by Plutarch
Twelve Lives by Plutarch
* * *
THE RISE OF ROME
Romulus • Numa • Publicola • Coriolanus Camillus • Fabius Maximus • Marcellus • Aratus Philopoemen • Titus Flamininus • Elder Cato Aemilius Paullus
Revised Edition
Translated by
IAN SCOTT-KILVERT, JEFFREY TATUM
and CHRISTOPHER PELLING
Introductions and Notes by
JEFFREY TATUM
With Series Preface by
CHRISTOPHER PELLING
Contents
Penguin Plutarch, by Christopher Pelling
Preface to the New Edition
Abbreviations
General Introduction
List of Surviving Lives by Plutarch
Maps
1. Rome
2. Latium
3. Italy
4. Greece
5. East Mediterranean
6. Spain and Africa
THE RISE OF ROME
ROMULUS
Introduction to Romulus
Life of Romulus
Comparison of Theseus and Romulus
NUMA
Introduction to Numa
Life of Numa
Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa
PUBLICOLA
Introduction to Publicola
Life of Publicola
Comparison of Solon and Publicola
CORIOLANUS
Introduction to Coriolanus
Life of Coriolanus
CAMILLUS
Introduction to Camillus
Life of Camillus
FABIUS MAXIMUS
Introduction to Fabius Maximus
Life of Fabius Maximus
Comparison of Pericles and Fabius Maximus
MARCELLUS
Introduction to Marcellus
Life of Marcellus
Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus
ARATUS
Introduction to Aratus
Life of Aratus
PHILOPOEMEN
Introduction to Philopoemen
Life of Philopoemen
TITUS FLAMININUS
Introduction to Titus Flamininus
Life of Titus Flamininus
Comparison of Philopoemen and Titus Flamininus
ELDER CATO
Introduction to Elder Cato
Life of Elder Cato
Comparison of Aristeides and Elder Cato
AEMILIUS PAULLUS
Introduction to Aemilius Paullus
Life of Aemilius Paullus
Notes
Further Reading
Follow Penguin
PENGUIN CLASSICS
THE RISE OF ROME
PLUTARCH (c. AD 45–c. 120) was a writer and thinker born into a wealthy, established family of Chaeronea in central Greece. He received the best possible education in rhetoric and philosophy, and travelled to Asia Minor and Egypt. Later, a series of visits to Rome and Italy contributed to his fame, and it was said that he had received official recognition by the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Plutarch rendered conscientious service to his province and city (where he continued to live), as well as holding a priesthood at nearby Delphi. His voluminous surviving writings are broadly divided into the ‘moral’ works and the Lives of outstanding Greek and Roman leaders. The former (Moralia) are a mixture of rhetorical and antiquarian pieces, together with technical and moral philosophy (sometimes in dialogue form). The Lives have been influential from the Renaissance onwards.
IAN SCOTT-KILVERT was Director of English Literature at the British Council and editor of Writers and Their Works. He translated Cassius Dio’s The Roman History as well as Plutarch’s The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, Makers of Rome and The Age of Alexander for Penguin Classics. He died in 1989.
JEFFREY TATUM is Professor of Classics at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the author of The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (1999), Always I am Caesar (2008) and A Caesar Reader (2012), as well as numerous articles and chapters on Roman history and culture and Latin literature.
CHRISTOPHER PELLING is Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University. He has published a commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Antony (1988) and a commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Caesar (2011). His other books include Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (2000). Most of his articles on Plutarch were collected in his Plutarch and History: Eighteen Essays (2002).
Penguin Plutarch
The first Penguin translation of Plutarch appeared in 1958, with Rex Warner’s version of six Roman Lives appearing as Fall of the Roman Republic. Other volumes followed steadily, three of them by Ian Scott-Kilvert (The Rise and Fall of Athens in 1960, Makers of Rome in 1965 and The Age of Alexander in 1973), and then Richard Talbert’s Plutarch on Sparta in 1988. Several of the moral essays were also translated by Robin Waterfield in 1992. That left only fourteen of the forty-eight Lives untranslated. The new edition now includes these remaining Lives, along with revised versions of those which appeared in the first edition.
This has also given an opportunity to divide up the Lives in a different way, although it is not straightforward to decide what that different way should be. Nearly all Plutarch’s surviving biographies were written in pairs as Parallel Lives: thus a ‘book’ for Plutarch was not just Theseus or Caesar but Theseus and Romulus or Alexander and Caesar. Most, but not all, of those pairs have a brief epilogue at the end of the second Life comparing the two heroes, just as many have a prologue before the first Life giving some initial grounds for the comparison. Not much attention was paid to this comparative technique at the time when the Penguin series started to appear, and it seemed natural then to separate each Life from its pair and organize the volumes by period and city. The comparative epilogues were not included in the translations at all.
That now looks very unsatisfactory. The comparative technique has come to be seen as basic to Plutarch’s strategy, underlying not only those brief epilogues but also the entire pairings. (It is true, though, that in the last few years scholars have become increasingly alert to the way that all the Lives, not just the pairs, are crafted to complement one another.) It is very tempting to keep the pairings in this new series in a way that would respect Plutarch’s own authorial intentions.
After some agonizing, we have decided nevertheless to keep to something like the original strategy of the series, though with some refinement. The reason is a practical one. Many, perhaps most, readers of Plutarch will be reading him to see what he has to say about a particular period, and will wish to compare his treatment of the major players to see how the different parts of his historical jigsaw fit together. If one kept the pairings, that would inevitably mean buying several different volumes of the series; and if, say, one organized those volumes by the Greek partner (so that, for instance, Pericles–Fabius, Nicias–Crassus and Coriolanus–Alcibiades made one volume), anyone primarily interested in the Roman Lives of the late Republic would probably need to buy the whole set. That is no way to guarantee these finely crafted works of art the wide reading that they deserve. Keeping the organization by period also allows some other works of Plutarch to be included along with the Lives themselves, for instance the fascinating essay On the Malice of Herodotus along with the Lives of Themistocles and Aristides and (as before) several Spartan essays along with the Spartan Lives.
Of course the comparative epilogues must now be included, and they will now be translated and printed along with the second Life of each pair, just as the prologues are conventionally printed before the first Life. Each volume will now also usually include more extended introductions to each Life, which will draw attention to the importance of the co
mparison as well as other features of Plutarch’s technique. This is a compromise, and an uncomfortable one; but it still seems the better way.
These volumes do, however, sort the Lives into more logical groups.
The early Roman figures are now grouped together in this single volume The Rise of Rome; the Life of Agesilaus has migrated from The Age of Alexander to join the rest of the Spartan Lives, and Artaxerxes has joined The Age of Alexander collection; the rest of the new translations of Roman Lives have joined those of the Gracchi, Brutus and Antony in the new Rome in Crisis volume. The introductions and notes are being fully revised. In due course we hope to include the Moral Essays in the project as well.
In a bibliometric study (Ancient Society, 28 (1997), 265–89), Walter Scheidel observed that the proportion of scholarly articles devoted to most classical authors had remained more or less constant since the 1920s. The one author to stand out with an exceptional rise was Plutarch. That professional pattern has been matched by a similar surge in the interest in Plutarch shown by the general reading public. The Penguin translations have played a large part in fostering that interest, and this new, more comprehensive project will surely play a similar role in the future.
Christopher Pelling
2004
Preface to the New Edition
The original translations of Coriolanus, Fabius Maximus, Marcellus and Elder Cato were by I. Scott-Kilvert. Each has been revised by me, without, it is hoped, spoiling the lovely cadences for which they are justly admired. Chris Pelling translated Philopoemen, Titus Flamininus and their Comparison, originally as part of the project that led to his Rizzoli commentary on this pairing: C. Pelling and E. Melandri, Plutarco, Vite Parallele: Filopemene e Tito Flaminino (1997). Translations of the remaining Lives and Comparisons (Romulus, Numa, Publicola, Camillus, Aratus and Aemilius Paullus) are mine.
Chris Pelling has been an inspiration from the start, and his support throughout has been characteristically generous. I am also grateful to Jon Hall, Hans Mueller and Robin Seager for reading extensive sections of this volume and offering detailed and very helpful comments. David Rosenbloom was kind enough to answer several difficult questions, and Hannah Webling provided valuable assistance of a technical kind. The contribution made by this volume’s superb copy editor, Monica Schmoller, must not go unrecognized. Alexander Cambitoglou gave me an opportunity to present some of my views on these Lives in a lecture and a seminar hosted by the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens, and I have received generous support from the Committee on Research of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington. My greatest debt lies with Diana Burton, who read the whole of this book, suggested many improvements for it and, more crucially, made life outside and beyond it so much fun.
Jeffrey Tatum
2013
Abbreviations
ANRW: Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (1972–)
Beard, Roman Triumph: M. Beard, The Roman Triumph (2007)
CAH The Cambridge Ancient History: vol. vi (1994), D. M. Lewis, J. Boardman, S. Hornblower and M. Ostwald (eds.); vol. vii. 1 (1984), F. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen and R. M. Ogilvie (eds.); vol. vii. 2 (1990), F. W. Walbank, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie and A. Drummond (eds.); vol. viii (1989), A. E. Astin, F. W. Walbank, M. W. Frederiksen and R. M. Ogilvie (eds.); vol. xi (2000), A. K. Bowman, P. Garnsey and D. Rathbone (eds.).
Cornell, Beginnings of Rome: T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000 BC–264 BC) (1995)
CQ: Classical Quarterly
Dion. Hal.: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities
DK: H. Diels and W. Kranz, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (6th edn, 1952)
Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: T. Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (1999)
Festus: W. M. Lindsay, Sexti Pompei Festi: De verborum significatu quae supersunt cum Pauli epitome (1913)
FGrH: F. Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (1923–)
Forsythe, Early Rome: G. Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome from Prehistory to the First Punic War (2005)
GRBS: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies
Hammond–Walbank: N. G. L. Hammond and F. W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia, vol. 3 (1988)
HRR: H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta, 2 vols. (1906, 1914)
Humble, Plutarch’s Lives: N. Humble (ed.), Plutarch’s Lives: Parallelism and Purpose (2010)
ILS: H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (1892–1916)
JHS: Journal of Hellenic Studies
Jones, ‘Chronology’: C. P. Jones, ‘Towards a Chronology of Plutarch’s Works’, in Scardigli, Essays, pp. 106–14
Jones, P&R: C. P. Jones, Plutarch and Rome (1971)
JRS: Journal of Roman Studies
Lintott, Constitution: A. Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (1999)
Pelling, P&H: C. Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Essays (2002)
Pelling, ‘Roman heroes’: C. Pelling, ‘Plutarch: Roman heroes and Greek culture’, in M. Griffin and J. Barnes (eds.), Philosophia Togata I (1989), pp. 199–232
Scardigli, Essays: B. Scardigli (ed.), Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (1995)
Skutsch: O. Skutsch, The Annals of Quintus Ennius (1985)
Swain, ‘Culture’: S. Swain, ‘Hellenic Culture and the Roman Heroes of Plutarch’, in Scardigli, Essays, pp. 229–64
Swain, H&E: S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250 (1996)
Syll.: W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (3rd edn, 1915–24)
TAPhA: Transactions of the American Philological Association
Walbank, Commentary: F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vols. 1–3 (1957–79)
General Introduction
I. Man of the World
During the first and second centuries of our era, Greece enjoyed a brilliant recrudescence of literary genius that is often described, filching a phrase from the Greek biographer Philostratus, as the Second Sophistic (Lives 1.19).1 Imperial Greece was indeed a time of talented, and frequently flamboyant, orators, writers and intellectuals, of whom the unglamorous Plutarch was simply the best. He was born sometime in the mid-forties of the first century AD, in the Boeotian town of Chaeronea. His family belonged to the local aristocracy, and Plutarch was sufficiently wealthy to study rhetoric and philosophy in Athens, to travel to Alexandria in Egypt and to visit Italy more than once. Most of his life, however, he spent in his native city: ‘I live in a small town, and owing to my affection for it I prefer to remain there, lest it become even smaller’ (Demosthenes 2). Although his occupations took him beyond Chaeronea – Plutarch became a citizen of Athens and of Delphi, where he held an important priesthood – it was there nevertheless that he gave instruction to his own pupils and, mostly in his mature years, became the author of a vast body of literary work that made him famous in antiquity and influential in the history of European letters.2
We sort Plutarch’s writings into two unequal piles. One, the Lives, consists of his biographies, and the other, the Moralia or Moral Essays, includes everything else. Plutarch was a prolific writer: the Catalogue of Lamprias, a fourth-century list of his works, includes more than 200 titles. Many of these works have been lost, but quite enough of Plutarch survives to make him one of the best represented of all the writers of antiquity. Of Plutarchan biography, more presently. But no reader of the Lives should overlook the astonishingly variegated body of work subsumed under the heading Moral Essays. Plutarch was an orator, rhetorician and – most importantly – a philosopher, and these diverse roles are reflected in his Moralia.
Plutarch studied philosophy and remained a committed Platonist for the whole of his life. He was the author of numerous philosophical works, including highly technical, specialist treatises, but he also composed more accessible pieces, of the kind we might describe as popular
izing, on such topics as How to Tell a Friend from a Flatterer (Moralia 48e–74f) and Advice on Marriage (Moralia 138a–146a). Sometimes Plutarch composed traditional philosophical dialogues, at others more experimental pieces, like the Amatorius, in which, by way of a tale about a widow who abducts a young man she desires to wed, Plutarch analyses the nature of homosexual and heterosexual love. Equally remarkable is his Table Talk (Moralia 612c–748d), a lengthy account of learned and graceful conversations on the part of powerful and cultivated Romans and sophisticated Greeks. Plutarch also wrote numerous essays on religion as well as didactic pieces on literature, including On the Malice of Herodotus (Moralia 854e–874c), a still important contribution to ancient historiography. Antiquarianism, another Plutarchan interest, resulted in his Roman Questions (Moralia 263d–291c) and Greek Questions (Moralia 291d–304f). Of a different nature altogether are Plutarch’s set speeches, composed largely for the purpose of aesthetic display: these, too, are bundled into the Moralia. The best specimens are The Fortune of Rome (Moralia 316c–326c) and The Glory of Athens (Moralia 345c–351b); the latter surprisingly or perhaps provocatively insists that Athens’ true glory lay in her military rather than her cultural achievements.
The Rise of Rome is concerned with Plutarch’s contributions to biography. In this genre, too, he was highly inventive. In addition to several stand-alone biographies (one of which, Aratus, is included here), Plutarch composed two important biographical collections. Sometime during the reign of the Flavians (AD 69–96), he completed his Lives of the Caesars, a series of sequential imperial biographies beginning with Augustus and concluding with Vitellius, whose defeat and death ushered in the Flavian dynasty. Only Galba and Otho subsist. This was a first in imperial biography: no one, so far as we know, had previously recorded the lives of emperors in this way, collapsing history into imperial biography. Suetonius, of course, soon reinvented the genre for himself, and his version proved far more influential, but that reality should not distract us from Plutarch’s originality. More significant – and in fact the masterpiece of all Plutarch’s literary efforts – is his Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans, biographical pairings each of which conjoins the life of an eminent Greek with a famous Roman political figure.