The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Plutarch’s Lives
• Pyrrhus and Caius Marius
• Pyrrhus.
• Caius Marius.
• Lysander.
• Sylla.
• Comparison of Lysander With Sylla.
• Cimon and Lucullus
• Cimon.
• Lucullus.
• Nicias.
• Crassus.
• Comparison of Crassus With Nicias.
• Sertorius and Eumenes
• Sertorius.
• Eumenes.
• Comparison of Sertorius With Eumenes.
• Appendix.

COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES.

These are the most remarkable passages that are come to our knowledge concerning Eumenes and Sertorius. In comparing their lives, we may observe that this was common to them both; that being aliens, strangers, and banished men, they came to be commanders of powerful forces, and had the leading of numerous and warlike armies, made up of divers nations. This was peculiar to Sertorius, that the chief command was, by his whole party, freely yielded to him, as to the person of the greatest merit and renown, whereas Eumenes had many who contested the office with him, and only by his actions obtained the superiority. They followed the one honestly, out of desire to be commanded by him; they submitted themselves to the other for their own security, because they could not command themselves. The one, being a Roman, was the general of the Spaniards and Lusitanians, who for many years had been under the subjection of Rome; and the other, a Chersonesian, was chief commander of the Macedonians, who were the great conquerors of mankind, and were at that time subduing the world. Sertorius, being already in high esteem for his former services in the wars, and his abilities in the senate, was advanced to the dignity of a general; whereas Eumenes obtained this honor from the office of a writer, or secretary, in which he had been despised. Nor did he only at first rise from inferior opportunities, but afterwards, also, met with greater impediments in the progress of his authority, and that not only from those who publicly resisted him, but from many others that privately conspired against him. It was much otherwise with Sertorius, not one of whose party publicly opposed him, only late in life and secretly a few of his acquaintance entered into a conspiracy against him. Sertorius put an end to his dangers as often as he was victorious in the field, whereas the victories of Eumenes were the beginning of his perils, through the malice of those that envied him.

Their deeds in war were equal and parallel, but their general inclinations different. Eumenes naturally loved war and contention, but Sertorius esteemed peace and tranquillity; when Eumenes might have lived in safety, with honor, if he would have quietly retired out of their way, he persisted in a dangerous contest with the greatest of the Macedonian leaders; but Sertorius, who was unwilling to trouble himself with any public disturbances, was forced, for the safety of his person, to make war against those who would not suffer him to live in peace. If Eumenes could have contented himself with the second place, Antigonus, freed from his competition for the first, would have used him well, and shown him favor, whereas Pompey’s friends would never permit Sertorius so much as to live in quiet. The one made war of his own accord, out of a desire for command; and the other was constrained to accept of command, to defend himself from war that was made against him. Eumenes was certainly a true lover of war, for he preferred his covetous ambition before his own security; but Sertorius was truly warlike, who procured his own safety by the success of his arms.

As to the manner of their deaths, it happened to one without the least thought or surmise of it; but to the other when he suspected it daily; which in the first, argues an equitable temper, and a noble mind, not to distrust his friends; but in the other, it showed some infirmity of spirit, for Eumenes intended to fly and was taken. The death of Sertorius dishonored not his life; he suffered that from his companions which none of his enemies were ever able to perform. The other, not being able to deliver himself before his imprisonment, being willing also to live in captivity, did neither prevent nor expect his fate with honor or bravery; for by meanly supplicating and petitioning, he made his enemy, that pretended only to have power over his body, to be lord and master of his body and mind.

APPENDIX.

The Lives in this volume were translated for Dryden’s edition, as follows: —

Pyrrhus, by William Croune, M. D., Fellow of the College of Physicians.

Marius, by Miles Stapleton, Fellow of All-Souls College, Oxford.

Lysander, by the Honorable Charles Boyle, of Christ’s Church, (the once famous editor of the Epistles of Phalaris, and unequal opponent of Bentley).

Sylla, by William Davies, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Cimon, by Mat. Morgan, A. M., of St. Johns’ College, Oxford.

Lucullus, by Giles Thornburgh, A. M.

Nicias, by Thomas Rymer, Esq., (the critic and antiquary).

Crassus, by — Amhurst, Esq.

Eumenrs, by some one unnamed.

Sertorius, by Edward Browne, M. D.

end of vol. iii.

[* ]The simpleton.

[* ]The office of the Board of Generals, ten in number, by whom all the military business was transacted.

Page 53 . — For the tumors, or swellings, with which Marius was troubled in his legs, Mr. Long in his translation has varicose veins, on the authority of Cicero, who in his Tusculan Disputations (II., 15 and 22) uses the word varices. Cicero adduces the story in elucidation of the question as to the nature of pain. Of the fortitude of Marius there could be no doubt: others had followed the example after him; but he had been the first who ever had submitted to the operation without being tied down. Yet that with him pain was not simply indifferent, (neither an evil nor a good, as the Stoics taught,) appeared by his declining to let the surgeon have his other leg to cut.

Life of Lysander,page 104 . — In the description of the statue, the phrase, but indeed it is Lysander’s, representing him, is in the original a good deal more precise; but indeed it is an iconic figure of Lysander. Iconic (from the Greek icon or eikon, the word that is used in the title Ikon basilike, and forms part of the compound iconoclast, and means an image or likeness) was a technical term applied in Latin, as well as Greek, to real portraitures from the life as distinguished from ideal representations.

Life of Cimon,page 202 . — Miltiades and his family were Laciadæ, or Laciads, this being the name of the members of the township or demus of Lacia, which itself was more commonly thus called, the township Laciadæ or the Laciads. Compare page 211. — For the quotation Rude and unrefined, see a note on the life of Marcellus at the end of Vol. II.

Page 203 . — Laodice, of the daughters of Priam the best in appearance, occurs in the third Iliad (124). Iris took her form when she went to summon Helen to the walls, in the interval before the combat between Paris and Menclaus.

Comparison,page 284 . — Plato says it scornfully not of Orpheus, but Musæus in the Republic (II., p. 363). The feast of Venus, the Aphrodisia, is often spoken of as kept formally by sailors on their return to port, and, in a general way, the phrase is used of all indulgence and feasting after business, labor, or danger.

Life of Nicias,page 289 . — The fragment from Pindar is No. 119, in the Uncertain Fragments of Boeckh’s edition. Diphilus is a Comic poet.

Pages 295 -296 . — The words of Agamemnon are from the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides (449).

Page 300 . — Egypt is thus described in the fourth Odyssey (230).

Page 301 . — My lance I’ll leave is a fragment of the lost Erechtheus of Euripides. It is found at greater length in Stobæus. See Matthiæ’s fragments of the play, No. xiii.