The Age of Alexander
1st Edition
Published on 1. March 2012
672 pages
978-0-14-197038-7 (ISBN)
Description
Plutarch's parallel biographies of the great men in Greek and Roman history are cornerstones of European literature, drawn on by writers and statesmen since the Renaissance, most notably by Shakespeare. This selection provides intimate glimpses into the lives of these men, depicting, as he put it, 'those actions which illuminate the workings of the soul'. We learn why the mild Artaxerxes forced the killer of his usurping brother to undergo the horrific 'death of two boats'; why the noble Dion repeatedly risked his life for the ungrateful mobs of Syracuse; why Demosthenes delivered a funeral oration for the soldiers he had deserted in battle; and why Alexander, the most enigmatic of tyrants, self-destructed after conquering half the world.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
4,11 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-14-197038-7 (9780141970387)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Plutarch | Timothy Duff
The Age of Alexander
Book
03/2012
Penguin Classics
€21.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
PLUTARCH (c. AD 45-120), the Greek philosopher, lived at the height of the Roman Empire and is author of one of the largest and collections of writings to have survived from Classical antiquity. His work is traditionally divided into two: the Moralia, which include a vast range of philosophical, scientific, moral and rhetorical works, and the Lives or biographies. Almost fifty such biographies survive, most from his collection of Parallel Lives, in which biographies of Greek and Roman statesmen are arranged in pairs.
IAN SCOTT-KILVERT was Director of English Literature at the British Council and Editor of Writers and the Works. He also translated Cassius Dio's The Roman History as well as Plutarch's The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives and Makers of Rome for Penguin Classics. He died in 1989.
TIMOTHY E. DUFF is Reader in Classics at the University of Reading. He is author of Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford 1999), and the Greek and Roman Historians (Duckworth 2003) and has published extensively on Plutarch.
IAN SCOTT-KILVERT was Director of English Literature at the British Council and Editor of Writers and the Works. He also translated Cassius Dio's The Roman History as well as Plutarch's The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives and Makers of Rome for Penguin Classics. He died in 1989.
TIMOTHY E. DUFF is Reader in Classics at the University of Reading. He is author of Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford 1999), and the Greek and Roman Historians (Duckworth 2003) and has published extensively on Plutarch.
