We have here had two lives rich in examples, both of civil and military
excellence. Let us first compare the two men in their warlike capacity.
Pericles presided in his commonwealth when it was in its most
flourishing and opulent condition, great and growing in power; so that
it may be thought it was rather the common success and fortune that kept
him from any fall or disaster. But the task of Fabius, who undertook
the government in the worst and most difficult times, was not to
preserve and maintain the well-established felicity of a prosperous
state, but to raise and uphold a sinking and ruinous commonwealth.
Besides, the victories of Cimon, the trophies of Myronides and
Leocrates, with the many famous exploits of Tolmides, were employed by
Pericles rather to fill the city with festive entertainments and
solemnities than to enlarge and secure its empire. Whereas Fabius, when
he took upon him the government, had the frightful object before his
eyes of Roman armies destroyed, of their generals and consuls slain, of
lakes and plains and forests strewed with the dead bodies, and rivers
stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens; and yet, with his mature
and solid cousels, with the firmness of his resolution, he, as it were,
put his shoulder to the falling commonwealth, and kept it up from
foundering through the failings and weakness of others. Perhaps it may
be more easy to govern a city broken and tamed with calamities and
adversity, and compelled by danger and necessity to listen to wisdom,
than to set a bridle on wantonness and temerity, and rule a people
pampered and restive with long prosperity as were the Athenians when
Pericles held the reins of government. But then again, not to be
daunted nor discomposed with the vast heap of calamities under which the
people of Rome at that time groaned and succumbed, argues a courage in
Fabius and a strength of purpose more than ordinary.
We may set Tarentum retaken against Samos won by Pericles, and the
conquest of Euboea we may well balance with the towns of Campania;
though Capua itself was reduced by the consuls Fulvius and Appius. I do
not find that Fabius won any set battle but that against the Ligurians,
for which he had his triumph; whereas Pericles erected nine trophies for
as many victories obtained by land and by sea. But no action of
Pericles can be compared to that memorable rescue of Minucius, when
Fabius redeemed both him and his army from utter destruction; a noble
act, combining the highest valor, wisdom, and humanity. On the other
side, it does not appear that Pericles was ever so overreached as Fabius
was by Hannibal with his flaming oxen. His enemy there had, without his
agency, put himself accidentally into his power, yet Fabius let him slip
in the night, and, when day came, was worsted by him, was anticipated in
the moment of success, and mastered by his prisoner. If it is the part
of a good general, not only to provide for the present, but also to have
a clear foresight of things to come, in this point Pericles is the
superior; for he admonished the Athenians, and told them beforehand the
ruin the war would bring upon them, by their grasping more than they
were able to manage. But Fabius was not so good a prophet, when he
denounced to the Romans that the undertaking of Scipio would be the
destruction of the commonwealth. So that Pericles was a good prophet of
bad success, and Fabius was a bad prophet of success that was good.
And, indeed, to lose an advantage through diffidence is no less blamable
in a general than to fall into danger for want of foresight; for both
these faults, though of a contrary nature, spring from the same root,
want of judgment and experience.
As for their civil policy, it is imputed to Pericles that he occasioned
the war, since no terms of peace, offered by the Lacedaemonians, would
content him. It is true, I presume, that Fabius, also, was not for
yielding any point to the Carthaginians, but was ready to hazard all,
rather than lessen the empire of Rome. The mildness of Fabius towards
his colleague Minucius does, by way of comparison, rebuke and condemn
the exertions of Pericles to banish Cimon and Thucydides, noble,
aristocratic men, who by his means suffered ostracism. The authority of
Pericles in Athens was much greater than that of Fabius in Rome. Hence
it was more easy for him to prevent miscarriages arising from the
mistakes and insufficiency of other officers; only Tolmides broke loose
from him, and, contrary to his persuasions, unadvisedly fought with the
Boeotians, and was slain. The greatness of his influence made all
others submit and conform themselves to his judgment. Whereas Fabius,
sure and unerring himself, for want of that general power, had not the
means to obviate the miscarriages of others; but it had been happy for
the Romans if his authority had been greater, for so, we may presume,
their disasters had been fewer.
As to liberality and public spirit, Pericles was eminent in never taking
any gifts, and Fabius, for giving his own money to ransom his soldiers,
though the sum did not exceed six talents. Than Pericles, meantime, no
man had ever greater opportunities to enrich himself, having had
presents offered him from so many kings and princes and allies, yet no
man was ever more free from corruption. And for the beauty and
magnificence of temples and public edifices with which he adorned his
country, it must be confessed, that all the ornaments and structures of
Rome, to the time of the Caesars, had nothing to compare, either in
greatness of design or of expense, with the luster of those which
Pericles only erected at Athens.