LYSANDER AND SYLLA COMPARED.

WE have now gone through the life of Sylla, and will proceed to the comparison. This, then, Lyfander and he have in common, that they were entirely indebted to themselves for their rife. But Lyfander has this advantage, that the high offices he gained were with the confent of the people, while the conftitution of his country was in a found and healthy ftate; and that he got nothing by force or by acting against the laws

In civil broils the worft of men may rife.

So it was then in Rome. The people were fo corrupt, and the republic in fo fickly a condition, that tyrants fprung up on every fide. Nor is it any wonder if Sylla gained the afcendant, at a time when wretches like Glaucias and Saturninus expelled fuch men as Metellus, when the fons of confuls were murdered in the public affemblies, when men supported their seditious purposes with foldiers purchased with money, and laws were enacted with fire and fword and every fpecies of violence *.

In fuch a state of things, I do not blame the man who raised himself to fupreme power; all I fay is, that when the commonwealth was in fo depraved and defperate a condition, power was no evidence of merit. But fince the laws and public virtue never flourished more at Sparta, than when Lyfander was fent upon the highest and most important commiffions, we may conclude that he was the best among the virtuous, and first among the great. Thus the one, though he often furrendered the command, had it as often reftored to him by his fellow-citizens, because his virtue, which alone has a claim to the prize of honour, continued ftill the fame t. The other, after he was once appointed general, ufurped the command, and kept in

arms

* We need no other inftances than this to show that.a republican government will never do in corrupt times.

What kind of virtue can Plutarch poffibly afcribe to Lyfander?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 prostituted the honour of the gods, to gratify his perfonal envy and ambition.

arms for ten years, fometimes ftyling himself conful, fometimes proconful, and fometimes dictator, but was always in reality a tyrant.

It is true, as we have obferved above, Lyfander did attempt a change in the Spartan conftitution, but he took a milder and more legal method than Sylla. It was by perfuafion, not by arms, he proceeded; nor did he attempt to overturn every thing at once. He only wanted to correct the establishment as to kings. And indeed it feemed natural, that in a state which had the fupreme direction of Greece, on account of its virtue rather than any other fuperiority, merit fhould gain the fceptre. For as the hunter and the jockey do not fo much confider the breed, as the dog or horfe already bred (for what if the foal fhould prove a mule)? fo the politician would entirely mifs his aim, if, instead of inquiring into the qualities of a perfon for firft magiftrate, he looked upon nothing but his family. Thus the Spartans depofed fome of their kings, because they had not princely talents, but were perfons of no worth or confequence. Vice even with high birth, is dishonourable; and the honour which virtue enjoys, is all her own; family has no fhare in it.

They were both guilty of injuftice, but Lyfander for his friends, and Sylla against his. Moft of Lyfander's frauds were committed for his creatures, and it was to advance to high ftations and abfolute power that he dipped his hands in fo much blood: whereas Sylla envied Pompey the army, and Dolabella the naval command he had given them; and he attempted to take them away. And when Lucretius Ofella after the greatest and most faithful services, folicited the confulfhip, he ordered him to be dispatched before his eyes. Terror and difmay feized all the world, when they faw one of his best friends thus murdered.

If we confider their behaviour with refpect to riches and pleafure, we fhall find the one the prince, and the other the tyrant. When the power and authority of Lyfander were fo extenfive, he was not guilty of one act of intemperance or youthful diffipation. He, if any man, avoided the fting of that proverb, Lions within doors, and foxes without. So fober, fo regular, fo worthy of a Spartan, was his manner of living. Sylla, on the other hand,

Kwas by hypocrify, by profane and impious expedients.

7

neither

neither let poverty fet bounds to his paffions in his youth, nor years in his age. But as Saluft fays, while he was giving his countrymen laws for the regulation of marriages, and for promoting fobriety, he indulged himself in adultery and every species of luft.

By his debaucheries he fo drained the public treasures, that he was obliged to let many cities in alliance and friendfhip, with Rome, purchafe independence and the privilege of being governed only by their own laws; though at the fame time he was daily confifcating the richest and best houfes in Rome. Still more immenfe were the fums he fquandered 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 inftance of his behaviour in public? One day as he was felling a confiderable eftate, which he wanted a friend to have at an under-priee, another offered more, and the crier proclaiming the advance, he turned with indignation to the people, and faid, "What outrage and tyranny is this, my friends, that I am not allowed to difpofe of my own spoils as I pleafe?"

Far from fuch rapacioufnefs, Lyfander, to the fpoils he fent his countrymen, added his own fhare. Not that I praife him in that: for perhaps he hurt Sparta more effentially 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 fomething very particular, however, that Sylla, while he abandoned himfelf to all the profufion of luxury and expence, fhould bring the Romans to fobriety; whereas Lyfander fubjected the Spartans to thofe paffions which he reftrained in himfelf. The former acted worse than his own laws directed, and the other brought his people to act worfe than himself: for he filled Sparta with the love of that which he knew how to defpife. Such they were in their political capacity.

As to military atchievements and acts of generalship, the number of victories, and the dangers he had to combat, Sylla is beyond comparison, Lyfander, indeed, gained two naval victories; to which we may add his taking of Athens; for, though that affair was not difficult in the execution, it was glorious in its confequences. As to his mifcarriage in Boeotia and at Fialiaitus, ill-fortune, perhaps,

had

had fome concern in it; but it was principally owing to indifcretion; fince he would not wait for the great reinforcement which the king was bringing from Platæa, and which was upon the point of joining him, but with an illtimed refentment and ambition marched up to the walls. Hence it was, that he was flain by fome troops of confideration, who fallied out to the attack. He fell not as Cleombrotus did at Leuctra, who was slain as he was making head against an impetuous enemy, nor like Cyrus, or Epami nondas, who received a mortal wound as he was rallying his men and ensuring to them the victory. These great men died the death of generals and kings. But Lyfander threw away his life ingloriously, like a common foldier or defperate adventurer. By his death he showed how right the ancient Spartans were in not choosing to fight against ftone walls, where the bravest man in the world may be killed, I will not lay by an infignificant man, but by a child or a woman. So Achilles is faid to have been flain by Paris at the gates of Troy. On the other hand, so many pitched battles were won by Sylla, and fo many myriads of enemies killed, that it is not eafy to number them. He took Rome itself twice *, and the Piræus at Athens, not by famine, as Lyfander had done, but by affault, after he had defeated Archelaus in feveral great battles at land, and forced him to take refuge in his fleet.

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

A man whofe tongue was fharpened, not his fword.

Mithridates would not have compared them with his groom, nor Marius with one of his lictors. But Sylla had to contend with princes, confuls, 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 Lampronius,

Whatever military merit he might difplay in other battles, he had certainly none in the taking of Rome: For it was not generalfbip, but neceffity that brought it into his hands.

Lamponius and Telefinus? yet Sylla banished the firf, fubdued the fecond, and killed the other two.

What is of more confequence, in my opinion, than any thing yet mentioned, is, that Lyfander was fupported in all his enterprises by his friends at home, and owed all his fuccefs to their affiftance; whereas Sylla, a banished man, overpowered by a faction, at a time when his enemies were expelling his wife, deftroying his houfe, and putting his friends to death, fought the battles of his country on the plains of Bocotia against armies that could not be numbered, and was victorious in her caufe. This was not all: Mithridates offered to fecond him with all his power and join him with all his forces against his enemies at Rome, yet he relaxed not the leaft of his demands, nor fhowed him the leaft countenance. He would not fo much as return his falutation, or give him his hand, till he promifed, in perfon, to relinquish Afia, to deliver up his fhips, and to reitore Bithynia and Cappadocia to their refpective kings. There was nothing in the whole conduct of Sylla more glorious, or that fhowed greater magnanimity. He preferred the public good to his own like a dog of generous breed, he kept his hold till his adversary had given out, and after that he turned to revenge his own caufe.

The different methods they obferved with refpect to the Athenians, contribute not a little to mark their characters. Sylla, though they bore arms against him for Mithridates, after he had taken their city, indulged them with their liberty and the privilege of their own laws: Lyfander Thowed no fort of compaffion for a people of late fo glorious and powerful, but abolished the popular government, and set over them the most cruel and unjust of tyrants.

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

VOL. III.

I

CIMON.