CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Biography and History
Philip Stadter
1 Introduction
"There is properly no history, only biography," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, slicing
with a stroke the Gordian knot entangling the two genres. Aristotle explains that
history is "what Alcibiades did and suffered" (Poet. 9.4, 14516), but that definition
encompasses not only Thucydides and Xenophon but also Nepos and Plutarch. In
fact, it is often quite difficult to distinguish history from biography, even with the
most careful analysis, nor did the ancients do so consistently. Historiography itself is
protean, and biography no less so: not surprisingly, they frequently overlap, and
especially in treating political-military persons and events.
Biography has many divisions, according to the nature of the person being studied.
That which especially concerns us here treats statesmen and commanders, political and
military leaders such as Alcibiades. They describe not just their achievements and
failures but ,vhat kind of person they were, how they lived their lives, and whether
they should be imitated. Nevertheless they use the same sources and many ofthe same
techniques as historians. We can only speak ofseparate genres ofhistory and biography
if ,ve remain aware of the fluidity of the boundary between them, and the difficulty
of drawing any neat demarcation. The notion of a genre of biography separate
from history is usefol only insofar as it helps the reader to understand the nature of
the work, but depends upon a pact ber-veen author and reader which is renegotiated
in every work. Our four major surviving authors provide ample evidence.
First, however, it is necessary to distinguish biography from biographical interest or
material. Ancient readers, like modern, found famous people fascinating. Homer had
asked how a man's desires and actions related to his achievements and his end.
Phoenix tells Achilles the story of Meleager (Il. 9.528-599) as a negative model
of heroic behavior, while Nestor offers Odysseus as a noble paradigm for Telemachus.
In the fifth-century theater, Athenians saw tragic Icings make fateful decisions; in the
same years historians recounted how the wealrnesses and strengths ofleaders, whether
on, slicing
plains that
definition
utarch. In
1 with the
1hy itself is
erlap, and
.g studied.
Jlitical and
nents and
:I whether
fthe same
biography
· difficulty
,' separate
nature of
1egotiated
.nterest or
·omer had
his end.
ve model
lemachus.
,ns; in the
., whether
Biography and History 529
the insecurity of Xerxes or the integrity of Pericles, affected the fates of nations.
··Anecdotes about the special behavior or witty sayings of notable men were recorded
' by Ion of Chios or Stesimbrotus, later to be repeated by Plutarch. These are not
biography. Biography I tentatively define as a self-sufficient account of the kind oflife
.. led by a historical person that also evaluates the subject's character, goals, and
'.. achievements.
An admirer of Socrates, Xenophon laid the basis for biography as a genre by
·· combining in his own work the competing claims of history and biography (on the
; influence of the Socratics on biography, see Dible 1970). In his Anabasis, itself an
· autobiographical memoir, he sketches the lives ofthe younger Cyrus (Anab. 1.9) and
of three Greek leaders of differing backgrounds and temperaments, Clearchus,
Menon, and Proxenus (2.6), in an effort to explain their style and achievements as
leaders. More ambitiously, his Education of Cyrus (Cy1-opaedia) narrates the birth,
, early life, conquests, and death of Cyrus the Great, and thus figures as the first extant
freestanding biography of a political figure. Despite historical touches, the work is
fiction, a philosophical novel, but by its representation of Cyrus' personal virtue as
essential to his military and political leadership it established moral virtue as a
fundamental aspect of biography. A similar treatment of virtue and leadership is
found in Xenophon's History of Greece (Hellenica), from which he derived his
encomium of the Spartan king Agesilaus. Although not the first prose encomium
(Isocrates claimed this honor for his Evagoras), the Agesilaus combines two ordering
structures which would continue to be used in biography: the first half goes through
the king's actions chronologically; the second works by topics, reviewing his virtues
one by one, giving examples of each in action.
In Xenophon especially one sees the antecedents of biography as a genre: treatment
(when possible) of the whole life from birth to death, practical and moral evaluation
ofcharacter and achievements and their interrelation, assignment ofpraise and blame,
use ofillustrative anecdote, and a willingness to flesh out the portrait with verisimilar
detail.
2 The Categories of Ancient Biography
The wnnng of separate biographies began soon after Xenophon, with the first
students of Aristotle. Regrettably, all Hellenistic biography between Xenophon in
the fourth century BCE and Nepos in the first is lost and known only through
fragments. Rather than survey these traces (admirably done by Momigliano 1971a,
1971b), I will use them and extant biographies to distinguish the following categories
of biography according to subject and purpose. As will be seen, most categories are
not relevant to standard historiography.
(1) Philosophical biography brought out tl1e moral character ofits subjects and the
relation of their teachings to their lives. Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle, wrote on
Pythagoras, Archytas, Socrates, and Plato; Hermippus in the third century wrote
LiJ1es of many philosophers, as well as lawgivers and other figures. Diogenes Laertius'
!,,.
•:
I
!1:
i
530 Philip Stadter
extant Lives of the Philosophers continues the tradition. Since such lives are usually
heavy in sayings, as in Lucian's Demonax, they may be difficult to distinguish from
apophthegm collections. The Gospels also belong to this category, as does Philostratus'
novelistic Life ofApollonius of Tyana. Though closer to philosophy, they can be
historically useful, especially for social and religious history. Philosophical biography's
emphasis on models of behavior influenced other categories as well.
(2) Literary biography provided background on poets and orators, especially for
school. It drew heavily for information upon the authors' own works, often unwisely
(Leflcowitz 1981). Extant examples include Lives of the Sophists by Philostratus and
Eunapius, the LiPes of the Ten Orators falsely ascribed to Plutarch, and the short
biographies preserved with the texts of some authors. A surprise papyrus find has
revealed that Satyrus, a third-century BCE biographer, wrote his life of Euripides as a
dialogue, presumably for entertainment as well as information.
(3) School and reference biographies represent a special category: short (often very
short) sketches that record family origin, major events or accomplishments, and
perhaps death. They are similar to modern encyclopedia entries, or genealogical
charts of Icings, and in fact many are preserved in the Suda, the eleventh-century
Byzantine encyclopedia.
(4) Encomia provided much biographical information, but ideally should be distinguished
from biography since, like Isocrates' EPagoras and Xenophon's Agesilaus,
they consciously avoided noting faults. Rhetorical handbooks were available to guide '
speakers in format and topics.
(5) Lives of those recently departed may represent a category of their own. The
biographical tradition at Rome was fostered by the ancestral custom of a public
funeral oration for a great man. Treatments of a political figure's career after his
death, whether as speech, encomium, monograph, or biography, became popular as
political weapons in the civil wars of the middle of the century. After the younger
Cato's death in 46 BCE, his life was praised by Cicero, Brutus, and Munatius Rufus,
and vilified by Hirtius and Caesar. The works on Cicero by his freedman Tiro and on
Caesar by C. Oppius perhaps straddled the fence between biography and history.
Polybius' lost Philopoemen and Tacitus' Agricola (treated under item 7) perhaps
belong here.
(6) Autobiographies, commentaries, and memoirs represent a special
biographical writing, in which the subject represents his own life and decisions.
Plutarch cites memoirs by both Pyrrhus and Aratus. At the beginning of the first
century BCE several leading Romans wrote memoirs or autobiographies: Sulla's
filled twenty-two books, Augustus justified himself in thirteen books. Though
often self-defensive or propagandistic, they became a valuable source for historical
biography (cf. Misch 1950; and see above, Ch. 22).
(7) Historical/political biography focused on people active in military or political
life: political leaders, commanders, Icings, and emperors. Its subject makes it a close
companion to political history. Here the genre issue is particularly difficult, since this
category overlaps with historical monographs on the deeds of individual leaders or
rulers. For lost works (e.g., on Alexander) we often cannot distinguish from the title
alone which category is most appropriate. Even among extant writers on Alexander,
for exaIT
AnabasiJ
that he'
Becau:
in the IT
Some lo:
poemen
Polybius
general's
and mag
to a hist,
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both ou1
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with his1
facets; a
teacher,
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separate
for ease
lives add
in series
an excep
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Leo in
topically
Howeve
both tha
biograpl
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raphy, tl
writers,
biograpt
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political
historiar
active, b
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.ish from
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he short
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istorical
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: a close
nee this
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the title
xander,
Biography and History 531
"· for example, Q. Curtius Rufus' account (1st c. CE) is closer to history, Arrian's
· Anabasis (2nd c. CE) is biography in all but name, and Plutarch famously insists
that he "is writing biography not history" (Alex. 1).
Because of this ambiguity, the existence of political biography before Nepos wrote
.· in the middle of the last century BCE is disputed (see Geiger 1985; Moles 1989).
Some lost Alexander histories might be considered biographies, but Polybius' Philopoemen
represents the most likely example of political biography in this period.
: Polybius asserts in his History (10.21.5-8) that his three books treated the Greek
general's "childhood upbringing" and gave a cursory account ofhis deeds, defending
. and magnif)ring them. It may have been closer to Tacitus' Agricola (see below) than
to a historical monograph such as Sallust's Jugurthine War or to Xenophon's enco\.
mium of Agesilaus. But this is guesswork: for this period it is best to aclrnowledge
.. both our ignorance and the indefiniteness of genre boundaries.
:·, The distinctions between categories are not neat: not only do political lives fuse
with history, but a life of Solon might combine political, philosophical, or literary
facets; a life of Cato or Brutus political and philosophical; a life of a departed friend,
.' teacher, or model may shade into encomium.
Besides these categories, the nature of a biography depends on whether it is a
separate work or part ofa series. A series implies a collection ofsimilar lives, associated
for ease of comparison or reference - philosophers, Icings, commanders; individual
"lives address the special features of one person, and are frequently encomiastic. Lives
· in series are usually considerably shorter than individual lives, though Plutarch's are
· an exception.
The attempt to bind a given category to a particular structure has not succeeded.
Leo in a fundamental study (1901) argued that literary lives alvvays followed a
topically arranged "peripatetic" model, supposedly originated by Aristotle's students.
However, the fi:agments of Satyrus' Euripides and Suetonius' Caesars demonstrate
both that literary biographies took different forms, such as dialogue, and that political
biography could employ the topical organization.
The remainder of tl1is chapter will examine more closely historical/political biog::
raphy, the category closest to historiography, beginning from the extant Roman
writers, then turning to Plutarch, antiquity's most prolific and sophisticated
biographer.
3 The Major Extant Authors: Nepos, Tacitus,
Suetonius, Plutarch
) The four major authors with surviving works demonstrate the varieties of ancient
political biography and their relations to history. All four authors, like most ancient
Jiistorians, belonged to the social elite. Among the Romans, Nepos was not politically
·· active, but his friends Cicero and Atticus (in his own way) were; Tacitus reached the
, highest rungs of a senatorial career as consul and proconsul of Asia; and Suetonius
1.
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532 Philip Stadter
held high positions in the imperial bureaucracy. Plutarch, a Greek by birth and culture
and priest of Apollo at Delphi for many years, was friendly with prominent Roman
senators, several of whom were close to the emperor.
Only Tacitus restricted himself to an individual biography; the others preferred to
gather lives into a series, though both Nepos and Plutarch also wrote individual lives.
Suetonius' and Plutarch's collections of emperors treated a closed group, and most
closely resemble continuous history. Interestingly, Tacitus, after his single biography,
turned to histories which were similarly limited and focused on the behavior of ·
emperors (cf. Ann. 4.33). Plutarch's Parallel LiPesapparently were an open sequence,
to which Plutarch added as he saw fit .
The relation ofthe biographer to the period he treats varies greatly. Tacitus' Agricola
portrays an elder contemporary. Both Nepos and Plutarch w1ite ofcontemporaries, but
also treat the distant past, Plutarch even the legendary past. Suetonius' Caesars ends a
generation before he wrote. These differences are significant in the treatment of lives,
especially the use of sources. The length of the biographies also varies considerably,
retlecting the different goals and ambitions ofthe authors: Nepos wrote a work for casual
consultation, Suetonius a survey ofautocratic rule, Plutarch examinations ofstatesmen
as moral agents. Nepos' lives are the shortest, ranging from two to thirteen pages.
Suetonius' a.re more ambitious, ,rnd Plutarch's can run up to one hundred pages long.
In each case, the writers' individual response to their own life situations determines
the purpose and form of their biographies. The audiences they addressed, their goals
in writing, ·whether they wrote lives individually or in groups, their sources, and their
style reflect their choices. Their variety explains the wide range of practice within a
single genre.
Cornelius Nepos: Biographies for Reference and Browsing
Nepos composed a biographical handbook, On Famous Men (De Piris ilfostribus),
containing well over 300 lives, arranged in alternating books on non-Roman (chiefly
Greek) and Roman figures. Only one book, On Outstanding Commanders ofForeign
Peoples, and two lives from On Latin Historians (Cato the Censor and Atticits) are
preserved of the original sixteen or more books. Nepos had completed most of the
Atticus by the latter's death in 32 ncE, and the whole life, perhaps in a second edition,
by 27, but we do not know when he began. The collection was part of a program of
historical publications: he wrote two other works of historical reference, a collection
of moral examples in five books, and a chronicle in three, as well as independent lives
of Cato the Censor and Cicero.
Nepos' book on foreign leaders contains t\venty-three lives, which average fewer
than four pages apiece, but the lengths vary greatly. The lives fall into groups:
five lives from the Persian Wars, eight from the fall and recovery of Athens, three
from Thebes' defeat of Sparta, and two Carthaginians. Cyrus the Great, Alexander,
and other Icings he reviews in a single summary chapter. The lives a.re put together
from historical sources (he cites, e.g., Thucydides, Xenophon, and Theopompus),
supplemented by special material, as in Alcibiades, which refers to the famous account
in Plato's Sy1nposiwrn.
Nepos
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Biography and Hist017 533
Nepos first notes parentage and city, then reviews the leader's major battles,
stratagems, and political dealings in chronological order. Following the man's
death, there is often a paragraph recording his virtues, the honors he received, or
his accomplishments. Some treatment ofcharacter or personality occasionally appears
in the longer lives. Nepos' generals usually support liberty and respect the people.
They are models of civic virtue, whose behavior is contrasted with that of contemporary
commanders (Dionisotti 1988). At the end of the book he states clearly that
, he expected his readers to compare the deeds of these leaders with those of the
Romans in the following book, and decide "which men should be preferred" (Hann.
13). The life of Cato the Censor shows that the same format was followed for Roman
lives. It is a concentrated sketch, a page and a half long, suitable for basic reference
rather than detailed inquiry, for which Nepos refers to his separate life.
The Atticus, a portrait of the wealthy banker who managed to keep on good terms
with both sides during the civil war, shows Nepos at his best. Although uniformly
laudatory, it creates a multidimensional image of a humane, well-educated, shrewd,
and generous individual who lived simply (as billionaires go), refused to take part in
partisan struggles, and helped friends of every political stripe when they were in
trouble. Nepos speaks from his own knowledge of his friend, and offers him as a
model of how to survive in times of crisis.
Why did Nepos write biographies? He does not expect his readers to be thoroughly
familiar with Greek history, and like Cicero he thinks it appropriate to distance his
readers from Greek customs (Epam. 15.1.1). Although ancient politicians were
taught from their student days to use historical examples, it was difficult to be familiar
with all that might be found in Greek and Roman history. In On Famous Men Nepos
appears to have responded to a need for convenient access to fundamental information,
as he had done in his chronicle. The style uses some rhetorical flourishes,
especially antithesis, but is generally pedestrian.
For us, the historical value of the Liiles is slight, except where they treat figures
otherwise poorly documented. His narratives show a number of factual errors, some
of which may be attributed to compression of his sources and his emphasis on the
generals' respect for the people. The project of comparing Greeks and Romans, seen
also in Varro and other republican authors, found its most successful outcome in
Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
From roughly the same period we possess also fragments of a full-length laudatory
life in Greek of the emperor Augustus, written by a contemporary philosopher
and political advisor, Nicolaus of Damascus. The extant fragments (FG1,Hist 90
. FF 125-130; translation and commentary in Bellemore 1984) seem to straddle the
· genres of biography and historical monograph, perhaps under the influence of
treatments of Hellenistic Icings.
Tacitus) Agricola: Filial Piety and Imperial Politics
-Tacitus' Agricola, though biographical in form, already points to the author's future
_> histories (see Ogilvie and Richmond 1967; Ogilvie with Saddington and Keppie
, · 1991; Whitmarsh 2007). By the time Tacitus published his biography in 98 CE,
534 Philip Stadter
Augustus' imperial system was well into its second century. The Agricola reflects that
changed situation, and especially the dangers of public service under the tyrannical
emperor Domitian. Tacitus celebrated the life of his father-in-law as an example of a
good man pursuing a political career under a bad emperor. However, the preface and :
epilogue which frame his account (Agr. 1-3, 44-46) mark the biography not just as
an act of piety, but as a dangerous political statement. His great works, narrating
imperial history from Tiberius to Domitian, were still to come. However, his caustic ..
view, shaped under Domitian, of court intrigues and a subservient, complicitous
Senate is already apparent.
Ancient biographies regularly employ the natural structure of human life - birth,
youth and education, career, and death - though short lives such as Nepos' may focus
almost wholly on career. Tacitus' fuller biography includes in that structure the
formal stages of the Roman senatorial career, culminating in Agricola's six years as
proconsul in Britain. However, the subjects of several major sections, about half the
whole, are genre markers of history: a geographical excursus on Britain (10-12, with
citations of earlier writers); a short history of the Roman presence (13-17); the
opposing pair of speeches by the British leader Calgacus and by Agricola (30- 34);
and the set scene of the battle of Mons Graupius of which they are a part (29-37).
Moreover, tl1e tone is encomiastic: Agricola's every quality and deed are found
praiseworthy, although a dispassionate reader might note flaws about which Tacitus
is silent. Thus the biography smoothly absorbs elements of history, praise, and
political tract without losing its fundamental emphasis on one man's life.
Much ofTacitus' information undoubtedly came from Agricola himself(cf. 4, 24,
44) or his family. His intended readers are apparently his family and friends, members
of his own senatorial class vvho have survived the same crisis of rule as himself, can
appreciate that danger to life and dignity, and can relate Agricola's life to their own
past and future role in imperial affairs. For modern readers, tl1e work is essential for
the history of Roman Britain, and extremely valuable for the political climate under
Domitian and senatorial hopes for the future with Trajan.
Suetonius) Lives of the Caesars: Emperor-Watching
How can one write the history of living under an imperial system? When Tacitus
turned to write tl1e history of the first century, he used the traditional format of
annals, giving events year by year. Nevertheless biography underpinned the whole,
since the sequence of imperial reigns provided a larger structure, most clear in the six
books devoted to Tiberius. Suetonius, his younger contemporary, decided to abandon
narrative history for historical biography, an innovation already attempted in
Greek by Plutarch (see below). In his set of biographies of twelve Caesars, from Julius
to Domitian, the new form corresponded to the new reality, already implicit in
Tacitus, that the personality and behavior of tl1e emperor was the fundamental
political fact.
Suetonius, a scholar and successively Secretary for Libraries and Secretary for
Correspondence for Trajan and Hadrian until his dismissal in 121/ 2 CE, combined
the roles of bureaucrat, writer, and scholar. Besides the Caesars, he wrote the
coll
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Biography and History 535
collection On Famous Men, treating lives of literary figures. Two books survive, on
grammarians and on teachers of rhetoric. In addition, lives of Terence, Horace,
Vergil, and others preserved in our manuscripts of the authors go back more or less
directly to a third book of the series, on poets. These lives fit the format of most such
large series: dry and short (those on grammarians run less than a page apiece, those
on the poets rather longer), they give the person's origin, a sketch of his career, and
the major reasons for his fame (see Kaster 1995).
For his eight books on the Caesars, Suetonius had greater ambitions. The early
lives, Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius, are quite long and detailed, running between
fifty-six and eighty-three pages in the Loeb edition. The later lives, while shorter, are
still longer than any of Nepos' extant lives. If tl1ere was a preface explaining Suetonius'
purpose or audience, it has been lost with the beginning ofJulius, tl1e first life.
The lives themselves reveal tl1at he expects informed and curious readers, who will be
rewarded for their interest by a fascinating potpourri of fact, rumor, and scandal, all
centered on the intimate relation between an emperor's administration and his
personality and character.
The lives begin with the standard information on family, birth, youth, and career,
up to the emperor's accession. From tl1at point Suetonius presents each emperor's
achievements and defects, virtues and vices, by category rather than chronologically
(neque per tempora sed per species, Aug. 9.1). This technique, often found in literary
lives, and perhaps a standard scholarly technique, becomes in the Caesars a potent
tool to evaluate an emperor, flexible enough to be adapted to individuals, yet
sufficiently rigid to permit comparison between them. Suetonius treats military
matters summarily, but reports civil administration and domestic behavior at length.
As Wallace-Hadrill (1983: 151-152) has noted, "The prominence Suetonius gives to
moral categories malces sense ... in terms of the mental attitudes of contemporaries
living under an autocracy which relied heavily on the language of virtue for its
legitimation." Suetonius values the virtues which define a good emperor: clemency,
civility, humanity, temperance. The most dangerous vice is abuse of power in all its
forms: lust, avarice, luxury, cruelty. Unlike Tacitus, he is not concerned v.ii.th senatorial
prerogatives but with a citizen's right to be treated with dignity by a responsible
ruler.
His standard pattern may be seen in Claudius: he first introduces Claudius' father
Drusus (Claud. 1), then spealcs of his birth and youth, including Augustus' opinions
about him excerpted from his letters (2--4). His public offices before his accession
follow (5-10). The greater part of the life .(11--42) treats by categories Claudius'
administration and character. Finally there comes an account of his deatl1 by poison
and the omens which marked it (43--46). Frequently Suetonius divides his treatment
ofbehavior into t\:vo subsets: virtuous or neutral behavior and vicious behavior, most
forcefully at Gaius (Caligula) 22.1: "thus far concerning the emperor, the rest will
tell of the monster." In Claudius, tl1e distinction is less clear-cut. The listing of his
marriages, children, and closest freedmen introduces the executions and savagery to
which he was led by tl1e influence of his wives and favorites (Claud. 29). In chapters
30--42, vice and virtue are mixed as tl1e biographer successively touches upon
Claudius' appearance, health, way of life (entertainments, habits), character (sadism,
.,
. !
536 Philip Stadter
timidity, outbursts of anger), empty-headedness (both foolish and casually cruel),·
and intellectual pursuits.
Suetonius' treatment by categories truncates narrative but brings to life the:
individuality of each emperor. Even though often based on dubious sources, the
Caesars makes fascinating reading. Lurid accounts of sexual excesses and aberrations
scandalize and intrigue the reader. Could the aged Tiberius really be so sexually
depraved on Capri (Tib. 43--44)? Anecdotes fix traits in the reader's mind. The
scene, described in a sentence, of Domitian at the beginning of his reign, sitting
by himself stabbing flies with his stylus (Dom. 3), sets the tone for the emperor's:
whole life.
Suetonius selected nuggets ofinformation from earlier histories. He cites a few, but
others, such as the common source or sources on the civil ,vars of 69 CE which he.
shared with Plutarch and Tacitus, cannot be identified. In addition he refers to ·
number of documents, including the records of Senate proceedings, the autobiog
raphies ofAugustus and Tiberius, and a collection ofAugustus' letters. The first tw _
lives, Julius and Augitstus, besides being the longest, are the richest in citations and,
documentation; in later books citations are few, information is less detaileq;;
and Suetonius tends to generalize behavior. Finally, many of his stories may..
have come through oral tradition: tales of a dead emperor's quirks were safer than.
observations on the living.
Though different in form from standard ancient political history, Suetonius' biographies
prove invaluable to the modern historian for their sections on administration,..
finance, entertainments, and not least, scandal. The many brief glimpses of the ,,
imperial court, though not as cynical and focused on power as Tacitus' accounts/
preserve important insights into the nature of the imperial system and the individuals
who were at its peak. He offers significant supplements to our t\vo major histories for'.
this period, Tacitus and Cassius Dio, both of which are only partially preserved.
Suetonius' Caesars established imperial biography as the major historical mode
under the empire. His many continuators include Marius Maximus, author of losf'.
biographies of the emperors from Ncrva to Elagabalus, the HistoriaAugitsta, created:·
at the end of the fourth century CE, and Einhard's contemporary biography of
Charlemagne.
Plutarch)s Biographies: Character, Leadership, and Political Power·(
The acme of ancient political biography was achieved by Suetonius' elder contem- ·_,
porary, the Greek philosopher and man of letters Plutarch of Chaeronea. Born in
Greece in the middle of the first century CE to an old and prosperous family, Plutarch/
from his youth chose to study and write philosophy, but also maintained close ties with '
Rome . In Greece and on visits to Rome he made a number offriends and acquaintances ·
among Romans ofthe highest level, and was granted Roman citizenship. Although he
wrote in Greek, Plutarch's readership consisted of the ruling elite of both cultures,:
Greek and Roman, as is shown by the addressees ofhis many essays. The Parallel Lilies- .
are dedicated to a prominent senator and military commander closely associated
with the emperor Trajan (see Jones 1971; Stadter and Van der Stockt 2002).
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Biography and History 537
Plutarch's biographies represent only about a third of his writings, many of which
are lost; his surviving ethical and philosophical essays, collectively called Moi-alia,
equal in volume the extant lives. He wrote three different types of biography:
individual lives, Lives of the Caesa1,s, and Parallel LiPes. Two individual historical
lives, Aratits and Artaxerxes, which celebrate respectively a Greek general (the ancestor
of one of Plutarch's friends) and a Persian Icing, are all that survive of about ten
independent lives, half of which concerned local Boeotian figures, from Heracles to
poets and a Cynic philosopher.
The series of LiFes of the Caesars from Augustus to Vitellius treated the first one
hundred years of the empire. Only two short lives, Galba and Otho, survive, but the
whole series probably ran close to four hundred pages. It was written most likely
under the Flavian dynasty (i.e., before 96 CE), perhaps under Vespasian, ea. 75 CE . To
judge from the two extant lives, it represents an unusual initiative by a young Greek to
give a moral perspective to imperial history. Building on the same historical accounts
later used by Tacitus and Suetonius, these lives depict the tragedy of state and army
without a leader. The whole series traced the trajectory of empire from Augustus'
seizure ofsole power after the chaos ofcivil war to the collapse into the renewed civil
war which ended Nero's reign. Plutarch may have hoped that Vespasian would be a
new Augustus, bringing peace and stability (see Stadter 2005 ).
The Parallel Lives develop further this scheme of ethical evaluation of historical
figures, but immensely enlarge its scope and purpose. The forty-six LiPes in twentytwo
books cover a vast panorama, from the earliest legendary founders of Athens
and Rome, Theseus and Romulus, down to the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra in
30 BCE, the point at ·which the empire, and his Caesars, began. The Greek LiPes
include a heavy proportion of Athenian statesmen of the fifth century BCE, but also
five Spartans, Alexander the Great, and several Hellenistic commanders; the latest is
that ofPhilopoemen, who died in 182 BCE. The Roman LiPes give special emphasis to
the final tumultuous years of the republic. Each Greek is paired with a Roman of
similar character and situation to form a separate book. For most pairs, a short
comparison between the protagonists functions as an epilogue.
The focus on statesmen is similar to that of Nepos' extant book, but the scale is
much larger, the average length being about forty-five pages and the longest running
over one hundred. Each pair of lives represented a substantial volume, or even two.
Plutarch did not write the pairs in the chronological order of their heroes, whether
Greek or Latin. Five late republican lives, which are also much longer than the others,
belong near the end of the series and reflect Plutarch's increased willingness to deal
with the darkest aspects of political ambition.
Comparison is central to his project. Already Herodotus and Thucydides had
compared nations, cities, and individuals. Some historians, such as Diodorus, had
presented Roman and Greek history side by side. Roman writers frequently compared
individual Roman statesmen with outstanding Greeks, notably Alexander, and we
have seen that Nepos composed his lives in parallel books of non-Roman (chiefly
Greek) and Roman subjects. Plutarch went further by setting individual Roman and
Greek lives side by side. The juxtaposition stimulated the reader to think more
precisely and profoundly about the protagonists' virtues and weaknesses and how
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they were strengthened or attenuated in different historical circumstances.
Pericles and Fabius Maximus, for example, restrained their citizens from rushing
into battle with superior opponents, but they differed in their methods and the
particular qualities they brought to bear. Correspondences between parallel lives,
expressed or implied, reveal tl1e biographer's effort to indicate similarities. The
comparative epilogues frequently suggest tensions bet\veen conflicting goods, or
bet\veen moral good and practical success. Since most of Plutarch's statesmen have
major flaws, readers must weigh different characters, often admiring and criticizing
the same person, and sometimes the same traits.
To create tl1is ethical engagement, Plutarch combined the ancient historians'
concern with the morality of action and the philosophers' use of moral anecdotes.
He thus adapted political history to ma.lee a statesman's whole life material for etlucal
and practical reflection. By inserting individual anecdotes into a historical and
biographical framework, he permitted the reader to see the circumstances in which
a historical figure acted and to evaluate his whole life rather than a brief moment of
courage or wit.
The Parallel Lives also assert the value of the Greek heritage, while recognizing that
Romans often more successfully embodied Greek virtues than the Greeks themselves.
He presumes an audience already knowledgeable in the history of both nations and
receptive to the Platonic perspective on which his lives were based. His own authorial
persona, expressed in his proems and epilogues as well as numerous comments and
asides throughout the narrative, reflects a warm-hearted, understanding, but strongly
moral friend and counselor. He delights in his heroes' lives as a mirror for his own
(Aem. 1), and invites his readers among the political elite of both nations to do the
same. In one of his essays, he affirms that he considered a philosopher's greatest
achievement was to improve tl1e rulers or leading men of a state. The Parallel Lives,
like the Lives ofthe Caesars and many of his moral essays, strove to accomplish exactly
that goal.
To achieve its aim, Plutarchan biography had to have its foundation in historical
fact. Plutarch, who accepted Aristotle's view that virtue was habitual good action,
looks at the actions of his statesmen to understand their virtues or failings. His
standard sources are narrative histories. We can document his use ofextant historians
such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, and Livy, and confirm his frequent citations
of lost works by Ephorus, Theopompus, Phylarchus, and otl1ers. In addition,
wherever possible, for botl1 Greek and Roman biographies, he privileges sources
contemporary with the hero, especially those written by the protagonist himself:
Salon's laws and poems, Pericles' decrees, Demosthenes' speeches, Sulla's memoirs.
He proudly supplements historians' accounts ·with inscriptions, dedications, or other
documents (cf. Nie. 1), and cites when possible contemporary lyric or comic poets.
An omnivorous reader in the historians and antiquarians of Greece, time and again
he quotes authors and incidents lrnmvn from no other source (cf. Stadter 1989:
lviii-lxxxv). Earlier biographies were not an important source, although he cites
Nepos and Hellenistic biographers such as Hermippus. He came to Latin late
and his reading of Roman literature is correspondingly restricted, but he cites
major authors, including Cicero. All these written sources he supplements with
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Biography and History 539
his own observation of monuments or stories from his friends or local informants
(see Buclder 1992).
Although Plutarch famously stated that he "wrote biographies, not history"
(Alex. 1), it is more accurate to say that he reshaped historical narrative into biography.
This reshaping necessitated a new interpretation of the protagonist and often
an imaginative reconstruction of the circumstances behind an event. When treating
the same events in different lives, Plutarch in each case refocused the action to make
each protagonist the center of the life devoted to him. Historical information not
relevant to the biography was condensed or stripped away, and other material compressed,
simplified, or displaced. Background and feelings may be imaginatively
reconstructed "as they must have been." Responsibility is particularized, so that
Plutarch credits to Pericles a decision ascribed by Thucydides to the Athenians.
Plutarch's judgments too might change from lite to life, as he favors the new
protagonist's point of view (see Pelling 1979, 19906).
Usually the chronological sequence of major life events furnished Plutarch's overall
organizing scheme, but it coexisted with and often yielded to thematic and rhetorical
structures. Educational influences reported early in a life need not be restricted to
childhood, but can include friends and advisors in maturity, such as Damon and
Anaxagoras to Pericles (Per. 4-5 ). Incidents and anecdotes were frequently gathered
w1der a common head, or introduced by association, rather than in chronological
order. Anecdotes which disclosed character may replace narrative, as when the meeting
of Alexander with the captured women of Darius is given fuller treatment than
the battle oflssus which precedes it (Alex. 20-21). Significant anecdotes appearing
early in the life, such as Alexander's taming of Bucephalus (Alex. 6) or the child
Cato's refusal to change his mind when threatened (Cat. Min. 2 ), often establish
major themes or perspectives. Dialogue and quoted sayings are frequent. Speeches
are rare, but can be quite dramatic: Appius Claudius' exhortation to the Roman
Senate during the war with Pyrrhus (Pyrrh. 19), for example, or Cleopatra's words at
the tomb ofMark Antony (Ant. 84). Combining these disparate elements, Plutarch is
unusual!)' successful at creating a rhetorical unity: whereas Suetonius' Lives are similar
to collages, Plutarch's resemble more a tapestry in which many threads and colors are
, integrated into a single picture.
The sophisticated techniques of the Lives require that the modern historian use
them with care. Plutarchan biographies, even more than the others treated here, are
not simply warehouses of facts which may be casually excerpted; the context and
purpose ofeach item and the perspective ofthe whole life and the pair of which it is a
part must be considered (see, e.g., Bosworth 1992 [pitfalls in Plutarch]; Buckler
1993; and Badian 2003 [Plutarch's critical skills)). In addition, the Lives are an
important though underutilized source on the intellectual and political milieu of
Plutarch's own day.
Finally, they offer many pleasures to the curious reader. Since the rediscovery of
Plutarch in the Renaissance, his Parallel LiPes have been a favorite avenue ofapproach
to the classical world. The emphasis on individual character found a ready audience
among men ofaction and intellectuals well into the nineteenth century, when the rise
of scientific, skeptical historiography undermined the trust in his credibility. In the
I:/
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540 Philip Stadter
last three decades he has reemerged as a major author, whose biographies are an ;
indispensable source for our lrnowledge of the ancient world, and continue to raise·_,.
ethical and practical questions relevant to modern political leadership.
4 Biography as History
Speaking generally, political biography represents the personal approach to history. It~,
focus is not on larger elements of causation, such as the constant seesaw of action and
retribution and the limits of human nature seen in Herodotus and Thucydides, but
on the personal. It asks ·what kind of character a historical actor possessed, wha:r,
motivated his behavior, what he accomplished or failed to achieve. Passing over large-'
scale movements and consequences, it tends to focus on details and anecdotes.':
Authorial comments are more frequent than is usual in history, but speeches are
rare. Narrative, in particular, is more episodic, or completely excluded. In general, it is·
not that biography is less accurate or more interpretive than history, but that its scope
and purpose are different, even when it uses the same sources.
It is hardly coincidental that our earliest extant biographies, those ofNepos, belong
to a time of acute political strife at Rome, which saw the emergence of strong,·.
competing personalities, and that our three later authors wrote during and shortl}r.'.
after two crises of empire, when the problem of leadership was particularly acute. ·
In such cases, personal and moral factors, always present to some degree in standard
political history, come to the fore. The biographer must evaluate good and"
bad behavior, look for its sources, and consider its effects. In a time when dynasts
and then emperors could control the fate of so many, insight into the character of
political leaders became a necessity. Biography was not only a source of information,
and recreation, it was also a tool for living.
FURTHER READING
For ancient genre in general see Conte 1992; for historiography, Marincola 1997 and 1999; for ·
ancient biography, Gentili and Cerri 1988: 61- 85 and Burridge 1992. For an overview ofthe ·
problems in reconstructing Hellenistic biography, see Momigliano 1971a, 1971b.
The basic study ofNepos is Geiger 1985. For Suetonius see in general Wallace-Hadrill 1983; .,
for the Caesa1·s Lewis 1991 b and Bradley 1991. On Plutarch, the best overview is Duff1999; ·
valuable essays are collected in Stadter 1992; Scardigli 1995; and Pelling 2002.