Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
of Parthia, sent to him requesting that the river Euphrates might be
his bounds. He answered, the Romans had rather the right should be
their bounds towards Parthia. L. Lucullus, after he left the army,
gave himself up to pleasure and luxury, jeering at Pompey for busying
himself in affairs unsuitable to his age. He answered, that government
became old age better than luxury. In a fit of sickness, his physician
prescribed him to eat a thrush; but when none could be gotten, because
they were out of season, one said, that Lucullus had some, for he kept
them all the year. It seems then, said he, Pompey must not live, unless
Lucullus play the glutton; and dismissing the physician, he ate such
things as were easy to be gotten. In a great dearth at Rome, he was
chosen by title overseer of the market, but in reality lord of sea and
land, and sailed to Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily. Having procured great
quantities of wheat, he hastened back to Rome; and when by reason of a
great tempest the pilots were loath to hoist sail, he went first aboard
himself, and commanding the anchor to be weighed, cried out aloud,
There is a necessity of sailing, but there is no necessity of living.
When the difference betwixt him and Caesar broke out, and Marcellinus,
one of those whom he had preferred, revolted to Caesar and inveighed
much against Pompey in the senate; Art thou not ashamed, said he,
Marcellinus, to reproach me, who taught you to speak when you were
dumb, and fed you full even to vomiting when you were starved? To Cato,
who severely blamed him because, when he had often informed him of the
growing power of Caesar, such as was dangerous to a democracy, he took
little notice of it, he answered, Your counsels were more presaging,
but mine more friendly. Concerning himself he freely professed, that
he entered all his offices sooner than he expected, and resigned them
sooner than was expected by others. After the fight at Pharsalia, in
his flight towards Egypt, as he was going out of the ship into the
fisher-boat the king sent to attend him, turning to his wife and son,
he said nothing to them beside those two verses of Sophocles:
Whoever comes within a tyrant’s door
Becomes his slave, though he were free before.
As he came out of the boat, when he was struck with a sword, he said
nothing; but gave one groan, and covering his head submitted to the
murderers.
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