These courses

added strength to a distemper, that was but slight at the beginning; and for a long time he knew not that he had an abscess within him. This abscess corrupted his flesh, and turned it all into lice; so that, though he had many persons employed both day and night to clean him, the part taken away was nothing to that which remained. His whole attire, his baths, his basons, and his food were filled with that perpetual flux of vermin and corruption. And though he bathed many times a day, to cleanse and purify himself; it was in vain. The corruption came on so fast, that it was impossible to overcome it.

self, without pretending to any direction of | foons about him. His chief favourites at this their suffrages, walked about the forum as a time were, Roscius the comedian, Sorex the private maa, and put it in the power of any mimic, and Metrobius who used to act a person to take his life. In the first election he woman's part; had the mortification to see his enemy Marcus Lepidus, a bold and enterprising man, declared consul, not by his own interest, but by that of Pompey, who on this occasion exerted himself with the people. And when he saw Pompey going off happy in his victory, he called him to him, and said "No doubt, young man, your politics are very excellent, since you have preferred Lepidus to Catulus, the worst and most stupid of men to the best. It is high time to awake and be upon your guard, now you have strengthened your adversary against yourself." Sylla spoke this from something like a prophetic spirit; for Lepidus soon acted with the utmost insolence, as Pompey's declared enemy. Sylla gave the people a magnificent entertainment, on account of his dedicating the tenth of his substance to Hercules. The provisions were so over-abundant, that a great quantity was thrown every day into the river; and the wine that was drank, was forty years old at least. In the midst of this feasting, which lasted many days, Metella sickened and died. As the priests forbade him to approach her, and to have his house defiled with mourning, he sent her a bill of divorce, and ordered her to be carried to another house while the breath was in her body. His superstition made him very punctilious in observing these laws of the priests; but by giving into the utmost profusion he transgressed a law of his own, which limited the expense of funerals. He broke in upon his own sumptuary law, too, with respect to diet, by passing his time in the most extravagant banquets, and having recourse to debauches to combat anxiety.

We are told, that among the ancients, Acastus; the son of Pelias, died of this sickness; and of those that come nearer our times, Aclman the poet, Pherecydes the divine, Callisthenes the Olynthian who was kept in close prison, and Mucius the lawyer. And if after these we may take notice of a man who did not distinguish himself by any thing laudable, but was noted another way, it may be mentioned, that the fugitive slave Eunus, who kindled up a Servile war in Sicily, and was afterwards taken and carried to Rome, died there of this disease.

Sylla not only foresaw his death, but has left something relating to it in his writings. He finished the twenty-second book of his Commentaries only two days before he died: and he tells us that the Chaldeans had predicted, that after a life of glory he would depart in the height of his prosperity. He A few months after he presented the people farther acquaints us, that his son, who died a with a show of gladiators. And as at that time little before Metella, appeared to him in a men and women had no separate places, but dream, dressed in a mean garment, and desat promiscuously in the theatre, a woman of sired him to bid adieu to his cares, and go great beauty, and one of the best families, hap-along with him to his mother Metella, with pened to sit near Sylla. She was the daugh- whom he should live at ease, and enjoy the ter of Messala, and sister to the orator Hor- charms of tranquillity. He did not, however, tensius; her name Valeria; and she had lately withdraw his attention from public affairs. It been divorced from her husband. This woman, was but ten days before his death that he recoming behind Sylla, touched him, and took conciled the contending parties at Puteoli,* off a little of the nap of his robe, and then re- and gave them a set of laws for the regulation turned to her seat. Sylla looked at her, quite of their police. And the very day before he amazed at her familiarity; when she said, died, upon information that the quæstor Gra"Wonder not, my lord, at what I have done; nius would not pay what he was indebted to I had only a mind to share a little in your good the state, but waited for his death to avoid fortune." Sylla was far from being displeased; paying it at all, he sent for him into his aparton the contrary it appeared that he was flat- ment, planted his servants about him, and ortered very agreeably. For he sent to ask her dered them to strangle him. The violence name, and to inquire into her family and char- with which he spoke, strained him so much, acter. Then followed an exchange of amo-that the imposthume broke, and he voided a rous regards and smiles; which ended in a contract and marriage. The lady, perhaps, was not to blame. But Sylla, though he got a woman of reputation and great accomplishments, yet came into the match upon wrong principles. Like a youth, he was caught with soft looks and languishing airs, things that are wont to excite the lowest of the passions.

Yet, notwithstanding he had married so extraordinary a woman, he continued his commerce with actresses and female musicians, and sat drin ting whole days with a parcel of buf

vast quantity of blood. His strength now failed fast, and, after he had passed the night in great agonies, he expired. He left two young children by Metella; and Valeria, after his death, was delivered of a daughter called Posthumia; a name given of course by the Romans to such as are born after the death of their father.

Many of Sylla's enemies now combined

* In the Greek Dichæarchia, which is another name for Puteole.

with Lepidus, to prevent his having the usual | be so cloudy, and the rain was so much exhonours of burial; but Pompey, though he pected, that it was about the ninth hour bewas somewhat displeased at Sylla, because, of fore the corpse was carried out. However, all his friends, he had left him only out of his it was no sooner laid upon the pile, than a will, in this case interposed his authority; brisk wind blew, and raised so strong a flame, and prevailed upon some by his interest and that it was consumed immediately. But after entreaties, and on others by menaces, to drop the pile was burned down, and the fire began their opposition. Then he conveyed the body to die out, a great rain fell, which lasted till to Rome, and conducted the whole funeral, night. So that his good fortune continued to not only with security, but with honour. Such the last, and assisted at his funeral. His monwas the quantity of spices brought in by the ument stands in the Campus Martius, and women, that, exclusive of those carried in two they tell us he wrote an epitaph for himself, Lundred and ten great baskets, a figure of to this purport: "No friend ever did me so Sylla at full length, and of a lictor besides, much good, or enemy so much harm, but I rewas made entirely of cinnamon and the paid him with interest." choicest frankincense. The day happened to

LYSANDER AND SYLLA COMPARED.

We have now gone through the life of Sylla, | mand, and kept in arms for ten years, some and will proceed to the comparison. This, times styling himself Consul, sometimes Prothen, Lysander and he have in common, that consul, and sometimes Dictator, but was always they were entirely indebted to themselves for in reality a tyrant. their rise. But Lysander has this advantage, that the high offices he gained were with the consent of the people, while the constitution of his country was in a sound and healthy state; and that he got nothing by force, or by acting against the laws

In civil broils the worst of men may rise. So it was then in Rome. The people were so corrupt, and the republic in so sickly a condition, that tyrants sprung up on every side. Nor is it any wonder if Sylla gained the ascendant, at a time when wretches like Glaucias and Saturninus expelled such men as Metellus; when the sons of consuls were murdered in the public assemblies; when men supported their seditious purposes with soldiers purchased with money, and laws were enacted with fire, and sword, and every species

of violence.*

In such a state of things, I do not blame the man who raised himself to supreme power; all I say is, that when the commonwealth was in so depraved and desperate a condition, power was no evidence of merit. But since the laws and public virtue never flourished more at Sparta, than when Lysander was sent upon the highest and most important commissions, we may conclude, that he was the best among the virtuous, and first among the great. Thus, the one, though he often surrendered the command, had it as often restored to him by his fellow-citizens, because his virtue, which alone has a claim to the prize of honour, continued still the same. The other, after he was once appointed general, usurped the com

* We need no other instances than this to shew, that a republican government will never do in corrupt

times.

What kind of virtue can Plutarch possibly ascribe to Lysander?-unless he means military virtue. Undoubtedly, he was a man of the greatest duplicity of character, of the greatest profaneness: for he corrupted the priests and prostitute the honour of the gods, to gratify his personal envy and ambition.

He

It is true, as we have observed above, Lysander did attempt a change in the Spartan constitution, but he took a milder and more legal method than Sylla. It was by persua sion,† not by arms, he proceeded; nor did he attempt to overturn every thing at once. only wanted to correct the establishment as to kings. And, indeed, it seemed natural, that in a state which had the supreme direction of Greece, on account of its virtue, rather than any other superiority, merit should gain the sceptre. For as the hunter and the jockey do not so much consider the breed, as the dog or horse already bred; (for what if the foal should prove a mule!) so the politician would entirely miss his aim, if, instead of inquiring into the qualities of a person for first magistrate, he looked upon nothing but his family. Thus the Spartans deposed some of their kings, because they had not princely talents, but were persons of no worth or consequence. Vice, even with high birth, is dishonourable: and the honour which virtue enjoys is all her own; family has no share in it.

They were both guilty of injustice; but Lysander for his friends, and Sylla against his. Most of Lysander's frauds were committed for his creatures, and it was to advance to high stations and absolute power that he dipped his hands in so much blood: whereas, Sylla envied Pompey the army, and Dolabella the naval command he had given them; and And when he attempted to take them away. Lucretius Ofella, after the great and most faithful services, solicited the c sulship, he ordered him to be despatched before his eyes. Terror and dismay seized all the world, when they saw one of his best friends thus murdered.

to

If we consider their behaviour with respect riches and pleasure, we shall find the one

the prince, and the other the tyrant. When | impetuous enemy; not like Cyrus, or Epamthe power and authority of Lysander were so inondas, who received a mortal wound as he extensive, he was not guilty of one act of in- was rallying his men and ensuring to them temperance or youthful dissipation. He, if the victory. These great men died the death any man, avoided the sting of that proverb, of generals and kings. But Lysander threw Lions within doors, and foxes without. So away his life ingloriously like a common soldier sober, so regular, so worthy of a Spartan, was or desperate adventurer. By his death he his manner of living. Sylla, on the other hand, shewed how right the ancient Spartans were neither let poverty set bounds to his passions in not choosing to fight against stone-walls, in his youth, nor years in his age. But, as Sal- where the bravest man in the world may be lust says, while he was giving his countrymen killed; I will not say by an insignificant man, laws for the regulation of marriages, and for but by a child or woman. So Achilles is said promoting sobriety, he indulged himself in adul- to have been slain by Paris at the gates of tery and every species of lust. Troy. On the other hand, so many pitched batBy his debaucheries he so drained the pub-tles were won by Sylla, and so many myriads lic treasures, that he was obliged to let many cities, in alliance and friendship with Rome, purchase independence and the privilege of being governed only by their own laws; though at the same time he was daily confiscating the richest and best houses in Rome. Still more immense were the sums he squandered upon his flatterers. Indeed, what bounds or moderation could be expected in his private gifts, when his heart was dilated with wine, if we do but attend to one instance of his behaviour in public? One day, as he was selling a considerable estate, which he wanted a friend to have at an under-price, another offered more, and the crier proclaiming the advance, he turned with indignation to the people, and said, "What outrage and tyranny is this, my friends, that I am not allowed to dispose of my own spoils as I please?"

Far from such rapaciousness, Lysander, to the spoils he sent his countrymen, added his own share. Not that I praise him in that; for perhaps he hurt Sparta more essentially by the money he brought into it, than Sylla did Rome by that which he took from it. I only mention it as a proof of the little regard he had for riches. It was something very particular, however, that Sylla, while he abandoned himself to all the profusion of luxury and expense, should bring the Romans to sobriety; whereas Lysander subjected the Spartans to those passions which he restrained in himself. The former acted worse than his own laws directed, and the other brought his people to act worse than himself: for he filled Sparta with the love of that which he well knew how to despise. Such they were in their political capacity.

of enemies killed, that it is not easy to number them. He took Rome itself twice, and the Piræus at Athens, not by famine, as Lysander had done, but by assault, after he had defeated Archelaus in several great battles at land, and forced him to take refuge in his fleet.

It is a material point, too, to consider what generals they had to oppose. I can look upon it as no more than the play of children, to have beaten Antiochus, who was no better than Alcibiades's pilot, and to have outwitted Philocles the Athenian demagogue,

A man whose tongue was sharpen'd-not his sword. Mithridates would not have compared them with his groom, nor Marius with one of his lictors. But Sylla had to contend with princes, consuls, generals, and tribunes of the highest influence and abilities: and, to name but a few of them, who among the Romans was more formidable than Marius; among the kings, more powerful than Mithridates; or among the people of Italy, more warlike than Lamponius and Telesinus? yet Sylla banished the first, subdued the second, and killed the other two.

What is of more consequence, in my opinion, than any thing yet mentioned, is, that Lysander was supported in all his enterprises by his friends at home, and owed all his success to their assistance; whereas Sylla, a banished man, overpowered by a faction, at a time when his enemies were expelling his wife, destroying his house, and putting his friends to death, fought the battles of his country on the plains of Boeotia against armies that could not be numbered, and was victorious in her cause. This was not all; Mithridates offered to second As to military achievements and acts of him with all his power and join him with all generalship, the number of victories, and the his forces against his enemies at Rome, yet he dangers he had to combat, Sylla is beyond relaxed not the least of his demands, nor comparison. Lysander, indeed, gained two shewed him the least countenance. He would naval victories; to which we may add his tak-not so much as return his salutation, or give ing of Athens; for, though that affair was not difficult in the execution, it was glorious in its consequences. As to his miscarriage in Botia, and at Harliartus, ill-fortune, perhaps, had some concern in it, but it was principally owing to indiscretion; since he would not wait for the great reinforcement which the king was bringing from Platea, and which was upon the point of joining him, but with an ill-timed resentment and ambition, marched up to the walls. Hence it was, that he was slain by some troops of no consideration, who sallied out to the attack. He fell, not as Cleombrotus did at Leuctra, who was slain as he was making head against an

him his hand, till he promised in person to relinquish Asia, and to deliver up his ships, and to restore Bithynia and Cappadocia to their respective kings. There was nothing in the whole conduct of Sylla more glorious, or that shewed greater magnanimity. He preferred the public good to his own: like a dog of gen erous breed, he kept his hold till his adversary had given out, and after that he turned to revenge his own cause.

The different methods they observed with

* Whatever military merit he might display in other battles, he had certainly none in the taking of Rome. For it was not generalship, but necessity, that brought

it into his hands,

respect to the Athenians, contribute not a little | over them the most cruel and unjust of to mark their characters. Sylla, though they tyrants. bore arms against him for Mithridates, after he had taken their city, indulged them with their liberty and the privilege of their own laws: Lysander shewed no sort of compassion for a people of late so glorious and powerful, but abolished the popular government, and set |

Perhaps, we shall not be wide of the truth, if we conclude that in the life of Sylla there are more great actions, and in Lysander's fewer faults; if we assign to the Grecian the prize of temperance and prudence, and to the Roman that of valour and capacity for war.

CIMON.

PERIPOLTAS the diviner,* who conducted king Opheltas and his subjects from Thessaly into Boeotia, left a family that flourished for many years. The greatest part of that family dwelt in Cheronea, where they first established themselves, after the expulsion of the barbarians. But as they were of a gallant and martial turn, and never spared themselves in time of action, they fell in the wars with the Medes and the Gauls. There remained only a young orphan named Damon, and surnamed Peripoltas. Damon in beauty of person and dignity of mind far exceeded all of his age, but he was of a harsh and morose temper, unpolished by education.

Damon, for his part, committed depredations in the adjacent country, and greatly harassed the city. The Charoneans endeavoured to decoy him by frequent messages and decrees in his favour: and when they had got him among them again, they appointed him master of the wrestling-ring; but soon took opportunity to despatch him as he was anointing himself in the bagnio. Our fathers tells us, that for a long time certain spectres appeared on that spot, and sad groans were heard; for which reason the doors of the bagnio were walled up. And to this very day those who live in that neighbourhood imagine that they see strange sights, and are alarmed with doleful voices. There are some remains, however, of Damon's family, who live mostly in the town of Stiris in Phocis. These are called, according to the Eolic dialect, Asholomenoi, that is, Sooty-faced, on account of their ancestor having smeared his face with soot, when he went about the assassination.

testimony of Lucullus. Upon this the governor wrote to Lucullus, who gave a true account of the affair, and by that means delivered Charonea from utter ruin.

He was now in the dawn of youth, when a Roman officer, who wintered with his company in Chæronea, conceived a criminal passion for him; and, as he found solicitations and presents of no avail, he was preparing to use force. It seems, he despised our city, whose affairs were then in a bad situation, and whose smallness and poverty rendered it an object of The people of Orchomenus, who were no importance. As Damon dreaded some vio- neighbours to the Charoneans, having some lence, and withal was highly provoked at the prejudice against them, hired a Roman inforpast attempts, he formed a design against the mer to accuse the city of the murder of those officer's life, and drew some of his comrades who fell by the hands of Damon, and his assointo the scheme. The number was but small, ciates, and to prosecute it as if it had been an that the matter might be more private; in fact individual. The cause came before the goverthey were no more than sixteen. One night nor of Macedonia, for the Romans had not yet they daubed their faces over with soot, after sent prætors into Greece; and the persons they had drank themselves up to a pitch of ele-employed to plead for the city appealed to the vation, and next morning fell upon the Roman as he was sacrificing in the market-place. The moment they had killed him, and a number of those that were about him, they fled out of the city. All was now in confusion. The senate Our forefathers, in gratitude for their preof Charonea met, and condemned the assasservation, erected a marble statue to Lucullus eins to death, in order to excuse themselves to in the market-place, close by that of Bacchus the Romans. But as the magistrates supped And though many ages are since elapsed, we together according to custom, Damon and his are of opinion that the obligation extends even accomplices returned in the evening, broke to us. We are persuaded, too, that a repreinto the town hall, killed every man of them, sentation of the body is not comparable to that and then made off again. of the mind and the manners, and therefore in this work of lives compared, shall insert his We shall, however, always adhere to the truth; and Lucullus will think himself sufficiently repaid by our perpetuating the memory of his actions. He cannot want, in return for his true testimony, a faise and fictitious account of himself. When a painter has to draw a fine and elegant form, which happens to have some little blemish, we do not want him entirely to pass over that blemish, nor yet to mark it with exactness. The one would spoil the beauty of the picture, and the other destroy the

It happened that Lucius Lucullus, who was going upon some expedition, marched that way. He stopped to make an inquiry into the affair, which was quite recent, and found that the city was so far from being accessary to the death of the Roman officer, that it was a considerable sufferer itself. He therefore withdrew the garrison, and took the soldiers with him.

Plutarch here introduces an obscure and dirty story, for the sake of talking of the place of his nativity.

likeness. So in our present work, since it is very difficult, or rather impossible, to find any life whatever without its spots and errors, we must set the good qualities in full light, with all the likeness of truth. But we consider the faults and stains that proceed either from some sudden passion, or from political necessity, rather as defects of virtue than signs of a bad heart; and for that reason we shall cast them a little into shade, in reverence to human nature, which produces no specimen of virtue absolutely pure and perfect.

a generosity and sincerity in his behaviour, which shewed the composition of his soul to be rather of the Peloponnesian kind. Like the Hercules of Euripides, he was

Rough and unbred, but great on great occasions. And therefore we may well add that article to the account Stesimbrotus has given us of him.

In his youth, he was accused of a criminal commerce with his sister Elpinice. There are other instances, indeed, mentioned of Elpinice's irregular conduct, particularly with respect to Polygnotus the painter. Hence it was, we are told, that when he painted the Trojan women, in the portico then called Plesianaction,† but now Pockile, he drew Elpinice's face in the character of Laodice. Polygnotus, however, was not a painter by profession, nor did he receive wages for his work in the portico, but painted without reward, to recommend himself to his countrymen. So the historians write, a well as the poet Melanthius in these versesThe temples of the gods,

The fanes of heroes, and Cecropian halls
His liberal hand adorn'd.

When we looked out for one to put in comparison with Cimon, Lucullus seemed the properest person. They were both of a warlike turn, and both distinguished themselves against the barbarians. They were mild in their administration; they reconciled the contending factions in their country. They both gained great victories, and erected glorious trophies. No Grecian carried his arms to more distant countries than Cimon, or Roman than Lucullus Hercules and Bacchus only exceeded them; unless we add the expeditions of Perseus against the Ethiopians, Medes, and Armenians, and that of Jason against Colchis. But the scenes of these last actions are laid in such very an- did not live in a private commerce with Cimon, It is true,there are some who assert that Elpinice cient times, that we have some doubt whether the truth could reach us. This also they have in but that she was publicly married to him, her common, that they left their wars unfinished; suitable to her birth. Afterwards Callias, a poverty preventing her from getting a husband they both pulled their enemies down, but neith-rich Athenian, falling in love with her, made a er of them gave them their death's blow. The proposal to pay the government her father's principal mark, however, of likeness in their characters, is their affability and gentleness of fine, if she would give him her hand, which deportment in doing the honours of their houses, and the magnificence and splendour with which they furnished their tables. Perhaps, there are some other resemblances which we pass over, that may easily be collected from their history

itself.

Cimon was the son of Miltiades and Hegesipyla. That lady was a Thracian, and daughter to king Olorus, as it stands recorded in the poems of Archelaus and Melanthius, written in honour of Cimon. So that Thucydides the historian was his relation, for his father was called Olorus; a name that had been long in the family, and he had gold mines in Thrace. Thucydides is said, too, to have been killed in Scapte Hyle, a place in that country. His remains, however, were brought into Attica, and his monument is shewn among those of Cimon's family, near the tomb of Elpinice, sister of Cimon. But Thucydides was of the ward of Alimus, and Miltiades of that of Lacias. Miltiades was condemned to pay a fine of fifty talents, for which he was thrown into prison by the government, and there he died. He left his son Cimon very young, and his daughter Elpinice was not yet marriageable.

Cimon, at first, was a person of no reputation, but censured as a disorderly and riotous young man. He was even compared to his grandfather Cimon, who, for his stupidity, was Called Coalemos (that is, Ideot.) Stesimbrotus the Thasian, who was his contemporary, says, he had no knowledge of music, or any other accomplishment which was in vogue among the Greeks, and that he had not the least spark of the Attic wit or eloquence; but that there was

Scapte Hyle signifies a wood full of trenches. Stephanus (de urb.) calls it Scaptesule.

condition she agreed to, and with her brother's consent, became his wife. Still it must be acknowledged that Cimon had his attachments Salamis and one Menstra, on whose account to the sex. Witness his mistresses Asteria of the poet Melanthius jests upon him in his elegies. And though he was legally married to Isodice, the daughter of Euryptolemus, the she lived, and at her death he was inconsolason of Megacles, yet he was too uxorious while ble, if we may judge from the elegies that were dolence. Panatius, the philosopher, thinks addressed to him by way of comfort and conArchelaus the physician was author of those elegies, and from the times in which he flourished, the conjecture seems not improbable.

The rest of Cimon's conduct was great and Miltiades, nor in prudence to Themistocles, and admirable. In courage he was not inferior to he was confessedly an honester man than either of them. He could not be said to come short of them in abilities for war; and even while he is surprising how much he exceeded them in was young and without military experience, it political virtue. When Themistocles, upon the invasion of the Medes, advised the people to straits of Salamis, to try their fortunes in a quit their city and territory, and retire to the naval combat, the generality were astonished with a gay air, led the way with his friends at the rashness of the enterprise. But Cimon, through the Ceramicus to the citadel, carrying a bridle in his hand to dedicate to the goddess.

and that as such he married her; the laws of Athens *Some say Elpinice was only half sister to Cimon, not forbidding him to marry one that was sister only by the father's side. Cornelius Nepos expressly af firms it.

† Diogenes, Suidas, and others, call it Peisianaction.