He who busies himself in mean occupations produces, in the very
pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence
against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is
really good. Nor did any generous and ingenuous young man, at the
sight of the statue of Jupiter at Pisa, ever desire to be a
Phidias, or, on seeing that of Juno at Argos, long to be a
Polycletus, or feel induced by his pleasure in their poems to wish
to be an Anacreon or Pliletas or Archilochus. But virtue, by the
bare statement of its actions, can so affect men's minds as to
create at once both admiration of the things done and desire to
imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess
and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to practice and exercise;
we are content to receive the former from others, the latter we
wish others to experience from us.
And so we have thought fit to spend our time and pains in writing
of the lives of famous persons; and have composed this tenth book
upon that subject, containing the life of Pericles, and that of
Fabius Maximus, who carried on the war against Hannibal, men
alike, as in their other virtues and good parts, so especially in
their mild and upright temper and demeanor, and in that capacity
to bear the cross-grained humors of their fellow-citizens and
colleagues in office which made them both most useful and
serviceable to the interests of their countries.
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