Plutarch, Lives: Alcibiades and Coriolanus; Lysander and Sulla [4]

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PLUTARCH'S LIVES WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY

BERNADOTTE PERRIN IN

ELEVEN VOLUMES IV

ALCIBIADES

AND CORIOLANUS

LYSANDER AND SULLA

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS MCMLIX

-

First printed 1916 Reprinted 1932, 1948, 1959

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE

yi

ORDER OF THE PARALLEL LIVES IN THIS EDITION TRADITIONAL ORDER OF THE PARALLEL LIVES

.

.

.

....

ALCIBIADES

LX 1

CA1US MARCIUS CORIOLANUS

COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS

viH

117

....

218

LYSANDKR

233

SULLA

323

COMPARISON OF LYSANDER AND SULLA

444

DICTIONARY OF PROPER NAMES

459

PREFATORY NOTE As

in the preceding

volumes of

this series, agree-

ment between the Sintenis (Teubner, 1873-1875) and Bekker (Tauchnitz, 1855-1857) texts of the Parallel Lives has been taken as the basis for the

Any

preference of one to the other where

differ,

and any departure from both, have been

text.

they

indicated.

volume (S),

is

None

of the

presented in this

Lives

contained in the Codex Seitenstettensis

the relative value of which

Introduction to the

first

is

volume.

explained in the

A

few superior

readings have been adopted from the Codex Matritensis (M a ), on the authority of the collations of

Charles Graux, as published in Dursians Jahresbe.ncht No attempt has been made, naturally, to (1884). furnish

either a diplomatic text or a

full

critical

apparatus.

The reading which

the

critical

notes

and

also, unless otherwise stated in the note, of the

is

follows the colon in

that of the Teubner Sintenis,

Tauchnitz Bekker.

Some vi

use has been

made

of the edition of the

PREFATORY NOTE Sulla

by the Rev. Hubert A. Holden, Cambridge,

Pitt Press Series, 1886.

The appeared

translation in

my

of the

Alcibiades

has already

" Plutarch's Nicias and Alcibiades "

is reproduced here (with the generous consent of the only slight changes) by Charles Scribner's Sons. Messrs. the publishers,

(New York,

The

1912),

translations

and

of the

Coriolanus,

Lysander, and

Sulla appear here for the first time. All the standard

translations of the

pared and

Lives have

been carefully com-

utilized, including that

of the Sulla by

Professor Long. B.

New Haven,

PERRIN.

Connecticut, U.S.A.

April, 1916.

VII

ORDER OF THE PARALLEL LIVES IN THIS EDITION IN THE CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF THE GREEK LIVES. Volume (1)

(2)

(3)

Volume (4)

Volume

I.

Theseus and Romulus. Comparison. Lycurgus and Numa. Comparison. Solon and Publicola. Comparison.

(22) (7)

Paulus.

Comparison.

Volume (20)

II.

and

Cato

the

Cimon and Lucullus. Comparison.

Volume

III.

Volume IX (21)

Comparison.

and Crassus.

(11)

Comparison.

(12)

IV.

and

Alcibiades nus.

Demetrius and Antony. Comparison. Pyrrhus and Caius Marius.

Volume

Volume (6)

and Eumenes.

Comparison. (18) Phocion and Cato the Younger.

and Fabius Max-

imus. (14) Nicias

Volume VIII (15) Sertorius

Comparison.

(5) Pericles

(19)

Coriola-

Comparison. Lysander and Sulla. Comparison.

(10)

X

Agis and Cleomenes, and Tiberius and Caius Gracchus.

Comparison. Philopoemen

and Flam-

ininus.

Comparison.

Volume

V.

and Pompey.

Pelopidas and Marcellus.

Comparison.

(26) Otho.

Comparison. (8)

Volume XI (24) Aratus. (23) Artaxerxes. (25) Galba.

(16) Agesilaus

viii

Cicero.

Caesar.

Elder. (13)

VII.

Demosthenes and

Comparison. (17) Alexander and Julius

Themistocles and Camillus.

(9) Aristides

VI.

Dion and Brutus. Comparison. Timoleon and Aemilius

THE TRADITIONAL ORDER OF THE PARALLEL LIVES. (1)

Theseus and Romulus.

(2)

Lycurgus and Numa.

(3)

Solon and Publicola.

(4)

Themistocles and Camillus.

5) Pericles

and Fabius Maximus.

(6)

Alcibiades and Coriolanus.

(7)

Timoleon and Aemilius Paulus.

(8)

Pelopidas and Marcellus.

(9)

Aristides and Cato the Elder.

(12)

Philopoemen and Flamininus. Pyrrhus and Caius Marius. Lysander and Sulla.

(13)

Cimon and Lucullus.

(10) (11)

(14) Nicias

and Crassus.

(15) Sertorius

and Eumenes.

(16) Agesilaus

and Poinpey.

(17)

Alexander and Julius Caesar.

(18)

Phocion and Cato the Younger.

(19)

Agis and Cleonienes, and Tiberius and Caius Gracchus.

(20)

(21)

(22)

Demosthenes and Cicero. Demetrius and Antony. Dion and Brutus.

(23) Artaxerxes. (24) Aratus.

(25) Galba. (26) Otho.

IX

ALCIBIADES

AAKIBIAAH2 I. To *AXfci/3idBov yevos avoid ev TLvpvaaKTjv ihv Atavros dpyjqybv %X 6iV & 0K€ h trpb? Be firjrpo^ rjv,

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ALCIBIADES,

i.

3-11.

1

As regards the beauty of Alcibiades, it is perhaps unnecessary to say aught, except that it flowered out with each successive season of his bodily growth, and made him, alike in boyhood, youth and manThe saying of Euripihood, lovely and pleasant. 1 that " beauty's autumn, too, is beautiful," is des, not always true. But it was certainly the case with Alcibiades, as with few besides, because of his excellent natural parts. Even the lisp that he had became his speech, they say, and made his talk persuasive and full of charm. Aristophanes notices this lisp of his in the verses wherein he ridicules Theorus 2 :

" (Sosias)

Then

Alcibiades said to

me

with a

—

lisp,

said he, '

Cwemahk Theocwus ? What head he has

(Xanthias)

"That

lisp of

once

'

"

a cwaven's

!

Alcibiades hit the

"

mark

for

!

And

Archippus, ridiculing the son of Alcibiades. says walks with utter wantonness, trailing his long robe behind him, that he may be thought the very picture of his father, yes, :

He

He

slants his

neck awry, and overworks the

8

lisp."

II. His character, in later life, displayed many inconsistencies and marked changes, as was natural amid his vast undertakings and varied fortunes. He was naturally a man of many strong passions, the mightiest of which were the love of rivalry and the love 1

a

into

Cf. Aelian, Var. Hist. xiii. 4.

Wasps, l's,

44ft'.

K($\a£, flatterer 3

The "lisp"

and the play

is

of Alcibiades turned his r's on the Greek words K6pa£, raven, and

or craven.

Kock, Com. Alt. Frag.

i.

p. 688.

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Athene threw away the

flute because she saw her puffed reflected in the water of a spring.

and swollen cheeks Marsyas the satyr was vanquished by Apollo contest, and was flayed alive. 8

in

a musical

193

ALCIBIADES,

n. 5 -iv.

i

But \*e Athenians, as our fathers to converse. have Athene for foundress and Apollo for patron, one of whom cast the flute away in disgust, and the " other flayed the presumptuous flute-player. 1 Thus, half in jest and half in earnest, Alcibiades emancipated himself from this discipline, and t-'ie rest of the For word soon made its way to them boys as well. that Alcibiades loathed the art of flute-playing and

how

say,

scoffed at its disciples,

and

rightly, too.

Wherefore

the flute was dropped entirely from the programme of a liberal education and was altogether despised. 2 III. Among the calumnies which Antiphon heaps him is recorded that, when he was a boy, lie it upon ran away from home to Democrates, one of his lovers, and that Ariphron was all for having him proclaimed by town crier as a castaway. But Pericles would not suffer it. "If he is dead," said he, " we shall know it only a day the sooner for the

whereas, if he is alive, he will, in consequence of it, be as good as dead for the rest of his life." Antiphon says also that with a blow of his stick he slew one of his attendants in the palaestra of Sibyrtius. But these things are perhaps unworthy of belief, coming as they do from one who admits that he hated Alcibiades, and abused him proclamation

;

accordingly. IV. It was not long before many men of high birth clustered about him and paid him their attenMost of them were plainly smitten with his tions.

beauty and fondly courted him. was the love which Socrates had for him that

brilliant youthful

But 2

it

An

abusive oration of Antiphon the Rhamnusian against cited in Athenaeus, p. 525 b, was probably a and falsely attributed to hiia. It is not extant.

Alcibiades, fabrication

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