I have formerly placed Epaminondas in the first rank of excellent men, and do not repent it.  How high did he stretch the consideration of his own particular duty? he who never killed a man whom he had overcome; who, for the inestimable benefit of restoring the liberty of his country, made conscience of killing a tyrant or his accomplices without due form of justice:  and who concluded him to be a wicked man, how good a citizen soever otherwise, who amongst his enemies in battle spared not his friend and his guest.  This was a soul of a rich composition:  he married goodness and humanity, nay, even the tenderest and most delicate in the whole school of philosophy, to the roughest and most violent human actions.  Was it nature or art that had intenerated that great courage of his, so full, so obstinate against pain and death and poverty, to such an extreme degree of sweetness and compassion?  Dreadful in arms and blood, he overran and subdued a nation invincible by all others but by him alone; and yet in the heat of an encounter, could turn aside from his friend and guest.  Certainly he was fit to command in war who could so rein himself with the curb of good nature, in the height and heat of his fury, a fury inflamed and foaming with blood and slaughter.  ’Tis a miracle to be able to mix any image of justice with such violent actions:  and it was only possible for such a steadfastness of mind as that of Epaminondas therein to mix sweetness and the facility of the gentlest manners and purest innocence.  And whereas one told the Mamertini that statutes were of no efficacy against armed men; and another told the tribune of the people that the time of justice and of war were distinct things; and a third said that the noise of arms deafened the voice of laws, this man was not precluded from listening to the laws of civility and pure courtesy.  Had he not borrowed from his enemies the custom of sacrificing to the Muses when he went to war, that they might by their sweetness and gaiety soften his martial and rigorous fury?  Let us not fear, by the example of so great a master, to believe that there is something unlawful, even against an enemy, and that the common concern ought not to require all things of all men, against private interest: 

“Manente memoria, etiam in dissidio publicorum
foederum, privati juris:” 

["The memory of private right remaining even amid
public dissensions.”—­Livy, xxv. 18.]

              “Et nulla potentia vires
               Praestandi, ne quid peccet amicus, habet;”

["No power on earth can sanction treachery against a friend.” 
—­Ovid, De Ponto, i. 7, 37.]

and that all things are not lawful to an honest man for the service of his prince, the laws, or the general quarrel: 

“Non enim patria praestat omnibus officiis....
et ipsi conducit pios habere cives in parentes.”

     ["The duty to one’s country does not supersede all other duties. 
     The country itself requires that its citizens should act piously
     toward their parents.”—­Cicero, De Offic., iii. 23.]