.jpg) 1362 manuscript by Byzantine scholar Manuel Tzycandyles | |
| Author | Plutarch |
|---|---|
| Original title | Βίοι Παράλληλοι |
| Translator | Thomas North,John & William Langhorne,George Long, Aubrey Stewart,A. H. Clough,Bernadotte Perrin |
| Language | Koine Greek |
| Genre | Biography |
Publication date | Early 2nd century AD |
| Publication place | Roman Empire |
Published in English | 1579 |
| Media type | Manuscript |
| 920.038 | |
| LC Class | DE7 .P5 |
Original text | Βίοι Παράλληλοι at GreekWikisource |
| Translation | Parallel Lives at Wikisource |
TheParallel Lives (Ancient Greek:Βίοι Παράλληλοι,Bíoi Parállēloi;Latin:Vītae Parallēlae) is a series of 48 biographies of famous men written inGreek by the Greco-Roman philosopher, historian, andApollonian priestPlutarch, probably at the beginning of thesecond century. The lives are arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings.[1]
The survivingParallel Lives comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of oneGreek and oneRoman of similar destiny, such asAlexander the Great andJulius Caesar, orDemosthenes andCicero. There are also four singularLives, recounting the stories ofArtaxerxes,Aratus,Galba, andOtho. Traces of other biographies point to an additional twelve singleLives that are now missing.[2]
It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.
Parallel Lives was Plutarch's second set of biographical works, following the Lives of the Roman Emperors fromAugustus toVitellius. Of these, only the Lives ofGalba andOtho survive.[3][4]
As he explains in the first paragraph of hisLife of Alexander, Plutarch's interest was primarilyethical rather than historical ("For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives"). He was concerned with exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. He wished to shed light on the actions and achievements of the Greek men of the distant past through his comparisons with the more recent past of Rome.[5] George Wyndham's introduction in the 1895 publication of theLives writes of:
[Plutarch's] desire, as a man, to draw the noble Grecians, long since dead, a little nearer to the noonday of the living...By placing them side by side, he gave back to the Greeks that touch which they had lost with the living in the death of Greece, and to the Romans that distinction from everyday life which they were fast beginning to lose.[6]
Because the men he wrote about had been dead nearly 300 years before Plutarch's time, his writing was largely based on manuscripts of uncertain accuracy.[7] Plutarch himself had little faith in the historic truth found in resources from the past. In his life of Pericles, he states:
It is so hard to find out the truth of anything by looking at the record of the past. The process of time obscures the truth of former times, and even contemporaneous writers disguise and twist the truth out of malice or flattery.[7]
TheLives were circulated enough throughout Rome after their original production that they survived the Dark Ages. However, many of theLives which appear in a list of his writings have not been found. Among these are his biography of Hercules and his comparison ofEpaminondas of Greece andScipio Africanus of Rome.[7]
The first printed edition of hisParallel Lives appeared inRome around 1470, translated into Latin from the original Greek. Several more translations would appear through the end of the fifteenth century, with an Italian translation in 1482 then in Spanish in 1491. A German translation would be written in 1541.[8]
TheLives would gain massive popularity after the 1559 French translation byAmyot, the Abbot of Bellozane. This reproduction of the work was an immediate success. Six authorized editions were published by the Parisian house of Vascosan by the end of 1579, and it was largely pirated.[9]
Amyot's translation served as a direct source forThomas North's 1579 English translation, which phrase for phrase follows Amyot's French version.[9] This rendition would become an important source-material forShakespeare'sCoriolanus, Julius Caesar, andAntony and Cleopatra.[2]
In 1683 a new English edition of theLives was published, this time translated from the original Greek, unlike North's translation. This translation has come to be known as "Dryden's translation", despite the poetJohn Dryden only serving as the project's editor and ultimately having no role in the actual translation of the work. It was published by Jacob Tonson.[10]
Plutarch structuredParallel Lives by pairing lives of famous Greeks with those of famous Romans. Eighteen of these close with a formal comparison between its characters.[2]
Plutarch's focus within theLives is to create a neat depiction of character that fits into his comparison to the parallel life. Historical context is neglected in favor of moral analysis in order to create his desired anecdote. This can be seen in his deviation from the sources he used to understand the characters he represented: "His Eumenes is a far cry from any picture of Eumenes he can have found in the historical literature he used. It is an artificial creation to provide a counterpart to his Sertorius and can only be understood against the background of the Sertorius."[11] TheParallel Lives, therefore, need to be understood primarily as literary biographies, not as histories.
Within the biographies Plutarch presents both the positive and negative attributes of each character. Rather than speaking of the character’s lives in simple terms surrounding the events of their lives, he describes the moral and psychological motivations behind each figure. He uses them as ‘moral actors’, prompting self-examination and self-improvement from the reader. Even when making judgements on the characters within the text, Plutarch still “poses questions to his readers and suggests alternative trains of thought that might be possible for them to follow”.[12] This encourages the reader to acknowledge and appreciate contradicting viewpoints and broaden their moral perspectives.
The table below gives the list of the biographies. Its order follows the one found in theLamprias Catalogue, the list of Plutarch's works made by his hypothetical son Lamprias.[13] The table also features links to several English translations of Plutarch'sLives available online. While the four unpaired biographies are not considered to be parts of theParallel Lives, they can be included in the termPlutarch's Lives.
All dates areBC.
The two-volume edition of Dryden's translation contains the following biographies:
Volume 1. Theseus, Romulus, Lycurgus, Numa, Solon, Publicola, Themistocles, Camillus, Pericles, Fabius, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Timoleon, Aemilius Paulus, Pelopidas, Marcellus, Aristides, Cato the Elder, Philopoemen, Flamininus, Pyrrhus, Marius, Lysander, Sulla, Cimon, Lucullus, Nicias, Crassus.
Volume 2. Sertorius, Eumenes, Agesilaus, Pompey, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Phocion, Cato the Younger, Agis, Cleomenes, Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus, Demosthenes, Cicero, Demetrius, Mark Antony, Dion, Marcus Brutus, Aratus, Artaxerxes II, Galba, Otho.
Plutarch'sParallel Lives has received widespread praise from notable figures throughout its centuries of popularity. The 1559 first French edition was hailed by French author and philosopherMontaigne, who commented "We dunces would have been lost if this book had not raised us out of the dirt".Beethoven, with the progression of his deafness, wrote in 1801, "I have often cursed my Creator and my existence. Plutarch has shown me the path of resignation. If it is at all possible, I will bid defiance to my fate, though I feel that as long as I live there will be moments when I shall be God's most unhappy creature ... Resignation, what a wretched resource! Yet it is all that is left to me." British GeneralGordon wrote "Certainly I would make Plutarch'sLives a handbook for our young officers. It is worth any number of 'Arts of War' or 'Minor Tactics'."Ralph Waldo Emerson called theLives "a bible for heroes."[8]
The individual biographies have their own receptions in addition to responses to the work as a whole. The life of Antonius has been cited by multiple scholars as one of the masterpieces of the series.[16][17][18] Peter D'Epiro praised his depiction of Alcibiades as "a masterpiece of characterization."[19] AcademicPhilip A. Stadter singled out Plutarch's Pompey and Caesar as the greatest figures in the Roman biographies.[20] His biography of Caesar has been cited as proof that Plutarch is "loaded with perception".[21] Carl Rollyson'sEssays in Biography states that "no biographer has surpassed him in summing up the essence of a life – perhaps because no modern biographer has believed so intensely as Plutarch did in 'the soul of men'."[21]
Within each translation and reiteration of Plutarch'sLives, translators and editors have manipulated his original work in order to put forward their own ideologies. George Wyndham's 1895 introduction to theLives denounces how
Men cut down the genuineLives to convenient lengths, for summaries and 'treasuries'...[they] epitomized Plutarch's matter and pointed his moral, grinding them to the dust of a classical dictionary and the ashes of a copybook headline.[6]
Here he is speaking of incomplete republications of Plutarch's original work, which had gained popularity but had been rehashed into brief, incomplete outlines that lacked Plutarch's original depth. Rebecca Nesvet argues that the 1683 translation of the text was constructed with the intention of incorporating a message of religious tolerance. Jacob Tonson, with assistance from John Dryden, republishedLives confirming Plutarch's paganism and demonstrating clearly that "adherence to a faith outside the one his readers were expected to follow should not disqualify a rational individual from political involvement in leadership". While the original text ofParallel Lives was produced to progress certain moral ideals, translators of the work have deviated from the original text to incorporate their own ethics.[22]
Plutarch'sParallel Lives has remained relevant centuries after being authored. His merging of biography and ethical commentary continues to be an invaluable reflection on human nature. Put quite plainly: "We find Plutarch surprisingly relevant today because nothing really has changed in human nature over the nineteen centuries since Plutarch wrote".[8]
