250

CIMON AND LUCULLUS

COMPARED.

We cannot but deem the end of Lucullus happy, as he did not live to see that change in the constitution, which fate was preparing for his country in the civil wars'. Though the commonwealth was in a sickly state, yet he left it free. In this respect, the case of Cimon was particularly similar. For he died while Greece was at the height of her prosperity, and before she was involved in her ruinous troubles. It is true, there is this difference: Cimon expired in his camp, in the office of general; not like a man who, fatigued with war and avoiding its conflicts, sought the reward of his military labours and laurels in the delicacies of the table and the joys of wine. In this view Plato was right in his censure of the followers of Orpheus 2, who placed the rewards of futurity provided for the good in everlasting intoxication. No doubt ease, tranquillity, literary researches, and the pleasures of contemplation, furnish the most suitable retreat for a man in years, who has bidden adieu to military and political pursuits. But to propose pleasure as the end of great achievements, and

1 The Editor cannot help referring to the splendid remarks of Cicero, upon a similar occasion, where he speaks of the death of the orator Crassus. (De Orat. iii. 2.) O fallacem hominum spem, fragilemque fortunam, et inanes nostras contentiones, &c.*

2 The passage, here alluded to, occurs in the second book of Plato's Republic. Plato does not indeed censure Orpheus, but Musæus and his son Eumolpus for having taught this doctrine. These were, however, Orpheus' disciples; and τις περί τον Ορφέα may admit of that interpretation,

after long expeditions and commands to lead up the dance of Venus and riot in her smiles, was so far from being worthy of the famed Academy and a follower of the sage Xenocrates, that it rather became a disciple of Epicurus. This is the more surprising, because Cimon seems to have spent his youth in luxury and dissipation, and Lucullus in letters and sobriety. It is certainly however the characteristic of a better disposition to change for the better; and happier is the nature, in which vices gradually die, and virtue flourishes.

They were equally wealthy, but they did not apply their riches to the same purposes. For we cannot compare the palace at Naples and the prospect-house amidst the water, erected by Lucullus from the barbarian spoils, to the southern wall of the citadel which Cimon built with his military earnings. Neither can the sumptuous board of the former, which savoured too much of eastern magnificence, be put in competition with the open and benevolent table of the latter. The one, at a moderate charge, daily nourished vast numbers of poor; the other, at an enormous expence, pampered the appetites of a few of the rich and the voluptuous. Perhaps, indeed, some allowance must be made for the difference of the times. We know not whether Cimon, if he had lived to be old and retired from the concerns of war and of the state, might not have adopted a more pompous and luxurious method of living: for he naturally loved wine and company, was a promoter of public feasts and games, and remarkable (as we have observed) for his profligate attachment to the sex. But glorious enterprises and noble actions, being attended with pleasures of another kind, leave no leisure for inferior gratifications; nay, they banish them from the pursuits and even thoughts of persons of military and civil abilities. And if Lucullus had finished his days in high commands and amidst the conflicts of war, the most envious caviller, I am persuaded, could have found nothing to reproach him with. So much with respect to their mode of life.

As to their military character, it is certain they were able commanders both at sea and land. But as the

champions, who in one day gain the garland not only in wrestling but in the Pancration, are not simply called victors,' but by the custom of the games the flowers of the victory;' so Cimon, having crowned Greece with two victories gained in one day, the one at land and the other at sea, deserves some preference in the list of generals.

The country of Lucullus promoted his power, and Cimon promoted the power of his country. The one found. Rome commanding the allies, and under her auspices extended her conquests; the other found Athens obeying instead of commanding, and yet gained her the chief authority among her allies, as well as vanquished her enemies. The Persians he defeated, and drove them out of the sea; and he persuaded the Lacedæmonians voluntarily to surrender the supremacy of Greece.

If it be the best work of a general, to make his men obey him from a principle of affection, we shall find Lucullus in this respect greatly deficient. He was despised by his own troops; whereas Cimon commanded the veneration, not only of his own soldiers but of all the allies. The former was deserted by his fellowcountrymen, and the latter was courted by strangers. The one set out with a fine army, and returned abandoned by them all; the other, with an army subject to the orders which they should receive from another general, and at his return they were at the head of the whole league. Thus he gained three of the most difficult points imaginable, peace with the enemy, the command among the allies, and a good understanding with Sparta.

They both attempted to conquer immense kingdoms and to subdue all Asia; but their purposes were unsuccessful. Cimon's course was stopped by fortune; be died in the possession of his commission, and in the height of his prosperity. Lucullus, on the other hand, cannot possibly be excused for the loss of his authority;

3 The Pancration consisted of boxing and wrestling together. The Pentathlon, or five games (which Dacier seems to have strangely confounded with the former) were boxing, the race, leaping, playing at qngits, and wrestling.*

since he must either have been ignorant of the griev ances and complaints of his army, which ended in so incurable an aversion, or unwilling to redress them.

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This he has in common with Cimon, that he was impeached by his countrymen. The Athenians, it is true, went farther; they banished Cimon by the Ostracism, that they might not (as Plato expresses it) his voice for ten years." The proceedings, indeed, of the aristocratical party are seldom acceptable to the people; for while they are obliged to use some violence for the correction of what is amiss, their measures resemble the bandages of surgeons, which are uneasy at the same time that they reduce the dislocation. But, in this respect, perhaps, we may exculpate both the one and the other.

Lucullus carried his arms much the farthest. He was the first, who led a Roman army over Mount Taurus, and passed the Tigris. He took and burned the royal cities of Asia, Tigranocerta, Cabira, Sinope, and Nisibis, in the sight of their respective kings. On the north he penetrated as far as the Phasis, on the east to Media, and on the south by the assistance of the Arabian princes to the Red-Sea. He overthrew the armies of the two great kings, and would certainly have taken them, had they not fled like savages into distant solitudes and inaccessible woods. A certain proof of the advantage which Lucullus has in this particular is, that the Persians, as if they had suffered nothing from Cimon, soon made fresh head against the Greeks and cut in pieces a large army of theirs in Egypt; whereas Tigranes and Mithridates could effect nothing after the blow, which they had received from Lucullus. The latter, enfeebled and shattered by his former conflicts, did not once venture to face Pompey in the field; but fled to the Bosporus, and there put a period to his life. As for Tigranes, he delivered himself naked and unarmed to Pompey, taking his diadem from his head, and laying it at his feet: in which he complimented Pompey, not with what was his own, but with what belonged to the laurels of Lucullus; confessing by the very joy, with which he received the ensigns of royalty again, that they had been absolutely lost. That war

254 CIMON AND LUCULLUS COMPARED.

rior must undoubtedly be deemed the greater general, as well as the greater champion, who delivers his adversary in a state of exhaustion to the next combatant.

Besides, Cimon found the king of Persia extremely weakened, and the pride of his people humbled, by the losses and defeats which they had previously experienced from Themistocles, Pausanias, and Leotychidas; and their hands could not make much resistance, when their hearts were gone. But Lucullus met Tigranes, unfoiled and exulting in his numerous battles*. Neither is the number of the enemy's troops, which Cimon defeated, in the least to be compared with that of those, who fled before Lucullus.

In short, when we weigh all the advantages of each of these illustrious men, it is difficult to say to which side the balance inclines. Heaven appears to have favoured both; directing the one what he should do, and warning the other what he should avoid. So that the gods bore witness to their virtue, and regarded them as persons, in whose nature there was something divine.

4 M. Dacier thinks, that if, beside the other advantages just mentioned, the advantage be also allowed to Lucullus in respect of the numbers defeated, the balance must clearly incline to his side. But, while he says this, he seems to have forgotten the preference given to Cimon, in the beginning of the parallel, with regard to his having continued his labours for his country to the end of his life; his more excellent appli cation of his riches; his having won, and kept the hearts of his soldiers; and his having gained two important victories upon two different elements in one day.