be
better known to him than to us; and it was no new thing in Greece to see
men punished and exiled for this very thing, for being too acceptable to
the people; witness the Ostracism and Petalism.--[Ostracism at Athens
was banishment for ten years; petalism at Syracuse was banishment for
five years.]

There is yet in this place another accusation laid against Plutarch which
I cannot well digest, where Bodin says that he has sincerely paralleled
Romans with Romans, and Greeks amongst themselves, but not Romans with
Greeks; witness, says he, Demosthenes and Cicero, Cato and Aristides,
Sylla and Lysander, Marcellus and Pelopidas, Pompey and Agesilaus,
holding that he has favoured the Greeks in giving them so unequal
companions. This is really to attack what in Plutarch is most excellent
and most to be commended; for in his parallels (which is the most
admirable part of all his works, and with which, in my opinion, he is
himself the most pleased) the fidelity and sincerity of his judgments
equal their depth and weight; he is a philosopher who teaches us virtue.
Let us see whether we cannot defend him from this reproach of falsity and
prevarication. All that I can imagine could give occasion to this
censure is the great and shining lustre of the Roman names which we have
in our minds; it does not seem likely to us that Demosthenes could rival
the glory of a consul, proconsul, and proctor of that great Republic; but
if a man consider the truth of the thing, and the men in themselves,
which is Plutarch's chiefest aim, and will rather balance their manners,
their natures, and parts, than their fortunes, I think, contrary to
Bodin, that Cicero and the elder Cato come far short of the men with whom
they are compared. I should sooner, for his purpose, have chosen the
example of the younger Cato compared with Phocion, for in this couple
there would have been a more likely disparity, to the Roman's advantage.
As to Marcellus, Sylla, and Pompey, I very well discern that their
exploits of war are greater and more full of pomp and glory than those of
the Greeks, whom Plutarch compares with them; but the bravest and most
virtuous actions any more in war than elsewhere, are not always the most
renowned. I often see the names of captains obscured by the splendour of
other names of less desert; witness Labienus, Ventidius, Telesinus, and
several others. And to take it by that, were I to complain on the behalf
of the Greeks, could I no