Having described all their actions that seem to deserve commemoration,
their military ones, we may say, incline the balance very decidedly upon
neither side. They both, in pretty equal measure, displayed on numerous
occasions the daring and courage of the soldier, and the skill and
foresight of the general; unless, indeed, the fact that Alcibiades was
victorious and successful in many contests both by sea and land, ought
to gain him the title of a more complete commander. That so long as
they remained and held command in their respective countries, they
eminently sustained, and when they were driven into exile, yet more
eminently damaged the fortunes of those countries, is common to both.
All the sober citizens felt disgust at the petulance, the low flattery,
and base seductions which Alcibiades, in his public life, allowed
himself to employ with the view of winning the people's favor; and the
ungraciousness, pride, and oligarchical haughtiness which Marcius, on
the other hand, displayed in his, were the abhorrence of the Roman
populace. Neither of these courses can be called commendable; but a man
who ingratiates himself by indulgence and flattery, is hardly so
censurable as one who, to avoid the appearance of flattering, insults.
To seek power by servility to the people is a disgrace, but to maintain
it by terror, violence, and oppression, is not a disgrace only, but an
injustice.
Marcius, according to our common conceptions of his character, was
undoubtedly simple and straightforward; Alcibiades, unscrupulous as a
public man, and false. He is more especially blamed for the
dishonorable and treacherous way in which, as Thucydides relates, he
imposed upon the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, and disturbed the
continuance of the peace. Yet this policy, which engaged the city again
in war, nevertheless placed it in a powerful and formidable position, by
the accession, which Alcibiades obtained for it, of the alliance of
Argos and Mantinea. And Coriolanus also, Dionysius relates, used unfair
means to excite war between the Romans and the Volscians, in the false
report which he spread about the visitors at the Games; and the motive
of this action seems to make it the worse of the two; since it was not
done, like the other, out of ordinary political jealousy, strife, and
competition. Simply to gratify anger, from which, as Ion says, no one
ever yet got any return, he threw whole districts of Italy into
confusion, and sacrificed to his passion against his country numerous
innocent cities. It is true, indeed, that Alcibiades also, by his
resentment, was the occasion of great disasters to his country, but he
relented as soon as he found their feelings to be changed; and after he
was driven out a second time, so far from taking pleasure in the errors
and inadvertencies of their commanders, or being indifferent to the
danger they were thus incurring, he did the very thing that Aristides is
so highly commended for doing to Themistocles: he came to the generals
who were his enemies, and pointed out to them what they ought to do.
Coriolanus, on the other hand, first of all attacked the whole body of
his countrymen, though only one portion of them had done him any wrong,
while the other, the better and nobler portion, had actually suffered,
as well as sympathized, with him. And, secondly, by the obduracy with
which he resisted numerous embassies and supplications, addressed in
propitiation of his single anger and offense, he showed that it had been
to destroy and overthrow, not to recover and regain his country, that he
had excited bitter and implacable hostilities against it. There is,
indeed, one distinction that may be drawn. Alcibiades, it may be said,
was not safe among the Spartans, and had the inducements at once of fear
and of hatred to lead him again to Athens; whereas Marcius could not
honorably have left the Volscians, when they were behaving so well to
him: he, in the command of their forces and the enjoyment of their
entire confidence, was in a very different position from Alcibiades,
whom the Lacedaemonians did not so much wish to adopt into their
service, as to use, and then abandon. Driven about from house to house
in the city, and from general to general in the camp, the latter had no
resort but to place himself in the hands of Tisaphernes; unless, indeed,
we are to suppose that his object in courting favor with him was to
avert the entire destruction of his native city, whither he wished
himself to return.
As regards money, Alcibiades, we are told, was often guilty of procuring
it by accepting bribes, and spent it in in luxury and dissipation.
Coriolanus declined to receive it, even when pressed upon him by his
commanders as all honor; and one great reason for the odium he incurred
with the populace in the discussions about their debts was, that he
trampled upon the poor, not for money's sake, but out of pride and
insolence.
Antipater, in a letter written upon the death of Aristotle the
philosopher, observes, "Amongst his other gifts he had that of
persuasiveness;" and the absence of this in the character of Marcius
made all his great actions and noble qualities unacceptable to those
whom they benefited: pride, and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls
it, of solitude, made him insufferable. With the skill which Alcibiades
on the contrary, possessed to treat every one in the way most agreeable
to him, we cannot wonder that all his successes were attended with the
most exuberant favor and honor; his very errors, at times, being
accompanied by something of grace and felicity. And so, in spite of
great and frequent hurt that he had done the city, he was repeatedly
appointed to office and command; while Coriolanus stood in vain for a
place which his great services had made his due. The one, in spite of
the harm he occasioned, could not make himself hated, nor the other,
with all the admiration he attracted, succeed in being beloved by his
countrymen.
Coriolanus, moreover, it should be said, did not as a general obtain any
successes for his country, but only for his enemies against his country.
Alcibiades was often of service to Athens, both as a soldier and as a
commander. So long as he was personally present, he had the perfect
mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his
absence. Coriolanus was condemned in person at Rome; and in like manner
killed by the Volscians, not indeed with any right or justice, yet not
without some pretext occasioned by his own acts; since, after rejecting
all conditions of peace in public, in private he yielded to the
solicitations of the women, and, without establishing peace, threw up
the favorable chances of war. He ought, before retiring, to have
obtained the consent of those who had placed their trust in him; if
indeed he considered their claims on him to be the strongest. Or, if we
say that he did not care about the Volscians, but merely had prosecuted
the war, which he now abandoned, for the satisfaction of his own
resentment, then the noble thing would have been, not to spare his
country for his mother's sake, but his mother in and with his country;
since both his mother and his wife were part and parcel of that
endangered country. After harshly repelling public supplications, the
entreaties of ambassadors, and the prayers of priests, to concede all as
a private favor to his mother was less an honor to her than a dishonor
to the city which thus escaped, in spite, it would seem, of its own
demerits, through the intercession of a single woman. Such a grace
could, indeed, seem merely invidious, ungracious, and unreasonable in
the eyes of both parties; he retreated without listening to the
persuasions of his opponents, or asking the consent of his friends. The
origin of all lay in his unsociable, supercilious, and self-willed
disposition, which, in all cases, is offensive to most people; and when
combined with a passion for distinction passes into absolute savageness
and mercilessness. Men decline to ask favors of the people, professing
not to need any honors from them; and then are indignant if they do not
obtain them. Metellus, Aristides, and Epaminondas certainly did not beg
favors of the multitude; but that was because they, in real truth, did
not value the gifts which a popular body can either confer or refuse;
and when they were more than once driven into exile, rejected at
elections, and condemned in courts of justice, they showed no resentment
at the ill-humor of their fellow-citizens, but were willing and
contented to return and be reconciled when the feeling altered and they
were wished for. He who least likes courting favor, ought also least to
think of resenting neglect: to feel wounded at being refused a
distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.
Alcibiades never professed to deny that it was pleasant to him to be
honored, and distasteful to him to be overlooked; and, accordingly, he
always tried to place himself upon good terms with all that he met;
Coriolanus's pride forbade him to pay attentions to those who could have
promoted his advancement, and yet his love of distinction made him feel
hurt and angry when he was disregarded. Such are the faulty parts of
his character, which in all other respects was a noble one. For his
temperance, continence, and probity, he might claim to be compared with
the best and purest of the Greeks; not in any sort or kind with
Alcibiades, the least scrupulous and most entirely careless of human
beings in all these points.