Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/564

556 TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS, email argument, that afterwards they might have rivalled the best of the Roman commanders, if they had not died so young. In civil life, Agis showed a lack of determination ; he let himself be baffled by the craft of Agesilaus, dis- appointed the expectations of the citizens as to the division of the lands, and generally left all the designs which he had deliberately formed and publicly announced, unperformed and unfulfilled, through a young man's want of resolution. Cleomenes, on the other hand, proceeded to effect the revolution with only too much boldness and violence, and unjustly slew the Ej)hors, whom he might, by superiority in arms, have gained over to his party, or else might easily have banished, as he did several others of the city. For to use the knife, unless in the extremest necessity, is neither good surgery nor wise policy, but in both cases mere unskilfulness ; and in the latter, unjust as well as unfeeling. Of the Gracchi, neither the one nor the other was the first to shed the blood of his fellow- citizens ; and Caius is reported to have avoided all man- ner of resistance, even when his life was aimed at, show- ing himself always valiant against a foreign enemy, but wholly inactive in a sedition. This was the reason that he went from his own house unarmed, and withdrew when the battle began, and in all respects showed him- self anxious rather not to do any harm to others, than not to suffer any himself. Even the very flight of the Gracchi must not be looked upon as an argument of their mean spirit, but an honorable retreat from endangering of others. For if they had staid, they must either have yielded to those who assailed them, or else have fought them in their own defence. The greatest crime that can be laid to Tiberius's charge, was the deposing of his fellow tribune, and seeking after- wards a second tribuneship for himself. As for the death