Comparison of Dion and Brutus

Next, as regards their actual military achievements, Dion was a consummate general; where he himself made the plans, he achieved the best results, and where failure was due to others, he restored and bettered the situation.

Brutus, on the other hand, as it seems, was unwise in entering upon the last supreme struggle, and when he was defeated, could not find a way to restore his cause, but gave up and abandoned his hopes, not even facing adverse fortune with as much resolution as Pompey,

and that too although on land he had much ground for confidence left in his troops, and with his fleet was secure master of all the sea.

Moreover, the gravest charge which is brought against Brutus, namely, that although his life was spared by the kindness of Caesar, together with the lives of all the fellow captives for whom he wished to intercede, and although Caesar held him a friend and honoured him above many, he struck down his preserver with his own hand,—this charge no one can bring against Dion.

On the contrary, while he was a courtier and friend of Dionysius, he tried to set the state in order and help in preserving it; but when he had been banished from his country, wronged as a husband, and deprived of his property, he openly resorted to a war that was lawful and just. Or does this argument reverse itself at once?