuller account, but as Sylla himself affirms in
the tenth book of his Memoirs, Quintus Titius, a man of some repute
among the Romans who were engaged in mercantile business in Greece,
came to him after the battle won at Chaeronea, and declared that
Trophonius had foretold another fight and victory on the same place,
within a short time. After him a soldier, by name Salvenius, brought
an account from the god of the future issue of affairs in Italy. As
to the vision, they both agreed in this, that they had seen one who
in stature and in majesty was similar to Jupiter Olympius.
Sylla, when he had passed over the Assus, marching under the Mount
Hedylium, encamped close to Archelaus, who had entrenched himself
strongly between the mountains Acontium and Hedylium, close to what
are called the Assia. The place of his entrenchment is to this day
named from him, Archelaus. Sylla, after one day's respite, having
left Murena behind him with one legion and two cohorts to amuse the
enemy with continual alarms, himself went and sacrificed on the banks
of Cephisus, and the holy rites ended, held on towards Chaeronea to
receive the forces there and view Mount Thurium, where a party of the
enemy had posted themselves. This is a craggy height running up in a
conical form to a point, called by us Orthopagus; at the foot of it
is the river Morius and the temple of Apollo Thurius. The god had
his surname from Thuro, mother of Chaeron, whom ancient record makes
founder of Chaeronea. Others assert that the cow which Apollo gave to
Cadmus for a guide appeared there, and that the place took its name
from the beast, Thor being the Phoenician word for a cow.
At Sylla's approach to Chaeronea, the tribune who had been appointed
to guard the city led out his men in arms, and met him with a garland
of laurel in his hand; which Sylla accepting, and at the same time
saluting the soldiers and animating them to the encounter, two men of
Chaeronea, Homoloichus and Anaxidamus, presented themselves before
him, and offered, with a small party, to dislodge those who were
posted on Thurium. For there lay a path out of sight of the
barbarians, from what is called Petrochus along by the Museum,
leading right down from above upon Thurium. By this way it was easy
to fall upon them and either stone them from above, or force them
down into the plain. Sylla, assured of their faith and courage by
Gabinius, bade them proceed with the enterprise, and meantime drew up
the army, and disposing the cavalry on both wings, himself took
command of the right; the left being committed to the direction of
Murena. In the rear of all, Galba and Hortensius, his lieutenants,
planted themselves on the upper grounds with the cohorts of reserve,
to watch the motions of the enemy, who with numbers of horse and
swift-footed, light-armed infantry, were noticed to have so formed
their wing as to allow it readily to change about and alter its
position, and thus gave reason for suspecting that they intended to
carry it far out and so to enclose the Romans.
In the meanwhile, the Chaeroneans, who had Ericius for commander by
appointment of Sylla, covertly making their way around Thurium, and
then discovering themselves, occasioned a great confusion and rout
amongst the barbarians, and slaughter, for the most part, by their
own hands. For they kept not their place, but making down the steep
descent, ran themselves on their own spears, and violently sent each
other over the cliffs, the enemy from above pressing on and wounding
them where they exposed their bodies; insomuch that there fell three
thousand about Thurium. Some of those who escaped, being met by
Murena as he stood in array, were cut off and destroyed. Others
breaking through to their friends and falling pell-mell into the
ranks, filled most part of the army with fear and tumult, and caused
a hesitation and delay among the generals, which was no small
disadvantage. For immediately upon the discomposure, Sylla coming
full speed to the charge, and quickly crossing the interval between
the armies, lost them the service of their armed chariots, which
require a consider able space of ground to gather strength and
impetuosity in their career, a short course being weak and
ineffectual, like that of missiles without a full swing. Thus it
fared with the barbarians at present, whose first chariots came
feebly on and made but a faint impression; the Romans repulsing them
with shouts and laughter, called out as they do at the races in the
circus, for more to come. By this time the mass of both armies met;
the barbarians on one side fixed their long pikes, and with their
shields locked close together, strove so far as in them lay to
preserve their line of battle entire. The Romans, on the other side,
having discharged their javelins, rushed on with their drawn swords,
and struggled to put by the pikes to get at them the sooner, in the
fury that possessed them at seeing in the front of the enemy fifteen
thousand slaves, whom the royal commanders had set free by
proclamation, and ranged amongst the men of arms. And a Roman
centurion is reported to have said at this sight, that he never knew
servants allowed to play the masters, unless at the Saturnalia.
These men by their deep and solid array, as well as by their daring
courage, yielded but slowly to the legions, till at last by slinging
engines, and darts, which the Romans poured in upon them behind, they
were forced to give way and scatter.
As Archelaus was extending the right wing to encompass the enemy,
Hortensius with his cohorts came down in force, with intention to
charge him in the flank. But Archelaus wheeling about suddenly with
two thousand horse, Hortensius, outnumbered and hard pressed, fell
back towards the higher grounds, and found himself gradually getting
separated from the main body and likely to be surrounded by the
enemy. When Sylla heard this, he came rapidly up to his succor from
the right wing, which as yet had not engaged. But Archelaus,
guessing the matter by the dust of his troops, turned to the right
wing, from whence Sylla came, in hopes to surprise it without a
commander. At the same instant, likewise, Taxiles, with his Brazen
Shields, assailed Murena, so that a cry coming from both places, and
the hills repeating it around, Sylla stood in suspense which way to
move. Deciding to resume his own station, he sent in aid to Murena
four cohorts under Hortensius, and commanding the fifth to follow
him, returned hastily to the right wing, which of itself held its
ground on equal terms against Archelaus; and, at his appearance, with
one bold effort forced them back, and, obtaining the mastery,
followed them, flying in disorder to the river and Mount Acontium.
Sylla, however, did not forget the danger Murena was in; but hasting
thither and finding him victorious also, then joined in the pursuit.
Many barbarians were slain in the field, many more were cut in pieces
as they were making into the camp. Of all the vast multitude, ten
thousand only got safe into Chalcis. Sylla writes that there were
but fourteen of his soldiers missing, and that two of these returned
towards evening; he, therefore, inscribed on the trophies the names
of Mars, Victory, and Venus, as having won the day no less by good
fortune than by management and force of arms. This trophy of the
battle in the plain stands on the place where Archelaus first gave
way, near the stream of the Molus; another is erected high on the top
of Thurium, where the barbarians were environed, with an inscription
in Greek, recording that the glory of the day belonged to Homoloichus
and Anaxidamus. Sylla celebrated his victory at Thebes with
spectacles, for which he erected a stage, near Oedipus's well. The
judges of the performances were Greeks chosen out of other cities;
his hostility to the Thebans being implacable, half of whose
territory he took away and consecrated to Apollo and Jupiter,
ordering that out of the revenue compensation should be made to the
gods for the riches himself had taken from them.
After this, hearing that Flaccus, a man of the contrary faction, had
been chosen consul, and was crossing the Ionian Sea with an army,
professedly to act against Mithridates, but in reality against
himself, he hastened towards Thessaly, designing to meet him, but in
his march, when near Melitea, received advices from all parts that
the countries behind him were overrun and ravaged by no less a royal
army than the former. For Dorylaus, arriving at Chalcis with a large
fleet, on board of which he brought over with him eighty thousand of
the best appointed and best disciplined soldiers of Mithridates's
army, at once invaded Boeotia, and occupied the country in hopes to
bring Sylla to a battle, making no account of the dissuasions of
Archelaus, but giving it out as to the last fight, that without
treachery so many thousand men could never have perished. Sylla,
however, facing about expeditiously, made it clear to him that
Archelaus was a wise man, and had good skill in the Roman valor;
insomuch that he himself, after some small skirmishes with Sylla near
Tilphossium, was the first of those who thought it not advisable to
put things to the decision of the sword, but rather to wear out the
war by expense of time and treasure. The ground, however, near
Orchomenus, where they then lay encamped, gave some encouragement to
Archelaus, being a battle field admirably suited for an army superior
in cavalry. Of all the plains in Boeotia that are renowned for their
beauty and extent, this alone, which commences from the city of
Orchomenus, spreads out unbroken and clear of trees to the edge of
the fens in which the Melas, rising close under Orchomenus, loses
itself, the only Greek river which is a deep and navigable water from
the very head, increasing also about the summer solstice like the
Nile, and producing plants similar to those that grow there, only
small and without fruit. It does not run far before the main stream
disappears among the blind and woody marsh-grounds; a small branch.
however, joins the Cephisus, about the place where the lake is
thought to produce the best flute-reeds.
Now that both armies were posted near each other, Archelaus lay
still, but Sylla employed himself in cutting ditches from either
side; that if possible, by driving the enemies from the firm and open
champain, he might force them into the fens. They, on the other
hand, not enduring this, as soon as their leaders allowed them the
word of command, issued out furiously in large bodies; when not only
the men at work were dispersed, but most part of those who stood in
arms to protect the work fled in disorder. Upon this, Sylla leaped
from his horse, and snatching hold of an ensign, rushed through the
midst of the rout upon the enemy, crying out aloud, "To me, O Romans,
it will be glorious to fall here. As for you, when they ask you
where you betrayed your general, remember and say, at Orchomenus."
His men rallying again at these words, and two cohorts coming to his
succor from the right wing, he led them to the charge and turned the
day. Then retiring some short distance and refreshing his men, he
proceeded again with his works to block up the enemy's camp. They
again sallied out in better order than before. Here Diogenes,
step-son to Archelaus, fighting on the right wing with much
gallantry, made an honorable end. And the archers, being hard
pressed by the Romans, and wanting space for a retreat, took their
arrows by handfuls, and striking with these as with swords, beat them
back. In the end, however, they were all driven into the
entrenchment and had a sorrowful night of it with their slain and
wounded. The next day again, Sylla, leading forth his men up to
their quarters, went on finishing the lines of entrenchment, and when
they issued out again with larger numbers to give him battle, fell on
them and put them to the rout, and in the consternation ensuing, none
daring to abide, he took the camp by storm. The marshes were filled
with blood, and the lake with dead bodies, insomuch that to this day
many bows, helmets, fragments of iron, breastplates, and swords of
barbarian make, continue to be found buried deep in mud, two hundred
years after the fight. Thus much of the actions of Chaeronea and
Orchomenus.
At Rome, Cinna and Carbo were now using injustice and violence
towards persons of the greatest eminence, and many of them to avoid
this tyranny repaired, as to a safe harbor, to Sylla's camp, where,
in a short space, he had about him the aspect of a senate. Metella,
likewise, having with difficulty conveyed herself and children away
by stealth, brought him word that his houses, both in town and
country, had been burnt by his enemies, and entreated his help at
home. Whilst he was in doubt what to do, being impatient to hear of
his country being thus outraged, and yet not knowing how to leave so
great a work as the Mithridatic war unfinished, there comes to him
Archelaus, a merchant of Delos, with hopes of an accommodation, and
private instructions from Archelaus, the king's general. Sylla liked
the business so well as to desire a speedy conference with Archelaus
in person, and a meeting took place on the sea-coast near Delium,
where the temple of Apollo stands. When Archelaus opened the
conversation, and began to urge Sylla to abandon his pretensions to
Asia and Pontus, and to set sail for the war in Rome, receiving money
and shipping, and such forces as he should think fitting from the
king, Sylla, interposing, bade Archelaus take no further care for
Mithridates, but assume the crown to himself, and become a
confederate of Rome, delivering up the navy. Archelaus professing
his abhorrence of such treason, Sylla proceeded: "So you, Archelaus,
a Cappadocian, and slave, or if it so please you, friend, to a
barbarian king, would not, upon such vast considerations, be guilty
of what is dishonorable, and yet dare to talk to me, Roman general
and Sylla, of treason? as if you were not the selfsame Archelaus who
ran away at Chaeronea, with few remaining out of one hundred and
twenty thousand men; who lay for two days in the fens of Orchomenus,
and left Boeotia impassable for heaps of dead carcasses." Archelaus,
changing his tone at this, humbly besought him to lay aside the
thoughts of war, and make peace with Mithridates. Sylla consenting
to this request, articles of agreement were concluded on. That
Mithridates should quit Asia and Paphlagonia, restore Bithynia to
Nicomedes, Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, and pay the Romans two
thousand talents, and give him seventy ships of war with all their
furniture. On the other hand, that Sylla should confirm to him his
other dominions, and declare him a Roman confederate. On these terms
he proceeded by the way of Thessaly and Macedon towards the
Hellespont, having Archelaus with him, and treating him with great
attention. For Archelaus being taken dangerously ill at Larissa, he
stopped the march of the army, and took care of him, as if he had
been one of his own captains, or his colleague in command. This gave
suspicion of foul play in the battle of Chaeronea; as it was also
observed that Sylla had released all the friends of Mithridates taken
prisoners in war, except only Aristion the tyrant, who was at enmity
with Archelaus, and was put to death by poison; and, above all, ten
thousand acres of land in Euboea had been given to the Cappadocian,
and he had received from Sylla the style of friend and ally of the
Romans. On all which points Sylla defends himself in his Memoirs.
The ambassadors of Mithridates arriving and declaring that they
accepted of the conditions, only Paphlagonia they could not part
with; and as for the ships, professing not to know of any such
capitulation, Sylla in a rage exclaimed, "What say you? Does
Mithridates then withhold Paphlagonia? and as to the ships, deny that
article? I thought to have seen him prostrate at my feet to thank me
for leaving him so much as that right hand of his, which has cut off
so many Romans. He will shortly, at my coming over into Asia, speak
another language; in the mean time, let him at his ease in Pergamus
sit managing a war which he never saw." The ambassadors in terror
stood silent by, but Archelaus endeavored with humble supplications
to assuage his wrath, laying hold on his right hand and weeping. In
conclusion he obtained permission to go himself in person to
Mithridates; for that he would either mediate a peace to the
satisfaction of Sylla, or if not, slay himself. Sylla having thus
dispatched him away, made an inroad into Maedica, and after wide
depopulations returned back again into Macedon, where he received
Archelaus about Philippi, bringing word that all was well, and that
Mithridates earnestly requested an interview. The chief cause of
this meeting was Fimbria; for he having assassinated Flaccus, the
consul of the contrary faction, and worsted the Mithridatic
commanders, was advancing against Mithridates himself, who, fearing
this, chose rather to seek the friendship of Sylla.
And so met at Dardanus in the Troad, on one side Mithridates,
attended with two hundred ships, and land forces consisting of twenty
thousand men at arms, six thousand horse, and a large train of
scythed chariots; on the other, Sylla with only four cohorts, and two
hundred horse. As Mithridates drew near and put out his hand, Sylla
demanded whether he was willing or no to end the war on the terms
Archelaus had agreed to, but seeing the king made no answer, "How is
this?" he continued, "ought not the petitioner to speak first, and
the conqueror to listen in silence?" And when Mithridates, entering
upon his plea, began to shift off the war, partly on the gods, and
partly to blame the Romans themselves, he took him up, saying that he
had heard, indeed, long since from others, and now he knew it himself
for truth, that Mithridates was a powerful speaker, who in defense of
the most foul and unjust proceedings, had not wanted for specious
presences. Then charging him with and inveighing bitterly against
the outrages he had committed, he asked again whether he was willing
or no to ratify the treaty of Archelaus? Mithridates answering in
the affirmative, Sylla came forward, embraced and kissed him. Not
long after he introduced Ariobarzanes and Nicomedes, the two kings,
and made them friends Mithridates, when he had handed over to Sylla
seventy ships and five hundred archers, set sail for Pontus.
Sylla, perceiving the soldiers to be dissatisfied with the peace, (as
it seemed indeed a monstrous thing that they should see the king who
was then bitterest enemy, and who had caused one hundred and fifty
thousand Romans to be massacred in one day in Asia, now sailing off
with the riches and spoils of Asia, which he had pillaged, and put
under contribution for the space of four years,) in his defense to
them alleged, that he could not have made head against Fimbria and
Mithridates, had they both withstood him in conjunction. Thence he
set out and went in search of Fimbria, who lay with the army about
Thyatira, and pitching his camp not far off, proceeded to fortify it
with a trench. The soldiers of Fimbria came out in their single
coats, and, saluting his men, lent ready assistance to the work;
which change Fimbria beholding, and apprehending Sylla as
irreconcilable, laid violent hands on himself in the camp.
Sylla imposed on Asia in general a tax of twenty thousand talents,
and despoiled individually each family by the licentious behavior and
long residence of the soldiery in private quarters. For he ordained
that every host should allow his guest four tetradrachms each day,
and moreover entertain him, and as many friends as he should invite,
with a supper; that a centurion should receive fifty drachmas a day,
together with one suit of clothes to wear within doors, and another
when he went abroad.
Having set out from Ephesus with the whole navy, he came the third
day to anchor in the Piraeus. Here he was initiated in the
mysteries, and seized for his use the library of Apellicon the Teian,
in which were most of the works of Theophrastus and Aristotle, then
not in general circulation. When the whole was afterwards conveyed
to Rome, there, it is said, the greater part of the collection passed
through the hands of Tyrannion the grammarian, and that Andronicus
the Rhodian, having through his means the command of numerous copies,
made the treatises public, and drew up the catalogues that are now
current. The elder Peripatetics appear themselves, indeed, to have
been accomplished and learned men, but of the writings of Aristotle
and Theophrastus they had no large or exact knowledge, because
Theophrastus bequeathing his books to the heir of Neleus of Scepsis,
they came into careless and illiterate hands.
During Sylla's stay about Athens, his feet were attacked by a heavy
benumbing pain, which Strabo calls the first inarticulate sounds of
the gout. Taking, therefore, a voyage to Aedepsus, he made use of
the hot waters there, allowing himself at the same time to forget all
anxieties, and passing away his time with actors. As he was walking
along the sea-shore, certain fishermen brought him some magnificent
fish. Being much delighted with the gift, and understanding, on
inquiry, that they were men of Halaeae, "What," said he, "are there
any men of Halaeae surviving?" For after his victory at Orchomenus,
in the heat of a pursuit, he had destroyed three cities of Boeotia,
Anthedon, Larymna, and Halaeae. The men not knowing what to say for
fear, Sylla with a smile bade them cheer up and return in peace, as
they had brought with them no insignificant intercessors. The
Halaeans say that this first gave them courage to reunite and return
to their city.
Sylla, having marched through Thessaly and Macedon to the sea-coast,
prepared, with twelve hundred vessels, to cross over from Dyrrhachium
to Brundisium. Not far from hence is Apollonia, and near it the
Nymphaeum, a spot of ground where, from among green trees and
meadows, there are found at various points springs of fire
continually streaming out. Here, they say, a satyr, such as
statuaries and painters represent, was caught asleep, and brought
before Sylla, where he was asked by several interpreters who he was,
and, after much trouble, at last uttered nothing intelligible, but a
harsh noise, something between the neighing of a horse and crying of
a goat. Sylla, in dismay, and deprecating such an omen, bade it be
removed.
At the point of transportation, Sylla being in alarm, lest at their
first setting foot upon Italy, the soldiers should disband and
disperse one by one among the cities, they of their own accord first
took an oath to stand firm by him, and not of their good-will to
injure Italy; then seeing him in distress for money, they made, so to
say, a freewill offering, and contributed each man according to his
ability. However Sylla would not accept of their offering, but
praising their good-will, and arousing up their courage, put over (as
he himself writes) against fifteen hostile generals in command of
four hundred and fifty cohorts; but not without the most unmistakable
divine intimations of his approaching happy successes. For when he
was sacrificing at his first landing near Tarentum, the victim's
liver showed the figure of a crown of laurel with two fillets hanging
from it. And a little while before his arrival in Campania, near the
mountain Hephaeus, two stately goats were seen in the daytime,
fighting together, and performing all the motions of men in battle.
It proved to be an apparition, and rising up gradually from the
ground, dispersed in the air, like fancied representations in the
clouds, and so vanished out of sight. Not long after, in the
selfsame place, when Marius the younger, and Norbanus the consul,
attacked him with two great armies, without prescribing the order of
battle, or arranging his men according to their divisions, by the
sway only of one common alacrity and transport of courage, he
overthrew the enemy, and shut up Norbanus into the city of Capua,
with the loss of seven thousand of his men. And this was the reason,
he says, that the soldiers did not leave him and disperse into the
different towns, but held fast to him, and despised the enemy, though
infinitely more in number.
At Silvium, (as he himself relates it,) there met him a servant of
Pontius, in a state of divine possession, saying that he brought him
the power of the sword and victory from Bellona, the goddess of war,
and if he did not make haste, that the capitol would be burnt, which
fell out on the same day the man foretold it, namely, on the sixth
day of the month Quintilis, which we now call July.
At Fidentia, also, Marcus Lucullus, one of Sylla's commanders,
reposed such confidence in the forwardness of the soldiers, as to
dare to face fifty cohorts of the enemy, with only sixteen of his
own; but because many of them were unarmed, delayed the onset. As he
stood thus waiting, and considering with himself, a gentle gale of
wind, bearing along with it from the neighboring meadows a quantity
of flowers, scattered them down upon the army, on whose shields and
helmets they settled, and arranged themselves spontaneously, so as to
give the soldiers, in the eyes of the enemy, the appearance of being
crowned with chaplets. Upon this, being yet further animated, they
joined battle, and victoriously slaying eight thousand men, took the
camp. This Lucullus was brother to that Lucullus who in after-times
conquered Mithridates and Tigranes.
Sylla, seeing himself still surrounded by so many armies, and such
mighty hostile powers, had recourse to art, inviting Scipio, the
other consul, to a treaty of peace. The motion was willingly
embraced, and several meetings and consultations ensued, in all which
Sylla, still interposing matter of delay and new pretences, in the
meanwhile debauched Scipio's men by means of his own, who were as
well practiced as the general himself, in all the artifices of
inveigling. For entering into the enemy's quarters and joining in
conversation, they gained some by present money, some by promises,
others by fair words and persuasions; so that in the end, when Sylla
with twenty cohorts drew near, on his men saluting Scipio's soldiers,
they returned the greeting and came over, leaving Scipio behind them
in his tent, where he was found all alone and dismissed. And having
used his twenty cohorts as decoys to ensnare the forty of the enemy,
he led them all back into the camp. On this occasion, Carbo was
heard to say, that he had both a fox and a lion in the breast of
Sylla to deal with, and was most troubled with the fox.
Some time after, at Signia, Marius the younger, with eighty-five
cohorts, offered battle to Sylla, who was extremely desirous to have
it decided on that very day; for the night before he had seen a
vision in his sleep, of Marius the elder, who had been some time
dead, advising his son to beware of the following day, as of fatal
consequence to him. For this reason, Sylla, longing to come to a
battle, sent off for Dolabella, who lay encamped at some distance.
But because the enemy had beset and blocked up the passes, his
soldiers got tired with skirmishing and marching at once. To these
difficulties was added, moreover, tempestuous rainy weather, which
distressed them most of all. The principal officers therefore came
to Sylla, and besought him to defer the battle that day, showing him
how the soldiers lay stretched on the ground, where they had thrown
themselves down in their weariness, resting their heads upon their
shields to gain some repose. When, with much reluctance, he had
yielded, and given order for pitching the camp, they had no sooner
begun to cast up the rampart and draw the ditch, but Marius came
riding up furiously at the head of his troops, in hopes to scatter
them in that disorder and confusion. Here the gods fulfilled Sylla's
dream. For the soldiers, stirred up with anger, left off their work,
and sticking their javelins into the bank, with drawn swords and a
courageous shout, came to blows with the enemy, who made but small
resistance, and lost great numbers in the flight. Marius fled to
Praeneste, but finding the gates shut, tied himself round by a rope
that was thrown down to him, and was taken up on the walls. Some
there are (as Fenestella for one) who affirm that Marius knew nothing
of the fight, but, overwatched and spent with hard duty, had reposed
himself, when the signal was given, beneath some shade, and was
hardly to be awakened at the flight of his men. Sylla, according to
his own account, lost only twenty-three men in this fight, having
killed of the enemy twenty thousand, and taken alive eight thousand.
The like success attended his lieutenants, Pompey, Crassus, Metellus,
Servilius, who with little or no loss cut off vast numbers of the
enemy, insomuch that Carbo, the prime supporter of the cause, fled by
night from his charge of the army, and sailed over into Libya.
In the last struggle, however, the Samnite Telesinus, like some
champion, whose lot it is to enter last of all into the lists and
take up the wearied conqueror, came nigh to have foiled and
overthrown Sylla before the gates of Rome. For Telesinus with his
second, Lamponius the Lucanian, having collected a large force, had
been hastening towards Praeneste, to relieve Marius from the siege;
but perceiving Sylla ahead of him, and Pompey behind, both hurrying
up against him, straightened thus before and behind, as a valiant and
experienced soldier, he arose by night, and marching directly with
his whole army, was within a little of making his way unexpectedly
into Rome itself. He lay that night before the city, at ten furlongs
distance from the Colline gate, elated and full of hope, at having
thus out-generalled so many eminent commanders. At break of day,
being charged by the noble youth of the city, among many others he
overthrew Appius Claudius, renowned for high birth and character.
The city, as is easy to imagine, was all in an uproar, the women
shrieking and running about, as if it had already been entered
forcibly by assault, till at last Balbus, sent forward by Sylla, was
seen riding up with seven hundred horse at full speed. Halting only
long enough to wipe the sweat from the horses, and then hastily
bridling again, he at once attacked the enemy. Presently Sylla
himself appeared, and commanding those who were foremost to take
immediate refreshment, proceeded to form in order for battle.
Dolabella and Torquatus were extremely earnest with him to desist
awhile, and not with spent forces to hazard the last hope, having
before them in the field, not Carbo or Marius, but two warlike
nations bearing immortal hatred to Rome, the Samnites and Lucanians,
to grapple with. But he put them by, and commanded the trumpets to
sound a charge, when it was now about four o'clock in the afternoon.
In the conflict which followed, as sharp a one as ever was, the
right wing where Crassus was posted had clearly the advantage; the
left suffered and was in distress, when Sylla came to its succor,
mounted on a white courser, full of mettle and exceedingly swift,
which two of the enemy knowing him by, had their lances ready to
throw at him; he himself observed nothing, but his attendant behind
him giving the horse a touch, he was, unknown to himself, just so far
carried forward, that the points, falling beside the horse's tail,
stuck in the ground. There is a story that he had a small golden
image of Apollo from Delphi, which he was always wont in battle to
carry about him in his bosom, and that he then kissed it with these
words, "O Apollo Pythius, who in so many battles hast raised to honor
and greatness the Fortunate Cornelius Sylla, wilt thou now cast him
down, bringing him before the gate of his country, to perish
shamefully with his fellow-citizens?" Thus, they say, addressing
himself to the god, he entreated some of his men, threatened some,
and seized others with his hand, till at length the left wing being
wholly shattered, he was forced, in the general rout, to betake
himself to the camp, having lost many of his friends and
acquaintance. Many, likewise, of the city spectators who had come
out, were killed or trodden underfoot. So that it was generally
believed in the city that all was lost, and the siege of Praeneste
was all but raised; many fugitives from the battle making their way
thither, and urging Lucretius Ofella, who was appointed to keep on
the siege, to rise in all haste, for that Sylla had perished, and
Rome fallen into the hands of the enemy.
About midnight there came into Sylla's camp messengers from Crassus,
to fetch provision for him and his soldiers; for having vanquished
the enemy, they had pursued him to the walls of Antemna, and had sat
down there. Sylla, hearing this, and that most of the enemy were
destroyed, came to Antemna by break of day, where three thousand of
the besieged having sent forth a herald, he promised to receive them
to mercy, on condition they did the enemy some mischief in their
coming over. Trusting to his word, they fell foul on the rest of
their companions, and made a great slaughter one of another.
Nevertheless, Sylla gathered together in the circus, as well these as
other survivors of the party, to the number of six thousand, and just
as he commenced speaking to the senate, in the temple of Bellona,
proceeded to cut them down, by men appointed for that service. The
cry of so vast a multitude put to the sword, in so narrow a space,
was naturally heard some distance, and startled the senators. He,
however, continuing his speech with a calm and unconcerned
countenance, bade them listen to what he had to say, and not busy
themselves with what was doing out of doors; he had given directions
for the chastisement of some offenders. This gave the most stupid of
the Romans to understand, that they had merely exchanged, not
escaped, tyranny. And Marius, being of a naturally harsh temper, had
not altered, but merely continued what he had been, in authority;
whereas Sylla, using his fortune moderately and unambitiously at
first, and giving good hopes of a true patriot, firm to the interests
both of the nobility and commonalty, being, moreover, of a gay and
cheerful temper from his youth, and so easily moved to pity as to
shed tears readily, has, perhaps deservedly, cast a blemish upon
offices of great authority, as if they deranged men's former habits
and character, and gave rise to violence, pride, and inhumanity.
Whether this be a real change and revolution in the mind, caused by
fortune, or rather a lurking viciousness of nature, discovering
itself in authority, it were matter of another sort of disquisition
to decide.
Sylla being thus wholly bent upon slaughter, and filling the city
with executions without number or limit, many wholly uninterested
persons falling a sacrifice to private enmity, through his permission
and indulgence to his friends, Caius Metellus, one of the younger
men, made bold in the senate to ask him what end there was of these
evils, and at what point he might be expected to stop? "We do not
ask you," said he, "to pardon any whom you have resolved to destroy,
but to free from doubt those whom you are pleased to save." Sylla
answering, that he knew not as yet whom to spare. "Why then," said
he, "tell us whom you will punish." This Sylla said he would do.
These last words, some authors say, were spoken not by Metellus, but
by Afidius, one of Sylla's fawning companions. Immediately upon
this, without communicating with any of the magistrates, Sylla
proscribed eighty persons, and notwithstanding the general
indignation, after one day's respite, he posted two hundred and
twenty more, and on the third again, as many. In an address to the
people on this occasion, he told them he had put up as many names as
he could think of; those which had escaped his memory, he would
publish at a future time. He issued an edict likewise, making death
the punishment of humanity, proscribing any who should dare to
receive and cherish a proscribed person, without exception to
brother, son, or parents. And to him who should slay any one
proscribed person, he ordained two talents reward, even were it a
slave who had killed his master, or a son his father. And what was
thought most unjust of all, he caused the attainder to pass upon
their sons, and son's sons, and made open sale of all their property.
Nor did the proscription prevail only at Rome, but throughout all the
cities of Italy the effusion of blood was such, that neither
sanctuary of the gods, nor hearth of hospitality, nor ancestral home
escaped. Men were butchered in the embraces of their wives, children
in the arms of their mothers. Those who perished through public
animosity, or private enmity, were nothing in comparison of the
numbers of those who suffered for their riches. Even the murderers
began to say, that "his fine house killed this man, a garden that, a
third, his hot baths." Quintus Aurelius, a quiet, peaceable man, and
one who thought all his part in the common calamity consisted in
condoling with the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum to
read the list, and finding himself among the proscribed, cried out,
"Woe is me, my Alban farm has informed against me." He had not gone
far, before he was dispatched by a ruffian, sent on that errand.
In the meantime, Marius, on the point of being taken, killed himself;
and Sylla, coming to Praeneste, at first proceeded judicially against
each particular person, till at last, finding it a work of too much
time, he cooped them up together in one place, to the number of
twelve thousand men, and gave order for the execution of them all,
his own host alone excepted. But he, brave man, telling him he
could not accept the obligation of life from the hands of one who had
been the ruin of his country, went in among the rest, and submitted
willingly to the stroke. What Lucius Catilina did was thought to
exceed all other acts. For having, before matters came to an issue,
made away with his brother, he besought Sylla to place him in the
list of proscription, as though he had been alive, which was done;
and Catiline, to return the kind office, assassinated a certain
Marcus Marius, one of the adverse party, and brought the head to
Sylla, as he was sitting in the forum, and then going to the holy
water of Apollo, which was nigh, washed his hands.
There were other things, besides this bloodshed, which gave offense.
For Sylla had declared himself dictator, an office which had then
been laid aside for the space of one hundred and twenty years. There
was, likewise, an act of grace passed on his behalf, granting
indemnity for what was passed, and for the future entrusting him with
the power of life and death, confiscation, division of lands,
erecting and demolishing of cities, taking away of kingdoms, and
bestowing them at pleasure. He conducted the sale of confiscated
property after such an arbitrary, imperious way, from the tribunal,
that his gifts excited greater odium even than his usurpations;
women, mimes, and musicians, and the lowest of the freed slaves had
presents made them of the territories of nations, and the revenues of
cities; and women of rank were married against their will to some of
them. Wishing to insure the fidelity of Pompey the Great, by a
nearer tie of blood, he bade him divorce his present wife, and
forcing Aemilia, the daughter of Scaurus and Metella, his own wife,
to leave her husband, Manius Glabrio, he bestowed her, though then
with child, on Pompey, and she died in childbirth at his house.
When Lucretius Ofella, the same who reduced Marius by siege, offered
himself for the consulship, he first forbade him; then, seeing he
could not restrain him, on his coming down into the forum with a
numerous train of followers, he sent one of the centurions who were
immediately about him, and slew him, himself sitting on the tribunal
in the temple of Castor, and beholding the murder from above. The
citizens apprehending the centurion, and dragging him to the
tribunal, he bade them cease their clamoring and let the centurion
go, for he had commanded it.
His triumph was, in itself, exceedingly splendid, and distinguished
by the rarity and magnificence of the royal spoils; but its yet
greatest glory was the noble spectacle of the exiles. For in the
rear followed the most eminent and most potent of the citizens,
crowned with garlands, and calling Sylla savior and father, by whose
means they were restored to their own country, and again enjoyed
their wives and children. When the solemnity was over, and the time
come to render an account of his actions, addressing the public
assembly, he was as profuse in enumerating the lucky chances of war,
as any of his own military merits. And, finally, from this felicity,
he requested to receive the surname of Felix. In writing and
transacting business with the Greeks, he styled himself
Epaphroditus, and on his trophies which are still extant with us,
the name is given Lucius Cornelius Sylla Epaphroditus. Moreover,
when his wife had brought him forth twins, he named the male Faustus,
and the female Fausta, the Roman words for what is auspicious and of
happy omen. The confidence which he reposed in his good genius,
rather than in any abilities of his own, emboldened him, though
deeply involved in bloodshed, and though he had been the author of
such great changes and revolutions of State, to lay down his
authority, and place the right of consular elections once more in the
hands of the people. And when they were held, he not only declined
to seek that office, but in the forum exposed his person publicly to
the people, walking up and down as a private man. And contrary to
his will, certain bold man and his enemy, Marcus Lepidus, was
expected to become consul, not so much by his own interest, as by the
power and solicitation of Pompey, whom the people were willing to
oblige. When the business was over, seeing Pompey going home
overjoyed with the success, he called him to him and said, "What a
politic act, young man, to pass by Catulus, the best of men, and
choose Lepidus, the worst! It will be well for you to be vigilant,
now that you have strengthened your opponent against yourself."
Sylla spoke this, it may seem, by a prophetic instinct, for, not long
after, Lepidus grew insolent, and broke into open hostility to Pompey
and his friends.
Sylla, consecrating the tenth of his whole substance to Hercules,
entertained the people with sumptuous feastings. The provision was
so much above what was necessary, that they were forced daily to
throw great quantities of meat into the river, and they drank wine
forty years old and upwards. In the midst of the banqueting, which
lasted many days, Metella died of disease. And because that the
priest forbade him to visit the sick, or suffer his house to be
polluted with mourning, he drew up an act of divorce, and caused her
to be removed into another house whilst alive. Thus far, out of
religious apprehension, he observed the strict rule to the very
letter, but in the funeral expenses he transgressed the law he
himself had made, limiting the amount, and spared no cost. He
transgressed, likewise, his own sumptuary laws respecting expenditure
in banquets, thinking to allay his grief by luxurious drinking
parties and revelings with common buffoons.
Some few months after, at a show of gladiators, when men and women
sat promiscuously in the theater, no distinct places being as yet
appointed, there sat down by Sylla a beautiful woman of high birth,
by name Valeria, daughter of Messala, and sister to Hortensius the
orator. Now it happened that she had been lately divorced from her
husband. Passing along behind Sylla, she leaned on him with her
hand, and plucking a bit of wool from his garment, so proceeded to
her seat. And on Sylla looking up and wondering what it meant, "What
harm, mighty Sir," said she, "if I also was desirous to partake a
little in your felicity?" It appeared at once that Sylla was not
displeased, but even tickled in his fancy, for he sent out to inquire
her name, her birth, and past life. From this time there passed
between them many side glances, each continually turning round to
look at the other, and frequently interchanging smiles. In the end,
overtures were made, and a marriage concluded on. All which was
innocent, perhaps, on the lady's side, but, though she had been never
so modest and virtuous, it was scarcely a temperate and worthy
occasion of marriage on the part of Sylla, to take fire, as a boy
might, at a face and a bold look, incentives not seldom to the most
disorderly and shameless passions.
Notwithstanding this marriage, he kept company with actresses,
musicians, and dancers, drinking with them on couches night and day.
His chief favorites were Roscius the comedian, Sorex the arch mime,
and Metrobius the player, for whom, though past his prime, he still
professed a passionate fondness. By these courses he encouraged a
disease which had begun from some unimportant cause; and for a long
time he failed to observe that his bowels were ulcerated, till at
length the corrupted flesh broke out into lice. Many, were employed
day and night in destroying them, but the work so multiplied under
their hands, that not only his clothes, baths, basins, but his very
meat was polluted with that flux and contagion, they came swarming
out in such numbers. He went frequently by day into the bath to
scour and cleanse his body, but all in vain; the evil generated too
rapidly and too abundantly for any ablutions to overcome it. There
died of this disease, amongst those of the most ancient times,
Acastus, the son of Pelias; of later date, Alcman the poet,
Pherecydes the theologian, Callisthenes the Olynthian, in the time of
his imprisonment, as also Mucius the lawyer; and if we may mention
ignoble, but notorious names, Eunus the fugitive, who stirred up the
slaves of Sicily to rebel against their masters, after he was brought
captive to Rome, died of this creeping sickness.
Sylla not only foresaw his end, but may be also said to have written
of it. For in the two and twentieth book of his Memoirs, which he
finished two days before his death, he writes that the Chaldeans
foretold him, that after he had led a life of honor, he should
conclude it in fullness of prosperity. He declares, moreover, that
in vision he had seen his son, who had died not long before Metella,
stand by in mourning attire, and beseech his father to cast off
further care, and come along with him to his mother Metella, there to
live at ease and quietness with her. However, he could not refrain
from intermeddling in public affairs. For, ten days before his
decease, he composed the differences of the people of Dicaearchia,
and prescribed laws for their better government. And the very day
before his end, it being told him that the magistrate Granius
deferred the payment of a public debt, in expectation of his death,
he sent for him to his house, and placing his attendants about him,
caused him to be strangled; but through the straining of his voice
and body, the imposthume breaking, he lost a great quantity of blood.
Upon this, his strength failing him, after spending a troublesome
night, he died, leaving behind him two young children by Metella.
Valeria was afterwards delivered of a daughter, named Posthuma; for
so the Romans call those who are born after the father's death.
Many ran tumultuously together, and joined with Lepidus, to deprive
the corpse of the accustomed solemnities; but Pompey, though offended
at Sylla, (for he alone of all his friends, was not mentioned in his
will,) having kept off some by his interest and entreaty, others by
menaces, conveyed the body to Rome, and gave it a secure and
honorable burial. It is said that the Roman ladies contributed such
vast heaps of spices, that besides what was carried on two hundred
and ten litters, there was sufficient to form a large figure of Sylla
himself, and another, representing a lictor, out of the costly
frankincense and cinnamon. The day being cloudy in the morning, they
deferred carrying forth the corpse till about three in the afternoon,
expecting it would rain. But a strong wind blowing full upon the
funeral pile, and setting it all in a bright flame, the body was
consumed so exactly in good time, that the pyre had begun to smolder,
and the fire was upon the point of expiring, when a violent rain came
down, which continued till night. So that his good fortune was firm
even to the last, and did as it were officiate at his funeral. His
monument stands in the Campus Martius, with an epitaph of his own
writing; the substance of it being, that he had not been outdone by
any of his friends in doing good turns, nor by any of his foes in
doing bad.
COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA
Having completed this Life also, come we now to the comparison. That
which was common to them both, was that they were founders of their
own greatness, with this difference, that Lysander had the consent of
his fellow-citizens, in times of sober judgment, for the honors he
received; nor did he force anything from them against their
good-will, nor hold any power contrary to the laws.
In civil strife e'en villains rise to fame.
And so then at Rome, when the people were distempered, and the
government out of order, one or other was still raised to despotic
power; no wonder, then, if Sylla reigned, when the Glauciae and
Saturnini drove out the Metelli, when sons of consuls were slain in
the assemblies, when silver and gold purchased men and arms, and fire
and sword enacted new laws, and put down lawful opposition. Nor do I
blame anyone, in such circumstances, for working himself into
supreme power, only I would not have it thought a sign of great
goodness, to be head of a State so wretchedly discomposed. Lysander,
being employed in the greatest commands and affairs of State, by a
sober and well-governed city, may be said to have had repute as the
best and most virtuous man, in the best and most virtuous
commonwealth. And thus, often returning the government into the
hands of the citizens, he received it again as often, the superiority
of his merit still awarding him the first place. Sylla, on the other
hand, when he had once made himself general of an army, kept his
command for ten years together, creating himself sometimes consul,
sometimes proconsul, and sometimes dictator, but always remaining a
tyrant.
It is true Lysander, as was said, designed to introduce a new form of
government; by milder methods, however, and more agreeably to law
than Sylla, not by force of arms, but persuasion, nor by subverting
the whole State at once, but simply by amending the succession of the
kings; in a way, moreover, which seemed the naturally just one, that
the most deserving should rule, especially in a city which itself
exercised command in Greece, upon account of virtue, not nobility.
For as the hunter considers the whelp itself, not the bitch, and the
horse-dealer the foal, not the mare, (for what if the foal should
prove a mule?) so likewise were that politician extremely out, who,
in the choice of a chief magistrate, should inquire, not what the man
is, but how descended. The very Spartans themselves have deposed
several of their kings for want of kingly virtues, as degenerated and
good for nothing. As a vicious nature, though of an ancient stock,
is dishonorable, it must be virtue itself, and not birth, that makes
virtue honorable. Furthermore, the one committed his acts of
injustice for the sake of his friends; the other extended his to his
friends themselves. It is confessed on all hands, that Lysander
offended most commonly for the sake of his companions, committing
several slaughters to uphold their power and dominion; but as for
Sylla, he, out of envy, reduced Pompey's command by land, and
Dolabella's by sea, although he himself had given them those places;
and ordered Lucretius Ofella, who sued for the consulship as the
reward of many great services, to be slain before his eyes, exciting
horror and alarm in the minds of all men, by his cruelty to his
dearest friends.
As regards the pursuit of riches and pleasures, we yet further
discover in one a princely, in the other a tyrannical disposition.
Lysander did nothing that was intemperate or licentious, in that full
command of means and opportunity, but kept clear, as much as ever man
did, of that trite saying,
Lions at home, but foxes out of doors;
and ever maintained a sober, truly Spartan, and well disciplined
course of conduct. Whereas Sylla could never moderate his unruly
affections, either by poverty when young, or by years when grown old,
but would be still prescribing laws to the citizens concerning
chastity and sobriety, himself living all that time, as Sallust
affirms, in lewdness and adultery. By these ways he so impoverished
and drained the city of her treasures, as to be forced to sell
privileges and immunities to allied and friendly cities for money,
although he daily gave up the wealthiest and greatest families to
public sale and confiscation. There was no end of his favors vainly
spent and thrown away on flatterers; for what hope could there be, or
what likelihood of forethought or economy, in his more private
moments over wine, when, in the open face of the people, upon the
auction of a large estate, which he would have passed over to one of
his friends at a small price, because another bid higher, and the
officer announced the advance, he broke out into a passion, saying,
"What a strange and unjust thing is this, O citizens, that I cannot
dispose of my own booty as I please!" But Lysander, on the contrary,
with the rest of the spoil, sent home for public use even the
presents which were made him. Nor do I commend him for it, for he
perhaps, by excessive liberality, did Sparta more harm, than ever the
other did Rome by rapine; I only use it as an argument of his
indifference to riches. They exercised a strange influence on their
respective cities. Sylla, a profuse debauchee, endeavored to restore
sober living amongst the citizens; Lysander, temperate himself,
filled Sparta with the luxury he disregarded. So that both were
blameworthy, the one for raising himself above his own laws, the
other for causing his fellow citizens to fall beneath his own
example. He taught Sparta to want the very things which he himself
had learned to do without. And thus much of their civil
administration.
As for feats of arms, wise conduct in war, innumerable victories,
perilous adventures, Sylla was beyond compare. Lysander, indeed,
came off twice victorious in two battles by sea; I shall add to that
the siege of Athens, a work of greater fame, than difficulty. What
occurred in Boeotia, and at Haliartus, was the result, perhaps, of
ill fortune; yet it certainly looks like ill counsel, not to wait for
the king's forces, which had all but arrived from Plataea, but out of
ambition and eagerness to fight, to approach the walls at
disadvantage, and so to be cut off by a sally of inconsiderable men.
He received his death-wound, not as Cleombrotus at Leuctra, resisting
manfully the assault of an enemy in the field; not as Cyrus or
Epaminondas, sustaining the declining battle, or making sure the
victory; all these died the death of kings and generals; but he, as
it had been some common skirmisher or scout, cast away his life
ingloriously, giving testimony to the wisdom of the ancient Spartan
maxim, to avoid attacks on walled cities, in which the stoutest
warrior may chance to fall by the hand, not only of a man utterly his
inferior, but by that of a boy or woman, as Achilles, they say, was
slain by Paris in the gates. As for Sylla, it were hard to reckon up
how many set battles he won, or how many thousands he slew; he took
Rome itself twice, as also the Athenian Piraeus, not by famine, as
Lysander did, but by a series of great battles, driving Archelaus
into the sea. And what is most important, there was a vast
difference between the commanders they had to deal with. For I look
upon it as an easy task, or rather sport, to beat Antiochus,
Alcibiades's pilot, or to circumvent Philocles, the Athenian
demagogue,
Sharp only at the inglorious point of tongue,
whom Mithridates would have scorned to compare with his groom, or
Marius with his lictor. But of the potentates, consuls, commanders,
and demagogues, to pass by all the rest who opposed themselves to
Sylla, who amongst the Romans so formidable as Marius? what king more
powerful than Mithridates? who of the Italians more warlike than
Lamponius and Telesinus? yet of these, one he drove into banishment,
one he quelled, and the others he slew.
And what is more important, in my judgment, than anything yet
adduced, is that Lysander had the assistance of the State in all his
achievements; whereas Sylla, besides that he was a banished person,
and overpowered by a faction, at a time when his wife was driven from
home, his houses demolished, and adherents slain, himself then in
Boeotia, stood embattled against countless numbers of the public
enemy, and endangering himself for the sake of his country, raised a
trophy of victory; and not even when Mithridates came with proposals
of alliance and aid against his enemies, would he show any sort of
compliance, or even clemency; did not so much as address him, or
vouchsafe him his hand, until he had it from the king's own mouth,
that he was willing to quit Asia, surrender the navy, and restore
Bithynia and Cappadocia to the two kings. Than which action, Sylla
never performed a braver, or with a nobler spirit, when, preferring
the public good to the private, and like good hounds, where he had
once fixed, never letting go his hold, till the enemy yielded, then,
and not until then, he set himself to revenge his own private
quarrels. We may perhaps let ourselves be influenced, moreover, in
our comparison of their characters, by considering their treatment of
Athens. Sylla, when he had made himself master of the city, which
then upheld the dominion and power of Mithridates in opposition to
him, restored her to liberty and the free exercise of her own laws;
Lysander, on the contrary, when she had fallen from a vast height of
dignity and rule, showed her no compassion, but abolishing her
democratic government, imposed on her the most cruel and lawless
tyrants. We are now qualified to consider, whether we should go far
from the truth or no, in pronouncing that Sylla performed the more
glorious deeds, but Lysander committed the fewer faults, as,
likewise, by giving to one the preeminence for moderation and
self-control, to the other, for conduct and valor.
CIMON
Peripoltas, the prophet, having brought the king Opheltas, and those
under his command, from Thessaly into Boeotia, left there a family,
which flourished a long time after; the greatest part of them
inhabiting Chaeronea, the first city out of which they expelled the
barbarians. The descendants of this race, being men of bold attempts
and warlike habits, exposed themselves to so many dangers, in the
invasions of the Mede, and in battles against the Gauls, that at last
they were almost wholly consumed.
There was left one orphan of this house, called Damon, surnamed
Peripoltas, in beauty and greatness of spirit surpassing all of his
age, but rude and undisciplined in temper. A Roman captain of a
company that wintered in Chaeronea became passionately fond of this
youth, who was now pretty nearly grown a man. And finding all his
approaches, his gifts, and his entreaties alike repulsed, he showed
violent inclinations to assault Damon. Our native Chaeronea was then
in a distressed condition, too small and too poor to meet with
anything but neglect. Damon, being sensible of this, and looking
upon himself as injured already, resolved to inflict punishment.
Accordingly, he and sixteen of his companions conspired against the
captain; but that the design might be managed without any danger of
being discovered, they all daubed their faces at night with soot.
Thus disguised and inflamed with wine, they set upon him by break of
day, as he was sacrificing in the marketplace; and having killed him,
and several others that were with him, they fled out of the city,
which was extremely alarmed and troubled at the murder. The council
assembled immediately, and pronounced sentence of death against Damon
and his accomplices. This they did to justify the city to the
Romans. But that evening, as the magistrates were at supper
together, according to the custom, Damon and his confederates
breaking into the hall, killed them, and then again fled out of the
town. About this time, Lucius Lucullus chanced to be passing that
way with a body of troops, upon some expedition, and this disaster
having but recently happened, he stayed to examine the matter. Upon
inquiry, he found the city was in nowise faulty, but rather that they
themselves had suffered; therefore he drew out the soldiers, and
carried them away with him. Yet Damon continuing to ravage the
country all about, the citizens, by messages and decrees, in
appearance favorable, enticed him into the city, and upon his return,
made him Gymnasiarch; but afterwards as he was anointing himself in
the vapor baths, they set upon him and killed him. For a long while
after apparitions continuing to be seen, and groans to be heard in
that place, so our fathers have told us, they ordered the gates of
the baths to be built up; and even to this day those who live in the
neighborhood believe that they sometimes see specters, and hear
alarming sounds. The posterity of Damon, of whom some still remain,
mostly in Phocis, near the town of Stiris, are called Asbolomeni,
that is, in the Aeolian idiom, men daubed with soot; because Damon
was thus besmeared when he committed this murder.
But there being a quarrel between the people of Chaeronea and the
Orchomenians, their neighbors, these latter hired an informer, a
Roman, to accuse the community of Chaeronea, as if it had been a
single person, of the murder of the Romans, of which only Damon and
his companions were guilty; accordingly, the process wee commenced,
and the cause pleaded before the Praetor of Macedon, since the Romans
as yet had not sent governors into Greece.
The advocates who defended the inhabitants appealed to the testimony
of Lucullus, who, in answer to a letter the Praetor wrote to him,
returned a true account of the matter-of-fact. By this means the
town obtained its acquittal, and escaped a most serious danger. The
citizens thus preserved erected a statue to Lucullus in the
market-place, near that of the god Bacchus.
We also have the same impressions of gratitude; and though removed
from the events by the distance of several generations, we yet feel
the obligation to extend to ourselves; and as we think an image of
the character and habits, to be a greater honor than one merely
representing the face and the person, we will put Lucullus's life
amongst our parallels of illustrious men, and without swerving from
the truth, will record his actions. The commemoration will be itself
a sufficient proof of our grateful feeling, and he himself would not
thank us, if in recompense for a service, which consisted in speaking
the truth, we should abuse his memory with a false and counterfeit
narration. For as we would wish that a painter who is to draw a
beautiful face in which there is yet some imperfection, should
neither wholly leave out, nor yet too pointedly express what is
defective, because this would deform it, and that spoil the
resemblance; so, since it is hard, or indeed perhaps impossible, to
show the life of a man wholly free from blemish, in all that is
excellent we must follow truth exactly, and give it fully; any lapses
or faults that occur, through human passions or political
necessities, we may regard rather as the shortcomings of some
particular virtue, than as the natural effects of vice; and may be
content without introducing them, curiously and officiously, into our
narrative, if it be but out of tenderness to the weakness of nature,
which has never succeeded in producing any human character so perfect
in virtue, as to be pure from all admixture, and open to no
criticism. On considering; with myself to whom I should compare
Lucullus, I find none so exactly his parallel as Cimon.
They were both valiant in war, and successful against the barbarians;
both gentle in political life, and more than any others gave their
countrymen a respite from civil troubles at home, while abroad, each
of them raised trophies and gained famous victories. No Greek before
Cimon, nor Roman before Lucullus, ever carried the scene of war so
far from their own country; putting out of the question the acts of
Bacchus and Hercules, and any exploit of Perseus against the
Ethiopians, Medes, and Armenians, or again of Jason, of which any
record that deserves credit can be said to have come down to our
days. Moreover in this they were alike, that they did not finish the
enterprises they undertook. They brought their enemies near their
ruin, but never entirely conquered them. There was yet a greater
conformity in the free good-will and lavish abundance of their
entertainments and general hospitalities, and in the youthful laxity
of their habits. Other points of resemblance, which we have failed
to notice, may be easily collected from our narrative itself.
Cimon was the son of Miltiades and Hegesipyle, who was by birth a
Thracian, and daughter to the king Olorus, as appears from the poems
of Melanthius and Archelaus, written in praise of Cimon. By this
means the historian Thucydides was his kinsman by the mother's side;
for his father's name also, in remembrance of this common ancestor,
was Olorus, and he was the owner of the gold mines in Thrace, and met
his death, it is said, by violence, in Scapte Hyle, a district of
Thrace; and his remains having afterwards been brought into Attica, a
monument is shown as his among those of the family of Cimon, near the
tomb of Elpinice, Cimon's sister. But Thucydides was of the township
of Halimus, and Miltiades and his family were Laciadae. Miltiades,
being condemned in a fine of fifty talents to the State, and unable
to pay it, was cast into prison, and there died. Thus Cimon was left
an orphan very young, with his sister Elpinice, who was also young
and unmarried. And at first he had but an indifferent reputation,
being looked upon as disorderly in his habits, fond of drinking, and
resembling his grandfather, also called Cimon, in character, whose
simplicity got him the surname of Coalemus. Stesimbrotus of Thasos,
who lived near about the same time with Cimon, reports of him that he
had little acquaintance either with music, or any of the other
liberal studies and accomplishments, then common among the Greeks;
that he had nothing whatever of the quickness and the ready speech of
his countrymen in Attica; that he had great nobleness and candor in
his disposition, and in his character in general, resembled rather a
native of Peloponnesus, than of Athens; as Euripides describes
Hercules,
-- Rude
And unrefined, for great things well-endued;
for this may fairly be added to the character which Stesimbrotus has
given of him.
They accused him, in his younger years, of cohabiting with his own
sister Elpinice, who, indeed, otherwise had no very clear reputation,
but was reported to have been over intimate with Polygnotus, the
painter; and hence, when he painted the Trojan women in the porch,
then called the Plesianactium, and now the Poecile, he made Laodice a
portrait of her. Polygnotus was not an ordinary mechanic, nor was he
paid for this work, but out of a desire to please the Athenians,
painted the portico for nothing. So it is stated by the historians,
and in the following verses by the poet Melanthius: --
Wrought by his hand the deeds of heroes grace
At his own charge our temples and our Place.
Some affirm that Elpinice lived with her brother, not secretly, but
as his married wife, her poverty excluding her from any suitable
match. But afterward, when Callias, one of the richest men of
Athens, fell in love with her, and proffered to pay the fine the
father was condemned in, if he could obtain the daughter in marriage,
with Elpinice's own consent, Cimon betrothed her to Callias. There
is no doubt but that Cimon was, in general, of an amorous temper.
For Melanthius, in his elegies, rallies him on his attachment for
Asteria of Salamis, and again for a certain Mnestra. And there can
be no doubt of his unusually passionate affection for his lawful wife
Isodice, the daughter of Euryptolemus, the son of Megacles; nor of
his regret, even to impatience, at her death, if any conclusion may
be drawn from those elegies of condolence, addressed to him upon his
loss of her. The philosopher Panaetius is of opinion, that
Archelaus, the writer on physics, was the author of them, and indeed
the time seems to favor that conjecture. All the other points of
Cimon's character were noble and good. He was as daring as
Miltiades, and not inferior to Themistocles in judgment, and was
incomparably more just and honest than either of them. Fully their
equal in all military virtues, in the ordinary duties of a citizen at
home he was immeasurably their superior. And this, too, when he was
very young, his years not yet strengthened by any experience. For
when Themistocles, upon the Median invasion, advised the Athenians to
forsake their city and their country, and to carry all their arms on
shipboard, and fight the enemy by sea, in the straits of Salamis;
when all the people stood amazed at the confidence and rashness of
this advice, Cimon was seen, the first of all men, passing with a
cheerful countenance through the Ceramicus, on his way with his
companions to the citadel, carrying a bridle in his hand to offer to
the goddess, intimating that there was no more need of horsemen now,
but of mariners. There, after he had paid his devotions to the
goddess, and offered up the bridle, he took down one of the bucklers
that hung upon the walls of the temple, and went down to the port; by
this example giving confidence to many of the citizens. He was also
of a fairly handsome person, according to the poet Ion, tall and
large, and let his thick and curly hair grow long. After he had
acquitted himself gallantly in this battle of Salamis, he obtained
great repute among the Athenians, and was regarded with affection, as
well as admiration. He had many who followed after him and bade him
aspire to actions not less famous than his father's battle of
Marathon. And when he came forward in political life, the people
welcomed him gladly, being now weary of Themistocles; in opposition
to whom, and because of the frankness and easiness of his temper,
which was agreeable to everyone, they advanced Cimon to the highest
employments in the government. The man that contributed most to his
promotion was Aristides, who early discerned in his character his
natural capacity, and purposely raised him, that he might be a
counterpoise to the craft and boldness of Themistocles.
After the Medes had been driven out of Greece, Cimon was sent out as
admiral, when the Athenians had not yet attained their dominion by
sea, but still followed Pausanias and the Lacedaemonians; and his
fellow-citizens under his command were highly distinguished, both for
the excellence of their discipline, and for their extraordinary zeal
and readiness. And further, perceiving that Pausanias was carrying
on secret communications with the barbarians, and writing letters to
the king of Persia to betray Greece, and, puffed up with authority
and success, was treating the allies haughtily, and committing many
wanton injustices, Cimon, taking this advantage, by acts of kindness
to those who were suffering wrong, and by his general humane bearing,
robbed him of the command of the Greeks, before he was aware, not by
arms, but by his mere language and character. The greatest part of
the allies, no longer able to endure the harshness and pride of
Pausanias, revolted from him to Cimon and Aristides, who accepted the
duty, and wrote to the Ephors of Sparta, desiring them to recall a
man who was causing dishonor to Sparta, and trouble to Greece. They
tell of Pausanias, that when he was in Byzantium, he solicited a
young lady of a noble family in the city, whose name was Cleonice, to
debauch her. Her parents, dreading his cruelty, were forced to
consent, and so abandoned their daughter to his wishes. The daughter
asked the servants outside the chamber to put out all the lights; so
that approaching silently and in the dark toward his bed, she
stumbled upon the lamp, which she overturned. Pausanias, who was
fallen asleep, awakened and startled with the noise, thought an
assassin had taken that dead time of night to murder him, so that
hastily snatching up his poniard that lay by him, he struck the girl,
who fell with the blow, and died. After this, he never had rest, but
was continually haunted by her, and saw an apparition visiting him in
his sleep, and addressing him with these angry words: --
Go on thy way, unto the evil end,
That doth on lust and violence attend.
This was one of the chief occasions of indignation against him among
the confederates, who now joining their resentments and forces with
Cimon's, besieged him in Byzantium. He escaped out of their hands,
and, continuing, as it is said, to be disturbed by the apparition,
fled to the oracle of the dead at Heraclea, raised the ghost of
Cleonice, and entreated her to be reconciled. Accordingly she
appeared to him, and answered, that as soon as he came to Sparta, he
should speedily be freed from all evils; obscurely foretelling, it
would seem, his imminent death. This story is related by many
authors.
Cimon, strengthened with the accession of the allies, went as general
into Thrace. For he was told that some great men among the Persians,
of the king's kindred, being in possession of Eion, a city situated
upon the river Strymon, infested the neighboring Greeks. First he
defeated these Persians in battle, and shut them up within the walls
of their town. Then he fell upon the Thracians of the country beyond
the Strymon, because they supplied Eion with victuals, and driving
them entirely out of the country, took possession of it as conqueror,
by which means he reduced the besieged to such straits, that Butes,
who commanded there for the king, in desperation set fire to the
town, and burned himself, his goods, and all his relations, in one
common flame. By this means, Cimon got the town, but no great booty;
as the barbarians had not only consumed themselves in the fire, but
the richest of their effects. However, he put the country about into
the hands of the Athenians, a most advantageous and desirable
situation for a settlement. For this action, the people permitted
him to erect the stone Mercuries, upon the first of which was this
inscription: --
Of bold and patient spirit, too, were those,
Who, where the Strymon under Eion flows,
With famine and the sword, to utmost need
Reduced at last the children of the Mede.
Upon the second stood this: --
The Athenians to their leaders this reward
For great and useful service did accord;
Others hereafter, shall, from their applause,
Learn to be valiant in their country's cause
and upon the third, the following:
With Atreus' sons, this city sent of yore
Divine Menestheus to the Trojan shore;
Of all the Greeks, so Homer's verses say,
The ablest man an army to array:
So old the title of her sons the name
Of chiefs and champions in the field to claim.
Though the name of Cimon is not mentioned in these inscriptions, yet
his contemporaries considered them to be the very highest honors to
him; as neither Miltiades nor Themistocles ever received the like.
When Miltiades claimed a garland, Sochares of Decelea stood up in the
midst of the assembly and opposed it, using words which, though
ungracious, were received with applause by the people. "When you
have gained a victory by yourself, Miltiades, then you may ask to
triumph so too." What then induced them so particularly to honor
Cimon? Was it that under other commanders they stood upon the
defensive? but by his conduct, they not only attacked their enemies,
but invaded them in their own country, and acquired new territory,
becoming masters of Eion and Amphipolis, where they planted colonies,
as also they did in the isle of Scyros, which Cimon had taken on the
following occasion. The Dolopians were the inhabitants of this isle,
a people who neglected all husbandry, and had, for many generations,
been devoted to piracy; this they practiced to that degree, that at
last they began to plunder foreigners that brought merchandise into
their ports. Some merchants of Thessaly, who had come to shore near
Ctesium, were not only spoiled of their goods, but themselves put
into confinement. These men afterwards escaping from their prison,
went and obtained sentence against the Scyrians in a court of
Amphictyons, and when the Scyrian people declined to make public
restitution, and called upon the individuals who had got the plunder
to give it up, these persons, in alarm, wrote to Cimon to succor them
with his fleet, and declared themselves ready to deliver the town
into his hands. Cimon, by these means, got the town, expelled the
Dolopian pirates, and so opened the traffic of the Aegean sea. And,
understanding that the ancient Theseus, the son of Aegeus, when he
fled from Athens and took refuge in this isle, was here treacherously
slain by king Lycomedes, who feared him, Cimon endeavored to find out
where he was buried. For an oracle had commanded the Athenians to
bring home his ashes, and pay him all due honors as a hero; but
hitherto they had not been able to learn where he was interred, as
the people of Scyros dissembled the knowledge of it, and were not
willing to allow a search. But now, great inquiry being made, with
some difficulty he found out the tomb, and carried the relics into
his own galley, and with great pomp and show brought them to Athens,
four hundred years, or thereabouts, after his expulsion. This act
got Cimon great favor with the people, one mark of which was the
judgment, afterwards so famous, upon the tragic poets. Sophocles,
still a young man, had just brought forward his first plays; opinions
were much divided, and the spectators had taken sides with some heat.
So, to determine the case, Apsephion, who was at that time archon,
would not cast lots who should be judges; but when Cimon, and his
brother commanders with him, came into the theater, after they had
performed the usual rites to the god of the festival, he would not
allow them to retire, but came forward and made them swear, (being
ten in all, one from each tribe,) the usual oath; and so being sworn
judges, he made them sit down to give sentence. The eagerness for
victory grew all the warmer, from the ambition to get the suffrages
of such honorable judges. And the victory was at last adjudged to
Sophocles, which Aeschylus is said to have taken so ill, that he left
Athens shortly after, and went in anger to Sicily, where he died, and
was buried near the city of Gela.
Ion relates that when he was a young man, and recently come from
Chios to Athens, he chanced to sup with Cimon, at Laomedon's house.
After supper, when they had, according to custom, poured out wine to
the honor of the gods, Cimon was desired by the company to give them
a song, which he did with sufficient success, and received the
commendations of the company, who remarked on his superiority to
Themistocles, who, on a like occasion, had declared he had never
learnt to sing, nor to play, and only knew how to make a city rich
and powerful. After talking of things incident to such
entertainments, they entered upon the particulars of the several
actions for which Cimon had been famous. And when they were
mentioning the most signal, he told them they had omitted one, upon
which he valued himself most for address and good contrivance. He
gave this account of it. When the allies had taken a great number of
the barbarians prisoners in Sestos and Byzantium, they gave him the
preference to divide the booty; he accordingly put the prisoners in
one lot, and the spoils of their rich attire and jewels in the other.
This the allies complained of as an unequal division, but he gave
them their choice to take which lot they would, for that the
Athenians should be content with that which they refused. Herophytus
of Samos advised them to take the ornaments for their share, and
leave the slaves to the Athenians; and Cimon went away, and was much
laughed at for his ridiculous division. For the allies carried away
the golden bracelets, and armlets, and collars, and purple robes, and
the Athenians had only the naked bodies of the captives, which they
could make no advantage of, being unused to labor. But a little
while after, the friends and kinsmen of the prisoners coming from
Lydia and Phrygia, redeemed every one his relations at a high ransom;
so that by this means Cimon got so much treasure that he maintained
his whole fleet of galleys with the money for four months; and yet
there was some left to lay up in the treasury at Athens.
Cimon now grew rich, and what he gained from the barbarians with
honor, he spent yet more honorably upon the citizens. For he pulled
down all the enclosures of his gardens and grounds, that strangers,
and the needy of his fellow-citizens, might gather of his fruits
freely. At home, he kept a table, plain, but sufficient for a
considerable number; to which any poor townsman had free access, and
so might support himself without labor, with his whole time left free
for public duties. Aristotle states, however, that this reception
did not extend to all the Athenians, but only to his own fellow
townsmen, the Laciadae. Besides this, he always went attended by two
or three young companions, very well clad; and if he met with an
elderly citizen in a poor habit, one of these would change clothes
with the decayed citizen, which was looked upon as very nobly done.
He enjoined them, likewise, to carry a considerable quantity of coin
about them, which they were to convey silently into the hands of the
better class of poor men, as they stood by them in the marketplace.
This, Cratinus the poet speaks of in one of his comedies, the
Archilochi: --
For I, Metrobius too, the scrivener poor,
Of ease and comfort in my age secure,
By Greece's noblest son in life's decline,
Cimon, the generous-hearted, the divine,
Well-fed and feasted hoped till death to be,
Death which, alas! has taken him ere me.
Gorgias the Leontine gives him this character, that he got riches
that he might use them, and used them that he might get honor by
them. And Critias, one of the thirty tyrants, makes it, in his
elegies, his wish to have
The Scopads' wealth, and Cimon's nobleness,
And king Agesilaus's success.
Lichas, we know, became famous in Greece, only because on the days of
the sports, when the young boys run naked, he used to entertain the
strangers that came to see these diversions. But Cimon's generosity
outdid all the old Athenian hospitality and good-nature. For though
it is the city's just boast that their forefathers taught the rest of
Greece to sow corn, and how to use springs of water, and to kindle
fire, yet Cimon, by keeping open house for his fellow-citizens, and
giving travelers liberty to eat the fruits which the several seasons
produced in his land, seemed to restore to the world that community
of goods, which mythology says existed in the reign of Saturn. Those
who object to him that he did this to be popular, and gain the
applause of the vulgar, are confuted by the constant tenor of the
rest of his actions, which all tended to uphold the interests of the
nobility and the Spartan policy, of which he gave instances, when
together with Aristides, he opposed Themistocles, who was advancing
the authority of the people beyond its just limits, and resisted
Ephialtes, who to please the multitude, was for abolishing the
jurisdiction of the court of Areopagus. And when all of his time,
except Aristides and Ephialtes, enriched themselves out of the public
money, he still kept his hands clean and untainted, and to his last
day never acted or spoke for his own private gain or emolument. They
tell us that Rhoesaces, a Persian, who had traitorously revolted from
the king his master, fled to Athens, and there, being harassed by
sycophants, who were still accusing him to the people, he applied
himself to Cimon for redress, and to gain his favor, laid down in his
doorway two cups, the one full of gold, and the other of silver
Darics. Cimon smiled and asked him whether he wished to have Cimon's
hired service or his friendship. He replied, his friendship. "If
so," said he, "take away these pieces, for being your friend, when I
shall have occasion for them, I will send and ask for them."
The allies of the Athenians began now to be weary of war and military
service, willing to have repose, and to look after their husbandry
and traffic. For they saw and did not fear any new vexations from
them. They still paid the tax they were assessed at, but did not
send men and galleys, as they had done before. This the other
Athenian generals wished to constrain them to, and by judicial
proceedings against defaulters, and penalties which they inflicted on
them, made the government uneasy, and even odious. But Cimon
practiced a contrary method; he forced no man to go that was not
willing, but of those that desired to be excused from service he took
money and vessels unmanned, and let them yield to the temptation of
staying at home, to attend to their private business. Thus they lost
their military habits, and luxury and their own folly quickly
changed them into unwarlike husbandmen and traders, while Cimon,
continually embarking large numbers of Athenians on board his
galleys, thoroughly disciplined them in his expeditions, their
enemies driven out of the country, and ere long made them the lords
of their own paymasters. The allies, whose indolence maintained
them, while they thus went sailing about everywhere, and incessantly
bearing arms and acquiring skill, began to fear and flatter then, and
found themselves after a while allies no longer, but unwittingly
become tributaries and slaves.
Nor did any man ever do more than Cimon did to humble the pride of
the Persian king. He was not content with getting rid of him out of
Greece; but following close at his heels, before the barbarians could
take breath and recover themselves, he was already at work, and what
with his devastations, and his forcible reduction of some places, and
the revolts and voluntary accession of others, in the end, from Ionia
to Pamphylia, all Asia was clear of Persian soldiers. Word being
brought him that the royal commanders were lying in wait upon the
coast of Pamphylia, with a numerous land army, and a large fleet, he
determined to make the whole sea on this side the Chelidonian islands
so formidable to them that they should never dare to show themselves
in it; and setting off from Cnidos and the Triopian headland, with
two hundred galleys, which had been originally built with particular
care by Themistocles, for speed and rapid evolutions, and to which he
now gave greater width and roomier decks along the sides to move to
and fro upon, so as to allow a great number of full-armed soldiers to
take part in the engagements and fight from them, he shaped his
course first of all against the town of Phaselis, which, though
inhabited by Greeks, yet would not quit the interests of Persia, but
denied his galleys entrance into their port. Upon this he wasted the
country, and drew up his army to their very walls; but the soldiers
of Chios, who were then serving under him, being ancient friends to
the Phaselites, endeavoring to propitiate the general in their
behalf, at the same time shot arrows into the town, to which were
fastened letters conveying intelligence. At length he concluded
peace with them, upon the conditions that they should pay down ten
talents, and follow him against the barbarians. Ephorus says the
admiral of the Persian fleet was Tithraustes, and the general of the
land army Pherendates; but Callisthenes is positive that Ariomandes,
the son of Gobryas, had the supreme command of all the forces. He
lay waiting with the whole fleet at the mouth of the river Eurymedon,
with no design to fight, but expecting a reinforcement of eighty
Phoenician ships on their way from Cyprus. Cimon, aware of this, put
out to sea, resolved, if they would not fight a battle willingly, to
force them to it. The barbarians, seeing this, retired within the
mouth of the river to avoid being attacked; but when they saw the
Athenians come upon them, notwithstanding their retreat, they met
them with six hundred ships, as Phanodemus relates but according to
Ephorus, only with three hundred and fifty. However, they did
nothing worthy such mighty forces, but immediately turned the prows
of their galleys toward the shore, where those that came first threw
themselves upon the land, and fled to their army drawn up thereabout,
while the rest perished with their vessels, or were taken. By this,
one may guess at their number, for though a great many escaped out of
the fight, and a great many others were sunk, yet two hundred galleys
were taken by the Athenians.
When their land army drew toward the seaside, Cimon was in suspense
whether he should venture to try and force his way on shore; as he
should thus expose his Greeks, wearied with slaughter in the first
engagement, to the swords of the barbarians, who were all fresh men,
and many times their number. But seeing his men resolute, and
flushed with victory, he bade them land, though they were not yet
cool from their first battle. As soon as they touched ground, they
set up a shout and ran upon the enemy, who stood firm and sustained
the first shock with great courage, so that the fight was a hard one,
and some principal men of the Athenians in rank and courage were
slain. At length, though with much ado, they routed the barbarians,
and killing some, took others prisoners, and plundered all their
tents and pavilions which were full of rich spoil. Cimon, like a
skilled athlete at the games, having in one day carried off two
victories, wherein he surpassed that of Salamis by sea, and that of
Plataea by land, was encouraged to try for yet another success. News
being brought that the Phoenician succors, in number eighty sail, had
come in sight at Hydrum, he set off with all speed to find them,
while they as yet had not received any certain account of the larger
fleet, and were in doubt what to think; so that thus surprised, they
lost all their vessels, and most of their men with them. This
success of Cimon so daunted the king of Persia, that he presently
made that celebrated peace, by which he engaged that his armies
should come no nearer the Grecian sea than the length of a horse's
course; and that none of his galleys or vessels of war should appear
between the Cyanean and Chelidonian isles. Callisthenes, however,
says that he did not agree to any such articles, but that upon the
fear this victory gave him, he did in reality thus act, and kept off
so far from Greece, that when Pericles with fifty, and Ephialtes with
thirty galleys, cruised beyond the Chelidonian isles, they did not
discover one Persian vessel. But in the collection which Craterus
made of the public acts of the people, there is a draft of this
treaty given. And it is told, also, that at Athens they erected the
altar of Peace upon this occasion, and decreed particular honors to
Callias, who was employed as ambassador to procure the treaty.
The people of Athens raised so much money from the spoils of this
war, which were publicly sold, that, besides other expenses, and
raising the south wall of the citadel, they laid the foundation of
the long walls, not, indeed, finished till at a later time, which
were called the Legs. And the place where they built them being soft
and marshy ground, they were forced to sink great weights of stone
and rubble to secure the foundation, and did all this out of the
money Cimon supplied them with. It was he, likewise, who first
embellished the upper city with those fine and ornamental places of
exercise and resort, which they afterward so much frequented and
delighted in. He set the market-place with plane trees; and the
Academy, which was before a bare, dry, and dirty spot, he converted
into a well-watered grove, with shady alleys to walk in, and open
courses for races.
When the Persians who had made themselves masters of the Chersonese,
so far from quitting it, called in the people of the interior of
Thrace to help them against Cimon, whom they despised for the
smallness of his forces, he set upon them with only four galleys, and
took thirteen of theirs; and having driven out the Persians, and
subdued the Thracians, he made the whole Chersonese the property of
Athens. Next, he attacked the people of Thasos, who had revolted
from the Athenians; and, having defeated them in a fight at sea,
where he took thirty-three of their vessels, he took their town by
siege, and acquired for the Athenians all the mines of gold on the
opposite coast, and the territory dependent on Thasos. This opened
him a fair passage into Macedon, so that he might, it was thought,
have acquired a good portion of that country; and because he
neglected the opportunity, he was suspected of corruption, and of
having been bribed off by king Alexander. So, by the combination of
his adversaries, he was accused of being false to his country. In
his defense he told the judges, that he had always shown himself in
his public life the friend, not, like other men, of rich Ionians and
Thessalians, to be courted, and to receive presents, but of the
Lacedaemonians; for as he admired, so he wished to imitate the
plainness of their habits, their temperance, and simplicity of
living, which he preferred to any sort of riches; but that he always
had been, and still was proud to enrich his country with the spoils
of her enemies. Stesimbrotus, making mention of this trial, states
that Elpinice, in behalf of her brother, addressed herself to
Pericles, the most vehement of his accusers, to whom Pericles
answered, with a smile, "You are old, Elpinice, to meddle with
affairs of this nature." However, he proved the mildest of his
prosecutors, and rose up but once all the while, almost as a matter
of form, to plead against him. Cimon was acquitted.
In his public life after this, he continued, whilst at home, to
control and restrain the common people, who would have trampled upon
the nobility, and drawn all the power and sovereignty to themselves.
But when he afterwards was sent out to war, the multitude broke
loose, as it were, and overthrew all the ancient laws and customs
they had hitherto observed, and, chiefly at the instigation of
Ephialtes, withdrew the cognizance of almost all causes from the
Areopagus; so that all jurisdiction now being transferred to them,
the government was reduced to a perfect democracy, and this by the
help of Pericles, who was already powerful, and had pronounced in
favor of the common people. Cimon, when he returned, seeing the
authority of this great council so upset, was exceedingly troubled,
and endeavored to remedy these disorders by bringing the courts of
law to their former state, and restoring the old aristocracy of the
time of Clisthenes. This the others declaimed against with all the
vehemence possible, and began to revive those stories concerning him
and his sister, and cried out against him as the partisan of the
Lacedaemonians. To these calumnies the famous verses of Eupolis, the
poet upon Cimon refer: --
He was as good as others that one sees,
But he was fond of drinking and of ease;
And would at nights to Sparta often roam,
Leaving his sister desolate at home.
But if, though slothful and a drunkard, he could capture so many
towns, and gain so many victories, certainly if he had been sober and
minded his business, there had been no Grecian commander, either
before or after him, that could have surpassed him for exploits of
war.
He was, indeed, a favorer of the Lacedaemonians even from his youth,
and he gave the names of Lacedaemonius and Eleus to two sons, twins,
whom he had, as Stesimbrotus says, by a woman of Clitorium, whence
Pericles often upbraided them with their mother's blood. But
Diodorus, the geographer, asserts that both these, and another son of
Cimon's, whose name was Thessalus, were born of Isodice, the daughter
of Euryptolemus, the son of Megacles.
However, this is certain, that Cimon was countenanced by the
Lacedaemonians in opposition to Themistocles, whom they disliked; and
while he was yet very young, they endeavored to raise and increase
his credit in Athens. This the Athenians perceived at first with
pleasure, and the favor the Lacedaemonians showed him was in various
ways advantageous to them and their affairs; as at that time they
were just rising to power, and were occupied in winning the allies to
their side. So they seemed not at all offended with the honor and
kindness showed to Cimon, who then had the chief management of all
the affairs of Greece, and was acceptable to the Lacedaemonians, and
courteous to the allies. But afterwards the Athenians, grown more
powerful, when they saw Cimon so entirely devoted to the
Lacedaemonians, began to be angry, for he would always in his
speeches prefer them to the Athenians, and upon every occasion, when
he would reprimand them for a fault, or incite them to emulation, he
would exclaim, "The Lacedaemonians would not do thus." This raised
the discontent, and got him in some degree the hatred of the
citizens; but that which ministered chiefly to the accusation against
him fell out upon the following occasion.
In the fourth year of the reign of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus,
king of Sparta, there happened in the country of Lacedaemon, the
greatest earthquake that was known in the memory of man; the earth
opened into chasms, and the mountain Taygetus was so shaken, that
some of the rocky points of it fell down, and except five houses, all
the town of Sparta was shattered to pieces. They say, that a little
before any motion was perceived, as the young men and the boys just
grown up were exercising themselves together in the middle of the
portico, a hare, of a sudden, started out just by them, which the
young men, though all naked and daubed with oil, ran after for sport.
No sooner were they gone from the place, than the gymnasium fell down
upon the boys who had stayed behind, and killed them all. Their tomb
is to this day called Sismatias. Archidamus, by the present danger
made apprehensive of what might follow, and seeing the citizens
intent upon removing the most valuable of their goods out of their
houses, commanded an alarm to be sounded, as if an enemy were coming
upon them, in order that they should collect about him in a body,
with arms. It was this alone that saved Sparta at that time, for the
Helots were got together from the country about, with design to
surprise the Spartans, and overpower those whom the earthquake had
spared. But finding them armed and well prepared, they retired into
the towns and openly made war with them, gaining over a number of the
Laconians of the country districts; while at the same time the
Messenians, also, made an attack upon the Spartans, who therefore
dispatched Periclidas to Athens to solicit succors, of whom
Aristophanes says in mockery that he came and
In a red jacket, at the altars seated,
With a white face, for men and arms entreated.
This Ephialtes opposed, protesting that they ought not to raise up or
assist a city that was a rival to Athens; but that being down, it
were best to keep her so, and let the pride and arrogance of Sparta
be trodden under. But Cimon, as Critias says, preferring the safety
of Lacedaemon to the aggrandizement of his own country, so persuaded
the people, that he soon marched out with a large army to their
relief. Ion records, also, the most successful expression which he
used to move the Athenians. "They ought not to suffer Greece to be
lamed, nor their own city to be deprived of her yoke-fellow."
In his return from aiding the Lacedaemonians, he passed with his army
through the territory of Corinth; where upon Lachartus reproached him
for bringing his army into the country, without first asking leave of
the people. For he that knocks at another man's door ought not to
enter the house till the master gives him leave. "But you,
Corinthians, O Lachartus," said Cimon, "did not knock at the gates of
the Cleonaeans and Megarians, but broke them down, and entered by
force, thinking that all places should be open to the stronger." And
having thus rallied the Corinthian, he passed on with his army. Some
time after this, the Lacedaemonians sent a second time to desire
succors of the Athenians against the Messenians and Helots, who had
seized upon Ithome. But when they came, fearing their boldness and
gallantry, of all that came to their assistance, they sent them only
back, alleging they were designing innovations. The Athenians
returned home, enraged at this usage, and vented their anger upon all
those who were favorers of the Lacedaemonians; and seizing some
slight occasion, they banished Cimon for ten years, which is the time
prescribed to those that are banished by the ostracism. In the mean
time, the Lacedaemonians, on their return after freeing Delphi from
the Phocians, encamped their army at Tanagra, whither the Athenians
presently marched with design to fight them.
Cimon, also, came thither armed, and ranged himself among those of
his own tribe, which was the Oeneis, desirous of fighting with the
rest against the Spartans; but the council of five hundred being
informed of this, and frighted at it, his adversaries crying out he
would disorder the army, and bring the Lacedaemonians to Athens,
commanded the officers not to receive him. Wherefore Cimon left the
army, conjuring Euthippus, the Anaphlystian, and the rest of his
companions, who were most suspected as favoring the Lacedaemonians,
to behave themselves bravely against their enemies, and by their
actions make their innocence evident to their countrymen. These, being
in all a hundred, took the arms of Cimon and followed his advice; and
making a body by themselves, fought so desperately with the enemy,
that they were all cut off, leaving the Athenians deep regret for
the loss of such brave men, and repentance for having so unjustly
suspected them. Accordingly, they did not long retain their severity
toward Cimon, partly upon remembrance of his former services, and
partly, perhaps, induced by the juncture of the times. For being
defeated at Tanagra in a great battle, and fearing the Peloponnesians
would come upon them at the opening of the spring, they recalled
Cimon by a decree, of which Pericles himself was author. So
reasonable were men's resentments in those times, and so moderate
their anger, that it always gave way to the public good. Even
ambition, the least governable of all human passions, could then
yield to the necessities of the State.
Cimon, as soon as he returned, put an end to the war, and reconciled
the two cities. Peace thus established, seeing the Athenians
impatient of being idle, and eager after the honor and aggrandizement
of war, lest they should set upon the Greeks themselves, or with so
many ships cruising about the isles and Peloponnesus, they should
give occasions to intestine wars, or complaints of their allies
against them, he equipped two hundred galleys, with design to make an
attempt upon Egypt and Cyprus; purposing, by this means, to accustom
the Athenians to fight against the barbarians, and enrich themselves
honestly by spoiling those who were the natural enemies to Greece.
But when all things were prepared, and the army ready to embark,
Cimon had this dream. It seemed to him that there was a furious
bitch barking at him, and, mixed with the barking, a kind of human
voice uttered these words: --
Come on, for thou shalt shortly be,
A pleasure to my whelps and me.
This dream was hard to interpret, yet Astyphilus of Posidonia, a man
skilled in divinations, and intimate with Cimon, told him that his
death was presaged by this vision, which he thus explained. A dog is
enemy to him be barks at; and one is always most a pleasure to one's
enemies, when one is dead; the mixture of human voice with barking
signifies the Medes, for the army of the Medes is mixed up of Greeks
and barbarians. After this dream, as he was sacrificing to Bacchus,
and the priest cutting up the victim, a number of ants, taking up the
congealed particles of the blood, laid them about Cimon's great toe.
This was not observed for a good while, but at the very time when
Cimon spied it, the priest came and showed him the liver of the
sacrifice imperfect, wanting that part of it called the head. But he
could not then recede from the enterprise, so he set sail. Sixty of
his ships he sent toward Egypt; with the rest he went and fought the
king of Persia's fleet, composed of Phoenician and Cilician galleys,
recovered all the cities thereabout, and threatened Egypt; designing
no less than the entire ruin of the Persian empire. And the rather,
for that he was informed Themistocles was in great repute among the
barbarians, having promised the king to lead his army, whenever he
should make war upon Greece. But Themistocles, it is said,
abandoning all hopes of compassing his designs, very much out of the
despair of overcoming the valor and good-fortune of Cimon, died a
voluntary death. Cimon, intent on great designs, which he was now to
enter upon, keeping his navy about the isle of Cyprus, sent
messengers to consult the oracle of Jupiter Ammon upon some secret
matter. For it is not known about what they were sent, and the god
would give them no answer, but commanded them to return again, for
that Cimon was already with him. Hearing this, they returned to sea,
and as soon as they came to the Grecian army, which was then about
Egypt, they understood that Cimon was dead; and computing the time of
the oracle, they found that his death had been signified, he being
then already with the gods.
He died, some say, of sickness, while besieging Citium, in Cyprus;
according to others, of a wound he received in a skirmish with the
barbarians. When he perceived he should die, he commanded those
under his charge to return, and by no means to let the news of his
death be known by the way; this they did with such secrecy that they
all came home safe, and neither their enemies nor the allies knew
what had happened. Thus, as Phanodemus relates, the Grecian army
was, as it were, conducted by Cimon, thirty days after he was dead.
But after his death there was not one commander among the Greeks that
did anything considerable against the barbarians, and instead of
uniting against their common enemies, the popular leaders and
partisans of war animated them against one another to that degree,
that none could interpose their good offices to reconcile them. And
while, by their mutual discord, they ruined the power of Greece, they
gave the Persians time to recover breath, and repair all their
losses. It is true, indeed, Agesilaus carried the arms of Greece
into Asia, but it was a long time after; there were, indeed, some
brief appearances of a war against the king's lieutenants in the
maritime provinces, but they all quickly vanished; before he could
perform anything of moment, he was recalled by fresh civil
dissensions and disturbances at home. So that he was forced to leave
the Persian king's officers to impose what tribute they pleased on
the Greek cities in Asia, the confederates and allies of the
Lacedaemonians. Whereas, in the time of Cimon, not so much as a
letter-carrier, or a single horseman, was ever seen to come within
four hundred furlongs of the sea.
The monuments, called Cimonian to this day, in Athens, show that his
remains were conveyed home, yet the inhabitants of the city Citium
pay particular honor to a certain tomb which they call the tomb of
Cimon, according to Nausicrates the rhetorician, who states that in a
time of famine, when the crops of their land all failed, they sent to
the oracle, which commanded them not to forget Cimon, but give him
the honors of a superior being. Such was the Greek commander.
LUCULLUS
Lucullus's grandfather had been consul; his uncle by the mother's
sister was Metellus, surnamed Numidicus. As for his parents, his
father was convicted of extortion, and his mother Caecilia's
reputation was bad. The first thing that Lucullus did before ever
he stood for any office, or meddled with the affairs of state,
being then but a youth, was, to accuse the accuser of his father,
Servilius the augur, having caught him in an offense against the
state. This thing was much taken notice of among the Romans, who
commended it as an act of high merit. Even without the
provocation, the accusation was esteemed no unbecoming action, for
they delighted to see young men as eagerly attacking injustice, as
good dogs do wild beasts. But when great animosities ensued,
insomuch that some were wounded and killed in the fray, Servilius
escaped. Lucullus followed his studies, and became a competent
speaker, in both Greek and Latin, insomuch that Sylla, when
composing the commentaries of his own life and actions, dedicated
them to him, as one who could have performed the task better
himself. His speech was not only elegant and ready for purposes of
mere business, like the ordinary oratory which will in the public
market-place,
Lash as a wounded tunny does the sea,
but on every other occasion shows itself
Dried up and perished with the want of wit;
but even in his younger days he addicted himself to the study,
simply for its own sake, of the liberal arts; and when advanced in
years, after a life of conflicts, he gave his mind, as it were, its
liberty, to enjoy in full leisure the refreshment of philosophy;
and summoning up his contemplative faculties, administered a timely
check, after his difference with Pompey, to his feelings of
emulation and ambition. Besides what has been said of his love of
learning already, one instance more was, that in his youth, upon a
suggestion of writing the Marsian war in Greek and Latin verse and
prose, arising out of some pleasantry that passed into a serious
proposal, he agreed with Hortensius the lawyer, and Sisenna the
historian, that he would take his lot; and it seems that the lot
directed him to the Greek tongue, for a Greek history of that war
is still extant.
Among the many signs of the great love which he bore to his brother
Marcus, one in particular is commemorated by the Romans. Though he
was elder brother, he would not step into authority without him,
but deferred his own advance until his brother was qualified to
bear a share with him, and so won upon the people, as when absent
to be chosen Aedile with him.
He gave many and early proofs of his valor and conduct, in the
Marsian war, and was admired by Sylla for his constancy and
mildness, and always employed in affairs of importance, especially
in the mint; most of the money for carrying on the Mithridatic war
being coined by him in Peloponnesus, which, by the soldiers' wants,
was brought into rapid circulation, and long continued current
under the name of Lucullean coin. After this, when Sylla conquered
Athens, and was victorious by land, but found the supplies for his
army cut off, the enemy being master at sea, Lucullus was the man
whom he sent into Libya and Egypt, to procure him shipping. It was
the depth of winter when he ventured with but three small Greek
vessels, and as many Rhodian galleys, not only into the main sea,
but also among multitudes of vessels belonging to the enemies, who
were cruising about as absolute masters. Arriving at Crete, he
gained it; and finding the Cyrenians harassed by long tyrannies and
wars, he composed their troubles, and settled their government;
putting the city in mind of that saying which Plato once had
oracularly uttered of them, who, being requested to prescribe laws
to them, and mold them into some sound form of government, made
answer, that it was a hard thing to give laws to the Cyrenians,
abounding, as they did, in wealth and plenty. For nothing is more
intractable than man when in felicity, nor anything more docile,
when he has been reduced and humbled by fortune. This made the
Cyrenians so willingly submit to the laws which Lucullus imposed
upon them. From thence sailing into Egypt, and, pressed by
pirates, he lost most of his vessels; but he himself narrowly
escaping, made a magnificent entry into Alexandria. The whole
fleet, a compliment due only to royalty, met him in full array, and
the young Ptolemy showed wonderful kindness to him, appointing him
lodging and diet in the palace, where no foreign commander before
him had been received. Besides, he gave him gratuities and
presents, not such as were usually given to men of his condition,
but four times as much; of which, however, he took nothing more
than served his necessity, and accepted of no gift, though what was
worth eighty talents was offered him. It is reported he neither
went to see Memphis, nor any of the celebrated wonders of Egypt.
It was for a man of no business and much curiosity to see such
things, not for him who had left his commander in the field,
lodging under the ramparts of his enemies.
Ptolemy, fearing the issue of that war, deserted the confederacy,
but nevertheless sent a convoy with him as far as Cyprus, and at
parting, with much ceremony, wishing him a good voyage, gave him a
very precious emerald set in gold. Lucullus at first refused it,
but when the king showed him his own likeness cut upon it, he
thought he could not persist in a denial, for had he parted with
such open offense, it might have endangered his passage. Drawing a
considerable squadron together, which he summoned, as he sailed by,
out of all the maritime towns, except those suspected of piracy, he
sailed for Cyprus; and there understanding that the enemy lay in
wait under the promontories for him, he laid up his fleet, and sent
to the cities to send in provisions for his wintering among them.
But when time served, he launched his ships suddenly, and went off,
and hoisting all his sails in the night, while he kept them down in
the day, thus came safe to Rhodes. Being furnished with ships at
Rhodes, he also prevailed upon the inhabitants of Cos and Cnidus,
to leave the king's side, and join in an expedition against the
Samians. Out of Chios he himself drove the king's party, and set
the Colophonians at liberty, having seized Epigonus the tyrant, who
oppressed them.
About this time Mithridates left Pergamus, and retired to Pitane,
where being closely besieged by Fimbria on the land, and not daring
to engage with so bold and victorious a commander, he was
concerting means for escape by sea, and sent for all his fleets
from every quarter to attend him. Which when Fimbria perceived,
having no ships of his own, he sent to Lucullus, entreating him to
assist him with his, in subduing the most odious and warlike of
kings, lest the opportunity of humbling Mithridates, the prize
which the Romans had pursued with so much blood and trouble, should
now at last be lost, when he was within the net, and easily to be
taken. And were he caught, no one would be more highly commended
than Lucullus, who stopped his passage and seized him in his
flight. Being driven from the land by the one, and met in the sea
by the other, he would give matter of renown and glory to them
both, and the much applauded actions of Sylla at Orchomenus and
about Chaeronea, would no longer be thought of by the Romans. The
proposal was no unreasonable thing; it being obvious to all men,
that if Lucullus had hearkened to Fimbria, and with his navy, which
was then near at hand, had blocked up the haven, the war soon had
been brought to an end, and infinite numbers of mischiefs prevented
thereby. But he, whether from the sacredness of friendship between
himself and Sylla, reckoning all other considerations of public or
of private advantage inferior to it, or out of detestation of the
wickedness of Fimbria, whom he abhorred for advancing himself by
the late death of his friend and the general of the army, or by a
divine fortune sparing Mithridates then, that he might have him an
adversary for a time to come, for whatever reason, refused to
comply, and suffered Mithridates to escape and laugh at the
attempts of Fimbria. He himself alone first, near Lectum in Troas,
in a sea-fight, overcame the king's ships; and afterwards,
discovering Neoptolemus lying in wait for him near Tenedos, with a
greater fleet, he went aboard a Rhodian quinquereme galley,
commended by Damagoras, a man of great experience at sea, and
friendly to the Romans, and sailed before the rest. Neoptolemus
made up furiously at him, and commanded the master, with all
imaginable might, to charge; but Damagoras, fearing the bulk and
massy stem of the admiral, thought it dangerous to meet him prow to
prow, and, rapidly wheeling round, bid his men back water, and so
received him astern; in which place, though violently borne upon,
he received no manner of harm, the blow being defeated by falling
on those parts of the ship which lay under water. By which time,
the rest of the fleet coming up to him, Lucullus gave order to turn
again, and vigorously falling, upon the enemy, put them to flight,
and pursued Neoptolemus. After this he came to Sylla, in
Chersonesus, as he was preparing to pass the strait, and brought
timely assistance for the safe transportation of the army.
Peace being presently made, Mithridates sailed off to the Euxine
sea, but Sylla taxed the inhabitants of Asia twenty thousand
talents, and ordered Lucullus to gather and coin the money. And it
was no small comfort to the cities under Sylla's severity, that a
man of not only incorrupt and just behavior, but also of
moderation, should be employed in so heavy and odious an office.
The Mitylenaeans, who absolutely revolted, he was willing should
return to their duty, and submit to a moderate penalty for the
offense they had given in the case of Marius. But, finding them
bent upon their own destruction, he came up to them, defeated them
at sea, blocked them up in their city and besieged them; then
sailing off from them openly in the day to Elaea, he returned
privately, and posting an ambush near the city, lay quiet himself:
And on the Mitylenaeans coming out eagerly and in disorder to
plunder the deserted camp, he fell upon them, took many of them,
and slew five hundred, who stood upon their defense. He gained six
thousand slaves, and a very rich booty.
He was no way engaged in the great and general troubles of Italy
which Sylla and Marius created, a happy providence at that time
detaining him in Asia upon business. He was as much in Sylla's
favor, however, as any of his other friends; Sylla, as was said
before, dedicated his Memoirs to him as a token of kindness, and at
his death, passing by Pompey, made him guardian to his son; which
seems, indeed, to have been the rise of the quarrel and jealousy
between them two being both young men, and passionate for honor.
A little after Sylla's death, he was made consul with Marcus Cotta,
about the one hundred and seventy-sixth Olympiad. The Mithridatic
war being then under debate, Marcus declared that it was not
finished, but only respited for a time, and therefore, upon choice
of provinces, the lot falling to Lucullus to have Gaul within the
Alps, a province where no great action was to be done, he was
ill-pleased. But chiefly, the success of Pompey in Spain fretted
him, as, with the renown he got there, if the Spanish war were
finished in time, he was likely to be chosen general before anyone
else against Mithridates. So that when Pompey sent for money, and
signified by letter that, unless it were sent him, he would leave
the country and Sertorius, and bring his forces home to Italy,
Lucullus most zealously supported his request, to prevent any
pretence of his returning home during his own consulship; for all
things would have been at his disposal, at the head of so great an
army. For Cethegus, the most influential popular leader at that
time, owing to his always both acting and speaking to please the
people, had, as it happened, a hatred to Lucullus, who had not
concealed his disgust at his debauched, insolent, and lawless life.
Lucullus, therefore, was at open warfare with him. And Lucius
Quintius, also, another demagogue, who was taking steps against
Sylla's constitution, and endeavoring to put things out of order,
by private exhortations and public admonitions he checked in his
designs, and repressed his ambition, wisely and safely remedying a
great evil at the very outset.
At this time news came that Octavius, the governor of Cilicia, was
dead, and many were eager for the place, courting Cethegus, as the
man best able to serve them. Lucullus set little value upon
Cilicia itself, no otherwise than as he thought, by his acceptance
of it, no other man besides himself might be employed in the war
against Mithridates, by reason of its nearness to Cappadocia. This
made him strain every effort that that province might be allotted
to himself, and to none other; which led him at last into an
expedient not so honest or commendable, as it was serviceable for
compassing his design, submitting to necessity against his own
inclination. There was one Praecia, a celebrated wit and beauty,
but in other respects nothing better than an ordinary harlot; who,
however, to the charms of her person adding the reputation of one
that loved and served her friends, by making use of those who
visited her to assist their designs and promote their interests,
had thus gained great power. She had seduced Cethegus, the first
man at that time in reputation and authority of all the city, and
enticed him to her love, and so had made all authority follow her.
For nothing of moment was done in which Cethegus was not concerned,
and nothing by Cethegus without Praecia. This woman Lucullus
gained to his side by gifts and flattery, (and a great price it was
in itself to so stately and magnificent a dame, to be seen engaged
in the same cause with Lucullus,) and thus he presently found
Cethegus his friend, using his utmost interest to procure Cilicia
for him; which when once obtained, there was no more need of
applying himself either to Praecia, or Cethegus; for all
unanimously voted him to the Mithridatic war, by no hands likely to
be so successfully managed as his. Pompey was still contending
with Sertorius, and Metellus by age unfit for service; which two
alone were the competitors who could prefer any claim with Lucullus
for that command. Cotta, his colleague, after much ado in the
senate, was sent away with a fleet to guard the Propontis, and
defend Bithynia.
Lucullus carried with him a legion under his own orders, and
crossed over into Asia and took the command of the forces there,
composed of men who were all thoroughly disabled by dissoluteness
and rapine, and the Fimbrians, as they were called, utterly
unmanageable by long want of any sort of discipline. For these
were they who under Fimbria had slain Flaccus, the consul and
general, and afterwards betrayed Fimbria to Sylla; a willful and
lawless set of men, but warlike, expert, and hardy in the field.
Lucullus in a short time took down the courage of these, and
disciplined the others, who then first, in all probability, knew
what a true commander and governor was; whereas in former times
they had been courted to service, and took up arms at nobody's
command, but their own wills.
The enemy's provisions for war stood thus; Mithridates, like the
Sophists, boastful and haughty at first, set upon the Romans, with
a very inefficient army, such, indeed, as made a good show, but was
nothing for use. But being shamefully routed, and taught a lesson
for a second engagement, he reduced his forces to a proper,
serviceable shape. Dispensing with the mixed multitudes, and the
noisy menaces of barbarous tribes of various languages, and with
the ornaments of gold and precious stones, a greater temptation to
the victors than security to the bearers, he gave his men broad
swords like the Romans', and massy shields; chose horses better for
service than show, drew up an hundred and twenty thousand foot in
the figure of the Roman phalanx, and had sixteen thousand horse,
besides chariots armed with scythes, no less than a hundred.
Besides which, he set out a fleet not at all cumbered with gilded
cabins, luxurious baths and women's furniture, but stored with
weapons and darts, and other necessaries, and thus made a descent
upon Bithynia. Not only did these parts willingly receive him
again, but almost all Asia regarded him as their salvation from the
intolerable miseries which they were suffering from the Roman
money-lenders, and revenue farmers. These, afterwards, who like
harpies stole away their very nourishment, Lucullus drove away, and
at this time by reproving them, did what he could to make them more
moderate, and to prevent a general secession, then breaking out in
all parts. While Lucullus was detained in rectifying these
matters, Cotta, finding affairs ripe for action, prepared for
battle with Mithridates; and news coming from all hands that
Lucullus had already entered Phrygia, on his march against the
enemy, he, thinking he had a triumph all but actually in his hands,
lest his colleague should share in the glory of it, hasted to
battle without him. But being routed, both by sea and land, he
lost sixty ships with their men, and four thousand foot, and
himself was forced into and besieged in Chalcedon, there waiting
for relief from Lucullus. There were those about Lucullus who
would have had him leave Cotta and go forward, in hope of
surprising the defenseless kingdom of Mithridates. And this was
the feeling of the soldiers in general, who wore indignant that
Cotta should by his ill-counsel not only lose his own army, but
hinder them also from conquest, which at that time, without the
hazard of a battle, they might have obtained. But Lucullus, in a
public address, declared to them that he would rather save one
citizen from the enemy, than be master of all that they had.
Archelaus, the former commander in Boeotia under Mithridates, who
afterwards deserted him and accompanied the Romans, protested to
Lucullus that, upon his mere coming, he would possess himself of
all Pontus. But he answered, that it did not become him to be more
cowardly than huntsmen, to leave the wild beasts abroad, and seek
after sport in their deserted dens. Having so said, he made
towards Mithridates with thirty thousand foot, and two thousand
five hundred horse. But on being come in sight of his enemies, he
was astonished at their numbers, and thought to forbear fighting,
and wear out time. But Marius, whom Sertorius had sent out of
Spain to Mithridates with forces under him, stepping out and
challenging him, he prepared for battle. In the very instant
before joining battle, without any perceptible alteration
preceding, on a sudden the sky opened, and a large luminous body
fell down in the midst between the armies, in shape like a
hogshead, but in color like melted silver, insomuch that both
armies in alarm withdrew. This wonderful prodigy happened in
Phrygia, near Otryae. Lucullus after this began to think with
himself that no human power and wealth could suffice to sustain
such great numbers as Mithridates had, for any long time in the
face of an enemy, and commanded one of the captives to be brought
before him, and first of all asked him, how many companions had
been quartered with him, and how much provision he had left behind
him, and when he had answered him, commanded him to stand aside;
then asked a second and a third the same question; after which,
comparing the quantity of provision with the men, he found that in
three or four days' time, his enemies would be brought to want.
This all the more determined him to trust to time, and he took
measures to store his camp with all sorts of provision, and thus
living in plenty, trusted to watch the necessities of his hungry
enemy.
This made Mithridates set out against the Cyzicenians, miserably
shattered in the fight at Chalcedon, where they lost no less than
three thousand citizens and ten ships. And that he might the safer
steal away unobserved by Lucullus, immediately after supper, by the
help of a dark and wet night, he went off and by the morning gained
the neighborhood of the city, and sat down with his forces upon the
Adrastean mount. Lucullus, on finding him gone, pursued, but was
well pleased not to overtake him with his own forces in disorder;
and he sat down near what is called the Thracian village, an
admirable position for commanding all the roads and the places
whence, and through which the provisions for Mithridates's camp
must of necessity come. And judging now of the event, he no longer
kept his mind from his soldiers, but when the camp was fortified
and their work finished, called them together, and with great
assurance told them that in a few days, without the expense of
blood, he would give them victory.
Mithridates besieged the Cyzicenians with ten camps by land, and
with his ships occupied the strait that was betwixt their city and
the main land, and so blocked them up on all sides; they, however,
were fully prepared stoutly to receive him, and resolved to endure
the utmost extremity, rather than forsake the Romans. That which
troubled them most was, that they knew not where Lucullus was, and
heard nothing of him, though at that time his army was visible
before them. But they were imposed upon by the Mithridatians, who,
showing them the Romans encamped on the hills, said, "Do ye see
those? those are the auxiliary Armenians and Medes, whom Tigranes
has sent to Mithridates." They were thus overwhelmed with thinking
of the vast numbers round them, and could not believe any way of
relief was left them, even if Lucullus should come up to their
assistance. Demonax, a messenger sent in by Archelaus, was the
first who told them of Lucullus's arrival; but they disbelieved his
report, and thought he came with a story invented merely to
encourage them. At which time it happened that a boy, a prisoner
who had run away from the enemy, was brought before them; who,
being asked where Lucullus was, laughed at their jesting, as he
thought, but, finding them in earnest, with his finger pointed to
the Roman camp; upon which they took courage. The lake Dascylitis
was navigated with vessels of some little size; one, the biggest of
them, Lucullus drew ashore, and carrying her across in a wagon to
the sea, filled her with soldiers, who, sailing along unseen in the
dead of the night, came safe into the city.
The gods themselves, too, in admiration of the constancy of the
Cyzicenians, seem to have animated them with manifest signs, more
especially now in the festival of Proserpine, where a black heifer
being wanting for sacrifice, they supplied it by a figure made of
dough, which they set before the altar. But the holy heifer set
apart for the goddess, and at that time grazing with the other
herds of the Cyzicenians on the other side of the strait, left the
herd and swam over to the city alone, and offered herself for
sacrifice. By night, also, the goddess appearing to Aristagoras,
the town clerk, "I am come," said she, "and have brought the Libyan
piper against the Pontic trumpeter; bid the citizens, therefore, be
of good courage." While the Cyzicenians were wondering what the
words could mean, a sudden wind sprung up and caused a considerable
motion on the sea. The king's battering engines, the wonderful
contrivance of Niconides of Thessaly, then under the walls, by
their cracking and rattling, soon demonstrated what would follow;
after which an extraordinarily tempestuous south wind succeeding
shattered in a short space of time all the rest of the works, and
by a violent concussion, threw down the wooden tower a hundred
cubits high. It is said that in Ilium Minerva appeared to many
that night in their sleep, with the sweat running down her person,
and showed them her robe torn in one place, telling them that she
had just arrived from relieving the Cyzicenians; and the
inhabitants to this day show a monument with an inscription,
including a public decree, referring to the fact.
Mithridates, through the knavery of his officers, not knowing for
some time the want of provision in his camp, was troubled in mind
that the Cyzicenians should hold out against him. But his ambition
and anger fell, when he saw his soldiers in the extremity of want,
and feeding on man's flesh; as, in truth, Lucullus was not carrying
on the war as mere matter of show and stage-play, but according to
the proverb, made the seat of war in the belly, and did everything
to cut off their supplies of food. Mithridates, therefore, took
advantage of the time, while Lucullus was storming a fort, and sent
away almost all his horse to Bithynia, with the sumpter cattle, and
as many of the foot as were unfit for service. On intelligence of
which, Lucullus, while it was yet night, came to his camp, and in
the morning, though it was stormy weather, took with him ten
cohorts of foot, and the horse, and pursued them under falling snow
and in cold so severe that many of his soldiers were unable to
proceed; and with the rest coming upon the enemy, near the river
Rhyndacus, he overthrew them with so great a slaughter, that the
very women of Apollonia came out to seize on the booty and strip
the slain. Great numbers, as we may suppose, were slain; six
thousand horses were taken, with an infinite number of beasts of
burden, and no less than fifteen thousand men. All which he led
along by the enemy's camp. I cannot but wonder on this occasion at
Sallust, who says that this was the first time camels were seen by
the Romans, as if he thought those who, long before, under Scipio,
defeated Antiochus, or those who lately had fought against
Archelaus near Orchomenus and Chaeronea, had not known what a camel
was. Mithridates, himself fully determined upon flight, as mere
delays and diversions for Lucullus, sent his admiral Aristonicus to
the Greek sea; who, however, was betrayed in the very instant of
going off, and Lucullus became master of him, and ten thousand
pieces of gold which he was carrying with him to corrupt some of
the Roman army. After which, Mithridates himself made for the sea,
leaving the foot officers to conduct the army, upon whom Lucullus
fell, near the river Granicus, where he took a vast number alive,
and slew twenty thousand. It is reported that the total number
killed, of fighting men and of others who followed the camp,
amounted to something not far short of three hundred thousand.
Lucullus first went to Cyzicus, where he was received with all the
joy and gratitude suiting the occasion, and then collected a navy,
visiting the shores of the Hellespont. And arriving at Troas, he
lodged in the temple of Venus, where, in the night, he thought he
saw the goddess coming to him, and saying,
Sleep'st thou, great lion, when the fawns are nigh?
Rising up hereupon, he called his friends to him, it being yet
night, and told them his vision; at which instant some Ilians came
up and acquainted him that thirteen of the king's quinqueremes were
seen off the Achaean harbor, sailing for Lemnos. He at once put to
sea, took these, and slew their admiral Isidorus. And then he made
after another squadron, who were just come into port, and were
hauling their vessels ashore, but fought from the decks, and sorely
galled Lucullus's men; there being neither room to sail round
them, nor to bear upon them for any damage, his ships being afloat,
while theirs stood secure and fixed on the sand. After much ado,
at the only landing-place of the island, he disembarked the
choicest of his men, who, falling upon the enemy behind, killed
some, and forced others to cut their cables, and thus making from
the shore, they fell foul upon one another, or came within the
reach of Lucullus's fleet. Many were killed in the action. Among
the captives was Marius, the commander sent by Sertorius, who had
but one eye. And it was Lucullus's strict command to his men
before the engagement, that they should kill no man who had but one
eye, that he might rather die under disgrace and reproach.
This being over, he hastened his pursuit after Mithridates, whom he
hoped to find still in Bithynia, intercepted by Voconius, whom he
sent out before to Nicomedia with part of the fleet, to stop his
flight. But Voconius, loitering in Samothrace to get initiated and
celebrate a feast, let slip his opportunity, Mithridates being
passed by with all his fleet. He, hastening into Pontus before
Lucullus should come up to him, was caught in a storm, which
dispersed his fleet and sunk several ships. The wreck floated on
all the neighboring shore for many days after. The merchant ship,
in which he himself was, could not well in that heavy swell be
brought ashore by the masters for its bigness, and it being heavy
with water and ready to sink, he left it and went aboard a pirate
vessel, delivering himself into the hands of pirates, and thus
unexpectedly and wonderfully came safe to Heraclea, in Pontus.
Thus the proud language Lucullus had used to the senate, ended
without any mischance. For they having decreed him three thousand
talents to furnish out a navy, he himself was against it, and sent
them word that without any such great and costly supplies, by the
confederate shipping alone, he did not in the least doubt but to
rout Mithridates from the sea. And so he did, by divine
assistance, for it is said that the wrath of Diana of Priapus
brought the great tempest upon the men of Pontus, because they had
robbed her temple, and removed her image.
Many were persuading Lucullus to defer the war, but he rejected
their counsel, and marched through Bithynia and Galatia into the
king's country, in such great scarcity of provision at first, that
thirty thousand Galatians followed, every man carrying a bushel of
wheat at his back. But subduing all in his progress before him, he
at last found himself in such great plenty, that an ox was sold in
the camp for a single drachma, and a slave for four. The other
booty they made no account of, but left it behind or destroyed it;
there being no disposing of it, where all had such abundance. But
when they had made frequent incursions with their cavalry, and had
advanced as far Themiscyra, and the plains of the Thermodon, merely
laying waste the country before them, they began to find fault with
Lucullus, asking "why he took so many towns by surrender, and never
one by storm, which might enrich them with the plunder? and now,
forsooth, leaving Amisus behind, a rich and wealthy city, of easy
conquest, if closely besieged, he will carry us into the Tibarenian
and Chaldean wilderness, to fight with Mithridates." Lucullus,
little thinking this would be of such dangerous consequence as it
afterwards proved, took no notice and slighted it; and was rather
anxious to excuse himself to those who blamed his tardiness, in
losing time about small pitiful places not worth the while, and
allowing Mithridates opportunity to recruit. "That is what I
design," said he, "and sit here contriving by my delay, that he may
grow great again, and gather a considerable army, which may induce
him to stand, and not fly away before us. For do you not see the
wide and unknown wilderness behind? Caucasus is not far off, and a
multitude of vast mountains, enough to conceal ten thousand kings
that wished to avoid a battle. Besides this, a journey but of few
days leads from Cabira to Armenia, where Tigranes reigns, king of
kings, and holds in his hands a power that has enabled him to keep
the Parthians in narrow bounds, to remove Greek cities bodily into
Media, to conquer Syria and Palestine, to put to death the kings of
the royal line of Seleucus, and carry away their wives and
daughters by violence. This same is relation and son-in-law to
Mithridates, and cannot but receive him upon entreaty, and enter
into war with us to defend him; so that, while we endeavor to
depose Mithridates, we shall endanger the bringing in of Tigranes
against us, who already has sought occasion to fall out with us,
but can never find one so justifiable as the succor of a friend and
prince in his necessity. Why, therefore, should we put Mithridates
upon this resource, who as yet does not see now he may best fight
with us, and disdains to stoop to Tigranes; and not rather allow
him time to gather a new army and grow confident again, that we may
thus fight with Colchians, and Tibarenians, whom we have often
defeated already, and not with Medes and Armenians."
Upon these motives, Lucullus sat down before Amisus, and slowly
carried on the siege. But the winter being well spent, he left
Murena in charge of it, and went himself against Mithridates, then
rendezvousing at Cabira, and resolving to await the Romans, with
forty thousand foot about him, and fourteen thousand horse, on whom
he chiefly confided. Passing the river Lycus, he challenged the
Romans into the plains, where the cavalry engaged, and the Romans
were beaten. Pomponius, a man of some note, was taken wounded; and
sore, and in pain as he was, was carried before Mithridates, and
asked by the king, if he would become his friend, if he saved his
life. He answered, "yes, if you become reconciled to the Romans;
if not, your enemy." Mithridates wondered at him, and did him no
hurt. The enemy being with their cavalry master of the plains,
Lucullus was something afraid, and hesitated to enter the
mountains, being very large, woody, and almost inaccessible, when,
by good luck, some Greeks who had fled into a cave were taken, the
eldest of whom, Artemidorus by name, promised to bring Lucullus,
and seat him in a place of safety for his army, where there was a
fort that overlooked Cabira. Lucullus, believing him, lighted his
fires, and marched in the night; and safely passing the defile,
gained the place, and in the morning was seen above the enemy,
pitching his camp in a place advantageous to descend upon them if
he desired to fight, and secure from being forced, if he preferred
to lie still. Neither side was willing to engage at present. But
it is related that some of the king's party were hunting a stag,
and some Romans wanting to cut them off, came out and met them.
Whereupon they skirmished, more still drawing together to each
side, and at last the king's party prevailed, on which the Romans,
from their camp seeing their companions fly, were enraged, and ran
to Lucullus with entreaties to lead them out, demanding that the
sign might be given for battle. But he, that they might know of
what consequence the presence and appearance of a wise commander is
in time of conflict and danger, ordered them to stand still. But
he went down himself into the plains, and meeting with the foremost
that fled, commanded them to stand and turn back with him. These
obeying, the rest also turned and formed again in a body, and thus,
with no great difficulty, drove back the enemies, and pursued them
to their camp. After his return, Lucullus inflicted the customary
punishment upon the fugitives, and made them dig a trench of twelve
foot, working in their frocks unfastened, while the rest stood by
and looked on.
There was in Mithridates's camp, one Olthacus a chief of the
Dandarians, a barbarous people living near the lake Maeotis, a man
remarkable for strength and courage in fight, wise in council, and
pleasant and ingratiating in conversation. He, out of emulation,
and a constant eagerness which possessed him to outdo one of the
other chiefs of his country, promised a great piece of service to
Mithridates, no less than the death of Lucullus. The king
commended his resolution, and, according to agreement,
counterfeited anger, and put some disgrace upon him; whereupon he
took horse, and fled to Lucullus, who kindly received him, being a
man of great name in the army. After some short trial of his
sagacity and perseverance, he found way to Lucullus's board and
council. The Dandarian, thinking he had a fair opportunity,
commanded his servants to lead his horse out of the camp, while he
himself, as the soldiers were refreshing and resting themselves, it
being then high noon, went to the general's tent, not at all
expecting that entrance would be denied to one who was so familiar
with him, and came under pretence of extraordinary business with
him. He had certainly been admitted, had not sleep, which has
destroyed many captains, saved Lucullus. For so it was, and
Menedemus, one of the bedchamber, was standing at the door, who
told Olthacus that it was altogether unseasonable to see the
general, since, after long watching and hard labor, he was but just
before laid down to repose himself. Olthacus would not go away
upon this denial, but still persisted, saying that he must go in to
speak of some necessary affairs, whereupon Menedemus grew angry,
and replied that nothing was more necessary than the safety of
Lucullus, and forced him away with both hands. Upon which, out of
fear, he straightaway left the camp, took horse, and without effect
returned to Mithridates. Thus in action as in physic, it is the
critical moment that gives both the fortunate and the fatal effect.
After this, Sornatius being sent out with ten companies for forage,
and pursued by Menander, one of Mithridates's captains, stood his
ground, and after a sharp engagement, routed and slew a
considerable number of the enemy. Adrianus being sent afterward,
with some forces, to procure food enough and to spare for the camp,
Mithridates did not let the opportunity slip, but dispatched
Menemachus and Myro, with a great force, both horse and foot,
against him, all which except two men, it is stated, were cut off
by the Romans. Mithridates concealed the loss, giving it out that
it was a small defeat, nothing near so great as reported, and
occasioned by the unskillfulness of the leaders. But Adrianus in
great pomp passed by his camp, having many wagons full of corn and
other booty, filling Mithridates with distress, and the army with
confusion and consternation. It was resolved, therefore, to stay
no longer. But when the king's servants sent away their own goods
quietly, and hindered others from doing so too, the soldiers in
great fury thronged and crowded to the gates, seized on the king's
servants and killed them, and plundered the baggage. Dorylaus, the
general, in this confusion, having nothing else besides his purple
cloak, lost his life for that, and Hermaeus, the priest, was trod
underfoot in the gate.
Mithridates, having not one of his guards, nor even a groom
remaining with him, got out of the camp in the throng, but had none
of his horses with him; until Ptolemy, the eunuch, some little time
after, seeing him in the press making his way among the others,
dismounted and gave his horse to the king. The Romans were already
close upon him in their pursuit, nor was it through want of speed
that they failed to catch him, but they were as near as possible
doing so. But greediness and a petty military avarice hindered
them from acquiring that booty, which in so many fights and hazards
they had sought after, and lost Lucullus the prize of his victory.
For the horse which carried the king was within reach, but one of
the mules that carried the treasure either by accident stepping in,
or by order of the king so appointed to go between him and the
pursuers, they seized and pilfered the gold, and falling out among
themselves about the prey, let slip the great prize. Neither was
their greediness prejudicial to Lucullus in this only, but also
they slew Callistratus, the king's confidential attendant, under
suspicion of having five hundred pieces of gold in his girdle;
whereas Lucullus had specially ordered that he should be conveyed
safe into the camp. Notwithstanding all which, he gave them leave
to plunder the camp.
After this, in Cabira, and other strong-holds which he took, he
found great treasures, and private prisons, in which many Greeks
and many of the king's relations had been confined, who, having
long since counted themselves no other than dead men, by the favor
of Lucullus, met not with relief so truly as with a new life and
second birth. Nyssa, also, sister of Mithridates, enjoyed the like
fortunate captivity; while those who seemed to be most out of
danger, his wives and sisters at Phernacia, placed in safety, as
they thought, miserably perished, Mithridates in his flight sending
Bacchides the eunuch to them. Among others there were two sisters
of the king, Roxana and Statira, unmarried women forty years old,
and two Ionian wives, Berenice of Chios, and Monime of Miletus.
This latter was the most celebrated among the Greeks, because she
so long withstood the king in his courtship to her, though he
presented her with fifteen thousand pieces of gold, until a
covenant of marriage was made, and a crown was sent her, and she
was saluted queen. She had been a sorrowful woman before, and
often bewailed her beauty, that had procured her a keeper, instead
of a husband, and a watch of barbarians, instead of the home and
attendance of a wife; and, removed far from Greece, she enjoyed the
pleasure which she proposed to herself, only in a dream, being in
the meantime robbed of that which is real. And when Bacchides
came and bade them prepare for death, as everyone thought most
easy and painless, she took the diadem from her head, and fastening
the string to her neck, suspended herself with it; which soon
breaking, "O wretched headband!" said she, "not able to help me
even in this small thing!" And throwing it away she spat on it,
and offered her throat to Bacchides. Berenice had prepared a
potion for herself, but at her mother's entreaty, who stood by, she
gave her part of it. Both drank of the potion, which prevailed
over the weaker body. But Berenice, having drunk too little, was
not released by it, but lingering on unable to die, was strangled
by Bacchides for haste. It is said that one of the unmarried
sisters drank the poison, with bitter execrations and curses; but
Statira uttered nothing ungentle or reproachful, but, on the
contrary, commended her brother, who in his own danger neglected
not theirs, but carefully provided that they might go out of the
world without shame or disgrace.
Lucullus, being a good and humane man, was concerned at these
things. However, going on he came to Talaura, from whence four
days before his arrival Mithridates had fled, and was got to
Tigranes in Armenia. He turned off, therefore, and subdued the
Chaldeans and Tibarenians, with the lesser Armenia, and having
reduced all their forts and cities, he sent Appius to Tigranes to
demand Mithridates. He himself went to Amisus, which still held
out under the command of Callimachus, who, by his great engineering
skill, and his dexterity at all the shifts and subtleties of a
siege, had greatly incommoded the Romans. For which afterward he
paid dear enough, and was now out-maneuvered by Lucullus, who,
unexpectedly coming upon him at the time of the day when the
soldiers used to withdraw and rest themselves, gained part of the
wall, and forced him to leave the city, in doing which he fired it;
either envying the Romans the booty, or to secure his own escape
the better. No man looked after those who went off in the ships,
but as soon as the fire had seized on most part of the wall, the
soldiers prepared themselves for plunder; while Lucullus, pitying
the ruin of the city, brought assistance from without, and
encouraged his men to extinguish the flames. But all, being intent
upon the prey, and giving no heed to him, with loud outcries beat
and clashed their arms together, until he was compelled to let them
plunder, that by that means he might at least save the city from
fire. But they did quite the contrary, for in searching the houses
with lights and torches everywhere, they were themselves the cause
of the destruction of most of the buildings, insomuch that when
Lucullus the next day went in, he shed tears, and said to his
friends, that he had often before blessed the fortune of Sylla but
never so much admired it as then, because when he was willing, he
was also able to save Athens, "but my infelicity is such, that
while I endeavor to imitate him, I become like Mummius."
Nevertheless, he endeavored to save as much of the city as he
could, and at the same time, also, by a happy providence, a fall of
rain concurred to extinguish the fire. He himself while present
repaired the ruins as much as he could, receiving back the
inhabitants who had fled, and settling as many other Greeks as were
willing to live there, adding a hundred and twenty furlongs of
ground to the place.
This city was a colony of Athens, built at that time when she
flourished and was powerful at sea, upon which account many who
fled from Aristion's tyranny settled here, and were admitted as
citizens, but had the ill-luck to fly from evils at home, into
greater abroad. As many of these as survived, Lucullus furnished
every one with clothes, and two hundred drachmas, and sent them
away into their own country. On this occasion, Tyrannion the
grammarian was taken. Murena begged him of Lucullus, and took him
and made him a freedman; but in this he abused Lucullus's favor,
who by no means liked that a man of high repute for learning should
be first made a slave, and then freed; for freedom thus speciously
granted again, was a real deprivation of what he had before. But
not in this case alone Murena showed himself far inferior in
generosity to the general. Lucullus was now busy in looking after
the cities of Asia, and having no war to divert his time, spent it
in the administration of law and justice, the want of which had for
a long time left the province a prey to unspeakable and incredible
miseries; so plundered and enslaved by tax-farmers and usurers,
that private people were compelled to sell their sons in the flower
of their youth, and their daughters in their virginity, and the
States publicly to sell their consecrated gifts, pictures, and
statues. In the end their lot was to yield themselves up slaves to
their creditors, but before this, worse troubles befell them,
tortures, inflicted with ropes and by horses, standing abroad to be
scorched when the sun was hot, and being driven into ice and clay
in the cold; insomuch that slavery was no less than a redemption
and joy to them. Lucullus in a short time freed the cities from
all these evils and oppressions; for, first of all, he ordered
there should be no more taken than one percent. Secondly, where
the interest exceeded the principal, he struck it off. The third,
and most considerable order was, that the creditor should receive
the fourth part of the debtor's income; but if any lender had added
the interest to the principal, it was utterly disallowed.
Insomuch, that in the space of four years all debts were paid, and
lands returned to their right owners. The public debt was
contracted when Asia was fined twenty thousand talents by Sylla,
but twice as much was paid to the collectors, who by their usury
had by this time advanced it to a hundred and twenty thousand
talents. And accordingly they inveighed against Lucullus at Rome,
as grossly injured by him, and by their money's help, (as, indeed,
they were very powerful, and had many of the statesmen in their
debt,) they stirred up several leading men against
him. But Lucullus was not only beloved by the cities which he
obliged, but was also wished for by other provinces, who blessed
the good-luck of those who had such a governor over them.
Appius Clodius, who was sent to Tigranes, (the same Clodius was
brother to Lucullus's wife,) being led by the king's guides, a
roundabout way, unnecessarily long and tedious, through the upper
country, being informed by his freedman, a Syrian by nation, of the
direct road, left that lengthy and fallacious one; and bidding the
barbarians, his guides, adieu, in a few days passed over Euphrates,
and came to Antioch upon Daphne. There being commanded to wait for
Tigranes, who at that time was reducing some towns in Phoenicia, he
won over many chiefs to his side, who unwillingly submitted to the
king of Armenia, among whom was Zarbienus, king of the Gordyenians;
also many of the conquered cities corresponded privately with him,
whom he assured of relief from Lucullus, but ordered them to lie
still at present. The Armenian government was an oppressive one,
and intolerable to the Greeks, especially that of the present king,
who, growing insolent and overbearing with his success, imagined
all things valuable and esteemed among men not only were his in
fact, but had been purposely created for him alone. From a small
and inconsiderable beginning, he had gone on to be the conqueror of
many nations, had humbled the Parthian power more than any before
him, and filled Mesopotamia with Greeks, whom he carried in numbers
out of Cilicia and Cappadocia. He transplanted also the Arabs, who
lived in tents, from their country and home, and settled them near
him, that by their means he might carry on the trade.
He had many kings waiting on him, but four he always carried with
him as servants and guards, who, when he rode, ran by his horse's
side in ordinary under-frocks, and attended him, when sitting on
his throne, and publishing his decrees to the people, with their
hands folded together; which posture of all others was that which
most expressed slavery, it being that of men who had bidden adieu
to liberty, and had prepared their bodies more for chastisement,
than the service of their masters. Appius, nothing dismayed or
surprised at this theatrical display, as soon as audience was
granted him, said he came to demand Mithridates for Lucullus's
triumph, otherwise to denounce war against Tigranes, insomuch that
though Tigranes endeavored to receive him with a smooth countenance
and a forced smile, he could not dissemble his discomposure to
those who stood about him, at the bold language of the young man;
for it was the first time, perhaps, in twenty-five years, the
length of his reign, or, more truly, of his tyranny, that any free
speech had been uttered to him. However, he made answer to Appius,
that he would not desert Mithridates, and would defend himself, if
the Romans attacked him. He was angry, also, with Lucullus for
calling him only king in his letter, and not king of kings, and, in
his answer, would not give him his title of imperator. Great gifts
were sent to Appius, which he refused; but on their being sent
again and augmented, that he might not seem to refuse in anger, he
took one goblet and sent the rest back, and without delay went off
to the general.
Tigranes before this neither vouchsafed to see nor speak with
Mithridates, though a near kinsman, and forced out of so
considerable a kingdom, but proudly and scornfully kept him at a
distance, as a sort of prisoner, in a marshy and unhealthy
district; but now, with much profession of respect and kindness, he
sent for him, and at a private conference between them in the
palace, they healed up all private jealousies between them,
punishing their favorites, who bore all the blame; among whom
Metrodorus of Scepsis was one, an eloquent and learned man, and so
close an intimate as commonly to be called the king's father. This
man, as it happened, being employed in an embassy by Mithridates to
solicit help against the Romans, Tigranes asked him, "what would
you, Metrodorus, advise me to in this affair?" In return to which,
either out of good-will to Tigranes, or a want of solicitude for
Mithridates, he made answer, that as ambassador he counseled him to
it, but as a friend dissuaded him from it. This Tigranes reported,
and affirmed to Mithridates, thinking that no irreparable harm
would come of it to Metrodorus. But upon this he was presently
taken off, and Tigranes was sorry for what he had done, though he
had not, indeed, been absolutely the cause of his death; yet he had
given the fatal turn to the anger of Mithridates, who had privately
hated him before, as appeared from his cabinet papers when taken,
among which there was an order that Metrodorus should die.
Tigranes buried him splendidly, sparing no cost to his dead body,
whom he betrayed when alive. In Tigranes's court died, also,
Amphicrates the orator, (if, for the sake of Athens, we may also
mention him,) of whom it is told that he left his country and fled
to Seleucia, upon the river Tigris, and, being desired to teach
logic among them, arrogantly replied, that the dish was too little
to hold a dolphin. He, therefore, came to Cleopatra, daughter of
Mithridates, and queen to Tigranes, but being accused of
misdemeanors, and prohibited all commerce with his countrymen,
ended his days by starving himself. He, in like manner, received
from Cleopatra an honorable burial, near Sapha, a place so called
in that country.
Lucullus, when he had reestablished law and a lasting peace in
Asia, did not altogether forget pleasure and mirth, but, during his
residence at Ephesus, gratified the cities with sports, festival
triumphs, wrestling games and single combats of gladiators. And
they, in requital, instituted others, called Lucullean games, in
honor to him, thus manifesting their love to him, which was of more
value to him than all the honor. But when Appius came to him, and
told him he must prepare for war with Tigranes, he went again into
Pontus, and, gathering together his army, besieged Sinope, or
rather the Cilicians of the king's side who held it; who thereupon
killed a number of the Sinopians, and set the city on fire, and by
night endeavored to escape. Which when Lucullus perceived, he
entered the city, and killed eight thousand of them who were still
left behind; but restored to the inhabitants what was their own,
and took special care for the welfare of the city. To which he was
chiefly prompted by this vision. One seemed to come to him in his
sleep, and say, "Go on a little further, Lucullus, for Autolycus is
coming to see thee." When he arose, he could not imagine what the
vision meant. The same day he took the city, and as he was
pursuing the Cilicians, who were flying by sea, he saw a statue
lying on the shore, which the Cilicians carried so far, but had not
time to carry aboard. It was one of the masterpieces of Sthenis.
And one told him, that it was the statue of Autolycus, the founder
of the city. This Autolycus is reported to have been son to
Deimachus, and one of those who, under Hercules, went on the
expedition out of Thessaly against the Amazons; from whence in his
return with Demoleon and Phlogius, he lost his vessel on a point of
the Chersonesus, called Pedalium. He himself, with his companions
and their weapons, being saved, came to Sinope, and dispossessed
the Syrians there. The Syrians held it, descended from Syrus, as
is the story, the son of Apollo, and Sinope the daughter of Asopus.
Which as soon as Lucullus heard, he remembered the admonition of
Sylla, whose advice it is in his Memoirs, to treat nothing as so
certain and so worthy of reliance as an intimation given in dreams.
When it was now told him that Mithridates and Tigranes were just
ready to transport their forces into Lycaonia and Cilicia, with the
object of entering Asia before him, he wondered much why the
Armenian, supposing him to entertain any real intention to fight
with the Romans, did not assist Mithridates in his flourishing
condition, and join forces when he was fit for service, instead of
suffering him to be vanquished and broken in pieces, and now at
last beginning the war, when his hopes were grown cold, and
throwing himself down headlong with them, who were irrecoverably
fallen already. But when Machares, the son of Mithridates, and
governor of Bosporus, sent him a crown valued at a thousand pieces
of gold, and desired to be enrolled as a friend and confederate of
the Romans, he fairly reputed that war at an end, and left
Sornatius, his deputy, with six thousand soldiers, to take care of
Pontus. He himself with twelve thousand foot, and a little less
than three thousand horse, went forth to the second war, advancing,
it seemed very plain, with too great and ill-advised speed, into
the midst of warlike nations, and many thousands upon thousands of
horse, into an unknown extent of country, every way enclosed with
deep rivers and mountains, never free from snow; which made the
soldiers, already far from orderly, follow him with great
unwillingness and opposition. For the same reason, also, the
popular leaders at home publicly inveighed and declaimed against
him, as one that raised up war after war, not so much for the
interest of the republic, as that he himself, being still in
commission, might not lay down arms, but go on enriching himself by
the public dangers. These men, in the end, effected their purpose.
But Lucullus by long journeys came to the Euphrates, where, finding
the waters high and rough from the winter, he was much troubled for
fear of delay and difficulty while he should procure boats and make
a bridge of them. But in the evening the flood beginning to
retire, and decreasing all through the night, the next day they saw
the river far down within his banks, so much so that the
inhabitants, discovering the little islands in the river, and the
water stagnating among them, a thing which had rarely happened
before, made obeisance to Lucullus, before whom the very river was
humble and submissive, and yielded an easy and swift passage.
Making use of the opportunity, he carried over his army, and met
with a lucky sign at landing. Holy heifers are pastured on purpose
for Diana Persia, whom, of all the gods, the barbarians beyond
Euphrates chiefly adore. They use these heifers only for her
sacrifices. At other times they wander up and down undisturbed,
with the mark of the goddess, a torch, branded on them; and it is
no such light or easy thing, when occasion requires, to seize one
of them. But one of these, when the army had passed the Euphrates,
coming to a rock consecrated to the goddess, stood upon it, and
then laying down her neck, like others that are forced down with a
rope, offered herself to Lucullus for sacrifice. Besides which, he
offered also a bull to Euphrates, for his safe passage. That day
he tarried there, but on the next, and those that followed, he
traveled through Sophene, using no manner of violence to the people
who came to him and willingly received his army. And when the
soldiers were desirous to plunder a castle that seemed to be well
stored within, "That is the castle," said he, "that we must storm,"
showing them Taurus, at a distance; "the rest is reserved for those
who conquer there." Wherefore hastening his march, and passing the
Tigris, he came over into Armenia
The first messenger that gave notice of Lucullus's coming was so
far from pleasing Tigranes, that he had his head cut off for his
pains; and no man daring to bring further information, without any
intelligence at all, Tigranes sat while war was already blazing
around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him, by saying
that Lucullus would show himself a great commander, if he ventured
to wait for Tigranes at Ephesus, and did not at once fly out of
Asia, at the mere sight of the many thousands that were come
against him. He is a man of a strong body that can carry off a
great quantity of wine, and of a powerful constitution of mind that
can sustain felicity. Mithrobarzanes, one of his chief favorites,
first dared to tell him the truth, but had no more thanks for his
freedom of speech, than to be immediately sent out against Lucullus
with three thousand horse, and a great number of foot, with
peremptory commands to bring him alive, and trample down his army.
Some of Lucullus's men were then pitching their camp, and the rest
were coming up to them, when the scouts gave notice that the enemy
was approaching, whereupon he was in fear lest they should fall
upon him, while his men were divided and unarranged; which made him
stay to pitch the camp himself, and send out Sextilius, the legate,
with sixteen hundred horse, and about as many heavy and light arms,
with orders to advance towards the enemy, and wait until
intelligence came to him that the camp was finished. Sextilius
designed to have kept this order; but Mithrobarzanes coming
furiously upon him, he was forced to fight. In the engagement,
Mithrobarzanes himself was slain, fighting, and all his men, except
a few who ran away, were destroyed. After this Tigranes left
Tigranocerta, a great city built by himself, and retired to Taurus,
and called all his forces about him.
But Lucullus, giving him no time to rendezvous, sent out Murena to
harass and cut off those who marched to Tigranes, and Sextilius,
also, to disperse a great company of Arabians then on the way to
the king. Sextilius fell upon the Arabians in their camp, and
destroyed most of them, and also Murena, in his pursuit after
Tigranes through a craggy and narrow pass, opportunely fell upon
him. Upon which Tigranes, abandoning all his baggage, fled; many
of the Armenians were killed, and more taken. After this success,
Lucullus went to Tigranocerta, and sitting down before the city,
besieged it. In it were many Greeks carried away out of Cilicia,
and many barbarians in like circumstances with the Greeks,
Adiabenians, Assyrians, Gordyenians, and Cappadocians, whose native
cities he had destroyed, and forced away the inhabitants to settle
here. It was a rich and beautiful city; every common man, and
every man of rank, in imitation of the king, studied to enlarge and
adorn it. This made Lucullus more vigorously press the siege, in
the belief that Tigranes would not patiently endure it, but even
against his own judgment would come down in anger to force him
away; in which he was not mistaken. Mithridates earnestly
dissuaded him from it, sending messengers and letters to him not to
engage, but rather with his horse to try and cut off the supplies.
Taxiles, also, who came from Mithridates, and who stayed with his
army, very much entreated the king to forbear, and to avoid the
Roman arms, things it was not safe to meddle with. To this he
hearkened at first, but when the Armenians and Gordyenians in a
full body, and the whole forces of Medes and Adiabenians, under
their respective kings, joined him; when many Arabians came up from
the sea beyond Babylon; and from the Caspian sea, the Albanians and
the Iberians their neighbors, and not a few of the free people,
without kings, living about the Araxes, by entreaty and hire also
came together to him; and all the king's feasts and councils rang
of nothing but expectations, boastings, and barbaric threatenings,
Taxiles went in danger of his life, for giving counsel against
fighting, and it was imputed to envy in Mithridates thus to
discourage him from so glorious an enterprise. Therefore Tigranes
would by no means tarry for him, for fear he should share in the
glory, but marched on with all his army, lamenting to his friends,
as it is said, that he should fight with Lucullus alone, and not
with all the Roman generals together. Neither was his boldness to
be accounted wholly frantic or unreasonable, when he had so many
nations and kings attending him, and so many tens of thousands of
well-armed foot and horse about him. He had twenty thousand
archers and slingers, fifty-five thousand horse, of which seventeen
thousand were in complete armor, as Lucullus wrote to the senate, a
hundred and fifty thousand heavy-armed men, drawn up partly into
cohorts, partly into phalanxes, besides various divisions of men
appointed to make roads and lay bridges, to drain off waters and
cut wood, and to perform other necessary services, to the number of
thirty-five thousand, who, being quartered behind the army, added
to its strength, and made it the more formidable to behold.
As soon as he had passed Taurus, and appeared with his forces, and
saw the Romans beleaguering Tigranocerta, the barbarous people
within with shoutings and acclamations received the sight, and
threatening the Romans from the wall, pointed to the Armenians. In
a council of war, some advised Lucullus to leave the siege, and
march up to Tigranes, others that it would not be safe to leave the
siege, and so many enemies behind. He answered that neither side
by itself was right, but together both gave sound advice; and
accordingly he divided his army, and left Murena with six thousand
foot in charge of the siege, and himself went out with twenty-four
cohorts, in which were no more than ten thousand men at arms, and
with all the horse, and about a thousand slingers and archers; and
sitting down by the river in a large plain, he appeared, indeed,
very inconsiderable to Tigranes, and a fit subject for the
flattering wits about him. Some of whom jeered, others cast lots
for the spoil, and every one of the kings and commanders came and
desired to undertake the engagement alone, and that he would be
pleased to sit still and behold. Tigranes himself, wishing to be
witty and pleasant upon the occasion, made use of the well-known
saying, that they were too many for ambassadors, and too few for
soldiers. Thus they continued sneering and scoffing. As soon as
day came, Lucullus brought out his forces under arms. The
barbarian army stood on the eastern side of the river, and there
being a bend of the river westward in that part of it, where it was
easiest forded, Lucullus, while he led his army on in haste, seemed
to Tigranes to be flying; who thereupon called Taxiles, and in
derision said, "Do you not see these invincible Romans flying?"
But Taxiles replied, "Would, indeed, O king, that some such
unlikely piece of fortune might be destined you; but the Romans do
not, when going on a march, put on their best clothes, nor use
bright shields, and naked headpieces, as now you see them, with the
leathern coverings all taken off, but this is a preparation for war
of men just ready to engage with their enemies." While Taxiles was
thus speaking, as Lucullus wheeled about, the first eagle appeared,
and the cohorts, according to their divisions and companies, formed
in order to pass over, when with much ado, and like a man that is
just recovering from a drunken fit, Tigranes cried out twice or
thrice, "What, are they upon us?" In great confusion, therefore,
the army got in array, the king keeping the main body to himself,
while the left wing was given in charge to the Adiabenian, and the
right to the Mede, in the front of which latter were posted most of
the heavy-armed cavalry. Some officers advised Lucullus, just as
he was going to cross the river, to lie still, that day being one
of the unfortunate ones which they call black days, for on it the
army under Caepio, engaging with the Cimbrians, was destroyed. But
he returned the famous answer, "I will make it a happy day to the
Romans." It was the day before the nones of October.
Having so said, he bade them take courage, passed over the river,
and himself first of all led them against the enemy, clad in a coat
of mail, with shining steel scales and a fringed mantle; and his
sword might already be seen out of the scabbard, as if to signify
that they must without delay come to a hand-to-hand combat with an
enemy whose skill was in distant fighting, and by the speed of
their advance curtail the space that exposed them to the archery.
But when he saw the heavy-armed horse, the flower of the army,
drawn up under a hill, on the top of which was a broad and open
plain about four furlongs distant, and of no very difficult or
troublesome access, he commanded his Thracian and Galatian horse to
fall upon their flank, and beat down their lances with their
swords. The only defense of these horsemen-at-arms are their
lances; they have nothing else that they can use to protect
themselves, or annoy their enemy, on account of the weight and
stiffness of their armor, with which they are, as it were, built
up. He himself, with two cohorts, made to the mountain, the
soldiers briskly following, when they saw him in arms afoot first
toiling and climbing up. Being on the top and standing in an open
place, with a loud voice he cried out, "We have overcome, we have
overcome, fellow-soldiers!" And having so said, he marched against
the armed horsemen, commanding his men not to throw their javelins,
but coming up hand to hand with the enemy, to hack their shins and
thighs, which parts alone were unguarded in these heavy-armed
horsemen. But there was no need of this way of fighting, for they
stood not to receive the Romans, but with great clamor and worse
flight they and their heavy horses threw themselves upon the ranks
of the foot, before ever these could so much as begin the fight,
insomuch that without a wound or bloodshed, so many thousands were
overthrown. The greatest slaughter was made in the flight, or
rather in the endeavoring to fly away, which they could not well do
by reason of the depth and closeness of their own ranks, which
hindered them. Tigranes at first fled with a few, but seeing his
son in the same misfortune, he took the diadem from his head, and
with tears gave it him, bidding him save himself by some other road
if he could. But the young man, not daring to put it on, gave it
to one of his trustiest servants to keep for him. This man, as it
happened, being taken, was brought to Lucullus, and so, among the
captives, the crown, also, of Tigranes was taken. It is stated
that above a hundred thousand foot were lost, and that of the horse
but very few escaped at all. Of the Romans, a hundred were
wounded, and five killed. Antiochus the philosopher, making
mention of this fight in his book about the gods, says that the sun
never saw the like. Strabo, a second philosopher, in his
historical collection says, that the Romans could not but blush and
deride themselves, for putting on armor against such pitiful
slaves. Livy also says, that the Romans never fought an enemy with
such unequal forces, for the conquerors were not so much as one
twentieth part of the number of the conquered. The most sagacious
and experienced Roman commanders made it a chief commendation of
Lucullus, that he had conquered two great and potent kings by two
most opposite ways, haste and delay. For he wore out the
flourishing power of Mithridates by delay and time, and crushed
that of Tigranes by haste; being one of the rare examples of
generals who made use of delay for active achievement, and speed
for security.
On this account it was that Mithridates had made no haste to come
up to fight, imagining Lucullus would, as he had done before, use
caution and delay, which made him march at his leisure to join
Tigranes. And first, as he began to meet some straggling Armenians
in the way, making off in great fear and consternation, he
suspected the worst, and when greater numbers of stripped and
wounded men met him and assured him of the defeat, he set out to
seek for Tigranes. And finding him destitute and humiliated, he by
no means requited him with insolence, but alighting from his horse,
and condoling with him on their common loss, he gave him his own
royal guard to attend him, and animated him for the future. And
they together gathered fresh forces about them. In the city
Tigranocerta, the Greeks meantime, dividing from the barbarians,
sought to deliver it up to Lucullus, and he attacked and took it.
He seized on the treasure himself, but gave the city to be
plundered by the soldiers, in which were found, amongst other
property, eight thousand talents of coined money. Besides this,
also, he distributed eight hundred drachmas to each man, out of the
spoils. When he understood that many players were taken in the
city, whom Tigranes had invited from all parts for opening the
theater which he had built, he made use of them for celebrating his
triumphal games and spectacles. The Greeks he sent home, allowing
them money for their journey, and the barbarians also, as many as
had been forced away from their own dwellings. So that by this one
city being dissolved, many, by the restitution of their former
inhabitants, were restored. By all of which Lucullus was beloved
as a benefactor and founder. Other successes, also, attended him,
such as he well deserved, desirous as he was far more of praise for
acts of justice and clemency, than for feats in war, these being
due partly to the soldiers, and very greatly to fortune, while
those are the sure proofs of a gentle and liberal soul; and by such
aids Lucullus, at that time, even without the help of arms,
succeeded in reducing the barbarians. For the kings of the
Arabians came to him, tendering what they had, and with them the
Sophenians also submitted. And he so dealt with the Gordyenians,
that they were willing to leave their own habitations, and to
follow him with their wives and children. Which was for this
cause. Zarbienus, king of the Gordyenians, as has been told, being
impatient under the tyranny of Tigranes, had by Appius secretly
made overtures of confederacy with Lucullus, but, being discovered,
was executed, and his wife and children with him, before the Romans
entered Armenia. Lucullus forgot not this, but coming to the
Gordyenians made a solemn interment in honor of Zarbienus, and
adorning the funeral pile with royal robes, and gold, and the
spoils of Tigranes, he himself in person kindled the fire, and
poured in perfumes with the friends and relations of the deceased,
calling him his companion and the confederate of the Romans. He
ordered, also, a costly monument to be built for him. There was a
large treasure of gold and silver found in Zarbienus's palace, and
no less than three million measures of corn, so that the soldiers
were provided for, and Lucullus had the high commendation of
maintaining the war at its own charge, without receiving one
drachma from the public treasury.
After this came an embassy from the king of Parthia to him,
desiring amity and confederacy; which being readily embraced by
Lucullus, another was sent by him in return to the Parthian, the
members of which discovered him to be a double-minded man, and to
be dealing privately at the same time with Tigranes, offering to
take part with him, upon condition Mesopotamia were delivered up to
him. Which as soon as Lucullus understood, he resolved to pass by
Tigranes and Mithridates as antagonists already overcome, and to
try the power of Parthia, by leading his army against them,
thinking it would be a glorious result, thus in one current of war,
like an athlete in the games, to throw down three kings one after
another, and successively to deal as a conqueror with three of the
greatest powers under heaven. He sent, therefore, into Pontus to
Sornatius and his colleagues, bidding them bring the army thence,
and join with him in his expedition out of Gordyene. The soldiers
there, however, who had been restive and unruly before, now openly
displayed their mutinous temper. No manner of entreaty or force
availed with them, but they protested and cried out that they would
stay no longer even there, but would go away and desert Pontus.
The news of which, when reported to Lucullus, did no small harm to
the soldiers about him, who were already corrupted with wealth and
plenty, and desirous of ease. And on hearing the boldness of the
others, they called them men, and declared they themselves ought to
follow their example, for the actions which they had done did now
well deserve release from service, and repose.
Upon these and worse words, Lucullus gave up the thoughts of
invading Parthia, and in the height of summertime, went against
Tigranes. Passing over Taurus, he was filled with apprehension at
the greenness of the fields before him, so long is the season
deferred in this region by the coldness of the air. But,
nevertheless, he went down, and twice or thrice putting to flight
the Armenians who dared to come out against him, he plundered and
burnt their villages, and seizing on the provision designed for
Tigranes, reduced his enemies to the necessity which he had feared
for himself. But when, after doing all he could to provoke the
enemy to fight, by drawing entrenchments round their camp and by
burning the country before them, he could by no means bring them to
venture out, after their frequent defeats before, he rose up and
marched to Artaxata, the royal city of Tigranes, where his wives
and young children were kept, judging that Tigranes would never
suffer that to go without the hazard of a battle. It is related
that Hannibal, the Carthaginian, after the defeat of Antiochus by
the Romans, coming to Artaxas, king of Armenia, pointed out to him
many other matters to his advantage, and observing the great
natural capacities and the pleasantness of the site, then lying
unoccupied and neglected, drew a model of a city for it, and
bringing Artaxas thither, showed it to him and encouraged him to
build. At which the king being pleased, and desiring him to
oversee the work, erected a large and stately city, which was
called after his own name, and made metropolis of Armenia.
And in fact, when Lucullus proceeded against it, Tigranes no longer
suffered it, but came with his army, and on the fourth day sat down
by the Romans, the river Arsanias lying between them, which of
necessity Lucullus must pass in his march to Artaxata. Lucullus,
after sacrifice to the gods, as if victory were already obtained,
carried over his army, having twelve cohorts in the first division
in front, the rest being disposed in the rear to prevent the
enemy's enclosing them. For there were many choice horse drawn up
against him; in the front stood the Mardian horse-archers, and
Iberians with long spears, in whom, being the most warlike,
Tigranes more confided than in any other of his foreign troops.
But nothing of moment was done by them, for though they skirmished
with the Roman horse at a distance, they were not able to stand
when the foot came up to them; but being broken, and flying on both
sides, drew the horse in pursuit after them. Though these were
routed, yet Lucullus was not without alarm when he saw the cavalry
about Tigranes with great bravery and in large numbers coming upon
him; he recalled his horse from pursuing, and he himself, first of
all, with the best of his men, engaged the Satrapenians who were
opposite him, and before ever they came to close fight, routed them
with the mere terror. Of three kings in battle against him,
Mithridates of Pontus fled away the most shamefully, being not so
much as able to endure the shout of the Romans. The pursuit
reached a long way, and all through the night the Romans slew and
took prisoners, and carried off spoils and treasure, till they were
weary. Livy says there were more taken and destroyed in the first
battle, but in the second, men of greater distinction.
Lucullus, flushed and animated by this victory, determined to march
on into the interior and there complete his conquests over the
barbarians; but winter weather came on, contrary to expectation, as
early as the autumnal equinox, with storms and frequent snows and,
even in the most clear days, hoar frost and ice, which made the
waters scarcely drinkable for the horses by their exceeding
coldness, and scarcely passable through the ice breaking and
cutting the horses' sinews. The country for the most part being
quite uncleared, with difficult passes, and much wood, kept them
continually wet, the snow falling thickly on them as they marched
in the day, and the ground that they lay upon at night being damp
and watery. After the battle they followed Lucullus not many days
before they began to be refractory, first of all entreating and
sending the tribunes to him, but presently they tumultuously
gathered together, and made a shouting all night long in their
tents, a plain sign of a mutinous army. But Lucullus as earnestly
entreated them, desiring them to have patience but till they took
the Armenian Carthage, and overturned the work of their great
enemy, meaning Hannibal. But when he could not prevail, he led
them back, and crossing Taurus by another road, came into the
fruitful and sunny country of Mygdonia, where was a great and
populous city, by the barbarians called Nisibis, by the Greeks
Antioch of Mygdonia. This was defended by Guras, brother of
Tigranes, with the dignity of governor, and by the engineering
skill and dexterity of Callimachus, the same who so much annoyed
the Romans at Amisus. Lucullus, however, brought his army up to
it, and laying close siege in a short time took it by storm. He
used Guras, who surrendered himself, kindly, but gave no attention
to Callimachus, though he offered to make discovery of hidden
treasures, commanding him to be kept in chains, to be punished for
firing the city of Amisus, which had disappointed his ambition of
showing favor and kindness to the Greeks.
Hitherto, one would imagine fortune had attended and fought with
Lucullus, but afterward, as if the wind had failed of a sudden, he
did all things by force, and, as it were, against the grain; and
showed certainly the conduct and patience of a wise captain, but in
the result met with no fresh honor or reputation; and, indeed, by
bad success and vain embarrassments with his soldiers, he came
within a little of losing even what he had before. He himself was
not the least cause of all this, being far from inclined to seek
popularity with the mass of the soldiers, and more ready to think
any indulgence shown to them an invasion of his own authority. But
what was worst of all, he was naturally unsociable to his great
officers in commission with him, despising others and thinking them
worthy of nothing in comparison with himself. These faults, we are
told, he had with all his many excellences; he was of a large and
noble person, an eloquent speaker and a wise counselor, both in the
forum and the camp. Sallust says, the soldiers were ill affected
to him from the beginning of the war, because they were forced to
keep the field two winters at Cyzicus, and afterwards at Amisus.
Their other winters, also, vexed them, for they either spent them
in an enemy's country, or else were confined to their tents in the
open field among their confederates; for Lucullus not so much as
once went into a Greek confederate town with his army. To this ill
affection abroad, the tribunes yet more contributed at home,
invidiously accusing Lucullus, as one who for empire and riches
prolonged the war, holding, it might almost be said, under his sole
power Cilicia, Asia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Pontus, Armenia, all as
far as the river Phasis; and now of late had plundered the royal
city of Tigranes, as if he had been commissioned not so much to
subdue, as to strip kings. This is what we are told was said by
Lucius Quintius, one of the praetors, at whose instance, in
particular, the people determined to send one who should succeed
Lucullus in his province, and voted, also, to relieve many of the
soldiers under him from further service.
Besides these evils, that which most of all prejudiced Lucullus,
was Publius Clodius, an insolent man, very vicious and bold,
brother to Lucullus's wife, a woman of bad conduct, with whom
Clodius was himself suspected of criminal intercourse. Being then
in the army under Lucullus, but not in as great authority as he
expected, (for he would fain have been the chief of all, but on
account of his character was postponed to many,) he ingratiated
himself secretly with the Fimbrian troops, and stirred them up
against Lucullus, using fair speeches to them, who of old had been
used to be flattered in such manner. These were those whom Fimbria
before had persuaded to kill the consul Flaccus, and choose him
their leader. And so they listened not unwillingly to Clodius, and
called him the soldiers' friend, for the concern he professed for
them, and the indignation he expressed at the prospect that "there
must be no end of war and toils, but in fighting with all nations,
and wandering throughout all the world they must wear out their
lives, receiving no other reward for their service than to guard
the carriages and camels of Lucullus, laden with gold and precious
goblets; while as for Pompey's soldiers, they were all citizens,
living safe at home with their wives and children, on fertile
lands, or in towns, and that, not after driving Mithridates and
Tigranes into wild deserts, and overturning the royal cities of
Asia, but after having merely reduced exiles in Spain, or fugitive
slaves in Italy. Nay, if indeed we must never have an end of
fighting, should we not rather reserve the remainder of our bodies
and souls for a general who will reckon his chiefest glory to be
the wealth of his soldiers."
By such practices the army of Lucullus being corrupted, neither
followed him against Tigranes, nor against Mithridates, when he now
at once returned into Pontus out of Armenia, and was recovering his
kingdom, but under presence of the winter, sat idle in Gordyene,
every minute expecting either Pompey, or some other general, to
succeed Lucullus. But when news came that Mithridates had defeated
Fabius, and was marching against Sornatius and Triarius, out of
shame they followed Lucullus. Triarius, ambitiously aiming at
victory, before ever Lucullus came to him, though he was then very
near, was defeated in a great battle, in which it is said that
above seven thousand Romans fell, among whom were a hundred and
fifty centurions, and four and twenty tribunes, and that the camp
itself was taken. Lucullus, coming up a few days after, concealed
Triarius from the search of the angry soldiers. But when
Mithridates declined battle, and waited for the coming of Tigranes,
who was then on his march with great forces, he resolved before
they joined their forces to turn once more and engage with
Tigranes. But in the way the mutinous Fimbrians deserted their
ranks, professing themselves released from service by a decree, and
that Lucullus, the provinces being allotted to others, had no
longer any right to command them. There was nothing beneath the
dignity of Lucullus which he did not now submit to bear, entreating
them one by one, from tent to tent, going up and down humbly and in
tears, and even taking some like a suppliant, by the hand. But
they turned away from his salutes, and threw down their empty
purses, bidding him engage alone with the enemy, as he alone made
advantage of it. At length, by the entreaty of the other soldiers,
the Fimbrians, being prevailed upon, consented to tarry that summer
under him, but if during that time no enemy came to fight them, to
be free. Lucullus of necessity was forced to comply with this, or
else to abandon the country to the barbarians. He kept them,
indeed, with him, but without urging his authority upon them; nor
did he lead them out to battle, being contented if they would but
stay with him, though he then saw Cappadocia wasted by Tigranes,
and Mithridates again triumphing, whom not long before he reported
to the senate to be wholly subdued; and commissioners were now
arrived to settle the affairs of Pontus, as if all had been quietly
in his possession. But when they came, they found him not so much
as master of himself, but contemned and derided by the common
soldiers, who arrived at that height of insolence against their
general, that at the end of summer they put on their armor and drew
their swords, and defied their enemies then absent and gone off a
long while before, and with great outcries and waving their swords
in the air, they quitted the camp, proclaiming that the time was
expired which they promised to stay with Lucullus. The rest were
summoned by letters from Pompey to come and join him; he, by the
favor of the people and by flattery of their leaders, having been
chosen general of the army against Mithridates and Tigranes, though
the senate and the nobility all thought that Lucullus was injured,
having those put over his head who succeeded rather to his triumph,
than to his commission, and that he was not so truly deprived of
his command, as of the glory he had deserved in his command, which
he was forced to yield to another.
It was yet more of just matter of pity and indignation to those who
were present; for Lucullus remained no longer master of rewards or
punishments for any actions done in the war; neither would Pompey
suffer any man to go to him, or pay any respect to the orders and
arrangements he made with advice of his ten commissioners, but
expressly issued edicts to the contrary, and could not but be
obeyed by reason of his greater power. Friends, however, on both
sides, thought it desirable to bring them together, and they met in
a village of Galatia and saluted each other in a friendly manner,
with congratulations on each other's successes. Lucullus was the
elder, but Pompey the more distinguished by his more numerous
commands and his two triumphs. Both had rods dressed with laurel
carried before them for their victories. And as Pompey's laurels
were withered with passing through hot and droughty countries,
Lucullus's lictors courteously gave Pompey's some of the fresh and
green ones which they had, which Pompey's friends counted a good
omen, as indeed of a truth, Lucullus's actions furnished the honors
of Pompey's command. The interview, however, did not bring them to
any amicable agreement; they parted even less friends than they
met. Pompey repealed all the acts of Lucullus, drew off his
soldiers, and left him no more than sixteen hundred for his
triumph, and even those unwilling to go with him. So wanting was
Lucullus, either through natural constitution or adverse
circumstances, in that one first and most important requisite of a
general, which had he but added to his other many and remarkable
virtues, his fortitude, vigilance, wisdom, justice, the Roman
empire had not had Euphrates for its boundary, but the utmost ends
of Asia and the Hyrcanian sea; as other nations were then disabled
by the late conquests of Tigranes, and the power of Parthia had not
in Lucullus's time shown itself so formidable as Crassus afterwards
found it, nor had as yet gained that consistency, being crippled by
wars at home, and on its frontiers, and unable even to make head
against the encroachments of the Armenians. And Lucullus, as it
was, seems to me through others' agency to have done Rome greater
harm, than he did her advantage by his own. For the trophies in
Armenia, near the Parthian frontier, and Tigranocerta, and Nisibis,
and the great wealth brought from thence to Rome, with the captive
crown of Tigranes carried in triumph, all helped to puff up
Crassus, as if the barbarians had been nothing else but spoil and
booty, and he, falling among the Parthian archers, soon
demonstrated that Lucullus's triumphs were not beholden to the
inadvertency and effeminacy of his enemies, but to his own courage
and conduct. But of this afterwards.
Lucullus, upon his return to Rome, found his brother Marcus accused
by Caius Memmius, for his acts as quaestor, done by Sylla's orders;
and on his acquittal, Memmius changed the scene, and animated the
people against Lucullus himself, urging them to deny him a triumph
for appropriating the spoils and prolonging the war. In this great
struggle, the nobility and chief men went down and mingling in
person among the tribes, with much entreaty and labor, scarce at
length prevailed upon them to consent to his triumph. The pomp of
which proved not so wonderful or so wearisome with the length of
the procession and the number of things carried in it, but
consisted chiefly in vast quantities of arms and machines of the
king's, with which he adorned the Flaminian circus, a spectacle by
no means despicable. In his progress there passed by a few
horsemen in heavy armor, ten chariots armed with scythes, sixty
friends and officers of the king's, and a hundred and ten
brazen-beaked ships of war, which were conveyed along with them, a
golden image of Mithridates six feet high, a shield set with
precious stones, twenty loads of silver vessels, and thirty-two of
golden cups, armor, and money, all carried by men. Besides which,
eight mules were laden with golden couches, fifty-six with bullion,
and a hundred and seven with coined silver, little less than two
millions seven hundred thousand pieces. There were tablets, also,
with inscriptions, stating what moneys he gave Pompey for
prosecuting the piratic war, what he delivered into the treasury,
and what he gave to every soldier, which was nine hundred and fifty
drachmas each. After all which he nobly feasted the city and
adjoining villages, or vici.
Being divorced from Clodia, a dissolute and wicked woman, he
married Servilia, sister to Cato. This also proved an unfortunate
match, for she only wanted one of all Clodia's vices, the
criminality she was accused of with her brothers. Out of reverence
to Cato, he for a while connived at her impurity and immodesty, but
at length dismissed her. When the senate expected great things
from him, hoping to find in him a check to the usurpations of
Pompey, and that with the greatness of his station and credit he
would come forward as the champion of the nobility, he retired from
business and abandoned public life; either because he saw the State
to be in a difficult and diseased condition, or, as others say,
because he was as great as he could well be, and inclined to a
quiet and easy life, after those many labors and toils which had
ended with him so far from fortunately. There are those who highly
commend his change of life, saying that he thus avoided that rock
on which Marius split. For he, after the great and glorious deeds
of his Cimbrian victories, was not contented to retire upon his
honors, but out of an insatiable desire of glory and power, even in
his old age, headed a political party against young men, and let
himself fall into miserable actions, and yet more miserable
sufferings. Better, in like manner, they say, had it been for
Cicero, after Catiline's conspiracy, to have retired and grown old,
and for Scipio, after his Numantine and Carthaginian conquests, to
have sat down contented. For the administration of public affairs
has, like other things, its proper term, and statesmen as well as
wrestlers will break down, when strength and youth fail. But
Crassus and Pompey, on the other hand, laughed to see Lucullus
abandoning himself to pleasure and expense, as if luxurious living
were not a thing that as little became his years, as government of
affairs at home, or of an army abroad.
And, indeed, Lucullus's life, like the Old Comedy, presents us at
the commencement with acts of policy and of war, at the end
offering nothing but good eating and drinking, feastings and
revellings, and mere play. For I give no higher name to his
sumptuous buildings, porticoes and baths, still less to his
paintings and sculptures, and all his industry about these
curiosities, which he collected with vast expense, lavishly
bestowing all the wealth and treasure which he got in the war upon
them, insomuch that even now, with all the advance of luxury, the
Lucullean gardens are counted the noblest the emperor has. Tubero
the stoic, when he saw his buildings at Naples, where he suspended
the hills upon vast tunnels, brought in the sea for moats and
fish-ponds round his house, and built pleasure-houses in the
waters, called him Xerxes in a gown. He had also fine seats in
Tusculum, belvederes, and large open balconies for men's
apartments, and porticoes to walk in, where Pompey coming to see
him, blamed him for making a house which would be pleasant in
summer but uninhabitable in winter; whom he answered with a smile,
"You think me, then, less provident than cranes and storks, not to
change my home with the season." When a praetor, with great
expense and pains, was preparing a spectacle for the people, and
asked him to lend him some purple robes for the performers in a
chorus, he told him he would go home and see, and if he had got
any, would let him have them; and the next day asking how many he
wanted, and being told that a hundred would suffice, bade him to
take twice as many: on which the poet Horace observes, that a
house is but a poor one, where the valuables unseen and unthought
of do not exceed all those that meet the eye.
Lucullus's daily entertainments were ostentatiously extravagant,
not only with purple coverlets, and plate adorned with precious
stones, and dancings, and interludes, but with the greatest
diversity of dishes and the most elaborate cookery, for the vulgar
to admire and envy. It was a happy thought of Pompey in his
sickness, when his physician prescribed a thrush for his dinner,
and his servants told him that in summer time thrushes were not to
be found anywhere but in Lucullus's fattening coops, that he would
not suffer them to fetch one thence, but observing to his
physician, "So if Lucullus had not been an epicure, Pompey had not
lived," ordered something else that could easily be got to be
prepared for him. Cato was his friend and connection, but,
nevertheless, so hated his life and habits, that when a young man
in the senate made a long and tedious speech in praise of frugality
and temperance, Cato got up and said, "How long do you mean to go
on making money like Crassus, living like Lucullus, and talking
like Cato?" There are some, however, who say the words were said,
but not by Cato.
It is plain from the anecdotes on record of him, that Lucullus was
not only pleased with, but even gloried in his way of living. For
he is said to have feasted several Greeks upon their coming to Rome
day after day, who, out of a true Grecian principle, being ashamed,
and declining the invitation, where so great an expense was every
day incurred for them, he with a smile told them, "Some of this,
indeed, my Grecian friends, is for your sakes, but more for that of
Lucullus." Once when he supped alone, there being only one course,
and that but moderately furnished, he called his steward and
reproved him, who, professing to have supposed that there would be
no need of any great entertainment, when nobody was invited, was
answered, "What, did not you know, then, that to-day Lucullus dines
with Lucullus?" Which being much spoken of about the city, Cicero
and Pompey one day met him loitering in the forum, the former his
intimate friend and familiar, and, though there had been some
ill-will between Pompey and him about the command in the war, still
they used to see each other and converse on easy terms together.
Cicero accordingly saluted him, and asked him whether to-day were a
good time for asking a favor of him, and on his answering, "Very
much so," and begging to hear what it was, "Then," said Cicero, "we
should like to dine with you today, just on the dinner that is
prepared for yourself." Lucullus being surprised, and requesting a
day's time, they refused to grant it, neither suffered him to talk
with his servants, for fear he should give order for more than was
appointed before. But thus much they consented to, that before
their faces he might tell his servant, that to-day he would sup in
the Apollo, (for so one of his best dining-rooms was called,) and
by this evasion he outwitted his guests. For every room, as it
seems, had its own assessment of expenditure, dinner at such a
price, and all else in accordance; so that the servants, on knowing
where he would dine, knew also how much was to be expended, and in
what style and form dinner was to be served. The expense for the
Apollo was fifty thousand drachmas, and thus much being that day
laid out, the greatness of the cost did not so much amaze Pompey
and Cicero, as the rapidity of the outlay. One might believe
Lucullus thought his money really captive and barbarian, so
wantonly and contumeliously did he treat it.
His furnishing a library, however, deserves praise and record, for
he collected very many and choice manuscripts; and the use they
were put to was even more magnificent than the purchase, the
library being always open, and the walks and reading-rooms about it
free to all Greeks, whose delight it was to leave their other
occupations and hasten thither as to the habitation of the Muses,
there walking about, and diverting one another. He himself often
passed his hours there, disputing with the learned in the walks,
and giving his advice to statesmen who required it, insomuch
that his house was altogether a home, and in a manner a Greek
prytaneum for those that visited Rome. He was fond of all sorts of
philosophy, and was well-read and expert in them all. But he
always from the first specially favored and valued the Academy; not
the New one which at that time under Philo flourished with the
precepts of Carneades, but the Old one, then sustained and
represented by Antiochus of Ascalon, a learned and eloquent man.
Lucullus with great labor made him his friend and companion, and
set him up against Philo's auditors, among whom Cicero was one, who
wrote an admirable treatise in defense of his sect, in which he
puts the argument in favor of comprehension in the mouth of
Lucullus, and the opposite argument in his own. The book is called
Lucullus. For as has been said, they were great friends, and took
the same side in politics. For Lucullus did not wholly retire from
the republic, but only from ambition, and from the dangerous and
often lawless struggle for political preeminence, which he left to
Crassus and Cato, whom the senators, jealous of Pompey's greatness,
put forward as their champions, when Lucullus refused to head them.
For his friends' sake he came into the forum and into the senate,
when occasion offered to humble the ambition and pride of Pompey,
whose settlement, after his conquests over the kings, he got
canceled, and by the assistance of Cato, hindered a division of
lands to his soldiers, which he proposed. So Pompey went over to
Crassus and Caesar's alliance, or rather conspiracy, and filling
the city with armed men, procured the ratification of his decrees
by force, and drove Cato and Lucullus out of the forum. Which
being resented by the nobility, Pompey's party produced one
Vettius, pretending they apprehended him in a design against
Pompey's life. Who in the senate-house accused others, but before
the people named Lucullus, as if he had been suborned by him to
kill Pompey. Nobody gave heed to what he said, and it soon
appeared that they had put him forward to make false charges and
accusations. And after a few days the whole intrigue became yet
more obvious, when the dead body of Vettius was thrown out of the
prison, he being reported, indeed, to have died a natural death,
but carrying marks of a halter and blows about him, and seeming
rather to have been taken off by those who suborned him. These
things kept Lucullus at a greater distance from the republic.
But when Cicero was banished the city, and Cato sent to Cyprus, he
quitted public affairs altogether. It is said, too, that before
his death, his intellects failed him by degrees. But Cornelius
Nepos denies that either age or sickness impaired his mind, which
was rather affected by a potion, given him by Callisthenes his
freedman. The potion was meant by Callisthenes to strengthen his
affection for him, and was supposed to have that tendency but it
acted quite otherwise, and so disabled and unsettled his mind, that
while he was yet alive, his brother took charge of his affairs. At
his death, as though it had been the death of one taken off in the
very height of military and civil glory, the people were much
concerned, and flocked together, and would have forcibly taken his
corpse, as it was carried into the market-place by young men of the
highest rank, and have buried it in the field of Mars, where they
buried Sylla. Which being altogether unexpected, and necessaries
not easily to be procured on a sudden, his brother, after much
entreaty and solicitation, prevailed upon them to suffer him to be
buried on his Tusculan estate as had been appointed. He himself
survived him but a short time, coming not far behind in death, as
he did in age and renown, in all respects, a most loving brother.
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
One might bless the end of Lucullus, which was so timed as to let
him die before the great revolution, which fate by intestine wars,
was already effecting against the established government, and to
close his life in a free though troubled commonwealth. And in
this, above all other things, Cimon and he are alike. For he died
also when Greece was as yet undisordered, in its highest felicity;
though in the field at the head of his army, not recalled, nor out
of his mind, nor sullying the glory of his wars, engagements, and
conquests, by making feastings and debauches seem the apparent end
and aim of them all; as Plato says scornfully of Orpheus, that he
makes an eternal debauch hereafter, the reward of those who lived
well here. Indeed, ease and quiet, and the study of pleasant and
speculative learning, to an old man retiring from command and
office, is a most suitable and becoming solace; but to misguide
virtuous actions to pleasure as their utmost end, and, as the
conclusion of campaigns and commands, to keep the feast of Venus,
did not become the noble Academy, and the follower of Xenocrates,
but rather one that inclined to Epicurus. And this its one
surprising point of contrast between them; Cimon's youth was ill-
reputed and intemperate Lucullus's well disciplined and sober.
Undoubtedly we must give the preference to the change for good,
for it argues the better nature, where vice declines and virtue
grows. Both had great wealth, but employed it in different ways;
and there is no comparison between the south wall of the acropolis
built by Cimon, and the chambers and galleries, with their sea-
views, built at Naples by Lucullus, out of the spoils of the
barbarians. Neither can we compare Cimon's popular and liberal
table with the sumptuous oriental one of Lucullus, the former
receiving a great many guests every day at small cost, the latter
expensively spread for a few men of pleasure, unless you will say
that different times made the alteration. For who can tell but
that Cimon, if he had retired in his old age from business and war
to quiet and solitude, might have lived a more luxurious and self-
indulgent life, as he was fond of wine and company, and accused,
as has been said, of laxity with women? The better pleasures
gained in successful action and effort leave the baser appetites
no time or place, and make active and heroic men forget them. Had
but Lucullus ended his days in the field, and in command, envy and
detraction itself could never have accused him. So much for their
manner of life.
In war, it is plain they were both soldiers of excellent conduct,
both at land and sea. But as in the games they honor those
champions who on the same day gain the garland, both in wrestling
and in the pancratium, with the name of "Victors and more," so
Cimon, honoring Greece with a sea and land victory on the same
day, may claim a certain preeminence among commanders. Lucullus
received command from his country, whereas Cimon brought it to
his. He annexed the territories of enemies to her, who ruled over
confederates before, but Cimon made his country, which when he
began was a mere follower of others, both rule over confederates,
and conquer enemies too, forcing the Persians to relinquish the
sea, and inducing the Lacedaemonians to surrender their command.
If it be the chiefest thing in a general to obtain the obedience of
his soldiers by good-will, Lucullus was despised by his own army,
but Cimon highly prized even by others. His soldiers deserted the
one, the confederates came over to the other. Lucullus came home
without the forces which he led out; Cimon, sent out at first to
serve as one confederate among others, returned home with
authority even over these also, having successfully effected for
his city three most difficult services, establishing peace with
the enemy, dominion over confederates, and concord with
Lacedaemon. Both aiming to destroy great kingdoms, and subdue all
Asia, failed in their enterprise, Cimon by a simple piece of ill-
fortune, for he died when general, in the height of success; but
Lucullus no man can wholly acquit of being in fault with his
soldiers, whether it were he did not know, or would not comply
with the distastes and complaints of his army, which brought him
at last into such extreme unpopularity among them. But did not
Cimon also suffer like him in this? For the citizens arraigned
him, and did not leave off till they had banished him, that, as
Plato says, they might not hear him for the space of ten years.
For high and noble minds seldom please the vulgar, or are
acceptable to them; for the force they use to straighten their
distorted actions gives the same pain as surgeons' bandages do in
bringing dislocated bones to their natural position. Both of
them, perhaps, come off pretty much with an equal acquittal on
this count.
Lucullus very much outwent him in war being the first Roman who
carried an army over Taurus, passed the Tigris, took and burnt the
royal palaces of Asia in the sight of the kings, Tigranocerta,
Cabira, Sinope, and Nisibis, seizing and overwhelming the northern
parts as far as the Phasis, the east as far as Media, and making
the South and Red Sea his own through the kings of the Arabians.
He shattered the power of the kings, and narrowly missed their
persons, while like wild beasts they fled away into deserts and
thick and impassable woods. In demonstration of this superiority,
we see that the Persians, as if no great harm had befallen them
under Cimon, soon after appeared in arms against the Greeks, and
overcame and destroyed their numerous forces in Egypt. But after
Lucullus, Tigranes and Mithridates were able to do nothing; the
latter, being disabled and broken in the former wars, never dared
to show his army to Pompey outside the camp, but fled away to
Bosporus, and there died. Tigranes threw himself, naked and
unarmed, down before Pompey, and taking his crown from his head,
laid it at his feet, complimenting Pompey with what was not his
own, but, in real truth, the conquest already effected by
Lucullus. And when he received the ensigns of majesty again, he
was well pleased, evidently because he had forfeited them before.
And the commander, as the wrestler, is to be accounted to have
done most who leaves an adversary almost conquered for his
successor. Cimon, moreover, when he took the command, found the
power of the king broken, and the spirits of the Persians humbled
by their great defeats and incessant routs under Themistocles,
Pausanias, and Leotychides, and thus easily overcame the bodies of
men whose souls were quelled and defeated beforehand. But
Tigranes had never yet in many combats been beaten, and was flushed
with success when he engaged with Lucullus. There is no comparison
between the numbers, which came against Lucullus, and those
subdued by Cimon. All which things being rightly considered, it
is a hard matter to give judgment. For supernatural favor also
appears to have attended both of them, directing the one what to
do, the other what to avoid, and thus they have, both of them, so
to say, the vote of the gods, to declare them noble and divine
characters.
NICIAS
Crassus, in my opinion, may most properly be set against Nicias,
and the Parthian disaster compared with that in Sicily. But here
it will be well for me to entreat the reader, in all courtesy, not
to think that I contend with Thucydides in matters so pathetically,
vividly, and eloquently, beyond all imitation, and even beyond
himself, expressed by him; nor to believe me guilty of the like
folly with Timaeus, who, hoping in his history to surpass
Thucydides in art, and to make Philistus appear a trifler and a
novice, pushes on in his descriptions, through all the battles,
sea-fights, and public speeches, in recording which they have been
most successful, without meriting so much as to be compared in
Pindar's phrase, to
One that on his feet
Would with the Lydian cars compete.
He simply shows himself all along a half-lettered, childish writer;
in the words of Diphilus,
-- of wit obese,
O'erlarded with Sicilian grease.
Often he sinks to the very level of Xenarchus, telling us that he
thinks it ominous to the Athenians that their
general, who had victory in his name, was unwilling to take
command in the expedition; and that the defacing of the Hermae was
a divine intimation that they should suffer much in the war by
Hermocrates, the son of Hermon; and, moreover, how it was likely
that Hercules should aid the Syracusans for the sake of Proserpine,
by whose means he took Cerberus, and should be angry with the
Athenians for protecting the Egesteans, descended from Trojan
ancestors, whose city he, for an injury of their king Laomedon, had
overthrown. However, all these may be merely other instances of
the same happy taste that makes him correct the diction of
Philistus, and abuse Plato and Aristotle. This sort of contention
and rivalry with others in matter of style, to my mind, in any
case, seems petty and pedantic, but when its objects are works of
inimitable excellence, it is absolutely senseless. Such actions in
Nicias's life as Thucydides and Philistus have related, since they
cannot be passed by, illustrating as they do most especially his
character and temper, under his many and great troubles, that I may
not seem altogether negligent, I shall briefly run over. And such
things as are not commonly known, and lie scattered here and there
in other men's writings, or are found amongst the old monuments and
archives, I shall endeavor to bring together; not collecting mere
useless pieces of learning, but adducing what may make his
disposition and habit of mind understood.
First of all, I would mention what Aristotle has said of Nicias,
that there had been three good citizens, eminent above the rest for
their hereditary affection and love to the people, Nicias the son
of Niceratus, Thucydides the son of Melesias, and Theramenes the
son of Hagnon, but the last less than the others; for he had his
dubious extraction cast in his teeth, as a foreigner from Ceos, and
his inconstancy, which made him side sometimes with one party,
sometimes with another in public life, and which obtained him the
nickname of the Buskin.
Thucydides came earlier, and, on the behalf of the nobility, was a
great opponent of the measures by which Pericles courted the favor
of the people.
Nicias was a younger man, yet was in some reputation even whilst
Pericles lived; so much so as to have been his colleague in the
office of general, and to have held command by himself more than
once. But on the death of Pericles, he presently rose to the
highest place, chiefly by the favor of the rich and eminent
citizens, who set him up for their bulwark against the presumption
and insolence of Cleon; nevertheless, he did not forfeit the
good-will of the commonalty, who, likewise, contributed to his
advancement. For though Cleon got great influence by his exertions
-- to please
The old men, who trusted him to find them fees.
Yet even those, for whose interest, and to gain whose favor he
acted, nevertheless observing the avarice, the arrogance, and the
presumption of the man, many of them supported Nicias. For his was
not that sort of gravity which is harsh and offensive, but he
tempered it with a certain caution and deference, winning upon the
people, by seeming afraid of them. And being naturally diffident
and unhopeful in war, his good fortune supplied his want of
courage, and kept it from being detected, as in all his commands he
was constantly successful. And his timorousness in civil life, and
his extreme dread of accusers, was thought very suitable in a
citizen of a free State; and from the people's good-will towards
him, got him no small power over them, they being fearful of all
that despised them, but willing to promote one who seemed to be
afraid of them; the greatest compliment their betters could pay
them being not to contemn them.
Pericles, who by solid virtue and the pure force of argument ruled
the commonwealth, had stood in need of no disguises nor persuasions
with the people. Nicias, inferior in these respects, used his
riches, of which he had abundance, to gain popularity. Neither had
he the nimble wit of Cleon, to win the Athenians to his purposes by
amusing them with bold jests; unprovided with such qualities, he
courted them with dramatic exhibitions, gymnastic games, and other
public shows, more sumptuous and more splendid than had been ever
known in his, or in former ages. Amongst his religious offerings,
there was extant, even in our days, the small figure of Minerva in
the citadel, having lost the gold that covered it; and a shrine in
the temple of Bacchus, under the tripods, that were presented by
those who won the prize in the shows of plays. For at these he had
often carried off the prize, and never once failed. We are told
that on one of these occasions, a slave of his appeared in the
character of Bacchus, of a beautiful person and noble stature, and
with as yet no beard upon his chin; and on the Athenians being
pleased with the sight, and applauding a long time, Nicias stood
up, and said he could not in piety keep as a slave, one whose
person had been consecrated to represent a god. And forthwith he
set the young man free. His performances at Delos are, also, on
record, as noble and magnificent works of devotion. For whereas
the choruses which the cities sent to sing hymns to the god were
wont to arrive in no order, as it might happen, and, being there
met by a crowd of people crying out to them to sing, in their hurry
to begin, used to disembark confusedly, putting on their garlands,
and changing their dresses as they left the ships, he, when he had
to convoy the sacred company, disembarked the chorus at Rhenea,
together with the sacrifice, and other holy appurtenances. And
having brought along with him from Athens a bridge fitted by
measurement for the purpose, and magnificently adorned with gilding
and coloring, and with garlands and tapestries; this he laid in the
night over the channel betwixt Rhenea and Delos, being no great
distance. And at break of day he marched forth with all the
procession to the god, and led the chorus, sumptuously ornamented,
and singing their hymns, along over the bridge. The sacrifices,
the games, and the feast being over, he set up a palm-tree of brass
for a present to the god, and bought a parcel of land with ten
thousand drachmas which he consecrated; with the revenue the
inhabitants of Delos were to sacrifice and to feast, and to pray
the gods for many good things to Nicias. This he engraved on a
pillar, which he left in Delos to be a record of his bequest. This
same palm-tree, afterwards broken down by the wind, fell on the
great statue which the men of Naxos presented, and struck it to the
ground.
It is plain that much of this might be vainglory, and the mere
desire of popularity and applause; yet from other qualities and
carriage of the man, one might believe all this cost and public
display to be the effect of devotion. For he was one of those who
dreaded the divine powers extremely, and, as Thucydides tells us,
was much given to arts of divination. In one of Pasiphon's
dialogues, it is stated that he daily sacrificed to the gods, and
keeping a diviner at his house, professed to be consulting always
about the commonwealth, but for the most part, inquired about his
own private affairs, more especially concerning his silver mines;
for he owned many works at Laurium, of great value, but somewhat
hazardous to carry on. He maintained there a multitude of slaves,
and his wealth consisted chiefly in silver. Hence he had many
hangers-on about him, begging and obtaining. For he gave to those
who could do him mischief, no less than to those who deserved well.
In short, his timidity was a revenue to rogues, and his humanity to
honest men. We find testimony in the comic writers, as when
Teleclides, speaking of one of the professed informers, says: --
Charicles gave the man a pound, the matter not to name,
That from inside a money-bag into the world he came;
And Nicias, also, paid him four; I know the reason well,
But Nicias is a worthy man, and so I will not tell.
So, also, the informer whom Eupolis introduces in his Maricas,
attacking a good, simple, poor man: --
How long ago did you and Nicias meet?
I did but see him just now in the street.
The man has seen him and denies it not,
'Tis evident that they are in a plot.
See you, O citizens! 'tis fact,
Nicias is taken in the act.
Taken, Fools! take so good a man
In aught that's wrong none will or can.
Cleon, in Aristophanes, makes it one of his threats: --
I'll outscream all the speakers, and make Nicias stand aghast!
Phrynichus also implies his want of spirit, and his easiness to be
intimidated in the verses,
A noble man he was, I well can say,
Nor walked like Nicias, cowering on his way.
So cautious was he of informers, and so reserved, that he never
would dine out with any citizen, nor allowed himself to indulge in
talk and conversation with his friends, nor gave himself any
leisure for such amusements; but when he was general he used to
stay at the office till night, and was the first that came to the
council-house, and the last that left it. And if no public
business engaged him, it was very hard to have access, or to speak
with him, he being retired at home and locked up. And when any
came to the door, some friend of his gave them good words, and
begged them to excuse him, Nicias was very busy; as if affairs of
State and public duties still kept him occupied. He who
principally acted this part for him, and contributed most to this
state and show, was Hiero, a man educated in Nicias's family, and
instructed by him in letters and music. He professed to be the son
of Dionysius, surnamed Chalcus, whose poems are yet extant, and had
led out the colony to Italy, and founded Thurii. This Hiero
transacted all his secrets for Nicias with the dinners; and gave
out to the people, what a toilsome and miserable life he led, for
the sake of the commonwealth. "He," said Hiero, "can never be
either at the bath, or at his meat, but some public business
interferes. Careless of his own, and zealous for the public good,
he scarcely ever goes to bed till after others have had their first
sleep. So that his health is impaired, and his body out of order,
nor is he cheerful or affable with his friends, but loses them as
well as his money in the service of the State, while other men gain
friends by public speaking, enrich themselves, fare delicately, and
make government their amusement." And in fact this was Nicias's
manner of life, so that he well might apply to himself the words of
Agamemnon: --
Vain pomp's the ruler of the life we live,
And a slave's service to the crowd we give.
He observed that the people, in the case of men of eloquence, or of
eminent parts, made use of their talents upon occasion, but were
always jealous of their abilities, and held a watchful eye upon
them, taking all opportunities to humble their pride and abate
their reputation; as was manifest in their condemnation of
Pericles, their banishment of Damon, their distrust of Antiphon the
Rhamnusian, but especially in the case of Paches who took Lesbos,
who, having to give an account of his conduct, in the very court of
justice unsheathed his sword and slew himself. Upon such
considerations, Nicias declined all difficult and lengthy
enterprises; if he took a command, he was for doing what was safe;
and if, as thus was likely, he had for the most part success, he
did not attribute it to any wisdom, conduct, or courage of his own,
but, to avoid envy, he thanked fortune for all, and gave the glory
to the divine powers. And the actions themselves bore testimony in
his favor; the city met at that time with several considerable
reverses, but he had not a hand in any of them. The Athenians were
routed in Thrace by the Chalcidians, Calliades and Xenophon
commanding in chief. Demosthenes was the general when they were
unfortunate in Aetolia. At Delium, they lost a thousand citizens
under the conduct of Hippocrates; the plague was principally laid
to the charge of Pericles, he, to carry on the war, having shut up
close together in the town the crowd of people from the country,
who, by the change of place, and of their usual course of living,
bred the pestilence. Nicias stood clear of all this; under his
conduct was taken Cythera, an island most commodious against
Laconia, and occupied by the Lacedaemonian settlers; many places,
likewise, in Thrace, which had revolted, were taken or won over by
him; he, shutting up the Megarians within their town, seized upon
the isle of Minoa; and soon after, advancing from thence to Nisaea,
made himself master there, and then making a descent upon the
Corinthian territory, fought a successful battle, and slew a great
number of the Corinthians with their captain Lycophron. There it
happened that two of his men were left by an oversight, when they
carried off the dead, which when he understood, he stopped the
fleet, and sent a herald to the enemy for leave to carry off the
dead; though by law and custom, he that by a truce craved leave to
carry off the dead, was hereby supposed to give up all claim to the
victory. Nor was it lawful for him that did this to erect a
trophy, for his is the victory who is master of the field, and he
is not master who asks leave, as wanting power to take. But he
chose rather to renounce his victory and his glory, than to let two
citizens lie unburied. He scoured the coast of Laconia all along,
and beat the Lacedaemonians that made head against him. He took
Thyrea, occupied by the Aeginetans, and carried the prisoners to
Athens.
When Demosthenes had fortified Pylos, and the Peloponnesians
brought together both their sea and land forces before it, after
the fight, about the number of four hundred native Spartans were
left ashore in the isle Sphacteria. The Athenians thought it a
great prize, as indeed it was, to take these men prisoners. But
the siege, in places that wanted water, being very difficult and
untoward, and to convey necessaries about by sea in summer tedious
and expensive, in winter doubtful, or plainly impossible, they
began to be annoyed, and to repent their having rejected the
embassy of the Lacedaemonians that had been sent to propose a
treaty of peace, which had been done at the importunity of Cleon,
who opposed it chiefly out of a pique to Nicias; for, being his
enemy, and observing him to be extremely solicitous to support the
offers of the Lacedaemonians, he persuaded the people to refuse
them.
Now, therefore, that the siege was protracted, and they heard of
the difficulties that pressed their army, they grew enraged against
Cleon. But he turned all the blame upon Nicias, charging it on his
softness and cowardice, that the besieged were not yet taken.
"Were I general," said he, "they should not hold out so long." The
Athenians not unnaturally asked the question, "Why then, as it is,
do not you go with a squadron against them?" And Nicias standing
up resigned his command at Pylos to him, and bade him take what
forces he pleased along with him, and not be bold in words, out of
harm's way, but go forth and perform some real service for the
commonwealth. Cleon, at the first, tried to draw back,
disconcerted at the proposal, which he had never expected; but the
Athenians insisting, and Nicias loudly upbraiding him, he thus
provoked, and fired with ambition, took upon him the charge, and
said further, that within twenty days after he embarked, he would
either kill the enemy upon the place, or bring them alive to
Athens. This the Athenians were readier to laugh at than to
believe, as on other occasions, also, his bold assertions and
extravagances used to make them sport, and were pleasant enough.
As, for instance, it is reported that once when the people were
assembled, and had waited his coming a long time, at last he
appeared with a garland on his head, and prayed them to adjourn to
the next day. "For," said he, "I am not at leisure to-day; I have
sacrificed to the gods, and am to entertain some strangers."
Whereupon the Athenians laughing rose up, and dissolved the
assembly. However, at this time he had good fortune, and in
conjunction with Demosthenes, conducted the enterprise so well,
that within the time he had limited, he carried captive to Athens
all the Spartans that had not fallen in battle.
This brought great disgrace on Nicias; for this was not to throw
away his shield, but something yet more shameful and ignominious,
to quit his charge voluntarily out of cowardice, and voting
himself, as it were, out of his command of his own accord, to put
into his enemy's hand the opportunity of achieving so brave an
action. Aristophanes has a jest against him on this occasion in
the Birds: --
Indeed, not now the word that must be said
Is, do like Nicias, or retire to bed.
And, again, in his Husbandmen: --
I wish to stay at home and farm.
What then?
Who should prevent you?
You, my countrymen;
Whom I would pay a thousand drachmas down,
To let me give up office and leave town.
Enough; content; the sum two thousand is,
With those that Nicias paid to give up his.
Besides all this, he did great mischief to the city by suffering
the accession of so much reputation and power to Cleon, who now
assumed such lofty airs, and allowed himself in such intolerable
audacity, as led to many unfortunate results, a sufficient part of
which fell to his own share. Amongst other things, he destroyed
all the decorum of public speaking; he was the first who ever broke
out into exclamations, flung open his dress, smote his thigh, and
ran up and down whilst he was speaking, things which soon after
introduced amongst those who managed the affairs of State, such
license and contempt of decency, as brought all into confusion.
Already, too, Alcibiades was beginning to show his strength at
Athens, a popular leader, not, indeed, as utterly violent as Cleon,
but as the land of Egypt, through the richness of its soil, is
said,
-- great plenty to produce,
Both wholesome herbs, and drugs of deadly juice,
so the nature of Alcibiades was strong and luxuriant in both kinds,
and made way for many serious innovations. Thus it fell out that
after Nicias had got his hands clear of Cleon, he had not
opportunity to settle the city perfectly into quietness. For
having brought matters to a pretty hopeful condition, he found
everything carried away and plunged again into confusion by
Alcibiades, through the wildness and vehemence of his ambition, and
all embroiled again in war worse than ever. Which fell out thus.
The persons who had principally hindered the peace were Cleon and
Brasidas. War setting off the virtue of the one, and hiding the
villainy of the other, gave to the one occasions of achieving brave
actions, to the other opportunity of committing equal dishonesties.
Now when these two were in one battle both slain near Amphipolis,
Nicias was aware that the Spartans had long been desirous of a
peace, and that the Athenians had no longer the same confidence in
the war. Both being alike tired, and, as it were by consent,
letting fall their hands, he, therefore, in this nick of time,
employed his efforts to make a friendship betwixt the two cities,
and to deliver the other States of Greece from the evils and
calamities they labored under, and so establish his own good name
for success as a statesman for all future time. He found the men
of substance, the elder men, and the land-owners and farmers pretty
generally, all inclined to peace. And when, in addition to these,
by conversing and reasoning, he had cooled the wishes of a good
many others for war, he now encouraged the hopes of the
Lacedaemonians, and counseled them to seek peace. They confided in
him, as on account of his general character for moderation and
equity, so, also, because of the kindness and care he had shown to
the prisoners taken at Pylos and kept in confinement, making their
misfortune the more easy to them.
The Athenians and the Spartans had before this concluded a truce
for a year, and during this, by associating with one another, they
had tasted again the sweets of peace and security, and unimpeded
intercourse with friends and connections, and thus longed for an
end of that fighting and bloodshed, and heard with delight the
chorus sing such verses as
-- my lance I'll leave
Laid by, for spiders to o'erweave,
and remembered with joy the saying, In peace, they who sleep are
awaked by the cock-crow, not by the trumpet. So shutting their
ears, with loud reproaches, to the forebodings of those who said
that the Fates decreed this to be a war of thrice nine years, the
whole question having been debated, they made a peace. And most
people thought, now, indeed, they had got an end of all their
evils. And Nicias was in every man's mouth, as one especially
beloved of the gods, who, for his piety and devotion, had been
appointed to give a name to the fairest and greatest of all
blessings. For in fact they considered the peace Nicias's work, as
the war the work of Pericles; because he, on light occasions,
seemed to have plunged the Greeks into great calamities, while
Nicias had induced them to forget all the evils they had done each
other and to be friends again; and so to this day it is called the
Peace of Nicias.
The articles being, that the garrisons and towns taken on either
side, and the prisoners should be restored, and they to restore the
first to whom it should fall by lot, Nicias, as Theophrastus tells
us, by a sum of money procured that the lot should fall for the
Lacedaemonians to deliver the first. Afterwards, when the
Corinthians and the Boeotians showed their dislike of what was
done, and by their complaints and accusations were wellnigh
bringing the war back again, Nicias persuaded the Athenians and the
Lacedaemonians, besides the peace, to make a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, as a tie and confirmation of the peace,
which would make them more terrible to those that held out, and the
firmer to each other. Whilst these matters were on foot,
Alcibiades, who was no lover of tranquillity, and who was offended
with the Lacedaemonians because of their applications and
attentions to Nicias, while they overlooked and despised himself,
from first to last, indeed, had opposed the peace, though all in
vain, but now finding that the Lacedaemonians did not altogether
continue to please the Athenians, but were thought to have acted
unfairly in having made a league with the Boeotians, and had not
given up Panactum, as they should have done, with its
fortifications unrazed, nor yet Amphipolis, he laid hold on these
occasions for his purpose, and availed himself of every one of them
to irritate the people. And, at length, sending for ambassadors
from the Argives, he exerted himself to effect a confederacy
between the Athenians and them. And now, when Lacedaemonian
ambassadors were come with full powers, and at their preliminary
audience by the council seemed to come in all points with just
proposals, he, fearing that the general assembly, also, would be
won over to their offers, overreached them with false professions
and oaths of assistance, on the condition that they would not avow
that they came with full powers, this, he said, being the only way
for them to attain their desires. They being overpersuaded and
decoyed from Nicias to follow him, he introduced them to the
assembly, and asked them presently whether or no they came in all
points with full powers, which when they denied, he, contrary to
their expectation, changing his countenance, called the council to
witness their words, and now bade the people beware how they trust,
or transact anything with such manifest liars, who say at one time
one thing, and at another the very opposite upon the same subject.
These plenipotentiaries were, as well they might be, confounded at
this, and Nicias, also, being at a loss what to say, and struck
with amazement and wonder, the assembly resolved to send
immediately for the Argives, to enter into a league with them. An
earthquake, which interrupted the assembly, made for Nicias's
advantage; and the next day the people being again assembled, after
much speaking and soliciting, with great ado he brought it about,
that the treaty with the Argives should be deferred, and he be sent
to the Lacedaemonians, in full expectation that so all would go
well.
When he arrived at Sparta, they received him there as a good man,
and one well inclined towards them; yet he effected nothing, but,
baffled by the party that favored the Boeotians, he returned home,
not only dishonored and hardly spoken of, but likewise in fear of
the Athenians, who were vexed and enraged that through his
persuasions they had released so many and such considerable
persons, their prisoners, for the men who had been brought from
Pylos were of the chiefest families of Sparta, and had those who
were highest there in place and power for their friends and
kindred. Yet did they not in their heat proceed against him,
otherwise than that they chose Alcibiades general, and took the
Mantineans and Eleans, who had thrown up their alliance with the
Lacedaemonians, into the league, together with the Argives, and
sent to Pylos freebooters to infest Laconia, whereby the war began
to break out afresh.
But the enmity betwixt Nicias and Alcibiades running higher and
higher, and the time being at hand for decreeing the ostracism or
banishment, for ten years, which the people, putting the name on a
sherd, were wont to inflict at certain times on some person
suspected or regarded with jealousy for his popularity or wealth,
both were now in alarm and apprehension, one of them, in all
likelihood, being to undergo this ostracism; as the people
abominated the life of Alcibiades, and stood in fear of his
boldness and resolution, as is shown particularly in the history of
him; while as for Nicias, his riches made him envied, and his
habits of living, in particular, his unsociable and exclusive ways,
not like those of a fellow-citizen, or even a fellow-man, went
against him, and having many times opposed their inclinations,
forcing them against their feelings to do what was their interest,
he had got himself disliked.
To speak plainly, it was a contest of the young men who were eager
for war, against the men of years and lovers of peace, they turning
the ostracism upon the one, these upon the other. But
In civil strife e'en villains rise to fame.
And so now it happened that the city, distracted into two factions,
allowed free course to the most impudent and profligate persons,
among whom was Hyperbolus of the Perithoedae, one who could not,
indeed, be said to be presuming upon any power, but rather by his
presumption rose into power, and by the honor he found in the city,
became the scandal of it. He, at this time, thought himself far
enough from the ostracism, as more properly deserving the slave's
gallows, and made account, that one of these men being dispatched
out of the way, he might be able to play a part against the other
that should be left, and openly showed his pleasure at the
dissension, and his desire to inflame the people against both of
them. Nicias and Alcibiades, perceiving his malice, secretly
combined together, and setting both their interests jointly at
work, succeeded in fixing the ostracism not on either of them, but
even on Hyperbolus. This, indeed, at the first, made sport, and
raised laughter among the people; but afterwards it was felt as an
affront, that the thing should be dishonored by being employed upon
so unworthy a subject; punishment, also, having its proper dignity,
and ostracism being one that was appropriate rather for Thucydides,
Aristides, and such like persons; whereas for Hyperbolus it was a
glory, and a fair ground for boasting on his part, when for his
villainy he suffered the same with the best men. As Plato, the
comic poet said of him,
The man deserved the fate, deny 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.
And, in fact, none ever afterwards suffered this sort of
punishment, but Hyperbolus was the last, as Hipparchus the
Cholargian, who was kin to the tyrant, was the first.
There is no judgment to be made of fortune; nor can any reasoning
bring us to a certainty about it. If Nicias had run the risk with
Alcibiades, whether of the two should undergo the ostracism, he had
either prevailed, and, his rival being expelled the city, he had
remained secure; or, being overcome, he had avoided the utmost
disasters, and preserved the reputation of a most excellent
commander. Meantime I am not ignorant that Theophrastus says, that
when Hyperbolus was banished Phaeax, not Nicias, contested it with
Alcibiades; but most authors differ from him.
It was Alcibiades, at any rate, whom when the Aegestean and
Leontine ambassadors arrived and urged the Athenians to make an
expedition against Sicily, Nicias opposed, and by whose persuasions
and ambition he found himself overborne, who even before the people
could be assembled, had preoccupied and corrupted their judgment
with hopes and with speeches; insomuch that the young men at their
sports, and the old men in their workshops, and sitting together on
the benches, would be drawing maps of Sicily, and making charts
showing the seas, the harbors, and general character of the coast
of the island opposite Africa. For they made not Sicily the end of
the war, but rather its starting point and head-quarters from
whence they might carry it to the Carthaginians, and possess
themselves of Africa, and of the seas as far as the pillars of
Hercules. The bulk of the people, therefore, pressing this way,
Nicias, who opposed them, found but few supporters, nor those of
much influence; for the men of substance, fearing lest they should
seem to shun the public charges and ship-money, were quiet against
their inclination; nevertheless he did not tire nor give it up, but
even after the Athenians decreed a war and chose him in the first
place general, together with Alcibiades and Lamachus, when they
were again assembled, he stood up, dissuaded them, and protested
against the decision, and laid the blame on Alcibiades, charging
him with going about to involve the city in foreign dangers and
difficulties, merely with a view to his own private lucre and
ambition. Yet it came to nothing. Nicias, because of his
experience, was looked upon as the fitter for the employment, and
his wariness with the bravery of Alcibiades, and the easy temper of
Lamachus, all compounded together, promised such security, that he
did but confirm the resolution. Demostratus, who, of the popular
leaders, was the one who chiefly pressed the Athenians to the
expedition, stood up and said he would stop the mouth of Nicias
from urging any more excuses, and moved that the generals should
have absolute power both at home and abroad, to order and to act as
they thought best; and this vote the people passed.
The priests, however, are said to have very earnestly opposed the
enterprise. But Alcibiades had his diviners of another sort, who
from some old prophesies announced that "there shall be great fame
of the Athenians in Sicily," and messengers came back to him from
Jupiter Ammon, with oracles importing that "the Athenians shall
take all the Syracusans." Those, meanwhile, who knew anything
that boded ill, concealed it, lest they might seem to forespeak
ill-luck. For even prodigies that were obvious and plain would not
deter them; not the defacing of the Hermue, all maimed in one night
except one, called the Hermes of Andocides, erected by the tribe of
Aegeus, placed directly before the house then occupied by
Andocides; nor what was perpetrated on the altar of the twelve
gods, upon which a certain man leaped suddenly up, and then turning
round, mutilated himself with a stone. Likewise at Delphi, there
stood a golden image of Minerva, set on a palm-tree of brass,
erected by the city of Athens from the spoils they won from the
Medes; this was pecked at several days together by crows flying
upon it, who, also, plucked off and knocked down the fruit, made of
gold, upon the palm-tree. But the Athenians said these were all
but inventions of the Delphians, corrupted by the men of Syracuse.
A certain oracle bade them bring from Clazomenae the priestess of
Minerva there; they sent for the woman and found her named
Hesychia, Quietness, this being, it would seem, what the divine
powers advised the city at this time, to be quiet. Whether,
therefore, the astrologer Meton feared these presages, or that from
human reason he doubted its success, (for he was appointed to a
command in it,) feigning himself mad, he set his house on fire.
Others say he did not counterfeit madness, but set his house on
fire in the night, and he next morning came before the assembly in
great distress, and besought the people, in consideration of the
sad disaster, to release his son from the service, who was about to
go captain of a galley for Sicily. The genius, also, of the
philosopher Socrates, on this occasion, too, gave him intimation by
the usual tokens, that the expedition would prove the ruin of the
commonwealth; this he imparted to his friends and familiars, and by
them it was mentioned to a number of people. Not a few were
troubled because the days on which the fleet set sail happened to
be the time when the women celebrated the death of Adonis; there
being everywhere then exposed to view images of dead men, carried
about with mourning and lamentation, and women beating their
breasts. So that such as laid any stress on these matters were
extremely troubled, and feared lest that all this warlike
preparation, so splendid and so glorious, should suddenly, in a
little time, be blasted in its very prime of magnificence, and come
to nothing.
Nicias, in opposing the voting of this expedition, and neither
being puffed up with hopes, nor transported with the honor of his
high command so as to modify his judgment, showed himself a man of
virtue and constancy. But when his endeavors could not divert the
people from the war, nor get leave for himself to be discharged of
the command, but the people, as it were, violently took him up and
carried him, and against his will put him in the office of general,
this was no longer now a time for his excessive caution and his
delays, nor was it for him, like a child, to look back from the
ship, often repeating and reconsidering over and over again how
that his advice had not been overruled by fair arguments, thus
blunting the courage of his fellow commanders and spoiling the
season of action. Whereas, he ought speedily to have closed with
the enemy and brought the matter to an issue, and put fortune
immediately to the test in battle. But, on the contrary, when
Lamachus counseled to sail directly to Syracuse, and fight the
enemy under their city walls, and Alcibiades advised to secure the
friendship of the other towns, and then to march against them,
Nicias dissented from them both, and insisted that they should
cruise quietly around the island and display their armament, and,
having landed a small supply of men for the Egesteans, return to
Athens, weakening at once the resolution and casting down the
spirits of the men. And when, a little while after, the Athenians
called home Alcibiades in order to his trial, he being, though
joined nominally with another in commission, in effect the only
general, made now no end of loitering, of cruising, and
considering, till their hopes were grown stale, and all the
disorder and consternation which the first approach and view of
their forces had cast amongst the enemy was worn off, and had left
them.
Whilst yet Alcibiades was with the fleet, they went before Syracuse
with a squadron of sixty galleys, fifty of them lying in array
without the harbor, while the other ten rowed in to reconnoiter,
and by a herald called upon the citizens of Leontini to return to
their own country. These scouts took a galley of the enemy's, in
which they found certain tablets, on which was set down a list of
all the Syracusans, according to their tribes. These were wont to
be laid up at a distance from the city, in the temple of Jupiter
Olympius, but were now brought forth for examination to furnish a
muster-roll of young men for the war. These being so taken by the
Athenians, and carried to the officers, and the multitude of names
appearing, the diviners thought it unpropitious, and were in
apprehension lest this should be the only destined fullfilment of
the prophecy, that "the Athenians shall take all the Syracusans."
Yet, indeed, this was said to be accomplished by the Athenians at
another time, when Callippus the Athenian, having slain Dion,
became master of Syracuse. But when Alcibiades shortly after
sailed away from Sicily, the command fell wholly to Nicias.
Lamachus was, indeed, a brave and honest man, and ready to fight
fearlessly with his own hand in battle, but so poor and ill off,
that whenever he was appointed general, he used always, in
accounting for his outlay of public money, to bring some little
reckoning or other of money for his very clothes and shoes. On the
contrary, Nicias, as on other accounts, so, also, because of his
wealth and station, was very much thought of. The story is told that
once upon a time the commission of generals being in consultation
together in their public office, he bade Sophocles the poet give
his opinion first, as the senior of the board. "I," replied
Sophocles, "am the older, but you are the senior." And so now,
also, Lamachus, who better understood military affairs, being quite
his subordinate, he himself, evermore delaying and avoiding risk,
and faintly employing his forces, first by his sailing about Sicily
at the greatest distance aloof from the enemy, gave them
confidence, then by afterwards attacking Hybla, a petty fortress,
and drawing off before he could take it, made himself utterly
despised. At the last he retreated to Catana without having
achieved anything, save that he demolished Hyocara, a humble town
of the barbarians, out of which the story goes that Lais the
courtesan, yet a mere girl, was sold amongst the other prisoners,
and carried thence away to Peloponnesus.
But when the summer was spent, after reports began to reach him
that the Syracusans were grown so confident that they would come
first to attack him, and troopers skirmishing to the very camp
twitted his soldiers, asking whether they came to settle with the
Catanians, or to put the Leontines in possession of their city, at
last, with much ado, Nicias resolved to sail against Syracuse. And
wishing to form his camp safely and without molestation, he
procured a man to carry from Catana intelligence to the Syracusans
that they might seize the camp of the Athenians unprotected, and
all their arms, if on such a day they should march with all their
forces to Catana; and that, the Athenians living mostly in the
town, the friends of the Syracusans had concerted, as soon as they
should perceive them coming, to possess themselves of one of the
gates, and to fire the arsenal; that many now were in the
conspiracy and awaited their arrival. This was the ablest thing
Nicias did in the whole of his conduct of the expedition. For
having drawn out all the strength of the enemy, and made the city
destitute of men, he set out from Catana, entered the harbor, and
chose a fit place for his camp, where the enemy could least
incommode him with the means in which they were superior to him,
while with the means in which he was superior to them, he might
expect to carry on the war without impediment.
When the Syracusans returned from Catana, and stood in battle array
before the city gates, he rapidly led up the Athenians and fell on
them and defeated them, but did not kill many, their horse
hindering the pursuit. And his cutting and breaking down the
bridges that lay over the river gave Hermocrates, when cheering up
the Syracusans, occasion to say, that Nicias was ridiculous, whose
great aim seemed to be to avoid fighting, as if fighting were not
the thing he came for. However, he put the Syracusans into a very
great alarm and consternation, so that instead of fifteen generals
then in service, they chose three others, to whom the people
engaged by oath to allow absolute authority.
There stood near them the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which the
Athenians (there being in it many consecrated things of gold and
silver) were eager to take, but were purposely withheld from it by
Nicias, who let the opportunity slip, and allowed a garrison of the
Syracusans to enter it, judging that if the soldiers should make
booty of that wealth, it would be no advantage to the public, and
he should bear the guilt of the impiety. Not improving in the
least this success, which was everywhere famous, after a few days'
stay, away he goes to Naxos, and there winters, spending largely
for the maintenance of so great an army, and not doing anything
except some matters of little consequence with some native
Sicilians that revolted to him. Insomuch that the Syracusans took
heart again, made excursions to Catana, wasted the country, and
fired the camp of the Athenians. For which everybody blamed
Nicias, who, with his long reflection, his deliberateness, and his
caution, had let slip the time for action. None ever found fault
with the man when once at work, for in the brunt he showed vigor
and activity enough, but was slow and wanted assurance to engage.
When, therefore, he brought again the army to Syracuse, such was
his conduct, and with such celerity, and at the same time security,
he came upon them, that nobody knew of his approach, when already
he had come to shore with his galleys at Thapsus, and had landed
his men; and before any could help it he had surprised Epipolae,
had defeated the body of picked men that came to its succor, took
three hundred prisoners, and routed the cavalry of the enemy, which
had been thought invincible. But what chiefly astonished the
Syracusans, and seemed incredible to the Greeks, was, in so short a
space of time the walling about of Syracuse, a town not less than
Athens, and far more difficult, by the unevenness of the ground,
and the nearness of the sea and the marshes adjacent, to have such
a wall drawn in a circle round it; yet this, all within a very
little, finished by a man that had not even his health for such
weighty cares, but lay ill of the stone, which may justly bear the
blame for what was left undone. I admire the industry of the
general, and the bravery of the soldiers for what they succeeded
in. Euripides, after their ruin and disaster, writing their
funeral elegy, said that
Eight victories over Syracuse they gained,
While equal yet to both the gods remained.
And in truth one shall not find eight, but many more victories, won
by these men against the Syracusans, till the gods, in real truth,
or fortune intervened to check the Athenians in this advance to the
height of power and greatness.
Nicias, therefore, doing violence to his body, was present in most
actions. But once, when his disease was the sharpest upon him, he
lay in the camp with some few servants to attend him. And Lamachus
having the command fought the Syracusans, who were bringing a
cross-wall from the city along to that of the Athenians, to hinder
them from carrying it round; and in the victory, the Athenians
hurrying in some disorder to the pursuit, Lamachus getting
separated from his men, had to resist the Syracusan horse that came
upon him. Before the rest advanced Callicrates, a man of good
courage and skill in war. Lamachus, upon a challenge, engaged with
him in single combat, and receiving the first wound, returned it so
home to Callicrates, that they both fell and died together. The
Syracusans took away his body and arms, and at full speed advanced
to the wall of the Athenians, where Nicias lay without any troops
to oppose to them, yet roused by this necessity, and seeing the
danger, he bade those about him go and set on fire all the wood and
materials that lay provided before the wall for the engines, and
the engines themselves; this put a stop to the Syracusans, saved
Nicias, saved the walls, and all the money of the Athenians. For
when the Syracusans raw such a fire blazing up between them and the
wall, they retired.
Nicias now remained sole general, and with great prospects; for
cities began to come over to alliance with him, and ships laden
with corn from every coast came to the camp, everyone favoring
when matters went well. And some proposals from among the
Syracusans despairing to defend the city, about a capitulation,
were already conveyed to him. And in fact Gylippus, who was on his
way with a squadron to their aid from Lacedaemon, hearing, on his
voyage, of the wall surrounding them, and of their distress, only
continued his enterprise thenceforth, that, giving Sicily up for
lost, he might, if even that should be possible, secure the
Italians their cities. For a strong report was everywhere spread
about that the Athenians carried all before them, and had a general
alike for conduct and for fortune invincible.
And Nicias himself, too, now against his nature grown bold in his
present strength and success, especially from the intelligence he
received under hand of the Syracusans, believing they would almost
immediately surrender the town upon terms, paid no manner of regard
to Gylippus coming to their assistance, nor kept any watch of his
approach so that, neglected altogether and despised, Gylippus went
in a longboat ashore without the knowledge of Nicias, and, having
landed in the remotest parts from Syracuse, mustered up a
considerable force, the Syracusans not so much as knowing of his
arrival nor expecting him; so that an assembly was summoned to
consider the terms to be arranged with Nicias, and some were
actually on the way, thinking it essential to have all dispatched
before the town should be quite walled round, for now there
remained very little to be done, and the materials for the building
lay all ready along the line.
In this very nick of time and danger arrived Gongylus in one galley
from Corinth, and everyone, as may be imagined, flocking about
him, he told them that Gylippus would be with them speedily, and
that other ships were coming to relieve them. And, ere yet they
could perfectly believe Gongylus, an express was brought from
Gylippus, to bid them go forth to meet him. So now taking good
heart, they armed themselves; and Gylippus at once led on his men
from their march in battle array against the Athenians, as Nicias
also embattled these. And Gylippus, piling his arms in view of the
Athenians, sent a herald to tell them he would give them leave to
depart from Sicily without molestation. To this Nicias would not
vouchsafe any answer, but some of his soldiers laughing asked if
with the sight of one coarse coat and Laconian staff the Syracusan
prospects had become so brilliant that they could despise the
Athenians, who had released to the Lacedaemonians three hundred,
whom they held in chains, bigger men than Gylippus, and
longer-haired? Timaeus, also, writes that even the Syracusans made
no account of Gylippus, at the first sight mocking at his staff and
long hair, as afterwards they found reason to blame his
covetousness and meanness. The same author, however, adds that on
Gylippus's first appearance, as it might have been at the sight of
an owl abroad in the air, there was a general flocking together of
men to serve in the war. And this is the truer saying of the two;
for in the staff and the cloak they saw the badge and authority of
Sparta, and crowded to him accordingly. And not only Thucydides
affirms that the whole thing was done by him alone, but so, also,
does Philistus, who was a Syracusan and an actual witness of what
happened.
However, the Athenians had the better in the first encounter, and
slew some few of the Syracusans, and amongst them Gongylus of
Corinth. But on the next day Gylippus showed what it is to be a
man of experience; for with the same arms, the same horses, and on
the same spot of ground, only employing them otherwise, he overcame
the Athenians; and they fleeing to their camp, he set the
Syracusans to work, and with the stone and materials that had been
brought together for finishing the wall of the Athenians, he built
a cross wall to intercept theirs and break it off, so that even if
they were successful in the field, they would not be able to do
anything. And after this the Syracusans taking courage manned their
galleys, and with their horse and followers ranging about took a
good many prisoners; and Gylippus going himself to the cities,
called upon them to join with him, and was listened to and
supported vigorously by them. So that Nicias fell back again to
his old views, and, seeing the face of affairs change, desponded,
and wrote to Athens, bidding them either send another army, or
recall this out of Sicily, and that he might, in any case, be
wholly relieved of the command, because of his disease.
Before this, the Athenians had been intending to send another army
to Sicily, but envy of Nicias's early achievements and high fortune
had occasioned, up to this time, many delays; but now they were all
eager to send off succors. Eurymedon went before, in midwinter,
with money, and to announce that Euthydemus and Menander were
chosen out of those that served there under Nicias to be joint
commanders with him. Demosthenes was to go after in the spring
with a great armament. In the meantime Nicias was briskly
attacked, both by sea and land; in the beginning he had the
disadvantage on the water, but in the end repulsed and sunk many
galleys of the enemy. But by land he could not provide succor in
time, so Gylippus surprised and captured Plemmyrium, in which the
stores for the navy, and a great sum of money being there kept, all
fell into his hands, and many were slain, and many taken prisoners.
And what was of greatest importance, he now cut off Nicias's
supplies, which had been safely and readily conveyed to him under
Plemmyrium, while the Athenians still held it, but now that they
were beaten out, he could only procure them with great difficulty,
and with opposition from the enemy, who lay in wait with their
ships under that fort. Moreover, it seemed manifest to the
Syracusans that their navy had not been beaten by strength, but by
their disorder in the pursuit. Now, therefore, all hands went to
work to prepare for a new attempt, that should succeed better than
the former. Nicias had no wish for a sea-fight, but said it was
mere folly for them, when Demosthenes was coming in all haste with
so great a fleet and fresh forces to their succor, to engage the
enemy with a less number of ships and ill provided. But, on the
other hand, Menander and Euthydemus, who were just commencing their
new command, prompted by a feeling of rivalry and emulation of both
the generals, were eager to gain some great success before
Demosthenes came, and to prove themselves superior to Nicias. They
urged the honor of the city, which, said they, would be blemished
and utterly lost, if they should decline a challenge from the
Syracusans. Thus they forced Nicias to a sea-fight; and by the
stratagem of Ariston, the Corinthian pilot, (his trick, described
by Thucydides, about the men's dinners,) they were worsted, and
lost many of their men, causing the greatest dejection to Nicias,
who had suffered so much from having the sole command, and now
again miscarried through his colleagues.
But now, by this time, Demosthenes with his splendid fleet came in
sight outside the harbor, a terror to the enemy. He brought along,
in seventy-three galleys, five thousand men at arms; of darters,
archers, and slingers, not less than three thousand; with the
glittering of their armor, the flags waving from the galleys, the
multitude of coxswains and flute-players giving time to the rowers,
setting off the whole with all possible warlike pomp and
ostentation to dismay the enemy. Now, one may believe the
Syracusans were again in extreme alarm, seeing no end or prospect
of release before them, toiling, as it seemed, in vain, and
perishing to no purpose. Nicias, however, was not long overjoyed
with the reinforcement, for the first time he conferred with
Demosthenes, who advised forthwith to attack the Syracusans, and to
put all to the speediest hazard, to win Syracuse, or else return
home, afraid, and wondering at his promptness and audacity, he
besought him to do nothing rashly and desperately, since delay
would be the ruin of the enemy, whose money would not hold out, nor
their confederates be long kept together; that when once they came
to be pinched with want, they would presently come again to him for
terms, as formerly. For, indeed, many in Syracuse held secret
correspondence with him, and urged him to stay, declaring that even
now the people were quite worn out with the war, and weary of
Gylippus. And if their necessities should the least sharpen upon
them they would give up all.
Nicias glancing darkly at these matters, and unwilling to speak out
plainly, made his colleagues imagine that it was cowardice which
made him talk in this manner. And saying that this was the old
story over again, the well known procrastinations and delays and
refinements with which at first he let slip the opportunity in not
immediately falling on the enemy, but suffering the armament to
become a thing of yesterday, that nobody was alarmed with, they
took the side of Demosthenes, and with much ado forced Nicias to
comply. And so Demosthenes, taking the land-forces, by night made
an assault upon Epipolae; part of the enemy he slew ere they took
the alarm, the rest defending themselves he put to flight. Nor was
he content with this victory there, but pushed on further, till he
met the Boeotians. For these were the first that made head against
the Athenians, and charged them with a shout, spear against spear,
and killed many on the place. And now at once there ensued a panic
and confusion throughout the whole army; the victorious portion got
infected with the fears of the flying part, and those who were
still disembarking and coming forward, falling foul of the
retreaters, came into conflict with their own party, taking the
fugitives for pursuers, and treating their friends as if they were
the enemy.
Thus huddled together in disorder, distracted with fear and
uncertainties, and unable to be sure of seeing anything, the night
not being absolutely dark, nor yielding any steady light, the moon
then towards setting, shadowed with the many weapons and bodies
that moved to and fro, and glimmering so as not to show an object
plain, but to make friends through fear suspected for foes, the
Athenians fell into utter perplexity and desperation. For,
moreover, they had the moon at their backs, and consequently their
own shadows fell upon them, and both hid the number and the
glittering of their arms; while the reflection of the moon from the
shields of the enemy made them show more numerous and better
appointed than, indeed, they were. At last, being pressed on every
side, when once they had given way, they took to rout, and in their
flight were destroyed, some by the enemy, some by the hand of their
friends, and some tumbling down the rocks, while those that were
dispersed and straggled about were picked off in the morning by the
horsemen and put to the sword. The slain were two thousand; and of
the rest few came off safe with their arms.
Upon this disaster, which to him was not wholly an unexpected one,
Nicias accused the rashness of Demosthenes; but he, making his
excuses for the past, now advised to be gone in all haste, for
neither were other forces to come, nor could the enemy be beaten
with the present. And, indeed, even supposing they were yet too
hard for the enemy in any case, they ought to remove and quit a
situation which they understood to be always accounted a sickly
one, and dangerous for an army, and was more particularly
unwholesome now, as they could see themselves, because of the time
of year. It was the beginning of autumn, and many now lay sick,
and all were out of heart.
It grieved Nicias to hear of flight and departing home, not that he
did not fear the Syracusans, but he was worse afraid of the
Athenians, their impeachments and sentences; he professed that he
apprehended no further harm there, or if it must be, he would
rather die by the hand of an enemy, than by his fellow-citizens.
He was not of the opinion which Leo of Byzantium declared to his
fellow-citizens: "I had rather," said he, "perish by you, than
with you." As to the matter of place and quarter whither to remove
their camp, that, he said, might be debated at leisure. And
Demosthenes, his former counsel having succeeded so ill, ceased to
press him further; others thought Nicias had reasons for
expectation, and relied on some assurance from people within the
city, and that this made him so strongly oppose their retreat, so
they acquiesced. But fresh forces now coming to the Syracusans,
and the sickness growing worse in his camp, he, also, now approved
of their retreat, and commanded the soldiers to make ready to go
aboard.
And when all were in readiness, and none of the enemy had observed
them, not expecting such a thing, the moon was eclipsed in the
night, to the great fright of Nicias and others, who, for want of
experience, or out of superstition, felt alarm at such appearances.
That the sun might be darkened about the close of the month, this
even ordinary people now understood pretty well to be the effect of
the moon; but the moon itself to be darkened, how that could come
about, and how, on the sudden, a broad full moon should lose her
light, and show such various colors, was not easy to be
comprehended; they concluded it to be ominous, and a divine
intimation of some heavy calamities. For he who the first, and the
most plainly of any, and with the greatest assurance committed to
writing how the moon is enlightened and overshadowed, was
Anaxagoras; and he was as yet but recent, nor was his argument much
known, but was rather kept secret, passing only amongst a few,
under some kind of caution and confidence. People would not then
tolerate natural philosophers, and theorists, as they then called
them, about things above; as lessening the divine power, by
explaining away its agency into the operation of irrational causes
and senseless forces acting by necessity, without anything of
Providence, or a free agent. Hence it was that Protagoras was
banished, and Anaxagoras cast in prison, so that Pericles had much
difficulty to procure his liberty; and Socrates, though he had no
concern whatever with this sort of learning, yet was put to death
for philosophy. It was only afterwards that the reputation of
Plato, shining forth by his life, and because he subjected natural
necessity to divine and more excellent principles, took away the
obloquy and scandal that had attached to such contemplations, and
obtained these studies currency among all people. So his friend
Dion, when the moon, at the time he was to embark from Zacynthus to
go against Dionysius, was eclipsed, was not in the least disturbed,
but went on, and, arriving at Syracuse, expelled the tyrant. But
it so fell out with Nicias, that he had not at this time a skillful
diviner with him; his former habitual adviser who used to moderate
much of his superstition, Stilbides, had died a little before. For
in fact, this prodigy, as Philochorus observes, was not unlucky for
men wishing to fly, but on the contrary very favorable; for things
done in fear require to be hidden, and the light is their foe. Nor
was it usual to observe signs in the sun or moon more than three
days, as Autoclides states in his Commentaries. But Nicias
persuaded them to wait another full course of the moon, as if he
had not seen it clear again as soon as ever it had passed the
region of shadow where the light was obstructed by the earth.
In a manner abandoning all other cares, he betook himself wholly to
his sacrifices, till the enemy came upon them with their infantry,
besieging the forts and camp, and placing their ships in a circle
about the harbor. Nor did the men in the galleys only, but the
little boys everywhere got into the fishing-boats and rowed up and
challenged the Athenians, and insulted over them. Amongst these a
youth of noble parentage, Heraclides by name, having ventured out
beyond the rest, an Athenian ship pursued and wellnigh took him.
His uncle Pollichus, in fear for him, put out with ten galleys
which he commanded, and the rest, to relieve Pollichus, in like
manner drew forth; the result of it being a very sharp engagement,
in which the Syracusans had the victory, and slew Eurymedon, with
many others. lifter this the Athenian soldiers had no patience to
stay longer, but raised an outcry against their officers, requiring
them to depart by land; for the Syracusans, upon their victory,
immediately shut and blocked up the entrance of the harbor; but
Nicias would not consent to this, as it was a shameful thing to
leave behind so many ships of burden, and galleys little less than
two hundred. Putting, therefore, on board the best of the foot,
and the most serviceable darters, they filled one hundred and ten
galleys; the rest wanted oars. The remainder of his army Nicias
posted along by the sea-side, abandoning the great camp and the
fortifications adjoining the temple of Hercules; so the Syracusans,
not having for a long time performed their usual sacrifice to
Hercules, went up now, both priests and captains, to sacrifice.
And their galleys being manned, the diviners predicted from their
sacrifices victory and glory to the Syracusans, provided they would
not be the aggressors, but fight upon the defensive; for so
Hercules overcame all, by only de. fending himself when set upon.
In this confidence they set out; and this proved the hottest and
fiercest of all their sea-fights, raising no less concern and
passion in the beholders than in the actors; as they could oversee
the whole action with all the various and unexpected turns of
fortune which, in a short space, occurred in it; the Athenians
suffering no less from their own preparations, than from the enemy;
for they fought against light and nimble ships, that could attack
from any quarter, with theirs laden and heavy. And they were
thrown at with stones that fly indifferently any way, for which
they could only return darts and arrows, the direct aim of which
the motion of the water disturbed, preventing their coming true,
point foremost to their mark. This the Syracusans had learned from
Ariston the Corinthian pilot, who, fighting stoutly, fell himself
in this very engagement, when the victory had already declared for
the Syracusans.
The Athenians, their loss and slaughter being very great, their
flight by sea cut off, their safety by land so difficult, did not
attempt to hinder the enemy towing away their ships, under their
eves, nor demanded their dead, as, indeed, their want of burial
seemed a less calamity than the leaving behind the sick and wounded
which they now had before them. Yet more miserable still than
those did they reckon themselves, who were to work on yet, through
more such sufferings, after all to reach the same end.
They prepared to dislodge that night. And Gylippus and his friends
seeing the Syracusans engaged in their sacrifices and at their
cups, for their victories, and it being also a holiday, did not
expect either by persuasion or by force to rouse them up and carry
them against the Athenians as they decamped. But Hermocrates, of
his own head, put a trick upon Nicias, and sent some of his
companions to him, who pretended they came from those that were
wont to hold secret intelligence with him, and advised him not to
stir that night, the Syracusans having laid ambushes and beset the
ways. Nicias, caught with this stratagem, remained, to encounter
presently in reality, what he had feared when there was no
occasion. For they, the next morning, marching before, seized the
defiles, fortified the passes where the rivers were fordable, cut
down the bridges, and ordered their horsemen to range the plains
and ground that lay open, so as to leave no part of the country
where the Athenians could move without fighting. They stayed both
that day and another night, and then went along as if they were
leaving their own, not an enemy's country, lamenting and bewailing
for want of necessaries, and for their parting from friends and
companions that were not, able to help themselves; and,
nevertheless, judging the present evils lighter than those they
expected to come. But among the many miserable spectacles that
appeared up and down in the camp, the saddest sight of all was
Nicias himself, laboring under his malady, and unworthily reduced
to the scantiest supply of all the accommodations necessary for
human wants, of which he in his condition required more than
ordinary, because of his sickness; yet bearing; up under all this
illness, and doing and undergoing more than many in perfect health.
And it was plainly evident, that all this toil was not for himself,
or from any regard to his own life, but that purely for the sake of
those under his command he would not abandon hope. And, indeed,
the rest were given over to weeping and lamentation through fear or
sorrow, but he, whenever he yielded to anything of the kind, did
so, it was evident, from reflection upon the shame and dishonor of
the enterprise, contrasted with the greatness and glory of the
success he had anticipated, and not only the sight of his person,
but, also, the recollection of the arguments and the dissuasions he
used to prevent this expedition, enhanced their sense of the
undeservedness of his sufferings, nor had they any heart to put
their trust in the gods, considering that a man so religious, who
had performed to the divine powers so many and so great acts of
devotion, should have no more favorable treatment than the
wickedest and meanest of the army.
Nicias, however, endeavored all the while by his voice, his
countenance, and his carriage, to show himself undefeated by these
misfortunes. And all along the way shot at, and receiving wounds
eight days continually from the enemy, he yet preserved the forces
with him in a body entire, till that Demosthenes was taken prisoner
with the party that he led, whilst they fought and made a
resistance, and so got behind and were surrounded near the country
house of Polyzelus. Demosthenes thereupon drew his sword, and
wounded but did not kill himself, the enemy speedily running in and
seizing upon him. So soon as the Syracusans had gone and informed
Nicias of this, and he had sent some horsemen, and by them knew the
certainty of the defeat of that division, he then vouchsafed to sue
to Gylippus for a truce for the Athenians to depart out of Sicily,
leaving hostages for payment of the money that the Syracusans had
expended in the war.
But now they would not hear of these proposals, but threatening and
reviling them, angrily and insultingly continued to ply their
missiles at them, now destitute of every necessary. Yet Nicias
still made good his retreat all that night, and the next day,
through all their darts, made his way to the river Asinarus.
There, however, the enemy encountering them, drove some into the
stream, while others ready to die for thirst plunged in headlong,
while they drank at the same time, and were cut down by their
enemies. And here was the cruelest and the most immoderate
slaughter. Till at last Nicias falling down to Gylippus, "Let
pity, O Gylippus," said he, "move you in your victory; not for me,
who was destined, it seems, to bring the glory I once had to this
end, but for the other Athenians; as you well know that the chances
of war are common to all, and the Athenians used them moderately
and mildly towards you in their prosperity."
At these words, and at the sight of Nicias, Gylippus was somewhat
troubled, for he was sensible that the Lacedaemonians had received
good offices from Nicias in the late treaty; and he thought it
would be a great and glorious thing for him to carry off the chief
commanders of the Athenians alive. He, therefore, raised Nicias
with respect, and bade him be of good cheer, and commanded his men
to spare the lives of the rest. But the word of command being
communicated slowly, the slain were a far greater number than the
prisoners. Many, however, were privily conveyed away by particular
soldiers. Those taken openly were hurried together in a mass;
their arms and spoils hung up on the finest and largest trees along
the river. The conquerors, with garlands on their heads, with
their own horses splendidly adorned, and cropping short the manes
and tails of those of their enemies, entered the city, having, in
the most signal conflict ever waged by Greeks against Greeks, and
with the greatest strength and the utmost effort of valor and
manhood, won a most entire victory.
And a general assembly of the people of Syracuse and their
confederates sitting, Eurycles, the popular leader, moved, first,
that the day on which they took Nicias should from thenceforward be
kept holiday by sacrificing and forbearing all manner of work, and
from the river be called the Asinarian Feast. This was the
twenty-sixth day of the month Carneus, the Athenian Metagitnion.
And that the servants of the Athenians with the other confederates
be sold for slaves, and they themselves and the Sicilian
auxiliaries be kept and employed in the quarries, except the
generals, who should be put to death. The Syracusans favored the
proposal, and when Hermocrates said, that to use well a victory was
better than to gain a victory, he was met with great clamor and
outcry. When Gylippus, also, demanded the Athenian generals to be
delivered to him, that he might carry them to the Lacedaemonians,
the Syracusans, now insolent with their good fortune, gave him ill
words. Indeed, before this, even in the war, they had been
impatient at his rough behavior and Lacedaemonian haughtiness, and
had, as Timaeus tells us, discovered sordidness and avarice in his
character, vices which may have descended to him from his father
Cleandrides, who was convicted of bribery and banished. And the
very man himself, of the one thousand talents which Lysander sent
to Sparta, embezzled thirty, and hid them under the tiles of his
house, and was detected and shamefully fled his country. But this
is related more at large in the life of Lysander. Timaeus says
that Demosthenes and Nicias did not die, as Thucydides and
Philistus have written, by the order of the Syracusans, but that
upon a message sent them from Hermocrates, whilst yet the assembly
were sitting, by the connivance of some of their guards, they were
enabled to put an end to themselves. Their bodies, however, were
thrown out before the gates and offered for a public spectacle.
And I have heard that to this day in a temple at Syracuse is shown
a shield, said to have been Nicias's, curiously wrought and
embroidered with gold and purple intermixed. Most of the Athenians
perished in the quarries by diseases and ill diet, being allowed
only one pint of barley every day, and one half pint of water.
Many of them, however, were carried off by stealth, or, from the
first, were supposed to be servants, and were sold as slaves.
These latter were branded on their foreheads with the figure of a
horse. There were, however, Athenians, who, in addition to
slavery, had to endure even this. But their discreet and orderly
conduct was an advantage to them; they were either soon set free,
or won the respect of their masters with whom they continued to
live. Several were saved for the sake of Euripides, whose poetry,
it appears, was in request among the Sicilians more than among any
of the settlers out of Greece. And when any travelers arrived that
could tell them some passage, or give them any specimen of his
verses, they were delighted to be able to communicate them to one
another. Many of the captives who got safe back to Athens are
said, after they reached home, to have gone and made their
acknowledgments to Euripides, relating how that some of them had
been released from their slavery by teaching what they could
remember of his poems, and others, when straggling after the fight,
been relieved with meat and drink for repeating some of his lyrics.
Nor need this be any wonder, for it is told that a ship of Caunus
fleeing into one of their harbors for protection, pursued by
pirates, was not received, but forced back, till one asked if they
knew any of Euripides's verses, and on their saying they did, they
were admitted, and their ship brought into harbor.
It is said that the Athenians would not believe their loss, in a
great degree because of the person who first brought them news of
it. For a certain stranger, it seems, coming to Piraeus, and there
sitting in a barber's shop, began to talk of what had happened, as
if the Athenians already knew all that had passed; which the barber
hearing, before he acquainted anybody else, ran as fast as he could
up into the city, addressed himself to the Archons, and presently
spread it about in the public Place. On which, there being
everywhere, as may be imagined, terror and consternation, the
Archons summoned a general assembly, and there brought in the man
and questioned him how he came to know. And he, giving no
satisfactory account, was taken for a spreader of false
intelligence and a disturber of the city, and was, therefore,
fastened to the wheel and racked a long time, till other messengers
arrived that related the whole disaster particularly. So hardly
was Nicias believed to have suffered the calamity which he had
often predicted.
CRASSUS
Marcus Crassus, whose father had borne the office of a censor, and
received the honor of a triumph, was educated in a little house
together with his two brothers, who both married in their parents'
lifetime; they kept but one table amongst them; all which,
perhaps, was not the least reason of his own temperance and
moderation in diet. One of his brothers dying, he married his
widow, by whom he had his children; neither was there in these
respects any of the Romans who lived a more orderly life than he
did, though later in life he was suspected to have been too
familiar with one of the vestal virgins, named Licinia, who was,
nevertheless, acquitted, upon an impeachment brought against her
by one Plotinus. Licinia stood possessed of a beautiful property
in the suburbs, which Crassus desiring to purchase at a low price,
for this reason was frequent in his attentions to her, which gave
occasion to the scandal, and his avarice, so to say, serving to
clear him of the crime, he was acquitted. Nor did he leave the
lady till he had got the estate.
People were wont to say that the many virtues of Crassus were
darkened by the one vice of avarice, and indeed he seemed to have
no other but that; for it being the most predominant, obscured
others to which he was inclined. The arguments in proof of his
avarice were the vastness of his estate, and the manner of raising
it; for whereas at first he was not worth above three hundred
talents, yet, though in the course of his political life he
dedicated the tenth of all he had to Hercules, and feasted the
people, and gave to every citizen corn enough to serve him three
months, upon casting up his accounts, before he went upon his
Parthian expedition, he found his possessions to amount to seven
thousand one hundred talents; most of which, if we may scandal him
with a truth, he got by fire and rapine, making his advantages of
the public calamities. For when Sylla seized the city, and
exposed to sale the goods of those that he had caused to be slain,
accounting them booty and spoils, and, indeed, calling them so
too, and was desirous of making as many, and as eminent men as he
could, partakers in the crime, Crassus never was the man that
refused to accept, or give money for them. Moreover observing how
extremely subject the city was to fire, and falling down of
houses, by reason of their height and their standing so near
together, he bought slaves that were builders and architects, and
when he had collected these to the number of more than five
hundred, he made it his practice to buy houses that were on fire,
and those in the neighborhood, which, in the immediate danger and
uncertainty, the proprietors were willing to part with for little,
or nothing; so that the greatest part of Rome, at one time or
other, came into his hands. Yet for all he had so many workmen,
he never built anything but his own house, and used to say that
those that were addicted to building would undo themselves soon
enough without the help of other enemies. And though he had many
silver mines, and much valuable land, and laborers to work in it,
yet all this was nothing in comparison of his slaves, such a
number and variety did he possess of excellent readers,
amanuenses, silversmiths, stewards, and table-waiters, whose
instruction he always attended to himself, superintending in
person while they learned, and teaching them himself, accounting
it the main duty of a master to look over the servants, that are,
indeed, the living tools of housekeeping; and in this, indeed, he
was in the right, in thinking, that is, as he used to say, that
servants ought to look after all other things, and the master
after them. For economy, which in things inanimate is but
money-making when exercised over men becomes policy. But it was
surely a mistaken judgment, when he said no man was to be
accounted rich that could not maintain an army at his own cost and
charges, for war, as Archidamus well observed, is not fed at a
fixed allowance, so that there is no saying what wealth suffices
for it, and certainly it was one very far removed from that of
Marius; for when he had distributed fourteen acres of land a man,
and understood that some desired more, "God forbid," said he,
"that any Roman should think that too little which is enough to
keep him alive and well."
Crassus, however, was very eager to be hospitable to strangers; he
kept open house, and to his friends he would lend money without
interest, but called it in precisely at the time; so that his
kindness was often thought worse than the paying the interest
would have been. His entertainments were, for the most part,
plain and citizenlike, the company general and popular; good taste
and kindness made them pleasanter than sumptuosity would have
done. As for learning, he chiefly cared for rhetoric, and what
would be serviceable with large numbers; he became one of the best
speakers at Rome, and by his pains and industry outdid the best
natural orators. For there was no trial how mean and contemptible
soever that he came to unprepared; nay, several times he undertook
and concluded a cause, when Pompey and Caesar and Cicero refused
to stand up, upon which account particularly he got the love of
the people, who looked upon him as a diligent and careful man,
ready to help and succor his fellow-citizens. Besides, the people
were pleased with his courteous and unpretending salutations and
greetings; for he never met any citizen however humble and low,
but he returned him his salute by name. He was looked upon as a
man well-read in history, and pretty well versed in Aristotle's
philosophy, in which one Alexander instructed him, a man whose
intercourse with Crassus gave a sufficient proof of his
good-nature, and gentle disposition; for it is hard to say whether
he was poorer when he entered into his service, or while he
continued in it; for being his only friend that used to accompany
him when traveling, he used to receive from him a cloak for the
journey, and when he came home had it demanded from him again;
poor patient sufferer, when even the philosophy he professed did
not look upon poverty as a thing indifferent. But of this
hereafter.
When Cinna and Marius got the power in their hands, it was soon
perceived that they had not come back for any good they intended
to their country, but to effect the ruin and utter destruction of
the nobility. And as many as they could lay their hands on they
slew, amongst whom were Crassus's father and brother; he himself,
being very young, for the moment escaped the danger; but
understanding that he was every way beset and hunted after by the
tyrants, taking with him three friends and ten servants, with all
possible speed he fled into Spain, having formerly been there and
secured a great number of friends, while his father was Praetor of
that country. But finding all people in a consternation, and
trembling at the cruelty of Marius, as if he was already standing
over them in person, he durst not discover himself to anybody, but
hid himself in a large cave, which was by the sea-shore, and
belonged to Vibius Pacianus, to whom he sent one of his servants
to sound him, his provisions, also, beginning to fail. Vibius was
well pleased at his escape, and inquiring the place of his abode
and the number of his companions, he went not to him himself, but
commanded his steward to provide every day a good meal's meat, and
carry it and leave it near such a rock, and so return without
taking any further notice or being inquisitive, promising him his
liberty if he did as he commanded, and that he would kill him if
he intermeddled. The cave is not far from the sea; a small and
insignificant looking opening in the cliffs conducts you in; when
you are entered, a wonderfully high roof spreads above you, and
large chambers open out one beyond another, nor does it lack
either water or light, for a very pleasant and wholesome spring
runs at the foot of the cliffs, and natural chinks, in the most
advantageous place, let in the light all day long; and the
thickness of the rock makes the air within pure and clear, all the
wet and moisture being carried off into the spring.
While Crassus remained here, the steward brought them what was
necessary, but never saw them, nor knew anything of the matter,
though they within saw, and expected him at the customary times.
Neither was their entertainment such as just to keep them alive,
but given them in abundance and for their enjoyment; for Pacianus
resolved to treat him with all imaginable kindness, and
considering he was a young man, thought it well to gratify a
little his youthful inclinations; for to give just what is
needful, seems rather to come from necessity than from a hearty
friendship. Once taking with him two female servants, he showed
them the place and bade them go in boldly, whom when Crassus and
his friends saw, they were afraid of being betrayed, and demanded
what they were, and what they would have. They, according as they
were instructed, answered, they came to wait upon their master who
was hid in that cave. And so Crassus perceiving it was a piece of
pleasantry and of goodwill on the part of Vibius, took them in and
kept them there with him as long as he stayed, and employed them
to give information to Vibius of what they wanted, and how they
were. Fenestella says he saw one of them, then very old, and
often heard her speak of the time and repeat the story with
pleasure.
After Crassus had lain concealed there eight months, on hearing
that Cinna was dead, he appeared abroad, and a great number of
people flocking to him, out of whom he selected a body of two
thousand five hundred, he visited many cities, and, as some write,
sacked Malaca, which he himself, however, always denied, and
contradicted all who said so. Afterwards, getting together some
ships, he passed into Africa, and joined with Metellus Pius, an
eminent person that had raised a very considerable force; but upon
some difference between him and Metellus, he stayed not long
there, but went over to Sylla, by whom he was very much esteemed.
When Sylla passed over into Italy, he was anxious to put all the
young men that were with him in employment; and as he dispatched
some one way, and some another, Crassus, on its falling to his
share to raise men among the Marsians, demanded a guard, being to
pass through the enemy's country, upon which Sylla replied
sharply, "I give you for guard your father, your brother, your
friends and kindred, whose unjust and cruel murder I am now going
to revenge;" and Crassus, being nettled, went his way, broke
boldly through the enemy, collected a considerable force, and in
all Sylla's wars acted with great zeal and courage. And in these
times and occasions, they say, began the emulation and rivalry for
glory between him and Pompey; for though Pompey was the younger
man, and had the disadvantage to be descended of a father that was
disesteemed by the citizens, and hated as much as ever man was,
yet in these actions he shone out, and was proved so great, that
Sylla always used, when he came in, to stand up and uncover his
head, an honor which he seldom showed to older men and his own
equals, and always saluted him Imperator. This fired and stung
Crassus, though, indeed, he could not with any fairness claim to
be preferred; for he both wanted experience, and his two innate
vices, sordidness and avarice, tarnished all the lustre of his
actions. For when he had taken Tudertia, a town of the Umbrians,
he converted, it was said, all the spoil to his own use, for which
he was complained of to Sylla. But in the last and greatest
battle before Rome itself, where Sylla was worsted, some of his
battalions giving ground, and others being quite broken, Crassus
got the victory on the right wing, which he commanded, and pursued
the enemy till night, and then sent to Sylla to acquaint him with
his success, and demand provision for his soldiers. In the time,
however, of the proscriptions and sequestrations, he lost his
repute again, by making great purchases for little or nothing, and
asking for grants. Nay, they say he proscribed one of the
Bruttians without Sylla's order, only for his own profit, and
that, on discovering this, Sylla never after trusted him in any
public affairs. As no man was more cunning than Crassus to
ensnare others by flattery, so no man lay more open to it, or
swallowed it more greedily than himself. And this particularly
was observed of him, that though he was the most covetous man in
the world, yet he habitually disliked and cried out against others
who were so.
It troubled him to see Pompey so successful in all his
undertakings; that he had had a triumph before he was capable to
sit in the senate, and that the people had surnamed him Magnus, or
the Great. When somebody was saying Pompey the Great was coming,
he smiled, and asked him, "How big is he?" Despairing to equal
him by feats of arms, he betook himself to civil life, where by
doing kindnesses, pleading, lending money, by speaking and
canvassing among the people for those who had objects to obtain
from them, he gradually gained as great honor and power as Pompey
had from his many famous expeditions. And it was a curious thing
in their rivalry, that Pompey's name and interest in the city was
greatest when he was absent, for his renown in war, but when
present he was often less successful than Crassus, by reason of
his superciliousness and haughty way of living, shunning crowds of
people, and appearing rarely in the forum, and assisting only some
few, and that not readily, that his interest might be the stronger
when he came to use it for himself. Whereas Crassus, being a
friend always at hand, ready to be had and easy of access, and
always with his hands full of other people's business, with his
freedom and courtesy, got the better of Pompey's formality. In
point of dignity of person, eloquence of language, and
attractiveness of countenance, they were pretty equally excellent.
But, however, this emulation never transported Crassus so far as
to make him bear enmity, or any ill-will; for though he was vexed
to see Pompey and Caesar preferred to him, yet he never minded any
hostility or malice with his jealousy; though Caesar when he was
taken captive by the corsairs in Asia, cried out, "O Crassus, how
glad you will be at the news of my captivity!" Afterwards they
lived together on friendly terms, for when Caesar was going
praetor into Spain, and his creditors, he being then in want of
money, came upon him and seized his equipage, Crassus then stood
by him and relieved him, and was his security for eight hundred
and thirty talents. And, in general, Rome being divided into
three great interests, those of Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, (for
as for Cato, his fame was greater than his power, and he was
rather admired than followed,) the sober and quiet part were for
Pompey, the restless and hotheaded followed Caesar's ambition, but
Crassus trimmed between them, making advantages of both, and
changed sides continually, being neither a trusty friend nor an
implacable enemy, and easily abandoned both his attachments and
his animosities, as he found it for his advantage, so that in
short spaces of time, the same men and the same measures had him
both as their supporter and as their opponent. He was much liked,
but was feared as much or even more. At any rate, when Sicinius,
who was the greatest troubler of the magistrates and ministers of
his time, was asked how it was he let Crassus alone, "Oh," said
he, "he carries hay on his horns," alluding to the custom of tying
hay to the horns of a bull that used to butt, that people might
keep out of his way.
The insurrection of the gladiators and the devastation of Italy,
commonly called the war of Spartacus, began upon this occasion.
One Lentulus Batiates trained up a great many gladiators in Capua,
most of them Gauls and Thracians, who, not for any fault by them
committed, but simply through the cruelty of their master, were
kept in confinement for this object of fighting one with another.
Two hundred of these formed a plan to escape, but their plot being
discovered, those of them who became aware of it in time to
anticipate their master, being seventy-eight, got out of a cook's
shop chopping-knives and spits, and made their way through the
city, and lighting by the way on several wagons that were carrying
gladiator's arms to another city, they seized upon them and armed
themselves. And seizing upon a defensible place, they chose three
captains, of whom Spartacus was chief, a Thracian of one of the
nomad tribes, and a man not only of high spirit and valiant, but
in understanding, also, and in gentleness, superior to his
condition, and more of a Grecian than the people of his country
usually are. When he first came to be sold at Rome, they say a
snake coiled itself upon his face as he lay asleep, and his wife,
who at this latter time also accompanied him in his flight, his
country-woman, a kind of prophetess, and one of those possessed
with the bacchanal frenzy, declared that it was a sign portending
great and formidable power to him with no happy event.
First, then, routing those that came out of Capua against them,
and thus procuring a quantity of proper soldiers' arms, they
gladly threw away their own as barbarous and dishonorable.
Afterwards Clodius, the praetor, took the command against them
with a body of three thousand men from Rome, and besieged them
within a mountain, accessible only by one narrow and difficult
passage, which Clodius kept guarded, encompassed on all other
sides with steep and slippery precipices. Upon the top, however,
grew a great many wild vines, and cutting down as many of their
boughs as they had need of, they twisted them into strong ladders
long enough to reach from thence to the bottom, by which, without
any danger, they got down all but one, who stayed there to throw
them down their arms, and after this succeeded in saving himself.
The Romans were ignorant of all this, and, therefore, coming upon
them in the rear, they assaulted them unawares and took their
camp. Several, also, of the shepherds and herdsman that were
there, stout and nimble fellows, revolted over to them, to some of
whom they gave complete arms, and made use of others as scouts and
light-armed soldiers. Publius Varinus, the praetor, was now sent
against them, whose lieutenant, Furius, with two thousand men,
they fought and routed. Then Cossinius was sent, with
considerable forces, to give his assistance and advice, and him
Spartacus missed but very little of capturing in person, as he was
bathing at Salinae; for he with great difficulty made his escape,
while Spartacus possessed himself of his baggage, and following
the chase with a great slaughter, stormed his camp and took it,
where Cossinius himself was slain. After many successful
skirmishes with the praetor himself, in one of which he took his
lictors and his own horse, he began to be great and terrible; but
wisely considering that he was not to expect to match the force of
the empire, he marched his army towards the Alps, intending, when
he had passed them, that every man should go to his own home, some
to Thrace, some to Gaul. But they, grown confident in their
numbers, and puffed up with their success, would give no obedience
to him, but went about and ravaged Italy; so that now the senate
was not only moved at the indignity and baseness, both of the
enemy and of the insurrection, but, looking upon it as a matter of
alarm and of dangerous consequence, sent out both the consuls to
it, as to a great and difficult enterprise. The consul Gellius,
falling suddenly upon a party of Germans, who through contempt and
confidence had straggled from Spartacus, cut them all to pieces.
But when Lentulus with a large army besieged Spartacus, he sallied
out upon him, and, joining battle, defeated his chief officers,
and captured all his baggage. As he made toward the Alps,
Cassius, who was praetor of that part of Gaul that lies about the
Po, met him with ten thousand men, but being overcome in battle,
he had much ado to escape himself, with the loss of a great many
of his men.
When the senate understood this, they were displeased at the
consuls, and ordering them to meddle no further, they appointed
Crassus general of the war, and a great many of the nobility went
volunteers with him, partly out of friendship, and partly to get
honor. He stayed himself on the borders of Picenum, expecting
Spartacus would come that way, and sent his lieutenant, Mummius,
with two legions, to wheel about and observe the enemy's motions,
but upon no account to engage or skirmish. But he, upon the first
opportunity, joined battle, and was routed, having a great many
of his men slain, and a great many only saving their lives, with
the loss of their arms. Crassus rebuked Mummius severely, and
arming the soldiers again, he made them find sureties for their
arms, that they would part with them no more, and five hundred
that were the beginners of the flight, he divided into fifty tens,
and one of each was to die by lot, thus reviving the ancient Roman
punishment of decimation, where ignominy is added to the penalty
of death, with a variety of appalling and terrible circumstances,
presented before the eyes of the whole army, assembled as
spectators. When he had thus reclaimed his men, he led them
against the enemy; but Spartacus retreated through Lucania toward
the sea, and in the straits meeting with some Cilician pirate
ships, he had thoughts of attempting Sicily, where, by landing two
thousand men, he hoped to new kindle the war of the slaves, which
was but lately extinguished, and seemed to need but a little fuel
to set it burning again. But after the pirates had struck a
bargain with him, and received his earnest, they deceived him and
sailed away. He thereupon retired again from the sea, and
established his army in the peninsula of Rhegium; there Crassus
came upon him, and considering the nature of the place, which of
itself suggested the undertaking, he set to work to build a wall
across the isthmus; thus keeping his soldiers at once from
idleness, and his foes from forage. This great and difficult work
he perfected in a space of time short beyond all expectation,
making a ditch from one sea to the other, over the neck of land,
three hundred furlongs long, fifteen feet broad, and as much in
depth, and above it built a wonderfully high and strong wall. All
which Spartacus at first slighted and despised, but when
provisions began to fail, and on his proposing to pass further, he
found he was walled in, and no more was to be had in the
peninsula, taking the opportunity of a snowy, stormy night, he
filled up part of the ditch with earth and boughs of trees, and so
passed the third part of his army over.
Crassus was afraid lest he should march directly to Rome, but was
soon eased of that fear when he saw many of his men break out in a
mutiny and quit him, and encamp by themselves upon the Lucanian
lake. This lake they say changes at intervals of time, and is
sometimes sweet, and sometimes so salt that it cannot be drunk.
Crassus falling upon these beat them from the lake, but he could
not pursue the slaughter, because of Spartacus suddenly coming up,
and checking the flight. Now he began to repent that he had
previously written to the senate to call Lucullus out of Thrace,
and Pompey out of Spain; so that he did all he could to finish the
war before they came, knowing that the honor of the action would
redound to him that came to his assistance. Resolving, therefore,
first to set upon those that had mutinied and encamped apart, whom
Caius Cannicius and Castus commanded, he sent six thousand men
before to secure a little eminence, and to do it as privately as
possible, which that they might do, they covered their helmets,
but being discovered by two women that were sacrificing for the
enemy, they had been in great hazard, had not Crassus immediately
appeared, and engaged in a battle which proved a most bloody one.
Of twelve thousand three hundred whom he killed, two only were
found wounded in their backs, the rest all having died standing in
their ranks, and fighting bravely. Spartacus, after this
discomfiture, retired to the mountains of Petelia, but Quintius,
one of Crassus's officers, and Scrofa, the quaestor, pursued and
overtook him. But when Spartacus rallied and faced them, they
were utterly routed and fled, and had much ado to carry off their
quaestor, who was wounded. This success, however, ruined
Spartacus, because it encouraged the slaves, who now disdained any
longer to avoid fighting, or to obey their officers, but as they
were upon their march, they came to them with their swords in
their hand, and compelled them to lead them back again through
Lucania, against the Romans, the very thing which Crassus was
eager for. For news was already brought that Pompey was at hand;
and people began to talk openly, that the honor of this war was
reserved for him, who would come and at once oblige the enemy to
fight and put an end to the war. Crassus, therefore, eager to
fight a decisive battle, encamped very near the enemy, and began
to make lines of circumvallation; but the slaves made a sally, and
attacked the pioneers. As fresh supplies came in on either side,
Spartacus, seeing there was no avoiding it, set all his army in
array, and when his horse was brought him, he drew out his sword
and killed him, saying, if he got the day, he should have a great
many better horses of the enemies, and if he lost it, he should
have no need of this. And so making directly towards Crassus
himself, through the midst of arms and wounds, he missed him, hut
slew two centurions that fell upon him together. At last being
deserted by those that were about him, he himself stood his
ground, and, surrounded by the enemy, bravely defending himself,
was cut in pieces. But though Crassus had good fortune, and not
only did the part of a good general, but gallantly exposed his
person, yet Pompey had much of the credit of the action. For he
met with many of the fugitives, and slew them, and wrote to the
senate that Crassus indeed had vanquished the slaves in a pitched
battle, but that he had put an end to the war. Pompey was honored
with a magnificent triumph for his conquest over Sertorius and
Spain, while Crassus could not himself so much as desire a triumph
in its full form, and indeed it was thought to look but meanly in
him to accept of the lesser honor, called the ovation, for a
servile war, and perform a procession on foot. The difference
between this and the other, and the origin of the name, are
explained in the life of Marcellus.
And Pompey being immediately invited to the consulship, Crassus,
who had hoped to be joined with him, did not scruple to request
his assistance. Pompey most readily seized the opportunity, as he
desired by all means to lay some obligation upon Crassus, and
zealously promoted his interest; and at last he declared in one of
his speeches to the people, that he should be not less beholden to
them for his colleague, than for the honor of his own appointment.
But once entered upon the employment, this amity continued not
long; but differing almost in everything, disagreeing,
quarreling, and contending, they spent the time of their
consulship, without effecting any measure of consequence, except
that Crassus made a great sacrifice to Hercules, and feasted the
people at ten thousand tables, and measured them out corn for
three months. When their command was now ready to expire, and
they were, as it happened addressing the people, a Roman knight,
one Onatius Aurelius, an ordinary private person, living in the
country, mounted the hustings, and declared a vision he had in his
sleep: "Jupiter," said he, "appeared to me, and commanded me to
tell you, that you should not suffer your consuls to lay down
their charge before they are made friends." When he had spoken,
the people cried out that they should be reconciled. Pompey stood
still and said nothing, but Crassus, first offering him his hand,
said, "I cannot think, my countrymen, that I do any thing
humiliating or unworthy of myself, if I make the first offers of
accommodation and friendship with Pompey, whom you yourselves
styled the Great, before he was of man's estate, and decreed him a
triumph before he was capable of sitting in the senate."
This is what was memorable in Crassus's consulship, but as for his
censorship, that was altogether idle and inactive, for he neither
made a scrutiny of the senate, nor took a review of the horsemen,
nor a census of the people, though he had as mild a man as could
be desired for his colleague, Lutatius Catulus. It is said,
indeed, that when Crassus intended a violent and unjust measure,
which was the reducing Egypt to be tributary to Rome, Catulus
strongly opposed it, and falling out about it, they laid down
their office by consent. In the great conspiracy of Catiline,
which was very near subverting the government, Crassus was not
without some suspicion of being concerned, and one man came
forward and declared him to be in the plot; but nobody credited
him. Yet Cicero, in one of his orations, clearly charges both
Crassus and Caesar with the guilt of it, though that speech was
not published till they were both dead. But in his speech upon
his consulship, he declares that Crassus came to him by night, and
brought a letter concerning Catiline, stating the details of the
conspiracy. Crassus hated him ever after, but was hindered by his
son from doing him any open injury; for Publius was a great lover
of learning and eloquence, and a constant follower of Cicero,
insomuch that he put himself into mourning when he was accused,
and induced the other young men to do the same. And at last he
reconciled him to his father.
Caesar now returning from his command, and designing to get the
consulship, and seeing that Crassus and Pompey were again at
variance, was unwilling to disoblige one by making application to
the other, and despaired of success without the help of one of
them; he therefore made it his business to reconcile them, making
it appear that by weakening each other's influence they were
promoting the interest of the Ciceros, the Catuli, and the Catos,
who would really be of no account if they would join their
interests and their factions, and act together in public with one
policy and one united power. And so reconciling them by his
persuasions, out of the three parties he set up one irresistible
power, which utterly subverted the government both of senate and
people. Not that he made either Pompey or Crassus greater than
they were before, but by their means made himself greatest of all;
for by the help of the adherents of both, he was at once
gloriously declared consul, which office when he administered with
credit, they decreed him the command of an army, and allotted him
Gaul for his province, and so placed him as it were in the
citadel, not doubting but they should divide the rest at their
pleasure between themselves, when they had confirmed him in his
allotted command. Pompey was actuated in all this by an
immoderate desire of ruling, but Crassus, adding to his old
disease of covetousness, a new passion after trophies and
triumphs, emulous of Caesar's exploits, not content to be beneath
him in these points, though above him in all others, could not be
at rest, till it ended in an ignominious overthrow, and a public
calamity. When Caesar came out of Gaul to Lucca, a great many
went thither from Rome to meet him. Pompey and Crassus had
various conferences with him in secret, in which they came to the
resolution to proceed to still more decisive steps, and to get the
whole management of affairs into their hands, Caesar to keep his
army, and Pompey and Crassus to obtain new ones and new provinces.
To effect all which there was but one way, the getting the
consulate a second time, which they were to stand for, and Caesar
to assist them by writing to his friends, and sending many of his
soldiers to vote.
But when they returned to Rome, their design was presently
suspected, and a report was soon spread that this interview had
been for no good. When Marcellinus and Domitius asked Pompey in
the senate if he intended to stand for the consulship, he
answered, perhaps he would, perhaps not; and being urged again,
replied, he would ask it of the honest citizens, but not of the
dishonest. Which answer appearing too haughty and arrogant,
Crassus said, more modestly, that he would desire it if it might
be for the advantage of the public, otherwise he would decline it.
Upon this some others took confidence and came forward as
candidates, among them Domitius. But when Pompey and Crassus now
openly appeared for it, the rest were afraid and drew back; only
Cato encouraged Domitius, who was his friend and relation, to
proceed, exciting him to persist, as though he was now defending
the public liberty, as these men, he said, did not so much aim at
the consulate, as at arbitrary government, and it was not a
petition for office, but a seizure of provinces and armies. Thus
spoke and thought Cato, and almost forcibly compelled Domitius to
appear in the forum, where many sided with them. For there was,
indeed, much wonder and question among the people, "Why should
Pompey and Crassus want another consulship? and why they two
together, and not with some third person? We have a great many men
not unworthy to be fellow-consuls with either the one or the
other." Pompey's party, being apprehensive of this, committed all
manner of indecencies and violences, and amongst other things lay
in wait for Domitius, as he was coming thither before daybreak
with his friends; his torchbearer they killed, and wounded several
others, of whom Cato was one. And these being beaten back and
driven into a house, Pompey and Crassus were proclaimed consuls.
Not long after, they surrounded the house with armed men, thrust
Cato out of the forum, killed some that made resistance, and
decreed Caesar his command for five years longer, and provinces
for themselves, Syria, and both the Spains, which being divided by
lots, Syria fell to Crassus, and the Spains to Pompey.
All were well pleased with the chance, for the people were
desirous that Pompey should not go far from the city, and he,
being extremely fond of his wife, was very glad to continue there;
but Crassus was so transported with his fortune, that it was
manifest he thought he had never had such good luck befall him as
now, so that he had much to do to contain himself before company
and strangers; but amongst his private friends he let fall many
vain and childish words, which were unworthy of his age, and
contrary to his usual character, for he had been very little given
to boasting hitherto. But then being strangely puffed up, and his
head heated, he would not limit his fortune with Parthia and
Syria; but looking on the actions of Lucullus against Tigranes and
the exploits of Pompey against Mithridates as but child's play, he
proposed to himself in his hopes to pass as far as Bactria and
India, and the utmost ocean. Not that he was called upon by the
decree which appointed him to his office to undertake any
expedition against the Parthians, but it was well known that he
was eager for it, and Caesar wrote to him out of Gaul, commending
his resolution, and inciting him to the war. And when Ateius, the
tribune of the people, designed to stop his journey, and many
others murmured that one man should undertake a war against a
people that had done them no injury, and were at amity with them,
he desired Pompey to stand by him and accompany him out of the
town, as he had a great name amongst the common people. And when
several were ready prepared to interfere and raise an outcry,
Pompey appeared with a pleasing countenance, and so mollified the
people, that they let Crassus pass quietly. Ateius, however, met
him, and first by word of mouth warned and conjured him not to
proceed, and then commanded his attendant officer to seize him and
detain him; but the other tribunes not permitting it, the officer
released Crassus. Ateius, therefore, running to the gate, when
Crassus was come thither, set down a chafing-dish with lighted
fire in it, and burning incense and pouring libations on it,
cursed him with dreadful imprecations, calling upon and naming
several strange and horrible deities. In the Roman belief there
is so much virtue in these sacred and ancient rites, that no man
can escape the effects of them, and that the utterer himself
seldom prospers; so that they are not often made use of, and but
upon a great occasion. And Ateius was blamed at the time for
resorting to them, as the city itself, in whose cause he used
them, would be the first to feel the ill effects of these curses
and supernatural terrors.
Crassus arrived at Brundusium, and though the sea was very rough,
he had not patience to wait, but went on board, and lost many of
his ships. With the remnant of his army he marched rapidly
through Galatia, where meeting with king Deiotarus, who, though he
was very old, was about building a new city, Crassus scoffingly
told him, "Your majesty begins to build at the twelfth hour."
"Neither do you," said he, "O general, undertake your Parthian
expedition very early." For Crassus was then sixty years old, and
he seemed older than he was. At his first coming, things went as
he would have them, for he made a bridge over Euphrates without
much difficulty, and passed over his army in safety, and occupied
many cities of Mesopotamia, which yielded voluntarily. But a
hundred of his men were killed in one, in which Apollonius was
tyrant; therefore, bringing his forces against it, he took it by
storm, plundered the goods, and sold the inhabitants. The Greeks
call this city Zenodotia, upon the taking of which, he permitted
the army to salute him Imperator, but this was very ill thought
of, and it looked as if he despaired a nobler achievement, that he
made so much of this little success. Putting garrisons of seven
thousand foot and one thousand horse in the new conquests, he
returned to take up his winter quarters in Syria, where his son
was to meet him coming from Caesar out of Gaul, decorated with
rewards for his valor, and bringing with him one thousand select
horse. Here Crassus seemed to commit his first error, and except,
indeed, the whole expedition, his greatest; for, whereas he ought
to have gone forward and seized Babylon and Seleucia, cities that
were ever at enmity with the Parthians, he gave the enemy time to
provide against him. Besides, he spent his time in Syria more
like an usurer than a general, not in taking an account of the
arms, and in improving the skill and discipline of his soldiers,
but in computing the revenue of the cities, wasting many days in
weighing by scale and balance the treasure that was in the temple
of Hierapolis, issuing requisitions for levies of soldiers upon
particular towns and kingdoms, and then again withdrawing them on
payment of sums of money, by which he lost his credit and became
despised. Here, too, he met with the first ill-omen from that
goddess, whom some call Venus, others Juno, others Nature, or the
Cause that produces out of moisture the first principles and seeds
of all things, and gives mankind their earliest knowledge of all
that is good for them. For as they were going out of the temple,
young Crassus stumbled, and his father fell upon him.
When he drew his army out of winter quarters, ambassadors came to
him from Arsaces, with this short speech: If the army was sent
by the people of Rome, he denounced mortal war, but if, as he
understood was the case, against the consent of his country,
Crassus for his own private profit had invaded his territory, then
their king would be more merciful, and taking pity upon Crassus's
dotage, would send those soldiers back, who had been left not so
truly to keep guard on him as to be his prisoners. Crassus
boastfully told them he would return his answer at Seleucia, upon
which Vagises, the eldest of them, laughed and showed the palm of
his hand, saying, "Hail will grow here before you will see
Seleucia;" so they returned to their king, Hyrodes, telling him it
was war. Several of the Romans that were in garrison in
Mesopotamia with great hazard made their escape, and brought word
that the danger was worth consideration, urging their own
eye-witness of the numbers of the enemy, and the manner of their
fighting, when they assaulted their towns; and, as men's manner
is, made all seem greater than really it was. By flight it was
impossible to escape them, and as impossible to overtake them when
they fled, and they had a new and strange sort of darts, as swift
as sight, for they pierced whatever they met with, before you
could see who threw; their men-at-arms were so provided that their
weapons would cut through anything, and their armor give way to
nothing. All which when the soldiers heard, their hearts failed
them; for till now they thought there was no difference between
the Parthians and the Armenians or Cappadocians, whom Lucullus
grew weary with plundering, and had been persuaded that the main
difficulty of the war consisted only in the tediousness of the
march, and the trouble of chasing men that durst not come to
blows, so that the danger of a battle was beyond their
expectation; accordingly, some of the officers advised Crassus to
proceed no further at present, but reconsider the whole
enterprise, amongst whom in particular was Cassius, the quaestor.
The soothsayers, also, told him privately the signs found in the
sacrifices were continually adverse and unfavorable. But he paid
no heed to them, or to anybody who gave any other advice than to
proceed. Nor did Artabazes, king of Armenia, confirm him a
little, who came to his aid with six thousand horse; who, however,
were said to be only the king's life-guard and suite, for he
promised ten thousand cuirassiers more, and thirty thousand foot,
at his own charge. He urged Crassus to invade Parthia by the way
of Armenia, for not only would he be able there to supply his army
with abundant provision, which he would give him, but his passage
would be more secure in the mountains and hills, with which the
whole country was covered, making it almost impassable to horse,
in which the main strength of the Parthians consisted. Crassus
returned him but cold thanks for his readiness to serve him, and
for the splendor of his assistance, and told him he was resolved
to pass through Mesopotamia, where he had left a great many brave
Roman soldiers; whereupon the Armenian went his way. As Crassus
was taking the army over the river at Zeugma, he encountered
preternaturally violent thunder, and the lightning flashed in the
faces of the troops, and during the storm a hurricane broke upon
the bridge, and carried part of it away; two thunderbolts fell
upon the very place where the army was going to encamp; and one of
the general's horses, magnificently caparisoned, dragged away the
groom into the river and was drowned. It is said, too, that when
they went to take up the first standard, the eagle of itself
turned its head backward; and after he had passed over his army,
as they were distributing provisions, the first thing they gave
was lentils and salt, which with the Romans are the food proper to
funerals, and are offered to the dead. And as Crassus was
haranguing his soldiers, he let fall a word which was thought very
ominous in the army; for "I am going," he said, "to break down the
bridge, that none of you may return;" and whereas he ought, when
he had perceived his blunder, to have corrected himself, and
explained his meaning, seeing the men alarmed at the expression,
he would not do it out of mere stubbornness. And when at the last
general sacrifice the priest gave him the entrails, they slipped out
of his hand, and when he saw the standers-by concerned at it, he
laughed and said, "See what it is to be an old man; but I shall
hold my sword fast enough."
So he marched his army along the river with seven legions, little
less than four thousand horse, and as many light-armed soldiers,
and the scouts returning declared that not one man appeared, but
that they saw the footing of a great many horses which seemed to
be retiring in flight, whereupon Crassus conceived great hopes,
and the Romans began to despise the Parthians, as men that would
not come to combat, hand to hand. But Cassius spoke with him
again, and advised him to refresh his army in some of the garrison
towns, and remain there till they could get some certain
intelligence of the enemy, or at least to make toward Seleucia,
and keep by the river, that so they might have the convenience of
having provision constantly supplied by the boats, which might
always accompany the army, and the river would secure them from
being environed, and, if they should fight, it might be upon equal
terms.
While Crassus was still considering, and as yet undetermined,
there came to the camp an Arab chief named Ariamnes, a cunning and
wily fellow, who, of all the evil chances which combined to lead
them on to destruction, was the chief and the most fatal. Some of
Pompey's old soldiers knew him, and remembered him to have
received some kindnesses of Pompey, and to have been looked upon
as a friend to the Romans, but he was now suborned by the king's
generals, and sent to Crassus to entice him if possible from the
river and hills into the wide open plain, where he might be
surrounded. For the Parthians desired anything, rather than to
be obliged to meet the Romans face to face. He, therefore, coming
to Crassus, (and he had a persuasive tongue,) highly commended
Pompey as his benefactor, and admired the forces that Crassus had
with him, but seemed to wonder why he delayed and made
preparations, as if he should not use his feet more than any arms,
against men that, taking with them their best goods and chattels,
had designed long ago to fly for refuge to the Scythians or
Hyrcanians. "If you meant to fight, you should have made all
possible haste, before the king should recover courage, and
collect his forces together; at present you see Surena and
Sillaces opposed to you, to draw you off in pursuit of them, while
the king himself keeps out of the way." But this was all a lie,
for Hyrodes had divided his army in two parts, with one he in
person wasted Armenia, revenging himself upon Artavasdes, and sent
Surena against the Romans, not out of contempt, as some pretend,
for there is no likelihood that he should despise Crassus, one of
the chiefest men of Rome, to go and fight with Artavasdes, and
invade Armenia; but much more probably he really apprehended the
danger, and therefore waited to see the event, intending that
Surena should first run the hazard of a battle, and draw the enemy
on. Nor was this Surena an ordinary person, but in wealth,
family, and reputation, the second man in the kingdom, and in
courage and prowess the first, and for bodily stature and beauty
no man like him. Whenever he traveled privately, he had one
thousand camels to carry his baggage, two hundred chariots for his
concubines, one thousand completely armed men for his life-guards,
and a great many more light-armed; and he had at least ten
thousand horsemen altogether, of his servants and retinue. The
honor had long belonged to his family, that at the king's
coronation he put the crown upon his head, and when this very king
Hyrodes had been exiled, he brought him in; it was he, also, that
took the great city of Seleucia, was the first man that scaled the
walls, and with his own hand beat off the defenders. And though
at this time he was not above thirty years old, he had a great
name for wisdom and sagacity, and, indeed, by these qualities
chiefly, he overthrew Crassus, who first through his overweening
confidence, and afterwards because he was cowed by his calamities,
fell a ready victim to his subtlety. When Ariamnes had thus
worked upon him, he drew him from the river into vast plains, by a
way that at first was pleasant and easy, but afterwards very
troublesome by reason of the depth of the sand; no tree, nor any
water, and no end of this to be seen; so that they were not only
spent with thirst, and the difficulty of the passage, but were
dismayed with the uncomfortable prospect of not a bough, not a
stream, not a hillock, not a green herb, but in fact a sea of
sand, which encompassed the army with its waves. They began to
suspect some treachery, and at the same time came messengers from
Artavasdes, that he was fiercely attacked by Hyrodes, who had
invaded his country, so that now it was impossible for him to send
any succors, and that he therefore advised Crassus to turn back,
and with joint forces to give Hyrodes battle, or at least that he
should march and encamp where horses could not easily come, and
keep to the mountains. Crassus, out of anger and perverseness,
wrote him no answer, but told them, at present he was not at
leisure to mind the Armenians, but he would call upon them another
time, and revenge himself upon Artavasdes for his treachery.
Cassius and his friends began again to complain, but when they
perceived that it merely displeased Crassus, they gave over, but
privately railed at the barbarian, "What evil genius, O thou worst
of men, brought thee to our camp, and with what charms and potions
hast thou bewitched Crassus, that he should march his army through
a vast and deep desert, through ways which are rather fit for a
captain of Arabian robbers, than for the general of a Roman army?"
But the barbarian being a wily fellow, very submissively exhorted
them, and encouraged them to sustain it a little further, and ran
about the camp, and, professing to cheer up the soldiers, asked
them, jokingly, "What, do you think you march through Campania,
expecting everywhere to find springs, and shady trees, and baths,
and inns of entertainment? Consider you now travel through the
confines of Arabia and Assyria." Thus he managed them like
children, and before the cheat was discovered, he rode away; not
but that Crassus was aware of his going, but he had persuaded him
that he would go and contrive how to disorder the affairs of the
enemy.
It is related that Crassus came abroad that day not in his scarlet
robe, which Roman generals usually wear, but in a black one,
which, as soon as he perceived, he changed. And the
standard-bearers had much ado to take up their eagles, which
seemed to be fixed to the place. Crassus laughed at it, and
hastened their march, and compelled his infantry to keep pace with
his cavalry, till some few of the scouts returned and told them
that their fellows were slain and they hardly escaped, that the
enemy was at hand in full force, and resolved to give them battle.
On this all was in an uproar; Crassus was struck with amazement,
and for haste could scarcely put his army in good order. First,
as Cassius advised, he opened their ranks and files that they
might take up as much space as could be, to prevent their being
surrounded, and distributed the horse upon the wings, but
afterwards changing his mind, he drew up his army in a square, and
made a front every way, each of which consisted of twelve cohorts,
to every one of which he allotted a troop of horse, that no part
might be destitute of the assistance that the horse might give,
and that they might be ready to assist everywhere, as need should
require. Cassius commanded one of the wings, young Crassus the
other, and he himself was in the middle. Thus they marched on
till they came to a little river named Balissus, a very
inconsiderable one in itself, but very grateful to the soldiers,
who had suffered so much by drought and heat all along their
march. Most of the commanders were of the opinion that they ought
to remain there that night, and to inform themselves as much as
possible of the number of the enemies, and their order, and so
march against them at break of day; but Crassus was so carried
away by the eagerness of his son, and the horsemen that were with
him, who desired and urged him to lead them on and engage, that he
commanded those that had a mind to it to eat and drink as they
stood in their ranks, and before they had all well done, he led
them on, not leisurely and with halts to take breath, as if he was
going to battle, but kept on his pace as if he had been in haste,
till they saw the enemy, contrary to their expectation, neither so
many nor so magnificently armed as the Romans expected. For
Surena had hid his main force behind the first ranks, and ordered
them to hide the glittering of their armor with coats and skins.
But when they approached and the general gave the signal,
immediately all the field rung with a hideous noise and terrible
clamor. For the Parthians do not encourage themselves to war with
cornets and trumpets, but with a kind of kettle-drum, which they
strike all at once in various quarters. With these they make a
dead hollow noise like the bellowing of beasts, mixed with sounds
resembling thunder, having, it would seem, very correctly
observed, that of all our senses hearing most confounds and
disorders us, and that the feelings excited through it most
quickly disturb, and most entirely overpower the understanding.
When they had sufficiently terrified the Romans with their noise,
they threw off the covering of their armor, and shone like
lightning in their breastplates and helmets of polished Margianian
steel, and with their horses covered with brass and steel
trappings. Surena was the tallest and finest looking man himself,
but the delicacy of his looks and effeminacy of his dress did not
promise so much manhood as he really was master of; for his face
was painted, and his hair parted after the fashion of the Medes,
whereas the other Parthians made a more terrible appearance, with
their shaggy hair gathered in a mass upon their foreheads after
the Scythian mode. Their first design was with their lances to
beat down and force back the first ranks of the Romans, but when
they perceived the depth of their battle, and that the soldiers
firmly kept their ground, they made a retreat, and pretending to
break their order and disperse, they encompassed the Roman square
before they were aware of it. Crassus commanded his light-armed
soldiers to charge, but they had not gone far before they were
received with such a shower of arrows that they were glad to
retire amongst the heavy-armed, with whom this was the first
occasion of disorder and terror, when they perceived the strength
and force of their darts, which pierced their arms, and passed
through every kind of covering, hard and soft alike. The
Parthians now placing themselves at distances began to shoot from
all sides, not aiming at any particular mark, (for, indeed, the
order of the Romans was so close, that they could not miss if they
would,) but simply sent their arrows with great force out of
strong bent bows, the strokes from which came with extreme
violence. The position of the Romans was a very bad one from the
first; for if they kept their ranks, they were wounded, and if
they tried to charge, they hurt the enemy none the more, and
themselves suffered none the less. For the Parthians threw their
darts as they fled, an art in which none but the Scythians excel
them, and it is, indeed, a cunning practice, for while they thus
fight to make their escape, they avoid the dishonor of a flight.
However, the Romans had some comfort to think that when they had
spent all their arrows, they would either give over or come to
blows; but when they presently understood that there were numerous
camels loaded with arrows, and that when the first ranks had
discharged those they had, they wheeled off and took more, Crassus
seeing no end of it, was out of all heart, and sent to his son
that he should endeavor to fall in upon them before he was quite
surrounded; for the enemy advanced most upon that quarter, and
seemed to be trying to ride round and come upon the rear.
Therefore the young man, taking with him thirteen hundred horse,
one thousand of which he had from Caesar, five hundred archers,
and eight cohorts of the full-armed soldiers that stood next him,
led them up with design to charge the Parthians. Whether it was
that they found themselves in a piece of marshy ground, as some
think, or else designing to entice young Crassus as far as they
could from his father, they turned and began to fly; whereupon he
crying out that they durst not stand, pursued them, and with him
Censorinus and Megabacchus, both famous, the latter for his
courage and prowess, the other for being of a senator's family,
and an excellent orator, both intimates of Crassus, and of about
the same age. The horse thus pushing on, the infantry stayed
little behind, being exalted with hopes and joy, for they supposed
they had already conquered, and now were only pursuing; till when
they were gone too far, they perceived the deceit, for they that
seemed to fly, now turned again, and a great many fresh ones came
on. Upon this they made an halt, for they doubted not but now the
enemy would attack them, because they were so few. But they
merely placed their cuirassiers to face the Romans, and with the
rest of their horse rode about scouring the field, and thus
stirring up the sand, they raised such a dust that the Romans
could neither see nor speak to one another, and being driven in
upon one another in one close body, they were thus hit and killed,
dying, not by a quick and easy death, but with miserable pains and
convulsions; for writhing upon the darts in their bodies, they
broke them in their wounds, and when they would by force pluck out
the barbed points, they caught the nerves and veins, so that they
tore and tortured themselves. Many of them died thus, and those
that survived were disabled for any service, and when Publius
exhorted them to charge the cuirassiers, they showed him their
hands nailed to their shields, and their feet stuck to the ground,
so that they could neither fly nor fight. He charged in himself
boldly, however, with his horse, and came to close quarters with
them, but was very unequal, whether as to the offensive or
defensive part; for with his weak and little javelins, he struck
against targets that were of tough raw hides and iron, whereas the
lightly clad bodies of his Gaulish horsemen were exposed to the
strong spears of the enemy. For upon these he mostly depended,
and with them he wrought wonders; for they would catch hold of the
great spears, and close upon the enemy, and so pull them off from
their horses, where they could scarce stir by reason of the
heaviness of their armor, and many of the Gauls quitting their own
horses, would creep under those of the enemy, and stick them in
the belly; which, growing unruly with the pain, trampled upon
their riders and upon the enemies promiscuously. The Gauls were
chiefly tormented by the heat and drought being not accustomed to
either, and most of their horses were slain by being spurred on
against the spears, so that they were forced to retire among the
foot, bearing off Publius grievously wounded. Observing a sandy
hillock not far off, they made to it, and tying their horses to
one another, and placing them in the midst, and joining all their
shields together before them, they thought they might make some
defense against the barbarians. But it fell out quite contrary,
for when they were drawn up in a plain, the front in some measure
secured those that were behind; but when they were upon the hill,
one being of necessity higher up than another, none were in
shelter, but all alike stood equally exposed, bewailing their
inglorious and useless fate. There were with Publius two Greeks
that lived near there at Carrhae, Hieronymus and Nicomachus; these
men urged him to retire with them and fly to Ichnae, a town not
far from thence, and friendly to the Romans. "No," said he,
"there is no death so terrible, for the fear of which Publius
would leave his friends that die upon his account;" and bidding
them to take care of themselves, he embraced them and sent them
away, and, because he could not use his arm, for he was run
through with a dart, he opened his side to his armor-bearer, and
commanded him to run him through. It is said that Censorinus fell
in the same manner. Megabacchus slew himself, as did also the
rest of best note. The Parthians coming upon the rest with their
lances, killed them fighting, nor were there above five hundred
taken prisoners. Cutting off the head of Publius, they rode off
directly towards Crassus.
His condition was thus. When he had commanded his son to fall
upon the enemy, and word was brought him that they fled and that
there was a distant pursuit, and perceiving also that the enemy
did not press upon him so hard as formerly, for they were mostly
gone to fall upon Publius, he began to take heart a little; and
drawing his army towards some sloping ground, expected when his
son would return from the pursuit. Of the messengers whom Publius
sent to him, (as soon as he saw his danger,) the first were
intercepted by the enemy, and slain; the last hardly escaping,
came and declared that Publius was lost, unless he had speedy
succors. Crassus was terribly distracted, not knowing what
counsel to take, and indeed no longer capable of taking any;
overpowered now by fear for the whole army, now by desire to help
his son. At last he resolved to move with his forces. Just upon
this, up came the enemy with their shouts and noises more terrible
than before, their drums sounding again in the ears of the Romans,
who now feared a fresh engagement. And they who brought Publius's
head upon the point of a spear, riding up near enough that it
could be known, scoffingly inquired where were his parents and
what family he was of, for it was impossible that so brave and
gallant a warrior should be the son of so pitiful a coward as
Crassus. This sight above all the rest dismayed the Romans, for
it did not incite them to anger as it might have done, but to
horror and trembling, though they say Crassus outdid himself in
this calamity, for he passed through the ranks and cried out to
them, "This, O my countrymen, is my own peculiar loss, but the
fortune and the glory of Rome is safe and untainted so long as you
are safe. But if any one be concerned for my loss of the best of
sons, let him show it in revenging him upon the enemy. Take away
their joy, revenge their cruelty, nor be dismayed at what is past;
for whoever tries for great objects must suffer something.
Neither did Lucullus overthrow Tigranes without bloodshed, nor
Scipio Antiochus; our ancestors lost one thousand ships about
Sicily, and how many generals and captains in Italy? no one of
which losses hindered them from overthrowing their conquerors; for
the State of Rome did not arrive to this height by fortune, but by
perseverance and virtue in confronting danger."
While Crassus thus spoke exhorting them, he saw but few that gave
much heed to him, and when he ordered them to shout for the
battle, he could no longer mistake the despondency of his army,
which made but a faint and unsteady noise, while the shout of the
enemy was clear and bold. And when they came to the business, the
Parthian servants and dependents riding about shot their arrows,
and the horsemen in the foremost ranks with their spears drove the
Romans close together, except those who rushed upon them for fear
of being killed by their arrows. Neither did these do much
execution, being quickly dispatched; for the strong thick spear
made large and mortal wounds, and often run through two men at
once. As they were thus fighting, the night coming on parted
them, the Parthians boasting that they would indulge Crassus with
one night to mourn his son, unless upon better consideration he
would rather go to Arsaces, than be carried to him. These,
therefore, took up their quarters near them, being flushed with
their victory. But the Romans had a sad night of it; for neither
taking care for the burial of their dead, nor the cure of the
wounded, nor the groans of the expiring, everyone bewailed his
own fate. For there was no means of escaping, whether they should
stay for the light, or venture to retreat into the vast desert in
the dark. And now the wounded men gave them new trouble, since to
take them with them would retard their flight, and if they should
leave them, they might serve as guides to the enemy by their
cries. However, they were all desirous to see and hear Crassus,
though they were sensible that he was the cause of all their
mischief. But he wrapped his cloak around him, and hid himself,
where he lay as an example, to ordinary minds, of the caprice of
fortune, but to the wise, of inconsiderateness and ambition; who,
not content to be superior to so many millions of men, being
inferior to two, esteemed himself as the lowest of all. Then came
Octavius, his lieutenant, and Cassius, to comfort him, but he
being altogether past helping, they themselves called together the
centurions and tribunes, and agreeing that the best way was to fly,
they ordered the army out, without sound of trumpet, and at first
with silence. But before long, when the disabled men found they
were left behind, strange confusion and disorder, with an outcry
and lamentation, seized the camp, and a trembling and dread
presently fell upon them, as if the enemy were at their heels. By
which means, now and then fuming out of their way, now and then
standing to their ranks, sometimes taking up the wounded that
followed, sometimes laying them down, they wasted the time, except
three hundred horse, whom Egnatius brought safe to Carrhae about
midnight; where calling, in the Roman tongue, to the watch, as
soon as they heard him, he bade them tell Coponius, the governor,
that Crassus had fought a very great battle with the Parthians;
and having said but this, and not so much as telling his name, he
rode away at full speed to Zeugma. And by this means he saved
himself and his men, but lost his reputation by deserting his
general. However, his message to Coponius was for the advantage
of Crassus; for he, suspecting by this hasty and confused delivery
of the message that all was not well, immediately ordered the
garrison to be in arms, and as soon as he understood that Crassus
was upon the way towards him, he went out to meet him, and
received him with his army into the town.
The Parthians, although they perceived their dislodgement in the
night, yet did not pursue them, but as soon as it was day, they
came upon those that were left in the camp, and put no less than
four thousand to the sword, and with their light; horse picked up
a great many stragglers. Varguntinus, the lieutenant, while it
was yet dark, had broken off from the main body with four cohorts
which had strayed out of the way; and the Parthians, encompassing
these on a small hill, slew every man of them excepting twenty,
who with their drawn swords forced their way through the thickest,
and they admiring their courage, opened their ranks to the right
and left, and let them pass without molestation to Carrhae.
Soon after a false report was brought to Surena, that Crassus,
with his principal officers, had escaped, and that those who were
got into Carrhae were but a confused rout of insignificant people,
not worth further pursuit. Supposing, therefore, that he had lost
the very crown and glory of his victory, and yet being uncertain
whether it were so or not, and anxious to ascertain the fact, that
so he should either stay and besiege Carrhae or follow Crassus, he
sent one of his interpreters to the walls, commanding him in Latin
to call for Crassus or Cassius, for that the general, Surena,
desired a conference. As soon as Crassus heard this, he embraced
the proposal, and soon after there came up a band of Arabians, who
very well knew the faces of Crassus and Cassius, as having been
frequently in the Roman camp before the battle. They having
espied Cassius from the wall, told him that Surena desired a
peace, and would give them safe convoy, if they would make a
treaty with the king his master, and withdraw all their troops out
of Mesopotamia; and this he thought most advisable for them both,
before things came to the last extremity; Cassius, embracing the
proposal, desired that a time and place might be appointed where
Crassus and Surena might have an interview. The Arabians, having
charged themselves with the message, went back to Surena, who wee
not a little rejoiced that Crassus was there to be besieged.
Next day, therefore, he came up with his army, insulting over the
Romans, and haughtily demanding of them Crassus and Cassius bound,
if they expected any mercy. The Romans, seeing themselves deluded
and mocked, were much troubled at it, but advising Crassus to lay
aside his distant and empty hopes of aid from the Armenians,
resolved to fly for it; and this design ought to have been kept
private, till they were upon their way, and not have been told to
any of the people of Carrhae. But Crassus let this also be known
to Andromachus, the most faithless of men, nay he was so
infatuated as to choose him for his guide. The Parthians then, to
be sure, had punctual intelligence of all that passed; but it
being contrary to their usage, and also difficult for them to
fight by night, and Crassus having chosen that time to set out,
Andromachus, lest he should get the start too far of his pursuers,
led him hither and thither, and at last conveyed him into the
midst of morasses and places full of ditches, so that the Romans
had a troublesome and perplexing journey of it, and some there
were who, supposing by these windings and turnings of Andromachus
that no good was intended, resolved to follow him no further. And
at last Cassius himself returned to Carrhae, and his guides, the
Arabians, advising him to tarry there till the moon was got out of
Scorpio, he told them that he was most afraid of Sagittarius, and
so with five hundred horse went off to Syria. Others there were,
who having got honest guides, took their way by the mountains
called Sinnaca, and got into places of security by daybreak; these
were five thousand under the command of Octavius, a very gallant
man. But Crassus fared worse; day overtook him still deceived by
Andromachus, and entangled in the fens and the difficult country.
There were with him four cohorts of legionary soldiers, a very few
horsemen, and five lictors, with whom having with great difficulty
got into the way, and not being a mile and a half from Octavius,
instead of going to join him, although the enemy were already upon
him, he retreated to another hill, neither so defensible nor
impassable for the horse, but lying under the hills of Sinnaca,
and continued so as to join them in a long ridge through the
plain. Octavius could see in what danger the general was, and
himself, at first but slenderly followed, hurried to the rescue.
Soon after, the rest, upbraiding one another with baseness in
forsaking their officers, marched down, and falling upon the
Parthians, drove them from the hill, and compassing Crassus about,
and fencing him with their shields, declared proudly, that no
arrow in Parthia should ever touch their general, so long as there
was a man of them left alive to protect him.
Surena, therefore, perceiving his soldiers less inclined to expose
themselves, and knowing that if the Romans should prolong the
battle till night, they might then gain the mountains and be out
of his reach, betook himself to his usual craft. Some of the
prisoners were set free, who had, as it was contrived, been in
hearing, while some of the barbarians spoke of a set purpose in
the camp to the effect that the king did not design the war to be
pursued to extremity against the Romans, but rather desired, by
his gentle treatment of Crassus, to make a step towards
reconciliation. And the barbarians desisted from fighting, and
Surena himself, with his chief officers, riding gently to the
hill, unbent his bow and held out his hand, inviting Crassus to an
agreement, and saying that it was beside the king's intentions,
that they had thus had experience of the courage and the strength
of his soldiers; that now he desired no other contention but that
of kindness and friendship, by making a truce, and permitting them
to go away in safety. These words of Surena the rest received
joyfully, and were eager to accept the offer; but Crassus, who had
had sufficient experience of their perfidiousness, and was unable
to see any reason for the sudden change, would give no ear to
them, and only took time to consider. But the soldiers cried out
and advised him to treat, and then went on to upbraid and affront
him, saying that it was very unreasonable that he should bring
them to fight with such men armed, whom himself, without their
arms, durst not look in the face. He tried first to prevail with
them by entreaties, and told them that if they would have patience
till evening, they might get into the mountains and passes,
inaccessible for horse, and be out of danger, and withal he
pointed out the way with his hand, entreating them not to abandon
their preservation, now close before them. But when they mutinied
and clashed their targets in a threatening manner, he was
overpowered and forced to go, and only turning about at parting,
said, "You, Octavius and Petronius, and the rest of the officers
who are present, see the necessity of going which I lie under, and
cannot but be sensible of the indignities and violence offered to
me. Tell all men when you have escaped, that Crassus perished
rather by the subtlety of his enemies, than by the disobedience of
his countrymen."
Octavius, however, would not stay there, but with Petronius went
down from the hill; as for the lictors, Crassus bade them be gone.
The first that met him were two half-blood Greeks, who, leaping
from their horses, made a profound reverence to Crassus, and
desired him, in Greek, to send some before him, who might see that
Surena himself was coming towards them, his retinue disarmed, and
not having so much as their wearing swords along with them. But
Crassus answered, that if he had the least concern for his life,
he would never have entrusted himself in their hands, but sent two
brothers of the name of Roscius, to inquire on what terms, and in
what numbers they should meet. These Surena ordered immediately
to be seized, and himself with his principal officers came up on
horseback, and greetings him, said, "How is this, then? A Roman
commander is on foot, whilst I and my train are mounted." But
Crassus replied, that there was no error committed on either side,
for they both met according to the custom of their own country.
Surena told him that from that time there was a league between the
king his master and the Romans, but that Crassus must go with him
to the river to sign it, "for you Romans," said he, "have not good
memories for conditions," and so saying, reached out his hand to
him. Crassus, therefore, gave order that one of his horses should
be brought; but Surena told him there was no need, "the king, my
master, presents you with this;" and immediately a horse with a
golden bit was brought up to him, and himself was forcibly put
into the saddle by the grooms, who ran by the side and struck the
horse to make the more haste. But Octavius running up, got hold
of the bridle, and soon after one of the officers, Petronius, and
the rest of the company came up, striving to stop the horse, and
pulling back those who on both sides of him forced Crassus
forward. Thus from pulling and thrusting one another, they came
to a tumult, and soon after to blows. Octavius, drawing his
sword, killed a groom of one of the barbarians, and one of them,
getting behind Octavius, killed him. Petronius was not armed, but
being struck on the breastplate, fell down from his horse, though
without hurt. Crassus was killed by a Parthian, called
Pomaxathres; others say, by a different man, and that Pomaxathres
only cut off his head and right hand after he had fallen. But
this is conjecture rather than certain knowledge, for those that
were by had not leisure to observe particulars, and were either
killed fighting about Crassus, or ran off at once to get to their
comrades on the hill. But the Parthians coming up to them, and
saying that Crassus had the punishment he justly deserved, and
that Surena bade the rest come down from the hill without fear,
some of them came down and surrendered themselves, others were
scattered up and down in the night, a very few of whom got safe
home, and others the Arabians, beating through the country, hunted
down and put to death. It is generally said, that in all twenty
thousand men were slain, and ten thousand taken prisoners.
Surena sent the head and hand of Crassus to Hyrodes, the king,
into Armenia, but himself by his messengers scattering a report
that he was bringing Crassus alive to Seleucia, made a ridiculous
procession, which by way of scorn, he called a triumph. For one
Caius Paccianus, who of all the prisoners was most like Crassus,
being put into a woman's dress of the fashion of the barbarians,
and instructed to answer to the title of Crassus and Imperator,
was brought sitting upon his horse, while before him went a parcel
of trumpeters and lictors upon camels. Purses were hung at the
end of the bundles of rods, and the heads of the slain fresh
bleeding at the end of their axes. After them followed the
Seleucian singing women, repeating scurrilous and abusive songs
upon the effeminacy and cowardliness of Crassus. This show was
seen by everybody; but Surena, calling together the senate of
Seleucia, laid before them certain wanton books, of the writings
of Aristides, the Milesian; neither, indeed, was this any
forgery, for they had been found among the baggage of Rustius, and
were a good subject to supply Surena with insulting remarks upon
the Romans, who were not able even in the time of war to forget
such writings and practices. But the people of Seleucia had
reason to commend the wisdom of Aesop's fable of the wallet,
seeing their general Surena carrying a bag full of loose Milesian
stories before him, but keeping behind him a whole Parthian
Sybaris in his many wagons full of concubines; like the vipers and
asps people talk of, all the foremost and more visible parts
fierce and terrible with spears and arrows and horsemen, but the
rear terminating in loose women and castanets, music of the lute,
and midnight revellings. Rustius, indeed, is not to be excused,
but the Parthians had forgot, when they mocked at the Milesian
stories, that many of the royal line of their Arsacidae had been
born of Milesian and Ionian mistresses.
Whilst these things were doing, Hyrodes had struck up a peace with
the king of Armenia, and made a match between his son Pacorus and
the king of Armenia's sister. Their feastings and entertainments
in consequence were very sumptuous, and various Grecian
compositions, suitable to the occasion, were recited before them.
For Hyrodes was not ignorant of the Greek language and literature,
and Artavasdes was so expert in it, that he wrote tragedies and
orations and histories, some of which are still extant. When the
head of Crassus was brought to the door, the tables were just
taken away, and one Jason, a tragic actor, of the town of Tralles,
was singing the scene in the Bacchae of Euripides concerning
Agave. He was receiving much applause, when Sillaces coming to
the room, and having made obeisance to the king, threw down the
head of Crassus into the midst of the company. The Parthians
receiving it with joy and acclamations, Sillaces, by the king's
command, was made to sit down, while Jason handed over the
costume of Pentheus to one of the dancers in the chorus, and
taking up the head of Crassus, and acting the part of a bacchante
in her frenzy, in a rapturous impassioned manner, sang the lyric
passages,
We've hunted down a mighty chase to-day,
And from the mountain bring the noble prey;
to the great delight of all the company; but when the verses of
the dialogue followed,
What happy hand the glorious victim slew?
I claim that honor to my courage due;
Pomaxathres, who happened to be there at the supper, started up
and would have got the head into his own hands, "for it is my
due," said he, "and no man's else." The king was greatly pleased,
and gave presents, according to the custom of the Parthians, to
them, and to Jason, the actor, a talent. Such was the burlesque
that was played, they tell us, as the afterpiece to the tragedy of
Crassus's expedition. But divine justice failed not to punish
both Hyrodes, for his cruelty, and Surena for his perjury; for
Surena not long after was put to death by Hyrodes, out of mere
envy to his glory; and Hyrodes himself, having lost his son
Pacorus, who was beaten in a battle with the Romans, falling into
a disease which turned to a dropsy, had aconite given him by his
second son, Phraates; but the poison working only upon the
disease, and carrying away the dropsical matter with itself, the
king began suddenly to recover, so that Phraates at length was
forced to take the shortest course, and strangled him.
COMPARISON OF CRASSUS WITH NICIAS
In the comparison of these two, first, if we compare the estate
of Nicias with that of Crassus, we must acknowledge Nicias's to
have been more honestly got. In itself, indeed, one cannot much
approve of gaining riches by working mines, the greatest part of
which is done by malefactors and barbarians, some of them, too,
bound, and perishing in those close and unwholesome places. But
if we compare this with the sequestrations of Sylla, and the
contracts for houses ruined by fire, we shall then think Nicias
came very honestly by his money. For Crassus publicly and
avowedly made use of these arts, as other men do of husbandry,
and putting out money to interest; while as for other matters
which he used to deny, when taxed with them, as, namely, selling
his voice in the senate for gain's sake, and injuring allies,
and courting women, and conniving at criminals, these are things
which Nicias was never so much as falsely accused of; nay, he
was rather laughed at for giving money to those who made a trade
of impeachments, merely out of timorousness, a course, indeed,
that would by no means become Pericles and Aristides, but
necessary for him who by nature was wanting in assurance, even
as Lycurgus, the orator, frankly acknowledged to the people; for
when he was accused for buying off an evidence, he said that he
was very much pleased that having administered their affairs for
some time, he was at last accused, rather for giving, than
receiving. Again, Nicias, in his expenses, was of a more public
spirit than Crassus, priding himself much on the dedication of
gifts in temples, on presiding at gymnastic games, and
furnishing choruses for the plays, and adorning processions,
while the expenses of Crassus, in feasting and afterwards
providing food for so many myriads of people, were much greater
than all that Nicias possessed as well as spent, put together.
So that one might wonder at anyone's failing to see that vice
is a certain inconsistency and incongruity of habit, after such
an example of money dishonorably obtained, and wastefully
lavished away.
Let so much be said of their estates; as for their management of
public affairs, I see not that any dishonesty, injustice, or
arbitrary action can be objected to Nicias, who was rather the
victim of Alcibiades's tricks, and was always careful and
scrupulous in his dealings with the people. But Crassus is very
generally blamed for his changeableness in his friendships and
enmities, for his unfaithfulness, and his mean and underhand
proceedings; since he himself could not deny that to compass the
consulship, he hired men to lay violent hands upon Domitius and
Cato. Then at the assembly held for assigning the provinces,
many were wounded and four actually killed, and he himself,
which I had omitted in the narrative of his life, struck with
his fist one Lucius Analius, a senator, for contradicting him,
so that he left the place bleeding. But as Crassus was to be
blamed for his violent and arbitrary courses, so is Nicias no
less to be blamed for his timorousness and meanness of spirit,
which made him submit and give in to the basest people, whereas
in this respect Crassus showed himself lofty spirited and
magnanimous, who having to do not with such as Cleon or
Hyperbolus, but with the splendid acts of Caesar and the three
triumphs of Pompey, would not stoop, but bravely bore up against
their joint interests, and in obtaining the office of censor,
surpassed even Pompey himself For a statesman ought not to
regard how invidious the thing is, but how noble, and by his
greatness to overpower envy; but if he will be always aiming at
security and quiet, and dread Alcibiades upon the hustings, and
the Lacedaemonians at Pylos, and Perdiccas in Thrace, there is
room and opportunity enough for retirement, and he may sit out
of the noise of business, and weave himself, as one of the
sophists says, his triumphal garland of inactivity. His desire
of peace, indeed, and of finishing the war, was a divine and
truly Grecian ambition, nor in this respect would Crassus
deserve to be compared to him, though he had enlarged the Roman
empire to the Caspian Sea or the Indian Ocean.
In a State where there is a sense of virtue, a powerful man
ought not to give way to the ill-affected, or expose the
government to those that are incapable of it, nor suffer high
trusts to be committed to those who want common honesty. Yet
Nicias, by his connivance, raised Cleon, a fellow remarkable for
nothing but his loud voice and brazen face, to the command of an
army. Indeed, I do not commend Crassus, who in the war with
Spartacus was more forward to fight than became a discreet
general, though he was urged into it by a point of honor, lest
Pompey by his coming should rob him of the glory of the action,
as Mummius did Metellus at the taking of Corinth, but Nicias's
proceedings are inexcusable. For he did not yield up a mere
opportunity of getting honor and advantage to his competitor,
but believing that the expedition would be very hazardous, was
thankful to take care of himself, and left the Commonwealth to
shift for itself. And whereas Themistocles, lest a mean and
incapable fellow should ruin the State by holding command in the
Persian war, bought him off, and Cato, in a most dangerous and
critical conjuncture, stood for the tribuneship for the sake of
his country, Nicias, reserving himself for trifling expeditions
against Minoa and Cythera, and the miserable Melians, if there
be occasion to come to blows with the Lacedaemonians, slips off
his general's cloak and hands over to the unskillfulness and
rashness of Cleon, fleet, men, and arms, and the whole command,
where the utmost possible skill was called for. Such conduct, I
say, is not to be thought so much carelessness of his own fame,
as of the interest and preservation of his country. By this
means it came to pass he was compelled to the Sicilian war, men
generally believing that he was not so much honestly convinced
of the difficulty of the enterprise, as ready out of mere love
of ease and cowardice to lose the city the conquest of Sicily.
But yet it is a great sign of his integrity, that though he was
always averse from war, and unwilling to command, yet they
always continued to appoint him as the best experienced and
ablest general they had. On the other hand Crassus, though
always ambitious of command, never attained to it, except by
mere necessity in the servile war, Pompey and Metellus and the
two brothers Lucullus being absent, although at that time he was
at his highest pitch of interest and reputation. Even those who
thought most of him seem to have thought him, as the comic poet
says:
A brave man anywhere but in the field.
There was no help, however, for the Romans, against his passion
for command and for distinction. The Athenians sent out Nicias
against his will to the war, and Crassus led out the Romans
against theirs; Crassus brought misfortune on Rome, as Athens
brought it on Nicias.
Still this is rather ground for praising Nicias, than for
finding fault with Crassus. His experience and sound judgment
as a general saved him from being carried away by the delusive
hopes of his fellow-citizens, and made him refuse to entertain
any prospect of conquering Sicily. Crassus, on the other hand,
mistook, in entering on a Parthian war as an easy matter. He
was eager, while Caesar was subduing the west, Gaul, Germany,
and Britain, to advance for his part to the east and the Indian
Sea, by the conquest of Asia, to complete the incursions of
Pompey and the attempts of Lucullus, men of prudent temper and
of unimpeachable worth, who, nevertheless, entertained the same
projects as Crassus, and acted under the same convictions. When
Pompey was appointed to the like command, the senate was opposed
to it; and after Caesar had routed three hundred thousand
Germans, Cato recommended that he should be surrendered to the
defeated enemy, to expiate in his own person the guilt of breach
of faith. The people, meantime, (their service to Cato!) kept
holiday for fifteen days, and were overjoyed. What would have
been their feelings, and how many holidays would they have
celebrated, if Crassus had sent news from Babylon of victory,
and thence marching onward had converted Media and Persia, the
Hyrcanians, Susa, and Bactra, into Roman provinces?
If wrong we must do, as Euripides says, and cannot be content
with peace and present good things, let it not be for such
results as destroying Mende or Scandea, or beating up the exiled
Aeginetans in the coverts to which like hunted birds they had
fled, when expelled from their homes, but let it be for some
really great remuneration; nor let us part with justice, like a
cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price. Those
who praise Alexander's enterprise and blame that of Crassus,
judge of the beginning unfairly by the results.
In actual service, Nicias did much that deserves high praise.
He frequently defeated the enemy in battle, and was on the very
point of capturing Syracuse; nor should he bear the whole blame
of the disaster, which may fairly be ascribed in part to his
want of health and to the jealousy entertained of him at home.
Crassus, on the other hand, committed so many errors as not to
leave fortune room to show him favor. It is no surprise to find
such imbecility fall a victim to the power of Parthia; the only
wonder is to see it prevailing over the wonted good-fortune of
Rome. One scrupulously observed, the other entirely slighted
the arts of divination; and as both equally perished, it is
difficult to see what inference we should draw. Yet the fault
of over-caution, supported by old and general opinion, better
deserves forgiveness than that of self-willed and lawless
transgression.
In his death, however, Crassus has the advantage, as he did not
surrender himself, nor submit to bondage, or let himself be
taken in by trickery, but was the victim only of the entreaties
of his friends and the perfidy of his enemies; whereas Nicias
enhanced the shame of his death by yielding himself up in the
hope of a disgraceful and inglorious escape.
SERTORIUS
It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune
takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences
should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of
subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more
easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect
this similarity of results. Or if, on the other hand, events
are limited to the combinations of some finite number, then of
necessity the same must often recur, and in the same sequence.
There are people who take a pleasure in making collections of
all such fortuitous occurrences that they have heard or read
of, as look like works of a rational power and design; they
observe, for example, that two eminent persons, whose names
were Attis, the one a Syrian, the other of Arcadia, were both
slain by a wild boar; that of two whose names were Actaeon, the
one was torn in pieces by his dogs, the other by his lovers;
that of two famous Scipios, the one overthrew the Carthaginians
in war, the other totally ruined and destroyed them; the city
of Troy was the first time taken by Hercules for the horses
promised him by Laomedon, the second time by Agamemnon, by
means of the celebrated great wooden horse, and the third time
by Charidemus, by occasion of a horse falling down at the gate,
which hindered the Trojans, so that they could not shut them
soon enough; and of two cities which take their names from the
most agreeable odoriferous plants, Ios and Smyrna, the one from
a violet, the other from myrrh, the poet Homer is reported to
have been born in the one, and to have died in the other. And
so to these instances let us further add, that the most warlike
commanders, and most remarkable for exploits of skillful
stratagem, have had but one eye; as Philip, Antigonus,
Hannibal, and Sertorius, whose life and actions we describe at
present; of whom, indeed, we might truly say, that he was more
continent than Philip, more faithful to his friend than
Antigonus, and more merciful to his enemies than Hannibal; and
that for prudence and judgment he gave place to none of them,
but in fortune was inferior to them all. Yet though he had
continually in her a far more difficult adversary to contend
against than his open enemies, he nevertheless maintained his
ground, with the military skill of Metellus, the boldness of
Pompey, the success of Sylla, and the power of the Roman
people, all to be encountered by one who was a banished man and
a stranger at the head of a body of barbarians. Among Greek
commanders, Eumenes of Cardia may be best compared with him;
they were both of them men born for command, for warfare, and
for stratagem; both banished from their countries, and holding
command over strangers; both had fortune for their adversary,
in their last days so harshly so, that they were both betrayed
and murdered by those who served them, and with whom they had
formerly overcome their enemies.
Quintus Sertorius was of a noble family, born in the city of
Nursia, in the country of the Sabines; his father died when he
was young, and he was carefully and decently educated by his
mother, whose name was Rhea, and whom he appears to have
extremely loved and honored. He paid some attention to the
study of oratory and pleading in his youth, and acquired some
reputation and influence in Rome by his eloquence; but the
splendor of his actions in arms, and his successful
achievements in the wars, drew off his ambition in that
direction.
At his first beginning, he served under Caepio, when the Cimbri
and Teutones invaded Gaul; where the Romans fighting
unsuccessfully, and being put to flight, he was wounded in many
parts of his body, and lost his horse, yet, nevertheless, swam
across the river Rhone in his armor, with his breastplate and
shield, bearing himself up against the violence of the current;
so strong and so well inured to hardship was his body.
The second time that the Cimbri and Teutones came down with
some hundreds of thousands, threatening death and destruction
to all, when it was no small piece of service for a Roman
soldier to keep his ranks and obey his commander, Sertorius
undertook, while Marius led the army, to spy out the enemy's
camp. Procuring a Celtic dress, and acquainting himself with
the ordinary expressions of their language requisite for common
intercourse, he threw himself in amongst the barbarians; where
having carefully seen with his own eyes, or having been fully
informed by persons upon the place of all their most important
concerns, he returned to Marius, from whose hands he received
the rewards of valor; and afterwards giving frequent proofs
both of conduct and courage in all the following war, he was
advanced to places of honor and trust under his general. After
the wars with the Cimbri and Teutones, he was sent into Spain,
having the command of a thousand men under Didius, the Roman
general, and wintered in the country of the Celtiberians, in
the city of Castulo, where the soldiers enjoying great plenty,
and growing insolent, and continually drinking, the inhabitants
despised them and sent for aid by night to the Gyrisoenians,
their near neighbors, who fell upon the Romans in their
lodgings and slew a great number of them. Sertorius, with a
few of his soldiers, made his way out, and rallying together
the rest who escaped, he marched round about the walls, and
finding the gate open, by which the Gyrisoenians had made their
secret entrance, he gave not them the same opportunity, but
placing a guard at the gate, and seizing upon all quarters of
the city, he slew all who were of age to bear arms, and then
ordering his soldiers to lay aside their weapons and put off
their own clothes, and put on the accoutrements of the
barbarians, he commanded them to follow him to the city, from
whence the men came who had made this night attack upon the
Romans. And thus deceiving the Gyrisoenians with the sight of
their own armor, he found the gates of their city open, and
took a great number prisoners, who came out thinking to meet
their friends and fellow-citizens come home from a successful
expedition. Most of them were thus slain by the Romans at
their own gates, and the rest within yielded up themselves and
were sold for slaves.
This action made Sertorius highly renowned throughout all
Spain, and as soon as he returned to Rome he was appointed
quaestor of Cisalpine Gaul, at a very seasonable moment for his
country, the Marsian war being on the point of breaking out.
Sertorius was ordered to raise soldiers and provide arms, which
he performed with a diligence and alacrity, so contrasting with
the feebleness and slothfulness of other officers of his age,
that he got the repute of a man whose life would be one of
action. Nor did he relinquish the part of a soldier, now that
he had arrived at the dignity of a commander, but performed
wonders with his own hands, and never sparing himself, but
exposing his body freely in all conflicts, he lost one of his
eyes. This he always esteemed an honor to him; observing that
others do not continually carry about with them the marks and
testimonies of their valor, but must often lay aside their
chains of gold, their spears and crowns; whereas his ensigns of
honor, and the manifestations of his courage always remained
with him, and those who beheld his misfortune, must at the same
time recognize his merits. The people also paid him the
respect he deserved, and when he came into the theater,
received him with plaudits and joyful acclamations, an honor
rarely bestowed even on persons of advanced standing and
established reputation. Yet, notwithstanding this popularity,
when he stood to be tribune of the people, he was disappointed,
and lost the place, being opposed by the party of Sylla, which
seems to have been the principal cause of his subsequent enmity
to Sylla.
After that Marius was overcome by Sylla and fled into Africa,
and Sylla had left Italy to go to the wars against Mithridates,
and of the two consuls Octavius and Cinna, Octavius remained
steadfast to the policy of Sylla, but Cinna, desirous of a new
revolution, attempted to recall the lost interest of Marius,
Sertorius joined Cinna's party, more particularly as he saw
that Octavius was not very capable, and was also suspicious of
anyone that was a friend to Marius. When a great battle was
fought between the two consuls in the forum, Octavius overcame,
and Cinna and Sertorius, having lost not less than ten
thousand men, left the city, and gaining over most part of the
troops who were dispersed about and remained still in many
parts of Italy, they in a short time mustered up a force
against Octavius sufficient to give him battle again, and
Marius, also, now coming by sea out of Africa, proffered
himself to serve under Cinna, as a private soldier under his
consul and commander.
Most were for the immediate reception of Marius, but Sertorius
openly declared against it, whether he thought that Cinna would
not now pay as much attention to himself, when a man of higher
military repute was present, or feared that the violence of
Marius would bring all things to confusion, by his boundless
wrath and vengeance after victory. He insisted upon it with
Cinna that they were already victorious, that there remained
little to be done, and that, if they admitted Marius, he would
deprive them of the glory and advantage of the war, as there
was no man less easy to deal with, or less to be trusted in, as
a partner in power. Cinna answered, that Sertorius rightly
judged the affair, but that he himself was at a loss, and
ashamed, and knew not how to reject him, after he had sent for
him to share in his fortunes. To which Sertorius immediately
replied, that he had thought that Marius came into Italy of his
own accord, and therefore had deliberated as to what might be
most expedient, but that Cinna ought not so much as to have
questioned whether he should accept him whom he had already
invited, but should have honorably received and employed him,
for his word once past left no room for debate. Thus Marius
being sent for by Cinna, and their forces being divided into
three parts, under Cinna, Marius, and Sertorius, the war was
brought to a successful conclusion; but those about Cinna and
Marius committing all manner of insolence and cruelty, made the
Romans think the evils of war a golden time in comparison. On
the contrary, it is reported of Sertorius, that he never slew
any man in his anger, to satisfy his own private revenge, nor
ever insulted over anyone whom he had overcome, but was much
offended with Marius, and often privately entreated Cinna to
use his power more moderately. And in the end, when the slaves
whom Marius had freed at his landing to increase his army,
being made not only his fellow-soldiers in the war, but also
now his guard in his usurpation, enriched and powerful by his
favor, either by the command or permission of Marius, or by
their own lawless violence, committed all sorts of crimes,
killed their masters, ravished their masters' wives, and abused
their children, their conduct appeared so intolerable to
Sertorius that he slew the whole body of them, four thousand in
number, commanding his soldiers to shoot them down with their
javelins, as they lay encamped together.
Afterwards, when Marius died, and Cinna shortly after was
slain, when the younger Marius made himself consul against
Sertorius's wishes and contrary to law, when Carbo, Norbanus,
and Scipio fought unsuccessfully against Sylla, now advancing
to Rome, when much was lost by the cowardice and remissness of
the commanders, but more by the treachery of their party, when
with the want of prudence in the chief leaders, all went so ill
that his presence could do no good, in the end when Sylla had
placed his camp near to Scipio, and by pretending friendship,
and putting him in hopes of a peace, corrupted his army, and
Scipio could not be made sensible of this, although often
forewarned of it by Sertorius, at last he utterly despaired of
Rome, and hasted into Spain, that by taking possession there
beforehand, he might secure refuge to his friends, from their
misfortunes at home. Having bad weather in his journey, and
traveling through mountainous countries, and the inhabitants
stopping the way, and demanding a toll and money for passage,
those who were with him were out of all patience at the
indignity and shame it would be for a proconsul of Rome to pay
tribute to a crew of wretched barbarians. But he little
regarded their censure, and slighting that which had only the
appearance of an indecency, told them he must buy time, the
most precious of all things to those who go upon great
enterprises; and pacifying the barbarous people with money, he
hastened his journey, and took possession of Spain, a country
flourishing and populous, abounding with young men fit to bear
arms; but on account of the insolence and covetousness of the
governors from time to time sent thither from Rome, they had
generally an aversion to the Roman supremacy. He, however,
soon gained the affection of their nobles by intercourse with
them, and the good opinion of the people by remitting their
taxes. But that which won him most popularity, was his
exempting them from finding lodgings for the soldiers, when he
commanded his army to take up their winter quarters outside the
cities, and to pitch their camp in the suburbs; and when he
himself, first of all, caused his own tent to be raised without
the walls. Yet not being willing to rely totally upon the good
inclination of the inhabitants, he armed all the Romans who
lived in those countries that were of military age, and
undertook the building of ships and the making of all sorts of
warlike engines, by which means he kept the cities in due
obedience, showing himself gentle in all peaceful business, and
at the same time formidable to his enemies by his great
preparations for war.
As soon as he was informed that Sylla had made himself master
of Rome, and that the party which sided with Marius and Carbo
was going to destruction, he expected that some commander with
a considerable army would speedily come against him, and
therefore sent away Julius Salinator immediately, with six
thousand men fully armed, to fortify and defend the passes of
the Pyrenees. And Caius Annius not long after being sent out
by Sylla, finding Julius unassailable, sat down short at the
foot of the mountains in perplexity. But a certain Calpurnius,
surnamed Lanarius, having treacherously slain Julius, and his
soldiers then forsaking the heights of the Pyrenees, Caius
Annius advanced with large numbers and drove before him all who
endeavored to hinder his march. Sertorius, also, not being
strong enough to give him battle, retreated with three thousand
men into New Carthage, where he took shipping, and crossed the
seas into Africa. And coming near the coast of Mauritania, his
men went on shore to water, and straggling about negligently,
the natives fell upon them and slew a great number. This new
misfortune forced him to sail back again into Spain, whence he
was also repulsed, and, some Cilician pirate ships joining with
him, they made for the island of Pityussa, where they landed
and overpowered the garrison placed there by Annius, who,
however, came not long after with a great fleet of ships, and
five thousand soldiers. And Sertorius made ready to fight him
by sea, although his ships were not built for strength, but for
lightness and swift sailing; but a violent west wind raised
such a sea that many of them were run aground and shipwrecked,
and he himself, with a few vessels, being kept from putting
further out to sea by the fury of the weather, and from landing
by the power of his enemies, was tossed about painfully for ten
days together, amidst the boisterous and adverse waves.
He escaped with difficulty, and after the wind ceased, ran for
certain desert islands scattered in those seas, affording no
water, and after passing a night there, making out to sea
again, he went through the straits of Cadiz, and sailing
outward keeping the Spanish shore on his right hand, he landed
a little above the mouth of the river Baetis, where it falls
into the Atlantic sea, and gives the name to that part of
Spain. Here he met with seamen recently arrived from the
Atlantic islands, two in number, divided from one another only
by a narrow channel, and distant from the coast of Africa ten
thousand furlongs. These are called the Islands of the Blest;
rains fall there seldom, and in moderate showers, but for the
most part they have gentle breezes, bringing along with them
soft dews, which render the soil not only rich for plowing and
planting, but so abundantly fruitful that it produces
spontaneously an abundance of delicate fruits, sufficient to
feed the inhabitants, who may here enjoy all things without
trouble or labor. The seasons of the year are temperate, and
the transitions from one to another so moderate, that the air
is almost always serene and pleasant. The rough northerly and
easterly winds which blow from the coasts of Europe and Africa,
dissipated in the vast open space, utterly lose their force
before they reach the islands. The soft western and southerly
winds which breathe upon them sometimes produce gentle
sprinkling showers, which they convey along with them from the
sea, but more usually bring days of moist bright weather,
cooling and gently fertilizing the soil, so that the firm
belief prevails even among the barbarians, that this is the
seat of the blessed, and that these are the Elysian Fields
celebrated by Homer.
When Sertorius heard this account, he was seized with a
wonderful passion for these islands, and had an extreme desire
to go and live there in peace and quietness, and safe from
oppression and unending wars; but his inclinations being
perceived by the Cilician pirates, who desired not peace nor
quiet, but riches and spoils, they immediately forsook him, and
sailed away into Africa to assist Ascalis, the son of Iphtha,
and to help to restore him to his kingdom of Mauritania. Their
sudden departure noways discouraged Sertorius; he presently
resolved to assist the enemies of Ascalis, and by this new
adventure trusted to keep his soldiers together, who from this
might conceive new hopes, and a prospect of a new scene of
action. His arrival in Mauritania being very acceptable to the
Moors, he lost no time, but immediately giving battle to
Ascalis, beat him out of the field and besieged him; and
Paccianus being sent by Sylla, with a powerful supply, to raise
the siege, Sertorius slew him in the field, gained over all his
forces, and took the city of Tingis, into which Ascalis and his
brothers were fled for refuge. The Africans tell that Antaeus
was buried in this city, and Sertorius had the grave opened,
doubting the story because of the prodigious size, and finding
there his body, in effect, it is said, full sixty cubits long,
he was infinitely astonished, offered sacrifice, and heaped up
the tomb again, gave his confirmation to the story, and added
new honors to the memory of Antaeus. The Africans tell that
after the death of Antaeus, his wife Tinga lived with Hercules,
and had a son by him called Sophax, who was king of these
countries, and gave his mother's name to this city, whose son,
also, was Diodorus, a great conqueror, who brought the greatest
part of the Libyan tribes under his subjection, with an army of
Greeks, raised out of the colonies of the Olbians and Myceneans
placed here by Hercules. Thus much I may mention for the sake
of king Juba, of all monarchs the greatest student of history,
whose ancestors are said to have sprung from Diodorus and
Sophax.
When Sertorius had made himself absolute master of the whole
country, he acted with great fairness to those who had confided
in him, and who yielded to his mercy; he restored to them their
property, cities, and government, accepting only of such
acknowledgments as they themselves freely offered. And whilst
he considered which way next to turn his arms, the Lusitanians
sent ambassadors to desire him to be their general; for being
terrified with the Roman power, and finding the necessity of
having a commander of great authority and experience in war,
being also sufficiently assured of his worth and valor by those
who had formerly known him, they were desirous to commit
themselves especially to his care. And in fact Sertorius is said
to have been of a temper unassailable either by fear or
pleasure, in adversity and dangers undaunted, and noways puffed
up with prosperity. In straightforward fighting, no commander
in his time was more bold and daring, and in whatever was to be
performed in war by stratagem, secrecy, or surprise, if any
strong place was to be secured, any pass to be gained speedily,
for deceiving and overreaching an enemy, there was no man equal
to him in subtlety and skill. In bestowing rewards and
conferring honors upon those who had performed good service in
the wars he was bountiful and magnificent, and was no less
sparing and moderate in inflicting punishment. It is true that
that piece of harshness and cruelty which he executed in the
latter part of his days upon the Spanish hostages, seems to
argue that his clemency was not natural to him, but only worn
as a dress, and employed upon calculation, as his occasion or
necessity required. As to my own opinion, I am persuaded that
pure virtue, established by reason and judgment, can never be
totally perverted or changed into its opposite, by any
misfortune whatever. Yet I think it at the same time possible,
that virtuous inclinations and natural good qualities may, when
unworthily oppressed by calamities, show, with change of
fortune, some change and alteration of their temper; and thus I
conceive it happened to Sertorius, who when prosperity failed
him, became exasperated by his disasters against those who had
done him wrong.
The Lusitanians having sent for Sertorius, he left Africa, and
being made general with absolute authority, he put all in order
amongst them, and brought the neighboring parts of Spain
under subjection. Most of the tribes voluntarily submitted
themselves, won by the fame of his clemency and of his courage,
and, to some extent, also, he availed himself of cunning
artifices of his own devising to impose upon them and gain
influence over them. Amongst which, certainly, that of the
hind was not the least. Spanus, a countryman who lived in
those parts, meeting by chance a hind that had recently calved,
flying from the hunters, let the dam go, and pursuing the fawn,
took it, being wonderfully pleased with the rarity of the
color, which was all milk white. And as at that time Sertorius
was living in the neighborhood, and accepted gladly any
presents of fruit, fowl, or venison, that the country afforded,
and rewarded liberally those who presented them, the countryman
brought him his young hind, which he took and was well pleased
with at the first sight, but when in time he had made it so
tame and gentle that it would come when he called, and follow
him wheresoever he went, and could endure the noise and tumult
of the camp, knowing well that uncivilized people are naturally
prone to superstition, by little and little he raised it into
something preternatural, saying that it was given him by the
goddess Diana, and that it revealed to him many secrets. He
added, also, further contrivances. If he had received at any
time private intelligence that the enemies had made an
incursion into any part of the districts under his command, or
had solicited any city to revolt, he pretended that the hind
had informed him of it in his sleep, and charged him to keep
his forces in readiness. Or if again he had notice that any of
the commanders under him had got a victory, he would hide the
messengers and bring forth the hind crowned with flowers, for
joy of the good news that was to come, and would encourage them
to rejoice and sacrifice to the gods for the good account they
should soon receive of their prosperous success.
By such practices, he brought them to be more tractable and
obedient in all things; for now they thought themselves no
longer to be led by a stranger, but rather conducted by a god,
and the more so, as the facts themselves seemed to bear witness
to it, his power, contrary to all expectation or probability,
continually increasing. For with two thousand six hundred men,
whom for honor's sake he called Romans, combined with seven
hundred Africans, who landed with him when he first entered
Lusitania, together with four thousand targeteers, and seven
hundred horse of the Lusitanians themselves, he made war
against four Roman generals, who commanded a hundred and twenty
thousand foot, six thousand horse, two thousand archers and
slingers, and had cities innumerable in their power; whereas at
the first he had not above twenty cities in all. And from this
weak and slender beginning, he raised himself to the command of
large nations of men, and the possession of numerous cities;
and of the Roman commanders who were sent against him, he
overthrew Cotta in a sea-fight, in the channel near the town of
Mellaria; he routed Fufidius, the governor of Baetica, with the
loss of two thousand Romans, near the banks of the river
Baetis; Lucius Domitius, proconsul of the other province of
Spain, was overthrown by one of his lieutenants; Thoranius,
another commander sent against him by Metellus with a great
force, was slain, and Metellus, one of the greatest and most
approved Roman generals then living, by a series of defeats,
was reduced to such extremities, that Lucius Manlius came to
his assistance out of Gallia Narbonensis, and Pompey the Great,
was sent from Rome, itself, in all haste, with considerable
forces. Nor did Metellus know which way to turn himself, in a
war with such a bold and ready commander, who was continually
molesting him, and yet could not be brought to a set battle,
but by the swiftness and dexterity of his Spanish soldiery, was
enabled to shift and adapt himself to any change of
circumstances. Metellus had had experience in battles fought
by regular legions of soldiers, fully armed and drawn up in due
order into a heavy standing phalanx, admirably trained for
encountering and overpowering an enemy who came to close
combat, hand to hand, but entirely unfit for climbing among the
hills, and competing incessantly with the swift attacks and
retreats of a set of fleet mountaineers, or to endure hunger
and thirst, and live exposed like them to the wind and weather,
without fire or covering.
Besides, being now in years, and having been formerly engaged
in many fights and dangerous conflicts, he had grown inclined
to a more remiss, easy, and luxurious life, and was the less
able to contend with Sertorius, who was in the prime of his
strength and vigor, and had a body wonderfully fitted for war,
being strong, active, and temperate, continually accustomed to
endure hard labor, to take long tedious journeys, to pass many
nights together without sleep, to eat little, and to be
satisfied with very coarse fare, and who was never stained with
the least excess in wine, even when he was most at leisure.
What leisure time he allowed himself, he spent in hunting and
riding about, and so made himself thoroughly acquainted with
every passage for escape when he would fly, and for overtaking
and intercepting in pursuit, and gained a perfect knowledge of
where he could and where he could not go. Insomuch that
Metellus suffered all the inconveniences of defeat, although he
earnestly desired to fight, and Sertorius, though he refused
the field, reaped all the advantages of a conqueror. For he
hindered them from foraging, and cut them off from water; if
they advanced, he was nowhere to be found; if they stayed in
any place and encamped, he continually molested and alarmed
them; if they besieged any town, he presently appeared and
besieged them again, and put them to extremities for want of
necessaries. And thus he so wearied out the Roman army, that
when Sertorius challenged Metellus to fight singly with him,
they commended it, and cried out, it was a fair offer, a Roman
to fight against a Roman, and a general against a general; and
when Metellus refused the challenge, they reproached him.
Metellus derided and contemned this, and rightly so; for, as
Theophrastus observes, a general should die like a general, and
not like a skirmisher. But perceiving that the town of the
Langobritae, who gave great assistance to Sertorius, might
easily be taken for want of water, as there was but one well
within the walls, and the besieger would be master of the
springs and fountains in the suburbs, he advanced against the
place, expecting to carry it in two days' time, there being no
more water, and gave command to his soldiers to take five days'
provision only. Sertorius, however, resolving to send speedy
relief, ordered two thousand skins to be filled with water,
naming a considerable sum of money for the carriage of every
skin; and many Spaniards and Moors undertaking the work, he
chose out those who were the strongest and swiftest of foot,
and sent them through the mountains, with order that when they
had delivered the water, they should convey away privately all
those who would be least serviceable in the siege, that there
might be water sufficient for the defendants. As soon as
Metellus understood this, he was disturbed, as he had already
consumed most part of the necessary provisions for his army,
but he sent out Aquinus with six thousand soldiers to fetch in
fresh supplies. But Sertorius having notice of it, laid an
ambush for him, and having sent out beforehand three thousand
men to take post in a thickly wooded watercourse, with these he
attacked the rear of Aquinus in his return, while he himself,
charging him in the front, destroyed part of his army, and took
the rest prisoners, Aquinus only escaping, after the loss of
both his horse and his armor. And Metellus, being forced
shamefully to raise the siege, withdrew amidst the laughter and
contempt of the Spaniards; while Sertorius became yet more the
object of their esteem and admiration.
He was also highly honored for his introducing discipline and
good order amongst them, for he altered their furious savage
manner of fighting, and brought them to make use of the Roman
armor, taught them to keep their ranks, and observe signals and
watchwords; and out of a confused number of thieves and
robbers, he constituted a regular, well-disciplined army. He
bestowed silver and gold upon them liberally to gild and adorn
their helmets, he had their shields worked with various figures
and designs, he brought them into the mode of wearing flowered
and embroidered cloaks and coats, and by supplying money for
these purposes, and joining with them in all improvements, he
won the hearts of all. That, however, which delighted them
most, was the care that he took of their children. He sent for
all the boys of noblest parentage out of all their tribes, and
placed them in the great city of Osca, where he appointed
masters to instruct them in the Grecian and Roman learning,
that when they came to be men, they might, as he professed, be
fitted to share with him in authority, and in conducting the
government, although under this pretext he really made them
hostages. However, their fathers were wonderfully pleased to
see their children going daily to the schools in good order,
handsomely dressed in gowns edged with purple, and that
Sertorius paid for their lessons, examined them often,
distributed rewards to the most deserving, and gave them the
golden bosses to hang about their necks, which the Romans
called bullae.
There being a custom in Spain, that when a commander was slain
in battle, those who attended his person fought it out till
they all died with him, which the inhabitants of those
countries called an offering, or libation, there were few
commanders that had any considerable guard or number of
attendants; but Sertorius was followed by many thousands who
offered themselves, and vowed to spend their blood with his.
And it is told that when his army was defeated near a city in
Spain, and the enemy pressed hard upon them, the Spaniards,
with no care for themselves, but being totally solicitous to
save Sertorius, took him up on their shoulders and passed him
from one to another, till they carried him into the city, and
only when they had thus placed their general in safety,
provided afterwards each man for his own security.
Nor were the Spaniards alone ambitious to serve him, but the
Roman soldiers, also, that came out of Italy, were impatient to
be under his command; and when Perpenna Vento, who was of the
same faction with Sertorius, came into Spain with a quantity of
money and a large number of troops, and designed to make war
against Metellus on his own account, his own soldiers opposed
it, and talked continually of Sertorius, much to the
mortification of Perpenna, who was puffed up with the grandeur
of his family and his riches. And when they afterwards
received tidings that Pompey was passing the Pyrenees, they
took up their arms, laid hold on their ensigns, called upon
Perpenna to lead them to Sertorius, and threatened him that if
he refused they would go without him, and place themselves
under a commander who was able to defend himself and those that
served him. And so Perpenna was obliged to yield to their
desires, and joining Sertorius, added to his army three and
fifty cohorts.
And when now all the cities on this side of the river Ebro also
united their forces together under his command, his army grew
great, for they flocked together and flowed in upon him from
all quarters. But when they continually cried out to attack
the enemy, and were impatient of delay, their inexperienced,
disorderly rashness caused Sertorius much trouble, who at first
strove to restrain them with reason and good counsel, but when
he perceived them refractory and unseasonably violent, he gave
way to their impetuous desires, and permitted them to engage
with the enemy, in such sort that they might, being repulsed,
yet not totally routed, become more obedient to his commands
for the future. Which happening as he had anticipated, he soon
rescued them, and brought them safe into his camp. And after a
few days, being willing to encourage them again, when he had
called all his army together, he caused two horses to be
brought into the field, one an old, feeble, lean animal, the
other a lusty, strong horse, with a remarkably thick and long
tail. Near the lean one he placed a tall strong man, and near
the strong young horse a weak despicable-looking fellow; and at
a sign given, the strong man took hold of the weak horse's tail
with both his hands, and drew it to him with his whole force,
as if he would pull it off; the other, the weak man, in the
mean time, set to work to pluck off hair by hair from the great
horse's tail. And when the strong man had given trouble enough
to himself in vain, and sufficient diversion to the company,
and had abandoned his attempt, whilst the weak pitiful fellow
in a short time and with little pains had left not a hair on
the great horse's tail, Sertorius rose up and spoke to his
army, "You see, fellow soldiers, that perseverance is more
prevailing than violence, and that many things which cannot be
overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken
little by little. Assiduity and persistence are irresistible,
and in time overthrow and destroy the greatest powers whatever.
Time being the favorable friend and assistant of those who use
their judgment to await his occasions, and the destructive
enemy of those who are unseasonably urging and pressing
forward." With a frequent use of such words and such devices,
he soothed the fierceness of the barbarous people, and taught
them to attend and watch for their opportunities.
Of all his remarkable exploits, none raised greater admiration
than that which he put in practice against the Characitanians.
These are a people beyond the river Tagus, who inhabit neither
cities nor towns, but live in a vast high hill, within the deep
dens and caves of the rocks, the mouths of which open all
towards the north. The country below is of a soil resembling a
light clay, so loose as easily to break into powder, and is not
firm enough to bear anyone that treads upon it, and if you
touch it in the least, it flies about like ashes or unslaked
lime. In any danger of war, these people descend into their
caves, and carrying in their booty and prey along with them,
stay quietly within, secure from every attack. And when
Sertorius, leaving Metellus some distance off had placed his
camp near this hill, they slighted and despised him, imagining,
that he retired into these parts, being overthrown by the
Romans. And whether out of anger and resentment, or out of his
unwillingness to be thought to fly from his enemies, early in
the morning he rode up to view the situation of the place. But
finding there was no way to come at it, as he rode about,
threatening them in vain and disconcerted, he took notice that
the wind raised the dust and carried it up towards the caves of
the Characitanians, the mouths of which, as I said before,
opened towards the north; and the northerly wind, which some
call Caecias, prevailing most in those parts, coming up out of
moist plains or mountains covered with snow, at this particular
time, in the heat of summer, being further supplied and
increased by the melting of the ice in the northern regions,
blew a delightful fresh gale, cooling and refreshing the
Characitanians and their cattle all the day long. Sertorius,
considering well all circumstances in which either the
information of the inhabitants, or his own experience had
instructed him, commanded his soldiers to shovel up a great
quantity of this light, dusty earth, to heap it up together,
and make a mount of it over against the hill in which these
barbarous people resided, who, imagining that all this
preparation was for raising a mound to get at them, only mocked
and laughed at it. However, he continued the work till the
evening, and brought his soldiers back into their camp. The
next morning a gentle breeze at first arose, and moved the
lightest parts of the earth, and dispersed it about as the
chaff before the wind; but when the sun coming to be higher,
the strong northerly wind had covered the hills with the dust,
the soldiers came and turned this mound of earth over and over,
and broke the hard clods in pieces, whilst others on horseback
rode through it backward and forward, and raised a cloud of
dust into the air: there with the wind the whole of it was
carried away and blown into the dwellings of the
Characitanians, all lying open to the north. And there being
no other vent or breathing-place than that through which the
Caecias rushed in upon them, it quickly blinded their eyes, and
filled their lungs, and all but choked them, whilst they strove
to draw in the rough air mingled with dust and powdered earth.
Nor were they able, with all they could do, to hold out above
two days, but yielded up themselves on the third, adding, by
their defeat, not so much to the power of Sertorius, as to his
renown, in proving that he was able to conquer places by art,
which were impregnable by the force of arms.
So long as he had to do with Metellus, he was thought to owe
his successes to his opponent's age and slow temper, which were
ill-suited for coping with the daring and activity of one who
commanded a light army more like a band of robbers than regular
soldiers. But when Pompey also passed over the Pyrenees, and
Sertorius pitched his camp near him, and offered and himself
accepted every occasion by which military skill could be put to
the proof, and in this contest of dexterity was found to have
the better, both in baffling his enemy's designs and in
counter-scheming himself, the fame of him now spread even to
Rome itself, as the most expert commander of his time. For the
renown of Pompey was not small, who had already won much honor
by his achievements in the wars of Sylla, from whom he received
the title of Magnus, and was called Pompey the Great; and who
had risen to the honor of a triumph before the beard had grown
on his face. And many cities which were under Sertorius were
on the very eve of revolting and going over to Pompey, when
they were deterred from it by that great action, amongst
others, which he performed near the city of Lauron, contrary to
the expectation of all.
For Sertorius had laid siege to Lauron, and Pompey came with
his whole army to relieve it; and there being a hill near this
city very advantageously situated, they both made haste to take
it. Sertorius was beforehand, and took possession of it first,
and Pompey, having drawn down his forces, was not sorry that it
had thus happened, imagining that he had hereby enclosed his
enemy between his own army and the city, and sent in a
messenger to the citizens of Lauron, to bid them be of good
courage, and to come upon their walls, where they might see
their besieger besieged. Sertorius, perceiving their
intentions, smiled, and said, he would now teach Sylla's
scholar, for so he called Pompey in derision, that it was the
part of a general to look as well behind him as before him, and
at the same time showed them six thousand soldiers, whom he had
left in his former camp, from whence he marched out to take the
hill, where if Pompey should assault him, they might fall upon
his rear. Pompey discovered this too late, and not daring to
give battle, for fear of being encompassed, and yet being
ashamed to desert his friends and confederates in their extreme
danger, was thus forced to sit still, and see them ruined
before his face. For the besieged despaired of relief, and
delivered up themselves to Sertorius, who spared their lives
and granted them their liberty, but burnt their city, not out
of anger or cruelty, for of all commanders that ever were,
Sertorius seems least of all to have indulged these passions,
but only for the greater shame and confusion of the admirers of
Pompey, and that it might be reported amongst the Spaniards,
that though he had been so close to the fire which burnt down
the city of his confederates as actually to feel the heat of
it, he still had not dared to make any opposition.
Sertorius, however, sustained many losses; but he always
maintained himself and those immediately with him undefeated,
and it was by other commanders under him that he suffered; and
he was more admired for being able to repair his losses, and
for recovering the victory, than the Roman generals against him
for gaining these advantages; as at the battle of the Sucro
against Pompey, and at the battle near Tuttia, against him and
Metellus together. The battle near the Sucro was fought, it is
said, through the impatience of Pompey, lest Metellus should
share with him in the victory, Sertorius being also willing to
engage Pompey before the arrival of Metellus. Sertorius
delayed the time till the evening, considering that the
darkness of the night would be a disadvantage to his enemies,
whether flying or pursuing, being strangers, and having no
knowledge of the country. When the fight began, it happened
that Sertorius was not placed directly against Pompey, but
against Afranius, who had command of the left wing of the Roman
army, as he commanded the right wing of his own; but when he
understood that his left wing began to give way, and yield to
the assault of Pompey, he committed the care of his right wing
to other commanders, and made haste to relieve those in
distress; and rallying some that were flying, and encouraging
others that still kept their ranks, he renewed the fight, and
attacked the enemy in their pursuit so effectively as to cause
a considerable rout, and brought Pompey into great danger of
his life. For after being wounded and losing his horse, he
escaped unexpectedly. For the Africans with Sertorius, who
took Pompey's horse, set out with gold, and covered with rich
trappings, fell out with one another; and upon the dividing of
the spoil, gave over the pursuit. Afranius, in the meantime,
as soon as Sertorius had left his right wing, to assist the
other part of his army, overthrew all that opposed him; and
pursuing them to their camp, fell in together with them, and
plundered them till it was dark night; knowing nothing of
Pompey's overthrow, nor being able to restrain his soldiers
from pillaging; when Sertorius, returning with victory, fell
upon him and upon his men, who were all in disorder, and slew
many of them. And the next morning he came into the field
again, well armed, and offered battle, but perceiving that
Metellus was near, he drew off, and returned to his camp,
saying, "If this old woman had not come up, I would have
whipped that boy soundly and sent him to Rome."
He was much concerned that his white hind could nowhere be
found; as he was thus destitute of an admirable contrivance to
encourage the barbarous people, at a time when he most stood in
need of it. Some men, however, wandering in the night, chanced
to meet her, and knowing her by her color, took her; to whom
Sertorius promised a good reward, if they would tell no one of
it; and immediately shut her up. A few days after, he appeared
in public with a very cheerful look, and declared to the chief
men of the country, that the gods had foretold him in a dream
that some great good fortune should shortly attend him; and,
taking his seat, proceeded to answer the petitions of those who
applied themselves to him. The keepers of the hind, who were
not far off, now let her loose, and she no sooner espied
Sertorius, but she came leaping with great joy to his feet,
laid her head upon his knees, and licked his hands, as she
formerly used to do. And Sertorius stroking her, and making
much of her again, with that tenderness that the tears stood in
his eyes, all that were present were immediately filled with
wonder and astonishment, and accompanying him to his house with
loud shouts for joy, looked upon him as a person above the rank
of mortal men, and highly beloved by the gods; and were in
great courage and hope for the future.
When he had reduced his enemies to the last extremity for want
of provision, he was forced to give them battle, in the plains
near Saguntum, to hinder them from foraying, and plundering the
country. Both parties fought gloriously. Memmius, the best
commander in Pompey's army, was slain in the heat of the
battle. Sertorius over threw all before him, and with great
slaughter of his enemies pressed forward towards Metellus.
This old commander, making a resistance beyond what could be
expected from one of his years, was wounded with a lance; an
occurrence which filled all who either saw it or heard of it,
with shame, to be thought to have left their general in
distress, but at the same time it provoked them to revenge and
fury against their enemies; they covered Metellus with their
shields, and brought him off in safety, and then valiantly
repulsed the Spaniards; and so victory changed sides, and
Sertorius, that he might afford a more secure retreat to his
army, and that fresh forces might more easily be raised,
retired into a strong city in the mountains. And though it was
the least of his intention to sustain a long siege, yet he
began to repair the walls, and to fortify the gates, thus
deluding his enemies, who came and sat down before the town,
hoping to take it without much resistance; and meantime gave
over the pursuit of the Spaniards, and allowed opportunity for
raising new forces for Sertorius, to which purpose he had sent
commanders to all their cities, with orders, when they had
sufficiently increased their numbers, to send him word of it.
This news he no sooner received, but he sallied out and forced
his way through his enemies, and easily joined them with the
rest of his army. And having received this considerable
reinforcement, he set upon the Romans again, and by rapidly
assaulting them, by alarming them on all sides, by ensnaring,
circumventing, and laying ambushes for them, he cut off all
provisions by land, while with his piratical vessels, he kept
all the coast in awe, and hindered their supplies by sea. He
thus forced the Roman generals to dislodge, and to separate
from one another: Metellus departed into Gaul, and Pompey
wintered among the Vaccaeans, in a wretched condition, where,
being in extreme want of money, he wrote a letter to the
senate, to let them know that if they did not speedily supply
him, he must draw off his army; for he had already spent his
own money in the defense of Italy. To these extremities, the
chiefest and the most powerful commanders of the age were
reduced by the skill of Sertorius; and it was the common
opinion in Rome, that he would be in Italy before Pompey.
How far Metellus was terrified, and at what rate he esteemed
him, he plainly declared, when he offered by proclamation a
hundred talents, and twenty thousand acres of land, to any
Roman that should kill him, and leave, if he were banished, to
return; attempting villainously to buy his life by treachery,
when he despaired of ever being able to overcome him in open
war. And when once he gained the advantage in a battle against
Sertorius, he was so pleased and transported with his good
fortune, that he caused himself to be publicly proclaimed
imperator; and all the cities which he visited received him
with altars and sacrifices; he allowed himself, it is said, to
have garlands placed on his head, and accepted sumptuous
entertainments, at which he sat drinking in triumphal robes,
while images and figures of victory were introduced by the
motion of machines, bringing in with them crowns and trophies
of gold to present to him, and companies of young men and women
danced before him, and sang to him songs of joy and triumph.
By all which he rendered himself deservedly ridiculous, for
being so excessively delighted and puffed up with the thoughts
of having followed one who was retiring of his own accord, and
for having once had the better of him whom he used to call
Sylla's runaway slave, and his forces, the remnant of the
defeated troops of Carbo.
Sertorius, meantime, showed the loftiness of his temper in
calling together all the Roman senators who had fled from Rome,
and had come and resided with him, and giving them the name of
a senate; and out of these he chose praetors and quaestors, and
adorned his government with all the Roman laws and
institutions. And though he made use of the arms, riches, and
cities of the Spaniards, yet he would never, even in word,
remit to them the imperial authority, but set Roman officers
and commanders over them, intimating his purpose to restore
liberty to the Romans, not to raise up the Spaniard's power
against them. For he was a sincere lover of his country, and
had a great desire to return home; but in his adverse fortune
he showed undaunted courage, and behaved himself towards his
enemies in a manner free from all dejection and
mean-spiritedness; and when he was in his prosperity, and in
the height of his victories, he sent word to Metellus and
Pompey, that he was ready to lay down his arms, and live a
private life, if he were allowed to return home, declaring that
he had rather live as the meanest citizen in Rome, than, exiled
from it, be supreme commander of all other cities together.
And it is thought that his great desire for his country was in
no small measure promoted by the tenderness he had for his
mother, under whom he was brought up after the death of his
father, and upon whom he had placed his entire affection. And
after that his friends had sent for him into Spain to be their
general, as soon as he heard of his mother's death, he had
almost cast away himself and died for grief; for he lay seven
days together continually in his tent, without giving the word,
or being seen by the nearest of his friends; and when the chief
commanders of the army, and persons of the greatest note came
about his tent, with great difficulty they prevailed with him
at last to come abroad, and speak to his soldiers, and to take
upon him the management of affairs, which were in a prosperous
condition. And thus, to many men's judgment, he seemed to have
been in himself of a mild and compassionate temper, and
naturally given to ease and quietness, and to have accepted of
the command of military forces contrary to his own inclination,
and not being able to live in safety otherwise, to have been
driven by his enemies to have recourse to arms, and to espouse
the wars as a necessary guard for the defense of his person.
His negotiations with king Mithridates further argue the
greatness of his mind. For when Mithridates, recovering
himself from his overthrow by Sylla, like a strong wrestler
that gets up to try another fall, was again endeavoring to
reestablish his power in Asia, at this time the great fame of
Sertorius was celebrated in all places and when the merchants
who came out of the western parts of Europe, bringing these, as
it were, among their other foreign wares, had filled the
kingdom of Pontus with their stories of his exploits in war,
Mithridates was extremely desirous to send an embassy to him,
being also highly encouraged to it by the boastings of his
flattering courtiers, who, comparing Mithridates to Pyrrhus,
and Sertorius to Hannibal, professed that the Romans would
never be able to make any considerable resistance against such
great forces, and such admirable commanders, when they should
be set upon on both sides at once, on one by the most warlike
general, and on the other by the most powerful prince in
existence.
Accordingly, Mithridates sends ambassadors into Spain to
Sertorius with letters and instructions, and commission to
promise ships and money towards the charge of the war, if
Sertorius would confirm his pretensions upon Asia, and
authorize him to possess all that he had surrendered to the
Romans in his treaty with Sylla. Sertorius summoned a full
council which he called a senate, where, when others joyfully
approved of the conditions, and were desirous immediately to
accept of his offer, seeing that he desired nothing of them but
a name, and an empty title to places not in their power to
dispose of, in recompense of which they should be supplied with
what they then stood most in need of, Sertorius would by no
means agree to it; declaring that he was willing that king
Mithridates should exercise all royal power and authority over
Bithynia and Cappadocia, countries accustomed to a monarchical
government, and not belonging to Rome, but he could never
consent that he should seize or detain a province, which, by
the justest right and title, was possessed by the Romans, which
Mithridates had formerly taken away from them, and had
afterwards lost in open war to Fimbria, and quitted upon a
treaty of peace with Sylla. For he looked upon it as his duty
to enlarge the Roman possessions by his conquering arms, and
not to increase his own power by the diminution of the Roman
territories. Since a noble-minded man, though he willingly
accepts of victory when it comes with honor, will never so much
as endeavor to save his own life upon any dishonorable terms.
When this was related to Mithridates, he was struck with
amazement, and said to his intimate friends, "What will
Sertorius enjoin us to do when he comes to be seated in the
Palatium in Rome, who at present, when he is driven out to the
borders of the Atlantic sea, sets bounds to our kingdoms in the
east, and threatens us with war, if we attempt the recovery of
Asia?" However, they solemnly, upon oath, concluded a league
between them, upon these terms: that Mithridates should enjoy
the free possession of Cappadocia and Bithynia, and that
Sertorius should send him soldiers, and a general for his army,
in recompense of which the king was to supply him with three
thousand talents and forty ships. Marcus Marius, a Roman
senator who had quitted Rome to follow Sertorius, was sent
general into Asia, in company with whom when Mithridates had
reduced divers of the Asian cities, Marius made his entrance
with rods and axes carried before him, and Mithridates followed
in the second place, voluntarily waiting upon him. Some of
these cities he set at liberty, and others he freed from taxes,
signifying to them that these privileges were granted to them
by the favor of Sertorius, and hereby Asia, which had been
miserably tormented by the revenue-farmers, and oppressed by
the insolent pride and covetousness of the soldiers, began to
rise again to new hopes, and to look forward with joy to the
expected change of government.
But in Spain, the senators about Sertorius, and others of the
nobility, finding themselves strong enough for their enemies,
no sooner laid aside fear, but their minds were possessed by
envy and irrational jealousies of Sertorius's power. And
chiefly Perpenna, elevated by the thoughts of his noble birth,
and carried away with a fond ambition of commanding the army,
threw out villainous discourses in private amongst his
acquaintance. "What evil genius," he would say, "hurries us
perpetually from worse to worse? We who disdained to obey the
dictates of Sylla, the ruler of sea and land, and thus to live
at home in peace and quiet, are come hither to our destruction,
hoping to enjoy our liberty, and have made ourselves slaves of
our own accord, and are become the contemptible guards and
attendants of the banished Sertorius, who, that he may expose
us the further, gives us name that renders us ridiculous to all
that hear it, and calls us the Senate, when at the same time he
makes us undergo as much hard labor, and forces us to be as
subject to his haughty commands and insolences, as any
Spaniards and Lusitanians." With these mutinous discourses, he
seduced them; and though the greater number could not be led
into open rebellion against Sertorius, fearing his power, they
were prevailed with to endeavor to destroy his interest
secretly. For by abusing the Lusitanians and Spaniards, by
inflicting severe punishments upon them, by raising exorbitant
taxes, and by pretending that all this was done by the strict
command of Sertorius, they caused great troubles, and made many
cities to revolt; and those who were sent to mitigate and heal
these differences, did rather exasperate them, and increase the
number of his enemies, and left them at their return more
obstinate and rebellious than they found them. And Sertorius,
incensed with all this, now so far forgot his former clemency
and goodness, as to lay hands on the sons of the Spaniards,
educated in the city of Oscar and, contrary to all justice, he
cruelly put some of them to death, and sold others.
In the meantime, Perpenna, having increased the number of his
conspirators, drew in Manlius, a commander in the army, who, at
that time being attached to a youth, to gain his affections the
more, discovered the confederacy to him, bidding him neglect
others, and be constant to him alone; who, in a few days, was
to be a person of great power and authority. But the youth
having a greater inclination for Aufidius, disclosed all to
him, which much surprised and amazed him. For he was also one
of the confederacy, but knew not that Manlius was anyways
engaged in it; but when the youth began to name Perpenna,
Gracinus, and others, whom he knew very well to be sworn
conspirators, he was very much terrified and astonished; but
made light of it to the youth, and bade him not regard what
Manlius said, a vain boasting fellow. However, he went
presently to Perpenna, and giving him notice of the danger they
were in, and of the shortness of their time, desired him
immediately to put their designs in execution. And when all
the confederates had consented to it, they provided a messenger
who brought feigned letters to Sertorius, in which he had
notice of a victory obtained, it said, by one of his
lieutenants, and of the great slaughter of his enemies; and as
Sertorius, being extremely well pleased, was sacrificing and
giving thanks to the gods for his prosperous success, Perpenna
invited him, and those with him, who were also of the
conspiracy, to an entertainment, and being very importunate,
prevailed with him to come. At all suppers and entertainments
where Sertorius was present, great order and decency was wont
to be observed, for he would not endure to hear or see any
thing that was rude or unhandsome, but made it the habit of all
who kept his company, to entertain themselves with quiet and
inoffensive amusements. But in the middle of this
entertainment, those who sought occasion to quarrel, fell into
dissolute discourse openly, and making as if they were very
drunk, committed many insolences on purpose to provoke him.
Sertorius, being offended with their ill behavior, or
perceiving the state of their minds by their way of speaking
and their unusually disrespectful manner, changed the posture
of his lying, and leaned backward, as one that neither heard
nor regarded them. Perpenna now took a cup full of wine, and,
as he was drinking, let it fall out of his hand and make a
noise, which was the sign agreed upon amongst them; and
Antonius, who was next to Sertorius, immediately wounded him
with his sword. And whilst Sertorius, upon receiving the
wound, turned himself, and strove to get up, Antonius threw
himself upon his breast, and held both his hands, so that he
died by a number of blows, without being able even to defend
himself.
Upon the first news of his death, most of the Spaniards left the
conspirators, and sent ambassadors to Pompey and Metellus, and
yielded themselves up to them. Perpenna attempted to do something
with those that remained, but he made only so much use of
Sertorius's arms and preparations for war, as to disgrace himself
in them, and to let it be evident to all, that he understood no
more how to command, than he knew how to obey; and when he came
against Pompey, he was soon overthrown, and taken prisoner.
Neither did he bear this last affliction with any bravery, but
having Sertorius's papers and writings in his hands, he offered to
show Pompey letters from persons of consular dignity, and of the
highest quality in Rome, written with their own hands, expressly
to call Sertorius into Italy, and to let him know what great
numbers there were that earnestly desired to alter the present
state of affairs, and to introduce another manner of government.
Upon this occasion, Pompey behaved not like a youth, or one of
a light inconsiderate mind, but as a man of a confirmed, mature,
and solid judgment; and so freed Rome from great fears and dangers
of change. For he put all Sertorius's writings and letters
together and read not one of them, nor suffered anyone else to
read them, but burnt them all, and caused Perpenna immediately to
be put to death, lest by discovering their names, further troubles
and revolutions might ensue.
Of the rest of the conspirators with Perpenna, some were taken
and slain by the command of Pompey, others fled into Africa,
and were set upon by the Moors, and run through with their
darts; and in a short time, not one of them was left alive,
except only Aufidius, the rival of Manlius, who, hiding
himself, or not being much inquired after, died an old man, in
an obscure village in Spain, in extreme poverty, and hated by
all.
EUMENES
Duris reports that Eumenes, the Cardian, was the son of a poor
wagoner in the Thracian Chersonesus, yet liberally educated, both
as a scholar and a soldier; and that while he was but young,
Philip, passing through Cardia, diverted himself with a sight of
the wrestling-matches and other exercises of the youth of that
place, among whom Eumenes performing with success, and showing
signs of intelligence and bravery, Philip was so pleased with
him, as to take him into his service. But they seem to speak
more probably, who tell us that Philip advanced Eumenes for the
friendship he bore to his father, whose guest he had sometime
been. After the death of Philip, he continued in the service of
Alexander, with the title of his principal secretary, but in as
great favor as the most intimate of his familiars, being esteemed
as wise and faithful as any person about him, so that he went
with troops under his immediate command as general in the
expedition against India, and succeeded to the post of Perdiccas,
when Perdiccas was advanced to that of Hephaestion, then newly
deceased. And therefore, after the death of Alexander, when
Neoptolemus, who had been captain of his lifeguard, said that he
had followed Alexander with shield and spear, but Eumenes only
with pen and paper, the Macedonians laughed at him, as knowing
very well that, besides other marks of favor, the king had done
him the honor to make him a kind of kinsman to himself by
marriage. For Alexander's first mistress in Asia, by whom he had
his son Hercules, was Barsine the daughter of Artabazus; and in
the distribution of the Persian ladies amongst his captains,
Alexander gave Apame, one of her sisters, to Ptolemy, and
another, also called Barsine, to Eumenes.
Notwithstanding, he frequently incurred Alexander's displeasure,
and put himself into some danger, through Hephaestion. The
quarters that had been taken up for Eumenes, Hephaestion assigned
to Euius, the flute-player. Upon which, in great anger, Eumenes
and Mentor came to Alexander, and loudly complained, saying that
the way to be regarded was to throw away their arms, and turn
flute-players or tragedians; so much so that Alexander took their
part and chid Hephaestion; but soon after changed his mind again,
and was angry with Eumenes, and accounted the freedom he had
taken to be rather an affront to the king, than a reflection upon
Hephaestion. Afterwards, when Nearchus, with a fleet, was to be
sent to the Southern Sea, Alexander borrowed money of his
friends, his own treasury being exhausted, and would have had
three hundred talents of Eumenes, but he sent a hundred only,
pretending; that it was not without great difficulty he had
raised so much from his stewards. Alexander neither complained
nor took the money, but gave private order to set Eumenes's tent
on fire, designing to take him in a manifest lie, when his money
was carried out. But before that could be done, the tent was
consumed, and Alexander repented of his orders, all his papers
being burnt; the gold and silver, however, which was melted down
in the fire, being afterwards collected, was found to be more
than one thousand talents; yet Alexander took none of it, and
only wrote to the several governors and generals to send new
copies of the papers that were burnt, and ordered them to be
delivered to Eumenes.
Another difference happened between him and Hephaestion
concerning a gift, and a great deal of ill language passed
between them, yet Eumenes still continued in favor. But
Hephaestion dying soon after, the king, in his grief, presuming
all those that differed with Hephaestion in his lifetime were now
rejoicing at his death, showed much harshness and severity in his
behavior with them, especially towards Eumenes, whom he often
upbraided with his quarrels and ill language to Hephaestion. But
he, being a wise and dexterous courtier, made advantage of what
had done him prejudice, and struck in with the king's passion for
glorifying his friend's memory, suggesting various plans to do
him honor, and contributing largely and readily towards erecting
his monument.
After Alexander's death, when the quarrel broke out between the
troops of the phalanx and the officers, his companions, Eumenes,
though in his judgment he inclined to the latter, yet in his
professions stood neuter, as if he thought it unbecoming him, who
was a stranger, to interpose in the private quarrels of the
Macedonians. And when the rest of Alexander's friends left
Babylon, he stayed behind, and did much to pacify the
foot-soldiers, and to dispose them towards an accommodation. And
when the officers had agreed among themselves, and, recovering
from the first disorder, proceeded to share out the several
commands and provinces, they made Eumenes governor of Cappadocia
and Paphlagonia, and all the coast upon the Pontic Sea as far as
Trebizond, which at that time was not subject to the Macedonians,
for Ariarathes kept it as king, but Leonnatus and Antigonus, with
a large army, were to put him in possession of it. Antigonus,
already filled with hopes of his own, and despising all men, took
no notice of Perdiccas's letters; but Leonnatus with his army
came down into Phrygia to the service of Eumenes. But being
visited by Hecataeus, the tyrant of the Cardians, and requested
rather to relieve Antipater and the Macedonians that were
besieged in Lamia, he resolved upon that expedition, inviting
Eumenes to a share in it, and endeavoring to reconcile him to
Hecataeus. For there was an hereditary feud between them,
arising out of political differences, and Eumenes had more than
once been known to denounce Hecataeus as a tyrant, and to exhort
Alexander to restore the Cardians their liberty. Therefore at
this time, also, he declined the expedition proposed, pretending
that he feared lest Antipater, who already hated him, should for
that reason and to gratify Hecataeus, kill him. Leonnatus so far
believed, as to impart to Eumenes his whole design, which, as he
had pretended and given out, was to aid Antipater, but in truth
was to seize the kingdom of Macedon; and he showed him letters
from Cleopatra, in which, it appeared, she invited him to Pella,
with promises to marry him. But Eumenes, whether fearing
Antipater, or looking upon Leonnatus as a rash, headstrong, and
unsafe man, stole away from him by night, taking with him all his
men, namely, three hundred horse, and two hundred of his own
servants armed, and all his gold, to the value of five thousand
talents of silver, and fled to Perdiccas, discovered to him
Leonnatus's design, and thus gained great interest with him, and
was made of the council. Soon after, Perdiccas, with a great
army, which he led himself, conducted Eumenes into Cappadocia,
and, having taken Ariarathes prisoner, and subdued the whole
country, declared him governor of it. He accordingly proceeded
to dispose of the chief cities among his own friends, and made
captains of garrisons, judges, receivers, and other officers, of
such as he thought fit himself, Perdiccas not at all interposing.
Eumenes, however, still continued to attend upon Perdiccas, both
out of respect to him, and a desire not to be absent from the
royal family.
But Perdiccas, believing he was able enough to attain his own
further objects without assistance, and that the country he left
behind him might stand in need of an active and faithful
governor, when he came into Cilicia, dismissed Eumenes, under
color of sending him to his command, but in truth to secure
Armenia, which was on its frontier, and was unsettled through the
practices of Neoptolemus. Him, a proud and vain man, Eumenes
exerted himself to gain by personal attentions; but to balance
the Macedonian foot, whom he found insolent and self-willed, he
contrived to raise an army of horse, excusing from tax and
contribution all those of the country that were able to serve on
horseback, and buying up a number of horses, which he distributed
among such of his own men as he most confided in, stimulating the
courage of his new soldiers by gifts and honors, and inuring
their bodies to service, by frequent marching and exercising; so
that the Macedonians were some of them astonished, others
overjoyed, to see that in so short a time he had got together a
body of no less than six thousand three hundred horsemen.
But when Craterus and Antipater, having subdued the Greeks,
advanced into Asia, with intentions to quell the power of
Perdiccas, and were reported to design an invasion of Cappadocia,
Perdiccas, resolving himself to march against Ptolemy, made
Eumenes commander-in-chief of all the forces of Armenia and
Cappadocia, and to that purpose wrote letters, requiring Alcetas
and Neoptolemus to be obedient to Eumenes, and giving full
commission to Eumenes to dispose and order all things as he
thought fit. Alcetas flatly refused to serve, because his
Macedonians, he said, were ashamed to fight against Antipater,
and loved Craterus so well, they were ready to receive him for
their commander. Neoptolemus designed treachery against Eumenes,
but was discovered; and being summoned, refused to obey, and put
himself in a posture of defense. Here Eumenes first found the
benefit of his own foresight and contrivance, for his foot being
beaten, he routed Neoptolemus with his horse, and took all his
baggage; and coming up with his whole force upon the phalanx
while broken and disordered in its flight, obliged the men to lay
down their arms, and take an oath to serve under him.
Neoptolemus, with some few stragglers whom he rallied, fled to
Craterus and Antipater. From them had come an embassy to
Eumenes, inviting him over to their side, offering to secure him
in his present government and to give him additional command,
both of men and of territory, with the advantage of gaining his
enemy Antipater to become his friend, and keeping Craterus his
friend from turning to be his enemy. To which Eumenes replied,
that he could not so suddenly be reconciled to his old enemy
Antipater, especially at a time when he saw him use his friends
like enemies, but was ready to reconcile Craterus to Perdiccas,
upon any just and equitable terms; but in case of any aggression,
he would resist the injustice to his last breath, and would
rather lose his life than betray his word.
Antipater, receiving this answer, took time to consider upon the
whole matter; when Neoptolemus arrived from his defeat, and
acquainted them with the ill success of his arms, and urged them
to give him assistance, to come, both of them, if possible, but
Craterus at any rate, for the Macedonians loved him so
excessively, that if they saw but his hat, or heard his voice,
they would all pass over in a body with their arms. And in
truth, Craterus had a mighty name among them, and the soldiers
after Alexander's death were extremely fond of him, remembering
how he had often for their sakes incurred Alexander's
displeasure, doing his best to withhold him when he began to
follow the Persian fashions, and always maintaining the customs
of his country, when, through pride and luxuriousness, they began
to be disregarded. Craterus, therefore, sent on Antipater into
Cilicia, and himself and Neoptolemus marched with a large
division of the army against Eumenes; expecting to come upon him
unawares, and to find his army disordered with reveling after the
late victory. Now that Eumenes should suspect his coming, and be
prepared to receive him, is an argument of his vigilance, but not
perhaps a proof of any extraordinary sagacity, but that he should
contrive both to conceal from his enemies the disadvantages of
his position, and from his own men whom they were to fight with,
so that he led them on against Craterus himself, without their
knowing that he commanded the enemy, this, indeed, seems to show
peculiar address and skill in the general. He gave out that
Neoptolemus and Pigres were approaching with some Cappadocian and
Paphlagonian horse. And at night, having resolved on marching,
he fell asleep, and had an extraordinary dream. For he thought
he saw two Alexanders ready to engage, each commanding his
several phalanx, the one assisted by Minerva, the other by Ceres;
and that after a hot dispute, he on whose side Minerva was, was
beaten, and Ceres, gathering ears of corn, wove them into a crown
for the victor. This vision Eumenes interpreted at once as
boasting success to himself, who was to fight for a fruitful
country, and at that very time covered with the young ears, the
whole being sowed with corn, and the fields so thick with it,
that they made a beautiful show of a long peace. And he was
further emboldened, when he understood that the enemy's pass-word
was Minerva and Alexander. Accordingly he also gave out as his,
Ceres and Alexander, and gave his men orders to make garlands for
themselves, and to dress their arms with wreaths of corn. He
found himself under many temptations to discover to his captains
and officers whom they were to engage with, and not to conceal a
secret of such moment in his own breast alone, yet he kept to his
first resolutions, and ventured to run the hazard of his own
judgment.
When he came to give battle, he would not trust any Macedonian to
engage Craterus, but appointed two troops of foreign horse,
commanded by Pharnabazus, son to Artabazus, and Phoenix of
Tenedos, with order to charge as soon as ever they saw the enemy,
without giving them leisure to speak or retire, or receiving any
herald or trumpet from them. For he was exceedingly afraid about
his Macedonians, lest, if they found out Craterus to be there,
they should go over to his side. He himself, with three hundred
of his best horse, led the right wing against Neoptolemus. When
having passed a little hill they came in view, and were seen
advancing with more than ordinary briskness, Craterus was amazed,
and bitterly reproached Neoptolemus for deceiving him with hopes
of the Macedonians' revolt, but he encouraged his men to do
bravely, and forthwith charged. The first engagement was very
fierce, and the spears being soon broken to pieces, they came to
close fighting with their swords; and here Craterus did by no
means dishonor Alexander, but slew many of his enemies, and
repulsed many assaults, but at last received a wound in his side
from a Thracian, and fell off his horse. Being down, many not
knowing him went past him, but Gorgias, one of Eumenes's
captains, knew him, and alighting from his horse, kept guard over
him, as he lay badly wounded and slowly dying. In the meantime
Neoptolemus and Eumenes were engaged; who, being inveterate and
mortal enemies, sought for one another, but missed for the two
first courses, but in the third discovering one another, they
drew their swords, and with loud shouts immediately charged. And
their horses striking against one another like two galleys, they
quitted their reins, and taking mutual hold pulled at one
another's helmets, and at the armor from their shoulders. While
they were thus struggling, their horses went from under them, and
they fell together to the ground, there again still keeping their
hold and wrestling. Neoptolemus was getting up first, but
Eumenes wounded him in the ham, and got upon his feet before him.
Neoptolemus supporting himself upon one knee, the other leg being
disabled, and himself undermost, fought courageously, though his
blows were not mortal, but receiving a stroke in the neck he fell
and ceased to resist. Eumenes, transported with passion and his
inveterate hatred to him, fell to reviling and stripping him, and
perceived not that his sword was still in his hand. And with
this he wounded Eumenes under the bottom of his corslet in the
groin, but in truth more frightened than hurt him; his blow being
faint for want of strength. Having stripped the dead body, ill as
he was with the wounds he had received in his legs and arms, he
took horse again, and hurried towards the left wing of his army,
which he supposed to be still engaged. Hearing of the death of
Craterus, he rode up to him, and finding there was yet some life
in him, alighted from his horse and wept, and laying his right
hand upon him, inveighed bitterly against Neoptolemus, and
lamented both Craterus's misfortune and his own hard fate, that
he should be necessitated to engage against an old friend and
acquaintance, and either do or suffer so much mischief.
This victory Eumenes obtained about ten days after the former,
and got great reputation alike for his conduct and his valor in
achieving it. But on the other hand, it created him great envy
both among his own troops, and his enemies, that he, a stranger
and a foreigner, should employ the forces and arms of Macedon, to
cut off the bravest and most approved man among them. Had the
news of this defeat come timely enough to Perdiccas, he had
doubtless been the greatest of all the Macedonians; but now, he
being slain in a mutiny in Egypt, two days before the news
arrived, the Macedonians in a rage decreed Eumenes's death,
giving joint commission to Antigonus and Antipater to prosecute
the war against him. Passing by Mount Ida, where there was a
royal establishment of horses, Eumenes took as many as he had
occasion for, and sent an account of his doing so to the
overseers, at which Antipater is said to have laughed, calling it
truly laudable in Eumenes thus to hold himself prepared for
giving in to them (or would it be taking from them?) strict
account of all matters of administration. Eumenes had designed
to engage in the plains of Lydia, near Sardis, both because his
chief strength lay in horse, and to let Cleopatra see how
powerful he was. But at her particular request, for she was
afraid to give any umbrage to Antipater, he marched into the
upper Phrygia, and wintered in Celaenae; when Alcetas, Polemon,
and Docimus disputing with him who should command in chief, "You
know," said he, "the old saying, That destruction regards no
punctilios." Having promised his soldiers pay within three days,
he sold them all the farms and castles in the country, together
with the men and beasts with which they were filled; every
captain or officer that bought, received from Eumenes the use of
his engines to storm the place, and divided the spoil among his
company, proportionably to every man's arrears. By this Eumenes
came again to be popular, so that when letters were found thrown
about the camp by the enemy, promising one hundred talents,
besides great honors, to anyone that should kill Eumenes, the
Macedonians were extremely offended, and made an order that from
that time forward one thousand of their best men should
continually guard his person, and keep strict watch about him by
night in their several turns. This order was cheerfully obeyed,
and they gladly received of Eumenes the same honors which the
kings used to confer upon their favorites. He now had leave to
bestow purple hats and cloaks, which among the Macedonians is one
of the greatest honors the king can give.
Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and gives them the
appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their
high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and
resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in
times of disaster and ill fortune, as was now the case with
Eumenes. For having by the treason of one of his own men lost
the field to Antigonus at Orcynii, in Cappadocia, in his flight
he gave the traitor no opportunity to escape to the enemy, but
immediately seized and hanged him. Then in his flight, taking a
contrary course to his pursuers, he stole by them unawares,
returned to the place where the battle had been fought, and
encamped. There he gathered up the dead bodies, and burnt them
with the doors and windows of the neighboring villages, and raised
heaps of earth upon their graves; insomuch that Antigonus, who
came thither soon after, expressed his astonishment at his
courage and firm resolution. Falling afterwards upon the
baggage of Antigonus, he might easily have taken many captives,
both bond and freemen, and much wealth collected from the spoils
of so many wars; but he feared lest his men, overladen with so
much booty, might become unfit for rapid retreat, and too fond of
their ease to sustain the continual marches and endure the long
waiting on which he depended for success, expecting to tire
Antigonus into some other course. But then considering it would
be extremely difficult to restrain the Macedonians from plunder,
when it seemed to offer itself, he gave them order to refresh
themselves, and bait their horses, and then attack the enemy. In
the meantime he sent privately to Menander, who had care of all
this baggage, professing a concern for him upon the score of old
friendship and acquaintance; and therefore advising him to quit
the plain and secure himself upon the sides of the neighboring
hills, where the horse might not be able to hem him in. When
Menander, sensible of his danger, had speedily packed up his
goods and decamped, Eumenes openly sent his scouts to discover
the enemy's posture, and commanded his men to arm, and bridle
their horses, as designing immediately to give battle; but the
scouts returning with news that Menander had secured so difficult
a post it was impossible to take him, Eumenes, pretending to be
grieved with the disappointment, drew off his men another way.
It is said that when Menander reported this afterwards to
Antigonus, and the Macedonians commended Eumenes, imputing it to
his singular good-nature, that having it in his power to make
slaves of their children, and outrage their wives, he forbore and
spared them all, Antigonus replied, "Alas, good friends, he had
no regard to us, but to himself, being loath to wear so many
shackles when he designed to fly."
From this time Eumenes, daily flying and wandering about,
persuaded many of his men to disband, whether out of kindness to
them, or unwillingness to lead about such a body of men as were
too few to engage, and too many to fly undiscovered. Taking
refuge at Nora, a place on the confines of Lycaonia and
Cappadocia, with five hundred horse, and two hundred heavy-armed
foot, he again dismissed as many of his friends as desired it,
through fear of the probable hardships to be encountered there,
and embracing them with all demonstrations of kindness, gave them
license to depart. Antigonus, when he came before this fort,
desired to have an interview with Eumenes before the siege; but
he returned answer, that Antigonus had many friends who might
command in his room; but they whom Eumenes defended, had no body
to substitute if he should miscarry; therefore, if Antigonus
thought it worth while to treat with him, he should first send
him hostages. And when Antigonus required that Eumenes should
first address himself to him as his superior, he replied, "While
I am able to wield a sword, I shall think no man greater than
myself." At last, when according to Eumenes's demand, Antigonus
sent his own nephew Ptolemy to the fort, Eumenes went out to him,
and they mutually embraced with great tenderness and friendship,
as having formerly been very intimate. After long conversation,
Eumenes making no mention of his own pardon and security, but
requiring that he should be confirmed in his several governments,
and restitution be made him of the rewards of his service, all
that were present were astonished at his courage and gallantry.
And many of the Macedonians flocked to see what sort of person
Eumenes was, for since the death of Craterus, no man had been so
much talked of in the army. But Antigonus, being afraid lest he
might suffer some violence, first commanded the soldiers to keep
off, calling out and throwing stones at those who pressed
forwards. At last, taking Eumenes in his arms, and keeping off
the crowd with his guards, not without great difficulty, he
returned him safe into the fort.
Then Antigonus, having built a wall round Nora, left a force
sufficient to carry on the siege, and drew off the rest of his
army; and Eumenes was beleaguered and kept garrison, having
plenty of corn and water and salt but no other thing, either for
food, or delicacy; yet with such as he had, he kept a cheerful
table for his friends, inviting them severally in their turns,
and seasoning his entertainment with a gentle and affable
behavior. For he had a pleasant countenance, and looked not like
an old and practiced soldier, but was smooth and florid, and his
shape as delicate as if his limbs had been carved by art in the
most accurate proportions. He was not a great orator, but
winning and persuasive, as may be seen in his letters. The
greatest distress of the besieged was the narrowness of the place
they were in, their quarters being very confined, and the whole
place but two furlongs in compass; so that both they and their
horses fed without exercise. Accordingly, not only to prevent
the listlessness of such inactive living, but to have them in
condition to fly if occasion required, he assigned a room one and
twenty feet long, the largest in all the fort, for the men to
walk in, directing them to begin their walk gently, and so
gradually mend their pace. And for the horses, he tied them to
the roof with great halters, fastening which about their necks,
with a pulley he gently raised them, till standing upon the
ground with their hinder feet, they just touched it with the very
ends of their fore feet. In this posture the grooms plied them
with whips and shouts, provoking them to curvet and kick out with
their hind legs, struggling and stamping at the same time to find
support for their fore feet, and thus their whole body was
exercised, till they were all in a foam and sweat; excellent
exercise, whether for strength or speed; and then he gave them
their corn already coarsely ground, that they might sooner
dispatch, and better digest it.
The siege continuing long, Antigonus received advice that
Antipater was dead in Macedon, and that affairs were embroiled by
the differences of Cassander and Polysperchon, upon which he
conceived no mean hopes, purposing to make himself master of all,
and, in order to his design, thought to bring over Eumenes, that
he might have his advice and assistance. He, therefore, sent
Hieronymus to treat with him, proposing a certain oath, which
Eumenes first corrected, and then referred himself to the
Macedonians themselves that besieged him, to be judged by them,
which of the two forms were the most equitable. Antigonus in the
beginning of his had slightly mentioned the kings as by way of
ceremony, while all the sequel referred to himself alone; but
Eumenes changed the form of it to Olympias and the kings, and
proceeded to swear not to be true to Antigonus only, but to them,
and to have the same friends and enemies, not with Antigonus, but
with Olympias and the kings. This form the Macedonians thinking
the more reasonable, swore Eumenes according to it, and raised
the siege, sending also to Antigonus, that he should swear in the
same form to Eumenes. Meantime, all the hostages of the
Cappadocians whom Eumenes had in Nora he returned, obtaining from
their friends war horses, beasts of carriage, and tents in
exchange. And collecting again all the soldiers who had
dispersed at the time of his flight, and were now wandering about
the country, he got together a body of near a thousand horse, and
with them fled from Antigonus, whom he justly feared. For he had
sent orders not only to have him blocked up and besieged again,
but had given a very sharp answer to the Macedonians, for
admitting Eumenes's amendment of the oath.
While Eumenes was flying, he received letters from those in
Macedonia, who were jealous of Antigonus's greatness, from
Olympias, inviting him thither, to take the charge and protection
of Alexander's infant son, whose person was in danger, and other
letters from Polysperchon, and Philip the king, requiring him to
make war upon Antigonus, as general of the forces in Cappadocia,
and empowering him out of the treasure at Quinda to take five
hundred talents, compensation for his own losses, and to levy as
much as he thought necessary to carry on the war. They wrote also
to the same effect to Antigenes and Teutamus, the chief officers
of the Argyraspids; who, on receiving these letters, treated
Eumenes with a show of respect and kindness; but it was apparent
enough they were full of envy and emulation, disdaining to give
place to him. Their envy Eumenes moderated, by refusing to
accept the money, as if he had not needed it; and their ambition
and emulation, who were neither able to govern, nor willing to
obey, he conquered by help of superstition. For he told them
that Alexander had appeared to him in a dream, and showed him a
regal pavilion richly furnished, with a throne in it; and told
him if they would sit in council there, he himself would be
present and prosper all the consultations and actions upon
which they should enter in his name. Antigenes and Teutamus were
easily prevailed upon to believe this, being as little willing to
come and consult Eumenes, as he himself was to be seen waiting at
other men's doors. Accordingly, they erected a tent royal, and a
throne, called Alexander's, and there they met to consult upon
all affairs of moment.
Afterwards they advanced into the interior of Asia, and in their
march met with Peucestes, who was friendly to them, and with the
other satraps, who joined forces with them, and greatly
encouraged the Macedonians with the number and appearance of
their men. But they themselves, having since Alexander's decease
become imperious and ungoverned in their tempers, and luxurious
in their daily habits, imagining themselves great princes, and
pampered in their conceit by the flattery of the barbarians, when
all these conflicting pretensions now came together, were soon
found to be exacting and quarrelsome one with another, while all
alike unmeasurably flattered the Macedonians, giving them money
for revels and sacrifices, till in a short time they brought the
camp to be a dissolute place of entertainment, and the army a
mere multitude of voters, canvassed as in a democracy for the
election of this or that commander. Eumenes, perceiving they
despised one another, and all of them feared him, and sought an
opportunity to kill him, pretended to be in want of money, and
borrowed many talents, of those especially who most hated him, to
make them at once confide in him, and forbear all violence to him
for fear of losing their own money. Thus his enemies' estates
were the guard of his person, and by receiving money he purchased
safety, for which it is more common to give it.
The Macedonians, also, while there was no show of danger, allowed
themselves to be corrupted, and made all their court to those who
gave them presents, who had their body-guards, and affected to
appear as generals-in-chief. But when Antigonus came upon them
with a great army, and their affairs themselves seemed to call
out for a true general, then not only the common soldiers cast
their eyes upon Eumenes, but these men, who had appeared so great
in a peaceful time of ease, submitted all of them to him, and
quietly posted themselves severally as he appointed them. And
when Antigonus attempted to pass the river Pasitigris, all the
rest that were appointed to guard the passes were not so much as
aware of his march; only Eumenes met and encountered him, slew
many of his men, and filled the river with the dead, and took
four thousand prisoners. But it was most particularly when
Eumenes was sick, that the Macedonians let it be seen how in
their judgment, while others could feast them handsomely and make
entertainments, he alone knew how to fight and lead an army. For
Peucestes, having made a splendid entertainment in Persia, and
given each of the soldiers a sheep to sacrifice with, made
himself sure of being commander-in-chief. Some few days after,
the army was to march, and Eumenes, having been dangerously ill,
was carried in a litter apart from the body of the army, that any
rest he got might not be disturbed. But when they were a little
advanced, unexpectedly they had a view of the enemy, who had
passed the hills that lay between them, and was marching down
into the plain. At the sight of the golden armor glittering in
the sun as they marched down in their order, the elephants with
their castles on their backs, and the men in their purple, as
their manner was when they were going to give battle, the front
stopped their march, and called out for Eumenes, for they would
not advance a step but under his conduct; and fixing their arms
in the ground, gave the word among themselves to stand, requiring
their officers also not to stir or engage or hazard themselves
without Eumenes. News of this being brought to Eumenes, he
hastened those that carried his litter, and drawing back the
curtains on both sides, joyfully put forth his right hand. As
soon as the soldiers saw him, they saluted him in their
Macedonian dialect, and took up their shields, and striking them
with their pikes, gave a great shout; inviting the enemy to come
on, for now they had a leader.
Antigonus understanding by some prisoners he had taken that
Eumenes was out of health, to that degree that he was carried in
a litter, presumed it would be no hard matter to crush the rest
of them, since he was ill. He therefore made the greater haste
to come up with them and engage. But being come so near as to
discover how the enemy was drawn up and appointed, he was
astonished, and paused for some time; at last he saw the litter
carrying from one wing of the army to the other, and, as his
manner was, laughing aloud, he said to his friends, "That litter
there, it seems, is the thing that offers us battle;" and
immediately wheeled about, retired with all his army, and pitched
his camp. The men on the other side, finding a little respite,
returned to their former habits, and allowing themselves to be
flattered, and making the most of the indulgence of their
generals, took up for their winter quarters near the whole
country of the Gabeni, so that the front was quartered nearly a
thousand furlongs from the rear; which Antigonus understanding,
marched suddenly towards them, taking the most difficult road
through a country that wanted water; but the way was short though
uneven; hoping, if he should surprise them thus scattered in
their winter quarters, the soldiers would not easily be able to
come up time enough, and join with their officers. But having to
pass through a country uninhabited, where he met with violent
winds and severe frosts, he was much checked in his march, and
his men suffered exceedingly. The only possible relief was
making numerous fires, by which his enemies got notice of his
coming. For the barbarians who dwelt on the mountains
overlooking the desert, amazed at the multitude of fires they
saw, sent messengers upon dromedaries to acquaint Peucestes. He
being astonished and almost out of his senses with the news, and
finding the rest in no less disorder, resolved to fly, and
collect what men he could by the way. But Eumenes relieved him
from his fear and trouble, undertaking so to stop the enemy's
advance, that he should arrive three days later than he was
expected. Having persuaded them, he immediately dispatched
expresses to all the officers to draw the men out of their winter
quarters, and muster them with all speed. He himself with some
of the chief officers rode out, and chose an elevated tract
within view, at a distance, of such as traveled the desert; this
he occupied and quartered out, and commanded many fires to be
made in it, as the custom is in a camp. This done, and the enemies
seeing the fire upon the mountains, Antigonus was filled with
vexation and despondency, supposing that his enemies had been
long since advertised of his march, and were prepared to receive
him. Therefore, lest his army, now tired and wearied out with
their march, should be forced immediately to encounter with fresh
men, who had wintered well, and were ready for him, quitting the
near way, he marched slowly through the towns and villages to
refresh his men. But meeting with no such skirmishes as are
usual when two armies lie near one another, and being assured by
the people of the country that no army had been seen, but only
continual fires in that place, he concluded he had been outwitted
by a stratagem of Eumenes, and much troubled, advanced to give
open battle.
By this time, the greatest part of the forces were come together
to Eumenes, and admiring his sagacity, declared him alone
commander-in-chief of the whole army; upon which Antigenes and
Teutamus, the commanders of the Argyraspids, being very much
offended, and envying Eumenes, formed a conspiracy against him;
and assembling the greater part of the satraps and officers,
consulted when and how to cut him off. When they had unanimously
agreed, first to use his service in the next battle, and then to
take an occasion to destroy him, Eudamus, the master of the
elephants, and Phaedimus, gave Eumenes private advice of this
design, not out of kindness or good-will to him, but lest they
should lose the money they had lent him. Eumenes, having
commended them, retired to his tent, and telling his friends he
lived among a herd of wild beasts, made his will, and tore up all
his letters, lest his correspondents after his death should be
questioned or punished on account of anything in his secret
papers. Having thus disposed of his affairs, he thought of
letting the enemy win the field, or of flying through Media and
Armenia and seizing Cappadocia, but came to no resolution while
his friends stayed with him. After turning to many expedients in
his mind, which his changeable fortune had made versatile, he at
last put his men in array, and encouraged the Greeks and
barbarians; as for the phalanx and the Argyraspids, they
encouraged him, and bade him be of good heart; for the enemy
would never be able to stand them. For indeed they were the
oldest of Philip's and Alexander's soldiers, tried men, that had
long made war their exercise, that had never been beaten or
foiled; most of them seventy, none less than sixty years old.
And so when they charged Antigonus's men, they cried out, "You
fight against your fathers, you rascals," and furiously falling
on, routed the whole phalanx at once, nobody being able to stand
them, and the greatest part dying by their hands. So that
Antigonus's foot were routed, but his horse got the better, and
he became master of the baggage, through the cowardice of
Peucestes, who behaved himself negligently and basely; while
Antigonus used his judgment calmly in the danger, being aided
moreover by the ground. For the place where they fought was a
large plain, neither deep, nor hard under foot, but, like the
sea-shore, covered with a fine soft sand, which the treading of
so many men and horses, in the time of the battle, reduced to a
small white dust, that like a cloud of lime darkened the air, so
that one could not see clearly at any distance, and so made it
easy for Antigonus to take the baggage unperceived.
After the battle, Teutamus sent a message to Antigonus to demand
the baggage. He made answer, he would not only restore it to the
Argyraspids, but serve them further in other things if they would
but deliver up Eumenes. Upon which the Argyraspids took a
villainous resolution to deliver him up alive into the hands of
his enemies. So they came to wait upon him, being unsuspected by
him, but watching their opportunity, some lamenting the loss of
the baggage, some encouraging him as if he had been victor, some
accusing the other commanders, till at last they all fell upon
him, and seizing his sword, bound his hands behind him with his
own girdle. When Antigonus had sent Nicanor to receive him, he
begged he might be led through the body of the Macedonians, and
have liberty to speak to them, neither to request, nor deprecate
anything, but only to advise them what would be for their
interest. A silence being made, as he stood upon a rising
ground, he stretched out his hands bound, and said, "What trophy,
O ye basest of all the Macedonians, could Antigonus have wished
for so great as you yourselves have erected for him, in
delivering up your general captive into his hands? You are not
ashamed, when you are conquerors, to own yourselves conquered,
for the sake only of your baggage, as if it were wealth, not
arms, wherein victory consisted; nay, you deliver up your general
to redeem your stuff. As for me, I am unvanquished, though a
captive, conqueror of my enemies, and betrayed by my fellow
soldiers. For you, I adjure you by Jupiter, the protector of
arms, and by all the gods that are the avengers of perjury, to
kill me here with your own hands; for it is all one; and if I am
murdered yonder, it will be esteemed your act, nor will Antigonus
complain, for he desires not Eumenes alive, but dead. Or if you
withhold your own hands, release but one of mine, it shall
suffice to do the work; and if you dare not trust me with a sword
throw me bound as I am under the feet of the wild beasts. This
if you do I shall freely acquit you from the guilt of my death,
as the most just and kind of men to their general."
While Eumenes was thus speaking, the rest of the soldiers wept
for grief, but the Argyraspids shouted out to lead him on, and
give no attention to his trilling. For it was no such great
matter if this Chersonesian pest should meet his death, who in
thousands of battles had annoyed and wasted the Macedonians; it
would be a much more grievous thing for the choicest of Philip's
and Alexander's soldiers to be defrauded of the fruits of so long
service, and in their old age to come to beg their bread, and to
leave their wives three nights in the power of their enemies. So
they hurried him on with violence. But Antigonus, fearing the
multitude, for nobody was left in the camp, sent ten of his
strongest elephants with divers of his Mede and Parthian lances
to keep off the press. Then he could not endure to have Eumenes
brought into his presence, by reason of their former intimacy and
friendship; but when they that had taken him inquired how he
would have him kept, "As I would," said he, "an elephant, or a
lion." A little after, being loved with compassion, he
commanded the heaviest of his irons to be knocked off, one of his
servants to be admitted to anoint him, and that any of his
friends that were willing should have liberty to visit him, and
bring him what he wanted. Long time he deliberated what to do
with him, sometimes inclining to the advice and promises of
Nearchus of Crete, and Demetrius his son, who were very earnest
to preserve Eumenes, whilst all the rest were unanimously instant
and importunate to have him taken off. It is related that
Eumenes inquired of Onomarchus, his keeper, why Antigonus, now he
had his enemy in his hands, would not either forthwith dispatch
or generously release him? And that Onomarchus contumeliously
answered him, that the field had been a more proper place than
this to show his contempt of death. To whom Eumenes replied,
"And by heavens, I showed it there; ask the men else that engaged
me, but I could never meet a man that was my superior."
"Therefore," rejoined Onomarchus, "now you have found such a man,
why don't you submit quietly to his pleasure?"
When Antigonus resolved to kill Eumenes, he commanded to keep his
food from him, and so with two or three days' fasting he began to
draw near his end; but the camp being on a sudden to remove, an
executioner was sent to dispatch him. Antigonus granted his body
to his friends, permitted them to burn it, and having gathered
his ashes into a silver urn, to send them to his wife and
children.
Eumenes was thus taken off; and Divine Providence assigned to no
other man the chastisement of the commanders and soldiers that
had betrayed him; but Antigonus himself, abominating the
Argyraspids as wicked and inhuman villains, delivered them up to
Sibyrtius, the governor of Arachosia, commanding him by all ways
and means to destroy and exterminate them, so that not a man of
them might ever come to Macedon, or so much as within sight of
the Greek sea.
COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES
These are the most remarkable passages that are come to our
knowledge concerning Eumenes and Sertorius. In comparing their
lives, we may observe that this was common to them both; that
being aliens, strangers, and banished men, they came to be
commanders of powerful forces, and had the leading of numerous
and warlike armies, made up of divers nations. This was peculiar
to Sertorius, that the chief command was, by his whole party,
freely yielded to him, as to the person of the greatest merit and
renown, whereas Eumenes had many who contested the office with
him, and only by his actions obtained the superiority. They
followed the one honestly, out of desire to be commanded by him;
they submitted themselves to the other for their own security,
because they could not commend themselves. The one, being a
Roman, was the general of the Spaniards and Lusitanians, who for
many years had been under the subjection of Rome; and the other,
a Chersonesian, was chief commander of the Macedonians, who were
the great conquerors of mankind, and were at that time subduing
the world. Sertorius, being already in high esteem for his
former services in the wars, and his abilities in the senate, was
advanced to the dignity of a general; whereas Eumenes obtained
this honor from the office of a writer, or secretary, in which he
had been despised. Nor did he only at first rise from inferior
opportunities, but afterwards, also, met with greater
impediments in the progress of his authority, and that not only
from those who publicly resisted him, but from many others that
privately conspired against him. It was much otherwise with
Sertorius, not one of whose party publicly opposed him, only late
in life and secretly a few of his acquaintance entered into a
conspiracy against him. Sertorius put an end to his dangers as
often as he was victorious in the field, whereas the victories of
Eumenes were the beginning of his perils, through the malice of
those that envied him.
Their deeds in war were equal and parallel, but their general
inclinations different. Eumenes naturally loved war and
contention, but Sertorius esteemed peace and tranquillity; when
Eumenes might have lived in safety, with honor, if he would have
quietly retired out of their way, he persisted in a dangerous
contest with the greatest of the Macedonian leaders; but
Sertorius, who was unwilling to trouble himself with any public
disturbances, was forced, for the safety of his person, to make
war against those who would not suffer him to live in peace. If
Eumenes could have contented himself with the second place,
Antigonus, freed from his competition for the first, would have
used him well, and shown him favor, whereas Pompey's friends
would never permit Sertorius so much as to live in quiet. The
one made war of his own accord, out of a desire for command; and
the other was constrained to accept of command, to defend himself
from war that was made against him. Eumenes was certainly a true
lover of war, for he preferred his covetous ambition before his
own security; but Sertorius was truly warlike, who procured his
own safety by the success of his arms.
As to the manner of their deaths, it happened to one without the
least thought or surmise of it; but to the other when he
suspected it daily; which in the first, argues an equitable
temper, and a noble mind, not to distrust his friends; but in the
other, it showed some infirmity of spirit, for Eumenes intended to
fly and was taken. The death of Sertorius dishonored not his
life; he suffered that from his companions which none of his
enemies were ever able to perform. The other, not being able to
deliver himself before his imprisonment, being willing also to
live in captivity, did neither prevent nor expect his fate with
honor or bravery; for by meanly supplicating and petitioning, he
made his enemy, that pretended only to have power over his body,
to be lord and master of his body and mind.
AGESILAUS
Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, having reigned gloriously over
the Lacedaemonians, left behind him two sons, Agis the elder,
begotten of Lampido, a noble lady, Agesilaus, much the younger,
born of Eupolia, the daughter of Melesippidas. Now the succession
belonging to Agis by law, Agesilaus, who in all probability was to
be but a private man, was educated according to the usual
discipline of the country, hard and severe, and meant to teach
young men to obey their superiors. Whence it was that, men say,
Simonides called Sparta "the tamer of men," because by early
strictness of education, they, more than any nation, trained the
citizens to obedience to the laws, and made them tractable and
patient of subjection, as horses that are broken in while colts.
The law did not impose this harsh rule on the heirs apparent of the
kingdom. But Agesilaus, whose good fortune it was to be born a
younger brother, was consequently bred to all the arts of
obedience, and so the better fitted for the government, when it
fell to his share; hence it was that he proved the most
popular-tempered of the Spartan kings, his early life having added
to his natural kingly and commanding qualities the gentle and
humane feelings of a citizen.
While he was yet a boy, bred up in one of what are called the
flocks, or classes, he attracted the attachment of Lysander, who
was particularly struck with the orderly temper that he manifested.
For though he was one of the highest spirits, emulous above any of
his companions, ambitious of preeminence in everything, and showed
an impetuosity and fervor of mind which irresistibly carried him
through all opposition or difficulty he could meet with; yet, on
the other side, he was so easy and gentle in his nature, and so apt
to yield to authority, that though he would do nothing on
compulsion, upon ingenuous motives he would obey any commands, and
was more hurt by the least rebuke or disgrace, than he was
distressed by any toil or hardship.
He had one leg shorter than the other, but this deformity was
little observed in the general beauty of his person in youth. And
the easy way in which he bore it, (he being the first always to
pass a jest upon himself,) went far to make it disregarded. And
indeed his high spirit and eagerness to distinguish himself were
all the more conspicuous by it, since he never let his lameness
withhold him from any toil or any brave action. Neither his statue
nor picture are extant, he never allowing them in his life, and
utterly forbidding them to be made after his death. He is said to
have been a little man, of a contemptible presence; but the
goodness of his humor, and his constant cheerfulness and
playfulness of temper, always free from anything of moroseness or
haughtiness, made him more attractive, even to his old age, than
the most beautiful and youthful men of the nation. Theophrastus
writes, that the Ephors laid a fine upon Archidamus for marrying a
little wife, "For" said they, "she will bring us a race of
kinglets, instead of kings."
Whilst Agis, the elder brother, reigned, Alcibiades, being then an
exile from Athens, came from Sicily to Sparta; nor had he stayed
long there, before his familiarity with Timaea, the king's wife,
grew suspected, insomuch that Agis refused to own a child of hers,
which, he said, was Alcibiades's, not his. Nor, if we may believe
Duris, the historian, was Timaea much concerned at it, being
herself forward enough to whisper among her helot maid-servants,
that the infant's true name was Alcibiades, not Leotychides.
Meanwhile it was believed, that the amour he had with her was not
the effect of his love but of his ambition, that he might have
Spartan kings of his posterity. This affair being grown public, it
became needful for Alcibiades to withdraw from Sparta. But the
child Leotychides had not the honors due to a legitimate son paid
him, nor was he ever owned by Agis, till by his prayers and tears
he prevailed with him to declare him his son before several
witnesses upon his death-bed. But this did not avail to fix him in
the throne of Agis, after whose death Lysander, who had lately
achieved his conquest of Athens by sea, and was of the greatest
power in Sparta, promoted Agesilaus, urging Leotychides's bastardy
as a bar to his pretensions. Many of the other citizens, also,
were favorable to Agesilaus and zealously joined his party, induced
by the opinion they had of his merits, of which they themselves
had been spectators, in the time that he had been bred up among
them. But there was a man, named Diopithes, at Sparta, who had a
great knowledge of ancient oracles, and was thought particularly
skillful and clever in all points of religion and divination. He
alleged, that it was unlawful to make a lame man king of
Lacedaemon, citing in the debate the following oracle: --
Beware, great Sparta, lest there come of thee
Though sound thyself; an halting sovereignty;
Troubles, both long and unexpected too,
And storms of deadly warfare shall ensue.
But Lysander was not wanting with an evasion, alleging that if the
Spartans were really apprehensive of the oracle, they must have a
care of Leotychides; for it was not the limping foot of a king that
the gods cared about, but the purity of the Herculean family, into
whose sights if a spurious issue were admitted, it would make the
kingdom to halt indeed. Agesilaus likewise alleged, that the
bastardy of Leotychides was witnessed to by Neptune, who threw Agis
out of bed by a violent earthquake, after which time he ceased to
visit his wife, yet Leotychides was born above ten months after
this.
Agesilaus was upon these allegations declared king, and soon
possessed himself of the private estate of Agis, as well as his
throne, Leotychides being wholly rejected as a bastard. He now
turned his attention to his kindred by the mother's side, persons
of worth and virtue, but miserably poor. To them he gave half his
brother's estate, and by this popular act gained general good-will
and reputation, in the place of the envy and ill-feeling which the
inheritance might otherwise have procured him. What Xenophon tells
us of him, that by complying with, and, as it were, being ruled by
his country, he grew into such great power with them, that he could
do what he pleased, is meant to apply to the power he gained in the
following manner with the Ephors and Elders. These were at that
time of the greatest authority in the State; the former, officers
annually chosen; the Elders, holding their places during life; both
instituted, as already told in the life of Lycurgus, to restrain
the power of the kings. Hence it was that there was always from
generation to generation, a feud and contention between them and
the kings. But Agesilaus took another course. Instead of
contending with them, he courted them; in all proceedings he
commenced by taking their advice, was always ready to go, nay
almost run, when they called him; if he were upon his royal seat
hearing causes and the Ephors came in, he rose to them; whenever
any man was elected into the Council of Elders, he presented him
with a gown and an ox. Thus, whilst he made show of deference to
them, and of a desire to extend their authority, he secretly
advanced his own, and enlarged the prerogatives of the kings by
several liberties which their friendship to his person conceded.
To other citizens he so behaved himself, as to be less blamable in
his enmities than in his friendships; for against his enemy he
forbore to take any unjust advantage, but his friends he would
assist, even in what was unjust. If an enemy had done anything
praiseworthy, he felt it shameful to detract from his due, but his
friends he knew not how to reprove when they did ill, nay, he would
eagerly join with them, and assist them in their misdeed, and
thought all offices of friendship commendable, let the matter in
which they were employed be what it would. Again, when any of his
adversaries was overtaken in a fault, he would be the first to pity
him, and be soon entreated to procure his pardon, by which he won
the hearts of all men. Insomuch that his popularity grew at last
suspected by the Ephors, who laid a fine on him, professing that he
was appropriating the citizens to himself, who ought to be the
common property of the State. For as it is the opinion of
philosophers, that could you take away strife and opposition out of
the universe, all the heavenly bodies would stand still, generation
and motion would cease in the mutual concord and agreement of all
things, so the Spartan legislator seems to have admitted ambition
and emulation, among the ingredients of his Commonwealth as the
incentives of virtue, distinctly wishing that there should be some
dispute and competition among his men of worth, and pronouncing the
mere idle, uncontested, mutual compliance to unproved deserts to be
but a false sort of concord. And some think Homer had an eye to
this, when he introduces Agamemnon well pleased with the quarrel
arising between Ulysses and Achilles, and with the "terrible
words" that passed between them, which he would never have done,
unless he had thought emulations and dissensions between the
noblest men to be of great public benefit. Yet this maxim is not
simply to be granted, without restriction, for if animosities go
too far, they are very dangerous to cities, and of most pernicious
consequence.
When Agesilaus was newly entered upon the government, there came
news from Asia, that the Persian king was making great naval
preparations, resolving with a high hand to dispossess the Spartans
of their maritime supremacy. Lysander was eager for the
opportunity of going over and succoring his friends in Asia, whom
he had there left governors and masters of the cities, whose
mal-administration and tyrannical behavior was causing them to be
driven out, and in some cases put to death. He therefore persuaded
Agesilaus to claim the command of the expedition, and by carrying
the war far from Greece into Persia, to anticipate the designs of
the barbarian. He also wrote to his friends in Asia, that by
embassy they should demand Agesilaus for their captain. Agesilaus,
therefore, coming into the public assembly, offered his service,
upon condition that he might have thirty Spartans for captains and
counselors, two thousand chosen men of the newly enfranchised
helots, and allies to the number of six thousand. Lysander's
authority and assistance soon obtained his request, so that he was
sent away with the thirty Spartans, of whom Lysander was at once
the chief, not only because of his power and reputation, but also
on account of his friendship with Agesilaus, who esteemed his
procuring him this charge a greater obligation, than that of
preferring him to the kingdom.
Whilst the army was collecting to the rendezvous at Geraestus,
Agesilaus went with some of his friends to Aulis, where in a dream
he saw a man approach him, and speak to him after this manner: "O
king of the Lacedaemonians, you cannot but know that, before
yourself, there hath been but one general captain of the whole of
the Greeks, namely, Agamemnon; now, since you succeed him in the
same office and command of the same men, since you war against the
same enemies, and begin your expedition from the same place, you
ought also to offer such a sacrifice, as he offered before he
weighed anchor." Agesilaus at the same moment remembered that the
sacrifice which Agamemnon offered was his own daughter, he being so
directed by the oracle. Yet was he not at all disturbed at it, but
as soon as he arose, he told his dream to his friends, adding, that
he would propitiate the goddess with the sacrifices a goddess must
delight in, and would not follow the ignorant example of his
predecessor. He therefore ordered a hind to be crowned with
chaplets, and bade his own soothsayer perform the rite, not the
usual person whom the Boeotians, in ordinary course, appointed to
that office. When the Boeotian magistrates understood it, they
were much offended, and sent officers to Agesilaus, to forbid his
sacrificing contrary to the laws of the country. These having
delivered their message to him, immediately went to the altar, and
threw down the quarters of the hind that lay upon it. Agesilaus
took this very ill, and without further sacrifice immediately
sailed away, highly displeased with the Boeotians, and much
discouraged in his mind at the omen, boding to himself an
unsuccessful voyage, and an imperfect issue of the whole
expedition.
When he came to Ephesus, he found the power and interest of
Lysander, and the honors paid to him, insufferably great; all
applications were made to him, crowds of suitors attended at his
door, and followed upon his steps, as if nothing but the mere name
of commander belonged, to satisfy the usage, to Agesilaus, the
whole power of it being devolved upon Lysander. None of all the
commanders that had been sent into Asia was either so powerful or
so formidable as he; no one had rewarded his friends better, or had
been more severe against his enemies; which things having been
lately done, made the greater impression on men's minds, especially
when they compared the simple and popular behavior of Agesilaus,
with the harsh and violent and brief-spoken demeanor which Lysander
still retained. Universal deference was yielded to this, and
little regard shown to Agesilaus. This first occasioned offense to
the other Spartan captains, who resented that they should rather
seem the attendants of Lysander, than the councilors of Agesilaus.
And at length Agesilaus himself, though not perhaps all envious man
in his nature, nor apt to be troubled at the honors redounding upon
other men, yet eager for honor and jealous of his glory, began to
apprehend that Lysander's greatness would carry away from him the
reputation of whatever great action should happen. He therefore
went this way to work. He first opposed him in all his counsels;
whatever Lysander specially advised was rejected, and other
proposals followed. Then whoever made any address to him, if he
found him attached to Lysander, certainly lost his suit. So also
in judicial cases, anyone whom he spoke strongly against was sure
to come off with success, and any man whom he was particularly
solicitous to procure some benefit for, might think it well if he
got away without an actual loss. These things being clearly not
done by chance, but constantly and of a set purpose, Lysander was
soon sensible of them, and hesitated not to tell his friends, that
they suffered for his sake, bidding them apply themselves to the
king, and such as were more powerful with him than he was. Such
sayings of his seeming to be designed purposely to excite ill
feeling, Agesilaus went on to offer him a yet more open affront,
appointing him his meat-carver; and would in public companies
scornfully say, "Let them go now and pay their court to my carver."
Lysander, no longer able to brook these indignities, complained at
last to Agesilaus himself, telling him, that he knew very well how
to humble his friends. Agesilaus answered, "I know certainly how
to humble those who pretend to more power than myself." "That,"
replied Lysander, "is perhaps rather said by you, than done by me;
I desire only, that you will assign me some office and place, in
which I may serve you without incurring your displeasure."
Upon this Agesilaus sent him to the Hellespont, whence he procured
Spithridates, a Persian of the province of Pharnabazus, to come to
the assistance of the Greeks with two hundred horse, and a great
supply of money. Yet his anger did not so come down, but he
thenceforward pursued the design of wresting the kingdom out of the
hands of the two families which then enjoyed it, and making it
wholly elective; and it is thought that he would on account of this
quarrel have excited a great commotion in Sparta, if he had not
died in the Boeotian war. Thus ambitious spirits in a
commonwealth, when they transgress their bounds, are apt to do more
harm than good. For though Lysander's pride and assumption was
most ill-timed and insufferable in its display, yet Agesilaus
surely could have found some other way of setting him right, less
offensive to a man of his reputation and ambitious temper. Indeed
they were both blinded with the same passion, so as one not to
recognize the authority of his superior, the other not to bear with
the imperfections of his friend.
Tisaphernes being at first afraid of Agesilaus, treated with him
about setting the Grecian cities at liberty, which was agreed on.
But soon after finding a sufficient force drawn together, he
resolved upon war, for which Agesilaus was not sorry. For the
expectation of this expedition was great, and he did not think it
for his honor, that Xenophon with ten thousand men should march
through the heart of Asia to the sea, beating the Persian forces
when and how he pleased, and that he at the head of the Spartans,
then sovereigns both at sea and land, should not achieve some
memorable action for Greece. And so to be even with Tisaphernes,
he requites his perjury by a fair stratagem. He pretends to march
into Caria, whither when he had drawn Tisaphernes and his army, he
suddenly turns back, and falls upon Phrygia, takes many of their
cities, and carries away great booty, showing his allies, that to
break a solemn league was a downright contempt of the gods, but the
circumvention of an enemy in war was not only just but glorious, a
gratification at once and an advantage.
Being weak in horse, and discouraged by ill omens in the
sacrifices, he retired to Ephesus, and there raised cavalry. He
obliged the rich men, that were not inclined to serve in person, to
find each of them a horseman armed and mounted; and there being
many who preferred doing this, the army was quickly reinforced by a
body, not of unwilling recruits for the infantry, but of brave and
numerous horsemen. For those that were not good at fighting
themselves, hired such as were more military in their inclinations,
and such as loved not horse-service substituted in their places
such as did. Agamemnon's example had been a good one, when he took
the present of an excellent mare, to dismiss a rich coward from the
army.
When by Agesilaus's order the prisoners he had taken in Phrygia
were exposed to sale, they were first stripped of their garments,
and then sold naked. The clothes found many customers to buy them,
but the bodies being, from the want of all exposure and exercise,
white and tender-skinned, were derided and scorned as
unserviceable. Agesilaus, who stood by at the auction, told his
Greeks, "These are the men against whom ye fight, and these the
things you will gain by it."
The season of the year being come, he boldly gave out that he would
invade Lydia; and this plaindealing of his was now mistaken for a
stratagem by Tisaphernes, who, by not believing Agesilaus, having
been already deceived by him, overreached himself. He expected
that he should have made choice of Caria, as a rough country, not
fit for horse, in which he deemed Agesilaus to be weak, and
directed his own marches accordingly. But when he found him to be
as good as his word, and to have entered into the country of
Sardis, he made great haste after him, and by great marches of his
horse, overtaking the loose stragglers who were pillaging the
country, he cut them off. Agesilaus meanwhile, considering that
the horse had outridden the foot, but that he himself had the whole
body of his own army entire, made haste to engage them. He mingled
his light-armed foot, carrying targets, with the horse, commanding
them to advance at full speed and begin the battle, whilst he
brought up the heavier-armed men in the rear. The success was
answerable to the design; the barbarians were put to the rout, the
Grecians pursued hard, took their camp, and put many of them to the
sword. The consequence of this victory was very great; for they
had not only the liberty of foraging the Persian country, and
plundering at pleasure, but also saw Tisaphernes pay dearly for all
the cruelty he had showed the Greeks, to whom he was a professed
enemy. For the king of Persia sent Tithraustes, who took off his
head, and presently dealt with Agesilaus about his return into
Greece, sending to him ambassadors to that purpose, with commission
to offer him great sums of money. Agesilaus's answer was, that the
making of peace belonged to the Lacedaemonians, not to him; as for
wealth, he had rather see it in his soldiers' hands than his own;
that the Grecians thought it not honorable to enrich themselves
with the bribes of their enemies, but with their spoils only. Yet,
that he might gratify Tithraustes for the justice he had done upon
Tisaphernes, the common enemy of the Greeks, he removed his
quarters into Phrygia, accepting thirty talents for his expenses.
Whilst he was upon his march, he received a staff from the
government at Sparta, appointing him admiral as well as general.
This was an honor which was never done to any but Agesilaus, who
being now undoubtedly the greatest and most illustrious man of his
time, still, as Theopompus has said, gave himself more occasion of
glory in his own virtue and merit than was given him in this
authority and power. Yet he committed a fault in preferring
Pisander to the command of the navy, when there were others at hand
both older and more experienced; in this not so much consulting the
public good, as the gratification of his kindred, and especially
his wife, whose brother Pisander was.
Having removed his camp into Pharnabazus's province, he not only
met with great plenty of provisions, but also raised great sums of
money, and marching on to the bounds of Paphlagonia, he soon drew
Cotys, the king of it, into a league, to which he of his own accord
inclined, out of the opinion he had of Agesilaus's honor and
virtue. Spithridates, from the time of his abandoning Pharnabazus,
constantly attended Agesilaus in the camp whithersoever he went.
This Spithridates had a son, a very handsome boy, called Megabates,
of whom Agesilaus was extremely fond, and also a very beautiful
daughter, that was marriageable. Her Agesilaus matched to Cotys,
and taking of him a thousand horse, with two thousand light-armed
foot, he returned into Phrygia, and there pillaged the country of
Pharnabazus, who durst not meet him in the field, nor yet trust to
his garrisons, but getting his valuables together, got out of the
way and moved about up and down with a flying army, till
Spithridates joining with Herippidas the Spartan, took his camp,
and all his property. Herippidas being too severe an inquirer into
the plunder with which the barbarian soldiers had enriched
themselves, and forcing them to deliver it up with too much
strictness, so disobliged Spithridates with his questioning and
examining, that he changed sides again, and went off with the
Paphlagonians to Sardis. This was a very great vexation to
Agesilaus, not only that he had lost the friendship of a valiant
commander, and with him a considerable part of his army, but still
more that it had been done with the disrepute of a sordid and petty
covetousness, of which he always had made it a point of honor to
keep both himself and his country clear. Besides these public
causes, he had a private one, his excessive fondness for the son,
which touched him to the quick, though he endeavored to master it,
and, especially in presence of the boy, to suppress all appearance
of it; so much so that when Megabates, for that was his name, came
once to receive a kiss from him, he declined it. At which when the
young boy blushed and drew back, and afterward saluted him at a
more reserved distance, Agesilaus soon repenting his coldness, and
changing his mind, pretended to wonder why he did not salute him
with the same familiarity as formerly. His friends about him
answered, "You are in the fault, who would not accept the kiss of
the boy, but turned away in alarm; he would come to you again, if
you would have the courage to let him do so." Upon this Agesilaus
paused a while, and at length answered, "You need not encourage him
to it; I think I had rather be master of myself in that refusal,
than see all things that are now before my eyes turned into gold."
Thus he demeaned himself to Megabates when present, but he had so
great a passion for him in his absence, that it may be questioned
whether if the boy had returned again, all the courage he had would
have sustained him in such another refusal.
After this, Pharnabazus sought an opportunity of conferring with
Agesilaus, which Apollophanes of Cyzicus, the common host of them
both, procured for him. Agesilaus coming first to the appointed
place, threw himself down upon the grass under a tree, lying there
in expectation of Pharnabazus, who, bringing with him soft skins
and wrought carpets to lie down upon, when he saw Agesilaus's
posture, grew ashamed of his luxuries and made no use of them, but
laid himself down upon the grass also, without regard for his
delicate and richly dyed clothing. Pharnabazus had matter enough
of complaint against Agesilaus, and therefore, after the mutual
civilities were over, he put him in mind of the great services he
had done the Lacedaemonians in the Attic war, of which he thought
it an ill recompense to have his country thus harassed and spoiled,
by those men who owed so much to him. The Spartans that were
present hung down their heads, as conscious of the wrong they had
done to their ally. But Agesilaus said, "We, O Pharnabazus, when
we were in amity with your master the king, behaved ourselves like
friends, and now that we are at war with him, we behave ourselves
as enemies. As for you, we must look upon you as a part of his
property, and must do these outrages upon you, not intending the
harm to you, but to him whom we wound through you. But whenever
you will choose rather to be a friend to the Grecians, than a slave
of the king of Persia, you may then reckon this army and navy to be
all at your command, to defend both you, your country, and your
liberties, without which there is nothing honorable, or indeed
desirable among men." Upon this Pharnabazus discovered his mind,
and answered, "If the king sends another governor in my room, I
will certainly come over to you, but as long as he trusts me with
the government, I shall be just to him, and not fail to do my
utmost endeavors in opposing you." Agesilaus was taken with the
answer, and shook hands with him; and rising, said, "How much
rather had I have so brave a man my friend than mine enemy."
Pharnabazus being gone off, his son, staying behind, ran up to
Agesilaus, and smilingly said, "Agesilaus, I make you my guest;"
and thereupon presented him with a javelin which he had in his
hand. Agesilaus received it, and being much taken with the good
mien and the courtesy of the youth, looked about to see if there
were anything in his train fit to offer him in return; and
observing the horse of Idaeus, the secretary, to have very fine
trappings on, he took them off, and bestowed them upon the young
gentleman. Nor did his kindness rest there, but he continued ever
after to be mindful of him, so that when he was driven out of his
country by his brothers, and lived an exile in Peloponnesus, he
took great care of him, and condescended even to assist him in some
love-matters. He had an attachment for a youth of Athenian birth,
who was bred up as an athlete; and when at the Olympic games this
boy, on account of his great size and general strong and full-grown
appearance, was in some danger of not being admitted into the
list, the Persian betook himself to Agesilaus, and made use of his
friendship. Agesilaus readily assisted him, and not without a
great deal of difficulty effected his desires. He was in all other
things a man of great and exact justice, but when the case
concerned a friend, to be straitlaced in point of justice, he said,
was only a colorable presence of denying him. There is an epistle
written to Idrieus, prince of Caria, that is ascribed to Agesilaus;
it is this: "If Nicias be innocent, absolve him; if he be guilty,
absolve him upon my account; however be sure to absolve him." This
was his usual character in his deportment towards his friends. Yet
his rule was not without exception; for sometimes he considered the
necessity of his affairs more than his friend, of which he once
gave an example, when upon a sudden and disorderly removal of his
camp, he left a sick friend behind him, and when he called loudly
after him, and implored his help, turned his back, and said it was
hard to be compassionate and wise too. This story is related by
Hieronymus, the philosopher.
Another year of the war being spent, Agesilaus's fame still
increased, insomuch that the Persian king received daily
information concerning his many virtues, and the great esteem the
world had of his temperance, his plain living, and his moderation.
When he made any journey, he would usually take up his lodging in a
temple, and there make the gods witnesses of his most private
actions, which others would scarce permit men to be acquainted
with. In so great an army, you should scarce find common soldier
lie on a coarser mattress, than Agesilaus; he was so indifferent to
the varieties of heat and cold, that all the seasons, as the gods
sent them, seemed natural to him. The Greeks that inhabited Asia
were much pleased to see the great lords and governors of Persia,
with all the pride, cruelty, and luxury in which they lived,
trembling and bowing before a man in a poor threadbare cloak, and
at one laconic word out of his mouth, obsequiously deferring and
changing their wishes and purposes. So that it brought to the
minds of many the verses of Timotheus,
Mars is the tyrant, gold Greece does not fear.
Many parts of Asia now revolting from the Persians, Agesilaus
restored order in the cities, and without bloodshed or banishment
of any of their members, reestablished the proper constitution in
the governments, and now resolved to carry away the war from the
seaside, and to march further up into the country, and to attack
the king of Persia himself in his own home in Susa and Ecbatana;
not willing to let the monarch sit idle in his chair, playing
umpire in the conflicts of the Greeks, and bribing their popular
leaders. But these great thoughts were interrupted by unhappy news
from Sparta; Epicydidas is from thence sent to remand him home, to
assist his own country, which was then involved in a great war;
Greece to herself doth a barbarian grow,
Others could not, she doth herself o'erthrow.
What better can we say of those jealousies, and that league and
conspiracy of the Greeks for their own mischief, which arrested
fortune in full career, and turned back arms that were already
uplifted against the barbarians, to be used upon themselves, and
recalled into Greece the war which had been banished out of her? I
by no means assent to Demaratus of Corinth, who said, that those
Greeks lost a great satisfaction, that did not live to see
Alexander sit in the throne of Darius. That sight should rather
have drawn tears from them, when they considered, that they had
left that glory to Alexander and the Macedonians, whilst they spent
all their own great commanders in playing them against each other
in the fields of Leuctra, Coronea, Corinth, and Arcadia.
Nothing was greater or nobler than the behavior of Agesilaus on
this occasion, nor can a nobler instance be found in story, of a
ready obedience and just deference to orders. Hannibal, though in
a bad condition himself, and almost driven out of Italy, could
scarcely be induced to obey, when he was called home to serve his
country. Alexander made a jest of the battle between Agis and
Antipater, laughing and saying, "So, whilst we were conquering
Darius in Asia, it seems there was a battle of mice in Arcadia."
Happy Sparta, meanwhile, in the justice and modesty of Agesilaus,
and in the deference he paid to the laws of his country; who,
immediately upon receipt of his orders, though in the midst of his
high fortune and power, and in full hope of great and glorious
success, gave all up and instantly departed, "his object
unachieved," leaving many regrets behind him among his allies in
Asia, and proving by his example the falseness of that saying of
Demostratus, the son of Phaeax, "That the Lacedaemonians were
better in public, but the Athenians in private." For while
approving himself an excellent king and general, he likewise showed
himself in private an excellent friend, and a most agreeable
companion.
The coin of Persia was stamped with the figure of an archer;
Agesilaus said, That a thousand Persian archers had driven him out
of Asia; meaning the money that had been laid out in bribing the
demagogues and the orators in Thebes and Athens, and thus inciting
those two States to hostility against Sparta.
Having passed the Hellespont, he marched by land through Thrace,
not begging or entreating a passage anywhere, only he sent his
messengers to them, to demand whether they would have him pass as a
friend or as an enemy. All the rest received him as a friend, and
assisted him on his journey. But the Trallians, to whom Xerxes
also is said to have given money, demanded a price of him, namely,
one hundred talents of silver, and one hundred women. Agesilaus in
scorn asked, Why they were not ready to receive them? He marched
on, and finding the Trallians in arms to oppose him, fought them,
and slew great numbers of them. He sent the like embassy to the
king of Macedonia, who replied, He would take time to deliberate:
"Let him deliberate," said Agesilaus, "we will go forward in the
meantime." The Macedonian, being surprised and daunted at the
resolution of the Spartan, gave orders to let him pass as friend.
When he came into Thessaly, he wasted the country, because they
were in league with the enemy. To Larissa, the chief city of
Thessaly, he sent Xenocles and Scythes to treat of a peace, whom
when the Larissaeans had laid hold of, and put into custody, others
were enraged, and advised the siege of the town; but he answered,
That he valued either of those men at more than the whole country
of Thessaly. He therefore made terms with them, and received his
men again upon composition. Nor need we wonder at this saying of
Agesilaus, since when he had news brought him from Sparta, of
several great captains slain in a battle near Corinth, in which the
slaughter fell upon other Greeks, and the Lacedaemonians obtained a
great victory with small loss, he did not appear at all satisfied;
but with a great sigh cried out, "O Greece, how many brave men hast
thou destroyed; who, if they had been preserved to so good an use,
had sufficed to have conquered all Persia!" Yet when the
Pharsalians grew troublesome to him, by pressing upon his army, and
incommoding his passage, he led out five hundred horse, and in
person fought and routed them, setting up a trophy under the mount
Narthacius. He valued himself very much upon that victory, that
with so small a number of his own training, he had vanquished a
body of men that thought themselves the best horsemen of Greece.
Here Diphridas, the Ephor, met him, and delivered his message from
Sparta, which ordered him immediately to make an inroad into
Boeotia; and though he thought this fitter to have been done at
another time, and with greater force, he yet obeyed the
magistrates. He thereupon told his soldiers that the day was come,
on which they were to enter upon that employment, for the
performance of which they were brought out of Asia. He sent for
two divisions of the army near Corinth to his assistance. The
Lacedaemonians at home, in honor to him, made proclamation for
volunteers that would serve under the king, to come in and be
enlisted. Finding all the young men in the city ready to offer
themselves, they chose fifty of the strongest, and sent them.
Agesilaus having gained Thermopylae, and passed quietly through
Phocis, as soon as he had entered Boeotia, and pitched his camp
near Chaeronea, at once met with an eclipse of the sun, and with
ill news from the navy, Pisander, the Spartan admiral, being beaten
and slain at Cnidos, by Pharnabazus and Conon. He was much moved
at it, both upon his own and the public account. Yet lest his
army, being now near engaging, should meet with any discouragement,
he ordered the messengers to give out, that the Spartans were the
conquerors, and he himself putting on a garland, solemnly
sacrificed for the good news, and sent portions of the sacrifices
to his friends.
When he came near to Coronea, and was within view of the enemy, he
drew up his army, and giving the left wing to the Orchomenians, he
himself led the right. The Thebans took the right wing of their
army, leaving the left to the Argives. Xenophon, who was present,
and fought on Agesilaus's side, reports it to be the hardest fought
battle that he had seen. The beginning of it was not so, for the
Thebans soon put the Orchomenians to rout, as also did Agesilaus
the Argives. But both parties having news of the misfortune of
their left wings, they betook themselves to their relief. Here
Agesilaus might have been sure of his victory, had he contented
himself not to charge them in the front, but in the flank or rear;
but being angry and heated in the fight, he would not wait the
opportunity, but fell on at once, thinking to bear them down before
him. The Thebans were not behind him in courage, so that the
battle was fiercely carried on on both sides, especially near
Agesilaus's person, whose new guard of fifty volunteers stood him
in great stead that day, and saved his life. They fought with
great valor, and interposed their bodies frequently between him and
danger, yet could they not so preserve him, but that he received
many wounds through his armor with lances and swords, and was with
much difficulty gotten off alive by their making a ring about him,
and so guarding him, with the slaughter of many of the enemy and
the loss of many of their own number. At length finding it too
hard a task to break the front of the Theban troops, they opened
their own files, and let the enemy march through them, (an artifice
which in the beginning they scorned,) watching in the meantime the
posture of the enemy, who having passed through, grew careless, as
esteeming themselves past danger; in which position they were
immediately set upon by the Spartans. Yet were they not then put
to rout, but marched on to Helicon, proud of what they had done,
being able to say, that they themselves, as to their part of the
army, were not worsted.
Agesilaus, sore wounded as he was, would not be borne to his tent,
till he had been first carried about the field, and had seen the
dead conveyed within his encampment. As many of his enemies as had
taken sanctuary in the temple, he dismissed. For there stood near
the battlefield, the temple of Minerva the Itonian, and before it a
trophy erected by the Boeotians, for the victory which under the
conduct of Sparton, their general, they obtained over the Athenians
under Tolmides, who himself fell in the battle. And next morning
early, to make trial of the Theban courage, whether they had any
mind to a second encounter, he commanded his soldiers to put on
garlands on their heads, and play with their flutes, and raise a
trophy before their faces; but when they, instead of fighting, sent
for leave to bury their dead, he gave it them; and having so
assured himself of the victory, after this he went to Delphi, to
the Pythian games, which were then celebrating, at which feast he
assisted, and there solemnly offered the tenth part of the spoils
he had brought from Asia, which amounted to a hundred talents.
Thence he returned to his own country, where his way and habits of
life quickly excited the affection and admiration of the Spartans;
for, unlike other generals, he came home from foreign lands the
same man that he went out, having not so learned the fashions of
other countries, as to forget his own, much less to dislike or
despise them. He followed and respected all the Spartan customs,
without any change either in the manner of his supping, or bathing,
or his wife's apparel, as if he had never traveled over the river
Eurotas. So also with his household furniture and his own armor;
nay, the very gates of his house were so old, that they might well
be thought of Aristodemus's setting up. His daughter's Canathrum,
says Xenophon, was no richer than that of any one else. The
Canathrum, as they call it, is a chair or chariot made of wood, in
the shape of a griffin, or tragelaphus, on which the children and
young virgins are carried in processions. Xenophon has not left us
the name of this daughter of Agesilaus; and Dicaearchus expresses
some indignation, because we do not know, he says, the name of
Agesilaus's daughter, nor of Epaminondas's mother. But in the
records of Laconia, we ourselves found his wife's name to have been
Cleora, and his two daughters to have been called Eupolia and
Prolyta. And you may also to this day see Agesilaus's spear kept
in Sparta, nothing differing from that of other men.
There was a vanity he observed among the Spartans, about keeping
running horses for the Olympic games, upon which he found they much
valued themselves. Agesilaus regarded it as a display not of any
real virtue, but of wealth and expense; and to make this evident to
the Greeks, induced his sister, Cynisca, to send a chariot into the
course. He kept with him Xenophon, the philosopher, and made much
of him, and proposed to him to send for his children, and educate
them at Sparta, where they would be taught the best of all
learning; how to obey, and how to command. Finding on Lysander's
death a large faction formed, which he on his return from Asia had
established against Agesilaus, he thought it advisable to expose
both him and it, by showing what manner of a citizen he had been
whilst he lived. To that end, finding among his writings all
oration, composed by Cleon the Halicarnassean, but to have been
spoken by Lysander in a public assembly, to excite the people to
innovations and changes in the government, he resolved to publish
it, as an evidence of Lysander's practices. But one of the Elders
having the perusal of it, and finding it powerfully written,
advised him to have a care of digging up Lysander again, and rather
bury that oration in the grave with him; and this advice he wisely
hearkened to, and hushed the whole thing up; and ever after forbore
publicly to affront any of his adversaries, but took occasions of
picking out the ringleaders, and sending them away upon foreign
services. He thus had means for exposing the avarice and the
injustice of many of them in their employments; and again when they
were by others brought into question, he made it his business to
bring them off, obliging them, by that means, of enemies to become
his friends, and so by degrees left none remaining.
Agesipolis, his fellow king, was under the disadvantage of being
born of an exiled father, and himself young, modest, and inactive,
meddled not much in affairs. Agesilaus took a course of gaining
him over, and making him entirely tractable. According to the
custom of Sparta, the kings, if they were in town, always dined
together. This was Agesilaus's opportunity of dealing with
Agesipolis, whom he found quick, as he himself was, in forming
attachments for young men, and accordingly talked with him always
on such subjects, joining and aiding him, and acting as his
confidant, such attachments in Sparta being entirely honorable, and
attended always with lively feeling of modesty, love of virtue, and
a noble emulation; of which more is said in Lycurgus's life.
Having thus established his power in the city, he easily obtained
that his half-brother Teleutias might be chosen admiral, and
thereupon making all expedition against the Corinthians, he made
himself master of the long walls by land, through the assistance of
his brother at sea. Coming thus upon the Argives, who then held
Corinth, in the midst of their Isthmian festival, he made them fly
from the sacrifice they had just commenced, and leave all their
festive provision behind them. The exiled Corinthians that were in
the Spartan army, desired him to keep the feast, and to preside in
the celebration of it. This he refused, but gave them leave to
carry on the solemnity if they pleased, and he in the meantime
stayed and guarded them. When Agesilaus marched off, the Argives
returned and celebrated the games over again, when some who were
victors before, became victors a second time, others lost the
prizes which before they had gained. Agesilaus thus made it clear
to everybody, that the Argives must in their own eyes have been
guilty of great cowardice, since they set such a value on presiding
at the games, and yet had not dared to fight for it. He himself
was of opinion, that to keep a mean in such things was best; he
assisted at the sports and dances usual in his own country, and was
always ready and eager to be present at the exercises either of the
young men, or of the girls, but things that many men used to be
highly taken with, he seemed not at all concerned about.
Callippides, the tragic actor, who had a great name in all Greece
and was made much of, once met and saluted him; of which when he
found no notice taken, he confidently thrust himself into his
train, expecting that Agesilaus would pay him some attention. When
all that failed, he boldly accosted him, and asked him, whether he
did not remember him? Agesilaus turned, and looking him in the
face, "Are you not," said he, "Callippides the showman?" Being
invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale,
he declined, saying, he had heard the nightingale itself.
Menecrates, the physician, having had great success in some
desperate diseases, was by way of flattery called Jupiter; he was
so vain as to take the name, and having occasion to write a letter
to Agesilaus, thus addressed it: "Jupiter Menecrates to King
Agesilaus, greeting." The king returned answer: "Agesilaus to
Menecrates, health and a sound mind."
Whilst Agesilaus was in the Corinthian territories, having just
taken the Heraeum, he was looking on while his soldiers were
carrying away the prisoners and the plunder, when ambassadors from
Thebes came to him to treat of peace. Having a great aversion for
that city, and thinking it then advantageous to his affairs
publicly to slight them, he took the opportunity, and would not
seem either to see them, or hear them speak. But as if on purpose
to punish him in his pride, before they parted from him, messengers
came with news of the complete slaughter of one of the Spartan
divisions by Iphicrates, a greater disaster than had befallen them
for many years; and that the more grievous, because it was a choice
regiment of full-armed Lacedaemonians overthrown by a parcel of
mere mercenary targeteers. Agesilaus leapt from his seat, to go at
once to their rescue, but found it too late, the business being
over. He therefore returned to the Heraeum, and sent for the
Theban ambassadors to give them audience. They now resolved to be
even with him for the affront he gave them, and without speaking
one word of the peace, only desired leave to go into Corinth.
Agesilaus, irritated with this proposal, told them in scorn, that
if they were anxious to go and see how proud their friends were of
their success, they should do it tomorrow with safety. Next
morning, taking the ambassadors with him, he ravaged the Corinthian
territories, up to the very gates of the city, where having made a
stand, and let the ambassadors see that the Corinthians durst not
come out to defend themselves, he dismissed them. Then gathering
up the small remainders of the shattered regiment, he marched
homewards, always removing his camp before day, and always pitching
his tents after night, that he might prevent their enemies among
the Arcadians from taking any opportunity of insulting over their
loss.
After this, at the request of the Achaeans, he marched with them
into Acarnania, and there collected great spoils, and defeated the
Acarnanians in battle. The Achaeans would have persuaded him to
keep his winter quarters there, to hinder the Acarnanians from
sowing their corn; but he was of the contrary opinion, alleging,
that they would be more afraid of a war next summer, when their
fields were sown, than they would be if they lay fallow. The event
justified his opinion; for next summer, when the Achaeans began
their expedition again, the Acarnanians immediately made peace with
them.
When Conon and Pharnabazus with the Persian navy were grown masters
of the sea, and had not only infested the coast of Laconia, but
also rebuilt the walls of Athens at the cost of Pharnabazus, the
Lacedaemonians thought fit to treat of peace with the king of
Persia. To that end, they sent Antalcidas to Tiribazus, basely and
wickedly betraying the Asiatic Greeks, on whose behalf Agesilaus
had made the war. But no part of this dishonor fell upon
Agesilaus, the whole being transacted by Antalcidas, who was his
bitter enemy, and was urgent for peace upon any terms, because war
was sure to increase his power and reputation. Nevertheless once
being told by way of reproach, that the Lacedaemonians had gone
over to the Medes, he replied, "No, the Medes have come over to the
Lacedaemonians." And when the Greeks were backward to submit to
the agreement, he threatened them with war, unless they fulfilled
the king of Persia's conditions, his particular end in this being
to weaken the Thebans; for it was made one of the articles of
peace, that the country of Boeotia should be left independent.
This feeling of his to Thebes appeared further afterwards, when
Phoebidas, in full peace, most unjustifiably seized upon the
Cadmea. The thing was much resented by all Greece, and not well
liked by the Lacedaemonians themselves; those especially who were
enemies to Agesilaus, required an account of the action, and by
whose authority it was done, laying the suspicion of it at his
door. Agesilaus resolutely answered, on the behalf of Phoebidas,
that the profitableness of the act was chiefly to be considered; if
it were for the advantage of the commonwealth, it was no matter
whether it were done with or without authority. This was the more
remarkable in him, because in his ordinary language, he was always
observed to be a great maintainer of justice, and would commend it
as the chief of virtues, saying, that valor without justice was
useless, and if all the world were just, there would be no need of
valor. When any would say to him, the Great King will have it so;
he would reply, "How is he greater than I, unless he be juster?"
nobly and rightly taking, as a sort of royal measure of greatness,
justice, and not force. And thus when, on the conclusion of the
peace, the king of Persia wrote to Agesilaus, desiring a private
friendship and relations of hospitality, he refused it, saying,
that the public friendship was enough; whilst that lasted there was
no need of private. Yet in his acts he was not constant to his
doctrine, but sometimes out of ambition, and sometimes out of
private pique, he let himself be carried away; and particularly in
this case of the Thebans, he not only saved Phoebidas, but
persuaded the Lacedaemonians to take the fault upon themselves, and
to retain the Cadmea, putting a garrison into it, and to put the
government of Thebes into the hands of Archias and Leontidas, who
had been betrayers of the castle to them.
This excited strong suspicion that what Phoebidas did was by
Agesilaus's order, which was corroborated by after occurrences.
For when the Thebans had expelled the garrison, and asserted their
liberty, he, accusing them of the murder of Archias and Leontidas,
who indeed were tyrants, though in name holding the office of
Polemarchs, made war upon them. He sent Cleombrotus on that
errand, who was now his fellow king, in the place of Agesipolis,
who was dead, excusing himself by reason of his age; for it was
forty years since he had first borne arms, and he was consequently
exempt by the law; meanwhile the true reason was, that he was
ashamed, having so lately fought against tyranny in behalf of the
Phliasians, to fight now in defense of a tyranny against the
Thebans.
One Sphodrias, of Lacedaemon, of the contrary faction to Agesilaus,
was governor in Thespiae, a bold and enterprising man, though he
had perhaps more of confidence than wisdom. This action of
Phoebidas fired him, and incited his ambition to attempt some great
enterprise, which might render him as famous as he perceived the
taking of the Cadmea had made Phoebidas. He thought the sudden
capture of the Piraeus, and the cutting off thereby the Athenians
from the sea, would be a matter of far more glory. It is said,
too, that Pelopidas and Melon, the chief captains of Boeotia, put
him upon it; that they privily sent men to him, pretending to be of
the Spartan faction, who, highly commending Sphodrias, filled him
with a great opinion of himself, protesting him to be the only man
in the world that was fit for so great an enterprise. Being thus
stimulated, he could hold no longer, but hurried into an attempt as
dishonorable and treacherous as that of the Cadmea, but executed
with less valor and less success; for the day broke whilst he was
yet in the Thriasian plain, whereas he designed the whole exploit
to have been done in the night. As soon as the soldiers perceived
the rays of light reflecting from the temples of Eleusis, upon the
first rising of the sun, it is said that their hearts failed them;
nay, he himself, when he saw that he could not have the benefit of
the night, had not courage enough to go on with his enterprise;
but, having pillaged the country, he returned with shame to
Thespiae. An embassy was upon this sent from Athens to Sparta, to
complain of the breach of peace; but the ambassadors found their
journey needless, Sphodrias being then under process by the
magistrates of Sparta. Sphodrias durst not stay to expect
judgment, which he found would be capital, the city being highly
incensed against him, out of the shame they felt at the business,
and their desire to appear in the eyes of the Athenians as
fellow-sufferers; in the wrong, rather than accomplices in its
being done.
This Sphodrias had a son of great beauty named Cleonymus, to whom
Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, was extremely attached.
Archidamus, as became him, was concerned for the danger of his
friend's father, but yet he durst not do anything openly for his
assistance, he being one of the professed enemies of Agesilaus.
But Cleonymus having solicited him with tears about it, as knowing
Agesilaus to be of all his father's enemies the most formidable,
the young man for two or three days followed after his father with
such fear and confusion, that he durst not speak to him. At last,
the day of sentence being at hand, he ventured to tell him, that
Cleonymus had entreated him to intercede for his father Agesilaus,
though well aware of the love between the two young men, yet did
not prohibit it, because Cleonymus from his earliest years had been
looked upon as a youth of very great promise; yet he gave not his
son any kind or hopeful answer in the case, but coldly told him,
that he would consider what he could honestly and honorably do in
it, and so dismissed him. Archidamus, being ashamed of his want of
success, forbore the company of Cleonymus, whom he usually saw
several times every day. This made the friends of Sphodrias to
think his case desperate, till Etymocles, one of Agesilaus's
friends, discovered to them the king's mind, namely, that he
abhorred the fact, but yet he thought Sphodrias a gallant man, such
as the commonwealth much wanted at that time. For Agesilaus used
to talk thus concerning the cause, out of a desire to gratify his
son. And now Cleonymus quickly understood, that Archidamus had
been true to him, in using all his interest with his father; and
Sphodrias's friends ventured to be forward in his defense. The
truth is, that Agesilaus was excessively fond of his children; and
it is to him the story belongs, that when they were little ones, he
used to make a horse of a stick, and ride with them; and being
caught at this sport by a friend, he desired him not to mention it,
till he himself were the father of children.
Meanwhile, Sphodrias being acquitted, the Athenians betook
themselves to arms, and Agesilaus fell into disgrace with the
people; since to gratify the whims of a boy, he had been willing to
pervert justice, and make the city accessory to the crimes of
private men, whose most unjustifiable actions had broken the peace
of Greece. He also found his colleague, Cleombrotus, little
inclined to the Theban war; so that it became necessary for him to
waive the privilege of his age, which he before had claimed, and to
lead the army himself into Boeotia; which he did with variety of
success, sometimes conquering, and sometimes conquered; insomuch
that receiving a wound in a battle, he was reproached by
Antalcidas, that the Thebans had paid him well for the lessons he
had given them in fighting. And, indeed, they were now grown far
better soldiers than ever they had been, being so continually kept
in training, by the frequency of the Lacedaemonian expeditions
against them. Out of the foresight of which it was, that anciently
Lycurgus, in three several laws, forbade them to make many wars
with the same nation, as this would be to instruct their enemies in
the art of it. Meanwhile, the allies of Sparta were not a little
discontented at Agesilaus, because this war was commenced not upon
any fair public ground of quarrel, but merely out of his private
hatred to the Thebans; and they complained with indignation, that
they, being the majority of the army, should from year to year be
thus exposed to danger and hardship here and there, at the will of
a few persons. It was at this time, we are told, that Agesilaus,
to obviate the objection, devised this expedient, to show the
allies were not the greater number. He gave orders that all the
allies, of whatever country, should sit down promiscuously on one
side, and all the Lacedaemonians on the other: which being done,
he commanded a herald to proclaim, that all the potters of both
divisions should stand out; then all the blacksmiths; then all the
masons; next the carpenters; and so he went through all the
handicrafts. By this time almost all the allies were risen, but of
the Lacedaemonians not a man, they being by law forbidden to learn
any mechanical business; and now Agesilaus laughed and said, "You
see, my friends, how many more soldiers we send out than you do."
When he brought back his army from Boeotia through Megara, as he
was going up to the magistrate's office in the Acropolis, he was
suddenly seized with pain and cramp in his sound leg, and great
swelling and inflammation ensued. He was treated by a Syracusan
physician, who let him blood below the ankle; this soon eased his
pain, but then the blood could not be stopped, till the loss of it
brought on fainting and swooning; at length, with much trouble, he
stopped it. Agesilaus was carried home to Sparta in a very weak
condition, and did not recover strength enough to appear in the
field for a long time after.
Meanwhile, the Spartan fortune was but ill; they received many
losses both by sea and land; but the greatest was that at Tegyrae,
when for the first time they were beaten by the Thebans in a set
battle.
All the Greeks were, accordingly, disposed to a general peace, and
to that end ambassadors came to Sparta. Among these was
Epaminondas, the Theban, famous at that time for his philosophy and
learning, but he had not yet given proof of his capacity as a
general. He, seeing all the others crouch to Agesilaus, and court
favor with him, alone maintained the dignity of an ambassador, and
with that freedom that became his character, made a speech in
behalf not of Thebes only, from whence he came, but of all Greece,
remonstrating, that Sparta alone grew great by war, to the distress
and suffering of all her neighbors. He urged, that a peace should
be made upon just and equal terms, such as alone would be a lasting
one, which could not otherwise be done, than by reducing all to
equality. Agesilaus, perceiving all the other Greeks to give much
attention to this discourse, and to be pleased with it, presently
asked him, whether he thought it a part of this justice and
equality that the Boeotian towns should enjoy their independence.
Epaminondas instantly and without wavering asked him in return,
whether he thought it just and equal that the Laconian towns should
enjoy theirs. Agesilaus started from his seat and bade him once
for all speak out and say whether or not Boeotia should be
independent. And when Epaminondas replied once again with the same
inquiry, whether Laconia should be so, Agesilaus was so enraged
that, availing himself of the pretext he immediately struck the
name of the Thebans out of the league, and declared war against
them. With the rest of the Greeks he made a peace, and dismissed
them with this saying, that what could be peaceably adjusted,
should; what was otherwise incurable, must be committed to the
success of war, it being a thing of too great difficulty to provide
for all things by treaty. The Ephors upon this dispatched their
orders to Cleombrotus, who was at that time in Phocis, to march
directly into Boeotia, and at the same time sent to their allies
for aid. The confederates were very tardy in the business, and
unwilling to engage, but as yet they feared the Spartans too much
to dare to refuse. And although many portents, and prodigies of
ill presage, which I have mentioned in the life of Epaminondas,
had appeared; and though Prothous, the Laconian, did all he could
to hinder it, yet Agesilaus would needs go forward, and prevailed
so, that the war was decreed. He thought the present juncture of
affairs very advantageous for their revenge, the rest of Greece
being wholly free, and the Thebans excluded from the peace. But
that this war was undertaken more upon passion than judgment, the
event may prove; for the treaty was finished but the fourteenth of
Scirophorion, and the Lacedaemonians received their great overthrow
at Leuctra, on the fifth of Hecatombaeon, within twenty days.
There fell at that time a thousand, Spartans, and Cleombrotus their
king, and around him the bravest men of the nation; particularly,
the beautiful youth, Cleonymus the son of Sphodrias, who was thrice
struck down at the feet of the king, and as often rose, but was
slain at the last.
This unexpected blow, which fell so heavy upon the Lacedaemonians,
brought greater glory to Thebes than ever was acquired by any other
of the Grecian republics, in their civil wars against each other.
The behavior, notwithstanding, of the Spartans, though beaten, was
as great, and as highly to be admired, as that of the Thebans. And
indeed, if, as Xenophon says, in conversation good men even in
their sports and at their wine let fall many sayings that are worth
the preserving; how much more worthy to be recorded, is an
exemplary constancy of mind, as shown both in the words and in the
acts of brave men, when they are pressed by adverse fortune! It
happened that the Spartans were celebrating a solemn feast, at
which many strangers were present from other countries, and the
town full of them, when this news of the overthrow came. It was
the gymnopaediae, and the boys were dancing in the theater, when
the messengers arrived from Leuctra. The Ephors, though they were
sufficiently aware that this blow had ruined the Spartan power, and
that their primacy over the rest of Greece was gone for ever, yet
gave orders that the dances should not break off, nor any of the
celebration of the festival abate; but privately sending the names
of the slain to each family, out of which they were lost, they
continued the public spectacles. The next morning, when they had
full intelligence concerning it, and everybody knew who were slain,
and who survived, the fathers, relatives, and friends of the slain
came out rejoicing in the market-place, saluting each other with a
kind of exultation; on the contrary, the fathers of the survivors
hid themselves at home among the women. If necessity drove any of
them abroad, they went very dejectedly, with downcast looks, and
sorrowful countenances. The women outdid the men in it; those
whose sons were slain, openly rejoicing, cheerfully making visits
to one another, and meeting triumphantly in the temples; they who
expected their children home, being very silent, and much troubled.
But the people in general, when their allies now began to desert
them, and Epaminondas, in all the confidence of victory, was
expected with an invading army in Peloponnesus, began to think
again of Agesilaus's lameness, and to entertain feelings of
religious fear and despondency, as if their having rejected the
sound-footed, and having chosen the halting king, which the oracle
had specially warned them against, was the occasion of all their
distresses. Yet the regard they had to the merit and reputation of
Agesilaus, so far stilled this murmuring of the people, that
notwithstanding it, they entrusted themselves to him in this
distress, as the only man that was fit to heal the public malady,
the arbiter of all their difficulties, whether relating to the
affairs of war or peace. One great one was then before them,
concerning the runaways (as their name is for them) that had fled
out of the battle, who being many and powerful, it was feared that
they might make some commotion in the republic, to prevent the
execution of the law upon them for their cowardice. The law in
that case was very severe; for they were not only to be debarred
from all honors, but also it was a disgrace to intermarry with
them; whoever met any of them in the streets, might beat him if he
chose, nor was it lawful for him to resist; they in the meanwhile
were obliged to go about unwashed and meanly dressed, with their
clothes patched with divers colors, and to wear their beards half
shaved half unshaven. To execute so rigid a law as this, in a case
where the offenders were so many, and many of them of such
distinction, and that in a time when the commonwealth wanted
soldiers so much as then it did, was of dangerous consequence.
Therefore they chose Agesilaus as a sort of new lawgiver for the
occasion. But he, without adding to or diminishing from or any
way changing the law, came out into the public assembly, and said,
that the law should sleep for today, but from this day forth be
vigorously executed. By this means he at once preserved the law
from abrogation, and the citizens from infamy; and that he might
alleviate the despondency and self-distrust of the young men, he
made an inroad into Arcadia, where carefully avoiding all fighting,
he contented himself with spoiling the territory, and taking a
small town belonging to the Mantineans, thus reviving the hearts of
the people, letting them see that they were not everywhere
unsuccessful.
Epaminondas now invaded Laconia, with an army of forty thousand,
besides light-armed men and others that followed the camp only for
plunder, so that in all they were at least seventy thousand. It
was now six hundred years since the Dorians had possessed Laconia,
and in all that time the face of an enemy had not been seen within
their territories, no man daring to invade them; but now they made
their entrance, and burnt and plundered without resistance the
hitherto untouched and sacred territory, up to Eurotas, and the
very suburbs of Sparta; for Agesilaus would not permit them to
encounter so impetuous a torrent, as Theopompus calls it, of war.
He contented himself with fortifying the chief parts of the city,
and with placing guards in convenient places, enduring meanwhile
the taunts of the Thebans, who reproached him by name as the
kindler of the war, and the author of all that mischief to his
country, bidding him defend himself if he could. But this was not
all; he was equally disturbed at home with the tumults of the city,
the outcries and running about of the old men, who were enraged at
their present condition, and the women, yet worse, out of their
senses with the clamors, and the fires of the enemy in the field.
He was also himself afflicted by the sense of his lost glory; who
having come to the throne of Sparta when it was in its most
flourishing and powerful condition, now lived to see it laid low in
esteem, and all its great vaunts cut down, even that which he
himself had been accustomed to use, that the women of Sparta had
never seen the smoke of the enemy's fire. As it is said, also,
that when Antalcidas once being in dispute with an Athenian about
the valor of the two nations, the Athenian boasted, that they had
often driven the Spartans from the river Cephisus, "Yes," said
Antalcidas, "but we never had occasion to drive you from Eurotas."
And a common Spartan of less note, being in company with an Argive,
who was bragging how many Spartans lay buried in the fields of
Argos, replied, "None of you are buried in the country of Laconia."
Yet now the case was so altered, that Antalcidas, being one of the
Ephors, out of fear sent away his children privately to the island
of Cythera.
When the enemy essayed to get over the river, and thence to attack
the town, Agesilaus, abandoning the rest, betook himself to the
high places and strong-holds of it. But it happened, that Eurotas
at that time was swollen to a great height with the snow that had
fallen, and made the passage very difficult to the Thebans, not
only by its depth, but much more by its extreme coldness. Whilst
this was doing, Epaminondas was seen in the front of the phalanx,
and was pointed out to Agesilaus, who looked long at him, and said
but these words, "O, bold man!" But when he came to the city, and
would have fain attempted something within the limits of it that
might raise him a trophy there, he could not tempt Agesilaus out of
his hold, but was forced to march off again, wasting the country as
he went.
Meanwhile, a body of long discontented and bad citizens, about two
hundred in number, having got into a strong part of the town called
the Issorion, where the temple of Diana stands, seized and
garrisoned it. The Spartans would have fallen upon them instantly;
but Agesilaus, not knowing how far the sedition might reach, bade
them forbear, and going himself in his ordinary dress, with but one
servant, when he came near the rebels, called out, and told them,
that they mistook their orders; this was not the right place; they
were to go, one part of them thither, showing them another place in
the city, and part to another, which he also showed. The
conspirators gladly heard this, thinking themselves unsuspected of
treason, and readily went off to the places which he showed them.
Whereupon Agesilaus placed in their room a guard of his own; and
of the conspirators he apprehended fifteen, and put them to death
in the night. But after this, a much more dangerous conspiracy was
discovered of Spartan citizens, who had privately met in each
other's houses, plotting a revolution. These were men whom it was
equally dangerous to prosecute publicly according to law, and to
connive at. Agesilaus took counsel with the Ephors, and put these
also to death privately without process; a thing never before known
in the case of any born Spartan.
At this time, also, many of the Helots and country people, who were
in the army, ran away to the enemy, which was matter of great
consternation to the city. He therefore caused some officers of
his, every morning before day, to search the quarters of the
soldiers, and where any man was gone, to hide his arms, that so the
greatness of the number might not appear.
Historians differ about the cause of the Thebans' departure from
Sparta. Some say, the winter forced them; as also that the
Arcadian soldiers disbanding, made it necessary for the rest to
retire. Others say, that they stayed there three months, till they
had laid the whole country waste. Theopompus is the only author
who says that when the Boeotian generals had already resolved upon
the retreat, Phrixus, the Spartan, came to them, and offered them
from Agesilaus ten talents to be gone, so hiring them to do what
they were already doing of their own accord. How he alone should
come to be aware of this, I know not; only in this all authors
agree, that the saving of Sparta from ruin was wholly due to the
wisdom of Agesilaus, who in this extremity of affairs quitted all
his ambition and his haughtiness, and resolved to play a saving
game. But all his wisdom and courage was not sufficient to recover
the glory of it, and to raise it to its ancient greatness. For as
we see in human bodies, long used to a very strict and too
exquisitely regular diet, any single great disorder is usually
fatal; so here one stroke overthrew the whole State's long
prosperity. Nor can we be surprised at this. Lycurgus had formed
a polity admirably designed for the peace, harmony, and virtuous
life of the citizens; and their fall came from their assuming
foreign dominion and arbitrary sway, things wholly undesirable, in
the judgment of Lycurgus, for a well-conducted and happy State.
Agesilaus being now in years, gave over all military employments;
but his son Archidamus, having received help from Dionysius of
Sicily, gave a great defeat to the Arcadians, in the fight known by
the name of the Tearless Battle, in which there was a great
slaughter of the enemy, without the loss of one Spartan. Yet this
victory, more than anything else, discovered the present weakness
of Sparta; for heretofore victory was esteemed so usual a thing
with them, that for their greatest successes, they merely
sacrificed a cock to the gods. The soldiers never vaunted, nor did
the citizens display any great joy at the news; even when the great
victory, described by Thucydides, was obtained at Mantinea, the
messenger that brought the news had no other reward than a piece of
meat, sent by the magistrates from the common table. But at the
news of this Arcadian victory, they were not able to contain
themselves; Agesilaus went out in procession with tears of joy in
his eyes, to meet and embrace his son, and all the magistrates and
public officers attended him. The old men and the women marched
out as far as the river Eurotas, lifting up their hands, and
thanking the gods, that Sparta was now cleared again of the
disgrace and indignity that had befallen her, and once more saw the
light of day. Since before, they tell us, the Spartan men, out of
shame at their disasters, did not dare so much as to look their
wives in the face.
When Epaminondas restored Messene, and recalled from all quarters
the ancient citizens to inhabit it, they were not able to obstruct
the design, being not in condition of appearing in the field
against them. But it went greatly against Agesilaus in the minds
of his countrymen, when they found so large a territory, equal to
their own in compass, and for fertility the richest of all Greece,
which they had enjoyed so long, taken from them in his reign.
Therefore it was that the king broke off treaty with the Thebans,
when they offered him peace, rather than set his hand to the
passing away of that country, though it was already taken from him.
Which point of honor had like to have cost him dear; for not long
after he was overreached by a stratagem, which had almost amounted
to the loss of Sparta. For when the Mantineans again revolted from
Thebes to Sparta, and Epaminondas understood that Agesilaus was
come to their assistance with a powerful army, he privately in the
night quitted his quarters at Tegea, and unknown to the Mantineans,
passing by Agesilaus, marched towards Sparta, insomuch that he
failed very little of taking it empty and unarmed. Agesilaus had
intelligence sent him by Euthynus, the Thespian, as Callisthenes
says, but Xenophon says by a Cretan; and immediately dispatched a
horseman to Lacedaemon, to apprise them of it, and to let them know
that he was hastening to them. Shortly after his arrival the
Thebans crossed the Eurotas. They made an assault upon the town,
and were received by Agesilaus with great courage, and with
exertions beyond what was to be expected at his years. For he did
not now fight with that caution and cunning which he formerly made
use of, but put all upon a desperate push; which, though not his
usual method, succeeded so well, that he rescued the city out of
the very hands of Epaminondas, and forced him to retire, and, at
the erection of a trophy, was able, in the presence of their wives
and children, to declare that the Lacedaemonians had nobly paid
their debt to their country, and particularly his son Archidamus,
who had that day made himself illustrious, both by his courage and
agility of body, rapidly passing about by the short lanes to every
endangered point, and everywhere maintaining the town against the
enemy with but few to help him. Isadas, however, the son of
Phoebidas, must have been, I think, the admiration of the enemy as
well as of his friends. He was a youth of remarkable beauty and
stature, in the very flower of the most attractive time of life,
when the boy is just rising into the man. He had no arms upon him,
and scarcely clothes; he had just anointed himself at home, when
upon the alarm, without further waiting, in that undress, he
snatched a spear in one hand, and a sword in the other, and broke
his way through the combatants to the enemies, striking at all he
met. He received no wound, whether it were that a special divine
care rewarded his valor with an extraordinary protection, or
whether his shape being so large and beautiful, and his dress so
unusual, they thought him more than a man. The Ephors gave him a
garland; but as soon as they had done so, they fined him a thousand
drachmas, for going out to battle unarmed.
A few days after this there was another battle fought near
Mantinea, in which Epaminondas, having routed the van of the
Lacedaemonians, was eager in the pursuit of them, when Anticrates,
the Laconian, wounded him with a spear, says Dioscorides; but the
Spartans to this day call the posterity of this Anticrates,
swordsmen, because he wounded Epaminondas with a sword. They so
dreaded Epaminondas when living, that the slayer of him was
embraced and admired by all; they decreed honors and gifts to him,
and an exemption from taxes to his posterity, a privilege enjoyed
at this day by Callicrates, one of his descendants.
Epaminondas being slain, there was a general peace again concluded,
from which Agesilaus's party excluded the Messenians, as men that
had no city, and therefore would not let them swear to the league;
to which when the rest of the Greeks admitted them, the
Lacedaemonians broke off, and continued the war alone, in hopes of
subduing the Messenians. In this Agesilaus was esteemed a stubborn
and headstrong man, and insatiable of war, who took such pains to
undermine the general peace, and to protract the war at a time when
he had not money to carry it on with, but was forced to borrow of
his friends and raise subscriptions, with much difficulty, while
the city, above all things, needed repose. And all this to recover
the one poor town of Messene, after he had lost so great an empire
both by sea and land, as the Spartans were possessed of, when he
began to reign.
But it added still more to his ill-repute when he put himself into
the service of Tachos, the Egyptian. They thought it too unworthy
of a man of his high station, who was then looked upon as the first
commander in all Greece, who had filled all countries with his
renown, to let himself out to hire to a barbarian, an Egyptian
rebel, (for Tachos was no better) and to fight for pay, as captain
only of a band of mercenaries. If, they said, at those years of
eighty and odd, after his body had been worn out with age, and
enfeebled with wounds, he had resumed that noble undertaking, the
liberation of the Greeks from Persia, it had been worthy of some
reproof. To make an action honorable, it ought to be agreeable to
the age, and other circumstances of the person; since it is
circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character,
and make it either good or bad. But Agesilaus valued not other
men's discourses; he thought no public employment dishonorable; the
ignoblest thing in his esteem, was for a man to sit idle and
useless at home, waiting for his death to come and take him. The
money, therefore, that he received from Tachos, he laid out in
raising men, with whom having filled his ships, he took also thirty
Spartan counselors with him, as formerly he had done in his Asiatic
expedition, and set sail for Egypt.
As soon as he arrived in Egypt, all the great officers of the
kingdom came to pay their compliments to him at his landing. His
reputation being so great had raised the expectation of the whole
country, and crowds flocked in to see him; but when they found,
instead of the splendid prince whom they looked for, a little old
man of contemptible appearance, without all ceremony lying down
upon the grass, in coarse and threadbare clothes, they fell into
laughter and scorn of him, crying out, that the old proverb was;
now made good, "The mountain had brought forth a mouse." They were
yet more astonished at his stupidity, as they thought it, who, when
presents were made him of all sorts of provisions, took only the
meal, the calves, and the geese, but rejected the sweetmeats, the
confections and perfumes; and when they urged him to the acceptance
of them, took them and gave them to the helots in his army. Yet he
was taken, Theophrastus tells us, with the garlands they made of
the papyrus, because of their simplicity, and when he returned
home, he demanded one of the king, which he carried with him.
When he joined with Tachos, he found his expectation of being
general-in-chief disappointed. Tachos reserved that place for
himself, making Agesilaus only captain of the mercenaries, and
Chabrias, the Athenian, commander of the fleet. This was the first
occasion of his discontent, but there followed others; he was
compelled daily to submit to the insolence and vanity of this
Egyptian, and was at length forced to attend him into Phoenicia, in
a condition much below his character and dignity, which he bore and
put up with for a time, till he had opportunity of showing his
feelings. It was afforded him by Nectanabis, the cousin of Tachos,
who commanded a large force under him, and shortly after deserted
him, and was proclaimed king by the Egyptians. This man invited
Agesilaus to join his party, and the like he did to Chabrias,
offering great rewards to both. Tachos, suspecting it, immediately
applied himself both to Agesilaus and Chabrias, with great humility
beseeching their continuance in his friendship. Chabrias consented
to it, and did what he could by persuasion and good words to keep
Agesilaus with them. But he gave this short reply, "You, O
Chabrias, came hither a volunteer, and may go and stay as you see
cause; but I am the servant of Sparta, appointed to head the
Egyptians, and therefore I cannot fight against those to whom I was
sent as a friend, unless I am commanded to do so by my country."
This being said, he dispatched messengers to Sparta, who were
sufficiently supplied with matter both for dispraise of Tachos, and
commendation of Nectanabis. The two Egyptians also sent their
ambassadors to Lacedaemon, the one to claim continuance of the
league already made, the other to make great offers for the
breaking of it, and making a new one. The Spartans having heard
both sides, gave in their public answer, that they referred the
whole matter to Agesilaus; but privately wrote to him, to act as he
should find it best for the profit of the commonwealth. Upon
receipt of his orders, he at once changed sides, carrying all the
mercenaries with him to Nectanabis, covering with the plausible
presence of acting for the benefit of his country, a most
questionable piece of conduct, which, stripped of that disguise, in
real truth was no better than downright treachery. But the
Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to
serve their country's interest, know not anything to be just or
unjust by any measure but that.
Tachos, being thus deserted by the mercenaries, fled for it; upon
which a new king of the Mendesian province was proclaimed his
successor, and came against Nectanabis with an army of one hundred
thousand men. Nectanabis, in his talk with Agesilaus, professed to
despise them as newly raised men, who, though many in number, were
of no skill in war, being most of them mechanics and tradesmen,
never bred to war. To whom Agesilaus answered, that he did not
fear their numbers, but did fear their ignorance, which gave no
room for employing stratagem against them. Stratagem only avails
with men who are alive to suspicion, and expecting to be assailed,
expose themselves by their attempts at defense; but one who has no
thought or expectation of anything, gives as little opportunity to
the enemy, as he who stands stock-still does to a wrestler. The
Mendesian was not wanting in solicitations of Agesilaus, insomuch
that Nectanabis grew jealous. But when Agesilaus advised to fight
the enemy at once, saying, it was folly to protract the war and
rely on time, in a contest with men who had no experience in
fighting battles, but with their great numbers might be able to
surround them, and cut off their communications by entrenchments,
and anticipate them in many matters of advantage, this altogether
confirmed him in his fears and suspicions. He took quite the
contrary course, and retreated into a large and strongly fortified
town. Agesilaus, finding himself mistrusted, took it very ill, and
was full of indignation, yet was ashamed to change sides back
again, or to go away without effecting anything, so that he was
forced to follow Nectanabis into the town.
When the enemy came up, and began to draw lines about the town, and
to entrench, the Egyptian now resolved upon a battle, out of fear
of a siege. And the Greeks were eager for it, provisions growing
already scarce in the town. When Agesilaus opposed it, the
Egyptians then suspected him much more, publicly calling him the
betrayer of the king. But Agesilaus, being now satisfied within
himself, bore these reproaches patiently, and followed the design
which he had laid, of overreaching the enemy, which was this.
The enemy were forming a deep ditch and high wall, resolving to
shut up the garrison and starve it. When the ditch was brought
almost quite round, and the two ends had all but met, he took the
advantage of the night, and armed all his Greeks. Then going to
the Egyptian, "This, young man, is your opportunity," said he, "of
saving yourself, which I all this while durst not announce, lest
discovery should prevent it; but now the enemy has, at his own
cost, and the pains and labor of his own men, provided for our
security. As much of this wall as is built will prevent them from
surrounding us with their multitude, the gap yet left will be
sufficient for us to sally out by; now play the man, and follow the
example the Greeks will give you, and by fighting valiantly, save
yourself and your army; their front will not be able to stand
against us, and their rear we are sufficiently secured from, by a
wall of their own making." Nectanabis, admiring the sagacity of
Agesilaus, immediately placed himself in the middle of the Greek
troops, and fought with them; and upon the first charge soon routed
the enemy. Agesilaus having now gained credit with the king,
proceeded to use, like a trick in wrestling, the same stratagem
over again. He sometimes pretended a retreat, at other times
advanced to attack their flanks, and by this means at last drew
them into a place enclosed between two ditches that were very deep,
and full of water. When he had them at this advantage, he soon
charged them, drawing up the front of his battle equal to the space
between the two ditches, so that they had no way of surrounding
him, being enclosed themselves on both sides. They made but little
resistance; many fell, others fled and were dispersed.
Nectanabis, being thus settled and fixed in his kingdom, with much
kindness and affection invited Agesilaus to spend his winter in
Egypt, but he made haste home to assist in the wars of his own
country, which was he knew in want of money, and forced to hire
mercenaries, whilst their own men were fighting abroad. The king,
therefore, dismissed him very honorably, and among other gifts
presented him with two hundred and thirty talents of silver toward
the charge of the war. But the weather being tempestuous, his
ships kept in shore, and passing along the coast of Africa he
reached an uninhabited spot called the Port of Menelaus, and here,
when his ships were just upon landing, he expired, being
eighty-four years old, and having reigned in Lacedaemon forty-one.
Thirty of which years he passed with the reputation of being the
greatest and most powerful man of all Greece, and was looked upon
as, in a manner, general and king of it, until the battle of
Leuctra. It was the custom of the Spartans to bury their common
dead in the place where they died, whatsoever country it was, but
their kings they carried home. The followers of Agesilaus, for
want of honey, enclosed his body in wax, and so conveyed him to
Lacedaemon.
His son Archidamus succeeded him on his throne; so did his
posterity successively to Agis, the fifth from Agesilaus; who was
slain by Leonidas, while attempting to restore the ancient
discipline of Sparta.
POMPEY
The people of Rome seem to have entertained for Pompey from his
childhood, the same affection that Prometheus in the tragedy of
Aeschylus expresses for Hercules, speaking of him as the author
of his deliverance, in these words,
Ah cruel Sire! how dear thy son to me!
The generous offspring of my enemy!
For on the one hand, never did the Romans give such
demonstrations of a vehement and fierce hatred against any of
their generals, as they did against Strabo, the father of
Pompey; during whose lifetime, it is true, they stood in awe of
his military power, as indeed he was a formidable warrior, but
immediately upon his death, which happened by a stroke of
thunder, they treated him with the utmost contumely, dragging
his corpse from the bier, as it was carried to his funeral. On
the other side, never had any Roman the people's good-will and
devotion more zealous throughout all the changes of fortune,
more early in its first springing up, or more steadily rising
with his prosperity, or more constant in his adversity, than
Pompey had. In Strabo, there was one great cause of their
hatred, his insatiable covetousness; in Pompey, there were many
that helped to make him the object of their love; his
temperance, his skill, and exercise in war, his eloquence of
speech, integrity of mind and affability in conversation and
address; insomuch that no man ever asked a favor with less
offense, or conferred one with a better grace. When he gave,
it was without assumption, when he received, it was with
dignity and honor.
In his youth, his countenance pleaded for him, seeming to
anticipate his eloquence, and win upon the affections of the
people before he spoke. His beauty even in his bloom of youth
had something in it at once of gentleness and dignity; and
when his prime of manhood came, the majesty kingliness of his
character at once became visible in it. His hair sat somewhat
hollow or rising a little; and this, with the languishing
motion of his eyes, seemed to form a resemblance in his face,
though perhaps more talked of than really apparent, to the
statues of king Alexander. And because many applied that name
to him in his youth, Pompey himself did not decline it,
insomuch that some called him so in derision. And Lucius
Philippus, a man of consular dignity, when he was pleading in
favor of him, thought it not unfit to say, that people could
not be surprised if Philip was a lover of Alexander.
It is related of Flora, the courtesan, that when she was now
pretty old; she took great delight in speaking of her early
familiarity with Pompey, and was wont to say, that she could
never part after being with him without a bite. She would
further tell, that Geminius, a companion of Pompey's, fell in
love with her, and made his court with great importunity; and
on her refusing, and telling him, however her inclinations
were, yet she could not gratify his desires for Pompey's sake,
he therefore made his request to Pompey, and Pompey frankly
gave his consent, but never afterwards would have any converse
with her, notwithstanding, that he seemed to have a great
passion for her; and Flora, on this occasion, showed none of
the levity that might have been expected of her, but languished
for some time after under a sickness brought on by grief and
desire. This Flora, we are told, was such a celebrated beauty,
that Caecilius Metellus, when he adorned the temple of Castor
and Pollux with paintings and statues, among the rest dedicated
hers for her singular beauty. In his conduct also to the wife
of Demetrius, his freed servant, (who had great influence with
him in his lifetime, and left an estate of four thousand
talents,) Pompey acted contrary to his usual habits, not quite
fairly or generously, fearing lest he should fall under the
common censure of being enamored and charmed with her beauty,
which was irresistible, and became famous everywhere.
Nevertheless, though he seemed to be so extremely circumspect
and cautious, yet even in matters of this nature, he could not
avoid the calumnies of his enemies, but upon the score of
married women, they accused him, as if he had connived at many
things, and embezzled the public revenue to gratify their
luxury.
Of his easiness of temper and plainness, in what related to
eating and drinking, the story is told, that once in a
sickness, when his stomach nauseated common meats, his
physician prescribed him a thrush to eat; but upon search,
there was none to be bought, for they were not then in season,
and one telling him they were to be had at Lucullus's, who kept
them all the year round, "So then," said he, "if it were not
for Lucullus's luxury, Pompey should not live;" and thereupon
not minding the prescription of the physician, he contented
himself with such meat as could easily be procured. But this
was at a later time.
Being as yet a very young man, and upon an expedition in which
his father was commanding against Cinna, he had in his tent
with him one Lucius Terentius, as his companion and comrade,
who, being corrupted by Cinna, entered into an engagement to
kill Pompey, as others had done, to set the general's tent on
fire. This conspiracy being discovered to Pompey at supper, he
showed no discomposure at it, but on the contrary drank more
liberally than usual, and expressed great kindness to
Terentius; but about bedtime, pretending to go to his repose,
he stole away secretly out of the tent, and setting a guard
about his father, quietly expected the event. Terentius, when
he thought the proper time come, rose with his naked sword, and
coming to Pompey's bedside, stabbed several strokes through the
bedclothes, as if he were lying there. Immediately after this
there was a great uproar throughout all the camp, arising from
the hatred they bore to the general, and a universal movement
of the soldiers to revolt, all tearing down their tents, and
betaking themselves to their arms. The general himself all
this while durst not venture out because of the tumult; but
Pompey, going about in the midst of them, besought them with
tears; and at last threw himself prostrate upon his face before
the gate of the camp, and lay there in the passage at their
feet, shedding tears, and bidding those that were marching off,
if they would go, trample upon him. Upon which, none could
help going back again, and all, except eight hundred, either
through shame or compassion, repented, and were reconciled to
the general.
Immediately upon the death of Strabo, there was an action
commenced against Pompey, as his heir, for that his father had
embezzled the public treasure. But Pompey, having traced the
principal thefts, charged them upon one Alexander, a freed
slave of his father's, and proved before the judges that he
had been the appropriator. But he himself was accused of
having in his possession some hunting tackle, and books, that
were taken at Asculum. To this he confessed thus far, that he
received them from his father when he took Asculum, but pleaded
further, that he had lost them since, upon Cinna's return to
Rome when his home was broken open and plundered by Cinna's
guards. In this cause he had a great many preparatory
pleadings against his accuser, in which he showed an activity
and steadfastness beyond his years, and gained great reputation
and favor; insomuch that Antistius, the praetor and judge of
the cause, took a great liking to him, and offered him his
daughter in marriage, having had some communications with his
friends about it. Pompey accepted the proposal, and they were
privately contracted; however, the secret was not so closely
kept as to escape the multitude, but it was discernible enough
from the favor shown him by Antistius in his cause. And at
last, when Antistius pronounced the absolutory sentence of the
judges, the people, as if it had been upon a signal given, made
the acclamation used according to ancient custom, at marriages,
Talasio. The origin of which custom is related to be this. At
the time when the daughters of the Sabines came to Rome, to see
the shows and sports there, and were violently seized upon by
the most distinguished and bravest of the Romans for wives, it
happened that some goatswains and herdsmen of the meaner rank
were carrying off a beautiful and tall maiden; and lest any of
their betters should meet them, and take her away, as they ran,
they cried out with one voice, Talasio, Talasius being a
well-known and popular person among them, insomuch that all
that heard the name, clapped their hands for joy, and joined
with them in the shout, as applauding and congratulating the
chance. Now, say they, because this proved a fortunate match
to Talasius, hence it is that this acclamation is sportively
used as a nuptial cry at all weddings. This is the most
credible of the accounts that are given of the Talasio. And
some few days after this judgment, Pompey married Antistia.
After this he went to Cinna's camp, where finding some false
suggestions and calumnies prevailing against him, he began to
be afraid and presently withdrew himself secretly; which sudden
disappearance occasioned great suspicion. And there went a
rumor and speech through all the camp, that Cinna had murdered
the young man; upon which all that had been anyways disobliged,
and bore any malice to him, resolved to make an assault upon
him. He, endeavoring to make his escape, was seized by a
centurion, who pursued him with his naked sword. Cinna, in
this distress, fell upon his knees, and offered him his
seal-ring, of great value, for his ransom; but the centurion
repulsed him insolently, saying, "I did not come to seal a
covenant, but to be revenged upon a lawless and wicked tyrant;"
and so dispatched him immediately.
Thus Cinna being slain, Carbo, a tyrant yet more senseless than
he, took the command and exercised it, while Sylla meantime was
approaching, much to the joy and satisfaction of most people,
who in their present evils were ready to find some comfort if
it were but in the exchange of a master. For the city was
brought to that pass by oppression and calamities, that being
utterly in despair of liberty, men were only anxious for the
mildest and most tolerable bondage. At that time Pompey was in
Picenum in Italy, where he spent some time amusing himself, as
he had estates in the country there, though the chief motive of
his stay was the liking he felt for the towns of that district,
which all regarded him with hereditary feelings of kindness and
attachment. But when he now saw that the noblest and best of
the city began to forsake their homes and property, and fly
from all quarters to Sylla's camp, as to their haven, he
likewise was desirous to go; not, however, as a fugitive, alone
and with nothing to offer, but as a friend rather than a
suppliant, in a way that would gain him honor, bringing help
along with him, and at the head of a body of troops.
Accordingly he solicited the Picentines for their assistance,
who as cordially embraced his motion, and rejected the
messengers sent from Carbo; insomuch that a certain Vindius
taking upon him to say, that Pompey was come from the
school-room to put himself at the head of the people, they
were so incensed that they fell forthwith upon this Vindius and
killed him. From henceforward Pompey, finding a spirit of
government upon him, though not above twenty-three years of
age, nor deriving, an authority by commission from any man,
took the privilege to grant himself full power, and causing a
tribunal to be erected in the market-place of Auximum, a
populous city, expelled two of their principal men, brothers,
of the name of Ventidius, who were acting against him in
Carbo's interest, commanding them by a public edict to depart
the city; and then proceeded to levy soldiers, issuing out
commissions to centurions, and other officers, according to the
form of military discipline. And in this manner he went round
all the rest of the cities in the district. So that those of
Carbo's faction flying, and all others cheerfully submitting to
his command, in a little time he mustered three entire legions,
having supplied himself beside with all manner of provisions,
beasts of burden, carriages, and other necessaries of war. And
with this equipage he set forward on his march towards Sylla,
not as if he were in haste, or desirous of escaping
observation, but by small journeys, making several halts upon
the road, to distress and annoy the enemy, and exerting himself
to detach from Carbo's interest every part of Italy that he
passed through.
Three commanders of the enemy encountered him at once, Carinna,
Cloelius, and Brutus, and drew up their forces, not all in the
front, nor yet together on any one part, but encamping three
several armies in a circle about him, they resolved to
encompass and overpower him. Pompey was no way alarmed at
this, but collecting all his troops into one body, and placing
his horse in the front of the battle, where he himself was in
person, he singled out and bent all his forces against Brutus,
and when the Celtic horsemen from the enemy's side rode out to
meet him, Pompey himself encountering hand to hand with the
foremost and stoutest among them, killed him with his spear.
The rest seeing this turned their backs, and fled, and breaking
the ranks of their own foot, presently caused a general rout;
whereupon the commanders fell out among themselves, and marched
off, some one way, some another, as their fortunes led them,
and the towns round about came in and surrendered themselves to
Pompey, concluding that the enemy was dispersed for fear. Next
after these, Scipio, the consul, came to attack him, and with
as little success; for before the armies could join, or be
within the throw of their javelins, Scipio's soldiers saluted
Pompey's, and came over to them, while Scipio made his escape
by flight. Last of all, Carbo himself sent down several troops
of horse against him by the river Arsis, which Pompey assailed
with the same courage and success as before; and having routed
and put them to flight, he forced them in the pursuit into
difficult ground, unpassable for horse, where seeing no hopes
of escape, they yielded themselves with their horses and armor,
all to his mercy.
Sylla was hitherto unacquainted with all these actions; and on
the first intelligence he received of his movements was in
great anxiety about him, fearing lest he should be cut off
among so many and such experienced commanders of the enemy, and
marched therefore with all speed to his aid. Now Pompey,
having advice of his approach, sent out orders to his officers,
to marshal and draw up all his forces in full array, that they
might make the finest and noblest appearance before the
commander-in-chief; for he expected indeed great honors from
him, but met with even greater. For as soon as Sylla saw him
thus advancing, his army so well appointed, his men so young
and strong, and their spirits so high and hopeful with their
successes, he alighted from his horse, and being first, as was
his due, saluted by them with the title of Imperator, he
returned the salutation upon Pompey, in the same term and style
of Imperator, which might well cause surprise, as none could
have ever anticipated that he would have imparted, to one so
young in years and not yet a senator, a title which was the
object of contention between him and the Scipios and Marii.
And indeed all the rest of his deportment was agreeable to this
first compliment; whenever Pompey came into his presence, he
paid some sort of respect to him, either in rising and being
uncovered, or the like, which he was rarely seen to do to
anyone else, notwithstanding that there were many about him of
great rank and honor. Yet Pompey was not puffed up at all, or
exalted with these favors. And when Sylla would have sent him
with all expedition into Gaul, a province in which it was
thought Metellus who commanded in it had done nothing worthy of
the large forces at his disposal, Pompey urged, that it could
not be fair or honorable for him, to take a province out of the
hands of his senior in command and superior in reputation;
however, if Metellus were willing, and should request his
service, he should be very ready to accompany and assist him in
the war. Which when Metellus came to understand, he approved
of the proposal, and invited him over by letter. And on this
Pompey fell immediately into Gaul, where he not only achieved
wonderful exploits of himself, but also fired up and kindled
again that bold and warlike spirit, which old age had in a
manner extinguished in Metellus, into a new heat; just as
molten copper, they say, when poured upon that which is cold
and solid, will dissolve and melt it faster than fire itself.
But as when a famous wrestler has gained the first place among
men, and borne away the prizes at all the games, it is not
usual to take account of his victories as a boy, or to enter
them upon record among the rest; so with the exploits of Pompey
in his youth, though they were extraordinary in themselves, yet
because they were obscured and buried in the multitude and
greatness of his later wars and conquests, I dare not be
particular in them, lest, by trifling away time in the lesser
moments of his youth, we should be driven to omit those greater
actions and fortunes which best illustrate his character.
Now, when Sylla had brought all Italy under his dominion, and
was proclaimed dictator, he began to reward the rest of his
followers, by giving them wealth, appointing them to offices in
the State, and granting them freely and without restriction any
favors they asked for. But as for Pompey, admiring his valor
and conduct, and thinking that he might prove a great stay and
support to him hereafter in his affairs, he sought means to
attach him to himself by some personal alliance, and his wife
Metella joining in his wishes, they two persuaded Pompey to put
away Antistia, and marry Aemilia, the step-daughter of Sylla,
borne by Metella to Scaurus her former husband, she being at
that very time the wife of another man, living with him, and
with child by him. These were the very tyrannies of marriage,
and much more agreeable to the times under Sylla, than to the
nature and habits of Pompey; that Aemilia great with child
should be, as it were, ravished from the embraces of another
for him, and that Antistia should be divorced with dishonor and
misery by him, for whose sake she had been but just before
bereft of her father. For Antistius was murdered in the
senate, because he was suspected to be a favorer of Sylla for
Pompey's sake; and her mother, likewise, after she had seen all
these indignities, made away with herself; a new calamity to be
added to the tragic accompaniments of this marriage, and that
there might be nothing wanting to complete them, Aemilia
herself died, almost immediately after entering Pompey's house,
in childbed.
About this time news came to Sylla, that Perpenna was
fortifying himself in Sicily, that the island was now become a
refuge and receptacle for the relics of the adverse party; that
Carbo was hovering about those seas with a navy, that Domitius
had fallen in upon Africa and that many of the exiled men of
note who had escaped from the proscriptions were daily flocking
into those parts. Against these, therefore, Pompey was sent
with a large force; and no sooner was he arrived in Sicily but
Perpenna immediately departed, leaving the whole island to him.
Pompey received the distressed cities into favor, and treated
all with great humanity, except the Mamertines in Messena; for
when they protested against his court and jurisdiction,
alleging their privilege and exemption founded upon an ancient
charter or grant of the Romans, he replied sharply, "What!
will you never cease prating of laws to us that have swords by
our sides?" It was thought, likewise, that he showed some
inhumanity to Carbo, seeming rather to insult over his
misfortunes, than to chastise his crimes. For if there had
been a necessity, as perhaps there was, that he should be taken
off, that might have been done at first, as soon as he was
taken prisoner, for then it would have been the act of him that
commanded it. But here Pompey commended a man that had been
thrice consul of Rome, to be brought in fetters to stand at the
bar, he himself sitting upon the bench in judgment, examining
the cause with the formalities of law, to the offense and
indignation of all that were present, and afterwards ordered
him to be taken away and put to death. It is related, by the
way, of Carbo, that as soon as he was brought to the place, and
saw the sword drawn for execution, he was suddenly seized with
a looseness or pain in his bowels, and desired a little
respite of the executioner, and a convenient place to relieve
himself. And yet further, Caius Oppius, the friend of Caesar,
tells us, that Pompey dealt cruelly with Quintus Valerius, a
man of singular learning and science. For when he was brought
to him, he walked aside, and drew him into conversation, and
after putting a variety of questions to him, and receiving
answers from him, he ordered his officers to take him away, and
put him to death. But we must not be too credulous in the case
of narratives told by Oppius, especially when he undertakes to
relate anything touching the friends or foes of Caesar. This
is certain, that there lay a necessity upon Pompey to be severe
upon many of Sylla's enemies, those at least that were eminent
persons in themselves, and notoriously known to be taken; but
for the rest, he acted with all the clemency possible for him,
conniving at the concealment of some, and himself being the
instrument in the escape of others. So in the case of the
Himeraeans; for when Pompey had determined on severely
punishing their city, as they had been abettors of the enemy,
Sthenis, the leader of the people there, craving liberty of
speech, told him, that what he was about to do was not at all
consistent with justice, for that he would pass by the guilty,
and destroy the innocent; and on Pompey demanding, who that
guilty person was that would assume the offenses of them all,
Sthenis replied, it was himself, who had engaged his friends by
persuasion to what they had done, and his enemies by force;
whereupon Pompey being much taken with the frank speech and
noble spirit of the man, first forgave his crime, and then
pardoned all the rest of the Himeraeans. Hearing, likewise,
that his soldiers were very disorderly their march, doing
violence upon the roads, he ordered their swords to be sealed
up in their scabbards, and whosoever kept them not so, were
severely punished.
Whilst Pompey was thus busy in the affairs and government of
Sicily, he received a decree of the senate, and a commission
from Sylla, commanding him forthwith to sail into Africa, and
make war upon Domitius with all his forces: for Domitius had
rallied up a far greater army than Marius had had not long
since, when he sailed out of Africa into Italy, and caused a
revolution in Rome, and himself, of a fugitive outlaw, became a
tyrant. Pompey, therefore, having prepared everything with the
utmost speed, left Memmius, his sister's husband, governor of
Sicily, and set sail with one hundred and twenty galleys, and
eight hundred other vessels laden with provisions, money,
ammunition, and engines of battery. He arrived with his fleet,
part at the port of Utica, part at Carthage; and no sooner was
he landed, but seven thousand of the enemy revolted and came
over to him, while his own forces that he brought with him
consisted of six entire legions. Here they tell us of a
pleasant incident that happened to him at his first arrival.
For some of his soldiers having by accident stumbled upon a
treasure, by which they got a good sum of money, the rest of
the army hearing this, began to fancy that the field was full of
gold and silver, which had been hid there of old by the
Carthaginians in the time of their calamities, and thereupon
fell to work, so that the army was useless to Pompey for many
days, being totally engaged in digging for the fancied
treasure, he himself all the while walking up and down only,
and laughing to see so many thousands together, digging and
turning up the earth. Until at last, growing weary and
hopeless, they came to themselves, and returned to their
general, begging him to lead them where he pleased, for that
they had already received the punishment of their folly. By
this time Domitius had prepared himself; and drawn out his army
in array against Pompey; but there was a watercourse betwixt
them, craggy, and difficult to pass over; and this, together
with a great storm of wind and rain pouring down even from
break of day, seemed to leave but little possibility of their
coming together, so that Domitius, not expecting any engagement
that day, commanded his forces to draw off and retire to the
camp. Now Pompey, who was watchful upon every occasion, making
use of the opportunity, ordered a march forthwith, and having
passed over the torrent, fell in immediately upon their
quarters. The enemy was in a great disorder and tumult, and in
that confusion attempted a resistance; but they neither were
all there, nor supported one another; besides, the wind having
veered about, beat the rain full in their faces. Neither
indeed was the storm less troublesome to the Romans, for that
they could not clearly discern one another, insomuch that even
Pompey himself, being unknown, escaped narrowly; for when one
of his soldiers demanded of him the word of battle, it happened
that he was somewhat slow in his answer, which might have cost
him his life.
The enemy being routed with a great slaughter, (for it is said,
that of twenty thousand there escaped but three thousand,) the
army saluted Pompey by the name of Imperator; but he declined
it, telling them, that he could not by any means accept of that
title, as long as he saw the camp of the enemy standing; but if
they designed to make him worthy of the honor, they must first
demolish that. The soldiers on hearing this, went at once and
made an assault upon the works and trenches, and there Pompey
fought without his helmet, in memory of his former danger, and
to avoid the like. The camp was thus taken by storm, and among
the rest, Domitius was slain. After that overthrow, the cities
of the country thereabouts were all either secured by
surrender, or taken by storm. King Iarbas, likewise, a
confederate and auxiliary of Domitius, was taken prisoner, and
his kingdom was given to Hiempsal.
Pompey could not rest here, but being ambitious to follow the
good fortune and use the valor of his army, entered Numidia;
and marching forward many days' journey up into the country, he
conquered all wherever he came. And having revived the terror
of the Roman power, which was now almost obliterated among the
barbarous nations, he said likewise, that the wild beasts of
Africa ought not to be left without some experience of the
courage and success of the Romans; and therefore he bestowed
some few days in hunting lions and elephants. And it is said,
that it was not above the space of forty days at the utmost, in
which he gave a total overthrow to the enemy, reduced Africa,
and established the affairs of the kings and kingdoms of all
that country, being then in the twenty-fourth year of his age.
When Pompey returned back to the city of Utica, there were
presented to him letters and orders from Sylla, commanding him
to disband the rest of his army, and himself with one legion
only to wait there the coming of another general, to succeed
him in the government. This, inwardly, was extremely grievous
to Pompey, though he made no show of it. But the army resented
it openly, and when Pompey besought them to depart and go home
before him, they began to revile Sylla, and declared broadly,
that they were resolved not to forsake him, neither did they
think it safe for him to trust the tyrant. Pompey at first
endeavored to appease and pacify them by fair speeches; but
when he saw that his persuasions were vain, he left the bench,
and retired to his tent with tears in his eyes. But the
soldiers followed him, and seizing upon him, by force brought
him again, and placed him in his tribunal; where great part of
that day was spent in dispute, they on their part persuading
him to stay and command them, he, on the other side, pressing
upon them obedience, and the danger of mutiny. At last, when
they grew yet more importunate and clamorous, he swore that he
would kill himself if they attempted to force him; and scarcely
even thus appeased them. Nevertheless, the first tidings
brought to Sylla were, that Pompey was up in rebellion; on
which he remarked to some of his friends, "I see, then, it is
my destiny to contend with children in my old age;" alluding at
the same time to Marius, who, being but a mere youth, had given
him great trouble, and brought him into extreme danger. But
being undeceived afterwards by better intelligence, and finding
the whole city prepared to meet Pompey, and receive him with
every display of kindness and honor, he resolved to exceed them
all. And, therefore, going out foremost to meet him, and
embracing him with great cordiality, he gave him his welcome
aloud in the title of Magnus, or the Great, and bade all that
were present call him by that name. Others say that he had
this title first given him by a general acclamation of all the
army in Africa, but that it was fixed upon him by this
ratification of Sylla. It is certain that he himself was the
last that owned the title; for it was a long time after, when
he was sent proconsul into Spain against Sertorius, that he
began to write himself in his letters and commissions by the
name of Pompeius Magnus; common and familiar use having then
worn off the invidiousness of the title. And one cannot but
accord respect and admiration to the ancient Romans, who did
not reward the successes of action and conduct in war alone
with such honorable titles, but adorned likewise the virtues
and services of eminent men in civil government with the same
distinctions and marks of honor. Two persons received from the
people the name of Maximus, or the Greatest, Valerius, for
reconciling the senate and people, and Fabius Rullus, because
he put out of the senate certain sons of freed slaves who had
been admitted into it because of their wealth.
Pompey now desired the honor of a triumph, which Sylla opposed,
alleging that the law allowed that honor to none but consuls
and praetors, and therefore Scipio the elder, who subdued the
Carthaginians in Spain in far greater and nobler conflicts,
never petitioned for a triumph, because he had never been
consul or praetor; and if Pompey, who had scarcely yet fully
grown a beard, and was not of age to be a senator, should enter
the city in triumph, what a weight of envy would it bring, he
said, at once upon his government and Pompey's honor. This was
his language to Pompey, intimating that he could not by any
means yield to his request, but if he would persist in his
ambition, that he was resolved to interpose his power to humble
him. Pompey, however, was not daunted; but bade Sylla
recollect, that more worshiped the rising than the setting sun;
as if to tell him that his power was increasing, and Sylla's in
the wane. Sylla did not perfectly hear the words, but
observing a sort of amazement and wonder in the looks and
gestures of those that did hear them, he asked what it was that
he said. When it was told him, he seemed astounded at Pompey's
boldness, and cried out twice together, "Let him triumph," and
when others began to show their disapprobation and offense at
it, Pompey, it is said, to gall and vex them the more, designed
to have his triumphant chariot drawn with four elephants,
(having brought over several which belonged to the African
kings,) but the gates of the city being too narrow, he was
forced to desist from that project, and be content with horses.
And when his soldiers, who had not received as large rewards as
they had expected, began to clamor, and interrupt the triumph,
Pompey regarded these as little as the rest, and plainly told
them that he had rather lose the honor of his triumph, than
flatter them. Upon which Servilius, a man of great
distinction, and at first one of the chief opposers of Pompey's
triumph, said, he now perceived that Pompey was truly great and
worthy of a triumph. It is clear that he might easily have
been a senator, also, if he had wished, but he did not sue for
that, being ambitious, it seems, only of unusual honors. For
what wonder had it been for Pompey, to sit in the senate before
his time? But to triumph before he was in the senate, was
really an excess of glory.
And moreover, it did not a little ingratiate him with the
people; who were much pleased to see him after his triumph take
his place again among the Roman knights. On the other side, it
was no less distasteful to Sylla to see how fast he came on,
and to what a height of glory and power he was advancing; yet
being ashamed to hinder him, he kept quiet. But when, against
his direct wishes, Pompey got Lepidus made consul, having
openly joined in the canvass and, by the good-will the people
felt for himself, conciliated their favor for Lepidus, Sylla
could forbear no longer; but when he saw him coming away from
the election through the forum with a great train after him,
cried out to him, "Well, young man, I see you rejoice in your
victory. And, indeed, is it not a most generous and worthy
act, that the consulship should be given to Lepidus, the vilest
of men, in preference to Catulus, the best and most deserving
in the city, and all by your influence with the people? It
will be well, however, for you to be wakeful and look to your
interests; as you have been making your enemy stronger than
yourself." But that which gave the clearest demonstration of
Sylla's ill-will to Pompey, was his last will and testament;
for whereas he had bequeathed several legacies to all the rest
of his friends, and appointed some of them guardians to his
eon, he passed by Pompey without the least remembrance.
However, Pompey bore this with great moderation and temper; and
when Lepidus and others were disposed to obstruct his interment
in the Campus Martius, and to prevent any public funeral taking
place, came forward in support of it, and saw his obsequies
performed with all honor and security.
Shortly after the death of Sylla, his prophetic words were
fulfilled; and Lepidus proposing to be the successor to all his
power and authority, without any ambiguities or pretences,
immediately appeared in arms, rousing once more and gathering
about him all the long dangerous remains of the old factions,
which had escaped the hand of Sylla. Catulus, his colleague,
who was followed by the sounder part of the senate and people,
was a man of the greatest esteem among the Romans for wisdom
and justice; but his talent lay in the government of the city
rather than the camp, whereas the exigency required the skill
of Pompey. Pompey, therefore, was not long in suspense which
way to dispose of himself, but joining with the nobility, was
presently appointed general of the army against Lepidus, who
had already raised up war in great part of Italy, and held
Cisalpine Gaul in subjection with an army under Brutus. As for
the rest of his garrisons, Pompey subdued them with ease in his
march, but Mutina in Gaul resisted in a formal siege, and he
lay here a long time encamped against Brutus. In the meantime
Lepidus marched in all haste against Rome, and sitting down
before it with a crowd of followers, to the terror of those
within, demanded a second consulship. But that fear quickly
vanished upon letters sent from Pompey, announcing that he had
ended the war without a battle; for Brutus, either betraying
his army, or being betrayed by their revolt, surrendered
himself to Pompey, and receiving a guard of horse, was
conducted to a little town upon the river Po; where he was
slain the next day by Geminius, in execution of Pompey's
commands. And for this Pompey was much censured; for, having
at the beginning of the revolt written to the senate that
Brutus had voluntarily surrendered himself, immediately
afterward he sent other letters, with matter of accusation
against the man, after he was taken off. Brutus, who with
Cassius slew Caesar, was son to this Brutus; neither in war nor
in his death like his father, as appears at large in his life.
Lepidus upon this being driven out of Italy, fled to Sardinia,
where he fell sick and died of sorrow, not for his public
misfortunes, as they say, but, upon the discovery of a letter,
proving his wife to have been unfaithful to him.
There yet remained Sertorius, a very different general from
Lepidus, in possession of Spain, and making himself formidable
to Rome; the final disease, as it were, in which the scattered
evils of the civil wars had now collected. He had already cut
off various inferior commanders, and was at this time coping
with Metellus Pius, a man of repute and a good soldier, though
perhaps he might now seem too slow, by reason of his age, to
second and improve the happier moments of war, and might be
sometimes wanting to those advantages which Sertorius by his
quickness and dexterity would wrest out of his hands. For
Sertorius was always hovering about, and coming upon him
unawares, like a captain of thieves rather than soldiers,
disturbing him perpetually with ambuscades and light
skirmishes; whereas Metellus was accustomed to regular conduct,
and fighting in battle array with full-armed soldiers. Pompey,
therefore, keeping his army in readiness, made it his object to
be sent in aid to Metellus; neither would he be induced to
disband his forces, notwithstanding that Catulus called upon
him to do so, but by some colorable device or other he still
kept them in arms about the city, until the senate at last
thought fit, upon the report of Lucius Philippus, to decree him
that government. At that time, they say, one of the senators
there expressing his wonder and demanding of Philippus whether
his meaning was that Pompey should be sent into Spain as
proconsul, "No," replied Philippus, "but as proconsuls," as if
both consuls for that year were in his opinion wholly useless.
When Pompey was arrived in Spain, as is usual upon the fame of
a new leader, men began to be inspired with new hopes, and
those nations that had not entered into a very strict alliance
with Sertorius, began to waver and revolt; whereupon Sertorius
uttered various arrogant and scornful speeches against Pompey,
saying in derision, that he should want no other weapon but a
ferula and rod to chastise this boy with, if he were not afraid
of that old woman, meaning Metellus. Yet in deed and reality
he stood in awe of Pompey, and kept on his guard against him,
as appeared by his whole management of the war, which he was
observed to conduct much more warily than before; for Metellus,
which one would not have imagined, was grown excessively
luxurious in his habits having given himself over to
self-indulgence and pleasure, and from a moderate and
temperate, became suddenly a sumptuous and ostentatious liver,
so that this very thing gained Pompey great reputation and
goodwill, as he made himself somewhat specially an example of
frugality, although that virtue was habitual in him, and
required no great industry to exercise it, as he was naturally
inclined to temperance, and no ways inordinate in his desires.
The fortune of the war was very various; nothing however
annoyed Pompey so much as the taking of the town of Lauron by
Sertorius. For when Pompey thought he had him safe inclosed,
and had boasted somewhat largely of raising the siege, he found
himself all of a sudden encompassed; insomuch that he durst not
move out of his camp, but was forced to sit still whilst the
city was taken and burnt before his face. However, afterwards
in a battle near Valentia, he gave great defeat to Herennius
and Perpenna, two commanders among the refugees who had fled to
Sertorius, and now lieutenants under him, in which he slew
above ten thousand men.
Pompey, being elated and filled with confidence by this
victory, made all haste to engage Sertorius himself, and the
rather lest Metellus should come in for a share in the honor of
the victory. Late in the day, towards sunset, they joined
battle near the river Sucro, both being in fear lest Metellus
should come; Pompey, that he might engage alone, Sertorius,
that he might have one alone to engage with. The issue of the
battle proved doubtful, for a wing of each side had the better;
but of the generals, Sertorius had the greater honor, for that
he maintained his post, having put to flight the entire
division that was opposed to him, whereas Pompey was himself
almost made a prisoner; for being set upon by a strong man at
arms that fought on foot, (he being on horseback,) as they were
closely engaged hand to hand, the strokes of their swords
chanced to light upon their hands, but with a different
success; for Pompey's was a slight wound only, whereas he cut
off the other's hand. However, it happened so, that many now
falling upon Pompey together, and his own forces there being
put to the rout, he made his escape beyond expectation, by
quitting his horse, and turning him out among the enemy. For
the horse being richly adorned with golden trappings, and
having a caparison of great value, the soldiers quarreled among
themselves for the booty, so that while they were fighting with
one another, and dividing the spoil, Pompey made his escape.
By break of day the next morning, each drew out his forces into
the field to claim the victory; but Metellus coming up,
Sertorius vanished, having broken up and dispersed his army.
For this was the way in which he used to raise and disband his
armies, so that sometimes he would be wandering up and down all
alone, and at other times again he would come pouring into the
field at the head of no less than one hundred and fifty
thousand fighting-men, swelling of a sudden like a winter
torrent.
When Pompey was going after the battle to meet and welcome
Metellus, and when they were near one another, he commanded his
attendants to lower their rods in honor of Metellus, as his
senior and superior. But Metellus on the other side forbade
it, and behaved himself in general very obligingly to him, not
claiming any prerogative either in respect of his consular rank
or seniority; excepting only that when they encamped together,
the watchword was given to the whole camp by Metellus. But
generally they had their camps asunder, being divided and
distracted by the enemy, who took all shapes, and being always
in motion, would by some skillful artifice appear in a variety
of places almost in the same instant, drawing them from one
attack to another, and at last keeping them from foraging,
wasting the country, and holding the dominion of the sea,
Sertorius drove them both out of that part of Spain which was
under his control, and forced them for want of necessaries to
retreat into provinces that did not belong to them.
Pompey, having made use of and expended the greatest part of
his own private revenues upon the war, sent and demanded moneys
of the senate, adding, that in case they did not furnish him
speedily, he should be forced to return into Italy with his
army. Lucullus being consul at that time, though at variance
with Pompey, yet in consideration that he himself was a
candidate for the command against Mithridates, procured and
hastened these supplies, fearing lest there should be any
presence or occasion given to Pompey of returning home, who of
himself was no less desirous of leaving Sertorius, and of
undertaking the war against Mithridates, as an enterprise which
by all appearance would prove much more honorable and not so
dangerous. In the meantime Sertorius died, being
treacherously murdered by some of his own party; and Perpenna,
the chief among them, took the command, and attempted to carry
on the same enterprises with Sertorius, having indeed the same
forces and the same means, only wanting the same skill and
conduct in the use of them. Pompey therefore marched directly
against, Perpenna, and finding him acting merely at random in
his affairs, had a decoy ready for him, and sent out a
detachment of ten cohorts into the level country with orders to
range up and down and disperse themselves abroad. The bait
took accordingly, and no sooner had Perpenna turned upon the
prey and had them in chase, but Pompey appeared suddenly with
all his army and joining battle, gave him a total overthrow.
Most of his officers were slain in the field, and he himself
being brought prisoner to Pompey, was by his order put to
death. Neither was Pompey guilty in this of ingratitude or
unmindfulness of what had occurred in Sicily, which some have
laid to his charge, but was guided by a high minded policy and
a deliberate counsel for the security of his country. For
Perpenna, having in his custody all Sertorius's papers, offered
to produce several letters from the greatest men in Rome, who,
desirous of a change and subversion of the government, had
invited Sertorius into Italy. And Pompey, fearing that these
might be the occasion of worse wars than those which were now
ended, thought it advisable to put Perpenna to death, and burnt
the letters without reading them.
Pompey continued in Spain after this so long a time as was
necessary for the suppression of all the greatest disorders in
the province; and after moderating and allaying the more
violent heats of affairs there, returned with his army into
Italy, where he arrived, as chance would have it, in the height
of the servile war. Accordingly, upon his arrival, Crassus,
the commander in that war, at some hazard precipitated a
battle, in which he had great success, and slew upon the place
twelve thousand three hundred of the insurgents. Nor yet was
he so quick, but that fortune reserved to Pompey some share of
honor in the success of this war, for five thousand of those
that had escaped out of the battle fell into his hands; and
when he had totally cut them off, he wrote to the senate, that
Crassus had overthrown the slaves in battle, but that he had
plucked up the whole war by the roots. And it was agreeable to
the people in Rome both thus to say, and thus to hear said,
because of the general favor of Pompey. But of the Spanish war
and the conquest of Sertorius, no one, even in jest, could have
ascribed the honor to anyone else. Nevertheless, all this
high respect for him, and this desire to see him come home,
were not unmixed with apprehensions and suspicions that he
might perhaps not disband his army, but take his way by the
force of arms and a supreme command to the seat of Sylla. And
so in the number of all those that ran out to meet him and
congratulate his return, as many went out of fear as affection.
But after Pompey had removed this alarm, by declaring
beforehand that he would discharge the army after his triumph,
those that envied him could now only complain that he affected
popularity, courting the common people more than the nobility,
and that whereas Sylla had abolished the tribuneship of the
people, he designed to gratify the people by restoring that
office, which was indeed the fact. For there was not any one
thing that the people of Rome were more wildly eager for, or
more passionately desired, than the restoration of that office,
insomuch that Pompey thought himself extremely fortunate in
this opportunity, despairing (if he were anticipated by
someone else in this) of ever meeting with any other sufficient
means of expressing his gratitude for the favors which he had
received from the people.
Though a second triumph was decreed him, and he was declared
consul, yet all these honors did not seem so great an evidence
of his power and glory, as the ascendant which he had over
Crassus; for he, the wealthiest among all the statesmen of his
time, and the most eloquent and greatest too, who had looked
down on Pompey himself, and on all others as beneath him, durst
not appear a candidate for the consulship before he had applied
to Pompey. The request was made accordingly, and was eagerly
embraced by Pompey, who had long sought an occasion to oblige
him in some friendly office; so that he solicited for Crassus,
and entreated the people heartily, declaring, that their favor
would be no less to him in choosing Crassus his colleague, than
in making himself consul. Yet for all this, when they were
created consuls, they were always at variance, and opposing one
another. Crassus prevailed most in the senate, and Pompey's
power was no less with the people, he having restored to them
the office of tribune, and having allowed the courts of
judicature to be transferred back to the knights by a new law.
He himself in person, too, afforded them a most grateful
spectacle, when he appeared and craved his discharge from the
military service. For it is an ancient custom among the
Romans, that the knights, when they had served out their legal
time in the wars, should lead their horses into the
market-place before the two officers, called censors, and
having given an account of the commanders and generals under
whom they served, as also of the places and actions of their
service, should be discharged, every man with honor or
disgrace, according to his deserts. There were then sitting in
state upon the bench two censors, Gellius and Lentulus,
inspecting the knights, who were passing by in muster before
them, when Pompey was seen coming down into the forum, with all
the ensigns of a consul, but leading his horse in his hand.
When he came up, he bade his lictors make way for him, and so
he led his horse to the bench; the people being all this while
in a sort of amaze, and all in silence, and the censors
themselves regarding the sight with a mixture of respect and
gratification. Then the senior censor examined him: "Pompeius
Magnus, I demand of you whether you have served the full time
in the wars that is prescribed by the law?" "Yes," replied
Pompey with a loud voice, "I have served all, and all under
myself as general." The people hearing this gave a great
shout, and made such an outcry for delight, that there was no
appeasing it; and the censors rising from their judgment-seat,
accompanied him home to gratify the multitude, who followed
after, clapping their hands and shouting.
Pompey's consulship was now expiring, and yet his difference
with Crassus increasing, when one Caius Aurelius, a knight, a
man who had declined public business all his lifetime, mounted
the hustings, and addressed himself in an oration to the
assembly, declaring that Jupiter had appeared to him in a
dream, commanding him to tell the consuls, that they should not
give up office until they were friends. After this was said,
Pompey stood silent, but Crassus took him by the hand, and
spoke in this manner: "I do not think, fellow-citizens, that I
shall do anything mean or dishonorable, in yielding first to
Pompey, whom you were pleased to ennoble with the title of
Great, when as yet he scarce had a hair on his face; and
granted the honor of two triumphs, before he had a place in the
senate." Hereupon they were reconciled and laid down their
office. Crassus resumed the manner of life which he had always
pursued before; but Pompey in the great generality of causes
for judgment declined appearing on either side, and by degrees
withdrew himself totally from the forum, showing himself but
seldom in public; and whenever he did, it was with a great
train after him. Neither was it easy to meet or visit him
without a crowd of people about him; he was most pleased to
make his appearance before large numbers at once, as though he
wished to maintain in this way his state and majesty, and as if
he held himself bound to preserve his dignity from contact with
the addresses and conversation of common people. And life in
the robe of peace is only too apt to lower the reputation of
men that have grown great by arms, who naturally find
difficulty in adapting themselves to the habits of civil
equality. They expect to be treated as the first in the city,
even as they were in the camp; and on the other hand, men who
in war were nobody, think it intolerable if in the city at any
rate they are not to take the lead. And so, when a warrior
renowned for victories and triumphs shall turn advocate and
appear among them in the forum, they endeavor their utmost to
obscure and depress him; whereas, if he gives up any
pretensions here and retires, they will maintain his military
honor and authority beyond the reach of envy. Events
themselves not long after showed the truth of this.
The power of the pirates first commenced in Cilicia, having in
truth but a precarious and obscure beginning, but gained life
and boldness afterwards in the wars of Mithridates, where they
hired themselves out, and took employment in the king's
service. Afterwards, whilst the Romans were embroiled in their
civil wars, being engaged against one another even before the
very gates of Rome, the seas lay waste and unguarded, and by
degrees enticed and drew them on not only to seize upon and
spoil the merchants and ships upon the seas, but also to lay
waste the islands and seaport towns. So that now there
embarked with these pirates men of wealth and noble birth and
superior abilities, as if it had been a natural occupation to
gain distinction in. They had divers arsenals, or piratic
harbors, as likewise watch towers and beacons, all along the
sea-coast; and fleets were here received that were well manned
with the finest mariners, and well served with the expertest
pilots, and composed of swift sailing and light-built vessels
adapted for their special purpose. Nor was it merely their
being thus formidable that excited indignation; they were even
more odious for their ostentation than they were feared for
their force. Their ships had gilded masts at their stems; the
sails woven of purple, and the oars plated with silver, as if
their delight were to glory in their iniquity. There was
nothing but music and dancing, banqueting and revels, all along
the shore. Officers in command were taken prisoners, and
cities put under contribution, to the reproach and dishonor of
the Roman supremacy. There were of these corsairs above one
thousand sail, and they had taken no less than four hundred
cities, committing sacrilege upon the temples of the gods, and
enriching themselves with the spoils of many never violated
before, such as were those of Claros, Didyma, and Samothrace;
and the temple of the Earth in Hermione, and that of
Aesculapius in Epidaurus, those of Neptune at the Isthmus, at
Taenarus, and at Calauria; those of Apollo at Actium and
Leucas, and those of Juno, in Samos, at Argos, and at Lacinium.
They themselves offered strange sacrifices upon Mount Olympus,
and performed certain secret rites or religious mysteries,
among which those of Mithras have been preserved to our own
time, having received their previous institution from them.
But besides these insolencies by sea, they were also injurious
to the Romans by land; for they would often go inland up the
roads, plundering and destroying their villages and
country-houses. And once they seized upon two Roman praetors,
Sextilius and Bellinus, in their purple-edged robes, and
carried them off together with their officers and lictors. The
daughter also of Antonius, a man that had had the honor of a
triumph, taking a journey into the country, was seized, and
redeemed upon payment of a large ransom. But it was most
abusive of all, that when any of the captives declared himself
to be a Roman and told his name, they affected to be surprised,
and feigning fear, smote their thighs and fell down at his
feet, humbly beseeching him to be gracious and forgive them.
The captive seeing them so humble and suppliant, believed them
to be in earnest; and some of them now would proceed to put
Roman shoes on his feet, and to dress him in a Roman gown, to
prevent, they said, his being mistaken another time. After all
this pageantry, when they had thus deluded and mocked him long
enough, at last putting out a ship's ladder, when they were in
the midst of the sea, they told him he was free to go, and
wished him a pleasant journey; and if he resisted, they
themselves threw him overboard, and drowned him.
This piratic power having got the dominion and control of all
the Mediterranean, there was left no place for navigation or
commerce. And this it was which most of all made the Romans,
finding themselves to be extremely straitened in their markets,
and considering that if it should continue, there would be a
dearth and famine in the land, determine at last to send out
Pompey to recover the seas from the pirates. Gabinius, one of
Pompey's friends, preferred a law, whereby there was granted to
him, not only the government of the seas as admiral, but in
direct words, sole and irresponsible sovereignty over all men.
For the decree gave him absolute power and authority in all the
seas within the pillars of Hercules, and in the adjacent
mainland for the space of four hundred furlongs from the sea.
Now there were but few regions in the Roman empire out of that
compass; and the greatest of the nations and most powerful of
the kings were included in the limit. Moreover by this decree
he had a power of selecting fifteen lieutenants out of the
senate, and of assigning to each his province in charge; then
he might take likewise out of the treasury and out of the hands
of the revenue-farmers what moneys he pleased; as also two
hundred sail of ships, with a power to press and levy what
soldiers and seamen he thought fit. When this law was read,
the common people approved of it exceedingly, but the chief men
and most important among the senators looked upon it as an
exorbitant power, even beyond the reach of envy, but well
deserving their fears. Therefore concluding with themselves
that such unlimited authority was dangerous, they agreed
unanimously to oppose the bill, and all went against it, except
Caesar, who gave his vote for the law, not to gratify Pompey,
but the people, whose favor he had courted underhand from the
beginning, and hoped to compass for himself. The rest
inveighed bitterly against Pompey, insomuch that one of the
consuls told him, that if he was ambitious of the place of
Romulus, he would scarce avoid his end, but he was in danger of
being torn in pieces by the multitude for his speech. Yet when
Catulus stood up to speak against the law, the people in
reverence to him were silent and attentive. And when, after
saying much in the most honorable terms in favor of Pompey, he
proceeded to advise the people in kindness to spare him, and
not to expose a man of his value to such a succession of
dangers and wars, "For," said he, "where could you find another
Pompey, or whom would you have in case you should chance to
lose him?" they all cried out with one voice, "Yourself." And
so Catulus, finding all his rhetoric ineffectual, desisted.
Then Roscius attempted to speak, but could obtain no hearing,
and made signs with his fingers, intimating, "Not him alone,"
but that there might be a second Pompey or colleague in
authority with him. Upon this, it is said, the multitude being
extremely incensed, made such a loud outcry, that a crow flying
over the market-place at that instant was struck, and drops
down among the crowd; whence it would appear that the cause of
birds falling down to the ground, is not any rupture or
division of the air causing a vacuum, but purely the actual
stroke of the voice, which when carried up in a great mass and
with violence, raises a sort of tempest and billow, as it were,
in the air.
The assembly broke up for that day; and when the day was come,
on which the bill was to pass by suffrage into a decree, Pompey
went privately into the country; but hearing that it was passed
and confirmed, he resumed again into the city by night, to
avoid the envy that might be occasioned by the concourse of
people that would meet and congratulate him. The next morning
he came abroad and sacrificed to the gods, and having audience
at an open assembly, so handled the matter that they enlarged
his power, giving him many things besides what was already
granted, and almost doubling the preparation appointed in the
former decree. Five hundred ships were manned for him, and an
army raised of one hundred and twenty thousand foot, and five
thousand horse. Twenty-four senators that had been generals of
armies were appointed to serve as lieutenants under him, and to
these were added two quaestors. Now it happened within this
time that the prices of provisions were much reduced, which
gave an occasion to the joyful people of saying, that the very
name of Pompey had ended the war. However, Pompey in pursuance
of his charge divided all the seas, and the whole Mediterranean
into thirteen parts, allotting a squadron to each, under the
command of his officers; and having thus dispersed his power
into all quarters, and encompassed the pirates everywhere, they
began to fall into his hands by whole shoals, which he seized
and brought into his harbors. As for those that withdrew
themselves betimes, or otherwise escaped his general chase,
they all made to Cilicia, where they hid themselves as in their
hive; against whom Pompey now proceeded in person with sixty of
his best ships, not however until he had first scoured and
cleared all the seas near Rome, the Tyrrhenian, and the
African, and all the waters of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily;
all which he performed in the space of forty days, by his own
indefatigable industry and the zeal of his lieutenants.
Pompey met with some interruption in Rome, through the malice
and envy of Piso, the consul, who had given some check to his
proceedings, by withholding his stores and discharging his
seamen; whereupon he sent his fleet round to Brundusium,
himself going the nearest way by land through Tuscany to Rome;
which was no sooner known by the people, than they all flocked
out to meet him upon the way, as if they had not sent him out
but few days before. What chiefly excited their joy, was the
unexpectedly rapid change in the markets, which abounded now
with the greatest plenty, so that Piso was in great danger to
have been deprived of his consulship, Gabinius having a law
ready prepared for that purpose; but Pompey forbade it,
behaving himself as in that, so in all things else, with great
moderation, and when he had made sure of all that he wanted or
desired, he departed for Brundusium, whence he set sail in
pursuit of the pirates. And though he was straitened in time,
and his hasty voyage forced him to sail by several cities
without touching, yet he would not pass by the city of Athens
unsaluted; but landing there, after he had sacrificed to the
gods, and made an address to the people, as he was returning
out of the city, he read at the gates two epigrams, each in a
single line, written in his own praise; one within the gate: --
Thy humbler thoughts make thee a god the more;
the other without: --
Adieu we bid, who welcome bade before.
Now because Pompey had shown himself merciful to some of these
pirates that were yet roving in bodies about the seas, having
upon their supplication ordered a seizure of their ships and
persons only, without any further process or severity,
therefore the rest of their comrades in hopes of mercy too,
made their escape from his other commanders, and surrendered
themselves with their wives and children into his protection.
He continued to pardon all that came in, and the rather because
by them he might make discovery of those who fled from his
justice, as conscious that their crimes were beyond an act of
indemnity. The most numerous and important part of these
conveyed their families and treasures, with all their people
that were unfit for war, into castles and strong forts about
Mount Taurus; but they themselves having well manned their
galleys, embarked for Coracesium in Cilicia, where they
received Pompey and gave him battle. Here they had a final
overthrow, and retired to the land, where they were besieged.
At last, having dispatched their heralds to him with a
submission, they delivered up to his mercy themselves, their
towns, islands, and strong-holds, all which they had so
fortified that they were almost impregnable, and scarcely even
accessible.
Thus was this war ended, and the whole power of the pirates at
sea dissolved everywhere in the space of three months, wherein,
besides a great number of other vessels, he took ninety
men-of-war with brazen beaks; and likewise prisoners of war to
the number of no less than twenty thousand.
As regarded the disposal of these prisoners, he never so much
as entertained the thought of putting them to death; and yet it
might be no less dangerous on the other hand to disperse them,
as they might reunite and make head again, being numerous,
poor, and warlike. Therefore wisely weighing with himself,
that man by nature is not a wild or unsocial creature, neither
was he born so, but makes himself what he naturally is not, by
vicious habit; and that again on the other side, he is
civilized and grows gentle by a change of place, occupation,
and manner of life, as beasts themselves that are wild by
nature, become tame and tractable by housing and gentler usage,
upon this consideration he determined to translate these
pirates from sea to land, and give them a taste of an honest
and innocent course of life, by living in towns, and tilling
the ground. Some therefore were admitted into the small and
half-peopled towns of the Cilicians, who for an enlargement of
their territories, were willing to receive them. Others he
planted in the city of the Solians, which had been lately laid
waste by Tigranes, king of Armenia, and which he now restored.
But the largest number were settled in Dyme, the town of
Achaea, at that time extremely depopulated, and possessing an
abundance of good land.
However, these proceedings could not escape the envy and
censure of his enemies; and the course he took against Metellus
in Crete was disapproved of even by the chiefest of his
friends. For Metellus, a relation of Pompey's former colleague
in Spain, had been sent praetor into Crete, before this
province of the seas was assigned to Pompey. Now Crete was the
second source of pirates next to Cilicia, and Metellus having
shut up a number of them in their strong-holds there, was
engaged in reducing and extirpating them. Those that were yet
remaining and besieged sent their supplications to Pompey, and
invited him into the island as a part of his province, alleging
it to fall, every part of it, within the distance from the sea
specified in his commission, and so within the precincts of his
charge. Pompey receiving the submission, sent letters to
Metellus, commanding him to leave off the war; and others in
like manner to the cities, in which he charged them not to
yield any obedience to the commands of Metellus. And after
these, he sent Lucius Octavius, one of his lieutenants, to act
as general, who entering the besieged fortifications, and
fighting in defense of the pirates, rendered Pompey not odious
only, but even ridiculous too; that he should lend his name as
a guard to a nest of thieves, that knew neither god nor law,
and make his reputation serve as a sanctuary to them, only out
of pure envy and emulation to Metellus. For neither was
Achilles thought to act the part of a man, but rather of a mere
boy, mad after glory, when by signs he forbade the rest of the
Greeks to strike at Hector: --
"for fear
Some other hand should give the blow, and he
Lose the first honor of the victory."
Whereas Pompey even sought to preserve the common enemies of
the world, only that he might deprive a Roman praetor, after
all his labors, of the honor of a triumph. Metellus however
was not daunted, but prosecuted the war against the pirates,
expelled them from their strongholds and punished them; and
dismissed Octavius with the insults and reproaches of the whole
camp.
When the news came to Rome that the war with the pirates was at
an end, and that Pompey was unoccupied, diverting himself in
visits to the cities for want of employment, one Manlius, a
tribune of the people, preferred a law that Pompey should have
all the forces of Lucullus, and the provinces under his
government, together with Bithynia, which was under the command
of Glabrio; and that he should forthwith conduct the war
against the two kings, Mithridates and Tigranes, retaining
still the same naval forces and the sovereignty of the seas as
before. But this was nothing less than to constitute one
absolute monarch of all the Roman empire. For the provinces
which seemed to be exempt from his commission by the former
decree, such as were Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Cilicia, the upper Colchis, and Armenia, were all added in by
this latter law, together with all the troops and forces with
which Lucullus had defeated Mithridates and Tigranes. And
though Lucullus was thus simply robbed of the glory of his
achievements in having a successor assigned him, rather to the
honor of his triumph, than the danger of the war; yet this was
of less moment in the eyes of the aristocratical party, though
they could not but admit the injustice and ingratitude to
Lucullus. But their great grievance was, that the power of
Pompey should be converted into a manifest tyranny; and they
therefore exhorted and encouraged one another privately to bend
all their forces in opposition to this law, and not tamely to
cast away their liberty; yet when the day came on which it was
to pass into a decree, their hearts failed them for fear of the
people, and all were silent except Catulus, who boldly
inveighed against the law and its proposer, and when he found
that he could do nothing with the people, turned to the senate,
crying out and bidding them seek out some mountain as their
forefathers had done, and fly to the rocks where they might
preserve their liberty. The law passed into a decree, as it is
said, by the suffrages of all the tribes. And Pompey in his
absence was made lord of almost all that power, which Sylla
only obtained by force of arms, after a conquest of the very
city itself. When Pompey had advice by letters of the decree,
it is said that in the presence of his friends, who came to
give him joy of his honor, he seemed displeased, frowning and
smiting his thigh, and exclaimed as one overburdened, and weary
of government, "Alas, what a series of labors upon labors! If
I am never to end my service as a soldier, nor to escape from
this invidious greatness, and live at home in the country with
my wife, I had better have been an unknown man." But all this
was looked upon as mere trifling, neither indeed could the best
of his friends call it anything else, well knowing that his
enmity with Lucullus, setting a flame just now to his natural
passion for glory and empire, made him feel more than usually
gratified.
As indeed appeared not long afterwards by his actions, which
clearly unmasked him; for in the first place, he sent out his
proclamations into all quarters, commanding the soldiers to
join him, and summoned all the tributary kings and princes
within his charge; and in short, as soon as he had entered upon
his province, he left nothing unaltered that had been done and
established by Lucullus. To some he remitted their penalties,
and deprived others of their rewards, and acted in all respects
as if with the express design that the admirers of Lucullus
might know that all his authority was at an end. Lucullus
expostulated by friends, and it was thought fitting that there
should be a meeting betwixt them; and accordingly they met in
the country of Galatia. As they were both great and successful
generals, their officers bore their rods before them all
wreathed with branches of laurel; Lucullus came through a
country full of green trees and shady woods, but Pompey's march
was through a cold and barren district. Therefore the lictors
of Lucullus, perceiving that Pompey's laurels were withered and
dry, helped him to some of their own, and adorned and crowned
his rods with fresh laurels. This was thought ominous, and
looked as if Pompey came to take away the reward and honor of
Lucullus's victories. Lucullus had the priority in the order
of consulships, and also in age; but Pompey's two triumphs made
him the greater man. Their first addresses in this interview
were dignified and friendly, each magnifying the other's
actions, and offering congratulations upon his success. But
when they came to the matter of their conference or treaty,
they could agree on no fair or equitable terms of any kind, but
even came to harsh words against each other, Pompey upbraiding
Lucullus with avarice, and Lucullus retorting ambition upon
Pompey, so that their friends could hardly part them.
Lucullus, remaining in Galatia, made a distribution of the
lands within his conquests, and gave presents to whom he
pleased; and Pompey encamping not far distant from him, sent
out his prohibitions, forbidding the execution of any of the
orders of Lucullus, and commanded away all his soldiers, except
sixteen hundred, whom he thought likely to be unserviceable to
himself, being disorderly and mutinous, and whom he knew to be
hostile to Lucullus; and to these acts he added satirical
speeches, detracting openly from the glory of his actions, and
giving out, that the battles of Lucullus had been but with the
mere stage-shows and idle pictures of royal pomp, whereas the
real war against a genuine army, disciplined by defeat, was
reserved to him, Mithridates having now begun to be in earnest,
and having betaken himself to his shields, swords, and horses.
Lucullus, on the other side, to be even with him, replied, that
Pompey came to fight with the mere image and shadow of war, it
being his usual practice, like a lazy bird of prey, to come
upon the carcass, when others had slain the dead, and to tear
in pieces the relics of a war. Thus he had appropriated to
himself the victories over Sertorius, over Lepidus, and over
the insurgents under Spartacus; whereas this last had been
achieved by Crassus, that obtained by Catulus, and the first
won by Metellus. And therefore it was no great wonder, that
the glory of the Pontic and Armenian war should be usurped by a
man who had condescended to any artifices to work himself into
the honor of a triumph over a few runaway slaves.
After this Lucullus went away, and Pompey having placed his
whole navy in guard upon the seas betwixt Phoenicia and
Bosporus, himself marched against Mithridates, who had a
phalanx of thirty thousand foot, with two thousand horse, yet
durst not bid him battle. He had encamped upon a strong
mountain where it would have been hard to attack him, but
abandoned it in no long time, as destitute of water. No sooner
was he gone but Pompey occupied it, and observing the plants
that were thriving there, together with the hollows which he
found in several places, conjectured that such a plot could not
be without springs, and therefore ordered his men to sink wells
in every corner. After which there was, in a little time,
great plenty of water throughout all the camp, insomuch that he
wondered how it was possible for Mithridates to be ignorant of
this, during all that time of his encampment there. After this
Pompey followed him to his next camp, and there drawing lines
round about him, shut him in. But he, after having endured a
siege of forty-five days, made his escape secretly, and fled
away with all the best part of his army, having first put to
death all the sick and unserviceable. Not long after Pompey
overtook him again near the banks of the river Euphrates, and
encamped close by him; but fearing lest he should pass over the
river and give him the slip there too, he drew up his army to
attack him at midnight. And at that very time Mithridates, it
is said, saw a vision in his dream foreshowing what should come
to pass. For he seemed to be under sail in the Euxine Sea with
a prosperous gale, and just in view of Bosporus, discoursing
pleasantly with the ship's company, as one overjoyed for his
past danger and present security, when on a sudden he found
himself deserted of all, and floating upon a broken plank of
the ship at the mercy of the sea. Whilst he was thus laboring
under these passions and phantasms, his friends came and awaked
him with the news of Pompey's approach; who was now indeed so
near at hand, that the fight must be for the camp itself, and
the commanders accordingly drew up the forces in battle array.
Pompey perceiving how ready they were and well prepared for
defense, began to doubt with himself whether he should put it
to the hazard of a fight in the dark, judging it more prudent
to encompass them only at present, lest they should fly, and to
give them battle with the advantage of numbers the next day.
But his oldest officers were of another opinion, and by
entreaties and encouragements obtained permission that they
might charge them immediately. Neither was the night so very
dark, but that, though the moon was going down, it yet gave
light enough to discern a body. And indeed this was one
especial disadvantage to the king's army. For the Romans
coming upon them with the moon on their backs, the moon, being
very low, and just upon setting, cast the shadows a long way
before their bodies, reaching almost to the enemy, whose eyes
were thus so much deceived that not exactly discerning the
distance, but imagining them to be near at hand, they threw
their darts at the shadows, without the least execution. The
Romans therefore perceiving this, ran in upon them with a great
shout; but the barbarians, all in a panic, unable to endure the
charge, turned and fled, and were put to great slaughter, above
ten thousand being slain; the camp also was taken. As for
Mithridates himself, he at the beginning of the onset, with a
body of eight hundred horse charged through the Roman army, and
made his escape. But before long all the rest dispersed, some
one way, some another, and he was left only with three persons,
among whom was his concubine, Hypsicratia, a girl always of a
manly and daring spirit, and the king called her on that
account Hypsicrates. She being attired and mounted like a
Persian horseman, accompanied the king in all his flight, never
weary even in the longest journey, nor ever failing to attend
the king in person, and look after his horse too, until they
came to Inora, a castle of the king's, well stored with gold
and treasure. From thence Mithridates took his richest
apparel, and gave it among those that had resorted to him in
their flight; and to every one of his friends he gave a deadly
poison, that they might not fall into the power of the enemy
against their wills. From thence he designed to have gone to
Tigranes in Armenia, but being prohibited by Tigranes, who put
out a proclamation with a reward of one hundred talents to any
one that should apprehend him, he passed by the head-waters of
the river Euphrates, and fled through the country of Colchis.
Pompey in the meantime made an invasion into Armenia, upon the
invitation of young Tigranes, who was now in rebellion against
his father, and gave Pompey a meeting about the river Araxes,
which rises near the head of Euphrates, but turning its course
and bending towards the east, falls into the Caspian Sea. They
two, therefore, marched together through the country, taking in
all the cities by the way, and receiving their submission. But
king Tigranes, having lately suffered much in the war with
Lucullus, and understanding that Pompey was of a kind and
gentle disposition, admitted Roman troops into his royal
palaces, and taking along with him his friends and relations,
went in person to surrender himself into the hands of Pompey.
He came as far as the trenches on horseback, but there he was
met by two of Pompey's lictors, who commanded him to alight and
walk on foot, for no man ever was seen on horseback within a
Roman camp. Tigranes submitted to this immediately, and not
only so, but loosing his sword, delivered up that too; and last
of all, as soon as he appeared before Pompey, he pulled off his
royal turban, and attempted to have laid it at his feet. Nay,
worst of all, even he himself had fallen prostrate as an humble
suppliant at his knees, had not Pompey prevented it, taking him
by the hand and placing him near him, Tigranes himself on one
side of him and his son upon the other. Pompey now told him
that the rest of his losses were chargeable upon Lucullus, by
whom he had been dispossessed of Syria, Phoenicia, Cilicia,
Galatia, and Sophene; but all that he had preserved to himself
entire till that time he should peaceably enjoy, paying the sum
of six thousand talents as a fine or penalty for injuries done
to the Romans, and that his son should have the kingdom of
Sophene. Tigranes himself was well pleased with these
conditions of peace, and when the Romans saluted him king,
seemed to be overjoyed, and promised to every common soldier
half a mina of silver, to every centurion ten minas, and to
every tribune a talent; but the son was displeased, insomuch
that when he was invited to supper, he replied, that he did not
stand in need of Pompey for that sort of honor, for he would
find out some other Roman to sup with. Upon this he was put
into close arrest, and reserved for the triumph.
Not long after this Phraates, king of Parthia, sent to Pompey,
and demanded to have young Tigranes, as his son-in-law, given
up to him, and that the river Euphrates should be the boundary
of the empires. Pompey replied, that for Tigranes, he belonged
more to his own natural father than his father-in-law, and for
the boundaries, he would take care that they should be
according to right and justice.
So Pompey, leaving Armenia in the custody of Afranius, went
himself in chase of Mithridates; to do which he was forced of
necessity to march through several nations inhabiting about
Mount Caucasus. Of these the Albanians and Iberians were the
two chiefest. The Iberians stretch out as far as the Moschian
mountains and the Pontus; the Albanians lie more eastwardly,
and towards the Caspian Sea. These Albanians at first
permitted Pompey, upon his request, to pass through the
country; but when winter had stolen upon the Romans whilst they
were still in the country, and they were busy celebrating the
festival of Saturn, they mustered a body of no less than forty
thousand fighting men, and set upon them, having passed over
the river Cyrnus, which rising from the mountains of Iberia,
and receiving the river Araxes in its course from Armenia,
discharges itself by twelve mouths into the Caspian. Or,
according to others, the Araxes does not fall into it, but they
flow near one another, and so discharge themselves as neighbors
into the same sea. It was in the power of Pompey to have
obstructed the enemy's passage over the river, but he suffered
them to pass over quietly; and then leading on his forces and
giving battle, he routed them, and slew great numbers of them
in the field. The king sent ambassadors with his submission,
and Pompey upon his supplication pardoned the offense, and
making a treaty with him, he marched directly against the
Iberians, a nation no less in number than the other, but much
more warlike, and extremely desirous of gratifying Mithridates,
and driving out Pompey. These Iberians were never subject to
the Medes or Persians, and they happened likewise to escape the
dominion of the Macedonians, because Alexander was so quick in
his march through Hyrcania. But these also Pompey subdued in a
great battle, where there were slain nine thousand upon the
spot, and more than ten thousand taken prisoners. From thence
he entered into the country of Colchis, where Servilius met him
by the river Phasis, bringing the fleet with which he was
guarding the Pontus.
The pursuit of Mithridates, who had thrown himself among the
tribes inhabiting Bosporus and the shores of the Maeotian Sea,
presented great difficulties. News was also brought to Pompey
that the Albanians had again revolted. This made him turn
back, out of anger and determination not to be beaten by them,
and with difficulty and great danger he passed back over the
Cyrnus, which the barbarous people had fortified a great way
down the banks with palisadoes. And after this, having a
tedious march to make through a waterless and difficult
country, he ordered ten thousand skins to be filled with water,
and so advanced towards the enemy; whom he found drawn up in
order of battle near the river Abas, to the number of sixty
thousand horse, and twelve thousand foot, ill armed generally,
and most of them covered only with the skins of wild beasts.
Their general was Cosis, the king's brother, who as soon as the
battle was begun, singled out Pompey, and rushing in upon him,
darted his javelin into the joints of his breastplate; while
Pompey, in return, struck him through the body with his lance,
and slew him. It is related that in this battle there were
Amazons fighting as auxiliaries with the barbarians, and that
they came down from the mountains by the river Thermodon. For
that after the battle, when the Romans were taking the spoil
and plunder of the field, they met with several targets and
buskins of the Amazons; but no woman's body was found among the
dead. They inhabit the parts of Mount Caucasus that reach down
to the Hyrcanian Sea, not immediately bordering upon the
Albanians, for the Gelae and the Leges lie betwixt; and they
keep company with these people yearly, for two months only,
near the river Thermodon; after which they retire to their own
habitations, and live alone all the rest of the year.
After this engagement, Pompey was eager to advance with his
forces upon the Hyrcanian and Caspian Sea, but was forced to
retreat at a distance of three days' march from it, by the
number of venomous serpents, and so he retreated into Armenia
the Less. Whilst he was there, kings of the Elymaeans and Medes
sent ambassadors to him, to whom he gave friendly answer by
letter; and sent against the king of Parthia, who had made
incursions upon Gordyene, and despoiled the subjects of
Tigranes, an army under the command of Afranius, who put him to
the rout, and followed him in chase as far as the district of
Arbela.
Of the concubines of king Mithridates that were brought before
Pompey, he took none to himself, but sent them all away to
their parents and relations; most of them being either the
daughters or wives of princes and great commanders.
Stratonice, however, who had the greatest power and influence
with him, and to whom he had committed the custody of his best
and richest fortress, had been, it seems, the daughter of a
musician, an old man, and of no great fortune, and happening to
sing one night before Mithridates at a banquet, she struck his
fancy so, that immediately he took her with him, and sent away
the old man much dissatisfied, the king having not so much as
said one kind word to himself. But when he rose in the
morning, and saw tables in his house richly covered with gold
and silver plate, a great retinue of servants, eunuchs, and
pages, bringing him rich garments, and a horse standing before
the door richly caparisoned, in all respects as was usual with
the king's favorites, he looked upon it all as a piece of
mockery, and thinking himself trifled with, attempted to make
off and run away. But the servants laying hold upon him, and
informing him really that the king had bestowed on him the
house and furniture of a rich man lately deceased, and that
these were but the first-fruits or earnests of greater riches
and possessions that were to come, he was persuaded at last
with much difficulty to believe them. And so putting on his
purple robes, and mounting his horse, he rode through the city,
crying out, "All this is mine;" and to those that laughed at
him, he said, there was no such wonder in this, but it was a
wonder rather that he did not throw stones at all he met, he
was so transported with joy. Such was the parentage and blood
of Stratonice. She now delivered up this castle into the hands
of Pompey, and offered him many presents of great value, of
which he accepted only such as he thought might serve to adorn
the temples of the gods, and add to the splendor of his
triumph; the rest he left to Stratonice's disposal, bidding her
please herself in the enjoyment of them.
And in the same manner he dealt with the presents offered him
by the king of Iberia, who sent him a bedstead, table, and a
chair of state, all of gold, desiring him to accept of them;
but he delivered them all into the custody of the public
treasurers, for the use of the Commonwealth.
In another castle called Caenum, Pompey found and read with
pleasure several secret writings of Mithridates, containing
much that threw light on his character. For there were memoirs
by which it appeared that besides others, he had made away with
his son Ariarathes by poison, as also with Alcaeus the Sardian,
for having robbed him of the first honors in a horse-race.
There were several judgments upon the interpretation of dreams,
which either he himself or some of his mistresses had had; and
besides these, there was a series of wanton letters to and from
his concubine Monime. Theophanes tells us that there was found
also an address by Rutilius, in which he attempted to
exasperate him to the laughter of all the Romans in Asia;
though most men justly conjecture this to be a malicious
invention of Theophanes, who probably hated Rutilius because he
was a man in nothing like himself; or perhaps it might be to
gratify Pompey, whose father is described by Rutilius in his
history, as the vilest man alive.
From thence Pompey came to the city of Amisus, where his
passion for glory put him into a position which might be called
a punishment on himself. For whereas he had often sharply
reproached Lucullus, in that while the enemy was still living,
he had taken upon him to issue decrees, and distribute rewards
and honors, as conquerors usually do only when the war is
brought to an end, yet now was he himself, while Mithridates
was paramount in the kingdom of Bosporus, and at the head of a
powerful army, as if all were ended, just doing the same thing,
regulating the provinces, and distributing rewards, many great
commanders and princes having flocked to him, together with no
less than twelve barbarian kings; insomuch that to gratify
these other kings, when he wrote to the king of Parthia, he
would not condescend, as others used to do, in the
superscription of his letter, to give him his title of king of
kings.
Moreover, he had a great desire and emulation to occupy Syria,
and to march through Arabia to the Red Sea, that he might thus
extend his conquests every way to the great ocean that
encompasses the habitable earth; as in Africa he was the first
Roman that advanced his victories to the ocean; and again in
Spain he made the Atlantic Sea the limit of the empire; and
then thirdly, in his late pursuit of the Albanians, he had
wanted but little of reaching the Hyrcanian Sea. Accordingly
he raised his camp, designing to bring the Red Sea within the
circuit of his expedition, especially as he saw how difficult
it was to hunt after Mithridates with an army, and that he
would prove a worse enemy flying than fighting. But yet he
declared, that he would leave a sharper enemy behind him than
himself, namely, famine; and therefore he appointed a guard
of ships to lie in wait for the merchants that sailed to
Bosporus, death being the penalty for any who should attempt to
carry provisions thither.
Then he set forward with the greatest part of his army, and in
his march casually fell in with several dead bodies still
uninterred, of those soldiers who were slain with Triarius in
his unfortunate engagement with Mithridates; these he buried
splendidly and honorably. The neglect of whom, it is thought,
caused, as much as anything, the hatred that was felt against
Lucullus, and alienated the affections of the soldiers from
him. Pompey having now by his forces under the command of
Afranius, subdued the Arabians about the mountain Amanus,
himself entered Syria, and finding it destitute of any natural
and lawful prince, reduced it into the form of a province, as a
possession of the people of Rome. He conquered also Judaea,
and took its king, Aristobulus, captive. Some cities he built
anew, and to others he gave their liberty, chastising their
tyrants. Most part of the time that he spent there was
employed in the administration of justice, In deciding
controversies of kings and States; and where he himself could
not be present in person, he gave commissions to his friends,
and sent them. Thus when there arose a difference betwixt the
Armenians and Parthians about some territory, and the judgment
was referred to him, he gave a power by commission to three
judges and arbiters to hear and determine the controversy. For
the reputation of his power was great; nor was the fame of his
justice and clemency inferior to that of his power, and served
indeed as a veil for a multitude of faults committed by his
friends and familiars. For although it was not in his nature
to check or chastise wrongdoers, yet he himself always treated
those that had to do with him in such a manner, that they
submitted to endure with patience the acts of covetousness and
oppression done by others.
Among these friends of his, there was one Demetrius who had the
greatest influence with him of all; he was a freed slave, a
youth of good understanding, but somewhat too insolent in his
good fortune, of whom there goes this story. Cato, the
philosopher, being as yet a very young man, but of great repute
and a noble mind, took a journey of pleasure to Antioch, at a
time when Pompey was not there, having a great desire to see
the city. He, as his custom was, walked on foot, and his
friends accompanied him on horseback; and seeing before the
gates of the city a multitude dressed in white, the young men
on one side of the road, and the boys on the other, he was
somewhat offended at it, imagining that it was officiously done
in honor of him, which was more than he had any wish for.
However, he desired his companions to alight and walk with him;
but when they drew near, the master of the ceremonies in this
procession came out with a garland and a rod in his hand, and
met them, inquiring, where they had left Demetrius, and when he
would come? Upon which Cato's companions burst out into
laughter, but Cato said only, "Alas, poor city!" and passed by
without any other answer. However, Pompey rendered Demetrius
less odious to others by enduring his presumption and
impertinence to himself. For it is reported how that Pompey,
when he had invited his friends to an entertainment, would be
very ceremonious in waiting, till they all came and were
placed, while Demetrius would be already stretched upon the
couch as if he cared for no one, with his dress over his ears,
hanging down from his head. Before his return into Italy, he
had purchased the pleasantest country-seat about Rome, with the
finest walks and places for exercise, and there were sumptuous
gardens, called by the name of Demetrius, while Pompey his
master, up to his third triumph, was contented with an ordinary
and simple habitation. Afterwards, it is true, when he had
erected his famous and stately theater for the people of Rome,
he built as a sort of appendix to it, a house for himself, much
more splendid than his former, and yet no object even this to
excite men's envy, since he who came to be master of it after
Pompey could not but express wonder and inquire where Pompey
the Great used to sup. Such is the story told us.
The king of the Arabs near Petra, who had hitherto despised the
power of the Romans, now began to be in great alarm at it, and
sent letters to him promising to be at his commands, and to do
whatever he should see fit to order. However, Pompey having a
desire to confirm and keep him in the same mind, marched
forwards for Petra, an expedition not altogether
irreprehensible in the opinion of many; who thought it a mere
running away from their proper duty, the pursuit of
Mithridates, Rome's ancient and inveterate enemy, who was now
rekindling the war once more, and making preparations, it was
reported, to lead his army through Scythia and Paeonia, into
Italy. Pompey, on the other side, judging it easier to destroy
his forces in battle, than to seize his person in flight,
resolved not to tire himself out in a vain pursuit, but rather
to spend his leisure upon another enemy, as a sort of
digression in the meanwhile. But fortune resolved the doubt;
for when he was now not far from Petra, and had pitched his
tents and encamped for that day, as he was talking exercise
with his horse outside the camp, couriers came riding up from
Pontus, bringing good news, as was known at once by the heads
of their javelins, which it is the custom to carry crowned with
branches of laurel. The soldiers, as soon as they saw them,
flocked immediately to Pompey, who notwithstanding was minded to
finish his exercise; but when they began to be clamorous and
importunate, he alighted from his horse, and taking the letters
went before them into the camp. Now there being no tribunal
erected there, not even that military substitute for one which
they make by cutting up thick turfs of earth and piling them
one upon another, they, through eagerness and impatience,
heaped up a pile of pack-saddles, and Pompey standing upon
that, told them the news of Mithridates's death, how that he
had himself put an end to his life upon the revolt of his son
Pharnaces, and that Pharnaces had taken all things there into
his hands and possession, which he did, his letters said, in
right of himself and the Romans. Upon this news, the whole
army expressing their joy, as was to be expected, fell to
sacrificing to the gods, and feasting, as if in the person of
Mithridates alone there had died many thousands of their
enemies.
Pompey by this event having brought this war to its completion,
with much more ease than was expected, departed forthwith out
of Arabia, and passing rapidly through the intermediate
provinces, he came at length to the city Amisus. There he
received many presents brought from Pharnaces, with several
dead bodies of the royal blood, and the corpse of Mithridates
himself, which was not easy to be known by the face, for the
physicians that embalmed him had not dried up his brain, but
those who were curious to see him knew him by the scars there.
Pompey himself would not endure to see him, but to deprecate
the divine jealousy, sent it away to the city of Sinope. He
admired the richness of his robes, no less than the size and
splendor of his armor. His swordbelt, however, which had cost
four hundred talents, was stolen by Publius, and sold to
Ariarathes; his tiara also, a piece of admirable workmanship,
Gaius, the roster brother of Mithridates, gave secretly to
Faustus, the son of Sylla, at his request. All which Pompey
was ignorant of, but afterwards, when Pharnaces came to
understand it, he severely punished those that embezzled them.
Pompey now having ordered all things, and established that
province, took his journey homewards in greater pomp and with
more festivity. For when he came to Mitylene, he gave the city
their freedom upon the intercession of Theophanes, and was
present at the contest, there periodically held, of the poets,
who took at that time no other theme or subject than the
actions of Pompey. He was extremely pleased with the theater
itself, and had a model of it taken, intending to erect one in
Rome on the same design, but larger and more magnificent. When
he came to Rhodes, he attended the lectures of all the
philosophers there, and gave to every one of them a talent.
Posidonius has published the disputation which he held before
him against Hermagoras the rhetorician, upon the subject of
Invention in general. At Athens, also, he showed similar,
munificence to the philosophers, and gave fifty talents towards
the repairing and beautifying the city. So that now by all
these acts he well hoped to return into Italy in the greatest
splendor and glory possible to man, and find his family as
desirous to see him, as he felt himself to come home to them.
But that supernatural agency, whose province and charge it is
always to mix some ingredient of evil with the greatest and
most glorious goods of fortune, had for some time back been
busy in his household, preparing him a sad welcome. For Mucia
during his absence had dishonored his bed. Whilst he was
abroad at a distance, he had refused all credence to the
report; but when he drew nearer to Italy, where his thoughts
were more at leisure to give consideration to the charge, he
sent her a bill of divorce; but neither then in writing, nor
afterwards by word of mouth, did he ever give a reason why he
discharged her; the cause of it is mentioned in Cicero's
epistles.
Rumors of every kind were scattered abroad about Pompey, and
were carried to Rome before him, so that there was a great
tumult and stir, as if he designed forthwith to march with his
army into the city, and establish himself securely as sole
ruler. Crassus withdrew himself, together with his children
and property, out of the city, either that he was really
afraid, or that he counterfeited rather, as is most probable,
to give credit to the calumny and exasperate the jealousy of
the people. Pompey, therefore, as soon as he entered Italy,
called a general muster of the army; and having made a suitable
address and exchanged a kind farewell with his soldiers, he
commanded them to depart every man to his country and place of
habitation, only taking care that they should not fail to meet
again at his triumph. Thus the army being disbanded, and the
news commonly reported, a wonderful result ensued. For when
the cities saw Pompey the Great passing through the country
unarmed, and with a small train of familiar friends only, as if
he was returning from a journey of pleasure, not from his
conquests, they came pouring out to display their affection for
him, attending and conducting him to Rome with far greater
forces than he disbanded; insomuch that if he had designed
any movement or innovation in the State, he might have done it
without his army.
Now, because the law permitted no commander to enter into the
city before his triumph, he sent to the senate, entreating them
as a favor to him to prorogue the election of consuls, that
thus he might be able to attend and give countenance to Piso,
one of the candidates. The request was resisted by Cato, and
met with a refusal. However, Pompey could not but admire the
liberty and boldness of speech which Cato alone had dared to
use in the maintenance of law and justice. He therefore had a
great desire to win him over, and purchase his friendship at
any rate; and to that end, Cato having two nieces, Pompey asked
for one in marriage for himself, the other for his son. But
Cato looked unfavorably on the proposal, regarding it as a
design for undermining his honesty, and in a manner bribing him
by a family alliance; much to the displeasure of his wife and
sister, who were indignant that he should reject a connection
with Pompey the Great. About that time Pompey having a design
of setting up Afranius for the consulship, gave a sum of money
among the tribes for their votes, and people came and received
it in his own gardens a proceeding which, when it came to be
generally known, excited great disapprobation, that he should
thus for the sake of men who could not obtain the honor by
their own merits, make merchandise of an office which had been
given to himself as the highest reward of his services. "Now,"
said Cato to his wife and sister, "had we contracted an
alliance with Pompey, we had been allied to this dishonor too;"
and this they could not but acknowledge, and allow his judgment
of what was right and fitting to have been wiser and better
than theirs.
The splendor and magnificence of Pompey's triumph was such that
though it took up the space of two days, yet they were
extremely straitened in time, so that of what was prepared for
that pageantry, there was as much withdrawn as would have set
out and adorned another triumph. In the first place, there were
tables carried, inscribed with the names and titles of the
nations over whom he triumphed, Pontus, Armenia, Cappadocia,
Paphlagonia, Media, Colchis, the Iberians, the Albanians,
Syria, Cilicia, and Mesopotamia, together with Phoenicia and
Palestine, Judaea, Arabia, and all the power of the pirates
subdued by sea and land. And in these different countries
there appeared the capture of no less than one thousand
fortified places, nor much less than nine hundred cities,
together with eight hundred ships of the pirates, and the
foundation of thirty-nine towns. Besides, there was set forth
in these tables an account of all the tributes throughout the
empire, and how that before these conquests the revenue
amounted but to fifty millions, whereas from his acquisitions
they had a revenue of eighty-five millions; and that in present
payment he was bringing into the common treasury ready money,
and gold and silver plate, and ornaments, to the value of
twenty thousand talents, over and above what had been
distributed among the soldiers, of whom he that had least had
fifteen hundred drachmas for his share. The prisoners of war
that were led in triumph, besides the chief pirates, were the
son of Tigranes, king of Armenia, with his wife and daughter;
as also Zosime, wife of king Tigranes himself, and Aristobulus,
king of Judaea, the sister of king Mithridates and her five
sons, and some Scythian women. There were likewise the
hostages of the Albanians and Iberians, and of the king of
Commagene, besides a vast number of trophies, one for every
battle in which he was conqueror, either himself in person, or
by his lieutenants. But that which seemed to be his greatest
glory, being one which no other Roman ever attained to, was
this, that he made his third triumph over the third division of
the world. For others among the Romans had the honor of
triumphing thrice, but his first triumph was over Africa, his
second, over Europe, and this last, over Asia; so that he
seemed in these three triumphs to have led the whole world
captive.
As for his age, those who affect to make the parallel exact in
all things betwixt him and Alexander the Great, do not allow
him to have been quite thirty-four, whereas in truth at that
time he was near forty. And well had it been for him had he
terminated his life at this date, while he still enjoyed
Alexander's fortune, since all his aftertime served only either
to bring him prosperity that made him odious, or calamities too
great to be retrieved. For that great authority which he had
gained in the city by his merits, he made use of only in
patronizing the iniquities of others, so that by advancing
their fortunes, he detracted from his own glory, till at last
he was overthrown even by the force and greatness of his own
power. And as the strongest citadel or fort in a town, when it
is taken by an enemy, does then afford the same strength to the
foe, as it had done to friends before; so Caesar, after
Pompey's aid had made him strong enough to defy his country,
ruined and overthrew at last the power which had availed him
against the rest. The course of things was as follows.
Lucullus, when he returned out of Asia, where he had been
treated with insult by Pompey, was received by the senate with
great honor, which was yet increased when Pompey came home; to
check whose ambition they encouraged him to assume the
administration of the government, whereas he was now grown cold
and disinclined to business, having given himself over to the
pleasures of ease and the enjoyment of a splendid fortune.
However, he began for the time to exert himself against Pompey,
attacked him sharply, and succeeded in having his own acts and
decrees, which were repealed by Pompey, reestablished, and with
the assistance of Cato, gained the superiority in the senate.
Pompey having fallen from his hopes in such an unworthy
repulse, was forced to fly to the tribunes of the people for
refuge, and to attach himself to the young men, among whom was
Clodius, the vilest and most impudent wretch alive, who took
him about, and exposed him as a tool to the people, carrying
him up and down among the throngs in the market-place, to
countenance those laws and speeches which he made to cajole the
people and ingratiate himself. And at last for his reward, he
demanded of Pompey, as if he had not disgraced, but done him
great kindness, that he should forsake (as in the end he did
forsake) Cicero, his friend, who on many public occasions had
done him the greatest service. And so when Cicero was in
danger, and implored his aid, he would not admit him into his
presence, but shutting up his gates against those that came to
mediate for him, slips out at a back door, whereupon Cicero
fearing the result of his trial, departed privately from Rome.
About that time Caesar, returning from military service,
started a course of policy which brought him great present
favor, and much increased his power for the future, and proved
extremely destructive both to Pompey and the commonwealth. For
now he stood candidate for his first consulship, and well
observing the enmity betwixt Pompey and Crassus, and finding
that by joining with one he should make the other his enemy, he
endeavored by all means to reconcile them, an object in itself
honorable and tending to the public good, but as he undertook
it, a mischievous and subtle intrigue. For he well knew that
opposite parties or factions in a commonwealth, like passengers
in a boat, serve to trim and balance the unready motions of
power there; whereas if they combine and come all over to one
side, they cause a shock which will be sure to overset the
vessel and carry down everything. And therefore Cato wisely
told those who charged all the calamities of Rome upon the
disagreement betwixt Pompey and Caesar, that they were in error
in charging all the crime upon the last cause; for it was not
their discord and enmity, but their unanimity and I friendship,
that gave the first and greatest blow to the commonwealth.
Caesar being thus elected consul, began at once to make an
interest with the poor and meaner sort, by preferring and
establishing laws for planting colonies and dividing lands,
lowering the dignity of his office, and turning his consulship
into a sort of tribuneship rather. And when Bibulus, his
colleague, opposed him, and Cato was prepared to second
Bibulus, and assist him vigorously, Caesar brought Pompey upon
the hustings, and addressing him in the sight of the people,
demanded his opinion upon the laws that were proposed. Pompey
gave his approbation. "Then," said Caesar, "in case any man
should offer violence to these laws, will you be reedy to give
assistance to the people?" "Yes," replied Pompey, "I shall be
ready, and against those that threaten the sword, I will appear
with sword and buckler." Nothing ever was said or done by
Pompey up to that day, that seemed more insolent or
overbearing; so that his friends endeavored to apologize for it
as a word spoken inadvertently; but by his actions afterwards
it appeared plainly that he was totally devoted to Caesar's
service. For on a sudden, contrary to all expectation, he
married Julia, the daughter of Caesar, who had been affianced
before and was to be married within a few days to Caepio. And
to appease Caepio's wrath, he gave him his own daughter in
marriage, who had been espoused before to Faustus, the son of
Sylla. Caesar himself married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso.
Upon this Pompey, filling the city with soldiers, carried all
things by force as he pleased. As Bibulus, the consul, was
going to the forum, accompanied by Lucullus and Cato, they fell
upon him on a sudden and broke his rods; and somebody threw a
vessel of ordure upon the head of Bibulus himself; and two
tribunes of the people, who escorted him, were desperately
wounded in the fray. And thus having cleared the forum of all
their adversaries, they got their bill for the division of
lands established and passed into an act; and not only so, but
the whole populace being taken with this bait, became totally
at their devotion, inquiring into nothing and without a word
giving their suffrages to whatever they propounded. Thus they
confirmed all those acts and decrees of Pompey, which were
questioned and contested by Lucullus; and to Caesar they
granted the provinces of Gaul, both within and without the
Alps, together with Illyricum, for five years, and likewise an
army of four entire legions; then they created consuls for the
year ensuing, Piso, the father-in-law of Caesar, and Gabinius,
the most extravagant of Pompey's flatterers.
During all these transactions, Bibulus kept close within doors,
nor did he appear publicly in person for the space of eight
months together, notwithstanding he was consul, but sent out
proclamations full of bitter invectives and accusations against
them both. Cato turned prophet, and, as if he had been
possessed with a spirit of divination, did nothing else in the
senate but foretell what evils should befall the Commonwealth
and Pompey. Lucullus pleaded old age, and retired to take his
ease, as superannuated for affairs of State; which gave
occasion to the saying of Pompey, that the fatigues of luxury
were not more seasonable for an old man than those of
government. Which in truth proved a reflection upon himself;
for he not long after let his fondness for his young wife
seduce him also into effeminate habits. He gave all his time
to her, and passed his days in her company in country-houses
and gardens, paying no heed to what was going on in the forum.
Insomuch that Clodius, who was then tribune of the people,
began to despise him, and engage in the most audacious
attempts. For when he had banished Cicero, and sent away Cato
into Cyprus under pretence of military duty, and when Caesar
was gone upon his expedition to Gaul, finding the populace now
looking to him as the leader who did everything according to
their pleasure, he attempted forthwith to repeal some of
Pompey's decrees; he took Tigranes, the captive, out of prison,
and kept him about him as his companion; and commenced actions
against several of Pompey's friends, thus designing to try the
extent of his power. At last, upon a time when Pompey was
present at the hearing of a certain cause, Clodius, accompanied
with a crowd of profligate and impudent ruffians, standing up
in a place above the rest, put questions to the populace as
follows: "Who is the dissolute general? who is the man that
seeks another man? who scratches his head with one finger?"
and the rabble, upon the signal of his shaking his gown, with a
great shout to every question, like singers making, responses
in a chorus, made answer, "Pompey."
This indeed was no small annoyance to Pompey, who was quite
unaccustomed to hear anything ill of himself, and
unexperienced altogether in such encounters; and he was yet
more vexed, when he saw that the senate rejoiced at this foul
usage, and regarded it as a just punishment upon him for his
treachery to Cicero. But when it came even to blows and wounds
in the forum, and that one of Clodius's bondslaves was
apprehended, creeping through the crowd towards Pompey with a
sword in his hand, Pompey laid hold of this pretence, though
perhaps otherwise apprehensive of Clodius's insolence and bad
language, and never appeared again in the forum during all the
time he was tribune, but kept close at home, and passed his
time in consulting with his friends, by what means he might
best allay the displeasure of the senate and nobles against
him. Among other expedients, Culleo advised the divorce of
Julia, and to abandon Caesar's friendship to gain that of the
senate; this he would not hearken to. Others again advised him
to call home Cicero from banishment, a man who was always the
great adversary of Clodius, and as great a favorite of the
senate; to this he was easily persuaded. And therefore he
brought Cicero's brother into the forum, attended with a strong
party, to petition for his return; where, after a warm dispute,
in which several were wounded and some slain, he got the
victory over Clodius. No sooner was Cicero returned home upon
this decree, but immediately he used his efforts to reconcile
the senate to Pompey; and by speaking in favor of the law upon
the importation of corn, did again, in effect, make Pompey
sovereign lord of all the Roman possessions by sea and land.
For by that law, there were placed under his control all ports,
markets, and storehouses, and in short, all the concerns both
of the merchants and the husbandmen; which gave occasion to the
charge brought against it by Clodius, that the law was not made
because of the scarcity of corn, but the scarcity of corn was
made, that they might pass a law, whereby that power of his,
which was now grown feeble and consumptive, might be revived
again, and Pompey reinstated in a new empire. Others look upon
it as a politic device of Spinther, the consul, whose design it
was to secure Pompey in a greater authority, that he himself
might be sent in assistance to king Ptolemy. However, it is
certain that Canidius, the tribune, preferred a law to dispatch
Pompey in the character of an ambassador, without an army,
attended only with two lictors, as a mediator betwixt the king
and his subjects of Alexandria. Neither did this proposal seem
unacceptable to Pompey, though the senate cast it out upon the
specious pretence, that they were unwilling to hazard his
person. However, there were found several writings scattered
about the forum and near the senate-house, intimating how
grateful it would be to Ptolemy to have Pompey appointed for
his general instead of Spinther. And Timagenes even asserts
that Ptolemy went away and left Egypt, not out of necessity,
but purely upon the persuasion of Theophanes, who was anxious
to give Pompey the opportunity for holding a new command, and
gaining further wealth. But Theophanes's want of honesty does
not go so far to make this story credible as does Pompey's own
nature, which was averse, with all its ambition, to such base
and disingenuous acts, to render it improbable.
Thus Pompey being appointed chief purveyor, and having within
his administration and management all the corn trade, sent
abroad his factors and agents into all quarters, and he himself
sailing into Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, collected vast
stores of corn. He was just ready to set sail upon his voyage
home, when a great storm arose upon the sea, and the ships'
commanders doubted whether it were safe. Upon which Pompey
himself went first aboard, and bid the mariners weigh anchor,
declaring with a loud voice, that there was a necessity to
sail, but no necessity to live. So that with this spirit and
courage, and having met with favorable fortune, he made a
prosperous return, and filled the markets with corn, and the
sea with ships. So much so that this great plenty and
abundance of provisions yielded a sufficient supply, not only
to the city of Rome, but even to other places too, dispersing
itself; like waters from a spring, into all quarters.
Meantime Caesar grew great and famous with his wars in Gaul,
and while in appearance he seemed far distant from Rome,
entangled in the affairs of the Belgians, Suevians, and
Britons, in truth he was working craftily by secret practices
in the midst of the people, and countermining Pompey in all
political matters of most importance. He himself with his army
close about him, as if it had been his own body, not with mere
views of conquest over the barbarians, but as though his
contests with them were but mere sports and exercises of the
chase, did his utmost with this training and discipline to make
it invincible and alarming. And in the meantime his gold and
silver and other spoils and treasure which he took from the
enemy in his conquests, he sent to Rome in presents, tempting
people with his gifts, and aiding aediles, praetors, and
consuls, as also their wives, in their expenses, and thus
purchasing himself numerous friends. Insomuch, that when he
passed back again over the Alps, and took up his winter
quarters in the city of Luca, there flocked to him an infinite
number of men and women, striving who should get first to him,
two hundred senators included, among whom were Pompey and
Crassus; so that there were to be seen at once before Caesar's
door no less than six score rods of proconsuls and praetors.
The rest of his addressers he sent all away full fraught with
hopes and money; but with Crassus and Pompey, he entered into
special articles of agreement, that they should stand
candidates for the consulship next year; that Caesar on his
part should send a number of his soldiers to give their votes
at the election; that as soon as they were elected, they should
use their interest to have the command of some provinces and
legions assigned to themselves, and that Caesar should have
his present charge confirmed to him for five years more. When
these arrangements came to be generally known, great
indignation was excited among the chief men in Rome; and
Marcellinus, in an open assembly of the people, demanded of
them both, whether they designed to sue for the consulship or
no. And being urged by the people for their answer, Pompey
spoke first, and told them, perhaps he would sue for it,
perhaps he would not. Crassus was more temperate, and said,
that he would do what should be judged most agreeable with the
interest of the Commonwealth; and when Marcellinus persisted in
his attack on Pompey, and spoke, as it was thought, with some
vehemence, Pompey remarked that Marcellinus was certainly the
unfairest of men, to show him no gratitude for having thus made
him an orator out of a mute, and converted him from a hungry
starveling into a man so full-fed that he could not contain
himself.
Most of the candidates nevertheless abandoned their canvass for
the consulship; Cato alone persuaded and encouraged Lucius
Domitius not to desist, "since," said he, "the contest now is
not for office, but for liberty against tyrants and usurpers."
Therefore those of Pompey's party, fearing this inflexible
constancy in Cato, by which he kept with him the whole senate,
lest by this he should likewise pervert and draw after him all
the well-affected part of the commonalty, resolved to withstand
Domitius at once, and to prevent his entrance into the forum.
To this end, therefore, they sent in a band of armed men, who
slew the torchbearer of Domitius, as he was leading the way
before him, and put all the rest to flight; last of all, Cato
himself retired, having received a wound in his right arm while
defending Domitius. Thus by these means and practices they
obtained the consulship; neither did they behave themselves
with more decency in their further proceedings; but in the
first place, when the people were choosing Cato praetor, and
just ready with their votes for the poll, Pompey broke up the
assembly, upon a pretext of some inauspicious appearance, and
having gained the tribes by money, they publicly proclaimed
Vatinius praetor. Then, in pursuance of their covenants with
Caesar, they introduced several laws by Trebonius, the tribune,
continuing Caesar's commission to another five years' charge of
his province; to Crassus there were appointed Syria, and the
Parthian war; and to Pompey himself, all Africa, together with
both Spains, and four legions of soldiers, two of which he lent
to Caesar upon his request, for the wars in Gaul.
Crassus, upon the expiration of his consulship, departed
forthwith into his province; but Pompey spent some time in
Rome, upon the opening or dedication of his theater, where he
treated the people with all sorts of games, shows, and
exercises, in gymnastics alike and in music. There was
likewise the hunting or baiting of wild beasts, and combats
with them, in which five hundred lions were slain; but above
all, the battle of elephants was a spectacle full of horror and
amazement.
These entertainments brought him great honor and popularity;
but on the other side he created no less envy to himself, in
that he committed the government of his provinces and legions
into the hands of friends as his lieutenants, whilst he himself
was going about and spending his time with his wife in all the
places of amusement in Italy; whether it were he was so fond of
her himself, or she so fond of him, and he unable to distress
her by going away, for this also is stated. And the love
displayed by this young wife for her elderly husband was a
matter of general note, to be attributed, it would seem, to his
constancy in married life, and to his dignity of manner, which
in familiar intercourse was tempered with grace and gentleness,
and was particularly attractive to women, as even Flora, the
courtesan, may be thought good enough evidence to prove. It
once happened in a public assembly, as they were at an election
of the aediles, that the people came to blows, and several
about Pompey were slain, so that he, finding himself all
bloody, ordered a change of apparel; but the
servants who brought home his clothes, making a
great bustle and hurry about the house, it chanced
that the young lady, who was then with child, saw his
gown all stained with blood; upon which she dropped immediately
into a swoon, and was hardly brought to life again; however,
what with her fright and suffering, she fell into labor and
miscarried; even those who chiefly censured Pompey for his
friendship to Caesar, could not reprove him for his affection
to so attached a wife. Afterwards she was great again, and
brought to bed of a daughter, but died in childbed; neither did
the infant outlive her mother many days. Pompey had prepared
all things for the interment of her corpse at his house near
Alba, but the people seized upon it by force, and performed the
solemnities in the field of Mars, rather in compassion for the
young lady, than in favor either for Pompey or Caesar; and yet
of these two, the people seemed at that time to pay Caesar a
greater share of honor in his absence, than to Pompey, though
he was present.
For the city now at once began to roll and swell, so to say,
with the stir of the coming storm. Things everywhere were in a
state of agitation, and everybody's discourse tended to
division, now that death had put an end to that relation which
hitherto had been a disguise rather than restraint to the
ambition of these men. Besides, not long after came messengers
from Parthia with intelligence of the death of Crassus there,
by which another safeguard against civil war was removed, since
both Caesar and Pompey kept their eyes on Crassus, and awe of
him held them together more or less within the bounds of
fair-dealing all his lifetime. But when fortune had taken away
this second, whose province it might have been to revenge the
quarrel of the conquered, you might then say with the comic
poet,
The combatants are waiting to begin,
Smearing their hands with dust and oiling each his skin.
So inconsiderable a thing is fortune in respect of human
nature, and so insufficient to give content to a covetous mind,
that an empire of that mighty extent and sway could not satisfy
the ambition of two men; and though they knew and had read,
that
The gods, when they divided out 'twixt three,
This massive universe, heaven, hell, and sea,
Each one sat down contented on his throne,
And undisturbed each god enjoys his own,
yet they thought the whole Roman empire not sufficient to
contain them, though they were but two.
Pompey once in an oration to the people, told them, that he had
always come into office before he expected he should, and that
he had always left it sooner than they expected he would; and,
indeed, the disbanding of all his armies witnessed as much.
Yet when he perceived that Caesar would not so willingly
discharge his forces, he endeavored to strengthen himself
against him by offices and commands in the city; but beyond
this he showed no desire for any change, and would not seem to
distrust, but rather to disregard and contemn him. And when he
saw how they bestowed the places of government quite contrary
to his wishes, because the citizens were bribed in their
elections, he let things take their course, and allowed the
city to be left without any government at all. Hereupon there
was mention straightaway made of appointing a dictator.
Lucilius, a tribune of the people, was the man who first
adventured to propose it, urging the people to make Pompey
dictator. But the tribune was in danger of being turned out of
his office, by the opposition that Cato made against it. And
for Pompey, many of his friends appeared and excused him,
alleging that he never was desirous of that government, neither
would he accept of it. And when Cato therefore made a speech
in commendation of Pompey, and exhorted him to support the
cause of good order in the Commonwealth, he could not for shame
but yield to it, and so for the present Domitius and Messala
were elected consuls. But shortly afterwards, when there was
another anarchy, or vacancy in the government, and the talk of
a dictator was much louder and more general than before, those
of Cato's party, fearing lest they should be forced to appoint
Pompey, thought it policy to keep him from that arbitrary and
tyrannical power, by giving him an office of more legal
authority. Bibulus himself, who was Pompey's enemy, first gave
his vote in the senate, that Pompey should be created consul
alone; alleging, that by these means either the Commonwealth
would be freed from its present confusion, or that its bondage
should be lessened by serving the worthiest. This was looked
upon as a very strange opinion, considering the man that spoke
it; and therefore on Cato's standing up, everybody expected
that he would have opposed it; but after silence made, he said
that he would never have been the author of that advice
himself, but since it was propounded by another, his advice was
to follow it, adding, that any form of government was better
than none at all; and that in a time so full of distraction, he
thought no man fitter to govern than Pompey. This counsel was
unanimously approved of, and a decree passed that Pompey should
be made sole consul, with this clause, that if he thought it
necessary to have a colleague, he might choose whom he pleased,
provided it were not till after two months expired.
Thus was Pompey created and declared sole consul by Sulpicius,
regent in this vacancy; upon which he made very cordial
acknowledgments to Cato, professing himself much his debtor,
and requesting his good advice in conducting the government; to
this Cato replied, that Pompey had no reason to thank him, for
all that he had said was for the service of the commonwealth,
not of Pompey; but that he would be always ready to give his
advice privately, if he were asked for it; and if not, he
should not fail to say what he thought in public. Such was
Cato's conduct on all occasions.
On his return into the city Pompey married Cornelia, the
daughter of Metellus Scipio, not a maiden, but lately left a
widow by Publius, the son of Crassus, her first husband, who
had been killed in Parthia. The young lady had other
attractions besides those of youth and beauty; for she was
highly educated, played well upon the lute, understood
geometry, and had been accustomed to listen with profit to
lectures on philosophy; all this, too, without in any degree
becoming unamiable or pretentious, as sometimes young women do
when they pursue such studies. Nor could any fault be found
either with her father's family or reputation. The disparity
of their ages was however not liked by everybody; Cornelia
being in this respect a fitter match for Pompey's son. And
wiser judges thought it rather a slight upon the commonwealth
when he, to whom alone they had committed their broken
fortunes, and from whom alone, as from their physician, they
expected a cure to these distractions, went about crowned with
garlands and celebrating his nuptial feasts; never considering,
that his very consulship was a public calamity, which would
never have been given him, contrary to the rules of law, had
his country been in a flourishing state. Afterwards, however,
he took cognizance of the cases of those that had obtained
offices by gifts and bribery, and enacted laws and ordinances,
setting forth the rules of judgment by which they should be
arraigned; and regulating all things with gravity and justice,
he restored security, order, and silence to their courts of
judicature, himself giving his presence there with a band of
soldiers. But when his father-in-law Scipio was accused, he
sent for the three hundred and sixty judges to his house, and
entreated them to be favorable to him; whereupon his accuser,
seeing Scipio come into the court, accompanied by the judges
themselves, withdrew the prosecution. Upon this Pompey was
very ill spoken of, and much worse in the case of Plancus; for
whereas he himself had made a law, putting a stop to the
practice of making speeches in praise of persons under trial,
yet notwithstanding this prohibition, he came into court, and
spoke openly in commendation of Plancus, insomuch that Cato,
who happened to be one of the judges at that time, stopping his
ears with his hands, told him, he could not in conscience
listen to commendations contrary to law. Cato upon this was
refused, and set aside from being a judge, before sentence was
given, but Plancus was condemned by the rest of the judges, to
Pompey's dishonor. Shortly after, Hypsaeus, a man of consular
dignity, who was under accusation, waited for Pompey's return
from his bath to his supper, and falling down at his feet,
implored his favor; but he disdainfully passed him by, saying,
that he did nothing else but spoil his supper. Such partiality
was looked upon as a great fault in Pompey, and highly
condemned; however, he managed all things else discreetly, and
having put the government in very good order, he chose his
father-in-law to be his colleague in the consulship for the
last five months. His provinces were continued to him for the
term of four years longer, with a commission to take one
thousand talents yearly out of the treasury for the payment of
his army.
This gave occasion to some of Caesar's friends to think it
reasonable, that some consideration should be had of him too,
who had done such signal services in war, and fought so many
battles for the empire, alleging, that he deserved at least a
second consulship, or to have the government of his province
continued, that so he might command and enjoy in peace what he
had obtained in war, and no successor come in to reap the
fruits of his labor, and carry off the glory of his actions.
There arising some debate about this matter, Pompey took upon
him, as it were out of kindness to Caesar, to plead his cause,
and allay any jealousy that was conceived against him, telling
them, that he had letters from Caesar, expressing his desire
for a successor, and his own discharge from the command; but it
would be only right that they should give him leave to stand
for the consulship though in his absence. But those of Cato's
party withstood this, saying, that if he expected any favor
from the citizens, he ought to leave his army, and come in a
private capacity to canvas for it. And Pompey's making no
rejoinder, but letting it pass as a matter in which he was
overruled, increased the suspicion of his real feelings towards
Caesar. Presently, also, under presence of a war with Parthia,
he sent for his two legions which he had lent him. However,
Caesar, though he well knew why they were asked for, sent them
home very liberally rewarded.
About that time Pompey recovered of a dangerous fit of sickness
which seized him at Naples, where the whole city, upon the
suggestion of Praxagoras, made sacrifices of thanksgiving to
the gods for his recovery. The neighboring towns likewise
happening to follow their example, the thing then went its
course throughout all Italy, so that there was not a city
either great or small, that did not feast and rejoice for many
days together. And the company of those that came from all
parts to meet him was so numerous, that no place was able to
contain them, but the villages, seaport towns, and the very
highways, were all full of people, feasting and sacrificing to
the gods. Nay, many went to meet him with garlands on their
heads, and flambeaux in their hands, casting flowers and
nosegays upon him as he went along; so that this progress of
his, and reception, was one of the noblest and most glorious
sights imaginable. And yet it is thought that this very thing
was not one of the least causes and occasions of the civil war.
For Pompey, yielding to a feeling of exultation, which in the
greatness of the present display of joy lost sight of more
solid grounds of consideration, and abandoning that prudent
temper which had guided him hitherto to a safe use of all his
good fortune and his successes, gave himself up to an
extravagant confidence in his own, and contempt of Caesar's
power; insomuch that he thought neither force of arms nor care
necessary against him, but that he could pull him down much
easier than he had set him up. Besides this, Appius, under
whose command those legions which Pompey lent to Caesar were
returned, coming lately out of Gaul, spoke slightingly of
Caesar's actions there, and spread scandalous reports about
him, at the same time telling Pompey, that he was unacquainted
with his own strength and reputation, if he made use of any
other forces against Caesar than Caesar's own; for such was the
soldiers' hatred to Caesar, and their love to Pompey so great,
that they would all come over to him upon his first appearance.
By these flatteries Pompey was so puffed up, and led on into
such a careless security, that he could not choose but laugh at
those who seemed to fear a war; and when some were saying, that
if Caesar should march against the city, they could not see
what forces there were to resist him, he replied with a smile,
bidding them be in no concern, "for," said he, "whenever I
stamp with my foot in any part of Italy, there will rise up
forces enough in an instant, both horse and foot."
Caesar, on the other side, was more and more vigorous in his
proceedings, himself always at hand about the frontiers of
Italy, and sending his soldiers continually into the city to
attend all elections with their votes. Besides, he corrupted
several of the magistrates, and kept them in his pay; among
others, Paulus, the consul, who was brought over by a bribe of
one thousand and five hundred talents; and Curio, tribune of
the people, by a discharge of the debts with which he was
overwhelmed; together with Mark Antony, who, out of friendship
to Curio, had become bound with him in the same obligations
for them all. And it was stated as a fact, that a centurion of
Caesar's waiting at the senate-house, and hearing that the
senate refused to give him a longer term of his government,
clapped his hand upon his sword, and said, "But this shall give
it." And indeed all his practices and preparations seemed to
bear this appearance. Curio's demands, however, and requests
in favor of Caesar, were more popular in appearance; for he
desired one of these two things, either that Pompey also should
be called upon to resign his army, or that Caesar's should not
be taken away from him; for if both of them became private
persons, both would be satisfied with simple justice; or if
both retained their present power, each being a match for the
other, they would be contented with what they already had; but
he that weakens one, does at the same time strengthen the
other, and so doubles that very strength and power which he
stood in fear of before. Marcellus, the consul, replied
nothing to all this, but that Caesar was a robber, and should
be proclaimed an enemy to the state, if he did not disband his
army. However, Curio, with the assistance of Antony and Piso,
prevailed, that the matter in debate should be put to the
question, and decided by vote in the senate. So that it being
ordered upon the question for those to withdraw, who were of
opinion that Caesar only should lay down his army and Pompey
command, the majority withdrew. But when it was ordered again
for those to withdraw, whose vote was that both should lay
down their arms and neither command, there were but twenty-two
for Pompey, all the rest remained on Curio's side. Whereupon
he, as one proud of his conquest, leaped out in triumph among
the people, who received him with as great tokens of joy,
clapping their hands, and crowning him with garlands and
flowers. Pompey was not then present in the senate, because it
is not lawful for generals in command of an army to come into
the city. But Marcellus rising up, said, that he would not sit
there hearing speeches, when he saw ten legions already passing
the Alps on their march toward the city, but on his own
authority would send someone to oppose them in defense of the
country.
Upon this the city went into mourning, as in a public calamity,
and Marcellus, accompanied by the senate, went solemnly through
the forum to meet Pompey, and made him this address. "I hereby
give you orders, O Pompey, to defend your country, to employ
the troops you now command, and to levy more." Lentulus,
consul elect for the year following, spoke to the same purpose.
Antony, however, contrary to the will of the senate, having in
a public assembly read a letter of Caesar's, containing various
plausible overtures such as were likely to gain the common
people, proposing, namely, that both Pompey and he quitting
their governments, and dismissing their armies, should submit
to the judgment of the people, and give an account of their
actions before them, the consequence was that when Pompey began
to make his levies, he found himself disappointed in his
expectations. Some few, indeed, came in, but those very
unwillingly; others would not answer to their names, and the
generality cried out for peace. Lentulus, notwithstanding he
was now entered upon his consulship, would not assemble the
senate; but Cicero, who was lately returned from Cilicia,
labored for a reconciliation, proposing that Caesar should
leave his province of Gaul and army, reserving two legions
only, together with the government of Illyricum, and should
thus be put in nomination for a second consulship. Pompey
disliking this motion, Caesar's friends were contented that he
should surrender one of the two; but Lentulus still opposing,
and Cato crying out that Pompey did ill to be deceived again,
the reconciliation did not take effect.
In the meantime, news was brought that Caesar had occupied
Ariminum, a great city in Italy, and was marching directly
towards Rome with all his forces. But this latter was
altogether false, for he had no more with him at that time than
three hundred horse and five thousand foot; and he did not mean
to tarry for the body of his army, which lay beyond the Alps,
choosing rather to fall in on a sudden upon his enemies, while
they were in confusion, and did not expect him, than to give
them time, and fight them after they had made preparations.
For when he came to the banks of the Rubicon, a river that
made the bounds of his province, there he made a halt, pausing
a little, and considering, we may suppose, with himself the
greatness of the enterprise which he had undertaken; then, at
last, like men that are throwing themselves headlong from some
precipice into a vast abyss, having shut, as it were, his
mind's eyes and put away from his sight the idea of danger, he
merely uttered to those near him in Greek the words,
"Anerriphtho kubos," (let the die be cast,) and led his army
through it. No sooner was the news arrived, but there was an
uproar throughout all the city, and a consternation in the
people even to astonishment, such as never was known in Rome
before; all the senate ran immediately to Pompey, and the
magistrates followed. And when Tullus made inquiry about his
legions and forces, Pompey seemed to pause a little, and
answered with some hesitation, that he had those two legions
ready that Caesar sent back, and that out of the men who had
been previously enrolled he believed he could shortly make up a
body of thirty thousand men. On which Tullus crying out aloud,
"O Pompey, you have deceived us," gave his advice to send off a
deputation to Caesar. Favonius, a man of fair character,
except that he used to suppose his own petulance and abusive
talking a copy of Cato's straight-forwardness, bade Pompey
stamp upon the ground, and call forth the forces he had
promised. But Pompey bore patiently with this unseasonable
raillery; and on Cato putting him in mind of what he had
foretold from the very beginning about Caesar, made this answer
only, that Cato indeed had spoken more like a prophet, but he
had acted more like a friend. Cato then advised them to choose
Pompey general with absolute power and authority, saying that
the same men who do great evils, know best how to cure them.
He himself went his way forthwith into Sicily, the province
that was allotted him, and all the rest of the senators
likewise departed every one to his respective government.
Thus all Italy in a manner being up in arms, no one could say
what was best to be done. For those that were without, came
from all parts flocking into the city; and they who were
within, seeing the confusion and disorder so great there, all
good things impotent, and disobedience and insubordination
grown too strong to be controlled by the magistrates, were
quitting it as fast as the others came in. Nay, it was so far
from being possible to allay their fears, that they would not
suffer Pompey to follow out his own judgment, but every man
pressed and urged him according to his particular fancy,
whether it proceeded from doubt, fear, grief, or any meaner
passion; so that even in the same day quite contrary counsels
were acted upon. Then, again, it was as impossible to have any
good intelligence of the enemy; for what each man heard by
chance upon a flying rumor, he would report for truth, and
exclaim against Pompey if he did not believe it. Pompey, at
length, seeing such a confusion in Rome, determined with
himself to put an end to their clamors by his departure, and
therefore commanding all the senate to follow him, and
declaring, that whosoever tarried behind, should be judged a
confederate of Caesar's, about the dusk of the evening he went
out and left the city. The consuls also followed after in a
hurry, without offering the sacrifices to the gods, usual
before a war. But in all this, Pompey himself had the glory,
that in the midst of such calamities, he had so much of men's
love and good-will. For though many found fault with the
conduct of the war, yet no man hated the general; and there
were more to be found of those that went out of Rome, because
that they could not forsake Pompey, than of those that fled for
love of liberty.
Some few days after Pompey was gone out, Caesar came into the
city, and made himself master of it, treating everyone with a
great deal of courtesy, and appeasing their fears, except only
Metellus, one of the tribunes; on whose refusing to let him
take any money out of the treasury, Caesar threatened him with
death, adding words yet harsher than the threat, that it was
far easier for him to do it than say it. By this means
removing Metellus, and taking what moneys were of use for his
occasions, he set forwards in pursuit of Pompey, endeavoring
with all speed to drive him out of Italy before his army, that
was in Spain, could join him.
But Pompey arriving at Brundusium, and having plenty of ships
there, bade the two consuls embark immediately, and with them
shipped thirty cohorts of foot, bound before him for
Dyrrhachium. He sent likewise his father-in-law Scipio, and
Cnaeus his son, into Syria, to provide and fit out a fleet
there; himself in the meantime having blocked up the gates,
placed his lightest soldiers as guards upon the walls; and
giving express orders that the citizens should keep within
doors, he dug up all the ground inside the city, cutting
trenches, and fixing stakes and palisades throughout all the
streets of the city, except only two that led down to the
sea-side. Thus in three days space having with ease put all
the rest of his army on shipboard, he suddenly gave the signal
to those that guarded the walls, who nimbly repairing to the
ships, were received on board and carried off. Caesar meantime
perceiving their departure by seeing the walls unguarded,
hastened after, and in the heat of pursuit was all but
entangled himself among the stakes and trenches. But the
Brundusians discovering the danger to him, and showing him the
way, he wheeled about, and taking a circuit round the city,
made towards the haven, where he found all the ships on their
way, excepting only two vessels that had but a few soldiers
aboard.
Most are of opinion, that this departure of Pompey's is to be
counted among the best of his military performances, but Caesar
himself could not but wonder that he, who was thus ingarrisoned
in a city well fortified, who was in expectation of his forces
from Spain, and was master of the sea besides, should leave and
abandon Italy. Cicero accuses him of imitating the conduct of
Themistocles, rather than of Pericles, when the circumstances
were more like those of Pericles than they were like those of
Themistocles. However, it appeared plainly, and Caesar showed
it by his actions, that he was in great fear of delay, for when
he had taken Numerius, a friend of Pompey's, prisoner, he sent
him as an ambassador to Brundusium, with offers of peace and
reconciliation upon equal terms; but Numerius sailed away with
Pompey. And now Caesar having become master of all Italy in
sixty days, without a drop of blood shed, had a great desire
forthwith to follow Pompey; but being destitute of shipping, he
was forced to divert his course, and march into Spain,
designing to bring over Pompey's forces there to his own.
In the meantime Pompey raised a mighty army both by sea and
land. As for his navy, it was irresistible. For there were
five hundred men of war, besides an infinite company of light
vessels, Liburnians, and others; and for his land forces, the
cavalry made up a body of seven thousand horse, the very flower
of Rome and Italy, men of family, wealth, and high spirit; but
the infantry was a mixture of unexperienced soldiers drawn from
different quarters, and these he exercised and trained near
Beroea, where he quartered his army; himself noways slothful,
but performing all his exercises as if he had been in the flower
of his youth, conduct which raised the spirits of his soldiers
extremely. For it was no small encouragement for them to see
Pompey the Great, sixty years of age wanting two, at one time
handling his arms among the foot, then again mounted among the
horse, drawing out his sword with ease in full career, and
sheathing it up as easily; and in darting the javelin, showing
not only skill and dexterity in hitting the mark, but also
strength and activity in throwing it so far that few of the
young men went beyond him.
Several kings and princes of nations came thither to him, and
there was a concourse of Roman citizens who had held the
magistracies, so numerous that they made up a complete senate.
Labienus forsook his old friend Caesar, whom he had served
throughout all his wars in Gaul, and came over to Pompey; and
Brutus, son to that Brutus that was put to death in Gaul, a man
of a high spirit, and one that to that day had never so much as
saluted or spoke to Pompey, looking upon him as the murderer of
his father, came then and submitted himself to him as the
defender of their liberty. Cicero likewise, though he had
written and advised otherwise, yet was ashamed not to be
accounted in the number of those that would hazard their lives
and fortunes for the safeguard of their country. There came to
him also into Macedonia, Tidius Sextius, a man extremely old,
and lame of one leg; so that others indeed mocked and laughed
at the spectacle, but Pompey, as soon as he saw him, rose and
ran to meet him, esteeming it no small testimony in his favor,
when men of such age and infirmities should rather choose to be
with him in danger, than in safety at home. Afterwards in a
meeting of their senate they passed a decree, on the motion of
Cato, that no Roman citizen should be put to death but in
battle, and that they should not sack or plunder any city that
was subject to the Roman empire, a resolution which gained
Pompey's party still greater reputation, insomuch that those
who were noways at all concerned in the war, either because
they dwelt afar off, or were thought incapable of giving help,
were yet, in their good wishes, upon his side, and in all their
words, so far as that went, supported the good or just cause,
as they called it; esteeming those as enemies to the gods and
men, that wished not victory to Pompey.
Neither was Pompey's clemency such, but that Caesar likewise
showed himself as merciful a conqueror; for when he had taken
and overthrown all Pompey's forces in Spain, he gave them easy
terms, leaving the commanders at their liberty, and taking the
common soldiers into his own pay. Then repassing the Alps, and
making a running march through Italy, he came to Brundusium
about the winter solstice, and crossing the sea there, landed
at the port of Oricum. And having Jubius, an intimate friend
of Pompey's, with him as his prisoner, he dispatched him to
Pompey with an invitation, that they, meeting together in a
conference, should disband both their armies within three days,
and renewing their former friendship with solemn oaths, should
return together into Italy. Pompey looked upon this again as
some new stratagem, and therefore marching down in all haste to
the sea-coast, possessed himself of all forts and places of
strength suitable to encamp in, and to secure his laud forces,
as likewise of all ports and harbors commodious to receive any
that came by sea, so that what wind soever blew, it must needs
in some way or other be favorable to him, bringing in either
provision, men, or money; while Caesar, on the contrary, was so
hemmed in both by sea and land, that he was forced to desire
battle, daily provoking the enemy, and assailing them in their
very forts; and in these light skirmishes for the most part had
the better. Once only he was dangerously overthrown, and was
within a little of losing his whole army, Pompey having fought
nobly, routing the whole force, and killing two thousand on the
spot. But either he was not able, or was afraid, to go on and
force his way into their camp with them, so that Caesar made
the remark, that "Today the victory had been the enemy's, had
there been anyone among them to gain it." Pompey's soldiers
were so encouraged by this victory that they were eager now to
have all put to the decision of a battle; but Pompey himself,
though he wrote to distant kings, generals, and states in
confederacy with him, as a conqueror, yet was afraid to hazard
the success of a battle, choosing rather by delays, and
distress of provisions, to tire out a body of men, who had
never yet been conquered by force of arms, and had long been
used to fight and conquer together; while their time of life,
now an advanced one, which made them quickly weary of those
other hardships of war, such as were long marches, and frequent
decampings, making trenches, and building fortifications, made
them eager to come to close combat and venture a battle with
all speed.
Pompey had all along hitherto by his persuasions pretty well
quieted his soldiers; but after this last engagement, when
Caesar for want of provisions was forced to raise his camp, and
passed through Athamania into Thessaly, it was impossible to
curb or allay the heat of their spirits any longer. For all
crying out with a general voice, that Caesar was fled, some
were for pursuing and pressing upon him, others for returning
into Italy; some there were that sent their friends and
servants beforehand to Rome, to hire houses near the forum,
that they might be in readiness to sue for offices; several of
their own motion sailed off at once to Lesbos to carry to
Cornelia, (whom Pompey had conveyed thither to be in safety,)
the joyful news, that the war was ended. And a senate being
called, and the matter being under debate, Afranius was of
opinion, that Italy should first be regained, for that it was
the grand prize and crown of all the war; and they who were
masters of that, would quickly have at their devotion all the
provinces of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, and Gaul; but
what was of greatest weight and moment to Pompey, it was his
own native country that lay near, reaching out her hand for his
help; and certainly it could not be consistent with his honor
to leave her thus exposed to all indignities, and in bondage
under slaves and the flatterers of a tyrant. But Pompey
himself, on the contrary, thought it neither honorable to fly a
second time before Caesar, and be pursued, when fortune had
given him the advantage of a pursuit; nor indeed lawful before
the gods to forsake Scipio and divers other men of consular
dignity dispersed throughout Greece and Thessaly, who must
necessarily fall into Caesar's hands, together with large sums
of money and numerous forces; and as to his care for the city
of Rome, that would most eminently appear, by removing the
scene of war to a greater distance, and leaving her, without
feeling the distress or even hearing the sound of these evils,
to await in peace the return of whichever should be the victor.
With this determination, Pompey marched forwards in pursuit of
Caesar, firmly resolved with himself not to give him battle,
but rather to besiege and distress him, by keeping close at his
heels, and cutting him short. There were other reasons that
made him continue this resolution, but especially because a
saying that was current among the Romans serving in the cavalry
came to his ear, to the effect, that they ought to beat Caesar
as soon as possible, and then humble Pompey too. And some
report, it was for this reason that Pompey never employed Cato
in any matter of consequence during the whole war, but now when
he pursued Caesar, left him to guard his baggage by sea,
fearing lest, if Caesar should be taken off, he himself also by
Cato's means not long after should be forced to give up his
power.
Whilst he was thus slowly attending the motions of the enemy,
he was exposed on all sides to outcries, and imputations of
using his generalship to defeat, not Caesar, but his country
and the senate, that he might always continue in authority, and
never cease to keep those for his guards and servants, who
themselves claimed to govern the world. Domitius Aenobarbus,
continually calling him Agamemnon, and king of kings, excited
jealousy against him; and Favonius, by his unseasonable
raillery, did him no less injury than those who openly attacked
him, as when he cried out, "Good friends, you must not expect
to gather any figs in Tusculum this year." But Lucius
Afranius, who had lain under an imputation of treachery for the
loss of the army in Spain, when he saw Pompey purposely
declining an engagement, declared openly, that he could not but
admire, why those who were so ready to accuse him, did not go
themselves and fight this buyer and seller of their provinces.
With these and many such speeches they wrought upon Pompey, who
never could bear reproach, or resist the expectations of his
friends; and thus they forced him to break his measures, so
that he forsook his own prudent resolution to follow their vain
hopes and desires: weakness that would have been blamable ill
the pilot of a ship, how much more in the sovereign commander
of such an army, and so many nations. But he, though he had
often commended those physicians who did not comply with the
capricious appetites of their patients, yet himself could not
but yield to the malady and disease of his companions and
advisers in the war, rather than use some severity in their
cure. Truly who could have said that health was not disordered
and a cure not required in the case of men who went up and down
the camp, suing already for the consulship and office of
praetor, while Spinther, Domitius, and Scipio made friends,
raised factions, and quarrelled among themselves, who should
succeed Caesar in the dignity of his high-priesthood, esteeming
all as lightly, as if they were to engage only with Tigranes,
king of Armenia, or some petty Nabathaean king, not with that
Caesar and his army that had stormed a thousand towns, and
subdued more than three hundred several nations; that had
fought innumerable battles with the Germans and Gauls, and
always carried the victory; that had taken a million of men
prisoners, and slain as many upon the spot in pitched battles?
But they went on soliciting and clamoring, and on reaching the
plain of Pharsalia, they forced Pompey by their pressure and
importunities to call a council of war, where Labienus, general
of the horse, stood up first and swore that he would not return
out of the battle if he did not rout the enemies; and a]l the
rest took the same oath. That night Pompey dreamed that as he
went into the theater, the people received him with great
applause, and that he himself adorned the temple of Venus the
Victorious, with many spoils. This vision partly encouraged,
but partly also disheartened him, fearing lest that splendor
and ornament to Venus should be made with spoils furnished by
himself to Caesar, who derived his family from that goddess.
Besides there were some panic fears and alarms that ran through
the camp, with such a noise that it awaked him out of his
sleep. And about the time of renewing the watch towards
morning, there appeared a great light over Caesar's camp,
whilst they were all at rest, and from thence a ball of flaming
fire was carried into Pompey's camp, which Caesar himself says
he saw, as he was walking his rounds.
Now Caesar having designed to raise his camp with the morning
and move to Scotussa, whilst the soldiers were busy in pulling
down their tents, and sending on their cattle and servants
before them with their baggage, there came in scouts who
brought word that they saw arms carried to and fro in the
enemy's camp, and heard a noise and running up and down, as of
men preparing for battle; not long after there came in other
scouts with further intelligence, that the first ranks were
already set in battle array. Thereupon Caesar, when he had
told them that the wished for day was come at last, when they
should fight with men, not with hunger and famine, instantly
gave orders for the red colors to be set up before his tent,
that being the ordinary signal of battle among the Romans. As
soon as the soldiers saw that, they left their tents, and with
great shouts of joy ran to their arms; the officers, likewise,
on their parts drawing up their companies in order of battle,
every man fell into his proper rank without any trouble or
noise, as quietly and orderly as if they had been in a dance.
Pompey himself led the right wing of his army against Antony,
and placed his father-in-law Scipio in the middle against
Lucius Calvinus. The left wing was commanded by Lucius
Domitius; and supported by the great mass of the horse. For
almost the whole cavalry was posted there, in the hope of
crushing Caesar, and cutting off the tenth legion, which was
spoken of as the stoutest in all the army, and in which Caesar
himself usually fought in person. Caesar observing the left
wing of the enemy to be lined and fortified with such a mighty
guard of horse, and alarmed at the gallantry of their
appearance, sent for a detachment of six cohorts out of the
reserves, and placed them in the rear of the tenth legion,
commanding them not to stir, lest they should be discovered by
the enemy; but when the enemy's horse should begin to charge,
and press upon them, that they should make up with all speed to
the front through the foremost ranks, and not throw their
javelins at a distance, as is usual with brave soldiers, that
they may come to a close fight with their swords the sooner,
but that they should strike them upwards into the eyes and
faces of the enemy; telling them that those fine young dancers
would never endure the steel shining in their eyes, but would
fly to save their handsome faces. This was Caesar's employment
at that time. But while he was thus instructing his soldiers,
Pompey on horseback was viewing the order of both armies, and
when he saw how well the enemy kept their ranks, expecting
quietly the signal of battle; and, on the contrary, how
impatient and unsteady his own men were, waving up and down in
disorder for want of experience, he was very much afraid that
their ranks would be broken upon the first onset; and therefore
he gave out orders that the van should make a stand, and
keeping close in their ranks, should receive the enemy's
charge. Caesar much condemns this command; which he says not
only took off from the strength of the blows, which would
otherwise have been made with a spring; but also lost the men
the impetus, which, more than anything, in the moment of their
coming upon the enemy, fills soldiers with impulse and
inspiration, the very shouts and rapid pace adding to their
fury; of which Pompey deprived his men, arresting them in their
course and cooling down their heat.
Caesar's army consisted of twenty-two thousand, and Pompey's of
somewhat above twice as many. When the signal of battle was
given on both sides, and the trumpets began to sound a charge,
most men of course were fully occupied with their own matters;
only some few of the noblest Romans, together with certain
Greeks there present, standing as spectators without the
battle, seeing the armies now ready to join, could not but
consider in themselves to what a pass private ambition and
emulation had brought the empire. Common arms, and kindred
ranks drawn up under the self-same standards, the whole flower
and strength of the same single city here meeting in collision
with itself, offered plain proof how blind and how mad a thing
human nature is, when once possessed with any passion; for if
they had been desirous only to rule, and enjoy in peace what
they had conquered in war, the greatest and best part of the
world was subject to them both by sea and land. But if there
was yet a thirst in their ambition, that must still be fed with
new trophies and triumphs, the Parthian and German wars would
yield matter enough to satisfy the most covetous of honor.
Scythia, moreover, was yet unconquered, and the Indians too,
where their ambition might be colored over with the specious
pretext of civilizing barbarous nations. And what Scythian
horse, Parthian arrows, or Indian riches, could be able to
resist seventy thousand Roman soldiers, well appointed in arms,
under the command of two such generals as Pompey and Caesar,
whose names they had heard of before that of the Romans, and
whose prowess, by their conquests of such wild, remote, savage,
and brutish nations, was spread further than the fame of the
Romans themselves? Today they met in conflict, and could no
longer be induced to spare their country, even out of regard
for their own glory or the fear of losing the name which till
this day both had held, of having never yet been defeated. As
for their former private ties, and the charms of Julia, and the
marriage that had made them near connections, these could now
only be looked upon as tricks of state, the mere securities of
a treaty made to serve the needs of an occasion, not the
pledges of any real friendship.
Now, therefore, as soon as the plains of Pharsalia were covered
with men, horse, and armor, and that the signal of battle was
raised on either side, Caius Crassianus, a centurion, who
commanded a company of one hundred and twenty men, was the
first that advanced out of Caesar's army, to give the charge,
and acquit himself of a solemn engagement that he had made to
Caesar. He had been the first man that Caesar had seen going
out of the camp in the morning, and Caesar, after saluting him,
had asked him what he thought of the coming battle. To which
he, stretching out his right hand, replied aloud, "Thine is the
victory, O Caesar, thou shalt conquer gloriously, and I myself
this day will be the subject of thy praise either alive or
dead." In pursuance of this promise he hastened forward, and
being followed by many more, charged into the midst of the
enemy. There they came at once to a close fight with their
swords, and made a great slaughter; but as he was still
pressing forward, and breaking the ranks of the vanguard, one
of Pompey's soldiers ran him in at the mouth, so that the point
of the sword came out behind at his neck; and Crassianus being
thus slain, the fight became doubtful, and continued equal on
that part of the battle.
Pompey had not yet brought on the right wing, but stayed and
looked about, waiting to see what execution his cavalry would
do on the left. They had already drawn out their squadrons in
form, designing to turn Caesar's flank, and force those few
horse, which he had placed in the front, to give back upon the
battalion of foot. But Caesar, on the other side, having given
the signal, his horse retreated back a little, and gave way to
those six subsidiary cohorts, which had been posted in the
rear, as a reserve to cover the flank; and which now came out,
three thousand men in number, and met the enemy; and when they
came up, standing by the horses, struck their javelins upwards,
according to their instructions, and hit the horsemen full in
their faces. They, unskillful in any manner of fight, and
least of all expecting or understanding such a kind as this,
had not courage enough to endure the blows upon their faces,
but turning their backs, and covering their eyes with their
hands, shamefully took to flight. Caesar's men, however, did
not follow them, but marched upon the foot, and attacked the
wing, which the flight of the cavalry had left unprotected, and
liable to be turned and taken in the rear, so that this wing
now being attacked in the flank by these, and charged in the
front by the tenth legion, was not able to abide the charge, or
make any longer resistance, especially when they saw themselves
surrounded and circumvented in the very way in which they had
designed to invest the enemy. Thus these being likewise routed
and put to flight, when Pompey, by the dust flying in the air,
conjectured the fate of his horse, it were very hard to say
what his thoughts or intentions were, but looking like one
distracted and beside himself, and without any recollection or
reflection that he was Pompey the Great, he retired slowly
towards his camp, without speaking a word to any man, exactly
according to the description in the verses,
But Jove from heaven struck Ajax with a fear;
Ajax the bold then stood astonished there,
Flung o'er his back the mighty sevenfold shield,
And trembling gazed and spied about the field.
In this state and condition he went into his own tent, and sat
down, speechless still, until some of the enemy fell in
together with his men that were flying into the camp, and then
he let fall only this one word, "What? into the very camp?"
and said no more; but rose up, and putting on a dress suitable
to his present fortune, made his way secretly out.
By this time the rest of the army was put to flight, and there
was a great slaughter in the camp among the servants and those
that guarded the tents, but of the soldiers themselves there
were not above six thousand slain, as is stated by Asinius
Pollio, who himself fought in this battle on Caesar's side.
When Caesar's soldiers had taken the camp, they saw clearly the
folly and vanity of the enemy; for all their tents and
pavilions were richly set out with garlands of myrtle,
embroidered carpets and hangings, and tables laid and covered
with goblets. There were large bowls of wine ready, and
everything prepared and put in array, in the manner rather of
people who had offered sacrifice and were going to celebrate a
holiday, than of soldiers who had armed themselves to go out to
battle, so possessed with the expectation of success and so
full of empty confidence had they gone out that morning.
When Pompey had got a little way from the camp, he dismounted
and forsook his horse, having but a small retinue with him; and
finding that no man pursued him, walked on softly afoot, taken
up altogether with thoughts, such as probably might possess a
man that for the space of thirty-four years together had been
accustomed to conquest and victory, and was then at last, in
his old age, learning for the first time what defeat and flight
were. And it was no small affliction to consider, that he had
lost in one hour all that glory and power, which he had been
getting in so many wars, and bloody battles; and that he who
but a little before was guarded with such an army of foot, so
many squadrons of horse, and such a mighty fleet, was now
flying in so mean a condition, and with such a slender retinue,
that his very enemies who fought him could not know him. Thus,
when he had passed by the city of Larissa, and came into the
pass of Tempe, being very thirsty, he kneeled down and drank
out of the river; then rising up again, he passed through
Tempe, until he came to the seaside, and there he betook
himself to a poor fisherman's cottage, where he rested the
remainder of the night. The next morning about break of day he
went into one of the river boats, and taking none of those that
followed him except such as were free, dismissed his servants,
advising them to go boldly to Caesar, and not be afraid. As he
was rowing up and down near the shore, he chanced to spy a
large merchant-ship, lying off, just ready to set sail; the
master of which was a Roman citizen, named Peticius, who,
though he was not familiarly acquainted with Pompey, yet knew
him well by sight. Now it happened that this Peticius dreamed,
the night before, that he saw Pompey, not like the man he had
often seen him, but in a humble and dejected condition, and in
that posture discoursing with him. He was then telling his
dream to the people on board, as men do when at leisure, and
especially dreams of that consequence, when of a sudden one of
the mariners told him, he saw a river boat with oars putting
off from shore, and that some of the men there shook their
garments, and held out their hands, with signs to take them in;
thereupon Peticius looking attentively, at once recognized
Pompey, just as he appeared in his dream, and smiting his hand
on his head, ordered the mariners to let down the ship's boat,
he himself waving his hand, and calling to him by his name,
already assured of his change and the change of his fortune by
that of his garb. So that without waiting for any further
entreaty or discourse, he took him into his ship, together with
as many of his company as he thought fit, and hoisted sail.
There were with him the two Lentuli, and Favonius; and a little
after they spied king Deiotarus, making up towards them from
the shore; so they stayed and took him in along with them. At
supper time, the master of the ship having made ready such
provisions as he had aboard, Pompey, for want of his servants,
began to undo his shoes himself; which Favonius noticing ran to
him and undid them, and helped him to anoint himself, and
always after continued to wait upon, and attend him in all
things, as servants do their masters, even to the washing of
his feet, and preparing his supper. Insomuch that anyone
there present, observing the free and unaffected courtesy of
these services, might have well exclaimed,
O heavens, in those that noble are,
Whate'er they do is fit and fair.
Pompey, sailing by the city of Amphipolis, crossed over from
thence to Mitylene, with a design to take in Cornelia and his
son; and as soon as he arrived at the port in that island, he
dispatched a messenger into the city, with news very different
from Cornelia's expectation. For she, by all the former
messages and letters sent to please her, had been put in hopes
that the war was ended at Dyrrhachium, and that there was
nothing more remaining for Pompey, but the pursuit of Caesar.
The messenger finding her in the same hopes still, was not able
to salute or speak to her, but declaring the greatness of her
misfortune by his tears rather than by his words, desired her
to make haste if she would see Pompey, with one ship only, and
that not of his own. The young lady hearing this, fell down in
a swoon, and continued a long time senseless and speechless.
And when with some trouble she was brought to her senses again,
being conscious to herself that this was no time for
lamentation and tears, she started up and ran through the city
towards the seaside, where Pompey meeting and embracing her, as
she sank down, supported by his arms, "This, sir," she
exclaimed, "is the effect of my fortune, not of yours, that I
see you thus reduced to one poor vessel, who before your
marriage with Cornelia, were wont to sail in these seas with a
fleet of five hundred ships. Why therefore should you come to
see me, or why not rather have left to her evil genius one who
has brought upon you her own ill-fortune? How happy a woman
had I been, if I had breathed out my last, before the news came
from Parthia of the death of Publius, the husband of my youth,
and how prudent if I had followed his destiny, as I designed!
But I was reserved for a greater mischief, even the ruin of
Pompey the Great."
Thus, they say, Cornelia spoke to him, and this was Pompey's
reply: "You have had, Cornelia, but one season of a better
fortune, which it may be, gave you unfounded hopes, by
attending me a longer time than is usual. It behoves us, who
are mortals born, to endure these events, and to try fortune
yet again; neither is it any less possible to recover our
former state, than it was to fall from that into this."
Thereupon Cornelia sent for her servants and baggage out of the
city. The citizens also of Mitylene came out to salute and
invite Pompey into the city, but he refused, advising them to
be obedient to the conqueror, and fear not, for that Caesar was
a man of great goodness and clemency. Then turning to
Cratippus, the philosopher, who came among the rest out of the
city to visit him, he began to find some fault, and briefly
argued with him upon Providence, but Cratippus modestly
declined the dispute, putting him in better hopes only, lest by
opposing, he might seem too austere or unseasonable. For he
might have put Pompey a question in his turn, in defense of
Providence; and might have demonstrated the necessity there was
that the commonwealth should be turned into a monarchy, because
of their ill government in the state; and could have asked,
"How, O Pompey, and by what token or assurance can we
ascertain, that if the victory had been yours, you would have
used your fortune better than Caesar? We must leave the divine
power to act as we find it do."
Pompey having taken his wife and friends aboard, set sail,
making no port, nor touching anywhere, but when he was
necessitated to take in provisions, or fresh water. The first
city he entered was Attalia, in Pamphylia, and whilst he was
there, there came some galleys thither to him out of Cilicia,
together with a small body of soldiers, and he had almost sixty
senators with him again; then hearing that his navy was safe
too, and that Cato had rallied a considerable body of soldiers
after their overthrow, and was crossing with them over into
Africa, he began to complain and blame himself to his friends
that he had allowed himself to be driven into engaging by land,
without making use of his other forces, in which he was
irresistibly the stronger, and had not kept near enough to his
fleet, that failing by land, he might have reinforced himself
from the sea, and would have been again at the head of a power
quite sufficient to encounter the enemy on equal terms. And in
truth, neither did Pompey during all the war commit a greater
oversight, nor Caesar use a more subtle stratagem, than in
drawing the fight so far off from the naval forces.
As it now was, however, since he must come to some decision,
and try some plan within his present ability, he dispatched his
agents to the neighboring cities, and himself sailed about in
person to others, requiring their aid in money and men for his
ships. But, fearing lest the rapid approach of the enemy might
cut off all his preparations, he began to consider what place
would yield him the safest refuge and retreat at present. A
consultation was held, and it was generally agreed that no
province of the Romans was secure enough. As for foreign
kingdoms, he himself was of opinion, that Parthia would be the
fittest to receive and defend them in their present weakness,
and best able to furnish them with new means and send them out
again with large forces. Others of the council were for going
into Africa, and to king Juba. But Theophanes the Lesbian,
thought it madness to leave Egypt, that was but at a distance
of three days' sailing, and make no use of Ptolemy, who was
still a boy, and was highly indebted to Pompey for the
friendship and favor he had shown to his father, only to put
himself under the Parthian, and trust the most treacherous
nation in the world; and rather than make any trial of the
clemency of a Roman, and his own near connection, to whom if he
would but yield to be second, he might be the first and chief
over all the rest, to go and place himself at the mercy of
Arsaces, which even Crassus had not submitted to, while alive;
and, moreover, to expose his young wife, of the family of the
Scipios, among a barbarous people, who govern by their lusts,
and measure their greatness by their power to commit affronts
and insolencies; from whom, though she suffered no dishonor,
yet it might be thought she did, being in the hands of those
who had the power to do it. This argument alone, they say, was
persuasive enough to divert his course, that was designed
towards Euphrates, if it were so indeed that any counsel of
Pompey's, and not some superior power, made him take this other
way.
As soon, therefore, as it was resolved upon, that he should fly
into Egypt, setting sail from Cyprus in a galley of Seleucia,
together with Cornelia, while the rest of his company sailed
along near him, some in ships of war, and others in merchant
vessels, he passed over sea without danger. But on hearing
that king Ptolemy was posted with his army at the city of
Pelusium, making war against his sister, he steered his course
that way, and sent a messenger before to acquaint the king with
his arrival, and to crave his protection. Ptolemy himself was
quite young, and therefore Pothinus, who had the principal
administration of all affairs, called a council of the chief
men, those being the greatest whom he pleased to make so, and
commanded them every man to deliver his opinion touching the
reception of Pompey. It was, indeed, a miserable thing, that
the fate of the great Pompey should be left to the
determinations of Pothinus the eunuch, Theodotus of Chios, the
paid rhetoric master, and Achillas the Egyptian. For these,
among the chamberlains and menial domestics, that made up the
rest of the council, were the chief and leading men. Pompey,
who thought it dishonorable for him to owe his safety to
Caesar, riding at anchor at a distance from shore, was forced
to wait the sentence of this tribunal. It seems they were so
far different in their opinions that some were for sending the
man away, and others again for inviting and receiving him; but
Theodotus, to show his cleverness and the cogency of his
rhetoric, undertook to demonstrate, that neither the one nor
the other was safe in that juncture of affairs. For if they
entertained him, they would be sure to make Caesar their enemy,
and Pompey their master; or if they dismissed him, they might
render themselves hereafter obnoxious to Pompey, for that
inhospitable expulsion, and to Caesar, for the escape; so that
the most expedient course would be to send for him and take
away his life, for by that means they would ingratiate
themselves with the one, and have no reason to fear the other;
adding, it is related, with a smile, that "a dead man cannot
bite."
This advice being approved of, they committed the execution of
it to Achillas. He, therefore, taking with him as his
accomplices one Septimius, a man that had formerly held a
command under Pompey, and Salvius, another centurion, with
three or four attendants, made up towards Pompey's galley. In
the meantime, all the chiefest of those who accompanied Pompey
in this voyage, were come into his ship to learn the event of
their embassy. But when they saw the manner of their
reception, that in appearance it was neither princely nor
honorable, nor indeed in any way answerable to the hopes of
Theophanes, or their expectation, (for there came but a few men
in a fisherman's boat to meet them,) they began to suspect the
meanness of their entertainment, and gave warning to Pompey
that he should row back his galley, whilst he was out of their
reach, and make for the sea. By this time, the Egyptian boat
drew near, and Septimius standing up first, saluted Pompey in
the Latin tongue, by the title of imperator. Then Achillas,
saluting him in the Greek language, desired him to come aboard
his vessel, telling him, that the sea was very shallow towards
the shore, and that a galley of that burden could not avoid
striking upon the sands. At the same time they saw several of
the king's galleys getting their men on board, and all the
shore covered with soldiers; so that even if they changed their
minds, it seemed impossible for them to escape, and besides,
their distrust would have given the assassins a pretence for
their cruelty. Pompey, therefore, taking his leave of
Cornelia, who was already lamenting his death before it came,
bade two centurions, with Philip, one of his freedmen, and a
slave called Scythes, go on board the boat before him. And as
some of the crew with Achillas were reaching out their hands to
help him, he turned about towards his wife and son, and
repeated those iambics of Sophocles,
He that once enters at a tyrant's door,
Becomes a slave, though he were free before.
These were the last words he spoke to his friends, and so he
went aboard. Observing presently that notwithstanding there
was a considerable distance betwixt his galley and the shore,
yet none of the company addressed any words of friendliness or
welcome to him all the way, he looked earnestly upon Septimius,
and said, "I am not mistaken, surely, in believing you to have
been formerly my fellow-soldier." But he only nodded with his
head, making no reply at all, nor showing any other courtesy.
Since, therefore, they continued silent, Pompey took a little
book in his hand, in which was written out an address in Greek,
which he intended to make to king Ptolemy, and began to read
it. When they drew near to the shore, Cornelia, together with
the rest of his friends in the galley, was very impatient to
see the event, and began to take courage at last, when she saw
several of the royal escort coming to meet him, apparently to
give him a more honorable reception; but in the meantime, as
Pompey took Philip by the hand to rise up more easily,
Septimius first stabbed him from behind with his sword; and
after him likewise Salvius and Achillas drew out their swords.
He, therefore, taking up his gown with both hands, drew it over
his face, and neither saying nor doing anything unworthy of
himself, only groaning a little, endured the wounds they gave
him, and so ended his life, in the fifty-ninth year of his age,
the very next day after the day of his birth.
Cornelia, with her company from the galley, seeing him
murdered, gave such a cry that it was heard to the shore, and
weighing anchor with all speed, they hoisted sail, and fled. A
strong breeze from the shore assisted their flight into the
open sea, so that the Egyptians, though desirous to overtake
them, desisted from the pursuit. But they cut off Pompey's
head, and threw the rest of his body overboard, leaving it
naked upon the shore, to be viewed by any that had the
curiosity to see so sad a spectacle. Philip stayed by and
watched till they had glutted their eyes in viewing it; and
then washing it with sea-water, having nothing else, he wrapped
it up in a shirt of his own for a winding-sheet. Then seeking
up and down about the sands, at last he found some rotten
planks of a little fisher-boat, not much, but yet enough to
make up a funeral pile for a naked body, and that not quite
entire. As Philip was busy in gathering and putting these old
planks together, an old Roman citizen, who in his youth had
served in the wars under Pompey, came up to him and demanded,
who he was that was preparing the funeral of Pompey the Great.
And Philip making answer, that he was his freedman, "Nay,
then," said he, "you shall not have this honor alone; let even
me, too, I pray you, have my share in such a pious office.
that I may not altogether repent me of this pilgrimage in a
strange land, but in compensation of many misfortunes, may
obtain this happiness at last, even with mine own hands to
touch the body of Pompey, and do the last duties to the
greatest general among the Romans." And in this manner were
the obsequies of Pompey performed. The next day Lucius
Lentulus, not knowing what had passed, came sailing from Cyprus
along the shore of that coast, and seeing a funeral pile, and
Philip standing by, exclaimed, before he was yet seen by any
one, "Who is this that has found his end here?" adding, after
a short pause, with a sigh, "Possibly even thou, Pompeius
Magnus!" and so going ashore, he was presently apprehended and
slain. This was the end of Pompey.
Not long after, Caesar arrived in the country that was polluted
with this foul act, and when one of the Egyptians was sent to
present him with Pompey's head, he turned away from him with
abhorrence as from a murderer; and on receiving his seal, on
which was engraved a lion holding a sword in his paw, he burst
into tears. Achillas and Pothinus he put to death; and king
Ptolemy himself, being overthrown in battle upon the banks of
the Nile, fled away and was never heard of afterwards.
Theodotus, the rhetorician, flying out of Egypt, escaped the
hands of Caesar's justice, but lived a vagabond in banishment;
wandering up and down, despised and hated of all men, till at
last Marcus Brutus, after he had killed Caesar, finding him in
his province of Asia, put him to death, with every kind of
ignominy. The ashes of Pompey were carried to his wife
Cornelia, who deposited them at his country house near Alba.
COMPARISON OF POMPEY AND AGESILAUS
Thus having drawn out the history of the lives of Agesilaus and
Pompey, the next thing is to compare them; and in order to this, to
take a cursory view, and bring together the points in which they
chiefly disagree; which are these. In the first place, Pompey
attained to all his greatness and glory by the fairest and justest
means, owing his advancement to his own efforts, and to the frequent
and important aid which he rendered Sylla, in delivering Italy from
its tyrants. But Agesilaus appears to have obtained his kingdom,
not without offense both towards gods and towards men, towards
these, by procuring judgment of bastardy against Leotychides, whom
his brother had declared his lawful son, and towards those, by
putting a false gloss upon the oracle, and eluding its sentence
against his lameness. Secondly, Pompey never ceased to display his
respect for Sylla during his lifetime, and expressed it also after
his death, by enforcing the honorable interment of his corpse, in
despite of Lepidus, and by giving his daughter in marriage to his
son Faustus. But Agesilaus, upon a slight presence, cast off
Lysander with reproach and dishonor. Yet Sylla in fact had owed to
Pompey's services, as much as Pompey ever received from him, whereas
Lysander made Agesilaus king of Sparta, and general of all Greece.
Thirdly, Pompey's transgressions of right and justice in his
political life were occasioned chiefly by his relations with other
people, and most of his errors had some affinity, as well as
himself, to Caesar and Scipio, his fathers-in-law. But Agesilaus,
to gratify the fondness of his son, saved the life of Sphodrias by a
sort of violence, when he deserved death for the wrong he had done
to the Athenians; and when Phoebidas treacherously broke the peace
with Thebes, zealously abetted him for the sake, it was clear, of
the unjust act itself. In short, what mischief soever Pompey might
be said to have brought on Rome through compliance with the wishes
of his friends or through inadvertency, Agesilaus may be said to
have brought on Sparta out of obstinacy and malice, by kindling the
Boeotian war. And if, moreover, we are to attribute any part of
these disasters to some personal ill-fortune attaching to the men
themselves, in the case of Pompey, certainly, the Romans had no
reason to anticipate it. Whereas Agesilaus would not suffer the
Lacedaemonians to avoid what they foresaw and were forewarned must
attend the "lame sovereignty." For had Leotychides been chargeable
ten thousand times as foreign and spurious, yet the race of the
Eurypontidae was still in being, and could easily have furnished
Sparta with a lawful king, that was sound in his limbs, had not
Lysander darkened and disguised the true sense of the oracle in
favor of Agesilaus.
Such a politic piece of sophistry as was devised by Agesilaus, in
that great perplexity of the people as to the treatment to be given
to those who had played the coward at the battle of Leuctra, when
after that unhappy defeat, he decreed, that the laws should sleep
for that day, it would be hard to find any parallel to; neither
indeed have we the fellow of it in all Pompey's story. But on the
contrary, Pompey for a friend thought it no sin to break those very
laws which he himself had made; as if to show at once the force of
his friendship, and the greatness of his power; whereas Agesilaus,
under the necessity, as it seemed, of either rescinding the laws, or
not saving the citizens, contrived an expedient by the help of which
the laws should not touch these citizens, and yet should not, to
avoid it, be overthrown. Then I must commend it as an incomparable
act of civil virtue and obedience in Agesilaus, that immediately
upon the receipt of the scytala, he left the wars in Asia, and
returned into his country. For he did not like Pompey merely
advance his country's interest by acts that contributed at the same
time to promote his own greatness, but looking to his country's
good, for its sake laid aside as great authority and honor as ever
any man had before or since, except Alexander the Great.
But now to take another point of view, if we sum up Pompey's
military expeditions and exploits of war, the number of his
trophies, and the greatness of the powers which he subdued, and the
multitude of battles in which he triumphed, I am persuaded even
Xenophon himself would not put the victories of Agesilaus in balance
with his, though Xenophon has this privilege allowed him, as a sort
of special reward for his other excellences, that he may write and
speak, in favor of his hero, whatever he pleases. Methinks, too,
there is a great deal of difference betwixt these men, in their
clemency and moderation towards their enemies. For Agesilaus, while
attempting to enslave Thebes and exterminate Messene, the latter,
his country's ancient associate, and Thebes, the mother-city of his
own royal house, almost lost Sparta itself, and did really lose the
government of Greece; whereas Pompey gave cities to those of the
pirates who were willing to change their manner of life; and when it
was in his power to lead Tigranes, king of Armenia, in triumph, he
chose rather to make him a confederate of the Romans, saying, that a
single day was worth less than all future time. But if the
preeminence in that which relates to the office and virtues of a
general, should be determined by the greatest and most important
acts and counsels of war, the Lacedaemonian would not a little
exceed the Roman. For Agesilaus never deserted his city, though it
was besieged by an army of seventy thousand men, when there were
very few soldiers within to defend it, and those had been defeated
too, but a little before, at the battle of Leuctra. But Pompey,
when Caesar with a body only of fifty-three hundred men, had taken
but one town in Italy, departed in a panic out of Rome, either
through cowardice, when there were so few, or at least through a
false and mistaken belief that there were more; and having conveyed
away his wife and children, he left all the rest of the citizens
defenseless, and fled; whereas he ought either to have conquered in
fight for the defense of his country, or yielded upon terms to the
conqueror, who was moreover his fellow-citizen, and allied to him;
but now to the same man to whom he refused a prolongation of the
term of his government, and thought it intolerable to grant
another consulship, to him he gave the power, by letting him take
the city, to tell Metellus, together with all the rest, that they
were his prisoners.
That which is chiefly the office of a general, to force the enemy
into fighting when he finds himself the stronger, and to avoid being
driven into it himself when he is the weaker, this excellence
Agesilaus always displayed, and by it kept himself invincible;
whereas in contending with Pompey, Caesar, who was the weaker,
successfully declined the danger, and his own strength being in his
land forces. drove him into putting the conflict to issue with
these, and thus made himself master of the treasure, stores, and the
sea too, which were all in his enemy's hands, and by the help of
which the victory could have been secured without fighting. And
what is alleged as an apology in vindication of Pompey, is to a
general of his age and standing the greatest of disgraces. For,
granting that a young commander might by clamor and outcry be
deprived of his fortitude and strength of mind, and weakly forsake
his better judgment, and the thing be neither strange nor altogether
unpardonable, yet for Pompey the Great, whose camp the Romans called
their country, and his tent the senate, styling the consuls,
praetors, and all other magistrates who were conducting, the
government at Rome, by no better title than that of rebels and
traitors, for him, whom they well knew never to have been under the
command of any but himself, having served all his campaigns under
himself as sole general, for him upon so small a provocation as the
scoffs of Favonius and Domitius, and lest he should bear the
nickname of Agamemnon, to be wrought upon, and even forced to hazard
the whole empire and liberty of Rome upon the cast of a die, was
surely indeed intolerable. Who, if he had so much regarded a
present infamy, should have guarded the city at first with his arms,
and fought the battle in defense of Rome, not have left it as he
did; nor while declaring his flight from Italy an artifice in the
manner of Themistocles, nevertheless be ashamed in Thessaly of a
prudent delay before engaging. Heaven had not appointed the
Pharsalian fields to be the stage and theater upon which they should
contend for the empire of Rome, neither was he summoned thither by
any herald upon challenge, with intimation that he must either
undergo the combat, or surrender the prize to another. There were
many other fields, thousands of cities, and even the whole earth
placed at his command, by the advantage of his fleet, and his
superiority at sea, if he would but have followed the examples of
Maximus, Marius, Lucullus, and even Agesilaus himself, who endured
no less tumults within the city of Sparta, when the Thebans provoked
him to come out and fight in defense of the land, and sustained in
Egypt also numerous calumnies, slanders, and suspicions on the part
of the king, whom he counseled to abstain from a battle. And thus
following always what he had determined in his own judgment upon
mature advice, by that means he not only preserved the Egyptians,
against their wills, not only kept Sparta, in those desperate
convulsions, by his sole act, safe from overthrow, but even was able
to set up trophies likewise in the city over the Thebans, having
given his countrymen an occasion of being victorious afterwards by
not at first leading them out, as they tried to force him to do to
their own destruction. The consequence was that in the end
Agesilaus was commended by the very men, when they found themselves
saved, upon whom he had put this compulsion, whereas Pompey, whose
error had been occasioned by others, found those his accusers whose
advice had misled him. Some indeed profess that he was deceived by
his father-in-law Scipio, who, designing to conceal and keep to
himself the greatest part of that treasure which he had brought out
of Asia, pressed Pompey to battle, upon the pretence that there
would be a want of money. Yet admitting he was deceived, one in his
place ought not to have been so, nor should have allowed so slight
an artifice to cause the hazard of such mighty interests. And thus
we have taken a view of each, by comparing together their conduct,
and actions in war.
As to their voyages into Egypt, one steered his course thither out
of necessity in flight; the other neither honorably, nor of
necessity, but as a mercenary soldier, having enlisted himself into
the service of a barbarous nation for pay, that he might be able
afterwards to wage war upon the Greeks. And secondly, what we
charge upon the Egyptians in the name of Pompey, the Egyptians lay
to the charge of Agesilaus. Pompey trusted them and was betrayed
and murdered by them; Agesilaus accepted their confidence and
deserted them, transferring his aid to the very enemies who were now
attacking those whom be had been brought over to assist.
ALEXANDER
It being my purpose to write the lives of Alexander the king, and
of Caesar, by whom Pompey was destroyed, the multitude of their
great actions affords so large a field that I were to blame if I
should not by way of apology forewarn my reader that I have chosen
rather to epitomize the most celebrated parts of their story, than
to insist at large on every particular circumstance of it. It
must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories,
but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish
us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men;
sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest,
informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the
most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest
battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact
in the lines and features of the face in which the character is
seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to
give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of
the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their
lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles
to be treated of by others.
It is agreed on by all hands, that on the father's side, Alexander
descended from Hercules by Caranus, and from Aeacus by Neoptolemus
on the mother's side. His father Philip, being in Samothrace,
when he was quite young, fell in love there with Olympias, in
company with whom he was initiated in the religious ceremonies of
the country, and her father and mother being both dead, soon
after, with the consent of her brother Arymbas, he married her.
The night before the consummation of their marriage, she dreamed
that a thunderbolt fell upon her body, which kindled a great fire,
whose divided flames dispersed themselves all about, and then were
extinguished. And Philip some time after he was married, dreamt
that he sealed up his wife's body with a seal, whose impression,
as he fancied, was the figure of a lion. Some of the diviners
interpreted this as a warning to Philip to look narrowly to his
wife; but Aristander of Telmessus, considering how unusual it was
to seal up anything that was empty, assured him the meaning of
his dream was, that the queen was with child of a boy, who would
one day prove as stout and courageous as a lion. Once, moreover,
a serpent was found lying by Olympias as she slept, which more
than anything else, it is said, abated Philip's passion for her;
and whether he feared her as an enchantress, or thought she had
commerce with some god, and so looked on himself as excluded, he
was ever after less fond of her conversation. Others say, that
the women of this country having always been extremely addicted
to the enthusiastic Orphic rites, and the wild worship of Bacchus,
(upon which account they were called Clodones, and Mimallones,)
imitated in many things the practices of the Edonian and Thracian
women about Mount Haemus, from whom the word threskeuein, seems
to have been derived, as a special term for superfluous and
over-curious forms of adoration; and that Olympias, zealously
affecting these fanatical and enthusiastic inspirations, to
perform them with more barbaric dread, was wont in the dances
proper to these ceremonies to have great tame serpents about her,
which sometimes creeping out of the ivy and the mystic fans,
sometimes winding themselves about the sacred spears, and the
women's chaplets, made a spectacle which the men could not look
upon without terror.
Philip, after this vision, sent Chaeron of Megalopolis to consult
the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, by which he was commanded to
perform sacrifice, and henceforth pay particular honor, above all
other gods, to Ammon; and was told he should one day lose that eye
with which he presumed to peep through the chink of the door, when
he saw the god, under the form of a serpent, in the company of his
wife. Eratosthenes says that Olympias, when she attended
Alexander on his way to the army in his first expedition, told him
the secret of his birth, and bade him behave himself with courage
suitable to his divine extraction. Others again affirm that she
wholly disclaimed any pretensions of the kind, and was wont to
say, "When will Alexander leave off slandering me to Juno?"
Alexander was born the sixth of Hecatombaeon, which month the
Macedonians call Lous, the same day that the temple of Diana at
Ephesus was burnt; which Hegesias of Magnesia makes the occasion
of a conceit, frigid enough to have stopped the conflagration.
The temple, he says, took fire and was burnt while its mistress
was absent, assisting at the birth of Alexander. And all the
Eastern soothsayers who happened to be then at Ephesus, looking
upon the ruin of this temple to be the forerunner of some other
calamity, ran about the town, beating their faces, and crying,
that this day had brought forth something that would prove fatal
and destructive to all Asia.
Just after Philip had taken Potidaea, he received these three
messages at one time, that Parmenio had overthrown the Illyrians
in a great battle, that his race-horse had won the course at the
Olympic games, and that his wife had given birth to Alexander;
with which being naturally well pleased, as an addition to his
satisfaction, he was assured by the diviners that a son, whose
birth was accompanied with three such successes, could not fail of
being invincible.
The statues that gave the best representation of Alexander's
person, were those of Lysippus, (by whom alone he would suffer his
image to be made,) those peculiarities which many of his
successors afterwards and his friends used to affect to imitate,
the inclination of his head a little on one side towards his left
shoulder, and his melting eye, having been expressed by this
artist with great exactness. But Apelles, who drew him with
thunderbolts in his hand, made his complexion browner and darker
than it was naturally; for he was fair and of a light color,
passing into ruddiness in his face and upon his breast.
Aristoxenus in his Memoirs tells us that a most agreeable odor
exhaled from his skin, and that his breath and body all over was
so fragrant as to perfume the clothes which he wore next him; the
cause of which might probably be the hot and adjust temperament of
his body. For sweet smells, Theophrastus conceives, are produced
by the concoction of moist humors by heat, which is the reason
that those parts of the world which are driest and most burnt up,
afford spices of the best kind, and in the greatest quantity; for
the heat of the sun exhausts all the superfluous moisture which
lies in the surface of bodies, ready to generate putrefaction.
And this hot constitution, it may be, rendered Alexander so
addicted to drinking, and so choleric. His temperance, as to the
pleasures of the body, was apparent in him in his very childhood,
as he was with much difficulty incited to them, and always used
them with great moderation; though in other things he was
extremely eager and vehement, and in his love of glory, and the
pursuit of it, he showed a solidity of high spirit and magnanimity
far above his age. For he neither sought nor valued it upon every
occasion, as his father Philip did, (who affected to show his
eloquence almost to a degree of pedantry, and took care to have
the victories of his racing chariots at the Olympic games
engraved on his coin,) but when he was asked by some about him,
whether he would run a race in the Olympic games, as he was very
swift-footed, he answered, he would, if he might have kings to run
with him. Indeed, he seems in general to have looked with
indifference, if not with dislike, upon the professed athletes.
He often appointed prizes, for which not only tragedians and
musicians, pipers and harpers, but rhapsodists also, strove to
outvie one another; and delighted in all manner of hunting and
cudgel-playing, but never gave any encouragement to contests
either of boxing or of the pancratium.
While he was yet very young, he entertained the ambassadors from
the king of Persia, in the absence of his father, and entering
much into conversation with them, gained so much upon them by his
affability, and the questions he asked them, which were far from
being childish or trifling, (for he inquired of them the length of
the ways, the nature of the road into inner Asia, the character of
their king, how he carried himself to his enemies, and what forces
he was able to bring, into the field,) that they were struck with
admiration of him, and looked upon the ability so much famed of
Philip, to be nothing in comparison with the forwardness and high
purpose that appeared thus early in his son. Whenever he heard
Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal
victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his
companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave
him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious
actions. For being more bent upon action and glory than either
upon pleasure or riches, he esteemed all that he should receive
from his father as a diminution and prevention of his own future
achievements; and would have chosen rather to succeed to a kingdom
involved in troubles and wars, which would have afforded him
frequent exercise of his courage, and a large field of honor, than
to one already flourishing and settled, where his inheritance
would be an inactive life, and the mere enjoyment of wealth and
luxury.
The care of his education, as it might be presumed, was committed
to a great many attendants, preceptors, and teachers, over the
whole of whom Leonidas, a near kinsman of Olympias, a man of an
austere temper, presided, who did not indeed himself decline the
name of what in reality is a noble and honorable office, but in
general his dignity, and his near relationship, obtained him from
other people the title of Alexander's foster father and governor.
But he who took upon him the actual place and style of his
pedagogue, was Lysimachus the Acarnanian, who, though he had
nothing specially to recommend him, but his lucky fancy of calling
himself Phoenix, Alexander Achilles, and Philip Peleus, was
therefore well enough esteemed, and ranked in the next degree
after Leonidas.
Philonicus the Thessalian brought the horse Bucephalas to Philip,
offering to sell him for thirteen talents; but when they went into
the field to try him, they found him so very vicious and
unmanageable, that he reared up when they endeavored to mount him,
and would not so much as endure the voice of any of Philip's
attendants. Upon which, as they were leading him away as wholly
useless and untractable, Alexander, who stood by, said, "What an
excellent horse do they lose, for want of address and boldness to
manage him!" Philip at first took no notice of what he said; but
when he heard him repeat the same thing several times, and saw he
was much vexed to see the horse sent away, "Do you reproach," said
he to him, "those who are older than yourself, as if you knew
more, and were better able to manage him than they?" "I could
manage this horse," replied he, "better than others do." "And if
you do not," said Philip, "what will you forfeit for your
rashness?" "I will pay," answered Alexander, "the whole price of
the horse." At this the whole company fell a laughing; and as
soon as the wager was settled amongst them, he immediately ran to
the horse, and taking hold of the bridle, turned him directly
towards the sun, having, it seems, observed that he was disturbed
at and afraid of the motion of his own shadow; then letting him go
forward a little, still keeping the reins in his hand, and
stroking him gently when he found him begin to grow eager and
fiery, he let fall his upper garment softly, and with one nimble
leap securely mounted him, and when he was seated, by little and
little drew in the bridle, and curbed him without either striking
or spurring him. Presently, when he found him free from all
rebelliousness, and on]y impatient for the course, he let him go
at full speed, inciting him now with a commanding voice, and
urging him also with his heel. Philip and his friends looked on
at first in silence and anxiety for the result, till seeing him
turn at the end of his career, and come back rejoicing and
triumphing for what he had performed, they all burst out into
acclamations of applause; and his father, shedding tears, it is
said, for joy, kissed him as he came down from his horse, and in
his transport, said, "O my son, look thee out a kingdom equal to
and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee."
After this, considering him to be of a temper easy to be led to
his duty by reason, but by no means to be compelled, he always
endeavored to persuade rather than to command or force him to
anything; and now looking upon the instruction and tuition of his
youth to be of greater difficulty and importance, than to be
wholly trusted to the ordinary masters in music and poetry, and
the common school subjects, and to require, as Sophocles says,
The bridle and the rudder too,
he sent for Aristotle, the most learned and most cerebrated
philosopher of his time, and rewarded him with a munificence
proportionable to and becoming the care he took to instruct his
son. For he repeopled his native city Stagira, which he had
caused to be demolished a little before, and restored all the
citizens who were in exile or slavery, to their habitations. As a
place for the pursuit of their studies and exercises, he assigned
the temple of the Nymphs, near Mieza, where, to this very day,
they show you Aristotle's stone seats, and the shady walks which
he was wont to frequent. It would appear that Alexander received
from him not only his doctrines of Morals, and of Politics, but
also something of those more abstruse and profound theories which
these philosophers, by the very names they gave them, professed
to reserve for oral communication to the initiated, and did not
allow many to become acquainted with. For when he was in Asia,
and heard Aristotle had published some treatises of that kind, he
wrote to him, using very plain language to him in behalf of
philosophy, the following letter. "Alexander to Aristotle
greeting. You have not done well to publish your books of oral
doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those
things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open
to all? For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in
the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power
and dominion. Farewell." And Aristotle, soothing this passion
for preeminence, speaks, in his excuse for himself, of these
doctrines, as in fact both published and not published: as
indeed, to say the truth, his books on metaphysics are written in
a style which makes them useless for ordinary teaching, and
instructive only, in the way of memoranda, for those who have been
already conversant in that sort of learning.
Doubtless also it was to Aristotle, that he owed the inclination
he had, not to the theory only, but likewise to the practice of
the art of medicine. For when any of his friends were sick, he
would often prescribe them their course of diet, and medicines
proper to their disease, as we may find in his epistles. He was
naturally a great lover of all kinds of learning and reading; and
Onesicritus informs us, that he constantly laid Homer's Iliads,
according to the copy corrected by Aristotle, called the casket
copy, with his dagger under his pillow, declaring that he esteemed
it a perfect portable treasure of all military virtue and
knowledge. When he was in the upper Asia, being destitute of
other books, he ordered Harpalus to send him some; who furnished
him with Philistus's History, a great many of the plays of
Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus, and some dithyrambic odes,
composed by Telestes and Philoxenus. For awhile he loved and
cherished Aristotle no less, as he was wont to say himself, than
if he had been his father, giving this reason for it, that as he
had received life from the one, so the other had taught him to
live well. But afterwards, upon some mistrust of him, yet not so
great as to make him do him any hurt, his familiarity and friendly
kindness to him abated so much of its former force and
affectionateness, as to make it evident he was alienated from him.
However, his violent thirst after and passion for learning, which
were once implanted, still grew up with him, and never decayed; as
appears by his veneration of Anaxarchus, by the present of fifty
talents which he sent to Xenocrates, and his particular care and
esteem of Dandamis and Calanus.
While Philip went on his expedition against the Byzantines, he
left Alexander, then sixteen years old, his lieutenant in
Macedonia, committing the charge of his seal to him; who, not to
sit idle, reduced the rebellious Maedi, and having taken their
chief town by storm, drove out the barbarous inhabitants, and
planting a colony of several nations in their room, called the
place after his own name, Alexandropolis. At the battle of
Chaeronea, which his father fought against the Grecians, he is
said to have been the first man that charged the Thebans' sacred
band. And even in my remembrance, there stood an old oak near the
river Cephisus, which people called Alexander's oak, because his
tent was pitched under it. And not far off are to be seen the
graves of the Macedonians who fell in that battle. This early
bravery made Philip so fond of him, that nothing pleased him more
than to hear his subjects call himself their general and Alexander
their king.
But the disorders of his family, chiefly caused by his new
marriages and attachments, (the troubles that began in the women's
chambers spreading, so to say, to the whole kingdom,) raised
various complaints and differences between them, which the
violence of Olympias, a woman of a jealous and implacable temper,
made wider, by exasperating Alexander against his father. Among
the rest, this accident contributed most to their falling out. At
the wedding of Cleopatra, whom Philip fell in love with and
married, she being much too young for him, her uncle Attalus in
his drink desired the Macedonians would implore the gods to give
them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his niece. This so
irritated Alexander, that throwing one of the cups at his head,
"You villain," said he, "what, am I then a bastard?" Then Philip
taking Attalus's part, rose up and would have run his son through;
but by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage, or
the wine he had drunk, made his foot slip, so that he fell down on
the floor. At which Alexander reproachfully insulted over him:
"See there," said he, "the man, who makes preparations to pass out
of Europe into Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to
another." After this debauch, he and his mother Olympias withdrew
from Philip's company, and when he had placed her in Epirus, he
himself retired into Illyria.
About this time, Demaratus the Corinthian, an old friend of the
family, who had the freedom to say anything among them without
offense, coming to visit Philip, after the first compliments and
embraces were over, Philip asked him, whether the Grecians were at
amity with one another. "It ill becomes you," replied Demaratus,
"to be so solicitous about Greece, when you have involved your own
house in so many dissensions and calamities." He was so convinced
by this seasonable reproach, that he immediately sent for his son
home, and by Demartatus's mediation prevailed with him to return.
But this reconciliation lasted not long; for when Pixodorus,
viceroy of Caria, sent Aristocritus to treat for a match between
his eldest daughter and Philip's son Arrhidaeus, hoping by this
alliance to secure his assistance upon occasion, Alexander's
mother, and some who pretended to be his friends, presently filled
his head with tales and calumnies, as if Philip, by a splendid
marriage and important alliance, were preparing the way for
settling the kingdom upon Arrhidaeus. In alarm at this, he
dispatched Thessalus, the tragic actor, into Caria, to dispose
Pixodorus to slight Arrhidaeus, both as illegitimate and a fool,
and rather to accept of himself for his son-in-law. This
proposition was much more agreeable to Pixodorus than the former.
But Philip, as soon as he was made acquainted with this
transaction, went to his son's apartment, taking with him
Philotas, the son of Parmenio, one of Alexander's intimate friends
and companions, and there reproved him severely, and reproached
him bitterly, that he should be so degenerate, and unworthy of the
power he was to leave him, as to desire the alliance of a mean
Carian, who was at best but the slave of a barbarous prince. Nor
did this satisfy his resentment, for he wrote to the Corinthians,
to send Thessalus to him in chains, and banished Harpalus,
Nearchus, Erigyius, and Ptolemy, his son's friends and favorites,
whom Alexander afterwards recalled, and raised to great honor and
preferment.
Not long after this, Pausanias, having had an outrage done to him
at the instance of Attalus and Cleopatra, when he found he could
get no reparation for his disgrace at Philip's hands, watched his
opportunity and murdered him. The guilt of which fact was laid
for the most part upon Olympias, who was said to have encouraged
and exasperated the enraged youth to revenge; and some sort of
suspicion attached even to Alexander himself, who, it was said,
when Pausanias came and complained to him of the injury he had
received, repeated the verse out of Euripides's Medea: --
On husband, and on father, and on bride.
However, he took care to find out and punish the accomplices of
the conspiracy severely, and was very angry with Olympias for
treating Cleopatra inhumanly in his absence.
Alexander was but twenty years old when his father was murdered,
and succeeded to a kingdom beset on all sides with great dangers,
and rancorous enemies. For not only the barbarous nations that
bordered on Macedonia, were impatient of being governed by any but
their own native princes; but Philip likewise, though he had been
victorious over the Grecians, yet, as the time had not been
sufficient for him to complete his conquest and accustom them to
his sway, had simply left all things in a general disorder and
confusion. It seemed to the Macedonians a very critical time; and
some would have persuaded Alexander to give up all thought of
retaining the Grecians in subjection by force of arms, and rather
to apply himself to win back by gentle means the allegiance of the
tribes who were designing revolt, and try the effect of indulgence
in arresting the first motions towards revolution. But he
rejected this counsel as weak and timorous, and looked upon it to
be more prudence to secure himself by resolution and magnanimity,
than, by seeming to buckle to any, to encourage all to trample on
him. In pursuit of this opinion, he reduced the barbarians to
tranquility, and put an end to all fear of war from them, by a
rapid expedition into their country as far as the river Danube,
where he gave Syrmus, king of the Triballians, an entire
overthrow. And hearing the Thebans were in revolt, and the
Athenians in correspondence with them, he immediately marched
through the pass of Thermopylae, saying that to Demosthenes who
had called him a child while he was in Illyria and in the country
of the Triballians, and a youth when he was in Thessaly, he would
appear a man before the walls of Athens.
When he came to Thebes, to show how willing he was to accept of
their repentance for what was past, he only demanded of them
Phoenix and Prothytes, the authors of the rebellion, and
proclaimed a general pardon to those who would come over to him.
But when the Thebans merely retorted by demanding Philotas and
Antipater to be delivered into their hands, and by a proclamation
on their part, invited all who would assert the liberty of Greece
to come over to them, he presently applied himself to make them
feel the last extremities of war. The Thebans indeed defended
themselves with a zeal and courage beyond their strength, being
much outnumbered by their enemies. But when the Macedonian garrison
sallied out upon them from the citadel, they were so hemmed in on
all sides, that the greater part of them fell in the battle; the
city itself being taken by storm, was sacked and razed,
Alexander's hope being that so severe an example might terrify the
rest of Greece into obedience, and also in order to gratify the
hostility of his confederates, the Phocians and Plataeans. So
that, except the priests, and some few who had heretofore been the
friends and connections of the Macedonians, the family of the poet
Pindar, and those who were known to have opposed the public vote
for the war, all the rest, to the number of thirty thousand, were
publicly sold for slaves; and it is computed that upwards of six
thousand were put to the sword. Among the other calamities that
befell the city, it happened that some Thracian soldiers having
broken into the house of a matron of high character and repute,
named Timoclea, their captain, after he had used violence with
her, to satisfy his avarice as well as lust, asked her, if she
knew of any money concealed; to which she readily answered she
did, and bade him follow her into a garden, where she showed him a
well, into which, she told him, upon the taking of the city she
had thrown what she had of most value. The greedy Thracian
presently stooping down to view the place where he thought the
treasure lay, she came behind him, and pushed him into the well,
and then flung great stones in upon him, till she had killed him.
After which, when the soldiers led her away bound to Alexander,
her very mien and gait showed her to be a woman of dignity, and of
a mind no less elevated, not betraying the least sign of fear or
astonishment. And when the king asked her who she was, "I am,"
said she, "the sister of Theagenes, who fought the battle of
Chaeronea with your father Philip, and fell there in command for
the liberty of Greece." Alexander was so surprised, both at what
she had done, and what she said, that he could not choose but give
her and her children their freedom to go whither they pleased.
After this he received the Athenians into favor, although they had
shown themselves so much concerned at the calamity of Thebes that
out of sorrow they omitted the celebration of the Mysteries, and
entertained those who escaped with all possible humanity. Whether
it were, like the lion, that his passion was now satisfied, or
that after an example of extreme cruelty, he had a mind to appear
merciful, it happened well for the Athenians; for he not only
forgave them all past offenses, but bade them to look to their
affairs with vigilance, remembering that if he should miscarry,
they were likely to be the arbiters of Greece. Certain it is,
too, that in after-time he often repented of his severity to the
Thebans, and his remorse had such influence on his temper as to
make him ever after less rigorous to all others. He imputed also
the murder of Clitus, which he committed in his wine, and the
unwillingness of the Macedonians to follow him against the
Indians, by which his enterprise and glory was left imperfect, to
the wrath and vengeance of Bacchus, the protector of Thebes. And
it was observed that whatsoever any Theban, who had the good
fortune to survive this victory, asked of him, he was sure to
grant without the least difficulty.
Soon after, the Grecians, being assembled at the Isthmus, declared
their resolution of joining with Alexander in the war against the
Persians, and proclaimed him their general. While he stayed here,
many public ministers and philosophers came from all parts to
visit him, and congratulated him on his election, but contrary to
his expectation, Diogenes of Sinope, who then was living at
Corinth, thought so little of him, that instead of coming to
compliment him, he never so much as stirred out of the suburb
called the Cranium, where Alexander found him lying along in the
sun. When he saw so much company near him, he raised himself a
little, and vouchsafed to look upon Alexander; and when he kindly
asked him whether he wanted anything, "Yes," said he, "I would
have you stand from between me and the sun." Alexander was so
struck at this answer, and surprised at the greatness of the man,
who had taken so little notice of him, that as he went away, he
told his followers who were laughing at the moroseness of the
philosopher, that if he were not Alexander, he would choose to be
Diogenes.
Then he went to Delphi, to consult Apollo concerning the success
of the war he had undertaken, and happening to come on one of the
forbidden days, when it was esteemed improper to give any answers
from the oracle, he sent messengers to desire the priestess to do
her office; and when she refused, on the plea of a law to the
contrary, he went up himself, and began to draw her by force into
the temple, until tired and overcome with his importunity, "My
son," said she, "thou art invincible." Alexander taking hold of
what she spoke, declared he had received such an answer as he
wished for, and that it was needless to consult the god any
further. Among other prodigies that attended the departure of his
army, the image of Orpheus at Libethra, made of cypress-wood, was
seen to sweat in great abundance, to the discouragement of many.
But Aristander told him, that far from presaging any ill to him,
it signified he should perform acts so important and glorious as
would make the poets and musicians of future ages labor and sweat
to describe and celebrate them.
His army, by their computation who make the smallest amount,
consisted of thirty thousand foot, and four thousand horse; and
those who make the most of it, speak but of forty-three thousand
foot, and three thousand horse. Aristobulus says, he had not a
fund of above seventy talents for their pay, nor had he more than
thirty days' provision, if we may believe Duris; Onesicritus tells
us, he was two hundred talents in debt. However narrow and
disproportionable the beginnings of so vast an undertaking might
seem to be, yet he would not embark his army until he had informed
himself particularly what means his friends had to enable them to
follow him, and supplied what they wanted, by giving good farms to
some, a village to one, and the revenue of some hamlet or harbor
town to another. So that at last he had portioned out or engaged
almost all the royal property; which giving Perdiccas an occasion
to ask him what he would leave himself, he replied, his hopes.
"Your soldiers," replied Perdiccas, "will be your partners in
those," and refused to accept of the estate he had assigned him.
Some others of his friends did the like, but to those who
willingly received, or desired assistance of him, he liberally
granted it, as far as his patrimony in Macedonia would reach, the
most part of which was spent in these donations.
With such vigorous resolutions, and his mind thus disposed, he
passed the Hellespont, and at Troy sacrificed to Minerva, and
honored the memory of the heroes who were buried there, with
solemn libations; especially Achilles, whose gravestone he
anointed, and with his friends, as the ancient custom is, ran
naked about his sepulchre, and crowned it with garlands, declaring
how happy he esteemed him, in having while he lived so faithful a
friend, and when he was dead, so famous a poet to proclaim his
actions. While he was viewing the rest of the antiquities and
curiosities of the place, being told he might see Paris's harp, if
he pleased, he said, he thought it not worth looking on, but he
should be glad to see that of Achilles, to which he used to sing
the glories and great actions of brave men.
In the meantime Darius's captains having collected large forces,
were encamped on the further bank of the river Granicus, and it
was necessary to fight, as it were, in the gate of Asia for an
entrance into it. The depth of the river, with the unevenness and
difficult ascent of the opposite bank, which was to be gained by
main force, was apprehended by most, and some pronounced it an
improper time to engage, because it was unusual for the kings of
Macedonia to march with their forces in the month called Daesius.
But Alexander broke through these scruples, telling; them they
should call it a second Artemisius. And when Parmenio advised him
not to attempt anything that day, because it was late, he told
him that he should disgrace the Hellespont, should he fear the
Granicus. And so without more saying, he immediately took the
river with thirteen troops of horse, and advanced against whole
showers of darts thrown from the steep opposite side, which was
covered with armed multitudes of the enemy's horse and foot,
notwithstanding the disadvantage of the ground and the rapidity of
the stream; so that the action seemed to have more of frenzy and
desperation in it, than of prudent conduct. However, he persisted
obstinately to gain the passage, and at last with much ado making
his way up the banks, which were extremely muddy and slippery, he
had instantly to join in a mere confused hand-to-hand combat with
the enemy, before he could draw up his men, who were still passing
over, into any order. For the enemy pressed upon him with loud
and warlike outcries; and charging horse against horse, with their
lances, after they had broken and spent these, they fell to it
with their swords. And Alexander, being easily known by his
buckler, and a large plume of white feathers on each side of his
helmet, was attacked on all sides, yet escaped wounding, though
his cuirass was pierced by a javelin in one of the joinings. And
Rhoesaces and Spithridates, two Persian commanders, falling upon
him at once, he avoided one of them, and struck at Rhoesaces, who
had a good cuirass on, with such force, that his spear breaking in
his hand, he was glad to betake himself to his dagger. While they
were thus engaged, Spithridates came up on one side of him, and
raising himself upon his horse, gave him such a blow with his
battle-axe on the helmet, that he cut off the crest of it, with
one of his plumes, and the helmet was only just so far strong
enough to save him, that the edge of the weapon touched the hair
of his head. But as he was about to repeat his stroke, Clitus,
called the black Clitus, prevented him, by running him through the
body with his spear. At the same time Alexander dispatched
Rhoesaces with his sword. While the horse were thus dangerously
engaged, the Macedonian phalanx passed the river, and the foot on
each side advanced to fight. But the enemy hardly sustaining the
first onset, soon gave ground and fled, all but the mercenary
Greeks, who, making a stand upon a rising ground, desired quarter,
which Alexander, guided rather by passion than judgment, refused
to grant, and charging them himself first, had his horse (not
Bucephalas, but another) killed under him. And this obstinacy of
his to cut off these experienced desperate men, cost him the lives
of more of his own soldiers than all the battle before, besides
those who were wounded. The Persians lost in this battle twenty
thousand foot, and two thousand five hundred horse. On
Alexander's side, Aristobulus says there were not wanting above
four and thirty, of whom nine were foot-soldiers; and in memory of
them he caused so many statues of brass, of Lysippus's making, to
be erected. And that the Grecians might participate the honor of
his victory, he sent a portion of the spoils home to them,
particularly to the Athenians three hundred bucklers, and upon all
the rest he ordered this inscription to be set: "Alexander the
son of Philip, and the Grecians, except the Lacedaemonians, won
these from the barbarians who inhabit Asia." All the plate and
purple garments, and other things of the same kind that he took
from the Persians, except a very small quantity which he reserved
for himself, he sent as a present to his mother.
This battle presently made a great change of affairs to
Alexander's advantage. For Sardis itself, the chief seat of the
barbarian's power in the maritime provinces, and many other
considerable places were surrendered to him; only Halicarnassus
and Miletus stood out, which he took by force, together with the
territory about them. After which he was a little unsettled in
his opinion how to proceed. Sometimes he thought it best to find
out Darius as soon as he could, and put all to the hazard of a
battle; another while he looked upon it as a more prudent course
to make an entire reduction of the sea-coast, and not to seek the
enemy till he had first exercised his power here and made himself
secure of the resources of these provinces. While he was thus
deliberating what to do, it happened that a spring of water near
the city of Xanthus in Lycia, of its own accord swelled over its
banks, and threw up a copper plate upon the margin, in which was
engraven in ancient characters, that the time would come, when the
Persian empire should be destroyed by the Grecians. Encouraged by
this accident, he proceeded to reduce the maritime parts of
Cilicia and Phoenicia, and passed his army along the sea-coasts of
Pamphylia with such expedition that many historians have described
and extolled it with that height of admiration, as if it were no
less than a miracle, and an extraordinary effect of divine favor,
that the waves which usually come rolling in violently from the
main, and hardly ever leave so much as a narrow beach under the
steep, broken cliffs at any time uncovered, should on a sudden
retire to afford him passage. Menander, in one of his comedies,
alludes to this marvel when he says,
Was Alexander ever favored more?
Each man I wish for meets me at my door,
And should I ask for passage through the sea,
The sea I doubt not would retire for me.
But Alexander himself in his epistles mentions nothing unusual in
this at all, but says he went from Phaselis, and passed through
what they call the Ladders. At Phaselis he stayed some time, and
finding the statue of Theodectes, who was a native of this town
and was now dead, erected in the marketplace, after he had supped,
having drunk pretty plentifully, he went and danced about it, and
crowned it with garlands, honoring not ungracefully in his sport,
the memory of a philosopher whose conversation he had formerly
enjoyed, when he was Aristotle's scholar.
Then he subdued the Pisidians who made head against him, and
conquered the Phrygians, at whose chief city Gordium, which is
said to be the seat of the ancient Midas, he saw the famous
chariot fastened with cords made of the rind of the corner-tree,
which whosoever should untie, the inhabitants had a tradition,
that for him was reserved the empire of the world. Most authors
tell the story that Alexander, finding himself unable to untie the
knot, the ends of which were secretly twisted round and folded up
within it, cut it asunder with his sword. But Aristobulus tells
us it was easy for him to undo it, by only pulling the pin out of
the pole, to which the yoke was tied, and afterwards drawing off
the yoke itself from below. From hence he advanced into
Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, both which countries he soon reduced
to obedience, and then hearing of the death of Memnon, the best
commander Darius had upon the sea-coasts, who, if he had lived,
might, it was supposed, have put many impediments and difficulties
in the way of the progress of his arms, he was the rather
encouraged to carry the war into the upper provinces of Asia.
Darius was by this time upon his march from Susa, very confident,
not only in the number of his men, which amounted to six hundred
thousand, but likewise in a dream, which the Persian soothsayers
interpreted rather in flattery to him, than according to the
natural probability. He dreamed that he saw the Macedonian
phalanx all on fire, and Alexander waiting on him, clad in the
same dress which he himself had been used to wear when he was
courier to the late king; after which, going into the temple of
Belus, he vanished out of his sight. The dream would appear to
have supernaturally signified to him the illustrious actions the
Macedonians were to perform, and that as he from a courier's place
had risen to the throne, so Alexander should come to be master of
Asia, and not long surviving his conquests, conclude his life with
glory. Darius's confidence increased the more, because Alexander
spent so much time in Cilicia, which he imputed to his cowardice.
But it was sickness that detained him there, which some say he
contracted from his fatigues, others from bathing in the river
Cydnus, whose waters were exceedingly cold. However it happened,
none of his physicians would venture to give him any remedies,
they thought his case so desperate, and were so afraid of the
suspicions and ill-will of the Macedonians if they should fail in
the cure; till Philip, the Acarnanian, seeing how critical his
case was, but relying on his own well-known friendship for him,
resolved to try the last efforts of his art, and rather hazard his
own credit and life, than suffer him to perish for want of physic,
which he confidently administered to him, encouraging him to take
it boldly, if he desired a speedy recovery, in order to prosecute
the war. At this very time, Parmenio wrote to Alexander from the
camp, bidding him have a care of Philip, as one who was bribed by
Darius to kill him, with great sums of money, and a promise of his
daughter in marriage. When he had perused the letter, he put it
under his pillow, without showing it so much as to any of his most
intimate friends, and when Philip came in with the potion, he took
it with great cheerfulness and assurance, giving him meantime the
letter to read. This was a spectacle well worth being present at,
to see Alexander take the draught, and Philip read the letter at
the same time, and then turn and look upon one another, but with
different sentiments; for Alexander's looks were cheerful and
open, to show his kindness to and confidence in his physician,
while the other was full of surprise and alarm at the accusation,
appealing to the gods to witness his innocence, sometimes lifting
up his hands to heaven, and then throwing himself down by the
bedside, and beseeching Alexander to lay aside all fear, and
follow his directions without apprehension. For the medicine at
first worked so strongly as to drive, so to say, the vital forces
into the interior; he lost his speech, and falling into a swoon,
had scarce any sense or pulse left. However, in no long time, by
Philip's means, his health and strength returned, and he showed
himself in public to the Macedonians, who were in continual fear
and dejection until they saw him abroad again.
There was at this time in Darius's army a Macedonian refugee,
named Amyntas, one who was pretty well acquainted with Alexander's
character. This man, when he saw Darius intended to fall upon the
enemy in the passes and defiles, advised him earnestly to keep
where he was, in the open and extensive plains, it being the
advantage of a numerous army to have field-room enough when it
engages with a lesser force. Darius, instead of taking his
counsel, told him he was afraid the enemy would endeavor to run
away, and so Alexander would escape out of his hands. "That
fear," replied Amyntas, "is needless, for assure yourself that far
from avoiding, you, he will make all the speed he can to meet you,
and is now most likely on his march towards you." But Amyntas's
counsel was to no purpose, for Darius immediately decamping,
marched into Cilicia, at the same time that Alexander advanced
into Syria to meet him; and missing one another in the night, they
both turned back again. Alexander, greatly pleased with the
event, made all the haste he could to fight in the defiles, and
Darius to recover his former ground, and draw his army out of so
disadvantageous a place. For now he began to perceive his error
in engaging himself too far in a country in which the sea, the
mountains, and the river Pinarus running through the midst of it,
would necessitate him to divide his forces, render his horse
almost unserviceable, and only cover and support the weakness of
the enemy. Fortune was not kinder to Alexander in the choice of
the ground, than he was careful to improve it to his advantage.
For being much inferior in numbers, so far from allowing himself
to be outflanked, he stretched his right wing much further out
than the left wing of his enemies, and fighting there himself in
the very foremost ranks, put the barbarians to flight. In this
battle he was wounded in the thigh, Chares says by Darius, with
whom he fought hand to hand. But in the account which he gave
Antipater of the battle though indeed he owns he was wounded in
the thigh with sword, though not dangerously, yet he takes no
notice who it was that wounded him.
Nothing was wanting to complete this victory, in which he
overthrew above a hundred and ten thousand of his enemies, but
the taking the person of Darius, who escaped very narrowly by
flight. However, having taken his chariot and his bow, he
returned from pursuing him, and found his own men busy in
pillaging the barbarians' camp, which (though to disburden
themselves, they had left most of their baggage at Damascus) was
exceedingly rich. But Darius's tent, which was full of splendid
furniture, and quantities of gold and silver, they reserved for
Alexander himself, who after he had put off his arms, went to
bathe himself, saying, "Let us now cleanse ourselves from the
toils of war in the bath of Darius." "Not so," replied one of his
followers, "but in Alexander's rather; for the property of the
conquered is, and should be called the conqueror's." Here, when
he beheld the bathing vessels, the water-pots, the pans, and the
ointment boxes, all of gold, curiously wrought, and smelt the
fragrant odors with which the whole place was exquisitely
perfumed, and from thence passed into a pavilion of great size and
height, where the couches and tables and preparations for an
entertainment were perfectly magnificent, he turned to those about
him and said, "This, it seems, is royalty."
But as he was going to supper, word was brought him that Darius's
mother and wife and two unmarried daughters, being taken among the
rest of the prisoners, upon the sight of his chariot and bow were
all in mourning and sorrow, imagining him to be dead. After a
little pause, more livelily affected with their affliction than
with his own success he sent Leonnatus to them to let them know
Darius was not dead, and that they need not fear any harm from
Alexander, who made war upon him only for dominion; they should
themselves be provided with everything they had been used to
receive from Darius. This kind message could not but be very
welcome to the captive ladies, especially being made good by
actions no less humane and generous. For he gave them leave to
bury whom they pleased of the Persians, and to make use for this
purpose of what garments and furniture they thought fit out of the
booty. He diminished nothing of their equipage, or of the
attentions and respect formerly paid them, and allowed larger
pensions for their maintenance than they had before. But the
noblest and most royal part of their usage was, that he treated
these illustrious prisoners according to their virtue and
character, not suffering them to hear, or receive, or so much as
to apprehend anything that was unbecoming. So that they seemed
rather lodged in some temple, or some holy virgin chambers, where
they enjoyed their privacy sacred and uninterrupted, than in the
camp of an enemy. Nevertheless Darius's wife was accounted the
most beautiful princess then living, as her husband the tallest
and handsomest man of his time, and the daughters were not
unworthy of their parents. But Alexander, esteeming it more
kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies, sought no
intimacy with any one of them, nor indeed with any other woman
before marriage, except Barsine, Memnon's widow, who was taken
prisoner at Damascus. She had been instructed in the Grecian
learning, was of a gentle temper, and, by her father Artabazus,
royally descended, which good qualities, added to the
solicitations and encouragement of Parmenio, as Aristobulus tells
us, made him the more willing to attach himself to so agreeable
and illustrious a woman. Of the rest of the female captives
though remarkably handsome and well proportioned, he took no
further notice than to say jestingly, that Persian women were
terrible eye-sores. And he himself, retaliating, as it were, by
the display of the beauty of his own temperance and self-control,
bade them be removed, as he would have done so many lifeless
images. When Philoxenus, his lieutenant on the sea-coast, wrote
to him to know if he would buy two young boys, of great beauty,
whom one Theodorus, a Tarentine, had to sell, he was so offended,
that he often expostulated with his friends, what baseness
Philoxenus had ever observed in him, that he should presume to
make him such a reproachful offer. And he immediately wrote him a
very sharp letter, telling him Theodorus and his merchandise might
go with his good-will to destruction. Nor was he less severe to
Hagnon, who sent him word he would buy a Corinthian youth named
Crobylus, as a present for him. And hearing that Damon and
Timotheus, two of Parmenio's Macedonian soldiers, had abused the
wives of some strangers who were in his pay, he wrote to Parmenio,
charging him strictly, if he found them guilty, to put them to
death, as wild beasts that were only made for the mischief of
mankind. In the same letter he added, that he had not so much as
seen or desired to see the wife of Darius, no, nor suffered
anybody to speak of her beauty before him. He was wont to say,
that sleep and the act of generation chiefly made him sensible
that he was mortal; as much as to say, that weariness and pleasure
proceed both from the same frailty and imbecility of human nature.
In his diet, also, he was most temperate, as appears, omitting
many other circumstances, by what he said to Ada, whom he adopted,
with the title of mother, and afterwards created queen of Caria.
For when she out of kindness sent him every day many curious
dishes, and sweetmeats, and would have furnished him with some
cooks and pastry-men, who were thought to have great skill, he
told her he wanted none of them, his preceptor, Leonidas, having
already given him the best, which were a night march to prepare
for breakfast, and a moderate breakfast to create an appetite for
supper. Leonidas also, he added, used to open and search the
furniture of his chamber, and his wardrobe, to see if his mother
had left him anything that was delicate or superfluous. He was
much less addicted to wine than was generally believed; that which
gave people occasion to think so of him was, that when he had
nothing else to do, he loved to sit long and talk, rather than
drink, and over every cup hold a long conversation. For when his
affairs called upon him, he would not be detained, as other
generals often were, either by wine, or sleep, nuptial
solemnities, spectacles, or any other diversion whatsoever; a
convincing argument of which is, that in the short time he lived,
he accomplished so many and so great actions. When he was free
from employment, after he was up, and had sacrificed to the gods,
he used to sit down to breakfast, and then spend the rest of the
day in hunting, or writing memoirs, giving decisions on some
military questions, or reading. In marches that required no great
haste, he would practice shooting as he went along, or to mount a
chariot, and alight from it in full speed. Sometimes, for sport's
sake, as his journals tell us, he would hunt foxes and go fowling.
When he came in for the evening, after he had bathed and was
anointed, he would call for his bakers and chief cooks, to know if
they had his dinner ready. He never cared to dine till it was
pretty late and beginning to be dark, and was wonderfully
circumspect at meals that everyone who sat with him should be
served alike and with proper attention; and his love of talking,
as was said before, made him delight to sit long at his wine. And
then, though otherwise no prince's conversation was ever so
agreeable, he would fall into a temper of ostentation and soldierly
boasting, which gave his flatterers a great advantage to ride him,
and made his better friends very uneasy. For though they thought
it too base to strive who should flatter him most, yet they found
it hazardous not to do it; so that between the shame and the
danger, they were in a great strait how to behave themselves.
After such an entertainment, he was wont to bathe, and then
perhaps he would sleep till noon, and sometimes all day long. He
was so very temperate in his eating, that when any rare fish or
fruits were sent him, he would distribute them among his friends,
and often reserve nothing for himself. His table, however, was
always magnificent, the expense of it still increasing with his
good fortune, till it amounted to ten thousand drachmas a day, to
which sum he limited it, and beyond this he would suffer none to
lay out in any entertainment where he himself was the guest.
After the battle of Issus, he sent to Damascus to seize upon the
money and baggage, the wives and children of the Persians, of
which spoil the Thessalian horsemen had the greatest share; for
he had taken particular notice of their gallantry in the fight,
and sent them thither on purpose to make their reward suitable to
their courage. Not but that the rest of the army had so
considerable a part of the booty as was sufficient to enrich them
all. This first gave the Macedonians such a taste of the Persian
wealth and women and barbaric splendor of living, that they were
ready to pursue and follow upon it with all the eagerness of
hounds upon a scent. But Alexander, before he proceeded any
further, thought it necessary to assure himself of the sea-coast.
Those who governed in Cyprus, put that island into his possession,
and Phoenicia, Tyre only excepted, was surrendered to him. During
the siege of this city, which with mounds of earth cast up, and
battering engines, and two hundred galleys by sea, was carried on
for seven months together, he dreamt that he saw Hercules upon the
walls, reaching, out his hand, and calling to him. And many of
the Tyrians in their sleep, fancied that Apollo told them he was
displeased with their actions, and was about to leave them and go
over to Alexander. Upon which, as if the god had been a deserting
soldier, they seized him, so to say, in the act, tied down the
statue with ropes, and nailed it to the pedestal, reproaching him,
that he was a favorer of Alexander. Another time, Alexander
dreamed he saw a Satyr mocking him at a distance, and when he
endeavored to catch him, he still escaped from him, till at last
with much perseverance, and running about after him, he got him
into his power. The soothsayers making two words of Satyrus,
assured him, that Tyre should he his own. The inhabitants at this
time show a spring of water, near which they say Alexander slept,
when he fancied the Satyr appeared to him.
While the body of the army lay before Tyre, he made an excursion
against the Arabians who inhabit the Mount Antilibanus, in which
he hazarded his life extremely to bring off his master Lysimachus,
who would needs go along with him, declaring he was neither older
nor inferior in courage to Phoenix, Achilles's guardian. For
when, quitting their horses, they began to march up the hills on
foot, the rest of the soldiers outwent them a great deal, so that
night drawing on, and the enemy near, Alexander was fain to stay
behind so long, to encourage and help up the lagging and tired old
man, that before he was aware, he was left behind, a great way
from his soldiers, with a slender attendance, and forced to pass
an extremely cold night in the dark, and in a very inconvenient
place; till seeing a great many scattered fires of the enemy at
some distance, and trusting to his agility of body, and as he was
always wont by undergoing toils and labors himself to cheer and
support the Macedonians in any distress, he ran straight to one of
the nearest fires, and with his dagger dispatching two of the
barbarians that sat by it, snatched up a lighted brand, and
returned with it to his own men. They immediately made a great
fire, which so alarmed the enemy that most of them fled, and those
that assaulted them were soon routed, and thus they rested
securely the remainder of the night. Thus Chares writes.
But to return to the siege, it had this issue. Alexander, that he
might refresh his army, harassed with many former encounters, had
led only a small party towards the walls, rather to keep the enemy
busy, than with any prospect of much advantage. It happened at
this time that Aristander, the soothsayer, after he had
sacrificed, upon view of the entrails, affirmed confidently to
those who stood by, that the city should be certainly taken that
very month, upon which there was a laugh and some mockery among
the soldiers, as this was the last day of it. The king seeing him
in perplexity, and always anxious to support the credit of the
predictions, gave order that they should not count it as the
thirtieth, but as the twenty-third of the month, and ordering the
trumpets to sound, attacked the walls more seriously than he at
first intended. The sharpness of the assault so inflamed the rest
of his forces who were left in the camp, that they could not hold
from advancing to second it, which they performed with so much
vigor, that the Tyrians retired, and the town was carried that
very day. The next place he sat down before was Gaza, one of the
largest cities of Syria, where this accident befell him. A large
bird flying over him, let a clod of earth fall upon his shoulder,
and then settling upon one of the battering engines, was suddenly
entangled and caught in the nets composed of sinews, which
protected the ropes with which the machine was managed. This fell
out exactly according to Aristander's prediction, which was, that
Alexander should be wounded, and the city reduced.
From hence he sent great part of the spoils to Olympias,
Cleopatra, and the rest of his friends, not omitting his preceptor
Leonidas, on whom he bestowed five hundred talents weight of
frankincense, and a hundred of myrrh, in remembrance of the hopes
he had once expressed of him when he was but a child. For
Leonidas, it seems, standing by him one day while he was
sacrificing, and seeing him take both his hands full of incense to
throw into the fire, told him it became him to be more sparing in
his offerings, and not be so profuse till he was master of the
countries which those sweet gums and spices came from. So
Alexander now wrote to him, saying, "We have sent you abundance of
myrrh and frankincense, that for the future you may not be stingy
to the gods." Among the treasures and other booty that was taken
from Darius, there was a very precious casket, which being brought
to Alexander for a great rarity, he asked those about him what
they thought fittest to be laid up in it; and when they had
delivered their various opinions, he told them he should keep
Homer's Iliad in it. This is attested by many credible authors,
and if what those of Alexandria tell us, relying upon the
authority of Heraclides, be true, Homer was neither an idle, nor
an unprofitable companion to him in his expedition. For when he
was master of Egypt, designing to settle a colony of Grecians
there, he resolved to build a large and populous city, and give
it his own name. In order to which, after he had measured and
staked out the ground with the advice of the best architects, he
chanced one night in his sleep to see a wonderful vision; a
grey-headed old man, of a venerable aspect, appeared to stand by
him, and pronounce these verses:--
An island lies, where loud the billows roar,
Pharos they call it, on the Egyptian shore.
Alexander upon this immediately rose up and went to Pharos, which,
at that time, was an island lying a little above the Canobic mouth
of the river Nile, though it has now been joined to the main land
by a mole. As soon as he saw the commodious situation of the
place, it being a long neck of land, stretching like an isthmus
between large lagoons and shallow waters on one side, and the sea
on the other, the latter at the end of it making a spacious
harbor, he said, Homer, besides his other excellences, was a very
good architect, and ordered the plan of a city to be drawn out
answerable to the place. To do which, for want of chalk, the soil
being black, they laid out their lines with flour, taking in a
pretty large compass of ground in a semicircular figure, and
drawing into the inside of the circumference equal straight lines
from each end, thus giving it something of the form of a cloak or
cape. While he was pleasing himself with his design, on a sudden
an infinite number of great birds of several kinds, rising like a
black cloud out of the river and the lake, devoured every morsel
of the flour that had been used in setting out the lines; at which
omen even Alexander himself was troubled, till the augurs restored
his confidence again by telling him, it was a sign the city he was
about to build would not only abound in all things within itself,
but also be the nurse and feeder of many nations. He commanded
the workmen to proceed, while he went to visit the temple of
Ammon.
This was a long and painful, and, in two respects, a dangerous
journey; first, if they should lose their provision of water, as
for several days none could be obtained; and, secondly, if a
violent south wind should rise upon them, while they were
traveling through the wide extent of deep sands, as it is said to
have done when Cambyses led his army that way, blowing the sand
together in heaps, and raising, as it were, the whole desert like
a sea upon them, till fifty thousand were swallowed up and
destroyed by it. All these difficulties were weighed and
represented to him; but Alexander was not easily to be diverted
from anything he was bent upon. For fortune having hitherto
seconded him in his designs, made him resolute and firm in his
opinions, and the boldness of his temper raised a sort of passion
in him for surmounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to
be always victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and
nature herself submitted to him. In this journey, the relief and
assistance the gods afforded him in his distresses, were more
remarkable, and obtained greater belief than the oracles he
received afterwards, which, however, were valued and credited the
more on account of those occurrences. For first, plentiful rains
that fell, preserved them from any fear of perishing by drought,
and, allaying the extreme dryness of the sand, which now became
moist and firm to travel on, cleared and purified the air.
Besides this, when they were out of their way, and were wandering
up and down, because the marks which were wont to direct the
guides were disordered and lost, they were set right again by some
ravens, which flew before them when on their march, and waited for
them when they lingered and fell behind; and the greatest miracle,
as Callisthenes tells us, was that if any of the company went
astray in the night, they never ceased croaking and making a
noise, till by that means they had brought them into the right way
again. Having passed through the wilderness, they came to the
place; where the high-priest at the first salutation bade
Alexander welcome from his father Ammon. And being asked by him
whether any of his father's murderers had escaped punishment, he
charged him to speak with more respect, since his was not a mortal
father. Then Alexander, changing his expression, desired to know
of him if any of those who murdered Philip were yet unpunished,
and further concerning dominion, whether the empire of the world
was reserved for him? This, the god answered, he should obtain,
and that Philip's death was fully revenged, which gave him so much
satisfaction, that he made splendid offerings to Jupiter, and gave
the priests very rich presents. This is what most authors write
concerning the oracles. But Alexander, in a letter to his mother,
tells her there were some secret answers, which at his return he
would communicate to her only. Others say that the priest,
desirous as a piece of courtesy to address him in Greek, "O
Paidion," by a slip in pronunciation ended with the s instead of
the n, and said, "O Paidios," which mistake Alexander was well
enough pleased with, and it went for current that the oracle had
called him so.
Among the sayings of one Psammon, a philosopher, whom he heard in
Egypt, he most approved of this, that all men are governed by God,
because in everything, that which is chief and commands, is
divine. But what he pronounced himself upon this subject, was
even more like a philosopher, for he said, God was the common
father of us all, but more particularly of the best of us. To the
barbarians he carried himself very haughtily, as if he were fully
persuaded of his divine birth and parentage; but to the Grecians
more moderately, and with less affectation of divinity, except it
were once in writing to the Athenians about Samos, when he tells
them that he should not himself have bestowed upon them that free
and glorious city; "You received it," he says, "from the bounty of
him who at that time was called my lord and father," meaning
Philip. However, afterwards being wounded with an arrow, and
feeling much pain, he turned to those about him, and told them,
"This, my friends, is real flowing blood, not Ichor,
'Such as immortal gods are wont to shed.'"
And another time, when it thundered so much that everybody was
afraid, and Anaxarchus, the sophist, asked him if he who was
Jupiter's son could do anything like this, "Nay," said Alexander,
laughing, "I have no desire to be formidable to my friends, as you
would have me, who despised my table for being furnished with
fish, and not with the heads of governors of provinces." For in
fact it is related as true, that Anaxarchus seeing a present of
small fishes, which the king sent to Hephaestion, had used this
expression, in a sort of irony, and disparagement of those who
undergo vast labors and encounter great hazards in pursuit of
magnificent objects, which after all bring them little more
pleasure or enjoyment than what others have. From what I have
said upon this subject, it is apparent that Alexander in himself
was not foolishly affected, or had the vanity to think himself
really a god, but merely used his claims to divinity as a means of
maintaining among other people the sense of his superiority.
At his return out of Egypt into Phoenicia, he sacrificed and made
solemn processions, to which were added shows of lyric dances and
tragedies, remarkable not merely for the splendor of the equipage
and decorations, but for the competition among those who exhibited
them. For the kings of Cyprus were here the exhibitors, just in
the same manner as at Athens those who are chosen by lot out of
the tribes. And, indeed, they showed the greatest emulation to
outvie each other; especially Nicocreon, king of Salamis, and
Pasicrates of Soli, who furnished the chorus, and defrayed the
expenses of the two most celebrated actors, Athenodorus and
Thessalus, the former performing for Pasicrates, and the latter
for Nicocreon. Thessalus was most favored by Alexander, though it
did not appear till Athenodorus was declared victor by the
plurality of votes. For then at his going away, he said the
judges deserved to be commended for what they had done, but that
he would willingly have lost part of his kingdom, rather than to
have seen Thessalus overcome. However, when he understood
Athenodorus was fined by the Athenians for being absent at the
festivals of Bacchus, though he refused his request that he would
write a letter in his behalf, he gave him a sufficient sum to
satisfy the penalty. Another time, when Lycon of Scarphia
happened to act with great applause in the theater, and in a verse
which he introduced into the comic part which he was acting,
begged for a present of ten talents, he laughed and gave him the
money.
Darius wrote him a letter, and sent friends to intercede with him,
requesting him to accept as a ransom of his captives the sum of a
thousand talents, and offering him in exchange for his amity and
alliance, all the countries on this side the river Euphrates,
together with one of his daughters in marriage. These propositions
he communicated to his friends, and when Parmenio told him, that
for his part, if he were Alexander, he should readily embrace
them, "So would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio."
Accordingly, his answer to Darius was, that if he would come and
yield himself up into his power, he would treat him with all
possible kindness; if not, he was resolved immediately to go
himself and seek him. But the death of Darius's wife in
childbirth made him soon after regret one part of this answer, and
he showed evident marks of grief, at being thus deprived of a
further opportunity of exercising his clemency and good nature,
which he manifested, however, as far as he could, by giving her a
most sumptuous funeral.
Among the eunuchs who waited in the queen's chamber, and were
taken prisoners with the women, there was one Tireus, who getting
out of the camp, fled away on horseback to Darius, to inform him
of his wife's death. He, when he heard it, beating his head, and
bursting into tears and lamentations, said, "Alas! how great is
the calamity of the Persians! Was it not enough that their king's
consort and sister was a prisoner in her lifetime, but she must,
now she is dead also, be but meanly and obscurely buried?" "Oh
king," replied the eunuch, "as to her funeral rites, or any
respect or honor that should have been shown in them, you have not
the least reason to accuse the ill-fortune of your country; for to
my knowledge neither your queen Statira when alive, nor your
mother, nor children, wanted anything of their former happy
condition, unless it were the light of your countenance, which I
doubt not but the lord Oromasdes will yet restore to its former
glory. And after her decease, I assure you, she had not only all
due funeral ornaments, but was honored also with the tears of your
very enemies; for Alexander is as gentle after victory, as he is
terrible in the field." At the hearing of these words, such was
the grief and emotion of Darius's mind, that they carried him into
extravagant suspicions; and taking Tireus aside into a more
private part of his tent, "Unless thou likewise," said he to him,
"hast deserted me, together with the good fortune of Persia, and
art become a Macedonian in thy heart; if thou yet ownest me for
thy master Darius, tell me, I charge thee, by the veneration thou
payest the light of Mithras, and this right hand of thy king, do I
not lament the least of Statira's misfortunes in her captivity and
death? Have I not suffered something more injurious and
deplorable in her lifetime? And had I not been miserable with
less dishonor, if I had met with a more severe and inhuman enemy?
For how is it possible a young man as he is, should treat the wife
of his opponent with so much distinction, were it not from some
motive that does me disgrace?" Whilst he was yet speaking, Tireus
threw himself at his feet, and besought him neither to wrong
Alexander so much, nor his dead wife and sister, as to give
utterance to any such thoughts, which deprived him of the greatest
consolation left him in his adversity, the belief that he was
overcome by a man whose virtues raised him above human nature;
that he ought to look upon Alexander with love and admiration, who
had given no less proofs of his continence towards the Persian
women, than of his valor among the men. The eunuch confirmed all
he said with solemn and dreadful oaths, and was further enlarging
upon Alexander's moderation and magnanimity on other occasions,
when Darius, breaking away from him into the other division of the
tent, where his friends and courtiers were, lifted up his hands to
heaven, and uttered this prayer, "Ye gods," said he, "of my
family, and of my kingdom, if it be possible, I beseech you to
restore the declining affairs of Persia, that I may leave them in
as flourishing a condition as I found them, and have it in my
power to make a grateful return to Alexander for the kindness
which in my adversity he has shown to those who are dearest to me.
But if, indeed, the fatal time be come, which is to give a period
to the Persian monarchy, if our ruin be a debt that must be paid
to the divine jealousy and the vicissitude of things, then I
beseech you grant that no other man but Alexander may sit upon the
throne of Cyrus." Such is the narrative given by the greater
number of the historians.
But to return to Alexander. After he had reduced all Asia on this
side the Euphrates, he advanced towards Darius, who was coming
down against him with a million of men. In his march, a very
ridiculous passage happened. The servants who followed the camp,
for sport's sake divided themselves into two parties, and named
the commander of one of them Alexander, and of the other Darius.
At first they only pelted one another with clods of earth, but
presently took to their fists, and at last, heated with the
contention, they fought in good earnest with stones and clubs, so
that they had much ado to part them; till Alexander, upon hearing
of it, ordered the two captains to decide the quarrel by single
combat, and armed him who bore his name himself, while Philotas
did the same to him who represented Darius. The whole army were
spectators of this encounter, willing from the event of it to
derive an omen of their own future success. After they had fought
stoutly a pretty long while, at last he who was called Alexander
had the better, and for a reward of his prowess, had twelve
villages given him, with leave to wear the Persian dress. So we
are told by Eratosthenes.
But the great battle of all that was fought with Darius, was not,
as most writers tell us, at Arbela, but at Gaugamela, which, in
their language, signifies the camel's house, forasmuch as one of
their ancient kings having escaped the pursuit of his enemies on a
swift camel, in gratitude to his beast, settled him at this place,
with an allowance of certain villages and rents for his
maintenance. It came to pass that in the month Boedromion, about
the beginning of the feast of Mysteries at Athens, there was an
eclipse of the moon, the eleventh night after which, the two
armies being now in view of one another, Darius kept his men in
arms, and by torchlight took a general review of them. But
Alexander, while his soldiers slept, spent the night before his
tent with his diviner Aristander, performing certain mysterious
ceremonies, and sacrificing to the god Fear. In the meanwhile
the oldest of his commanders, and chiefly Parmenio, when they
beheld all the plain between Niphates and the Gordyaean mountains
shining with the lights and fires which were made by the
barbarians, and heard the uncertain and confused sound of voices
out of their camp, like the distant roaring of a vast ocean, were
so amazed at the thoughts of such a multitude, that after some
conference among themselves, they concluded it an enterprise too
difficult and hazardous for them to engage so numerous an enemy in
the day, and therefore meeting the king as he came from
sacrificing, besought him to attack Darius by night, that the
darkness might conceal the danger of the ensuing battle. To this
he gave them the celebrated answer, "I will not steal a victory,"
which though some at the time thought a boyish and inconsiderate
speech, as if he played with danger, others, however, regarded as
an evidence that he confided in his present condition, and acted
on a true judgment of the future, not wishing to leave Darius, in
case he were worsted, the pretext of trying his fortune again,
which he might suppose himself to have, if he could impute his
overthrow to the disadvantage of the night, as he did before to
the mountains, the narrow passages, and the sea. For while he had
such numerous forces and large dominions still remaining, it was
not any want of men or arms that could induce him to give up the
war, but only the loss of all courage and hope upon the conviction
of an undeniable and manifest defeat.
After they were gone from him with this answer, he laid himself
down in his tent and slept the rest of the night more soundly than
was usual with him, to the astonishment of the commanders, who
came to him early in the morning, and were fain themselves to give
order that the soldiers should breakfast. But at last, time not
giving them leave to wait any longer, Parmenio went to his
bedside, and called him twice or thrice by his name, till he waked
him, and then asked him how it was possible, when he was to fight
the most important battle of all, he could sleep as soundly as if
he were already victorious. "And are we not so, indeed," replied
Alexander, smiling, "since we are at last relieved from the
trouble of wandering in pursuit of Darius through a wide and
wasted country, hoping in vain that he would fight us?" And not
only before the battle, but in the height of the danger, he showed
himself great, and manifested the self-possession of a just
foresight and confidence. For the battle for some time fluctuated
and was dubious. The left wing, where Parmenio commanded, was so
impetuously charged by the Bactrian horse that it was disordered
and forced to give ground, at the same time that Mazaeus had sent
a detachment round about to fall upon those who guarded the
baggage, which so disturbed Parmenio, that he sent messengers to
acquaint Alexander that the camp and baggage would be all lost
unless he immediately believed the rear by a considerable
reinforcement drawn out of the front. This message being brought
him just as he was giving the signal to those about him for the
onset, he bade them tell Parmenio that he must have surely lost
the use of his reason, and had forgotten, in his alarm, that
soldiers, if victorious, become masters of their enemies' baggage;
and if defeated, instead of taking care of their wealth or their
slaves, have nothing more to do but to fight gallantly and die
with honor. When he had said this, he put on his helmet, having
the rest of his arms on before he came out of his tent, which were
coat of the Sicilian make, girt close about him, and over that a
breastpiece of thickly quilted linen, which was taken among other
booty at the battle of Issus. The helmet, which was made by
Theophilus, though of iron, was so well wrought and polished, that
it was as bright as the most refined silver. To this was fitted a
gorget of the same metal, set with precious stones. His sword,
which was the weapon he most used in fight, was given him by the
king of the Citieans, and was of an admirable temper and
lightness. The belt which he also wore in all engagements, was of
much richer workmanship than the rest of his armor. It was a work
of the ancient Helicon, and had been presented to him by the
Rhodians, as mark of their respect to him. So long as he was
engaged in drawing up his men, or riding about to give orders or
directions, or to view them, he spared Bucephalas, who was now
growing old, and made use of another horse; but when he was
actually to fight, he sent for him again, and as soon as he was
mounted, commenced the attack.
He made the longest address that day to the Thessalians and other
Greeks, who answered him with loud shouts, desiring him to lead
them on against the barbarians, upon which he shifted his javelin
into his left hand, and with his right lifted up towards heaven,
besought the gods, as Callisthenes tells us, that if he was of a
truth the son of Jupiter, they would he pleased to assist and
strengthen the Grecians. At the same time the augur Aristander,
who had a white mantle about him, and a crown of gold on his head,
rode by and showed them an eagle that soared just over Alexander,
and directed his Right towards the enemy; which so animated the
beholders, that after mutual encouragements and exhortations, the
horse charged at full speed, and were followed in a mass by the
whole phalanx of the foot. But before they could well come to
blows with the first ranks, the barbarians shrunk back, and were
hotly pursued by Alexander, who drove those that fled before him
into the middle of the battle, where Darius himself was in person,
whom he saw from a distance over the foremost ranks, conspicuous
in the midst of his life-guard, a tall and fine-looking man, drawn
in a lofty chariot, defended by an abundance of the best horse,
who stood close in order about it, ready to receive the enemy.
But Alexander's approach was so terrible, forcing those who gave
back upon those who yet maintained their ground, that he beat down
and dispersed them almost all. Only a few of the bravest and
valiantest opposed the pursuit, who were slain in their king's
presence, falling in heaps upon one another, and in the very pangs
of death striving to catch hold of the horses. Darius now seeing
all was lost, that those who were placed in front to defend him
were broken and beat back upon him, that he could not turn or
disengage his chariot without great difficulty, the wheels being
clogged and entangled among the dead bodies, which lay in such
heaps as not only stopped, but almost covered the horses, and made
them rear and grow so unruly, that the frighted charioteer could
govern them no longer, in this extremity was glad to quit his
chariot and his arms, and mounting, it is said, upon a mare that
had been taken from her foal, betook himself to flight. But he
had not escaped so either, if Parmenio had not sent fresh
messengers to Alexander, to desire him to return and assist him
against a considerable body of the enemy which yet stood together,
and would not give ground. For, indeed, Parmenio is on all hands
accused of having been sluggish and unserviceable in this battle,
whether age had impaired his courage, or that, as Callisthenes
says, he secretly disliked and envied Alexander's growing
greatness. Alexander, though he was not a little vexed to be so
recalled and hindered from pursuing his victory, yet concealed the
true reason from his men, and causing a retreat to be sounded, as
if it were too late to continue the execution any longer, marched
back towards the place of danger, and by the way met with the news
of the enemy's total overthrow and flight.
This battle being thus over, seemed to put a period to the Persian
empire; and Alexander, who was now proclaimed king of Asia,
returned thanks to the gods in magnificent sacrifices, and
rewarded his friends and followers with great sums of money, and
places, and governments of provinces. And eager to gain honor
with the Grecians, he wrote to them that he would have all
tyrannies abolished, that they might live free according to their
own laws, and specially to the Plataeans, that their city should
be rebuilt, because their ancestors had permitted their countrymen
of old to make their territory the seat of the war, when they
fought with the barbarians for their common liberty. He sent also
part of the spoils into Italy, to the Crotoniats, to honor the
zeal and courage of their citizen Phayllus, the wrestler, who, in
the Median war, when the other Grecian colonies in Italy disowned
Greece, that he might have a share in the danger, joined the fleet
at Salamis, with a vessel set forth at his own charge. So
affectionate was Alexander to all kind of virtue, and so desirous
to preserve the memory of laudable actions.
From hence he marched through the province of Babylon, which
immediately submitted to him, and in Ecbatana was much surprised
at the sight of the place where fire issues in a continuous
stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth, and
the stream of naphtha, which, not far from this spot, flows out so
abundantly as to form a sort of lake. This naphtha, in other
respects resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire, that
before it touches the flame, it will kindle at the very light that
surrounds it, and often inflame the intermediate air also. The
barbarians, to show the power and nature of it, sprinkled the
street that led to the king's lodgings with little drops of it,
and when it was almost night, stood at the further end with
torches, which being applied to the moistened places, the first at
once taking fire, instantly, as quick as a man could think of it,
it caught from one end to another, in such a manner that the whole
street was one continued flame. Among those who used to wait on
the king and find occasion to amuse him when he anointed and
washed himself, there was one Athenophanes, an Athenian, who
desired him to make an experiment of the naphtha upon Stephanus,
who stood by in the bathing place, a youth with a ridiculously
ugly face, whose talent was singing well, "For," said he, "if it
take hold of him and is not put out, it must undeniably be allowed
to be of the most invincible strength." The youth, as it
happened, readily consented to undergo the trial, and as soon as
he was anointed and rubbed with it, his whole body broke out into
such a flame, and was so seized by the fire, that Alexander was
in the greatest perplexity and alarm for him, and not without
reason; for nothing could have prevented his being consumed by it,
if by good chance there had not been people at hand with a great
many vessels of water for the service of the bath, with all which
they had much ado to extinguish the fire; and his body was so
burned all over, that he was not cured of it a good while after.
And thus it is not without some plausibility that they endeavor to
reconcile the fable to truth, who say this was the drug in the
tragedies with which Medea anointed the crown and veil which she
gave to Creon's daughter. For neither the things themselves, nor
the fire could kindle of its own accord, but being prepared for it
by the naphtha, they imperceptibly attracted and caught a flame
which happened to be brought near them. For the rays and
emanations of fire at a distance have no other effect upon some
bodies than bare light and heat, but in others, where they meet
with airy dryness, and also sufficient rich moisture, they collect
themselves and soon kindle and create a transformation. The
manner, however, of the production of naphtha admits of a
diversity of opinion on whether this liquid substance that
feeds the flame does not rather proceed from a soil that is
unctuous and productive of fire, as that of the province of
Babylon is, where the ground is so very hot, that oftentimes the
grains of barley leap up, and are thrown out, as if the violent
inflammation had made the earth throb; and in the extreme heats
the inhabitants are wont to sleep upon skins filled with water.
Harpalus, who was left governor of this country, and was desirous
to adorn the palace gardens and walks with Grecian plants,
succeeded in raising all but ivy, which the earth would not bear,
but constantly killed. For being a plant that loves a cold soil,
the temper of this hot and fiery earth was improper for it. But
such digressions as these the impatient reader will be more
willing to pardon, if they are kept within a moderate compass.
At the taking of Susa, Alexander found in the palace forty
thousand talents in money ready coined, besides an unspeakable
quantity of other furniture and treasure; amongst which was five
thousand talents' worth of Hermionian purple, that had been laid
up there a hundred and ninety years, and yet kept its color as
fresh and lively as at first. The reason of which, they say, is
that in dyeing the purple they made use of honey, and of white oil
in the white tincture, both which after the like space of time
preserve the clearness and brightness of their luster. Dinon also
relates that the Persian kings had water fetched from the Nile and
the Danube, which they laid up in their treasuries as a sort of
testimony of the greatness of their power and universal empire.
The entrance into Persia was through a most difficult country,
and was guarded by the noblest of the Persians, Darius himself
having escaped further. Alexander, however, chanced to find a
guide in exact correspondence with what the Pythia had foretold
when he was a child, that a lycus should conduct him into Persia.
For by such an one, whose father was a Lycian, and his mother a
Persian, and who spoke both languages, he was now led into the
country, by a way something about, yet without fetching any
considerable compass. Here a great many of the prisoners were put
to the sword, of which himself gives this account, that he
commanded them to be killed in the belief that it would be for his
advantage. Nor was the money found here less, he says, than at
Susa, besides other movables and treasure, as much as ten thousand
pair of mules and five thousand camels could well carry away.
Amongst other things he happened to observe a large statue of
Xerxes thrown carelessly down to the ground in the confusion made
by the multitude of soldiers pressing; into the palace. He stood
still, and accosting it as if it had been alive, "Shall we," said
he, "neglectfully pass thee by, now thou art prostrate on the
ground, because thou once invadedst Greece, or shall we erect thee
again in consideration of the greatness of thy mind and thy other
virtues?" But at last, after he had paused some time, and
silently considered with himself, he went on without taking any
further notice of it. In this place he took up his winter
quarters, and stayed four months to refresh his soldiers. It is
related that the first time he sat on the royal throne of Persia,
under the canopy of gold, Demaratus, the Corinthian, who was much
attached to him and had been one of his father's friends, wept, in
an old man's manner, and deplored the misfortune of those Creeks
whom death had deprived of the satisfaction of seeing Alexander
seated on the throne of Darius.
From hence designing to march against Darius, before he set out,
he diverted himself with his officers at an entertainment of
drinking and other pastimes, and indulged so far as to let every
one's mistress sit by and drink with them. The most celebrated of
them was Thais, an Athenian, mistress of Ptolemy, who was
afterwards king of Egypt. She, partly as a sort of well-turned
compliment to Alexander, partly out of sport, as the drinking went
on, at last was carried so far as to utter a saying, not
misbecoming her native country's character, though somewhat too
lofty for her own condition. She said it was indeed some
recompense for the toils she had undergone in following the camp
all over Asia, that she was that day treated in, and could insult
over, the stately palace of the Persian monarchs. But, she added,
it would please her much better, if while the king looked on, she
might in sport, with her own hands, set fire to the court of that
Xerxes who reduced the city of Athens to ashes, that it might be
recorded to posterity, that the women who followed Alexander had
taken a severer revenge on the Persians for the sufferings and
affronts of Greece, than all the famed commanders had been able to
do by sea or land. What she said was received with such universal
liking and murmurs of applause, and so seconded by the
encouragement and eagerness of the company, that the king himself,
persuaded to be of the party, started from his seat, and with a
chaplet of flowers on his head, and a lighted torch in his hand,
led them the way, while they went after him in a riotous manner,
dancing and making loud cries about the place; which when the rest
of the Macedonians perceived, they also in great delight ran
thither with torches; for they hoped the burning and destruction
of the royal palace was an argument that he looked homeward, and
had no design to reside among the barbarians. Thus some writers
give their account of this action, while others say it was done
deliberately; however, all agree that he soon repented of it, and
gave order to put out the fire.
Alexander was naturally most munificent, and grew more so as his
fortune increased, accompanying what he gave with that courtesy
and freedom, which, to speak truth, is necessary to make a benefit
really obliging. I will give a few instances of this kind.
Ariston, the captain of the Paeonians, having killed an enemy,
brought his head to show him, and told him that in his country,
such a present was recompensed with a cup of gold. "With an empty
one," said Alexander, smiling, "but I drink to you in this, which
I give you full of wine." Another time, as one of the common
soldier was driving a mule laden with some of the king's treasure,
the beast grew tired, and the soldier took it upon his own back,
and began to march with it, till Alexander seeing the man so
overcharged, asked what was the matter; and when he was informed,
just as he was ready to lay down his burden for weariness, "Do not
faint now," said he to him, "but finish the journey, and carry
what you have there to your own tent for yourself." He was always
more displeased with those who would not accept of what he gave
than with those who begged of him. And therefore he wrote to
Phocion, that he would not own him for his friend any longer, if
he refused his presents. He had never given anything to Serapion,
one of the youths that played at ball with him, because he did not
ask of him, till one day, it coming to Serapion's turn to play, he
still threw the ball to others, and when the king asked him why he
did not direct it to him, "Because you do not ask for it," said
he; which answer pleased him so, that he was very liberal to him
afterwards. One Proteas, a pleasant, jesting, drinking fellow,
having incurred his displeasure, got his friends to intercede for
him, and begged his pardon himself with tears, which at last
prevailed, and Alexander declared he was friends with him. "I
cannot believe it," said Proteas, "unless you first give me some
pledge of it." The king understood his meaning, and presently
ordered five talents to be given him. How magnificent he was in
enriching his friends, and those who attended on his person,
appears by a letter which Olympias wrote to him, where she tells
him he should reward and honor those about him in a more moderate
way, For now," said she, "you make them all equal to kings, you
give them power and opportunity of making many friends of their
own, and in the meantime you leave yourself destitute." She
often wrote to him to this purpose, and he never communicated her
letters to anybody, unless it were one which he opened when
Hephaestion was by, whom he permitted, as his custom was, to read
it along with him; but then as soon as he had done, he took off
his ring, and set the seal upon Hephaestion's lips. Mazaeus, who
was the most considerable man in Darius's court, had a son who was
already governor of a province. Alexander bestowed another upon
him that was better; he, however, modestly refused, and told him,
instead of one Darius, he went the way to make many Alexanders.
To Parmenio he gave Bagoas's house, in which he found a wardrobe
of apparel worth more than a thousand talents. He wrote to
Antipater, commanding him to keep a life-guard about him for the
security of his person against conspiracies. To his mother he
sent many presents, but would never suffer her to meddle with
matters of state or war, not indulging her busy temper, and when
she fell out with him upon this account, he bore her ill-humor
very patiently. Nay more, when he read a long letter from
Antipater, full of accusations against her, "Antipater," he said,
"does not know that one tear of a mother effaces a thousand such
letters as these."
But when he perceived his favorites grow so luxurious and
extravagant in their way of living and expenses, that Hagnon, the
Teian, wore silver nails in his shoes, that Leonnatus employed
several camels, only to bring him powder out of Egypt to use when
he wrestled, and that Philotas had hunting nets a hundred furlongs
in length, that more used precious ointment than plain oil when
they went to bathe, and that they carried about servants
everywhere with them to rub them and wait upon them in their
chambers, he reproved them in gentle and reasonable terms, telling
them he wondered that they who had been engaged in so many signal
battles did not know by experience, that those who labor sleep
more sweetly and soundly than those who are labored for, and could
fail to see by comparing the Persians' manner of living with their
own, that it was the most abject and slavish condition to be
voluptuous, but the most noble arid royal to undergo pain and
labor. He argued with them further, how it was possible for anyone
who pretended to be a soldier, either to look well after his
horse, or to keep his armor bright and in good order, who thought
it much to let his hands be serviceable to what was nearest to
him, his own body. "Are you still to learn," said he, "that the
end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and
infirmities of those whom we subdue?" And to strengthen his
precepts by example, he applied himself now more vigorously than
ever to hunting and warlike expeditions, embracing all
opportunities of hardship and danger, insomuch that a
Lacedaemonian, who was there on an embassy to him, and chanced to
be by when he encountered with and mastered a huge lion, told him
he had fought gallantly with the beast, which of the two should be
king. Craterus caused a representation to be made of this
adventure, consisting of the lion and the dogs, of the king
engaged with the lion, and himself coming in to his assistance,
all expressed in figures of brass, some of which were by Lysippus,
and the rest by Leochares; and had it dedicated in the temple of
Apollo at Delphi. Alexander exposed his person to danger in this
manner, with the object both of inuring himself, and inciting
others to the performance of brave and virtuous actions.
But his followers, who were grown rich, and consequently proud,
longed to indulge themselves in pleasure and idleness, and were
weary of marches and expeditions, and at last went on so far as to
censure and speak ill of him. All which at first he bore very
patiently, saying, it became a king well to do good to others, and
be evil spoken of. Meantime, on the smallest occasions that
called for a show of kindness to his friends, there was every
indication on his part of tenderness and respect. Hearing
Peucestes was bitten by a bear, he wrote to him, that he took it
unkindly he should send others notice of it, and not make him
acquainted with it; "But now," said he, "since it is so, let me
know how you do, and whether any of your companions forsook you
when you were in danger, that I may punish them." He sent
Hephaestion, who was absent about some business, word how while
they were fighting for their diversion with an ichneumon, Craterus
was by chance run through both thighs with Perdiccas's javelin.
And upon Peucestes's recovery from a fit of sickness, he sent a
letter of thanks to his physician Alexippus. When Craterus was
ill, he saw a vision in his sleep, after which he offered
sacrifices for his health, and bade him to do so likewise. He
wrote also to Pausanias, the physician, who was about to purge
Craterus with hellebore, partly out of an anxious concern for him,
and partly to give him a caution how he used that medicine. He
was so tender of his friends' reputation that he imprisoned
Ephialtes and Cissus, who brought him the first news of Harpalus's
flight and withdrawal from his service, as if they had falsely
accused him. When he sent the old and infirm soldiers home,
Eurylochus, a citizen of Aegae, got his name enrolled among the
sick, though he ailed nothing, which being discovered, he
confessed he was in love with a young woman named Telesippa, and
wanted to go along with her to the seaside. Alexander inquired to
whom the woman belonged, and being told she was a free courtesan,
"I will assist you," said he to Eurylochus, "in your amour, if
your mistress be to be gained either by presents or persuasions;
but we must use no other means, because she is free-born."
It is surprising to consider upon what slight occasions he would
write letters to serve his friends. As when he wrote one in which
he gave order to search for a youth that belonged to Seleucus, who
was run away into Cilicia; and in another, thanked and commended
Peucestes for apprehending Nicon, a servant of Craterus; and in
one to Megabyzus, concerning a slave that had taken sanctuary in a
temple, gave direction that he should not meddle with him while he
was there, but if he could entice him out by fair means, then he
gave him leave to seize him. It is reported of him that when he
first sat in judgment upon capital causes, he would lay his hand
upon one of his ears while the accuser spoke, to keep it free and
unprejudiced in behalf of the party accused. But afterwards such
a multitude of accusations were brought before him, and so many
proved true, that he lost his tenderness of heart, and gave credit
to those also that were false; and especially when anybody spoke
ill of him, he would be transported out of his reason, and show
himself cruel and inexorable, valuing his glory and reputation
beyond his life or kingdom.
He now, as we said, set forth to seek Darius, expecting he should
be put to the hazard of another battle, but heard he was taken and
secured by Bessus, upon which news he sent home the Thessalians,
and gave them a largess of two thousand talents over and above the
pay that was due to them. This long and painful pursuit of
Darius, for in eleven days he marched thirty-three hundred
furlongs, harassed his soldiers so that most of them were ready to
give it up, chiefly for want of water. While they were in this
distress, it happened that some Macedonians who had fetched water
in skins upon their mules from a river they had found out, came
about noon to the place where Alexander was, and seeing him almost
choked with thirst, presently filled a helmet and offered it him.
He asked them to whom they were carrying the water; they told him
to their children, adding, that if his life were but saved, it was
no matter for them, they should be able well enough to repair that
loss, though they all perished. Then he took the helmet into his
hands, and looking round about, when he saw all those who were
near him stretching their heads out and looking, earnestly after
the drink, he returned it again with thanks without tasting a drop
of it, "For," said he, "if I alone should drink, the rest will be
out of heart." The soldiers no sooner took notice of his
temperance and magnanimity upon this occasion, but they one and
all cried out to him to lead them forward boldly, and began
whipping on their horses. For whilst they had such a king, they
said they defied both weariness and thirst, and looked upon
themselves to be little less than immortal. But though they were
all equally cheerful and willing, yet not above threescore horse
were able, it is said, to keep up, and to fall in with Alexander
upon the enemy's camp, where they rode over abundance of gold and
silver that lay scattered about, and passing by a great many
chariots full of women that wandered here and there for want of
drivers, they endeavored to overtake the first of those that fled,
in hopes to meet with Darius among them. And at last, after much
trouble, they found him lying in a chariot, wounded all over with
darts, just at the point of death. However, he desired they would
give him some drink, and when he had drunk a little cold water, he
told Polystratus, who gave it him, that it had become the last
extremity of his ill fortune, to receive benefits and not be able
to return them. "But Alexander," said he, "whose kindness to my
mother, my wife, and my children I hope the gods will recompense,
will doubtless thank you for your humanity to me. Tell him,
therefore, in token of my acknowledgment, I give him this right
hand," with which words he took hold of Polystratus's hand and
died. When Alexander came up to them, he showed manifest tokens
of sorrow, and taking off his own cloak, threw it upon the body to
cover it. And sometime afterwards, when Bessus was taken, he
ordered him to be torn in pieces in this manner. They fastened
him to a couple of trees which were bound down so as to meet, and
then being let loose, with a great force returned to their places,
each of them carrying that part of the body along with it that was
tied to it. Darius's body was laid in state, and sent to his
mother with pomp suitable to his quality. His brother Exathres,
Alexander received into the number of his intimate friends.
And now with the flower of his army he marched into Hyrcania,
where he saw a large bay of an open sea, apparently not much less
than the Euxine, with water, however, sweeter than that of other
seas, but could learn nothing of certainty concerning it, further
than that in all probability it seemed to him to be an arm
issuing from the lake of Maeotis. However, the naturalists were
better informed of the truth, and had given an account of it many
years before Alexander's expedition; that of four gulfs which out
of the main sea enter into the continent, this, known
indifferently as the Caspian and as the Hyrcanian sea, is the most
northern. Here the barbarians, unexpectedly meeting with those
who led Bucephalas, took them prisoners, and carried the horse
away with them, at which Alexander was so much vexed, that he sent
a herald to let them know he would put them all to the sword,
men, women, and children, without mercy, if they did not restore
him. But on their doing so, and at the same time surrendering
their cities into his hands, he not only treated them kindly, but
also paid a ramsom for his horse to those who took him.
From hence he marched into Parthia, where not having much to do,
he first put on the barbaric dress, perhaps with the view of
making the work of civilizing them the easier, as nothing gains
more upon men than a conformity to their fashions and customs. Or
it may have been as a first trial, whether the Macedonians might
be brought to adore him, as the Persians did their kings, by
accustoming them by little and little to bear with the alteration
of his rule and course of life in other things. However, he
followed not the Median fashion, which was altogether foreign and
uncouth, and adopted neither the trousers nor the sleeved vest,
nor the tiara for the head, but taking a middle way between the
Persian mode and the Macedonian, so contrived his habit that it
was not so flaunting as the one, and yet more pompous and
magnificent than the other. At first he wore this habit only when
he conversed with the barbarians, or within doors, among his
intimate friends and companions, but afterwards he appeared in it
abroad, when he rode out, and at public audiences, a sight which
the Macedonians beheld with grief; but they so respected his other
virtues and good qualities, that they felt it reasonable in some
things to gratify his fancies and his passion of glory, in pursuit
of which he hazarded himself so far, that, besides his other
adventures, he had but lately been wounded in the leg by an arrow,
which had so shattered the shank-bone that splinters were taken
out. And on another occasion he received a violent blow with a
stone upon the nape of the neck, which dimmed his sight for a good
while afterwards. And yet all this could not hinder him from
exposing himself freely to any dangers, insomuch that he passed
the river Orexartes, which he took to be the Tanais, and putting
the Scythians to flight, followed them above a hundred furlongs,
though suffering all the time from a diarrhea.
Here many affirm that the Amazon came to give him a visit. So
Clitarchus, Polyclitus, Onesicritus, Antigenes, and Ister, tell
us. But Aristobulus and Chares, who held the office of reporter
of requests, Ptolemy and Anticlides, Philon the Theban, Philip of
Theangela, Hecataeus the Eretrian, Philip the Chalcidian, and
Duris the Samian, say it is wholly a fiction. And truly Alexander
himself seems to confirm the latter statement, for in a letter in
which he gives Antipater an account of all that happened, he tells
him that the king of Scythia offered him his daughter in marriage,
but makes no mention at all of the Amazon. And many years after,
when Onesicritus read this story in his fourth book to Lysimachus,
who then reigned, the king laughed quietly and asked, "Where could
I have been at that time?"
But it signifies little to Alexander whether this be credited or
no. Certain it is, that apprehending the Macedonians would be
weary of pursuing the war, he left the greater part of them in
their quarters; and having with him in Hyrcania the choice of his
men only, amounting to twenty thousand foot, and three thousand
horse, he spoke to them to this effect: That hitherto the
barbarians had seen them no otherwise than as it were in a dream,
and if they should think of returning when they had only alarmed
Asia, and not conquered it, their enemies would set upon them as
upon so many women. However, he told them he would keep none of
them with him against their will, they might go if they pleased;
he should merely enter his protest, that when on his way to make
the Macedonians the masters of the world, he was left alone with a
few friends and volunteers. This is almost word for word, as he
wrote in a letter to Antipater, where he adds, that when he had
thus spoken to them, they all cried out, they would go along with
him whithersoever it was his pleasure to lead them. After
succeeding with these, it was no hard matter for him to bring over
the multitude, which easily followed the example of their betters.
Now, also, he more and more accommodated himself in his way of
living to that of the natives, and tried to bring them, also, as
near as he could to the Macedonian customs, wisely considering
that whilst he was engaged in an expedition which would carry him
far from thence, it would be wiser to depend upon the goodwill
which might arise from intermixture and association as a means of
maintaining tranquillity, than upon force and compulsion. In
order to this, he chose out thirty thousand boys, whom he put
under masters to teach them the Greek tongue, and to train them up
to arms in the Macedonian discipline. As for his marriage with
Roxana, whose youthfulness and beauty had charmed him at a
drinking entertainment, where he first happened to see her, taking
part in a dance, it was, indeed, a love affair, yet it seemed at
the same time to be conducive to the object he had in hand. For
it gratified the conquered people to see him choose a wife from
among themselves, and it made them feel the most lively affection
for him, to find that in the only passion which he, the most
temperate of men, was overcome by, he yet forbore till he could
obtain her in a lawful and honorable way.
Noticing, also, that among his chief friends and favorites,
Hephaestion most approved all that he did, and complied with and
imitated him in his change of habits, while Craterus continued
strict in the observation of the customs and fashions of his own
country, he made it his practice to employ the first in all
transactions with the Persians, and the latter when he had to do
with the Greeks or Macedonians. And in general he showed more
affection for Hephaestion, and more respect for Craterus;
Hephaestion, as he used to say, being Alexander's, and Craterus
the king's friend. And so these two friends always bore in secret
a grudge to each other, and at times quarreled openly, so much so,
that once in India they drew upon one another, and were proceeding
in good earnest, with their friends on each side to second them,
when Alexander rode up and publicly reproved Hephaestion, calling
him fool and madman, not to be sensible that without his favor he
was nothing. He rebuked Craterus, also, in private, severely, and
then causing them both to come into his presence, he reconciled
them, at the same time swearing by Ammon and the rest of the gods,
that he loved them two above all other men, but if ever he
perceived them fall out again he would be sure to put both of them
to death, or at least the aggressor. After which they neither
ever did or said anything, so much as in jest, to offend one
another.
There was scarcely anyone who had greater repute among the
Macedonians than Philotas, the son of Parmenio. For besides that
he was valiant and able to endure any fatigue of war, he was also
next to Alexander himself the most munificent, and the greatest
lover of his friends, one of whom asking him for some money, he
commanded his steward to give it him; and when he told him he had
not wherewith, "Have you not any plate then," said he, "or any
clothes of mine to sell?" But he carried his arrogance and his
pride of wealth and his habits of display and luxury to a degree
of assumption unbecoming a private man, and affecting all the
loftiness without succeeding in showing any of the grace or
gentleness of true greatness, by this mistaken and spurious
majesty he gained so much envy and ill-will, that Parmenio would
sometimes tell him, "My son, to be not quite so great would be
better." For he had long before been complained of, and accused
to Alexander. Particularly when Darius was defeated in Cilicia,
and an immense booty was taken at Damascus, among the rest of the
prisoners who were brought into the camp, there was one Antigone
of Pydna, a very handsome woman, who fell to Philotas's share.
The young man one day in his cups, in the vaunting, outspoken,
soldier's manner, declared to his mistress, that all the great
actions were performed by him and his father, the glory and
benefit of which, he said, together with the title of king, the
boy Alexander reaped and enjoyed by their means. She could not
hold, but discovered what he had said to one of her acquaintance,
and he, as is usual in such cases, to another, till at last the
story came to the ears of Craterus, who brought the woman secretly
to the king. When Alexander had heard what she had to say, he
commanded her to continue her intrigue with Philotas, and give him
an account from time to time of all that should fall from him to
this purpose. He thus unwittingly caught in a snare, to gratify
some times a fit of anger, sometimes a mere love of vainglory, let
himself utter numerous foolish, indiscreet speeches against the
king in Antigone's hearing, of which though Alexander was informed
and convinced by strong evidence, yet he would take no notice of
it at present, whether it was that he confided in Parmenio's
affection and loyalty, or that he apprehended their authority and
interest in the army. But about this time one Limnus, a
Macedonian of Chalastra, conspired against Alexander's life, and
communicated his design to a youth whom he was fond of, named
Nicomachus, inviting him to be of the party. But he not relishing
the thing, revealed it to his brother Balinus, who immediately
addressed himself to Philotas, requiring him to introduce them
both to Alexander, to whom they had something of great moment to
impart which very nearly concerned him. But he, for what reason
is uncertain, went not with them, professing that the king was
engaged with affairs of more importance. And when they had urged
him a second time, and were still slighted by him, they applied
themselves to another, by whose means being admitted into
Alexander's presence, they first told about Limnus's conspiracy,
and by the way let Philotas's negligence appear, who had twice
disregarded their application to him. Alexander was greatly
incensed, and on finding that Limnus had defended himself, and had
been killed by the soldier who was sent to seize him, he was still
more discomposed, thinking he had thus lost the means of detecting
the plot. As soon as his displeasure against Philotas began to
appear, presently all his old enemies showed themselves, and said
openly, the king was too easily imposed on, to imagine that one so
inconsiderable as Limnus, a Chalastrian, should of his own head
undertake such an enterprise; that in all likelihood he was but
subservient to the design, an instrument that was moved by some
greater spring; that those ought to be more strictly examined
about the matter whose interest it was so much to conceal it.
When they had once gained the king's ear for insinuations of this
sort, they went on to show a thousand grounds of suspicion against
Philotas, till at last they prevailed to have him seized and put
to the torture, which was done in the presence of the principal
officers, Alexander himself being placed behind some tapestry to
understand what passed. Where, when he heard in what a miserable
tone, and with what abject submissions Philotas applied himself to
Hephaestion, he broke out, it is said, in this manner: "Are you
so mean-spirited and effeminate, Philotas, and yet can engage in
so desperate a design?" After his death, he presently sent into
Media, and put also Parmenio, his father, to death, who had done
brave service under Philip, and was the only man, of his older
friends and counselors, who had encouraged Alexander to invade
Asia. Of three sons whom he had had in the army, he had already
lost two, and now was himself put to death with the third. These
actions rendered Alexander an object of terror to many of his
friends, and chiefly to Antipater, who, to strengthen himself,
sent messengers privately to treat for an alliance with the
Aetolians, who stood in fear of Alexander, because they had
destroyed the town of the Oeniadae; on being informed of which,
Alexander had said the children of the Oeniadae need not revenge
their fathers' quarrel, for he would himself take care to punish
the Aetolians.
Not long after this happened the deplorable end of Clitus, which
to those who barely hear the matter-of-fact, may seem more inhuman
than that of Philotas; but if we consider the story with its
circumstance of time, and weigh the cause, we shall find it to
have occurred rather through a sort of mischance of the king's,
whose anger and over-drinking offered an occasion to the evil
genius of Clitus. The king had a present of Grecian fruit brought
him from the sea-coast, which was so fresh and beautiful, that he
was surprised at it, and called Clitus to him to see it, and to
give him a share of it. Clitus was then sacrificing, but he
immediately left off and came, followed by three sheep, on whom
the drink-offering had been already poured preparatory to
sacrificing them. Alexander, being informed of this, told his
diviners, Aristander and Cleomantis the Lacedaemonian, and asked
them what it meant; on whose assuring him, it was an ill omen, he
commanded them in all haste to offer sacrifices for Clitus's
safety, forasmuch as three days before he himself had seen a
strange vision in his sleep, of Clitus all in mourning, sitting by
Parmenio's sons who were dead. Clitus, however, stayed not to
finish his devotions, but came straight to supper with the king,
who had sacrificed to Castor and Pollux. And when they had drunk
pretty hard, some of the company fell a singing the verses of one
Pranichus, or as others say of Pierion, which were made upon those
captains who had been lately worsted by the barbarians, on purpose
to disgrace and turn them to ridicule. This gave offense to the
older men who were there, and they upbraided both the author and
the singer of the verses, though Alexander and the younger men
about him were much amused to hear them, and encouraged them to go
on, till at last Clitus, who had drunk too much, and was besides
of a froward and willful temper, was so nettled that he could hold
no longer, saying, it was not well done to expose the Macedonians
so before the barbarians and their enemies, since though it was
their unhappiness to be overcome, yet they were much better men
than those who laughed at them. And when Alexander remarked, that
Clitus was pleading his own cause, giving cowardice the name of
misfortune, Clitus started up; "This cowardice, as you are pleased
to term it," said he to him, "saved the life of a son of the gods,
when in flight from Spithridates's sword; and it is by the expense
of Macedonian blood, and by these wounds, that you are now raised
to such a height, as to be able to disown your father Philip, and
call yourself the Son of Ammon." "Thou base fellow," said
Alexander, who was now thoroughly exasperated, "dost thou think to
utter these things everywhere of me, and stir up the Macedonians
to sedition, and not be punished for it?" "We are sufficiently
punished already," answered Clitus, "if this be the recompense of
our toils, and we must esteem theirs a happy lot, who have not
lived to see their countrymen scourged with Median rods, and
forced to sue to the Persians to have access to their king."
While he talked thus at random, and those near Alexander got up
from their seats and began to revile him in turn, the elder men
did what they could to compose the disorder. Alexander, in the
meantime turning about to Xenodochus, the Cardian, and Artemius,
the Colophonian, asked them if they were not of opinion that the
Greeks, in comparison with the Macedonians, behaved themselves
like so many demi-gods among wild beasts. But Clitus for all this
would not give over, desiring Alexander to speak out if he had
anything more to say, or else why did he invite men who were
freeborn and accustomed to speak their minds openly without
restraint, to sup with him. He had better live and converse with
barbarians and slaves who would not scruple to bow the knee to his
Persian girdle and his white tunic. Which words so provoked
Alexander, that not able to suppress his anger any longer, he threw
one of the apples that lay upon the table at him, and hit him, and
then looked about for his sword. But Aristophanes, one of his
life-guard, had hid that out of the way, and others came about him
and besought him, but in vain. For breaking from them, he called
out aloud to his guards in the Macedonian language, which was a
certain sign of some great disturbance in him, and commanded a
trumpeter to sound, giving him a blow with his clenched fist for
not instantly obeying him; though afterwards the same man was
commended for disobeying an order which would have put the whole
army into tumult and confusion. Clitus still refusing to yield,
was with much trouble forced by his friends out of the room. But
he came in again immediately at another door, very irreverently
and confidently singing the verses out of Euripides's Andromache, --
In Greece, alas! how ill things ordered are!
Upon this, at last, Alexander, snatching a spear from one of the
soldiers, met Clitus as he was coming forward and was putting by
the curtain that hung before the door, and ran him through the
body. He fell at once with a cry and a groan. Upon which the
king's anger immediately vanishing, he came perfectly to himself,
and when he saw his friends about him all in a profound silence,
he pulled the spear out of the dead body, and would have thrust it
into his own throat, if the guards had not held his hands, and by
main force carried him away into his chamber, where all that night
and the next day he wept bitterly, till being quite spent with
lamenting and exclaiming, he lay as it were speechless, only
fetching deep sighs. His friends apprehending some harm from his
silence, broke into the room, but he took no notice of what any of
them said, till Aristander putting him in mind of the vision he
had seen concerning Clitus, and the prodigy that followed, as if
all had come to pass by an unavoidable fatality, he then seemed to
moderate his grief. They now brought Callisthenes, the
philosopher, who was the near friend of Aristotle, and Anaxarchus
of Abdera, to him. Callisthenes used moral language, and gentle
and soothing means, hoping to find access for words of reason, and
get a hold upon the passion. But Anaxarchus, who had always taken
a course of his own in philosophy, and had a name for despising
and slighting his contemporaries, as soon as he came in, cried out
aloud, "Is this the Alexander whom the whole world looks to, lying
here weeping like a slave, for fear of the censure and reproach of
men, to whom he himself ought to be a law and measure of equity,
if he would use the right his conquests have given him as supreme
lord and governor of all, and not be the victim of a vain and idle
opinion? Do not you know," said he, "that Jupiter is represented
to have Justice and Law on each hand of him, to signify that all
the actions of a conqueror are lawful and just?" With these and
the like speeches, Anaxarchus indeed allayed the king's grief, but
withal corrupted his character, rendering him more audacious and
lawless than he had been. Nor did he fail by these means to
insinuate himself into his favor, and to make Callisthenes's
company, which at all times, because of his austerity, was not
very acceptable, more uneasy and disagreeable to him.
It happened that these two philosophers meeting at an
entertainment, where conversation turned on the subject of climate
and the temperature of the air, Callisthenes joined with their
opinion, who held that those countries were colder, and the winter
sharper there than in Greece. Anaxarchus would by no means allow
this, but argued against it with some heat. "Surely," said
Callisthenes, "you cannot but admit this country to be colder than
Greece, for there you used to have but one threadbare cloak to
keep out the coldest winter, and here you have three good warm
mantles one over another." This piece of raillery irritated
Anaxarchus and the other pretenders to learning, and the crowd of
flatterers in general could not endure to see Callisthenes so much
admired and followed by the youth, and no less esteemed by the
older men for his orderly life, and his gravity, and for being
contented with his condition; all confirming what he had professed
about the object he had in his journey to Alexander, that it was
only to get his countrymen recalled from banishment, and to
rebuild and repeople his native town. Besides the envy which his
great reputation raised, he also, by his own deportment, gave
those who wished him ill, opportunity to do him mischief. For
when he was invited to public entertainments, he would most times
refuse to come, or if he were present at any, he put a constraint
upon the company by his austerity and silence, which seemed to
intimate his disapproval of what he saw. So that Alexander
himself said in application to him,
That vain pretense to wisdom I detest,
Where a man's blind to his own interest.
Being with many more invited to sup with the king, he was called
upon when the cup came to him, to make an oration extempore in
praise of the Macedonians; and he did it with such a flow of
eloquence, that all who heard it rose from their seats to clap and
applaud him, and threw their garland upon him; only Alexander told
him out of Euripides,
I wonder not that you have spoke so well,
'Tis easy on good subjects to excel.
"Therefore," said he, "if you will show the force of your
eloquence, tell my Macedonians their faults, and dispraise them,
that by hearing their errors they may learn to he better for the
future." Callisthenes presently obeyed him, retracting all he had
said before, and, inveighing against the Macedonians with great
freedom, added, that Philip thrived and grew powerful, chiefly by
the discord of the Grecians, applying this verse to him:--
In civil strife e'en villains rise to fame;
which so offended the Macedonians, that he was odious to them ever
after. And Alexander said, that instead of his eloquence, he had
only made his ill-will appear in what he had spoken. Hermippus
assures us, that one Stroebus, a servant whom Callisthenes kept to
read to him, gave this account of these passages afterwards to
Aristotle; and that when he perceived the king grow more and more
averse to him, two or three times, as he was going away, he
repeated the verses, --
Death seiz'd at last on great Patroclus too,
Though he in virtue far exceeded you.
Not without reason, therefore, did Aristotle give this character
of Callisthenes, that he was, indeed, a powerful speaker, but had
no judgment. He acted certainly a true philosopher's part in
positively refusing, as he did, to pay adoration; and by speaking
out openly against that which the best and gravest of the
Macedonians only repined at in secret, he delivered the Grecians
and Alexander himself from a great disgrace, when the practice was
given up. But he ruined himself by it, because he went too
roughly to work, as if he would have forced the king to that which
he should have effected by reason and persuasion. Chares of
Mitylene writes, that at a banquet, Alexander, after he had drunk,
reached the cup to one of his friends, who, on receiving it, rose
up towards the domestic altar, and when he had drunk, first
adored, and then kissed Alexander, and afterwards laid himself
down at the table with the rest. Which they all did one after
another, till it came to Callisthenes's turn, who took the cup and
drank, while the king who was engaged in conversation with
Hephaestion was not observing, and then came and offered to kiss
him. But Demetrius, surnamed Phidon, interposed, saying, "Sir, by
no means let him kiss you, for he only of us all has refused to
adore you;" upon which the king declined it, and all the concern
Callisthenes showed was, that he said aloud, "Then I go away with
a kiss less than the rest." The displeasure he incurred by this
action procured credit for Hephaestion's declaration that he had
broken his word to him in not paying the king the same veneration
that others did, as he had faithfully promised to do. And to
finish his disgrace, a number of such men as Lysimachus and Hagnon
now came in with their asseverations that the sophist went about
everywhere boasting of his resistance to arbitrary power, and that
the young men all ran after him, and honored him as the only man
among so many thousands who had the courage to preserve his
liberty. Therefore when Hermolaus's conspiracy came to be
discovered, the charges which his enemies brought against him were
the more easily believed, particularly that when the young man
asked him what he should do to be the most illustrious person on
earth, he told him the readiest way was to kill him who was
already so; and that to incite him to commit the deed, he bade him
not be awed by the golden couch, but remember Alexander was a man
equally infirm and vulnerable as another. However, none of
Hermolaus's accomplices, in the utmost extremity, made any mention
of Callisthenes's being engaged in the design. Nay, Alexander
himself, in the letters which he wrote soon after to Craterus,
Attalus, and Alcetas, tells them that the young men who were put
to the torture, declared they had entered into the conspiracy of
themselves, without any others being privy to, or guilty of it.
But yet afterwards, in a letter to Antipater, he accuses
Callisthenes. "The young men," he says, "were stoned to death by
the Macedonians, but for the sophist," (meaning Callisthenes,) "I
will take care to punish him with them too who sent him to me, and
who harbor those in their cities who conspire against my life," an
unequivocal declaration against Aristotle, in whose house
Callisthenes, for his relationship's sake, being his niece Hero's
son, had been educated. His death is variously related. Some say
he was hanged by Alexander's orders; others, that he died of
sickness in prison; but Chares writes he was kept in chains seven
months after he was apprehended, on purpose that he might be
proceeded against in full council, when Aristotle should be
present; and that growing very fat, and contracting a disease of
vermin, he there died, about the time that Alexander was wounded
in India, in the country of the Malli Oxydracae, all which came
to pass afterwards.
For to go on in order, Demaratus of Corinth, now quite an old man,
had made a great effort, about this time, to pay Alexander a
visit; and when he had seen him, said he pitied the misfortune of
those Grecians, who were so unhappy as to die before they had
beheld Alexander seated on the throne of Darius. But he did not
long enjoy the benefit of the king's kindness for him, any
otherwise than that soon after falling sick and dying, he had a
magnificent funeral, and the army raised him a monument of earth,
fourscore cubits high, and of a vast circumference. His ashes
were conveyed in a very rich chariot, drawn by four horses, to the
seaside.
Alexander now intent upon his expedition into India, took notice
that his soldiers were so charged with booty that it hindered
their marching. Therefore, at break of day, as soon as the
baggage wagons were laden, first he set fire to his own, and to
those of his friends, and then commanded those to be burnt which
belonged to the rest of the army. An act which in the
deliberation of it had seemed more dangerous and difficult than it
proved in the execution, with which few were dissatisfied; for
most of the soldiers, as if they had been inspired, uttering loud
outcries and warlike shoutings, supplied one another with what was
absolutely necessary, and burnt and destroyed all that was
superfluous, the sight of which redoubled Alexander's zeal and
eagerness for his design. And, indeed, he was now grown very
severe and inexorable in punishing those who committed any fault.
For he put Menander, one of his friends, to death, for deserting a
fortress where he had placed him in garrison, and shot Orsodates,
one of the barbarians who revolted from him, with his own hand.
At this time a sheep happened to yean a lamb, with the perfect
shape and color of a tiara upon the head, and testicles on each
side; which portent Alexander regarded with such dislike, that he
immediately caused his Babylonian priests, whom he usually carried
about with him for such purposes, to purify him, and told his
friends he was not so much concerned for his own sake as for
theirs, out of an apprehension that after his death the divine
power might suffer his empire to fall into the hands of some
degenerate, impotent person. But this fear was soon removed by a
wonderful thing that happened not long after, and was thought to
presage better. For Proxenus, a Macedonian, who was the chief of
those who looked to the king's furniture, as he was breaking up
the ground near the river Oxus, to set up the royal pavilion,
discovered a spring of a fat, oily liquor, which after the top was
taken off, ran pure, clear oil, without any difference either of
taste or smell, having exactly the same smoothness and brightness,
and that, too, in a country where no olives grew. The water,
indeed, of the river Oxus, is said to be the smoothest to the
feeling of all waters, and to leave a gloss on the skins of those
who bathe themselves in it. Whatever might be the cause, certain
it is that Alexander was wonderfully pleased with it, as appears
by his letters to Antipater, where he speaks of it as one of the
most remarkable presages that God had ever favored him with. The
diviners told him it signified his expedition would be glorious in
the event, but very painful, and attended with many difficulties;
for oil, they said, was bestowed on mankind by God as a
refreshment of their labors.
Nor did they judge amiss, for he exposed himself to many hazards
in the battles which he fought, and received very severe wounds,
but the greatest loss in his army was occasioned through the
unwholesomeness of the air, and the want of necessary provisions.
But he still applied himself to overcome fortune and whatever
opposed him, by resolution and virtue, and thought nothing
impossible to true intrepidity, and on the other hand nothing
secure or strong for cowardice. It is told of him that when he
besieged Sisimithres, who held an inaccessible, impregnable rock
against him, and his soldiers began to despair of taking it, he
asked Oxyartes whether Sisimithres was a man of courage, who
assuring him he was the greatest coward alive, "Then you tell me,"
said he, "that the place may easily be taken, since what is in
command of it is weak." And in a little time he so terrified
Sisimithres, that he took it without any difficulty. At an attack
which he made upon such another precipitous place with some of his
Macedonian soldiers, he called to one whose name was Alexander,
and told him, he at any rate must fight bravely, if it were but
for his name's sake. The youth fought gallantly and was killed in
the action, at which he was sensibly afflicted. Another time,
seeing his men march slowly and unwillingly to the siege of the
place called Nysa, because of a deep river between them and the
town, he advanced before them, and standing upon the bank, "What a
miserable man," said he, "am I, that I have not learned to swim!"
and then was hardly dissuaded from endeavoring to pass it upon his
shield. Here, after the assault was over, the ambassadors who
from several towns which he had blocked up, came to submit to him
and make their peace, were surprised to find him still in his
armor, without anyone in waiting or attendance upon him, and when
at last some one brought him a cushion, he made the eldest of
them, named Acuphis, take it and sit down upon it. The old man,
marveling at his magnanimity and courtesy, asked him what his
countrymen should do to merit his friendship. "I would have
them," said Alexander, "choose you to govern them, and send one
hundred of the most worthy men among them to remain with me as
hostages." Acuphis laughed and answered, "I shall govern them
with more ease, Sir, if I send you so many of the worst, rather
than the best of my subjects."
The extent of king Taxiles's dominions in India was thought to be
as large as Egypt, abounding in good pastures, and producing
beautiful fruits. The king himself had the reputation of a wise
man, and at his first interview with Alexander, he spoke to him
in these terms: "To what purpose," said he, "should we make war
upon one another, if the design of your coming into these parts be
not to rob us of our water or our necessary food, which are the
only things that wise men are indispensably obliged to fight for?
As for other riches and possessions, as they are accounted in the
eye of the world, if I am better provided of them than you, I am
ready to let you share with me; but if fortune has been more
liberal to you than me, I have no objection to be obliged to you."
This discourse pleased Alexander so much, that embracing him, "Do
you think," said he to him, "your kind words and courteous
behavior will bring you off in this interview without a contest?
No, you shall not escape so. I shall contend and do battle with
you so far, that how obliging soever you are, you shall not have
the better of me." Then receiving some presents from him, he
returned him others of greater value, and to complete his bounty,
gave him in money ready coined one thousand talents; at which his
old friends were much displeased, but it gained him the hearts of
many of the barbarians. But the best soldiers of the Indians now
entering into the pay of several of the cities, undertook to
defend them, and did it so bravely, that they put Alexander to a
great deal of trouble, till at last, after a capitulation, upon
the surrender of the place, he fell upon them as they were
marching away, and put them all to the sword. This one breach of
his word remains as a blemish upon his achievements in war, which
he otherwise had performed throughout with that justice and honor
that became a king. Nor was he less incommoded by the Indian
philosophers, who inveighed against those princes who joined his
party, and solicited the free nations to oppose him. He took
several of these also, and caused them to be hanged.
Alexander, in his own letters, has given us an account of his war
with Porus. He says the two armies were separated by the river
Hydaspes, on whose opposite bank Porus continually kept his
elephants in order of battle, with their heads towards their
enemies, to guard the passage; that he, on the other hand, made
every day a great noise and clamor in his camp, to dissipate the
apprehensions of the barbarians; that one stormy dark night he
passed the river, at a distance from the place where the enemy
lay, into a little island, with part of his foot, and the best of
his horse. Here there fell a most violent storm of rain,
accompanied with lightning and whirlwinds, and seeing some of his
men burnt and dying with the lightning, he nevertheless quitted
the island and made over to the other side. The Hydaspes, he
says, now after the storm, was so swollen and grown so rapid, as
to have made a breach in the bank, and a part of the river was now
pouring in here, so that when he came across, it was with
difficulty he got a footing on the land, which was slippery and
unsteady, and exposed to the force of the currents on both sides.
This is the occasion when he is related to have said, "O ye
Athenians, will ye believe what dangers I incur to merit your
praise?" This, however, is Onesicritus's story. Alexander says,
here the men left their boats, and passed the breach in their
armor, up to the breast in water, and that then he advanced with
his horse about twenty furlongs before his foot, concluding that
if the enemy charged him with their cavalry, he should be too
strong for them; if with their foot, his own would come up time
enough to his assistance. Nor did he judge amiss; for being
charged by a thousand horse, and sixty armed chariots, which
advanced before their main body, he took all the chariots, and
killed four hundred horse upon the place. Porus, by this time
guessing that Alexander himself had crossed over, came on with his
whole army, except a party which he left behind, to hold the rest
of the Macedonians in play, if they should attempt to pass the
river. But he, apprehending the multitude of the enemy, and to
avoid the shock of their elephants, dividing his forces, attacked
their left wing himself, and commanded Coenus to fall upon the
right, which was performed with good success. For by this means
both wings being broken, the enemies fell back in their retreat
upon the center, and crowded in upon their elephants. There
rallying, they fought a hand to hand battle, and it was the eighth
hour of the day before they were entirely defeated. This
description the conqueror himself has left us in his own epistles.
Almost all the historians agree in relating that Porus was four
cubits and a span high, and that when he was upon his elephant,
which was of the largest size, his stature and bulk were so
answerable, that he appeared to be proportionably mounted, as a
horseman on his horse. This elephant, during the whole battle,
gave many singular proofs of sagacity and of particular care of
the king, whom as long as he was strong and in a condition to
fight, he defended with great courage, repelling those who set
upon him; and as soon as he perceived him overpowered with his
numerous wounds and the multitude of darts that were thrown at
him, to prevent his falling off, he softly knelt down and began to
draw out the darts with his proboscis. When Porus was taken
prisoner; and Alexander asked him how he expected to be used, he
answered, "As a king." For that expression, he said, when the
same question was put to him a second time, comprehended
everything. And Alexander, accordingly, not only suffered him to
govern his own kingdom as satrap under himself, but gave him also
the additional territory of various independent tribes whom he
subdued, a district which, it is said, contained fifteen several
nations and five thousand considerable towns, besides abundance of
villages. To another government, three times as large as this, he
appointed Philip, one of his friends.
Some little time after the battle with Porus, Bucephalas died, as
most of the authorities state, under cure of his wounds, or as
Onesicritus says, of fatigue and age, being thirty years old.
Alexander was no less concerned at his death, than if he had lost
an old companion or an intimate friend, and built a city, which he
named Bucephalia, in memory of him, on the bank of the river
Hydaspes. He also, we are told, built another city, and called it
after the name of a favorite dog, Peritas, which he had brought up
himself. So Sotion assures us he was informed by Potamon of
Lesbos.
But this last combat with Porus took off the edge of the
Macedonians' courage, and stayed their further progress into
India. For having found it hard enough to defeat an enemy who
brought but twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse into the
field, they thought they had reason to oppose Alexander's design
of leading them on to pass the Ganges too, which they were told
was thirty-two furlongs broad and a hundred fathoms deep, and the
banks on the further side covered with multitudes of enemies. For
they were told that the kings of the Gandaritans and Praesians
expected them there with eighty thousand horse, two hundred
thousand foot, eight thousand armed chariots, and six thousand
fighting elephants. Nor was this a mere vain report, spread to
discourage them. For Androcottus, who not long after reigned in
those parts, made a present of five hundred elephants at once to
Seleucus, and with an army of six hundred thousand men subdued all
India. Alexander at first was so grieved and enraged at his men's
reluctancy, that he shut himself up in his tent, and threw himself
upon the ground, declaring, if they would not pass the Ganges, he
owed them no thanks for anything they had hitherto done, and that
to retreat now, was plainly to confess himself vanquished. But at
last the reasonable persuasions of his friends and the cries and
lamentations of his soldiers, who in a suppliant manner crowded
about the entrance of his tent, prevailed with him to think of
returning. Yet he could not refrain from leaving behind him
various deceptive memorials of his expedition, to impose upon
after-times, and to exaggerate his glory with posterity, such as
arms larger than were really worn, and mangers for horses, with
bits of bridles above the usual size, which he set up, and
distributed in several places. He erected altars, also, to the
gods, which the kings of the Praesians even in our time do honor
to when they pass the river, and offer sacrifice upon them after
the Grecian manner. Androcottus, then a boy, saw Alexander there,
and is said often afterwards to have been heard to say, that he
missed but little of making himself master of those countries;
their king, who then reigned, was so hated and despised for the
viciousness of his life, and the meanness of his extraction.
Alexander was now eager to see the ocean. To which purpose he
caused a great many row-boats and rafts to be built, in which he
fell gently down the rivers at his leisure, yet so that his
navigation was neither unprofitable nor inactive. For by several
descents upon the banks, he made himself master of the fortified
towns, and consequently of the country on both sides. But at a
siege of a town of the Mallians, who have the repute of being the
bravest people of India, he ran in great danger of his life. For
having beaten off the defendants with showers of arrows, he was
the first man that mounted the wall by a scaling ladder, which, as
soon as he was up, broke and left him almost alone, exposed to the
darts which the barbarians threw at him in great numbers from
below. In this distress, turning himself as well as he could, he
leaped down in the midst of his enemies, and had the good fortune
to light upon his feet. The brightness and clattering of his
armor when he came to the ground, made the barbarians think they
saw rays of light, or some bright phantom playing before his body,
which frightened them so at first, that they ran away and
dispersed. Till seeing him seconded but by two of his guards,
they fell upon him hand to hand, and some, while he bravely
defended himself, tried to wound him through his armor with their
swords and spears. And one who stood further off, drew a bow with
such just strength, that the arrow finding its way through his
cuirass, stuck in his ribs under the breast. This stroke was so
violent, that it made him give back, and set one knee to the
ground, upon which the man ran up with his drawn scimitar,
thinking to dispatch him, and had done it, if Peucestes and
Limnaeus had not interposed, who were both wounded, Limnaeus
mortally, but Peucestes stood his ground, while Alexander killed
the barbarian. But this did not free him from danger; for besides
many other wounds, at last he received so weighty a stroke of a
club upon his neck, that he was forced to lean his body against
the wall, still, however, facing the enemy. At this extremity,
the Macedonians made their way in and gathered round him. They
took him up, just as he was fainting away, having lost all sense
of what was done near him, and conveyed him to his tent, upon
which it was presently reported all over the camp that he was
dead. But when they had with great difficulty and pains sawed off
the shaft of the arrow, which was of wood, and so with much
trouble got off his cuirass, they came to cut out the head of it,
which was three fingers broad and four long, and stuck fast in the
bone. During the operation, he was taken with almost mortal
swoonings, but when it was out he came to himself again. Yet
though all danger was past, he continued very weak, and confined
himself a great while to a regular diet and the method of his
cure, till one day hearing the Macedonians clamoring outside in
their eagerness to see him, he took his cloak and went out. And
having sacrificed to the gods, without more delay he went on board
again, and as he coasted along, subdued a great deal of the
country on both sides, and several considerable cities.
In this voyage, he took ten of the Indian philosophers prisoners,
who had been most active in persuading Sabbas to revolt, and had
caused the Macedonians a great deal of trouble. These men, called
Gymnosophists, were reputed to be extremely ready and succinct in
their answers, which he made trial of, by putting difficult
questions to them, letting them know that those whose answers were
not pertinent, should be put to death, of which he made the eldest
of them judge. The first being asked which he thought most
numerous, the dead or the living, answered, "The living, because
those who are dead are not at all." Of the second, he desired to
know whether the earth or the sea produced the largest beast; who
told him, "The earth, for the sea is but a part of it." His
question to the third was, Which is the cunningest of beasts?
"That," said he, "which men have not yet found out." He bade the
fourth tell him what argument he used to Sabbas to persuade him to
revolt. "No other," said he, "than that he should either live or
die nobly." Of the fifth he asked, Which was eldest, night or
day? The philosopher replied, "Day was eldest, by one day at
least." But perceiving Alexander not well satisfied with that
account, he added, that he ought not to wonder if strange
questions had as strange answers made to them. Then he went on and
inquired of the next, what a man should do to be exceedingly
beloved. "He must be very powerful," said he, "without making
himself too much feared." The answer of the seventh to his
question, how a man might become a god, was, "By doing that which
was impossible for men to do." The eighth told him, "Life is
stronger than death, because it supports so many miseries." And
the last being asked, how long he thought it decent for a man to
live, said, "Till death appeared more desirable than life." Then
Alexander turned to him whom he had made judge, and commanded him
to give sentence. "All that I can determine," said he, "is, that
they have every one answered worse than another." "Nay," said the
king, "then you shall die first, for giving such a sentence."
"Not so, O king," replied the gymnosophist, "unless you said
falsely that he should die first who made the worst answer." In
conclusion he gave them presents and dismissed them.
But to those who were in greatest reputation among them, and lived
a private quiet life, he sent Onesicritus, one of Diogenes the
Cynic's disciples, desiring them to come to him. Calanus, it is
said, very arrogantly and roughly commanded him to strip himself,
and hear what he said, naked, otherwise he would not speak a word
to him, though he came from Jupiter himself. But Dandamis
received him with more civility, and hearing him discourse of
Socrates, Pythagoras, and Diogenes, told him he thought them men
of great parts, and to have erred in nothing so much as in
having too great respect for the laws and customs of their
country. Others say, Dandamis only asked him the reason why
Alexander undertook so long a journey to come into those parts.
Taxiles, however, persuaded Calanus to wait upon Alexander. His
proper name was Sphines, but because he was wont to say Cale,
which in the Indian tongue is a form of salutation, to those he
met with anywhere, the Greeks called him Calanus. He is said to
have shown Alexander an instructive emblem of government, which
was this. He threw a dry shriveled hide upon the ground, and trod
upon the edges of it. The skin when it was pressed in one place,
still rose up in another, wheresoever he trod round about it, till
he set his foot in the middle, which made all the parts lie even
and quiet. The meaning of this similitude being that he ought to
reside most in the middle of his empire, and not spend too much
time on the borders of it.
His voyage down the rivers took up seven months' time, and when he
came to the sea, he sailed to an island which he himself called
Scillustis, others Psiltucis, where going ashore, he sacrificed,
and made what observations he could as to the nature of the sea
and the sea-coast. Then having besought the gods that no other
man might ever go beyond the bounds of this expedition, he ordered
his fleet of which he made Nearchus admiral, and Onesicritus
pilot, to sail round about, keeping the Indian shore on the right
hand, and returned himself by land through the country of the
Orites, where he was reduced to great straits for want of
provisions, and lost a vast number of men, so that of an army of
one hundred and twenty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse,
he scarcely brought back above a fourth part out of India, they
were so diminished by diseases, ill diet, and the scorching heats,
but most by famine. For their march was through an uncultivated
country whose inhabitants fared hardly, possessing only a few
sheep, and those of a wretched kind, whose flesh was rank and
unsavory, by their continual feeding upon sea-fish.
After sixty days march he came into Gedrosia, where he found great
plenty of all things, which the neighboring kings and governors of
provinces, hearing of his approach, had taken care to provide.
When he had here refreshed his army, he continued his march
through Carmania, feasting all the way for seven days together.
He with his most intimate friends banqueted and reveled night and
day upon a platform erected on a lofty, conspicuous scaffold,
which was slowly drawn by eight horses. This was followed by a
great many chariots, some covered with purple and embroidered
canopies, and some with green boughs, which were continually
supplied afresh, and in them the rest of his friends and
commanders drinking, and crowned with garlands of flowers. Here
was now no target or helmet or spear to be seen; instead of armor,
the soldiers handled nothing but cups and goblets and Thericlean
drinking vessels, which, along the whole way, they dipped into
large bowls and jars, and drank healths to one another, some
seating themselves to it, others as they went along. All places
resounded with music of pipes and flutes, with harping and
singing, and women dancing as in the rites of Bacchus. For this
disorderly, wandering march, besides the drinking part of it, was
accompanied with all the sportiveness and insolence of bacchanals,
as much as if the god himself had been there to countenance and
lead the procession. As soon as he came to the royal palace of
Gedrosia, he again refreshed and feasted his army; and one day
after he had drunk pretty hard, it is said, he went to see a prize
of dancing contended for, in which his favorite Bagoas, having
gained the victory, crossed the theater in his dancing habit, and
sat down close by him, which so pleased the Macedonians, that they
made loud acclamations for him to kiss Bagoas, and never stopped
clapping their hands and shouting till Alexander put his arms
round him and kissed him.
Here his admiral, Nearchus, came to him and delighted him so with
the narrative of his voyage, that he resolved himself to sail out
of the mouth of Euphrates with a great fleet, with which he
designed to go round by Arabia and Africa, and so by Hercules's
Pillars into the Mediterranean; in order for which, he directed
all sorts of vessels to be built at Thapsacus, and made great
provision everywhere of seamen and pilots. But the tidings of the
difficulties he had gone through in his Indian expedition, the
danger of his person among the Mallians, the reported loss of a
considerable part of his forces, and a general doubt as to his own
safety, had begun to give occasion for revolt among many of the
conquered nations, and for acts of great injustice, avarice, and
insolence on the part of the satraps and commanders in the
provinces, so that there seemed to be an universal fluctuation and
disposition to change. Even at home, Olympias and Cleopatra had
raised a faction against Antipater, and divided his government
between them, Olympias seizing upon Epirus, and Cleopatra upon
Macedonia. When Alexander was told of it, he said his mother had
made the best choice, for the Macedonians would never endure to be
ruled by a woman. Upon this he dispatched Nearchus again to his
fleet, to carry the war into the maritime provinces, and as he
marched that way himself, he punished those commanders who had
behaved ill, particularly Oxyartes, one of the sons of Abuletes,
whom he killed with his own hand, thrusting him through the body
with his spear. And when Abuletes, instead of the necessary
provisions which he ought to have furnished, brought him three
thousand talents in coined money, he ordered it to be thrown to
his horses, and when they would not touch it, "What good," he
said, "will this provision do us?" and sent him away to prison.
When he came into Persia, he distributed money among the women, as
their own kings had been wont to do, who as often as they came
thither, gave every one of them a piece of gold; on account of
which custom, some of them, it is said, had come but seldom, and
Ochus was so sordidly covetous, that to avoid this expense, he
never visited his native country once in all his reign. Then
finding Cyrus's sepulchre opened and rifled, he put Polymachus,
who did it, to death, though he was a man of some distinction, a
born Macedonian of Pella. And after he had read the inscription,
he caused it to be cut again below the old one in Greek
characters; the words being these: "O man, whosoever thou art,
and from whencesoever thou comest (for I know thou wilt come), I
am Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire; do not grudge me this
little earth which covers my body." The reading of this sensibly
touched Alexander, filling him with the thought of the uncertainty
and mutability of human affairs. At the same time, Calanus having
been a little while troubled with a disease in the bowels,
requested that he might have a funeral pile erected, to which he
came on horseback, and after he had said some prayers and
sprinkled himself and cut off some of his hair to throw into the
fire, before he ascended it, he embraced and took leave of the
Macedonians who stood by, desiring them to pass that day in mirth
and good-fellowship with their king, whom in a little time, he
said, he doubted not but to see again at Babylon. Having thus
said, he lay down, and covering up his face, he stirred not when
the fire came near him, but continued still in the same posture
as at first, and so sacrificed himself, as it was the ancient
custom of the philosophers in those countries to do. The same
thing was done long after by another Indian, who came with Caesar
to Athens, where they still show you "the Indian's monument." At
his return from the funeral pile, Alexander invited a great many
of his friends and principal officers to supper, and proposed a
drinking match, in which the victor should receive a crown.
Promachus drank twelve quarts of wine, and won the prize, which
was a talent, from them all; but he survived his victory but three
days, and was followed, as Chares says, by forty-one more, who
died of the same debauch, some extremely cold weather having set
in shortly after.
At Susa, he married Darius's daughter Statira, and celebrated also
the nuptials of his friends, bestowing the noblest of the Persian
ladies upon the worthiest of them, at the same time making in an
entertainment in honor of the other Macedonians whose marriages
had already taken place. At this magnificent festival, it is
reported, there were no less than nine thousand guests, to each of
whom he gave a golden cup for the libations. Not to mention other
instances of his wonderful magnificence, he paid the debts of his
army, which amounted to nine thousand eight hundred and seventy
talents. But Antigenes, who had lost one of his eyes, though he
owed nothing, got his name set down in the list of those who were
in debt, and bringing one who pretended to be his creditor, and to
have supplied him from the bank, received the money. But when the
cheat was found out, the king was so incensed at it, that he
banished him from court, and took away his command, though he was
an excellent soldier, and a man of great courage. For when he was
but a youth, and served under Philip at the siege of Perinthus,
where he was wounded in the eye by an arrow shot out of an engine,
he would neither let the arrow be taken out, nor be persuaded to
quit the field, till he had bravely repulsed the enemy and forced
them to retire into the town. Accordingly he was not able to
support such a disgrace with any patience, and it was plain that
grief and despair would have made him kill himself, but that the
king fearing it, not only pardoned him, but let him also enjoy the
benefit of his deceit.
The thirty thousand boys whom he left behind him to be taught and
disciplined, were so improved at his return, both in strength and
beauty, and performed their exercises with such dexterity and
wonderful agility, that he was extremely pleased with them, which
grieved the Macedonians, and made them fear he would have the less
value for them. And when he proceeded to send down the infirm and
maimed soldiers to the sea, they said they were unjustly and
infamously dealt with, after they were worn out in his service
upon all occasions, now to be turned away with disgrace and sent
home into their country among their friends and relations, in a
worse condition than when they came out; therefore they desired
him to dismiss them one and all, and to account his Macedonians
useless, now he was so well furnished with a set of dancing boys,
with whom, if he pleased, he might go on and conquer the world.
These speeches so incensed Alexander, that after he had given them
a great deal of reproachful language in his passion, he drove them
away, and committed the watch to Persians, out of whom he chose
his guards and attendants. When the Macedonians saw him escorted
by these men, and themselves excluded and shamefully disgraced,
their high spirits fell, and conferring with one another, they
found that jealousy and rage had almost distracted them. But at
last coming to themselves again, they went without their arms,
with on]y their under garments on, crying and weeping, to offer
themselves at his tent, and desired him to deal with them as their
baseness and ingratitude deserved. However, this would not
prevail; for though his anger was already something mollified, yet
he would not admit them into his presence, nor would they stir
from thence, but continued two days and nights before his tent,
bewailing themselves, and imploring him as their lord to have
compassion on them. But the third day he came out to them, and
seeing them very humble and penitent, he wept himself a great
while, and after a gentle reproof spoke kindly to them, and
dismissed those who were unserviceable with magnificent rewards,
and with this recommendation to Antipater, that when they came
home, at all public shows and in the theaters, they should sit on
the best and foremost seats, crowned with chaplets of flowers. He
ordered, also, that the children of those who had lost their lives
in his service, should have their fathers' pay continued to them.
When he came to Ecbatana in Media, and had dispatched his most
urgent affairs, he began to divert himself again with spectacles
and public entertainments, to carry on which he had a supply of
three thousand actors and artists, newly arrived out of Greece.
But they were soon interrupted by Hephaestion's falling sick of a
fever, in which, being a young man and a soldier too, he could not
confine himself to so exact a diet as was necessary; for whilst
his physician Glaucus was gone to the theater, he ate a fowl for
his dinner, and drank a large draught of wine, upon which he
became very ill, and shortly after died. At this misfortune,
Alexander was so beyond all reason transported, that to express
his sorrow, he immediately ordered the manes and tails of all his
horses and mules to be cut, and threw down the battlements of the
neighboring cities. The poor physician he crucified, and forbade
playing on the flute, or any other musical instrument in the camp
a great while, till directions came from the oracle of Ammon, and
enjoined him to honor Hephaestion, and sacrifice to him as to a
hero. Then seeking to alleviate his grief in war, he set out, as
it were, to a hunt and chase of men, for he fell upon the
Cossaeans, and put the whole nation to the sword. This was called
a sacrifice to Hephaestion's ghost. In his sepulchre and monument
and the adorning of them, he intended to bestow ten thousand
talents; and designing that the excellence of the workmanship and
the singularity of the design might outdo the expense, his wishes
turned, above all other artists, to Stasicrates, because he always
promised something very bold, unusual, and magnificent in his
projects. Once when they had met before, he had told him, that of
all the mountains he knew, that of Athos in Thrace was the most
capable of being adapted to represent the shape and lineaments of
a man; that if he pleased to command him, he would make it the
noblest and most durable statue in the world, which in its left
hand should hold a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and out of
its right should pour a copious river into the sea. Though
Alexander declined this proposal, yet now he spent a great deal of
time with workmen to invent and contrive others even more
extravagant and sumptuous.
As he was upon his way to Babylon, Nearchus, who had sailed back
out of the ocean up the mouth of the river Euphrates, came to tell
him he had met with some Chaldaean diviners, who had warned him
against Alexander's going thither. Alexander, however, took no
thought of it, and went on, and when he came near the walls of the
place, he saw a great many crows fighting with one another, some
of whom fell down just by him. After this, being privately
informed that Apollodorus, the governor of Babylon, had
sacrificed, to know what would become of him, he sent for
Pythagoras, the soothsayer, and on his admitting the thing, asked
him, in what condition he found the victim; and when he told him
the liver was defective in its lobe, "A great presage indeed!"
said Alexander. However, he offered Pythagoras no injury, but was
sorry that he had neglected Nearchus's advice, and stayed for the
most part outside the town, removing his tent from place to place,
and sailing up and down the Euphrates. Besides this, he was
disturbed by many other prodigies. A tame ass fell upon the
biggest and handsomest lion that he kept, and killed him by a
kick. And one day after he had undressed himself to be anointed,
and was playing at ball, just as they were going to bring his
clothes again, the young men who played with him perceived a man
clad in the king's robes, with a diadem upon his head, sitting
silently upon his throne. They asked him who he was, to which he
gave no answer a good while, till at last coming to himself, he
told them his name was Dionysius, that he was of Messenia, that
for some crime of which he was accused, he was brought thither
from the sea-side, and had been kept long in prison, that Serapis
appeared to him, had freed him from his chains, conducted him to
that place, and commanded him to put on the king's robe and
diadem, and to sit where they found him, and to say nothing.
Alexander, when he heard this, by the direction of his
soothsayers, put the fellow to death, but he lost his spirits, and
grew diffident of the protection and assistance of the gods, and
suspicious of his friends. His greatest apprehension was of
Antipater and his sons, one of whom, Iolaus, was his chief
cupbearer; and Cassander, who had lately arrived, and had been
bred up in Greek manners, the first time he saw some of the
barbarians adore the king, could not forbear laughing at it aloud,
which so incensed Alexander, that he took him by the hair with
both hands, and dashed his head against the wall. Another time,
Cassander would have said something in defense of Antipater to
those who accused him, but Alexander interrupting him said, "What
is it you say? Do you think people, if they had received no
injury, would come such a journey only to calumniate your father?"
To which when Cassander replied, that their coming so far from the
evidence was a great proof of the falseness of their charges,
Alexander smiled, and said those were some of Aristotle's
sophisms, which would serve equally on both sides; and added, that
both he and his father should be severely punished, if they were
found guilty of the least injustice towards those who complained.
All which made such a deep impression of terror in Cassander's
mind, that long after when he was king of Macedonia, and master of
Greece, as he was walking up and down at Delphi, and looking at
the statues, at the sight of that of Alexander he was suddenly
struck with alarm, and shook all over, his eyes rolled, his head
grew dizzy, and it was long before he recovered himself.
When once Alexander had given way to fears of supernatural
influence, his mind grew so disturbed and so easily alarmed, that
if the least unusual or extraordinary thing happened, he thought
it a prodigy or a presage, and his court was thronged with
diviners and priests whose business was to sacrifice and purify
and foretell the future. So miserable a thing is incredulity and
contempt of divine power on the one hand, and so miserable, also,
superstition on the other, which like water, where the level has
been lowered, flowing in and never stopping, fills the mind with
slavish fears and follies, as now in Alexander's case. But upon
some answers which were brought him from the oracle concerning
Hephaestion, he laid aside his sorrow, and fell again to
sacrificing and drinking; and having given Nearchus a splendid
entertainment, after he had bathed, as was his custom, just as he
was going to bed, at Medius's request he went to supper with him.
Here he drank all the next day, and was attacked with a fever,
which seized him, not as some write, after he had drunk of the
bowl of Hercules; nor was he taken with any sudden pain in his
back, as if he had been struck with lance, for these are the
inventions of some authors who thought it their duty to make the
last scene of so great an action as tragical and moving as they
could. Aristobulus tells us, that in the rage of his fever and a
violent thirst, he took a draught of wine, upon which he fell into
delirium, and died on the thirtieth day of the month Daesius.
But the journals give the following record. On the eighteenth of
the month, he slept in the bathing-room on account of his fever.
The next day he bathed and removed into his chamber, and spent
his time in playing dice with Medius. In the evening he bathed
and sacrificed, and ate freely, and had the fever on him through
the night. On the twentieth, after the usual sacrifices and
bathing, he lay in the bathing-room and heard Nearchus's narrative
of his voyage, and the observations he had made in the great sea.
The twenty-first he passed in the same manner, his fever still
increasing, and suffered much during the night. The next day the
fever was very violent, and he had himself removed and his bed set
by the great bath, and discoursed with his principal officers
about finding fit men to fill up the vacant places in the army.
On the twenty-fourth he was much worse, and was carried out of his
bed to assist at the sacrifices, and gave order that the general
officers should wait within the court, whilst the inferior
officers kept watch without doors. On the twenty-fifth he was
removed to his palace on the other side the river, where he slept
a little, but his fever did not abate, and when the generals came
into his chamber, he was speechless, and continued so the
following day. The Macedonians, therefore, supposing he was dead,
came with great clamors to the gates, and menaced his friends so
that they were forced to admit them, and let them all pass through
unarmed along by his bedside. The same day Python and Seleucus
were dispatched to the temple of Serapis to inquire if they should
bring Alexander thither, and were answered by the god, that they
should not remove him. On the twenty-eighth, in the evening, he
died. This account is most of it word for word as it is written
in the diary.
At the time, nobody had any suspicion of his being poisoned, but
upon some information given six years after, they say Olympias put
many to death, and scattered the ashes of Iolaus, then dead, as if
he had given it him. But those who affirm that Aristotle
counseled Antipater to do it, and that by his means the poison was
brought, adduce one Hagnothemis as their authority, who, they say,
heard king Antigonus speak of it, and tell us that the poison was
water, deadly cold as ice, distilling from a rock in the district
of Nonacris, which they gathered like a thin dew, and kept in an
ass's hoof; for it was so very cold and penetrating that no other
vessel would hold it. However, most are of opinion that all this
is a mere made-up story, no slight evidence of which is, that
during the dissensions among the commanders, which lasted several
days, the body continued clear and fresh, without any sign of such
taint or corruption, though it lay neglected in a close, sultry
place.
Roxana, who was now with child, and upon that account much honored
by the Macedonians, being jealous of Statira, sent for her by a
counterfeit letter, as if Alexander had been still alive; and when
she had her in her power, killed her and her sister, and threw
their bodies into a well, which they filled up with earth, not
without the privity and assistance of Perdiccas, who in the time
immediately following the king's death, under cover of the name of
Arrhidaeus, whom he carried about him as a sort of guard to his
person, exercised the chief authority Arrhidaeus, who was Philip's
son by an obscure woman of the name of Philinna, was himself of
weak intellect, not that he had been originally deficient either
in body or mind; on the contrary, in his childhood, he had showed
a happy and promising character enough. But a diseased habit of
body, caused by drugs which Olympias gave him, had ruined not only
his health, but his understanding.
CAESAR
After Sylla became master of Rome, he wished to make Caesar put
away his wife Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, the late sole ruler
of the commonwealth, but was unable to effect it either by
promises or intimidation, and so contented himself with
confiscating her dowry. The ground of Sylla's hostility to
Caesar, was the relationship between him and Marius; for Marius,
the elder, married Julia, the sister of Caesar's father, and had
by her the younger Marius, who consequently was Caesar's first
cousin. And though at the beginning, while so many were to be
put to death and there was so much to do, Caesar was overlooked
by Sylla, yet he would not keep quiet, but presented himself to
the people as a candidate for the priesthood, though he was yet
a mere boy. Sylla, without any open opposition, took measures
to have him rejected, and in consultation whether he should be
put to death, when it was urged by some that it was not worth
his while to contrive the death of a boy, he answered, that they
knew little who did not see more than one Marius in that boy.
Caesar, on being informed of this saying, concealed himself, and
for a considerable time kept out of the way in the country of
the Sabines, often changing his quarters, till one night, as he
was removing from one house to another on account of his health,
he fell into the hands of Sylla's soldiers, who were searching
those parts in order to apprehend any who had absconded.
Caesar, by a bribe of two talents, prevailed with Cornelius,
their captain, to let him go, and was no sooner dismissed but he
put to sea, and made for Bithynia. After a short stay there
with Nicomedes, the king, in his passage back he was taken near
the island Pharmacusa by some of the pirates, who, at that time,
with large fleets of ships and innumerable smaller vessels
infested the seas everywhere.
When these men at first demanded of him twenty talents for his
ransom, he laughed at them for not understanding the value of
their prisoner, and voluntarily engaged to give them fifty. He
presently dispatched those about him to several places to raise
the money, till at last he was left among a set of the most
bloodthirsty people in the world, the Cilicians, only with one
friend and two attendants. Yet he made so little of them, that
when he had a mind to sleep, he would send to them, and order
them to make no noise. For thirty-eight days, with all the
freedom in the world, he amused himself with joining in their
exercises and games, as if they had not been his keepers, but
his guards. He wrote verses and speeches, and made them his
auditors, and those who did not admire them, he called to their
faces illiterate and barbarous, and would often, in raillery,
threaten to hang them. They were greatly taken with this, and
attributed his free talking to a kind of simplicity and boyish
playfulness. As soon as his ransom was come from Miletus, he
paid it, and was discharged, and proceeded at once to man some
ships at the port of Miletus, and went in pursuit of the
pirates, whom he surprised with their ships still stationed at
the island, and took most of them. Their money he made his
prize, and the men he secured in prison at Pergamus, and made
application to Junius, who was then governor of Asia, to whose
office it belonged, as praetor, to determine their punishment.
Junius, having his eye upon the money, for the sum was
considerable, said he would think at his leisure what to do with
the prisoners, upon which Caesar took his leave of him, and went
off to Pergamus, where he ordered the pirates to be brought
forth and crucified; the punishment he had often threatened them
with whilst he was in their hands, and they little dreamed he
was in earnest.
In the meantime Sylla's power being now on the decline, Caesar's
friends advised him to return to Rome, but he went to Rhodes,
and entered himself in the school of Apollonius, Molon's son, a
famous rhetorician, one who had the reputation of a worthy man,
and had Cicero for one of his scholars. Caesar is said to have
been admirably fitted by nature to make a great statesman and
orator, and to have taken such pains to improve his genius this
way, that without dispute he might challenge the second place.
More he did not aim at, as choosing to be first rather amongst
men of arms and power, and, therefore, never rose to that height
of eloquence to which nature would have carried him, his
attention being diverted to those expeditions and designs, which
at length gained him the empire. And he himself, in his answer
to Cicero's panegyric on Cato, desires his reader not to compare
the plain discourse of a soldier with the harangues of an orator
who had not only fine parts, but had employed his life in this
study.
When he was returned to Rome, he accused Dolabella of
maladministration, and many cities of Greece came in to attest
it. Dolabella was acquitted, and Caesar, in return for the
support he had received from the Greeks, assisted them in their
prosecution of Publius Antonius for corrupt practices, before
Marcus Lucullus, praetor of Macedonia. In this cause he so far
succeeded, that Antonius was forced to appeal to the tribunes
at Rome, alleging that in Greece he could not have fair play
against Grecians. In his pleadings at Rome, his eloquence soon
obtained him great credit and favor, and he won no less upon the
affections of the people by the affability of his manners and
address, in which he slowed a tact and consideration beyond what
could have been expected at his age; and the open house he kept,
the entertainments he gave, and the general splendor of his
manner of life contributed little by little to create and
increase his political influence. His enemies slighted the
growth of it at first, presuming it would soon fail when his
money was gone; whilst in the meantime it was growing up and
flourishing among the common people. When his power at last was
established and not to be overthrown, and now openly tended to
the altering of the whole constitution, they were aware too
late, that there is no beginning so mean, which continued
application will not make considerable, and that despising a
danger at first, will make it at last irresistible. Cicero was
the first who had any suspicions of his designs upon the
government, and, as a good pilot is apprehensive of a storm when
the sea is most smiling, saw the designing temper of the man
through this disguise of good-humor and affability, and said,
that in general, in all he did and undertook, he detected the
ambition for absolute power, "but when I see his hair so
carefully arranged, and observe him adjusting it with one
finger, I cannot imagine it should enter into such a man's
thoughts to subvert the Roman state." But of this more
hereafter.
The first proof he had of the people's good-will to him, was
when he received by their suffrages a tribuneship in the army,
and came out on the list with a higher place than Caius
Popilius. A second and clearer instance of their favor appeared
upon his making a magnificent oration in praise of his aunt
Julia, wife to Marius, publicly in the forum, at whose funeral
he was so bold as to bring forth the images of Marius, which
nobody had dared to produce since the government came into
Sylla's hands, Marius's party having from that time been
declared enemies of the State. When some who were present had
begun to raise a cry against Caesar, the people answered with
loud shouts and clapping in his favor, expressing their joyful
surprise and satisfaction at his having, as it were, brought up
again from the grave those honors of Marius, which for so long a
time had been lost to the city. It had always been the custom
at Rome to make funeral orations in praise of elderly matrons,
but there was no precedent of any upon young women till Caesar
first made one upon the death of his own wife. This also
procured him favor, and by this show of affection he won upon
the feelings of the people, who looked upon him as a man of
great tenderness and kindness of heart. After he had buried his
wife, he went as quaestor into Spain under one of the praetors,
named Vetus, whom he honored ever after, and made his son his
own quaestor, when he himself came to be praetor. After this
employment was ended, he married Pompeia, his third wife, having
then a daughter by Cornelia, his first wife, whom he afterwards
married to Pompey the Great. He was so profuse in his expenses,
that before he had any public employment, he was in debt
thirteen hundred talents, and many thought that by incurring
such expense to be popular, he changed a solid good for what
would prove but short and uncertain return; but in truth he was
purchasing what was of the greatest value at an inconsiderable
rate. When he was made surveyor of the Appian Way, he
disbursed, besides the public money, a great sum out of his
private purse; and when he was aedile, be provided such a number
of gladiators, that he entertained the people with three hundred
and twenty single combats, and by his great liberality and
magnificence in theatrical shows, in processions, and public
feastings, he threw into the shade all the attempts that had
been made before him, and gained so much upon the people, that
everyone was eager to find out new offices and new honors for
him in return for his munificence.
There being two factions in the city, one that of Sylla, which
was very powerful, the other that of Marius, which was then
broken and in a very low condition, he undertook to revive this
and to make it his own. And to this end, whilst he was in the
height of his repute with the people for the magnificent shows
he gave as aedile, he ordered images of Marius, and figures of
Victory, with trophies in their hands, to be carried privately
in the night and placed in the capitol. Next morning, when some
saw them bright with gold and beautifully made, with
inscriptions upon them, referring them to Marius's exploits over
the Cimbrians, they were surprised at the boldness of him who
had set them up, nor was it difficult to guess who it was. The
fame of this soon spread and brought together a great concourse
of people. Some cried out that it was an open attempt against
the established government thus to revive those honors which had
been buried by the laws and decrees of the senate; that Caesar
had done it to sound the temper of the people whom he had
prepared before, and to try whether they were tame enough to
bear his humor, and would quietly give way to his innovations.
On the other hand, Marius's party took courage, and it was
incredible how numerous they were suddenly seen to be, and what
a multitude of them appeared and came shouting into the capitol.
Many, when they saw Marius's likeness, cried for joy, and Caesar
was highly extolled as the one man, in the place of all others,
who was a relation worthy of Marius. Upon this the senate met,
and Catulus Lutatius, one of the most eminent Romans of that
time, stood up and inveighed against Caesar, closing his speech
with the remarkable saying, that Caesar was now not working
mines, but planting batteries to overthrow the state. But when
Caesar had made an apology for himself, and satisfied the
senate, his admirers were very much animated, and advised him
not to depart from his own thoughts for anyone, since with the
people's good favor he would erelong get the better of them all,
and be the first man in the commonwealth.
At this time, Metellus, the High-Priest, died, and Catulus and
Isauricus, persons of the highest reputation, and who had great
influence in the senate, were competitors for the office; yet
Caesar would not give way to them, but presented himself to the
people as a candidate against them. The several parties seeming
very equal, Catulus, who, because he had the most honor to lose,
was the most apprehensive of the event, sent to Caesar to buy
him off, with offers of a great sum of money. But his answer
was, that he was ready to borrow a larger sum than that, to
carry on the contest. Upon the day of election, as his mother
conducted him out of doors with tears, after embracing her, "My
mother," he said, "today you will see me either High-Priest, or
an exile." When the votes were taken, after a great struggle,
he carried it, and excited among the senate and nobility great
alarm lest he might now urge on the people to every kind of
insolence. And Piso and Catulus found fault with Cicero for
having let Caesar escape, when in the conspiracy of Catiline he
had given the government such advantage against him. For
Catiline, who had designed not only to change the present state
of affairs, but to subvert the whole empire and confound all,
had himself taken to flight, while the evidence was yet
incomplete against him, before his ultimate purposes had been
properly discovered. But he had left Lentulus and Cethegus in
the city to supply his place in the conspiracy, and whether they
received any secret encouragement and assistance from Caesar is
uncertain; all that is certain, is, that they were fully
convicted in the senate, and when Cicero, the consul, asked the
several opinions of the senators, how they would have them
punished, all who spoke before Caesar sentenced them to death;
but Caesar stood up and made a set speech, in which he told
them, that he thought it without precedent and not just to take
away the lives of persons of their birth and distinction before
they were fairly tried, unless there was an absolute necessity
for it; but that if they were kept confined in any towns of
Italy Cicero himself should choose, till Catiline was defeated,
then the senate might in peace and at their leisure determine
what was best to be done.
This sentence of his carried so much appearance of humanity, and
he gave it such advantage by the eloquence with which he urged
it, that not only those who spoke after him closed with it, but
even they who had before given a contrary opinion, now came over
to his, till it came about to Catulus's and Cato's turn to
speak. They warmly opposed it, and Cato intimated in his speech
the suspicion of Caesar himself, and pressed the matter so
strongly, that the criminals were given up to suffer execution.
As Caesar was going out of the senate, many of the young men who
at that time acted as guards to Cicero, ran in with their naked
swords to assault him. But Curio, it is said, threw his gown
over him, and conveyed him away, and Cicero himself, when the
young men looked up to see his wishes, gave a sign not to kill
him, either for fear of the people, or because he thought the
murder unjust and illegal. If this be true, I wonder how Cicero
came to omit all mention of it in his book about his consulship.
He was blamed, however, afterwards, for not having made use of
so fortunate an opportunity against Caesar, as if he had let it
escape him out of fear of the populace, who, indeed, showed
remarkable solicitude about Caesar, and some time after, when he
went into the senate to clear himself of the suspicions he lay
under, and found great clamors raised against him, upon the
senate in consequence sitting longer than ordinary, they went up
to the house in a tumult, and beset it, demanding Caesar, and
requiring them to dismiss him. Upon this, Cato, much fearing
some movement among the poor citizens, who were always the first
to kindle the flame among the people, and placed all their hopes
in Caesar, persuaded the senate to give them a monthly allowance
of corn, an expedient which put the commonwealth to the
extraordinary charge of seven million five hundred thousand
drachmas in the year, but quite succeeded in removing the great
cause of terror for the present, and very much weakened Caesar's
power, who at that time was just going to be made praetor, and
consequently would have been more formidable by his office.
But there was no disturbance during his praetorship, only what
misfortune he met with in his own domestic affairs. Publius
Clodius was a patrician by descent, eminent both for his riches
and eloquence, but in licentiousness of life and audacity
exceeded the most noted profligates of the day. He was in love
with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, and she had no aversion to him.
But there was strict watch kept on her apartment, and Caesar's
mother, Aurelia, who was a discreet woman, being continually
about her, made any interview very dangerous and difficult. The
Romans have a goddess whom they call Bona, the same whom the
Greeks call Gynaecea. The Phrygians, who claim a peculiar title
to her, say she was mother to Midas. The Romans profess she was
one of the Dryads, and married to Faunus. The Grecians affirm
that she is that mother of Bacchus whose name is not to be
uttered, and, for this reason, the women who celebrate her
festival, cover the tents with vine-branches, and, in accordance
with the fable, a consecrated serpent is placed by the goddess.
It is not lawful for a man to be by, nor so much as in the
house, whilst the rites are celebrated, but the women by
themselves perform the sacred offices, which are said to be
much the same with those used in the solemnities of Orpheus.
When the festival comes, the husband, who is either consul or
praetor; and with him every male creature, quits the house. The
wife then taking it under her care, sets it in order, and the
principal ceremonies are performed during the night, the women
playing together amongst themselves as they keep watch, and
music of various kinds going on.
As Pompeia was at that time celebrating this feast, Clodius, who
as yet had no beard, and so thought to pass undiscovered, took
upon him the dress and ornaments of a singing woman, and so came
thither, having the air of a young girl. Finding the doors
open, he was without any stop introduced by the maid, who was in
the intrigue. She presently ran to tell Pompeia, but as she was
away a long time, he grew uneasy in waiting for her, and left
his post and traversed the house from one room to another, still
taking care to avoid the lights, till at last Aurelia's woman
met him, and invited him to play with her, as the women did
among themselves. He refused to comply, and she presently
pulled him forward, and asked him who he was, and whence he
came. Clodius told her he was waiting for Pompeia's own maid,
Abra, being in fact her own name also, and as he said so,
betrayed himself by his voice. Upon which the woman shrieking,
ran into the company where there were lights, and cried out, she
had discovered a man. The women were all in a fright. Aurelia
covered up the sacred things and stopped the proceedings, and
having ordered the doors to be shut, went about with lights to
find Clodius, who was got into the maid's room that he had come
in with, and was seized there. The women knew him, and drove
him out of doors, and at once, that same night, went home and
told their husbands the story. In the morning, it was all about
the town, what an impious attempt Clodius had made, and how he
ought to be punished as an offender, not only against those whom
he had affronted, but also against the public and the gods.
Upon which one of the tribunes impeached him for profaning the
holy rites, and some of the principal senators combined together
and gave evidence against him, that besides many other horrible
crimes, he had been guilty of incest with his own sister, who
was married to Lucullus. But the people set themselves against
this combination of the nobility, and defended Clodius, which
was of great service to him with the judges, who took alarm and
were afraid to provoke the multitude. Caesar at once dismissed
Pompeia, but being summoned as a witness against Clodius, said
he had nothing to charge him with. This looking like a paradox,
the accuser asked him why he parted with his wife. Caesar
replied, "I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected."
Some say that Caesar spoke this as his real thought; others,
that he did it to gratify the people, who were very earnest to
save Clodius. Clodius, at any rate, escaped; most of the judges
giving their opinions so written as to be illegible, that they
might not be in danger from the people by condemning him, nor in
disgrace with the nobility by acquitting him.
Caesar, in the meantime, being out of his praetorship, had got
the province of Spain, but was in great embarrassment with his
creditors, who, as he was going off, came upon him, and were
very pressing and importunate. This led him to apply himself to
Crassus, who was the richest man in Rome, but wanted Caesar's
youthful vigor and heat to sustain the opposition against
Pompey. Crassus took upon him to satisfy those creditors who
were most uneasy to him, and would not be put off any longer,
and engaged himself to the amount of eight hundred and thirty
talents, upon which Caesar was now at liberty to go to his
province. In his journey, as he was crossing the Alps, and
passing by a small village of the barbarians with but few
inhabitants and those wretchedly poor, his companions asked the
question among themselves by way of mockery, if there were any
canvassing for offices there; any contention which should be
uppermost, or feuds of great men one against another. To which
Caesar made answer seriously, "For my part, I had rather be the
first man among these fellows, than the second man in Rome." It
is said that another time, when free from business in Spain,
after reading some part of the history of Alexander, he sat a
great while very thoughtful, and at last burst out into tears.
His friends were surprised, and asked him the reason of it. "Do
you think," said he, "I have not just cause to weep, when I
consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations,
and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable?" As
soon as he came into Spain he was very active, and in a few
days had got together ten new cohorts of foot in addition to the
twenty which were there before. With these he marched against
the Calaici and Lusitani and conquered them, and advancing as
far as the ocean, subdued the tribes which never before had been
subject to the Romans. Having managed his military affairs with
good success, he was equally happy in the course of his civil
government. He took pains to establish a good understanding
amongst the several states, and no less care to heal the
differences between debtors and creditors. He ordered that the
creditor should receive two parts of the debtor's yearly
income, and that the other part should be managed by the debtor
himself, till by this method the whole debt was at last
discharged. This conduct made him leave his province with a
fair reputation; being rich himself, and having enriched his
soldiers, and having received from them the honorable name of
Imperator.
There is a law among the Romans, that whoever desires the honor
of a triumph must stay without the city and expect his answer.
And another, that those who stand for the consulship shall
appear personally upon the place. Caesar was come home at the
very time of choosing consuls, and being in a difficulty between
these two opposite laws, sent to the senate to desire that since
he was obliged to be absent, he might sue for the consulship by
his friends. Cato, being backed by the law, at first opposed
his request; afterwards perceiving that Caesar had prevailed
with a great part of the senate to comply with it, he made it
his business to gain time, and went on wasting the whole day in
speaking. Upon which Caesar thought fit to let the triumph
fall, and pursued the consulship. Entering the town and coming
forward immediately, he had recourse to a piece of state-policy
by which everybody was deceived but Cato. This was the
reconciling of Crassus and Pompey, the two men who then were
most powerful in Rome. There had been a quarrel between them,
which he now succeeded in making up, and by this means
strengthened himself by the united power of both, and so under
the cover of an action which carried all the appearance of a
piece of kindness and good-nature, caused what was in effect a
revolution in the government. For it was not the quarrel
between Pompey and Caesar, as most men imagine, which was the
origin of the civil wars, but their union, their conspiring
together at first to subvert the aristocracy, and so quarreling
afterwards between themselves. Cato, who often foretold what
the consequence of this alliance would be, had then the
character of a sullen, interfering man, but in the end the
reputation of a wise but unsuccessful counselor.
Thus Caesar being doubly supported by the interests of Crassus
and Pompey, was promoted to the consulship, and triumphantly
proclaimed with Calpurnius Bibulus. When he entered on his
office, he brought in bills which would have been preferred with
better grace by the most audacious of the tribunes than by a
consul, in which he proposed the plantation of colonies and
division of lands, simply to please the commonalty. The best
and most honorable of the senators opposed it, upon which, as he
had long wished for nothing more than for such a colorable
pretext, he loudly protested how much against his will it was to
be driven to seek support from the people, and how the senate's
insulting and harsh conduct left no other course possible for
him, than to devote himself henceforth to the popular cause and
interest. And so he hurried out of the senate, and presenting
himself to the people, and there placing Crassus and Pompey, one
on each side of him, he asked them whether they consented to the
bills he had proposed. They owned their assent, upon which he
desired them to assist him against those who had threatened to
oppose him with their swords. They engaged they would, and
Pompey added further, that he would meet their swords with a
sword and buckler too. These words the nobles much resented, as
neither suitable to his own dignity, nor becoming the reverence
due to the senate, but resembling rather the vehemence of a boy,
or the fury of a madman. But the people were pleased with it.
In order to get a yet firmer hold upon Pompey, Caesar having a
daughter, Julia, who had been before contracted to Servilius
Caepio, now betrothed her to Pompey, and told Servilius he
should have Pompey's daughter, who was not unengaged either, but
promised to Sylla's son, Faustus. A little time after, Caesar
married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso, and got Piso made
consul for the year following. Cato exclaimed loudly against
this, and protested with a great deal of warmth, that it was
intolerable the government should be prostituted by marriages,
and that they should advance one another to the commands of
armies, provinces, and other great posts, by means of women.
Bibulus, Caesar's colleague, finding it was to no purpose to
oppose his bills, but that he was in danger of being murdered in
the forum, as also was Cato, confined himself to his house, and
there let the remaining part of his consulship expire. Pompey,
when he was married, at once filled the forum with soldiers, and
gave the people his help in passing the new laws, and secured
Caesar the government of all Gaul, both on this and the other
side of the Alps, together with Illyricum, and the command of
four legions for five years. Cato made some attempts against
these proceedings, but was seized and led off on the way to
prison by Caesar, who expected he would appeal to the tribunes.
But when he saw that Cato went along without speaking a word,
and not only the nobility were indignant, but that the people,
also, out of respect for Cato's virtue, were following in
silence, and with dejected looks, he himself privately desired
one of the tribunes to rescue Cato. As for the other senators,
some few of them attended the house, the rest being disgusted,
absented themselves. Hence Considius, a very old man, took
occasion one day to tell Caesar, that the senators did not meet
because they were afraid of his soldiers. Caesar asked, "Why
don't you then, out of the same fear, keep at home?" To which
Considius replied, that age was his guard against fear, and that
the small remains of his life were not worth much caution. But
the most disgraceful thing that was done in Caesar's consulship,
was his assisting to gain the tribuneship for the same Clodius
who had made the attempt upon his wife's chastity, and intruded
upon the secret vigils. He was elected on purpose to effect
Cicero's downfall; nor did Caesar leave the city to join his
army, till they two had overpowered Cicero, and driven him out
of Italy.
Thus far have we followed Caesar's actions before the wars of
Gaul. After this, he seems to begin his course afresh, and to
enter upon a new life and scene of action. And the period of
those wars which he now fought, and those many expeditions in
which he subdued Gaul, showed him to be a soldier and general
not in the least inferior to any of the greatest and most
admired commanders who had ever appeared at the head of armies.
For if we compare him with the Fabii, the Metelli, the Scipios,
and with those who were his contemporaries, or not long before
him, Sylla, Marius, the two Luculli, or even Pompey himself,
whose glory, it may be said, went up at that time to heaven for
every excellence in war, we shall find Caesar's actions to have
surpassed them all. One he may be held to have outdone in
consideration of the difficulty of the country in which he
fought, another in the extent of territory which he conquered;
some, in the number and strength of the enemies whom he
defeated; one man, because of the wildness and perfidiousness of
the tribes whose good-will he conciliated, another in his
humanity and clemency to those he overpowered; others, again in
his gifts and kindnesses to his soldiers; all alike in the
number of the battles which he fought and the enemies whom he
killed. For he had not pursued the wars in Gaul full ten years,
when he had taken by storm above eight hundred towns, subdued
three hundred states, and of the three millions of men, who made
up the gross sum of those with whom at several times he engaged,
he had killed one million, and taken captive a second.
He was so much master of the good-will and hearty service of his
soldiers, that those who in other expeditions were but ordinary
men, displayed a courage past defeating or withstanding when
they went upon any danger where Caesar's glory was concerned.
Such a one was Acilius, who, in the sea-fight before Marseilles,
had his right hand struck off with a sword, yet did not quit his
buckler out of his left, but struck the enemies in the face with
it, till he drove them off, and made himself master of the
vessel. Such another was Cassius Scaeva, who, in a battle near
Dyrrhachium, had one of his eyes shot out with an arrow, his
shoulder pierced with one javelin, and his thigh with another;
and having received one hundred and thirty darts upon his
target, called to the enemy, as though he would surrender
himself. But when two of them came up to him, he cut off the
shoulder of one with a sword, and by a blow over the face forced
the other to retire, and so with the assistance of his friends,
who now came up, made his escape. Again, in Britain, when some
of the foremost officers had accidentally got into a morass full
of water, and there were assaulted by the enemy, a common
soldier, whilst Caesar stood and looked on, threw himself into
the midst of them, and after many signal demonstrations of his
valor, rescued the officers, and beat off the barbarians. He
himself, in the end, took to the water, and with much
difficulty, partly by swimming, partly by wading, passed it, but
in the passage lost his shield. Caesar and his officers saw it
and admired, and went to meet him with joy and acclamation. But
the soldier, much dejected and in tears, threw himself down at
Caesar's feet, and begged his pardon for having let go his
buckler. Another time in Africa, Scipio having taken a ship of
Caesar's in which Granius Petro, lately appointed quaestor, was
sailing, gave the other passengers as free prize to his
soldiers, but thought fit to offer the quaestor his life. But
he said it was not usual for Caesar's soldiers to take, but give
mercy, and having said so, fell upon his sword and killed
himself.
This love of honor and passion for distinction were inspired
into them and cherished in them by Caesar himself, who, by his
unsparing distribution of money and honors, showed them that he
did not heap up wealth from the wars for his own luxury, or the
gratifying his private pleasures, but that all he received was
but a public fund laid by for the reward and encouragement of
valor, and that he looked upon all he gave to deserving soldiers
as so much increase to his own riches. Added to this, also,
there was no danger to which he did not willingly expose
himself, no labor from which he pleaded all exemption. His
contempt of danger was not so much wondered at by his soldiers,
because they knew how much he coveted honor. But his enduring
so much hardship, which he did to all appearance beyond his
natural strength, very much astonished them. For he was a spare
man, had a soft and white skin, was distempered in the head, and
subject to an epilepsy, which, it is said, first seized him at
Corduba. But he did not make the weakness of his constitution a
pretext for his ease, but rather used war as the best physic
against his indispositions; whilst by indefatigable journeys,
coarse diet, frequent lodging in the field, and continual
laborious exercise, he struggled with his diseases, and
fortified his body against all attacks. He slept generally in
his chariots or litters, employing even his rest in pursuit of
action. In the day he was thus carried to the forts, garrisons,
and camps, one servant sitting with him, who used to write down
what he dictated as he went, and a soldier attending behind with
his sword drawn. He drove so rapidly, that when he first left
Rome, he arrived at the river Rhone within eight days. He had
been an expert rider from his childhood; for it was usual with
him to sit with his hands joined together behind his back, and
so to put his horse to its full speed. And in this war he
disciplined himself so far as to be able to dictate letters from
on horseback, and to give directions to two who took notes at
the same time, or, as Oppius says, to more. And it is thought
that he was the first who contrived means for communicating with
friends by cipher, when either press of business, or the large
extent of the city, left him no time for a personal conference
about matters that required dispatch. How little nice he was in
his diet, may be seen in the following instance. When at the
table of Valerius Leo, who entertained him at supper at Milan, a
dish of asparagus was put before him, on which his host instead
of oil had poured sweet ointment. Caesar partook of it without
any disgust, and reprimanded his friends for finding fault with
it. "For it was enough," said he, "not to eat what you did not
like; but he who reflects on another man's want of breeding,
shows he wants it as much himself." Another time upon the road
he was driven by a storm into a poor man's cottage, where he
found but one room, and that such as would afford but a mean
reception to a single person, and therefore told his companions,
places of honor should be given up to the greater men, and
necessary accommodations to the weaker, and accordingly ordered
that Oppius, who was in bad health, should lodge within, whilst
he and the rest slept under a shed at the door.
His first war in Gaul was against the Helvetians and Tigurini,
who having burnt their own towns, twelve in number, and four
hundred villages, would have marched forward through that part
of Gaul which was included in the Roman province, as the
Cimbrians and Teutons formerly had done. Nor were they inferior
to these in courage; and in numbers they were equal, being in
all three hundred thousand, of which one hundred and ninety
thousand were fighting men. Caesar did not engage the Tigurini
in person, but Labienus, under his directions, routed them near
the river Arar. The Helvetians surprised Caesar, and
unexpectedly set upon him as he was conducting his army to a
confederate town. He succeeded, however, in making his retreat
into a strong position, where, when he had mustered and
marshalled his men, his horse was brought to him; upon which he
said, "When I have won the battle, I will use my horse for the
chase, but at present let us go against the enemy," and
accordingly charged them on foot. After a long and severe
combat, he drove the main army out of the field, but found the
hardest work at their carriages and ramparts, where not only the
men stood and fought, but the women also and children defended
themselves, till they were cut to pieces; insomuch that the
fight was scarcely ended till midnight. This action, glorious
in itself, Caesar crowned with another yet more noble, by
gathering in a body all the barbarians that had escaped out of
the battle, above one hundred thousand in number, and obliging
them to reoccupy the country which they had deserted, and the
cities which they had burnt. This he did for fear the Germans
should pass in and possess themselves of the land whilst it lay
uninhabited.
His second war was in defense of the Gauls against the Germans,
though some time before he had made Ariovistus, their king,
recognized at Rome as an ally. But they were very insufferable
neighbors to those under his government; and it was probable,
when occasion offered, they would renounce the present
arrangements, and march on to occupy Gaul. But finding his
officers timorous, and especially those of the young nobility
who came along with him in hopes of turning their campaigns with
him into a means for their own pleasure or profit, he called
them together, and advised them to march off, and not run the
hazard of a battle against their inclinations, since they had
such weak and unmanly feelings; telling them that he would take
only the tenth legion, and march against the barbarians, whom he
did not expect to find an enemy more formidable than the Cimbri,
nor, he added, should they find him a general inferior to
Marius. Upon this, the tenth legion deputed some of their body
to pay him their acknowledgments and thanks, and the other
legions blamed their officers, and all, with great vigor and
zeal, followed him many days' journey, till they encamped within
two hundred furlongs of the enemy. Ariovistus's courage to some
extent was cooled upon their very approach; for never expecting
the Romans would attack the Germans, whom he had thought it more
likely they would not venture to withstand even in defense of
their own subjects, he was the more surprised at Caesar's
conduct, and saw his army to be in consternation. They were
still more discouraged by the prophecies of their holy women,
who foretell the future by observing the eddies of rivers, and
taking signs from the windings and noise of streams, and who now
warned them not to engage before the next new moon appeared.
Caesar having had intimation of this, and seeing the Germans lie
still, thought it expedient to attack them whilst they were
under these apprehensions, rather than sit still and wait their
time. Accordingly he made his approaches to the strong-holds
and hills on which they lay encamped, and so galled and fretted
them, that at last they came down with great fury to engage.
But he gained a signal victory, and pursued them for four
hundred furlongs, as far as the Rhine; all which space was
covered with spoils and bodies of the slain. Ariovistus made
shift to pass the Rhine with the small remains of an army, for
it is said the number of the slain amounted to eighty thousand.
After this action, Caesar left his army at their winter-quarters
in the country of the Sequani, and in order to attend to affairs
at Rome, went into that part of Gaul which lies on the Po, and
was part of his province; for the river Rubicon divides Gaul,
which is on this side the Alps, from the rest of Italy. There
he sat down and employed himself in courting people's favor;
great numbers coming to him continually, and always finding
their requests answered; for he never failed to dismiss all with
present pledges of his kindness in hand, and further hopes for
the future. And during all this time of the war in Gaul, Pompey
never observed how Caesar was on the one hand using the arms of
Rome to effect his conquests, and on the other was gaining over
and securing to himself the favor of the Romans, with the wealth
which those conquests obtained him. But when he heard that the
Belgae, who were the most powerful of all the Gauls, and
inhabited a third part of the country, were revolted, and had
got together a great many thousand men in arms, he immediately
set out and took his way thither with great expedition, and
falling upon the enemy as they were ravaging the Gauls, his
allies, he soon defeated and put to flight the largest and least
scattered division of them. For though their numbers were
great, yet they made but a slender defense, and the marshes and
deep rivers were made passable to the Roman foot by the vast
quantity of dead bodies. Of those who revolted, all the tribes
that lived near the ocean came over without fighting, and he,
therefore, led his army against the Nervii, the fiercest and
most warlike people of all in those parts. These live in a
country covered with continuous woods, and having lodged their
children and property out of the way in the depth of the forest,
fell upon Caesar with a body of sixty thousand men, before he
was prepared for them, while he was making his encampment. They
soon routed his cavalry, and having surrounded the twelfth and
seventh legions, killed all the officers, and had not Caesar
himself snatched up a buckler, and forced his way through his
own men to come up to the barbarians, or had not the tenth
legion, when they saw him in danger, run in from the tops of the
hills, where they lay, and broken through the enemy's ranks to
rescue him, in all probability not a Roman would have been
saved. But now, under the influence of Caesar's bold example,
they fought a battle, as the phrase is, of more than human
courage, and yet with their utmost efforts they were not able to
drive the enemy out of the field, but cut them down fighting in
their defense. For out of sixty thousand men, it is stated that
not above five hundred survived the battle, and of four hundred
of their senators not above three.
When the Roman senate had received news of this, they voted
sacrifices and festivals to the gods, to be strictly observed
for the space of fifteen days, a longer space than ever was
observed for any victory before. The danger to which they had
been exposed by the joint outbreak of such a number of nations
was felt to have been great; and the people's fondness for
Caesar gave additional luster to successes achieved by him. He
now, after settling everything in Gaul, came back again, and
spent the winter by the Po, in order to carry on the designs he
had in hand at Rome. All who were candidates for offices used
his assistance, and were supplied with money from him to corrupt
the people and buy their votes, in return of which, when they
were chosen, they did all things to advance his power. But what
was more considerable, the most eminent and powerful men in Rome
in great numbers came to visit him at Lucca, Pompey, and
Crassus, and Appius, the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos, the
proconsul of Spain, so that there were in the place at one time
one hundred and twenty lictors, and more than two hundred
senators. In deliberation here held, it was determined that
Pompey and Crassus should be consuls again for the following
year; that Caesar should have a fresh supply of money, and that
his command should be renewed to him for five years more. It
seemed very extravagant to all thinking men, that those very
persons who had received so much money from Caesar should
persuade the senate to grant him more, as if he were in want.
Though in truth it was not so much upon persuasion as
compulsion, that, with sorrow and groans for their own acts,
they passed the measure. Cato was not present, for they had
sent him seasonably out of the way into Cyprus; but Favonius,
who was a zealous imitator of Cato, when he found he could do no
good by opposing it, broke out of the house, and loudly
declaimed against these proceedings to the people, but none gave
him any hearing; some slighting him out of respect to Crassus
and Pompey, and the greater part to gratify Caesar, on whom
depended their hopes.
After this, Caesar returned again to his forces in Gaul, where
he found that country involved in a dangerous war, two strong
nations of the Germans having lately passed the Rhine, to
conquer it; one of them called the Usipes, the other the
Tenteritae. Of the war with this people, Caesar himself has
given this account in his commentaries, that the barbarians,
having sent ambassadors to treat with him, did, during the
treaty, set upon him in his march, by which means with eight
hundred men they routed five thousand of his horse, who did not
suspect their coming; that afterwards they sent other
ambassadors to renew the same fraudulent practices, whom he kept
in custody, and led on his army against the barbarians, as
judging it mere simplicity to keep faith with those who had so
faithlessly broken the terms they had agreed to. But Tanusius
states, that when the senate decreed festivals and sacrifices
for this victory, Cato declared it to be his opinion that Caesar
ought to be given into the hands of the barbarians, that so the
guilt which this breach of faith might otherwise bring upon the
state, might be expiated by transferring the curse on him, who
was the occasion of it. Of those who passed the Rhine, there were
four hundred thousand cut off; those few who escaped were
sheltered by the Sugambri, a people of Germany. Caesar took
hold of this pretense to invade the Germans, being at the same
time ambitious of the honor of being the first man that should
pass the Rhine with an army. He carried a bridge across it,
though it was very wide, and the current at that particular
point very full, strong, and violent, bringing down with its
waters trunks of trees, and other lumber, which much shook and
weakened the foundations of his bridge. But he drove great
piles of wood into the bottom of the river above the passage,
to catch and stop these as they floated down, and thus fixing
his bridle upon the stream, successfully finished this bridge,
which no one who saw could believe to be the work but of ten
days.
In the passage of his army over it, he met with no opposition;
the Suevi themselves, who are the most warlike people of all
Germany, flying with their effects into the deepest and most
densely wooded valleys. When he had burnt all the enemy's
country, and encouraged those who embraced the Roman interest,
he went back into Gaul, after eighteen days' stay in Germany.
But his expedition into Britain was the most famous testimony of
his courage. For he was the first who brought a navy into the
western ocean, or who sailed into the Atlantic with an army to
make war; and by invading an island, the reported extent of
which had made its existence a matter of controversy among
historians, many of whom questioned whether it were not a mere
name and fiction, not a real place, he might be said to have
carried the Roman empire beyond the limits of the known world.
He passed thither twice from that part of Gaul which lies over
against it, and in several battles which he fought, did more
hurt to the enemy than service to himself, for the islanders
were so miserably poor, that they had nothing worth being
plundered of. When he found himself unable to put such an end
to the war as he wished, he was content to take hostages from
the king, and to impose a tribute, and then quitted the island.
At his arrival in Gaul, he found letters which lay ready to be
conveyed over the water to him from his friends at Rome,
announcing his daughter's death, who died in labor of a child by
Pompey. Caesar and Pompey both were much afflicted with her
death, nor were their friends less disturbed, believing that the
alliance was now broken, which had hitherto kept the sickly
commonwealth in peace, for the child also died within a few days
after the mother. The people took the body of Julia, in spite
of the opposition of the tribunes, and carried it into the field
of Mars, and there her funeral rites were performed, and her
remains are laid.
Caesar's army was now grown very numerous, so that he was forced
to disperse them into various camps for their winter-quarters,
and he having gone himself to Italy as he used to do, in his
absence a general outbreak throughout the whole of Gaul
commenced, and large armies marched about the country, and
attacked the Roman quarters, and attempted to make themselves
masters of the forts where they lay. The greatest and strongest
party of the rebels, under the command of Abriorix, cut off
Costa and Titurius with all their men, while a force sixty
thousand strong besieged the legion under the command of
Cicero, and had almost taken it by storm, the Roman soldiers
being all wounded, and having quite spent themselves by a
defense beyond their natural strength. But Caesar, who was at a
great distance, having received the news, quickly got together
seven thousand men, and hastened to relieve Cicero. The
besiegers were aware of it, and went to meet him, with great
confidence that they should easily overpower such an handful of
men. Caesar, to increase their presumption, seemed to avoid
fighting, and still marched off, till he found a place
conveniently situated for a few to engage against many, where he
encamped. He kept his soldiers from making any attack upon the
enemy, and commanded them to raise the ramparts higher, and
barricade the gates, that by show of fear, they might heighten
the enemy's contempt of them. Till at last they came without
any order in great security to make an assault, when he issued
forth, and put them to flight with the loss of many men.
This quieted the greater part of the commotions in these parts
of Gaul, and Caesar, in the course of the winter, visited every
part of the country, and with great vigilance took precautions
against all innovations. For there were three legions now come
to him to supply the place of the men he had lost, of which
Pompey furnished him with two, out of those under his command;
the other was newly raised in the part of Gaul by the Po. But
in a while the seeds of war, which had long since been secretly
sown and scattered by the most powerful men in those warlike
nations, broke forth into the greatest and most dangerous war
that ever was in those parts, both as regards the number of men
in the vigor of their youth who were gathered and armed from all
quarters, the vast funds of money collected to maintain it, the
strength of the towns, and the difficulty of the country where
it was carried on. It being winter, the rivers were frozen, the
woods covered with snow, and the level country flooded, so that
in some places the ways were lost through the depth of the snow;
in others, the overflowing of marshes and streams made every
kind of passage uncertain. All which difficulties made it seem
impracticable for Caesar to make any attempt upon the
insurgents. Many tribes had revolted together, the chief of
them being the Arverni and Carnutini ; the general who had the
supreme command in war was Vergentorix, whose father the Gauls
had put to death on suspicion of his aiming at absolute
government.
He having disposed his army in several bodies, and set officers
over them, drew over to him all the country round about as far
as those that lie upon the Arar, and having intelligence of the
opposition which Caesar now experienced at Rome, thought to
engage all Gaul in the war. Which if he had done a little
later, when Caesar was taken up with the civil wars, Italy had
been put into as great a terror as before it was by the Cimbri.
But Caesar, who above all men was gifted with the faculty of
making the right use of everything in war, and most especially
of seizing the right moment, as soon as he heard of the revolt,
returned immediately the same way he went, and showed the
barbarians, by the quickness of his march in such a severe
season, that an army was advancing against them which was
invincible. For in the time that one would have thought it
scarce credible that a courier or express should have come with
a message from him, he himself appeared with all his army,
ravaging the country, reducing their posts, subduing their
towns, receiving into his protection those who declared for him.
Till at last the Edui, who hitherto had styled themselves
brethren to the Romans, and had been much honored by them,
declared against him, and joined the rebels, to the great
discouragement of his army. Accordingly he removed thence, and
passed the country of the Lingones, desiring to reach the
territories of the Sequani, who were his friends, and who lay
like a bulwark in front of Italy against the other tribes of
Gaul. There the enemy came upon him, and surrounded him with
many myriads, whom he also was eager to engage; and at last,
after some time and with much slaughter, gained on the whole a
complete victory; though at first he appears to have met with
some reverse, and the Aruveni show you a small sword hanging up
in a temple, which they say was taken from Caesar. Caesar saw
this afterwards himself, and smiled, and when his friends
advised it should be taken down, would not permit it, because he
looked upon it as consecrated.
After the defeat a great part of those who had escaped, fled
with their king into a town called Alesia, which Caesar
besieged, though the height of the walls, and number of those
who defended them, made it appear impregnable; and meantime,
from without the walls, he was assailed by a greater danger than
can be expressed. For the choice men of Gaul, picked out of
each nation, and well armed, came to relieve Alesia, to the
number of three hundred thousand; nor were there in the town
less than one hundred and seventy thousand. So that Caesar
being shut up betwixt two such forces, was compelled to protect
himself by two walls, one towards the town, the other against
the relieving army, as knowing it these forces should join, his
affairs would be entirely ruined. The danger that he underwent
before Alesia, justly gained him great honor on many accounts,
and gave him an opportunity of showing greater instances of his
valor and conduct than any other contest had done. One wonders
much how he should be able to engage and defeat so many
thousands of men without the town, and not be perceived by those
within, but yet more, that the Romans themselves, who guarded
their wall which was next the town, should be strangers to it.
For even they knew nothing of the victory, till they heard the
cries of the men and lamentations of the women who were in the
town, and had from thence seen the Romans at a distance carrying
into their camp a great quantity of bucklers, adorned with gold
and silver, many breastplates stained with blood, besides cups
and tents made in the Gallic fashion. So soon did so vast an
army dissolve and vanish like a ghost or dream, the greatest
part of them being killed upon the spot. Those who were in
Alesia, having given themselves and Caesar much trouble,
surrendered at last; and Vergentorix, who was the chief spring
of all the war, putting his best armor on, and adorning his
horse, rode out of the gates, and made a turn about Caesar as he
was sitting, then quitted his horse, threw off his armor, and
remained seated quietly at Caesar's feet until he was led away
to be reserved for the triumph.
Caesar had long ago resolved upon the overthrow of Pompey, as
had Pompey, for that matter, upon his. For Crassus, the fear of
whom had hitherto kept them in peace, having now been killed in
Parthia, if the one of them wished to make himself the greatest
man in Rome, he had only to overthrow the other; and if he again
wished to prevent his own fall, he had nothing for it but to be
beforehand with him whom he feared. Pompey had not been long
under any such apprehensions, having till lately despised
Caesar, as thinking it no difficult matter to put down him whom
he himself had advanced. But Caesar had entertained this design
from the beginning against his rivals, and had retired, like an
expert wrestler, to prepare himself apart for the combat.
Making the Gallic wars his exercise-ground, he had at once
improved the strength of his soldiery, and had heightened his
own glory by his great actions, so that he was looked on as one
who might challenge comparison with Pompey. Nor did he let go
any of those advantages which were now given him both by Pompey
himself and the times, and the ill government of Rome, where all
who were candidates for offices publicly gave money, and without
any shame bribed the people, who having received their pay, did
not contend for their benefactors with their bare suffrages, but
with bows, swords, and slings. So that after having many times
stained the place of election with the blood of men killed upon
the spot, they left the city at last without a government at
all, to be carried about like a ship without a pilot to steer
her; while all who had any wisdom could only be thankful if a
course of such wild and stormy disorder and madness might end no
worse than in a monarchy. Some were so bold as to declare
openly, that the government was incurable but by a monarchy, and
that they ought to take that remedy from the hands of the
gentlest physician, meaning Pompey, who, though in words he
pretended to decline it, yet in reality made his utmost efforts
to be declared dictator. Cato perceiving his design, prevailed
with the senate to make him sole consul, that with the offer of
a more legal sort of monarchy he might be withheld from
demanding the dictatorship. They over and above voted him the
continuance of his provinces, for he had two, Spain and all
Africa, which he governed by his lieutenants, and maintained
armies under him, at the yearly charge of a thousand talents out
of the public treasury.
Upon this Caesar also sent and petitioned for the consulship,
and the continuance of his provinces. Pompey at first did not
stir in it, but Marcellus and Lentulus opposed it, who had
always hated Caesar, and now did every thing, whether fit or
unfit, which might disgrace and affront him. For they took away
the privilege of Roman citizens from the people of New Comum,
who were a colony that Caesar had lately planted in Gaul; and
Marcellus, who was then consul, ordered one of the senators of
that town, then at Rome, to be whipped, and told him he laid
that mark upon him to signify he was no citizen of Rome, bidding
him, when he went back again, to show it to Caesar. After
Marcellus's consulship, Caesar began to lavish gifts upon all
the public men out of the riches he had taken from the Gauls;
discharged Curio, the tribune, from his great debts; gave
Paulus, then consul, fifteen hundred talents, with which he
built the noble court of justice adjoining the forum, to supply
the place of that called the Fulvian. Pompey, alarmed at these
preparations, now openly took steps, both by himself and his
friends, to have a successor appointed in Caesar's room, and
sent to demand back the soldiers whom he had lent him to carry
on the wars in Gaul. Caesar returned them, and made each
soldier a present of two hundred and fifty drachmas. The
officer who brought them home to Pompey, spread amongst the
people no very fair or favorable report of Caesar, and flattered
Pompey himself with false suggestions that he was wished for by
Caesar's army; and though his affairs here were in some
embarrassment through the envy of some, and the ill state of the
government, yet there the army was at his command, and if they
once crossed into Italy, would presently declare for him; so
weary were they of Caesar's endless expeditions, and so
suspicious of his designs for a monarchy. Upon this Pompey grew
presumptuous, and neglected all warlike preparations, as
fearing no danger, and used no other means against him than mere
speeches and votes, for which Caesar cared nothing. And one of
his captains, it is said, who was sent by him to Rome, standing
before the senate-house one day, and being told that the senate
would not give Caesar a longer time in his government, clapped
his hand on the hilt of his sword, and said, "But this shall."
Yet the demands which Caesar made had the fairest colors of
equity imaginable. For he proposed to lay down his arms, and
that Pompey should do the same, and both together should become
private men, and each expect a reward of his services from the
public. For that those who proposed to disarm him, and at the
same time to confirm Pompey in all the power he held, were
simply establishing the one in the tyranny which they accused
the other of aiming at. When Curio made these proposals to the
people in Caesar's name, he was loudly applauded, and some threw
garlands towards him, and dismissed him as they do successful
wrestlers, crowned with flowers. Antony, being tribune,
produced a letter sent from Caesar on this occasion, and read
it, though the consuls did what they could to oppose it. But
Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, proposed in the senate, that if
Caesar did not lay down his arms within such a time, he should
be voted an enemy; and the consuls putting it to the question,
whether Pompey should dismiss his soldiers, and again, whether
Caesar should disband his, very few assented to the first, but
almost all to the latter. But Antony proposing again, that both
should lay down their commissions, all but a very few agreed to
it. Scipio was upon this very violent, and Lentulus the consul
cried aloud, that they had need of arms, and not of suffrages,
against a robber; so that the senators for the present
adjourned, and appeared in mourning as a mark of their grief for
the dissension.
Afterwards there came other letters from Caesar, which seemed
yet more moderate, for he proposed to quit everything else, and
only to retain Gaul within the Alps, Illyricum, and two
legions, till he should stand a second time for consul. Cicero,
the orator, who was lately returned from Cilicia, endeavored to
reconcile differences, and softened Pompey, who was willing to
comply in other things, but not to allow him the soldiers. At
last Cicero used his persuasions with Caesar's friends to accept
of the provinces, and six thousand soldiers only, and so to make
up the quarrel. And Pompey was inclined to give way to this,
but Lentulus, the consul, would not hearken to it, but drove
Antony and Curio out of the senate-house with insults, by which
he afforded Caesar the most plausible pretense that could be,
and one which he could readily use to inflame the soldiers, by
showing them two persons of such repute and authority, who were
forced to escape in a hired carriage in the dress of slaves.
For so they were glad to disguise themselves, when they fled out
of Rome.
There were not about him at that time above three hundred horse,
and five thousand foot; for the rest of his army, which was left
behind the Alps, was to be brought after him by officers who had
received orders for that purpose. But he thought the first
motion towards the design which he had on foot did not require
large forces at present, and that what was wanted was to make
this first step suddenly, and so as to astound his enemies with
the boldness of it; as it would be easier, he thought, to throw
them into consternation by doing what they never anticipated,
than fairly to conquer them, if he had alarmed them by his
preparations. And therefore, he commanded his captains and
other officers to go only with their swords in their hands,
without any other arms, and make themselves masters of Ariminum,
a large city of Gaul, with as little disturbance and bloodshed
as possible. He committed the care of these forces to
Hortensius, and himself spent the day in public as a stander-by
and spectator of the gladiators, who exercised before him. A
little before night he attended to his person, and then went
into the hall, and conversed for some time with those he had
invited to supper, till it began to grow dusk, when he rose from
table, and made his excuses to the company, begging them to stay
till he came back, having already given private directions to a
few immediate friends, that they should follow him, not all the
same way, but some one way, some another. He himself got into
one of the hired carriages, and drove at first another way, but
presently turned towards Ariminum. When he came to the river
Rubicon, which parts Gaul within the Alps from the rest of
Italy, his thoughts began to work, now he was just entering upon
the danger, and he wavered much in his mind, when he considered
the greatness of the enterprise into which he was throwing
himself. He checked his course, and ordered a halt, while he
revolved with himself, and often changed his opinion one way and
the other, without speaking a word. This was when his purposes
fluctuated most; presently he also discussed the matter with his
friends who were about him, (of which number Asinius Pollio was
one,) computing how many calamities his passing that river would
bring upon mankind, and what a relation of it would be
transmitted to posterity. At last, in a sort of passion,
casting aside calculation, and abandoning himself to what might
come, and using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter
upon dangerous and bold attempts, "The die is cast," with these
words he took the river. Once over, he used all expedition
possible, and before it was day reached Ariminum, and took it.
It is said that the night before he passed the river, he had an
impious dream, that he was unnaturally familiar with his own
mother.
As soon as Ariminum was taken, wide gates, so to say, were
thrown open, to let in war upon every land alike and sea, and
with the limits of the province, the boundaries of the laws were
transgressed. Nor would one have thought that, as at other
times, the mere men and women fled from one town of Italy to
another in their consternation, but that the very towns
themselves left their sites, and fled for succor to each other.
The city of Rome was overrun as it were with a deluge, by the
conflux of people flying in from all the neighboring places.
Magistrates could no longer govern, nor the eloquence of any
orator quiet it; it was all but suffering shipwreck by the
violence of its own tempestuous agitation. The most vehement
contrary passions and impulses were at work everywhere. Nor
did those who rejoiced at the prospect of the change altogether
conceal their feelings, but when they met, as in so great a city
they frequently must, with the alarmed and dejected of the other
party, they provoked quarrels by their bold expressions of
confidence in the event. Pompey, sufficiently disturbed of
himself; was yet more perplexed by the clamors of others; some
telling him that he justly suffered for having armed Caesar
against himself and the government; others blaming him for
permitting Caesar to be insolently used by Lentulus, when he
made such ample concessions, and offered such reasonable
proposals towards an accommodation. Favonius bade him now stamp
upon the ground; for once talking big in the senate, he desired
them not to trouble themselves about making any preparations for
the war, for that he himself, with one stamp of his foot, would
fill all Italy with soldiers. Yet still Pompey at that time had
more forces than Caesar; but he was not permitted to pursue his
own thoughts, but being continually disturbed with false reports
and alarms, as if the enemy was close upon him and carrying all
before him, he gave way, and let himself be borne down by the
general cry. He put forth an edict declaring the city to be in
a state of anarchy, and left it with orders that the senate
should follow him, and that no one should stay behind who did
not prefer tyranny to their country and liberty.
The consuls at once fled, without making even the usual
sacrifices; so did most of the senators, carrying off their own
goods in as much haste as if they had been robbing their
neighbors. Some, who had formerly much favored Caesar's cause,
in the prevailing alarm, quitted their own sentiments, and
without any prospect of good to themselves, were carried along
by the common stream. It was a melancholy thing to see the city
tossed in these tumults, like a ship given up by her pilots, and
left to run, as chance guides her, upon any rock in her way.
Yet, in spite of their sad condition, people still esteemed the
place of their exile to be their country for Pompey's sake, and
fled from Rome, as if it had been Caesar's camp. Labienus even,
who had been one of Caesar's nearest friends, and his
lieutenant, and who had fought by him zealously in the Gallic
wars, now deserted him, and went over to Pompey. Caesar sent
all his money and equipage after him, and then sat down before
Corfinium, which was garrisoned with thirty cohorts under the
command of Domitius. He, in despair of maintaining the defense,
requested a physician, whom he had among his attendants, to give
him poison; and taking the dose, drank it, in hopes of being
dispatched by it. But soon after, when he was told that Caesar
showed the utmost clemency towards those he took prisoners, he
lamented his misfortune, and blamed the hastiness of his
resolution. His physician consoled him, by informing him that
he had taken a sleeping draught, not a poison; upon which, much
rejoiced, and rising from his bed, he went presently to Caesar,
and gave him the pledge of his hand, yet afterwards again
went over to Pompey. The report of these actions at Rome,
quieted those who were there, and some who had fled thence
returned.
Caesar took into his army Domitius's soldiers, as he did all
those whom he found in any town enlisted for Pompey's service.
Being now strong and formidable enough, he advanced against
Pompey himself, who did not stay to receive him, but fled to
Brundisium, having sent the consuls before with a body of troops
to Dyrrhachium. Soon after, upon Caesar's approach, he set to
sea, as shall be more particularly related in his Life. Caesar
would have immediately pursued him, but wanted shipping, and
therefore went back to Rome, having made himself master of all
Italy without bloodshed in the space of sixty days. When he
came thither, he found the city more quiet than he expected, and
many senators present, to whom he addressed himself with
courtesy and deference, desiring them to send to Pompey about
any reasonable accommodations towards a peace. But nobody
complied with this proposal; whether out of fear of Pompey, whom
they had deserted, or that they thought Caesar did not mean what
he said, but thought it his interest to talk plausibly.
Afterwards, when Metellus, the tribune, would have hindered him
from taking money out of the public treasure, and adduced some
laws against it, Caesar replied, that arms and laws had each
their own time; "If what I do displeases you, leave the place;
war allows no free talking. When I have laid down my arms, and
made peace, come back and make what speeches you please. And
this," he added, "I tell you in diminution of my own just right,
as indeed you and all others who have appeared against me and
are now in my power, may be treated as I please." Having said
this to Metellus, he went to the doors of the treasury, and the
keys being not to be found, sent for smiths to force them open.
Metellus again making resistance, and some encouraging him in
it, Caesar, in a louder tone, told him he would put him to
death, if he gave him any further disturbance. "And this," said
he, "you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say,
than to do." These words made Metellus withdraw for fear, and
obtained speedy execution henceforth for all orders that Caesar
gave for procuring necessaries for the war.
He was now proceeding to Spain, with the determination of first
crushing Afranius and Varro, Pompey's lieutenants, and making
himself master of the armies and provinces under them, that he
might then more securely advance against Pompey, when he had no
enemy left behind him. In this expedition his person was often
in danger from ambuscades, and his army by want of provisions,
yet he did not desist from pursuing the enemy, provoking them to
fight, and hemming them with his fortifications, till by main
force he made himself master of their camps and their forces.
Only the generals got off, and fled to Pompey.
When Caesar came back to Rome, Piso, his father-in-law, advised
him to send men to Pompey, to treat of a peace; but Isauricus,
to ingratiate himself with Caesar, spoke against it. After
this, being created dictator by the senate, he called home the
exiles, and gave back then rights as citizens to the children of
those who had suffered under Sylla; he relieved the debtors by
an act remitting some part of the interest on their debts, and
passed some other measures of the same sort, but not many. For
within eleven days he resigned his dictatorship, and having
declared himself consul, with Servilius Isauricus, hastened
again to the war. He marched so fast, that he left all his army
behind him, except six hundred chosen horse, and five legions,
with which he put to sea in the very middle of winter, about
the beginning of the month January, (which corresponds pretty
nearly with the Athenian month Posideon,) and having past the
Ionian Sea, took Oricum and Apollonia, and then sent back the
ships to Brundisium, to bring over the soldiers who were left
behind in the march. They, while yet on the march, their bodies
now no longer in the full vigor of youth, and they themselves
weary with such a multitude of wars, could not but exclaim
against Caesar, "When at last, and where, will this Caesar let
us be quiet? He carries us from place to place, and uses us as
if we were not to be worn out, and had no sense of labor. Even
our iron itself is spent by blows, and we ought to have some
pity on our bucklers and breastplates, which have been used so
long. Our wounds, if nothing else, should make him see that we
are mortal men, whom he commands, subject to the same pains and
sufferings as other human beings. The very gods themselves
cannot force the winter season, or hinder the storms in their
time; yet he pushes forward, as if he were not pursuing, but
flying from an enemy." So they talked as they marched leisurely
towards Brundisium. But when they came thither, and found
Caesar gone off before them, their feelings changed, and they
blamed themselves as traitors to their general. They now railed
at their officers for marching so slowly, and placing themselves
on the heights overlooking the sea towards Epirus, they kept
watch to see if they could espy the vessels which were to
transport them to Caesar.
He in the meantime was posted in Apollonia, but had not an army
with him able to fight the enemy, the forces from Brundisium
being so long in coming, which put him to great suspense and
embarrassment what to do. At last he resolved upon a most
hazardous experiment, and embarked, without anyone's knowledge,
in a boat of twelve oars, to cross over to Brundisium, though
the sea was at that time covered with a vast fleet of the
enemies. He got on board in the night time, in the dress of a
slave, and throwing himself down like a person of no
consequence, lay along at the bottom of the vessel. The river
Anius was to carry them down to sea, and there used to blow a
gentle gale every morning from the land, which made it calm at
the mouth of the river, by driving the waves forward; but this
night there had blown a strong wind from the sea, which
overpowered that from the land, so that where the river met the
influx of the sea-water and the opposition of the waves, it was
extremely rough and angry; and the current was beaten back with
such a violent swell, that the master of the boat could not make
good his passage, but ordered his sailors to tack about and
return. Caesar, upon this, discovers himself, and taking the
man by the hand, who was surprised to see him there, said, "Go
on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Caesar and his
fortune in your boat." The mariners, when they heard that,
forgot the storm, and laying all their strength to their oars,
did what they could to force their way down the river. But when
it was to no purpose, and the vessel now took in much water,
Caesar finding himself in such danger in the very mouth of the
river, much against his will permitted the master to turn back.
When he was come to land, his soldiers ran to him in a
multitude, reproaching him for what he had done, and indignant
that he should think himself not strong enough to get a victory
by their sole assistance, but must disturb himself, and expose
his life for those who were absent, as if he could not trust
those who were with him.
After this, Antony came over with the forces from Brundisium,
which encouraged Caesar to give Pompey battle, though he was
encamped very advantageously, and furnished with plenty of
provisions both by sea and land, whilst he himself was at the
beginning but ill-supplied, and before the end was extremely
pinched for want of necessaries, so that his soldiers were
forced to dig up a kind of root which grew there, and tempering
it with milk, to feed on it. Sometimes they made a kind of
bread of it, and advancing up to the enemy's outposts, would
throw in these loaves, telling them, that as long as the earth
produced such roots they would not give up blockading Pompey.
But Pompey took what care he could, that neither the loaves nor
the words should reach his men, who were out of heart and
despondent, through terror at the fierceness and hardiness of
their enemies, whom they looked upon as a sort of wild beasts.
There were continual skirmishes about Pompey's outworks, in all
which Caesar had the better, except one, when his men were
forced to fly in such a manner that he had like to have lost his
camp. For Pompey made such a vigorous sally on them that not a
man stood his ground; the trenches were filled with the
slaughter, many fell upon their own ramparts and bulwarks,
whither they were driven in flight by the enemy. Caesar met
them, and would have turned them back, but could not. When he
went to lay hold of the ensigns, those who carried them threw
them down, so that the enemies took thirty-two of them. He
himself narrowly escaped; for taking hold of one of his
soldiers, a big and strong man, that was flying by him, he bade
him stand and face about; but the fellow, full of apprehensions
from the danger he was in, laid hold of his sword, as if he
would strike Caesar, but Caesar's armor-bearer cut off his arm.
Caesar's affairs were so desperate at that time, that when
Pompey, either through over-cautiousness, or his ill fortune,
did not give the finishing stroke to that great success, but
retreated after he had driven the routed enemy within their
camp, Caesar, upon seeing his withdrawal, said to his friends,
"The victory to-day had been on the enemies' side, if they had
had a general who knew how to gain it." When he was retired
into his tent, he laid himself down to sleep, but spent that
night as miserably as ever he did any, in perplexity and
consideration with himself, coming to the conclusion that he had
conducted the war amiss. For when he had a fertile country
before him, and all the wealthy cities of Macedonia and
Thessaly, he had neglected to carry the war thither, and had sat
down by the seaside, where his enemies had such a powerful
fleet, so that he was in fact rather besieged by the want of
necessaries, than besieging others with his arms. Being thus
distracted in his thoughts with the view of the difficulty and
distress he was in, he raised his camp, with the intention of
advancing towards Scipio, who lay in Macedonia; hoping either to
entice Pompey into a country where he should fight without the
advantage he now had of supplies from the sea, or to overpower
Scipio, if not assisted.
This set all Pompey's army and officers on fire to hasten and
pursue Caesar, whom they concluded to be beaten and flying. But
Pompey was afraid to hazard a battle on which so much depended,
and being himself provided with all necessaries for any length
of time, thought to tire out and waste the vigor of Caesar's
army, which could not last long. For the best part of his men,
though they had great experience and showed an irresistible
courage in all engagements, yet by their frequent marches,
changing their camps, attacking fortifications, and keeping
long night-watches, were getting worn-out and broken; they being
now old, their bodies less fit for labor, and their courage,
also, beginning to give way with the failure of their strength.
Besides, it was said that an infectious disease, occasioned by
their irregular diet, was prevailing in Caesar's army, and what
was of greatest moment, he was neither furnished with money nor
provisions, so that in a little time he must needs fall of
himself.
For these reasons Pompey had no mind to fight him, but was
thanked for it by none but Cato, who rejoiced at the prospect of
sparing his fellow-citizens. For he when he saw the dead bodies
of those who had fallen in the last battle on Caesar's side, to
the number of a thousand, turned away, covered his face, and
shed tears. But everyone else upbraided Pompey for being
reluctant to fight, and tried to goad him on by such nicknames
as Agamemnon, and king of kings, as if he were in no hurry to
lay down his sovereign authority, but was pleased to see so many
commanders attending on him, and paying their attendance at his
tent. Favonius, who affected Cato's free way of speaking his
mind, complained bitterly that they should eat no figs even this
year at Tusculum, because of Pompey's love of command.
Afranius, who was lately returned out of Spain, and on account
of his ill success there, labored under the suspicion of having
been bribed to betray the army, asked why they did not fight
this purchaser of provinces. Pompey was driven, against his own
will, by this kind of language, into offering battle, and
proceeded to follow Caesar. Caesar had found great difficulties
in his march, for no country would supply him with provisions,
his reputation being very much fallen since his late defeat.
But after he took Gomphi, a town of Thessaly, he not only found
provisions for his army, but physic too. For there they met
with plenty of wine, which they took very freely, and heated
with this, sporting and reveling on their march in bacchanalian
fashion, they shook off the disease, and their whole
constitution was relieved and changed into another habit.
When the two armies were come into Pharsalia, and both encamped
there, Pompey's thoughts ran the same way as they had done
before, against fighting, and the more because of some unlucky
presages, and a vision he had in a dream. But those who were
about him were so confident of success, that Domitius, and
Spinther, and Scipio, as if they had already conquered,
quarreled which should succeed Caesar in the pontificate. And
many sent to Rome to take houses fit to accommodate consuls and
praetors, as being sure of entering upon those offices, as soon
as the battle was over. The cavalry especially were obstinate
for fighting, being splendidly armed and bravely mounted, and
valuing themselves upon the fine horses they kept, and upon
their own handsome persons; as also upon the advantage of their
numbers, for they were five thousand against one thousand of
Caesar's. Nor were the numbers of the infantry less
disproportionate, there being forty-five thousand of Pompey's,
against twenty-two thousand of the enemy.
Caesar, collecting his soldiers together, told them that
Corfinius was coming up to them with two legions, and that
fifteen cohorts more under Calenus were posted at Megara and
Athens; he then asked them whether they would stay till these
joined them, or would hazard the battle by themselves. They all
cried out to him not to wait, but on the contrary to do whatever
he could to bring about an engagement as soon as possible. When
he sacrificed to the gods for the lustration of his army, upon
the death of the first victim, the augur told him, within three
days he should come to a decisive action. Caesar asked him
whether he saw anything in the entrails, which promised a
happy event. "That," said the priest, "you can best answer
yourself; for the gods signify a great alteration from the
present posture of affairs. If, therefore, you think yourself
well off now, expect worse fortune; if unhappy, hope for
better." The night before the battle, as he walked the rounds
about midnight, there was a light seen in the heaven, very
bright and flaming, which seemed to pass over Caesar's camp, and
fall into Pompey's. And when Caesar's soldiers came to relieve
the watch in the morning, they perceived a panic disorder among
the enemies. However, he did not expect to fight that day, but
set about raising his camp with the intention of marching
towards Scotussa.
But when the tents were now taken down, his scouts rode up to
him, and told him the enemy would give him battle. With this
news he was extremely pleased, and having performed his
devotions to the gods, set his army in battle array, dividing
them into three bodies. Over the middlemost he placed Domitius
Calvinus; Antony commanded the left wing, and he himself the
right, being resolved to fight at the head of the tenth legion.
But when he saw the enemies' cavalry taking position against
him, being struck with their fine appearance and their number,
he gave private orders that six cohorts from the rear of the
army should come round and join him, whom he posted behind the
right wing, and instructed them what they should do, when the
enemy's horse came to charge. On the other side, Pompey
commanded the right wing, Domitius the left, and Scipio,
Pompey's father-in-law, the center. The whole weight of the
cavalry was collected on the left wing, with the intent that
they should outflank the right wing of the enemy, and rout that
part where the general himself commanded. For they thought no
phalanx of infantry could be solid enough to sustain such a
shock, but that they must necessarily be broken and shattered
all to pieces upon the onset of so immense a force of cavalry.
When they were ready on both sides to give the signal for
battle, Pompey commended his foot who were in the front to stand
their ground, and without breaking their order, receive quietly
the enemy's first attack, till they came within javelin's cast.
Caesar, in this respect, also, blames Pompey's generalship, as
if he had not been aware how the first encounter, when made with
an impetus and upon the run, gives weight and force to the
strokes, and fires the men's spirits into a flame, which the
general concurrence fans to full heat. He himself was just
putting the troops into motion and advancing to the action, when
he found one of his captains, a trusty and experienced soldier,
encouraging his men to exert their utmost. Caesar called him by
his name, and said, "What hopes, Caius Crassinius, and what
grounds for encouragement?" Crassinius stretched out his hand,
and cried in a loud voice, "We shall conquer nobly, Caesar; and
I this day will deserve your praises, either alive or dead." So
he said, and was the first man to run in upon the enemy,
followed by the hundred and twenty soldiers about him, and
breaking through the first rank, still pressed on forwards with
much slaughter of the enemy, till at last he was struck back by
the wound of a sword, which went in at his mouth with such force
that it came out at his neck behind.
Whilst the foot was thus sharply engaged in the main battle, on
the flank Pompey's horse rode up confidently, and opened their
ranks very wide, that they might surround the Fight wing of
Caesar. But before they engaged, Caesar's cohorts rushed out
and attacked them, and did not dart their javelins at a
distance, nor strike at the thighs and legs, as they usually did
in close battle, but aimed at their faces. For thus Caesar had
instructed them, in hopes that young gentlemen, who had not
known much of battles and wounds, but came wearing their hair
long, in the flower of their age and height of their beauty,
would be more apprehensive of such blows, and not care for
hazarding both a danger at present and a blemish for the future.
And so it proved, for they were so far from bearing the stroke
of the javelins, that they could not stand the sight of them,
but turned about, and covered their faces to secure them. Once
in disorder, presently they turned about to fly; and so most
shamefully ruined all. For those who had beat them back, at
once outflanked the infantry, and falling on their rear, cut
them to pieces. Pompey, who commanded the other wing of the
army, when he saw his cavalry thus broken and flying, was no
longer himself, nor did he now remember that he was Pompey the
Great, but like one whom some god had deprived of his senses,
retired to his tent without speaking; a word, and there sat to
expect the event, till the whole army was routed, and the enemy
appeared upon the works which were thrown up before the camp,
where they closely engaged with his men, who were posted there
to defend it. Then first he seemed to have recovered his
senses, and uttering, it is said, only these words, "What, into
the camp too?" he laid aside his general's habit, and putting on
such clothes as might best favor his flight, stole off. What
fortune he met with afterwards, how he took shelter in Egypt,
and was murdered there, we tell you in his Life.
Caesar, when he came to view Pompey's camp, and saw some of his
opponents dead upon the ground, others dying, said, with a
groan, "This they would have; they brought me to this necessity.
I, Caius Caesar, after succeeding in so many wars, had been
condemned, had I dismissed my army." These words, Pollio says,
Caesar spoke in Latin at that time, and that he himself wrote
them in Greek; adding, that those who were killed at the taking
of the camp, were most of them servants; and that not above six
thousand soldiers fell. Caesar incorporated most of the foot
whom he took prisoners, with his own legions, and gave a free
pardon to many of the distinguished persons, and amongst the
rest, to Brutus, who afterwards killed him. He did not
immediately appear after the battle was over, which put Caesar,
it is said, into great anxiety for him; nor was his pleasure
less when he saw him present himself alive.
There were many prodigies that foreshowed this victory, but the
most remarkable that we are told of, was that at Tralles. In
the temple of Victory stood Caesar's statue. The ground on
which it stood was naturally hard and solid, and the stone with
which it was paved still harder; yet it is said that a palm-tree
shot itself up near the pedestal of this statue. In the city of
Padua, one Caius Cornelius, who had the character of a good
augur, the fellow-citizen and acquaintance of Livy, the
historian, happened to be making some augural observations that
very day when the battle was fought. And first, as Livy tells
us, he pointed out the time of the fight, and said to those who
were by him, that just then the battle was begun, and the men
engaged. When he looked a second time, and observed the omens,
he leaped up as if he had been inspired, and cried out, "Caesar,
you are victorious." This much surprised the standers by, but
he took the garland which he had on from his head, and swore he
would never wear it again till the event should give authority
to his art. This Livy positively states for a truth.
Caesar, as a memorial of his victory, gave the Thessalians
their freedom, and then went in pursuit of Pompey. When he was
come into Asia, to gratify Theopompus, the author of the
collection of fables, he enfranchised the Cnidians, and remitted
one third of their tribute to all the people of the province of
Asia. When he came to Alexandria, where Pompey was already
murdered, he would not look upon Theodotus, who presented him
with his head, but taking only his signet, shed tears. Those of
Pompey's friends who had been arrested by the king of Egypt, as
they were wandering in those parts, he relieved, and offered
them his own friendship. In his letter to his friends at Rome,
he told them that the greatest and most signal pleasure his
victory had given him, was to be able continually to save the
lives of fellow-citizens who had fought against him. As to the
war in Egypt, some say it was at once dangerous and
dishonorable, and noways necessary, but occasioned only by his
passion for Cleopatra. Others blame the ministers of the king,
and especially the eunuch Pothinus, who was the chief favorite,
and had lately killed Pompey, who had banished Cleopatra, and
was now secretly plotting Caesar's destruction, (to prevent
which, Caesar from that time began to sit up whole nights, under
pretense of drinking, for the security of his person,) while
openly he was intolerable in his affronts to Caesar, both by his
words and actions. For when Caesar's soldiers had musty and
unwholesome corn measured out to them, Pothinus told them they
must be content with it, since they were fed at another's cost.
He ordered that his table should be served with wooden and
earthen dishes, and said Caesar had carried off all the gold and
silver plate, under pretense of arrears of debt. For the
present king's father owed Caesar one thousand seven hundred and
fifty myriads of money; Caesar had formerly remitted to his
children the rest, but thought fit to demand the thousand
myriads at that time, to maintain his army. Pothinus told him
that he had better go now and attend to his other affairs of
greater consequence, and that he should receive his money at
another time with thanks. Caesar replied that he did not want
Egyptians to be his counselors, and soon after, privately sent
for Cleopatra from her retirement.
She took a small boat, and one only of her confidents,
Apollodorus, the Sicilian, along with her, and in the dusk of
the evening landed near the palace. She was at a loss how to
get in undiscovered, till she thought of putting herself into
the coverlet of a bed and lying at length, whilst Apollodorus
tied up the bedding and carried it on his back through the gates
to Caesar's apartment. Caesar was first captivated by this
proof of Cleopatra's bold wit, and was afterwards so overcome by
the charm of her society, that he made a reconciliation between
her and her brother, on condition that she should rule as his
colleague in the kingdom. A festival was kept to celebrate this
reconciliation, where Caesar's barber, a busy, listening fellow,
whose excessive timidity made him inquisitive into everything,
discovered that there was a plot carrying on against Caesar by
Achillas, general of the king's forces, and Pothinus, the
eunuch. Caesar, upon the first intelligence of it, set a guard
upon the hall where the feast was kept, and killed Pothinus.
Achillas escaped to the army, and raised a troublesome and
embarrassing war against Caesar, which it was not easy for him
to manage with his few soldiers against so powerful a city and
so large an army. The first difficulty he met with was want of
water, for the enemies had turned the canals. Another was, when
the enemy endeavored to cut off his communication by sea, he was
forced to divert that danger by setting fire to his own ships,
which, after burning the docks, thence spread on and destroyed
the great library. A third was, when in an engagement near
Pharos, he leaped from the mole into a small boat, to assist his
soldiers who were in danger, and when the Egyptians pressed him
on every side, he threw himself into the sea, and with much
difficulty swam off. This was the time when, according to the
story, he had a number of manuscripts in his hand, which, though
he was continually darted at, and forced to keep his head often
under water, yet he did not let go, but held them up safe from
wetting in one hand, whilst he swam with the other. His boat,
in the meantime, was quickly sunk. At last, the king having
gone off to Achillas and his party, Caesar engaged and conquered
them. Many fell in that battle, and the king himself was never
seen after. Upon this, he left Cleopatra queen of Egypt, who
soon after had a son by him, whom the Alexandrians called
Caesarion, and then departed for Syria.
Thence he passed to Asia, where he heard that Domitius was
beaten by Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, and had fled out of
Pontus with a handful of men; and that Pharnaces pursued the
victory so eagerly, that though he was already master of
Bithynia and Cappadocia, he had a further design of attempting
the Lesser Armenia, and was inviting all the kings and tetrarchs
there to rise. Caesar immediately marched against him with
three legions, fought him near Zela, drove him out of Pontus,
and totally defeated his army. When he gave Amantius, a friend
of his at Rome, an account of this action, to express the
promptness and rapidity of it, he used three words, I came, saw,
and conquered, which in Latin having all the same cadence,
carry with them a very suitable air of brevity.
Hence he crossed into Italy, and came to Rome at the end of that
year, for which he had been a second time chosen dictator,
though that office had never before lasted a whole year, and was
elected consul for the next. He was ill spoken of, because upon
a mutiny of some soldiers, who killed Cosconius and Galba, who
had been praetors, he gave them only the slight reprimand of
calling them Citizens, instead of Fellow-Soldiers, and
afterwards assigned to each man a thousand drachmas, besides a
share of lands in Italy. He was also reflected on for
Dolabella's extravagance, Amantius's covetousness, Antony's
debauchery, and Corfinius's profuseness, who pulled down
Pompey's house, and rebuilt it, as not magnificent enough; for
the Romans were much displeased with all these. But Caesar, for
the prosecution of his own scheme of government, though he knew
their characters and disapproved them, was forced to make use of
those who would serve him.
After the battle of Pharsalia, Cato and Scipio fled into Africa,
and there, with the assistance of king Juba, got together a
considerable force, which Caesar resolved to engage. He,
accordingly, passed into Sicily about the winter-solstice, and
to remove from his officers' minds all hopes of delay there,
encamped by the sea-shore, and as soon as ever he had a fair
wind, put to sea with three thousand foot and a few horse. When
he had landed them, he went back secretly, under some
apprehensions for the larger part of his army, but met them upon
the sea, and brought them all to the same camp. There he was
informed that the enemies relied much upon an ancient oracle,
that the family of the Scipios should be always victorious in
Africa. There was in his army a man, otherwise mean and
contemptible, but of the house of the Africani, and his name
Scipio Sallutio. This man Caesar, (whether in raillery, to
ridicule Scipio, who commended the enemy, or seriously to bring
over the omen to his side, it were hard to say,) put at the head
of his troops, as if he were general, in all the frequent
battles which he was compelled to fight. For he was in such
want both of victualing for his men, and forage for his horses,
that he was forced to feed the horses with sea-weed, which he
washed thoroughly to take off its saltiness, and mixed with a
little grass, to give it a more agreeable taste. The Numidians,
in great numbers, and well horsed, whenever he went, came up and
commanded the country. Caesar's cavalry being one day
unemployed, diverted themselves with seeing an African, who
entertained them with dancing and at the same time playing upon
the pipe to admiration. They were so taken with this, that they
alighted, and gave their horses to some boys, when on a sudden
the enemy surrounded them, killed some, pursued the rest, and
fell in with them into their camp; and had not Caesar himself
and Asinius Pollio come to their assistance, and put a stop to
their flight, the war had been then at an end. In another
engagement, also, the enemy had again the better, when Caesar,
it is said, seized a standard-bearer, who was running away, by
the neck, and forcing him to face about, said, "Look, that is
the way to the enemy."
Scipio, flushed with this success at first, had a mind to come to
one decisive action. He therefore left Afranius and Juba in two
distinct bodies not far distant, and marched himself towards
Thapsus, where he proceeded to build a fortified camp above a
lake, to serve as a center-point for their operations, and also
as a place of refuge. Whilst Scipio was thus employed, Caesar
with incredible dispatch made his way through thick woods, and a
country supposed to be impassable, cut off one party of the
enemy, and attacked another in the front. Having routed these,
he followed up his opportunity and the current of his good
fortune, and on the first onset carried Afranius's camp, and
ravaged that of the Numidians, Juba, their king, being glad to
save himself by flight; so that in a small part of a single day
he made himself master of three camps, and killed fifty thousand
of the enemy, with the loss only of fifty of his own men. This
is the account some give of that fight. Others say, he was not
in the action, but that he was taken with his usual distemper
just as he was setting his army in order. He perceived the
approaches of it, and before it had too far disordered his
senses, when he was already beginning to shake under its
influence, withdrew into a neighboring fort, where he reposed
himself. Of the men of consular and praetorian dignity that
were taken after the fight, several Caesar put to death, others
anticipated him by killing themselves.
Cato had undertaken to defend Utica, and for that reason was not
in the battle. The desire which Caesar had to take him alive,
made him hasten thither; and upon the intelligence that he had
dispatched himself, he was much discomposed, for what reason is
not so well agreed. He certainly said, "Cato, I must grudge you
your death, as you grudged me the honor of saving your life."
Yet the discourse he wrote against Cato after his death, is no
great sign of his kindness, or that he was inclined to be
reconciled to him. For how is it probable that he would have
been tender of his life, when he was so bitter against his
memory? But from his clemency to Cicero, Brutus, and many
others who fought against him, it may be divined that Caesar's
book was not written so much out of animosity to Cato, as in his
own vindication. Cicero had written an encomium upon Cato, and
called it by his name. A composition by so great a master upon
so excellent a subject, was sure to be in everyone's hands.
This touched Caesar, who looked upon a panegyric on his enemy,
as no better than an invective against himself; and therefore he
made in his Anti-Cato, a collection of whatever could be said in
his derogation. The two compositions, like Cato and Caesar
themselves, have each of them their several admirers.
Caesar, upon his return to Rome, did not omit to pronounce
before the people a magnificent account of his victory, telling
them that he had subdued a country which would supply the public
every year with two hundred thousand attic bushels of corn, and
three million pounds weight of oil. He then led three triumphs
for Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, the last for the victory over,
not Scipio, but king Juba, as it was professed, whose little son
was then carried in the triumph, the happiest captive that ever
was, who of a barbarian Numidian, came by this means to obtain a
place among the most learned historians of Greece. After the
triumphs, he distributed rewards to his soldiers, and treated
the people with feasting and shows. He entertained the whole
people together at one feast, where twenty-two thousand dining
couches were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators, and
of battles by sea, in honor, as he said, of his daughter Julia,
though she had been long since dead. When these shows were
over, an account was taken of the people, who from three hundred
and twenty thousand, were now reduced to one hundred and fifty
thousand. So great a waste had the civil war made in Rome
alone, not to mention what the other parts of Italy and the
provinces suffered.
He was now chosen a fourth time consul, and went into Spain
against Pompey's sons. They were but young, yet had gathered
together a very numerous army, and showed they had courage and
conduct to command it, so that Caesar was in extreme danger.
The great battle was near the town of Munda, in which Caesar
seeing his men hard pressed, and making but a weak resistance,
ran through the ranks among the soldiers, and crying out, asked
them whether they were not ashamed to deliver him into the hands
of boys? At last, with great difficulty, and the best efforts
he could make, he forced back the enemy, killing thirty thousand
of them, though with the loss of one thousand of his best men.
When he came back from the fight, he told his friends that he
had often fought for victory, but this was the first time that
he had ever fought for life. This battle was won on the feast
of Bacchus, the very day in which Pompey, four years before.
had set out for the war. The younger of Pompey's sons escaped;
but Didius, some days after the fight, brought the head of the
elder to Caesar. This was the last war he was engaged in. The
triumph which he celebrated for this victory, displeased the
Romans beyond any thing. For he had not defeated foreign
generals, or barbarian kings, but had destroyed the children and
family of one of the greatest men of Rome, though unfortunate;
and it did not look well to lead a procession in celebration of
the calamities of his country, and to rejoice in those things
for which no other apology could be made either to gods or men,
than their being absolutely necessary. Besides that, hitherto
he had never sent letters or messengers to announce any victory
over his fellow-citizens, but had seemed rather to be ashamed of
the action, than to expect honor from it.
Nevertheless his countrymen, conceding all to his fortune, and
accepting the bit, in the hope that the government of a single
person would give them time to breathe after so many civil wars
and calamities, made him dictator for life. This was indeed a
tyranny avowed, since his power now was not only absolute, but
perpetual too. Cicero made the first proposals to the senate
for conferring honors upon him, which might in some sort be said
not to exceed the limits of ordinary human moderation. But
others, striving which should deserve most, carried them so
excessively high, that they made Caesar odious to the most
indifferent and moderate sort of men, by the pretension and the
extravagance of the titles which they decreed him. His enemies,
too, are thought to have had some share in this, as well as his
flatterers. It gave them advantage against him, and would be
their justification for any attempt they should make upon him;
for since the civil wars were ended, he had nothing else that he
could be charged with. And they had good reason to decree a
temple to Clemency, in token of their thanks for the mild use he
made of his victory. For he not only pardoned many of those who
fought against him, but, further, to some gave honors and
offices; as particularly to Brutus and Cassius, who both of them
were praetors. Pompey's images that were thrown down, he set up
again, upon which Cicero also said that by raising Pompey's
statues he had fixed his own. When his friends advised him to
have a guard, and several offered their service, he would not
hear of it; but said it was better to suffer death once, than
always to live in fear of it. He looked upon the affections of
the people to be the best and surest guard, and entertained them
again with public feasting, and general distributions of corn;
and to gratify his army, he sent out colonies to several places,
of which the most remarkable were Carthage and Corinth; which as
before they had been ruined at the same time, so now were
restored and repeopled together.
As for the men of high rank, he promised to some of them future
consulships and praetorships, some he consoled with other
offices and honors, and to all held out hopes of favor by the
solicitude he showed to rule with the general good-will;
insomuch that upon the death of Maximus one day before his
consulship was ended, he made Caninius Revilius consul for that
day. And when many went to pay the usual compliments and
attentions to the new consul, "Let us make haste," said Cicero,
"lest the man be gone out of his office before we come."
Caesar was born to do great things, and had a passion after
honor, and the many noble exploits he had done did not now serve
as an inducement to him to sit still and reap the fruit of his
past labors, but were incentives and encouragments to go on, and
raised in him ideas of still greater actions, and a desire of
new glory, as if the present were all spent. It was in fact a
sort of emulous struggle with himself, as it had been with
another, how he might outdo his past actions by his future. In
pursuit of these thoughts, he resolved to make war upon the
Parthians, and when he had subdued them, to pass through
Hyrcania; thence to march along by the Caspian Sea to Mount
Caucasus, and so on about Pontus, till he came into Scythia;
then to overrun all the countries bordering upon Germany, and
Germany itself; and so to return through Gaul into Italy, after
completing the whole circle of his intended empire, and bounding
it on every side by the ocean. While preparations were making
for this expedition, he proposed to dig through the isthmus on
which Corinth stands; and appointed Anienus to superintend the
work. He had also a design of diverting the Tiber, and carrying
it by a deep channel directly from Rome to Circeii, and so into
the sea near Tarracina, that there might be a safe and easy
passage for all merchants who traded to Rome. Besides this, he
intended to drain all the marshes by Pomentium and Setia, and
gain ground enough from the water to employ many thousands of
men in tillage. He proposed further to make great mounds on the
shore nearest Rome, to hinder the sea from breaking in upon the
land, to clear the coast at Ostia of all the hidden rocks and
shoals that made it unsafe for shipping, and to form ports and
harbors fit to receive the large number of vessels that would
frequent them.
These things were designed without being carried into effect;
but his reformation of the calendar, in order to rectify the
irregularity of time, was not only projected with great
scientific ingenuity, but was brought to its completion, and
proved of very great use. For it was not only in ancient times
that the Romans had wanted a certain rule to make the
revolutions of their months fall in with the course of the year,
so that their festivals and solemn days for sacrifice were
removed by little and little, till at last they came to be kept
at seasons quite the contrary to what was at first intended, but
even at this time the people had no way of computing the solar
year; only the priests could say the time, and they, at their
pleasure, without giving any notice, slipped in the intercalary
month, which they called Mercedonius. Numa was the first who
put in this month, but his expedient was but a poor one and
quite inadequate to correct all the errors that arose in the
returns of the annual cycles, as we have shown in his life.
Caesar called in the best philosophers and mathematicians of his
time to settle the point, and out of the systems he had before
him, formed a new and more exact method of correcting the
calendar, which the Romans use to this day, and seem to succeed
better than any nation in avoiding the errors occasioned by the
inequality of the cycles. Yet even this gave offense to those
who looked with an evil eye on his position, and felt oppressed
by his power. Cicero, the orator, when someone in his company
chanced to say, the next morning Lyra would rise, replied, "Yes,
in accordance with the edict," as if even this were a matter of
compulsion.
But that which brought upon him the most apparent and mortal
hatred, was his desire of being king; which gave the common
people the first occasion to quarrel with him, and proved the
most specious pretense to those who had been his secret enemies
all along. Those, who would have procured him that title, gave
it out, that it was foretold in the Sybils' books that the
Romans should conquer the Parthians when they fought against
them under the conduct of a king, but not before. And one day,
as Caesar was coming down from Alba to Rome, some were so bold
as to salute him by the name of king; but he finding the people
disrelish it, seemed to resent it himself, and said his name was
Caesar, not king. Upon this, there was a general silence, and
he passed on looking not very well pleased or contented.
Another time, when the senate had conferred on him some
extravagant honors, he chanced to receive the message as he was
sitting on the rostra, where, though the consuls and praetors
themselves waited on him, attended by the whole body of the
senate, he did not rise, but behaved himself to them as if they
had been private men, and told them his honors wanted rather to
be retrenched than increased. This treatment offended not only
the senate, but the commonalty too, as if they thought the
affront upon the senate equally reflected upon the whole
republic; so that all who could decently leave him went off,
looking much discomposed. Caesar, perceiving the false step he
had made, immediately retired home; and laying his throat bare,
told his friends that he was ready to offer this to anyone who
would give the stroke. But afterwards he made the malady from
which he suffered, the excuse for his sitting, saying that those
who are attacked by it, lose their presence of mind, if they
talk much standing; that they presently grow giddy, fall into
convulsions, and quite lose their reason. But this was not the
reality, for he would willingly have stood up to the senate, had
not Cornelius Balbus, one of his friends, or rather flatterers,
hindered him. "Will you not remember," said he, "you are
Caesar, and claim the honor which is due to your merit?"
He gave a fresh occasion of resentment by his affront to the
tribunes. The Lupercalia were then celebrated, a feast at the
first institution belonging, as some writers say, to the
shepherds, and having some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea.
Many young noblemen and magistrates run up and down the city
with their upper garments off, striking all they meet with
thongs of hide, by way of sport; and many women, even of the
highest rank, place themselves in the way, and hold out their
hands to the lash, as boys in a school do to the master, out of
a belief that it procures an easy labor to those who are with
child, and makes those conceive who are barren. Caesar, dressed
in a triumphal robe, seated himself in a golden chair at the
rostra, to view this ceremony. Antony, as consul, was one of
those who ran this course, and when he came into the forum, and
the people made way for him, he went up and reached to Caesar a
diadem wreathed with laurel. Upon this, there was a shout, but
only a slight one, made by the few who were planted there for
that purpose; but when Caesar refused it, there was universal
applause. Upon the second offer, very few, and upon the second
refusal, all again applauded. Caesar finding it would not take,
rose up, and ordered the crown to be carried into the capitol.
Caesar's statues were afterwards found with royal diadems on
their heads. Flavius and Marullus, two tribunes of the people,
went presently and pulled them off, and having apprehended those
who first saluted Caesar as king, committed them to prison. The
people followed them with acclamations, and called them by the
name of Brutus, because Brutus was the first who ended the
succession of kings, and transferred the power which before was
lodged in one man into the hands of the senate and people.
Caesar so far resented this, that he displaced Marullus and
Flavius; and in urging his charges against them, at the same
time ridiculed the people, by himself giving the men more than
once the names of Bruti, and Cumaei.
This made the multitude turn their thoughts to Marcus Brutus,
who, by his father's side, was thought to be descended from that
first Brutus, and by his mother's side from the Servilii,
another noble family, being besides nephew and son-in-law to
Cato. But the honors and favors he had received from Caesar,
took off the edge from the desires he might himself have felt
for overthrowing the new monarchy. For he had not only been
pardoned himself after Pompey's defeat at Pharsalia, and had
procured the same grace for many of his friends, but was one in
whom Caesar had a particular confidence. He had at that time
the most honorable praetorship of the year, and was named for
the consulship four years after, being preferred before Cassius,
his competitor. Upon the question as to the choice, Caesar, it
is related, said that Cassius had the fairer pretensions, but
that he could not pass by Brutus. Nor would he afterwards
listen to some who spoke against Brutus, when the conspiracy
against him was already afoot, but laying his hand on his body,
said to the informers, "Brutus will wait for this skin of mine,"
intimating that he was worthy to bear rule on account of his
virtue, but would not be base and ungrateful to gain it. Those
who desired a change, and looked on him as the only, or at least
the most proper, person to effect it, did not venture to speak
with him; but in the night time laid papers about his chair of
state, where he used to sit and determine causes, with such
sentences in them as, "You are asleep, Brutus," "You are no
longer Brutus." Cassius, when he perceived his ambition a
little raised upon this, was more instant than before to work
him yet further, having himself a private grudge against Caesar,
for some reasons that we have mentioned in the Life of Brutus.
Nor was Caesar without suspicions of him, and said once to his
friends, "What do you think Cassius is aiming at? I don't like
him, he looks so pale." And when it was told him that Antony
and Dolabella were in a plot against him, he said he did not
fear such fat, luxurious men, but rather the pale, lean fellows,
meaning Cassius and Brutus.
Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than
unexpected. For many strange prodigies and apparitions are said
to have been observed shortly before the event. As to the
lights in the heavens, the noises heard in the night, and the
wild birds which perched in the forum, these are not perhaps
worth taking notice of in so great a case as this. Strabo, the
philosopher, tells us that a number of men were seen, looking as
if they were heated through with fire, contending with each
other; that a quantity of flame issued from the hand of a
soldier's servant, so that they who saw it thought he must be
burnt, but that after all he had no hurt. As Caesar was
sacrificing, the victim's heart was missing, a very bad omen,
because no living creature can subsist without a heart. One
finds it also related by many, that a soothsayer bade him
prepare for some great danger on the ides of March. When the
day was come, Caesar, as he went to the senate, met this
soothsayer, and said to him by way of raillery, "The ides of
March are come;" who answered him calmly, "Yes, they are come,
but they are not past." The day before this assassination, he
supped with Marcus Lepidus; and as he was signing some letters,
according to his custom, as he reclined at table, there arose a
question what sort of death was the best. At which he
immediately, before anyone could speak, said, "A sudden one."
After this, as he was in bed with his wife, all the doors and
windows of the house flew open together; he was startled at the
noise, and the light which broke into the room, and sat up in
his bed, where by the moonshine he perceived Calpurnia fast
asleep, but heard her utter in her dream some indistinct words
and inarticulate groans. She fancied at that time she was
weeping over Caesar, and holding him butchered in her arms.
Others say this was not her dream, but that she dreamed that a
pinnacle which the senate, as Livy relates, had ordered to be
raised on Caesar's house by way of ornament and grandeur, was
tumbling down, which was the occasion of her tears and
ejaculations. When it was day, she begged of Caesar, if it were
possible, not to stir out, but to adjourn the senate to another
time; and if he slighted her dreams, that he would be pleased to
consult his fate by sacrifices, and other kinds of divination.
Nor was he himself without some suspicion and fears; for he
never before discovered any womanish superstition in Calpurnia,
whom he now saw in such great alarm. Upon the report which the
priests made to him, that they had killed several sacrifices,
and still found them inauspicious, he resolved to send Antony to
dismiss the senate.
In this juncture, Decimus Brutus, surnamed Albinus, one whom
Caesar had such confidence in that he made him his second heir,
who nevertheless was engaged in the conspiracy with the other
Brutus and Cassius, fearing lest if Caesar should put off the
senate to another day, the business might get wind, spoke
scoffingly and in mockery of the diviners, and blamed Caesar for
giving the senate so fair an occasion of saying he had put a
slight upon them, for that they were met upon his summons, and
were ready to vote unanimously, that he should be declared king
of all the provinces out of Italy, and might wear a diadem in
any other place but Italy, by sea or land. If anyone should be
sent to tell them they might break up for the present, and meet
again when Calpurnia should chance to have better dreams, what
would his enemies say? Or who would with any patience hear his
friends, if they should presume to defend his government as not
arbitrary and tyrannical? But if he was possessed so far as to
think this day unfortunate, yet it were more decent to go
himself to the senate, and to adjourn it in his own person.
Brutus, as he spoke these words, took Caesar by the hand, and
conducted him forth. He was not gone far from the door, when a
servant of some other person's made towards him, but not being
able to come up to him, on account of the crowd of those who
pressed about him, he made his way into the house, and committed
himself to Calpurnia, begging of her to secure him till Caesar
returned, because he had matters of great importance to
communicate to him.
Artemidorus, a Cnidian, a teacher of Greek logic, and by that
means so far acquainted with Brutus and his friends as to have
got into the secret, brought Caesar in a small written memorial,
the heads of what he had to depose. He had observed that
Caesar, as he received any papers, presently gave them to the
servants who attended on him; and therefore came as near to him
as he could, and said, "Read this, Caesar, alone, and quickly,
for it contains matter of great importance which nearly concerns
you." Caesar received it, and tried several times to read it,
but was still hindered by the crowd of those who came to speak
to him. However, he kept it in his hand by itself till he came
into the senate. Some say it was another who gave Caesar this
note, and that Artemidorus could not get to him, being all along
kept off by the crowd.
All these things might happen by chance. But the place which
was destined for the scene of this murder, in which the senate
met that day, was the same in which Pompey's statue stood, and
was one of the edifices which Pompey had raised and dedicated
with his theater to the use of the public, plainly showing that
there was something of a supernatural influence which guided the
action, and ordered it to that particular place. Cassius, just
before the act, is said to have looked towards Pompey's statue,
and silently implored his assistance, though he had been
inclined to the doctrines of Epicurus. But this occasion, and
the instant danger, carried him away out of all his reasonings,
and filled him for the time with a sort of inspiration. As for
Antony, who was firm to Caesar, and a strong man, Brutus Albinus
kept him outside the house, and delayed him with a long
conversation contrived on purpose. When Caesar entered, the
senate stood up to show their respect to him, and of Brutus's
confederates, some came about his chair and stood behind it,
others met him, pretending to add their petitions to those of
Tillius Cimber, in behalf of his brother, who was in exile; and
they followed him with their joint supplications till he came to
his seat. When he was sat down, he refused to comply with their
requests, and upon their urging him further, began to reproach
them severally for their importunities, when Tillius, laying
hold of his robe with both his hands, pulled it down from his
neck, which was the signal for the assault. Casca gave him the
first cut, in the neck, which was not mortal nor dangerous, as
coming from one who at the beginning of such a bold action was
probably very much disturbed. Caesar immediately turned about,
and laid his hand upon the dagger and kept hold of it. And both
of them at the same time cried out, he that received the blow,
in Latin, "Vile Casca, what does this mean?" and he that gave
it, in Greek, to his brother, "Brother, help!" Upon this first
onset, those who were not privy to the design were astonished
and their horror and amazement at what they saw were so great,
that they durst not fly nor assist Caesar, nor so much as speak
a word. But those who came prepared for the business enclosed
him on every side, with their naked daggers in their hands.
Which way soever he turned, he met with blows, and saw their
swords leveled at his face and eyes, and was encompassed, like a
wild beast in the toils, on every side. For it had been agreed
they should each of them make a thrust at him, and flesh
themselves with his blood; for which reason Brutus also gave him
one stab in the groin. Some say that he fought and resisted all
the rest, shifting his body to avoid the blows, and calling out
for help, but that when he saw Brutus's sword drawn, he covered
his face with his robe and submitted, letting himself fall,
whether it were by chance, or that he was pushed in that
direction by his murderers, at the foot of the pedestal on which
Pompey's statue stood, and which was thus wetted with his blood.
So that Pompey himself seemed to have presided, as it were, over
the revenge done upon his adversary, who lay here at his feet,
and breathed out his soul through his multitude of wounds, for
they say he received three and twenty. And the conspirators
themselves were many of them wounded by each other, whilst they
all leveled their blows at the same person.
When Caesar was dispatched, Brutus stood forth to give a reason
for what they had done, but the senate would not hear him, but
flew out of doors in all haste, and filled the people with so
much alarm and distraction, that some shut up their houses,
others left their counters and shops. All ran one way or the
other, some to the place to see the sad spectacle, others back
again after they had seen it. Antony and Lepidus, Caesar's
most faithful friends, got off privately, and hid themselves in
some friends' houses. Brutus and his followers, being yet hot
from the deed, marched in a body from the senate-house to the
capitol with their drawn swords, not like persons who thought of
escaping, but with an air of confidence and assurance, and as
they went along, called to the people to resume their liberty,
and invited the company of any more distinguished people whom
they met. And some of these joined the procession and went up
along with them, as if they also had been of the conspiracy, and
could claim a share in the honor of what had been done. As, for
example, Caius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther, who suffered
afterwards for their vanity, being taken off by Antony and the
young Caesar, and lost the honor they desired, as well as their
lives, which it cost them, since no one believed they had any
share in the action. For neither did those who punished them
profess to revenge the fact, but the ill-will. The day after,
Brutus with the rest came down from the capitol, and made a
speech to the people, who listened without expressing either any
pleasure or resentment, but showed by their silence that they
pitied Caesar, and respected Brutus. The senate passed acts of
oblivion for what was past, and took measures to reconcile all
parties. They ordered that Caesar should be worshipped as a
divinity, and nothing, even of the slightest consequence, should
be revoked, which he had enacted during his government. At the
same time they gave Brutus and his followers the command of
provinces, and other considerable posts. So that all people now
thought things were well settled, and brought to the happiest
adjustment.
But when Caesar's will was opened, and it was found that he had
left a considerable legacy to each one of the Roman citizens,
and when his body was seen carried through the market-place all
mangled with wounds, the multitude could no longer contain
themselves within the bounds of tranquillity and order, but
heaped together a pile of benches, bars, and tables, which they
placed the corpse on, and setting fire to it, burnt it on them.
Then they took brands from the pile, and ran some to fire the
houses of the conspirators, others up and down the city, to find
out the men and tear them to pieces, but met, however, with none
of them, they having taken effectual care to secure themselves.
One Cinna, a friend of Caesar's, chanced the night before to
have an odd dream. He fancied that Caesar invited him to
supper, and that upon his refusal to go with him, Caesar took
him by the hand and forced him, though he hung back. Upon
hearing the report that Caesar's body was burning in the
market-place, he got up and went thither, out of respect to his
memory, though his dream gave him some ill apprehensions, and
though he was suffering from a fever. One of the crowd who saw
him there, asked another who that was, and having learned his
name, told it to his next neighbor. It presently passed for a
certainty that he was one of Caesar's murderers, as, indeed,
there was another Cinna, a conspirator, and they, taking this to
be the man, immediately seized him, and tore him limb from limb
upon the spot.
Brutus and Cassius, frightened at this, within a few days
retired out of the city. What they afterwards did and suffered,
and how they died, is written in the Life of Brutus. Caesar
died in his fifty-sixth year, not having survived Pompey above
four years. That empire and power which he had pursued through
the whole course of his life with so much hazard, he did at last
with much difficulty compass, but reaped no other fruits from it
than the empty name and invidious glory. But the great genius
which attended him through his lifetime, even after his death
remained as the avenger of his murder, pursuing through every
sea and land all those who were concerned in it, and suffering
none to escape, but reaching all who in any sort or kind were
either actually engaged in the fact, or by their counsels any
way promoted it.
The most remarkable of mere human coincidences was that which
befell Cassius, who, when he was defeated at Philippi, killed
himself with the same dagger which he had made use of against
Caesar. The most signal preternatural appearances were the
great comet, which shone very bright for seven nights after
Caesar's death, and then disappeared, and the dimness of the
sun, whose orb continued pale and dull for the whole of that
year, never showing its ordinary radiance at its rising, and
giving but a weak and feeble heat. The air consequently was
damp and gross, for want of stronger rays to open and rarify it.
The fruits, for that reason, never properly ripened, and began
to wither and fall off for want of heat, before they were fully
formed. But above all, the phantom which appeared to Brutus
showed the murder was not pleasing to the gods. The story of it
is this.
Brutus being to pass his army from Abydos to the continent on
the other side, laid himself down one night, as he used to do,
in his tent, and was not asleep, but thinking of his affairs,
and what events he might expect. For he is related to have been
the least inclined to sleep of all men who have commanded
armies, and to have had the greatest natural capacity for
continuing awake, and employing himself without need of rest.
He thought he heard a noise at the door of his tent, and looking
that way, by the light of his lamp, which was almost out, saw a
terrible figure, like that of a man, but of unusual stature and
severe countenance. He was somewhat frightened at first, but
seeing it neither did nor spoke anything to him, only stood
silently by his bed-side, he asked who it was. The specter
answered him, "Thy evil genius, Brutus, thou shalt see me at
Philippi." Brutus answered courageously, "Well, I shall see
you," and immediately the appearance vanished. When the time
was come, he drew up his army near Philippi against Antony and
Caesar, and in the first battle won the day, routed the enemy,
and plundered Caesar's camp. The night before the second
battle, the same phantom appeared to him again, but spoke not a
word. He presently understood his destiny was at hand, and
exposed himself to all the danger of the battle. Yet he did not
die in the fight, but seeing his men defeated, got up to the top
of a rock, and there presenting his sword to his naked breast,
and assisted, as they say, by a friend, who helped him to give
the thrust, met his death.
PHOCION
Demades, the orator, when in the height of the power which he
obtained at Athens by advising the state in the interest of
Antipater and the Macedonians, being necessitated to write and
speak many things below the dignity, and contrary to the
character, of the city, was wont to excuse himself by saying he
steered only the shipwrecks of the commonwealth. This hardy
saying of his might have some appearance of truth, if applied to
Phocion's government. For Demades indeed was himself the mere
wreck of his country, living and ruling so dissolutely, that
Antipater took occasion to say of him, when he was now grown old,
that he was like a sacrificed beast, all consumed except the
tongue and the belly. But Phocion's was a real virtue, only
overmatched in the unequal contest with an adverse time, and
rendered by the ill fortunes of Greece inglorious and obscure. We
must not, indeed, allow ourselves to concur with Sophocles in so
far diminishing the force of virtue as to say that,
When fortune fails, the sense we had before
Deserts us also, and is ours no more.
Yet thus much, indeed, must be allowed to happen in the conflicts
between good men and ill fortune, that instead of due returns of
honor and gratitude, obloquy and unjust surmises may often
prevail, to weaken, in a considerable degree, the credit of their
virtue.
It is commonly said that public bodies are most insulting and
contumelious to a good man, when they are puffed up with
prosperity and success. But the contrary often happens;
afflictions and public calamities naturally embittering and
souring the minds and tempers of men, and disposing them to such
peevishness and irritability, that hardly any word or sentiment of
common vigor can be addressed to them, but they will be apt to
take offense. He that remonstrates with them on their errors, is
presumed to be insulting over their misfortunes, and any free
spoken expostulation is construed into contempt. Honey itself is
searching in sore and ulcerated parts; and the wisest and most
judicious counsels prove provoking to distempered minds, unless
offered with those soothing and compliant approaches which made
the poet, for instance, characterize agreeable things in general,
by a word expressive of a grateful and easy touch, exciting
nothing of offense or resistance. Inflamed eyes require a retreat
into dusky places, amongst colors of the deepest shades, and are
unable to endure the brilliancy of light. So fares it in the body
politic, in times of distress and humiliation; a certain
sensitiveness and soreness of humor prevail, with a weak
incapacity of enduring any free and open advice, even when the
necessity of affairs most requires such plain-dealing, and when
the consequences of any single error may be beyond retrieving. At
such times the conduct of public affairs is on all hands most
hazardous. Those who humor the people are swallowed up in the
common ruin; those who endeavor to lead them aright, perish the
first in their attempt.
Astronomers tell us, the sun's motion is neither exactly parallel
with that of the heavens in general, nor yet directly and
diametrically opposite, but describing an oblique line, with
insensible declination he steers his course in such a gentle, easy
curve, as to dispense his light and influence, in his annual
revolution, at several seasons, in just proportions to the whole
creation. So it happens in political affairs; if the motions of
rulers be constantly opposite and cross to the tempers and
inclination of the people, they will be resented as arbitrary and
harsh; as, on the other side, too much deference, or
encouragement, as too often it has been, to popular faults and
errors, is full of danger and ruinous consequences. But where
concession is the response to willing obedience, and a statesman
gratifies his people, that he may the more imperatively recall
them to a sense of the common interest, then, indeed, human
beings, who are ready enough to serve well and submit to much, if
they are not always ordered about and roughly handled, like
slaves, may be said to be guided and governed upon the method that
leads to safety. Though it must be confessed, it is a nice point
and extremely difficult, so to temper this lenity as to preserve
the authority of the government. But if such a blessed mixture
and temperament may be obtained, it seems to be of all concords
and harmonies the most concordant and most harmonious. For thus
we are taught even God governs the world, not by irresistible
force, but persuasive argument and reason, controlling it into
compliance with his eternal purposes.
Cato the younger is a similar instance. His manners were little
agreeable or acceptable to the people, and he received very
slender marks of their favor; witness his repulse when he sued for
the consulship, which he lost, as Cicero says, for acting rather
like a citizen in Plato's commonwealth, than among the dregs of
Romulus's posterity, the same thing happening to him, in my
opinion, as we observe in fruits ripe before their season, which
we rather take pleasure in looking at and admiring, than actually
use; so much was his old-fashioned virtue out of the present mode,
among the depraved customs which time and luxury had introduced,
that it appeared indeed remarkable and wonderful, but was too
great and too good to suit the present exigencies, being so out of
all proportion to the times. Yet his circumstances were not
altogether like Phocion's, who came to the helm when the ship of
the state was just upon sinking. Cato's time was, indeed, stormy
and tempestuous, yet so as he was able to assist in managing the
sails, and lend his helping hand to those who, which he was not
allowed to do, commanded at the helm. Others were to blame for
the result; yet his courage and virtue made it in spite of all a
hard task for fortune to ruin the commonwealth, and it was only
with long time and effort and by slow degrees, when he himself had
all but succeeded in averting it, that the catastrophe was at last
effected.
Phocion and he may be well compared together, not for any mere
general resemblances, as though we should say, both were good men
and great statesmen. For assuredly there is difference enough among
virtues of the same denomination, as between the bravery of
Alcibiades and that of Epaminondas, the prudence of Themistocles
and that of Aristides, the justice of Numa and that of Agesilaus.
But these men's virtues, even looking to the most minute points of
difference, bear the same color, stamp, and character impressed
upon them, so as not to be distinguishable. The mixture is still
made in the same exact proportions, whether we look at the
combination to be found in them both of lenity on the one hand,
with austerity on the other; their boldness upon some occasions,
and caution on others; their extreme solicitude for the public,
and perfect neglect of themselves; their fixed and immovable bent
to all virtuous and honest actions, accompanied with an extreme
tenderness and scrupulosity as to doing anything which might
appear mean or unworthy; so that we should need a very nice and
subtle logic of discrimination to detect and establish the
distinctions between them.
As to Cato's extraction, it is confessed by all to have been
illustrious, as will be said hereafter, nor was Phocion's, I feel
assured, obscure or ignoble. For had he been the son of a turner,
as Idomeneus reports, it had certainly not been forgotten to his
disparagement by Glaucippus, the son of Hyperides, when heaping up
a thousand spiteful things to say against him. Nor, indeed, had
it been possible for him, in such circumstances, to have had such
a liberal breeding and education in his youth, as to be first
Plato's, and afterwards Xenocrates's scholar in the Academy, and
to have devoted himself from the first to the pursuit of the
noblest studies and practices. His countenance was so composed,
that scarcely was he ever seen by any Athenian either laughing, or
in tears. He was rarely known, so Duris has recorded, to appear
in the public baths, or was observed with his hand exposed outside
his cloak, when he wore one. Abroad, and in the camp, he was so
hardy in going always thin clad and barefoot, except in a time of
excessive and intolerable cold, that the soldiers used to say in
merriment, that it was like to be a hard winter when Phocion wore
his coat.
Although he was most gentle and humane in his disposition, his
aspect was stern and forbidding, so that he was seldom accosted
alone by any who were not intimate with him. When Chares once
made some remark on his frowning looks, and the Athenians laughed
at the jest. "My sullenness," said Phocion, "never yet made any
of you sad, but these men's jollities have given you sorrow
enough." In like manner Phocion's language, also, was full of
instruction, abounding in happy maxims and wise thoughts, but
admitted no embellishment to its austere and commanding brevity.
Zeno said a philosopher should never speak till his words had been
steeped in meaning; and such, it may be said, were Phocion's,
crowding the greatest amount of significance into the smallest
allowance of space. And to this, probably, Polyeuctus, the
Sphettian, referred, when he said that Demosthenes was, indeed,
the best orator of his time, but Phocion the most powerful
speaker. His oratory, like small coin of great value, was to be
estimated, not by its bulk, but its intrinsic worth. He was once
observed, it is said, when the theater was filling with the
audience, to walk musing alone behind the scenes, which one of his
friends taking notice of, said, "Phocion, you seem to be
thoughtful." "Yes," replied he, "I am considering how I may
shorten what I am going to say to the Athenians." Even
Demosthenes himself, who used to despise the rest of the
haranguers, when Phocion stood up, was wont to say quietly to
those about him, "Here is the pruning-knife of my periods." This
however, might refer, perhaps, not so much to his eloquence, as to
the influence of his character, since not only a word, but even a
nod from a person who is esteemed, is of more force than a
thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.
In his youth he followed Chabrias, the general, from whom he
gained many lessons in military knowledge, and in return did
something to correct his unequal and capricious humor. For
whereas at other times Chabrias was heavy and phlegmatic, in the
heat of battle he used to be so fired and transported, that he
threw himself headlong into danger beyond the forwardest, which,
indeed, in the end, cost him his life in the island of Chios, he
having pressed his own ship foremost to force a landing. But
Phocion, being a man of temper as well as courage, had the
dexterity at some times to rouse the general, when in his
procrastinating mood, to action, and at others to moderate and
cool the impetuousness of his unseasonable fury. Upon which
account Chabrias, who was a good-natured, kindly-tempered man,
loved him much, and procured him commands and opportunities for
action, giving him means to make himself known in Greece, and
using his assistance in all his affairs of moment. Particularly
the sea-fight at Naxos added not a little to Phocion's reputation,
when he had the left squadron committed to him by Chabrias, as in
this quarter the battle was sharply contested, and was decided by
a speedy victory. And this being the first prosperous sea-battle
the city had engaged in with its own force since its captivity,
Chabrias won great popularity by it, and Phocion, also, got the
reputation of a good commander. The victory was gained at the
time of the Great Mysteries, and Chabrias used to keep the
commemoration of it, by distributing wine among the Athenians,
yearly, on the sixteenth day of Boedromion.
After this, Chabrias sent Phocion to demand their quota of the
charges of the war from the islanders, and offered him a guard of
twenty ships. Phocion told him, if he intended him to go against
them as enemies, that force was insignificant; if as to friends
and allies, one vessel was sufficient. So he took his own single
galley, and having visited the cities, and treated with the
magistrates in an equitable and open manner, he brought back a
number of ships, sent by the confederates to Athens, to convey the
supplies. Neither did his friendship and attention close with
Chabrias's life, but after his decease he carefully maintained it
to all that were related to him, and chiefly to his son Ctesippus,
whom he labored to bring to some good, and although he was a
stupid and intractable young fellow, always endeavored, so far as
in him lay, to correct and cover his faults and follies. Once,
however, when the youngster was very impertinent and troublesome
to him in the camp, interrupting him with idle questions, and
putting forward his opinions and suggestions of how the war should
be conducted, he could not forbear exclaiming, "O Chabrias,
Chabrias, how grateful I show myself for your friendship, in
submitting to endure your son."
Upon looking into public matters, and the way in which they were
now conducted, he observed that the administration of affairs was
cut and parceled out, like so much land by allotment, between the
military men and the public speakers, so that neither these nor
those should interfere with the claims of the others. As the one
were to address the assemblies, to draw up votes and prepare
motions, men, for example, like Eubulus, Aristophon, Demosthenes,
Lycurgus, and Hyperides, and were to push their interests here;
so, in the meantime, Diopithes, Menestheus, Leosthenes, and
Chares, were to make their profit by war and in military commands.
Phocion, on the other hand, was desirous to restore and carry out
the old system, more complete in itself, and more harmonious and
uniform, which prevailed in the times of Pericles, Aristides, and
Solon; when statesmen showed themselves, to use Archilochus's
words, --
Mars' and the Muses' friends alike designed,
To arts and arms indifferently inclined,
and the presiding goddess of his country was, he did not fail to
see, the patroness and protectress of both civil and military
wisdom. With these views, while his advice at home was always for
peace and quietness, he nevertheless held the office of general
more frequently than any of the statesmen, not only of his own
times, but of those preceding, never, indeed, promoting or
encouraging military expeditions, yet never, on the other hand,
shunning or declining, when he was called upon by the public
voice. Thus much is well known, that he was no less than
forty-five several times chosen general, he being never on any one
of those occasions present at the election, but having the
command, in his absence, by common suffrage, conferred on him, and
he sent for on purpose to undertake it. Insomuch that it amazed
those who did not well consider, to see the people always prefer
Phocion, who was so far from humoring them or courting their
favor, that he always thwarted and opposed them. But so it was,
as great men and princes are said to call in their flatterers when
dinner has been served, so the Athenians, upon slight occasions,
entertained and diverted themselves with their spruce speakers and
trim orators, but when it came to action, they were sober and
considerate enough to single out the austerest and wisest for
public employment, however much he might be opposed to their
wishes and sentiments. This, indeed, he made no scruple to admit,
when the oracle from Delphi was read, which informed them that the
Athenians were all of one mind, a single dissentient only
excepted, frankly coming forward and declaring that they need look
no further; he was the man, there was no one but he who was
dissatisfied with everything they did. And when once he gave his
opinion to the people, and was met with the general approbation
and applause of the assembly, turning to some of his friends, he
asked them, "Have I inadvertently said something foolish?"
Upon occasion of a public festivity, being solicited for his
contribution by the example of others, and the people pressing him
much, he bade them apply themselves to the wealthy; for his part
he should blush to make a present here, rather than a repayment
there, turning and, pointing to Callicles, the money-lender.
Being still clamored upon and importuned, he told them this tale.
A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the
ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to
wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing
the same music, once more made a stop. "For," said he, "you may
croak till you are tired, but you shall make no dinner upon me."
The Athenians urging him at an unseasonable time to lead them out
against the enemy, he peremptorily refused, and being upbraided by
them with cowardice and pusillanimity, he told them, "Just now, do
what you will, I shall not be brave; and do what I will, you will
not be cowards. Nevertheless, we know well enough what we are."
And when again, in a time of great danger, the people were very
harsh upon him, demanding a strict account how the public money
had been employed, and the like, he bade them, "First, good
friends, make sure you are safe." After a war, during which they
had been very tractable and timorous, when, upon peace being made,
they began again to be confident and overbearing, and to cry out
upon Phocion, as having lost them the honor of victory, to all
their clamor he made only this answer, "My friends, you are
fortunate in having a leader who knows you; otherwise, you had
long since been undone."
Having a controversy with the Boeotians about boundaries, which he
counseled them to decide by negotiation, they inclined to blows.
"You had better," said he, "carry on the contest with the weapons
in which you excel, (your tongues,) and not by war, in which you
are inferior." Once, when he was addressing them, and they would
not hear him or let him go on, said he, "You may compel me to act
against my wishes, but you shall never force me to speak against
my judgment." Among the many public speakers who opposed him,
Demosthenes, for example, once told him, "The Athenians, Phocion,
will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you,"
said he, "if they once are in their senses." Polyeuctus, the
Sphettian, once on a hot day was urging war with Philip, and being
a corpulent man, and out of breath and in a great heat with
speaking, took numerous draughts of water as he went on. "Here,
indeed," said Phocion, "is a fit man to lead us into a war! What
think you he will do when he is carrying his corslet and his
shield to meet the enemy, if even here, delivering a prepared
speech to you has almost killed him with exhaustion?" When
Lycurgus in the assembly made many reflections on his past
conduct, upbraiding him above all for having advised them to
deliver up the ten citizens whom Alexander had demanded, he
replied that he had been the author of much safe and wholesome
counsel, which had not been followed.
There was a man called Archibiades, nicknamed the Lacedaemonian,
who used to go about with a huge overgrown beard, wearing an old
threadbare cloak, and affecting a very stern countenance. Phocion
once, when attacked in council by the rest, appealed to this man
for his support and testimony. And when he got up and began to
speak on the popular side, putting his hand to his beard, "O
Archibiades," said he, "it is time you should shave."
Aristogiton, a common accuser, was a terrible man of war within
the assembly, always inflaming the people to battle, but when the
muster-roll came to be produced, he appeared limping on a crutch,
with a bandage on his leg; Phocion descried him afar off, coming
in, and cried out to the clerk, "Put down Aristogiton, too, as
lame and worthless."
So that it is a little wonderful, how a man so severe and harsh
upon all occasions should, notwithstanding, obtain the name of the
Good. Yet, though difficult, it is not, I suppose, impossible for
men's tempers, any more than for wines, to be at the same time
harsh and agreeable to the taste; just as on the other hand many
that are sweet at the first taste, are found, on further use,
extremely disagreeable and very unwholesome. Hyperides, we are
told, once said to the people, "Do not ask yourselves, men of
Athens, whether or not I am bitter, but whether or not I am paid
for being so," as though a covetous purpose were the only thing
that should make a harsh temper insupportable, and as if men might
not even more justly render themselves obnoxious to popular
dislike and censure, by using their power and influence in the
indulgence of their own private passions of pride and jealousy,
anger and animosity. Phocion never allowed himself from any
feeling of personal hostility to do hurt to any fellow-citizen,
nor, indeed, reputed any man his enemy, except so far as he could
not but contend sharply with such as opposed the measures he urged
for the public good; in which argument he was, indeed, a rude,
obstinate, and uncompromising adversary. For his general
conversation, it was easy, courteous, and obliging to all, to that
point that he would befriend his very opponents in their distress,
and espouse the cause of those who differed most from him, when
they needed his patronage. His friends reproaching him for
pleading in behalf of a man of indifferent character, he told them
the innocent had no need of an advocate. Aristogiton, the
sycophant, whom we mentioned before, having after sentence passed
upon him, sent earnestly to Phocion to speak with him in the
prison, his friends dissuaded him from going; "Nay, by your
favor," said he, "where should I rather choose to pay Aristogiton
a visit?"
As for the allies of the Athenians, and the islanders, whenever
any admiral besides Phocion was sent, they treated him as an enemy
suspect, barricaded their gates, blocked up their havens, brought
in from the country their cattle, slaves, wives, and children, and
put them in garrison; but upon Phocion's arrival, they went out to
welcome him in their private boats and barges, with streamers
and garlands, and received him at landing with every demonstration
of joy and pleasure.
When king Philip was effecting his entry into Euboea, and was
bringing over troops from Macedonia, and making himself master of
the cities, by means of the tyrants who ruled in them, Plutarch of
Eretria sent to request aid of the Athenians for the relief of the
island, which was in imminent danger of falling wholly into the
hands of the Macedonians. Phocion was sent thither with a handful
of men in comparison, in expectation that the Euboeans themselves
would flock in and join him. But when he came, he found all
things in confusion, the country all betrayed, the whole ground,
as it were, undermined under his feet, by the secret pensioners of
king Philip, so that he was in the greatest risk imaginable. To
secure himself as far as he could, he seized a small rising
ground, which was divided from the level plains about Tamynae by a
deep watercourse, and here he enclosed and fortified the choicest
of his army. As for the idle talkers and disorderly bad citizens
who ran off from his camp and made their way back, he bade his
officers not regard them, since here they would have been not only
useless and ungovernable themselves, but an actual hindrance to
the rest; and further, being conscious to themselves of the
neglect of their duty, they would be less ready to misrepresent
the action, or raise a cry against them at their return home.
When the enemy drew nigh, he bade his men stand to their arms,
until he had finished the sacrifice, in which he spent a
considerable time, either by some difficulty of the thing itself,
or on purpose to invite the enemy nearer. Plutarch, interpreting
this tardiness as a failure in his courage, fell on alone with the
mercenaries, which the cavalry perceiving, could not be contained,
but issuing also out of the camp, confusedly and in disorder,
spurred up to the enemy. The first who came up were defeated, the
rest were put to the rout, Plutarch himself took to flight, and a
body of the enemy advanced in the hope of carrying the camp,
supposing themselves to have secured the victory. But by this
time, the sacrifice being over, the Athenians within the camp came
forward, and falling upon them put them to flight, and killed the
greater number as they fled among the entrenchments, while
Phocion ordering his infantry to keep on the watch and rally those
who came in from the previous flight, himself, with a body of his
best men, engaged the enemy in a sharp and bloody fight, in which
all of them behaved with signal courage and gallantry. Thallus,
the son of Cineas, and Glaucus, of Polymedes, who fought near the
general, gained the honors of the day. Cleophanes, also, did good
service in the battle. Recovering the cavalry from its defeat,
and with his shouts and encouragement bringing them up to succor
the general, who was in danger, he confirmed the victory obtained
by the infantry. Phocion now expelled Plutarch from Eretria, and
possessed himself of the very important fort of Zaretra, situated
where the island is pinched in, as it were, by the seas on each
side, and its breadth most reduced to a narrow girth. He released
all the Greeks whom he took out of fear of the public speakers at
Athens, thinking they might very likely persuade the people in
their anger into committing some act of cruelty.
This affair thus dispatched and settled, Phocion set sail
homewards, and the allies had soon as good reason to regret the
loss of his just and humane dealing, as the Athenians that of his
experience and courage. Molossus, the commander who took his
place, had no better success than to fall alive into the enemy's
hands. Philip, full of great thoughts and designs, now advanced
with all his forces into the Hellespont, to seize the Chersonesus
and Perinthus, and after them, Byzantium. The Athenians raised a
force to relieve them, but the popular leaders made it their
business to prefer Chares to be general, who, sailing thither,
effected nothing worthy of the means placed in his hands. The
cities were afraid, and would not receive his ships into their
harbors, so that he did nothing but wander about, raising money
from their friends, and despised by their enemies. And when the
people, chafed by the orators, were extremely indignant, and
repented having ever sent any help to the Byzantines, Phocion rose
and told them they ought not to be angry with the allies for
distrusting, but with their generals for being distrusted. "They
make you suspected," he said, "even by those who cannot possibly
subsist without your succor." The assembly being moved with this
speech of his, changed their minds on the sudden, and commanded
him immediately to raise another force, and go himself to assist
their confederates in the Hellespont; an appointment which, in
effect, contributed more than anything to the relief of
Byzantium.
For Phocion's name was already honorably known; and an old
acquaintance of his, who had been his fellow-student in the
Academy, Leon, a man of high renown for virtue among the
Byzantines, having vouched for Phocion to the city, they opened
their gates to receive him, not permitting him, though he desired
it, to encamp without the walls, but entertained him and all the
Athenians with perfect reliance, while they, to requite their
confidence, behaved among their new hosts soberly and
inoffensively, and exerted themselves on all occasions with the
greatest zeal and resolution for their defense. Thus king Philip
was driven out of the Hellespont, and was despised to boot, whom
till now, it had been thought impossible to match, or even to
oppose. Phocion also took some of his ships, and recaptured some
of the places he had garrisoned, making besides several inroads
into the country, which he plundered and overran, until he
received a wound from some of the enemy who came to the defense,
and, thereupon, sailed away home.
The Megarians at this time privately praying aid of the Athenians,
Phocion, fearing lest the Boeotians should hear of it, and
anticipate them, called an assembly at sunrise, and brought
forward the petition of the Megarians, and immediately after the
vote had been put, and carried in their favor, he sounded the
trumpet, and led the Athenians straight from the assembly, to arm
and put themselves in posture. The Megarians received them
joyfully, and he proceeded to fortify Nisea, and built two new
long walls from the city to the arsenal, and so joined it to the
sea, so that having now little reason to regard the enemies on the
land side, it placed its dependence entirely on the Athenians.
When final hostilities with Philip were now certain, and in
Phocion's absence other generals had been nominated, he on his
arrival from the islands, dealt earnestly with the Athenians, that
since Philip showed peaceable inclinations towards them, and
greatly apprehended the danger, they would consent to a treaty.
Being contradicted in this by one of the ordinary frequenters of
the courts of justice, a common accuser, who asked him if he durst
presume to persuade the Athenians to peace, now their arms were in
their hands, "Yes," said he, "though I know that if there be war,
I shall be in office over you, and if peace, you over me." But
when he could not prevail, and Demosthenes's opinion carried it,
advising them to make war as far off from home as possible, and
fight the battle out of Attica, "Good friend," said Phocion, "let
us not ask where we shall fight, but how we may conquer in the
war. That will be the way to keep it at a distance. If we are
beaten, it will be quickly at our doors." After the defeat, when
the clamorers and incendiaries in the town would have brought up
Charidemus to the hustings, to be nominated to the command, the
best of the citizens were in a panic, and supporting themselves
with the aid of the council of the Areopagus, with entreaties and
tears hardly prevailed upon the people to have Phocion entrusted
with the care of the city. He was of opinion, in general, that
the fair terms to be expected from Philip should be accepted, yet
after Demades had made a motion that the city should receive the
common conditions of peace in concurrence with the rest of the
states of Greece, he opposed it, till it were known what the
particulars were which Philip demanded. He was overborne in this
advice, under the pressure of the time, but almost immediately
after, the Athenians repented it, when they understood that by
these articles, they were obliged to furnish Philip both with
horse and shipping. "It was the fear of this," said Phocion,
"that occasioned my opposition. But since the thing is done, let
us make the best of it, and not be discouraged. Our forefathers
were sometimes in command, and sometimes under it; and by doing
their duty, whether as rulers or as subjects, saved their own
country and the rest of Greece."
Upon the news of Philip's death, he opposed himself to any public
demonstrations of joy and jubilee, saying it would be ignoble to
show malice upon such an occasion, and that the army that had
fought them at Chaeronea, was only diminished by a single man.
When Demosthenes made his invectives against Alexander, now on his
way to attack Thebes, he repeated those verses of Homer, --
"Unwise one, wherefore to a second stroke
His anger be foolhardy to provoke?"
and asked, "Why stimulate his already eager passion for glory?
Why take pains to expose the city to the terrible conflagration
now so near? We, who accepted office to save our fellow-citizens,
will not, however they desire it, be consenting to their
destruction."
After Thebes was lost, and Alexander had demanded Demosthenes,
Lycurgus, Hyperides, and Charidemus to be delivered up, the whole
assembly turning their eyes to him, and calling on him by name to
deliver his opinion, at last he rose up, and showing them one of
his most intimate friends, whom he loved and confided in above all
others, told them, "You have brought things amongst you to that
pass, that for my part, should he demand this my friend Nicocles,
I would not refuse to give him up. For as for myself, to have it
in my power to sacrifice my own life and fortune for the common
safety, I should think the greatest of good fortune. Truly," he
added, "it pierces my heart to see those who are fled hither for
succor from the desolation of Thebes. Yet it is enough for Greece
to have Thebes to deplore. It will be more for the interest of
all that we should deprecate the conqueror's anger, and intercede
for both, than run the hazard of another battle."
When this was decreed by the people, Alexander is said to have
rejected their first address when it was presented, throwing it
from him scornfully, and turning his back upon the deputation, who
left him in affright. But the second, which was presented by
Phocion, he received, understanding from the older Macedonians how
much Philip had admired and esteemed him. And he not only gave
him audience and listened to his memorial and petition, but also
permitted him to advise him, which he did to this effect, that if
his designs were for quietness, he should make peace at once; if
glory were his aim, he should make war, not upon Greece, but on
the barbarians. And with various counsels and suggestions,
happily designed to meet the genius and feelings of Alexander, he
so won upon him, and softened his temper, that he bade the
Athenians not forget their position, as if anything went wrong
with him, the supremacy belonged to them. And to Phocion himself,
whom he adopted as his friend and guest, he showed a respect, and
admitted him to distinctions, which few of those who were
continually near his person ever received. Duris, at any rate,
tells us, that when he became great, and had conquered Darius, in
the heading of all his letters he left off the word Greeting,
except in those he wrote to Phocion. To him, and to Antipater
alone, he condescended to use it. This, also, is stated by
Chares.
As for his munificence to him, it is well known he sent him a
present at one time of one hundred talents; and this being brought
to Athens, Phocion asked of the bearers, how it came to pass, that
among all the Athenians, he alone should be the object of this
bounty. And being told that Alexander esteemed him alone a person
of honor and worth, "Let him, then," said he, "permit me to
continue so, and be still so reputed." Following him to his
house, and observing his simple and plain way of living, his wife
employed in kneading bread with her own hands, himself drawing
water to wash his feet, they pressed him to accept it, with some
indignation, being ashamed, as they said, that Alexander's friend
should live so poorly and pitifully. So Phocion pointing out to
them a poor old fellow, in a dirty worn-out coat, passing by,
asked them if they thought him in worse condition than this man.
They bade him not mention such a comparison. "Yet," said Phocion,
"he with less to live upon than I, finds it sufficient, and in
brief," he continued, "if I do not use this money, what good is
there in my having it; and if I do use it, I shall procure an ill
name, both for myself and for Alexander, among my countrymen." So
the treasure went back again from Athens, to prove to Greece, by a
signal example, that he who could afford to give so magnificent a
present, was yet not so rich as he who could afford to refuse it.
And when Alexander was displeased, and wrote back to him to say
that he could not esteem those his friends, who would not be
obliged by him, not even would this induce Phocion to accept the
money, but he begged leave to intercede with him in behalf of
Echecratides, the sophist, and Athenodorus, the Imbrian, as also
for Demaratus and Sparton, two Rhodians, who had been arrested
upon some charges, and were in custody at Sardis. This was
instantly granted by Alexander, and they were set at liberty.
Afterwards, when sending Craterus into Macedonia, he commanded him
to make him an offer of four cities in Asia, Cius, Gergithus,
Mylasa, and Elaea, any one of which, at his choice, should be
delivered to him; insisting yet more positively with him, and
declaring he should resent it, should he continue obstinate in his
refusal. But Phocion was not to be prevailed with at all, and,
shortly after, Alexander died.
Phocion's house is shown to this day in Melita, ornamented with
small plates of copper, but otherwise plain and homely.
Concerning his wives, of the first of them there is little said,
except that she was sister of Cephisodotus, the statuary. The
other was a matron of no less reputation for her virtues and
simple living among the Athenians, than Phocion was for his
probity. It happened once when the people were entertained with a
new tragedy, that the actor, just as he was to enter the stage to
perform the part of a queen, demanded to have a number of
attendants sumptuously dressed, to follow in his train, and on
their not being provided, was sullen and refused to act, keeping
the audience waiting, till at last Melanthius, who had to furnish
the chorus, pushed him on the stage, crying out, "What, don't you
know that Phocion's wife is never attended by more than a single
waiting woman, but you must needs be grand, and fill our women's
heads with vanity?" This speech of his, spoken loud enough to be
heard, was received with great applause, and clapped all round the
theater. She herself, when once entertaining a visitor out of
Ionia, who showed her all her rich ornaments, made of gold and set
with jewels, her wreaths, necklaces, and the like, "For my part,"
said she, "all my ornament is my husband Phocion, now for the
twentieth year in office as general at Athens."
He had a son named Phocus, who wished to take part in the games at
the great feast of Minerva. He permitted him so to do, in the
contest of leaping, not with any view to the victory, but in the
hope that the training and discipline for it would make him a
better man, the youth being in a general way a lover of drinking,
and ill-regulated in his habits. On his having succeeded in the
sports, many were eager for the honor of his company at banquets
in celebration of the victory. Phocion declined all these
invitations but one, and when he came to this entertainment and
saw the costly preparations, even the water brought to wash the
guests' feet being mingled with wine and spices, he reprimanded
his son, asking him why he would so far permit his friend to sully
the honor of his victory. And in the hope of wholly weaning the
young man from such habits and company, he sent him to Lacedaemon,
and placed him among the youths then under the course of the
Spartan discipline. This the Athenians took offense at, as though
he slighted and contemned the education at home; and Demades
twitted him with it publicly, "Suppose, Phocion, you and I advise
the Athenians to adopt the Spartan constitution. If you like, I
am ready to introduce a bill to that effect, and to speak in its
favor." "Indeed," said Phocion, "you with that strong scent of
perfumes about you, and with that mantle on your shoulders, are
just the very man to speak in honor of Lycurgus, and recommend the
Spartan table."
When Alexander wrote to demand a supply of galleys, and the public
speakers objected to sending them, Phocion, on the council
requesting his opinion, told them freely, "Sirs, I would either
have you victorious yourselves, or friends of those who are so."
He took up Pytheas, who about this time first began to address the
assembly, and already showed himself a confident, talking fellow,
by saying that a young slave whom the people had but bought
yesterday, ought to have the manners to hold his tongue. And
when Harpalus, who had fled from Alexander out of Asia, carrying
off a large sum of money, came to Attica, and there was a perfect
race among the ordinary public men of the assembly who should be
the first to take his pay, he distributed amongst these some
trifling sums by way of a bait and provocative, but to Phocion he
made an offer of no less than seven hundred talents and all manner
of other advantages he pleased to demand; with the compliment that
he would entirely commit himself and all his affairs to his
disposal. Phocion answered sharply, Harpalus should repent of it,
if he did not quickly leave off corrupting and debauching the
city, which for the time silenced him, and checked his
proceedings. But afterwards, when the Athenians were deliberating
in council about him, he found those that had received money from
him to be his greatest enemies, urging and aggravating matters
against him, to prevent themselves being discovered, whereas
Phocion, who had never touched his pay, now, so far as the public
interest would admit of it, showed some regard to his particular
security. This encouraged him once more to try his inclinations,
and upon further survey, finding that he himself was a fortress,
inaccessible on every quarter to the approaches of corruption, he
professed a particular friendship to Phocion's son-in-law,
Charicles. And admitting him into his confidence in all his
affairs, and continually requesting his assistance, he brought him
into some suspicion. Upon the occasion, for example, of the death
of Pythonice, who was Harpalus's mistress, for whom he had a great
fondness, and had a child by her, he resolved to build her a
sumptuous monument, and committed the care of it to his friend
Charicles. This commission, disreputable enough in itself, was
yet further disparaged by the figure the piece of workmanship made
after it was finished. It is yet to be seen in the Hermeum. as
you go from Athens to Eleusis, with nothing in its appearance
answerable to the sum of thirty talents, with which Charicles is
said to have charged Harpalus for its erection. After Harpalus's
own decease, his daughter was educated by Phocion and Charicles
with great care. But when Charicles was called to account for his
dealings with Harpalus, and entreated his father-in-law's
protection, begging that he would appear for him in the court,
Phocion refused, telling him, "I did not choose you for my
son-in-law for any but honorable purposes."
Asclepiades, the son of Hipparchus, brought the first tidings of
Alexander's death to Athens, which Demades told them was not to be
credited; for, were it true, the whole world would ere this have
stunk with the dead body. But Phocion seeing the people eager for
an instant revolution, did his best to quiet and repress them.
And when numbers of them rushed up to the hustings to speak, and
cried out that the news was true, and Alexander was dead, "If he
is dead today," said he, "he will be so tomorrow and the day
after tomorrow equally. So that there is no need to take counsel
hastily or before it is safe."
When Leosthenes now had embarked the city in the Lamian war,
greatly against Phocion's wishes, to raise a laugh against
Phocion, he asked him scoffingly, what the State had been
benefited by his having now so many years been general. "It is
not a little," said Phocion, "that the citizens have been buried
in their own sepulchers." And when Leosthenes continued to speak
boldly and boastfully in the assembly, "Young man," he said, "your
speeches are like cypress trees, stately and tall, and no fruit to
come of them." And when he was then attacked by Hyperides, who
asked him when the time would come, that he would advise the
Athenians to make war, "As soon," said he, "as I find the young
men keep their ranks, the rich men contribute their money, and the
Orators leave off robbing the treasury." Afterwards, when many
admired the forces raised, and the preparations for war that were
made by Leosthenes, they asked Phocion how he approved of the new
levies. "Very well," said he, "for the short course; but what I
fear, is the long race. Since however late the war may last, the
city has neither money, ships, nor soldiers, but these." And the
event justified his prognostics. At first all things appeared
fair and promising. Leosthenes gained great reputation by
worsting the Boeotians in battle, and driving Antipater within
the walls of Lamia, and the citizens were so transported with the
first successes, that they kept solemn festivities for them, and
offered public sacrifices to the gods. So that some, thinking
Phocion must now be convinced of his error, asked him whether he
would not willingly have been author of these successful actions.
"Yes," said he, "most gladly, but also of the former counsel."
And when one express after another came from the camp, confirming
and magnifying the victories, "When," said he, "will the end of
them come?"
Leosthenes, soon after, was killed, and now those who feared lest
if Phocion obtained the command, he would put an end to the war,
arranged with an obscure person in the assembly, who should stand
up and profess himself to be a friend and old confidant of
Phocion's, and persuade the people to spare him at this time, and
reserve him (with whom none could compare) for a more pressing
occasion, and now to give Antiphilus the command of the army.
This pleased the generality, but Phocion made it appear he was so
far from having any friendship with him of old standing, that he
had not so much as the least familiarity with him; "Yet now, sir,"
says he, "give me leave to put you down among the number of my
friends and well-wishers, as you have given a piece of advice so
much to my advantage."
And when the people were eager to make an expedition against the
Boeotians, he at first opposed it; and on his friends telling him
the people would kill him, for always running counter to them,
"That will be unjust of them," he said, "if I give them honest
advice, if not, it will be just of them.'' But when he found them
persisting and shouting to him to lead them out, he commanded the
crier to make proclamation, that all the Athenians under sixty
should instantly provide themselves with five days' provision, and
follow him from the assembly. This caused a great tumult. Those
in years were startled, and clamored against the order; he
demanded wherein he injured them, "For I," says he, "am now
fourscore, and am ready to lead you." This succeeded in pacifying
them for the present.
But when Micion, with a large force of Macedonians and
mercenaries, began to pillage the sea-coast, having made a descent
upon Rhamnus, and overrun the neighboring country, Phocion led out
the Athenians to attack him. And when sundry private persons
came, intermeddling with his dispositions, and telling him that he
ought to occupy such or such a hill, detach the cavalry in this or
that direction, engage the enemy on this point or that, "O
Hercules," said he, "how many generals have we here, and how few
soldiers!" Afterwards, having formed the battle, one who wished
to show his bravery, advanced out of his post before the rest, but
on the enemy's approaching, lost heart, and retired back into his
rank. "Young man," said Phocion, "are you not ashamed twice in
one day to desert your station, first that on which I had placed
you, and secondly, that on which you had placed yourself?"
However, he entirely routed the enemy, killing Micion and many
more on the spot. The Grecian army, also, in Thessaly, after
Leonnatus and the Macedonians who came with him out of Asia, had
arrived and joined Antipater, fought and beat them in a battle.
Leonnatus was killed in the fight, Antiphilus commanding the foot,
and Menon, the Thessalian, the horse.
But not long after, Craterus crossed from Asia with numerous
forces; a pitched battle was fought at Cranon; the Greeks were
beaten; though not, indeed, in a signal defeat, nor with any great
loss of men. But what with their want of obedience to their
commanders, who were young and over-indulgent with them, and what
with Antipater's tampering and treating with their separate
cities, one by one, the end of it was that the army was dissolved,
and the Greeks shamefully surrendered the liberty of their
country.
Upon the news of Antipater's now advancing at once against Athens
with all his force, Demosthenes and Hyperides deserted the city,
and Demades, who was altogether insolvent for any part of the
fines that had been laid upon him by the city, for he had been
condemned no less than seven times for introducing bills contrary
to the laws, and who had been disfranchised, and was no longer
competent to vote in the assembly, laid hold of this season of
impunity, to bring in a bill for sending ambassadors with
plenipotentiary power to Antipater, to treat about a peace. But
the people distrusted him, and called upon Phocion to give his
opinion, as the person they only and entirely confided in. He
told them, "If my former counsels had been prevalent with you, we
had not been reduced to deliberate on the question at all."
However, the vote passed; and a decree was made, and he with
others deputed to go to Antipater, who lay now encamped in the
Theban territories, but intended to dislodge immediately, and pass
into Attica. Phocion's first request was, that he would make the
treaty without moving his camp. And when Craterus declared that
it was not fair to ask them to be burdensome to the country of
their friends and allies by their stay, when they might rather use
that of their enemies for provisions and the support of their
army, Antipater taking him by the hand, said, "We must grant this
favor to Phocion." For the rest, he bade them return to their
principals, and acquaint them that he could only offer them the
same terms, namely, to surrender at discretion, which Leosthenes
had offered to him when he was shut up in Lamia.
When Phocion had returned to the city, and acquainted them with
this answer, they made a virtue of necessity, and complied, since
it would be no better. So Phocion returned to Thebes with the
other ambassadors, and among the rest, Xenocrates, the
philosopher, the reputation of whose virtue and wisdom was so
great and famous everywhere, that they conceived there could not
be any pride, cruelty, or anger arising in the heart of man, which
would not at the mere sight of him be subdued into something of
reverence and admiration. But the result, as it happened, was the
very opposite, Antipater showed such a want of feeling, and such a
dislike of goodness. He saluted everyone else, but would not so
much as notice Xenocrates. Xenocrates, they tell us, observed
upon it, that Antipater when meditating such cruelty to Athens,
did well to be ashamed of seeing him. When he began to speak, he
would not hear him, but broke in and rudely interrupted him, until
at last he was obliged to he silent. But when Phocion had
declared the purport of their embassy, he replied shortly, that he
would make peace with the Athenians on these conditions, and no
others; that Demosthenes and Hyperides should be delivered up to
him; that they should retain their ancient form of government, the
franchise being determined by a property qualification; that they
should receive a garrison into Munychia, and pay a certain sum for
the cost of the war. As things stood, these terms were judged
tolerable by the rest of the ambassadors; Xenocrates only said,
that if Antipater considered the Athenians slaves, he was treating
them fairly, but if free, severely. Phocion pressed him only to
spare them the garrison, and used many arguments and entreaties.
Antipater replied, "Phocion, we are ready to do you any favor,
which will not bring ruin both on ourselves and on you." Others
report it differently; that Antipater asked Phocion, supposing he
remitted the garrison to the Athenians, would he, Phocion, stand
surety for the city's observing the terms and attempting no
revolution? And when he hesitated, and did not at once reply,
Callimedon, the Carabus, a hot partisan and professed enemy of
free states, cried out, "And if he should talk so idly, Antipater,
will you be so much abused as to believe him and not carry out
your own purpose?" So the Athenians received the garrison, and
Menyllus for the governor, a fair-dealing man, and one of
Phocion's acquaintance.
But the proceeding seemed sufficiently imperious and arbitrary,
indeed rather a spiteful and insulting ostentation of power, than
that the possession of the fortress would be of any great
importance. The resentment felt upon it was heightened by the
time it happened in, for the garrison was brought in on the
twentieth of the month of Boedromion, just at the time of the
great festival, when they carry forth Iacchus with solemn pomp
from the city to Eleusis; so that the solemnity being disturbed,
many began to call to mind instances, both ancient and modern, of
divine interventions and intimations. For in old time, upon the
occasions of their happiest successes, the presence of the shapes
and voices of the mystic ceremonies had been vouchsafed to them,
striking terror and amazement into their enemies; but now, at the
very season of their celebration, the gods themselves stood
witnesses of the saddest oppressions of Greece, the most holy time
being profaned, and their greatest jubilee made the unlucky date
of their most extreme calamity. Not many years before, they had a
warning from the oracle at Dodona, that they should carefully
guard the summits of Diana, lest haply strangers should seize
them. And about this very time, when they dyed the ribbons and
garlands with which they adorn the couches and cars of the
procession, instead of a purple they received only a faint yellow
color; and to make the omen yet greater, all the things that were
dyed for common use, took the natural color. While a candidate
for initiation was washing a young pig in the haven of Cantharus,
a shark seized him, bit off all his lower parts up to the belly,
and devoured them, by which the god gave them manifestly to
understand, that having lost the lower town and the sea-coast,
they should keep only the upper city.
Menyllus was sufficient security that the garrison should behave
itself inoffensively. But those who were now excluded from the
franchise by poverty, amounted to more than twelve thousand; so
that both those that remained in the city thought themselves
oppressed and shamefully used, and those who on this account left
their homes and went away into Thrace, where Antipater offered
them a town and some territory to inhabit, regarded themselves
only as a colony of slaves and exiles. And when to this was added
the deaths of Demosthenes at Calauria, and of Hyperides at
Cleonae, as we have elsewhere related, the citizens began to think
with regret of Philip and Alexander, and almost to wish the return
of those times. And as, after Antigonus was slain, when those
that had taken him off were afflicting and oppressing the people,
a countryman in Phrygia, digging in the fields, was asked what he
was doing, "I am," said he, fetching a deep sigh, "searching for
Antigonus;" so said many that remembered those days, and the
contests they had with those kings, whose anger, however great,
was yet generous and placable; whereas Antipater, with the
counterfeit humility of appearing like a private man, in the
meanness of his dress and his homely fare, merely belied his
real love of that arbitrary power, which he exercised, as a cruel
master and despot, to distress those under his command. Yet
Phocion had interest with him to recall many from banishment by
his intercession, and prevailed also for those who were driven
out, that they might not, like others, be hurried beyond Taenarus,
and the mountains of Ceraunia, but remain in Greece, and plant
themselves in Peloponnesus, of which number was Agnonides, the
sycophant. He was no less studious to manage the affairs within
the city with equity and moderation, preferring constantly those
that were men of worth and good education to the magistracies, and
recommending the busy and turbulent talkers, to whom it was a
mortal blow to be excluded from office and public debating, to
learn to stay at home, and be content to till their land. And
observing that Xenocrates paid his alien-tax as a foreigner, he
offered him the freedom of the city, which he refused, saying he
could not accept a franchise which he had been sent, as an
ambassador, to deprecate.
Menyllus wished to give Phocion a considerable present of money,
who, thanking him, said, neither was Menyllus greater than
Alexander, nor his own occasions more urgent to receive it now,
than when he refused it from him.. And on his pressing him to
permit his son Phocus to receive it, he replied, "If my son
returns to a right mind, his patrimony is sufficient; if not, all
supplies will be insufficient." But to Antipater he answered more
sharply, who would have him engaged in something dishonorable.
"Antipater," said he, "cannot have me both as his friend and his
flatterer." And, indeed, Antipater was wont to say, he had two
friends at Athens, Phocion and Demades; the one would never suffer
him to gratify him at all, the other would never be satisfied.
Phocion might well think that poverty a virtue, in which, after
having so often been general of the Athenians, and admitted to the
friendship of potentates and princes, he had now grown old.
Demades, meantime, delighted in lavishing his wealth even in
positive transgressions of the law. For there having been an
order that no foreigner should be hired to dance in any chorus on
the penalty of a fine of one thousand drachmas on the exhibitor,
he had the vanity to exhibit an entire chorus of a hundred
foreigners, and paid down the penalty of a thousand drachmas a
head upon the stage itself. Marrying his son Demeas, he told him
with the like vanity, "My son, when I married your mother, it was
done so privately it was not known to the next neighbors, but
kings and princes give presents at your nuptials."
The garrison in Munychia continued to be felt as a great
grievance, and the Athenians did not cease to be importunate upon
Phocion, to prevail with Antipater for its removal; but whether he
despaired of effecting it, or perhaps observed the people to be
more orderly, and public matters more reasonably conducted by the
awe that was thus created, he constantly declined the office, and
contented himself with obtaining from Antipater the postponement
for the present of the payment of the sum of money in which the
city was fined. So the people, leaving him off, applied
themselves to Demades, who readily undertook the employment, and
took along with him his son also into Macedonia; and some superior
power, as it seems, so ordering it, he came just at that nick of
time, when Antipater was already seized with his sickness, and
Cassander, taking upon himself the command, had found a letter of
Demades's, formerly written by him to Antigonus in Asia,
recommending him to come and possess himself of the empire of
Greece and Macedon, now hanging, he said, (a scoff at Antipater,)
"by an old and rotten thread." So when Cassander saw him come, he
seized him; and first brought out the son and killed him so close
before his face, that the blood ran all over his clothes and
person, and then, after bitterly taunting and upbraiding him with
his ingratitude and treachery, dispatched him himself.
Antipater being dead, after nominating Polysperchon
general-in-chief, and Cassander commander of the cavalry,
Cassander at once set up for himself and immediately dispatched
Nicanor to Menyllus, to succeed him in the command of the
garrison, commanding him to possess himself of Munychia before the
news of Antipater's death should be heard; which being done, and
some days after the Athenians hearing the report of it, Phocion
was taxed as privy to it before, and censured heavily for
dissembling it, out of friendship for Nicanor. But he slighted
their talk, and making it his duty to visit and confer
continually with Nicanor, he succeeded in procuring his good-will
and kindness for the Athenians, and induced him even to put
himself to trouble and expense to seek popularity with them, by
undertaking the office of presiding at the games.
In the meantime Polysperchon, who was entrusted with the charge
of the king, to countermine Cassander, sent a letter to the city,
declaring in the name of the king, that he restored them their
democracy, and that the whole Athenian people were at liberty to
conduct their commonwealth according to their ancient customs and
constitutions. The object of these pretenses was merely the
overthrow of Phocion's influence, as the event manifested. For
Polysperchon's design being to possess himself of the city, he
despaired altogether of bringing it to pass, whilst Phocion
retained his credit; and the most certain way to ruin him, would
be again to fill the city with a crowd of disfranchised citizens,
and let loose the tongues of the demagogues and common accusers.
With this prospect, the Athenians were all in excitement, and
Nicanor, wishing to confer with them on the subject, at a meeting
of the Council in Piraeus, came himself, trusting for the safety
of his person to Phocion. And when Dercyllus, who commanded the
guard there, made an attempt to seize him, upon notice of it
beforehand, he made his escape, and there was little doubt he
would now lose no time in righting himself upon the city for the
affront; and when Phocion was found fault with for letting him get
off and not securing him, he defended himself by saying that he
had no mistrust of Nicanor, nor the least reason to expect any
mischief from him, but should it prove otherwise, for his part he
would have them all know, he would rather receive than do the
wrong. And so far as he spoke for himself alone, the answer was
honorable and high-minded enough, but he who hazards his country's
safety, and that, too, when he is her magistrate and chief
commander, can scarcely he acquitted, I fear, of transgressing a
higher and more sacred obligation of justice, which he owed to his
fellow citizens. For it will not even do to say, that he dreaded
the involving the city in war, by seizing Nicanor, and hoped by
professions of confidence and just-dealing, to retain him in the
observance of the like; but it was, indeed, his credulity and
confidence in him, and an overweening opinion of his sincerity,
that imposed upon him. So that notwithstanding the sundry
intimations he had of his making preparations to attack Piraeus,
sending soldiers over into Salamis, and tampering with, and
endeavoring to corrupt various residents in Piraeus, he would,
notwithstanding all this evidence, never be persuaded to believe
it. And even when Philomedes of Lampra had got a decree passed,
that all the Athenians should stand to their arms, and be ready to
follow Phocion their general, he yet sat still and did nothing,
until Nicanor actually led his troops out from Munychia, and drew
trenches about Piraeus; upon which, when Phocion at last would
have led out the Athenians, they cried out against him, and
slighted his orders.
Alexander, the son of Polysperchon, was at hand with a
considerable force, and professed to come to give them succor
against Nicanor, but intended nothing less, if possible, than to
surprise the city, whilst they were in tumult and divided among
themselves. For all that had previously been expelled from the
city, now coming back with him, made their way into it, and were
joined by a mixed multitude of foreigners and disfranchised
persons, and of these a motley and irregular public assembly came
together, in which they presently divested Phocion of all power,
and chose other generals; and if, by chance Alexander had not
been spied from the walls, alone in close conference with Nicanor,
and had not this, which was often repeated, given the Athenians
cause of suspicion, the city had not escaped the snare. The
orator Agnonides, however, at once fell foul upon Phocion, and
impeached him of treason; Callimedon and Charicles, fearing the
worst, consulted their own security by flying from the city;
Phocion, with a few of his friends that stayed with him, went over
to Polysperchon, and out of respect for him, Solon of Plataea,
and Dinarchus of Corinth, who were reputed friends and confidants
of Polysperchon, accompanied him. But on account of Dinarchus
falling ill, they remained several days in Elatea, during which
time, upon the persuasion of Agnonides and on the motion of
Archestratus a decree passed that the people should send delegates
thither to accuse Phocion. So both parties reached Polysperchon
at the same time, who was going through the country with the king,
and was then at a small village of Phocis, Pharygae, under the
mountain now called Galate, but then Acrurium.
There Polysperchon, having set up the golden canopy, and seated
the king and his company under it, ordered Dinarchus at once to be
taken, and tortured, and put to death; and that done, gave
audience to the Athenians, who filled the place with noise and
tumult, accusing and recriminating on one another, till at last
Agnonides came forward, and requested they might all be shut up
together in one cage, and conveyed to Athens, there to decide the
controversy. At that the king could not forbear smiling, but the
company that attended, for their own amusement, Macedonians and
strangers, were eager to hear the altercation, and made signs to
the delegates to go on with their case at once. But it was no
sort of fair hearing. Polysperchon frequently interrupted
Phocion, till at last Phocion struck his staff on the ground, and
declined to speak further. And when Hegemon said, Polysperchon
himself could bear witness to his affection for the people,
Polysperchon called out fiercely, "Give over slandering me to the
king," and the king starting up was about to have run him through
with his javelin, but Polysperchon interposed and hindered him; so
that the assembly dissolved.
Phocion, then, and those about him, were seized; those of his
friends that were not immediately by him, on seeing this, hid
their faces, and saved themselves by flight. The rest Clitus took
and brought to Athens, to be submitted to trial; but, in truth, as
men already sentenced to die. The manner of conveying them was
indeed extremely moving; they were carried in chariots through the
Ceramicus, straight to the place of judicature, where Clitus
secured them till they had convoked an assembly of the people,
which was open to all comers, neither foreigners, nor slaves, nor
those who had been punished with disfranchisement, being refused
admittance, but all alike, both men and women, being allowed to
come into the court, and even upon the place of speaking. So
having read the king's letters, in which he declared he was
satisfied himself that these men were traitors, however, they
being a free city, he willingly accorded them the grace of trying
and judging them according to their own laws, Clitus brought in
his prisoners. Every respectable citizen, at the sight of
Phocion, covered up his face, and stooped down to conceal his
tears. And one of them had the courage to say, that since the
king had committed so important a cause to the judgment of the
people, it would be well that the strangers, and those of servile
condition, should withdraw. But the populace would not endure it,
crying out they were oligarchs, and enemies to the liberty of the
people, and deserved to be stoned; after which no man durst offer
anything further in Phocion's behalf. He was himself with
difficulty heard at all, when he put the question, "Do you wish to
put us to death lawfully, or unlawfully?" Some answered,
"According to law." He replied, "How can you, except we have a
fair hearing?" But when they were deaf to all he said,
approaching nearer, "As to myself," said he, "I admit my guilt,
and pronounce my public conduct to have deserved sentence of
death. But why, O men of Athens, kill others who have offended in
nothing?" The rabble cried out, they were his friends, that was
enough. Phocion therefore drew back, and said no more.
Then Agnonides read the bill, in accordance with which the people
should decide by show of hands whether they judged them guilty,
and if so it should be found, the penalty should be death. When
this had been read out, some desired it might be added to the
sentence, that Phocion should be tortured also, and that the rack
should be produced with the executioners. But Agnonides
perceiving even Clitus to dislike this, and himself thinking it
horrid and barbarous, said, "When we catch that slave, Callimedon,
men of Athens, we will put him to the rack, but I shall make no
motion of the kind in Phocion's case." Upon which one of the
better citizens remarked, he was quite right; "If we should
torture Phocion, what could we do to you?" So the form of the
bill was approved of, and the show of hands called for; upon
which, not one man retaining his seat, but all rising up, and some
with garlands on their heads, they condemned them all to death.
There were present with Phocion, Nicocles, Thudippus, Hegemon, and
Pythocles. Demetrius the Phalerian, Callimedon, Charicles, and
some others, were included in the condemnation, being absent.
After the assembly was dismissed, they were carried to the prison;
the rest with cries and lamentations, their friends and relatives
following; and clinging about them, but Phocion looking (as men
observed with astonishment at his calmness and magnanimity) just
the same as when he had been used to return to his home attended,
as general, from the assembly. His enemies ran along by his side,
reviling and abusing him. And one of them coming up to him, spat
in his face; at which Phocion, turning to the officers, only said,
"You should stop this indecency." Thudippus, on their reaching
the prison, when he observed the executioner tempering the poison
and preparing it for them, gave way to his passion, and began to
bemoan his condition and the hard measure he received, thus
unjustly to suffer with Phocion. "You cannot be contented," said
he, "to die with Phocion?" One of his friends that stood by,
asked him if he wished to have anything said to his son. "Yes, by
all means," said he, "bid him bear no grudge against the
Athenians." Then Nicocles, the dearest and most faithful of his
friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison first. "My
friend," said he, "you ask what I am loath and sorrowful to give,
but as I never yet in all my life was so thankless as to refuse
you, I must gratify you in this also." After they had all drunk
of it, the poison ran short; and the executioner refused to
prepare more, except they would pay him twelve drachmas, to defray
the cost of the quantity required. Some delay was made, and time
spent, when Phocion called one of his friends, and observing that
a man could not even die at Athens without paying for it,
requested him to give the sum.
It was the nineteenth day of the month Munychion, on which it was
the usage to have a solemn procession in the city, in honor of
Jupiter. The horsemen, as they passed by, some of them threw away
their garlands, others stopped, weeping, and casting sorrowful
looks towards the prison doors, and all the citizens whose minds
were not absolutely debauched by spite and passion, or who had any
humanity left, acknowledged it to have been most impiously done,
not, at least, to let that day pass, and the city so be kept pure
from death and a public execution at the solemn festival. But as
if this triumph had been insufficient, the malice of Phocion's
enemies went yet further; his dead body was excluded from burial
within the boundaries of the country, and none of the Athenians
could light a funeral pile to burn the corpse; neither durst any
of his friends venture to concern themselves about it. A certain
Conopion, a man who used to do these offices for hire, took the
body and carried it beyond Eleusis, and procuring fire from over
the frontier of Megara, burned it. Phocion's wife, with her
servant-maids, being present and assisting at the solemnity,
raised there an empty tomb, and performed the customary libations,
and gathering up the bones in her lap, and bringing them home by
night, dug a place for them by the fireside in her house, saying,
"Blessed hearth, to your custody I commit the remains of a good
and brave man; and, I beseech you, protect and restore them to the
sepulcher of his fathers, when the Athenians return to their right
minds."
And, indeed, a very little time and their own sad experience soon
informed them what an excellent governor, and how great an example
and guardian of justice and of temperance they had bereft
themselves of. And now they decreed him a statue of brass, and
his bones to be buried honorably at the public charge; and for his
accusers, Agnonides they took themselves, and caused him to be put
to death. Epicurus and Demophilus, who fled from the city for
fear, his son met with, and took his revenge upon them. This son
of his, we are told, was in general of an indifferent character,
and once, when enamored of a slave girl kept by a common harlot
merchant, happened to hear Theodorus, the atheist, arguing in the
Lyceum, that if it were a good and honorable thing to buy the
freedom of a friend in the masculine, why not also of a friend in
the feminine, if, for example, a master, why not also a mistress?
So putting the good argument and his passion together, he went off
and purchased the girl's freedom. The death which was thus
suffered by Phocion, revived among the Greeks the memory of that
of Socrates, the two cases being so similar, and both equally the
sad fault and misfortune of the city.
CATO THE YOUNGER
The family of Cato derived its first luster from his
great-grandfather Cato, whose virtue gained him such great
reputation and authority among the Romans, as we have written in
his life.
This Cato was, by the loss of both his parents, left an orphan,
together with his brother Caepio, and his sister Porcia. He had
also a half-sister, Servilia, by the mother's side. All these
lived together, and were bred up in the house of Livius Drusus,
their uncle by the mother who, at that time, had a great share in
the government, being a very eloquent speaker, a man of the
greatest temperance, and yielding in dignity to none of the
Romans.
It is said of Cato, that even from his infancy, in his speech,
his countenance, and all his childish pastimes, he discovered an
inflexible temper, unmoved by any passion, and firm in
everything. He was resolute in his purposes, much beyond the
strength of his age, to go through with whatever he undertook.
He was rough and ungentle toward those that flattered him, and
still more unyielding to those who threatened him. It was
difficult to excite him to laughter; his countenance seldom
relaxed even into a smile; he was not quickly or easily provoked
to anger, but if once incensed, he was no less difficult to
pacify.
When he began to learn, he proved dull, and slow to apprehend,
but of what he once received, his memory was remarkably
tenacious. And such, in fact, we find generally to be the course
of nature; men of fine genius are readily reminded of things, but
those who receive with most pains and difficulty, remember best;
every new thing they learn, being, as it were, burnt and branded
in on their minds. Cato's natural stubbornness and slowness to
be persuaded, may also have made it more difficult for him to be
taught. For to learn, is to submit to have something done to
one; and persuasion comes soonest to those who have least
strength to resist it. Hence young men are sooner persuaded than
those that are more in years, and sick men, than those that are
well in health In fine, where there is least previous doubt and
difficulty the new impression is most easily accepted. Yet Cato,
they say, was very obedient to his preceptor, and would do
whatever he was commanded; but he would also ask the reason, and
inquire the cause of everything. And, indeed, his teacher was a
very well-bred man, more ready to instruct, than to beat his
scholars. His name was Sarpedon.
When Cato was a child, the allies of the Romans sued to be made
free citizens of Rome. Pompaedius Silo, one of their deputies, a
brave soldier, and a man of great repute, who had contracted a
friendship with Drusus, lodged at his house for several days, in
which time being grown familiar with the children, "Well," said
he to them, "will you entreat your uncle to befriend us in our
business?" Caepio, smiling, assented, but Cato made no answer,
only he looked steadfastly and fiercely on the strangers. Then
said Pompaedius, "And you, young sir, what say you to us? will
not you, as well as your brother, intercede with your uncle in
our behalf?" And when Cato continued to give no answer, by his
silence and his countenance seeming to deny their petition,
Pompaedius snatched him up to the window as if he would throw him
out, and told him to consent, or he would fling him down, and,
speaking in a harsher tone, held his body out of the window, and
shook him several times. When Cato had suffered this a good
while, unmoved and unalarmed, Pompaedius setting him down, said
in an under-voice to his friend, "What a blessing for Italy,
that he is but a child! If he were a man, I believe we should
not gain one voice among the people." Another time, one of his
relations, on his birthday, invited Cato and some other children
to supper, and some of the company diverted themselves in a
separate part of the house, and were at play, the elder and the
younger together, their sport being to act the pleadings before
the judges, accusing one another, and carrying away the condemned
to prison. Among these a very beautiful young child, being bound
and carried by a bigger into prison, cried out to Cato, who
seeing what was going on, presently ran to the door, and
thrusting away those who stood there as guard, took out the
child, and went home in anger, followed by some of his
companions.
Cato at length grew so famous among them, that when Sylla
designed to exhibit the sacred game of young men riding courses
on horseback, which they called Troy, having gotten together the
youth of good birth, he appointed two for their leaders. One of
them they accepted for his mother's sake, being the son of
Metella, the wife of Sylla; but as for the other, Sextus, the
nephew of Pompey, they would not be led by him, nor exercise
under him. Then Sylla asking, whom they would have, they all
cried out, Cato; and Sextus willingly yielded the honor to him,
as the more worthy.
Sylla, who was a friend of their family, sent at times for Cato
and his brother to see them and talk with them; a favor which he
showed to very few, after gaining his great power and authority.
Sarpedon, full of the advantage it would be, as well for the
honor as the safety of his scholars, would often bring Cato to
wait upon Sylla at his house, which, for the multitude of those
that were being carried off in custody, and tormented there,
looked like a place of execution. Cato was then in his
fourteenth year, and seeing the heads of men said to be of great
distinction brought thither, and observing the secret sighs of
those that were present, he asked his preceptor, "Why does nobody
kill this man?'' "Because," said he, "they fear him, child, more
than they hate him." "Why, then," replied Cato, "did you not
give me a sword, that I might stab him, and free my country from
this slavery?" Sarpedon hearing this, and at the same time
seeing his countenance swelling with anger and determination,
took care thenceforward to watch him strictly, lest he should
hazard any desperate attempt.
While he was yet very young, to some that asked him, whom he
loved best, he answered, his brother. And being asked, whom
next, he replied, his brother, again. So likewise the third
time, and still the same, till they left off to ask any further.
As he grew in age, this love to his brother grew yet the
stronger. When he was about twenty years old, he never supped,
never went out of town, nor into the forum, without Caepio. But
when his brother made use of precious ointments and perfumes,
Cato declined them; and he was, in all his habits, very strict
and austere, so that when Caepio was admired for his moderation
and temperance, he would acknowledge that indeed he might be
accounted such, in comparison with some other men, "but," said
he, "when I compare myself with Cato, I find myself scarcely
different from Sippius," one at that time notorious for his
luxurious and effeminate living.
Cato being made priest of Apollo, went to another house, took his
portion of their paternal inheritance, amounting to a hundred and
twenty talents, and began to live yet more strictly than before.
Having gained the intimate acquaintance of Antipater the Tyrian,
the Stoic philosopher, he devoted himself to the study, above
everything, of moral and political doctrine. And though
possessed, as it were, by a kind of inspiration for the pursuit
of every virtue, yet what most of all virtue and excellence fixed
his affection, was that steady and inflexible Justice, which is
not to be wrought upon by favor or compassion. He learned also
the art of speaking and debating in public, thinking that
political philosophy, like a great city, should maintain for its
security the military and warlike element. But he would never
recite his exercises before company, nor was he ever heard to
declaim. And to one that told him, men blamed his silence, "But
I hope not my life," he replied, "I will begin to speak, when I
have that to say which had not better be unsaid."
The great Porcian Hall, as it was called, had been built and
dedicated to the public use by the old Cato, when aedile. Here
the tribunes of the people used to transact their business, and
because one of the pillars was thought to interfere with the
convenience of their seats, they deliberated whether it were
best to remove it to another place, or to take it away. This
occasion first drew Cato, much against his will, into the forum;
for he opposed the demand of the tribunes, and in so doing, gave
a specimen both of his courage and his powers of speaking, which
gained him great admiration. His speech had nothing youthful or
refined in it, but was straightforward, full of matter, and
rough, at the same time that there was a certain grace about his
rough statements which won the attention; and the speaker's
character showing itself in all he said, added to his severe
language something that excited feelings of natural pleasure and
interest. His voice was full and sounding, and sufficient to be
heard by so great a multitude, and its vigor and capacity of
endurance quite indefatigable; for he often would speak a whole
day, and never stop.
When he had carried this cause, he betook himself again to study
and retirement. He employed himself in inuring his body to labor
and violent exercise; and habituated himself to go bareheaded in
the hottest and the coldest weather, and to walk on foot at all
seasons. When he went on a journey with any of his friends,
though they were on horseback and he on foot, yet he would often
join now one, then another, and converse with them on the way.
In sickness, the patience he showed in supporting, and the
abstinence he used for curing his distempers, were admirable.
When he had an ague, he would remain alone, and suffer nobody to
see him, till he began to recover, and found the fit was over.
At supper, when he threw dice for the choice of dishes, and lost,
and the company offered him nevertheless his choice, he declined
to dispute, as he said, the decision of Venus. At first, he was
wont to drink only once after supper, and then go away; but in
process of time he grew to drink more, insomuch that oftentimes
he would continue till morning. This his friends explained by
saying that state affairs and public business took him up all
day, and being desirous of knowledge, he liked to pass the night
at wine in the conversation of philosophers. Hence, upon one
Memmius saying in public, that Cato spent whole nights in
drinking, "You should add," replied Cicero, "that he spends whole
days in gambling." And in general Cato esteemed the customs and
manners of men at that time so corrupt, and a reformation in them
so necessary, that he thought it requisite, in many things, to go
contrary to the ordinary way of the world. Seeing the lightest
and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear
that which was nearest black; and he would often go out of doors,
after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that
he sought vainglory from such novelties, but he would accustom
himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise
all other sorts of disgrace.
The estate of one Cato, his cousin, which was worth one hundred
talents, falling to him, he turned it all into ready money, which
he kept by him for any of his friends that should happen to want,
to whom he would lend it without interest. And for some of them,
he suffered his own land and his slaves to be mortgaged to the
public treasury.
When he thought himself of an age fit to marry, having never
before known any woman, he was contracted to Lepida, who had
before been contracted to Metellus Scipio, but on Scipio's own
withdrawal from it, the contract had been dissolved, and she
left at liberty. Yet Scipio afterward repenting himself, did all
he could to regain her, before the marriage with Cato was
completed, and succeeded in so doing. At which Cato was
violently incensed, and resolved at first to go to law about it;
but his friends persuaded him to the contrary. However, he was
so moved by the heat of youth and passion, that he wrote a
quantity of iambic verses against Scipio, in the bitter,
sarcastic style of Archilochus, without, however, his license and
scurrility. After this, he married Atilia, the daughter of
Soranus, the first, but not the only woman he ever knew, less
happy thus far than Laelius, the friend of Scipio, who in the
whole course of so long a life never knew but the one woman to
whom he was united in his first and only marriage.
In the war of the slaves, which took its name from Spartacus,
their ringleader, Gellius was general, and Cato went a volunteer,
for the sake of his brother Caepio, who was a tribune in the
army. Cato could find here no opportunity to show his zeal or
exercise his valor, on account of the ill conduct of the general.
However, amidst the corruption and disorders of that army, he
showed such a love of discipline, so much bravery upon occasion,
and so much courage and wisdom in everything, that it appeared
he was no way inferior to the old Cato. Gellius offered him
great rewards, and would have decreed him the first honors;
which, however, he refused, saying, he had done nothing that
deserved them. This made him be thought a man of a strange and
eccentric temper.
There was a law passed, moreover, that the candidates who stood
for any office should not have prompters in their canvass, to
tell them the names of the citizens; and Cato, when he sued to
be elected tribune, was the only man that obeyed this law. He
took great pains to learn by his own knowledge to salute those he
had to speak with, and to call them by their names; yet even
those who praised him for this, did not do so without some envy
and jealousy, for the more they considered the excellence of
what he did, the more they were grieved at the difficulty they
found to do the like.
Being chosen tribune, he was sent into Macedon to join Rubrius,
who was general there. It is said that his wife showing much
concern, and weeping at his departure, Munatius, one of Cato's
friends, said to her, "Do not trouble yourself, Atilia, I will
engage to watch over him for you." "By all means," replied Cato;
and when they had gone one day's journey together, "Now," said he
to Munatius, after they had supped, "that you may be sure to keep
your promise to Atilia, you must not leave me day nor night," and
from that time, he ordered two beds to be made in his own
chamber, that Munatius might lie there. And so he continued to
do, Cato making it his jest to see that he was always there.
There went with him fifteen slaves, two freedmen, and four of his
friends; these rode on horseback, but Cato always went on foot,
yet would he keep by them, and talk with each of them in turn, as
they went.
When he came to the army, which consisted of several legions, the
general gave him the command of one; and as he looked upon it as
a small matter, and not worthy a commander, to give evidence of
his own single valor, he resolved to make his soldiers, as far as
he could, like himself, not, however, in this, relaxing the
terrors of his office, but associating reason with his authority.
He persuaded and instructed every one in particular, and bestowed
rewards or punishments according to desert; and at length his men
were so well disciplined, that it was hard to say, whether they
were more peaceable, or more warlike, more valiant, or more just;
they were alike formidable to their enemies and courteous to
their allies, fearful to do wrong, and forward to gain honor.
And Cato himself acquired in the fullest measure, what it had
been his least desire to seek, glory and good repute; he was
highly esteemed by all men, and entirely beloved by the soldiers.
Whatever he commanded to be done, he himself took part in the
performing; in his apparel, his diet and mode of traveling, he
was more like a common soldier than an officer; but in character,
high purpose, and wisdom, he far exceeded all that had the names
and titles of commanders, and he made himself, without knowing
it, the object of general affection. For the true love of virtue
is in all men produced by the love and respect they bear to him
that teaches it; and those who praise good men, yet do not love
them, may respect their reputation, but do not really admire, and
will never imitate their virtue.
There dwelt at that time in Pergamus, Athenodorus, surnamed
Cordylio, a man of high repute for his knowledge of the stoic
philosophy, who was now grown old, and had always steadily
refused the friendship and acquaintance of princes and great men.
Cato understood this; so that imagining he should not be able to
prevail with him by sending or writing, and being by the laws
allowed two months' absence from the army, he resolved to go into
Asia to see him in person, trusting to his own good qualities not
to lose his labor. And when he had conversed with him, and
succeeded in persuading him out of his former resolutions, he
returned and brought him to the camp, as joyful and as proud of
this victory as if he had done some heroic exploit, greater than
any of those of Pompey or Lucullus, who, with their armies, at
that time were subduing so many nations and kingdoms.
While Cato was yet in the service, his brother, on a journey
towards Asia, fell sick at Aenus in Thrace, letters with
intelligence of which were immediately dispatched to him. The
sea was very rough, and no convenient ship of any size to be had;
so Cato, getting into a small trading-vessel, with only two of his
friends and three servants, set sail from Thessalonica, and
having very narrowly escaped drowning, he arrived at Aenus just
as Caepio expired. Upon this occasion, he was thought to have
showed himself more a fond brother than a philosopher, not only
in the excess of his grief, bewailing, and embracing the dead
body, but also in the extravagant expenses of the funeral, the
vast quantity of rich perfumes and costly garments which were
burnt with the corpse, and the monument of Thasian marble, which
he erected, at the cost of eight talents, in the public place of
the town of Aenus. For there were some who took upon them to
cavil at all this, as not consistent with his usual calmness and
moderation, not discerning that though he were steadfast, firm,
and inflexible to pleasure, fear, or foolish entreaties, yet he
was full of natural tenderness and brotherly affection. Divers
of the cities and princes of the country, sent him many presents,
to honor the funeral of his brother; but he took none of their
money, only the perfumes and ornaments he received, and paid for
them also. And afterwards, when the inheritance was divided
between him and Caepio's daughter, he did not require any portion
of the funeral expenses to be discharged out of it.
Notwithstanding this, it has been affirmed that he made his
brother's ashes be passed through a sieve, to find the gold that
was melted down when burnt with the body. But he who made this
statement appears to have anticipated an exemption for his pen,
as much as for his sword, from all question and criticism.
The time of Cato's service in the army being expired, he
received, at his departure, not only the prayers and praises, but
the tears, and embraces of the soldiers, who spread their clothes
at his feet, and kissed his hand as he passed, an honor which the
Romans at that time scarcely paid even to a very few of their
generals and commander-in-chief. Having left the army, he
resolved, before he would return home and apply himself to state
affairs, to travel in Asia, and observe the manners, the customs,
and the strength of every province. He was also unwilling to
refuse the kindness of Deiotarus, king of Galatia, who having had
great familiarity and friendship with his father, was very
desirous to receive a visit from him. Cato's arrangements in his
journey were as follows. Early in the morning he sent out his
baker and his cook towards the place where he designed to stay
the next night; these went soberly and quietly into the town, in
which, if there happened to be no friend or acquaintance of Cato
or his family, they provided for him in an inn, and gave no
disturbance to anybody; but if there were no inn, then and in
this case only, they went to the magistrates, and desiring them
to help them to lodgings, took without complaint whatever was
allotted to them. His servants thus behaving themselves towards
the magistrates, without noise and threatening, were often
discredited, or neglected by them, so that Cato many times
arrived and found nothing provided for him. And it was all the
worse when he appeared himself; still less account was taken of
him. When they saw him sitting, without saying anything, on his
baggage, they set him down at once as a person of no consequence,
who did not venture to make any demand. Sometimes, on such
occasions, he would call them to him and tell them, "Foolish
people, lay aside this inhospitality. All your visitors will not
be Catos. Use your courtesy, to take off the sharp edge of
power. There are men enough who desire but a pretense, to take
from you by force, what you give with such reluctance."
While he traveled in this manner, a diverting accident befell him
in Syria. As he was going into Antioch, he saw a great multitude
of people outside the gates, ranged in order on either side the
way; here the young men with long cloaks, there the children
decently dressed; others wore garlands and white garments, who
were the priests and magistrates. Cato, imagining all this could
mean nothing but a display in honor of his reception, began to be
angry with his servants who had been sent before, for suffering
it to be done; then making his friends alight, he walked along
with them on foot. As soon as he came near the gate, an elderly
man, who seemed to be master of these ceremonies, with a wand and
a garland in his hand, came up to Cato, and without saluting him,
asked him, where he had left Demetrius, and how soon he thought
he would be there. This Demetrius was Pompey's servant, and as
at this time the whole world, so to say, had its eyes fixed upon
Pompey, this man also was highly honored, on account of his
influence with his master. Upon this, Cato's friends fell into
such violent laughter, that they could not restrain themselves
while they passed through the crowd; and he himself, ashamed and
distressed, uttered the words, "Unfortunate city!" and said no
more. Afterwards, however, it always made him laugh, when he
either told the story or was otherwise reminded of it.
Pompey himself shortly after made the people ashamed of their
ignorance and folly in thus neglecting him, for Cato, coming in
his journey to Ephesus, went to pay his respects to him, who was
the elder man, had gained much honor, and was then general of a
great army. Yet Pompey would not receive him sitting, but as
soon as he saw him, rose up, and going to meet him, as the more
honorable person, gave him his hand, and embraced him with great
show of kindness. He said much in commendation of his virtue,
both at that time when receiving him, and also yet more, after he
had withdrawn. So that now all men began at once to display
their respect for Cato, and discovered in the very same things
for which they despised him before, an admirable mildness of
temper, and greatness of spirit. And indeed the civility that
Pompey himself showed him, appeared to come from one that rather
respected than loved him; and the general opinion was, that while
Cato was there, he paid him admiration, but was not sorry when he
was gone. For when other young men came to see him, he usually
urged and entreated them to continue with him. Now he did not at
all invite Cato to stay, but as if his own power were lessened by
the other's presence, he very willingly allowed him to take his
leave. Yet to Cato alone, of all those who went for Rome, he
recommended his children and his wife, who was indeed connected
by relationship with Cato.
After this, all the cities through which he passed, strove and
emulated each other in showing him respect and honor. Feasts and
entertainments were made for his reception, so that he bade his
friends keep strict watch and take care of him, lest he should
end by making good what was said by Curio, who though he were his
familial friend, yet disliking the austerity of his temper, asked
him one day, if when he left the army, he designed to see Asia,
and Cato answering, "Yes, by all means," "You do well," replied
Curio, "you will bring back with you a better temper and
pleasanter manners;" pretty nearly the very words he used.
Deiotarus being now an old man, had sent for Cato, to recommend
his children and family to his protection; and as soon as he
came, brought him presents of all sorts of things, which he
begged and entreated him to accept. And his importunities
displeased Cato so much, that though he came but in the evening,
he stayed only that night, and went away early the next morning.
After he was gone one day's journey, he found at Pessinus a yet
greater quantity of presents provided for him there, and also
letters from Deiotarus, entreating him to receive them, or at
least to permit his friends to take them, who for his sake
deserved some gratification, and could not have much done for
them out of Cato's own means. Yet he would not suffer it, though
he saw some of them very willing to receive such gifts, and ready
to complain of his severity; but he answered, that corruption
would never want pretense, and his friends should share with him
in whatever he should justly and honestly obtain, and so returned
the presents to Deiotarus.
When he took ship for Brundusium, his friends would have
persuaded him to put his brother's ashes into another vessel; but
he said, he would sooner part with his life than leave them, and
so set sail. And as it chanced, he, we are told, had a very
dangerous passage, though others at the same time went over
safely enough.
After he was returned to Rome, he spent his time for the most
part either at home, in conversation with Athenodorus, or at the
forum, in the service of his friends. Though it was now the time
that he should become quaestor, he would not stand for the place
till he had studied the laws relating to it, and by inquiry from
persons of experience, had attained a distinct understanding of
the duty and authority belonging to it. With this knowledge, as
soon as he came into the office, he made a great reformation
among the clerks and under-officers of the treasury, people who
had long practice and familiarity in all the public records and
the laws, and, when new magistrates came in year by year, so
ignorant and unskillful as to be in absolute need of others to
teach them what to do, did not submit and give way, but kept the
power in their own hands, and were in effect the treasurers
themselves. Till Cato, applying himself roundly to the work,
showed that he possessed not only the title and honor of a
quaestor, but the knowledge and understanding and full authority
of his office. So that he used the clerks and under-officers
like servants, as they were, exposing their corrupt practices,
and instructing their ignorance. Being bold impudent fellows,
they flattered the other quaestors, his colleagues, and by their
means endeavored to maintain an opposition against him. But he
convicted the chiefest of them of a breach of trust in the charge
of an inheritance, and turned him out of his place. A second he
brought to trial for dishonesty, who was defended by Lutatius
Catulus, at that time censor, a man very considerable for his
office, but yet more for his character, as he was eminent above
all the Romans of that age for his reputed wisdom and integrity.
He was also intimate with Cato, and much commended his way of
living. So perceiving he could not bring off his client, if he
stood a fair trial, he openly began to beg him off. Cato
objected to his doing this. And when he continued still to be
importunate, "It would be shameful, Catulus," he said, "that the
censor, the judge of all our lives, should incur the dishonor of
removal by our officers." At this expression, Catalus looked as
if he would have made some answer; but he said nothing, and
either through anger or shame went away silent, and out of
countenance. Nevertheless, the man was not found guilty, for the
voices that acquitted him were but one in number less than those
that condemned him, and Marcus Lollius, one of Cato's colleagues,
who was absent by reason of sickness, was sent for by Catalus,
and entreated to come and save the man. So Lollius was brought
into court in a chair, and gave his voice also for acquitting
him. Yet Cato never after made use of that clerk, and never paid
him his salary, nor would he make any account of the vote given
by Lollius. Having thus humbled the clerks, and brought them to
be at command, he made use of the books and registers as he
thought fit, and in a little while gained the treasury a higher
name than the Senate-house itself; and all men said, Cato had
made the office of a quaestor equal to the dignity of a consul.
When he found many indebted to the state upon old accounts, and
the state also in debt to many private persons, he took care that
the public might no longer either do or suffer wrong; he strictly
and punctually exacted what was due to the treasury, and as
freely and speedily paid all those to whom it was indebted. So
that the people were filled with sentiments of awe and respect,
on seeing those made to pay, who thought to have escaped with
their plunder, and others receiving all their due, who despaired
of getting anything. And whereas usually those who brought
false bills and pretended orders of the senate, could through
favor get them accepted, Cato would never be so imposed upon, and
in the case of one particular order, question arising, whether it
had passed the senate, he would not believe a great many
witnesses that attested it, nor would admit of it, till the
consuls came and affirmed it upon oath.
There were at that time a great many whom Sylla had made use of
as his agents in the proscription, and to whom he had for their
service in putting men to death, given twelve thousand drachmas
apiece. These men everybody hated as wicked and polluted
wretches, but nobody durst be revenged upon them. Cato called
everyone to account, as wrongfully possessed of the public
money, and exacted it of them, and at the same time sharply
reproved them for their unlawful and impious actions. After
these proceedings, they were presently accused of murder, and
being already in a manner prejudged as guilty, they were easily
found so, and accordingly suffered; at which the whole people
rejoiced, and thought themselves now to see the old tyranny
finally abolished, and Sylla himself, so to say, brought to
punishment.
Cato's assiduity also, and indefatigable diligence, won very much
upon the people. He always came first of any of his colleagues
to the treasury, and went away the last. He never missed any
assembly of the people, or sitting of the senate; being always
anxious and on the watch for those who lightly, or as a matter of
interest, passed votes in favor of this or that person, for
remitting debts or granting away customs that were owing to the
state. And at length, having kept the exchequer pure and clear
from base informers, and yet having filled it with treasure, he
made it appear the state might be rich, without oppressing the
people. At first he excited feelings of dislike and irritation
in some of his colleagues, but after a while they were well
contented with him, since he was perfectly willing that they
should cast all the odium on him, when they declined to gratify
their friends with the public money, or to give dishonest judgments
in passing their accounts; and when hard pressed by suitors, they
could readily answer it was impossible to do anything, unless
Cato would consent. On the last day of his office, he was
honorably attended to his house by almost all the people;
but on the way he was informed that several powerful friends were
in the treasury with Marcellus, using all their interest with him
to pass a certain debt to the public revenue, as if it had been a
gift. Marcellus had been one of Cato's friends from his
childhood, and so long as Cato was with him, was one of the best
of his colleagues in this office, but when alone, was unable to
resist the importunity of suitors, and prone to do anybody a
kindness. So Cato immediately turned back, and finding that
Marcellus had yielded to pass the thing, he took the book, and
while Marcellus silently stood by and looked on, struck it out.
This done, he brought Marcellus out of the treasury, and took him
home with him; who for all this, neither then, nor ever after,
complained of him, but always continued his friendship and
familiarity with him.
Cato after he had laid down his office, yet did not cease to keep
a watch upon the treasury. He had his servants who continually
wrote out the details of the expenditure, and he himself kept
always by him certain books, which contained the accounts of the
revenue from Sylla's time to his own quaestorship, which he had
bought for five talents.
He was always first at the senate, and went out last; and often,
while the others were slowly collecting, he would sit and read by
himself, holding his gown before his book. He was never once out
of town when the senate was to meet. And when afterwards Pompey
and his party, finding that he could never be either persuaded or
compelled to favor their unjust designs, endeavored to keep him
from the senate, by engaging him in business for his friends, to
plead their causes, or arbitrate in their differences, or the
like, he quickly discovered the trick, and to defeat it, fairly
told all his acquaintance that he would never meddle in any
private business when the senate was assembled. Since it was not
in the hope of gaining honor or riches, nor out of mere impulse,
or by chance that he engaged himself in politics, but he
undertook the service of the state, as the proper business of an
honest man, and therefore he thought himself obliged to be as
constant to his public duty, as the bee to the honeycomb. To
this end, he took care to have his friends and correspondents
everywhere, to send him reports of the edicts, decrees,
judgments, and all the important proceedings that passed in any
of the provinces. Once when Clodius, the seditious orator, to
promote his violent and revolutionary projects, traduced to the
people some of the priests and priestesses, (among whom Fabia,
sister to Cicero's wife, Terentia, ran great danger,) Cato,
having boldly interfered, and having made Clodius appear so
infamous that he was forced to leave the town, was addressed,
when it was over, by Cicero, who came to thank him for what he
had done. "You must thank the commonwealth," said he, for whose
sake alone he professed to do everything. Thus he gained a
great and wonderful reputation; so that an advocate in a cause,
where there was only one witness against him, told the judges
they ought not to rely upon a single witness, though it were Cato
himself. And it was a sort of proverb with many people, if any
very unlikely and incredible thing were asserted, to say, they
would not believe it, though Cato himself should affirm it. One
day a debauched and sumptuous liver talking in the senate about
frugality and temperance, Amnaeus standing up, cried, "Who can
endure this, Sir, to have you feast like Crassus, build like
Lucullus and talk like Cato." So likewise those who were vicious
and dissolute in their manners, yet affected to be grave and
severe in their language, were in derision called Catos.
At first, when his friends would have persuaded him to stand to
be tribune of the people, he thought it undesirable; for that the
power of so great an office ought to be reserved, as the
strongest medicines, for occasions of the last necessity. But
afterwards in a vacation time, as he was going, accompanied with
his books and philosophers, to Lucania, where he had lands with a
pleasant residence, they met by the way a great many horses,
carriages, and attendants, of whom they understood, that Metellus
Nepos was going to Rome, to stand to be tribune of the people.
Hereupon Cato stopped, and after a little pause, gave orders to
return back immediately; at which the company seeming to wonder,
"Don't you know," said he, "how dangerous of itself the madness
of Metellus is? and now that he comes armed with the support of
Pompey, he will fall like lightning on the state, and bring it to
utter disorder; therefore this is no time for idleness and
diversion, but we must go and prevent this man in his designs, or
bravely die in defense of our liberty." Nevertheless, by the
persuasion of his friends, he went first to his country-house,
where he stayed but a very little time, and then returned to
town.
He arrived in the evening, and went straight the next morning to
the forum, where he began to solicit for the tribuneship, in
opposition to Metellus. The power of this office consists rather
in controlling, than performing any business; for though all the
rest except any one tribune should be agreed, yet his denial or
intercession could put a stop to the whole matter. Cato, at
first, had not many that appeared for him; but as soon as his
design was known, all the good and distinguished persons of the
city quickly came forward to encourage and support him, looking
upon him, not as one that desired a favor of them, but one that
proposed to do a great favor to his country and all honest men;
who had many times refused the same office, when he might have
had it without trouble, but now sought it with danger, that he
might defend their liberty and their government. It is reported
that so great a number flocked about him, that he was like to be
stifled amidst the press, and could scarce get through the crowd.
He was declared tribune, with several others, among whom was
Metellus.
When Cato was chosen into this office, observing that the
election of consuls was become a matter of purchase, he sharply
rebuked the people for this corruption, and in the conclusion of
his speech protested, he would bring to trial whomever he should
find giving money, making an exception only in the case of
Silanus, on account of their near connection, he having married
Servilia, Cato's sister. He therefore did not prosecute him, but
accused Lucius Murena, who had been chosen consul by corrupt
means with Silanus. There was a law that the party accused might
appoint a person to keep watch upon his accuser, that he might
know fairly what means he took in preparing the accusation. He
that was set upon Cato by Murena, at first followed and observed
him strictly, yet never found him dealing any way unfairly or
insidiously, but always generously and candidly going on in the
just and open methods of proceeding. And he so admired Cato's
great spirit, and so entirely trusted to his integrity, that
meeting him in the forum, or going to his house, he would ask
him, if he designed to do anything that day in order to the
accusation, and if Cato said no, he went away, relying on his
word. When the cause was pleaded, Cicero, who was then consul
and defended Murena, took occasion to be extremely witty and
jocose, in reference to Cato, upon the stoic philosophers, and
their paradoxes, as they call them, and so excited great laughter
among the judges; upon which Cato, smiling, said to the standers
by, "What a pleasant consul we have, my friends." Murena was
acquitted, and afterwards showed himself a man of no ill feeling
or want of sense; for when he was consul, he always took Cato's
advice in the most weighty affairs, and during all the time of
his office, paid him much honor and respect. Of which not only
Murena's prudence, but also Cato's own behavior, was the cause;
for though he were terrible and severe as to matters of justice,
in the senate, and at the bar, yet after the thing was over, his
manner to all men was perfectly friendly and humane.
Before he entered on the office of tribune, he assisted Cicero,
at that time consul, in many contests that concerned his office,
but most especially in his great and noble acts at the time of
Catiline's conspiracy, which owed their last successful issue to
Cato. Catiline had plotted a dreadful and entire subversion of
the Roman state by sedition and open war, but being convicted by
Cicero, was forced to fly the city. Yet Lentulus and Cethegus
remained with several others, to carry on the same plot; and
blaming Catiline, as one that wanted courage, and had been timid
and petty in his designs, they themselves resolved to set the
whole town on fire, and utterly to overthrow the empire, rousing
whole nations to revolt and exciting foreign wars. But the
design was discovered by Cicero, (as we have written in his
life,) and the matter brought before the senate. Silanus, who
spoke first, delivered his opinion, that the conspirators ought
to suffer the last of punishments, and was therein followed by
all who spoke after him; till it came to Caesar, who being an
excellent speaker, and looking upon all changes and commotions in
the state as materials useful for his own purposes, desired
rather to increase than extinguish them; and standing up, he made
a very merciful and persuasive speech, that they ought not to
suffer death without fair trial according to law, and moved that
they might be kept in prison. Thus was the house almost wholly
turned by Caesar, apprehending also the anger of the people;
insomuch that even Silanus retracted, and said he did not mean to
propose death, but imprisonment, for that was the utmost a Roman
could suffer. Upon this they were all inclined to the milder and
more merciful opinion, when Cato standing up, began at once with
great passion and vehemence to reproach Silanus for his change of
opinion, and to attack Caesar, who would, he said, ruin the
commonwealth by soft words and popular speeches, and was
endeavoring to frighten the senate, when he himself ought to
fear, and be thankful, if he escaped unpunished or unsuspected,
who thus openly and boldly dared to protect the enemies of the
state, and while finding no compassion for his own native
country, brought, with all its glories, so near to utter ruin,
could yet be full of pity for those men, who had better never
have been born, and whose death must deliver the commonwealth
from bloodshed and destruction. This only of all Cato's
speeches, it is said, was preserved; for Cicero, the consul, had
disposed, in various parts of the senate-house, several of the
most expert and rapid writers, whom he had taught to make figures
comprising numerous words in a few short strokes; as up to that
time they had not used those we call short-hand writers, who
then, as it is said, established the first example of the art.
Thus Cato carried it, and so turned the house again, that it was
decreed the conspirators should be put to death.
Not to omit any small matters that may serve to show Cato's
temper, and add something to the portraiture of his mind, it is
reported, that while Caesar and he were in the very heat, and the
whole senate regarding them two, a little note was brought in to
Caesar, which Cato declared to be suspicious, and urging that
some seditious act was going on, bade the letter be read. Upon
which Caesar handed the paper to Cato; who discovering it to be a
love-letter from his sister Servilia to Caesar, by whom she had
been corrupted, threw it to him again, saying, "Take it,
drunkard," and so went on with his discourse. And, indeed, it
seems Cato had but ill-fortune in women; for this lady was ill
spoken of, for her familiarity with Caesar, and the other
Servilia, Cato's sister also, was yet more ill-conducted; for
being married to Lucullus, one of the greatest men in Rome, and
having brought him a son, she was afterwards divorced for
incontinency. But what was worst of all, Cato's own wife Atilia
was not free from the same fault; and after she had borne him two
children, he was forced to put her away for her misconduct.
After that he married Marcia, the daughter of Philippus, a woman
of good reputation, who yet has occasioned much discourse; and
the life of Cato, like a dramatic piece, has this one scene or
passage full of perplexity and doubtful meaning.
It is thus related by Thrasea, who refers to the authority of
Munatius, Cato's friend and constant companion. Among many that
loved and admired Cato, some were more remarkable and conspicuous
than others. Of these was Quintus Hortensius, a man of high
repute and approved virtue, who desired not only to live in
friendship and familiarity with Cato, but also to unite his whole
house and family with him by some sort or other of alliance in
marriage. Therefore he set himself to persuade Cato, that his
daughter Porcia, who was already married to Bibulus, and had
borne him two children, might nevertheless be given to him, as a
fair plot of land, to bear fruit also for him. "For," said he,
"though this in the opinion of men may seem strange, yet in
nature it is honest, and profitable for the public, that a woman
in the prime of her youth should not lie useless, and lose the
fruit of her womb, nor, on the other side, should burden and
impoverish one man, by bringing him too many children. Also by
this communication of families among worthy men, virtue would
increase, and be diffused through their posterity; and the
commonwealth would be united and cemented by their alliances."
Yet if Bibulus would not part with his wife altogether, he would
restore her as soon as she had brought him a child, whereby he
might be united to both their families. Cato answered, that he
loved Hortensius very well, and much approved of uniting their
houses, but he thought it strange to speak of marrying his
daughter, when she was already given to another. Then
Hortensius, turning the discourse, did not hesitate to speak
openly and ask for Cato's own wife, for she was young and
fruitful, and he had already children enough. Neither can it be
thought that Hortensius did this, as imagining Cato did not care
for Marcia; for, it is said, she was then with child. Cato,
perceiving his earnest desire, did not deny his request, but said
that Philippus, the father of Marcia, ought also to be consulted.
Philippus, therefore, being sent for, came; and finding they were
well agreed, gave his daughter Marcia to Hortensius in the
presence of Cato, who himself also assisted at the marriage.
This was done at a later time, but since I was speaking of women,
I thought it well to mention it now.
Lentulus and the rest of the conspirators were put to death, but
Caesar, finding so much insinuated and charged against him in the
senate, betook himself to the people, and proceeded to stir up
the most corrupt and dissolute elements of the state to form a
party in his support. Cato, apprehensive of what might ensue,
persuaded the senate to win over the poor and unprovided-for
multitude, by a distribution of corn, the annual charge of which
amounted to twelve hundred and fifty talents. This act of
humanity and kindness unquestionably dissipated the present
danger. But Metellus, coming into his office of tribune, began
to hold tumultuous assemblies, and had prepared a decree, that
Pompey the Great should presently be called into Italy, with all
his forces, to preserve the city from the danger of Catiline's
conspiracy. This was the fair pretense; but the true design was,
to deliver all into the hands of Pompey, and give him an absolute
power. Upon this the senate was assembled, and Cato did not fall
sharply upon Metellus, as he often did, but urged his advice in
the most reasonable and moderate tone. At last he descended even
to entreaty, and extolled the house of Metellus, as having always
taken part with the nobility. At this Metellus grew the more
insolent, and despising Cato, as if he yielded and were afraid,
let himself proceed to the most audacious menaces, openly
threatening to do whatever he pleased in spite of the senate.
Upon this Cato changed his countenance, his voice, and his
language; and after many sharp expressions, boldly concluded,
that while he lived, Pompey should never come armed into the
city. The senate thought them both extravagant, and not well in
their safe senses; for the design of Metellus seemed to be mere
rage and frenzy, out of excess of mischief bringing all things to
ruin and confusion, and Cato's virtue looked like a kind of
ecstasy of contention in the cause of what was good and just.
But when the day came for the people to give their voices for the
passing this decree, and Metellus beforehand occupied the forum
with armed men, strangers, gladiators, and slaves, those that in
hopes of change followed Pompey, were known to be no small part
of the people, and besides, they had great assistance from
Caesar, who was then praetor; and though the best and chiefest
men of the city were no less offended at these proceedings than
Cato, they seemed rather likely to suffer with him, than able to
assist him. In the meantime Cato's whole family were in extreme
fear and apprehension for him; some of his friends neither ate
nor slept all the night, passing the whole time in debating and
perplexity; his wife and sisters also bewailed and lamented him.
But he himself, void of all fear, and full of assurance,
comforted and encouraged them by his own words and conversation
with them. After supper he went to rest at his usual hour, and
was the next day waked out of a profound sleep by Minucius
Thermus, one of his colleagues. So soon as he was up, they two
went together into the forum, accompanied by very few, but met by
a great many, who bade them have a care of themselves. Cato,
therefore, when he saw the temple of Castor and Pollux
encompassed with armed men, and the steps guarded by gladiators,
and at the top Metellus and Caesar seated together, turning to
his friends, "Behold," said he, "this audacious coward, who has
levied a regiment of soldiers against one unarmed naked man;"
and so he went on with Thermus. Those who kept the passages,
gave way to these two only, and would not let anybody else pass.
Yet Cato taking Munatius by the hand, with much difficulty pulled
him through along with him. Then going directly to Metellus and
Caesar, he sat himself down between them, to prevent their
talking to one another, at which they were both amazed and
confounded. And those of the honest party, observing the
countenance, and admiring the high spirit and boldness of Cato,
went nearer, and cried out to him to have courage, exhorting also
one another to stand together, and not betray their liberty, nor
the defender of it.
Then the clerk took out the bill, but Cato forbade him to read
it, whereupon Metellus took it, and would have read it himself,
but Cato snatched away the book. Yet Metellus having the decree
by heart, began to recite it without book; but Thermus put his
hand to his mouth, and stopped his speech. Metellus seeing them
fully bent to withstand him, and the people cowed, and inclining
to the better side, sent to his house for armed men. And on
their rushing in with great noise and terror, all the rest
dispersed and ran away, except Cato, who alone stood still, while
the other party threw sticks and stones at him from above, until
Murena, whom he had formerly accused, came up to protect him, and
holding his gown before him, cried out to them to leave off
throwing; and, in fine, persuading and pulling him along, he
forced him into the temple of Castor and Pollux. Metellus now
seeing the place clear, and all the adverse party fled out of the
forum, thought he might easily carry his point; so he commanded
the soldiers to retire, and recommencing in an orderly manner,
began to proceed to passing the decree. But the other side
having recovered themselves, returned very boldly, and with loud
shouting, insomuch that Metellus's adherents were seized with a
panic, supposing them to be coming with a reinforcement of armed
men, and fled every one out of the place. They being thus
dispersed, Cato came in again, and confirmed the courage, and
commended the resolution of the people; so that now the majority
were, by all means, for deposing Metellus from his office. The
senate also being assembled, gave orders once more for supporting
Cato, and resisting the motion, as of a nature to excite sedition
and perhaps civil war in the city.
But Metellus continued still very bold and resolute; and seeing
his party stood greatly in fear of Cato, whom they looked upon as
invincible, he hurried out of the senate into the forum, and
assembled the people, to whom he made a bitter and invidious
speech against Cato, crying out, he was forced to fly from his
tyranny, and this conspiracy against Pompey; that the city would
soon repent their having dishonored so great a man. And from
hence he started to go to Asia, with the intention, as would be
supposed, of laying before Pompey all the injuries that were done
him. Cato was highly extolled for having delivered the state
from this dangerous tribuneship, and having in some measure
defeated, in the person of Metellus, the power of Pompey; but he
was yet more commended when, upon the senate proceeding to
disgrace Metellus and depose him from his office, he altogether
opposed and at length diverted the design. The common people
admired his moderation and humanity, in not trampling wantonly on
an enemy whom he had overthrown, and wiser men acknowledged his
prudence and policy, in not exasperating Pompey.
Lucullus soon after returned from the war in Asia, the finishing
of which, and thereby the glory of the whole, was thus, in all
appearance, taken out of his hands by Pompey. And he was also
not far from losing his triumph, for Caius Memmius traduced him
to the people, and threatened to accuse him; rather, however, out
of love to Pompey, than for any particular enmity to him. But
Cato, being allied to Lucullus, who had married his sister
Servilia, and also thinking it a great injustice, opposed
Memmius, thereby exposing himself to much slander and
misrepresentation, insomuch that they would have turned him out
of his office, pretending that he used his power tyrannically.
Yet at length Cato so far prevailed against Memmius, that he was
forced to let fall the accusations, and abandon the contest. And
Lucullus having thus obtained his triumph, yet more sedulously
cultivated Cato's friendship, which he looked upon as a great
guard and defense for him against Pompey's power.
And now Pompey also returning with glory from the war, and
confiding in the good-will of the people, shown in their splendid
reception of him, thought he should be denied nothing, and sent
therefore to the senate to put off the assembly for the election
of consuls, till he could be present to assist Piso, who stood
for that office. To this most of the senators were disposed to
yield; Cato, only, not so much thinking that this delay would be
of great importance, but, desiring to cut down at once Pompey's
high expectations and designs, withstood his request, and so
overruled the senate, that it was carried against him. And this
not a little disturbed Pompey, who found he should very often
fail in his projects, unless he could bring over Cato to his
interest. He sent, therefore, for Munatius, his friend; and Cato
having two nieces that were marriageable, he offered to marry the
eldest himself, and take the youngest for his son. Some say they
were not his nieces, but his daughters. Munatius proposed the
matter to Cato, in presence of his wife and sisters; the women
were full of joy at the prospect of an alliance with so great and
important a person. But Cato, without delay or balancing,
forming his decision at once, answered, "Go, Munatius, go and
tell Pompey, that Cato is not assailable on the side of the
women's chamber; I am grateful indeed for the intended kindness,
and so long as his actions are upright, I promise him a
friendship more sure than any marriage alliance, but I will not
give hostages to Pompey's glory, against my country's safety."
This answer was very much against the wishes of the women, and to
all his friends it seemed somewhat harsh and haughty. But
afterwards, when Pompey, endeavoring to get the consulship for
one of his friends, gave pay to the people for their votes, and
the bribery was notorious, the money being counted out in
Pompey's own gardens, Cato then said to the women, they must
necessarily have been concerned in the contamination of these
misdeeds of Pompey, if they had been allied to his family; and
they acknowledged that he did best in refusing it. Yet if we may
judge by the event, Cato was much to blame in rejecting that
alliance, which thereby fell to Caesar. And then that match was
made, which, uniting his and Pompey's power, had well-nigh ruined
the Roman empire, and did destroy the commonwealth. Nothing of
which perhaps had come to pass, but that Cato was too
apprehensive of Pompey's least faults, and did not consider how
he forced him into conferring on another man the opportunity of
committing the greatest.
These things, however, were yet to come. Lucullus, meantime, and
Pompey, had a great dispute concerning their orders and
arrangements in Pontus, each endeavoring that his own ordinances
might stand. Cato took part with Lucullus, who was manifestly
suffering wrong; and Pompey, finding himself the weaker in the
senate, had recourse to the people, and to gain votes, he
proposed a law for dividing the lands among the soldiers. Cato
opposing him in this also, made the bill be rejected. Upon this
he joined himself with Clodius, at that time the most violent of
all the demagogues; and entered also into friendship with Caesar,
upon an occasion of which also Cato was the cause. For Caesar
returning from his government in Spain, at the same time sued to
be chosen consul, and yet desired not to lose his triumph. Now
the law requiring that those who stood for any office should be
present, and yet that whoever expected a triumph should continue
without the walls, Caesar requested the senate, that his friends
might be permitted to canvass for him in his absence. Many of
the senators were willing to consent to it, but Cato opposed it,
and perceiving them inclined to favor Caesar, spent the whole day
in speaking, and so prevented the senate from coming to any
conclusion. Caesar, therefore, resolving to let fall his
pretensions to the triumph, came into the town, and immediately
made a friendship with Pompey, and stood for the consulship. And
so soon as he was declared consul elect, he married his daughter
Julia to Pompey. And having thus combined themselves together
against the commonwealth, the one proposed laws for dividing the
lands among the poor people, and the other was present to support
the proposals Lucullus, Cicero, and their friends, joined with
Bibulus, the other consul, to hinder their passing, and, foremost
of them all, Cato, who already looked upon the friendship and
alliance of Pompey and Caesar as very dangerous, and declared he
did not so much dislike the advantage the people should get by
this division of the lands, as he feared the reward these men
would gain, by thus courting and cozening the people. And in
this he gained over the senate to his opinion, as likewise many
who were not senators, who were offended at Caesar's ill conduct,
that he, in the office of consul, should thus basely and
dishonorably flatter the people; practicing, to win their favor,
the same means that were wont to be used only by the most rash
and rebellious tribunes. Caesar, therefore, and his party,
fearing they should not carry it by fair dealing, fell to open
force. First a basket of dung was thrown upon Bibulus as he was
going to the forum; then they set upon his lictors and broke
their rods; at length several darts were thrown, and many men
wounded; so that all that were against those laws, fled out of
the forum, the rest with what haste they could, and Cato, last of
all, walking out slowly, often turning back and calling down
vengeance upon them.
Thus the other party not only carried their point of dividing the
lands, but also ordained, that all the senate should swear to
confirm this law, and to defend it against whoever should attempt
to alter it, indicting great penalties on those that should
refuse the oath. All the senators seeing the necessity they were
in, took the oath, remembering the example of Metellus in old
time, who refusing to swear upon the like occasion, was forced to
leave Italy. As for Cato, his wife and children with tears
besought him, his friends and familiars persuaded and entreated
him, to yield and take the oath; but he that principally
prevailed with him was Cicero, the orator, who urged upon him
that it was perhaps not even right in itself, that a private man
should oppose what the public had decreed; that the thing being
already past altering, it were folly and madness to throw himself
into danger, without the chance of doing his country any good; it
would be the greatest of all evils, to embrace, as it were, the
opportunity to abandon the commonwealth, for whose sake he did
everything, and to let it fall into the hands of those who
designed nothing but its ruin, as if he were glad to be saved
from the trouble of defending it. "For," said he, "though Cato
have no need of Rome, yet Rome has need of Cato, and so likewise
have all his friends." Of whom Cicero professed he himself was
the chief, being; at that time aimed at by Clodius, who openly
threatened to fall upon him, as soon as ever he should get to be
tribune. Thus Cato, they say, moved by the entreaties and the
arguments of his friends, went unwillingly to take the oath,
which he did the last of all, except only Favonius, one of his
intimate acquaintance.
Caesar, exalted with this success, proposed another law, for
dividing almost all the country of Campania among the poor and
needy citizens. Nobody durst speak against it but Cato, whom
Caesar therefore pulled from the rostra, and dragged to prison:
yet Cato did not even thus remit his freedom of speech, but as
he went along, continued to speak against the law, and advised
the people to put down all legislators who proposed the like.
The senate and the best of the citizens followed him with sad and
dejected looks, showing their grief and indignation by their
silence, so that Caesar could not be ignorant how much they were
offended; but for contention's sake, he still persisted,
expecting Cato should either supplicate him, or make an appeal.
But when he saw that he did not so much as think of doing either,
ashamed of what he was doing and of what people thought of it, he
himself privately bade one of the tribunes interpose and procure
his release. However, having won the multitude by these laws and
gratifications, they decreed that Caesar should have the
government of Illyricum, and all Gaul, with an army of four
legions, for the space of five years, though Cato still cried out
they were, by their own vote, placing a tyrant in their citadel.
Publius Clodius, who illegally of a patrician became a plebeian,
was declared tribune of the people, as he had promised to do all
things according to their pleasure, on condition he might banish
Cicero. And for consuls, they set up Calpurnius Piso, the father
of Caesar's wife, and Aulus Gabinius, one of Pompey's creatures,
as they tell us, who best knew his life and manners.
Yet when they had thus firmly established all things, having
mastered one part of the city by favor, and the other by fear,
they themselves were still afraid of Cato, and remembered with
vexation what pains and trouble their success over him had cost
them, and indeed what shame and disgrace, when at last they were
driven to use violence to him. This made Clodius despair of
driving Cicero out of Italy while Cato stayed at home.
Therefore, having first laid his design, as soon as he came into
his office, he sent for Cato, and told him, that he looked upon
him as the most incorrupt of all the Romans, and was ready to
show he did so. "For whereas," said he, "many have applied to be
sent to Cyprus on the commission in the case of Ptolemy, and have
solicited to have the appointment, I think you alone are
deserving of it, and I desire to give you the favor of the
appointment." Cato at once cried out, it was a mere design upon
him, and no favor, but an injury. Then Clodius proudly and
fiercely answered, "If you will not take it as a kindness, you
shall go, though never so unwillingly;" and immediately going
into the assembly of the people, he made them pass a decree, that
Cato should be sent to Cyprus. But they ordered him neither
ship, nor soldier, nor any attendant, except two secretaries; one
of whom was a thief and a rascal, and the other a retainer to
Clodius. Besides, as if Cyprus and Ptolemy were not work
sufficient, he was ordered also to restore the refugees of
Byzantium. For Clodius was resolved to keep him far enough off,
whilst himself continued tribune.
Cato being in this necessity of going away, advised Cicero, who
was next to be set upon, to make no resistance, lest he should
throw the state into civil war and confusion, but to give way to
the times, and thus become once more the preserver of his
country. He himself sent forward Canidius, one of his friends,
to Cyprus, to persuade Ptolemy to yield, without being forced;
which if he did, he should want neither riches nor honor, for the
Romans would give him the priesthood of the goddess at Paphos.
He himself stayed at Rhodes, making some preparations, and
expecting an answer from Cyprus. In the meantime, Ptolemy, king
of Egypt, who had left Alexandria, upon some quarrel between him
and his subjects, and was sailing for Rome, in hopes that Pompey
and Caesar would send troops to restore him, in his way thither
desired to see Cato, to whom he sent, supposing he would come to
him. Cato had taken purging medicine at the time when the
messenger came, and made answer, that Ptolemy had better come to
him, if he thought fit. And when he came, he neither went
forward to meet him, nor so much as rose up to him, but saluting
him as an ordinary person, bade him sit down. This at once threw
Ptolemy into some confusion, who was surprised to see such stern
and haughty manners in one who made so plain and unpretending an
appearance; but afterwards, when he began to talk about his
affairs, he was no less astonished at the wisdom and freedom of
his discourse. For Cato blamed his conduct, and pointed out to
him what honor and happiness he was abandoning, and what
humiliations and troubles he would run himself into; what bribery
he must resort to and what cupidity he would have to satisfy,
when he came to the leading men at Rome, whom all Egypt turned
into silver would scarcely content. He therefore advised him to
return home, and be reconciled to his subjects, offering to go
along with him, and assist him in composing the differences. And
by this language Ptolemy being brought to himself, as it might be
out of a fit of madness or delirium and discerning the truth and
wisdom of what Cato said, resolved to follow his advice; but he
was again over-persuaded by his friends to the contrary, and so,
according to his first design, went to Rome. When he came there,
and was forced to wait at the gate of one of the magistrates, he
began to lament his folly, in having rejected, rather, as it
seemed to him, the oracle of a god, than the advice merely of a
good and wise man.
In the meantime, the other Ptolemy, in Cyprus, very luckily for
Cato, poisoned himself. It was reported he had left great
riches; therefore Cato designing to go first to Byzantium, sent
his nephew Brutus to Cyprus, as he would not wholly trust
Canidius. Then, having reconciled the refugees and the people of
Byzantium, he left the city in peace and quietness; and so sailed
to Cyprus, where he found a royal treasure of plate, tables,
precious stones and purple, all which was to be turned into ready
money. And being determined to do everything with the greatest
exactness, and to raise the price of everything to the utmost, to
this end he was always present at selling the things, and went
carefully into all the accounts. Nor would he trust to the usual
customs of the market, but looked doubtfully upon all alike, the
officers, criers, purchasers, and even his own friends; and so in
fine he himself talked with the buyers, and urged them to bid
high, and conducted in this manner the greatest part of the
sales.
This mistrustfulness offended others of his friends, and, in
particular, Munatius, the most intimate of them all, became
almost irreconcilable. And this afforded Caesar the subject of
his severest censures in the book he wrote against Cato. Yet
Munatius himself relates, that the quarrel was not so much
occasioned by Cato's mistrust, as by his neglect of him, and by
his own jealousy of Canidius. For Munatius also wrote a book
concerning Cato, which is the chief authority followed by
Thrasea. Munatius says, that coming to Cyprus after the other,
and having a very poor lodging provided for him, he went to
Cato's house, but was not admitted, because he was engaged in
private with Canidius; of which he afterwards complained in very
gentle terms to Cato, but received a very harsh answer, that too
much love, according to Theophrastus, often causes hatred; "and
you," he said, "because you bear me much love, think you receive
too little honor, and presently grow angry. I employ Canidius on
account of his industry and his fidelity; he has been with me
from the first, and I have found him to be trusted." These
things were said in private between them two; but Cato afterwards
told Canidius what had passed; on being informed of which,
Munatius would no more go to sup with him, and when he was
invited to give his counsel, refused to come. Then Cato
threatened to seize his goods, as was the custom in the case of
those who were disobedient; but Munatius not regarding his
threats, returned to Rome, and continued a long time thus
discontented. But afterwards, when Cato was come back also,
Marcia, who as yet lived with him, contrived to have them both
invited to sup together at the house of one Barca; Cato came in
last of all, when the rest were laid down, and asked, where he
should be. Barca answered him, where he pleased; then looking
about, he said, he would be near Munatius, and went and placed
himself next to him; yet he showed him no other mark of kindness,
all the time they were at table together. But another time, at
the entreaty of Marcia, Cato wrote to Munatius, that he desired
to speak with him. Munatius went to his house in the morning,
and was kept by Marcia till all the company was gone; then Cato
came, threw both his arms about him, and embraced him very
kindly, and they were reconciled. I have the more fully related
this passage, for that I think the manners and tempers of men are
more clearly discovered by things of this nature, than by great
and conspicuous actions.
Cato got together little less than seven thousand talents of
silver; but apprehensive of what might happen in so long a voyage
by sea, he provided a great many coffers, that held two talents
and five hundred drachmas apiece; to each of these he fastened a
long rope, and to the other end of the rope a piece of cork, so
that if the ship should miscarry, it might be discovered
thereabout the chests lay under water. Thus all the money,
except a very little, was safely transported. But he had made
two books, in which all the accounts of his commission were
carefully written out, and neither of these was preserved. For
his freedman Philargyrus, who had the charge of one of them,
setting sail from Cenchreae was lost, together with the ship and
all her freight. And the other Cato himself kept safe, till he
came to Corcyra, but there he set up his tent in the
market-place, and the sailors being very cold in the night, made
a great many fires, some of which caught the tents, so that they
were burnt, and the book lost. And though he had brought with
him several of Ptolemy's stewards, who could testify to his
integrity, and stop the mouths of enemies and false accusers, yet
the loss annoyed him, and he was vexed with himself about the
matter, as he had designed them not so much for a proof of his
own fidelity, as for a pattern of exactness to others.
The news did not fail to reach Rome, that he was coming up the
river. All the magistrates, the priests, and the whole senate,
with great part of the people, went out to meet him; both the
banks of the Tiber were covered with people; so that his entrance
was in solemnity and honor not inferior to a triumph. But it was
thought somewhat strange, and looked like willfulness and pride,
that when the consuls and praetors appeared, he did not
disembark, nor stay to salute them, but rowed up the stream in a
royal galley of six banks of oars, and stopped not till he
brought his vessels to the dock. However, when the money was
carried through the streets, the people much wondered at the vast
quantity of it, and the senate being assembled, decreed him in
honorable terms an extraordinary praetorship, and also the
privilege of appearing at the public spectacles in a robe faced
with purple. Cato declined all these honors, but declaring what
diligence and fidelity he had found in Nicias, the steward of
Ptolemy, he requested the senate to give him his freedom.
Philippus, the father of Marcia, was that year consul, and the
authority and power of the office rested in a manner in Cato; for
the other consul paid him no less regard for his virtue's sake,
than Philippus did on account of the connection between them.
And Cicero now being returned from his banishment, into which he
was driven by Clodius, and having again obtained great credit
among the people, went, in the absence of Clodius, and by force
took away the records of his tribuneship, which had been laid up
in the capitol. Hereupon the senate was assembled, and Clodius
complained of Cicero, who answered, that Clodius was never
legally tribune, and therefore whatever he had done, was void,
and of no authority. But Cato interrupted him while he spoke,
and at last standing up said, that indeed he in no way justified
or approved of Clodius's proceedings; but if they questioned the
validity of what had been done in his tribuneship, they might
also question what himself had done at Cyprus, for the expedition
was unlawful, if he that sent him had no lawful authority: for
himself, he thought Clodius wee legally made tribune, who, by
permission of the law, was from a patrician adopted into a
plebeian family; if he had done ill in his office, he ought to be
called to account for it; but the authority of the magistracy
ought not to suffer for the faults of the magistrate. Cicero
took this ill, and for a long time discontinued his friendship
with Cato; but they were afterwards reconciled.
Pompey and Crassus, by agreement with Caesar, who crossed the
Alps to see them, had formed a design, that they two should stand
to be chosen consuls a second time, and when they should be in
their office, they would continue to Caesar his government for
five years more, and take to themselves the greatest provinces,
with armies and money to maintain them. This seemed a plain
conspiracy to subvert the constitution and parcel out the empire.
Several men of high character had intended to stand to be consuls
that year, but upon the appearance of these great competitors,
they all desisted, except only Lucius Domitius, who had married
Porcia, the sister of Cato, and was by him persuaded to stand it
out, and not abandon such an undertaking, which, he said, was not
merely to gain the consulship, but to save the liberty of Rome.
In the meantime, it was the common topic among the more prudent
part of the citizens, that they ought not to suffer the power of
Pompey and Crassus to be united, which would then be carried
beyond all bounds, and become dangerous to the state; that
therefore one of them must be denied. For these reasons they
took part with Domitius, whom they exhorted and encouraged to go
on, assuring him, that many who feared openly to appear for him,
would privately assist him. Pompey's party fearing this, laid
wait for Domitius, and set upon him as he was going before
daylight, with torches, into the Field. First he that bore the
light next before Domitius, was knocked down and killed; then
several others being wounded, all the rest fled, except Cato and
Domitius, whom Cato held, though himself were wounded in the arm,
and crying out, conjured the others to stay, and not while they
had any breath, forsake the defense of their liberty against
those tyrants, who plainly showed with what moderation they were
likely to use the power, which they endeavored to gain by such
violence. But at length Domitius also, no longer willing to face
the danger, fled to his own house, and so Pompey and Crassus were
declared consuls.
Nevertheless, Cato would not give over, but resolved to stand
himself to be praetor that year, which he thought would be some
help to him in his design of opposing them; that he might not act
as a private man, when he was to contend with public magistrates.
Pompey and Crassus apprehended this; and fearing that the office
of praetor in the person of Cato might be equal in authority to
that of consul, they assembled the senate unexpectedly, without
giving any notice to a great many of the senators, and made an
order, that those who were chosen praetors, should immediately
enter upon their office, without attending the usual time, in
which, according to law, they might be accused, if they had
corrupted the people with gifts. When by this order they had got
leave to bribe freely, without being called to account, they set
up their own friends and dependents to stand for the praetorship,
giving money, and watching the people as they voted. Yet the
virtue and reputation of Cato was like to triumph over all these
stratagems; for the people generally felt it to be shameful that
a price should be paid for the rejection of Cato, who ought
rather to be paid himself to take upon him the office. So he
carried it by the voices of the first tribe. Hereupon Pompey
immediately framed a lie, crying out, it thundered; and straight
broke up the assembly; for the Romans religiously observed this
as a bad omen, and never concluded any matter after it had
thundered. Before the next time, they had distributed larger
bribes, and driving also the best men out of the Field, by these
foul means they procured Vatinius to be chosen praetor, instead
of Cato. It is said, that those who had thus corruptly and
dishonestly given their voices, at once, when it was done,
hurried, as if it were in flight, out of the Field. The others
staying together, and exclaiming at the event, one of the
tribunes continued the assembly, and Cato standing up, as it were
by inspiration, foretold all the miseries that afterward befell
the state, exhorted them to beware of Pompey and Crassus, who
were guilty of such things, and had laid such designs, that they
might well fear to have Cato praetor. When he had ended this
speech, he was followed to his house by a greater number of
people than were all the new praetors elect put together.
Caius Trebonius now proposed the law for allotting provinces to
the consuls, one of whom was to have Spain and Africa, the other
Egypt and Syria, with full power of making war, and carrying it
on both by sea and land, as they should think fit. When this was
proposed, all others despaired of putting any stop to it, and
neither did nor said anything against it. But Cato, before the
voting began, went up into the place of speaking, and desiring to
be heard, was with much difficulty allowed two hours to speak.
Having spent that time in informing them and reasoning with them,
and in foretelling to them much that was to come, he was not
suffered to speak any longer; but as he was going on, a sergeant
came and pulled him down; yet when he was down, he still
continued speaking in a loud voice, and finding many to listen
to him, and join in his indignation. Then the sergeant took him,
and forced him out of the forum; but as soon as he got loose, he
returned again to the place of speaking, crying out to the people
to stand by him. When he had done thus several times, Trebonius
grew very angry, and commanded him to be carried to prison; but
the multitude followed him, and listened to the speech which he
made to them, as he went along, so that Trebonius began to be
afraid again, and ordered him to be released. Thus that day was
expended, and the business staved off by Cato. But in the days
succeeding, many of the citizens being overawed by fears and
threats, and others won by gifts and favors, Aquillius, one of
the tribunes, they kept by an armed force within the
senate-house; Cato, who cried, it thundered, they drove out of
the forum; many were wounded, and some slain; and at length by
open force they passed the law. At this many were so incensed,
that they got together, and were going to throw down the statues
of Pompey; but Cato went, and diverted them from that design.
Again, another law was proposed, concerning the provinces and
legions for Caesar. Upon this occasion Cato did not apply
himself to the people, but appealed to Pompey himself; and told
him, he did not consider now, that he was setting Caesar upon his
own shoulders, who would shortly grow too weighty for him, and at
length, not able to lay down the burden, nor yet to bear it any
longer, he would precipitate both it and himself with it upon the
commonwealth; and then he would remember Cato's advice, which was
no less advantageous to him, than just and honest in itself.
Thus was Pompey often warned, but still disregarded and slighted
it, never mistrusting Caesar's change, and always confiding in
his own power and good fortune.
Cato was made praetor the following year; but, it seems, he did
not do more honor and credit to the office by his signal
integrity, than he disgraced and diminished it by his strange
behavior. For he would often come to the court without his
shoes, and sit upon the bench without any under garment, and in
this attire would give judgment in capital causes, and upon
persons of the highest rank. It is said, also, he used to drink
wine after his morning meal, and then transact the business of
his office; but this was wrongfully reported of him. The people
were at that time extremely corrupted by the gifts of those who
sought offices, and most made a constant trade of selling their
voices. Cato was eager utterly to root this corruption out of
the commonwealth; he therefore persuaded the senate to make an
order, that those who were chosen into any office, though nobody
should accuse them, should be obliged to come into the court, and
give account upon oath of their proceedings in their election.
This was extremely obnoxious to those who stood for the offices,
and yet more to those vast numbers who took the bribes. Insomuch
that one morning, as Cato was going to the tribunal, a great
multitude of people flocked together, and with loud cries and
maledictions reviled him, and threw stones at him. Those that
were about the tribunal presently fled, and Cato himself being
forced thence, and jostled about in the throng, very narrowly
escaped the stones that were thrown at him, and with much
difficulty got hold of the Rostra, where, standing up with a bold
and undaunted countenance, he at once mastered the tumult, and
silenced the clamor; and addressing them in fit terms for the
occasion, was heard with great attention, and perfectly quelled
the sedition. Afterwards, on the senate commending him for this,
"But I," said he, "do not commend you for abandoning your praetor
in danger, and bringing him no assistance."
In the meantime, the candidates were in great perplexity; for
every one dreaded to give money himself, and yet feared lest his
competitors should. At length they agreed to lay down one
hundred and twenty-five thousand drachmas apiece, and then all of
them to canvass fairly and honestly, on condition, that if any
one was found to make use of bribery, he should forfeit the
money. Being thus agreed, they chose Cato to keep the stakes,
and arbitrate the matter; to him they brought the sum concluded
on, and before him subscribed the agreement. The money he did
not choose to have paid for them, but took their securities who
stood bound for them. Upon the day of election, he placed
himself by the tribune who took the votes, and very watchfully
observing all that passed, he discovered one who had broken the
agreement, and immediately ordered him to pay his money to the
rest. They, however, commending his justice highly, remitted the
penalty, as thinking the discovery a sufficient punishment. It
raised, however, as much envy against Cato as it gained him
reputation, and many were offended at his thus taking upon
himself the whole authority of the senate, the courts of
judicature, and the magistracies. For there is no virtue, the
honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of
justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man
power and authority among the common people. For they only honor
the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love
just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them. They fear
the bold man, and mistrust the clever man, and moreover think
them rather beholding; to their natural complexion, than to any
goodness of their will, for these excellences; they look upon
valor as a certain natural strength of the mind, and wisdom as a
constitutional acuteness; whereas a man has it in his power to be
just, if he have but the will to be so, and therefore injustice
is thought the most dishonorable, because it is least excusable.
Cato upon this account was opposed by all the great men, who
thought themselves reproved by his virtue. Pompey especially
looked upon the increase of Cato's credit, as the ruin of his own
power, and therefore continually set up men to rail against him.
Among these was the seditious Clodius, now again united to
Pompey; who declared openly, that Cato had conveyed away a great
deal of the treasure that was found in Cyprus; and that he hated
Pompey, only because he refused to marry his daughter. Cato
answered, that although they had allowed him neither horse nor
man, he had brought more treasure from Cyprus alone, than Pompey
had, after so many wars and triumphs, from the ransacked world;
that he never sought the alliance of Pompey; not that he thought
him unworthy of being related to him, but because he differed so
much from him, in things that concerned the commonwealth. "For,"
said he, "I laid down the province that was given me, when I went
out of my praetorship; Pompey, on the contrary, retains many
provinces for himself; and he bestows many on others; and but now
he sent Caesar a force of six thousand men into Gaul, which
Caesar never asked the people for, nor had Pompey obtained their
consent to give. Men, and horse, and arms in any number, are
become the mutual gifts of private men to one another; and Pompey
keeping the titles of commander and general, hands over the
armies and provinces to others to govern, while he himself stays
at home to preside at the contests of the canvass, and to stir up
tumults at elections; out of the anarchy he thus creates amongst
us, seeking, we see well enough, a monarchy for himself." Thus
he retorted on Pompey.
He had an intimate friend and admirer of the name of Marcus
Favonius, much the same to Cato as we are told Apollodorus, the
Phalerian, was in old time to Socrates, whose words used to throw
him into perfect transports and ecstasies, getting into his head,
like strong wine, and intoxicating him to a sort of frenzy. This
Favonius stood to be chosen aedile, and was like to lose it; but
Cato, who was there to assist him, observed that all the votes
were written in one hand, and discovering the cheat, appealed to
the tribunes, who stopped the election. Favonius was afterward
chosen aedile, and Cato, who assisted him in all things that
belonged to his office, also undertook the care of the spectacles
that were exhibited in the theater; giving the actors crowns, not
of gold, but of wild olive, such as used to be given at the
Olympic games; and instead of the magnificent presents that were
usually made, he offered to the Greeks beet root, lettuces,
radishes, and pears; and to the Romans, earthen pots of wine,
pork, figs, cucumbers, and little fagots of wood. Some ridiculed
Cato for his economy, others looked with respect on this gentle
relaxation of his usual rigor and austerity. In fine, Favonius
himself mingled with the crowd, and sitting among the spectators,
clapped and applauded Cato, bade him bestow rewards on those who
did well, and called on the people to pay their honors to him, as
for himself he had placed his whole authority in Cato's hands.
At the same time, Curio, the colleague of Favonius, gave very
magnificent entertainments in another theater; but the people
left his, and went to those of Favonius, which they much
applauded, and joined heartily in the diversion, seeing him act
the private man, and Cato the master of the shows, who, in fact,
did all this in derision of the great expenses that others
incurred, and to teach them that in amusements men ought to
seek amusement only, and the display of a decent cheerfulness,
not great preparations and costly magnificence, demanding the
expenditure of endless care and trouble about things of little
concern.
After this Scipio, Hypsaeus, and Milo, stood to be consuls, and
that not only with the usual and now recognized disorders of
bribery and corruption, but with arms and slaughter, and every
appearance of carrying their audacity and desperation to the
length of actual civil war. Whereupon it was proposed, that
Pompey might be empowered to preside over that election. This
Cato at first opposed, saying that the laws ought not to seek
protection from Pompey, but Pompey from the laws. Yet the
confusion lasting a long time, the forum continually, as it were,
besieged with three armies, and no possibility appearing of a
stop being put to these disorders, Cato at length agreed, that
rather than fall into the last extremity, the senate should
freely confer all on Pompey, since it was necessary to make use
of a lesser illegality as a remedy against the greatest of all,
and better to set up a monarchy themselves, than to suffer a
sedition to continue, that must certainly end in one. Bibulus,
therefore, a friend of Cato's, moved the senate to create Pompey
sole consul; for that either he would reestablish the lawful
government, or they should serve under the best master. Cato
stood up, and, contrary to all expectation, seconded this motion,
concluding, that any government was better than mere confusion,
and that he did not question but Pompey would deal honorably, and
take care of the commonwealth, thus committed to his charge.
Pompey being hereupon declared consul, invited Cato to see him in
the suburbs. When he came, he saluted and embraced him very
kindly, acknowledged the favor he had done him, and desired his
counsel and assistance, in the management of this office. Cato
made answer, that what he had spoken on any former occasion was
not out of hate to Pompey, nor what he had now done, out of love
to him, but all for the good of the commonwealth; that in
private, if he asked him, he would freely give his advice; and
in public, though he asked him not, he would always speak his
opinion. And he did accordingly. For first, when Pompey made
severe laws for punishing and laying great fines on those who had
corrupted the people with gifts, Cato advised him to let alone
what was already passed, and to provide for the future; for if he
should look up past misdemeanors, it would be difficult to know
where to stop; and if he would ordain new penalties, it would be
unreasonable to punish men by a law, which at that time they had
not the opportunity of breaking. Afterwards, when many
considerable men, and some of Pompey's own relations were
accused, and he grew remiss, and disinclined to the prosecution,
Cato sharply reproved him, and urged him to proceed. Pompey had
made a law, also, to forbid the custom of making commendatory
orations in behalf of those that were accused; yet he himself
wrote one for Munatius Plancus, and sent it while the cause was
pleading; upon which Cato, who was sitting as one of the judges,
stopped his ears with his hands, and would not hear it read.
Whereupon Plancus, before sentence was given, excepted against
him, but was condemned notwithstanding. And indeed Cato was a
great trouble and perplexity to almost all that were accused of
anything, as they feared to have him one of their judges, yet did
not dare to demand his exclusion. And many had been condemned,
because by refusing him, they seemed to show that they could not
trust their own innocence; and it was a reproach thrown in the
teeth of some by their enemies, that they had not accepted Cato
for their judge.
In the meanwhile, Caesar kept close with his forces in Gaul, and
continued in arms; and at the same time employed his gifts, his
riches, and his friends above all things, to increase his power
in the city. And now Cato's old admonitions began to rouse
Pompey out of the negligent security in which he lay, into a sort
of imagination of danger at hand; but seeing him slow and
unwilling, and timorous to undertake any measures of prevention
against Caesar, Cato resolved himself to stand for the
consulship, and presently force Caesar either to lay down his
arms or discover his intentions. Both Cato's competitors were
persons of good position; Sulpicius, who was one, owed much to
Cato's credit and authority in the city, and it was thought
unhandsome and ungratefully done, to stand against him; not that
Cato himself took it ill, "For it is no wonder," said he, "if a
man will not yield to another, in that which he esteems the
greatest good." He had persuaded the senate to make an order,
that those who stood for offices, should themselves ask the
people for their votes, and not solicit by others, nor take
others about with them, to speak for them, in their canvass. And
this made the common people very hostile to him, if they were to
lose not only the means of receiving money, but also the
opportunity of obliging several persons, and so to become by his
means both poor and less regarded. Besides this, Cato himself
was by nature altogether unfit for the business of canvassing, as
he was more anxious to sustain the dignity of his life and
character, than to obtain the office. Thus by following his own
way of soliciting, and not suffering his friends to do those
things which take with the multitude, he was rejected, and lost
the consulship.
But whereas, upon such occasions, not only those who missed the
office, but even their friends and relations, used to feel
themselves disgraced and humiliated, and observed a sort of
mourning for several days after, Cato took it so unconcernedly,
that he anointed himself, and played at ball in the Field, and
after breakfasting, went into the forum, as he used to do,
without his shoes or his tunic, and there walked about with his
acquaintance. Cicero blames him, for that when affairs required
such a consul, he would not take more pains, nor condescend to
pay some court to the people, as also because that he afterwards
neglected to try again; whereas he had stood a second time to be
chosen praetor. Cato answered, that he lost the praetorship the
first time, not by the voice of the people, but by the violence
and corrupt dealing of his adversaries; whereas in the election
of consuls, there had been no foul play. So that he plainly saw
the people did not like his manners, which an honest man ought
not to alter for their sake; nor yet would a wise man attempt the
same thing again, while liable to the same prejudices.
Caesar was at this time engaged with many warlike nations, and
was subduing them at great hazards. Among the rest, it was
believed he had set upon the Germans, in a time of truce, and had
thus slain three hundred thousand of them. Upon which, some of
his friends moved the senate for a public thanksgiving; but Cato
declared, they ought to deliver Caesar into the hands of those
who had been thus unjustly treated, and so expiate the offense
and not bring a curse upon the city; "Yet we have reason," said
he, "to thank the gods, for that they spared the commonwealth,
and did not take vengeance upon the army, for the madness and
folly of the general." Hereupon Caesar wrote a letter to the
senate, which was read openly, and was full of reproachful
language and accusations against Cato; who, standing up, seemed
not at all concerned, and without any heat or passion, but in a
calm and, as it were, premeditated discourse, made all Caesar's
charges against him show like mere common scolding and abuse, and
in fact a sort of pleasantry and play on Caesar's part; and
proceeding then to go into all Caesar's political courses, and to
explain and reveal (as though he had been not his constant
opponent, but his fellow-conspirator,) his whole conduct and
purpose from its commencement, he concluded by telling the
senate, it was not the sons of the Britons or the Gauls they need
fear, but Caesar himself, if they were wise. And this discourse
so moved and awakened the senate, that Caesar's friends repented
they had had a letter read, which had given Cato an opportunity
of saying so many reasonable things, and such severe truths
against him. However, nothing was then decided upon; it was
merely said, that it would be well to send him a successor. Upon
that Caesar's friends required, that Pompey also should lay down
his arms, and resign his provinces, or else that Caesar might not
be obliged to either. Then Cato cried out, what he had foretold
was come to pass; now it was manifest he was using his forces to
compel their judgment, and was turning against the state those
armies he had got from it by imposture and trickery. But out of
the Senate-house Cato could do but little, as the people were
ever ready to magnify Caesar and the senate, though convinced by
Cato, were afraid of the people.
But when the news was brought that Caesar had seized Ariminum,
and was marching with his army toward Rome, then all men, even
Pompey, and the common people too, cast their eyes on Cato, who
had alone foreseen and first clearly declared Caesar's
intentions. He, therefore, told them, "If you had believed me,
or regarded my advice, you would not now have been reduced to
stand in fear of one man, or to put all your hopes in one alone."
Pompey acknowledged, that Cato indeed had spoken most like a
prophet, while he himself had acted too much like a friend. And
Cato advised the senate to put all into the hands of Pompey; "For
those who can raise up great evils," said he, "can best allay
them."
Pompey, finding he had not sufficient forces, and that those he
could raise, were not very resolute, forsook the city. Cato,
resolving to follow Pompey into exile, sent his younger son to
Munatius, who was then in the country of Bruttium, and took his
eldest with him; but wanting somebody to keep his house and take
care of his daughters, he took Marcia again, who was now a rich
widow, Hortensius being dead, and having left her all his estate.
Caesar afterward made use of this action also, to reproach him
with covetousness, and a mercenary design in his marriage.
"For," said he, "if he had need of wife, why did he part with
her? And if he had not, why did he take her again? Unless he
gave her only as a bait to Hortensius; and lent her when she was
young, to have her again when she was rich." But in answer to
this, we might fairly apply the saying of Euripides.
To speak of mysteries -- the chief of these
Surely were cowardice in Hercules.
For it is much the same thing to reproach Hercules for cowardice,
and to accuse Cato of covetousness; though otherwise, whether he
did altogether right in this marriage, might be disputed. As
soon, however, as he had again taken Marcia, he committed his
house and his daughters to her, and himself followed Pompey. And
it is said, that from that day he never cut his hair, nor shaved
his beard, nor wore a garland, but was always full of sadness,
grief, and dejectedness for the calamities of his country, and
continually showed the same feeling to the last, whatever party
had misfortune or success.
The government of Sicily being allotted to him, he passed over to
Syracuse; where understanding that Asinius Pollio was arrived at
Messena, with forces from the enemy, Cato sent to him, to know
the reason of his coming thither: Pollio, on the other side,
called upon him to show reason for the present convulsions. And
being at the same time informed how Pompey had quite abandoned
Italy, and lay encamped at Dyrrhachium, he spoke of the
strangeness and incomprehensibility of the divine government of
things; "Pompey, when he did nothing wisely nor honestly, was
always successful; and now that he would preserve his country,
and defend her liberty, he is altogether unfortunate." As for
Asinius, he said, he could drive him out of Sicily, but as there
were larger forces coming to his assistance, he would not engage
the island in a war. He therefore advised the Syracusans to join
the conquering party and provide for their own safety; and so set
sail from thence.
When he came to Pompey, he uniformly gave advice to protract the
war; as he always hoped to compose matters, and was by no means
desirous that they should come to action; for the commonwealth
would suffer extremely, and be the certain cause of its own ruin,
whoever were conqueror by the sword. In like manner, he
persuaded Pompey and the council to ordain, that no city should
be sacked that was subject to the people of Rome; and that no
Roman should be killed, but in the heat of battle; and hereby he
got himself great honor, and brought over many to Pompey's party,
whom his moderation and humanity attracted. Afterwards being
sent into Asia, to assist those who were raising men, and
preparing ships in those parts, he took with him his sister
Servilia, and a little boy whom she had by Lucullus. For since
her widowhood, she had lived with her brother, and much recovered
her reputation, having put herself under his care, followed him
in his voyages, and complied with his severe way of living. Yet
Caesar did not fail to asperse him upon her account also.
Pompey's officers in Asia, it seems, had no great need of Cato;
but he brought over the people of Rhodes by his persuasions, and
leaving his sister Servilia and her child there, he returned to
Pompey, who had now collected very great forces both by sea and
land. And here Pompey, more than in any other act, betrayed his
intentions. For at first he designed to give Cato the command of
the navy, which consisted of no less than five hundred ships of
war, besides a vast number of light galleys, scouts, and open
boats. But presently bethinking himself, or put in mind by his
friends, that Cato's principal and only aim being to free his
country from all usurpation, if he were master of such great
forces, as soon as ever Caesar should be conquered, he would
certainly call upon Pompey, also, to lay down his arms, and be
subject to the laws, he changed his mind, and though he had
already mentioned it to Cato, nevertheless made Bibulus admiral.
Notwithstanding this, he had no reason to suppose that Cato's
zeal in the cause was in any way diminished. For before one of
the battles at Dyrrhachium, when Pompey himself, we are told,
made an address to the soldiers and bade the officers do the
like, the men listened to them but coldly, and with silence,
until Cato, last of all, came forward, and in the language of
philosophy, spoke to them, as the occasion required, concerning
liberty, manly virtue, death, and a good name; upon all which he
delivered himself with strong natural passion, and concluded with
calling in the aid of the gods, to whom he directed his speech,
as if they were present to behold them fight for their country.
And at this the army gave such a shout and showed such
excitement, that their officers led them on full of hope and
confidence to the danger. Caesar's party were routed, and put to
flight; but his presiding fortune used the advantage of Pompey's
cautiousness and diffidence, to render the victory incomplete.
But of this we have spoken in the life of Pompey. While,
however, all the rest rejoiced, and magnified their success, Cato
alone bewailed his country, and cursed that fatal ambition, which
made so many brave Romans murder one another.
After this, Pompey following Caesar into Thessaly, left at
Dyrrhachium a quantity of munitions, money, and stores, and many
of his domestics and relations; the charge of all which he gave
to Cato, with the command only of fifteen cohorts. For though he
trusted him much, yet he was afraid of him too, knowing full
well, that if he had bad success, Cato would be the last to
forsake him, but if he conquered, would never let him use his
victory at his pleasure. There were, likewise, many persons of
high rank that stayed with Cato at Dyrrhachium. When they heard
of the overthrow at Pharsalia, Cato resolved with himself, that
if Pompey were slain, he would conduct those that were with him
into Italy, and then retire as far from the tyranny of Caesar as
he could, and live in exile; but if Pompey were safe, he would
keep the army together for him. With this resolution he passed
over to Corcyra, where the navy lay, there he would have resigned
his command to Cicero, because he had been consul, and himself
only a praetor: but Cicero refused it, and was going for Italy.
At which Pompey's son being incensed, would rashly and in heat
have punished all those who were going away, and in the first
place have laid hands on Cicero; but Cato spoke with him in
private, and diverted him from that design. And thus he clearly
saved the life of Cicero, and rescued several others also from
ill-treatment.
Conjecturing that Pompey the Great was fled toward Egypt or
Africa, Cato resolved to hasten after him; and having taken all
his men aboard, he set sail; but first to those who were not
zealous to continue the contest, he gave free liberty to depart.
When they came to the coast of Africa, they met with Sextus,
Pompey's younger son, who told them of the death of his father in
Egypt; at which they were all exceedingly grieved, and declared
that after Pompey they would follow no other leader but Cato.
Out of compassion therefore to so many worthy persons, who had
given such testimonies of their fidelity, and whom he could not
for shame leave in a desert country, amidst so many difficulties,
he took upon him the command, and marched toward the city of
Cyrene, which presently received him, though not long before they
had shut their gates against Labienus. Here he was informed that
Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, was received by king Juba, and
that Attius Varus, whom Pompey had made governor of Africa, had
joined them with his forces. Cato therefore resolved to march
toward them by land, it being now winter; and got together a
number of asses to carry water, and furnished himself likewise
with plenty of all other provision, and a number of carriages.
He took also with him some of those they call Psylli, who cure
the biting of serpents, by sucking out the poison with their
mouths, and have likewise certain charms, by which they stupefy
and lay asleep the serpents.
Thus they marched seven days together, Cato all the time going on
foot at the head of his men, and never making use of any horse or
chariot. Ever since the battle of Pharsalia, he used to sit at
table, and added this to his other ways of mourning, that he
never lay down but to sleep.
Having passed the winter in Africa, Cato drew out his army, which
amounted to little less than ten thousand. The affairs of Scipio
and Varus went very ill, by reason of their dissensions and
quarrels among themselves, and their submissions and flatteries
to king Juba, who was insupportable for his vanity, and the pride
he took in his strength and riches. The first time he came to a
conference with Cato, he had ordered his own seat to be placed in
the middle, between Scipio and Cato; which Cato observing, took
up his chair, and set himself on the other side of Scipio, to
whom he thus gave the honor of sitting in the middle, though he
were his enemy, and had formerly published some scandalous
writing against him. There are people who speak as if this were
quite an insignificant matter, and who nevertheless find fault
with Cato, because in Sicily, walking one day with Philostratus,
he gave him the middle place, to show his respect for philosophy.
However, he now succeeded both in humbling the pride of Juba, who
was treating Scipio and Varus much like a pair of satraps under
his orders, and also in reconciling them to each other. All the
troops desired him to be their leader; Scipio, likewise, and
Varus gave way to it, and offered him the command; but he said,
he would not break those laws, which he sought to defend, and he,
being, but propraetor, ought not to command in the presence of a
proconsul, (for Scipio had been created proconsul,) besides that
people took it as a good omen; to see a Scipio command in Africa,
and the very name inspired the soldiers with hopes of success.
Scipio, having taken upon him the command, presently resolved, at
the instigation of Juba, to put all the inhabitants of Utica to
the sword, and to raze the city, for having, as they professed,
taken part with Caesar. Cato would by no means suffer this; but
invoking the gods, exclaiming and protesting against it in the
council of war, he with much difficulty delivered the poor people
from this cruelty. And afterwards, upon the entreaty of the
inhabitants, and at the instance of Scipio, Cato took upon
himself the government of Utica, lest, one way or other, it
should fall into Caesar's hands; for it was a strong place, and
very advantageous for either party. And it was yet better
provided and more strongly fortified by Cato, who brought in
great store of corn, repaired the walls, erected towers, and made
deep trenches and palisades around the town. The young men of
Utica he lodged among these works, having first taken their arms
from them; the rest of the inhabitants he kept within the town,
and took the greatest care, that no injury should be done nor
affront offered them by the Romans. From hence he sent great
quantity of arms, money, and provision to the camp, and made this
city their chief magazine.
He advised Scipio, as he had before done Pompey, by no means to
hazard a battle against a man experienced in war, and formidable
in the field, but to use delay; for time would gradually abate
the violence of the crisis, which is the strength of usurpation.
But Scipio out of pride rejected this counsel, and wrote a letter
to Cato, in which he reproached him with cowardice; and that he
could not be content to lie secure himself within walls and
trenches, but he must hinder others from boldly using their own
good-sense to seize the right opportunity. In answer to this,
Cato wrote word again, that he would take the horse and foot
which he had brought into Africa, and go over into Italy, to make
a diversion there, and draw Caesar off from them. But Scipio
derided this proposition also. Then Cato openly let it be seen
that he was sorry he had yielded the command to Scipio, who he
saw would not carry on the war with any wisdom, and if, contrary
to all appearance, he should succeed, he would use his success as
unjustly at home. For Cato had then made up his mind, and so he
told his friends, that he could have but slender hopes in those
generals that had so much boldness, and so little conduct; yet if
anything should happen beyond expectation, and Caesar should be
overthrown, for his part he would not stay at Rome, but would
retire from the cruelty and inhumanity of Scipio, who had already
uttered fierce and proud threats against many.
But what Cato had looked for, fell out sooner than he expected.
Late in the evening came one from the army, whence he had been
three days coming, who brought word there had been a great battle
near Thapsus; that all was utterly lost; Caesar had taken the
camps, Scipio and Juba were fled with a few only, and all the
rest of the army was lost. This news arriving in time of war,
and in the night, so alarmed the people, that they were almost
out of their wits, and could scarce keep themselves within the
walls of the city. But Cato came forward, and meeting the people
in this hurry and clamor, did all he could to comfort and
encourage them, and somewhat appeased the fear and amazement they
were in, telling them that very likely things were not so bad in
truth, but much exaggerated in the report. And so he pacified
the tumult for the present. The next morning, he sent for the
three hundred, whom he used as his council; these were Romans,
who were in Africa upon business, in commerce and money-lending;
there were also several senators and their sons. They were
summoned to meet in the temple of Jupiter. While they were
coming together, Cato walked about very quietly and unconcerned,
as if nothing new had happened. He had a book in his hand, which
he was reading; in this book was an account of what provision he
had for war, armor, corn, ammunition and soldiers.
When they were assembled, he began his discourse; first, as
regarded the three hundred themselves, and very much commended
the courage and fidelity they had shown, and their having very
well served their country with their persons, money, and counsel.
Then he entreated them by no means to separate, as if each single
man could hope for any safety in forsaking his companions; on
the contrary, while they kept together, Caesar would have less
reason to despise them, if they fought against him, and be more
forward to pardon them, if they submitted to him. Therefore, he
advised them to consult among themselves, nor should he find
fault, whichever course they adopted. If they thought fit to
submit to fortune, he would impute their change to necessity; but
if they resolved to stand firm, and undertake the danger for the
sake of liberty, he should not only commend, but admire their
courage, and would himself be their leader and companion too,
till they had put to the proof the utmost fortune of their
country; which was not Utica or Adrumetum, but Rome, and she had
often, by her own greatness, raised herself after worse
disasters. Besides, as there were many things that would conduce
to their safety, so chiefly this, that they were to fight against
one whose affairs urgently claimed his presence in various
quarters. Spain was already revolted to the younger Pompey; Rome
was unaccustomed to the bridle, and impatient of it, and would
therefore be ready to rise in insurrection upon any turn of
affairs. As for themselves, they ought not to shrink from the
danger; and in this might take example from their enemy, who so
freely exposes his life to effect the most unrighteous designs,
yet never can hope for so happy a conclusion, as they may promise
themselves; for notwithstanding the uncertainty of war, they will
be sure of a most happy life, if they succeed, or a most glorious
death, if they miscarry. However, he said, they ought to
deliberate among themselves, and he joined with them in praying
the gods that in recompense of their former courage and goodwill,
they would prosper their present determinations. When Cato had
thus spoken, many were moved and encouraged by his arguments, but
the greatest part were so animated by the sense of his
intrepidity, generosity, and goodness, that they forgot the
present danger, and as if he were the only invincible leader, and
above all fortune, they entreated him to employ their persons,
arms, and estates, as he thought fit; for they esteemed it far
better to meet death in following his counsel, than to find their
safety in betraying one of so great virtue. One of the assembly
proposed the making a decree, to set the slaves at liberty; and
most of the rest approved the motion. Cato said, that it ought
not to be done, for it was neither just nor lawful; but if any of
their masters would willingly set them free, those that were fit
for service should be received. Many promised so to do; whose
names he ordered to be enrolled, and then withdrew.
Presently after this, he received letters from Juba and Scipio.
Juba, with some few of his men, was retired to a mountain, where
he waited to hear what Cato would resolve upon; and intended to
stay there for him, if he thought fit to leave Utica, or to come
to his aid with his troops, if he were besieged. Scipio was on
shipboard, near a certain promontory, not far from Utica,
expecting an answer upon the same account. But Cato thought fit
to retain the messengers, till the three hundred should come to
some resolution,
As for the senators that were there, they showed great
forwardness, and at once set free their slaves, and furnished
them with arms. But the three hundred being men occupied in
merchandise and money-lending, much of their substance also
consisting in slaves, the enthusiasm that Cato's speech had
raised in them, did not long continue. As there are substances
that easily admit heat, and as suddenly lose it, when the fire is
removed, so these men were heated and inflamed, while Cato was
present; but when they began to reason among themselves, the
fear they had of Caesar, soon overcame their reverence for Cato
and for virtue. "For who are we," said they, "and who is it we
refuse to obey? Is it not that Caesar, who is now invested with
all the power of Rome? and which of us is a Scipio, a Pompey, or
a Cato? But now that all men make their honor give way to their
fear, shall we alone engage for the liberty of Rome, and in Utica
declare war against him, before whom Cato and Pompey the Great
fled out of Italy? Shall we set free our slaves against Caesar,
who have ourselves no more liberty than he is pleased to allow?
No, let us, poor creatures, know ourselves, submit to the victor,
and send deputies to implore his mercy." Thus said the most
moderate of them; but the greatest part were for seizing the
senators, that by securing them, they might appease Caesar's
anger. Cato, though he perceived the change, took no notice of
it; but wrote to Juba and Scipio to keep away from Utica, because
he mistrusted the three hundred.
A considerable body of horse, which had escaped from the late
fight, riding up towards Utica, sent three men before to Cato,
who yet did not all bring the same message; for one party was for
going to Juba, another for joining with Cato, and some again were
afraid to go into Utica. When Cato heard this, he ordered Marcus
Rubrius to attend upon the three hundred, and quietly take the
names of those who of their own accord set their slaves at
liberty, but by no means to force anybody. Then, taking with him
the senators, he went out of the town, and met the principal
officers of these horsemen, whom he entreated not to abandon so
many Roman senators, nor to prefer Juba for their commander
before Cato, but consult the common safety, and to come into the
city, which was impregnable, and well furnished with corn and
other provision, sufficient for many years. The senators,
likewise, with tears besought them to stay. Hereupon the
officers went to consult their soldiers, and Cato with the
senators sat down upon an embankment, expecting their resolution.
In the meantime comes Rubrius in great disorder, crying out, the
three hundred were all in commotion, and exciting revolt and
tumult in the city. At this all the rest fell into despair,
lamenting and bewailing their condition. Cato endeavored to
comfort them, and sent to the three hundred, desiring them to
have patience. Then the officers of the horse returned with no
very reasonable demands. They said, they did not desire to serve
Juba, for his pay, nor should they fear Caesar, while they
followed Cato, but they dreaded to be shut up with the Uticans,
men of traitorous temper, and Carthaginian blood; for though they
were quiet at present, yet as soon as Caesar should appear,
without doubt they would conspire together, and betray the
Romans. Therefore, if he expected they should join with him, he
must drive out of the town or destroy all the Uticans, that he
might receive them into a place clear both of enemies and
barbarians. This Cato thought utterly cruel and barbarous; but
he mildly answered, he would consult the three hundred.
Then he returned to the city, where he found the men, not framing
excuses, or dissembling out of reverence to him, but openly
declaring that no one should compel them to make war against
Caesar; which, they said, they were neither able nor willing to
do. And some there were who muttered words about retaining the
senators till Caesar's coming; but Cato seemed not to hear this,
as indeed he had the excuse of being a little deaf. At the same
time came one to him, and told him the horse were going away.
And now, fearing lest the three hundred should take some
desperate resolution concerning the senators, he presently went
out with some of his friends, and seeing they were gone some way,
he took horse, and rode after them. They, when they saw him
coming, were very glad, and received him very kindly, entreating
him to save himself with them. At this time, it is said, Cato
shed tears, while entreating them on behalf of the senators, and
stretching out his hands in supplication. He turned some of
their horses' heads, and laid hold of the men by their armor,
till in fine he prevailed with them, out of compassion, to stay
only that one day, to procure a safe retreat for the senators.
Having thus persuaded them to go along with him, some he placed
at the gates of the town, and to others gave the charge of the
citadel. The three hundred began to fear they should suffer for
their inconstancy, and sent to Cato, entreating him by all means
to come to them; but the senators flocking about him, would not
suffer him to go, and said they would not trust their guardian
and savior to the hands of perfidious traitors.
For there had never, perhaps, been a time when Cato's virtue
appeared more manifestly; and every class of men in Utica could
clearly see, with sorrow and admiration, how entirely free was
everything that he was doing from any secret motives or any
mixture of self-regard; he, namely, who had long before resolved
on his own death, was taking such extreme pains, toil, and care,
only for the sake of others, that when he had secured their
lives, he might put an end to his own. For it was easily
perceived, that he had determined to die, though he did not let
it appear.
Therefore, having pacified the senators, he complied with the
request of the three hundred, and went to them alone without any
attendance. They gave him many thanks, and entreated him to
employ and trust them for the future; and if they were not Catos,
and could not aspire to his greatness of mind, they begged he
would pity their weakness; and told him, they had determined to
send to Caesar and entreat him, chiefly and in the first place,
for Cato, and if they could not prevail for him, they would not
accept of pardon for themselves, but as long as they had breath,
would fight in his defense. Cato commended their good
intentions, and advised them to send speedily, for their own
safety, but by no means to ask anything in his behalf; for those
who are conquered, entreat, and those who have done wrong, beg
pardon; for himself, he did not confess to any defeat in all his
life, but rather, so far as he had thought fit, he had got the
victory, and had conquered Caesar in all points of justice and
honesty. It was Caesar that ought to be looked upon as one
surprised and vanquished; for he was now convicted and found
guilty of those designs against his country, which he had so long
practiced and so constantly denied. When he had thus spoken, he
went out of the assembly, and being informed that Caesar was
coming with his whole army, "Ah," said he, "he expects to find us
brave men." Then he went to the senators, and urged them to make
no delay, but hasten to be gone, while the horsemen were yet in
the city. So ordering all the gates to be shut, except one
towards the sea, he assigned their several ships to those that
were to depart, and gave money and provision to those that
wanted; all which he did with great order and exactness, taking
care to suppress all tumults, and that no wrong should be done to
the people.
Marcus Octavius, coming with two legions, now encamped near
Utica, and sent to Cato, to arrange about the chief command.
Cato returned him no answer; but said to his friends, "Can we
wonder all has gone ill with us, when our love of office survives
even in our very ruin?" In the meantime, word was brought him,
that the horse were going away, and were beginning to spoil and
plunder the citizens. Cato ran to them, and from the first he
met, snatched what they had taken; the rest threw down all they
had gotten, and went away silent, and ashamed of what they had
done. Then he called together all the people of Utica, and
requested them upon the behalf of the three hundred, not to
exasperate Caesar against them, but all to seek their common
safety together with them. After that, he went again to the
port, to see those who were about to embark; and there he
embraced and dismissed those of his friends and acquaintance whom
he had persuaded to go. As for his son, he did not counsel him
to be gone, nor did he think fit to persuade him to forsake his
father. But there was one Statyllius, a young man, in the flower
of his age, of a brave spirit, and very desirous to imitate the
constancy of Cato. Cato entreated him to go away, as he was a
noted enemy to Caesar, but without success. Then Cato looked at
Apollonides, the stoic philosopher, and Demetrius, the
peripatetic; "It belongs to you," said he, "to cool the fever of
this young man's spirit, and to make him know what is good for
him." And thus, in setting his friends upon their way, and in
dispatching the business of any that applied to him, he spent
that night, and the greatest part of the next day.
Lucius Caesar, a kinsman of Caesar's, being appointed to go
deputy for the three hundred, came to Cato, and desired he would
assist him to prepare a persuasive speech for them; "And as to
you yourself," said he, "it will be an honor for me to kiss the
hands and fall at the knees of Caesar, in your behalf." But Cato
would by no means permit him to do any such thing; "For as to
myself," said he, "if I would be preserved by Caesar's favor, I
should myself go to him; but I would not be beholden to a tyrant,
for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to
save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has
no title to reign. But if you please, let us consider what you
had best say for the three hundred." And when they had continued
some time together, as Lucius was going away, Cato recommended to
him his son, and the rest of his friends; and taking him by the
hand, bade him farewell.
Then he retired to his house again, and called together his son
and his friends, to whom he conversed on various subjects; among
the rest, he forbade his son to engage himself in the affairs of
state. For to act therein as became him, was now impossible; and
to do otherwise, would be dishonorable. Toward evening he went
into his bath. As he was bathing, he remembered Statyllius, and
called out aloud, "Apollonides, have you tamed the high spirit of
Statyllius, and is he gone without bidding us farewell?" "No,"
said Apollonides, "I have said much to him, but to little
purpose; he is still resolute and unalterable, and declares he is
determined to follow your example." At this, it is said, Cato
smiled, and answered, "That will soon be tried."
After he had bathed, he went to supper, with a great deal of
company; at which he sat up, as he had always used to do ever
since the battle of Pharsalia; for since that time he never lay
down, but when he went to sleep. There supped with him all his
own friends and the magistrates of Utica.
After supper, the wine produced a great deal of lively and
agreeable discourse, and a whole series of philosophical
questions was discussed. At length they came to the strange
dogmas of the stoics, called their Paradoxes; and to this in
particular, That the good man only is free, and that all wicked
men are slaves. The peripatetic, as was to be expected, opposing
this, Cato fell upon him very warmly; and somewhat raising his
voice, he argued the matter at great length, and urged the point
with such vehemence, that it was apparent to everybody, he was
resolved to put an end to his life, and set himself at liberty.
And so, when he had done speaking, there was a great silence, and
evident dejection. Cato, therefore, to divert them from any
suspicion of his design, turned the conversation, and began again
to talk of matters of present interest and expectation, showing
great concern for those that were at sea, as also for the others,
who, traveling by land, were to pass through a dry and barbarous
desert.
When the company was broke up, he walked with his friends, as he
used to do after supper, gave the necessary orders to the
officers of the watch, and going into his chamber, he embraced
his son and every one of his friends with more than usual warmth,
which again renewed their suspicion of his design. Then laying
himself down, he took into his hand Plato's dialogue concerning
the soul. Having read more than half the book, he looked up, and
missing his sword, which his son had taken away while he was at
supper, he called his servant, and asked, who had taken away his
sword. The servant making no answer, he fell to reading again;
and a little after, not seeming importunate, or hasty for it, but
as if he would only know what was become of it, he bade it be
brought. But having waited some time, when he had read through
the book, and still nobody brought the sword, he called up all
his servants, and in a louder tone demanded his sword. To one of
them he gave such a blow in the mouth, that he hurt his own hand;
and now grew more angry, exclaiming that he was betrayed and
delivered naked to the enemy by his son and his servants. Then
his son, with the rest of his friends, came running, into the
room, and falling at his feet, began to lament and beseech him.
But Cato raising up himself, and looking fiercely, "When," said
he, "and how did I become deranged, and out of my senses, that
thus no one tries to persuade me by reason, or show me what is
better, if I am supposed to be ill-advised? Must I be disarmed,
and hindered from using my own reason? And you, young man, why
do not you bind your father's hands behind him, that when Caesar
comes, he may find me unable to defend myself? To dispatch
myself I want no sword; I need but hold my breath awhile, or
strike my head against the wall."
When he had thus spoken, his son went weeping out of the chamber,
and with him all the rest, except Demetrius and Apollollides, to
whom, being left alone with him, he began to speak more calmly.
"And you," said he, "do you also think to keep a man of my age
alive by force, and to sit here and silently watch me? Or do you
bring me some reasons to prove, that it will not be base and
unworthy for Cato, when he can find his safety no other way, to
seek it from his enemy? If so, adduce your arguments, and show
cause why we should now unlearn what we formerly were taught, in
order that rejecting all the convictions in which we lived, we
may now by Caesar's help grow wiser, and be yet more obliged to
him, than for life only. Not that I have determined aught
concerning myself, but I would have it in my power to perform
what I shall think fit to resolve; and I shall not fail to take
you as my advisers, in holding counsel, as I shall do, with the
doctrines which your philosophy teaches; in the meantime, do not
trouble yourselves; but go tell my son, that he should not compel
his father to what he cannot persuade him to." They made him no
answer, but went weeping out of the chamber. Then the sword
being brought in by a little boy, Cato took it, drew it out, and
looked at it; and when he saw the point was good, "Now," said he,
"I am master of myself;" and laying down the sword, he took his
book again, which, it is related, he read twice over. After this
he slept so soundly, that he was heard to snore by those that
were without.
About midnight, he called up two of his freedmen, Cleanthes, his
physician, and Butas, whom he chiefly employed in public
business. Him he sent to the port, to see if all his friends had
sailed; to the physician he gave his hand to be dressed, as it
was swollen with the blow he had struck one of his servants. At
this they all rejoiced, hoping that now he designed to live.
Butas, after a while, returned, and brought word they were all
gone except Crassus, who had stayed about some business, but was
just ready to depart; he said, also, that the wind was high, and
the sea very rough. Cato, on hearing this, sighed, out of
compassion to those who were at sea, and sent Butas again, to see
if any of them should happen to return for anything they wanted,
and to acquaint him therewith.
Now the birds began to sing, and he again fell into a little
slumber. At length Butas came back, and told him, all was quiet
in the port. Then Cato, laying himself down, as if he would
sleep out the rest of the night, bade him shut the door after
him. But as soon as Butas was gone out, he took his sword, and
stabbed it into his breast; yet not being able to use his hand so
well, on account of the swelling, he did not immediately die of
the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed, and throwing down a
little mathematical table that stood by, made such a noise, that
the servants, hearing it, cried out. And immediately his son and
all his friends came into the chamber, where seeing him lie
weltering in his blood, great part of his bowels out of his body,
but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood
in horror. The physician went to him, and would have put in his
bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato,
recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away
the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the
wound, immediately expired.
In less time than one would think his own family could have known
this accident, all the three hundred were at the door. And a
little after, the people of Utica flocked thither, crying out
with one voice, he was their benefactor and their savior, the
only free and only undefeated man. At the very same time, they
had news that Caesar was coming; yet neither fear of the present
danger, nor desire to flatter the conqueror, nor the commotions
and discord among themselves, could divert them from doing honor
to Cato. For they sumptuously set out his body, made him a
magnificent funeral, and buried him by the seaside, where now
stands his statue, holding a sword. And only when this had been
done, they returned to consider of preserving themselves and
their city.
Caesar had been informed that Cato stayed at Utica, and did not
seek to fly; that he had sent away the rest of the Romans, but
himself, with his son and a few of his friends, continued there
very unconcernedly, so that he could not imagine what might be
his design. But having a great consideration for the man, he
hastened thither with his army. When he heard of his death, it
is related he said these words, "Cato, I grudge you your death,
as you have grudged me the preservation of your life." And,
indeed, if Cato would have suffered himself to owe his life to
Caesar, he would not so much have impaired his own honor, as
augmented the other's glory. What would have been done, of
course we cannot know, but from Caesar's usual clemency, we may
guess what was most likely.
Cato was forty-eight years old when he died. His son suffered no
injury from Caesar; but, it is said, he grew idle, and was
thought to be dissipated among women. In Cappadocia, he stayed
at the house of Marphadates, one of the royal family there, who
had a very handsome wife; and continuing his visit longer than
was suitable, he made himself the subject of various epigrams;
such as, for example,
Tomorrow, (being the thirtieth day),
Cato, 't is thought, will go away;
Porcius and Marphadates, friends so true,
One Soul, they say, suffices for the two,
that being the name of the woman, and so again,
To Cato's greatness every one confesses,
A royal Soul he certainly possesses.
But all these stains were entirely wiped off by the bravery of
his death. For in the battle of Philippi, where he fought for
his country's liberty against Caesar and Antony, when the ranks
were breaking, he, scorning to fly, or to escape unknown, called
out to the enemy, showed himself to them in the front, and
encouraged those of his party who stayed; and at length fell, and
left his enemies full of admiration of his valor.
Nor was the daughter of Cato inferior to the rest of her family,
for sober-living and greatness of spirit. She was married to
Brutus, who killed Caesar; was acquainted with the conspiracy,
and ended her life as became one of her birth and virtue. All
which is related in the life of Brutus.
Statyllius, who said he would imitate Cato, was at that time
hindered by the philosophers, when he would have put an end to
his life. He afterward followed Brutus, to whom he was very
faithful and very serviceable, and died in the field of Philippi.
AGIS
The fable of Ixion, who, embracing a cloud instead of Juno,
begot the Centaurs, has been ingeniously enough supposed to have
been invented to represent to us ambitious men, whose minds,
doting on glory, which is a mere image of virtue, produce
nothing that is genuine or uniform, but only, as might be
expected of such a conjunction, misshapen and unnatural actions.
Running after their emulations and passions, and carried away by
the impulses of the moment, they may say with the herdsmen, in
the tragedy of Sophocles,
We follow these, though born their rightful lords,
And they command us, though they speak no words.
For this is indeed the true condition of men in public life,
who, to gain the vain title of being the people's leaders and
governors, are content to make themselves the slaves and
followers of all the people's humors and caprices. For as the
look-out men at the ship's prow, though they see what is ahead
before the men at the helm, yet constantly look back to the
pilots there, and obey the orders they give; so these men
steered, as I may say, by popular applause, though they bear the
name of governors, are in reality the mere underlings of the
multitude. The man who is completely wise and virtuous, has no
need at all of glory, except so far as it disposes and eases his
way to action by the greater trust that it procures him. A
young man, I grant, may be permitted, while yet eager for
distinction, to pride himself a little in his good deeds; for
(as Theophrastus says) his virtues, which are yet tender and, as
it were, in the blade, cherished and supported by praises, grow
stronger, and take the deeper root. But when this passion is
exorbitant, it is dangerous in all men, and in those who govern
a commonwealth, utterly destructive. For in the possession of
large power and authority, it transports men to a degree of
madness; so that now they no more think what is good, glorious,
but will have those actions only esteemed good that are
glorious. As Phocion, therefore, answered king Antipater, who
sought his approbation of some unworthy action, "I cannot be
your flatterer, and your friend," so these men should answer the
people, "I cannot govern, and obey you." For it may happen to
the commonwealth, as to the serpent in the fable, whose tail,
rising in rebellion against the head, complained, as of a great
grievance, that it was always forced to follow, and required
that it should be permitted by turns to lead the way. And
taking the command accordingly, it soon indicted by its
senseless courses mischiefs in abundance upon itself, while the
head was torn and lacerated with following, contrary to nature,
a guide that was deaf and blind. And such we see to have been
the lot of many, who, submitting to be guided by the
inclinations of an uninformed and unreasoning multitude, could
neither stop, nor recover themselves out of the confusion.
This is what has occurred to us to say, of that glory which
depends on the voice of large numbers, considering the sad
effects of it in the misfortunes of Caius and Tiberius Gracchus,
men of noble nature, and whose generous natural dispositions
were improved by the best of educations, and who came to the
administration of affairs with the most laudable intentions; yet
they were ruined, I cannot say by an immoderate desire of glory,
but by a more excusable fear of disgrace. For being excessively
beloved and favored by the people, they thought it a discredit
to them not to make full repayment, endeavoring by new public
acts to outdo the honors they had received, and again, because
of these new kindnesses, incurring yet further distinctions;
till the people and they, mutually inflamed, and vieing thus
with each other in honors and benefits, brought things at last
to such a pass, that they might say that to engage so far was
indeed a folly, but to retreat would now be a shame.
This the reader will easily gather from the story. I will now
compare with them two Lacedaemonian popular leaders, the kings
Agis and Cleomenes. For they, being desirous also to raise the
people, and to restore the noble and just form of government,
now long fallen into disuse, incurred the hatred of the rich and
powerful, who could not endure to be deprived of the selfish
enjoyments to which they were accustomed. These were not indeed
brothers by nature, as the two Romans, but they had a kind of
brotherly resemblance in their actions and designs, which took a
rise from such beginnings and occasions as I am now about to
relate.
When the love of gold and silver had once gained admittance into
the Lacedaemonian commonwealth, it was quickly followed by
avarice and baseness of spirit in the pursuit of it, and by
luxury, effeminacy, and prodigality in the use. Then Sparta
fell from almost all her former virtue and repute, and so
continued till the days of Agis and Leonidas, who both together
were kings of the Lacedaemonians.
Agis was of the royal family of Eurypon, son of Eudamidas, and
the sixth in descent from Agesilaus, who made the expedition
into Asia, and was the greatest man of his time in Greece.
Agesilaus left behind him a son called Archidamus, the same who
was slain at Mandonium, in Italy, by the Messapians, and who
was then succeeded by his eldest son Agis. He being killed by
Antipater near Megalopolis, and leaving no issue, was succeeded
by his brother Eudamidas; he, by a son called Archidamus; and
Archidamus, by another Eudamidas, the father of this Agis of
whom we now treat.
Leonidas, son of Cleonymus, was of the other royal house of the
Agiadae, and the eighth in descent from Pausanias, who defeated
Mardonius in the battle of Plataea. Pausanias was succeeded by
a son called Plistoanax; and he, by another Pausanias, who was
banished, and lived as a private man at Tegea; while his eldest
son Agesipolis reigned in his place. He, dying without issue,
was succeeded by a younger brother, called Cleombrotus, who left
two sons; the elder was Agesipolis, who reigned but a short
time, and died without issue; the younger, who then became king,
was called Cleomenes, and had also two sons, Acrotatus and
Cleonymus. The first died before his father, but left a son
called Areus, who succeeded, and being slain at Corinth, left
the kingdom to his son Acrotatus. This Acrotatus was defeated,
and slain near Megalopolis, in a battle against the tyrant
Aristodemus; he left his wife big with child, and on her being
delivered of a son, Leonidas, son of the above-named Cleonymus,
was made his guardian, and as the young king died before
becoming a man, he succeeded in the kingdom.
Leonidas was a king not particularly suitable to his people.
For though there were at that time at Sparta a general decline
in manners, yet a greater revolt from the old habits appeared in
him than in others. For having lived a long time among the
great lords of Persia, and been a follower of king Seleucus, he
unadvisedly thought to imitate, among Greek institutions and in
a lawful government, the pride and assumption usual in those
courts. Agis, on the contrary, in fineness of nature and
elevation of mind, not only far excelled Leonidas, but in a
manner all the kings that had reigned since the great Agesilaus.
For though he had been bred very tenderly, in abundance and even
in luxury, by his mother Agesistrata and his grandmother
Archidamia, who were the wealthiest of the Lacedaemonians, yet
before the age of twenty, he renounced all indulgence in
pleasures. Withdrawing himself as far as possible from the
gaiety and ornament which seemed becoming to the grace of his
person, he made it his pride to appear in the coarse Spartan
coat. In his meals, his bathings, and in all his exercises, he
followed the old Laconian usage, and was often heard to say, he
had no desire for the place of king, if he did not hope by means
of that authority to restore their ancient laws and discipline.
The Lacedaemonians might date the beginning of their corruption
from their conquest of Athens, and the influx of gold and silver
among them that thence ensued. Yet, nevertheless, the number of
houses which Lycurgus appointed being still maintained, and the
law remaining in force by which everyone was obliged to leave
his lot or portion of land entirely to his son, a kind of order
and equality was thereby preserved, which still in some degree
sustained the state amidst its errors in other respects. But
one Epitadeus happening to be ephor, a man of great influence,
and of a willful, violent spirit, on some occasion of a quarrel
with his son, proposed a decree, that all men should have
liberty to dispose of their land by gift in their lifetime, or
by their last will and testament. This being promoted by him to
satisfy a passion of revenge, and through covetousness consented
to by others, and thus enacted for a law, was the ruin of the
best state of the commonwealth. For the rich men without
scruple drew the estates into their own hands, excluding the
rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being
centered upon a few, the generality were poor and miserable.
Honorable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were
neglected; and the state was filled with sordid business, and
with hatred and envy of the rich. There did not remain above
seven hundred of the old Spartan families, of which perhaps one
hundred might have estates in land, the rest were destitute
alike of wealth and of honor, were tardy and unperforming in the
defense of their country against its enemies abroad, and eagerly
watched the opportunity for change and revolution at home.
Agis, therefore, believing it a glorious action, as in truth it
was, to equalize and repeople the state, began to sound the
inclinations of the citizens. He found the young men disposed
beyond his expectation; they were eager to enter with him upon
the contest in the cause of virtue, and to fling aside, for
freedom's sake, their old manner of life, as readily as the
wrestler does his garment. But the old men, habituated and more
confirmed in their vices, were most of them as alarmed at the
very name of Lycurgus, as a fugitive slave to be brought back
before his offended master. These men could not endure to hear
Agis continually deploring the present state of Sparta, and
wishing she might be restored to her ancient glory. But on the
other side, Lysander, the son of Libys, Mandroclidas, the son of
Ecphanes, together with Agesilaus, not only approved his design,
but assisted and confirmed him in it. Lysander had a great
authority and credit with the people; Mandroclidas was esteemed
the ablest Greek of his time to manage an affair and put it in
train, and, joined with skill and cunning, had a great degree of
boldness. Agesilaus was the king's uncle, by the mother's side;
an eloquent man, but covetous and voluptuous, who was not moved
by considerations of public good, but rather seemed to be
persuaded to it by his son Hippomedon, whose courage and signal
actions in war had gained him a high esteem and great influence
among the young men of Sparta, though indeed the true motive
was, that he had many debts, and hoped by this means to be freed
from them.
As soon as Agis had prevailed with his uncle, he endeavored by
his mediation to gain his mother also, who had many friends and
followers, and a number of persons in her debt in the city, and
took a considerable part in public affairs. At the first
proposal, she was very averse, and strongly advised her son not
to engage in so difficult and so unprofitable an enterprise.
But Agesilaus endeavored to possess her, that the thing was not
so difficult as she imagined, and that it might, in all
likelihood, redound to the advantage of her family; while the
king, her son, besought her not for money's sake to decline
assisting his hopes of glory. He told her, he could not pretend
to equal other kings in riches, the very followers and menials
of the satraps and stewards of Seleucus or Ptolemy abounding
more in wealth than all the Spartan kings put together; but if
by contempt of wealth and pleasure, by simplicity and
magnanimity, he could surpass their luxury and abundance, if he
could restore their former equality to the Spartans, then he
should be a great king indeed. In conclusion, the mother and
the grandmother also were so taken, so carried away with the
inspiration, as it were, of the young man's noble and generous
ambition, that they not only consented, but were ready on an
occasions to spur him on to a perseverance, and not only sent to
speak on his behalf with the men with whom they had an interest,
but addressed the other women also, knowing well that the
Lacedaemonian wives had always a great power with their
husbands, who used to impart to them their state affairs with
greater freedom than the women would communicate with the men in
the private business of their families. Which was indeed one
of the greatest obstacles to this design; for the money of
Sparta being most of it in the women's hands, it was their
interest to oppose it, not only as depriving them of those
superfluous trifles, in which through want of better knowledge
and experience, they placed their chief felicity, but also
because they knew their riches were the main support of their
power and credit.
Those, therefore, who were of this faction, had recourse to
Leonidas, representing to him, how it was his part, as the elder
and more experienced, to put a stop to the ill-advised projects
of a rash young man. Leonidas, though of himself sufficiently
inclined to oppose Agis, durst not openly, for fear of the
people, who were manifestly desirous of this change; but
underhand he did all he could to discredit and thwart the
project, and to prejudice the chief magistrates against him, and
on all occasions craftily insinuated, that it was as the price
of letting him usurp arbitrary power, that Agis thus proposed to
divide the property of the rich among the poor, and that the
object of these measures for canceling debts, and dividing the
lands, was, not to furnish Sparta with citizens, but purchase
him a tyrant's body-guard.
Agis, nevertheless, little regarding these rumors, procured
Lysander's election as ephor; and then took the first occasion
of proposing through him his Rhetra to the council, the chief
articles of which were these: That every one should be free from
their debts; all the lands to be divided into equal portions,
those that lay betwixt the watercourse near Pellene and Mount
Taygetus, and as far as the cities of Malea and Sellasia, into
four thousand five hundred lots, the remainder into fifteen
thousand; these last to be shared out among those of the country
people who were fit for service as heavy-armed soldiers, the
first among the natural born Spartans; and their number also
should be supplied from any among the country people or
strangers who had received the proper breeding of freemen, and
were of vigorous, body and of age for military service. All
these were to be divided into fifteen companies, some of four
hundred, and some of two, with a diet and discipline agreeable
to the laws of Lycurgus.
This decree being proposed in the council of Elders, met there
with opposition; so that Lysander immediately convoked the great
assembly of the people, to whom he, Mandroclidas, and Agesilaus
made orations, exhorting them that they would not suffer the
majesty of Sparta to remain abandoned to contempt, to gratify a
few rich men, who lorded it over them; but that they should call
to mind the oracles in old time which had forewarned them to
beware of the love of money, as the great danger and probable
ruin of Sparta, and, moreover, those recently brought from the
temple of Pasiphae. This was a famous temple and oracle at
Thalamae; and this Pasiphae, some say, was one of the daughters
of Atlas, who had by Jupiter a son called Ammon; others are of
opinion it was Cassandra, the daughter of king Priam, who, dying
in this place, was called Pasiphae, as the revealer of oracles
to all men. Phylarchus says, that this was Daphne, the daughter
of Amyclas, who, flying from Apollo, was transformed into a
laurel, and honored by that god with the gift of prophecy. But
be it as it will, it is certain the people were made to
apprehend, that this oracle had commanded them to return to
their former state of equality settled by Lycurgus. As soon as
these had done speaking, Agis stood up, and after a few words,
told them he would make the best contribution in his power to
the new legislation, which was proposed for their advantage. In
the first place, he would divide among them all his patrimony,
which was of large extent in tillage and pasture; he would also
give six hundred talents in ready money, and his mother,
grandmother, and his other friends and relations, who were the
richest of the Lacedaemonians, were ready to follow his example.
The people were transported with admiration of the young man's
generosity, and with joy, that after three hundred years'
interval, at last there had appeared a king worthy of Sparta.
But, on the other side, Leonidas was now more than ever averse,
being sensible that he and his friends would be obliged to
contribute with their riches, and yet all the honor and
obligation would redound to Agis. He asked him then before them
all, whether Lycurgus were not in his opinion a wise man, and a
lover of his country. Agis answering he was, "And when did
Lycurgus," replied Leonidas, "cancel debts, or admit strangers
to citizenship, -- he who thought the commonwealth not secure
unless from time to time the city was cleared of all
strangers?" To this Agis replied, "It is no wonder that
Leonidas, who was brought up and married abroad, and has
children by a wife taken out of a Persian court, should know
little of Lycurgus or his laws. Lycurgus took away both debts
and loans, by taking away money; and objected indeed to the
presence of men who were foreign to the manners and customs of
the country, not in any case from an ill-will to their persons,
but lest the example of their lives and conduct should infect
the city with the love of riches, and of delicate and luxurious
habits. For it is well known that he himself gladly kept
Terpander, Thales, and Pherecycles, though they were strangers,
because he perceived they were in their poems and in their
philosophy of the same mind with him. And you that are wont to
praise Ecprepes, who, being ephor, cut with his hatchet two of
the nine strings from the instrument of Phrynis, the musician,
and to commend those who afterwards imitated him, in cutting the
strings of Timotheus's harp, with what face can you blame us,
for designing to cut off superfluity and luxury and display from
the commonwealth? Do you think those men were so concerned only
about a lute-string, or intended anything else than to check in
music that same excess and extravagance which rule in our
present lives and manners, and have disturbed and destroyed all
the harmony and order of our city?"
From this time forward, as the common people followed Agis, so
the rich men adhered to Leonidas. They be sought him not to
forsake their cause; and with persuasions and entreaties so far
prevailed with the council of Elders, whose power consisted in
preparing all laws before they were proposed to the people, that
the designed Rhetra was rejected, though but by only one vote.
Whereupon Lysander, who was still ephor, resolving to be
revenged on Leonidas, drew up an information against him,
grounded on two old laws: the one forbids any of the blood of
Hercules to raise up children by a foreign woman, and the other
makes it capital for a Lacedaemonian to leave his country to
settle among foreigners. Whilst he set others on to manage this
accusation, he with his colleagues went to observe the sign,
which was a custom they had, and performed in this manner.
Every ninth year, the ephors, choosing a starlight night, when
there is neither cloud nor moon, sit down together in quiet and
silence, and watch the sky. And if they chance to see the
shooting of a star, they presently pronounce their king guilty
of some offense against the gods, and thereupon he is
immediately suspended from all exercise of regal power, till he
is relieved by an oracle from Delphi or Olympia.
Lysander, therefore, assured the people, he had seen a star
shoot, and at the same time Leonidas was cited to answer for
himself. Witnesses were produced to testify he had married an
Asian woman, bestowed on him by one of king Seleucus's
lieutenants; that he had two children by her, but she so
disliked and hated him, that, against his wishes, flying from
her, he was in a manner forced to return to Sparta, where, his
predecessor dying without issue, he took upon him the
government. Lysander, not content with this, persuaded also
Cleombrotus to lay claim to the kingdom. He was of the royal
family, and son-in-law to Leonidas; who, fearing now the event
of this process, fled as a suppliant to the temple of Minerva of
the Brazen House, together with his daughter, the wife of
Cleombrotus; for she in this occasion resolved to leave her
husband, and to follow her father. Leonidas being again cited,
and not appearing, they pronounced a sentence of deposition
against him, and made Cleombrotus king in his place.
Soon after this revolution, Lysander, his year expiring, went
out of his office, and new ephors were chosen, who gave Leonidas
assurance of safety, and cited Lysander and Mandroclidas to
answer for having, contrary to law, canceled debts, and designed
a new division of lands. They, seeing themselves in danger, had
recourse to the two kings, and represented to them, how
necessary it was for their interest and safety to act with
united authority and bid defiance to the ephors. For, indeed,
the power of the ephors, they said, was only grounded on the
dissensions of the kings, it being their privilege, when the
kings differed in opinion, to add their suffrage to whichever
they judged to have given the best advice; but when the two
kings were unanimous, none ought or durst resist their
authority, the magistrate, whose office it was to stand as
umpire when they were at variance, had no call to interfere when
they were of one mind. Agis and Cleombrotus, thus persuaded,
went together with their friends into the market-place, where,
removing the ephors from their seats, they placed others in
their room of whom Agesilaus was one; proceeding then to arm a
company of young men, and releasing many out of prison; so that
those of the contrary faction began to be in great fear of their
lives; but there was no blood spilt. On the contrary, Agis,
having notice that Agesilaus had ordered a company of soldiers
to lie in wait for Leonidas, to kill him as he fled to Tegea,
immediately sent some of his followers to defend him, and to
convey him safely into that city.
Thus far all things proceeded prosperously, none daring to
oppose; but through the sordid weakness of one man these
promising beginnings were blasted, and a most noble and truly
Spartan purpose overthrown and ruined, by the love of money.
Agesilaus, as we said, was much in debt, though in possession of
one of the largest and best estates in land; and while he gladly
joined in this design to be quit of his debts, he was not at all
willing to part with his land. Therefore he persuaded Agis,
that if both these things should be put in execution at the same
time, so great and so sudden an alteration might cause some
dangerous commotion; but if debts were in the first place
canceled, the rich men would afterwards more easily be
prevailed with to part with their land. Lysander, also, was of
the same opinion, being deceived in like manner by the craft of
Agesilaus; so that all men were presently commanded to bring in
their bonds, or deeds of obligation, by the Lacedaemonians
called Claria, into the market-place, where being laid together
in a heap, they set fire to them. The wealthy, money-lending
people, one may easily imagine, beheld it with a heavy heart;
but Agesilaus told them scoffingly, his eyes had never seen so
bright and so pure a flame.
And now the people pressed earnestly for an immediate division
of lands; the kings also had ordered it should be done; but
Agesilaus, sometimes pretending one difficulty, and sometimes
another, delayed the execution, till an occasion happened to
call Agis to the wars. The Achaeans, in virtue of a defensive
treaty of alliance, sent to demand succors, as they expected
every day that the Aetolians would attempt to enter
Peloponnesus, from the territory of Megara. They had sent
Aratus, their general, to collect forces to hinder this
incursion. Aratus wrote to the ephors, who immediately gave
order that Agis should hasten to their assistance with the
Lacedaemonian auxiliaries. Agis was extremely pleased to see
the zeal and bravery of those who went with him upon this
expedition. They were for the most part young men, and poor;
and being just released from their debts and set at liberty, and
hoping on their return to receive each man his lot of land, they
followed their king with wonderful alacrity. The cities through
which they passed, were in admiration to see how they marched
from one end of Peloponnesus to the other, without the least
disorder, and, in a manner, without being heard. It gave the
Greeks occasion to discourse with one another, how great might
be the temperance and modesty of a Laconian army in old time,
under their famous captains Agesilaus, Lysander, or Leonidas,
since they saw such discipline and exact obedience under a
leader who perhaps was the youngest man all the army. They saw
also how he was himself content to fare hardly, ready to undergo
any labors, and not to be distinguished by pomp or richness of
habit or arms from the meanest of his soldiers; and to people in
general it was an object of regard and admiration. But rich men
viewed the innovation with dislike and alarm, lest haply the
example might spread, and work changes to their prejudice in
their own countries as well.
Agis joined Aratus near the city of Corinth, where it was still
a matter of debate whether or no it were expedient to give the
enemy battle. Agis, on this occasion, showed great forwardness
and resolution, yet without temerity or presumption. He
declared it was his opinion they ought to fight, thereby to
hinder the enemy from passing the gates of Peloponnesus, but,
nevertheless, he would submit to the judgment of Aratus, not
only as the elder and more experienced captain, but as he was
general of the Achaeans, whose forces he would not pretend to
command, but was only come thither to assist them. I am not
ignorant that Baton of Sinope, relates it in another manner; he
says, Aratus would have fought, and that Agis was against it;
but it is certain he was mistaken, not having read what Aratus
himself wrote in his own justification, that knowing the people
had wellnigh got in their harvest, he thought it much better to
let the enemy pass, than put all to the hazard of a battle. And
therefore, giving thanks to the confederates for their
readiness, he dismissed them. And Agis, not without having
gained a great deal of honor, returned to Sparta, where he found
the people in disorder, and a new revolution imminent, owing to
the ill government of Agesilaus.
For he, being now one of the ephors, and freed from the fear
which formerly kept him in some restraint, forbore no kind of
oppression which might bring in gain. Among other things, he
exacted a thirteenth month's tax, whereas the usual cycle
required at this time no such addition to the year. For these
and other reasons fearing those whom he injured, and knowing how
he was hated by the people, he thought it necessary to maintain
a guard, which always accompanied him to the magistrate's
office. And presuming now on his power, he was grown so
insolent, that of the two kings, the one he openly contemned,
and if he showed any respect towards Agis, would have it thought
rather an effect of his near relationship, than any duty or
submission to the royal authority. He gave it out also, that he
was to continue ephor the ensuing year.
His enemies, therefore, alarmed by this report, lost no time in
risking an attempt against him; and openly bringing hack
Leonidas from Tegea, reestablished him in the kingdom, to which
even the people, highly incensed for having been defrauded in
the promised division of lands, willingly consented. Agesilaus
himself would hardly have escaped their fury, if his son,
Hippomedon, whose manly virtues made him dear to all, had not
saved him out of their hands, and then privately conveyed him
from the city.
During this commotion, the two kings fled, Agis to the temple of
the Brazen House, and Cleombrotus to that of Neptune. For
Leonidas was more incensed against his son-in-law; and leaving
Agis alone, went with his soldiers to Cleombrotus's sanctuary,
and there with great passion reproached him for having, though
he was his son-in-law, conspired with his enemies, usurped his
throne, and forced him from his country. Cleombrotus, having
little to say for himself, sat silent. His wife, Chilonis, the
daughter of Leonidas, had chosen to follow her father in his
sufferings; for when Cleombrotus usurped the kingdom, she
forsook him, and wholly devoted herself to comfort her father in
his affliction; whilst he still remained in Sparta, she remained
also, as a suppliant, with him, and when he fled, she fled with
him, bewailing his misfortune, and extremely displeased with
Cleombrotus. But now, upon this turn of fortune, she changed in
like manner, and was seen sitting now, as a suppliant, with her
husband, embracing him with her arms, and having her two little
children beside her. All men were full of wonder at the piety
and tender affection of the young woman, who, pointing to her
robes and her hair, both alike neglected and unattended to, said
to Leonidas, "I am not brought, my father, to this condition you
see me in, on account of the present misfortunes of Cleombrotus;
my mourning habit is long since familiar to me. It was put on
to condole with you in your banishment; and now you are restored
to your country, and to your kingdom, must I still remain in
grief and misery? Or would you have me attired in my royal
ornaments, that I may rejoice with you, when you have killed,
within my arms, the man to whom you gave me for a wife? Either
Cleombrotus must appease you by mine and my children's tears, or
he must suffer a punishment greater than you propose for his
faults, and shall see me, whom he loves so well, die before him.
To what end should I live, or how shall I appear among the
Spartan women, when it shall so manifestly be seen, that I have
not been able to move to compassion either a husband or a
father? I was born, it seems, to participate in the ill fortune
and in the disgrace, both as a wife and a daughter, of those
nearest and dearest to me. As for Cleombrotus, I sufficiently
surrendered any honorable plea on his behalf, when I forsook him
to follow you; but you yourself offer the fairest excuse for his
proceedings, by showing to the world that for the sake of a
kingdom, it is just to kill a son-in-law, and be regardless of a
daughter." Chilonis, having ended this lamentation, rested her
face on her husband's head, and looked round with her weeping
and woebegone eyes upon those who stood be fore her.
Leonidas, touched with compassion, withdrew a while to advise
with his friends; then returning, bade Cleombrotus leave the
sanctuary and go into banishment; Chilonis, he said, ought to
stay with him, it not being just she should forsake a father
whose affection had granted to her intercession the life of her
husband. But all he could say would not prevail. She rose up
immediately, and taking one of her children in her arms, gave
the other to her husband; and making her reverence to the altar
of the goddess, went out and followed him. So that, in a word,
if Cleombrotus were not utterly blinded by ambition, he must
surely choose to be banished with so excellent a woman rather
than without her to possess a kingdom.
Cleombrotus thus removed, Leonidas proceeded also to displace
the ephors, and to choose others in their room; then he began to
consider how he might entrap Agis. At first, he endeavored by
fair means to persuade him to leave the sanctuary, and partake
with him in the kingdom. The people, he said, would easily
pardon the errors of a young man, ambitious of glory, and
deceived by the craft of Agesilaus. But finding Agis was
suspicious, and not to be prevailed with to quit his sanctuary,
he gave up that design; yet what could not then be effected by
the dissimulation of an enemy, was soon after brought to pass by
the treachery of friends.
Amphares, Damochares, and Arcesilaus often visited Agis, and he
was so confident of their fidelity that after a while he was
prevailed with to accompany them to the baths, which were not
far distant, they constantly returning to see him safe again in
the temple. They were all three his familiars; and Amphares had
borrowed a great deal of plate and rich household stuff from
Agesistrata, and hoped if he could destroy her and the whole
family, he might peaceably enjoy those goods. And he, it is
said, was the readiest of all to serve the purposes of Leonidas,
and being one of the ephors, did all he could to incense the
rest of his colleagues against Agis. These men, therefore,
finding that Agis would not quit his sanctuary, but on occasion
would venture from it to go to the bath, resolved to seize him
on the opportunity thus given them. And one day as he was
returning, they met and saluted him as formerly, conversing
pleasantly by the way, and jesting, as youthful friends might,
till coming to the turning of a street which led to the prison,
Amphares, by virtue of his office, laid his hand on Agis, and
told him, "You must go with me, Agis, before the other ephors,
to answer for your misdemeanors." At the same time, Damochares,
who was a tall, strong man, drew his cloak tight round his neck,
and dragged him after by it, whilst the others went behind to
thrust him on. So that none of Agis's friends being near to
assist him, nor anyone by, they easily got him into the prison,
where Leonidas was already arrived, with a company of soldiers,
who strongly guarded all the avenues; the ephors also came in,
with as many of the Elders as they knew to be true to their
party, being desirous to proceed with some resemblance of
justice. And thus they bade him give an account of his actions.
To which Agis, smiling at their dissimulation, answered not a
word. Amphares told him, it was more seasonable to weep, for
now the time was come in which he should be punished for his
presumption. Another of the ephors, as though he would be more
favorable, and offering as it were an excuse, asked him whether
he was not forced to what he did by Agesilaus and Lysander. But
Agis answered, he had not been constrained by any man, nor had
any other intent in what he did, but only to follow the example
of Lycurgus, and to govern conformably to his laws. The same
ephor asked him, whether now at least he did not repent his
rashness. To which the young man answered, that though he were
to suffer the extremest penalty for it, yet he could never
repent of so just and so glorious a design. Upon this they
passed sentence of death on him, and bade the officers carry him
to the Dechas, as it is called, a place in the prison where they
strangle malefactors. And when the officers would not venture
to lay hands on him, and the very mercenary soldiers declined
it, believing it an illegal and a wicked act to lay violent
hands on a king, Damochares, threatening and reviling them for
it, himself thrust him into the room.
For by this time the news of his being seized had reached many
parts of the city, and there was a concourse of people with
lights and torches about the prison gates, and in the midst of
them the mother and the grandmother of Agis, crying out with a
loud voice, that their king ought to appear, and to be heard and
judged by the people. But this clamor, instead of preventing,
hastened his death; his enemies fearing, if the tumult should
increase, he might be rescued during the night out of their
hands.
Agis, being now at the point to die, perceived one of the
officers bitterly bewailing his misfortune; "Weep not, friend,"
said he, "for me, who die innocent, by the lawless act of wicked
men. My condition is much better than theirs." As soon as he
had spoken these words, not showing the least sign of fear, he
offered his neck to the noose.
Immediately after he was dead, Amphares went out of the prison
gate, where he found Agesistrata, who, believing him still the
same friend as before, threw herself at his feet. He gently
raised her up, and assured her, she need not fear any further
violence or danger of death for her son, and that if she
pleased, she might go in and see him. She begged her mother
might also have the favor to be admitted, and he replied, nobody
should hinder it. When they were entered, he commanded the
gate should again be locked, and Archidamia, the grandmother, to
be first introduced; she was now grown very old, and had lived
all her days in the highest repute among her fellows. As soon
as Amphares thought she was dispatched, he told Agesistrata she
might now go in if she pleased. She entered, and beholding her
son's body stretched on the ground, and her mother hanging by
the neck, the first thing she did was, with her own hands, to
assist the officers in taking down the body; then covering it
decently, she laid it out by her son's, whom then embracing, and
kissing his cheeks, "O my son," said she, "it was thy too great
mercy and goodness which brought thee and us to ruin."
Amphares, who stood watching behind the door, on hearing this,
broke in, and said angrily to her, " Since you approve so well
of your son's actions, it is fit you should partake in his
reward." She, rising up to offer herself to the noose, said
only, "I pray that it may redound to the good of Sparta."
And now the three bodies being exposed to view, and the fact
divulged, no fear was strong enough to hinder the people from
expressing their abhorrence of what was done, and their
detestation of Leonidas and Amphares, the contrivers of it. So
wicked and barbarous an act had never been committed in Sparta,
since first the Dorians inhabited Peloponnesus; the very enemies
in war, they said, were always cautious of spilling the blood of
a Lacedaemonian king, insomuch that in any combat they would
decline, and endeavor to avoid them, from feelings of respect
and reverence for their station. And certainly we see that in
the many battles fought betwixt the Lacedaemonians and the other
Greeks, up to the time of Philip of Macedon, not one of their
kings was ever killed, except Cleombrotus, by a javelin-wound,
at the battle of Leuctra. I am not ignorant that the Messenians
affirm, Theopompus was also slain by their Aristomenes; but the
Lacedaemonians deny it, and say he was only wounded.
Be it as it will, it is certain at least that Agis was the first
king put to death in Lacedaemon by the ephors, for having
undertaken a design noble in itself and worthy of his country,
at a time of life when men's errors usually meet with an easy
pardon. And if errors he did commit, his enemies certainly had
less reason to blame him, than had his friends for that gentle
and compassionate temper which made him save the life of
Leonidas, and believe in other men's professions.
CLEOMENES
Thus fell Agis. His brother Archidamus was too quick for
Leonidas, and saved himself by a timely retreat. But his
wife, then mother of a young child, he forced from her own
house, and compelled Agiatis, for that was her name, to marry
his son Cleomenes, though at that time too young for a wife,
because he was unwilling that anyone else should have her,
being heiress to her father Glylippus's great estate; in
person the most youthful and beautiful woman in all Greece,
and well-conducted in her habits of life. And therefore,
they say, she did all she could that she might not be
compelled to this new marriage. But being thus united to
Cleomenes, she indeed hated Leonidas, but to the youth showed
herself a kind and obliging wife. He, as soon as they came
together, began to love her very much, and the constant
kindness that she still retained for the memory of Agis,
wrought somewhat of the like feeling in the young man for
him, so that he would often inquire of her concerning what
had passed, and attentively listen to the story of Agis's
purpose and design. Now Cleomenes had a generous and great
soul; he was as temperate and moderate in his pleasures as
Agis, but not so scrupulous, circumspect, and gentle. There
was something of heat and passion always goading him on, and
an impetuosity and violence in his eagerness to pursue
anything which he thought good and just. To have men obey
him of their own freewill, he conceived to be the best
discipline; but, likewise, to subdue resistance, and force
them to the better course, was, in his opinion, commendable
and brave.
This disposition made him dislike the management of the city.
The citizens lay dissolved in supine idleness and pleasures;
the king let everything take its own way, thankful if nobody
gave him any disturbance, nor called him away from the
enjoyment of his wealth and luxury. The public interest was
neglected, and each man intent upon his private gain. It was
dangerous, now Agis was killed, so much as to name such a
thing as the exercising and training of their youth; and to
speak of the ancient temperance, endurance, and equality, was
a sort of treason against the state. It is said also that
Cleomenes, whilst a boy, studied philosophy under Sphaerus,
the Borysthenite, who crossed over to Sparta, and spent some
time and trouble in instructing the youth. Sphaerus was one
of the first of Zeno the Citiean's scholars, and it is likely
enough that he admired the manly temper of Cleomenes and
inflamed his generous ambition. The ancient Leonidas, as
story tells, being asked what manner of poet he thought
Tyrtaeus, replied, "Good to whet young men's courage;" for
being filled with a divine fury by his poems, they rushed
into any danger. And so the stoic philosophy is a dangerous
incentive to strong and fiery dispositions, but where it
combines with a grave and gentle temper, is most successful
in leading it to its proper good.
Upon the death of his father Leonidas, he succeeded, and
observing the citizens of all sorts to be debauched, the rich
neglecting the public good, and intent on their private gain
and pleasure, and the poor distressed in their own homes, and
therefore without either spirit for war or ambition to be
trained up as Spartans, that he had only the name of king,
and the ephors all the power, he was resolved to change the
present posture of affairs. He had a friend whose name was
Xenares, his lover, (such an affection the Spartans express
by the term, being inspired, or imbreathed with); him he
sounded, and of him he would commonly inquire what manner of
king Agis was, by what means and by what assistance he began
and pursued his designs. Xenares, at first, willingly
compiled with his request, and told him the whole story, with
all the particular circumstances of the actions. But when he
observed Cleomenes to be extremely affected at the relation,
and more than ordinarily taken with Agis's new model of the
government, and begging a repetition of the story, he at
first severely chid him, told him he was frantic, and at last
left off all sort of familiarity and intercourse with him,
yet he never told any man the cause of their disagreement,
but would only say, Cleomenes knew very well. Cleomenes,
finding Xenares averse to his designs, and thinking all
others to be of the same disposition, consulted with none,
but contrived the whole business by himself. And considering
that it would be easier to bring about an alteration when the
city was at war, than when in peace, he engaged the
commonwealth in a quarrel with the Achaeans, who had given
them fair occasions to complain. For Aratus, a man of the
greatest power amongst all the Achaeans, designed from the
very beginning to bring all the Peloponnesians into one
common body. And to effect this was the one object of all
his many commanderships and his long political course; as he
thought this the only means to make them a match for their
foreign enemies. Pretty nearly all the rest agreed to his
proposals, only the Lacedaemonians, the Eleans, and as many
of the Arcadians as inclined to the Spartan interest,
remained unpersuaded. And so as soon as Leonidas was dead,
he began to attack the Arcadians, and wasted those especially
that bordered on Achaea, by this means designing to try the
inclinations of the Spartans, and despising Cleomenes as a
youth, and of no experience in affairs of state or war. Upon
this, the ephors sent Cleomenes to surprise the Athenaeum,
near Belbina, which is a pass commanding an entrance into
Laconia and was then the subject of litigation with the
Megalopolitans. Cleomenes possessed himself of the place,
and fortified it, at which action Aratus showed no public
resentment, but marched by night to surprise Tegea and
Orchormenus. The design failed, for those that were to
betray the cities into his hands, turned afraid; so Aratus
retreated, imagining that his design had been undiscovered.
But Cleomenes wrote a sarcastic letter to him, and desired to
know, as from a friend, whither he intended to march at
night; and Aratus answering, that having heard of his design
to fortify Belbina, he meant to march thither to oppose him,
Cleomenes rejoined, that he did not dispute it, but begged to
be informed, if he might be allowed to ask the question, why
he carried those torches and ladders with him.
Aratus laughing at the jest, and asking what manner of youth
this was, Damocrates, a Spartan exile, replied, "If you have
any designs upon the Lacedaemonians, begin before this young
eagle's talons are grown." Presently after this, Cleomenes,
encamping in Arcadia with a few horse and three hundred foot,
received orders from the ephors, who feared to engage in the
war, commanding him home; but when upon his retreat Aratus
took Caphyae, they commissioned him again. In this
expedition he took Methydrium, and overran the country of the
Argives; and the Achaeans, to oppose him, came out with an
army of twenty thousand foot and one thousand horse, under
the command of Aristomachus. Cleomenes faced them at
Pallantium, and offered battle, but Aratus, being cowed by
his bravery, would not suffer the general to engage, but
retreated, amidst the reproaches of the Achaeans, and the
derision and scorn of the Spartans, who were not above five
thousand. Cleomenes, encouraged by this success, began to
speak boldly among the citizens, and reminding them of a
sentence of one of their ancient kings, said, it was in vain
now that the Spartans asked, not how many their enemies were,
but where they were. After this, marching to the assistance
of the Eleans, whom the Achaeans were attacking, falling upon
the enemy in their retreat near the Lycaeum, he put their
whole army to flight, taking a great number of captives, and
leaving many dead upon the place; so that it was commonly
reported amongst the Greeks that Aratus was slain. But
Aratus, making the best advantage of the opportunity,
immediately after the defeat marched to Mantinea, and before
anybody suspected it, took the city, and put a garrison into
it. Upon this, the Lacedaemonians being quite discouraged,
and opposing Cleomenes's designs of carrying on the war, he
now exerted himself to have Archidamus, the brother of Agis,
sent for from Messene, as he, of the other family, had a
right to the kingdom ; and besides, Cleomenes thought that
the power of the ephors would be reduced, when the kingly
state was thus filled up, and raised to its proper position.
But those that were concerned in the murder of Agis,
perceiving the design, and fearing that upon Archidamus's
return they should be called to an account, received him on
his coming privately into town, and joined in bringing him
home, and presently after murdered him. Whether Cleomenes
was against it, as Phylarchus thinks, or whether he was
persuaded by his friends, or let him fall into their hands,
is uncertain; however, they were most blamed, as having
forced his consent.
He, still resolving to new model the state, bribed the ephors
to send him out to war; and won the affections of many others
by means of his mother Cratesiclea, who spared no cost and
was very zealous to promote her son's ambition; and though of
herself she had no inclination to marry, yet for his sake,
she accepted, as her husband, one of the chiefest citizens
for wealth and power. Cleomenes, marching forth with the
army now under his commend, took Leuctra, a place belonging
to Megalopolis; and the Achaeans quickly coming up to resist
him with a good body of men commanded by Aratus, in a battle
under the very walls of the city some part of his army was
routed. But whereas Aratus had commanded the Achaeans not to
pass a deep watercourse, and thus put a stop to the pursuit,
Lydiadas, the Megalopolitan, fretting at the orders, and
encouraging the horse which he led, and following the routed
enemy, got into a place full of vines, hedges, and ditches;
and being forced to break his ranks, began to retire in
disorder. Cleomenes, observing the advantage, commanded the
Tarentines and Cretans to engage him, by whom, after a brave
defense, he was routed and slain. The Lacedaemonians, thus
encouraged, fell with a great shout upon the Achaeans, and
routed their whole army. Of the slain, who were very many,
the rest Cleomenes delivered up, when the enemy petitioned
for them; but the body of Lydiadas he commanded to be brought
to him; and then putting on it a purple robe, and a crown
upon its head, sent a convoy with it to the gates of
Megalopolis. This is that Lydiadas who resigned his power as
tyrant, restored liberty to the citizens, and joined the city
to the Achaean interest.
Cleomenes, being very much elated by this success, and
persuaded that if matters were wholly at his disposal, he
should soon be too hard for the Achaeans, persuaded
Megistonus, his mother's husband, that it was expedient for
the state to shake off the power of the ephors, and to put
all their wealth into one common stock for the whole body;
thus Sparta, being restored to its old equality, might aspire
again to the command of all Greece. Megistonus liked the
design, and engaged two or three more of his friends. About
that time, one of the ephors, sleeping in Pasiphae's temple,
dreamed a very surprising dream; for he thought he saw the
four chairs removed out of the place where the ephors used to
sit and do the business of their office, and one only set
there; and whilst he wondered, he heard a voice out of the
temple, saying, "This is best for Sparta." The person
telling Cleomenes this dream, he was a little troubled at
first, fearing that he used this as a trick to sift him, upon
some suspicion of his design, but when he was satisfied that
the relater spoke truth, he took heart again. And carrying
with him those whom he thought would be most against his
project, he took Heraea and Alsaea, two towns in league with
the Achaeans, furnished Orchomenus with provisions, encamped
before Mantinea, and with long marches up and down so
harassed the Lacedaemonians, that many of them at their own
request were left behind in Arcadia, while he with the
mercenaries went on toward Sparta, and by the way
communicated his design to those whom he thought fittest for
his purpose, and marched slowly, that he might catch the
ephors at supper.
When he was come near the city, he sent Euryclidas to the
public table, where the ephors supped, under pretense of
carrying some message from him from the army; Therycion,
Phoebis, and two of those who had been bred up with
Cleomenes, whom they call mothaces, followed with a few
soldiers; and whilst Euryclidas was delivering his message to
the ephors, they ran upon them with their drawn swords, and
slew them. The first of them, Agylaeus, on receiving the
blow, fell and lay as dead; but in a little time quietly
raising himself, and drawing himself out of the room, he
crept, without being discovered, into a little building which
was dedicated to Fear, and which always used to be shut, but
then by chance was open; and being got in, he shut the door,
and lay close. The other four were killed, and above ten
more that came to their assistance; to those that were quiet
they did no harm, stopped none that fled from the city, and
spared Agylaeus, when he came out of the temple the next day.
The Lacedaemonians have not only sacred places dedicated to
Fear, but also to Death, Laughter, and the like Passions.
Now they worship Fear, not as they do supernatural powers
which they dread, esteeming it hurtful, but thinking their
polity is chiefly kept up by fear. And therefore, the
ephors, Aristotle is my author, when they entered upon their
government, made proclamation to the people, that they should
shave their mustaches, and be obedient to the laws, that the
laws might not be hard upon them, making, I suppose, this
trivial injunction, to accustom their youth to obedience even
in the smallest matters. And the ancients, I think, did not
imagine bravery to be plain fearlessness, but a cautious fear
of blame and disgrace. For those that show most timidity
towards the laws, are most bold against their enemies; and
those are least afraid of any danger who are most afraid of a
just reproach. Therefore it was well said that
A reverence still attends on fear;
and by Homer,
Feared you shall be, dear father, and revered;
and again,
In silence fearing those that bore the sway;
for the generality of men are most ready to reverence those
whom they fear. And, therefore, the Lacedaemonians placed
the temple of Fear by the Syssitium of the ephors, having
raised that magistracy to almost royal authority.
The next day, Cleomenes proscribed eighty of the citizens,
whom he thought necessary to banish, and removed all the
seats of the ephors, except one, in which he himself designed
to sit and give audience; and calling the citizens together,
he made an apology for his proceedings, saying, that by
Lycurgus the council of Elders was joined to the kings, and
that that model of government had continued a long time, and
no other sort of magistrates had been wanted. But
afterwards, in the long war with the Messenians, when the
kings, having to command the army, found no time to
administer justice, they chose some of their friends, and
left them to determine the suits of the citizens in their
stead. These were called ephors, and at first behaved
themselves as servants to the kings; but afterwards, by
degrees, they appropriated the power to themselves and
erected a distinct magistracy. An evidence of the truth of
this was the custom still observed by the kings, who, when
the ephors send for them, refuse, upon the first and the
second summons, to go, but upon the third, rise up and attend
them. And Asteropus, the first that raised the ephors to
that height of power, lived a great many years after their
institution. So long, therefore, he continued, as they
contained themselves within their own proper sphere, it had
been better to bear with them than to make a disturbance.
But that an upstart, introduced power should so far subvert
the ancient form of government as to banish some kings,
murder others, without hearing their defense, and threaten
those who desired to see the best and most divine
constitution restored in Sparta, was not to be borne.
Therefore, if it had been possible for him, without
bloodshed, to free Lacedaemon from those foreign plagues,
luxury, sumptuosity, debts, and usury, and from those yet
more ancient evils, poverty and riches, he should have
thought himself the happiest king in the world, to have
succeeded, like an expert physician, in curing the diseases
of his country without pain. But now, in this necessity,
Lycurgus's example favored his proceedings, who being neither
king nor magistrate, but a private man, and aiming at the
kingdom, came armed into the market-place, so that king
Charillus fled in alarm to the altar. He, being a good man,
and a lover of his country, readily concurred in Lycurgus's
designs, and admitted the revolution in the state. But, by
his own actions, Lycurgus had nevertheless borne witness that
it was difficult to change the government without force and
fear, in the use of which he himself, he said, had been so
moderate as to do no more than put out of the way those who
opposed themselves to Sparta's happiness and safety. For the
rest of the nation, he told them, the whole land was now
their common property; debtors should be cleared of their
debts, and examination made of those who were not citizens,
that the bravest men might thus be made free Spartans, and
give aid in arms to save the city, and "We" he said, "may no
longer see Laconia, for want of men to defend it, wasted by
the Aetolians and Illyrians."
Then he himself first, with his step-father, Megistonus, and
his friends, gave up all their wealth into one public stock,
and all the other citizens followed the example. The land
was divided, and everyone that he had banished, had a share
assigned him; for he promised to restore all, as soon as
things were settled and in quiet. And completing the number
of citizens out of the best and most promising of the
country people, he raised a body of four thousand men; and
instead of a spear, taught them to use a surissu, with both
hands, and to carry their shields by a band, and not by a
handle, as before. After this, he began to consult about
the education of the youth, and the Discipline, as they call
it; most of the particulars of which, Sphaerus, being then at
Sparta, assisted in arranging; and, in a short time, the
schools of exercise and the common tables recovered their
ancient decency and order, a few out of necessity, but the
most voluntarily, returning to that generous and Laconic way
of living. And, that the name of monarch might give them no
jealousy, he made Euclidas, his brother, partner in the
throne; and that was the only time that Sparta had two kings
of the same family.
Then, understanding that the Achaeans and Aratus imagined
that this change had disturbed and shaken his affairs, and
that he would not venture out of Sparta and leave the city
now unsettled in the midst of so great an alteration, he
thought it great and serviceable to his designs, to show his
enemies the zeal and forwardness of his troops. And,
therefore, making an incursion into the territories of
Megalopolis, he wasted the country far and wide, and
collected a considerable booty. And, at last, taking a
company of actors, as they were traveling from Messene, and
building a theater in the enemy's country, and offering a
prize of forty minae in value, he sat spectator a whole day;
not that he either desired or needed such amusement, but
wishing to show his disregard for his enemies, and by a
display of his contempt, to prove the extent of his
superiority to them. For his alone, of all the Greek or
royal armies, had no stage-players, no jugglers, no dancing
or singing women attending it, but was free from all sorts of
looseness, wantonness, and festivity; the young men being for
the most part at their exercises, and the old men giving them
lessons, or, at leisure times, diverting themselves with
their native jests, and quick Laconian answers; the good
results of which we have noticed in the life of Lycurgus.
He himself instructed all by his example; he was a living
pattern of temperance before every man's eyes; and his course
of living was neither more stately, nor more expensive, nor
in any way more pretentious, than that of any of his people.
And this was a considerable advantage to him in his designs
on Greece. For men when they waited upon other kings, did
not so much admire their wealth, costly furniture, and
numerous attendance, as they hated their pride and state,
their difficulty of access, and imperious answers to their
addresses. But when they came to Cleomenes, who was both
really a king, and bore that title, and saw no purple, no
robes of state upon him, no couches and litters about him for
his ease, and that he did not receive requests and return
answers after a long delay and difficulty, through a number
of messengers and doorkeepers, or by memorials, but that he
rose and came forward in any dress he might happen to be
wearing, to meet those that came to wait upon him, stayed,
talked freely and affably with all that had business, they
were extremely taken, and won to his service, and professed
that he alone was the true son of Hercules. His common every
day's meal was in an ordinary room, very sparing, and after
the Laconic manner; and when he entertained ambassadors or
strangers, two more couches were added, and a little better
dinner provided by his servants, but no savoring sauces or
sweetmeats; only the dishes were larger, and the wine more
plentiful. For he reproved one of his friends for
entertaining some strangers with nothing but barley bread and
black broth, such diet as they usually had in their phiditia;
saying, that upon such occasions, and when they entertained
strangers, it was not well to be too exact Laconians. After
the table was removed, a stand was brought in, with a brass
vessel full of wine, two silver bowls which held about a pint
apiece, a few silver cups, of which he that pleased might
drink, but wine was not urged on any of the guests. There
was no music, nor was any required; for he entertained the
company himself, sometimes asking questions, sometimes
telling stories; and his conversation was neither too grave
or disagreeably serious, nor yet in any way rude or
ungraceful in its pleasantry. For he thought those ways of
entrapping men by gifts and presents, which other kings use,
dishonest and inartificial; and it seemed to him to be the
most noble method, and most suitable to a king, to win the
affections of those that came near him, by personal
intercourse and agreeable conversation, since between a
friend and a mercenary the only distinction is, that we gain
the one by one's character and conversation, the other by
one's money.
The Mantineans were the first that requested his aid; and
when he entered their city by night, they aided him to expel
the Achaean garrison, and put themselves under his
protection. He restored them their polity and laws, and the
same day marched to Tegea; and a little while after, fetching
a compass through Arcadia, he made a descent upon Pherae, in
Achaea, intending to force Aratus to a battle, or bring him
into disrepute, for refusing to engage, and suffering him to
waste the country. Hyperbatas at that time was general, but
Aratus had all the power amongst the Achaeans. The Achaeans,
marching forth with their whole strength, and encamping in
Dymae, near the Hecatombaeum, Cleomenes came up, and thinking
it not advisable to pitch between Dymae, a city of the
enemies, and the camp of the Achaeans, he boldly dared the
Achaeans, and forced them to a battle, and routing their
phalanx, slew a great many in the fight, and took many
prisoners, and thence marching to Langon, and driving out the
Achaean garrison, he restored the city to the Eleans.
The affairs of the Achaeans being in this unfortunate
condition, Aratus, who was wont to take office every other
year, refused the command, though they entreated and urged
him to accept it. And this was ill done, when the storm was
high, to put the power out of his own hands, and set another
to the helm. Cleomenes at first proposed fair and easy
conditions by his ambassadors to the Achaeans, but afterward
he sent others, and required the chief command to be settled
upon him; in other matters offering to agree to reasonable
terms, and to restore their captives and their country. The
Achaeans were willing to come to an agreement upon those
terms, and invited Cleomenes to Lerna, where an assembly was
to be held; but it happened that Cleomenes, hastily marching
on, and drinking water at a wrong time, brought up a quantity
of blood, and lost his voice; therefore being unable to
continue his journey, he sent the chiefest of the captives to
the Achaeans, and, putting off the meeting for some time,
retired to Lacedaemon.
This ruined the affairs of Greece, which was just beginning
in some sort to recover from its disasters, and to show some
capability of delivering itself from the insolence and
rapacity of the Macedonians. For Aratus, (whether fearing or
distrusting Cleomenes, or envying his unlooked-for success,
or thinking it a disgrace for him who had commanded
thirty-three years, to have a young man succeed to all his
glory and his power, and be head of that government which he
had been raising and settling so many years,) first
endeavored to keep the Achaeans from closing with Cleomenes;
but when they would not hearken to him, fearing Cleomenes's
daring spirit, and thinking the Lacedaemonians' proposals to
be very reasonable, who designed only to reduce Peloponnesus
to its old model, upon this he took his last refuge in an
action which was unbecoming any of the Greeks, most
dishonorable to him, and most unworthy his former bravery and
exploits. For he called Antigonus into Greece, and filled
Peloponnesus with Macedonians, whom he himself, when a youth,
having beaten their garrison out of the castle of Corinth,
had driven from the same country. And there had been
constant suspicion and variance between him and all the
kings, and of Antigonus, in particular, he has said a
thousand dishonorable things in the commentaries he has left
behind him. And though he declares himself how he suffered
considerable losses, and underwent great dangers, that he
might free Athens from the garrison of the Macedonians, yet,
afterwards, he brought the very same men armed into his own
country, and his own house, even to the women's apartment.
He would not endure that one of the family of Hercules, and
king of Sparta, and one that had reformed the polity of his
country, as it were, from a disordered harmony, and retuned
it to the plain Doric measure and rule of life of Lycurgus,
should be styled head of the Tritaeans and Sicyonians; and
whilst he fled the barley-cake and coarse coat, and which
were his chief accusations against Cleomenes, the extirpation
of wealth and reformation of poverty, he basely subjected
himself, together with Achaea, to the diadem and purple, to
the imperious commands of the Macedonians and their satraps.
That he might not seem to be under Cleomenes, he offered
sacrificers, called Antigonea, in honor of Antigonus, and
sang paeans himself, with a garland on his head, to the
praise of a wasted, consumptive Macedonian. I write this not
out of any design to disgrace Aratus, for in many things he
showed himself a true lover of Greece, and a great man, but
out of pity to the weakness of human nature, which in
characters like this, so worthy and in so many ways disposed
to virtue, cannot maintain its honors unblemished by some
envious fault.
The Achaeans meeting again in assembly at Argos, and
Cleomenes having come from Tegea, there were great hopes that
all differences would be composed. But Aratus, Antigonus and
he having already agreed upon the chief articles of their
league, fearing that Cleomenes would carry all before him,
and either win or force the multitude to comply with his
demands, proposed, that having three hundred hostages put
into his hands, he should come alone into the town, or bring
his army to the place of exercise, called the Cyllarabium,
outside the city, and treat there.
Cleomenes, hearing this, said, that he was unjustly dealt
with; for they ought to have told him so plainly at first,
and not now he was come even to their doors, show their
jealousy, and deny him admission. And writing a letter to
the Achaeans about the same subject, the greatest part of
which was an accusation of Aratus, while Aratus, on the other
side, spoke violently against him to the assembly, he hastily
dislodged, and sent a trumpeter to denounce war against the
Achaeans, not to Argos, but to Aegium, as Aratus writes, that
he might not give them notice enough to make provision for
their defense. There had also been a movement among the
Achaeans themselves, and the cities were eager for revolt;
the common people expecting a division of the land, and a
release from their debts, and the chief men being in many
places ill-disposed to Aratus, and some of them angry and
indignant with him, for having brought the Macedonians into
Peloponnesus. Encouraged by these misunderstandings,
Cleomenes invaded Achaea, and first took Pellene by surprise,
and beat out the Achaean garrison, and afterwards brought
over Pheneus and Penteleum to his side. Now the Achaeans,
suspecting some treacherous designs at Corinth and Sicyon,
sent their horse and mercenaries out of Argos, to have an eye
upon those cities, and they themselves went to Argos, to
celebrate the Nemean games. Cleomenes, advertised of this
march, and hoping, as it afterward fell out, that upon an
unexpected advance to the city, now busied in the solemnity
of the games, and thronged with numerous spectators, he
should raise a considerable terror and confusion amongst
them, by night marched with his army to the walls, and taking
the quarter of the town called Aspis, which lies above the
theater, well fortified, and hard to be approached, he so
terrified them that none offered to resist, but they agreed
to accept a garrison, to give twenty citizens for hostages,
and to assist the Lacedaemonians, and that he should have the
chief command.
This action considerably increased his reputation and his
power; for the ancient Spartan kings, though they many ways
endeavored to effect it, could never bring Argos to be
permanently theirs. And Pyrrhus, the most experienced
captain, though he entered the city by force, could not keep
possession, but was slain himself, with a considerable part
of his army. Therefore they admired the dispatch and
contrivance of Cleomenes; and those that before derided him,
for imitating, as they said, Solon and Lycurgus, in releasing
the people from their debts, and in equalizing the property
of the citizens, were now fain to admit that this was the
cause of the change in the Spartans. For before they were
very low in the world, and so unable to secure their own,
that the Aetolians, invading Laconia, brought away fifty
thousand slaves; so that one of the elder Spartans is
reported to have said, that they had done Laconia a kindness
by unburdening it; and yet a little while after, by merely
recurring once again to their native customs, and reentering
the track of the ancient discipline, they were able to give,
as though it had been under the eyes and conduct of Lycurgus
himself, the most signal instances of courage and obedience,
raising Sparta to her ancient place as the commanding state
of Greece, and recovering all Peloponnesus.
When Argos was captured, and Cleonae and Phlius came over, as
they did at once, to Cleomenes, Aratus was at Corinth,
searching after some who were reported to favor the Spartan
interest. The news, being brought to him, disturbed him very
much; for he perceived the city inclining to Cleomenes, and
willing to be rid of the Achaeans. Therefore he summoned the
citizens to meet in the Council Hall, and slipping away
without being observed to the gate, he mounted his horse that
had been brought for him thither, and fled to Sicyon. And
the Corinthians made such haste to Cleomenes at Argos, that,
as Aratus says, striving who should be first there, they
spoiled all their horses; he adds that Cleomenes was very
angry with the Corinthians for letting him escape; and that
Megistonus came from Cleomenes to him, desiring him to
deliver up the castle at Corinth, which was then garrisoned
by the Achaeans, and offered him a considerable sum of money,
and that he answered, that matters were not now in his power,
but he in theirs. Thus Aratus himself writes. But
Cleomenes, marching from Argos, and taking in the
Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermioneans, came to Corinth,
and blocked up the castle, which the Achaeans would not
surrender; and sending for Aratus's friends and stewards,
committed his house and estate to their care and management;
and sent Tritymallus, the Messenian, to him a second time,
desiring that the castle might be equally garrisoned by the
Spartans and Achaeans, and promising to Aratus himself double
the pension that he received from king Ptolemy. But Aratus,
refusing the conditions, and sending his own son with the
other hostages to Antigonus, and persuading the Achaeans to
make a decree for delivering the castle into Antigonus's
hands, upon this Cleomenes invaded the territory of the
Sicyonians, and by a decree of the Corinthians, accepted
Aratus's estate as a gift.
In the meantime, Antigonus, with a great army, was passing
Geranea; and Cleomenes, thinking it more advisable to fortify
and garrison, not the isthmus, but the mountains called Onea,
and by a war of posts and positions to weary the Macedonians,
rather than to venture a set battle with the highly
disciplined phalanx, put his design in execution, and very
much distressed Antigonus. For he had not brought victuals
sufficient for his army; nor was it easy to force a way
through, whilst Cleomenes guarded the pass. He attempted by
night to pass through Lechaeum, but failed, and lost some
men; so that Cleomenes and his army were mightily encouraged,
and so flushed with the victory, that they went merrily to
supper; and Antigonus was very much dejected, being driven,
by the necessity he was in, to most unpromising attempts. He
was proposing to march to the promontory of Heraeum, and
thence transport his army in boats to Sicyon, which would
take up a great deal of time, and require much preparation
and means. But when it was now evening, some of Aratus's
friends came from Argos by sea, and invited him to return,
for the Argives would revolt from Cleomenes. Aristoteles was
the man that wrought the revolt, and he had no hard task to
persuade the common people; for they were all angry with
Cleomenes for not releasing them from their debts as they
expected. Accordingly, obtaining fifteen hundred of
Antigonus's soldiers, Aratus sailed to Epidaurus; but
Aristoteles, not staying for his coming, drew out the
citizens, and fought against the garrison of the castle; and
Timoxenus, with the Achaeans from Sicyon, came to his
assistance.
Cleomenes heard the news about the second watch of the night,
and sending for Megistonus, angrily commanded him to go and
set things right at Argos. Megistonus had passed his word
for the Argives' loyalty, and had persuaded him not to banish
the suspected. Therefore, dispatching him with two thousand
soldiers, he himself kept watch upon Antigonus, and
encouraged the Corinthians, pretending that there was no
great matter in the commotions at Argos, but only a little
disturbance raised by a few inconsiderable persons. But when
Megistonus, entering Argos, was slain, and the garrison could
scarce hold out, and frequent messengers came to Cleomenes
for succors, he, fearing least the enemy, having taken Argos,
should shut up the passes, and securely waste Laconia, and
besiege Sparta itself, which he had left without forces,
dislodged from Corinth, and immediately lost that city; for
Antigonus entered it, and garrisoned the town. He turned
aside from his direct march, and assaulting the walls of
Argos, endeavored to carry it by a sudden attack and then,
having collected his forces from their march, breaking into
the Aspis, he joined the garrison, which still held out
against the Achaeans; some parts of the city he scaled and
took, and his Cretan archers cleared the streets. But when
he saw Antigonus with his phalanx descending from the
mountains into the plain, and the horse on all sides entering
the city, he thought it impossible to maintain his post, and,
gathering together all his men, came safely down, and made
his retreat under the walls, having in so short a time
possessed himself of great power, and in one journey, so to
say, having made himself master of almost all Peloponnesus,
and now lost all again in as short a time. For some of his
allies at once withdrew and forsook him, and others not long
after put their cities under Antigonus's protection. His
hopes thus defeated, as he was leading back the relics of his
forces, messengers from Lacedaemon met him in the evening at
Tegea, and brought him, news of as great a misfortune as
that which he had lately suffered, and this was the death of
his wife, to whom he was so attached, and thought so much of
her, that even in his most successful expeditions, when he
was most prosperous, he could not refrain, but would ever now
and then come home to Sparta, to visit Agiatis.
This news afflicted him extremely, and he grieved, as a young
man would do, for the loss of a very beautiful and excellent
wife; yet he did not let his passion disgrace him, or impair
the greatness of his mind, but keeping his usual voice, his
countenance, and his habit, he gave necessary orders to his
captains, and took the precautions required for the safety of
Tegea. Next morning he came to Sparta, and having at home
with his mother and children bewailed the loss, and finished
his mourning, he at once devoted himself to the public
affairs of the state.
Now Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, promised him assistance, but
demanded his mother and children for hostages. This, for
some considerable time, he was ashamed to discover to his
mother; and though he often went to her on purpose, and was
just upon the discourse, yet he still refrained, and kept it
to himself; so that she began to suspect, and asked his
friends, whether Cleomenes had something to say to her, which
he was afraid to speak. At last, Cleomenes venturing to tell
her, she laughed aloud, and said, "Was this the thing that
you had so often a mind to tell me, and were afraid? Make
haste and put me on shipboard, and send this carcass where it
may be most serviceable to Sparta, before age destroys it
unprofitably here." Therefore, all things being provided for
the voyage, they went by land to Taenarus, and the army
waited on them. Cratesiclea, when she was ready to go on
board, took Cleomenes aside into Neptune's temple, and
embracing him, who was much dejected, and extremely
discomposed, she said, "Go to, king of Sparta; when we come
forth at the door, let none see us weep, or show any passion
that is unworthy of Sparta, for that alone is in our own
power; as for success or disappointment, those wait on us as
the deity decrees." Having thus said, and composed her
countenance, she went to the ship with her little grandson,
and bade the pilot put at once out to sea. When she came to
Egypt, and understood that Ptolemy entertained proposals and
overtures of peace from Antigonus, and that Cleomenes, though
the Achaeans invited and urged him to an agreement, was
afraid, for her sake, to come to any, without Ptolemy's
consent, she wrote to him, advising him to do that which was
most becoming and most profitable for Sparta, and not, for
the sake of an old woman and a little child, stand always in
fear of Ptolemy. This character she maintained in her
misfortunes.
Antigonus, having taken Tegea, and plundered Orchomenus and
Mantinea, Cleomenes was shut up within the narrow bounds of
Laconia; and making such of the helots as could pay five
Attic pounds, free of Sparta, and, by that means, getting
together five hundred talents, and arming two thousand after
the Macedonian fashion, that he might make a body fit to
oppose Antigonus's Leucaspides he undertook a great and
unexpected enterprise. Megalopolis was at that time a city
of itself as great and as powerful as Sparta, and had the
forces of the Achaeans and of Antigonus encamping beside it;
and it was chiefly the Megalopolitans' doing, that Antigonus
had been called in to assist the Achaeans. Cleomenes,
resolving to snatch the city (no other word so well suits so
rapid and so surprising an action), ordered his men to take
five days' provision, and marched to Sellasia, as if he
intended to ravage the country of the Argives; but from
thence making a descent into the territories of Megalopolis,
and refreshing his army about Rhoeteum, he suddenly took the
road by Helicus, and advanced directly upon the city. When
he was not far off the town, he sent Panteus, with two
regiments, to surprise a portion of the wall between two
towers, which he learnt to be the most unguarded quarter of
the Megalopolitans' fortifications, and with the rest of his
forces he followed leisurely. Panteus not only succeeded at
that point, but finding a great part of the wall without
guards, he at once proceeded to pull it down in some places,
and make openings through it in others, and killed all the
defenders that he found. Whilst he was thus busied,
Cleomenes came up to him, and was got with his army within
the city, before the Megalopolitans knew of the surprise.
When, after some time, they learned their misfortune, some
left the town immediately, taking with them what property
they could; others armed, and engaged the enemy; and through
they were not able to beat them out, yet they gave their
citizens time and opportunity safely to retire, so that there
were not above one thousand persons taken in the town, all
the rest flying, with their wives and children, and escaping
to Messene. The greater number, also, of those that armed
and fought the enemy, were saved, and very few taken, amongst
whom were Lysandridas and Thearidas, two men of great power
and reputation amongst the Megalopolitans; and therefore the
soldiers, as soon as they were taken, brought them to
Cleomenes. And Lysandridas, as soon as he saw Cleomenes afar
off, cried out, "Now, king of Sparta, it is in your power, by
doing a most kingly and a nobler action than you have
already performed, to purchase the greatest glory." And
Cleomenes, guessing at his meaning, replied, "What,
Lysandridas, you will not surely advise me to restore your
city to you again?" "It is that which I mean," Lysandridas
replied, "and I advise you not to ruin so brave a city, but
to fill it with faithful and steadfast friends and allies, by
restoring their country to the Megalopolitans, and being the
savior of so considerable a people." Cleomenes paused a
while, and then said, "It is very hard to trust so far in
these matters; but with us let profit always yield to glory."
Having said this, he sent the two men to Messene with a
herald from himself, offering the Megalopolitans their city
again, if they would forsake the Achaean interest, and be on
his side. But though Cleomenes made these generous and
humane proposals, Philopoemen would not suffer them to break
their league with the Achaeans; and accusing Cleomenes to the
people, as if his design was not to restore the city, but to
take the citizens too, he forced Thearidas and Lysandridas to
leave Messene.
This was that Philopoemen who was afterward chief of the
Achaeans and a man of the greatest reputation amongst the
Greeks, as I have refuted in his own life. This news coming
to Cleomenes, though he had before taken strict care that the
city should not be plundered, yet then, being in anger, and
out of all patience, he despoiled the place of all the
valuables, and sent the statues and pictures to Sparta; and
demolishing a great part of the city, he marched away for
fear of Antigonus and the Achaeans; but they never stirred,
for they were at Aegium, at a council of war. There Aratus
mounted the speaker's place, and wept a long while, holding
his mantle before his face; and at last, the company being
amazed, and commanding him to speak, he said, "Megalopolis is
destroyed by Cleomenes." The assembly instantly dissolved,
the Achaeans being astounded at the suddenness and greatness
of the loss; and Antigonus, intending to send speedy succors,
when he found his forces gather very slowly out of their
winter-quarters, sent them orders to continue there still;
and he himself marched to Argos with a small body of men.
And now the second enterprise of Cleomenes, though it had the
look of a desperate and frantic adventure, yet in Polybius's
opinion, was done with mature deliberation and great
foresight. For knowing very well that the Macedonians were
dispersed into their winter-quarters, and that Antigonus with
his friends and a few mercenaries about him wintered in
Argos, upon these considerations he invaded the country of
the Argives, hoping to shame Antigonus to a battle upon
unequal terms, or else, if he did not dare to fight, to bring
him into disrepute with the Achaeans. And this accordingly
happened. For Cleomenes wasting, plundering, and spoiling
the whole country, the Argives, in grief and anger at the
loss, gathered in crowds at the king's gates, crying out that
he should either fight, or surrender his command to better
and braver men. But Antigonus, as became an experienced
captain, accounting it rather dishonorable foolishly to
hazard his army and quit his security, than merely to be
railed at by other people, would not march out against
Cleomenes, but stood firm to his convictions. Cleomenes, in
the meantime, brought his army up to the very walls, and
having without opposition spoiled the country, and insulted
over his enemies, drew off again.
A little while after, being informed that Antigonus designed
a new advance to Tegea, and thence to invade Laconia, he
rapidly took his soldiers, and marching by a side road,
appeared early in the morning before Argos, and wasted the
fields about it. The corn he did not cut down, as is usual,
with reaping hooks and knives, but beat it down with great
wooden staves made like broadswords, as if, in mere contempt
and wanton scorn, while traveling on his way, without any
effort or trouble, he spoiled and destroyed their harvest.
Yet when his soldiers would have set Cyllabaris, the exercise
ground, on fire, he stopped the attempt, as if he felt, that
the mischief he had done at Megalopolis had been the effects
of his passion rather than his wisdom. And when Antigonus,
first of all, came hastily back to Argos, and then occupied
the mountains and passes with his posts, he professed to
disregard and despise it all; and sent heralds to ask for the
keys of the temple of Juno, as though he proposed to offer
sacrifice there and then return. And with this scornful
pleasantry upon Antigonus, having sacrificed to the goddess
under the walls of the temple, which was shut, he went to
Phlius; and from thence driving out those that garrisoned
Oligyrtus, he marched down to Orchomenus. And these
enterprises not only encouraged the citizens, but made him
appear to the very enemies to be a man worthy of high
command, and capable of great things. For with the strength
of one city, not only to fight the power of the Macedonians
and all the Peloponnesians, supported by all the royal
treasures, not only to preserve Laconia from being spoiled,
but to waste the enemy's country, and to take so many and
such considerable cities, was an argument of no common skill
and genius for command.
But he that first said that money was the sinews of affairs,
seems especially in that saying to refer to war. Demades,
when the Athenians had voted that their galleys should be
launched and equipped for action, but could produce no money,
told them, "The baker was wanted first, and the pilot after."
And the old Archidamus, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian
war, when the allies desired that the amount of their
contributions should be determined, is reported to have
answered, that war cannot be fed upon so much a day. For as
wrestlers, who have thoroughly trained and disciplined their
bodies, in time tire down and exhaust the most agile and most
skillful combatant, so Antigonus, coming to the war with
great resources to spend from, wore out Cleomenes, whose
poverty made it difficult for him to provide the merest
sufficiency of pay for the mercenaries, or of provisions for
the citizens. For, in all other respects, time favored
Cleomenes; for Antigonus's affairs at home began to be
disturbed. For the barbarians wasted and overran Macedonia
whilst he was absent, and at that particular time a vast army
of Illyrians had entered the country; to be freed from whose
devastations, the Macedonians sent for Antigonus, and the
letters had almost been brought to him before the battle was
fought; upon the receipt of which he would at once have
marched away home, and left the Achaeans to look to
themselves. But Fortune, that loves to determine the
greatest affairs by a minute, in this conjuncture showed such
an exact niceness of time, that immediately after the battle
in Sellasia was over, and Cleomenes had lost his army and his
city, the messengers came up and called for Antigonus. And
this above everything made Cleomenes's misfortune to be
pitied; for if he had gone on retreating and had forborne
fighting two days longer, there had been no need of hazarding
a battle; since upon the departure of the Macedonians, he
might have had what conditions he pleased from the Achaeans.
But now, as was said before, for want of money, being
necessitated to trust everything to arms, he was forced with
twenty thousand (such is Polybius's account) to engage thirty
thousand. And approving himself an admirable commander in
this difficulty, his citizens showing an extraordinary
courage, and his mercenaries bravery enough, he was overborne
by the different way of fighting, and the weight of the
heavy-armed phalanx. Phylarchus also affirms, that the
treachery of some about him was the chief cause of
Cleomenes's ruin.
For Antigonus gave orders, that the Illyrians and Acarnanians
should march round by a secret way, and encompass the other
wing, which Euclidas, Cleomenes's brother, commanded; and
then drew out the rest of his forces to the battle. And
Cleomenes, from a convenient rising, viewing his order, and
not seeing any of the Illyrians and Acarnanians, began to
suspect that Antigonus had sent them upon some such design,
and calling for Damoteles, who was at the head of those
specially appointed to such ambush duty, he bade him
carefully to look after and discover the enemy's designs upon
his rear. But Damoteles, for some say Antigonus had bribed
him, telling him that he should not be solicitous about that
matter, for all was well enough, but mind and fight those
that met him in the front, he was satisfied, and advanced
against Antigonus; and by the vigorous charge of his
Spartans, made the Macedonian phalanx give ground, and
pressed upon them with great advantage about half a mile; but
then making a stand, and seeing the danger which the
surrounded wing, commanded by his brother Euclidas, was in,
he cried out, "Thou art lost, dear brother, thou art lost,
thou brave example to our Spartan youth, and theme of our
matrons' songs." And Euclidas's wing being cut in pieces,
and the conquerors from that part falling upon him, he
perceived his soldiers to be disordered, and unable to
maintain the fight, and therefore provided for his own
safety. There fell, we are told, in the battle, besides many
of the mercenary soldiers, all the Spartans, six thousand in
number, except two hundred.
When Cleomenes came into the city, he advised those citizens
that he met to receive Antigonus; and as for himself, he
said, which should appear most advantageous to Sparta,
whether his life or death, that he would choose. Seeing the
women running out to those that had fled with him, taking
their arms, and bringing drink to them, he entered into his
own house, and his servant, who was a freeborn woman, taken
from Megalopolis after his wife's death, offering, as usual,
to do the service he needed on returning from war, though he
was very thirsty, he refused to drink, and though very weary,
to sit down; but in his corselet as he was, he laid his arm
sideways against a pillar, and leaning his forehead upon his
elbow, he rested his body a little while, and ran over in his
thoughts all the courses he could take; and then with his
friends set on at once for Gythium; where finding ships which
had been got ready for this very purpose, they embarked.
Antigonus, taking the city, treated the Lacedaemonians
courteously, and in no way offering any insult or offense to
the dignity of Sparta, but permitting them to enjoy their own
laws and polity, and sacrificing to the gods, dislodged the
third day. For he heard that there was a great war in
Macedonia, and that the country was devastated by the
barbarians. Besides, his malady had now thoroughly settled
into a consumption and continual catarrh. Yet he still kept
up, and managed to return and deliver his country, and meet
there a more glorious death in a great defeat and vast
slaughter of the barbarians. As Phylarchus says, and as is
probable in itself, he broke a blood vessel by shouting in
the battle itself. In the schools we used to be told, that
after the victory was won, he cried out for joy, "O glorious
day!" and presently bringing up a quantity of blood, fell
into a fever, which never left him till his death. And thus
much concerning Antigonus.
Cleomenes, sailing from Cythera, touched at another island
called Aegialia, whence as he was about to depart for Cyrene,
one of his friends, Therycion by name, a man of a noble
spirit in all enterprises, and bold and lofty in his talk,
came privately to him, and said thus: "Sir, death in battle,
which is the most glorious, we have let go; though all heard
us say that Antigonus should never tread over the king of
Sparta, unless dead. And now that course which is next in
honor and virtue, is presented to us. Whither do we madly
sail, flying the evil which is near, to seek that which is at
a distance? For if it is not dishonorable for the race of
Hercules to serve the successors of Philip and Alexander, we
shall save a long voyage by delivering ourselves up to
Antigonus, who, probably, is as much better than Ptolemy, as
the Macedonians are better than the Egyptians; but if we
think it mean to submit to those whose arms have conquered
us, why should we choose him for our master, by whom we have
not yet been beaten? Is it to acknowledge two superiors
instead of one, whilst we run away from Antigonus, and
flatter Ptolemy? Or, is it for your mother's sake that you
retreat to Egypt? It will indeed be a very fine and very
desirable sight for her, to show her son to Ptolemy's women,
now changed from a prince into an exile and a slave. Are we
not still masters of our own swords? And whilst we have
Laconia in view, shall we not here free ourselves from this
disgraceful misery, and clear ourselves to those who at
Sellasia died for the honor and defense of Sparta? Or, shall
we sit lazily in Egypt, inquiring what news from Sparta, and
whom Antigonus hath been pleased to make governor of
Lacedaemon?" Thus spoke Therycion; and this was Cleomenes's
reply: "By seeking death, you coward, the most easy and most
ready refuge, you fancy that you shall appear courageous and
brave, though this flight is baser than the former. Better
men than we have given way to their enemies, having been
betrayed by fortune, or oppressed by multitude; but he that
gives way under labor or distresses, under the ill opinions
or reports of men, yields the victory to his own effeminacy.
For a voluntary death ought not to be chosen as a relief from
action, but as an exemplary action itself; and it is base
either to live or to die only to ourselves. That death to
which you now invite us, is proposed only as a release from
our present miseries, but carries nothing of nobleness or
profit in it. And I think it becomes both me and you not to
despair of our country; but when there are no hopes of that
left, those that have an inclination may quickly die." To
this Therycion returned no answer but as soon as he had an
opportunity of leaving Cleomenes's company, went aside on the
sea-shore, and ran himself through.
But Cleomenes sailed from Aegialia, landed in Libya, and
being honorably conducted through the king's country, came to
Alexandria. When he was first brought to Ptolemy, no more
than common civilities and usual attentions were paid him;
but when, upon trial, he found him a man of deep sense and
great reason, and that his plain Laconic way of conversation
carried with it a noble and becoming grace, that he did
nothing unbecoming his birth, nor bent under fortune, and was
evidently a more faithful counselor than those who made it
their business to please and flatter, he was ashamed, and
repented that he had neglected so great a man, and suffered
Antigonus to get so much power and reputation by ruining him.
He now offered him many marks of respect and kindness, and
gave him hopes that he would furnish him with ships and money
to return to Greece, and would reinstate him in his kingdom.
He granted him a yearly pension of four and twenty talents; a
little part of which sum supplied his and his friends'
thrifty temperance; and the rest was employed in doing good
offices to, and in relieving the necessities of the refugees
that had fled from Greece, and retired into Egypt.
But the elder Ptolemy dying before Cleomenes's affairs had
received a full dispatch, and the successor being a loose,
voluptuous, and effeminate prince, under the power of his
pleasures and his women, his business was neglected. For the
king was so besotted with his women and his wine, that the
employments of his most busy and serious hours consisted at
the utmost in celebrating religious feasts in his palace,
carrying a timbrel, and taking part in the show; while the
greatest affairs of state were managed by Agathoclea, the
king's mistress, her mother, and the pimp Oenanthes. At the
first, indeed, they seemed to stand in need of Cleomenes; for
Ptolemy, being afraid of his brother Magas, who by his
mother's means had a great interest amongst the soldiers,
gave Cleomenes a place in his secret councils, and acquainted
him with the design of taking off his brother. He, though
all were for it, declared his opinion to the contrary,
saying, "The king, if it were possible, should have more
brothers for the better security and stability of his
affairs." And Sosibius, the greatest favorite, replying,
that they were not secure of the mercenaries whilst Magas was
alive, Cleomenes returned, that he need not trouble himself
about that matter; for amongst the mercenaries there were
above three thousand Peloponnesians, who were his fast
friends, and whom he could command at any time with a nod.
This discourse made Cleomenes for the present to be looked
upon as a man of great influence and assured fidelity; but
afterwards, Ptolemy's weakness increasing his fear, and he,
as it usually happens, where there is no judgment and wisdom,
placing his security in general distrust and suspicion, it
rendered Cleomenes suspected to the courtiers, as having too
much interest with the mercenaries; and many had this saying
in their mouths, that he was a lion amidst a flock of sheep.
For, in fact, such he seemed to be in the court, quietly
watching, and keeping his eye upon all that went on.
He, therefore, gave up all thought of asking for ships and
soldiers from the king. But receiving news that Antigonus
was dead, that the Achaeans were engaged in a war with the
Aetolians, and that the affairs of Peloponnesus, being now in
very great distraction and disorder, required and invited his
assistance, he desired leave to depart only with his friends,
but could not obtain that, the king not so much as hearing
his petition, being shut up amongst his women, and wasting
his hours in bacchanalian rites and drinking parties. But
Sosibius, the chief minister and counselor of state, thought
that Cleomenes, being detained against his will, would grow
ungovernable and dangerous, and yet that it was not safe to
let him go, being an aspiring, daring man, and well
acquainted with the diseases and weakness of the kingdom.
For neither could presents and gifts conciliate or content
him; but even as Apis, while living in all possible plenty
and apparent delight, yet desires to live as nature would
provide for him, to range at liberty, and bound about the
fields, and can scarce endure to be under the priests'
keeping, so he could not brook their courtship and soft
entertainment, but sat like Achilles,
and languished far,
Desiring battle and the shout of war.
His affairs standing in this condition, Nicagoras, the
Messenian, came to Alexandria, a man that deeply hated
Cleomenes, yet pretended to be his friend; for he had
formerly sold Cleomenes a fair estate, but never received the
money, because Cleomenes was either unable, as it may be, or
else, by reason of his engagement in the wars and other
distractions, had no opportunity to pay him. Cleomenes,
seeing him landing, for he was then walking upon the quay,
kindly saluted him, and asked what business brought him to
Egypt. Nicagoras returned his compliment, and told him, that
he came to bring some excellent war-horses to the king. And
Cleomenes, with a smile, subjoined, "I could wish you had
rather brought young boys and music-girls; for those now are
the king's chief occupation." Nicagoras at the moment smiled
at the conceit; but a few days after, he put Cleomenes in
mind of the estate that he had bought of him, and desired his
money, protesting, that he would not have troubled him, if
his merchandise had turned out as profitable as he had
thought it would. Cleomenes replied, that he had nothing
left of all that had been given him. At which answer,
Nicagoras, being nettled, told Sosibius Cleomenes's scoff
upon the king. He was delighted to receive the information;
but desiring to have some greater reason to excite the king
against Cleomenes, persuaded Nicagoras to leave a letter
written against Cleomenes, importing that he had a design, if
he could have gotten ships and soldiers, to surprise Cyrene.
Nicagoras wrote such a letter and left Egypt. Four days
after, Sosibius brought the letter to Ptolemy, pretending it
was just then delivered him, and excited the young man's fear
and anger; upon which it was agreed, that Cleomenes should be
invited into a large house, and treated as formerly, but not
suffered to go out again.
This usage was grievous to Cleomenes, and another incident
that occurred, made him feel his hopes to be yet more
entirely overcast. Ptolemy, the son of Chrysermas, a
favorite of the king's, had always shown civility to
Cleomenes; there was a considerable intimacy between them,
and they had been used to talk freely together about the
state. He, upon Cleomenes's desire, came to him, and spoke
to him in fair terms, softening down his suspicions and
excusing the king's conduct. But as he went out again, not
knowing that Cleomenes followed him to the door, he severely
reprimanded the keepers for their carelessness in looking
after "so great and so furious a wild beast." This Cleomenes
himself heard, and retiring before Ptolemy perceived it, told
his friends what had been said. Upon this they cast off all
their former hopes, and determined for violent proceedings,
resolving to be revenged on Ptolemy for his base and unjust
dealing, to have satisfaction for the affronts, to die as it
became Spartans, and not stay till, like fatted sacrifices,
they were butchered. For it was both grievous and
dishonorable for Cleomenes, who had scorned to come to terms
with Antigonus, a brave warrior, and a man of action, to wait
an effeminate king's leisure, till he should lay aside his
timbrel and end his dance, and then kill him.
These courses being resolved on, and Ptolemy happening at the
same time to make a progress to Canopus, they first spread
abroad a report, that his freedom was ordered by the king,
and, it being the custom for the king to send presents and an
entertainment to those whom he would free, Cleomenes's
friends made that provision, and sent it into the prison,
thus imposing upon the keepers, who thought it had been sent
by the king. For he sacrificed, and gave them large
portions, and with a garland upon his head, feasted and made
merry with his friends. It is said that he began the action
sooner than he designed, having understood that a servant who
was privy to the plot, had gone out to visit a mistress that
he loved. This made him afraid of a discovery; and
therefore, as soon as it was full noon, and all the keepers
sleeping off their wine, he put on his coat, and opening the
seam to bare his right shoulder, with his drawn sword in his
hand, he issued forth, together with his friends, provided in
the same manner, making thirteen in all. One of them, by
name Hippitas, was lame, and followed the first onset very
well, but when he presently perceived that they were more
slow in their advances for his sake, he desired them to run
him through, and not ruin their enterprise by staying for an
useless, unprofitable man. By chance an Alexandrian was then
riding by the door; him they threw off, and setting Hippitas
on horseback, ran through the streets, and proclaimed liberty
to the people. But they, it seems, had courage enough to
praise and admire Cleomenes's daring, but not one had the
heart to follow and assist him. Three of them fell on
Ptolemy, the son of Chrysermas, as he was coming out of the
palace, and killed him. Another Ptolemy, the officer in
charge of the city, advancing against them in a chariot, they
set upon, dispersed his guards and attendants, and pulling
him out of the chariot, killed him upon the place. Then they
made toward the castle, designing to break open the prison,
release those who were confined, and avail themselves of
their numbers; but the keepers were too quick for them, and
secured the passages. Being baffled in this attempt,
Cleomenes with his company roamed about the city, none
joining with him, but all retreating from and flying his
approach. Therefore, despairing of success, and saying to
his friends, that it was no wonder that women ruled over men
that were afraid of liberty, he bade them all die as bravely
as became his followers and their own past actions. This
said, Hippitas was first, as he desired, run through by one
of the younger men, and then each of them readily and
resolutely fell upon his own sword, except Panteus, the same
who first surprised Megalopolis. This man, being; of a very
handsome person, and a great lover of the Spartan discipline,
the king had made his dearest friend; and he now bade him,
when he had seen him and the rest fallen, die by their
example. Panteus walked over them as they lay, and pricked
everyone with his dagger, to try whether any was alive, when
he pricked Cleomenes in the ankle, and saw him turn upon his
back, he kissed him, sat down by him, and when he was quite
dead, covered up the body, and then killed himself over it.
Thus fell Cleomenes, after the life which we have narrated,
having been king of Sparta sixteen years. The news of their
fall being noised through the city, Cratesiclea, though a
woman of a great spirit, could not bear up against the weight
of this affliction; but embracing Cleomenes's children, broke
out into lamentations. But the eldest boy, none suspecting
such a spirit in a child, threw himself headlong from the top
of the house. He was bruised very much, but not killed by
the fall, and was taken up crying, and expressing his
resentment for not being permitted to destroy himself.
Ptolemy, as soon as an account of the action was brought him,
gave order that Cleomenes's body should be flayed and hung
up, and that his children, mother, and the women that were
with her, should be killed. Amongst these was Panteus's
wife, a beautiful and noble-looking woman, who had been but
lately married, and suffered these disasters in the height of
her love. Her parents would not have her embark with
Panteus, so shortly after they were married, though she
eagerly desired it, but shut her up, and kept her forcibly at
home. But a few days after, she procured a horse and a
little money, and escaping by night, made speed to Taenarus,
where she embarked for Egypt, came to her husband, and with
him cheerfully endured to live in a foreign country. She
gave her hand to Cratesiclea, as she was going with the
soldiers to execution, held up her robe, and begged her to be
courageous; who of herself was not in the least afraid of
death, and desired nothing else but only to be killed before
the children. When they were come to the place of execution,
the children were first killed before Cratesiclea's eyes, and
afterward she herself, with only these words in her mouth, "O
children, whither are you gone?" But Panteus's wife,
fastening her dress close about her, and being a strong
woman, in silence and perfect composure, looked after every
one that was slain, and laid them decently out as far as
circumstances would permit; and after all were killed,
rearraying her dress, and drawing her clothes close about
her, and suffering none to come near or be an eyewitness of
her fall, besides the executioner, she courageously submitted
to the stroke, and wanted nobody to look after her or wind
her up after she was dead. Thus in her death the modesty of
her mind appeared, and set that guard upon her body which she
always kept when alive. And she, in the declining age of the
Spartans, showed that women were no unequal rivals of the
men, and was an instance of a courage superior to the
affronts of fortune.
A few days after, those that watched the hanging body of
Cleomenes, saw a large snake winding about his head, and
covering his face, so that no bird of prey would fly at it.
This made the king superstitiously afraid, and set the women
upon several expiations, as if he had been some extraordinary
being, and one beloved by the gods, that had been slain. And
the Alexandrians made processions to the place, and gave
Cleomenes the title of hero, and son of the gods, till the
philosophers satisfied them by saying, that as oxen breed
bees, putrefying horses breed wasps, and beetles rise from
the carcasses of dead asses, so the humors and juices of the
marrow of a man's body, coagulating, produce serpents. And
this the ancients observing, appropriated a serpent, rather
than any other creature to heroes.
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
Having completed the first two narratives, we now may proceed
to take a view of misfortunes, not less remarkable, in the
Roman couple, and with the lives of Agis and Cleomenes,
compare these of Tiberius and Caius. They were the sons of
Tiberius Gracchus, who, though he had been once censor, twice
consul, and twice had triumphed, yet was more renowned and
esteemed for his virtue than his honors. Upon this account,
after the death of Scipio who overthrew Hannibal, he was
thought worthy to match with his daughter Cornelia, though
there had been no friendship or familiarity between Scipio
and him, but rather the contrary. There is a story told,
that he once found in his bedchamber a couple of snakes, and
that the soothsayers, being consulted concerning the prodigy,
advised, that he should neither kill them both nor let them
both escape; adding, that if the male serpent was killed,
Tiberius should die, and if the female, Cornelia. And that,
therefore, Tiberius, who extremely loved his wife, and
thought, besides, that it was much more his part, who was an
old man, to die, than it was hers, who as yet was but a young
woman, killed the male serpent, and let the female escape;
and soon after himself died, leaving behind him twelve
children borne to him by Cornelia.
Cornelia, taking upon herself all the care of the household
and the education of her children, approved herself so
discreet a matron, so affectionate a mother, and so constant
and noble-spirited a widow, that Tiberius seemed to all men
to have done nothing unreasonable, in choosing to die for
such a woman; who, when king Ptolemy himself proffered her
his crown, and would have married her, refused it, and chose
rather to live a widow. In this state she continued, and
lost all her children, except one daughter, who was married
to Scipio the younger, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius,
whose lives we are now writing.
These she brought up with such care, that though they were
without dispute in natural endowments and dispositions the
first among the Romans of their time, yet they seemed to owe
their virtues even more to their education than to their
birth. And as, in the statues and pictures made of Castor
and Pollux, though the brothers resemble one another, yet
there is a difference to be perceived in their countenances,
between the one, who delighted in the cestus, and the other,
that was famous in the course, so between these two noble
youths, though there was a strong general likeness in their
common love of fortitude and temperance, in their liberality,
their eloquence, and their greatness of mind, yet in their
actions and administrations of public affairs, a considerable
variation showed itself. It will not be amiss, before we
proceed, to mark the difference between them.
Tiberius, in the form and expression of his countenance, and
in his gesture and motion, was gentle and composed; but
Caius, earnest and vehement. And so, in their public
speeches to the people, the one spoke in a quiet orderly
manner, standing throughout on the same spot; the other would
walk about on the hustings, and in the heat of his orations,
pull his gown off his shoulders, and was the first of all the
Romans that used such gestures; as Cleon is said to have been
the first orator among the Athenians that pulled off his
cloak and smote his thigh, when addressing the people.
Caius's oratory was impetuous and passionate, making
everything tell to the utmost, whereas Tiberius was gentle,
rather, and persuasive, awakening emotions of pity. His
diction was pure, and carefully correct, while that of Caius
was vehement and rich. So likewise in their way of living,
and at their tables, Tiberius was frugal and plain, Caius,
compared with other men temperate and even austere, but
contrasting with his brother in a fondness for new fashions
and rarities, as appears in Drusus's charge against him, that
he had bought some silver dolphins, to the value of twelve
hundred and fifty drachmas for every pound weight.
The same difference that appeared in their diction, was
observable also in their tempers. The one was mild and
reasonable, the other rough and passionate, and to that
degree, that often, in the midst of speaking, he was so
hurried away by his passion, against his judgment, that his
voice lost its tone, and he began to pass into mere abusive
talking, spoiling his whole speech. As a remedy to this
excess, he made use of an ingenious servant of his, one
Licinius, who stood constantly behind him with a sort of
pitch-pipe, or instrument to regulate the voice by, and
whenever he perceived his master's tone alter, and break with
anger, he struck a soft note with his pipe, on hearing which,
Caius immediately checked the vehemence of his passion and
his voice, grew quieter, and allowed himself to be recalled
to temper. Such are the differences between the two
brothers; but their valor in war against their country's
enemies, their justice in the government of its subjects,
their care and industry in office, and their self-command in
all that regarded their pleasures were equally remarkable in
both.
Tiberius was the elder by nine years; owing to which their
actions as public men were divided by the difference of the
times in which those of the one and those of the other were
performed. And one of the principal causes of the failure of
their enterprises was this interval between their careers,
and the want of combination of their efforts. The power they
would have exercised, had they flourished both together,
could scarcely have failed to overcome all resistance. We
must therefore give an account of each of them singly, and
first of the eldest.
Tiberius, immediately on his attaining manhood, had such a
reputation, that he was admitted into the college of the
augurs, and that in consideration more of his early virtue
than of his noble birth. This appeared by what Appius
Claudius did, who, though he had been consul and censor, and
was now the head of the Roman senate, and had the highest
sense of his own place and merit, at a public feast of the
augurs, addressed himself openly to Tiberius, and with great
expressions of kindness, offered him his daughter in
marriage. And when Tiberius gladly accepted, and the
agreement had thus been completed, Appius, returning home, no
sooner had reached his door, but he called to his wife and
cried out in a loud voice, "O Antistia, I have contracted our
daughter Claudia to a husband." She, being amazed, answered,
"But why so suddenly, or what means this haste? Unless you
have provided Tiberius Gracchus for her husband." I am not
ignorant that some apply this story to Tiberius, the father
of the Gracchi, and Scipio Africanus; but most relate it as
we have done. And Polybius writes, that after the death of
Scipio Africanus, the nearest relations of Cornelia,
preferring Tiberius to all other competitors, gave her to him
in marriage, not having been engaged or promised to anyone
by her father.
This young Tiberius, accordingly, serving in Africa under the
younger Scipio, who had married his sister, and living there
under the same tent with him, soon learned to estimate the
noble spirit of his commander, which was so fit to inspire
strong feelings of emulation in virtue and desire to prove
merit in action, and in a short time he excelled all the
young men of the army in obedience and courage; and he was
the first that mounted the enemy's wall, as Fannius says, who
writes, that he himself climbed up with him, and was partaker
in the achievement. He was regarded, while he continued with
the army, with great affection; and left behind him on his
departure a strong desire for his return.
After that expedition, being chosen paymaster, it was his
fortune to serve in the war against the Numantines, under the
command of Caius Mancinus, the consul, a person of no bad
character, but the most unfortunate of all the Roman
generals. Notwithstanding, amidst the greatest misfortunes,
and in the most unsuccessful enterprises, not only the
discretion and valor of Tiberius, but also, which was still
more to be admired, the great respect and honor which he
showed for his general, were most eminently remarkable;
though the general himself, when reduced to straits, forgot
his own dignity and office. For being beaten in various
great battles, he endeavored to dislodge by night, and leave
his camp; which the Numantines perceiving, immediately
possessed themselves of his camp, and pursuing that part of
the forces which was in flight, slew those that were in the
rear, hedged the whole army in on every side, and forced them
into difficult ground, whence there could be no possibility
of an escape. Mancinus, despairing to make his way through
by force, sent a messenger to desire a truce, and conditions
of peace. But they refused to give their confidence to any
one except Tiberius, and required that he should be sent to
treat with them. This was not only in regard to the young
man's own character, for he had a great reputation amongst
the soldiers, but also in remembrance of his father Tiberius,
who, in his command against the Spaniards, had reduced great
numbers of them to subjection, but granted a peace to the
Numantines, and prevailed upon the Romans to keep it
punctually and inviolably.
Tiberius was accordingly dispatched to the enemy, whom he
persuaded to accept of several conditions, and he himself
complied with others; and by this means it is beyond a
question, that he saved twenty thousand of the Roman
citizens, besides attendants and camp followers. However,
the Numantines retained possession of all the property they
had found and plundered in the encampment; and amongst other
things were Tiberius's books of accounts, containing the
whole transactions of his quaestorship, which he was
extremely anxious to recover. And therefore, when the army
were already upon their march, he returned to Numantia,
accompanied with only three or four of his friends; and
making his application to the officers of the Numantines, he
entreated that they would return him his books, lest his
enemies should have it in their power to reproach him with
not being able to give an account of the monies entrusted to
him. The Numantines joyfully embraced this opportunity of
obliging him, and invited him into the city; as he stood
hesitating, they came up and took him by the hands, and
begged that he would no longer look upon them as enemies, but
believe them to be his friends, and treat them as such.
Tiberius thought it well to consent, desirous as he was to
have his books returned, and was afraid lest he should
disoblige them by showing any distrust. As soon as he
entered into the city, they first offered him food, and made
every kind of entreaty that he would sit down and eat
something in their company. Afterwards they returned his
books, and gave him the liberty to take whatever he wished
for in the remaining spoils. He, on the other hand, would
accept of nothing but some frankincense, which he used in his
public sacrifices, and, bidding them farewell with every
expression of kindness, departed.
When he returned to Rome, he found the whole transaction
censured and reproached, as a proceeding that was base, and
scandalous to the Romans. But the relations and friends of
the soldiers, forming a large body among the people, came
flocking to Tiberius, whom they acknowledged as the preserver
of so many citizens, imputing to the general all the
miscarriages which had happened. Those who cried out against
what had been done, urged for imitation the example of their
ancestors, who stripped and handed over to the Samnites not
only the generals who had consented to the terms of release,
but also all the quaestors, for example, and tribunes, who
had in any way implicated themselves in the agreement, laying
the guilt of perjury and breach of conditions on their heads.
But, in this affair, the populace, showing an extraordinary
kindness and affection for Tiberius, indeed voted that the
consul should be stripped and put in irons, and so delivered
to the Numantines; but for the sake of Tiberius, spared all
the other officers. It may be probable, also, that Scipio,
who at that time was the greatest and most powerful man among
the Romans, contributed to save him, though indeed he was
also censured for not protecting Mancinus too, and that he
did not exert himself to maintain the observance of the
articles of peace which had been agreed upon by his kinsman
and friend Tiberius. But it may be presumed that the
difference between them was for the most part due to
ambitious feelings, and to the friends and reasoners who
urged on Tiberius, and, as it was, it never amounted to any
thing that might not have been remedied, or that was really
bad. Nor can I think that Tiberius would ever have met with
his misfortunes, if Scipio had been concerned in dealing with
his measures; but he was away fighting at Numantia, when
Tiberius, upon the following occasion, first came forward as
a legislator.
Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their
neighbors, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder
into common; this common land they assigned to such of the
citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to
pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury.
But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and
drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law, that no
person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of
ground. This act for some time checked the avarice of the
richer, and was of great assistance to the poorer people, who
retained under it their respective proportions of ground, as
they had been formerly rented by them. Afterwards the rich
men of the neighborhood contrived to get these lands again
into their possession, under other people's names, and at
last would not stick to claim most of them publicly in their
own. The poor, who were thus deprived of their farms, were
no longer either ready, as they had formerly been, to serve
in war, or careful in the education of their children;
insomuch that in a short time there were comparatively few
freemen remaining in all Italy, which swarmed with workhouses
full of foreign-born slaves. These the rich men employed in
cultivating their ground, of which they dispossessed the
citizens. Caius Laelius, the intimate friend of Scipio,
undertook to reform this abuse; but meeting with opposition
from men of authority, and fearing a disturbance, he soon
desisted, and received the name of the Wise or the Prudent,
both which meanings belong to the Latin word Sapiens.
But Tiberius, being elected tribune of the people, entered
upon that design without delay, at the instigation, as is
most commonly stated, of Diophanes, the rhetorician, and
Blossius, the philosopher. Diophanes was a refugee from
Mitylene, the other was an Italian, of the city of Cuma, and
was educated there under Antipater of Tarsus, who afterwards
did him the honor to dedicate some of his philosophical
lectures to him. Some have also charged Cornelia, the mother
of Tiberius, with contributing towards it, because she
frequently upbraided her sons, that the Romans as yet rather
called her the daughter of Scipio, than the mother of the
Gracchi. Others again say Spurius Postumius was the chief
occasion. He was a man of the same age with Tiberius, and
his rival for reputation as a public speaker; and when
Tiberius, at his return from the campaign, found him to have
got far beyond him in fame and influence, and to be much
looked up to, he thought to outdo him, by attempting a
popular enterprise of this difficulty, and of such great
consequence. But his brother Caius has left it us in
writing, that when Tiberius went through Tuscany to Numantia,
and found the country almost depopulated, there being hardly
any free husbandmen or shepherds, but for the most part only
barbarian, imported slaves, he then first conceived the
course of policy which in the sequel proved so fatal to his
family. Though it is also most certain that the people
themselves chiefly excited his zeal and determination in the
prosecution of it, by setting up writings upon the porches,
walls, and monuments, calling upon him to reinstate the poor
citizens in their former possessions.
However, he did not draw up his law without the advice and
assistance of those citizens that were then most eminent for
their virtue and authority; amongst whom were Crassus, the
high-priest, Mucius Scaevola, the lawyer, who at that time
was consul, and Claudius Appius, his father-in-law. Never
did any law appear more moderate and gentle, especially being
enacted against such great oppression and avarice. For they
who ought to have been severely punished for transgressing
the former laws, and should at least have lost all their
titles to such lands which they had unjustly usurped, were
notwithstanding to receive a price for quitting their
unlawful claims, and giving up their lands to those fit
owners who stood in need of help. But though this
reformation was managed with so much tenderness, that, all
the former transactions being passed over, the people were
only thankful to prevent abuses of the like nature for the
future, yet, on the other hand, the moneyed men, and those of
great estates were exasperated, through their covetous
feelings against the law itself, and against the law giver,
through anger and party spirit. They therefore endeavored to
seduce the people, declaring that Tiberius was designing a
general redivision of lands, to overthrow the government, and
put all things into confusion.
But they had no success. For Tiberius, maintaining an
honorable and just cause, and possessed of eloquence
sufficient to have made a less creditable action appear
plausible, was no safe or easy antagonist, when, with the
people crowding around the hustings, he took his place, and
spoke in behalf of the poor. "The savage beasts," said he,
"in Italy, have their particular dens, they have their places
of repose and refuge; but the men who bear arms, and expose
their lives for the safety of their country, enjoy in the
meantime nothing more in it but the air and light; and
having no houses or settlements of their own, are constrained
to wander from place to place with their wives and children."
He told them that the commanders were guilty of a ridiculous
error, when, at the head of their armies, they exhorted the
common soldiers to fight for their sepulchres and altars;
when not any amongst so many Romans is possessed of either
altar or monument, neither have they any houses of their own,
or hearths of their ancestors to defend. They fought indeed,
and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the
wealth of other men. They were styled the masters of the
world, but in the meantime had not one foot of ground which
they could call their own. A harangue of this nature,
spoken to an enthusiastic and sympathizing audience, by a
person of commanding spirit and genuine feeling, no
adversaries at that time were competent to oppose.
Forbearing, therefore, all discussion and debate, they
addressed themselves to Marcus Octavius, his fellow-tribune,
who, being a young man of a steady, orderly character, and an
intimate friend of Tiberius, upon this account declined at
first the task of opposing him; but at length, over-persuaded
with the repeated importunities of numerous considerable
persons, he was prevailed upon to do so, and hindered the
passing of the law; it being the rule that any tribune has a
power to hinder an act, and that all the rest can effect
nothing, if only one of them dissents. Tiberius, irritated
at these proceedings, presently laid aside this milder bill,
but at the same time preferred another; which, as it was more
grateful to the common people, so it was much more severe
against the wrongdoers, commanding them to make an immediate
surrender of all lands which, contrary to former laws, had
come into their possession. Hence there arose daily
contentions between him and Octavius in their orations.
However, though they expressed themselves with the utmost
heat and determination, they yet were never known to descend
to any personal reproaches, or in their passion to let slip
any indecent expressions, so as to derogate from one another.
For not alone
In revelings and Bacchic play,
but also in contentions and political animosities, a noble
nature and a temperate education stay and compose the mind.
Observing, however, that Octavius himself was an offender
against this law, and detained a great quantity of ground
from the commonalty, Tiberius desired him to forbear opposing
him any further, and proffered, for the public good, though
he himself had but an indifferent estate, to pay a price for
Octavius's share at his own cost and charges. But upon the
refusal of this proffer by Octavius, he then interposed an
edict, prohibiting all magistrates to exercise their
respective functions, till such time as the law was either
ratified or rejected by public votes. He further sealed up
the gates of Saturn's temple, so that the treasurers could
neither take any money out from thence, or put any in. He
threatened to impose a severe fine upon those of the praetors
who presumed to disobey his commands, insomuch that all the
officers, for fear of this penalty, intermitted the exercise
of their several jurisdictions. Upon this, the rich
proprietors put themselves into mourning, went up and down
melancholy and dejected; they entered also into a conspiracy
against Tiberius, and procured men to murder him; so that he
also, with all men's knowledge, whenever he went abroad, took
with him a sword-staff, such as robbers use, called in Latin
a dolo.
When the day appointed was come, and the people summoned to
give their votes, the rich men seized upon the voting urns,
and carried them away by force; thus all things were in
confusion. But when Tiberius's party appeared strong enough
to oppose the contrary faction, and drew together in a body,
with the resolution to do so, Manlius and Fulvius, two of the
consular quality, threw themselves before Tiberius, took him
by the hand, and with tears in their eyes, begged of him to
desist. Tiberius, considering the mischiefs that were all
but now occurring, and having a great respect for two such
eminent persons, demanded of them what they would advise him
to do. They acknowledged themselves unfit to advise in a
matter of so great importance, but earnestly entreated him to
leave it to the determination of the senate. But when the
senate assembled, and could not bring the business to any
result, through the prevalence of the rich faction, he then
was driven to a course neither legal nor fair, and proposed
to deprive Octavius of his tribuneship, it being impossible
for him in any other way to get the law brought to the vote.
At first he addressed him publicly, with entreaties couched
in the kindest terms, and taking him by his hands, besought
him, that now, in the presence of all the people, he would
take this opportunity to oblige them, in granting only that
request which was in itself so just and reasonable, being but
a small recompense in regard of those many dangers and
hardships which they had undergone for the public safety.
Octavius, however, would by no means be persuaded to
compliance; upon which Tiberius declared openly, that seeing
they two were united in the same office, and of equal
authority, it would be a difficult matter to compose their
difference on so weighty a matter without a civil war; and
that the only remedy which he knew, must be the deposing one
of them from their office. He desired, therefore, that
Octavius would summon the people to pass their verdict upon
him first, averring that he would willingly relinquish his
authority if the citizens desired it. Octavius refused; and
Tiberius then said he would himself put to the people the
question of Octavius's deposition, if upon mature
deliberation he did not alter his mind; and after this
declaration, he adjourned the assembly till the next day.
When the people were met together again, Tiberius placed
himself in the rostra, and endeavored a second time to
persuade Octavius. But all being to no purpose, he referred
the whole matter to the people, calling on them to vote at
once, whether Octavius should be deposed or not; and when
seventeen of the thirty-five tribes had already voted against
him, and there wanted only the votes of one tribe more for
his final deprivation, Tiberius put a short stop to the
proceedings, and once more renewed his importunities; he
embraced and kissed him before all the assembly, begging,
with all the earnestness imaginable, that he would neither
suffer himself to incur the dishonor, nor him to be reputed
the author and promoter of so odious a measure. Octavius, we
are told, did seem a little softened and moved with these
entreaties; his eyes filled with tears, and he continued
silent for a considerable time. But presently looking
towards the rich men and proprietors of estates, who stood
gathered in a body together, partly for shame, and partly for
fear of disgracing himself with them, he boldly bade Tiberius
use any severity he pleased. The law for his deprivation
being thus voted, Tiberius ordered one of his servants, whom
he had made a freeman, to remove Octavius from the rostra,
employing his own domestic freed servants in the stead of the
public officers. And it made the action seem all the sadder,
that Octavius was dragged out in such an ignominious manner.
The people immediately assaulted him, whilst the rich men ran
in to his assistance. Octavius, with some difficulty, was
snatched away, and safely conveyed out of the crowd; though a
trusty servant of his, who had placed himself in front of his
master that he might assist his escape, in keeping off the
multitude, had his eyes struck out, much to the displeasure
of Tiberius, who ran with all haste, when he perceived the
disturbance, to appease the rioters.
This being done, the law concerning the lands was ratified
and confirmed, and three commissioners were appointed, to
make a survey of the grounds and see the same equally
divided. These were Tiberius himself, Claudius Appius, his
father-in-law, and his brother, Caius Gracchus, who at this
time was not at Rome, but in the army under the command of
Scipio Africanus before Numantia. These things were
transacted by Tiberius without any disturbance, none daring
to offer any resistance to him, besides which, he gave the
appointment as tribune in Octavius's place, not to any person
of distinction, but to a certain Mucius, one of his own
clients. The great men of the city were therefore utterly
offended, and, fearing lest he should grow yet more popular,
they took all opportunities of affronting him publicly in the
senate house. For when he requested, as was usual, to have a
tent provided at the public charge for his use, while
dividing the lands, though it was a favor commonly granted to
persons employed in business of much less importance, it was
peremptorily refused to him; and the allowance made him for
his daily expenses was fixed to nine obols only. The chief
promoter of these affronts was Publius Nasica, who openly
abandoned himself to his feelings of hatred against Tiberius,
being a large holder of the public lands, and not a little
resenting now to be turned out of them by force. The people,
on the other hand, were still more and more excited, insomuch
that a little after this, it happening that one of Tiberius's
friends died suddenly, and his body being marked with
malignant-looking spots, they ran, in tumultuous manner, to
his funeral, crying aloud that the man was poisoned. They
took the bier upon their shoulders, and stood over it, while
it was placed on the pile, and really seemed to have fair
grounds for their suspicion of foul play. For the body burst
open, and such a quantity of corrupt humors issued out, that
the funeral fire was extinguished, and when it was again
kindled, the wood still would not burn; insomuch that they
were constrained to carry the corpse to another place, where
with much difficulty it took fire. Besides this, Tiberius,
that he might incense the people yet more, put himself into
mourning, brought his children amongst the crowd, and
entreated the people to provide for them and their mother, as
if he now despaired of his own security.
About this time, king Attalus, surnamed Philometor, died, and
Eudemus, a Pergamenian, brought his last will to Rome, by
which he had made the Roman people his heirs. Tiberius, to
please the people, immediately proposed making a law, that
all the money which Attalus left, should be distributed
amongst such poor citizens as were to be sharers of the
public lands, for the better enabling them to proceed in
stocking and cultivating their ground; and as for the cities
that were in the territories of Attalus, he declared that the
disposal of them did not at all belong to the senate, but to
the people, and that he himself would ask their pleasure
herein. By this he offended the senate more than ever he had
done before, and Pompeius stood up, and acquainted them that
he was the next neighbor to Tiberius, and so had the
opportunity of knowing that Eudemus, the Pergamenian, had
presented Tiberius with a royal diadem and a purple robe, as
before long he was to be king of Rome. Quintus Metellus also
upbraided him, saying, that when his father was censor, the
Romans, whenever he happened to be going home from a supper,
used to put out all their lights, lest they should be seen to
have indulged themselves in feastings and drinking at
unseasonable hours, whereas, now, the most indigent and
audacious of the people were found with their torches at
night, following Tiberius home. Titus Annius, a man of no
great repute for either justice or temperance, but famous for
his skill in putting and answering questions, challenged
Tiberius to the proof by wager, declaring him to have deposed
a magistrate who by law was sacred and inviolable. Loud
clamor ensued, and Tiberius, quitting the senate hastily,
called together the people, and summoning Annius to appear,
was proceeding to accuse him. But Annius, being no great
speaker, nor of any repute compared to him, sheltered himself
in his own particular art, and desired that he might propose
one or two questions to Tiberius, before he entered upon the
chief argument. This liberty being granted, and silence
proclaimed, Annius proposed his question. "If you," said he,
"had a design to disgrace and defame me, and I should apply
myself to one of your colleagues for redress, and he should
come forward to my assistance, would you for that reason fall
into a passion, and depose him?" Tiberius, they say, was so
much disconcerted at this question, that, though at other
times his assurance as well as his readiness of speech was
always remarkable, yet now he was silent and made no reply.
For the present he dismissed the assembly. But beginning to
understand that the course he had taken with Octavius had
created offense even among the populace as well as the
nobility, because the dignity of the tribunes seemed to be
violated, which had always continued till that day sacred and
honorable, he made a speech to the people in justification of
himself; out of which it may not be improper to collect some
particulars, to give an impression of his force and
persuasiveness in speaking. "A tribune," he said, "of the
people, is sacred indeed, and ought to be inviolable, because
in a manner consecrated to be the guardian and protector of
them; but if he degenerate so far as to oppress the people,
abridge their powers, and take away their liberty of voting,
he stands deprived by his own act of his honors and
immunities, by the neglect of the duty, for which the honor
was bestowed upon him. Otherwise we should be under the
obligation to let a tribune do his pleasure, though he should
proceed to destroy the capitol or set fire to the arsenal.
He who should make these attempts, would be a bad tribune.
He who assails the power of the people, is no longer a
tribune at all. Is it not inconceivable, that a tribune
should have power to imprison a consul, and the people have
no authority to degrade him when he uses that honor which he
received from them, to their detriment? For the tribunes, as
well as the consuls, hold office by the people's votes. The
kingly government, which comprehends all sorts of authority
in itself alone, is morever elevated by the greatest and most
religious solemnity imaginable into a condition of sanctity.
But the citizens, notwithstanding this, deposed Tarquin, when
he acted wrongfully; and for the crime of one single man, the
ancient government under which Rome was built, was abolished
forever. What is there in all Rome so sacred and venerable
as the vestal virgins, to whose care alone the preservation
of the eternal fire is committed? yet if one of these
transgress, she is buried alive; the sanctity which for the
gods' sakes is allowed them, is forfeited when they offend
against the gods. So likewise a tribune retains not his
inviolability, which for the people's sake was accorded to
him, when he offends against the people, and attacks the
foundations of that authority from whence he derived his own.
We esteem him to be legally chosen tribune who is elected
only by the majority of votes; and is not therefore the same
person much more lawfully degraded, when by a general consent
of them all, they agree to depose him? Nothing is so sacred
as religious offerings; yet the people were never prohibited
to make use of them, but suffered to remove and carry them
wherever they pleased; so likewise, as it were some sacred
present, they have lawful power to transfer the tribuneship
from one man's hands to another's. Nor can that authority be
thought inviolable and irremovable which many of those who
have held it, have of their own act surrendered, and desired
to be discharged from."
These were the principal heads of Tiberius's apology. But
his friends, apprehending the dangers which seemed to
threaten him, and the conspiracy that was gathering head
against him, were of opinion, that the safest way would be
for him to petition that he might be continued tribune for
the year ensuing. Upon this consideration, he again
endeavored to secure the people's good-will with fresh laws,
making the years of serving in the war fewer than formerly,
granting liberty of appeal from the judges to the people, and
joining to the senators, who were judges at that time, an
equal number of citizens of the horsemen's degree,
endeavoring as much as in him lay to lessen the power of the
senate, rather from passion and partisanship than from any
rational regard to equity and the public good. And when it
came to the question, whether these laws should be passed,
and they perceived that the opposite party were strongest,
the people as yet being not got together in a full body, they
began first of all to gain time by speeches in accusation of
some of their fellow-magistrates, and at length adjourned the
assembly till the day following.
Tiberius then went down into the marketplace amongst the
people, and made his addresses to them humbly and with tears
in his eyes; and told them, he had just reason to suspect,
that his adversaries would attempt in the night time to break
open his house, and murder him. This worked so strongly with
the multitude, that several of them pitched tents round about
his house, and kept guard all night for the security of his
person. By break of day came one of the soothsayers, who
prognosticate good or bad success by the pecking of fowls,
and threw them something to eat. The soothsayer used his
utmost endeavors to fright the fowls out of their coop; but
none of them except one would venture out, which fluttered
with its left wing, and stretched out its leg, and ran back
again into the coop, without eating anything. This put
Tiberius in mind of another ill omen which had formerly
happened to him. He had a very costly headpiece, which he
made use of when he engaged in any battle, and into this
piece of armor two serpents crawled, laid eggs, and brought
forth young ones. The remembrance of which made Tiberius
more concerned now, than otherwise he would have been.
However, he went towards the capitol, as soon as he
understood that the people were assembled there; but before
he got out of the house, he stumbled upon the threshold with
such violence, that he broke the nail of his great toe,
insomuch that blood gushed out of his shoe. He was not gone
very far before he saw two ravens fighting on the top of a
house which stood on his left hand as he passed along; and
though he was surrounded with a number of people, a stone,
struck from its place by one of the ravens, fell just at his
foot. This even the boldest men about him felt as a check.
But Blossius of Cuma, who was present, told him, that it
would be a shame, and an ignominious thing, for Tiberius, who
was the son of Gracchus, the grandson of Scipio Africanus,
and the protector of the Roman people, to refuse, for fear of
a silly bird, to answer, when his countrymen called to him;
and that his adversaries would represent it not as a mere
matter for their ridicule, but would declaim about it to the
people as the mark of a tyrannical temper, which felt a pride
in taking liberties with the people. At the same time
several messengers came also from his friends, to desire his
presence at the capitol, saying that all things went there
according to expectation. And indeed Tiberius's first
entrance there was in every way successful; as soon as ever
he appeared, the people welcomed him with loud acclamations,
and as he went up to his place, they repeated their
expressions of joy, and gathered in a body around him, so
that no one who was not well known to be his friend, might
approach. Mucius then began to put the business again to the
vote; but nothing could be performed in the usual course and
order, because of the disturbance caused by those who were on
the outside of the crowd, where there was a struggle going on
with those of the opposite party, who were pushing on and
trying to force their way in and establish themselves among
them.
Whilst things were in this confusion, Flavius Flaccus, a
senator, standing in a place where he could be seen, but at
such a distance from Tiberius that he could not make him
hear, signified to him by motions of his hand, that he wished
to impart something of consequence to him in private.
Tiberius ordered the multitude to make way for him, by which
means, though not without some difficulty, Flavius got to
him, and informed him, that the rich men, in a sitting of the
senate, seeing they could not prevail upon the consul to
espouse their quarrel, had come to a final determination
amongst themselves, that he should be assassinated, and to
that purpose had a great number of their friends and servants
ready armed to accomplish it. Tiberius no sooner
communicated this confederacy to those about him, but they
immediately tucked up their gowns, broke the halberts which
the officers used to keep the crowd off into pieces, and
distributed them among themselves, resolving to resist the
attack with these. Those who stood at a distance wondered,
and asked what was the occasion; Tiberius, knowing that they
could not hear him at that distance, lifted his hand to his
head, wishing to intimate the great danger which he
apprehended himself to be in. His adversaries, taking notice
of that action, ran off at once to the senate house, and
declared, that Tiberius desired the people to bestow a crown
upon him, as if this were the meaning of his touching his
head. This news created general confusion in the senators,
and Nasica at once called upon the consul to punish this
tyrant, and defend the government. The consul mildly
replied, that he would not be the first to do any violence;
and as he would not suffer any freeman to be put to death,
before sentence had lawfully passed upon him, so neither
would he allow any measure to be carried into effect, if by
persuasion or compulsion on the part of Tiberius the people
had been induced to pass any unlawful vote. But Nasica,
rising from his seat, "Since the consul," said he, "regards
not the safety of the commonwealth, let everyone who will
defend the laws, follow me." He, then, casting the skirt of
his gown over his head, hastened to the capitol; those who
bore him company, wrapped their gowns also about their arms.
and forced their way after him. And as they were persons of
the greatest authority in the city, the common people did not
venture to obstruct their passing, but were rather so eager
to clear the way for them, that they tumbled over one another
in haste. The attendants they brought with them, had
furnished themselves with clubs and staves from their houses,
and they themselves picked up the feet and other fragments of
stools and chairs, which were broken by the hasty flight of
the common people. Thus armed, they made towards Tiberius,
knocking down those whom they found in front of him, and
those were soon wholly dispersed, and many of them slain.
Tiberius tried to save himself by flight. As he was running,
he was stopped by one who caught hold of him by the gown; but
he threw it off, and fled in his under-garments only. And
stumbling over those who before had been knocked down, as he
was endeavoring to get up again, Publius Satureius, a
tribune, one of his colleagues, was observed to give him the
first fatal stroke, by hitting him upon the head with the
foot of a stool. The second blow was claimed, as though it
had been a deed to be proud of, by Lucius Rufus. And of the
rest there fell above three hundred, killed by clubs and
staves only, none by an iron weapon.
This, we are told, was the first sedition amongst the Romans,
since the abrogation of kingly government, that ended in the
effusion of blood. All former quarrels which were neither
small nor about trivial matters, were always amicably
composed, by mutual concessions on either side, the senate
yielding for fear of the commons, and the commons out of
respect to the senate. And it is probable indeed that
Tiberius himself might then have been easily induced, by mere
persuasion, to give way, and certainly, if attacked at all,
must have yielded without any recourse to violence and
bloodshed, as he had not at that time above three thousand
men to support him. But it is evident, that this conspiracy
was fomented against him, more out of the hatred and malice
which the rich men had to his person, than for the reasons
which they commonly pretended against him. In testimony of
which, we may adduce the cruelty and unnatural insults which
they used to his dead body. For they would not suffer his
own brother, though he earnestly begged the favor, to bury
him in the night, but threw him, together with the other
corpses, into the river. Neither did their animosity stop
here; for they banished some of his friends without legal
process, and slew as many of the others us they could lay
their hands on; amongst whom Diophanes, the orator, was
slain, and one Caius Villius cruelly murdered by being shut
up in a large tun with vipers and serpents. Blossius of
Cuma, indeed, was carried before the consuls, and examined
touching what had happened, and freely confessed, that he
had done, without scruple, whatever Tiberius bade him.
"What," replied Nasica, "then if Tiberius had bidden you burn
the capitol, would you have burnt it?" His first answer was,
that Tiberius never would have ordered any such thing; but
being pressed with the same question by several others, he
declared, "If Tiberius had commanded it, it would have been
right for me to do it; for he never would have commanded it,
if it had not been for the people's good." Blossius at this
time was pardoned, and afterwards went away to Aristonicus in
Asia, and when Aristonicus was overthrown and ruined, killed
himself.
The senate, to soothe the people after these transactions,
did not oppose the division of the public lands, and
permitted them to choose another commissioner in the room of
Tiberius. So they elected Publius Crassus, who was
Gracchus's near connection, as his daughter Licinia was
married to Caius Gracchus; although Cornelius Nepos says,
that it was not Crassus's daughter whom Caius married, but
Brutus's, who triumphed for his victories over the
Lusitanians; but most writers state it as we have done. The
people, however, showed evident marks of their anger at
Tiberius's death; and were clearly waiting only for the
opportunity to be revenged, and Nasica was already threatened
with an impeachment. The senate, therefore, fearing lest
some mischief should befall him, sent him ambassador into
Asia, though there was no occasion for his going thither.
For the people did not conceal their indignation, even in the
open streets, but railed at him, whenever they met him
abroad, calling him a murderer and a tyrant, one who had
polluted the most holy and religious spot in Rome with the
blood of a sacred and inviolable magistrate. And so Nasica
left Italy, although be was bound, being the chief priest, to
officiate in all principal sacrifices. Thus wandering
wretchedly and ignominiously from one place to another, he
died in a short time after, not far from Pergamus. It is no
wonder that the people had such an aversion to Nasica, when
even Scipio Africanus, though so much and so deservedly
beloved by the Romans, was in danger of quite losing the good
opinion which the people had of him, only for repeating, when
the news of Tiberius's death was first brought to Numantia,
the verse out of Homer
Even so perish all who do the same.
And afterwards, being asked by Caius and Fulvius, in a great
assembly, what he thought of Tiberius's death, he gave an
answer adverse to Tiberius's public actions. Upon which
account, the people thenceforth used to interrupt him when he
spoke, which, until that time, they had never done, and he,
on the other hand, was induced to speak ill of the people.
But of this the particulars are given in the life of Scipio.
CAIUS GRACCHUS
Caius Gracchus, at first, either for fear of his brother's enemies,
or designing to render them more odious to the people, absented
himself from the public assemblies, and lived quietly in his own
house, as if he were not only reduced for the present to live
unambitiously, but was disposed in general to pass his life in
inaction. And some, indeed, went so far as to say that he
disliked his brother's measures, and had wholly abandoned the
defense of them. However, he was now but very young, being not so
old as Tiberius by nine years; and he was not yet thirty when he
was slain.
In some little time, however, he quietly let his temper appear,
which was one of an utter antipathy to a lazy retirement and
effeminacy, and not the least likely to be contented with a life
of eating, drinking, and money getting. He gave great pains to
the study of eloquence, as wings upon which he might aspire to
public business; and it was very apparent that he did not intend
to pass his days in obscurity. When Vettius, a friend of his, was
on his trial, he defended his cause, and the people were in an
ecstasy, and transported with joy, finding him master of such
eloquence that the other orators seemed like children in
comparison, and jealousies and fears on the other hand began to be
felt by the powerful citizens; and it was generally spoken of
amongst them that they must hinder Caius from being made tribune.
But soon after, it happened that he was elected quaestor, and
obliged to attend Orestes, the consul, into Sardinia. This, as it
pleased his enemies, so it was not ungrateful to him, being
naturally of a warlike character, and as well trained in the art
of war as in that of pleading. And, besides, as yet he very much
dreaded meddling with state affairs, and appearing publicly in the
rostra, which, because of the importunity of the people and his
friends, he could no otherwise avoid, than by taking this journey.
He was therefore most thankful for the opportunity of absenting
himself. Notwithstanding which, it is the prevailing opinion that
Caius was a far more thorough demagogue, and more ambitious than
ever Tiberius had been, of popular applause; yet it is certain
that he was borne rather by a sort of necessity than by any
purpose of his own into public business. And Cicero, the orator,
relates, that when he declined all such concerns, and would have
lived privately, his brother appeared to him in a dream, and
calling him by his name, said, "why do you tarry, Caius? There is
no escape; one life and one death is appointed for us both, to
spend the one and to meet the other, in the service of the
people."
Caius was no sooner arrived in Sardinia, but he gave exemplary
proofs of his high merit; he not only excelled all the young men
of his age in his actions against his enemies, in doing justice to
his inferiors, and in showing all obedience and respect to his
superior officer; but likewise in temperance, frugality, and
industry, he surpassed even those who were much older than
himself. It happened to be a sharp and sickly winter in Sardinia,
insomuch that the general was forced to lay an imposition upon
several towns to supply the soldiers with necessary clothes. The
cities sent to Rome, petitioning to be excused from that burden;
the senate found their request reasonable, and ordered the general
to find some other way of new clothing the army. While he was at
a loss what course to take in this affair, the soldiers were
reduced to great distress; but Caius went from one city to
another, and by his mere representations, he prevailed with them,
that of their own accord they clothed the Roman army. This again
being reported to Rome, and seeming to be only an intimation of
what was to be expected of him as a popular leader hereafter,
raised new jealousies amongst the senators. And, besides, there
came ambassadors out of Africa from king Micipsa, to acquaint the
senate, that their master, out of respect to Caius Gracchus, had
sent a considerable quantity of corn to the general in Sardinia;
at which the senators were so much offended, that they turned the
ambassadors out of the senate house, and made an order that the
soldiers should be relieved by sending others in their room; but
that Orestes should continue at his post, with whom Caius, also,
as they presumed, being his quaestor, would remain. But he,
finding how things were carried, immediately in anger took ship
for Rome, where his unexpected appearance obtained him the censure
not only of his enemies, but also of the people; who thought it
strange that a quaestor should leave before his commander.
Nevertheless, when some accusation upon this ground was made
against him to the censors, he desired leave to defend himself,
and did it so effectually, that, when he ended, he was regarded as
one who had been very much injured. He made it then appear, that
he had served twelve years in the army, whereas others are obliged
to serve only ten; that he had continued quaestor to the general
three years, whereas he might by law have returned at the end of
one year; and alone of all who went on the expedition, he had
carried out a full, and had brought home an empty purse, while
others, after drinking up the wine they had carried out with them,
brought back the wine-jars filled again with gold and silver from
the war.
After this, they brought other accusations and writs against him,
for exciting insurrection amongst the allies, and being engaged
in the conspiracy that was discovered about Fregellae. But having
cleared himself of every suspicion, and proved his entire
innocence, he now at once came forward to ask for the tribuneship;
in which, though he was universally opposed by all persons of
distinction, yet there came such infinite numbers of people from
all parts of Italy to vote for Caius, that lodgings for them could
not be supplied in the city; and the Field being not large enough
to contain the assembly, there were numbers who climbed upon the
roofs and the tilings of the houses to use their voices in his
favor. However, the nobility so far forced the people to their
pleasure and disappointed Caius's hope, that he was not returned
the first, as was expected, but the fourth tribune. But when he
came to the execution of his office, it was seen presently who was
really first tribune, as he was a better orator than any of his
contemporaries, and the passion with which he still lamented his
brother's death, made him the bolder in speaking. He used on all
occasions to remind the people of what had happened in that
tumult, and laid before them the examples of their ancestors, how
they declared war against the Faliscans, only for giving
scurrilous language to one Genucius, a tribune of the people; and
sentenced Caius Veturius to death, for refusing to give way in the
forum to a tribune; "Whereas," said he, "these men did, in the
presence of you all, murder Tiberius with clubs, and dragged the
slaughtered body through the middle of the city, to be cast into
the river. Even his friends, as many as could be taken, were put
to death immediately, without any trial, notwithstanding that just
and ancient custom, which has always been observed in our city,
that whenever anyone is accused of a capital crime, and does not
make his personal appearance in court, a trumpeter is sent in the
morning to his lodging, to summon him by sound of trumpet to
appear; and before this ceremony is performed, the judges do not
proceed to the vote; so cautious and reserved were our ancestors
about business of life and death."
Having moved the people's passion with such addresses (and his
voice was of the loudest and strongest), he proposed two laws.
The first was, that whoever was turned out of any public office by
the people, should be thereby rendered incapable of bearing any
office afterwards; the second, that if any magistrate condemn a
Roman to be banished, without a legal trial, the people be
authorized to take cognizance thereof.
One of these laws was manifestly leveled at Marcus Octavius, who,
at the instigation of Tiberius, had been deprived of his
tribuneship. The other touched Popilius, who, in his praetorship,
had banished all Tiberius's friends; whereupon Popilius, being
unwilling to stand the hazard of a trial, fled out of Italy. As
for the former law, it was withdrawn by Caius himself, who said he
yielded in the case of Octavius, at the request of his mother
Cornelia. This was very acceptable and pleasing to the people,
who had a great veneration for Cornelia, not more for the sake of
her father than for that of her children; and they afterwards
erected a statue of brass in honor of her, with this inscription,
Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi. There are several
expressions recorded, in which he used her name perhaps with too
much rhetoric, and too little self-respect, in his attacks upon
his adversaries. "How," said he, "dare you presume to reflect
upon Cornelia, the mother of Tiberius?" And because the person
who made the redactions had been suspected of effeminate courses,
"With what face," said he, "can you compare Cornelia with
yourself? Have you brought forth children as she has done? And
yet all Rome knows, that she has refrained from the conversation
of men longer than you yourself have done." Such was the
bitterness he used in his language; and numerous similar
expressions might be adduced from his written remains.
Of the laws which he now proposed, with the object of gratifying
the people and abridging the power of the senate, the first was
concerning the public lands, which were to be divided amongst the
poor citizens; another was concerning the common soldiers, that
they should be clothed at the public charge, without any
diminution of their pay, and that none should be obliged to serve
in the army who was not full seventeen years old; another gave the
same right to all the Italians in general, of voting at elections,
as was enjoyed by the citizens of Rome; a fourth related to the
price of corn, which was to be sold at a lower rate than formerly
to the poor; and a fifth regulated the courts of justice, greatly
reducing the power of the senators. For hitherto, in all causes
senators only sat as judges, and were therefore much dreaded by
the Roman knights and the people. But Caius joined three hundred
ordinary citizens of equestrian rank with the senators, who were
three hundred likewise in number, and ordained that the judicial
authority should be equally invested in the six hundred. While he
was arguing for the ratification of this law, his behavior was
observed to show in many respects unusual earnestness, and whereas
other popular leaders had always hitherto, when speaking, turned
their faces towards the senate house, and the place called the
comitium, he, on the contrary, was the first man that in his
harangue to the people turned himself the other way, towards them,
and continued after that time to do so. An insignificant movement
and change of posture, yet it marked no small revolution in state
affairs, the conversion, in a manner, of the whole government from
an aristocracy to a democracy; his action intimating that public
speakers should address themselves to the people, not the senate.
When the commonalty ratified this law, and gave him power to
select those of the knights whom he approved of, to be judges, he
was invested with a sort of kingly power, and the senate itself
submitted to receive his advice in matters of difficulty; nor did
he advise anything that might derogate from the honor of that
body. As, for example, his resolution about the corn which Fabius
the propraetor sent from Spain, was very just and honorable; for
he persuaded the senate to sell the corn, and return the money to
the same provinces which had furnished them with it; and also that
Fabius should be censured for rendering the Roman government
odious and insupportable. This got him extraordinary respect and
favor among the provinces. Besides all this, he proposed measures
for the colonization of several cities, for making roads, and for
building public granaries; of all which works he himself undertook
the management and superintendence, and was never wanting to give
necessary orders for the dispatch of all these different and great
undertakings; and that with such wonderful expedition and
diligence, as if he had been but engaged upon one of them;
insomuch that all persons, even those who hated or feared him,
stood amazed to see what a capacity he had for effecting and
completing all he undertook. As for the people themselves, they
were transported at the very sight, when they saw him surrounded
with a crowd of contractors, artificers, public deputies, military
officers, soldiers, and scholars. All these he treated with an
easy familiarity, yet without abandoning his dignity in his
gentleness; and so accommodated his nature to the wants and
occasions of everyone who addressed him, that those were looked
upon as no better than envious detractors, who had represented him
as a terrible, assuming, and violent character. He was even a
greater master of the popular leader's art in his common talk and
his actions, than he was in his public addresses.
His most especial exertions were given to constructing the roads,
which he was careful to make beautiful and pleasant, as well as
convenient. They were drawn by his directions through the fields,
exactly in a straight line, partly paved with hewn stone, and
partly laid with solid masses of gravel. When he met with any
valleys or deep watercourses crossing the line, he either caused
them to be filled up with rubbish, or bridges to be built over
them, so well leveled, that all being of an equal height on both
sides, the work presented one uniform and beautiful prospect.
Besides this, he caused the roads to be all divided into miles
(each mile containing little less than eight furlongs, and erected
pillars of stone to signify the distance from one place to
another. He likewise placed other stones at small distances from
one another, on both sides of the way, by the help of which
travelers might get easily on horseback without wanting a groom.
For these reasons, the people highly extolled him, and were ready
upon all occasions to express their affection towards him. One
day, in an oration to them, he declared that he had only one favor
to request, which if they granted, he should think the greatest
obligation in the world; yet if it were denied, he would never
blame them for the refusal. This expression made the world
believe that his ambition was to be consul; and it was generally
expected that he wished to be both consul and tribune at the same
time. When the day for election of consuls was at hand, and all
in great expectation, he appeared in the Field with Caius Fannius,
canvassing together with his friends for his election. This was
of great effect in Fannius's favor. He was chosen consul, and
Caius elected tribune the second time, without his own seeking or
petitioning for it, but at the voluntary motion of the people.
But when he understood that the senators were his declared
enemies, and that Fannius himself was none of the most zealous of
friends, he began again to rouse the people with other new laws.
He proposed that a colony of Roman citizens might be sent to
re-people Tarentum and Capua, and that the Latins should enjoy the
same privileges with the citizens of Rome. But the senate,
apprehending that he would at last grow too powerful and
dangerous, took a new and unusual course to alienate the people's
affections from him, by playing the demagogue in opposition to
him, and offering favors contrary to all good policy. Livius
Drusus was fellow-tribune with Caius, a person of as good a family
and as well educated as any amongst the Romans, and noways
inferior to those who for their eloquence and riches were the most
honored and most powerful men of that time. To him, therefore,
the chief senators made their application, exhorting him to attack
Caius, and join in their confederacy against him; which they
designed to carry on, not by using any force, or opposing the
common people, but by gratifying and obliging them with such
unreasonable things as otherwise they would have felt it honorable
for them to incur the greatest unpopularity in resisting.
Livius offered to serve the senate with his authority in this
business; and proceeded accordingly to bring forward such laws as
were in reality neither honorable nor advantageous for the public;
his whole design being to outdo Caius in pleasing and cajoling the
populace (as if it had been in some comedy), with obsequious
flattery and every kind of gratifications; the senate thus letting
it be seen plainly, that they were not angry with Caius's public
measures, but only desirous to ruin him utterly, or at least to
lessen his reputation. For when Caius proposed the settlement of
only two colonies, and mentioned the better class of citizens for
that purpose, they accused him of abusing the people; and yet, on
the contrary, were pleased with Drusus, when he proposed the
sending out of twelve colonies, each to consist of three thousand
persons, and those, too, the most needy that he could find. When
Caius divided the public land amongst the poor citizens, and
charged them with a small rent, annually, to be paid into the
exchequer, they were angry at him, as one who sought to gratify
the people only for his own interest; yet afterwards they
commended Livius, though he exempted them from paying even that
little acknowledgment. They were displeased with Caius, for
offering the Latins an equal right with the Romans of voting at
the election of magistrates; but when Livius proposed that it
might not be lawful for a Roman captain to scourge a Latin
soldier, they promoted the passing of that law. And Livius, in
all his speeches to the people, always told them, that he proposed
no laws but such as were agreeable to the senate, who had a
particular regard to the people's advantage. And this truly was
the only point in all his proceedings which was of any real
service, as it created more kindly feelings towards the senate in
the people; and whereas they formerly suspected and hated the
principal senators, Livius appeased and mitigated this
perverseness and animosity, by his profession that he had done
nothing in favor and for the benefit of the commons, without their
advice and approbation.
But the greatest credit which Drusus got for kindness and justice
towards the people was, that he never seemed to propose any law
for his own sake, or his own advantage; he committed the charge of
seeing the colonies rightly settled to other commissioners;
neither did he ever concern himself with the distribution of the
moneys; whereas Caius always took the principal part in any
important transactions of this kind. Rubrius, another tribune of
the people, had proposed to have Carthage again inhabited, which
had been demolished by Scipio, and it fell to Caius's lot to see
this performed, and for that purpose he sailed to Africa. Drusus
took this opportunity of his absence to insinuate himself still
more into the peoples' affections, which he did chiefly by
accusing Fulvius, who was a particular friend to Caius, and was
appointed a commissioner with him for the division of the lands.
Fulvius was a man of a turbulent spirit, and notoriously hated by
the senate; and besides, he was suspected by others to have
fomented the differences between the citizens and their
confederates, and underhand to be inciting the Italians to rebel;
though there was little other evidence of the truth of these
accusations, than his being an unsettled character, and of a
well-known seditious temper. This was one principal cause of
Caius's ruin; for part of the envy which fell upon Fulvius, was
extended to him. And when Scipio Africanus died suddenly, and no
cause of such an unexpected death could be assigned, only some
marks of blows upon his body seemed to intimate that he had
suffered violence, as is related in the history of his life, the
greatest part of the odium attached to Fulvius, because he was his
enemy, and that very day had reflected upon Scipio in a public
address to the people. Nor was Caius himself clear from
suspicion. However, this great outrage, committed too upon the
person of the greatest and most considerable man in Rome, was
never either punished or inquired into thoroughly, for the
populace opposed and hindered any judicial investigation, for fear
that Caius should be implicated in the charge if proceedings were
carried on. This, however, had happened some time before.
But in Africa, where at present Caius was engaged in the
repeopling of Carthage, which he named Junonia, many ominous
appearances, which presaged mischief, are reported to have been
sent from the gods. For a sudden gust of wind falling upon the
first standard, and the standard-bearer holding it fast, the staff
broke; another sudden storm blew away the sacrifices, which were
laid upon the altars, and carried them beyond the bounds laid out
for the city; and the wolves came and carried away the very marks
that were set up to show the boundary. Caius, notwithstanding all
this, ordered and dispatched the whole business in the space of
seventy days, and then returned to Rome, understanding how Fulvius
was prosecuted by Drusus, and that the present juncture of affairs
would not suffer him to be absent. For Lucius Opimius, one who
sided with the nobility, and was of no small authority in the
senate, who had formerly sued to be consul, but was repulsed by
Caius's interest, at the time when Fannius was elected, was in a
fair way now of being chosen consul, having a numerous company of
supporters. And it was generally believed, if he did obtain it,
that he would wholly ruin Caius, whose power was already in a
declining condition; and the people were not so apt to admire his
actions as formerly, because there were so many others who every
day contrived new ways to please them, with which the senate
readily complied.
After his return to Rome, he quitted his house on the Palatine
Mount, and went to live near the market-place, endeavoring to make
himself more popular in those parts, where most of the humbler and
poorer citizens lived. He then brought forward the remainder of
his proposed laws, as intending to have them ratified by the
popular vote; to support which a vast number of people collected
from all quarters. But the senate persuaded Fannius, the consul,
to command all persons who were not born Romans, to depart the
city. A new and unusual proclamation was thereupon made,
prohibiting any of the Allies or Confederates to appear at Rome
during that time. Caius, on the contrary, published an edict,
accusing the consul for what he had done, and setting forth to the
Confederates, that if they would continue upon the place, they
might be assured of his assistance and protection. However, he
was not so good as his word; for though he saw one of his own
familiar friends and companions dragged to prison by Fannius's
officers, he notwithstanding passed by, without assisting him;
either because he was afraid to stand the test of his power, which
was already decreased, or because, as he himself reported, he was
unwilling to give his enemies an opportunity, which they very much
desired, of coming to actual violence and fighting. About that
time there happened likewise a difference between him and his
fellow-officers upon this occasion. A show of gladiators was to
be exhibited before the people in the marketplace, and most of the
magistrates erected scaffolds round about, with an intention of
letting them for advantage. Caius commanded them to take down
their scaffolds, that the poor people might see the sport without
paying anything. But nobody obeying these orders of his, he
gathered together a body of laborers, who worked for him, and
overthrew all the scaffolds, the very night before the contest was
to take place. So that by the next morning the market-place was
cleared, and the common people had an opportunity of seeing the
pastime. In this, the populace thought he had acted the part of a
man; but he much disobliged the tribunes, his colleagues, who
regarded it as a piece of violent and presumptuous interference.
This was thought to be the chief reason that he failed of being a
third time elected tribune; not but that he had the most votes,
but because his colleagues out of revenge caused false returns to
be made. But as to this matter there was a controversy. Certain
it is, he very much resented this repulse, and behaved with
unusual arrogance towards some of his adversaries who were joyful
at his defeat, telling them, that all this was but a false,
sardonic mirth, as they little knew how much his actions threw
them into obscurity.
As soon as Opimius also was chosen consul, they presently canceled
several of Caius's laws, and especially called in question his
proceedings at Carthage, omitting nothing that was likely to
irritate him, that from some effect of his passion they might find
out a colorable pretense to put him to death. Caius at first bore
these things very patiently; but afterwards, at the instigation of
his friends, especially Fulvius, he resolved to put himself at the
head of a body of supporters, to oppose the consul by force. They
say also that on this occasion his mother, Cornelia, joined in the
sedition, and assisted him by sending privately several strangers
into Rome, under pretense as if they came to be hired there for
harvestmen; for that intimations of this are given in her letters
to him. However, it is confidently affirmed by others, that
Cornelia did not in the least approve of these actions.
When the day came in which Opimius designed to abrogate the laws
of Caius, both parties met very early at the capitol; and the
consul having performed all the rites usual in their sacrifices,
one Quintus Antyllius, an attendant on the consul, carrying out
the entrails of the victim, spoke to Fulvius, and his friends who
stood about him, "Ye factious citizens, make way for honest men."
Some report, that besides this provoking language, he extended his
naked arm towards them, as a piece of scorn and contempt. Upon
this he was presently killed with the strong stiles which are
commonly used in writing, though some say that on this occasion
they had been manufactured for this purpose only. This murder
caused a sudden consternation in the whole assembly, and the heads
of each faction had their different sentiments about it. As for
Caius he was much grieved, and severely reprimanded his own party,
because they had given their adversaries a reasonable pretense to
proceed against them, which they had so long hoped for. Opimius,
immediately seizing the occasion thus offered, was in great
delight, and urged the people to revenge; but there happening a
great shower of rain on a sudden, it put an end to the business of
that day.
Early the next morning, the consul summoned the senate, and whilst
he advised with the senators in the senate-house, the corpse of
Antyllius was laid upon a bier, and brought through the
market-place, being there exposed to open view, just before the
senate-house, with a great deal of crying and lamentation.
Opimius was not at all ignorant that this was designed to be done;
however, he seemed to be surprised, and wondered what the meaning
of it should be; the senators, therefore, presently went out to
know the occasion of it and, standing about the corpse, uttered
exclamations against the inhuman and barbarous act. The people
meantime could not but feel resentment and hatred for the
senators, remembering how they themselves had not only
assassinated Tiberius Gracchus, as he was executing his office in
the very capitol, but had also thrown his mangled body into the
river; yet now they could honor with their presence and their
public lamentations in the forum the corpse of an ordinary hired
attendant, (who, though he might perhaps die wrongfully, was,
however, in a great measure the occasion of it himself,) by these
means hoping to undermine him who was the only remaining defender
and safeguard of the people.
The senators, after some time, withdrew, and presently ordered
that Opimius, the consul, should be invested with extraordinary
power to protect the commonwealth and suppress all tyrants. This
being decreed, he presently commanded the senators to arm
themselves, and the Roman knights to be in readiness very early
the next morning, and every one of them to be attended with two
servants well armed. Fulvius, on the other side, made his
preparations and collected the populace. Caius at that time
returning from the market-place, made a stop just before his
father's statue, and fixing his eyes for some time upon it,
remained in a deep contemplation; at length he sighed, shed tears,
and departed. This made no small impression upon those who saw
it, and they began to upbraid themselves, that they should desert
and betray so worthy a man as Caius. They therefore went
directly to his house, remaining there as a guard about it all
night, though in a different manner from those who were a guard to
Fulvius; for they passed away the night with shouting and
drinking, and Fulvius himself, being the first to get drunk,
spoke and acted many things very unbecoming a man of his age and
character. On the other side, the party which guarded Caius, were
quiet and diligent, relieving one another by turns, and
forecasting, as in a public calamity, what the issue of things
might be. As soon as daylight appeared, they roused Fulvius, who
had not yet slept off the effects of his drinking; and having
armed themselves with the weapons hung up in his house, that were
formerly taken from the Gauls, whom he conquered in the time of
his consulship, they presently, with threats and loud
acclamations, made their way towards the Aventine Mount.
Caius could not be persuaded to arm himself, but put on his gown,
as if he had been going to the assembly of the people, only with
this difference, that under it he had then a short dagger by his
side. As he was going out, his wife came running to him at the
gate, holding him with one hand, and with her other a young child
of his. She thus bespoke him: "Alas, Caius, I do not now part
with you to let you address the people, either as a tribune or a
lawgiver, nor as if you were going to some honorable war, when
though you might perhaps have encountered that fate which all must
sometime or other submit to, yet you had left me this mitigation
of my sorrow, that my mourning was respected and honored. You go
now to expose your person to the murderers of Tiberius, unarmed,
indeed, and rightly so, choosing rather to suffer the worst of
injuries, than do the least yourself. But even your very death at
this time will not be serviceable to the public good. Faction
prevails; power and arms are now the only measures of justice.
Had your brother fallen before Numantia, the enemy would have
given back what then had remained of Tiberius; but such is my hard
fate, that I probably must be an humble suppliant to the floods or
the waves, that they would somewhere restore to me your relics;
for since Tiberius was not spared, what trust can we place either
on the laws, or in the gods?" Licinia, thus bewailing, Caius, by
degrees getting loose from her embraces, silently withdrew
himself, being accompanied by his friends; she, endeavoring to
catch him by the gown, fell prostrate upon the earth, lying there
for some time speechless. Her servants took her up for dead, and
conveyed her to her brother Crassus.
Fulvius, when the people were gathered together in a full body, by
the advice of Caius, sent his youngest son into the market-place,
with a herald's rod in his hand. He, being a very handsome youth,
and modestly addressing himself, with tears in his eyes and a
becoming bashfulness, offered proposals of agreement to the consul
and the whole senate. The greatest part of the assembly were
inclinable to accept of the proposals; but Opimius said, that it
did not become them to send messengers and capitulate with the
senate, but to surrender at discretion to the laws, like loyal
citizens, and endeavor to merit their pardon by submission. He
commanded the youth not to return, unless they would comply with
these conditions. Caius, as it is reported, was very forward to
go and clear himself before the senate; but none of his friends
consenting to it, Fulvius sent his son a second time to intercede
for them, as before. But Opimius, who was resolved that a
battle should ensue, caused the youth to be apprehended, and
committed into custody; and then, with a company of his
foot-soldiers and some Cretan archers, set upon the party under
Fulvius. These archers did such execution, and inflicted so many
wounds, that a rout and flight quickly ensued. Fulvius fled into
an obscure bathing-house; but shortly after being discovered, he
and his eldest son were slain together. Caius was not observed to
use any violence against anyone; but, extremely disliking all
these outrages, retired to Diana's temple. There he attempted to
kill himself, but was hindered by his faithful friends, Pomponius
and Licinius, they took his sword away from him, and were very
urgent that he would endeavor to make his escape. It is reported,
that falling upon his knee and lifting up his hands, he prayed the
goddess that the Roman people, as a punishment for their
ingratitude and treachery, might always remain in slavery. For as
soon as a proclamation was made of a pardon, the greater part
openly deserted him.
Caius, therefore, endeavored now to make his escape, but was
pursued so close by his enemies, as far as the wooden bridge, that
from thence he narrowly escaped. There his two trusty friends
begged of him to preserve his own person by flight, whilst they in
the meantime would keep their post, and maintain the passage;
neither could their enemies, until they were both slain, pass the
bridge. Caius had no other companion in his flight but one
Philocrates, a servant of his. As he ran along, everybody
encouraged him, and wished him success, as standers-by may do to
those who are engaged in a race, but nobody either lent him any
assistance, or would furnish him with a horse, though he asked for
one; for his enemies had gained ground, and got very near him.
However, he had still time enough to hide himself in a little
grove, consecrated to the Furies. In that place, his servant
Philocrates having first slain him, presently afterwards killed
himself also, and fell dead upon his master. Though some affirm
it for a truth, that they were both taken alive by their enemies,
and that Philocrates embraced his master so close, that they could
not wound Caius until his servant was slain.
They say that when Caius's head was cut off, and carried away by
one of his murderers, Septimuleius, Opimius's friend met him, and
forced it from him; because, before the battle began, they had
made proclamation, that whoever should bring the head either of
Caius or Fulvius, should, as a reward, receive its weight in gold.
Septimuleius, therefore, having fixed Caius's head upon the top of
his spear, came and presented it to Opimius. They presently
brought the scales, and it was found to weigh above seventeen
pounds. But in this affair, Septimuleius gave as great signs of
his knavery, as he had done before of his cruelty; for having
taken out the brains, he had filled the skull with lead. There
were others who brought the head of Fulvius too, but, being mean,
inconsiderable persons, were turned away without the promised
reward. The bodies of these two persons, as well as of the rest
who were slain, to the number of three thousand men, were all
thrown into the river; their goods were confiscated, and their
widows forbidden to put themselves into mourning. They dealt even
more severely with Licinia, Caius's wife, and deprived her even of
her jointure; and as an addition still to all their inhumanity,
they barbarously murdered Fulvius's youngest son; his only crime
being, not that he took up arms against them, or that he was
present in the battle, but merely that he had come with articles
of agreement; for this he was first imprisoned, then slain.
But that which angered the common people beyond all these things
was, because at this time, in memory of his success, Opimius built
the temple of Concord, as if he gloried and triumphed in the
slaughter of so many citizens. Somebody in the night time, under
the inscription of the temple, added this verse:--
Folly and Discord Concord's temple built.
Yet this Opimius, the first who, being consul, presumed to usurp
the power of a dictator, condemning, without any trial, with three
thousand other citizens, Caius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus, one
of whom had triumphed, and been consul, the other far excelled all
his contemporaries in virtue and honor, afterwards was found
incapable of keeping his hands from thieving; and when he was sent
ambassador to Jugurtha, king of Numidia, he was there corrupted by
presents, and at his return being shamefully convicted of it, lost
all his honors, and grew old amidst the hatred and the insults of
the people, who, though humbled, and affrighted at the time, did
not fail before long to let everybody see what respect and
veneration they had for the memory of the Gracchi. They ordered
their statues to be made and set up in public view; they
consecrated the places where they were slain, and thither brought
the first-fruits of everything, according to the season of the
year, to make their offerings. Many came likewise thither to
their devotions, and daily worshipped there, as at the temples of
the gods.
It is reported, that as Cornelia, their mother, bore the loss of
her two sons with a noble and undaunted spirit, so, in reference
to the holy places in which they were slain, she said, their dead
bodies were well worthy of such sepulchres. She removed
afterwards, and dwelt near the place called Misenum, not at all
altering her former way of living. She had many friends, and
hospitably received many strangers at her house; many Greeks and
learned men were continually about her; nor was there any foreign
prince but received gifts from her and presented her again. Those
who were conversant with her, were much interested, when she
pleased to entertain them with her recollections of her father
Scipio Africanus, and of his habits and way of living. But it was
most admirable to hear her make mention of her sons, without any
tears or sign of grief, and give the full account of all their
deeds and misfortunes, as if she had been relating the history of
some ancient heroes. This made some imagine, that age, or the
greatness of her afflictions, had made her senseless and devoid of
natural feelings. But they who so thought, were themselves more
truly insensible, not to see how much a noble nature and education
avail to conquer any affliction; and though fortune may often be
more successful, and may defeat the efforts of virtue to avert
misfortunes, it cannot, when we incur them, prevent our bearing
them reasonably.
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND CLEOMENES
Having given an account severally of these persons, it remains
only that we should take a view of them in comparison with one
another.
As for the Gracchi, the greatest detractors and their worst
enemies could not but allow, that they had a genius to virtue
beyond all other Romans, which was improved also by a generous
education. Agis and Cleomenes may be supposed to have had
stronger natural gifts, since, though they wanted all the
advantages of good education, and were bred up in those very
customs, manners, and habits of living, which had for a long time
corrupted others, yet they were public examples of temperance and
frugality. Besides, the Gracchi, happening to live when Rome had
her greatest repute for honor and virtuous actions, might justly
have been ashamed, if they had not also left to the next
generation the noble inheritance of the virtues of their
ancestors. Whereas the other two had parents of different morals;
and though they found their country in a sinking condition, and
debauched, yet that did not quench their forward zeal to what was
just and honorable.
The integrity of the two Romans, and their superiority to money,
was chiefly remarkable in this; that in office and the
administration of public affairs, they kept themselves from the
imputation of unjust gain; whereas Agis might justly be offended,
if he had only that mean commendation given him, that he took
nothing wrongfully from any man, seeing he distributed his own
fortunes, which, in ready money only, amounted to the value of
six hundred talents, amongst his fellow-citizens. Extortion
would have appeared a crime of a strange nature to him, who
esteemed it a piece of covetousness to possess, though never so
justly gotten, greater riches than his neighbors.
Their political actions, also, and the state revolutions they
attempted, were very different in magnitude. The chief things in
general that the two Romans commonly aimed at, were the settlement
of cities and mending of highways; and, in particular, the boldest
design which Tiberius is famed for, was the recovery of the public
lands; and Caius gained his greatest reputation by the addition,
for the exercise of judicial powers, of three hundred of the order
of knights to the same number of senators. Whereas the alteration
which Agis and Cleomenes made, was in a quite different kind.
They did not set about removing partial evils and curing petty
incidents of disease, which would have been (as Plato says), like
cutting off one of the Hydra's heads, the very means to increase
the number; but they instituted a thorough reformation, such as
would free the country at once from all its grievances, or rather,
to speak more truly, they reversed that former change which had
been the cause of all their calamities, and so restored their city
to its ancient state.
However, this must be confessed in the behalf of the Gracchi, that
their undertakings were always opposed by men of the greatest
influence. On the other side, those things which were first
attempted by Agis, and afterwards consummated by Cleomenes, were
supported by the great and glorious precedent of those ancient
laws concerning frugality and leveling which they had themselves
received upon the authority of Lycurgus, and he had instituted on
that of Apollo. It is also further observable, that from the
actions of the Gracchi, Rome received no additions to her former
greatness; whereas, under the conduct of Cleomenes, Greece
presently saw Sparta exert her sovereign power over all
Peloponnesus, and contest the supreme command with the most
powerful princes of the time; success in which would have freed
Greece from Illyrian and Gaulish violence, and placed her once
again under the orderly rule of the sons of Hercules.
From the circumstances of their deaths, also, we may infer some
difference in the quality of their courage. The Gracchi, fighting
with their fellow-citizens, were both slain, as they endeavored to
make their escape; Agis willingly submitted to his fate, rather
than any citizen should be in danger of his life. Cleomenes,
being shamefully and unjustly treated, made an effort toward
revenge, but failing of that, generously fell by his own hand.
On the other side it must be said, that Agis never did a great
action worthy a commander, being prevented by an untimely death.
And as for those heroic actions of Cleomenes, we may justly
compare with them that of Tiberius, when he was the first who
attempted to scale the walls of Carthage, which was no mean
exploit. We may add the peace which he concluded with the
Numantines, by which he saved the lives of twenty thousand Romans,
who otherwise had certainly been cut off. And Caius, not only at
home, but in war in Sardinia, displayed distinguished courage. So
that their early actions were no small argument, that afterwards
they might have rivaled the best of the Roman commanders, if they
had not died so young.
In civil life, Agis showed a lack of determination; he let himself
be baffled by the craft of Agesilaus; disappointed the
expectations of the citizens as to the division of the lands, and
generally left all the designs which he had deliberately formed
and publicly announced, unperformed and unfulfilled, through a
young man's want of resolution. Cleomenes, on the other hand,
proceeded to effect the revolution with only too much boldness and
violence, and unjustly slew the Ephors, whom he might, by
superiority in arms, have gained over to his party, or else might
easily have banished, as he did several others of the city. For
to use the knife, unless in the extremest necessity, is neither
good surgery nor wise policy, but in both cases mere
unskillfulness; and in the latter, unjust as well as unfeeling.
Of the Gracchi, neither the one nor the other was the first to
shed the blood of his fellow-citizens; and Caius is reported to
have avoided all manner of resistance, even when his life was
aimed at, showing himself always valiant against a foreign enemy,
but wholly inactive in a sedition. This was the reason that he
went from his own house unarmed, and withdrew when the battle
began, and in all respects showed himself anxious rather not to do
any harm to others, than not to suffer any himself. Even the very
flight of the Gracchi must not be looked upon as an argument of
their mean spirit, but an honorable retreat from endangering of
others. For if they had stayed, they must either have yielded to
those who assailed them, or else have fought them in their own
defense.
The greatest crime that can be laid to Tiberius's charge, was the
deposing of his fellow tribune, and seeking afterwards a second
tribuneship for himself. As for the death of Antyllius, it is
falsely and unjustly attributed to Caius, for he was slain unknown
to him, and much to his grief. On the contrary, Cleomenes (not to
mention the murder of the Ephors) set all the slaves at liberty,
and governed by himself alone in reality, having a partner only
for show; having made choice of his brother Euclidas, who was one
of the same family. He prevailed upon Archidamus, who was the
right heir to the kingdom of the other line, to venture to return
home from Messene; but after his being slain, by not doing
anything to revenge his death, confirmed the suspicion that he was
privy to it himself. Lycurgus, whose example he professed to
imitate, after he had voluntarily settled his kingdom upon
Charillus, his brother's son, fearing lest, if the youth should
chance to die by accident, he might be suspected for it, traveled
a long time, and would not return again to Sparta until Charillus
had a son, and an heir to his kingdom. But we have indeed no
other Grecian who is worthy to be compared with Lycurgus, and it
is clear enough that in the public measures of Cleomenes various
acts of considerable audacity and lawlessness may be found.
Those, therefore, who incline to blame their characters, may
observe, that the two Grecians were disturbers even from their
youth, lovers of contest, and aspirants to despotic power; that
Tiberius and Caius by nature had an excessive desire after glory
and honors. Beyond this, their enemies could find nothing to
bring against them; but as soon as the contention began with their
adversaries, their heat and passions would so far prevail beyond
their natural temper, that by them, as by ill winds, they were
driven afterwards to all their rash undertakings. What could be
more just and honorable than their first design, had not the power
and the faction of the rich, by endeavoring to abrogate that law,
engaged them both in those fatal quarrels, the one, for his own
preservation, the other, to revenge his brother's death, who was
murdered without any law or justice?
From the account, therefore, which has been given, you yourself
may perceive the difference; which if it were to be pronounced of
every one singly, I should affirm Tiberius to have excelled them
all in virtue; that young Agis had been guilty of the fewest
misdeeds; and that in action and boldness Caius came far short of
Cleomenes.
DEMOSTHENES
Whoever it was, Sosius, that wrote the poem in honor of
Alcibiades, upon his winning the chariot race at the Olympian
Games, whether it were Euripides, as is most commonly thought,
or some other person, he tells us, that to a man's being happy
it is in the first place requisite he should be born in "some
famous city." But for him that would attain to true happiness,
which for the most part is placed in the qualities and
disposition of the mind, it is, in my opinion, of no other
disadvantage to be of a mean, obscure country, than to be born
of a small or plain-looking woman. For it were ridiculous to
think that Iulis, a little part of Ceos, which itself is no
great island, and Aegina, which an Athenian once said ought to
be removed, like a small eye-sore, from the port of Piraeus,
should breed good actors and poets, and yet should never be
able to produce a just, temperate, wise, and high-minded man.
Other arts, whose end it is to acquire riches or honor, are
likely enough to wither and decay in poor and undistinguished
towns; but virtue, like a strong and durable plant, may take
root and thrive in any place where it can lay hold of an
ingenuous nature, and a mind that is industrious. I, for my
part, shall desire that for any deficiency of mine in right
judgment or action, I myself may be, as in fairness, held
accountable, and shall not attribute it to the obscurity of my
birthplace.
But if any man undertake to write a history, that has to be
collected from materials gathered by observation and the reading
of works not easy to be got in all places, nor written always in
his own language, but many of them foreign and dispersed in
other hands, for him, undoubtedly, it is in the first place and
above all things most necessary, to reside in some city of good
note, addicted to liberal arts, and populous; where he may have
plenty of all sorts of books, and upon inquiry may hear and
inform himself of such particulars as, having escaped the pens
of writers, are more faithfully preserved in the memories of
men, lest his work be deficient in many things, even those which
it can least dispense with.
But for me, I live in a little town, where I am willing to
continue, lest it should grow less; and having had no leisure,
while I was in Rome and other parts of Italy, to exercise myself
in the Roman language, on account of public business and of
those who came to be instructed by me in philosophy, it was very
late, and in the decline of my age, before I applied myself to
the reading of Latin authors. Upon which that which happened to
me, may seem strange, though it be true; for it was not so much
by the knowledge of words, that I came to the understanding of
things, as by my experience of things I was enabled to follow
the meaning of words. But to appreciate the graceful and ready
pronunciation of the Roman tongue, to understand the various
figures and connection of words, and such other ornaments, in
which the beauty of speaking consists, is, I doubt not, an
admirable and delightful accomplishment; but it requires a
degree of practice and study, which is not easy, and will better
suit those who have more leisure, and time enough yet before
them for the occupation.
And so in this fifth book of my Parallel Lives, in giving an
account of Demosthenes and Cicero, my comparison of their
natural dispositions and their characters will be formed upon
their actions and their lives as statesmen, and I shall not
pretend to criticize their orations one against the other, to
show which of the two was the more charming or the more powerful
speaker. For there, as Ion says,
We are but like a fish upon dry land;
a proverb which Caecilius perhaps forgot, when he employed his
always adventurous talents in so ambitious an attempt as a
comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero: and, possibly, if it were
a thing obvious and easy for every man to know himself, the
precept had not passed for an oracle.
The divine power seems originally to have designed Demosthenes
and Cicero upon the same plan, giving them many similarities in
their natural characters, as their passion for distinction and
their love of liberty in civil life, and their want of courage
in dangers and war, and at the same time also to have added many
accidental resemblances. I think there can hardly be found two
other orators, who, from small and obscure beginnings, became so
great and mighty; who both contested with kings and tyrants;
both lost their daughters, were driven out of their country, and
returned with honor; who, flying from thence again, were both
seized upon by their enemies, and at last ended their lives with
the liberty of their countrymen. So that if we were to suppose
there had been a trial of skill between nature and fortune, as
there is sometimes between artists, it would be hard to judge,
whether that succeeded best in making them alike in their
dispositions and manners, or this, in the coincidences of their
lives. We will speak of the eldest first.
Demosthenes, the father of Demosthenes, was a citizen of good
rank and quality, as Theopompus informs us, surnamed the
Sword-maker, because he had a large workhouse, and kept servants
skillful in that art at work. But of that which Aeschines, the
orator, said of his mother, that she was descended of one Gylon,
who fled his country upon an accusation of treason, and of a
barbarian woman, I can affirm nothing, whether he spoke true, or
slandered and maligned her. This is certain, that Demosthenes,
being as yet but seven years old, was left by his father in
affluent circumstances, the whole value of his estate being
little short of fifteen talents, and that he was wronged by his
guardians, part of his fortune being embezzled by them, and the
rest neglected; insomuch that even his teachers were defrauded
of their salaries. This was the reason that he did not obtain
the liberal education that he should have had; besides that on
account of weakness and delicate health, his mother would not
let him exert himself, and his teachers forbore to urge him. He
was meager and sickly from the first, and hence had his nickname
of Batalus, given him, it is said, by the boys, in derision of
his appearance; Batalus being, as some tell us, a certain
enervated flute-player, in ridicule of whom Antiphanes wrote a
play. Others speak of Batalus as a writer of wanton verses and
drinking songs. And it would seem that some part of the body,
not decent to be named, was at that time called batalus by the
Athenians. But the name of Argas, which also they say was a
nickname of Demosthenes, was given him for his behavior, as
being savage and spiteful, argas being one of the poetical words
for a snake; or for his disagreeable way of speaking, Argas
being the name of a poet, who composed very harshly and
disagreeably. So much, as Plato says, for such matters.
The first occasion of his eager inclination to oratory they say,
was this. Callistratus, the orator, being to plead in open
court for Oropus, the expectation of the issue of that cause was
very great, as well for the ability of the orator, who was then
at the height of his reputation, as also for the fame of the
action itself. Therefore, Demosthenes, having heard the tutors
and schoolmasters agreeing among themselves to be present at
this trial, with much importunity persuades his tutor to take
him along with him to the hearing; who, having some acquaintance
with the doorkeepers, procured a place where the boy might sit
unseen, and hear what was said. Callistratus having got the
day, and being much admired, the boy began to look upon his
glory with a kind of emulation, observing how he was courted on
all hands, and attended on his way by the multitude; but his
wonder was more than all excited by the power of his eloquence,
which seemed able to subdue and win over anything. From this
time, therefore, bidding farewell to other sorts of learning and
study, he now began to exercise himself, and to take pains in
declaiming, as one that meant to be himself also an orator. He
made use of Isaeus as his guide to the art of speaking, though
Isocrates at that time was giving lessons; whether, as some say,
because he was an orphan, and was not able to pay Isocrates his
appointed fee of ten minae, or because he preferred Isaeus's
speaking, as being more business-like and effective in actual
use. Hermippus says, that he met with certain memoirs without
any author's name, in which it was written that Demosthenes was
a scholar to Plato, and learnt much of his eloquence from him;
and he also mentions Ctesibius, as reporting from Callias of
Syracuse and some others, that Demosthenes secretly obtained a
knowledge of the systems of Isocrates and Alcidamas, and
mastered them thoroughly.
As soon, therefore, as he was grown up to man's estate, he began
to go to law with his guardians, and to write orations against
them; who, in the meantime, had recourse to various subterfuges
and pleas for new trials, and Demosthenes, though he was thus,
as Thucydides says, taught his business in dangers, and by his
own exertions was successful in his suit, was yet unable for all
this to recover so much as a small fraction of his patrimony.
He only attained some degree of confidence in speaking, and some
competent experience in it. And having got a taste of the honor
and power which are acquired by pleadings, he now ventured to
come forth, and to undertake public business. And, as it is
said of Laomedon, the Orchomenian, that by advice of his
physician, he used to run long distances to keep off some
disease of his spleen, and by that means having, through labor
and exercise, framed the habit of his body, he betook himself to
the great garland games, and became one of the best runners at
the long race; so it happened to Demosthenes, who, first
venturing upon oratory for the recovery of his own private
property, by this acquired ability in speaking, and at length,
in public business, as it were in the great games, came to have
the preeminence of all competitors in the assembly. But when he
first addressed himself to the people, he met with great
discouragements, and was derided for his strange and uncouth
style, which was cumbered with long sentences and tortured with
formal arguments to a most harsh and disagreeable excess.
Besides, he had, it seems, a weakness in his voice, a perplexed
and indistinct utterance and a shortness of breath, which, by
breaking and disjointing his sentences much obscured the sense
and meaning of what he spoke. So that in the end, being quite
disheartened, he forsook the assembly; and as he was walking
carelessly and sauntering about the Piraeus, Eunomus, the
Thriasian, then a very old man, seeing him, upbraided him,
saying that his diction was very much like that of Pericles, and
that he was wanting to himself through cowardice and meanness of
spirit, neither bearing up with courage against popular outcry,
nor fitting his body for action, but suffering it to languish
through mere sloth and negligence.
Another time, when the assembly had refused to hear him, and he
was going home with his head muffled up, taking it very heavily,
they relate that Satyrus, the actor, followed him, and being his
familiar acquaintance, entered into conversation with him. To
whom, when Demosthenes bemoaned himself, that having been the
most industrious of all the pleaders, and having almost spent
the whole strength and vigor of his body in that employment, he
could not yet find any acceptance with the people, that drunken
sots, mariners, and illiterate fellows were heard, and had the
hustings for their own, while he himself was despised, "You say
true, Demosthenes," replied Satyrus, "but I will quickly remedy
the cause of all this, if you will repeat to me some passage out
of Euripides or Sophocles." Which when Demosthenes had
pronounced, Satyrus presently taking it up after him gave the
same passage, in his rendering of it, such a new form, by
accompanying it with the proper mien and gesture, that to
Demosthenes it seemed quite another thing. By this being
convinced how much grace and ornament language acquires from
action, he began to esteem it a small matter, and as good as
nothing for a man to exercise himself in declaiming, if he
neglected enunciation and delivery. Hereupon he built himself a
place to study in underground, (which was still remaining in our
time,) and hither he would come constantly every day to form his
action, and to exercise his voice; and here he would continue,
oftentimes without intermission, two or three months together,
shaving one half of his head, that so for shame he might not go
abroad, though he desired it ever so much.
Nor was this all, but he also made his conversation with people
abroad, his common speech, and his business, subservient to his
studies, taking from hence occasions and arguments as matter to
work upon. For as soon as he was parted from his company, down
he would go at once into his study, and run over everything in
order that had passed, and the reasons that might be alleged for
and against it. Any speeches, also, that he was present at, he
would go over again with himself, and reduce into periods; and
whatever others spoke to him, or he to them, he would correct,
transform, and vary several ways. Hence it was, that he was
looked upon as a person of no great natural genius, but one who
owed all the power and ability he had in speaking to labor and
industry. Of the truth of which it was thought to be no small
sign, that he was very rarely heard to speak upon the occasion,
but though he were by name frequently called upon by the people,
as he sat in the assembly, yet he would not rise unless he had
previously considered the subject, and came prepared for it. So
that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against
him; and Pytheas once, scoffing at him, said that his arguments
smelt of the lamp. To which Demosthenes gave the sharp answer,
"It is true, indeed, Pytheas, that your lamp and mine are not
conscious of the same things." To others, however, he would not
much deny it, but would admit frankly enough, that he neither
entirely wrote his speeches beforehand, nor yet spoke wholly
extempore. And he would affirm, that it was the more truly
popular act to use premeditation, such preparation being a kind
of respect to the people; whereas, to slight and take no care
how what is said is likely to be received by the audience, shows
something of an oligarchical temper, and is the course of one
that intends force rather than persuasion. Of his want of
courage and assurance to speak off-hand, they make it also
another argument, that when he was at a loss, and discomposed,
Demades would often rise up on the sudden to support him, but he
was never observed to do the same for Demades.
Whence then, may some say, was it, that Aeschines speaks of him
as a person so much to be wondered at for his boldness in
speaking? Or, how could it be, when Python, the Byzantine,
"with so much confidence and such a torrent of words inveighed
against" the Athenians, that Demosthenes alone stood up to
oppose him? Or, when Lamachus, the Myrinaean, had written a
panegyric upon king Philip and Alexander, in which he uttered
many things in reproach of the Thebans and Olynthians, and at
the Olympic Games recited it publicly, how was it, that he,
rising up, and recounting historically and demonstratively what
benefits and advantages all Greece had received from the Thebans
and Chalcidians, and on the contrary, what mischiefs the
flatterers of the Macedonians had brought upon it, so turned the
minds of all that were present that the sophist, in alarm at the
outcry against him, secretly made his way out of the assembly?
But Demosthenes, it should seem, regarded other points in the
character of Pericles to be unsuited to him; but his reserve and
his sustained manner, and his forbearing to speak on the sudden,
or upon every occasion, as being the things to which principally
he owed his greatness, these he followed, and endeavored to
imitate, neither wholly neglecting the glory which present
occasion offered, nor yet willing too often to expose his
faculty to the mercy of chance. For, in fact, the orations
which were spoken by him had much more of boldness and
confidence in them than those that he wrote, if we may believe
Eratosthenes, Demetrius the Phalerian, and the Comedians.
Eratosthenes says that often in his speaking he would be
transported into a kind of ecstasy, and Demetrius, that he
uttered the famous metrical adjuration to the people,
By the earth, the springs, the rivers, and the streams,
as a man inspired, and beside himself. One of the comedians
calls him a rhopoperperethras, and another scoffs at him for
his use of antithesis: --
And what he took, took back; a phrase to please
The very fancy of Demosthenes.
Unless, indeed, this also is meant by Antiphanes for a jest upon
the speech on Halonesus, which Demosthenes advised the Athenians
not to take at Philip's hands, but to take back.
All, however, used to consider Demades, in the mere use of his
natural gifts, an orator impossible to surpass, and that in what
he spoke on the sudden, he excelled all the study and
preparation of Demosthenes. And Ariston the Chian, has recorded
a judgment which Theophrastus passed upon the orators; for being
asked what kind of orator he accounted Demosthenes, he answered,
"Worthy of the city of Athens;" and then, what he thought of
Demades, he answered, "Above it." And the same philosopher
reports, that Polyeuctus, the Sphettian, one of the Athenian
politicians about that time, was wont to say that Demosthenes
was the greatest orator, but Phocion the ablest, as he expressed
the most sense in the fewest words. And, indeed, it is related,
that Demosthenes himself, as often as Phocion stood up to plead
against him, would say to his acquaintance, "Here comes the
knife to my speech." Yet it does not appear whether he had this
feeling for his powers of speaking, or for his life and
character, and meant to say that one word or nod from a man who
was really trusted, would go further than a thousand lengthy
periods from others.
Demetrius, the Phalerian, tells us, that he was informed by
Demosthenes himself, now grown old, that the ways he made use of
to remedy his natural bodily infirmities and defects were such
as these; his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation he
overcame and rendered more distinct by speaking with pebbles in
his mouth; his voice he disciplined by declaiming and reciting
speeches or verses when he was out of breath, while running or
going up steep places; and that in his house he had a large
looking-glass, before which he would stand and go through his
exercises. It is told that someone once came to request his
assistance as a pleader, and related how he had been assaulted
and beaten. "Certainly," said Demosthenes, "nothing of the kind
can have happened to you." Upon which the other, raising his
voice, exclaimed loudly, "What, Demosthenes, nothing has been
done to me?" "Ah," replied Demosthenes, "now I hear the voice
of one that has been injured and beaten." Of so great
consequence towards the gaining of belief did he esteem the tone
and action of the speaker. The action which he used himself was
wonderfully pleasing to the common people; but by well-educated
people, as, for example, by Demetrius, the Phalerian, it was
looked upon as mean, humiliating, and unmanly. And Hermippus
says of Aesion, that, being asked his opinion concerning the
ancient orators and those of his own time, he answered that it
was admirable to see with what composure and in what high style
they addressed themselves to the people; but that the orations
of Demosthenes, when they are read, certainly appear to be
superior in point of construction, and more effective. His
written speeches, beyond all question, are characterized by
austere tone and by their severity. In his extempore retorts
and rejoinders, he allowed himself the use of jest and mockery.
When Demades said, "Demosthenes teach me! So might the sow
teach Minerva!" he replied, "Was it this Minerva, that was
lately found playing the harlot in Collytus?" When a thief,
who had the nickname of the Brazen, was attempting to upbraid
him for sitting up late, and writing by candlelight, "I know
very well," said he, "that you had rather have all lights out;
and wonder not, O ye men of Athens, at the many robberies which
are committed, since we have thieves of brass and walls of
clay." But on these points, though we have much more to
mention, we will add nothing at present. We will proceed to
take an estimate of his character from his actions and his life
as a statesman.
His first entering into public business was much about the time
of the Phocian war, as himself affirms, and may be collected
from his Philippic orations. For of these, some were made after
that action was over, and the earliest of them refer to its
concluding events. It is certain that he engaged in the
accusation of Midias when he was but two and thirty years old,
having as yet no interest or reputation as a politician. And
this it was, I consider, that induced him to withdraw the
action, and accept a sum of money as a compromise. For of
himself
He was no easy or good-natured man,
but of a determined disposition, and resolute to see himself
righted; however, finding it a hard matter and above his
strength to deal with Midias, a man so well secured on all sides
with money, eloquence, and friends, he yielded to the entreaties
of those who interceded for him. But had he seen any hopes or
possibility of prevailing, I cannot believe that three thousand
drachmas could have taken off the edge of his revenge. The
object which he chose for himself in the commonwealth was noble
and just, the defense of the Grecians against Philip; and in
this he behaved himself so worthily that he soon grew famous,
and excited attention everywhere for his eloquence and courage
in speaking. He was admired through all Greece, the king of
Persia courted him, and by Philip himself he was more esteemed
than all the other orators. His very enemies were forced to
confess that they had to do with a man of mark; for such a
character even Aeschines and Hyperides give him, where they
accuse and speak against him.
So that I cannot imagine what ground Theopompus had to say, that
Demosthenes was of a fickle, unsettled disposition, and could
not long continue firm either to the same men or the same
affairs; whereas the contrary is most apparent, for the same
party and post in politics which he held from the beginning, to
these he kept constant to the end; and was so far from leaving
them while he lived, that he chose rather to forsake his life
than his purpose. He was never heard to apologize for shifting
sides like Demades, who would say, he often spoke against
himself, but never against the city; nor as Melanopus, who,
being generally against Callistratus, but being often bribed off
with money, was wont to tell the people, "The man indeed is my
enemy, but we must submit for the good of our country;" nor
again as Nicodemus, the Messenian, who having first appeared on
Cassander's side, and afterwards taken part with Demetrius, said
the two things were not in themselves contrary, it being always
most advisable to obey the conqueror. We have nothing of this
kind to say against Demosthenes, as one who would turn aside or
prevaricate, either in word or deed. There could not have been
less variation in his public acts if they had all been played,
so to say, from first to last, from the same score. Panaetius,
the philosopher, said, that most of his orations are so written,
as if they were to prove this one conclusion, that what is
honest and virtuous is for itself only to be chosen; as that of
the Crown, that against Aristocrates, that for the Immunities,
and the Philippics; in all which he persuades his
fellow-citizens to pursue not that which seems most pleasant,
easy, or profitable; but declares over and over again, that they
ought in the first place to prefer that which is just and
honorable, before their own safety and preservation. So that if
he had kept his hands clean, if his courage for the wars had
been answerable to the generosity of his principles, and the
dignity of his orations, he might deservedly have his name
placed, not in the number of such orators as Moerocles,
Polyeuctus, and Hyperides, but in the highest rank with Cimon,
Thucydides, and Pericles.
Certainly amongst those who were contemporary with him, Phocion,
though he appeared on the less commendable side in the
commonwealth, and was counted as one of the Macedonian party,
nevertheless, by his courage and his honesty, procured himself a
name not inferior to those of Ephialtes, Aristides, and Cimon.
But Demosthenes, being neither fit to be relied on for courage
in arms, as Demetrius says, nor on all sides inaccessible to
bribery (for how invincible soever he was against the gifts of
Philip and the Macedonians, yet elsewhere he lay open to
assault, and was overpowered by the gold which came down from
Susa and Ecbatana), was therefore esteemed better able to
recommend than to imitate the virtues of past times. And yet
(excepting only Phocion), even in his life and manners, he far
surpassed the other orators of his time. None of them addressed
the people so boldly; he attacked the faults, and opposed
himself to the unreasonable desires of the multitude, as may be
seen in his orations. Theopompus writes, that the Athenians
having by name selected Demosthenes, and called upon him to
accuse a certain person, he refused to do it; upon which the
assembly being all in an uproar, he rose up and said, "Your
counselor, whether you will or no, O ye men of Athens, you shall
always have me; but a sycophant or false accuser, though you
would have me, I shall never be." And his conduct in the case
of Antiphon was perfectly aristocratical; whom, after he had
been acquitted in the assembly, he took and brought before the
court of Areopagus, and, setting at naught the displeasure of
the people, convicted him there of having promised Philip to
burn the arsenal; whereupon the man was condemned by that
court, and suffered for it. He accused, also, Theoris, the
priestess, amongst other misdemeanors, of having instructed and
taught the slaves to deceive and cheat their masters, for which
the sentence of death passed upon her, and she was executed.
The oration which Apollodorus made use of, and by it carried the
cause against Timotheus, the general, in an action of debt, it
is said was written for him by Demosthenes; as also those
against Phormion and Stephanus, in which latter case he was
thought to have acted dishonorably, for the speech which
Phormion used against Apollodorus was also of his making; he, as
it were, having simply furnished two adversaries out of the same
shop with weapons to wound one another. Of his orations
addressed to the public assemblies, that against Androtion, and
those against Timocrates and Aristocrates, were written for
others, before he had come forward himself as a politician.
They were composed, it seems, when he was but seven or eight and
twenty years old. That against Aristogiton, and that for the
Immunities, he spoke himself, at the request, as he says, of
Ctesippus, the son of Chabrias, but, as some say, out of
courtship to the young man's mother. Though, in fact, he did
not marry her, for his wife was a woman of Samos, as Demetrius,
the Magnesian, writes, in his book on Persons of the same Name.
It is not certain whether his oration against Aeschines, for
Misconduct as Ambassador, was ever spoken; although Idomeneus
says that Aeschines wanted only thirty voices to condemn him.
But this seems not to be correct, at least so far as may be
conjectured from both their orations concerning the Crown; for
in these, neither of them speaks clearly or directly of it, as a
cause that ever came to trial. But let others decide this
controversy.
It was evident, even in time of peace, what course Demosthenes
would steer in the commonwealth; for whatever was done by the
Macedonian, he criticized and found fault with, and upon all
occasions was stirring up the people of Athens, and inflaming
them against him. Therefore, in the court of Philip, no man was
so much talked of, or of so great account as he; and when he
came thither, one of the ten ambassadors who were sent into
Macedonia, though all had audience given them, yet his speech
was answered with most care and exactness. But in other
respects, Philip entertained him not so honorably as the rest,
neither did he show him the same kindness and civility with
which he applied himself to the party of Aeschines and
Philocrates. So that, when the others commended Philip for his
able speaking, his beautiful person, nay, and also for his good
companionship in drinking, Demosthenes could not refrain from
caviling at these praises; the first, he said, was a quality
which might well enough become a rhetorician, the second a
woman, and the last was only the property of a sponge; no one of
them was the proper commendation of a prince.
But when things came at last to war, Philip on the one side
being not able to live in peace, and the Athenians, on the other
side, being stirred up by Demosthenes, the first action he put
them upon was the reducing of Euboea, which, by the treachery of
the tyrants, was brought under subjection to Philip. And on his
proposition, the decree was voted, and they crossed over thither
and chased the Macedonians out of the island. The next, was the
relief of the Byzantines and Perinthians, whom the Macedonians
at that time were attacking. He persuaded the people to lay
aside their enmity against these cities, to forget the offenses
committed by them in the Confederate War, and to send them such
succors as eventually saved and secured them. Not long after,
he undertook an embassy through the States of Greece, which he
solicited and so far incensed against Philip, that, a few only
excepted, he brought them all into a general league. So that,
besides the forces composed of the citizens themselves, there
was an army consisting of fifteen thousand foot and two thousand
horse, and the money to pay these strangers was levied and
brought in with great cheerfulness. On which occasion it was,
says Theophrastus, on the allies requesting that their
contributions for the war might be ascertained and stated,
Crobylus, the orator, made use of the saying, "War can't be fed
at so much a day." Now was all Greece up in arms, and in great
expectation what would be the event. The Euboeans, the
Achaeans, the Corinthians, the Megarians, the Leucadians, and
Corcyraeans, their people and their cities, were all joined
together in a league. But the hardest task was yet behind, left
for Demosthenes, to draw the Thebans into this confederacy with
the rest. Their country bordered next upon Attica, they had
great forces for the war, and at that time they were accounted
the best soldiers of all Greece, but it was no easy matter to
make them break with Philip, who, by many good offices, had so
lately obliged them in the Phocian war; especially considering
how the subjects of dispute and variance between the two cities
were continually renewed and exasperated by petty quarrels,
arising out of the proximity of their frontiers.
But after Philip, being now grown high and puffed up with his
good success at Amphissa, on a sudden surprised Elatea and
possessed himself of Phocis, and the Athenians were in a great
consternation, none durst venture to rise up to speak, no one
knew what to say, all were at a loss, and the whole assembly in
silence and perplexity, in this extremity of affairs,
Demosthenes was the only man who appeared, his counsel to them
being alliance with the Thebans. And having in other ways
encouraged the people, and, as his manner was, raised their
spirits up with hopes, he, with some others, was sent ambassador
to Thebes. To oppose him, as Marsyas says, Philip also sent
thither his envoys, Amyntas and Clearellus, two Macedonians,
besides Daochus, a Thessalian, and Thrasydaeus. Now the
Thebans, in their consultations, were well enough aware what
suited best with their own interest, but everyone had before
his eyes the terrors of war, and their losses in the Phocian
troubles were still recent: but such was the force and power of
the orator, fanning up, as Theopompus says, their courage, and
firing their emulation, that casting away every thought of
prudence, fear, or obligation, in a sort of divine possession,
they chose the path of honor, to which his words invited them.
And this success, thus accomplished by an orator, was thought to
be so glorious and of such consequence, that Philip immediately
sent heralds to treat and petition for a peace: all Greece was
aroused, and up in arms to help. And the commanders-in-chief,
not only of Attica, but of Boeotia, applied themselves to
Demosthenes, and observed his directions. He managed all the
assemblies of the Thebans, no less than those of the Athenians;
he was beloved both by the one and by the other, and exercised
the same supreme authority with both; and that not by unfair
means, or without just cause, as Theopompus professes, but
indeed it was no more than was due to his merit.
But there was, it should seem, some divinely-ordered fortune,
commissioned, in the revolution of things, to put a period at
this time to the liberty of Greece, which opposed and thwarted
all their actions, and by many signs foretold what should
happen. Such were the sad predictions uttered by the Pythian
priestess, and this old oracle cited out of the Sibyl's verses,
--
The battle on Thermodon that shall be
Safe at a distance I desire to see,
Far, like an eagle, watching in the air.
Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.
This Thermodon, they say, is a little rivulet here in our
country in Chaeronea, running into the Cephisus. But we know of
none that is so called at the present time; and can only
conjecture that the streamlet which is now called Haemon, and
runs by the Temple of Hercules, where the Grecians were
encamped, might perhaps in those days be called Thermodon, and
after the fight, being filled with blood and dead bodies, upon
this occasion, as we guess, might change its old name for that
which it now bears. Yet Duris says that this Thermodon was no
river, but that some of the soldiers, as they were pitching
their tents and digging trenches about them, found a small stone
statue, which, by the inscription, appeared to be the figure of
Thermodon, carrying a wounded Amazon in his arms; and that there
was another oracle current about it, as follows: --
The battle on Thermodon that shall be,
Fail not, black raven, to attend and see;
The flesh of men shall there abound for thee.
In fine, it is not easy to determine what is the truth. But of
Demosthenes it is said, that he had such great confidence in the
Grecian forces, and was so excited by the sight of the courage
and resolution of so many brave men ready to engage the enemy,
that he would by no means endure they should give any heed to
oracles, or hearken to prophecies, but gave out that he
suspected even the prophetess herself, as if she had been
tampered with to speak in favor of Philip. The Thebans he put
in mind of Epaminondas, the Athenians, of Pericles, who always
took their own measures and governed their actions by reason,
looking upon things of this kind as mere pretexts for cowardice.
Thus far, therefore, Demosthenes acquitted himself like a brave
man. But in the fight he did nothing honorable, nor was his
performance answerable to his speeches. For he fled, deserting
his place disgracefully, and throwing away his arms, not
ashamed, as Pytheas observed, to belie the inscription written
on his shield, in letters of gold, "With good fortune."
In the meantime Philip, in the first moment of victory, was so
transported with joy, that he grew extravagant, and going out,
after he had drunk largely, to visit the dead bodies, he chanted
the first words of the decree that had been passed on the motion
of Demosthenes,
The motion of Demosthenes, Demosthenes's son,
dividing it metrically into feet, and marking the beats.
But when he came to himself, and had well considered the danger
he was lately under, he could not forbear from shuddering at the
wonderful ability and power of an orator who had made him hazard
his life and empire on the issue of a few brief hours. The fame
of it also reached even to the court of Persia, and the king
sent letters to his lieutenants, commanding them to supply
Demosthenes with money, and to pay every attention to him, as
the only man of all the Grecians who was able to give Philip
occupation and find employment for his forces near home, in the
troubles of Greece. This afterwards came to the knowledge of
Alexander, by certain letters of Demosthenes which he found at
Sardis, and by other papers of the Persian officers, stating the
large sums which had been given him.
At this time, however, upon the ill success which now happened
to the Grecians, those of the contrary faction in the
commonwealth fell foul upon Demosthenes, and took the
opportunity to frame several informations and indictments
against him. But the people not only acquitted him of these
accusations, but continued towards him their former respect, and
still invited him, as a man that meant well, to take a part in
public affairs. Insomuch that when the bones of those who had
been slain at Chaeronea were brought home to be solemnly
interred, Demosthenes was the man they chose to make the funeral
oration. They did not show, under the misfortunes which befell
them, a base or ignoble mind, as Theopompus writes in his
exaggerated style, but, on the contrary, by the honor and
respect paid to their counselor, they made it appear that they
were noway dissatisfied with the counsels he had given them.
The speech, therefore, was spoken by Demosthenes. But the
subsequent decrees he would not allow to be passed in his own
name, but made use of those of his friends, one after another,
looking upon his own as unfortunate and inauspicious; till at
length he took courage again after the death of Philip, who did
not long outlive his victory at Chaeronea. And this, it seems,
was that which was foretold in the last verse of the oracle,
Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.
Demosthenes had secret intelligence of the death of Philip, and
laying hold of this opportunity to prepossess the people with
courage and better hopes for the future, he came into the
assembly with a cheerful countenance, pretending to have had a
dream that presaged some great good fortune for Athens; and, not
long after, arrived the messengers who brought the news of
Philip's death. No sooner had the people received it but
immediately they offered sacrifice to the gods, and decreed that
Pausanias should be presented with a crown. Demosthenes
appeared publicly in a rich dress, with a chaplet on his head,
though it were but the seventh day since the death of his
daughter, as is said by Aeschines, who upbraids him upon this
account, and rails at him as one void of natural affection
towards his children. Whereas, indeed, he rather betrays
himself to be of a poor, low spirit, and effeminate mind, if he
really means to make wailings and lamentation the only signs of
a gentle and affectionate nature, and to condemn those who bear
such accidents with more temper and less passion. For my own
part, I cannot say that the behavior of the Athenians on this
occasion was wise or honorable, to crown themselves with
garlands and to sacrifice to the Gods for the death of a Prince
who, in the midst of his success and victories, when they were a
conquered people, had used them with so much clemency and
humanity. For besides provoking fortune, it was a base thing,
and unworthy in itself, to make him a citizen of Athens, and pay
him honors while he lived, and yet as soon as he fell by
another's hand, to set no bounds to their jollity, to insult
over him dead, and to sing triumphant songs of victory, as if by
their own valor they had vanquished him. I must at the same
time commend the behavior of Demosthenes, who, leaving tears and
lamentations and domestic sorrows to the women, made it his
business to attend to the interests of the commonwealth. And I
think it the duty of him who would be accounted to have a soul
truly valiant, and fit for government, that, standing always
firm to the common good, and letting private griefs and troubles
find their compensation in public blessings, he should maintain
the dignity of his character and station, much more than actors
who represent the persons of kings and tyrants, who, we see,
when they either laugh or weep on the stage, follow, not their
own private inclinations, but the course consistent with the
subject and with their position. And if, moreover, when our
neighbor is in misfortune, it is not our duty to forbear
offering any consolation, but rather to say whatever may tend to
cheer him, and to invite his attention to any agreeable objects,
just as we tell people who are troubled with sore eyes, to
withdraw their sight from bright and offensive colors to green,
and those of a softer mixture, from whence can a man seek, in
his own case, better arguments of consolation for afflictions in
his family, than from the prosperity of his country, by making
public and domestic chances count, so to say, together, and the
better fortune of the state obscure and conceal the less happy
circumstances of the individual. I have been induced to say so
much, because I have known many readers melted by Aeschines's
language into a soft and unmanly tenderness.
But now to return to my narrative. The cities of Greece were
inspirited once more by the efforts of Demosthenes to form a
league together. The Thebans, whom he had provided with arms,
set upon their garrison, and slew many of them; the Athenians
made preparations to join their forces with them; Demosthenes
ruled supreme in the popular assembly, and wrote letters to the
Persian officers who commanded under the king in Asia, inciting
them to make war upon the Macedonian, calling him child and
simpleton. But as soon as Alexander had settled matters in his
own country, and came in person with his army into Boeotia, down
fell the courage of the Athenians, and Demosthenes was hushed;
the Thebans, deserted by them, fought by themselves, and lost
their city. After which, the people of Athens, all in distress
and great perplexity, resolved to send ambassadors to Alexander,
and amongst others, made choice of Demosthenes for one; but his
heart failing him for fear of the king's anger, he returned back
from Cithaeron, and left the embassy. In the meantime,
Alexander sent to Athens, requiring ten of their orators to be
delivered up to him, as Idomeneus and Duris have reported, but
as the most and best historians say, he demanded these eight
only: Demosthenes, Polyeuctus, Ephialtes, Lycurgus, Moerocles,
Demon, Callisthenes, and Charidemus. It was upon this occasion
that Demosthenes related to them the fable in which the sheep
are said to deliver up their dogs to the wolves; himself and
those who with him contended for the people's safety, being, in
his comparison, the dogs that defended the flock, and Alexander
"the Macedonian arch wolf." He further told them, "As we see
corn-masters sell their whole stock by a few grains of wheat
which they carry about with them in a dish, as a sample of the
rest, so you, by delivering up us, who are but a few, do at the
same time unawares surrender up yourselves all together with
us;" so we find it related in the history of Aristobulus, the
Cassandrian. The Athenians were deliberating, and at a loss
what to do, when Demades, having agreed with the persons whom
Alexander had demanded, for five talents, undertook to go
ambassador, and to intercede with the king for them; and,
whether it was that he relied on his friendship and kindness, or
that he hoped to find him satiated, as a lion glutted with
slaughter, he certainly went, and prevailed with him both to
pardon the men, and to be reconciled to the city.
So he and his friends, when Alexander went away, were great men,
and Demosthenes was quite put aside. Yet when Agis, the
Spartan, made his insurrection, he also for a short time
attempted a movement in his favor; but he soon shrunk back
again, as the Athenians would not take any part in it, and, Agis
being slain, the Lacedaemonians were vanquished. During this
time it was that the indictment against Ctesiphon, concerning
the Crown, was brought to trial. The action was commenced a
little before the battle in Chaeronea, when Chaerondas was
archon, but it was not proceeded with till about ten years
after, Aristophon being then archon. Never was any public cause
more celebrated than this, alike for the fame of the orators,
and for the generous courage of the judges, who, though at that
time the accusers of Demosthenes were in the height of power,
and supported by all the favor of the Macedonians, yet would not
give judgment against him, but acquitted him so honorably, that
Aeschines did not obtain the fifth part of their suffrages on
his side, so that, immediately after, he left the city, and
spent the rest of his life in teaching rhetoric about the island
of Rhodes, and upon the continent in Ionia.
It was not long after that Harpalus fled from Alexander, and
came to Athens out of Asia; knowing himself guilty of many
misdeeds into which his love of luxury had led him, and fearing
the king, who was now grown terrible even to his best friends.
Yet this man had no sooner addressed himself to the people, and
delivered up his goods, his ships, and himself to their
disposal, but the other orators of the town had their eyes
quickly fixed upon his money, and came in to his assistance,
persuading the Athenians to receive and protect their suppliant.
Demosthenes at first gave advice to chase him out of the
country, and to beware lest they involved their city in a war
upon an unnecessary and unjust occasion. But some few days
after, as they were taking an account of the treasure, Harpalus,
perceiving how much he was pleased with a cup of Persian
manufacture, and how curiously he surveyed the sculpture and
fashion of it, desired him to poise it in his hand, and consider
the weight of the gold. Demosthenes, being amazed to feel how
heavy it was, asked him what weight it came to. "To you," said
Harpalus, smiling, "it shall come with twenty talents." And
presently after, when night drew on, he sent him the cup with so
many talents. Harpalus, it seems, was a person of singular
skill to discern a man's covetousness by the air of his
countenance, and the look and movements of his eyes. For
Demosthenes could not resist the temptation, but admitting the
present, like an armed garrison, into the citadel of his house,
he surrendered himself up to the interest of Harpalus. The next
day, he came into the assembly with his neck swathed about with
wool and rollers, and when they called on him to rise up and
speak, he made signs as if he had lost his voice. But the wits,
turning the matter to ridicule, said that certainly the orator
had been seized that night with no other than a silver quinsy.
And soon after, the people, becoming aware of the bribery, grew
angry, and would not suffer him to speak, or make any apology
for himself, but ran him down with noise; and one man stood up,
and cried out, "What, ye men of Athens, will you not hear the
cup-bearer?" So at length they banished Harpalus out of the
city; and fearing lest they should be called to account for the
treasure which the orators had purloined, they made a strict
inquiry, going from house to house; only Callicles, the son of
Arrhenidas, who was newly married, they would not suffer to be
searched, out of respect, as Theopompus writes, to the bride,
who was within.
Demosthenes resisted the inquisition, and proposed a decree to
refer the business to the court of Areopagus, and to punish
those whom that court should find guilty. But being himself one
of the first whom the court condemned, when he came to the bar,
he was fined fifty talents, and committed to prison; where, out
of shame of the crime for which he was condemned, and through
the weakness of his body, growing incapable of supporting the
confinement, he made his escape, by the carelessness of some and
by the connivance of others of the citizens. We are told, at
least, that he had not fled far from the city, when, finding
that he was pursued by some of those who had been his
adversaries, he endeavored to hide himself. But when they
called him by his name, and coming up nearer to him, desired he
would accept from them some money which they had brought from
home as a provision for his journey, and to that purpose only
had followed him, when they entreated him to take courage, and
to bear up against his misfortune, he burst out into much
greater lamentation, saying, "But how is it possible to support
myself under so heavy an affliction, since I leave a city in
which I have such enemies, as in any other it is not easy to
find friends." He did not show much fortitude in his
banishment, spending his time for the most part in Aegina and
Troezen, and, with tears in his eyes, looking towards the
country of Attica. And there remain upon record some sayings of
his, little resembling those sentiments of generosity and
bravery which he used to express when he had the management of
the commonwealth. For, as he was departing out of the city, it
is reported, he lifted up his hands towards the Acropolis, and
said, "O Lady Minerva, how is it that thou takest delight in
three such fierce untractable beast, the owl, the snake, and the
people?" The young men that came to visit and converse with
him, he deterred from meddling with state affairs, telling them,
that if at first two ways had been proposed to him, the one
leading to the speaker's stand and the assembly, the other going
direct to destruction, and he could have foreseen the many evils
which attend those who deal in public business, such as fears,
envies, calumnies, and contentions, he would certainly have
taken that which led straight on to his death.
But now happened the death of Alexander, while Demosthenes was
in this banishment which we have been speaking of. And the
Grecians were once again up in arms, encouraged by the brave
attempts of Leosthenes, who was then drawing a circumvallation
about Antipater, whom he held close besieged in Lamia. Pytheas,
therefore, the orator, and Callimedon, called the Crab, fled
from Athens, and taking sides with Antipater, went about with
his friends and ambassadors to keep the Grecians from revolting
and taking part with the Athenians. But, on the other side,
Demosthenes, associating himself with the ambassadors that came
from Athens, used his utmost endeavors and gave them his best
assistance in persuading the cities to fall unanimously upon the
Macedonians, and to drive them out of Greece. Phylarchus says
that in Arcadia there happened a rencounter between Pytheas and
Demosthenes, which came at last to downright railing, while the
one pleaded for the Macedonians, and the other for the Grecians.
Pytheas said, that as we always suppose there is some disease in
the family to which they bring asses' milk, so wherever there
comes an embassy from Athens, that city must needs be
indisposed. And Demosthenes answered him, retorting the
comparison: "Asses' milk is brought to restore health, and the
Athenians come for the safety and recovery of the sick." With
this conduct the people of Athens were so well pleased, that
they decreed the recall of Demosthenes from banishment. The
decree was brought in by Demon the Paeanian, cousin to
Demosthenes. So they sent him a ship to Aegina, and he landed at
the port of Piraeus, where he was met and joyfully received by
all the citizens, not so much as an Archon or a priest staying
behind. And Demetrius, the Magnesian, says, that he lifted up
his hands towards heaven, and blessed this day of his happy
return, as far more honorable than that of Alcibiades; since he
was recalled by his countrymen, not through any force or
constraint put upon them, but by their own good-will and free
inclinations. There remained only his pecuniary fine, which,
according to law, could not be remitted by the people. But they
found out a way to elude the law. It was a custom with them to
allow a certain quantity of silver to those who were to furnish
and adorn the altar for the sacrifice of Jupiter Soter. This
office, for that turn, they bestowed on Demosthenes, and for the
performance of it ordered him fifty talents, the very sum in
which he was condemned.
Yet it was no long time that he enjoyed his country after his
return, the attempts of the Greeks being soon all utterly
defeated. For the battle at Cranon happened in Metagitnion, in
Boedromion the garrison entered into Munychia, and in the
Pyanepsion following died Demosthenes after this manner.
Upon the report that Antipater and Craterus were coming to
Athens, Demosthenes with his party took their opportunity to
escape privily out of the city; but sentence of death was, upon
the motion of Demades, passed upon them by the people. They
dispersed themselves, flying some to one place, some to another;
and Antipater sent about his soldiers into all quarters to
apprehend them. Archias was their captain, and was thence
called the exile-hunter. He was a Thurian born, and is reported
to have been an actor of tragedies, and they say that Polus, of
Aegina, the best actor of his time, was his scholar; but
Hermippus reckons Archias among the disciples of Lacritus, the
orator, and Demetrius says, he spent some time with Anaximenes.
This Archias finding Hyperides the orator, Aristonicus of
Marathon, and Himeraeus, the brother of Demetrius the Phalerian,
in Aegina, took them by force out of the temple of Aeacus,
whither they were fled for safety, and sent them to Antipater,
then at Cleonae, where they were all put to death; and
Hyperides, they say, had his tongue cut out.
Demosthenes, he heard, had taken sanctuary at the temple of
Neptune in Calauria, and, crossing over thither in some light
vessels, as soon as he had landed himself, and the Thracian
spear-men that came with him, he endeavored to persuade
Demosthenes to accompany him to Antipater, as if he should meet
with no hard usage from him. But Demosthenes, in his sleep the
night before, had a strange dream. It seemed to him that he was
acting a tragedy, and contended with Archias for the victory;
and though he acquitted himself well, and gave good satisfaction
to the spectators, yet for want of better furniture and
provision for the stage, he lost the day. And so, while Archias
was discoursing to him with many expressions of kindness, he
sat still in the same posture, and looking up steadfastly upon
him, "O Archias," said he, "I am as little affected by your
promises now as I used formerly to be by your acting." Archias
at this beginning to grow angry and to threaten him, "Now," said
Demosthenes, "you speak like the genuine Macedonian oracle;
before you were but acting a part. Therefore forbear only a
little, while I write a word or two home to my family." Having
thus spoken, he withdrew into the temple, and taking a scroll,
as if he meant to write, he put the reed into his mouth, and
biting it, as he was wont to do when he was thoughtful or
writing, he held it there for some time. Then he bowed down his
head and covered it. The soldiers that stood at the door,
supposing all this to proceed from want of courage and fear of
death, in derision called him effeminate, and faint-hearted, and
coward. And Archias, drawing near, desired him to rise up, and
repeating the same kind things he had spoken before, he once
more promised him to make his peace with Antipater. But
Demosthenes, perceiving that now the poison had pierced and
seized his vitals, uncovered his head, and fixing his eyes upon
Archias, "Now," said he, "as soon as you please you may commence
the part of Creon in the tragedy, and cast out this body of mine
unburied. But, O gracious Neptune, I, for my part, while I am
yet alive, arise up and depart out of this sacred place; though
Antipater and the Macedonians have not left so much as thy
temple unpolluted." After he had thus spoken and desired to be
held up, because already he began to tremble and stagger, as he
was going forward, and passing by the altar, he fell down, and
with a groan gave up the ghost.
Ariston says that he took the poison out of a reed, as we have
shown before. But Pappus, a certain historian whose history was
recovered by Hermippus, says, that as he fell near the altar,
there was found in his scroll this beginning only of a letter,
and nothing more, "Demosthenes to Antipater." And that when his
sudden death was much wondered at, the Thracians who guarded the
doors reported that he took the poison into his hand out of a
rag, and put it in his mouth, and that they imagined it had been
gold which he swallowed; but the maid that served him, being
examined by the followers of Archias, affirmed that he had worn
it in a bracelet for a long time, as an amulet. And
Eratosthenes also says that he kept the poison in a hollow ring,
and that that ring was the bracelet which he wore about his arm.
There are various other statements made by the many authors who
have related the story, but there is no need to enter into their
discrepancies; yet I must not omit what is said by Demochares,
the relation of Demosthenes, who is of opinion, it was not by
the help of poison that he met with so sudden and so easy a
death, but that by the singular favor and providence of the gods
he was thus rescued from the cruelty of the Macedonians. He died
on the sixteenth of Pyanepsion, the most sad and solemn day of
the Thesmophoria, which the women observe by fasting in the
temple of the goddess.
Soon after his death, the people of Athens bestowed on him such
honors as he had deserved. They erected his statue of brass;
they decreed that the eldest of his family should be maintained
in the Prytaneum; and on the base of his statue was engraven the
famous inscription, --
Had you for Greece been strong, as wise you were,
The Macedonian had not conquered her.
For it is simply ridiculous to say, as some have related, that
Demosthenes made these verses himself in Calauria, as he was
about to take the poison.
A little before we went to Athens, the following incident was
said to have happened. A soldier, being summoned to appear
before his superior officer, and answer to an accusation brought
against him, put that little gold which he had into the hands of
Demosthenes's statue. The fingers of this statue were folded
one within another, and near it grew a small plane-tree, from
which many leaves, either accidentally blown thither by the
wind, or placed so on purpose by the man himself falling
together, and lying round about the gold, concealed it for a
long time. In the end, the soldier returned, and found his
treasure entire, and the fame of this incident was spread
abroad. And many ingenious persons of the city competed with
each other, on this occasion, to vindicate the integrity of
Demosthenes, in several epigrams which they made on the subject.
As for Demades, he did not long enjoy the new honors he now came
in for, divine vengeance for the death of Demosthenes pursuing
him into Macedonia, where he was justly put to death by those
whom he had basely flattered. They were weary of him before,
but at this time the guilt he lay under was manifest and
undeniable. For some of his letters were intercepted, in which
he had encouraged Perdiccas to fall upon Macedonia, and to save
the Grecians, who, he said, hung only by an old rotten thread,
meaning Antipater. Of this he was accused by Dinarchus, the
Corinthian, and Cassander was so enraged, that he first slew his
son in his bosom, and then gave orders to execute him; who
might-now at last, by his own extreme misfortunes, learn the
lesson, that traitors, who make sale of their country, sell
themselves first; a truth which Demosthenes had often foretold
him, and he would never believe. Thus, Sosius, you have the
life of Demosthenes, from such accounts as we have either read
or heard concerning him.
CICERO
It is generally said, that Helvia, the mother of Cicero, was
both well born and lived a fair life; but of his father nothing
is reported but in extremes. For whilst some would have him the
son of a fuller, and educated in that trade, others carry back
the origin of his family to Tullus Attius, an illustrious king
of the Volscians, who waged war not without honor against the
Romans. However, he who first of that house was surnamed Cicero
seems to have been a person worthy to be remembered; since those
who succeeded him not only did not reject, but were fond of that
name, though vulgarly made a matter of reproach. For the Latins
call a vetch Cicer, and a nick or dent at the tip of his nose,
which resembled the opening in a vetch, gave him the surname of
Cicero.
Cicero, whose story I am writing, is said to have replied with
spirit to some of his friends, who recommended him to lay aside
or change the name when he first stood for office and engaged in
politics, that he would make it his endeavor to render the name
of Cicero more glorious than that of the Scauri and Catuli. And
when he was quaestor in Sicily, and was making an offering of
silver plate to the gods, and had inscribed his two names,
Marcus and Tullius, instead of the third he jestingly told the
artificer to engrave the figure of a vetch by them. Thus much
is told us about his name.
Of his birth it is reported, that his mother was delivered
without pain or labor, on the third of the new Calends, the
same day on which now the magistrates of Rome pray and sacrifice
for the emperor. It is said, also, that a vision appeared to
his nurse, and foretold the child she then suckled should
afterwards become a great benefit to the Roman States. To such
presages, which might in general be thought mere fancies and
idle talk, he himself erelong gave the credit of true
prophecies. For as soon as he was of an age to begin to have
lessons, he became so distinguished for his talent, and got such
a name and reputation amongst the boys, that their fathers would
often visit the school, that they might see young Cicero, and
might be able to say that they themselves had witnessed the
quickness and readiness in learning for which he was renowned.
And the more rude among them used to be angry with their
children, to see them, as they walked together, receiving Cicero
with respect into the middle place. And being, as Plato would
have, the scholar-like and philosophical temper, eager for every
kind of learning, and indisposed to no description of knowledge
or instruction, he showed, however, a more peculiar propensity
to poetry; and there is a poem now extant, made by him when a
boy, in tetrameter verse, called Pontius Glaucus. And
afterwards, when he applied himself more curiously to these
accomplishments, he had the name of being not only the best
orator, but also the best poet of Rome. And the glory of his
rhetoric still remains, notwithstanding the many new modes in
speaking since his time; but his verses are forgotten and out of
all repute, so many ingenious poets having followed him.
Leaving his juvenile studies, he became an auditor of Philo the
Academic, whom the Romans, above all the other scholars of
Clitomachus, admired for his eloquence and loved for his
character. He also sought the company of the Mucii, who were
eminent statesmen and leaders in the senate, and acquired from
them a knowledge of the laws. For some short time he served in
arms under Sylla, in the Marsian war. But perceiving the
commonwealth running into factions, and from faction all things
tending to an absolute monarchy, he betook himself to a retired
and contemplative life, and conversing with the learned Greeks,
devoted himself to study, till Sylla had obtained the
government, and the commonwealth was in some kind of settlement.
At this time, Chrysogonus, Sylla's emancipated slave, having
laid an information about an estate belonging to one who was
said to have been put to death by proscription, had bought it
himself for two thousand drachmas. And when Roscius, the son
and heir of the dead, complained, and demonstrated the estate to
be worth two hundred and fifty talents, Sylla took it angrily to
have his actions questioned, and preferred a process against
Roscius for the murder of his father, Chrysogonus managing the
evidence. None of the advocates durst assist him, but fearing
the cruelty of Sylla, avoided the cause. The young man, being
thus deserted, came for refuge to Cicero. Cicero's friends
encouraged him, saying he was not likely ever to have a fairer
and more honorable introduction to public life; he therefore
undertook the defense, carried the cause, and got much renown
for it.
But fearing Sylla, he traveled into Greece, and gave it out that
he did so for the benefit of his health. And indeed he was lean
and meager, and had such a weakness in his stomach, that he
could take nothing but a spare and thin diet, and that not till
late in the evening. His voice was loud and good, but so harsh
and unmanaged that in vehemence and heat of speaking he always
raised it to so high a tone, that there seemed to be reason to
fear about his health.
When he came to Athens, he was a hearer of Antiochus of Ascalon,
with whose fluency and elegance of diction he was much taken,
although he did not approve of his innovations in doctrine. For
Antiochus had now fallen off from the New Academy, as they call
it, and forsaken the sect of Carneades, whether that he was
moved by the argument of manifestness and the senses, or, as
some say, had been led by feelings of rivalry and opposition to
the followers of Clitomachus and Philo to change his opinions,
and in most things to embrace the doctrine of the Stoics. But
Cicero rather affected and adhered to the doctrines of the New
Academy; and purposed with himself, if he should be disappointed
of any employment in the commonwealth, to retire hither from
pleading and political affairs, and to pass his life with quiet
in the study of philosophy.
But after he had received the news of Sylla's death, and his
body, strengthened again by exercise, was come to a vigorous
habit, his voice managed and rendered sweet and full to the ear
and pretty well brought into keeping with his general
constitution, his friends at Rome earnestly soliciting him by
letters, and Antiochus also urging him to return to public
affairs, he again prepared for use his orator's instrument of
rhetoric, and summoned into action his political faculties,
diligently exercising himself in declamations, and attending the
most celebrated rhetoricians of the time. He sailed from Athens
for Asia and Rhodes. Amongst the Asian masters, he conversed
with Xenocles of Adramyttium, Dionysius of Magnesia, and
Menippus of Caria; at Rhodes, he studied oratory with
Apollonius, the son of Molon, and philosophy with Posidonius.
Apollonius, we are told, not understanding Latin, requested
Cicero to declaim in Greek. He complied willingly, thinking
that his faults would thus be better pointed out to him. And
after he finished, all his other hearers were astonished, and
contended who should praise him most, but Apollonius, who had
shown no signs of excitement whilst he was hearing him, so also
now, when it was over, sat musing for some considerable time,
without any remark. And when Cicero was discomposed at this, he
said, "You have my praise and admiration, Cicero, and Greece my
pity and commiseration, since those arts and that eloquence
which are the only glories that remain to her, will now be
transferred by you to Rome."
And now when Cicero, full of expectation, was again bent upon
political affairs, a certain oracle blunted the edge of his
inclination; for consulting the god of Delphi how he should
attain most glory, the Pythoness answered, by making his own
genius and not the opinion of the people the guide of his life;
and therefore at first he passed his time in Rome cautiously,
and was very backward in pretending to public offices, so that
he was at that time in little esteem, and had got the names, so
readily given by low and ignorant people in Rome, of Greek and
Scholar. But when his own desire of fame and the eagerness of
his father and relations had made him take in earnest to
pleading, he made no slow or gentle advance to the first place,
but shone out in full luster at once, and far surpassed all the
advocates of the bar. At first, it is said, he, as well as
Demosthenes, was defective in his delivery, and on that account
paid much attention to the instructions, sometimes of Roscius
the comedian, and sometimes of Aesop the tragedian. They tell
of this Aesop, that whilst he was representing on the theater
Atreus deliberating the revenge of Thyestes, he was so
transported beyond himself in the heat of action, that he struck
with his scepter one of the servants, who was running across the
stage, so violently, that he laid him dead upon the place. And
such afterwards was Cicero's delivery, that it did not a little
contribute to render his eloquence persuasive. He used to
ridicule loud speakers, saying that they shouted because they
could not speak, like lame men who get on horseback because they
cannot walk. And his readiness and address in sarcasm, and
generally in witty sayings, was thought to suit a pleader very
well, and to be highly attractive, but his using it to excess
offended many, and gave him the repute of ill nature.
He was appointed quaestor in a great scarcity of corn, and had
Sicily for his province, where, though at first he displeased
many, by compelling them to send in their provisions to Rome,
yet after they had had experience of his care, justice, and
clemency, they honored him more than ever they did any of their
governors before. It happened, also, that some young Romans of
good and noble families, charged with neglect of discipline and
misconduct in military service, were brought before the praetor
in Sicily. Cicero undertook their defense, which he conducted
admirably, and got them acquitted. So returning to Rome with a
great opinion of himself for these things, a ludicrous incident
befell him, as he tells us himself. Meeting an eminent citizen
in Campania, whom he accounted his friend, he asked him what the
Romans said and thought of his actions, as if the whole city had
been filled with the glory of what he had done. His friend
asked him in reply, "Where is it you have been, Cicero?" This
for the time utterly mortified and cast him down, to perceive
that the report of his actions had sunk into the city of Rome as
into an immense ocean, without any visible effect or result in
reputation. And afterwards considering with himself that the
glory he contended for was an infinite thing, and that there was
no fixed end nor measure in its pursuit, he abated much of his
ambitious thoughts. Nevertheless, he was always excessively
pleased with his own praise, and continued to the very last to
be passionately fond of glory; which often interfered with the
prosecution of his wisest resolutions.
On beginning to apply himself more resolutely to public
business, he remarked it as an unreasonable and absurd thing
that artificers, using vessels and instruments inanimate, should
know the name, place, and use of every one of them, and yet the
statesman, whose instruments for carrying out public measures
are men, should be negligent and careless in the knowledge of
persons. And so he not only acquainted himself with the names,
but also knew the particular place where every one of the more
eminent citizens dwelt, what lands he possessed, the friends he
made use of, and those that were of his neighborhood, and when
he traveled on any road in Italy, he could readily name and show
the estates and seats of his friends and acquaintance. Having
so small an estate, though a sufficient competency for his own
expenses, it was much wondered at that he took neither fees nor
gifts from his clients, and more especially, that he did not do
so when he undertook the prosecution of Verres. This Verres,
who had been praetor of Sicily, and stood charged by the
Sicilians of many evil practices during his government there,
Cicero succeeded in getting condemned, not by speaking, but in a
manner by holding his tongue. For the praetors, favoring
Verres, had deferred the trial by several adjournments to the
last day, in which it was evident there could not be sufficient
time for the advocates to be heard, and the cause brought to an
issue. Cicero, therefore, came forward, and said there was no
need of speeches; and after producing and examining witnesses,
he required the judges to proceed to sentence. However, many
witty sayings are on record, as having been used by Cicero on
the occasion. When a man named Caecilius, one of the freed
slaves, who was said to be given to Jewish practices, would have
put by the Sicilians, and undertaken the prosecution of Verres
himself, Cicero asked, "What has a Jew to do with swine?"
verres being the Roman word for a boar. And when Verres began
to reproach Cicero with effeminate living, "You ought," replied
he, "to use this language at home, to your sons;" Verres having
a son who had fallen into disgraceful courses. Hortensius the
orator, not daring directly to undertake the defense of Verres,
was yet persuaded to appear for him at the laying on of the
fine, and received an ivory sphinx for his reward; and when
Cicero, in some passage of his speech, obliquely reflected on
him, and Hortensius told him he was not skillful in solving
riddles, "No," said Cicero, "and yet you have the Sphinx in your
house!"
Verres was thus convicted; though Cicero, who set the fine at
seventy-five myriads, lay under the suspicion of being
corrupted by bribery to lessen the sum. But the Sicilians, in
testimony of their gratitude, came and brought him all sorts of
presents from the island, when he was aedile; of which he made
no private profit himself, but used their generosity only to
reduce the public price of provisions.
He had a very pleasant seat at Arpi, he had also a farm near
Naples, and another about Pompeii, but neither of any great
value. The portion of his wife, Terentia, amounted to ten
myriads, and he had a bequest valued at nine myriads of denarii;
upon these he lived in a liberal but temperate style, with the
learned Greeks and Romans that were his familiars. He rarely,
if at any time, sat down to meat till sunset, and that not so
much on account of business, as for his health and the weakness
of his stomach. He was otherwise in the care of his body nice
and delicate, appointing himself, for example, a set number of
walks and rubbings. And after this manner managing the habit
of his body, he brought it in time to be healthful, and capable
of supporting many great fatigues and trials. His father's
house he made over to his brother, living himself near the
Palatine hill, that he might not give the trouble of long
journeys to those that made suit to him. And, indeed, there
were not fewer daily appearing at his door, to do their court to
him, than there were that came to Crassus for his riches, or to
Pompey for his power amongst the soldiers, these being at that
time the two men of the greatest repute and influence in Rome.
Nay, even Pompey himself used to pay court to Cicero, and
Cicero's public actions did much to establish Pompey's authority
and reputation in the state.
Numerous distinguished competitors stood with him for the
praetor's office; but he was chosen before them all, and managed
the decision of causes with justice and integrity. It is
related that Licinius Macer, a man himself of great power in the
city, and supported also by the assistance of Crassus, was
accused before him of extortion, and that, in confidence on his
own interest and the diligence of his friends, whilst the judges
were debating about the sentence, he went to his house, where
hastily trimming his hair and putting on a clean gown, as
already acquitted, he was setting off again to go to the Forum;
but at his hall door meeting Crassus, who told him that he was
condemned by all the votes, he went in again, threw himself upon
his bed, and died immediately. This verdict was considered very
creditable to Cicero, as showing his careful management of the
courts of justice. On another occasion, Vatinius, a man of rude
manners and often insolent in court to the magistrates, who had
large swellings on his neck, came before his tribunal and made
some request, and on Cicero's desiring further time to consider
it, told him that he himself would have made no question about
it, had he been praetor. Cicero, turning quickly upon him,
answered, "But I, you see, have not the neck that you have."
When there were but two or three days remaining in his office,
Manilius was brought before him, and charged with peculation.
Manilius had the good opinion and favor of the common people,
and was thought to be prosecuted only for Pompey's sake, whose
particular friend he was. And therefore, when he asked a space
of time before his trial, and Cicero allowed him but one day,
and that the next only, the common people grew highly offended,
because it had been the custom of the praetors to allow ten days
at least to the accused: and the tribunes of the people having
called him before the people, and accused him, he, desiring to
be heard, said, that as he had always treated the accused with
equity and humanity, as far as the law allowed, so he thought it
hard to deny the same to Manilius, and that he had studiously
appointed that day of which alone, as praetor, he was master,
and that it was not the part of those that were desirous to help
him, to cast the judgment of his cause upon another praetor.
These things being said made a wonderful change in the people,
and, commending him much for it, they desired that he himself
would undertake the defense of Manilius; which he willingly
consented to, and that principally for the sake of Pompey, who
was absent. And, accordingly, taking his place before the
people again, he delivered a bold invective upon the
oligarchical party and on those who were jealous of Pompey.
Yet he was preferred to the consulship no less by the nobles
than the common people, for the good of the city; and both
parties jointly assisted his promotion, upon the following
reasons. The change of government made by Sylla, which at first
seemed a senseless one, by time and usage had now come to be
considered by the people no unsatisfactory settlement. But
there were some that endeavored to alter and subvert the whole
present state of affairs not from any good motives, but for
their own private gain; and Pompey being at this time employed
in the wars with the kings of Pontus and Armenia, there was no
sufficient force at Rome to suppress any attempts at a
revolution. These people had for their head a man of bold,
daring, and restless character, Lucius Catiline, who was
accused, besides other great offenses, of deflowering his virgin
daughter, and killing his own brother; for which latter crime,
fearing to be prosecuted at law, he persuaded Sylla to set him
down, as though he were yet alive, amongst those that were to be
put to death by proscription. This man the profligate citizens
choosing for their captain, gave faith to one another, amongst
other pledges, by sacrificing a man and eating of his flesh; and
a great part of the young men of the city were corrupted by him,
he providing for everyone pleasures, drink, and women, and
profusely supplying the expense of these debauches. Etruria,
moreover, had all been excited to revolt, as well as a great
part of Gaul within the Alps. But Rome itself was in the most
dangerous inclination to change, on account of the unequal
distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and
greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows,
entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings,
and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of
mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight
impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every
daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth.
Catiline, however, being desirous of procuring a strong position
to carry out his designs, stood for the consulship, and had
great hopes of success, thinking he should be appointed, with
Caius Antonius as his colleague, who was a man fit to lead
neither in a good cause nor in a bad one, but might be a
valuable accession to another's power. These things the
greatest part of the good and honest citizens apprehending, put
Cicero upon standing for the consulship; whom the people readily
receiving, Catiline was put by, so that he and Caius Antonius
were chosen, although amongst the competitors he was the only
man descended from a father of the equestrian, and not of the
senatorial order.
Though the designs of Catiline were not yet publicly known, yet
considerable preliminary troubles immediately followed upon
Cicero's entrance upon the consulship. For, on the one side,
those who were disqualified by the laws of Sylla from holding
any public offices, being neither inconsiderable in power nor in
number, came forward as candidates and caressed the people for
them; speaking many things truly and justly against the tyranny
of Sylla, only that they disturbed the government at an improper
and unseasonable time; on the other hand, the tribunes of the
people proposed laws to the same purpose, constituting a
commission of ten persons, with unlimited powers, in whom as
supreme governors should be vested the right of selling the
public lands of all Italy and Syria and Pompey's new conquests,
of judging and banishing whom they pleased, of planting
colonies, of taking moneys out of the treasury, and of levying
and paying what soldiers should be thought needful. And several
of the nobility favored this law, but especially Caius Antonius,
Cicero's colleague, in hopes of being one of the ten. But what
gave the greatest fear to the nobles was, that he was thought
privy to the conspiracy of Catiline, and not to dislike it,
because of his great debts.
Cicero, endeavoring in the first place to provide a remedy
against this danger, procured a decree assigning to him the
province of Macedonia, he himself declining that of Gaul, which
was offered to him. And this piece of favor so completely won
over Antonius, that he was ready to second and respond to, like
a hired player, whatever Cicero said for the good of the
country. And now, having made his colleague thus tame and
tractable, he could with greater courage attack the
conspirators. And, therefore, in the senate, making an oration
against the law of the ten commissioners, he so confounded those
who proposed it, that they had nothing to reply. And when they
again endeavored, and, having prepared things beforehand, had
called the consuls before the assembly of the people, Cicero,
fearing nothing, went first out, and commanded the senate to
follow him, and not only succeeded in throwing out the law, but
so entirely overpowered the tribunes by his oratory, that they
abandoned all thought of their other projects.
For Cicero, it may be said, was the one man, above all others,
who made the Romans feel how great a charm eloquence lends to
what is good, and how invincible justice is, if it be well
spoken; and that it is necessary for him who would dexterously
govern a commonwealth, in action, always to prefer that which
is honest before that which is popular, and in speaking, to free
the right and useful measure from everything that may occasion
offense. An incident occurred in the theater, during his
consulship, which showed what his speaking could do. For
whereas formerly the knights of Rome were mingled in the theater
with the common people, and took their places amongst them as it
happened, Marcus Otho, when he was praetor, was the first who
distinguished them from the other citizens, and appointed them a
proper seat, which they still enjoy as their special place in
the theater. This the common people took as an indignity done
to them, and, therefore, when Otho appeared in the theater, they
hissed him; the knights, on the contrary, received him with loud
clapping. The people repeated and increased their hissing; the
knights continued their clapping. Upon this, turning upon one
another, they broke out into insulting words, so that the
theater was in great disorder. Cicero, being informed of it,
came himself to the theater, and summoning the people into the
temple of Bellona, he so effectually chid and chastised them for
it, that, again returning into the theater, they received Otho
with loud applause, contending with the knights who should give
him the greatest demonstrations of honor and respect.
The conspirators with Catiline, at first cowed and disheartened,
began presently to take courage again. And assembling
themselves together, they exhorted one another boldly to
undertake the design before Pompey's return, who, as it was
said, was now on his march with his forces for Rome. But the
old soldiers of Sylla were Catiline's chief stimulus to action.
They had been disbanded all about Italy, but the greatest number
and the fiercest of them lay scattered among the cities of
Etruria, entertaining themselves with dreams of new plunder and
rapine amongst the hoarded riches of Italy. These, having for
their leader Manlius, who had served with distinction in the
wars under Sylla, joined themselves to Catiline, and came to
Rome to assist him with their suffrages at the election. For he
again pretended to the consulship, having resolved to kill
Cicero in a tumult at the elections. Also, the divine powers
seemed to give intimation of the coming troubles, by
earthquakes, thunderbolts, and strange appearances. Nor was
human evidence wanting, certain enough in itself, though not
sufficient for the conviction of the noble and powerful
Catiline. Therefore Cicero, deferring the day of election,
summoned Catiline into the senate, and questioned him as to the
charges made against him. Catiline, believing there were many
in the senate desirous of change, and to give a specimen of
himself to the conspirators present, returned an audacious
answer, "What harm," said he, "when I see two bodies, the one
lean and consumptive with a head, the other great and strong
without one, if I put a head to that body which wants one?"
This covert representation of the senate and the people excited
yet greater apprehensions in Cicero. He put on armor, and was
attended from his house by the noble citizens in a body; and a
number of the young men went with him into the Plain. Here,
designedly letting his tunic slip partly off from his shoulders,
he showed his armor underneath, and discovered his danger to the
spectators; who, being much moved at it, gathered round about
him for his defense. At length, Catiline was by a general
suffrage again put by, and Silanus and Murena chosen consuls.
Not long after this, Catiline's soldiers got together in a body
in Etruria, and began to form themselves into companies, the day
appointed for the design being near at hand. About midnight,
some of the principal and most powerful citizens of Rome, Marcus
Crassus, Marcus Marcellus, and Scipio Metellus went to Cicero's
house, where, knocking at the gate, and calling up the porter,
they commended him to awake Cicero, and tell him they were
there. The business was this: Crassus's porter after supper
had delivered to him letters brought by an unknown person. Some
of them were directed to others, but one to Crassus, without a
name; this only Crassus read, which informed him that there was
a great slaughter intended by Catiline, and advised him to leave
the city. The others he did not open, but went with them
immediately to Cicero, being affrighted at the danger, and to
free himself of the suspicion he lay under for his familiarity
with Catiline. Cicero, considering the matter, summoned the
senate at break of day. The letters he brought with him, and
delivered them to those to whom they were directed, commanding
them to read them publicly; they all alike contained an account
of the conspiracy. And when Quintus Arrius, a man of praetorian
dignity, recounted to them, how soldiers were collecting in
companies in Etruria, and Manlius stated to be in motion with a
large force, hovering about those cities, in expectation of
intelligence from Rome, the senate made a decree, to place all
in the hands of the consuls, who should undertake the conduct of
everything, and do their best to save the state. This was not
a common thing, but only done by the senate in case of imminent
danger.
After Cicero had received this power, he committed all affairs
outside to Quintus Metellus, but the management of the city he
kept in his own hands. Such a numerous attendance guarded him
every day when he went abroad, that the greatest part of the
market-place was filled with his train when he entered it.
Catiline, impatient of further delay, resolved himself to break
forth and go to Manlius, but he commanded Marcius and Cethegus
to take their swords, and go early in the morning to Cicero's
gates, as if only intending to salute him, and then to fall upon
him and slay him. This a noble lady, Fulvia, coming by night,
discovered to Cicero, bidding him beware of Cethegus and
Marcius. They came by break of day, and being denied entrance,
made an outcry and disturbance at the gates, which excited all
the more suspicion. But Cicero, going forth, summoned the
senate into the temple of Jupiter Stator, which stands at the
end of the Sacred Street, going up to the Palatine. And when
Catiline with others of his party also came, as intending to
make his defense, none of the senators would sit by him, but all
of them left the bench where he had placed himself. And when he
began to speak, they interrupted him with outcries. At length
Cicero, standing up, commanded him to leave the city, for since
one governed the commonwealth with words, the other with arms,
it was necessary there should be a wall betwixt them. Catiline,
therefore, immediately left the town, with three hundred armed
men; and assuming, as if he had been a magistrate, the rods,
axes, and military ensigns, he went to Manlius, and having got
together a body of near twenty thousand men, with these he
marched to the several cities, endeavoring to persuade or force
them to revolt. So it being now come to open war, Antonius was
sent forth to fight him.
The remainder of those in the city whom he had corrupted,
Cornelius Lentulus kept together and encouraged. He had the
surname Sura, and was a man of a noble family, but a dissolute
liver, who for his debauchery was formerly turned out of the
senate, and was now holding the office of praetor for the second
time, as the custom is with those who desire to regain the
dignity of senator. It is said that he got the surname Sura
upon this occasion; being quaestor in the time of Sylla, he had
lavished away and consumed a great quantity of the public
moneys, at which Sylla being provoked, called him to give an
account in the senate; he appeared with great coolness and
contempt, and said he had no account to give, but they might
take this, holding up the calf of his leg, as boys do at ball,
when they have missed. Upon which he was surnamed Sura, sura
being the Roman word for the calf of the leg. Being at another
time prosecuted at law, and having bribed some of the judges, he
escaped only by two votes, and complained of the needless
expense he had gone to in paying for a second, as one would have
sufficed to acquit him. This man, such in his own nature, and
now inflamed by Catiline, false prophets and fortune-tellers had
also corrupted with vain hopes, quoting to him fictitious verses
and oracles, and proving from the Sibylline prophecies that
there were three of the name Cornelius designed by fate to be
monarchs of Rome; two of whom, Cinna and Sylla, had already
fulfilled the decree, and that divine fortune was now advancing
with the gift of monarchy for the remaining third Cornelius; and
that therefore he ought by all means to accept it, and not lose
opportunity by delay, as Catiline had done.
Lentulus, therefore, designed no mean or trivial matter, for he
had resolved to kill the whole senate, and as many other
citizens as he could, to fire the city, and spare nobody, except
only Pompey's children, intending to seize and keep them as
pledges of his reconciliation with Pompey. For there was then a
common and strong report that Pompey was on his way homeward
from his great expedition. The night appointed for the design
was one of the Saturnalia; swords, flax, and sulfur they carried
and hid in the house of Cethegus; and providing one hundred men,
and dividing the city into as many parts, they had allotted to
every one singly his proper place, so that in a moment many
kindling the fire, the city might be in a flame all together.
Others were appointed to stop up the aqueducts, and to kill
those who should endeavor to carry water to put it out. Whilst
these plans were preparing, it happened there were two
ambassadors from the Allobroges staying in Rome; a nation at
that time in a distressed condition, and very uneasy under the
Roman government. These Lentulus and his party judging useful
instruments to move and seduce Gaul to revolt, admitted into the
conspiracy, and they gave them letters to their own magistrates,
and letters to Catiline; in those they promised liberty, in
these they exhorted Catiline to set all slaves free, and to
bring them along with him to Rome. They sent also to accompany
them to Catiline, one Titus, a native of Croton, who was to
carry those letters to him.
These counsels of inconsidering men, who conversed together over
wine and with women, Cicero watched with sober industry and
forethought, and with most admirable sagacity, having several
emissaries abroad, who observed and traced with him all that was
done, and keeping also a secret correspondence with many who
pretended to join in the conspiracy. He thus knew all the
discourse which passed betwixt them and the strangers; and lying
in wait for them by night, he took the Crotonian with his
letters, the ambassadors of the Allobroges acting secretly in
concert with him.
By break of day, he summoned the senate into the temple of
Concord, where he read the letters and examined the informers.
Junius Silanus further stated, that several persons had heard
Cethegus say, that three consuls and four praetors were to be
slain; Piso, also, a person of consular dignity, testified other
matters of the like nature; and Caius Sulpicius, one of the
praetors, being sent to Cethegus's house, found there a quantity
of darts and of armor, and a still greater number of swords and
daggers, all recently whetted. At length, the senate decreeing
indemnity to the Crotonian upon his confession of the whole
matter, Lentulus was convicted, abjured his office (for he was
then praetor), and put off his robe edged with purple in the
senate, changing it for another garment more agreeable to his
present circumstances. He, thereupon, with the rest of his
confederates present, was committed to the charge of the
praetors in free custody.
It being evening, and the common people in crowds expecting
without, Cicero went forth to them, and told them what was done,
and then, attended by them, went to the house of a friend and
near neighbor; for his own was taken up by the women, who were
celebrating with secret rites the feast of the goddess whom the
Romans call the Good, and the Greeks, the Women's goddess. For
a sacrifice is annually performed to her in the consul's house,
either by his wife or mother, in the presence of the vestal
virgins. And having got into his friend's house privately, a
few only being present, he began to deliberate how he should
treat these men. The severest, and the only punishment fit for
such heinous crimes, he was somewhat shy and fearful of
inflicting, as well from the clemency of his nature, as also
lest he should be thought to exercise his authority too
insolently, and to treat too harshly men of the noblest birth
and most powerful friendships in the city; and yet, if he should
use them more mildly, he had a dreadful prospect of danger from
them. For there was no likelihood, if they suffered less than
death, they would be reconciled, but rather, adding new rage to
their former wickedness, they would rush into every kind of
audacity, while he himself, whose character for courage already
did not stand very high with the multitude, would be thought
guilty of the greatest cowardice and want of manliness.
Whilst Cicero was doubting what course to take, a portent
happened to the women in their sacrificing. For on the altar,
where the fire seemed wholly extinguished, a great and bright
flame issued forth from the ashes of the burnt wood; at which
others were affrighted, but the holy virgins called to Terentia,
Cicero's wife, and bade her haste to her husband, and command
him to execute what he had resolved for the good of his country,
for the goddess had sent a great light to the increase of his
safety and glory. Terentia, therefore, as she was otherwise in
her own nature neither tender-hearted nor timorous, but a woman
eager for distinction (who, as Cicero himself says, would rather
thrust herself into his public affairs, than communicate her
domestic matters to him), told him these things, and excited him
against the conspirators. So also did Quintus his brother, and
Publius Nigidius, one of his philosophical friends, whom he
often made use of in his greatest and most weighty affairs of
state.
The next day, a debate arising in the senate about the
punishment of the men, Silanus, being the first who was asked
his opinion, said, it was fit they should be all sent to the
prison, and there suffer the utmost penalty. To him all
consented in order till it came to Caius Caesar, who was
afterwards dictator. He was then but a young man, and only at
the outset of his career, but had already directed his hopes and
policy to that course by which he afterwards changed the Roman
state into a monarchy. Of this others foresaw nothing; but
Cicero had seen reason for strong suspicion, though without
obtaining any sufficient means of proof. And there were some
indeed that said that he was very near being discovered, and
only just escaped him; others are of opinion that Cicero
voluntarily overlooked and neglected the evidence against him,
for fear of his friends and power; for it was very evident to
everybody, that if Caesar was to be accused with the
conspirators, they were more likely to be saved with him, than
he to be punished with them.
When, therefore, it came to Caesar's turn to give his opinion,
he stood up and proposed that the conspirators should not be put
to death, but their estates confiscated, and their persons
confined in such cities in Italy as Cicero should approve, there
to be kept in custody till Catiline was conquered. To this
sentence, as it was the most moderate, and he that delivered it
a most powerful speaker, Cicero himself gave no small weight,
for he stood up and, turning the scale on either side, spoke in
favor partly of the former, partly of Caesar's sentence. And
all Cicero's friends, judging Caesar's sentence most expedient
for Cicero, because he would incur the less blame if the
conspirators were not put to death, chose rather the latter; so
that Silanus, also, changing his mind, retracted his opinion,
and said he had not declared for capital, but only the utmost
punishment, which to a Roman senator is imprisonment. The first
man who spoke against Caesar's motion was Catulus Lutatius.
Cato followed, and so vehemently urged in his speech the strong
suspicion about Caesar himself, and so filled the senate with
anger and resolution, that a decree was passed for the execution
of the conspirators. But Caesar opposed the confiscation of
their goods, not thinking it fair that those who had rejected
the mildest part of his sentence should avail themselves of the
severest. And when many insisted upon it, he appealed to the
tribunes, but they would do nothing; till Cicero himself
yielding, remitted that part of the sentence.
After this, Cicero went out with the senate to the conspirators;
they were not all together in one place, but the several
praetors had them, some one, some another, in custody. And
first he took Lentulus from the Palatine, and brought him by the
Sacred Street, through the middle of the marketplace, a circle
of the most eminent citizens encompassing and protecting him.
The people, affrighted at what was doing, passed along in
silence, especially the young men; as if, with fear and
trembling; they were undergoing a rite of initiation into some
ancient, sacred mysteries of aristocratic power. Thus passing
from the market-place, and coming to the gaol, he delivered
Lentulus to the officer, and commanded him to execute him; and
after him Cethegus, and so all the rest in order, he brought and
delivered up to execution. And when he saw many of the
conspirators in the market-place, still standing together in
companies, ignorant of what was done, and waiting for the night,
supposing the men were still alive and in a possibility of being
rescued, he called out in a loud voice, and said, "They did
live;" for so the Romans, to avoid inauspicious language, name
those that are dead.
It was now evening, when he returned from the market-place to
his own house, the citizens no longer attending him with
silence, nor in order, but receiving him, as he passed, with
acclamations and applauses, and saluting him as the savior and
founder of his country. A bright light shone through the
streets from the lamps and torches set up at the doors, and the
women showed lights from the tops of the houses, to honor
Cicero, and to behold him returning home with a splendid train
of the most principal citizens; amongst whom were many who had
conducted great wars, celebrated triumphs, and added to the
possessions of the Roman empire, both by sea and land. These,
as they passed along with him, acknowledged to one another, that
though the Roman people were indebted to several officers and
commanders of that age for riches, spoils, and power, yet to
Cicero alone they owed the safety and security of all these, for
delivering them from so great and imminent a danger. For though
it might seem no wonderful thing to prevent the design, and
punish the conspirators, yet to defeat the greatest of all
conspiracies with so little disturbance, trouble, and commotion,
was very extraordinary. For the greater part of those who had
flocked in to Catiline, as soon as they heard the fate of
Lentulus and Cethegus, left and forsook him, and he himself,
with his remaining forces, joining battle with Antonius, was
destroyed with his army.
And yet there were some who were very ready both to speak ill of
Cicero, and to do him hurt for these actions; and they had for
their leaders some of the magistrates of the ensuing year, as
Caesar, who was one of the praetors, and Metellus and Bestia,
the tribunes. These, entering upon their office some few days
before Cicero's consulate expired, would not permit him to make
any address to the people, but, throwing the benches before the
Rostra, hindered his speaking, telling him he might, if he
pleased, make the oath of withdrawal from office, and then come
down again. Cicero, accordingly, accepting the conditions, came
forward to make his withdrawal; and silence being made, he
recited his oath, not in the usual, but in a new and peculiar
form, namely, that he had saved his country, and preserved the
empire; the truth of which oath all the people confirmed with
theirs. Caesar and the tribunes, all the more exasperated by
this, endeavored to create him further trouble, and for this
purpose proposed a law for calling Pompey home with his army, to
put an end to Cicero's usurpation. But it was a very great
advantage for Cicero and the whole commonwealth that Cato was at
that time one of the tribunes. For he, being of equal power
with the rest, and of greater reputation, could oppose their
designs. He easily defeated their other projects, and, in an
oration to the people, so highly extolled Cicero's consulate,
that the greatest honors were decreed him, and he was publicly
declared the Father of his Country, which title he seems to have
obtained, the first man who did so, when Cato gave it him in
this address to the people.
At this time, therefore, his authority was very great in the
city; but he created himself much envy, and offended very many,
not by any evil action, but because he was always lauding and
magnifying himself. For neither senate, nor assembly of the
people, nor court of judicature could meet, in which he was not
heard to talk of Catiline and Lentulus. Indeed, he also filled
his books and writings with his own praises, to such an excess
as to render a style, in itself most pleasant and delightful,
nauseous and irksome to his hearers; this ungrateful humor, like
a disease, always cleaving to him. Nevertheless, though he was
intemperately fond of his own glory, he was very free from
envying others, and was, on the contrary, most liberally profuse
in commending both the ancients and his contemporaries, as
anyone may see in his writings. And many such sayings of his are
also remembered; as that he called Aristotle a river of flowing
gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to
speak, it would be in language like theirs. He used to call
Theophrastus his special luxury. And being asked which of
Demosthenes's orations he liked best, he answered, the longest.
And yet some affected imitators of Demosthenes have complained
of some words that occur in one of his letters, to the effect
that Demosthenes sometimes falls asleep in his speeches;
forgetting the many high encomiums he continually passes upon
him, and the compliment he paid him when he named the most
elaborate of all his orations, those he wrote against Antony,
Philippics. And as for the eminent men of his own time, either
in eloquence or philosophy, there was not one of them whom he
did not, by writing or speaking favorably of him, render more
illustrious. He obtained of Caesar, when in power, the Roman
citizenship for Cratippus, the Peripatetic, and got the court of
Areopagus, by public decree, to request his stay at Athens, for
the instruction of their youth, and the honor of their city.
There are letters extant from Cicero to Herodes, and others to
his son, in which he recommends the study of philosophy under
Cratippus. There is one in which he blames Gorgias, the
rhetorician, for enticing his son into luxury and drinking, and,
therefore, forbids him his company. And this, and one other to
Pelops, the Byzantine, are the only two of his Greek epistles
which seem to be written in anger. In the first, he justly
reflects on Gorgias, if he were what he was thought to be, a
dissolute and profligate character; but in the other, he rather
meanly expostulates and complains with Pelops, for neglecting to
procure him a decree of certain honors from the Byzantines.
Another illustration of his love of praise is the way in which
sometimes, to make his orations more striking, he neglected
decorum and dignity. When Munatius, who had escaped conviction
by his advocacy, immediately prosecuted his friend Sabinus, he
said in the warmth of his resentment, "Do you suppose you were
acquitted for your own meets, Munatius, and was it not that I so
darkened the case, that the court could not see your guilt?"
When from the Rostra he had made an eulogy on Marcus Crassus,
with much applause, and within a few days after again as
publicly reproached him, Crassus called to him, and said, "Did
not you yourself two days ago, in this same place, commend me?"
"Yes," said Cicero, "I exercised my eloquence in declaiming upon
a bad subject." At another time, Crassus had said that no one
of his family had ever lived beyond sixty years of age, and
afterwards denied it, and asked, "What should put it into my
head to say so?" "It was to gain the people's favor," answered
Cicero; "you knew how glad they would be to hear it." When
Crassus expressed admiration of the Stoic doctrine, that the
good man is always rich, "Do you not mean," said Cicero, "their
doctrine that all things belong to the wise?" Crassus being
generally accused of covetousness. One of Crassus's sons, who
was thought so exceedingly like a man of the name of Axius as to
throw some suspicion on his mother's honor, made a successful
speech in the senate. Cicero on being asked how he liked it,
replied with the Greek words, Axios Crassou.
When Crassus was about to go into Syria, he desired to leave
Cicero rather his friend than his enemy, and, therefore, one day
saluting him, told him he would come and sup with him, which the
other as courteously received. Within a few days after, on some
of Cicero's acquaintances interceding for Vatinius, as desirous
of reconciliation and friendship, for he was then his enemy,
"What," he replied, "does Vatinius also wish to come and sup
with me?" Such was his way with Crassus. When Vatinius, who
had swellings in his neck, was pleading a cause, he called him
the tumid orator; and having been told by someone that Vatinius
was dead, on hearing presently after that he was alive, "May the
rascal perish," said he, "for his news not being true."
Upon Caesar's bringing forward a law for the division of the
lands in Campania amongst the soldiers, many in the senate
opposed it; amongst the rest, Lucius Gellius, one of the oldest
men in the house, said it should never pass whilst he lived.
"Let us postpone it," said Cicero, "Gellius does not ask us to
wait long." There was a man of the name of Octavius, suspected
to be of African descent. He once said, when Cicero was
pleading, that he could not hear him; "Yet there are holes,"
said Cicero, "in your ears." When Metellus Nepos told him,
that he had ruined more as a witness, than he had saved as an
advocate, "I admit," said Cicero, "that I have more truth than
eloquence." To a young man who was suspected of having given a
poisoned cake to his father, and who talked largely of the
invectives he meant to deliver against Cicero, "Better these,"
replied he, "than your cakes." Publius Sextius, having amongst
others retained Cicero as his advocate in a certain cause, was
yet desirous to say all for himself, and would not allow anybody
to speak for him; when he was about to receive his acquittal
from the judges, and the ballots were passing, Cicero called to
him, "Make haste, Sextius, and use your time; tomorrow you will
be nobody." He cited Publius Cotta to bear testimony in a
certain cause, one who affected to be thought a lawyer, though
ignorant and unlearned; to whom, when he had said, "I know
nothing of the matter," he answered, "You think, perhaps, we ask
you about a point of law." To Metellus Nepos, who, in a dispute
between them, repeated several times, "Who was your father,
Cicero?" he replied, "Your mother has made the answer to such a
question in your case more difficult;" Nepos's mother having
been of ill repute. The son, also, was of a giddy, uncertain
temper. At one time, he suddenly threw up his office of
tribune, and sailed off into Syria to Pompey; and immediately
after, with as little reason, came back again. He gave his
tutor, Philagrus, a funeral with more than necessary attention,
and then set up the stone figure of a crow over his tomb.
"This," said Cicero, "is really appropriate; as he did not teach
you to speak, but to fly about." When Marcus Appius, in the
opening of some speech in a court of justice, said that his
friend had desired him to employ industry, eloquence, and
fidelity in that cause, Cicero answered, "And how have you had
the heart not to accede to any one of his requests?"
To use this sharp raillery against opponents and antagonists in
judicial pleading seems allowable rhetoric. But he excited much
ill feeling by his readiness to attack anyone for the sake of a
jest. A few anecdotes of this kind may be added. Marcus
Aquinius, who had two sons-in-law in exile, received from him
the name of king Adrastus. Lucius Cotta, an intemperate lover
of wine, was censor when Cicero stood for the consulship.
Cicero, being thirsty at the election, his friends stood round
about him while he was drinking. "You have reason to be
afraid," he said, "lest the censor should be angry with me for
drinking water." Meeting one day Voconius with his three very
ugly daughters, he quoted the verse,
He reared a race without Apollo's leave.
When Marcus Gellius, who was reputed the son of a slave, had
read several letters in the senate with a very shrill, and loud
voice, "Wonder not," said Cicero, "he comes of the criers."
When Faustus Sylla, the son of Sylla the dictator, who had,
during his dictatorship, by public bills proscribed and
condemned so many citizens, had so far wasted his estate, and
got into debt, that he was forced to publish his bills of sale,
Cicero told him that he liked these bills much better than those
of his father. By this habit he made himself odious with many
people.
But Clodius's faction conspired against him upon the following
occasion. Clodius was a member of a noble family, in the flower
of his youth, and of a bold and resolute temper. He, being in
love with Pompeia, Caesar's wife, got privately into his house
in the dress and attire of a music-girl; the women being at that
time offering there the sacrifice which must not be seen by men,
and there was no man present. Clodius, being a youth and
beardless, hoped to get to Pompeia among the women without being
taken notice of. But coming into a great house by night, he
missed his way in the passages, and a servant belonging to
Aurelia, Caesar's mother, spying him wandering up and down,
inquired his name. Thus being necessitated to speak, he told
her he was seeking for one of Pompeia's maids, Abra by name; and
she, perceiving it not to be a woman's voice, shrieked out, and
called in the women; who, shutting the gates, and searching
every place, at length found Clodius hidden in the chamber of
the maid with whom he had come in. This matter being much
talked about, Caesar put away his wife, Pompeia, and Clodius was
prosecuted for profaning the holy rites.
Cicero was at this time his friend, for he had been useful
to him in the conspiracy of Catiline, as one of his forwardest
assistants and protectors. But when Clodius rested his defense
upon this point, that he was not then at Rome, but at a distance
in the country, Cicero testified that he had come to his house
that day, and conversed with him on several matters; which thing
was indeed true, although Cicero was thought to testify it not
so much for the truth's sake as to preserve his quiet with
Terentia his wife. For she bore a grudge against Clodius on
account of his sister Clodia's wishing, as it was alleged, to
marry Cicero, and having employed for this purpose the
intervention of Tullus, a very intimate friend of Cicero's; and
his frequent visits to Clodia, who lived in their neighborhood,
and the attentions he paid to her had excited Terentia's
suspicions, and, being a woman of a violent temper, and having
the ascendant over Cicero, she urged him on to taking a part
against Clodius, and delivering his testimony. Many other good
and honest citizens also gave evidence against him, for
perjuries, disorders, bribing the people, and debauching women.
Lucullus proved, by his women-servants, that he had debauched
his youngest sister when she was Lucullus's wife; and there was
a general belief that he had done the same with his two other
sisters, Tertia, whom Marcius Rex, and Clodia, whom Metellus
Celer had married; the latter of whom was called Quadrantia,
because one of her lovers had deceived her with a purse of small
copper money instead of silver, the smallest copper coin being
called a quadrant. Upon this sister's account, in particular,
Clodius's character was attacked. Notwithstanding all this,
when the common people united against the accusers and witnesses
and the whole party, the judges were affrighted, and a guard was
placed about them for their defense; and most of them wrote
their sentences on the tablets in such a way, that they could
not well be read. It was decided, however, that there was a
majority for his acquittal, and bribery was reported to have
been employed; in reference to which Catulus remarked, when he
next met the judges, "You were very right to ask for a guard, to
prevent your money being taken from you." And when Clodius
upbraided Cicero that the judges had not believed his testimony,
"Yes," said he, "five and twenty of them trusted me, and
condemned you, and the other thirty did not trust you, for they
did not acquit you till they had got your money."
Caesar, though cited, did not give his testimony against
Clodius, and declared himself not convinced of his wife's
adultery, but that he had put her away because it was fit that
Caesar's house should not be only free of the evil fact, but of
the fame too.
Clodius, having escaped this danger, and having got himself
chosen one of the tribunes, immediately attacked Cicero, heaping
up all matters and inciting all persons against him. The common
people he gained over with popular laws; to each of the consuls
he decreed large provinces, to Piso, Macedonia, and to Gabinius,
Syria; he made a strong party among the indigent citizens, to
support him in his proceedings, and had always a body of armed
slaves about him. Of the three men then in greatest power,
Crassus was Cicero's open enemy, Pompey indifferently made
advances to both, and Caesar was going with an army into Gaul.
To him, though not his friend (what had occurred in the time of
the conspiracy having created suspicions between them), Cicero
applied, requesting an appointment as one of his lieutenants in
the province. Caesar accepted him, and Clodius, perceiving that
Cicero would thus escape his tribunician authority, professed to
be inclinable to a reconciliation, laid the greatest fault upon
Terentia, made always a favorable mention of him, and addressed
him with kind expressions, as one who felt no hatred or
ill-will, but who merely wished to urge his complaints in a
moderate and friendly way. By these artifices, he so freed
Cicero of all his fears, that he resigned his appointment to
Caesar, and betook himself again to political affairs. At which
Caesar being exasperated, joined the party of Clodius against
him, and wholly alienated Pompey from him; he also himself
declared in a public assembly of the people, that he did not
think Lentulus and Cethegus, with their accomplices, were fairly
and legally put to death without being brought to trial. And
this, indeed, was the crime charged upon Cicero, and this
impeachment he was summoned to answer. And so, as an accused
man, and in danger for the result, he changes his dress, and
went round with his hair untrimmed, in the attire of a
suppliant, to beg the people's grace. But Clodius met him in
every corner, having a band of abusive and daring fellows about
him, who derided Cicero for his change of dress and his
humiliation, and often, by throwing dirt and stones at him,
interrupted his supplication to the people.
However, first of all, almost the whole equestrian order changed
their dress with him, and no less than twenty thousand young
gentlemen followed him with their hair untrimmed, and
supplicating with him to the people. And then the senate met,
to pass a decree that the people should change their dress as in
time of public sorrow. But the consuls opposing it, and Clodius
with armed men besetting the senate-house, many of the senators
ran out, crying out and tearing their clothes. But this sight
moved neither shame nor pity; Cicero must either fly or
determine it by the sword with Clodius. He entreated Pompey to
aid him, who was on purpose gone out of the way, and was staying
at his country-house in the Alban hills; and first he sent his
son-in-law Piso to intercede with him, and afterwards set out to
go himself. Of which Pompey being informed, would not stay to
see him, being ashamed at the remembrance of the many conflicts
in the commonwealth which Cicero had undergone in his behalf,
and how much of his policy he had directed for his advantage.
But being now Caesar's son-in-law, at his instance he had set
aside all former kindness, and, slipping out at another door,
avoided the interview. Thus being forsaken by Pompey, and left
alone to himself, he fled to the consuls. Gabinius was rough
with him, as usual, but Piso spoke more courteously, desiring
him to yield and give place for a while to the fury of Clodius,
and to await a change of times, and to be now, as before, his
country's savior from the peril of these troubles and commotions
which Clodius was exciting.
Cicero, receiving this answer, consulted with his friends.
Lucullus advised him to stay, as being sure to prevail at last;
others to fly, because the people would soon desire him again,
when they should have enough of the rage and madness of Clodius.
This last Cicero approved. But first he took a statue of
Minerva, which had been long set up and greatly honored in his
house, and carrying it to the capitol, there dedicated it, with
the inscription, "To Minerva, Patroness of Rome." And receiving
an escort from his friends, about the middle of the night he
left the city, and went by land through Lucania, intending to
reach Sicily.
But as soon as it was publicly known that he was fled, Clodius
proposed to the people a decree of exile, and by his own order
interdicted him fire and water, prohibiting any within five
hundred miles in Italy to receive him into their houses. Most
people, out of respect for Cicero, paid no regard to this edict,
offering him every attention and escorting him on his way. But
at Hipponium, a city of Lucania, now called Vibo, one Vibius, a
Sicilian by birth, who, amongst many other instances of Cicero's
friendship, had been made head of the state engineers when he
was consul, would not receive him into his house, sending him
word he would appoint a place in the country for his reception.
Caius Vergilius, the praetor of Sicily, who had been on the most
intimate terms with him, wrote to him to forbear coming into
Sicily. At these things Cicero being disheartened, went to
Brundusium, whence putting forth with a prosperous wind, a
contrary gale blowing from the sea carried him back to Italy-
the next day. He put again to sea, and having reached
Dyrrachium, on his coming to shore there, it is reported that an
earthquake and a convulsion in the sea happened at the same
time, signs which the diviners said intimated that his exile
would not be long, for these were prognostics of change.
Although many visited him with respect, and the cities of Greece
contended which should honor him most, he yet continued
disheartened and disconsolate, like an unfortunate lover, often
casting his looks back upon Italy; and, indeed, he was become so
poor-spirited, so humiliated and dejected by his misfortunes,
as none could have expected in a man who had devoted so much of
his life to study and learning. And yet he often desired his
friends not to call him orator, but philosopher, because he had
made philosophy his business, and had only used rhetoric as an
instrument for attaining his objects in public life. But the
desire of glory has great power in washing the tinctures of
philosophy out of the souls of men, and in imprinting the
passions of the common people, by custom and conversation, in
the minds of those that take a part in governing them, unless
the politician be very careful so to engage in public affairs as
to interest himself only in the affairs themselves, but not
participate in the passions that are consequent to them.
Clodius, having thus driven away Cicero, fell to burning his
farms and villas, and afterwards his city house, and built on
the site of it a temple to Liberty. The rest of his property he
exposed to sale by daily proclamation, but nobody came to buy.
By these courses he became formidable to the noble citizens,
and, being followed by the commonalty, whom he had filled with
insolence and licentiousness, he began at last to try his
strength against Pompey, some of whose arrangements in the
countries he conquered, he attacked. The disgrace of this made
Pompey begin to reproach himself for his cowardice in deserting
Cicero, and, changing his mind, he now wholly set himself with
his friends to contrive his return. And when Clodius opposed
it, the senate made a vote that no public measure should be
ratified or passed by them till Cicero was recalled. But when
Lentulus was consul, the commotions grew so high upon this
matter, that the tribunes were wounded in the Forum, and
Quintus, Cicero's brother, was left as dead, lying unobserved
amongst the slain. The people began to change in their
feelings; and Annius Milo, one of their tribunes, was the first
who took confidence to summon Clodius to trial for acts of
violence. Many of the common people and out of the neighboring
cities formed a party with Pompey, and he went with them, and
drove Clodius out of the Forum, and summoned the people to pass
their vote. And, it is said, the people never passed any
suffrage more unanimously than this. The senate, also, striving
to outdo the people, sent letters of thanks to those cities
which had received Cicero with respect in his exile, and decreed
that his house and his country-places, which Clodius had
destroyed, should be rebuilt at the public charge.
Thus Cicero returned sixteen months after his exile, and the
cities were so glad, and people so zealous to meet him, that
what he boasted of afterwards, that Italy had brought him on her
shoulders home to Rome, was rather less than the truth. And
Crassus himself, who had been his enemy before his exile, went
then voluntarily to meet him, and was reconciled, to please his
son Publius, as he said, who was Cicero's affectionate admirer.
Cicero had not been long at Rome, when, taking the opportunity
of Clodius's absence, he went, with a great company, to the
capitol, and there tore and defaced the tribunician tables, in
which were recorded the acts done in the time of Clodius. And
on Clodius calling him in question for this, he answered, that
he, being of the patrician order, had obtained the office of
tribune against law, and, therefore, nothing done by him was
valid. Cato was displeased at this, and opposed Cicero, not
that he commended Clodius, but rather disapproved of his whole
administration; yet, he contended, it was an irregular and
violent course for the senate to vote the illegality of so many
decrees and acts, including those of Cato's own government in
Cyprus and at Byzantium. This occasioned a breach between Cato
and Cicero, which, though it came not to open enmity, yet made a
more reserved friendship between them.
After this, Milo killed Clodius, and, being arraigned for the
murder, he procured Cicero as his advocate. The senate, fearing
lest the questioning of so eminent and high-spirited a citizen
as Milo might disturb the peace of the city, committed the
superintendence of this and of the other trials to Pompey, who
should undertake to maintain the security alike of the city and
of the courts of justice. Pompey, therefore, went in the night,
and occupying the high grounds about it, surrounded the Forum
with soldiers. Milo, fearing lest Cicero, being disturbed by
such an unusual sight, should conduct his cause the less
successfully, persuaded him to come in a litter into the Forum,
and there repose himself till the judges were set, and the court
filled. For Cicero, it seems, not only wanted courage in arms,
but, in his speaking also, began with timidity, and in many
cases scarcely left off trembling and shaking when he had got
thoroughly into the current and the substance of his speech.
Being to defend Licinius Murena against the prosecution of Cato,
and being eager to outdo Hortensius, who had made his plea with
great applause, he took so little rest that night, and was so
disordered with thought and over-watching, that he spoke much
worse than usual. And so now, on quitting his litter to
commence the cause of Milo, at the sight of Pompey, posted, as
it were, and encamped with his troops above, and seeing arms
shining round about the Forum, he was so confounded, that he
could hardly begin his speech, for the trembling of his body,
and hesitance of his tongue; whereas Milo, meantime, was bold
and intrepid in his demeanor, disdaining either to let his hair
grow, or to put on the mourning habit. And this, indeed, seems
to have been one principal cause of his condemnation. Cicero,
however, was thought not so much to have shown timidity for
himself, as anxiety about his friend.
He was made one of the priests, whom the Romans call Augurs, in
the room of Crassus the younger, dead in Parthia. Then he was
appointed, by lot, to the province of Cilicia, and set sail
thither with twelve thousand foot and two thousand six hundred
horse. He had orders to bring back Cappadocia to its allegiance
to Ariobarzanes, its king; which settlement he effected very
completely without recourse to arms. And perceiving the
Cilicians, by the great loss the Romans had suffered in Parthia,
and the commotions in Syria, to have become disposed to attempt
a revolt, by a gentle course of government he soothed them back
into fidelity. He would accept none of the presents that were
offered him by the kings; he remitted the charge of public
entertainments, but daily, at his own house, received the
ingenious and accomplished persons of the province, not
sumptuously, but liberally. His house had no porter, nor was he
ever found in bed by any man, but early in the morning, standing
or walking before his door, he received those who came to offer
their salutations. He is said never once to have ordered any of
those under his command to be beaten with rods, or to have their
garments rent. He never gave contumelious language in his
anger, nor inflicted punishment with reproach. He detected an
embezzlement, to a large amount, in the public money, and thus
relieved the cities from their burdens, at the same time that he
allowed those who made restitution, to retain without further
punishment their rights as citizens. He engaged too, in war, so
far as to give a defeat to the banditti who infested Mount
Amanus, for which he was saluted by his army Imperator. To
Caecilius, the orator, who asked him to send him some panthers
from Cilicia, to be exhibited on the theater at Rome, he wrote,
in commendation of his own actions, that there were no panthers
in Cilicia, for they were all fled to Caria, in anger that in so
general a peace they had become the sole objects of attack. On
leaving his province, he touched at Rhodes, and tarried for some
length of time at Athens, longing much to renew his old studies.
He visited the eminent men of learning, and saw his former
friends and companions; and after receiving in Greece the honors
that were due to him, returned to the city, where everything
was now just as it were in a flame, breaking out into a civil
war.
When the senate would have decreed him a triumph, he told them
he had rather, so differences were accommodated, follow the
triumphal chariot of Caesar. In private, he gave advice to
both, writing many letters to Caesar, and personally entreating
Pompey; doing his best to soothe and bring to reason both the
one and the other. But when matters became incurable, and
Caesar was approaching Rome, and Pompey durst not abide it, but,
with many honest citizens, left the city, Cicero, as yet, did
not join in the flight, and was reputed to adhere to Caesar.
And it is very evident he was in his thoughts much divided, and
wavered painfully between both, for he writes in his epistles,
"To which side should I turn? Pompey has the fair and honorable
plea for war; and Caesar, on the other hand, has managed his
affairs better, and is more able to secure himself and his
friends. So that I know whom I should fly, not whom I should
fly to." But when Trebatius, one of Caesar's friends, by letter
signified to him that Caesar thought it was his most desirable
course to join his party, and partake his hopes, but if he
considered himself too old a man for this, then he should retire
into Greece, and stay quietly there, out of the way of either
party, Cicero, wondering that Caesar had not written himself,
gave an angry reply, that he should not do anything unbecoming
his past life. Such is the account to be collected from his
letters.
But as soon as Caesar was marched into Spain, he immediately
sailed away to join Pompey. And he was welcomed by all but
Cato; who, taking him privately, chid him for coming to Pompey.
As for himself, he said, it had been indecent to forsake that
part in the commonwealth which he had chosen from the beginning;
but Cicero might have been more useful to his country and
friends, if, remaining neuter, he had attended and used his
influence to moderate the result, instead of coming hither to
make himself, without reason or necessity, an enemy to Caesar,
and a partner in such great dangers. By this language, partly,
Cicero's feelings were altered, and partly, also, because Pompey
made no great use of him. Although, indeed, he was himself the
cause of it, by his not denying that he was sorry he had come,
by his depreciating Pompey's resources, finding fault underhand
with his counsels, and continually indulging in jests and
sarcastic remarks on his fellow-soldiers. Though he went about
in the camp with a gloomy and melancholy face himself, he was
always trying to raise a laugh in others, whether they wished it
or not. It may not be amiss to mention a few instances. To
Domitius, on his preferring to a command one who was no soldier,
and saying, in his defense, that he was a modest and prudent
person, he replied, "Why did not you keep him for a tutor for
your children?" On hearing Theophanes, the Lesbian, who was
master of the engineers in the army, praised for the admirable
way in which he had consoled the Rhodians for the loss of their
fleet, "What a thing it is," he said, "to have a Greek in
command!" When Caesar had been acting successfully, and in a
manner blockading Pompey, Lentulus was saying it was reported
that Caesar's friends were out of heart; "Because," said Cicero,
"they do not wish Caesar well." To one Marcius, who had just
come from Italy, and told them that there was a strong report at
Rome that Pompey was blocked up, he said, "And you sailed hither
to see it with your own eyes." To Nonius, encouraging them
after a defeat to be of good hope, because there were seven
eagles still left in Pompey's camp, "Good reason for
encouragement," said Cicero, "if we were going to fight with
jack-daws." Labienus insisted on some prophecies to the effect
that Pompey would gain the victory; "Yes," said Cicero, "and the
first step in the campaign has been losing our camp."
After the battle of Pharsalia was over, at which he was not
present for want of health, and Pompey was fled, Cato, having
considerable forces and a great fleet at Dyrrachium, would have
had Cicero commander-in-chief, according to law, and the
precedence of his consular dignity. And on his refusing the
command, and wholly declining to take part in their plans for
continuing the war, he was in the greatest danger of being
killed, young Pompey and his friends calling him traitor, and
drawing their swords upon him; only that Cato interposed, and
hardly rescued and brought him out of the camp.
Afterwards, arriving at Brundusium, he tarried there sometime in
expectation of Caesar, who was delayed by his affairs in Asia
and Egypt. And when it was told him that he was arrived at
Tarentum, and was coming thence by land to Brundusium, he
hastened towards him, not altogether without hope, and yet in
some fear of making experiment of the temper of an enemy and
conqueror in the presence of many witnesses. But there was no
necessity for him either to speak or do anything unworthy of
himself; for Caesar, as soon as he saw him coming a good way
before the rest of the company, came down to meet him, saluted
him, and, leading the way, conversed with him alone for some
furlongs. And from that time forward he continued to treat him
with honor and respect; so that, when Cicero wrote an oration in
praise of Cato, Caesar, in writing an answer to it, took
occasion to commend Cicero's own life and eloquence, comparing
him to Pericles and Theramenes. Cicero's oration was called
Cato; Caesar's, anti-Cato.
So also, it is related that when Quintus Ligarius was prosecuted
for having been in arms against Caesar, and Cicero had
undertaken his defense, Caesar said to his friends, "Why might
we not as well once more hear a speech from Cicero? Ligarius,
there is no question, is a wicked man and an enemy." But when
Cicero began to speak, he wonderfully moved him, and proceeded
in his speech with such varied pathos, and such a charm of
language, that the color of Caesar's countenance often changed,
and it was evident that all the passions of his soul were in
commotion. At length, the orator touching upon the Pharsalian
battle, he was so affected that his body trembled, and some of
the papers he held dropped out of his hands. And thus he was
overpowered, and acquitted Ligarius.
Henceforth, the commonwealth being changed into a monarchy,
Cicero withdrew himself from public affairs, and employed his
leisure in instructing those young men that would, in
philosophy; and by the near intercourse he thus had with some of
the noblest and highest in rank, he again began to possess great
influence in the city. The work and object which he set himself
was to compose and translate philosophical dialogues and to
render logical and physical terms into the Roman idiom. For he
it was, as it is said, who first or principally gave Latin names
to phantasia, syncatathesis, epokhe, catalepsis, atomon,
ameres, kenon, and other such technical terms, which, either by
metaphors or other means of accommodation, he succeeded in
making intelligible and expressible to the Romans. For his
recreation, he exercised his dexterity in poetry, and when he
was set to it, would make five hundred verses in a night. He
spent the greatest part of his time at his country-house near
Tusculum. He wrote to his friends that he led the life of
Laertes, either jestingly, as his custom was, or rather from a
feeling of ambition for public employment, which made him
impatient under the present state of affairs. He rarely went to
the city, unless to pay his court to Caesar. He was commonly
the first amongst those who voted him honors, and sought out new
terms of praise for himself and for his actions. As, for
example, what he said of the statues of Pompey, which had been
thrown down, and were afterwards by Caesar's orders set up
again: that Caesar, by this act of humanity, had indeed set up
Pompey's statues, but he had fixed and established his own.
He had a design, it is said, of writing the history of his
country, combining with it much of that of Greece, and
incorporating in it all the stories and legends of the past that
he had collected. But his purposes were interfered with by
various public and various private unhappy occurrences and
misfortunes; for most of which he was himself in fault. For
first of all, he put away his wife Terentia, by whom he had been
neglected in the time of the war, and sent away destitute of
necessaries for his journey; neither did he find her kind when
he returned into Italy, for she did not join him at Brundusium,
where he stayed a long time, nor would allow her young daughter,
who undertook so long a journey, decent attendance, or the
requisite expenses; besides, she left him a naked and empty
house, and yet had involved him in many and great debts. These
were alleged as the fairest reasons for the divorce. But
Terentia, who denied them all, had the most unmistakable defense
furnished her by her husband himself, who not long after married
a young maiden for the love of her beauty, as Terentia upbraided
him; or as Tiro, his emancipated slave, has written, for her
riches, to discharge his debts. For the young woman was very
rich, and Cicero had the custody of her estate, being left
guardian in trust; and being indebted many myriads of money, he
was persuaded by his friends and relations to marry her,
notwithstanding his disparity of age, and to use her money to
satisfy his creditors. Antony, who mentions this marriage in
his answer to the Philippics, reproaches him for putting away a
wife with whom he had lived to old age; adding some happy
strokes of sarcasm on Cicero's domestic, inactive,
unsoldier-like habits. Not long after this marriage, his
daughter died in child-bed at Lentulus's house, to whom she had
been married after the death of Piso, her former husband. The
philosophers from all parts came to comfort Cicero; for his
grief was so excessive, that he put away his new-married wife,
because she seemed to be pleased at the death of Tullia. And
thus stood Cicero's domestic affairs at this time.
He had no concern in the design that was now forming against
Caesar, although, in general, he was Brutus's most principal
confidant, and one who was as aggrieved at the present, and as
desirous of the former state of public affairs, as any other
whatsoever. But they feared his temper, as wanting courage, and
his old age, in which the most daring dispositions are apt to
be timorous.
As soon, therefore, as the act was committed by Brutus and
Cassius, and the friends of Caesar were got together, so that
there was fear the city would again be involved in a civil war,
Antony, being consul, convened the senate, and made a short
address recommending concord. And Cicero, following with
various remarks such as the occasion called for, persuaded the
senate to imitate the Athenians, and decree an amnesty for what
had been done in Caesar's case, and to bestow provinces on
Brutus and Cassius. But neither of these things took effect. For
as soon as the common people, of themselves inclined to pity,
saw the dead body of Caesar borne through the marketplace, and
Antony showing his clothes filled with blood, and pierced
through in every part with swords, enraged to a degree of
frenzy, they made a search for the murderers, and with
firebrands in their hands ran to their houses to burn them.
They, however, being forewarned, avoided this danger; and
expecting many more and greater to come, they left the city.
Antony on this was at once in exultation, and everyone was in
alarm with the prospect that he would make himself sole ruler,
and Cicero in more alarm than anyone. For Antony, seeing his
influence reviving in the commonwealth, and knowing how closely
he was connected with Brutus, was ill-pleased to have him in the
city. Besides, there had been some former jealousy between
them, occasioned by the difference of their manners. Cicero,
fearing the event, was inclined to go as lieutenant with
Dolabella into Syria. But Hirtius and Pansa, consuls elect as
successors of Antony, good men and lovers of Cicero, entreated
him not to leave them, undertaking to put down Antony if he
would stay in Rome. And he, neither distrusting wholly, nor
trusting them, let Dolabella go without him, promising Hirtius
that he would go and spend his summer at Athens, and return
again when he entered upon his office. So he set out on his
journey; but some delay occurring in his passage, new
intelligence, as often happens, came suddenly from Rome, that
Antony had made an astonishing change, and was doing all things
and managing all public affairs at the will of the senate, and
that there wanted nothing but his presence to bring things to a
happy settlement. And therefore, blaming himself for his
cowardice, he returned again to Rome, and was not deceived in
his hopes at the beginning. For such multitudes flocked out to
meet him, that the compliments and civilities which were paid
him at the gates, and at his entrance into the city, took up
almost one whole day's time.
On the morrow, Antony convened the senate, and summoned Cicero
thither. He came not, but kept is bed, pretending to be ill
with his journey; but the true reason seemed the fear of some
design against him, upon a suspicion and intimation given him on
his way to Rome. Antony, however, showed great offense at the
affront, and sent soldiers, commanding them to bring him or burn
his house; but many interceding and supplicating for him, he was
contented to accept sureties. Ever after, when they met, they
passed one another with silence, and continued on their guard,
till Caesar, the younger, coming from Apollonia, entered on the
first Caesar's inheritance, and was engaged in a dispute with
Antony about two thousand five hundred myriads of money, which
Antony detained from the estate.
Upon this, Philippus, who married the mother, and Marcellus, who
married the sister of young Caesar, came with the young man to
Cicero, and agreed with him that Cicero should give them the aid
of his eloquence and political influence with the senate and
people, and Caesar give Cicero the defense of his riches and
arms. For the young man had already a great party of the
soldiers of Caesar about him. And Cicero's readiness to join
him was founded, it is said, on some yet stronger motives; for
it seems, while Pompey and Caesar were yet alive, Cicero, in his
sleep, had fancied himself engaged in calling some of the sons
of the senators into the capitol, Jupiter being about, according
to the dream, to declare one of them the chief ruler of Rome.
The citizens, running up with curiosity, stood about the temple,
and the youths, sitting in their purple-bordered robes, kept
silence. On a sudden the doors opened, and the youths, arising
one by one in order, passed round the god, who reviewed them all,
and, to their sorrow, dismissed them; but when this one was
passing by, the god stretched forth his right hand and said, "O
ye Romans, this young man, when he shall be lord of Rome, shall
put an end to all your civil wars." It is said that Cicero
formed from his dream a distinct image of the youth, and
retained it afterwards perfectly, but did not know who it was.
The next day, going down into the Campus Martius, he met the
boys resuming from their gymnastic exercises, and the first was
he, just as he had appeared to him in his dream. Being
astonished at it, he asked him who were his parents. And it
proved to be this young Caesar, whose father was a man of no
great eminence, Octavius, and his mother, Attia, Caesar's
sister's daughter; for which reason, Caesar, who had no
children, made him by will the heir of his house and property.
From that time, it is said that Cicero studiously noticed the
youth whenever he met him, and he as kindly received the
civility; and by fortune he happened to be born when Cicero was
consul.
These were the reasons spoken of; but it was principally
Cicero's hatred of Antony, and a temper unable to resist honor,
which fastened him to Caesar, with the purpose of getting the
support of Caesar's power for his own public designs. For the
young man went so far in his court to him, that he called him
Father; at which Brutus was so highly displeased, that, in his
epistles to Atticus he reflected on Cicero saying, it was
manifest, by his courting Caesar for fear of Antony, he did not
intend liberty to his country, but an indulgent master to
himself. Notwithstanding, Brutus took Cicero's son, then
studying philosophy at Athens, gave him a command, and employed
him in various ways, with a good result. Cicero's own power at
this time was at the greatest height in the city, and he did
whatsoever he pleased; he completely overpowered and drove out
Antony, and sent the two consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, with an
army, to reduce him; and, on the other hand, persuaded the
senate to allow Caesar the lictors and ensigns of a praetor, as
though he were his country's defender. But after Antony was
defeated in battle, and the two consuls slain, the armies
united, and ranged themselves with Caesar. And the senate,
fearing the young man, and his extraordinary fortune,
endeavored, by honors and gifts, to call off the soldiers from
him, and to lessen his power; professing there was no further
need of arms, now Antony was put to flight.
This giving Caesar an affright, he privately sends some friends
to entreat and persuade Cicero to procure the consular dignity
for them both together; saying he should manage the affairs as
he pleased, should have the supreme power, and govern the young
man who was only desirous of name and glory. And Caesar himself
confessed, that in fear of ruin, and in danger of being
deserted, he had seasonably made use of Cicero's ambition,
persuading him to stand with him, and to accept the offer of his
aid and interest for the consulship.
And now, more than at any other time, Cicero let himself be
carried away and deceived, though an old man, by the persuasions
of a boy. He joined him in soliciting votes, and procured the
good-will of the senate, not without blame at the time on the
part of his friends; and he, too, soon enough after, saw that he
had ruined himself, and betrayed the liberty of his country.
For the young man, once established, and possessed of the office
of consul, bade Cicero farewell; and, reconciling himself to
Antony and Lepidus, joined his power with theirs, and divided
the government, like a piece of property, with them. Thus
united, they made a schedule of above two hundred persons who
were to be put to death. But the greatest contention in all
their debates was on the question of Cicero's case. Antony
would come to no conditions, unless he should be the first man
to be killed. Lepidus held with Antony, and Caesar opposed them
both. They met secretly and by themselves, for three days
together, near the town of Bononia. The spot was not far from
the camp, with a river surrounding it. Caesar, it is said,
contended earnestly for Cicero the first two days; but on the
third day he yielded, and gave him up.
The terms of their mutual concessions were these; that Caesar
should desert Cicero, Lepidus his brother Paulus, and Antony,
Lucius Caesar, his uncle by his mother's side. Thus they let
their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and
demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man, when
possessed with power answerable to his rage.
Whilst these things were contriving, Cicero was with his brother
at his country-house near Tusculum; whence, hearing of the
proscriptions, they determined to pass to Astura, a villa of
Cicero's near the sea, and to take shipping from thence for
Macedonia to Brutus, of whose strength in that province news had
already been heard. They traveled together in their separate
litters, overwhelmed with sorrow; and often stopping on the way
till their litters came together, condoled with one another.
But Quintus was the more disheartened, when he reflected on his
want of means for his journey; for, as he said, he had brought
nothing with him from home. And even Cicero himself had but a
slender provision. It was judged, therefore, most expedient
that Cicero should make what haste he could to fly, and Quintus
return home to provide necessaries, and thus resolved, they
mutually embraced, and parted with many tears.
Quintus, within a few days after, betrayed by his servants to
those who came to search for him, was slain, together with his
young son. But Cicero was carried to Astura, where, finding a
vessel, he immediately went on board her, and sailed as far as
Circaeum with a prosperous gale; but when the pilots resolved
immediately to set sail from thence, whether fearing the sea, or
not wholly distrusting the faith of Caesar, he went on shore,
and passed by land a hundred furlongs, as if he was going for
Rome. But losing resolution and changing his mind, he again
returned to the sea, and there spent the night in fearful and
perplexed thoughts. Sometimes he resolved to go into Caesar's
house privately, and there kill himself upon the altar of his
household gods, to bring divine vengeance upon him; but the fear
of torture put him off this course. And after passing through a
variety of confused and uncertain counsels, at last he let his
servants carry him by sea to Capitae, where he had a house, an
agreeable place to retire to in the heat of summer, when the
Etesian winds are so pleasant.
There was at that place a chapel of Apollo, not far from the
sea-side, from which a flight of crows rose with a great noise,
and made towards Cicero's vessel as it rowed to land, and
lighting on both sides of the yard, some croaked, others pecked
the ends of the ropes. This was looked upon by all as an ill
omen; and, therefore, Cicero went again ashore, and entering his
house, lay down upon his bed to compose himself to rest. Many
of the crows settled about the window, making a dismal cawing;
but one of them alighted upon the bed where Cicero lay covered
up, and with its bill by little and little pecked off the
clothes from his face. His servants, seeing this, blamed
themselves that they should stay to be spectators of their
master's murder, and do nothing in his defense, whilst the brute
creatures came to assist and take care of him in his undeserved
affliction; and, therefore, partly by entreaty, partly by force,
they took him up, and carried him in his litter towards the
sea-side.
But in the meantime the assassins were come with a band of
soldiers, Herennius, a centurion, and Popillius, a tribune, whom
Cicero had formerly defended when prosecuted for the murder of
his father. Finding the doors shut, they broke them open, and
Cicero not appearing and those within saying they knew not
where he was, it is stated that a youth, who had been educated
by Cicero in the liberal arts and sciences, an emancipated slave
of his brother Quintus, Philologus by name, informed the tribune
that the litter was on its way to the sea through the close and
shady walks. The tribune, taking a few with him, ran to the
place where he was to come out. And Cicero, perceiving
Herennius running in the walks, commanded his servants to set
down the litter; and stroking his chin, as he used to do, with
his left hand, he looked steadfastly upon his murderers, his
person covered with dust, his beard and hair untrimmed, and his
face worn with his troubles. So that the greatest part of those
that stood by covered their faces whilst Herennius slew him.
And thus was he murdered, stretching forth his neck out of the
litter, being now in his sixty-fourth year. Herennius cut off
his head, and, by Antony's command, his hands also, by which his
Philippics were written; for so Cicero styled those orations he
wrote against Antony, and so they are called to this day.
When these members of Cicero were brought to Rome, Antony was
holding an assembly for the choice of public officers; and when
he heard it, and saw them, he cried out, "Now let there be an
end of our proscriptions." He commanded his head and hands to
be fastened up over the Rostra, where the orators spoke; a sight
which the Roman people shuddered to behold, and they believed
they saw there not the face of Cicero, but the image of Antony's
own soul. And yet amidst these actions he did justice in one
thing, by delivering up Philologus to Pomponia, the wife of
Quintus; who, having got his body into her power, besides other
grievous punishments, made him cut off his own flesh by pieces,
and roast and eat it; for so some writers have related. But
Tiro, Cicero's emancipated slave, has not so much as mentioned
the treachery of Philologus.
Some long time after, Caesar, I have been told, visiting one of
his daughter's sons, found him with a book of Cicero's in his
hand. The boy for fear endeavored to hide it under his gown;
which Caesar perceiving, took it from him, and turning over a
great part of the book standing, gave it him again, and said,
"My child, this was a learned man, and a lover of his country."
And immediately after he had vanquished Antony, being then
consul, he made Cicero's son his colleague in the office; and
under that consulship, the senate took down all the statues of
Antony, and abolished all the other honors that had been given
him, and decreed that none of that family should thereafter bear
the name of Marcus; and thus the final acts of the punishment of
Antony were, by the divine powers, devolved upon the family of
Cicero.
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
These are the most memorable circumstances recorded in history
of Demosthenes and Cicero which have come to our knowledge. But
omitting an exact comparison of their respective faculties in
speaking, yet thus much seems fit to be said; that Demosthenes,
to make himself a master in rhetoric, applied all the faculties
he had, natural or acquired, wholly that way; that he far
surpassed in force and strength of eloquence all his
contemporaries in political and judicial speaking, in grandeur
and majesty all the panegyrical orators, and in accuracy and
science all the logicians and rhetoricians of his day; that
Cicero was highly educated, and by his diligent study became a
most accomplished general scholar in all these branches, having
left behind him numerous philosophical treatises of his own on
Academic principles; as, indeed, even in his written speeches,
both political and judicial, we see him continually trying to
show his learning by the way. And one may discover the
different temper of each of them in their speeches. For
Demosthenes's oratory was without all embellishment and jesting,
wholly composed for real effect and seriousness; not smelling of
the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the temperance,
thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnestness of his temper.
Whereas Cicero's love of mockery often ran him into scurrility;
and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in judicial
cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the
advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was
decent: saying, for example, in his defense of Caelius, that he
had done no absurd thing in such plenty and affluence to indulge
himself in pleasures, it being a kind of madness not to enjoy
the things we possess, especially since the most eminent
philosophers have asserted pleasure to be the chiefest good. So
also we are told, that when Cicero, being consul, undertook the
defense of Murena against Cato's prosecution, by way of
bantering Cato, he made a long series of jokes upon the absurd
paradoxes, as they are called, of the Stoic sect; so that a loud
laughter passing from the crowd to the judges, Cato, with a
quiet smile, said to those that sat next him, "My friends, what
an amusing consul we have."
And, indeed, Cicero was by natural temper very much disposed to
mirth and pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling and
serene countenance. But Demosthenes had constant care and
thoughtfulness in his look, and a serious anxiety, which he
seldom, if ever, laid aside; and, therefore, was accounted by
his enemies, as he himself confessed, morose and ill-mannered.
Also, it is very evident, out of their several writings, that
Demosthenes never touched upon his own praises but decently and
without offense when there was need of it, and for some
weightier end; but, upon other occasions modestly and sparingly.
But Cicero's immeasurable boasting of himself in his orations
argues him guilty of an uncontrollable appetite for distinction,
his cry being evermore that arms should give place to the gown,
and the soldier's laurel to the tongue. And at last we find him
extolling not only his deeds and actions, but his orations also,
as well those that were only spoken, as those that were
published; as if he were engaged in a boyish trial of skill, who
should speak best, with the rhetoricians, Isocrates and
Anaximenes, not as one who could claim the task to guide and
instruct the Roman nation, the
Soldier full-armed, terrific to the foe.
It is necessary, indeed, for a political leader to be an able
speaker; but it is an ignoble thing for any man to admire and
relish the glory of his own eloquence. And, in this matter,
Demosthenes had a more than ordinary gravity and magnificence of
mind, accounting his talent in speaking nothing more than a mere
accomplishment and matter of practice, the success of which must
depend greatly on the good-will and candor of his hearers, and
regarding those who pride themselves on such accounts to be men
of a low and petty disposition.
The power of persuading and governing the people did, indeed,
equally belong to both, so that those who had armies and camps
at command stood in need of their assistance; as Chares,
Diopithes, and Leosthenes of Demosthenes's, Pompey and young
Caesar of Cicero's, as the latter himself admits in his Memoirs
addressed to Agrippa and Maecenas. But what are thought and
commonly said most to demonstrate and try the tempers of men,
namely, authority and place, by moving every passion, and
discovering every frailty, these are things which Demosthenes
never received; nor was he ever in a position to give such proof
of himself, having never obtained any eminent office, nor led
any of those armies into the field against Philip which he
raised by his eloquence. Cicero, on the other hand, was sent
quaestor into Sicily, and proconsul into Cilicia and Cappadocia,
at a time when avarice was at the height, and the commanders and
governors who were employed abroad, as though they thought it a
mean thing to steal, set themselves to seize by open force; so
that it seemed no heinous matter to take bribes, but he that did
it most moderately was in good esteem. And yet he, at this
time, gave the most abundant proofs alike of his contempt of
riches and of his humanity and good-nature. And at Rome, when
he was created consul in name, but indeed received sovereign and
dictatorial authority against Catiline and his conspirators, he
attested the truth of Plato's prediction, that then the miseries
of states would be at an end, when by a happy fortune supreme
power, wisdom, and justice should be united in one.
It is said, to the reproach of Demosthenes, that his eloquence
was mercenary; that he privately made orations for Phormion and
Apollodorus, though adversaries in the same cause; that he was
charged with moneys received from the king of Persia, and
condemned for bribes from Harpalus. And should we grant that
all those (and they are not few) who have made these statements
against him have spoken what is untrue, yet that Demosthenes was
not the character to look without desire on the presents offered
him out of respect and gratitude by royal persons, and that one
who lent money on maritime usury was likely to be thus indifferent,
is what we cannot assert. But that Cicero refused, from the
Sicilians when he was quaestor, from the king of Cappadocia when
he was proconsul, and from his friends at Rome when he was in exile,
many presents, though urged to receive them, has been said already.
Moreover, Demosthenes's banishment was infamous, upon conviction
for bribery; Cicero's very honorable, for ridding his country of
a set of villains. Therefore, when Demosthenes fled his
country, no man regarded it; for Cicero's sake the senate
changed their habit, and put on mourning, and would not be
persuaded to make any act before Cicero's return was decreed.
Cicero, however, passed his exile idly in Macedonia. But the
very exile of Demosthenes made up a great part of the services
he did for his country; for he went through the cities of
Greece, and everywhere, as we have said, joined in the conflict
on behalf of the Grecians, driving out the Macedonian
ambassadors, and approving himself a much better citizen than
Themistocles and Alcibiades did in the like fortune. And, after
his return, he again devoted himself to the same public service,
and continued firm to his opposition to Antipater and the
Macedonians. Whereas Laelius reproached Cicero in the senate
for sitting silent when Caesar, a beardless youth, asked leave
to come forward, contrary to the law, as a candidate for the
consulship; and Brutus, in his epistles, charges him with
nursing and rearing a greater and more heavy tyranny than that
they had removed.
Finally, Cicero's death excites our pity; for an old man to be
miserably carried up and down by his servants, flying and hiding
himself from that death which was, in the course of nature, so
near at hand; and yet at last to be murdered. Demosthenes,
though he seemed at first a little to supplicate, yet, by his
preparing and keeping the poison by him, demands our admiration;
and still more admirable was his using it. When the temple of
the god no longer afforded him a sanctuary, he took refuge, as
it were, at a mightier altar, freeing himself from arms and
soldiers, and laughing to scorn the cruelty of Antipater.
DEMETRIUS
Ingenious men have long observed a resemblance between the arts
and the bodily senses. And they were first led to do so, I
think, by noticing the way in which, both in the arts and with
our senses, we examine opposites. Judgment once obtained, the
use to which we put it differs in the two cases. Our senses are
not meant to pick out black rather than white, to prefer sweet
to bitter, or soft and yielding to hard and resisting objects;
all they have to do is to receive impressions as they occur, and
report to the understanding the impressions as received. The
arts, on the other hand, which reason institutes expressly to
choose and obtain some suitable, and to refuse and get rid of
some unsuitable object, have their proper concern in the
consideration of the former; though, in a casual and contingent
way, they must also, for the very rejection of them, pay
attention to the latter. Medicine, to produce health, has to
examine disease, and music, to create harmony, must investigate
discord; and the supreme arts, of temperance, of justice, and of
wisdom, as they are acts of judgment and selection, exercised
not on good and just and expedient only, but also on wicked,
unjust, and inexpedient objects, do not give their commendations
to the mere innocence whose boast is its inexperience of evil,
and whose truer name is, by their award, suppleness and
ignorance of what all men who live aright should know. The
ancient Spartans, at their festivals, used to force their Helots
to swallow large quantities of raw wine, and then to expose them
at the public tables, to let the young men see what it is to be
drunk. And, though I do not think it consistent with humanity
or with civil justice to correct one man's morals by corrupting
those of another, yet we may, I think, avail ourselves of the
cases of those who have fallen into indiscretions, and have, in
high stations, made themselves conspicuous for misconduct; and I
shall not do ill to introduce a pair or two of such examples
among these biographies, not, assuredly, to amuse and divert my
readers, or give variety to my theme, but, as Ismenias, the
Theban, used to show his scholars good and bad performers on the
flute, and to tell them, "You should play like this man," and
"You should not play like that," and as Antigenidas used to say,
Young people would take greater pleasure in hearing good
playing, if first they were set to hear bad, so, and in the same
manner, it seems to me likely enough that we shall be all the
more zealous and more emulous to read, observe, and imitate the
better lives, if we are not left in ignorance of the blameworthy
and the bad.
For this reason, the following book contains the lives of
Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Antonius the Triumvir; two persons
who have abundantly justified the words of Plato, that great
natures produce great vices as well as virtues. Both alike were
amorous and intemperate, warlike and munificent, sumptuous in
their way of living, and overbearing in their manners. And the
likeness of their fortunes carried out the resemblance in their
characters. Not only were their lives each a series of great
successes and great disasters, mighty acquisitions and
tremendous losses of power, sudden overthrows, followed by
unexpected recoveries, but they died, also, Demetrius in actual
captivity to his enemies, and Antony on the verge of it.
Antigonus had by his wife, Stratonice, the daughter of
Corrhaeus, two sons; the one of whom, after the name of his
uncle, he called Demetrius, the other had that of his
grandfather Philip, and died young. This is the most general
account, although some have related, that Demetrius was not the
son of Antigonus, but of his brother; and that his own father
dying young, and his mother being afterwards married to
Antigonus, he was accounted to be his son.
Demetrius had not the height of his father Antigonus, though he
was a tall man. But his countenance was one of such singular
beauty and expression, that no painter or sculptor ever produced
a good likeness of him. It combined grace and strength, dignity
with boyish bloom, and, in the midst of youthful heat and
passion, what was hardest of all to represent was a certain
heroic look and air of kingly greatness. Nor did his character
belie his looks, as no one was better able to render himself
both loved and feared. For as he was the most easy and
agreeable of companions, and the most luxurious and delicate of
princes in his drinking and banqueting and daily pleasures, so
in action there was never anyone that showed a more vehement
persistence, or a more passionate energy. Bacchus, skilled in
the conduct of war, and after war in giving peace its pleasures
and joys, seems to have been his pattern among the gods.
He was wonderfully fond of his father Antigonus; and the
tenderness he had for his mother led him, for her sake, to
redouble attentions, which it was evident were not so much owing
to fear or duty as to the more powerful motives of inclination.
It is reported, that, returning one day from hunting, he went
immediately into the apartment of Antigonus, who was conversing
with some ambassadors, and after stepping up and kissing his
father, he sat down by him, just as he was, still holding in his
hand the javelins which he had brought with him. Whereupon
Antigonus, who had just dismissed the ambassadors with their
answer, called out in a loud voice to them, as they were going,
"Mention, also, that this is the way in which we two live
together;" as if to imply to them that it was no slender mark of
the power and security of his government that there was so
perfect a good understanding between himself and his son. Such
an unsociable, solitary thing is power, and so much of jealousy
and distrust in it, that the first and greatest of the
successors of Alexander could make it a thing to glory in that
he was not so afraid of his son as to forbid his standing beside
him with a weapon in his hand. And, in fact, among all the
successors of Alexander, that of Antigonus was the only house
which, for many descents, was exempted from crime of this kind;
or, to state it exactly, Philip was the only one of this family
who was guilty of a son's death. All the other families, we may
fairly say, afforded frequent examples of fathers who brought
their children, husbands their wives, children their mothers, to
untimely ends; and that brothers should put brothers to death
was assumed, like the postulates of mathematicians, as the
common and recognized royal first principle of safety.
Let us here record an example in the early life of Demetrius,
showing his natural humane and kindly disposition. It was an
adventure which passed betwixt him and Mithridates, the son of
Ariobarzanes, who was about the same age with Demetrius, and
lived with him, in attendance on Antigonus; and although nothing
was said or could be said to his reproach, he fell under
suspicion, in consequence of a dream which Antigonus had.
Antigonus thought himself in a fair and spacious field, where he
sowed golden seed, and saw presently a golden crop come up; of
which, however, looking presently again, he saw nothing remain
but the stubble, without the ears. And as he stood by in anger
and vexation, he heard some voices saying, Mithridates had cut
the golden harvest and carried it off into Pontus. Antigonus,
much discomposed with his dream, first bound his son by an oath
not to speak, and then related it to him, adding, that he had
resolved, in consequence, to lose no time in ridding himself of
Mithridates, and making away with him. Demetrius was extremely
distressed; and when the young man came, as usual, to pass his
time with him, to keep his oath he forbore from saying a word,
but, drawing him aside little by little from the company, as
soon as they were by themselves, without opening his lips, with
the point of his javelin he traced before him the words, "Fly,
Mithridates." Mithridates took the hint, and fled by night into
Cappadocia, where Antigonus's dream about him was quickly
brought to its due fulfillment; for he got possession of a large
and fertile territory; and from him descended the line of the
kings of Pontus, which, in the eighth generation, was reduced by
the Romans. This may serve for a specimen of the early goodness
and love of justice that was part of Demetrius's natural
character.
But as in the elements of the world, Empedocles tells us, out of
liking and dislike, there spring up contention and warfare, and
all the more, the closer the contact, or the nearer the approach
of the objects, even so the perpetual hostilities among the
successors of Alexander were aggravated and inflamed, in
particular cases, by juxtaposition of interests and of
territories; as, for example, in the case of Antigonus and
Ptolemy. News came to Antigonus that Ptolemy had crossed from
Cyprus and invaded Syria, and was ravaging the country and
reducing the cities. Remaining, therefore, himself in Phrygia,
he sent Demetrius, now twenty-two years old, to make his first
essay as sole commander in an important charge. He, whose
youthful heat outran his experience, advancing against an
adversary trained in Alexander's school, and practiced in many
encounters, incurred a great defeat near the town of Gaza, in
which eight thousand of his men were taken, and five thousand
killed. His own tent, also, his money, and all his private
effects and furniture, were captured. These, however, Ptolemy
sent back, together with his friends, accompanying them with the
humane and courteous message, that they were not fighting for
anything else but honor and dominion. Demetrius accepted the
gift, praying only to the gods not to leave him long in
Ptolemy's debt, but to let him have an early chance of doing the
like to him. He took his disaster, also, with the temper not of
a boy defeated in his attempt, but of an old and long-tried
general, familiar with reverse of fortune; he busied himself in
collecting his men, replenishing his magazines, watching the
allegiance of the cities, and drilling his new recruits.
Antigonus received the news of the battle with the remark, that
Ptolemy had beaten boys, and would now have to fight with men.
But not to humble the spirit of his son, he acceded to his
request, and left him to command on the next occasion.
Not long after, Cilles, Ptolemy's lieutenant, with a powerful
army, took the field, and, looking upon Demetrius as already
defeated by the previous battle, he had in his imagination
driven him out of Syria before he saw him. But he quickly found
himself deceived; for Demetrius came so unexpectedly upon him
that he surprised both the general and his army, making him and
seven thousand of the soldiers prisoners of war, and possessing
himself of a large amount of treasure. But his joy in the
victory was not so much for the prizes he should keep, as for
those he could restore; and his thankfulness was less for the
wealth and glory than for the means it gave him of requiting his
enemy's former generosity. He did not, however, take it into
his own hands, but wrote to his father. And on receiving leave
to do as he liked, he sent back to Ptolemy Cilles and his
friends, loaded with presents. This defeat drove Ptolemy out of
Syria, and brought Antigonus from Celaenae, to enjoy the
victory, and the sight of the son who had gained it.
Soon after, Demetrius was sent to bring the Nabathaean Arabs
into obedience. And here he got into a district without water,
and incurred considerable danger, but by his resolute and
composed demeanor he overawed the barbarians, and returned after
receiving from them a large amount of booty, and seven hundred
camels. Not long after, Seleucus, whom Antigonus had formerly
chased out of Babylon, but who had afterwards recovered his
dominion by his own efforts and maintained himself in it, went
with large forces on an expedition to reduce the tribes on the
confines of India and the provinces near Mount Caucasus. And
Demetrius, conjecturing that he had left Mesopotamia but
slenderly guarded in his absence, suddenly passed the Euphrates
with his army, and made his way into Babylonia unexpectedly;
where he succeeded in capturing one of the two citadels, out of
which he expelled the garrison of Seleucus, and placed in it
seven thousand men of his own. And after allowing his soldiers
to enrich themselves with all the spoil they could carry with
them out of the country, he retired to the sea, leaving Seleucus
more securely master of his dominions than before, as he seemed
by this conduct to abandon every claim to a country which he
treated like an enemy's. However, by a rapid advance, he
rescued Halicarnassus from Ptolemy, who was besieging it. The
glory which this act obtained them inspired both the father and
son with a wonderful desire for freeing Greece, which Cassander
and Ptolemy had everywhere reduced to slavery. No nobler or
juster war was undertaken by any of the kings; the wealth they
had gained while humbling, with Greek assistance, the barbarians
being thus employed, for honor's sake and good repute, in
helping the Greeks. When the resolution was taken to begin
their attempt with Athens, one of his friends told Antigonus, if
they captured Athens, they must keep it safe in their own hands,
as by this gangway they might step out from their ships into
Greece when they pleased. But Antigonus would not hear of it;
he did not want a better or a steadier gangway than people's
good-will; and from Athens, the beacon of the world, the news of
their conduct would soon be handed on to all the world's
inhabitants. So Demetrius, with a sum of five thousand talents,
and a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, set sail for Athens,
where Demetrius the Phalerian was governing the city for
Cassander, with a garrison lodged in the port of Munychia. By
good fortune and skillful management he appeared before Piraeus,
on the twenty-sixth of Thargelion, before anything had been
heard of him. Indeed, when his ships were seen, they were taken
for Ptolemy's, and preparations were commenced for receiving
them; till at last, the generals discovering their mistake,
hurried down, and all was alarm and confusion, and attempts to
push forward preparations to oppose the landing of this hostile
force. For Demetrius, having found the entrances of the port
undefended, stood in directly, and was by this time safely
inside, before the eyes of everybody, and made signals from his
ship, requesting a peaceable hearing. And on leave being given,
he caused a herald with a loud voice to make proclamation that
he was come thither by the command of his father, with no other
design than what he prayed the gods to prosper with success, to
give the Athenians their liberty, to expel the garrison, and to
restore the ancient laws and constitution of the country.
The people, hearing this, at once threw down their shields, and,
clapping their hands, with loud acclamations entreated Demetrius
to land, calling him their deliverer and benefactor. And the
Phalerian and his party, who saw that there was nothing for it
but to receive the conqueror, whether he should perform his
promises or not, sent, however, messengers to beg for his
protection; to whom Demetrius gave a kind reception, and sent
back with them Aristodemus of Miletus, one of his father's
friends. The Phalerian, under the change of government, was
more afraid of his fellow-citizens than of the enemy; but
Demetrius took precautions for him, and, out of respect for his
reputation and character, sent him with a safe conduct to
Thebes, whither he desired to go. For himself, he declared he
would not, in spite of all his curiosity, put his foot in the
city, till he had completed its deliverance by driving out the
garrison. So, blockading Munychia with a palisade and trench,
he sailed off to attack Megara, where also there was one of
Cassander's garrisons. But, hearing that Cratesipolis, the wife
of Alexander son of Polysperchon, who was famous for her beauty,
was well disposed to see him, he left his troops near Megara,
and set out with a few light-armed attendants for Patrae, where
she was now staying. And, quitting these also, he pitched his
tent apart from everybody, that the woman might pay her visit
without being seen. This some of the enemy perceived, and
suddenly attacked him; and, in his alarm, he was obliged to
disguise himself in a shabby cloak, and run for it, narrowly
escaping the shame of being made a prisoner, in reward for his
foolish passion. And as it was, his tent and money were taken.
Megara, however, surrendered, and would have been pillaged by
the soldiers, but for the urgent intercession of the Athenians.
The garrison was driven out, and the city restored to
independence. While he was occupied in this, he remembered that
Stilpo, the philosopher, famous for his choice of a life of
tranquillity, was residing here. He, therefore, sent for him,
and begged to know whether anything belonging to him had been
taken. "No," replied Stilpo, "I have not met with anyone to
take away knowledge." Pretty nearly all the servants in the
city had been stolen away; and so, when Demetrius, renewing his
courtesies to Stilpo, on taking leave of him, said, "I leave
your city, Stilpo, a city of freemen," "certainly," replied
Stilpo, "there is not one serving man left among us all."
Returning from Megara, he sat down before the citadel of
Munychia, which in a few days he took by assault, and caused the
fortifications to be demolished; and thus having accomplished
his design, upon the request and invitation of the Athenians he
made his entrance into the upper city, where, causing the people
to be summoned, he publicly announced to them that their ancient
constitution was restored, and that they should receive from his
father, Antigonus, a present of one hundred and fifty thousand
measures of wheat, and such a supply of timber as would enable
them to build a hundred galleys. In this manner did the
Athenians recover their popular institutions, after the space of
fifteen years from the time of the war of Lamia and the battle
before Cranon, during which interval of time the government had
been administered nominally as an oligarchy, but really by a
single man, Demetrius the Phalerian being so powerful. But the
excessive honors which the Athenians bestowed, for these noble
and generous acts, upon Demetrius, created offense and disgust.
The Athenians were the first who gave Antigonus and Demetrius
the title of kings, which hitherto they had made it a point of
piety to decline, as the one remaining royal honor still
reserved for the lineal descendants of Philip and Alexander, in
which none but they could venture to participate. Another name
which they received from no people but the Athenians was that of
the Tutelar Deities and Deliverers. And to enhance this
flattery, by a common vote it was decreed to change the style of
the city, and not to have the years named any longer from the
annual archon; a priest of the two Tutelary Divinities, who was
to be yearly chosen, was to have this honor, and all public acts
and instruments were to bear their date by his name. They
decreed, also, that the figures of Antigonus and Demetrius
should be woven, with those of the gods, into the pattern of the
great robe. They consecrated the spot where Demetrius first
alighted from his chariot, and built an altar there, with the
name of the Altar of the Descent of Demetrius. They created two
new tribes, calling them after the names of these princes, the
Antigonid and the Demetriad; and to the Council, which consisted
of five hundred persons, fifty being chosen out of every tribe,
they added one hundred more to represent these new tribes. But
the wildest proposal was one made by Stratocles, the great
inventor of all these ingenious and exquisite compliments,
enacting that the members of any deputation that the city should
send to Demetrius or Antigonus should have the same title as
those sent to Delphi or Olympia for the performance of the
national sacrifices in behalf of the state, at the great Greek
festivals. This Stratocles was, in all respects, an audacious
and abandoned character, and seemed to have made it his object
to copy, by his buffoonery and impertinence, Cleon's old
familiarity with the people. His mistress, Phylacion, one day
bringing him a dish of brains and neckbones for his dinner,
"Oh," said he, "I am to dine upon the things which we statesmen
play at ball with." At another time, when the Athenians
received their naval defeat near Amorgos, he hastened home
before the news could reach the city, and, having a chaplet on
his head, came riding through the Ceramicus, announcing that
they had won a victory, and moved a vote for thanksgivings to
the gods, and a distribution of meat among the people in their
tribes. Presently after came those who brought home the wrecks
from the battle; and when the people exclaimed at what he had
done, he came boldly to face the outcry, and asked what harm
there had been in giving them two days' pleasure.
Such was Stratocles. And, "adding flame to fire," as
Aristophanes says, there was one who, to outdo Stratocles,
proposed, that it should be decreed, that whensoever Demetrius
should honor their city with his presence, they should treat him
with the same show of hospitable entertainment, with which Ceres
and Bacchus are received; and the citizen who exceeded the rest
in the splendor and costliness of his reception should have a
sum of money granted him from the public purse to make a sacred
offering. Finally, they changed the name of the month of
Munychion, and called it Demetrion; they gave the name of the
Demetrian to the odd day between the end of the old and the
beginning of the new month; and turned the feast of Bacchus, the
Dionysia, into the Demetria, or feast of Demetrius. Most of
these changes were marked by the divine displeasure. The sacred
robe, in which, according to their decree, the figures of
Demetrius and Antigonus had been woven with those of Jupiter and
Minerva, was caught by a violent gust of wind, while the
procession was conveying it through the Ceramicus, and was torn
from the top to the bottom. A crop of hemlock, a plant which
scarcely grew anywhere, even in the country thereabout, sprang
up in abundance round the altars which they had erected to these
new divinities. They had to omit the solemn procession at the
feast of Bacchus, as upon the very day of its celebration there
was such a severe and rigorous frost, coming quite out of its
time, that not only the vines and fig-trees were killed, but
almost all the wheat was destroyed in the blade. Accordingly,
Philippides, an enemy to Stratocles, attacked him in a comedy,
in the following verses: --
He for whom frosts that nipped your vines were sent,
And for whose sins the holy robe was rent,
Who grants to men the gods' own honors, he,
Not the poor stage, is now the people's enemy.
Philippides was a great favorite with king Lysimachus, from whom
the Athenians received, for his sake, a variety of kindnesses.
Lysimachus went so far as to think it a happy omen to meet or
see Philippides at the outset of any enterprise or expedition.
And, in general, he was well thought of for his own character,
as a plain, uninterfering person, with none of the officious,
self-important habits of a court. Once, when Lysimachus was
solicitous to show him kindness, and asked what he had that he
could make him a present of, "Anything," replied Philippides,
"but your state secrets." The stage-player, we thought,
deserved a place in our narrative quite as well as the public
speaker.
But that which exceeded all the former follies and flatteries,
was the proposal of Dromoclides of Sphettus; who, when there was
a debate about sending to the Delphic Oracle to inquire the
proper course for the consecration of certain bucklers, moved in
the assembly that they should rather send to receive an oracle
from Demetrius. I will transcribe the very words of the order,
which was in these terms: "May it be happy and propitious. The
people of Athens have decreed, that a fit person shall be
chosen among the Athenian citizens, who shall be deputed to be
sent to the Deliverer; and after he hath duly performed the
sacrifices, shall inquire of the Deliverer, in what most
religious and decent manner he will please to direct, at the
earliest possible time, the consecration of the bucklers; and
according to the answer the people shall act." With this
befooling they completed the perversion of a mind which even
before was not so strong or sound as it should have been.
During his present leisure in Athens, he took to wife Eurydice,
a descendant of the ancient Miltiades, who had been married to
Opheltas, the ruler of Cyrene, and after his death had come back
to Athens. The Athenians took the marriage as a compliment and
favor to the city. But Demetrius was very free in these
matters, and was the husband of several wives at once; the
highest place and honor among all being retained by Phila, who
was Antipater's daughter, and had been the wife of Craterus, the
one of all the successors of Alexander who left behind him the
strongest feelings of attachment among the Macedonians. And for
these reasons Antigonus had obliged him to marry her,
notwithstanding the disparity of their years, Demetrius being
quite a youth, and she much older; and when upon that account he
made some difficulty in complying, Antigonus whispered in his
ear the maxim from Euripides, broadly substituting a new word
for the original, serve, --
Natural or not,
A man must wed where profit will be got.
Any respect, however, which he showed either to Phila or to his
other wives did not go so far as to prevent him from consorting
with any number of mistresses, and bearing, in this respect,
the worst character of all the princes of his time.
A summons now arrived from his father, ordering him to go and
fight with Ptolemy in Cyprus, which he was obliged to obey,
sorry as he was to abandon Greece. And in quitting this nobler
and more glorious enterprise, he sent to Cleonides, Ptolemy's
general, who was holding garrisons in Sicyon and Corinth,
offering him money to let the cities be independent. But on his
refusal, he set sail hastily, taking additional forces with him,
and made for Cyprus; where, immediately upon his arrival, he
fell upon Menelaus, the brother of Ptolemy, and gave him a
defeat. But when Ptolemy himself came in person, with large
forces both on land and sea, for some little time nothing took
place beyond an interchange of menaces and lofty talk. Ptolemy
bade Demetrius sail off before the whole armament came up, if he
did not wish to be trampled under foot; and Demetrius offered to
let him retire, on condition of his withdrawing his garrisons
from Sicyon and Corinth. And not they alone, but all the other
potentates and princes of the time, were in anxiety for the
uncertain impending issue of the conflict; as it seemed evident,
that the conqueror's prize would be, not Cyprus or Syria, but
the absolute supremacy.
Ptolemy had brought a hundred and fifty galleys with him, and
gave orders to Menelaus to sally, in the heat of the battle, out
of the harbor of Salamis, and attack with sixty ships the rear
of Demetrius. Demetrius, however, opposing to these sixty ten
of his galleys, which were a sufficient number to block up the
narrow entrance of the harbor, and drawing out his land forces
along all the headlands running out into the sea, went into
action with a hundred and eighty galleys, and, attacking with
the utmost boldness and impetuosity, utterly routed Ptolemy, who
fled with eight ships, the sole remnant of his fleet, seventy
having been taken with all their men, and the rest destroyed in
the battle; while the whole multitude of attendants, friends,
and women, that had followed in the ships of burden, all the
arms, treasure, and military engines fell, without exception,
into the hands of Demetrius, and were by him collected and
brought into the camp. Among the prisoners was the celebrated
Lamia, famed at one time for her skill on the flute, and
afterwards renowned as a mistress. And although now upon the
wane of her youthful beauty, and though Demetrius was much her
junior, she exercised over him so great a charm, that all other
women seemed to be amorous of Demetrius, but Demetrius amorous
only of Lamia. After this signal victory, Demetrius came before
Salamis; and Menelaus, unable to make any resistance,
surrendered himself and all his fleet, twelve hundred horse, and
twelve thousand foot, together with the place. But that which
added more than all to the glory and splendor of the success was
the humane and generous conduct of Demetrius to the vanquished.
For, after he had given honorable funerals to the dead, he
bestowed liberty upon the living; and that he might not forget
the Athenians, he sent them, as a present, complete arms for
twelve hundred men.
To carry this happy news, Aristodemus of Miletus, the most
perfect flatterer belonging to the court, was dispatched to
Antigonus; and he, to enhance the welcome message, was resolved,
it would appear, to make his most successful effort. When he
crossed from Cyprus, he bade the galley which conveyed him come
to anchor off the land; and, having ordered all the ship's crew
to remain aboard, he took the boat, and was set ashore alone.
Thus he proceeded to Antigonus, who, one may well imagine, was
in suspense enough about the issue, and suffered all the
anxieties natural to men engaged in so perilous a struggle. And
when he heard that Aristodemus was coming alone, it put him into
yet greater trouble; he could scarcely forbear from going out to
meet him himself; he sent messenger on messenger, and friend
after friend, to inquire what news. But Aristodemus, walking
gravely and with a settled countenance, without making any
answer, still proceeded quietly onward; until Antigonus, quite
alarmed and no longer able to refrain, got up and met him at the
gate, whither he came with a crowd of anxious followers now
collected and running after him. As soon as he saw Antigonus
within hearing, stretching out his hands, he accosted him with
the loud exclamation, "Hail, king Antigonus! we have defeated
Ptolemy by sea, and have taken Cyprus and sixteen thousand eight
hundred prisoners." "Welcome, Aristodemus," replied Antigonus,
"but, as you chose to torture us so long for your good news, you
may wait awhile for the reward of it."
Upon this the people around gave Antigonus and Demetrius, for
the first time, the title of kings. His friends at once set a
diadem on the head of Antigonus; and he sent one presently to
his son, with a letter addressed to him as King Demetrius. And
when this news was told in Egypt, that they might not seem to be
dejected with the late defeat, Ptolemy's followers also took
occasion to bestow the style of king upon him; and the rest of
the successors of Alexander were quick to follow the example.
Lysimachus began to wear the diadem; and Seleucus, who had
before received the name in all addresses from the barbarians,
now also took it upon him in all business with the Greeks.
Cassander still retained his usual superscription in his
letters, but others, both in writing and speaking, gave him the
royal title. Nor was this the mere accession of a name, or
introduction of a new fashion. The men's own sentiments about
themselves were disturbed, and their feelings elevated; a spirit
of pomp and arrogance passed into their habits of life and
conversation, as a tragic actor on the stage modifies, with a
change of dress, his step, his voice, his motions in sitting
down, his manner in addressing another. The punishments they
inflicted were more violent after they had thus laid aside that
modest style under which they formerly dissembled their power,
and the influence of which had often made them gentler and less
exacting to their subjects. A single pattering voice effected a
revolution in the world.
Antigonus, extremely elevated with the success of his arms in
Cyprus under the conduct of Demetrius, resolved to push on his
good fortune, and to lead his forces in person against Ptolemy
by land, whilst Demetrius should coast with a great fleet along
the shore, to assist him by sea. The issue of the contest was
intimated in a dream which Medius, a friend to Antigonus, had at
this time in his sleep. He thought he saw Antigonus and his
whole army running, as if it had been a race; that, in the first
part of the course, he went off showing great strength and
speed; gradually, however, his pace slackened; and at the end he
saw him come lagging up, tired and almost breathless and quite
spent. Antigonus himself met with many difficulties by land;
and Demetrius, encountering a great storm at sea, was driven,
with the loss of many or his ships, upon a dangerous coast
without a harbor. So the expedition returned without effecting
anything. Antigonus, now nearly eighty years old, was no
longer well able to go through the fatigues of a marching
campaign, though rather on account of his great size and
corpulence than from loss of strength; and for this reason he
left things to his son, whose fortune and experience appeared
sufficient for all undertakings, and whose luxury and expense
and revelry gave him no concern. For though in peace he vented
himself in his pleasures, and, when there was nothing to do, ran
headlong into any excesses, in war he was as sober and
abstemious as the most temperate character. The story is told,
that once, after Lamia had gained open supremacy over him, the
old man, when Demetrius coming home from abroad began to kiss
him with unusual warmth, asked him if he took him for Lamia. At
another time, Demetrius, after spending several days in a
debauch, excused himself for his absence, by saying he had had a
violent flux. "So I heard," replied Antigonus; "was it of
Thasian wine, or Chian?" Once he was told his son was ill, and
went to see him. At the door he met some young beauty. Going
in, he sat down by the bed and took his pulse. "The fever,"
said Demetrius, "has just left me." "O yes," replied the
father, "I met it going out at the door." Demetrius's great
actions made Antigonus treat him thus easily. The Scythians in
their drinking-bouts twang their bows, to keep their courage
awake amidst the dreams of indulgence; but he would resign his
whole being, now, to pleasure, and now to action; and though he
never let thoughts of the one intrude upon the pursuit of the
other, yet, when the time came for preparing for war, he showed
as much capacity as any man.
And indeed his ability displayed itself even more in preparing
for, than in conducting a war. He thought he could never be too
well supplied for every possible occasion, and took a pleasure,
not to be satiated, in great improvements in ship-building and
machines. He did not waste his natural genius and power of
mechanical research on toys and idle fancies, turning, painting,
and playing on the flute, like some kings, Aeropus, for example,
king of Macedon, who spent his days in making small lamps and
tables; or Attalus Philometor, whose amusement was to cultivate
poisons, henbane and hellebore, and even hemlock, aconite, and
dorycnium, which he used to sow himself in the royal gardens,
and made it his business to gather the fruits and collect the
juices in their season. The Parthian kings took a pride in
whetting and sharpening with their own hands the points of their
arrows and javelins. But when Demetrius played the workman, it
was like a king, and there was magnificence in his handicraft.
The articles he produced bore marks upon the face of them not of
ingenuity only, but of a great mind and a lofty purpose. They
were such as a king might not only design and pay for, but use
his own hands to make; and while friends might be terrified with
their greatness, enemies could be charmed with their beauty; a
phrase which is not so pretty to the ear as it is true to the
fact. The very people against whom they were to be employed
could not forbear running to gaze with admiration upon his
galleys of five and six ranges of oars, as they passed along
their coasts; and the inhabitants of besieged cities came on
their walls to see the spectacle of his famous City-takers.
Even Lysimachus, of all the kings of his time the greatest enemy
of Demetrius, coming to raise the siege of Soli in Cilicia, sent
first to desire permission to see his galleys and engines, and,
having had his curiosity gratified by a view of them, expressed
his admiration and quitted the place. The Rhodians, also, whom
he long besieged, begged him, when they concluded a peace, to
let them have some of his engines, which they might preserve as
a memorial at once of his power and of their own brave
resistance.
The quarrel between him and the Rhodians was on account of their
being allies to Ptolemy, and in the siege the greatest of all
the engines was planted against their walls. The base of it was
exactly square, each side containing twenty-four cubits; it rose
to a height of thirty-three cubits, growing narrower from the
base to the top. Within were several apartments or chambers,
which were to be filled with armed men, and in every story the
front towards the enemy had windows for discharging missiles of
all sorts, the whole being filled with soldiers for every
description of fighting. And what was most wonderful was that,
notwithstanding its size, when it was moved it never tottered or
inclined to one side, but went forward on its base in perfect
equilibrium, with a loud noise and great impetus, astounding the
minds, and yet at the same time charming the eyes of all the
beholders.
Whilst Demetrius was at this same siege, there were brought to
him two iron cuirasses from Cyprus, weighing each of them no
more than forty pounds, and Zoilus, who had forged them, to show
the excellence of their temper, desired that one of them might
be tried with a catapult missile, shot out of one of the engines
at no greater distance than six and twenty paces; and, upon the
experiment, it was found, that though the dart exactly hit the
cuirass, yet it made no greater impression than such a slight
scratch as might be made with the point of a style or graver.
Demetrius took this for his own wearing, and gave the other to
Alcimus the Epirot, the best soldier and strongest man of all
his captains, the only one who used to wear armor to the weight
of two talents, one talent being the weight which others thought
sufficient. He fell during this siege in a battle near the
theater.
The Rhodians made a brave defense, insomuch that Demetrius saw
he was making but little progress, and only persisted out of
obstinacy and passion; and the rather because the Rhodians,
having captured a ship in which some clothes and furniture, with
letters from herself; were coming to him from Phila his wife,
had sent on everything to Ptolemy, and had not copied the
honorable example of the Athenians, who, having surprised an
express sent from king Philip, their enemy, opened all the
letters he was charged with, excepting only those directed to
queen Olympias, which they returned with the seal unbroken.
Yet, although greatly provoked, Demetrius, into whose power it
shortly after came to repay the affront, would not suffer
himself to retaliate. Protogenes the Caunian had been making
them a painting of the story of Ialysus, which was all but
completed, when it was taken by Demetrius in one of the suburbs.
The Rhodians sent a herald begging him to be pleased to spare
the work and not let it be destroyed; Demetrius's answer to
which was that he would rather burn the pictures of his father
than a piece of art which had cost so much labor. It is said to
have taken Protogenes seven years to paint, and they tell us
that Apelles, when he first saw it, was struck dumb with wonder,
and called it, on recovering his speech, "a great labor and a
wonderful success," adding, however, that it had not the graces
which carried his own paintings as it were up to the heavens.
This picture, which came with the rest in the general mass to
Rome, there perished by fire.
While the Rhodians were thus defending their city to the
uttermost, Demetrius, who was not sorry for an excuse to retire,
found one in the arrival of ambassadors from Athens, by whose
mediation terms were made that the Rhodians should bind
themselves to aid Antigonus and Demetrius against all enemies,
Ptolemy excepted.
The Athenians entreated his help against Cassander, who was
besieging the city. So he went thither with a fleet of three
hundred and thirty ships, and many soldiers; and not only drove
Cassander out of Attica, but pursued him as far as Thermopylae,
routed him, and became master of Heraclea, which came over to
him voluntarily, and of a body of six thousand Macedonians,
which also joined him. Returning hence, he gave their liberty
to all the Greeks on this side Thermopylae, and made alliance
with the Boeotians, took Cenchreae, and reducing the fortresses
of Phyle and Panactum, in which were garrisons of Cassander,
restored them to the Athenians. They, in requital, though they
had before been so profuse in bestowing honors upon him, that
one would have thought they had exhausted all the capacities of
invention, showed they had still new refinements of adulation to
devise for him. They gave him, as his lodging, the back temple
in the Parthenon, and here he lived, under the immediate roof,
as they meant it to imply, of his hostess, Minerva; no reputable
or well-conducted guest to be quartered upon a maiden goddess.
When his brother Philip was once put into a house where three
young women were living, Antigonus saying nothing to him, sent
for his quartermaster, and told him, in the young man's
presence, to find some less crowded lodgings for him.
Demetrius, however, who should, to say the least, have paid the
goddess the respect due to an elder sister, for that was the
purport of the city's compliment, filled the temple with such
pollutions that the place seemed least profaned when his license
confined itself to common women like Chrysis, Lamia, Demo, and
Anticyra.
The fair name of the city forbids any further plain particulars;
let us only record the severe virtue of the young Damocles,
surnamed, and by that surname pointed out to Demetrius, the
beautiful; who, to escape importunities, avoided every place of
resort, and when at last followed into a private bathing room by
Demetrius, seeing none at hand to help or deliver, seized the
lid from the cauldron, and, plunging into the boiling water,
sought a death untimely and unmerited, but worthy of the country
and of the beauty that occasioned it. Not so Cleaenetus, the
son of Cleomedon, who, to obtain from Demetrius a letter of
intercession to the people in behalf of his father, lately
condemned in a fine of fifty talents, disgraced himself, and got
the city into trouble. In deference to the letter, they
remitted the fine, yet they made an edict prohibiting any
citizen for the future to bring letters from Demetrius. But
being informed that Demetrius resented this as a great
indignity, they not only rescinded in alarm the former order,
but put some of the proposers and advisers of it to death and
banished others, and furthermore enacted and decreed, that
whatsoever king Demetrius should in time to come ordain, should
be accounted right towards the gods and just towards men; and
when one of the better class of citizens said Stratocles must be
mad to use such words, Demochares of Leuconoe observed, he
would be a fool not to be mad. For Stratocles was well rewarded
for his flatteries; and the saying was remembered against
Demochares, who was soon after sent into banishment. So fared
the Athenians, after being relieved of the foreign garrison, and
recovering what was called their liberty.
After this Demetrius marched with his forces into Peloponnesus,
where he met with none to oppose him, his enemies flying before
him, and allowing the cities to join him. He received into
friendship all Acte, as it is called, and all Arcadia except
Mantinea. He bought the liberty of Argos, Corinth, and Sicyon,
by paying a hundred talents to their garrisons to evacuate them.
At Argos, during the feast of Juno, which happened at the time,
he presided at the games, and, joining in the festivities with
the multitude of the Greeks assembled there, he celebrated his
marriage with Deidamia, daughter of Aeacides, king of the
Molossians, and sister of Pyrrhus. At Sicyon he told the people
they had put the city just outside of the city, and, persuading
them to remove to where they now live, gave their town not only
a new site but a new name, Demetrias, after himself. A general
assembly met on the Isthmus, where he was proclaimed, by a great
concourse of people, the Commander of Greece, like Philip and
Alexander of old; whose superior he, in the present height of
his prosperity and power, was willing enough to consider
himself; and, certainly, in one respect he outdid Alexander, who
never refused their title to other kings, or took on himself the
style of king of kings, though many kings received both their
title and their authority as such from him; whereas Demetrius
used to ridicule those who gave the name of king to any except
himself and his father; and in his entertainments was well
pleased when his followers, after drinking to him and his father
as kings, went on to drink the health of Seleucus, with the
title of Master of the Elephants; of Ptolemy, by the name of
High Admiral; of Lysimachus, with the addition of Treasurer; and
of Agathocles, with the style of Governor of the Island of
Sicily. The other kings merely laughed when they were told of
this vanity; Lysimachus alone expressed some indignation at
being considered a eunuch; such being usually then selected for
the office of treasurer. And, in general, there was a more
bitter enmity between him and Lysimachus than with any of the
others. Once, as a scoff at his passion for Lamia, Lysimachus
said he had never before seen a courtesan act a queen's part; to
which Demetrius rejoined that his mistress was quite as honest
us Lysimachus's own Penelope.
But to proceed. Demetrius being about to return to Athens,
signified by letter to the city that he desired immediate
admission to the rites of initiation into the Mysteries, and
wished to go through all the stages of the
ceremony, from first to last, without delay. This was
absolutely contrary to the rules, and a thing which had never
been allowed before; for the lesser mysteries were celebrated in
the month of Anthesterion, and the great solemnity in
Boedromion, and none of the novices were finally admitted till
they had completed a year after this latter. Yet all this
notwithstanding, when in the public assembly these letters of
Demetrius were produced and read, there was not one single
person who had the courage to oppose them, except Pythodorus,
the torch-bearer. But it signified nothing, for Stratocles at
once proposed that the month of Munychion, then current, should
by edict be reputed to be the month of Anthesterion; which being
voted and done, and Demetrius thereby admitted to the lesser
ceremonies, by another vote they turned the same month of
Munychion into the other month of Boedromion; the celebration of
the greater mysteries ensued, and Demetrius was fully admitted.
These proceedings gave the comedian, Philippides, a new occasion
to exercise his wit upon Stratocles,
whose flattering fear
Into one month hath crowded all the year.
And on the vote that Demetrius should lodge in the Parthenon,
Who turns the temple to a common inn,
And makes the Virgin's house a house of sin.
Of all the disreputable and flagitious acts of which he was
guilty in this visit, one that particularly hurt the feelings of
the Athenians was that, having given comment that they should
forthwith raise for his service two hundred and fifty talents,
and they to comply with his demands being forced to levy it upon
the people with the utmost rigor and severity, when they
presented him with the money, which they had with such
difficulty raised, as if it were a trifling sum, he ordered it
to be given to Lamia and the rest of his women, to buy soap.
The loss, which was bad enough, was less galling than the shame,
and the words more intolerable than the act which they
accompanied. Though, indeed, the story is variously reported;
and some say it was the Thessalians, and not the Athenians, who
were thus treated. Lamia, however, exacted contributions
herself to pay for an entertainment she gave to the king, and
her banquet was so renowned for its sumptuosity, that a
description of it was drawn up by the Samian writer, Lynceus.
Upon this occasion, one of the comic writers gave Lamia the name
of the real Helepolis; and Demochares of Soli called Demetrius
Mythus, because the fable always has its Lamia, and so had he.
And, in truth, his passion for this woman and the prosperity in
which she lived were such as to draw upon him not only the envy
and jealousy of all his wives, but the animosity even of his
friends. For example, on Lysimachus's showing to some
ambassadors from Demetrius the scars of the wounds which he had
received upon his thighs and arms by the paws of the lion with
which Alexander had shut him up, after hearing his account of
the combat, they smiled and answered, that their king, also, was
not without his scars, but could show upon his neck the marks of
a Lamia, a no less dangerous beast. It was also matter of
wonder that, though he had objected so much to Phila on account
of her age, he was yet such a slave to Lamia, who was so long
past her prime. One evening at supper, when she played the
flute, Demetrius asked Demo, whom the men called Madness, what
she thought of her. Demo answered she thought her an old woman.
And when a quantity of sweetmeats were brought in, and the king
said again, "See what presents I get from Lamia!" "My old
mother," answered Demo, "will send you more, if you will make
her your mistress." Another story is told of a criticism passed
by Lamia or the famous judgment of Bocchoris. A young Egyptian
had long made suit to Thonis, the courtesan, offering a sum of
gold for her favor. But before it came to pass, he dreamed one
night that he had obtained it, and, satisfied with the shadow,
felt no more desire for the substance. Thonis upon this brought
an action for the sum. Bocchoris, the judge, on hearing the
case, ordered the defendant to bring into court the full amount
in a vessel, which he was to move to and fro in his hand, and
the shadow of it was to be adjudged to Thonis. The fairness of
this sentence Lamia contested, saying the young man's desire
might have been satisfied with the dream, but Thonis's desire
for the money could not be relieved by the shadow. Thus much
for Lamia.
And now the story passes from the comic to the tragic stage in
pursuit of the acts and fortunes of its subject. A general
league of the kings, who were now gathering and combining their
forces to attack Antigonus, recalled Demetrius from Greece. He
was encouraged by finding his father full of a spirit and
resolution for the combat that belied his years. Yet it would
seem to be true, that if Antigonus could only have borne to
make some trifling concessions, and if he had shown any
moderation in his passion for empire, he might have maintained
for himself till his death, and left to his son behind him, the
first place among the kings. But he was of a violent and
haughty spirit; and the insulting words as well as actions in
which he allowed himself could not be borne by young and
powerful princes, and provoked them into combining against him.
Though now when he was told of the confederacy, he could not
forbear from saying that this flock of birds would soon be
scattered by one stone and a single shout. He took the field at
the head of more than seventy thousand foot, and of ten thousand
horse, and seventy-five elephants. His enemies had sixty-four
thousand foot, five hundred more horse than he, elephants to the
number of four hundred, and a hundred and twenty chariots. On
their near approach to each other, an alteration began to be
observable, not in the purposes, but in the presentiments of
Antigonus. For whereas in all former campaigns he had ever
shown himself lofty and confident, loud in voice and scornful in
speech, often by some joke or mockery on the eve of battle
expressing his contempt and displaying his composure, he was now
remarked to be thoughtful, silent, and retired. He presented
Demetrius to the army, and declared him his successor; and what
everyone thought stranger than all was that he now conferred
alone in his tent with Demetrius, whereas in former time he had
never entered into any secret consultations even with him; but
had always followed his own advice, made his resolutions, and
then given out his commands. Once when Demetrius was a boy and
asked him how soon the army would move, he is said to have
answered him sharply, "Are you afraid lest you, of all the army,
should not hear the trumpet?"
There were now, however, inauspicious signs, which affected his
spirits. Demetrius, in a dream, had seen Alexander, completely
armed, appear and demand of him what word they intended to give
in the time of the battle; and Demetrius answering that he
intended the word should be "Jupiter and Victory." "Then," said
Alexander, "I will go to your adversaries and find my welcome
with them." And on the morning of the combat, as the armies
were drawing up, Antigonus, going out of the door of his tent,
by some accident or other, stumbled and fell flat upon the
ground, hurting himself a good deal. And on recovering his
feet, lifting up his hands to heaven, he prayed the gods to
grant him "either victory, or death without knowledge of
defeat." When the armies engaged, Demetrius, who commanded the
greatest and best part of the cavalry, made a charge on
Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, and, gloriously routing the
enemy, followed the pursuit, in the pride and exultation of
success, so eagerly, and so unwisely far, that it fatally lost
him the day, for when, perceiving his error, he would have come
in to the assistance of his own infantry, he was not able, the
enemy with their elephants having cut off his retreat. And on
the other hand, Seleucus, observing the main battle of Antigonus
left naked of their horse, did not charge, but made a show of
charging; and keeping them in alarm and wheeling about and still
threatening an attack, he gave opportunity for those who wished
it to separate and come over to him; which a large body of them
did, the rest taking to flight. But the old king Antigonus
still kept his post, and when a strong body of the enemies drew
up to charge him, and one of those about him cried out to him,
"Sir, they are coming upon you," he only replied, "What else
should they do? but Demetrius will come to my rescue." And in
this hope he persisted to the last, looking out on every side
for his son's approach, until he was borne down by a whole
multitude of darts, and fell. His other followers and friends
fled, and Thorax of Larissa remained alone by the body.
The battle having been thus decided, the kings who had gained
the victory, carving up the whole vast empire that had belonged
to Demetrius and Antigonus, like a carcass, into so many
portions, added these new gains to their former possessions. As
for Demetrius, with five thousand foot and four thousand horse,
he fled at his utmost speed to Ephesus, where it was the common
opinion he would seize the treasures of the temple to relieve
his wants; but he, on the contrary, fearing such an attempt on
the part of his soldiers, hastened away, and sailed for Greece,
his chief remaining hopes being placed in the fidelity of the
Athenians, with whom he had left part of his navy and of his
treasure and his wife Deidamia. And in their attachment he had
not the least doubt but he should in this his extremity find a
safe resource. Accordingly when, upon reaching the Cyclades, he
was met by ambassadors from Athens, requesting him not to
proceed to the city, as the people had passed a vote to admit no
king whatever within their walls, and had conveyed Deidamia with
honorable attendance to Megara, his anger and surprise
overpowered him, and the constancy quite failed him which he had
hitherto shown in a wonderful degree under his reverses, nothing
humiliating or mean-spirited having as yet been seen in him
under all his misfortunes. But to be thus disappointed in the
Athenians, and to find the friendship he had trusted prove, upon
trial, thus empty and unreal, was a great pang to him. And, in
truth, an excessive display of outward honor would seem to be
the most uncertain attestation of the real affection of a people
for any king or potentate. Such shows lose their whole credit
as tokens of affection (which has its virtue in the feelings and
moral choice), when we reflect that they may equally proceed
from fear. The same decrees are voted upon the latter motive as
upon the former. And therefore judicious men do not look so
much to statues, paintings, or divine honors that are paid them,
as to their own actions and conduct, judging hence whether they
shall trust these as a genuine, or discredit them as a forced
homage. As in fact nothing is less unusual than for a people,
even while offering compliments, to be disgusted with those who
accept them greedily, or arrogantly, or without respect to the
freewill of the givers.
Demetrius, shamefully used as he thought himself, was in no
condition to revenge the affront. He returned a message of
gentle expostulation, saying, however, that he expected to have
his galleys sent to him, among which was that of thirteen banks
of oars. And this being accorded him, he sailed to the Isthmus,
and, finding his affairs in very ill condition, his garrisons
expelled, and a general secession going on to the enemy, he left
Pyrrhus to attend to Greece, and took his course to the
Chersonesus, where he ravaged the territories of Lysimachus,
and, by the booty which he took, maintained and kept together
his troops, which were now once more beginning to recover and to
show some considerable front. Nor did any of the other princes
care to meddle with him on that side; for Lysimachus had quite
as little claim to be loved, and was more to be feared for his
power. But, not long after, Seleucus sent to treat with
Demetrius for a marriage betwixt himself and Stratonice,
daughter of Demetrius by Phila. Seleucus, indeed, had already,
by Apama the Persian, a son named Antiochus, but he was
possessed of territories that might well satisfy more than one
successor, and he was the rather induced to this alliance with
Demetrius, because Lysimachus had just married himself to one
daughter of king Ptolemy, and his son Agathocles to another.
Demetrius, who looked upon the offer as an unexpected piece of
good fortune, presently embarked with his daughter, and with his
whole fleet sailed for Syria. Having during his voyage to touch
several times on the coast, among other places he landed in part
of Cilicia, which, by the apportionment of the kings after the
defeat of Antigonus, was allotted to Plistarchus, the brother of
Cassander. Plistarchus, who took this descent of Demetrius upon
his coasts as an infraction of his rights, and was not sorry to
have something to complain of hastened away to expostulate in
person with Seleucus for entering separately into relations with
Demetrius, the common enemy, without consulting the other kings.
Demetrius, receiving information of this, seized the
opportunity, and fell upon the city of Quinda, which he
surprised, and took in it twelve hundred talents, still
remaining of the treasure. With this prize, he hastened back to
his galleys, embarked, and set sail. At Rhosus, where his wife
Phila was now with him, he was met by Seleucus, and their
communications with each other at once were put on a frank,
unsuspecting, and kingly footing. First, Seleucus gave a
banquet to Demetrius in his tent in the camp; then Demetrius
received him in the ship of thirteen banks of oars. Meetings
for amusements, conferences, and long visits for general
intercourse succeeded, all without attendants or arms; until at
length Seleucus took his leave, and in great state conducted
Stratonice to Antioch. Demetrius meantime possessed himself of
Cilicia, and sent Phila to her brother Cassander, to answer the
complaints of Plistarchus. And here his wife Deidamia came by
sea out of Greece to meet him, but not long after contracted an
illness, of which she died. After her death, Demetrius, by the
mediation of Seleucus, became reconciled to Ptolemy, and an
agreement was made that he should marry his daughter Ptolemais.
Thus far all was handsomely done on the part of Seleucus. But,
shortly after, desiring to have the province of Cilicia from
Demetrius for a sum of money, and being refused it, he then
angrily demanded of him the cities of Tyre and Sidon, which
seemed a mere piece of arbitrary dealing, and, indeed, an
outrageous thing, that he, who was possessed of all the vast
provinces between India and the Syrian sea, should think himself
so poorly off as for the sake of two cities, which he coveted,
to disturb the peace of his near connection, already a sufferer
under a severe reverse of fortune. However, he did but justify
the saying of Plato, that the only certain way to be truly rich
is not to have more property, but fewer desires. For whoever is
always grasping at more avows that he is still in want, and must
be poor in the midst of affluence.
But Demetrius, whose courage did not sink, resolutely sent him
answer, that, though he were to lose ten thousand battles like
that of Ipsus, he would pay no price for the good-will of such a
son-in-law as Seleucus. He reinforced these cities with
sufficient garrisons to enable them to make a defense against
Seleucus; and, receiving information that Lachares, taking the
opportunity of their civil dissensions, had set up himself as an
usurper over the Athenians, he imagined that if he made a sudden
attempt upon the city, he might now without difficulty get
possession of it. He crossed the sea in safety, with a large
fleet; but, passing along the coast of Attica, was met by a
violent storm, and lost the greater number of his ships, and a
very considerable body of men on board of them. As for him, he
escaped, and began to make war in a petty manner with the
Athenians, but finding himself unable to effect his design, he
sent back orders for raising another fleet, and, with the troops
which he had, marched into Peloponnesus, and laid siege to the
city of Messena. In attacking which place, he was in danger of
death; for a missile from an engine struck him in the face, and
passed through the cheek into his mouth. He recovered, however,
and, as soon as he was in a condition to take the field, won
over divers cities which had revolted from him, and made an
incursion into Attica, where he took Eleusis and Rhamnus and
wasted the country thereabout. And that he might straighten the
Athenians by cutting off all manner of provision, a vessel laden
with corn bound thither falling into his hands, he ordered the
master and the supercargo to be immediately hanged, thereby to
strike a terror into others, that so they might not venture to
supply the city with provisions. By which means they were
reduced to such extremities, that a bushel of salt sold for
forty drachmas, and a peck of wheat for three hundred. Ptolemy
had sent to their relief a hundred and fifty galleys, which came
so near as to be seen off Aegina; but this brief hope was soon
extinguished by the arrival of three hundred ships, which came
to reinforce Demetrius from Cyprus, Peloponnesus, and other
places; upon which Ptolemy's fleet took to flight, and Lachares,
the tyrant, ran away, leaving the city to its fate.
And now the Athenians, who before had made it capital for any
person to propose a treaty or accommodation with Demetrius,
immediately opened the nearest gates to send ambassadors to him,
not so much out of hopes of obtaining any honorable conditions
from his clemency as out of necessity, to avoid death by famine.
For among many frightful instances of the distress they were
reduced to, it is said that a father and son were sitting in a
room together, having abandoned every hope, when a dead mouse
fell from the ceiling; and for this prize they leaped up and
came to blows. In this famine, it is also related, the
philosopher Epicurus saved his own life, and the lives of his
scholars, by a small quantity of beans, which he distributed to
them daily by number.
In this condition was the city when Demetrius made his entrance
and issued a proclamation that all the inhabitants should
assemble in the theater; which being done, he drew up his
soldiers at the back of the stage, occupied the stage itself
with his guards, and, presently coming in himself by the actor's
passages, when the people's consternation had risen to its
height, with his first words he put an end to it. Without any
harshness of tone or bitterness of words, he reprehended them in
a gentle and friendly way, and declared himself reconciled,
adding a present of a hundred thousand bushels of wheat, and
appointing as magistrates persons acceptable to the people. So
Dromoclides the orator, seeing the people at a loss how to
express their gratitude by any words or acclamations, and ready
for anything that would outdo the verbal encomiums of the
public speakers, came forward, and moved a decree for delivering
Piraeus and Munychia into the hands of king Demetrius. This was
passed accordingly, and Demetrius, of his own motion, added a
third garrison, which he placed in the Museum, as a precaution
against any new restiveness on the part of the people, which
might give him the trouble of quitting his other enterprises.
He had not long been master of Athens before he had formed
designs against Lacedaemon; of which Archidamus, the king, being
advertised, came out and met him, but he was overthrown in a
battle near Mantinea; after which Demetrius entered Laconia,
and, in a second battle near Sparta itself, defeated him again
with the loss of two hundred Lacedaemonians slain, and five
hundred taken prisoners. And now it was almost impossible for
the city, which hitherto had never been captured, to escape his
arms. But certainly there never was any king upon whom fortune
made such short turns, nor any other life or story so filled
with her swift and surprising changes, over and over again, from
small things to great, from splendor back to humiliation, and
from utter weakness once more to power and might. They say in
his sadder vicissitudes he used sometimes to apostrophize
fortune in the words of Aeschylus --
Thou liftest up, to cast us down again.
And so at this moment, when all things seemed to conspire
together to give him his heart's desire of dominion and power,
news arrived that Lysimachus had taken all his cities in Asia,
that Ptolemy had reduced all Cyprus with the exception of
Salamis, and that in Salamis his mother and children were shut
up and close besieged: and yet like the woman in Archilochus,
Water in one deceitful hand she shows,
While burning fire within her other glows.
The same fortune that drew him off with these disastrous tidings
from Sparta, in a moment after opened upon him a new and
wonderful prospect, of the following kind. Cassander, king of
Macedon, dying, and his eldest son, Philip, who succeeded him,
not long surviving his father, the two younger brothers fell at
variance concerning the succession. And Antipater having
murdered his mother Thessalonica, Alexander, the younger
brother, called in to his assistance Pyrrhus out of Epirus, and
Demetrius out of the Peloponnese. Pyrrhus arrived first, and,
taking in recompense for his succor a large slice of Macedonia,
had made Alexander begin to be aware that he had brought upon
himself a dangerous neighbor. And, that he might not run a yet
worse hazard from Demetrius, whose power and reputation were so
great, the young man hurried away to meet him at Dium, whither
he, who on receiving his letter had set out on his march, was
now come. And, offering his greetings and grateful
acknowledgments, he at the same time informed him that his
affairs no longer required the presence of his ally, and
thereupon he invited him to supper. There were not wanting some
feelings of suspicion on either side already; and when Demetrius
was now on his way to the banquet, someone came and told him
that in the midst of the drinking he would be killed. Demetrius
showed little concern, but, making only a little less haste, he
sent to the principal officers of his army, commanding them to
draw out the soldiers, and make them stand to their arms, and
ordered his retinue (more numerous a good deal than that of
Alexander) to attend him into the very room of the entertainment,
and not to stir from thence till they saw him rise from the table.
Thus Alexander's servants, finding themselves overpowered,
had not courage to attempt anything. And,
indeed, Demetrius gave them no opportunity, for he made a very
short visit, and, pretending to Alexander that he was not at
present in health for drinking wine, left early. And the next
day he occupied himself in preparations for departing, telling
Alexander he had received intelligence that obliged him to
leave, and begging him to excuse so sudden a parting; he would
hope to see him further when his affairs allowed him leisure.
Alexander was only too glad, not only that he was going, but
that he was doing so of his own motion, without any offense, and
proposed to accompany him into Thessaly. But when they came to
Larissa, new invitations passed between them, new professions of
good-will, covering new conspiracies; by which Alexander put
himself into the power of Demetrius. For as he did not like to
use precautions on his own part, for fear Demetrius should take
the hint to use them on his, the very thing he meant to do was
first done to him. He accepted an invitation, and came to
Demetrius's quarters; and when Demetrius, while they were still
supping, rose from the table and went forth, the young man rose
also, and followed him to the door, where Demetrius, as he
passed through, only said to the guards, "Kill him that follows
me," and went on; and Alexander was at once dispatched by them,
together with such of his friends as endeavored to come to his
rescue, one of whom, before he died, said, "You have been one
day too quick for us."
The night following was one, as may be supposed, of disorder and
confusion. And with the morning, the Macedonians, still in
alarm, and fearful of the forces of Demetrius, on finding no
violence offered, but only a message sent from Demetrius
desiring an interview and opportunity for explanation of his
actions, at last began to feel pretty confident again, and
prepared to receive him favorably. And when he came, there was
no need of much being said; their hatred of Antipater for his
murder of his mother, and the absence of anyone better to
govern them, soon decided them to proclaim Demetrius king of
Macedon. And into Macedonia they at once started and took him.
And the Macedonians at home, who had not forgotten or forgiven
the wicked deeds committed by Cassander on the family of
Alexander, were far from sorry at the change. Any kind
recollections that still might subsist, of the plain and simple
rule of the first Antipater, went also to the benefit of
Demetrius, whose wife was Phila, his daughter, and his son by
her, a boy already old enough to be serving in the army with his
father, was the natural successor to the government.
To add to this unexpected good fortune, news arrived that
Ptolemy had dismissed his mother and children, bestowing upon
them presents and honors; and also that his daughter Stratonice,
whom he had married to Seleucus, was remarried to Antiochus, the
son of Seleucus, and proclaimed queen of Upper Asia.
For Antiochus, it appears, had fallen passionately in love with
Stratonice, the young queen, who had already made Seleucus the
father of a son. He struggled very hard with the beginnings of
this passion, and at last, resolving with himself that his
desires were wholly unlawful, his malady past all cure, and his
powers of reason too feeble to act, he determined on death, and
thought to bring his life slowly to extinction by neglecting his
person and refusing nourishment, under the pretense of being
ill. Erasistratus, the physician who attended him, quickly
perceived that love was his distemper, but the difficulty was to
discover the object. He therefore waited continually in his
chamber, and when any of the beauties of the court made their
visits to the sick prince, he observed the emotions and
alterations in the countenance of Antiochus, and watched for the
changes which he knew to be indicative of the inward passions
and inclinations of the soul. He took notice that the presence
of other women produced no effect upon him; but when Stratonice
came, as she often did, alone, or in company with Seleucus, to
see him, he observed in him all Sappho's famous symptoms, his
voice faltered, his face flushed up, his eyes glanced
stealthily, a sudden sweat broke out on his skin, the beatings
of his heart were irregular and violent, and, unable to support
the excess of his passion, he would sink into a state of
faintness, prostration, and pallor.
Erasistratus, reasoning upon these symptoms, and, upon the
probability of things, considering that the king's son would
hardly, if the object of his passion had been any other, have
persisted to death rather than reveal it, felt, however, the
difficulty of making a discovery of this nature to Seleucus.
But, trusting to the tenderness of Seleucus for the young man,
he put on all the assurance he could, and at last, on some
opportunity, spoke out, and told him the malady was love, a love
impossible to gratify or relieve. The king was extremely
surprised, and asked, "Why impossible to relieve?" "The fact
is," replied Erasistratus, "he is in love with my wife."
"How!" said Seleucus, "and will our friend Erasistratus refuse to
bestow his wife upon my son and only successor, when there is no
other way to save his life?" "You," replied Erasistratus, "who
are his father, would not do so, if he were in love with
Stratonice." "Ah, my friend," answered Seleucus, "would to
heaven any means, human or divine, could but convert his present
passion to that; it would be well for me to part not only with
Stratonice, but with my empire, to save Antiochus." This he
said with the greatest passion, shedding tears as he spoke; upon
which Erasistratus, taking him by the hand, replied, "In that
case, you have no need of Erasistratus; for you, who are the
husband, the father, and the king, are the proper physician for
your own family." Seleucus, accordingly, summoning a general
assembly of his people, declared to them, that he had resolved
to make Antiochus king, and Stratonice queen, of all the
provinces of Upper Asia, uniting them in marriage; telling them,
that he thought he had sufficient power over the prince's will,
that he should find in him no repugnance to obey his commands;
and for Stratonice, he hoped all his friends would endeavor to
make her sensible, if she should manifest any reluctance to such
a marriage, that she ought to esteem those things just and
honorable which had been determined upon by the king as
necessary to the general good. In this manner, we are told, was
brought about the marriage of Antiochus and Stratonice.
To return to the affairs of Demetrius. Having obtained the
crown of Macedon, he presently became master of Thessaly also.
And, holding the greatest part of Peloponnesus, and, on this
side the Isthmus, the cities of Megara and Athens, he now turned
his arms against the Boeotians. They at first made overtures
for an accommodation; but Cleonymus of Sparta having ventured
with some troops to their assistance, and having made his way
into Thebes, and Pisis, the Thespian, who was their first man in
power and reputation, animating them to make a brave resistance,
they broke off the treaty. No sooner, however, had Demetrius
begun to approach the walls with his engines, but Cleonymus in
affright secretly withdrew; and the Boeotians, finding
themselves abandoned, made their submission. Demetrius placed a
garrison in charge of their towns, and, having raised a large
sum of money from them, he placed Hieronymus, the historian, in
the office of governor and military commander over them, and was
thought on the whole to have shown great clemency, more
particularly to Pisis, to whom he did no hurt, but spoke with
him courteously and kindly, and made him chief magistrate of
Thespiae. Not long after, Lysimachus was taken prisoner by
Dromichaetes, and Demetrius went off instantly in the hopes of
possessing himself of Thrace, thus left without a king. Upon
this, the Boeotians revolted again, and news also came that
Lysimachus had regained his liberty. So Demetrius, turning back
quickly and in anger, found on coming up that his son Antigonus
had already defeated the Boeotians in battle, and therefore
proceeded to lay siege again to Thebes.
But, understanding that Pyrrhus had made an incursion into
Thessaly, and that he was advanced as far as Thermopylae,
leaving Antigonus to continue the siege, he marched with the
rest of his army to oppose this enemy. Pyrrhus, however, made a
quick retreat. So, leaving ten thousand foot and a thousand
horse for the protection of Thessaly, he returned to the siege
of Thebes, and there brought up his famous City-taker to the
attack, which, however, was so laboriously and so slowly moved
on account of its bulk and heaviness, that in two months it did
not advance two furlongs. In the meantime the citizens made a
stout defense, and Demetrius, out of heat and contentiousness
very often, more than upon any necessity, sent his soldiers into
danger; until at last Antigonus, observing how many men were
losing their lives, said to him, "Why, my father, do we go on
letting the men be wasted in this way, without any need of it?"
But Demetrius, in a great passion, interrupted him: "And you,
good sir, why do you afflict yourself for the matter? will dead
men come to you for rations?" But that the soldiers might see
he valued his own life at no dearer rate than theirs, he exposed
himself freely, and was wounded with a javelin through his neck,
which put him into great hazard of his life. But,
notwithstanding, he continued the siege, and in conclusion took
the town again. And after his entrance, when the citizens were
in fear and trembling, and expected all the severities which an
incensed conqueror could indict, he only put to death thirteen,
and banished some few others, pardoning all the rest. Thus the
city of Thebes, which had not yet been ten years restored, in
that short space was twice besieged and taken.
Shortly after, the festival of the Pythian Apollo was to be
celebrated, and the Aetolians having blocked up all the passages
to Delphi, Demetrius held the games and celebrated the feast at
Athens, alleging it was great reason those honors should be paid
in that place, Apollo being the paternal god of the Athenian
people, and the reputed first founder of their race.
From thence Demetrius returned to Macedon, and as he not only
was of a restless temper himself, but saw also that the
Macedonians were ever the best subjects when employed in
military expeditions, but turbulent and desirous of change in
the idleness of peace, he led them against the Aetolians, and,
having wasted their country, he left Pantauchus with a great
part of his army to complete the conquest, and with the rest he
marched in person to find out Pyrrhus, who in like manner was
advancing to encounter him. But so it fell out, that by taking
different ways the two armies did not meet; but whilst Demetrius
entered Epirus, and laid all waste before him, Pyrrhus fell upon
Pantauchus, and, in a battle in which the two commanders met in
person and wounded each other, he gained the victory, and took
five thousand prisoners, besides great numbers slain on the
field. The worst thing, however, for Demetrius was that Pyrrhus
had excited less animosity as an enemy than admiration as a
brave man. His taking so large a part with his own hand in the
battle had gained him the greatest name and glory among the
Macedonians. Many among them began to say that this was the
only king in whom there was any likeness to be seen of the great
Alexander's courage; the other kings, and particularly
Demetrius, did nothing but personate him, like actors on a
stage, in his pomp and outward majesty. And Demetrius truly was
a perfect play and pageant, with his robes and diadems, his
gold-edged purple and his hats with double streamers, his very
shoes being of the richest purple felt, embroidered over in
gold. One robe in particular, a most superb piece of work, was
long in the loom in preparation for him, in which was to be
wrought the representation of the universe and the celestial
bodies. This, left unfinished when his reverses overtook him,
not any one of the kings of Macedon, his successors, though
divers of them haughty enough, ever presumed to use.
But it was not this theatric pomp alone which disgusted the
Macedonians, but his profuse and luxurious way of living; and,
above all, the difficulty of speaking with him or of obtaining
access to his presence. For either he would not be seen at all,
or, if he did give audience, he was violent and overbearing.
Thus he made the envoys of the Athenians, to whom yet he was
more attentive than to all the other Grecians, wait two whole
years before they could obtain a hearing. And when the
Lacedaemonians sent a single person on an embassy to him, he
held himself insulted, and asked angrily whether it was the fact
that the Lacedaemonians had sent but one ambassador. "Yes," was
the happy reply he received, "one ambassador to one king."
Once when in some apparent fit of a more popular and acceptable
temper he was riding abroad, a number of people came up and
presented their written petitions. He courteously received all
these, and put them up in the skirt of his cloak, while the poor
people were overjoyed, and followed him close. But when he came
upon the bridge of the river Axius, shaking out his cloak, he
threw all into the river. This excited very bitter resentment
among the Macedonians, who felt themselves to be not governed,
but insulted. They called to mind what some of them had seen,
and others had heard related of King Philip's unambitious and
open, accessible manners. One day when an old woman had
assailed him several times in the road and importuned him to
hear her, after he had told her he had no time, "If so," cried
she, "you have no time to be a king." And this reprimand so
stung the king that after thinking of it a while he went back
into the house, and, setting all other matters apart, for
several days together he did nothing else but receive, beginning
with the old woman, the complaints of all that would come. And
to do justice, truly enough, might well be called a king's first
business. "Mars," as says Timotheus, "is the tyrant;" but Law,
in Pindar's words, the king of all. Homer does not say that
kings received at the hands of Jove besieging engines or ships
of war, but sentences of justice, to keep and observe; nor is it
the most warlike, unjust, and murderous, but the most righteous
of kings, that has from him the name of Jupiter's "familiar
friend" and scholar. Demetrius's delight was the title most
unlike the choices of the king of gods. The divine names were
those of the Defender and Keeper, his was that of the Besieger
of Cities. The place of virtue was given by him to that which,
had he not been as ignorant as he was powerful, he would have
known to be vice, and honor by his act was associated with
crime. While he lay dangerously ill at Pella, Pyrrhus pretty
nearly overran all Macedon, and advanced as far as the city of
Edessa. On recovering his health, he quickly drove him out, and
came to terms with him, being desirous not to employ his time in
a string of petty local conflicts with a neighbor, when all his
thoughts were fixed upon another design. This was no less than
to endeavor the recovery of the whole empire which his father
had possessed; and his preparations were suitable to his hopes,
and the greatness of the enterprise. He had arranged for the
levying of ninety-eight thousand foot, and nearly twelve
thousand horse; and he had a fleet of five hundred galleys on
the stocks, some building at Athens, others at Corinth and
Chalcis, and in the neighborhood of Pella. And he himself was
passing evermore from one to another of these places, to give
his directions and his assistance to the plans, while all that
saw were amazed, not so much at the number, as at the magnitude
of the works. Hitherto, there had never been seen a galley with
fifteen or sixteen ranges of oars. At a later time, Ptolemy
Philopator built one of forty rows, which was two hundred and
eighty cubits in length, and the height of her to the top of her
stern forty eight cubits; she had four hundred sailors and four
thousand rowers, and afforded room besides for very near three
thousand soldiers to fight on her decks. But this, after all,
was for show, and not for service, scarcely differing from a
fixed edifice ashore, and was not to be moved without extreme
toil and peril; whereas these galleys of Demetrius were meant
quite as much for fighting as for looking at, were not the less
serviceable for their magnificence, and were as wonderful for
their speed and general performance as for their size.
These mighty preparations against Asia, the like of which had
not been made since Alexander first invaded it, united Seleucus,
Ptolemy, and Lysimachus in a confederacy for their defense.
They also dispatched ambassadors to Pyrrhus, to persuade him to
make a diversion by attacking Macedonia; he need not think there
was any validity in a treaty which Demetrius had concluded, not
as an engagement to be at peace with him, but as a means for
enabling himself to make war first upon the enemy of his choice.
So when Pyrrhus accepted their proposals, Demetrius, still in
the midst of his preparations, was encompassed with war on all
sides. Ptolemy, with a mighty navy, invaded Greece; Lysimachus
entered Macedonia upon the side of Thrace, and Pyrrhus, from the
Epirot border, both of them spoiling and wasting the country.
Demetrius, leaving his son to look after Greece, marched to the
relief of Macedon, and first of all to oppose Lysimachus. On
his way, he received the news that Pyrrhus had taken the city
Beroea; and the report quickly getting out among the soldiers,
all discipline at once was lost, and the camp was filled with
lamentations and tears, anger and execrations on Demetrius; they
would stay no longer, they would march off, as they said, to
take care of their country, friends, and families; but in
reality the intention was to revolt to Lysimachus. Demetrius,
therefore, thought it his business to keep them as far away as
he could from Lysimachus, who was their own countryman, and for
Alexander's sake kindly looked upon by many; they would be ready
to fight with Pyrrhus, a new-comer and a foreigner, whom they
could hardly prefer to himself. But he found himself under a
great mistake in these conjectures. For when he advanced and
pitched his camp near, the old admiration for Pyrrhus's
gallantry in arms revived again; and as they had been used from
time immemorial to suppose that the best king was he that was
the bravest soldier, so now they were also told of his generous
usage of his prisoners, and, in short, they were eager to have
anyone in the place of Demetrius, and well pleased that the man
should be Pyrrhus. At first, some straggling parties only
deserted, but in a little time the whole army broke out into an
universal mutiny, insomuch that at last some of them went up,
and told him openly that if he consulted his own safety he were
best to make haste to be gone, for that the Macedonians were
resolved no longer to hazard their lives for the satisfaction of
his luxury and pleasure. And this was thought fair and moderate
language, compared with the fierceness of the rest. So,
withdrawing into his tent, and, like an actor rather than a real
king, laying aside his stage-robes of royalty, he put on some
common clothes and stole away. He was no sooner gone but the
mutinous army were fighting and quarreling for the plunder of
his tent, but Pyrrhus, coming immediately, took possession of
the camp without a blow, after which he, with Lysimachus, parted
the realm of Macedon betwixt them, after Demetrius had securely
held it just seven years.
As for Demetrius, being thus suddenly despoiled of everything,
he retired to Cassandrea. His wife Phila, in the passion of her
grief, could not endure to see her hapless husband reduced to
the condition of a private and banished man. She refused to
entertain any further hope, and, resolving to quit a fortune
which was never permanent except for calamity, took poison and
died. Demetrius, determining still to hold on by the wreck,
went off to Greece, and collected his friends and officers
there. Menelaus, in the play of Sophocles, to give an image of
his vicissitudes of estate, says, --
For me, my destiny, alas, is found
Whirling upon the gods' swift wheel around,
And changing still, and as the moon's fair frame
Cannot continue for two nights the same,
But out of shadow first a crescent shows,
Thence into beauty and perfection grows,
And when the form of plenitude it wears,
Dwindles again, and wholly disappears.
The simile is yet truer of Demetrius and the phases of his
fortunes, now on the increase, presently on the wane, now
filling up and now falling away. And so, at this time of
apparent entire obscuration and extinction, his light again
shone out, and accessions of strength, little by little, came in
to fulfill once more the measure of his hope. At first he
showed himself in the garb of a private man, and went about the
cities without any of the badges of a king. One who saw him
thus at Thebes applied to him not inaptly, the lines of
Euripides,
Humbled to man, laid by the godhead's pride,
He comes to Dirce and Ismenus' side.
But erelong his expectations had reentered the royal track, and
he began once more to have about him the body and form of
empire. The Thebans received back, as his gift, their ancient
constitution. The Athenians had deserted him. They displaced
Diphilus, who was that year the priest of the two Tutelar
Deities, and restored the archons, as of old, to mark the year;
and on hearing that Demetrius was not so weak as they had
expected, they sent into Macedonia to beg the protection of
Pyrrhus. Demetrius, in anger, marched to Athens, and laid close
siege to the city. In this distress, they sent out to him
Crates the philosopher, a person of authority and reputation,
who succeeded so far, that what with his entreaties and the
solid reasons which he offered, Demetrius was persuaded to raise
the siege; and, collecting all his ships, he embarked a force of
eleven thousand men with cavalry, and sailed away to Asia, to
Caria and Lydia, to take those provinces from Lysimachus.
Arriving at Miletus, he was met there by Eurydice, the sister of
Phila, who brought along with her Ptolemais, one of her
daughters by king Ptolemy, who had before been affianced to
Demetrius, and with whom he now consummated his marriage.
Immediately after, he proceeded to carry out his project, and
was so fortunate in the beginning, that many cities revolted to
him; others, as particularly Sardis, he took by force; and some
generals of Lysimachus, also, came over to him with troops and
money. But when Agathocles, the son of Lysimachus, arrived with
an army, he retreated into Phrygia, with an intention to pass
into Armenia, believing that, if he could once plant his foot in
Armenia, he might set Media in revolt, and gain a position in
Upper Asia, where a fugitive commander might find a hundred ways
of evasion and escape. Agathocles pressed hard upon him, and
many skirmishes and conflicts occurred, in which Demetrius had
still the advantage; but Agathocles straitened him much in his
forage, and his men showed a great dislike to his purpose, which
they suspected, of carrying them far away into Armenia and
Media. Famine also pressed upon them, and some mistake occurred
in their passage of the river Lycus, in consequence of which a
large number were swept away and drowned. Still, however, they
could pass their jests, and one of them fixed upon Demetrius's
tent-door a paper with the first verse, slightly altered of the
Oedipus; --
Child of the blind old man, Antigonus,
Into what country are you bringing us?
But at last, pestilence, as is usual, when armies are driven to
such necessities as to subsist upon any food they can get, began
to assail them as well as famine. So that, having lost eight
thousand of his men, with the rest he retreated and came to
Tarsus, and because that city was within the dominions of
Seleucus, he was anxious to prevent any plundering, and wished
to give no sort of offense to Seleucus. But when he perceived
it was impossible to restrain the soldiers in their extreme
necessity, Agathocles also having blocked up all the avenues of
Mount Taurus, he wrote a letter to Seleucus, bewailing first all
his own sad fortunes, and proceeding with entreaties and
supplications for some compassion on his part towards one
nearly connected with him, who was fallen into such calamities
as might extort tenderness and
pity from his very enemies.
These letters so far moved Seleucus, that he gave orders to the
governors of those provinces that they should furnish Demetrius
with all things suitable to his royal rank, and with sufficient
provisions for his troops. But Patrocles, a person whose
judgment was greatly valued, and who was a friend highly trusted
by Seleucus, pointed out to him, that the expense of maintaining
such a body of soldiers was the least important consideration,
but that it was contrary to all policy to let Demetrius stay in
the country, since he, of all the kings of his time, was the
most violent, and most addicted to daring enterprises; and he
was now in a condition which might tempt persons of the greatest
temper and moderation to unlawful and desperate attempts.
Seleucus, excited by this advice, moved with a powerful army
towards Cilicia; and Demetrius, astonished at this sudden
alteration, betook himself for safety to the most inaccessible
places of Mount Taurus; from whence he sent envoys to Seleucus,
to request from him that he would permit him the liberty to
settle with his army somewhere among the independent barbarian
tribes, where he might be able to make himself a petty king, and
end his life without further travel and hardship; or, if he
refused him this, at any rate to give his troops food during the
winter, and not expose him in this distressed and naked
condition to the fury of his enemies.
But Seleucus, whose jealousy made him put an ill construction on
all he said, sent him answer, that he would permit him to stay
two months and no longer in Cataonia, provided he presently sent
him the principal of his friends as hostages for his departure
then; and, in the meantime, he fortified all the passages into
Syria. So that Demetrius, who saw himself thus, like a wild
beast, in the way to be encompassed on all sides in the toils,
was driven in desperation to his defense, overran the country,
and in several engagements in which Seleucus attacked him, had
the advantage of him. Particularly, when he was once assailed
by the scythed chariots, he successfully avoided the charge and
routed his assailants, and then, expelling the troops that were
in guard of the passes, made himself master of the roads leading
into Syria. And now, elated himself, and finding his soldiers
also animated by these successes, he was resolved to push at
all, and to have one deciding blow for the empire with Seleucus;
who, indeed, was in considerable anxiety and distress, being
averse to any assistance from Lysimachus, whom he both
mistrusted and feared, and shrinking from a battle with
Demetrius, whose desperation he knew, and whose fortune he had
so often seen suddenly pass from the lowest to the highest.
But Demetrius, in the meanwhile, was taken with a violent
sickness, from which he suffered extremely himself, and which
ruined all his prospects. His men deserted to the enemy, or
dispersed. At last, after forty days, he began to be so far
recovered as to be able to rally his remaining forces, and
marched as if he directly designed for Cilicia; but in the
night, raising his camp without sound of trumpet, he took a
countermarch, and, passing the mountain Amanus, he ravaged an
the lower country as far as Cyrrhestica.
Upon this, Seleucus advancing towards him and encamping at no
great distance, Demetrius set his troops in motion to surprise
him by night. And almost to the last moment Seleucus knew
nothing, and was lying asleep. Some deserter came with the
tidings just so soon that he had time to leap, in great
consternation, out of bed, and give the alarm to his men. And
as he was putting on his boots to mount his horse, he bade the
officers about him look well to it, for they had to meet a
furious and terrible wild beast. But Demetrius, by the noise he
heard in the camp, finding they had taken the alarm, drew off
his troops in haste. With the morning's return he found
Seleucus pressing hard upon him; so, sending one of his officers
against the other wing, he defeated those that were opposed to
himself. But Seleucus, lighting from his horse, pulling off his
helmet, and taking a target, advanced to the foremost ranks of
the mercenary soldiers, and, showing them who he was, bade them
come over and join him, telling them that it was for their sakes
only that he had so long forborne coming to extremities. And
thereupon, without a blow more, they saluted Seleucus as their
king, and passed over.
Demetrius, who felt that this was his last change of fortune,
and that he had no more vicissitudes to expect, fled to the
passes of Amanus, where, with a very few friends and followers,
he threw himself into a dense forest, and there waited for the
night, purposing, if possible, to make his escape towards
Caunus, where he hoped to find his shipping ready to transport
him. But upon inquiry, finding that they had not provisions
even for that one day, he began to think of some other project.
Whilst he was yet in doubt, his friend Sosigenes arrived, who
had four hundred pieces of gold about him, and, with this
relief, he again entertained hopes of being able to reach the
coast, and, as soon as it began to be dark, set forward towards
the passes. But, perceiving by the fires that the enemies had
occupied them, he gave up all thought of that road, and
retreated to his old station in the wood, but not with all his
men; for some had deserted, nor were those that remained as
willing as they had been. One of them, in fine, ventured to
speak out, and say that Demetrius had better give himself up to
Seleucus; which Demetrius overhearing, drew out his sword, and
would have passed it through his body, but that some of his
friends interposed and prevented the attempt, persuading him to
do as had been said. So at last he gave way, and sent to
Seleucus, to surrender himself at discretion.
Seleucus, when he was told of it, said it was not Demetrius's
good fortune that had found out this means for his safety, but
his own, which had added to his other honors the opportunity of
showing his clemency and generosity. And forthwith he gave
order to his domestic officers to prepare a royal pavilion, and
all things suitable to give him a splendid reception and
entertainment. There was in the attendance of Seleucus one
Apollonides, who formerly had been intimate with Demetrius. He
was, therefore, as the fittest person, dispatched from the king
to meet Demetrius, that he might feel himself more at his ease,
and might come with the confidence of being received as a friend
and relative. No sooner was this message known, but the
courtiers and officers, some few at first, and afterwards almost
the whole of them, thinking, Demetrius would presently become
of great power with the king, hurried off, vying who should be
foremost to pay him their respects. The effect of which was
that compassion was converted into jealousy, and ill-natured,
malicious people could the more easily insinuate to Seleucus
that he was giving way to an unwise humanity, the very first
sight of Demetrius having been the occasion of a dangerous
excitement in the army. So, whilst Apollonides, in great
delight, and after him many others, were relating to Demetrius
the kind expressions of Seleucus, and he, after so many troubles
and calamities, if indeed he had still any sense of his
surrender of himself being a disgrace, had now, in confidence on
the good hopes held out to him, entirely forgotten all such
thoughts, Pausanias, with a guard of a thousand horse and foot,
came and surrounded him; and, dispersing the rest that were with
him, carried him, not to the presence of Seleucus, but to the
Syrian Chersonese, where he was committed to the safe custody
of a strong guard. Sufficient attendance and liberal provision
were here allowed him, space for riding and walking, a park with
game for hunting, those of his friends and companions in exile
who wished it had permission to see him, and messages of
kindness, also, from time to time, were brought him from
Seleucus, bidding him fear nothing, and intimating, that, so
soon as Antiochus and Stratonice should arrive, he would receive
his liberty.
Demetrius, however, finding himself in this condition, sent
letters to those who were with his son, and to his captains and
friends at Athens and Corinth, that they should give no manner
of credit to any letters written to them in his name, though
they were sealed with his own signet, but that, looking upon him
as if he were already dead, they should maintain the cities and
whatever was left of his power, for Antigonus, as his successor.
Antigonus received the news of his father's captivity with great
sorrow; he put himself into mourning, and wrote letters to the
rest of the kings, and to Seleucus himself, making entreaties,
and offering not only to surrender whatever they had left, but
himself to be a hostage for his father. Many cities, also, and
princes joined in interceding for him; only Lysimachus sent and
offered a large sum of money to Seleucus to take away his life.
But he, who had always shown his aversion to Lysimachus before,
thought him only the greater barbarian and monster for it.
Nevertheless, he still protracted the time, reserving the favor,
as he professed, for the intercession of Antiochus and
Stratonice.
Demetrius, who had sustained the first stroke of his misfortune,
in time grew so familiar with it, that, by continuance, it
became easy. At first he persevered one way or other in taking
exercise, in hunting, so far as he had means, and in riding.
Little by little, however, after a while, he let himself grow
indolent and indisposed for them, and took to dice and drinking,
in which he passed most of his time, whether it were to escape
the thoughts of his present condition, with which he was haunted
when sober, and to drown reflection in drunkenness, or that he
acknowledged to himself that this was the real happy life he had
long desired and wished for, and had foolishly let himself be
seduced away from it by a senseless and vain ambition, which had
only brought trouble to himself and others; that highest good
which he had thought to obtain by arms and fleets and soldiers,
he had now discovered unexpectedly in idleness, leisure, and
repose. As, indeed, what other end or period is there of all
the wars and dangers which hapless princes run into, whose
misery and folly it is, not merely that they make luxury and
pleasure, instead of virtue and excellence, the object of their
lives, but that they do not so much as know where this luxury
and pleasure are to be found?
Having thus continued three years a prisoner in Chersonesus, for
want of exercise, and by indulging himself in eating and
drinking, he fell into a disease, of which he died at the age of
fifty-four. Seleucus was ill-spoken of, and was himself greatly
grieved, that he had yielded so far to his suspicions, and had
let himself be so much outdone by the barbarian Dromichaetes of
Thrace, who had shown so much humanity and such a kingly temper
in his treatment of his prisoner Lysimachus.
There was something dramatic and theatrical in the very funeral
ceremonies with which Demetrius was honored. For his son
Antigonus, understanding that his remains were coming over from
Syria, went with all his fleet to the islands to meet them.
They were there presented to him in a golden urn, which he
placed in his largest admiral galley. All the cities where they
touched in their passage sent chaplets to adorn the urn, and
deputed certain of their citizens to follow in mourning, to
assist at the funeral solemnity. When the fleet approached the
harbor of Corinth, the urn, covered with purple, and a royal
diadem upon it, was visible upon the poop, and a troop of young
men attended in arms to receive it at landing Xenophantus, the
most famous musician of the day, played on the flute his most
solemn measure, to which the rowers, as the ship came in, made
loud response, their oars, like the funeral beating of the
breast, keeping time with the cadences of the music. But
Antigonus, in tears and mourning attire, excited among the
spectators gathered on the shore the greatest sorrow and
compassion. After crowns and other honors had been offered at
Corinth, the remains were conveyed to Demetrias, a city to which
Demetrius had given his name, peopled from the inhabitants of
the small villages of Iolcus.
Demetrius left no other children by his wife Phila but Antigonus
and Stratonice, but he had two other sons, both of his own name,
one surnamed the Thin, by an Illyrian mother, and one who ruled
in Cyrene, by Ptolemais. He had also, by Deidamia, a son,
Alexander, who lived and died in Egypt; and there are some who
say that he had a son by Eurydice, named Corrhabus. His family
was continued in a succession of kings down to Perseus, the
last, from whom the Romans took Macedonia.
And now, the Macedonian drama being ended, let us prepare to see
the Roman.
ANTONY
The grandfather of Antony was the famous pleader, whom Marius
put to death for having taken part with Sylla. His father was
Antony, surnamed of Crete, not very famous or distinguished in
public life, but a worthy, good man, and particularly remarkable
for his liberality, as may appear from a single example. He was
not very rich, and was for that reason checked in the exercise
of his good-nature by his wife. A friend that stood in need of
money came to borrow of him. Money he had none, but he bade a
servant bring him water in a silver basin, with which, when it
was brought, he wetted his face, as if he meant to shave; and,
sending away the servant upon another errand, gave his friend
the basin, desiring him to turn it to his purpose. And when
there was, afterwards, a great inquiry for it in the house, and
his wife was in a very ill humor, and was going to put the
servants one by one to the search, he acknowledged what he had
done, and begged her pardon.
His wife was Julia, of the family of the Caesars, who, for her
discretion and fair behavior, was not inferior to any of her
time. Under her, Antony received his education, she being,
after the death of his father, remarried to Cornelius Lentulus.
who was put to death by Cicero for having been of Catiline's
conspiracy. This, probably, was the first ground and occasion
of that mortal grudge that Antony bore Cicero. He says, even,
that the body of Lentulus was denied burial, till, by
application made to Cicero's wife, it was granted to Julia. But
this seems to be a manifest error, for none of those that
suffered in the consulate of Cicero had the right of burial
denied them. Antony grew up a very beautiful youth, but, by the
worst of misfortunes, he fell into the acquaintance and
friendship of Curio, a man abandoned to his pleasures; who, to
make Antony's dependence upon him a matter of greater necessity,
plunged him into a life of drinking and dissipation, and led him
through a course of such extravagance, that he ran, at that
early age, into debt to the amount of two hundred and fifty
talents. For this sum, Curio became his surety; on hearing
which, the elder Curio, his father, drove Antony out of his
house. After this, for some short time, he took part with
Clodius, the most insolent and outrageous demagogue of the time,
in his course of violence and disorder; but, getting weary,
before long, of his madness, and apprehensive of the powerful
party forming against him, he left Italy, and traveled into
Greece, where he spent his time in military exercises and in the
study of eloquence. He took most to what was called the Asiatic
taste in speaking, which was then at its height, and was, in
many ways, suitable to his ostentatious, vaunting temper, full
of empty flourishes and unsteady efforts for glory.
After some stay in Greece, he was invited by Gabinius, who had
been consul, to make a campaign with him in Syria, which at
first he refused, not being willing to serve in a private
character, but, receiving a commission to command the horse, he
went along with him. His first service was against Aristobulus,
who had prevailed with the Jews to rebel. Here he was himself
the first man to scale the largest of the works, and beat
Aristobulus out of all of them; after which he routed, in a
pitched battle, an army many times over the number of his,
killed almost all of them, and took Aristobulus and his son
prisoners. This war ended, Gabinius was solicited by Ptolemy to
restore him to his kingdom of Egypt, and a promise made of ten
thousand talents reward. Most of the officers were against this
enterprise, and Gabinius himself did not much like it, though
sorely tempted by the ten thousand talents. But Antony,
desirous of brave actions, and willing to please Ptolemy, joined
in persuading Gabinius to go. And whereas all were of opinion
that the most dangerous thing before them was the march to
Pelusium, in which they would have to pass over a deep sand,
where no fresh water was to be hoped for, along the Ecregma and
the Serbonian marsh (which the Egyptians call Typhon's
breathing-hole, and which is, in probability, water left behind
by, or making its way through from, the Red Sea, which is here
divided from the Mediterranean by a narrow isthmus), Antony,
being ordered thither with the horse, not only made himself
master of the passes, but won Pelusium itself, a great city,
took the garrison prisoners, and, by this means, rendered the
march secure to the army, and the way to victory not difficult
for the general to pursue. The enemy, also, reaped some benefit
of his eagerness for honor. For when Ptolemy, after he had
entered Pelusium, in his rage and spite against the Egyptians,
designed to put them to the sword, Antony withstood him, and
hindered the execution. In all the great and frequent
skirmishes and battles, he gave continual proofs of his
personal valor and military conduct; and once in particular, by
wheeling about and attacking the rear of the enemy, he gave the
victory to the assailants in the front, and received for this
service signal marks of distinction. Nor was his humanity
towards the deceased Archelaus less taken notice of. He had
been formerly his guest and acquaintance, and, as he was now
compelled, he fought him bravely while alive, but, on his death,
sought out his body and buried it with royal honors. The
consequence was that he left behind him a great name among the
Alexandrians, and all who were serving in the Roman army looked
upon him as a most gallant soldier.
He had also a very good and noble appearance; his beard was well
grown, his forehead large, and his nose aquiline, giving him
altogether a bold, masculine look, that reminded people of the
faces of Hercules in paintings and sculptures. It was,
moreover, an ancient tradition, that the Antonys were descended
from Hercules, by a son of his called Anton; and this opinion he
thought to give credit to, by the similarity of his person just
mentioned, and also by the fashion of his dress. For, whenever
he had to appear before large numbers, he wore his tunic girt
low about the hips, a broadsword on his side, and over all a
large, coarse mantle. What might seem to some very
insupportable, his vaunting, his raillery, his drinking in
public, sitting down by the men as they were taking their food,
and eating, as he stood, off the common soldiers' tables, made
him the delight and pleasure of the army. In love affairs,
also, he was very agreeable; he gained many friends by the
assistance he gave them in theirs, and took other people's
raillery upon his own with good-humor. And his generous ways,
his open and lavish hand in gifts and favors to his friends and
fellow-soldiers, did a great deal for him in his first advance
to power, and, after he had become great, long maintained his
fortunes, when a thousand follies were hastening their
overthrow. One instance of his liberality I must relate. He
had ordered payment to one of his friends of twenty-five myriads
of money, or decies, as the Romans call it, and his steward,
wondering at the extravagance of the sum, laid all the silver in
a heap, as he should pass by. Antony, seeing the heap, asked
what it meant; his steward replied, "The money you have ordered
to be given to your friend." So, perceiving the man's malice,
said he, "I thought the decies had been much more; 't is too
little; let it be doubled." This, however, was at a later time.
When the Roman state finally broke up into two hostile factions,
the aristocratical party joining Pompey, who was in the city,
and the popular side seeking help from Caesar, who was at the
head of an army in Gaul, Curio, the friend of Antony, having
changed his party and devoted himself to Caesar, brought over
Antony also to his service. And the influence which he gained
with the people by his eloquence and by the money which was
supplied by Caesar enabled him to make Antony, first, tribune of
the people, and then, augur. And Antony's accession to office
was at once of the greatest advantage to Caesar. In the first
place, he resisted the consul Marcellus, who was putting under
Pompey's orders the troops who were already collected, and was
giving him power to raise new levies; he, on the other hand,
making an order that they should be sent into Syria to reinforce
Bibulus, who was making war with the Parthians, and that no one
should give in his name to serve under Pompey. Next, when the
senators would not suffer Caesar's letters to be received or
read in the senate, by virtue of his office he read them
publicly, and succeeded so well, that many were brought to
change their mind; Caesar's demands, as they appeared in what he
wrote, being but just and reasonable. At length, two questions
being put in the senate, the one, whether Pompey should dismiss
his army, the other, if Caesar his, some were for the former,
for the latter all, except some few, when Antony stood up and
put the question, if it would be agreeable to them that both
Pompey and Caesar should dismiss their armies. This proposal
met with the greatest approval, they gave him loud acclamations,
and called for it to be put to the vote. But when the consuls
would not have it so, Caesar's friends again made some new
offers, very fair and equitable, but were strongly opposed by
Cato, and Antony himself was commanded to leave the senate by
the consul Lentulus. So, leaving them with execrations, and
disguising himself in a servant's dress, hiring a carriage with
Quintus Cassius, he went straight away to Caesar, declaring at
once, when they reached the camp, that affairs at Rome were
conducted without any order or justice, that the privilege of
speaking in the senate was denied the tribunes, and that he who
spoke for common fair dealing was driven out and in danger of
his life.
Upon this, Caesar set his army in motion, and marched into
Italy; and for this reason it is that Cicero writes in his
Philippics, that Antony was as much the cause of the civil war,
as Helen was of the Trojan. But this is but a calumny. For
Caesar was not of so slight or weak a temper as to suffer
himself to be carried away, by the indignation of the moment,
into a civil war with his country, upon the sight of Antony and
Cassius seeking refuge in his camp, meanly dressed and in a
hired carriage, without ever having thought of it or taken any
such resolution long before. This was to him, who wanted a
pretense of declaring war, a fair and plausible occasion; but
the true motive that led him was the same that formerly led
Alexander and Cyrus against all mankind, the unquenchable thirst
of empire, and the distracted ambition of being the greatest man
in the world, which was impracticable for him, unless Pompey
were put down. So soon, then, as he had advanced and occupied
Rome, and driven Pompey out of Italy, he purposed first to go
against the legions that Pompey had in Spain, and then cross
over and follow him with the fleet that should be prepared
during his absence, in the meantime leaving the government of
Rome to Lepidus, as praetor, and the command of the troops and
of Italy to Antony, as tribune of the people. Antony was not
long in getting the hearts of the soldiers, joining with them in
their exercises, and for the most part living amongst them, and
making them presents to the utmost of his abilities; but with
all others he was unpopular enough. He was too lazy to pay
attention to the complaints of persons who were injured; he
listened impatiently to petitions; and he had an ill name for
familiarity with other people's wives. In short, the government
of Caesar (which, so far as he was concerned himself, had the
appearance of anything rather than a tyranny), got a bad repute
through his friends. And of these friends, Antony, as he had
the largest trust, and committed the greatest errors, was
thought the most deeply in fault.
Caesar, however, at his return from Spain, overlooked the
charges against him, and had no reason ever to complain, in the
employments he gave him in the war, of any want of courage,
energy, or military skill. He himself, going aboard at
Brundusium, sailed over the Ionian Sea with a few troops, and
sent back the vessels with orders to Antony and Gabinius to
embark the army, and come over with all speed into Macedonia.
Gabinius, having no mind to put to sea in the rough, dangerous
weather of the winter season, was for marching the army round by
the long land route; but Antony, being more afraid lest Caesar
might suffer from the number of his enemies, who pressed him
hard, beat back Libo, who was watching with a fleet at the mouth
of the haven of Brundusium, by attacking his galleys with a
number of small boats, and, gaining thus an opportunity, put on
board twenty thousand foot and eight hundred horse, and so set
out to sea. And, being espied by the enemy and pursued, from
this danger he was rescued by a strong south wind, which sprang
up and raised so high a sea, that the enemy's galleys could make
little way. But his own ships were driving before it upon a lee
shore of cliffs and rocks running sheer to the water, where
there was no hope of escape, when all of a sudden the wind
turned about to south-west, and blew from land to the main sea,
where Antony, now sailing in security, saw the coast all covered
with the wreck of the enemy's fleet. For hither the galleys in
pursuit had been carried by the gale, and not a few of them
dashed to pieces. Many men and much property fell into Antony's
hands; he took also the town of Lissus, and, by the seasonable
arrival of so large a reinforcement, gave Caesar great
encouragement.
There was not one of the many engagements that now took place
one after another in which he did not signalize himself; twice
he stopped the army in its full flight, led them back to a
charge, and gained the victory. So that not without reason his
reputation, next to Caesar's, was greatest in the army. And what
opinion Caesar himself had of him well appeared when for the
final battle in Pharsalia, which was to determine everything,
he himself chose to lead the right wing, committing the
charge of the left to Antony, as to the best officer of all that
served under him. After the battle, Caesar, being created
dictator, went in pursuit of Pompey, and sent Antony to Rome,
with the character of Master of the Horse, who is in office and
power next to the dictator, when present, and in his absence is
the first, and pretty nearly indeed the sole magistrate. For on
the appointment of a dictator, with the one exception of the
tribunes, all other magistrates cease to exercise any authority
in Rome.
Dolabella, however, who was tribune, being a young man and eager
for change, was now for bringing in a general measure for
canceling debts, and wanted Antony, who was his friend, and
forward enough to promote any popular project, to take part with
him in this step. Asinius and Trebellius were of the contrary
opinion, and it so happened, at the same time, Antony was
crossed by a terrible suspicion that Dolabella was too familiar
with his wife; and in great trouble at this, he parted with her
(she being his cousin, and daughter to Caius Antonius, the
colleague of Cicero), and, taking part with Asinius, came to
open hostilities with Dolabella, who had seized on the forum,
intending to pass his law by force. Antony, backed by a vote of
the senate that Dolabella should be put down by force of arms,
went down and attacked him, killing some of his, and losing some
of his own men; and by this action lost his favor with the
commonalty, while with the better class and with all well
conducted people his general course of life made him, as Cicero
says, absolutely odious, utter disgust being excited by his
drinking bouts at all hours, his wild expenses, his gross
amours, the day spent in sleeping or walking off his debauches,
and the night in banquets and at theaters, and in celebrating
the nuptials of some comedian or buffoon. It is related that,
drinking all night at the wedding of Hippias, the comedian, on
the morning, having to harangue the people, he came forward,
overcharged as he was, and vomited before them all, one of his
friends holding his gown for him. Sergius, the player, was one
of the friends who could do most with him; also Cytheris, a
woman of the same trade, whom he made much of, and who, when he
went his progress, accompanied him in a litter, and had her
equipage, not in anything inferior to his mother's; while every
one, moreover, was scandalized at the sight of the golden cups
that he took with him, fitter for the ornaments of a procession
than the uses of a journey, at his having pavilions set up, and
sumptuous morning repasts laid out by river-sides and in groves,
at his having chariots drawn by lions, and common women and
singing girls quartered upon the houses of serious fathers and
mothers of families. And it seemed very unreasonable that
Caesar, out of Italy, should lodge in the open field, and, with
great fatigue and danger, pursue the remainder of a hazardous
war, whilst others, by favor of his authority, should insult the
citizens with their impudent luxury.
All this appears to have aggravated party quarrels in Rome, and
to have encouraged the soldiers in acts of license and rapacity.
And, accordingly, when Caesar came home, he acquitted Dolabella,
and, being created the third time consul, took, not Antony, but
Lepidus, for his colleague. Pompey's house being offered for
sale, Antony bought it, and, when the price was demanded of him,
loudly complained. This, he tells us himself, and because he
thought his former services had not been recompensed as they
deserved, made him not follow Caesar with the army into Libya.
However, Caesar, by dealing gently with his errors, seems to
have succeeded in curing him of a good deal of his folly and
extravagance. He gave up his former courses, and took a wife,
Fulvia, the widow of Clodius the demagogue, a woman not born for
spinning or housewifery, nor one that could be content with
ruling a private husband, but prepared to govern a first
magistrate, or give orders to a commander-in-chief. So that
Cleopatra had great obligations to her for having taught Antony
to be so good a servant, he coming to her hands tame and broken
into entire obedience to the commands of a mistress. He used to
play all sorts of sportive, boyish tricks, to keep Fulvia in
good-humor. As, for example, when Caesar, after his victory in
Spain, was on his return, Antony, among the rest, went out to
meet him; and, a rumor being spread that Caesar was killed and
the enemy marching into Italy, he resumed to Rome, and,
disguising himself, came to her by night muffled up as a servant
that brought letters from Antony. She, with great impatience,
before she received the letter, asks if Antony were well, and
instead of an answer he gives her the letter; and, as she was
opening it, took her about the neck and kissed her. This little
story of many of the same nature, I give as a specimen.
There was nobody of any rank in Rome that did not go some days'
journey to meet Caesar on his return from Spain; but Antony was
the best received of any, admitted to ride the whole journey
with him in his carriage, while behind came Brutus Albinus, and
Octavian, his niece's son, who afterwards bore his name and
reigned so long over the Romans. Caesar being created, the
fifth time, consul, without delay chose Antony for his
colleague, but, designing himself to give up his own consulate
to Dolabella, he acquainted the senate with his resolution. But
Antony opposed it with all his might, saying much that was bad
against Dolabella, and receiving the like language in return,
till Caesar could bear with the indecency no longer, and
deferred the matter to another time. Afterwards, when he came
before the people to proclaim Dolabella, Antony cried out that
the auspices were unfavorable, so that at last Caesar, much to
Dolabella's vexation, yielded and gave it up. And it is
credible that Caesar was about as much disgusted with the one as
the other. When someone was accusing them both to him, "It is
not," said he, "these well fed, long-haired men that I fear, but
the pale and the hungry looking;" meaning Brutus and Cassius, by
whose conspiracy he afterwards fell.
And the fairest pretext for that conspiracy was furnished,
without his meaning it, by Antony himself. The Romans were
celebrating their festival, called the Lupercalia, when Caesar,
in his triumphal habit, and seated above the Rostra in the
market-place, was a spectator of the sports. The custom is,
that many young noblemen and of the magistracy, anointed with
oil and having straps of hide in their hands, run about and
strike, in sport, at everyone they meet. Antony was running
with the rest; but, omitting the old ceremony, twining a garland
of bay round a diadem, he ran up to the Rostra, and, being
lifted up by his companions, would have put it upon the head of
Caesar, as if by that ceremony he were declared king. Caesar
seemingly refused, and drew aside to avoid it, and was applauded
by the people with great shouts. Again Antony pressed it, and
again he declined its acceptance. And so the dispute between
them went on for some time, Antony's solicitations receiving but
little encouragement from the shouts of a few friends, and
Caesar's refusal being accompanied with the general applause of
the people; a curious thing enough, that they should submit with
patience to the fact, and yet at the same time dread the name as
the destruction of their liberty. Caesar, very much discomposed
at what had past, got up from his seat, and, laying bare his
neck, said, he was ready to receive the stroke, if any one of
them desired to give it. The crown was at last put on one of
his statues, but was taken down by some of the tribunes, who
were followed home by the people with shouts of applause.
Caesar, however, resented it, and deposed them.
These passages gave great encouragement to Brutus and Cassius,
who, in making choice of trusty friends for such an enterprise,
were thinking to engage Antony. The rest approved, except
Trebonius, who told them that Antony and he had lodged and
traveled together in the last journey they took to meet Caesar,
and that he had
let fall several words, in a cautious way, on purpose to sound
him; that Antony very well understood him, but did not encourage
it; however, he had said nothing of it to Caesar, but had kept
the secret faithfully. The conspirators then proposed that
Antony should die with him, which Brutus would not consent to,
insisting that an action undertaken in defense of right and the
laws must be maintained unsullied, and pure of injustice. It
was settled that Antony, whose bodily strength and high office
made him formidable, should, at Caesar's entrance into the
senate, when the deed was to be done, be amused outside by some
of the party in a conversation about some pretended business.
So when all was proceeded with, according to their plan, and
Caesar had fallen in the senate-house, Antony, at the first
moment, took a servant's dress, and hid himself. But,
understanding that the conspirators had assembled in the
Capitol, and had no further design upon anyone, he persuaded
them to come down, giving them his son as a hostage. That night
Cassius supped at Antony's house, and Brutus with Lepidus.
Antony then convened the senate, and spoke in favor of an act of
oblivion, and the appointment of Brutus and Cassius to
provinces. These measures the senate passed; and resolved that
all Caesar's acts should remain in force. Thus Antony went out
of the senate with the highest possible reputation and esteem;
for it was apparent that he had prevented a civil war, and had
composed, in the wisest and most statesman-like way, questions
of the greatest difficulty and embarrassment. But these
temperate counsels were soon swept away by the tide of popular
applause, and the prospects, if Brutus were overthrown, of being
without doubt the ruler-in-chief. As Caesar's body was
conveying to the tomb, Antony, according to the custom, was
making his funeral oration in the market; place, and, perceiving
the people to be infinitely affected with what he had said, he
began to mingle with his praises language of commiseration, and
horror at what had happened, and, as he was ending his speech,
he took the under-clothes of the dead, and held them up,
showing them stains of blood and the holes of the many stabs,
calling those that had done this act villains and bloody
murderers. All which excited the people to such indignation,
that they would not defer the funeral, but, making a pile of
tables and forms in the very market-place, set fire to it; and
everyone, taking a brand, ran to the conspirators' houses, to
attack them.
Upon this, Brutus and his whole party left the city, and
Caesar's friends joined themselves to Antony. Calpurnia,
Caesar's wife, lodged with him the best part of the property, to
the value of four thousand talents; he got also into his hands
all Caesar's papers, wherein were contained journals of all he
had done, and draughts of what he designed to do, which Antony
made good use of; for by this means he appointed what
magistrates he pleased, brought whom he would into the senate,
recalled some from exile, freed others out of prison, and all
this as ordered so by Caesar. The Romans, in mockery, gave
those who were thus benefited the name of Charonites, since, if
put to prove their patents, they must have recourse to the
papers of the dead. In short, Antony's behavior in Rome was
very absolute, he himself being consul, and his two brothers in
great place; Caius, the one, being praetor, and Lucius, the
other, tribune of the people.
While matters went thus in Rome, the young Caesar, Caesar's
niece's son, and by testament left his heir, arrived at Rome
from Apollonia, where he was when his uncle was killed. The
first thing he did was to visit Antony, as his father's friend.
He spoke to him concerning the money that was in his hands, and
reminded him of the legacy Caesar had made of seventy-five
drachmas to every Roman citizen. Antony, at first, laughing at
such discourse from so young a man, told him he wished he were
in his health, and that he wanted good counsel and good friends,
to tell him the burden of being executor to Caesar would sit
very uneasily upon his young shoulders. This was no answer to
him; and, when he persisted in demanding the property, Antony
went on treating him injuriously both in word and deed, opposed
him when he stood for the tribune's office, and, when he was
taking steps for the dedication of his father's golden chair, as
had been enacted, he threatened to send him to prison if he did
not give over soliciting the people. This made the young Caesar
apply himself to Cicero, and all those that hated Antony; by
them he was recommended to the senate, while he himself courted
the people, and drew together the soldiers from their
settlements, till Antony got alarmed, and gave him a meeting in
the Capitol, where, after some words, they came to an
accommodation.
That night Antony had a very unlucky dream, fancying that his
right hand was thunderstruck. And, some few days after, he was
informed that Caesar was plotting to take his life. Caesar
explained, but was not believed, so that the breach was now made
as wide as ever; each of them hurried about all through Italy to
engage, by great offers, the old soldiers that lay scattered in
their settlements, and to be the first to secure the troops that
still remained undischarged. Cicero was at this time the man of
greatest influence in Rome. He made use of all his art to
exasperate people against Antony, and at length persuaded the
senate to declare him a public enemy, to send Caesar the rods
and axes and other marks of honor usually given to praetors, and
to issue orders to Hirtius and Pansa, who were the consuls, to
drive Antony out of Italy. The armies engaged near Modena, and
Caesar himself was present and took part in the battle. Antony
was defeated, but both the consuls were slain. Antony, in his
flight, was overtaken by distresses of every kind, and the worst
of all of them was famine. But it was his character in
calamities to be better than at any other time. Antony, in
misfortune, was most nearly a virtuous man. It is common enough
for people, when they fall into great disasters, to discern what
is right, and what they ought to do; but there are but few who
in such extremities have the strength to obey their judgment,
either in doing what it approves or avoiding what it condemns;
and a good many are so weak as to give way to their habits all
the more, and are incapable of using their minds. Antony, on
this occasion, was a most wonderful example to his soldiers.
He, who had just quitted so much luxury and sumptuous living,
made no difficulty now of drinking foul water and feeding on
wild fruits and roots. Nay, it is related they ate the very
bark of trees, and, in passing over the Alps, lived upon
creatures that no one before had ever been willing to touch.
The design was to join the army on the other side the Alps,
commanded by Lepidus, who he imagined would stand his friend, he
having done him many good offices with Caesar. On coming up and
encamping near at hand, finding he had no sort of encouragement
offered him, he resolved to push his fortune and venture all.
His hair was long and disordered, nor had he shaved his beard
since his defeat; in this guise, and with a dark colored cloak
flung over him, he came into the trenches of Lepidus, and began
to address the army. Some were moved at his habit, others at
his words, so that Lepidus, not liking it, ordered the trumpets
to sound, that he might be heard no longer. This raised in the
soldiers yet a greater pity, so that they resolved to confer
secretly with him, and dressed Laelius and Clodius in women's
clothes, and sent them to see him. They advised him without
delay to attack Lepidus's trenches, assuring him that a strong
party would receive him, and, if he wished it, would kill
Lepidus. Antony, however, had no wish for this, but next
morning marched his army to pass over the river that parted the
two camps. He was himself the first man that stepped in, and,
as he went through towards the other bank, he saw Lepidus's
soldiers in great numbers reaching out their hands to help him,
and beating down the works to make him way. Being entered into
the camp, and finding himself absolute master, he nevertheless
treated Lepidus with the greatest civility, and gave him the title
of Father, when he spoke to him, and, though he had everything
at his own command, he left him the honor of being called
the general. This fair usage brought over to him Munatius
Plancus, who was not far off with a considerable force. Thus in
great strength he repassed the Alps, leading with him into Italy
seventeen legions and ten thousand horse, besides six legions
which he left in garrison under the command of Varius, one of
his familiar friends and boon companions, whom they used to call
by the nickname of Cotylon.
Caesar, perceiving that Cicero's wishes were for liberty, had
ceased to pay any further regard to him, and was now employing
the mediation of his friends to come to a good understanding
with Antony. They both met together with Lepidus in a small
island, where the conference lasted three days. The empire was
soon determined of, it being divided amongst them as if it had
been their paternal inheritance. That which gave them all the
trouble was to agree who should be put to death, each of them
desiring to destroy his enemies and to save his friends. But,
in the end, animosity to those they hated carried the day
against respect for relations and affection for friends; and
Caesar sacrificed Cicero to Antony, Antony gave up his uncle
Lucius Caesar, and Lepidus received permission to murder his
brother Paulus, or, as others say, yielded his brother to them.
I do not believe anything ever took place more truly savage or
barbarous than this composition, for, in this exchange of blood
for blood, they were equally guilty of the lives they
surrendered and of those they took; or, indeed, more guilty in
the case of their friends, for whose deaths they had not even
the justification of hatred. To complete the reconciliation,
the soldiery, coming about them, demanded that confirmation
should be given to it by some alliance of marriage; Caesar
should marry Clodia, the daughter of Fulvia, wife to Antony.
This also being agreed to, three hundred persons were put to
death by proscription. Antony gave orders to those that were to
kill Cicero, to cut off his head and right hand, with which he
had written his invectives against him; and, when they were
brought before him, he regarded them joyfully, actually bursting
out more than once into laughter, and when he had satiated
himself with the sight of them, ordered them to be hung up above
the speaker's place in the forum, thinking thus to insult the
dead, while in fact he only exposed his own wanton arrogance,
and his unworthiness to hold the power that fortune had given
him. His uncle Lucius Caesar, being closely pursued, took
refuge with his sister, who, when the murderers had broken into
her house and were pressing into her chamber, met them at the
door, and, spreading out her hands, cried out several times,
"You shall not kill Lucius Caesar till you first dispatch me,
who gave your general his birth;" and in this manner she
succeeded in getting her brother out of the way, and saving his
life.
This triumvirate was very hateful to the Romans, and Antony most
of all bore the blame, because he was older than Caesar, and had
greater authority than Lepidus, and withal he was no sooner
settled in his affairs, but he returned to his luxurious and
dissolute way of living. Besides the ill reputation he gained
by his general behavior, it was some considerable disadvantage
to him his living in the house of Pompey the Great, who had been
as much admired for his temperance and his sober, citizen-like
habits of life, as ever he was for having triumphed three times.
They could not without anger see the doors of that house shut
against magistrates, officers, and envoys, who were shamefully
refused admittance, while it was filled inside with players,
jugglers, and drunken flatterers, upon whom were spent the
greatest part of the wealth which violence and cruelty procured.
For they did not limit themselves to the forfeiture of the
estates of such as were proscribed, defrauding the widows and
families, nor were they contented with laying on every possible
kind of tax and imposition; but, hearing that several sums of
money were, as well by strangers as citizens of Rome, deposited
in the hands of the vestal virgins, they went and took the money
away by force. When it was manifest that nothing would ever be
enough for Antony, Caesar at last called for a division of
property. The army was also divided between them, upon their
march into Macedonia to make war with Brutus and Cassius,
Lepidus being left with the command of the city.
However, after they had crossed the sea and engaged in
operations of war, encamping in front of the enemy, Antony
opposite Cassius, and Caesar opposite Brutus, Caesar did nothing
worth relating, and all the success and victory were Antony's.
In the first battle, Caesar was completely routed by Brutus, his
camp taken, he himself very narrowly escaping by flight. As he
himself writes in his Memoirs, he retired before the battle, on
account of a dream which one of his friends had. But Antony, on
the other hand, defeated Cassius; though some have written that
he was not actually present in the engagement, and only joined
afterwards in the pursuit. Cassius was killed, at his own
entreaty and order, by one of his most trusted freedmen,
Pindarus, not being aware of Brutus's victory. After a few
days' interval, they fought another battle, in which Brutus lost
the day, and slew himself; and Caesar being sick, Antony had
almost all the honor of the victory. Standing over Brutus's
dead body, he uttered a few words of reproach upon him for the
death of his brother Caius, who had been executed by Brutus's
order in Macedonia in revenge of Cicero; but, saying presently
that Hortensius was most to blame for it, he gave order for his
being slain upon his brother's tomb, and, throwing his own
scarlet mantle, which was of great value, upon the body of
Brutus, he gave charge to one of his own freedmen to take care
of his funeral. This man, as Antony came to understand, did not
leave the mantle with the corpse, but kept both it and a good
part of the money that should have been spent in the funeral for
himself; for which he had him put to death.
But Caesar was conveyed to Rome, no one expecting that he would
long survive. Antony, proposing to go to the eastern provinces
to lay them under contribution, entered Greece with a large
force. The promise had been made that every common soldier
should receive for his pay five thousand drachmas; so it was
likely there would be need of pretty severe taxing and levying
to raise money. However, to the Greeks he showed at first
reason and moderation enough; he gratified his love of amusement
by hearing the learned men dispute, by seeing the games, and
undergoing initiation; and in judicial matters he was equitable,
taking pleasure in being styled a lover of Greece, but, above
all, in being called a lover of Athens, to which city he made
very considerable presents. The people of Megara wished to let
him know that they also had something to show him, and invited
him to come and see their senate-house. So he went and examined
it, and on their asking him how he liked it, told them it was
"not very large, but extremely ruinous." At the same time, he
had a survey made of the temple of the Pythian Apollo, as if he
had designed to repair it, and indeed he had declared to the
senate his intention so to do.
However, leaving Lucius Censorinus in Greece, he crossed over
into Asia, and there laid his hands on the stores of accumulated
wealth, while kings waited at his door, and queens were rivaling
one another, who should make him the greatest presents or appear
most charming in his eyes. Thus, whilst Caesar in Rome was
wearing out his strength amidst seditions and wars, Antony, with
nothing to do amidst the enjoyments of peace, let his passions
carry him easily back to the old course of life that was
familiar to him. A set of harpers and pipers, Anaxenor and
Xuthus, the dancing-man Metrodorus, and a whole Bacchic rout of
the like Asiatic exhibitors, far outdoing in license and
buffoonery the pests that had followed out of Italy, came in and
possessed the court; the thing was past patience, wealth of all
kinds being wasted on objects like these. The whole of Asia was
like the city in Sophocles, loaded, at one time,
with incense in the air,
Jubilant songs, and outcries of despair.
When he made his entry into Ephesus, the women met him dressed
up like Bacchantes, and the men and boys like Satyrs and Fauns,
and throughout the town nothing was to be seen but spears
wreathed about with ivy, harps, flutes, and psaltries, while
Antony in their songs was Bacchus the Giver of Joy and the
Gentle. And so indeed he was to some, but to far more the
Devourer and the Savage; for he would deprive persons of worth
and quality of their fortunes to gratify villains and
flatterers, who would sometimes beg the estates of men yet
living, pretending they were dead, and, obtaining a grant, take
possession. He gave his cook the house of a Magnesian citizen,
as a reward for a single highly successful supper, and, at last,
when he was proceeding to lay a second whole tribute on Asia,
Hybreas, speaking on behalf of the cities, took courage, and
told him broadly, but aptly enough for Antony's taste, "If you
can take two yearly tributes, you can doubtless give us a couple
of summers, and a double harvest time;" and put it to him in the
plainest and boldest way, that Asia had raised two hundred
thousand talents for his service: "If this has not been paid to
you, ask your collectors for it; if it has, and is all gone, we
are ruined men." These words touched Antony to the quick, who
was simply ignorant of most things that were done in his name;
not that he was so indolent, as he was prone to trust frankly in
all about him. For there was much simplicity in his character;
he was slow to see his faults, but, when he did see them, was
extremely repentant, and ready to ask pardon of those he had
injured; prodigal in his acts of reparation, and severe in his
punishments, but his generosity was much more extravagant than
his severity; his raillery was sharp and insulting, but the edge
of it was taken off by his readiness to submit to any kind of
repartee; for he was as well contented to be rallied, as he was
pleased to rally others. And this freedom of speech was,
indeed, the cause of many of his disasters. He never imagined
that those who used so much liberty in their mirth would flatter
or deceive him in business of consequence, not knowing how
common it is with parasites to mix their flattery with boldness,
as confectioners do their sweetmeats with something biting, to
prevent the sense of satiety. Their freedoms and impertinences
at table were designed expressly to give to their obsequiousness
in council the air of being not complaisance, but conviction.
Such being his temper, the last and crowning mischief that could
befall him came in the love of Cleopatra, to awaken and kindle
to fury passions that as yet lay still and dormant in his
nature, and to stifle and finally corrupt any elements that yet
made resistance in him, of goodness and a sound judgment. He
fell into the snare thus. When making preparation for the
Parthian war, he sent to command her to make her personal
appearance in Cilicia, to answer an accusation, that she had
given great assistance, in the late wars, to Cassius. Dellius,
who was sent on this message, had no sooner seen her face, and
remarked her adroitness and subtlety in speech, but he felt
convinced that Antony would not so much as think of giving any
molestation to a woman like this; on the contrary, she would be
the first in favor with him. So he set himself at once to pay
his court to the Egyptian, and gave her his advice, "to go," in
the Homeric style, to Cilicia, "in her best attire," and bade
her fear nothing from Antony, the gentlest and kindest of
soldiers. She had some faith in the words of Dellius, but more
in her own attractions, which, having formerly recommended her
to Caesar and the young Cnaeus Pompey, she did not doubt might
prove yet more successful with Antony. Their acquaintance was
with her when a girl, young, and ignorant of the world, but she
was to meet Antony in the time of life when women's beauty is
most splendid, and their intellects are in full maturity. She
made great preparation for her journey, of money, gifts, and
ornaments of value, such as so wealthy a kingdom might afford,
but she brought with her her surest hopes in her own magic arts
and charms.
She received several letters, both from Antony and from his
friends, to summon her, but she took no account of these orders;
and at last, as if in mockery of them, she came sailing up the
river Cydnus, in a barge with gilded stern and outspread sails
of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes
and fifes and harps. She herself lay all along, under a canopy
of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful
young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her.
Her maids were dressed like Sea Nymphs and Graces, some steering
at the rudder, some working at the ropes. The perfumes diffused
themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with
multitudes, part following the galley up the river on either
bank, part running out of the city to see the sight. The
market-place was quite emptied, and Antony at last was left
alone sitting upon the tribunal; while the word went through all
the multitude, that Venus was come to feast with Bacchus, for
the common good of Asia. On her arrival, Antony sent to invite
her to supper. She thought it fitter he should come to her; so,
willing to show his good-humor and courtesy, he complied, and
went. He found the preparations to receive him magnificent
beyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number
of lights; for on a sudden there was let down altogether so
great a number of branches with lights in them so ingeniously
disposed, some in squares, and some in circles, that the whole
thing was a spectacle that has seldom been equaled for beauty.
The next day, Antony invited her to supper, and was very
desirous to outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance;
but he found he was altogether beaten in both, and was so well
convinced of it, that he was himself the first to jest and mock
at his poverty of wit, and his rustic awkwardness. She,
perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross, and savored
more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the same
taste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance
or reserve. For her actual beauty, it is said, was not in
itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or
that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the
contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was
irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the
charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all
she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure
merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an
instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to
another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that
she answered by an interpreter; to most of them she spoke
herself, as to the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians,
Syrians, Medes, Parthians, and many others, whose language she
had learnt; which was all the more surprising, because most of
the kings her predecessors scarcely gave themselves the trouble
to acquire the Egyptian tongue, and several of them quite
abandoned the Macedonian.
Antony was so captivated by her, that, while Fulvia his wife
maintained his quarrels in Rome against Caesar by actual force
of arms, and the Parthian troops, commanded by Labienus (the
king's generals having made him commander-in-chief), were
assembled in Mesopotamia, and ready to enter Syria, he could yet
suffer himself to be carried away by her to Alexandria, there to
keep holiday, like a boy, in play and diversion, squandering and
fooling away in enjoyments that most costly, as Antiphon says,
of all valuables, time. They had a sort of company, to which
they gave a particular name, calling it that of the Inimitable
Livers. The members entertained one another daily in turn, with
an extravagance of expenditure beyond measure or belief.
Philotas, a physician of Amphissa, who was at that time a
student of medicine in Alexandria, used to tell my grandfather
Lamprias, that, having some acquaintance with one of the royal
cooks, he was invited by him, being a young man, to come and see
the sumptuous preparations for supper. So he was taken into the
kitchen, where he admired the prodigious variety of all things;
but particularly, seeing eight wild boars roasting whole, says
he, "Surely you have a great number of guests." The cook
laughed at his simplicity, and told him there were not above
twelve to sup, but that every dish was to be served up just
roasted to a turn, and if anything was but one minute ill-timed,
it was spoiled; "And," said he, "maybe Antony will sup just now,
maybe not this hour, maybe he will call for wine, or begin to
talk, and will put it off. So that," he continued, "it is not
one, but many suppers must be had in readiness, as it is
impossible to guess at his hour." This was Philotas's story;
who related besides, that he afterwards came to be one of the
medical attendants of Antony's eldest son by Fulvia, and used to
be invited pretty often, among other companions, to his table,
when he was not supping with his father. One day another
physician had talked loudly, and given great disturbance to the
company, whose mouth Philotas stopped with this sophistical
syllogism: "In some states of fever the patient should take cold
water; everyone who has a fever is in some state of fever;
therefore in a fever cold water should always be taken." The
man was quite struck dumb, and Antony's son, very much pleased,
laughed aloud, and said, Philotas, "I make you a present of all
you see there," pointing to a sideboard covered with plate.
Philotas thanked him much, but was far enough from ever
imagining that a boy of his age could dispose of things of that
value. Soon after, however, the plate was all brought to him,
and he was desired to set his mark upon it; and when he put it
away from him, and was afraid to accept the present, "What ails
the man?" said he that brought it; "do you know that he who
gives you this is Antony's son, who is free to give it, if it
were all gold? but if you will be advised by me, I would counsel
you to accept of the value in money from us; for there may be
amongst the rest some antique or famous piece of workmanship,
which Antony would be sorry to part with." These anecdotes my
grandfather told us Philotas used frequently to relate.
To return to Cleopatra; Plato admits four sorts of flattery,
but she had a thousand. Were Antony serious or disposed to
mirth, she had at any moment some new delight or charm to meet
his wishes; at every turn she was upon him, and let him escape
her neither by day nor by night. She played at dice with him,
drank with him, hunted with him; and when he exercised in arms,
she was there to see. At night she would go rambling with him
to disturb and torment people at their doors and windows,
dressed like a servant-woman, for Antony also went in servant's
disguise, and from these expeditions he often came home very
scurvily answered, and sometimes even beaten severely, though
most people guessed who it was. However, the Alexandrians in
general liked it all well enough, and joined good humoredly and
kindly in his frolic and play, saying they were much obliged to
Antony for acting his tragic parts at Rome, and keeping his
comedy for them. It would be trifling without end to be
particular in his follies, but his fishing must not be
forgotten. He went out one day to angle with Cleopatra, and,
being so unfortunate as to catch nothing in the presence of his
mistress, he gave secret orders to the fishermen to dive under
water, and put fishes that had been already taken upon his
hooks; and these he drew so fast that the Egyptian perceived it.
But, feigning great admiration, she told everybody how dexterous
Antony was, and invited them next day to come and see him again.
So, when a number of them had come on board the fishing boats,
as soon as he had let down his hook, one of her servants was
beforehand with his divers, and fixed upon his hook a salted
fish from Pontus. Antony, feeling his line give, drew up the
prey, and when, as may be imagined, great laughter ensued,
"Leave," said Cleopatra, "the fishing-rod, general, to us poor
sovereigns of Pharos and Canopus; your game is cities,
provinces, and kingdoms."
Whilst he was thus diverting himself and engaged in this boys'
play, two dispatches arrived; one from Rome, that his brother
Lucius and his wife Fulvia, after many quarrels among
themselves, had joined in war against Caesar, and, having lost
all, had fled out of Italy; the other bringing little better
news, that Labienus, at the head of the Parthians, was
overrunning Asia, from Euphrates and Syria as far as Lydia and
Ionia. So, scarcely at last rousing himself from sleep, and
shaking off the fumes of wine, he set out to attack the
Parthians, and went as far as Phoenicia; but, upon the receipt
of lamentable letters from Fulvia, turned his course with two
hundred ships to Italy. And, in his way, receiving, such of his
friends as fled from Italy, he was given to understand that
Fulvia was the sole cause of the war, a woman of a restless
spirit and very bold, and withal her hopes were that commotions
in Italy would force Antony from Cleopatra. But it happened
that Fulvia, as she was coming to meet her husband, fell sick by
the way, and died at Sicyon, so that an accommodation was the
more easily made. For when he reached Italy, and Caesar showed
no intention of laying anything to his charge, and he on his
part shifted the blame of everything on Fulvia, those that were
friends to them would not suffer that the time should be spent
in looking narrowly into the plea, but made a reconciliation
first, and then a partition of the empire between them, taking
as their boundary the Ionian Sea, the eastern provinces falling
to Antony, to Caesar the western, and Africa being left to
Lepidus. And an agreement was made, that everyone in their
turn, as he thought fit, should make their friends consuls,
when they did not choose to take the offices themselves.
These terms were well approved of, but yet it was thought some
closer tie would be desirable; and for this, fortune offered
occasion. Caesar had an elder sister, not of the whole blood,
for Attia was his mother's name, hers Ancharia. This sister,
Octavia, he was extremely attached to, as, indeed, she was, it
is said, quite a wonder of a woman. Her husband, Caius
Marcellus, had died not long before, and Antony was now a
widower by the death of Fulvia; for, though he did not disavow
the passion he had for Cleopatra, yet he disowned anything of
marriage, reason, as yet, upon this point, still maintaining the
debate against the charms of the Egyptian. Everybody concurred
in promoting this new alliance, fully expecting that with the
beauty, honor, and prudence of Octavia, when her company should,
as it was certain it would, have engaged his affections, all
would be kept in the safe and happy course of friendship. So,
both parties being agreed, they went to Rome to celebrate the
nuptials, the senate dispensing with the law by which a widow
was not permitted to marry till ten months after the death of
her husband.
Sextus Pompeius was in possession of Sicily, and with his ships,
under the command of Menas, the pirate, and Menecrates, so
infested the Italian coast, that no vessels durst venture into
those seas. Sextus had behaved with much humanity towards
Antony, having received his mother when she fled with Fulvia,
and it was therefore judged fit that he also should be received
into the peace. They met near the promontory of Misenum, by the
mole of the port, Pompey having his fleet at anchor close by,
and Antony and Caesar their troops drawn up all along the shore.
There it was concluded that Sextus should quietly enjoy the
government of Sicily and Sardinia, he conditioning to scour the
seas of all pirates, and to send so much corn every year to
Rome.
This agreed on, they invited one another to supper, and by lot
it fell to Pompey's turn to give the first entertainment, and
Antony, asking where it was to be, "There," said he, pointing to
the admiral-galley, a ship of six banks of oars, "that is the
only house that Pompey is heir to of his father's." And this
he said, reflecting upon Antony, who was then in possession of
his father's house. Having fixed the ship on her anchors, and
formed a bridgeway from the promontory to conduct on board of
her, he gave them a cordial welcome. And when they began to
grow warm, and jests were passing freely on Antony and
Cleopatra's loves, Menas, the pirate, whispered Pompey in the
ear, "Shall I," said he, "cut the cables, and make you master
not of Sicily only and Sardinia, but of the whole Roman empire?"
Pompey, having considered a little while, returned him answer,
"Menas, this might have been done without acquainting me; now we
must rest content; I do not break my word." And so, having been
entertained by the other two in their turns, he set sail for
Sicily.
After the treaty was completed, Antony dispatched Ventidius into
Asia, to check the advance of the Parthians, while he, as a
compliment to Caesar, accepted the office of priest to the
deceased Caesar. And in any state affair and matter of
consequence, they both behaved themselves with much
consideration and friendliness for each other. But it annoyed
Antony, that in all their amusements, on any trial of skill
or fortune, Caesar should be constantly victorious. He had with
him an Egyptian diviner, one of those who calculate nativities,
who, either to make his court to Cleopatra, or that by the rules
of his art he found it to be so, openly declared to him, that
though the fortune that attended him was bright and glorious,
yet it was overshadowed by Caesar's; and advised him to keep
himself as far distant as he could from that young man; "for
your Genius," said he, "dreads his; when absent from him yours
is proud and brave, but in his presence unmanly and dejected;"
and incidents that occurred appeared to show that the Egyptian
spoke truth. For whenever they cast lots for any playful
purpose, or threw dice, Antony was still the loser; and
repeatedly, when they fought game-cocks or quails, Caesar's had
the victory. This gave Antony a secret displeasure, and made
him put the more confidence in the skill of his Egyptian. So,
leaving the management of his home affairs to Caesar, he left
Italy, and took Octavia, who had lately borne him a daughter,
along with him into Greece.
Here, whilst he wintered in Athens, he received the first news
of Ventidius's successes over the Parthians, of his having
defeated them in a battle, having slain Labienus and
Pharnapates, the best general their king, Hyrodes, possessed.
For the celebrating of which he made a public feast through
Greece, and for the prizes which were contested at Athens he
himself acted as steward, and, leaving at home the ensigns that
are carried before the general, he made his public appearance in
a gown and white shoes, with the steward's wands marching
before; and he performed his duty in taking the combatants by
the neck, to part them, when they had fought enough.
When the time came for him to set out for the war, he took a
garland from the sacred olive, and, in obedience to some oracle,
he filled a vessel with the water of the Clepsydra, to carry
along with him. In this interval, Pacorus, the Parthian king's
son, who was marching into Syria with a large army, was met by
Ventidius, who gave him battle in the country of Cyrrhestica,
slew a large number of his men, and Pacorus among the first.
This victory was one of the most renowned achievements of the
Romans, and fully avenged their defeats under Crassus, the
Parthians being obliged, after the loss of three battles
successively, to keep themselves within the bounds of Media and
Mesopotamia. Ventidius was not willing to push his good fortune
further, for fear of raising some jealousy in Antony, but,
turning his arms against those that had quitted the Roman
interest, he reduced them to their former obedience. Among the
rest, he besieged Antiochus, king of Commagene, in the city of
Samosata, who made an offer of a thousand talents for his
pardon, and a promise of submission to Antony's commands. But
Ventidius told him that he must send to Antony, who was already
on his march, and had sent word to Ventidius to make no terms
with Antiochus, wishing that at any rate this one exploit might
be ascribed to him, and that people might not think that all his
successes were won by his lieutenants. The siege, however, was
long protracted; for when those within found their offers
refused, they defended themselves stoutly, till, at last,
Antony, finding he was doing nothing, in shame and regret for
having refused the first offer, was glad to make an
accommodation with Antiochus for three hundred talents. And,
having given some orders for the affairs of Syria, he returned
to Athens; and, paying Ventidius the honors he well deserved,
dismissed him to receive his triumph. He is the only man that
has ever yet triumphed for victories obtained over the
Parthians; he was of obscure birth, but, by means of Antony's
friendship, obtained an opportunity of showing his capacity, and
doing great things; and his making such glorious use of it gave
new credit to the current observation about Caesar and Antony,
that they were more fortunate in what they did by their
lieutenants than in their own persons. For Sossius, also, had
great success, and Canidius, whom he left in Armenia, defeated
the people there, and also the kings of the Albanians and
Iberians, and marched victorious as far as Caucasus, by which
means the fame of Antony's arms had become great among the
barbarous nations.
He, however, once more, upon some unfavorable stories, taking
offense against Caesar, set sail with three hundred ships for
Italy, and, being refused admittance to the port of Brundusium,
made for Tarentum. There his wife Octavia, who came from Greece
with him, obtained leave to visit her brother, she being then
great with child, having already borne her husband a second
daughter; and as she was on her way, she met Caesar, with his
two friends Agrippa and Maecenas, and, taking these two aside,
with great entreaties and lamentations she told them, that of
the most fortunate woman upon earth, she was in danger of
becoming the most unhappy; for as yet everyone's eyes were fixed
upon her as the wife and sister of the two great commanders,
but, if rash counsels should prevail, and war ensue, "I shall be
miserable," said she, "without redress; for on what side soever
victory falls, I shall be sure to be a loser." Caesar was
overcome by these entreaties, and advanced in a peaceable temper
to Tarentum, where those that were present beheld a most stately
spectacle; a vast army drawn up by the shore, and as great a
fleet in the harbor, all without the occurrence of any act of
hostility; nothing but the salutations of friends, and other
expressions of joy and kindness, passing from one armament to
the other. Antony first entertained Caesar this also being a
concession on Caesar's part to his sister; and when at length an
agreement was made between them, that Caesar should give Antony
two of his legions to serve him in the Parthian war, and that
Antony should in return leave with him a hundred armed galleys,
Octavia further obtained of her husband, besides this, twenty
light ships for her brother, and of her brother, a thousand foot
for her husband. So, having parted good friends, Caesar went
immediately to make war with Pompey to conquer Sicily. And
Antony, leaving in Caesar's charge his wife and children, and
his children by his former wife Fulvia, set sail for Asia.
But the mischief that thus long had lain still, the passion for
Cleopatra, which better thoughts had seemed to have lulled and
charmed into oblivion, upon his approach to Syria, gathered
strength again, and broke out into a flame. And, in fine, like
Plato's restive and rebellious horse of the human soul, flinging
off all good and wholesome counsel, and breaking fairly loose,
he sends Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra into Syria. To whom
at her arrival he made no small or trifling present, Phoenicia,
Coele-Syria, Cyprus, great part of Cilicia, that side of Judaea
which produces balm, that part of Arabia where the Nabathaeans
extend to the outer sea; profuse gifts, which much displeased
the Romans. For, although he had invested several private
persons in great governments and kingdoms, and bereaved many
kings of theirs, as Antigonus of Judaea, whose head he caused to
be struck off (the first example of that punishment being
inflicted on a king), yet nothing stung the Romans like the
shame of these honors paid to Cleopatra. Their dissatisfaction
was augmented also by his acknowledging as his own the twin
children he had by her, giving them the name of Alexander and
Cleopatra, and adding, as their surnames, the titles of Sun and
Moon. But he, who knew how to put a good color on the most
dishonest action, would say, that the greatness of the Roman
empire consisted more in giving than in taking kingdoms, and
that the way to carry noble blood through the world was by
begetting in every place a new line and series of kings; his own
ancestor had thus been born of Hercules; Hercules had not
limited his hopes of progeny to a single womb, nor feared any
law like Solon's, or any audit of procreation, but had freely
let nature take her will in the foundation and first
commencement of many families.
After Phraates had killed his father Hyrodes, and taken
possession of his kingdom, many of the Parthians left their
country; among the rest, Monaeses, a man of great distinction
and authority, sought refuge with Antony, who, looking on his
case as similar to that of Themistocles, and likening his own
opulence and magnanimity to those of the former Persian kings,
gave him three cities, Larissa, Arethusa, and Hierapolis, which
was formerly called Bambyce. But when the king of Parthia soon
recalled him, giving him his word and honor for his safety,
Antony was not unwilling to give him leave to return, hoping
thereby to surprise Phraates, who would believe that peace would
continue; for he only made the demand of him, that he should
send back the Roman ensigns which were taken when Crassus was
slain, and the prisoners that remained yet alive. This done, he
sent Cleopatra into Egypt, and marched through Arabia and
Armenia; and, when his forces came together, and were joined by
those of his confederate kings (of whom there were very many,
and the most considerable, Artavasdes, king of Armenia, who came
at the head of six thousand horse and seven thousand foot), he
made a general muster. There appeared sixty thousand Roman
foot, ten thousand horse, Spaniards and Gauls, who counted as
Romans; and, of other nations, horse and foot, thirty thousand.
And these great preparations, that put the Indians beyond
Bactria into alarm, and made all Asia shake, were all, we are
told, rendered useless to him because of Cleopatra. For, in
order to pass the winter with her, the war was pushed on before
its due time; and all he did was done without perfect
consideration, as by a man who had no proper control over his
faculties, who, under the effects of some drug or magic, was
still looking back elsewhere, and whose object was much more to
hasten his return than to conquer his enemies.
For, first of all, when he should have taken up his
winter-quarters in Armenia, to refresh his men, who were tired
with long marches, having come at least eight thousand furlongs,
and then have taken the advantage in the beginning of the spring
to invade Media, before the Parthians were out of
winter-quarters, he had not patience to expect his time, but
marched into the province of Atropatene, leaving Armenia on the
left hand, and laid waste all that country. Secondly, his haste
was so great, that he left behind the engines absolutely
required for any siege, which followed the camp in three hundred
wagons, and, among the rest, a ram eighty feet long; none of
which was it possible, if lost or damaged, to repair or to make
the like, as the provinces of the upper Asia produce no trees
long or hard enough for such uses. Nevertheless, he left them
all behind, as a mere impediment to his speed, in the charge of
a detachment under the command of Statianus, the wagon-officer.
He himself laid siege to Phraata, a principal city of the king
of Media, wherein were that king's wife and children. And when
actual need proved the greatness of his error in leaving the
siege train behind him, he had nothing for it but to come up and
raise a mound against the walls, with infinite labor and great
loss of time. Meantime Phraates, coming down with a large army,
and hearing that the wagons were left behind with the battering
engines, sent a strong party of horse, by which Statianus was
surprised, he himself and ten thousand of his men slain, the
engines all broken in pieces, many taken prisoners, and, among
the rest, king Polemon.
This great miscarriage in the opening of the campaign much
discouraged Antony's army, and Artavasdes, king of Armenia,
deciding that the Roman prospects were bad, withdrew with all
his forces from the camp, although he had been the chief
promoter of the war. The Parthians, encouraged by their
success, came up to the Romans at the siege, and gave them many
affronts; upon which Antony, fearing that the despondency and
alarm of his soldiers would only grow worse if he let them lie
idle, taking all the horse, ten legions, and three praetorian
cohorts of heavy infantry, resolved to go out and forage,
designing by this means to draw the enemy with more advantage to
a battle. To effect this, he marched a day's journey from his
camp, and, finding the Parthians hovering about, in readiness to
attack him while he was in motion, he gave orders for the signal
of battle to be hung out in the encampment, but, at the same
time, pulled down the tents, as if he meant not to fight, but to
lead his men home again; and so he proceeded to lead them past
the enemy, who were drawn up in a half-moon, his orders being
that the horse should charge as soon as the legions were come up
near enough to second them. The Parthians, standing still while
the Romans marched by them, were in great admiration of their
army, and of the exact discipline it observed, rank after rank
passing on at equal distances in perfect order and silence,
their pikes all ready in their hands. But when the signal was
given, and the horse turned short upon the Parthians, and with
loud cries charged them, they bravely received them, though they
were at once too near for bowshot; but the legions, coming up
with loud shouts and rattling of their arms, so frightened their
horses and indeed the men themselves, that they kept their
ground no longer. Antony pressed them hard, in great hopes that
this victory should put an end to the war; the foot had them in
pursuit for fifty furlongs, and the horse for thrice that
distance, and yet, the advantage summed up, they had but thirty
prisoners, and there were but fourscore slain. So that they
were all filled with dejection and discouragement, to consider,
that when they were victorious, their advantage was so small,
and that when they were beaten, they lost so great a number of
men as they had done when the carriages were taken.
The next day, having put the baggage in order, they marched back
to the camp before Phraata, in the way meeting with some
scattering troops of the enemy, and, as they marched further,
with greater parties, at length with the body of the enemy's
army, fresh and in good order, who called them to battle, and
charged them on every side, and it was not without great
difficulty that they reached the camp. There Antony, finding
that his men had in a panic deserted the defense of the mound,
upon a sally of the Medes, resolved to proceed against them by
decimation, as it is called, which is done by dividing the
soldiers into tens, and, out of every ten, putting one to death,
as it happens by lot. The rest he gave orders should have,
instead of wheat, their rations of corn in barley.
The war was now become grievous to both parties, and the
prospect of its continuance yet more fearful to Antony, in
respect that he was threatened with famine; for he could no
longer forage without wounds and slaughter. And Phraates, on
the other side, was full of apprehension that, if the Romans
were to persist in carrying on the siege, the autumnal equinox
being past and the air already closing in for cold, he should be
deserted by his soldiers, who would suffer anything rather than
wintering in open field. To prevent which, he had recourse to
the following deceit: he gave order to those of his men who had
made most acquaintance among the Roman soldiers, not to pursue
too close when they met them foraging, but to suffer them to
carry off some provision; moreover, that they should praise
their valor, and declare that it was not without just reason
that their king looked upon the Romans as the bravest men in the
world. This done, upon further opportunity they rode nearer in,
and, drawing up their horses by the men, began to revile Antony
for his obstinacy; that whereas Phraates desired nothing more
than peace, and an occasion to show how ready he was to save the
lives of so many brave soldiers, he, on the contrary, gave no
opening to any friendly offers, but sat awaiting the arrival of
the two fiercest and worst enemies, winter and famine, from whom
it would be hard for them to make their escape, even with all
the good-will of the Parthians to help them. Antony, having
these reports from many hands, began to indulge the hope;
nevertheless, he would not send any message to the Parthian till
he had put the question to these friendly talkers, whether what
they said was said by order of their king. Receiving answer
that it was, together with new encouragement to believe them, he
sent some of his friends to demand once more the standards and
prisoners, lest, if he should ask nothing, he might be supposed
to be too thankful to have leave to retreat in quiet. The
Parthian king made answer, that as for the standards and
prisoners, he need not trouble himself; but if he thought fit to
retreat, he might do it when he pleased, in peace and safety.
Some few days, therefore, being spent in collecting the baggage,
he set out upon his march. On which occasion, though there was
no man of his time like him for addressing a multitude, or for
carrying soldiers with him by the force of words, out of shame
and sadness he could not find in his heart to speak himself, but
employed Domitius Aenobarbus. And some of the soldiers resented
it, as an undervaluing of them; but the greater number saw the
true cause, and pitied it, and thought it rather a reason why
they on their side should treat their general with more respect
and obedience than ordinary.
Antony had resolved to return by the same way he came, which was
through a level country clear of all trees, but a certain
Mardian came to him (one that was very conversant with the
manners of the Parthians, and whose fidelity to the Romans had
been tried at the battle where the machines were lost), and
advised him to keep the mountains close on his right hand, and
not to expose his men, heavily armed, in a broad, open, riding
country, to the attacks of a numerous army of light-horse and
archers; that Phraates with fair promises had persuaded him from
the siege on purpose that he might with more ease cut him off in
his retreat; but, if so he pleased, he would conduct him by a
nearer route, on which moreover he should find the necessaries
for his army in greater abundance. Antony upon this began to
consider what was best to be done; he was unwilling to seem to
have any mistrust of the Parthians after their treaty; but,
holding it to be really best to march his army the shorter and
more inhabited way, he demanded of the Mardian some assurance of
his faith, who offered himself to be bound until the army came
safe into Armenia. Two days he conducted the army bound, and,
on the third, when Antony had given up all thought of the
enemy, and was marching at his ease in no very good order, the
Mardian, perceiving the bank of a river broken down, and the
water let out and overflowing the road by which they were to
pass, saw at once that this was the handiwork of the Parthians,
done out of mischief, and to hinder their march; so he advised
Antony to be upon his guard, for that the enemy was nigh at
hand. And no sooner had he begun to put his men in order,
disposing the slingers and dart men in convenient intervals for
sallying out, but the Parthians came pouring in on all sides,
fully expecting to encompass them, and throw the whole army into
disorder. They were at once attacked by the light troops, whom
they galled a good deal with their arrows; but, being themselves
as warmly entertained with the slings and darts, and many
wounded, they made their retreat. Soon after, rallying up
afresh, they were beat back by a battalion of Gallic horse, and
appeared no more that day.
By their manner of attack Antony seeing what to do, not only
placed the slings and darts as a rear guard, but also lined both
flanks with them, and so marched in a square battle, giving
order to the horse to charge and beat off the enemy, but not to
follow them far as they retired. So that the Parthians, not
doing more mischief for the four ensuing days than they
received, began to abate in their zeal, and, complaining that
the winter season was much advanced, pressed for returning home.
But, on the fifth day, Flavius Gallus, a brave and active
officer, who had a considerable command in the army, came to
Antony, desiring of him some light-infantry out of the rear, and
some horse out of the front, with which he would undertake to do
some considerable service. Which when he had obtained, he beat
the enemy back, not withdrawing, as was usual, at the same time,
and retreating upon the mass of the heavy infantry, but
maintaining his own ground, and engaging boldly. The officers
who commanded in the rear, perceiving how far he was getting
from the body of the army, sent to warn him back, but he took no
notice of them. It is said that Titius the quaestor snatched
the standards and turned them round, upbraiding Gallus with thus
leading so many brave men to destruction. But when he on the
other side reviled him again, and commanded the men that were
about him to stand firm, Titius made his retreat, and Gallus,
charging the enemies in the front, was encompassed by a party
that fell upon his rear, which at length perceiving, he sent a
messenger to demand succor. But the commanders of the heavy
infantry, Canidius amongst others, a particular favorite of
Antony's, seem here to have committed a great oversight. For,
instead of facing about with the whole body, they sent small
parties, and, when they were defeated, they still sent out small
parties, so that by their bad management the rout would have
spread through the whole army, if Antony himself had not marched
from the van at the head of the third legion, and, passing this
through among the fugitives, faced the enemies, and hindered
them from any further pursuit.
In this engagement were killed three thousand, five thousand
were carried back to the camp wounded, amongst the rest Gallus,
shot through the body with four arrows, of which wounds he died.
Antony went from tent to tent to visit and comfort the rest of
them, and was not able to see his men without tears and a
passion of grief. They, however, seized his hand with joyful
faces, bidding him go and see to himself and not be concerned
about them, calling him their emperor and their general, and
saying that if he did well they were safe. For in short, never
in all these times can history make mention of a general at the
head of a more splendid army; whether you consider strength and
youth, or patience and sufferance in labors and fatigues; but as
for the obedience and affectionate respect they bore their
general, and the unanimous feeling amongst small and great
alike, officers and common soldiers, to prefer his good opinion
of them to their very lives and being, in this part of military
excellence it was not possible that they could have been
surpassed by the very Romans of old. For this devotion, as I
have said before, there were many reasons, as the nobility of
his family, his eloquence, his frank and open manners, his
liberal and magnificent habits, his familiarity in talking with
everybody, and, at this time particularly, his kindness in
assisting and pitying the sick, joining in all their pains, and
furnishing them with all things necessary, so that the sick and
wounded were even more eager to serve than those that were whole
and strong.
Nevertheless, this last victory had so encouraged the enemy,
that, instead of their former impatience and weariness, they
began soon to feel contempt for the Romans, staying all night
near the camp, in expectation of plundering their tents and
baggage, which they concluded they must abandon; and in the
morning new forces arrived in large masses, so that their number
was grown to be not less, it is said, than forty thousand horse;
and the king had sent the very guards that attended upon his own
person, as to a sure and unquestioned victory. For he himself
was never present in any fight. Antony, designing to harangue
the soldiers, called for a mourning habit, that he might move
them the more, but was dissuaded by his friends; so he came
forward in the general's scarlet cloak, and addressed them,
praising those that had gained the victory, and reproaching
those that had fled, the former answering him with promises of
success, and the latter excusing themselves, and telling him
they were ready to undergo decimation, or any other punishment
he should please to inflict upon them, only entreating that he
would forget and not discompose himself with their faults. At
which he lifted up his hands to heaven, and prayed the gods,
that if to balance the great favors he had received of them any
judgment lay in store, they would pour it upon his head alone,
and grant his soldiers victory.
The next day they took better order for their march, and the
Parthians, who thought they were marching rather to plunder than
to fight, were much taken aback, when they came up and were
received with a shower of missiles, to find the enemy not
disheartened, but fresh and resolute. So that they themselves
began to lose courage. But at the descent of a hill where the
Romans were obliged to pass, they got together, and let fly
their arrows upon them as they moved slowly down. But the
full-armed infantry, facing round, received the light troops
within; and those in the first rank knelt on one knee, holding
their shields before them, the next rank holding theirs over the
first, and so again others over these, much like the tiling of a
house, or the rows of seats in a theater, the whole affording
sure defense against arrows, which glance upon them without
doing any harm. The Parthians, seeing the Romans down upon
their knees, could not imagine but that it must proceed from
weariness; so that they laid down their bows, and, taking their
spears, made a fierce onset, when the Romans, with a great cry,
leapt upon their feet, striking hand to hand with their
javelins, slew the foremost, and put the rest to flight. After
this rate it was every day, and the trouble they gave made the
marches short; in addition to which famine began to be felt in
the camp, for they could get but little corn, and that which
they got they were forced to fight for; and, besides this, they
were in want of implements to grind it and make bread. For they
had left almost all behind, the baggage horses being dead or
otherwise employed in carrying the sick and wounded. Provision
was so scarce in the army that an Attic quart of wheat sold for
fifty drachmas, and barley loaves for their weight in silver.
And when they tried vegetables and roots, they found such as
are commonly eaten very scarce, so that they were constrained to
venture upon any they could get, and, among others, they chanced
upon an herb that was mortal, first taking away all sense and
understanding. He that had eaten of it remembered nothing in
the world, and employed himself only in moving great stones from
one place to another, which he did with as much earnestness and
industry as if it had been a business of the greatest
consequence. Through all the camp there was nothing to be seen
but men grubbing upon the ground at stones, which they carried
from place to place. But in the end they threw up bile and
died, as wine, moreover, which was the one antidote, failed.
When Antony saw them die so fast, and the Parthian still in
pursuit, he was heard to exclaim several times over, "O, the Ten
Thousand!" as if in admiration of the retreat of the Greeks with
Xenophon, who, when they had a longer journey to make from
Babylonia, and a more powerful enemy to deal with, nevertheless
came home safe.
The Parthians, finding that they could not divide the Roman
army, nor break the order of their battle, and that withal they
had been so often worsted, once more began to treat the foragers
with professions of humanity; they came up to them with their
bows unbended, telling them that they were going home to their
houses; that this was the end of their retaliation, and that
only some Median troops would follow for two or three days, not
with any design to annoy them, but for the defense of some of
the villages further on. And, saying this, they saluted them
and embraced them with a great show of friendship. This made
the Romans full of confidence again, and Antony, on hearing of
it, was more disposed to take the road through the level
country, being told that no water was to be hoped for on that
through the mountains. But while he was preparing thus to do,
Mithridates came into the camp, a cousin to Monaeses, of whom we
related that he sought refuge with the Romans, and received in
gift from Antony the three cities. Upon his arrival, he desired
somebody might be brought to him that could speak Syriac or
Parthian. One Alexander, of Antioch, a friend of Antony's, was
brought to him, to whom the stranger, giving his name, and
mentioning Monaeses as the person who desired to do the
kindness, put the question, did he see that high range of hills,
pointing at some distance. He told him, yes. "It is there,"
said he, "the whole Parthian army lie in wait for your passage;
for the great plains come immediately up to them, and they
expect that, confiding in their promises, you will leave the
way of the mountains, and take the level route. It is true that
in passing over the mountains you will suffer the want of water,
and the fatigue to which you have become familiar, but if you
pass through the plains, Antony must expect the fortune of
Crassus."
This said, he departed. Antony, in alarm, calling his friends
in council, sent for the Mardian guide, who was of the same
opinion. He told them that, with or without enemies, the want
of any certain track in the plain, and the likelihood of their
losing their way, were quite objection enough; the other route
was rough and without water, but then it was but for a day.
Antony, therefore, changing his mind, marched away upon this
road that night, commanding that everyone should carry water
sufficient for his own use; but most of them being unprovided
with vessels, they made shift with their helmets, and some with
skins. As soon as they started, the news of it was carried to
the Parthians, who followed them, contrary to their custom,
through the night, and at sunrise attacked the rear, which was
tired with marching and want of sleep, and not in condition to
make any considerable defense. For they had got through two
hundred and forty furlongs that night, and at the end of such a
march to find the enemy at their heels, put them out of heart.
Besides, having to fight for every step of the way increased
their distress from thirst. Those that were in the van came up
to a river, the water of which was extremely cool and clear, but
brackish and medicinal, and, on being drunk, produced immediate
pains in the bowels and a renewed thirst. Of this the Mardian
had forewarned them, but they could not forbear, and, beating
back those that opposed them, they drank of it. Antony ran from
one place to another, begging they would have a little patience,
that not far off there was a river of wholesome water, and that
the rest of the way was so difficult for the horse, that the
enemy could pursue them no further; and, saying this, he ordered
to sound a retreat to call those back that were engaged, and
commanded the tents should be set up, that the soldiers might at
any rate refresh themselves in the shade.
But the tents were scarce well put up, and the Parthians
beginning, according to their custom, to withdraw, when
Mithridates came again to them, and informed Alexander, with
whom he had before spoken, that he would do well to advise
Antony to stay where he was no longer than needs he must, that,
after having refreshed his troops, he should endeavor with all
diligence to gain the next river, that the Parthians would not
cross it, but so far they were resolved to follow them.
Alexander made his report to Antony, who ordered a quantity of
gold plate to be carried to Mithridates, who, taking as much as
be could well hide under his clothes, went his way. And, upon
this advice, Antony, while it was yet day, broke up his camp,
and the whole army marched forward without receiving any
molestation from the Parthians, though that night by their own
doing was in effect the most wretched and terrible that they
passed. For some of the men began to kill and plunder those
whom they suspected to have any money, ransacked the baggage,
and seized the money there. In the end, they laid hands on
Antony's own equipage, and broke all his rich tables and cups,
dividing the fragments amongst them. Antony, hearing such a
noise and such a stirring to and fro all through the army, the
belief prevailing that the enemy had routed and cut off a
portion of the troops, called for one of his freedmen, then
serving as one of his guards, Rhamnus by name, and made him take
an oath that, whenever he should give him orders, he would run
his sword through his body and cut off his head, that he might
not fall alive into the hands of the Parthians, nor, when dead,
be recognized as the general. While he was in this
consternation, and all his friends about him in tears, the
Mardian came up, and gave them all new life. He convinced
them, by the coolness and humidity of the air, which they could
feel in breathing it, that the river which he had spoken of was
now not far off, and the calculation of the time that had been
required to reach it came, he said, to the same result, for the
night was almost spent. And, at the same time, others came with
information that all the confusion in the camp proceeded only
from their own violence and robbery among themselves. To
compose this tumult, and bring them again into some order after
their distraction, he commanded the signal to be given for a
halt.
Day began to break, and quiet and regularity were just
reappearing, when the Parthian arrows began to fly among the
rear, and the light armed troops were ordered out to battle.
And, being seconded by the heavy infantry, who covered one
another as before described with their shields, they bravely
received the enemy, who did not think convenient to advance any
further, while the van of the army, marching forward leisurely
in this manner came in sight of the river, and Antony, drawing
up the cavalry on the banks to confront the enemy, first passed
over the sick and wounded. And, by this time, even those who
were engaged with the enemy had opportunity to drink at their
ease; for the Parthians, on seeing the river, unbent their bows,
and told the Romans they might pass over freely, and made them
great compliments in praise of their valor. Having crossed
without molestation, they rested themselves awhile, and
presently went forward, not giving perfect credit to the fair
words of their enemies. Six days after this last battle, they
arrived at the river Araxes, which divides Media and Armenia,
and seemed, both by its deepness and the violence of the
current, to be very dangerous to pass. A report, also, had
crept in amongst them, that the enemy was in ambush, ready to
set upon them as soon as they should be occupied with their
passage. But when they were got over on the other side, and
found themselves in Armenia, just as if land was now sighted
after a storm at sea, they kissed the ground for joy, shedding
tears and embracing each other in their delight. But taking
their journey through a land that abounded in all sorts of
plenty, they ate, after their long want, with that excess of
everything they met with, that they suffered from dropsies and
dysenteries.
Here Antony, making a review of his army, found that he had lost
twenty thousand foot and four thousand horse, of which the
better half perished, not by the enemy, but by diseases. Their
march was of twenty-seven days from Phraata, during which they
had beaten the Parthians in eighteen battles, though with little
effect or lasting result, because of their being so unable to
pursue. By which it is manifest that it was Artavasdes who lost
Antony the benefit of the expedition. For had the sixteen
thousand horsemen whom he led away out of Media, armed in the
same style as the Parthians and accustomed to their manner of
fight, been there to follow the pursuit when the Romans put them
to flight, it is impossible they could have rallied so often
after their defeats, and reappeared again as they did to renew
their attacks. For this reason, the whole army was very earnest
with Antony to march into Armenia to take revenge. But he, with
more reflection, forbore to notice the desertion, and continued
all his former courtesies, feeling that the army was wearied
out, and in want of all manner of necessaries. Afterwards,
however, entering Armenia, with invitations and fair promises he
prevailed upon Artavasdes to meet him, when he seized him, bound
him, and carried him to Alexandria, and there led him in a
triumph; one of the things which most offended the Romans, who
felt as if all the honors and solemn observances of their
country were, for Cleopatra's sake, handed over to the
Egyptians.
This, however, was at an after time. For the present, marching
his army in great haste in the depth of winter through continual
storms of snow, he lost eight thousand of his men, and came with
much diminished numbers to a place called the White Village,
between Sidon and Berytus, on the seacoast, where he waited for
the arrival of Cleopatra. And, being impatient of the delay she
made, he bethought himself of shortening the time in wine and
drunkenness, and yet could not endure the tediousness of a meal,
but would start from table and run to see if she were coming.
Till at last she came into port, and brought with her clothes
and money for the soldiers. Though some say that Antony only
received the clothes from her, and distributed his own money in
her name.
A quarrel presently happened between the king of Media and
Phraates of Parthia, beginning, it is said, about the division
of the booty that was taken from the Romans, and creating great
apprehension in the Median lest he should lose his kingdom. He
sent, therefore, ambassadors to Antony, with offers of entering
into a confederate war against Phraates. And Antony, full of
hopes at being thus asked, as a favor, to accept that one thing,
horse and archers, the want of which had hindered his beating
the Parthians before, began at once to prepare for a return to
Armenia, there to join the Medes on the Araxes, and begin the
war afresh. But Octavia, in Rome, being desirous to see Antony,
asked Caesar's leave to go to him; which he gave her, not so
much, say most authors, to gratify his sister, as to obtain a
fair pretense to begin the war upon her dishonorable reception.
She no sooner arrived at Athens, but by letters from Antony she
was informed of his new expedition, and his will that she should
await him there. And, though she were much displeased, not
being ignorant of the real reason of this usage, yet she wrote
to him to know to what place he would be pleased she should send
the things she had brought with her for his use; for she had
brought clothes for his soldiers, baggage, cattle, money, and
presents for his friends and officers, and two thousand chosen
soldiers sumptuously armed, to form praetorian cohorts. This
message was brought from Octavia to Antony by Niger, one of his
friends, who added to it the praises she deserved so well.
Cleopatra, feeling her rival already, as it were, at hand, was
seized with fear, lest if to her noble life and her high
alliance, she once could add the charm of daily habit and
affectionate intercourse, she should become irresistible, and be
his absolute mistress for ever. So she feigned to be dying for
love of Antony, bringing her body down by slender diet; when he
entered the room, she fixed her eyes upon him in a rapture, and
when he left, seemed to languish and half faint away. She took
great pains that he should see her in tears, and, as soon as he
noticed it, hastily dried them up and turned away, as if it were
her wish that he should know nothing of it. All this was acting
while he prepared for Media; and Cleopatra's creatures were not
slow to forward the design, upbraiding Antony with his
unfeeling, hard-hearted temper, thus letting a woman perish
whose soul depended upon him and him alone. Octavia, it was
true, was his wife, and had been married to him because it was
found convenient for the affairs of her brother that it should
be so, and she had the honor of the title; but Cleopatra, the
sovereign queen of many nations, had been contented with the
name of his mistress, nor did she shun or despise the character
whilst she might see him, might live with him, and enjoy him; if
she were bereaved of this, she would not survive the loss. In
fine, they so melted and unmanned him, that, fully believing she
would die if he forsook her, he put off the war and returned to
Alexandria, deferring his Median expedition until next summer,
though news came of the Parthians being all in confusion with
intestine disputes. Nevertheless, he did some time after go
into that country, and made an alliance with the king of Media,
by marriage of a son of his by Cleopatra to the king's daughter,
who was yet very young; and so returned, with his thoughts taken
up about the civil war.
When Octavia returned from Athens, Caesar, who considered she
had been injuriously treated, commanded her to live in a
separate house; but she refused to leave the house of her
husband, and entreated him, unless he had already resolved, upon
other motives, to make war with Antony, that he would on her
account let it alone; it would be intolerable to have it said of
the two greatest commanders in the world, that they had
involved the Roman people in a civil war, the one out of passion
for; the other out of resentment about, a woman. And her
behavior proved her words to be sincere. She remained in
Antony's house as if he were at home in it, and took the noblest
and most generous care, not only of his children by her, but of
those by Fulvia also. She received all the friends of Antony
that came to Rome to seek office or upon any business, and did
her utmost to prefer their requests to Caesar; yet this her
honorable deportment did but, without her meaning it, damage the
reputation of Antony; the wrong he did to such a woman made him
hated. Nor was the division he made among his sons at
Alexandria less unpopular; it seemed a theatrical piece of
insolence and contempt of his country. For, assembling the
people in the exercise ground, and causing two golden thrones to
be placed on a platform of silver, the one for him and the other
for Cleopatra, and at their feet lower thrones for their
children, he proclaimed Cleopatra queen of Egypt, Cyprus, Libya,
and Coele-Syria, and with her conjointly Caesarion, the reputed
son of the former Caesar, who left Cleopatra with child. His
own sons by Cleopatra were to have the style of kings of kings;
to Alexander he gave Armenia and Media, with Parthia, so soon as
it should be overcome; to Ptolemy, Phoenicia, Syria, and
Cilicia. Alexander was brought out before the people in the
Median costume, the tiara and upright peak, and Ptolemy, in
boots and mantle and Macedonian cap done about with the diadem;
for this was the habit of the successors of Alexander, as the
other was of the Medes and Armenians. And, as soon as they had
saluted their parents, the one was received by a guard of
Macedonians, the other by one of Armenians. Cleopatra was then,
as at other times when she appeared in public, dressed in the
habit of the goddess Isis, and gave audience to the people under
the name of the New Isis.
Caesar, relating these things in the senate, and often
complaining to the people, excited men's minds against Antony.
And Antony also sent messages of accusation against Caesar. The
principal of his charges were these: first, that he had not made
any division with him of Sicily, which was lately taken from
Pompey; secondly, that he had retained the ships he had lent him
for the war; thirdly, that after deposing Lepidus, their
colleague, he had taken for himself the army, governments, and
revenues formerly appropriated to him; and, lastly, that he had
parceled out almost all Italy amongst his own soldiers, and left
nothing for his. Caesar's answer was as follows: that he had
put Lepidus out of government because of his own misconduct;
that what he had got in war he would divide with Antony, so soon
as Antony gave him a share of Armenia; that Antony's soldiers
had no claims in Italy, being in possession of Media and
Parthia, the acquisitions which their brave actions under their
general had added to the Roman empire.
Antony was in Armenia when this answer came to him, and
immediately sent Canidius with sixteen legions towards the sea;
but he, in the company of Cleopatra, went to Ephesus, whither
ships were coming in from all quarters to form the navy,
consisting, vessels of burden included, of eight hundred
vessels, of which Cleopatra furnished two hundred, together with
twenty thousand talents, and provision for the whole army during
the war. Antony, on the advice of Domitius and some others,
bade Cleopatra return into Egypt, there to expect the event of
the war; but she, dreading some new reconciliation by Octavia's
means, prevailed with Canidius, by a large sum of money, to
speak in her favor with Antony, pointing out to him that it was
not just that one that bore so great a part in the charge of the
war should be robbed of her share of glory in the carrying it
on: nor would it be politic to disoblige the Egyptians, who were
so considerable a part of his naval forces; nor did he see how
she was inferior in prudence to any one of the kings that were
serving with him; she had long governed a great kingdom by
herself alone, and long lived with him, and gained experience in
public affairs. These arguments (so the fate that destined all
to Caesar would have it), prevailed; and when all their forces
had met, they sailed together to Samos, and held high
festivities. For, as it was ordered that all kings, princes,
and governors, all nations and cities within the limits of
Syria, the Maeotid Lake, Armenia, and Illyria, should bring or
cause to be brought all munitions necessary for war, so was it
also proclaimed that all stage-players should make their
appearance at Samos; so that, while pretty nearly the whole
world was filled with groans and lamentations, this one island
for some days resounded with piping and harping, theaters
filling, and choruses playing. Every city sent an ox as its
contribution to the sacrifice, and the kings that accompanied
Antony competed who should make the most magnificent feasts and
the greatest presents; and men began to ask themselves, what
would be done to celebrate the victory, when they went to such
an expense of festivity at the opening of the war.
This over, he gave Priene to his players for a habitation, and
set sail for Athens, where fresh sports and play-acting employed
him. Cleopatra, jealous of the honors Octavia had received at
Athens (for Octavia was much beloved by the Athenians), courted
the favor of the people with all sorts of attentions. The
Athenians, in requital, having decreed her public honors,
deputed several of the citizens to wait upon her at her house;
amongst whom went Antony as one, he being an Athenian citizen,
and he it was that made the speech. He sent orders to Rome to
have Octavia removed out of his house. She left it, we are
told, accompanied by all his children, except the eldest by
Fulvia, who was then with his father, weeping and grieving that
she must be looked upon as one of the causes of the war. But
the Romans pitied, not so much her, as Antony himself, and more
particularly those who had seen Cleopatra, whom they could
report to have no way the advantage of Octavia either in youth
or in beauty.
The speed and extent of Antony's preparations alarmed Caesar,
who feared he might be forced to fight the decisive battle that
summer. For he wanted many necessaries, and the people grudged
very much to pay the taxes; freemen being called upon to pay a
fourth part of their incomes, and freed slaves an eighth of
their property, so that there were loud outcries against him,
and disturbances throughout all Italy. And this is looked upon
as one of the greatest of Antony's oversights, that he did not
then press the war. For he allowed time at once for Caesar to
make his preparations, and for the commotions to pass over. For
while people were having their money called for, they were
mutinous and violent; but, having paid it, they held their
peace. Titius and Plancus, men of consular dignity and friends
to Antony, having been ill used by Cleopatra, whom they had most
resisted in her design of being present in the war, came over to
Caesar, and gave information of the contents of Antony's will,
with which they were acquainted. It was deposited in the hands
of the vestal virgins, who refused to deliver it up, and sent
Caesar word, if he pleased, he should come and seize it himself,
which he did. And, reading it over to himself, he noted those
places that were most for his purpose, and, having summoned the
senate, read them publicly. Many were scandalized at the
proceeding, thinking it out of reason and equity to call a man
to account for what was not to be until after his death. Caesar
specially pressed what Antony said in his will about his burial;
for he had ordered that even if he died in the city of Rome, his
body, after being carried in state through the forum, should be
sent to Cleopatra at Alexandria. Calvisius, a dependent of
Caesar's, urged other charges in connection with Cleopatra
against Antony; that he had given her the library of Pergamus,
containing two hundred thousand distinct volumes; that at a
great banquet, in the presence of many guests, he had risen up
and rubbed her feet, to fulfill some wager or promise; that he
had suffered the Ephesians to salute her as their queen; that he
had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes
received amorous messages written in tablets made of onyx and
crystal, and read them openly on the tribunal; that when
Furnius, a man of great authority and eloquence among the
Romans, was pleading, Cleopatra happening to pass by in her
chair, Antony started up and left them in the middle of their
cause, to follow at her side and attend her home.
Calvisius, however, was looked upon as the inventor of most of
these stories. Antony's friends went up and down the city to
gain him credit, and sent one of themselves, Geminius, to him,
to beg him to take heed and not allow himself to be deprived by
vote of his authority, and proclaimed a public enemy to the
Roman state. But Geminius no sooner arrived in Greece but he
was looked upon as one of Octavia's spies; at their suppers he
was made a continual butt for mockery, and was put to sit in the
least honorable places; all which he bore very well, seeking
only an occasion of speaking with Antony. So, at supper, being
told to say what business he came about, he answered he would
keep the rest for a soberer hour, but one thing he had to say,
whether full or fasting, that all would go well if Cleopatra
would return to Egypt. And on Antony showing his anger at it,
"You have done well, Geminius," said Cleopatra, "to tell your
secret without being put to the rack." So Geminius, after a few
days, took occasion to make his escape and go to Rome. Many
more of Antony's friends were driven from him by the insolent
usage they had from Cleopatra's flatterers, amongst whom were
Marcus Silanus and Dellius the historian. And Dellius says he
was afraid of his life, and that Glaucus, the physician,
informed him of Cleopatra's design against him. She was angry
with him for having said that Antony's friends were served with
sour wine, while at Rome Sarmentus, Caesar's little page (his
delicia, as the Romans call it), drank Falernian.
As soon as Caesar had completed his preparations, he had a
decree made, declaring war on Cleopatra, and depriving Antony of
the authority which he had let a woman exercise in his place.
Caesar added that he had drunk potions that had bereaved him of
his senses, and that the generals they would have to fight with
would be Mardion the eunuch, Pothinus, Iras, Cleopatra's
hairdressing girl, and Charmion, who were Antony's chief
state-councillors.
These prodigies are said to have announced the war. Pisaurum,
where Antony had settled a colony, on the Adriatic sea, was
swallowed up by an earthquake; sweat ran from one of the marble
statues of Antony at Alba for many days together, and, though
frequently wiped off, did not stop. When he himself was in the
city of Patrae, the temple of Hercules was struck by lightning,
and, at Athens, the figure of Bacchus was torn by a violent wind
out of the Battle of the Giants, and laid flat upon the
theater; with both which deities Antony claimed connection,
professing to be descended from Hercules, and from his imitating
Bacchus in his way of living having received the name of Young
Bacchus. The same whirlwind at Athens also brought down, from
amongst many others which were not disturbed, the colossal
statues of Eumenes and Attalus, which were inscribed with
Antony's name. And in Cleopatra's admiral-galley, which was
called the Antonias, a most inauspicious omen occurred. Some
swallows had built in the stern of the galley, but other
swallows came, beat the first away, and destroyed their nests.
When the armaments gathered for the war, Antony had no less than
five hundred ships of war, including numerous galleys of eight
and ten banks of oars, as richly ornamented as if they were
meant for a triumph. He had a hundred thousand foot and twelve
thousand horse. He had vassal kings attending, Bocchus of
Libya, Tarcondemus of the Upper Cilicia, Archelaus of
Cappadocia, Philadelphus of Paphlagonia, Mithridates of
Commagene, and Sadalas of Thrace; all these were with him in
person. Out of Pontus Polemon sent him considerable forces, as
did also Malchus from Arabia, Herod the Jew, and Amyntas, king
of Lycaonia and Galatia; also the Median king sent some troops
to join him. Caesar had two hundred and fifty galleys of war,
eighty thousand foot, and horse about equal to the enemy.
Antony's empire extended from Euphrates and Armenia to the
Ionian sea and the Illyrians; Caesar's, from Illyria to the
westward ocean, and from the ocean all along the Tuscan and
Sicilian sea. Of Africa, Caesar had all the coast opposite to
Italy, Gaul, and Spain, as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and
Antony the provinces from Cyrene to Ethiopia.
But so wholly was he now the mere appendage to the person of
Cleopatra, that, although he was much superior to the enemy in
land-forces, yet, out of complaisance to his mistress, he wished
the victory to be gained by sea, and that, too, when he could
not but see how, for want of sailors, his captains, all through
unhappy Greece, were pressing every description of men, common
travelers and ass-drivers, harvest laborers and boys, and for
all this the vessels had not their complements, but remained,
most of them, ill-manned and badly rowed. Caesar, on the other
side, had ships that were built not for size or show, but for
service, not pompous galleys, but light, swift, and perfectly
manned; and from his head-quarters at Tarentum and Brundusium he
sent messages to Antony not to protract the war, but come out
with his forces; he would give him secure roadsteads and ports
for his fleet, and, for his land army to disembark and pitch
their camp, he would leave him as much ground in Italy, inland
from the sea, as a horse could traverse in a single course.
Antony, on the other side, with the like bold language,
challenged him to a single combat, though he were much the
older; and, that being refused, proposed to meet him in the
Pharsalian fields, where Caesar and Pompey had fought before.
But whilst Antony lay with his fleet near Actium, where now
stands Nicopolis, Caesar seized his opportunity, and crossed the
Ionian sea, securing himself at a place in Epirus called the
Ladle. And when those about Antony were much disturbed, their
land-forces being a good way off, "Indeed," said Cleopatra, in
mockery, "we may well be frightened if Caesar has got hold of
the Ladle!"
On the morrow, Antony, seeing the enemy sailing up, and fearing
lest his ships might be taken for want of the soldiers to go on
board of them, armed all the rowers, and made a show upon the
decks of being in readiness to fight; the oars were mounted as
if waiting to be put in motion, and the vessels themselves drawn
up to face the enemy on either side of the channel of Actium, as
though they were properly manned, and ready for an engagement
And Caesar, deceived by this stratagem, retired. He was also
thought to have shown considerable skill in cutting off the
water from the enemy by some lines of trenches and forts, water
not being plentiful anywhere else, nor very good. And again,
his conduct to Domitius was generous, much against the will of
Cleopatra. For when he had made his escape in a little boat to
Caesar, having then a fever upon him, although Antony could not
but resent it highly, yet he sent after him his whole equipage,
with his friends and servants; and Domitius, as if he would give
a testimony to the world how repentant he had become on his
desertion and treachery being thus manifest, died soon after.
Among the kings, also, Amyntas and Deiotarus went over to
Caesar. And the fleet was so unfortunate in everything that
was undertaken, and so unready on every occasion, that Antony
was driven again to put his confidence in the land-forces.
Canidius, too, who commanded the legions, when he saw how things
stood, changed his opinion, and now was of advice that Cleopatra
should be sent back, and that, retiring into Thrace or
Macedonia, the quarrel should be decided in a land fight. For
Dicomes, also, the king of the Getae, promised to come and join
him with a great army, and it would not be any kind of
disparagement to him to yield the sea to Caesar, who, in the
Sicilian wars, had had such long practice in ship-fighting; on
the contrary, it would be simply ridiculous for Antony, who was
by land the most experienced commander living, to make no use of
his well-disciplined and numerous infantry, scattering and
wasting his forces by parceling them out in the ships. But for
all this, Cleopatra prevailed that a sea-fight should determine
all, having already an eye to flight, and ordering all her
affairs, not so as to assist in gaining a victory, but to escape
with the greatest safety from the first commencement of a
defeat.
There were two long walls, extending from the camp to the
station of the ships, between which Antony used to pass to and
fro without suspecting any danger. But Caesar, upon the
suggestion of a servant that it would not be difficult to
surprise him, laid an ambush, which, rising up somewhat too
hastily, seized the man that came just before him, he himself
escaping narrowly by flight.
When it was resolved to stand to a fight at sea, they set fire
to all the Egyptian ships except sixty; and of these the best
and largest, from ten banks down to three, he manned with twenty
thousand full-armed men, and two thousand archers. Here it is
related that a foot captain, one that had fought often under
Antony, and had his body all mangled with wounds, exclaimed, "O,
my general, what have our wounds and swords done to displease
you, that you should give your confidence to rotten timbers?
Let Egyptians and Phoenicians contend at sea, give us the land,
where we know well how to die upon the spot or gain the
victory." To which he answered nothing, but, by his look and
motion of his hand seeming to bid him be of good courage, passed
forwards, having already, it would seem, no very sure hopes,
since when the masters proposed leaving the sails behind them,
he commanded they should be put aboard, "For we must not," said
he, "let one enemy escape."
That day and the three following the sea was so rough they could
not engage. But on the fifth there was a calm, and they fought;
Antony commanding with Publicola the right, and Coelius the left
squadron, Marcus Octavius and Marcus Insteius the center.
Caesar gave the charge of the left to Agrippa, commanding in
person on the right. As for the land-forces, Canidius was
general for Antony, Taurus for Caesar; both armies remaining
drawn up in order along the shore. Antony in a small boat went
from one ship to another, encouraging his soldiers, and bidding
them stand firm, and fight as steadily on their large ships as
if they were on land. The masters he ordered that they should
receive the enemy lying still as if they were at anchor, and
maintain the entrance of the port, which was a narrow and
difficult passage. Of Caesar they relate, that, leaving his
tent and going round, while it was yet dark, to visit the ships,
he met a man driving an ass, and asked him his name. He
answered him that his own name was "Fortunate, and my ass," says
he, "is called Conqueror." And afterwards, when he disposed
the beaks of the ships in that place in token of his victory,
the statue of this man and his ass in bronze were placed amongst
them. After examining the rest of his fleet, he went in a boat
to the right wing, and looked with much admiration at the enemy
lying perfectly still in the straits, in all appearance as if
they had been at anchor. For some considerable length of time
he actually thought they were so, and kept his own ships at
rest, at a distance of about eight furlongs from them. But
about noon a breeze sprang up from the sea, and Antony's men,
weary of expecting the enemy so long, and trusting to their
large tall vessels, as if they had been invincible, began to
advance the left squadron. Caesar was overjoyed to see them
move, and ordered his own right squadron to retire, that he
might entice them out to sea as far as he could, his design
being to sail round and round, and so with his light and
well-manned galleys to attack these huge vessels, which their
size and their want of men made slow to move and difficult to
manage.
When they engaged, there was no charging or striking of one ship
by another, because Antony's, by reason of their great bulk,
were incapable of the rapidity required to make the stroke
effectual, and, on the other side, Caesar's durst not charge
head to head on Antony's, which were all armed with solid masses
and spikes of brass; nor did they like even to run in on their
sides, which were so strongly built with great squared pieces of
timber, fastened together with iron bolts, that their vessels'
beaks would easily have been shattered upon them. So that the
engagement resembled a land fight, or, to speak yet more
properly, the attack and defense of a fortified place; for there
were always three or four vessels of Caesar's about one of
Antony's, pressing them with spears, javelins, poles, and
several inventions of fire, which they flung among them,
Antony's men using catapults also, to pour down missiles from
wooden towers. Agrippa drawing out the squadron under his
command to outflank the enemy, Publicola was obliged to observe
his motions, and gradually to break off from the middle
squadron, where some confusion and alarm ensued, while
Arruntius engaged them. But the fortune of the day was still
undecided, and the battle equal, when on a sudden Cleopatra's
sixty ships were seen hoisting sail and making out to sea in
full flight, right through the ships that were engaged. For
they were placed behind the great ships, which, in breaking
through, they put into disorder. The enemy was astonished to
see them sailing off with a fair wind towards Peloponnesus.
Here it was that Antony showed to all the world that he was no
longer actuated by the thoughts and motives of a commander or a
man, or indeed by his own judgment at all, and what was once
said as a jest, that the soul of a lover lives in some one
else's body, he proved to be a serious truth. For, as if he had
been born part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she
went, as soon as he saw her ship sailing away, he abandoned all
that were fighting and spending their lives for him, and put
himself aboard a galley of five ranks of oars, taking with him
only Alexander of Syria and Scellias, to follow her that had so
well begun his ruin and would hereafter accomplish it.
She, perceiving him to follow, gave the signal to come aboard.
So, as soon as he came up with them, he was taken into the ship.
But without seeing her or letting himself be seen by her, he
went forward by himself, and sat alone, without a word, in the
ship's prow, covering his face with his two hands. In the
meanwhile, some of Caesar's light Liburnian ships, that were in
pursuit, came in sight. But on Antony's commanding to face
about, they all gave back except Eurycles the Laconian, who
pressed on, shaking a lance from the deck, as if he meant to
hurl it at him. Antony, standing at the prow, demanded of him,
"Who is this that pursues Antony?" "I am," said he, "Eurycles,
the son of Lachares, armed with Caesar's fortune to revenge my
father's death." Lachares had been condemned for a robbery, and
beheaded by Antony's orders. However, Eurycles did not attack
Antony, but ran with his full force upon the other
admiral-galley (for there were two of them), and with the blow
turned her round, and took both her and another ship, in which
was a quantity of rich plate and furniture. So soon as Eurycles
was gone, Antony returned to his posture, and sat silent, and
thus he remained for three days, either in anger with Cleopatra,
or wishing not to upbraid her, at the end of which they touched
at Taenarus. Here the women of their company succeeded first in
bringing them to speak, and afterwards to eat and sleep
together. And, by this time, several of the ships of burden and
some of his friends began to come in to him from the rout,
bringing news of his fleet's being quite destroyed, but that the
land-forces, they thought, still stood firm. So that he sent
messengers to Canidius to march the army with all speed through
Macedonia into Asia. And, designing himself to go from Taenarus
into Africa, he gave one of the merchant ships, laden with a
large sum of money, and vessels of silver and gold of great
value, belonging to the royal collections, to his friends,
desiring them to share it amongst them, and provide for their
own safety. They refusing his kindness with tears in their
eyes, he comforted them with all the goodness and humanity
imaginable, entreating them to leave him, and wrote letters in
their behalf to Theophilus, his steward, at Corinth, that he
would provide for their security, and keep them concealed till
such time as they could make their peace with Caesar. This
Theophilus was the father of Hipparchus, who had such interest
with Antony, who was the first of all his freedmen that went
over to Caesar, and who settled afterwards at Corinth. In this
posture were affairs with Antony.
But at Actium, his fleet, after a long resistance to Caesar, and
suffering the most damage from a heavy sea that set in right
ahead, scarcely, at four in the afternoon, gave up the contest,
with the loss of not more than five thousand men killed, but of
three hundred ships taken, as Caesar himself has recorded. Only
few had known of Antony's flight; and those who were told of it
could not at first give any belief to so incredible a thing, as
that a general who had nineteen entire legions and twelve
thousand horse upon the sea-shore, could abandon all and fly
away; and he, above all, who had so often experienced both good
and evil fortune, and had in a thousand wars and battles been
inured to changes. His soldiers, howsoever would not give up
their desires and expectations, still fancying he would appear
from some part or other, and showed such a generous fidelity to
his service, that, when they were thoroughly assured that he was
fled in earnest, they kept themselves in a body seven days,
making no account of the messages that Caesar sent to them. But
at last, seeing that Canidius himself, who commanded them, was
fled from the camp by night, and that all their officers had
quite abandoned them, they gave way, and made their submission
to the conqueror. After this, Caesar set sail for Athens, where
he made a settlement with Greece, and distributed what remained
of the provision of corn that Antony had made for his army among
the cities, which were in a miserable condition, despoiled of
their money, their slaves, their horses, and beasts of service.
My great-grandfather Nicarchus used to relate, that the whole
body of the people of our city were put in requisition to carry
each one a certain measure of corn upon their shoulders to the
sea-side near Anticyra, men standing by to quicken them with the
lash. They had made one journey of the kind, but when they had
just measured out the corn and were putting it on their backs
for a second, news came of Antony's defeat, and so saved
Chaeronea, for all Antony's purveyors and soldiers fled upon the
news, and left them to divide the corn among themselves.
When Antony came into Africa, he sent on Cleopatra from
Paraetonium into Egypt, and stayed himself in the most entire
solitude that he could desire, roaming and wandering about with
only two friends, one a Greek, Aristocrates, a rhetorician, and
the other a Roman, Lucilius, of whom we have elsewhere spoken,
how, at Philippi, to give Brutus time to escape, he suffered
himself to be taken by the pursuers, pretending he was Brutus.
Antony gave him his life, and on this account he remained true
and faithful to him to the last.
But when also the officer who commanded for him in Africa, to
whose care he had committed all his forces there, took them over
to Caesar, he resolved to kill himself, but was hindered by his
friends. And coming to Alexandria, he found Cleopatra busied in
a most bold and wonderful enterprise. Over the small space of
land which divides the Red Sea from the sea near Egypt, which
may be considered also the boundary between Asia and Africa, and
in the narrowest place is not much above three hundred furlongs
across, over this neck of land Cleopatra had formed a project of
dragging her fleet, and setting it afloat in the Arabian Gulf,
thus with her soldiers and her treasure to secure herself a home
on the other side, where she might live in peace, far away from
war and slavery. But the first galleys which were carried over
being burnt by the Arabians of Petra, and Antony not knowing but
that the army before Actium still held together, she desisted
from her enterprise, and gave orders for the fortifying all the
approaches to Egypt. But Antony, leaving the city and the
conversation of his friends, built him a dwelling-place in the
water, near Pharos, upon a little mole which he cast up in the
sea, and there, secluding himself from the company of mankind,
said he desired nothing but to live the life of Timon; as,
indeed, his case was the same, and the ingratitude and injuries
which he suffered from those he had esteemed his friends, made
him hate and mistrust all mankind.
This Timon was a citizen of Athens, and lived much about the
Peloponnesian war, as may be seen by the comedies of
Aristophanes and Plato, in which he is ridiculed as the hater
and enemy of mankind. He avoided and repelled the approaches of
everyone, but embraced with kisses and the greatest show of
affection Alcibiades, then in his hot youth. And when Apemantus
was astonished, and demanded the reason, he replied that he knew
this young man would one day do infinite mischief to the
Athenians. He never admitted anyone into his company, except
at times this Apemantus, who was of the same sort of temper, and
was an imitator of his way of life. At the celebration of the
festival of flagons, these two kept the feast together, and
Apemantus saying to him, "What a pleasant party, Timon!" "It
would be," he answered, "if you were away." One day he got up
in a full assembly on the speaker's place, and when there was a
dead silence and great wonder at so unusual a sight, he said,
"Ye men of Athens, I have a little plot of ground, and in it
grows a fig-tree, on which many citizens have been pleased to
hang themselves; and now, having resolved to build in that
place, I wished to announce it publicly that any of you who may
be desirous may go and hang yourselves before I cut it down."
He died and was buried at Halae, near the sea, where it so
happened that, after his burial, a land-slip took place on the
point of the shore, and the sea, flowing in, surrounded his
tomb, and made it inaccessible to the foot of man. It bore this
inscription: --
Here am I laid, my life of misery done.
Ask not my name, I curse you every one.
And this epitaph was made by himself while yet alive; that which
is more generally known is by Callimachus: --
Timon, the misanthrope, am I below.
Go, and revile me, traveler, only go.
Thus much of Timon, of whom much more might be said. Canidius
now came, bringing word in person of the loss of the army before
Actium. Then he received news that Herod of Judaea was gone
over to Caesar with some legions and cohorts, and that the other
kings and princes were in like manner deserting him, and that,
out of Egypt, nothing stood by him. All this, however, seemed
not to disturb him, but, as if he were glad to put away all
hope, that with it he might be rid of all care, and leaving his
habitation by the sea, which he called the Timoneum, he was
received by Cleopatra in the palace, and set the whole city into
a course of feasting, drinking, and presents. The son of Caesar
and Cleopatra was registered among the youths, and Antyllus, his
own son by Fulvia, received the gown without the purple border,
given to those that are come of age; in honor of which the
citizens of Alexandria did nothing but feast and revel for many
days. They themselves broke up the Order of the Inimitable
Livers, and constituted another in its place, not inferior in
splendor, luxury, and sumptuosity, calling it that of the Diers
together. For all those that said they would die with Antony
and Cleopatra gave in their names, for the present passing their
time in all manner of pleasures and a regular succession of
banquets. But Cleopatra was busied in making a collection of
all varieties of poisonous drugs, and, in order to see which of
them were the least painful in the operation, she had them tried
upon prisoners condemned to die. But, finding that the quick
poisons always worked with sharp pains, and that the less
painful were slow, she next tried venomous animals, and watched
with her own eyes whilst they were applied, one creature to the
body of another. This was her daily practice, and she pretty
well satisfied herself that nothing was comparable to the bite
of the asp, which, without convulsion or groaning, brought on a
heavy drowsiness and lethargy, with a gentle sweat on the face,
the senses being stupefied by degrees; the patient, in
appearance, being sensible of no pain, but rather troubled to be
disturbed or awakened, like those that are in a profound natural
sleep.
At the same time, they sent ambassadors to Caesar into Asia,
Cleopatra asking for the kingdom of Egypt for her children, and
Antony, that he might have leave to live as a private man in
Egypt, or, if that were thought too much, that he might retire
to Athens. In lack of friends, so many having deserted, and
others not being trusted, Euphronius, his son's tutor, was sent
on this embassy. For Alexas of Laodicea, who, by the
recommendation of Timagenes, became acquainted with Antony at
Rome, and had been more powerful with him than any Greek, and
was, of all the instruments which Cleopatra made use of to
persuade Antony, the most violent, and the chief subverter of
any good thoughts that, from time to time, might rise in his
mind in Octavia's favor, had been sent before to dissuade Herod
from desertion; but, betraying his master, stayed with him, and,
confiding in Herod's interest, had the boldness to come into
Caesar's presence. Herod, however, was not able to help him,
for he was immediately put in chains, and sent into his own
country, where, by Caesar's order, he was put to death. This
reward of his treason Alexas received while Antony was yet
alive.
Caesar would not listen to any proposals for Antony, but he made
answer to Cleopatra, that there was no reasonable favor which
she might not expect, if she put Antony to death, or expelled
him from Egypt. He sent back with the ambassadors his own
freedman Thyrsus, a man of understanding, and not at all
ill-qualified for conveying the messages of a youthful general
to a woman so proud of her charms and possessed with the opinion
of the power of her beauty. But by the long audiences he
received from her, and the special honors which she paid him,
Antony's jealousy began to be awakened; he had him seized,
whipped, and sent back; writing Caesar word that the man's busy,
impertinent ways had provoked him; in his circumstances he could
not be expected to be very patient: "But if it offend you," he
added, "you have got my freedman, Hipparchus, with you; hang him
up and scourge him to make us even." But Cleopatra, after this,
to clear herself, and to allay his jealousies, paid him all the
attentions imaginable. When her own birthday came, she kept it
as was suitable to their fallen fortunes; but his was observed
with the utmost prodigality of splendor and magnificence, so
that many of the guests sat down in want, and went home wealthy
men. Meantime, continual letters came to Caesar from Agrippa,
telling him his presence was extremely required at Rome.
And so the war was deferred for a season. But, the winter being
over, he began his march; he himself by Syria, and his captains
through Africa. Pelusium being taken, there went a report as if
it had been delivered up to Caesar by Seleucus not without the
consent of Cleopatra; but she, to justify herself, gave up into
Antony's hands the wife and children of Seleucus to be put to
death. She had caused to be built, joining to the temple of Isis,
several tombs and monuments of wonderful height, and very
remarkable for the workmanship; thither she removed her
treasure, her gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory,
cinnamon, and, after all, a great quantity of torchwood and tow.
Upon which Caesar began to fear lest she should, in a desperate
fit, set all these riches on fire; and, therefore, while he was
marching towards the city with his army, he omitted no occasion
of giving her new assurances of his good intentions. He took up
his position in the Hippodrome, where Antony made a fierce sally
upon him, routed the horse, and beat them back into their
trenches, and so returned with great satisfaction to the palace,
where, meeting Cleopatra, armed as he was, he kissed her, and
commended to her favor one of his men, who had most signalized
himself in the fight, to whom she made a present of a
breastplate and helmet of gold; which he having received, went
that very night and deserted to Caesar.
After this, Antony sent a new challenge to Caesar, to fight him
hand to hand; who made him answer that he might find several
other ways to end his life; and he, considering with himself
that he could not die more honorably than in battle, resolved to
make an effort both by land and sea. At supper, it is said, he
bade his servants help him freely, and pour him out wine
plentifully, since tomorrow, perhaps, they should not do the
same, but be servants to a new master, whilst he should lie on
the ground, a dead corpse, and nothing. His friends that were
about him wept to hear him talk so; which he perceiving, told
them he would not lead them to a battle in which he expected
rather an honorable death than either safety or victory. That
night, it is related, about the middle of it, when the whole
city was in a deep silence and general sadness, expecting the
event of the next day, on a sudden was heard the sound of all
sorts of instruments, and voices singing in tune, and the cry of
a crowd of people shouting and dancing, like a troop of
bacchanals on its way. This tumultuous procession seemed to
take its course right through the middle of the city to the gate
nearest the enemy; here it became loudest, and suddenly passed
out. People who reflected considered this to signify that
Bacchus, the god whom Antony had always made it his study to
copy and imitate, had now forsaken him.
As soon as it was light, he marched his infantry out of the
city, and posted them upon a rising ground, from whence he saw
his fleet make up to the enemy. There he stood in expectation
of the event; but, as soon as the fleets came near to one
another, his men saluted Caesar's with their oars; and, on their
responding, the whole body of the ships, forming into a single
fleet, rowed up direct to the city. Antony had no sooner seen
this, but the horse deserted him, and went over to Caesar; and
his foot being defeated, he retired into the city, crying out
that Cleopatra had betrayed him to the enemies he had made for
her sake. She, being afraid lest in his fury and despair he
might do her a mischief, fled to her monument, and letting down
the falling doors, which were strong with bars and bolts, she
sent messengers who should tell Antony she was dead. He,
believing it, cried out, "Now, Antony, why delay longer? Fate
has snatched away the only pretext for which you could say you
desired yet to live." Going into his chamber, and there
loosening and opening his coat of armor, "I am not," said he,
"troubled, Cleopatra, to be at present bereaved of you, for I
shall soon be with you; but it distresses me that so great a
general should be found of a tardier courage than a woman." He
had a faithful servant, whose name was Eros; he had engaged him
formerly to kill him when he should think it necessary, and now
he put him to his promise. Eros drew his sword, as designing to
kill him, but, suddenly turning round, he slew himself. And as
he fell dead at his feet, "It is well done, Eros," said Antony;
"you show your master how to do what you had not the heart to do
yourself;" and so he ran himself into the belly, and laid
himself upon the couch. The wound, however, was not immediately
mortal; and the flow of blood ceasing when he lay down,
presently he came to himself, and entreated those that were
about him to put him out of his pain; but they all fled out of
the chamber, and left him crying out and struggling, until
Diomede, Cleopatra's secretary, came to him, having orders from
her to bring him into the monument.
When he understood she was alive, he eagerly gave order to the
servants to take him up, and in their arms was carried to the
door of the building. Cleopatra would not open the door, but,
looking from a sort of window, she let down ropes and cords, to
which Antony was fastened; and she and her two women, the only
persons she had allowed to enter the monument, drew him up.
Those that were present say that nothing was ever more sad than
this spectacle, to see Antony, covered all over with blood and
just expiring, thus drawn up, still holding up his hands to her,
and lifting up his body with the little force he had left. As,
indeed, it was no easy task for the women; and Cleopatra, with
all her force, clinging to the rope, and straining with her head
to the ground, with difficulty pulled him up, while those below
encouraged her with their cries, and joined in all her effort
and anxiety. When she had got him up, she laid him on the bed,
tearing all her clothes, which she spread upon him; and, beating
her breasts with her hands, lacerating herself, and disfiguring
her own face with the blood from his wounds, she called him her
lord, her husband, her emperor, and seemed to have pretty nearly
forgotten all her own evils, she was so intent upon his
misfortunes. Antony, stopping her lamentations as well as he
could, called for wine to drink, either that he was thirsty; or
that he imagined that it might put him the sooner out of pain.
When he had drunk, he advised her to bring her own affairs, so
far as might be honorably done, to a safe conclusion, and that,
among all the friends of Caesar, she should rely on Proculeius;
that she should not pity him in this last turn of fate, but
rather rejoice for him in remembrance of his past happiness, who
had been of all men the most illustrious and powerful, and, in
the end, had fallen not ignobly, a Roman by a Roman overcome.
Just as he breathed his last, Proculeius arrived from Caesar;
for when Antony gave himself his wound, and was carried in to
Cleopatra, one of his guards, Dercetaeus, took up Antony's sword
and hid it; and, when he saw his opportunity, stole away to
Caesar, and brought him the first news of Antony's death, and
withal showed him the bloody sword. Caesar, upon this, retired
into the inner part of his tent, and, giving some tears to the
death of one that had been nearly allied to him in marriage, his
colleague in empire, and companion in so many wars and dangers,
he came out to his friends, and, bringing with him many letters,
he read to them with how much reason and moderation he had
always addressed himself to Antony, and in return what
overbearing and arrogant answers he received. Then he sent
Proculeius to use his utmost endeavors to get Cleopatra alive
into his power; for he was afraid of losing a great treasure,
and, besides, she would be no small addition to the glory of his
triumph. She, however, was careful not to put herself in
Proculeius's power; but from within her monument, he standing on
the outside of a door, on the level of the ground, which was
strongly barred, but so that they might well enough hear one
another's voice, she held a conference with him; she demanding
that her kingdom might be given to her children, and he bidding
her be of good courage, and trust Caesar for everything.
Having taken particular notice of the place, he returned to
Caesar, and Gallus was sent to parley with her the second time;
who, being come to the door, on purpose prolonged the
conference, while Proculeius fixed his scaling-ladders in the
window through which the women had pulled up Antony. And so
entering, with two men to follow him, he went straight down to
the door where Cleopatra was discoursing with Gallus. One of
the two women who were shut up in the monument with her cried
out, "Miserable Cleopatra, you are taken prisoner!" Upon which
she turned quick, and, looking at Proculeius, drew out her
dagger, which she had with her to stab herself. But Proculeius
ran up quickly, and, seizing her with both his hands, "For
shame," said he, "Cleopatra; you wrong yourself and Caesar much,
who would rob him of so fair an occasion of showing his
clemency, and would make the world believe the most gentle of
commanders to be a faithless and implacable enemy." And so,
taking the dagger out of her hand, he also shook her dress to
see if there were any poison hid in it. After this, Caesar sent
Epaphroditus, one of his freedmen, with orders to treat her with
all the gentleness and civility possible, but to take the
strictest precautions to keep her alive.
In the meanwhile, Caesar made his entry into Alexandria, with
Areius the philosopher at his side, holding him by the hand and
talking with him; desiring that all his fellow-citizens should
see what honor was paid to him, and should look up to him
accordingly from the very first moment. Then, entering the
exercise-ground, he mounted a platform erected for the purpose,
and from thence commanded the citizens (who, in great fear and
consternation, fell prostrate at his feet) to stand up, and told
them, that he freely acquitted the people of all blame, first,
for the sake of Alexander, who built their city; then, for the
city's sake itself, which was so large and beautiful; and,
thirdly, to gratify his friend Areius.
Such great honor did Areius receive from Caesar; and by his
intercession many lives were saved, amongst the rest that of
Philostratus, a man, of all the professors of logic that ever
were, the most ready in extempore speaking, but quite destitute
of any right to call himself one of the philosophers of the
Academy. Caesar, out of disgust at his character, refused all
attention to his entreaties. So, growing a long, white beard,
and dressing himself in black, he followed behind Areius,
shouting out the verse,
The wise, if they are wise, will save the wise.
Which Caesar hearing, gave him his pardon, to prevent rather any
odium that might attach to Areius, than any harm that
Philostratus might suffer.
Of Antony's children, Antyllus, his son by Fulvia, being
betrayed by his tutor, Theodorus, was put to death; and while
the soldiers were cutting off his head, his tutor contrived to
steal a precious jewel which he wore about his neck, and put it
into his pocket, and afterwards denied the fact, but was
convicted and crucified. Cleopatra's children, with their
attendants, had a guard set on them, and were treated very
honorably. Caesarion, who was reputed to be the son of Caesar
the Dictator, was sent by his mother, with a great sum of money,
through Ethiopia, to pass into India; but his tutor, a man named
Rhodon, about as honest as Theodorus, persuaded him to turn
back, for that Caesar designed to make him king. Caesar
consulting what was best to be done with him, Areius, we are
told, said,
Too many Caesars are not well.
So, afterwards, when Cleopatra was dead, he was killed.
Many kings and great commanders made petition to Caesar for the
body of Antony, to give him his funeral rites; but he would not
take away his corpse from Cleopatra, by whose hands he was
buried with royal splendor and magnificence, it being granted to
her to employ what she pleased on his funeral. In this
extremity of grief and sorrow, and having inflamed and ulcerated
her breasts with beating them, she fell into a high fever, and
was very glad of the occasion, hoping, under this pretext, to
abstain from food, and so to die in quiet without interference.
She had her own physician, Olympus, to whom she told the truth,
and asked his advice and help to put an end to herself, as
Olympus himself has told us, in a narrative which he wrote of
these events. But Caesar, suspecting her purpose, took to
menacing language about her children, and excited her fears for
them, before which engines her purpose shook and gave way, so
that she suffered those about her to give her what meat or
medicine they pleased.
Some few days after, Caesar himself came to make her a visit and
comfort her. She lay then upon her pallet-bed in undress,
and, on his entering in, sprang up from off her bed, having
nothing on but the one garment next her body, and flung herself
at his feet, her hair and face looking wild and disfigured, her
voice quivering, and her eyes sunk in her head. The marks of
the blows she had given herself were visible about her bosom,
and altogether her whole person seemed no less afflicted than
her soul. But, for all this, her old charm, and the boldness of
her youthful beauty had not wholly left her, and, in spite of
her present condition, still sparkled from within, and let
itself appear in all the movements of her countenance. Caesar,
desiring her to repose herself, sat down by her; and, on this
opportunity, she said something to justify her actions,
attributing what she had done to the necessity she was under,
and to her fear of Antony; and when Caesar, on each point, made
his objections, and she found herself confuted, she broke off at
once into language of entreaty and deprecation, as if she
desired nothing more than to prolong her life. And at last,
having by her a list of her treasure, she gave it into his
hands; and when Seleucus, one of her stewards, who was by,
pointed out that various articles were omitted, and charged her
with secreting them, she flew up and caught him by the hair, and
struck him several blows on the face. Caesar smiling and
withholding her, "Is it not very hard, Caesar," said she, "when
you do me the honor to visit me in this condition I am in, that
I should be accused by one of my own servants of laying by some
women's toys, not meant to adorn, be sure, my unhappy self, but
that I might have some little present by me to make your Octavia
and your Livia, that by their intercession I might hope to find
you in some measure disposed to mercy?" Caesar was pleased to
hear her talk thus, being now assured that she was desirous to
live. And, therefore, letting her know that the things she had
laid by she might dispose of as she pleased, and his usage of
her should be honorable above her expectation, he went away,
well satisfied that he had overreached her, but, in fact, was
himself deceived.
There was a young man of distinction among Caesar's companions,
named Cornelius Dolabella. He was not without a certain
tenderness for Cleopatra, and sent her word privately, as she
had besought him to do, that Caesar was about to return through
Syria, and that she and her children were to be sent on within
three days. When she understood this, she made her request to
Caesar that he would be pleased to permit her to make oblations
to the departed Antony; which being granted, she ordered herself
to be carried to the place where he was buried, and there,
accompanied by her women, she embraced his tomb with tears in
her eyes, and spoke in this manner: "O, dearest Antony," said
she, "it is not long since that with these hands I buried you;
then they were free, now I am a captive, and pay these last
duties to you with a guard upon me, for fear that my just griefs
and sorrows should impair my servile body, and make it less fit
to appear in their triumph over you. No further offerings or
libations expect from me; these are the last honors that
Cleopatra can pay your memory, for she is to be hurried away far
from you. Nothing could part us whilst we lived, but death
seems to threaten to divide us. You, a Roman born, have found a
grave in Egypt; I, an Egyptian, am to seek that favor, and none
but that, in your country. But if the gods below, with whom
you now are, either can or will do anything (since those above
have betrayed us), suffer not your living wife to be abandoned;
let me not be led in triumph to your shame, but hide me and bury
me here with you, since, amongst all my bitter misfortunes,
nothing has afflicted me like this brief time that I have lived
away from you."
Having made these lamentations, crowning the tomb with garlands
and kissing it, she gave orders to prepare her a bath, and,
coming out of the bath, she lay down and made a sumptuous meal.
And a country fellow brought her a little basket, which the
guards intercepting and asking what it was, the fellow put the
leaves which lay uppermost aside, and showed them it was full of
figs; and on their admiring the largeness and beauty of the
figs, he laughed, and invited them to take some, which they
refused, and, suspecting nothing, bade him carry them in. After
her repast, Cleopatra sent to Caesar a letter which she had
written and sealed; and, putting everybody out of the monument
but her two women, she shut the doors. Caesar, opening her
letter, and finding pathetic prayers and entreaties that she
might be buried in the same tomb with Antony, soon guessed what
was doing. At first he was going himself in all haste, but,
changing his mind, he sent others to see. The thing had been
quickly done. The messengers came at full speed, and found the
guards apprehensive of nothing; but on opening the doors, they
saw her stone-dead, lying upon a bed of gold, set out in all her
royal ornaments. Iras, one of her women, lay dying at her feet,
and Charmion, just ready to fall, scarce able to hold up her
head, was adjusting her mistress's diadem. And when one that
came in said angrily, "Was this well done of your lady,
Charmion?" "Extremely well," she answered, "and as became the
descendant of so many kings"; and as she said this, she fell
down dead by the bedside.
Some relate that an asp was brought in amongst those figs and
covered with the leaves, and that Cleopatra had arranged that it
might settle on her before she knew, but, when she took away
some of the figs and saw it, she said, "So here it is," and held
out her bare arm to be bitten. Others say that it was kept in a
vase, and that she vexed and pricked it with a golden spindle
till it seized her arm. But what really took place is known to
no one. Since it was also said that she carried poison in a
hollow bodkin, about which she wound her hair; yet there was not
so much as a spot found, or any symptom of poison upon her body,
nor was the asp seen within the monument; only something like
the trail of it was said to have been noticed on the sand by the
sea, on the part towards which the building faced and where the
windows were. Some relate that two faint puncture-marks were
found on Cleopatra's arm, and to this account Caesar seems to
have given credit; for in his triumph there was carried a figure
of Cleopatra, with an asp clinging to her. Such are the various
accounts. But Caesar, though much disappointed by her death,
yet could not but admire the greatness of her spirit, and gave
order that her body should he buried by Antony with royal
splendor and magnificence. Her women, also, received honorable
burial by his directions. Cleopatra had lived nine and thirty
years, during twenty-two of which she had reigned as queen, and
for fourteen had been Antony's partner in his empire. Antony,
according to some authorities, was fifty-three, according to
others, fifty-six years old. His statues were all thrown down,
but those of Cleopatra were left untouched; for Archibius, one
of her friends, gave Caesar two thousand talents to save them
from the fate of Antony's.
Antony left by his three wives seven children, of whom only
Antyllus, the eldest, was put to death by Caesar; Octavia took
the rest, and brought them up with her own. Cleopatra, his
daughter by Cleopatra, was given in marriage to Juba, the most
accomplished of kings; and Antony, his son by Fulvia, attained
such high favor, that whereas Agrippa was considered to hold the
first place with Caesar, and the sons of Livia the second, the
third, without dispute, was possessed by Antony. Octavia, also,
having had by her first husband, Marcellus, two daughters, and
one son named Marcellus, this son Caesar adopted, and gave him
his daughter in marriage; as did Octavia one of the daughters to
Agrippa. But Marcellus dying almost immediately after his
marriage, she, perceiving that her brother was at a loss to find
elsewhere any sure friend to be his son-in-law, was the first to
recommend that Agrippa should put away her daughter and marry
Julia. To this Caesar first, and then Agrippa himself, gave
assent; so Agrippa married Julia, and Octavia, receiving her
daughter, married her to the young Antony. Of the two daughters
whom Octavia had borne to Antony, the one was married to
Domitius Ahenobarbus; and the other, Antonia, famous for her
beauty and discretion, was married to Drusus, the son of Livia,
and step-son to Caesar. Of these parents were born Germanicus
and Claudius. Claudius reigned later; and of the children of
Germanicus, Caius, after a reign of distinction, was killed with
his wife and child; Agrippina, after bearing a son, Lucius
Domitius, to Ahenobarbus, was married to Claudius Caesar, who
adopted Domitius, giving him the name of Nero Germanicus. He
was emperor in our time, and put his mother to death, and with
his madness and folly came not far from ruining the Roman
empire, being Antony's descendant in the fifth generation.
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
As both are great examples of the vicissitudes of fortune, let
us first consider in what way they attained their power and
glory. Demetrius heired a kingdom already won for him by
Antigonus, the most powerful of the Successors, who, before
Demetrius grew to be a man, traversed with his armies and
subdued the greater part of Asia. Antony's father was well
enough in other respects, but was no warrior, and could bequeath
no great legacy of reputation to his son, who had the boldness,
nevertheless, to take upon him the government, to which birth
gave him no claim, which had been held by Caesar, and became the
inheritor of his great labors. And such power did he attain,
with only himself to thank for it, that, in a division of the
whole empire into two portions, he took and received the nobler
one; and, absent himself, by his mere subalterns and lieutenants
often defeated the Parthians, and drove the barbarous nations of
the Caucasus back to the Caspian Sea. Those very things that
procured him ill-repute bear witness to his greatness.
Antigonus considered Antipater's daughter Phila, in spite of the
disparity of her years, an advantageous match for Demetrius.
Antony was thought disgraced by his marriage with Cleopatra, a
queen superior in power and glory to all, except Arsaces, who
were kings in her time. Antony was so great as to be thought by
others worthy of higher things than his own desires.
As regards the right and justice of their aims at empire,
Demetrius need not be blamed for seeking to rule a people that
had always had a king to rule them. Antony, who enslaved the
Roman people, just liberated from the rule of Caesar, followed a
cruel and tyrannical object. His greatest and most illustrious
work, his successful war with Brutus and Cassius, was done to
crush the liberties of his country and of his fellow-citizens.
Demetrius, till he was driven to extremity, went on, without
intermission, maintaining liberty in Greece, and expelling the
foreign garrisons from the cities; not like Antony, whose boast
was to have slain in Macedonia those who had set up liberty in
Rome. As for the profusion and magnificence of his gifts,
one point for which Antony is lauded, Demetrius so far outdid
them, that what he gave to his enemies was far more than Antony
ever gave to his friends. Antony was renowned for giving Brutus
honorable burial; Demetrius did so to all the enemy's dead, and
sent the prisoners back to Ptolemy with money and presents.
Both were insolent in prosperity, and abandoned themselves to
luxuries and enjoyments. Yet it cannot be said that Demetrius,
in his revelings and dissipations, ever let slip the time for
action; pleasures with him attended only the superabundance of
his ease, and his Lamia, like that of the fable, belonged only
to his playful, half-waking, half-sleeping hours. When war
demanded his attention, his spear was not wreathed with ivy, nor
his helmet redolent of unguents; he did not come out to battle
from the women's chamber, but, hushing the bacchanal shouts and
putting an end to the orgies, he became at once, as Euripides
calls it, "the minister of the unpriestly Mars;" and, in short,
he never once incurred disaster through indolence or
self-indulgence. Whereas Antony, like Hercules in the picture
where Omphale is seen removing his club and stripping him of his
lion's skin, was over and over again disarmed by Cleopatra, and
beguiled away, while great actions and enterprises of the first
necessity fell, as it were, from his hands, to go with her to
the seashore of Canopus and Taphosiris, and play about. And in
the end, like another Paris, he left the battle to fly to her
arms; or rather, to say the truth, Paris fled when he was
already beaten; Antony fled first, and, to follow Cleopatra,
abandoned his victory.
There was no law to prevent Demetrius from marrying several
wives; from the time of Philip and Alexander, it had become
usual with Macedonian kings, and he did no more than was done by
Lysimachus and Ptolemy. And those he married he treated
honorably. But Antony, first of all, in marrying two wives at
once, did a thing which no Roman had ever allowed himself; and
then he drove away his lawful Roman wife to please the foreign
and unlawful woman. And so Demetrius incurred no harm at all;
Antony procured his ruin by his marriage. On the other hand, no
licentious act of Antony's can be charged with that impiety
which marks those of Demetrius. Historical writers tell us that
the very dogs are excluded from the whole Acropolis, because of
their gross, uncleanly habits. The very Parthenon itself saw
Demetrius consorting with harlots and debauching free women of
Athens. The vice of cruelty, also, remote as it seems from the
indulgence of voluptuous desires, must be attributed to him,
who, in the pursuit of his pleasures, allowed, or to say more
truly, compelled the death of the most beautiful and most chaste
of the Athenians, who found no way but this to escape his
violence. In one word, Antony himself suffered by his excesses,
and other people by those of Demetrius.
In his conduct to his parents, Demetrius was irreproachable.
Antony gave up his mother's brother, in order that he might have
leave to kill Cicero, this itself being so cruel and shocking an
act, that Antony would hardly be forgiven if Cicero's death had
been the price of this uncle's safety. In respect of breaches
of oaths and treaties, the seizure of Artabazes, and the
assassination of Alexander, Antony may urge the plea which no
one denies to be true, that Artabazes first abandoned and
betrayed him in Media; Demetrius is alleged by many to have
invented false pretexts for his act, and not to have retaliated
for injuries, but to have accused one whom he injured himself.
The achievements of Demetrius are all his own work. Antony's
noblest and greatest victories were won in his absence by his
lieutenants. For their final disasters they have both only to
thank themselves; not, however, in an equal degree. Demetrius
was deserted, the Macedonians revolted from him: Antony deserted
others, and ran away while men were fighting for him at the risk
of their lives. The fault to be found with the one is that he
had thus entirely alienated the affections of his soldiers; the
other's condemnation is that he abandoned so much love and faith
as he still possessed. We cannot admire the death of either,
but that of Demetrius excites our greater contempt. He let
himself become a prisoner, and was thankful to gain a three
years' accession of life in captivity. He was tamed like a wild
beast by his belly, and by wine; Antony took himself out of the
world in a cowardly, pitiful, and ignoble manner, but, still in
time to prevent the enemy having his person in their power.
DION
If it be true, Sosius Senecio, that, as Simonides tells us,
"Of the Corinthians Troy does not complain"
for having taken part with the Achaeans in the siege, because
the Trojans also had Corinthians (Glaucus, who sprang from
Corinth,) fighting bravely on their side, so also it may be
fairly said that neither Romans nor Greeks can quarrel with the
Academy, each nation being equally represented in the following
pair of lives, which will give an account of Brutus and of Dion,
-- Dion, who was Plato's own hearer, and Brutus, who was brought
up in his philosophy. They came from one and the selfsame
school, where they had been trained alike, to run the race of
honor; nor need we wonder that in the performance of actions
often most nearly allied and akin, they both bore evidence to
the truth of what their guide and teacher had said, that,
without the concurrence of power and success with justice and
prudence, public actions do not attain their proper, great, and
noble character. For as Hippomachus the wrestling-master
affirmed, he could distinguish his scholars at a distance.
though they were but carrying meat from the shambles, so it is
very probable that the principles of those who have had the same
good education should appear with a resemblance in all their
actions, creating in them a certain harmony and proportion, at
once agreeable and becoming.
We may also draw a close parallel of the lives of the two men
from their fortunes, wherein chance, even more than their own
designs, made them nearly alike. For they were both cut off by
an untimely death, not being able to accomplish those ends which
through many risks and difficulties they aimed at. But, above
all, this is most wonderful; that by preternatural interposition
both of them had notice given of their approaching death by an
unpropitious form, which visibly appeared to them. Although
there are people who utterly deny any such thing, and say that
no man in his right senses ever yet saw any supernatural phantom
or apparition, but that children only, and silly women, or men
disordered by sickness, in some aberration of the mind or
distemperature of the body, have had empty and extravagant
imaginations, whilst the real evil genius, superstition, was in
themselves. Yet if Dion and Brutus, men of solid understanding,
and philosophers, not to be easily deluded by fancy or
discomposed by any sudden apprehension, were thus affected by
visions, that they forthwith declared to their friends what they
had seen, I know not how we can avoid admitting again the
utterly exploded opinion of the oldest times, that evil and
beguiling spirits, out of an envy to good men, and a desire of
impeding their good deeds, make efforts to excite in them
feelings of terror and distraction, to make them shake and
totter in their virtue, lest by a steady and unbiased
perseverance they should obtain a happier condition than these
beings after death. But I shall leave these things for another
opportunity, and, in this twelfth book of the lives of great men
compared one with another, begin with his who was the elder.
Dionysius the First, having possessed himself of the government,
at once took to wife the daughter of Hermocrates, the Syracusan.
She, in an outbreak which the citizens made before the new power
was well settled, was abused in such a barbarous and outrageous
manner, that for shame she put an end to her own life. But
Dionysius, when he was reestablished and confirmed in his
supremacy, married two wives together, one named Doris, of
Locri, the other, Aristomache, a native of Sicily, and daughter
of Hipparinus, a man of the first quality in Syracuse, and
colleague with Dionysius when he was first chosen general with
unlimited powers for the war. It is said he married them both
in one day, and no one ever knew which of the two he first made
his wife; and ever after he divided his kindness equally between
them, both accompanying him together at his table, and in his
bed by turns. Indeed, the Syracusans were urgent that their own
countrywoman might be preferred before the stranger; but Doris,
to compensate for her foreign extraction; had the good fortune
to be the mother of the son and heir of the family, whilst
Aristomache continued a long time without issue, though
Dionysius was very desirous to have children by her, and,
indeed, caused Doris's mother to be put to death, laying to her
charge that she had given drugs to Aristomache, to prevent her
being with child.
Dion, Aristomache's brother, at first found an honorable
reception for his sister's sake; but his own worth and parts
soon procured him a nearer place in his brother-in-law's
affection, who, among other favors, gave special command to his
treasurers to furnish Dion with whatever money he demanded, only
telling him on the same day what they had delivered out. Now,
though Dion was before reputed a person of lofty character; of a
noble mind, and daring courage, yet these excellent
qualifications all received a great development from the happy
chance which conducted Plato into Sicily; not assuredly by any
human device or calculation, but some supernatural power,
designing that this remote cause should hereafter occasion the
recovery of the Sicilians' lost liberty and the subversion of
the tyrannical government, brought the philosopher out of Italy
to Syracuse, and made acquaintance between him and Dion. Dion
was, indeed, at this time extremely young in years, but of all
the scholars that attended Plato he was the quickest and aptest
to learn, and the most prompt and eager to practice, the lessons
of virtue, as Plato himself reports of him, and his own actions
sufficiently testify. For though he had been bred up under a
tyrant in habits of submission, accustomed to a life, on the one
hand of servility and intimidation, and yet on the other of
vulgar display and luxury, the mistaken happiness of people that
knew no better thing than pleasure and self-indulgence, yet, at
the first taste of reason and a philosophy that demands
obedience to virtue, his soul was set in a flame, and in the
simple innocence of youth, concluding, from his own disposition,
that the same reasons would work the same effects upon
Dionysius, he made it his business, and at length obtained the
favor of him, at a leisure hour, to hear Plato.
At this their meeting, the subject-matter of their discourse in
general was human virtue, but, more particularly, they disputed
concerning fortitude, which Plato proved tyrants, of all men,
had the least pretense to; and thence proceeding to treat of
justice, asserted the happy estate of the just, and the
miserable condition of the unjust; arguments which Dionysius
would not hear out, but, feeling himself, as it were, convicted
by his words, and much displeased to see the rest of the
auditors full of admiration for the speaker and captivated with
his doctrine, at last, exceedingly exasperated, he asked the
philosopher in a rage, what business he had in Sicily. To which
Plato answered, "I came to seek a virtuous man." "It seems
then," replied Dionysius, "you have lost your labor." Dion,
supposing, that this was all, and that nothing further could
come of his anger, at Plato's request, conveyed him aboard a
galley, which was conveying Pollis, the Spartan, into Greece.
But Dionysius privately dealt with Pollis, by all means to kill
Plato in the voyage; if not, to be sure to sell him for a slave:
he would, of course, take no harm of it, being the same just man
as before; he would enjoy that happiness, though he lost his
liberty. Pollis, therefore, it is stated, carried Plato to
Aegina, and there sold him; the Aeginetans, then at war with
Athens, having made a decree that whatever Athenian was taken on
their coasts should forthwith be exposed to sale.
Notwithstanding, Dion was not in less favor and credit with
Dionysius than formerly, but was entrusted with the most
considerable employments, and sent on important embassies to
Carthage, in the management of which he gained very great
reputation. Besides, the usurper bore with the liberty he took
to speak his mind freely, he being the only man who upon any
occasion durst boldly say what he thought, as, for example, in
the rebuke he gave him about Gelon. Dionysius was ridiculing
Gelon's government, and, alluding to his name, said, he had been
the laughing-stock of Sicily. While others seemed to admire
and applaud the quibble, Dion very warmly replied,
"Nevertheless, it is certain that you are sole governor here,
because you were trusted for Gelon's sake; but for your sake no
man will ever hereafter be trusted again." For, indeed, Gelon
had made a monarchy appear the best, whereas Dionysius had
convinced men that it was the worst, of governments.
Dionysius had three children by Doris, and by Aristomache four,
two of which were daughters, Sophrosyne and Arete. Sophrosyne
was married to his son Dionysius; Arete, to his brother
Thearides, after whose death, Dion received his niece Arete to
wife. Now when Dionysius was sick and like to die, Dion
endeavored to speak with him in behalf of the children he had by
Aristomache, but was still prevented by the physicians, who
wanted to ingratiate themselves with the next successor, who
also, as Timaeus reports, gave him a sleeping potion which he
asked for, which produced an insensibility only followed by his
death.
Nevertheless, at the first council which the young Dionysius
held with his friends, Dion discoursed so well of the present
state of affairs, that he made all the rest appear in their
politics but children, and in their votes rather slaves than
counselors, who timorously and disingenuously advised what would
please the young man, rather than what would advance his
interest. But that which startled them most was the proposal he
made to avert the imminent danger they feared of a war with the
Carthaginians, undertaking, if Dionysius wanted peace, to sail
immediately over into Africa, and conclude it there upon
honorable terms; but, if he rather preferred war, then he would
fit out and maintain at his own cost and charges fifty galleys
ready for the service.
Dionysius wondered much at his greatness of mind, and received
his offer with satisfaction. But the other courtiers, thinking
his generosity reflected upon them, and jealous of being
lessened by his greatness, from hence took all occasions by
private slanders to render him obnoxious to the young man's
displeasure; as if he designed by his power at sea to surprise
the government, and by the help of those naval forces confer the
supreme authority upon his sister Aristomache's children. But,
indeed, the most apparent and the strongest grounds for dislike
and hostility existed already in the difference of his habits,
and his reserved and separate way of living. For they, who,
from the beginning, by flatteries and all unworthy artifices,
courted the favor and familiarity of the prince, youthful and
voluptuously bred, ministered to his pleasures, and sought how
to find him daily some new amours and occupy him in vain
amusements, with wine or with women, and in other dissipations;
by which means, the tyranny, like iron softened in the fire,
seemed, indeed, to the subject to be more moderate and gentle,
and to abate somewhat of its extreme severity; the edge of it
being blunted, not by the clemency, but rather the sloth and
degeneracy of the sovereign, whose dissoluteness, gaining ground
daily, and growing upon him, soon weakened and broke those
"adamantine chains," with which his father, Dionysius, said he
had left the monarchy fastened and secured. It is reported of
him, that, having begun a drunken debauch, he continued it
ninety days without intermission; in all which time no person
on business was allowed to appear, nor was any serious
conversation heard at court, but drinking, singing, dancing.
and buffoonery reigned there without control.
It is likely then they had little kindness for Dion, who never
indulged himself in any youthful pleasure or diversion. And so
his very virtues were the matter of their calumnies, and were
represented under one or other plausible name as vices; they
called his gravity pride, his plain-dealing self-will, the good
advice he gave was all construed into reprimand, and he was
censured for neglecting and scorning those in whose misdemeanors
he declined to participate. And to say the truth, there was in
his natural character something stately, austere, reserved, and
unsociable in conversation, which made his company unpleasant
and disagreeable not only to the young tyrant, whose ears had
been corrupted by flatteries; many also of Dion's own intimate
friends, though they loved the integrity and generosity of his
temper, yet blamed his manner, and thought he treated those with
whom he had to do, less courteously and affably than became a
man engaged in civil business. Of which Plato also afterwards
wrote to him; and, as it were, prophetically advised him
carefully to avoid an arbitrary temper, whose proper helpmate
was a solitary life. And, indeed, at this very time, though
circumstances made him so important, and, in the danger of the
tottering government, he was recognized as the only or the
ablest support of it, yet he well understood that he owed not
his high position to any good-will or kindness, but to the mere
necessities of the usurper.
And, supposing the cause of this to be ignorance and want of
education, he endeavored to induce the young man into a course
of liberal studies, and to give him some knowledge of moral
truths and reasonings, hoping he might thus lose his fear of
virtuous living, and learn to take pleasure in laudable actions.
Dionysius, in his own nature, was not one of the worst kind of
tyrants, but his father, fearing that if he should come to
understand himself better, and converse with wise and reasonable
men, he might enter into some design against him, and dispossess
him of his power, kept him closely shut up at home; where, for
want of other company, and ignorant how to spend his time
better, he busied himself in making little chariots,
candlesticks, stools, tables, and other things of wood. For the
elder Dionysius was so diffident and suspicious, and so
continually on his guard against all men, that he would not so
much as let his hair be trimmed with any barber's or
hair-cutter's instruments, but made one of his artificers singe
him with a live coal. Neither were his brother or his son
allowed to come into his apartment in the dress they wore, but
they, as all others, were stripped to their skins by some of the
guard, and, after being seen naked, put on other clothes before
they were admitted into the presence. When his brother Leptines
was once describing the situation of a place, and took a javelin
from one of the guard to draw the plan of it, he was extremely
angry with him, and had the soldier who gave him the weapon put
to death. He declared, the more judicious his friends were, the
more he suspected them; because he knew, that were it in their
choice, they would rather be tyrants themselves than the
subjects of a tyrant. He slew Marsyas, one of his captains whom
he had preferred to a considerable command, for dreaming that he
killed him: without some previous waking thought and purpose of
the kind, he could not, he supposed, have had that fancy in
his sleep. So timorous was he, and so miserable a slave to his
fears, yet very angry with Plato, because he would not allow him
to be the valiantest man alive.
Dion, as we said before, seeing the son thus deformed and spoilt
in character for want of teaching, exhorted him to study, and to
use all his entreaties to persuade Plato, the first of
philosophers, to visit him in Sicily, and; when he came, to
submit himself to his direction and advice: by whose
instructions he might conform his nature to the truths of
virtue, and, living after the likeness of the Divine and
glorious Model of Being, out of obedience to whose control the
general confusion is changed into the beautiful order of the
universe, so he in like manner might be the cause of great
happiness to himself and to all his subjects, who, obliged by
his justice and moderation, would then willingly pay him
obedience as their father, which now grudgingly, and upon
necessity, they are forced to yield him as their master. Their
usurping tyrant he would then no longer be, but their lawful
king. For fear and force, a great navy and standing army of ten
thousand hired barbarians are not, as his father had said, the
adamantine chains which secure the regal power, but the love,
zeal, and affection inspired by clemency and justice; which,
though they seem more pliant than the stiff and hard bonds of
severity, are nevertheless the strongest and most durable ties
to sustain a lasting government. Moreover, it is mean and
dishonorable that a ruler, while careful to be splendid in his
dress, and luxurious and magnificent in his habitation, should,
in reason and power of speech, make no better show than the
commonest of his subjects, nor have the princely palace of his
mind adorned according to his royal dignity.
Dion frequently entertaining the king upon this subject, and, as
occasion offered, repeating some of the philosopher's sayings,
Dionysius grew impatiently desirous to have Plato's company, and
to hear him discourse. Forthwith, therefore, he sent letter
upon letter to him to Athens, to which Dion added his
entreaties; also several philosophers of the Pythagorean sect
from Italy sent their recommendations, urging him to come and
obtain a hold upon this pliant, youthful soul, which his solid
and weighty reasonings might steady, as it were, upon the seas
of absolute power and authority. Plato, as he tells us himself,
out of shame more than any other feeling, lest it should seem
that he was all mere theory, and that of his own good-will he
would never venture into action, hoping withal, that if he could
work a cure upon one man, the head and guide of the rest, he
might remedy the distempers of the whole island of Sicily,
yielded to their requests.
But Dion's enemies, fearing an alteration in Dionysius,
persuaded him to recall from banishment Philistus, a man of
learned education, and at the same time of great experience in
the ways of tyrants, and who might serve as a counterpoise to
Plato and his philosophy. For Philistus from the beginning had
been a great instrument in establishing the tyranny, and for a
long time had held the office of captain of the citadel. There
was a report, that he had been intimate with the mother of
Dionysius the first, and not without his privity. And when
Leptines, having two daughters by a married woman whom he had
debauched, gave one of them in marriage to Philistus, without
acquainting Dionysius, he, in great anger, put Leptines's
mistress in prison, and banished Philistus from Sicily.
Whereupon, he fled to some of his friends on the Adriatic coast,
in which retirement and leisure it is probable he wrote the
greatest part of his history; for he returned not into his
country during the reign of that Dionysius.
But after his death, as is just related, Dion's enemies
occasioned him to be recalled home, as fitter for their purpose,
and a firm friend to the arbitrary government. And this,
indeed, immediately upon his return he set himself to maintain;
and at the same time various calumnies and accusations against
Dion were by others brought to the king: as that he held
correspondence with Theodotes and Heraclides, to subvert the
government; as, doubtless, it is likely enough, that Dion had
entertained hopes, by the coming of Plato, to mitigate the rigid
and despotic severity of the tyranny, and to give Dionysius the
character of a fair and lawful governor; and had determined, if
he should continue averse to that, and were not to be reclaimed,
to depose him, and restore the commonwealth to the Syracusans;
not that he approved a democratic government, but thought it
altogether preferable to a tyranny, when a sound and good
aristocracy could not be procured.
This was the state of affairs when Plato came into Sicily, who,
at his first arrival, was received with wonderful demonstration
of kindness and respect. For one of the royal chariots, richly
ornamented, was in attendance to receive him when he came on
shore; Dionysius himself sacrificed to the gods in thankful
acknowledgment for the great happiness which had befallen his
government. The citizens, also, began to entertain marvelous
hopes of a speedy reformation, when they observed the modesty
which now ruled in the banquets, and the general decorum which
prevailed in all the court, their tyrant himself also behaving
with gentleness and humanity in all their matters of business
that came before him. There was a general passion for
reasoning: and philosophy, insomuch that the very palace, it is
reported, was filled with dust by the concourse of the students
in mathematics who were working their problems there. Some few
days after, it was the time of one of the Syracusan sacrifices,
and when the priest, as he was wont, prayed for the long and
safe continuance of the tyranny, Dionysius, it is said, as he
stood by, cried out, "Leave off praying for evil upon us." This
sensibly vexed Philistus and his party, who conjectured, that if
Plato, upon such brief acquaintance, had so far transformed and
altered the young man's mind, longer converse and greater
intimacy would give him such influence and authority, that it
would he impossible to withstand him.
Therefore, no longer privately and apart, but jointly and in
public, all of them, they began to slander Dion, noising it
about that he had charmed and bewitched Dionysius by Plato's
sophistry, to the end that when he was persuaded voluntarily to
part with his power, and lay down his authority, Dion might take
it up, and settle it upon his sister Aristomache's children.
Others professed to be indignant that the Athenians, who
formerly had come to Sicily with a great fleet and a numerous
land-army, and perished miserably without being able to take the
city of Syracuse, should now, by means of one sophister,
overturn the sovereignty of Dionysius; inveigling him to
cashier his guard of ten thousand lances, dismiss a navy of four
hundred galleys, disband an army of ten thousand horse and many
times over that number of foot, and go seek in the schools an
unknown and imaginary bliss, and learn by the mathematics how to
be happy; while, in the meantime, the substantial enjoyments of
absolute power, riches, and pleasure would be handed over to
Dion and his sister's children.
By these means, Dion began to incur at first suspicion, and by
degrees more apparent displeasure and hostility. A letter,
also, was intercepted and brought to the young prince, which
Dion had written to the Carthaginian agents, advising them,
that, when they treated with Dionysius concerning the peace,
they should not come to their audience without communicating
with him: they would not fail to obtain by this means all that
they wanted. When Dionysius had shown this to Philistus, and
consulted with him, as Timaeus relates, about it, he overreached
Dion by a feigned reconciliation, professing, after some fair
and reasonable expression of his feelings, that he was at
friends with him, and thus, leading him alone to the sea-side,
under the castle wall, he showed him the letter, and taxed him
with conspiring with the Carthaginians against him. And when
Dion essayed to speak in his own defense, Dionysius suffered him
not; but immediately forced him aboard a boat, which lay there
for that purpose, and commanded the sailors to set him ashore on
the coast of Italy.
When this was publicly known, and was thought very hard usage,
there was much lamentation in the tyrant's own household on
account of the women, but the citizens of Syracuse encouraged
themselves, expecting that for his sake some disturbance would
ensue; which, together with the mistrust others would now feel,
might occasion a general change and revolution in the state.
Dionysius, seeing this, took alarm, and endeavored to pacify the
women and others of Dion's kindred and friends; assuring them
that he had not banished, but only sent him out of the way for a
time, for fear of his own passion, which might be provoked some
day by Dion's self-will into some act which he should be sorry
for. He gave also two ships to his relations, with liberty to
send into Peloponnesus for him whatever of his property or
servants they thought fit.
Dion was very rich, and had his house furnished with little less
than royal splendor and magnificence. These valuables his
friends packed up and conveyed to him, besides many rich
presents which were sent him by the women and his adherents. So
that, so far as wealth and riches went, he made a noble
appearance among the Greeks, and they might judge, by the
affluence of the exile, what was the power of the tyrant.
Dionysius immediately removed Plato into the castle, designing,
under color of an honorable and kind reception, to set a guard
upon him, lest he should follow Dion, and declare to the world
in his behalf, how injuriously he had been dealt with. And,
moreover, time and conversation (as wild beasts by use grow tame
and tractable) had brought Dionysius to endure Plato's company
and discourse, so that he began to love the philosopher, but
with such an affection as had something of the tyrant in it,
requiring of Plato that he should, in return of his kindness,
love him only, and attend to him above all other men; being
ready to permit to his care the chief management of affairs, and
even the government, too, upon condition that he would not
prefer Dion's friendship before his. This extravagant
affection was a great trouble to Plato, for it was accompanied
with petulant and jealous humors, like the fond passions of
those that are desperately in love; frequently he was angry and
fell out with him, and presently begged and entreated to be
friends again. He was beyond measure desirous to be Plato's
scholar, and to proceed in the study of philosophy, and yet he
was ashamed of it with those who spoke against it and professed
to think it would ruin him.
But a war about this time breaking out, he sent Plato away,
promising him in the summer to recall Dion, though in this he
broke his word at once; nevertheless, he remitted to him his
revenues, desiring Plato to excuse him as to the time appointed,
because of the war, but, as soon as he had settled a peace, he
would immediately send for Dion, requiring him in the interim to
be quiet, and not raise any disturbance, nor speak ill of him
among the Grecians. This Plato endeavored to effect, by keeping
Dion with him in the Academy, and busying him in philosophical
studies.
Dion sojourned in the Upper Town of Athens, with Callippus, one
of his acquaintance; but for his pleasure he bought a seat in
the country, which afterwards, when he went into Sicily, he gave
to Speusippus, who had been his most frequent companion while
he was at Athens, Plato so arranging it, with the hope that
Dion's austere temper might be softened by agreeable company,
with an occasional mixture of seasonable mirth. For Speusippus
was of the character to afford him this; we find him spoken of
in Timon's Silli, as "good at a jest." And Plato himself, as
it happened, being called upon to furnish a chorus of boys, Dion
took upon him the ordering and management of it, and defrayed
the whole expense, Plato giving him this opportunity to oblige
the Athenians, which was likely to procure his friend more
kindness than himself credit. Dion went also to see several
other cities, visiting the noblest and most statemanlike persons
in Greece, and joining in their recreations and entertainments
in their times of festival. In all which, no sort of vulgar
ignorance, or tyrannic assumption, or luxuriousness was remarked
in him; but, on the contrary, a great deal of temperance,
generosity, and courage, and a well-becoming taste for reasoning
and philosophic discourses. By which means he gained the love
and admiration of all men, and in many cities had public honors
decreed him; the Lacedaemonians making him a citizen of Sparta,
without regard to the displeasure of Dionysius, though at that
time he was aiding them in their wars against the Thebans.
It is related that once, upon invitation, he went to pay a visit
to Ptoeodorus the Megarian, a man, it would seem, of wealth and
importance; and when, on account of the concourse of people
about his doors, and the press of business, it was very
troublesome and difficult to get access to him, turning about to
his friends who seemed concerned and angry at it, "What reason,"
said he, "have we to blame Ptoeodorus, when we ourselves used to
do no better when we were at Syracuse?"
After some little time, Dionysius, envying Dion, and jealous of
the favor and interest he had among the Grecians, put a stop
upon his incomes, and no longer sent him his revenues, making
his own commissioners trustees of the estate. But, endeavoring
to obviate the ill-will and discredit which, upon Plato's
account, might accrue to him among the philosophers, he
collected in his court many reputed learned men; and,
ambitiously desiring to surpass them in their debates he was
forced to make use, often incorrectly, of arguments he had
picked up from Plato. And now he wished for his company again,
repenting he had not made better use of it when he had it, and
had given no greater heed to his admirable lessons. Like a
tyrant, therefore, inconsiderate in his desires, headstrong and
violent in whatever he took a will to, on a sudden he was
eagerly set on the design of recalling him, and left no stone
unturned, but addressed himself to Archytas the Pythagorean (his
acquaintance and friendly relations with whom owed their origin
to Plato), and persuaded him to stand as surety for his
engagements, and to request Plato to revisit Sicily.
Archytas therefore sent Archedemus, and Dionysius some galleys,
with divers friends, to entreat his return; moreover, he wrote
to him himself expressly and in plain terms, that Dion must
never look for any favor or kindness, if Plato would not be
prevailed with to come into Sicily; but if Plato did come, Dion
should be assured of whatever he desired. Dion also received
letters full of solicitations from his sister and his wife,
urging him to beg Plato to gratify Dionysius in this request,
and not give him an excuse for further ill-doing. So that, as
Plato says of himself, the third time he set sail for the Strait
of Scylla,
"Venturing again Charybdis's dangerous gulf."
This arrival brought great joy to Dionysius, and no less hopes
to the Sicilians, who were earnest in their prayers and good
wishes that Plato might get the better of Philistus, and
philosophy triumph over tyranny. Neither was he unbefriended by
the women, who studied to oblige him; and he had with Dionysius
that peculiar credit which no man else ever obtained, namely,
liberty to come into his presence without being examined or
searched. When he would have given him a considerable sum of
money, and, on several repeated occasions, made fresh offers,
which Plato as often declined, Aristippus the Cyrenaean, then
present, said that Dionysius was very safe in his munificence,
he gave little to those who were ready to take all they could
get, and a great deal to Plato, who would accept of nothing.
After the first compliments of kindness were over, when Plato
began to discourse of Dion, he was at first diverted by excuses
for delay, followed soon after by complaints and disgusts,
though not as yet observable to others, Dionysius endeavoring to
conceal them, and, by other civilities and honorable usage, to
draw him off from his affection to Dion. And for some time
Plato himself was careful not to let anything of this dishonesty
and breach of promise appear, but bore with it, and dissembled
his annoyance. While matters stood thus between them, and, as
they thought, they were unobserved and undiscovered, Helicon the
Cyzicenian, one of Plato's followers, foretold an eclipse of the
sun, which happened according to his prediction; for which he
was much admired by the tyrant, and rewarded with a talent of
silver; whereupon Aristippus, jesting with some others of the
philosophers, told them, he also could predict something
extraordinary; and on their entreating him to declare it, "I
foretell," said he, "that before long there will be a quarrel
between Dionysius and Plato."
At length, Dionysius made sale of Dion's estate, and converted
the money to his own use, and removed Plato from an apartment he
had in the gardens of the palace to lodgings among the guards he
kept in pay, who from the first had hated Plato, and sought
opportunity to make away with him, supposing he advised
Dionysius to lay down the government and disband his soldiers.
When Archytas understood the danger he was in, he immediately
sent a galley with messengers to demand him of Dionysius;
alleging that he stood engaged for his safety, upon the
confidence of which Plato had come to Sicily. Dionysius, to
palliate his secret hatred, before Plato came away, treated him
with great entertainments and all seeming demonstrations of
kindness, but could not forbear breaking out one day into the
expression, "No doubt, Plato, when you are at home among the
philosophers, your companions, you will complain of me, and
reckon up a great many of my faults." To which Plato answered
with a smile, "The Academy will never, I trust, be at such a
loss for subjects to discuss as to seek one in you." Thus, they
say, Plato was dismissed; but his own writings do not altogether
agree with this account.
Dion was angry at all this, and not long after declared open
enmity to Dionysius, on hearing what had been done with his
wife; on which matter Plato, also, had had some confidential
correspondence with Dionysius. Thus it was. After Dion's
banishment, Dionysius, when he sent Plato back, had desired him
to ask Dion privately, if he would be averse to his wife's
marrying another man, For there went a report, whether true, or
raised by Dion's enemies, that his marriage was not pleasing to
him, and that he lived with his wife on uneasy terms. When
Plato therefore came to Athens, and had mentioned the subject to
Dion, he wrote a letter to Dionysius, speaking of other matters
openly, but on this in language expressly designed to be
understood by him alone, to the effect that he had talked with
Dion about the business, and that it was evident he would highly
resent the affront, if it should be put into execution. At that
time, therefore, while there were yet great hopes of an
accommodation, he took no new steps with his sister, suffering
her to live with Dion's child. But when things were come to
that pass, that no reconciliation could be expected, and Plato,
after his second visit, was again sent away in displeasure, he
then forced Arete, against her will, to marry Timocrates, one of
his favorites; in this action coming short even of his father's
justice and lenity; for he, when Polyxenus, the husband of his
sister, Theste, became his enemy, and fled in alarm out of
Sicily, sent for his sister, and taxed her, that, being privy to
her husband's flight, she had not declared it to him. But the
lady, confident and fearless, made him this reply: "Do you
believe me, brother, so bad a wife, or so timorous a woman,
that, having known my husband's flight, I would not have borne
him company, and shared his fortunes? I knew nothing of it;
since otherwise it had been my better lot to be called the wife
of the exile Polyxenus, than the sister of the tyrant
Dionysius." It is said, he admired her free and ready answer,
as did the Syracusans, also, her courage and virtue, insomuch
that she retained her dignity and princely retinue after the
dissolution of the tyranny, and, when she died, the citizens, by
public decree, attended the solemnity of her funeral. And the
story, though a digression from the present purpose, was well
worth the telling.
From this time, Dion set his mind upon warlike measures; with
which Plato, out of respect for past hospitalities, and because
of his age, would have nothing to do. But Speusippus and the
rest of his friends assisted and encouraged him, bidding him
deliver Sicily, which with lift-up hands implored his help, and
with open arms was ready to receive him. For when Plato was
staying at Syracuse, Speusippus, being oftener than he in
company with the citizens, had more thoroughly made out how
they were inclined; and though at first they had been on their
guard, suspecting his bold language, as though he had been set
on by the tyrant to trepan them, yet at length they trusted him.
There was but one mind and one wish or prayer among them all,
that Dion would undertake the design, and come, though without
either navy, men, horse, or arms; that he would simply put
himself aboard any ship, and lend the Sicilians his person and
name against Dionysius. This information from Speusippus
encouraged Dion, who, concealing his real purpose, employed his
friends privately to raise what men they could; and many
statesmen and philosophers were assisting to him, as, for
instance, Eudemus the Cyprian, on whose death Aristotle wrote
his Dialogue of the Soul, and Timonides the Leucadian. They
also engaged on his side Miltas the Thessalian, who was a
prophet, and had studied in the Academy. But of all that were
banished by Dionysius, who were not fewer than a thousand, five
and twenty only joined in the enterprise; the rest were afraid,
and abandoned it. The rendezvous was in the island Zacynthus,
where a small force of not quite eight hundred men came
together, all of them, however, persons already distinguished in
plenty of previous hard service, their bodies well trained and
practiced, and their experience and courage amply sufficient to
animate and embolden to action the numbers whom Dion expected to
join him in Sicily.
Yet these men, when they first understood the expedition was
against Dionysius, were troubled and disheartened, blaming Dion,
that, hurried on like a madman by mere passion and despair, he
rashly threw both himself and them into certain ruin. Nor were
they less angry with their commanders and muster-masters, that
they had not in the beginning let them know the design. But
when Dion in his address to them had set forth the unsafe and
weak condition of arbitrary government, and declared that he
carried them rather for commanders than soldiers, the citizens
of Syracuse and the rest of the Sicilians having been long ready
for a revolt, and when, after him, Alcimenes, an Achaean of the
highest birth and reputation, who accompanied the expedition,
harangued them to the same effect, they were contented.
It was now the middle of summer, and the Etesian winds blowing
steadily on the seas, the moon was at the full, when Dion
prepared a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo; and with great
solemnity marched his soldiers to the temple in all their arms
and accouterments. And after the sacrifice, he feasted them all
in the race-course of the Zacynthians, where he had made
provision for their entertainment. And when here they beheld
with wonder the quantity and the richness of the gold and silver
plate, and the tables laid to entertain them, all far exceeding
the fortunes of a private man, they concluded with themselves,
that a man now past the prime of life, who was master of so much
treasure, would not engage himself in so hazardous an enterprise
without good reason of hope, and certain and sufficient
assurances of aid from friends over there. Just after the
libations were made, and the accompanying prayers offered, the
moon was eclipsed; which was no wonder to Dion, who understood
the revolutions of eclipses, and the way in which the moon is
overshadowed and the earth interposed between her and the sun.
But because it was necessary that the soldiers, who were
surprised and troubled at it, should be satisfied and
encouraged, Miltas the diviner, standing up in the midst of the
assembly, bade them be of good cheer, and expect all happy
success, for that the divine powers foreshowed that something at
present glorious and resplendent should be eclipsed and
obscured; nothing at this time being more splendid than the
sovereignty of Dionysius, their arrival in Sicily should dim
this glory, and extinguish this brightness. Thus Miltas, in
public, descanted upon the incident. But concerning a swarm of
bees which settled on the poop of Dion's ship, he privately told
him and his friends, that he feared the great actions they were
like to perform, though for a time they should thrive and
flourish, would be of short continuance, and soon suffer a
decay. It is reported, also, that many prodigies happened to
Dionysius at that time. An eagle, snatching a javelin from one
of the guard, carried it aloft, and from thence let it fall into
the sea. The water of the sea that washed the castle walls was
for a whole day sweet and potable, as many that tasted it
experienced. Pigs were farrowed perfect in all their other
parts, but without ears. This the diviners declared to portend
revolt and rebellion, for that the subjects would no longer give
ear to the commands of their superiors. They expounded the
sweetness of the water to signify to the Syracusans a change
from hard and grievous times into easier and more happy
circumstances. The eagle being the bird of Jupiter, and the
spear an emblem of power and command, this prodigy was to denote
that the chief of the gods designed the end and dissolution of
the present government. These things Theopompus relates in his
history.
Two ships of burden carried all Dion's men; a third vessel, of
no great size, and two galleys of thirty oars attended them. In
addition to his soldiers' own arms, he carried two thousand
shields, a very great number of darts and lances, and abundant
stores of all manner of provisions, that there might be no want
of anything in their voyage; their purpose being to keep out at
sea during the whole voyage, and use the winds, since all the
land was hostile to them, and Philistus, they had been told, was
in Iapygia with a fleet, looking out for them. Twelve days they
sailed with a fresh and gentle breeze; on the thirteenth, they
made Pachynus, the Sicilian cape. There Protus, the chief
pilot, advised them to land at once and without delay, for if
they were forced again from the shore, and did not take
advantage of the headland, they might ride out at sea many
nights and days, waiting for a southerly wind in the summer
season. But Dion, fearing a descent too near his enemies, and
desirous to begin at a greater distance, and further on in the
country, sailed on past Pachynus. They had not gone far, before
stress of weather, the wind blowing hard at north, drove the
fleet from the coast; and it being now about the time that
Arcturus rises, a violent storm of wind and rain came on, with
thunder and lightning, the mariners were at their wits' end, and
ignorant what course they ran, until on a sudden they found they
were driving with the sea on Cercina, the island on the coast of
Africa, just where it is most craggy and dangerous to run upon.
Upon the cliffs there they escaped narrowly of being forced and
staved to pieces; but, laboring hard at their oars, with much
difficulty they kept clear until the storm ceased. Then,
lighting by chance upon a vessel, they understood they were upon
the Heads, as it is called, of the Great Syrtis; and when they
were now again disheartened by a sudden calm, and beating to and
fro without making any way, a soft air began to blow from the
land, when they expected anything rather than wind from the
south and scarce believed the happy change of their fortune.
The gale gradually increasing, and beginning to blow fresh, they
clapped on all their sails, and, praying to the gods, put out
again into the open sea, steering right from Africa for Sicily.
And, running steady before the wind, the fifth day they arrived
at Minoa, a little town of Sicily, in the dominion of the
Carthaginians, of which Synalus, an acquaintance and friend of
Dion's, happened at that time to be governor; who, not knowing
it was Dion and his fleet, endeavored to hinder his men from
landing; but they rushed on shore with their swords in their
hands, not slaying any of their opponents (for this Dion had
forbidden, because of his friendship with the Carthaginians),
but forced them to retreat, and, following close, pressed in a
body with them into the place, and took it. As soon as the two
commanders met, they mutually saluted each other; Dion delivered
up the place again to Synalus, without the least damage done to
anyone therein, and Synalus quartered and entertained the
soldiers, and supplied Dion with what he wanted.
They were most of all encouraged by the happy accident of
Dionysius's absence at this nick of time; for it appeared that
he was lately gone with eighty sail of ships to Italy.
Therefore, when Dion was desirous that the soldiers should
refresh themselves there, after their tedious and troublesome
voyage, they would not be prevailed with, but, earnest to make
the best use of that opportunity, they urged Dion to lead them
straight on to Syracuse. Leaving therefore their baggage, and
the arms they did not use, Dion desired Synalus to convey them
to him as he had occasion, and marched directly to Syracuse.
The first that came in to him upon his march were two hundred
horse of the Agrigentines who were settled near Ecnomum, and,
after them, the Geloans. But the news soon flying to Syracuse,
Timocrates, who had married Dion's wife, the sister of
Dionysius, and was the principal man among his friends now
remaining in the city, immediately dispatched a courier to
Dionysius with letters announcing Dion's arrival; while he
himself took all possible care to prevent any stir or tumult in
the city, where all were in great excitement, but as yet
continued quiet, fearing to give too much credit to what was
reported. A very strange accident happened to the messenger who
was sent with the letters; for being arrived in Italy, as he
traveled through the land of Rhegium, hastening to Dionysius at
Caulonia, he met one of his acquaintance, who was carrying home
part of a sacrifice. He accepted a piece of the flesh, which
his friend offered him, and proceeded on his journey with all
speed; having traveled a good part of the night, and being
through
weariness forced to take a little rest, he laid himself down in
the next convenient place he came to, which was in a wood near
the road. A wolf, scenting the flesh, came and seized it as it
lay fastened to the letter-bag, and with the flesh carried away
the bag also, in which were the letters to Dionysius. The man,
awaking and missing his bag, sought for it up and down a great
while, and, not finding it, resolved not to go to the king
without his letters, but to conceal himself, and keep out of the
way.
Dionysius, therefore, came to hear of the war in Sicily from
other hands, and that a good while after. In the meantime, as
Dion proceeded in his march, the Camarineans joined his forces,
and the country people in the territory of Syracuse rose and
joined him in a large body. The Leontines and Campanians, who,
with Timocrates, guarded the Epipolae, receiving a false alarm
which was spread on purpose by Dion, as if he intended to attack
their cities first, left Timocrates, and hastened off to carry
succor to their own homes. News of which being brought to Dion,
where he lay near Macrae, he raised his camp by night, and came
to the river Anapus, which is distant from the city about ten
furlongs; there he made a halt, and sacrificed by the river,
offering vows to the rising sun. The soothsayers declared that
the gods promised him victory; and they that were present,
seeing him assisting at the sacrifice with a garland on his
head, one and all crowned themselves with garlands. There were
about five thousand that had joined his forces in their march;
who, though but ill-provided, with such weapons as came next to
hand, made up by zeal and courage for the want of better arms;
and when once they were told to advance, as if Dion were already
conqueror, they ran forward with shouts and acclamations,
encouraging each other with the hopes of liberty.
The most considerable men and better sort of the citizens of
Syracuse, clad all in white, met him at the gates. The populace
set upon all that were of Dionysius's party, and principally
searched for those they called setters or informers, a number
of wicked and hateful wretches, who made it their business to go
up and down the city, thrusting themselves into all companies,
that they might inform Dionysius what men said, and how they
stood affected. These were the first that suffered, being
beaten to death by the crowd. Timocrates, not being able to
force his way to the garrison that kept the castle, took horse,
and fled out of the city, filling all the places where he came
with fear and confusion, magnifying the amount of Dion's forces,
that he might not be supposed to have deserted his charge
without good reason for it. By this time, Dion was come up, and
appeared in the sight of the people; he marched first in a rich
suit of arms, and by him on one hand his brother, Megacles, on
the other, Callippus the Athenian, crowned with garlands. Of
the foreign soldiers, a hundred followed as his guard, and their
several officers led the rest in good order; the Syracusans
looking on and welcoming them, as if they believed the whole to
be a sacred and religious procession, to celebrate the solemn
entrance, after an absence of forty-eight years, of liberty and
popular government.
Dion entered by the Menitid gate, and, having by sound of
trumpet quieted the noise of the people, he caused proclamation
to be made, that Dion and Megacles, who were come to overthrow
the tyrannical government, did declare the Syracusans and all
other Sicilians to be free from the tyrant. But, being desirous
to harangue the people himself, he went up through the
Achradina. The citizens on each side the way brought victims
for sacrifice, set out their tables and goblets, and as he
passed by each door threw flowers and ornaments upon him, with
vows and acclamations, honoring him as a god. There was under
the castle and the Pentapyla a lofty and conspicuous sundial,
which Dionysius had set up. Getting up upon the top of that, he
made an oration to the people, calling upon them to maintain and
defend their liberty; who, with great expressions of joy and
acknowledgment, created Dion and Megacles generals, with plenary
powers, joining in commission with them, at their desire and
entreaty, twenty colleagues, of whom half were of those that had
returned with them out of banishment. It seemed also to the
diviners a most happy omen, that Dion, when he made his address
to the people, had under his feet the stately monument which
Dionysius had been at such pains to erect; but because it was a
sundial on which he stood when he was made general, they
expressed some fears that the great actions he had performed
might be subject to change, and admit some rapid turn and
declination of fortune.
After this, Dion, taking the Epipolae, released the citizens who
were imprisoned there, and then raised a wall to invest the
castle. Seven days after, Dionysus arrived by sea, and got into
the citadel, and about the same time came carriages bringing the
arms and ammunition which Dion had left with Synalus. These he
distributed among the citizens; and the rest that wanted
furnished themselves as well as they could, and put themselves
in the condition of zealous and serviceable men-at-arms.
Dionysius sent agents, at first privately, to Dion, to try what
terms they could make with him. But he declaring that any
overtures they had to make must be made in public to the
Syracusans as a free people, envoys now went and came between
the tyrant and the people, with fair proposals, and assurances
that they should have abatements of their tributes and taxes,
and freedom from the burdens of military expeditions, all which
should be made according to their own approbation and consent
with him. The Syracusans laughed at these offers, and Dion
returned answer to the envoys that Dionysius must not think to
treat with them upon any other terms but resigning the
government; which if he would actually do, he would not forget
how nearly he was related to him, or be wanting to assist him in
procuring oblivion for the past, and whatever else was
reasonable and just. Dionysius seemed to consent to this, and
sent his agents again, desiring some of the Syracusans to come
into the citadel and discuss with him in person the terms to
which on each side they might be willing, after fair debate, to
consent. There were therefore some deputed, such as Dion
approved of; and the general rumor from the castle was, that
Dionysius would voluntarily resign his authority, and rather do
it himself as his own good deed, than let it be the act of Dion.
But this profession was a mere trick to amuse the Syracusans.
For he put the deputies that were sent to him in custody, and by
break of day, having first, to encourage his men, made them
drink plentifully of raw wine, he sent the garrison of
mercenaries out to make a sudden sally against Dion's works.
The attack was quite unexpected, and the barbarians set to work
boldly with loud cries to pull down the cross-wall, and assailed
the Syracusans so furiously that they were not able to maintain
their post. Only a party of Dion's hired soldiers, on first
taking the alarm, advanced to the rescue; neither did they at
first know what to do, or how to employ the aid they brought,
not being able to hear the commands of their officers, amidst
the noise and confusion of the Syracusans, who fled from the
enemy and ran in among them, breaking through their ranks, until
Dion, seeing none of his orders could be heard, resolved to let
them see by example what they ought to do, and charged into the
thickest of the enemy. The fight about him was fierce and
bloody, he being as well known by the enemy as by his own party,
and all running with loud cries to the quarter where he fought.
Though his time of life was no longer that of the bodily
strength and agility for such a combat, still his determination
and courage were sufficient to maintain him against all that
attacked him; but, while bravely driving them back, he was
wounded in the hand with a lance, his body armor also had been
much battered, and was scarcely any longer serviceable to
protect him, either against missiles or blows hand to hand.
Many spears and javelins had passed into it through the shield,
and, on these being broken back, he fell to the ground, but was
immediately rescued, and carried off by his soldiers. The
command-in-chief he left to Timonides, and, mounting a horse,
rode about the city, rallying the Syracusans that fled; and,
ordering up a detachment of the foreign soldiers out of
Achradina, where they were posted on guard, he brought them as a
fresh reserve, eager for battle, upon the tired and failing
enemy, who were already well inclined to give up their design.
For having hopes at their first sally to retake the whole city,
when beyond their expectation they found themselves engaged with
bold and practiced fighters, they fell back towards the castle.
As soon as they gave ground, the Greek soldiers pressed the
harder upon them, till they turned and fled within the walls.
There were lost in this action seventy-four of Dion's men, and a
very great number of the enemy. This being a signal victory,
and principally obtained by the valor of the foreign soldiers,
the Syracusans rewarded them in honor of it with a hundred
minae, and the soldiers on their part presented Dion with a
crown of gold.
Soon after, there came heralds from Dionysius, bringing Dion
letters from the women of his family, and one addressed outside,
"To his father, from Hipparinus;" this was the name of Dion's
son, though Timaeus says, he was, from his mother Arete's name,
called Aretaeus; but I think credit is rather to be given to
Timonides's report, who was his father's fellow-soldier and
confidant. The rest of the letters were read publicly,
containing many solicitations and humble requests of the women;
that professing to be from his son, the heralds would not have
them open publicly, but Dion, putting force upon them, broke the
seal. It was from Dionysius, written in the terms of it to
Dion, but in effect to the Syracusans, and so worded that, under
a plausible justification of himself and entreaty to him, means
were taken for rendering him suspected by the people. It
reminded him of the good service he had formerly done the
usurping government, it added threats to his dearest relations,
his sister, son, and wife, if he did not comply with the
contents, also passionate demands mingled with lamentations,
and, most to the purpose of all, urgent recommendations to him
not to destroy the government, and put the power into the hands
of men who always hated him, and would never forget their old
piques and quarrels; let him take the sovereignty himself, and
so secure the safety of his family and his friends.
When this letter was read, the Syracusans were not, as they
should have been, transported with admiration at the unmovable
constancy and magnanimity of Dion, who withstood all his dearest
interests to be true to virtue and justice, but, on the
contrary, they saw in this their reason for fearing and
suspecting that he lay under an invincible necessity to be
favorable to Dionysius; and they began therefore to look out for
other leaders, and the rather, because to their great joy they
received the news that Heraclides was on his way. This
Heraclides was one of those whom Dionysius had banished, very
good soldier, and well known for the commands he had formerly
had under the tyrant; yet a man of no constant purpose, of a
fickle temper, and least of all to be relied upon when he had to
act with a colleague in any honorable command. He had had a
difference formerly with Dion in Peloponnesus, and had resolved,
upon his own means, with what ships and soldiers he had, to make
an attack upon Dionysius. When he arrived at Syracuse, with
seven galleys and three small vessels, he found Dionysius
already close besieged, and the Syracusans high and proud of
their victories. Forthwith, therefore, he endeavored by all
ways to make himself popular; and, indeed, he had in him
naturally something that was very insinuating and taking with a
populace that loves to be courted. He gained his end, also, the
easier, and drew the people over to his side, because of the
dislike they had taken to Dion's grave and stately manner, which
they thought overbearing and assuming; their successes having
made them so careless and confident, that they expected popular
arts and flatteries from their leaders, before they had in
reality secured a popular government.
Getting therefore together in an irregular assembly, they chose
Heraclides their admiral; but when Dion came forward, and told
them, that conferring this trust upon Heraclides was in effect
to withdraw that which they had granted him, for he was no
longer their generalissimo if another had the command of the
navy, they repealed their order, and, though much against their
wills, canceled the new appointment. When this business was
over, Dion invited Heraclides to his house, and pointed out to
him, in gentle terms, that he had not acted wisely or well to
quarrel with him upon a punctilio of honor, at a time when the
least false step might be the ruin of all; and then, calling a
fresh assembly of the people, he there named Heraclides admiral,
and prevailed with the citizens to allow him a life-guard, as he
himself had.
Heraclides openly professed the highest respect for Dion, and
made him great acknowledgments for this favor, attending him
with all deference, as ready to receive his commands; but
underhand he kept up his dealings with the populace and the
unrulier citizens, unsettling their minds and disturbing them
with his complaints, and putting Dion into the utmost perplexity
and disquiet. For if he advised to give Dionysius leave to quit
the castle, he would be exposed to the imputation of sparing and
protecting him; if, to avoid giving offense or suspicion, he
simply continued the siege, they would say he protracted the
war, to keep his office of general the longer, and overawe the
citizens.
There was one Sosis, notorious in the city for his bad conduct
and his impudence, yet a favorite with the people, for the very
reason that they liked to see it made a part of popular
privileges to carry free speech to this excess of license. This
man, out of a design against Dion, stood up one day in an
assembly, and, having sufficiently railed at the citizens as a
set of fools, that could not see how they had made an exchange
of a dissolute and drunken for a sober and watchful despotism,
and thus having publicly declared himself Dion's enemy, took his
leave. The next day, he was seen running through the streets,
as if he fled from some that pursued him, almost naked, wounded
in the head, and bloody all over. In this condition, getting
people about him in the marketplace, he told them that he had
been assaulted by Dion's men; and, to confirm what he said,
showed them the wounds he had received in his head. And a good
many took his part, exclaiming loudly against Dion for his cruel
and tyrannical conduct, stopping the mouths of the people by
bloodshed and peril of life. Just as an assembly was gathering
in this unsettled and tumultuous state of mind, Dion came before
them, and made it appear how this Sosis was brother to one of
Dionysius's guard, and that he was set on by him to embroil the
city in tumult and confusion; Dionysius having now no way left
for his security but to make his advantage of their dissensions
and distractions. The surgeons, also, having searched the
wound, found it was rather razed, than cut with a downright
blow; for the wounds made with a sword are, from their mere
weight, most commonly deepest in the middle, but this was very
slight, and all along of an equal depth; and it was not one
continued wound, as if cut at once, but several incisions, in
all probability made at several times, as he was able to endure
the pain. There were credible persons, also, who brought a
razor, and showed it in the assembly, stating that they met
Sosis running in the street, all bloody, who told them that he
was flying from Dion's soldiers, who had just attacked and
wounded him; they ran at once to look after them, and met no
one, but spied this razor lying under a hollow stone near the
place from which they observed he came.
Sosis was now likely to come by the worst of it. But when, to
back all this, his own servants came in, and gave evidence that
he had left his house alone before break of day, with the razor
in his hand, Dion's accusers withdrew themselves, and the people
by a general vote condemned Sosis to die, being once again well
satisfied with Dion and his proceedings.
Yet they were still as jealous as before of his soldiers, and
the rather, because the war was now carried on principally by
sea; Philistus being come from Iapygia with a great fleet to
Dionysius's assistance. They supposed, therefore, that there
would be no longer need of the soldiers, who were all landsmen
and armed accordingly: these were rather, indeed, they thought,
in a condition to be protected by themselves, who were seamen,
and had their power in their shipping. Their good opinion of
themselves was also much enhanced by an advantage they got in an
engagement by sea, in which they took Philistus prisoner, and
used him in a barbarous and cruel manner. Ephorus relates that
when he saw his ship was taken he slew himself. But Timonides,
who was with Dion from the very first, and was present at all
the events as they occurred, writing to Speusippus the
philosopher, relates the story thus: that Philistus's galley
running aground, he was taken prisoner alive, and first
disarmed, then stripped of his corslet, and exposed naked, being
now an old man, to every kind of contumely; after which they cut
off his head, and gave his body to the boys of the town, bidding
them drag it through the Achradina, and then throw it into the
Quarries. Timaeus, to increase the mockery, adds further, that
the boys tied him by his lame leg, and so drew him through the
streets, while the Syracusans stood by laughing and jesting at
the sight of that very man thus tied and dragged about by the
leg, who had told Dionysius, that, so far from flying on
horseback from Syracuse, he ought to wait till he should be
dragged out by the heels. Philistus, however, has stated, that
this was said to Dionysius by another, and not by himself.
Timaeus avails himself of this advantage, which Philistus truly
enough affords against himself in his zealous and constant
adherence to the tyranny, to vent his own spleen and malice
against him. They, indeed, who were injured by him at the time
are perhaps excusable, if they carried their resentment to the
length of indignities to his dead body; but they who write
history afterwards, and were noway wronged by him in his
lifetime, and have received assistance from his writings, in
honor should not with opprobrious and scurrilous language
upbraid him for those misfortunes, which may well enough befall
even the best of men. On the other side, Ephorus is as much out
of the way in his encomiums. For, however ingenious he is in
supplying unjust acts and wicked conduct with fair and worthy
motives, and in selecting decorous and honorable terms, yet when
he does his best, he does not himself stand clear of the charge
of being the greatest lover of tyrants, and the fondest admirer
of luxury and power and rich estates and alliances of marriage
with absolute princes. He that neither praises Philistus for
his conduct, nor insults over his misfortunes, seems to me to
take the fittest course.
After Philistus's death, Dionysius sent to Dion, offering to
surrender the castle, all the arms, provisions, and
garrison-soldiers, with full pay for them for five months,
demanding in return that he might have safe conduct to go
unmolested into Italy, and there to continue, and also to enjoy
the revenues of Gyarta, a large and fruitful territory belonging
to Syracuse, reaching from the sea-side to the middle of the
country. Dion rejected these proposals, and referred him to the
Syracusans. They, hoping in a short time to take Dionysius
alive, dismissed his ambassadors summarily. But he, leaving his
eldest son, Apollocrates, to defend the castle, and putting on
board his ships the persons and the property that he set most
value upon, took the opportunity of a fair wind, and made his
escape, undiscovered by the admiral Heraclides and his fleet.
The citizens loudly exclaimed against Heraclides for this
neglect; but he got one of their public speakers, Hippo by name,
to go among them, and make proposals to the assembly for a
redivision of lands, alleging that the first beginning of
liberty was equality, and that poverty and slavery were
inseparable companions. In support of this, Heraclides spoke,
and used the faction in favor of it to overpower Dion, who
opposed it; and, in fine, he persuaded the people to ratify it
by their vote, and further to decree, that the foreign soldiers
should receive no pay, and that they would elect new commanders,
and so be rid of Dion's oppression. The people, attempting, as
it were, after their long sickness of despotism, all at once to
stand on their legs, and to do the part, for which they were yet
unfit, of freemen, stumbled in all their actions; and yet hated
Dion, who, like a good physician, endeavored to keep the city to
a strict and temperate regimen.
When they met in the assembly to choose their commanders, about
the middle of summer, unusual and terrible thunders, with other
inauspicious appearances, for fifteen days together, dispersed
the people, deterring them, on grounds of religious fear, from
creating new generals. But, at last, the popular leaders,
having found a fair and clear day, and having got their party
together, were proceeding to an election, when a draught-ox, who
was used to the crowd and noise of the streets, but for some
reason or other grew unruly to his driver, breaking from his
yoke, ran furiously into the theater where they were assembled,
and set the people flying and running in all directions before
him in the greatest disorder and confusion; and from thence went
on, leaping and rushing about, over all that part of the city
which the enemies afterwards made themselves masters of.
However, the Syracusans, not regarding all this, elected five
and twenty captains, and, among the rest, Heraclides; and
underhand tampered with Dion's men, promising, if they would
desert him, and enlist themselves in their service, to make them
citizens of Syracuse, with all the privileges of natives. But
they would not hear the proposals, but, to show their fidelity
and courage, with their swords in their hands, placing Dion for
his security in the midst of their battalion, conveyed him out
of the city, not offering violence to anyone, but upbraiding
those they met with their baseness and ingratitude. The
citizens, seeing they were but few, and did not offer any
violence, despised them; and, supposing that with their large
numbers they might with ease overpower and cut them off before
they got out of the city, fell upon them in the rear.
Here Dion was in a great strait, being necessitated either to
fight against his own countrymen, or tamely suffer himself and
his faithful soldiers to be cut in pieces. He used many
entreaties to the Syracusans, stretching out his hands towards
the castle, that was full of their enemies, and showing them the
soldiers, who in great numbers appeared on the walls and watched
what was doing. But when no persuasions could divert the
impulse of the multitude, and the whole mass, like the sea in a
storm, seemed to be driven before the breath of the demagogues,
he commanded his men, not to charge them, but to advance with
shouts and clashing of their arms; which being done, not a man
of them stood his ground; all fled at once through the streets,
though none pursued them. For Dion immediately commanded his
men to face about, and led them towards the city of the
Leontines.
The very women laughed at the new captains for this retreat; so
to redeem their credit, they bid the citizens arm themselves
again, and followed after Dion, and came up with him as he was
passing a river. Some of the light-horse rode up and began to
skirmish. But when they saw Dion no more tame and calm, and no
signs in his face of any fatherly tenderness towards his
countrymen, but with an angry countenance, as resolved not to
suffer their indignities any longer, bidding his men face round
and form in their ranks for the onset, they presently turned
their backs more basely than before, and fled to the city, with
the loss of some few of their men.
The Leontines received Dion very honorably, gave money to his
men, and made them free of their city; sending envoys to the
Syracusans, to require them to do the soldiers justice, who, in
return, sent back other agents to accuse Dion. But when a
general meeting of the confederates met in the town of the
Leontines, and the matter was heard and debated, the Syracusans
were held to be in fault. They, however, refused to stand to
the award of their allies, following their own conceit, and
making it their pride to listen to no one, and not to have any
commanders but those who would fear and obey the people.
About this time, Dionysius sent in a fleet, under the command of
Nypsius the Neapolitan, with provisions and pay for the
garrison. The Syracusans fought him, had the better, and took
four of his ships; but they made very ill use of their good
success, and, for want of good discipline, fell in their joy to
drinking and feasting in an extravagant manner, with so little
regard to their main interest, that, when they thought
themselves sure of taking the castle, they actually lost their
city. Nypsius, seeing the citizens in this general disorder,
spending day and night in their drunken singing and reveling,
and their commanders well pleased with the frolic, or at least
not daring to try and give any orders to men in their drink,
took advantage of this opportunity, made a sally, and stormed
their works; and, having made his way through these, let his
barbarians loose upon the city, giving up it and all that were
in it to their pleasure.
The Syracusans quickly saw their folly and misfortune, but could
not, in the distraction they were in, so soon redress it. The
city was in actual process of being sacked, the enemy putting
the men to the sword, demolishing the fortifications, and
dragging the women and children with lamentable shrieks and
cries prisoners into the castle. The commanders, giving all for
lost, were not able to put the citizens in any tolerable posture
of defense, finding them confusedly mixed up and scattered among
the enemy. While they were in this condition, and the Achradina
in danger to be taken, everyone was sensible who he was in whom
all their remaining hopes rested, but no man for shame durst
name Dion, whom they had so ungratefully and foolishly dealt
with. Necessity at last forcing them, some of the auxiliary
troops and horsemen cried out, "Send for Dion and his
Peloponnesians from the Leontines." No sooner was the venture
made and the name heard among the people, but they gave a shout
for joy, and, with tears in their eyes, wished him there, that
they might once again see that leader at the head of them, whose
courage and bravery in the worst of dangers they well
remembered, calling to mind not only with what an undaunted
spirit he always behaved himself, but also with what courage and
confidence he inspired them when he led them against the enemy.
They immediately, therefore, dispatched Archonides and Telesides
of the confederate troops, and of the horsemen Hellanicus and
four others. These, traversing the road between at their
horses' full speed, reached the town of the Leontines in the
evening. The first thing they did was to leap from their horses
and fall at Dion's feet, relating with tears the sad condition
the Syracusans were in. Many of the Leontines and
Peloponnesians began to throng about them, guessing by their
speed and the manner of their address that something
extraordinary had occurred.
Dion at once led the way to the assembly, and, the people being
gathered together in a very little time, Archonides and
Hellanicus and the others came in among them, and in short
declared the misery and distress of the Syracusans, begging the
foreign soldiers to forget the injuries they had received, and
assist the afflicted, who had suffered more for the wrong they
had done, than they themselves who received it would (had it
been in their power) have inflicted upon them. When they had
made an end, there was a profound silence in the theater; Dion
then stood up, and began to speak, but tears stopped his words;
his soldiers were troubled at his grief, but bade him take good
courage and proceed. When he had recovered himself a little,
therefore, "Men of Peloponnesus," he said, "and of the
confederacy, I asked for your presence here, that you might
consider your own interests. For myself, I have no interests to
consult while Syracuse is perishing, and, though I may not save
it from destruction, I will nevertheless hasten thither, and be
buried in the ruins of my country. Yet if you can find in your
hearts to assist us, the most inconsiderate and unfortunate of
men, you may to your eternal honor again retrieve this unhappy
city. But if the Syracusans can obtain no more pity nor relief
from you, may the gods reward you for what you have formerly
valiantly done for them, and for your kindness to Dion, of whom
speak hereafter as one who deserted you not when you were
injured and abused, nor afterwards forsook his fellow-citizens
in their afflictions and misfortunes."
Before he had yet ended his speech, the soldiers leapt up, and
with a great shout testified their readiness for the service,
crying out, to march immediately to the relief of the city. The
Syracusan messengers hugged and embraced them, praying the Gods
to send down blessings upon Dion and the Peloponnesians. When
the noise was pretty well over, Dion gave orders that all should
go to their quarters to prepare for their march, and, having
refreshed themselves, come ready armed to their rendezvous in
the place where they now were, resolving that very night to
attempt the rescue.
Now at Syracuse, Dionysius's soldiers, as long as day continued,
ransacked the city, and did all the mischief they could; but
when night came on, they retired into the castle, having lost
some few of their number. At which the factious ringleaders
taking heart, and hoping the enemy would rest content with what
they had done and make no further attempt upon them, persuaded
the people again to reject Dion, and, if he came with the
foreign soldiers, not to admit him; advising them not to yield,
as inferior to them in point of honor and courage, but to save
their city and defend their liberties and properties themselves.
The populace, therefore, and their leaders sent messengers to
Dion to forbid him to advance, while the noble citizens and the
horse sent others to him to desire him to hasten his march; for
which reason he slacked his pace, yet did not remit his advance.
And in the course of the night, the faction that was against him
set a guard upon the gates of the city to hinder him from coming
in. But Nypsius made another sally out of the castle with a far
greater number of men, and those far more bold and eager than
before, who quite ruined what of the rampart was left standing,
and fell in, pell-mell, to sack and ravage the city. The
slaughter was now very great, not only of the men, but of the
women also and children; for they regarded not so much the
plunder, as to destroy and kill all they met. For Dionysius,
despairing to regain the kingdom, and mortally hating the
Syracusans, resolved to bury his lost sovereignty in the ruin
and desolation of Syracuse. The soldiers, therefore, to
anticipate Dion's succors, resolved upon the most complete and
ready way of destruction, to lay the city in ashes, firing all
at hand with torches and lamps, and at distance with flaming
arrows, shot from their bows. The citizens fled every way
before them; they who, to avoid the fire, forsook their houses
were taken in the streets and put to the sword; they who betook
themselves for refuge into the houses were forced out again by
the flames, many buildings being now in a blaze, and many
falling in ruins upon them as they fled past.
This fresh misfortune by general consent opened the gates for
Dion. He had given up his rapid advance, when he received
advice that the enemies were retreated into the castle; but, in
the morning, some horse brought him the news of another assault,
and, soon after, some of those who before opposed his coming
fled now to him, to entreat him he would hasten his relief. The
pressure increasing, Heraclides sent his brother, and after him
his uncle, Theodotes, to beg him to help them: for that now they
were not able to resist any longer; he himself was wounded, and
the greatest part of the city either in ruins or in flames.
When Dion met this sad news, he was about sixty furlongs distant
from the city. When he had acquainted the soldiers with the
exigency, and exhorted them to behave themselves like men, the
army no longer marched but ran forwards, and by the way were met
by messengers upon messengers entreating them to make haste. By
the wonderful eagerness of the soldiers and their extraordinary
speed, Dion quickly came to the city and entered what is called
the Hecatompedon, sending his light-armed men at once to charge
the enemy, that, seeing them, the Syracusans might take courage.
In the meantime, he drew up in good order his full-armed men
and all the citizens that came in and joined him; forming his
battalions deep, and distributing his officers in many separate
commands, that he might, be able to attack from many quarters at
once, and so he more alarming to the enemy.
So, having made his arrangements and offered vows to the gods,
when he was seen in the streets advancing at the head of his men
to engage the enemy, a confused noise of shouts,
congratulations, vows, and prayers was raised by the Syracusans,
who now called Dion their deliverer and tutelar deity, and his
soldiers their friends, brethren, and fellow-citizens. And,
indeed, at that moment, none seemed to regard themselves, or
value their safeties, but to be concerned more for Dion's life
than for all their own together, as he marched at the head of
them to meet the danger, through blood and fire and over heaps
of dead bodies that lay in his way.
And indeed the posture of the enemy was in appearance terrible;
for they were flushed and ferocious with victory, and had posted
themselves very advantageously along the demolished works, which
made the access to them very hazardous and difficult. Yet that
which disturbed Dion's soldiers most was the apprehension they
were in of the fire, which made their march very trouble some
and difficult; for the houses being in flames on al] sides, they
were met everywhere with the blaze, and, treading upon burning
ruins and every minute in danger of being overwhelmed with
falling houses, through clouds of ashes and smoke they labored
hard to keep their order and maintain their ranks. When they
came near to the enemy, the approach was so narrow and uneven
that but few of them could engage at a time; but at length, with
loud cheers and much zeal on the part of the Syracusans,
encouraging them and joining with them, they beat off Nypsius's
men, and put them to flight. Most of them escaped into the
castle, which was near at hand; all that could not get in were
pursued and picked up here and there by the soldiers, and put to
the sword. The present exigency, however, did not suffer the
citizens to take immediate benefit of their victory in such
mutual congratulations and embraces as became so great a
success; for now all were busily employed to save what houses
were left standing, laboring hard all night, and scarcely so
could master the fire.
The next day, not one of the popular haranguers durst stay in
the city, but all of them, knowing their own guilt, by their
flight confessed it, and secured their lives. Only Heraclides
and Theodotes went voluntarily and surrendered themselves to
Dion, acknowledging that they had wronged him, and begging he
would be kinder to them than they had been just to him; adding,
how much it would become him who was master of so many excellent
accomplishments, to moderate his anger and be generously
compassionate to ungrateful men, who were here before him,
making their confession, that, in all the matter of their former
enmity and rivalry against him, they were now absolutely
overcome by his virtue. Though they thus humbly addressed him,
his friends advised him not to pardon these turbulent and
ill-conditioned men, but to yield them to the desires of his
soldiers, and utterly root out of the commonwealth the ambitious
affectation of popularity, a disease as pestilent and pernicious
as the passion for tyranny itself. Dion endeavored to satisfy
them, telling them that other generals exercised and trained
themselves for the most part in the practices of war and arms;
but that he had long studied in the Academy how to conquer
anger, and not let emulation and envy conquer him; that to do
this it is not sufficient that a man be obliging and kind to his
friends, and those that have deserved well of him, but rather,
gentle and ready to forgive in the case of those who do wrong;
that he wished to let the world see that he valued not himself
so much upon excelling Heraclides in ability and conduct, as he
did in outdoing him in justice and clemency; herein to have the
advantage is to excel indeed; whereas the honor of success in
war is never entire; fortune will be sure to dispute it, though
no man should pretend to have a claim. What if Heraclides be
perfidious, malicious, and base, must Dion therefore sully or
injure his virtue by passionate concern for it? For, though the
laws determine it juster to revenge an injury than to do an
injury, yet it is evident that both, in the nature of things,
originally proceed from the same deficiency and weakness. The
malicious humor of men, though perverse and refractory, is not
so savage and invincible but it may be wrought upon by kindness,
and altered by repeated obligations. Dion, making use of these
arguments, pardoned and dismissed Heraclides and Theodotes.
And now, resolving to repair the blockade about the castle, he
commanded all the Syracusans to cut each man a stake and bring
it to the works; and then, dismissing them to refresh
themselves, and take their rest, he employed his own men all
night, and by morning had finished his line of palisade; so that
both the enemy and the citizens wondered, when day returned, to
see the work so far advanced in so short a time. Burying
therefore the dead, and redeeming the prisoners, who were near
two thousand, he called a public assembly, where Heraclides made
a motion that Dion should be declared general with full powers
at land and sea. The better citizens approved well of it, and
called on the people to vote it so. But the mob of sailors and
handicraftsmen would not yield that Heraclides should lose his
command of the navy; believing him, if otherwise an ill man, at
any rate to be more citizenlike than Dion, and readier to comply
with the people. Dion therefore submitted to them in this, and
consented Heraclides should continue admiral. But when they
began to press the project of the redistribution of lands and
houses, he not only opposed it, but repealed all the votes they
had formerly made upon that account, which sensibly vexed them.
Heraclides, therefore, took a new advantage of him, and, being
at Messene, harangued the soldiers and ships' crews that sailed
with him, accusing Dion that he had a design to make himself
absolute. And yet at the same time he held private
correspondence for a treaty with Dionysius by means of Pharax
the Spartan. Which when the noble citizens of Syracuse had
intimation of, there arose a sedition in the army, and the city
was in great distress and want of provisions; and Dion now knew
not what course to take, being also blamed by all his friends
for having thus fortified against himself such a perverse and
jealous and utterly corrupted man as Heraclides was.
Pharax at this time lay encamped at Neapolis, in the territory
of Agrigentum. Dion, therefore, led out the Syracusans, but
with an intent not to engage him till he saw a fit opportunity.
But Heraclides and his seamen exclaimed against him, that he
delayed fighting on purpose that he might the longer continue
his command; so that, much against his will, he was forced to an
engagement and was beaten, his loss however being
inconsiderable, and that occasioned chiefly by the dissension
that was in the army. He rallied his men, and, having put them
in good order and encouraged them to redeem their credit,
resolved upon a second battle. But, in the evening, he received
advice that Heraclides with his fleet was on his way to
Syracuse, with the purpose to possess himself of the city and
keep him and his army out. Instantly, therefore, taking with
him some of the strongest and most active of his men, he rode
off in the dark, and about nine the next morning was at the
gates, having ridden seven hundred furlongs that night.
Heraclides, though he strove to make all the speed he could,
yet, coming too late, tacked and stood out again to sea; and,
being unresolved what course to steer, accidentally he met
Gaesylus the Spartan, who told him he was come from Lacedaemon
to head the Sicilians, as Gylippus had formerly done.
Heraclides was only too glad to get hold of him, and fastening
him as it might be a sort of amulet to himself, he showed him to
the confederates, and sent a herald to Syracuse to summon them
to accept the Spartan general. Dion returned answer that they
had generals enough, and, if they wanted a Spartan to command
them, he could supply that office, being himself a citizen of
Sparta. When Gaesylus saw this, he gave up all pretensions, and
sailed in to Dion, and reconciled Heraclides to him, making
Heraclides swear the most solemn oaths to perform what he
engaged, Gaesylus himself also undertaking to maintain Dion's
right, and inflict chastisement on Heraclides if he broke his
faith.
The Syracusans then laid up their navy, which was at present a
great charge and of little use to them, but an occasion of
differences and dissensions among the generals, and pressed on
the siege, finishing the wall of blockade with which they
invested the castle. The besieged, seeing no hopes of succors
and their provisions failing, began to mutiny; so that the son
of Dionysius, in despair of holding out longer for his father,
capitulated, and articled with Dion to deliver up the castle
with all the garrison soldiers and ammunition; and so, taking
his mother and sisters and manning five galleys, he set out to
go to his father, Dion seeing him safely out, and scarce a man
in all the city not being there to behold the sight, as indeed
they called even on those that were not present, out of pity
that they could not be there, to see this happy day and the sun
shining on a free Syracuse. And as this expulsion of Dionysius
is even now always cited as one of the greatest and most
remarkable examples of fortune's vicissitudes, how extraordinary
may we imagine their joy to have been, and how entire their
satisfaction, who had totally subverted the most potent tyranny
that ever was by very slight and inconsiderable means!
When Apollocrates was gone, and Dion coming to take possession
of the castle, the women could not stay while he made his entry,
but ran to meet him at the gate. Aristomache led Dion's son,
and Arete followed after weeping, fearful and dubious how to
salute or address her husband, after living with another man.
Dion first embraced his sister, then his son; when Aristomache
bringing Arete to him, "O Dion," said she, "your banishment made
us all equally miserable; your return and victory has canceled
all sorrows, excepting this poor sufferer's, whom I, unhappy,
saw compelled to be another's, while you were yet alive.
Fortune has now given you the sole disposal of us; how will you
determine concerning her hard fate? In what relation must she
salute you as her uncle, or as her husband?" This speech of
Aristomache's brought tears from Dion, who with great affection
embraced his wife, gave her his son, and desired her to retire
to his own house, where he continued to reside when he had
delivered up the castle to the Syracusans.
For though all things had now succeeded to his wish, yet he
desired not to enjoy any present advantage of his good fortune,
except to gratify his friends, reward his allies, and bestow
upon his companions of former time in Athens and the soldiers
that had served him some special mark of kindness and honor,
striving herein to outdo his very means in his generosity. As
for himself, he was content with a very frugal and moderate
competency, and was indeed the wonder of all men, that when not
only Sicily and Carthage, but all Greece looked to him as in the
height of prosperity, and no man living greater than he, no
general more renowned for valor and success, yet in his garb,
his attendance, his table, he seemed as if he rather commoned
with Plato in the Academy than lived among hired captains and
paid soldiers, whose solace of their toils and dangers it is to
eat and drink their fill, and enjoy themselves plentifully every
day. Plato indeed wrote to him that the eyes of all the world
were now upon him; but it is evident that he himself had fixed
his eye upon one place in one city, the Academy, and considered
that the spectators and judges there regarded not great actions,
courage, or fortune, but watched to see how temperately and
wisely he could use his prosperity, how evenly he could behave
himself in the high condition he now was in. Neither did he
remit anything of his wonted stateliness in conversation or
serious carriage to the people; he made it rather a point to
maintain it, notwithstanding that a little condescension and
obliging civility were very necessary for his present affairs;
and Plato, as we said before, rebuked him, and wrote to tell him
that self-will keeps house with solitude. But certainly his
natural temperament was one that could not bend to complaisance;
and, besides, he wished to work the Syracusans back the other
way, out of their present excess of license and caprice.
Heraclides began again to set up against him, and, being invited
by Dion to make one of the Council, refused to come, saying he
would give his opinion as a private citizen in the public
assembly. Next he complained of Dion because he had not
demolished the citadel, and because he had hindered the people
from throwing down Dionysius's tomb and doing despite to the
dead; moreover he accused him for sending to Corinth for
counselors and assistants in the government, thereby neglecting
and slighting his fellow-citizens. And indeed he had sent
messages for some Corinthians to come to him, hoping by their
means and presence the better to settle that constitution he
intended; for he designed to suppress the unlimited democratic
government, which indeed is not a government, but, as Plato
calls it, a marketplace of governments, and to introduce and
establish a mixed polity, on the Spartan and Cretan model,
between a commonwealth and a monarchy, wherein an aristocratic
body should preside, and determine all matters of greatest
consequence; for he saw also that the Corinthians were chiefly
governed by something like an oligarchy, and the people but
little concerned in public business.
Now knowing that Heraclides would be his most considerable
adversary, and that in all ways he was a turbulent, fickle, and
factious man, he gave way to some whom formerly he hindered when
they designed to kill him, who, breaking in, murdered Heraclides
in his own house. His death was much resented by the citizens.
Nevertheless, when Dion made him a splendid funeral, followed
the dead body with all his soldiers, and then addressed them,
they understood that it would have been impossible to have kept
the city quiet, as long as Dion and Heraclides were competitors
in the government.
Dion had a friend called Callippus, an Athenian, who, Plato
says, first made acquaintance and afterwards obtained
familiarity with him, not from any connection with his
philosophic studies, but on occasion afforded by the celebration
of the mysteries, and in the way of ordinary society. This man
went with him in all his military service, and was in great
honor and esteem; being the first of his friends who marched by
his side into Syracuse, wearing a garland upon his head, having
behaved himself very well in all the battles, and made himself
remarkable for his gallantry. He, finding that Dion's principal
and most considerable friends were cut off in the war,
Heraclides now dead, and the people without a leader, and that
the soldiers had a great kindness for him, like a perfidious and
wicked villain, in hopes to get the chief command of Sicily as
his reward for the ruin of his friend and benefactor, and, as
some say, being also bribed by the enemy with twenty talents to
destroy Dion, inveigled and engaged several of the soldiers in a
conspiracy against him, taking this cunning and wicked occasion
for his plot. He daily informed Dion of what he heard or what
he feigned the soldiers said against him; whereby he gained that
credit and confidence, that he was allowed by Dion to consort
privately with whom he would, and talk freely against him in any
company, that he might discover who were his secret and factious
maligners. By this means, Callippus in a short time got
together a cabal of all the seditious malcontents in the city;
and if anyone who would not be drawn in advised Dion that he
was tampered with, he was not troubled or concerned at it,
believing Callippus did it in compliance with his directions.
While this conspiracy was afoot, a strange and dreadful
apparition was seen by Dion. As he sat one evening in a gallery
in his house alone and thoughtful, hearing a sudden noise he
turned about, and saw at the end of the colonnade, by clear
daylight, a tall woman, in her countenance and garb like one of
the tragical Furies, with a broom in her hand, sweeping the
floor. Being amazed and extremely affrighted, he sent for some
of his friends, and told them what he had seen, entreating them
to stay with him and keep him company all night; for he was
excessively discomposed and alarmed, fearing that if he were
left alone the specter would again appear to him. He saw it no
more. But a few days after, his only son, being almost grown up
to man's estate, upon some displeasure and pet he had taken upon
a childish and frivolous occasion, threw himself headlong from
the top of the house and broke his neck.
While Dion was under this affliction, Callippus drove on his
conspiracy, and spread a rumor among the Syracusans, that Dion,
being now childless, was resolved to send for Dionysius's son,
Apollocrates, who was his wife's nephew and sister's grandson,
and make him his heir and successor. By this time, Dion and his
wife and sister began to suspect what was doing, and from all
hands information came to them of the plot. Dion, being
troubled, it is probable, for Heraclides's murder, which was
like to be a blot and stain upon his life and actions, in
continual weariness and vexation, declared he had rather die a
thousand times, and open his breast himself to the assassin,
than live not only in fear of his enemies but suspicion of his
friends. But Callippus, seeing the women very inquisitive to
search to the bottom of the business, took alarm, and came to
them, utterly denying it with tears in his eyes, and offering to
give them whatever assurances of his fidelity they desired.
They required that he should take the Great Oath, which was
after this manner. The juror went into the sanctuary of Ceres
and Proserpine, where, after the performance of some ceremonies,
he was clad in the purple vestment of the goddess, and, holding
a lighted torch in his hand, took his oath. Callippus did as
they required, and forswore the fact. And indeed he so little
valued the goddesses, that he stayed but till the very festival
of Proserpine, by whom he had sworn, and on that very day
committed his intended murder; as truly he might well enough
disregard the day, since he must at any other time as impiously
offend her, when he who had acted as her initiating priest
should shed the blood of her worshiper.
There were a great many in the conspiracy; and as Dion was at
home with several of his friends in a room with tables for
entertainment in it, some of the conspirators beset the house
around, others secured the doors and windows. The actual
intended murderers were some Zacynthians, who went inside in
their under-dresses without swords. Those outside shut the
doors upon them and kept them fast. The murderers fell on Dion,
endeavoring to stifle and crush him; then, finding they were
doing nothing, they called for a sword, but none durst open the
door. There were a great many within with Dion, but everyone
was for securing himself, supposing that by letting him lose his
life he should save his own, and therefore no man ventured to
assist him. When they had waited a good while, at length Lycon
the Syracusan reached a short sword in at the window to one of
the Zacynthians, and thus, like a victim at a sacrifice, this
long time in their power, and trembling for the blow, they
killed him. His sister, and wife big with child, they hurried
to prison, who poor lady, in her unfortunate condition was there
brought to bed of a son, which, by the consent of the keepers,
they intended to bring up, the rather because Callippus began
already to be embroiled in troubles.
After the murder of Dion, he was in great glory, and had the
sole government of Syracuse in his hands; and to that effect
wrote to Athens, a place which, next the immortal gods, being
guilty of such an abominable crime, he ought to have regarded
with shame and fear. But true it is, what is said of that city,
that the good men she breeds are the most excellent, and the bad
the most notorious; as their country also produces the most
delicious honey and the most deadly hemlock. Callippus,
however, did not long continue to scandalize fortune and upbraid
the gods with his prosperity, as though they connived at and
bore with the wretched man, while he purchased riches and power
by heinous impieties, but he quickly received the punishment he
deserved. For, going to take Catana, he lost Syracuse;
whereupon they report he said, he had lost a city and got a
bauble. Then, attempting Messena, he had most of his men cut
off, and, among the rest, Dion's murderers. When no city in
Sicily would admit him, but all hated and abhorred him, he went
into Italy and took Rhegium; and there, being in distress and
not able to maintain his soldiers, he was killed by Leptines and
Polysperchon, and, as fortune would have it with the same sword
by which Dion was murdered, which was known by the size, being
but short, as the Spartan swords, and the workmanship of it very
curious and artificial. Thus Callippus received the reward of
his villanies.
When Aristomache and Arete were released out of prison, Hicetes,
one of Dion's friends, took them to his house, and seemed to
intend to entertain them well and like a faithful friend.
Afterwards, being persuaded by Dion's enemies, he provided a
ship and pretended to send them into Peloponnesus, but commanded
the sailors, when they came out to sea, to kill them and throw
them overboard. Others say that they and the little boy were
thrown alive into the sea. This man also escaped not the due
recompense of his wickedness, for he was taken by Timoleon and
put to death, and the Syracusans, to revenge Dion, slew his two
daughters; of all which I have given a more particular account
in the life of Timoleon.
MARCUS BRUTUS
Marcus Brutus was descended from that Junius Brutus to whom the
ancient Romans erected a statue of brass in the capitol among
the images of their kings with a drawn sword in his hand, in
remembrance of his courage and resolution in expelling the
Tarquins and destroying the monarchy. But that ancient Brutus
was of a severe and inflexible nature, like steel of too hard a
temper, and having never had his character softened by study and
thought, he let himself be so far transported with his rage and
hatred against tyrants, that, for conspiring with them, he
proceeded to the execution even of his own sons. But this
Brutus, whose life we now write, having to the goodness of his
disposition added the improvements of learning and the study of
philosophy, and having stirred up his natural parts, of
themselves grave and gentle, by applying himself to business and
public affairs, seems to have been of a temper exactly framed
for virtue; insomuch that they who were most his enemies upon
account of his conspiracy against Caesar, if in that whole
affair there was any honorable or generous part, referred it
wholly to Brutus, and laid whatever was barbarous and cruel to
the charge of Cassius, Brutus's connection and familiar friend,
but not his equal in honesty and pureness of purpose. His
mother, Servilia, was of the family of Servilius Ahala, who,
when Spurius Maelius worked the people into a rebellion and
designed to make himself king, taking a dagger under his arm,
went forth into the marketplace, and, upon presence of having
some private business with him, came up close to him, and, as he
bent his head to hear what he had to say, struck him with his
dagger and slew him. And thus much, as concerns his descent by
the mother's side, is confessed by all; but as for his father's
family, they who for Caesar's murder bore any hatred or ill-will
to Brutus say that he came not from that Brutus who expelled the
Tarquins, there being none of his race left after the execution
of his two sons; but that his ancestor was a plebeian, son of
one Brutus, a steward, and only rose in the latest times to
office or dignity in the commonwealth. But Posidonius the
philosopher writes that it is true indeed what the history
relates, that two of the sons of Brutus who were of men's estate
were put to death, but that a third, yet an infant, was left
alive, from whom the family was propagated down to Marcus
Brutus; and further, that there were several famous persons of
this house in his time whose looks very much resembled the
statue of Junius Brutus. But of this subject enough.
Cato the philosopher was brother to Servilia, the mother of
Brutus, and he it was whom of all the Romans his nephew most
admired and studied to imitate, and he afterwards married his
daughter Porcia. Of all the sects of the Greek philosophers,
though there was none of which he had not been a hearer and in
which he had not made some proficiency, yet he chiefly esteemed
the Platonists; and, not much approving of the modern and middle
Academy, as it is called, he applied himself to the study of the
ancient. He was all his lifetime a great admirer of Antiochus
of the city of Ascalon, and took his brother Aristus into his
own house for his friend and companion, a man for his learning
inferior indeed to many of the philosophers, but for the
evenness of his temper and steadiness of his conduct equal to
the best. As for Empylus, of whom he himself and his friends
often make mention in their epistles, as one that lived with
Brutus, he was a rhetorician, and has left behind him a short
but well-written history of the death of Caesar, entitled Brutus.
In Latin, he had by exercise attained a sufficient skill to be
able to make public addresses and to plead a cause; but in
Greek, he must be noted for affecting the sententious and short
Laconic way of speaking in sundry passages of his epistles; as
when, in the beginning of the war, he wrote thus to the
Pergamenians: "I hear you have given Dolabella money; if
willingly, you must own you have injured me; if unwillingly,
show it by giving willingly to me." And another time to the
Samians: "Your counsels are remiss and your performances slow:
what think ye will be the end?" And of the Patareans thus: "The
Xanthians, suspecting my kindness, have made their country the
grave of their despair; the Patareans, trusting themselves to
me, enjoy in all points their former liberty; it is in your
power to choose the judgment of the Patareans or the fortune of
the Xanthians." And this is the style for which some of his
letters are to be noted.
When he was but a very young man, he accompanied his uncle Cato,
to Cyprus, when he was sent there against Ptolemy. But when
Ptolemy killed himself, Cato, being by some necessary business
detained in the isle of Rhodes, had already sent one of his
friends, named Canidius, to take into his care and keeping the
treasure of the king; but presently, not feeling sure of his
honesty, he wrote to Brutus to sail immediately for Cyprus out
of Pamphylia, where he then was staying to refresh himself,
being but just recovered of a fit of sickness. He obeyed his
orders, but with a great deal of unwillingness, as well out of
respect to Canidius, who was thrown out of this employment by
Cato with so much disgrace, as also because he esteemed such a
commission mean, and unsuitable to him, who was in the prime of
his youth, and given to books and study. Nevertheless, applying
himself to the business, he behaved himself so well in it that
he was highly commended by Cato, and, having turned all the
goods of Ptolemy into ready money, he sailed with the greatest
part of it in his own ship to Rome.
But upon the general separation into two factions, when, Pompey
and Caesar taking up arms against one another, the whole empire
was turned into confusion, it was commonly believed that he
would take Caesar's side; for his father in past time had been
put to death by Pompey. But he, thinking it his duty to prefer
the interest of the public to his own private feelings, and
judging Pompey's to be the better cause, took part with him;
though formerly he used not so much as to salute or take any
notice of Pompey, if he happened to meet him, esteeming it a
pollution to have the least conversation with the murderer of
his father. But now, looking upon him as the general of his
country, he placed himself under his command, and set sail for
Cilicia in quality of lieutenant to Sestius, who had the
government of that province. But finding no opportunity there
of doing any great service, and hearing that Pompey and Caesar
were now near one another and preparing for the battle upon
which all depended, he came of his own accord to Macedonia to
partake in the danger. At his coming it is said that Pompey was
so surprised and so pleased, that, rising from his chair in the
sight of all who were about him, he saluted and embraced him, as
one of the chiefest of his party. All the time that he was in
the camp, excepting that which he spent in Pompey's company, he
employed in reading and in study, which he did not neglect even
the day before the great battle. It was the middle of summer,
and the heat was very great, the camp having been pitched near
some marshy ground, and the people that carried Brutus's tent
were a long while before they came. Yet though upon these
accounts he was extremely harassed and out of order, having
scarcely by the middle of the day anointed himself and eaten a
sparing meal, whilst most others were either laid to sleep or
taken up with the thoughts and apprehensions of what would be
the issue of the fight, he spent his time until the evening in
writing an epitome of Polybius.
It is said that Caesar had so great a regard for him that he
ordered his commanders by no means to kill Brutus in the battle,
but to spare him, if possible, and bring him safe to him, if he
would willingly surrender himself; but if he made any
resistance, to suffer him to escape rather than do him any
violence. And this he is believed to have done out of a
tenderness to Servilia, the mother of Brutus; for Caesar had, it
seems, in his youth been very intimate with her, and she
passionately in love with him; and, considering that Brutus was
born about that time in which their loves were at the highest,
Caesar had a belief that he was his own child. The story is
told, that when the great question of the conspiracy of
Catiline, which had like to have been the destruction of the
commonwealth, was debated in the senate, Cato and Caesar were
both standing up, contending together on the decision to be come
to; at which time a little note was delivered to Caesar from
without, which he took and read silently to himself. Upon this,
Cato cried out aloud, and accused Caesar of holding
correspondence with and receiving letters from the enemies of
the commonwealth; and when many other senators exclaimed against
it, Caesar delivered the note as he had received it to Cato, who
reading it found it to be a love-letter from his own sister
Servilia, and threw it back again to Caesar with the words,
"Keep it, you drunkard," and returned to the subject of the
debate. So public and notorious was Servilia's love to Caesar.
After the great overthrow at Pharsalia, Pompey himself having
made his escape to the sea, and Caesar's army storming the camp,
Brutus stole privately out by one of the gates leading to marshy
ground full of water and covered with reeds, and, traveling
through the night, got safe to Larissa. From Larissa he wrote
to Caesar, who expressed a great deal of joy to hear that he was
safe, and, bidding him come, not only forgave him freely, but
honored and esteemed him among his chiefest friends. Now when
nobody could give any certain account which way Pompey had fled,
Caesar took a little journey alone with Brutus, and tried what
was his opinion herein, and after some discussion which passed
between them, believing that Brutus's conjecture was the right
one, laying aside all other thoughts, he set out directly to
pursue him towards Egypt. But Pompey, having reached Egypt, as
Brutus guessed his design was to do, there met his fate.
Brutus in the meantime gained Caesar's forgiveness for his
friend Cassius; and pleading also in defense of the king of the
Lybians, though he was overwhelmed with the greatness of the
crimes alleged against him, yet by his entreaties and
deprecations to Caesar in his behalf, he preserved to him a
great part of his kingdom. It is reported that Caesar, when he
first heard Brutus speak in public, said to his friends, "I know
not what this young man intends, but, whatever he intends, he
intends vehemently." For his natural firmness of mind, not
easily yielding, or complying in favor of everyone that
entreated his kindness, once set into action upon motives of
right reason and deliberate moral choice, whatever direction it
thus took, it was pretty sure to take effectively, and to work
in such a way as not to fail in its object. No flattery could
ever prevail with him to listen to unjust petitions; and he held
that to be overcome by the importunities of shameless and
fawning entreaties, though some compliment it with the name of
modesty and bashfulness, was the worst disgrace a great man
could suffer. And he used to say, that he always felt as if
they who could deny nothing could not have behaved well in the
flower of their youth.
Caesar, being about to make his expedition into Africa against
Cato and Scipio, committed to Brutus the government of Cisalpine
Gaul, to the great happiness and advantage of that province.
For while people in other provinces were in distress with the
violence and avarice of their governors, and suffered as much
oppression as if they had been slaves and captives of war,
Brutus, by his easy government, actually made them amends for
their calamities under former rulers, directing moreover all
their gratitude for his good deeds to Caesar himself; insomuch
that it was a most welcome and pleasant spectacle to Caesar,
when in his return he passed through Italy, to see the cities
that were under Brutus's command and Brutus himself increasing
his honor and joining agreeably in his progress.
Now several praetorships being vacant, it was all men's opinion,
that that of the chiefest dignity, which is called the
praetorship of the city, would be conferred either upon Brutus
or Cassius; and some say that, there having been some little
difference upon former accounts between them, this competition
set them much more at variance, though they were connected in
their families, Cassius having married Junia, the sister of
Brutus. Others say that the contention was raised between them
by Caesar's doing, who had privately given each of them such
hopes of his favor as led them on, and provoked them at last
into this open competition and trial of their interest. Brutus
had only the reputation of his honor and virtue to oppose to the
many and gallant actions performed by Cassius against the
Parthians. But Caesar, having heard each side, and deliberating
about the matter among his friends, said, "Cassius has the
stronger plea, but we must let Brutus be first praetor." So
another praetorship was given to Cassius; the gaining of which
could not so much oblige him, as he was incensed for the loss of
the other. And in all other things Brutus was partaker of
Caesar's power as much as he desired; for he might, if he had
pleased, have been the chief of all his friends, and had
authority and command beyond them all, but Cassius and the
company he met with him drew him off from Caesar. Indeed, he
was not yet wholly reconciled to Cassius, since that competition
which was between them; but yet he gave ear to Cassius's
friends, who were perpetually advising him not to be so blind as
to suffer himself to be softened and won upon by Caesar, but to
shun the kindness and favors of a tyrant, which they intimated
that Caesar showed him, not to express any honor to his merit or
virtue, but to unbend his strength, and undermine his vigor of
purpose.
Neither was Caesar wholly without suspicion of him nor wanted
informers that accused Brutus to him; but he feared, indeed, the
high spirit and the great character and the friends that he had,
but thought himself secure in his moral disposition. When it
was told him that Antony and Dolabella designed some
disturbance, "It is not," said he, "the fat and the long-haired
men that I fear, but the pale and the lean," meaning Brutus and
Cassius. And when some maligned Brutus to him, and advised him
to beware of him, taking hold of his flesh with his hand,
"What," he said, "do you think that Brutus will not wait out the
time of this little body?" as if he thought none so fit to
succeed him in his power as Brutus. And indeed it seems to be
without doubt that Brutus might have been the first man in the
commonwealth, if he had had patience but a little time to be
second to Caesar, and would have suffered his power to decline
after it was come to its highest pitch, and the fame of his
great actions to die away by degrees. But Cassius, a man of a
fierce disposition, and one that out of private malice, rather
than love of the public, hated Caesar, not the tyrant,
continually fired and stirred him up. Brutus felt the rule an
oppression, but Cassius hated the ruler; and, among other
reasons on which he grounded his quarrel against Caesar, the
loss of his lions which he had procured when he was aedile elect
was one: for Caesar, finding these in Megara, when that city was
taken by Calenus, seized them to himself. These beasts, they
say, were a great calamity to the Megarians; for, when their
city was just taken, they broke open the lions' dens, and pulled
off their chains and let them loose, that they might run upon
the enemy that was entering the city; but the lions turned upon
them themselves, and tore to pieces a great many unarmed persons
running about, so that it was a miserable spectacle even to
their enemies to behold.
And this, some say, was the chief provocation that stirred up
Cassius to conspire against Caesar; but they are much in the
wrong. For Cassius had from his youth a natural hatred and
rancor against the whole race of tyrants, which he showed when
he was but a boy, and went to the same school with Faustus, the
son of Sylla; for, on his boasting himself amongst the boys, and
extolling the sovereign power of his father, Cassius rose up and
struck him two or three boxes on the ear; which when the
guardians and relations of Faustus designed to inquire into and
to prosecute, Pompey forbade them, and, sending for both the
boys together, examined the matter himself. And Cassius then is
reported to have said thus, "Come, then, Faustus, dare to speak
here those words that provoked me, that I may strike you again
as I did before." Such was the disposition of Cassius.
But Brutus was roused up and pushed on to the undertaking by
many persuasions of his familiar friends, and letters and
invitations from unknown citizens. For under the statue of his
ancestor Brutus, that overthrew the kingly government, they
wrote the words, "O that we had a Brutus now!" and, "O that
Brutus were alive!" And Brutus's own tribunal, on which he sat
as praetor, was filled each morning with writings such as these:
"You are asleep, Brutus," and, "You are not a true Brutus." Now
the flatterers of Caesar were the occasion of all this, who,
among other invidious honors which they strove to fasten upon
Caesar, crowned his statues by night with diadems, wishing to
incite the people to salute him king instead of dictator. But
quite the contrary came to pass, as I have more particularly
related in the life of Caesar.
When Cassius went about soliciting friends to engage in this
design against Caesar, all whom he tried readily consented, if
Brutus would be head of it; for their opinion was that the
enterprise wanted not hands or resolution, but the reputation
and authority of a man such as he was, to give as it were the
first religious sanction, and by his presence, if by nothing
else, to justify the undertaking; that without him they should
go about this action with less heart, and should lie under
greater suspicions when they had done it, for, if their cause
had been just and honorable, people would be sure that Brutus
would not have refused it. Cassius, having considered these
things with himself, went to Brutus, and made him the first
visit after their falling out; and after the compliments of
reconciliation had passed, and former kindnesses were renewed
between them, he asked him if he designed to be present in the
senate on the Calends of March, for it was discoursed, he said,
that Caesar's friends intended then to move that he might be
made king. When Brutus answered, that he would not be there,
"But what," says Cassius, "if they should send for us?" "It
will be my business then," replied Brutus, "not to hold my
peace, but to stand up boldly, and die for the liberty of my
country." To which Cassius with some emotion answered, "But
what Roman will suffer you to die? What, do you not know
yourself, Brutus? Or do you think that those writings that you
find upon your praetor's seat were put there by weavers and
shopkeepers, and not by the first and most powerful men of Rome?
From other praetors, indeed, they expect largesses and shows and
gladiators, but from you they claim, as an hereditary debt, the
extirpation of tyranny; they are all ready to suffer anything
on your account, if you will but show yourself such as they
think you are and expect you should be." Which said, he fell
upon Brutus, and embraced him; and after this, they parted each
to try their several friends.
Among the friends of Pompey there was one Caius Ligarius, whom
Caesar had pardoned, though accused for having been in arms
against him. This man, not feeling so thankful for having been
forgiven as he felt oppressed by that power which made him need
a pardon, hated Caesar, and was one of Brutus's most intimate
friends. Him Brutus visited, and, finding him sick, "O
Ligarius," says he, "what a time have you found out to be sick
in!" At which words Ligarius, raising himself and leaning on
his elbow, took Brutus by the hand, and said, "But, O Brutus, if
you are on any design worthy of yourself, I am well."
From this time, they tried the inclinations of all their
acquaintance that they durst trust, and communicated the secret
to them, and took into the design not only their familiar
friends, but as many as they believed bold and brave and
despisers of death. For which reason they concealed the plot
from Cicero, though he was very much trusted and as well beloved
by them all, lest, to his own disposition, which was naturally
timorous, adding now the wariness and caution of old age, by his
weighing, as he would do, every particular, that he might not
make one step without the greatest security, he should blunt the
edge of their forwardness and resolution in a business which
required all the dispatch imaginable. As indeed there were also
two others that were companions of Brutus, Statilius the
Epicurean, and Favonius the admirer of Cato, whom he left out
for this reason: as he was conversing one day with them, trying
them at a distance, and proposing some such question to be
disputed of as among philosophers, to see what opinion they were
of, Favonius declared his judgment to be that a civil war was
worse than the most illegal monarchy; and Statilius held, that,
to bring himself into troubles and danger upon the account of
evil or foolish men, did not become a man that had any wisdom or
discretion. But Labeo, who was present, contradicted them both;
and Brutus, as if it had been an intricate dispute, and
difficult to be decided, held his peace for that time, but
afterwards discovered the whole design to Labeo, who readily
undertook it. The next thing that was thought convenient, was to
gain the other Brutus, surnamed Albinus, a man of himself of no
great bravery or courage, but considerable for the number of
gladiators that he was maintaining for a public show, and the
great confidence that Caesar put in him. When Cassius and Labeo
spoke with him concerning the matter, he gave them no answer;
but, seeking an interview with Brutus himself alone, and finding
that he was their captain, he readily consented to partake in
the action. And among the others, also, the most and best were
gained by the name of Brutus. And, though they neither gave nor
took any oath of secrecy, nor used any other sacred rite to
assure their fidelity to each other, yet all kept their design
so close, were so wary, and held it so silently among
themselves, that, though by prophecies and apparitions and signs
in the sacrifices the gods gave warning of it, yet could it not
be believed.
Now Brutus, feeling that the noblest spirits of Rome for virtue,
birth, or courage were depending upon him, and surveying with
himself all the circumstances of the dangers they were to
encounter, strove indeed as much as possible, when abroad, to
keep his uneasiness of mind to himself, and to compose his
thoughts; but at home, and especially at night, he was not the
same man, but sometimes against his will his working care would
make him start out of his sleep, and other times he was taken up
with further reflection and consideration of his difficulties,
so that his wife that lay with him could not choose but take
notice that he was full of unusual trouble, and had in agitation
some dangerous and perplexing question. Porcia, as was said
before, was the daughter of Cato, and Brutus, her cousin-german,
had married her very young, though not a maid, but after the
death of her former husband, by whom she had one son, that was
named Bibulus; and there is a little book, called Memoirs of
Brutus, written by him, yet extant. This Porcia, being addicted
to philosophy, a great lover of her husband, and full of an
understanding courage, resolved not to inquire into Brutus's
secrets before she had made this trial of herself. She turned
all her attendants out of her chamber, and, taking a little
knife, such as they use to cut nails with, she gave herself a
deep gash in the thigh; upon which followed a great flow of
blood, and, soon after, violent pains and a shivering fever,
occasioned by the wound. Now when Brutus was extremely anxious
and afflicted for her, she, in the height of all her pain, spoke
thus to him: "I, Brutus, being the daughter of Cato, was given
to you in marriage, not like a concubine, to partake only in the
common intercourse of bed and board, but to bear a part in all
your good and all your evil fortunes; and for your part, as
regards your care for me, I find no reason to complain; but from
me, what evidence of my love, what satisfaction can you receive,
if I may not share with you in bearing your hidden griefs, nor
be admitted to any of your counsels that require secrecy and
trust? I know very well that women seem to be of too weak a
nature to be trusted with secrets; but certainly, Brutus, a
virtuous birth and education, and the company of the good and
honorable, are of some force to the forming our manners; and I
can boast that I am the daughter of Cato and the wife of Brutus,
in which two titles though before I put less confidence, yet now
I have tried myself, and find that I can bid defiance to pain."
Which words having spoken, she showed him her wound, and related
to him the trial that she had made of her constancy; at which he
being astonished, lifted up his hands to heaven, and begged the
assistance of the gods in his enterprise, that he might show
himself a husband worthy of such a wife as Porcia. So then he
comforted his wife.
But a meeting of the senate being appointed, at which it was
believed that Caesar would be present, they agreed to make use
of that opportunity: for then they might appear all together
without suspicion; and, besides, they hoped that all the noblest
and leading men of the commonwealth, being then assembled, as
soon as the great deed was done, would immediately stand
forward, and assert the common liberty. The very place, too,
where the senate was to meet, seemed to be by divine appointment
favorable to their purpose. It was a portico, one of those
joining the theater, with a large recess, in which there stood
a statue of Pompey, erected to him by the commonwealth, when he
adorned that part of the city with the porticos and the theater.
To this place it was that the senate was summoned for the middle
of March (the Ides of March is the Roman name for the day); as
if some more than human power were leading the man thither,
there to meet his punishment for the death of Pompey.
As soon as it was day, Brutus, taking with him a dagger, which
none but his wife knew of, went out. The rest met together at
Cassius's house, and brought forth his son, that was that day to
put on the manly gown, as it is called, into the forum; and from
thence, going all to Pompey's porch, stayed there, expecting
Caesar to come without delay to the senate. Here it was chiefly
that anyone who had known what they had purposed, would have
admired the unconcerned temper and the steady resolution of
these men in their most dangerous undertaking; for many of them,
being praetors, and called upon by their office to judge and
determine causes, did not only hear calmly all that made
application to them and pleaded against each other before them,
as if they were free from all other thoughts, but decided causes
with as much accuracy and judgment as they had heard them with
attention and patience. And when one person refused to stand to
the award of Brutus, and with great clamor and many attestations
appealed to Caesar, Brutus, looking round about him upon those
that were present, said, "Caesar does not hinder me, nor will he
hinder me, from doing according to the laws."
Yet there were many unusual accidents that disturbed them and by
mere chance were thrown in their way. The first and chiefest
was the long stay of Caesar, though the day was far spent, and
his being detained at home by his wife, and forbidden by the
soothsayers to go forth, upon some defect that appeared in his
sacrifice. Another was this: There came a man up to Casca, one
of the company, and, taking him by the hand, "You concealed,"
said he, "the secret from us, but Brutus has told me all." At
which words when Casca was surprised, the other said laughing,
"How come you to be so rich of a sudden, that you should stand
to be chosen aedile?" So near was Casca to let out the secret,
upon the mere ambiguity of the other's expression. Then
Popilius Laenas, a senator, having saluted Brutus and Cassius
more earnestly than usual, whispered them softly in the ear and
said, "My wishes are with you, that you may accomplish what you
design, and I advise you to make no delay, for the thing is now
no secret." This said, he departed, and left them in great
suspicion that the design had taken wind. In the meanwhile,
there came one in all haste from Brutus's house, and brought him
news that his wife was dying. For Porcia, being extremely
disturbed with expectation of the event, and not able to bear
the greatness of her anxiety, could scarce keep herself within
doors; and at every little noise or voice she heard, starting up
suddenly, like those possessed with the bacchic frenzy, she
asked everyone that came in from the forum what Brutus was
doing, and sent one messenger after another to inquire. At
last, after long expectation, the strength of her body could
hold out no longer; her mind was overcome with her doubts and
fears, and she lost the control of herself, and began to faint
away. She had not time to betake herself to her chamber, but,
sitting as she was amongst her women, a sudden swoon and a great
stupor seized her, and her color changed, and her speech was
quite lost. At this sight, her women made a loud cry, and many
of the neighbors running to Brutus's door to know what was the
matter, the report was soon spread abroad that Porcia was dead;
though with her women's help she recovered in a little while,
and came to herself again. When Brutus received this news, he
was extremely troubled, nor without reason, yet was not so
carried away by his private grief as to quit his public purpose.
For now news was brought that Caesar was coming, carried in a
litter. For, being discouraged by the ill omens that attended
his sacrifice, he had determined to undertake no affairs of any
great importance that day, but to defer them till another time,
excusing himself that he was sick. As soon as he came out of
his litter, Popilius Laenas, he who but a little before had
wished Brutus good success in his undertaking, coming up to him,
conversed a great while with him, Caesar standing still all the
while, and seeming to be very attentive. The conspirators, (to
give them this name,) not being able to hear what he said, but
guessing by what themselves were conscious of that this
conference was the discovery of their treason, were again
disheartened, and, looking upon one another, agreed from each
other's countenances that they should not stay to be taken, but
should all kill themselves. And now when Cassius and some
others were laying hands upon their daggers under their robes,
and were drawing them out, Brutus, viewing narrowly the looks
and gesture of Laenas, and finding that he was earnestly
petitioning and not accusing, said nothing, because there were
many strangers to the conspiracy mingled amongst them, but by a
cheerful countenance encouraged Cassius. And after a little
while, Laenas, having kissed Caesar's hand, went away, showing
plainly that all his discourse was about some particular
business relating to himself.
Now when the senate was gone in before to the chamber where they
were to sit, the rest of the company placed themselves close
about Caesar's chair, as if they had some suit to make to him,
and Cassius, turning his face to Pompey's statue, is said to
have invoked it, as if it had been sensible of his prayers.
Trebonius, in the meanwhile, engaged Antony's attention at the
door, and kept him in talk outside. When Caesar entered, the
whole senate rose up to him. As soon as he was set down, the
men all crowded round about him, and set Tillius Cimber, one of
their own number, to intercede in behalf of his brother, that
was banished; they all joined their prayers with his, and took
Caesar by the hand, and kissed his head and his breast. But he
putting aside at first their supplications, and afterwards, when
he saw they would not desist, violently rising up, Tillius with
both hands caught hold of his robe and pulled it off from his
shoulders, and Casca, that stood behind him, drawing his dagger,
gave him the first, but a slight wound, about the shoulder.
Caesar snatching hold of the handle of the dagger, and crying
out aloud in Latin, "Villain Casca, what do you?" he, calling
in Greek to his brother, bade him come and help. And by this
time, finding himself struck by a great many hands, and looking
round about him to see if he could force his way out, when he
saw Brutus with his dagger drawn against him, he let go Casca's
hand, that he had hold of, and, covering his head with his robe,
gave up his body to their blows. And they so eagerly pressed
towards the body, and so many daggers were hacking together,
that they cut one another; Brutus, particularly, received a
wound in his hand, and all of them were besmeared with the
blood.
Caesar being thus slain, Brutus, stepping forth into the midst,
intended to have made a speech, and called back and encouraged
the senators to stay; but they all affrighted ran away in great
disorder, and there was a great confusion and press at the door,
though none pursued or followed. For they had come to an
express resolution to kill nobody besides Caesar, but to call
and invite all the rest to liberty. It was indeed the opinion
of all the others, when they consulted about the execution of
their design, that it was necessary to cut off Antony with
Caesar, looking upon him as an insolent man, an affecter of
monarchy, and one that, by his familiar intercourse, had gained
a powerful interest with the soldiers. And this they urged the
rather, because at that time to the natural loftiness and
ambition of his temper there was added the dignity of being
consul and colleague to Caesar. But Brutus opposed this
counsel, insisting first upon the injustice of it, and
afterwards giving them hopes that a change might be worked in
Antony. For he did not despair but that so highly gifted and
honorable a man, and such a lover of glory as Antony, stirred up
with emulation of their great attempt, might, if Caesar were
once removed, lay hold of the occasion to be joint restorer with
them of the liberty of his country. Thus did Brutus save
Antony's life. But he, in the general consternation, put
himself into a plebeian habit, and fled. But Brutus and his
party marched up to the capitol, in their way showing their
hands all bloody, and their naked swords, and proclaiming
liberty to the people. At first all places were filled with
cries and shouts; and the wild running to and fro, occasioned by
the sudden surprise and passion that everyone was in, increased
the tumult in the city. But no other bloodshed following, and
no plundering of the goods in the streets, the senators and many
of the people took courage and went up to the men in the
capitol; and, a multitude being gathered together, Brutus made
an oration to them, very popular, and proper for the state that
affairs were then in. Therefore, when they applauded his
speech, and cried out to him to come down, they all took
confidence and descended into the forum; the rest promiscuously
mingled with one another, but many of the most eminent persons,
attending Brutus, conducted him in the midst of them with great
honor from the capitol, and placed him in the rostra. At the
sight of Brutus, the crowd, though consisting of a confused
mixture and all disposed to make a tumult, were struck with
reverence, and expected what he would say with order and with
silence, and, when he began to speak, heard him with quiet and
attention. But that all were not pleased with this action they
plainly showed when, Cinna beginning to speak and accuse Caesar,
they broke out into a sudden rage, and railed at him in such
language, that the whole party thought fit again to withdraw to
the capitol. And there Brutus, expecting to be besieged,
dismissed the most eminent of those that had accompanied them
thither, not thinking it just that they who were not partakers
of the fact should share in the danger.
But the next day, the senate being assembled in the temple of
the Earth, and Antony and Plancus and Cicero having made
orations recommending concord in general and an act of oblivion,
it was decreed, that the men should not only be put out of all
fear or danger, but that the consuls should see what honors and
dignities were proper to be conferred upon them. After which
done, the senate broke up; and, Antony having sent his son as an
hostage to the capitol, Brutus and his company came down, and
mutual salutes and invitations passed amongst them, the whole of
them being gathered together. Antony invited and entertained
Cassius, Lepidus did the same to Brutus, and the rest were
invited and entertained by others, as each of them had
acquaintance or friends. And as soon as it was day, the senate
met again and voted thanks to Antony for having stifled the
beginning of a civil war; afterwards Brutus and his associates
that were present received encomiums, and had provinces assigned
and distributed among them. Crete was allotted to Brutus,
Africa to Cassius, Asia to Trebonius, Bithynia to Cimber, and to
the other Brutus Gaul about the Po.
After these things, they began to consider of Caesar's will, and
the ordering of his funeral. Antony desired that the will might
be read, and that the body should not have a private or
dishonorable interment, lest that should further exasperate the
people. This Cassius violently opposed, but Brutus yielded to
it, and gave leave; in which he seems to have a second time
committed a fault. For as before in sparing the life of Antony
he could not be without some blame from his party, as thereby
setting up against the conspiracy a dangerous and difficult
enemy, so now, in suffering him to have the ordering of the
funeral, he fell into a total and irrecoverable error. For
first, it appearing by the will that Caesar had bequeathed to
the Roman people seventy-five drachmas a man, and given to the
public his gardens beyond Tiber (where now the temple of Fortune
stands), the whole city was fired with a wonderful affection for
him, and a passionate sense of the loss of him. And when the
body was brought forth into the forum, Antony, as the custom
was, making a funeral oration in the praise of Caesar, and
finding the multitude moved with his speech, passing into the
pathetic tone, unfolded the bloody garment of Caesar, showed
them in how many places it was pierced, and the number of his
wounds. Now there was nothing to be seen but confusion; some
cried out to kill the murderers, others (as was formerly done
when Clodius led the people) tore away the benches and tables
out of the shops round about, and, heaping them all together,
built a great funeral pile, and, having put the body of Caesar
upon it, set it on fire, the spot where this was done being
moreover surrounded with a great many temples and other
consecrated places, so that they seemed to burn the body in a
kind of sacred solemnity. As soon as the fire flamed out, the
multitude, flocking in some from one part and some from another,
snatched the brands that were half burnt out of the pile, and
ran about the city to fire the houses of the murderers of
Caesar. But they, having beforehand well fortified themselves,
repelled this danger.
There was however a kind of poet, one Cinna, not at all
concerned in the guilt of the conspiracy, but on the contrary
one of Caesar's friends. This man dreamed that he was invited
to supper by Caesar, and that he declined to go, but that Caesar
entreated and pressed him to it very earnestly; and at last,
taking him by the hand, led him into a very deep and dark place,
whither he was forced against his will to follow in great
consternation and amazement. After this vision, he had a fever
the most part of the night; nevertheless in the morning, hearing
that the body of Caesar was to be carried forth to be interred,
he was ashamed not to be present at the solemnity, and came
abroad and joined the people, when they were already infuriated
by the speech of Antony. And perceiving him, and taking him not
for that Cinna who indeed he was, but for him that a little
before in a speech to the people had reproached and inveighed
against Caesar, they fell upon him and tore him to pieces.
This action chiefly, and the alteration that Antony had wrought,
so alarmed Brutus and his party, that for their safety they
retired from the city. The first stay they made was at Antium,
with a design to return again as soon as the fury of the people
had spent itself and was abated, which they expected would soon
and easily come to pass in an unsettled multitude, apt to be
carried away with any sudden and impetuous passion, especially
since they had the senate favorable to them; which, though it
took no notice of those that had torn Cinna to pieces, yet made
a strict search and apprehended in order to punishment those
that had assaulted the houses of the friends of Brutus and
Cassius. By this time, also, the people began to be
dissatisfied with Antony, who they perceived was setting up a
kind of monarchy for himself; they longed for the return of
Brutus, whose presence they expected and hoped for at the games
and spectacles which he, as praetor, was to exhibit to the
public. But he, having intelligence that many of the old
soldiers that had borne arms under Caesar, by whom they had had
lands and cities given them, lay in wait for him, and by small
parties at a time had stolen into the city, would not venture to
come himself; however, in his absence there were most
magnificent and costly shows exhibited to the people; for,
having bought up a great number of all sorts of wild beasts, he
gave order that not any of them should be returned or saved, but
that all should be spent freely at the public spectacles. He
himself made a journey to Naples to procure a considerable
number of players, and hearing of one Canutius, that was very
much praised for his acting upon the stage, he wrote to his
friends to use all their entreaties to bring him to Rome (for,
being a Grecian, he could not be compelled); he wrote also to
Cicero, begging him by no means to omit being present at the
shows.
This was the posture of affairs when another sudden alteration
was made upon the young Caesar's coming to Rome. He was son to
the niece of Caesar, who adopted him, and left him his heir by
his will. At the time when Caesar was killed, he was following
his studies at Apollonia, where he was expecting also to meet
Caesar on his way to the expedition which he had determined on
against the Parthians; but, hearing of his death, he immediately
came to Rome, and, to ingratiate himself with the people, taking
upon himself the name of Caesar, and punctually distributing
among the citizens the money that was left them by the will, he
soon got the better of Antony; and by money and largesses, which
he liberally dispersed amongst the soldiers, he gathered
together and brought over to his party a great number of those
that had served under Caesar. Cicero himself, out of the hatred
which he bore to Antony, sided with young Caesar; which Brutus
took so ill that he treated with him very sharply in his
letters, telling him, that he perceived Cicero could well enough
endure a tyrant, but was afraid that he who hated him should be
the man; that in writing and speaking so well of Caesar, he
showed that his aim was to have an easy slavery. "But our
forefathers," said Brutus, "could not brook even gentle
masters." Further he added, that for his own part he had not as
yet fully resolved whether he should make war or peace; but that
as to one point he was fixed and settled, which was, never to be
a slave; that he wondered Cicero should fear the dangers of a
civil war, and not be much more afraid of a dishonorable and
infamous peace; that the very reward that was to be given him
for subverting Antony's tyranny was the privilege of
establishing Caesar as tyrant in his place. This is the tone of
Brutus's first letters to Cicero.
The city being now divided into two factions, some betaking
themselves to Caesar and others to Antony, the soldiers selling
themselves, as it were, by public outcry, and going over to him
that would give them most, Brutus began to despair of any good
event of such proceedings, and, resolving to leave Italy, passed
by land through Lucania and came to Elea by the seaside. From
hence it was thought convenient that Porcia should return to
Rome. She was overcome with grief to part from Brutus, but
strove as much as was possible to conceal it; but, in spite of
all her constancy, a picture which she found there accidentally
betrayed it. It was a Greek subject, Hector parting from
Andromache when he went to engage the Greeks, giving his young
son Astyanax into her arms, and she fixing her eyes upon him.
When she looked at this piece, the resemblance it bore to her
own condition made her burst into tears, and several times a day
she went to see the picture, and wept before it. Upon this
occasion, when Acilius, one of Brutus's friends, repeated out of
Homer the verses, where Andromache speaks to Hector: --
But Hector, you
To me are father and are mother too,
My brother, and my loving husband true.
Brutus, smiling, replied, "But I must not answer Porcia, as
Hector did Andromache,
'Mind you your loom, and to your maids give law.'
For though the natural weakness of her body hinders her from
doing what only the strength of men can perform, yet she has a
mind as valiant and as active for the good of her country as the
best of us." This narrative is in the memoirs of Brutus written
by Bibulus, Porcia's son.
Brutus took ship from hence, and sailed to Athens where he was
received by the people with great demonstrations of kindness,
expressed in their acclamations and the honors that were decreed
him. He lived there with a private friend, and was a constant
auditor of Theomnestus the Academic and Cratippus the
Peripatetic, with whom he so engaged in philosophical pursuits,
that he seemed to have laid aside all thoughts of public
business, and to be wholly at leisure for study. But all this
while, being unsuspected, he was secretly making preparation for
war; in order to which he sent Herostratus into Macedonia to
secure the commanders there to his side, and he himself won over
and kept at his disposal all the young Romans that were then
students at Athens. Of this number was Cicero's son, whom he
everywhere highly extols, and says that whether sleeping or
waking he could not choose but admire a young man of so great a
spirit and such a hater of tyranny.
At length he began to act openly, and to appear in public
business, and, being informed that there were several Roman
ships full of treasure that in their course from Asia were to
come that way, and that they were commanded by one of his
friends, he went to meet him about Carystus. Finding him there,
and having persuaded him to deliver up the ships, he made a more
than usually splendid entertainment, for it happened also to be
his birthday. Now when they came to drink, and were filling
their cups with hopes for victory to Brutus and liberty to Rome,
Brutus, to animate them the more, called for a larger bowl, and
holding it in his hand, on a sudden upon no occasion or
forethought pronounced aloud this verse: --
But fate my death and Leto's son have wrought.
And some writers add that in the last battle which he fought at
Philippi the word that he gave to his soldiers was Apollo, and
from thence conclude that this sudden unaccountable exclamation
of his was a presage of the overthrow that he suffered there.
Antistius, the commander of these ships, at his parting gave him
fifty thousand myriads of the money that he was conveying to
Italy; and all the soldiers yet remaining of Pompey's army, who
after their general's defeat wandered about Thessaly, readily
and joyfully flocked together to join him. Besides this, he
took from Cinna five hundred horse that he was carrying to
Dolabella into Asia. After that, he sailed to Demetrias, and
there seized a great quantity of arms, that had been provided by
the command of the deceased Caesar for the Parthian war, and
were now to be sent to Antony. Then Macedonia was put into his
hands and delivered up by Hortensius the praetor, and all the
kings and potentates round about came and offered their
services. So when news was brought that Caius, the brother of
Antony, having passed over from Italy, was marching on directly
to join the forces that Vatinius commanded in Dyrrhachium and
Apollonia, Brutus resolved to anticipate him, and to seize them
first, and in all haste moved forwards with those that he had
about him. His march was very difficult, through rugged places
and in a great snow, but so swift that he left those that were
to bring his provisions for the morning meal a great way behind.
And now, being very near to Dyrrhachium, with fatigue and cold
he fell into the distemper called Bulimia. This is a disease
that seizes both men and cattle after much labor, and especially
in a great snow; whether it is caused by the natural heat, when
the body is seized with cold, being forced all inwards, and
consuming at once all the nourishment laid in, or whether the
sharp and subtle vapor which comes from the snow as it
dissolves, cuts the body, as it were, and destroys the heat
which issues through the pores; for the sweatings seem to arise
from the heat meeting with the cold, and being quenched by it on
the surface of the body. But this I have in another place
discussed more at large.
Brutus growing very faint, and there being none in the whole
army that had anything for him to eat, his servants were forced
to have recourse to the enemy, and, going as far as to the gates
of the city, begged bread of the sentinels that were upon duty.
As soon as they heard of the condition of Brutus, they came
themselves, and brought both meat and drink along with them; in
return for which, Brutus, when he took the city, showed the
greatest kindness, not to them only, but to all the inhabitants,
for their sakes. Caius Antonius, in the meantime, coming to
Apollonia, summoned all the soldiers that were near that city to
join him there; but finding that they nevertheless went all to
Brutus, and suspecting that even those of Apollonia were
inclined to the same party, he quitted that city, and came to
Buthrotum, having first lost three cohorts of his men, that in
their march thither were cut to pieces by Brutus. After this,
attempting to make himself master of some strong places about
Byllis which the enemy had first seized, he was overcome in a
set battle by young Cicero, to whom Brutus gave the command, and
whose conduct he made use of often and with much success. Caius
himself was surprised in a marshy place, at a distance from his
supports; and Brutus, having him in his power, would not suffer
his soldiers to attack, but maneuvering about the enemy with his
horse, gave command that none of them should be killed, for that
in a little time they would all be of his side; which
accordingly came to pass, for they surrendered both themselves
and their general. So that Brutus had by this time a very great
and considerable army. He showed all marks of honor and esteem
to Caius for a long time, and left him the use of the ensigns of
his office, though, as some report, he had several letters from
Rome, and particularly from Cicero, advising him to put him to
death. But at last, perceiving that he began to corrupt his
officers, and was trying to raise a mutiny amongst the soldiers,
he put him aboard a ship and kept him close prisoner. In the
meantime the soldiers that had been corrupted by Caius retired
to Apollonia, and sent word to Brutus, desiring him to come to
them thither. He answered that this was not the custom of the
Romans, but that it became those who had offended to come
themselves to their general and beg forgiveness of their
offences; which they did, and accordingly received their pardon.
As he was preparing to pass into Asia, tidings reached him of
the alteration that had happened at Rome; where the young
Caesar, assisted by the senate, in opposition to Antony, and
having driven his competitor out of Italy, had begun himself to
be very formidable, suing for the consulship contrary to law,
and maintaining large bodies of troops of which the commonwealth
had no manner of need. And then, perceiving that the senate,
dissatisfied with his proceedings, began to cast their eyes
abroad upon Brutus, and decreed and confirmed the government of
several provinces to him, he had taken the alarm. Therefore
dispatching messengers to Antony, he desired that there might be
a reconciliation, and a friendship between them. Then, drawing
all his forces about the city, he made himself be chosen consul,
though he was but a boy, being scarce twenty years old, as he
himself writes in his memoirs. At his first entry upon the
consulship he immediately ordered a judicial process to be
issued out against Brutus and his accomplices for having
murdered a principal man of the city, holding the highest
magistracies of Rome, without being heard or condemned; and
appointed Lucius Cornificius to accuse Brutus, and Marcus
Agrippa to accuse Cassius. None appearing to the accusation,
the judges were forced to pass sentence and condemn them both.
It is reported, that when the crier from the tribunal, as the
custom was, with a loud voice cited Brutus to appear, the people
groaned audibly, and the noble citizens hung down their heads
for grief. Publius Silicius was seen to burst out into tears,
which was the cause that not long after he was put down in the
list of those that were proscribed. After this, the three men,
Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus, being perfectly reconciled, shared
the provinces among themselves, and made up the catalogue of
proscription, wherein were set those that were designed for
slaughter, amounting to two hundred men, in which number Cicero
was slain.
This news being brought to Brutus in Macedonia, he was under a
compulsion, and sent orders to Hortensius that he should kill
Caius Antonius in revenge of the death of Cicero his friend, and
Brutus his kinsman, who also was proscribed and slain. Upon
this account it was that Antony, having afterwards taken
Hortensius in the battle of Philippi, slew him upon his
brother's tomb. But Brutus expresses himself as more ashamed
for the cause of Cicero's death than grieved for the misfortune
of it, and says he cannot help accusing his friends at Rome,
that they were slaves more through their own doing than that of
those who now were their tyrants; they could be present and see
and yet suffer those things which even to hear related ought to
them to have been insufferable.
Having made his army, that was already very considerable, pass
into Asia, he ordered a fleet to be prepared in Bithynia and
about Cyzicus. But going himself through the country by land,
he made it his business to settle and confirm all the cities,
and gave audience to the princes of the parts through which he
passed. And he sent orders into Syria to Cassius to come to
him, and leave his intended journey into Egypt; letting him
understand, that it was not to gain an empire for themselves,
but to free their country, that they went thus wandering about
and had got an army together whose business it was to destroy
the tyrants; that therefore, if they remembered and resolved to
persevere in their first purpose, they ought not to be too far
from Italy, but make what haste they could thither, and endeavor
to relieve their fellow-citizens from oppression.
Cassius obeyed his summons, and returned, and Brutus went to
meet him; and at Smyrna they met, which was the first time they
had seen one another since they parted at the Piraeus in Athens,
one for Syria, and the other for Macedonia. They were both
extremely joyful and had great confidence of their success at
the sight of the forces that each of them had got together,
since they who had fled from Italy, like the most despicable
exiles, without money, without arms, without a ship or a soldier
or a city to rely on, in a little time after had met together so
well furnished with shipping and money, and an army both of
horse and foot, that they were in a condition to contend for the
empire of Rome.
Cassius was desirous to show no less respect and honor to Brutus
than Brutus did to him; but Brutus was still beforehand with
him, coming for the most part to him, both because he was the
elder man, and of a weaker constitution than himself. Men
generally reckoned Cassius a very expert soldier, but of a harsh
and angry nature, and one that desired to command rather by fear
than love; though, on the other side, among his familiar
acquaintance he would easily give way to jesting, and play the
buffoon. But Brutus, for his virtue, was esteemed by the
people, beloved by his friends, admired by the best men, and
hated not by his enemies themselves. For he was a man of a
singularly gentle nature, of a great spirit, insensible of the
passions of anger or pleasure or covetousness; steady and
inflexible to maintain his purpose for what he thought right and
honest. And that which gained him the greatest affection and
reputation was the entire faith in his intentions. For it had
not ever been supposed that Pompey the Great himself, if he had
overcome Caesar, would have submitted his power to the laws,
instead of taking the management of the state upon himself,
soothing the people with the specious name of consul or
dictator, or some other milder title than king. And they were
well persuaded that Cassius, being a man governed by anger and
passion and carried often, for his interest's sake, beyond the
bounce of justice, endured all these hardships of war and travel
and danger most assuredly to obtain dominion to himself, and not
liberty to the people. And as for the former disturbers of the
peace of Rome, whether a Cinna, a Marius, or a Carbo, it is
manifest that they, having set their country as a stake for him
that should win, did almost own in express terms that they
fought for empire. But even the enemies of Brutus did not, they
tell us, lay this accusation to his charge; nay, many heard
Antony himself say that Brutus was the only man that conspired
against Caesar out of a sense of the glory and the apparent
justice of the action, but that all the rest rose up against the
man himself, from private envy and malice of their own. And it
is plain by what he writes himself, that Brutus did not so
much rely upon his forces, as upon his own virtue. For thus he
speaks in a letter to Atticus, shortly before he was to engage
with the enemy: that his affairs were in the best state of
fortune that he could wish; for that either he should overcome,
and restore liberty to the people of Rome, or die, and be
himself out of the reach of slavery; that other things being
certain and beyond all hazard, one thing was yet in doubt,
whether they should live or die free men. He adds further, that
Mark Antony had received a just punishment for his folly, who,
when he might have been numbered with Brutus and Cassius and
Cato, would join himself to Octavius; that though they should
not now be both overcome, they soon would fight between them
selves. And in this he seems to have been no ill prophet.
Now when they were at Smyrna, Brutus desired of Cassius that he
might have part of the great treasure that he had heaped up,
because all his own was expended in furnishing out such a fleet
of ships as was sufficient to keep the whole interior sea in
their power. But Cassius's friends dissuaded him from this;
"for," said they, "it is not just that the money which you with
so much parsimony keep and with so much envy have got, should be
given to him to be disposed of in making himself popular, and
gaining the favor of the soldiers." Notwithstanding this,
Cassius gave him a third part of all that he had; and then they
parted each to their several commands. Cassius, having taken
Rhodes, behaved himself there with no clemency; though at his
first entry, when some had called him lord and king, he
answered, that he was neither king nor lord, but the destroyer
and punisher of a king and lord. Brutus, on the other part,
sent to the Lycians to demand from them a supply of money and
men; but Naucrates, their popular leader, persuaded the cities
to resist, and they occupied several little mountains and hills,
with a design to hinder Brutus's passage. Brutus at first sent
out a party of horse, which, surprising them as they were
eating, killed six hundred of them; and afterwards, having taken
all their small towns and villages round about, he set all his
prisoners free without ransom, hoping to win the whole nation by
good-will. But they continued obstinate, taking in anger what
they had suffered, and despising his goodness and humanity;
until, having forced the most warlike of them into the city of
Xanthus, he besieged them there. They endeavored to make their
escape by swimming and diving through the river that flows by
the town, but were taken by nets let down for that purpose in
the channel, which had little bells at the top, which gave
present notice of any that were taken in them. After that, they
made a sally in the night, and seizing several of the battering
engines, set them on fire; but being perceived by the Romans,
were beaten back to their walls, and, there being a strong wind,
it carried the flames to the battlements of the city with such
fierceness, that several of the adjoining houses took fire.
Brutus, fearing lest the whole city should be destroyed,
commanded his own soldiers to assist, and quench the fire.
But the Lycians were on a sudden possessed with a strange and
incredible desperation; such a frenzy as cannot be better
expressed than by calling it a violent appetite to die, for both
women and children, the bondmen and the free, those of all ages
and of all conditions strove to force away the soldiers that
came in to their assistance, from the walls; and themselves
gathering together reeds and wood, and whatever combustible
matter they found, spread the fire over the whole city, feeding
it with whatever fuel they could, and by all possible means
exciting its fury, so that the flame, having dispersed itself
and encircled the whole city, blazed out in so terrible a
manner, that Brutus, being extremely afflicted at their
calamity, got on horseback and rode round the walls, earnestly
desirous to preserve the city, and, stretching forth his hands
to the Xanthians, begged of them that they would spare
themselves and save their town. Yet none regarded his
entreaties, but by all manner of ways strove to destroy
themselves; not only men and women, but even boys and little
children, with a hideous outcry, leaped, some into the fire,
others from the walls, others fell upon their parents' swords,
baring their throats and desiring to be struck. After the
destruction of the city, there was found a woman who had hanged
herself with her young child hanging from her neck, and the
torch in her hand, with which she had fired her own house. It
was so tragical a sight, that Brutus could not endure to see it,
but wept at the very relation of it, and proclaimed a reward to
any soldier that could save a Xanthian. And it is said that one
hundred and fifty only were found, to have their lives saved
against their wills. Thus the Xanthians, after a long space of
years, the fated period of their destruction having, as it were,
run its course, repeated by their desperate deed the former
calamity of their forefathers, who after the very same manner in
the Persian war had fired their city and destroyed themselves.
Brutus, after this, finding the Patareans resolved to make
resistance and hold out their city against him, was very
unwilling to besiege it, and was in great perplexity lest the
same frenzy might seize them too. But having in his power some
of their women, who were his prisoners, he dismissed them all
without any ransom; who, returning and giving an account to
their husbands and fathers, who were of the greatest rank, what
an excellent man Brutus was how temperate and how just,
persuaded them to yield themselves and put their city into his
hands. From this time all the cities round about came into his
power, submitting themselves to him, and found him good and
merciful even beyond their hopes. For though Cassius at the
same time had compelled the Rhodians to bring in all the silver
and gold that each of them privately was possessed of, by which
he raised a sum of eight thousand talents, and besides this had
condemned the public to pay the sum of five hundred talents
more, Brutus, not having taken above a hundred and fifty talents
from the Lycians, and having done them no other manner of
injury, parted from thence with his army to go into Ionia.
Through the whole course of this expedition, Brutus did many
memorable acts of justice in dispensing rewards and punishments
to such as had deserved either; but one in particular I will
relate, because he himself, and all the noblest Romans, were
gratified with it above all the rest. When Pompey the Great,
being overthrown from his great power by Caesar, had fled to
Egypt, and landed near Pelusium, the protectors of the young
king consulted among themselves what was fit to be done on that
occasion, nor could they all agree in the same opinion, some
being for receiving him, others for driving him from Egypt. But
Theodotus, a Chian by birth, and then attending upon the king as
a paid teacher of rhetoric, and for want of better men admitted
into the council, undertook to prove to them, that both parties
were in the wrong, those that counseled to receive Pompey, and
those that advised to send him away; that in their present case
one thing only was truly expedient, to seize him and to kill
him; and ended his argument with the proverb, that "dead men
don't bite." The council agreed to his opinion, and Pompey the
Great (an example of incredible and unforeseen events) was
slain, as the sophister himself had the impudence to boast,
through the rhetoric and cleverness of Theodotus. Not long
after, when Caesar came to Egypt, some of the murderers received
their just reward and suffered the evil death they deserved.
But Theodotus, though he had borrowed on from fortune a little
further time for a poor despicable and wandering life, yet did
not lie hid from Brutus as he passed through Asia; but being
seized by him and executed, had his death made more memorable
than was his life.
About this time, Brutus sent to Cassius to come to him at the
city of Sardis, and, when he was on his journey, went forth with
his friends to meet him; and the whole army in array saluted
each of them with the name of Imperator. Now (as it usually
happens in business of great concern and where many friends and
many commanders are engaged), several jealousies of each other
and matters of private accusation having passed between Brutus
and Cassius, they resolved, before they entered upon any other
business, immediately to withdraw into some apartment; where,
the door being shut and they two alone, they began first to
expostulate, then to dispute hotly, and accuse each other; and
finally were so transported into passion as to fall to hard
words, and at last burst out into tears. Their friends who
stood without were amazed, hearing them loud and angry, and
feared lest some mischief might follow, but yet durst not
interrupt them, being commanded not to enter the room. However,
Marcus Favonius, who had been an ardent admirer of Cato, and,
not so much by his learning or wisdom as by his wild, vehement
manner, maintained the character of a philosopher, was rushing
in upon them, but was hindered by the attendants. But it was a
hard matter to stop Favonius, wherever his wildness hurried him;
for he was fierce in all his behavior, and ready to do anything
to get his will. And though he was a senator, yet, thinking
that one of the least of his excellences, he valued himself more
upon a sort of cynical liberty of speaking what he pleased,
which sometimes, indeed, did away with the rudeness and
unseasonableness of his addresses with those that would
interpret it in jest. This Favonius, breaking by force through
those that kept the doors, entered into the chamber, and with a
set voice declaimed the verses that Homer makes Nestor use, --
Be ruled, for I am older than ye both.
At this Cassius laughed; but Brutus thrust him our, calling him
impudent dog and counterfeit Cynic; but yet for the present they
let it put an end to their dispute, and parted. Cassius made a
supper that night, and Brutus invited the guests; and when they
were set down, Favonius, having bathed, came in among them.
Brutus called out aloud and told him he was not invited, and
bade him go to the upper couch; but he violently thrust himself
in, and lay down on the middle one; and the entertainment
passed in sportive talk, not wanting either wit or philosophy.
The next day after, upon the accusation of the Sardians, Brutus
publicly disgraced and condemned Lucius Pella, one that had been
censor of Rome, and employed in offices of trust by himself, for
having embezzled the public money. This action did not a little
vex Cassius; for but a few days before, two of his own friends
being accused of the same crime, he only admonished them in
private, but in public absolved them, and continued them in his
service; and upon this occasion he accused Brutus of too much
rigor and severity of justice in a time which required them to
use more policy and favor. But Brutus bade him remember the
Ides of March, the day when they killed Caesar, who himself
neither plundered nor pillaged mankind, but was only the support
and strength of those that did; and bade him consider, that if
there was any color for justice to be neglected, it had been
better to suffer the injustice of Caesar's friends than to give
impunity to their own; "for then," said he, "we could have been
accused of cowardice only; whereas now we are liable to the
accusation of injustice, after all our pain and dangers which we
endure." By which we may perceive what was Brutus's purpose,
and the rule of his actions.
About the time that they were going to pass out of Asia into
Europe, it is said that a wonderful sign was seen by Brutus. He
was naturally given to much watching, and by practice and
moderation in his diet had reduced his allowance of sleep to a
very small amount of time. He never slept in the daytime, and
in the night then only when all his business was finished, and
when, everyone else being gone to rest, he had nobody to
discourse with him. But at this time, the war being begun,
having the whole state of it to consider and being solicitous of
the event, after his first sleep, which he let himself take
after his supper, he spent all the rest of the night in settling
his most urgent affairs; which if he could dispatch early and so
make a saving of any leisure, he employed himself in reading
until the third watch, at which time the centurions and tribunes
were used to come to him for orders. Thus one night before he
passed out of Asia, he was very late all alone in his tent, with
a dim light burning by him, all the rest of the camp being
hushed and silent; and reasoning about something with himself
and very thoughtful, he fancied someone came in, and, looking
up towards the door, he saw a terrible and strange appearance of
an unnatural and frightful body standing by him without
speaking. Brutus boldly asked it, "What are you, of men or
gods, and upon what business come to me?" The figure answered,
"I am your evil genius, Brutus; you shall see me at Philippi."
To which Brutus, not at all disturbed, replied, "Then I shall
see you."
As soon as the apparition vanished, he called his servants to
him, who all told him that they had neither heard any voice nor
seen any vision. So then he continued watching till the
morning, when he went to Cassius, and told him of what he had
seen. He, who followed the principles of Epicurus's philosophy,
and often used to dispute with Brutus concerning matters of this
nature, spoke to him thus upon this occasion: "It is the opinion
of our sect, Brutus, that not all that we feel or see is real
and true; but that the sense is a most slippery and deceitful
thing, and the mind yet more quick and subtle to put the sense
in motion and affect it with every kind of change upon no real
occasion of fact; just as an impression is made upon wax; and
the soul of man, which has in itself both what imprints and what
is imprinted on, may most easily, by its own operations, produce
and assume every variety of shape and figure. This is evident
from the sudden changes of our dreams; in which the imaginative
principle, once started by anything matter, goes through a
whole series of most diverse emotions and appearances. It is
its nature to be ever in motion, and its motion is fantasy or
conception. But besides all this, in your case, the body, being
tired and distressed with continual toil, naturally works upon
the mind, and keeps it in an excited and unusual condition. But
that there should be any such thing as supernatural beings, or,
if there were, that they should have human shape or voice or
power that can reach to us, there is no reason for believing;
though I confess I could wish that there were such beings, that
we might not rely upon our arms only, and our horses and our
navy, all which are so numerous and powerful, but might be
confident of the assistance of gods also, in this our most
sacred and honorable attempt." With such discourses as these
Cassius soothed the mind of Brutus. But just as the troops were
going on board, two eagles flew and lighted on the first two
ensigns, and crossed over the water with them, and never ceased
following the soldiers and being fed by them till they came to
Philippi, and there, but one day before the fight, they both
flew away.
Brutus had already reduced most of the places and people of
these parts; but they now marched on as far as to the coast
opposite Thasos, and, if there were any city or man of power
that yet stood out, brought them all to subjection. At this
point Norbanus was encamped, in a place called the Straits, near
Symbolum. Him they surrounded in such sort that they forced him
to dislodge and quit the place; and Norbanus narrowly escaped
losing his whole army, Caesar by reason of sickness being too
far behind; only Antony came to his relief with such wonderful
swiftness that Brutus and those with him did not believe when
they heard he was come. Caesar came up ten days after, and
encamped over against Brutus, and Antony over against Cassius.
The space between the two armies is called by the Romans the
Campi Philippi. Never had two such large Roman armies come
together to engage each other. That of Brutus was somewhat less
in number than that of Caesar, but in the splendidness of the
men's arms and richness of their equipage it wonderfully
exceeded; for most of their arms were of gold and silver, which
Brutus had lavishly bestowed among them. For though in other
things he had accustomed his commanders to use all frugality and
self-control, yet he thought that the riches which soldiers
carried about them in their hands and on their bodies would add
something of spirit to those that were desirous of glory, and
would make those that were covetous and lovers of gain fight the
more valiantly to preserve the arms which were their estate.
Caesar made a view and lustration of his army within his
trenches, and distributed only a little corn and but five
drachmas to each soldier for the sacrifice they were to make.
But Brutus, either pitying this poverty, or disdaining this
meanness of spirit in Caesar, first, as the custom was, made a
general muster and lustration of the army in the open field, and
then distributed a great number of beasts for sacrifice to every
regiment, and fifty drachmas to every soldier; so that in the
love of his soldiers and their readiness to fight for him Brutus
had much the advantage. But at the time of lustration it is
reported that an unlucky omen happened to Cassius; for his
lictor, presenting him with a garland that he was to wear at
sacrifice, gave it him the wrong way up. Further, it is said
that some time before, at a certain solemn procession, a golden
image of Victory, which was carried before Cassius, fell down by
a slip of him that carried it. Besides this there appeared many
birds of prey daily about the camp, and swarms of bees were seen
in a place within the trenches, which place the soothsayers
ordered to be shut out from the camp, to remove the superstition
which insensibly began to infect even Cassius himself and shake
him in his Epicurean philosophy, and had wholly seized and
subdued the soldiers; from whence it was that Cassius was
reluctant to put all to the hazard of a present battle, but
advised rather to draw out the war until further time,
considering that they were stronger in money and provisions, but
in numbers of men and arms inferior. But Brutus, on the
contrary, was still, as formerly, desirous to come with all
speed to the decision of a battle; that so he might either
restore his country to her liberty, or else deliver from their
misery all those numbers of people whom they harassed with the
expenses and the service and exactions of the war. And finding
also his light-horse in several skirmishes still to have had the
better, he was the more encouraged and resolved; and some of the
soldiers having deserted and gone to the enemy, and others
beginning to accuse and suspect one another, many of Cassius's
friends in the council changed their opinions to that of Brutus.
But there was one of Brutus's party, named Atellius, who opposed
his resolution, advising rather that they should tarry over the
winter. And when Brutus asked him in how much better a
condition he hoped to be a year after, his answer was, "If I
gain nothing else, yet I shall live so much the longer."
Cassius was much displeased at this answer; and among the rest,
Atellius was had in much disesteem for it. And so it was
presently resolved to give battle the next day.
Brutus that night at supper showed himself very cheerful and
full of hope, and reasoned on subjects of philosophy with his
friends, and afterwards went to his rest. But Messala says that
Cassius supped privately with a few of his nearest acquaintance,
and appeared thoughtful and silent, contrary to his temper and
custom; that after supper he took him earnestly by the hand, and
speaking to him, as his manner was when he wished to show
affection, in Greek, said, "Bear witness for me, Messala, that I
am brought into the same necessity as Pompey the Great was
before me, of hazarding the liberty of my country upon one
battle; yet ought we to be of courage, relying on our good
fortune, which it were unfair to mistrust, though we take evil
counsels." These, Messala says, were the last words that
Cassius spoke before he bade him farewell; and that he was
invited to sup with him the next night, being his birthday.
As soon as it was morning, the signal of battle, the scarlet
coat, was set out in Brutus's and Cassius's camps, and they
themselves met in the middle space between their two armies.
There Cassius spoke thus to Brutus: "Be it as we hope, O Brutus,
that this day we may overcome, and all the rest of our time may
live a happy life together; but since the greatest of human
concerns are the most uncertain, and since it may be difficult
for us ever to see one another again, if the battle should go
against us, tell me, what is your resolution concerning flight
and death?" Brutus answered, "When I was young, Cassius, and
unskillful in affairs, I was led, I know not how, into uttering
a bold sentence in philosophy, and blamed Cato for killing
himself, as thinking it an irreligious act, and not a valiant
one among men, to try to evade the divine course of things, and
not fearlessly to receive and undergo the evil that shall
happen, but run away from it. But now in my own fortunes I am
of another mind; for if Providence shall not dispose what we now
undertake according to our wishes, I resolve to put no further
hopes or warlike preparations to the proof, but will die
contented with my fortune. For I already have given up my life
to my country on the Ides of March; and have lived since then a
second life for her sake, with liberty and honor." Cassius at
these words smiled, and, embracing Brutus said, "With these
resolutions let us go on upon the enemy; for either we ourselves
shall conquer, or have no cause to fear those that do." After
this they discoursed among their friends about the ordering of
the battle; and Brutus desired of Cassius that he might command
the right wing, though it was thought that this was more fit for
Cassius, in regard both of his age and his experience. Yet even
in this Cassius complied with Brutus, and placed Messala with
the valiantest of all his legions in the same wing, so Brutus
immediately drew out his horse, excellently well equipped, and
was not long in bringing up his foot after them.
Antony's soldiers were casting trenches from the marsh by which
they were encamped, across the plain, to cut off Cassius's
communications with the sea. Caesar was to be at hand with his
troops to support them, but he was not able to be present
himself, by reason of his sickness; and his soldiers, not much
expecting that the enemy would come to a set battle, but only
make some excursions with their darts and light arms to disturb
the men at work in the trenches, and not taking notice of the
boons drawn up against them ready to give battle, were amazed
when they heard the confused and great outcry that came from the
trenches. In the meanwhile Brutus had sent his tickets, in
which was the word of battle, to the officers; and himself
riding about to all the troops, encouraged the soldiers; but
there were but few of them that understood the word before they
engaged; the most of them, not staying to have it delivered to
them, with one impulse and cry ran upon the enemy. This
disorder caused an unevenness in the line, and the legions got
severed and divided one from another; that of Messala first, and
afterwards the other adjoining, went beyond the left wing of
Caesar; and having just touched the extremity, without
slaughtering any great number, passing round that wing, fell
directly into Caesar's camp. Caesar himself, as his own memoirs
tell us, had but just before been conveyed away, Marcus
Artorius, one of his friends, having had a dream bidding Caesar
be carried out of the camp. And it was believed that he was
slain; for the soldiers had pierced his litter, which was left
empty, in many places with their darts and pikes. There was a
great slaughter in the camp that was taken, and two thousand
Lacedaemonians that were newly come to the assistance of Caesar
were all cut off together.
The rest of the army, that had not gone round but had engaged
the front, easily overthrew them, finding them in great
disorder, and slew upon the place three legions; and being
carried on with the stream of victory, pursuing those that fled,
fell into the camp with them, Brutus himself being there. But
they that were conquered took the advantage in their extremity
of what the conquerors did not consider. For they fell upon
that part of the main body which had been left exposed and
separated, where the right wing had broke off from them and
hurried away in the pursuit; yet they could not break into the
midst of their battle, but were received with strong resistance
and obstinacy. Yet they put to flight the left wing, where
Cassius commanded, being in great disorder, and ignorant of what
had passed on the other wing; and, pursuing them to their camp,
they pillaged and destroyed it, neither of their generals being
present; for Antony, they say, to avoid the fury of the first
onset, had retired into the marsh that was hard by; and Caesar
was nowhere to be found after his being conveyed out of the
tents; though some of the soldiers showed Brutus their swords
bloody, and declared that they had killed him, describing his
person and his age. By this time also the center of Brutus's
battle had driven back their opponents with great slaughter; and
Brutus was everywhere plainly conqueror, as on the other side
Cassius was conquered. And this one mistake was the ruin of
their affairs, that Brutus did not come to the relief of
Cassius, thinking that he, as well as himself, was conqueror;
and that Cassius did not expect the relief of Brutus, thinking
that he too was overcome. For as a proof that the victory was
on Brutus's side, Messala urges his taking three eagles and many
ensigns of the enemy without losing any of his own. But now,
returning from the pursuit after having plundered Caesar's camp,
Brutus wondered that he could not see Cassius's tent standing
high, as it was wont, and appearing above the rest, nor other
things appearing as they had been; for they had been immediately
pulled down and pillaged by the enemy upon their first falling
into the camp. But some that had a quicker and longer sight
than the rest acquainted Brutus that they saw a great deal of
shining armor and silver targets moving to and fro in Cassius's
camp, and that they thought, by their number and the fashion of
their armor, they could not be those that they left to guard the
camp; but yet that there did not appear so great a number of
dead bodies thereabouts as it was probable there would have been
after the actual defeat of so many legions. This first made
Brutus suspect Cassius's misfortune, and, leaving a guard in the
enemy's camp, he called back those that were in the pursuit, and
rallied them together to lead them to the relief of Cassius,
whose fortune had been as follows.
First, he had been angry at the onset that Brutus's soldiers
made, without the word of battle or command to charge. Then,
after they had overcome, he was as much displeased to see them
rush on to the plunder and spoil, and neglect to surround and
encompass the rest of the enemy. Besides this, letting himself
act by delay and expectation, rather than command boldly and
with a clear purpose, he got hemmed in by the right wing of the
enemy, and, his horse making with all haste their escape and
flying towards the sea, the foot also began to give way, which
he perceiving labored as much as ever he could to hinder their
flight and bring them back; and, snatching an ensign out of the
hand of one that fled, he stuck it at his feet, though he could
hardly keep even his own personal guard together. So that at
last he was forced to fly with a few about him to a little hill
that overlooked the plain. But he himself, being weak-sighted,
discovered nothing, only the destruction of his camp, and that
with difficulty. But they that were with him saw a great body
of horse moving towards him, the same whom Brutus had sent.
Cassius believed these were enemies, and in pursuit of him;
however, he sent away Titinius, one of those that were with him,
to learn what they were. As soon as Brutus's horse saw him
coming, and knew him to be a friend and a faithful servant of
Cassius, those of them that were his more familiar acquaintance,
shouting out for joy and alighting from their horses, shook
hands and embraced him, and the rest rode round about him
singing and shouting, through their excess of gladness at the
sight of him. But this was the occasion of the greatest
mischief that could be. For Cassius really thought that
Titinius had been taken by the enemy, and cried out, "Through
too much fondness of life, I have lived to endure the sight of
my friend taken by the enemy before my face." After which words
he retired into an empty tent, taking along with him only
Pindarus, one of his freedmen, whom he had reserved for such an
occasion ever since the disasters in the expedition against the
Parthians, when Crassus was slain. From the Parthians he came
away in safety; but now, pulling up his mantle over his head, he
made his neck bare, and held it forth to Pindarus, commanding
him to strike. The head was certainly found lying severed from
the body. But no man ever saw Pindarus after, from which some
suspected that he had killed his master without his command.
Soon after they perceived who the horsemen were, and saw
Titinius, crowned with garlands, making what haste he could
towards Cassius. But as soon as he understood by the cries and
lamentations of his afflicted friends the unfortunate error and
death of his general, he drew his sword, and having very much
accused and upbraided his own long stay, that had caused it, he
slew himself.
Brutus, as soon as he was assured of the defeat of Cassius, made
haste to him; but heard nothing of his death till he came near
his camp. Then having lamented over his body, calling him "the
last of the Romans," it being impossible that the city should
ever produce another man of so great a spirit, he sent away the
body to be buried at Thasos, lest celebrating his funeral within
the camp might breed some disorder. He then gathered the
soldiers together and comforted them; and, seeing them destitute
of all things necessary, he promised to every man two thousand
drachmas in recompense of what he had lost. They at these words
took courage, and were astonished at the magnificence of the
gift; and waited upon him at his parting with shouts and
praises, magnifying him for the only general of all the four who
was not overcome in the battle. And indeed the action itself
testified that it was not without reason he believed he should
conquer; for with a few legions he overthrew all that resisted
him; and if all his soldiers had fought, and the most of them
had not passed beyond the enemy in pursuit of the plunder, it is
very likely that he had utterly defeated every part of them.
There fell of his side eight thousand men, reckoning the
servants of the army, whom Brutus calls Briges; and on the other
side, Messala says his opinion is that there were slain above
twice that number. For which reason they were more out of heart
than Brutus, until a servant of Cassius, named Demetrius, came
in the evening to Antony, and brought to him the garment which
he had taken from the dead body, and his sword; at the sight of
which they were so encouraged, that, as soon as it was morning,
they drew out their whole force into the field, and stood in
battle array. But Brutus found both his camps wavering and in
disorder; for his own, being filled with prisoners, required a
guard more strict than ordinary over them; and that of Cassius
was uneasy at the change of general, besides some envy and
rancor, which those that were conquered bore to that part of the
army which had been conquerors. Wherefore he thought it
convenient to put his army in array, but to abstain from
fighting. All the slaves that were taken prisoners, of whom
there was a great number that were mixed up, not without
suspicion, among the soldiers, he commanded to be slain; but of
the freemen and citizens, some he dismissed, saying that among
the enemy they were rather prisoners than with him, for with
them they were captives and slaves, but with him freemen and
citizens of Rome. But he was forced to hide and help them to
escape privately, perceiving that his friends and officers were
bent upon revenge against them. Among the captives there was
one Volumnius, a player, and Sacculio, a buffoon; of these
Brutus took no manner of notice, but his friends brought them
before him, and accused them that even then in that condition
they did not refrain from their jests and scurrilous language.
Brutus, having his mind taken up with other affairs, said
nothing to their accusation; but the judgment of Messala
Corvinus was, that they should be whipped publicly upon a stage,
and so sent naked to the captains of the enemy, to show them
what sort of fellow drinkers and companions they took with them
on their campaigns. At this some that were present laughed; and
Publius Casca, he that gave the first wound to Caesar, said, "We
do ill to jest and make merry at the funeral of Cassius. But
you, O Brutus," he added, "will show what esteem you have for
the memory of that general, according as you punish or preserve
alive those who will scoff and speak shamefully of him." To
this Brutus, in great discomposure replied, "Why then, Casca, do
you ask me about it, and not do yourselves what you think
fitting?" This answer of Brutus was taken for his consent to
the death of these wretched men; so they were carried away and
slain.
After this he gave the soldiers the reward that he had promised
them; and having slightly reproved them for having fallen upon
the enemy in disorder without the word of battle or command, he
promised them, that if they behaved themselves bravely in the
next engagement, he would give them up two cities to spoil and
plunder, Thessalonica and Lacedaemon. This is the one
indefensible thing of all that is found fault with in the life
of Brutus; though true it may be that Antony and Caesar were
much more cruel in the rewards that they gave their soldiers
after victory; for they drove out, one might almost say, all the
old inhabitants of Italy, to put their soldiers in possession of
other men's lands and cities. But indeed their only design and
end in undertaking the war was to obtain dominion and empire,
whereas Brutus, for the reputation of his virtue, could not be
permitted either to overcome or save himself but with justice
and honor, especially after the death of Cassius, who was
generally accused of having been his adviser to some things that
he had done with less clemency. But now, as in a ship, when the
rudder is broken by a storm, the mariners fit and nail on some
other piece of wood instead of it, striving against the danger
not well, but as well as in that necessity they can, so Brutus,
being at the head of so great an army, in a time of such
uncertainty, having no commander equal to his need, was forced
to make use of those that he had, and to do and to say many
things according to their advice; which was, in effect, whatever
might conduce to the bringing of Cassius's soldiers into better
order. For they were very headstrong and intractable, bold and
insolent in the camp for want of their general, but in the field
cowardly and fearful, remembering that they had been beaten.
Neither were the affairs of Caesar and Antony in any better
posture; for they were straitened for provision, and, the camp
being in a low ground, they expected to pass a very hard winter.
For being driven close upon the marshes, and a great quantity of
rain, as is usual in autumn, having fallen after the battle,
their tents were all filled with mire and water, which through
the coldness of the weather immediately froze. And while they
were in this condition, there was news brought to them of their
loss at sea. For Brutus's fleet fell upon their ships, which
were bringing a great supply of soldiers out of Italy, and so
entirely defeated them, that but very few of the men escaped
being slain, and they too were forced by famine to feed upon the
sails and tackle of the ship. As soon as they heard this, they
made what haste they could to come to the decision of a battle,
before Brutus should have notice of his good success. For it
had so happened that the fight both by sea and land was on the
same day, but by some misfortune, rather than the fault of his
commanders, Brutus knew not of his victory twenty days after.
For had he been informed of this, he would not have been brought
to a second battle, since he had sufficient provisions for his
army for a long time, and was very advantageously posted, his
camp being well sheltered from the cold weather, and almost
inaccessible to the enemy, and his being absolute master of the
sea, and having at land overcome on that side wherein he himself
was engaged, would have made him full of hope and confidence.
But it seems, the state of Rome not enduring any longer to be
governed by many, but necessarily requiring a monarchy, the
divine power, that it might remove out of the way the only man
that was able to resist him that could control the empire, cut
off his good fortune from coming to the ears of Brutus; though
it came but a very little too late, for the very evening before
the fight, Clodius, a deserter from the enemy, came and
announced that Caesar had received advice of the loss of his
fleet, and for that reason was in such haste to come to a
battle. But his story met with no credit, nor was he so much as
seen by Brutus, being simply set down as one that had had no
good information, or invented lies to bring himself into favor.
The same night, they say, the vision appeared again to Brutus,
in the same shape that it did before, but vanished without
speaking. But Publius Volumnius, a philosopher, and one that
had from the beginning borne arms with Brutus, makes no mention
of this apparition, but says that the first eagle was covered
with a swarm of bees, and that there was one of the captains
whose arm of itself sweated oil of roses, and, though they often
dried and wiped it, yet it would not cease; and that immediately
before the battle, two eagles falling upon each other fought in
the space between the two armies, that the whole field kept
incredible silence and all were intent upon the spectacle, until
at last that which was on Brutus's side yielded and fled. But
the story of the Ethiopian is very famous, who meeting the
standard-bearer at the opening the gate of the camp, was cut to
pieces by the soldiers, that took it for an ill omen.
Brutus, having brought his army into the field and set them in
array against the enemy, paused a long while before he would
fight; for, as he was reviewing the troops, suspicions were
excited, and informations laid against some of them. Besides,
he saw his horse not very eager to begin the action, and waiting
to see what the foot would do. Then suddenly Camulatus, a very
good soldier, and one whom for his valor he highly esteemed,
riding hard by Brutus himself, went over to the enemy, the sight
of which grieved Brutus exceedingly. So that partly out of
anger, and partly out of fear of some greater treason and
desertion, he immediately drew on his forces upon the enemy, the
sun now declining, about three of the clock in the afternoon.
Brutus on his side had the better, and pressed hard on the left
wing, which gave way and retreated; and the horse too fell in
together with the foot, when they saw the enemy in disorder.
But the other wing, when the officers extended the line to avoid
its being encompassed, the numbers being inferior, got drawn out
too thin in the center, and was so weak here that they could not
withstand the charge, but at the first onset fled. After
defeating these, the enemy at once took Brutus in the rear, who
all the while performed all that was possible for an expert
general and valiant soldier, doing everything in the peril, by
counsel and by hand, that might recover the victory. But that
which had been his superiority in the former fight was to his
prejudice in this second. For in the first fight, that part of
the enemy which was beaten was killed on the spot; but of
Cassius's soldiers that fled few had been slain, and those that
escaped, daunted with their defeat, infected the other and
larger part of the army with their want of spirit and their
disorder. Here Marcus, the son of Cato, was slain, fighting and
behaving himself with great bravery in the midst of the youth of
the highest rank and greatest valor. He would neither fly nor
give the least ground, but, still fighting and declaring who he
was and naming his father's name, he fell upon a heap of dead
bodies of the enemy. And of the rest, the bravest were slain in
defending Brutus.
There was in the field one Lucilius, an excellent man and a
friend of Brutus, who, seeing some barbarian horse taking no
notice of any other in the pursuit, but galloping at full speed
after Brutus, resolved to stop them, though with the hazard of
his life; and, letting himself fall a little behind, he told
them that he was Brutus. They believed him the rather, because
he prayed to be carried to Antony, as if he feared Caesar, but
durst trust him. They, overjoyed with their prey, and thinking
themselves wonderfully fortunate, carried him along with them in
the night, having first sent messengers to Antony of their
coming. He was much pleased, and came to meet them; and all the
rest that heard that Brutus was taken and brought alive, flocked
together to see him, some pitying his fortune, others accusing;
him of a meanness unbecoming his former glory, that out of too
much love of life he would be a prey to barbarians. When they
came near together, Antony stood still, considering with himself
in what manner he should receive Brutus. But Lucilius, being
brought up to him, with great confidence said: "Be assured,
Antony, that no enemy either has taken or ever shall take Marcus
Brutus alive (forbid it, heaven, that fortune should ever so
much prevail above virtue), but he shall be found, alive or
dead, as becomes himself. As for me, I am come hither by a
cheat that I put upon your soldiers, and am ready, upon this
occasion, to suffer any severities you will inflict." All were
amazed to hear Lucilius speak these words. But Antony, turning
himself to those that brought him, said: "I perceive, my
fellow-soldiers, that you are concerned and take it ill that you
have been thus deceived, and think yourselves abused and injured
by it; but know that you have met with a booty better than that
you sought. For you were in search of an enemy, but you have
brought me here a friend. For indeed I am uncertain how I
should have used Brutus, if you had brought him alive; but of
this I am sure, that it is better to have such men as Lucilius
our friends than our enemies." Having said this, he embraced
Lucilius, and for the present commended him to the care of one
of his friends, and ever after found him a steady and a faithful
friend.
Brutus had now passed a little brook, running among trees and
under steep rocks, and, it being night, would go no further, but
sat down in a hollow place with a great rock projecting before
it, with a few of his officers and friends about him. At first,
looking up to heaven, that was then full of stars, he repeated
two verses, one of which, Volumnius writes, was this: --
Punish, great Jove, the author of these ills.
The other he says he has forgot. Soon after, naming severally
all his friends that had been slain before his face in the
battle, he groaned heavily, especially at the mentioning of
Flavius and Labeo, the latter his lieutenant, and the other
chief officer of his engineers. In the meantime, one of his
companions, that was very thirsty and saw Brutus in the same
condition, took his helmet and ran to the brook for water, when,
a noise being heard from the other side of the river, Volumnius,
taking Dardanus, Brutus's armor-bearer, with him, went out to
see what it was. They returned in a short space, and inquired
about the water. Brutus, smiling with much meaning, said to
Volumnius, "It is all drunk; but you shall have some more
fetched." But he that had brought the first water, being sent
again, was in great danger of being taken by the enemy, and,
having received a wound, with much difficulty escaped.
Now Brutus guessing that not many of his men were slain in the
fight, Statyllius undertook to dash through the enemy (for there
was no other way), and to see what was become of their camp; and
promised, if he found all things there safe, to hold up a torch
for a signal, and then return. The torch was held up, for
Statyllius got safe to the camp; but when after a long time he
did not return, Brutus said, "If Statyllius be alive, he will
come back." But it happened that in his return he fell into the
enemy's hands, and was slain.
The night now being far spent, Brutus, as he was sitting, leaned
his head towards his servant Clitus and spoke to him; he
answered him not, but fell a weeping. After that, he drew
aside his armor-bearer, Dardanus, and had some discourse with
him in private. At last, speaking to Volumnius in Greek, he
reminded him of their common studies and former discipline, and
begged that he would take hold of his sword with him, and help
him to thrust it through him. Volumnius put away his request,
and several others did the like; and someone saying, that there
was no staying there, but they needs must fly, Brutus, rising
up, said, "Yes, indeed, we must fly, but not with our feet, but
with our hands." Then giving each of them his right hand, with
a countenance full of pleasure, he said, that he found an
infinite satisfaction in this, that none of his friends had been
false to him; that as for fortune, he was angry with that only
for his country's sake; as for himself, he thought himself much
more happy than they who had overcome, not only as he had been a
little time ago, but even now in his present condition; since he
was leaving behind him such a reputation of his virtue as none
of the conquerors with all their arms and riches should ever be
able to acquire, no more than they could hinder posterity from
believing and saying, that, being unjust and wicked men, they
had destroyed the just and the good, and usurped a power to
which they had no right. After this, having exhorted and
entreated all about him to provide for their own safety, he
withdrew from them with two or three only of his peculiar
friends; Strato was one of these, with whom he had contracted an
acquaintance when they studied rhetoric together. Him he placed
next to himself, and, taking hold of the hilt of his sword and
directing it with both his hands, he fell upon it, and killed
himself. But others say, that not he himself, but Strato, at
the earnest entreaty of Brutus, turning aside his head, held the
sword, upon which he violently throwing himself, it pierced his
breast, and he immediately died. This same Strato, Messala, a
friend of Brutus, being, after reconciled to Caesar, brought to
him once at his leisure, and with tears in his eyes said, "This,
O Caesar, is the man that did the last friendly office to my
beloved Brutus." Upon which Caesar received him kindly; and had
good use of him in his labors and his battles at Actium, being
one of the Greeks that proved their bravery in his service. It
is reported of Messala himself, that, when Caesar once gave him
this commendation, that though he was his fiercest enemy at
Philippi in the cause of Brutus, yet he had shown himself his
most entire friend in the fight of Actium, he answered, "You
have always found me, Caesar, on the best and justest side."
Brutus's dead body was found by Antony, who commanded the
richest purple mantle that he had to be thrown over it, and
afterwards the mantle being stolen, he found the thief, and had
him put to death. He sent the ashes of Brutus to his mother
Servilia. As for Porcia his wife, Nicolaus the philosopher and
Valerius Maximus write, that, being desirous to die, but being
hindered by her friends, who continually watched her, she
snatched some burning charcoal out of the fire, and, shutting it
close in her mouth, stifled herself, and died. Though there is
a letter current from Brutus to his friends, in which he laments
the death of Porcia, and accuses them for neglecting her so that
she desired to die rather than languish with her disease. So
that it seems Nicolaus was mistaken in the time; for this
epistle (if it indeed is authentic, and truly Brutus's) gives us
to understand the malady and love of Porcia, and the way in
which her death occurred.
COMPARISON OF DION AND BRUTUS
There are noble points in abundance in the characters of these
two men, and one to be first mentioned is their attaining such a
height of greatness upon such inconsiderable means; and on this
score Dion has by far the advantage. For he had no partner to
contest his glory, as Brutus had in Cassius, who was not,
indeed, his equal in proved virtue and honor, yet contributed
quite as much to the service of the war by his boldness, skill,
and activity; and some there be who impute to him the rise and
beginning of the whole enterprise, saying that it was he who
roused Brutus, till then indisposed to stir, into action against
Caesar. Whereas Dion seems of himself to have provided not only
arms, ships, and soldiers, but likewise friends and partners for
the enterprise. Neither did he, as Brutus, collect money and
forces from the war itself, but, on the contrary, laid out of
his own substance, and employed the very means of his private
sustenance in exile for the liberty of his country. Besides
this, Brutus and Cassius, when they fled from Rome, could not
live safe or quiet, being condemned to death and pursued, and
were thus of necessity forced to take arms and hazard their
lives in their own defense, to save themselves, rather than
their country. On the other hand, Dion enjoyed more ease, was
more safe, and his life more pleasant in his banishment, than
was the tyrant's who had banished him, when he flew to action,
and ran the risk of all to save Sicily.
Take notice, too, that it was not the same thing for the
Sicilians to be freed from Dionysius, and for the Romans to be
freed from Caesar. The former owned himself a tyrant, and vexed
Sicily with a thousand oppressions; whereas Caesar's supremacy,
certainly, in the process for attaining it, had inflicted no
little trouble on its opponents, but, once established and
victorious, it had indeed the name and appearance, but fact that
was cruel or tyrannical there was none. On the contrary, in the
malady of the times and the need of a monarchical government, he
might be thought to have been sent, as the gentlest physician,
by no other than a divine intervention. And thus the common
people instantly regretted Caesar, and grew enraged and
implacable against those that killed him. Whereas Dion's chief
offense in the eyes of his fellow-citizens was his having let
Dionysius escape, and not having demolished the former tyrant's
tomb.
In the actual conduct of war, Dion was a commander without
fault, improving to the utmost those counsels which he himself
gave, and, where others led him into disaster, correcting and
turning everything to the best. But Brutus seems to have shown
little wisdom in engaging in the final battle, which was to
decide everything, and, when he failed, not to have done his
business in seeking a remedy ; he gave all up, and abandoned his
hopes, not venturing against fortune even as far as Pompey did,
when he had still means enough to rely on in his troops, and was
clearly master of all the seas with his ships.
The greatest thing charged on Brutus is, that he, being saved by
Caesar's kindness, having saved all the friends whom he chose to
ask for, he moreover accounted a friend, and preferred above
many, did yet lay violent hands upon his preserver. Nothing
like this could be objected against Dion; quite the contrary,
whilst he was of Dionysius's family and his friend, he did good
service, and was useful to him; but driven from his country,
wronged in his wife, and his estate lost, he openly entered upon
a war just and lawful. Does not, however, the matter turn the
other way? For the chief glory of both was their hatred of
tyranny, and abhorrence of wickedness. This was unmixed and
sincere in Brutus; for he had no private quarrel with Caesar,
but went into the risk singly for the liberty of his country.
The other, had he not been privately injured, had not fought.
This is plain from Plato's epistles, where it is shown that he
was turned out, and did not forsake the court to wage war upon
Dionysius. Moreover, the public good made Brutus Pompey's
friend (instead of his enemy as he had been) and Caesar's enemy;
since he proposed for his hatred and his friendship no other end
and standard but justice. Dion was very serviceable to
Dionysius whilst in favor; when no longer trusted, he grew angry
and fell to arms. And, for this reason, not even were his own
friends all of them satisfied with his undertaking, or quite
assured that, having overcome Dionysius, he might not settle the
government on himself, deceiving his fellow-citizens by some
less obnoxious name than tyranny. But the very enemies of
Brutus would say that he had no other end or aim, from first to
last, save only to restore to the Roman people their ancient
government.
And apart from what has just been said, the adventure against
Dionysius was nothing equal with that against Caesar. For none
that was familiarly conversant with Dionysius but scorned him
for his life of idle amusement with wine, women, and dice;
whereas it required an heroic soul and a truly intrepid and
unquailing spirit so much as to entertain the thought of
crushing Caesar so formidable for his ability, his power, and
his fortune, whose very name disturbed the slumbers of the
Parthian and Indian kings. Dion was no sooner seen in Sicily
but thousands ran in to him and joined him against Dionysius;
whereas the renown of Caesar, even when dead, gave strength to
his friends; and his very name so heightened the person that
took it, that from a simple boy he presently became the chief of
the Romans; and he could use it for a spell against the enmity
and power of Antony. If any object that it cost Dion great
trouble and difficulties to overcome the tyrant, whereas Brutus
slew Caesar naked and unprovided, yet this itself was the result
of the most consummate policy and conduct, to bring it about
that a man so guarded around, and so fortified at all points,
should be taken naked and unprovided. For it was not on the
sudden, nor alone, nor with a few, that he fell upon and killed
Caesar; but after long concerting the plot, and placing
confidence in a great many men, not one of whom deceived him.
For he either at once discerned the best men, or by confiding in
them made them good. But Dion, either making a wrong judgment,
trusted himself with ill men, or else by his employing them made
ill men of good; either of the two would be a reflection on a
wise man. Plato also is severe upon him, for choosing such for
friends as betrayed him.
Besides, when Dion was killed, none appeared to revenge his
death. Whereas Brutus, even amongst his enemies, had Antony
that buried him splendidly; and Caesar also took care his honors
should be preserved. There stood at Milan in Gaul, within the
Alps, a brazen statue, which Caesar in after-times noticed
(being a real likeness, and a fine work of art), and passing by
it, presently stopped short, and in the hearing of many
commended the magistrates to come before him. He told them
their town had broken their league, harboring an enemy. The
magistrates at first simply denied the thing, and, not knowing
what he meant, looked one upon another, when Caesar, turning
towards the statue and gathering his brows, said, "Pray, is not
that our enemy who stands there?" They were all in confusion,
and had nothing to answer; but he, smiling, much commended the
Gauls, as who had been firm to their friends, though in
adversity, and ordered that the statue should remain standing as
he found it.
ARATUS
The philosopher Chrysippus, O Polycrates, quotes an ancient
proverb, not as really it should be, apprehending, I suppose,
that it sounded too harshly, but so as he thought it would run
best, in these words,
Who praise their father but the generous sons?
But Dionysodorus the Troezenian proves him to be wrong, and
restores the true reading, which is this, --
Who praise their fathers but degenerate sons?
telling us that the proverb is meant to stop the mouth of those
who, having no merit of their own, take refuge in the virtues of
their ancestors, and make their advantage of praising them.
But, as Pindar hath it,
He that by nature doth inherit
From ancestors a noble spirit,
as you do, who make your life the copy of the fairest originals
of your family, -- such, I say, may take great satisfaction in
being reminded, both by hearing others speak and speaking
themselves, of the best of their progenitors. For they assume
not the glory of praises earned by others out of any want of
worth of their own, but, affiliating their own deeds to those of
their ancestor, give them honor as the authors both of their
descent and manners.
Therefore I have sent to you the life which I have written of
your fellow-citizen and forefather Aratus, to whom you are no
discredit in point either of reputation or of authority, not as
though you had not been most diligently careful to inform
yourself from the beginning concerning his actions, but that
your sons, Polycrates and Pythocles, may both by hearing and
reading become familiar with those family examples which it
behooves them to follow and imitate. It is a piece of
self-love, and not of the love of virtue, to imagine one has
already attained to what is best.
The city of Sicyon, from the time that it first fell off from
the pure and Doric aristocracy (its harmony being destroyed, and
a mere series of seditions and personal contests of popular
leaders ensuing), continued to be distempered and unsettled,
changing from one tyrant to another, until, Cleon being slain,
Timoclides and Clinias, men of the most repute and power amongst
the citizens, were chosen to the magistracy. And the
commonwealth now seeming to be in a pretty settled condition,
Timoclides died, and Abantidas, the son of Paseas, to possess
himself of the tyranny, killed Clinias, and, of his kindred and
friends, slew some and banished others. He sought also to kill
his son Aratus, whom he left behind him, being but seven years
old. This boy in the general disorder getting out of the house
with those that fled, and wandering about the city helpless and
in great fear, by chance got undiscovered into the house of a
woman who was Abantidas's sister, but married to Prophantus, the
brother of Clinias, her name being Soso. She, being of a
generous temper, and believing the boy had by some supernatural
guidance fled to her for shelter, hid him in the house, and at
night sent him away to Argos.
Aratus, being thus delivered and secured from this danger,
conceived from the first and ever after nourished a vehement and
burning hatred against tyrants, which strengthened with his
years. Being therefore bred up amongst his father's
acquaintance and friends at Argos with a liberal education, and
perceiving his body to promise good health and stature, he
addicted himself to the exercises of the palaestra, to that
degree that he competed in the five games, and gained some
crowns; and indeed in his statues one may observe a certain kind
of athletic cast, and the sagacity and majesty of his
countenance does not dissemble his full diet and the use of the
hoe. Whence it came to pass that he less studied eloquence than
perhaps became a statesman, and yet he was more accomplished in
speaking than many believe, judging by the commentaries which he
left behind him, written carelessly and by the way, as fast as
he could do it, and in such words as first came to his mind.
In the course of time, Dinias and Aristoteles the logician
killed Abantidas, who used to be present in the marketplace at
their discussions, and to make one in them; till they, taking
the occasion, insensibly accustomed him to the practice, and so
had opportunity to contrive and execute a plot against him.
After him Paseas, the father of Abantidas, taking upon him the
government, was assassinated by Nicocles, who himself set up for
tyrant. Of him it is related that he was strikingly like
Periander the son of Cypselus, just as it is said that Orontes
the Persian bore a great resemblance to Alcmaeon the son of
Amphiaraus, and that Lacedaemonian youth, whom Myrsilus relates
to have been trodden to pieces by the crowd of those that came
to see him upon that report, to Hector.
This Nicocles governed four months, in which, after he had done
all kinds of mischief to the city, he very nearly let it fall
into the hands of the Aetolians. By this time Aratus, being
grown a youth, was in much esteem, both for his noble birth and
his spirit and disposition, which, while neither insignificant
nor wanting in energy, were solid, and tempered with a
steadiness of judgment beyond his years. For which reason the
exiles had their eyes most upon him, nor did Nicocles less
observe his motions, but secretly spied and watched him, not out
of apprehension of any such considerable or utterly audacious
attempt, but suspecting he held correspondence with the kings,
who were his father's friends and acquaintance. And, indeed,
Aratus first attempted this way; but finding that Antigonus, who
had promised fair, neglected him and delayed the time, and that
his hopes from Egypt and Ptolemy were long to wait for, he
determined to cut off the tyrant by himself.
And first he broke his mind to Aristomachus and Ecdelus, the one
an exile of Sicyon, the other, Ecdelus, an Arcadian of
Megalopolis, a philosopher, and a man of action, having been the
familiar friend of Arcesilaus the Academic at Athens. These
readily consenting, he communicated with the other exiles,
whereof some few, being ashamed to seem to despair of success,
engaged in the design; but most of them endeavored to divert him
from his purpose, as one that for want of experience was too
rash and daring.
Whilst he was consulting to seize upon some post in Sicyonia,
from whence he might make war upon the tyrant, there came to
Argos a certain Sicyonian, newly escaped out of prison, brother
to Xenocles, one of the exiles, who being by him presented to
Aratus informed him, that that part of the wall over which he
escaped was, inside, almost level with the ground, adjoining a
rocky and elevated place, and that from the outside it might be
scaled with ladders. Aratus, hearing this, dispatches away
Xenocles with two of his own servants, Seuthas and Technon, to
view the wall, resolving, if possible, secretly and with one
risk to hazard all on a single trial, rather than carry on a
contest as a private man against a tyrant by long war and open
force. Xenocles, therefore, with his companions, returning
having taken the height of the wall, and declaring the place not
to be impossible or indeed difficult to get over, but that it
was not easy to approach it undiscovered, by reason of some
small but uncommonly savage and noisy dogs belonging to a
gardener hard by, he immediately undertook the business.
Now the preparation of arms gave no jealousy, because robberies
and petty forays were at that time common everywhere between one
set of people and another; and for the ladders, Euphranor, the
machine-maker, made them openly, his trade rendering him
unsuspected, though one of the exiles. As for men, each of his
friends in Argos furnished him with ten apiece out of those few
they had, and he armed thirty of his own servants, and hired
some few soldiers of Xenophilus, the chief of the robber
captains, to whom it was given out that they were to march into
the territory of Sicyon to seize the king's stud; most of them
were sent before, in small parties, to the tower of Polygnotus,
with orders to wait there; Caphisias also was dispatched
beforehand lightly armed, with four others, who were, as soon as
it was dark, to come to the gardener's house, pretending to be
travelers, and, procuring their lodging there, to shut up him
and his dogs; for there was no other way of getting past. And
for the ladders, they had been made to take in pieces, and were
put into chests, and sent before hidden upon wagons. In the
meantime, some of the spies of Nicocles appearing in Argos, and
being said to go privately about watching Aratus, he came early
in the morning into the market-place, showing him self openly
and conversing with his friends; then he anointed himself in the
exercise ground, and, taking with him thence some of the young
men that used to drink and spend their time with him, he went
home; and presently after several of his servants were seen
about the marketplace, one carrying garlands, another buying
flambeaus, and a third speaking to the women that used to sing
and play at banquets, all which things the spies observing were
deceived, and said laughing to one another, "Certainly nothing
can be more timorous than a tyrant, if Nicocles, being master of
so great a city and so numerous a force, stands in fear of a
youth that spends what he has to subsist upon in his banishment
in pleasures and day-debauches;" and, being thus imposed upon,
they returned home.
But Aratus, departing immediately after his morning meal, and
coming to his soldiers at Polygnotus's tower, led them to Nemea;
where he disclosed, to most of them for the first time; his true
design, making them large promises and fair speeches, and
marched towards the city, giving for the word Apollo victorious,
proportioning his march to the motion of the moon, so as to have
the benefit of her light upon the way, and to be in the garden,
which was close to the wall, just as she was setting. Here
Caphisias came to him, who had not secured the dogs, which had
run away before he could catch them, but had only made sure of
the gardener. Upon which most of the company being out of heart
and desiring to retreat, Aratus encouraged them to go on,
promising to retire in case the dogs were too troublesome;
and at the same time sending forward those that carried the
ladders, conducted by Ecdelus and Mnasitheus, he followed them
himself leisurely, the dogs already barking very loud and
following, the steps of Ecdelus and his companions. However,
they got to the wall, and reared the ladders with safety. But
as the foremost men were mounting them, the captain of the watch
that was to be relieved by the morning guard passed on his way
with the bell, and there were many lights, and a noise of people
coming up. Hearing which, they clapped themselves close to the
ladders, and so were unobserved; but as the other watch also was
coming up to meet this, they were in extreme danger of being
discovered. But when this also went by without observing them,
immediately Mnasitheus and Ecdelus got upon the wall, and,
possessing themselves of the approaches inside and out, sent
away Technon to Aratus, desiring him to make all the haste he
could.
Now there was no great distance from the garden to the wall and
to the tower, in which latter a large hound was kept. The hound
did not hear their steps of himself, whether that he were
naturally drowsy, or overwearied the day before, but, the
gardener's curs awaking him, he first began to growl and grumble
in response, and then as they passed by to bark out aloud. And
the barking was now so great, that the sentinel opposite shouted
out to the dog's keeper to know why the dog kept such a barking,
and whether anything was the matter; who answered, that it was
nothing, but only that his dog had been set barking by the
lights of the watch and the noise of the bell. This reply much
encouraged Aratus's soldiers, who thought the dog's keeper was
privy to their design, and wished to conceal what was passing,
and that many others in the city were of the conspiracy. But
when they came to scale the wall, the attempt then appeared both
to require time and to be full of danger, for the ladders shook
and tottered extremely unless they mounted them leisurely and
one by one, and time pressed, for the cocks began to crow, and
the country people that used to bring things to the market would
be coming to the town directly. Therefore Aratus made haste to
get up himself, forty only of the company being already upon the
wall, and, staying but for a few more of those that were below,
he made straight to the tyrant's house and the general's office,
where the mercenary soldiers passed the night, and, coming
suddenly upon them, and taking them prisoners without killing
any one of them, he immediately sent to all his friends in their
houses to desire them to come to him, which they did from all
quarters. By this time the day began to break, and the theater
was filled with a multitude that were held in suspense by
uncertain reports and knew nothing distinctly of what had
happened, until a public crier came forward and proclaimed that
Aratus, the son of Clinias, invited the citizens to recover
their liberty.
Then at last assured that what they so long looked for was come
to pass, they pressed in throngs to the tyrant's gates to set
them on fire. And such a flame was kindled, the whole house
catching fire, that it was seen as far as Corinth; so that the
Corinthians, wondering what the matter could be, were upon the
point of coming to their assistance. Nicocles fled away
secretly out of the city by means of certain underground
passages, and the soldiers, helping the Sicyonians to quench the
fire, plundered the house. This Aratus hindered not, but
divided also the rest of the riches of the tyrants amongst the
citizens. In this exploit, not one of those engaged in it was
slain, nor any of the contrary party, fortune so ordering the
action as to be clear and free from civil bloodshed. He
restored eighty exiles who had been expelled by Nicocles, and no
less than five hundred who had been driven out by former tyrants
and had endured a long banishment, pretty nearly, by this time,
of fifty years' duration. These returning, most of them very
poor, were impatient to enter upon their former possessions,
and, proceeding to their several farms and houses, gave great
perplexity to Aratus, who considered that the city without was
envied for its liberty and aimed at by Antigonus, and within was
full of disorder and sedition. Wherefore, as things stood, he
thought it best to associate it to the Achaean community, and
so, although Dorians, they of their own will took upon them the
name and citizenship of the Achaeans, who at that time had
neither great repute nor much power. For the most of them lived
in small towns, and their territory was neither large nor
fruitful, and the neighboring sea was almost wholly without a
harbor, breaking direct upon a rocky shore. But yet these above
others made it appear that the Grecian courage was invincible,
whensoever it could only have order and concord within itself
and a prudent general to direct it. For though they had
scarcely been counted as any part of the ancient Grecian power,
and at this time did not equal the strength of one ordinary
city, yet by prudence and unanimity, and because they knew how
not to envy and malign, but to obey and follow him amongst them
that was most eminent for virtue, they not only preserved their
own liberty in the midst of so many great cities, military
powers, and monarchies, but went on steadily saving and
delivering from slavery great numbers of the Greeks.
As for Aratus, he was in his behavior a true statesman,
high-minded, and more intent upon the public than his private
concerns, a bitter hater of tyrants, making the common good the
rule and law of his friendships and enmities. So that indeed he
seems not to have been so faithful a friend, as he was a
reasonable and gentle enemy, ready, according to the needs of
the state, to suit himself on occasion to either side; concord
between nations, brotherhood between cities, the council and the
assembly unanimous in their votes, being the objects above all
other blessings to which he was passionately devoted; backward,
indeed, and diffident in the use of arms and open force, but in
effecting a purpose underhand, and outwitting cities and
potentates without observation, most politic and dexterous.
Therefore, though he succeeded beyond hope in many enterprises
which he undertook, yet he seems to have left quite as many
unattempted, though feasible enough, for want of assurance. For
it should seem, that, as the sight of certain beasts is strong
in the night but dim by day, the tenderness of the humors of
their eyes not bearing the contact of the light, so there is
also one kind of human skill and sagacity which is easily
daunted and disturbed in actions done in the open day and before
the world, and recovers all its self-possession in secret and
covert enterprises; which inequality is occasioned in noble
minds for want of philosophy, a mere wild and uncultivated fruit
of a virtue without true knowledge coming up; as might be made
out by examples.
Aratus, therefore, having associated himself and his city to the
Achaeans, served in the cavalry, and made himself much beloved
by his commanding officers for his exact obedience; for though
he had made so large an addition to the common strength as that
of his own credit and the power of his country, yet he was as
ready as the most ordinary person to be commanded by the Achaean
general of the time being, whether he were a man of Dymae, or of
Tritaea, or any yet meaner town than these. Having also a
present of five and twenty talents sent him from the king, he
took them, but gave them all to his fellow-citizens, who wanted
money, amongst other purposes, for the redemption of those who
had been taken prisoners.
But the exiles being by no means to be satisfied, disturbing
continually those that were in possession of their estates,
Sicyon was in great danger of falling into perfect desolation;
so that, having no hope left but in the kindness of Ptolemy, he
resolved to sail to him, and to beg so much money of him as
might reconcile all parties. So he set sail from Mothone beyond
Malea, designing to make the direct passage. But the pilot not
being able to keep the vessel up against a strong wind and high
waves that came in from the open sea, he was driven from his
course, and with much ado got to shore in Andros, an enemy's
land, possessed by Antigonus, who had a garrison there. To
avoid which he immediately landed, and, leaving the ship, went
up into the country a good way from the sea, having along with
him only one friend, called Timanthes; and throwing themselves
into some ground thickly covered with wood, they had but an ill
night's rest of it. Not long after, the commander of the troops
came, and, inquiring for Aratus, was deceived by his servants,
who had been instructed to say that he had fled at once over
into the island of Euboea. However, he declared the chip, the
property on board of her, and the servants, to be lawful prize,
and detained them accordingly. As for Aratus, after some few
days, in his extremity by good fortune a Roman ship happened to
put in just at the spot in which he made his abode, sometimes
peeping out to seek his opportunity, sometimes keeping close.
She was bound for Syria; but going aboard, he agreed with the
master to land him in Caria. In which voyage he met with no
less danger on the sea than before. From Caria being after much
time arrived in Egypt, he immediately went to the king, who had
a great kindness for him, and had received from him many
presents of drawings and paintings out of Greece. Aratus had a
very good judgment in them, and always took care to collect and
send him the most curious and finished works, especially those
of Pamphilus and Melanthus.
For the Sicyonian pieces were still in the height of their
reputation, as being the only ones whose colors were lasting; so
that Apelles himself, even after he had become well known and
admired, went thither, and gave a talent to be admitted into the
society of the painters there, not so much to partake of their
skill, which he wanted not, but of their credit. And
accordingly Aratus, when he freed the city, immediately took
down the representations of the rest of the tyrants, but
demurred a long time about that of Aristratus, who flourished in
the time of Philip. For this Aristratus was painted by
Melanthus and his scholars, standing by a chariot, in which a
figure of Victory was carried, Apelles himself having had a
hand in it, as Polemon the geographer reports. It was an
extraordinary piece, and therefore Aratus was fain to spare it
for the workmanship, and yet, instigated by the hatred he bore
the tyrants, commanded it to be taken down. But Nealces the
painter, one of Aratus's friends, entreated him, it is said,
with tears in his eyes, to spare it, and, finding he did not
prevail with him, told him at last he should carry on his war
with the tyrants, but with the tyrants alone: "Let therefore the
chariot and the Victory stand, and I will take means for the
removal of Aristratus;" to which Aratus consenting, Nealces
blotted out Aristratus, and in his place painted a palm-tree,
not daring to add anything else of his own invention. The feet
of the defaced figure of Aristratus are said to have escaped
notice, and to be hid under the chariot. By these means Aratus
got favor with the king, who, after he was more fully acquainted
with him, loved him so much the more, and gave him for the
relief of his city one hundred and fifty talents; forty of which
he immediately carried away with him, when he sailed to
Peloponnesus, but the rest the king divided into installments,
and sent them to him afterwards at different times.
Assuredly it was a great thing to procure for his
fellow-citizens a sum of money, a small portion of which had
been sufficient, when presented by a king to other captains and
popular leaders, to induce them to turn dishonest, and betray
and give away their native countries to him. But it was a much
greater, that by means of this money he effected a
reconciliation and good understanding between the rich and poor,
and created quiet and security for the whole people. His
moderation, also, amidst so great power was very admirable. For
being declared sole arbitrator and plenipotentiary for settling
the questions of property in the case of the exiles, he would
not accept the commission alone, but, associating with himself
fifteen of the citizens, with great pains and trouble he
succeeded in adjusting matters, and established peace and
good-will in the city, for which good service, not only all the
citizens in general bestowed extraordinary honors upon him, but
the exiles, apart by themselves, erecting his statue in brass,
inscribed on it these elegiac verses: --
Your counsels, deeds, and skill for Greece in war
Known beyond Hercules's pillars are;
But we this image, O Aratus, gave
Of you who saved us, to the gods who save,
By you from exile to our homes restored,
That virtue and that justice to record,
To which the blessing Sicyon owes this day
Of wealth that's shared alike, and laws that all obey.
By his success in effecting these things, Aratus secured himself
from the envy of his fellow-citizens, on account of the benefits
they felt he had done them; but king Antigonus being troubled in
his mind about him, and designing either wholly to bring him
over to his party, or else to make him suspected by Ptolemy,
besides other marks of his favor shown to him, who had little
mind to receive them, added this too, that, sacrificing to the
gods in Corinth, he sent portions to Aratus at Sicyon, and at
the feast, where were many guests, he said openly, "I thought
this Sicyonian youth had been only a lover of liberty and of his
fellow-citizens, but now I look upon him as a good judge of the
manners and actions of kings. For formerly he despised us, and,
placing his hopes further off, admired the Egyptian riches,
hearing so much of their elephants, fleets, and palaces. But
after seeing all these at a nearer distance, perceiving them to
be but mere stage show and pageantry, he is now come over to us.
And for my part I willingly receive him, and, resolving to make
great use of him myself, command you to look upon him as a
friend." These words were soon taken hold of by those that
envied and maligned him, who strove which of them should, in
their letters to Ptolemy, attack him with the worst calumnies,
so that Ptolemy sent to expostulate the matter with him; so much
envy and ill-will did there always attend the so much contended
for, and so ardently and passionately aspired to, friendships of
princes and great men.
But Aratus, being now for the first time chosen general of the
Achaeans, ravaged the country of Locris and Calydon, just over
against Achaea, and then went to assist the Boeotians with ten
thousand soldiers, but came not up to them until after the
battle near Chaeronea had been fought, in which they were beaten
by the Aetolians, with the loss of Aboeocritus the Boeotarch,
and a thousand men besides. A year after, being again elected
general, he resolved to attempt the capture of the
Acro-Corinthus, not so much for the advantage of the Sicyonians
or Achaeans, as considering that by expelling the Macedonian
garrison he should free all Greece alike from a tyranny which
oppressed every part of her. Chares the Athenian, having the
good fortune to get the better, in a certain battle, of the
king's generals, wrote to the people of Athens that this victory
was "sister to that at Marathon." And so may this action be
very safely termed sister to those of Pelopidas the Theban and
Thrasybulus the Athenian, in which they slew the tyrants;
except, perhaps, it exceed them upon this account, that it was
not against natural Grecians, but against a foreign and stranger
domination. The Isthmus, rising like a bank between the seas,
collects into a single spot and compresses together the whole
continent of Greece; and Acro-Corinthus, being a high mountain
springing up out of the very middle of what here is Greece,
whensoever it is held with a garrison, stands in the way and
cuts off all Peloponnesus from intercourse of every kind, free
passage of men and arms, and all traffic by sea and land, and
makes him lord of all, that is master of it. Wherefore the
younger Philip did not jest, but said very true, when he called
the city of Corinth "the fetters of Greece." So that this post
was always much contended for, especially by the kings and
tyrants; and so vehemently was it longed for by Antigonus, that
his passion for it came little short of that of frantic love; he
was continually occupied with devising how to take it by
surprise from those that were then masters of it, since he
despaired to do it by open force.
Therefore Alexander, who held the place, being dead, poisoned by
him, as is reported, and his wife Nicaea succeeding in the
government and the possession of Acro-Corinthus, he immediately
made use of his son, Demetrius, and, giving her pleasing hopes
of a royal marriage and of a happy life with a youth, whom a
woman now growing old might well find agreeable, with this lure
of his son he succeeded in taking her; but the place itself she
did not deliver up, but continued to hold it with a very strong
garrison, of which he seeming to take no notice, celebrated the
wedding in Corinth, entertaining them with shows and banquets
everyday, as one that has nothing else in his mind but to give
himself up for awhile to indulgence in pleasure and mirth. But
when the moment came, and Amoebeus began to sing in the theater,
he waited himself upon Nicaea to the play, she being carried in
a royally-decorated chair, extremely pleased with her new honor,
not dreaming of what was intended. As soon, therefore, as they
were come to the turning which led up to the citadel, he desired
her to go on before him to the theater, but for himself, bidding
farewell to the music, farewell to the wedding, he went on
faster than one would have thought his age would have admitted
to the Acro-Corinthus, and, finding the gate shut, knocked with
his staff, commanding them to open, which they within, being
amazed, did. And having thus made himself master of the place,
he could not contain himself for joy; but, though an old man,
and one that had seen so many turns of fortune, he must needs
revel it in the open streets and the midst of the market-place,
crowned with garlands and attended with flute-women, inviting
everybody he met to partake in his festivity. So much more does
joy without discretion transport and agitate the mind than
either fear or sorrow. Antigonus, therefore, having in this
manner possessed himself of Acro-Corinthus, put a garrison into
it of those he trusted most, making Persaeus the philosopher
governor.
Now Aratus, even in the lifetime of Alexander, had made an
attempt, but, a confederacy being made between Alexander and the
Achaeans, he desisted. But now he started afresh, with a new
plan of effecting the thing, which was this: there were in
Corinth four brothers, Syrians born, one of whom, called
Diocles, served as a soldier in the garrison, but the three
others, having stolen some gold of the king's, came to Sicyon,
to one Aegias, a banker, whom Aratus made use of in his
business. To him they immediately sold part of their gold, and
the rest one of them, called Erginus, coming often thither,
exchanged by parcels. Becoming, by this means, familiarly
acquainted with Aegias, and being by him led into discourses
concerning the fortress, he told him that in going up to his
brother he had observed, in the face of the rock, a side-cleft,
leading to that part of the wall of the castle which was lower
than the rest. At which Aegias joking with him and saying, "So,
you wise man, for the sake of a little gold you have broken into
the king's treasure; when you might, if you chose, get money in
abundance for a single hour's work, burglary, you know, and
treason being punished with the same death," Erginus laughed and
told him then, he would break the thing to Diocles (for he did
not altogether trust his other brothers), and, returning within
a few days, he bargained to conduct Aratus to that part of the
wall where it was no more than fifteen feet high, and to do what
else should be necessary, together with his brother Diocles.
Aratus, therefore, agreed to give them sixty talents if he
succeeded, but if he failed in his enterprise, and yet he and
they came off safe, then he would give each of them a house and
a talent. Now the threescore talents being to be deposited in
the hands of Aegias for Erginus and his partners, and Aratus
neither having so much by him, nor willing, by borrowing it from
others, to give anyone a suspicion of his design, he pawned his
plate and his wife's golden ornaments to Aegias for the money.
For so high was his temper, and so strong his passion for noble
actions, that, even as he had heard that Phocion and Epaminondas
were the best and justest of the Greeks, because they refused
the greatest presents and would not surrender their duty for
money, so he now chose to be at the expense of this enterprise
privately, and to advance all the cost out of his own property,
taking the whole hazard on himself for the sake of the rest that
did not so much as know what was doing. And who indeed can
withhold, even now, his admiration for and his sympathy with the
generous mind of one, who paid so largely to purchase so great a
risk, and lent out his richest possessions to have an
opportunity to expose his own life, by entering among his
enemies in the dead of the night, without desiring any other
security for them than the hope of a noble success.
Now the enterprise, though dangerous enough in itself, was made
much more so by an error happening through mistake in the very
beginning. For Technon, one of Aratus's servants, was sent away
to Diocles, that they might together view the wall. Now he had
never seen Diocles, but made no question of knowing him by the
marks Erginus had given him of him; namely, that he had curly
hair, a swarthy complexion, and no beard. Being come,
therefore, to the appointed place, he stayed waiting for Erginus
and Diocles outside the town, in front of the place called
Ornis. In the meantime, Dionysius, elder brother to Erginus and
Diocles, who knew nothing at all of the matter, but much
resembled Diocles, happened to pass by. Technon, upon this
likeness, all being in accordance with what he had been told,
asked him if he knew Erginus; and on his replying that he was
his brother, taking it for granted that he was speaking with
Diocles, not so much as asking his name or staying for any other
token, he gave him his hand, and began to discourse with him and
ask him questions about matters agreed upon with Erginus.
Dionysius, cunningly taking the advantage of his mistake, seemed
to understand him very well, and returning towards the city, led
him on, still talking, without any suspicion. And being now
near the gate, he was just about to seize on him, when by chance
again Erginus met them, and, apprehending the cheat and the
danger, beckoned to Technon to make his escape, and immediately
both of them, betaking themselves to their heels, ran away as
fast as they could to Aratus, who for all this despaired not,
but immediately sent away Erginus to Dionysius to bribe him to
hold his tongue. And he not only effected that, but also
brought him along with him to Aratus. But, when they had him,
they no longer left him at liberty, but binding him, they kept
him close shut up in a room, whilst they prepared for executing
their design.
All things being now ready, he commanded the rest of his forces
to pass the night by their arms, and taking with him four
hundred chosen men, few of whom knew what they were going about,
he led them to the gates by the temple of Juno. It was the
midst of summer, and the moon was at full, and the night so
clear without any clouds, that there was danger lest the arms
glistening in the moonlight should discover them. But as the
foremost of them came near the city, a mist came off from the
sea, and darkened the city itself and the outskirts about it.
Then the rest of them, sitting down, put off their shoes,
because men both make less noise and also climb surer, if they
go up ladders barefooted, but Erginus, taking with him seven
young men dressed like travelers, got unobserved to the gate,
and killed the sentry with the other guards. And at the same
time the ladders were clapped to the walls, and Aratus, having
in great haste got up a hundred men, commended the rest to
follow as they could, and immediately drawing up his ladders
after him, he marched through the city with his hundred men
towards the castle, being already overjoyed that he was
undiscovered, and not doubting of the success. But while still
they were some way off, a watch of four men came with a light,
who did not see them, because they were still in the shade of
the moon, but were seen plainly enough themselves as they came
on directly towards them. So withdrawing a little way amongst
some walls and plots for houses, they lay in wait for them; and
three of them they killed. But the fourth, being wounded in the
head with a sword, fled, crying out that the enemy was in the
city. And immediately the trumpets sounded, and all the city
was in an uproar at what had happened, and the streets were full
of people running up and down, and many lights were seen shining
both below in the town, and above in the castle, and a confused
noise was to be heard in all parts.
In the meantime, Aratus was hard at work struggling to get up
the rocks, at first slowly and with much difficulty, straying
continually from the path, which lay deep, and was overshadowed
with the crags, leading to the wall with many windings and
turnings; but the moon immediately and as if by miracle, it is
said, dispersing the clouds, shone out and gave light to the
most difficult part of the way, until he got to that part of the
wall he desired, and there she overshadowed and hid him, the
clouds coming together again. Those soldiers whom Aratus had
left outside the gate, near Juno's temple, to the number of
three hundred, entering the town, now full of tumult and lights,
and not knowing the way by which the former had gone, and
finding no track of them, slunk aside, and crowded together in
one body under a flank of the cliff that cast a strong shadow,
and there stood and waited in great distress and perplexity.
For, by this time, those that had gone with Aratus were attacked
with missiles from the citadel, and were busy fighting, and a
sound of cries of battle came down from above, and a loud noise,
echoed back and back from the mountain sides, and therefore
confused and uncertain whence it proceeded, was heard on all
sides. They being thus in doubt which way to turn themselves,
Archelaus, the commander of Antigonus's troops, having a great
number of soldiers with him, made up towards the castle with
great shouts and noise of trumpets to fall upon Aratus's people,
and passed by the three hundred, who, as if they had risen out
of an ambush, immediately charged him, killing the first they
encountered, and so affrighted the rest, together with
Archelaus, that they put them to flight and pursued them until
they had quite broke and dispersed them about the city. No
sooner were these defeated, but Erginus came to them from those
that were fighting above, to acquaint them that Aratus was
engaged with the enemy, who defended themselves very stoutly,
and there was a fierce conflict at the very wall, and need of
speedy help. They therefore desired him to lead them on without
delay, and, marching up, they by their shouts made their friends
understand who they were, and encouraged them; and the full
moon, shining on their arms, made them, in the long line by
which they advanced, appear more in number to the enemy than
they were; and the echo of the night multiplied their shouts.
In short, falling on with the rest, they made the enemy give
way, and were masters of the castle and garrison, day now
beginning to be bright, and the rising sun shining out upon
their success. By this time, also, the rest of his army came up
to Aratus from Sicyon, the Corinthians joyfully receiving them
at the gates and helping them to secure the king's party.
And now, having put all things into a safe posture, he came down
from the castle to the theater, an infinite number of people
crowding thither to see him and to hear what he would say to the
Corinthians. Therefore drawing up the Achaeans on each side of
the stage-passages, he came forward himself upon the stage, with
his corslet still on, and his face showing the effects of all
his hard work and want of sleep, so that his natural exultation
and joyfulness of mind were overborne by the weariness of his
body. The people, as soon as he came forth, breaking out into
great applauses and congratulations, he took his spear in his
right hand, and, resting his body upon it with his knee a little
bent, stood a good while in that posture, silently receiving
their shouts and acclamations, while they extolled his valor and
wondered at his fortune; which being over, standing up, he
began an oration in the name of the Achaeans, suitable to the
late action, persuading the Corinthians to associate themselves
to the Achaeans, and withal delivered up to them the keys of
their gates, which had never been in their power since the time
of king Philip. Of the captains of Antigonus, he dismissed
Archelaus, whom he had taken prisoner, and Theophrastus, who
refused to quit his post, he put to death. As for Persaeus,
when he saw the castle was lost, he had got away to Cenchreae,
where, some time after, discoursing with one that said to him
that the wise man only is a true general, "Indeed," he replied,
"none of Zeno's maxims once pleased me better than this, but I
have been converted to another opinion by the young man of
Sicyon." This is told by many of Persaeus. Aratus, immediately
after, made himself master of the temple of Juno and haven of
Lechaeum, seized upon five and twenty of the king's ships,
together with five hundred horses and four hundred Syrians;
these he sold. The Achaeans kept guard in the Acro-Corinthus
with a body of four hundred soldiers, and fifty dogs with as
many keepers.
The Romans, extolling Philopoemen, called him the last of the
Grecians, as if no great man had ever since his time been bred
amongst them. But I should call this capture of the
Acro-Corinthus the last of the Grecian exploits, being
comparable to the best of them, both for the daringness of it,
and the success, as was presently seen by the consequences. For
the Megarians, revolting from Antigonus, joined Aratus, and the
Troezenians and Epidaurians enrolled themselves in the Achaean
community, and issuing forth for the first time, he entered
Attica, and passing over into Salamis, he plundered the island,
turning the Achaean force every way, as if it were just let
loose out of prison and set at liberty. All freemen whom he
took he sent back to the Athenians without ransom, as a sort of
first invitation to them to come over to the league. He made
Ptolemy become a confederate of the Achaeans, with the privilege
of command both by sea and land. And so great was his power
with them, that since he could not by law be chosen their
general every year, yet every other year he was, and by his
counsels and actions was in effect always so. For they
perceived that neither riches nor reputation, nor the friendship
of kings, nor the private interest of his own country, nor
anything else was so dear to him as the increase of the Achaean
power and greatness. For he believed that the cities, weak
individually, could be preserved by nothing else but a mutual
assistance under the closest bond of the common interest; and,
as the members of the body live and breathe by the union of all
in a single natural growth, and on the dissolution of this, when
once they separate, pine away and putrefy, in the same manner
are cities ruined by being dissevered, as well as preserved
when, as the members of one great body they enjoy the benefit of
that providence and counsel that govern the whole.
Now being distressed to see that, whereas the chief neighboring
cities enjoyed their own laws and liberties, the Argives were in
bondage, he took counsel for destroying their tyrant
Aristomachus, being very desirous both to pay his debt of
gratitude to the city where he had been bred up, by restoring it
its liberty, and to add so considerable a town to the Achaeans.
Nor were there some wanting who had the courage to undertake the
thing, of whom Aeschylus and Charimenes the soothsayer were the
chief. But they wanted swords; for the tyrant had prohibited
the keeping of any under a great penalty. Therefore Aratus,
having provided some small daggers at Corinth and hidden them in
the pack-saddles of some pack-horses that carried ordinary ware,
sent them to Argos. But Charimenes letting another person into
the design, Aeschylus and his partners were angry at it, and
henceforth would have no more to do with him, and took their
measures by themselves, and Charimenes, on finding this, went,
out of anger, and informed against them, just as they were on
their way to attack the tyrant; however, the most of them made a
shift to escape out of the marketplace, and fled to Corinth.
Not long after, Aristomachus was slain by some slaves, and
Aristippus, a worse tyrant than he, seized the government.
Upon this, Aratus, mustering all the Achaeans present that were
of age, hurried away to the aid of the city, believing that he
should find the people ready to join with him. But the greater
number being by this time habituated to slavery and content to
submit, and no one coming to join him, he was obliged to retire,
having moreover exposed the Achaeans to the charge of committing
acts of hostility in the midst of peace; upon which account they
were sued before the Mantineans, and, Aratus not making his
appearance, Aristippus gained the cause, and had damages allowed
him to the value of thirty minae. And now hating and fearing
Aratus, he sought means to kill him, having the assistance
herein of king Antigonus; so that Aratus was perpetually dogged
and watched by those that waited for an opportunity to do this
service. But there is no such safeguard of a ruler as the
sincere and steady good-will of his subjects, for, where both
the common people and the principal citizens have their fears
not of but for their governor, he sees with many eyes and hears
with many ears whatsoever is doing. Therefore I cannot but here
stop short a little in the course of my narrative, to describe
the manner of life which the so much envied arbitrary power and
the so much celebrated and admired pomp and pride of absolute
government obliged Aristippus to lead.
For though Antigonus was his friend and ally, and though he
maintained numerous soldiers to act as his body-guard, and had
not left one enemy of his alive in the city, yet he was forced
to make his guards encamp in the colonnade about his house; and
for his servants, he turned them all out immediately after
supper, and then shutting the doors upon them, he crept up into
a small upper chamber, together with his mistress, through a
trapdoor, upon which he placed his bed, and there slept after:
such a fashion, as one in his condition can be supposed to
sleep, that is, interruptedly and in fear. The ladder was taken
away by the woman's mother, and locked up in another room; in
the morning she brought it again, and putting it to, called up
this brave and wonderful tyrant, who came crawling out like some
creeping thing out of its hole. Whereas Aratus, not by force of
arms, but lawfully and by his virtue, lived in possession of a
firmly settled command, wearing the ordinary coat and cloak,
being the common and declared enemy of all tyrants, and has left
behind him a noble race of descendants surviving among the
Grecians to this day; while those occupiers of citadels and
maintainers of bodyguards, who made all this use of arms and
gates and bolts to protect their lives, in some few cases
perhaps escaped, like the hare from the hunters; but in no
instance have we either house or family, or so much as a tomb to
which any respect is shown, remaining to preserve the memory of
any one of them.
Against this Aristippus, therefore, Aratus made many open and
many secret attempts, whilst he endeavored to take Argos, though
without success; once, particularly, clapping scaling ladders in
the night to the wall, he desperately got up upon it with a few
of his soldiers, and killed the guards that opposed him. But
the day appearing, the tyrant set upon him on all hands, whilst
the Argives, as if it had not been their liberty that was
contended for, but some Nemean game going on for which it was
their privilege to assign the prize, like fair and impartial
judges, sat looking on in great quietness. Aratus, fighting
bravely, was run through the thigh with a lance, yet he
maintained his ground against the enemy till night, and, had he
been able to go on and hold out that night also, he had gained
his point; for the tyrant thought of nothing but flying, and had
already shipped most of his goods. But Aratus, having no
intelligence of this, and wanting water, being disabled himself
by his wound, retreated with his soldiers.
Despairing henceforth to do any good this way, he fell openly
with his army into Argolis, and plundered it, and, in a fierce
battle with Aristippus near the river Chares, he was accused of
having withdrawn out of the fight, and thereby abandoned the
victory. For whereas one part of his army had unmistakably got
the better, and was pursuing the enemy at a good distance from
him, he yet retreated in confusion into his camp, not so much
because he was overpressed by those with whom he was engaged, as
out of mistrust of success and through a panic fear. But when the
other wing, returning from the pursuit, showed themselves
extremely vexed, that though they had put the enemy to flight
and killed many more of his men than they had lost, yet those
that were in a manner conquered should erect a trophy as
conquerors, being much ashamed he resolved to fight them again
about the trophy, and the next day but one drew up his army to
give them battle. But, perceiving that they were reinforced
with fresh troops, and came on with better courage than before,
he durst not hazard a fight, but retired, and sent to request a
truce to bury his dead. However, by his dexterity in dealing
personally with men and managing political affairs, and by his
general favor, he excused and obliterated this fault, and
brought in Cleonae to the Achaean association, and celebrated
the Nemean games at Cleonae, as the proper and more ancient
place for them. The games were also celebrated by the Argives at
the same time, which gave the first occasion to the violation of
the privilege of safe conduct and immunity always granted to
those that came to compete for the prizes, the Achaeans at that
time selling as enemies all those they caught going through
their country after joining in the games at Argos. So vehement
and implacable a hater was he of the tyrants.
Not long after, having notice that Aristippus had a design upon
Cleonae, but was afraid of him, because he then was staying in
Corinth, he assembled an army by public proclamation, and,
commanding them to take along with them provision for several
days, he marched to Cenchreae, hoping by this stratagem to
entice Aristippus to fall upon Cleonae, when he supposed him far
enough off. And so it happened, for he immediately brought his
forces against it from Argos. But Aratus, returning from
Cenchreae to Corinth in the dusk of the evening, and setting
posts of his troops in all the roads, led on the Achaeans, who
followed him in such good order and with so much speed and
alacrity, that they were undiscovered by Aristippus, not only
whilst upon their march, but even when they got, still in the
night, into Cleonae, and drew up in order of battle. As soon as
it was morning, the gates being opened and the trumpets
sounding, he fell upon the enemy with great cries and fury,
routed them at once, and kept close in pursuit, following the
course which he most imagined Aristippus would choose, there
being many turns that might be taken. And so the chase lasted
as far as Mycenae, where the tyrant was slain by a certain
Cretan called Tragiscus, as Dinias reports. Of the common
soldiers, there fell above fifteen hundred. Yet though Aratus
had obtained so great a victory, and that too without the loss
of a man, he could not make himself master of Argos nor set it
at liberty, because Agias and the younger Aristomachus got into
the town with some of the king's forces, and seized upon the
government. However, by this exploit he spoiled the scoffs and
jests of those that flattered the tyrants, and in their raillery
would say that the Achaean general was usually troubled with a
looseness when he was to fight a battle, that the sound of a
trumpet struck him with a drowsiness and a giddiness, and that,
when he had drawn up his army and given the word, he used to ask
his lieutenants and officers whether there was any further need
of his presence now the die was cast, and then went aloof, to
await the result at a distance. For indeed these stories were
so generally listened to, that, when the philosophers disputed
whether to have one's heart beat and to change color upon any
apparent danger be an argument of fear, or rather of some
distemperature and chilliness of bodily constitution, Aratus was
always quoted as a good general, who was always thus affected
ill time of battle.
Having thus dispatched Aristippus, he advised with himself how
to overthrow Lydiades, the Megalopolitan, who held usurped power
over his country. This person was naturally of a generous
temper, and not insensible of true honor, and had been led into
this wickedness, not by the ordinary motives of other tyrants,
licentiousness and rapacity, but being young, and stimulated
with the desire of glory, he had let his mind be unwarily
prepossessed with the vain and false applauses given to tyranny,
as some happy and glorious thing. But he no sooner seized the
government, than he grew weary of the pomp and burden of it.
And at once emulating the tranquillity and fearing the policy of
Aratus, he took the best of resolutions, first, to free himself
from hatred and fear, from soldiers and guards, and, secondly,
to be the public benefactor of his country. And sending for
Aratus, he resigned the government, and incorporated his city
into the Achaean community. The Achaeans, applauding this
generous action, chose him their general; upon which, desiring
to outdo Aratus in glory, amongst many other uncalled-for
things, he declared war against the Lacedaemonians; which Aratus
opposing was thought to do it out of envy; and Lydiades was the
second time chosen general, though Aratus acted openly against
him, and labored to have the office conferred upon another. For
Aratus himself had the command every other year, as has been
said. Lydiades, however, succeeded so well in his pretensions,
that he was thrice chosen general, governing alternately, as did
Aratus; but at last, declaring himself his professed enemy, and
accusing him frequently to the Achaeans, he was rejected, and
fell into contempt, people now seeing that it was a contest
between a counterfeit and a true, unadulterated virtue, and, as
Aesop tells us that the cuckoo once, asking the little birds why
they flew away from her, was answered, because they feared she
would one day prove a hawk, so Lydiades's former tyranny still
cast a doubt upon the reality of his change.
But Aratus gained new honor in the Aetolian war. For the
Achaeans resolving to fall upon the Aetolians on the Megarian
confines, and Agis also, the Lacedaemonian king, who came to
their assistance with an army, encouraging them to fight, Aratus
opposed this determination. And patiently enduring many
reproaches, many scoffs and jeerings at his soft and cowardly
temper, he would not, for any appearance of disgrace, abandon
what he judged to be the true common advantage, and suffered the
enemy to pass over Geranea into Peloponnesus without a battle.
But when, after they had passed by, news came that they had
suddenly captured Pellene, he was no longer the same man, nor
would he hear of any delay, or wait to draw together his whole
force, but marched towards the enemy with such as he had about
him to fall upon them, as they were indeed now much less
formidable through the intemperances and disorders committed in
their success. For as soon as they entered the city, the common
soldiers dispersed and went hither and thither into the houses,
quarreling and fighting with one another about the plunder; and
the officers and commanders were running about after the wives
and daughters of the Pellenians, on whose heads they put their
own helmets, to mark each man his prize, and prevent another
from seizing it. And in this posture were they when news came
that Aratus was ready to fall upon them. And in the midst of
the consternation likely to ensue in the confusion they were in,
before all of them heard of the danger, the outmost of them,
engaging at the gates and in the suburbs with the Achaeans, were
already beaten and put to flight, and, as they came headlong
back, filled with their panic those who were collecting and
advancing to their assistance.
In this confusion, one of the captives, daughter of Epigethes, a
citizen of repute, being extremely handsome and tall, happened
to be sitting in the temple of Diana, placed there by the
commander of the band of chosen men, who had taken her and put
his crested helmet upon her. She, hearing the noise, and
running out to see what was the matter, stood in the temple
gates, looking down from above upon those that fought, having
the helmet upon her head; in which posture she seemed to the
citizens to be something more than human, and struck fear and
dread into the enemy, who believed it to be a divine apparition;
so that they lost all courage to defend themselves. But the
Pellenians tell us that the image of Diana stands usually
untouched, and when the priestess happens at any time to remove
it to some other place, nobody dares look upon it, but all turn
their faces from it; for not only is the sight of it terrible
and hurtful to mankind, but it makes even the trees, by which it
happens to be carried, become barren and cast their fruit. This
image, therefore, they say, the priestess produced at that time,
and, holding it directly in the faces of the Aetolians, made
them lose their reason and judgment. But Aratus mentions no
such thing in his commentaries, but says, that, having put to
flight the Aetolians, and falling in pell-mell with them into
the city, he drove them out by main force, and killed seven
hundred of them. And the action was extolled as one of the most
famous exploits, and Timanthes the painter made a picture of the
battle, giving by his composition a most lively representation
of it.
But many great nations and potentates combining against the
Achaeans, Aratus immediately treated for friendly arrangements
with the Aetolians, and, making use of the assistance of
Pantaleon, the most powerful man amongst them, he not only made
a peace, but an alliance between them and the Achaeans. But
being desirous to free the Athenians, he got into disgrace and
ill-repute among the Achaeans, because, notwithstanding the
truce and suspension of arms made between them and the
Macedonians, he had attempted to take the Piraeus. He denies
this fact in his commentaries, and lays the blame on Erginus, by
whose assistance he took Acro-Corinthus, alleging that he upon
his own private account attacked the Piraeus, and, his ladders
happening to break, being hotly pursued, he called out upon
Aratus as if present, by which means deceiving the enemy, he got
safely off. This excuse, however, sounds very improbable; for it
is not in any way likely that Erginus, a private man and a
Syrian stranger, should conceive in his mind so great an
attempt, without Aratus at his back, to tell him how and when to
make it, and to supply him with the means. Nor was it twice or
thrice, but very often, that, like an obstinate lover, he
repeated his attempts on the Piraeus, and was so far from being
discouraged by his disappointments, that his missing his hopes
but narrowly was an incentive to him to proceed the more boldly
in a new trial. One time amongst the rest, in making his escape
through the Thriasian plain, he put his leg out of joint, and
was forced to submit to many operations with the knife before he
was cured, so that for a long time he was carried in a litter to
the wars.
And when Antigonus was dead, and Demetrius succeeded him in the
kingdom, he was more bent than ever upon Athens, and in general
quite despised the Macedonians. And so, being overthrown in
battle near Phylacia by Bithys, Demetrius's general, and there
being a very strong report that he was either taken or slain,
Diogenes, the governor of the Piraeus, sent letters to Corinth,
commanding the Achaeans to quit that city, seeing Aratus was
dead. When these letters came to Corinth, Aratus happened to be
there in person, so that Diogenes's messengers, being
sufficiently mocked and derided, were forced to return to their
master. King Demetrius himself also sent a ship, wherein
Aratus was to be brought to him in chains. And the Athenians,
exceeding all possible fickleness of flattery to the
Macedonians, crowned themselves with garlands upon the first
news of his death. And so in anger he went at once and invaded
Attica, and penetrated as far as the Academy, but then suffering
himself to be pacified, he did no further act of hostility. And
the Athenians afterwards, coming to a due sense of his virtue,
when upon the death of Demetrius they attempted to recover their
liberty, called him in to their assistance; and although at that
time another person was general of the Achaeans, and he himself
had long kept his bed with a sickness, yet, rather than fail the
city in a time of need, he was carried thither in a litter, and
helped to persuade Diogenes the governor to deliver up the
Piraeus, Munychia, Salamis, and Sunium to the Athenians in
consideration of a hundred and fifty talents, of which Aratus
himself contributed twenty to the city. Upon this, the
Aeginetans and the Hermionians immediately joined the Achaeans,
and the greatest part of Arcadia entered their confederacy; and
the Macedonians being occupied with various wars upon their own
confines and with their neighbors, the Achaean power, the
Aetolians also being in alliance with them, rose to great
height.
But Aratus, still bent on effecting his old project, and
impatient that tyranny should maintain itself in so near a city
as Argos, sent to Aristomachus to persuade him to restore
liberty to that city, and to associate it to the Achaeans, and
that, following Lydiades's example, he should rather choose to
be the general of a great nation, with esteem and honor, than
the tyrant of one city, with continual hatred and danger.
Aristomachus slighted not the message, but desired Aratus to
send him fifty talents, with which he might pay off the
soldiers. In the meantime, whilst the money was providing,
Lydiades, being then general, and extremely ambitious that this
advantage might seem to be of his procuring for the Achaeans,
accused Aratus to Aristomachus, as one that bore an
irreconcilable hatred to the tyrants, and, persuading him to
commit the affair to his management, he presented him to the
Achaeans. But there the Achaean council gave a manifest proof
of the great credit Aratus had with them and the good-will they
bore him. For when he, in anger, spoke against Aristomachus's
being admitted into the association, they rejected the proposal,
but when he was afterwards pacified and came himself and spoke
in its favor, they voted everything cheerfully and readily, and
decreed that the Argives and Phliasians should be incorporated
into their commonwealth, and the next year they chose
Aristomachus general. He, being in good credit with the
Achaeans, was very desirous to invade Laconia, and for that
purpose sent for Aratus from Athens. Aratus wrote to him to
dissuade him as far as he could from that expedition, being very
unwilling the Achaeans should be engaged in a quarrel with
Cleomenes, who was a daring man, and making extraordinary
advances to power. But Aristomachus resolving to go on, he
obeyed and served in person, on which occasion he hindered
Aristomachus from fighting a battle, when Cleomenes came upon
them at Pallantium; and for this act was accused by Lydiades,
and, coming to an open conflict with him in a contest for the
office of general, he carried it by the show of hands, and was
chosen general the twelfth time.
This year, being routed by Cleomenes near the Lycaeum, he fled,
and, wandering out of the way in the night, was believed to be
slain; and once more it was confidently reported so throughout
all Greece. He, however, having escaped this danger and rallied
his forces, was not content to march off in safety, but, making
a happy use of the present conjuncture, when nobody dreamed any
such thing, he fell suddenly upon the Mantineans, allies of
Cleomenes, and, taking the city, put a garrison into it, and
made the stranger inhabitants free of the city; procuring, by
this means, those advantages for the beaten Achaeans, which,
being conquerors, they would not easily have obtained. The
Lacedaemonians again invading the Megalopolitan territories, he
marched to the assistance of the city, but refused to give
Cleomenes, who did all he could to provoke him to it, any
opportunity of engaging him in a battle, nor could be prevailed
upon by the Megalopolitans, who urged him to it extremely. For
besides that by nature he was ill-suited for set battles, he was
then much inferior in numbers, and was to deal with a daring
leader, still in the heat of youth, while he himself, now past
the prime of courage and come to a chastised ambition, felt it
his business to maintain by prudence the glory, which he had
obtained, and the other was only aspiring to by forwardness and
daring.
So that though the light-armed soldiers had sallied out and
driven the Lacedaemonians as far as their camp, and had come
even to their tents, yet would not Aratus lead his men forward,
but, posting himself in a hollow watercourse in the way thither,
stopped and prevented the citizens from crossing this.
Lydiades, extremely vexed at what was going on, and loading
Aratus with reproaches, entreated the horse that together with
him they would second them that had the enemy in chase, and not
let a certain victory slip out of their hands, nor forsake him
that was going to venture his life for his country. And being
reinforced with many brave men that turned after him, he charged
the enemy's right wing, and routing it, followed the pursuit
without measure or discretion, letting his eagerness and hopes
of glory tempt him on into broken ground, full of planted fruit
trees and cut up with broad ditches, where, being engaged by
Cleomenes, he fell, fighting gallantly the noblest of battles,
at the gate of his country. The rest, flying back to their main
body and troubling the ranks of the full-armed infantry, put the
whole army to the rout. Aratus was extremely blamed, being
suspected to have betrayed Lydiades, and was constrained by the
Achaeans, who withdrew in great anger, to accompany them to
Aegium, where they called a council, and decreed that he should
no longer be furnished with money, nor have any more soldiers
hired for him, but that, if he would make war, he should pay
them himself.
This affront he resented so far as to resolve to give up the
seal and lay down the office of general; but upon second
thoughts he found it best to have patience, and presently
marched with the Achaeans to Orchomenus and fought a battle with
Megistonus, the step-father of Cleomenes, where he got the
victory, killing three hundred men and taking Megistonus
prisoner. But whereas he used to be chosen general every other
year, when his turn came and he was called to take upon him that
charge, he declined it, and Timoxenus was chosen in his stead.
The true cause of which was not the pique he was alleged to have
taken at the people, but the ill circumstances of the Achaean
affairs. For Cleomenes did not now invade them gently and
tenderly as hitherto, as one controlled by the civil
authorities, but having killed the Ephors, divided the lands,
and made many of the stranger residents free of the city, he was
responsible to no one in his government; and therefore fell in
good earnest upon the Achaeans, and put forward his claim to the
supreme military command. Wherefore Aratus is much blamed, that
in a stormy and tempestuous time, like a cowardly pilot, he
should forsake the helm, when it was even perhaps his duty to
have insisted, whether they would or no, on saving them; or if
he thought the Achaean affairs desperate, to have yielded all up
to Cleomenes, and not to have let Peloponnesus fall once again
into barbarism with Macedonian garrisons, and Acro-Corinthus be
occupied with Illyric and Gaulish soldiers, and, under the
specious name of Confederates, to have made those masters of the
cities whom he had held it his business by arms and by policy to
baffle and defeat, and, in the memoirs he left behind him,
loaded with reproaches and insults. And say that Cleomenes was
arbitrary and tyrannical, yet was he descended from the
Heraclidae, and Sparta was his country, the obscurest citizen of
which deserved to be preferred to the generalship before the
best of the Macedonians by those that had any regard to the
honor of Grecian birth. Besides, Cleomenes sued for that
command over the Achaeans as one that would return the honor of
that title with real kindnesses to the cities; whereas
Antigonus, being declared absolute general by sea and land,
would not accept the office unless Acro-Corinthus were by
special agreement put into his hands, following the example of
Aesop's hunter; for he would not get up and ride the Achaeans,
who desired him so to do, and offered their backs to him by
embassies and popular decrees, till, by a garrison and hostages,
they had allowed him to bit and bridle them. Aratus exhausts
all his powers of speech to show the necessity that was upon
him. But Polybius writes, that long before this, and before
there was any necessity, apprehending the daring temper of
Cleomenes, he communicated secretly with Antigonus, and that he
had beforehand prevailed with the Megalopolitans to press the
Achaeans to crave aid from Antigonus. For they were the most
harassed by the war, Cleomenes continually plundering and
ransacking their country. And so writes also Phylarchus, who,
unless seconded by the testimony of Polybius, would not be
altogether credited; for he is seized with enthusiasm when he so
much as speaks a word of Cleomenes, and as if he were pleading,
not writing a history, goes on throughout defending the one and
accusing the other.
The Achaeans, therefore, lost Mantinea, which was recovered by
Cleomenes, and being beaten in a great fight near Hecatombaeum,
so general was the consternation, that they immediately sent to
Cleomenes to desire him to come to Argos and take the command
upon him. But Aratus, as soon as he understood that he was
coming, and was got as far as Lerna with his troops, fearing
the result, sent ambassadors to him, to request him to come
accompanied with three hundred only, as to friends and
confederates, and, if he mistrusted anything, he should receive
hostages. Upon which Cleomenes, saying this was mere mockery
and affront, went away, sending a letter to the Achaeans full of
reproaches and accusation against Aratus. And Aratus also wrote
letters against Cleomenes; and bitter revilings and railleries
were current on both hands, not sparing even their marriages and
wives. Hereupon Cleomenes sent a herald to declare war against
the Achaeans, and in the meantime missed very narrowly of
taking Sicyon by treachery. Turning off at a little distance,
he attacked and took Pellene, which the Achaean general
abandoned, and not long after took also Pheneus and Penteleum.
Then immediately the Argives voluntarily joined with him, and
the Phliasians received a garrison, and in short nothing among
all their new acquisitions held firm to the Achaeans. Aratus
was encompassed on every side with clamor and confusion; he saw
the whole of Peloponnesus shaking around him, and the cities
everywhere set in revolt by men desirous of innovations.
For indeed no place remained quiet or satisfied with the present
condition; even amongst the Sicyonians and Corinthians
themselves, many were well known to have had private conferences
with Cleomenes, who long since, out of desire to make themselves
masters of their several cities, had been discontented with the
present order of things. Aratus, having absolute power given
him to bring these to condign punishment, executed as many of
them as he could find at Sicyon, but going about to find them
out and punish them at Corinth also, he irritated the people,
already unsound in feeling and weary of the Achaean government.
So collecting tumultuously in the temple of Apollo, they sent
for Aratus, having determined to take or kill him before they
broke out into open revolt. He came accordingly, leading his
horse in his hand, as if he suspected nothing. Then several
leaping up and accusing and reproaching him, with mild words and
a settled countenance he bade them sit down, and not stand
crying out upon him in a disorderly manner, desiring, also, that
those that were about the door might be let in, and saying so,
he stepped out quietly, as if he would give his horse to
somebody. Clearing himself thus of the crowd, and speaking
without discomposure to the Corinthians that he met, commanding
them to go to Apollo's temple, and being now, before they were
aware, got near to the citadel, he leaped upon his horse, and
commanding Cleopater, the governor of the garrison, to have a
special care of his charge, he galloped to Sicyon, followed by
thirty of his soldiers, the rest leaving him and shifting for
themselves. And not long after, it being known that he was
fled, the Corinthians pursued him, but not overtaking him, they
immediately sent for Cleomenes and delivered up the city to him,
who, however, thought nothing they could give was so great a
gain, as was the loss of their having let Aratus get away.
Nevertheless, being strengthened by the accession of the people
of the Acte, as it is called, who put their towns into his
hands, he proceeded to carry a palisade and lines of
circumvallation around the Acro-Corinthus.
But Aratus being arrived at Sicyon, the body of the Achaeans
there flocked to him, and, in an assembly there held, he was
chosen general with absolute power, and he took about him a
guard of his own citizens, it being now three and thirty years
since he first took a part in public affairs among the Achaeans,
having in that time been the chief man in credit and power of
all Greece; but he was now deserted on all hands, helpless and
overpowered, drifting about amidst the waves and danger on the
shattered hulk of his native city. For the Aetolians, affected
whom he applied to, declined to assist him in his distress, and
the Athenians, who were well affected to him, were diverted from
lending him any succor by the authority of Euclides and Micion.
Now whereas he had a house and property in Corinth, Cleomenes
meddled not with it, nor suffered anybody else to do so, but
calling for his friends and agents, he bade them hold themselves
responsible to Aratus for everything, as to him they would have
to render their account; and privately he sent to him Tripylus,
and afterwards Megistonus, his own stepfather, to offer him,
besides several other things, a yearly pension of twelve
talents, which was twice as much as Ptolemy allowed him, for he
gave him six; and all that he demanded was to be declared
commander of the Achaeans, and together with them to have the
keeping of the citadel of Corinth. To which Aratus returning
answer that affairs were not so properly in his power as he was
in the power of them, Cleomenes, believing this a mere evasion,
immediately entered the country of Sicyon, destroying all with
fire and sword, and besieged the city three months, whilst
Aratus held firm, and was in dispute with himself whether he
should call in Antigonus upon condition of delivering up the
citadel of Corinth to him; for he would not lend him assistance
upon any other terms.
In the meantime the Achaeans assembled at Aegium, and called for
Aratus; but it was very hazardous for him to pass thither, while
Cleomenes was encamped before Sicyon; besides, the citizens
endeavored to stop him by their entreaties, protesting that they
would not suffer him to expose himself to so evident danger, the
enemy being so near; the women, also, and children hung about
him, weeping and embracing him as their common father and
defender. But he, having comforted and encouraged them as well
as he could, got on horseback, and being accompanied with ten
of his friends and his son, then a youth, got away to the
sea-side, and finding vessels there waiting off the shore, went
on board of them and sailed to Aegium to the assembly; in which
it was decreed that Antigonus should be called in to their aid,
and should have the Acro-Corinthus delivered to him. Aratus
also sent his son to him with the other hostages. The
Corinthians, extremely angry at this proceeding, now plundered
his property, and gave his house as a present to Cleomenes.
Antigonus being now near at hand with his army, consisting of
twenty thousand Macedonian foot and one thousand three hundred
horse, Aratus, with the Members of Council, went to meet him by
sea, and got, unobserved by the enemy, to Pegae, having no great
confidence either in Antigonus or the Macedonians. For he was
very sensible that his own greatness had been made out of the
losses he had caused them, and that the first great principle of
his public conduct had been hostility to the former Antigonus.
But perceiving the necessity that was now upon him, and the
pressure of the time, that lord and master of those we call
rulers, to be inexorable, he resolved to put all to the venture.
So soon, therefore, as Antigonus was told that Aratus was coming
up to him, he saluted the rest of the company after the ordinary
manner, but him he received at the very first approach with
especial honor, and finding him afterwards to be both good and
wise, admitted him to his nearer familiarity. For Aratus was
not only useful to him in the management of great affairs, but
singularly agreeable also as the private companion of a king in
his recreations. And therefore, though Antigonus was young,
yet as soon as he observed the temper of the man to be proper
for a prince's friendship, he made more use of him than of any
other, not only of the Achaeans, but also of the Macedonians
that were about him. So that the thing fell out to him just as
the god had foreshown in a sacrifice. For it is related that,
as Aratus was not long before offering sacrifice, there were
found in the liver two gall-bags enclosed in the same caul of
fat; whereupon the soothsayer told him that there should very
soon be the strictest friendship imaginable between him and his
greatest and most mortal enemies; which prediction he at that
time slighted, having in general no great faith in soothsayings
and prognostications, but depending most upon rational
deliberation. At an after time, however, when, things
succeeding well in the war, Antigonus made a great feast at
Corinth, to which he invited a great number of guests, and
placed Aratus next above himself, and presently calling for a
coverlet, asked him if he did not find it cold, and on Aratus's
answering "Yes, extremely cold," bade him come nearer, so that
when the servants brought the coverlet, they threw it over them
both, then Aratus remembering the sacrifice, fell a laughing,
and told the king the sign which had happened to him, and the
interpretation of it. But this fell out a good while after.
So Aratus and the king, plighting their faith to each other at
Pegae, immediately marched towards the enemy, with whom they had
frequent engagements near the city, Cleomenes maintaining a
strong position, and the Corinthians making a very brisk
defense. In the meantime, Aristoteles the Argive, Aratus's
friend, sent privately to him to let him know, that he would
cause Argos to revolt, if he would come thither in person with
some soldiers. Aratus acquainted Antigonus, and, taking fifteen
hundred men with him, sailed in boats along the shore as quickly
as he could from the Isthmus to Epidaurus. But the Argives had
not patience till he could arrive, but, making a sudden
insurrection, fell upon Cleomenes's soldiers, and drove them
into the citadel. Cleomenes having news of this, and fearing
lest, if the enemy should possess themselves of Argos, they
might cut off his retreat home, leaves the Acro-Corinthus and
marches away by night to help his men. He got thither first,
and beat off the enemy, but Aratus appearing not long after, and
the king approaching with his forces, he retreated to Mantinea,
upon which all the cities again came over to the Achaeans, and
Antigonus took possession of the Acro-Corinthus. Aratus, being
chosen general by the Argives, persuaded them to make a present
to Antigonus of the property of the tyrants and the traitors.
As for Aristomachus, after having put him to the rack in the
town of Cenchreae, they drowned him in the sea; for which, more
than anything else, Aratus was reproached, that he could suffer
a man to be so lawlessly put to death, who was no bad man, had
been one of his long acquaintance, and at his persuasion had
abdicated his power, and annexed the city to the Achaeans.
And already the blame of the other things that were done began
to be laid to his account; as that they so lightly gave up
Corinth to Antigonus, as if it had been an inconsiderable
village; that they had suffered him, after first sacking
Orchomenus, then to put into it a Macedonian garrison; that they
made a decree that no letters nor embassy should be sent to any
other king without the consent of Antigonus, that they were
forced to furnish pay and provision for the Macedonian soldiers,
and celebrated sacrifices, processions, and games in honor of
Antigonus, Aratus's citizens setting the example and receiving
Antigonus, who was lodged and entertained at Aratus's house.
All these things they treated as his fault, not knowing that
having once put the reins into Antigonus's hands, and let
himself be borne by the impetus of regal power, he was no longer
master of anything but one single voice, the liberty of which
it was not so very safe for him to use. For it was very plain
that Aratus was much troubled at several things, as appeared by
the business about the statues. For Antigonus replaced the
statues of the tyrants of Argos that had been thrown down, and
on the contrary threw down the statues of all those that had
taken the Acro-Corinthus, except that of Aratus, nor could
Aratus, by all his entreaties, dissuade him. Also, the usage of
the Mantineans by the Achaeans seemed not in accordance with the
Grecian feelings and manners. For being masters of their city
by the help of Antigonus, they put to death the chief and most
noted men amongst them; and of the rest, some they sold, others
they sent, bound in fetters, into Macedonia, and made slaves of
their wives and children; and of the money thus raised, a third
part they divided among themselves, and the other two thirds
were distributed among the Macedonians. And this might seem to
have been justified by the law of retaliation; for although it
be a barbarous thing for men of the same nation and blood thus
to deal with one another in their fury, yet necessity makes it,
as Simonides says, sweet and something excusable, being the
proper thing, in the mind's painful and inflamed condition, to
give alleviation and relief. But for what was afterwards done
to that city, Aratus cannot be defended on any ground either of
reason or necessity. For the Argives having had the city
bestowed on them by Antigonus, and resolving to people it, he
being then chosen as the new founder, and being general at that
time, decreed that it should no longer be called Mantinea, but
Antigonea, which name it still bears. So that he may be said to
have been the cause that the old memory of the "beautiful
Mantinea" has been wholly extinguished, and the city to this
day has the name of the destroyer and slayer of its citizens.
After this, Cleomenes, being overthrown in a great battle near
Sellasia, forsook Sparta and fled into Egypt, and Antigonus,
having shown all manner of kindness and fair-dealing to Aratus,
retired into Macedonia. There, falling sick, he sent Philip,
the heir of the kingdom, into Peloponnesus, being yet scarce a
youth, commanding him to follow above all the counsel of Aratus,
to communicate with the cities through him, and through him to
make acquaintance with the Achaeans; and Aratus, receiving him
accordingly, so managed him as to send him back to Macedon both
well affected to himself and full of desire and ambition to take
an honorable part in the affairs of Greece.
When Antigonus was dead, the Aetolians, despising the sloth and
negligence of the Achaeans, who, having learned to be defended by
other men's valor and to shelter themselves under the Macedonian
arms, lived in ease and without any discipline, now attempted to
interfere in Peloponnesus. And plundering the land of Patrae
and Dyme in their way, they invaded Messene and ravaged it; at
which Aratus being indignant, and finding that Timoxenus, then
general, was hesitating and letting the time go by, being now on
the point of laying down his office, in which he himself was
chosen to succeed him, he anticipated the proper term by five
days, that he might bring relief to the Messenians. And
mustering the Achaeans, who were both in their persons
unexercised in arms and in their minds relaxed and averse to
war, he met with a defeat at Caphyae. Having thus begun the
war, as it seemed, with too much heat and passion, he then ran
into the other extreme, cooling again and desponding so much,
that he let pass and overlooked many fair opportunities of
advantage given by the Aetolians, and allowed them to run riot,
as it were, throughout all Peloponnesus, with all manner of
insolence and licentiousness. Wherefore, holding forth their
hands once more to the Macedonians, they invited and drew in
Philip to intermeddle in the affairs of Greece, chiefly hoping,
because of his affection and trust that he felt for Aratus, they
should find him easy-tempered, and ready to be managed as they
pleased.
But the king, being now persuaded by Apelles, Megaleas, and
other courtiers, that endeavored to ruin the credit Aratus had
with him, took the side of the contrary faction, and joined them
in canvassing to have Eperatus chosen general by the Achaeans.
But he being altogether scorned by the Achaeans, and, for the
want of Aratus to help, all things going wrong, Philip saw he
had quite mistaken his part, and, turning about and reconciling
himself to Aratus, he was wholly his; and his affairs now going
on favorably both for his power and reputation, he depended upon
him altogether as the author of all his gains in both respects;
Aratus hereby giving a proof to the world that he was as good a
nursing father of a kingdom as he had been of a democracy, for
the actions of the king had in them the touch and color of his
judgment and character. The moderation which the young man
showed to the Lacedaemonians, who had incurred his displeasure,
and his affability to the Cretans, by which in a few days he
brought over the whole island to his obedience, and his
expedition against the Aetolians, so wonderfully successful,
brought Philip reputation for hearkening to good advice, and to
Aratus for giving it; for which things the king's followers
envying him more than ever and finding they could not prevail
against him by their secret practices, began openly to abuse and
affront him at the banquets and over their wine, with every kind
of petulance and impudence; so that once they threw stones at
him as he was going back from supper to his tent. At which
Philip being much offended, immediately fined them twenty
talents; and finding afterwards that they still went on
disturbing matters and doing mischief in his affairs, he put
them to death.
But with his run of good success, prosperity began to puff him
up, and various extravagant desires began to spring and show
themselves in his mind; and his natural bad inclinations,
breaking through the artificial restraints he had put upon them,
in a little time laid open and discovered his true and proper
character. And in the first place, he privately injured the
younger Aratus in his wife, which was not known of a good while,
because he was lodged and entertained at their house; then he
began to be more rough and untractable in the domestic politics
of Greece, and showed plainly that he was wishing to shake
himself loose of Aratus. This the Messenian affairs first gave
occasion to suspect. For they falling into sedition, and Aratus
being just too late with his succors, Philip, who got into the
city one day before him, at once blew up the flame of contention
amongst them, asking privately, on the one hand, the Messenian
generals, if they had not laws whereby to suppress the insolence
of the common people, and on the other, the leaders of the
people, whether they had not hands to help themselves against
their oppressors. Upon which gathering courage, the officers
attempted to lay hands on the heads of the people, and they on
the other side, coming upon the officers with the multitude,
killed them, and very near two hundred persons with them.
Philip having committed this wickedness, and doing his best to
set the Messenians by the ears together more than before, Aratus
arrived there, and both showed plainly that he took it ill
himself, and also he suffered his son bitterly to reproach and
revile him. It should seem that the young man had an attachment
for Philip, and so at this time one of his expressions to him
was, that he no longer appeared to him the handsomest, but the
most deformed of all men, after so foul an action. To all which
Philip gave him no answer, though he seemed so angry as to make
it expected he would, and though several times he cried out
aloud, while the young man was speaking. But as for the elder
Aratus, seeming to take all that he said in good part, and as if
he were by nature a politic character and had a good command of
himself, he gave him his hand and led him out of the theater,
and carried him with him to the Ithomatas, to sacrifice there
to Jupiter, and take a view of the place, for it is a post as
fortifiable as the Acro-Corinthus, and, with a garrison in it,
quite as strong and as impregnable to the attacks of all around
it. Philip therefore went up hither, and having offered
sacrifice, receiving the entrails of the ox with both his hands
from the priest, he showed them to Aratus and Demetrius the
Pharian, presenting them sometimes to the one and sometimes to
the other, asking them what they judged, by the tokens in the
sacrifice, was to be done with the fort; was he to keep it for
himself, or restore it to the Messenians. Demetrius laughed and
answered, "If you have in you the soul of soothsayer, you will
restore it, but if of a prince, you will hold the ox by both the
horns," meaning to refer to Peloponnesus, which would be wholly
in his power and at his disposal if he added the Ithomatas to
the Acro-Corinthus. Aratus said not a word for a good while;
but Philip entreating him to declare his opinion, he said "Many
and great hills are there in Crete, and many rocks in Boeotia
and Phocis, and many remarkable strong-holds both near the sea
and in the midland in Acarnania, and yet all these people obey
your orders, though you have not possessed yourself of any one
of those places. Robbers nest themselves in rocks and
precipices; but the strongest fort a king can have is confidence
and affection. These have opened to you the Cretan sea; these
make you master of Peloponnesus, and by the help of these, young
as you are, are you become captain of the one, and lord of the
other." While he was still speaking, Philip returned the
entrails to the priest, and drawing Aratus to him by the hand,
"Come, then," said he, "let us follow the same course;" as if he
felt himself forced by him, and obliged to give up the town.
From this time Aratus began to withdraw from court, and retired
by degrees from Philip's company; when he was preparing to march
into Epirus, and desired him that he would accompany him
thither, he excused himself and stayed at home, apprehending
that he should get nothing but discredit by having anything to
do with his actions. But when, afterwards, having shamefully
lost his fleet against the Romans and miscarried in all his
designs, he returned into Peloponnesus, where he tried once more
to beguile the Messenians by his artifices, and failing in this,
began openly to attack them and to ravage their country, then
Aratus fell out with him downright, and utterly renounced his
friendship; for he had begun then to be fully aware of the
injuries done to his son in his wife, which vexed him greatly,
though he concealed them from his son, as he could but know he
had been abused, without having any means to revenge himself.
For, indeed, Philip seems to have been an instance of the
greatest and strangest alteration of character; after being a
mild king and modest and chaste youth, he became a lascivious
man and most cruel tyrant; though in reality this was not a
change of his nature, but a bold unmasking, when safe
opportunity came, of the evil inclinations which his fear had
for a long time made him dissemble.
For that the respect he at the beginning bore to Aratus had a
great alloy of fear and awe appears evidently from what he did
to him at last. For being desirous to put him to death, not
thinking himself, whilst he was alive, to be properly free as a
man, much less at liberty to do his pleasure as a king or
tyrant, he durst not attempt to do it by open force, but
commanded Taurion, one of his captains and familiars, to make
him away secretly by poison, if possible, in his absence.
Taurion, therefore, made himself intimate with Aratus, and gave
him a dose, not of your strong and violent poisons, but such as
cause gentle, feverish heats at first, and a dull cough, and so
by degrees bring on certain death. Aratus perceived what was
done to him, but, knowing that it was in vain to make any words
of it, bore it patiently and with silence, as if it had been
some common and usual distemper. Only once, a friend of his
being with him in his chamber, he spat some blood, which his
friend observing and wondering at, "These, O Cephalon," said he,
"are the wages of a king's love."
Thus died he in Aegium, in his seventeenth generalship. The
Achaeans were very desirous that he should be buried there with
a funeral and monument suitable to his life, but the Sicyonians
treated it as a calamity to them if he were interred anywhere
but in their city, and prevailed with the Achaeans to grant them
the disposal of the body.
But there being an ancient law that no person should be buried
within the walls of their city, and besides the law also a
strong religious feeling about it, they sent to Delphi to ask
counsel of the Pythoness, who returned this answer: --
Sicyon, whom oft he rescued, "Where," you say,
"Shall we the relics of Aratus lay?"
The soil that would not lightly o'er him rest,
Or to be under him would feel oppressed,
Were in the sight of earth and seas and skies unblest.
This oracle being brought, all the Achaeans were well pleased at
it, but especially the Sicyonians, who, changing their mourning
into public joy, immediately fetched the body from Aegium, and
in a kind of solemn procession brought it into the city, being
crowned with garlands, and arrayed in white garments, with
singing and dancing, and, choosing a conspicuous place, they
buried him there, as the founder and savior of their city. The
place is to this day called Aratium, and there they yearly make
two solemn sacrifices to him, the one on the day he delivered
the city from tyranny, being the fifth of the month Daesius,
which the Athenians call Anthesterion, and this sacrifice they
call Soteria; the other in the month of his birth, which is
still remembered. Now the first of these was performed by the
priest of Jupiter Soter, the second by the priest of Aratus,
wearing a band around his head, not pure white, but mingled with
purple. Hymns were sung to the harp by the singers of the
feasts of Bacchus; the procession was led up by the president of
the public exercises, with the boys and young men; these were
followed by the councilors wearing garlands, and other citizens
such as pleased. Of these observances, some small traces, it is
still made a point of religion not to omit, on the appointed
days; but the greatest part of the ceremonies have through time
and other intervening accidents been disused.
And such, as history tells us, was the life and manners of the
elder Aratus. And for the younger, his son, Philip, abominably
wicked by nature and a savage abuser of his power, gave him such
poisonous medicines, as though they did not kill him indeed, yet
made him lose his senses, and run into wild and absurd attempts
and desire to do actions and satisfy appetites that were
ridiculous and shameful. So that his death, which happened to
him while he was yet young and in the flower of his age, cannot
be so much esteemed a misfortune as a deliverance and end of his
misery. However, Philip paid dearly, all through the rest of
his life, for these impious violations of friendship and
hospitality. For, being overcome by the Romans, he was forced
to put himself wholly into their hands, and, being deprived of
his other dominions and surrendering all his ships except five,
he had also to pay a fine of a thousand talents, and to give his
son for hostage, and only out of mere pity he was suffered to
keep Macedonia and its dependences; where continually putting to
death the noblest of his subjects and the nearest relations he
had, he filled the whole kingdom with horror and hatred of him.
And whereas amidst so many misfortunes he had but one good
chance, which was the having a son of great virtue and merit,
him, through jealousy and envy at the honor the Romans had for
him, he caused to be murdered, and left his kingdom to Perseus,
who, as some say, was not his own child, but supposititious,
born of a seamstress called Gnathaenion. This was he whom
Paulus Aemilius led in triumph, and in whom ended the succession
of Antigonus's line and kingdom. But the posterity of Aratus
continued still in our days at Sicyon and Pellene.
ARTAXERXES
The first Artaxerxes, among all the kings of Persia the most
remarkable for a gentle and noble spirit, was surnamed the
Long-handed, his right hand being longer than his left, and was
the son of Xerxes. The second, whose story I am now writing,
who had the surname of the Mindful, was the grandson of the
former, by his daughter Parysatis, who brought Darius four sons,
the eldest Artaxerxes, the next Cyrus, and two younger than
these, Ostanes and Oxathres. Cyrus took his name of the ancient
Cyrus, as he, they say, had his from the sun, which, in the
Persian language, is called Cyrus. Artaxerxes was at first
called Arsicas; Dinon says Oarses; but it is utterly improbable
that Ctesias (however otherwise he may have filled his books
with a perfect farrago of incredible and senseless fables)
should be ignorant of the name of the king with whom he lived as
his physician, attending upon himself, his wife, his mother, and
his children.
Cyrus, from his earliest youth, showed something of a headstrong
and vehement character; Artaxerxes, on the other side, was
gentler in everything, and of a nature more yielding and soft
in its action. He married a beautiful and virtuous wife, at the
desire of his parents, but kept her as expressly against their
wishes. For king Darius, having put her brother to death, was
purposing likewise to destroy her. But Arsicas, throwing
himself at his mother's feet, by many tears, at last, with much
ado, persuaded her that they should neither put her to death nor
divorce her from him. However, Cyrus was his mother's favorite,
and the son whom she most desired to settle in the throne. And
therefore, his father Darius now lying ill, he, being sent for
from the sea to the court, set out thence with full hopes that
by her means he was to be declared the successor to the kingdom.
For Parysatis had the specious plea in his behalf, which Xerxes
on the advice of Demaratus had of old made use of, that she had
borne him Arsicas when he was a subject, but Cyrus when a king.
Notwithstanding, she prevailed not with Darius, but the eldest
son Arsicas was proclaimed king, his name being changed into
Artaxerxes; and Cyrus remained satrap of Lydia, and commander in
the maritime provinces.
It was not long after the decease of Darius that the king, his
successor, went to Pasargadae, to have the ceremony of his
inauguration consummated by the Persian priests. There is a
temple dedicated to a warlike goddess, whom one might liken to
Minerva; into which when the royal person to be initiated has
passed, he must strip himself of his own robe, and put on that
which Cyrus the first wore before he was king; then, having
devoured a frail of figs, he must eat turpentine, and drink a
cup of sour milk. To which if they superadd any other rites, it
is unknown to any but those that are present at them. Now
Artaxerxes being about to address himself to this solemnity,
Tisaphernes came to him, bringing a certain priest, who, having
trained up Cyrus in his youth in the established discipline of
Persia, and having taught him the Magian philosophy, was likely
to be as much disappointed as any man that his pupil did not
succeed to the throne. And for that reason his veracity was the
less questioned when he charged Cyrus as though he had been
about to lie in wait for the king in the temple, and to assault
and assassinate him as he was putting off his garment. Some
affirm that he was apprehended upon this impeachment, others
that he had entered the temple and was pointed out there, as he
lay lurking, by the priest. But as he was on the point of being
put to death, his mother clasped him in her arms, and, entwining
him with the tresses of her hair, joined his neck close to her
own, and by her bitter lamentation and intercession to
Artaxerxes for him, succeeded in saving his life; and sent him
away again to the sea and to his former province. This,
however, could no longer content him; nor did he so well
remember his delivery as his arrest, his resentment for which
made him more eagerly desirous of the kingdom than before.
Some say that he revolted from his brother, because he had not a
revenue allowed him sufficient for his daily meals; but this is
on the face of it absurd. For had he had nothing else, yet he
had a mother ready to supply him with whatever he could desire
out of her own means. But the great number of soldiers who were
hired from all quarters and maintained, as Xenophon informs us,
for his service, by his friends and connections, is in itself a
sufficient proof of his riches. He did not assemble them
together in a body, desiring as yet to conceal his enterprise;
but he had agents everywhere, enlisting foreign soldiers upon
various pretenses; and, in the meantime, Parysatis, who was
with the king, did her best to put aside all suspicions, and
Cyrus himself always wrote in a humble and dutiful manner to
him, sometimes soliciting favor, sometimes making countercharges
against Tisaphernes, as if his jealousy and contest had been
wholly with him. Moreover, there was a certain natural
dilatoriness in the king, which was taken by many for clemency.
And, indeed, in the beginning of his reign, he did seem really
to emulate the gentleness of the first Artaxerxes, being very
accessible in his person, and liberal to a fault in the
distribution of honors and favors. Even in his punishments, no
contumely or vindictive pleasure could be seen; and those who
offered him presents were as much pleased with his manner of
accepting, as were those who received gifts from him with his
graciousness and amiability in giving them. Nor truly was there
anything, however inconsiderable, given him, which he did not
deign kindly to accept of; insomuch that when one Omises had
presented him with a very large pomegranate, "By Mithras," said
he, "this man, were he entrusted with it, would turn a small
city into a great one."
Once when some were offering him one thing, some another, as he
was on a progress, a certain poor laborer, having got nothing at
hand to bring him, ran to the river side, and, taking up water
in his hands, offered it to him; with which Artaxerxes was so
well pleased that he sent him a goblet of gold and a thousand
darics. To Euclidas, the Lacedaemonian, who had made a number
of bold and arrogant speeches to him, he sent word by one of his
officers, "You have leave to say what you please to me, and I,
you should remember, may both say and do what I please to you."
Teribazus once, when they were hunting, came up and pointed out
to the king that his royal robe was torn; the king asked him
what he wished him to do; and when Teribazus replied "May it
please you to put on another and give me that," the king did so,
saying withal, "I give it you, Teribazus, but I charge you not
to wear it." He, little regarding the injunction, being not a
bad, but a light-headed, thoughtless man, immediately the king
took it off, put it on, and bedecked himself further with royal
golden necklaces and women's ornaments, to the great scandal of
everybody, the thing being quite unlawful. But the king laughed
and told him, "You have my leave to wear the trinkets as a
woman, and the robe of state as a fool." And whereas none
usually sat down to eat with the king besides his mother and his
wedded wife, the former being placed above, the other below him,
Artaxerxes invited also to his table his two younger brothers,
Ostanes and Oxathres. But what was the most popular thing of
all among the Persians was the sight of his wife Statira's
chariot, which always appeared with its curtains down, allowing
her countrywomen to salute and approach her, which made the
queen a great favorite with the people.
Yet busy, factious men, that delighted in change, professed it
to be their opinion that the times needed Cyrus, a man of a
great spirit, an excellent warrior, and a lover of his friends,
and that the largeness of their empire absolutely required a
bold and enterprising prince. Cyrus, then; not only relying
upon those of his own province near the sea, but upon many of
those in the upper countries near the king, commenced the war
against him. He wrote to the Lacedaemonians, bidding them come
to his assistance and supply him with men, assuring them that to
those who came to him on foot he would give horses, and to the
horsemen chariots; that upon those who had farms he would bestow
villages, and those who were lords of villages he would make so
of cities; and that those who would be his soldiers should
receive their pay, not by count, but by weight. And among many
other high praises of himself, he said he had the stronger soul;
was more a philosopher and a better Magian; and could drink and
bear more wine than his brother, who, as he averred, was such a
coward and so little like a man, that he could neither sit his
horse in hunting nor his throne in time of danger. The
Lacedaemonians, his letter being read, sent a staff to
Clearchus, commanding him to obey Cyrus in all things. So Cyrus
marched towards the king, having under his conduct a numerous
host of barbarians, and but little less than thirteen thousand
stipendiary Grecians; alleging first one cause, then another,
for his expedition. Yet the true reason lay not long concealed,
but Tisaphernes went to the king in person to declare it.
Thereupon, the court was all in an uproar and tumult, the
queen-mother bearing almost the whole blame of the enterprise,
and her retainers being suspected and accused. Above all,
Statira angered her by bewailing the war and passionately
demanding where were now the pledges and the intercessions which
saved the life of him that conspired against his brother; "to
the end," she said, "that he might plunge us all into war and
trouble." For which words Parysatis hating Statira, and being
naturally implacable and savage in her anger and revenge,
consulted how she might destroy her. But since Dinon tells us
that her purpose took effect in the time of the war, and Ctesias
says it was after it, I shall keep the story for the place to
which the latter assigns it, as it is very unlikely that he, who
was actually present, should not know the time when it happened,
and there was no motive to induce him designedly to misplace its
date in his narrative of it, though it is not infrequent with
him in his history to make excursions from truth into mere
fiction and romance.
As Cyrus was upon the march, rumors and reports were brought
him, as though the king still deliberated, and were not minded
to fight and presently to join battle with him; but to wait in
the heart of his kingdom until his forces should have come in
thither from all parts of his dominions. He had cut a trench
through the plain ten fathoms in breadth, and as many in depth,
the length of it being no less than four hundred furlongs. Yet
he allowed Cyrus to pass across it, and to advance almost to the
city of Babylon. Then Teribazus, as the report goes, was the
first that had the boldness to tell the king that he ought not
to avoid the conflict, nor to abandon Media, Babylon, and even
Susa, and hide himself in Persis, when all the while he had an
army many times over more numerous than his enemies, and an
infinite company of governors and captains that were better
soldiers and politicians than Cyrus. So at last he resolved to
fight, as soon as it was possible for him. Making, therefore,
his first appearance, all on a sudden, at the head of nine
hundred thousand well-marshaled men, he so startled and
surprised the enemy, who with the confidence of contempt were
marching on their way in no order, and with their arms not ready
for use, that Cyrus, in the midst of much noise and tumult, was
scarce able to form them for battle. Moreover, the very manner
in which he led on his men, silently and slowly, made the
Grecians stand amazed at his good discipline; who had expected
irregular shouting and leaping, much confusion and separation
between one body of men and another, in so vast a multitude of
troops. He also placed the choicest of his armed chariots in
the front of his own phalanx over against the Grecian troops,
that a violent charge with these might cut open their ranks
before they closed with them.
But as this battle is described by many historians, and Xenophon
in particular as good as shows it us by eyesight, not as a past
event, but as a present action, and by his vivid account makes
his hearers feel all the passions and join in all the dangers of
it, it would be folly in me to give any larger account of it
than barely to mention any things omitted by him which yet
deserve to be recorded. The place, then, in which the two
armies were drawn out is called Cunaxa, being about five hundred
furlongs distant from Babylon. And here Clearchus beseeching
Cyrus before the fight to retire behind the combatants, and not
expose himself to hazard, they say he replied, "What is this,
Clearchus? Would you have me, who aspire to empire, show myself
unworthy of it?" But if Cyrus committed a great fault in
entering headlong into the midst of danger, and not paying any
regard to his own safety, Clearchus was as much to blame, if not
more, in refusing to lead the Greeks against the main body of
the enemy, where the king stood, and in keeping his right wing
close to the river, for fear of being surrounded. For if he
wanted, above all other things, to be safe, and considered it
his first object to sleep in whole skin, it had been his best
way not to have stirred from home. But, after marching in arms
ten thousand furlongs from the sea-coast, simply on his own
choosing, for the purpose of placing Cyrus on the throne, to
look about and select a position which would enable him, not to
preserve him under whose pay and conduct he was, but himself to
engage with more ease and security seemed much like one that
through fear of present dangers had abandoned the purpose of his
actions, and been false to the design of his expedition. For it
is evident from the very event of the battle that none of those
who were in array around the king's person could have stood the
shock of the Grecian charge; and had they been beaten out of the
field, and Artaxerxes either fled or fallen, Cyrus would have
gained by the victory, not only safety, but a crown. And,
therefore, Clearchus, by his caution, must be considered more
to blame for the result in the destruction of the life and
fortune of Cyrus, than he by his heat and rashness. For had the
king made it his business to discover a place, where having
posted the Grecians, he might encounter them with the least
hazard, he would never have found out any other but that which
was most remote from himself and those near him; of his defeat
in which he was insensible, and, though Clearchus had the
victory, yet Cyrus could not know of it, and could take no
advantage of it before his fall. Cyrus knew well enough what
was expedient to be done, and commanded Clearchus with his men
to take their place in the center. Clearchus replied that he
would take care to have all arranged as was best, and then
spoiled all.
For the Grecians, where they were, defeated the barbarians till
they were weary, and chased them successfully a very great way.
But Cyrus being mounted upon a noble but a headstrong and
hard-mouthed horse, bearing the name, as Ctesias tells us, of
Pasacas, Artagerses, the leader of the Cadusians, galloped up to
him, crying aloud, "O most unjust and senseless of men, who are
the disgrace of the honored name of Cyrus, are you come here
leading the wicked Greeks on a wicked journey, to plunder the
good things of the Persians, and this with the intent of slaying
your lord and brother, the master of ten thousand times ten
thousand servants that are better men than you? as you shall
see this instant; for you shall lose your head here, before you
look upon the face of the king." Which when he had said, he
cast his javelin at him. But the coat of mail stoutly repelled
it, and Cyrus was not wounded; yet the stroke falling heavy upon
him, he reeled under it. Then Artagerses turning his horse,
Cyrus threw his weapon, and sent the head of it through his neck
near the shoulder bone. So that it is almost universally agreed
to by all the author that Artagerses was slain by him. But as
to the death of Cyrus, since Xenophon, as being himself no
eye-witness of it, has stated it simply and in few words, it may
not be amiss perhaps to run over on the one hand what Dinon, and
on the other, what Ctesias has said of it.
Dinon then affirms, that, after the death of Artagerses, Cyrus,
furiously attacking the guard of Artaxerxes, wounded the king's
horse, and so dismounted him, and when Teribazus had quickly
lifted him up upon another, and said to him, "O king, remember
this day, which is not one to be forgotten," Cyrus, again
spurring up his horse, struck down Artaxerxes. But at the third
assault the king being enraged, and saying to those near him
that death was more eligible, made up to Cyrus, who furiously
and blindly rushed in the face of the weapons opposed to him.
So the king struck him with a javelin, as likewise did those
that were about him. And thus Cyrus falls, as some say, by the
hand of the king; as others, by the dart of a Carian, to whom
Artaxerxes, for a reward of his achievement, gave the privilege
of carrying ever after a golden cock upon his spear before the
first ranks of the army in all expeditions. For the Persians
call the men of Caria cocks, because of the crests with which
they adorn their helmets.
But the account of Ctesias, to put it shortly, omitting many
details, is as follows: Cyrus, after the death of Artagerses,
rode up against the king, as he did against him, neither
exchanging a word with the other. But Ariaeus, Cyrus's friend,
was beforehand with him, and darted first at the king, yet
wounded him not. Then the king cast his lance at his brother,
but missed him, though he both hit and slew Satiphernes, a noble
man and a faithful friend to Cyrus. Then Cyrus directed his
lance against the king, and pierced his breast with it quite
through his armor, two inches deep, so that he fell from his
horse with the stroke. At which those that attended him being
put to flight and disorder, he, rising with a few, among whom
was Ctesias, and making his way to a little hill not far off,
rested himself. But Cyrus, who was in the thick of the enemy,
was carried off a great way by the wildness of his horse, the
darkness which was now coming on making it hard for them to know
him, and for his followers to find him. However, being made
elate with victory, and full of confidence and force, he passed
through them, crying out, and that more than once, in the
Persian language, "Clear the way, villains, clear the way;"
which they indeed did, throwing themselves down at his feet.
But his tiara dropped off his head, and a young Persian, by name
Mithridates, running by, struck a dart into one of his temples
near his eye, not knowing who he was, out of which wound much
blood gushed, so that Cyrus, swooning and senseless, fell off
his horse. The horse escaped, and ran about the field; but the
companion of Mithridates took the trappings, which fell off,
soaked with blood. And as Cyrus slowly began to come to
himself, some eunuchs who were there tried to put him on another
horse, and so convey him safe away. And when he was not able to
ride, and desired to walk on his feet, they led and supported
him, being indeed dizzy in the head and reeling, but convinced
of his being victorious, hearing, as he went, the fugitives
saluting Cyrus as king, and praying for grace and mercy. In the
meantime, some wretched, poverty-stricken Caunians, who in some
pitiful employment as camp-followers had accompanied the king's
army, by chance joined these attendants of Cyrus, supposing them
to be of their own party. But when, after a while, they made
out that their coats over their breastplates were red, whereas
all the king's people wore white ones, they knew that they were
enemies. One of them, therefore, not dreaming that it was
Cyrus, ventured to strike him behind with a dart. The vein
under the knee was cut open, and Cyrus fell, and at the same
time struck his wounded temple against a stone, and so died.
Thus runs Ctesias's account, tardily, with the slowness of a
blunt weapon, effecting the victim's death.
When he was now dead, Artasyras, the king's eye, passed by on
horseback, and, having observed the eunuchs lamenting, he asked
the most trusty of them, "Who is this, Pariscas, whom you sit
here deploring?" He replied, "Do not you see, O Artasyras, that
it is my master, Cyrus?" Then Artasyras wondering, bade the
eunuch be of good cheer, and keep the dead body safe. And going
in all haste to Artaxerxes, who had now given up all hope of his
affairs, and was in great suffering also with his thirst and his
wound, he with much joy assured him that he had seen Cyrus dead.
Upon this, at first, he set out to go in person to the place,
and commanded Artasyras to conduct him where he lay. But when
there was a great noise made about the Greeks, who were said to
be in full pursuit, conquering and carrying all before them, he
thought it best to send a number of persons to see; and
accordingly thirty men went with torches in their hands.
Meantime, as he seemed to be almost at the point of dying from
thirst, his eunuch Satibarzanes ran about seeking drink for him;
for the place had no water in it, and he was at a good distance
from his camp. After a long search he at last luckily met with
one of those poor Caunian camp-followers, who had in a wretched
skin about four pints of foul and stinking water, which he took
and gave to the king; and when he had drunk all off, he asked
him if he did not dislike the water; but he declared by all the
gods, that he never so much relished either wine, or water out
of the lightest or purest stream. "And therefore," said he, "if
I fail myself to discover and reward him who gave it to you, I
beg of heaven to make him rich and prosperous."
Just after this, came back the thirty messengers, with joy and
triumph in their looks, bringing him the tidings of his
unexpected fortune. And now he was also encouraged by the
number of soldiers that again began to flock in and gather about
him; so that he presently descended into the plain with many
lights and flambeaus round about him. And when he had come near
the dead body, and, according to a certain law of the Persians,
the right hand and head had been lopped off from the trunk, he
gave orders that the latter should be brought to him, and,
grasping the hair of it, which was long and bushy, he showed it
to those who were still uncertain and disposed to fly. They
were amazed at it, and did him homage; so that there were
presently seventy thousand of them got about him, and entered
the camp again with him. He had led out to the fight, as
Ctesias affirms, four hundred thousand men. But Dinon and
Xenophon aver that there were many more than forty myriads
actually engaged. As to the number of the slain, as the
catalogue of them was given up to Artaxerxes, Ctesias says, they
were nine thousand, but that they appeared to him no fewer than
twenty thousand. Thus far there is something to be said on both
sides. But it is a flagrant untruth on the part of Ctesias to
say that he was sent along with Phalinus the Zacynthian and some
others to the Grecians. For Xenophon knew well enough that
Ctesias was resident at court; for he makes mention of him, and
had evidently met with his writings. And, therefore, had he
come, and been deputed the interpreter of such momentous words,
Xenophon surely would not have struck his name out of the
embassy to mention only Phalinus. But Ctesias, as is evident,
being excessively vain-glorious, and no less a favorer of the
Lacedaemonians and Clearchus, never fails to assume to himself
some province in his narrative, taking opportunity, in these
situations, to introduce abundant high praise of Clearchus and
Sparta.
When the battle was over, Artaxerxes sent goodly and magnificent
gifts to the son of Artagerses, whom Cyrus slew. He conferred
likewise high honors upon Ctesias and others, and, having found
out the Caunian who gave him the bottle of water, he made him,
of a poor, obscure man, a rich and an honorable person. As for
the punishments he indicted upon delinquents, there was a kind
of harmony betwixt them and the crimes. He gave order that one
Arbaces, a Mede, that had fled in the fight to Cyrus, and again
at his fall had come back, should, as a mark that he was
considered a dastardly and effeminate, not a dangerous or
treasonable man, have a common harlot set upon his back, and
carry her about for a whole day in the marketplace. Another,
besides that he had deserted to them, having falsely vaunted
that he had killed two of the rebels, he decreed that three
needles should be struck through his tongue. And both supposing
that with his own hand he had cut off Cyrus, and being willing
that all men should think and say so, he sent rich presents to
Mithridates, who first wounded him, and charged those by whom he
conveyed the gifts to him to tell him, that "the king has
honored you with these his favors, because you found and brought
him the horse-trappings of Cyrus." The Carian, also, from whose
wound in the ham Cyrus died, suing for his reward, he commanded
those that brought it him to say that "the king presents you
with this as a second remuneration for the good news told him;
for first Artasyras, and, next to him, you assured him of the
decease of Cyrus." Mithridates retired without complaint,
though not without resentment. But the unfortunate Carian was
fool enough to give way to a natural infirmity. For being
ravished with the sight of the princely gifts that were before
him, and being tempted thereupon to challenge and aspire to
things above him, he deigned not to accept the king's present as
a reward for good news, but indignantly crying out and appealing
to witnesses, he protested that he, and none but he, had killed
Cyrus, and that he was unjustly deprived of the glory. These
words, when they came to his ear, much offended the king, so
that forthwith he sentenced him to be beheaded. But the queen
mother, being in the king's presence, said, "Let not the king so
lightly discharge this pernicious Carian; let him receive from
me the fitting punishment of what he dares to say." So when the
king had consigned him over to Parysatis, she charged the
executioners to take up the man, and stretch him upon the rack
for ten days, then, tearing out his eyes, to drop molten brass
into his ears till he expired.
Mithridates, also, within a short time after, miserably perished
by the like folly; for being invited to a feast where were the
eunuchs both of the king and of the queen mother, he came
arrayed in the dress and the golden ornaments which he had
received from the king. After they began to drink, the eunuch
that was the greatest in power with Parysatis thus speaks to
him: A magnificent dress, indeed, O Mithridates, is this which
the king has given you; the chains and bracelets are glorious,
and your scimitar of invaluable worth; how happy has he made
you, the object of every eye!" To whom he, being a little
overcome with the wine replied, "What are these things,
Sparamizes? Sure I am, I showed myself to the king in that day
of trial to be one deserving greater and costlier gifts than
these." At which Sparamizes smiling, said, "I do not grudge
them to you, Mithridates; but since the Grecians tell us that
wine and truth go together, let me hear now, my friend, what
glorious or mighty matter was it to find some trappings that had
slipped off a horse, and to bring them to the king?" And this
he spoke, not as ignorant of the truth, but desiring to unbosom
him to the company, irritating the vanity of the man, whom drink
had now made eager to talk and incapable of controlling himself.
So he forbore nothing, but said out, "Talk you what you please
of horse-trappings, and such trifles; I tell you plainly, that
this hand was the death of Cyrus. For I threw not my dart as
Artagerses did, in vain and to no purpose, but only just missing
his eye, and hitting him right on the temple, and piercing him
through, I brought him to the ground; and of that wound he
died." The rest of the company, who saw the end and the hapless
fate of Mithridates as if it were already completed, bowed their
heads to the ground; and he who entertained them said,
"Mithridates, my friend, let us eat and drink now, revering the
fortune of our prince, and let us waive discourse which is too
weighty for us."
Presently after, Sparamizes told Parysatis what he said, and she
told the king, who was greatly enraged at it, as having the lie
given him, and being in danger to forfeit the most glorious and
most pleasant circumstance of his victory. For it was his
desire that everyone, whether Greek or barbarian, should
believe that in the mutual assaults and conflicts between him
and his brother, he, giving and receiving a blow, was himself
indeed wounded, but that the other lost his life. And,
therefore, he decreed that Mithridates should be put to death in
boats; which execution is after the following manner: Taking two
boats framed exactly to fit and answer each other, they lay down
in one of them the malefactor that suffers, upon his back; then,
covering it with the other, and so setting them together that
the head, hands, and feet of him are left outside, and the rest
of his body lies shut up within, they offer him food, and if he
refuse to eat it, they force him to do it by pricking his eyes;
then, after he has eaten, they drench him with a mixture of
milk and honey, pouring it not only into his mouth, but all over
his face. They then keep his face continually turned towards
the sun; and it becomes completely covered up and hidden by the
multitude of flies that settle on it. And as within the boats
he does what those that eat and drink must needs do, creeping
things and vermin spring out of the corruption and rottenness of
the excrement, and these entering into the bowels of him, his
body is consumed. When the man is manifestly dead, the
uppermost boat being taken off, they find his flesh devoured,
and swarms of such noisome creatures preying upon and, as it
were, growing to his inwards. In this way Mithridates, after
suffering for seventeen days, at last expired.
Masabates, the king's eunuch, who had cut off the hand and head
of Cyrus, remained still as a mark for Parysatis's vengeance.
Whereas, therefore, he was so circumspect, that he gave her no
advantage against him, she framed this kind of snare for him.
She was a very ingenious woman in other ways, and was an
excellent player at dice, and, before the war, had often played
with the king. After the war, too, when she had been reconciled
to him, she joined readily in all amusements with him, played
at dice with him, was his confidant in his love matters, and in
every way did her best to leave him as little as possible in the
company of Statira, both because she hated her more than any
other person, and because she wished to have no one so powerful
as herself. And so once when Artaxerxes was at leisure, and
inclined to divert himself, she challenged him to play at dice
with her for a thousand Darics, and purposely let him win them,
and paid him down in gold. Yet, pretending to be concerned for
her loss, and that she would gladly have her revenge for it, she
pressed him to begin a new game for a eunuch; to which he
consented. But first they agreed that each of them might except
five of their most trusty eunuchs, and that out of the rest of
them the loser should yield up any the winner should make choice
of. Upon these conditions they played. Thus being bent upon
her design, and thoroughly in earnest with her game, and the
dice also running luckily for her, when she had got the game,
she demanded Masabates, who was not in the number of the five
excepted. And before the king could suspect the matter, having
delivered him up to the tormentors, she enjoined them to flay
him alive, to set his body upon three stakes, and to stretch his
skin upon stakes separately from it.
These things being done, and the king taking them ill, and being
incensed against her, she with raillery and laughter told him,
"You are a comfortable and happy man indeed, if you are so much
disturbed for the sake of an old rascally eunuch, when I, though
I have thrown away a thousand Darics, hold my peace and
acquiesce in my fortune." So the king, vexed with himself for
having been thus deluded, hushed up all. But Statira both in
other matters openly opposed her, and was angry with her for
thus, against all law and humanity, sacrificing to the memory of
Cyrus the king's faithful friends and eunuchs.
Now after that Tisaphernes had circumvented and by a false oath
had betrayed Clearchus and the other commanders, and, taking
them, had sent them bound in chains to the king, Ctesias says
that he was asked by Clearchus to supply him with a comb; and
that when he had it, and had combed his head with it, he was
much pleased with this good office, and gave him a ring, which
might be a token of the obligation to his relatives and friends
in Sparta; and that the engraving upon this signet was a set of
Caryatides dancing. He tells us that the soldiers, his fellow
captives, used to purloin a part of the allowance of food sent
to Clearchus, giving him but little of it; which thing Ctesias
says he rectified, causing a better allowance to be conveyed to
him, and that a separate share should be distributed to the
soldiers by themselves; adding that he ministered to and
supplied him thus by the interest and at the instance of
Parysatis. And there being a portion of ham sent daily with his
other food to Clearchus, she, he says, advised and instructed
him, that he ought to bury a small knife in the meat, and thus
send it to his friend, and not leave his fate to be determined
by the king's cruelty; which he, however, he says, was afraid to
do. However, Artaxerxes consented to the entreaties of his
mother, and promised her with an oath that he would spare
Clearchus; but afterwards, at the instigation of Statira, he put
every one of them to death except Menon. And thenceforward, he
says, Parysatis watched her advantage against Statira, and made
up poison for her; not a very probable story, or a very likely
motive to account for her conduct, if indeed he means that out
of respect to Clearchus she dared to attempt the life of the
lawful queen, that was mother of those who were heirs of the
empire. But it is evident enough, that this part of his history
is a sort of funeral exhibition in honor of Clearchus. For he
would have us believe, that, when the generals were executed,
the rest of them were torn in pieces by dogs and birds; but as
for the remains of Clearchus, that a violent gust of wind,
bearing before it a vast heap of earth, raised a mound to cover
his body, upon which, after a short time, some dates having
fallen there, a beautiful grove of trees grew up and
overshadowed the place, so that the king himself declared his
sorrow, concluding that in Clearchus he put to death a man
beloved of the gods.
Parysatis, therefore, having from the first entertained a secret
hatred and jealousy against Statira, seeing that the power she
herself had with Artaxerxes was founded upon feelings of honor
and respect for her, but that Statira's influence was firmly and
strongly based upon love and confidence, was resolved to
contrive her ruin, playing at hazard, as she thought, for the
greatest stake in the world. Among her attendant women there
was one that was trusty and in the highest esteem with her,
whose name was Gigis; who, as Dinon avers, assisted in making up
the poison. Ctesias allows her only to have been conscious of
it, and that against her will; charging Belitaras with actually
giving the drug, whereas Dinon says it was Melantas. The two
women had begun again to visit each other and to eat together;
but though they had thus far relaxed their former habits of
jealousy and variance, still, out of fear and as a matter of
caution, they always ate of the same dishes and of the same
parts of them. Now there is a small Persian bird, in the inside
of which no excrement is found, only a mass of fat, so that they
suppose the little creature lives upon air and dew. It is
called rhyntaces. Ctesias affirms, that Parysatis, cutting a
bird of this kind into two pieces with a knife, one side of
which had been smeared with the drug, the other side being clear
of it, ate the untouched and wholesome part herself, and gave
Statira that which was thus infected; but Dinon will not have it
to be Parysatis, but Melantas, that cut up the bird and
presented the envenomed part of it to Statira; who, dying with
dreadful agonies and convulsions, was herself sensible of what
had happened to her, and aroused in the king's mind suspicion of
his mother, whose savage and implacable temper he knew. And
therefore proceeding instantly to an inquest, he seized upon his
mother's domestic servants that attended at her table, and put
them upon the rack. Parysatis kept Gigis at home with her a
long time, and, though the king commanded her, she would not
produce her. But she, at last, herself desiring that she might
be dismissed to her own home by night, Artaxerxes had intimation
of it, and, lying in wait for her, hurried her away, and
adjudged her to death. Now poisoners in Persia suffer thus by
law. There is a broad stone, on which they place the head of
the culprit, and then with another stone beat and press it,
until the face and the head itself are all pounded to pieces;
which was the punishment Gigis lost her life by. But to his
mother, Artaxerxes neither said nor did any other hurt, save
that he banished and confined her, not much against her will, to
Babylon, protesting that while she lived he would not come near
that city. Such was the condition of the king's affairs in his
own house.
But when all his attempts to capture the Greeks that had come up
with Cyrus, though he desired to do so no less than he had
desired to overcome Cyrus and maintain his throne, proved
unsuccessful, and they, though they had lost both Cyrus and
their own generals, nevertheless escaped, as it were, out of his
very palace, making it plain to all men that the Persian king
and his empire were mighty indeed in gold and luxury and women,
but otherwise were a mere show and vain display, upon this, all
Greece took courage, and despised the barbarians; and
especially the Lacedaemonians thought it strange if they should
not now deliver their countrymen that dwelt in Asia from their
subjection to the Persians, nor put an end to the contumelious
usage of them. And first having an army under the conduct of
Thimbron, then under Dercyllidas, but doing nothing memorable,
they at last committed the war to the management of their king
Agesilaus, who, when he had arrived with his men in Asia, as
soon as he had landed them, fell actively to work, and got
himself great renown. He defeated Tisaphernes in a pitched
battle, and set many cities in revolt. Upon this, Artaxerxes,
perceiving what was his wisest way of waging the war, sent
Timocrates the Rhodian into Greece, with large sums of gold,
commanding him by a free distribution of it to corrupt the
leading men in the cities, and to excite a Greek war against
Sparta. So Timocrates following his instructions, the most
considerable cities conspiring together, and Peloponnesus being
in disorder, the ephors remanded Agesilaus from Asia. At which
time, they say, as he was upon his return, he told his friends
that Artaxerxes had driven him out of Asia with thirty thousand
archers; the Persian coin having an archer stamped upon it.
Artaxerxes scoured the seas, too, of the Lacedaemonians, Conon
the Athenian and Pharnabazus being his admirals. For Conon,
after the battle of Aegospotami, resided in Cyprus; not that he
consulted his own mere security, but looking for a vicissitude
of affairs with no less hope than men wait for a change of wind
at sea. And perceiving that his skill wanted power, and that
the king's power wanted a wise man to guide it, he sent him an
account by letter of his projects, and charged the bearer to
hand it to the king, if possible, by the mediation of Zeno the
Cretan or Polycritus the Mendaean (the former being a
dancing-master, the latter a physician), or, in the absence of
them both, by Ctesias; who is said to have taken Conon's letter,
and foisted into the contents of it a request; that the king
would also be pleased to send over Ctesias to him, who was
likely to be of use on the sea-coast. Ctesias, however,
declares that the king, of his own accord, deputed him to this
service. Artaxerxes, however, defeating the Lacedaemonians in a
sea-fight at Cnidos, under the conduct of Pharnabazus and Conon,
after he had stripped them of their sovereignty by sea, at the
same time, brought, so to say, the whole of Greece over to him,
so that upon his own terms he dictated the celebrated peace
among them, styled the peace of Antalcidas. This Antalcidas was
a Spartan, the son of one Leon, who, acting for the king's
interest, induced the Lacedaemonians to covenant to let all the
Greek cities in Asia and the islands adjacent to it become
subject and tributary to him, peace being upon these conditions
established among the Greeks, if indeed the honorable name of
peace can fairly be given to what was in fact the disgrace and
betrayal of Greece, a treaty more inglorious than had ever been
the result of any war to those defeated in it.
And therefore Artaxerxes, though always abominating other
Spartans, and looking upon them, as Dinon says, to be the most
impudent men living, gave wonderful honor to Antalcidas when he
came to him into Persia; so much so that one day, taking a
garland of flowers and dipping it in the most precious ointment,
he sent it to him after supper, a favor which all were amazed
at. Indeed he was a person fit to be thus delicately treated,
and to have such a crown, who had among the Persians thus made
fools of Leonidas and Callicratidas. Agesilaus, it seems, on
someone having said, "O the deplorable fate of Greece, now that
the Spartans turn Medes!" replied, "Nay, rather it is the Medes
who become Spartans." But the subtlety of the repartee did not
wipe off the infamy of the action. The Lacedaemonians soon
after lost their sovereignty in Greece by their defeat at
Leuctra; but they had already lost their honor by this treaty.
So long then as Sparta continued to be the first state in
Greece, Artaxerxes continued to Antalcidas the honor of being
called his friend and his guest; but when, routed and humbled at
the battle of Leuctra, being under great distress for money,
they had dispatched Agesilaus into Egypt, and Antalcidas went up
to Artaxerxes, beseeching him to supply their necessities, he so
despised, slighted, and rejected him, that finding himself, on
his return, mocked and insulted by his enemies, and fearing also
the ephors, he starved himself to death. Ismenias, also, the
Theban, and Pelopidas, who had already gained the victory at
Leuctra, arrived at the Persian court; where the latter did
nothing unworthy of himself. But Ismenias, being commanded to
do obeisance to the king, dropped his ring before him upon the
ground, and so, stooping to take it up, made a show of doing him
homage. He was so gratified with some secret intelligence which
Timagoras the Athenian sent in to him by the hand of his
secretary, Beluris, that he bestowed upon him ten thousand
darics, and because he was ordered, on account of some sickness,
to drink cow's milk, there were fourscore milch kine driven
after him; also, he sent him a bed, furniture, and servants for
it, the Grecians not having skill enough to make it, as also
chairmen to carry him, being infirm in body, to the seaside.
Not to mention the feast made for him at court, which was so
princely and splendid that Ostanes, the king's brother, said to
him, "O, Timagoras, do not forget the sumptuous table you have
sat at here; it was not put before you for nothing;" which was
indeed rather a reflection upon his treason than to remind him
of the king's bounty. And indeed the Athenians condemned
Timagoras to death for taking bribes.
But Artaxerxes gratified the Grecians in one thing in lieu of
the many wherewith he plagued them, and that was by taking off
Tisaphernes, their most hated and malicious enemy, whom he put
to death; Parysatis adding her influence to the charges made
against him. For the king did not persist long in his wrath
with his mother, but was reconciled to her, and sent for her,
being assured that she had wisdom and courage fit for royal
power, and there being now no cause discernible but that they
might converse together without suspicion or offense. And from
thenceforward humoring the king in all things according to his
heart's desire, and finding fault with nothing that he did, she
obtained great power with him, and was gratified in all her
requests. She perceived he was desperately in love with Atossa,
one of his own two daughters, and that he concealed and checked
his passion chiefly for fear of herself, though, if we may
believe some writers, he had privately given way to it with the
young girl already. As soon as Parysatis suspected it, she
displayed a greater fondness for the young girl than before, and
extolled both her virtue and beauty to him, as being truly
imperial and majestic. In fine, she persuaded him to marry her
and declare her to be his lawful wife, overriding all the
principles and the laws by which the Greeks hold themselves
bound, and regarding himself as divinely appointed for a law to
the Persians, and the supreme arbitrator of good and evil. Some
historians further affirm, in which number is Heraclides of
Cuma, that Artaxerxes married not only this one, but a second
daughter also, Amestris, of whom we shall speak by and by. But
he so loved Atossa when she became his consort, that when
leprosy had run through her whole body, he was not in the least
offended at it; but putting up his prayers to Juno for her, to
this one alone of all the deities he made obeisance, by laying
his hands upon the earth; and his satraps and favorites made
such offerings to the goddess by his direction, that all along
for sixteen furlongs, betwixt the court and her temple, the road
was filled up with gold and silver, purple and horses, devoted
to her.
He waged war out of his own kingdom with the Egyptians, under
the conduct of Pharnabazus and Iphicrates, but was unsuccessful
by reason of their dissensions. In his expedition against the
Cadusians, he went himself in person with three hundred thousand
footmen and ten thousand horse. And making an incursion into
their country, which was so mountainous as scarcely to be
passable, and withal very misty, producing no sort of harvest of
corn or the like, but with pears, apples, and other tree-fruits
feeding a warlike and valiant breed of men, he unawares fell
into great distresses and dangers. For there was nothing to be
got fit for his men to eat, of the growth of that place, nor
could anything be imported from any other. All they could do
was to kill their beasts of burden, and thus an ass's head could
scarcely be bought for sixty drachmas. In short, the king's own
table failed; and there were but few horses left; the rest they
had spent for food. Then Teribazus, a man often in great favor
with his prince for his valor, and as often out of it for his
buffoonery, and particularly at that time in humble estate and
neglected, was the deliverer of the king and his army. There
being two kings amongst the Cadusians, and each of them
encamping separately, Teribazus, after he had made his
application to Artaxerxes and imparted his design to him, went
to one of the princes, and sent away his son privately to the
other. So each of them deceived his man, assuring him that the
other prince had deputed an ambassador to Artaxerxes, suing for
friendship and alliance for himself alone; and, therefore, if he
were wise, he told him, he must apply himself to his master
before he had decreed anything, and he, he said, would lend him
his assistance in all things. Both of them gave credit to these
words, and because they supposed they were each intrigued
against by the other, they both sent their envoys, one along
with Teribazus, and the other with his son. All this taking
some time to transact, fresh surmises and suspicions of
Teribazus were expressed to the king, who began to be out of
heart, sorry that he had confided in him, and ready to give ear
to his rivals who impeached him. But at last he came, and so
did his son, bringing the Cadusian agents along with them, and
so there was a cessation of arms and a peace signed with both
the princes. And Teribazus, in great honor and distinction, set
out homewards in the company of the king; who, indeed, upon this
journey made it appear plainly that cowardice and effeminacy are
the effects, not of delicate and sumptuous living, as many
suppose, but of a base and vicious nature, actuated by false and
bad opinions. For notwithstanding his golden ornaments, his
robe of state, and the rest of that costly attire, worth no less
than twelve thousand talents, with which the royal person was
constantly clad, his labors and toils were not a whit inferior
to those of the meanest persons in his army. With his quiver by
his side and his shield on his arm, he led them on foot,
quitting his horse, through craggy and steep ways, insomuch that
the sight of his cheerfulness and unwearied strength gave wings
to the soldiers, and so lightened the journey, that they made
daily marches of above two hundred furlongs.
After they had arrived at one of his own mansions, which had
beautiful ornamented parks in the midst of a region naked and
without trees, the weather being very cold, he gave full
commission to his soldiers to provide themselves with wood by
cutting down any, without exception, even the pine and cypress.
And when they hesitated and were for sparing them, being large
and goodly trees, he, taking up an ax himself, felled the
greatest and most beautiful of them. After which his men used
their hatchets, and piling up many fires, passed away the night
at their ease. Nevertheless, he returned not without the loss
of many and valiant subjects, and of almost all his horses. And
supposing that his misfortunes and the ill success of his
expedition made him despised in the eyes of his people, he
looked jealously on his nobles, many of whom he slew in anger,
and yet more out of fear. As, indeed, fear is the bloodiest
passion in princes; confidence, on the other hand, being
merciful, gentle, and unsuspicious. So we see among wild
beasts, the intractable and least tamable are the most timorous
and most easily startled; the nobler creatures, whose courage
makes them trustful, are ready to respond to the advances of
men.
Artaxerxes, now being an old man, perceived that his sons were
in controversy about his kingdom, and that they made parties
among his favorites and peers. Those that were equitable among
them thought it fit, that as he had received it, so he should
bequeath it, by right of age, to Darius. The younger brother,
Ochus, who was hot and violent, had indeed a considerable number
of the courtiers that espoused his interest, but his chief hope
was that by Atossa's means he should win his father. For he
flattered her with the thoughts of being his wife and partner in
the kingdom after the death of Artaxerxes. And truly it was
rumored that already Ochus maintained a too intimate
correspondence with her. This, however, was quite unknown to
the king; who, being willing to put down in good time his son
Ochus's hopes, lest, by his attempting the same things his uncle
Cyrus did, wars and contentions might again afflict his kingdom,
proclaimed Darius, then twenty-five years old, his successor,
and gave him leave to wear the upright hat, as they call it. It
was a rule and usage of Persia, that the heir apparent to the
crown should beg a boon, and that he that declared him so should
give whatever he asked, provided it were within the sphere of
his power. Darius therefore requested Aspasia, in former time
the most prized of the concubines of Cyrus, and now belonging to
the king. She was by birth a Phocaean, of Ionia, born of free
parents, and well educated. Once when Cyrus was at supper, she
was led in to him with other women, who, when they were sat down
by him, and he began to sport and dally and talk jestingly with
them, gave way freely to his advances. But she stood by in
silence, refusing to come when Cyrus called her, and when his
chamberlains were going to force her towards him, said,
"Whosoever lays hands on me shall rue it;" so that she seemed to
the company a sullen and rude-mannered person. However, Cyrus
was well pleased, and laughed, saying to the man that brought
the women, "Do you not see of a certainty that this woman alone
of all that came with you is truly noble and pure in character?"
After which time he began to regard her, and loved her above all
of her sex, and called her the Wise. But Cyrus being slain in
the fight, she was taken among the spoils of his camp.
Darius, in demanding her, no doubt much offended his father, for
the barbarian people keep a very jealous and watchful eye over
their carnal pleasures, so that it is death for a man not only
to come near and touch any concubine of his prince, but likewise
on a journey to ride forward and pass by the carriages in which
they are conveyed. And though, to gratify his passion, he had
against all law married his daughter Atossa, and had besides her
no less than three hundred and sixty concubines selected for
their beauty, yet being importuned for that one by Darius, he
urged that she was a free-woman, and allowed him to take her, if
she had an inclination to go with him, but by no means to force
her away against it. Aspasia, therefore, being sent for, and,
contrary to the king's expectation, making choice of Darius, he
gave him her indeed, being constrained by law, but when he had
done so, a little after he took her from him. For he
consecrated her priestess to Diana of Ecbatana, whom they name
Anaitis, that she might spend the remainder of her days in
strict chastity, thinking thus to punish his son, not
rigorously, but with moderation, by a revenge checkered with
jest and earnest. But he took it heinously, either that he was
passionately fond of Aspasia, or because he looked upon himself
as affronted and scorned by his father. Teribazus, perceiving
him thus minded, did his best to exasperate him yet further,
seeing in his injuries a representation of his own, of which the
following is the account: Artaxerxes, having many daughters,
promised to give Apama to Pharnabazus to wife, Rhodogune to
Orontes, and Amestris to Teribazus; whom alone of the three he
disappointed, by marrying Amestris himself. However, to make
him amends, he betrothed his youngest daughter Atossa to him.
But after he had, being enamored of her too, as has been said,
married her, Teribazus entertained an irreconcilable enmity
against him. As indeed he was seldom at any other time steady
in his temper, but uneven and inconsiderate; so that whether he
were in the number of the choicest favorites of his prince, or
whether he were offensive and odious to him, he demeaned himself
in neither condition with moderation; but if he was advanced he
was intolerably insolent, and in his degradation not submissive
and peaceable in his deportment, but fierce and haughty.
And therefore Teribazus was to the young prince flame added upon
flame, ever urging him, and saying, that in vain those wear
their hats upright who consult not the real success of their
affairs, and that he was ill befriended of reason if he
imagined, whilst he had a brother, who, through the women's
apartments, was seeking a way to the supremacy, and a father of
so rash and fickle a humor, that he should by succession
infallibly step up into the throne. For he that out of fondness
to an Ionian girl has eluded a law sacred and inviolable among
the Persians is not likely to be faithful in the performance of
the most important promises. He added, too, that it was not all
one for Ochus not to attain to, and for him to be put by his
crown; since Ochus as a subject might live happily, and nobody
could hinder him; but he, being proclaimed king, must either
take up his scepter or lay down his life. These words presently
inflamed Darius: what Sophocles says being indeed generally
true: --
Quick travels the persuasion to what's wrong.
For the path is smooth, and upon an easy descent, that leads us
to our own will; and the most part of us desire what is evil
through our strangeness to and ignorance of good. And in this
case, no doubt, the greatness of the empire and the jealousy
Darius had of Ochus furnished Teribazus with material for his
persuasions. Nor was Venus wholly unconcerned in the matter, in
regard, namely, of his loss of Aspasia.
Darius, therefore, resigned himself up to the dictates of
Teribazus; and many now conspiring with them, a eunuch gave
information to the king of their plot and the way how it was to
be managed, having discovered the certainty of it, that they had
resolved to break into his bed-chamber by night, and there to
kill him as he lay. After Artaxerxes had been thus advertised,
he did not think fit, by disregarding the discovery, to despise
so great a danger, nor to believe it when there was little or no
proof of it. Thus then he did: he charged the eunuch constantly
to attend and accompany the conspirators wherever they were; in
the meanwhile, he broke down the party-wall of the chamber
behind his bed, and placed a door in it to open and shut, which
covered up with tapestry; so the hour approaching, and the
eunuch having told him the precise time in which the traitors
designed to assassinate him, he waited for them in his bed, and
rose not up till he had seen the faces of his assailants and
recognized every man of them. But as soon as he saw them with
their swords drawn and coming up to him, throwing up the
hanging, he made his retreat into the inner chamber, and,
bolting to the door, raised a cry. Thus when the murderers had
been seen by him, and had attempted him in vain, they with speed
went back through the same doors they came in by, enjoining
Teribazus and his friends to fly, as their plot had been
certainly detected. They, therefore, made their escape
different ways; but Teribazus was seized by the king's guards,
and after slaying many, while they were laying hold on him, at
length being struck through with a dart at a distance, fell. As
for Darius, who was brought to trial with his children, the king
appointed the royal judges to sit over him, and because he was
not himself present, but accused Darius by proxy, he commanded
his scribes to write down the opinion of every one of the
judges, and show it to him. And after they had given their
sentences, all as one man, and condemned Darius to death, the
officers seized on him and hurried him to a chamber not far off.
To which place the executioner, when summoned, came with a razor
in his hand, with which men of his employment cut off' the heads
of offenders. But when he saw that Darius was the person thus
to be punished, he was appalled and started back, offering to go
out, as one that had neither power nor courage enough to behead
a king; yet at the threats and commands of the judges, who stood
at the prison door, he returned, and grasping the hair of his
head and bringing his face to the ground with one hand, he cut
through his neck with the razor he had in the other. Some
affirm that sentence was passed in the presence of Artaxerxes;
that Darius, after he had been convicted by clear evidence,
falling prostrate before him, did humbly beg his pardon; that
instead of giving it, he, rising up in rage and drawing his
scimitar, smote him till he had killed him; that then, going
forth into the court, he worshipped the sun, and said, "Depart
in peace, ye Persians, and declare to your fellow-subjects how
the mighty Oromasdes hath dealt out vengeance to the contrivers
of unjust and unlawful things."
Such, then, was the issue of this conspiracy. And now Ochus was
high in his hopes, being confident in the influence of Atossa;
but yet was afraid of Ariaspes, the only male surviving, besides
himself, of the legitimate off-spring of his father, and of
Arsames, one of his natural sons. For indeed Ariaspes was
already claimed as their prince by the wishes of the Persians,
not because he was the elder brother, but because he excelled
Ochus in gentleness, plain-dealing, and good-nature; and on the
other hand Arsames appeared, by his wisdom, fitted for the
throne, and that he was dear to his father, Ochus well knew. So
he laid snares for them both, and being no less treacherous than
bloody, he made use of the cruelty of his nature against
Arsames, and of his craft and wiliness against Ariaspes. For he
suborned the king's eunuchs and favorites to convey to him
menacing and harsh expressions from his father, as though he had
decreed to put him to a cruel and ignominious death. When they
daily communicated these things as secrets, and told him at one
time that the king would do so to him ere long, and at another,
that the blow was actually close impending, they so alarmed the
young man, struck; such a terror into him, and cast such a
confusion and anxiety upon his thoughts, that, having prepared
some poisonous drugs, he drank them, that he might be delivered
from his life. The king, on hearing what kind of death he died,
heartily lamented him, and was not without a suspicion of the
cause of it. But being disabled by his age to search into and
prove it, he was, after the loss of this son, more affectionate
than before to Arsames, did manifestly place his greatest
confidence in him, and made him privy to his counsels.
Whereupon Ochus had no longer patience to defer the execution of
his purpose, but having procured Arpates, Teribazus's son, for
the undertaking, he killed Arsames by his hand. Artaxerxes at
that time had but a little hold on life, by reason of his
extreme age, and so, when he heard of the fate of Arsames, he
could not sustain it at all, but sinking at once under the
weight of his grief and distress, expired, after a life of
ninety-four years, and a reign of sixty-two. And then he seemed
a moderate and gracious governor, more especially as compared to
his son Ochus, who outdid all his predecessors in
blood-thirstiness and cruelty.
GALBA
Iphicrates the Athenian used to say that it is best to have a
mercenary soldier fond of money and of pleasures, for thus he
will fight the more boldly, to procure the means to gratify his
desires. But most have been of opinion, that the body of an
army, as well as the natural one, when in its healthy condition,
should make no efforts apart, but in compliance with its head.
Wherefore they tell us that Paulus Aemilius, on taking command
of the forces in Macedonia, and finding them talkative and
impertinently busy, as though they were all commanders, issued
out his orders that they should have only ready hands and keen
swords, and leave the rest to him. And Plato, who can discern
no use of a good ruler or general, if his men are not on their
part obedient and conformable (the virtue of obeying, as of
ruling, being in his opinion one that does not exist without
first a noble nature, and then a philosophic education, where
the eager and active powers are allayed with the gentler and
humaner sentiments), may claim in confirmation of his doctrines
sundry mournful instances elsewhere, and, in particular, the
events that followed among the Romans upon the death of Nero, in
which plain proofs were given that nothing is more terrible than
a military force moving about in an empire upon uninstructed and
unreasoning impulses. Demades, after the death of Alexander,
compared the Macedonian army to the Cyclops after his eye was
out, seeing their many disorderly and unsteady motions. But the
calamities of the Roman government might be likened to the
motions of the giants that assailed heaven, convulsed as it was,
and distracted, and from every side recoiling, as it were, upon
itself, not so much by the ambition of those who were proclaimed
emperors, as by the covetousness and license of the soldiery,
who drove commander after commander out, like nails one upon
another.
Dionysius, in raillery, said of the Pheraean who enjoyed the
government of Thessaly only ten months, that he had been a
tragedy-king, but the Caesars' house in Rome, the Palatium,
received in a shorter space of time no less than four emperors,
passing, as it were, across the stage, and one making room for
another to enter.
This was the only satisfaction of the distressed, that they
needed not require any other justice on their oppressors, seeing
them thus murder each other, and first of all, and that most
justly, the one that ensnared them first, and taught them to
expect such happy results from a change of emperors, sullying a
good work by the pay he gave for its being done, and turning
revolt against Nero into nothing better than treason.
For, as already related, Nymphidius Sabinus, captain of the
guards, together with Tigellinus, after Nero's circumstances
were now desperate, and it was perceived that he designed to fly
into Egypt, persuaded the troops to declare Galba emperor, as if
Nero had been already gone, promising to all the court and
praetorian soldiers, as they are called, seven thousand five
hundred drachmas apiece, and to those in service abroad twelve
hundred and fifty drachmas each; so vast a sum for a largess as
it was impossible anyone could raise, but he must be infinitely
more exacting and oppressive than ever Nero was. This quickly
brought Nero to his grave, and soon after Galba too; they
murdered the first in expectation of the promised gift, and not
long after the other because they did not obtain it from him;
and then, seeking about to find someone who would purchase at
such a rate, they consumed themselves in a succession of
treacheries and rebellions before they obtained their demands.
But to give a particular relation of all that passed would
require a history in full form; I have only to notice what is
properly to my purpose, namely, what the Caesars did and
suffered.
Sulpicius Galba is owned by all to have been the richest private
person that ever came to the imperial seat. And besides the
additional honor of being of the family of the Servii, he valued
himself more especially for his relationship to Catulus, the
most eminent citizen of his time both for virtue and renown,
however he may have voluntarily yielded to others as regards
power and authority. Galba was also akin to Livia, the wife of
Augustus, by whose interest he was preferred to the consulship
by the emperor. It is said of him that he commanded the troops
well in Germany, and, being made proconsul in Libya, gained a
reputation that few ever had. But his quiet manner of living
and his sparingness in expenses and his disregard of appearance
gave him, when he became emperor, an ill-name for meanness,
being, in fact, his worn-out credit for regularity and
moderation. He was entrusted by Nero with the government of
Spain, before Nero had yet learned to be apprehensive of men of
great repute. To the opinion, moreover, entertained of his mild
natural temper, his old age added a belief that he would never
act incautiously.
There while Nero's iniquitous agents savagely and cruelly
harassed the provinces under Nero's authority, he could afford
no succor, but merely offer this only ease and consolation, that
he seemed plainly to sympathize, as a fellow-sufferer, with
those who were condemned upon suits and sold. And when lampoons
were made upon Nero and circulated and sung everywhere about, he
neither prohibited them, nor showed any indignation on behalf of
the emperor's agents, and for this was the more beloved; as also
that he was now well acquainted with them, having been in chief
power there eight years at the time when Junius Vindex, general
of the forces in Gaul, began his insurrection against Nero. And
it is reported that letters came to Galba before it fully broke
out into an open rebellion, which he neither seemed to give
credit to, nor on the other hand to take means to let Nero know,
as other officers did, sending to him the letters which came to
them, and so spoiled the design, as much as in them lay, who yet
afterwards shared in the conspiracy, and confessed they had been
treacherous to themselves as well as him. At last Vindex,
plainly declaring war, wrote to Galba, encouraging him to take
the government upon him, and give a head to this strong body,
the Gaulish provinces, which could already count a hundred
thousand men in arms, and were able to arm a yet greater number
if occasion were. Galba laid the matter before his friends,
some of whom thought it fit to wait, and see what movement there
might be and what inclinations displayed at Rome for the
revolution. But Titus Vinius, captain of his praetorian guard,
spoke thus: "Galba, what means this inquiry? To question
whether we shall continue faithful to Nero is, in itself, to
cease to be faithful. Nero is our enemy, and we must by no
means decline the help of Vindex: or else we must at once
denounce him, and march to attack him, because he wishes you to
be the governor of the Romans, rather than Nero their tyrant."
Thereupon Galba, by an edict, appointed a day when he would
receive manumissions, and general rumor and talk beforehand
about his purpose brought together a great crowd of men so ready
for a change, that he scarcely appeared, stepping up to the
tribunal, but they with one consent saluted him emperor. That
title he refused at present to take upon him; but after he had a
while inveighed against Nero, and bemoaned the loss of the more
conspicuous of those that had been destroyed by him, he offered
himself and service to his country, not by the titles of Caesar
or emperor, but as the lieutenant of the Roman senate and
people.
Now that Vindex did wisely in inviting Galba to the empire, Nero
himself bore testimony; who, though he seemed to despise Vindex
and altogether to slight the Gauls and their concerns, yet when
he heard of Galba (as by chance he had just bathed and sat down
to his morning meal), at this news he overturned the table. But
the senate having voted Galba an enemy, presently, to make his
jest, and likewise to personate a confidence among his friends,
"This is a very happy opportunity," he said, "for me, who sadly
want such a booty as that of the Gauls, which must all fall in
as lawful prize; and Galba's estate I can use or sell at once,
he being now an open enemy." And accordingly he had Galba's
property exposed to sale, which when Galba heard of; he
sequestered all that was Nero's in Spain, and found far readier
bidders.
Many now began to revolt from Nero, and pretty nearly all
adhered to Galba; only Clodius Macer in Africa, and Virginius
Rufus, commander of the German forces in Gaul, followed counsel
of their own; yet these two were not of one and the same advice,
for Clodius, being sensible of the rapines and murders to which
he had been led by cruelty and covetousness, was in perplexity,
and felt it was not safe for him either to retain or quit his
command. But Virginius, who had the command of the strongest
legions, by whom he was many repeated times saluted emperor and
pressed to take the title upon him, declared that he neither
would assume that honor himself, nor see it given to any other
than whom the senate should elect.
These things at first did not a little disturb Galba, but when
presently Virginius and Vindex were in a manner forced by their
armies, having got the reins, as it were, out of their hands, to
a great encounter and battle, in which Vindex, having seen
twenty thousand of the Gauls destroyed, died by his own hand,
and when the report straight spread abroad, that all desired
Virginius, after this great victory, to take the empire upon
him, or else they would return to Nero again, Galba, in great
alarm at this, wrote to Virginius, exhorting him to join with
him for the preservation of the empire and the liberty of the
Romans, and so retiring with his friends into Clunia, a town in
Spain, he passed away his time, rather repenting his former
rashness, and wishing for his wonted ease and privacy, than
setting about what was fit to be done.
It was now summer, when on a sudden, a little before dusk, comes
a freedman, Icelus by name, having arrived in seven days from
Rome; and being informed where Galba was reposing himself in
private, he went straight on, and pushing by the servants of the
chamber, opened the door and entered the room, and told him,
that Nero being yet alive but not appearing, first the army, and
then the people and senate, declared Galba emperor; not long
after, it was reported that Nero was dead; "but I," said he,
"not giving credit to common fame, went myself to the body and
saw him lying dead, and only then set out to bring you word."
This news at once made Galba great again, and a crowd of people
came hastening to the door, all very confident of the truth of
his tidings, though the speed of the man was almost incredible.
Two days after came Titus Vinius with sundry others from the
camp, who gave an account in detail of the orders of the senate,
and for this service was considerably advanced. On the
freedman, Galba conferred the honor of the gold ring, and
Icelus, as he had been before, now taking the name of Marcianus,
held the first place of the freedmen.
But at Rome, Nymphidius Sabinus, not gently and little by
little, but at once, and without exception, engrossed all power
to himself; Galba, being an old man (seventy-three years of
age), would scarcely, he thought, live long enough to be carried
in a litter to Rome; and the troops in the city were from old
time attached to him, and now bound by the vastness of the
promised gift, for which they regarded him as their benefactor,
and Galba as their debtor. Thus presuming on his interest, he
straightway commanded Tigellinus, who was in joint commission
with himself, to lay down his sword; and giving entertainments,
he invited the former consuls and commanders, making use of
Galba's name for the invitation; but at the same time prepared
many in the camp to propose that a request should be sent to
Galba that he should appoint Nymphidius sole prefect for life
without a colleague. And the modes which the senate took to
show him honor and increase his power, styling him their
benefactor, and attending daily at his gates, and giving him the
compliment of heading with his own name and confirming all their
acts, carried him on to a yet greater degree of arrogance, so
that in a short time he became an object, not only of dislike,
but of terror, to those that sought his favor. When the consuls
themselves had dispatched their couriers with the decrees of the
senate to the emperor, together with the sealed diplomas, which
the authorities in all the towns where horses or carriages are
changed, look at and on that certificate hasten the couriers
forward with all their means, he was highly displeased that his
seal had not been used, and none of his soldiers employed on the
errand. Nay, he even deliberated what course to take with the
consuls themselves, but upon their submission and apology he was
at last pacified. To gratify the people, he did not interfere
with their beating to death any that fell into their hands of
Nero's party. Amongst others, Spiclus, the gladiator, was
killed in the forum by being thrown under Nero's statues, which
they dragged about the place over his body. Aponius, one of
those who had been concerned in accusations, they knocked to the
ground, and drove carts loaded with stones over him. And many
others they tore in pieces, some of them no way guilty, insomuch
that Mauriscus, a person of great account and character, told
the senate that he feared, in a short time, they might wish for
Nero again.
Nymphidius, now advancing towards the consummation of his hopes,
did not refuse to let it be said that he was the son of Caius
Caesar, Tiberius's successor; who, it is told, was well
acquainted with his mother in his early youth, a woman indeed
handsome enough, the off-spring of Callistus, one of Caesar's
freedmen, and a certain seamstress. But it is plain that
Caius's familiarity with his mother was of too late date to give
him any pretensions, and it was suspected he might, if he
pleased, claim a father in Martianus, the gladiator, whom his
mother, Nymphidia, took a passion for, being a famous man in his
way, whom also he much more resembled. However, though he
certainly owned Nymphidia for his mother, he ascribed meantime
the downfall of Nero to himself alone, and thought he was not
sufficiently rewarded with the honors and riches he enjoyed,
(nay, though to all was added the company of Sporus, whom he
immediately sent for while Nero's body was yet burning on the
pile, and treated as his consort, with the name of Poppaea,) but
he must also aspire to the empire. And at Rome he had friends
who took measures for him secretly, as well as some women and
some members of the senate also, who worked underhand to assist
him. And into Spain he dispatched one of his friends, named
Gellianus, to view the posture of affairs.
But all things succeeded well with Galba after Nero's death;
only Virginius Rufus, still standing doubtful, gave him some
anxiety, lest he should listen to the suggestions of some who
encouraged him to take the government upon him, having, at
present, besides the command of a large and warlike army, the
new honors of the defeat of Vindex and the subjugation of one
considerable part of the Roman empire, namely, the entire Gaul,
which had seemed shaking about upon the verge of open revolt.
Nor had any man indeed a greater name and reputation than
Virginius, who had taken a part of so much consequence in the
deliverance of the empire at once from a cruel tyranny and a
Gallic war. But he, standing to his first resolves, reserved to
the senate the power of electing an emperor. Yet when it was
now manifest that Nero was dead, the soldiers pressed him hard
to it, and one of the tribunes, entering his tent with his drawn
sword, bade him either take the government or that. But after
Fabius Valens, having the command of one legion, had first sworn
fealty to Galba, and letters from Rome came with tidings of the
resolves of the senate, at last with much ado he persuaded the
army to declare Galba emperor. And when Flaccus Hordeonius came
by Galba's commission as his successor, he handed over to him
his forces, and went himself to meet Galba on his way, and
having met him, turned back to attend him; in all which no
apparent displeasure nor yet honor was shown him. Galba's
feelings of respect for him prevented the former; the latter was
checked by the envy of his friends, and particularly of Titus
Vinius, who, acting in the desire of hindering Virginius's
promotion, unwittingly aided his happy genius in rescuing him
from those hazards and hardships which other commanders were
involved in, and securing him the safe enjoyment of a quiet life
and peaceable old age.
Near Narbo, a city in Gaul, the deputation of the senate met
Galba, and, after they had delivered their compliments, begged
him to make what haste he could to appear to the people, that
impatiently expected him. He discoursed with them courteously
and unassumingly, and in his entertainment, though Nymphidius
had sent him royal furniture and attendance of Nero's, he put
all aside, and made use of nothing but his own, for which he
was well spoken of, as one who had a great mind, and was
superior to little vanities. But in a short time, Vinius, by
declaring to him that these noble, unpompous, citizen-like ways
were a mere affectation of popularity and a petty bashfulness at
assuming his proper greatness, induced him to make use of Nero's
supplies, and in his entertainments not to be afraid of a regal
sumptuosity. And in more than one way the old man let it
gradually appear that he had put himself under Vinius's
disposal.
Vinius was a person of an excessive covetousness, and not quite
free from blame in respect to women. For being a young man,
newly entered into the service under Calvisius Sabinus, upon his
first campaign, he brought his commander's wife, a licentious
woman, in a soldier's dress, by night into the camp, and was
found with her in the very general's quarters, the principia, as
the Romans call them. For which insolence Caius Caesar cast him
into prison, from whence he was fortunately delivered by Caius's
death. Afterwards, being invited by Claudius Caesar to supper,
he privily conveyed away a silver cup, which Caesar hearing of,
invited him again the next day, and gave order to his servants
to set before him no silver plate, but only earthen ware. And
this offense, through the comic mildness of Caesar's reprimand,
was treated rather as a subject of jest than as a crime. But
the acts to which now, when Galba was in his hands and his power
was so extensive, his covetous temper led him were the causes,
in part, and in part the provocation, of tragical and fatal
mischiefs.
Nymphidius became very uneasy upon the return out of Spain of
Gellianus, whom he had sent to pry into Galba's actions,
understanding that Cornelius Laco was appointed commander of the
court guards, and that Vinius was the great favorite, and that
Gellianus had not been able so much as to come nigh, much less
have any opportunity to offer any words in private, so narrowly
had he been watched and observed. Nymphidius, therefore, called
together the officers of the troops, and declared to them that
Galba of himself was a good, well-meaning old man, but did not
act by his own counsel, and was ill-guided by Vinius and Laco;
and lest, before they were aware, they should engross the
authority Tigellinus had with the troops, he proposed to them to
send deputies from the camp, acquainting him that if he pleased
to remove only these two from his counsel and presence, he would
be much more welcome to all at his arrival. Wherein when he saw
he did not prevail (it seeming absurd and unmannerly to give
rules to an old commander what friends to retain or displace, as
if he had been a youth newly taking the reins of authority into
his hands), adopting another course, he wrote himself to Galba
letters in alarming terms, one while as if the city were
unsettled, and had not yet recovered its tranquillity; then that
Clodius Macer withheld the corn-ships from Africa; that the
legions in Germany began to be mutinous, and that he heard the
like of those in Syria and Judaea. But Galba not minding him
much nor giving credit to his stories, he resolved to make his
attempt beforehand, though Clodius Celsus, a native of Antioch,
a person of sense, and friendly and faithful to Nymphidius, told
him he was wrong, saying he did not believe one single street in
Rome would ever give him the title of Caesar. Nevertheless many
also derided Galba, amongst the rest Mithridates of Pontus,
saying, that as soon as this wrinkled, bald-headed man should be
seen publicly at Rome, they would think it an utter disgrace
ever to have had such a Caesar.
At last it was resolved, about midnight, to bring Nymphidius
into the camp, and declare him emperor. But Antonius Honoratus,
who was first among the tribunes, summoning together in the
evening those under his command, charged himself and them
severely with their many and unreasonable turns and alterations,
made without any purpose or regard to merit, simply as if some
evil genius hurried them from one treason to another. "What
though Nero's miscarriages," said he, "gave some color to your
former acts, can you say you have any plea for betraying Galba
in the death of a mother, the blood of a wife, or the
degradation of the imperial power upon the stage and amongst
players? Neither did we desert Nero for all this, until
Nymphidius had persuaded us that he had first left us and fled
into Egypt. Shall we, therefore, send Galba after, to appease
Nero's shade, and, for the sake of making the son of Nymphidia
emperor, take off one of Livia's family, as we have already the
son of Agrippina? Rather, doing justice on him, let us revenge
Nero's death, and show ourselves true and faithful by preserving
Galba."
The tribune having ended his harangue, the soldiers assented,
and encouraged all they met with to persist in their fidelity to
the emperor, and, indeed, brought over the greatest part. But
presently hearing a great shout, Nymphidius, imagining, as some
say, that the soldiers called for him, or hastening to be in
time to check any opposition and gain the doubtful, came on with
many lights, carrying in his hand a speech in writing, made by
Cingonius Varro, which he had got by heart, to deliver to the
soldiers. But seeing the gates of the camp shut up, and large
numbers standing armed about the walls, he began to be afraid.
Yet drawing nearer, he demanded what they meant, and by whose
orders they were then in arms; but hearing a general
acclamation, all with one consent crying out that Galba was
their emperor, advancing towards them, he joined in the cry, and
likewise commanded those that followed him to do the same. The
guard notwithstanding permitted him to enter the camp only with
a few, where he was presently struck with a dart, which
Septimius, being before him, received on his shield; others,
however, assaulted him with their naked swords, and on his
flying, pursued him into a soldier's cabin, where they slew him.
And dragging his body thence, they placed a railing about it,
and exposed it next day to public view. When Galba heard of
the end which Nymphidius had thus come to, he commanded that all
his confederates who had not at once killed themselves should
immediately be dispatched; amongst whom were Cingonius, who made
his oration, and Mithridates, formerly mentioned. It was,
however, regarded as arbitrary and illegal, and though it might
be just, yet by no means popular, to take off men of their rank
and quality without a hearing. For everyone expected another
scheme of government, being deceived, as is usual, by the first
plausible pretenses; and the death of Petronius Turpilianus, who
was of consular dignity, and had remained faithful to Nero, was
yet more keenly resented. Indeed, the taking off of Macer in
Africa by Trebonius, and Fonteius by Valens in Germany, had a
fair pretense, they being dreaded as armed commanders, having
their soldiers at their bidding; but why refuse Turpilianus, an
old man and unarmed, permission to try to clear himself, if any
part of the moderation and equity at first promised were really
to come to a performance? Such were the comments to which these
actions exposed him. When he came within five and twenty
furlongs or thereabouts of the city, he happened to light on a
disorderly rabble of the seamen, who beset him as he passed.
These were they whom Nero made soldiers, forming them into a
legion. They so rudely crowded to have their commission
confirmed, that they did not let Galba either be seen or heard
by those that had come out to meet their new emperor; but
tumultuously pressed on with loud shouts to have colors to their
legion, and quarters assigned them. Galba put them off until
another time, which they interpreting as a denial, grew more
insolent and mutinous, following and crying out, some of them
with their drawn swords in their hands. Upon seeing which,
Galba commanded the horse to ride over them, when they were soon
routed, not a man standing his ground, and many of them were
slain, both there and in the pursuit; an ill omen, that Galba
should make his first entry through so much blood and among dead
bodies. And now he was looked upon with terror and alarm by any
who had entertained contempt of him at the sight of his age and
apparent infirmities.
But when he desired presently to let it appear what change would
be made from Nero's profuseness and sumptuosity in giving
presents, he much missed his aim, and fell so short of
magnificence, that he scarcely came within the limits of
decency. When Canus, who was a famous musician, played at
supper for him, he expressed his approbation, and bade the bag
be brought to him; and taking a few gold pieces, put them in
with this remark, that it was out of his own purse, and not on
the public account. He ordered the largesses which Nero had
made to actors and wrestlers and such like to be strictly
required again, allowing only the tenth part to be retained;
though it turned to very small account, most of those persons
expending their daily income as fast as they received it, being
rude, improvident livers; upon which he had further inquiry made
as to those who had bought or received from them, and called
upon these people to refund. The trouble was infinite, the
exactions being prosecuted far, touching a great number of
persons, bringing disrepute on Galba, and general hatred on
Vinius, who made the emperor appear base-minded and mean to the
world, whilst he himself was spending profusely, taking whatever
he could get, and selling to any buyer. Hesiod tells us to
drink without stinting of
The end and the beginning of the cask.
And Vinius, seeing his patron old and decaying, made the most of
what he considered to be at once the first of his fortune and
the last of it.
Thus the aged man suffered in two ways: first, through the evil
deeds which Vinius did himself, and, next, by his preventing or
bringing into disgrace those just acts which he himself
designed. Such was the punishing Nero's adherents. When he
destroyed the bad, amongst whom were Helius, Polycletus,
Petinus, and Patrobius, the people mightily applauded the act,
crying out, as they were dragged through the forum, that it was
a goodly sight, grateful to the gods themselves, adding,
however, that the gods and men alike demanded justice on
Tigellinus, the very tutor and prompter of all the tyranny.
This good man, however, had taken his measures beforehand, in
the shape of a present and a promise to Vinius. Turpilianus
could not be allowed to escape with life, though his one and
only crime had been that he had not betrayed or shown hatred to
such a ruler as Nero. But he who had made Nero what he became,
and afterwards deserted and betrayed him whom he had so
corrupted, was allowed to survive as an instance that Vinius
could do anything, and an advertisement that those that had
money to give him need despair of nothing. The people, however,
were so possessed with the desire of seeing Tigellinus dragged
to execution, that they never ceased to require it at the
theater and in the race-course, till they were checked by an
edict from the emperor himself, announcing that Tigellinus could
not live long, being wasted with a consumption, and requesting
them not to seek to make his government appear cruel and
tyrannical. So the dissatisfied populace were laughed at, and
Tigellinus made a splendid feast, and sacrificed in thanksgiving
for his deliverance: and after supper, Vinius, rising from the
emperor's table, went to revel with Tigellinus, taking his
daughter, a widow, with him; to whom Tigellinus presented his
compliments, with a gift of twenty-five myriads of money, and
bade the superintendent of his concubines take off a rich
necklace from her own neck and tie it about hers, the value of
it being estimated at fifteen myriads.
After this, even reasonable acts were censured; as, for example,
the treatment of the Gauls who had been in the conspiracy with
Vindex. For people looked upon their abatement of tribute and
admission to citizenship as a piece, not of clemency on the part
of Galba, but of money-making on that of Vinius. And thus the
mass of the people began to look with dislike upon the
government. The soldiers were kept on a while in expectation of
the promised donative, supposing that if they did not receive
the full, yet they should have at least as much as Nero gave
them. But when Galba, on hearing they began to complain,
declared greatly, and like a general, that he was used to enlist
and not to buy his soldiers, when they heard of this, they
conceived an implacable hatred against him; for he did not seem
to defraud them merely himself in their present expectations,
but to give an ill precedent, and instruct his successors to do
the like. This heart-burning, however, was as yet at Rome a
thing undeclared, and a certain respect for Galba's personal
presence somewhat retarded their motions, and took off their
edge, and their having no obvious occasion for beginning a
revolution curbed and kept under, more or less, their
resentments. But those forces that had been formerly under
Virginius, and now were under Flaccus in Germany, valuing
themselves much upon the battle they had fought with Vindex, and
finding now no advantage of it, grew very refractory and
intractable towards their officers: and Flaccus they wholly
disregarded, being incapacitated in body by unintermitted gout,
and, besides, a man of little experience in affairs. So at one
of their festivals, when it was customary for the officers of
the army to wish all health and happiness to the emperor, the
common soldiers began to murmur loudly, and on their officers
persisting in the ceremony, responded with the words, "If he
deserves it."
When some similar insolence was committed by the legions under
Vitellius, frequent letters with the information came to Galba
from his agents; and taking alarm at this, and fearing that he
might be despised not only for his old age, but also for want of
issue, he determined to adopt some young man of distinction, and
declare him his successor. There was at this time in the city
Marcus Otho, a person of fair extraction, but from his childhood
one of the few most debauched, voluptuous, and luxurious livers
in Rome. And as Homer gives Paris in several places the title
of "fair Helen's love," making a woman's name the glory and
addition to his, as if he had nothing else to distinguish him,
so Otho was renowned in Rome for nothing more than his marriage
with Poppaea, whom Nero had a passion for when she was
Crispinus's wife. But being as yet respectful to his own wife,
and standing in awe of his mother, he engaged Otho underhand to
solicit her. For Nero lived familiarly with Otho, whose
prodigality won his favor, and he was well pleased when he took
the freedom to jest upon him as mean and penurious. Thus when
Nero one day perfumed himself with some rich essence and favored
Otho with a sprinkle of it, he, entertaining Nero next day,
ordered gold and silver pipes to disperse the like on a sudden
freely, like water, throughout the room. As to Poppaea, he was
beforehand with Nero, and first seducing her himself, then, with
the hope of Nero's favor, he prevailed with her to part with her
husband, and brought her to his own house as his wife, and was
not content afterwards to have a share in her, but grudged to
have Nero for a claimant, Poppaea herself, they say, being
rather pleased than otherwise with this jealousy; she sometimes
excluded Nero, even when Otho was not present, either to prevent
his getting tired with her, or, as some say, not liking the
prospect of an imperial marriage, though willing enough to have
the emperor as her lover. So that Otho ran the risk of his
life, and strange it was he escaped, when Nero, for this very
marriage, killed his wife and sister. But he was beholden to
Seneca's friendship, by whose persuasions and entreaty Nero was
prevailed with to dispatch him as praetor into Lusitania, on the
shores of the Ocean; where he behaved himself very agreeably and
indulgently to those he had to govern, well knowing this command
was but to color and disguise his banishment.
When Galba revolted from Nero, Otho was the first governor of
any of the provinces that came over to him, bringing all the
gold and silver he possessed in the shape of cups and tables, to
be coined into money, and also what servants he had fitly
qualified to wait upon a prince. In all other points, too, he
was faithful to him, and gave him sufficient proof that he was
inferior to none in managing public business. And he so far
ingratiated himself, that he rode in the same carriage with him
during the whole journey, several days together. And in this
journey and familiar companionship, he won over Vinius also,
both by his conversation and presents, but especially by
conceding to him the first place, securing the second, by his
interest, for himself. And he had the advantage of him in
avoiding all odium and jealousy, assisting all petitioners,
without asking for any reward, and appearing courteous and of
easy access towards all, especially to the military men, for
many of whom he obtained commands, some immediately from the
emperor, others by Vinius's means, and by the assistance of the
two favorite freedmen, Icelus and Asiaticus, these being the
men in chief power in the court. As often as he entertained
Galba, he gave the cohort on duty, in addition to their pay, a
piece of gold for every man there, upon pretense of respect to
the emperor, while really he undermined him, and stole away his
popularity with the soldiers.
So Galba consulting about a successor, Vinius introduced Otho,
yet not even this gratis, but upon promise that he would marry
his daughter, if Galba should make him his adopted son and
successor to the empire. But Galba, in all his actions, showed
clearly that he preferred the public good before his own private
interest, not aiming so much to pleasure himself as to advantage
the Romans by his selection. Indeed he does not seem to have
been so much as inclined to make choice of Otho, had it been but
to inherit his own private fortune, knowing his extravagant and
luxurious character, and that he was already plunged in debt
five thousand myriads deep. So he listened to Vinius, and made
no reply, but mildly suspended his determination. Only he
appointed himself consul, and Vinius his colleague, and it was
the general expectation that he would declare his successor at
the beginning of the new year. And the soldiers desired nothing
more than that Otho should be the person.
But the forces in Germany broke out into their mutiny whilst he
was yet deliberating, and anticipated his design. All the
soldiers in general felt much resentment against Galba for not
having given them their expected largess but these troops made a
pretense of a more particular concern, that Virginius Rufus was
cast off dishonorably, and that the Gauls who had fought with
them were well rewarded, while those who had refused to take
part with Vindex were punished; and Galba's thanks seemed all to
be for him, to whose memory he had done honor after his death
with public solemnities as though he had been made emperor by
his means only. Whilst these discourses passed openly
throughout the army, on the first day of the first month of the
year, the Calends, as they call it, of January, Flaccus
summoning them to take the usual anniversary oath of fealty to
the emperor, they overturned and pulled down Galba's statues,
and having sworn in the name of the senate and people of Rome,
departed. But the officers now feared anarchy and confusion, as
much as rebellion; and one of them came forward and said: "What
will become of us, my fellow-soldiers, if we neither set up
another general, nor retain the present one? This will be not
so much to desert from Galba as to decline all subjection and
command. It is useless to try and maintain Flaccus Hordeonius,
who is but a mere shadow and image of Galba. But Vitellius,
commander of the other Germany, is but one day's march distant,
whose father was censor and thrice consul, and in a manner
co-emperor with Claudius Caesar; and he himself has the best
proof to show of his bounty and largeness of mind, in the
poverty with which some reproach him. Him let us make choice
of, that all may see we know how to choose an emperor better
than either Spaniards or Lusitanians." Which motion whilst some
assented to, and others gainsaid, a certain standard-bearer
slipped out and carried the news to Vitellius, who was
entertaining much company by night. This, taking air, soon
passed through the troops, and Fabius Valens, who commanded one
legion, riding up next day with a large body of horse, saluted
Vitellius emperor. He had hitherto seemed to decline it,
professing a dread he had to undertake the weight of the
government; but on this day, being fortified, they say, by wine
and a plentiful noonday repast, he began to yield, and submitted
to take on him the title of Germanicus they gave him, but
desired to be excused as to that of Caesar. And immediately the
army under Flaccus also, putting away their fine and popular
oaths in the name of the senate, swore obedience to Vitellius as
emperor, to observe whatever he commanded.
Thus Vitellius was publicly proclaimed emperor in Germany; which
news coming to Galba's ear, he no longer deferred his adoption;
yet knowing that some of his friends were using their interest
for Dolabella, and the greatest number of them for Otho, neither
of whom he approved of, on a sudden, without anyone's privity,
he sent for Piso, the son of Crassus and Scribonia, whom Nero
slew, a young man in general of excellent dispositions for
virtue, but his most eminent qualities those of steadiness and
austere gravity. And so he set out to go to the camp to declare
him Caesar and successor to the empire. But at his very first
going forth, many signs appeared in the heavens, and when he
began to make a speech to the soldiers, partly extempore, and
partly reading it, the frequent claps of thunder and flashes of
lightning and the violent storm of rain that burst on both the
camp and the city were plain discoveries that the divine powers
did not look with favor or satisfaction on this act of adoption,
that would come to no good result. The soldiers, also, showed
symptoms of hidden discontent, and wore sullen looks, no
distribution of money being even now made to them. However,
those that were present and observed Piso's countenance and
voice could not but feel admiration to see him so little
overcome by so great a favor, of the magnitude of which at the
same time he seemed not at all insensible. Otho's aspect, on
the other hand, did not fail to let many marks appear of his
bitterness and anger at his disappointment; since to have been
the first man thought of for it, and to have come to the very
point of being chosen, and now to be put by, was in his feelings
a sign of the displeasure and ill-will of Galba towards him.
This filled him with fears and apprehensions, and sent him home
with a mind full of various passions, whilst he dreaded Piso,
hated Galba, and was full of wrath and indignation against
Vinius. And the Chaldeans and soothsayers about him would not
permit him to lay aside his hopes or quit his design, chiefly
Ptolemaeus, insisting much on a prediction he had made, that
Nero should not murder Otho, but he himself should die first,
and Otho succeed as emperor; for the first proving true, he
thought he could not distrust the rest. But none perhaps
stimulated him more than those that professed privately to pity
his hard fate and compassionate him for being thus ungratefully
dealt with by Galba; especially Nymphidius's and Tigellinus's
creatures, who, being now cast off and reduced to low estate,
were eager to put themselves upon him, exclaiming at the
indignity he had suffered, and provoking him to revenge himself.
Amongst these were Veturius and Barbius, the one an optio, the
other a tesserarius (these are men who have the duties of
messengers and scouts), with whom Onomastus, one of Otho's
freedmen, went to the camp, to tamper with the army, and brought
over some with money, others with fair promises, which was no
hard matter, they being already corrupted, and only wanting a
fair pretense. It had been otherwise more than the work of four
days (which elapsed between the adoption and murder) so
completely to infect them as to cause a general revolt. On the
sixth day ensuing, the eighteenth, as the Romans call it,
before the Calends of February, the murder was done. On that
day, in the morning, Galba sacrificed in the Palatium, in the
presence of his friends, when Umbricius, the priest, taking up
the entrails, and speaking not ambiguously, but in plain words,
said that there were signs of great troubles ensuing, and
dangerous snares laid for the life of the emperor. Thus Otho
had even been discovered by the finger of the god; being there
just behind Galba, hearing all that was said, and seeing what
was pointed out to them by Umbricius. His countenance changed
to every color in his fear, and he was betraying no small
discomposure, when Onomastus, his freedman, came up and
acquainted him that the master-builders had come, and were
waiting for him at home. Now that was the signal for Otho to
meet the soldiers. Pretending then that he had purchased an old
house, and was going to show the defects to those that had sold
it to him, he departed; and passing through what is called
Tiberius's house, he went on into the forum, near the spot
where a golden pillar stands, at which all the several roads
through Italy terminate.
Here, it is related, no more than twenty-three received and
saluted him emperor; so that, although he was not in mind as in
body enervated with soft living and effeminacy, being in his
nature bold and fearless enough in danger, nevertheless, he was
afraid to go on. But the soldiers that were present would not
suffer him to recede, but came with their drawn swords about his
chair, commanding the bearers to take him up, whom he hastened
on, saying several times over to himself, "I am a lost man."
Several persons overheard the words, who stood by wondering,
rather than alarmed, because of the small number that attempted
such an enterprise. But as they marched on through the forum,
about as many more met him, and here and there three or four at
a time joined in. Thus returning towards the camp, with their
bare swords in their hands, they saluted him as Caesar;
whereupon Martialis, the tribune in charge of the watch, who
was, they say, noways privy to it, but was simply surprised at
the unexpectedness of the thing, and afraid to refuse, permitted
him entrance. And after this, no man made any resistance; for
they that knew nothing of the design, being purposely
encompassed by the conspirators, as they were straggling here
and there, first submitted for fear, and afterwards were
persuaded into compliance. Tidings came immediately to Galba in
the Palatium, whilst the priest was still present and the
sacrifices at hand, so that persons who were most entirely
incredulous about such things, and most positive in their
neglect of them, were astonished, and began to marvel at the
divine event. A multitude of all sorts of people now began to
run together out of the forum; Vinius and Laco and some of
Galba's freedmen drew their swords and placed themselves beside
him; Piso went forth and addressed himself to the guards on duty
in the court; and Marius Celsus, a brave man, was dispatched to
the Illyrian legion, stationed in what is called the Vipsanian
chamber, to secure them.
Galba now consulting whether he should go out, Vinius dissuaded
him, but Celsus and Laco encouraged him by all means to do so,
and sharply reprimanded Vinius. But on a sudden a rumor came
hot that Otho was slain in the camp; and presently appeared one
Julius Atticus, a man of some distinction in the guards, running
up with his drawn sword, crying out that he had slain Caesar's
enemy; and pressing through the crowd that stood in his way, he
presented himself before Galba with his bloody weapon, who,
looking on him, demanded, "Who gave you your orders?" And on
his answering that it had been his duty and the obligation of
the oath he had taken, the people applauded, giving loud
acclamations, and Galba got into his chair and was carried out
to sacrifice to Jupiter, and so to show himself publicly. But
coming into the forum, there met him there, like a turn of wind,
the opposite story, that Otho had made himself master of the
camp. And as usual in a crowd of such a size, some called to
him to return back, others to move forward; some encouraged him
to be bold and fear nothing, others bade him be cautious and
distrust. And thus whilst his chair was tossed to and fro, as
it were on the waves, often tottering, there appeared first
horse, and straightaway heavy-armed foot, coming through
Paulus's court, and all with one accord crying out, "Down with
this private man." Upon this, the crowd of people set off
running, not to fly and disperse, but to possess themselves of
the colonnades and elevated places of the forum, as it might be
to get places to see a spectacle. And as soon as Atillius
Vergilio knocked down one of Galba's statues, this was taken as
the declaration of war, and they sent a discharge of darts upon
Galba's litter, and, missing their aim, came up and attacked him
nearer hand with their naked swords. No man resisted or offered
to stand up in his defense, save one only, a centurion,
Sempronius Densus, the single man among so many thousands that
the sun beheld that day act worthily of the Roman empire, who,
though he had never received any favor from Galba, yet out of
bravery and allegiance endeavored to defend the litter. First,
lifting up his switch of vine, with which the centurions correct
the soldiers when disorderly, he called aloud to the aggressors,
charging them not to touch their emperor. And when they came
upon him hand to hand, he drew his sword, and made a defense for
a long time, until at last he was cut under the knees and
brought to the ground.
Galba's chair was upset at the spot called the Lacus Curtius,
where they ran up and struck at him as he lay in his corslet.
He, however, offered his throat, bidding them "Strike, if it be
for the Romans' good." He received several wounds on his legs
and arms, and at last was struck in the throat, as most say, by
one Camurius, a soldier of the fifteenth legion. Some name
Terentius, others Lecanius; and there are others that say it was
Fabius Falulus, who, it is reported, cut off the head and
carried it away in the skirt of his coat, the baldness making it
a difficult thing to take hold of. But those that were with him
would not allow him to keep it covered up, but bade him let
everyone see the brave deed he had done; so that after a while
he stuck upon the lance the head of the aged man that had been
their grave and temperate ruler, their supreme priest and
consul, and, tossing it up in the air, ran like a bacchanal,
twirling and flourishing with it, while the blood ran down the
spear. But when they brought the head to Otho,
"Fellow-soldiers," he cried out, "this is nothing, unless you
show me Piso's too," which was presented him not long after.
The young man, retreating upon a wound received, was pursued by
one Murcus, and slain at the temple of Vesta. Titus Vinius was
also dispatched, avowing himself to have been privy to the
conspiracy against Galba by calling out that they were killing
him contrary to Otho's pleasure. However, they cut off his
head, and Laco's too, and brought them to Otho, requesting a
boon.
And as Archilochus says --
When six or seven lie breathless on the ground,
'Twas I, 'twas I, say thousands, gave the wound.
Thus many that had no share in the murder wetted their hands and
swords in blood, and came and showed them to Otho, presenting
memorials suing for a gratuity. Not less than one hundred and
twenty were identified afterwards from their written petitions;
all of whom Vitellius sought out and put to death. There came
also into the camp Marius Celsus, and was accused by many voices
of encouraging the soldiers to assist Galba, and was demanded to
death by the multitude. Otho had no desire for this, yet,
fearing an absolute denial, he professed that he did not wish to
take him off so soon, having many matters yet to learn from him;
and so committed him safe to the custody of those he most
confided in.
Forthwith a senate was convened, and as if they were not the
same men, or had other gods to swear by, they took that oath in
Otho's name which he himself had taken in Galba's and had
broken; and withal conferred on him the titles of Caesar and
Augustus; whilst the dead carcasses of the slain lay yet in
their consular robes in the marketplace. As for their heads,
when they could make no other use of them, Vinius's they sold to
his daughter for two thousand five hundred drachmas; Piso's was
begged by his wife Verania; Galba's they gave to Patrobius's
servants; who when they had it, after all sorts of abuse and
indignities, tumbled it into the place where those that suffer
death by the emperor's orders are usually cast, called
Sessorium. Galba's body was conveyed away by Priscus Helvidius
by Otho's permission, and buried in the night by Argius, his
freedman.
Thus you have the history of Galba, a person inferior to few
Romans, either for birth or riches, rather exceeding all of his
time in both, having lived in great honor and reputation in the
reigns of five emperors, insomuch that he overthrew Nero rather
by his fame and repute in the world than by actual force and
power. Of all the others that joined in Nero's deposition, some
were by general consent regarded as unworthy, others had only
themselves to vote them deserving of the empire. To him the
title was offered, and by him it was accepted; and simply
lending his name to Vindex's attempt, he gave to what had been
called rebellion before, the name of a civil war, by the
presence of one that was accounted fit to govern. And,
therefore, as he considered that he had not so much sought the
position as the position had sought him, he proposed to command
those whom Nymphidius and Tigellinus had wheedled into
obedience, no otherwise than Scipio formerly and Fabricius and
Camillus had commanded the Romans of their times. But being now
overcome with age, he was indeed among the troops and legions an
upright ruler upon the antique model; but for the rest, giving
himself up to Vinius, Laco, and his freedmen, who made their
gain of all things, no otherwise than Nero had done to his
insatiate favorites, he left none behind him to wish him still
in power, though many to compassionate his death.
OTHO
The new emperor went early in the morning to the capitol, and
sacrificed; and, having commanded Marius Celsus to be brought,
he saluted him, and with obliging language desired him rather to
forget his accusation than remember his acquittal; to which
Celsus answered neither meanly nor ungratefully, that his very
crime ought to recommend his integrity, since his guilt had been
his fidelity to Galba, from whom he had never received any
personal obligations. Upon which they were both of them admired
by those that were present, and applauded by the soldiers.
In the senate, Otho said much in a gentle and popular strain.
He was to have been consul for part of that year himself, but he
gave the office to Virginius Rufus, and displaced none that had
been named for the consulship by either Nero or Galba. Those
that were remarkable for their age and dignity he promoted to
the priest-hoods; and restored the remains of their fortunes,
that had not yet been sold, to all those senators that were
banished by Nero and recalled by Galba. So that the nobility
and chief of the people, who were at first apprehensive that no
human creature, but some supernatural penal, or vindictive power
had seized the empire, began now to flatter themselves with
hopes of a government that smiled upon them thus early.
Besides, nothing gratified or gained the whole Roman people more
than his justice in relation to Tigellinus. It was not seen how
he was in fact already suffering punishment, not only by the
very terror of retribution which he saw the whole city requiring
as a just debt, but with several incurable diseases also; not to
mention those unhallowed frightful excesses among impure and
prostituted women, to which, at the very close of life, his lewd
nature clung, and in them gasped out, as it were, its last;
these, in the opinion of all reasonable men, being themselves
the extremest punishment, and equal to many deaths. But it was
felt like a grievance by people in general that he continued yet
to see the light of day, who had been the occasion of the loss
of it to so many persons, and such persons, as had died by his
means. Wherefore Otho ordered him to be sent for, just as he
was contriving his escape by means of some vessels that lay
ready for him on the coast near where he lived, in the
neighborhood of Sinuessa. At first he endeavored to corrupt the
messenger, by a large sum of money, to favor his design; but
when he found this was to no purpose, he made him as
considerable a present, as if he had really connived at it, only
entreating him to stay till he had shaved; and so took that
opportunity, and with his razor dispatched himself.
And while giving the people this most righteous satisfaction of
their desires, for himself he seemed to have no sort of regard
for any private injuries of his own. And at first, to please
the populace, he did not refuse to be called Nero in the
theater, and did not interfere when some persons displayed
Nero's statues to public view. And Cluvius Rufus says,
imperial letters, such as are sent with couriers, went into
Spain with the name of Nero affixed adoptively to that of Otho;
but as soon as he perceived this gave offense to the chief and
most distinguished citizens, it was omitted.
After he had begun to model the government in this manner, the
paid soldiers began to murmur, and endeavored to make him
suspect and chastise the nobility, either really out of a
concern for his safety, or wishing, upon this pretense, to stir
up trouble and warfare. Thus, whilst Crispinus, whom he had
ordered to bring him the seventeenth cohort from Ostia, began to
collect what he wanted after it was dark, and was putting the
arms upon the wagons, some of the most turbulent cried out that
Crispinus was disaffected, that the senate was practicing
something against the emperor, and that those arms were to be
employed against Caesar, and not for him. When this report was
once set afoot, it got the belief and excited the passions of
many; they broke out into violence; some seized the wagons, and
others slew Crispinus and two centurions that opposed them; and
the whole number of them, arraying themselves in their arms, and
encouraging one another to stand by Caesar, marched to Rome.
And hearing there that eighty of the senators were at supper
with Otho, they flew to the palace, and declared it was a fair
opportunity to take off Caesar's enemies at one stroke. A
general alarm ensued of an immediate coming sack of the city.
All were in confusion about the palace, and Otho himself in no
small consternation, being not only concerned for the senators
(some of whom had brought their wives to supper thither), but
also feeling himself to be an object of alarm and suspicion to
them, whose eyes he saw fixed on him in silence and terror.
Therefore he gave orders to the prefects to address the soldiers
and do their best to pacify them, while he bade the guests rise,
and leave by another door. They had only just made their way
out, when the soldiers rushed into the room, and called out,
"Where are Caesar's enemies?" Then Otho, standing up on his
couch, made use both of arguments and entreaties, and by actual
tears at last, with great difficulty, persuaded them to desist.
The next day he went to the camp, and distributed a bounty of
twelve hundred and fifty drachmas a man amongst them; then
commended them for the regard and zeal they had for his safety,
but told them, that there were some who were intriguing among
them, who not only accused his own clemency, but had also
misrepresented their loyalty; and, therefore, he desired their
assistance in doing justice upon them. To which when they all
consented, he was satisfied with the execution of two only,
whose deaths he knew would be regretted by no one man in the
whole army.
Such conduct, so little expected from him, was rewarded by some
with gratitude and confidence; others looked upon his behavior
as a course to which necessity drove him, to gain the people to
the support of the war. For now there were certain tidings that
Vitellius had assumed the sovereign title and authority, and
frequent expresses brought accounts of new accessions to him;
others, however, came, announcing that the Pannonian, Dalmatian,
and Moesian legions, with their officers, adhered to Otho.
Erelong also came favorable letters from Mucianus and Vespasian,
generals of two formidable armies, the one in Syria, the other
in Judaea, to assure him of their firmness to his interest: in
confidence whereof he was so exalted, that he wrote to Vitellius
not to attempt anything beyond his post; and offered him large
sums of money and a city, where he might live his time out in
pleasure and ease. These overtures at first were responded to
by Vitellius with equivocating civilities; which soon, however,
turned into an interchange of angry words; and letters passed
between the two, conveying bitter and shameful terms of
reproach, which were not false indeed, for that matter, only it
was senseless and ridiculous for each to assail the other with
accusations to which both alike must plead guilty. For it were
hard to determine which of the two had been most profuse, most
effeminate, which was most a novice in military affairs, and
most involved in debt through previous want of means.
As to the prodigies and apparitions that happened about this
time, there were many reported which none could answer for, or
which were told in different ways, but one which everybody
actually saw with their eyes was the statue in the capitol, of
Victory carried in a chariot, with the reins dropped out of her
hands, as if she were grown too weak to hold them any longer;
and a second, that Caius Caesar's statue in the island of
Tiber, without any earthquake or wind to account for it, turned
round from west to east; and this they say, happened about the
time when Vespasian and his party first openly began to put
themselves forward. Another incident, which the people in
general thought an evil sign, was the inundation of the Tiber;
for though it happened at a time when rivers are usually at
their fullest, yet such height of water and so tremendous a
flood had never been known before, nor such a destruction of
property, great part of the city being under water, and
especially the corn market, so that it occasioned a great dearth
for several days.
But when news was now brought that Caecina and Valens,
commanding for Vitellius, had possessed themselves of the Alps,
Otho sent Dolabella (a patrician, who was suspected by the
soldiery of some ill design), for whatever reason, whether it
were fear of him or of anyone else, to the town of Aquinum, to
give encouragement there; and proceeding then to choose which of
the magistrates should go with him to the war, he named amongst
the rest Lucius, Vitellius's brother, without distinguishing him
by any new marks either of his favor or displeasure. He also
took the greatest precautions for Vitellius's wife and mother,
that they might be safe, and free from all apprehension for
themselves. He made Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian's brother,
governor of Rome, either in honor to the memory of Nero, who had
advanced him formerly to that command, which Galba had taken
away, or else to show his confidence in Vespasian by his favor
to his brother.
After he came to Brixillum, a town of Italy near the Po, he
stayed behind himself, and ordered the army to march under the
conduct of Marius Celsus, Suetonius Paulinus, Gallus, and
Spurina, all men of experience and reputation, but unable to
carry their own plans and purposes into effect, by reason of the
ungovernable temper of the army, which would take orders from
none but the emperor whom they themselves had made their master.
Nor was the enemy under much better discipline, the soldiers
there also being haughty and disobedient upon the same account,
but they were more experienced and used to hard work; whereas
Otho's men were soft from their long easy living and lack of
service, having spent most of their time in theaters and at
state-shows and on the stage; while moreover they tried to cover
their deficiencies by arrogance and vain display, pretending to
decline their duty not because they were unable to do the thing
commanded but because they thought themselves above it. So that
Spurina had like to have been cut in pieces for attempting to
force them to their work; they assailed him with insolent
language, accusing him of a design to betray and ruin Caesar's
interest; nay, some of them that were in drink forced his tent
in the night, and demanded money for the expenses of their
journey, which they must at once take, they said, to the
emperor, to complain of him.
However, the contemptuous treatment they met with at Placentia
did for the present good service to Spurina, and to the cause of
Otho. For Vitellius's men marched up to the walls, and
upbraided Otho's upon the ramparts, calling them players,
dancers, idle spectators of Pythian and Olympic games, but
novices in the art of war, who never so much as looked on at a
battle; mean souls, that triumphed in the beheading of Galba, an
old man unarmed, but had no desire to look real enemies in the
face. Which reproaches so inflamed them, that they kneeled at
Spurina's feet, entreated him to give his orders, and assured
him no danger or toil should be too great or too difficult for
them. Whereupon when Vitellius's forces made a vigorous attack
on the town, and brought up numerous engines against the walls,
the besieged bravely repulsed them, and, repelling the enemy
with great slaughter, secured the safety of a noble city, one of
the most flourishing places in Italy.
Besides, it was observed that Otho's officers were much more
inoffensive, both towards the public and to private men, than
those of Vitellius; among whom was Caecina, who used neither the
language nor the apparel of a citizen; an overbearing,
foreign-seeming man, of gigantic stature and always dressed in
trews and sleeves, after the manner of the Gauls, whilst he
conversed with Roman officials and magistrates. His wife, too,
traveled along with him, riding in splendid attire on horseback,
with a chosen body of cavalry to escort her. And Fabius Valens,
the other general, was so rapacious, that neither what he
plundered from enemies nor what he stole or got as gifts and
bribes from his friends and allies could satisfy his wishes.
And it was said that it was in order to have time to raise money
that he had marched so slowly that he was not present at the
former attack. But some lay the blame on Caecina, saying, that
out of a desire to gain the victory by himself before Fabius
joined him, he committed sundry other errors of lesser
consequence, and by engaging unseasonably and when he could not
do so thoroughly, he very nearly brought all to ruin.
When he found himself beat off at Placentia, he set off to
attack Cremona, another large and rich city. In the meantime,
Annius Gallus marched to join Spurina at Placentia; but having
intelligence that the siege was raised, and that Cremona was in
danger, he turned to its relief, and encamped just by the enemy,
where he was daily reinforced by other officers. Caecina placed
a strong ambush of heavy infantry in some rough and woody
country, and gave orders to his horse to advance, and if the
enemy should charge them, then to make a slow retreat, and draw
them into the snare. But his stratagem was discovered by some
deserters to Celsus, who attacked with a good body of horse, but
followed the pursuit cautiously, and succeeded in surrounding
and routing the troops in the ambuscade; and if the infantry
which he ordered up from the camp had come soon enough to
sustain the horse, Caecina's whole army, in all appearance, had
been totally routed. But Paulinus, moving too slowly, was
accused of acting with a degree of needless caution not to have
been expected from one of his reputation. So that the soldiers
incensed Otho against him, accused him of treachery, and boasted
loudly that the victory had been in their power, and that if it
was not complete, it was owing to the mismanagement of their
generals; all which Otho did not so much believe as he was
willing to appear not to disbelieve. He therefore sent his
brother Titianus, with Proculus, the prefect of the guards, to
the army, where the latter was general in reality, and the
former in appearance. Celsus and Paulinus had the title of
friends and counselors, but not the least authority or power.
At the same time, there was nothing but quarrel and disturbance
amongst the enemy, especially where Valens commanded; for the
soldiers here, being informed of what had happened at the
ambuscade, were enraged because they had not been permitted to
be present to strike a blow in defense of the lives of so many
men that had died in that action. Valens, with much difficulty,
quieted their fury, after they had now begun to throw missiles
at him, and quitting his camp, joined Caecina.
About this time, Otho came to Bedriacum, a little town near
Cremona, to the camp, and called a council of war; where
Proculus and Titianus declared for giving battle, while the
soldiers were flushed with their late success, saying they ought
not to lose their time and opportunity and present height of
strength, and wait for Vitellius to arrive out of Gaul. But
Paulinus told them that the enemy's whole force was present, and
that there was no body of reserve behind; but that Otho, if he
would not be too precipitate, and choose the enemy's time,
instead of his own, for the battle, might expect reinforcements
out of Moesia and Pannonia, not inferior in numbers to the
troops that were already present. He thought it probable, too,
that the soldiers, who were then in heart before they were
joined, would not be less so when the forces were all come up.
Besides, the deferring battle could not be inconvenient to them
that were sufficiently provided with all necessaries; but the
others, being in an enemy's country, must needs be exceedingly
straitened in a little time. Marius Celsus was of Paulinus's
opinion; Annius Gallus, being absent and under the surgeon's
hands through a fall from his horse, was consulted by letter,
and advised Otho to stay for those legions that were marching
from Moesia. But after all he did not follow the advice; and
the opinion of those that declared for a battle prevailed.
There are several reasons given for this determination, but the
most apparent is this; that the praetorian soldiers, as they are
called, who serve as guards, not relishing the military
discipline which they now had begun a little more to experience,
and longing for their amusements and unwarlike life among the
shows of Rome, would not be commanded, but were eager for a
battle, imagining that upon the first onset they should carry
all before them. Otho also himself seems not to have shown the
proper fortitude in bearing up against the uncertainty, and, out
of effeminacy and want of use, had not patience for the
calculations of danger, and was so uneasy at the apprehension of
it, that he shut his eyes, and like one going to leap from a
precipice, left everything to fortune. This is the account
Secundus the rhetorician, who was his secretary, gave of the
matter. But others would tell you that there were many
movements in both armies for acting in concert; and if it were
possible for them to agree, then they should proceed to choose
one of their most experienced officers that were present; if
not, they should convene the senate, and invest it with the
power of election. And it is not improbable that, neither of
the emperors then bearing the title having really any
reputation, such purposes were really entertained among the
genuine, serviceable, and sober-minded part of the soldiers.
For what could be more odious and unreasonable than that the
evils which the Roman citizens had formerly thought it so
lamentable to inflict upon each other for the sake of a Sylla or
a Marius, a Caesar or a Pompey, should now be undergone anew,
for the object of letting the empire pay the expenses of the
gluttony and intemperance of Vitellius, or the looseness and
effeminacy of Otho? It is thought that Celsus, upon such
reflections, protracted the time in order to a possible
accommodation; and that Otho pushed on things to an extremity to
prevent it.
He himself returned to Brixillum, which was another false step,
both because he withdrew from the combatants all the motives of
respect and desire to gain his favor, which his presence would
have supplied, and because he weakened the army by detaching
some of his best and most faithful troops for his horse and foot
guards.
About the same time also happened a skirmish on the Po. As
Caecina was laying a bridge over it, Otho's men attacked him,
and tried to prevent it. And when they did not succeed, on
their putting into their boats torchwood with a quantity of
sulphur and pitch, the wind on the river suddenly caught their
material that they had prepared against the enemy, and blew it
into a light. First came smoke, and then a clear flame, and the
men, getting into great confusion and jumping overboard, upset
the boats, and put themselves ludicrously at the mercy of their
enemies. Also the Germans attacked Otho's gladiators upon a
small island in the river, routed them, and killed a good many.
All which made the soldiers at Bedriacum full of anger, and
eagerness to be led to battle. So Proculus led them out of
Bedriacum to a place fifty furlongs off, where he pitched his
camp so ignorantly and with such a ridiculous want of foresight,
that the soldiers suffered extremely for want of water, though
it was the spring time, and the plains all around were full of
running streams and rivers that never dried up. The next day he
proposed to attack the enemy, first making a march of not less
than a hundred furlongs; but to this Paulinus objected, saying
they ought to wait, and not immediately after a journey engage
men who would have been standing in their arms and arranging
themselves for battle at their leisure, whilst they were making
a long march with all their beasts of burden and their camp
followers to encumber them. As the generals were arguing about
this matter, a Numidian courier came from Otho with orders to
lose no time, but give battle. Accordingly they consented, and
moved. As soon as Caecina had notice, he was much surprised,
and quitted his post on the river to hasten to the camp. In the
meantime, the men had armed themselves mostly, and were
receiving the word from Valens; so while the legions took up
their position, they sent out the best of their horse in
advance.
Otho's foremost troops, upon some groundless rumor, took up the
notion that the commanders on the other side would come over;
and accordingly, upon their first approach, they saluted them
with the friendly title of fellow-soldiers. But the others
returned the compliment with anger and disdainful words; which
not only disheartened those that had given the salutation, but
excited suspicions of their fidelity amongst the others on their
side, who had not. This caused a confusion at the very first
onset. And nothing else that followed was done upon any plan;
the baggage-carriers, mingling up with the fighting men, created
great disorder and division, as well as the nature of the
ground; the ditches and pits in which were so many, that they
were forced to break their ranks to avoid and go round them, and
so to fight without order and in small parties. There were but
two legions, one of Vitellius's, called The Ravenous, and
another of Otho's, called The Assistant, that got out into the
open outspread level and engaged in proper form, fighting, one
main body against the other, for some length of time. Otho's
men were strong and bold, but had never been in battle before;
Vitellius's had seen many wars, but were old and past their
strength. So Otho's legion charged boldly, drove back their
opponents, and took the eagle, killing pretty nearly every man
in the first rank, till the others, full of rage and shame,
returned the charge, slew Orfidius, the commander of the legion,
and took several standards. Varus Alfenus, with his Batavians,
who are the natives of an island of the Rhine, and are esteemed
the best of the German horse, fell upon the gladiators, who had
a reputation both for valor and skill in fighting. Some few of
these did their duty, but the greatest part of them made towards
the river, and, falling in with some cohorts stationed there,
were cut off. But none behaved so ill as the praetorians, who,
without ever so much as meeting the enemy, ran away, broke
through their own body that stood, and put them into disorder.
Notwithstanding this, many of Otho's men routed those that were
opposed to them, broke right into them, and forced their way to
the camp through the very middle of their conquerors.
As for their commanders, neither Proculus nor Paulinus ventured
to reenter with the troops; they turned aside, and avoided the
soldiers, who had already charged the miscarriage upon their
officers. Annius Gallus received into the town and rallied the
scattered parties, and encouraged them with an assurance that
the battle was a drawn one and the victory had in many parts
been theirs. Marius Celsus, collecting the officers, urged the
public interest; Otho himself, if he were a brave man, would
not, after such an expense of Roman blood, attempt anything
further; especially since even Cato and Scipio, though the
liberty of Rome was then at stake, had been accused of being too
prodigal of so many brave men's lives as were lost in Africa,
rather than submit to Caesar after the battle of Pharsalia had
gone against them. For though all persons are equally subject
to the caprice of fortune, yet all good men have one advantage
she cannot deny, which is this, to act reasonably under
misfortunes.
This language was well accepted amongst the officers, who
sounded the private soldiers, and found them desirous of peace;
and Titianus also gave directions that envoys should be sent in
order to a treaty. And accordingly it was agreed that the
conference should be between Celsus and Gallus on one part, and
Valens with Caecina on the other. As the two first were upon
their journey, they met some centurions, who told them the
troops were already in motion, marching for Bedriacum, but that
they themselves were deputed by their generals to carry
proposals for an accommodation. Celsus and Gallus expressed
their approval, and requested them to turn back and carry them
to Caecina. However, Celsus, upon his approach, was in danger
from the vanguard, who happened to be some of the horse that had
suffered at the ambush. For as soon as they saw him, they
hallooed, and were coming down upon him; but the centurions came
forward to protect him, and the other officers crying out and
bidding them desist, Caecina came up to inform himself of the
tumult, which he quieted, and, giving a friendly greeting to
Celsus, took him in his company and proceeded towards Bedriacum.
Titianus, meantime, had repented of having sent the messengers;
and placed those of the soldiers who were more confident upon
the walls once again, bidding the others also go and support
them. But when Caecina rode up on his horse and held out his
hand, no one did or said to the contrary; those on the walls
greeted his men with salutations, others opened the gates and
went out, and mingled freely with those they met; and instead of
acts of hostility, there was nothing but mutual shaking of hands
and congratulations, everyone taking the oaths and submitting
to Vitellius.
This is the account which the most of those that were present at
the battle give of it, yet own that the disorder they were in,
and the absence of any unity of action would not give them leave
to be certain as to particulars. And when I myself traveled
afterwards over the field of battle, Mestrius Florus, a man of
consular degree, one of those who had been, not willingly, but
by command, in attendance on Otho at the time, pointed out to me
an ancient temple, and told me, that as he went that way after
the battle, he observed a heap of bodies piled up there to such
a height, that those on the top of it touched the pinnacles of
the roof. How it came to be so, he could neither discover
himself nor learn from any other person; as indeed, he said, in
civil wars it generally happens that greater numbers are killed
when an army is routed, quarter not being given, because
captives are of no advantage to the conquerors; but why the
carcasses should be heaped up after that manner is not easy to
determine.
Otho, at first, as it frequently happens, received some
uncertain rumors of the issue of the battle. But when some of
the wounded that returned from the field informed him rightly of
it, it is not, indeed, so much to be wondered at that his
friends should bid him not give all up as lost or let his
courage sink; but the feeling shown by the soldiers is something
that exceeds all belief. There was not one of them would either
go over to the conqueror or show any disposition to make terms
for himself, as if their leader's cause was desperate; on the
contrary, they crowded his gates, called out to him with the
title of emperor, and as soon as he appeared, cried out and
entreated him, catching hold of his hand, and throwing
themselves upon the ground, and with all the moving language of
tears and persuasion, besought him to stand by them, not abandon
them to their enemies, but employ in his service their lives and
persons, which would not cease to be his so long as they had
breath; so urgent was their zealous and universal importunity.
And one obscure and private soldier, after he had drawn his
sword, addressed himself to Otho: "By this, Caesar, judge our
fidelity; there is not a man amongst us but would strike thus to
serve you;" and so stabbed himself. Notwithstanding this, Otho
stood serene and unshaken, and, with a face full of constancy
and composure, turned himself about and looked at them, replying
thus: "This day, my fellow-soldiers, which gives me such proofs
of your affection, is preferable even to that on which you
saluted me emperor; deny me not, therefore, the yet higher
satisfaction of laying down my life for the preservation of so
many brave men; in this, at least, let me be worthy of the
empire, that is, to die for it. I am of opinion the enemy has
neither gained an entire nor a decisive victory; I have advice
that the Moesian army is not many days' journey distant, on its
march to the Adriatic; Asia, Syria, and Egypt, and the legions
that are serving against the Jews, declare for us; the senate is
also with us, and the wives and children of our opponents are in
our power; but alas, it is not in defense of Italy against
Hannibal or Pyrrhus or the Cimbri that we fight; Romans combat
here against Romans, and, whether we conquer or are defeated,
our country suffers and we commit a crime: victory, to whichever
it fall, is gained at her expense. Believe it many times over,
I can die with more honor than I can reign. For I cannot see at
all, how I should do any such great good to my country by
gaining the victory, as I shall by dying to establish peace and
unanimity and to save Italy from such another unhappy day."
As soon as he had done, he was resolute against all manner of
argument or persuasion, and taking leave of his friends and the
senators that were present, he bade them depart, and wrote to
those that were absent, and sent letters to the towns, that they
might have every honor and facility in their journey. Then he
sent for Cocceius, his brother's son, who was yet a boy, and
bade him be in no apprehension of Vitellius, whose mother and
wife and family he had treated with the same tenderness as his
own; and also told him that this had been his reason for
delaying to adopt him, which he had meant to do, as his son; he
had desired that he might share his power, if he conquered, but
not be involved in his ruin, if he failed. "Take notice," he
added, "my boy, of these my last words, that you neither too
negligently forget, nor too zealously remember, that Caesar was
your uncle." By and by he heard a tumult amongst the soldiers
at the door, who were treating the senators with menaces for
preparing to withdraw; upon which, out of regard to their
safety, he showed himself once more in public, but not with a
gentle aspect and in a persuading manner as before; on the
contrary, with a countenance that discovered indignation and
authority, he commanded such as were disorderly to leave the
place, and was not disobeyed.
It was now evening, and feeling thirsty, he drank some water,
and then took two daggers that belonged to him, and when he had
carefully examined their edges, he laid one of them down, and
put the other in his robe, under his arm, then called his
servants, and distributed some money amongst them, but not
inconsiderately, nor like one too lavish of what was not his
own; for to some he gave more, to others less, all strictly in
moderation, and distinguishing every one's particular merit.
When this was done, he dismissed them, and passed the rest of
the night in so sound a sleep, that the officers of his
bedchamber heard him snore. In the morning, he called for one
of his freedmen, who had assisted him in arranging about the
senators, and bade him bring him an account if they were safe.
Being informed they were all well and wanted nothing, "Go then,"
said he, "and show yourself to the soldiers, lest they should
cut you to pieces for being accessory to my death." As soon as
he was gone, he held his sword upright under him with both his
hands, and falling upon it, expired with no more than one single
groan, to express his sense of the pang, or to inform those that
waited without. When his servants therefore raised their
exclamations of grief, the whole camp and city were at once
filled with lamentation; the soldiers immediately broke in at
the doors with a loud cry, in passionate distress, and accusing
themselves that they had been so negligent in looking after that
life which was laid down to preserve theirs. Nor would a man of
them quit the body to secure his own safety with the approaching
enemy; but having raised a funeral pile, and attired the body,
they bore it thither, arrayed in their arms, those among them
greatly exulting, who succeeded in getting first under the bier
and becoming its bearers. Of the others, some threw themselves
down before the body and kissed his wound, others grasped his
hand, and others that were at a distance knelt down to do him
obeisance. There were some who, after putting their torches to
the pile, slew themselves, though they had not, so far as
appeared, either any particular obligations to the dead, or
reason to apprehend ill usage from the victor. Simply it would
seem, no king, legal or illegal, had ever been possessed with so
extreme and vehement a passion to command others, as was that
of these men to obey Otho. Nor did their love of him cease with
his death; it survived and changed erelong into a mortal hatred
to his successor, as will be shown in its proper place.
They placed the remains of Otho in the earth, and raised over
them a monument which neither by its size nor the pomp of its
inscription might excite hostility. I myself have seen it, at
Brixillum; a plain structure, and the epitaph only this: To the
memory of Marcus Otho. He died in his thirty-eighth year, after
a short reign of about three months, his death being as much
applauded as his life was censured; for if he lived not better
than Nero, he died more nobly. The soldiers were displeased
with Pollio, one of their two prefects, who bade them
immediately swear allegiance to Vitellius; and when they
understood that some of the senators were still upon the spot,
they made no opposition to the departure of the rest, but only
disturbed the tranquillity of Virginius Rufus with an offer of
the government, and moving in one body to his house in arms,
they first entreated him, and then demanded of him to accept of
the empire, or at least to be their mediator. But he, that
refused to command them when conquerors, thought it ridiculous
to pretend to it now they were beat, and was unwilling to go as
their envoy to the Germans, whom in past time he had compelled
to do various things that they had not liked; and for these
reasons he slipped away through a private door. As soon as the
soldiers perceived this, they owned Vitellius, and so got their
pardon, and served under Caecina.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Plutarch's Lives, by A.H. Clough
