“In revolutions, villains rise to fame,”

and at Rome, at the period of which we are treating, the people were utterly corrupt and degraded, and frequently changed their masters.  We need not wonder at Sulla’s becoming supreme in Rome when such men as Glaucia and Saturninus drove the Metelli into exile, when the sons of consuls were butchered in the senate-house, when silver and gold purchased soldiers and arms, and laws were enacted by men who silenced their opponents by fire and the sword.  I cannot blame a man who rises to power at such a time as this, but I cannot regard it as any proof of his being the best man in the state, if the state itself be in such a condition of disorder.  Now Lysander was sent out to undertake the most important commands at a time when Sparta was well and orderly governed, and proved himself the greatest of all the foremost men of his age, the best man of the best regulated state.  For this reason Lysander, though he often laid down his office, was always re-elected by his countrymen, for the renown of his abilities naturally pointed him out as the fittest man to command:  whereas Sulla, after being once elected to lead an army, remained the chief man in Rome for ten years, calling himself sometimes consul and sometimes dictator, but always remaining a mere military despot.

II.  We have related an attempt of Lysander to subvert the constitution of Sparta; but he proceeded by a much more moderate and law-abiding means than Sulla, for he meant to gain his point by persuasion, not by armed force; and besides this he did not intend to destroy the constitution utterly, but merely to reform the succession to the throne.  And it does not seem contrary to justice, that he who is best among his peers should govern a city, which ruled in Greece by virtue, not by nobility of blood.

A huntsman tries to obtain a good hound, and a horseman a good horse, but does not trouble himself with their offspring, for the offspring of his horse might turn out to be a mule.  Just so in politics, the important point is, what sort of man a ruler is, not from what family he is descended.  Even the Spartans in some cases dethroned their kings, because they were not king-like but worthless men.  If then vice be disgraceful even in the nobly born, it follows that virtue does not depend upon birth, but is honoured for itself.

The crimes of Lysander were committed for, those of Sulla against, his friends.  Indeed, what Lysander did wrong was done chiefly on behalf of his friends, as, in order to establish them securely in their various despotic governments, he caused many of their political opponents to be put to death.  Sulla, on the other hand, reduced the army of Pompeius and the fleet which he himself had given to Dolabella to command, merely to gratify his private spite.  When Lucretius Ofella sued for the consulship as the reward of many great exploits, he ordered him to be put to death before his face, and thus made all men fear and hate him by his barbarous treatment of his most intimate friends.