Customer Reviews

Plutarch on Sparta (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This collection contains Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus, Life of Agis and Cleomenes, and his collection of Spartan Sayings. It also has Xenophon's Spartan Society in an appendix, as well as other useful objects such as king lists, maps, and a glossary. This is on top of Richard Talbert's excellent notes. This volume is interesting enough to read for pleasure, and Talbert's notes and appendices aid in understanding Sparta and its people. It was very useful to me when writing a research paper, and I am sure it would be to anyone else. The index is thorough and accurate, and the translation understandable and consistant. I would recommend this to anyone interested in either Plutarch or Sparta.

It is with a slight reservation that I recommend this book to classical history buffs & fans of the ancient Spartans. Those (like myself) who lick their chops @ the chance to read a book about the Spartans in their prime might be a bit disappointed.

The Lacedaemons were never the same after their defeat at the hands of the Thebans @ Leuctria in 371BC. A good chunk of this book (about 1/3, in fact) is spent on Agis & Cleomenes. These personages were post-Leuctria fellows who tried to resurrect the Lycurgan principles and traditions which the Spartans were so well known for. Both failed, but gave noble efforts to these ends. Basically, they represented the death-knell to the hardcore Laconian way of life.

Now, both figures are certainly important to classical history; that much is not in debate. However, confronting them in a book entitled "On Sparta" by a historian the calibre of Plutarch is a bit anti-climactic. Again, I was so looking forward to reading about this magnificent culture while it was in its prime - cover to cover.

On the upside, the best part of the book deals with Lycurgus. It was he who founded the famous "Spartan way of life" around the 8th century BC. It was he who contrived such innovations as the long hair on Spartan males, the Lacedamonian distaste for $$ and all things artistic (with the exception of music) as well as virtually all luxuries and comforts of life. It is because of Lycurgus that the Laconians who came after shunned all things effeminate and became such a brutal fighting force. It was also he who promoted egalitarian distribution of land - noted as his most significant reform. Here Plutarch furnishes one of the most detailed biographies of this great man that you will find. The chapter on Lycurgus alone is well worth the price of the book.

In the remainder of the treatise, Plutarch displays sundry quotations of Spartan kings, warriors and women [it is ironic that in such a militaristic state that Lacedaemon women had more rights and privileges than any other city state in Greece]. There are many salient quotes that exemplify Spartan ideals quite nicely.

If you're looking for a book on Sparta, you can do much worse than this one. I will continue my search for more books on Sparta during her heyday. In the meantime, I will have to settle for daydreams about Lycurgus.

I will leave you with one of my favorite Spartan sayings (this one by King Agesilaus):

"Courage has no value if justice is not in evidence too; but if everyone were to be just, then no one would need courage." (P. 119)

This book contains Plutarch's biographies of Agis, Cleomenes, and Lycurgus. It is not exactly a linear book about Spartan history, like W.G. Forrests, but it contains a great deal of information about the society within the biographies. Like any of Penguin's translations this one is good and faithful to Plutarch's words. The book is great for the newcomer to the study of ancient Greek history, but even an experienced classics student would appreciate it, especially the section on famous Spartan quotes. The lives of the Spartan nobles are interesting and Plutarch's writing is very readable. There are some concerns about the accuracy of the information since Plutarch was writing about these people long after they died. Some scholars even doubt if Lycurgus really existed. Regardless, Plutarch is one of the only available sources of information about Sparta, a civilization that kept few records. I would recomment this book to someone desiring an introduction to Spartan history. A more advanced reader would probably want to buy a complete copy of Plutarch's lives and get the biographies in this volume with those of two other Spartans, Lysander and Agesilaus and many other classical figures. However, the chapter in "Plutarch on Sparta" containing famous quotations alone makes the book a necessity for the serious Laconiphile.

Plutarch, of course, never wrote such a book: "On Sparta." Instead he wrote a bunch of lives of prominent Greeks and Romans. This Penguin edition is simply an anthology of four of those lives, four Spartans (Lycurgus, Agesilaus, Agis, and Cleomenes).

So be aware of what you're getting. There's more to the book, though. There's a massive introduction that might help you, and about 50 pages of Spartan "sayings" culled from Plutarch's other lives. There is also an excerpt from Xenophon on Spartan society.

As well as a bunch of maps and stuff.

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.

Plutarch's book tells the immensely sad story of the relentless warring between the Greek City States: `Alas for Greece, how many men have you killed with your own hands.'
His masterly brushed picture of Sparta is not less than astonishing. Sparta has been one of the purest communist States on earth.
In order to stamp out arrogance, envy, crime, luxury, wealth and poverty among its citizens, the kings imposed redistribution of land, common messes for all Spartans, no free travel (foreign morals should be hidden) and no immigration (could be teachers of evil practices). Gold and silver coins were declared invalid and replaced by iron ones. Those who wanted to sin by amassing great wealth, needed vast granaries. Nepotism was impossible because children didn't privately belong to the fathers, but jointly by the city. Moreover, the city needed children from the best men (eugenics). Barbarous methods were used in the military education of the youth: thousands of human targets (helots) were killed in nightly survival exercises.
The ultimate goal of the State was to create an army of bees swarming around their leaders and capable of defending Sparta's 4 villages against any outside enemy.
For Plutarch, Sparta went under when it replaced its defence policies by offensive one: `empire and sovereignty war by force - unnecessary elements for maintaining the happy life of any State.' It was beaten by Epaminondas' Theban army.
Sparta was the ideal State for Plato, of whom Plutarch adopted his anti-democratic reflexes: `those politicians, whose sights are set on glory, are servants of the crowd, even though they are called rulers.'

This book is a must read for all those interested in the history of mankind.

Probably very readable for those already closely acquianted with historical and mythological references. I prefer footnotes mixed with the text as I have seen in most other translations of the ancients. It is still a very interesting read and I am encouraged to try some other 'Lives'.

Amidst all the contemporary historical deconstructionist prattling over the Spartans, the views and words of the more proximate historians among the ancients shine out like stars in a dark firmament.

Plato and Aristotle had much to say of the Spartan constitution. Likewise did Plutarch, who was a later Greek historian living from 46-120 AD during the period of Roman Imperial ascendacy.

In this book there is much instructive and readable biographical information on prominent Spartan lives, as well as explantions of culture and customs surrounding the "Laws of Lycurgus."

There are Spartan tales and aphorisms as well and the inclusion of the tragic stories of the later reformers are invaluable inclusions taken from the perspective of time. They are archetypal stories of heroic-tragic figures who strive greatly to resurrect a noble but dying people and their way of life. I enjoy to ponder parallels between late Spartan reformer-Kings and the Roman Emperor Julian Apostate.

Plutarch's book is required reading for students of Sparta. This edition is a good editing and compilation and the first version of Plutarch's writings on Sparta that I would recommend readers select.

One of the other reviewers is completely correct when he observes that Plutarch never wrote 'On Sparta' as a book - this edition includes four of Plutarch's lives of Spartan kings (taken form works comparing ancient Greek and - to Plutarch - relatively contemporary Roman statesmen) and a large collection of Spartan 'quotable quotes' in an attempt to describe Spartan history and culture. In general, it works reasonably well - the lives of Lycurgus, Agesilaus, Agis and Cleomenes are the usual lively biographies one expects from Plutarch, even if the lengthy gaps between the reigns of Lycurgus and Agesilaus and then Agesilaus and Agis mean that quite a bit of Spartan history is glossed over (including the Peloponnesian Wars). The collection of pithy Spartan sayings is a bit repetitive, but does give a flavor of how their fellow Greeks expected Spartans to act and view the world.

Not a concise, thorough history of Sparta by any stretch, but an enjoyably readable collection of biographies (and wry quotations) that do offer an insight into Spartan culture and mores - or at least how they were perceived in Plutarch's day.

This book is a collection of some lives and excerpts from lives (or biographies) by Plutarch about Spartan kings. It provides a great deal of food for thought and I would recommend it.

The book consists of roughly three parts: The first is a collection of biographies of Spartan kings (Lycurgas, etc). The Life of Lysander has been omitted because it is included in another Penguin edition. The second part consists of excerpts of Putarch's writings consisting of sayings which provide insight into Spartan life and culture. The third part is an appendix which includes some of Xenophon's notes about Sparta.

The book allows us to ask a number of questions which may provide fruitful, such as the specific relationship between Spartan culture and Plato's ideas in "Republic." In general a lot of things in Republic that seem particularly contrary to the Athenian state are found in Sparta in this book. Perhaps this is why Plutarch places Lycurgus above Plato, saying that the latter wrote books on political theory but the former had invented them and put them in practice. These include descriptions of everything from female public nudity being equivalent to male public nudity to the idea that children should all be wards of the state and not the wards of their fathers. A great number of small details seem to be taken directly from Spartan life in Plato's work and this suggests that Plato, like Xenophon, was fundamentally more sympathetic to Sparta than to Athens.

On the negative side, I agree that it would be good to have a more complete reference of Plutarch's references to Sparta in one volume.

On the whole, this is an interesting book. 4 stars