PELOPIDAS. 235

gantly celebrates the funeral of Dionysius, in which his tyranny concluded like the pompous exit of some great tragedy. Alexander the Great, at the death of Hephaes- tion, not only cut off the manes of his horses and his mules, but took down the battlements from the city walls, that even the towns might seem mourners, and, instead of their former beauteous appearance, look bald at his funeral. But such honors, being commanded and forced from the mourners, attended with feelings of jealousy towards those who received them, and of hatred towards those who exacted them, were no testimonies of love and respect, but of the barbaric pride, luxury, and insolence of those who lavished their wealth in these vain and un- desirable displays. But that a man of common rank, dying in a strange country, neither his wife, children, nor kinsmen present, none either asking or compelling it, should be attended, buried, and crowned by so many cities that strove to exceed one another in the demon- strations of their love, seems to be the sum and comple- tion of happy fortune. For the death of happy men is not, as jEsop observes, most grievous, but most blessed, since it secures their felicity, and puts it out of fortune's • power. And that Spartan advised well, who, embracing Diagoras, that had himself been crowned in the Olympic Games, and saw his sons and grandchildren victors, said, " Die, Diagoras, for thou canst not be a god." And yet who would compare all the victories in the Pythian and Olympian Games put together, with one of those enter- prises of Pelopidas, of which he successfully performed so many ? Having spent his life in brave and glorious ac- tions, he died at last in the chief command, for the thir- teenth time, of the Boeotians, fighting bravely and in the act of slaying a tyrant, in defence of the liberty of the Thessalians. His death, as it brought grief, so likewise it produced