That only those who have mastered language can be virtuous is something that may strike us as an obvious truism. It would seem to follow naturally from, indeed simply restate, a view that is far more commonly held and expressed by philosophers of the virtues, namely that only those who can reason can be virtuous properly said. My aim in this paper is to draw attention to this truism and argue its importance. In doing so, I will take the starting (...) point for my reflections from a couple of concrete occasions in which the desire to offer a foothold to the language of the virtues encounters an obstacle that might be described as a recalcitrance of language: certain intuitions that seem decidedly linguistic get in the way to suggest that this vocabulary is out of place or out of order. Taking my cue from the discomfort of our linguistic intuitions, what I will be suggesting is that certain difficulties do indeed attend our use of the vocabulary of the virtues, and that there is a particular way of understanding their inevitability, one which is closely connected to the context of moral education. My hope is that reflecting on these difficulties and on the task of moral education with which they are associated can help us illuminate and recover the insight that a mastery of language may be indispensable for a mastery of virtue. (shrink)

The ancient critics are well known—some might say notorious—for their readiness to read literature, and particularly Homer, through moral spectacles. Their interpretations of Homeric epic are philosophical, not only in the more limited sense that they identified specific doctrines in the speeches of Homer's characters, making the poet or his heroes spokesmen for the views of Plato or Epicurus, but also in a wider sense: the critics demand from Homer not merely entertainment but enlightenment on moral and religious questions, on (...) good and evil, on this life and the after-life. When they fail to find what they seek, they follow Plato and find him wanting. (shrink)

Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars contain at least twenty discrete anecdotes about childhood and youth spread across the Lives. Some characterize the Caesars by looking forwards and others do so by looking backwards. In both foreshadowing and flashback, the childhood anecdote shows continuity with the adult and creates the impression of lifelong consistency of character. The foreshadowing technique is also something other ancient biographers do; the flashback is something that appears to be unique to Suetonius. In this note I briefly (...) consider the stories from childhood and youth that foreshadow character traits and themes of the rest of the Life, and then the flashbacks from the adulthood section of the Life that refer to childhood and youth in order to demonstrate vices of the grown adult. I show that the use of foreshadowing and flashbacks contributes to the appearance of a fully formed character in the child that will be consistent into adulthood, as well as facilitating the rubric system of arranging material by type rather than by time. (shrink)

This study focuses not on individual Lives or pairs of Lives, but on the book as a whole and its articulation across the full corpus. It argues that the Plutarchan book consists of up to four distinct sections: prologue, first Life, second Life, synkrisis. Each of these sections has a fairly consistent internal structure, and each has a distinct set of strategies for opening, for closure, and for managing the transition from one section to the next. Prologues provide an introduction (...) to both Lives, and are clearly delineated from them, even though in our manuscripts they appear as part of the first Life; in fact, there is often a stronger break between prologue and first Life than there is between the two Lives themselves. Prologues usually begin with generalized reflections, to be followed only later by the naming of the subjects and a statement of their similarities. Most Lives begin with a thematically organized section , which surveys the subject's life as a whole, not just their youth, and which is marked off with varying degrees of distinctness from the narrative that follows. Crucially, proemial openings do not narrate and the logic of their structure is not chronological. Closure in many Lives is signalled by ‘circularity’ and sometimes by a closural or transitional phrase, though first Lives are different here from second Lives. Synkriseis are structured both by a series of themes on which the two subjects are compared, and by a two-part, agonistic structure in which first one of the subjects is preferred, then the other. Synkriseis may also recall the prologue; both prologue and synkrisis operate at the level of the book, and between them frame and weld together the two Lives. (shrink)

This paper examines Plutarch's treatment of education in the Parallel Lives. Beginning with a close reading of Them. 2, it identifies two distinct ways in which Plutarch exploits the education of his subjects: in the first, a subject's attitude to education is used to illustrate a character presented as basically static (a 'static/illustrative' model); in the second, a subject's education is looked at in order to explain his adult character, and education is assumed to affect character (a 'developmental' model). These (...) two models are often associated with two different forms of discourse: anecdotal for the static/illustrative model and analytical for the developmental. The developmental model, furthermore, is closer to Plutarch's thinking in theoretical discussions of character in the Moralia; the static/illustrative model to Plutarch's treatment of character in the Lives more generally, where anecdotal treatments predominate. The coexistence of these two models is probably to be seen as the result of a tension between Plutarch's philosophical thinking and his biographical practice: those few passages in the Lives which assume a developmental model occur in contexts where either Platonic texts or the activity of philosophers are being discussed. (shrink)

It has recently and rightly been observed that Plutarch is exceptional as a prose author in the finesse with which he employs tragedy in his Lives. And, one might add, in the extent to which he does so. His dislike for the sensationalism of ‘tragic history’ was no obstacle to his use of ‘the sustained tragic patterning and imagery which is a perfectly respectable feature of both biography and history’. The primary purpose of the present discussion is to draw attention (...) to the profound importance of tragedy, particularly of Euripides' Bacchae, to the Carrhae narrative in Plutarch's Crassus. It is argued that details in Crassus'; version of Carrhae recall the tragedy of Pentheus and, in so doing, substantially advance the portrayal of Crassus' character. (shrink)

It has recently and rightly been observed that Plutarch is exceptional as a prose author in the finesse with which he employs tragedy in his Lives. And, one might add, in the extent to which he does so. His dislike for the sensationalism of ‘tragic history’ was no obstacle to his use of ‘the sustained tragic patterning and imagery which is a perfectly respectable feature of both biography and history’. The primary purpose of the present discussion is to draw attention (...) to the profound importance of tragedy, particularly of Euripides'Bacchae, to the Carrhae narrative in Plutarch'sCrassus. It is argued that details inCrassus'; version of Carrhae recall the tragedy of Pentheus and, in so doing, substantially advance the portrayal of Crassus' character. (shrink)