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It is said that the dog of Xanthippus, the father of Perikles, could not endure to be separated from him, and jumping into the sea swam alongside of his trireme, reached Salamis, and then at once died. His tomb is even now to be seen at the place called Kynossema.
Euphrantides now besought Themistokles to sacrifice these young men as victims to Dionysus, to whom human beings are sacrificed; so should the Greeks obtain safety and victory. Themistokles was struck with horror at this terrible proposal; but the multitude, who, as is natural with people in great danger, hoped to be saved by miraculous rather than by ordinary means, called upon the God with one voice, and leading the captives up to the altar, compelled him to offer them up as the prophet bade him. This story rests on the authority of Phanias of Lesbos, who was a man of education, and well
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In the narrow straits the Persians were unable to bring more than a part of their fleet into action, and their ships got into each other's way, so that the Greeks could meet them on equal terms, and, although they resisted until evening, completely routed them, winning, as Simonides calls it, that "glorious and famous victory," the greatest exploit ever achieved at sea, which owed its success to the bravery of the sailors and the genius of Themistokles.
Once when a citizen of Seriphos said to him that he owed his glory, not to himself but to his city, he answered, "Very true; I should not have become a great man if I had been a Seriphian, nor would you if you had been an Athenian." When one of his fellow-generals, who thought
To have affairs managed by six men instead of two appears to have been a consolation to those who had suffered from the arbitrary rule of a few.
putting themselves unreservedly in his hands. These men Camillus sent on to Rome, where they stated before the Senate, that the Romans, by preferring justice to conquest, had taught them to prefer submission to freedom,
unable to bear such treatment, determined in a rage to leave Rome and go into exile. He embraced his wife and son, and walked from his house silently as far as the gate of the city. There he turned back, and, stretching out his hands towards the Capitol, prayed to the gods that, if he was driven out of Rome unjustly by the insolence and hatred of the people, the Romans might soon repent of their conduct to him, and appear before the world begging him to return, and longing for their Camillus back again.
Like Achilles, he thus cursed his countrymen and left them.
At last they tasted wine, which was then for the first time brought thither out of Italy. In an ecstasy of delight at the drink they wildly snatched up their arms, took their families with them, and rushed to the Alps in search of the country which produced such fruits as this, considering all other countries to be savage and uncultivated. The man who first introduced wine among them and encouraged them to proceed to Italy was said to be one Aruns, an Etruscan of some note, who, though a well-meaning man, had met with the following misfortune. He had been left guardian to an orphan named
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When he discovered the truth, he marched through the Colline Gate, and captured Rome, a little more than three hundred and sixty years after its foundation,
He was convicted, led to the Capitol, and thrown down the cliff, which thus witnessed both the most glorious deed of his life, and his miserable end.
We enjoy the good things which we owe to fortune, but we admire virtuous actions; and while we wish to receive the former, we wish ourselves to benefit others by the latter. That which is in itself admirable kindles in us a desire of emulation, whether we see noble deeds presented before us, or read of them in history.
His body was symmetrical, but his head was long out of all proportion; for which reason in nearly all his statues he is represented wearing a helmet, as the sculptors did not wish, I suppose, to reproach him with this blemish.
And this makes Perikles's work all the more wonderful, because it was built in a short time, and yet has lasted for ages.
"He builds in speeches, but he does no work."
which were supposed to last only for one year; and yet during the whole of that period proved himself incorruptible by bribes.
And, for this reason, Perikles, who was particularly opposed to this, and urged the people not to give way to the Megarians, alone bore the blame of having begun the war.
just as the captain of a ship, when a storm comes on at sea, places everything in the best trim to meet it, and trusting to his own skill and seamanship, disregarding the tears and entreaties of the sea-sick and terrified passengers; so did Perikles shut the gates of Athens, place sufficient forces to ensure the safety of the city at all points, and calmly carry out his own policy, taking little heed of the noisy grumblings of the discontented.
"No Athenian," said he, "ever wore black because of me."
but from his own exalted pinnacle of greatness never regarded any man as so much his enemy that he could never be his friend.
Those who during his lifetime had complained that his power completely threw them into the shade, when after his death they had made trial of other orators and statesmen, were obliged to confess that with all his arrogance no man ever was really more moderate, and that his real mildness in dealing with men was as remarkable as his apparent pride and assumption.
"If I did so, I should be more cowardly than I am now thought to be, in abandoning the policy which I have determined on because of men's slanders and sneers. It is no shame to fear for one's country, but to regard the opinions and spiteful criticisms of the people would be unworthy of the high office which I hold, and would show me the slave of those whom I ought to govern and restrain when they would fain do wrong."
He did not reckon their ignorance to be his misfortune, but as Diogenes the philosopher, when some one said "They are deriding you," answered "But I am not derided," thinking that those alone are derided who are affected and disturbed by it, so Fabius quietly and unconcernedly endured all that was done, hereby affording an example of the truth of that philosophic maxim that a good and honest man can suffer no disgrace.
After the battle Fabius collected the spoils of such of the enemy as were slain, and drew off his forces without letting fall a single boastful or offensive expression about his colleague.
"Dictator, you have won two victories to-day, for you have conquered Hannibal by your bravery, and your colleague by your kindness and your generalship. By the one you have saved our lives, and by the other you have taught us our duty, for we have been disgracefully defeated by Hannibal, but beneficially and honourably by you. I call you my excellent father, having no more honourable appellation to bestow, since I owe a greater debt of gratitude to you than to him who begot me. To him I merely owe my single life, but to you I owe not only that but the lives of all my men."
Thus the one was proved to be right by the misfortunes of his country, and the other proved to be wrong by its success,
In political matters, the Peloponnesian war is a great blot upon the fame of Perikles; for it is said to have been caused by his refusal to yield the least point to the Lacedaemonians.
As to the great public works, the construction of the temples, and of the public buildings with which Perikles adorned Athens, the whole of the edifices in Rome together, before the time of the emperors, are not worthy to be compared to them, for they far surpassed them both in largeness of scale and in beauty of design.
In learning he was fairly obedient to all his teachers, except in playing the flute, which he refused to do, declaring that it was unfit for a gentleman. He said that playing on the harp or lyre did not disfigure the face, but that when a man was blowing at a flute, his own friends could scarcely recognise him.
In the midst of all this display of political ability, eloquence, and statesmanlike prudence, he lived a life of great luxury, debauchery, and profuse expenditure, swaggering through the market-place with his long effeminate mantle trailing on the ground.
So various were the opinions formed about Alkibiades, because of the inconsistency of his character.
Thucydides has omitted the names of those who impeached him, but others give their names as Diokleides and Teukrus, among whom is Phrynichus the comic dramatist,
important charge, one of them, when asked how he recognised the faces of the statue-breakers, answered that he saw them by the light of the moon: a signal falsehood, because it was done on the night of the new moon.
Indeed, if there ever was a man destroyed by his reputation, it was Alkibiades.
Other men were brave in order to win glory, but Marcius won glory in order to please his mother.
neither the human soul, nor even a god can utter words without a body fitted with the organs of speech.
The Romans, when they heard of his death, made no sign of either honour or anger towards him, except that they gave permission to the women, at their request, to wear mourning for him for ten months, as if they were each mourning for her father, her brother, or her son. This was the extreme limit of the period of mourning, which was fixed by Numa Pompilius, as has been related in his Life.
not difficult to see why Marcius is considered to have been a simple-minded and straightforward character, while Alkibiades has the reputation of a false and tricky politician.
If he was influenced by a feeling of duty towards the Volscians, he ought to have obtained their consent before withdrawing their forces from before Rome; but if he cared nothing for them, or for anything except the gratification of his own passion, and with this feeling made war upon his country, and only paused in the moment of victory, it was not creditable to him to spare his country for his mother's sake, but rather he should have spared his country and his mother with it; for his mother and his wife were but a part of Rome, which he was besieging. That he should have treated the public
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By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them.
He was a lover of his country, and of a mild temper, except only that he had a violent hatred for despotism and all that is base.
He had an elder brother, Timophanes, who was in no respect like him, but rash, and inflamed with a passion for monarchy by worthless friends and foreign soldiers, with whom he spent all his time: he was reckless in a campaign, and loved danger for its own sake, and by this he won the hearts of his fellow-citizens, and was given commands, as being a man of courage and of action. Timoleon assisted him in obtaining these commands, by concealing his faults or making them appear small, and by magnifying the clever things which he did.
He had distinguished himself in his country's cause both by saving his brother's life, and by putting him to death when he plotted to reduce her to slavery.
Thus our judgments, if they do not borrow from reason and philosophy a fixity and steadiness of purpose in their acts, are easily swayed and influenced by the praise or blame of others, which make us distrust our own opinions.
At Rhegium meanwhile, the Carthaginians, when the assembly broke up and Timoleon was gone, were infuriated at being outwitted, and became a standing joke to the people of Rhegium, because they, although they were Phoenicians, yet did not seem to enjoy a piece of deceit when it was at their own expense.
In the marshes round the city, into which runs much fresh water from springs and rivers which find their way into the sea, there was a great quantity of eels, which afforded plenty of sport for those who cared to fish for them; and the mercenary soldiers on both sides used to meet and fish whenever there was a cessation of hostilities. As they were all Greeks, and had no private grounds for hatred, they would cheerfully risk their lives in battle against each other, but during times of truce they conversed freely.
Hearing that their own part of the island was being ravaged, they at once in great anger marched to attack the Corinthians, under the command of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar.
As he was mounting a hill, beyond which he expected to see the camp and army of the enemy, there met him some mules loaded with parsley. It occurred to the soldiers that this was a bad omen, for we generally use parsley for wreathing tombs; indeed from this practice arises the proverb, when a man is dangerously ill, that he is ready for his parsley.
The soldiers seized and bound them, and led them into Timoleon's presence. Hiketes and his son were put to death as despots and traitors; nor did Euthymus meet with compassion, though he was a man of renown in athletic contest, and of great personal bravery, because of a scoffing speech of which he was accused against the Corinthians. The story goes that he was addressing the people of Leontini on the subject of the Corinthian invasion, and told them that there was nothing to be alarmed at if "Corinthian ladies have come out from home." [36] Thus it is that most people seem to suffer more from
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In this fashion the despotisms were put down by Timoleon, and the wars finished.
