'Mestrius Plutarchus' (
Greek: ΠλοÏταÏχος; ''c.''
46 AD -
127 AD), better known in English as 'Plutarch', was a
Greek historian,
biographer,
essayist, and
Middle Platonist.
[1] Plutarch was born to a prominent family in
Chaeronea,
Boeotia [Greece], a town about twenty miles east of
Delphi. His
oeuvre consists of the ''
Parallel Lives'' and the ''
Moralia''.
Early life, education and family
Ruins of the Temple of
Apollo at
Delphi, where Plutarch served as one of the priests responsible for interpreting the predictions of the
oracle.
Plutarch was born in 46 AD in the small town of
Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as
Boeotia. The name of Plutarch's father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus, from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations. His family was wealthy. The name of Plutarch's grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia
[2]. His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of in the most affectionate terms.
Rualdus, in his 1624 work ''Life of Plutarchus'', recovered the name of Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their two year old daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. Interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation.
The exact number of his sons is not certain, although two of them, Autobulus and second Plutarch, are often mentioned. Plutarch's treatise on the Timaeus of Plato is dedicated to them, and the marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner-parties recorded in the 'Table Talk.' Another person,
Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch's son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. His treatise on Marriage Questions, addressed to
Eurydike and
Pollianus, seems to speak of her as having been recently an inmate of his house, but without enabling us to form an opinion whether she was his daughter or not.
[ Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4), Aubrey Stewart, George Long, , , The Gutenberg Project, , ]
Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens under
Ammonius from 66 to 67.
[3]. He had a number of influential friends, including
Soscius Senecio and
Fundanus, both important
senators, to whom some of his later writings were dedicated. Plutarch travelled widely in the
Mediterranean world, including central Greece, Sparta, Corinth, Patrae (Patras), Sardes, Alexandria, and two trips to
Rome.
| "The soul, being eternal, after death is like a caged bird that has been released. If it has been a long time in the body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit, the soul will immediately take another body and once again become involved in the troubles of the world. The worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul tends to retain the form that it had in the body. But that soul which remains only a short time within a body, until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its fire and goes on to higher things." |
| Plutarch (''The Consolation'', Moralia) |
He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and was initiated into the
mysteries of the Greek god
Apollo. However, his duties as the senior of the two priests of Apollo at the
Oracle of Delphi (where he was responsible for interpreting the auguries of the
Pythia) apparently occupied little of his time. He led an active social and civic life while producing an incredible body of writing, much of which is still extant.
Work as magistrate and ambassador
In addition to his duties as a priest of the Delphic temple, Plutarch was also a magistrate in Chaeronea and he represented his home on various missions to foreign countries during his early adult years. His friend
Lucius Mestrius Florus, a Roman
consul, sponsored Plutarch as a Roman citizen and, according to the
10th century historian George Syncellus, late in life, the Emperor
Hadrian appointed him
procurator of
Achaea – a position that entitled him to wear the vestments and ornaments of a consul himself.
Plutarch held the office of Archon in his native municipality, probably only an annual one which he likely served more than once. He busied himself with all the little matters of the town and undertook the humblest of duties.
[4]
The
Suda, a
medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Hadrian's predecessor
Trajan made Plutarch procurator of
Illyria, but most historians consider that unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, and Plutarch probably did not speak
Illyrian.
Plutarch died between the years 119 AD and 127 AD.
''Parallel Lives''
A page from the 1470 Ulrich Han printing of Plutarch's ''Parallel Lives''.
His best-known work is the ''
Parallel Lives'', a series of
biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged as dyads to illuminate their common
moral virtues or failings. The surviving ''Lives'' contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair containing one Greek Life and one Roman Life, as well as four unpaired single Lives. As he explains in the first paragraph of his ''Life of Alexander'', Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, as such, but in exploring the influence of
character — good or bad — on the lives and destinies of famous men. Some of the more interesting Lives — for instance, those of
Heracles and
Philip II of Macedon — no longer exist, and many of the remaining Lives are truncated, contain obvious
lacunae, or have been tampered with by later writers.
''Life of Alexander''
Plutarch's ''Life of Alexander'' is one of the five surviving tertiary sources about the Macedonian conqueror,
Alexander the Great, and it includes
anecdotes and descriptions of incidents that appear in no other source. Likewise, his portrait of
Numa Pompilius, an early Roman king, also contains unique information about the early
Roman calendar.
''Life of Pyrrhus''
Plutarch's ''Life of Pyrrhus'' is a key text because it is the main historical account on Roman history for the period from 293 to 264 BC, for which neither
Dionysius nor
Livy have surviving texts.
''Criticism of Parallel Lives''
| "It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue of vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die." |
| Plutarch (''Life of Alexander/Life of Julius Caesar'', Parallel Lives, [tr. E.L. Bowie]) |
Plutarch stretches and occasionally fabricates the similarities between famous Greeks and Romans in order to write their biographies as parallels. For instance, the lives of Nicias and Crassus have nothing in common except that both men were rich and both suffered a great military defeat at the ends of their lives.
[5]
In Life of Pompey, Plutarch praises Pompey's trustworthy character and tactful behavior in order to conjure up a moral judgment that goes against most historical accounts. Plutarch delivers anecdotes with a moral points, rather than in-depth comparative analyses of the causes of the fall of the
Achaemenid Empire and the
Roman Republic.
[ Plutarch of Chaeronea ]
In defense of Plutarch, he generally sums up all his moral anecdotes in a chronological sequence unlike his Roman contemporary
Suetonius.
''Moralia''
A bust of the early Greek historian Herodotus, whom Plutarch criticized in ''On the Malice of Herodotus''.
Main articles: Moralia
The remainder of Plutarch's surviving work is collected under the title of the ''Moralia'' (loosely translated as ''Customs and Mores''). It is an eclectic collection of seventy-eight essays and transcribed speeches, which includes ''On Fraternal Affection'' - a discourse on honor and affection of siblings toward each other, ''On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great'' - an important adjunct to his Life of the great king, ''On the Worship of Isis and Osiris'' (a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites)[6], along with more philosophical treatises, such as ''On the Decline of the Oracles'', ''On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance'', ''On Peace of Mind'' and lighter fare, such as ''Odysseus and Gryllus'', a humorous dialogue between Homer's Odysseus and one of Circe's enchanted pigs. The ''Moralia'' was composed first, while writing the Lives occupied much of the last two decades of Plutarch's own life.
On the malice of Herodotus
In ''On the malice of Herodotus'' Plutarch criticizes the historian Herodotus for all manner of prejudice and misrepresentation. It has been called the “first instance in literature of the slashing review.â€
The 19th century English historian George Grote considered this essay a serious attack upon the works of Herodotus, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity."[7] Plutarch makes some palpable hits, catching Herodotus out in various errors, but it is also probable that it was merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch plays devil's advocate to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer.[ According to Plutarch scholar R. H. Barrow, Herodotus’ real failing in Plutarch’s eyes was to advance any criticism at all of those states that saved Greece from Persia. “Plutarch,†he concluded, “is fanatically biased in favor of the Greek cities; they can do no wrong.â€[8]]
Isis and Osiris
"On the Worship of Isis and Osiris" is a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites[9].
Questions
A pair of interesting minor works in Book IV of the Moralia is the Roman and Greek Questions. The customs of Romans and Greeks are illuminated in little essays that pose questions such as 'Why were patricians not permitted to live on the Capitoline?' (no. 91) and then answers them.
Pseudo-Plutarch
Main articles: Pseudo-Plutarch
Pseudo-Plutarch is the conventional name given to the unknown authors of a number of pseudepigrapha attributed to Plutarch. Some editions of the ''Moralia'' include several works now known to be pseudepigrapha: among these are the ''Lives of the Ten Orators'' (biographies of the Ten Orators of ancient Athens, based on Caecilius of Calacte), ''The Doctrines of the Philosophers'', and ''On Music''. One "pseudo-Plutarch" is held responsible for all of these works, though their authorship is of course unknown. The thoughts and opinions recorded are not Plutarch's and come from a slightly later era, though they are all classical in origin and have value to the historian.
Lost works
The Romans loved the ''Lives'', and enough copies were written out over the centuries so that a copy of most of the lives managed to survive to the present day. Some scholars, however, believe that only a third to one-half of Plutarch’s corpus is extant. The lost works of Plutarch are determined by references in his own texts to them and from other authors references over time. There are traces of twelve more Lives that are now lost.[10]
Plutarch's general procedure for the Lives was to write the life of a prominent Greek, then cast about for a suitable Roman parallel, and end with a brief comparison of the Greek and Roman lives. Currently, only nineteen of the parallel lives end with a comparison while possibly they all did at one time. Also missing are many of his Lives which appear in a list of his writings, those of Hercules, the first pair of Parallel Lives, Scipio Africanus and Epaminondas, and the companions to the four solo biographies. Even the lives of such important figures as Augustus, Claudius, and Nero have not been found and may be lost forever.[11][ Plutarch & the issue of character ]
Plutarch's influence
Plutarch's writings had enormous influence on English and French literature. In his plays, Shakespeare paraphrased parts of Thomas North's translation of selected ''Lives'', and occasionally quoted from them verbatim.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists were greatly influenced by the ''Moralia'' so much that Emerson called the Lives "a bible for heroes" in his glowing introduction to the five volume 19th century edition of his ''Moralia''.[12] Emerson also wrote that "We cannot read Plutarch without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: 'A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering, determined.' "[13]
Montaigne's own ''Essays'' draw deeply on Plutarch's ''Moralia'' and are consciously modeled on the Greek’s easygoing, discursive inquiries into science, manners, customs, and beliefs. His essays contain more than four hundred references to Plutarch and his works.
James Boswell quoted Plutarch's line about writing lives, rather than biographies, in the introduction to his own ''Life of Samuel Johnson''. His other admirers include Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Alexander Hamilton, John Milton, and Sir Francis Bacon, as well as such disparate figures as Cotton Mather and Robert Browning.
Plutarch's direct influence declined in the 19th and 20th centuries, though his influence remains embedded in the popular ideas of Greek and Roman history.[14]
Translations of Lives and Moralia
There are translations in English, French, Italian and German.
French Translations
Jacques Amyot's translations brought Plutarch's works to Western Europe. He went to Italy and studied the Vatican text of Plutarch, from which he published a French translation of the Lives in 1559 and Moralia in 1572, which were widely read by educated Europe.[1] Amyot's translations had as deep an impression in England as France, because Thomas North later published his English translation of the Lives in 1579 based on Amyot’s French translation instead of the original Greek.
English Translations
Plutarch's Lives were translated into English, from Amyot's version, by Sir Thomas North in 1579. The complete Moralia was first translated into English from the original Greek by Philemon Holland (q.v.) in 1603.
In 1683, John Dryden began a life of Plutarch and oversaw a translation of the Lives by several hands and based on the original Greek. This translation has been reworked and revised several times, most recently in the nineteenth century by the English poet and classicist Arthur Hugh Clough.
From 1901-1912, American classicist Bernadotte Perrin produced a new translation of the Lives for the Loeb library series.
Latin Translations
There is one translation of Parallel Lives into Latin, titled "Pour le Dauphin" (French for "for the Prince") written by a scribe in the court of Louis XV of France. Louis XV is said to have commissioned the translation because he wanted his grandson, Louis XVI, to learn the successes and failings of the famous classical leaders, but thought that Greek was not as useful as Latin.
German Translations
Plutarch's Lives were translated into German by Johann Friedrich Salomon Kaltwasser in 1799-1806.
''This section is a . You can help by [ expanding it].''
See also
Timeline of Plutarch's life (c.46 AD-127 AD)
★ Middle Platonism
Notes
'a.' Plutarch's date of birth probably occurred during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius and between 45 AD and 50 AD, though the exact date is debated.
'b.' Plutarch was once believed to have spent 40 years in Rome, but it is currently thought that he traveled to Rome once or twice for a short period.
'c.' Plutarch died between the years 119 AD and 127 AD.
Citations
{{FootnotesSmall|resize=
References
★ Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, , Simon, Blackburn, Oxford University Press, 1994,
★ Plutarch, , D.A., Russell, Duckworth Publishing, 2001, ISBN 978-1853996207
★ Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice, , Tim, Duff, Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0199252749
★ The Echo of Greece, , Edith, Hamilton, W. W. Norton & Company, , ISBN 0-393-00231-4
External links
Plutarch's works online
★ Works of Plutarch in etext at the University of Adelaide Library.
★ Plutarch at LacusCurtius (the ''Lives'', ''On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander'', ''On the Fortune of the Romans'', ''Roman Questions'', ''Isis and Osiris'', "On the Face in the Moon" and other excerpts of the ''Moralia'')
★
★
★ A biography of Plutarch is included in: , 18th century English translation under the editorship of Dryden (further edited by Arthur Hugh Clough).
★ Isis and Osiris
Secondary material
★ Plutarch of Chaeronea by Jona Lendering at Livius.Org
★ The International Plutarch Society
★ When the gods ceased to speak'' Lecture about Plutarch's ''De Defectu Oraculorum,'' held at the New Testament Society of South Africa in Stellenbosch.
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