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    Plutarch's Lives Volume Two (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
    Unavailable
    Plutarch's Lives Volume Two (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
    Unavailable
    Plutarch's Lives Volume Two (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
    Ebook1,209 pages14 hours

    Plutarch's Lives Volume Two (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

    By Plutarch and Clayton Miles Lehmann

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    About this ebook

    Plutarch defined for all ages the character of Greek and Roman moral identity. He studied what constitutes the best in a human being, and which, in turn, determines a person’s role in the world. Blending history and biography, Plutarch evokes the characters of great leaders in history. He systematically pairs a Greek with a Roman, comparing characters and lives with similar careers so as to serve his particular goal of moral instruction. In vivid prose, he describes the awesome spectacle of the actions of men of enormous desires and ambitions responding to impossible situations.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarnes & Noble
    Release dateSep 1, 2009
    ISBN9781411429734
    Unavailable
    Plutarch's Lives Volume Two (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)
    Author

    Plutarch

    Plutarch was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch’s surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers.

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    Reviews for Plutarch's Lives Volume Two (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading)

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    • 5/5
      This is often known as the "Parallel Lives" because these biographical sketches come in pairs, one Greek, one Roman, followed by a comparison. This is a thick tome. My edition of Plutarch's Lives as translated by Dryden is nearly 800 pages. And yes, I read the whole thing and was never bored. Maybe this makes me perverse, given the number of reviewers I've heard describe them as dry. I thought it a wonderful and engaging introduction to the most illustrious personalities of Greco-Roman antiquity. I first read these when I was a college dropout for a time, and was reading through Good Reading's "100 Significant" books so my brain wouldn't turn to mush: I found it a favorite. Maybe it helped that by then I had made my way through Homer, Aesop, the four surviving Greek playwrights, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Vergil. Given that from the time I was a teen I was a fan of Mary Renault's and Robert Graves novels about ancient Greece and Rome, and familiarity with Shakespeare's plays (several of which were based on Plutarch) that means quite a few of the figures featured were already familiar to me: Theseus, Pericles, Alcibiades, Coriolanus, Cato, Crassus, Pompey, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Brutus. Maybe that helped. But there were also a lot of figures then unfamiliar to me such as Sulla and Lysander and the book never lost my interest. From what I gather it's not always reliable as history. Plutarch purportedly stretched things, both to find similarities in the two figures paired and to draw a tidy moral. And given Plutarch was a Greek and a Roman citizen trying to underline what they had in common, as you could expect, those outside that charmed circle, such as Cleopatra (for all she was of Greek descent) and the Carthaginians don't exactly get good press here. It probably is a good idea to seek out an edition that's thoroughly annotated--and try different translations if you don't find Dryden congenial. But I for one think this is numbered among the great books for good reason.
    • 5/5
      Ok so at least one of these reviews is blatantly false--the one that says there are no years given (especially birth and death years). Every figure's birth and death dates are listed in this particular edition, including "circas" for those who are legendary or whose birth dates aren't accurately known. And then the comment about only one figure's birth date being after 1 AD is just DUMB. I'm just not quite sure why this matters so much, as the study is of character and human nature, and it's especially unclear why human nature would be substantially different after the arbitrary cutoff of the year 1 AD. If you read all 1296 pages (which must be a different edition, since mine is only 876 pages of text plus an index) and could not figure this out, then you honestly should not be allowed to write a review. Of any book. Anywhere.Now the second half of this is that this was one of the works that Ben Franklin singled out as particularly valuable and it has been considered such by many of the great enlightened figures of history. It seems dubious that anyone would thus be so narrow-minded as to think their opinion that it is worthless matters one iota. Think I'll take Franklin's word over yours, pal.
    • 5/5
      Plutarch lived AD 46 TO AD 120: A Greek who became a Roman Citizen and was 1 of 2 Priests at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (origin of the Oracle). Over many years Plutarch wrote a series of 'Lives' of famous ancient men: Written in the First Century it is regarded as a majorly important semi-History and reference for people, events and conditions of the late pre- and earliest post-Christ world of Greeks and Romans.It explores famous people for their good and bad characteristics and behaviours viewed from an Ethical-Moral standpoint.It would be valued as a great work if only its secondary information on Alexander the Great (356-323) and Julius Caesar (100 to 44) had survived, but there is much more including a Roman King, brilliant orators, adventurers etc. The work is full of ideas, principles and arguments that can be found running through all Civilization over the last 2,000 years.Plutarch constructs his work using a unique juxtaposition of paired Greek and Roman lives.This is a very worthy translation by J & W Langhorne.
    • 5/5
      I love the way history is told by these classic writers -- such a blend of fact, cause, nuance, and anecdote. If there is a theme, it is the seeds of law and government sprouting from barbarian hordes and powerful kings. This work in particular shows so much about how we know the things we've been taught.
    • 4/5
      I believe that the "Great Books of the Western World" series uses the safely out of copyright Dryden Translation and so have used that cover. I read the 36 lives found in the Penguin paperback series, But that meant I hadn't got everyone, and thus I turned to the nice hardbound often to be found second hand. It fits the hand well, and you get the introductory and comparative essays that the author had originally included. I think the Everyman edition has a weak binding.