Front cover image for Plutarch

Plutarch

Robert Lamberton (Author)
Written around the year 100, Plutarch s Lives have shaped perceptions of the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks and Romans for nearly two thousand years. This engaging and stimulating book introduces both general readers and students to Plutarch s own life and work. Robert Lamberton sketches the cultural context in which Plutarch worked Greece under Roman rule and discusses his family relationships, background, education, and political career. There are two sides to Plutarch: the most widely read source on Greek and Roman history and the educator whose philosophical and pedagogical concerns are preserved in the vast collection of essays and dialogues known as the Moralia. Lamberton analyzes these neglected writings, arguing that we must look here for Plutarch s deepest commitment as a writer and for the heart of his accomplishment. Lamberton also explores the connection between biography and historiography and shows how Plutarch s parallel biographies served the continuing process of cultural accommodation between Greeks and Romans in the Roman Empire. He concludes by discussing Plutarch s influence and reputation through the ages. -- Amazon.com
Print Book, English, 2001
Yale University Press, New Haven [Connecticut], 2001
collective biographies
xx, 218 pages ; 22 cm
9780300088106, 9780300088113, 0300088108, 0300088116
47002118
Foreword / John Herington
1. Plutarch's Present
Plutarch in Context
The Internal Autobiography
The Reader, the Writer, and His Books
Plutarch the Thinker
Plutarch the Educator
Plutarch the Priest at Delphi
2. Plutarch's Past
The Project of the Parallel Lives
The Lives and the Function of Biography
The Mythic Limits of History
Conquerors
Heroes and Villains
The Project in Retrospect
3. Between Past and Present: The Dialogues
The Dialogue as a Genre
The Delphic Dialogues
The Face in the Moon
Socrates' Sign
4. Plutarch's Readers
App. 1. The Works of Plutarch
App. 2. Translations and Select Bibliography