Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/371

 DION AND BRUTUS. 363 who had banished him, when he flew to action, and ran the risk of all to save Sicily. Take notice, too, that it was not the same thing for the Sicihans to be freed from Dionysius, and for the Romans to be freed from Caesar. The former owned himself a tyrant, and vexed Sicily with a thousand oppressions; whereas Caesar's supremacy, certainly, in the process for attaining it, had inflicted no little trouble on its oppo- nents, but, once established and victorious, it had indeed the name and appearance, but fact that was cruel or tyrannical there was none. On the contrary, in the malady of the times and the need of a monarchical government, he might be thought to have been sent, as the gentlest physician, by no other than a divine inter- vention. And thus the common people instantly re- gretted CiBsar, and grew enraged and imijlacable against those that killed him. Whei'eas Dion's chief ofience in the eyes of his fellow-citizens was his having let Dionysius escape, and not having demolished the fonner tyrant's tomb. In the actual conduct of war, Dion was a commander without fault, improving to the utmost those counsels which he himself gave, and, where others led him into disaster, connecting and tm'ning every thing to the best. But Brutus seems to have shown little wisdom in engaging in the final battle, which was to decide every thing, and, when he failed, not to have done his business in seeking a remedy ; he gave all up, and abandoned his hopes, not venturing against fortune even as far as Pompey did, when he had still means enough to rely on in his troops, and was clearly master of all the seas with his ships. The greatest thing charged on Brutus is, that he, being saved by Caesar's kindness, having saved all the friends whom he chose to ask for, he moreover accounted a