Plutarch's Lives Volume III Part 20

The order of the battle is described by Caesar (_Civil War_, iii. 89).

Plutarch here and in the Life of Caesar (c. 44) says that Pompeius commanded the right, but Caesar says that he was on the left. Domitius, that is, L. Domitius Ahen.o.barbus (Consul B.C. 54), may have commanded under him. Cn. Domitius Calvinus (Consul B.C. 53), whom Plutarch calls Calvinus Lucius, commanded Caesar's centre. The account of Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, ii. 76) does not agree with Caesar's.]

[Footnote 372: See Caesar B.C. (iii. 88), and Appia.n.u.s (ii. 79), who quotes Caesar's letters.]

[Footnote 373: The whole number of Italian troops on both sides was about 70,000, as Plutarch says in the next chapter. There were also other troops on both sides (Appia.n.u.s, _Civil Wars_, ii. 70). The battle was fought on the ninth of August, B.C. 48, according to the uncorrected calendar.]

[Footnote 374: Dion Ca.s.sius has some like reflections (41. c. 53-58); and Appia.n.u.s (ii. 77), who says that both the commanders-in-chief shed tears; which we need not believe.]

[Footnote 375: Lucan, i. 6.]

[Footnote 376: Cra.s.sinius, in the Life of Caesar, c. 44. Caesar (iii.

91, 99) names him Crastinus. Compare Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, ii. 82).

Crastinus received an honourable interment after the battle.]

[Footnote 377: The pa.s.sage is from the Iliad, xi. 544.]

[Footnote 378: C. Asinius Pollio was a soldier, a poet, and an historical writer. His history of the Civil Wars was comprised in seventeen books. Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, ii. 79) quotes this circ.u.mstance from Pollio. Horatius (_Od._ ii. 1) addresses this Pollio, and Virgilius in his fourth Eclogue. The first part of the ode of Horatius contains an allusion to Pollio's historical work.]

[Footnote 379: Caesar (iii. 96) describes the appearance of the camp of Pompeius, and adds that his hungry soldiers found an entertainment which their enemies had prepared for themselves.]

[Footnote 380: Pompeius pa.s.sed by Larissa, the chief town of Thessalia, on his road to the vale of Tempe, in which the river Peneius flows between the mountain range of Olympus and Ossa. In saying that Pompeius "let his horse go," I have used an expression that may be misunderstood. Caesar(iii. 96) will explain it--"protinusque equo citato Larissam contendit," and he continued his flight at the same rate.]

[Footnote 381: These were L. Lentulus Spinther, Consul B.C. 57, and Lentulus Crus, Consul B.C. 49. Deiotarus was king or tetrarch of Galatia in Asia Minor, and had come to the a.s.sistance of Pompeius with a considerable force. Pompeius had given him Armenia the Less, and the t.i.tle of King. Caesar after the battle of Pharsalus took Armenia from him, but allowed him to retain the t.i.tle of King.]

[Footnote 382: The verse is from Euripides. It is placed among the Fragmenta Incerta CXIX. ed. Matthiae.]

[Footnote 383: This town was near the mouth of the Strymon, a river of Thrace, and out of the direct route to Lesbos. The reason of Pompeius going there is explained by Caesar (_Civil War_, iii. 102). Cornelia was at Mitylene in Lesbos with s.e.xtus, the younger son of Pompeius.]

[Footnote 384: Kratippus was a Peripatetic, and at this time the chief of that sect. Cicero's son Marcus afterwards heard his lectures at Athens (Cicero, _De Officiis_, i. 1), B.C. 44.

The last sentence of this chapter is somewhat obscure, and the opinions of the critics vary as to the reading. See the note of Sintenis.]

[Footnote 385: This city was on the coast of Pamphylia. It took its name from Attalus Philadelphus, the king of Pergamum of that name, who built it.

Luca.n.u.s (viii. 251) makes Pompeius first land at Phaselis in Lycia.]

[Footnote 386: Dion Ca.s.sius (43. c. 2) discusses this matter. He thinks that Pompeius could never have thought of going to Parthia.

Compare Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, ii. 83).]

[Footnote 387: This is the King Juba mentioned in the Life of Caesar, c. 52.]

[Footnote 388: This is Ptolemaeus Dionysius, the last of his race, and the son of the Ptolemaeus Auletes mentioned in c. 49. Auletes had been restored to his kingdom through the influence of Pompeius by A.

Gabinius B.C. 55.]

[Footnote 389: This Arsakes is called Hyrodes or Orodes in the Life of Cra.s.sus (c. 18). Arsakes seems to have been a name common to the Parthian kings, as the representatives of Arsakes, the founder of the dynasty. Orodes had already refused his aid to Pompeius in the beginning of the war, and put in chains Hirrus, who had been sent to him. The Parthian demanded the cession of Syria, which Pompeius would not consent to.]

[Footnote 390: Probably Seleukeia in Syria at the mouth of the Orontes.]

[Footnote 391: He was now thirteen years of age, and according to his father's testament, he and his sister Kleopatra were to be joint kings and to intermarry after the fashion of the Greek kings of Egypt. The advisers of Ptolemaeus had driven Kleopatra out of Egypt, and on the news of her advancing against the eastern frontiers with an army, they went out to meet her. Pelusium, on the eastern branch of the Nile, had for many centuries been the strong point on this frontier. (Caesar, _Civil War_, iii. 103; Dion Ca.s.sius, 42. c. 3, &c.) Pompeius approached the sh.o.r.e of Egypt with several vessels and about 2000 soldiers.

As to the circ.u.mstances in this chapter, compare Dion Ca.s.sius (42. c.

3), Appia.n.u.s (_Civil Wars_, ii. 84), and Caesar (_Civil War_, iii.

104). Caesar simply mentions the a.s.sa.s.sination of Pompeius. He says no more about it.]

[Footnote 392: The death of Pompeius is mentioned by Cicero (_Ad Attic.u.m_, xi. 6). As to his age, Drumann observes, "He was born B.C.

106, and was consequently 58 years old when he was killed, on the 29th of September, or on the day before his birthday, about the time of the autumnal equinox according to the unreformed calendar." (Luca.n.u.s, viii 467.)]

[Footnote 393: He is called Cordus by Luca.n.u.s (viii. 715), and had formerly been a quaestor of Pompeius.]

COMPARISON OF AGESILAUS AND POMPEIUS.

I. As both these men's lives are now before us, let us briefly recapitulate them, observing as we do so the points in which they differ from one another. These are as follows:--First, Pompeius obtained his power and renown by the most strictly legitimate means, chiefly by his own exertions when a.s.sisting Sulla in the liberation of Italy; while Agesilaus obtained the throne in defiance of both human and divine laws, for he declared Leotychides to be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, although his brother had publicly recognised him as his own son, and he also by a quibble evaded the oracle about a lame reign.

Secondly, Pompeius both respected Sulla while he lived, gave his body an honourable burial, in spite of Lepidus, when he died, and married Sulla's daughter to his own son Faustus; while Agesilaus, on a trifling pretext, disgraced and ruined Lysander. Yet Sulla gave Pompeius nothing more than he possessed himself, whereas Lysander made Agesilaus king of Sparta, and leader of the united armies of Greece.

Thirdly, the political wrong-doings of Pompeius were chiefly committed to serve his relatives, Caesar and Scipio; while Agesilaus saved Sphodrias from the death which he deserved for his outrage upon the Athenians merely to please his son, and vigorously supported Phbidas when he committed a similar breach of the peace against the Thebans.

And generally, we may say that while Pompeius only injured the Romans through inability to refuse the demands of friends, or through ignorance, Agesilaus ruined the Lacedaemonians by plunging them into war with Thebes, to gratify his own angry and quarrelsome temper.

II. If it be right to attribute the disasters which befel either of those men to some special ill-luck which attended them, the Romans had no reason whatever to suspect any such thing of Pompeius; but Agesilaus, although the Lacedaemonians well knew the words of the oracle, yet would not allow them to avoid "a lame reign." Even if Leotychides had been proved a thousand times to be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the family of Eurypon could have supplied Sparta with a legitimate and sound king, had not Lysander, for the sake of Agesilaus, deceived them as to the true meaning of the oracle. On the other hand, we have no specimen of the political ingenuity of Pompeius which can be compared with that admirable device of Agesilaus, when he readmitted the survivors of the battle of Leuktra to the privileges of Spartan citizens, by permitting the laws to sleep for one day. Pompeius did not even think it his duty to abide by the laws which he had himself enacted, but broke them to prove his great power to his friends.

Agesilaus, when forced either to abolish the laws or to ruin his friends, discovered an expedient by which the laws did his friends no hurt, and yet had not to be abolished in order to save them. I also place to the credit of Agesilaus that unparalleled act of obedience, when on receiving a despatch from Sparta he abandoned the whole of his Asian enterprise. For Agesilaus did not, like Pompeius, enrich the state by his own exploits, but looking solely to the interests of his country, he gave up a position of greater glory and power than any Greek before or since ever held, with the single exception of Alexander.

III. Looking at them from another point of view, I suppose that even Xenophon himself would not think of comparing the number of the victories won by Pompeius, the size of the armies which he commanded, and that of those which he defeated, with any of the victories of Agesilaus; although Xenophon has written so admirably upon other subjects, that he seems to think himself privileged to say whatever he pleases about the life of his favourite hero. I think also that the two men differ much in their treatment of their enemies. The Greek wished to sell the Thebans for slaves, and to drive the Messenians from their country, although Thebes was the mother city of Sparta, and the Messenians sprang from the same stock as the Lacedaemonians. In his attempts to effect this, he all but lost Sparta herself, and did lose the Spartan empire; while Pompeius even gave cities to be inhabited by such of the Mediterranean pirates as abandoned that mode of life; and when Tigranes the king of Armenia was in his power, he did not lead him in his triumph, but chose rather to make him an ally of Rome; observing, that he preferred an advantage which would last for all time to the glory which only endured for a single day.

If, however, we place the chief glory of a general in feats of arms and strategy, the Laconian will be found greatly to excel the Roman.

Agesilaus did not abandon Sparta even when it was attacked by seventy thousand men, when he had but few troops with which to defend it, and those too all disheartened by their recent defeat at Leuktra.

Pompeius, on hearing that Caesar, with only five thousand three hundred men, had taken a town in Italy, left Rome in terror, either yielding to this small force like a coward, or else falsely supposing it to be more numerous than it was. He carefully carried off his own wife and children, but left the families of his partizans unprotected in Rome, when he ought either to have fought for the city against Caesar, or else to have acknowledged him as his superior and submitted to him, for Caesar was both his fellow-countryman and his relative. Yet, after having violently objected to the prorogation of Caesar's term of office as consul, he put it in his power to capture Rome itself, and to say to Metellus that he regarded him and all the rest of the citizens as prisoners of war.

IV. Agesilaus, when he was the stronger, always forced his enemy to fight, and when weaker, always avoided a battle. By always practising this, the highest art of a general, he pa.s.sed through his life without a single defeat; whereas Pompeius was unable to make use of his superiority to Caesar by sea, and was forced by him to hazard everything on the event of a land battle; for as soon as Caesar had defeated him, he at once obtained possession of all Pompeius's treasure, supplies, and command of the sea, without gaining which he must inevitably have been defeated, even without a battle. Pompeius's excuse for his conduct is, in truth, his severest condemnation. It is very natural and pardonable for a young general to be influenced by clamours and accusations of remissness and cowardice, so as to abandon the course which he had previously decided upon as the safest; but that the great Pompeius, of whom the Romans used to say that the camp was his home, and that he only made an occasional campaign in the senate house, at a time when his followers called the consuls and generals of Rome traitors and rebels, and when they knew that he was in possession of absolute uncontrolled power, and had already conducted so many campaigns with such brilliant success as commander-in-chief--that he should be moved by the scoffs of a Favonius or a Domitius, and hazard his army and his life lest they should call him Agamemnon, is a most discreditable supposition. If he were so sensitive on the point of honour, he ought to have made a stand at the very beginning, and fought a battle in defence of Rome, not first to have retreated, giving out that he was acting with a subtlety worthy of Themistokles himself, and then to have regarded every day spent in Thessaly without fighting as a disgrace. The plain of Pharsalia was not specially appointed by heaven as the arena in which he was to contend with Caesar for the empire of the world, nor was he summoned by the voice of a herald either to fight or to avow himself vanquished. There were many plains, and innumerable cities and countries which his command of the sea would have enabled him to reach, if he had wished to imitate Fabius Maximus, Marius, Lucullus, or Agesilaus himself, who resisted the same kind of clamour at Sparta, when his countrymen wished to fight the Thebans and protect their native land; while in Egypt he endured endless reproaches, abuse, and suspicion from Nektanebis because he forbade him to fight, and by consistently carrying out his own judicious policy saved the Egyptians against their will. He not only guided Sparta safely through that terrible crisis, but was enabled to win a victory over the Thebans in the city itself, which he never could have done had he yielded to the entreaties of the Lacedaemonians to fight when their country was first invaded. Thus it happened that Agesilaus was warmly praised by those whose opinions he had overruled, while Pompeius made mistakes to please his friends, and afterwards was reproached by them for what he had done. Some historians tell us, however, that he was deceived by his father-in-law, Scipio, who with the intention of embezzling and converting to his own use the greater part of the treasure which Pompeius brought from Asia, urged him to fight as soon as possible, as though there was likely to be a scarcity of money. In these respects, then, we have reviewed their respective characters.

V. Pompeius went to Egypt of necessity, fleeing for his life; but Agesilaus went there with the dishonourable purpose of acting as general for the barbarians, in order that he might employ the money which he earned by that means in making war upon the Greeks. We blame the Egyptians for their conduct to Pompeius; but the Egyptians have equal reason to complain of the conduct of Agesilaus towards themselves; for though Pompeius trusted them and was betrayed, yet Agesilaus deserted the man who trusted him, and joined the enemies of those whom he went out to a.s.sist.

LIFE OF ALEXANDER.

I. In writing the Lives of Alexander the Great and of Caesar the conqueror of Pompeius, which are contained in this book, I have before me such an abundance of materials, that I shall make no other preface than to beg the reader, if he finds any of their famous exploits recorded imperfectly, and with large excisions, not to regard this as a fault. I am writing biography, not history; and often a man's most brilliant actions prove nothing as to his true character, while some trifling incident, some casual remark or jest, will throw more light upon what manner of man he was than the bloodiest battle, the greatest array of armies, or the most important siege. Therefore, just as portrait painters pay most attention to those peculiarities of the face and eyes, in which the likeness consists, and care but little for the rest of the figure, so it is my duty to dwell especially upon those actions which reveal the workings of my heroes' minds, and from these to construct the portraits of their respective lives, leaving their battles and their great deeds to be recorded by others.

II. All are agreed that Alexander was descended on his father's side from Herakles through Kara.n.u.s, and on his mother's from aeakus through Neoptolemus.

We are told that Philip and Olympias first met during their initiation into the sacred mysteries at Samothrace, and that he, while yet a boy, fell in love with the orphan girl, and persuaded her brother Arymbas to consent to their marriage. The bride, before she consorted with her husband, dreamed that she had been struck by a thunderbolt, from which a sheet of flame sprang out in every direction, and then suddenly died away. Philip himself some time after his marriage dreamed that he set a seal upon his wife's body, on which was engraved the figure of a lion. When he consulted the soothsayers as to what this meant, most of them declared the meaning to be, that his wife required more careful watching; but Aristander of Telmessus declared that she must be pregnant, because men do not seal up what is empty, and that she would bear a son of a spirited and lion-like disposition. Once Philip found his wife asleep, with a large tame snake stretched beside her; and this, it is said, quite put an end to his pa.s.sion for her, and made him avoid her society, either because he feared the magic arts of his wife, or else from a religious scruple, because his place was more worthily filled. Another version of this story is that the women of Macedonia have been from very ancient times subject to the Orphic and Bacchic frenzy (whence they were called Clodones and Mimallones), and perform the same rites as do the Edonians and the Thracian women about Mount Haemus, from which the word "threskeuein" has come to mean "to be over-superst.i.tious." Olympias, it is said, celebrated these rites with exceeding fervour, and in imitation of the Orientals, and to introduce into the festal procession large tame serpents,[394] which struck terror into the men as they glided through the ivy wreaths and mystic baskets which the women carried on their heads.

III. We are told that Philip after this portent sent Chairon of Megalopolis to Delphi, to consult the G.o.d there, and that he delivered an oracular response bidding him sacrifice to Zeus Ammon, and to pay especial reverence to that G.o.d: warning him, moreover, that he would some day lose the sight of that eye with which, through the c.h.i.n.k of the half-opened door, he had seen the G.o.d consorting with his wife in the form of a serpent. The historian Eratosthenes informs us that when Alexander was about to set out on his great expedition, Olympias told him the secret of his birth, and bade him act worthily of his divine parentage. Other writers say that she scrupled to mention the subject, and was heard to say "Why does Alexander make Hera jealous of me?"