Parallel Lives by Plutarch

First transcribed:Bioi paralleloi, c. 105-115 c.e. (English translation, 1579)

Type of work: Biography

Principal personages

• Julius Caesar, Roman general and statesman
• Alexander the Great, king of Macedon
• Marc Antony, Roman statesman
• Demetrius, Macedonian king
• Marcus Brutus, Roman statesman
• Dion, statesman of Syracuse
• Demosthenes, Greek orator and statesman
• Cicero, Roman orator and statesman
• Alcibiades, Athenian general
• Coriolanus, Roman leader
• Solon, Athenian lawgiver
• Poplicola, Roman lawgiver
• Theseus, legendary Athenian hero
• Romulus, legendary founder of Rome

The Work:

The collection that is today known simply as Plutarch’s Lives is derived from the Parallel Lives, a work in which Plutarch presented a large number of biographies (of which forty-six survive), alternating the lives of eminent Greeks with comparable lives of eminent Romans. A number of shorter essays compared the lives accorded biographical treatment. The collection as it survives includes some biographies written independent of the Parallel Lives, such as the biographies of Otho, Galba, Artaxerxes, and Aratus.

Plutarch considered the lives of famous men important for their moral implications, and his treatment shows his concern to apply the ethics of Aristotle to the judgment of those whose lives he reports. His treatment is more personal than political; like the biographer Suetonius, whose De vita Caesarum (c. 120 c.e.; History of the Twelve Caesars, 1606) lacks the moral emphasis of Plutarch’s work, Plutarch was interested in great figures as human beings liable to the errors and inevitable temptations that confront all human beings. Also, like Suetonius, Plutarch delights in anecdote and uses various tales concerning the Greeks and Romans partly for their intrinsic interest and partly to suit his moral intention.

Although there are inaccuracies in the Lives, the charm and liveliness of Plutarch’s style give the biographies a convincing appeal that more than compensates for errors in fact. In any case, all history is the result of attempts to make intelligible statements about a past that must be reconstructed from the perspectives of the writers. If one says that in the Lives readers see the famous Greeks and Romans only as they appeared to Plutarch, then one must say of any history or biography that it is the past only as it appeared to the work’s author. The conclusion might be that since biographies are sensible only relative to their authors, the character and the ability of the authors are of paramount importance. If the Lives are judged in this manner, then again Plutarch emerges as an excellent historian, for his work expresses the active concerns of a sensitive, conscientious, and educated Greek writer.

The comparisons that Plutarch makes between his Greeks and Romans have sometimes been dismissed as of minor historical importance. The error behind such judgment is that of regarding the comparisons as only biographical and historical. Plutarch’s comparisons are attempts not only to recover the past but also to judge. In the comparisons a moralist is at work, and whatever the truth of the biographies, in the comparisons readers come close to the truth about the moral climate of Plutarch’s day. Another way of putting this is to say that in his biographical essays Plutarch defines men of the past, but in the comparisons he defines himself and the men of his age.

Thus, in comparing Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, with Theseus, the Athenian hero of Greek mythology, Plutarch first considers which of the two was the more valiant and the more aggressive for a worthy cause. The decision is given to Theseus, who voluntarily sought out the oppressors of Greece—Sciron, Sinnis, Procrustes, and Corynetes—and who offered himself as part of the tribute to Crete. Plutarch then finds both heroes wanting. “Both Theseus and Romulus were by nature meant for governors,” he writes, “yet neither lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one into popularity, the other into tyranny, falling both into the same fault out of different passions.” Plutarch then goes on to criticize both men for unreasonable anger—Theseus against his son, Romulus against his brother. Finally, he severely takes Theseus to task for parricide and for the rapes he committed.

From even this brief comparison readers learn a great deal about Plutarch. Although he has an inclination to favor the Greeks, he gives the Romans their due, achieving a near balance of virtues and vices. He honors courageous action, provided it was motivated by a love of country and of humanity, and he approves the ancient morality that called for respect toward parents and faithfulness to friends and brothers.

Plutarch was aware of the difficulty and the dangers of the biographical tasks he undertook, and he gives the impression that the presence of the comparisons is intended both to unify and to justify the book as a whole. At the outset of his biographical survey of the adventures of Theseus he compares those biographies of men closer to his own time with biographies such as that of Theseus, in which he is forced to deal with fictions and fables. He writes, “Let us hope that Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying processes of Reason as to take the character of exact history”; however, he recognizes the possibility that the purifying process might not occur and so begs the indulgence of the reader. He then compares Theseus and Romulus briefly, showing parallels of position and fortune in their lives, in order to justify his having decided to place their biographies side by side and to undertake a comparison of their moral characters.

Other comparisons that survive are those of Numa Pompilius, Romulus’s successor as king of Rome and originator of Roman religious law, with Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver; of Poplicola, or Publius Valerius, the Roman ruler who converted a despotic command to a popular one, thus winning the name Poplicola (lover of the people), with Solon, the Athenian lawgiver; of Fabius, the Roman leader who was five times consul and then dictator, who harassed Hannibal with his delaying tactics, with Pericles, the Athenian soldier and statesman who brought Athens to the height of its power. There are also comparisons of Alcibiades, the Athenian general, with Coriolanus, the Roman leader; of Timoleon, the Corinthian, the opponent of Dionysius and other Sicilian tyrants, with Aemilius Paulus, the Roman who warred against the Macedonians; of Pelopidas, the Theban general who recovered Thebes from the Spartans, with Marcellus, the Roman consul who captured Syracuse; of Aristides, the Athenian general who fought at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea, with Marcus Cato, the Roman statesman who disapproved of Carthage and destroyed the city in the Third Punic War. More comparisons include those of Philopoemen, the Greek commander of the Achaeans who defeated the Spartan tyrants Machanidas and Nabis, with Flamininus, the Roman general and consul who freed Greece from Philip V of Macedon; of Lysander, the Spartan who defeated the Athenians and planned the government of Athens, with Sylla, the Roman general who defeated Mithridates VI, sacked Athens, and became tyrant of Rome; of Lucullus, who continued Sulla’s (or Sylla’s) campaign against Mithridates and pursued him into Armenia, with Cimon, the Greek who defeated the Persians on both land and sea at Pamphylia; of Crassus, one of the First Triumvirate with Pompey and Caesar, with Nicias, the Athenian who was captured by the Syracuse forces that repelled the Athenians; of Sertorius, a Roman general who fought in rebellion against Pompey in Spain, with Eumenes, the Greek general and statesman who was opposed by Antigoes; of Pompey, the Roman general who became Caesar’s enemy after the formation of the First Triumvirate, with Agesilaus, the Spartan king who fought the Persians and the Thebans without preventing the downfall of Sparta. Finally, there are comparisons of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, the Roman statesmen and brothers who fought and died for social reform in the effort to assist the poor landowners, with Agis and Cleomenes, the Spartan reformer kings; of Demosthenes, the Greek orator and statesman, with Cicero, the Roman orator and statesman; of Demetrius, the Macedonian who became king after numerous campaigns and after murdering Cassander’s sons, with Antony, Caesar’s defender and the lover of Cleopatra; and of Dion of Syracuse, who attempted to introduce Dionysius and his son to Plato, with Brutus, the slayer of Caesar.

Important biographies are those of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Acknowledging the difficulty of his task, Plutarch declares his intention to write “the most celebrated parts,” and he adds, “It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives. 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.”

Plutarch writes at the beginning of his biography of Timoleon that he has come to take a personal interest in his biographies, explaining that “the virtues of these great men” had come to serve him “as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life.” Over the centuries readers have responded with respect to Plutarch’s moral seriousness, thus testifying to his power both as biographer and commentator.

Bibliography

Barrow, R. H. Plutarch and His Times. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967. Comprehensive work provides a good introduction to Plutarch’s life, times, and works. Contains two chapters on Parallel Lives in which the work is examined primarily in terms of its purpose, digressions, and historical sources.

Duff, Tim. Plutarch’s “Lives”: Exploring Virtue and Vice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Examines the elements of moralism and the “soul of the Plutarchian hero” in the work. Provides a close reading of four pairs of parallel biographies.

Lamberton, Robert. Plutarch. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Places Plutarch’s life and works in historical context and discusses him as a reader, writer, educator, thinker, and priest at Delphi. Provides background about and interpretation of Parallel Lives.

Plutarch. Shakespeare’s Plutarch. Edited by T. J. B. Spencer. New York: Penguin Books, 1964. Reprints Thomas North’s 1579 translation of the four lives from which William Shakespeare drew the plots of his Roman tragedies. Contains abundant quotations of parallel passages from the plays. Invaluable for an understanding of Shakespeare’s literary debt to Plutarch.

Russell, D. A. Plutarch. 2d ed. Bristol, England: Bristol Classical, 2001. Offers an introduction to Plutarch’s thought and writings from a literary perspective, aimed at the general reader. In the three chapters devoted to Parallel Lives, the life of Alcibiades receives the greatest emphasis.

Scardigli, Barbara, ed. Essays on “Plutarch’s Lives.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Collection of essays includes analyses of some of the biographies as well as discussions of Plutarch as a biographer, his choice of heroes in Parallel Lives, and his adaptation of his source materials.

Wardman, Alan. Plutarch’s “Lives.” Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. Sophisticated study ranges broadly throughout the fifty extant biographies, analyzing their form and nature. Also discusses Plutarch’s concept of the ideal political leader, his means of depicting character, and the influence of philosophy and rhetoric on his biographical methods.