Having completed this Life also, come we now to the comparison. That
which was common to them both, was that they were founders of their
own greatness, with this difference, that Lysander had the consent of
his fellow-citizens, in times of sober judgment, for the honors he
received; nor did he force anything from them against their
good-will, nor hold any power contrary to the laws.
In civil strife e'en villains rise to fame.
And so then at Rome, when the people were distempered, and the
government out of order, one or other was still raised to despotic
power; no wonder, then, if Sylla reigned, when the Glauciae and
Saturnini drove out the Metelli, when sons of consuls were slain in
the assemblies, when silver and gold purchased men and arms, and fire
and sword enacted new laws, and put down lawful opposition. Nor do I
blame anyone, in such circumstances, for working himself into
supreme power, only I would not have it thought a sign of great
goodness, to be head of a State so wretchedly discomposed. Lysander,
being employed in the greatest commands and affairs of State, by a
sober and well-governed city, may be said to have had repute as the
best and most virtuous man, in the best and most virtuous
commonwealth. And thus, often returning the government into the
hands of the citizens, he received it again as often, the superiority
of his merit still awarding him the first place. Sylla, on the other
hand, when he had once made himself general of an army, kept his
command for ten years together, creating himself sometimes consul,
sometimes proconsul, and sometimes dictator, but always remaining a
tyrant.
It is true Lysander, as was said, designed to introduce a new form of
government; by milder methods, however, and more agreeably to law
than Sylla, not by force of arms, but persuasion, nor by subverting
the whole State at once, but simply by amending the succession of the
kings; in a way, moreover, which seemed the naturally just one, that
the most deserving should rule, especially in a city which itself
exercised command in Greece, upon account of virtue, not nobility.
For as the hunter considers the whelp itself, not the bitch, and the
horse-dealer the foal, not the mare, (for what if the foal should
prove a mule?) so likewise were that politician extremely out, who,
in the choice of a chief magistrate, should inquire, not what the man
is, but how descended. The very Spartans themselves have deposed
several of their kings for want of kingly virtues, as degenerated and
good for nothing. As a vicious nature, though of an ancient stock,
is dishonorable, it must be virtue itself, and not birth, that makes
virtue honorable. Furthermore, the one committed his acts of
injustice for the sake of his friends; the other extended his to his
friends themselves. It is confessed on all hands, that Lysander
offended most commonly for the sake of his companions, committing
several slaughters to uphold their power and dominion; but as for
Sylla, he, out of envy, reduced Pompey's command by land, and
Dolabella's by sea, although he himself had given them those places;
and ordered Lucretius Ofella, who sued for the consulship as the
reward of many great services, to be slain before his eyes, exciting
horror and alarm in the minds of all men, by his cruelty to his
dearest friends.
As regards the pursuit of riches and pleasures, we yet further
discover in one a princely, in the other a tyrannical disposition.
Lysander did nothing that was intemperate or licentious, in that full
command of means and opportunity, but kept clear, as much as ever man
did, of that trite saying,
Lions at home, but foxes out of doors;
and ever maintained a sober, truly Spartan, and well disciplined
course of conduct. Whereas Sylla could never moderate his unruly
affections, either by poverty when young, or by years when grown old,
but would be still prescribing laws to the citizens concerning
chastity and sobriety, himself living all that time, as Sallust
affirms, in lewdness and adultery. By these ways he so impoverished
and drained the city of her treasures, as to be forced to sell
privileges and immunities to allied and friendly cities for money,
although he daily gave up the wealthiest and greatest families to
public sale and confiscation. There was no end of his favors vainly
spent and thrown away on flatterers; for what hope could there be, or
what likelihood of forethought or economy, in his more private
moments over wine, when, in the open face of the people, upon the
auction of a large estate, which he would have passed over to one of
his friends at a small price, because another bid higher, and the
officer announced the advance, he broke out into a passion, saying,
"What a strange and unjust thing is this, O citizens, that I cannot
dispose of my own booty as I please!" But Lysander, on the contrary,
with the rest of the spoil, sent home for public use even the
presents which were made him. Nor do I commend him for it, for he
perhaps, by excessive liberality, did Sparta more harm, than ever the
other did Rome by rapine; I only use it as an argument of his
indifference to riches. They exercised a strange influence on their
respective cities. Sylla, a profuse debauchee, endeavored to restore
sober living amongst the citizens; Lysander, temperate himself,
filled Sparta with the luxury he disregarded. So that both were
blameworthy, the one for raising himself above his own laws, the
other for causing his fellow citizens to fall beneath his own
example. He taught Sparta to want the very things which he himself
had learned to do without. And thus much of their civil
administration.
As for feats of arms, wise conduct in war, innumerable victories,
perilous adventures, Sylla was beyond compare. Lysander, indeed,
came off twice victorious in two battles by sea; I shall add to that
the siege of Athens, a work of greater fame, than difficulty. What
occurred in Boeotia, and at Haliartus, was the result, perhaps, of
ill fortune; yet it certainly looks like ill counsel, not to wait for
the king's forces, which had all but arrived from Plataea, but out of
ambition and eagerness to fight, to approach the walls at
disadvantage, and so to be cut off by a sally of inconsiderable men.
He received his death-wound, not as Cleombrotus at Leuctra, resisting
manfully the assault of an enemy in the field; not as Cyrus or
Epaminondas, sustaining the declining battle, or making sure the
victory; all these died the death of kings and generals; but he, as
it had been some common skirmisher or scout, cast away his life
ingloriously, giving testimony to the wisdom of the ancient Spartan
maxim, to avoid attacks on walled cities, in which the stoutest
warrior may chance to fall by the hand, not only of a man utterly his
inferior, but by that of a boy or woman, as Achilles, they say, was
slain by Paris in the gates. As for Sylla, it were hard to reckon up
how many set battles he won, or how many thousands he slew; he took
Rome itself twice, as also the Athenian Piraeus, not by famine, as
Lysander did, but by a series of great battles, driving Archelaus
into the sea. And what is most important, there was a vast
difference between the commanders they had to deal with. For I look
upon it as an easy task, or rather sport, to beat Antiochus,
Alcibiades's pilot, or to circumvent Philocles, the Athenian
demagogue,
Sharp only at the inglorious point of tongue,
whom Mithridates would have scorned to compare with his groom, or
Marius with his lictor. But of the potentates, consuls, commanders,
and demagogues, to pass by all the rest who opposed themselves to
Sylla, who amongst the Romans so formidable as Marius? what king more
powerful than Mithridates? who of the Italians more warlike than
Lamponius and Telesinus? yet of these, one he drove into banishment,
one he quelled, and the others he slew.
And what is more important, in my judgment, than anything yet
adduced, is that Lysander had the assistance of the State in all his
achievements; whereas Sylla, besides that he was a banished person,
and overpowered by a faction, at a time when his wife was driven from
home, his houses demolished, and adherents slain, himself then in
Boeotia, stood embattled against countless numbers of the public
enemy, and endangering himself for the sake of his country, raised a
trophy of victory; and not even when Mithridates came with proposals
of alliance and aid against his enemies, would he show any sort of
compliance, or even clemency; did not so much as address him, or
vouchsafe him his hand, until he had it from the king's own mouth,
that he was willing to quit Asia, surrender the navy, and restore
Bithynia and Cappadocia to the two kings. Than which action, Sylla
never performed a braver, or with a nobler spirit, when, preferring
the public good to the private, and like good hounds, where he had
once fixed, never letting go his hold, till the enemy yielded, then,
and not until then, he set himself to revenge his own private
quarrels. We may perhaps let ourselves be influenced, moreover, in
our comparison of their characters, by considering their treatment of
Athens. Sylla, when he had made himself master of the city, which
then upheld the dominion and power of Mithridates in opposition to
him, restored her to liberty and the free exercise of her own laws;
Lysander, on the contrary, when she had fallen from a vast height of
dignity and rule, showed her no compassion, but abolishing her
democratic government, imposed on her the most cruel and lawless
tyrants. We are now qualified to consider, whether we should go far
from the truth or no, in pronouncing that Sylla performed the more
glorious deeds, but Lysander committed the fewer faults, as,
likewise, by giving to one the preeminence for moderation and
self-control, to the other, for conduct and valor.