[3] I cannot commend the death of either of these great men; the suddenness
and strangeness of their ends gives me a feeling rather of pain and
distress. Hannibal has my admiration, who, in so many severe conflicts,
more than can be reckoned in one day, never received so much as one
wound. I honor Chrysantes also, (in Xenophon's Cyropaedia,) who, having
raised his sword in the act of striking his enemy, so soon as a retreat
was sounded, left him, and retired sedately and modestly. Yet the anger
which provoked Pelopidas to pursue revenge in the heat of fight, may
excuse him.
The first thing for a captain is to gain
Safe victory; the next to be with honor slain,
as Euripides says. For then he cannot be said to suffer death; it is
rather to be called an action. The very object, too, of Pelopidas's
victory, which consisted in the slaughter of the tyrant, presenting
itself to his eyes, did not wholly carry him away unadvisedly: he could
not easily expect again to have another equally glorious occasion for the
exercise of his courage, in a noble and honorable cause. But Marcellus,
when it made little to his advantage, and when no such violent ardor as
present danger naturally calls out transported him to passion, throwing
himself into danger, fell into an unexplored ambush; he, namely, who had
borne five consulates, led three triumphs, won the spoils and glories of
kings and victories, to act the part of a mere scout or sentinel, and to
expose all his achievements to be trod under foot by the mercenary
Spaniards and Numidians, who sold themselves and their lives to the
Carthaginians; so that even they themselves felt unworthy, and almost
grudged themselves the unhoped for success of having cut off, among a few
Fregellan scouts, the most valiant, the most potent, and most renowned of
the Romans. Let no man think that we have thus spoken out of a design to
accuse these noble men; it is merely an expression of frank indignation
in their own behalf, at seeing them thus wasting all their other virtues
upon that of bravery, and throwing away their lives, as if the loss would
be only felt by themselves, and not by their country, allies, and
friends.