Plutarch's Lives Vol. 4

Plutarch's Lives Vol. 4 presents the concluding portion of one of the great works of classical biography, moral history, and ancient political literature. Plutarch's paired lives of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers, lawgivers, and public figures were written not simply to record events, but to examine character: ambition, courage, prudence, vanity, patriotism, cruelty, discipline, magnanimity, and failure. Through biography, Plutarch studies the moral forces that shape public life and the private habits that determine public action.This SMK edition is suited to readers of classical literature, ancient history, Greek and Roman biography, political thought, moral philosophy, and the historical sources that shaped Renaissance, Enlightenment, and nineteenth-century education. Plutarch's Lives influenced generations of writers, statesmen, historians, and readers because it treats history as a theatre of character and consequence. For anyone interested in Greece, Rome, leadership, virtue, civic life, and the classical tradition, Volume 4 continues one of the central monuments of ancient biographical writing.