Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

From the year of the death of Tiberius Gracchus, B.C. 133, to the death of Marcus Antonius, B.C. 30, a period of about one hundred years, the Roman State was convulsed by revolutions which grew out of the contest between the People and the Nobility, or rather, out of the contests between the leaders of these two bodies. This period is the subject of Appian's History of the Civil Wars of the Romans, in Five Books. Appian begins with the Tribunate and legislation of Tiberius Gracchus, from which he proceeds to the Dictatorship of Sulla, and then to the quarrels between Pompeius and Caesar, and Caesar's Dictatorship and assassination. He then proceeds to the history of the Triumvirate formed after Caesar's death by his great nephew Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Marcus Antonius, and Lepidus, the quarrels of the Triumviri, the downfall of Lepidus, who was reduced to the condition of a private person, and the death of Sextus Pompeius, the last support of the party in whose cause his father, Cneius Pompeius, lost his life. The remainder of this History, which is lost, carried the narration down to the quarrels of Octavianus and Marcus Antonius, which ended in the defeat of Antonius in the battle of Actium, B.C. 31, and his death in Egypt, B.C. 30. The victory over Antonius placed all the power in the hands of Octavianus, who, in the year B.C. 27, received from the Roman Senate the title of Augustus, or the Sacred, by which name he is commonly known as the first of the long series of Roman Emperors. "He made himself," says Appian ( Civil Wars , i. 5), "like Caius Julius Caesar, and still more than Caesar, governor of his country and of all the nations under it, without needing either election or the popular votes, or any show of such things. After his government had subsisted for a long time, and been maintained with vigour, fortunate in all his measures, and feared, he left behind him descendants and successors who kept the power that he transmitted to them. In this way, after various civil commotions, the Roman State was restored to tranquillity, and the government became a Monarchy. And how this came about I have explained, and brought together all the events, which are well worth the study of those who wish to become acquainted with ambition of men unbounded, love of power excessive, endurance unwearied, and forms of suffering infinite." Thus, the historian's object was to trace the establishment of the Imperial power in Rome back to its origin, to show that the contests of the rival heads of parties involved the State in endless calamities, which resulted in a dissolution of all the bonds that held society together, and rendered the assumption of supreme power by one man a healing and a necessary event.

As already observed, it happens that thirteen of Plutarch's extant Lives are the lives of the most distinguished of the Romans who lived during this eventful period; and though Plutarch's Lives severally are not histories of the times to which they respectively refer, nor collectively form a History of any given time, yet they are valuable as portraits of illustrious men, and help us to form a better judgment of those who make so conspicuous a figure in History.

Plutarch was a native of the town of Chaeroneia, in Boeotia; the times of his birth and death are not exactly known, but we learn from his own works that he was a young student at Delphi, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Nero, A.D. 66. He visited both Italy and Rome, and probably resided at Rome for some time. He wrote his Life of Demosthenes, at least after his return to Chaeroneia: he says ( Life of Demosthenes , c. 2), that he had not time to exercise himself in the Latin Language during his residence at Rome, being much occupied with public business, and giving lessons in philosophy. Accordingly it was late before he began to read the Latin writers; and we may infer from his own words that he never acquired a very exact knowledge of the language. He observes that it happened in his case, that in his study of the Latin writers he did not so much learn and understand the facts from the words, as acquire the meaning of the words from the facts, of which he had already some knowledge. We may perhaps conclude from this, that Plutarch wrote all his Roman lives in Chaeroneia, after he had returned there from Rome. The statement that Plutarch was the preceptor of the Emperor Trajan, and was raised to the consular rank by him, is not supported by sufficient evidence. Plutarch addressed to Trajan his Book of Apophthegms, or Sayings of Kings and Commanders; but this is all that is satisfactorily ascertained as to the connection between the Emperor and Philosopher. Trajan died A.D. 117.

"The plan of Plutarch's Biographies is briefly explained by himself in the introduction to the Life of Alexander the Great, where he makes an apology for the brevity with which he is compelled to treat of the numerous events in the Lives of Alexander and Caesar. 'For,' he says, 'I do not write Histories, but Lives; nor do the most conspicuous acts of necessity exhibit a man's virtue or his vice, but oftentimes some slight circumstance, a word, or a jest, shows a man's character better than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands, and the greatest arrays of armies and sieges of cities. Now, as painters produce a likeness by a representation of the countenance and the expression of the eyes, without troubling themselves about the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to look rather into the signs of a man's character, and thus give a portrait of his life, leaving others to describe great events and battles.' The object then of Plutarch in his Biographies was a moral end, and the exhibition of the principal events in a man's life was subordinate to this his main design; and though he may not always have adhered to the principle which he laid down, it cannot be denied that his view of what biography should be, is much more exact than that of most persons who have attempted this style of composition. The life of a statesman or of a general, when written with a view of giving a complete history of all the public events in which he was engaged, is not biography, but history. This extract from Plutarch will also in some measure be an apology for the want of historical order observable in many of his Lives. Though altogether deficient in that critical sagacity which discerns truth from falsehood, and distinguishes the intricacies of confused and conflicting statements, Plutarch has preserved in his Lives a vast number of facts which would otherwise have been unknown to us. He was a great reader, and must have had access to large libraries. It is said that he quotes two hundred and fifty writers, a great part of whose works are now entirely lost." ( Penny Cyclopaedia , art. "Plutarch," by the writer of this Preface.)

The lively portraitures of men drawn in Plutarch's Lives have made them favourite reading in all ages. Whether Plutarch has succeeded in drawing the portraits true, we cannot always determine, because the materials for such a judgment are sometimes wanting. But when we can compare his Lives with other extant authorities, we must admit, that though he is by no means free from error as to his facts, he has generally selected those events in a man's life which most clearly show his temper, and that on the whole, if we judge of a man by Plutarch's measure, we shall form a just estimate of him. He generally wrote without any predilections or any prejudices. He tells us of a man's good and bad acts, of his good and bad qualities; he makes no attempt to conceal the one or the other; he both praises and blames as the occasion may arise; and the reader leaves off with a mixed opinion about Plutarch's Greeks and Romans, though the favourable or the unfavourable side always predominates. The benevolent disposition of Plutarch, and his noble and elevated character, have stamped themselves on all that he has written. A man cannot read these Lives without being the better for it: his detestation of all that is mean and disingenuous will be increased; his admiration of whatever is truthful and generous will be strengthened and exalted.

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