Customer Reviews

Greek Lives

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Plutarch in his "Lives Of The Noble Grecians And Romans" written around 100 C.E., sheds new light on Greek and Roman history from their Bronze Age beginnings, shrouded in myth, down through Alexander and late Republican Rome. Plutarch is the lens that we use today to view the Greco-Roman past; his work has shaped our perceptions of that world for 2,000 years. Plutarch writes of the rise of Roman Empire while Gibbon uses his scholarship to advance the story to write about its decline. He was a proud Greek that was equally effected by Roman culture, a Delphic priest, a leading Platonist, a moralist, educator and philosopher with a deep commitment as a first rate writer. Being a Roman citizen, Plutarch was afforded the opportunity to become an intimate friend to prominent Roman citizens and a member of the literary elite in the court of Emperor Trajan.

Plutarch's influence and enormous popularity during and after the Renaissance is legendary among classicist. Plutarch's "Lives", served as the sourcebook for Shakespeare's Roman Plays "Julius Caesar", "Antony and Cleopatra" and "Coriolanus". By the way Plutarch is even the only contemporary source of all the biographical information on Cleopatra, whom he writes about in his biographies of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian. Thomas Jefferson wrote to his nephew that there were three books every gentleman had to have familiarity with; Plutarch's "Lives", Livy's "History of Rome" and Virgil's Aeneid. In fact all the founding fathers of note had read Plutarch and learned much from his fifty biographies of noble men of Greece and Rome. When Hamilton, Jay and Madison write "The Federalist Papers" they use many examples of good and bad leadership traits that they read in Plutarch's work. His biographies are a great study in human character and what motivates leaders to decide and act the way they do, this masterpiece has proven to be still prescient today.

If you are truly interested in a classical education, put this book on the top of your list! I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in political philosophy, and history.

Some of these bios are simply fascinating, especially the ones of Lycurgus, Alexander the Great and Themistocles. Plutarch tends to do character sketches, as opposed to lenghty reports of battles. For example, most of the military campaigns of Alexander the Great are simply glossed over. However, he does show the moral actions and personalities of his characters. He is also a very good writer and fun to read; not too dry at all. I would suggest this book for several reasons:
1) To decide if you would like to read more Plutarch. 2) You have mastered ancient history and are looking for character portrayals of these people. 3) You are looking for in introduction for study of the ancients.

I hate Plutarch, if only because he is indispensable. His numerous Lives are all that is left of large sections of Greek and Roman history, or are essential corroboration for other, scarce sources.

To modern readers, Plutarch can easily sound annoying. His portraits are invariably red-cheeked and gleaming-eyed. Vice and virtue are his main measures of men (and the few women). `His skin used to emit a delightful odour and... his mouth and whole body used to be bathed in a fragrance which filled his clothes,' he says of Alexander. And later: `his self-restraint was apparent in his stubborn disregard for physical pleasures. He also had less penchant for wine than is generally thought. He gained his reputation because he dragged out the time he took over each cup, but it was time spent talking rather than drinking...' Yeah, right. Yet this is excellent, colourful, and entertaining biography. The characters jump out of the page. The times are evoked magnificently. Some people like to see in Plutarch timeless lessons on human psychology and behaviour; without going so far, his Lives certainly provide unmatched insights into the thoughts and beliefs of the ancients.

As to history, one needs to be aware how this came to us. In antiquity, works were copied in schools, especially of rhetoric. Thus what ensured they were reproduced in large numbers, and had a chance of survival in the ensuing Dark Age, was style, not content. Likewise, medieval copyists, all monks, were interested in the moral lessons of the works they preserved. (There are exceptions to this: invaluable papyri were found intact in the Egyptian desert; but these are rare.) Plutarch passed both the stylistic and moral tests. But he lacks the structure of a Thucydides or a Polybius. His works are not graspable without context - a context which the introductions contained in this edition don't quite supply, even if they help. So the history enthusiast needs to be warned: this is great biography, but to the historian it is only supplementary, if essential, material.

This edition contains only nine of Plutarch's Greek Lives: Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, Agesilaus, and Alexander. A number of the less prominent characters treated by Plutarch need to be looked for in other editions (Theseus, Pelopidas, Pyrrhus, Lysander...).

This fresh translation of Plutarch makes these wonderful timeless stories easy to enter. In a world of insipid shallow middle managers, multinational corporate slaves, and boring billionaire silicon valley geeks these stories are a wonderful relief! I was delighted to learn that Pericles was in love with a brilliant courtesan named Aspasia who influenced him as well as others, including Socrates and Cicero. If you are as weary of dispicable characters like the selfish-seinfield types as I am, read this book and imagine a less limited world. The ancient world may have been more brutal, but it wasn't boring! Susan Ferguson

Without a doubt, it is fascinating to read biographies based on ancient sources that no longer exist. Plutarch's Lives draws from multiple such primary sources as well as scholarly works from ancient Greece. There's no denying this. Further, much of the information on the ancient Greeks Plutarch writes about is not today available from other sources.

The biographies themselves were very popular when they were written, which explains why they were preserved and we can read them today. Reading only the Greek bios without the Roman ones against which almost all of them were paired up with has shortcomings, but it depends what you want to get out of the collection, though the introductions do a nice job of filling this information in.

This edition itself has very nice 4-page introductions to each biography as well as a very nice, longer introduction to the biographies as an entirety. The footnotes are very helpful. I wanted to read all of them, but because they were listed separately in the back of the volume, it was extremely disruptive constantly flipping back and forth. I'd gladly pay double for an edition with footnotes included in the text, or at least at the bottom of each page. The translation was fine, no complaints here.

On the down side, the biographies themselves tend to be more about the persons themselves than about factual/solid historical information. It's like reading about how George Washington never told a lie, threw a silver dollar across the Potomac, and had ill-fitting dentures, as opposed to how Washington helped create a new nation. Frequently, the footnotes point out that other sources portray the subject differently. I was never sure when Plutarch was bending the facts to fit the theme he was trying to get across.

I, personally, was most interested in the Alexander bio, but was somewhat let down because of the above reason. The Themistocles and Pericles bios had some interesting information and the Lycurgus bio provided many insights into Sparta.

Interesting bios of Greek historical figures. Enjoyed learning more about Alexander, Lycurgus and Alcibiates. Others were not as exciting. Would have helped to have a bit more background on Greek history before listening to this book.

Unfortunately, nowadays, we have many people and countries claiming that Alexander the Great and Macedonia weren't part of the Hellenic Period and that Alexander spoke a Slavic Language and not a Hellenic dialect.
Although there is a distortion and Falsifycation of the Hellenic history in regards to Ancient Macedonia by many authors, this book, by Plutarch, proves that both King Philip 'the Philhellen' and Alexander the Great of Makedonia were part of the Hellenic civilization and considered Hellenes and not barbarians as some authors claim.
In general, this book was enlightning with sources and is directed to the intellectual society. No where does it state that Macedonians were Slavic.