took them into pay. When they came into Sicily, they were victorious in all the battles where he commanded in person; but after the great struggles of the war were over, being sent upon service where succours were required, they perished by little and little. Herein avenging justice seems to have been willing to make use of the prosperity of Timoleon as an apology for its delay, taking care, as it did, that no harm might happen to the good, from the punishment of the wicked; insomuch that the favour of the gods, to that great man, was no less discerned and admired in his very losses than in his greatest success.

Upon any of these little advantages, the tyrants took occasion to ridicule the Syracusans; at which they were highly incensed. Mamercus, for instance, who valued himself on his poems and tragedies, talked in a pompous manner of the victory he had gained over the mercenaries, and ordered this insolent inscription to be put upon the shields which he dedicated to the gods,

sarcasm against the Corinthians. He had said, it seems, in a speech he made to the Leontines, upon the Corinthians taking the field, “That it was no formidable matter, if the Corinthian dames were gone out to take the air." Thus the generality of men are more apt to resent a contemptuous word than an unjust action, and can bear any other injury better than disgrace. Every hostile deed is imputed to the necessity of war, but satirical and censorious expressions are considered as the effects of hatred or malignity.

When Timoleon was returned, the Syracusans brought the wife and daughters of Icetes to a public trial, who, being there condemned to die, were executed accordingly. This seems to be the most exceptionable part of Timoleon's conduct; for, if he had interposed, the women would not have suffered. But he appears to have connived at it, and given them up to the resentment of the people, who were willing to make some satisfaction to the manes of Dion, who expelled Dionysius. For Icetes was the man who threw Arete the wife of Dion, his sister Aristomache, and his son, who was yet a child, alive into the sea; as we have related in the Life of Dion.*

These shields, with gold and ivory gay, To our plain bucklers lost the day. Afterwards, when Timoleon was laying siege to Calauria, Icetes took the opportunity to make an inroad into the territories of Syracuse, Timoleon then marched to Catana against where he met with considerable booty; and Mamercus, who waited for him in order of having made great havoc, he marched back by battle upon the banks of the Abolus.† MaCalauria itself, in contempt of Timoleon and mercus was defeated, and put to flight, with the the slender force he had with him. Timoleon loss of above two thousand men, no small part suffered him to pass, and then followed him of which consisted of the Punic succours sent with his cavalry and light-armed foot. When by Gisco. Hereupon the Carthaginians desired Icetes saw he was pursued, he crossed the him to grant them peace; which he did on the Damyrias,† and stood in a posture to receive following conditions: "That they should hold the enemy on the other side. What embold- only the lands within the Lycus; that they ened him to do this, was the difficulty of the should permit all who desired it, to remove out passage, and the steepness of the banks on both of their province, with their families and goods, sides. But a strange dispute of jealousy and and to settle at Syracuse; and that they should honour, which arose among the officers of Ti- renounce all friendship and alliance with the moleon, awhile delayed the combat: for there tyrants." Mamercus, reduced by this treaty was not one that was willing to go after anoth- to despair, set sail for Italy, with an intent to er, but every man wanted to be foremost in the bring the Lucanians against Timoleon and the attack; so that their fording was likely to be Syracusans. But, instead of that, the crews very tumultuous and disorderly by their just-tacking about with the galleys, and returning ling each other, and pressing to get before. To remedy this, Timoleon ordered them to decide the matter by lot, and that each for this purpose should give him his ring. He took the rings and shook them in the skirt of his robe, and the first that came up, happening to have a trophy for the seal, the young officers received it with joy, and crying out, that they would not wait for any other lot, made their way as fast as possible through the river, and fell upon the enemy, who, unable to sustain the shock, soon took to flight, throwing away their arms, and leaving a thousand of their men dead upon the spot.

A few days after this, Timoleon marched into the territory of the Leontines, where he took Icetes alive; and his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, his general of horse, were brought to him bound by the soldiers. Icetes and his son were capitally punished, as tyrants and traitors to their country. Nor did Euthymus find mercy, though remarkably brave and bold in action, because he was accused of a severe

*They were shields that had been taken out of the temple at Delphi.

Or the Lymyrias.

to Sicily, delivered up Catana to Timoleon; which obliged Mamercus to take refuge at Messena, with Hippo, prince of that city. Timoleon coming upon them, and investing the place both by sea and land, Hippo got on board a ship, and attempted to make his escape, but was taken by the Messenians themselves; who exposed him in the theatre; and calling their children out of the schools, as to the finest spectacle in the world, the punishment of a tyrant, they first scourged him, and then put him to death.

From this passage, and another before, it seems as if the Life of Dion was written before this. And written first. For there he says, As we have written yet, in the Life of Dion, Plutarch speaks as if this was in the Life of Timoleon. In one of them, therefore, if not in both, those references must have been made by the Librarians, according to the different order in which these lives were placed.

or Alabon. It is near Hybla, between Catana and Ptolemy and others call this river Alabus, Alabis, Syracuse.

Plutarch probably took the name of this river as he found it in Diodorus; but other historians call it the Halycus. Indeed, the Carthaginians might possibly give it the oriental aspirate ha, which signifies no more than the particle the.

Upon this, Mamercus surrendered himself to | phonians, with all the nerve and strength one Timoleon, agreeing to take his trial at Syracuse, finds in them, appear to be too much laboured, on condition that Timoleon himself would not and smell too much of the lamp; whereas the be his accuser. Being conducted to Syracuse, paintings of Nicomachus and the verses of and brought before the people, he attempted Homer, besides their other excellencies and to pronounce an oration which he had com- graces, seem to have been struck off with reaposed long before for such an occasion; but diness and ease: so if we compare the exbeing received with noise and clamour, he per- ploits of Epaminondas and Agesilaus, perceived that the assembly were determined to formed with infinite pains and difficulty, with shew him no favour. He, therefore, threw off those of Timoleon, which, glorious as they his upper garment, ran through the theatre, were, had a great deal of freedom and ease in and dashed his head violently against one of them, when we consider the case well, we the steps, with a design to kill himself; but shall conclude the latter, not to have been the did not succeed according to his wish, for he work of fortune indeed, but the effects of forwas taken up alive, and suffered the punish-tunate virtue. ment of thieves and robbers.

pursuits of honour and power; but he remained in Sicily, enjoying the blessings he had established; and of which the greatest of all was, to see so many cities and so many thousands of people happy through his means.

He himself, it is true, ascribed all his sucIn this manner did Timoleon extirpate ty- cesses to fortune. For when he wrote to his ranny, and put a period to their wars. He friends at Corinth, or addressed the Syracufound the whole island turned almost wild and sans, he often said, he was highly indebted to savage with its misfortunes, so that its very that goddess, when she was resolved to save inhabitants could hardly endure it, and yet Sicily, for doing it under his name. In his he so civilized it again, and rendered it so de- house he built a chapel, and offered sacrifices sirable, that strangers came to settle in the to Chance,† and dedicated the house itself to country, from which its own people had lately Fortune; for the Syracusans had given him fled; the great cities of Agrigentum and Gela, one of the best houses in the city, as a reward which after the Athenian war had been sacked for his services, and provided him, besides, and left desolate by the Carthaginians, were a very elegant and agreeable retreat in the now peopled again; the former by Megellus country. In the country it was that he spent and Pheristus from Elea, and the latter by most of his time, with his wife and children, Gorgus from the isle of Ceos, who also col- whom he had sent for from Corinth: for he lected and brought with him some of the old never returned home; he took no part in citizens. Timoleon not only assured them of the troubles of Greece, nor exposed himself his protection, and of peaceful days to settle to public envy, the rock which great gene. in, after the tempests of such a war, but cor-rals commonly split upon in their insatiable dially entered into their necessities, and supplied them with every thing, so that he was even beloved by them as if he had been their founder. Nay, to that degree did he enjoy the affections of the Sicilians in general, that no war seemed concluded, no laws enacted, no But since, according to the comparison of lands divided, no political regulation made, Simonides, every republic must have some imin a proper manner, except it was revised and pudent slanderer, just as every lark must have touched by him: he was the master-builder à crest on its head, so it was at Syracuse; for who put the last hand to the work, and be- Timoleon was attacked by two demagogues, stowed upon it a happy elegance and perfec- Laphystius and Demænetus. The first of these tion. Though at that time Greece boasted a having demanded of him sureties that he would number of great men, whose achievements answer to an indictment which was to be were highly distinguished, Timotheus (for in- brought against him, the people began to rise stance) Agesilaus, Pelopidos, and Epaminon- declaring they would not suffer him to prodas, the last of whom Timoleon principally vied ceed. But Timoleon stilled the tumult, by with in the course of glory, yet we may dis- representing, "That he had voluntarily undercern in their actions a certain labour and gone so many labours and dangers, on purstraining, which diminishes their lustre, and pose that the meanest Syracusan might have some of them have afforded room for censure, recourse, when he pleased, to the laws." and been followed with repentance; whereas And when Demænetus, in full assembly, althere is not one action of Timoleon (if we ex-leged many articles against his behaviour in cept the extremities he proceeded to in the case of his brother) to which we may not, with Timæus, apply that passage of Sophocles,

-What Venus, or what Love,
Placed the fair parts in this harmonious whole.
For, as the poetry of Antimachus and the
portraits of Dionysius,† both of them Colo-

* Antimachus was an epic poet, who flourished in the days of Socrates and Plato. He wrote a poem called the Thebaid. Quintilian (x. i.) says, he had a force and solidity, together with an elevation of style, and had the second place given him by the grammarians, after Homer; but as he failed in the passions, in the disposition of his fable, and in the ease and elegance of manner, though he was second, he was far from coming near the first.

Dionysius was a portrait painter. Plin. xxxv. 10.

command, he did not vouchsafe him any an swer; he only said, "He could not sufficiently

* Pliny tells us, "Nicomachus painted with a swift as well as a masterly hand; and that his pieces sold for as much as a town was worth." Aristratus, the tyrant of Sicyon, having agreed with him for a piece of work which seemed to require a considerable time, Nicomachus did not appear till within a few days of that on which he had agreed to finish it. Hereupon the tyrant talked of punishing him; but in those few days he completed the thing in an admirable manner, and entirely to his satisfaction.

When the ancients ascribed any event to fortune, they did not mean to deny the operations of the Deity in it, but only to exclude all human contrivance and power. And in events ascribed to chance, they might possibly mean to exclude the agency of all rational beings, whether human or divine. 27

express his gratitude to the gods, for granting | that decree of the people of Syracuse, " That his request, in permitting him to see all the whenever they should be at war with a foreign Syracusans enjoy the liberty of saying what they thought fit."

PAULUS EMILIUS.

WHEN I first applied myself to the writing of
these Lives, it was for the sake of others, but
I pursue that study for my own sake; availing
myself of history as of a mirror, from which I
learn to adjust and regulate my own conduct.
For it is like living and conversing with these
illustrious men, when I invite, as it were, and
receive them, one after another, under my roof:
when I consider how great and wonderful
they were, and select from their actions the
most memorable and glorious.

Ye gods! what greater pleasure?
What happier road to virtue?

generally blessed with success. And notwithstanding the ill fortune of Lucius Paulus at Cannæ, he shewed on that occasion both prudence and his valour. For, when he could not dissuade his colleague from fighting, he joined him in the combat, though much against his will, but did not partake with him in his flight: on the contrary, when he who plunged them in the danger, deserted the field, Paulus stood his ground, and fell bravely amidst the enemy, with his sword in his hand.

This Paulus had a daughter named Æmilia, who was married to Scipio the Great, and a son called Paulus, whose history I am now writing.

At the time he made his appearance in the world, Rome abounded in men who were celebrated for their virtues and other excellent accomplishments and even among these Æmilius made a distinguished figure, without pursuing the same studies, or setting out in the same track, with the young nobility of that age. For he did not exercise himself in pleading

Democritus has a position in his philosophy, utterly false indeed, and leading to endless superstitions, that there are phantasms or images continually floating in the air, some propitious, and some unlucky, and advises us to pray, that such may strike upon our senses, as are agreeable to, and perfective of, our nature, and not such as have a tendency to vice and error. For my part, instead of this, I fill my mind with the sublime images of the best and great-causes; nor could he stoop to salute, to solicit, est men, by attention to history and biography; and if I contract any blemish or ill custom from other company which I am unavoidably engaged in, I correct and expel them, by calmly and dispasionately turning my thoughts to these excellent examples. For the same purpose, I now put into your hands the Life of Timoleon, the Corinthian, and that of Æmilius Paulus, men famous not only for their virtues, but their success; insomuch that they have left room to doubt, whether their great achievements were not owing more to their good fortune than their prudence.

Most writers agree, that the Æmilian family was one of the most ancient among the Roman nobility: and it is asserted, that the founder of it, who also left it his surname, was Mamercust the son of Pythagoras the philosopher, who, for the peculiar charms and gracefulness of his elocution, was called Emilius; such, at least, is the opinion of those who say that Numa was educated under Pythagoras.

Those of this family that distinguished themselves, found their attachment to virtue

Democritus held, that visible objects produced their image in the ambient air, which image produced a second, and the second a third still less than the former, and so on till the last produced its counterpart in the eye. This he supposed the process of the act of vision. But he went on to what is infinitely more absurd. He maintained that thought was formed, according as those images struck upon the imagination; that of these there were some good and some evil; that the good produced virtuous thoughts in us, and the evil the contrary.

See the life of Numa.

He is called Pythagoras the philosopher, to distinguish him from Pythagoras the famed wrestler.

From Lucius Emilius, who was consul in the year of Rome two hundred and seventy, and overcame the Volscians, to Lucius Paulus, who was father to Paulus Emilius, and who fell at Cannæ, in the year of Rome five hundred and thirty-seven, there were many of

and caress the people, which was the method that most men took who aimed at popularity. Not but that he had talents from nature to acquit himself well in either of these respects, but he reckoned the honour that flows from valour, from justice, and probity, preferable to both; and in these virtues he soon surpassed all the young men of his time.

The first of the great offices of state for which he was a candidate, was that of Ædile, and he carried it against twelve competitors, who, we are told, were all afterwards consuls. And when he was appointed one of the Augurs, whom the Romans employ in the inspection and care of divination by the flight of birds, and by prodigies in the air, he studied so attentively the usages of his country, and acquainted himself so perfectly with the ancient ceremonies of religion, that what before was only considered as an honour, and sought for on account of the authority annexed to it,t appeared in his hands to be one of the princi pal arts. Thus, he confirmed the definition which is given by some philosophers, That religion is the science of worshipping the gods. He did every thing with skill and application; he laid aside all other concerns while he attended to this, and made not the least omission or innovation, but disputed with his colleagues about the smallest article, and insisted, that though the Deity might be supposed to be merciful, and willing to overlook some neglect,

those milii renowned for their victories and triumphs.

In that period we find the Sempronii, the Albini, the Fabii Maximi, the Marcelli, the Scipios, the Ful. vii, Sulpitii, Cethegi, Metelli, and other great and excellent men.

+ Under pretence that the auspices were favourable or otherwise, the Augurs had it in their power to promote or put a stop to any public affair whatever.

188

at and pass by such things. For no man ever began his attempts against government with an enormous crime; and the relaxing in the smallest matters, breaks down the fences of the greatest.

yet it was dangerous for the state to connive | his friends remonstrated, and asked him, Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful? he held out his shoe, and said, Is it not handsome? Is it not new? yet none knows where it wrings him, but he that wears it. Certain it is, that men usually repudiate their wives for great and visible faults; yet sometimes also a peevishness of temper or incompliance of manners, small and frequent distates, though not discerned by the world, produce the most incurable aversions in a married life.*

Nor was he less exact in requiring and observing the Roman military discipline. He did not study to be popular in command, nor endeavour, like the generality, to make one commission the foundation for another, by humouring and indulging the soldiery:* but as a priest instructs the initiated with care in the sacred ceremonies, so he explained to those that were under him the rules and customs of war; and being inexorable, at the same time, to those that transgressed them, he re-established his country in its former glory. Indeed, with him, the beating of an enemy was a matter of much less account, than the bringing of his countrymen to strict discipline; the one seeming to be the necessary consequence of the other.

During the war which the Romans were engaged in with Antiochus the Great,t in the east, and in which their most experienced of ficers were employed, another broke out in the west. There was a general revolt in Spain;§ and thither Æmilius was sent, not with six lictors only, like other prætors, but with twice the number, which seemed to raise his dignity to an equality with the consular. He beat the barbarians in two pitched battles, and killed thirty thousand of them: which success appears to have been owing to his generalship in choosing his ground, and attacking the enemy while they were passing a river; for by these means his army gained an easy victory. He made himself master of two hundred and fifty cities, which voluntarily opened their gates; and having established peace throughout the province, and secured its allegiance, he returned to Rome, not a drachma richer than he went out. He never, indeed, was desirous to enrich himself, but lived in a generous manner on his own estate, which was so far from being large, that after his death, it was hardly sufficient to answer his wife's dowry.

His first wife was Papiria, the daughter of Papirius Maso, a man of consular dignity. After he had lived with her a long time in wedlock he divorced her, though she had brought him very fine children; for she was mother to the illustrious Scipio and to Fabius Maximus. History does not acquaint us with the reason of this separation; but with respect to divorces in general, the account which a certain Roman, who put away his wife, gave of his own case, seems to be a just one.

When

*The Roman soldiers were, at the same time, citizens, who had votes for the great employments, both civil and military.

The war with Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, began about the year of Rome five hundred and sixtyone, twenty-four years after the battle of Cannæ.

The consul Glabrio, and after him the two Scipios; the elder of whom was content to serve as lieutenant under his brother. Liv. 1. xxxvii.

§ Spain had been reduced by Scipio Nasica.

Livy, xxxvii. 57. speaks only of one battle, in which Paulus Emilius forced the entrenchments of the Spaniards, killed eighteen thousand of them, and made three hundred prisoners.

Æmilius, thus separated from Papiria, married a second wife, by whom he had also two These he brought up in his own house; sons. the sons of Papiria being adopted into the greatest and most noble families in Rome, the elder by Fabius Maximus, who was five times consul, and the younger by his cousin-german, the son of Scipio Africanus, who gave him the name of Scipio. One of his daughters was married to the son of Cato, and the other to Elius Tubero, a man of superior integrity, and who, of all the Romans, knew best how to bear poverty. There was no less than sixteen of the Elian family and name, who had only a smail house and one farm amongst them; and in this house they all lived, with their wives and many children. Here dwelt the daughter of Æmilius, who had been twice consul, and had triumphed twice, not ashamed of her husband's poverty, but admiring that virtue which kept him poor. Very different is the behaviour of brothers and other near relations in these days; who, if their possessions be not separated by extensive countries, or at least rivers and bulwarks, are perpetually at variance about them. So much instruction does history suggest to the consideration of those who are willing to profit by it.

When Æmilius was created consul,t he

* The very ingenious Dr. Robertson mentions this frequency of divorces as one of the necessary reasons "Difor introducing the Christian religion at that period vorces," says he, "on very slight pretensions, were of time when it was published to the world. permitted both by the Greek and Roman legislators. And though the pure manners of those republics restrained for some time the operation of such a pernicious institution; though the virtue of private persons seldom abused the indulgence that the legislature allowed them, yet no sooner had the establishment of arbitrary power and the progress of luxury vitiated the taste of men, than the law with regard to divorces was found to be amongst the worst corruptions that prevailed in that abandoned age. The facility of separations rendered married persons careless of practising easy and delightful. The education of their children, or obtaining those virtues which render domestic life as the parents were not mutually endeared, or inseparably connected, was generally disregarded, as each parent considered it but a partial care, which might instead of restraining, added to the violence of irregu with equal justice devolve on the other. Marriage, lar desire, and under a legal title became the vilest and most shameless prostitution. From all these causes, the marriage state fell into disreputation and contempt, and it became necessary to force men by penal laws into a society, where they expected no secure or lasting happiness. Among the Romans, domnestic corruption grew of a sudden to an incredible height. And, perhaps, in the history of mankind, we can find no parallel to the undisguised impurity and licentiousness of that age. It was in good time, therefore, &c. &c."

It was in the year following that he went against the Ligurians.