Bøker av Plutarch

Constitute one of the earliest surviving history of the shocking events that shook the Roman Empire in AD 68 and 69 - the rebellions against Nero, his betrayal and suicide, and Galba's disastrous reign, which ended in his murder.

An outstanding new edition of Plutarch, the inventor of biography, focused on five lives that remade the Roman world.

These ten Lives trace the history of Hellenistic Greece from the rise of Macedon and Alexander's conquest of the Persian empire to the arrival of the Romans. Plutarch's biographies of eminent politicians, rulers, and soldiers combine vivid portraits with a wealth of historical information.

Plutarch's essay 'How to Study Poetry' offers a set of reading practices intended to remove the potential damage that poetry can do to the moral health of young readers. It opens a window on to a world of ancient education and scholarship which can seem rather alien to those brought up in the highly sophisticated world of modern literary theory and criticism. The full Introduction and Commentary, by two of the world's leading scholars in the field, trace the origins and intellectual affiliations of Plutarch's method and fully illustrate the background to each of his examples. As such this book may serve as an introduction to the whole subject of ancient reading practices and literary criticism. The Commentary also pays particular attention to grammar, syntax and style, and sets this essay within the context of Plutarch's thought and writing more generally.

As well as providing an illuminating picture of the first century AD, the author depicts complex and nuanced heroes who display the essential virtues of Greek civilization - courage, patriotism, justice, intelligence and reason - that contributed to the rise of Rome.

Bringing together nine biographies from Plutarch's Parallel Lives series, this edition examines the lives of major figures in Roman history, from Lucullus (118-57 BC), an aristocratic politician and conqueror of Eastern kingdoms, to Otho (32-69 AD), a reckless young noble who consorted with the tyrannical, debauched emperor Nero before briefly becoming a dignified and gracious emperor himself.Ian Scott-Kilvert's and Christopher Pelling's translations are accompanied by a new introduction, and also includes a separate introduction for each biography, comparative essays of the major figures, suggested further reading, notes and maps.

Plutarch's parallel biographies of the great men in Greek and Roman history are cornerstones of European literature, drawn on by writers and statesmen since the Renaissance, most notably by Shakespeare. This selection provides intimate glimpses into the lives of these men, depicting, as he put it, 'those actions which illuminate the workings of the soul'. We learn why the mild Artaxerxes forced the killer of his usurping brother to undergo the horrific 'death of two boats'; why the noble Dion repeatedly risked his life for the ungrateful mobs of Syracuse; why Demosthenes delivered a funeral oration for the soldiers he had deserted in battle; and why Alexander, the most enigmatic of tyrants, self-destructed after conquering half the world.