Pelopidas   

CATO major, hearing some commend one that was rash, and inconsiderately
daring in a battle, said, "There is a difference between a man's prizing
valour at a great rate, and valuing life at little; a very just remark.
Antigonus, we know, at least, had a soldier, a venturous fellow, but
of wretched health and constitution; the reason of whose ill-look
he took the trouble to inquire into; and, on understanding from him
that it was a disease, commanded his physicians to employ their utmost
skill, and if possible recover him; which brave hero, when once cured,
never afterwards sought danger or showed himself venturous in battle;
and, when Antigonus wondered and upbraided him with his change, made
no secret of the reason, and said, "Sir, you are the cause of my cowardice,
by freeing me from those miseries which made me care little for life."
With the same feeling, the Sybarite seems to have said of the Spartans,
that it was no commendable thing in them to be so ready to die in
the wars, since by that they were freed from such hard labour and
miserable living. In truth, the Sybarites, a soft and dissolute people,
might well imagine they hated life, because in their eager pursuit
of virtue and glory they were not afraid to die; but, in fact, the
Lacedaemonians found their virtue secured them happiness alike in
living or in dying; as we see in the epitaph that says-
"They died, but not as lavish of their blood,
Or thinking death itself was simply good;
Their wishes neither were to live nor die,
But to do both alike commendably."
An endeavour to avoid death is not blamable, if we do not basely desire
to live; nor a willingness to die good and virtuous, if it proceeds
from a contempt of life. And therefore Homer always takes care to
bring his bravest and most daring heroes well armed into battle; and
the Greek law-givers punished those that threw away their shields,
but not him that lost his sword or spear; intimating that self-defence
is more a man's business than offence. This is especially true of
a governor of a city, or a general; for it, as Iphicrates divides
it out, the light-armed are the hands; the horse the feet; the infantry
the breast; and the general the head; and, when he puts himself upon
danger, not only ventures his own person, but all those whose safety
depends on his; and so on the contrary. Callicratidas, therefore,
though otherwise a great man, was wrong in his answer to the augur
who advised him, the sacrifice being unlucky, to be careful of his
life; "Sparta," said he, "will not miss one man." It is true, Callicratidas,
when simply serving in any engagement either at sea or land, was but
a single person, but as a general, he united in his life the lives
of all, and could hardly be called one when his death involved the
ruin of so many. The saying of old Antigonus was better, who, when
he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, "The enemy's ships are
more than ours;" replied, "For how many then wilt thou reckon me?"
intimating that a brave and experienced commander is to be highly
valued, one of the first duties of whose office indeed it is to save
him on whose safety depends that of others. And therefore I applaud
Timotheus, who, when Chares showed the wounds he had received, and
his shield pierced by a dart, told him, "Yet how ashamed I was, at
the siege of Samos, when a dart fell near me, for exposing myself,
more like a boy than like a general in command of a large army." Indeed,
where the general's hazarding himself will go far to decide the result,
there he must fight and venture his person, and not mind their maxims,
who would have a general die, if not of, at least in old age; but
when the advantage will be but small if he gets the better, and the
loss considerable if he falls, who then would desire, at the risk
of the commander's life, a piece of success which a common soldier
might obtain? This I thought fit to premise before the lives of Pelopidas
and Marcellus, who were both great men, but who both fell by their
own rashness. For, being gallant men, and having gained their respective
countries great glory and reputation by their conduct in war against
terrible enemies, the one, as history relates, overthrowing Hannibal,