75 AD

THE COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON

Plutarch
translated by John Dryden
Plutarch (46-120) - Greek biographer, historian, and philosopher,
sometimes known as the encyclopaedist of antiquity. He is most
renowned for his series of character studies, arranged mostly in
pairs, known as Plutarchs Lives of the Noble Grecians and
Romans or Parallel Lives. Lucullus and Cimon Compared (75
AD) - Compares and contrasts the lives of Lucullus, a Roman
general, and Cimon, a Greek general.
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
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; Cimons youth was
ill reputed and intemperate, Luculluss 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 Cimons 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 goodwill, 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