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The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives

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While categorized as more of a biographer than a historian, Plutarch is nevertheless one of the most often-cited scholars of antiquity. In Plutarch we gaze at history through the lens of the great avatars of history. This is actually preferable in many ways to Plutarch's original organization. As Plutarch's method was to teach on ethics via the lives of great men, he would write parallel lives of famous Greeks & Romans. Many times the similarities would be stretched and occasionally merely artifical.

Penguin Classics has broken up Plutarch's LIVES into several different books, each focused on a particular historical genre. The current one places its emphasis on Athens. The book covers 7 Athenians (Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades), 1 mythological figure (Theseus) and 1 Spartan (Lysander).

The inclusion of Lysander is due to the fact that Lysander was the primary instrument by which the Spartans conquered the Athenians in 404BCE. Athens would never again be a major player on the world stage, so the section on Lysander's life is one of transitions.

All of the essays in this book are the standard by which contemporary historians write on the world of ancient Greece. That makes this book a must for persons who are even remotely interested in classical history. Even if you were to only read one book on the Greeks, this one might be the one to grab. The book is THAT influential.

I like Plutarch because the guy really knows how to call a spade a spade. He had the guts to admit when the record was less than straight, provided alternative views, sources and dialogues, and let the reader decide when the facts and interpretations got fuzzy. He was no ideologue. In that sense a lot of writers in our present century could learn from him.

There are many versions of Plutarch's "Lives" and the traditional versions (maybe the original?) render one Roman life in comparison with one Greek life evincing similar traits or historical characteristics. In this Penguin Series the tendency has been to divide the Greek and Roman lives into seperate works.

I loved his Roman lives unequivocally and I love this one as well, but Plutarch makes a better writer the more he moves from myth to factual lives. In this sense his early lives like Thesseus and Solon are less interesting than those of Nicias, Alcabiades, Lysander and Themistocoles. Plutarch is best when he is working with solid sources, not mythology.

But, to his credit, his early mythical lives reflects a very sceptical note, one as befits the subject matter. Later when he is citing Xenophon, and Plato, his lives are exciting in the extreme (I shall always remember the utter destruction of Nicias and his expeditionary force to Syracuse, by Gyllipus and his Syracusian allies). The corruption of Lysander by money, and the general message perhaps in this tome -- the danger of overextended wars in far flung lands not supported or understood by the people.

All in all this book puts the "C" in Classic.

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.

Penguin Classics have gone up in price I see with this new copy -- ah, well, such is publishing it seems. Plutarch was writing in the Roman world so his view of the lives of nine important Athenians is a bit different than their comtempories. The lives examined inclue Theseus (perhaps more legend than history), Solon (also a tad more legend than history), Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lysander. There are two descent maps -- one of the Aegean and one of mainland Greece. The book could really use an index and better footnotes or commentary frankly to be of great use to anyone not just reading it for a introductory level course dealing with Athens or the Archaic and Classical Greek world.

Through 9 Greek Lives (Theseus, the democracy builder; Aristides, the `Spartan' Athenian; Themistocles, the arrogant but victorious supreme commander; Solon, the legislator; Cimon, the alcoholic but conquering oligarch; Pericles, the noble and unselfish democrat; the richissime Niceas, exploiter of silver mines; Alcibiades, the debauched double-dealing chameleon; and Lysander, the killer of Athens and its democrats), Plutarch sketches eminently the main political and social issues of ancient Greece and of Athens in particular.
In Athens, the vicious battle between the few and the many, the haves and have-nots, equality and liberty was fought through two political parties: the aristocrats (oligarchs) supported by Sparta, Socrates, Plato and the priests (`the power of the ruler as the image of the god') on the one hand, and on the other hand, the democrats.
The Greek cities were evidently united against their common enemy, Persia, whose policies aimed at defeating the Greek outright or at inciting them to destroy one another. But the cities fought one another even in foreign countries (e.g. for the gold mines in Thrace). It all ended with Niceas's disastrous expedition in Sicily and Lysander's bloody victory over Athens.

Plutarch's book is still very actual indeed. He shows us Pericles as the first Keynesian, organizing huge public works and `transforming the whole people into wage-earners', or the anti-scientific stance of religion (`natural philosophers belittled the power of the gods by explaining it away as nothing more than the operation of irrational causes').
Plutarch is an excellent psychologist: `people as so often happens at moments of crisis, were ready to find salvation in the miraculous rather than in a rational course of action'.
Market manipulation with foreknowledge is of all times: `Solon confided to his most intimate friends that he did not intend to touch land, but had decided to abolish debts. They promptly took advantage by borrowing large sums ...'
But Plutarch times were still extremely barbarous: a decree ... that all prisoners of war should have their right thumb cut off to prevent holding a spear, although they could still handle an oar.'

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

I was reading a 19th cent' historical novel about General Custer during his Civil War period where reference was made as to whether a person was "well read" or not. Plutarch, among many other authors, was mandatory reading by anyone of the cultured set. I recalled that I had never been exposed to Plutarch and decided to correct that by reading 2 or 3 of his works. I find them fascinating by their relation to our current cultural situation. Read some and keep in mind the level of government elitism that is being pushed down our throats - that coming out of DC in 2011. This is NOT a political statement from me but an observation made by a very intelligent man who lived in Athens; at the time. Nothing has changed from then and now. Politicians weigh their decisions by "How will this profit me" rather than how it will benefit the City State/country. You will recall that Athens fell apart from internal rot before it was destroyed from without.

To read Plutarch would be wasted on the young as they would not/do not have the life experience to relate to his writings and observations.

Plutarch along with Plato's Republic should be required reading in Our high schools.
Dana Van Valin 7/2011

I just got back from the Greek Isles last year. This book is better than those I bought and looked at there.

I'm reading this translation for a class on 5th century BC Greece. I find Plutarch a fun writer with his emphasis on the moral behavior of his subjects, even when some of them (such as Themistocles) are not moral at all. This is also a very good translation, as Penguin is known for.