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Contents Include: General - Life of Sir Thomas North - The Translations of North and Amyot - North and Shakespeare - Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra - Shakespeare's Coriolanus - Plutarch and Non-Shakespearean Drama - List of Editions of North's Plutarch - Life of Coriolanus - Life of Julius Caesar - Life of Brutus - Life of Antonius ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Timeless Classic By One Of The Best Biographers In History
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.

The Tales of Antiquity
For generations, this was the primary textbook regarding the Greek and
Roman world.It formed the historical source for many of
Shakespeare's finest plays as well as setting the pattern for all of
the biographical arts.This book also provided the inspiration for
many of the ideas of American political personages as can be seen in
the speeches and quotations of Samuel Adams, Peyton Randolph, Patrick
Henry, Samuel Davies, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Henry Lee,
John Jay, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson.In fact, during the
Founding era of the United States, Plutarch's Lives of Noble Grecians
and Romans was the most frequently referenced work and was second only
to the Christian Bible.This alone makes this book one of the most
vital and essential of all the classics.

Plutarch's Lives of Noble
Grecians and Romans was written sometime during the tumultuous days of
the second century.It is organized as a series of parallel
biographies and alternates between famous Greeks and Romans.A
character from the Golden Age such as Pericles, Alcibiades, Lycurgus,
Alexander or Solon is compared with one from the Splendorous Age such
as Cicero, Brutus, Cato, Antony or Caesar.Plutarch's objective was
didactic; his Lives abound with honor, valor, temperance, duty and
wisdom, an ode to morality in an essentially pagan culture.

The
profiles presented, however, are notorious for their mix of fact and
fiction, history and myth, truth and downright gossip.Plutarch, a
lover of tradition, above all else, wanted to both memorialize past
glories and to reassert them as living ideals.What mattered to
Plutarch was the impact on the consciousness of culture through the
lessons presented, not whether they actually occurred.

Regarding his
profile of Croseus, Plutarch writes, "When a story is so
celebrated and is vouched for by so many authorities, I cannot agree
that it should be rejected because of the so-called rules of
chronology." In his biography of Theseus he wrote, "May I
therefore succeed in purifying fable, making her submit to reason and
take on the semblance of history.But where she obstinately disdains
to make herself credible and refuses to admit any element of
probability I shall pray for kindly readers and such as receive with
indulgence the tales of antiquity."

Plutarch is truly the
father of modern-day Political Science, and he forged the cardinal
model for Sociology, Psychology, History and the Social Sciences.
These disciplines owe more to Plutarch than to any other single
artisan, if not in actual substance, then in form.

It is too bad
this seminal work has passed out of fashion in traditional education.
Although anthologies and selected portions of this book do exist,
these anthologies only serve to corrupt the comparative structure of
the original work.

Hopefully, it will not be long until The Lives of
Noble Grecians and Romans makes it way back into the classroom of
every serious student in the Western world.

Raw Elizabethan transl'n of lives of the greatest ancients.

Plutarch's Lives of prominent Greeks and Romans remain a source of delight, scandal and Shakespeare's histories.Their importance is undoubted, but their charm is often unknown:the image of Alexander the Great's mother performing exotic dances with snakes lingers tauntingly.

Thomas North's translation is rough but vibrant.His prose is raw Elizabethan, easy and immediate on the ear.Shakespeare lifted whole passages for his histories, even plots.Anthony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Caesar - all echo North's words.

On a higher level, mark Plutarch's pairing of figures from the Greek and Roman worlds. ... Read more

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This new translation of Plutarch's miscellaneous works, the Moralia, illuminates his thinking on religious, ethical, social, and political issues.Two genres are represented: the dialogue, which Plutarch wrote in a tradition nearer to Cicero than to Plato, and the informal treatise or essay, in which his personality is most clearly displayed.His diffuse and individual style conveys a character of great charm and authority.This edition includes an introduction, notes, sources of quotations, and a glossary of proper names. ... Read more

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This brilliant translation by noted classical scholar Moses Hadas makes some of Plutarch's warm, humane essays on personal relationships readily available in English for the first time. Love--"Love makes a man acute, though he had been a dullard before--and courageous when he had been timorous, just as men make soft wood tough by passing it through fire." Family-- "Anyone may very easily calculate that new friends and boon companions may be acquired when the old, like worn-out tools and implements, are gone. But for a brother there can be no substitute, justa s there cannot be for a hand that has been amputated...." The Good Life-- "No costly mansions, no mass of gold, no pride of race, no grandeur of office, nor charm, or force of eloquence can bestow upon life so clear-skied a serenity as a soul purged of evil." ... Read more

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Publisher: Cambridge [Eng.] : The University PressPublication date: 1886Subjects: Sulla, Lucius CorneliusNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Volume: 1Publisher: Boston Little, BrownPublication date: 1874Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Accessible Collection of Classic Biographies of Timeless Greeks
Plutarch was the greatest of all Greek biographers; in fact, he could be considered the father of the biography, a genre that is more popular than ever. As an historian, Plutarch was very reliable, both by the standards of his time and those of today. Here, in a compact, easy to read translation, are the lives of ten prominent Greeks of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods: Theseus, Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Pericles, Alcibiades, Timoleon, Alexander, and Demosthenes. Those who want to read all of Plutarch's lives of prominent Greeks and Romans will need to turn to the huge volume published by Everyman's classics; for those who require a selection, this translation - along with those published by Penguin - are a good place to start.

The Lives of Ten Important Greeks Made Accessible
Plutarch was the greatest of all Greek biographers; in fact, he could be considered the father of the biography, a genre that is more popular than ever.As an historian, Plutarch was very reliable, both by the standards of his time and those of today.Here, in a compact, easy to read translation, are the lives of ten prominent Greeks of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods: Theseus, Lycurgus, Solon, Themistocles, Pericles, Alcibiades, Timoleon, Alexander, and Demosthenes.Those who want to read all of Plutarch's lives of prominent Greeks and Romans will need to turn to the huge volume published by Everyman's classics; for those who require a selection, this translation - along with those published by Penguin - are a good place to start. ... Read more

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Selected writings by Plutarch. Recommended in Laura Berquist Syllabus Grade 7 Laura Berquist Ancient History, Geography and LiteratureAuthor: John S. White, editorPages: 468, PaperbackPublisher: Biblo and TannenISBN: 0-8196-0174-8 ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Of limited use.Based on the Penguin translation/travesty
For some reason, the Penguin Classics series has divided up Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans into thematic parts. The Makers of Rome, On Sparta, etc. Pfui. In so doing they destroy the main purpose that Plutarch had in the organization of his great work. Throughout each pairing there may be frequent comparisons between the situations of the two men and for many of the pairs there is a summation comparison that allows Plutarch to comment both overtly or more subtly on the moral qualities of his protagonists. The Penguin edition throws all of that away in order to present Plutarch as some sort of narrative historian which is not his strongest suit.
All this rant is relevant to Edwards' companion volume to the biographies of Pompey, Cicero and Caesar in that it is a companion to the Penguin edition. Reading Edwards it is hard to know that Pompey was compared to Agesilaus, that Caesar was linked to Alexander or that Cicero was paired with Demosthenes. Edwards tell us nothing of the formal comparisons that survived in the cases of Pompey/Agesilaus and Cicero/Demosthenes.
On the positive side, what we do have are some very nice maps. I cannot emphasize enough how useful this is when reading, e.g., Plutarch's Life of Pompey. Pompey conquered everybody everywhere or, at least, gave them all a really hard time. Unless you know where Cicilia, Colchis, Utica, Numantia and Petra are off the top of your (geographically superior to my)head than you will want maps.
Edwards' commentary is more in the way of a restatement along with indications of where to look in contemporary sources for a more complete discussion of whatever is being discussed. He is also pretty good about pointing out some of the ways that Plutarch uses rhetoric to make his moral points.Someone who is reading Plutarch for the first time will find it useful.
So there you go. For an understanding of Plutarch and his larger purposes in writing these lives, Edwards does not contribute much. And again that can be attributed to Edwards hiring on to specifically provide a commentary for the Penguin edition. If you are reading Plutarch as a literary intro to Roman history that will be superseded by more accurate contemporary histories once you get your feet wet then Edwards is a useful resource.
Speaking for myself, I will buy no more of these companions. There are plenty of book length studies that will serve my purpose of deepening my understanding of what Plutarch is about. And, of course, there is the great pleasure of reading Plutarch in an edition (e.g., the Modern Library 2 vol. edition) that presents him as close to how he wanted to be presented as we can do. ... Read more

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But now I would fain know upon what account you can imagine that wine is cold. Then, said I, do you believe this to be my opinion? Yes, said he, whose else? And I replied: I remember a good while ago I met with a discourse of Aristotle's upon this very question. And Epicurus, in his Banquet, hath a long discourse, the sum of which is that wine of itself is not hot, but that it contains some atoms that cause heat, and others that cause cold. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more