Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

Summary

Plutarch’s Parallel Lives set the life of a famous Greek beside that of a famous Roman, so that each could be measured by the other. Twenty-three pairs survive, most closed by a short Comparison in which Plutarch weighs the two men, together with four single Lives: Aratus, Artaxerxes, Galba, and Otho. The pair of Epaminondas and Scipio is lost. The founders come first, Theseus with Romulus and Lycurgus with Numa; then the lawgivers and statesmen of early Athens and the Roman Republic, Solon and Poplicola, Themistocles and Camillus, Pericles and Fabius, Aristides and Cato the Elder; then the generals and kings of the Hellenistic age and the late Republic, from Alcibiades and Coriolanus to Alexander and Caesar, Demosthenes and Cicero, Demetrius and Antony, and Dion and Brutus. Plutarch is clear that he is not writing history. At the opening of the Life of Alexander he explains that great battles often reveal less of a man than a jest or a short saying, and that he will gather such signs of character as a painter studies the face and eyes. The Lives are therefore full of anecdotes: Themistocles telling the Spartan commander to strike but hear him, Cato the Elder preferring to be asked why he had no statue, Caesar telling his friends in an Alpine village that he would rather be first there than second in Rome, Demosthenes training his voice with pebbles in his mouth. The purpose is moral. Plutarch writes so that readers may imitate the virtues of good men and avoid the vices of others; in the pair of Demetrius and Antony he includes two men chiefly as warnings. He praises justice in Aristides and Phocion, temperance in Cato and Agesilaus, piety in Numa and Camillus, magnanimity in Pericles and Timoleon, and he traces how ambition, anger, and love of pleasure undid men of great gifts such as Alcibiades, Marius, Sulla, and Antony. He judges generously but firmly, and lets the facts of a life carry the lesson. The Lives were among the most widely read books of the Renaissance and the early modern world. Amyot’s French version and Sir Thomas North’s English translation from it gave Shakespeare the plots and much of the language of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. Montaigne counted Plutarch among his two favorite authors, the American founders read him as a school of republican virtue, and the Dryden translation, revised by Clough, became the standard English version of the nineteenth century, the one given here.

Plot or Argument

• The plan of the parallels

  Each pair joins a Greek and a Roman of similar career or character: two founders, two lawgivers, two generals who fought invaders, two orators, two men ruined by love and luxury. The Comparison that follows weighs them virtue by virtue.

• Founders and lawgivers

  Theseus and Romulus, Lycurgus and Numa, and Solon and Poplicola show how cities were founded and given laws, religion, and customs, with Plutarch sifting legend from probable report.

• Statesmen and generals of the classical age

  From Themistocles and Pericles to Aristides, Cimon, Nicias, and Alcibiades, the Greek Lives cover Athens from the Persian Wars through the Peloponnesian War, paired with Romans of the early and middle Republic.

• Kings and the fall of the Republic

  Alexander, Pyrrhus, Demetrius, and the Spartan reformers Agis and Cleomenes are set beside Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, the Gracchi, Cicero, Antony, and Brutus, the men whose contests ended the Roman Republic.

Characters

• Plutarch, narrator and moralist

  Speaks in his own voice, addresses his friend Sosius Senecio, weighs sources, and draws the comparisons.

• Alexander the Great, subject of a Life

  Macedonian conqueror, paired with Caesar; Plutarch searches his small acts and sayings for his character.

• Julius Caesar, subject of a Life

  Roman general and dictator, whose Life supplied Shakespeare with the plot of Julius Caesar.

• Cato the Younger, subject of a Life

  Stoic senator of unbending integrity, opponent of Caesar.

• Pericles, subject of a Life

  Athenian statesman whose calm, eloquence, and incorruptibility Plutarch praises.

Lessons

• Character shows in small things

  Plutarch looks for character in sayings and jests as well as battles. A student learns to read a person by habits and small choices, which reveal what great occasions can hide.

  • Why does Plutarch think a jest can reveal more than a battle?
  • What small habit in one Life told you most about the man?

• Comparison as a way to judge

  By setting two lives side by side, Plutarch makes the reader weigh virtues against each other: Aristides’ justice against Cato’s industry, Demosthenes’ eloquence against Cicero’s. Comparison sharpens judgment without flattery.

  • Choose one Comparison. Do you agree with Plutarch’s verdict?
  • What do you see in each man that you would not see if you read him alone?

• Great gifts need governed passions

  Alcibiades, Marius, Sulla, Coriolanus, and Antony had rare gifts, yet ambition, anger, or pleasure undid them. Plutarch shows again and again that ability without temperance ruins both the man and the city.

  • Which Life shows most clearly a gift undone by a passion?
  • What did education do, or fail to do, for that man?

• Public service and private integrity

  Aristides died poor, Phocion refused Alexander’s gifts, Cato the Younger kept the treasury honest. Plutarch presents integrity in small public duties as the foundation of trust.

  • Why does Plutarch care so much about how statesmen handled money?
  • Is private honesty necessary for public greatness?

Context

Plutarch wrote in the settled peace of the Roman Empire under Trajan and Hadrian, as a Greek proud of Greece’s past and at home among Romans. The Lives helped Greeks and Romans see their histories as one moral inheritance, centuries after most of the events described.

Composition

The Lives were written in the later part of Plutarch’s life, probably between about AD 100 and 120, and dedicated to the Roman senator Sosius Senecio. The order in which the pairs were written is uncertain; the order here follows the Dryden/Clough edition.

Reception

Translated into Latin in the fifteenth century, into French by Jacques Amyot (1559), and from Amyot into English by Sir Thomas North (1579), the Lives shaped Shakespeare, Montaigne, and generations of statesmen. Dryden’s team translated them in 1683-86; Clough revised that version in 1859-64.

Comparisons

• plutarch-essays

  The Moralia analyze in argument the virtues and vices the Lives show in action.

• the-history-of-the-peloponnesian-war

  Thucydides is Plutarch’s chief source for Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades.

• the-twelve-caesars

  Suetonius, Plutarch’s younger contemporary, wrote Roman imperial lives by topic rather than by moral comparison.

• the-age-of-alexander

  A modern selection of nine of these Greek Lives.

• the-fall-of-the-roman-republic

  A modern selection of six of these Roman Lives.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Plutarch’s own comments, often at the beginning of a Life, on why he chose these men and what he hopes readers will imitate.
• Short sayings and anecdotes that reveal character, as he promises at the start of the Life of Alexander.
• The Comparisons at the end of each pair, where Plutarch weighs one virtue against another.
• How education, or the lack of it, shapes men of great natural gifts such as Coriolanus, Alcibiades, and Marius.
• Where Plutarch doubts his sources or separates legend from probable history.

Key terms and names

Parallel Lives

Plutarch’s pairing of a Greek and a Roman life for comparison.

Synkrisis

The Greek rhetorical exercise of comparison, which Plutarch’s Comparisons follow.

Ethos

Character, the settled disposition that Plutarch seeks to reveal through deeds and sayings.

Ostracism

The Athenian vote to exile a citizen for ten years, used against Aristides, Themistocles, and Cimon.

Dictator

At Rome, a magistrate given supreme power for an emergency, as Fabius and Camillus were; Sulla and Caesar extended the office.

Proscription

Sulla’s posted lists of citizens who could be killed and their property seized, later used by the triumvirs against Cicero.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Name three pairs of Lives and explain why Plutarch put each pair together.
2. Comprehension What does Plutarch say at the beginning of the Life of Alexander about the difference between lives and histories?
3. Interpretation Why does Plutarch include men such as Demetrius and Antony whom he does not hold up for imitation?
4. Interpretation In several Lives a man of great gifts is ruined by a single passion. Choose one and trace how it happens.
5. Interpretation How does Plutarch treat the gods, oracles, and omens in the Lives?
6. Big Question Can reading about the virtues of others make us virtuous? What else is needed?

Faith Connections

• Hebrews 13:7 (Scripture)

  The writer to the Hebrews tells believers to remember those who led them and to follow their faith, considering the end of their conversation: imitation of good lives is a Christian practice too.

• Proverbs 16:18 (Scripture)

  Pride goeth before destruction: the falls of Alcibiades, Coriolanus, and Pompey illustrate the proverb.

• Basil the Great, Address to Young Men on Greek Literature (Church Fathers)

  Basil commends reading the deeds of virtuous pagans as preparation for Christian virtue, taking what is good like bees from flowers.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Virtue and vice are best learned by contemplating the lives of men who showed them; comparing two lives lets the reader judge which qualities are truly admirable.

Rhetorical device: synkrisis (comparison). In the Comparison of Aristides with Cato the Elder, Plutarch weighs justice in poverty against industry and thrift, giving each man his due.

Debate: Resolved: A statesman’s private character is a proper concern of the citizens he serves.

Memory Work

the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever

The city is well fortified which hath a wall of men instead of brick

Writing Prompts

Essay: Choose one pair of Lives and write your own Comparison of the two men, weighing at least two virtues, before reading Plutarch’s.

Comparison with The Twelve Caesars: Compare Plutarch’s Life of Caesar with Suetonius’ Julius: how does each biographer reveal character?

Medical Lens

The Lives record illness and death as part of character: Pericles in the Athenian plague, Alexander’s fatal fever, Cato the Elder’s household medicine and distrust of Greek physicians, and the poisonings and suicides that end several Roman Lives. They are sources for ancient attitudes to sickness and remedies, read with care since Plutarch wrote centuries after many of the events.

• Life of Pericles

  Pericles, sick in the plague years, shows a friend an amulet the women had hung on him, as a sign of how far illness had worn him down.

  Plague Epidemic Ancient Medicine
• Life of Marcus Cato

  Cato keeps a book of household remedies for his family and expresses his suspicion of Greek physicians.

  Ancient Medicine
• Life of Alexander, last chapters

  The account of Alexander’s final illness from the royal diaries, day by day, with Plutarch’s doubts about the rumors of poison.

  Fever Infection Death Dying
• Life of Antony

  Cleopatra tests poisons on condemned prisoners and studies the bite of venomous creatures before her death.

  Pharmacology Poisons
• Life of Cato the Younger, end

  Cato’s death at Utica, including his tearing open the wound the physician had dressed.

  Suicide

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Write your own Comparison of two people you have read about, in Plutarch’s manner, weighing them virtue by virtue.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Cineas and Pyrrhus about what Pyrrhus will do after he conquers the world.

• Classroom

  Keep a class commonplace book of one saying or anecdote from each Life, with the virtue or vice it shows.

Further Reading

• Julius Caesar; Antony and Cleopatra; Coriolanus, William Shakespeare

  The Roman plays drawn from North’s Plutarch.

• Moralia (Essays), Plutarch

• Plutarch, D. A. Russell

• Plutarch’s Lives (North translation, 1579), Sir Thomas North

  The Elizabethan version Shakespeare used.