Product Description
The collection so well know as Plutarch's Lives. Contents: Theseus, Romulus, The Comparison of Romulus with Theseus, Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Pericles, etc. accounts of one grek and one roman, followed by a comparison, ... Read more

Book Description

Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. 45-120 CE, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.

Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the 46 Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about 60 in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics and religion.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.

Customer Reviews (2)

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.

Collection of Plutarch's Lives
This book is one of an 11 volume collection of PLutarch's Lives. In the Parallel Lives Plutarch writes about influential men of the ancient world and compares and contrasts them. Some include Theseus and Remulus, Periclesand Fabius Maximus, and Themistocles and Camillus. The books are veryintriguing and each pair of lives is about 110 pages, double that number ifthe original Greek writing is counted which appears on the the reverse sideof the pages. So if you want to learn Greek, this is one way to learn! ... Read more

Book Description

Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. 45-120 CE, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.

Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the 46 Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about 60 in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics and religion.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.

Product Description
Plutarch of Chaeronea is one of the great storytellers of antiquity, a writer whose ability to create unforgettable scenes matches the grandeur of his subject matter. The heroes of his Lives were the great men of antiquity, often greatly flawed, but with tragic depth and epic stature. Thomas North's translation, one of the most splendid works of sixteenth-century English prose, presents a vigorous and passionate version of the Lives whose qualities so attracted Shakespeare that he used North as his major source for Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Antony & Cleopatra. This collection includes all the Lives which Shakespeare used and a selection of others which aim to show the variety and range of Plutarch's writing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

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.
... Read more

Book Description
The complete multi-volume Lives, in a single file.The Clough translation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

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.
... Read more

Book Description
PLUTARCH - INTRODUCTION -- signated not inaptly by Fuller as the translator-general of his age, was born at Chelmsford in I 552, the year of Spensers birth, and twelve years before Shakespeare. He was educated at Chelmsford Grammar School, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a pupil of Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He not only took his degree of M. A., but, later in life, graduated M. D. As no record of this degree is to be found in the Oxford or Cambridge registers, it has been thought that it was conferred upon him either at a Scotch or Continental University. Soon after taking his M. D., Holland settled at Coventry, which was to be his home till he died in 1637 the year of Ben Jonsons death. His medical practice being small, he eked out his time and a somewhat precarious income by devoting himself to translations of the classics. The chief of these translations, published in vast folios that are nowadays somewhat scarce and difficult to procure, are Liwy, Ammianus Marcellinus, Plinys Natural History, Suetonzzcs, and the Morals of Plutarch. The most popular of these versions was, perhaps, the Pliny, issued in two folios in 1601. The Plutarch was published two years later twenty years after his death it was re-issued, in a revised and corrected form, we are told. Since then it has not been reprinted until now the present volume is a selection from the moral essays of the popular Greek writer, whose Parallel Lives, as Englished by North, have become an English classic. In the year 1608, Holland, already famous as a translator even in an age of famous translations, became usher of the free school at Coventry twenty years later he was appointed to the headmastership. He was an old man at the time of his appointment and the duties-at any time irksome to a scholar of his parts-must have proved too exhausting. Whatever be the cause, he resigned the post at the end of ten months. The remainder of his life was clouded by pecuniary anxieties. The res angusta domi was, unhappily, no trifling nor temporary discomfort, aggravated as it was by failing health. It is, however, to be remarked that in 1632 a small S vii Plutarchs Morals pension-a pittance, rather-was awarded him by the city he had served so well both in scholastic and civic capacities and not long afterwards, in consideration of his learning and worthy parts, he received some monetary assistance from Magdalene College, Cambridge. It was not creditable that his own college, the royal and religious foundation of Trinity, apparently made no provision for her distinguished alumnus, despite his evident claims on her liberality. Holland was, almost to the end, an indefatigable student. His contemporaries, prone to notice such trivialities, remarked inter alia that he never wore spectacles and it was commonly reported that he wrote one of his folios with a single quill pen. His eyesight must have been extraordinarily good. There is a beautiful specimen, still preserved at Coventry, of his Greek caligraphy and Baskerville-a fine judge in such mattersborrowed this when cutting the matrices for his famous fount of Greek type. Hollands renderings are, in their own way, unique. He had, says one writer, a most admirable knack in translating books . . . several of the most obscure being translated by him, one of which was Plutarchs Morals... ... Read more

Book Description
This excellent text features an extensive apparatus criticus and marginal notes that enhance the student's understanding of Plutarch's account of Pericles' life. The introduction concludes with a useful chronology of events in the time of Pericles and a valuable addendum dealing with textual matters. The book also includes a vocabulary and four indices. ... Read more

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In the Translation called Dryden's. Corrected and Revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. With Introductions, Notes and Illustrations. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume contains Plutarch's Lives in it's entirety. It is the classic translation by John Dryden at the end of the seventeenth century as revised by Arthur Hugh Clough in 1864. The preferred translation by most scholars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

For the ages' tooth . . .
Twain's pejorative definition of `classic' need not apply.I define classic as that (text) which speaks to the heart over an extended duration - perhaps for several generations, as in `classic rock', or several millennia, as in Plutarch's "Lives".I probably never would have read Plutarch, were it not for a glorious discovery of Montaigne in mid-life. Having acquired enough distaste for the copious demands required to master classical languages after five years of Latin in secondary school, I made an arbitrary and direly misguided vow to eschew all Classics courses at the university level.And thus again is revealed the fateful difference between post-modern (post-1945), and the modern (c. 1500 - August 5, 1945) pedagogy, of which I unwittingly, if serendipitously, caught the tail end.The modern cannon required thorough immersion in the classics, and, for many years, Plutarch was required reading in the best schools, and should be even now.The author of the Shakespearian plays came to Plutarch by way of Montaigne (and likely read the Amyot translation, and only later the North, if at all), and the English schools came to Plutarch by way of Shakespeare.We might say that the revival of Plutarch was one of the most far reaching achievements of the Northern Renaissance.
At one point in his celebrated chronicle of the self, Montaigne (as a shaper and bona fide member of that cannon, guardian of some of what is best in our cultural inheritance) amusedly reveals that, when his critics believe they are attacking his work, they are actually attacking Plutarch and/or Seneca, so profound is their presence in his writing, and, in his "Defense of Plutarch and Seneca", he declares that . . . "my book [is] built up purely from their spoils".

And what a book it is! But Plutarch's magnum (see the 14 volumes of the Loeb Classical Library for his other works), is the greater.Montaigne is one of the great students of the self.Plutarch is the first (and may yet still be the definitive) historian of virtue.Montaigne, in scrutiny of his own nature, seeks to recognize the limitations and potentials of the self, and thereby sketch our general spiritual contours.Plutarch, in an unparalleled series of real life, historically and culturally pivotal, examples, shows us what they are.

The book records in the most remarkably intimate style (Plutarch has few peers as a master of narrative and an uncanny ability to ferret out of detail the significance of individual actions as a unified whole), the major events in the lives of the most impacting figures of the ancient world.Therefore, like the best novels, the book forms a world in itself, a lost world, the world of our ancestors, through a landscape drawn of actions and consequences.The structure of the book is such that an account of the seminal moments in the life of a noble Greek and then of a noble Roman are brought forth in pairs, followed by a comparison.In some sections of the work these comparisons are absent.They appear at some point in antiquity to have either been lost to or removed from the text, which would seem to explain why, for instance, there is no comparison of Alexander and Caesar. But the comparisons are brilliant, and eminently instructive.

Of course, from the details alone, we may draw our own inferences.Alexander, as a mere teen, leading his troops in hand-to-hand combat, won his first battle fighting uphill at night.Caesar, a heavy drinker, was wont to ride horseback at full tilt with his hands clenched behind his back.He had a life-long passion for Cato's sister and it is said that from their relationship, which continued through their respective marriages, Brutus was born.Et tu?Of course, one cannot fail to mention, even in this briefest review of the abundantly rich description in the nearly 1,300 pages which comprise the book, the death of Cato the Younger - one of the most exquisitely drawn figures in the book.Hunted down with the remnants of his troops into the wastelands of Carthage by the army of Octavius Ceasar in an effort to snuff out the last vestiges of republican resistance andopposition to Empire, realizing that the last realistic hope for freedom is lost, Cato attempts ritual suicide (a Stoic custom common to Roman nobility) by disembowelment.As Plutarch describes the scene, ". . . he did not immediately die of the wound; but struggling, fell off the bed, and throwing down a little mathematical table that stood by, made such a noise that the servants, hearingit, cried out. And immediately his son and all his friends came into the chamber, where, seeing him lie weltering in his own blood, great part of his bowels out of his body, but himself still alive and able to look at them, they all stood in horror.The physician went to him, and would have put in his bowels, which were not pierced, and sewed up the wound; but Cato, recovering himself, and understanding the intention, thrust away the physician, plucked out his own bowels, and tearing open the wound, immediately expired."In Seneca's words: "For Cato could not outlive freedom, nor would freedom outlive Cato."

However, the life most appropriate for the contemporary reader, I feel (and wish that every member of the shadowy corporate/military junta that seems to be ruling us these days would read and take to heart) is the life of Crassus.Crassus was the most successful businessman in the history of the Roman Empire.Plutarch relates that at one time he owned virtually one-third of the real estate in Rome.However, such mind-boggling success was not enough for him.His yen, and later, obsession, was to be revered as a great military leader, a world conqueror, expand the domain of the already burgeoning Empire, and the object of his fantasies was the area of the world at that time known as Mesopotamia and Persia, today as Iraq and Iran.We follow as he makes extensive preparations, investing his own fortune and a great deal of the nation's wealth into outfitting an army for the venture.And at first, the invasion of Mesopotamia seems to go well.But the centers of population are spread out over great stretches of desert, and the occupation never really succeeds, because a central authority cannot be solidly established.Crassus, however, remains undaunted, even though the troops are becoming mutinous as supplies begin to run thin.Led on by treacherous advisors, he enters Parthia (somewhere in the vicinity of modern day Syria).Plutarch describes the grueling denouement with his usual detachment, aplomb, and gifted eye for pertinent detail.Having lost the greatest fortune in the world, he proceeds to lose his troops, then his sons, and finally his life.These lessons are never too late for the learning, and my apologies to Twain, but a classic is a text which retains its urgency to be read, and read now.

I read the Dryden/Clough translation.Dryden was never my favorite writer of his period, the late 17th century - hardly a match for Burton or Milton, in my opinion, but he was poet laureate, and this work I love - his English is fine, and resonates with classic dignity.Clough, the mid-nineteenth century British scholar who revised the translation, befriended Emerson when he traveled to England, and became a sort of mentor to the New England Transcendentalists in general. We can be grateful for such a wonderful rendering for one of the very greatest and most edifying masterpieces.
... Read more

Book Description
Fifty retellings from Plutarch's Lives skillfully adapted for children. Includes the conquests of Alexander the Great, how Demosthenes became an orator, the conspiracy against Caesar, the life of Lycurgus the law-giver of Sparta, theexploits of Pyrrhus and others. ... Read more

Book Description

Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. 45-120 CE, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.

Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the 46 Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about 60 in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics and religion.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Moralia is in fifteen volumes, volume XIII having two parts.

Book Description

Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. 45-120 CE, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.

Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the 46 Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers and orators. Plutarch's many other varied extant works, about 60 in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics and religion.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.

Book Description
From the Preface: "Plutarch, who was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia, probably about A.D. 50, and was a contemporary of Tacitus and Pliny, has written two works still extant, the well-known _Lives_, and the less-known _Moralia_. The _Lives_ have often been translated, and have always been a popular work. Great indeed was their power at the period of the French Revolution. The _Moralia_, on the other hand, consisting of various Essays on various subjects (only twenty-six of which are directly ethical, though they have given their name to the _Moralia_), are declared by Mr. Paley "to be practically almost unknown to most persons in Britain, even to those who call themselves scholars." ... Read more