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Philopoemen Combines What is Right and What is Expedient

The good and the expedient are seldom compatible,
Philopoemen's policy towards Sparta. See above, bk. 19.
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. . . .

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

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