Plutarch: Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans (Modern Library Series, Vol. 1) (Hardcover)

by Plutarch (Author), Arthur Hugh Clough (Editor), John Dryden (Translator) "When AEthra was delivered of a son, some say that he was immediately named Thesus, from the tokens which his father had put under the..." (more)
Key Phrases: ten furlongs, chosen consul, hundred galleys, Fabius Maximus, Scipio Africanus, Caius Marius (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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"A Bible for heroes."


From the Trade Paperback edition. -- Review

Review
"A Bible for heroes."


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (September 5, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679600086
• ISBN-13: 978-0679600084
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #218,816 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for Western culture, March 13, 2001

By	Don Steiny (Santa Cruz, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

These writings are 100% essential to have as a basis for understanding Western civilization. The description of Sparta here is the benchmark. Understanding the modern issues of culture and development can be made much richer by reading the laws of Solon (who laid down the groundwork for Democracy) and Lycurgus (Sparta - the ultimate egalitarian state) you can see the seeds of a dichotomy that has lived to this day.

This two volume set contains the lives of many of the people that you hear about again and again. If you plan to study the classics and read Plato, the Histories or other of the great books, these books are a perfect companion. Instead of reading them straight through, you can read about people as you come across them.

With much soul searching I gave the books 4 stars instead of 5. The reason for this is that the translations are challenging. They are not terrible and they are better than other tranlations I have seen, but they have endless sentences and word choices that are not common in modern American English. If you are into personal growth, this may not be a bad thing, because you can look up the words and expand your vocabulary, but it does make it somewhat more slow going than it could be.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Plutarch enlightens as well as informs., June 25, 2000

By	Lance Kirby (Portsmouth, OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As well as being a great historian Plutarch was a philosopher who used the examples of good and infamous men alike to reinforce his conception of morality and what the best in a man can truly be. Unlike other classical historians, he doesn't just except stories about individuals at face value but always mentions conflicting facts in the historical record. He often digresses in mid narrative, but never to the reader's frustration, as it is always with an eye to the social practice's and political enviroment of the people of whom he writes, analyzing deeply with an anecdote here or an quotation there the merits and demerits of that society, and leaving us with a clearer picture of the classical mind-set as well as we might know it. As for the translation of Dryden which my fellow reviewer below much bemoans, I can only say that as a classic of English prose style it ranks only second to Gibbon and reminds us that Plutarch means not just to educate, but to delight and entertain as well; such an achievement is not easily matched without the advantage of genius.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dryden's Plutarch, April 21, 1999

By A Customer

In response to the review below:

"Simple pleasure" is worth something; Dryden's Plutarch, promoted in "yet another" publication, is worth even more.

? This translation by this talented poet is rendered "useless" by the absence of "reference numbers"? Plutarch is not about "indexing", but about morality, courage, and fate. This is an excellent book, by an excellent translator, and it is good to know that so many publishers are interested in keeping it alive.