75 AD
THE COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
by Plutarch
translated by John Dryden
HAVING described all their actions that seem to deserve
commemoration, their military ones, we may say, incline the balance
very decidedly upon neither side. They both, in pretty equal
measure, displayed on numerous occasions the daring and
courage of the
soldier, and the skill and foresight of the general; unless, indeed,
the fact that Alcibiades was victorious and successful in many
contests both by sea and land, ought to gain him the title of a more
complete commander. That so long as they remained and held command
in their respective countries they eminently sustained, and when
they were driven into exile yet more eminently damaged, the fortunes
of those countries, is common to both. All the sober citizens felt
disgust at the petulance, the low flattery, and base seductions
which Alcibiades, in his public life, allowed himself to employ with
the view of winning the people's favour; and the ungraciousness,
pride, and oligarchical haughtiness which Marcius, on the other
hand, displayed in his, were the abhorrence of the Roman populace.
Neither of these courses can be called commendable; but a man who
ingratiates himself by indulgence and flattery is hardly so
censurable
as one who, to avoid the appearance of flattering, insults. To seek
power by servility to the people is a disgrace, but to maintain it
by terror, violence, and oppression is not a disgrace only, but an
injustice.
Marcius, according to our common conceptions of his character, was
undoubtedly simple and straightforward; Alcibiades, unscrupulous as
a public man, and false. He is more especially blamed for the
dishonourable and treacherous way in which, as Thucydides relates,
he imposed upon the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, and disturbed the
continuance of the peace. Yet this policy, which engaged the city
again in war, nevertheless placed it in a powerful and formidable
position, by the accession, which Alcibiades obtained for it, of the
alliance of Argos and Mantinea. And Coriolanus also, Dionysius
relates, used unfair means to excite war between the Romans and the
Volscians, in the false report which he spread about the visitors at
the Games; and the motive of this action seems to make it
the worse of
the two; since it was not done, like the other, out of ordinary
political jealousy, strife, and competition. Simply to gratify anger
from which, as Ion says, no one ever yet got any return, he threw
whole districts of Italy into confusion, and sacrificed to
his passion
against his country numerous innocent cities. It is true,
indeed, that
Alcibiades also, by his resentment, was the occasion of great
disasters to his country, but he relented as soon as he found their
feelings to be changed; and after he was driven out a second time,
so far from taking pleasure in the errors and inadvertencies of
their commanders, or being indifferent to the danger they were thus
incurring, he did the very thing that Aristides is so highly
commended
for doing to Themistocles; he came to the generals who were his
enemies, and pointed out to them what they ought to do.
Coriolanus, on
the other hand, first of all attacked the whole body of his
countrymen, though only one portion of them had done him any wrong,
while the other, the better and nobler portion, had actually
suffered,
as well as sympathized, with him. And, secondly, by the obduracy
with which he resisted numerous embassies and supplications,
addressed
in propitiation of his single anger and offence, he showed
that it had
been to destroy and overthrow, not to recover and regain his
country, that he had excited bitter and implacable
hostilities against
it. There is, indeed, one distinction that may be drawn. Alcibiades,
it may be said, was not safe among the Spartans, and had the
inducements at once of fear and of hatred to lead him again
to Athens;
whereas Marcius could not honourably have left the Volscians, when
they were behaving so well to him: he, in the command of their
forces and the enjoyment of their entire confidence, was in a very
different position from Alcibiades, whom the Lacedaemonians
did not so
much wish to adopt into their service, as to use and then abandon.
Driven about from house to house in the city, and from general to
general in the camp, the latter had no resort but to place himself
in the hands of Tisaphernes; unless, indeed, we are to suppose that
his object in courting favour with him was to avert the entire
destruction of his native city, whither he wished himself to return.
As regards money, Alcibiades, we are told, was often guilty of
procuring it by accepting bribes, and spent it ill in luxury and
dissipation. Coriolanus declined to receive it, even when
pressed upon
him by his commanders as an honour; and one great reason for
the odium
he incurred with the populace in the discussions about their debts
was, that he trampled upon the poor, not for money's sake, but out
of pride and insolence.
Antipater, in a letter written upon the death of Aristotle the
philosopher, observes, "Amongst his other gifts he had that of
persuasiveness;" and the absence of this in the character of Marcius
made all his great actions and noble qualities unacceptable to those
whom they benefited: pride, and self-will, the consort, as
Plato calls
it, of solitude, made him insufferable. With the skill which
Alcibiades, on the contrary, possessed to treat every one in the way
most agreeable to him, we cannot wonder that all his successes were
attended with the most exuberant favour and honour; his very errors,
at times, being accompanied by something of grace and
felicity. And so
in spite of great and frequent hurt that he had done the city, he
was repeatedly appointed to office and command; while
Coriolanus stood
in vain for a place which his great services had made his due. The
one, in spite of the harm he occasioned, could not make
himself hated,
nor the other, with all the admiration he attracted, succeeded in
being beloved by his countrymen.
Coriolanus, moreover, it should be said, did not as a
general obtain
any successes for his country, but only for his enemies against his
country. Alcibiades was often of service to Athens, both as a
soldier and as a commander. So long as he was personally present, he
had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only
succeeded in his absence. Coriolanus was condemned in person at
Rome; and in like manner killed by the Volscians, not indeed with
any right or justice, yet not without some pretext occasioned by his
own acts; since, after rejecting all conditions of peace in
public, in
private he yielded to the solicitations of the women and, without
establishing peace, threw up the favourable chances of war. He
ought, before retiring, to have obtained the consent of those who
had placed their trust in him; if indeed he considered their
claims on
him to be the strongest. Or, if we say that he did not care about
the Volscians, but merely had prosecuted the war, which he now
abandoned, for the satisfaction of his own resentment, then the
noble thing would have been, not to spare his country for
his mother's
sake, but his mother in and with his country; since both his mother
and his wife were part and parcel of that endangered country. After
harshly repelling public supplications, the entreaties of
ambassadors,
and the prayers of priests, to concede all as a private favour to
his mother was less an honour to her than a dishonour to the city
which thus escaped, in spite, it would seem, of its own demerits
through the intercession of a single woman. Such a grace could,
indeed, seem merely invidious, ungracious, and unreasonable in the
eyes of both parties; he retreated without listening to the
persuasions of his opponents or asking the consent of his
friends. The
origin of all lay in his unsociable, supercilious, and self-willed
disposition, which, in all cases, is offensive to most people; and
when combined with a passion for distinction passes into absolute
savageness and mercilessness. Men decline to ask favours of the
people, professing not to need any honours from them; and then are
indignant if they do not obtain them. Metellus, Aristides, and
Epaminondas certainly did not beg favours of the multitude; but that
was because they, in real truth, did not value the gifts which a
popular body can either confer or refuse; and when they were
more than
once driven into exile, rejected at elections, and condemned
in courts
of justice, they showed no resentment at the ill-humour of their
fellow-citizens, but were willing and contented to return and be
reconciled when the feeling altered and they were wished for. He who
least likes courting favour, ought also least to think of resenting
neglect; to feel wounded at ...
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