Allgemein
Plutarch
Encyclopaedia Britannica | article page
b. AD 46,, Chaeronea, Boeotia [Greece] d. after 119
Greek PLUTARCHOS, Latin PLUTARCHUS, biographer and author
whose works strongly influenced the evolution of the essay,
the biography,
and historical writing in Europe from the 16th to the 19th
century. Among his approximately 227 works, the most important
are the Bioi paralleloi (Parallel Lives),
in which he recounts the noble deeds and characters of Greek
and Roman soldiers, legislators, orators, and statesmen, and
the Moralia, or Ethica, a series of more than 60
essays on ethical, religious, physical, political, and
literary topics.
Plutarch
was the son of Aristobulus, himself a biographer and
philosopher. In 66-67, Plutarch studied mathematics and
philosophy at Athens under the philosopher Ammonius. Public
duties later took him several times to Rome, where he lectured
on philosophy, made many friends, and perhaps enjoyed the
acquaintance of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian.
Plutarch
traveled widely, visiting central Greece, Sparta, Corinth,
Patrae (Patras), Sardis, and Alexandria, but he made his
normal residence at Chaeronea,
where he held the chief magistracy and other municipal posts
and directed a school with a wide curriculum in which
philosophy, especially ethics, occupied the central place. He
maintained close links with the Academy at Athens (he
possessed Athenian citizenship) and with Delphi,
where, from about 95, he held a priesthood for life; he may
have won Trajan's interest and support for the then-renewed
vogue of the oracle.
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,62000+1+60464,00.html
PLUTARCH
(circa 45 - 125 A.D.) Priest of the
Delphic Oracle
Wilmot McCutchen - yowilmot@pacbell.net
For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at
the temple of Apollo at Delphi (the site of the famous Delphic
Oracle) twenty miles from his home. By his writings and
lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman empire, yet
he continued to reside where he was born, and actively
participated in local affairs, even serving as mayor. At
his country estate, guests from all over the empire
congregated for serious conversation, presided over by
Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues
were recorded and published, and the78 essays and other works
which have survived are now known collectively as the Moralia.
After
the horrors of Nero and Domitian, and the partisan passions of
civil war, Rome was ready for some gentle enlightenment from
the priest of Apollo. Plutarch's essays and his lectures
established him as a leading thinker in the Roman empire's
golden age: the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian.
The
study and judgment of lives was always of paramount importance
for Plutarch. In the Moralia, Plutarch
expresses a belief in reincarnation. 2
His letter of consolation to his wife, after the death of
their two-year-old daughter, gives us a glimpse of his
philosophy:
"The
soul, being eternal, after death is like a caged bird that
has been released. If it has been a long time in the
body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit,
the soul will immediately take another body and once again
become involved in the troubles of the world. The
worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the
other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment
to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul
tends to retain the form that it had in the body. But
that soul which remains only a short time within a body,
until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its
fire and goes on to higher things."
Once his
judgment had been seasoned by maturity, and his writing skill
by long practice on his essays, Plutarch commenced the
composition of his immortal Parallel Lives.
Plutarch's plan in the Lives was to
pair a philosophical biography of a famous Roman with one of a
Greek who was comparable in some way. A short essay of
comparison follows most of the pairs of lives. At the
beginning of the Italian Renaissance, it was the rediscovery
of Plutarch's Lives that stimulated popular
interest in the classics.
To the
biographies of his heroes, Plutarch brought a master's eye for
the essence. Historical details are only incidental to
the character of Plutarch's subjects. He clearly
disclaims any pretensions to being a historian at the
beginning of his life of Alexander: "My intention is not
to write histories, but lives."
http://www.e-classics.com/plutarch.htm
Plutarch
Gregory Crane
Birth of Plutarch
at Chaironeia
c. 45 A.D. Death of Plutarch
c. 125 A.D.
Although Plutarch
travelled to many places in the Mediterranean world (Plut.
Demosth. 2.2, Plut. Otho
14.1-2, Plut. Otho
18.1), including north Italy
(Plut. Mar. 2.1) and Rome
(Plut. Moralia 522D-E), he lived most of his life in
the relatively small Boeotian
town, Chaironeia,
the place of his birth. Chaironeia
exerted a substantial hold on his imagination, and
consequently surfaces at a number of places in his work (e.g.,
Plut.
Thes. 27.8, Plut.
Cimon 1.1-2, Plut. Demosth. 19.2, Plut. Alex.
9.3, Plut.
Lys. 29.4, Plut., Sulla
16-19, Plut., Quaest. Rom. 267D, Plut. De Fort.
Rom. 318D, Plut. De Curios. 515C). In the vastness
of the Roman
empire, he always maintained his Greek
identity. He wrote on the great figures who had shaped this
larger Greco-Roman world. According to some ancient sources,
he enjoyed high honors conferred directly by Rome.
At the same time, he served for many years as a priest at the Greek
sanctuary of Delphi
(Moralia 792F). He was both a citizen of Rome
(with the official name Mestrius Plutarchus), and a Greek
with a strong sense of his native country and its peculiarly
parochial and cosmopolitan traditions.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0004:head%3D%237162
|
