Плутархтың «Параллель өмірлер» жинағы

Biographies of famous Greeks and Romans by Plutarch

The Parallel Lives (, Bíoi Parállēloi; Vītae Parallēlae) is a series of 48 biographies of famous men written by the Greco Roman philosopher, historian, and Apollonian priest Plutarch, probably at the beginning of the second century. It is also known as Plutarch's Lives (Πλούταρχου Βίοι, Ploútarchou Bíoi; Plutarchī Vītae); Parallels (Παράλληλα, Parállēla; Parallela); the Comparative Lives (Συγκριτικοί Βίοι, Sygkritikoí Bíoi; Vitae Comparatae); the Lives of Illustrious Men (Vitae Illustrium Virorum); and the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans (Βίοι Ῥωμαίων καὶ Ἑλλήνων, Bioi Rhōmaiōn kai Hellēnōn; Vitae Illustrium Virorum Graecorum et Romanorum or Graecorum Romanorumque Illustrium Vitae). The lives are arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving Parallel Lives comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman of similar destiny, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes and Cicero. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.

Parallel Lives was Plutarch's second set of biographical works, following the Lives of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Vitellius. Of these, only the Lives of Galba and Otho survive. As he explains in the first paragraph of his Life of Alexander, Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, but with exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. He wished to prove that the more distant past of Greece could show its men of action and achievement as well as the more recent past of Rome. His interest was primarily ethical, although the Lives has significant historical value as well. The Lives was published by Plutarch late in his life after his return to Chaeronea and, if one may judge from the long lists of authorities given, it must have taken many years to compile.

Of the biographies in Parallel Lives, that of Antonius has been cited by multiple scholars as one of the masterpieces of the series. In 1895, George Wyndham wrote that the first rank consists of the biographies of Themistocles, Alcibiades, Marius, Cato the Elder, Alexander, Demetrius, Antonius, and Pompey. Peter D'Epiro praised Plutarch's depiction of Alcibiades as "a masterpiece of characterization." Academic Philip A. Stadter singled out Pompey and Caesar as the greatest figures in the Roman biographies. In a review of the 1859 A. H. Clough translation, Plutarch's depictions of Antony, Coriolanus, Alcibiades, and the Cato the Elder were praised as deeply drawn. The reviewer found the sayings of Themistocles to be "snowy and splendid", those of Phocion to be "curt and sharp", and those of Cato "grave and shrewdly humorous". Carl Rollyson lauded the biography of Caesar as proof Plutarch is "loaded with perception" and stated that no biographer "has surpassed him in summing up the essence of a life – perhaps because no modern biographer has believed so intensely as Plutarch did in 'the soul of men'. John Langhorne, D. D. and William Langhorne, A. M.'s English translation, noted that Amiot, Abbe of Bellozane, published a French translation of the work during the reign of Henry II in the year 1558; and from that work it was translated into English, in the time of Elizabeth I. No other translation appeared until that of John Dryden.