lemn thanksgiving for fifteen
days to show their joy at the news. How many days then must we imagine
they would have spent in rejoicing if Crassus had sent despatches
announcing the capture of Babylon, and then had reduced Media, Persia,
Hyrkania, Susa, and Bactria to the condition of Roman provinces. "If a
man must do wrong," as Euripides says of those who cannot live in
peace, and be contented when they are well off, they should do it on a
grand scale like this, not capture contemptible places like Skandeia
or Mende, or chase the people of AEgina, like birds who have been
turned out of their nests. If we are to do an injustice, let us not do
it in a miserable pettifogging way, but imitate such great examples as
Crassus and Alexander the Great. Those who praise the one of these
great men, and blame the other, do so only because they are unable to
see any other distinction between them except that the one failed and
the other succeeded.

V. When acting as general, Nikias did many great exploits, for he was
many times victorious, all but took Syracuse, and ought not justly to
bear the blame of the whole Sicilian disaster, because of his disease,
and the ill will which some bore him at Athens. Crassus on the other
hand committed so many mistakes as to put it out of the power of
fortune to aid him, so that one wonders not so much that his folly was
overcome by the Parthians as that it could overcome the good fortune
of the Romans. Now as the one never disregarded religious observances
and omens, the other despised them all, and yet both alike perished,
it is hard to say what inference we ought to draw, as to which acted
most wisely, yet we must incline rather to the side of him who
followed the established rule in such matters rather than that of him
who insolently discarded all such observances. In his death Crassus is
more to be commended, because he yielded himself against his will in
consequence of the entreaties of his friends, and was most
treacherously deceived by the enemy, while Nikias delivered himself up
to his enemies through a base and cowardly desire to save his life,
and thus made his end more infamous.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 100: I cannot find that Nikias took any part in the massacre
of the people of Melos in 416 B.C.]

LIFE OF SERTORIUS.

I. It is perhaps not a matter of surprise, if in the lapse of time,
which is unlimited, while fortune[101] is continually changing her
course, spontaneity