Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus (3.2-3.3)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg023.perseus-eng2:3.2-3.3

Refs	`{'start': {'reference': '3.2', 'human_reference': 'Chapter 3 Section 2'}, 'end': {'reference': '3.3', 'human_reference': 'Chapter 3 Section 3'}}`
Ancestors	`[{'reference': '3'}]`
Children	`[]`

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Pelopidas, however, was somewhat excusable, because, excited as he always was by an opportunity for battle, he was now carried away by a generous anger to seek revenge. For the best thing is that a general should be victorious and keep his life,

but if he must die,

he should

conclude his life with valour,

as Euripides says; for then he does not suffer death, but rather achieves it.

And besides his anger, Pelopidas saw that the consummation of his victory would be the death of the tyrant, and this not altogether unreasonably invited his effort; for it would have been hard to find another deed of prowess with so fair and glorious a promise. But Marcellus, when no great need was pressing, and when he felt none of that ardour which in times of peril unseats the judgment, plunged heedlessly into danger, and died the death, not of a general, but of a mere skirmisher or scout,

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