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Plutarch: Parallel Lives
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Plutarch, a Greek who compiled his famous book of parallel biographies of ancient Greeks and Romans in the early 2nd century A.D., is one of the best-loved writers of all time. His brief but engaging sketches portray his subjects with honesty and affection; their failings and strengths are both held up for the reader to evaluate. Still the best translation of Plutarch’s Lives -one of the most widely read books in early America - is the so-called Dryden translation. Compiled by poet John Dryden in the late l600s and later edited by scholar Arthur Clough in the mid-19th century, this masterly translation is still in print in a two-volume Modem Library Classics edition.
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Plutarch was a biographer and author whose works strongly influenced the evolution of the essay, the biography, and historical writing in Europe from the 16th to the 19th century. Among his approximately 227 works, the most important are the Bioi paralleloi (Parallel Lives), in which he recounts the noble deeds and characters of Greek and Roman soldiers, legislators, orators, and statesmen, and the Moralia, or Ethica, a series of more than 60 essays on ethical, religious, physical, political, and literary topics. He was born in Chaeronea, Boeotia [Greece]. His name is Plutarchos (Greek) and Plutarchus (Latin)
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Plutarch's 'Lives' has had a significant impact on English literature, primarily influencing Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. An additional, if lesser known work, Moralia, consists of essays on various topics such as Superstition and Advice to Married Couples. In these works, he often quotes the works of previous writers whose only surviving texts exist thanks to Plutarch.
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[B]ack on dryer land...Plutarch had more than just a school. It was a lively village featuring a general store and Post Office, a blacksmith (his shop is just visible at the left in the photo showing "Main Street, Looking North"), several residences, and one lovely church in which people are still being married.
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Plutarch taught in Chaeronia and represented his people before the Roman governor and in Rome. In Rome he made important contacts and lectured on philosophy and ethics in various parts of Italy. He spent much time in Italy between 75 and 90; he apparently never mastered the Latin language, though he gained the friendship of notable Romans. The latter half of his life, Plutarch enjoyed the intellectual benefits of the Pax Romana, mostly in Chaeronia. He held many civic positions, both high and low; the most notable one - that of head priest of Delphi - he held with distinction for 20 years and elevated to an importance it had not had in his time. During the latter part of his life he is thought to have written most of the Lives and some portions of the Moralia.
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Plutarch's biographies are in fact moral treatises too. He describes the careers of a Greek and a Roman, and compares them. For example, in the Life of Theseus/Life of Romulus, he describes the lives of the founders of Athens and Rome, and in a brief epilogue penetrates into their respective characters. Another example is the comparison of Themistocles and Camillus, an Athenian and a Roman who were both sent into exile. The result is not only an entertaining biography, but ... a better understanding of a morally exemplary person, which the reader can use for his own moral improvement.
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Parallel Lives