In this respect
neither of them can be praised; yet he who tries to gain the favour of
the people is less to blame than he who insults them for fear he should
be thought to court them. Although it is wrong to flatter the people in
order to gain power, yet to owe one's power only to terror, and to ill
treat and keep down the masses is disgraceful as well as wrong.
II. It is not difficult to see why Marcius is considered to have been a
simple-minded and straightforward character, while Alkibiades has the
reputation of a false and tricky politician. The latter has been
especially blamed for the manner in which he deceived and outwitted the
Lacedaemonian ambassadors, by which, as we learn from Thucydides, he
brought the truce between the two nations to an end. Yet that stroke of
policy, though it again involved Athens in war, rendered her strong and
formidable, through the alliance with Argos and Mantinea, which she owed
to Alkibiades. Marcius also, we are told by Dionysius, produced a
quarrel between the Romans and the Volscians by bringing a false
accusation against those Volscians who came to see the festival at Rome;
and in this case the wickedness of his object increased his guilt,
because he did not act from a desire of personal aggrandisement, or from
political rivalry, as did Alkibiades, but merely yielding to what Dion
calls the unprofitable passion of anger, he threw a large part of Italy
into confusion, and in his rage against his native country destroyed
many innocent cities.
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