Lives by Plutarch - 18 - Conclusion
Conclusion
Quote
"My purpose was not to gather meaningless historical data, but to record data which promote the understanding of character and personality."
Notes and Takeaways
Plutarch wrote this collection of Lives in Athens during a period of peace and prosperity in Roman empire when Trajan was emperor. However, he did live through a period of turmoil and civil war that preceded this period.
He was well connected with elites and powerful people (including Trajan) and frequently met with them and other friends to discuss philosophy and history.
Before writing the Lives, he spent a lot of time writing essays on morality, and Lives was a kind of evolution of those essays where issues of morality could be reflected on and discussed through the lives of important historical figures.
He was often more interested in how character reveals itself through a gesture or something they said in a moment, as opposed to their more epic actions. As he said, "I am not writing history but biography, and the most outstanding exploits do not always have the property of revealing the goodness or badness of the agent; often in fact, a casual action, the odd phrase, or a jest reveals character better than battles involving the loss of thousands upon thousands of lives."
Since his own philosophical discussions were often with current commanders and leading figures in society, he wanted to base the discussions within real examples, looking at how "real men of influence, acting in real situations, brought their lives to successful conclusions, or failed to do so." He wanted Lives to help men in government become more aware of the results of their personal choices and moral decisions.
Plutarch saw history as a teacher in a practical way. It was a way of offering instruction and perspective for statesmen. His history was also focussed on biography, which as a form didn't really exist before him. His intimate portraits served as an inspiration for many Shakespeare plays and left a huge impact on our historical understanding.
He also really enjoyed the process of writing the Lives for himself: "Although I took up the writing of the Lives for others, I find that the task has grown on me and I continue with it for my own sake, too, in the sense that I treat the narrative as a kind of mirror and try to find a way to arrange my life and assimilate it to the virtues of my subjects. The experience is like nothing so much as spending time in their company and living with them."