Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/427

Rh of their journey; by means whereof they live in fame and renown now after their death: whereas on the other side, there remaineth no memorial at all of those by whose factions and sidings they were driven out and exiled. And therefore he deserveth to be well mocked who thinketh that banishment carrieth with it some note of infamy and reproach as necessarily adherent thereto. For what say you to this? Is Diogenes to be counted infamous, whom when King Alexander saw sitting in the sun, he approached near, and standing by him, demanded whether he stood in need of anjrthing or no? he had no other answer from him but this, that he had need of nothing else but that he should stand a little out of the sunshine, and not shadow him as he did; whereupon Alexander, wondering at his magnanimity and haughty courage, said presently unto those friends that were about him; If I were not Alexander I would be Diogenes. And was Camillus disgraced any way for being banished out of Rome, considering that even at this day he is reputed and taken for the second founder thereof? Neither lost Themistocles the glory which he had won among the Greeks by his exile, but rather acquired thereto great honour and estimation with the barbarians. And no man is there so base-minded and careless of honour and credit but he would choose rather to be Themistocles, banished as he was, than Leobates his accuser, and the cause of his banishment; yea, and to be Cicero, who was exiled, than Clodius, who chased him out of Rome; or Timotheus, who was constrained to abandon and forsake his native country, than Aristophon, who indicted him and caused him to leave the same. But for that the authority of Euripides, who seemeth mightily to defame and condemn banishment, moveth many men; let us consider what be his several questions and answers to this point:

But herein I cannot allow of his sentence and opinion as well and truly delivered. For first and foremost, not to speak what