Plutarch's Lives - Vol I. Translated from the Greek, with Notes and a Life of Plutarch by Aubrey Stewart, M.A., and the Late George Long, M.A. - nuovo libro

BOHNS LIBRARIES WERE INAUOT A TED IN 1847 BY HENRY GEORGE BOHN, AND IN 1864 WERE TAKEN OVER BY THE PRESENT PUBLISHERS. THIS TRANSLATION OF PLUTARCHS LIVES WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN iSSo.-1882 IN BOHNS STANDARD LIBRARY. THIRTEEN OF THE LIVES WERE TRANS LATED BY GEORGE LONG AND THE REMAINDER BY AUBREY STEWART. THE PRESENT EDITION IS PRINTED FROM THE REVISED VERSION WHICH FIRST APPEARED IN 1883-4. IT NOW APPEARS IN BOHN S POPULAR LIBRARY PLUTARCHS LIVES TRANSLATED FROM 1 HE GREEK BY AUBREY STEWART, M. A AND GEORGE LONG, M. A LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD 1925 PEE FACE. No apologies are needed for a new edition of so favouri r. e an author as Plutarch. From the period of the revival of classical literature in Europe down to our own times, his writings have done more than those of any other single author to familiarise us with the greatest men and the greatest events of the ancient world. The great Duke of Marlborough, it is said, confessed that his only knowledge of English history was derived from Shakespeares historical plays, and it would not be too much to say that a very large proportion of educated men, in our own as well as in Marlboroughs times, have owed much of their knowledge of classical antiquity to the study of Plutarchs Lives. Other writers may be read with profit, with admiration, and with interest but few, like Plutarch, can gossip pleasantly while instruct ing solidly can breathe life into the dry skeleton of history, and show that the life of a Greek or Eoman worthy, when rightly dealt with, can prove as entertain ing as a modern novel. No one is so well able as Plutarch to dispel the doubt which all schoolboys feel as to whether the names about which they read ever belongedto men who were really alive his characters are so intensely human and lifelike in their faults and failings as well as in their virtues, that we begin to think of them as of people whom we have ourselves personally VI PREFACE His biographies are numerous and short. By this, lie avoids one of the greatest faults of modern biographers, that namely of identifying himself with some one par ticular personage, and endeavouring to prove that all his actions were equally laudable. Light and shade are as necessary to a character as to a picture, but a man who devotes his energies for years to the study of any single persons life, is insensibly led into palliating or explain jig away his faults and exaggerating his excellencies until at last he represents him as an impossible monster f virtue. Another advantage which we obtain by his method is that we are not given a complete chronicle of each persons life, but only of the remarkable ovente in it, and such incidents as will enable us to judge of his character. This also avoids what is the dreariest part of all modern biographies, those chapters I mean whiuh describe the slow decay of their heros powers, his last illness, and finally his death. This subject, which so jiany writers of our own time seem to linger lovingly apon, is dismissed by Plutarch in a few lines, unless any circumstance of note attended the death of the person described. Without denying that Plutarch is often inaccurate and often diflfuse that his anecdotes are sometimes absurd, and his metaphysical speculations not unfrequently ridi ciilous, he is nevertheless generally admitted to be one of the most readable authors of antiquity, while all agree that his morality is of thepurest and loftiest type. The first edition of the Greek text of Plutarchs Lives appeared at Florence in the year 1517, and two years afterwards it was republished by Aldus. Before this, however, about the year 1470, a magnificent Latin version by various hands appeared at Rome. From this, from the Greek text, and also from certain MSS. to which he had access, Amyot in the year 1559 composed his excellent PREFACE vii translation, of which it has been well said Quoique r n vieux G-aulois, elle a un air de fraicheur qui la fait rejeunir de jour en jour...