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Plutarch’s Pragmatic Biographies
Lessons for Statesmen and Generals in the Parallel Lives
Series: - Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, Volume: 43
Author:
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.
Susan G. Jacobs Ph.D. (2011), Columbia University, is an independent scholar who writes about Plutarch’s Lives and their reception.
"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, in: CJ-Online 2019.05.05
"There are two particularly noteworthy strengths to Jacobs’ study. First, she points out the subtle yet important differences in Plutarch’s accounts versus those of other sources, especially historical narrative. (...) The second strength of this study is the author’s consistent and effective engagement with Plutarch’s Moralia, since, as Jacobs herself notes, almost every individual for whom Plutarch drafted a Life appears in the Moralia. (...) Jacobs’ study makes a positive contribution to the study of Plutarch specifically and ancient life-writing in general, opening up new lines of enquiry on Plutarch’s Lives in particular and ancient life-writing more broadly.
James T. Chlup, in: BMCR 2018.10.07
Donald Lateiner, in: CJ-Online 2019.05.05
"There are two particularly noteworthy strengths to Jacobs’ study. First, she points out the subtle yet important differences in Plutarch’s accounts versus those of other sources, especially historical narrative. (...) The second strength of this study is the author’s consistent and effective engagement with Plutarch’s Moralia, since, as Jacobs herself notes, almost every individual for whom Plutarch drafted a Life appears in the Moralia. (...) Jacobs’ study makes a positive contribution to the study of Plutarch specifically and ancient life-writing in general, opening up new lines of enquiry on Plutarch’s Lives in particular and ancient life-writing more broadly.
James T. Chlup, in: BMCR 2018.10.07
The book would interest graduate students and specialists in Plutarch and those interested in ancient biography, ancient history, Latin and Greek literature of the early Empire and history of political thought.