Lives, the Dryden Plutarch. Rev. by Arthur Hugh Clough

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BIOGRAPHY

PLUTARCH'S LIVES

WITH . AN INTRODUCTION BY

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

VOLUME II

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PLUTARCH'S
LIVES/^l2^e
Vryden Vlutarcfi
Hevlseddy ^^^
ARTHUR HUGH

VOLUME TWO

LONDON &.TORONTO
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First Issue of this Edition . 1910
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CONTENTS

PACB

PmrLorayan z

Flamininus .......... i8

Thi Comparison or Philopoevkit with FLAmmmn . . • 39

PvRRHus ........... 41

Caius Marius .......... 75

lvsander .......... 115

Sylla ........... 141

Thi Compariso.v of Lysan'der with Sylla .... 177

CiMON 181

LucuLXus^ ...... .... 200

Thk Comparison of Lucullus with Cimom .... 240

— Nicias ........... 343

Crassus 272^

The Comparison of Crassus with Nicias .... 303

Sertorius .......... 307

EUMENES .......... 33a

Thk Comparison of Sertorius with Eume.ves . 349

.\gesilaus . . . . . . . - . . 350

POMPEY 385

Thi Ccmparisoji of Pompey with Agesilau? .... 458

.^EXANDEK .......... 463

C.ESA* - . 530

vfl

h

PLUTARCH'S LIVES

PHILOPCEMEN

Cleander was a man of high birth and great power in the dty
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 Philopcemen, who was
a person of great distinction, he settled at Megalopolis, where,
while his friend lived, he had all he could desire. Wlien 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 moulded 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 pliilosophy to bear upon action and state affairs. They
had freed their country from t>Taiiny by the death of Aristo-
demus, whom they caused to be killed; they had assisted
Aratus in driving out the tjTant 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 like-
ness is yet to be seen at Delphi. The mistake of the hostess

II A

2 Plutarch's Lives

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. Philopcemen, in an ordinary cloak,
arriAang 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 firewood. The husband returning,
and seeing him at it, " WTiat," says he, " may this mean, 0
Philopcemen?" "I am," replied he in his Doric dialect,
" paying the penalty of my ugly looks." Titus Flamininus,
jesting with him upon his figure, told him one day he had well-
shaped hands and feet, but no belly : and he was indeed slender
in the waist. But this raillery was meant to the poverty of his
fortune; for he had good horse and foot, but often wanted
money to entertain and pay them. These are common anecdotes
told of Philopcemen.

The love of honour 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
practised 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 re-
commended 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 st-ate of
body, the ways of living, and the exercises all different: the pro-
fessed 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 liimself to endure
hunger and loss of sleep without difficulty. Philopcemen,
hearing this, not only laid by all thoughts of wrestling and
contemned it then, but when he came to be general, discouraged

Phiiopcemen 3

it by all marks of reproach and dishonour he could imagine, as
a thing which made men, othen\ase 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 mcursions which his citizens used to make upon the
Lacedsemonians for pillage and plunder, he would always march
out the first and return the last. When there was nothing to
do, he sought to harden his body, and make it strong and active
by hunting, or labouring 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 labourers. At break of day he would rise
with the rest, and work either in the vineyard or at the plough;
from thence return again to the to^vn, 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 endeavoured to improve his oyra. property the
justest way, by tillage; and this not slightly, by way of diversion,
but thinking in 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 travelled,
and aipiing 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 w^ere not
soldiers, as drones and useless in the commonwealth.

When he was thirty years of age, Cleomenes, King of the
lAced^monians, surprised Megalopolis by night, forced the

4 Plutarch's Lives

guards, broke in, and seized the market-place. Philopcemen
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. Philopcemen perceiving
them to be only too glad at the news, and eager to return,
checked them with a speech, in which he made them sensible,
that what Cleomenes called restoring the city was, rather,
possessing himself of the citizens; and through their means
securing also the city for the future. The mere solitude would,
of itself, ere long force him away, since there was no staying
to guard empty houses and naked walls. These reasons with-
held 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 succour the
Achaeans, they marched with their united forces against
Cleomenes; who, having seized the avenues, lay advantage-
ously posted on the hills of Sellasia. Antigonus drew up close
by him, with a resolution to force him in his strength. Philo-
pcemen, 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. Euclides, the
brother of Cleomenes, seeing the foot thus severed from the
horse, detached the best of his light-armed men, commanding
them to wheel about, and charge the unprotected Illyrians in
the rear. This charge putting things in confusion, Philopcemen,
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, at the first en-
counter disordered, and soon after put the troops to flight with

Philopcemen 5

great slaughter. Then, to encourage the king's anny further,
to bring them all upon the enemy while he was in confusion, he
quitted his horse, and fighting with extreme difficulty in his
heavy horseman's dress, in rough uneven ground, full of water-
courses and hollows, had both his thighs struck through with
a thonged javelin. It was thrown with great force, so that the
head came out on the other side, and made a severe, though
not a mortal, wound. There he stood awhile, as if he had been
shackled, unable to move. The fastening which joined the
thong to the javelin made it difficult to get it drawn out, nor
would any about him venture to do it. But the fight being
now at the hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he was
transported with the desire of partaking in it, and 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 reputa-
tion. Antigonus was earnest to have him in his service, and
offered him very advantageous conditions, both as to command
and pay. But Philopoemen, who knew that his nature brooked
not to be under another, would not accept them; yet not
enduring to live idle, and hearing of wars m 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 Achseans 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
stayed at home. Their former commanders winked at this,
because, it being an honour among the Achaeans to ser\'e on
horseback, these men had great power in the commonwealth,

6 Plutarch's Lives

and were able to gratify or molest whom they pleased. Philo-
poemen, finding them in this condition, yielded not to any such
cx)nsiderations, nor would pass it over as formerly; but went
himself from town to town, where, speaking with the young
men, one by one, he endeavoured to excite a spirit of ambition
and love of honour among them, using punishment also, where
it was necessary. And then by pubUc exercises, reviews, and
contests in the presence of nvmierous spectators, m 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 ^toiians and Eleans by
the river Larissus, he set them an example himself. Damo-
phantus, general of the Elean horse, singled out Philopoemen,
and rode with full speed at him. Philopoemen awaited his
charge, and, before receiving the stroke, with a violent blow of
his spear threw him dead to the ground: upon whose fall the
enemy fled immediately. And now Philopoemen was in every-
body's mouth, as a man who in actual fighting with his own
hand yielded not to the youngest, nor in good conduct to the
oldest, and there came not into the field any better soldier or
commander.

Aratus, indeed, was the first who raised the Achaeans, in-
considerable till then, into reputation and power, by uniting
their divided cities into one commonwealth, and establishing
amongst them a humane and truly Grecian form of govern-
ment; and hence it happened, as in runnbg 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 m a general weakness, when every city relying
only on itself, all Greece was giving way to an easy dissolution,
?he Achjeans, first forming themselves into a body, and then
drawing in their neighbours round about, some by protection,
delivering them from their tyrants, others by peaceful consent
and by naturalisation, designed at last to brmg all Pelopon-
nesus 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 tlie affairs of Greece, But when Philo-

Philopoemen 7

posmen came to a command, the Achasans, feefeig 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 Philo-
poemen 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 Acliseans,
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 skilful in skirmishing at a
distance, but in a close fight had much the disadvantage.
Then in drawing their forces up for battle, they were ne\'er
accustomed to form in regular divisions; and their line bemg
unprotected either by the thick array of projecting spears or
by their shields, as in the Macedonian phalanx, where the
soldiers 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 mstead of loose skirmishing, fight firmly and foot to
foot. After he had brought them all to wear full armour, and
by that means into the confidence of thinking themselves now
invincible, he turned what before had been idle profusion and
luxury into an honourable 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
iove useful and more manly display, and reducing their other
expenses, to take delight in appearing magnificent in their
equipage of war. Nothing then was to be seen in the shops
but plate breaking up, or melting down, gilding of breastplate,
and studding bucklers and bits with silver; nothing in the
places of exercise, but horses managing, and yoimg men exercis-
mg 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 honourable dangers. Other

8 Plutarch's Lives

kinds of sumptuosity give us pleasure, but make us effeminate;
the tickling of the sense slackening the vigour 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 m 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,
v/hich 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 tr>' them with an enemy, and fight m
earnest.

The Achseans at that time were at war with Machanidas,
the tyrant of Lacedsemon, 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 spear-
men 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 them-
selves up for lost; but Philopoemen, professing to make it a
matter of small consequence, and observing the enemy's over-
sight, 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 en-
counter, as, when they saw Machanidas driving the beaten
enemy before him, they thought the victory already gamed.
He overthrew them with great slaughter (they report above
four thousand killed in the place), and then faced about against

Philopoemen 9

Machanidas, who was returning with his mercenaries from the
pursuit ITiere happened to be a broad deep ditch between
them, alongside of which both rode their horses for a while,
the one tr>'ing to get over and fly, the other to hinder him.
It looked less like the contest between two generals than like
the last defence of some wild beast brought to bay by the keen
huntsman 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 Polysenus, who used to fight by the side of Philo-
poemen, came up on horseback to his assistance. But Philo-
poemen, before either of them, himself met Machanidas; and
percei\nng that the horse with his head high reared covered
his master's body, turned his own a little, and holding his
javeUn by the middle, drove it against the tyrant with aU 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 Achseans set up of him, in admiration of his valour in this
single combat, and conduct during the whole day.

We are told that at the Nemean games, a little after this
victory, Philopoemen being then general the second time, and
at leisure on the occasion of the solemnity, first showed the
Greeks his army drawn up in full array as if they were to fight,
and executed with it all the manoeuvres of a battle with
wonderful order, strength, and celerity. After which he went
into the theatre, while the musicians were singing for the prii^,
followed by the young soldiers in their military cloaks and
their scarlet frocks under their armour, all in the very height
of bodily vigour, 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 tJiat the
musician Pylades, \\-ith a voice well suited to the lofty style of
poet, was in the act of commencing the Persians of Timotheus —

" Under his conduct Greece was glorious and was frec^j

The whole theatre at once turned to look at Philopoemen, and
clapped \N-ith 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 Achseans as with young horses, which go

10 Plutarch's Lives

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 subjeclion again, if he could rid has hands of Philopcemen,
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
rumour that Philopoemen was at hand with succour, 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
succour 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, think-
ing 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 honour of Pliilopoemen.
But when at the request of the Gortynians he went away into
Crete to command for them, at a time when his o^vn country
was distressed by Nabis, he exposed himself to the charge of
either cowardice, or unseasonable ambition of honour 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 meantime,
across the seas, waging war and commanding in cliief in a
foreign nation, furnished liis ill-wishers with matter enough for
their reproaches. Some said he took the offer of the Gorty-
nians, because the Achaeans chose other generals, and left him

Philoposmen 1 1

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 admi-abie state of
discipline and exercise : " And what praise," replied ?hilopoemen,
" for a king of his years, to be always preparing, and never
performing?" However, the Megalopolitans, thinking them-
selves 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 difierence wth Philopoemen about affairs of the common-
wealth, yet would not staffer him to be banished. Philopcemen
finding himself upon this account out of favour with his citizens,
induced divers of the little neighbouring places to renounce
obedience to tbem, suggesting to them to urge that from the
b^inning they were not subject to their taxes or laws, or any
way under their command. In these pretences he openly took
their part, and fomented seditious movements amongst the
Achaeans in general against Megalopolis. But these things
happened a while after.

\Vhile he stayed in Crete, in the service of the Gortynians,
he made war not like a Peloponnesian and Arcanian, fairly in
the open field, but fought with them at their own weapon, and
turning their stratagems and tricks against themselves, showed
them they played craft against skill, and were but children to
an experienced soldier. Having acted here with great 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 ver>' contrary to the general
expectation and his own former reputation. Epaminondas,
however, according to some statements, was backward by
design, unwilling to give his coimtrymen 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 there-
fore he returned from Asia and the Islands without doing any-
thing, on purpose. WTiereas Philopoemen, thinking his skill in
land-service would equally avail at sea, learned how great a
part of valour 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

12 Plutarch's Lives

having rigged up an old ship, which had been a famous vessel
forty years before, and shipped his citizens in her, she founder-
ing, he was in danger of losing them all. But finding the enemy,
as if he had been driving 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 Achseans were dismayed,
and in such difficult ground where the enemy had secured the
advantage, despaired to get oS 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 endeavour to steal scatteringly into the city in the dark,
he posted strong parties of the Achaeans all along the water-
courses 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 honour in all the theatres of Greece, but not without the
secret ill-will of Titus Flamininus, who was naturally eager for
glory, and thought it but reasonable a consul of Rome should
be otherwise esteemed by the Achaeans than a common Arcadian;
especially as there was no comparison between what he and what
Philopoemen had done for them, he having by one proclamation
restored all Greece, as much as had been subject to Philip and
the Macedonians, to liberty. After this, Titus made peace with
Nabis, and Nabis was circumvented and slain by the iEtolians.
Things being then in confusion at Sparta, Pliilopoemen 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 mfinite praise from the Achaeans, for having strengthened

Philopcemcn 13

thcii 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 simi of one himdred
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 enter-
tained 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 sUence ill citizens, who disquieted the city
with their seditious speeches in the public assembUes; for it
was better to bar Uberty 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 Daconia, 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

14 Plutarch's Lives

town himself, he, a private man as he was, refused admission
to both the consul of Rome and the general of the Ach^ans,
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 misdemeanour of the Lacedaemonians, he brought back
those who had been banished, put, as Poiybius 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
coimtry and carried into Achsea all who had been made citizens
of Sparta by tyrants, except three thousand who would not
submit to banishment. These he sold for slaves, and with the
money, as if to exult over them, built a colonnade at Megalo-
polis. Lastly, unworthily trampling upon the Lacedaemonians
in their calamities, and gratifying his hostility by a most oppres-
sive and arbitrary action, he abolished the laws of Lycurgus,
and forced them to educate their children and live after the
manner of the Achsans; 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
Philopcemen 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,
re-established their ancient discipline.

When the war betwixt Antiochus and the Romans broke
out in Greece, Philopcemen was a private man. He repined
grievously when he saw Antiochus lay idle at Chalcis, spend-
ing his time in unreasonable courtship and weddings, while his
men lay dispersed in several towns, without order, or com-
manders, and minding nothing but their pleasures. He com-
plained much that he was not himself in ofl&ce, 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.
Philopcemen, in this conjuncture, carried himself like a good

PhilopcEmen 1 5

pilot in a high sea, sometimes shifting sail, and sometimes
yielding, but still steering steady ; and omitting no opportvmity
nor e2ort to keep all who were considerable, whether for elo-
quence or riches, fast to the defence of their common liberty.

Aristaenus, a Megalopolitan of great credit among the Achaeans,
but always a favourer of the Romans, saying one day in the
senate that the Romans should not be opposed, or displeased
in any vray, Philoposnien 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
Lacedzemonians to their country, which motion v/as 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
behold eH 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 three score and ten, and the eighth time general,
he was in hope to pass in quiet, not only the year of his magis-
tracy, but his remaining life. For as our diseases decline, as
it is supposed with our declining bodily strength, so the quarrel-
ling humour of the Greeks abated much with their failing
political greatness. But fort;me or some divine retributive
power threw him down in the close of his life, like a successful
runner who stumbles at the goal. It is reported, that being in
company where one was praised for a great commander, he
replied, there was no great account to be made of a man who
had suffered himself to be taken ahve by his enemies.

A few days after, news came that Dinocrates the Messenian,
a particular enemy to Philopoemen, and for his wickedness and
villainies generally hated, had induced Messene to revolt from
the Achaeans, and was about to seize upon a httle 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, yovmg
men in the vigour 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,

1 6 Plutarch's Lives

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 stum-
bling, he fell encumbered with his arms, and faint, upon a hard
and rugged piece of ground. His head received such a shock
with the faU 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 trivimph by Dinocrates.

The Messenians, wonderfully elated with the news, thronged
in swarms to the city gates. But when they saw Philopcemen
m 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 com-
passion 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 preserv^ed the common liberty, by driving away Nabis.
Some few, to make their court to Dinocrates, were for torturing
and then putting him to death as a dangerous and irreconcilable
enemy; all the more formidable to Dinocrates, who had taken
him a 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 meantime
Philopoemen's soldiers, recovering themselves after their flight,

Philopcemen 1 7

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 o^vn. 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.

WTiile these things passed in Achasa, Dinocrates, fearing
that any delay would save Philopcemen, 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. Philopcemen 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 oflF 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
despatched him presently.

The news of his death filled all Achaea mth grief and lamenta-
tion. 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 Philopcemen's death, anticipated their vengeance and killed
themselves. Those who would have had him tortured, Lycortas
put in chains and reser\'ed 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 cm
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 Achasans 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

1 8 Plutarch's Lives

his return from conquest, and, saluting the um, 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 tlaem the loss of their own greatness,
and of their rank among the Achasans. Thus he was honourably
buried according to his worth, and the prisoners were stoned
about his tomb.

Many statues were set up, and many honours 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 be all
removed. A discussion ensued, speeches were made, and
Polybius answered the sycophant at large. And neither
Mummius nor the lieutenants would suffer the honourable
monuments of so great a man to be defaced, though he had
often crossed both Titus and Manius. They justly distiiiguished,
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 honour never to be
denied by the good to the good. And so much concerning
Philopoemen.

FLAMININUS'

What Titus Quintius Flamminus, 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 favours, as if they, not he,

' The manuscripts generally write the name incorrectly — Flaminius,
Titus was the name by which he was commonly known to the Greeks.

Flamininus 19

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 honour, 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 con-
ferring favours; 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 t\vo
colonies which were sent into the cities of Namia and Cossa;
which filled him with loftier hopes, and made him aspire to step
over those previous honours which it was usual first to pass
through, the offices of tribune of the people, praetor and ^dile,
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
sufirage; who elected him (though not then arrived at his
thirtieth year) consul with Sextus ^ius. 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
• Manius Curius is meant.

20 Plutarch's Lives

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 with-
drawn 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 com-
manders 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 applica-
tions 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 provi-
sions, and never came to close fighting with Philip. He resolved
not to trifle away a year, as they had done, at home in ostenta-
tion of the honour, 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 honours 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
auid lofty mountains which all but meet above a single deep

Flamininus 2 1

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 moun-
tains. 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 bis 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),
v/as 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 en-
gaging, in this difficult ground, hand to hand with his assailants;
whilst the other two divisions on either side of him threw them-
selves 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, imperceived

22 Plutarch's Lives

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 tem-
perance and moderation, that, though they were far from the
sea, at a great distance from their vessels, and stinted of their
monthly allowance of com, and though they had much difficulty
in buying, they nevertheless abstained altogether from plunder-
ing 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 do^\^v
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 tliis
moderate and orderly conduct. For they no sooner set foot in
ITiessaly, but the cities opened their gates, and the Greeks,
within Thermopylae, were all eagerness and excitement to ally
themselves with thern. The Achjeans abandoned their alliance
with Philip, and voted to join with the Romans in actual arms
against him; and the Opuntians, though the ^Etolians, who
were zealous allies of the Romans, were willing and desirous
to undertake the protection of the city, would not listen to
proposals from them; but sending for Titus, intrusted and
committed themselves to his charge.

It is told of Pyrrhus, that when first, from an adjacent hill
or watch-tower which gave him a prospect of the Roman army

Flamininus 23

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 Mace-
donians of an invader, at the head of a barbarian army, carr^'ing
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 l^-
guage, and a lover of honour, were wonderfully pleased and
attracted; and when they left him, they filled the cities,
wherever they went, with favourable feelings for him, and with
the belief that in him they might find the protector and assertor
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 imiversal
belief even of the favourers 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 rime to show honour and deference to Titus ; as they were,
they conceived, in amity with both jjarties. Titus received
them in the most obliging and courteous manner, but kept
going gently on, questioning and inquiring of them, and some-
times 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 dty, 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 merc\', 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 de-

24 Plutarch's Lives

spatched 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 detennined an end to that, that he might have the
honour of concluding the peace. Having a great passion for
distinction, his fear was, that if another general were com-
missioned to carry on the war, the honour even of what was
passed would be lost to him ; and his friends transacted matters
so well on his behalf, that Philip was imsuccessful in his pro-
posals, 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 ^tolians furnished six thousand foot and four hun-
dred 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 ardour and ambition; on the Romans' part, to be
the conquerors of Macedon, a name which Alexander had made
famous amongst them for strength and valour; 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 theatre of the world,
Greece, and to contend with the bravest antagonists. And
Philip, on the other side, commenced a 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 unseason-
able 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

Flaniininus 25

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, some-
times hot pursuit, and sometimes as rapid a flight, the generals
on both sides kept sending in succours from the main bodies,
as they saw their men pressed or givmg ground, till at length
the heavens clearing up, let them see what was going on, upxjn
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 over-
powering them. But the king's left wing being broken up
by the hilliness of the place, Titus observing it, and cherish-
ing little or no hopes on that side where his ovnti 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 vmder hea\'y and unwieldy armour. 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 com-
posed it lose each one his ovm single strength, because of the
nature of their armour; and because each of them b strong,
rather, as he makes a part of the whole, than in himself. When
these were routed, some ga\'e 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 ^tolians were blamed as having been the
main occasion that Philip himself got safe off. For whilst the
Romans were in pursuit, they fell to ravaging and plundering
the camp, and did it so completely, that when the others
returned, they found no booty in it.

This bred at first hard words, quarrels, and misunderstandings
betwixt them. But, afterwartk, they galled Titus more by

26 Plutarch's Lives

ascribing the victory to themselves, and prepossessing the
Greeks with reports to that effect; msomuch that poets, and
people in general in the songs that were sung or written in
honour of the action, still ranked the ^tolians 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 iEtolians 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 Alcseus in mockery of Philip.^exaggeratmg

the number of the slain. However, being everywhere repeated,

and by almost ever>'body, Titus was more nettled at it than

Philip. The latter merely retorted upon Alcsus 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 ambi-
tious of a reputation among the Greeks; and he therefore acted
m all after-occurrences by himself, paying but very slight regard
to the iEtolians. This offended them in their turn; and when
Titus listened to terms of accommodation, and admitted an
embassy upon the proflers of the Macedonian king, the ^tolians
made it their business to pubHsh 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 rumours the iEtolians laboured to shake the Roman con-
federates, Philip, makmg overtures of submission of himself and
his kingdom to the discretion of Titus and the Romans, put 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; improvmg 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 smce arrived
at King Antiochus's court, was aheady stimulating that prince,
not to be wanting to the good fortune that had been hitherto

Flamininus 17

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, there-
fore, Titus, upon a principle of prudence and foresight, lent an
ear to peace, and had Antiochus found the Romans still at war
in Greece with Philip, and had these two, the most powerful
and 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 oppor-
tunely introducing this peace between the wars, despatching the
present danger before the new one had arrived, at once disap-
pointed Antiochus of his first hopes and Philip of his last.

WTien 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 garri-
soned for security against Antiochus; the ^tolians 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 un-
shackled 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 favour. 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 pro-
clamation, that the Roman senate and Titns Quintius, the
proconsular general, having vanquished King Philip and the
Macedonians, restored the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians,
Eubceans, 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

28 Plutarch's Lives

distinctly, what was said ; but there was a confused and uncer-
tain 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 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 acclama-
tions all about his pavilion, and night was now come, wherever
friends or fellow-citizens met, they joyfully saluted and embraced
each other, and went home to feast and carouse together. And
there, no doubt, redoubling their joy, they began to recollect
and talk of the state of Greece, what wars she had incurred in ;
defence of her liberty, and yet was never perhaps mistress of a I
more settled or grateful one than this which other men's labours |
had won for her; almost without one drop of blood, or onej
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 con-i
tending for. Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongstj
men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the|
most scarce. Such as Agesilaus, Lysander, Nicias, and Alci-
biades, 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 achieve-

Flamininus 29

ment at Marathon, the sea-fight at Salamis, the engagements at
Plataea and Thermopylae, Cimon's exploits at Eurymedon, and
on the coasts of CN^prus, 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 despatched away Lentulus to Asia, to set
the Bargylians free, TitUlius 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 garri-
sons 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
sol enmity 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 con-
stant justice, and unity, and friendship one towards another.
He suppressed their factions, brought home their political exQes ;
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 hurry-
ing him away to prison for non-payment of the alien tax, and
had them punished for the licence they had been guilty of,
Xenocrates afterwards meeting the children of Lycurgus, " My
sons," said he, " I am nobly repaying your father for his kind-
ness; 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

30 Plutarch's Lives

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 pro-
tecting 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 :-r-

" Ye Spartan Tyndarids, twin sons of Jove,
Who in swift horsemanship have placed your love,
Titus, of great ^Gneas's race, leaves this
In honour 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 jEnean 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 alilce 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 I^cedjemonians,
but in tlie 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 signalised himself anaong the
Greeks upon all other occasions, but in that war especially had
done wonders both for matter of courage and counsel, and whom
the Achaeans magnified in their theatres, and put into the same
balance of glory with Titus), touched him to the quick; and
that he scorned'that an ordinary Arcadian, who had commanded

Flamininus 3 1

in a few rencounters upon the confines of his native district,
should be spoken of in terms of equality with a Roman consul,
waging war as the protector of Greece in general. But, besides,
Titus was not without an apology too for what he did, namely,
that he put an end to the war only when he foresaw that the
tyrant's destruction must have been attended with the ruin of
the other Spartans.

The Achfeans, by various decrees, did much to show Titus
honour: 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
hiindred 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 Ixothers, 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
constrainL But the Achseans, redeeming them at five poimds
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, 3713 pounds
weight of massy gold, 43,270 of silver, 14,514 pieces of coined
gold, called Philippics, which was all over and above the thou-
sand talents which Philip owed, and which the Romans were
afterwards prevailed upon, chiefly by the mediation of Titus, to
remit to PhOip, 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 aJl and seconded by the iEtoUans, who

32

Plutarch's Lives

for this long time had bome a grudge and secret enmity to the
Romans, and now suggested to him, by the way of a cause
and pretext of war, that he came to bring the Greeks liberty.
When, indeed, they never wanted it less, as they were free
already, but, in lack of really honourable grounds, he was
instructed to employ these lofty professions. The Romans, in
the interim, in the great apprehension of revolutions and revolt
in Greece, and of his great reputation for military strength,
despatched 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 affec-
tion 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 ^tolians were before-
hand 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 ^tolians, while
King Pliilip 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 ^Etolians' hands, Titus, still
with a compassionate care for Greece, sailed across from Pelo-
ponnesus to the consul : and began first of all to chide him, that
the victory should be owing alone to his arms, and yet he
should suffer Philip to bear away the prize and profit of the
war, and set wreaking his anger upon a single town, whilst the
Macedonians overran several nations and kingdoms. But as he
happened to stand then in view of the besieged, they no sooner
spied him out, but they call to him from their wall, they stretch
forth their hands, they supplicate and entreat him. At the
time, he said not a word more, but turning about with tears in
his eyes, went his way. Some little while after he discussed
the 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 iEtolians 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

Flamininus 33

difficulty, was to entreat with Manius for the Qialcidians, 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
enamoured with a mere girl; and as little proper for the time,
in the midst of a war. She was the daughter of one Cleopto-
lemus, 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 Chal-
cidians, Titus hurried after him, endeavouring 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 del-
phinium TO TITUS AND TO HERCULES; and what is yet more,
even in our time, a priest of Titus was formerly elected and
declared; and after sacrifice and libation, they sing a set song,
much of which for the length of it we omit, but shall transcribe
the closing verses —

" The Roman Faith, whose aid of yore
Our vows were offered to implore.
We worship now and evermore.
To Rome, to Titus, and to Jove,
O maidens, in the dances move.
Dances and lo- Paeans too
Unto the Roman Faith are due,
0 Saviour Titus, and to you."

Other parts of Greece also heaped honours upon him suitable
to his merits, and what made all those honours 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

II B

34 Plutarch's Lives

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 Achseans from the
conquest of the isle of Zacynthus, " If," said he, " they put
their head too far out of Peloponnesus, they may hazard them-
selves 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
merrymeeting 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 Achseans. " This,"
replied Titus, " will be matter for consideration; my only sur-
prise 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 Achsea
the various multitudes composing their royal master's forces,
and ran over a long catalogue 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

Flamininus 35

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 a woman for whom he did it. But Livy
says that in Cato's own speech the statement is that a Gaulish
deserter coming with his wife and children to the door, Lucius
took him into the 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 consuJ before, and though the punishment seemed
to reflect dishonour on his brother also. Both of them pre-
sented 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 honourable 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 Ae story of the supper*
Titxis answered in the negative, Cato related it, and challenged
Lucius to a formal denial of it. Lucius made no reply, where-
upon 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

36

Plutarch's Lives

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 public revenues, and also got numerous actions
and accusations brought against him; carrying on against a
lawful magistrate and excellent citizens, for the sake of one who
was indeed his relation, but was unworthy to be so, and had but
gotten his deserts, a course of bitter and violent attacks, which
it would be hard to say were either right or patriotic. After-
wards, however, at a public spectacle in the theatre, 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, dishonourable 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 ex-
piration 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 reputa-
tion, 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 bis country, first took sanctuary with Antiochus; but he,
having been glad to obtain a peace, after the battle in Phr>'gia,
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 favour 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 : —

" Libyssaa earth shall Haunibal inclose."

Flamininus yj

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 undiscemible 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 in his hand, " Let us ease,"
said he, " the Romans of their continual dread and care, who
think it long and tedious to await the death of a hated old man.
Yet Titus will not bear away a glorious victory, nor one worthy
of those ancestors who sent to caution PjTrhus, an enemy, and
a conqueror too, against the poison prepared for him by
traitors."

Thus various are the reports of Hannibal's death; but when
the news of it came to the senator's 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 invmcible and terrible Hannibal, neither banished him his
country, nor exacted of his countr}-men 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

38

Plutarch's Lives

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 foxmd fault with.
Not but that there were^ome 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 for-
midable, but his consummate skill and experience, together
with his mnate malice and rancour against the Roman name,
thmgs 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 ail Asia with tumults and rebellion. Then
agam, 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 LucuUus, both by sea and land. Hannibal was never
reduced to so contemptible a state as Caius Marius; he had the
friendship of a kmg, and the free exercise of his faculties, employ-
ment and charge in the navy, and over the horse and foot, of
Prusias; whereas those who but now were laughmg to hear of
Marius wandering about Africa, destitute and begging, m no
long time after were seen entreating his mercy m 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 nothmg 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 jomed m com-
mission with Lucius Scipio, and that the whole object of the
embassy was to effect Hannibal's death. And now, as we find

Philopoemcn and Flamininus Compared 39

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 m peace, it is time to look upon him as he stands ii\
comparison with Philopoeraen,

THE COMPARISON OF PHILOPCEMEN WT:TH
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 succour his besieged country-
men, Titus, b)- 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 Pliilopoemen'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 iEtolians,
and stood their friend; but Philopcemen, exasperated against
his country, deprived it of its supremacy over the adjacent
villages. Titus was ever constant to those he had once be-
friended; the other, upon any offence, as prone to cancel
kindnesses. He who had once been a benefactor to the Lace-
daemonians, 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 per-
verseness; for he fell upon the Messenians, not with that
conduct and caution that characterised 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 betwLxt PhiHp
and himself in two engagements; but Philopoemen came off
\'ictorious in ten thousand encounters, to all which fortime
had scarcely any pretence, so much were they owing to his

4© Plutarch's Lives

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 Philopcemen was unfortunate, certainly, in always being
opposed to hjs 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 Lace-
daemonians on the other, and he mastered the craftiest of them
by art and the bravest of them by valour. 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 Philo-
pcemen was forced to introduce a discipline and tactics of his
own, and to new-mould and model his soldiers; so that what
is of greatest import towards insuring a victory was in his case
his own creation, while the other had it ready provided for his
benefit. Philopcemen effected many gallant things with his
own hand, but Titus none; so much so that one Archedemus,
an ^tolian, made it a jest against him that while he, the
iEtolian, 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 Philopcemen 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 Philopcemen, full of courage,

Pyrrhus 41

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 P>'rrha, 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 was bom of
Lanassa, daughter of Cleodasus, Hyllus's son, had also that
name. From him Achilles came to have di\'ine honours in
Epirus, under the name of Aspetus, in the language of the
country. After these first kings, those of the following interven-
ing times becoming barbarous, and insignificant both in their
power and their lives, Tharrh>'pas 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. AJcetas was the
son of Tharrhypas, Arybas of Alcetas, and of Arybas and Troas
his queen, .'Eacides ; he married Phthia, the daughter of Menon,
the Thessalian, a man of note at the time of the Lamiac war,
and of highest command in the confederate army next to
Leosthenes. To ^Eacides were bom of Phthia, Deidamia and
Troas, daughters, and Pyrrhus, a son.

The Molossians, afterwards falling into factions and expelling
iEacides, brought in the sons of Neoptolemus, and such friends
of .(Eacides as they could take were all cut off; Pyrrhus, yet an
infant, and searched for by the enemy, had been stolen away

42 Plutarch's Lives

and carried oflE by Androclides and Angelus; who, however,
being obKged 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 entreat}', 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 ofi from it. For on reach-
ing the river that runs by the city they found it looking
formidable and rough, and endeavouring 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 ofi 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
■diemselves to Glaucias, then King of the Ulyrians, 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 ^Eacides, 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

Pyrrhus 4^

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 •vsath his ovm
children; and a little after, the enemies sending to demand
him, and Cassander himself ofiering 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 smedl 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, mth 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. Pjirhus
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, P\Trhus, taking part with
Demetrius, though yet but a youth, routed those that en-
countered him, and highly signalised 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 intrusted; and upon articles of

44 Plutarch^s Lives

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 honour, 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 neighbouring 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,
MyrtDus being then in the flower of his youth), he entered intp
discourse, persuading him to adhere to Neoptolemus, and
destroy Pyrrhus by poison. Myrtilus received the design, ap-
pearing 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

Pyrrhus 45

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, thinkmg none heard but themselves. Nor was any
one 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 owTi natural vocation to great designs, and now when
a 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, Acamania, 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. P>Trhus, opening the letter,
quickly discovered the fraud of Lysimachus; for it had not the
accustomed style of salutation, " The father to the son, health,"

46 Plutarch's Lives

but "King Ptolemy to Pyrrhus, the king, health;" and re-
proaching 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.

Tlie affairs of Alexander being now in some kind of settle-
ment, 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 neighbours 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 iEtolians and subdued them, left
Pantauchus there with a considerable army, and marched direct
against P>Trhus, 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 valour 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 and 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,

Pyrrhus 47

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 P>Trhus, as it caused
esteem and admiration of his valour, and great discourse of
him among those that saw what he did, and were engaged
against him in the action. They thought his cotmtenance, 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 their 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 Ufe 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 imderstand 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 modera-
tion, sajnng, 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 favours, while they
to whom it is due can be sensible of it, afflicts a good and
worthy nature. Some thinking it fit that Pyrrhus should banish
a certain ill-tongued fellow in Ambracio, who h&d spoken very
indecently of hm, " 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 reflections upon him, being
afterward questioned for it, and asked by him whether they
had said such words, on one of the young fellows answering.

48

Plutarch's Lives

" Yes, all that, king: and should have said more if we had had
more wine;" he laughed and discharged them. After Anti-
gone's death, he married several wives to enlarge his interest
and power. He had the daughter of Autoleon, King of the
Paeonians, Bircenno, Bardyllis the lUyrian'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 (Edipus to
his sons; —

" Not by the lot decide,
But within 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 Mace-
donians so active and troublesome a neighbour; 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

Pyrrhus 49

other kings. Articles being agreed upon, the designs of Deme-
trius quickly discovered themselves by the greatness of his pre-
paration. And the other kings, being alarmed, sent to PjTrhus
ambassadors and letters, expressing their wonder that he should
choose to let his oym opportunity pass by, and wait till Deme-
trius 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 ovm door, and make him fight for his
temples and sepulchres in Molossia; especially having so lately,
by his means, lost Corcyra and his wife together. For Lanassa
had taken offence at Pyrrhus for too great an inclmation to
those wives of his that were barbarians, and so withdrew to
Corcyra, and desiring to marr}' 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. Tlie kings having written thus to Pvirhus,
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. Lysi-
machus out of Thrace wasted the upper Macedon ; and P\TThus,
also taking arms at the same time, marched to Bercea, expect-
ing, 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
moimting Nisaean horse, seemed to lead the way. At the sight
of this vision he was much assured, and with swift marches
overrunning all the mterjacent places, takes Beroea, and making
his headquarters 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
P>Trhus, 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

5© Plutarch's Lives

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 imder-
standing they did not know him, he put it on again, and so was
quickly recognised 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 m 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 coimtry 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
ean 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 w.ar, envying and seeking advantages
of one another, and merely make use of those two words, peace j
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 tliey 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 endeavouring to hinder the recovery of his power, as it were
from a kmd of sickness, he assisted the Greeks, and came to
Athens, where, having ascended the Acropolis, he offered
•acrifice to the goddess, and the same dav came down again,

Pyrrhus 51

and told the Athenians he was much gratified by the good-wil!
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 ilacedonians 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, Lysi-
machus, 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 rumours abroad, he cor-
rupted 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 sad 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 neighbouring

52 Plutarch's Lives

kings the most at leisure, and the most skilful as a commander.
The more grave and discreet citizens opposing these counsels,
were partly overborne by the noise and violence of the multi-
tude; 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 right of yon, 0 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 to-
gether 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 vigour of eloquence ; and
being always about Pyrrhus, and sent about in his service to
leveral cities, verified the saying of Euripides, that —

" the force of words

Can do whate'er it done by conquering swords."

Pyrrhus 55.

And PjTrhus was used to say, that Cineas had taken more
towns with his words than he with his arms, and always did
him the honour to employ him in his most important occasions.
This person, seeing PjTrhus 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 con-
querors 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 con-
quered, 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 any one should rather pro-
fess 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 dema-
gogues 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 P>'Trhus, "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, any one will dare to
make further resistance? " " None," replied Cineas, " for then
it is manifest we may with such mighty forces regain Macedon,
and make an 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 labour, 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

54 Plutarch's Lives

thousand men; presently after, many vessels for transport of
horse, and galleys, and fiat-bottomed boats of all sorts arriving
from Tarentum, he shipped upon them twenty elephants, three
thousand horse, tv/enty 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 labour,
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.
PjTrhus, rising up, threw himself overboard. His friends and
guards strove eagerly who should be most ready to help hira,
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 the ships were
all in harbour, and the greatest part of the army got together;
but then perceiving that the people, unless some strong com-
pulsion was used to them, were not capable either of saving
others or being saved themselves, and were rather intending,

Pyrrhus 55

while he engaged for them in the field, to remain at home bath-
ing and feasting themselves, he first shut up the places t)f public
exercise, and the walks, where, in their idle way, they fought
their country's battles and conducted her camjjaigns in their
talk; he prohibited likevsise 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 imderstanding what
it was to be commanded, left the to\\"n, calling it mere slaver.-
not to do as they pleased. He now received intelligence that
LK\-inus, 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
Lsevinus 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 ha\-ing 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, " ilagacles, of the barbarians, is not at
all barbarian in character; we shall see presently what they
can do;" and grov^ing 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 endeavour
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 whidi 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, percei\"ing
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

56

Plutarch's Lives

the charge, conspicuous by his rich and beautiful armour, 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 be one that designs some great and dangerous
thing, for he looks constantly at you, and fixes his whole atten-
tion, 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,iiolding 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 ; wliile 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

Pyrrhus 57

his soldiers, and telling them aloud it was he. At last, the
elephants more particularly began to distress the Romans, whose
horses, before tiiey came near, nor enduring them, went back
with their riders; and upon this, he commanded the Thessahan
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,
he 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 valour but of conduct;
but filled up their legions, and enlisted fresh men with all
speed, talking high and boldly of war, which struck Pyrrhus
^vith 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
honourable after his victor}-. Cineas was despatched 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 oflFered also to return all the
prisoners he had taken in the fight without ransom, and pro-
mised his assistance for the entire conquest of all Italy, asking
only their friendship for himself, and security- for the Tarentines,

58 Plutarch's Lives

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 im-
patience, but now while I hear of these dishonourable 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 an 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
ofi 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 dis-
missed 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

Pyrrhus " 59

there in arms, they were resolved to prosecute the war against
him with all their force, though he should have defeated a
thousand Lsevinuses, 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 imderstand their methods of
government, and having conversed with their noblest citizens,
he afterwards told PnttIius, 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 Lemaean
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. \\Tiich being done, upon a sign grv'en, 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 to-day, makes any impression
upon me." At supper, amongst all sorts of things that were
discovirsed 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 objects of life, placing the chief
happiness of man in pleasure, and declining pubhc 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, " 0 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

6o Plutarch's Lives

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
honour 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 intrusted
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 iEmilius, 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 favour 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." \Vhen 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 for 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. After-
wards, his affairs demanding a second fight, when he had re
freshed 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

Pyrrhus 6i

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 them-
selves 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 them-
selves, thinking only to woimd and kill, without regard to what
they suffered. After a long and obstinate fight, the first giving
ground is rejxjrted to have been where Pyrrhus himself engaged
^s-ith extraordinary courage; but they were most carried away
by the overwhelming force of the elephants, not being able to
make use of their valour, 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 P>Trhus's men, the king's
own commentaries ref>orted 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 vmwillingly separated
by the night, PvTrhus being woimded by a javelin in the arm,
ind his baggage plundered by the Samnites, that in all there died
Df Pyrrhus's men and the Romans above fifteen thousand. The
armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that
yave him joy of his victory that one other such would utterly
ando him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought
ffiitx him, and almost all his particular friends and principal
ximmanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and
le found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other
land, as from a foimtain continually flowing out of the city,
:he Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh
nen, not at all abating in courage for the losses they sustained,
3ut even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution
x> go on with the war.

6t Plutarch's Lives

Among these difficulties he fell again into new hopes and
projects distracting his purposes. For at the same time some
persons arrived from Sicily, offermg into his hands the cities
of Agrigentum, Syracuse, and Leontini, and begging his assist-
ance to drive out liie Carthaginians and rid the island of tyrants;
and others brought him news out of Greece that Ptolemy, called
Ceranus, was slain in a fight, and his army cut in pieces by the
Gauls, and that now, above all others, was his time to offei
himself to the Macedonians, m great need of a king. Complam-
ing 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, balanc-
ing in his thoughts. But the affairs of Sicily seeming to hold
out the greater prospects, Africa lying so near, he turned himseli
to them, and presently despatched 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, whc
required htm 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 commandec
them to be quiet and attend his time, and so sailed away. Being
arrived in Sicily, what he had designed in his hopes was con-
firmed effectually, and the cities frankly surrendered to him
and wherever his arms and force were necessary, nothing a1
first made any considerable resistance. For advancing wit!
thirty thousand foot, and twenty-five himdred horse, and twc
hundred ships, he totally routed the Phoenicians, and overrar
their whole province, and Eryx being the strongest town thej
held, and having a great garrison in it, he resolved to take ii
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 i
vow of plays and sacrifices in honovir to Hercules, if he signalisec
himself in that day's action before the Greeks that dwelt ir
Sicily, as became his great descent and his fortunes. The sigr
being given by sound of trumpet, he first scattered the barbarian:
with his shot, and then brought his ladders to the wall, and wai
the first that mounted upon it himself, and, the enemy appearing
in great numbers, he beat them back; some he threw dowi
from the walls on each side, others he laid dead in a heap rounc
about him with his sword, nor did he receive the least wound
but by his very aspect inspired terror in the enemy; and gavi
a clear demonstration that Homer was in the right, and pro
nounced according to the truth of fact, that fortitude alone, of a]

Pyrrhus 63

the virtues, b 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 ^e 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 in--
clined 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 fortime, 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 abund-
ance of shipping, but ver>' 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 punish-
ments. 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 tjTant by these severe
proceedings, he got the name of an imgrateful 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 Thcenon and Sosistratus, men of
the first position in SjTacuse, who invited him over into Sicily,
md when he was come, put the cities into his power, and were
most instnunental in all he had done there since his arrival,
v\-hom he now would neither suffer to be about his person, nor
eave at home; and when Sosistratus out of fear withdrew
aimself, and then he chained Thoenon, as in a conspiracy with
the other, and put him to death, with this all his prospects
changed, not by little and httle, nor in a single place only, but
i mortal hatred being raised in the cities against him, some fell
:ii|off to the Carthaginians, others called in the Mamertines. And
eing revolts in all places, and desires of alteration, and a potent

^ Mamers being anotho: and older form for Mars. The Mamertines
, !rere descended from Campanian or Oscan mercenaries and spoke a kind
ii 3f Latm. *^

64

Plutarch's Lives

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 colour 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 labouring 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 difiicult,
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 arniour, 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 down-
ward so far that his body being cut asunder fell in two pieces.
This stopped the course of the barbarians, amazed and con-
founded at Pyrrhus, as one more than man; so that continuing
liis 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 Taren-
tines, 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 to in join him.

Pyrrhus 65

^fie di^nded his army int© two parts, and despatched 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
Manms 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 unfavourable
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 oS 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 over-
powered 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 in\'incible
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 unsuccess-
ful in his affairs, yet preserved his courage unconquerable among
all these misfortunes, and was held, for miHtary experience, and
personal valour 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
n C

66 Plutarch's Lives

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 main-
tain 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 liis 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 : —

" PjTrhus, descendant of Molossian kings,
Tliese shields to thee, Itonian goddess, brings,
Won from the valiant Gaul when in the fight
Antigonus and all his host took flight ;
'Tis not to-day or yesterday alone
That for brave deeds the iEacidae are known."

After this victory in the field, he proceeded to secure the cities,
and having possessed himself of -^Egse, 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 msolently
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 fear of punish-
ing 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

Pyrrhus 67

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. Cleony-
mus was of royal descent, but seeming too arbitrar\' and abso-
lute, 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 dishonourable
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 Pelo-
ponnesus 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 defence would be made, he sat

^68 Plutarch's Lives

down before it that night. Cleonjonus's friendSj and the Helots,
his domestic servants, had made great preparation at his house,
as expecting Pyrrhus there at supper. In the night the Lace-
daemonians held a consultation to ship over all the women into
Crete, but they unanimously refused, and Archidaraia came into
the senate with a sword in her hand, in the name of them all,
asking if the men expected tlie 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 tliere in it, to
sink waggons in the ground, as deep as the naves of the wheels,
that, so being firmly fixed, they might obstruct the passage of
the elephants. WTien they had just begun the work, both
maids and women came to them, the married women with their
robes tied like girdles round their vmderfrocks, and the un-
married 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 trencli, which was
in breadth six cubits, four in depth, and eight hundred feet long,
as Phy larchus 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 Qiem to defend and keep it bravely, as it
would be happy for them to conquer in the view of their whole
coxmtry, and glorious to die in the arms of tlieir mothers and
wives, falling as became Spartans. As for Chilonis, she retired
with a halter about her neck, resolving to die so ratlier 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 tlie
looseness of the fresh earth afforded no firm footing for the
soldiers. Ptolemy, his son, with two tliousand Gauls, and some
ciioice men of the Chaonians, went around the trench, and
endeavoured to get over where the waggons were. But they,
being so deep in the ground, and placed close together, not only
made his passage, but also the defence of the Lacedaemonums,
very troublesome. Yet now the Gauls had got the wheels out
of the ground, and were drawing off the waggons toward tlie
river, when young Acrotatus, seeing the danger, passing through
tlie town with three hundred men, surrounded Ptolemy undis-
cemed, taking the advantage of some slopes of the ground,
until he fell upon his rear, and forced him to wheel about^ And

Pyrrhus 69

thrusting one another into the ditch, and falling among the
waggons, 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 ret;imed back into the to%vn
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 Qiilonis so
worthy a lover. And some of the old men followed him, crying
aloud, " Go on, Acrotatus, be happy with Qiilonis, and beget
brave sons for Sparta." \Vhere P\TThus himself fought was the
hottest of the action and many of the Spartans did gallantly^
but in particular one PhyUius signalised himself, made the best
resistance, and killed most assailants; and when he found him-
self 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 oil
his body. The fight ended with the day, and Pyrrhus, in his
sleep, dreamed that he drew thunderbolts upon Lacedsemon,
and set it all on fire, and rejoiced at the sight; and waking, in
this transport of joy, he commanded his oSicers 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 Lysiraachus
was not pleased vsnth 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 repUed, that all these thing*
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 Pyrrhos's 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
defence even beyond their power; the women were ah by, help-
ing 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, ^\^lile the Lacedae-
monians opposed this with all their force, Pyrrhus, in person,
appeared on their side of the trench and the waggons, pressing
en horseback toward the city, at which the men who had that

yo Plutarch's Lives

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 interposi-
tion may effect, brought, when the Lacedaemonians had now
but very slender hopes left, Aminias, the Phocian, one of Anti-
gonus'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 commg 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 succeed-
ing, 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 happen-
ing at Argos between Aristeas and Aristippus, two principal
citizens, after Aristippus had resolved to make use of the friend-
ship 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.

B Pyrrhus 71

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 ofT 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 afHiction, drew out his
Moiossian horse against them, and charging at the head of his
men, satiated himself with the blood and slaughter of the Lace-
daemonians, 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 of! 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 honour 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 despatched 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 Pj-rrhus 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

72 Plutarch's Lives

heads of the sacrificed oxen, lying apart frcan the bodies, were
seen to thrust out their tongues and lick up their own gore.
And in the cit^/ of Argos, the priestess of Apollo Lycius rushed
out of the temple, crying she saw the city full of carcases 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 market-place. 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 defence, and sent away to
Antigonus to assist them. He, advancing within a short dis-
tance, made an halt, but sent in some of his principal com-
manders, 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
ran 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 struggling in the narrow streets; all generalship
was useless in tliat darkness and noise and pressure; so both
sides continued without doing anything, expecting daylight.
.At the first dawn, Pyrrhus, seeing the great citadel Aspis fuU
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

^

Pyrrhus 75:

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
Lydus, and thus made his attempt upon the town, and suc-
ceeded; 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, command-
ing 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 f
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 market-place afiorded
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 failmg 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 oflp
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 crov/ded together, not a man could do anj-thing
for himself, but being wedged, as it were, together into one
mass, the whole multitude rolled and swayed this way and that
altogether, and did very little execution either upon the enemy
in their rear, or on any of them who were intercepted in the
rnass, 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
tlieir own men, as they happened to come in the way, and they
were dying by mere contact with each other.

74 Plutarch's Lives

Pyrrhus, seeing this storm and confusion of things, took off
the crown he wore upon his helmet, by which he was distin-
guished, 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 doorway 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 endeavouring 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 favourites. Antigonus, look-
ing 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. \Vlien 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, restored him to his

Caius Marius 75

kingdom of Epirus, and gave the same obligmg 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 sumamed 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, Comelii (as with
us Greeks, the Heraclidae, and Pelopidas), 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 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 truimph, when at the dedication of a temple
he presented some shows after the Greek fashion, coming into
the theatre, he only sat down and immediately departed. And,
accordingly, as Plato 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

76

Plutarch's Lives

Graces;" so if any could have persuaded Marius to pay his
devotions tx) 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 bom of parents Jdtogether obscure and indigent, who
supported themselves by their daily labour; 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 Cirrhasaton,
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 signalised himself to his general by courage
far above his comrades, and particularly by his cheerfully
complying with Scipio's reformation of his army, being almost
ruined by pleasures and luxury. It is stated, too, that he en-
counteped and vanquished an enemy in single combat, in his
general's sight. In consequence of all this he had several
honours conferred upon him; and once when at an entertain-
ment a question arose about commanders, and one of the com-
pany (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
Csecilius Metellus, of whose family he as well as his father were
dependants, 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 called
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 •

Caius Marius ']']

warranted, threatened Cotta, unless he recalled the decree, to
tlirow him into prison. And on his turning to Metellus, and
asking his vote, and Metellus, rising up to concur with the con-
siil, Marius, calling for the oiScer 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, imme-
diately complying, withdrew the decree. Marius came forth
with glory to the people and confirmed his law, and was hence-
forth esteemed a man of undaunted courage and assurance, as
well as a vigorous opposer of the senate in favour of the commons. \
But he immediately lost their opinion of him by a contrary
action; for when a law for the distribution of com was pro-
posed, he vigorously and successfully resisted it, making himself
equally honoured by both parties, in gratifying neither, contrary
to the public interest.

k After his tribuneship, he was candidate for the oflace of chief
laedile; there being two orders of them, one the curules, from
the stool v/ith crooked feet on which they sat w^hen they per-
! formed their duty; the other and inferior, called sediles 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 who 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 Herennii.

yS Plutarch's Lives

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. Not-
withstanding, though at the beginning of the suit it went
somewhat hard with Marius, and he found the judges no way
favourable to him, yet at last, their voices being equal, contrary
to all expectation, lie was acquitted.

In his praetorshipTie didTiot'get much honour, 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 valour. 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 labours, and his plain
way of living, of themselves gained him esteem and influence;
so that he made an honourable match with Julia, of the distin-
guished 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
tumours, 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 lieu-
tenant; where, eager himself to do great deeds and services
that would get him distinction, he did not, like others, consult
Metcllus's glory and the servmg his interest, and attributing his
honour of lieutenancy not to Metellus, but to fortune, which
had presented him with a proper opportunity and theatre of
great actions, he exerted his utmost courage. That war, too,
affording several difficulties, he neither declined the greatest.

Caius Marius 79

nor disdained undertaking the least of them, but surpassing his
equals in counsel and conduct, and matching the very common
soldiers in labour and abstemiousness, he gained great popularity
with them; as indeed any voluntary partaking with people in
their labovir b felt as an easing of that labour, 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 com-
mander 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
honours and riches ujx)n them, as those that partake of the same
labour 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 ne\'er 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 TurpilUus had, from his ancestors,
been a friend of Metellus, and kept up a 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 acciised 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
consiilship, and will not be content to wait and be consul with
tius boy of mine ? " Metellus's son being a mere boy at the

8o Plutarch's Lives

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; jotumev
from the camp to the seaport of Utica in two days and a mehL
and there domg sacrifice before he went on shipboard, it is said
tiie augur told hmi that heaven promised him some incredible
good fortune, and such as was beyond aU expectation. Marius
not a httle elated with this good omen, began his voyage, an*
m four days, with a favourable wmd, 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 tlie consulshin
mveighmg m all ways against Metellus, and promising either to
slay Jugurtha or take him alive.

H§^:5L^ije].ej?M triumphantly, and at once proceeded to fevy
s?l™s contrary both to ia.w and custom, enlisting slaves and poor
people; whereas former commanders never accepted of such
but bestowed arms, like other favou», as a matter of distinct
tion, on persons who had the proper qualification, a man's
propery bemg thus a sort of security for his good behaviour
These were not the only occasions of ill-will against Marius'
some haughty speeches, uttered with great arrogance and con-
tempt, gave great offence to the nobihty; as, for example, his
saymg that he had carried off the consulship as a spoil from the
effemmacy of the wealthy and high-bom 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 miages of their ancestors. Often speaking of the com-
manders that had been imfortunate 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 tliey did not think that the
ancestors of these nobles had much rather have left a descendant
like him, smce they themselves grew famous not by nobilitv
but by theu- valour and great actions? This he did not say
merely out of vanity and arrogance, or that he were willinc-
without any advantage, to offend the nobility; but the people'
aiways dehghtmg m affronts and scurrilous contumelies against
the senate, makmg boldness of speech their measure of greatness
of spirit, continually encouraged him in it, and strengthened his
mclmation not to spare persons of repute, so he might gratify
the multitude. & e- /

As soon as he arrived again in Africa, Metellus, no longer able
to control his feelings of jealousy, and his indignation that now

Caius Marius 8i

when he had really finished the war, and nothing was left but
to secure the person of Jugurtha, llarius, 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 retribu-
tion, 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 imfaithfulness, 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. \Vhen
Sylla, relying on his word, came to him, the African began to
doubt and repent of his purpose, and for several days was un-
resolved with himself, whether he should deliver Jugurtha or
retain Sylla; at length he fixed upon his former treachery, and
put Jugurtha ahve 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 distinc-
tion, and quick to resent any claim to share in his glor}', 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 caliminies were soon dispersed and
cleared away from Marius by the danger that threatened Italy
from the west; when the citv. in great need of a good com-
mander, sought about whom she might set at the helm to meet
the tempest of so great a war, no one would have anj'thing to
say to any members of noble or potent families who offered

82 Plutarch's Lives

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 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 Ceiti 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 travelling 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 grey 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 tliat 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 inliabit 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

Caius Marius 83

Ulysses calling up the dead, and from this region the people,
anciently callad 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 defence of Transalpine Gaul, were ingloriously overthrown,
and, indeed, by their faint resistance, chiefly gave them the
impulse of marching towards Rome. Having vanquished all i
they had met, and found abundance of plunder, they resolved I
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 I
did not permit any one that was absent, or that had not waited i
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 legionsi
out of Africa on the ver\' first day of January, which the Romansft
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, WTien, 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
earring, 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, " 0 Hercules I
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

84

Plutarch's Lives

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, Mariu*
called together the senate in the capitol, and entered, whether
through inadvertency or unbecoming exultation with his good
fortime, in^is triumphal habit; but presently observing the
senate offended at it, wenTout, and returned in his ordinary
purple-bordered robe.

On the expedition he carefully disciplined and trained his
army whilst they were 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 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 advan-
tageous, 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 folIowSi/" One
Caius Lusius, his own nephew, had a command under hipx in the
army, a man not in other respects of bad character, but shame-
fully licentious with young men. He had one young man under
his command called Trebonius, with whom notwithstandiiig
many solicitations he could never prevail. At length one night
he sent a messenger for hira and Trebonius came, as it was not

Caius Marius 85

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 defence, 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 valour, 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 ex-
pectation of the barbarians at the summer season, the people |
being tmwiiling 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 ilanius Aquilius, and hastened to
Rome, where, several eminent persons being candidates for the
consulship, Lucius Satuminus, who more than any of the other
tribimes 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, Satuminus 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 pretence
upon the people, yet, considering that the present juncture
much required his skill, and his good fortunes 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

86 Plutarch's Lives

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 a 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 seaside through
Liguria, The Cimbri were a considerable time in doing their
part. But the Teutones and Ambrones with all expedition
passmg 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 fortification,
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 mdeed altogether extravagant and barbarous,
and he caused them to observe their arms, and the 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 frightfulncss. This daily converse
not only diminished some of the soldiers' fears, but their indig-
nation 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

Caius Marius 87

ears. " What efEeminacy does Marius see in us, that he should
thus like women lock xis up from encoimtering 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 the 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
valour, 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 valour,
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

88 Plutarch's Lives

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 tliat 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 Ba,taces, one of Cybele's priests, from Pes-
sinus, 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 tlie 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 meaais, also, to put an edge on his soldiers' courage; and

Caius Marius 89

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 abovmding,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, great 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 Csepio
(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, retvimed 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
pvershout 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<

90 Plutarch's Lives

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 waggons; 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 one; 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 paUsade, and there remained
thousand upon thousands of their enemies yet un conquered;
to whom were joined as many of the Ambrones as escaped.
There were heard from these all through the night wild bewail-
ings, nothing like the sighs and groans of men, but a sort of
^vild-beast-like howling and cursing joined with threats and
lamentations rising from the vast multitude, and echoed among
the neighbouring 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 appre-
hensive 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

Caius Marius 91

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
hillside, 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 ail in resolution. The Romans accordingly stood for
their approach, and, checking them in their advance upwards,
forced them little by httle 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 sjjoil,
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 deserv'ed 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, how-
ever, 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 (soaked with the rain of
the following v^-inter), 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 hea\'7
evaporations, steaming forth from the blood and corruption.

92 Plutarch's Lives

thicken the air, which naturally is subject to alteration from
the smallest causes.

ASter the battle, Marius chose out from amongst the bar-
barians* 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, and 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 ofBcers
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 for-
tune 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 com-
pelled to divide his forces into several parties, he should weaken
himself, descended again into Italy, and posted his army behind
tlie 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

Caius Marius 93

the river, and surveyed the passage, they began to pile it up,
giant-like, tearing down the neighbouring hills; and brought
trees pulled up by the roots, and heaps of earth to the river,
damming up its course; and with great hea\y materials which
they rolled down the stream and dashed against the bridge,
they forced away the beams which supported it; in conse-
quence of which the greatest part of tlie Roman soldiers, much
affrighted, left the large camp and fled. Here Catulus showed
liimself 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 colours, 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 defence, 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, imanimously voting it, he himself did
not thinlc it convenient: whether that he were not willing to
deprive his soldiers and officers of their share of the glor}', or
that, to encourage the people in this jimcture, he would leave
the honour 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 splendour. Having left
such orders as the occasion required, he hastened to Catulus,
whose drooping spirits he much raised, and sent for his own
anny from Gaul; and as soon as it came, passing the river Po,
he endeavoured 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,

94 Plutarch's Lives

required some part of the country for themselves and their
brethren, and cities fit for them to inhabit. Wlien Marius in-
quired 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 yourself for
your brethren, for we have already provided lands for them,
which they shall possess for ever." The ambassadors, under-
standing 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 centre. 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 centre falls back, and
thus he would have the whole victory to himself and his soldiers,

Caius Marius 95

and Catulus would not be even engaged. They tell us, also,
that Catulus himself alleged this in vindication of his honour,
accusing, in various ways, the enviousness of Marius. The
infantry of the Cirabri marched quietly out of their fortifications,
having their flanks equal to their front; every side of the array
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 endeavoured 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 shown 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

g6

Plutarch's Lives

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 labour, and so well exercised, that in ail 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, standmg in black clothes on their waggons, 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 waggon, with her children tied
dangling at her heels. The men, for want of trees, tied them-
selves, some to the horns of the oxen, others by the neck to
their legs, that so prickmg them on, by the starting and spring-
ing of the beasts, they might be torn and trodden to pieces.
Yet for all they thus massacred themselves, above sixty thou-
sand 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 argu-
ment 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 colour 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

Caius Marius 97

that when the Gauls sacked Rome; and every one, in their
feasts and rejoicings at home with thsir wives and children,
made offerings and libations in honour of " The Gods and
Marius ; " and would have had him solely have the honour 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 fort^ine; besides he
was not a little afraid of the soldiers in Catulus's army, lest, if
he should wholly bereave their general of the honour, they
should endeavour to hinder him of his tramph.

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 favour 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 exceed-
ingly 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 ill^aily 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 clamour
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 favour 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
aU, 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
honourable course, but by subservience and complaisance.
Marius, therefore, endeavoured to banish him from the city,
and for this purpose he contracted a close alliance with Glauck
and Satuminus, a couple of daring feiiows, who had the great
mass of the indigent and seditious multitude at their control;

a D

98 Plutarch's Lives

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 dis-
tributing 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 misdemeanours in compliance with
the desires of Satuminus; among which was the murder of
Nonius, whom Satummus slew because he stood in competition
with him for the tribuneship. And when, afterwards, Satuminus,
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 approba-
tion, 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 tlie 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 Satuminus 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

Caius Marius 99

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 priviso which he
added as a mere cover for his effrontery. The people, in great
jov at his taking the oath, loudly clapped and applauded him,
while the nobility stood by ashamed and vexed at his incon-
stancy ; but they submitted out of fear of the people, and all in
order took the oath, tUl it came to Meteilus's turn. But he,
though his friends begged and entreated him to take it, and not
to plunge himself irrecoverably into the penalties which Satur-
ninus 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 \\Tong 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 Satuminus 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 favour
and honour 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 Satuminus, 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 t>'ranny 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 guilt)'
of a most mean and dishonest action. When some of the great
men came to him at night to stir him up against Satuminus, at
the other door, unknown to them, he let him in; then making
the same pretence of some disorder of body to both, he ran from
one party to the other, and staying at one time with them

loo Plutarch's Lives

and another v/ith 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 him-
self equally odious both to the nobility and commons, and when
the time was come to create censors, though he v/as the most
obvious man, yet he did not petition for it; but fearing the dis-
grace 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.

I There was novv' an edict preferred to recall Metellus from
I 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 Metelius's return, made a voyage to Cappadocia
End 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 com-
motions, 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. There-
fore, though Mithridates entertained him with all imaginable
attention and respect, yet he was not at all wrought upon or
softened by it; but said, " 0 king, either endeavour to be
stronger than the Romans, or else quietly submit to their
commands," Witli which he left Mithridates as he indeed had
often heard the fame of the bold speaking of the Romans, but
now for the first time experienced it^

VvTien Marius returned again to Rome, he built a house

Caius Marius loi

dose by the fomm, 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 poHtical life, like a mere tool and implement of war, he
was thrown aside in time of peace. Amongst aU 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 Nuraidia,
who was st}'led tae associate of the Romans, dedicated some
figures of Victory in the capitoI, and with them a representation
in gold of himself delivering Jugurtha to SyUa, Marius upon this
was almost distracted with rage and ambition, as though Sylla
had arrogated this honour to himself, and endeavoured forcibly
to pull down these presents; Sylla, on the other side, as vigor-
ously resisted him; but the Social War, then on a sudden ;||
threateniag the city, put a stop to this sedition when just]
ready to break out. For the most warlike and best-peopled P"
countries of all Italy formed a confederacy together against 1>
Rome, and were within a httle of subverting the empire ; as I
they were indeed strong, not only in their weapons and the \_
valour 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, unenter-
prising, and timid, whether it were that his age was now quench-
ing his former heat and vigour (for he was above sixt}'-fivs
years old), or that having, as he himself said, some disteAjer
that affected his muscles, and his body being unfit for actfcn,
he did service above his strength. Yet, for all this, he cala^
off victor in a considerable batde, wherein he slew six thousamK^
of the enemies, and never once gave them any advantage ovdH^
him ; and when he was surroimded by the works of the enemy^^
he contained himself, and though insxilted over, and challenged,
did not yield to the provocation. The story is told that when
Puoiius 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 rephed, " If
you are one, make me do so." And another time, when the
enemy gave them a good opportunity of a battle, and the

I02 Plutarch s Lives

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 lor Sylla,
and jeeringly bade Marius go to the baths at Baise, to cure his
body, worn out, as himself confessed, with age and catarrlis.
Marius had indeed, there, about Misenum, a villa more effemi-
nately 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 LucuUus, 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 armour, and expert in riding ; though he was undoubtedly
grown bulky in his old age, and inclining to excessive faintness
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 Hmit 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
pretences 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 oppor-
tune an instrument for the public destruction as Sulpicius's

Caius Marius 105

insolence. This man professed, in all other respects, to admire
and imitate Satuminus; only he found fault with him for back-
wardness 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, tiU 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 pre-
parations 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 w^ere but three who
accepted his proposal. For some small time he made head
against Sylla's assault, but v/as 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 neighbouring 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 pre-
parations; 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, fore-

104 Plutarch's Lives

seeing 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 v/ife, took with him some necessaries, and came at night
to the seaside; 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 sea-sick, 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 Imowing 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 strait, 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 tlie 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 travelled by the seaside,
encouraging his companions not to fall away from him before
the fulfilment 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 slcirt 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
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

Caius Marius 105

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, sp>eaking
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 twent}' furlongs
distant from Llintumae, 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 zSnaria ; Marius himseh', 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 oS in a rage, the
seamen, again changing their resolution, came to land, and
casting anchor at the mouth of the river Liris, where it over-
flows and makes a 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 seamen 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 honourable 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

io6 Plutarch's Lives

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 ex-
pectation. 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. Whereupon
Marius, arising and stripping himself, plunged into a puddle
full of thick muddy water; and even there he could not escape
tiieir 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, de-
manded 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 case 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

Caius Marius 107

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 his 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 councillors of Mintumje cor»-
gulted together, and determmed 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,
cr>'ing only this, " I cannot kill Caius Marius." At which they
were all at first astonished, and presently bc^an 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 seaside; on his way to which, though every
one 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 accom-
modation to the ship, passed through the grove, all the rest
immediately, with the same readiness, accompanying him.

io8 Plutarch's Lives

And one Eelaeus (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 ^Enaria,
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 m 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 tiiat
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 com-
passion, it was hoped, might lend him some help. But he ^\'as
scarce got ashore with a small retinue when an officer met him,
and said, " Sextilius, the governor, forbids you, Marius, to set
foot m Africa; if you do, he says he wHl 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 honourably; but when they
had a mind to depart, he still had some pretence 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 tlxat her offers
were more serious than for the gratification of intemperate

Caius Marius 109

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 seaside, they saw some scorpions fighting, which Marius
took for an ill omen, whereupon they immediately went on board
a little fisher-boat, and made towards Cercinas, an island not
far distant from the continent. They had scarce put ofE from
shore when they espied some horse, sent after them by the king,
with all speed making towards 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 inoirred.

At Rome news came that Sylla was engaged with Mithri-
dates' generals in Bceotia; the consuls, from factious opposi-
tion, were fallen to dowiTiright 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 hiia
from Africa some Mauritanian horse, and a few of the refugees
out of Italy, all together not above one thou5?^d, he, with this
handful, began his voyage. Arriving at Teiamon, in Etruria,
and coming ashore, he proclaimed freedom for the slaves; and
many of the countr>Tnen, also, and shepherds thereabouts, who
were already freemen, at the hearing his name, flocked to him
to the seaside. 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 deter-
mined to join himself and his forces with the latter. He there-
fore 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
fortane; 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 ex-
pression from still predominating, and his hmniiiation still let it

no Plutarch's Lives

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 plimdering all the merchants, made
himself master of the supplies of com; 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 unskilfulness in his management of affairs as from
his omitting needful measures through too stjict 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 defence of the laws, was driving
away Marcus. 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 Chaldseans, sacrificers, and inter-
preters of the Sibyl's books persuaded Octavius that things
could turn out happily, and kept him at Rome. He was,
indeed, of all the Romans the most upright and just, and main-
tained the honour of the consulate, without cringing or com-
pliance, 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 sliould be often successful by tlie

Caius Marius 1 1 1

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 obser\'er
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
pretences 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 Bardyasi. 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 re-saluted 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 con-
tinued 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
hospitahty 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 Comutus deserve the greater praise and
admiration, who, having concealed their master in the house,
took the body of cue of the slain, cut off the head, put a gold

112 rlutarchs Lives

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 Comutus 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
sex-vant to get some wine of a neighbouring 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 designs 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 de-
tamed by his friends, he sent Annius, and some soldiers with
him, and commanded him to bring Antonius's head to him
with all speed. Wlien they came to the house, Annius stayed
at the door, and the soldiers went upstairs into the chamber;
where, seeing Antonius, they endeavoured to shuffle off the
murder from one another; for so great it seems were the graces
and charrns 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. WTien 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 hfe, 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
Bardyci was the greatest grievance. These murdered the

Caius Marius 113

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, feE 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 aU 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 beheving 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 misfortimes both of their party and of
the city. Marius, himself now worn out with labour and sink-
ing 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 inex-
perienced 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 Aese, 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 tliat 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 feU
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,
telis us that Marius, walking after supper with tm friends, fell

114- Plutarch's Lives

into a conversation with them about his pssrt 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
recognising every favoupftof his indulgent fortune with the
greatest acknowledgments, and carefully saving all to the last
in that safest of human treasure-chambers, the memory. Un-
mindful and thoughtless persons, on the contrary, let all that
occurs to them slip away from them as time passes on. Re-
taining and preserving nothing, they lose the enjoyment of
their present prosperity by fancying something better to come;
whereas by fortune we may be prevented to 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 a 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

Lysander 115

vigorous; so much cruelty and savageness did his son MariiB
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 Syila in Prseneste, where he en-
deavoured 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 contrarywise 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 Lacedxmon, 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
Heraclidse. He was brought up in poverty, and showed himself
obedient and conformable, as ever any one 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 honoured 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
any one who is insensible and unaffected in these respects is

ii6 Plutarch's Lives

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 contiaued
there, must we blame his natural disposition much for this.
But he was submissive to great men, beyond what seems agree-
able to the Spartan temper, and could easily bear the haughti-
ness 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 tlie Athenian war, though
keeping not one drachma for himseK. When Dionysius, the
tyrant, sent his daughters some costly gowns of Sicilian manu-
facture, 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 ere long 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 Lacedaimonians, 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 tlie seas. Being at P^phesus, and
finding the city well affected towards him, and favourable to
the Lacedcemonian party, but in ill condition, and in danger to
become barbarised 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 for a long time, he pitched his camp there, and commanded
the merchant ships all about to put in thither, and proceeded

Lysander 117

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 Tisaphemes,
who, receiving a command to help the Lacedsemonians, and to
drive the Athenians from the sea, was thought, on account of
Alcibiades, to have become remiss and imwiiling, and by pay-
ing the seamen slenderly to be ruining the fleet. Now Cyrus
was willing that Tisaphemes 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 intei-
course together, Lysander, especially by the submissiveness of
his conversation, won the affection 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 goodwill, but to speak and ask whatever he had a
mind to, and that he should not be refused anything whatso-
ever: " Since you are so very kind," repUed 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 pubHc 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
ihe 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 com-
mander, and having the superior mmiber of ships, and having
been hitherto, in all battles, unconquered both by sea and land.

But afterwards, when Alcibiades sailed from Samos to
Phociea, leavmg Antiochus, the pHot, 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

1 1 8 Plutarch's Lives

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 mto the
Chersonese. And this battle, although not important in itself,
was made remarkable by its consequences to Alcibiades.

Lysander, meanwhile, invited 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 govern-
ment 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 government, he
said, should be suppressed and they should become supreme
in their several coimtries. And he made them believe these
things by present deeds, promoting those who were his friends
already to great employments, honours, and offices, and, to
gratify their covetousness, making himself a partner in m-
justice 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 experi-
ence that he was a most noble and just person, were they
pleased with the manner of his government, and its straight-
forward, 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 Sard is, bidding them, if they
would, apply to Callicratidas himself, and see how he was abfe
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 empti-
ness of tliese 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 answer-
ing, that not himself but he commanded the ships, sailed to

Lysander 1 1 9

Peloponnesus, leaving Callicratidas in great perplexity. For
leither had he brought any money from home with him, nor
ould he endure to tax the towns or force them, being in hard-
hip enough. Therefore, the only course that was to be taken
vas to go and beg at the doors of the king's commanders, as
'.vsander had done ; for which he was most unfit of any man,
jeing of a generous and great spirit, and one who thought it
nore becoming for the Greeks to suffer any damage from one
mother, than to flatter and wait at the gates of barbarians,
«rho, indeed, had gold enough, but nothing else that was com-
mendable. But being compelled by necessity, he proceeded to
ydia, and went at once to C>tus's house, and sent in word
Jxat Callicratidas, the admiral, was there to speak with him;
me of tliose who kept the gates replied, *' Cyrus, 0 stranger, is
lot now at leisure, for he is drinking." To which Callicratidas
sjiswered, most innocently, " Very well, I will wait till he has
lone his draught." This time, therefore, they took him for
ome clownish fellow, and he withdrew, merely laughed at by
he barbarians; but when, afterwards, he came a second time
o the gate, and was not admitted, he took it hardly and set off
or Ephesus, wishing a great many evils to those who first let
hemselves be insulted over by these barbarians, and taught
hem to be insolent because of their riches; and added vows to
hose who were present, that as soon as ever he came back to
5parta, he would do all he could to reconcile the Greeks, that
:hey might be formidable to barbarians, and that they should
:ease henceforth to need their aid against one another. But
^Callicratidas, who entertained purposes worthy a Lacedae-
monian, and showed himself worthy to compete with the very
)est of Greece, for his justice, his greatness of mind and courage,
lot long after, having been beaten in a sea fight at Arginusae,
lied.

And now, affairs going backwards, the associates in the war
■ent an embassy to Sparta, requiring Lysander to be their
idmiral, professing themselves ready to undertake the business
nuch more zealously if he was commander; and Cyrus also
ent to request the same thing. But because they had a law
vvhich would not suffer any one to be admiral twice, and wished,
levertheless, to gratify their allies, they gave the title of
admiral to one Aracus, and sent Lysander nominally as vice-
idmiral, but, indeed, with full powers. So he came out, long
vished for by the greatest part of the chief persons and leaders
in the to^NHS, who hoped to grow to greater power still by his

I^q Plutarch's Lives

means, when tha popular govemmeats should be everywhere
destroyed.

But to those who loved honest and noble behaviour in their
commanders, Lysander, compared with Callicratidas, seemed
cunning and subtle, managing most things in the war by deceit,
extolling what was just v-^hen 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 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 coimections, whom he had promised to
assist in suppressing popular government, and expelling their
political opponents, had altered their minds, and were recon-
ciled 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 Poly-
crates of Samos, not very honourable 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
favour 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

Lysander 121

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
conunitted his government to him, and so taking his leave, and
desiring him not to fight by sea before he returned, for he woiild
come back with a great many ships out of Phoenicia and Ciiicia,
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 ^Egina
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 island into Asia. And finding the Hellespont without any
defence, he attacked Lampsacus with his ships by sea; while
Thorax, acting in concert with him with the land army, made
an assault on the waUs ; 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 iEgos Potami, over against their
enemies, who were still stationed about Lampsacus. Amongst
other Athenian captains who were now in command was
PhUocles, he who persuaded the people to pass a decree to cut
ofi the right thumb of the captives in the war, that they should
not be able to hold the spear, though they might the oar.

Tnen 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, excepting
what should be conmianded, 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, 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

122 Plutarch's Lives

the seamen go out of the ships before two or three^ which he
had sent to espy, were returned, after seeing the enemies dis-
embark. And thus they did the next day, and the third, and
so to the fourth. So that the Athenians grew extremely con-
fident, 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 con-
siderable way off; whereas if they sailed round a little way to
the town and harbour 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 exeaited. This advice, however, they would not
listen to; and Tydeus answered 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
ynth 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 the battle, the ships rowed up, and the foot soldiers
strove to get along by the shore to the promontory. The dis- i
tance there between the two continents is fifteen furlongs, :
which, by the zeal and eagerness of the rowers, was quickly j
traversed. Conon, one of the Athenian commanders, was the j
first who saw from the land the fleet advancing, and shouted i
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 j

Lysandcr 123

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 Evagoras. 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 pabs, and having finished in one hour a war which
had been protracted in its continuance, and diversified in its
incidents and in its fortunes, to a degree exceeding belief, com-
pared 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 prevnous 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 inter-
vention, 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 do'.vTi was
a sign of this slaughter. For a stone of a great size did fall,
according to the common belief, from heaven, at JEgos Potami,
which is sliown to this day, and held 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 heav^', 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 pro-
bable opinion than this maintained by some, who say that
falling stars are no efiiuxes, nor discharges of ethereal fire.

1 24 riutarcn s i^ives

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 o^.
by this commotion and running about, were carried m all direc-
tions, 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 propor-
tion, to speak of, to that fiery compass. It is manifest that
Daimachus needs to have indulgent hearers; but if what he
says be true, be altogether proves those to be wrong who say
that a rock broken o2 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 groimd. 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 to 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 wTites in his
history. After this Lysander, sailing about to the various

Lysander 125

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 cit>', 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, personalty
appearing on many occasions of bloodshed and massacre, and
aiding his friends to expel their opponents, he did not give the
Greeks a favourable specimen of the Lacedaemonian govern-
ment; 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 Uberty, they then poured vinegar into the cup;
for from the very first it had a rough and bitter taste, all govern-
ment 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 Lacedsemon 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 hke manner de-
stroyed 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 Lace-
djemonians, who brought the Sestians back again into their
country. All Greece, however, rejoiced to see the /Eginetans,

126 Plutarch's Lives

by Lysander's aid. now again, after a long time, receiving back
their cities, and the Melians and Scionasans 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 in «?nough." But
this saying was invented for its neatness' sake; for the true
decree of the magistrates w^as on this manner: "The govern-
ment 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, " 0 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 —

Lysander 127

" Electra, Agamemnon's child, I come
Unto thy desert home,"

V 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 aUies being
crowned with garlands, and making merry together, as counting
that day the beginning of their hberty. 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 CaUibius, a Spartan, the governor of it; who after-
wards taking up his staS 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
favour, a little after killed Autolycus.

Lysander, after this, sails out to Thrace, and what remained
of the public money, and the gifts and cro\\Tis 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 Lace-
daemon 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 WTiting expressed; and the matter
causing some perplexity to the magistrates, Gylippus's ser\-ant
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

128 Plutarch's Lives

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 endeavouring 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 any one was found
in possession of any privately, he should be put to death, as if
Lycurgus had feared the coin, and not the covetousness result-
ing 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 every one 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, arc
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 guaxd over the citizens' houses, to prevent any money
entering into them: but their minds could no longer be ex-
pected 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 pomt, however, we have given our censure of
the Lacedsemonians in one of our other writings.
Lysander erected out of the spoils brazen statues at Delphi

Ly Sander 129

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 honour 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 histor\', 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 Chcerilus
always with him, to extol his achievements in verse; and to
Antilochus, who had made some verses in his commendation,
being please'd with them, he gave a hat full of silver ; and when
Antimachus of Colophon, and one Niceratus of Heraclea, com-
peted with each other in a poem on the deeds of Lysander, he
gave the garland to Niceratus; at which Antimachus, m vexa-
tion, 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. After-
wards, 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 be-
fitted 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

U B

130 Plutarch's Lives

not suffice i 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 de-
livered 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 offences against him-
self, but granted these favours without sparing, and joined in
tJie 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 tlie
same thing concerning Alcibiades. But in his case what had
given most offence 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 Phamabazus, 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 hirti 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 leng^i and
thickness, and cut even to one another; they keep one them-
selves, 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 tlie
staff with the scroll all over. When they have done tliis, 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 tliey
were in before, and putting what comes first into connection

Lysander 131

with what follows, brings the whole consecutive contents to
view round the outside. And this scroll is called a sta-§, after
the namie 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 Phamabazus'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 ktter to the magistrates, stating that he had not been
wronged, and had no complaint to prefer. But he was ignorant
that Phamabazus, as it is in the proverb, played Cretan against
Cretan; for pretending to do aU 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' oflSce, gave Phamabazus's
letter to the Ephors, being persuaded that the greatest accusa-
tion against him was now withdrawn; for Phamabazus 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 d&yt
after, meeting the Ephors, he said he must go to the temple of
Ammon, and offer the god the sacrifices whidi 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 Aphytasans 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 pretence, 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 travelling 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

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Plutarch's Lives

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 restor-
ing 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, per-
suaded 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 m words, indeed, professed as
if he had been for the tyrant against the people, but Lq 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 hope of
Lysander, though shortly after, on the Athenians rebellmg
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, not 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 levelled. 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
Leontychides, who was supposed his son, Lysander, being

Lysander 133

attached to Agesilaus, persuaded him to lay claim to the
kingdom, as being a true descendant of Hercules; Leonty-
chides 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 Leonty chides ; but now when he was
carried sick to Hersea, being ready to die, what by importunities
of the young man hinxself, and of his friends, in the presence
of many he declared Leontychides to be his ; and desiring those
who were present to bear witness to this to the Lacedaemonians,
died. They accordingly did so testify in favour of Leontychides.
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 thjrself, 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
Leontychides, 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-bom should
govern with the posterity of Hercules. By this argument, and
by his great influence among them, he prevailed, and Agesilaus
was made king.

Inmiediately, 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 favour done Agesilaus by Lysander, not inferior to his
first in obtaining him the kingdom. But witii 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 counsellors that

134 Plutarch's Lives

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 sceptre is hardly heard to speak,
even so was it about the counsellor, he had all the real honours 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 obser-
vances to him, waiting upon him in the walks and places of
exercise; at which Agesilaus was more annoyed than ever,
envying him the honour; 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 lonians, " 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, 0 Agesilaus, how
to depress your friends; " " Those friends," replied he, " M'ho
would be greater than myself; but those who increase my
power, it is just should share in it." " Possibly, 0 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

Lysandcr 135

observers from without, to place me in any command under
vou 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 v.ith AgesUaus, yet did not neglect to perform
his duty, and having induced Spithridates the Persian, being
offended with Phamabazus, 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 com-
pleted his time returned to Sparta, without honour, angry with
Agesilaus, and hating more than ever the whole Spartan govern-
ment, 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 Heraclidas
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 ^e kings were chosen out of two only, called the Eury-
pontidae and the Agiadae ; the rest had no privilege in the govern-
ment by their nobility of birth, and the honours which followed
from merit lay open to all who could obtain them. Lysander,
who was bom 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 famihes, and to give it in common to all the Heraclidse;
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 honoiu" of the Godhead;
and he hoped that when the kingdom was thus to be competed
for, no Spartan would be chosen before himseK.

Accordingly he first attempted and prepared to persuade
the citizens privately, and studied an oration composed for
this purpose by CI eon, the Halicamassian. Afterwards per-
ceiving 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

136

Plutarch's Lives

alarm and overpower the minds of his follow-citizens by religious
and superstitious terrors, before bringing them to the considera-
tion of his arguments. Ephorus relates, after he had endeavoured
to corrupt the oracle of Apollo, and had again failed to persuade
the priestess 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, 0 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, lilce 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
aftertimes 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 parti-
culars, 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

Lysander i 3 7

kings out of the best citizens. And now, Silenus being grown
up to a youth, and being ready for the action, Lysander mis-
carried in his drama through the timidity of one of his actors,
or assistants, who just he as 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 peiiiaps more truly having himseK involved Greece, in the
Boeotian war. For it is stated both wap; 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, whUe the rest of the confederates submitted without
complaint; and because they expressed indignation about the
money which Lysander sent to Sparta, but more especially,
because from them the Athenians had obtained the first oppor-
tunity of freeing themselves from the thirty tyrants, whom
Lysander had made, and to support whom the Lacedaemonians
issued a decree that poUtical refugees from Athens might be
arrested in whatever country they were found, and that those
who impeded their arrest should be excluded from the con-
federacy. Li 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 t}Tants, that none of the Thebans should
either see or hear of it. Nor did they pass these human and truly
Greek decrees without at the same time making their acts con-
formable to tlieir 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

1 38 Plutarch's Lives

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 Bceotia ;
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 despatched also letters to Pau-
sanias, 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 Haliart\is a little before
Lysander, and part of them entered into the city. He upon
this first of all resolved, posting his anny 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-colour, clear, and most pleasant to drink ; and
not far off the Cretan storax grows all about, which tlie Haliar-
tians 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 im-
mediately 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 difticult
places. These had been under suspicion of favouring the Lace-
daemonians, 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 reaclned Pausanias

Lysandcr 139

as he was on the way from Platasa to Thespias, and having set
his army in order he came to Haliaruis; 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,
ihen they might bury him ; if they were overcome, it was glorious
to die upon the spot with their commander. WTien the elders
had spoken these things, Pausanias saw it would be a difhcuit
business to vanquish the Thebans, who had but just been con-
querors; 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 Panopasans;
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 HopUtes; 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 ob-
served 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 earthbom dragon following behind."

Some, however, say that HopUtes 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 Neo-
chorus, 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 Haliarttis. It ran thus : —

" Hunting the wolf, observe the utmost bound.
And the hill Orchalides where foxes most are found."

140 rlutarch s Lyives

By the words, " the utmost bound," Delium being intended,
where Bceotia 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
aggrandisement, as Theopompus in his history relates, whom
any one 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
Agiadse, 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 subtilly. Other honours, 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, m Sparta,
a punishment for not marrying, for a late, and for a bad marriage ;
and to the last penalty tiiose were most especially liable who
sought alliances with the rich instead of with the good and with
their friends. Such b the account we have found given of
Lysander«

Sylh

141

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. WTien 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. AJnd 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."

1 42 rlutarch s Lives

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 obscure 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.
WTien 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 under-
went 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 any one
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 temptation of voluptuous-
ness, from which even in 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 liated 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 im-

oyiia 143

minent 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 honour, his appetite for distinction carried
him to such a pitch of ostentation, ^at 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 oppor-
tunities 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 intrusted him with the highest and most important com-
missions, 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 fore-
warned 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 admini-
stration, betook himself immediately from the camp to the
assembly, and offered himself as a candidate for a prsetorship,
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 pretence of re-establishing 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 succours, 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.

Sylla

145

to become the greatest of men; it was rather a wonder how
ae could even then abstain from being head of all.

At his return, Censorinus impeached him of extortion, for
hiving 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
A^arius began to break out afresh, receiving new material from
tie 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
dty would have been in tumult and commotion with this
dispute, had not the Social War, which had long lain smoulder-
ing, 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 signalise his valour 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
honours; and said to the people on one occasion at his return
from war, " In this, ye men of Athens, Fortime had no part."
A piece of boyish petulance, which the deit>', we are told, played
back upon Timotheus; who from that time was never able to
achieve anything that was great, but proving altogether unfor-
tunate 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
favours, but joining himself and extolling and glorifying what
was done, gave the honour of all to Fortune, whether it were
out of boastfulness, or a real feeling of divine agency. He

140 Plutarch s Lives

remarks, in his Memoirs, that of all his well-advised action!
none proved so lucky in the execution as what he had boldl
enterprised, not by calculation, but upon the moment. And
in the character which he gives of himself, that he was bom b
fortune rather than war, he seems to give Fortune a highe:
place than merit, and, in short, makes himself entirely tli(
creature of a superior power, accounting even his concord wi;}
Metellus, his equal in office, and his connection by marriage, i
piece of preternatural felicity. For expecting to have met ii
him a most troublesome, he found him a most accommodating
colleague. Moreover, in the Memoirs which he dedicated t(
Lucullus, he admonished him to esteem nothing more trust
worthy than what the divine powers advise him by night. Am
when he was leaving the city with an army, to fight in th(
Social War, he relates that the earth near the Lavema opened
and a quantity of fire came rushing out of it, shooting up witi
a bright flame into the heavens. The soothsayers upon thii
foretold that a person of great qualities, and of a rare an(
singular aspect, should take the government in hand, and quie
the present troubles of the city. Sylla affirms he was the man
for his golden head of hair made him an extraordinary-lookinc
man, nor had he any shame, after the great actions he hac
done, in testifying to his own great quahties. And thus muct
of his opinion as to divine agency.

In general he would seem to have been of a very irregulai
character, full of inconsistencies with himself; much given tc
rapine, to prodigahty 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 ii
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 distri-
bution 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 recon-
ciled after the most heinous acts of enmity, and yet would visit
small and inconsiderable offences 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 more-
over in a boast, that the soldiers would behave all the better

Sylla 147

30W, to make amends, by some special bravery, for their breach
of discipline. He took no notice of the clamours 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
araiy, in hopes to get himself declared general of the forces
against Mitliridates.

At his return to Rome he was chosen consul with Quintus
Pomf)eius, in the fiftieth year of his age, and made a most dis-
tinguished 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 ^Elia;
and thirdly to Clcelia, whom he disn^ssed as barren, but honour-
ably, 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 defer-
liDce, so much so that the people, when anxious for the recall
i>£ 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 ttie 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
&farius; who out of mad afiectation 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
ige, during the late campaigns, still coveted after command in
X distant war beyond the seas. And whilst Sylla was departed
or the camp, to order the rest of his affairs there, he sate
brooding at home, and at last hatched that execrable sedition,
'vhich ^^Tought Rome more mischief than all her enemies to-
gether had done, as was indeed foresho'wn by the gods. For a
[lame broke forth of its o^^^l accord, from under the staves of
the ensigns, and was with difficulty extinguished. Three ravens
iDrought their young into the open road, and ate them, carrying
the reUcs into the nest again. Mice having gnawed the conse-
crated gold in one of the temples, the keepers caught one of

148

Plutarch's Lives

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 Etras-
can sages affirmed that this prodigy betokened the mutation of
the age, and a general revolution in the world. For according
to thern 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 suc-
ceeded 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. Among 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 grass-
hopper in its mouth, and letting fall one part of it, flew away
with the remainder. The diviners foreboded commotions and
dissensions between the great landed proprietors and the common
city populace; the latter, hke 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 villainies, 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 un-
scrupulous; 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 thou-
sand swordsmen, and had always about him a company of
young men of the equestrian class ready for all occasions, whom

Sylla 149

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 to 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 busmess, 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 consul-
ship, only transferring the Mithridatic expedition to Marius.

There were immediately despatched 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 the news,
having stoned the tribunes, Marius, in requital, proceeded
to put the friends of Sylla in the city to the swcrd, and rifled
their goods. Ever>' 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 Sen-ilius, 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 ofi their purple-
edged robes, after much contvunelious 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 rapture
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 appre-
hensive of the danger. As he was sacrificing, Posttunius the
soothsayer, ha\Tng inspected the entrails, stretching forth both
hands to Sylla, required to be boimd and»kept in custody till
the battle was over, as willing, if they had not speedy and
complete success, to sufier the utmost punishment. It is said,

150 Plutarch's Lives

also, that there appeared to Sylla himself, in a dream, a certain
goddess, whom the Romans learnt to worship from the Cappa-
docians, whether it be the Moon, or Pallas, or Bellona. This
same goddess, to his thinking, stood by him, and put into his
hand thimder 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 Esquilrne 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 ofi the houses,
stopped his further progress, and beat him back to the wall.
Syila 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
friends, relations, or acquaintance, made his entry by fire, which
knows no distinction betwixt friend or fod

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, neitlier gratefully nor
politically, if we consider into whose house, not long before,
he put himself at jnercy, and 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

Sylla

151

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 honouring whom they thought they should most
annoy hira. He made semblance of extreme satisfaction at all
this, as if the people by his means had again enjoyed the liberty
of domg what seemed best to them. And to pacify the public
hostility, he created Lucius Cinna consul, one of the adverse
party, having first boimd him under oaths and imprecations to
be favourable to his interest. For Cinna, ascending the capitcl
vith a stone in his hand, swore solemnly, and prayed with
iireful curses, that he himself, if he were not true to his friend-
ship 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, having prepared an impeachment against
Sylla, got Virginius, one of the tribimes of the people, to be
!iis accxiser; but SyUa, leaving him and the court of judicature
do themselves, set forth against Mithridates.

About the time that Sylla was making ready to put oS
with his force 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 machinerv* from above let down on him,
when it had almost reached his head, fell to pieces, and the
crown tinnbling down into the midst of the theatre, 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 ex-
pectation. For having wTCSted Asia from the Romans, and
Bithynia and Cappadocia from their kings, he made Pergamus
his royal seat, distributing among his friends riches, princi-
palities, and kingdoms. Of his sons, one residing in Pontus
and Bosporus held his ancient realm as far as the deserts beyond
the lake Masotis, without molestation; while Ariarathes, another,
was reducing Thrace and Macedon, with a great army, to
obedience. His generals, with forces under them, were estab-
lishing his supremacy in other quarters. Archelaus, in par-

152 Plutarch's Lives

ticular, 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 Eubcea itself. Making
Athens his headquarters, 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 valour and prudence, met him, and, -though
he came like a torrent pouring over Bceotia, made stout resist-
ance, and thrice giving him battle near Chaeronea, repulsed
and forced him back to the sea. But being commanded by
Lucius LucuUus to give place to his successor, Sylla, and resign
the war to whom it was decreed, he presently left Bceotia, and
retired back to Sentius, although his success had outgone all
hopes, and Greece was well disposed to a new revolution, upon
account of hb gallant behaviour. These were the glorious
actions of Bruttius.

Sylla, on his arrival, received by their deputations the com-
pliments 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
forborne 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 sup-
plied 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

Sylla 153

each item by weight. Caphis came to Delphi, but was loth to
touch the holy things, and with many tears, in the presence
of the Amphictyons, 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 efiect 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 oSered.

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
^milius, 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 honours, 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. \VTiereas 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 temporise
in authority, and in order to pay for the gratifications with
which they purchased the labour 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 con-
tent 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 Raccus. To which courses Sylla contributed not
the least; for to corrupt and win over those who were under the
conmiand 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

154 Plutarch *s Lives

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 innu-
merable wars, many tryannies 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 dov/n shoes and oil-bags for their food, he,
carousing and feasting in the open face of day, then dancing in
armour, 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 revelling 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, talk-
ing in the Ceramicus, had been overheard to blame the tyrant
for not securing the passages and approaches near the Hepta-
chalcum, the one point where the enemy might easily get over.
Sylla neglected not the report, but going in the night, and dis-
covering 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 tlirown down the wall, and made all level
betwixt the Piraic and Sacred Gate, about midnight Sylla

SyUa

^SS

sntered the breach, with all the terrors of trumpets and comets
sounding, with the triumphant shout and cry of an array 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 market-place 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, beseech-
ing 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 honourable 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,
amd there came down a great quantity of rain and filled the
citadel with water.

Not long after, Sylla won the Pirseus, and burnt most of it;
amongst the rest, Philo's arsenal, a work very greatly admired.

In the meantime Taxiles, Mithridates's general, coming down
from Thrace and Macedon, with an army of one hundred thou-
sand 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 de-
Biring to protract the war and cut off the enemy's supplies.

156 Plutarch's Lives

Which Sylla perceiving much better than himself, passed with
his forces into Bceotia, quitting a barren district which was in-
adequate 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. Hor-
tensius, 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 times, 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 Philo-
bceotus, 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 there were not above fifteen hundred
horse, and less than fifteen thousand foot. Therefore the rest
of the commanders, over-persuading Archelaus and drawing up
the army, covered the plain with horses, chariots, bucklers,
targets. The clamour 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 armour, embellished magnificently with
gold and silver, and the rich colours 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, howevar, above all
advantaged him, for the enemy, from contemning of him, fell

Sylla 157

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.

SyUa, 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 labour, 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
ckunoured to be led against the enemy. Sylla replied, that this
demand of war proceeded rather from a backwardness to labour
than any forwardness to fight, but if they were in good earnest
martially incHned, he bade them take their arms and get up
thither, pointing to the ancient citadel of the Parapotamians, of
■vhich at present, the city being laid waste, there remained only
the rocky hill itself, steep and craggy on all sides, and severed
[rom 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
vvay up thither, Sylla was willing to take first possession, and
oy the vigorous efforts of the soldiers, succeeded. Archelaus,
iriven from hence, bent his forces upon Chaeronea. The
Ihaeroneans who bore arms in the Roman camp beseeching
■5ylla not to abandon the city, he despatched Gabinius, a tribune,
vith one legion, and sent out also the Chseroneans, who en-
Jeavoured, but were not able to get in before Gabinius; so
ictive was he, and more zealous to bring relief than those who
lad entreated it. Juba writes that Ericius was the man sent,
lot Gabinius. Thus narrowly did our native city escape.

From Lebadea and the cave of Trophonius there came
avourable rumours and prophecies of victory to the Romans,
>f which the inhabitants of those places gave a fuller account,
3ut as Sylla himself affirms in the tenth book of his Memoirs,
^uintus Titius, a man of some repute among the Romans who

158

Plutarch's Lives

were engaged in mercantile business in Greece, came to hin
after the battle won at Chseronea, and declared that Trophoniu:
had foretold another fight and victory on the place, within i
short time. After him a soldier, by name Salvenius, brough
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 seei
one who in stature and in majesty was similar to Jupite;
Olympius.

Sylla, when he had passed over the Assus, marching unde:
the Mount Hedylium, encamped close to Archelaus, who hac
intrenched himself strongly between the mountains Acontiun
and Hedylium, close to what are called the Assia. The plact
of his intrenchment is to this day named from him, Archelaus
Sylla, after one day's respite, having left Murena behind hin
with one legion and two cohorts to amuse the enemy witi
continual alarms, himself went and sacrificed on the banks o
Cephisus, and the holy rites ended, held on towards Chaeronej
to receive the forces there and view Mount Thurium, where i
party of the enemy had posted themselves. This is a craggj
height running up in a conical form to a point called by u;
OrOiopagus; at the foot of it is the river Morius and the templ<
of Apollo Thurius. The god had his surname from Thuro
mother of Chseron, whom ancient record makes founder o:
Chaeronea. Others assert that the cow, which Apollo gave tc
Cadmus for a guide, appeared there, and that the place took iti
name from the beast, Thor being the Phoenician word for cow.

At Sylla's approach to Chaeronea, the tribune who had beer
appointed to guard the city led out his men in arms, and me1
him with a garland of laurel in his hand ; which Sylla accepting
and at the same time saluting the soldiers and animating then
to the encounter, two men of Chaeronea, Homoloichus anc
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 whal
is called Petrochus along by the Museum, leading right dowr
from above upon Thurium. By this way it was easy to fal
upon them and either stone them from above or force therr
dov/n into the plain. Sylla, assured of their faith and courag<
by Gabinius, bade them proceed with the enterprise, and mean
time drew up the army, and disposing the cavalry on both wings
himself took command of the right; the left being committee
to the direction of Murena. In the rear of all, Galba anc
Hortensius, his lieutenants, planted themselves on the uppej

Sylla 1 59

unds with the cohorts of reserve, to watch the motions of
enemy, who, with numbers of horse and swift-footed, light-

.: ed 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 inclose the Romans.

In the meanwhile, the Chseroneans, who had Eridus for com-
mander by appointment of Sylla, covertly making their way
around Thurium, and then discovering themselves, occasioned
a great confusion and rout among 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 cii5s,
the enemy from above pressing on and wounding them where
they exposed their bodies ; insomuch that there fell three thou-
sand about Thurium. Some of those who escaped, being met
by Murena as he stood in array, were cut ofiE and destroyed.
Others breaking through to their friends and falling pell-mell
into the ranks, fiiled 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 chaise, and quickly
crossing the interval between the armies, lost them the service
of their armed chariots, which require a considerable 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 ser\-ants 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

i6o Plutarch's Lives

slowly to the legions, till at last by slinging engines, and dart
which the Romans poured in upon them behind, they wei
forced to give way and scatter.

As Archelaus was extending the right wing to encompass tl
enemy, Hortensius with his cohorts came down in force, wit
intention to charge him in the flank. But Archelaus wheelir
about suddenly with two thousand horse, Hortensius, ou
numbered and hard pressed, fell back towards the high<
grounds, and found himself gradually getting separated from tl
main body and likely to be surrounded by the enemy. Whe
Sylla heard this, he came rapidly up to his succour from tl
right wing, which as yet had not engaged. But Archelau
guessing the matter by the dust of his troops, turned to tl:
right wing, from whence Sylla came, in hopes to surprise
without a commander. At the same instant, likewise, Taxile
with his Brazen Shields, assailed Murena, so that a cry comir
from both places, and the hills repeating it around, Sylla stoo
in suspense which way to move. Deciding to resume his ow
station, he sent in aid to Murena four cohorts under Hortensiu
and commanding the fifth to follow him, returned hastily t
the right wing, which of itself held its ground on equal tern
against Archelaus; and, at his appearance, with one bol
effort forced them back, and, obtaining the mastery, followe
them, flying in disorder to the river and Moimt Acontiun
Sylla, however, did not forget the danger Murena was in; bv
hasting thither and finding him victorious also, then joined i
the pursuit. Many barbarians were slain in the field, man
more were cut in pieces as they were making into the camj
Of all the vast multitude, ten thousand only got safe int
Chalcis. Sylla writes that there were but fourteen of h
soldiers missing, and that two of these returned towards ever
ing; he, therefore, inscribed on the trophies the names of Mar
Victory, and Venus, as having won the day no less by goo
fortime than by management and force of arms. This troph
of the battle in the plain stands on the place where Archelai
first gave way, near the stream of the Molus; another is erecte
high on the top of Thurium, where the barbarians were ei
vironed, with an mscription in Greek, recording that the gloi
of the day belonged to Homoloiclius and Anaxidamus. Syli
celebrated his victory at Thebes with spectacles, for which 1
erected a stage, near (Edipus's well. The judges of the pe
formances were Greeks chosen out of other cities; his hostilit
to the Thebans being implacable, half of whose territory he toe

SylL

i6i

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, de-
signing to meet him, but in his march, when near Melitea,
received advices from all parts that the countries behind him
were ovemm and ravaged by no less a royal army than the
former. For Dor>'laus, 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 accovmt of the dis-
suasions 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 valour; 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 Ihe sword, but rather to wear out the war by expense of time
ana treasure. The ground, however, near Orchomenus, where
they then lay encamped, gave some encouragement to Arche-
laus, being a battlefield 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 mam 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 champaign, he might force them into the fens.

ok They, on the other hand, not enduring this, as soon as their

II y

1 62 Plutarch's Lives

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, 0 Romans, it
will be glorious to fall here. As for you, when they ask you
where you betrayed your general, remember and say, at Ordio-
menus." His men rallying again at these words, and two
cohorts coming to his succour 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, stepson to Arche-
laus, fighting on the right wing with much gallantry, made an
honourable 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 in-
trenchment 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 intrenchment,
and when they issued out again with larger numbers to give
him battle, fell on them and put them to the rout, and in fte
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,
hebnets, fragments of iron, breastplates, and swords of bar-
barian 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 harbour, 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 to^\'n 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, tliere comes to him
Archelaus, a merchant of Delos, with hopes of an accommoda-

Sylla 163

tion, and private instructions from Archelaus, the king's generah
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. WTien
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, interpos-
ing, 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 abhor-
rence of such treason, Sylla proceeded : " So you, Archelaus, a
Cappadocian, and slave, or if it so please you friend, to a bar-
barian king, would not, upon such vast considerations, be guilty
of what is dishonourable, and yet dare to talk to me, Roman
general and Sylla, of treason? as if you were not the self-same
Archelaus who ran away at Chaeronea, with few remaining out
of one hundred and twenty thous?Jid 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
thb, humbly besought him to lay aside the thoughts of war,
and make peace with Mithridates* Sylla consentmg to this
request, articles of agreement were concluded on. That Mith-
riaates 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 con-
firm 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 Arcke-
laus 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 SyUa had released all the friends of Mithri-
dates 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

164

Plutarch's Lives

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 ofif so many Romans*
He will shortly, at my coming over into Asia, speak another
language ; in the meantime, let him at his ease in Pergamus sit
managing a war which he never saw." The ambassadors in
terror stood silent by, but Archelaus endeavoured with humble
supplications to assuage his wrath, laying hold on his right hand
and weeping. In confusion he obtained permission to go him-
self 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 despatched him away, made an inroad into
Msedica, and after wide depopulations returned back again
into Macedon, where he received Archelaus about Philippic
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 Mithri-
dates, attended with two hundred ships, and land-forces con-
sisting 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, enter-
ing 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 defence of the most foul and unjust
proceedings, had not wanted for specious pretences. 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

Sylla 165

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, perceiying^ the soldiers to be dissatisfied with the peace
(as It seemed indeed a monstrous thing tliat they should see the
king who was their bitterest enemy, and who had caused one
hundred and fifty thousand Romans to be massacred in one day
in Asia, now sailing ofi with the riches and spoils of Asia, which
he had pillaged, and put under contribution for the space of
four years), in his defence 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 Thya-
tira, 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
behaviour 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.

I 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, in-
deed, 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 boola

1 66 Plutarch's Lives

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 inar-
ticulate sounds of the gout. Taking, therefore, a voyage to
^'Edepsus, he made use of the hot waters there, allowing him-
self at the same time to forget all anxieties, and passing away
his time with actors. As he was walking along the seashore,
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 Bceotia, 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 re-unite 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 ApoUonia, 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 repre-
sent, 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 tlieir 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 they say, a free-will offering, and contributed
each man according to his ability. However, Sylla would not
accept of their offering, but praising their good-will, and arous-
ing up their courage, went over (as he himself writes) against
fifteen hostile generals in command of four hundred and fifty
cohorts; but not without the most unmistakable divine intima-
tions of his approaching happy successes. For when he was

Sylla 167

sacrificing at his first landing near Tarentum, the victim's liver
showed tiie figure of a crown of laurel with two fillets hanging
from it And a little while before his arrival in Campania,
near the mountain Hephseus, 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 sights
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 Siivium (as he himself relates it), there met him a servant
of Pontius, in a state of divine possession, saying that he
brought hrm 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 Qiiintilis,
which we now call July.

At Fidentia, also, Marcus Lucullus, one of Sylla's com-
manders, 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 neighbouring 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 aftertimes conquered Mithridates and Tigranes.

SyUa, 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 p>eace. The motion was willingly
embraced, and several meetings and consultations ensued, in

1 68 Plutarch's Lives

all which Sylla, still interposing matter of delay and new pre-
tences, in the meanwhile debauched Scipio's men by means of
his own, who were as well practised 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 m the
breast of Sylla to deal with, and was most troubled with the fox.
Some time after, at Signa, 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, more-
over, tempestuous rainy weather, which distressed them most
of all. TTie 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 orders 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 Prjeneste, but find-
mg 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

Sylla 169

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 sup-
porter 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, straitened 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 bridlmg 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

lyo Plutarch's Lives

where Crassus was posted had clearly the advant^e; the left
suffered and was in distress, when Sylla came to its succour,
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, un-
known 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, " 0 Apollo
Pythius, who in so many battles hast raised to honour and
greatness the Fortunate Cornelius Syila, wilt thou now cast
him down, bringing him before the gate of his country, to perish
shamefully with his fellow-citizens ? " Thus, they say, ad-
dressing 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 acquaintances. Many, likewise, of the city
spectators, who had come out, were killed or trodden under foot.
So that it was generally believed in the city that all was lost, and
the siege of Prseneste 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 dowm 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

Sylla i/i

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, t}Tanny. 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 common-
alty, 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. WTieth^
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.

Syila being thus wholly bent upon slaughter, and filling the
city with executions without number or limit, many wholly
iminterested jjersons 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 e\'ils, 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 v,t11 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 dav'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 excep-

172 Plutarch's Lives

tion to brother, son, or parents. And to him who should sla^
any one proscribed person, he ordained two talents reward
even were it a slave who had killed his master, or a son hi
father. And what was thought most unjust of all, he causec
the attainder to pass upon their sons, and sons' sons, and mad(
open sale of all their property. Nor did the proscription pre
vail only at Rome, but throughout all the cities of Italy th(
effusion of blood was such, that neither sanctuary of the gods
nor hearth of hospitality, nor ancestral home escaped. Mei
were butchered in the embraces of their wives, children in th(
arms of their mothers. Those who perished through publi(
animosity or private enmity were nothing in comparison o
the numbers of those who suffered for their riches. Even th(
murderers began to say, that " his fine house killed this man, i
garden that, a third, his hot baths." Quihtus Aurelius, a quiet
peaceable man, and one who thought all his part in the commor
calamity consisted in condoling with the misfortunes of others
coming into the forum to read the list, and finding himsel:
among the proscribed, cried out, " Woe is me, my Alban farn:
has informed against me." He had not gone far before he wa<
despatched 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 j
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 pro-
scription, 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
offence. 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

Sylla 173

future mtrusting him with the power of life and death, confisca-
tion, division of lands, erecting and demolishing of cities,^aEmg~
away of kingdoms, and bestowing them at pleasure. He con-
ducted the sale of confiscated property after such an arbitrary,
imperious way, from the tribunal, that his gifts excited greater
odium even than his usurpations, woman 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 wUl to some of them. Wish-
ing to insure the fidelity of Pompey the Great by a nearer tie of
blood, he bade him divorce his present wife, and forcing ^Emilia,
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.

W^en Lucretius Ofella, the same who reduced Marius by
siege, offered himself for the consulship, he first forbade himj
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 unmediately 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 clamouring and let the centurion go, for he had
commanded it.

His triumph was, in itself, exceedingly splendid, and distin-
guished by tixe 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 saviour and
father, by whose means they were restored to their own country,
and again enjoyed their wives and children. When the solem-
nity 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 mili-
tary merits. And, finally, from this felicity he requested to
receive the surname of Felix. In writing and transacting busi-
ness 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,

174 Plutarch's Lives

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, a 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 solicita-
tion of Pompey, whom the people were willing to oblige. WJien
the business was over, seeing Pompey going home overjoyed
with the success, he called him to him and said, " What a polite
act, young man, to pass by Catulus, the best of men, and choose
Lepidus, the worst 1 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 msolent and broke into open hostility
to Pompey and his friends.

Sylla, consecrating the tenth of his whole substance to Her-
cules, 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 a 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
aTiother house whilst alive. Thus far, out of religious appre-
hension, 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 revellings with common bufloons.

Some few months after, at a show of gladiators, when men
and women sat promiscuously in the theatre, 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, " WTiat harm, mighty

Sylla 175

sir,*' said she, " if I also was desirous to partake a little in your
{elicit}' ? " 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 roimd 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 favourites 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 tiese courses he encouraged a disease which had
begun from unimportant cause ; and for a long time he failed to
observe that his bowels were ulcerated, till at length the cor-
rupted 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 nvunbers. 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
law}'er; and if we may mention ignoble, but notorious names,
Exmus 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 honour,
he should conclude it in fulness of prosperity. He declares,
moreover, that in a vision he had seen his son, who had died not
long before MeteUa, stand by in mourning attire, and beseech
his father to cast o5 further care, and come along with him to

176

Plutarch's Lives

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 Dicsearchia, and prescribed laws for
their better government. And the very day before his end, it
being told him that the magistrate Granius deferred the pay-
ment 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 bom 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 honourable 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 suffi-
cient to form a large figure of Sylla himself, and another repre-
senting 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 smoulder,
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 Martins,
with an epitaph of his o^vn 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.

Lysandcr and Sylla Compared 177

THE COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA

Having completed this Life also^ come we now to the compari-
son. That which was common to them both was that they
were founders of their own greatness, with this diflFerence, that
Lysander had the consent of his fellow-citizens, in times of sober
judgment, for the honours he received; nor did he force any-
thing 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
Glaucias and Satumini drove out the Metelli, when sons of
consuls were slain in the assemblies, when silver and gold pur-
chased men and arms, and fire and sword enacted new laws and
put down lawful opposition. Nor do I blame any one, 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 wTetchedly 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 common-
wealth. 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 some-
times 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 per-
suasion, 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.

178 Plutarch's Lives

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 dishonourable, it must be virtue
itself, and not birth, that makes virtue honourable. Further-
more, 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, ex-
citing 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 —

" Lioas 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 un-
ruly 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
the greatest families to public sale and confiscation. There was
no end of his favours vainly spent and throvATi away on flat-
terers ; for what hope could there be, or what likelihood of fore-
thought 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 an-
nounced 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 1 " But Lysander,

Lysander and Sylla Compared 179

n the contrary, with the rest of the spoil, sent home for public
se even the presents which were made him. Nor do I com-
lend him for it, for he, perhaps, by excessive liberality, did
pparta more harm than ever the other did Rome by rapine; I
nly use it as an argument of his indifference to riches. They
xercised a strange influence on their respective cities. Sylla,
. profuse debauchee, endeavoured to restore sober living
mongst the citizens; Lysander, temperate himself, filled Sparta
yith the luxxiry he disregarded. So that both were blame-
worthy, the one for raising himself above his own laws, the other
or causing his fellow-citizens to fall beneath his own example.
le taught Sparta to want the very things which he himself
lad learned to do without. And thus much of their civil
idministration.

As for feats of arms, wise conduct in war, innumerable
dctories, perilous adventures, Sylla was beyond compare,
-.ysander, indeed, came o5 twice victorious in two battles by
ea; I shall add to that the siege of Athens, a work of greater
ame than difficulty. What occurred in Bceotia, and at Hali-
irtus, was the result, perhaps, of ill fortune; yet it certainly
ooks like iU counsel, not to wait for the king's forces, which had
lU but arrived from Platsea, but out of ambition and eagerness
X) fight, to approach the walls at disadvantage, and so to be cut
»ff by a sally of inconsiderable men. He received his death-
v^ound, not as Cleombrotus, at Leuctra, resisting manfully the
issault of an enemy in the field ; not as Cyrus or Epaminondas,
ustaining the declining battle, or making sure the victory; all
hese died the death of kings and generals; but he, as it had
jeen some common skirmisher or scout, cast away his life in-
jloriously, giving testimony to the wisdom of the ancient
spartan maxim, to avoid attacks on walled cities, in which the
itoutest warrior may chance to fall by the hand, not only of a
nan utterly his inferior, but by that of a boy or woman, as
\chilles, they say, was slain by Paris in the gates. As for
Sylla, it were hard to reckon up how many set battles he won,
)r how many thousand he slew; he took Rome itself twice, as
dso the Athenian Piraeus, not by famine, as Lysander did, but
jy a series of great battles, dri\'ing Archelaus into the sea.
^nd what is most important, there was a vast difference between
:he commanders they had to deal with. For I look upon it as
in easy task, or rather sport, to beat Antiochus, Alcibiades's
jilot, or to circumvent Philocles, the Athenian demagogue —
" Sharp only at the inglorious point of tongue,"

I bo rlutarch s Lives

whom Mithridates would have scorned to compare with his
groom, or Marius with his lictor. But of the potentates, con-
suls, commanders, and demagogues, to pass by all the rest who
opposed themselves to Sylla, who amongst the Romans so for-
midable as Marius, what king more powerful than Mithridates ?
who of the Italians more warlike than Lamponious and Tele-
sinus? 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 decides that he was a
banished person, and overpowered by a faction, at a time when
his wife was driven from home, his houses demolished, 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, more-
over, 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, im-
posed 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 pre-eminence for moderation and self-
control, to the other for conduct and valour.

Cimon 1 8 1

CIMON

Peripoltas the prophet, having brought the King Opheltas, and
those under his command, from Thessaly into Bceotia, left there
a family, which flourished a long time after; the greater part of
them inhabiting Chaeronea, the first city out of which they ex-
pelled the barbarians. The descendants of this race, being men
of bold attempts and warlike habits, exposed themselves to so
many dangers b 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, sur-
named 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 passion-
ately fond of this youth, who was now pretty nearly grown a
man. And finding all his approaches, his gifts, his entreaties,
alike repulsed, he showed violent inclinations to assault Damon.
Our native Chaeronea was tlien 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 abready,
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 dis-
covered, 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 market-place; 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 coxincil 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 no wise faulty, but rather that
they themselves had suffered ; therefore he drew out the soldiers,
and carried them away with him. Yet Damon continuing to

i»2 Plutarch's Lives

ravage the country all about, the citizens, by messages anrl
decrees, in appearance favourable, enticed hiii ilto the Iv and
upon his return, made him Gj^nnasiarch ; but aftemards^4<f h^

ana kiued him. i<or a long while after apparitions continnincr tn
be seen, and gro^ to be heard in that place, i ourTatlrs have
told us, tliey ordered the gates of the baths to be buHt un and
even to this day those who live in the neighbourhood believe
that they sometimes see spectres and hear alannkg sounds
The posterity of Damon, of whom some still remX^mostiy b
Phocis, near the town of Stiris, are called Asbolome^rthat if
in the Aohan idiom, men daubed with soot: Se Damon
was thus besmeared when he committed this murder
±Jut there bemg a quarrel between the people of ChsEronea and

ftL^^'^T^^""': '^'^ neighbours, thL ^latter S'^'b.
fonner, a Roman, to ^cuse the community of Chseronea as^if^t
had been a smgle person of tl.e murder of the RomZ, of wh ch ■
only Damon and his companions were guilty; accord ingirthe
process was commenced, and the cause pleaded before th^p/Jtor
bto G^ecT; '"" ''' ^°"^"^ '' ^^ '^^^ -^ sent gov^^rs

fJftn^''''TT' ^^^ ^^^^""^^^ ^^^ inhabitants appealed to the
testmiony of Lucullus, who, in answer to a letteV the prstor
wrote to hun returned a true accomit of the matter-of-fact Bv

stLusXni'; 'Te^cit'^'^^^f ^^^^^^^^' -^ esc:ped a mo^sl^
LuSlufi^^h; J V . T""'' *"' preserved, erected a statue to

w f V, ^^^rl^et-place, near that of the god Bacchus.

We also have the same impressions of gratitude; and thou^rh
removed from the events by the distance of several TnerSs
we yet feel the obhgation to extend to ourselves: and^s wT hbk
*n miage of the character and habits to be a greater honour tii^
one merely representing the face and the ^rson, we w^ 1 p^
Lucullus s life amongst our parallels of illustrious men, and with
outswervrng from the truth, wiU record his actions. ' -Z cZ-
memoration will be itself a sufficient proof of our grateful feeC
and he hunself would not thank us, if in recompe^e for a s?r^^'

mcmL'°"vf 1 r 'Pf^^S '^' ''^'^' "-' Should aSuselS
S thirf ^ t' ^.^ comiterfeit narration. For as we would

there is yet some imperfection, should neither whoUy leave out
nor yet too pomtedly express what is defective, because this
would deform it, and that spoil the resemblance;' so since it L
2iaid, or indeed perhaps impossible, to show the life of a man

Cimon 183

/holly free from blemish, in all that is excellent we must follow
ruth exactly, and give it fully; any lapses or faults that occur,
hrough human passions or political necessities, we may regard
ather as the shortcomings of some particular virtue, than as
he natural effects of vice; and may be content without intro-
lucing them, curiously and officiously, into our narrative, if it
>e but out of tenderness to the weakness of nature, which has
lever succeeded in producing any human character so perfect in
'irtue as to be pure from all admixture and open to no criticism.
)n considering witli myself to whom I should compare Luaillus
: find none so exactly his parallel as Cimon.

They were both valiant in war, and successful against the
)arbarians; both gentle in political life, and more than any
(thers gave their countrymen a respite from civil troubles at
lome, while abroad each of them raised trophies and gained
amous victories. No Greek before Cimon, nor Roman before
!^ucullus, ever carried the scene of war so far from their own
:oxHitry; putting out of the question the acts of Bacchus and
lercules, and any exploit of Perseus against the Ethiopians,
^ledes, and Armenians, or again of Jason, of which any record
:hat deserves credit can be said to have come dowTi to our days,
^loreover in this they were alike, that they did not finish the
enterprises they imdertook. They brought their enemies near
;heir ruin, but never entirely conquered them. There was yet a
p^at confoimity in the free good-will and lavish abundance of
:heir entertainments and general hospitalities, and in the youth-
:ul laxity of their habits. Other points of resemblance, which
ve have failed to notice, may be easily collected from our
larrative itself.

Cimon was the son of Miltiades and Hegesipyle, who was by
airth a Thracian, and daughter to the King Olorus, as appears
[rom the poem of Melanthius and Archelaus, written in praise of
Cimon. By this means the historian Thucydides was his kins-
man by the mother's side; for his father's name also, in remem-
brance of this common ancestor, was Olorus, and he was the
awner of the gold mines in Thrace, and met his death, it is said,
by violence, in Scapte Kyle, 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 town-
ship of Halimus, and Miltiades and his family were Laciadas.
Miltiades, being condemned in a fine of fifty talents of the state,
and unable to pay it, was cast into prison, and there died. Thus

184

Plutarch's Lives

Cimon was left an orphan very young, with his sister Elpinice
who was also young and unmarried. And at first he had bu
an indifferent reputation, being looked upon as disorderly in hi;
habits, fond of drinking, and resembling his grandfather, alsc
called Cimon, in character, whose simplicity got him the sur
name of Coalemus, Stesimbrotus of Thasos, who lived neai
about the same time with Cimon, reports of him that he hac
little acquaintance either with music, or any of the other libera
studies and accomplishments, then common among the Greeks
that he had nothing whatever of the quickness and the read}
speech of his countrymen in Attica ; that he had great noblenes:
and candour in his disposition, and in his character in genera
resembled rather a native of Peloponnesus than of Athens; a;
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 follow-
ing verses by the poet Melanthius: —

" Wrought by his hand the deeds of heroes grace
At his own charge our temples and our place."

Some afRrm that Elpinice lived with her brother, not secretly,
but as his married wife, her poverty excluding her from any
suitable match. But afterwards, 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 Eurypto-

Cimon 185

;mus, the son of Megacles ; nor of his regret, even to impatience,
t her death, if any conclusion may be drawn from those elegies
f condolence, addressed to him upon his loss of her. The philo-
3pher Panaetius is of opinion that Archelaus, the wTiter on
hysics, was the author of them, and indeed the time seems to
ivour that conjecture. All the other points of Cimon's char-
cter were noble and good. He was as daring as Miltiades, and
ot inferior to Themistocles in judgment, and was incomparably
lore just and honest than either of them. Fully their equal in
11 military virtues, in the ordinary duties of a citizen at home he
r-as immeasurably their superior. And this, too, when he was
ery young, his years not yet strengthened by any experience,
'or when Themistocles, upon the Median invasion, advised the
Athenians to forsake their city and their countr}', and to carry
11 their arms on shipboard and fight the enemy by sea, in the
traits of Salamis; when all the people stood amazed at the con-
idence and rashness of this advnce, Cimon was seen, the first of
11 men, passing with a cheerful countenance through the Cera-
aicus, on his way with his companions to the citadel, carr\'ing
, bridle in his hand to o5er to the goddess, intimating that there
ras no more need of horsemen now, but of mariners. There,
iter he had paid his devotions to the goddess, and offered up
he bridle, he took down one of the bucklers that hung upon the
?alls of the temple, and went down to the port ; by this example
^ving confidence to many of the citizens. He was also of a
airly handsome person, according to the poet Ion, tall and large,
ind let his thick and curly hair grow long. After he had acquitted
limself gallantly in this battle of Salamis, he obtained great
epute among the Athenians, and was regarded with affection,
LS well as admiration. He had many who followed after him,
ind bade him aspire to actions not less famous than his father's
)attle of Marathon. And when he came forward in political life,
he people welcomed him gladly, being now weary of Themis-
ocles; in opposition to whom, and because of the frankness and
asiness of his temper, which was agreeable to every one, they
idvanced Cimon to the highest emplo}'Tnents in the government,
fhe man that contributed most to his promotion was Aristides,
vho early discerned in his character his natural capacity, and
mrposely raised him, that he might be a counterpoise to the
:raft and boldness of Themistocles.

After the Medes had been driven out of Greece, Cimon was
ent out as an admiral, when the Athenians had not yet attained
heir dominion by sea, but still followed Pausanias and the

1 86 Plutarch's Lives

Lacedjemonians ; and his fellow-citizens under his command
were highly distinguished, both for the excellence of their dis-
cipline, and for their extraordinary zeal and readiness. And
further, perceiving that Pausanias was carrying on secret com-
munications 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 kind-
ness 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 harsh-
ness 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 dishonour
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 towards 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 appari-
tion visiting him in his sleep, and addressing him with these
angry words: —

*' Go on thy way, nnto the evfl 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. Thij
utory is related by many authors.

Cimon 1 87

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 neigh-
bouring 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,
V.Tio, where the Strymon under Eion fiows.
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,
Leam to be valiant in their country's cause."

And upon the third the following: —

" With Atreus' sons, this dty sent of yore
Divine Meaestheus 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 daim."

Though the name of Cimon is not mentioned in these inscrip-
tions, yet his contemporaries considered them to be the very
highest honours to him; as neither Miltiades nor Themistoclea
ever received the like. WhSn 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."

1 88 Plutarch's Lives

What then induced them so particularly to honour 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 in-
habitants of this isle, a people who neglected all husbandry,
and had, for many generations, been devoted to piracy; this
they practised 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 to 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 succour 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 iEgean sea. And, understanding that the ancient Theseus,
the son of JEgeus, when he fled from Athens and took refugejin this
isle, was here treacherously slain by King Lycomedes, who feared
him, Cimon endeavoured to find out where he was buried. For
an oracle had commanded the Athenians to bring home his ashes,
and pay him all due honours 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 diflSculty
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 favour 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 theatre, 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

Cimon 189

aich tribe) the usual oath; and so being sworn judges, he made
;hem sit down to give sentence. The eagerness for victory grew
Ul the warmer from the ambition to get the suffrages of such
lonourable judges. And the victory was at last adjudged to
50phocles, which ^schylus is said to have taken so ill, that he
eft Athens shortly after, and went in anger to Sicily, where he
lied, 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 Lao-
nedon's house. After supper, when they had, according to
:ustom, poured out wine to the honour of the gods, Cimon was
iesired by the company to give them a song, which he did with
sufficient success, and received the commendations of the com-
pany, who remarked on his superiority to Themistocles, who, on
i like occasion, had declared he had never learnt to sing, nor to
Dlay, and only knew how to make a city rich and fMjwerful.
^ter 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
v^alued himself most for address and good contrivance. He gave
this account of it. When the allies had taken a great number
af 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 jeweb
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 re-
fused. 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 labour. But a httle while after, the friends and
kinsmen of the prisoners coming from Lydia and Phr>-gia, re-
deemed everyone 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 honour, he spent yet more honourably up>on the citizens.
For he pulled down all the enclosures of his gardens and grounds.

190 Plutarch's Lives

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 labour, with
his whole time left free for public duties. Aristotle states, how-
ever, 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, like-
wise, to carry a considerable quantity of coin about themj
which they were to convey silently into the hands of the better
class of poor men, as they stood by them in the market-place.
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
honour 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 com, and how to use
springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Cimon, by keeping open
house for his fellow-citizens, and giving travellers 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 tlie 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

Cimon 191

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 Rhcesaces, 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 ap-
plied himself to Cimon for redress, and, to gain his favour, 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, hb
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 their enemies driven out of
the country, 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 practised a contrary method; he forced no man to go that
was not wilhng, but of those that desired to be excused from
ser\'ice 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, and ere long made them the lords of their own
pa}'TOasters. 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 them, and
found themselves ^ter a while alhes 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

192 Plutarch's Lives

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 acces-
sion 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 Pam-
phylia with a numerous land army and a large fleet, he deter-
mined to make the whole sea on his 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 engage-
ments 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 thb 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, endeavouring 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 con-
cluded 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
b 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 re-
treat, 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
ihore, where those that came first threw themselves upon the

Cimon 193

md, and fled to their army drawn up thereabout, while the rest
^rished with their vessel or were taken. By this, one may
uess at their number, for though a great many escaped out of
he fight, and a great many others were sxmk, yet tv\'o hundred
;alleys were taken by the Athenians.

Wiien their land army drew toward the seaside, Cimon was in
uspense whether he should ventiu^ to tn.' and force his way
in shore; as he should thus expose his Greeks, wearied with
laughter in the first engagement, to the swords of the bar-
larians, who were all fresh men, and many times their number,
Jut seeing his men resolute, and flushed with victory, he bade
hem land, though they were not yet cool from their first battle,
b soon as they touched ground, they set up a shout and ran
ipon the enemy, who stood firm and sustained the first shock
nth great courage, so that the fight was a hard one, and some
>rincipal men of the Athenians in rank and courage were slain.
it length, though v.'ith much ado, they routed the barbarians,
ind killing some, took others prisoners, and plundered all their
ents and pavilions, which were full of rich spoil. Cimon, like a
killed athlete at the games, having in one day carried off two
dctories wherein he surpassed that of Salamis by sea and that of
i*lataea by land, was encouraged to try for yet another success.
'Jews being brought that the Phoenician succours, in number
iighty sail, had come in sight at Hydrum, he set off witli all
peed to find them, while they as yet had not received any
«rtain account of the larger fleet, and were in doubt what to
hink; so that, thus siarprised, they lost all their vessels and
nost of their men with them. This success of Cimon so daimted
he King of Persia that he presently made tliat celebrated peace,
)y 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
lis galleys or vessels of war should appear between the Cyanean
Lud Chehdonian isles. Callisthenes, however, sajrs that he did
lot agree to any such articles, but that, upon the fear this
;^ictory gave him, he did in reality thus act, and kept off so far
Tom Greece, that when Pericles yfith fifty and Ephialtes with
iirty galleys cruised beyond the Chehdonian isles, they did
lot discover one Persian vessel. But in the collection which
"raterus made of the public acts of the people, there is a draft of
:his treaty given. And it is told, also, that at Athens they
erected the altar of Peace upon this occasion, and decreed
■jarticular honours to Callias, who was employed as ambassador
» procure the treaty*

U G

194 Plutarch's Lives

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 founda-
tion 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
afterwards 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 at-
tacked 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 cor-
ruption, and of having been bribed oflf by King Alexander. So,
by the combination of his adversaries, he was accused of being
false to his country. In his defence he told the judges that he
had always shown himself in his public life the friend, not, like
other men, of rich lonians 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

Cimon 1 95

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 Ufe after this he continued, whilst at home, to
control and restrain the common people, who would have
trampled upon the nobiht>', and drawn ail the power and sove-
reignity 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 obsen'ed, and,
chiefly at the instigation of Ephialtes, withdrew the cognisance
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 favour of the common
people. Cimon, when he returned, seeing the authority of this
great council so upset, was exceedingly troubled, and en-
deavoxired 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 pwet 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 to\\'ns and gain so many victories, certainly if he had been
sober and minded his business, there had been no Grecian com-
mander, either before or after him, that could have surpassed
him for exploits of war.

He was, indeed, a favourer of the Lacedaemonians, even from
his youth, and he gave the names of Lacedasmonius 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 bom 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

196

Plutarch's Lives

disliked; and while he was yet very young, they endeavoured
to raise and increase his credit in Athens. This the Athenians
perceived at first with pleasure, and the favour the Lacedae-
monians 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 honour and kindness
shown to Cimon, who then had the chief management of all the
affairs of Greece, and was acceptable to the Lacediemonians,
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
Lacedsemon the greatest earthquake that was known in the
memory of man; the earth opened into chasms, and the moun-
tain 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, thougli 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. Archi-
damus, 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 sur-
prise 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

Cimon 1 97

iver a number of the Laconians of the country districts; whDe
it the same time the Messenians, also, made an attack upon the
Spartans, who therefore despatched Periclidas to Athens to
jolicit succours, 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 Lacedsemon to the aggrandise-
ment 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 sufier 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 array through the territory of Corinth ; whereupon 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
succours 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 innova-
tions. The Athenians returned home, enraged at this usage,
and vented their anger upon all those who were favourers of the
Lacedaemonians, and sei2ing some slight occasion, they banished
Cimon for ten years, which is the time prescribed to those that
are banished by the ostracism. In the meantime, the Lacedae-
monians, on their return after freeing Delphi from the Phocians,
encamped their army at Tanagra, whither the Athenians pre-
sently marched with design to fight them.

Cimon, also, came thither armed, and ranged himself among
those of his own tribe which was the CEneis, desirous of fighting

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with the rest against the Spartans; but the council of five
hundred being informed of this, and frighted at it, his adver-
saries 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 favouring 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 ofif,
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 him-
self 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 honour
and aggrandisement 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 of 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,

Cimon 199

I man skilled in divinations, and intimate with Cimon, told him
h&t his death was presaged by this vision, which he thus
jxplained. A dog is enemy to him he barks at; and one is
dways most a pleasure to one's enemies when one is dead ; the
nixture of human voice with barking signifies the Medes, for
ht army of the Medes is mixed up of Greeks and barbarians,
^ter this dream, as he was sacrificing to Bacchus, and the priest
;utting up the victim, a number of ants, taking up the congealed
^articles 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 CUician 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 up)on Greece. But Themistocles, it is said, abandoning all
hopes of compassing his designs, very much out of the despair
of overcoming the valour 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 under-
stood 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 skir-
mish wth 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

200 Plutarch's Lives

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 brifef appearances of a war against the king's
lieutenants in the maritime provinces, but they all quicldy
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 con-
federates and allies of the Lacedaemonians. Wliereas, in the
time of Cimon, not so much as a letter-carrier, or a single horse-
man, was ever seen to come within four hundred furlongs of tlie
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 honour 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 honours of a superior being.
Such was the Greek commander.

LUCULLUS

The grandfather of Lucullus had been consul ; his uncle by the
mother's side was Metellus, sumamed Numidicus. As for his
parents, his father was convicted of extortion, and his mother
Cecilia'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 offence 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: unr

LucuUus 20 1

becoming action, for they delighted to see young men as eagerly
ittacking injustice as good dogs do wild beasts. But when
great animosities ensued, insomuch that some were woundai
and killed in the fray, Servilius escaped. Lucullus followed his
studies and became a competent speaker, in both Greek and
Latia, 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 vnil in the public market-place —

" Lash as a woxmded 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
libert}', to enjoy in full leisure the refreshment of philosophy;
and summoning up his contemplative faculties, administered a
timely check, after his difierence 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. Thoxigh he was elder brother, he would not step into
authority without him, but deferred his own advance until his
Ixother was qualified to bear a share with him, and so won upon
the people as, when absent, to be chosen iEdile with him.

He gave many and early proofs of his valour and conduct in
the ilarsian war, and was admired by Sylla for his constancy
and mildness, and alwa}'S employed in afiairs 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.

202 Plutarch's Lives

master at sea, LucuUus was the man whom he sent into Libyj
and Egypt to procure him shipping. It was the depth oi
winter when he ventured with but three small Greek vessels
and as many Rhodian galleys, not only into the main sea, bul
also among multitudes of vessels belonging to the enemies whc
were cruising about as absolute masters. Arriving at Crete h(
gained it, and finding the Cyrenians harassed by long tyrannies
and wars, he composed their troubles, and settled their govern-
ment; putting the city in mind of that saying which Plato once
had oracularly uttered of them, who, being requested to pre-
scribe laws to them, and mould them into some sound form oi
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, noi
anything more docile, when he has been reduced and humbled
by fortune. This made the Cyrenians so willingly submit tc
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 sec 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 con-
federacy, 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 offence, it might have
endangered his passage. Drawing a considerable squadron
together, which he summoned as he sailed by out of all the mari-
time towns except those suspected of piracy, he sailed for Cyprus,
and there understanding that the enemy lay in wait under the

Lucullus 203

jromontories for him, he laid up his fleet, and sent to the cities
X) send in provisions for his wintering among them. But when
ime served, he launched his ships suddenly, and went off, and
aoisting all his sails in the night, while he kept them down in
iie day, thus came safe to Rhodes. Being furnished with ships
It Rhodes, he also prevailed upon the inhabitants of Cos and
Znidus to leave the king's side, and join in an expedition against
he Samians. Out of Chios he himself drove the king's party,
ind set the Colophonians at liberty, having seized Epigonus the
yrant, who oppressed them.

About this time Mithridates left Pergamus, and retired to
Pitane, where being closely besieged by Fimbria on the land,
ind not daring to engage with so bold and victorious a com-
nander, he was concerting means for escape by sea, and sent for
dl 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
Bost odious and warlike of kings, lest the opportunity of hum-
aling 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,
:m> one would be more highly commended than Lucullus, who
stopped his passage and seized him in his flight. Being driven
[rom 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 SyUa 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
ill other considerations of public or of private advantage in-
ferior to it, or out of detestation of the wickedness of Fimbria,
whom he abhorred for advancing himself by the late death of
tiis 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
iuffered Mithridates to escape and laugh at the attempts ot
Fimbria. He himself alone first, near Lectum, in Troas, in a
Bea-fight, overcame the king's ships; and afterwards, discover-
ing Ncoptolemus lymg in wait for him near Tenedos, with a

204 Plutarch's Lives

greater fleet, he went aboard a Rhodian quinquereme galley-j
commanded by Damagoras, a man of great experience at sea^
and friendly to the Romans, and sailed before the rest. Neop-
tolemus 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, LucuUus gave order to turn again, and
vigorously falling upon the enemy, put them to flight, and pur-
sued 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 ofi 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 behaviour,
but also of moderation, should be employed in so heavy and
odious an office. The Mitylenseans, who absolutely revolted, he
was willing should return to their duty, and submit to a moderate
penalty for the offence 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 Mitylenseans 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 defence. 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 favour, 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 dcatli, passing by Pompey, made
him guardian to his son; which seems, indeed, to have been the
rise of the quarrel and jealousy between tliem two, being both
young men, and passionate for honour.

Liuculius 205

A little after Sylla's death, he was made consul with MarciM
Cotta, about the one hundred and seventj'-sixth 01\Tnpiad.
The Mithridatic war being then under debate, Marcus declared
that it was not finished, but only respited for a time, and there-
fore, upon choice of provinces, the lot falling to Lucullus to have
Gaul ^-ithin 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 any one else against Mithridates. So that when
Pompey sent for money, and signified by letter that, unless it
were sent him, he would leave the countr}' and Sertorius, and
bring his forces home to Italy, Lucullus most zealously sup-
ported his request, to prevent any pretence of his returning
home during his own consulship ; for all tilings 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 speakmg to please the people, had, as it
happened, a hatred to Lucullus, who had not concealed his
disgxist 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'a
constitution, and endeavouring to put things out of order, by
private exhortations and public admonitions he checked in hu
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 ser\'e them. Lucullus set little value
upon Cilicia itself, no otherwise than as he thought, by his ac-
ceptance 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 pro-
vince might be allotted to himseh, and to none other; which led
him at last into an expedient not so honest or commendable,
as it was servnceable for compassing his design, submitting to
necessity against his own inclination. There was one Prscia, a
celebrated wit and beauty, but in other respects nothing better
than an ordinary harlot; who, however, to the charms of her
person adding tlie 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

2o6 Plutarch's Lives

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
nothmg by_ Cethegus without Prascia. This woman Lucullus
gamed 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 of Praecia or Cethegus; for all un-
animously voted him to the Mithridatic war, by no hands likely
to be so successfully managed as his. Pompey was still con-
tending 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 wilful 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 prob-
ability, 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.

Tlie 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 ser^'ice than show, drew up an
hundred and twenty thousand foot in the figure of the Roman
phalanx, and had sixteen thousand horse, besides chariots

Lucullus 207

jmed with scythes, no less than a hundred. Besides which, he
et out a fleet not at all cumbered with gilded cabins, luxurious
)aths, and women's furniture, but stored with weapons and
[arts, and other necessaries, and thus made a descent upon
3ith>Tiia. Not only did these parts willingly receive him again,
)ut almost all Asia regarded him as their salvation from the
ntolerable miseries which they were suffering from the Roman
Qoney-lenders and revenue farmers. These, afterwards, who
ike harpies stole away their very nourishment, Lucullus drove
Lway, and at this time, by reproving them, did what he could to
nake them more moderate, and to prevent a general secession,
hen breaking out in all parts. While Lucullus was detained in
ectifying these matters, Cotta, finding affairs ripe for action,
)repared for battle with Mithridates ; and news coming from all
lands that Lucullus had already entered Phrygia, on his march
Lgainst the enemy, he, thinking he had a triumph all but
Lctually in his hands, lest his colleague should share in the glory
if it, hasted to battle without him. But being routed, both by
ea and land, he lost sixty ships with their men, and four thou-
and foot, and himself was forced into and besieged in Chalcedon,
here waiting for relief from Lucullus. There were those about
!^ucullus who would have had him leave Cotta, and go forward,
n hope of surprising the defenceless kingdom of Mithridates.
^d this was the feeling of the soldiers in general, who were
ndignant that Cotta should by his ill-counsel not only lose his
>wn army, but hinder them also from conquest, which at that
ime, without the hazard of a battle, they might have obtained.
But Lucullus, in a public address, declared to them that he
vould rather save one citizen from the enemy, than be master
)f all that they had.

Archelaus, the former commander in Boeotia under Mith-
idates, who afterwards deserted him and accompanied the
Romans, protested to Lucullus that, upon his bare coming, he
vould possess himself of all Pontus. But he answered, that it
iid not become him to be more cowardly than huntsmen, to
eave the wild beasts abroad and seek after sport in their deserted
iens. Having so said, he made towards Mithridates with thirty
Jiousand foot and two thousand five hundred horse. But on
jeing come in sight of his enemies, he was astonished at theu:
lumbers, and thought to forbear fighting, and wear out time.
But Marius, whom Sertorius had sent out of Spain to Mithridates
«rith forces under him, stepping out and challenging him, he pre-
pared for battle. In the very instant before joining battle, with-

2o8 Plutarch's Lives

out any perceptible alteration preceding, on a sudden the skt
opened, and a large luminous body fell down in the rnidst betweeii
the armies, in shape like a hogshead, but in colour like melted
silver, msomuch that both armies in alarm withdrew. This
wonderful prodigy happened in Phrygia, near Otrya. LucuUus
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, miser-
ably 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 neighbourhood 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 provi-
sions for Mithridates's camp must of necessity come. And judg-
ing 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 mainland, 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

LucuUus 209

on the hills, said, " Do ye see those? those axe the aiixiliary
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 LucuUus should come up to their assistance.
Demonax, a messenger sent in by Archelaus, was the first who
told them of LucuUus'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 waggon
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 m.ade 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 Cyzice-
nians 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 extra-
ordinarily 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.

210 Plutarch's Lives

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 men's flesh; as, in truth, LucuUus 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 LucuUus was storm-
ing 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, LucuUus, whUe 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 ApoUonia
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 caimot 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 LucuUus, sent his admiral Aristonicus to the
Greek sea; who, however, was betrayed in the very instant of
going off, and LucuUus 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
LucuUus feU, 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.

LucuUus first went to Cyzicus, where he was received with aU
the joy and gratitude suiting the occasion, and then collected a
navy, visiting the shores of the HeUespont. And arriving at

1

Lucuilus 21 z

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 quin-
queremes were seen off the Achaean harbour, 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 LucuUus'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 LucuUus's fleet. Many were killed
in the action. Among the captives was Marius, the commander
gent by Sertorius, who had but one eye. And it was LucuUus's
strict command to his men before the engagement, that they
should kiU 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 still find 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 liis opportimity, Mithii-
dates being passed by with all his fleet. He, hastening into
Pontus before LucuUus should come up to him, was caught in a
storm, which dispersed his fleet and sunk several ships. The
wrecks floated on aU the neighbouring shore for many days after.
The merchant ship, in which he himself was, could not weU in
that heavy sweU 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 wonderfuUy came safe to
Heraclea, in Pontus.

Thus the proud lanjguage LucuUus 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

212 Plutarch's Lives

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 re-
jected 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 carry-
ing a bushel of wheat at his back. But subduing all in his pro-
gress before him, he at last found himself in such great plenty
that an ox was sold in the camp for a single draclima, 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 fre-
quent incursions with their cavalry, and had advanced as far as
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 tovras 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
Mitliridates." Lucullus, httle thinking this would be of such
dangerous consequence as it afterwards proved, took no notice
and slighted it; and vv^as 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
Bit 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 tlie wide and un-
known wilderness behind ? Caucasus is not far off, and a multi-
tude 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 I'igranes 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 csury 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,

Lucullus 213

while we endeavour to dispose Mithridates, we sliall endanger
the bringing in of Tigranes against us, who aheady has sought
occasion to fall out with us, but can never find one so justifiable
as the succour of a friend and prince in his necessit}-. Why,
therefore, should we put Mithridates upon this resource, who as
yet does not see how 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 Colchiaas 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 chal-
lenged 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 moimtains, 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, hghted 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 seoire 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 want-
ing to cut them off, came out and met them. WTiereupon 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 com-

214 Plutarch's Lives

mander 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 tura
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,
LucuUus 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 LucuUus.
The king commended his resolution, and, according to agreement,
counterfeited anger, and put some disgrace upon him; where-
upon he took horse, and fled to LucuUus, 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 LucuUus's
board and councU. 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 aU expecting that entrance would be denied to one
who was so familiar with him, and came under pretence of extra-
ordinary business with him. He had certainly been admitted had
not sleep, which has destroyed many captains, saved LucuUus^
For so it was, and Menedemus, one of the bedchamber, was stand-
ing at the door, who told Olthacus that it was altogether un-
seasonable to see the general, since, after long watching and hard
labour, he was but just before laid down to repose himself.
Olthacus would not go away upon this denial, but stiU 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 LucuUus, and forced him away
with both hands. Upon which, out of fear, he straightway 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, Somatius being sent out with ten companies for
forage, and pursued by Menander, one of Mithridates's captains,

LucuUus 2 1 5

stood his ground, and sifter a sharp engagement, routed and slew
a considerable number of the enemy. Adrianus being sent after-
ward, with some forces, to procure food enough and to spare for
the camp, Mithridates did not let the opportunity slip, but de-
spatched 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 unskilfulness of the leaders.
But Adrianus in great pomp passed by his camp, having many
waggons full of com 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 Hermasus 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 eimuch, some
little time after, seeing him in the press maJcing 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
mihtary avarice hindered them from acquiring that booty which
in so many fights and hazards they had sought after, and lost
LucuUus tie 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 Calli-
stratus, the king's confidential attendant, under suspicion of
having five himdred 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 pltmder the camp.

After this, in Cabira, and other strongholds which he took, he
iound great treasures, and private prisons, in which many

2i6 Plutarch's Lives

Greeks and many of the king's relations had been confined, who,
having long since counted themselves no other than dead men,
by the favour 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 Phemacia,
placed in safety as they thought, miserably perished, Mithri-
dates in his flight sending Bacchides the eunuch to them.
Among others there were two sisters of the king, Roxana and
Statira, immarried 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, imtil 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 reah
And when Bacchides came and bade them prepare for death, as
every one thought most easy and painless, she took the diadem
from her head, and fastening the strmg to her neck, suspended
herself with it; which soon breaking, " 0 wretched headband 1 "
said she, "not able to help me even in this small thing 1 " 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, com-
mended 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,

Lucullus 217

And having reduced all their forts and cities, he sent Appius to
Tigranes to demand Mithridates. He himseH 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-
manoeuvred 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 en\'ying the Pvomans
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, tlie 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 every\s'here, they were themselves the
cause of the destruction of most of the buildings, inasmuch 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 endeavour to imitate him, I become like
Mummius." Nevertheless, he endeavoured 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 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 tjnnnny settled here, and were ad-
mitted as citizens, but had the ill-luck to fly from evils at home
into greater abroad. As many of these as sun'ived Lucullus
furnished every one with clothes, and two hundred drachmas,
and sent them away into their own coimtn*. On this occasion
Tyrannion the grammarian was taken. Murena begged him of
Lucullus, and took him and made him a freedman; but in thii

21 8 Plutarch's Lives

he abused LucuUus's favour, 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
LucuUus was now busy in looking after the cities of Asia,
and having no war to divert his time, spent it in the adminis-
tration 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 re-
demption and joy to them. LucuUus 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 per cent^
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 fmed 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 LucuUus 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 senators against him. But LucuUus 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 LucuUus'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;

LucuUus 219

ind bidding the barbarians, his guides, adieu, in a few days
lassed over Euphrates, and came to Antioch up>on Daphne.
Ihere 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
jne, 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 Cappa-
docia. He transplanted also the Arabs, who Uved 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 vras 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 m.asters,
Appius, nothing dismayed or surprised at this theatrical display,
as soon as audience was granted him, said he came to demand
Mithridates for LucuUus' triumph, otherwise to denounce
war against Tigranes: insomuch that though Tigranes en-
deavoured 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

220 Plutarch's Lives

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 oif to the general.

Tigranes before this neither vouchsafed to see nor speak with
Mithridates, though a near kinsman, and forced out of so con-
siderable 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 favourites, who bore all the blame; among whom Metro-
dorus of Scepsis was one, an eloquent and learned man, and so
dose an intimate as commonly to be called the king's father.
This man, as it happened, being employed in an embassy by
liithridates 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 ambas-
sador he counselled 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 be-
trayed 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 Mithri-
dates, and queen to Tigranes, but, being accused of misde-
meanours, prohibited all commerce with his countrymen, ended
his days by starving himself* He, in like manner, received from
Cleopatra an honourable burial, near Sapha, a place so called
in that country.

LucuUus, when he had re-established law and a lasting
peace in Asia, did not altogether forget pleasure and mirth,
but, during his residence at Ephesus, gratified the cities with
«ports, festival triumphs, wrestling games, and single combats

I

Lucullus 221

F gladiators. And they, in requital, instituted others, called
acullean games, in honour to him, thus manifesting thar
ive to him, which was of more value to him than all the
onour. But when Appius came to him and told him he must
repare for war with Tigranes, he went again into Pontus, and,
athering together his anny, besieged Sinope, or rather the
ilicians of the king's side who held it; who thereupon killed a
umber of the Sinopians, and set the city on fire, and by night
ndeavoured to escape. Which when Lucullus perceived, he
ntered the city, and killed eight thousand of them who were
till left behind; but restored to the inhabitants what was their
wn, and took special care for the welfare of the city. To which
e was chiefly prompted by this vision. One seemed to come to
im in his sleep, and say, " Go on a little further, Luciillus, for
i^utolycus is coming to see thee." When he arose he cotdd not
nagine what the vision meant. The same day he took the cfty,
nd as he was pursuing the Cilicians, who were flying by sea, he
Fiw a statue lying on the shore, which the Cilicians carried so
iir, but had not time to carry aboard. It was one of the master-
ieces of Sthenis. And one told him that it was the statue of
vutolycus, the founder of the city. This Autolycus is reported
0 have been son to Deimachus, and one of those who, under
iercules, went on the expedition out of Thessaly against the
\mazons ; from whence in his return with Demoleon and Phlo-
rius, he lost his vessel on a point of the Chersonesus, called
^edalium. He himself, with his companions and their weapons,
jeing saved, came to Sinope, and dispossessed the Syrians there.
lie Syrians held it, descended from Syrus, as is the story, the
on of Apollo and Sinope, the daughter of Asopus. Which as
oon as Lucullus heard, he remembered the admonition of Sylla,
vhose advice it is in his Memoirs to treat nothing as so certain
aid so worthy of reliance as an intimation given in dreams.

When it was now told him that Mithridates and Tigranes
vere just ready to transport their forces into Lycaonia and
rilicia, with the object of entering Asia before him, he wondered
nuch why the Armenian, supposmg him to entertain any real
ntentions to fight with the Romans, did not assist Mithridates
n 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 its hopes were
^own cold, and throwing himself down headlong with them,
who were irrevocably fallen already. But when Machares, the
jon of Mithridates, and governor of Bosporus, sent him a crown.

222 Plutarch's Lives

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 inclosed 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
LucuUus, by long journeys, came to the Euphrates, where, find-
ing 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
beginnmg 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 LucuUus, 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 LucuUus 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
travelled through Sophene, using no manner of violence to the
people who came to him and willingly received his army. And

LucuUus 223

Jirhen the soldiers were desirous to plunder a castle that seemed
tx> be well stored within, " That is the castle," said he, " that
vrt must storm," showing them Taurus at a distance; " the rest
Is reserved for those who conquer there." WTierefore hastening
his march, and passing the Tigris, he came over into Armenia. :

The first messenger that gave notice of LucuUus's coming was
50 far from pleasing Tigranes that he had his head cut oflF for
bis 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 LucuUus 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 power-
ful constitution of mind that can sustain felicity. Mithrobar-
zanes, one of his chief favourites, first dared to tell him the truth,
but had no more thanks for his freedom of speech than to be
immediately sent out against LucuUus with three thousand horse,
and a great number of foot, with peremptory demands to bring
him alive and trample down his army. Some of LucuUus's men
were then pitching their camp, and the rest were coming up to
them, when the scouts gave notice that the enemy was approach-
ing, 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 hea\7'
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 ali
his men, except a few who ran away, were destroyed. After
this, Tigranes left Tigranocerta, a great city built by him-
self, and retired to Taurus, and called all his forces about
him«

But LucuUus, giving him no time to rendezvous, sent out
Murena to harass and cut off those who marched to Tigranes,
and SextUius, also, to disperse a great company of Arabians then
on the way to the king. Sextilius feU 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, oppor-
tunely fell upon him. Upon which Tigranes, abandoning aU hi*

224 Plutarch's Lives

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 circum-
stances 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 neighbours, and not a few of
the free people, without kings, living about the Araxes, by en-
treaty 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 council against fighting, and it was imputed to envy
in Mithridates thus to discourage him. from so glorious an enter-
prise. 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 un-
reasonable, 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 com-
plete armour, 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,
tnd to perform otlier necessary services, to the number of thirty-

Lucullus 225

live 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 bar-
barous people within, with shoutings and acclama ions, received
the sight, and threatening the Romans from the wall, pointed to
the Armenians, In a council of war, some advised Lucullus to
leave tlie 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
»ave 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 slingers and archers and about a thousand sitting down by
he river in a large plain, he appeared, indeed, very inconsider-
able to Tigranes, and a fit subject for the flattering wits about
"aim. Some of whom jeered, others cast lots for the spoil, and
ivery one of the kings and coromanders 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 riv-er, 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
flymg?" But Taxiles rephed, "Would, indeed, 0 king, that
some such unhkely 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.*' WTiile 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 corifudon, therefore, the army got in array,
the king keeping the main body to himself, while the left wing
n B

2 26 Plutarch's Lives

given in charge to the Adiabenian, and the right to the Mede,
in front of which latter were posted most of the heavy-armed
cavalry. Some officers advised LucuHus, just as he was gomg
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 Csepio,
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 defence 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 armour, 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 clamour 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 with-
out a wound or bloodshed, so many thousands were overthrown.
The greatest slaughter was made in the flight, or rather in the
endeavouring 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
«ame misfortune, he took the diadem from his head; and with

Lucullus 227

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 of Tigranes was also taken. It is stated
that above a hundred thousand foot were lost, and that of the
horse but very few escaped at ail. 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 armour 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 deUver 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 prof>erty, eight
thousand talents of coined money. Besides this, also, he distri-
buted eight hundred drachmas to each man out of the spoils.
WTien he understood that many players were taken in the city,
whom Tigranes had invited from ail parts for opening the theatre

2 28 Plutarch's Lives

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
LucuUus was beloved as a benefactor and founder. Other suc-
cesses, 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
L'beral soul; and by such aids LucuUus, at that time, even with-
out 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 LucuUus, but, being discovered, was executed, and his
wife and children with him, before the Romans entered Armenia.
LucuUus forgot not this, but coming to the Gordyenians made
a solemn interment in honour of Zarbienus, and adorning the
funeral pile with ro}^al 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 com-
panion 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 LucuUus 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 LucuUus, 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 LucuUus understood,
he resolved to pass by Tigranes and Mithridates as antagonists
tlready overcome, and to try the power of Parthia, by leading his

i

Lucullus 229

xtay against them, thinking it would be a glorious result, thus
a one ciirrent of war, like an athlete in the games, to throw down
;hree kings one after another, and successively to deal as a con-
queror with three of the greatest powers under heaven. He sent,
;herefore, into Pontus to Sornatius and his colleagues, bidding
;hem bring the army thence, and join with him in his expedition
)ut of Gordyene, The soldiers there, however, who had been
estive and unruly before, now openly displayed their mutinous
:emper. No manner of entreaty or force a\'ailed with them, but
:hey 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
ibout him, who were already corrupted with wealth and plenty,
md 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
rf invading Parthia, and in the height of summer-time went
igainst Tigranes. Passing over Taurus, he was filled with appre-
iiension at the greenness of the fields before him, so long is the
season deferred in this region by the coldness of the air. But
Qevertheless, 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 pro\'ision designed
lior 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
Tind by burning the coimtry 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 advan-
tage, and observing the great natural capacities and the pleasant-
ness 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 buiid. 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.

230 Plutarch's Lives

And in fact, when LucuUus 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 LucuUus must pass in his march to
Artaxata. LucuUus, 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 inclosing 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 LucuUus
was not without alarm when he saw the cavalry about Tigranes
with great bravery and in large numbers coming upon him; he
recaUed 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, Mithri-
dates of Pontus fled away the most shamefuUy, being not so
much as able to endure the shout of the Romans. The pursuit
reached a long way, and aU 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.
LucuUus, flushed and animated by this victory, determined
to march on into the interior and there complete his conquests
over the barbarians, hut 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
foUowed not LucuUus many days before they began to be re-
fractory, first of all entreating and sending the tribunes to him,
but presently they tumultuously gathered together, and made a

LucuUus 231

ihouting all night long in their tents, a plain sign of a mutinous
irmy. But Lucullus as earnestly entreated them, desiring them
Lo have patience, till they took the Armenian Carthage, and
jvertumed 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
:»untry of Mygdonia, where was a great and populous city, by
the barbarians called Nisibis, by the Greeks Antioch of Hyg-
roma. This was defended by Guras, brother of Tigranes, with
the dignity of governor, and by the engineering skill and dexterity
af Callimachus, the same who so much annoyed the Romans at
Amisus. Lucullus, however, brought his army up to it, and lay-
ing close siege, in a short time took it by storm. He used Guras,
who surrendered himself, kindly, but gave no attention to Calli-
machus, though he offered to make discovery of hidden treasures,
commandmg him to be kept in chains, to be punished for firing
the city of Amisus, which had disappointed his ambition of
showing favour and kindness to the Greeks.

Hitherto, one would imagine fortune had attended and fought
with Lucullus, but afterwards, 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 results met with no fresh honour or reputa-
tion; 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 in-
vasion 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 com-
parison 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 counsellor, both in the forum and
the camp. Sallust says the soldiers were iU-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 countr}', 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

232 Plutarch's Lives

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 commis-
sioned 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 LucuUus's wife, a woman of bad conduct, with whom
Godius 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 in-
gratiated 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 a 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 ex-
pressed at the prospect that " there must be no end of wars 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 pretence of the winter,
sat idle in Gordyene, every minute expecting either Pompey, or
some other general, to succeed Lucullus^ But when news came

LucuUus 233

hat Mithridates had defeated Fabius, and was marching against
kimatius and Triarius, out of shame they followed Lucullus.
rriarius, ambitiously aiming at victory before ever Lucullus
ame to him, though he was then very near, was defeated in a
;reat battle, in which it is said that above seven thousand
lomans fell, among whom were a hundred and fifty centurions
ind four-and-twenty tribunes, and that the camp itself was
aken, Lucullus, coming up a few days after, concealed Triarius
rom the search of the angry soldiers. But when Mithridates
leclined battle, and waited for the coming of Tigranes, who was
hen on his march with great forces, he resolved before they
;oined their forces to turn once more and engage with Tigranes.
3ut in the way the mutinous Fimbrians deserted their ranks,
irofessing themselves released from service by a decree, and
iiat Lucullus, the provinces being allotted to others, had no
onger any right to command them. There was nothing beneath
ht dignity of Lucullus which he did not now submit to bear,
mtreating them one by one, from tent to tent, going up and
iown humbly and in tears, and even taking some like a sup-
iiiant by the hand. But they turned away from his salutes,
ind threw down their empty purses, bidding him engage alone
«ith the enemy, as he alone made advantage of it. At length
jy the entreaty of the other soldiers, the Fimbrians, being pre-
/ailed upon, consented to tany that summer under him, but if
luring that time no enemy came to fight them, to be free.
LucuUus of necessity was forced to comply with this, or else to
ibandon the country to the barbarians. He kept them, indeed,
^dth him, but without urging his authority upon them; nor did
le lead them out to battle, being contented if they should
3ut 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 whoUy 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 hun 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 armour and drew their swords, and
defied their enemies then absent and gone o2 a long while before,
and with great outcries and waving tiieir swords in the air they
quitted the camp, proclaiming that the time was expired which
tiiey promised to stay with Lucullus. The rest were summoned
by letters from Pompey to come and join him; he by the favour

234 Plutarch's Lives

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 con-
trary, 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, LucuUus'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, LucuUus's actions furnished the
honours 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 con-
stitution or adverse circimistances, 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 LucuUus'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 xmable even to make head
against the encroachments of the Armenians. And Lucullus, as

Lucullus 235

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 Tigrano-
certa, 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 Par-
thian archers, soon demonstrated that Lucullus's triumphs were
not beholden to the inadvertenc}' 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 hb acts as quaestor, done by
Sylia's orders; and on his acquittal, Memmius changed the
scene, and animated the people against Lucullus himself, urging
them to deny him a triiunph for appropriating the spwils and
prolonging the war. In this great struggle, the nobility and
chief men went down, and mingling m person among the tribes,
with much entreaty and labour, 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 proces-
sion 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 armour, ten chariots armed with sc^'thes, 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, armour, and money, all carried by men. Besides which,
eight mules were laden with golden couches, fifty-six with
buUion, and a hundred and seven with coined silver, Httle less
than two million 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 nobljr
feasted the city and adjoinmg villages or vict.

Being divorced from Clodia, a dissolute and wicked woman,
he married ServUia, sister to Cato. This also proved an unfor-
tunate match, for she only wanted one of all of Clodia's vices,
the criminahty she was accused of with her brothers. Out of
reverence to Cato, he for a while connived her impurity and im-

236 Plutarch's Lives

modesty, but at length dismissed her* When the senate ex-
pected great things from him, hoping to find in him a check to
the usvirpations 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
labours and toils which had ended with him so far from fortu-
nately. There are those who highly commend his change of life,
saying that he thus avoided the rock on which Marius split.
For he, after the great and glorious deeds of his Cimbrian
victories, was not contented to retire upon his honours, 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 LucuUus
abandoning himself to pleasure and expense, as if luxurious
living were not a thing that as little became his years as govern-
ment of affairs at home or of an army abroad.

And, indeed, LucuUus'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 buUdings, porticos, and baths, still less to his paint-
ings 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, inso-
much that even now, with all the advance of luxury, the Lucul-
lean gardens are counted the noblest the emperor has. Tube a >
the stoic, when he saw his buildings at Naples, where he sus-
pended 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 apart-
ments, and porticos to walk in, where Pompey coming to see
Slim, blamed him for making a house which would be pleasant in

Lucullus 237

summer, but uninhabitable in winter; whom he answered with
a smile, " You thkik me, then, less provident than cranes and
storks, not to change my home with the season." When a
prsetor, 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 askmg 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 extoa-
vagant, not only with purple coverlets, and plate adorned with
precious stones, and dancings, and iaterludes, but with the
greatest diversity of dishes and the most elaborate cookery, for
the vulgar to admire and envy. It was a happy thought al
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 frugahty 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 of a true Grecian principle, being
ashamed, and declining the invitations, where so great an ex-
pense 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 pro-
fessing to have supposed that there would be no need of any
great entertainment, when nobody was invited, was answered.

238

Plutarch's Lives

** 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 com-
mand 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 favour
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 to-day, just on the dinner that is prepared for your-
self." 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 ap-
pointed before. But thus much they consented to, that before
their faces he might tell his servants, 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 know-
ing where he would dine, knew also how much was to be ex-
pended, 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 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 favoured and valued
the Academy ; not the New one, which at that time under Philo
flourished with the precepts of Cameades, but the Old one, then

Lucullus 239

lustained and represented by Antiochus of Ascalon, a learned
and eloquent man. Lucullus with great labour made him his
friend and champion, and set him up against Philo's auditors,
among whom Cicero was one, who wTote an admirable treatise
in defence of his sect, in which he puts the argument in favour
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 re-
public, but only from ambition, and from the dangerous and
often lawless struggle for political pre-eminence, which he left to
Crassus and Cato, whom the senators, jealous of Pompey's
greatness, put forward as their champions, when Lucullus re-
fused to head them. For his friends' sake he came into the
forum and into the senate, when occasion ofEered to humble the
ambition and pride of Pompey, whose settlement, after his con-
quests over the kings, he got cancelled, 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, \^^lich 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 accusa-
tions. And after a few days the whole intrigue became yet
more obvious, when the dead body of Vettius was thrown out of
prison, he being reported, mdeed, to have died a natural death,
but carrying marks of a halter and blows about him, and seem-
ing rather to have been taken oS 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 afiairs 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 freed man. The potion was meant by CaUis-
thenes to strengthen his affection for him, and was supposed to
have that tendency, but it stood quite otherwise, and so disabled

240 Plutarch's Lives

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 oa 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 sur-
vived 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.

THE COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON

One might bless the end of Lucullus, which was so timid 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 be 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
v/ars, engagements, and conquests, by making feastings and de-
bauches 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 learn-
ing, 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 cam-
paigns 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 is one surpris-
ing point of contrast between them; Cimon's youth was ill re-
puted and intemperate, LucuUus'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

Comparison of Lucullus with Cimon 241

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 siunptuous oriental
one of Lucullus, the former recei'ving 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 \^ine and company, and accused, as has been said,
of laxity with women ? The better pleasures gained in success-
ful action and effort leave the baser appetites no time or place,
and makes active and heroic men forget them. Had but
Lucullus ended his days in the field, and in command, en\-y and
detraction itself could nevCT 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 honour 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, honouring Greece with a sea and land
victory on the same day, may claim a certain pre-eminence
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 in-
ducing 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, hav-ing successfully
effected for his city three most difficult services, establishing
peace with the enemy, dominion over confederates, and con-
cord 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

242 rlutarch s Lives

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.

LucuUus very much outwent him in war, being the first
Roman who carried an army over Taurus, passed the Tigris,
took and burned 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 ofi
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 in-
cessant routs under Themistocles, Pausanias, and Leontychides,
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
wh«n he engaged with Lucullus. There is no comparison be-

Nicias 243

tween 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 favour
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 Thucj'dides 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 Timseus, who, hoping in his history
to surpass Thucydides in art, and to make Philistus app>ear 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
exf>edition; and that the defacing of the Hermae was a divine
intimation that they should suffer much in the war by Hermo-
crates, the son of Hermon; and, moreover, how it was likely
that Hercules should aid the Syracusans for the sake of Proser-
pine, by whose means he took Cerberus, and should be angry
with the Athenians for protecting the Egesteans, descended from

244 riutarcn s i^ives

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 sense-
less. 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
endeavour 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 v/hich Pericles courted
the favour 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 favour of the rich and eminent
citizens, who set him up for their bulwark against the presump-
tion 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 fiud them fees," j

yet even those, for whose interest and to gain whose favour he *
acted, nevertheless observing the avarice, the arrogance, and the

Nicias 245

presumption of the man, many of them supported Nicias. For
his was not that sort of gravity which is harsh and ofiensive,
but he tempered it with a certain caution and deference, winning
upon the people, by seeming afraid of them. And being
naturally diffident and imhopeful in war, his good fortime sup-
plied his want of courage, and kept it from being detected, as in
all his commands he was constantly successful. And his timor-
ousness 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 Qeon 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 or plays. For at these he had often carried
ofE 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 chm ; 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 com'usedly, putting on their
garlands, and changing their dresses as they left the ships, he,
when he had to convoy the sacred company, disembarked the

246 rlutarch s L»ives

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 colouring, 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
carriages 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 Tliucydides
tells us, was much given to arts of divination. In one of Pasi-
phon'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, say?: —

" 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 1 will not tell."

So, also, the informer whom Eupolis introduces in his Maricas,
attacking a good, simple, poor man : —

I

Nicias 247

** How long ago did you and Nicias meet 7

I did but see him just aow 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,
Nidas is taken in the act.

Taken, Fools! take so good a man

In aught that's wrong none will or can."

Oeon, in Aristophanes, makes it one of his threats: —

" I'll outscream all the speakers, and make Nicias stand aghast."

Phrynichus ako implies his want of spirit and his easiness to b«
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 give him-
self 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 con-
tributed 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, sumamed Chalcus,
whose poems are yet extant, and had led out the colony to Italy
and founded Thurii. Thb Hiero transacted all his secrets for
Nicias with the diviners; and gave out to the people what a
toilsome and miserable liie he led for the sake of the common-
wealth. " 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
afiable 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 govern-

24»

rlutarch s Lives

ment 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, make 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 msmif est in their condemna-
tion 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 him-
self. 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 favour; 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
jiEtolia. 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, like-
wise, in Thrace, which had revolted, were taken or won over by
him; he shuttbg up the Megarians within their town, seized
upon the isle of Minoa; and soon after, advancing from thence
to Nissea, 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 Lyco-
phron. There it happened that two of his men were left by an
oversight, when they carried off the dead, which when he under-
stood, he stopped the fleet, and sent a herald to the enemy for

Nicias 249

leave to cany off the dead; thongh by law and custom, he that
by a truce craved leave to cany off the dead was hereby sup-
posed 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 Lace-
daemonians that made head against him. He took Thyrea,
occupied by the ^ginetans, and carried the prisoners to Athens.

When Demosthenes had fortified Pylos, and the Pelopon-
nesians 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 diflF.cuIt and untoward, and to convey necessaries about by
sea in stimmer 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 Lacedsemonians,
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, charg-
ing 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 ques-
tion, " 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 common-
wealth. Cleon, at the lirst, 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

250 flutarcn s JL.ives

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 praj'^ed
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, laugh-
ing, 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 ofiSce 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 in-
tolerable audacity, as led to many unfortunate results, a suffi-
cient 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 licence 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 aa

Nicias 251

Qeon, 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 ambi-
tion, and all embroQed 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 laboured
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 con-
versing and reasoning, he had cooled the wishes of a good many
others for war, he now encouraged the hopes of the Lacedae-
monians, and counselled 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,"

2^2 riutarcn s J^ives

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 Theo-
phrastus tells us, by a sum of money procured that the lot
should fall for the Lacedaemonians to deliver the first. After-
wards, when the Girinthians and the Boeotians showed their
dislike of what was done, and by their complaints and accusa-
tions were well nigh bringing the war back again, Nicias per-
suaded 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 the^e matters were on foot, Alcibiadcs, who was
no lover of tranquillity, and who was offended with the Lacedae-
monians 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
m 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 ambas-
sadors were come with full powers, and at their preliminary
*udience by the council seemed to come in all points with just

Nicias 253

proposals, he, fearing that the over general assembly, also, would
be won 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 over-
persuaded 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, wbuch, when they
denied, he, contrary to their expectation, changing his counten-
ance, called the council to witness their words, and now bade
the people beware how they trust or transact an}'thing with
such manifest liars, who say at one time one thing, and at
another the very opposite upon the same subject. These pleni-
potentiaries 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 imme-
diately 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 favoured the Boeotians,
he returned home, not only dishonoured and hardly spoken of,
but likewise in fear of the Athenians, who were vexed and en-
raged 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 Alci-
biades 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 ostra-
cism or banishment, for ten years, which the people, putting
the name on a sherd, were wont to inflict at certain times on
»ome person suspected or regarded with jealousy for his popu-

254 rlutarch s Lives

larity 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 ex-
clusive 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 fac-
tious, allowed free course to the most impudent and profligate
persons, among whom was Hyperbolus of the Perithcedae, one
who could not, indeed, be said to be presuming upon any
power, but rather by his presumption arose into power, and
by the honour he found m 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 despatched 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, suc-
ceeded 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 dishonoured by being em-
ployed upon so unworthy a subject; punishment, also, having
its proper dignity, and ostracism being one that was appropriate
rather for Thucydides, Aris tides, 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."

Nicias 255

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; not 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 ex-
pelled the city, he had remained secure; or, being overcome,
he had avoided the utmost disasters, and preserved the reputa-
tion 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 ^gestean and
Leontine ambassadors arrived and urged the Athenians to make
an expedition against Sicily, Nicias opposed, and by whose per-
suasions and ambition he found himself overborne, who, even
before the people could be assembled, had preoccupied and cor-
rupted 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 draw-
ing maps of Sicily, and making charts showing the seas, the
harbours, 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 headquarters 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 has 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

256 rlutarch s JLives

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 prophecies 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 fore-speak ill-luck. For even prodigies that were obvious
and plain would not deter them; not the defacing of the Hermse,
all maimed in one night except one, called the Hermes of Ando-
cides, erected by the tribe of ^Egeus, 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 in-
ventions of the Delphians, corrupted by the men of Syracuse*
A certain oracle bade them bring from Clazomenas 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 the next morning came before the
assembly in great distress, and besought the people, in considera-
tion 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 in-
timation 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

Nicias 257

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 honour of
liis high command so as to modify his judgment, showed himself
a man of virtue and constancy. But when his endeavours could
not diverge the people from the war, nor get leave for himself to
be discharged of the command, but the people, as it were, violently
him took 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 over-ruled by fair
arguments, thus blunting the courage of his fellow-commanders
and spoiling the season of action, WTiereas, 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 counselled to sail directly to
Syracuse, and fight the enemy under their city walls, and Alci-
biades 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 Uttle 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
S}Tacuse with a squadron of sixty galleys, fifty of them lying in
array without the harbour, while the other ten rowed in to recon-
noitre, and by a herald called upon the citizens of Leontini to
return to their own country. These scouts took a galley of the
u I

250 rlutarch s Lives

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 examina-
tion 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 un-
propitious, and were in apprehension lest this should be the only
destined fulfilment of the prophecy, that " the Athenians shall
take all the Syracusans." Yet, indeed, this was said to be accom-
plished 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 com-
mand 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 sub-
ordinate, 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 draw-
ing off before he could take it, make himself utterly despised.
At the last he retreated to Catana without having achieved any-
tliing, save that he demolished Hyccara, an 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

Nicias 259

without molestation, he procured a man to cany 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 Uving mostly in the town, the friends of the Syra-
cusans 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 harbour, 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.

VVhen 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 Herraocrates, 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 shp, and allowed a garrison
of the SyTacusans to enter it, judging that if the soldiers should
make booty of that wealth it would be no advantage to the
pubUc, and he should bear the guilt of the impiety* Not im-
proving in the least this success, which was everywhere famous,
after a few da}-^' 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 coimtr/, and fired the camp of the Athenians, For
which everybody blamed Nicias, who, with his long reflection,
his deli beraten ess, and his caution, had let shp the time for actiouj

200 riutarcn s i^ives

None ever found fault with the man when once at work, for in
the brunt he showed vigour 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 Epipolse, had defeated the body of picked men that
came to its succour, took three hundred prisoners, and routed
the cavalry of the enemy, which had been thought invincible.
But what chiefly astonished the Syracusans, ajid seemed in-
credible 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 m
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 Syra-
cusan horse that came upon him. B ef ore the rest advanced Calh-
crates, 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
axws, and at full speed advanced to the wall of the Athenians,

Nicias 261

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 SjTacusans, saved Nicias, saved the walls and
all the money of the Athenians. For when the Syracusans saw
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 com from every coast came to the camp, every one favour-
ing when matters went well. And some proposals from among
the Syracusans despairmg to defend the city, about a capitula-
tion, were ah^ady 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 ever\'^vhere
spread about that the Athenians carried all before them, and had
a general alike for conduct and for fortime invincible.

And Nicias himself, too, now against his nature grown bold
in his present strength and success, especially from the intel-
ligence he received underhand 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 long-boat ashore without the know-
ledge of Nicias, and, having landed in the remotest parts from
Syracuse, mustered up a considerable force, the SjTacusans 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 aU despatched before the town should be quite
walled roimd, for now tliere 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 Gong>- lus in one
galley from Corinth, and every one, 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

202 riutarcn s J_iives

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 himdred, whom they
held in chams, 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 foimd 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 flockiag togeQier 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 Thucy-
dides 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 Gon-
gylus 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 hstened 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

Nicias 263

fortune had occasioned, up to this time, many delays; but now
they were all eager to send off succours. Eurymedon went
before, in midwinter, with money, and to announce that Euthy-
demus and Menander were chosen out of those that served there
under Nicias to be joint conmianders 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 begiiming 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 succour in time, so Gylippus surprised
and captured Plemmyrium, in which the stores for the navy,
and a great simi 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 Plem-
myrium, while the Athenians still held it, but now that they
were beaten out, he could only procure them with great diffi-
culty, 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 foily for them, when Demos-
thenes was coming in all haste with so great a fleet and fresh
forces to their succour, to engage the enemy with a less number
of ships and iU provided. But, on the other hand, Menander
and Euthydemus, who were just commencing their new com-
mand, 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 honour of the cit\', 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 de-
jection 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 harbour, 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

264

Plutarch's Lives

thousand ; with the glittering of their armour, 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 con-
ferred with Demosthenes, who advised forthwith to attack the
Syracusans, and to put all to the speediest hazard, to win Syra-
cuse, or else return home, afraid, and wondering at his prompt-
ness 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 pro-
crastinations 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 Demos-
thenes, 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 con-
tent 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 forsvard,
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.

Nicias 265

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 unex-
pected 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 sup-
posing 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 S}'Tacusans, 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 suc-
ceeded 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

266 Plutarch's Lives

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 abroad.

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,
>35vho, 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 colours, was not easy to be comprehended; they con-
cluded 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 prin-
ciples, 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 skilful 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 favourable; for

Nicias 267

things done in fear require to be hidden, and the light is theff

foe. Nor was it usual to observe signs in the sun or moon more
than three days, as Autoclides states in his Conunentaries. 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 harbour. 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, Hera-
clides by name, having ventured out beyond the rest, an
Athenian ship pursued and well-nigh 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 S\Tacusans had the victory, and slew Eur}Tnedon,
with many others. After this the Athenian soldiers had no
patience to stay longer, but raised an outcr>' against their officers,
requiring them to depart by land; for the SvTacusans, upon
their victory, immediately shut and blocked up the entrance of
the harbour; 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 ser\aceable darters,
they filled one hundred and ten galleys; the rest wanted oars.
The remainder of his army Nicias posted along by the seaside,
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 victor}' and glory to the S\Tacusans, provided
they would not be the aggressors, but fight upon the defensive;
for so Hercules overcame all, by only defending 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

268 Plutarch's Lives

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 indif-
ferently any way, for which they could only return darts and
arrows, the direct aim of which the motion of the water dis-
turbed, 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 eyes, 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 aJl 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 strata-
gem, remained, to encounter presently in reality what he had
feared when there was no occasion. For they, the next morn-
ing, 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, judg-
ing the present evils lighter than those they expected to come.
But among the many miserable spectacles that appeared up and

Nicias 269

down in the camp, the saddest sight of all was Nicias himself,
labouring 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 iUness,
and doing and undergoing more than many in f>erfect 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 any-
thing of the kind, did so, it was evident, from reflection upon
the shame and dishonour of the enterprise, contrasted with the
greatness and glor\' 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 expedi-
tion 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
favourable treatment than the wickedest and meanest of the
army.

Nicias, however, endeavoured 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 money that the Syracusans had
expended in the war.

But now they would not hear of these proposals, but threaten-
ing and reviling them, angrily and insultingly continued to ply
their missiles at them, now destitute of every necessan,'. 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.

270 Plutarch's Lives

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'do\vn
by their enemies. And here was the cruellest and the most
immoderate slaughter. Till at last Nicias falling down to Gylip-
pus, " Let pity, 0 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 m.ildly towards you
in their prosperity."

At these words, and at the sight of Nicias, Gylippus was some-
what 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
privately 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 valour and man-
hood 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 thence-
forward 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 Syra-
cusans favoured the proposals, and when Hermocratcs said,
that to use well a victory was better than to gain a victory, he
was met with great clamour and outcry. When Gylippus, also,
demanded the Athenian generals to be delivered to him, that he

Nicias 271

aight carry them to the Lacedaemonians, the Syracusans, now
asolent with their good-fortime, gave him ill words. Indeed,
>efore this, even in the war, they had been impatient at his
ough behaviour and Lacedaemonian haughtiness, and had, as
?imaeus tells us, discovered sordidness and avarice in his char-
cter, vices which may have descended to him from his father
'leandrides, who was convicted of bribery and banished. And
he very man himself, of the one thousand talents which
^ysander sent to Sparta, embezzled thirty, and hid them under
he tiles of his house, and was detected and shamefully fled his
ountry. But this is related more at large in the life of
^ysander. Timaeus says that Demosthenes and Nicias did not
lie, as Thucydides and Philistus have written, by the order of
he SvTacusans, but that upon a message sent them from Hermo-
xates, whilst yet the assembly were sitting, by the connivance
if some of their guards, they were enabled to put an end to
hemselves. Their bodies, however, were thrown out before the
;ates and offered for a public spectacle. And I have heard that
o this day in a temple at Syracuse is sho-^Ti a shield, said to
vave been Nicias's, curiously wrought and embroidered with
;old and purple intermixed. Most of the Athenians perished in
he quarries by diseases and ill diet, being allowed only one pint
)f barley every day, and one half pint of water. Many of them,
lowever, were carried off by stealth, or, from the first, were
upposed to be servants, and were sold as slaves. These latter
vere branded on their foreheads with the figure of a horse,
rhere were, however, Athenians who, in addition to slavery,
lad to endure even this. But their discreet and orderly con-
luct was an advantage to them; they were either soon set free,
)r won the respect of their masters with whom they continued
,0 live. Several were saved for the sake of Euripides, whose
)oetry, it appears, was in request among the Sicilians more than
imong any of the settlers out of Greece. And when any
ravellers arrived that could tell them some passage, or give
hem any specimen of his verses, they were delighted to be able
o communicate them to one another. Many of the captives
vho got safe back to Athens are said, after they reached home,
0 have gone and made their acknowledgments to Euripides,
elating how that some of them had been released from their
lavery by teaching what they could remember of his poems, and
)thers, when straggling after the fight, been relieved with meat
md drink for repeating some of his lyrics. Nor need this be any
¥onder, for it is told that a ship of Caunus fleeing into one of

272 Plutarch's Lives

their harbours for protection, pursued by pirates, was not re-
ceived, 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 harbour.

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 honour 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 beauti-
ful 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.

Crassus 273

People were wont to say that the many \'irtues of Crassiis 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 ever}' citizen com 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 neighbourhood,
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 labourers 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 think-
ing, 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 exer-

274 Plutarch's Lives

cised 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 allow-
ance, 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 has friends he would lend money with-
out 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, tlie 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 succour 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 travelling, 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 destruc-

Crassus 275

tion 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 consterna-
tion, and trembUng at the cruelty of Mariiis, 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
to 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 hght, 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 ^^nthin saw, and expected him at the
customary times. Neither was their entertainment such as just
to keep them ahve, but given them in abundance and for their
enjoyment; for Pacianus resolved to treat him with all imagin-
able kindness, and considering that 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

276 Plutarch's Lives

so Crassus perceiving it was a piece of pleasantry and of good-will
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 hear-
ing 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 despatched some one way, and some another, Crassus,
on its falling to his share to raise men among the Marsians, de-
manded a guard, being to pass through the enemy's country,
upon which Sylla replied sharply, " I give you for guard youi
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 disad-
vantage 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 honour
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 pre-
ferred ; 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 spoils to his own use, for which he
was complained of to Sylla. But in the last and greatest battle
before Rome itself, when Sylla was worsted, some of his battalions
giving ground, and others being quite broken, Crassus got the

Crassus 277

p'ictory on the right wing, which he commanded, and pursued
he enemy till night, and then sent to Sylla to acquaint him with
lis success, and demand provision for his soldiers. In the time,
lowever, of the proscriptions and sequestrations, he lost his
repute again, by making great purchases for little or nothing, and
isking for grants. Nay, they say he proscribed one of the Brut-
Lains without Sylla's order, only for his own profit, and that, on
discovering this, Sylla never after trusted him in any pubhc
iffairs. As no man was more cunning than Crassus to ensnare
Dthers by flattery, so no man lay more open to it, or swallowed it
more greedily than himself. And this particularly was observed
3f 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 under-
takings; that he had had a triumph before he was capable to
sit in the senate, and that the people had sumamed 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 honour
and power as Pompey had from his many famous expeditions.
And it was a curious thing in their rivalr}', that Pompey's name
and interests 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 interests 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 mingled any hostility or malice
with his jealousy; though Caesar, when he was taken captive
by the corsairs in Asia, cried out, " 0 Crassus, how glad you
will be at tlie news of my captivity 1 " Afterwards they lived

278 Plutarch's Lives

together on friendly terms, for when Caesar was going prstor 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, Cassar, 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 hot-headed 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 the 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 Satiates 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 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 waggons
that were carrying gladiators' 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 gentle-
ness 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 hmi
in his flight, his countrywoman, a kmd of prophetess, and one of
those possessed with the bacchanal frenzy, declared that it was

Crassus 279

, sign portending great and formidable power to him with no
:appy event.

First, then, routing those that came out of Capua against
hem, and thus procuring a qviantity of proper soldiers' arms,
hey gladly threw away their own as barbarous and dishonour-
.ble. Afterwards Clodius, the praetor, took the command against
hem with a body of three thousand men from Rome, and be-
ieged them within a mountain, accessible only by one narrow
jid difficult passage, which Clodius kept guarded, encompassed
m all other sides with steep and slippery precipices. Upon the
op, however, grew a great many wild vines, and cutting down
IS many of their boughs as they had need of, they twisted them
nto strong ladders long enough to reach from thence to the
K)ttom, by which, without any danger, they got down all but
)ne, who stayed there to throw them down their arms, and after
his succeeded in saving himself. The Romans were ignorant of
ill this, and, therefore, coming upon them in the rear, they
Lssaulted them unawares and took their camp. Several, also,
)f the shepherds and herdsmen that were there, stout and nimble
ellows, revolted over to them, to some of whom they gave
;omplete arms, and made use of others as scouts and light-armed
ioidiers. Publius Varinus, the praetor, was now sent against
:hem, whose lieutenant, Furius, with two thousand men, they
■ought and routed. Then Cossinius was sent with considerable
iorces, to give his assistance and advice, and him Spartacus
nisscd but very little of capturing in person, as he was bathing
It Salinse; for he with great difficulty made his escape, while
Spartacus possessed himself of his baggage, and following the
:hase with a great slaughter, stormed his camp and took it,
where Cossinius himself was slain. After many successful skir-
nishes 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
Df 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 base-
ness, 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,

2 8o Plutarch's Lives

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 przetor
of that part of Gaul that lies about the Po, met him with ten
thousand nien, 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 honour. He stayed himself on the borders of Picenura,
expecting Spartacus would come that way, and sent his lieu-
tenant, Mummius, with two legions, to wheel about and observe
the enemy's motions, but upon no account to engage or skir-
mish. 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 landmg two thou-
sand men, he hoped to new kindle the war of the slaves, which
was but lately extinguished, and seemed to need but 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.

Crassus 281

Jthree hundred furlongs long, fifteen feet broad, and as much in
iepth, and above it built a wonderfully high and strong wall.
hh which Spartacxis 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 penin-
sula, takmg the opportunity of a snow\', stormy night, he filled
up part of the ditch with earth and boughs of trees, and so passed
^e third part of his army over,

Crassus was afraid lest he should march directly to Rome,
tmt was soon eased of that fear when he saw many of his men
break out in a mutiny and quit him, and encamped by them-
selves 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
lie 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 honour 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 Castiis 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 oS 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 the march, they came to them
with their swords in their hands, and compelled them to lead them
back again through Lucania, agamst 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

282 Plutarch's Lives

that the honour of this war was reserved to him, v/ho 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, but 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
honoured 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 honour, 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 oppor-
tunity, 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 honour
of his own appointment. But once entered upon the employ-
ment, this amity continued not long; but differing almost in
everything, disagreeing, quarrelling, and contending, they spent
the time of their consulship without effecting any measure of con-
sequence, 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

Crassus 283

pie, 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, " ap-
peared 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
Ihey 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 an^-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 Eg^'pt 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 Cataline,
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 Czesar -vsnth 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 Cataline, stating the details of the
conspiracy. Crassus hated him ever after, but was hindered by
his son from doing him any 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.

Csesar 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,

284 Plutarch l^ivcs

who would really be of no account if they would join their in-
terests 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 Csesar 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 Csesar 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. Wlien 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

Crassus 285

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 ques-
tion 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 in-
decencies and violences, and amongst other things lay in wait
for Domitius, as he was coming thither before daybreak with his
friends ; his torch-bearer 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 Csesar his command for five years longer, and pro-
vinces 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 change, 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
tiiere; 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
i^, and contrary to his usual character, for he had been very
little given to boasting hitherto. But then being strangely
pufied up, and his head heated, he would not limit his fortime
with Parthia and Syria; but looking on the actions of Lucullas
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 Csesar 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.

286 Plutarch's Lives

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 ap-
peared with a pleasing coimtenance, 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 the Euphrates, without much difficulty, and passed
over his army in safety, and occupied many cities of Mesopo-
tamia, which yielded voluntarily. But a hundred of hb men
were killed in one, in which Apollonius was tyrant; therefore,
bringing his forces against it, he took it by storm, plundered th«
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

Crassus 287

meet him coming from Caesar out of Gaul, decorated with
rewards for his valour, and bringmg 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
accotmt of the arras, and in improving the skUl 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 pa3rment 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
moistiure 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 denoimced mortal war, but
if, as he imderstood was the case, against the consent of his
coimtry, Crassus for his cwn private profit had invaded his terri-
tory, tiien 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, saymg, " Hair will grow here
before you will see Seleucia; " so they returned to tiieir 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 considera-
tion, 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 them|

288 Plutarch's Lives

their men-at-arms were so provided that their weapons would
cut through anything, and their armour 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 Par-
thians and the Armenians or Cappadocians, whom LucuUus
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 ex-
pectation; accordingly, some of the officers advised Crassus to
proceed no further at present, but reconsider the whole enter-
prise, amongst whom in particular was Cassius, the quaestor.
The soothsayers, also, told him privately the signs found in the
sacrifices were continually adverse and unfavourable. But he
paid no heed to them, or to anybody who gave any other advice
than to proceed. Nor did Artabazes, King of Armenia, con-
firm 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 suit,
for he promised ten thousand cuirassiers more, and thirty thou-
sand 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 tiie
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 splendour 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
pretematurally 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

Crassus 289

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 slipt 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 con-
ceived great hopes, and the Romans began to despise the Par-
thians, 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
t» make toward Seleucia, and keep by the river, that so they
might have the convenience of having provision constantly sup-
plied by the boats, which might always accompany the array,
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,
tiere 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 re-
membered him to have received some kmdnesses 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 bene-
factor, 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 de-
signed long ago to fly for refuge to tlie Scythians or Hyrcanians.
11 K

290 Plutarch's Lives

" 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 appre-
hended the danger, and therefore waited to see the event, in-
tending that Surena should fiirst 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 travelled
privately, he had one thousand camels to carry his baggage, two
hundred chariots for his concubines, one thousand completely
armed men for life-guards, and a great many more light-armed ;
and he had at least ten thousand horsemen altogether, of his
servants and retinue. The honour had long belonged to his
family, that at the king's coronation he put the crown upon his
head, and when this very king H3Todes 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 ofiE the defenders. And though at this time he
was not above tliirty years old, he had a great name for wisdom
and sagacity, and, indeed, by these qualities chiefly, he over-
threw 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 difiiculty 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 im-

Crassus 291

possible for him to send any succours, 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, 0 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 sus-
tain it a little further, and ran about the camp, and, professing
to cheer up the soldiers, asked them, jokingly, " W^t, do you
think you march through Campania, expecting everywhere to
find springs, and shady trees, and baths, and inns of entertain-
ment? 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 con-
sisted of twelve cohorts, to every one of which he allotted a

292 Plutarch's Lives

troop of horse, that no part inight 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
drouth 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 eager-
ness 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 armour 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 clamour. 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 m.ake 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 hear-
ing 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 armour, and shone
like lightning in their breastplates and helmets of polished Mar-
gianian steel, and with their horses covered with brass and steel
trappings. Surena was the tallest and finest looking man him-
self, 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

Crassus 293

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 encom-
passed 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 parti-
cular 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 dishonour 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 oft
and took more, Crassus seeing no end of it, was out of all
heart, and sent to his son that he should endeavour to fall in
upon them before he was quite surroimded; for the enemy
advanced most upon that quarter, and seemed to be trj'ing to
ride round and come upon the rear. Therefore the yotmg 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 m 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

294 Plutarch's Lives

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. Tlie horse thus pushing on, the infantry
stayed a 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 a halt,
for they doubted not but now the enemy would attack them,
because they were so few. But they merely placed their cuiras-
siers 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 armour, 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 drouth, bemg 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 oS,

Crassus 295

Lhev 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 defence
j^inst 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, Hieronjmius 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 armour-
bearer, and commanded him to run him through. It is said
Sensorimus fell in the same manner. Megabacchus slew him-
self, 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 ofi the head
of Publius, they rode oS 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 succours. Crassus was terribly dis-
tracted, 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, scofiingly inquired where were his parents, and what

296

Plutarch's Lives

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, 0 my countrymen, is my own peculiar loss, but the for-
tune 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
somethmg. Neither did Lucullus overthrow Tigranes without
bloodshed, nor Scipio Antiochus; our ancestors lost one thou-
sand ships about Sicily, and how many generals and captams m
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 m 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 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 dependants 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 despatched;
for the strong, thick spear made large and mortal wounds, and
often run through two men at once. As they were thus fight-
ing, 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, every one 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

Crassus 297

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 fortime, 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 com-
fort him, but he bemg 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 turning out of their way, now and then standing to their
ranks, sometimes taking up the wounded that followed, some-
times laying them down, they wasted the time, except three
himdred 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 tellmg
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, imme-
diately 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 dislodgment 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 lieu-
tenant, while it was yet dark, had broken oS 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

298 Plutarch's Lives

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 Carrhse.

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 un-
certain 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, command-
ing 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 them-
selves with the message, went back to Surena, who was 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 demanded of them Crassus and
Cassius, bound, if they expected any mercy. The Romans, see-
ing 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 faith-
less of men, nay, he was so infatuated as to choose him for his
guide. The Parthians then, to be sure, had punctual intelli-
gence 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 tune 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

Crassus 299

journey cf it, and some there were who, supposing by these
windings and turnings of Andromachus that no good was in-
tended, resolved to follow him no further. And at last Cassius
himself returned to Carrhae, and his guides, the Arabians, advis-
ing him to taxry 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 oS to S>T:ia. 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
difiicult country. There were with him four cohorts of legionary
soldiers, a ver\' 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 at 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, upbraid-
ing one another with baseness in forsaking their ofiicers, marched
do^^-n, 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 ex-
pose themselves, and knowing that if the Romans should pro-
long 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, whUe some of the barbarians spoke a set piirpose 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 general 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,
imbent 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

300 Plutarch's Lives

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 per-
fidiousness, and was unable to see any reason for the sudden
change, would give no ear to them, and only took time to con-
sider. 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 intrusted
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 greeting him, said, " How is this, then ? A Roman com-
mander 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 301

"rassus 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, beat-
ing through the countr}', 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 sittmg upon his horse, while before him
went a parcel of trumpeters and lictors upon camels. Purses
were himg at the end of the bundles of rods, and the heads of
the slain fresh bleeding at the end of their axes. After theia

302 Plutarch's Lives

followed the Seleucian smging women, repeating scuiTilous 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, his Milesiaca ; 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 -(Esop'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 waggons 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 casta-
nets, 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 bom 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 Bacchse 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,"

Crassus and Nicias Compared 303

to the great delight of all the company; but when the verses ol
the dialogue followed —

" What happy hand the glorious victim slew ?
I claim that hoaour 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 Par-
thians, to them, and to Jason, the actor, a talent. Such was the
burlesque that was played, they teU 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 per-
jury; 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 tiie 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*

THE 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 workmg 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,
amd the contracts for hoxises 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 hus-
bandr>', 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 in-
juring allies, and courting women, and conniving at criminals,
these are things which Nicias was never so much as falsely ac-
cused of; nay, he was rather laughed at for giving money to
those who made a trade of impeachments, merely out of timor-
ousness, a course, indeed, that would by no means become

304 Plutarch's Lives

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 buy-
ing off an evidence, he said that he was very much pleased tha't,
having administered their affairs for so long a time, he was at
last accused, rather for giving than receiving. Again, Nicias, m
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 any one's failing to
see that vice is a certain inconsistency and mcongruity of habit,
after such an example of money dishonourably obtained and'
wastefully lavished away.

t 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 m his dealings with the people. But Crassus is very
generally blamed for his changeableness in his friendships and
enmities, for his unfaithfuhiess, and his mean and underhand
proceedings; smcehe 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 pro-
vinces, 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 contradictmg
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

Crassus and Nicias Compared 305

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,

i mdeed, and of finishing the war was a divine and truly Grecian
ambition, nor in this respect would Crassus deserve to be com-

v pared 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 govern-
ment 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 conmiend Crassus, who in the war with Spar-
tacus was more forward to fight than became a discreet general,
though he was urged into it by a point of honour, 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 honour 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 in-
capable 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
}.Iinoa and Cythera, and the miserable Melians, if there be occa-
sion to come to blows with the Lacedsemonians, slips off his
general's cloak and hands over to the unskilfulness 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 thet

3o6

Plutarch's Lives

servile war, Pompey and Metellus and the two brothers LucuUus
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 imywhere 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 sur-
rendered to the defeated enemy, to expiate in his o\vn person
the guilt of breach of faith. The people, meantime (their ser-
vice 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 con-
tent with peace and present good things, let it not be for such
results as destroying Mende or Scandea, or beating up the exiled
/Eginetans 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, Hke a
cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price. Those
who praise Alexander's enterprise and blame that of Crassu%>
judge of the beginning unfairly by the results.

Sertorius 307

In actual service, Nicias did much that deserves high praise.

frequently defeated the enemy in battle, and was on the

point of capturing Syracuse; nor should he bear the whole

e of the disaster, which may fairly be ascribed in part to

vant of health and to the jealousy entertained of him at

:-. Crassus, on the other hand, committed so many errors

~'t to leave fortune room to show him favour. It is no sur-

to find such imbecility fall a victim to the power of Parthia;

only wonder is to see it prevailing over the wonted good

:ne of Rome. One scrupulously obser^'ed, the other entirely

ted the arts of divination: and as both equally perished,

; 15 difficult to see what inference we should draw. Yet the
: of over-caution, supported by old and general opinion,
rr deserves forgiveness than that of self-willed and lawless
;gression<

his death, howe\-er, Crassus had the advantage, as he did

surrender himself, nor submit to bondage, nor let himself be

~L in by trickery/, but was the victim only of the entreaties

3 friends and the perfidy of his enem.ies; whereas Niciaa

•need the sham.e of his death by yielding tmnself up in the

lope of disgraceful and inglorious escape.

SERTORIUS

[t is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune
:akes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences
should spKjntaneously occur. If the number and variety of sub-
jects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for
fortime, 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 Actseon, the one was
torn in pieces by his dogs, the other by his lovers ; that of Vivo
famous Scipios, the one overthrew the Carthaginians in war, the

3o8 Plutarch's Lives

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 Chari-
demus, 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, los 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 skilful strata-
gem, have had but one eye; as Philip, Antigonus, Hannibal,
and Sertorius, whose life and actions we describe at present; oi
whom, indeed, we might truly say, that he was more continent
than Philip, more faithful to his friends than Antigonus, anc
more merciful to his enemies than Hannibal; and that foi
prudence and judgment he gave place to none of them, but ir
fortune was inferior to them all. Yet though he had continuall)
in her a far more difficult adversary to contend against than hii
open enemies, he nevertheless maintained his ground, with th(
military skill of Metellus, the boldness of Pompey, the succes:
of Sylla, and the power of the Roman people, all to be en
countered by one who was a banished man and a stranger a'
the head of a body of barbarians. Among Greek commanders
Eumenes of Cardia may be best compared with him; they wen
both of them men born for command, for warfare, and foi
stratagem; both banished from their countries, and holding
command over strangers ; both had fortune for their adversar>'
in their last days so harshly so, that they were both betrayec
and murdered by those who served them, and with whom the}
had formerly overcome their enemies.

Quintus Sertorius was of a noble family, born in the city o
Nursia, in the country of the Sabines; his father died when h
was young, and he was carefully and decently educated by hi
mother, whose name was Rhea, and whom he appears to hav(
extremely loved and honoured. He paid some attention to thi
study of oratory and pleading in his youth, and acquired somi
reputation and influence in Rome by his eloquence; but thi
splendour of his actions in arms, and his successful achievement
in the wars, drew off his ambition in that direction.

At his first beginning, he served under Caepio, when the Cimbr
and Teutones invaded Gaul; where the Romans fighting un

Sertorius 309

uccessfully, and being put to flight, he was wounded in many
Darts of his body, and lost his horse, yet, nevertheless, swam
across the river Rhone in his armour, with his breastplate and
;hield, bearing himself up against the violence of the current;
50 strong and so well inured to hardship was his body.

The second time that the Cimbri and Teutones came down
":- '*h some hundreds of thousands, threatening death and de-
action to all, when it was no small piece of service for a
nan soldier to keep his ranks and obey his commander, Ser-
:us imdertook, while Marius led the army, to spy out the
my's camp. Procuring a Celtic dress, and acquainting him-
: with the ordinary expressions of their language requisite for
imon intercourse, he threw himself in amongst the barbarians;
:re having carefully seen with his own eyes, or having been
^y informed by persons upon the place of all their most im-
rtant concerns, he returned to Marius, from whose hands he
eived the rewards of valour; and afterwards giving frequent
proof both of conduct and courage in all the following war, he
was advanced to places of honour and trust imder 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 Celti-
berians, in the city of Castulo, where the soldiers enjoying great
plenty, and growing insolent and continually driiiking, the
inhabitants despised them and sent for aid by night to the
GyriscEnians, their near neighbours, 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 rallymg to-
gether the rest who escaped, he marched round about the waUs,
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 tlie sight of their own
armour, he found the gates of their city open, and took a great
number prisoners, who came out thmking 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.

3IO Plutarch's Lives

This action made Sertorius highly renowned throughout all
Spain, and as soon as he returned to Rome he was appointed
qusestor 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 honour to him; observing that others do
not continually carry about with them the marks and testi-
monies of their valour, but must often lay aside their chains of
gold, their spears and crowns; whereas his ensigns of honour,
and the manifestations of his courage, always remained with
him, and those who beheld his misfortune must at the same time
recognise his merits. The people also paid him the respect he
deserved, and when he came into the theatre, received him with
plaudits and joyful acclamations, an honour rarely bestowed
even on persons of advanced standing and established reputa-
tion. 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 le^ft Italy to go to the wars against Mithridates^
and of the two consuls Octavius and Cinna, Octavius remamed
steadfast to the policy of Sylla, but Cinna, desirous of a new
revolution, attempted to recall the lost interest of Manus, Ser-
torius joined Cinna's party, more particularly as he saw that
Octavius was not very capable, and was also suspicious of any
one that was a friend to Marius. When a great battle was
fought between the two consuls in the forum, Octavius over-
came, 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 m many
parts of Italy, they in a short time mustered up a force agamsl
Octavius sufficient to give him battle again, and Manus, also
now coming by sea out of Africa, proffered himself to serve undei
Cinna, as a private soldier under his consul and commander.

Most were for the immediate reception of Marius, but Ser-

Sertorius 3 1 1

c rius openly declared against it, whether he thought that Cinna
u!d not now pay as much attention to himself, when a man
igher military repute was present, or feared that the violence
jf Marius would bring all things to confusion, by his boundless
'.rath and vengeance after victory. He msisted upon it with
ia that they were already victorious, that there remained
.e to be done, and that if they admitted Marius, he would
rive them of the glory and advantage of the war, as there
nc^ no man less easy to deal with, or less to be trusted in, as a
partner in power. Cmna 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 ex-
pedient, but that Cinna ought not so much as to have questioned
whether he should accept him whom he had already invited, but
should have honourably received and employed him, for his
word once passed 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 tiiink 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 any one whom he had overcome, but was much
offended with Marius, and often privately entreated Cinna to use
his power more moderately. Aiid 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 favour,
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 thoiisand 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, Nort^nus,
and Scipio fought tuisuccessfiUly against Sylla, now advancing

312 Plutarch's Lives

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 sc
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 fore-
warned of it by Sertorius — at last he utterly despaired ol
Rome, and hasted into Spain, that by taking possession there
beforehand, he might secure a refuge to his friends from theii
misfortunes at home. Having bad weather in his journey, and
travellmg through mountainous countries, and the mhabitants
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
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 m
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 com-
mander with a considerable army would speedily come against

Scrtorius 3 1 3

im, and therefore sent away Julius Salinator immediately, with
X thousand men fiilly armed, to fortify and defend the passes
I the Pyrenees. And Caius Annius not long after being sent
at by Sylla, finding Juli^ls unassailable, sat down short at the
x)t of the mountains in perplexity. But a certain CaJpumius,
nnamed Lanarius, having treacherously slain Juliiis, and his
oldiers then forsaking the heights of the Pyrenees, Caius Annius
dvanced with large numbers and drove before him all who
ndeavoured to hinder his march. Sertorius, also, not being
trong enough to give him battle, retreated with three thousand
aen into New Carthage, where he took shipping, and crossed
he seas into Africa. And coming near the coast of Mauritania,
lis men went on shore to water, and straggling about negligently,
he natives fell upon them and slew a great nimiber. This new
nisfortime forced him to sail back again into Spain, whence he
if3s also repulsed, and, some Cilician private ships joining with
lim, they made for the island of Pityussa, where they landed
ind overpowered the garrison placed there by Annius, who,
aowever, 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 light-
ness 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, were tossed about painhilly 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 Sp>anish 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 blands, two in
number, divided from one another orJy by a narrow channel,
and distant from the coast of Africa ten thousand furlongs.
These are called the Islands of the Blest; rain falls 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 ploughing 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

314 Plutarch's Lives

things without trouble or labour. 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 pro-
duce gentle sprinkling showers, which they convey along with
them from the sea, but more usually bring days of moist, bright
weather, cooling and gently fertilising 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 oppres-
sion 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 de-
parture 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 pro-
digious 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 honours to the memory of Antseus. 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

Sertorius 315

Myceneans placed here by Hercules. Thus much I may men-
ition for the sake of King Juba, of all monarchs the greatest
student of history, whose ancestors are said to have spnmg from
' Diodorus and Sophax,

WTien 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 Lusi-
tanians 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 valour by
those who had formerly known him, they were desirous to com-
mit 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 undaimted, 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 honours 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 misfor-
tune whatever. Yet I think it at the same time possible that
virtuous inclinations and natural good qualities may, when un-
worthily 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 authorit>', he put all in order

3i6

Plutarch's Lives

amongst them, and brought the neighbouring parts of Spair
under subjection. Most of the tribes voluntarily submittec
themselves, won by the fame of his clemency and of his courage
and, to some extent, also, he availed himself of cunning artifice;
of his own devising to impose upon them and gain infiuenc(
over them. Amongst which, certainly, that of the hind was no1
the least. Spanus, a countryman who lived in those parts
meeting by chance a hind that had recently calved, flying fron
the hunters, let the dam go, and pursuing the fawn, took it
being wonderfully pleased with the rarity of the colour, whicl:
was all milk-white. As at that time Sertorius was living in the
neighbourhood, and accepted gladly any presents of fruit, fowl
or venison that the country afforded, and rewarded liberallj
those who presented them, the countryman brought him his
young hind, which he took and was well pleased with at th(
first sight; but when in time he had made it so tame and gentle
that it would come when he called, and follow him wheresoevei
he went, and could endure the noise and tumult of the camp
knowing well that uncivilised people are naturally prone tc
superstition, by little and little he raised it into something pre-
ternatural, 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 noticed that any of the commanders undei
him had got a vctory, 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 godj
and the more so, as the facts themselves seemed to bear witness
to it, his power, contrary to all expectation or probability, con-
tinually increasing. For with two thousand six hundred men,
whom for honour'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

Sertorius 3 1 7

Inst four Roman generals, who commanded a hundred and
nty thousand foot, six thousand horse, two thousand archers
; slingers, and had cities innumerable in their power ; whereas
the &:st he had not above twenty cities in all. From this
;k and slender beginning, he raised himself to the command
arge nations of men, and the possession of numerous cities;
1 of the Roman commanders who were sent against him, he
-rthrew Cotta in a sea-fight, in the channel near the town of
laria; he routed Fufidius, the governor of Bsetica, with the
s of two thousand Romans, near the banks of the river
:;s; Lucius Domitius, proconsul of the other province oi
a in, 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 molest-
ing 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 over-
powering 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
moimtaineers, 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 en-
gaged 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 vigour, and had a body wonderfully fitted for war,
being strong, active, and temperate, continually accustomed to
endure hard labour, to take long, tedious journeys, to pass many
nights together without sleep, to eat httle, and to be satisfied
with ver>' coarse fare, and who was never stained with the least
excess in wine, even when he was most at leisure. \\'hat leisure
time he allowed himself he spent in hunting and riding about,
and so made himself thoroughly acquainted with every passage

3i8 Plutarch's Lives

for escape when he would fly, and for overtaking and intercept
ing a pursuit, and gained a perfect knowledge of where he coult
and where he could not go. Insomuch that Metellus suffere(
all the inconveniences of defeat, although he earnestly desired t(
fight, and Sertorius, though he refused the field, reaped all thi
advantages of a conqueror. For he hindered them from forag
ing, and cut them off from water; if they advanced, he wa
nowhere to be found ; if they stayed in any place and encamped
he continually molested and alarmed them; if they besiegec
any town, he presently appeared and besieged them again, anc
put them to extremities for want of necessaries. Thus he s(
wearied out the Roman army that when Sertorius challengec
Metellus to fight singly with him, they commended it, and criec
out it was a fair offer, a Roman to fight against a Roman, and £
general against a general; and when Metellus refused the chal
ienge, they reproached him. Metellus derided and contemnec
this, and rightly so; for, as Theophrastus observes, a genera
should die like a general, and not like a skirmisher But per
ceiving that the town of the Langobritae, which gave great assist'
ance to Sertorius, might easily be taken for want of water, a<
there was but one well within the walls, and the besieger would
be master of the springs and fountains in the suburbs, he ad-
vanced against the place, expecting to carry it in two days
time, there being no more water, and gave command to hii
soldiers to take five days' provision only. Sertorius, however
resolving to send speedy relief, ordered two thousand skins tc
be filled with water, naming a considerable sum of money foi
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 de-
fendants. As soon as Metellus understood this, he was dis-
turbed, as he had already consumed most part of the necessary
provisions for his army, but he sent out Aquinus with six thou-
sand soldiers to fetch in fresh supplies. But Sertorius having
notice of it, laid an ambush for hun, and having sent out before-
hand three thousand men to take post in a thickly wooded
water-course, 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 armour. And

Sertorius 319

tellus, being forced shamefully to raise the siege, withdrew
^.idst the laughter and contempt of the Spaniards; while
rtorius became yet more the object of their esteem and
"liration.

le was also highly honoured for his introducing discipline and
d order amongst them, for he altered their furious savage
nner of fighting, and brought them to make use of the
man armour, 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 hberally 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 vmder 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 them-
selves, 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 upon their shoulders and passed him from one to another,
till they carried him into the city, and only when they had thus-

320 Plutarch's Lives

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 im-
patient to be under his command ; and when Perpenna Vento,
who was of t/ie 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.

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, dis-
orderly rashness caused Sertorius much trouble, who at first
strove to restrain them with reason and good covmsel; but when
he perceived them refractory and unseasonably violent, he gave
way to their impetuous desires, and permitted them to engage j
with the enemy, in such sort that they might, being repulsed,
yet not totally routed, become more obedient to his commands j
for the future. Which happening as he had anticipated, he
soon rescued them, and brought them safe into his camp.
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 old, feeble, lean animal, the other a
lusty, strong horse, with a remarkable 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 meantime, set
to work to pluck off hair by hair from the great horse's tail.
WTicn the strong man .had given trouble enough to himself in

Sertorius 321

a in, and sufficient diversion to the company, and had aban-

ed his attempt, whilst the weak, pitifiil fellow in a short

.e and with little pains had left not a hair on the great horse's

rail, Sertorius rose up and spoke to his army. " You see,

'^''"w-soldiers, that perseverance is more prevailing than

ence, and that many things which cannot be overcome when

• are together, yield themselves up when taken httle by

e. Assiduity and persistence are irresistible, and in time

.-throw and destroy the greatest powers whatever. Time

g the favourable friend and assistant of those who use their

zment to await his occasions, and the destructive enemy

those who are unseasonably urging and pressing forward."

h a frequent use of such words and such devices, he soothed

fierceness of the barbarous people, and taught them to

a::end and watch for their opportunities.

Of all his remarkable exploits, none raised greater admiration

•^. that which he put in practice against the Characitanians^

. :se are a people beyond the river Tagus, who inhabit neither

cities nor towns, but hve 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 soU resembling a

light clay, so loose as easily to break into powder, and is not

firm enough to bear any one that treads upon it, and if you

touch it in the least it flies about like ashes or unslacked lime«

In any danger of war, these people descended into their caves,

and carr\-ing in their booty and prey along with them, stayed

quietly within, secxire from every attack. And when Sertorius,

leaving MeteUus 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 or 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 movmtains

covered with snow, at this particular time, in the heat of summer,

being further supplied and mcreased by the melting of the ice

in the northern regions, blew a delightful fresh gale, cooling and

refreshing the Characitanians and their cattle ail the day long.

322 Plutarch's Lives

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 those bar-
barous 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 even-
ing, 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 yielding up them-
selves 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 com-
manded 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
honour 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 honour of a triumph before the beard

Sertorius 323

had grown on his face. And many cities which were under

Sertorius were on the very eve of revolting and going over to

^'?mpey, when they were deterred from it by that great action,

.ongst others, which he performed near the city of Lauron, con-

'.rarv' to the expectation of all.

I-"or Sertorius had laid siege to Lauron, and Pompey came with

s whole army to relieve it ; and there being a hill near this city

ry advantageously situated, they both made haste to take it.

rtorius was beforehand, and took possession of it first, and

mpey, having drawn down his forces, was not sorr\' that it had

-3 happened, imagining that he had hereby enclosed his enemy

t ween his own army and the city, and sent in a messenger to the

;zens of Lauron, to bid them be of good courage, and to come

on their walls, where they might see their besieger besieged.

rtorius, perceiving their intentions, smiled, and said he would

v teach Sylla's scholar, for so he called Pompey in derision, that

.vas the part of a general to look as well behind him as before

m, and at the same time showed them six thousand soldiers,

10m he had left in his former camp, from whence he marched

:t to take the hill, where, if Pompey should assault him, they

ght fall upon his rear. Pompey discovered this too late, and

>t daring to give battle, for fear of being encompassed, and yet

:ng ashamed to desert his friends and confederates in their

treme danger, was thus forced to sit still, and see them ruined

fore his face. For the besieged despaired of relief, and de-

ered up themselves to Sertorius, who spared their lives and

anted them their hberty, but burnt their city, not out of anger

r cruelty, for of all commanders that ever were Sertorius seemed

ist of all to have indulged these passions, but only for the

reater shame and confusion of the admirers of Pompey, and

wiat 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

3^4 Plutarch's Lives

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 Ser-
torius, 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 colour, 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;

Sertorius 325

-d, taking his seat, proceeded to answer the petitions of those
ho applied themselves to him. The keepers of the hind, who
ere not far o2, now let her loose, and she no sooner espied
irtorius, but she came leaping with great joy to his feet, laid
er head upon his knees, and licked his hands, as she formerly
sed to do. And Sertorius stroking her, and making much of
er again, with that tenderness that the tears stood in his eyes,
"1 that were present were immediately filled with wonder and
itonishment, and accompanying him to his house with loud
louts for joy, looked upon him as a person above the rank of
nortal men, and highly beloved by the gods; and were in great
;urage and hope for the future.

WTien he had reduced his enemies to the last extremity for
ant of provision, he was forced to give them battle, in the
lains near Saguntum, to hinder them from foraging and plunder-
.r.g the country. Both parties fought gloriously. Memmius,
the best commander in Pompey's army, was slain in the heat of
the battle. Sertorius overthrew 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 to provoke them to revenge and fury against
their enemies; they covered Metellus with their shields, and
brought him o5 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 cit}^ ii>
the moimtains. 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
opportunit)' 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. 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 o5 all provisions by land, while

326

Plutarch's Lives

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 Vaccjeans, 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 defence 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 esteemod
him, he plainly declared, when he offered by proclamation an
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.
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 drink-
ing 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

Sertorius 327

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-spirited-
ness ; 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 com-
mander 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. 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 per-
sons of the greatest note came about his tent, with great diffi-
culty 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 defence of his person.

His negotiations with King Mithridates further argue the
greatness of his mind. For when Mithridates recovering him-
self from his overthrow by Sylla, like a strong wrestler that gets
up to try another fall, was again endeavouring to re-establish
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

328 Plutarch's Lives

that the Romans would never be able to make any considera,ble
resistance against such great forces, and such admirable com-
manders, 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 toward the charge of the war, if Ser-
torius would confirm his pretensions upon Asia, and authorise
him to possess all that he had surrendered to the Romans in his
treaty with Syila. 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 Cap-
padocia, 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 honour, will never so much as endeavour to save
his own life upon any dishonourable terms.

When this was related to Mithridates, he was struck with
amazement, and said to his intimate friends, " What will Ser-
torius enjoin us to do when he comes to be seated in the Pala-
tium 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 Marias, a Roman

Sertorius 329

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 libert}', and others he freed from taxes,
signifying to them that these privileges were granted to them
by the favour 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
chinge 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 Per-
penna, 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.
" ^^^lat evil genius," he would say, " hurries us perpetually
from worse to worse? We who disdained to obey the dictates
of Sylla, the ruler of the sea and land, and thus to live at home
in peace and quiet, are come hither to our destruction, hoping
to enjoy our libert}', 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
fiulher, gives us a 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 labour, and forces us to be
as subject to his haught\' 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 endeavour 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

33° Plutarch's Lives

to lay hands on the sons of the Spaniards educated in the city
of Osca; 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 affec-
tions 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 imme-
diately to put their designs in execution. When all the con-
federates 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 anything 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-be-
haviour, 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
tnade a noise, which was the sign agreed upon amongst them;

Sertorius 331

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 over-
thro\\'n and taken prisoner. Neither did he bear this last
affliction with any braver)', 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 ovm. 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 any one 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 m Spain, in extreme poverty, and hated by all*

33^ Plutarch's Lives

EUMENES

DuRis reports that. Eumenes, the Cardian, was the son of a poor
waggoner 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 favour 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
Hephsestion, then newly deceased. And therefore, after the
death of Alexander, when Neoptolemus, who had been captain
of his life-guard, 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 favour, the king had done him the honour 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, Alex-
ander gave Apame, one of her sisters, to Ptolemy, and another,
also called Barsine, to Eumenes.

Notwithstanding, he frequently incurred Alexander's dis-
pleasure, and put himself into some danger, through Hephaes-
tion. 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 333

Eumenes, and accounted the freedom he had taken to be rather
an ifiront to the king than a refiection upon Hephsestion.
Afterwards, when Nearchus, with a fleet, was to be sent to the
:them Sea, Alexander borrowed money of his friends, his own
■smy being exhausted, and would have had three hundred
■ats of Eumenes, but he sent a hundred only, pretending
...^z it was not without great diiSculty 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, de-
signing 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 Hephsestion
concerning a gift, and a great deal of ill language passed between
them, yet Eumenes still continued in favour. But Hephaestion
dying soon after, the king, in his grief, presuming all those that
differed with Hep>h3estion in his lifetime were now rejoicing at
his death, showed much harshness and severity in his behaviour
I with them, especially towards Eumenes, whom he often up-
braided with his quarrels and ill language to Hephaestion. But
he, being a wise and dexterous courtier, made advantage of
vhat had done him prejudice, and struck in with the king's
passion for glorifying his friend's memory, suggesting various
plans to do him honour, and contributing largely and readily
tofwards erecting his monument.

After Alexander's death, when the quarrel broke out between
the troops of the phalanx and the ofncers, his companions,
Eumenes, though in his judgment he inclined to the latter, yet
in his professions stood neuter, as if he thought it imbecoming
him, who was a stranger, to interpose in the private quarrels of
the Macedonians. Wlien 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 oflicers had agreed among themselves, and, recovering
from the first disorder, proceeded to share out the several com-
mands and provinces, they made Eumenes governor of Cappa-
docia and Paphlagonia, and all the coast upon the Pontic Sea

334 Plutarch's Lives

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 dovm 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 endea-
vouring to reconcile him to Hecataeus. For there was an heredi-
tary 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 look-
ing 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 Leon-
natus's design, and thus gained great interest with him, and was
made of the coimcil. 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 pro-
ceeded 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 inter-
posing. 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

Eumencs 335

our of sending him to his command, but in truth to secure

..Tenia, which was on its frontier, and was imsettled through

: practices of Neoptolemus. Him, a proud and vain man,

: mines exerted himself to gain by personal attentions; but

baance the Macedonian foot, whom he found insolent and

f -wiled, he contrived to raise an army of horse, excusing

" na ux and contribution all those of the country that were

le to serve on horseback, and buying up a number of horses,

ich te distributed among such of his own men as he most

nfided in, stimulating the courage of his new soldiers by gifts

i honours, and inuring their bodies to service by frequent

arching and exercising; so that the Macedonians were some of

; m astonished, others overjoyed to see that in so short a time

had got together a body of no less than six thoxisand three

h'jndred horsemen.

But when Craterus and Antipater, having subdued the Greeks,
advanced into Asia, with intentions to quell the power of Per-
diccas, 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 Mace-
donians, 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
Etmienes, but was discovered; and being summoned, refused to
obey, and put himself in a posture of defence. 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 repUed that he could not so suddenly be
reconciled to his old enemy Antipater, especially at a time when

33^ Plutarch's Lives

he saw him use his friends like enemies, but was ready to recon.
cile Craterus to Perdiccas, upon any just and equitable terms
but m case of any aggression, he would resist the injustice to hi<
last breath, and would rather lose his life than betrav his word
Antipater, receiving this answer, took time to consider upori
the whole matter; when Neoptolemus arrived from his defeat
and acquamted them with the ill success of his arms, ard urged
theni to give him assistance, to come, both of them, if possible,
but Craterus at any rate, for the Macedonians loved him so ex-
cessively, 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 dis-
pleasure, 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
Cihcia, 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 revelling
after the late victory. Now that Eumenes should suspect his
coniing, 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 ap-
proaching 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 boding success to
himself, who was to fight for a fruitful country, and at that very
time covered with the young ears, the whole being sown with
com, and the fields so thick with it that they made a beautiful
show of a long peace. And he was further emboldened when he

Eumenes 337

understood that the enemy's password was Minerva and Alex-
ander. 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 wTeaths of com. 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 resolu-
tions, and ventured to run the hazard of his own judgment.

\^'hen he came to give battle, he would not trust any Mace-
donian to engage Craterus, but appointed t^vo troops of foreign
horse, commanded by Phamabazus, 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 ex-
ceedingly afraid about his Macedonians, lest, if they found out
Craterus to be there, they should go over to his side. He him-
self, 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 Neop-
tolemus for deceiving him with hopes of the Macedonians' revolt,
but he encouraged has 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 dishonour Alex-
ander, 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 armour 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 im
ieet before him, Neoptolemus supporting himself upon one

338

Plutarch's Lives

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 stript 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
valour 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 ofif the bravest and most approved man among
them. Had the news of this defeat come timely enough to Per-
diccas, he had doubtless been the greatest of all the Mace-
donians; 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 Anti-
pater 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 taken from them ?) strict account of all matters of adminis-
tration. 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

Eumenes 339

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 spoils among his company, propor-
tionably 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 honours, to any one that should kill Eumenes, the Mace-
donians were extremely offended, and made an order that from
that time forward one thousand of their best men should con-
tinually 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 honours which
the kings used to confer upon their favourites. He now had
leave to bestow purple hats and cloaks, which among the Mace-
donians is one of the greatest honours the king can give.

Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give 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 con-
spicuous 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 un-
awares, 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 neighbouring
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 after-
wards 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

34© Plutarch's Lives

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 con-
cern 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 neighbouring 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 ofi 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 licence 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 nobody to substitute if he should miscarry; there-
fore, 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 enibraced
with great tenderness and friendship, as having formerly been

Eumenes 341

ven' intimate. After long conversation, Eumenes making no
rition of his own pardon and security, but requiring that he
. :uld be confirmed in his several governments, and restitution
be made him of the rewards of his service, all that were present
•' rre astonished at his courage and gallantry. And many of
? Macedonians flocked to see what sort of person Eumenes
^ as, for since the death of Craterus no man had been so much
talked of in the army. But Antigonus, being afraid lest he
-.zht suffer some violence, first commanded the soldiers to
ep off, calling out and throwbg stones at those who pressed
-wards. At last, taking Eumenes in his arms, and keeping off
-3 crowd with his guards, not without great diSculty, he
returned him safe into the fort.
Then Antigonus, having built a wall round Nora, left a force
:ir.cient to carry on the siege, and drew off the rest of his army ;
.d Eumenes was beleaguered and kept garrison, having plenty
of com and water and salt, but no other thing, either for food or
delicacy; yet vnth such as he had, he kept a cheerful table for
his friends, inviting them severally in their turns, and seasoning
- '3 entertainment with a gentle and affable behaviour. For he
d a pleasant countenance, and looked not like an old and
actised soldier, but was smooth and florid, and his shape as
licate as if his limbs had been carved by art in the most
urate proportions. He was not a great orator, but winning
:d 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
'vhole place but two furlongs in compass; so that both they
and their horses fed without exercise. Accordingly, not only to
: event the listlessness of such inactive living, but to have them
^ condition to fly if occasion required, he assigned a room one-
.d-twenty feet long, the largest in all the fort, for the men to
alk in, directing them to begin their walk gently, and so gradu-
-v 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 forefeet. 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 forefeet, and thus their whole body was exer-
cised, till they were all in a foam and sweat; excellent exercise,
whe^er for strength or speed ; and then he gave them their com

342 Plutarch's Lives

already coarsely ground, that they might sooner despatch 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 Polyspcrchon, 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 was the most equitable. Anti-
gonus 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,
ail 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 amend-
ment 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 protec-
tion of Alexander's infant son, whose person was in danger, and
other letters from Polyspcrchon 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 re-
ceiving these letters, treated Eumenes with a show of respect and

Eumenes 343

- ndness; but it was apparent enough that they were full of
cn\-y and emulation, disdaining to give place to him. Their
'-n\-y Eumenes moderated by refusing to accept the money, as
he had not needed it; and their ambition and emulation, who
ere neither able to govern nor willing to obey, he conquered by
Ip of superstition. For he told them that Alexander had ap-
peared to him in a dream, and showed him a regal pa^•ilion
richly furnished, with a throne in it; and told him if they would
t in council there, he himself would be present, and prosper all
3 consultations and actions upon which they should enter in
i name. Antigenes and Teutamus were easily prevailed upon
believe this, being as little willing to come and consult
.menes as he himself was to be seen waiting at other men's
ors. Accordingly, they erected a tent royal, and a throne.
Culled Alexander's, and there they met to consult upon all
anairs of moment.

Afterguards 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 ungovemed 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 to-
gether, were soon found to be exacting and quarrelsome one
with another, while all alike immeasurably flattered the Mace-
donians, 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, can-
vassed as in a democracy for the election of this or that com-
mander. Eumenes, perceiving they despised one another, and
all of them feared him, and sought an opportimity 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 generals-in-chief. But when Antigonus came

344 Plutarch's Lives

upon them with a great army, and their aJSfairs 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 encotmtered him, slew many of his men, and filled the
river with the dead, and took four tiiousand prisoners. But it
was most particularly when Eumenes was sick that the Mace-
donians 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, unex-
pectedly 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 armour 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 groimd
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 tlae
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

Eumenes 345

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 ofiers 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 them-
selves 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 to'^'ards 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 ccme up in 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 moimtains 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 Eimienes 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 imme-
diately despatched 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 travelled
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, shoirld be imme-
diately forced to encounter with fresh men, who had wintered
well and were ready for him, quitting the near way, he marched
slowly through the to-wns and villages to refresh his men. But
meeting with no such skirmishes as are usual when two armies

346

Plutarch's Lives

lie near one another, and being assured by the people of the
country that no army had been seen, but only continual fires at
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 greater part of the forces were come together
to Eumenes, and admirmg 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
ac^ainst 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
tellmg 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 lettmg 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 en-
couraged 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 bemg able
to stand them, and the greatest part dying by their hands. So
that Antigonus's foot was 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, bemg aided
moreover by the ground. For the place where they fought was
a large plain, neither deep nor hard under foot, but, like the

Eumenes 347

seashore, covered with a fine soft sand which the treading of so
many men and horses in the time of battle reduced to a small
white dust, that like a cloud of lime darkened the air, so that
cne 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 the
'.er things if they would but deliver up Eumenes. Upon
. :.ich the Argyraspids took a villainous resolution to deliver him
up alive into the hands of his enemies. So they came to wait
•■"on him, being unsuspected by him, but watching their oppor-
-ity, some lamenting the loss of the baggage, some encouraging
a as if he had been victor, some accusing the other com-
.nders, till at last they all fell upon him, and seizing his sword,
-ind his hands behind him with his own girdle.
When Antigonus had sent Nicanor to receive him he begged
might be led through the body of the Macedonians, and have
. erty to speak to them, neither to request nor deprecate any-
thing, 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 vrished 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 feUow-
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 trifling. For it was no such great

348 Plutarch's Lives

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
Phihp'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 moved 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 deUberated what to do with him, sometimes in-
clining 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 forthwith despatch 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." " There-
fore," rejoined Onomarchus, " now you have found such a man,
v/hy 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 despatch him. Antigonus
granted his body to his friends, permitted them to bum 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, abomi-
nating the Argyraspids as wicked and inhuman villains, delivered

Sertorius and Eumenes Compared 349

them up to Sibyrtius, the governor of Axachosia, 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
rr.uch as v.'ithin sight of the Greek Sea,

THE 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;
tJiat 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 chaef 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 ov\ti security, because they could not command
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, who
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
honour 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 impedi-
ments 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

350 Plutarch's Lives

inclinations different. Eumenes naturally loved war and con-
tention, but Sertorius esteemed peace and tranquillity; when
Eumenes might have lived in safety, with honour, if he would
have quietly retired out of their way, he persisted in a dangerous
contest with the greatest of the Macedonian leaders; but Ser-
torious, 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 favour, 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 ambi-
tion 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 sus-
pected 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 dishonoured 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
honour 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, haying reigned gloriouslj
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

Agesilaus 351

meant to teach young men to obey their superiors, \^^lence it
v,-as 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, v/hose
good fortune it was to be bom a younger brother, was conse-
quently bred to all the arts of obedience, and so the better fitted
tor 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.

WTiile he was yet a boy, bred up in one of what are called

the ilocks, 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 pre-eminence

in everything, and showed an impetuosity and fervour of mind

• hich irresistibly carried him through all opposition or difficulty

- could meet with; yet, on the other side, he was so easy and

ntle in his nature, and so apt to yield to authority, that

ough he would do nothing on compulsion, upon ingenuous

otives he would obey any commands, and was more hurt by

iC 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

ere all the more conspicuous by it, since he never let his lame-

:ss withhold him from any toil or any brave action. Neither

s statue nor picture are extant, he never allowing them in his

:e, and utterly forbidding them to be made after his death.

. i is said to have been a little man, of a contemptible presence;

-:t the goodness of his humour, and his constant cheerfulness

-nd playfulness of temper, always free from anything of morose-

ness 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 Archi-

damus for marr)'ing a little wife, " For," said they, " she will

bring us a race of kinglets, instead of kings,"

352 Plutarch's Lives

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 Timsea 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 honours
due to a legitimate son paid him, nor was he ever owned by
Agis, till by his prayers and tears he prevailed v/ith him to
declare him his son before several witnesses upon his deathbed.
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, pro-
moted Agesilaus, urging Leotychides's bastardy as a bar to his
pretensions. Many of the other citizens, also, were favourable
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 skilful and clever in all points of religion and divina-
tion. 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 ;i
king that the gods cared about, but the purity of the Herculeaii
family, into whose rights, 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, j
after which time he ceased to visit his wife, yet Leotychides wasj
bom above ten months after this. j

Agesilaus 353

Agesilaus was upon these allegations declared king, and soon
possessed himself of the private estate of Agis, as well as his
throne, Leot>'chides 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
2l-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 insti-
tuted, as already told in the life of Lyctirgus, 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

it, hearing causes, and the Ephors came in, he rose to them ;
v.henever any man was elected into the Council of Elders he
presented him with a gown and an ox. Thus, whilst he made
a 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 friend-
ship 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 any-
thing 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
II ii

354 Plutarch's Lives

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 emula-
tion among the ingredients of his commonwealth, as the incen-
tives of virtue, distinctly wishing that there should be some
dispute and competition among his men of worth, and pro-
nouncing 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 dis-
possess the Spartans of their maritime supremacy. Lysander
was eager for the opportunity of going over and succouring his
friends in Asia, whom he had there left governors and masters
of the cities, whose maladministration and tyrannical behaviour
was causing them to be driven out, and in some cases put to
death. He therefore persuaded Agesilaus to claim the com-
mand 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 counsellors; 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 tht
chief, not only because of his power and reputation, but also or
account of his friendship with Agesilaus, who esteemed his pro-
curing 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 355

V?Tesilaus went with some of his friends to Aulis, where in a
jn he saw a man approach him, and speak to him after thi^
. .aner: " 0 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 j now, since you
succeed him in the same ofhce and command 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 by it, but as soon as he arose,
be 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 an 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 contrarj'
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 honours 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
behaviour of Agesilaus with the harsh and violent and brief-
spoken demeanour which Lysander still retained. Universal
preference was yielded to this, and little regard shown to Agesi-
laus. This first occasioned offence to the other Spartan captains,
J who resented that they should rather seem the attendants of

356 Plutarch's Lives

Lysander, than the councillors of Agesilaus. And at length
Agesilaus himself, though not perhaps an envious man in his
nature, nor apt to be troubled at the honours redounding upon
other men, yet eager for honour 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, any one 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 himself a 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 n^e : 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 Phamabazus,
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 m its
display, yet Agesilaus surely could have found some other way of

Agesilaus 357

fitting him right, less offensive to a man of his reputation and
r.bitious temper. Indeed they were both blinded with the
■ne passion, so as one not to recognise the authority of his
oerior, the other not to bear with the imperfections of his
?nd.

Tisaphemes, being at first afraid of Agesilaus, treated with him

out setting the Grecian cities at liberty, which was agreed on.

.t soon after finding a sufficient force drawn together, he re-

ved upon war, for which Agesilaus was not sorry. For the

oectation of this expedition was great, and he did not think it

; his honour that Xenophon with ten thousand men should

-rch through the heart of Asia to the sea, beating the Persian

-ces when and how he pleased, and that he at the head of

i Spartans, then sovereigns both at sea and land, should not

achieve some memorable action for Greece. And so to be even

with Tisaphemes, he requites his perjury by a fair stratagem.

He pretends to march into Caria, whither, when he has drawn

Tisaphemes and his army, he suddenly tums 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 sacri-
fices, he retired to Ephesus, and there raised cavahy. He obliged
the rich men, that were not inclined to serve in person, to find
each of them a horseman armed and moimted ; 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 fight-
ing themselves hired such as w^re more military in their inclina-
tions, and such as loved not horse-servnce substituted in their
places such as did. Agamemnon's example had been a good one,
when he took the present oi an excellent mare to dismiss a rich
coward from the army.

\Mien by Agesilaus's order the prisoners he had takai in
Thrygia. were exposed to sale, they were first stripped of their
garments and then sold ndted. 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 de-
rided and scorned as ;mserviceabie, 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"

358 Plutarch's Lives

The season of the year being come, he boldly gave out that he
would invade Lydia; and this plain dealmg of his was now mis-
taken for a stratagem by Tisaphemes, 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 bar-
barians were put to the rout, the Grecians pursued hard, took
their camp, and put many of them to the sword. The conse-
quence 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 Tisaphemes 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 honourable to enrich themselves 1
with the bribes of their enemies, but with their spoils only. Yet, i
tliat he might gratify Tithraustes for the justice he had done upon i
Tisaphemes, the common enemy of the Greeks, he removed his I
quarters into Phrygia, accepting thirty talents for his expenses, j
Whilst he was upon his march, he received a staf} from the govem^
ment at Sparta, appointing him admiral as well as general. This
was an honour whicli was never done to any but Agesilaus, who
being now undoubtedly the greatest and most illustrious man ol
his time, still, as Theopompus had said, gave himself more occa-
sion of glory in his own virtue and merit than was given him ir
this authority and power. Yet he committed a fault in preferring
Pisander to the command of the navy, when there were others atj
hand both older and more experienced; in this not so much

1

Agesilaus 359

consulting the public good as the gratification of his kindred,
and especially his wife, whose brother Pisander was.

Having removed his camp into Phamabazus's province, he
not only met with great plenty of provisions, but also raised
rreat sums of money, and marching on to the bounds of Paphla-
aia, he soon drew Cotys, the king of it, into a league, to which
lie of his own accord inclined, out of the opinion he had of
Agesilaus's honour and virtue. Spithridates, from the time of
his abandoning Phamabazus, 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 Phrj-gia, and there pillaged the countr}'' of Phama-
bazus, who durst not meet him in the field, nor yet trust to his
garrisons, but gettmg his valuables together, got out of the way
and moved about up and down with a flying army, till Spithri-
dates, 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 gallant
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 honour 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 endea-
voured 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,
JJ but turned away in alarm ; he would come to you again if you
i would have the courage to let him do so." Upon this Agesilauj

360 Plutarch's Lives

paused a while, and at length answered, " You need not encour-
age him to it; I think I had rather be master of myself m 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. ■ t t •

After this Phamabazus sought an opportunity of conferrmg
with Agesilaus, which ApoUophanes of Cyzicus, the common
host of them both, procured for him. Agesilaus commg first to
the appointed place, threw himself down upon the grass under
a tree, lying there in expectation of Phamabazus, who, brmgmg
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. Phar-
nabazus had matter enough of complaint against Agesilaus, and
therefore, after the mutual civilities were over, he put him m
mind of the great services he had done the Lacedaemonians m
the Attic war, of which he thought it an ill recompense to have
his country thus harassed and spoUed 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, 0 Phamabazus, 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 our-
selves 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 honourable or indeed desirable among men ^ Upon
this Phamabazus discovered his mmd, and answered, if the
king sends another governor in my room, I will certamly come
over to you, but as long as he trusts me with the government 1
shall be just to him, and not fail to do my utmost endeavours 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 my enemy.

Phamabazus being gone off, his son staying behind, ran up to

Agesilaus 361

i L^esilaus, and smilingly said, " Agesilaus, I make you my
g-^iest; " 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 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 secretar\', 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 con-
lued ever after to be mindful of him, so that when he was
-iven out of his country by his brothers, and lived an exile in
ieloponnesus, 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 aU other things a man of great
and exact justice, but when the case concerned a friend, to be
strait-laced in point of justice, he said, was only a colourable
pretence 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 con-
sidered the necessity of his affairs more than his friend, of which
he once gave an example, when upon a sudden and disorderly
remo\'al 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 wbe too.
This story is related by Hieronymus, the philosopher.

Another year of the war being sj>ent, Agesilaus's fame still in-
creased, insomuch that the Persian king received daily informa-
tion 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 lodg-
mg 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
a common soldier lie on a coarser mattress than Agesilaus: he
was so indifferent to the varieties of heat and cold that all the

362

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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 tjiant, gold Greece does not fear."

Many parts of Asia now revolting from the Persians, Agesilaus
restored order in the cities, and without bloodshed or banish-
ment of any of their members re-established the proper con-
stitution 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 ovm 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 behaviour 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

Agesilaus 363

sen'e 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 countr}'; who, immediately upon receipt of his
orders, though in the midst of his high fortune and power, and
in full hof>e of great and glorious success, gave all up and in-
stantly departed, " his object unachieved," leaving many regreta
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 himseK an excel-
lent 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 j
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 anj'^-here, 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 is ako 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
a 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 mor;;
than the whole country of Thessaly. He therefore made tenna

364 Plutarch's Lives

with them, and received his men again upon composition. Nor 4
need we wonder at this saying of Agesilaus, since when he had |
news brought him from Sparta, of several great captains in a j
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, " 0 Greece, how many brave men hast thou de-
stroyed; 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 j
trophy under the mount Narthacius. He valued himself very {
much upon that victory, that with so small a number of his i
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 Bceotia; and though he thought this fitter to 1
have been done at another time, and with greater force, he yet j
obeyed the magistrates. He thereupon told his soldiers that the ■
day had come on which they were to enter upon that employ- i
ment 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 honour to him, ;
made proclamations for volunteers that would serve under] the ;
king to come in and be enlisted. Finding all the young men in the ;
city ready to oSer themselves, they chose fifty of the strongest, i
and sent them. \

Agesilaus having gained Thermopylae, and passed quietly
through Phocis, as soon as he had entered Bceotia, 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

Agesilaus 365

.ight wing of their anny, leaving the left to the Argives. Xeno-
■jhon, who was present, and fought on Agesilaus's side, reports
;t to be the hardest-fought battle that he had seen. The begin-
ning of it was not so, for the Thebans soon put the Orcho-
nenians to rout, as also did Agesilaus the Argives. But both
parties having news of the misfortune of their left wings, they
Detook themselves to their relief. Here Agesilaus might have
3een sure of his victory had he contented himself not to charge
:hem in the front, but in the flank or rear; but being angry
ind heated in the fight he would not wait the opportunity, but
ell on at once, thinking to bear them down before him. The
rhebans were not behind him in courage, so that the battle was
iercely carried on on both sides, especially near Agesilaus's
;- )erson, whose new guard of fifty volunteers stood him in great
,.:tead that day, and saved his life. They fought with great
iv-alour, and interposed their bodies frequently between him and
! langer, yet could they not so preserve him, but that he received
fnany wounds through his armour with lances and swords, and
, vas with much difficulty gotten o5 alive by their making a ring
p,bout him, and so guarding him, with the slaughter of many of
he enemy, and the loss of many of their own number. At
ength, finding it too hard a task to break the front of the
rheban troops, they opened their own files, and let the enemy
narch through them (an artifice which in the beginning they
corned), watching in the meantime the posture of the enemy,
vho, having passed through, grew careless, as esteeming them-
elves past danger, in which position they were immediately set
ipon by the Spartans. Yet were they not then put to rout,
*ut marched on to Hehcon, proud of what they had done, being
idle to say that they themselves, as to their part of the army,
?ere not worsted.

Agesilaus, sore wounded as he was, would not be borne to his
ent till he had been first carried about the field, and had seen
he dead conveyed within his encampment. As many of his
nemies as had taken sanctuary in the temple he dismissed*
•"or there stood near the battlefield the temple of Minerva the
tonian, and before it a trophy erected by the Boeotians, for the
'ictory which, under the conduct of Sparton, their general, they
obtained over the Athenians under Tolmides, who himself fell in
he battle. Next morning early, to make trial of the Theban
ourage, whether they had any mind to a second encounter, he
ommanded his soldiers to put on garlands on their heads, and
)lay with their flutes, and raise a trophy before their faces; but
I

366

Plutarch's Lives

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
travelled over the river Eurotas. So also with his household
furniture and his own armour, nay, the very gates of his house
were so old that they might well be thought of Anstodemus'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 arc
carried in processions. Xenophon has not left us the name oJ
this daughter of Agesilaus; and Dicsearchus expresses some
indignation, because we do not know, he says, the name o\
Agesilaus's daughter, nor of Epaminondas's mother. But m the
records of Laconia, we ourselves found his wife's name to have
been Cleora, and his two daughters to have been called Eupolu
and Prolyta. And you may also to this day see Agesilaus':
spear kept in Sparta, nothing differing from that of other men

There was a vanity he observed among the Spartans, abou
keeping running horses for the Olympic games, upon which hi
found they much valued themselves. Agesilaus regarded it a
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 mto the course. He kept with hin
Xenophon, the philosopher, and made much of him, and pro
posed to him to send for his children, and educate them a
Sparta, where they would be taught the best of all learning
how to obey, and how to command. Finding on Lysander
death a large faction formed, which he on his return from Asi
had established against Agesilaus, he thought it advisable t
expose both him and it, by showing what manner of a citizen h
had been whilst he lived. To that end, findmg among hi

Agesilaus 367

writings an oration, composed by Qeon the Halicamassean, 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 e\adence 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
hun; and this advice he wisely hearkened to, and hushed the
whole thing up: and ever after forbore pubHcly to affront any
of his adversaries, but took occasions of picking out the ring-
leaders, and sending them away upon foreign services. He thus
had means for exposing the avarice and the injustice of many of
them in their emploN-ments; 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 imder the disadvantage of
being bom of an exiled father, and himself young, modest, and
■nactive, meddled not much in affairs. Agesilaus took a course

;' gaining him over and making him entirely tractable. Accord-
ing 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 attachjments in Sparta being

ntirely honourable, and attended always with lively feelings of
nodesty, love of virtue, and a noble emulation; of which more

3 said in Lycurgus's life.

Having thus established his power in the city, he easily
obtained that his half-brother Teleutias might be chosen ad-
miral, and thereupon making an expedition against the Corin-
thians, he made himself master of the long walls by land, through
the assistance of his brother at sea. Gaming 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 com-
menced, 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.

WTien 'Agesilaus marched off, the Argives returned and cele-
brated the games over again, when some who were victors before

368 Plutarch's Lives

became victors a second time; others lost the prizes which
before they had gained. Agesilaus thus made it clear to every-
body 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 yoimg men or of the girls, but things that many
men used to be highly taken with he seemed not at all con-
cerned 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, expectmg 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 de-
clined, 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, greetmg." The king returned answer: " Agesilaus
to Menecrates, health and a sovmd mind."

Whilst Agesilaus was in the Corinthian territories, having just
taken the Hera;um, 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 Lace-
dsemonians 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

Agesilaus 369

the affront he gave them, and without speaking one word of the
peace, only desired leave to go into Corinth. Agesilaus, irritated
wita 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 to-morrow with safety. Next morning, takmg 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 Acamania, and there collected great spoils, and de-
feated the Acamanians in battle. The Achaeans would have
persuaded him to keep his winter quarters there, to hinder the
Acamanians from sowiag their com; 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
Acamanians immediately made peace with them.

WTien Conon and Phamabazus with the Persian nav}' 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
Phamabazus, 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
dishonour 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 had come over to the Lacedaemonians." And
when the Greeks were backward to submit to the agreement, he
tlireatened them with war, unless they fulfilled the King of
Persia's conditions, his particular end in tiiis being to we^en
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 Phcebidas,

37© Plutarch's Lives

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 lan-
guage he was always observed to be a great maintainer of justice,
and would commend it as the chief of virtues, saying, that valour
without justice was useless, and if all the world were just, there
would be no need of valour. 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
hospitahty, he refused it, saying that the public friendship was
enough; whilst that lasted there was no need of private. Ytt
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 Lace-
daemonians 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 ajid
Leontidas, who indeed were tyrants, though in name holding
the office of Polemarchs, made war upon them. He sent Cleom-
brotus 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 m behalf of the Phliasians, to fight now in
defence of a tyranny against the Thebans.

One Sphodrias, of Lacedtemon, of the contrary faction to Agesi-

Agesilaus 371

laus, was governor in Thespise, 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 o3
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 Bceotia, 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 him-
self, 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 dishonourable and
treacherous as that of the Cadmea, but executed with less valour
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 countn,', he returned with shame to Thespiae.
An embassy was upon this sent from Athens to Sparta, to com-
plain 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 judg-
ment, 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-
sufEerers 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 erf
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

372 Plutarch's Lives

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 honourably 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 common-
wealth 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 interests with his father; and
Sphodrias's friend ventured to be forward in his defence. 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 Bceotia; which he did with
variety of success, sometimes conquering, and sometimes con-
quered; 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 Lacedae-
monian expeditions against them. Out of the foresight of which
it was that anciently Lycurgus, in three several laws, forbade
them to make any 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

Agesilaus 373

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 Lacedze-
monians 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 Bceotia through Megara,
as he was going up to the magistrate's office in the Acropolis, he
was suddenly seized with pa.in. 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 ttiat 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
favour 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 sufiering of aJl her neighbours. 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

374 Plutarch's Lives

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 Bceotia 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 pre-
text, 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 other-
wise 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 despatched their orders to Cleombrotus,
who was at that time in Phocis, to march directly into Bceotia,
and at the same time sent to their allies for aid. The con-
federates were very tardy in their 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 Lacedae-
monians received their great overthrow at Leuctra on the fifth
of Hecatombseon, 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 Lace-
daemonians, brought greater glory to Thebes than ever was
acquired by any other of the Grecian republics in their civil
wars against each other. The behaviour, 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

Agesilaus 375

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
gymnopsedise, and the boys were dancing in the theatre, 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 contrar}', 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 ;
tliey 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
rehgious 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 intrusted 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 re-
lating 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 fied out of the battle, who being many and

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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 honours^ 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 law-
ful for him to resist; they, in the meanwhile, were obliged to go
about unwashed and meanly dressed, with their clothes patched
with divers colours, 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 to-day, 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 Theompompus calls it, of war. He contented him-
self 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
liim defend himself if he could. But this was not all; he was
equally disturbed at home with the tumults of the city, the out-
cries and running about of the old men, who were enraged at

Agesilaus 377

their present condition, and the women yet worse, out of their
senses with the clamours, and the fires of the enemy in the fields
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 valour of the two nations, the Athenian boasted that
they had often driven the Spartans from the river Cephisus,
" Yes," said Antalcides, " 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.

WTien 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 strongholds of it. But it happened
Eurotas at that time was swollen to a great height with 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, " 0 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 ofE 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 unsiispected of treason, and readily weat

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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 dis-
covered 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 council with the Ephors,
and put these also to death privately without process; a thing
never before known in the case of any bom Spartan.

At this time, also, many of the helots and country people, who
were in the army, ran away to the enemy, which was a 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,
{md offered them from Agesilaus ten talents to be gone, so hu-mg
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
(rreatness. 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 as-
suming foreign dominion and arbitrary sway, things wholly un-
desirable, in the judgment of Lycurgus, for a well-conducted and

happy state. „ ., . i

Agesilaus being now in years, gave over all military employ-
ments; but his son, Archidamus, having received help from
Dionysius of Sicily, gave a great defeat to the Arcadians, m the

Agcsilaus 379

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 suc-
cesses 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 victor)', 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 oS 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. WTiich point of honour 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 under-
stood that Agesilaus was come to their assistance with a powerful
army, he privately in the night quitted his quarters of Tegea,
and, unknown to the Mantineans, passing by Agesilaus, marched
toward Sparta, insomuch that he failed very Uttle of taking it
empty and unarmed.

Agesilaus had intelligence sent him by Euth\Tius, the Thespian,
as Callisthenes says, but Xenophon says by a Cretan; and im-
mediately despatched a horseman to Lacedsemon to apprise
them of it, and to let them know that he was hastening to them.

380 Plutarch's Lives

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 Epami-
nondas, 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 rema,rkable 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, with-
out further awaiting, 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
valour 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
dra,chmas 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
Ivacedsemonians, was eager in the pursuit of them, when Anti-
crates, the Laconian, wounded him with a spear, says Diosco-
rides; 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
honours 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 con-
cluded, from which Agesilaus's party excluded the Messenians, aa

Agesilaus 381

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 ofi, 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 fll-repute when he put himself
into the service of Tachos, the Egyptian. They thought it too
tmworthy of a man of his high station, who was then looked upon
as the first commander in all Greece, who had filled all coimtries
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
imdertaking, the liberation of the Greeks from Persia, it had been
worthy of some reproof. To make an action honourable, 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 Agesi-
laus valued not other men's discourses; he thought no public
employment dishonourable; the ignoblest thing in his esteem
was for a man to sit idle and useless at home, waiting for his death
to com.e 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 counsellors with him, as
formerly he had done in his Asiatic expedition, and set sail for
Eg^-pt.

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 the>' looked for, a
little old man of contemptible appearance, without ceremony
lying down upon the grass, in coarse and threadbare clothes, they
fell into laughter and scorn of him, cn/ing out that the old
proverb was now made good, " The mountain had brought forth

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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, Theo-
phrastus 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
bemg 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, m 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 kmg by the
Egyptians. This man invited Agesilaus to jom 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 beseechmg their
continuance m his friendship. Chabrias consented to it, and
did what he could by persuasion and good words to keep Agesi-
laus with them. But he gave this short reply, " You, 0 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 Egyp-
tians, and therefore I cannot fight against those to whoni I was
sent as a friend, unless I am commanded to do so by my
country." This being said, he despatched messengers to
Sparta, who were suflficiently supplied with matter both for dis-
praise of Tachos and commendation of Nectanabis. The two
Egyptians also sent their ambassadors to Lacedsemon, the one
to claim continuance of the league already made, the other to
make great offers for the breaking of it, and makmg a new one.
The Spartans having heard both sides, gave in theur 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

Agesilaus 385

Nectanabis, covering, with the plausible pretence 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 pro-
claimed 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 AgesUaus 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 defence; but one who has no
thought or expectation of anything, gives as little opportxmity
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 pro-
tract the war and rely on time, in a contest with men who had
no experience in fighting battles, but with their great nimibers
might be able to surroimd them, and cut ofi their communica-
tions 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,
vet was ashamed to change sides back again, or to go away
•■ithout 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 Eg\-ptian 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. WTien Agesilaiis
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 over-
xeaching the enemy, which was this.

384

Plutarch's Lives

The enemy were farming a deep ditch and high wall, resolvmg
to shut up the garrison and starve it. When the ditch was
brought almost quite roimd and the two ends had all but met,
he took the advantage of the night and armed all his Greeks.
Then going to the Egyfptian, " This, young man, is your oppor-
tunity," said he, *' of s saving yourself, which I all this while
durst not announce, lestt discovery should prevent it; but now
the enemy has, at his owm cost, and the pains and labour of his
own men, provided for ou:;r security. As much of this wall as is
built will prevent them frbm surrounding us with their muhi-
t\ide, the gap yet left will h&i sufficient for us to sally out by;
now play the man, and follow'" the example the Greeks wiU give
you, and by fighting valiantly^-save yourself and your army;
their front wiU not be able to smM against us, and their rear
we are sufficiently secured from by a'U^'-all of their own makmg.

Nectanabis, admiring the sagacity of ">A.gesilaus, immediately
placed himself in the middle of the GreeCfk troops, and fought
with them; and upon the first charge soo^ln routed the enemy.
Agesilaus having now gained credit with tH^'^ kmg, proceeded to
use, like a trick in wrestling, the same stMtagem over agam.
He sometimes pretended a retreat, at other^a times advanced to
attack their flanks, and by this means at lasJ<^ drew them mto a
place enclosed between two ditches that we ^e very deep and
full of water. When he had them at this aJ Ivantage, he soon
charged them, drawing up the front of his baf "le equal to the
space between the two ditches, so that they ha^^d no way of sur-
rounding him, being enclosed themselves on bc^''"^ sides, iney
made but little resistance; many fell, others'^ fled and were
dispersed. .

Nectanabis, being thus settled and fixed in his^ kingdom, with
much kindness and afEection invited Agesilau? ^ 5° .^P^^^ ^
winter in Egypt, but he made haste home to as' '^^^^ ^ ^^^ °!
his own country, which was, he knew, in want ^^^ money, and
forced to hire mercenaries, whilst their own mer*^^*^^ were hghting
abroad. The king, therefore, dismissed him veW honourably^
and among other gifts presented him with twc^^^ hundred and
thirty talents of silver toward the charge of the -dwar. But tne
weather being tempestuous, his sliips kept insho^^F^' ^"^ passing
along the coast of Africa he reached an uninhab- ^^^ed spot caiiec
the Port of Menelaus, and here, when his ships o '^ere ]ust upor
landing, he expired, being eighty-four years oP_.W,.and tiavinj
reigned in Laced^emon forty-one. Thirty of ^hlvhlch years h<
passed with the reputation of being the grea^'^^est and mos

Pompey 385

powerful man of all Greece, and was looked upon as, in a manner,
general and king of it, imtil the battle of Leuctra. It was the
custom of the Spartans to bnry their common dead in the place

re they died, whatsoever country it was, but their kings they
_ rried home. The followers of Agesilaus, for want of honey,
enclosed his body in wax, and so conveyed him to Lacedoemon.
His son, Archidamus, succeeded him on his throne; so did his

*.erity successively to Agis, the fifth from Agesilaus; who
s slain by Leonidas, while attempting to restore the ancient

ipline of Sparta.

POMPEY

The people of Rome seem to have entertained for Pompey from
bis childhood the same affection that Prometheus, in the tragedy
Df i^Ischylus, expresses for Hercules, speaking of him as the
iuthor of his deliverance, in these words: —

" Ah cruel Sire! how dear thy son to me!
The generous oflspring of my enemy! "

For on the one hand, never did the Romans give such demon-
strations 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
xiwer, as indeed he was a formidable warrior, but immediately
jpon 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
>ide, never had any Roman the people's good-will and devotion
nore zealous throughout all the changes of fortvme, more early
in its first springing up, or more steadily rising with his pros-
perity, or more constant in his adversity than Pompey had.
in Strabo, there was one great cause of their hatred, his insati-
ible covetousness ; in Pompey, there were many that helped to
iiake him the object of their love ; his temperance, his skill and
jxercise in war, his eloquence of speech, integrity of mind, and
affability in conversation and address; insomuch that no man
ver asked a favour with less offence, or conferred one with a
better grace. When he gave, it was without assumption ; when
ae received, it was with dignity and honour.
In his youth, his countenance pleaded for him, seeming to

II N

3bo

Plutarch's Lives

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 and 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
the 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 favour 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 famili-
arity 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 con-
sent, 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 Csecilius
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 life-
time, and left an estate of four thousand talents), Pompey acted
contrary to his usual habits, not quite fairly or generously, fear-
ing lest he should fall under the common censure of being
enamoured 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.

Pompey

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 pre-
scribed him a thrush to eat; but upon search, there was none
to be bought, for they were not then in season, and one telling
m they were to be had at Lucullus's, who kept them all the
ar round, " So then," said he, " if it were not for Lucullus's
xury, Pompey should not live; " and thereupon, not minding
e prescription of the physician, he contented himself with such
eat as could easOy be procured. But this was at a later
.ms.

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

mrade, who, being corrupted by Cinna, entered into an en-

gement to kill Pompey, as others had done to set the general's

nt on fire. This conspiracy being discovered to Pompey at

pper, he showed no discomposure at it, but on the contrary

crank more Uberally than usual, and expressed great kindness

to Terentius; but about bedtime, pretending to go to his repose,

:.e stole away secretly out of the tent, and setting a guard about

is father, quietly expected the event. Terentius, when he

ought the proper time come, rose with his naked sword, and

^oming 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 an 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 oS, 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 pubUc 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

388 Plutarch's Lives

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 house was broken open and plundered by Cmna'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 favour, insomuch that
Antistius, the praetor and judge of the cause, took a grea.t liking
to him, and offered him his daughter in marriage, having had
some communications with his friends about it. Pompey ac-
cepted the proposal, and they were privately contracted; how-
ever, the secret was not so closely kept as to escape the multitude,
but it was discernible enough, from the favour 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 goat-
swains 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 rumour and speech through all the camp that Cinna had
murdered the young man; upon which all that had been any-
ways disobliged, and bore any malice to him, resolved to make
an assault upon him. He, endeavouring to make his escape.

Pompey 389

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 cen-
turion repulsed him insolently, saying, " I did not come to seal
a covenant, but to be revenged upon a lawless and wicked
tyrant; " and so despatched 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 com-
fort 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 hking he felt for the towns of that
district, which all regarded him with hereditary feelings of kind-
ness 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 honour, 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 agamst him in Carbo's interest, com-
manding them by a public edict to depart the city; and then
proceeded to le\'y soldiers, issuing out conmiissions 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

390 Plutarch's Lives

others cheerfully submitting to his command, in a little time he
mustered three entire legions, having supplied himself besides
with all manner of provisions, beasts of burden, carriages, and
other necessaries of war. And with this equipage he set forward
on his march toward Sylla, not as if he were in haste, or de-
sirous 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, Clcelius, and Brutus, and drew up their forces, not all
in the front, nor yet together on any one part, but encamping
three several armies Ln a circle about him, they resolved to en-
compass and overpower him. Pompey was noway 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, impassable for horse, where, seeing no hopes
of escape, they yielded themselves with their horses and annour,
all to his mercy.

Sylla was hitherto vmacquamted with all these actions; and
on the first mtelligence 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

Pompey 391

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 honours from him, but
met with even greater. For as soon as Sylla saw him th;is
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 Im-
perator, which might well cause surprise, as none could have
ever anticipated that he would have imparted, to one so yoimg
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 com-
pliment; whenever Pompey came into his presence, he paid
some sort of respect to him, either in rising and being vmcovered,
or the like/which he was rarely seen to do with any one else,
notwithstanding that there were many about him of great rank
and honour. Yet Pompey was not puffed up at all, or exalted
with these favours. 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 c>f
the large forces at his disposal, Pompey urged that it could not
be fair or honourable for him to take a province out of the
hands of his senior in command and his 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. On this Pompey
fell immediately into Gaul, where he not only achieved wonder-
ful exploits of himself, but also fired up and kindled again that
bold and warlike spirit, which old age had in a manner extin-
guished in Metellus, into a new heat; just as molten copper,
they say, when poured upon that which is cold and solid, will dis-
solve 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

392 Plutarch's Lives

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
favours they asked for. But as for Pompey, admiring his
valour 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 ^Emilia, the step-daughter of
Sylla, bom 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 ^Emilia great
with child should be, as it were, ravished from the embraces of
another for him, and that Antistia should be divorced with
dishonour 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 favourer 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, Emilia
herself died, ahnost 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 favour, and
treated all with great humanity, except the Mamertines in
Messena; for when they protested against his court and juris-
diction, alleging their privilege and exemption founded upon an
ancient charter or grant of the Romans, he replied sharply,
" What 1 will you never cease prating of laws to us that have

Pompey 393

swords by our sides? " It was thought, likewise, that he
showed some inhumanity to Carbo, seemmg 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 commanded 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, examin-
ing the cause with the formalities of law, to the oflfence 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 v/as 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 offences 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 Hime-
raeans. Hearing, likewise, that his soldiers were very disorderly

394 Plutarch's Lives

in 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. Plere they tell us of a pleasant
incident that happened to him at his first arrival.

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 Cartha-
ginians 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 whUe 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 engage-
ment that day, commanded his forces to draw off and retire to
the camp. Now Pompey, who was watchful upon every occa-
sion, making use of the opportunity, ordered a march forthwith,
and having passed over the torrent, fell in immediately upon

Pompey 395

their quarters. Tlie enemy was in great disorder and tumult,
and in that confusion attempted a resistance; but they neither
were all there, nor supported one another; besides, the wind
ha\'ing 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 de-
clined 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 honour, 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. Bang larbas, like-
wise, 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 valour 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 be-
stowed 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

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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
endeavoured 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 agam,
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 hi.aself 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 re-
marked 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 hmi
great trouble, and brought him into extreme danger. But bemg
undeceived afterwards by better intelligence, and findmg the
whole city prepared to meet Pompey, and receive him with
every display of kindness and honour, 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 ratifica-
tion 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 wTite
himself in his letters and commissions by the name of Pompeius
Magnus; common and familiar use having then worn oft 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 honour-
able titles, but adorned likewise the virtue and services of
eminent men in civil government with the same distinctions and
marks of honour. Two persons received from the people the
name of Maximus, or the Greatest, Valerius for reconciling the

Pompey 397

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 honour of a triumph, which Sylla
opposed, alleging that the law allowed that honour to none but
consuls and prsetors, 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 honour. 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
worshipped 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 Pomp>ey's boldness, and cried out twice together,
" Let him triumph," and when others began to show their disap-
probation and offence 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 clamour, and interrupt
the triumph, Pompey regarded these as little as the rest, and
plainly told them that he had rather lose the honour 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 honours. 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

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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 favour 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 consul-
ship should be given to Lepidus, tlie 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 son, he passed by Pompey witliout the least
remembrance. However, Pompey bore this with great modera-
tion 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 liis obsequies performed with all honour and
security.

Shortly after the deatli 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, im-
mediately 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, tlicrefore, was not long in suspense which
way to dispose of himself, but joining with the nobility, was pre-
sently 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

Fompey 399

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 with-
out 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 oS. 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
hfe. Lepidus, upon this being driven out of Italy, fled to Sar-
dinia, 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 colourable device
or other he still kept them in arms about the city, until the senate
at last thought fit, upon the report of Lucius Phihppus, 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 pro-

400 Plutarch's Lives

consul, " No," replied Philippus, " but as pvo-consuls,'* 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-indul-
gence 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 good-will, 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 enclosed, 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 a 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,

-«i^ 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 honour 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 honour, for that he main-
tained his post, having put to flight the entire division that was

Pompey 401

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 quarrelled among them-
selves for the boot}', so that while they were fighting with one
another, and dividing the sp>oil, 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 honour of
Metellus, as his senior and superior. But Metellus on the other
side forbade it, and behaved himself in general ver\' obligingly
to him, not claiming any prerogative either in respect of his
consular rank or seniority ; excepting only that when they en-
camped 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 skilful artifice
appear in a variety of places almost in the same instant, draw-
ing 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 neces-
saries, 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

402 Plutarch's Lives

army. LucuUus being consul at that time, though at variance
with Pompey, yet in consideration that he himself was a candi-
date for the command against Mithridates, procured and
hastened these supplies, fearing lest there should be any pre-
tence or occasion given to Pompey of returning home, who of
himself was no less desirous of leaving Sertorius and of under-
taking the war against Mithridates, as an enterprise which by
all appearance would prove much more honourable and not so
dangerous. In the meantime Sertorius died, being treacher-
ously 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 detach-
ment 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

rompey 403

fortune reserved to Pompey some share of honour 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 overdirown the
slaves in battle, but that he had plucked up the whole war by
the roots. And it was agreeable in Rome both thus to say, and
thus to hear said, because of the general favour of Pompey.
But of the Spanish war and the conquest of Sertorius, no one,
even in jest, could have ascribed the honour to any one else.
Nevertheless, all this high respect for him, and this desire to see
him come home, were not unmixed with apprehensions and sus-
picions that he might perhaps not disband his army, but take
his way by 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 de-
claring 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 some one
else in this) of ever meeting with any other sufficient means of
expressing his gratitude for the favours which he had received
from the people.

Though a second triumph was decreed him, and he was de-
clared consul, yet all these honours 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 ail others 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 occa-
sion to oblige him in some friendly office; so that he soHcited
for Crassus, and entreated the people heartily, declaring that
their favour 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

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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 honour 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 a maze, 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 hear-
ing 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 as-
sembly, 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 dishonourable 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- honour
of two triumphs before he had a place in the senate." Here-

Pompey 405

upon 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 appear-
ance before large numbers at once, as though he wished to main-
tain 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 in-
tolerable if m 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 fonmi, they
endeavour their utmost to obscure and depress him; whereas,
if he gives up any pretensions here and retires, they will maintain
his military honour 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 vmguarded, 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 em-
barked 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 harbours, 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 com-
posed 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

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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 com-
mand were taken prisoners, and cities put under contribution,
to the reproach and dishonour 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 ^sculapius in Epidaurus,
those of Neptune at the Isthmus, at Tsenarus, 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 pre-
vious 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. 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
honour 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 tliighs and fell down at
his feet, humbly beseeching him to be gracious and forgive them.

The captives, seeing them so humble and suppliant, believed
tJiem 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,
ti^ 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 them-
selves 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

Pompey 407

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 main-
land 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.

WTien 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 imlimited 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 favour he had
courted xmderhand from the beginning, and hoped to compass
for himself. The rest inveighed bitterly against Pompey, inso-
much that one of the consuls told him that, if he was ambitiois
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 honourable terms in favour
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 succes-
sion 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

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no hearing, and made signs with his fingers, intimating, " Not
him alone," but that there might be a second Pompey or col-
league in authority with him. Upon this, it is said, the multi-
tude, being extremely incensed, made such a loud outcry, that a
crow flying over the market-place at that instant was struck,
and dropped 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 suflFrage into a decree,
Pompey went privately into the country; but hearing that it
was passed and confirmed, he returned again into the city by
night, to avoid the envy that might be occasioned by the con-
course of people that would meet and congratulate him. The
next morning he came aboard 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 ap-
pointed 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 dis-
persed 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 harbours. 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 hives ; 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;
ail which he performed in the space of forty days by his own
indefatigable industry and the zeal of his lieutenants.

Pompcy 409

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, him-
self 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
a few days before. What chiefly excited their joy was the un-
expectedly 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 epigram.s, 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 them-
selves, having well maimed their galleys, embarked for Cora-
cesium in Cilicia, where they received Pompey and gave him
battle. Here they had a final overthrow, and retired to the land.

410 Plutarch's Lives

where they were besieged. At last, having despatched their
heralds to him with a submission, they delivered up to his mercy
themselves, their towns, islands, and strongholds, 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-
v/ar 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 civilised 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 Achcea, 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 prajtor 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 strongholds there was engaged in reducing and ex-
tirpating 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

Pompey 411

10 within the precincts of his charge. Pompey receiving the sub-
nission, sent letters to Metellus, commanding him to leave off
;he war; and others in like manner to the cities, in which he
:harged them not to yield any obedience to the commands of
^letellus. And after these he sent Lucius Octavius, one of his
ieutenants, to act as general, who entering the besieged fortifica-
;ions, and fighting in defence of the pirates, rendered Pompey not
)dious only, but even ridiculous too; that he should lend his
lame as a guard to a nest of thieves, that knew neither god nor
aw, and made his reputation serve as a sanctuary to them, only
)ut of pure envy and emulation to Metellus. For neither was
\chilles thought to act the part of a man, but rather of a mere
Doy, mad after glor}--, when by signs he forbade the rest of the
jreeks to strike at Hector —

" For fear
Some other hand should give the blow, and he
Lose the first honour of the victory."

IrVhereas Pompey even sought to preserve the common enemies of
the world only that he might deprive a Roman prsetor, after all
lis labours, of the honour of a triumph. Metellus, however, was
lot 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
wsLS at an end, and that Pompey was unoccupied, diverting him-
self in visits to the cities for want of employment, one Manlius, a
tribune of the people, preferred a law that Pompey should have
ill the forces of LucuUus, and the provinces under his govem-
Tient, 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 stiU the same
naval forces and the sovereignty of the seas as before. But this
tvas nothing less than to constitute one absolute monarch of all
the Roman empire. For the provinces which seemed to be
sxempt from his commission by the former decree, such as were
Phr}-gia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, the upper Col-
chis, and Armenia, were all added in by this latter law, together
with all the troops and forces with which LucuUus had defeated
Mithridates and Tigranes. And though LucuUus was thus simply
robbed of the glor}' of his achievements in having a successor
assigned him, rather to the honour 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 ^e in-

412 Plutarch's Lives

justice and ingratitude to LucuUus. But their great grievance
was that the power of Pompey should be converted into a mani-
fest 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 foimd 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 honour, he seemed displeased, frowning and smiting his thigh,
and exclaimed as one overburdened and weary of government,
" Alas, what a series of labours upon labours I If I am never to
end my service as a soldier, nor to escape from this invidious i
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 prmces within
his charge; and in short, as soon as he had entered upon his
province, he left nothbg unaltered that had been done and estab-
lished 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

Pompey 413

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 cro^^'ned his rods with fresh laurels. This was thought
ominous, and looked as if Pompey came to take away the reward
and honour of LucuUus'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 ia
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 up>on
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 Pomp>ey
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 glor\- 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 havmg 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 Ser-
torius, over Lepidus, and over the insurgents xmder 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 glor)' of the Pontic and Armenian
war should be usurped by a man who had condescended to any
artifices to work himseK into the honour of a triumph over a few
runaway slaves.

After this Lucullus went away, and Pompey having placed
his whole nav)' m guard upon the seas betwixt Phoenicia and

414 Plutarch's Lives

Bosphorus, 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 obsen/ing 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 comer. After which there was, in a little time, great plenty
of water throughout all the camp, insomuch that he y/ondered
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 Bosphorus, 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 labouring 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
defence began to doubt with himself whether he should put it to
the hazard of a fight m the dark, judging it more prudent to en-
compass 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. Neitlier 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 disadvan-

Pompey 415

tage 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, xmable 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 himseK, he at the
beginning of the onset, with a body of eight himdred 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, Hj'psicratia, a girl always of a manly and daring
spirit, and the king called her on that account H}'psicrates. 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, xintil 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 so 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 sub-
mission. But King Tigranes, having lately suffered much in the
war with LucuUus, 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 rela-
tions, went in person to surrender himself into the hands of

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Plutarch's Lives

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 honour, 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 per-
mitted 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

Pompey 417

of Saturn, they mustered a body of no less than forty thousand
fighting men, and set upon them, ha\Tng passed over the river
Cymus, 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 neighbours 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 sup-
plication pardoned the offence, 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 Mace-
donians, 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 countr}' of Colchis, where Servilius met him by the
river Phasis, bringing the fleet with which he was guarding
the Pontus.

The pxirsuit of Mithridates, who had thrown himself among the
tribes inhabiting Bosphorus and the shores of the Mseotian 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 passed back over the
CjTnus, which the barbarous people had fortified a great way
down the banks with palisadoes. And after this, having a
tedious m.arch to make through a waterless and difficult country,
he ordered ten thousand skms to be filled with water, and so
advanced towards the enemy, whom he found drawn up in order
of battle neai 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
II o

4i8

Plutarch's Lives

him. It is related that in this battle there were Amazons fight-
ing 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 spoils 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 Hjo-canian Sea, not immediately bordering upon the
Albanians, for the Gelse 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, the kings of the Elymseans 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. Strato-
nice, 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 favourites, he looked upon it all as a piece of mockery,
and thinking himself trifled with, attempted to make ofif and
run away. But the servants laying hold upon him, and inform-
ing him really tliat the king had bestowed on him the house

n-

Pompey 419

and furniture of a rich man lately deceased, and that these were
but the firstfruits or earnests of greater riches and possessions
that were to come, he was persuaded at last with much diffi-
culty 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 splendour 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 foimd 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 honours 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 RutiJius, in which he at-
tempted to exasperate him to the slaughter 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 honours, as conquerors usually do only when the war is

420 Plutarch's Lives

brought to an end, yet now was he himself, while Mithridates
was paramount in the kingdom of Bosphorus, 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 Bosphorus, death
being the penalty for any who should attempt to carry pro-
visions thither.

Then he set forward with the greatest part of his army, and
in his march casually fell in with several dead bodies, still un-
interred, of those soldiers who were slain with Triarius in his
unfortunate engagement with Mithridates: these he buried
splendidly and honourably. 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 m the
administration of justice, in deciding controversies of kmgs and
states; and where he himself could not be present in person, he

Pompey 421

gave commissions to his friends, and sent them. Thus when
there arose a diflFerence 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 famihars^
For although it was not in his nature to check or chastise wrong-
doers, 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 philo-
sopher, 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 honour 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 1 " and passed by without
any other answer. However, Pompey rendered Demetrius less
odious to others by enduring his presumption and imjjertinence
to himself. For it is reported how that Pompey, when he had
invited his friends to an entertainment, would be very cere-
monious 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 habi-

422 Plutarch's Lives

tation. Afterwards, it is true, when he had erected his famous
and stately theatre 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 irre-
prehensible 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 taking 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
taking 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, notwith-
standing, 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 mili-
tary 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 Phamaces, 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 ex-
pected, fell to sacrificing to the gods, and feasting as if in the

Pompey 423

person of !klithridates alone there had died many thousands of
their enemies.

Pompey by this event having brought this war to its comple-
tion, with much more ease than was expected, departed forth-
with 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 Phamaces, 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 ad-
mired the richness of his robes no less than the size and splendour
of his armour. His sword-belt, however, which had cost four
hundred talents, was stolen by Publius, and sold to Ariarathes;
his tiara also, a piece of admirable workmanship, Gains, the
foster-brother of Mithridates, gave secretly to Faustus, the son
of Sylla, at his request. All which Pompey was ignorant of, but
afterwards, when Phamaces came to imderstand 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 Mitj'lene, 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 theatre itself, and
had a model of it taken, intending to erect one in Rome on the
same design, but larger and more magnificent. WTien 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 cit\-. So that now by all these acts he well
hoped to return into Italy in the greatest splendour 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 pro\'ince and charge it is always to mix some in-
gredient of evil with the greatest and most glorious goods of
fortune, had for some time back been busy in his household.

424 Plutarch's Lives

preparing him a sad welcome. For Mucia during his absence
had dishonoured his bed. WTiilst 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.

Rumours 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 pro-
perty, 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
kmd 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 re-
ported, 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 dis-
banded; insomuch that if he had designed any movement or
irmovation 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 favour 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 havmg two nieces, Pompey
asked for one in marriage for himself, the other for his son. But
Cato looked unfavourably on the proposal, regarding it as a de-
sign for undermining his honesty, and in a manner bribing him

Pompey 425

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
honour 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
dishonour 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 splendour 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, Cappa-
docia, 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 dijQferent 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 pajTnent he was bring-
ing 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.

426

Plutarch's Lives

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, bemg 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 honour 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 after-time 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 patronising the
iniquities of others, so that by advancing their fortunes he de-
tracted 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. LucuUus, when he returned out of Asia,
where he had been treated with insult by Pompey, was received
by the senate with great honour, 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, re-established, 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

Pompey 427

was Qodius, the vilest and most impudent wretch alive, who
took him about, and exposed him as a tool to the people, cairy-
ing 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 a 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, slipt out at a back door, whereupon Cicero,
fearing the result of his trial, departed privately from Rome.

About that time Caesar, returning from mihtary service,
started a course of p>olicy 'which brought him great present
favour, 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
obser\Tng the enmity betwixt Pompey and Crassus, and finding
that by joining with one he should make the other his enemy,
he endeavoured by all means to reconcile them, an object in
itself honourable and tending to the public good, but, as he
imdertook it, a mischievous and subtle intrigue. For he well
knew that opposite parties or factions in a commonwealth, like
passengers in a boat, serx'e to trim and balance the unsteady
motions of power there ; whereas if they combine and come all
over to one side, they cause a shock which will be sure to over-
set the vessel and carry do\s-n everything. And therefore Cato
wisely told those who charged all the calamities of Rome upon
the disagreement betwixt Pompey and Csesar 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 friend-
ship, that gave the first and greatest blow to the commonwealth.

Oesar being thus elected consul, began at once to make an
interest with the poor and meaner sort, by preferring and estab-
lishing 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 colleag^je, opposed
him, and Cato was prepared to second Bibulus, and assist him
vigorously, Caesar brought Pompey upon the hustings, and ad-
dressing him in the sight of the people, demanded his opinion
upon the laws that were proposed. Pompey gave his approba-
tion. " Tnen," said Ca^ar, " in case any man should ofier

428 Plutarch's Lives

violence to these laws, will you be ready 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 endeavoured to apologise 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
Csesar, 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
Calphumia, the daughter of Piso.

Upon this Pompey, filling the cfty with soldiers, carried all
things by force as he pleased. As Bibulus, the consul, was
going to the forum, accompanied by LucuUus 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 con-
firmed all those acts and decrees of Pompey which were ques-
tioned and contested by LucuUus; and to Caesar they granted
the provinces of Gaul, both within and without the Alps, to-
gether 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 pos-
sessed with a spirit of divination, did nothing else in the senate
but foretell what evils should befall the commonwealth and
Pompey. LucuUus 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

rompey 429

seasonable for an old man than those of government. WTiich 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 mili-
tary duty, and when Caesar was gone upon his expedition to
Gaul, finding the populace now looking to him as the leader who
did ever}'thing according to their pleasure, he attempted forth-
with to repeal some of Pompey's decrees; he took Tigranes, the
captive, out of prison, and kept him about him as his com-
panion; 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 rufBans, 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 govsm, with a great shout to everj' 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 unex-
perienced 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 bond-slaves was apprehended
CTeeping 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 favourite of the senate; to

43^ Plutarch's Lives

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 favour of the law upon the im-
portations 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 despatch 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.
/ind Timagenes even asserts that Ptolemy went away and left
%ypt, 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 him-
self sailing into Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, collected vast stores
of com. He was just ready to set sail upon his voyage home.

irompcy ^^i

when a great stonn arose upon the sea, and the ships' com-
manders 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 favourable fortune, he made a prosperous
return, and filled the markets with com, 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, en-
tangled 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 oi
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.
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 con-
firmed 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

432 Plutarch's Lives

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." There-
fore 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 torch-
bearer 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 in-
auspicious 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
Trebonilis, the tribune, continuing Caesar's commission to another
five years' charge of his province; to Crassus there were ap-
pointed 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 forth-
with into his province; but Pompey spent some time in Rome,
upon the opening or dedication of his theatre, where he treated
the people with all sorts of games, shows, and exercises, in gym-
nastics alike and in music* There was likewise the hunting or j

Pompey 433

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 honour and popxi-
larity; 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 ser\'ants 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 immedi-
ately into a swoon, and was hardly brought to life again; how-
ever, what with her fright and suffering, she fell into labour 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 favour either for Pompey or C^ar; and yet of these two, the
people seemed at that time to pay Caesar a greater share of honour
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 Intel-

434 Plutarch's Lives

ligence 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."

XSo 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 sufiScient 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 dis-
charge his forces, he endeavoured 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 dis-
trust, 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
straightway made of appointing a dictator. Lucullus, 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.
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

Pompey 435

!-■> for the present Domitius and Messala were elected consuls.
ikit shortly afterwards, when there was another anarchy, or
hacancy in the government, and the talk of a dictator was much
Duder and more general than before, those of Cato's part}', fear-
3g lest they should be forced to appoint Pompey, thought it
»olicy to keep him from that arbitrary' and tyrannical power by
iving him an ofhce of more legal authority. Bibulus himseK,
?ho was Pompey's enemy, first gave his vote in the senate, that
*ompey should be created consul alone; alleging, that by these
aeans either the commonwealth would be freed from its present
orifusion, or that its bondage should be lessened by serving the
orthiest. This was looked upon as a ver\' strange opinion,
onsidering the man that spoke it; and therefore on Cato's
tanding up, everybody expected that he would have opposed
t; but after silence made, he said that he would never have been
he author of that advice himself, but since it was propounded
»y another, his advice was to follow it, adding, that any form of
ovemment was better than none at all; and that in a time so
ill of distraction, he thought no man fitter to govern than
*ompey. This counsel was unanimously approved of, and a
ecree passed that Pompey should be made sole consul, with this
lause, that if he thought it necessary to have a colleague, he
eight choose whom he pleased, provided it were not till aiter
wo months expired.

Thus was Pompey created and declared sole consul by Sul-
icius, regent in this vacancy; upon which he made very cordial
cknowledgments to Cato, professing himself much his debtor,
nd requesting his good advice in conducting the government;
0 this Cato replied, that Pompey had no reason to thank him,
jt all that he had said was for the service of the commonwealth,
-Ot of Pompey; but that he would be always ready to give his
dvice privately, if he were asked for it; and if not, he should
.ot fail to say what he thought in public. Such was Cato's
onduct on all occasions.

On his return into the city Pompey married Cornelia, the
laughter of Metellus Scipio, not a maiden, but lately left a
vidow by Publius, the son of Crassus, her first husband, who
ad been killed in Parthia. The young lady had other attrac-
ions besides those of youth and beauty; for she was highly
ducated, played well upon the lute, and understood geometry,
tnd had been accustomed to listen with profit to lectures on
Ailosophy; all this, too, without in any degree becoming un-
aniable or pretentious, as sometimes young women do when

436 Plutarch's Lives

l/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 considermg 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 cognisance of
the cases of those that had obtained offices by gifts and bribery,
and enacted laws and ordinances, setting forth the rules of judg-
ment 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 favourable to
him ; whereupon his accuser, seeing wScipio come into the court,
accompanied by the judges themselves, withdrew the prosecu-
tion. Upon this Pompey was very ill spoken of, and much
worse m 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 dishonour. Shortly after,
Hypsaeus, a man of consular dignity, who was under accusation,
waited for Pompey's return from his bath to his supper, and fall-
ing down at his feet, implored his favour; but he disdainfuily
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 con-
tinued to him for the term of four years longer, with a commis-

Pompey 437

sion to take one thousand talents yearly out of the treasury for
±e payment of his army.

This gave occasion to some of Caesar's friends to think it
•easonable, that some consideration should be had of him too,
A'ho had done such signal services in war and fought so many
jattles for the empire, alleging, that he deserved at least a
second consulship, or to have the government of his province
:ontinued, that so he might command and enjoy in peace what
lie had obtained in war, and no successor come in to reap the
I'ruits of his labour and cany off the glory of his actions. There
irising some debate about this matter, Pompey took upon him,
15 it were out of kindness to Caesar, to plead his cause, and allay
my jealousy that was conceived against him, telling them that
ne had letters from Caesar, expressing his desire for a successor,
ind his own discharge from the command ; but it would be only
•ight that they should give him leave to stand for the consulship
:hough in his absence. But those of Cato's party withstood this,
iaying, that if he expected any favour from the citizens, he
jught to leave his army and come in a pri\'ate capacity to
ranvass for it. And Pompey's making no rejoinder, but letting
t pass as a matter in which he was overruled, increased the sus-
Dicion of his real feelings towards Caesar. Presently, also, under
oretence of a war with Parthia, he sent for his two legions which
ae had lent him. However, Caesar, though he well knew why
:hey were asked for, sent them home ven,' liberally rewarded,^-;^^
~ About that time Pompey recovered of a dangerous fit of sicK-
:iess which seized him at Naples, where the whole city, upon the
•uggestion of Praxagoras, made sacrifices of thanksgiving to the
:;ods for his recovery. The neighbouring to-mis like\vise happen-
ng to follow their example, the thing then went its course
:hroughout all Italy, so that there was not a city, either great or
■:maU, that did not feast and rejoice for many days together.
And the company of those that came from all parts to meet him
i?as so numerous that no place was able to contain them, but
Jie villages, seaport to\^'ns, and the ver\' highways were all full
af 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
af the noblest and most glorious sights imaginable. And yet it
is thought that this very thing was not one of the least causes
smd occasions of the civil war. For Pompey, yielding to a feel-
ing of exultation, which in the greatness of the present display

438

Plutarch's Lives

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 him-
self up to an extravagant confidence in his own and contempt o!
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
Cffisar were returned, coming lately out of Gaul, spoke slight-
ingly of Caesar's actions there, and spread scandalous reports
about him, at the same time telling Pompey that he was un-
acquainted 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 appear-
ance. 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 dis-
charge 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 favour 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

Pompey 439

■ith simple justice; or if both retained their present power,
ach being a match for the other, they would be contented with
i<'hat they already had; but he that weakens one, does at the
lame time strengthen the other, and so doubles that very
Itrength and power which he stood in fear of before,
i Marcellus, the consul, replied nothing to all this, but that
i!sesar was a robber, and should be proclaimed an enemy to the
itate if he did not disband his army. However, Curio, with the
l-ssistance of Antony and Piso, prevailed, that the matter in
i.ebate should be put to the question, and decided by vote in the
lenate. So that it being ordered upon the question for those to
iithdraw who were of opinion that Caesar only should lay down
tis army, and Pompey command, the majority withdrew. But
ivhen it was ordered again for those to withdraw whose vote
kas that both should lay down their arms, and neither com-
oand, there were but twenty-two for Pompey, all the rest
lemained on Curio's side. Whereupon he, as one proud of his
lonquest, leaped out in triumph among the people, who received
dm with as great tokens of joy, clapping their hands and
rowning him with garlands and flowers. Pompey was not then
iresent in the senate, because it is not lawful for generals in
command of an army to come into the city. But Marcellus
ising up, said, that he would not sit there hearing sp>eeches,
vhen he saw ten legions already passing the Alps on their march
oward the city, but on his own authority would send some one
.0 oppose them in defence of the country.

Upon this the city went into mourning, as in a pubHc calamity,
jid Marcellus, accompanied by the senate, went solemnly
brough the forum to meet Pompey, and made him this address:
* I hereby give you orders, 0 Pompey, to defend your country,
o employ the troops you now command, and to levy more."
L,entulus, consul elect for the year following, spoke to the same
ourpose. Antony, however, contrary to the will of the senate,
laving in a pubUc assembly read a letter of Caesar's, containing
,/arious plausible overtures such as were likely to gain the
pmmon 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
jin 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

440 Plutarch's Lives

was now entered upon his consulship, would not assemble th(
senate; but Cicero, who was lately returned from Cilicia
laboured for a reconciliation, proposing that Caesar should leav(
his province of Gaul and army, reserving two legions only
together with the government of Illyricum, and should thus bi
put in nomination for a second consulship. Pompey disliking
this motion, Caesar's friends were contented that he should sur
render one of the two; but Lentulus still opposing, and Catc
crying out that Pompey did ill to be deceived again, th(
reconciliation did not take effect.

In the meantime, news was brought that Caesar had occupiec
Ariminum, a great city in Italy, and was marching directlj
towards Rome with all his forces. But this latter was alto
gether false, for he had no more with him at that time thai
three hundred horse and five thousand foot; and he did nol
mean to tarry for the body of his army, which lay beyond th<
Alps, choosing rather to fall in on a sudden upon his enemies
while they were in confusion, and did not expect him, than tc
give them time, and fight them after they had made prepara^
tions. For when he came to the banks of the Rubicon, a rivei
that made the bounds of his province, there he made a halt
pausing a little, and considering, we may suppose, with himsel!
the greatness of the enterprise which he had undertaken j then
at last, like men that are throwing themselves headlong frorr
some precipice into a vast abyss, having shut, as it were, hi:
mind's eyes and put away from his sight the idea of danger, h<
merely uttered to those near him in Greek the words, " Aner-
riphtho kubos " (let the die be cast), and led his army through it
No sooner was the news arrived, but there was an uproai
throughout all the city, and a consternation in the people ever
to astonishment, such as never was known in Rome before; al
the senate ran immediately to Pompey, and the magistrate:
followed. And when Tullus made inquiry about his legions and
forces, Pompey seemed to pause a little, and answered witl:
some hesitation that he had those two legions ready that Caesai
sent back, and that out of the men who had been previouslj
enrolled he believed he could shortly make up a body of thirtj
thousand men. On which Tullus crying out aloud, " 0 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 straightforwardness, bade Pompey stamp upon the
ground, and call forth the forces he had promised. But Pompe>

Pompey 441

are patiently with this unseasonable raillery; and on Cato
atting him in mind of what he had foretold from the ver>- be-
inning about Caesar, made this answer only, that Cato indeed
ad spoken more like a prophet, but he had acted more like a
•iend. Cato then advised them to choose Pompey general
ith absolute power and authority, saying that the same men
ho do great evils know best how to cure them. He himself
ent his way forthwith into Sicily, the province that was allotted
im, and all the rest of the senators likewise departed every one
3 his respective government.

Thus all Italy in a manner being up in arms, no one could say
hat was best to be done. For those that were without came
"om all parts flocking into the city ; and they who were within,
seing the confusion and disorder so great there, all good things
njwtent, and disobedience and insubordination grown too
crong to be controlled by the magistrates, were quitting it as
«t as the others came in. Nay, it was so far from being
ossible to allay their fears, that they would not suffer Pompey
0 follow out his own judgment, but every man pressed and
rged him according to his particular fancy, whether it pro-
eeded from doubt, fear, grief, or any meaner passion; so that
ven in the same day quite contrary counsels were acted upon,
lien, again, it was as impossible to have any good intelligence
f the enemy ; for what each man heard by chance upon a flying
amour he would report for truth, and exclaim against Pompey
' he did not believe it. Pompey, at length, seeing such a con-
ision in Rome, determined with himself to put an end to their
lamours by his def>arture, and therefore commanding all the
anate to follow hun, and declaring that whosoever tarried
ehind should be judged a confederate of Caesar's, about the
usk of the evening he went out and left the cit}'. The consuls
Iso followed after in a hurry, without offering the sacrifices to
he gods usual before a war. But in all this, Pompey himself
ad the glory that, in the midst of such calamities, he had so
auch of men's love and good-will. For though many found
ault with the conduct of the war, yet no man hated the general;
nd there were more to be found of those that went out of Rome,
lecause that they could not forsake Pompey, than of those
hat fled for love of Hberty.

Some few days after Pompey was gone out, Caesar came into
he city, and made himself master of it, treating every one with
► great deal of courtesy, and appeasing their fears, except onlv
iletellus, one of the tribunes; on whose refusing to let him take

442 Plutarch's Lives

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 forward in pursuit of Pompey, endeavouring 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
D3n-rhachium. He sent likewise his father-in-law, Scipio, and
Cnseus, 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 seaside. 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 engarrisoned
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
Tliemistocles. However, it appeared plainly, and Ciesar 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, witJhi offers of peace and recon-
ciliation 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 bloodshed, had a great desire forth-

Pompey 443

ivith to follow Pompey; but being destitute of shipping, he was
'orced to divert his course and march into Spain, designing to
oring 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
ive hundred men-of-war, besides an infinite company of light
leessels, Libumians, and others; and for his land forces, the
bavalry made up a body of seven thousand horse, the very flower
|Df Rome and Italy, men of family, wealth, and high spirit; but
he infantry was a mixture of inexperienced soldiers drawn from
different quarters, and these he exercised and trained near Beroea,
ivhere he quartered his army ; himself noways slothful, but per-
forming all his exercises as if he had been in the flower of his
I'outh, conduct which raised the spirits of his soldiers extremely.
For it was no small encouragement for them to see Pompey the

reat, sixty years of age wanting two, at one time handling his
inns among the foot, then again mounted among the horse,
Irawing out his sword with ease in full career, and sheathing it
ap 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 yotmg men went beyond him.

Several kings and princes of nations came thither to him, and
here was a concourse of Roman citizens who had held the magis-
tracies, 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
3f his father, came then and submitted himself to him as the
defender of their liberty. Cicero likewise, though he had written
ind advised otherwise, yet was ashamed not to be accounted in
the number of those that would hazard their lives and fortimes
ior 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 favour, 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
thould not sack or plunder any city that was subject to the

444 Plutarch's Lives

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 oflf, 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 takmg the
common soldiers into his own pay. Then repassing the Alps, and
making a runnmg march through Italy, he came to Brundusmm
about the winter solstice, and crossing the sea there, landed at
the port of Oricum. And having Jubius, an mtimate friend of
Pompey's, with him as his prisoner, he despatched him to Pompey
with an invitation that they, meeting together in a conferena;,
should disband their armies within three days, and renewmg
their former friendship with solemn oaths, should return together
into Italy. Pompey looked upon this again as some new strata-
gem, 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 land-forces, as likewise of all ports
and harbours commodious to receive any that came by sea, so
that what wind soever blew, it must needs, in some way or other,
be favourable to him, bringing in either provision, men, or money ;
while Cssar, on the contrary, was so hemmed in both by sea and
land that he was forced to desire battle, daily provokmg the
enemy, and assailing them in their very forts, and m these lighl
skirmishes for the most part had the better. Once only he was
dangerously overthrown, and was within a httle of losmg 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 Csesar made the remark, that To-day th«
victory had been the enemy's had there been any one 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 decisior
of a battle; but Pompey himself, though he wrote to distant
kings, generals, and states in confederacy with him as a con-
queror, yet was afraid to hazard the success of a battle, choosing
rather by delays and distress of provisions to tire out a body o,
men who had never yet been conquered by force of arms, and hac

Pompey 445

ng been used to fight and conquer together; while their time
>f life, now an advanced one, which made tliem quickly weary of
;hose other hardships of war, such as were long marches and
■requent decampings, making trenches, and building fortifica-
dons, made them eager to come to close combat and venture a
oattle with all speed.

Pompey had all along hitherto by his persuasions pretty well
quieted his soldiers; but after this last engagement, when Caesar,
:or want of provisions, was forced to raise his camp, and passed
:hrough Athamania into Thessaly, it was impossible to curb or
illay the heat of their spirits any longer. For all crying out with
i general voice that Csesar was fled, some were for pursuing and
Dressing upon him, others for returning into Italy; some there
arere that sent their friends and servants beforehand to Rome
:o hire houses near the forum, that they might be in readiness to
?ue for offices; several of their own motion sailed ofi 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^
\nd a senate being called and the matter being under debate,
:Vfranius was of opinion that Italy should first be regained, for
ihat it was the grand prize and crown of all the war ; and they
ivho were masters of that would quickly have at their devotion
x\\ the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, and Gaul;
3ut what was of greatest weight and moment to Pompey, it was
"lis own native country that lay near, reaching out her hand for
lis help; and certainly it could not be consistent with his honour
:o leave her thus exposed to all indignities, and in bondage under
laves and the flatterers of a tyrant. But Pompey himself, on
he contrary, thought it neither honourable to fly a second time
jcfore Caesar, and be pursued, when fortune had given him the
idvantage of a pursuit; nor mdeed lawful before the gods to
orsake Scipio and divers other men of consular dignity dispersed
:hroughout Greece and Thessaly, who must necessarily fail into
Zaesar's hands, together with large sums of money and numerous
orces; and as to his care for the city of Rome, that would most
eminently appear by removing the scene of war to a greater
listance, and leaving her, without feeling the distress or even
learing 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,
md cutting him short. There were other reasons that made him

446

Plutarch's Lives

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 con-
sequence 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 ^Enobarbus, continually
calling him Agamemnon, the 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 expecta-
tions 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 in 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 him-
self could not but yield to the malady and disease of his corn-
panions and advisers in the war, rather than use some severity in
their cure. Truly who could have said that health was not dis-
ordered 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 ai]
as lightly as if they were to engage only with Tigranes, King oi

Pompey 447

i^jmenia, or some petty Nabatlwean king, not with that Csesar
and his army that had stormed a thousand towns, and subdued
more than three hundred several nations; that had fought in-
aumerable 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 clamouring, and on reaching
the plain of Pharsalia, they forced Pompey by their pressure and
mportunities to call a council of war, where Labienus, general of
he horse, stood up first and swore that he would not return out
3f the battle if he did not rout the enemies; and all the rest took
he same oath. That night Pompey dreamed that, as he went
ato the theatre, the people received him with great applause,
\nd that he himself adorned the temple of Venus the Victorious
vith many spoils. This vision partly encouraged, but partly
Uso disheartened him, fearing lest that splendour and ornament
,0 Venus should be made with spoils furnished by himself to
Caesar, who derived his family from that goddess. Besides there
.vere some panic fears and alarms that ran through the camp,
Tith such a noise that it awaked him out of his sleep. And about
he time of renewing the watch towards morning, there appeared

great light over Caesar's camp whilst they were all at rest, and
rem thence a ball of flaming fire was carried into Pompey's
2«np, which Csesar himself says he saw as he was walking his
ounds.

Now Csesar having designed to raise his camp with the morning
Old move to Scotussa, whilst the soldiers were busy in pulling
iown their tents, and sending on their cattle and servants before
hem with their baggage, there came in scouts who brought word
hat they saw arms carried to and fro in the enemy's camp, and
leard a noise and running up and down as of men preparing for
)attle; not long after there came in other scouts with further
ntelligence, that the first ranks were already set in battle array.
Thereupon Csssar, when he had told them that the wished-for day
?as come at last, when they should fight with men, not with
lunger and famine, instantly gave orders for the red colours to
ye set up before his tent, that being the ordinary signal of battle
jnong the Romans. As soon as the soldiers saw that, they left
heir tents, and with great shouts of joy ran to their arms; the
)fficers likewise, on their part, drawing up their companies in
)rder of battle, every man fell into his proper rank without any
Touble or noise, as quietly and orderly as if they had been in a
iance.

448 Plutarch's Lives

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 crushmg Csesar,
and cutting off the tenth legion, which was spoken of as the
stoutest in all the army, and in which Csesar 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 detach-
ment 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 mto 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 Csesar's em-
ployment 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 unsteadv 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. j j -n »

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 tlie noblest Romans, together with

Pompey 449

certain Greeks there present, standing as spectators without the
battle, seeing the armies now ready to join, could not but con-
sider in themselves to what a pass private ambition and emula-
tion had brought the empire. Common arms, and kindred
ranks drawn up under the selfsame standards, the whole flower
and strength of the same single city here meeting in collision
with itseK, 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
tropiiies and triumphs, the Parthian and German wars would
yield matter enough to satisfy the most covetous of honour.
Scythia, moreover, was yet unconquered, and the Indians too,
where their ambition might be coloured over with the specious
pretext of civilising 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 } To-day they met in confhct, 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 armour, and that the signal of battle was
raised on either side, Caius Crassianus, a centurion, who com-
manded 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
Oesar. 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
II p

45© Plutarch's Lives

victory, 0 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 v/as 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 up-
wards, according to their instructions, and hit the horsemen full
in their faces. They, unskilful 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 turn-
ing their backs, and covering their eyes with their hands, shame-
fully took to flight. Caisar'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 circum-
vented 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 inten-
tions 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 —

Pompey 451

** 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 fl3'ing 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
v:as a great slaughter in the camp among the serv'ants 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 dis-
mounted 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 him-
self to a poor fisherman's cottage, where he rested the remainder

452 Plutarch's Lives

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 row-
ing up and down near the shore, he chanced to spy a large mer-
chant ship, lying o£F, 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 discours-
ing 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 ofi 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 atten-
tively, at once recognised 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 tliat 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 ajid took him
in along with them. At supper time, the master of the sliip
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
attended him in all things, as servants do their masters, even to
the washing of his feet and preparing his supper. Insomuch
that any one there present, observing the free and unafiected
courtesy of these services, might have well exclaimed —

" O heavens, in those that noble are,
VVhate'er they do is fit and fair."

Pompey, sailmg 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 despatched
a messenger into the city with news very different from Cornelia's

Pompey 453

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 Csesar. The messenger, finding her
in the same hopes still, was not able to salute or speak to her, but
declaring the greatness of her misfortime by his tears rather
than 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, sup>-
ported by his arms, " Tiiis, sir," she exclaimed, " is the efifect 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 cane from Parthia of the death of
Publius, the husband of my youth, and how prudent if I had
followed his destiny, as I designed I 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
fortvme, which, it may be, gave you unfounded hopes, by attend-
ing me a longer time than is usual. It behoves us, who are
mortals bom, to endure these events, and to try fortune j-et
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 Mit\'lene came out to salute and invite Pompey mto the
city, but he refused, advising them to be obedient to the con-
queror 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 up)on 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 txim in defence of Providence; and might have demon-

454 Plutarch's Lives

strated 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, 0 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, or touching anywhere, but when he was necessi-
tated 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 despatched his
agents to the neighbouring 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
favour he had shown to his father, only to put himself under the

Pompey 455

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 Crassiis
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 dishonour, 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 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
file eunuch, Theodotiis 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 dishonourable for
him to owe his safety to Qesar, 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 tiieir master; or if they dismissed him, they

456 Plutarch's Lives

might render themselves hereafter obnoxious to Pompey, foi
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 Hfe, 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 accom-
plices 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
j 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 honourable, 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 Sep-
timius 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 kmg'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 t>Tant'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

Pompey 457

of the company addressed any words of friendliness or welcome
to him all the w'ay, 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 whidi 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 ver^' 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 honour-
able reception; but in the meantime, as Pompey took Phihp 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 fif t%'-ninth
year of his age, the very next day after the day of his birth.

Cornelia, with her company from the galley, seemg him
murdered, gave such a cr\- that it was heard on the shore, and
weighing anchor with ail speed, they hoisted sail, and fled, A
strong breeze from the shore assisted their flight into the open
sea, so that the Eg>'ptians, 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
honour 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 mis-

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fortunes 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, Ijefore 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. Theo-
dotus, 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.

THE COMPARISON OF POMPEY WITH 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 de-
livering Italy from its tyrants. But Agesilaus appears to have
obtained his kingdom, not without offence both towards gods and
towards men, towards these, by procuring judgment of bastardy
against Lcotychides, 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

Pompey and Agesilaus Compared 459

never ceased to display his respect for Sylla during his life-
time, and expressed it also after his death, by enforcing the
honourable interment of his corpse, in despite of Lepidus, and
by giving his daughter in marriage to his son Faustus. But
Agesilaus, upon a slight pretence, cast oS Lysander with reproach
and dishonour. Yet Sylla in fact had owed to Pompey serv'ices
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 him-
self, 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 com-
pliance 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 thou-
sand times as foreign and spurious, yet the race of the Eury-
pontidae 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 favour 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 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

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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 recept of
the scytala, he left the wars in Asia and returned into his
countiy. 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 honour 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 favour 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 exter-
minate 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 pre-
eminence 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 Ccesar, 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 defenceless, and fled;
whereas he ought either to have conquered in fight for the

Pompey and Agesilaus Compared 401

defence 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
terms 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, C«sar, 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 yoimg commander might by
clamour 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 countr}-, and
his tent the senate, styling the consuls, prastors, 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 \sTought 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 defence 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 Thes-
saly of a prudent delay before engaging. Heaven had riot ap-
pointed the Pharsaliaa fields to be the stage and theatre upon
which they should contend for the empire of Rome, neither was
he summoned thither by any herald upon challenge, with intima-
tion that he must either undergo the combat or surrender the

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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, LucuUus, 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 defence of the land, and sustained in Egypt also numerous
calumnies, slanders, and suspicions on the part of the king,
whom he counselled to abstain from a battle. And thus follow-
ing always what he had determined in his own judgment upon
mature advice, by that means he not only preserved the Egyp-
tians 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 com-
pulsion, 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 honourably, 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 he had
been brought over to assist-

Aiexanaer 403

ALEXANDER

It being my purpose to wTite 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 e^tomise the most celebrated parts of
their story, than to insist at large on every particular circum-
stance of it. It must be borne in mind that my design is not to
■wTite 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 Unes 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 indica-
tions of the souls of men, and while I endeavour 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, Alex-
ander descended from Hercules by Caranus, and from .-^^acus 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 countr\', and her father and mother
being both dead, soon after, with the consent of her brother,
Ar}'mbas, 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 warn-
ing 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

404 rmtarch s JLives

found lymg 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 coimtry having always been extremely addicted
to the enthusiastic Orphic rites, and the wild worship of Bacchus
(upon which account they were called Clodones, and Mimal-
lones), imitated in many things the practices of the Edonian and
Thracian women about Mount Haemus, from whom the word
tkreskeuein 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 in the mystic fans, sometimes winding themselves about the
sacred spears, and the women's chaplets, made a spectacle which
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 honour, above
aU other gods, to Ammon ; and was told he should one day lose
that eye with which he presumed to peep through the chink of
tine 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 oS
slandering me to Juno ? "

Alexander was bom the sixth of Hecatomba^on, 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 otlier 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.

Alexander 405

Just after Philip had taken Potidsea, he received these three
messages at one time, that Parmenio had overthrown the
lUyrians 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 addi-
tion 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 aSect to imitate,
the inclination of his head a httle 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
colour, passing iato ruddiness in his face and upon his breast.
Aristoxenus in his Memoirs tells us that a most agreeable odour
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 adust tempera-
ment of his body. For sweet smells, Theophrastus^conceives,
are produced by the concoction of moist humours by heat,
which is the reason that those parts of the world which are
driest and most burnt up afiord 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 glor}', 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 hb racing
chariots at the Olympic games engraven 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

466

Plutarch's Lives

seems in general to have looked with indifference, if not vith
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
encouragment 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 enter-
ing 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 import-
ance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it alto-
gether, he would tell his companions that his father would anti-
cipate 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 diminu-
tion 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 honour, than to one already
flourishing and settled, where his inheritance would be an in-
active life, and the mere enjoyment of wealth and luxury.

The care of his education, as it might be presumed, was com-
mitted 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 honourable
ofTice, 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.

Alexander 467

Philonicus the Thessalian brought the horse Bucephalus 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 endeavoured 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 coifipany fell a-laughmg; 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 hands, 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 only 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, " 0 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
endeavoured 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

468

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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,"

\Aie sent for Aristotle, the most learned and most celebrated philo-
sopher of his time, and rewarded him with a munificence pro-
portionable 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 exercise, he assigned
the temple of the Nymphs, near Mieza, where, to this very day,
they show you Aristotle's stone seats, and the sliady walks which
he was wont to frequent. It would appear that Alexander re-
ceived 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 treaties of
that kind, he wrote to him, using very plain language to him in
behalf of philosophy, the following letter. " Alexander to Aris-
totle, 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, sooth-
ing this passion for pre-eminence, speaks, in his excuse for him-
self, 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

Alexander 469

portable treasure of all military virtue and knowledge. WTien
he was in the upper Asia, being destitute of other books, he
ordered Harpalus to send him some; who furnished him with
Philistus's Histon.', a great many of the plays of Euripides,
Sophocles, and iEschylus, and some dithyrambic odes, composed"^
by Telestes and Philoxenus. For a while he loved and cherished
Aristotle no less, as he was wont to say himself, Aan 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 aSectionateness, 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 Mace-
donia, committing the charge of his seal to him ; who, not to sit
idle, reduced the rebellious Masdi, and having taken their chief
town by storm, drove out the barbarous inhabitants, and plant-
ing a colony of several nations in their room, called the place after
his own name, Alexandropolis. At the battle of Chseronea,
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 ofi 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

47° Plutarch's Lives

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 Alex-
ander reproachfully insulted over him : " See there," said he,
" the man who makes preparations to pass out of Europe intc
Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to another." Aftei
this debauch, he and his mother Olympias withdrew from Philip's
company, and when he had placed her in Epirus, he himsell
retired into lUyria.

About this time, Demaratus the Corinthian, an old friend oi
the family, who had the freedom to say anything among them
without offence, 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 im-
mediately sent for his son home, and by Demaratus 's mediation
prevailed with him to return. But this reconciliation lasted not
long; for when Pixodorus, viceroy of Caria, sent Aristocritus tc
treat for a match between his eldest daughter and Philip's son,
Arrhidseus, hoping by this alliance to secure his assistance upor
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 Arrhidseus. In
alarm at this, he despatched Thessalus, the tragic actor, intc
Caria, to dispose Pixodorus to slight Arrhidaeus, both as illegiti-
mate 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 oi
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. Noi
did this satisfy his resentment, for he wrote to the Corinthians

Alexander 471

to send Thessalus to him in chains^ and banished Harpalus, Near-
chus, Erigyius, and Ptolemy, his son's friends and favourites,
whom Alexander afterwards recalled and raised to great honour
and preferment.

Not long after this, Pausanias, having had an outrage done to
him at the instance of Attains 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
ilaid for the most part upon Olympias, who was said to have en-
couraged 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
iMedea —
1 " On husband, and on father, and on bride."

iHowever, 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
I 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 truckle to any,
to encourage all to trample on him. In pursuit of this opinion,
he reduced the barbarians to tranquillity, 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 corre-spondence with them, he
unmediately marched through the pass of Thermopylae, saying

4/2^ Plutarch's Lives

^ that to Demosthenes, who had called him a child while he was
in lUyria 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 pro-
claimed 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 pro-
clamation on their part invited all who would assert the liberty
K 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 pubhcly sold for slaves; and it is com-
puted that upwards of six thousand were put to the sword.

Among the other calamities that befell the city, it happened
that some Thracian soldiers, havii^ 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 astonishments
And when the king asked her who she was, " I am," said she,

I Alexander 473

" the sister of Theagenes, who fought the battle of Chaeronea with
jouT father Philip, and fell there in command for the liberty of
Greece." Alexander was so surprised, both at what she had done
land what she said, that he could not choose but give her and her
[children their freedom to go whither they pleased.

After thb he received the Athenians into favour, although they

ihad 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, ^\^lether 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 offences, but bade them look

; to their affairs with vigilance, remembering that if he should mis-

'' carry, they were likely to be the arbiters of Greece. Certain it

is, too, that in aftertime 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 \NTath 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 v.-as 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. WTiile

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

I coming to compliment him, he never so much as stirred out of

i the suburb called the Cranium, where Alexander found him

lying along in the sun. When he saw so much company near

him, he raised himseK a httle, and vouchsafed to look upon

Alexander; and when he kindly asked him whether he wanted

j anything, *' Yes," said he, " I would have you stand from between

I 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.

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Then he went to Delphi, to consult Apollo concerning th(
success of the war he had undertaken, and happening to come or
one of the forbidden days, when it was esteemed improper t(
give any answer from the oracle, he sent messengers to desire thi
priestess to do her office; and when she refused, on the plea of i
law to the contrary, he went up himself, and began to draw he]
by force into the temple, until tired and overcome with hi;
importunity, " My son," said she, " thou art invincible." Alex-
ander taking hold of what she spoke, declared he had receivet
such an answer as he wished for, and that it was needless t(
consult the god any further. Among other prodigies thai
attended the departure of his army, the image of Orpheus ai
Libethra, made of cypress-wood, was seen to sweat in greai
abundance, to the discouragement of many. But Aristandej
told him that, far from presaging any ill to him, it signified h(
should perform acts so important and glorious as would mak<
the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat tc
describe and celebrate them.

His army, by their computation who make the smallest
amount, consisted of thirty thousand foot and four thousanc
horse; and those who make the most of it, speak but of forty-
three thousand foot and three thousand horse. Aristobulu!
says, he had not a fund of above seventy talents for their pay
nor had he more than thirty days' provision, if we may believf
Duris; Onesicritus tells us he was two hundred talents in debt
However narrow and disproportionable the beginnings of so vasi
an undertaking might seem to be, yet he would not embark hii
army until he had informed himself particularly what means hi;
friends had to enable them to follow him, and supplied whai
they wanted, by giving good farms to some, a village to one, anc
the revenue of some hamlet or harbour-town to another. S<
that at last he had portioned out or engaged almost all the roya
property; which giving Perdiccas an occasion to ask him whal
he would leave himself, he replied, his hopes. " Your soldiers,'
replied Perdiccas, " will be your partners in those," and refusec
to accept of the estate he had assigned him. Some others ol
his friends did the like, but to those who willingly received oi
desired assistance of him, he liberally granted it, as far as hi;
patrimony in Macedonia would reach, the most part of whict
was spent in these donations.

With such vigorous resolutions, and his mind thus disposed
he passed the Hellespont, and at Troy sacrificed to Minerva, anc
honoured the memory of the heroes who were buried there^

Alexander 475

I'ith solemn libations; especially Achilles, whose gravestone he
mointed, and with his friends, as the ancient custom is, ran
laked about his sepulchre, and crowned it with garlands, de-
laring how happy he esteemed him, in having while he lived so
iiithful a friend, and when he was dead, so famous a poet to pro-
laim his actions. WTiile he was viewing the rest of the antiqui-
iies and curiosities of the place, being told he might see Paris's
larp, if he pleased, he said he thought it not worth looking on,
j ut he should be glad to see that of Achilles, to which he used to
ling the glories and great actions of brave men.

In the meantime, Darius's captains, having collected large
orces, were encamped on the further bank of the river Granicus,
nd it was necessan,- to fight, as it were, in the gate of Asia for an
ntrance into it. The depth of the river, with the unevenness
nd difficult ascent of the opposite bank, which was to be gained
y main force, was apprehended by most, and some pronounced
t an improper time to engage, because it was unusual for the
ings of Macedonia to march with their forces in the month
ailed Daesius. But Alexander broke through these scruples,
slling them they should call it a second Artemisius. And when
^armenio advised him not to attempt anything that day, because
t was late, he told him that he should disgrace the Hellespont
hould he fear the Granicus. And so, without more saying, he
mmediately took the river with thirteen troops of horse, and
dvanced against whole showers of darts thrown from the steep
pposite side, which was covered with armed multitudes of the
nemy's horse and foot, notwithstanding the disadvantage of the
round and the rapidity of the stream ; so that the action seemed
0 have more frenzy and desperation in it, than of prudent con-
.uct. However, he persisted obstinately to gain the passage,
nd at last with much ado malHng his way up the banks, which
/ere extremely muddy and slipperv', he had instantly to join in
. mere confused hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, before
te could draw up his men, who were still passing over, into any
'rder. For the enemy pressed upon him with loud and warlike
lutcries; and charging horse against horse, with their lances,
fter they had broken and spent these, they fell to it with their
words. And Alexander, being easily known by his buckler, and
i. large plume of white feathers on each side of his helmet, was
ittacked on all sides, yet escaped wounding, though his cuirass
vas pierced by a javelin in one of the joinings. And Rhoesaces
md Spithridates, two Persian commanders, falling upon him at
aace, he avoided one of them, and struck at Rhoesaces, who had

47^ Plutarch's Lives

a good cuirass on, with such force that, his spear breaking in hi
hand, he was glad to betake himself to his dagger. WTiile the'
were thus engaged, Spithridates came up on one side of him, an(
raising himself upon his horse, gave him such a blow with hi
battle-axe on the helmet that he cut off the crest of it, with on
of his plumes, and the helmet was only just so far strong enougl
to save him, that the edge of the weapon touched the hair of hi
head. But as he was about to repeat his stroke, Clitus, calle(
the black Clitus, prevented him, by running him through th
body with his spear. At the same time Alexander despatchei
Rhoesaces with his sword. While the horse were thus danger
ously engaged, the Macedonian phalanx passed the river, an(
the foot on each side advanced to fight. But the enemy hardl
sustaining the first onset, soon gave ground and fled, all but th
mercenary Greeks, who, making a stand upon a rising ground
desired quarter, which Alexander, guided rather by passion thai
judgment, refused to grant, and charging them himself first, ha(
his horse (not Bucephalus, but another) killed under him. An(
this obstinacy of his to cut off these experienced desperate mei
cost him the lives of more of his own soldiers than all the battl
before, besides those who were wounded. The Persians lost ii
this battle twenty thousand foot and two thousand five hundre<
horse. On Alexander's side, Aristobulus says there were no
wanting above four-and-thirty, of whom nine were foot-soldiers
and in memory of them he caused so many statues of brass, o
Lysippus's making, to be erected. And that the Grecians migh
participate in the honour of his victory he sent a portion of th
spoils home to them, particularly to the Athenians three hundrec
bucklers, and upon all the rest he ordered this inscription to bi
set: " Alexander the son of Philip, and the Grecians, except th(
Lacedaemonians, won these from the barbarians who inhabi
Asia." All the plate and purple garments, and other things o
the same kind that he took from the Persians, except a verj
small quantity which he reserved for himself, he sent as a presem
to his mother.

This battle presently made a great change of affairs tc
Alexander's advantage. For Sardis itself, the chief seat of th(
barbarian's power in the maritime provinces, and many othei
considerable places, were surrendered to him ; only Halicarnassui
and Miletus stood out, which he took by force, together with th(
territory about them. After which he was a little unsettled ir
his opinion how to proceed. Sometimes he thought it best tc
find out Darius as soon as he could, and put all to the hazard ol

Alexander 477

la 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
imade himself secure of the resources of these provinces. While
ihe 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 of 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 expedi-
tion 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 favour, 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 imcovered, 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 favoured more ?
Each man 1 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 un-
usual 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 market-
place, after he had supped, having drunk pretty plentifully, he
went and danced about it, and cro\vned it with garlands, honour-
ing 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 Phr>'gians, 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
cornel-tree, which whosoever should untie, the mhabitants had
a tradition, that for him was resen-ed the empire of the world.
Most authors tell the story that Alexander finding himself un-
able to imtie the knot, the ends of which were secretly twisted
round and folded up within it, cut it asunder with his sword*

478

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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 con-
fident, 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 Mace-
donian 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 supematurally 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 ex-
ceedingly 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
Acamanian, 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

Alexander 479

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 con-
fidence 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 apprehen-
sion. 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 Mace-
donians, 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-
rocm enough when it engages with a lesser force. Darius,
instead of taking his counsel, told him he was afraid the enemy
would endeavour 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 toward you." But Amyntas's counsel was to no pur-
pose, 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 him-
self too far in a coimtry 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

480

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was not kinder to Alexander in the choice of the ground, than he
was careful to improve it to his advantage. For bemg much
inferior in numbers, so far from allowing himself to be outflanked,
he stretched his right wing much further out tlian 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 Anti-
pater of the battle, though indeed he owns he was wounded in
the thigh with a 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 an 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 odours with which the whole place was ex-
quisitely perfumed, and from thence passed into a paviHon of
great size and height, where the couches and tables and prepara-
tions 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 lively 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

Alexander 481

iadies, 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 gar-
ments 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 sufiering
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 iminterrupted, than in the camp of an
enemy. Nevertheless Darius's wife was accounted the most
beautiful princess then hving, as her husband the tallest and
liandsomest man of his time, and the daughters were not un-
worthy 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, with good quahties, added to the
solicitations and encouragement of Parmenio, as Aristobulus
teUs us, made him the more willing to attach himself to so agree-
able 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 eyesores. 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, ^\'hen 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 inamedi-
ately 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

U Q

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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, w^hom 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 read-
ing. In marches that required no great haste, he would practise
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 begin-
ning to be dark, and was wonderfully circumspect at meals that
every one who sat with him should be served alike and witli

Alexander 48 j

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, how-
ever, 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 con-
siderable 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 splendour of hving, 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 posses-
sion, 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 hands, 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 favourer of Alex-

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ander. Another time Alexander dreamed he saw a satyr mock-
ing him at a distance, and when he endeavoured 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 sooth-
sayers, making two words of Satyrus, assured him that Tyre
should be his own. The inhabitants at this time show a spring
of water, near which they say Alexander slept when he fancied
the satjT appeared to him.

While the body of the army lay before Tyre, he made an ex-
cursion 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 labours
himself to cheer and support the Macedonians in any distress, he
ran straight to one of the nearest fires, and with his dagger
despatching two of the barbarians that sat by it, snatched up a
lighted brand, and returned with it to his own men. They im-
mediately 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

Alexander 485

ordering the trumpets to sound, attacked the walls more seriously
than he at first intended. The sharpness of the assault so in-
flamed the rest of his forces who were left in the camp, that they
could not hold from advancing to second it, which they per-
formed with so much vigour that the T>Tians 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, when 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, Geo-
patra, and the rest of his friends, not omitting his preceptor
Leonidas, on whom he bestowed five hundred talents' weight of
frankincense and an hundred of m\TTh, 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 to be so profuse till he was master of the
countries which those sweet giims and spices come from. So
Alexander now wrote to him, saying, " We have sent you abim-
dance 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 \inprofitable companion to him in his ex-
pedition. 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."

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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
mainland by a mole. As soon as he saw the commodious situa-
tion of the place, it being a long neck of land, stretching like an
isthmus between large lagoons and shallow waters one side and
the sea on the other, the latter at the end of it making a spacious
harbour, 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 semi-circular 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 re-
stored 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 travelling
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 sur-
mounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to be always
victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and nature her-
self 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 accoimt of

Alexander 487

those occurrences. For first, plentiful rains that fell preserved
them from any fear of perishing by drought, and, allaying the
extreme dr>'ness 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 repect, 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 un-
punished, 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, " 0 Paidion," by a slip in pronunciation ended with the
s instead of the n, and said " 0 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 Eg^'pt, he most approved of this, that all men are
governed by God, because in everj'thing, 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 aSectation of^
di\'inity, except it were once in writing to the Athenians about
Samos, when he tells them that he should not himself have

488

Plutarch's Lives

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 anythmg 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 pro-
vinces." 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 labours 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 him-
pelf 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 splendour 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 Nico-
creon. 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 Nicocrean. Thessalus was most
favoured 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

Alexander 489

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 theatre, 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 proposi-
tions 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 Par-
menio." 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 immedi-
ately 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 I
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.? " " 0 king," replied the eunuch, " as to her funeral
rites, or any respect or honour 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 hght 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 honoured
also with the tears of your very enemies; for Alexander is as
gentle after victory as he is terrible in the field." At the hear-
ing of ttiese words, such was the grief and emotion of Darius's

49^ Plutarch's Lives

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 dishonour 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 valour 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 occa-
sions, 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

Alexander 491

parties, and named the commander of one of them Alexander,
and 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 contention, they fought in good earnest with stones
and clubs, so that they had much ado to part them; till Alex-
ander, 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 \sTiters 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 oa
a swift camel, in gratitude to his beast, settled him at this place,
with an allowance of certain villages and rents for his mainte-
nance. 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 liis 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 moun-
tains shining with the lights and fires which were made by the
barbarians, and heard the uncertain and confused sounds 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 enter-
prise 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, how-
ever, regarded as an evidence that he confided in his present

492 Plutarch's Lives

condition, and acted on a true judgment of the future, not wish-
ing 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 him-
self 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 ? "
1 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 Mazseus had sent a detachment round about to fall
upon those who guarded the baggage, which so disturbed Par-
menio that he sent messengers to acquaint Alexander that the
camp and baggage would be all lost unless he immediately
relieved 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 honour.
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 a coat
of the Sicilian make, girt close about him, and over that a breast-

Alexander 493

piece of thickly quilted linen, which was taken among other booty
at the battle of Issus. The helmet, which was made by Theo-
philus, 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 armour. It was
a work of the ancient Helicon, and had been presented to him
by the Rhodians, as a 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 Bucephalus, 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 be pleased to assist and
strengthen the Grecians. At the same time the augur Aris-
tander, 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 flight towards the enemy;
which so animated the beholders, that after mutual encourage-
ments 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 weU 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 Alex-
ander'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

494 Plutarch's Lives

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 frightened
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, Par-
menio is on all hands accused of having been sluggish and un-
serviceable 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 over-
throw 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. Eager to gain honour
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 country-
men 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
honour 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,

/iiexanaer 495

\Thich 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 for a good while after. Thus it is
not without some plausibility that they endeavour 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

496

Plutarch's Lives

manner, however, of the production of naphtha admits of a
diversity of opinion ... or 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 an hundred and ninety years, and yet kept its
colour 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 lustre.
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 fore-
told 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 camek

Alexander 497

could well cany 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 press-
ing 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 great-
ness 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 re-
fresh 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 Greeks 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 ever\'
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 mis-
becoming her native country's clmracter, though somewhat too
lofty for her own condition. She said it was indeed some recom-
pense 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,
i and so seconded by the encouragement and eagerness of the
! company, that the king himself, persuaded to be of the party,
j started from his seat, and with a chaplet of flowers on his head
j and a lighted torch in his hand, led them the way, while they
I went after him in a riotous manner, dancing and making loud

49^ Plutarch's Lives

-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 soldiers 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 inter-
cede 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

Alexander 499

she tells him he should reward and honour 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 pur-
pose, and he never communicated her letters to anybody, unless
it were one which he opened when Hephsestion 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 hps. Mazaeus, who was the most consider-
alale 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 wTOte 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 on this account, he bore her ill-
humour 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 thou-
sand such letters as these."

But when he perceived his favourites grow so luxurious and
extravagant in their way of living and expenses that Hagnon,
the Teian, wore silver nails in his shoes, that Leonnatus em-
ployed 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 single battles did not know by experi-
ence, that those who labour sleep more sweetly and soundly than
those who are laboured for, and could fail to see by comparing
the Persians' maimer of living with their own that it was the
most abject and slavish condition to be voluptuous, but the most
noble and royal to undergo pain and labour. He argued with
them further, how it was possible for any one who pretended to
be a soldier, either to look well after his horse, or to keep his

500 Plutarch's Lives

armour bright and in good order, who thought it much to let his
hands be serviceable to what was nearest to him, his own body,
" Ai'e 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 en-
countered 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 Uon 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 occa-
sions 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 Hephsestion, 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'a
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 do so lilcewise.
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

Alexander 501

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. \\^en he sent the old and infirm
soldiers home, Eurylochus, a citizen of JEgx, got his name en-
rolled among the sick, though he ailed nothing, which being
j discovered, he confessed he was in love with a young woman
named Telesippa, and wanted to go along with her to the sea-
side. Alexander inquired to whom the woman belonged, and
being told she was a free courtesan, " I will assist you," said he
to Eur^dochus, " 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-bom."

It is surprising to consider upon what slight occasions he would
write letters to serve his friends. As when he wTote 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 com-
mended Peucestes for apprehending Nicon, a servant of Cratenis;
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 trans-
ported 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 an
helmet and offered it him. He asked them to whom they were

502 Plutarch s Lives

carrymg the water; they told him to their children, addmg, 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
tliere for want of drivers, they endeavoured 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. How-
ever, 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 Alex-
ander," 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 Alex-
ander came up to them, he showed manifest tokens of sorrow,
and taking ofi his own cloak, threw it upon the body to cover it.
And some time 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

Alexander 503

less than the Euxine, with water, however, sweeter than that of
Dther seas, but could leam 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
Bucephalus, took them prisoners, and carried the horse away
with them, at which Alexander was so much vexed that he sent
nil herald to let them know he would put them all to the sword,
men, women, and children, without mercy, if they did not restore
jiiim. But on their doing so, and at the same time surrendering
'their cities into his hands, he not only treated them kindly, but
jalso paid a ransom for his horse to those who took him.
I From hence he marched into Parthia, where not having much
Ito do, he first put on the barbaric dress, perhaps with the view
jf making the work of civilising 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 Uttle 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
lin 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, inso-

504 Plutarch's Lives

much 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 diarrhoea.

Here many affirm that the Amazon came to give him a visit.
So Qitarchus, 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 Alex-
ander 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 en-
gaged in an expedition which would carry him far from thence, it
would be wiser to depend upon the good-will which might arise
from intermixture and association as a means of maintaining
tranquillity, than upon force and compulsion. In order to this,

Alexander 505

ne chose out thirty thousand boys, whom he put under masters
:o teach them the Greek tongue, and to train them up to arms
n the Macedonian discipline. As for his marriage with Roxana,
vhose youthfulness and beautj' had charmed him at a drinking
intertainment, where he first happened to see her taking part
n a dance, it was, indeed, a love affair, yet it seemed at the
;ame time to be conducive to the object he had in hand. For it
H'atified the conquered people to see him choose a wife from
unong themselves, and it made them feel the most lively affec-
;ion for him, to find that in the only passion which he, the most
remperate of men, was overcome by, he yet forebore till he could
Dbtain her in a lawful and honourable way.

Noticing also that among his chief friends and favourites,
riephsestion most approved aU that he did, and complied with
aid imitated him in his change of habits, while Craterus con-
tinued strict in the observation of the customs and fashions of
lis own country, he made it his practice to employ the first in ali
transactions with the Persians, and the latter when he had to do
mth the Greeks or Macedonians. And in general he showed
[iiore affection for Hephssstion, 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 m
secret a grudge to each other, and at times quarrelled openly, so
much so that once in India they drew upon one anotiier, and
were proceeding in good earnest, with their friends on each side
to second them, when Alexander rode up and publicly reproved
Hephsestion, calling him fool and madman, not to be sensible
that without his favour 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 Amnon 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 ye «ure 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 any one 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 anv
plate, then," said he, " or any clothes of mine to sell ? " But he

5o6 Plutarch's Lives

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
hajidsome 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 pur-
pose. He, thus unwittingly caught in a snare, to gratify some-
times a fit of anger, sometimes a 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, pro-
fessing that the king was engaged with affairs of more import-
ance. 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

Alexander 507

first told about Limnus's conspiracy, and by the way let
Philotas's neglifence 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 dis-
composed, 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. WTien 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 Hephsestion, 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 counsellors 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
^tolians, who stood in fear of Alexander, because they had
destroyed the town of the CEniadae; on being informed of which,
Alexander had said the children of the Q^niadse need not revenge
their father's quarrel, for he would himself take care to punish
the ^tolians.

Not long after this happened, the deplorable end of Clitus,
which, to those who barely hear the matter, 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,

5o8 Plutarch's Lives

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 beauti-
ful, 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 sacri-
ficing 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
offence 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 aind wilful temper, was
so nettled that he could hold no longer, saying it was not well
done to expose the Macedonians 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 ; 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

Alexander 509

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 Pardian, 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 demigods 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 freebom 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 tnmipeter to
sound, giving him a blow with his clenched fist for not instantly
obeying him ; though aften^'ards the same man was commended
for disobeying an order which would have put the whole army
into timiult 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 vanishmg, 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

5IO Plutarch's Lives

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 Anax-
archus 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 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 favour, 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 met at an enter-
tainment 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 railler}' 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; and
confirming what he had professed about the object he had in his
journey to Alexander, that it was only to get his countrymen

Alexander 5 1 r

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 pretence 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 be 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, tliat instead of his eloquence,
he had only m.ade his ill-will appear in what he had spoken.
Hermippus assures us that one Stroebus, a servant whom Callis-
thenes 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

512 rlutarch s Lives

positively refusing, as he did, to pay adoration ; and by speaking
out openly against that which the best and gravest of the Mace-
donians 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 con-
versation 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
Ilephaestion'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 honoured 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

Alexander 5 1 3

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 harbour 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 appre-
hended, 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, Demaratas of Corinth, now quite an old
man, had made a great efiort, 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 ^vath 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, vnth 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

U R

514 Plutarch's Lives

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 colour of a tiara upon the head, and testicles
on each side; which portent Alexander regarded with such dis-
like, 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 Mace-
donian, 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 oflf, 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. WTiat-
ever might be the cause, certain it is that Alexander was wonder-
fully 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 favoured 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
labours.

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 pro-
visions. 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, im-
pregnable 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

Alexander 515

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, " WTiat a miserable man,"
said he, " am I, that I have not learned to swim ! " and then was
hardly dissuaded from endeavouring 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
armour, without any one 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, marvelling at his magnanimity and courtesy,
asked him what his countrymen should do to merit his friend-
ship. " 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 pro-
ducing 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 dis-
course pleased Alexander so much that, embracing him, " Do
you think," said he to him, " your kind words and courteous
behaviour will bring you off in this interview without a contest?

5i6

Plutarch's Lives

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, under-
took to defend them, and did it so bravely, that they put Alex-
ander 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 honour that became a king. Nor was he less in-
commoded 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 clamour 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 armour, up to the breast in water,
and that then he advanced with his horse about twenty furlongs

Alexander 517

before his foot, concluding that if the enemy charged him with
their cavalry he should be too strong for them; if with their
foot, hb 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 Mace-
donians 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 centre, 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 ufKjn 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. \Vhen 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 ever\'thing. And Alexander, accordingly, not
only suffered him to govern his own kingdom as satrap under
hmiself, 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, Bucephalus died.

Si8

Plutarch's Lives

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 Eucephalia, 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 favourite dog, Peritas, which
he had brought up himself. So Sotion assures us he was in-
formed 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 Alex-
ander'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 the kings of the
Gandaritans and Prassians 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 Andro-
cottus, 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 aftertimes, and to exaggerate his glory with
posterity, such as arms larger than were really worn, and
mangers for horses, with bits and 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 Pra^sians even
in our time do honour 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

Alexander 519

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 tow-boats and rafts to be built, in which
he fell gently down the rivers at his leisure, yet so that his navi-
gation was neither unprofitable nor inactive. For by several
descents upon the bank, he made himself master of the fortified
towns, and consequently of the covmtry 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 of! 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 armour when he came to the ground made the
barbarians think they saw raj'S 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 armour with their swords and spears. And one who stood
further off drew a bow with such just strength that the arrow,
findmg 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 despatch 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 barbarians. 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, stiU, 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

520 Plutarch's Lives

arrow, which was of wood, and so with much trouble got off his
cuirass, they came to cut 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 clamouring outside in their eager-
ness 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 the 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 pro-
duced the largest beasts; 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 the 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 im-
possible 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 com-

Alexander 521

manded 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, 0 king," replied the gymno-
sophist, " 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 CvTiic's disciples, desiring them to come to him. Calanus, it
b 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 civiHty, 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 saluta-
tion, 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
shrivelled 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 mean-
ing 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 sacri-
ficed, 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 expedi-
tion, 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 his men, so

522 Plutarch's Lives

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 disease, 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 ranlc and unsavoury, 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 neighbouring kings
and governors of provinces, hearing of his approach, had taken
care to provide. When he had here refreshed his army, he con-
tinued his march through Carmania, feasting all the way for
seven days together. He with his most intimate friends ban-
queted and revelled 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 armour, 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 re-
sounded with music of pipes and flutes, with harping and sing-
ing, 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
favourite Bagoas, having gained the victory, crossed the theatre
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 shout-
ing till Alexander put his arms round him and kissed him.

Here his admiral, Ncarchus, came to him, and delighted him
60 with the narrative of his voyage, that he resolved himself to
sail out of the mouth of the Euphrates with a great fleet, with

Alexander 523

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 provisions everywhere of seamen and pUots. 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. \\"hen 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 despatched Nearchus again to his fleet, to carr}' the
war into the maritime provinces, and as he marched that way
himself he punished those conamanders 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 pro-
visions 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 Cjtus's sepulchre opened and rifled, he put
Polymachus, who did it, to death, though he was a man of some
distinction, a bom 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: " 0 man, whosoever
thou art, and from whencesoever thou comest (for I know thou
wilt come), I am Cyrus, the founder of the Persian em.pire; 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

524 Plutarch's Lives

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 it an entertainment in honour 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

Alexander 525

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 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, aiter he had given them a great deal
of reproachful language in his passion, he drove them away,
and conmiitted the watch to Persians, out of whom he chose
his guards and attendants. When the Macedonians saw hini
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 only 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 him-
self a great while, after a gentle reproof spoke kindly to them,
and dismissed those who were unserviceable with magnificent
rewards, and with his recommendation to Antipater, that when
they came home, at all public shows and in the theatres, they
should sit on the best and foremost seats, crowned with chaplets
of flowers. He ordered, also, that the children of those who had

526

Plutarch's Lives

lost their lives in his service should have their father's pay
continued to them.

When he came to Ecbatana in Media, and had despatched his
most urgent affairs, he began to divert himself again with spec-
tacles 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 Hephajstion'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 theatre, 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 mis-
fortune, 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 battle-
ments of the neighbouring 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 honour 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 Hephsestion'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 work-
manship and the singularity of the design might outdo the ex-
pense, 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 decHned 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, how-
ever, took no thought of it, and went on, and when he came near

Alexander 527

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 ApoUodorus, 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 Pytha-
goras 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 pro-
digies. 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 himseK, he told them his name was Diony-
sius, that he was of Messenia, that for some crime of which he was
accused he was brought thither from the seaside, 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, lolaus,
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 defence
of Antipater to those who accused him, but Alexander interrupt-
ing 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

528 Plutarch's Lives

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 J
influence, his mind grew so disturbed and so easily alarmed that, «
if the lea.st 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 Hephaistion
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 a 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. Aristo-
bulus 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 Dassius.

But the journals give the following record. On the eighteenth
day 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 at 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

Alexander 529

next day the fever was very violent, and he had himself removed
and his bed set by the great bath, and discoursed with his prin-
cipal 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 httle, 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 clamours to the gates, and menaced his
friends so that they were forced to admit them, and let them
ail pass through unarmed along by his bedside. The same day
Python and Seleucus were despatched 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 lolaus,
then dead, as if he had given it him. But those who affirm that
Aristotle counselled 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, distilled 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
honoured 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

530 Plutarch's Lives

his person, exercised the chief authority. Arrhidseus, 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.

C^SAR

After Sylla became master of Rome, he wished to make Csesar
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 confis-
cating 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 13ithynia, After a short stay there with Nicomedes,
the king, in his passage back he was taken near the island of
Pharmacusa by some of the pirates, who, at that time, with
large fleets of ships and innumerable smaller vessels, infested the
seas everywhere.

Caesar 531

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 despatched 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 Uttle 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 he made applica-
tion to Junius, who was then governor of Asia, to whose office it
belonged, as prastor, 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 httle dreamt he was in earnest.

In the meantime Sylla's f>ower 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

532 Plutarch's Lives

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 mal-
administration, 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 prosecu-
tion of Publius Antonius for corrupt practices, before Marcus
LucuUus, praetor of Macedonia. In this course he so far suc-
ceeded, 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 favour, and he won no less upon
the affections of the people by the aflfability of his manners and
address, in which he showed 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 splendour
of his manner of life contributed little by little to create and in-
crease 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 estab-
lished 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 humour 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 favour 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

I

Caesar 533

tx) 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
Csesar, the people answered with loud shouts and clapping in his
favour, expressing their joyful surprise and satisfaction at his
having, as it were, brought up again from the grave those
honours 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 favour, and by
this show of affection he won npnn the feelmgs of the people,
whoJooked_upiHi him as. a rnan of great-tenderness and kindness
oT heart! After he had buried his wife, he went as quaestor into
Spain under one of the prastors, named Vetus, whom he honoured
ever after, and made his son his own qujestor, 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 a
short and uncertain return; but in truth he was purchasing
what was of the greatest value at an inconsiderable rate. \Mien
he was made sur\'eyor of the Appian Way, he disbursed, besidesx
the public money, a great sum out of his private purse; and \
when he was aedile, he provided such a number of gladiators,
that he entertained the people with three hundred and twenty
single combats, and by his great hberality 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 every one was eager
to find out new offices and new honours for him in return for hiy/
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 gedile, he ordered images of Marius and figures of
Victory, with trophies in their hands, to be carried privately in

534 Plutarch's Lives

the night and placed in the capitol. Next morning when some
saw them bright with gold and beautifully made, with inscrip-
tions 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 honours 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 humour, and would quietly give way to his mnova-
tions. 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 any one,
since with the people's good favour he would ere long 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
honour to lose, was the most apprehensive of the event, sent
to Caesar to buy him oflF, 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, " to-day 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

Cassar 535

fault with Cicero for having let Caesar escape, when in the con-
spiracy 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 the}- 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
•uspicions he lay under, and found great clamours raised against

536

Plutarch's Lives

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 m Csesar, persuaded the senate to give them a
monthly allowance of corn, an expedient which put the common-
wealth 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 prsetorship, 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 Csesar'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,

Cassar 537

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 Qodius, 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 aU 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 offended,
but also SLgainst 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 com-
bination of the nobility, and defended Qodius, 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.
Cassar replied, " I wished my wife to be not so much as sus-
pected." Some say that Ca^ar spoke this as his real thought,
others, that he did it to gratify the people, who were very
earnest to save Clodius. Qodius, 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 condemn-
ing him, nor in disgrace with the nobihty by acquitting him.
Csesar, in the meantime, being out of his praetorship, had got

538 Plutarch's Lives

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 Csesar's youthful vigour and heat to sustain the opposi-
tion against Pompey. Crassus took upon him to satisfy those
creditors who were most uneasy to him, and would not be put
ofif any longer, and engaged himself to the amount of eight
hundred and thirty talents, upon which Csesar was now at
liberty to go to his province. In his journey, as he was cross-
ing the Alps, and passing by a small village of the barbarians
with but few inhabitants, and those wretchedly poor, his com-
panions 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 govern-
ment. 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 honourable name of Imperator.

There is a law among the Romans, that whoever desires the
honour of a triumph must stay without the city and expect his

C^sar 539

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 Csesar had
prevaUed 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 sp>eaking. Up)on 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
apf)earance 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
quarrelling 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 counsellor.

Thus Caesar, being doubly supported by the interests of
Crassus and Pompey, was promoted to the consulship, and
triumphantly proclaimed with Calpumius Bibulus. Wlien 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 planta-
tion of colonies and the division of lands, siinply to please the
commonalty. The best and most honourable of the senators
opfHjsed it, upon which, as he had long wished for nothing more
than for such a colourable pretext, he loudly protested how much
it was against his will 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 hence-
forth 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

540 Plutarch's Lives

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 lUyricum, and the command of four legions
for five years. Cato made some attempts against these pro-
ceedings, but was seized and led ofE on the way to prison by
Caesar, who expected that 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 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 them-
selves. 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

Caesar 541

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 on 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 j
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 MeteUi, 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
ever)'^ 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 enemy whom he defeated ; one
man, because of the wildness and periidiousness 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 nijjch 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 withstand-
ing 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;

542 Plutarch's Lives

and having received one hundred and thirty darts upon his
target, called to the enemy, as though he would surrender him-
self. 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 Csesar stood and looked on, threw himself into the midst
of them, and after many signal demonstrations of his valour,
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 m 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 quasstor, 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 honour and passion for distinction were inspired
into them and cherished in them by Caesar himself, who, by his
unsparing distribution of money and honours, 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
valour, and that he looked upon all he gave to deserving soldiers
as so much mcrease to his own riches. Added to this also, there
was no danger to which he did not willingly expose himself, no
labour from which he pleaded an exemption. His contempt of
danger was not so much wondered at by his soldiers because
they knew how much he coveted honour. 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 m?.n, 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 constitu-
tion a pretext for his ease, but rather used war as the best physic
against his mdispositions; whilst, by indefatigable journeys,
coarse diet, frequent lodging in the field, and continual laborious

Cassar 543

exercise, he struggled with his diseases and fortified his body
against all attacks. He slept generally in his chariots or Utters,
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 him 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 despatch.
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 honour
should be given up to the greater men, and necessary accommo-
dations 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

544 Plutarch's Lives

unexpectedly set upon him as he was conducting his army to a
confederate town. He succeeded, however, in making his re-
treat 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 de-
fended 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 gather-
ing in a body all the barbarians that had escaped out of the
battle, above one himdred thousand in number, and obliging
them to re-occupy the country which they had deserted and the
cities which they had burnt. This he did for fear the Germans
should pass it and possess themselves of the land whilst it lay
uninhabited.

His second war was in defence of the Gauls against the
Germans, though some time before he had made Ariovistus,
their king, recognised at Rome as an ally. But they were very
insufferable neighbours 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 find-
ing his officers timorous, and especially those of the young
nobility who came along with him in hopes of turning their cam-
paigns 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 bar-
barians, whom he did not expect to find an enemy more formid-
able 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 vigour and zeal, followed him many days' journey, till they
encamped within two hundred furlongs of the enemy. Ario-
vistus'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 defence of their own subjects, he

Caesar 545

was the more sxirprised 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 fut\ire by
observing the eddies of rivers, and taking signs from the wind-
ings 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 appre-
hensions, rather than sit still and wait their time. Accordingly
he made his approaches to the strongholds 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; £l11 which space was covered with spoils and
bodies of the slaim 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 favour;
great numbers coming to him continually, and always finding
their requests answered; for he never failwi to dismiss all with
present pledges of his kindness in hand, and further hopes for
the future. And during all this tisfijif ihe wat iivG&ul, Pompey
never observed how Caesar was on the one hnT\<\ using the arms
of^Rome to effect his conquests, and on the other was gaining
over and securing to himself the favour 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 countr)', were revolted,
and had got together a great many thousand men in arms, he
immediately set out and took his way hither with great expedi-
tion, 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 di\'ision of them. For though their numbers
were great, yet they made but a slender defence, 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
u s

54^ Plutarch's Lives

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 pre-
pared 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,
m 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 dovra fighting in their defence.
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 Csesar
gave additional lustre to successes achieved by him. He now.
after settling ever>'thing 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 pro-consul 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 follow-
ing 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

Caesar 547

persons who had received so much money from Desar 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 com-
pulsion 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 de-
claimed 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, CaesaxLretumala^m to his forces inj^^ij, when 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 Ten-
teritae. Of the war with the people, Gesar 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 guUt which ^is 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 thou-
sand cut oflF; those few who escaped were sheltered by the
Sugambri, a people of Germany. Caesar took hold of this pre-
tence to invade the Germans, being at the same time ambitious
of the honour of being the Erst 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 particxilar 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.

S48

Plutarch's Lives

successfully finished his 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. yBut 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^i 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 un-
able 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
labour of a child by Pompey. Caesar and Pompey both were
much afiiicted with her death, nor were their friends less dis-
turbed, 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 them-
selves masters of the forts where they lay. The greatest and
strongest party of the rebels, under the command of Abriorix,
cut ofi Cotta and Titurius with all their men, while a force sixty

Cassar 549

thousand strong besieged the legion under the command of
Cicero, and had abnost taken it by storm, the Roman soldiers
being all wounded, and having quite spent themselves by a
defence 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 a handful
of men. Caesar, to increase their presumption, seemed to avoid
fighting, and still marched oS, 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 in 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 was
in those parts, both as regards the number of men in the vigour
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 im-
practicable for Caesar to make any attempt upon the insurgents*
Many tribes had revolted together, the chief of them being the
Arvemi and Camutini; 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

II S2

550 Plutarch's Lives

as those that He 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 im-
mediately 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
honoured by them, declared against him, and joined the rebels,
to the great discouragement of his army. Accordingly he re-
moved thence, and passed the country of the Ligones, 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 ex-
pressed. 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 if these forces should join, his affairs would be

Caesar 551

entirely ruined. The danger that he underwent before Alesia
justly gained him great honour on many accounts., and gave him
an opportunity of showing greater instances of his valour 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 to the town, should be strangers to it. For
e\'en 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 GaUic fashion. So soon did so vast an army
dissolve and vanish like a ghost or dream, the greatest part of
them being kUled 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 armour on, and adorning his horse, rode out
of the gates, and made a turn about Caesar as he was sitting, then
quitting his horse, threw off his armour, and remained quietly
sitting 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 Cassar 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 im-
proved 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

552 Plutarch's Lives

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 blood of
men killed upon the spot, they Ifift 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 thank-
ful 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 with-
held 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 everything, 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 favourable

CaEsar 553

report of Caesar, and flattered Pompey himself with false sug-
gestions that he was wished for by Csesar's army; and though
his affairs here were in some embarrassment through the en\'y
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
exf)editions, and so suspicious of his designs for a monarchy.
Ufwn 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 Csesar 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 Csesar a longer time in
his government, clapj>ed hb hand on the hilt of his sword and
said, " But this shall."

Yet the demands which Caesar made had the fairest colours
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. \Vhen Curio made these pro-
posals to the p>eople 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
tribvme, 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, aU 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, Illj-ricum, and two legions,

554 Plutarch's Lives

till he should stand a second time for consul, Cicero, the orator,
who was lately returned from Cilicia, endeavoured 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 pro-
vinces 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 pretence 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 prepara-
tions. 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 9
much in his mind when he considered the greatness of the enter- m

Cassar 555

prise 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 imnaturally
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 succour 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 neighbouring 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
y prospect of the change altogether conceal their feelings, but when
\^ey 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,
sufl^iciently disturbed of himself, was yet more perplexed by the
clamours 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

556 Plutarch's Lives

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 him-
self 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 sacri-
fices; so did most of the senators, carrying oflF their own goods
in as much haste as if they had been robbing their neighbours.
Some, who had formerly much favoured 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 Cor-
finium, which was garrisoned with thirty cohorts under the
command of Domitius. He, in despair of maintaining the de-
fence, requested a physician, whom he had among his attendants,
to give him poison; and taking the dose, drank it, in hopes of
being despatched 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

Cssar ^^y

Brandusium, 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 ship-
ping, 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 ap-
peared 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 provmces 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.

558 Plutarch's Lives

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 their 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 of January (which corresponds pretty
nearly with the Athenian month Posideon), and having passed
the Ionian Sea, took Oricum and Apollonia, and then sent back
the ships to Brundusium, 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 vigour of youth, and they them-
selves weary with such a multitude of wars, could not but ex-
claim 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 labour.
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 them-
selves 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 Brundusium. 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 Brun-
dusium being so long in coming, which put him to great sus-
pense and embarrassment what to do. At last he resolved upon
a most hazardous experiment, and embarked, without any one's
knowledge, in a boat of twelve oars, to cross over to Brundusium,

Csesar 559

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 m 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, re-
proaching him for what he had done, and indignant that he
should think himself not strong enough to get a victor}' 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 Bnm-
dusium, 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 ex-
tremely 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 hardihood of
their enemies, whom they looked upon as a sort of wild beasts*

560

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There were continual skinnishes 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 enemy took thirty-two of them. He
hiniself 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 armour-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 pmp, Caesar, upon see-
ing his withdrawal, said to his friends, 'cThe 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 miserable 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 diffi-
culty and distress he was in, he raised his camp, with tlie inten-
tion of advancing towards Scipio, who lay in Macedonia.: hoping
either to entice Pompey into a country where Tie snould fight
without the advantage he now had of supplies from the sea, or
to overpower Scipio if not assisted.

Tliis 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 vigour of
Caesar's army, which could not last long. For the best part of
his men, though they had great experience, and showed an irre-

CsEsar 561

sistible 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 labour, and their
courage, also, beginning to give way with the failure of their
strength. Besides, it was said that an infectious disease, occa-
sioned 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 feUow-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 every one else upbraided Pompey for being reluctant
tofight, and tried to goad him on by such nicknames as Agamem-
non, 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 afiected 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, laboured imder the suspicion of having been bribed
to betray the army, asked why they did not fight thb purchaser
of provinces. Pompey was driven, against his own will, by this
kind of language, into offering battle, and proceeded to follow
Caesar. Carear 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 revelling on their march in bacchanalian fashion, they
shook off the disease, and theur whole fconstitution was relieved
and changed into another habit.

WTien the two armies were come into Pharsalia, and both en-
camped there, Pompey's thoughts ran the same way as they had
done before, against fighting, and the more because of some un-
lucky 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, quarrelled

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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 Csesar'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 Cor-
finius 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 your-
self; 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 heavens, 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, divid-
mg 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 enemy's 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

CcBsar 563

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 centre. 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 commanded 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 right 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

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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 dis-
order, presently they turned about to fly ; and so most shame-
fully 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-awnyy-
when he saw his cavalry thus broken and flying, was nQjonger^.
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 re-
covered 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 favour 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 neces-
sity. I, Caius Caesar, after succeeding in so many wars, had
been condemned had I dismissed my army." These words,
Pollio says, Cassar spoke in Latin at that time, and that he him-
self 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
Cassar, 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

Cssar 565

?adua, one Caius Cornelius, who had the character of a good
aigur, the fellow-citizen and acquaintance of Livy, the historian,
hippened to be making some augural observations that very day
wken 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
hin 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. WTien he was
come into Asia, to gratify Theopompus, the author of the collec-
tion 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 dishonour-
able, 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 favourite and
haid lately killed Pompey, who had banished Cleopatra, and was
now secretly plotting Cssar's destruction (to prevent which,
Caesar from that time began to sit up whole nights, under pre-
tence 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 unwhole-
some com 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 pretence 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

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r.

the rest, but thought fit to demand the thousand mjTiads tt
that time to maintain his army. Pothinus told him that he htd
better go now and attend to his other affairs of greater conse-
quence, and that he should receive his money at another tme
with thanks. Csesar replied that he did not want Egyptians to
be his counsellors, and soon after privately sent for Cleopatra
from her retirement.

She took a small boat, and one only of her confidants, ApoUo-
dorus, the Sicilian, along with her, and in the dusk of the even-
ing 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 Cleo-
patra'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 Csesar 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 en-
deavoured 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 diffi-
culty 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

Cassar 567

conquered them. Many fell in that battle, and the king him-
self was never seen after. Upon this, he left Cleopatra Queen
of Egypt, who soon after had a son by him, whom the Alexan-
drkns called Caesarion, and then departed for Syria.

Thence he passed to Asia, where he heard that Domitius was
beaten by Phamaces, son of Mithridates, and had fled out of
Pontus with a handful of men; and that Phamaces 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. Gesar 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, cany 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 Dolabelia's extrava-
gance, Amantius's covetousness, Antony's debauchery, and Cor-
finius's profuseness, who puUed 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 con-
siderable 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

568 Plutarch's Lives

much upon an ancient oracle, that the family of the Scipias
should be always victorious in Africa. There was in his amy
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 commanded 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 victualling for his men and forage for his
horses, that he was forced to feed the horses with seaweed, which
he washed thoroughly to take off its saltness, 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 played upon

"Ihe 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

^he 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 centre-point for their operations, and also as
a place of refuge. Whilst Scipio was thus employed, Caesar with
incredible despatch made his way through thick woods, and a
country supposed to be impassable, cut off one part 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

CsEsar 569

setting his army in order. He perceived the approaches of it,
and before it had too far disordered his senses, when he was
aheady beginning to shake under its influence, withdrew into a
neighbouring 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
despatched 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 honour 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 memor}' ? 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 every one's hands. This touched Caesar,
who looked upon a panegyric on his enemies 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 tvfo hundred thousand attic bushels of
com 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 Uttle
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 tv\enty-two thousand
dining couches were laid out; and he made a display of gladiators,
and of battles by sea, in honour, as he said, of his daughter Julia,

57© Plutarch's Lives

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
piDvinces 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
nands 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
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 anything, 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 honour 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 honours upon him, which might in some sort be
said not to exceed the limits of ordinary human moderation.

Caesar 571

But others, striving which should deserve most, carried them so
excessively high, that they made Caesar odious to the most in-
different and moderate sort of men, by the pretensions and ex-
travagance 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 honours 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. WTien his friends advised him to
have a guard, and several offered their ser\nces, 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 com; 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 honours, and to all held out hopes of favour 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 bom to do great things, and had a passion after
honour, 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 labours, but were incentives and encouragements 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,

57^ Plutarch's Lives

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 over-
run aU 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 oii every
side by the ocean. While preparations were making for this
expedition, he proposed to dig through the isthmus on which
Lorinth 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 Tarracma, that there might be a safe and easy passage for
all merchants who traded to Rome. Besides this, he intended to
dram 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 harbours
lit 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 irre-
gularity of time was not only projected with great scientific in-
genuity, but was brought to its completion, and proved of very
great use. For it was not only in ancient time that the Romans had
wanted a certain rule to make the revolutions of their months fall
m 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
m the returns of the annual cycles, as we have shown in his life.
Caesar called in the best philosophers and mathematicians of his
trnie 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 in-
equality of the cycles. Yet even this gave offence to those who

Cassar 573

looked with an evil eye on his position, and felt oppressed by his
power. Cicero the orator, when some one 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 pretence 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 Sibyls' 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 ex-
travagant honours, he chanced to receive the message as he was
sitting on the rostra, where, though the consuls and prstors
themselves waited on him, attended by the whole bodv of the
senate, he did not rise, but behaved himself to them as if they had
been private men, and told them his honours 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 oS, looking much
discomposed. Csesar, 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 any one who would give
the stroke. But afterwards he made the malady from vrhich 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 honour 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.

574 Plutarch's Lives

and having some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. Many
young noblemen and magistrates run up and down the city with
their upper garments ofiF, 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 labour 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 MaruUus, two tribunes of the people, went pre-
sently and pulled them oflf, 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 honours and favours 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 honourable
prastorship for 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

Caesar 575

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
la\nng his hand on his body, said to the informers, " Brutus \sill
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 httle raised upon this, was more instant than before
to work him yet further, having himself a private grudge against
Caesar for most 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 paJe, lean fellows,
meaning Cassius and Brutus.

Fate, however, is to all appearance more imavoidable than un-
expected. For many strange prodigies and apparitions are said
to have been observed shortly before this 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, locking 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 ser\-ant, 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 creat;ire 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 this 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 his 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 any one could speak, said, " A sudden one."

576 Plutarch's Lives

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 Calpumia fast asleep,
but heard her utter in her dream some indistinct words and in-
articulate 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.
WTien 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 she 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 sujjerstition 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 any one should
be sent to tell them they might break up for the present, and
meet again when Calpumia 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 govern-
ment 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

Caesar 577

committed himself to Calpumia, begging of her to secure him
till Csesar 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, ke 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 Pomfjey had raised and
dedicated with his theatre to the use of the public, plainly show-
ing that there was something of a supernatural influence which
gijided 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 occa-
sion, 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 applications till he came to
his seat. WTien he was sat down, he refused to comply with
their requests, and upon their urging him further began to re-
proach them severely for their importunities, when Tillius, lay-
ing 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

578

Plutarch's Lives

coming from one who at the beginning of such a bold action was
probably very much disturbed; Osar 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 I " 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 fiy nor assist Cjesar, 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 levelled at his face and eyes, and was en-
compassed, 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 a\^oid 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 levelled their blows at the same person.

When Caesar was despatched, 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, Csesar'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

Cassar 579

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 honour 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 Cassar, and lost the honour 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
sf>eech 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 the
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 twunds 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 them-
selves.

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 neighbour. It presently passed for a certainty

58o

Plutarch's Lives

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 re-
tired 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 suffer-
ing 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 thisi

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 coun-
tenance. He was somewhat frightened at first, but seeing it

Caesar 5 8 1

neither did nor spoke anything to him, only stood silently^y his
bedside, he asked who it was. The spectre answered him,
" Thy evil genius, Brutus, thou shalt see me at Philippi."
Brjtus answered courageously, " Weil, 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.

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DE Plutarchus

7 Lives, the Diyden Plutarch

P55
1912
V.2
cop. 4.

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