Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/389

 THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE AND MILTlADES 371 ease of Miltiades, that question must be answered in the affirnt ativt. In regard to the charge of ingratitude against the Athenians, this last-mentioned point sufficiency of reason stands tacitly admitted. It is conceded that Miltiades deserved punishment for his conduct in reference to the Parian expedition, but it is never- theless maintained that gratitude for his previous services at Marathon ought to have exempted him from punishment. But the sentiment upon which, after all, this exculpation rests, will not bear to be drawn out and stated in the form of a cogent or justifying reason. For will any one really contend, that a man who has rendered great services to the public, is to receive in return a license of unpunished misconduct for the future ? Is the general, who has earned applause by eminent skill and important victories, to be recompensed by being allowed the liberty of be- traying his trust afterwards, and exposing his country to peril, without censure or penalty ? This is what no one intends to vin- dicate deliberately ; yet a man must be prepared to vindicate it. when he blames the Athenians for ingratitude towards Miltiades. For if all that be meant is, that gratitude for previous services ought to pass, not as a receipt in full for subsequent crime, but as an extenuating circumstance in the measurement of the penalty, the answer is, that it was so reckoned in the Athenian treatment of Miltiades. 1 His friends had nothing whatever to urge, against 1 Machiavel will not even admit so much as this, in the clear and forcible statement which he gives of the question here alluded to : he contends that the man who has rendered services ought to he recompensed for them, but that he ought to be punished for subsequent crime just as if the previous services had not been rendered. He lays down this position in discussing the conduct of the Romans towards the victorious survivor of the three Horatii, after the battle with the Curiatii : " Erano stati i meriti di Orazio grandissimi avendo con la sua virtu vinti i Curiazi. Era stato il fallo suo atroce, avendo morto la sorella. Nondimeno dispiacque tan to taleomicidio ai Romani. che lo condussero a disputare della vita, non ostante che gli meriti suoi fussero tanto grandi e si freschi. Laqual cosa, a chi superficial mente la considerasse, parrebbe uno esempio d' ingratitudine popolare. Nondimeno chi lo esaminera meglio, e con migliore considerazione ricer- chera quali debbono essere gli' ordini delle republiche, biasimeara quel popolo piuttosto per averlo assoluto, che per averlo voluto condannare : e h ragione e questa, che nessuna republica bene ordinata, non mai cancelM