Plutarch's Lives Volume II Part 21

[Footnote 288: A vessel of stone or metal placed at the entrance of a temple that those who entered might wash their hands in it, or perhaps merely dip in a finger.]

[Footnote 289: Plutarch's expression is "he proclaimed himself Dictator," but this expression is not to be taken literally, nor is it to be supposed that Plutarch meant it to be taken literally. Sulla was appointed in proper form, though he did in fact usurp the power, and under the t.i.tle of dictator was more than king. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, i. 98.) The terms of Sulla's election were that he should hold the office as long as he pleased; the disgrace of this compulsory election was veiled under the declaration that Sulla was appointed to draw up legislative measures and to settle affairs. Paterculus (ii. 28) mentions the 120 years as having elapsed since the time of a previous dictators.h.i.+p, which was the year after Hannibal left Italy B.C. 202.

As Sulla was elected Dictator in B.C. 81, Plutarch's statement is correct. (On the functions of the Dictator see Life of Caesar, c. 37.)]

[Footnote 290: Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was praetor B.C. 70 during the proceedings against Verres. He was the son of the M. Acilius Glabrio who got a law pa.s.sed on mal-administration in offices (repetundae), and the grandson of the Glabrio who defeated King Antiochus near Thermopylae. (See c. 12.)]

[Footnote 291: This murder is told more circ.u.mstantially by Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 101), who has added something that Plutarch should not have omitted. After saying to the people that Lucretius had been put to death by his order, Sulla told them a tale: "The lice were very troublesome to a clown, as he was ploughing. Twice he stopped his ploughing and purged his jacket. But he was still bitten, and in order that he might not be hindered in his work, he burnt the jacket; and I advise those who have been twice humbled not to make fire necessary the third time."]

[Footnote 292: Plinius (_H.N._ 33, c. 5) speaks of this triumph: it lasted two days. In the first day Sulla exhibited in the procession 15,000 pounds weight of gold and 115,000 pounds of silver, the produce of his foreign victories: on the second, 13,000 pounds weight of gold and 6000 pounds of silver which the younger Marius had carried off to Praeneste after the conflagration of the Capitol and from the robbery of the other Roman temples.]

[Footnote 293: The term Felix appears on the coins of Sulla.

Epaphroditus signifies a favourite of Aphrodite or Venus. (Eckhel, _Doctrina Num. Vet._ v. 190.) Eckhel infers from the guttus and lituus on one of Sulla's coins that he was an Augur.]

[Footnote 294: Sulla abdicated the dictators.h.i.+p B.C. 79 in the consuls.h.i.+p of P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus and Appius Claudius Pulcher. Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 103, &c.) speaks of the abdication.

He made no attempt to secure to his family the power that he had acquired. It may be that he had no desire to perpetuate the power in his family; and it is certain that this could not have been accomplished. Sulla had only one son, and he was now a child. But it is certainly a striking trait in this man's character that he descended to a private station from the possession of unlimited power, and after, as Appian observes, having caused the death of more than one hundred thousand men in his Italian wars, besides ninety senators, fifteen consuls, and two thousand six hundred equites, not to mention those who were banished and whose property was confiscated, and the many Italian cities whose fortifications he had destroyed and whose lands and privileges he had taken away. Sulla's character was a compound of arrogance, self-confidence, and contempt of all mankind, which have seldom been united. But his ruling character was love of sensual pleasures. He was weary of his life of turmoil, and he returned to his property in the neighbourhood of c.u.mae on the pleasant sh.o.r.e of Campania, where he spent his time on the sea, in fis.h.i.+ng, and in sensual enjoyments. But he had nothing to fear; there were in Italy one hundred and twenty thousand men who had served under him, to whom he had given money and land; there was a great number of persons at Rome who had shared in his cruelties and the profits of them, and whose safely consisted in maintaining the safety of their leader.

Besides this, he had manumitted above ten thousand vigorous men, once the slaves of masters who had been murdered by his orders, and made them Roman citizens under the name of Cornelii. These men were always in readiness to execute his orders. With these precautions, this blood-stained man retired to enjoy the sensual gratifications that he had indulged in from his youth upwards, glorying in his happy fortune and despising all mankind. No attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate him is recorded, nor any apprehension of his on that score. He lived and died Sulla the Fortunate.]

[Footnote 295: M. aemilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus were consuls B.C. 78, the year of Sulla's death. Lepidus attempted to overthrow Sulla's const.i.tution after Sulla's death. He was driven from Rome by Q. Catulus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and died B.C. 77 in Sardinia. This Lepidus was the father of M. Lepidus the a.s.sociate of Caesar Octavia.n.u.s and M. Antonius in the triumvirate. (See the Life of M. Antonius.)

Catulus was the son of Lutatius Catulus who was once the colleague of C. Marius in the consuls.h.i.+p. He has received great praise from Cicero.

Sall.u.s.tius calls him a defender of the aristocratical party, and C.

Licinius Macer, as quoted by Sall.u.s.tius in his History, says that he was more cruel than Sulla. We cannot trust Cicero's unqualified praise of this aristocrat nor the censure of Sall.u.s.tius. What would Cicero's character be, if we had it from some one who belonged to the party of Catiline? and what is it as we know it from his own writings?

Insincere, changing with the times, timid, revengeful, and, when he was under the influence of fear, cruel.]

[Footnote 296: The Greek word ([Greek: theatron] ??at???) from which came the Roman Theatrum and our word Theatre, means a place for an exhibition or spectacle. The Roman word for dramatic representations is properly Scena. I do not know when the men and women had separate seats a.s.signed to them in the theatres. A law of the tribune L.

Roscius Otho B.C. 68 fixed the places in the theatres for the different cla.s.ses, and it may have a.s.signed separate seats to the women.]

[Footnote 297: Valeria was the daughter of M. Valerius Messala. She could not be the sister of Hortensius, for in that case her name would be Hortensia. The sister of the orator Hortensius married a Valerius Messala.]

[Footnote 298: Plutarch has translated the Roman word Imperator by the Greek Autocrator ([Greek: Autokrator] ??t????t??), "one who has absolute power;" the t.i.tle Autocrator under the Empire is the Greek equivalent of the Roman Imperator, but hardly an equivalent at this time. (See the Life of Caesar.)]

[Footnote 299: This was the Quintus Roscius whom Cicero has so often mentioned and in defence of whom he made a speech which is extant. The subject of the action against Roscius is not easy to state in a few words. (See the Argument of P. Manutius, and the Essay of Unterholzner in Savigny's _Zeitschrift_, &c. i. p. 248.) Roscius is called Comdus in the t.i.tle of Cicero's oration and by Plutarch, but he seems to have acted tragedy also, as we may collect from some pa.s.sages in Cicero.

The general name at Rome for an actor was histrio; but the histrio is also contrasted by Cicero (_Pro Q. Roscio_, c. 10) with the comdus, as the inferior compared with the higher professor of the art. Yet Roscius is sometimes called a histrio. Roscius was a perfect master of his art, according to Cicero; and his name became proverbial among the Romans to express a perfect master of any art. (Cicero, _De Oratore_, i. 28.) Cicero was intimate with Roscius, and learned much from him that was useful to him as an orator. Roscius wrote a work in which he compared oratory and acting. His professional gains were immense; and he had a sharp eye after his own interest, as the speech of Cicero shows.]

[Footnote 300: The original is [Greek: lusiodos] ??s??d??, which is explained by Aristoxenus, quoted by Athenaeus (p. 620), as I have translated it.]

[Footnote 301: Appian does not mention this disease of Sulla, though other writers do. Appian merely speaks of his dying of fever. Zachariae (Life of Sulla) considers the story of his dying of the lousy disease as a fabrication of Sulla's enemies, and probably of the Athenians whom he had handled so cruelly. This disease, called Morbus Pediculosus or Pthiriasis, is not unknown in modern times. Plutarch has collected instances from ancient times. Akastus belongs to the mythic period. Alkman lived in the seventh century B.C.: fragments of his poetry remain. This Pherekydes was what the Greeks called Theologus, a man who speculated on things appertaining to the nature of the G.o.ds. He is said to have been a teacher of Pythagoras, which shows that he belongs to an uncertain period. He was not a Philosopher; his speculations belonged to those cosmogonical dreams which precede true philosophy, and begin again when philosophy goes to sleep, as we see in the speculations of the present day. Kallisthenes is mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Alexander, c. 55. He was thrown into prison on a charge of conspiring against Alexander. This Mucius the lawyer ([Greek: nomikos] ??????), or jurisconsultus, as a Roman would call him, is the P. Mucius Scaevola who was consul in the year in which Tiberius Gracchus was murdered.

There were two Servile wars in Sicily. Plutarch alludes to the first which broke out B.C. 134, and is described in the Excerpts from the thirty-fourth book of Diodorus. Diodorus says that Eunus died of this disease in prison at Morgantina in Sicily.]

[Footnote 302: This town, also called Puteoli, the modern Pozzuolo, was near Sulla's residence. It was originally a Greek town; and afterwards a Roman colonia. Plutarch simply says that Granius "owed a public debt." Valerius Maximus (ix. 3) states that Granius was a Princeps of Puteoli and was slow in getting in the money which had been promised by the Decuriones of Puteoli towards the rebuilding of the Capitol. Sulla had said that nothing remained to complete his good fortune, except to see the Capitol dedicated. No wonder that the delay of Granius irritated such a man.]

[Footnote 303: The Roman words Postumus, Postuma, seem to have been generally used to signify a child born after the father's death. But they also signified a child born after the father had made a will. The word simply means "last." We use the expression "Posthumous child;"

but the meaning of the word is often misunderstood. (On the effect of the birth of a Postumus on a father's will, see Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_, art. "Heres, Roman.")

Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 101) speaks of Sulla's death. He saw his death coming and hastened to make his will: he died in his sixtieth year, the most fortunate man in his end and in everything else, both in name and estimation; if indeed, the historian wisely adds, a man should think it good fortune to have obtained all his wishes.

Sulla had the following children:--Cornelia, by Ilia; she married Q.

Pompeius Rufus who was murdered B.C. 88, and she may have died before her father: Cornelius Sulla, a son by Metella, who died, as Plutarch has said, before his father: Faustus Cornelius Sulla and Fausta Cornelia, the twin children by Metella, who were both young when their father died. Faustus lost his life in Africa, when he was fighting on the Pompeian side. Fausta's first husband was C. Memmius, from whom she was divorced. She then married T. Annius Milo B.C. 55, who caught her in the act of adultery with the historian Sall.u.s.tius, who was soundly hided by the husband and not let of till he had paid a sum of money. Sall.u.s.tius did not forget this.]

[Footnote 304: It was considered a mark of intentional disrespect or of disapprobation, when a Roman made no mention of his nearest kin or friends in his will; and in certain cases, the person who was pa.s.sed over could by legal process vindicate the imputation thus thrown on him. (See the article "Testamentum," in Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_, under the head "Querela Inofficiosi.") Sulla did not like Cn. Pompeius. The only reason for keeping on terms with him was that he saw his talents and so wished to ally him to his family. For the same reason Sulla wished to put C. Julius Caesar to death (Caesar.

1): he predicted that he would be the ruin of the aristocratical party. Sulla made his friend Lucius Lucullus the guardian of his children and intrusted him with the final correction of his Memoirs.

(See the Life of Lucullus, c. 1).]

[Footnote 305: The description of the funeral in Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 105, &c.) is a striking picture. Sulla was buried with more than regal pomp.

Plutarch's Life of Sulla has been spoken of as not one of his best performances. But so far as concerns Plutarch's object in writing these Lives, which was to exhibit character, it is as good as any of his Lives, and it has great merit. Whether his anecdotes are always authentic is a difficult matter to determine. Sulla had many enemies, and it is probable that his character in private life has been made worse than it was. The acts of his public life are well ascertained.

Plutarch has nearly omitted all mention of him as a Reformer of the Roman Const.i.tution and as a Legislator. Sulla's enactments were not like the imperial const.i.tutions of a later day, the mere act of one who held the sovereign power: they were laws (leges) duly pa.s.sed by the popular a.s.sembly. Yet they were Sulla's work, and the legislative body merely gave them the formal sanction. The object of Sulla's const.i.tutional measures was to give an aristocratical character to the Roman const.i.tution, to restore it to something of its pristine state, and to weaken the popular party by curtailing the power of the tribunes. The whole subject has often been treated, but at the greatest length by Zachariae, _Lucius Cornelius Sulla, &c._, Heidelberg, 1834. Zachariae has drawn the character of Sulla in an apologetical tone. I think the character of Sulla is drawn better by Plutarch, and that he has represented him as near to the life as a biographer can do. Whatever discrepancies there may he between Plutarch and other authorities, whatever Plutarch may have omitted which other authorities give, still he has shown us enough to justify his delineation of the most prominent man in the Republican Period of Rome, with the exception of the Dictator Caesar. But to complete the view of his intellectual character, a survey of Sulla's legislation is necessary. Sulla was an educated man: he was not a mere soldier like Marius; he was not only a general; he was a man of letters, a lover of the arts, a keen discriminator of men and times, a legislator, and a statesman. He remodelled and reformed the whole criminal law of the Romans. His const.i.tutional measures were not permanent, but it may truly be said that he prepared the way for the temporary usurpation of Caesar and the permanent establishment of the Roman State under Augustus. I propose to treat of the Legislation of Sulla in an Appendix to a future volume.]

COMPARISON OF LYSANDER AND SULLA

Now that we have completed the second of these men's lives, let us proceed to compare them with one another. Both rose to greatness by their own exertions, though it was the peculiar glory of Lysander that all his commands were bestowed upon him by his countrymen of their own free will and by their deliberate choice, and that he never opposed their wishes or acted in opposition to the laws of his country. Now,--

"In revolutions, villains rise to fame,"

and at Rome, at the period of which we are treating, the people were utterly corrupt and degraded, and frequently changed their masters. We need not wonder at Sulla's becoming supreme in Rome when such men as Glaucia and Saturninus drove the Metelli into exile, when the sons of consuls were butchered in the senate-house, when silver and gold purchased soldiers and arms, and laws were enacted by men who silenced their opponents by fire and the sword. I cannot blame a man who rises to power at such a time as this, but I cannot regard it as any proof of his being the best man in the state, if the state itself be in such a condition of disorder. Now Lysander was sent out to undertake the most important commands at a time when Sparta was well and orderly governed, and proved himself the greatest of all the foremost men of his age, the best man of the best regulated state. For this reason Lysander, though he often laid down his office, was always re-elected by his countrymen, for the renown of his abilities naturally pointed him out as the fittest man to command: whereas Sulla, after being once elected to lead an army, remained the chief man in Rome for ten years, calling himself sometimes consul and sometimes dictator, but always remaining a mere military despot.

II. We have related an attempt of Lysander to subvert the const.i.tution of Sparta; but he proceeded by a much more moderate and law-abiding means than Sulla, for he meant to gain his point by persuasion, not by armed force; and besides this he did not intend to destroy the const.i.tution utterly, but merely to reform the succession to the throne. And it does not seem contrary to justice, that he who is best among his peers should govern a city, which ruled in Greece by virtue, not by n.o.bility of blood.

A huntsman tries to obtain a good hound, and a horseman a good horse, but does not trouble himself with their offspring, for the offspring of his horse might turn out to be a mule. Just so in politics, the important point is, what sort of man a ruler is, not from what family he is descended. Even the Spartans in some cases dethroned their kings, because they were not king-like but worthless men. If then vice be disgraceful even in the n.o.bly born, it follows that virtue does not depend upon birth, but is honoured for itself.

The crimes of Lysander were committed for, those of Sulla against, his friends. Indeed, what Lysander did wrong was done chiefly on behalf of his friends, as, in order to establish them securely in their various despotic governments, he caused many of their political opponents to be put to death. Sulla, on the other hand, reduced the army of Pompeius and the fleet which he himself had given to Dolabella to command, merely to gratify his private spite. When Lucretius Ofella sued for the consuls.h.i.+p as the reward of many great exploits, he ordered him to be put to death before his face, and thus made all men fear and hate him by his barbarous treatment of his most intimate friends.

III. Their several esteem for pleasure and for riches prove still more clearly that Lysander was born to command men; Sulla to tyrannize over them. The former, although he rose to such an unparalleled height of power never was betrayed by it into any acts of insolent caprice, and there never was a man to whom the well-known proverb

"Lions at home, but foxes in the field,"

was less applicable, Sulla, on the other hand, did not allow his poverty when young or his years when old to hinder him in the pursuit of pleasure, but he enacted laws to regulate the marriages and morals of his countrymen, and indulged his own amorous propensities in spite of them, as we read in Sall.u.s.t's history. In consequence of his vices, Rome was so drained of money that he was driven to the expedient of allowing the allied cities to purchase their independence by payment, and that, too, although he was daily proscribing the richest men and selling their property by public auction. Yet he wasted money without limit upon his courtiers. What bounds can we imagine he would set to his generosity when in his cups, seeing that once, when a great estate was being sold by public auction, he ordered the auctioneer to knock it down to a friend of his own for a mere nominal sum, and when some one else made a higher bid, and the auctioneer called out the additional sum offered, Sulla flew into a pa.s.sion and exclaimed: "My friends, I am very hardly used if I may not dispose of my own plunder as I please." Now Lysander sent home to his countrymen even what he had himself received as presents together with the rest of the spoils.

Yet I do not approve of him for so doing: for he did as much harm to Sparta by bestowing that money upon it as Sulla did harm to Rome by the money which he took from it: but I mention it as proving how little he cared for money. Each acted strangely towards his fellow-countrymen. Sulla regulated and improved the morals of Rome, although he himself was wasteful and licentious. Lysander filled his countrymen with the pa.s.sions from which he himself was free. Thus the former was worse than the laws which he himself enacted, while the latter rendered his countrymen worse than himself, as he taught the Spartans to covet what he had learned to despise. So much for their political conduct.

IV. In warlike exploits, in brilliancy of generals.h.i.+p, in the number of victories he won, and the greatness of the dangers which he encountered, Sulla is immeasurably the greater. Lysander did indeed twice conquer in a sea-fight, and I will even allow him the credit of having taken Athens; no difficult matter, no doubt, but one which, brought him great glory because of its being so famous a city. In Botia and before Haliartus he was perhaps unlucky, yet his conduct in not waiting for the arrival of the great force under Pausanias, which was at Plataea, close by, seems like bad generals.h.i.+p. He would not stay till the main body arrived, but rashly a.s.saulted the city, and fell by an unknown hand in an insignificant skirmish. He did not meet his death facing overwhelming odds, like Kleombrotus at Leuktra, nor yet in the act of rallying his broken forces, or of consummating his victory, as did Cyrus and Epameinondas. All these died as became generals and kings; but Lysander ingloriously flung away his life like any common light infantry soldier, and proved the wisdom of the ancient Spartans, who always avoided the attack of fortified places, where the bravest may fall by the hand of the most worthless man, or even by that of a woman or a child, as Achilles is said to have been slain by Paris at the gates of Troy. Turning now to Sulla, it is not easy to enumerate all the pitched battles he won, the thousands of enemies that he overthrew. He twice took Rome itself by storm, and at Athens he took Peiraeus, not by famine like Lysander, but after a gigantic struggle, at the end of which he drove Archelaus into the sea.

It is important also to consider who were the generals to whom they were opposed. It must have been mere child's-play to Lysander to defeat Antiochus, the pilot of Alkibiades, and to outwit Philokles, the Athenian mob-orator,

"A knave, whose tongue was sharper than his sword,"

for they were both of them men whom Mithridates would not have thought a match for one of his grooms, or Marius for one of his lictors. Not to mention the rest of the potentates, consuls, praetors and tribunes with whom Sulla had to contend, what Roman was more to be dreaded than Marius? What king more powerful than Mithridates? Who was there in Italy more warlike than Lamponius and Pontius Telesinus? Yet Sulla drove Marius into exile, crushed the power of Mithridates, and put Lamponius and Pontius to death.

V. What, however, to my mind incontestably proves Sulla to have been the greater man of the two, is that, whereas Lysander was always loyally a.s.sisted by his countrymen in all his enterprises, Sulla, during his campaign in Botia, was a mere exile. His enemies were all-powerful at Rome. They had driven his wife to seek safety in flight, had pulled down his house, and murdered his friends. Yet he fought in his country's cause against overwhelming numbers, and gained the victory. Afterwards, when Mithridates offered to join him and furnish him with the means of overcoming his private enemies, he showed no sign of weakness, and would not even speak to him or give him his hand until he heard him solemnly renounce all claim to Asia Minor, engage to deliver up his fleet, and to restore Bithynia and Cappadocia to their native sovereigns. Never did Sulla act in a more n.o.ble and high-minded manner. He preferred his country's good to his own private advantage, and, like a well-bred hound, never relaxed his hold till his enemy gave in, and then began to turn his attention to redressing his own private wrongs.

Perhaps their treatment of Athens gives us some insight into their respective characters. Although that city sided with Mithridates and fought to maintain his empire, yet when Sulla had taken it he made it free and independent. Lysander, on the other hand, felt no pity for Athens when she fell from her glorious position as the leading state in Greece, but put an end to her free const.i.tution and established the cruel and lawless government of the Thirty.

We may now conclude our review of their respective lives by observing that while Sulla performed greater achievements, Lysander committed fewer crimes: and that while we a.s.sign the palm for moderation and self-denial to the latter, that for courage and generals.h.i.+p be bestowed upon the former.