Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 · Plutarch
FOOTNOTES:
The word "accidentally" ([Greek: kata tuchên] κατὰ τύχην) is opposed to "forethought" ([Greek: pronoia] προνοία), "design," "providence." How Plutarch conceived Fortune, I do not know; nor do I know what Fortune and Chance mean in any language. But the nature of the contrast which he intends is sufficiently clear for his purpose.] [Footnote 102: As to Attes, as Pausanias (vii. 17) names him, his history is given by Pausanias. There appears to be some confusion in his story. Herodotus (i. 36) has a story of an Atys, a son of Crœsus, who was killed while hunting a wild boar; and Adonis, the favourite of Venus, was killed by a wild boar. It is not known who this Arcadian Atteus was. Actæon saw Diana naked while she was bathing, and was turned by her into a deer and devoured by his dogs. (Apollodorus, _Biblioth_. iii. 4; Ovidius, _Metamorph_. iii. 155.) The story of the other Actæon is told by Plutarch (_Amator. Narrationes_, c. 2).] [Footnote 104: Ios, a small island of the Grecian Archipelago, now Nio, is mentioned among the places where Homer was buried. The name Ios resembles that of the Greek word for violet, ([Greek: ion] ίον). Smyrna, one of the members of the Ionian confederation, is mentioned among the birth places of Homer. It was an accident that the name of the town Smyrna was the same as the name for myrrh, _Smyrna_ ([Greek: smurnê] σμύρνη),x which was not a Greek word. Herodotus (iii. 112) says that it was the Arabians who procured myrrh.]
Strabo in another passage expresses an opinion that the Elysian fields were in the southern parts of Spain. That would at least be a good place for them.] [Footnote 129: I have translated this passage literally and kept the word dæmon, which is the best way of enabling the reader to judge of the meaning; of the text. If the word "dæmon" is here translated "fortune," it may mislead. A like construction to the words [Greek: tô daimoni summetabalein to êthos] τῶ δαιμόνι συμμεταβαλεῖν τὸ ἧθος occurs in the Life of Lucullus, c. 39. The meaning of the whole passage must be considered with reference to the sense of dæmon, which is explained in the notes of the Life of Sulla, c. 6.] [Footnote 146: The Greek word [Greek: kataspeisis] κατάσπεισις signifies a "pouring out." Kaltwasser refers to a passage in Cæsar's 'Gallic War,' iii. 22, in which he speaks of the "devoted" (devoti), whom the Aquitani called Soldurii. As the Aquitani bordered on the Pyrenees, it is not surprising that the like usage prevailed among them and the Iberians.] [Footnote 148: This is the Ebro, which the Romans called Iberus, the large river which flows in a south-east direction and enters the Mediterranean. It seems that Plutarch here means the nations between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, or the modern Aragon, Navarre, and Catalonia.]
Plutarch's estimate of Sertorius may be a favourable one; yet he does not omit to mention that act of his life which was most blamable, the massacre of the youths at Osca. From the slight indications in Frontinus, who found some material for his work on Military Stratagems in the campaigns of Sertorius, and from other passages, we may collect that, however mild the temper of Sertorius was, circumstances must often have compelled him to acts of severity and even cruelty. The difficulties of his position can only be estimated when we reflect on the nature of a campaign in many parts of Spain and the kind of soldiers he had under him. Promptitude and decision were among his characteristics; and in such a warfare promptitude and decision cannot be exercised at the time when alone they are of any use, if a man is swayed by any other considerations than those of prudence and necessity in the hour of danger. A general who could stab one of his own men in the heat of battle, to prevent him dispiriting the army by news of a loss, proved that his judgment was as clear as his determination was resolved.
Plutarch's narrative is of no value as a campaign, and his apology must be that he was not writing a campaign, but delineating a man's character. Drumann _Geschichte Roms_, Pompeius, p. 350, &c.) has attempted to give a connected history of this campaign against Sertorius, and he has probably done it as well as it can be done with such materials as we possess. The map of Antient Spain and Portugal published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, will be useful for reading the sketch in Drumann. Plutarch had no good map, and, as already observed, he was not writing a campaign. Some modern historical writers, who have maps, seem to have made very little use of them; and their narrative of military transactions is often us confused as Plutarch's. The nature of Guerilla warfare in Spain may be learned from the history of the Peninsular War. The difficulties of a campaign in Navarre and the Basque provinces are well shown in the campaigns of Zumalacarregui, the Carlist chief, a modern Sertorius, whose extraordinary career was cut short by a chance ball before the walls of Bilbao, in 1835. (Henningsen, _The most striking Events of a Twelve-month's Campaign with Zumalacarregui_, London, 1836.)]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.