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Plutarch's Biographical Sources in the Roman Lives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. E. Smith
R. E. Smith
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Toronto, Ontario.
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Extract

The object of this article is to set forth certain evidence that emerges from a study of three of Plutarch's Lives, the Titus, the Paullus, and the Cato Maior, evidence which indicates that these Lives are based upon a definite type of biographical composition, and to suggest its possible origin and date. Since E. Meyer's article on the Cimon of Nepos and Plutarch, biographical sources have generally been assumed for the Greek Lives, and there has been a tendency to make the same assumption for the Roman Lives also, without, however, setting forth the evidence that might justify it. Uxkull Gyllenband maintained that biographies of Greeks and Romans, the sources of Plutarch, were written in the second century b.c., but he gives no evidence for his contention, which is indeed refuted by the observations of Jacoby. Mühl argued with some force that Plutarch's source for the Marcellus was a biography. There is good reason to doubt his conclusion that Plutarch has used a biography of Poseidonius; but the arguments advanced by Klotz for the thesis that the source was the annalist Valerius Antias are still less convincing. Liedmeier postulates a biographical source for the Paullus, but without doing more than asserting the general improbability that Plutarch here used a multiplicity of sources. It seems therefore desirable to collect such evidence as there is of a biographical source in these three Roman Lives of the second century b.c., and it is with such an attempt rather than with a priori considerations that I am here concerned.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 1-2 , April 1940 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1940

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References

1 Forschungen zur alten Geschichte, ii. pp. 1 ff.Google Scholar

2 Plutarch und die griechische Biographie, pp. 103 ff.Google Scholar

3 Historische Zeitschrift, cxxxix, 1929, p. 586.Google Scholar

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7 Livy says nothing of the future of the unsuccessful competitors, while Plutarch fails to mention the dedication of the shield which made Paullus' tenure of office insignis.

1 See below, pp. 6 f.

2 Cf. Leo, , Die griechisch-römische Biographic, pp. 146–92Google Scholar; Hirzel, , Plutarch, pp. 47–73.Google Scholar

3 No annalist who was describing Titus as in Greece in 197 could have attributed to him the leading of a colony in Italy. The fact that the annalists described the events year by year would of itself protect them from making this mistake.

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5 If we are to find historicity in it, I can only conjecture that in discussions before the Senate's decision was taken it was suggested that Titus should be given this duty, but that either he was chosen for Venusia instead or he was already in Venusia at the time and had not returned; in any case, the suggestion was not followed up. If this is the truth, then surely only family archives would remember the incident?

1 As Klotz, , op. cit., p. 49Google Scholar, thinks.

2 Cf. Tac., Ann. xi. 22Google Scholar: ‘ac ne aetas quidem distinguebatur quin prima iuventa consulatum ac dictaturas inirent.’ Also Cic. Phil. v. 17.Google Scholar

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4 As I have seen suggested somewhere. If it had been spontaneous, one might ask why the people did not instantly show their displeasure; one might also suppose that Scipio Asiagenus would have won some sympathy, and that the nobles would have been more anxious to return him his horse than to receive Lucius Flamininus back into their ranks.

1 Since Livy's source appears to be Valerius in the one place, Claudius in the other (as I am informed by Dr, A. H. McDonald of Sydney University, who has made a study of these books of Livy), there seems to have been a measure of agreement between the annalists as to Paullus' initial defeat.

1 Plutarch says пερὶ τρισμνρίους ἀνελών, Livy, , ‘caesa decem et octo milia armatorum, tria milia trecenti capti’.Google Scholar

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6 Since Plutarch used Polybius for a great part of this Life, and would therefore know whether it was based on Polybius. But the facts of Polybius would be more conveniently and more simply arranged in a biography.

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1 iii. 5. 6. See De Sanctis, , Storia dei Romani, vol. iii, pt. ii, p. 517Google Scholar, note 113. Fraccaro, , op. cit., pp. 120–6.Google Scholar

2 xi. 1. 2.

3 Cato, 1. 2. 3.Google Scholar

4 ii. 2.

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6 To maintain that he derived just that from another source is merely perversely to multiply sources, and examination shows that the multiplication cannot end there; there are other facts in Plutarch which cannot be derived from Nepos. I do not wish to suggest that Plutarch did not read Cicero or Nepos, but that neither of them was his main source.

7 xvii; cf. Titus, xviii.Google Scholar

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10 Op. cit., pp. 51–2.

11 Op. cit., p. 297.

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1 Space forbids the enumeration of the many other indications of a biographical source for the Cato, but we should note the small but important detail in xvi. 1 τς δ' ὑпατείας κατόпιν ἒτεσι δέκα, a precision which is conformable neither to a solely political biography nor to Plutarch's normal ways, since he is generally quite uninterested in matters of chronology, and must have found the calculation ready-made.

2 One of the stories of Titus' mission to Prusias must be false, and must have been invented either to exonerate him to a certain extent and embroil a Scipio, or to contrast him unfavourably with Scipio, whichever we choose to say is invented.

3 pp. 7 f.

4 I see no reason for accepting Cichorius, ' suggestion, Wien. Stud, xxiv, 1902, p. 588Google Scholar, followed by Klotz, , op. cit., pp. 48, 50Google Scholar, that' Αντίαν be read for Τουδιτανόν (MSS. τουιτανὸν, τὸν ἰτανον).

5 Cf. in particular: Leo, F., Die griechischrömische Biographie, p. 225Google Scholar; Mau, Marquart, Privatleben, i, pp. 357–60Google Scholar; Münzer, F., Römische Adelspartien und Adelsfamilien, p. 190, n. 1, p. 263, n. 1, p. 297, n. 1, pp. 383 ff., p. 392Google Scholar; Schanz-Hosius, , Römische Litteraturgeschichte, pt. i, pp. 38–40Google Scholar; Stuart, D. R., Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography, pp. 189–247Google Scholar; Teuffel, , Römische Litteratur, i, pp. 139–41Google Scholar; Vollmer, F., ‘Laudationum funebrium Romanorum historia et reliquiarum editio’, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, 1892, Supptbd. xviii, pp. 445–528Google Scholar; and the relevant articles in P.W. See also the article by Knoche, Ulrich in Neue Jahrbücher für antike und deutsche Bildung, 1939. Pp. 193 ff.Google Scholar

1 Cf. Cicero, , Brutus, 16. 62Google Scholar; Livy, , viii. 40. 4.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Vollmer, , pp. 467–8Google Scholar and P.W. xii. s.vGoogle Scholar. laudatio, col. 993. Leo, , p. 45Google Scholar, thinks they were preserved for future occasions, and only published when speeches became literary.

3 Cf. Stuart, , p. 214.Google Scholar

4 Perhaps the description of Paullus' augurship in iii derives from a Laudatio.

5 Cf. Von Premerstein, in P.W. v. s.vGoogle Scholar. Elogium, col. 2442.

6 Pais, , Fasti Triumphales Populi Romani, pp. 145–6Google Scholar, thinks that Paullus celebrated the lesser triumph on the Alban Mount for his Spanish success, and in this he may well be right.

7 Cf. Cicero, , Sulla, 42.Google Scholar

8 Cf. Von Premerstein, in PW. iv, s.vGoogle Scholar. Commentarii; Teuffel, , p. 137.Google Scholar

9 See further Gelzer, , Die römische Nobilität, pp. 102–15Google Scholar; Münzer, , Römische Adelsparteien und AdelsfamilienGoogle Scholar; Schur, , Scipio AfricanusGoogle Scholar; McDonald, in J.R.S. 1938, pp. 153 ff.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Knoche, , op. cit., p. 205.Google Scholar

1 Cf. Sallust, 's Catiline, xxii. 2–3Google Scholar, for an example of invention for political purposes at a later date.

1 It looks very much as though this phrase went back eventually to a Laudatio, which could applaud ordinary competence only by general phrases.

1 In fact one of Plutarch's biographical sources for the Cato was, I believe, Greek, and that is one reason for the apparently haphazard arrangement of the Life; the Greek source gave no indication of time, and so Plutarch does not know where he should put some things. See above, p. 5.

2 Whenever he lived; cf. PW. Bd. xv, s.v. Megakles, No. 9, col. 126–7. Where did he find the story? Could it have been in Cato's Origines that it first appeared?