Plutarch's Lives Volume III Part 33

[Footnote 608: The two sects of Greek philosophy that had most adherents among the Romans were those of the Epicureans and the Stoics. Ca.s.sius, as an Epicurean, would have no faith in any superhuman powers; but in the moments of danger a man's speculative principles give way to the common feelings of all mankind. I have kept Plutarch's word "enthusiasm," which is here to be understood not in our sense, but in the Greek sense of a person under some superhuman influence.]

[Footnote 609: This is a mistake of Plutarch, who has stated the fact correctly in his Life of Brutus (c. 17). It was Caius Trebonius who kept Antonius engaged in talk, as we learn from Dion Ca.s.sius (44. c.

10), Appia.n.u.s (_Civil War_, ii. 117), and Cicero, who in a Letter to Trebonius (_Ad Diversos_, x. 28) complains that Trebonius had taken Antonius aside, and so saved his life.]

[Footnote 610: Some would write Tullius Cimber. See the note of Sintenis. Atilius may be the true name.]

[Footnote 611: P. Servilius Casca was at this time a tribune of the Plebs (Dion Ca.s.sius, 44. c. 52).]

[Footnote 612: Dion Ca.s.sius adds (44. c. 19) that Caesar said to M.

Brutus, "And you too, my son." Probably the story of Caesar's death received many embellishments. Of his three and twenty wounds, only one was mortal according to the physician Antistius (Suetonius, _Caesar_, 82): but though the wounds severally might not have been mortal, the loss of blood from all might have caused death. Suetonius (c. 82) adds, that Caesar pierced the arm of Ca.s.sius (he mentions two Ca.s.sii among the conspirators) with his graphium (stylus). See the notes in Burmann's edition of Suetonius.

The circ.u.mstances of the death of Caesar are minutely stated by Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Julii, p. 728, &c. The reflections of Dion Ca.s.sius (44. c. 1, 2) on the death of Caesar are worth reading. He could not see that any public good was accomplished by this murder; nor can anybody else.]

[Footnote 613: Cicero was among them. He saw, as he says himself (_Ad Attic._ xiv. 10), the tyrant fall, and he rejoiced. In his letters he speaks with exultation of the murder, and commends the murderers. But he was not let into the secret. They were afraid to trust him. If he had been in the conspiracy, he says (_Philipp._ ii. 14) he would have made clean work; he would have a.s.sa.s.sinated all the enemies of liberty; in other words, all the chief men of Caesar's party. He had abjectly humbled himself before Caesar, who treated him with kind respect. Like all genuine cowards he was cruel when he had power.]

[Footnote 614: M. aemilius Lepidus, son of M. Lepidus, consul B.C. 78.

He afterwards formed one of the Triumviri with M. Antonius and Octavia.n.u.s Caesar. This was the Lepidus with whom Caesar supped the day before he was murdered. He was a feeble man, though something of a soldier. Shakspere has painted him in a few words:

_Antony_. This is a slight unmeritable man, Meet to be sent on errands.

_Julius Caesar_, Act iv. Sc. 1.

There is more of him in the Lives of Brutus and Antonius.]

[Footnote 615: I do not know who this Caius Octavius is. There is probably some mistake in the name. Lentulus was the son of P.

Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, consul B.C. 57. He had, like many others, experienced Caesar's clemency. Plutarch is mistaken in saying that this Spinther was put to death, though he was probably included in the proscription. (See Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Lentuli, p. 545.) The Lentulus who is mentioned as having been put to death in Egypt (Life of Pompeius, c. 80) was L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul B.C. 49.

The disturbances which followed Caesar's death are more particularly described in the Lives of Brutus and Antonius.]

[Footnote 616: Caesar made Caius Octavius, his sister's grandson, his first heres. He left a legacy to every Roman citizen, the amount of which is variously stated. He also left to the public his gardens on the Tiber. (Suetonius, _Caesar_, c. 83); Dion Ca.s.sius (44. c. 35).

Shakspere has made a n.o.ble scene of the speech of Antonius over Caesar's body on the opening of the will:

_Ant_. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal; To every Roman citizen he gives, To every several man, seventy-five drachmas: Moreover he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours and new planted orchards, On this side Tiber; he hath left them you And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.

Here was a Caesar. When comes such another?

_Julius Caesar_, Act iii. Sc. 2.

Antonius, according to Roman fas.h.i.+on, made a funeral speech over the body of Caesar (Life of Antonius, c. 14; of Brutus, c. 20). Dion Ca.s.sius (44. c. 36-49) has put a long speech in the mouth of Antonius, mere empty declamation. Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, ii. 144-6) gives one which is well enough suited to the character of Antonius. (_Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta_, ed. Mayer, p. 455.) It is probable that the speech of Antonius was preserved, and was used as materials by the historians.]

[Footnote 617: This man, who unluckily bore the name of Cinna, was C.

Helvius Cinna, a tribune of the plebs, a poet, and a friend of Caesar.

(Dion Ca.s.sius, 44. c. 50, and the notes of Reimarus.) The conspirator Cinna was the son of L. Cornelius Cinna, who was a partisan of Marius, and was murdered in his fourth consuls.h.i.+p (Life of Pompeius, c. 5).

Caesar's wife Cornelia, the mother of his only child Julia, was the sister of the conspirator Cinna, as Plutarch names him. But probably he was not one of the conspirators, though he approved of the deed after it was done. (Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, Cinnae, p. 591, notes, and also as to Helvius Cinna.)]

[Footnote 618: And also in the Life of Antonius.]

[Footnote 619: Suetonius (_Caesar_, c. 89) observes that scarce any of his a.s.sasins survived him three years; and they all came to a violent end.]

[Footnote 620: This town was on the Asiatic side of the h.e.l.lespont.

Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 36. 48, and Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, iv.

134). Dion Ca.s.sius does not mention the ghost story.]

[Footnote 621: It has been already remarked that Niebuhr is of opinion that the introduction to the Life of Caesar is lost. This opinion will not appear well founded to those who have got a right conception of the dramatic form in which Plutarch has cast most of his Lives, and more particularly this of Caesar. He begins by representing him as resisting the tyrant Sulla when others yielded, and then making his way through a long series of events to the supreme power, which he had no sooner attained than he lost it. But his fortune survived him, and the faithless men, his murderers, most of whom owed to him their lives or their fortunes, were pursued by the avenging daemon till they were all hunted down.

A just estimate of the first of all the Romans is not a difficult task. We know him from the evidence of his contemporaries, both friends and enemies. The devoted attachment of his true friends is beyond doubt; and his enemies could not deny his exalted talents.

Cicero, who has in various places heaped on him every term of abuse that his copious storehouse contained, does not refuse his testimony to the great abilities and generous character of Caesar. Drumann (_Geschichte Roms_, Julii) has given an elaborate examination of Caesar's character. His faults and his vices belonged to his age, and he had them in common with nearly all his contemporaries. His most striking virtues, his magnanimity, his generosity, his mercy to the vanquished, distinguished him among all the Romans of his period.

Caesar was a combination of bodily activity, intellectual power, of literary acquirements, and administrative talent that has seldom appeared. As a soldier he was not inferior in courage and endurance to the hardiest veteran of his legions; and his military ability places him in the first rank of commanders who have contended with and overcome almost insurmountable obstacles. Cicero ranks him in the first cla.s.s of orators; and his own immortal work, his History of the Gallic Campaign and the Civil War, is a literary monument which distinguishes him among all other commanders. As a speaker and a writer he had no superior among his contemporaries. His varied talents are further shown by his numerous literary labours, of which some small notices remain. His views were large and enlightened, his schemes were vast and boundless. His genius deserved a better sphere than the degenerate republic in which he lived. But the power which he acquired did not die with him. A youth of tender age succeeded to the name and the inheritance of Caesar, and by his great talents and a long career of wonderful success consolidated that Monarchy which we call the Roman Empire.

Shakspere has founded his play of Julius Caesar on Plutarch's Life of Caesar and the Lives of Brutus and Antonius. The pa.s.sages in North's version which he has more particularly turned to his purpose are collected in Mr. Knight's edition of Shakspere (8vo. edition).

Shakspere has three Roman plays, Coriola.n.u.s, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. As a drama the first is the best. The play of Julius Caesar has been estimated very differently by different critics. Mr.

Knight has many valuable remarks on these Roman plays (vol. xi.), and he has shown the way, as he conceives, in which they should be viewed.

The Julius Caesar is so constructed as to show the usurpation and death of Caesar, and the fall of Brutus, the chief of the a.s.sa.s.sins, at the battle of Philippi. With Brutus the hopes of his party fell. The play should therefore rather be ent.i.tled Marcus Brutus than Julius Caesar; and it is deficient in that unity without which no great dramatic effect can be produced. The name and the fame of Caesar,

the n.o.blest man, That ever lived in the tide of time,

obscure the meaner talents of Brutus; and that death which in Plutarch forms a truly tragical catastrophe, here occurs in the middle of the action, which would appropriately terminate with it. But we have to follow the historical course of events; we follow Brutus to his fate at the battle of Philippi, and witness the vengeance of which Caesar's ghost forewarns the false friends. Shakspere may have meant to represent Brutus as the last of the Romans, and the Republic as dying with him; but he also represents him as haunted by the ghost of his murdered benefactor, and losing heart before the final contest. The "great daemon" of Caesar avenged him on his enemies; and in this point of view the play has a unity. Brutus dies like a Roman, and that murder to which he was led by the instigation of others, only renders the Monarchy inevitable and necessary. But if the play is faulty in construction, as I venture to think it is, it has other merits of the highest order, which place it in some respects among the best works of the great master of dramatic art.]

LIFE OF PHOKION.

I. The orator Demades, who became one of the chief men in Athens by his subservience to the Macedonians and Antipater, and who was forced to say and to write much that was derogatory to the glory and contrary to the traditional policy of Athens, used to excuse himself by pleading that he did not come to the helm before the vessel of the State was an utter wreck. This expression, which seems a bold one when used by Demades, might with great truth have been applied to the policy of Phokion. Indeed Demades himself wrecked Athens by his licentious life and policy, and when he was an old man Antipater said of him that he was like a victim which has been cut up for sacrifice, for there was nothing left of him but his tongue and his paunch; while the true virtue of Phokion was obscured by the evil days for Greece during which he lived, which prevented his obtaining the distinction which he deserved. We must not believe Sophokles, when he says that virtue is feeble and dies out in men:

"Why, not the very mind that's born with man, When he's unfortunate, remains the same."

Yet we must admit that fortune has so much power even over good men, that it has sometimes withheld from them their due meed of esteem and praise, has sullied their reputations with unworthy calumnies, and made it difficult for the world to believe in their virtue.

II. It would seem that democracies, when elated by success, are especially p.r.o.ne to break out into wanton maltreatment of their greatest men; and this is also true in the opposite case: for misfortunes render popular a.s.semblies harsh, irritable, and uncertain in temper, so that it becomes a dangerous matter to address them, because they take offence at any speaker who gives them wholesome counsel. When he blames them for their mistakes, they think that he is reproaching them with their misfortunes, and when he speaks his mind freely about their condition, they imagine that he is insulting them.

Just as honey irritates wounds and sores, so does true and sensible advice exasperate the unfortunate, if it be not of a gentle and soothing nature: exactly as the poet calls sweet things agreeable, because they agree with the taste, and do not oppose or fight against it. An inflamed eye prefers the shade, and shuns strong lights: and a city, when involved in misfortunes, becomes timid and weak through its inability to endure plain speaking at a time when it especially needs it, as otherwise its mistakes cannot be repaired. For this reason the position of a statesman in a democracy must always be full of peril; for if he tries merely to please the people he will share their ruin, while if he thwarts them he will be destroyed by them.

Astronomers teach us that the sun does not move in exactly the same course as the stars, and yet not in one which is opposed to them, but by revolving in an inclined and oblique orbit performs an easy and excellent circuit through them all, by which means everything is kept in its place, and its elements combined in the most admirable manner.

So too in political matters, the man who takes too high a tone, and opposes the popular will in all cases, must be thought harsh and morose, while on the other hand he who always follows the people and shares in all their mistakes pursues a dangerous and ruinous policy.

The art of government by which states are made great consists in sometimes making concessions to the people, and gratifying them when they are obedient to authority, and at the same time insisting upon salutary measures. Men willingly obey and support such a ruler if he does not act in a harsh and tyrannical fas.h.i.+on: but he has a very difficult and laborious part to play, and it is hard for him to combine the sternness of a sovereign with the gentleness of a popular leader, If, however, he succeed in combining these qualities, they produce the truest and n.o.blest harmony, like that by which G.o.d is said to regulate the universe, as everything is brought about by gentle persuasion, and not by violence.

III. All this was exemplified in the case of the younger Cato: for he had not the art of persuasion and was unacceptable to the people, nor did he rise to eminence by the popular favour, but Cicero[622] says that he lost his consuls.h.i.+p because he acted as if he were living in the Republic of Plato, and not in the dregs of Romulus. Such men seem to me to resemble fruits which grow out of season: for men gaze upon them with wonder, but do not eat them: and the stern antique virtue of Cato, displayed as it was in a corrupt and dissolute age, long after the season for it had gone by, gained him great glory and renown, but proved totally useless, as it was of too exalted a type to suit the political exigencies of the day. When Cato began his career, his country was not already ruined, as was that of Phokion. The s.h.i.+p of the state was indeed labouring heavily in the storm, but Cato, although he was not permitted to take the helm and guide the vessel, exerted himself so manfully, and gave so much a.s.sistance to those who were more powerful than himself, that he all but triumphed over fortune. The const.i.tution was, no doubt, finally overthrown; but its ruin was due to others, and only took place after a long and severe struggle, during which Cato very nearly succeeded in saving it. I have chosen Phokion to compare with him, not because of the general resemblance of their characters as good and statesmanlike men, for a man may possess the same quality in various forms, as, for example, the courage of Alkibiades was of a different kind to that of Epameinondas; the ability of Themistokles was different to that of Aristeides; and the justice of Numa Pompilius was different to that of Agesilaus. But in the case of Phokion and Cato, their virtues bore the same stamp, form, and ethical complexion down to the most minute particulars. Both alike possessed the same mixture of kindness and severity, of caution and daring: both alike cared for the safety of others and neglected their own: both alike shrank from baseness, and were zealous for the right; so that one would have to use a very nice discrimination to discover the points of difference between their respective dispositions.

IV. Cato is admitted by all writers to have been a man of n.o.ble descent, as will be explained in his life: and I imagine that the family of Phokion was not altogether mean and contemptible. If his father had really been a pestle maker, as we are told by Idomeneus, who may be sure that Glaukippus, the son of Hypereides, who collected and flung at him such a ma.s.s of abuse, would not have omitted to mention his low birth, nor would he have been so well brought up as to have been a scholar of Plato while a lad, and afterwards to have studied under Xenokrates in the Academy; while from his youth up he always took an interest in liberal branches of learning. We are told by the historian Douris that scarcely any Athenian ever saw Phokion laughing or weeping, or bathing in the public baths, or with his hand outside of his cloak, when he wore one. Indeed when he was in the country or on a campaign he always went barefooted and wore only his tunic, unless the cold was excessively severe; so that the soldiers used to say in jest that it was a sign of wintry weather to see Phokion wearing his cloak.

V. Though one of the kindest and most affable of men, he was of a forbidding and severe countenance, so that men who did not know him well feared to address him when alone. Once when Chares in a speech mentioned Phokion's gloomy brow, the Athenians began to laugh. "Yet,"

said he, "his brow has never harmed you: but the laughter of these men has brought great sorrow upon the state." In like manner also the oratory of Phokion was most valuable, as it incited his countrymen to win brilliant successes, and to form lofty aspirations. He spoke in a brief, harsh, commanding style, without any attempt to flatter or please his audience. Just as Zeno says that a philosopher ought to steep his words in meaning, so Phokion's speeches conveyed the greatest possible amount of meaning in the smallest compa.s.s. It is probably in allusion to this that Polyeuktus[623] of Sphettus said that Demosthenes was the best orator, but that Phokion was the most powerful speaker. As the smallest coins are those which have the greatest intrinsic value, so Phokion in his speeches seemed to say much with few words. We are told that once while the people were flocking into the theatre Phokion was walking up and down near the stage, plunged in thought. "You seem meditative, Phokion," said one of his friends. "Yes, by Zeus," answered he, "I am considering whether I can shorten the speech which I am going to make to the Athenians."

Demosthenes himself, who despised the other orators, when Phokion rose used to whisper to his friends, "Here comes the cleaver of my harangues." Much of his influence, however, must be ascribed to his personal character; since a word or a gesture of a truly good man carries more weight than ten thousand eloquently argued speeches.

VI. While yet a youth Phokion especially attached himself to the general Chabrias, and followed him in his campaigns, in which he gained considerable military experience, and in some instances was able to correct the strange inequalities of his commander's temperament. Chabrias, usually sluggish and hard to rouse, when in action became vehemently excited, and tried to outdo the boldest of his followers in acts of daring: indeed he lost his life at Chios by being the first to run his s.h.i.+p on sh.o.r.e and to try to effect a landing in the face of the enemy. Phokion, who was a man of action, and cautious nevertheless, proved most useful in stirring up Chabrias when sluggish, and again in moderating his eagerness when roused. In consequence of this, Chabrias, who was of a kindly and n.o.ble disposition, loved Phokion and promoted him to many responsible posts, so that his name became well known throughout Greece, as Chabrias entrusted him with the management of the most important military operations. At the battle of Naxos he enabled Phokion to win great glory, by placing him in command of the left wing, where the most important struggle took place, and where the victory was finally decided. As this was the first sea fight, since the capture and ruin of Athens, which the Athenians won by themselves, without allies, over other Greeks, they were greatly pleased with Chabrias, and Phokion was henceforth spoken of as a man of military genius. The battle was won during the performance of the Great Mysteries at Eleusis; and every year afterwards, on the sixteenth day of the month Boedromion, Chabrias used to entertain the Athenians, and offer libations of wine to the G.o.ds.

VII. After this Chabrias sent Phokion to visit the islands and exact tribute from them, giving him an escort of twenty s.h.i.+ps of war: upon which Phokion is said to have remarked, that if he was sent to fight the islanders, he should require a larger force, but that if he was going to the allies of Athens, one s.h.i.+p would suffice for him. He sailed in his own trireme, visited all the states, simply and una.s.sumingly explained the objects of his mission to their leading men, and returned home with a large fleet, which the allies despatched to convey their tribute safe to Athens.

He not only esteemed and looked up to Chabrias while he lived, but after his death he took care of his family, and endeavoured to make a good man of his son Ktesippus; and though he found this youth stupid and unmanageable, he never ceased his efforts to amend his character and to conceal his faults. Once only we are told that when on some campaign the young man was tormenting him with unreasonable questions, and offering him advice as though he were appointed a.s.sistant-general, Phokion exclaimed, "O Chabrias, Chabrias, I do indeed prove myself grateful for your friends.h.i.+p for me, by enduring this from your son!"