Comparison of Lucullus and Cimon (1.3-1.4)

Leisure, no doubt, and quiet, and the pursuit of pleasantly speculative learning, furnish a most fitting solace for a man of years who has retired from wars and politics. But to divert fair achievements to pleasure as their final end, and then to sport and wanton at the head of Aphrodite’s train, as a sequel to wars and fightings, was not worthy of the noble Academy, nor yet of one who would follow Xenocrates, but rather of one who leaned towards Epicurus.

And this is the more astonishing, because, contrariwise, Cimon seems to have been of ill repute and unrestrained in his youth, while Lucullus was disciplined and sober. Better, surely, is the man in whom the change is for the better; for it argues a more wholesome nature when its evil withers and its good ripens. And further, though both alike were wealthy, they did not make a like use of their wealth.