Parallel Lives

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File:Plutarchs LIVES.jpg

Engraving facing the title page of an 18th-century edition of Plutarch's Lives

The Parallel Lives (Template:Langx, Bíoi Parállēloi; Template:Langx) is a series of 48 biographies of famous men written in Greek by the Greco-Roman philosopher, historian, and Apollonian priest Plutarch, probably at the beginning of the second century. The lives are arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings.<ref>James Romm (ed.), Plutarch: Lives that Made Greek History, Hackett Publishing, 2012, p. vi.</ref>

The surviving Parallel Lives comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman of similar destiny, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes and Cicero. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.

Motivation

Parallel Lives was Plutarch's second set of biographical works, following the Lives of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Vitellius. Of these, only the Lives of Galba and Otho survive.<ref name=NewCriterion>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

As he explains in the first paragraph of his Life of Alexander, Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, but with exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. He wished to prove that the more distant past of Greece could show its men of action and achievement as well as the more recent past of Rome.<ref>Life of Alexander 1.2</ref> Plutarch's interest was primarily ethical ("For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives."), although the work has significant historical value as well. The Lives was published by Plutarch late in his life after his return to Chaeronea and, if one may judge from the long lists of authorities given, it must have taken many years to compile.<ref name="americana">Template:Cite Americana</ref>

Contents

File:Plutarchs Lives Vol the Third 1727.jpg

Third Volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives, printed by Jacob Tonson

The chief manuscripts of the Lives date from the 10th and 11th centuries, and the first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1470.<ref>Pade, Marianne. The Reception of Plutarch's Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/R/bo14317199.html Template:Webarchive</ref> Thomas North's 1579 English translation was an important source-material for Shakespeare. Jacob Tonson printed several editions of the Lives in English in the late 17th century, beginning with a five-volume set printed in 1688, with subsequent editions printed in 1693, 1702, 1716, and 1727.Template:Citation needed The most generally accepted text is that of the minor edition of Carl Sintenis in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (five volumes, Leipzig 1852–1855; reissued without much change in 1873–1875).Template:Citation needed There are annotated editions by I. C. Held, E. H. G. Leopold, Otto Siefert and Friedrich Blass and Carl Sintenis, all in German; and by Holden, in English.<ref name="americana" />

Two of the lives, those of Epaminondas and Scipio Africanus or Scipio Aemilianus, are lost,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers.Template:Citation needed

Plutarch's Life of Alexander is one of the few surviving secondary or tertiary sources about 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, contains unique information about the early Roman calendar.Template:Citation needed Plutarch has been praised for the liveliness and warmth of his portrayals, and his moral earnestness and enthusiasm, and the Lives have attracted a large circle of readers throughout the ages.<ref name="americana" />

Together with Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars, and Caesar's own works de Bello Gallico and de Bello Civili, the Life of Caesar is the main account of Julius Caesar's feats by ancient historians. Plutarch starts by telling of the audacity of Caesar and his refusal to dismiss Cinna's daughter, Cornelia. Other important parts are those containing his military deeds, accounts of battles and Caesar's capacity of inspiring the soldiers.

Biographies

Plutarch structured his Lives by pairing lives of famous Greeks with those of famous Romans. After each pair of lives he generally writes out a comparison of the preceding biographies.Template:Efn The table below gives the list of the biographies. Its order follows the one found in the Lamprias Catalogue, the list of Plutarch's works made by his hypothetical son Lamprias.<ref>Plutarch's Moralia, XV, edited and translated by F. H. Sandbach, Loeb Classical Library, 1987, pp. 3–11.</ref> The table also features links to several English translations of Plutarch's Lives available online. In addition to these 48 Parallel Lives, Plutarch wrote four unpaired biographies that are not considered to be parts of the Parallel Lives, but can be included in the term Plutarch's Lives. The subjects of these four biographies are Artaxerxes, Aratus, Galba, and Otho.Template:Efn-lr

All dates are BC.

№	Greek			Roman			Comparison
	Life	Years	Translations	Life	Years	Translations
1	Theseus	mythic	D G L P LV	Romulus	Template:Fl. 771–717	D G L	D G L
2	Lycurgus	Template:Fl. Template:Circa 820	(D) G L	Numa Pompilius	715–673	D G L	D G L
3	Themistocles	Template:Circa 524–459	D G L P	Camillus	446–365	(D) G L	n/a
4	Solon	638–558	D G L P	Poplicola	d. 503	D G L	D G L
5	Pericles	Template:Circa 495–429	(D) G L P	Fabius Maximus	275–203	D G L	D G L
6	Alcibiades	450–404	(D) G L P	Coriolanus	Template:Fl. 475	(D) G L P	D G L
7	Epaminondas	d. 362	Lost	Scipio Africanus or Aemilianus<ref>Kevin Herbert, "The Identity of Plutarch's Lost Scipio Template:Webarchive", in The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 78, No. 1 (1957), pp. 83–88. Plutarch only gives the name "Scipio". Herbert favours Scipio Aemilianus as the topic of the lost Life; he notes that Scipio Africanus was the subject of another (lost) biography by Plutarch.</ref>	236–183 or 185–129	Lost
8	Phocion	Template:Circa 402 – Template:Circa 318	D G L P	Cato the Younger	95–46	(D) G L	n/a
9–10	Agis	Template:Fl. 245	D L	Tiberius Gracchus	c. 164–133	D L	D L
	Cleomenes	d. 219	D L	Gaius Gracchus	154–121	D L
11	Timoleon	Template:Circa 411–337	(D) G L	Aemilius Paullus	Template:Circa 229–160	(D) G L	D G L
12	Eumenes	Template:Circa 362–316	D G L	Sertorius	Template:Circa 123–72	D G L	D G L
13	Aristides	530–468	D G L P	Cato the Elder	234–149	D G L	G L
14	Pelopidas	d. 364	D G L	Marcellus	268–208	D G L	D G L
15	Lysander	d. 395	D G L P	Sulla	138–78	(D) G L	D G L
16	Pyrrhus	319/318–272	(D) G L	Marius	157–86	(D) G L	n/a
17	Philopoemen	253–183	D G L	Titus Flamininus	Template:Circa 229–174	D G L	D G L
18	Nicias	470–413	D G L P	Crassus	Template:Circa 115–53	(D) G L	D G L
19	Cimon	510–450	D G L P	Lucullus	118–57/56	(D) G L	D G L
20	Dion	408–354	(D) L	Brutus	85–42	(D) L P	D L
21	Agesilaus	Template:Circa 444 – Template:Circa 360	(D) G L	Pompey	106–48	(D) G L	D G L
22	Alexander	356–323	(D) G L P	Julius Caesar (detailed article)	100–44	{{{2}}}|[1]}}	n/a
23	Demosthenes	384–322	D L	Cicero	106–43	(D) L	D L
25<ref>Eran Almagor, "The Aratus and the Artaxerxes", in Mark Beck (editor), A Companion to Plutarch, pp. 278, 279. The n°24 in the Lamprias catalogue was a pair of biographies of Aratus and Artaxerxes, but they did not belong to the Parallel Lives.</ref>	Demetrius	d. 283	(D) L	Mark Antony	83–30	(D) L P	D L

Notes

The two-volume edition of Dryden's translation contains the following biographies: Volume 1. Theseus, Romulus, Lycurgus, Numa, Solon, Publicola, Themistocles, Camillus, Pericles, Fabius, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Timoleon, Aemilius Paulus, Pelopidas, Marcellus, Aristides, Cato the Elder, Philopoemen, Flamininus, Pyrrhus, Marius, Lysander, Sulla, Cimon, Lucullus, Nicias, Crassus. Volume 2. Sertorius, Eumenes, Agesilaus, Pompey, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Phocion, Cato the Younger, Agis, Cleomenes, Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Demetrius, Mark Antony, Dion, Marcus Brutus, Aratus, Artaxerxes II, Galba, Otho.

1. ^{{#if:| }} The Perseus project also contains a biography of Caesar Augustus, in North's translation, but not from Plutarch's Parallel Lives: P
2. ^{{#if:| }} Though the majority of the Parallel Lives were written with the Greek hero (or heroes) placed in the first position followed by the Roman hero, there are three sets of Lives where this order is reversed: Aemilius Paulus/Timoleon, Coriolanus/Alcibiades and Sertorius/Eumenes.
3. ^{{#if:| }} At the time of composing this table there appears some confusion in the internal linking of the Perseus project webpages, responsible for this split in two references.

Reception

Of the biographies in Parallel Lives, that of Antonius has been cited by multiple scholars as one of the masterpieces of the series.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1895, George Wyndham wrote that the first rank consists of the biographies of Themistocles, Alcibiades, Marius, Cato the Elder, Alexander, Demetrius, Antonius, and Pompey.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Peter D'Epiro praised Plutarch's depiction of Alcibiades as "a masterpiece of characterization."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Academic Philip A. Stadter singled out Pompey and Caesar as the greatest figures in the Roman biographies.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In a review of the 1859 A. H. Clough translation, Plutarch's depictions of Antony, Coriolanus, Alcibiades, and the Cato the Elder were praised as deeply drawn. The reviewer found the sayings of Themistocles to be "snowy and splendid", those of Phocion to be "curt and sharp", and those of Cato "grave and shrewdly humorous".<ref>Template:Cite book Note that this 1861 review mistakenly identifies the author as "A.W. Clough" (p.239) but this is a typo; the author is A.H. Clough</ref> Carl Rollyson lauded the biography of Caesar as proof Plutarch is "loaded with perception" and stated that no biographer "has surpassed him in summing up the essence of a life – perhaps because no modern biographer has believed so intensely as Plutarch did in 'the soul of men'.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The English translation (1770) of John Langhorne and William Langhorne noted that Amiot, Abbe of Bellozane, published a French translation of the work during the reign of Henry II in the year 1558; and from that work it was translated into English, in the time of Elizabeth I. No other translation appeared until that of John Dryden.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

• Historic recurrence

External links

• University of Chicago English text of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
• Template:Librivox book