The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works, Volume I: Plutarch’s Statesman and his Aftermath: Political, Philosophical, and Literary Aspects

366 Pages·2004·5.44 MB·English

by  Blois

THE STATESMAN IN PLUTARCH’S WORKS
VOLUME I
MNEMOSYNE
BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA BATAVA
COLLEGERUNT
H. PINKSTER •H.S. VERSNEL
D.M. SCHENKEVELD •P.H. SCHRIJVERS
S.R. SLINGS†
BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAVIT
H. PINKSTER, KLASSIEK SEMINARIUM, OUDE TURFMARKT 129, AMSTERDAM
SUPPLEMENTUM DUCENTESIMUM QUINQUAGESIMUM/I
LUKAS DE BLOIS, JEROEN BONS, TON KESSELS
and DIRK M. SCHENKEVELD (EDS.)
THE STATESMAN IN PLUTARCH’S WORKS
VOLUME I
THE STATESMAN
IN PLUTARCH’S WORKS
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SIXTH
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE
INTERNATIONAL PLUTARCH SOCIETY
Nijmegen/Castle Hernen, May 1-5, 2002
VOLUME I: PLUTARCH’S STATESMAN AND HIS
AFTERMATH: POLITICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND
LITERARY ASPECTS
EDITED BY
LUKAS DE BLOIS, JEROEN BONS
TON KESSELS & DIRK M. SCHENKEVELD
WITH THE AID OFJAN MAARTEN BREMER, CAROLYN DOYLE,
EDWIN VAN MEERKERK, AURELIO PÉREZ JIMÉNEZ, LUC VAN DER STOCKT
AND FRANCES TITCHENER
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2004
The conference was funded by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research
(N.W.O.), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (K.N.A.W.), the Cornelia de
Vogel Foundation, the University of Nijmegen, the Free University at Amsterdam, and the
A.A. Bredius Foundation.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The statesman in Plutarch’s works / edited by Lukas de Blois … [et al.].
p. cm. — (Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava, Supplementum ; 250)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Contents: v. 1. Plutarch’s statesman and his aftermath : political, philosophical, and
literary aspects — v. 2. The statesman in Plutarch’s Greek & Roman lives.
ISBN 90-04-13795-5 (v. 1) — ISBN 90-04-13808-0 (v. 2) — ISBN 90-04-13873-0 (set)
1. Plutarch. Lives. 2. Statesmen—Greece—Biography—History and criticism. 3.
Statesmen—Rome—Biography—History and criticism. 4. Greece—Biography—
History and criticism. 5. Rome—Biography—History and criticism. 6. Biography as a
literary form. I. Blois, Lukas de. II. Series.
PA4385.S69 2004
920.038—dc22
2004045598
ISSN 0169-8958
ISBN 90 04 13795 5 (Vol. I)
ISBN 90 04 13873 0 (Set)
© Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
CONTENTS
Preface ................................................................. vii
Introduction............................................................ 1
AbstractsandBiographies............................................. 5
partone
plutarch,hislifeandhispoliticalactivities
PhilipA. Stadter,Plutarch: DiplomatforDelphi? ................. 19
Maríade losÁngelesDuránLópez, Plutarco,ciudadanogriego
ysúbditoromano ................................................... 33
JeremyMcInerney,“Do youseewhatIsee?”: Plutarchand
Pausanias atDelphi................................................. 43
Lukasde Blois, Classical andContemporaryStatesmen In
Plutarch’sPraecepta .................................................. 57
parttwo
plutarch’spresentationofstatesmen
HeinzGerdIngenkamp,HowtoPresent aStatesman?............. 67
Christopher Pelling,Do Plutarch’sPoliticiansNever Learn?..... 87
MarkBeck,Plutarchonthe Statesman’s IndependenceofAction 105
EwenBowie,Poetry andMusicintheLifeofPlutarch’s
Statesman ...........................................................115
partthree
thestatesman inplutarch’sworks:
political,philosophical, andliteraryaspects
AurelioPérezJiménez,Loshéroes dePlutarco ysu elección
entrela justiciay lautilidad........................................127
Lucvander Stockt,“WithfollowethJustice always”(Plato,Laws
716a).Putarchonthe“Divinity”ofRulersand Laws.............137
JacksonP. Hershbell,Plutarch’sPoliticalPhilosophy: Peripatetic
andPlatonic.........................................................151
InésCaleroSecall,Presencia delasideaspolíticasde
AristótelesenPlutarco..............................................163
vi contents
AbrahamP. Bos, The Dreaming Kronos asWorld Archonin
Plutarch’sDefaciein orbelunae.......................................175
MichaelTrapp,Statesmanship ina MinorKey? ...................189
BradL. Cook,Plutarch’s“Many Other” ImitableEvents: Mor.
814Band theStatesman’sDuty ....................................201
JacquesBoulogne,L’imaginairepolitiquedePlutarque............211
Thomas S. Schmidt, BarbariansinPlutarch’sPoliticalThought ...227
JeroenA.E.Bons, Plutarch asSource forEarly Greek Rhetoric.
TheCaseofGorgiasFrg. 23DK...................................237
partfour
plutarch’sstatesman: his influenceandaftermath
VincentHunink,Plutarchand Apuleius.............................251
WytseKeulen,Lucius’Kinship Diplomacy:Plutarchan
ReflectionsinanApuleianCharacter .............................261
YitzhakDana,The First Printing ofthe Lives in1517. APossible
Link withtheDistant Past..........................................275
Joseph Geiger,Death ofaStatesman: Poussin’s Phocion...........287
Pau GilabertBarberà,JohnAddingtonSymonds. AProblemin
GreekEthics.Plutarch’sEroticus quotedonly insomeFootnotes?
Why? ................................................................297
SusanneGippert,ThePoetand theStatesman: Plutarchan
BiographyinEighteenthCentury England .......................307
GuillaumevanGemert,PlutarchindendeutschenLandenin
derFrühenNeuzeit.................................................315
Bibliography ...........................................................325
General Index .........................................................347
PREFACE
This volumepresents the first half of the Acta of thesixth international
conference of the International Plutarch Society, which was held from
May 1 to 5, 2002 in The Netherlands, at the University of Nijmegen
(May 1) and Castle Hernen1 (May 2–5). The theme of the conference
was “The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works”. The proceedings of the
conference are published in two volumes, one on Plutarch’s statesman
and his aftermath (political, philosophical, and literary aspects), and
another oneonthe author’sGreek and RomanLives.
The conference was funded by the Netherlands Organisation of Sci-
entific Research (N.W.O.), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (K.N.A.W.), the Cornelia de Vogel Foundation, the University
of Nijmegen, the Free University of Amsterdam and the A.A. Bredius
Foundation,whichhosted theconference atCastleHernen (May2–5).
Lukas de Blois (Nijmegen), Jeroen Bons (Utrecht), and Gert-Jan van
Dijk (Amsterdam/ Nijmegen) acted as organisers for the conference,
with the aid of Victoria van Aalst (A.A. Bredius Foundation) and Jac-
queline Berns (Congress Bureau of the University of Nijmegen). They
wish to thank Mary Bluyssen (of the same congress bureau), Werner
Gelderblom, Martijn van Helvert, Paul Peters, and Fedor van Rijn for
theirassistance.
Lukas de Blois, Heinz Gerd Ingenkamp (Bonn), Aurelio Pérez Jimé-
nez (Málaga), Sven-Tage Teodorsson (Göteborg), Joseph Geiger (Jeru-
salem), Christopher Pelling (Oxford), Frances Titchener (Logan, Utah),
Luc vanderStockt(Leuven),Frederick Brenk (Rome),AndréLardinois
(Nijmegen), Alexej Zadorojnyi and Jeroen Bons chaired the various
sessions oftheconference.
Lukas de Blois, Jeroen Bons, Ton Kessels, and Dirk M. Schenkeveld
(Amsterdam, Free University) act as editors of the proceedings, with
the aid of Jan Maarten Bremer (University of Amsterdam), Michiel
KleinSwormink(BrillAcademicPublishers),EdwinvanMeerkerk(Nij-
megen), Aurelio Pérez Jiménez, and LucvanderStockt.
1 Castle Hernen is situated just a few kilometers West from Nijmegen and is the
seatoftheA.A.BrediusFoundationforthepromotionofByzantinestudies.
viii preface
Carolyn Doyle and Frances Titchener (Logan, Utah, USA) kindly
corrected theEnglish ofsomeofthe contributions.
Theeditors
INTRODUCTION
InPlutarch’sviewpoliticsisanessentialhumanactivity.InAnseni 791C
he says:
….for engaging in public affairs is not a special service which is ended
whentheneedends,butitisawayoflifeofatamedsocialanimalliving
inanorganizedsociety,intendedbynaturetolivethroughoutitsallotted
time the life of a citizen and in a manner devoted to honour and the
welfareofmankind.
In Plutarch’s opinion, politics forms part of ethics, and political aretè,
based on correct philosophical insights, occupies a central place in
publiclife.Inthesametreaty he observes:
But above all things we must remind them that statesmanship consists,
not only in holding office, being ambassador, vociferating in the assem-
bly, andranting aroundthespeakers’ platform proposinglawsandmak-
ing motions. Most people think all this is part of statesmanship, just as
they think of course that those are philosophers who sit in a chair and
converse and prepare their lectures overtheir books;but the continuous
practice of statesmanship and philosophy, which is every day alike seen
in arts and deeds, they fail to perceive … Now being a statesman is like
beingaphilosopher(Anseni 796CD).
According to Plutarch, philosophy, as a law implanted in the ruler,
neutralizes the moral risks involved in the exercise of power (Ad princ.
779F; 780C; Max. c. princ. 779B). Plutarch was not a historian, although
he borrowed a great deal from the works of earlier historians. He
arrivedatthegenreofbiographyfromaphilosophicalbackgroundwith
the intention to give examples of the deeds of important men in public
and private life. He wished to reform himself and others and provide
a better founded public behaviour (Timol. – Aem. praef. 1ff.) by showing
himself andothersthe bios andethos ofgreatmen.1
So it is not outlandish to dedicate two volumes of over 300 pages
each to Plutarch’s views and descriptions of statesmanship, politics,
politicalphilosophy, the careers of importantpoliticians, and their phil-
osophical and ethicalbackgrounds. Those aremaintopicsinPlutarch’s
works, which constitute a literary heritage that exerted a profound
1 See De Blois (1992) 4568f., and 4572. Translations of Plutarchan passages into
EnglishareborrowedfromtheLoebedition.
2 introduction
influence, not only in his own times, but probably even more in later
agesofwestern culture.
Plutarchwas also acreative writer, who stoodinan age-oldtradition
of literary craftsmanship, and tried to influence his audiences by all
kinds of literary devices, the study of which is indispensable in any
enquiry intothePlutarchancorpus.
It is this width of the subject that makes it impossible for one per-
son to incorporate all aspects of Plutarch’s writings on the statesman
and statesmanship in one individual masterpiece. These proceedings,
therefore, bring togetherscholars specialising in different subjects, each
approaching the main theme of the conference—the statesman in Plu-
tarch’sworks—fromdifferentprofessionalbackgroundsandvarioussci-
entific pointsofview.
ThefirsttwosectionsofvolumeIcontaincontributionsonPlutarch’s
own political activities, his views of contemporary Greek politics, and
his presentation of statesmen. In section I, 1 Philip Stadter and Jeremy
McInerney study the close relations that Plutarch had with Delphi,
whereas María de los Ángeles Durán López and Lukas de Blois con-
centrateonPlutarch’sviewsofthepositionand latitudeofGreek politi-
cians within the Roman Empire of his own times. In section I, 2
Heinz Gerd Ingenkamp and Christopher Pelling focus on the way in
which Plutarch presents statesmen, Mark Beck treats Plutarch’s obser-
vations on the stateman’s independence of action, and Ewen Bowie
pays attention to poetry and music in the lives of Plutarch’s politicians.
Section 3 of volume I contains a series of ten contributions on polit-
ical, philosophical, ethical and literary aspects of Plutarch’s represen-
tation of the statesman and statesmanship, by Aurelio Pérez Jiménez,
Luc van der Stockt, Jack Hershbell, Ines Calero Secall, Abraham Bos,
Michael Trapp, Jacques Boulogne, Thomas Schmidt, and Jeroen Bons.
In this section attention is also paid to the orientation and sources of
Plutarch’s political philosophy. He may be regarded as an adherent of
the Academy and—to a lesser extent—the Lyceum, but he was also an
eclectic,whoborrowedfromvariousotherschoolsofthinkingandfrom
thecommonerudition,whichresultedfromGreek rhetoricaleducation
of hisowntimes.
The last section of this first volume concentrates on Plutarch’s influ-
ence on the Latin West and on his “Nachleben” in later western cul-
ture. Contributions by Vincent Hunink and Wytse Keulen treat (non)-
existing relations between Plutarch and Apuleius, Yitzhak Dana pro-
poses a new theory about connections between manuscripts and early