Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/9

 DEMOSTHENES. Whoever it was, Sosius, that wrote the poem in honor of Alcibiades, upon his winning the chariotrace at the Ol^inpian Games, whether it were Euripides, as is most commonly thought, or some other person, he tells us, that to a man's being happy it is in the first place requisite he should be born in "some famous city." But for him that would attain to true happiness, which for the most part is placed in the qualities and disposition of the mind, it is, in my opinion, of no other disadvantage to be of a mean, obscure country, than to be born of a small or plain-look- ino- woman. For it were ridiculous to think that lulis, a little part of Ceos, which itself is no great island, and ^gina, which an Athenian once said ought to be re- moved, like a small eye-sore, from the port of Piraeus, should breed good actors and poets,* and yet should never be able to produce a just, temperate, wise, and high- minded man. Other arts, whose end it is to acquire riches or honor, are likely enough to wither and decay in poor and undistinguished towns; but virtue, like a strong and durable plant, may take root and thrive in any place where it can lay hold of an ingenuous nature, and a mind born at lulis in Ceos ; and Polus, of Demosthenes's death, was a na- the celebrated actor, who is men- tive of M,g.. VOL. v. 1
 * Simonides, the lyric poet, was tioned in the account, further on,