Plutarch's Lives Volume III Part 3

_A_. Who killed him?

_B_. Mine is the honour,

Pomaxathres, springing up (for he happened to be at the banquet), laid hold of the head, as if it was more appropriate for him to say this than for Jason. The king was pleased, and made Pomaxathres a present, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the country, and he gave Jason a talent.

In such a farce[96] as this, it is said, that the expedition of Cra.s.sus terminated just like a tragedy. However, just punishment overtook Hyrodes for his cruelty, and Surena for his treachery. Not long after, Hyrodes put Surena to death, being jealous of his reputation. Hyrodes also lost his son Pacorus,[97] who was defeated by the Romans in a battle; and having fallen into an illness which turned out to be dropsy, his son, Phraates,[98] who had a design on his life, gave him aconite.[99] But the poison only operated on the disease, which was thrown off together with it, and Hyrodes thereby relieved; whereupon Phraates took the shortest course and strangled his father.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Cra.s.sus belonged to the Licinia Gens. His name was M.

Licinius Cra.s.sus Dives. He was the son of P. Licinius Cra.s.sus Dives, who was consul B.C. 97, and afterwards governor of the nearer Spain.

In B.C. 93 P. Cra.s.sus had a triumph. He was afterwards employed in the Marsic war; and in B.C. 89 he was censor with L. Julius Caesar, who had been consul in B.C. 90.

M. Licinius Cra.s.sus, whose life Plutarch has written, was the youngest son of the Censor. The year of his birth is uncertain; but as he was above sixty when he left Rome for his Parthian campaign B.C. 55, he must have been born before B.C. 115. Meyer (_Orator. Roman.

Fragment_.) places the birth of Cra.s.sus in B.C. 114.]

[Footnote 6: Kaltwa.s.ser makes this pa.s.sage mean that Cra.s.sus merely took his brother's wife and her children to live with him; which is contrary to the usual sense of the Greek words and readers the following sentence unmeaning.

Kaltwa.s.ser observes that we do not know that such marriages were in use among the Romans. I know no rule by which they were forbidden.

(Gaius, i. 58, &c.)]

[Footnote 7: The punishment of a Vestal Virgin for incontinence was death. She was placed alive in a subterranean vault with a light and some food. (Dionysius, ix. 40: Liv. 8. c. 15; Juvenal, Sat. iv. 8.) The man who debauched a Vestal was also put to death. The Vestal Virgins had full power of disposing of their property; they were emanc.i.p.ated from the paternal power by the fact of being selected to be Vestal Virgins (Gaius, i. 130); and they were not under the same legal disabilities as other women (Gaius, i. 145; according to Dion Ca.s.sius, 49. c. 38, Octavia and Livia received privileges like those of the Vestals).

Another Licinia, a Vestal, had broken her vow, and was punished B.C.

113.]

[Footnote 8: See the Life of Cra.s.sus, c. 12; and the Life of Sulla, c.

35.]

[Footnote 9: This may hardly be a correct translation of [Greek: argurognomonas] ???????????a?: but it is something like the meaning.]

[Footnote 10: King Archidamus of Sparta, the second of the name, who commanded the Peloponnesian war, B.C. 431. Plutarch (Life of Demosthenes, c. 17) puts this saying in the mouth of one Krobylus, a demagogue.]

[Footnote 11: Cicero (_Brutus,_ c. 66) speaks of the oratory of Cra.s.sus, and commends his care and diligence; but he speaks of his natural parts as not striking. Cra.s.sus spoke on the same side as Cicero in the defence of Murena, of Caelius, and of Balbus (Meyer, _Orator. Roman. Fragmenta,_ p. 382).]

[Footnote 12: A Roman who aspired to the highest offices of the State, prepared his way by the magnificence of his public entertainments during his curule aediles.h.i.+p, and by his affable manners. An humble individual is always gratified when a great man addresses him by name, and a shake of the hand secures his devotion. Ovidius (_Ars Amat_. ii.

253) alludes to this way of winning popular favour, and judiciously observes that it costs nothing, which would certainly recommend it to Cra.s.sus. If a man's memory was not so good as that of Cra.s.sus, he had only to buy a slave, as Horatius (1 _Epist_. i. 50) recommends, who could tell him the name of every man whom he met. Such a slave was called Nomenclator. If the nomenclator's memory ever failed him, he would not let his master know it: he gave a person any name that came into his head.]

[Footnote 13: The Greek is [Greek: stegastrou] st??ast???, 'something that covers;' but whether cloak or hat, or covered couch, or sedan, the learned have not yet determined.]

[Footnote 14: These words may not be Plutarch's, and several critics have marked them as spurious. The Peripatetics, of whom Alexander was one, did not consider wealth as one of the things that are indifferent to a philosopher; the Stoics did.]

[Footnote 15: This is Plutarch's word; but the father of Cra.s.sus was Proconsul in Spain. When Cinna and Marius returned to Rome, B.C. 87, Cra.s.sus and his sons were proscribed. Cra.s.sus and one of his sons lost their lives: the circ.u.mstances are stated somewhat differently by different writers. (Florius, iii. 21; Appian, _Civil Wars_, i. 72.)

Drumann correctly remarks that Plutarch and other Greek writers often use the word [Greek: strategos] st?at???? simply to signify one who has command, and that [Greek: strategos] is incorrectly rendered 'Praetor' by those who write in Latin, when they make use of the Greek historians of Rome. But Plutarch's [Greek: strategos] st?at????

sometimes means praetor, and it is the word by which he denotes that office; he probably does sometimes mean to say 'praetor,' when the man of whom he speaks was not praetor. Whether [Greek: strategos] st?at????

in Plutarch is always translated praetor or always Commander, there will be error. To translate it correctly in all cases, a man must know whether the person spoken of was praetor or not; and that cannot always be ascertained. But besides this, the word 'Commander' will not do, for Plutarch sometimes calls a Proconsul [Greek: strategos] st?at????, and a Proconsul had not merely a command: he had a government also.]

[Footnote 16: So the name is written by Sintenis, who writes it Paccia.n.u.s in the Life of Sertorius, c. 9. Some editions read Paciacus; but the termination in Paciacus is hardly Roman, and the termination in Pacia.n.u.s is common. But the form Paciacus is adopted by Drumann, where he is speaking of L. Junius Paciacus (_Ges.h.i.+chte Roms_, iv. p.

52).

Drumann observes that the flight of Cra.s.sus to Spain must have taken place B.C. 85, for he remained eight months in Spain and returned to Rome on the news of Cinna's death, B.C. 84.]

[Footnote 17: The MSS. have [Greek: auran] a??a?, 'breeze,' which Coraes ingeniously corrected to [Greek: laupan] ?a?pa?, 'path,' which is undoubtedly right.]

[Footnote 18: If Fenestella died in A.D. 19 at the age of seventy, as it is said, he would be born in B.C. 51, and he might have had this story from the old woman. (Clinton, _Fasti_, A.D. 14.) See Life of Sulla, c. 28.]

[Footnote 19: Malaca, which still retains its name Malaga, was an old Phnician settlement on the south coast of Spain. Much fish was salted and cured there; but I know not on what ground Kaltwa.s.ser concludes that the word 'Malach' means Salt. It is sometimes a.s.serted that the name is from the Aramaic word Malek, 'King;' but W. Humboldt (_Prufung der Untersuchungen uber die Urbewohner Hispaniens)_ says that it is a Basque word.]

[Footnote 20: The son of Metellus Numidicus. See the Lives of Marius and Sertorius. Sulla lauded in Italy B.C. 83. See the Life of Sulla, c. 27.]

[Footnote 21: This is the town which the Romans called Tuder. It was situated in Umbria on a hill near the Tiber, and is represented by the modern Todi.]

[Footnote 22: See the Life of Sulla, c. 29.]

[Footnote 23: There is nothing peculiar in this. It is common enough for a man to blame in others the faults that he has himself.]

[Footnote 24: See the Life of Caesar, c. 1. 2. and 11.]

[Footnote 25: M. Porcius Cato, whose Life Plutarch has written.]

[Footnote 26: Cn. Sicinius was Tribunus Plebis B.C. 76. He is mentioned by Cicero (_Brutus,_ c. 60) as a man who had no other oratorical qualification except that of making people laugh. The Roman proverb to which Plutarch alludes occurs in Horatius, 1 Sat. 4. 34:--

"Foenum habet in cornu, longe fuge."

[Footnote 27: The insurrection of the gladiators commenced B.C. 73, in the consuls.h.i.+p of M. Terentius Varo Lucullus, the brother of Lucius Lucullus, and of C. Ca.s.sius Longinus Verus. The names of two other leaders, Crixus and Oenomaus, are recorded by Floras (iii. 20) and by Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 116). The devastation caused by these marauders was long remembered. The allusion of Horatius (_Carm._ ii.

14) to their drinking all the wine that they could find,is characteristic.]

[Footnote 28: This Clodius is called Appius CloDius Glaber by Florus (iii. 20). Compare the account of Appian (i. 116). Spartacus commenced the campaign by flying to Mount Vesuvius, which was the scene of the stratagem that is told in this chapter (Frontinus, _Stratagem_, i. 5) Drumann (_Geschichte Roms_, iv. 74. M. Licinius Cra.s.sus, N. 37) has given a sketch of the campaign with Spartacus.]

[Footnote 29: P. Varinius Glaber who was praetor; and Clodius was his legatus. He seems to be the same person whom Frontinus (_Stratagem_, i. 5) mentions under the name of L. Varinus Proconsul.]

[Footnote 30: The place is unknown. Probably the true reading is Salinae, and the place may be the Salinae Herculeae, in the neighbourhood of Herculaneum. But this is only a guess.]

[Footnote 31: The consuls were L. Gellius Publicola and Cn. Lentulus Clodia.n.u.s B.C. 72.]

[Footnote 32: This was C. Ca.s.sius Longinus Verus, proconsul of Gaul upon the Po (see c. 8). Plutarch calls him [Greek: strategos]

st?at????. Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 117) says that one of the consuls defeated Crixus, who was at the head of 30,000 men, near Garga.n.u.s, that Spartacus afterwards defeated both the consuls, and meditated advancing upon Rome with 120,000 foot soldiers. Spartacus sacrificed three hundred Roman captives to the manes of Crixus, who had fallen in the battle in which he was defeated; 20,000 of his men had perished with Crixus.

Ca.s.sius was defeated in the neighbourhood of Mutina (Modena) as we learn from Florus (iii. 20).]

[Footnote 33: Appian (i. 118) gives two accounts of the decimation, neither of which agrees with the account of Plutarch. This punishment which the Romans called Decimatio, is occasionally mentioned by the Roman writers (Liv. ii. 59).]

[Footnote 34: Kaltwa.s.ser with the help of a false reading has mistranslated this pa.s.sage. He says that Spartacus sent over ten thousand men into Sicily. Drumann has understood the pa.s.sage as I have translated it.]

[Footnote 35: If the length is rightly given, the ditch was about 38 Roman miles in length. There are no data for determining its position.

The circ.u.mstance is briefly mentioned by Appian (_Civil Wars_, i.

118). Frontinus (_Stratagem._, i. 5) states that Spartacus filled up the ditch, where he crossed it, with the dead bodies of his prisoners and of the beasts which were killed for that purpose.]