102 ALCIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS.

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 imdoubtedly simple and straightfoi^ward ; Alcibiades, unscrupulous as a public man, and false. He is more especially blamed for the dishonorable and treach- erous way in which, as Thucj'dides relates, he imposed upon the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, and disturbed the continuance of the peace. Yet this policy, which en- gaged 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 Yolscians, 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 sacri- ficed to his passion against his country numerous inno- cent 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 feel- ings to be changed ; and after he was driven out a second time, so far from taking pleasure in the errors and inad- vertencies of their commanders, or being indifferent to the danger they were thus incurring, he did the very thing that Aristides is so highlj' commended for doing to Themistocles : he came to the generals who were his ene- mies, 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 onl}^ one portion of them had done him any wrong, while the other, the bet-