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Though indeed Simonides calls painting silent poetry,
and poetry speaking painting. For those actions which
painters set forth as they were doing, those history relates
when they were done. And what the one sets forth in
colors and figures, the other relates in words and sentences;
only they differ in the materials and manner of imitation.
However, both aim at the same end, and he is accounted
the best historian, who can make the most lively descriptions both of persons and passions. Therefore Thucydides
always drives at this perspicuity, to make the hearer (as it
were) a spectator, and to inculcate the same passions and
perturbations of mind into his readers as they were in who
beheld the causes of those effects. For Demosthenes embattling the Athenians near the rocky shore of Pylos;
Brasidas hastening the pilot to run the ship aground, then
going to the rowers' seats, then wounded and fainting, sinking down in that part of the vessel where the oars could
not trouble him; the land fight of the Spartans from the
sea, and the sea engagement of the Athenians from the
land; then again in the Sicilian war, both a land fight and
sea engagement, so fought that neither had the better,1
... So that if we may not compare painters with generals, neither must we equal historians to them.
[p. 403]
Thersippus of Eroeadae brought the first news of the
victory at Marathon, as Heraclides of Pontus relates.
But most report that Eucles, running armed with his
wounds reeking from the fight, and falling through the
door into the first house he met, expired with only these
words in his mouth, ‘God save ye, we are well.’ Now
this man brought the news himself of the success of a
fight wherein he was present in person. But suppose that
ally of the goat-keepers or herd-men had beheld the combat from some high hill at a distance, and seeing the success of that great achievement, greater than by words can
be expressed, should have come to the city without any
wound or blood about him, and should have claimed the
honors done to Cynaegirus, Callimachus, and Polyzelus,
for giving an account of their wounds, their bravery and
deaths, wouldst thou not have thought him impudent above
impudence itself; seeing that the Lacedaemonians gave the
messenger that brought the news of the victory at Mantinea2 no other reward than a quantity of victuals from the
public mess? But historians are (as it were) well-voiced
relators of the actions of great men, who add grace and
beauty and dint of wit to their relations, and to whom they
that first light upon them and read them are indebted for
their pleasing tidings. And being read, they are applauded
for transmitting to posterity the actions of those that do
bravely. For words do not make actions, though we give
them the hearing.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 5.
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