The CDPD Public Domain Collection for CDTV 3/CDPDIII.bin/books/plutarch/p & s comp

Text File | 1992-07-31 | 8KB | 127 lines

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                     THE COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden

  THERE is something singular in the present parallel which has not
occurred in any other of the lives; that the one should be the
imitator of the other, and the other his best evidence. Upon the
survey of Solon's sentence to Croesus in favour of Tellus's happiness,
it seems more applicable to Poplicola; for Tellus, whose virtuous life
and dying well had gained him the name of the happiest man, yet was
never celebrated in Solon's poems for a good man, nor have his
children or any magistracy of his deserved a memorial; but Poplicola's
life was the most eminent amongst the Romans, as well for the
greatness of his virtue as his power, and also since his death many
amongst the distinguished families, even in our days, the
Poplicolae, Messalae, and Valerii, after a lapse of six hundred years,
acknowledge him as the fountain of their honour. Besides, Tellus,
though keeping his post and fighting like a valiant soldier, was yet
slain by his enemies; but Poplicola, the better fortune, slew his, and
saw his country victorious under his command. And his honours and
triumphs brought him, which was Solon's ambition, to a happy end;
the ejaculation which, in his verses against Mimnermus about the
continuance of man's life, he himself made-

         "Mourned let me die; and may I, when life ends,
          Occasion sighs and sorrows to my friends,"

is evidence to Poplicola's happiness; his death did not only draw
tears from his friends and acquaintance, but was the object of
universal regret and sorrow through the whole city, the women deplored
his loss as that of a son, brother, or common father. "Wealth I
would have," said Solon, "but wealth by wrong procure would not,"
because punishment would follow. But Poplicola's riches were not
only justly his, but he spent them nobly in doing good to the
distressed. So that if Solon was reputed the wisest man, we must allow
Poplicola to be the happiest; for what Solon wished for as the
greatest and most perfect good, this Poplicola had, and used and
enjoyed to his death.
  And as Solon may thus be said to have contributed to Poplicola's
glory, so did also Poplicola to his, by his choice of him as his model
in the formation of republican institutions; in reducing, for example,
the excessive powers and assumption of the consulship. Several of
his laws, indeed, he actually transferred to Rome, as his empowering
the people to elect their officers, and allowing offenders the liberty
of appealing to the people, as Solon did to the jurors. He did not,
indeed, create a new senate, as Solon did, but augmented the old to
almost double its number. The appointment of treasurers again, the
quaestors, has a like origin; with the intent that the chief
magistrate should not, if of good character, be withdrawn from greater
matters; or, if bad, have the greater temptation to injustice, by
holding both the government and treasury in his hands. The aversion to
tyranny was stronger in Poplicola; any one who attempted usurpation
could, by Solon's law, only be punished upon conviction; but Poplicola
made it death before a trial. And though Solon justly gloried, that,
when arbitrary power was absolutely offered to him by circumstances,
and when his countrymen would have willingly seen him accept it, he
yet declined it; still Poplicola merited no less, who, receiving a
despotic command, converted it to a popular office, and did not employ
the whole legal power which he held. We must allow, indeed, that Solon
was before Poplicola in observing that-

        "A people always minds its rulers best
         When it is neither humoured nor oppressed."

  The remission of debts was peculiar to Solon; it was his great means
for confirming the citizens' liberty; for a mere law to give all men
equal rights is but useless, if the poor must sacrifice those rights
to their debts, and, in the very seats and sanctuaries of equality,
the courts of justice, the offices of state, and the public
discussions, be more than anywhere at the beck and bidding of the
rich. A yet more extraordinary success was, that, although usually
civil violence is caused by any remission of debts, upon this one
occasion this dangerous but powerful remedy actually put an end to the
civil violence already existing, Solon's own private worth and
reputation overbalancing all the ordinary ill-repute and discredit
of the change. The beginning of his government was more glorious,
for he was entirely original, and followed no man's example, and,
without the aid of any ally, achieved his most important measures by
his own conduct; yet the close of Poplicola's life was more happy
and desirable, for Solon saw the dissolution of his own
commonwealth, Poplicola maintained the state in good order to the
civil wars. Solon, leaving his laws, as soon as he had made them,
engraved in wood, but destitute of a defender, departed from Athens;
whilst Poplicola, remaining both in and out of office, laboured to
establish the government. Solon, though he actually knew of
Pisistratus's ambition, yet was not able to suppress it, but had to
yield to usurpation in its infancy; whereas Poplicola utterly
subverted and dissolved a potent monarchy, strongly settled by long
continuance; uniting thus to virtues equal to those, and purposes
identical with those of Solon, the good fortune and the power that
alone could make them effective.
  In military exploits, Daimachus of Plataea will not even allow Solon
the conduct of the war against the Megarians, as was before intimated;
but Poplicola was victorious in the most important conflicts, both
as a private soldier and commander. In domestic politics, also, Solon,
in play, as it were, and by counterfeiting madness induced the
enterprise against Salamis; whereas Poplicola, in the very
beginning, exposed himself to the greatest risk, took arms against
Tarquin, detected the conspiracy, and, being principally concerned
both in preventing the escape of and afterwards punishing the
traitors, not only expelled the tyrants from the city, but
extirpated their very hopes. And as, in cases calling for contest
and resistance and manful opposition, he behaved with courage and
resolution, so, in instances where peaceable language, persuasion, and
concession were requisite, he was yet more to be commended; and
succeeded in gaining happily to reconciliation and friendship,
Porsenna, a terrible and invincible enemy. Some may, perhaps, object
that Solon recovered Salamis, which they had lost, for the
Athenians; whereas Poplicola receded from part of what the Romans were
at that time possessed of; but judgment is to be made of actions
according to the times in which they were performed. The conduct of
a wise politician is ever suited to the present posture of affairs;
often by foregoing a part he saves the whole, and by yielding in a
small matter secures a greater; and so Poplicola, by restoring what
the Romans had lately usurped, saved their undoubted patrimony, and
procured, moreover, the stores of the enemy for those who were only
too thankful to secure their city. Permitting the decision of the
controversy to his adversary, he not only got the victory, but
likewise what he himself would willingly have given to purchase the
victory, Porsenna putting an end to the war, and leaving them all
the provision of his camp, from the sense of the virtue and gallant
disposition of the Romans which their consul had impressed upon him.


                               THE END