PLUTARCH'S LIVES. PELOPIDAS. CATO the elder, hearing fomebody commend a man who was rafhly and indifcreetly daring in war, made this just observation, that there was great difference between a due regard to valour, and a contempt of life. To this purpose, there is a ftory of one of the foldiers of Antigonus, who was aftonishingly brave, but of an unhealthy complexion and bad habit of body. The king asked him the cause of his palenefs, and he acknowledged that he had a private infirmity. He therefore gave his phyficians a strict charge, that if any remedy could be found, they should apply it with the utmost care. Thus the man was cured; but then he no longer courted, nor rifked his perfon as before. Antigonus queftioned him about it, and could not forbear to exprefs his wonder at the change. The foldier did not conceal the real caufe; "You, Sir," said he, "have made me lefs bold, by delivering me from that mifery which made my life of no account to me." From the fame way of arguing it was that a certain Sybarite faid of the Spartans," It was no wonder if they ventured their lives freely in battle, fince death was a deliverance to them from such a train of labours, and from fuch wretched diet." It was natural for the Sybarites, who were diffolved in luxury and 'pleasure, to think that they who despised death did it not from a The Sybarites were a colony of Greeks, who fettled in ancient times on the gulf of Tarentum. The felicity of their fituation, their wealth and power, drew them into luxury, which was remarkable to a proverb. But one cannot credit. the extravagant things which Athenæus relates of them. Their chief city, which at firft was called Sybaris, from a river of that name, was afterwards named Thurium, or Thurii. Vol. III. 2 love of virtue and honour, but because they were weary of life. But, in fact, the Lacedæmonians thought it a pleasure either to live or to die, as virtue and right reason directed; and fo this epitaph testifies, Nor life nor death, they deem'd the happier state, For neither is the avoiding of death to be found fault with, if a man is not dishonourably fond of life; nor is the meeting it with courage to be commended, if he is difgufted with life. Hence it is that Homer leads out the boldest and braveft of his warriors to battle, always well armed: and the Grecian lawgivers punish him who throws away his fhield, not him who lofes his sword or fpear; thus inftructing us, that the first care of every man, efpecially of every governor of a city, or commander of an army, fhould be to defend himself, and after that he is to think of annoying the enemy; for if, according to the comparison made by Iphicrates, the light-armed resemble the hands, the cavalry the feet, the main body of infantry the breaft, and the general the head; then that general who fuffers himself to be carried away by his impetuofity, fo as to expofe himfelf to needlefs hazards, not only endangers his own life, but the lives of his whole army, whose safety depends upon his. Callicratidas, therefore, though other, wife a great man, did not answer the foothfayer well, who defired him not to expofe himfelf to danger, be cause the entrails of the victim threatened his life. "Sparta," said he, “is not bound up in one man :” For in battle he was indeed but one, when acting under the orders of another, whether at fea or land; but when he had the command, he virtually comprehended the whole force in himself; so that he was no longer a fingle perfon, when fuch numbers must perifh with him. Much better was the faying of old Antigonus, when he was going to engage in a fea-fight near the island of Andros. Somebody obferved to him, that the enemy's fleet was much larger than his: "For how many fhips then doft thou reckon me?" He reprefented the importance of the commander great, as in fact it is, when he is a man of experience and valour; and the firft duty of such a one is to preserve him who preferves the whole. On the fame account, we must allow that Timotheus expreffed himself happily, when Chares fhowed the Athenians the wounds he had received when their general, and his fhield pierced with a fpear: " I, for my part," said he, "was much afhamed when, at the fiege of Samos, a javelin fell near me, as if I had behaved too like a young man, and not as became the commander of fo great an armament." For where the fcale of the whole action turns upon the general's rifking his own perfon, there he is to ftand the combat, and to brave the greatest danger, without regarding those who fay that a good general should die of old age, or, at least, an old man; but when the advantage to be reaped from his perfonal bravery is but small, and all is loft in case of a mifcarriage, no one then expects that the general fhould be endangered by exerting too much of the foldier. Thus much I thought proper to premife before the lives of Pelopidas and Marcellus, who were both great men, and both perished by their rafhnefs. Both were excellent foldiers, did honour to their country by the greatest exploits, and had the moft formidable adverfaries to deal with; for the one defeated Hannibal, until that time invincible, and the other conquered the Lacedæmonians, who were mafters both by fea and land; and yet, at laft, they both threw away their lives, and spilt their blood without any fort of difcretion, when the times moft required fuch men and fuch generals. From this resemblance between them we have drawn their parallel. Pelopidas, the fon of Hippoclus, was of an illuftrious family in Thebes, as was alfo Epaminondas. Brought up in affluence, and coming in his youth to a great estate, he applied himself to relieve fuch neceffitous persons as deferved his bounty, to how that he was really master of his riches, not their slave: for the greatest part of men, as Ariftotle fays, either through covetoufnefs, make no ufe of their wealth, or else abuse it through prodigality; and these live perpetual flaves to their pleasures, as those do to care and toil. The Thebans, with grateful hearts, enjoyed the liberality and munificence of Pelopidas. Epaminondas alone could not be perfuaded to share in it. Pelopidas, however, partook in the poverty of his friend, glorying in a plainnefs of drefs and flenderness of diet, indefatigable in labour, and plain and open in his conduct, in the highest posts *. In short, he was like Capaneus in Euripides, -Whose opulence was great, And yet his heart was not elated. He looked upon it as a difgrace to expend more upon his own person than the poorest Theban. As for Epami nondas, poverty was his inheritance, and confequently familiar to him, but he made it still more light and eafy by philosophy, and by the uniform fimplicity of his life. Pelopidas married into a noble family, and had several children, but fetting no greater value upon money than before, and devoting all his time to the concerns of the commonwealth, he impaired his fubftance. And when his friends admonished him that money, which he neglec ed, was a very necessary thing; It is neceffary, indeed, faid he, for Nicodemus there, pointing to a man that was both lame and blind. Epaminondas and he were both equally inclined to every virtue, but Pelopidas delighted more in the exercifes of the body, and Epaminondas in the improvement of the mind; and the one diverted himself in the wrestlingring or in hunting, while the other spent his hours of leifure in hearing or reading fomething in philosophy. Among the many things that reflected glory upon both, there was nothing which men of fenfe fo much admired as that ftrict and inviolable friendship which fubfifted between them from first to last, in all the high pofts which * κατατρατείας αδελφ -literally, plain and open in his conduct in war. But in Boeotia, as well as other Grecian states, a commander in chief of the forces was generally also first minister. Such an one in Boeotia was called Bowragxns. they held, both military and civil: For if we confider the administration of Ariftides and Themiftocles, of Cimon and Pericles, of Nicias and Alcibiades, how much the common concern was injured by their diffenfion, their envy and jealousy of each other, and then caft dur eyes upon the mutual kindness and esteem which Pelopidas and Epaminondas inviolably preserved, we may justly call these colleagues in civil government and military command, and not those whose study it was to get the better of each other rather than of the enemy. The true cause of the difference was, the virtue of these Thebans, which led them not to seek, in any of their measures, their own honour and wealth, the pursuit of which is always attended with envy and ftrife; but being both inspired from the firft with a divine ardour to raise their country to the fummit of glory, for this purpose they availed themselves of the achievements of each other, as if they had been their own. But many are of opinion that their extraordinary friendship took its rife from the campaign which they made at Mantinea*, among the fuccours which the Thebans had fent the Lacedæmonians, who as yet were their allies: For, being placed together among the heavyarmed infantry, and fighting with the Arcadians, that wing of the Lacedæmonians in which they were gave way, and was broken; whereupon Pelopidas and Epaminondas locked their shields together, and repulfed all that attacked them, till at last Pelopidas, having received seven large wounds, fell upon a heap of friends and enemies who lay dead together. Epaminondas, though he thought there was no life left in him, yet stood forward to defend his body and his arms, and being determined to die rather than leave his companion in the power of his enemies, he engaged with numbers at once. He was now in extreme danger, being wounded in the breast *We must take care not to confound this with the famous battle at Mantinea, in which Epaminondas was slain. For that battle was fought against the Lacedæmonians, and this for them. The action here spoken of was probably about the third year of the ninety-eighth Olympiad. |