Plutarch's Lives, Volume II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 680 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives, Volume II.

Plutarch's Lives, Volume II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 680 pages of information about Plutarch's Lives, Volume II.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  Kallikratidas, the Lacedaemonian admiral, was defeated and slain by the Athenians at the battle of Arginusae, B.C. 406.]

[Footnote 2:  No one seems able to identify this battle.  See Grote’s History, Part ii., ch. lxxvii., note, s.v.  Epameinondas.]

[Footnote 3:  See Life of Titus Flamininus, p. 175, note.]

[Footnote 4:  More usually spelt ‘Leontiades.’]

[Footnote 5:  Kadmeia, the Acropolis of Thebes, a fortress on a lofty rock overhanging the town.]

[Footnote 6:  In Attica.]

[Footnote 7:  The chief priest who presided at the Eleusinian mysteries.]

[Footnote 8:  The office of Boeotarch is described at length in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Antiquities.’  They seem properly to have been the military leaders of the confederacy of the whole of the cities of Boeotia.]

[Footnote 9:  This was the case in all Greek towns, namely, there were two parties, aristocratic and democratic.  The democracy being now in the ascendant in Thebes, the party which favoured the Spartans, the most aristocratic state in Greece, had gone into exile.]

[Footnote 10:  For the number of men in a “mora,” see p. 16.]

[Footnote 11:  See vol. i.  Life of Lykurgus, ch. vi.]

LIFE OF MARCELLUS.

I. Poseidonius tells us that Marcus Claudius, who was five times consul of the Roman people, was the son of Marcus, and was the first of his family to receive the name of Marcellus, which means warlike.  Indeed, by his experience he became a thorough soldier; his body was strong, and his arm powerful.  He was fond of war, and bore himself with a lordly arrogance in battle, though otherwise he was of a quiet and amiable disposition, fond of Greek culture and literature, to the extent of respecting and admiring those who knew it, though he from his want of leisure could not make such progress as he wished.  For the Roman chiefs of that period were, if any men ever were, condemned, in the words of Homer,

     “From youth to age, disastrous wars to wage."[12]

In their youth they fought the Carthaginians on the Sicilian coast; in middle age they fought the Gauls in defence of Italy itself; when advanced in years they again contended with Hannibal and the Carthaginians, not, as common men do, obtaining any relief from constant service because of their old age, but ever urged by their courage and nobility of soul to accept the command in new campaigns.

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Plutarch's Lives, Volume II from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.