Eight great lives. The Dryden translation PDF
Preview Eight great lives. The Dryden translation
', ST.tOOlS, MO. *3 920 68-70367 Plutarch great lives -,.{'"!'-<';- f.rC;A.1,**k*i" r.rL*ama Ji--H,/u-fma^1I 1M AP'R15"137? MAi IffifS 1977 MAI AUG 1--0-WW """" MAY 27',1977 lIAl'SEP" -9 1979 . APR 3 1332 DEC 18 "t' AOV 4 J398 PLUTARCH *m.-~*-~**. X xxSt WvW\ vx\ vvx EIGHT GREAT LIVES EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY KEVIN GOINAGH VERGIL THE AENEID EDITED BY PHILIP HARSH AN ANTHOLOGY OF ROMAN DRAMA The Twin Menaechmi, The Rope, Phormio, The Brothers, Medea, Phaedra, Thyestes EDITED BY C. A. ROBINSON, JR. AN ANTHOLOGY OF GREEK DRAMA: FIRST SERIES Agamemnon, Oedipus the King, Antigone, Medea, Hippolytus, Lysistrata AN ANTHOLOGY OF GREEK DRAMA: SECOND SERIES Prometheus Bound, Choephoroe, Eumenides, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colomis, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, The Clouds, The Frogs PLUTARCH EIGHT GREAT LIVES Pericles, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Comparison of Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, Alexander, Caesar, Antony SELECTIONS FROM GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORIANS Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Livy, Sallust, Suetonius, Tacitus PLUTARCH EIGHT GREAT LIVES The Dryden Translation Revised by Arthur Hugh Clough EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Charles Alexander Robinson, Jr. NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO TORONTO LONDON FOR SARAH AND ELIZABETH Third Printing, November, 1962 Introduction copyright 1960 by CharlesAlexanderRobinson, Jr. TypographybyStefanSalter Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica LibraryofCongressCatalogCardNumber: 60-6497 27516-0410 CONTENTS Introduction vi Map of the Roman Empire, A.D. 14 (DrawnbyE. Raisz) xiv-xv Bibliographical Note xvi Acknowledgments xvii Ancient Monetary Units and Modern Equivalents xviii Lines of Antony and Octavian xviii Pericles 1 Alcibiades 40 Gaius Marcius Coriolanus 78 Comparison of Alcibiades and Coriolanus 113 Demosthenes 117 Cicero 142 Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero 180 Alexander 184 Caesar - - - . W^u7j?lil%d; ^,/'*^iJ^^Js*J - , ' 7 252 Antony 304 6870367 f^^^J^^^/^^^^.^^/^^i-i,^^^^^\^^^^^^>^fV^V.\/'^\fX^f^o-Vf^V/mVfV^^V'sVsr/V^^VfV'o INTRODUCTION "The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest signs of virtue and vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the great- est armaments, or the bloodiest battles." Here, at the opening of his Life of Alexander, Plutarch partially stated his method in writing biography. Duane Reed Stuart, in his Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography, has remarked that this passage served as a model for Boswell, who hoped to make it pos- sible for us "to see Johnson and to live over each scene with the great man." Boswell's debt is hardly surprising, since Plutarch has had a pervasive influence on subsequent biographical writing. It was his genius to develop biography as a specific genre, quite distinct fromhistorical and eulogistic essays. His intention as abiographeris more clearly seen, however, in another statement, also from the opening of the Alexander, where he says: "It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write Histories, but Lives." Plutarch was a moralist. The great men and deeds of the past intensely interested him, to be sure, but they must be made to serve a purpose. What could be better for a person than to read about the life of a good man, especially if he had solid qualities and had been a famous general, statesman, or legislator? Homely details and stories would help emphasize the essential meaning of the particular individual, as our opening quotation shows, but it was of first importance to portray a man's character by his deeds and notthrough the circumstances and forces economic, political, mili- tarywhich had brought him to the forefront of his generation. vi
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