besides Pelopidas’s spirit, the assured victory which he saw within his grasp, could he but kill the despot, not unreasonably made him make his desperate attack; for it would have been hard for him to obtain another opportunity of distinguishing himself so gloriously.  But Marcellus, without any necessity, without the excitement which sometimes in perilous circumstances overpowers men’s reason, pushed heedlessly into danger, and died the death of a spy rather than a general, risking his five consulships, his three triumphs, his spoils and trophies won from kings against the worthless lives of Iberian and Numidian mercenaries.  They themselves must have felt ashamed at their success, that the bravest, most powerful, and most celebrated of the Romans should have fallen among a reconnoitring party of Fregellans.  Still, let not this be regarded as a reproach to these great men, but rather a complaint addressed on their own behalf to them, especially to that courage, to which they sacrificed all their other virtues, disregarding their lives, as though their loss would fall upon themselves only, and not upon their friends and native country.  After his death, Pelopidas was buried by his allies, fighting for whom he died; but Marcellus was buried by the enemy at whose hands he fell.  The first was an enviable end, but the other is greater, as the spectacle of an enemy honouring the valour by which he has suffered is greater than that of a friend showing gratitude to a friend.  In the one case it is the man’s glory alone that is respected, in the other, his usefulness and value are as much thought of as his courage.

LIFE OF ARISTEIDES.

Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, was of the tribe Antiochis, and the township of Alopekae.  There are various reports current about his property, some saying that he lived in poverty, and that on his death he left two daughters, who remained a long while unmarried because of their poverty; while this general opinion is contradicted by Demetrius of Phalerum in his book on Sokrates, where he mentions an estate at Phalerum which he knew had belonged to Aristeides, in which he was buried, and also adduces other grounds for supposing him to have been a wealthy man.  First, he points out that Aristeides was Archon Eponymus, an office for which men were chosen by lot from the richest class, that of the Pentakosiomedimni, or citizens who possessed a yearly income of five hundred medimni[17] of dry or liquid produce.  Secondly, he mentions the fact that he was ostracised:  now, ostracism never was used against poor men, but against those who descended from great and wealthy houses, and whose pride made them feared and disliked by their fellow citizens.  Thirdly, and lastly, he writes that Aristeides placed in the temple of Dionysus tripods dedicated to the god by a victorious chorus, which even in my own time are still to be seen, and which bear the inscription:  “The tribe Antiochis