name.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: Il. xiv. 86.]

[Footnote 13: _Civica corona_. The civic crown was made of oak leaves,
and was given only to him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen
in war.]

[Footnote 14: Interreges were appointed when there were no consuls, to
hold comitia for the election of new ones.]

[Footnote 15: Vessels of five banks of oars.]

[Footnote 16: Hexapylon, the place with six gates.]

THE COMPARISON OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS.

I. The particulars which we thought worth extracting from the
histories of Pelopidas and Marcellus are related above. Their
dispositions and habits were so nearly identical (for both were brave,
laborious, and high-spirited) that the only point in which they differ
appears to be that Marcellus put the inhabitants of several captured
cities to the sword, whereas Epameinondas and Pelopidas never slew any
one after they had conquered him, nor enslaved any captured city;
indeed, had they been alive, it is said that the Thebans never would
have so treated the town of Orchomenus. As to their exploits, that of
Marcellus against the Gauls was great and wonderful, when he drove
before him with his little band of horsemen so great a multitude of
horse and foot together, the like of which one cannot easily find to
have been done by any other general, and the killing of the chief of
the enemy. The same thing was attempted by Pelopidas, but the despot
was too quick for him, and he perished without succeeding in his
effort. Yet with these we may compare his deeds at Leuktra and Tegyra,
the most important and glorious of all his feats of arms, while we
have no exploit of Marcellus which corresponds to his management of
the ambuscade by which he brought back the exiled popular party to
Thebes, and destroyed the despots. Indeed, of all deeds performed by
secrecy and stratagem, this takes the van. Hannibal, no doubt, was a
terrible enemy to Rome, as were the Lacedaemonians to Thebes; yet it is
an established fact that at Tegyra and at Leuktra they gave way before
Pelopidas, whereas Marcellus, according to Polybius, never once
defeated Hannibal, but that general appears to have remained
undefeated until the time of Scipio. But we believe, following Livy,
Caesar, Cornelius Nepos, and, among Greek historians, king Juba, that
Hannibal suffered some defeats at the hands of Marcellus; yet they
never produced any signal result, and we may suspect that the African
sometimes o