Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/104

 96 DEMETRIUS. whose boast is its inexperience of evil, and whose truer name is, by their award, simjileness and ignorance of what all men who live aright should know. The ancient Spartans, at their festivals, used to force their Helots to swallow large quantities of raw wine, and then to expose them at the public tables, to let the young men see what it is to be drunk. And, though I do not think it consist- ent with humanity or with civil justice to correct one man's morals by corrupting those of another, yet we may, I think, avail ourselves of the cases of those who haA'e fallen into indiscretions, and have, in high stations, made themselves conspicuous for misconduct ; and I shall not do ill to introduce a pair or two of such examples among these biographies, not, assuredly, to amuse and divert my readers, or give variety to my theme, but, as Tsmenias, the Theban, used to show his scholars good and bad 2:)er- formers on the flute, and to tell them, " You should play like this man," and "You should not play like that," and as Antigenidas used to say, Young people woidd take greater jileasure in hearing good playing, if first they were set to hear bad, so, and in the same manner, it seems to me likely enough that we shall be all the more zealous and more emvdous to read, observe, and imitate the better lives, if we are not left in ignorance of the blameworthy and the bad. For this reason, the following book contains the lives of Demetrius Poliorcetes,* and Antonius the Triumvir ; two per-sons who have abundantly justified the words of Plato, that great natures produce great vices as well as • Poliorcetes means the Besie- applied to Augustus and his suc- gcr of Cities. Triumvir of the cessors. Yet, probably, to Plutarch translation is, in Plulareh's Greek, the distinction between these and Autocrator, the word corresponding previous Military Autocrats did not to Imperator. It would, perhaps, seem so broad ; and to say, " An- be incorrect to give this the signifi- tony the P^mperor," would do little cance attached to it by usage, when injustice to his meaning.