Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
or even of ending the war, which had for so many years continued and
been protracted under his management.
To say the truth, when Fabius first opposed this project of Scipio, he
probably did it out of caution and prudence, in consideration only of
the public safety, and of the danger which the commonwealth might incur;
but when he found Scipio every day increasing in the esteem of the
people, rivalry and ambition led him further, and made him violent and
personal in his opposition. For he even applied to Crassus, the
colleague of Scipio, and urged him not to yield the command to Scipio,
but that, if his inclinations were for it, he should himself in person
lead the army to Carthage. He also hindered the giving money to Scipio
for the war; so that he was forced to raise it upon his own credit and
interest from the cities of Etruria, which were extremely attached to
him. On the other side, Crassus would not stir against him, nor remove
out of Italy, being, in his own nature, averse to all contention, and
also having, by his office of high priest, religious duties to retain
him. Fabius, therefore, tried other ways to oppose the design; he
impeded the levies, and he declaimed, both in the senate and to the
people, that Scipio was not only himself flying from Hannibal, but was
also endeavoring to drain Italy of all its forces, and to spirit away
the youth of the country to a foreign war, leaving behind them their
parents, wives, and children, and the city itself, a defenseless prey to
the conquering and undefeated enemy at their doors. With this he so far
alarmed the people, that at last they would only allow Scipio for the
war the legions which were in Sicily, and three hundred, whom he
particularly trusted, of those men who had served with him in Spain. In
these transactions, Fabius seems to have followed the dictates of his
own wary temper.
But, after that Scipio was gone over into Africa, when news almost
immediately came to Rome of wonderful exploits and victories, of which
the fame was confirmed by the spoils he sent home; of a Numidian king
taken prisoner; of a vast slaughter of their men; of two camps of the
enemy burnt and destroyed, and in them a great quantity of arms and
horses; and when, hereupon, the Carthaginians were compelled to send
envoys to Hannibal to call him home, and leave his idle hopes in Italy,
to defend Carthage; when, for such eminent and transcending services,
the whole people of Rome cried up and extolled the actions of Scipio;
even then, Fabius contended that a successor should be sent in his
place, alleging for it only the old reason of the mutability of fortune,
as if she would be weary of long favoring the same person. With this
language many did begin to feel offended; it seemed to be morosity and
ill-will, the pusillanimity of old age, or a fear, that had now become
exaggerated, of the skill of Hannibal. Nay, when Hannibal had put his
army on shipboard, and taken his leave of Italy, Fabius still could not
forbear to oppose and disturb the universal joy of Rome, expressing his
fears and apprehensions, telling them that the commonwealth was never in
more danger than now, and that Hannibal was a more formidable enemy
under the walls of Carthage than ever he had been in Italy; that it
would be fatal to Rome, whenever Scipio should encounter his victorious
army, still warm with the blood of so many Roman generals, dictators,
and consuls slain. And the people were, in some degree, startled with
these declamations, and were brought to believe, that the further off
Hannibal was, the nearer was their danger. Scipio, however, shortly
afterwards fought Hannibal, and utterly defeated him, humbled the pride
of Carthage beneath his feet, gave his countrymen joy and exultation
beyond all their hopes, and
"Long shaken on the seas restored the state."
Fabius Maximus, however, did not live to see the prosperous end of this
war, and the final overthrow of Hannibal, nor to rejoice in the
reestablished happiness and security of the commonwealth; for about the
time that Hannibal left Italy, he fell sick and died. At Thebes,
Epaminondas died so poor that he was buried at the public charge; one
small iron coin was all, it is said, that was found in his house.
Fabius did not need this, but the people, as a mark of their affection,
defrayed the expenses of his funeral by a private contribution from each
citizen of the smallest piece of coin; thus owning him their common
father, and making his end no less honorable than his life.
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
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.
ALCIBIADES
Alcibiades, as it is supposed, was anciently descended from Eurysaces,
the son of Ajax, by his father's side; and by his mother's side from
Alcmaeon. Dinomache, his mother, was the daughter of Megacles. His
father Clinias, having fitted out a galley at his own expense, gained
great honor in the sea-fight at Artemisium, and was afterwards slain in
the battle of Coronea, fighting against the Boeotians. Pericles and
Ariphron, the sons of Xanthippus, nearly related to him, became the
guardians of Alcibiades. It has been said not untruly that the
friendship which Socrates felt for him has much contributed to his fame;
and certain it is, that, though we have no account from any writer
concerning the mother of Nicias or Demosthenes, of Lamachus or Phormion,
of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, notwithstanding these were all illustrious
men of the same period, yet we know even the nurse of Alcibiades, that
her country was Lacedaemon, and her name Amycla; and that Zopyrus was
his teacher and attendant; the one being recorded by Antisthenes, and
the other by Plato.
It is not, perhaps, material to say anything of the beauty of
Alcibiades, only that it bloomed with him in all the ages of his life,
in his infancy, in his youth, and in his manhood; and, in the peculiar
character becoming to each of these periods, gave him, in every one of
them, a grace and a charm. What Euripides says, that
"Of all fair things the autumn, too, is fair,"
is by no means universally true. But it happened so with Alcibiades,