Furman Classics. Dramaturg Editions. C. Blackwell, 2026. CC-BY-NC. Code and instructions on Github.

Plutarch, Life of Pericles

Plutarch, Life of Pericles. Based on Plutarch's Lives with an English Translation. Bernadotte Perrin, ed. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press (1916). Original SGML digital edition by The Perseus Project, G. Crane, ed. This derived edition, C. Blackwell, Furman University. 2026. Source texts and code for this page (and others) on GitHub. Licensed CC-BY-NC. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg012:

Table of Contents

Sections 0 – 7
Section 0
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5
Section 6
Section 7
Sections 8 – 15
Section 8
Section 9
Section 10
Section 11
Section 12
Section 13
Section 14
Section 15
Sections 16 – 23
Section 16
Section 17
Section 18
Section 19
Section 20
Section 21
Section 22
Section 23
Sections 24 – 31
Section 24
Section 25
Section 26
Section 27
Section 28
Section 29
Section 30
Section 31
Sections 32 – 39
Section 32
Section 33
Section 34
Section 35
Section 36
Section 37
Section 38
Section 39

Plutarch

Plutarch (Greek: Πλούταρχος; c. AD 46 – c. AD 120) was a Greek Mddle Platonist philosopher, biographer, essayist, and lifelong priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. Born in Chaeronea, Boeotia, he studied in Athens and traveled to Rome, where he lectured on philosophy and formed connections with prominent Romans. His most renowned work, the Parallel Lives, comprises 23 paired biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans—such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar—designed to illuminate moral virtues and vices through comparative historical narrative rather than exhaustive chronology. Complementing this, the Moralia encompasses over 70 essays addressing ethics, politics, religion, science, and antiquity, reflecting his commitment to practical philosophy and civic improvement. Plutarch's writings profoundly shaped Renaissance humanism and later authors, including Shakespeare, by emphasizing character over events in historical understanding.

Parallel Lives: Life of Pericles

The Parallel Lives (Greek: Βίοι Παράλληλοι; Latin: Vitae Parallelae), form a series of comparative biographies pairing eminent Greeks with Romans to illuminate moral character through historical exemplars. Of the original 50 planned biographies, 48 survive: 22 pairs (44 lives) and four unpaired ones, including those of Artaxerxes, Aratus, Galba, and Otho. The lost pair involved the Theban general Epaminondas and the Roman Scipio Africanus.

In the LIfe of Pericles, Plutarch compares Pericles, the Athenian Statesman who saw Athens through the build-up to and first years of the war with Sparta, to the Roman Quintus Fabius Maximus, who was a Roman Republic consul in 213 BC during the Second Punic War, best known as the son of the celebrated general and statesman Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (the Cunctator), whose cautious tactics had preserved Rome from Hannibal's invasions.