se and tricky politician. The latter has been
especially blamed for the manner in which he deceived and outwitted the
Lacedaemonian ambassadors, by which, as we learn from Thucydides, he
brought the truce between the two nations to an end. Yet that stroke of
policy, though it again involved Athens in war, rendered her strong and
formidable, through the alliance with Argos and Mantinea, which she owed
to Alkibiades. Marcius also, we are told by Dionysius, produced a
quarrel between the Romans and the Volscians by bringing a false
accusation against those Volscians who came to see the festival at Rome;
and in this case the wickedness of his object increased his guilt,
because he did not act from a desire of personal aggrandisement, or from
political rivalry, as did Alkibiades, but merely yielding to what Dion
calls the unprofitable passion of anger, he threw a large part of Italy
into confusion, and in his rage against his native country destroyed
many innocent cities. On the other hand, the anger of Alkibiades caused
great misfortune to his countrymen; yet as soon as he found that they
had relented towards him he returned cheerfully to his allegiance, and
after being banished for the second time, did not take any delight in
seeing their generals defeated, and could not sit still and let them
make mistakes and uselessly expose themselves to danger. He did just
what Aristeides is so much praised for doing to Themistokles; he went to
the generals, although they were not his friends, and pointed out to
them what ought to be done.

Marcius, again, is to be blamed for having made the whole of Rome suffer
for what only a part of it had done, while the best and most important
class of citizens had been wronged equally with himself, and warmly
sympathised with him. Afterwards, although his countrymen sent him many
embassies, beseeching his forgiveness for their one act of ignorance and
passion, he would not listen to them, but showed that it was with the
intention of utterly destroying Rome, not of obtaining his own
restoration to it, that he had begun that terrible and savage war
against it. This, then, may be noted as the difference between their
respective positions: Alkibiades went back to the Athenian side when the
Spartans began to plot against him, because he both feared them and
hated them; but Marcius, who was in every respect well treated by the
Volscians, could not honourably desert their cause. He had been elected
the