Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T20:52:07.444Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

King of his castle: Plutarch, Demosthenes 1–2*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Alexei V. Zadorojnyi
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool

Extract

The introductory chapters of the Plutarchan Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero are much relied on for personal information about the author. It is here that Plutarch tells us that he wrote the Parallel Lives while residing in his home town of Chaeronea, and that he had been to Italy; his knowledge of Latin was, however, limited. As a matter of course, numerous scholars have paid attention to these statements, often with far-reaching interpretive implications. If the passage is accepted at face value, Plutarch comes across as a placid yet honourable man of letters, not a social climber but a morally upstanding gent who was loyal to his clan as well as one who disliked, could not afford, or was apprehensive about living in a big city. Alternatively, one might mistrust Plutarch and unscramble his voice as plea by a wily loser in the literary and political competition of his day. Donald Russell sensed that Plutarch was left on the fringe because his career somehow did not take off. Russell's intuition is filled out by Glen Bowersock's robust conjecture that Plutarch's (relative) seclusion in Chaeronea during Trajan's reign was not quite voluntary: having compromised himself in the 90s with his pro-Flavian biographies of the Caesars, Plutarch laboured to clinch a comeback by means of the Parallel Lives and essays.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arafat, K. (1996) Pausanias' Greece. Ancient artists and Roman rulers, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Averintsev, (2004) = Αвepинцев, C. C. (2004) Πʌуmapx u aʜmuɥʜaя. ϬuoϨpαфuя. К ɞonpocy o месme кʌассuка жаnpa ɞ ucmopuu жanpa, in (id.) Oδpaɜ aнmuчносmu, St Petersburg, 225479; first published (as separate monograph) Moscow 1973.Google Scholar
Babut, D. (1993) ‘Stoïciens et stoïcisme dans les Dialogues pythiques de Plutarque’, ICS 18, 203–27.Google Scholar
Barigazzi, A. (1984) ‘Plutarco e il corso futuro della storia’, Prometheus 10, 264–86 =Google Scholar
Barigazzi, A. (1984) Studi su Plutarco, Florence 1994, 303–30.Google Scholar
Beck, M. (forthcoming) ‘The ideology of euergetism in the Lives of Cimon and Lucullus’.Google Scholar
Billault, A. (2001) ‘L'histoire de la rhétorique dans les Vies parallèles de Plutarque: l'exemple des Vies de Démosthène et de Cicéron’, REG 114, 256–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borg, B. E. (ed.) (2004) Paideia: the world of the Second Sophistic, Berlin & New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boulogne, J. (1994) Plutarque, un aristocrate grecque sous l'occupation romaine, Lille.Google Scholar
Bowersock, G. (1998) ‘Vita Caesarum. Remembering and forgetting the past’, in Ehlers, W. W. (ed.) La biographie antique = Entr. Hardt 44, Vandœuvres & Geneva, 193210.Google Scholar
Bowie, E. (1970) ‘Greeks and their past in the Second Sophistic’, P&P 46, 341.Google Scholar
Bowie, E. (2002) ‘Plutarch and literary activity in Achaea: A.D. 107–117’, in Stadter, P., Stockt, L. Van der (eds.) Sage and emperor: Plutarch, Greek intellectuals and Roman power in the time of Trajan (98–117 A.D.), Leuven, 4156.Google Scholar
Bowie, E. (2004) ‘Poetry and music in the life of Plutarch's statesman’, in de Blois, et al. 115–23.Google Scholar
Buckler, J. (1992) ‘Plutarch and autopsy’, ANRW 2.33.6, 4788–830.Google Scholar
Burlando, A. (ed.) (1995) Plutarco. Vita di Demostene. Vita di Cicerone, Milan.Google Scholar
Burlando, A. (ed.) (2000) ‘Breve nota a Plutarco. Demostene 1–2’, in Stockt, Van der, 61–8.Google Scholar
Burridge, R. A. (1997) ‘Biography’, in Porter, S. E. (ed.) Handbook of classical rhetoric in the Hellenistic period 330 B.C. - A.D. 400, Leiden, 371–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Candau, J. M. (2004/2005) ‘Plutarco como transmisor de Timeo. La Vida de Nicias’, Ploutarchos n.s. 2, 1134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Candau, J. M (2005) ‘Polybius and Plutarch on the Roman ethos’, in Schepens, and Bollansée, , 307–28.Google Scholar
Carrière, J.-C. (1977) ‘À propos de la Politique de Plutarque’, DHA 3, 237–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavarero, A. (2002) ‘The envied Muse: Plato versus Homer’, in Spentzou, E., Fowler, D. (eds.) Cultivating the Muse. Struggles for power and inspiration in classical literature, Oxford, 4767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connolly, J. (2001) ‘Problems of the past in imperial Greek education’, in Too, Y. L. (ed.) Education in Greek and Roman antiquity, Leiden, 339–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, C. (2004) ‘“The appearance of history”: making some sense of Plutarch’, in Egan, R. B., Joyal, M. A. (eds.) Daimonopylai. Essays in classics and the classical tradition presented to Edmund G. Berry, Winnipeg, 3355.Google Scholar
Dana, Y. (1995) ‘Plutarch on political theory and praxis in the career of a Roman statesman in mid-second century B.C.’, in Gallo, I., Scardigli, B. (eds.), Teoria e prassi politico nelle opere di Plutarco, Naples, 91–8.Google Scholar
de Blois, L., Bons, J., Kessels, T., Schenkeveld, D. M. (eds.) (2004) The statesman in Plutarch's works. Volume I: Plutarch's statesman and his aftermath: political, philosophical, and literary aspects, Leiden & Boston.Google Scholar
de las Matas, B. T. (1997) ‘Los proemios de los diálogos de Plutarco: un análisis narratológico’, in Schrader, , Ramón, , and Vela, , 449–60.Google Scholar
De Rosalia, A. (1991) ‘Il latino di Plutarco’, in Gallo, I., D'Ippolito, G. (eds.), Strutture formali dei Moralia di Plutarco, Naples, 445–59.Google Scholar
Dillon, J. M. (1997) ‘Plutarch and the end of history’, in Mossman, J. (ed.). Plutarch and his intellectual world, London, 233–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duff, T. (1999) Plutarch's Lives: exploring virtue and vice, Oxford.Google Scholar
Duff, T. (2001) ‘The prologue to the Lives of Perikles and Fabius (Per. 1–2)’, in Jiménez, A. Pérez, Bordoy, F. Casadesús (eds.), Estudios sobre Plutarco: misticismo y religiones mistéricas en la obra de Plutarco, Madrid & Málaga. 351–63.Google Scholar
Duff, T. (2004) ‘Plato, tragedy, the ideal reader and Plutarch's Demetrios and Antony’, Hermes 132. 271–91.Google Scholar
Durán López, M. (2004) ‘Plutarco, ciudadano griego y súbdito romano’, in Blois, de et al. 3341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earl, D. C. (1972) ‘Prologue form in ancient historiography’, ANRW 1.2, 842–56.Google Scholar
Eck, W. (2002) ‘An emperor is made: senatorial politics and Trajan's adoption by Nerva in 97’, in Clark, G., Rajak, T. (eds.), Philosophy and power in the Graeco-Roman world. Essays in honour of Miriam Griffin, Oxford, 211–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckstein, A. M. (1995) Moral vision in the Histories of Polybius. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erskine, A. (1995) ‘Rome in the Greek world: the signification of a name’, in Powell, A. (ed.) The Greek world, London & New York, 368–83.Google Scholar
Fein, S. (1994) Die Beziehungen der Kaiser Trajan und Hadrian zu den Litterati, Stuttgart & Leipzig.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flacelière, R. (1951) ‘Le poète stoïcien Sarapion d'Athènes, ami de Plutarque’, REG 64, 325–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flinterman, J.-J. (1995) Power, paideia and Pythagoreanism. Greek identity, conceptions of the relationship between philosophers and monarchs and political ideas in Philostratus' Lite of Apollonius, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Fuhrmann, F. (1964) Les images de Plutarque, Paris.Google Scholar
Gallo, I. (1999) ‘L'idea di Roma in Plutarco’, in (id.) Parerga plutarchea, Naples, 195203.Google Scholar
Geiger, J. (2000) ‘Plutarch on late Republican orators and rhetoric’, in Stockt, Van der, 211–23.Google Scholar
Genette, G. (1987) Seuils, Paris.Google Scholar
Gill, C. J. (1983) ‘The question of character-development in Plutarch and Tacitus’, CQ 33, 469–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gleason, M. W. (1995) Making men. Sophists and self-presentation in ancient Rome, Princeton.Google Scholar
Glucker, J. (1978) Antiochus and the late Academy, Göttingen.Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. (ed.) (2001) Being Greek under Rome. Cultural identity, the Second Sophistic and the development of empire, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldhill, S. (ed.) (2002) Who needs Greek? Contests in the cultural history of Hellenism, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Gonzáles Ponce, J. (2005) ‘Metodología para una contextualización de la visión plutarquea de Timeo’, in Jufresa, M., Mestre, F., Gómez, P., Gilarbert, P. (eds.) Plutarc a la seva època: paideia i societat, Barcelona, 595605.Google Scholar
Halliwell, S. (2002) The aesthetics of mimesis: ancient texts and modern problems, Princeton & Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, S. J. (1990) ‘The speaking book: the prologue to Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, CQ 40, 507–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmbold, W. C. and O'Neil, E. N. (1959) Plutarch's quotations, Baltimore & London.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. (2001) ‘From Megalopolis to Cosmopolis: Polybius, or there and back again’, in Goldhill, (2001) 2949.Google Scholar
Herbert, K. (1957) ‘The identity of Plutarch's lost Scipio’, AJP 78, 83–8.Google Scholar
Hershbell, J. P. (1997) ‘Plutarch's concept of history: philosophy from examples’, AncSoc 28, 225–43.Google Scholar
Holford-Strevens, L. A. (1993) ‘Vtraque lingua doctus: some notes on bilingualism in the Roman empire’, in Jocelyn, H. D. (ed.), Tria lustra: essays and notes presented to John Pinsent = LCM 150, 203–13.Google Scholar
Hunink, V. (2004) ‘Plutarch and Apuleius’, in Blois, de et al. 251–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, C. P. (1966) ‘Towards a chronology of Plutarch's works’, JRS 56, 6174.Google Scholar
Jones, C. P. (1971) Plutarch and Rome, Oxford.Google Scholar
Jones, C. P. (1978) ‘Three foreigners in Attica’. Phoenix 32, 222–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, C. P. (2004) ‘Multiple identities in the age of the Second Sophistic’, in Borg, , 1421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keulen, W. H. (2004), ‘Lucius' kinship diplomacy: Plutarchan reflections in an Apuleian character’, in Blois, de et al. 261–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamberton, R. (2001) Plutarch, New Haven & London.Google Scholar
Larmour, D. (2005) ‘Statesman and self in the Parallel Lives’, in Blois, L. de, Bons, J., Kessels, T., Schenkeveld, D. M. (eds.), The statesman in Plutarch's works. Volume II: The statesman in Plutarch's Greek and Roman Lives, Leiden & Boston, 4351.Google Scholar
Lausberg, H. (1960) Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft, 2 vols., Munich.Google Scholar
Levi, M. (1982) ‘Die Kritik des Polybios an Timaios’, in Stiewe, K., Holzberg, N. (eds.) Polybios, Darmstadt, 405–14;Google Scholar
first published as ‘La critica di Polibio a Timeo’, in Miscellanea di studi alessandrini in memoria di Augusto Rostagni, Turin 1963, 195202.Google Scholar
Longo (1995) = Longo, C. P., Mugelli, B.. Geiger, J., Ghilli, L. (eds.) Plutarco: Demosthene, Cicerone, Milan.Google Scholar
McInerney, J. (2004) ‘“Do you see what I see?”: Plutarch and Pausanias at Delphi’, in Blois, de et al. 4355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marincola, J. (1997) Authority and tradition in ancient historiography, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, J. (1974) Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode, Munich.Google Scholar
Meister, K. (1975) Historische Kritik bei Polybios, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Mossman, J. (1999) ‘Is the pen mightier than the sword? The failure of rhetoric in Plutarch's Demosthenes’, www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1999/mossman.htmlGoogle Scholar
Moya del Baño, F. and Carrasco Reija, L. (1991) ‘Plutarco, traductor del Latín al Griego’, in López, J. García, Dorda, E. Calderón (eds.), Estudios sobre Plutarco: Paisaje y naturalezza, Madrid, 287–96.Google Scholar
Muccioli, F. (2000) ‘La critica di Plutarco a Filisto e a Timeo’, in Van der Stockt, , 291307.Google Scholar
Nikolaidis, A. G. (2005) ‘Plutarch's methods: his cross-references and the sequence of the Parallel Lives’, in Jiménez, Pérez and Titchener, , 283323.Google Scholar
Opelt, I. (1965) ‘Roma = ٬Ρώμη und Rom als Idee’, Philologus 109, 4756.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostenfeld, E. N. (ed.) (2002) Greek Romans and Roman Greeks: studies in cultural interaction, Aarchus.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. (2002a) ‘“You for me and me for you”: narrator and narratee in Plutarch's Lives’, in (id.) Plutarch and history: eighteen studies, London, 267–82.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. (2002b) ‘Plutarch's method of work in the Roman Lives’, in (id.) Plutarch and history: eighteen studies (London), 144;Google Scholar
first published in JHS 99 (1979) 7496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, C. (2002c) ‘The moralism of Plutarch's Lives’, in (id.) Plutarch and history: eighteen studies, London, 237–51; first published in Innes, D. C., Hine, H. M., Pelling, C. (eds.) Ethics and rhetoric: classical essays for Donald Russell on his seventy-fifth birthday, Oxford 1995, 205–20.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. (2002d) ‘Plutarch's Caesar: a Caesar for the Caesars?’, in (id.) Plutarch and history: eighteen studies, London, 253–65.Google Scholar
Pelling, C. (2004) ‘Plutarch’, in De Jong, I., Nünlist, R., Bowie, A. (eds.) Narrators, narratees, and narratives in ancient Greek literature: studies in ancient Greek narrative, vol. I, Leiden & Boston, 403–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pérez Jiménez, A. and Titchener, F. (eds.) (2005) Historical and biographical values of Plutarch's works. Studies devoted to Professor Philip Stadter by the International Plutarch Society, Málaga & Logan, Utah.Google Scholar
Preston, R. (2001) ‘Roman questions, Greek answers: Plutarch and the construction of identity’, in Goldhill, (2001) 86119.Google Scholar
Puech, B. (1992) ‘Prosopographie des amis de Plutarque’, ANRW 2.33.6, 4831–93.Google Scholar
Rochette, B. (1997) Le latin dans le monde grec. Recherches sur la diffusion de la langue et des letters latines dans les provinces hellénophones de l'Empire romain, Brussels.Google Scholar
Rosenmeyer, T. G. (1992) ‘Beginnings in Plutarch's Lives’, in Dunn, F. M., Cole, T., (eds.) Beginnings in classical literature = YCS 29, Cambridge, 205–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roskam, G. (2004) ‘Plutarch on self and others’, AncSoc 34, 245–73.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1966) ‘On reading Plutarch's Lives’, G&R 13, 139–54.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1973) Plutarch, London.Google Scholar
Russell, D. A. (1993) ‘Self-disclosure in Plutarch and Horace’, in Most, G. W., Petersmann, H., Ritter, A. M. (eds.) Philanthropia kai eusebeia. Festschrift für Albrecht Dihle zum 70. Geburtstag, Göttingen, 426–37.Google Scholar
Sacks, K. (1981) Polybius and the writing of history, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Santaniello, G. (2000) ‘Rapporti fra generi letterari e pubblico nelCorpus plutarcheo’, in Gallo, I., Moreschini, C. (eds.) I generi letterari in Plutarco, Naples, 335–44.Google Scholar
Schepens, G. (1974) ‘The bipartite and tripartite divisions of history in Polybius (XII 25e & 27)’, AntSoc 5, 277–87.Google Scholar
Schepens, G. (1990) ‘Polemic and methodology in Polybius' Book XII’, in Verdin, H., Schepens, G., deKeyser, E. (eds.) Purposes of history. Studies in Greek historiography from the 4th to the 2nd centuries BC, Leuven, 3961.Google Scholar
Schepens, G. and Bollansée, J. (eds.) (2005) The shadow of Polybius. Intertextualitv as a research tool in Greek historiography, Leuven, Paris & Dudley, MA.Google Scholar
Schmitz, T. (1997) Bildung und Macht: zur sozialen and politischen Funktion der zweiten Sophistik in der griechischen Welt der Kaiserzeit, Munich.Google Scholar
Schrader, C., Ramón, V., Vela, J. (eds.) (1997) Plutarco y la historia: Actas del V simposio español sobre Plutarco, Saragossa.Google Scholar
Sirinelli, J. (2000) Plutarque de Chéronée. Un philosophe dans le siècle, Paris.Google Scholar
Smith, R. R. R. (1998) ‘Cultural choice and political identity in honorific portrait statues in the Greek East’, JRS 88, 5693.Google Scholar
Stadter, P. (1988) ‘The proems of Plutarch's Lives’, ICS 13, 275–95.Google Scholar
Stadter, P. (2000) ‘The rhetoric of virtue in Plutarch's Lives’, in Van der Stockt, , 493510.Google Scholar
Stadter, P. (2002) ‘Plutarch's Lives and their Roman readers’, in Ostenfeld, , 123–35.Google Scholar
Stok, F. (1998) ‘Plutarco nella letteratura latina imperiale’, in Gallo, I. (ed.) L'eredità culturale di Plutarco dull antichità al Rinascimento, Naples, 5580.Google Scholar
Strobach, A. (1997) Plutarch und die Sprachen. Ein Beitrag zur Fremdsprachenproblematik in der Antike, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Swain, S. (1989) ‘Character change in Plutarch’, Phoenix 43, 62–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, S. (1990) ‘Hellenic culture and the Roman heroes of Plutarch’, JHS 110, 126–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, S. (1996) Hellenism and empire. Language, classicism, and power in the Greek world, AD 50–250, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teodorsson, S.-T. (2005) ‘Plutarch, amalgamator of Greece and Rome’, in Jiménez, Pérez and Titchener, . 433–9.Google Scholar
Theander, C. (1951) Plutarch und die Geschichte, Lund.Google Scholar
Theander, C. (1959) ‘Plutarchs Forschungen in Rom. Zu mündlichen Überlieferung als Quelle der Biographien’, Eranos 57, 99131.Google Scholar
Titchener, F. (2002) ‘Plutarch and Roman(ized) Athens’, in Ostenfeld, , 136–41.Google Scholar
Van der Stockt, L. (1992) Twinkling and twilight: Plutarch's reflections on literature, Brussels.Google Scholar
Van der Stockt, L. (ed.) (2000) Rhetorical theory and praxis in Plutarch, Leuven & Namur.Google Scholar
Van der Stockt, L. (2005) ‘Πολυβιάσασθαι? Plutarch on Timaeus and “tragic history”’, in Schepens, and Bollansée, , 271305.Google Scholar
Van der Valk, M. (1982) ‘Notes on the composition and arrangement of the biographies of Plutarch’. in Studi in onore di Aristide Colonna, Perugia, 301–37.Google Scholar
Vattuone, R. (2005) ‘Timeo, Polibio e la storiografia greca d'occidente’, in Schepens, and Bollansée, , 89122.Google Scholar
Walbank, F. W. (1962) ‘Polemic in Polybius’, JRS 52, 112.Google Scholar
Walbank, F. W. (1966) ‘Polybius’, in Dorey, T. A. (ed.) Latin historians, London. 3963.Google Scholar
Walbank, F. W. (1967) A historical commentary on Polybius, vol. 2, Oxford.Google Scholar
Walbank, F. W. (1972) Polybius, Berkeley, Los Angeles & London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walbank, F. W. (2002) ‘“Treason” and Roman domination: two case-studies, Polybius and Josephus’, in (id.) Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic world: essays and reflections (Cambridge), 258–76; first published in Schubert, C., Brodersen, K. (eds.) Rom und der griechischer Osten: Festschrift für Hatto H. Schmitt zum 65. Geburtstag, Stuttgart 1995, 273–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walbank, F. W. (2005) ‘The two-way shadow: Polybius among the fragments’, in Schepens, and Bollansée, , 118.Google Scholar
Walsh, P. G. (1981) ‘Apuleius and Plutarch’, in Blumenthal, H. J., Markus, R. A. (eds.) Neoplatonism and early Christian thought, London, 2032.Google Scholar
Wardman, A. (1974) Plutarch's Lives, London.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T. (1998) ‘Reading power in Roman Greece: the paideia of Dio Chrysostom’, in Too, Y. L., Livingstone, N. (eds.) Pedagogy and power. Rhetorics of classical learning, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T. (2001a) Greek literature and the Roman empire: the politics of imitation, Oxford.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T. (2001b), ‘“Greece is the world”: exile and identity in the Second Sophistic’, in Goldhill, (2001) 269305.Google Scholar
Whitmarsh, T. (2005) The Second Sophistic, Oxford.Google Scholar
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U. von (1995) ‘Plutarch as biographer’, in Scardigli, B. (ed.) Essays on Plutarch's Lives, Oxford, 4774;Google Scholar
first published as ‘Plutarch als Biograph’, in (id.) Reden and Vorträge, vol. 2, Berlin 1926, 247–79.Google Scholar
Woolf, G. (1994) ‘Becoming Roman, staying Greek: culture, identity and the civilizing process in the Roman East’, PCPS 40, 116–43.Google Scholar
Zadorojnyi, A. V. (1997) ‘The Roman poets in Plutarch's stories’, in Schrader, , Ramón, , and Vela, , 497506.Google Scholar
Zadorojnyi, A. V. (1999) ‘Plutarch's literary paideia’, PhD thesis, University of Exeter.Google Scholar
Zadorojnyi, A. V. (forthcoming) ‘ὣσπερ ἐν ἐσόπτρῳ: the rhetoric and philosophy of Plutarch‘s mirrors’.Google Scholar
Zecchini, G. (2005) ‘Polibio in Plutarco’, in Jiménez, Pérez and Titchener, , 513–22.Google Scholar
Ziegler, K. (1951) ‘Plutarchos von Chaeroneia’, RE 21.1, cols. 632962.Google Scholar