CLEMENCY. SENTIMENTS. CLEMENCY is not only the privilege, the honour, and the duty of a prince, but it is also his security, and better than all his garrisons, forts, and guards, to preserve himself and his dominions in safety. It is the brightest jewel in a monarch's crown. As meekness moderates anger, so clemency moderates punishment. That prince is truly royal who masters himself; looks upon all injuries as below him; and governs by equity and reason, not by passion. Clemency is profitable for all; does well in privatë persons, but is much more beneficial in princes. Mischiefs contemned lose their force. EXAMPLES. : TWO patricians having conspired against Titus the Roman emperor, were discovered, convicted, and sentenced to death by the senate but the good-natured prince sent for them, and in private, admonished them, that in vain they aspired to the empire, which was given by destiny; exhorting them to be satisfied with the rank in which by Providence they had been placed, and offering them any thing else which was in his power to grant. At the same time he dispatched a messenger to the mother of one of them, who was then at a great distance, and under deep concern about the fate of her son, to assure her, that her son was not only alive, but out of danger. He invited them the same night to his table; and having, the next day, placed them by him at a show of gladiators, where the weapons of the combatants were, according to custom, presented to him, he desired them to survey them. SUETON. c. 9. AVIDIUS CASSIUS having revolted from the emperor Marcus Aurelius, and attempted to seize the govern ment, the empress Faustina, in a letter which she wrote to her husband, pressed him to pursue the accomplices of Cassius* with the utmost severity. But the emperor hearkening only to the impulse of his own good nature, returned her the following answer : "I have read your letter, my dear Faustina, wherein you advise me to treat the accomplices of Cassius with the utmost severity, which you think they well deserve. This I look upon as a pledge of the love you bear to your husband and children: but give me leave, my dear Faustina, to spare the children of Cassius, his son-in-law, and his wife; and to write to the senate in their behalf. Nothing can more recommend a Roman emperor to the esteem of the world than clemency; this placed Cæsar among the gods; this consecrated Augustus; this procured to your father the title of Pius. I am grieved even for the death of Cassius; and wish it had been in my power to save him. Be therefore satisfied, and do not abandon yourself to revenge. Marcus Aurelius Antonius is protected by the gods." Some of his friends openly blaming his clemency, and taking the liberty to tell him that Cassius would not have been so generous, had fortune proved favourable to him, the emperor immediately replied, "We have not lived nor served the gods so ill as to think they would favour Cassius." He added, "The misfortunes of some of his predecessors, were entirely owing to their own ill, conduct and cruelties, and that no good prince had ever been overcome or slain by an usurper. Nero, Caligula, and Domitian, (said be) deserved the doom that overtook them : neither Otho nor Vitellius were equal to the empire; and the downfall of Galba was occasioned by his avarice, an unpardonable fault in a prince.” VULCAT. GALL. p. 32. E 3 * Cassius himself was killed by a centurion named Antonius. LICINIUS, having raised a numerous army, Zosimus says, one hundred and thirty thousand men, endeavoured to wrest the government out of the hands of his brother-in-law, Constantine the emperor. But his army being defeated, Licjuius fled with what forces he could rally to Nicomedia, whither Constantine pursued him, and immediately invested the place; but on the second day of the siege, the emperor's sister entreating him, with a flood of tears, by the tenderness he had ever shown for her, to forgive her husband, and grant him at least his life, he was prevailed upon to comply with her request; and the next day, Licinius, finding no means of making his escape, presented himself before the conqueror, and throwing himself at his feet, yielded to him the purple, and the other ensigns of sovereignty. Constantine received him in a very friendly manner, entertained him at his table, and afterwards sent him to Thessalonica, assuring him, that he should live unmolested so long as he raised no new disturbances. Zos. 1. ii. p. 674. WHEN Seleucus was informed of the resolution which Demetrius had taken, viz. of resigning himself his prisoner, he was exceedingly pleased, and having given the necessary directions for the recention of so great a person, he could not help, even in the presence of his whole court, breaking out into these words: "It is not the fortune of Demetrius which has thus provided for his safety, but mine, which hath been watchful for my glory. I thank her more for this, than for all the favours she hath done me, because I esteem an act of clemency more honourable than any victory." Accordingly, af ter he had provided for his own security, he did all that could be thought of to make confinement easy to Demetrius. He ordered him royal entertainments within doors, a fine stable of horses, and the use of a noble park without. To give him a relish for these pleasures, hopes were cherished, and promises of liberty intermixed; and Seleucus seemed inclined to have done much more for him, had he not been over-ruled by the insimuations of his ministers. PLUT. IN DEMET. IN Demetrius we have a striking instance of the uncertainty of human greatness; for he was once the powerful king of Macedon, of a most engaging address, and surprising intrepidity; had been very successful in many campaigns, till being elated with his good fortune, he began to exceed even Alexander in vanity, styling bimself King of Kings, drinking the healths of Seleucus, Cassander, Lysimachus, and Ptolemy, as great officers of his state and household. In debauchery he sunk far below the dignity of human nature, indulging himself not only in sensual pleasures, but in a vice which ought to want a name; he likewise deviated into gross impiety, that never-failing road to ruin, and forgetting his father's former moderation, would needs be styled a god, and the younger brother of Minerva. After this unhappy change in his conduct, his good fortune forsook him, and at last he was involved in the miserable alternative of either putting an end to his own life, or resigning himself prisoner to Seleucus, whom he had formerly treated with contempt. He is no less an instance of the folly and imprudence of flying to luxury and pleasure as a cure for affliction and grief; for while by them he thought to stifle his concern, the struggle between resentment, and the de sire of concealing it, added to his high living, brought. on him a distemper, which, after he had been a prisoner three years, carried him off, in the fifty-fourth year, of his age. So hard a thing it is for those who pretend to fight for repose, to enjoy it when they acquire it, either in consequence of their victories, or through the mere bounty of Providence; and so much wiser is it to moderate our desires, than to place our hopes in their gratification. THE Council of thirty, established at Athens by Lysander, committed the most execrable cruelties. Upon pretence of restraining the multitude within their duty, and to prevent seditions, they had caused guards to be assigned them, had armed three thousand of the citizens for that purpose, and at the same time disarmed all the rest. The whole city was in the utmost terror and dismay. Whoever opposed their injustice and vio lence fell a victim to their resentment. Riches were a crime that never failed of drawing a sentence upon their owners, always followed with death, and the confiscation of estates; which the thirty tyrants divided amongst themselves. They put more people to death, says Xenophon, in eight mouths of a peace, than their enemies had done in a war of thirty years. All the citizens of any consideration in Athens, and who retained a love of liberty, quitted a place reduced to so hard and shameful a slavery, and sought elsewhere an asylum and retreat, where they might live in safety. At the head of these was Thrasybulus, a person of extraordinary merit, and who beheld, with the most lively affliction the miseries of his country. The Lacedemonians had the inhumanity to endeavour to deprive those unhappy fugitives of this last resource. They published an edict to prohibit the cities of Greece from giving them refuge, decreed that they should be delivered up to the thirty tyrants, and condemned all such as should contravene the execution of this edict, to pay a fine of five talents. Only two cities rejected with disdain so unjust an ordinance, Megara and Thebes; the latter of which made a decree to punish all persons whatsoever, that should see an Athenian attacked by his enemies, without doing his utmost to assist him. Lysias, an orator of Syracuse, who had been banished by the thirty, raised five hundred soldiers at his own expense, and sent them to the aid of the common country of Eloquence.* * Thrasybulus lost no time. After havIng taken Phyta, a small fort in Attica, he marched to the Pirmus, of which he made himself master. The thirty flew thither with their troops, and a battle ensued. The tyrants were overthrown. Critias, the most savage of them all, was killed on the spot and as the army were taking to fight, Thrasybulus cried out, "Wherefore do you fly from me as from a victor, rather than assist me as the avenger of your liberty? We * Quingentos milites, stipendio suo instructos, in auxilium patriæ communis eloquentiæ misit. JUSTIN. lib. v. c. 9. |