Part 1

GREAT LEADERS

HISTORIC PORTRAITS

FROM THE GREAT HISTORIANS

SELECTED, WITH NOTES AND BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

BY G. T. FERRIS

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1889

COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

PREFACE.

Every one perusing the pages of the historians must have been impressed with the graphic and singularly penetrative character of many of the sketches of the distinguished persons whose doings form the staple of history. These pen-portraits often stand out from the narrative with luminous and vivid effect, the writers seeming to have concentrated upon them all their powers of penetration and all their skill in graphic delineation. Few things in literature are marked by analysis so close, discernment so keen, or by effects so brilliant and dramatic. In some of the later historians this feature is specially noticeable, but it was Hume’s admirable portrayal of the character of Alfred the Great that suggested the compilation of the present volume.

A selection such as this of the more striking passages in the great historians will serve, it is believed, a double purpose--first as a suitable introduction to these distinguished writers for those not acquainted with them, and next as a means of stimulating a taste for the study of history itself. It must be remembered that it is largely through their sympathies for persons that readers generally find pleasure in history. The sometimes noble and sometimes startling personality of great leaders exerts a fascinating effect upon all susceptible minds, and whatever brings this personality vividly before us greatly strengthens our interest in the records of the past. For these reasons this compilation will be found well adapted for the reading class in high schools and seminaries.

It is desirable to explain that in some instances the selections do not appear here exactly in the form of the original. Passages from different pages are sometimes brought together, so as to give completeness to the portrait, but in no other way has any liberty been taken with the text of the authors.

In making the selections, the primary object was to secure, in each instance, the most vivid and truthful portrait obtainable, but it was also thought desirable to render the volume as representative of historical literature as possible, and hence to include a wide range of writers. The work will be found to be tolerably representative in this particular, but some well-known historians do not appear, for the reason that their methods did not yield suitable material.

The selections terminate with the period of Waterloo, because, while great leaders have flourished since those days, the historical perspective is not sufficient to permit that judicial estimate so necessary for a truly valuable portrait.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THEMISTOCLES AND ARISTIDES. By GEORGE GROTE 1 (_From the “History of Greece.”_)

PERICLES. By ERNST CURTIUS 6 (_From the “History of Greece.”_)

EPAMINONDAS. By ERNST CURTIUS 10 (_From the “History of Greece.”_)

ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By GEORGE GROTE 14 (_From the “History of Greece.”_)

HANNIBAL. By THEODOR MOMMSEN 19 (_From the “History of Rome.”_)

THE GRACCHI. By PLUTARCH 23 (_From “Plutarch’s Lives.”_)

CAIUS MARIUS. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 27 (_From “Julius Cæsar--A Sketch.”_)

MITHRIDATES, KING OF PONTUS. By THEODOR MOMMSEN 32 (_From the “History of Rome.”_)

LUCIUS SYLLA. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 37 (_From “Julius Cæsar--A Sketch.”_)

POMPEY. By THOMAS KERCHEVER ARNOLD 41 (_From the “History of Rome.”_)

SERTORIUS. By PLUTARCH 44 (_From “Plutarch’s Lives.”_)

JULIUS CÆSAR. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 49 (_From “Julius Cæsar--A Sketch.”_)

TRAJAN. By CHARLES MERIVALE 53 (_From the “History of the Romans under the Empire.”_)

THE ANTONINES. By EDWARD GIBBON 56 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF PALMYRA. By EDWARD GIBBON 60 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

CONSTANTINE, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN EMPEROR. By EDWARD GIBBON 65 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

JULIAN THE APOSTATE. By EDWARD GIBBON 70 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

THEODOSIUS THE GREAT. By EDWARD GIBBON 77 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

ATTILA, THE SCOURGE OF GOD. By EDWARD GIBBON 83 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

BELISARIUS. By LORD MAHON 88 (_From the “Life of Belisarius.”_)

MOHAMMED, THE FOUNDER OF ISLAM. By EDWARD GIBBON 92 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

CHARLEMAGNE. By Sir JAMES STEPHEN 100 (_From “Lectures on the History of France.”_)

ALFRED THE GREAT, OF ENGLAND. By DAVID HUME 107 (_From the “History of England.”_)

OLAF TRYGGVESON, KING OF NORWAY. By THOMAS CARLYLE 111 (_From the “Early Kings of Norway.”_)

CNUT OR CANUTE OF ENGLAND, ALSO KING OF DENMARK. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 116 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 120 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

ROBERT GUISCARD. By EDWARD GIBBON 126 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

THOMAS À BECKET, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. By DAVID HUME 130 (_From the “History of England.”_)

SALADIN. By EDWARD GIBBON 135 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

HENRY II, KING OF ENGLAND. By DAVID HUME 138 (_From the “History of England.”_)

GENGHIS OR ZINGIS KHAN. By EDWARD GIBBON 142 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

SIMON DE MONTFORT, EARL OF LEICESTER. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 148 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

EDWARD I, KING OF ENGLAND. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 153 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

ROBERT BRUCE. By Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON 157 (_From “Essays.”_)

EDWARD III, KING OF ENGLAND. By DAVID HUME 163 (_From the “History of England.”_)

RIENZI. By EDWARD GIBBON 167 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

TIMOUR OR TAMERLANE. By EDWARD GIBBON 173 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

JEANNE D’ARC. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 180 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

MAHOMET OR MOHAMMED II. By EDWARD GIBBON 186 (_From the “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”_)

LORENZO DE’ MEDICI. By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 190 (_From the “Italian Renaissance.”_)

GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA. By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 195 (_From the “Italian Renaissance.”_)

CÆSAR BORGIA. By CHARLES YRIARTE 201 (_From “Cæsar Borgia.”_)

CARDINAL WOLSEY. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 208 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

FRANCISCO PIZARRO.[1] By WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 211 (_From the “Conquest of Peru.”_)

HERNANDO CORTÉS. By WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT 216 (_From the “History of the Conquest of Mexico.”_)

MARTIN LUTHER. By THOMAS CARLYLE 222 (_From the “Life of Martin Luther.”_)

IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA (SAINT), FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF JESUS. By Sir JAMES STEPHEN 230 (_From “Stephen’s Essays.”_)

THOMAS CROMWELL, EARL OF ESSEX. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 235 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

CHARLES V, EMPEROR OF GERMANY.[2] By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 240 (_From the “Rise of the Dutch Republic.”_)

WILLIAM OF NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE. By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 248 (_From the “Rise of the Dutch Republic.”_)

JOHN KNOX. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE 255 (_From the “History of England.”_)

DUKE OF ALVA. By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 259 (_From the “Rise of the Dutch Republic.”_)

QUEEN ELIZABETH. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 265 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS. By DAVID HUME 275 (_From the “History of England.”_)

JOHN PYM. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 280 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

HENRY IV, KING OF FRANCE. By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY 284 (_From the “History of the United Netherlands.”_)

WALLENSTEIN, DUKE OF FRIEDLAND. By FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER 291 (_From the “History of the Thirty Years’ War.”_)

CARDINAL RICHELIEU. By Sir JAMES STEPHEN 299 (_From the “Lectures on the History of France.”_)

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, KING OF SWEDEN. By FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER 303 (_From the “History of the Thirty Years’ War.”_)

EARL OF STRAFFORD. By DAVID HUME 310 (_From the “History of England.”_)

OLIVER CROMWELL. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 315 (_From the “History of England.”_)

LORD HALIFAX. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 322 (_From the “History of England.”_)

LOUIS XIV OF FRANCE. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 327 (_From “Essays.”_)

WILLIAM III OF ENGLAND. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 329 (_From the “History of England.”_)

PETER THE GREAT, CZAR OF RUSSIA. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 339 (_From the “History of England.”_)

DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. By WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 344 (_From the “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.”_)

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. By WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 351 (_From the “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.”_)

FREDERICK THE GREAT. By THOMAS CARLYLE 357 (_From the “Life of Frederick the Great.”_)

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 364 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

EDMUND BURKE. By WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 369 (_From the “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.”_)

GEORGE WASHINGTON. By WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 378 (_From the “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.”_)

MIRABEAU. By THOMAS CARLYLE 384 (_From Carlyle’s “Essays.”_)

CHARLES JAMES FOX. By WILLIAM E. H. LECKY 389 (_From the “History of England in the Eighteenth Century.”_)

JEAN PAUL MARAT. By HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE 396 (_From the “French Revolution.”_)

PRINCE TALLEYRAND. By ARCHIBALD ALISON 400 (_From the “History of Europe.”_)

GEORGE JACQUES DANTON. By HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE 405 (_From the “French Revolution.”_)

ROBESPIERRE. By HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE 410 (_From the “French Revolution.”_)

WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN 417 (_From the “Short History of the English People.”_)

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. By LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS 423 (_From the “History of the Consulate and Empire.”_)

DUKE OF WELLINGTON. By ARCHIBALD ALISON 432 (_From the “History of Europe.”_)

LIST OF ENGRAVED PORTRAITS.

FACE PAGE

PERICLES 6 (_From antique bust, copy in the British Museum._)

ALEXANDER THE GREAT 14 (_From antique bust._)

HANNIBAL 20 (_From antique gem._)

JULIUS CÆSAR 49 (_From antique statue, Rome._)

MOHAMMED 92 (_From old print, likeness traditional._)

CHARLEMAGNE 100 (_From old line engraving._)

ALFRED THE GREAT 107 (_From old line engraving._)

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 120 (_Copy of painting from an ancient effigy._)

MARTIN LUTHER 222 (_From painting by Cranach._)

IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA 230 (_From portrait by Rubens._)

CHARLES V. 240 (_From portrait by Titian._)

WILLIAM OF NASSAU 248

RICHELIEU 299 (_From line engraving by Nanteuil._)

OLIVER CROMWELL 315

PETER THE GREAT 339 (_From line engraving by Petrus Anderloni._)

FREDERICK THE GREAT 357

GREAT LEADERS.

THEMISTOCLES AND ARISTIDES.

BY GEORGE GROTE.

[Athenian statesmen and soldiers, the first named born 514 B.C., died about 449; the second, surnamed “the Just,” died about 468 B.C., date of birth unknown. During the Persian invasions of Greece, Themistocles was the most brilliant figure among the Greek leaders; his genius was omnipresent, his resources boundless. He created the maritime supremacy of Athens, and through him the great victory of Salamis was won. His political ascendency was finally lost through the distrust created by his unscrupulous and facile character, and he died an exile in Persia, intriguing against his native land. Aristides, less brilliant than his rival, was famous for the stainless integrity and uprightness of his public life, and his name has passed into history as the symbol of unswerving truth and justice. He also contributed largely to the successful leadership of the Hellenic forces against their Asiatic invaders. References: Plutarch’s “Lives,” Grote’s “History of Greece,” Curtius’s “History of Greece.”]

Neither Themistocles nor Aristides could boast of a lineage of gods and heroes like the Æacid Miltiades;[3] both were of middling station and circumstances. Aristides, son of Lysimachus, was on both sides of pure Athenian blood. But the wife of Neocles, father of Themistocles, was a foreign woman of Thrace or Caria; and such an alliance is the less surprising since Themistocles must have been born in the time of the Peisistratids,[4] when the status of an Athenian citizen had not yet acquired its political value. There was a marked contrast between these two eminent men--those points which stood most conspicuous in one being comparatively deficient in the other.

In the description of Themistocles, which we have the advantage of finding briefly sketched by Thucydides, the circumstance most emphatically brought out is his immense force of spontaneous invention and apprehension, without any previous aid either from teaching or actual practice. The might of unassisted nature was never so strikingly exhibited as in him; he conceived the complications of a present embarrassment and divined the chances of a mysterious future with equal sagacity and equal quickness. The right expedient seemed to flash on his mind _extempore_, even in the most perplexing contingencies, without the least necessity for premeditation.

Nor was he less distinguished for daring and resource in action. When engaged on any joint affairs his superior competence marked him out as the leader for others to follow; and no business, however foreign to his experience, ever took him by surprise or came wholly amiss to him. Such is the remarkable picture which Thucydides draws of a countryman whose death nearly coincided in time with his own birth. The untutored readiness and universality of Themistocles probably formed in his mind a contrast to the more elaborate discipline and careful preliminary study with which the statesmen of his own day--and Pericles specially the greatest of them--approached the consideration and discussion of public affairs. Themistocles had received no teaching from philosophers, sophists, and rhetors, who were the instructors of well-born youth in the days of Thucydides, and whom Aristophanes, the contemporary of the latter, so unmercifully derides--treating such instruction as worse than nothing, and extolling in comparison with it the unlettered courage, the more gymnastic accomplishments of the victors at Marathon.

The general character given in Plutarch, though many of his anecdotes are both trifling and apocryphal, is quite consistent with the brief sketch just cited from Thucydides. Themistocles had an unbounded passion, not merely for glory--insomuch as the laurels of Miltiades acquired at Marathon deprived him of rest--but also for display of every kind. He was eager to vie with men richer than himself in showy exhibition--one great source, though not the only source of popularity at Athens; nor was he at all scrupulous in procuring the means of doing it. Besides being scrupulous in attendance on the ecclesia and dicastery, he knew most of the citizens by name, and was always ready for advice to them in their private affairs. Moreover, he possessed all the tactics of the expert party-man in conciliating political friends and in defeating personal enemies; and though in the early part of his life sincerely bent upon the upholding and aggrandizement of his country, and was on some most critical occasions of unspeakable value to it, yet on the whole his morality was as reckless as his intelligence was eminent.

He was grossly corrupt in the exercise of power and employing tortuous means, sometimes, indeed, for ends in themselves honorable and patriotic, but sometimes also merely for enriching himself. He ended a glorious life by years of deep disgrace, with the forfeiture of all Hellenic esteem and brotherhood--a rich man, an exile, a traitor, and a pensioner of the Great King, pledged to undo his own previous work of liberation accomplished at the victory of Salamis.

Of Aristides, unfortunately, we possess no description from the hand of Thucydides; yet his character is so simple and consistent that we may safely accept the brief but unqualified encomium of Herodotus and Plato, expanded as it is in the biography of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos, however little the details of the latter can be trusted. Aristides was inferior to Themistocles in resource, quickness, flexibility, and power of coping with difficulties; but incomparably superior to him--as well as to other rivals and contemporaries--in integrity, public as well as private; inaccessible to pecuniary temptation as well as to other seductive influences, and deserving as well as enjoying the highest measure of personal confidence.

He is described as the peculiar friend of Clisthenes, the first founder of the democracy; as pursuing a straight and single-handed course in political life, with no solicitude for party-ties, and with little care either to conciliate friends or to offend enemies; as unflinching in the exposure of corrupt practices by whomsoever committed or upheld; as earning for himself the lofty surname of the Just, not less by his judicial decisions in the capacity of archon, than by his equity in private arbitrations, and even his candor in public dispute; and as manifesting throughout a long public life, full of tempting opportunities, an uprightness without a flaw and beyond all suspicion, recognized equally by his bitter contemporary the poet Timocreon, and by the allies of Athens, upon whom he first assessed the tribute.

Few of the leading men in any part of Greece were without some taint on their reputation, deserved or undeserved, in regard to pecuniary probity; but whoever became notoriously recognized as possessing this vital quality, acquired by means of it a firmer hold on the public esteem than even eminent talents could confer. Thucydides ranks conspicuous probity among the first of the many ascendant qualities possessed by Pericles; and Nicias, equal to him in this respect, though immeasurably inferior in every other, owed to it a still larger proportion of that exaggerated confidence which the Athenian people continued so long to repose in him.

The abilities of Aristides, though apparently adequate to every occasion on which he was engaged, and only inferior when we compare him with so remarkable a man as Thucydides, were put in the shade by this incorruptible probity, which procured for him, however, along with the general esteem, no inconsiderable amount of private enmity from jobbers, whom he exposed, and even some jealousy from persons who heard it proclaimed with offensive ostentation.

We are told that a rustic and unlettered citizen gave his ostracizing vote and expressed his dislike against Aristides on the simple ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the Just. Now the purity of the most honorable man will not bear to be so boastfully talked of, as if he were the only honorable man in the country; the less it is obtruded the more deeply and cordially will it be felt; and the story just alluded to, whether true or false, illustrates that natural reaction of feeling produced by absurd encomiasts or perhaps by insidious enemies under the mask of encomiasts, who trumpeted for Aristides as the _Just_ man at Attica so as to wound the legitimate dignity of every one else.

Neither indiscreet friends nor artful enemies, however, could rob him of the lasting esteem of his countrymen, which he enjoyed with intervals of their displeasure to the end of his life. Though he was ostracized during a part of the period between the battles of Marathon and Salamis--at a time when the rivalry between him and Themistocles was so violent that both could not remain at Athens without peril--yet the dangers of Athens during the invasion of Xerxes brought him back before the ten years of exile were expired. His fortune, originally very moderate, was still further diminished during the course of his life, so that he died very poor, and the state was obliged to lend aid to his children.

PERICLES.

BY ERNST CURTIUS.