Plutarch's Lives

"This book had a far different effect upon me from the Sorrows of Werter. I learned from Werter's imaginations despondency and gloom: but Plutarch taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns, and large assemblages of men. The cottage of my protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature; but this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs governing or massacring their show more species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced by these feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable law-givers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity has been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations."

-- Frankenstein, Volume II, Chapter VII show less

This is often known as the "Parallel Lives" because these biographical sketches come in pairs, one Greek, one Roman, followed by a comparison. This is a thick tome. My edition of Plutarch's Lives as translated by Dryden is nearly 800 pages. And yes, I read the whole thing and was never bored. Maybe this makes me perverse, given the number of reviewers I've heard describe them as dry. I thought it a wonderful and engaging introduction to the most illustrious personalities of Greco-Roman antiquity. I first read these when I was a college dropout for a time, and was reading through Good Reading's "100 Significant" books so my brain wouldn't turn to mush: I found it a favorite. Maybe it helped that by then I had made my way through Homer, show more Aesop, the four surviving Greek playwrights, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Vergil. Given that from the time I was a teen I was a fan of Mary Renault's and Robert Graves novels about ancient Greece and Rome, and familiarity with Shakespeare's plays (several of which were based on Plutarch) that means quite a few of the figures featured were already familiar to me: Theseus, Pericles, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Cato, Crassus, Pompey, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Brutus. Maybe that helped. But there were also a lot of figures then unfamiliar to me such as Sulla and Lysander and the book never lost my interest.

From what I gather it's not always reliable as history. Plutarch purportedly stretched things, both to find similarities in the two figures paired and to draw a tidy moral. And given Plutarch was a Greek and a Roman citizen trying to underline what they had in common, as you could expect, those outside that charmed circle, such as Cleopatra (for all she was of Greek descent) and the Carthaginians don't exactly get good press here. It probably is a good idea to seek out an edition that's thoroughly annotated--and try different translations if you don't find Dryden congenial. But I for one think this is numbered among the great books for good reason. show less

Volume 1

22. [44929::Plutarch's lives, The Dryden Translation, Volume 1], edited by [[Arthur Hugh Clough]]
written: circa 120 ce
translation: 1683 (and not by Dryden)
editing and notes 1859
format: 785 page paperback
acquired: December
read: Feb 27 – May 2
time reading: 48 hr 43 min, 3.7 min/page
rating: 3

A weird decision to read this, but it's become somehow meaningful to me in a way I don't exactly understand and that may not have anything to do with the text. The text is a strange relic of the Roman era. Plutarch was a Greek scholar during the high Roman Empire and wrote in Greek and may not have spoken Latin well. After doing whatever cultural touring he did in life, which included extensive travelling, collecting vast notes, he spent his show more later years in Greece as a priest at Delphi, writing. The parallel lives was his largest single work. The remnants of his possible 200 other works are collected in [Moralia], mostly philosophical writings.

Lives has a philosophical underlying component, a kind of "Middle Platonic" view on the morality of leaders through history, but mainly it's an historical work, a collection of paired biographies. Each prominent Roman is paired with a prominent Greek with similar aspects in their life trend. These are lengthy biographies, collected from a variety of sources. Then their lives are compared in brief essays. The general consensus is that Plutarch should not be taken as historically accurate, as his interest was in the morality and the story telling, not the accurate, well-documented history of the modern sense. He does occasionally note his sources within the text, and even expresses notes of skepticism here and there. And he seems to be internally consistent, as he often covers the same event in different lives from different perspectives. But, despite the consensus of soft accuracy, you will find he is often cited today as the main source for parts of the histories of Greece and Rome. Some Wikipedia articles basically summarize his essays from this work as the entire article on historical figures who, outside Plutarch, are mostly unknown. These are the kind of things that force me to re-visit or re-think ancient history, that undermine to me what we think we know.

As a historian Plutarch is really frustrating in that he loves and focuses on rumors, attributing major historical occurrences to unlikely details in someone's personal life. I constantly had to ask myself, that, even if what he had just described were completely true, is there any way it could have been accurately recorded.

The reading of this is an odd experience. I always had in mind that I was reading the "Dryden translation", a translation John Dryden put his name on, but did not apparently actually contribute to, and so I have little sense of how accurate any of this is in meaning or tone. This work of Plutarch is famous because of the way he tells these stories. They are fast and bring in immense detail and sometimes that combination can make for some vivid stories. But it's a tough read. The rush through details, one on top of the next, is relentless. Then major points of the story will be sort of sneaked into the text, leaving this reader forced to backtrack here and there to find where I lost the thread. And every part of this info dump begs some critical evaluation and a whole lot of skepticism. I would try at times just to blindly believe everything he says, but I had force that.

Plutarch was important in the late Renaissance when his focus on morality was of interest. His works, translated to English by Thomas North in 1579, were key source material for several of Shakespeare's plays. But it seems his importance has faded. There are no major new complete translations of his work. Newer translations focus on parts, and may break up these lives into just some of the Greek or Roman characters (and presumably re-order them chronologically). For me, he's a name that caught my attention and that my brain somehow needed to pin down by reading. I'm halfway through.

Volume 2

29. [44929::Plutarch's lives, The Dryden Translation, Volume 2] by edited by [[Arthur Hugh Clough]]
written: c 120 ce
translation: 1683 (and not by Dryden)
editing and notes 1859
format: 696-page paperback
acquired: December
read: May 4 – Jun 27
time reading: 42 hr 32 min, 3.7 min/page
rating: 2

It’s not a good thing when I’m disappointed I read a book. This, of course, isn’t a bad book. It’s a special relic, full historical details that are only captured here, or at least that are captured only here in this way, from this quirky 1900-year-old perspective. The cumulative impact of all these lives is a multifaceted view of a few key points in classical history – the rise and fall of the Greeks and their experimental governments, including the chaos that was the Athenian democracy, and the formation, tumultuous history and death of the Roman Republic, which faded into empire. The Greeks may come across a little tired and done over, but the leading characters in the later Roman Republic are fresh and come together to create a memorable synergy from all these full distinct enlarged egos colliding, with winners, losers, violent consequences, upper-class purges, some fascinating compatibilities, and ultimately the pulsing heart, the dedication to this Republic found most deeply in those who lost it. It’s easy to look on this, look at what Cato the Younger failed to do, and wonder at the reflection in our own times, and it’s not a comforting thought.

Plutarch was a Greek scholar who toured Rome and the empire and most likely taught his sort of middle-Platonic philosophy, who never mastered Latin, yet who took copious notes and who then retired back in Greece and began to write works in Greek that spread widely and are still around. The existing lives (it seems some are lost) are paired prominent Romans and Greeks with similar life trajectories. A lot of these characters are pretty obscure, but he captures the main names. For those who like ancient Greece, the lives of the great Athenians Themistocles, Pericles, and Alcibiades are captured, and criticized, along with some lesser ones like Aristides, Cimon and Nicias. And Lysander, the Spartan who eventually defeated Athens. Plutarch throws in Theseus, Lycurgus, and Solon for foundations, and Pelopidas because he co-led the Theban revolt against Sparta, leading the all-gay army of lovers, the Theban Sacred Band. The ancient Romans get covered too, from Romulus through the Punic wars. Odd names like Poplicola and Coriolanus or Cato the Elder show up. Publius, the name signed to the Federalist Papers, references Poplicola, as he helped found the Roman Republic. But Roman history really comes alive first through the civil wars between Marius and Sulla (around 80 bce), and then through the personalities involves in the death to the Republic. The members of the first triumvirate, Crassus, Pompey and Julius Caesar, each get a long chapter. Their counters in the Senate, the failed heroes of the Republic, Cato the Younger, Cicero and Brutus, make the best chapters in the book. This Cato the younger, who committed suicide rather than surrender to Caesar, was for me the most distinctive and memorable character here. Of course, there is also Plutarch’s famous take on Mark Antony and his dramas with Cleopatra, which led to a Shakespeare’s play. Three Shakespeare plays come from Plutarch – Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra.

Plutarch captures something of the memories of these larger than life personalities. A happy Julius Caesar who liked everyone, even his enemies, and who, upon Cicero’s surrender, walked with him chatting amiably, leaves an impression of the clubby Roman upper class. As does the old man, Galba, another happy well-liked general who might not hesitate to condemn thousands to death, and who yet managed only about week alive in Rome as emperor before he was dispatched. Or Pompey the Great who was living it up so well and in such control of Rome yet found himself caught off-guard, completely unprepared, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon. And Plutarch captures the chaos of these eras. There was never any peace in Athenian democracy or its empire, or in the Roman Republic where senators would murder political enemies, or, so things evolved, where senators were killed in the hundreds in mass political purges, called proscriptions (by which Cicero fell). And, new to me, was the chaos left behind by the death of Alexander the Great. Asia was left with power vacuums filled inadequately by warlords at the mercy of their fickle armies. And Greece was left with no dominant power, and it seems everyone fought everyone, desperately and constantly, often with both sides of a battle funded by the same nearby Mediterranean power.

So, it’s not a bad book, actually it’s a gem, but it’s a tough read. It’s already a massive amount of data, but Plutarch makes it thicker, leaving the reader flooded in endless detail. Reading means wading through rumors and counter rumors and strange prophecies predicting everything. It’s tough to every gain any speed or momentum, only a slow inertia allowed me to slowly pass through. It’s a disappointing because it was work. Whatever the enjoyment, and there was some, it was far less than the reward. After four months of exhausted reading, 1481 pages at 3½ to 4 minutes a page, I’m putting this down thinking only, thank goodness, and good riddance. Maybe I’ll feel differently later on.

2019 - Volume 1
https://www.librarything.com/topic/306026#6817859

2019 - Volume 2
https://www.librarything.com/topic/306026#6867701 show less

Roughly 1800 years ago, a biographer and historian decided to compare the great men of Greece and Rome to one another to give his readers inspiration to follow their example or what to avoid. Parallel Lives by Plutarch chronicles the lives of the greatest men of the ancient world and the times they lived in.

To show the influence of character—good or bad—of the great men of more remote past of Greece and the more recent past of Rome was Plutarch’s main aim in his biographies of these great men especially when he compared them to one another. Yet throughout his writing he shows the times these great men lived to the benefit of readers today that might know the overall history, but not the remarkably interesting details or events show more that general history readers might never know about. The usual important suspects like Alexander, Julius Caesar, and their like but it was those individuals that one never heard of today especially those Greeks between the end of the Peloponnesian War and its takeover by Rome save Alexander. This revised edition of the John Dryden translation contains both volumes in one book resulting in almost 1300 pages of text thanks to the fact that they added four lives that Plutarch wrote independent of his parallel pairs which included a Persian monarch, yet this printing is of poor quality as there are missing letters throughout which does slow reading down for a moment.

Parallel Lives is a fascinating series of biographies of individuals that in the second century AD were the greatest men in history to those living at the time, a few of which have continued to our time. Plutarch’s prose brings these men to life as well as the times they live in and influenced which history readers would appreciate a lot. show less

I love the way history is told by these classic writers -- such a blend of fact, cause, nuance, and anecdote. If there is a theme, it is the seeds of law and government sprouting from barbarian hordes and powerful kings. This work in particular shows so much about how we know the things we've been taught.

Ok so at least one of these reviews is blatantly false--the one that says there are no years given (especially birth and death years). Every figure's birth and death dates are listed in this particular edition, including "circas" for those who are legendary or whose birth dates aren't accurately known. And then the comment about only one figure's birth date being after 1 AD is just DUMB. I'm just not quite sure why this matters so much, as the study is of character and human nature, and it's especially unclear why human nature would be substantially different after the arbitrary cutoff of the year 1 AD. If you read all 1296 pages (which must be a different edition, since mine is only 876 pages of text plus an index) and could not figure show more this out, then you honestly should not be allowed to write a review. Of any book. Anywhere.

Now the second half of this is that this was one of the works that Ben Franklin singled out as particularly valuable and it has been considered such by many of the great enlightened figures of history. It seems dubious that anyone would thus be so narrow-minded as to think their opinion that it is worthless matters one iota. Think I'll take Franklin's word over yours, pal. show less

I pulled it out to start reading it, although I am apprehensive about starting such a dense book set millenia ago in with unfamiliar people and places. This could easily be a semester of study, or longer. As I read, I am reminded of the importance of knowing history. We get so caught up in our modern accessories that we forget the fundamental human nature of all that we do.

I started this book, and then it sat without being read for six months. When I picked it up again, I started the chapter on: Lycurgus king of Sparta. The true details are shrouded in antiquity, but this chapter outlines him as a king who worked to create laws and a society for the blessing of his people. The laws of marriage are quite strange. He created a culture of show more self-denial.

A couple of paragraphs quite struck me, and are quoted here.

"Cæsar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind. With like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while they disregard such as are excellent in themselves, and would do them good." (Loc 4651)

"It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when people told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper, “It may be so,” said he, “but he is but a wretched human being, otherwise he would not have been an excellent piper.” And king Philip, to the same purpose, told his son Alexander, who once at a merry-meeting played a piece of music charmingly and skilfully, “Are you not ashamed, son, to play so well?” For it is enough for a king or prince to find leisure sometimes to hear others sing, and he does the muses quite honor enough when he pleases to be but present, while others engage in such exercises and trials of skill. He who busies himself in mean occupations produces, in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good." (Loc 4669)


Theseus about 1284-1232 BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus
Romulus about 771 BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_and_Remus
Lycurgus of Sparta Born: 800 BC
Numa Pompilius Wikipedia Born: April 21, 753 BC
Solon Born: Athens, Greece Died: 558 BC
Themistocles Athenian Politician Wikipedia Born: 524 BC, Athens, Greece Died: 459 BC
Marcus Furius Camillus (/kəˈmɪləs/; c. 446 – 365 BC) was a Roman soldier and statesman of patrician descent.
Pericles Greek statesman Born: 495 BC, Holargos, Greece Died: 429 BC, Athens, Greece
Pyrrhus - a fierce warrior without moral principle. (Loc - 12313)
Eumenes - betrayed into the hands of Antigonus. (Loc 17600-17643)
Tiberius was a just man who endeavored to do justice to the people by ensuring that they had property, and not just the rich. He was slain by a conspiracy of the wealthy. (75% of the way through)

The term patrician (Latin: patricius, Greek: πατρίκιος, patrikios) originally referred to a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. show less