Rome in crisis : nine lives : Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Sertorius, Lucullus, Younger Cato, Brutus, Antony, Galba, Otho

952 Pages·2010·6.09 MB·English

by  Pelling

PENGUIN CLASSICS
ROME IN CRISIS
PLUTARCH (c. 50–c. 120 CE) was a writer and thinker born into a wealthy,
established family of Chaeronea in central Greece. He received the best
possible education in rhetoric and philosophy, and travelled to Asia
Minor and Egypt. Later, a series of visits to Rome and Italy contributed
to his fame, and it was said that he had received official recognition by
the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Plutarch rendered conscientious
service to his province and city (where he continued to live), as well as
holding a priesthood at nearby Delphi. His voluminous surviving
writings are broadly divided into the ‘moral’ works and the Lives of
outstanding Greek and Roman leaders. The former (Moralia) are a
mixture of rhetorical and antiquarian pieces, together with technical and
moral philosophy (sometimes in dialogue form). The Lives have been
influential from the Renaissance onwards.
IAN SCOTT-KILVERT was Director of English Literature at the British Council
and Editor of Writers and Their Works. For Penguin Classics, he translated
Plutarch’s The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, Makers of Rome
and The Age of Alexander, and Cassius Dio’s The Roman History. He died
in 1989.
CHRISTOPHER PELLING is Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University. He
has published a commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Antony (Cambridge
University Press, 1988) and a commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Caesar
will be published shortly in the Clarendon Ancient History series. His
other books include Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (Routledge,
2000). Most of his articles on Plutarch were collected in his Plutarch and
History (Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2002).
Rome in Crisis
Nine Lives by Plutarch
Tiberius Gracchus • Gaius Gracchus
Sertorius • Lucullus
Younger Cato • Brutus • Antony
Galba • Otho
Translated by IAN SCOTT-KILVERT
and CHRISTOPHER PELLING
Introduction and Notes by
CHRISTOPHER PELLING
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This collection first published in Penguin Classics 2010
Translations of Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Sertorius, Brutus and Antony copyright © Ian
Scott-Kilvert, 1965
Revisions to these translations, translation of Lucullus, Younger Cato, Galba and Otho, and
editorial material copyright © Christopher Pelling, 2010
All rights reserved
The moral right of the translators and editor has been asserted Except in the United States of
America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser ISBN: 978-0-14-195973-3
Contents
Penguin Plutarch
Preface to the Revised Edition
Abbreviations
General Introduction
Further Reading
ROME IN CRISIS
THE GRACCHI
Introduction to the Gracchi
Tiberius Gracchus
Gaius Gracchus
Comparison of Agis, Cleomenes and the Gracchi
SERTORIUS
Introduction to Sertorius
Sertorius
Comparison of Sertorius and Eumenes
LUCULLUS
Introduction to Lucullus
Lucullus
Comparison of Cimon and Lucullus
YOUNGER CATO
Introduction to Younger Cato
Younger Cato
BRUTUS
Introduction to Brutus
Brutus
Comparison of Dion and Brutus
ANTONY
Introduction to Antony
Antony
Comparison of Demetrius and Antony
GALBA AND OTHO
Introduction to Galba and Otho
Galba
Otho
Maps
1. Eastern Empire
2. Italy and Sicily
3. Greece
4. Western Empire
5. Rome
6. Forum
7. Africa
Notes
Penguin Plutarch
The first Penguin translation of Plutarch appeared in 1958, with Rex
Warner’s version of six Roman Lives appearing as Fall of the Roman
Republic. Other volumes followed steadily, three of them by Ian Scott-
Kilvert (The Rise and Fall of Athens in 1960, Makers of Rome in 1965 and
The Age of Alexander in 1973), and then Richard Talbert’s Plutarch on
Sparta in 1988. Several of the moral essays were also translated by Robin
Waterfield in 1992. Now only fourteen of the forty-eight Lives remain.
These remaining Lives will now be included in the new edition, along
with revised versions of those already published. The present volume
includes four of those fourteen previously unpublished Lives.
This is also an opportunity to divide up the Lives in a different way,
although it is not straightforward to decide what that different way
should be. Nearly all Plutarch’s surviving biographies were written in
pairs as Parallel Lives: thus a ‘book’ for Plutarch was not just Theseus or
Caesar but Theseus and Romulus or Alexander and Caesar. Most, but not
all, of those pairs have a brief epilogue at the end of the second Life
comparing the two heroes, just as many have a prologue before the first
Life giving some initial grounds for the comparison. Not much attention
was paid to this comparative technique at the time when the Penguin
series started to appear, and it seemed natural then to separate each Life
from its pair and organize the volumes by period and city. The
comparative epilogues were not included in the translations at all.
That now looks very unsatisfactory. The comparative technique has
come to be seen as basic to Plutarch’s strategy, underlying not only those
brief epilogues but also the entire pairings. (It is true, though, that in the
last few years scholars have become increasingly alert to the way that all
the Lives, not just the pairs, are crafted to complement one another.) It is
very tempting to keep the pairings in this new series in a way that would
respect Plutarch’s own authorial intentions.
After some agonizing, we have decided nevertheless to keep to
something like the original strategy of the series, though with some
refinement. The reason is a practical one. Many, perhaps most, readers
of Plutarch will be reading him to see what he has to say about a
particular period, and will wish to compare his treatment of the major
players to see how the different parts of his historical jigsaw fit together.
If one kept the pairings, that would inevitably mean buying several
different volumes of the series; and if, say, one organized those volumes
by the Greek partner (so that, for instance, Pericles–Fabius, Nicias–Crassus
and Coriolanus–Alcibiades made one volume), anyone primarily
interested in the Roman Lives of the late Republic would probably need
to buy the whole set. That is no way to guarantee these finely crafted
works of art the wide reading that they deserve. Keeping the
organization by period also allows some other works of Plutarch to be
included along with the Lives themselves, for instance the fascinating
essay On the Malice of Herodotus with the Lives of Themistocles and
Aristides and (as before) several Spartan essays with the Spartan Lives.
Of course the comparative epilogues must now be included, and they