Eight great lives. The Dryden translation

392 Pages·1960·33.942 MB·English

by  Plutarch., Charles Alexander Robinson

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Plutarch
great lives
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PLUTARCH
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EIGHT GREAT LIVES
EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY KEVIN GOINAGH
VERGIL THE AENEID
EDITED BY PHILIP HARSH
AN ANTHOLOGY OF ROMAN DRAMA
The Twin Menaechmi, The Rope, Phormio, The Brothers, Medea,
Phaedra, Thyestes
EDITED BY C. A. ROBINSON, JR.
AN ANTHOLOGY OF GREEK DRAMA: FIRST SERIES
Agamemnon, Oedipus the King, Antigone, Medea, Hippolytus, Lysistrata
AN ANTHOLOGY OF GREEK DRAMA: SECOND SERIES
Prometheus Bound, Choephoroe, Eumenides, Philoctetes, Oedipus at
Colomis, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, The Clouds, The Frogs
PLUTARCH EIGHT GREAT LIVES
Pericles, Alcibiades, Coriolanus,
Comparison of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Demosthenes, Cicero,
Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, Alexander, Caesar, Antony
SELECTIONS FROM GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORIANS
Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius,
Livy, Sallust, Suetonius, Tacitus
PLUTARCH
EIGHT GREAT LIVES
The Dryden Translation
Revised by Arthur Hugh Clough
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
Charles Alexander Robinson, Jr.
NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO
TORONTO LONDON
FOR SARAH AND ELIZABETH
Third Printing, November, 1962
Introduction copyright 1960 by CharlesAlexanderRobinson, Jr.
TypographybyStefanSalter
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber: 60-6497
27516-0410
CONTENTS
Introduction vi
Map of the Roman Empire, A.D. 14 (DrawnbyE. Raisz) xiv-xv
Bibliographical Note xvi
Acknowledgments xvii
Ancient Monetary Units and Modern Equivalents xviii
Lines of Antony and Octavian xviii
Pericles 1
Alcibiades 40
Gaius Marcius Coriolanus 78
Comparison of Alcibiades and Coriolanus 113
Demosthenes 117
Cicero 142
Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero 180
Alexander 184
Caesar - - - . W^u7j?lil%d; ^,/'*^iJ^^Js*J - , ' 7 252
Antony 304
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INTRODUCTION
"The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the
clearest signs of virtue and 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 great-
est armaments, or the bloodiest battles."
Here, at the opening of his Life of Alexander, Plutarch partially
stated his method in writing biography. Duane Reed Stuart, in his
Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography, has remarked that this
passage served as a model for Boswell, who hoped to make it pos-
sible for us "to see Johnson and to live over each scene with the
great man." Boswell's debt is hardly surprising, since Plutarch has
had a pervasive influence on subsequent biographical writing. It was
his genius to develop biography as a specific genre, quite distinct
fromhistorical and eulogistic essays. His intention as abiographeris
more clearly seen, however, in another statement, also from the
opening of the Alexander, where he says: "It must be borne in
mind that my design is not to write Histories, but Lives."
Plutarch was a moralist. The great men and deeds of the past
intensely interested him, to be sure, but they must be made to serve
a purpose. What could be better for a person than to read about
the life of a good man, especially if he had solid qualities and had
been a famous general, statesman, or legislator? Homely details
and stories would help emphasize the essential meaning of the
particular individual, as our opening quotation shows, but it was
of first importance to portray a man's character by his deeds and
notthrough the circumstances and forces economic, political, mili-
tarywhich had brought him to the forefront of his generation.
vi