Plutarch's Maxime Cum Principibus Philosopho Esse Disserendum

Plutarch's Maxime Cum Principibus Philosopho Esse Disserendum

Author: Geert Roskam

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 9058677362

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In this short political work, Plutarch demonstrates that the philosopher should especially associate with powerful rulers in order to exert the greatest positive influence on his society and at the same time maximize his personal pleasure.


The Passionate Statesman

The Passionate Statesman

Author: Jeffrey Beneker

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2012-05-17

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0199695903

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The Passionate Statesman explores the intersection of passion and politics in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, with special emphasis on how he represents the influence of erõs, or erotic desire, on the careers of some of the most prominent statesmen from Greco-Roman antiquity. Using Aristotle's notion of friendship and Plato's conception of the soul to describe the ideal marriage as based on a mutual love of character (philia), supported by an enduring erotic attraction, Beneker examines how Plutarch applied his system of ethics both to his reading of history and to his writing of biography. With close readings focusing on the three pairs of biographies from Parallel Lives, namely the Greek kings (Alexander the Great, Demetrius 'the besieger', and Agesilaus) and Roman statesmen (Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marc Antony), the book draws a general conclusion about how Plutarch uses the narration of his subjects' private erotic affairs to interpret their historical deeds.


A Companion to Plutarch

A Companion to Plutarch

Author: Mark Beck

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-11-13

Total Pages: 838

ISBN-13: 1118316371

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A Companion to Plutarch offers a broad survey of the famous historian and biographer; a coherent, comprehensive, and elegant presentation of Plutarch’s thought and influence Constitutes the first survey of its kind, a unified and accessible guide that offers a comprehensive discussion of all major aspects of Plutarch’s oeuvre Provides essential background information on Plutarch’s world, including his own circle of influential friends (Greek and Roman), his travels, his political activity, and his relations with Trajan and other emperors Offers contextualizing background, the literary and cultural details that shed light on some of the fundamental aspects of Plutarch’s thought Surveys the ideologically crucial reception of the Greek Classical Period in Plutarch’s writings Follows the currents of recent serious scholarship, discussing perennial interests, and delving into topics and works not formerly given serious attention


The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch

The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch

Author: Frances B. Titchener

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-02-28

Total Pages: 523

ISBN-13: 1009302116

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Plutarch is one of the most prolific and important writers from antiquity. His Parallel Lives continue to be an invaluable historical source, and the numerous essays in his Moralia, covering everything from marriage to the Delphic Oracle, are crucial evidence for ancient philosophy and cultural history. This volume provides an engaging introduction to all aspects of his work, including his method and purpose in writing the Lives, his attitudes toward daily life and intimate relations, his thoughts on citizenship and government, his relationship to Plato and the second Sophistic, and his conception of foreign or 'other'. Attention is also paid to his style and rhetoric. Plutarch's works have also been important in subsequent periods, and an introduction to their reception history in Byzantium, Italy, England, Spain, and France is provided. A distinguished team of contributors together helps the reader begin to navigate this most varied and fascinating of writers.


Plutarch's Cities

Plutarch's Cities

Author: Lucia Athanassaki

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 0192859919

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Plutarch's Cities is the first comprehensive attempt to assess the significance of the polis in Plutarch's works from several perspectives, namely the polis as a physical entity, a lived experience, and a source of inspiration, the polis as a historical and sociopolitical unit, the polis as a theoretical construct and paradigm to think with. The book's multifocal and multi-perspectival examination of Plutarch's cities - past and present, real and ideal-yields some remarkable corrections of his conventional image. Plutarch was neither an antiquarian nor a philosopher of the desk. He was not oblivious to his surroundings but had a keen interest in painting, sculpture, monuments, and inscriptions, about which he acquired impressive knowledge in order to help him understand and reconstruct the past. Cult and ritual proved equally fertile for Plutarch's visual imagination. Whereas historiography was the backbone of his reconstruction of the past and evaluation of the present, material culture, cult, and ritual were also sources of inspiration to enliven past and present alike. Plato's descriptions of Athenian houses and the Attic landscape were also a source of inspiration, but Plutarch clearly did his own research, based on autopsy and on oral and written sources. Plutarch, Plato's disciple and Apollo's priest, was on balance a pragmatist. He did not resist the temptation to contemplate the ideal city, but he wrote much more about real cities, as he experienced or imagined them.


Plutarch’s Pragmatic Biographies

Plutarch’s Pragmatic Biographies

Author: Susan G. Jacobs

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-10-10

Total Pages: 487

ISBN-13: 9004276610

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In Plutarch’s Pragmatic Biographies, Susan Jacobs argues for a major revision in how we interpret the Parallel Lives. She integrates the existing focus on moral issues into the much broader paradigm of effective leadership found in Plutarch’s Moralia. There, in addition to moral virtue, the successful leader needed good critical judgment, persuasiveness and facility in managing alliances and rivalries. The analysis of six sets of Lives shows how Plutarch carefully portrayed Greek and Roman leaders of the past assessing situations and solving problems that paralleled those faced by his politically-active audience. By linking victories and defeats to specific strategic insights and practical skills, Plutarch created “pragmatic biographies” that could instruct statesmen and generals of every era.


The Unity of Plutarch's Work

The Unity of Plutarch's Work

Author: Anastasios Nikolaidis

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 869

ISBN-13: 3110211661

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This volume of collected essays explores the premise that Plutarch’s work, notwithstanding its amazing thematic multifariousness, constantly pivots on certain ideological pillars which secure its unity and coherence. So, unlike other similar books which, more or less, concentrate on either the Lives or the Moralia or on some particular aspect(s) of Plutarch’s œuvre, the articles of the present volume observe Plutarch at work in both Lives and Moralia, thus bringing forward and illustrating the inner unity of his varied literary production. The subject-matter of the volume is uncommonly wide-ranging and the studies collected here inquire into many important issues of Plutarchean scholarship: the conditions under which Plutarch’s writings were separated into two distinct corpora, his methods of work and the various authorial techniques employed, the interplay between Lives and Moralia, Plutarch and politics, Plutarch and philosophy, literary aspects of Plutarch’s œuvre, Plutarch on women, Plutarch in his epistemological and socio-historical context. In sum, this book brings Plutarchean scholarship to date by revisiting and discussing older and recent problematization concerning Plutarch, in an attempt to further illuminate his personality and work.


Anaxagoras, Origen, and Neoplatonism

Anaxagoras, Origen, and Neoplatonism

Author: Panayiotis Tzamalikos

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-09-26

Total Pages: 1814

ISBN-13: 3110420104

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Origen has been always studied as a theologian and too much credit has been given to Eusebius’ implausible hagiography of him. This book explores who Origen really was, by pondering into his philosophical background, which determines his theological exposition implicitly, yet decisively. For this background to come to light, it took a ground-breaking exposition of Anaxagoras’ philosophy and its legacy to Classical and Late Antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, Origen, Neoplatonism), assessing critically Aristotle’s distorted representation of Anaxagoras. Origen, formerly a Greek philosopher of note, whom Proclus styled an anti-Platonist, is placed in the history of philosophy for the first time. By drawing on his Anaxagorean background, and being the first to revive the Anaxagorean Theory of Logoi, he paved the way to Nicaea. He was an anti-Platonist because he was an Anaxagorean philosopher with far-reaching influence, also on Neoplatonists such as Porphyry. His theology made an impact not only on the Cappadocians, but also on later Christian authors. His theory of the soul, now expounded in the light of his philosophical background, turns out more orthodox than that of some Christian stars of the Byzantine imperial orthodoxy.


Brill's Companion to the Reception of Plutarch

Brill's Companion to the Reception of Plutarch

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-10-07

Total Pages: 721

ISBN-13: 9004409440

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The Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-125 AD) makes a fascinating case-study for reception studies not least because of his uniquely extensive and diverse afterlife. Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plutarch offers the first comprehensive analysis of Plutarch’s rich reception history from the Roman Imperial period through Late Antiquity and Byzantium to the Renaissance, Enlightenment and the modern era. The thirty-seven chapters that make up this volume, written by a remarkable line-up of experts, explore the appreciation, contestation and creative appropriation of Plutarch himself, his thought and work in the history of literature across various cultures and intellectual traditions in Europe, America, North Africa, and the Middle East.