Philopoemen Combines What is Right and What is Expedient
The good and the expedient are seldom compatible,
note
and rare indeed are those who can combine and
reconcile them. For as a general rule we all
know that the good shuns the principles of immediate profit, and profit those of the good.
However, Philopoemen attempted this task, and succeeded
in his aim. For it was a good thing to restore the captive
exiles to Sparta; and it was an expedient thing to humble
the Lacedaemonian state, and to punish those who had served
as bodyguards to a tyrant. But seeing clearly that money is
ever the support on which every dynasty rests, and having a
clear head and the instincts of a ruler, he took measures to
prevent the introduction into the town of money from outside. . . .
