The Project Gutenberg eBook, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4), by Plutarch, et al, Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) Author: Plutarch Release Date: November 12, 2004 [eBook #14033] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLUTARCH'S LIVES, VOLUME I (OF 4)*** E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team, with special thanks to Thundergnat PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Translated from the Greek. WITH NOTES AND A LIFE OF PLUTARCH. BY AUBREY STEWART, M.A., Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; AND THE LATE GEORGE LONG, M.A., Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN, AND NEW YORK. 1894. LONDON: REPRINTED FROM STEREOTYPE PLATES BY WM. CLOWES & SONS, LTD., STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS. PREFACE. PREFACE TO THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME. LIFE OF PLUTARCH. LIFE OF THESEUS. LIFE OF ROMULUS. COMPARISON OF THESEUS AND ROMULUS. LIFE OF LYKURGUS. LIFE OF NUMA. COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYKURGUS. LIFE OF SOLON. LIFE OF POPLICOLA. COMPARISON OF SOLON AND POPLICOLA. LIFE OF THEMISTOKLES. LIFE OF CAMILLUS. LIFE OF PERIKLES. LIFE OF FABIUS MAXIMUS. COMPARISON OF PERIKLES AND FABIUS MAXIMUS. LIFE OF ALKIBIADES. LIFE OF CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS. COMPARISON OF ALKIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS. LIFE OF TIMOLEON. LIFE OF AEMILIUS. COMPARISON OF PAULUS AEMILIUS AND TIMOLEON. PREFACE. No apologies are needed for a new edition of so favourite an author as Plutarch. From the period of the revival of classical literature in Europe down to our own times, his writings have done more than those of any other single author to familiarise us with the greatest men and the greatest events of the ancient world. The great Duke of Marlborough, it is said, confessed that his only knowledge of English history was derived from Shakespeare's historical plays, and it would not be too much to say that a very large proportion of educated men, in our own as well as in Marlborough's times, have owed much of their knowledge of classical antiquity to the study of Plutarch's Lives. Other writers may be read with profit, with admiration, and with interest; but few, like Plutarch, can gossip pleasantly while instructing solidly; can breathe life into the dry skeleton of history, and show that the life of a Greek or Roman worthy, when rightly dealt with, can prove as entertaining as a modern novel. No one is so well able as Plutarch to dispel the doubt which all schoolboys feel as to whether the names about which they read ever belonged to men who were really alive; his characters are so intensely human and lifelike in their faults and failings as well as in their virtues, that we begin to think of them as of people whom we have ourselves personally known. His biographies are numerous and short. By this, he avoids one of the greatest faults of modern biographers, that namely of identifying himself with some one particular personage, and endeavouring to prove that all his actions were equally laudable. Light and shade are as necessary to a character as to a picture, but a man who devotes his energies for years to the study of any single person's life, is insensibly led into palliating or explaining away his faults and exaggerating his excellencies until at last he represents him as an impossible monster of virtue. Another advantage which we obtain by his method is that we are not given a complete chronicle of each person's life, but only of the remarkable events in it, and such incidents as will enable us to judge of his character. This also avoids what is the dreariest part of all modern biographies, those chapters I mean which describe the slow decay of their hero's powers, his last illness, and finally his death. This subject, which so many writers of our own time seem to linger lovingly upon, is dismissed by Plutarch in a few lines, unless any circumstance of note attended the death of the person described. Without denying that Plutarch is often inaccurate and often diffuse; that his anecdotes are sometimes absurd, and his metaphysical speculations not unfrequently ridiculous, he is nevertheless generally admitted to be one of the most readable authors of antiquity, while all agree that his morality is of the purest and loftiest type. The first edition of the Greek text of Plutarch's Lives appeared at Florence in the year 1517, and two years afterwards it was republished by Aldus. Before this, however, about the year 1470, a magnificent Latin version by various hands appeared at Rome. From this, from the Greek text, and also from certain MSS. to which he had access, Amyot in the year 1559 composed his excellent translation, of which it has been well said: "Quoique en vieux Gaulois, elle a un air de fraicheur qui la fait rejeunir de jour en jour." Amyot's spirited French version was no less spiritedly translated by Sir Thomas North. His translation was much read and admired in its day; a modern reviewer even goes so far as to say that it is "still beyond comparison the best version of Parallel Lives which the English tongue affords." Be this as it may, the world will ever be deeply indebted to North's translation, for it is to Shakespeare's perusal of that work that we owe 'Coriolanus,' 'Antony and Cleopatra,' and 'Julius Caesar.' North's translation was followed by that known as Dryden's. This work, performed by many different hands, is of unequal merit. Some Lives are rendered into a racy and idiomatic, although somewhat archaic English, while others fall far short of the standard of Sir Thomas North's work. Dryden's version has during the last few years been re-edited by A.H. Clough, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. The translation by which Plutarch is best known at the present day is that of the Langhornes. Their style is certainly dull and commonplace, and is in many instances deserving of the harsh epithets which have been lavished upon it. We must remember, however, before unsparingly condemning their translation, that the taste of the age for which they wrote differed materially from that of our own, and that people who could read the 'Letters of Theodosius and Constantia' with interest, would certainly prefer Plutarch in the translation of the Langhornes to the simpler phrases of North's or Dryden's version. All events, comic or tragic, important or commonplace, are described with the same inflated monotony which was mistaken by them for the dignity of History. Yet their work is in many cases far more correct as a translation, and the author's meaning is sometimes much more clearly expressed, than in Dryden's earlier version. Langhorne's Plutarch was re-edited by Archdeacon Wrangham in the year 1819. In 1844, thirteen Lives were translated by that eminent scholar the late Mr. George Long; and it is by way of complement to these Lives that the present version was undertaken with his consent and his approval. Those translated by Mr. Long were selected by him as illustrating a period of Roman history in which he was especially interested, and will therefore be found to be more fully annotated than the others. It has seemed to me unnecessary to give information in the notes which can at the present day be obtained in a more convenient form in Dr. Smith's Classical Dictionary and Dictionary of Antiquities, many of the articles in which are written by Mr. Long himself. The student of classical literature will naturally prefer the exhaustive essays to be found in these works to any notes appended to Plutarch's text, while to those who read merely "for the story," the notes prove both troublesome and useless. In deciding on the spelling of the Greek proper names, I have felt great hesitation. To make a Greek speak of Juno or Minerva seems as absurd as to make a Roman swear by Herakles or Ares. Yet both Greek and Roman divinities are constantly mentioned. The only course that seemed to avoid absolute absurdity appeared to me to be that which I have adopted, namely to speak of the Greek divinities by their Greek, and the Latin ones by their Latin names. In substituting a k for the more usual c, I have followed the example of Grote, who in his History spells all Greek names exactly as they are written, with the exception of those with which we are so familiar in their Latin form as to render this practically impossible; as for instance in the case of Cyprus or Corinth, or of a name like Thucydides, where a return to the Greek k would be both pedantic and unmeaning. The text, which I have followed throughout, is that of C. Sintenis, Leipsic, 1873. AUBREY STEWART. PREFACE TO THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME. [1] Among the extant Lives of Plutarch there are thirteen Lives of Romans which belong to the most eventful period of Roman history. They are the lives of the brothers Tiberius and Caius Sempronius Gracchus, of Caius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Quintus Sertorius, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Cneius Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, Caius Julius Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Antonius. 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. The translation of these Lives is difficult. Plutarch's text is occasionally corrupted; and where it is not corrupted, his meaning is sometimes obscure. Many of the sentences are long and ill-constructed; the metaphors often extravagant; and the just connection of the parts is sometimes difficult to discover. Many single words which are or ought to be pertinent in Plutarch, and which go towards a description of character in general or of some particular act, can hardly be rendered by any English equivalent; and a translator often searches in vain for something which shall convey to the reader the exact notion of the original. Yet Plutarch's narrative is lively and animated; his anecdotes are appropriately introduced and well told; and if his taste is sometimes not the purest, which in his age we could not expect it to be, he makes amends for this by the fulness and vigour of his expression. He is fond of poetical words, and they are often used with striking effect. His moral reflections, which are numerous, have the merit of not being unmeaning and tiresome, because he is always in earnest and has got something to say, and does not deal in commonplaces. When the reflection is not very profound, it is at least true; and some of his remarks show a deep insight into men's character. I have attempted to give Plutarch's meaning in plain language; to give all his meaning, and neither more nor less. If I have failed in any case, it is because I could do no better. But, though I have not always succeeded in expressing exactly what I conceive to be the meaning of the original, I have not intentionally added to it or detracted from it. It may be that there are passages in which I have mistaken the original; and those who have made the experiment of rendering from one language into another, know that this will sometimes happen even in an easy passage. A difficult passage attracts more than usual of a translator's attention, and if he fails there, it is either because the difficulty cannot be overcome, or because he cannot overcome it. Mere inadvertence or sleepiness may sometimes cause a translator to blunder, when he would not have blundered if any friend had been by to keep him awake. The best thing that a man can do to avoid these and other errors is to compare his translation, when he has finished it, with some other. The translation which I have compared with mine is the German translation of Kaltwasser, Magdeburg, 1799, which is generally correct. Kaltwasser in his Preface speaks of the way in which he used the German translations of two of his predecessors, J. Christopher Kind, Leipzig, 1745-1754, and H. v. Schirach, 1776- 1780, and some others. He says, "These two translations, with the French translations above mentioned, I have duly used, for it is the duty of a translator to compare himself with his predecessors; but I lay my labour before the eyes of the public, without fearing that I shall be accused of copying or of close imitation. First of all, I carefully studied the text of my author and translated him as well as I could: then, and not before, I compared the labour of my predecessors, and where I found a more suitable expression or a happier turn, I made use of it without hesitation. In this way, every fault, every deviation of the old translators must be apparent; the most striking of them I have remarked on in the notes, but I have more frequently amended such things silently, as a comparison will show the reader." The translator has not compared his version with any English version. The translation of North, which has great merit in point of expression, is a version of Amyot's French version, from which, however, it differs in some passages, where it is decidedly wrong and Amyot's version is right. Indeed, it is surprising to find how correct this old French translation generally is. The translation of 'Plutarch's Lives from the Greek by several hands,' was published at London in 1683-86. It was dedicated by Dryden to James Butler, the first Duke of Ormond, in a fulsome panegyric. It is said that forty-one translators laboured at the work. Dryden did not translate any of the Lives; but he wrote the Life of Plutarch which is prefixed to this translation. The advertisement prefixed to the translation passes under the name and character of the bookseller (Jacob Tonson), but, as Malone observes, it may from internal evidence be safely attributed to Dryden. The bookseller says, "You have here the first volume of Plutarch's Lives turned from the Greek into English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from the originals." This is aimed at North's version, of which Dryden remarks in his Life of Plutarch: "As that translation was only from the French, so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible." There is another English version, by the Langhornes, which has often been reprinted; there is an edition of it with notes by Wrangham. I have compared my translation carefully with the German of Kaltwasser, and sometimes with the French of Amyot, and I have thus avoided some errors into which I should have fallen. There are errors both in the versions of Amyot and Kaltwasser which I have avoided; but I may have fallen into others. The translation of Kaltwasser contains some useful notes. Those which I have added to this translation are intended to explain so much as needs explanation to a person who is not much acquainted with Roman history and Roman usages; but they will also be useful to others. The notes of Kaltwasser have often reminded me of the passages where some note would be useful, and have occasionally furnished materials also. But as I have always referred to the original authorities, I do not consider it necessary to make more than this general acknowledgment. The notes added to this translation are all my own, and contain my own opinions and observations. This translation has been made from the edition of C. Sintenis, Leipzig, 1839, and I have compared the text of Sintenis with that of G.H. Schaefer, Leipzig, 1826, which has been severely criticized: this edition contains, however, some useful notes. I have very seldom made any remarks on the Greek text, as such kind of remark would not have suited the plan and design of this version, which is not intended for verbal critics. I shall explain by two brief extracts what is my main design in this version and in the notes, which must be my apology for not affecting a learned commentary, and my excuse to those who shall not find here the kind of remarks that are suitable to a critical edition of an ancient author. I have had another object than to discuss the niceties of words and the forms of phrases, a labour which is well in its place, if it be done well, but is not what needs to be done to such an author as Plutarch to render him useful. A man who was a great reader of Plutarch, a just and solid thinker above the measure of his age, and not surpassed in his way by any writer in our own, Montaigne, observes in his 'Essay of the Education of Children'—"Let him enquire into the manners, revenues, and alliances of princes, things in themselves very pleasant to learn, and very useful to know. In this conversing with men, I mean, and principally those who only live in the records of history, he shall by reading those books, converse with those great and heroic souls of former and better ages. 'Tis an idle and vain study, I confess, to those who make it so, by doing it after a negligent manner, but to those who do it with care and observation, 'tis a study of inestimable fruit and value; and the only one, as Plato reports, the Lacedaemonians reserved to themselves. What profit shall he not reap as to the business of men, by reading the Lives of Plutarch? But withal, let my governor remember to what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so much imprint in his pupil's memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and Scipio; not so much where Marcellus died, as why it was unworthy of his duty that he died there. That he do not teach him so much the narrative part, as the business of history. The reading of which, in my opinion, is a thing that of all others we apply ourselves unto with the most differing and uncertain measures."[2] North, in his address to the Reader, says: "The profit of stories, and the praise of the Author, are sufficiently declared by Amiot, in his Epistle to the Reader: so that I shall not need to make many words thereof. And indeed if you will supply the defects of this translation, with your own diligence and good understanding: you shall not need to trust him, you may prove yourselves, that there is no prophane study better than Plutarch. All other learning is private, fitter for Universities than Cities, fuller of contemplation than experience, more commendable in students themselves, than profitable unto others. Whereas stories are fit for every place, reach to all persons, serve for all times, teach the living, revive the dead, so far excelling all other books, as it is better to see learning in Noblemen's lives, than to read it in Philosophers' writings." GEORGE LONG. LIFE OF PLUTARCH. Plutarch was born probably between A.D. 45 and A.D. 50, at the little town of Chaeronea in Boeotia. His family appears to have been long established in this place, the scene of the final destruction of the liberties of Greece, when Philip defeated the Athenians and Boeotian forces there in 338 B.C. It was here also that Sulla defeated Mithridates, and in the great civil wars of Rome we again hear, this time from Plutarch himself, of the sufferings of the citizens of Chaeronea. Nikarchus, Plutarch's great-grandfather, was, with all the other citizens, without any exception, ordered by a lieutenant of Marcus Antonius to transport a quantity of corn from Chaeronea to the coast opposite the island of Antikyra. They were compelled to carry the corn on their shoulders, like slaves, and were threatened with the lash if they were remiss. After they had performed one journey, and were preparing their burdens for a second, the welcome news arrived that Marcus Antonius had lost the battle of Actium, whereupon both the officers and soldiers of his party stationed in Chaeronea at once fled for their own safety, and the provisions thus collected were divided among the inhabitants of the city. When Plutarch was born, however, no such warlike scenes as these were to be expected. Nothing more than the traditions of war remained on the shores of the Mediterranean. Occasionally some faint echo of strife would make itself heard from the wild tribes on the Danube, or in the far Syrian deserts, but over nearly all the world known to the ancients was established the Pax Romana. Battles were indeed fought, and troops were marched upon Rome, but this was merely to decide who was to be the nominal head of the vast system of the Empire, and what had once been independent cities, countries, and nations submitted unhesitatingly to whoever represented that irresistible power. It might be imagined that a political system which destroyed all national individuality, and rendered patriotism in its highest sense scarcely possible, would have reacted unfavourably on the literary character of the age. Yet nothing of the kind can be urged against the times which produced Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom and Arrian; while at Rome, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Martial, and Juvenal were reviving the memories of the Augustan age. From several passages in Plutarch's writings we gather that he studied under a master named Ammonius, at Athens. For instance, at the end of his Life of Themistokles, he mentions a descendant of that great man who was his fellow-student at the house of Ammonius the philosopher. Again, he tells us that once Ammonius, observing at his afternoon lecture that some of his class had indulged too freely in the pleasures of the table, ordered his own son to be flogged, "because," he said, "the young gentleman cannot eat his dinner without pickles," casting his eye at the same time upon the other offenders so as to make them sensible that the reproof applied to them also. By way of completing his education he proceeded to visit Egypt. The "wisdom of the Egyptians" always seems to have had a fascination for the Greeks, and at this period Alexandria, with its famous library and its memories of the Ptolemies, of Kallimachus and of Theokritus, was an important centre of Greek intellectual activity. Plutarch's treatise on Isis and Osiris is generally supposed to be a juvenile work suggested by his Egyptian travels. In all the Graeco- Egyptian lore he certainly became well skilled, although we have no evidence as to how long he remained in Egypt. He makes mention indeed of a feast given in his honour by some of his relatives on the occasion of his return home from Alexandria, but we can gather nothing from the passage as to his age at that time. One anecdote of his early life is as follows:—"I remember," he says, "that when I was still a young man, I was sent with another person on a deputation to the Proconsul; my colleague, as it happened, was unable to proceed, and I saw the Proconsul and performed the commission alone. When I returned I was about to lay down my office and to give a public account of how I had discharged it, when my father rose in the public assembly and enjoined me not to say I went, but we went, nor to say that I said, but we said, throughout my story, giving my colleague his share." The most important event in the whole of Plutarch's pious and peaceful life is undoubtedly his journey to Italy and to Rome; but here again we know little more than that he knew but little Latin when he went thither, and was too busy when there to acquire much knowledge of that tongue. His occupation at Rome, besides antiquarian researches which were afterwards worked up into his Roman Lives, was the delivery of lectures on philosophical and other subjects, a common practice among the learned Greeks of his day. Many of these lectures, it is conjectured, were afterwards recast by him into the numerous short treatises on various subjects now included under the general name of Moralia. Plutarch's visit to Rome and business there is admirably explained in the following passage of North's 'Life of Plutarch': —"For my part, I think Plutarch was drawn to Rome by meanes of some friends he had there, especially by Sossius Senecio, that had been a Consull, who was of great estimation at that time, and namely under the Empire of Trajan. And that which maketh me think so, is because of Plutarch's own words, who saith in the beginning of his first book of his discourse at the table, that he gathered together all his reasons and discourses made here and there, as well in Rome with Senecio, as in Greece with Plutarch and others. Not being likely that he would have taken the pains to have made so long a voyage, and to have come to such a city where he understood not their vulgar tongue, if he had not been drawn thither by Senecio, and such other men; as also in acknowledgement of the good turnes and honour he had received by such men, he dedicated diverse of his bookes unto them, and among others, the Lives unto Senecio, and the nine volumes of his discourse at the table, with the treaty, How a man may know that he profiteth in vertue. Now for the time, considering what he saith in the end of his book against curiosity, I suppose that he taught in Rome in the time of Titus and of Domitian: for touching this point, he maketh mention of a nobleman called Rusticus, who being one day at his lecture, would not open a letter which was brought him from the Emperor, nor interrupt Plutarch, but attended to the end of his declamation, and until all the hearers were gone away; and addeth also, that Rusticus was afterwards put to death by the commandment of Domitian. Furthermore, about the beginning of the Life of Demosthenes, Plutarch saith, that whilst he remained in Italy and at Rome, he had no leizure to study the Latine tongue; as well for that he was busied at that time with matters he had in hand, as also to satisfie those that were his followers to learne philosophie of him."[3] A list of all Plutarch's writings would be a very long one. Besides the Lives, which is the work on which his fame chiefly rests, he wrote a book of 'Table Talk,' which may have suggested to Athenaeus the plan of his 'Symposium.' The most remarkable of his minor works is that 'On the Malignity of Herodotus.' Grote takes this treatise as being intended seriously as an attack upon the historian, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity." But it is probably merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch has endeavoured to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer. He was probably known as an author before he went to Rome. Large capitals have always had a natural attraction for literary genius, as it is in them alone that it can hope to be appreciated. And if this be the case at the present day, how much more must it have been so before the invention of printing, at a time when it was more usual to listen to books read aloud than to read them oneself? Plutarch journeyed to Rome just as Herodotus went to Athens, or as he is said to have gone to the Olympian festival, in search of an intelligent audience of educated men. Whether his object was merely praise, or whether he was influenced by ideas of gain, we cannot say. No doubt his lectures were not delivered gratis, and that they were well attended seems evident from Plutarch's own notices of them, and from the names which have been preserved of the eminent men who used to frequent them. Moreover, strange though it may appear to us, the demand for books seems to have been very brisk even though they were entirely written by hand. The epigrams of Martial inform us of the existence of a class of slaves whose occupation was copying books, and innumerable allusions in Horace, Martial, &c., to the Sosii and others prove that the trade of a bookseller at Rome was both extensive and profitable. Towards the end of the Republic it became the fashion for Roman nobles to encourage literature by forming a library, and this taste was given immense encouragement by Augustus, who established a public library in the Temple of Apollo on the Mount Palatine, in imitation of that previously founded by Asinius Pollio. There were other libraries besides these, the most famous of which was the Ulpian library, founded by Trajan, who called it so from his own name, Ulpius. Now Trajan was a contemporary of our author, and this act of his clearly proves that there must have been during Plutarch's lifetime a considerable reading public, and consequent demand for books at Rome. Of Plutarch's travels in Italy we know next to nothing. He mentions incidentally that he had seen the bust or statue of Marius at Ravenna, but never gives us another hint of how far he explored the country about which he wrote so much. No doubt his ignorance of the Latin language must not be taken as a literal statement, and probably means that he was not skilled in it as a spoken tongue, for we can scarcely imagine that he was without some acquaintance with it when he first went to Rome, and he certainly afterwards became well read in the literature of Rome. In some cases he has followed Livy's narrative with a closeness which proves that he must have been acquainted with that author either in the original or in a translation, and the latter alternative is, of the two, the more improbable. It seems to be now generally thought that his stay at Rome was a short one. Clough, in his excellent Preface, says on this subject, "The fault which runs through all the earlier biographies, from that of Rualdus downwards, is the assumption, wholly untenable, that Plutarch passed many years, as many perhaps as forty, at Rome. The entire character of his life is of course altered by such an impression." He then goes on to say that in consequence of this mistaken idea, it is not worth while for him to quote Dryden's 'Life of Plutarch,' which was originally prefixed to the translations re-edited by himself. Yet I trust I may be excused if I again quote North's 'Life of Plutarch,' as the following passage seems to set vividly before us the quiet literary occupation of his later days. "For Plutarch, though he tarried a long while in Italy, and in Rome, yet that tooke not away the remembrance of the sweet aire of Greece, and of the little towne where he was borne; but being touched from time to time with a sentence of an ancient poet, who saith that, "'In whatsoever countrey men are bred (I know not by what sweetnesse of it led), They nourish in their minds a glad desire, Unto their native homes for to retire,' "he resolved to go back into Greece againe, there to end the rest of his daies in rest and honour among his citizens, of whom he was honourably welcomed home. Some judge that he left Rome after the death of Trajan, being then of great yeares, to leade a more quiet life. So being then at rest, he earnestly took in hand that which he had long thought of before, to wit, the Lives, and tooke great pains with it until he had brought his worke to perfection, as we have done at this present; although that some Lives, as those of Scipio African, of Metellus Numidicus, and some other are not to be found. Now himselfe confesseth in some place, that when he began this worke, at the first it was but to profit others; but that afterwards it was to profit himselfe, looking upon those histories, as if he had looked in a glasse, and seeking to reform his life in some sort, and to forme it in the mould of the vertues of these great men; taking this fashion of searching their manners, and writing the Lives of these noble men, to be a familiar haunting and frequenting of them. Also he thought, [said he himselfe] that he lodged these men one after another in his house, entering into consideration of their qualities, and that which was great in either of them, choosing and principally taking that which was to be noted, and most worthy to be knowne in their sayings and deeds."[4] Of Plutarch in his domestic relations we gather much information from his own writings. The name of his father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus, from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations. His brothers Timon and Lamprias are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus has ingeniously recovered the name of his wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A touching letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their only daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. The number of his sons we cannot exactly state. Autobulus and Plutarch are especially spoken of as his sons, since the treatise on the Timaeus of Plato is dedicated to them, and the marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner-parties recorded in the 'Table Talk.' Another person, one Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch's son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. His treatise also on Marriage Questions, addressed to Eurydike and Pollianus, seems to speak of her as having been recently an inmate of his house, but without enabling us to form an opinion whether she was his daughter or not. A modern writer well describes his maturer years by the words: "Plutarch was well born, well taught, well conditioned; a self-respecting amiable man, who knew how to better a good education by travels, by devotion to affairs private and public; a master of ancient culture, he read books with a just criticism: eminently social, he was a king in his own house, surrounded himself with select friends, and knew the high value of good conversation; and declares in a letter written to his wife that 'he finds scarcely an erasure, as in a book well written, in the happiness of his life.'" He was an active member of the little community of Chaeronea, being archon of that town. Whether this dignity was annual or for life we do not know, but it was probably the former, and very likely he served it more than once. He speaks of his devotion to the duties of his office as causing him to incur the ridicule of some of his fellow-citizens, when they saw him engaged in the humblest duties. "But," he says, in Clough's version, "the story told about Antisthenes comes to my assistance. When some one expressed surprise at his carrying home some pickled fish from market in his own hands, It is, he answered, for myself. Conversely, when I am reproached with standing by and watching while tiles are measured out, and stone and mortar brought up, This service, I say, is not for myself, it is for my country." Plutarch was for many years a priest of Apollo at Delphi. The scene of some of his 'Table Talk' is laid there, when he in his priestly capacity gives a dinner party in honour of the victor in the poetic contest at the Pythian games. Probably this office was a source of considerable income, and as the journey from Chaeronea to Delphi, across Mount Parnassus, is a very short one, it interfered but little with his literary and municipal business. In his essay on "Whether an old man should continue to take part in public life," he says, "You know, Euphanes, that I have for many Pythiads (that is, periods of four years elapsing between the Pythian festivals), exercised the office of Priest of Apollo: yet I think you would not say to me,'Plutarch, you have sacrificed enough; you have led processions and dances enough; it is time, now that you are old, to lay aside the garland from your head, and to retire as superannuated from the oracle.'" Thus respected and loved by all, Plutarch's old age passed peacefully away. "Notwithstanding," as North says, "that he was very old, yet he made an end of the Lives.... Furthermore, Plutarch, having lived alwaies honourably even to old age, he died quietly among his children and friends in the city of Chaeronea, leaving his writings, an immortal savour of his name, unto posterity. Besides the honour his citizens did him, there was a statue set up for him by ordinance of the people of Rome, in memory of his virtues. Now furthermore, though time hath devoured some part of the writings of this great man, and minished some other: neverthelesse those which remaine, being a great number, have excellent use to this day among us." PLUTARCH'S LIVES. LIFE OF THESEUS. I. As in books on geography, Sossius Senecio, the writers crowd the countries of which they know nothing into the furthest margins of their maps, and write upon them legends such as, "In this direction lie waterless deserts full of wild beasts;" or, "Unexplored morasses;" or, "Here it is as cold as Scythia;" or, "A frozen sea;" so I, in my writings on Parallel Lives, go through that period of time where history rests on the firm basis of facts, and may truly say, "All beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain." When I had written the lives of Lykurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, it appeared to me natural to go back to Romulus also, as I was engaged on the history of times so close to his. So when I was reflecting, in the words of Aeschylus, "Against this chieftain, who can best contend? Whom shall I match in fight, what trusty friend?" it occurred to me to compare the founder of the fair and famous city of Athens with him, and to contrast Theseus with the father of unconquered glorious Rome. Putting aside, then, the mythological element, let us examine his story, and wherever it obstinately defies probability, and cannot be explained by natural agency, let us beg the indulgence of our readers, who will kindly make allowance for tales of antiquity. II. Theseus appears to have several points of resemblance to Romulus. Both were unacknowledged illegitimate children, and were reputed to descend from the Gods. "Both warriors, well we all do know," and both were wise as well as powerful. The one founded Rome, while the other was the joint founder of Athens; and these are two of the most famous of cities. Both carried off women by violence, and neither of them escaped domestic misfortune and retribution, but towards the end of their lives both were at variance with their countrymen, if we may put any trust in the least extravagant writings upon the subject. III. Theseus traced his descent on the father's side from Erechtheus and the original Autochthones,[5] while on the mother's side he was descended from Pelops. For Pelops surpassed all the other princes of the Peloponnesus in the number of his children as well as in wealth; and of these he gave many of his daughters in marriage to the chief men of the country, and established many of his sons as rulers in various cities. One of these, Pittheus, the grandfather of Theseus, founded Troezen, which is indeed but a little state, though he had a greater reputation than any man of his time for eloquence and wisdom. The nature of this wisdom of his seems to have been much of the same kind as that which made the reputation of Hesiod, in the collection of maxims known as the 'Works and Days.' One of these maxims is indeed ascribed to Pittheus: "Let promised pay be truly paid to friends." At any rate, this is what Aristotle the philosopher has recorded; and also Euripides, when he speaks of Hippolytus as "child of holy Pittheus," shows the prevailing opinion about Pittheus. Now Aegeus desired to have children, and the Oracle at Delphi is said to have given him the well-known response, forbidding him to have intercourse with any woman before he reached Athens, but not appearing to explain this clearly. Consequently, on his way home, he went to Troezen, and asked the advice of Pittheus about the response of the God, which ran thus: "Great chief, the wine-skin's foot must closed remain, Till thou to Athens art returned again." Pittheus clearly perceived what the oracle must mean, and persuaded or cheated Aegeus into an intrigue with Aethra. Afterwards, when he discovered that he had conversed with the daughter of Pittheus, as he imagined that she might prove with child, he left behind him his sword and sandals hidden under a great stone, which had a hollow inside it exactly fitting them. This he told to Aethra alone, and charged her if a son of his should be born, and on growing to man's estate should be able to lift the stone and take from under it the deposit, that she should send him at once with these things to himself, in all secrecy, and as far as possible concealing his journey from observation. For he greatly feared the sons of Pallas, who plotted against him, and despised him on account of his childlessness, they themselves being fifty brothers, all the sons of Pallas. IV. When Aethra's child was born, some writers say that he was at once named Theseus, from the tokens placed under the stone; others say that he was afterwards so named at Athens, when Aegeus acknowledged him as his son. He was brought up by his grandfather Pittheus, and had a master and tutor, Konnidas, to whom even to the present day, the Athenians sacrifice a ram on the day before the feast of Theseus, a mark of respect which is much more justly due to him, than those which they pay to Silanion and Parrhasius, who have only made pictures and statues of Theseus. V. As it was at that period still the custom for those who were coming to man's estate to go to Delphi and offer to the god the first-fruits of their hair (which was then cut for...