3.3
Nay, there was no measuring what he lavishly squandered and threw away upon his flatterers. For what calculation or economy could be expected in his convivial associations and delights, when, on a public occasion, with the people standing about, at the sale of a large property, he ordered the crier to knock it down to one of his friends at a nominal price, and when another bidder raised the price and the crier announced the advance, he flew into a rage, saying: It is a dreadful wrong, my dear citizens, and a piece of usurpation, that I cannot dispose of my own spoils as I wish.
3.4
But Lysander sent home for public use even the presents which had been given to him along with the rest of his spoils. Not that I commend what he did; for he, perhaps, by his acquisition of money for Sparta, injured her more than Sulla injured Rome by robbing her of it; but I offer this as a proof of the man’s indifference to riches.
3.5
Moreover, each had a peculiar experience with his own city. Sulla, who knew no restraint in his extravagance, tried to bring the citizens into ways of sobriety; while Lysander filled his city with the passions to which he himself was a stranger. The former erred, therefore, in falling below the standard of his own laws; the latter, in causing the citizens to fall below his own standard, since he taught Sparta to want what he himself had learned not to want. Such was their influence as statesmen.
