Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great stuff!, December 28, 2000
Plutarch is one of the more reliable and trustworthy historians that ancient Rome has to offer. After his death, the great emperor Hadrian bestowed upon him ingratiating respect and admiration. These are excerpts from his infamous "Lives." In this book we get a historical documentary on such personages as the Gracchus brothers, Coriolanus, Brutus, Cato the Elder, Sertorius and Mark Anthony. Of particular interest to the military historian are his accounts of Fabius Maximus and Marcellus (two of the Roman generals who squared off against Hannibal). I would recommend this book as a must-read for any and all people who take a curiosity in the Roman empire. Plutarch fills in a lot of the "gaps" of common knowledge re: what happened after Julius Caesar's assasination insofar as Brutus, Cassius, Octavion and Mark Anthony are concerned. The brief section on Sertorius intrigued me as he is a figure whom I was not familiar with at all. The bravery of the Gracchs brothers (which they probably inherited from their grandfather, Scipo Africanus) is extolled, as well it should be. And, to top it off, we even get to find out why Coriolanus was a Mama's boy. Plutarch's "Makers Of Rome" is a very informative book which covers a lot of ground in just a few pages.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nine Fascinating "Lives" By Plutarch, April 11, 2001
Plutarch is one of the most popular ancient historians. His straightforward style and flair for the dramatic make his biographies of ancient Greeks and Romans both informative and entertaining. In fact, a number of Shakespearean characters are based on Plutarch's writings. It was his fondness for dramatic appeal that prompted the "semi-fictional" rather than purely factual treatment of history for which he is known. His intent was not so much to record historical events as it was use character and dramatic examples of success and failure to illustrate moral lessons.Plutarch was not an eyewitness to the events he recorded. Although he was a prominent scholar and civil servant and traveled widely, he spent most of his life in Chaeronea in central Greece. Further, his subjects all lived 200 or more years before him. He had a wide variety of sources, but conflicting evidence and an occaissional paucity of detail gave him ample opportunities to dramatize or embellish his work. In his "Lives", Plutarch pursued two major themes. One was the tenacity of Rome in war. Despite military setbacks, Rome always stayed the course and prevailed in the end. Whether it was Hannibal, Pyrrhus, gallic tribes or whoever, Rome outlasted them. The second was Rome's political genius and ability to compromise. In contrast to the Greeks, who always fought among themselves and brought about their own downfall, Romans managed to put aside their differences and stand together when necessary. The "Lives" were originally written in pairs, matching a Greek and a Roman whose lives paralleled each other in Plutarch's estimation. For example, he paired the lives of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. To most modern readers, these pairings seem artificial. Instead, translator Scott-Kilvert has chosen to group together nine Roman biographies that collectively extend through the period from the beginnings of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire and illustrate Plutarch's two major themes. These "Lives" are fascinating reading. Find out how the strategy of Fabius Maximus enabled Rome to defeat Hannibal and why the Gracchi brothers were killed. This book is a must for anybody with an interest in Roman history. Beyond that, though, Plutarch's straightforward and dramatic style will appeal to many casual readers, as well. Give it a try. Highly recommended.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Timeless Classic By One Of The Best Biographers In History, August 9, 2005
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.
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