Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/464

 GALEA. Iphicrates the Athenian used to say that it is best to have a mercenary soldier fond of money and of pleasures, for thus he will fight the more boldly, to procure the means to gratify his desires. But most have been of opinion, that the body of an army, as well as the natural one, when in its healthy condition, should make no efforts apart, but in compliance with its head. Wherefore they tell us that Paulus ^milius, on taking command of the forces in Macedonia, and finding them talkative and im- pertinently busy, as though they were all commanders, issued out his orders that they should have only ready hands and keen swords, and leave the x'est to him. And Plato, who can discern no use of a good ruler or general, if his men are not on their part obedient and conforma- ble (the virtue of obeying, as of ruling, being in his opinion one that does not exist without first a noble nature, and then a philosophic education, where the eager and active powers are allayed with the gentler and hu- maner sentiments), may claim in confirniation of his doc- trines sundry mournful instances elsewhere, and, in par- ticular, the events that followed among the Romans upon the death of Nero, in which plain proofs were given that nothing is more terrible than a military force moving about in an empire upon vminstructed and unreasoning impulses. Demades, after the death of Alexander, com- U66)