Plutarch's Lives Volume 1 (Modern Library Classics)
by Plutarch
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Book Summary Information
Author: PlutarchBrand: Random House
Editor: Arthur Hugh Clough
Translator: John Dryden
Introduction: James Atlas
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-04-10
ISBN: 0375756760
Number of pages: 784
Publisher: Modern Library
Book Reviews of Plutarch's Lives Volume 1 (Modern Library Classics)
Book Review: Some suggestions about reading one of the treasures of Western Civilization.
Summary: 5 Stars
Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greek and Romans is one of the central works in the Western literary and philosophical tradition. It is one of the keys to understanding Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Montaigne and Emerson. It was a favorite book and resource of Jefferson, Madison and others of the Founding Fathers. All these writers were deeply influenced by their reading of Plutarch.
Plutarch (hereafter to be P)was a Greek writing in the first century after Christ. He was a Platonist who was also well read in Aristotle as well as a fierce opponent of Stoicism and Epicurius. His paired biographies are based on a broad reading in many sources some of which are lost to us and known only through their presentation in P. P is fan of Thucydides, Homer and Hesiod and Pindar. He had much less use for Herodotus. All of these sources along with many others are woven into his writings. To read P is to be introduced to many of the great writers and thinkers of the Greeks and the Romans. For me, it has been a delight. When reading the first volume of the Modern Library edition of Plutarch, I have found myself wondering why I put off reading him for so long. He is a subtle and entertaining companion.
For my review, I want to do two things. First, I want to offer you reasons to read the Modern Library edition of Plutarch over the alternative such as the Loeb edition or the Penguin Travesty.
The reasons for my preference for the Modern Library edition is two-fold. It is true to P's intention and it is cheap.
The Penguins are (or should be considered)a joke. That publisher decided to offer Plutarch by splitting up the pair biographies and then presenting all the biographies that had to do with, say, the Makers of Rome. Never mind that Plutarch denied that he was writing history as such. Never mind that he organized his writing around the paired biographies and that he had several purposes in doing so. The Penguin Powers That Be know better than P! Plutarch's writings should be offered to us in easy-to-digest (i.e., fairly short) books about something like the Rise of Rome rather than a very long book about the dynamic interactions between character, virtue, upbringing, fate (or Fortune or God, your pick) of the individual in interaction with that of their polis. Nobody, fears the Lord Editors of Penguinia, would want to read a complicated book like that. Needless to say, I think the Penguin editors are a bunch of maroons (although they do some things right like including a few maps to help us figure out where they heck Illyria, Thrace or Parthia were).
The Loeb edition runs to eleven volumes, each of which includes the Greek and each of which is expensive. From what I have seen of the Loeb, I don't think the notes are enough of an argument to favor this edition.
So buy the Modern Library edition. It gives you all of the biographies, in their original pairings and all the extant individual ones including a couple (of Galba and Otho) of biographies that are all that is left of a series on Roman emperors. The Dryden translation is a good one or so I believe simply because the voice of the author is distinctive, consistent and enjoyable. Reading this edition, I can understand why so many people have enjoyed P. for so long.
The most important point I want to make is that I believe that Plutarch had several intentions behind his organization. He is writing toward the end of the 1rst century AD- a period of Roman domination over just about everybody (that Plutarch knew of). I said earlier that I found P to be a subtle writer. For an instance, look to the Comparison that he makes after writing about Lycurgus and Numa. Toward the end, P basically asks if Rome is the better for the six centuries or so of constant warfare that she unleashed upon Italy and the world after the death of Numa. He doesn't give an answer although he suggests what his would be by talking about how the answer would differ from judges who value "riches, luxury, and dominion rather than in security, gentleness, and the independence which is accompanied by justice" (p. 106 of the Modern Library edition). In my reading, in other words, Plutarch is pushing for Greek culture to establish a counterweight or a critique to Roman hegemony. Rome may be militarily supreme but that is a mere moment in Fortune's turning wheel. And culturally, Rome is subject to the standards established by the Greeks like Plato, Aeschylus, Homer and Thucydides.
Even more central to P.'s thinking are moral lessons to be learned from comparing great men whose characteristics in interaction with their upbringing created men of often conflicting virtues who then tried to use the circumstances of their times to achieve glory for themselves and their cities.
This is an enormous theme with infinite variations. P.'s weaves in through these studies thoughts on political philosophy, on the reliability of founding myths, on the struggle between the many and the few (class struggle, we like to call it)and other assorted themes. It is a glorious and messy brew.
One final remark- I have yet to locate anything that presents itself as a companion to this book. I find that lack staggering. Why isn't there a commentary of the book as a whole which provides background history, prosography, maps, etc.? Wikipedia and the Oxford Classical Dictionary have been my constant companions as I have read P. As inordinate as my ignorance is, I cannot be the only reader of Plutarch that has decried that lack of a decent companion volume.
I am currently reading Plutarch by Robert Lamberton and plan to read a few other secondary sources before I go on to volume 2. I will review them as I finish them especially if I find a stand alone sourcebook for the background knowledge necessary for a decent reading of Plutarch. In the meantime, I can only encourage you to pick up a copy. If you are not as impressed as I am, so be it. But you may find yourself as carried away as I have been. In that case, you will be singing my praises as well as Plutarch's.
Addendum: Scholarly obsession compels me to reveal a flaw in the Modern Library edition that I have only become aware of since finishing the first volume. I am currently reading Robert Lamberton's book on Plutarch. He, like all scholars of the work, refer to the Lives by the life in question and section numbers. For example, he will refer to Lyc., 2 to indicate the second section of the life of Lycurgus. Unfortunately, the Modern Library edition does not include the traditional section numbers so all references are much more difficult to chase down. And there are typically 30+ sections for each life. If that sort of thing is important to you, this lack may effect that choice of which edition of the Lives you choose.
Summary of Plutarch's Lives Volume 1 (Modern Library Classics)
Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory. Richly anecdotal and full of detail, Volume I contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus and Theseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and many more powerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome.The present translation, originally published in 1683 in conjunction with a life of Plutarch by John Dryden, was revised in 1864 by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose notes and preface are also included in this edition.
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