Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/243

Rh PLUTARCH 233 dorus, Bio, Menecrates, Clidemus, Hereas, Ister, 1 Dio- dorus. For the life of liomulus lie refers to &quot; one Promatliio who composed a history of Italy &quot; ( 2 fin.), Diocles of Peparethus, Fabius Pictor, Herodorus, Varro, Valerius, Juba ( lo/Sas), Zenodotus of Troezen, Simulus the poet (from whom he quotes eight elegiac verses), Antigonus, &quot;one Butas,&quot; 2 and Caius Acilius, and (as a viva voce informant) Sextius Sulla of Carthage. In the life of Lycurgus he cites Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Apollodorus, Timreus, Xenophon, Simonides, Aristocrates the Spartan, Sphserus, Critias, Theophrastus, Dioscoricles, Hippias the sophist, Philostephanus, Demetrius Phalereus, Hermippus, Sosibius, Tlmcydides, Apollothemis, Aristox- enus, Aristocrates. In the life of Alexander, which is a long and elaborate essay, mention is made of Onesicritus, Aristobulus, Duris, Chares, Callisthenes, Eratosthenes, Clitarchus, Polyclitus, Antigenes, Ister, Ptolemseus, Anti- clides, Philo of Thebes, Philippus of Theangele, Philippus of Eretria, Hecatseus, Hermippus, Sotion. It is true that many of the lives, especially of Eomans, do not show such an extent of research or such a wealth of authorities. But Plutarch must have possessed or had access to a great store of books, and his diligence as an historian cannot be questioned, if his accuracy is in some points impeached. His sympathy with Doric characters and institutions is very evident ; he delights to record the exploits, the maxims, and the virtues of Spartan kings and generals. This feeling is the key to his apparently unfair and virulent attack on Herodotus, who, as an Ionian, seemed to him to have exaggerated the prowess and the foresight of the Athenian leaders. The voluminous and varied writings of Plutarch exclu sive of the Lives are known under the common term Opera Moralia. These consist of above sixty essays, some of them long and many of them rather difficult, some too of very doubtful genuineness. Their literary value is greatly enhanced by the large number of citations from lost Greek poems, especially verses of the dramatists, among whom Euripides holds by far the first place. They evince a mind of vast and varied resources, historical as well as philosophical the mind of an inquirer and a seeker after knowledge, rather than that of an exponent or an opponent of any particular philosophical system. But Plutarch s Greek is not, like Lucian s, fluent and easy, nor even clear. He uses many words not in the ordinary Greek vocabulary, and he too often constructs long sentences, the thread of which separately, as well as the connexion, cannot be traced without close attention. Hence he is unattractive as a writer, so far as style is con cerned, and he is often diffuse and carries his discussions to an unnecessary length. It is certain that to most persons in Britain, even to those who call themselves scholars, the Opera Moralia of Plutarch are practically almost unknown. No English translation of them, we believe, has been printed since the bulky folio of Philemon Holland, published at the end of the 17th century, with the exception of a single volume in Bonn s Classical Library, lately added to that series by Mr C. W. King, M.A. It is therefore the more desirable to devote the remainder of this article to a brief notice of the principal treatises. On the Education of Children recommends (1) good birth, and sobriety in the father ; (2) good disposition and good training are alike necessary for virtue ; (3) a mother ought to nurse her own off spring, on the analogy of all animals; (4) the pazdagogus must be honest and trustworthy; (5) all the advantages of life and fortune must be held secondary to education ; (6) mere mob-oratory is no O ltrrpos tv rfj -r pi ffxaiSf Karri TIV A.TTIKUV, 34. 2 Bouras TIS cuTi ay uu0c5ets fv e Ae-yeiois irepl ruv PafiaiKtav d.va.ypa&amp;lt;pai&amp;gt;, 21. part of a good education ; (7) philosophy should form the principal study, but not to the exclusion of the other sciences; (8) gymnas tics are to be practised ; (9) kindness and advice are better than blows; (10) over-pressure in learning is to be avoided, and plenty of relaxation is to be allowed; (11) self-control, and not least over the tongue, is to be learned; (12) the grown-up youth should be under the eye and advice of his father, and all bad company avoided, flatterers included; (13) fathers should not be too harsh and exacting, but remember that they were themselves once young ; (14) marriage is recommended, and without disparity of rank; (15) above all, a father should be an example of virtue to a son. How a Young Man ought to Hear Poetry is largely made up of quotations from Homer and the tragic poets. The points of the essay are the moral effects of poetry as combining the true with the false, the praises of virtue and heroism with a mythology depraved and unworthy of gods, ei 0eoi TI Spwcri &amp;lt;pa.vov, OVK (tfflv 0eoi ( 21). &quot; So long as the young man,&quot; says Plutarch, &quot;admires what is rightly said and done in the poets, but feels annoyed at the contrary, no harm is done ; but if he learns to admire every thing which is presented to him under the name of a hero, he will unconsciously become morally deteriorated &quot; ( 26). On the Right Way of Hearing (irtpl rov aKoveiv) advocates the listening in silence to what is being said, and not giving a precipi tate reply to statements which may yet receive some addition or modification from the speaker ( 4). The hearer is warned not to give too much weight to the style, manner, or tone of the speaker ( 7), not to be either too apathetic or too prone to praise, not to be impatient if he finds his faults reproved by the lecturer ( 16). He concludes with the maxim, &quot; to hear rightly is the beginning of living rightly,&quot; and perhaps he has in view throughout his own profession as a lecturer. How a Flatterer may be Distinguished from a Friend is a rather long and uninteresting treatise. The ancient writers are full of warnings against flatterers, who do not seem to exercise much influence in modern society. The really dangerous flatterer ( 4) is not the parasite, but the pretender to a disinterested friendship, one who affects similar tastes, and so insinuates himself into your confidence. Your accomplished flatterer does not always praise, but flatters by act, as when he occupies a good seat at a public meeting for the express purpose of resigning it to his patron (15). A true friend, on the contrary, speaks freely on proper occasions. A good part of the essay turns on wappricria, the honest expression of opinion. The citations, which are fairly numerous, are mostly from Homer. How one may be Conscious of Progress in Goodness is addressed to Sosius Senecio, who was consul in the last years of Nerva, and more than once (99, 102, 107) under Trajan. If, says Plutarch, a man could become suddenly wise instead of foolish, he could not lie ignorant of the change; but it is otherwise with moral or mental processes. Gradual advance in virtue is like steady sailing over a wide sea, and can only be measured by the time taken and the forces applied ( 3). Zeno tested advance by dreams ( 12) ; if no excess or immorality presented itself to the imagination of the sleeper, his mind had been purged by reason and philosophy. When we love the truly good, and adapt our selves to their looks and manners, and this even with the loss of worldly prosperity, then we are really getting on in goodness our selves ( 15). Lastly, the avoidance of little sics is an evidence of a scrupulous conscience ( 17). IIoiv to get Benefit out of Enemies argues that, as primitive man had savage animals to fight against, but learnt to make use of their skins for clothing and their flesh for food, so we are bound to turn even our enemies to some good purpose. One service they do to us is to make us live warily against plots; another is, they induce us to live honestly, so as to vex our rivals not by scolding them but by making them secretly jealous of us ( 4). Again, finding fault leads us to consider if we are ourselves faultless, and to be found fault with by a foe is likely to be plain truth speaking, a.Kovffrfuv tfnl irapa r&amp;lt;av e x0p&amp;lt;&quot; TTJI/ ar]deia.v ( 6). Jealousies and strifes, so natural to man, are diverted from our friends by being legiti mately expended on our enemies ( 10). On Having Many Friends, On Chance, On Virtue and Vice, are three short essays, the first advocating the concentration of one s affections on a few who are worthy (rovs a^iovs &amp;lt;pLias SiwKeiv, 4), rather than diluting them, as it were, on the many; the second pleads that intelligence, (ppovriffis, not mere luck, is the ruling principle of all success ; the third shows that virtue and vice are but other names for happiness and misery. All these are inter spersed with citations from -the poets, several of them unknown from other sources. A longer treatise, well and clearly written, and not less valuable for its many quotations, is the Consolation addressed to Apollonius, on the early death of his &quot;generally beloved and religious and dutiful son. &quot; Equality of mind both in prosperity and in adversity is recommended (g 4), since there are &quot; ups and downs &quot; (ityos xai rairfivor^s) in life, as there are storms and calms on the sea, and good and bad seasons on the earth. That man is born to reverses XIX. - 30