Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives (Penguin Classics)
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Product Description
Dramatic artist, natural scientist and philosopher, Plutarch is widely regarded as the most significant historian of his era, writing sharp and succinct accounts of the greatest politicians and statesman of the classical period. Taken from the Lives, a series of biographies spanning the Graeco-Roman age, this collection illuminates the twilight of the old Roman Republic from 157-43 bc. Whether describing the would-be dictators Marius and Sulla, the battle between Crassus and Spartacus, the death of political idealist Crato, Julius Caesar's harrowing triumph in Gaul or the eloquent oratory of Cicero, all offer a fascinating insight into an empire wracked by political divisions. Deeply influential on Shakespeare and many other later writers, they continue to fascinate today with their exploration of corruption, decadence and the struggle for ultimate power.
About the Author
Plutarch (c.50-c.120 AD) was a writer and thinker born into a wealthy, established family of Chaeronea in central Greece. His voluminous surviving writings are broadly divided into the 'moral' works and the Parallel Lives of outstanding Greek and Roman leaders. The former (Moralia) are a mixture of rhetorical and antiquarian pieces, together with technical and moral philosophy (sometimes in dialogue form). The Lives have been influential from the Renaissance onwards.
Robin Seager is a Reader in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Liverpool and the author of a biography of Pompey.
Rex Warner (translator) translated widely from Latin and Greek including, for Penguin, Xenophon, Thucydides and Plutarch.
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The biography of Marius is one of the least satisfactory of Plutarch's Roman lives from the historian's point of view. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The biography of Marius is one of the least satisfactory of Plutarch's Roman lives from the historian's point of view. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is the collection of biographies of Marius, Sulla, Crassus, Pompey, Caesar and Cicero. Plutarch tells us how these powerful men used Roman democracy for pushing their personal agendas. The pattern kept repeating: our hero finds allies and strikes alliances, gains power, gets provinces and armies voted for himself and for his friends, eventually ambitions clash and the dictator emerges through armed conflict. Many lessons on nature of man can be learned from this book.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If one merely wants to read an awfully good biography of some of the makers of history during the last generation of the Roman Republic, one cannot go wrong with Rex Warner's translation of Plutarch's Lives of Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Caesar and Cicero. Each "Life" is full to the brim of goodies (Even the skimpy life of Marius has its magnificent moments, such as the Cimbri women strangling their children and stabbing themselves rather than surrender to the Romans; or Marius with his Bardyae goons, who laugh when he laughs and kill when he doesn't laugh [Godfather material!], and my favorite bit in the life of Marius is when he is tryihg to make a deal with the angry Senate at the front door of his house and his tribune Saturninus at the back door--running back and forth between the two, excusing himself each time, pretending that he has diarrhea. ["Terribly sorry, the sardines I ate at lunch must have been off!"; the subtext, not Warner].
This book is full of wonderful anecdotes that render the story of ancient Rome so entertaining.
As with the Penguin edition of "The Age of Alexander," however, the editors have skimped and not provided an index (which I notice Oxford has done) and therefore have made the book a pain to use in undergraduate classes. Again, the cover has been tarted up, but no effort has been made to facilitate students in looking up the multifarious characters in each of the lives.
Well, I'm cross with Penguin, but not with Rex Warner's splendidly readable translation!
This book is full of wonderful anecdotes that render the story of ancient Rome so entertaining.
As with the Penguin edition of "The Age of Alexander," however, the editors have skimped and not provided an index (which I notice Oxford has done) and therefore have made the book a pain to use in undergraduate classes. Again, the cover has been tarted up, but no effort has been made to facilitate students in looking up the multifarious characters in each of the lives.
Well, I'm cross with Penguin, but not with Rex Warner's splendidly readable translation!
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I got this book because my original copy of Plutarch's Lives, a 19th century edition of John and William Langhorne's excellent translation, is falling apart through continued use over the years.
Of course the ideas, anecdotes, and examples that Plutarch used continue to be fascinating, but the whole tone of Rex Warner's translation is low grade. I get the feeling that it's all been dumbed down in the forlorn hope of weaning glue-sniffers from council estates onto classical literature.
Compare this example from the "Life of Caesar," following the battle before the camps at Dyrrachium when Pompey failed to press his advantage.
Warner has Caeser flatly saying:
"Today the enemy would have won, if they had a commander who was a winner"
while the Langhornes put the same thing with much more poetry and gravitas:
"This day victory would have declared for the enemy, if they had had a general who knew how to conquer"
Rather than paying Warner for his flat, dull, safely literal, and dumbed down transaltion, Penguin should simply have used the 18th century Langhorne version which they could have used for free, and then cut the price to the consumer.
Of course the ideas, anecdotes, and examples that Plutarch used continue to be fascinating, but the whole tone of Rex Warner's translation is low grade. I get the feeling that it's all been dumbed down in the forlorn hope of weaning glue-sniffers from council estates onto classical literature.
Compare this example from the "Life of Caesar," following the battle before the camps at Dyrrachium when Pompey failed to press his advantage.
Warner has Caeser flatly saying:
"Today the enemy would have won, if they had a commander who was a winner"
while the Langhornes put the same thing with much more poetry and gravitas:
"This day victory would have declared for the enemy, if they had had a general who knew how to conquer"
Rather than paying Warner for his flat, dull, safely literal, and dumbed down transaltion, Penguin should simply have used the 18th century Langhorne version which they could have used for free, and then cut the price to the consumer.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not always easy to read, but well worth the effort: Brilliant on...
I bought this version of Plutarch after reading Lustrum and Imperium by Robert Harris. Basically, I just wanted to see how closely Harris kept to the original sources whilst... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dr. W. H. Konarzewski
Lives of the Romans
Writing in the first century AD, Plutarch blurs the boundaries between classical history writing and biography. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Roman Clodia
Ambition is the most destructive of all powers (Euripides)
Plutarch's 6 biographies of Roman politicians/generals give a fair picture of a decadent Rome in the 1st century B.C. Read more
Published on 9 May 2007 by Luc REYNAERT
Plutarchs most dedicated biography
Having purchased several of Plutarch's work as companions to study courses, I must say that this is the most thorough and accurate of his compiled works. Read more
Published on 5 July 2003 by M. Mason
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