By this ceremony they claim the right, although they
forego it, and bury the corpse outside the city.
COMPARISON OF SOLON AND POPLICOLA.
I. It is a point peculiar to this comparison, and which does not occur
in any of the other Lives which I have written, that in turn one
imitates and the other bears witness to his fellow's deeds. Observe, for
instance, Solon's definition of happiness before Croesus, how much
better it suits Poplicola than Tellus. He says that Tellus was fortunate
because of his good luck, his virtue, and his noble children; but yet he
makes no mention of him or of his children in his poetry, and he never
was a man of any renown, or held any high office.
Now Poplicola's virtues made him the most powerful and glorious of the
Romans during his life, and six hundred years after his death the very
noblest families of Rome, those named Publicola and Messala and
Valerius, are proud to trace their descent from him, even at the present
day. Tellus, it is true, died like a brave man fighting in the ranks,
but Poplicola slew his enemies, which is much better than being killed
oneself, and made his country victorious by skill as a general and a
statesman, and, after triumphing and enjoying honours of every kind,
died the death which Solon thought so enviable. Besides, Solon, in his
answer to Mimnermus about the time of life, has written the verses:
"To me may favouring Heaven send,
That all my friends may mourn my end,"
in which he bears witness to the good fortune of Poplicola; for he, when
he died, was mourned not only by all his friends and relations but by
the whole city, in which thousands wept for him, while all the women
wore mourning for him as if he were a son or father of them all that
they had lost.
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