Comparison of Lysander and Sulla

Still further, in their pursuit of riches and pleasures we discover that the purpose of one was more befitting a commander, that of the other more characteristic of a tyrant. For Lysander appears to have perpetrated no act of wantonness or youthful folly while he enjoyed such great authority and power, nay, if ever man did, he avoided the praise and reproach of the proverb: Lions at home, but foxes abroad; so sober, Spartan, and restrained was the way of life which he everywhere manifested.

But Sulla allowed neither the poverty of his youth to set bounds to his desire; nor the years of his old age, but continued to introduce marriage and sumptuary laws for the citizens, while he himself was living in lewdness and adultery, as Sallust says. In these courses he so beggared and emptied the city of her wealth that he sold to allied and friendly cities their freedom and independence for money, although he was daily confiscating and selling at public auction the wealthiest and greatest estates.

Nay, there was no measuring what he lavishly squandered and threw away upon his flatterers. For what calculation or economy could be expected in his convivial associations and delights, when, on a public occasion, with the people standing about, at the sale of a large property, he ordered the crier to knock it down to one of his friends at a nominal price, and when another bidder raised the price and the crier announced the advance, he flew into a rage, saying: It is a dreadful wrong, my dear citizens, and a piece of usurpation, that I cannot dispose of my own spoils as I wish.

But Lysander sent home for public use even the presents which had been given to him along with the rest of his spoils. Not that I commend what he did; for he, perhaps, by his acquisition of money for Sparta, injured her more than Sulla injured Rome by robbing her of it; but I offer this as a proof of the man’s indifference to riches.

Moreover, each had a peculiar experience with his own city. Sulla, who knew no restraint in his extravagance, tried to bring the citizens into ways of sobriety; while Lysander filled his city with the passions to which he himself was a stranger. The former erred, therefore, in falling below the standard of his own laws; the latter, in causing the citizens to fall below his own standard, since he taught Sparta to want what he himself had learned not to want. Such was their influence as statesmen.