Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/441

Rh PLUTARCHUS. Tnisting perhaps to the influence of his friend Meidias, he applied to the Athenians in B.C. 354 for aid against his rival, Callias of Chalcis, who had allied himself with Philip of Macedon. The application was granted in spite of the resistance of Demosthenes, and the command of the expedition was entrusted to Phocion, who defeated Callias at Tamj'nae. But the conduct of Plutarchus in the battle had placed the Athenians in great jeopardy, and though it may have been nothing more than rashness, Phocion would seem to have regarded it as treachery, for he thenceforth treated Plutarchus as an enemy and expelled him from Eretria (Dem. de Fac. p. 58, Pliilipp. iii. p. 125, c. Meid. pp. 550, 567, 579 ; Aesch. de Fals. Leg. p. 50, c. Ctes. p. m ; Plut. Flioc. 12, 13 ; Paus. i. 36.) [Callias ; Phocion.] [E. E.] PLUTARCHUS (nouTapxos)> ^as born at Chaeroneia in Boeotia. The few facts of his life which are known, are chiefly collected from his own writings. He was studying philosophy under Amraonius at the time when Nero was making his progress through Greece (Hepl tow Ei Iv Ae(po7s, c. 1), as we may collect from the passage referred to. Nero was in Greece and visited Delphi in a. d. 66 ; and Plutarch seems to say, that he was at Delphi at that time. We may assume then that he was a youth or a young man in A. d. 66. In another passage {Antonius, 87) he speaks of Nero as his contemporary. His great-grandfather Nicarchus told him what the citizens of Chaeroneia had suf- fered at the time of the battle of Actium (Plut. Antonius, 68). He also mentions his grandfather Lamprias, from whom he heard various anecdotes about M. Antonius, which Lamprias had heard from Philotas, who was studying medicine at Alexandria when M. Antonius was there with Cleopatra. (Antonius, 29.) His father's name does not appear in his extant works. He had two brothers, Timon and Lamprias. As a young man, he was once employed on a mission to the Roman governor of the province. (IIoAtTtfcd irapayyeKiuiaTa, 20.) It appears incidentally from his own writings that he must have visited several parts of Italy : for instance, he speaks of seeing the statue or bust of Marius at Ravenna {Marius, 2). But he says in express terms that he spent some time at Rome, and in other parts of Italy {Demosthenes, 2). He observes, that he did not learn the Latin language in Italy, because he was occupied with public com- missions, and in giving lectures on philosophy ; and it was late in life before he busied himself with Roman literature. He was lecturing at Rome during the reign of Domitianus, for he gives an account of the stoic L. Junius Arulenus Rusticus receiving a letter from the emperor while he was present at one of Plutarch's discourses {TiepX iro- KvTToaynouvvns, c. 15). Rusticus was also a friend of the younger Plinius, and was afterwards put to death by Domitianus. Sossius Senecio, whom Plutarch addresses in the introduction to his life of Theseus (c. 1 ), is probably the same person who was a friend of the younger Plinius {Ep. i. 1 3), and consul several times in the reign of Trajanus. The statement that Plutarch was the preceptor of Trajanus, and that the emperor raised him to the consular rank, rests on the authority of Suidas (s. V. UXovrapxos), and a Latin letter addressed to Trajanus. But this short notice in Suidas is a worth- less authority ; and the Latin letter to Trajanus, PLUTARCHUS. 429 which only exists in the Policraticus of John of Salis- bury (Lib. 5. c. 1, ed. Leiden, 1639). is a forgery, though John probably did not forge it. John's expression is somewhat singular : " Extat Epistola Plutarchi Trajanum instituentis, quae cujusdam politicae constitutionis exprimit sensum. Ea dicitur esse hujusmodi ;" and then he gives the letter. In the second chapter of this book John says that this Politica Constitutio is a small treatise in- scribed " Institutio Trajani," and he gives the sub- stance of part of the work. Plutarch, who dedi- cated the 'Ano(p6eyfj.aTa BacriXtwv Kal ^Tparriycov to Trajanus, says nothing of the emperor having been his pupil. But some critics have argued that Plutarch is not the author of the Apophthegmata, because he says in the dedication that he had written the lives of illustrious Greeks and Ro- mans ; for they assume that he did not return to Chaeroneia until after the death of Trajanus, and did not write his Lives until after his return. If these assumptions could be proved, it follows that he did not write the Apophthegmata, or at least the dedication. If we assume that he retired to Chaero- neia before the death of Trajanus, we may admit that he wrote his Lives at Chaeroneia and the Apophthegmata afterwards. It appears from his Life of Demosthenes (c. 2), that he certainly wrote that Life at Chaeroneia, and this Life and that of Cicero were the fifth pair. {Demosthenes, c. 3.) Plutarch probably spent the later years of his life at Chaeroneia, where he discharged various magisterial offices, and had a priesthood. Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, bore him four sons and a daughter, also named Timoxena. It was on the occasion of his daughter's death that he wrote his sensible and affectionate letter of conso- lation to his wife (Tlapa^vQririKos els tt)// Idiav yv' vaiKa). The time of Plutarch's death is unknown. The work which has immortalised Plutarch's name is his Parallel Lives (Biot UapdWrfKoi) of forty-six Greeks and Romans. The forty-six Lives are arranged in pairs ; each pair contains the life of a Greek and a Roman, and is followed by a comparison {avyKpiais) of the two men : in a few pairs the comparison is omitted or lost. He seems to have considered each pair of Lives and the Parallel as making one book {^i€liiv). When he says that the book of the Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero was the fifth, it is the most natural in- terpretation to suppose that it was the fifth in the order in which he wrote them. It could not be the fifth in any other sense, if each pair composed a book. The forty-six Lives are the following : — 1. The- seus and Romulus ; 2. Lycurgus and Numa ; 3. Solon and Valerius Publicola ; 4. Themistocles and Camillus ; 5. Pericles and Q. Fabius Maximus ; 6'. Alcibiades and Coriolanus ; 7. Timoleon and Aemilius Paulus ; 8. Pelopidas and Marcellus ; 9. Aristides and Cato the Elder ; 10. Philopoemen and Flamininns ; 11. Pyrrhus and Marius; 12. Lysander and Sulla ; 1 3. Cimon and Lucullus ; 14. Nicias and Crassus ; 15. Eumenes and Sertorius ; 16. Agesilaus and Pompeius ; 17. Alexander and Caesar; 18. Phocion and Cato the Younger ; 19. Agis and Cleomenes, and Tiberius and Caius Grac- chi ; 20. Demosthenes and Cicero ; 21. Demetrius Poliorcetes and Marcus Antonius ; 22. Dion and M. Junius Brutus. There are also the Lives of Artaxerxes Mnemon,