Overview

In Plutarch’s Pragmatic Biographies, Susan Jacobs argues for a major revision in how we interpret the Parallel Lives. She integrates the existing focus on moral issues into the much broader paradigm of effective leadership found in Plutarch’s Moralia. There, in addition to moral virtue, the successful leader needed good critical judgment, persuasiveness and facility in managing alliances and rivalries. The analysis of six sets of Lives shows how Plutarch carefully portrayed Greek and Roman leaders of the past assessing situations and solving problems that paralleled those faced by his politically-active audience. By linking victories and defeats to specific strategic insights and practical skills, Plutarch created “pragmatic biographies” that could instruct statesmen and generals of every era.

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Reviews

Jacobs sometimes reviews material that none would question. She shows prodigious reading in Plutarchan studies and generously cites her intellectual mentors, not least and not surprisingly, Philip Stadter, Christopher Pelling, Joseph Geiger and Tim Duff. Jacobs' suggestion for a different lens by which to read the Lives assists in explaning certain thorny issues of Plutarch's pairing and emphasis on unexpected but illuminating incidents. Thus, she enriches Classicists' reading of a perennial favorite. Donald Lateiner, CJ-Online 2019.05.05

Author Information

Susan G. Jacobs Ph.D. (2011), Columbia University, is an independent scholar who writes about Plutarch’s Lives and their reception.

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