Plutarch
46-119 A.C.E - Wrote in Greek
The Comparison of
Lucullus with Cimon
Written 75 A.C.E.
Translated by John Dryden
The Comparison of
Lucullus with Cimon
By Plutarch
One might bless the end of Lucullus, which was so timed as to let him die
before the great revolution, which fate, by intestine wars, was already
effecting against the established government, and to close his life in
a free though troubled commonwealth. And in this, above all other things,
Cimon and he are alike. For he died also when Greece was as yet undisordered,
in its highest felicity; though in the field at the head of his army, not
recalled, nor out of his mind, nor sullying the glory of his wars, engagements,
and conquests, by making feastings and debauches seem the apparent end
and aim of them all; as Plato says scornfully of Orpheus, that he makes
an eternal debauch hereafter the reward of those who lived well here. Indeed,
ease and quiet, and the study of pleasant and speculative learning, to
an old man retiring from command and office, is a most suitable and becoming
solace; but to misguide virtuous actions to pleasure as their utmost end,
and as the conclusion of campaigns and commands, to keep the feast of Venus,
did not become the noble Academy, and the follower of Xenocrates, but rather
one that inclined to Epicurus. And this is one surprising point of contrast
between them; Cimon's youth was ill reputed and intemperate, Lucullus's
well disciplined and sober. Undoubtedly we must give the preference to
the change for good, for it argues the better nature, where vice declines
and virtue grows. Both had great wealth, but employed it in different ways;
and there is no comparison between the south wall of the acropolis built
by Cimon, and the chambers and galleries, with their sea-views, built at
Naples by Lucullus, out of the spoils of the barbarians. Neither can we
compare Cimon's popular and liberal table with the sumptuous oriental one
of Lucullus, the former receiving a great many guests every day at small
cost, and the latter expensively spread for a few men of pleasure, unless
you will say that different times made the alteration. For who can tell
but that Cimon, if he had retired in his old age from business and war
to quiet and solitude, might have lived a more luxurious and self-indulgent
life, as he was fond of wine and company, and accused, as has been said,
of laxity with women? The better pleasures gained in successful action
and effort leave the baser appetites no time or place, and make active
and heroic men forget them. Had but Lucullus ended his days in the field,
and in command, envy and detraction itself could never have accused him.
So much for their manner of life.
In war, it is plain they were both soldiers of excellent conduct,
both at land and sea. But as in the games they honour those champions who
on the same day gain the garland, both in wrestling and in the pancratium,
with the name of "Victors and more," so Cimon, honouring Greece with a
sea and land victory on the same day, may claim a certain pre-eminence
among commanders. Lucullus received command from his country, whereas Cimon
brought it to his. He annexed the territories of enemies to her, who ruled
over confederates before, but Cimon made his country, which when he began
was a mere follower of others, both rule over confederates, and conquer
enemies too, forcing the Persians to relinquish the sea, and inducing the
Lacedaemonians to surrender their command. If it be the chiefest thing
in a general to obtain the obedience of his soldiers by good-will, Lucullus
was despised by his own army, but Cimon highly prized even by others. His
soldiers deserted the one, the confederates came over to the other. Lucullus
came home without the forces which he led out; Cimon, sent out at first
to serve as one confederate among others, returned home with authority
even over these also, having successfully effected for his city three most
difficult services, establishing peace with the enemy, dominion over confederates,
and concord with Lacedaemon. Both aiming to destroy great kingdoms, and
subdue all Asia, failed in their enterprise, Cimon by a simple piece of
ill-fortune, for he died when general, in the height of success; but Lucullus
no man can wholly acquit of being in fault with his soldiers, whether it
were he did not know, or would not comply with, the distastes and complaints
of his army, which brought him at last into such extreme unpopularity among
them. But did not Cimon also suffer like him in this? For the citizens
arraigned him, and did not leave off till they had banished him, that,
as Plato says, they might not hear him for the space of ten years. For
high and noble minds seldom please the vulgar, or are acceptable to them;
for the force they use to straighten their distorted actions gives the
same pain as surgeons' bandages do in bringing dislocated bones to their
natural position. Both of them, perhaps, come off pretty much with an equal
acquittal on this count.
Lucullus very much outwent him in war, being the first Roman who
carried an army over Taurus, passed the Tigris, took and burned the royal
palaces of Asia in the sight of the kings, Tigranocerta, Cabira, Sinope,
and Nisibis, seizing and overwhelming the northern parts as far as the
Phasis, the east as far as Media, and making the South and Red Sea his
own through the kings of the Arabians. He shattered the power of the kings,
and narrowly missed their persons, while like wild beasts they fled away
into deserts and thick and impassable woods. In demonstration of this superiority,
we see that the Persians, as if no great harm had befallen them under Cimon,
soon after appeared in arms against the Greeks, and overcame and destroyed
their numerous forces in Egypt. But after Lucullus, Tigranes and Mithridates
were able to do nothing; the latter, being disabled and broken in the former
wars, never dared to show his army to Pompey outside the camp, but fled
away to Bosporus, and there died. Tigranes threw himself, naked and unarmed,
down before Pompey, and taking his crown from his head laid it at his feet,
complimenting Pompey with what was not his own, but, in real truth, the
conquest already effected by Lucullus. And when he received the ensigns
of majesty again, he was well pleased, evidently because he had forfeited
them before. And the commander, as the wrestler, is to be accounted to
have done most who leaves an adversary almost conquered for his successor.
Cimon moreover, when he took the command, found the power of the king broken,
and the spirits of the Persians humbled by their great defeats and incessant
routs under Themistocles, Pausanias, and Leontychides, and thus easily
overcame the bodies of men whose souls were quelled and defeated beforehand.
But Tigranes had never yet in many combats been beaten, and was flushed
with success when he engaged with Lucullus. There is no comparison between
the numbers which came against Lucullus and those subdued by Cimon. All
which things being rightly considered, it is a hard matter to give judgment.
For supernatural favour also appears to have attended both of them, directing
the one what to do, the other what to avoid, and thus they have, both of
them, so to say, the vote of the gods, to declare them noble and divine
characters.
THE END
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