Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now that this narrative too has reached its end, it remains for us to take up the comparative view of the lives. As for the Gracchi, not even those who otherwise speak most ill of them and hate them most have dared to say that they were not the most naturally gifted of all Romans for virtue, and
they received an upbringing and education of distinction; yet the natural endowment of Agis and Cleomenes appears to have been more vigorous even than theirs, inasmuch as, without partaking of a right education, and having been reared amid the customs and manner of living by which their elders had long since been corrupted, they nevertheless made themselves leaders in frugality and self-control,
and further, whereas the one pair lived when Rome possessed her greatest splendor and highest reputation and an eager zeal for noble deeds, and so were ashamed to abandon what was, as it were, an inheritance of ancestral and paternal virtue, the other pair, though born of fathers who had chosen the opposite course, and though they took over their fatherland in a wretched and sickly condition, nevertheless in no way blunted, on this account, their impulse toward what is noble.
And indeed the surest proof of the freedom from love of money and the mastery over silver shown by the Gracchi is this: that they kept themselves clear of unjust gains throughout their magistracies and public careers. But Agis would have been indignant even to be praised merely for taking nothing that belonged to another, seeing that he gave over his own property to the citizens — a property which, apart from his other possessions, contained six hundred talents in coin. How great an evil, then, must he have reckoned unjust gain, who considered it a form of greed even to possess more than another by just means?
Yet in the scope and daring of their innovations the two pairs differed greatly. For the one pair engaged in politics through the construction of roads and the founding of cities, and Tiberius's boldest measure was reclaiming public land for the people, while Gaius's boldest was reshaping the juries by adding three hundred men from the equestrian order; whereas the revolutionary program of Agis and Cleomenes,
regarding it as no cure to heal and cut away, bit by bit, the errors of the state — like one, as Plato says, who lops off a hydra's heads one at a time — brought upon affairs a wholesale transformation, able to remove all the evils at once and to recast the whole.
Though perhaps it would be truer to say that they drove out the transformation that had wrought all the evils, leading the city back and restoring it to its proper form. Since one might also say this: that against the political program of the Gracchi stood arrayed the greatest men of Rome, whereas the cause which Agis undertook and Cleomenes brought to completion had as its underlying model the fairest and most magnificent of examples — the ancestral rhetrai concerning temperance and equality, for which Lycurgus stood surety to the one pair, and the Pythian god to the other.
And what is greatest, by the political measures of the former Rome gained nothing greater than what she already possessed, whereas from what Cleomenes accomplished, Greece, within a short time, beheld Sparta mistress of the Peloponnese, contending in a struggle for supremacy against those then possessed of the greatest power, the end of which was that Greece, delivered from Illyrian and Gaulish arms, was once more adorned by the sons of Heracles.
I think, too, that the deaths of these men reveal some difference in their virtue. For the one pair died fighting against their fellow citizens, and then fleeing; but of the other pair, Agis died almost willingly, that he might kill none of the citizens, while Cleomenes, having been outraged and wronged, set out to avenge himself, but when opportunity did not offer, took his own life with courage.
Again, if one looks at the opposite side: Agis performed no deed of generalship, but was put to death beforehand; whereas to the many splendid victories of Cleomenes one may compare Tiberius's capture of the wall at Carthage, no small feat, and the treaty at Numantia, by which he preserved twenty thousand Roman soldiers who had no other hope of safety; and Gaius likewise displayed much valor there, and much again on campaign in Sardinia, so that he would have rivaled the foremost Roman generals, had he not been cut off before his time.
As for their statesmanship, Agis appears to have taken it up too gently, being thwarted by Agesilaus and having falsely promised the redistribution of land to the citizens, and altogether falling short of and failing to accomplish what he had chosen and proclaimed, through a lack of boldness owing to his youth; whereas Cleomenes, on the contrary, came to the transformation of the state more boldly and violently, killing the ephors unlawfully — men whom, being master by force of arms, it would have been easy for him to win over or remove, just as he removed not a few others from the city —
for to bring the sword to bear without the utmost necessity belongs neither to the physician's art nor to the statesman's, but both are marks of a lack of skill, and in this case injustice attends the deed as well, along with cruelty. Of the Gracchi, neither began a slaughter of fellow citizens, and Gaius, it is said, did not even turn to defend himself when he was being struck, but though most brilliant in matters of war, proved most inactive amid civil strife.
Indeed he came forward unarmed and withdrew while men were fighting, and altogether he was seen to take more forethought against doing anything than against suffering anything. Wherefore one must set down their flight not as a sign of cowardice, but of caution. For it was necessary either to yield to those attacking, or, by remaining, to defend oneself by action so as not to suffer harm.
Now among the charges brought against Tiberius the greatest is that he deposed his colleague from the tribunate, and himself sought a second tribunate; against Gaius the murder of Antyllius was laid neither justly nor truly, for he perished against Gaius's own will, indeed while Gaius was indignant at it. Cleomenes, on the other hand — to say nothing of the slaughter of the ephors — freed all the helots,
and reigned in fact alone, though second in name, having chosen as his colleague Eucleidas his brother from the one royal house, while Archidamus, to whom it belonged, as a member of the other house, to reign jointly with him, he persuaded to return from Messene, but when Archidamus was murdered, by not pursuing the killing he confirmed the charge against himself of the deed; and yet Lycurgus,
whom he pretended to imitate, willingly gave back the kingship to his brother's son Charillus, and fearing lest, even should the boy die by some other cause, some charge might come upon him, wandered abroad for a long time and did not return until Charillus had a son to succeed to the throne — but to Lycurgus not even any other Greek is comparable; whereas that in the statesmanship of Cleomenes there are innovations and lawless acts greater still has been shown.
And indeed those who censure their character charge the one pair with having been tyrannical and warlike from the start, but the natures of the other pair with an excess of ambition, and nothing else could their detractors allege against them; but being fanned, as it were by winds, beyond their own nature by the struggle and passion against their opponents, they admit that they let the state drift to extremes.
Since, as to the first undertaking, what could have been fairer or more just, had not the rich, attempting by force and dominance to thrust out the law, surrounded both men with contests — the one fearing for himself, the other avenging his brother, who had been put to death without trial or decree, and not even by a magistrate?
You yourself, then, perceive from what has been said the difference between them; but if one must also declare a verdict upon each severally, I set down Tiberius as having stood first of all in virtue, and the youth Agis as having erred least, while in action and daring Gaius came to be not much inferior to Cleomenes.