|
CoriolanusComparison Of Alcibiades With Coriolanus
Comparison Of Alcibiades With Coriolanus
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 favor; 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 dishonorable 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 honorably 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 favor 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
honor; 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
favor and honor; 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, succeed 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 favorable 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 favor to his mother was less an honor to
her than a dishonor 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 favors
of the people, professing not to need any honors from them; and then are
indignant if they do not obtain them. Metellus, Aristides, and Epaminondas
certainly did not beg favors 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 - humor 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 favor, ought also least to think of resenting
neglect: to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an
overweening appetite to have it.
Alcibiades never professed to deny that it was pleasant to him to be
honored, and distasteful to him to be overlooked; and, accordingly, he always
tried to place himself upon good terms with all that he met; Coriolanus`
pride forbade him to pay attentions to those who could have promoted his
advancement, and yet his love of distinction made him feel hurt and angry when
he was disregarded. Such are the faulty parts of his character, which in all
other respects was a noble one. For his temperance, continence, and probity,
he might claim to be compared with the best and purest of the Greeks; not in
any sort or kind with Alcibiades, the least scrupulous and most entirely
careless of human beings in all these points.
|
