Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus

Since, then, Pelopidas was never defeated in a battle where he was in command, and Marcellus won more victories than any Roman of his day, it would seem, perhaps, that the multitude of his successes made the difficulty of conquering the one equal to the invincibility of the other. Marcellus, it is true, took Syracuse, while Pelopidas failed to take Sparta. But I think that to have reached Sparta, and to have been the first of men to cross the Eurotas in war, was a greater achievement than the conquest of Sicily;

unless, indeed, it should be said that this exploit belongs rather to Epaminondas than to Pelopidas, as well as the victory at Leuctra, while Marcellus shared with no one the glory of his achievements. For he took Syracuse all alone, and routed the Gauls without his colleague, and when no one would undertake the struggle against Hannibal, but all declined it, he took the field against him, changed the aspect of the war, and was the first leader to show daring.

I cannot, indeed, applaud the death of either of them, nay, I am distressed and indignant at their unreasonableness in the final disaster. And I admire Hannibal because, in battles so numerous that one would weary of counting them, he was not even wounded. I am delighted, too, with Chrysantes, in the Cyropaedeia,[*](Xenophon, Cyrop. iv. 1, 3.) who, though his blade was lifted on high and he was about to smite an enemy, when the trumpet sounded a retreat, let his man go, and retired with all gentleness and decorum.

Pelopidas, however, was somewhat excusable, because, excited as he always was by an opportunity for battle, he was now carried away by a generous anger to seek revenge. For the best thing is that a general should be victorious and keep his life,

but if he must die,

conclude his life with valour,

And besides his anger, Pelopidas saw that the consummation of his victory would be the death of the tyrant, and this not altogether unreasonably invited his effort; for it would have been hard to find another deed of prowess with so fair and glorious a promise. But Marcellus, when no great need was pressing, and when he felt none of that ardour which in times of peril unseats the judgment, plunged heedlessly into danger, and died the death, not of a general, but of a mere skirmisher or scout,

having cast his five consulates, his three triumphs, and the spoils and trophies which he had taken from kings, under the feet of Iberians and Numidians who had sold their lives to the Carthaginians. And so it came to pass that these very men were loath to accept their own success, when a Roman who excelled all others in valour, and had the greatest influence and the most splendid fame, was uselessly sacrificed among the scouts of Fregellae.

This, however, must not be thought a denunciation of the men, but rather an indignant and outspoken protest in their own behalf against themselves and their valour, to which they uselessly sacrificed their other virtues, in that they were unsparing of their lives; as if their death affected themselves alone, and not rather their countries, friends, and allies.