Plutarch's "Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans"

Description

One of the most important surviving texts from the Greco-Roman world is Plutarch’s Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans, which has provided material about Greek and Roman leaders to writers and thinkers from Shakespeare to the present day. Plutarch was born in Greece about 50 c.e. and died about 120 c.e. He was devoted to antiquities and traditional religion, and served for decades as a priest at Delphi.

Among his many books, Plutarch is best known for his Lives which has been at the center of European education for five centuries. He believed history should be studied for its ethical lessons, so he placed the lives of famous Greeks and Romans beside each other – like Demosthenes and Cicero – and then wrote a brief comparison of their virtues and vices. (Some of the lives and the comparisons are lost.) His book has been used since the Renaissance for moral instruction. The 1579 century English translation was used by Shakespeare as his source for his Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. Plutarch’s Lives became especially important for periods or personalities for which other historical sources are lacking. Hence he can almost be said to have “invented” in his Life of Antony the image of Cleopatra, later used so powerfully by Shakespeare.

This SDG will examine a selection of the Lives both for the historical content and the moral lessons Plutarch was trying to teach.

Weekly Topics

  1. TWO EARLY ATHENIANS: Solon & Themistocles

  2. TWO SUCCESSFUL LEADERS: Pericles & Fabius Maximus (and comparison)

  3. TWO “TRAITORS”: Alcibiades & Coriolanus (and comparison)

  4. TWO CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS: Aristeides & Cato the Elder (and comparison)

  5. TWO ROMAN REVOLUTIONARIES: Tiberius Gracchus & Gaius Gracchus

  6. TWO ROMAN GENERALS: Marius & Sulla

  7. TWO ROMAN TRIUMVIRS: Crassus & Pompey

  8. TWO ORATORS: Demosthenes & Cicero (and comparison)

  9. TWO GREAT GENERALS: Alexander the Great & Julius Caesar

  10. TWO ROMAN “LOSERS”: Marcus Brutus & Marc Antony

Bibliography

General Histories for Background:

  • Boardman, John et al. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford, 2001). Selected passages

  • Beard, Mary. S.P.Q.R. (New York, 2015) pp. 1-336

  • Woolf, G. Rome: An Empire’s Story (Oxford, 2012). Pp. 1-145

Plutarch

  • Lamberton, Robert Plutarch

  • All Lives and comparisons on line: http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Plutarch.html

  • All Lives and comparisons on line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Lives

  • Plutarch Fall of the Roman Republic (Penguin): Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Cicero

  • Plutarch Makers of Rome (Penguin): Coriolanus; Fabius; Marcellus; Cato the Elder; Tiberius Gracchus; Gaius Gracchus; Sertorius; Brutus; Mark Antony

  • Plutarch Rise and Fall of Athens (Penguin): Theseus, Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades, Lysander.