Plutarch's Lives Of Illustrious Men
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Poor
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Binding tearing in some places but pages still intact.
Few works have shaped the Western understanding of the ancient world as profoundly as Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men — a monumental collection of paired biographies that chronicles the careers of history's greatest Greek and Roman statesmen, generals, and orators. Originally composed by the Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch in the late first and early second centuries AD, this landmark edition presents the text corrected from the Greek and revised by the distinguished scholar A. H. Clough, offering readers a scrupulously faithful and elegantly rendered account of figures such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Solon, and Cicero. Each biography is crafted not merely as a historical record, but as a moral portrait — a searching examination of virtue, ambition, courage, and the corrupting nature of power. Plutarch's method is comparative and philosophical, placing Greek and Roman lives side by side to illuminate timeless truths about human character rather than simply narrate political events. His influence on Renaissance humanism, Shakespearean drama, and Enlightenment political thought cannot be overstated — indeed, Shakespeare drew directly from these pages for his Roman tragedies. Clough's meticulous editorial hand ensures that this Victorian edition remains both a rigorous scholarly text and an accessible gateway into antiquity. Whether one comes to it as a student of history, a lover of philosophy, or simply a reader hungry for grand human drama, this collection poses a challenge that resonates across millennia: what truly makes a great man?
Author: A. H. Clough
Format: Hardback
Published: 1876, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington
Genre: Biography
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Poor
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Condition remarks: Binding tearing in some places but pages still intact.
Few works have shaped the Western understanding of the ancient world as profoundly as Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men — a monumental collection of paired biographies that chronicles the careers of history's greatest Greek and Roman statesmen, generals, and orators. Originally composed by the Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch in the late first and early second centuries AD, this landmark edition presents the text corrected from the Greek and revised by the distinguished scholar A. H. Clough, offering readers a scrupulously faithful and elegantly rendered account of figures such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Solon, and Cicero. Each biography is crafted not merely as a historical record, but as a moral portrait — a searching examination of virtue, ambition, courage, and the corrupting nature of power. Plutarch's method is comparative and philosophical, placing Greek and Roman lives side by side to illuminate timeless truths about human character rather than simply narrate political events. His influence on Renaissance humanism, Shakespearean drama, and Enlightenment political thought cannot be overstated — indeed, Shakespeare drew directly from these pages for his Roman tragedies. Clough's meticulous editorial hand ensures that this Victorian edition remains both a rigorous scholarly text and an accessible gateway into antiquity. Whether one comes to it as a student of history, a lover of philosophy, or simply a reader hungry for grand human drama, this collection poses a challenge that resonates across millennia: what truly makes a great man?