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Shop nowPlutarch’s Lives, Vol. 1
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Learn moreOne of the world’s most profoundly influential literary works and the basis for Shakespeare’s Roman plays (Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra), Plutarch’s Lives have been entertaining and arousing the spirit of emulation in countless readers since their creation at the beginning of the second century.
Originally named Parallel Lives, the work pairs eminent Romans with famous Greek counterparts—like the orators Cicero and Demosthenes—giving illuminating treatments of each separately and then comparing the two in a pithy essay.
The first of the two volumes in this translation by John Dryden presents Theseus and Romulus, Pericles and Fabius, Alcibiades and Coriolanus, Aristides and Marcus Cato, and Lysander and Sylla, among others. This is a brilliant social history of the ancient world.
Plutarch (c. AD 46–120) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist. For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi. He actively participated in local affairs in the town of his birth, Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as Boeotia, and was also a magistrate, representing his home on various missions to foreign countries.
Bernard Mayes is a teacher, administrator, corporate executive, broadcaster, actor, dramatist, and former international commentator on US culture. He is best known for his readings of historical classics.
John Dryden (1631–1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright. Dryden dominated the literary life of Restoration England so much that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.
Reviews
“Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of…character and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles.”
“Away with your prismatics. I want a spermatic book…Plato, Plotinus, and Plutarch are such.”
“A moralizing program: they set out to construct not full biographies but ethical discussions through the narrative of life.”
“Plutarch is my man.”
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