Parallel Lives

Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch’s Lives, is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably written at the beginning of the second century AD. The surviving Parallel Lives (Greek : Βίοι Παράλληλοι, Bíoi Parállēloi) 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.

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.

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 remote past of Greece could show its men of action and achievement as well as the nearer, and therefore more impressive, past of Rome. His interest was primarily ethical , although the Lives 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.

The chief manuscripts of the Livesdate from the 10th and 11th centuries, and the first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1470. Thomas North ‘s 1579 English translation was an important source-material for / Shakespeare . Jacob Tonson printed several editions of the Livesin 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. 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). 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.

Two of the lives, those of Epanminondas and scipio africanus or scipio Aemilianus , are lost and many of the remaining lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae and/or have been tampered with by later writers.

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

Plutarch has been criticized for his lack of judicious discrimination in his use of authorities, and consequent errors and

inaccuracies, but he gives an abundance of citations and, incidentally, a large number of valuable pieces of information, which fill up numerous gaps in historical knowledge obtained elsewhere.[He 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.

Originally published at https://futureisgrow.blogspot.com.