Page:The Children's Plutarch, Romans.djvu/13



DO not know why it is that among the Greeks and Romans who are so nearly fabulous as to be scarcely historical at all, Romulus should have a living hold upon the imagination, and Theseus should remain a very dim memory. The Lives of Plutarch begin with these founders of the Roman and the Grecian states, but if the balance tilts so heavily on the side of the Romans, it is dressed in favor of the Greeks in the next following lives of Lycurgus and Numa, and the next of Solon and Poplicola, and the fourth pair, Themistocles and Camillus. It is not until we come to Pericles and Fabius that the balance begins to be even again; and there the splendor of the Grecian's statesmanship eclipses the glory of the Roman patriot in the eyes of those who value civic genius above military virtue.

Of course in the long-run the Romans excel the Grecians in the number of their famous men, but the children ought to remember that the years of Rome were nearly ten times as many as those of Greece; and when their minds kindle with the