Pelling Moralism in Plutarch S Lives
Pelling Moralism in Plutarch S Lives
Pelling Moralism in Plutarch S Lives
For there is always a risk that civil life will damage the reputation
of those who owe their greatness to warfare, and are ill-suited to
democratic equality. They expect to enjoy the same supremacy in
this new sphere, whereas their opponents, worsted by them on
campaign, find it intolerable if they cannot overtake them even
here. Thus they delight in taking a man with a glorious record of
campaigning and triumphs, and when they have him in the forum
they take care to subdue him and put him down; whereas they
behave differently to a man who lays aside and yields the honour
and power he enjoyed on campaign, and they preserve his author-
ity unimpaired.
(Pomp. 23.5-6)
When Antony had taken his fill of the sight he ordered the head
and hhnds of Cicero to be impaled over the rostra, as if this were a
matter of outraging the corpse; in fact he was making an exhibi-
tion of his own outrageous behaviour at fortune's expense, and of
the dishonour which he brought on his office.
(Ant. 20.4, cf. Cic. 49. 2)
No wonder that Plutarch's contemporary Suetonius has relatively about the past, had a gift for extracting points of general, timeless
little to say about warfare; yet the Parallel Lives are preoccupied with significance from such details of narrative: often he makes such
soldierly virtues and are full of wars, often with disproportionate space generalizations explicit, as in our initial example from Pompey. Often
and emphasis-the Parthian wars in the Antony or the Grassus, for too the timelessness is less explicit, and becomes more a question of the
instance. categories sf interpretation which he tacitly prefers. One aspect is his
Some might seize on this same example in a different way. Wars liking for formulating political controversy in fairly standard terms,
may have vanished from the world of small-town Greece, but Plutarch exploiting categories which cut across different cultures and periods,
knew of the wider world of Rome. Trajan was probably planning a such as the antithesis of demos and oligoi.'O These categories do not
Parthian war at the precise time when Plutarch was preparing Antony always sit comfortably on the periods which he is describing, but they
and Crassus. Was this in Plutarch's mind?7 We should doubt it. The do not fit his own day any more closely, and he is not imposing
same line of reasoning, applied to Marius, would convince us that distinctively contemporary preoccupations. In particular, he fre-
Trajan was planning to attack Germans and Cimbri; to Caesar, that he quently remoulds his material to present powerful demagogic leaders
was turning to Gaul. If we search for references to Dacia in the Lives, anxious to lead the demos in rebellion, and rise on the people's
they are conspicuously scarce: Caesar's Dacian aspirations are given a shoulders to establish personal tyrannies. It is hard to imagine a politi-
couple of lines (Caes. 58. 6-7).8 And at this same time Trajan was also cal atmosphere more remote from Trajanic Rome; and it is more
emphasizing a connection with Hercules, pointing to the traditional remote still from the Greek world of the Raecepta rei publicae
Stoic associations of toil and beneficence to humanity? Plutarch's gemndae. That is not a world of fierce demos-oligoi confrontation and
Antony plays the Hercules as well, but in a very different way-a tyrannical aspiration. True, the demos has to be handled tactfully:
swaggering bluffness, with more than a breath of the comic miles leaders may have to put on a spurious show of disagreement over
gloriosus (Ant. 4). If any contemporary association had been caught, it trivialities, for instance, but only in order to carry the really important
would have been extraordinarily gauche, and Trajan surely never matters with less bother (813a-c); and 'overthrows of tyrants' are
crossed Plutarch's mind. Plutarch has other reasons for emphasizing explicitly one of the spheres of glorious activity which the world no
Parthia, where so many of Antony's frailties and virtues showed them- longer admits (805 a).
selves so plainly; a few chapters later the Actium campaign reprises Critics sometimes comment on this 'timelessness' as a weakness of
many of the same points, but this time events are even more cata- Plutarch's historical vision. We say that he assumes every generation
strophic. Parthia can point many truths about an Antony, impetuous, to be more or less the same, so that he applies the same moral
valiant, irrepressible, lovable, and deeply flawed; but those are traits categories to each period in turn; that he fails to weigh his judgements
which might recur with other people at other times. They are points of characters against the moral norms and expectations of the societies
about a timeless human nature, not about AD I 10-15. Similarly the in which they lived." Perhaps we have overstated this. He is certainly
German fighting reveals many of the best features of Marius, which capable of generalizing about different societies and bringing out what
will show themselves in so distorted a form when he returns to politics; was morally distinctive about each. Thus he identifies the bellicosity of
and Caesar's fighting in Gaul marks the successful version of the Rome. "'Did not Rome make her great advances through warfare?"
energy and #LAOTL@ which will guide Caesar's rise as well as sealing That is a question requiring a lengthy answer for men who define
his end. "advance" in terms of wealth, luxury, and empire rather than safety,
This 'timelessness' deserves further stress. The Lives are narratives restraint, and an honest independence' (Numa 26(4). 12-13). And
of particular past events, but Plutarch, like so many Greek writers several times Plutarch dwells on the destructive moral decline of
' Different answers to this question are given by Scuderi (1984) on Ant. 34. 9 and lo Pelling ( 1 9 8 6 ~and
) de Blois (1992).
37. I and by Pelling (1988) on Ant. 34.9 and intr., 4. l1 Thus Bucher-Isler (1972), 73-4; Wallace-Hadrill (1983), 108; Pelling (1986a), e.g.
* Here the same goes for Suetonius, Divus Iulius 44. 3. 177, 187. As so often, the most perceptive judgement is that of Donald Russell, in this
Jones (1978), I 16-19; cf. Pelling (1988) on Ant. 4.2. case Russell (1966a), 141-3.
2 12 Later Greek Literature The Moralism of Plutarch9sLives 213
Rome, the greed, the selfishness, the luxury, the provincial ransacking him to the social circumstances of Picenum in the first twenty years of
and extortion.12We also adduces circumstances of time or background his life', one is making points less likely to be relevant to an audience of
to explain quirks of a particular character: the Spartan educational different circumstances. It was the more general, more widely applic-
system helps to explain a Lysander or an Agesilaus (Lys. 2. 2-4, Ages. able points which engrossed Plutarch more, and that is the sense in
I . 5); the perpetual warfare ofthe time can explain why Marcellus' taste which he had a taste for the timeless.
for Greek culture took such an uncomfortable form (Marc.
1.3-5).
It is notable too how rarely Plutarch's moral judgements are wholly 111. P H I L O P O E M E N A N D F L A M I N I N U S
anachronistic. Sometimes they are, as when he criticizes the Gracchi
for their q5iAo~ipia(Ag.-Cl. 2);but he does not attack Caesar for his Philopoemen and Flamininus provides an interesting test case for these
intense version of the same trait. That is a Life where explicit moralism questions of timelessness and contemporary relevance. In this pair he
is scarce: such criticism would have been insensitive to the ambitious is treating the first important intrusion of Rome into Greece. The
norms of Roman political life. He is more interested in tracing how 'freedom of the Greeks' is a recurrent theme, one which is highlighted
Caesar's q5~Xonpiaoperated, how it built him and then destroyed him, by the mirroring great central panels of each Life. After Philopoemen
as the pressures of success forced him to measures which fed the has killed the Spartan 'tyrant' Machanidas he is ftted by the Greeks at
resentment against him. That is a more descriptive style of moralism, the Nemean games of 205. The whole theatre turned to him as the
'how q5thonPia works' rather than 'avoid excessive + ~ X o ~ i ~ iand a'; lyre-player recited the line of Timotheus, 'he wrought Greece her free-
one which is both timeless in its application and a reasonable extrapo- dom, her grand and glorious crown' (Phil. I I. 3-4). Freedom recurs
lation even from the peculiar norms of Roman politics. Nor does he throughout that Life: Philopoemen's last years are spent in trying to
criticize Flamininus when he is prepared to make peace with Philip assert the dignity of Greece against the Roman intruders, 'endeavour-
rather than allow a successor to take over the war and win the glory ing to draw the most powerful speakers and statesmen in the direction
(Flam. 7. 1-2). Plutarch is very clear in bringing out what Flamininus of liberty' (Phil. 17.3). Yet, paradoxically, it was one of these Roman
was doing, clearer than his source Polybius.13Yet he does not inveigh intruders who finally gave Greece that liberty: Flamininus, at that
against him, even in a Life so concerned with +iho+a and the ways proclamation of the Isthmian games of 196, a second theatrical festival
in which it could be corrupted. He knows that Roman politics were like which provides the equivalent central panel of his Life (Flam. 10-1 I).
that, that this is how Roman generals thought.14 He limits his criti- Plutarch there makes the paradox explicit: after all those great
cisms of Flamininus' + d o n P i a to the vindictiveness in the hunting national struggles for liberty, it was now the Roman outsiders who
down of Hannibal (Flam. 20-I), and that is surely a fairer point; just brought them that freedom.
as he is not anachronistic in criticizing Pompey so strongly for yielding They thought about Greece and all the wars she had fought for freedom; and now
to the pressure of his lieutenants, or Lucullus for the extremity of his it had come almost without blood and without grief, championed by another
hedonistic retirement (Pomp. 67.7-10, Lucull. 40-1). These are people, this finest and most enviable of prizes. . . Men like Agesilaus, Lysander,
points which contemporaries too could have made, and in some of the Nicias, and Alcibiades had been great warriors, but had not known how to use
cases clearly did make. their victories to noble and glorious ends; if one discounted Marathon, Salamis,
Plutarch's approach, then, was not 'timeless' in the sense that he Plataea, and Thermopylae, and Cimon's victories at the Eurymedon and in
was insensitive to historical change; it is simply that points particularly Cyprus, all Greece's wars had been fought internally for slavery, every trophy
apposite to one period or one milieu were less interesting to him. had been also a disaster and reproach for Greece, which had generally been over-
Immediately one says, 'one can only understand Pompey by relating thrown by its leaders' evil ways and contentiousness. . . (Flam. I I. 3-7)
It was the Greeks' own ~ L ~ O V L Kwhich
~ ~ P had
. been so self-destructive.
'' Pomp. 70, Sulla I. 5 , 12.8-14, Phoc. 3. 3 (on Cato), A m . 11. 3-4, C. Mai. 4.2,
In the context of the pair that is a most suggestive theme, for +LAOW-
16.8,28(1). 2-3.
l 3 Polybius 18. 10. 11-12. l4 Pelling (1986a), 177. ~ i isa Philopoemen's word (Phil. 3. I, 17.7): the contentiousness that
214 Later Greek Lzterature ralism of Plutarch 's Lives 215
led him to take on other Greeks, eventually even destroying the could easily prove Greece's worst enemies. Of course Philopoemen
ancestral constitution of Sparta. Flamininus is q 5 l h d q ~ 0 ~Philo-
, grazes those questions, and the issues would strike Plutarch's audience
poemen is q 5 ~ h d v i ~(Flam.
o~ 22(1).4), and the two men's qualities as absorbingly familiar. But how sharp a political moral did Plutarch
have come to embody something of their two countries as well. intend that audience to draw, and how specific were the lessons for
Philopoemen was indeed the 'last of the Greeks9,and in several senses. their own political life?
These emphases of the pair-freedom, Greek contentiousness, The Praecepta reipublicae gemndae again give some guidance, and
Roman intervention-would certainly have a resonance for Plutarch's illustrate the facility which Plutarch has, and which he expects in his
own generation. The 'freedom of the Greeks', that delicate possession audience, in extracting morals from past events and applying them to
which Philopoemen upheld and Flamininus bestowed, remained new contexts. The work is full of exempla from the distant past, and its
delicate in his own day. In AD 67 Nero had come to Corinth and pro- addressee, Menemachus of Sardis, is expected to draw conclusions
claimed the freedom of Greece: Plutarch himself compares that from the worlds of Themistocles and Pericles, Nicias and Archidamus,
announcement with the great proclamation of Flamininus (Flam. 12). Pompey and Cato and use them to guide his conduct in his own very
Yet that freedom had turned sour. Nowadays, as the Praecepta rei different world. At the same time Plutarch expects discretion as well as
publicae gerundae stress, the constant threat of Roman intervention facility in applying those morals.
lay over Greek public life. 'As you enter on any office, you should not
merely remind yourself, as Pericles did whenever he took up the We laugh at small children when they try to pull on their fathers' boots and
general's cloak, "Be careful, Pericles; you rule over free men, over wear their crowns; but what of the leaders in the cities, when they stupidly stir
up the ordinary people and encourage them to imitate their ancestors' achieve-
Greeks, over Athenian citizens"; but you must also say to yourself,
ments and spirit and exploits, even though those are all quite out of keeping
"You rule as a subject: the city is subject to proconsuls, the procurators with present circumstances? Their behaviour may be laughable, but the con-
of Caesar"' (813d-e). An important theme in the Praecepta is the need sequences they suffer are no laughing matter. There are many other deeds of
for Greek local politicians to act with responsibility, but also with the Greeks of old which one may recount to mould the characters of the people
dignity: they should develop the art of controlling their cities without of today and give them wisdom. At Athens, for instance, one might remind
constant recourse to Rome, and without allowing the sort of disorder them not of their deeds of war, but of the nature of the amnesty decree under
or affray which would force Rome to intervene (814~-816a). The the Thirty; or of the way they fined Phrynichus for his tragedy about the fall of
Greek cities had as much freedom as their masters chose to give them; Miletus; or of how they wore crowns when Cassander refounded Thebes, but
that had to be accepted (824~);and that freedom was too valuable to when they heard of the clubbing at Argos, with the Argives killing 1,500 of
be abused. And one of the greatest dangers was, precisely, $ ~ h o v i ~ i a , their fellow-citizens, they gave orders for a procession of purification around
'contentiousness': that produced the disorder which forced Rome to the whole assembly; or of the episode during the Harpalus affair, when they
were searching the houses but passed by the one of the newly wedded bride-
intervene even more actively than she might have wished (814e-
groom. Even now one can imitate these things, and make oneself like one's
81 5b). Nearly three centuries earlier, Philopoemen's differences with ancestors; as for Marathon and Eurymedon and Plataea, and all those
Aristaenus centred on the degree of deference which Greeks owed to examples which make the ordinary people swell up and fill them with shallow
Rome, and the ways of minimizing Roman intervention (Phil. 17.2- ostentation-we should leave them in the schools of the sophists. (81qa-c)
5), Aristaenus arguing 'that they should do nothing to oppose or
offend the Romans', Philopoemen preferring a more active independ- Plutarch clearly hopes his audience will be too sensible to assume too
ence though making some concessions; yet Philopoemen himself close a correlation between the glorious deeds of the past and anything
embodied that contentiousness which endangered the freedom he that might be practicable in present circumstances.
championed. The Praecepta passage is mainly concerned with more distant and
These issues clearly had their coqgterparts for Plutarch's audience. heroic events, Marathon, Eurymedon, and Plataea. Philopoemen and
The need to steer a path between dignified self-respect and provocat- Flamininus relate to a period when circumstances were more similar
ive self-assertion was still problematic; contentiousness and greed to those of Plutarch's own day. But even here the moral implications of
2 16 Later Greek Lilerature The Moralism of Plutarch9sLives 217
the story remain at a very general level. A self-respecting, dignified intrusion, he prefers to explain it in a different way, associating it not
stance for independence is good, though one might have to make some with contentiousness but with the sycophancy of 'the demagogues9
(unspecified) concessions; contentiousness, on the other hand, is bad: instead (17.2), a phrase of great vagueness, and one of less contempor-
simple morals like that come out clearly enough, and would have ary relevance to Plutarch's audience. That intrusion even seems to
struck Plutarch's audience as utterly unsurprising: everyone knew come at a time when Greek contentiousness, 76 + L / \ ~ V L K O V ,is fading:
such things. But they are not enough to make this L$e into a manual
for contemporary statesmen, and anyone seeking more specific Rather as diseases become less acute as the body loses its strength, so the Greek
cities were becoming less contentious as they grew feebler. (18.2)
political advice would search in vain. Plutarch gives little idea of how
the balance should be struck, of what counted as a wisely gauged line That is no way to preach the continuing dangers of contentiousness to
of action or what was perilous. Plutarch's striking vagueness at 17.2- a contemporary audience, in a world which was immeasurably feebler
7 about those 'concessions' which Philopoemen made, or the way in still. If a moral is to be drawn, it illuminates not the Greek present, but
which he tried to 'draw the most powerful speakers and statesmen in the Greek past, just as those spectators at the Isthmian games of 196
the direction of liberty', is here significant.l5 were thinking of the Greek past when they reflected on Flamininus'
Nor does Plutarch strain to illustrate another theme he preached in gift of freedom. Contentiousness had typified Greece for many
the Praerepta, that contentiousness can itself be self-destructive, generations, but was fading by the beginning of the second century BC:
forcing Rome into more direct intervention. He might have done: there that is the moral we would draw from Philopoemen and Flamininus,
were instances where Philopoemen acted in provocative ways which and it is only the Praecepta which remind us that contentiousness was
nearly inspired Roman intervention; there were several Greek appeals a problem still, three hundred years later.
to Rome and her representatives to interfere with Philopoemen's The contemporary resonance of freedom and contentiousness still
Spartan settlement in the I 80s. Yet Plutarch tells us nothing of all this, matters; but it is just that, a resonance. The themes would seem par-
though he knew his Polybius well. Sometimes Plutarch visibly shies ticularly alive and engrossing to the audience, who would find the
away from making a moral too contemporary and too sharp. Philo- atmosphere disturbingly familiar; but those readers would be hard put
poemen stresses Greek contentiousness and it stresses the Roman to it to extract any specific guidance for their own political lives. We
presence, but it does not bring the two themes together: one can even have already seen that Plutarch prefers the more timeless to the more
trace some sleight-of-hand in separating the two themes. The climax of particular, that he favours modes of historical explanation which
contentiousness is Philopoemen's destruction of the Spartan con- transcend the particular period which he is describing; he likes points
stitution (Phil. 16.4-9), but Plutarch removes this from its chrono- which transcend the particular circumstances of his own day as well.
logical context in order to treat it at a moment when the Romans are We might be reminded of the ways in which contemporary affairs
far from our thoughts.16When Plutarch turns to the increasing Roman impinge on tragedy. It matters that certain plays were performed
l5 Contrast Polybius 24. 12-14> which has clearly influenced Plutarch's presentation during the Peloponnesian war, in a context of great human suffering,
of Philopoemen and Aristaenus, but phrases the disagreement in more detail: Philo- often generated by Athens herself; but to move from that to specific
poemen's legalism was more thoroughgoing than Aristaenus', but he would co-operate contemporary allusions is a more delicate matter. Such material
with requests within the terms of the alliance; and so on. Polybius' own readers could
extract from that passage much harder and more illuminating guidance for their own touched a nerve, and it might enrich the way spectators pondered their
day. own political and moral problems, but it rarely told them what to
l 6 Thus Phil. 16.4-9 describes this destruction of the Spartan constitution (189 BC)
conclude or how to act.
with clear disapproval (+you &pdrarov . . . ~ a 7 i a p a v o p L ; ) ~ a ~ o'au ,most savage and
unprecedented deed'); then Phil. 17 turns to the Roman question, reverting to events of
192/1. The Roman question builds to a climax as Philopoemen shows his independence
and contentiousness by restoring some Spartan exiles (17.6). These are in fact the same
exiles as he restored in the context of the constitutional dismantling, and Plutarch has
referred to them already at 16.4; but no one would have inferred this from his narrative. the constitution item till here. As it is, the dismantling of the constitution and the Roman
He has now come back to the same context, and could, if he had chosen, have delayed question are left in separate trains of thought.
218 Later Greek Literature The Moralism of Plularch9sLives
provoke thoughts rather than command a single unambiguous conclu-
IV. CONCLUSIONS sion, and in that sense they are exploratory rather than expository. But
the initial assumptions survive, indeed are reinforced, and no doubts
It is time to return to those more general questions about moralism are felt about them: that is more clearly an 'expository' aspect.
with which we started. Perhaps three conclusions can be drawn. First, Once again, it is interesting to compare tragedy. There too the
it has continued to prove profitable to relate this 'contemporary reson- audience bring their own moral assumptions, and these assumptions
ance' to Plutarch's reception, and to think first of the audience rather are deepened by new insights. True, those new, exploratory insights
than the author. The audience already know that contentiousness is are more challenging ones. Beliefs in the superiority of Greeks to
dangerous and freedom is a delicate possession, and bring these barbarians, in the ideology of the Athenian polis, in the justice of the
assumptions to their reading: Philopoemen's and Flamininus' stories gods-all are put to a much sterner test than Plutarch ever essays. In
chime in with these pre-existent assumptions. We should not only tragedy the new perspectives are more than piquant, they are dis-
think of the historical interpretation subserving the moralism: the turbing and shocking. But there too the initial assumptions generally
moral assumptions of the audience also predispose them to accept the survive, and are deepened rather than reversed by these new insights
interpretation. There is evidently a two-way process here, with and perspectives. Reader-response theorists tend to speak as if the
audience ready for the text, and the text affecting the audience. 'negation' of an audience's social or moral ideology is the distinctive
Secondly, let us concentrate on the second of the two ways, the contribution of challenging literature; as if, indeed, negation is vital to
moral impact of the text on this receptive audience. It may still look as literature's socially formative role.17 That seems crude. We might
though Plutarch was telling the audience things that they knew rather recall recent work on Augustan literary and artistic propa-
already, and doing so in an expository rather than exploratory way, ganda, which has again shifted the focus more to the audience.
even if these expository morals are uncontroversial ones, and general Propaganda only works with an audience ready to receive it, when it
rather than specific. Yet it is surely more complicated than that. By the deepens rather than replaces assumption^;'^ straightforward negation
end of the Lz$e the audience will have found various shafts of light is a poor way of influencing opinion, and it is more effective to add to
falling on those initial presumptions, and they will have seen them in ideas rather than counter them; more effective still, if one thinks of
various new perspectives; they will have seen that the taste for liberty great Augustan poetry rather than the more basic Augustan propa-
and the contentiousness coexisted even in a great national hero; they ganda, to see ideology put to a stern test, and nevertheless, arguably,
may have sensed wider points about the Greek past; they will under- survive. That parallel also suggests that the moralism is still authentic
stand more sharply what range of actions + ~ / \ o n ~ can i a inspire, in in a more traditional sense, in Plutarch as in tragedy: that it does seek
Flamininus' case as well as in Philopoemen's. None of this will lead to affect and impress an audience, and to encourage particular moral
them to doubt their initial presumptions. Freedom is still precious and views-even if these views were identical, or closely related, to those
inspiring, contentiousness still a peril. But their grasp of these morals which the audience already held. Augustus was too accomplished a
will not merely be reinforced, it will also be more nuanced. In propagandist to waste time on telling his audience what they already
Plutarch's case the new perspectives are not specially challenging knew unless there was some further advantage to this. Propaganda re-
ones; they are piquant rather than shocking, just as it may be piquant inforces, it crystallizes, it strengthens the will. Plutarch's interpretations
to discover that Antony or Cleopatra can be moving in their fall, or l7 Cf. e.g. Iser (1974), pp. xii-xiii; (1978), 73, 85; the train of thought is especially
clear in Jauss (1983), 25-8, 39-45. Fish (1g72), 1-2 prefers to talk of dialectically 'de-
that Aristides and Themistocles were mutually incompatible; we may certainising' moral assumptions, rather as the Russian formalists talked of 'defamiliar-
never doubt that the choices made by Antony and Cleopatra were ization'. These formulations may be more fruitful for tragedy, but even these overstate
reprehensible, or that Aristides and Themistocles were both great the case for Plutarch. His audience remain quite certain of their original assumptions,
and the persisting familiarity of these assumptions is crucial to the audience's receptive-
national heroes, but the new insights are again piquant. Perhaps, too, ness to the historical analysis.
that exploratory/expository distinction is coming to seem inadequate. l8 D. F. Kennedy (1984) has been very influential. Cf. esp. Zanker (1988) for artistic
These new piquancies may not lead in any particular direction; they aspects.
220 Later Greek Literature
too provide clear and crystallized examples of moral truths, both
descriptive and protreptic, which enhance those pre-existent moral I
insights. Once again we have that two-way process between writer and
audience. Subject to the Erotic9:Male exual Behaviour
'Both descriptive and protreptic': this, thirdly, brings us back to that
further initial distinction. The notion of 'descriptive' moralism may in Plutarch
still be a useful one: at least, it is useful to see how some Lives, like
Caesar, veer to the descriptive end of the spectrum, while others, like PHILIP STADTER
Aristides or Brutus or Aemilius Paullus, tend to the protreptic. But it is
also now clearer that there is indeed a spectrum, that the distinction
between protreptic and descriptive moralism is a blurred one, and the
two forms go closely together: just as, in the exempla of the Praecepta,
descriptions of past human experience can inspire us as we face Early in the Life of Pompey, Plutarch reports that the great general,
current problems. Philopoemen gives little specific guidance for con- when a young man, was madly in love with the courtesan Flora, so
temporary politics, but that does not mean that it has no protreptic much so, in fact, that in later years she boasted that he never left her
force. The description of Philopoemen's fighting for liberty can without a bite. Soon Pompey's friend Geminus also became infatuated
elucidate the dangers, it can point to certain truths of Greek historical with Flora, but she rebuffed him, reminding him of her tie to Pompey.
experience, and it can also inspire: it can sensitize an audience to the However, after Geminus spoke to Pompey, Pompey surrendered
issues; readers have their own moral decisions to make, and they will Flora to him and never tried to see her again, much to Flora's dismay.'
confront them with greater insight once they grasp how similar be- The anecdote is puzzling for several reasons. Though at first it
haviour has worked in the past. The protreptic may consist in an seems to demonstrate Pompey's attractiveness (erasmion), which has
invitation to recognize the importance of the issues and to explore just been mentioned, the elements of dignity and majesty associated
them in a particular way, rather than to draw specific practical conclu- with it are lacking, even denied by the reference to love-bites2 The
sions; but that is still protreptic. Descriptive and protreptic moralism theme of self-control recurs in the following anecdote regarding the
feed off one another, and that is central to Plutarch's moral pro- beautiful wife of the freedman Demetrius, in which Pompey's aware-
gramme. ness of his susceptibility to her beauty leads him to abandon his
characteristic courtesy. Nevertheless, he will be accused by his enemies
of abandoning the public good to please his wives. The nexus of themes
is complex. What does Plutarch think of Pompey's liaison with Flora,
and its abrupt rupture? Does he mean the anecdote to be compli-
mentary or critical? What does it imply about Pompey's character?
Finally, a question which will help us answer these three, what does it
reveal about Plutarch's own attitudes toward sexual behaviour?
Plutarch's judgements and sensibilities shape every paragraph of his
Parallel Lives, in which he holds up models for himself and for his
' Plut. Pomp. 2 . 2 - 3 . This topic seems especially appropriate in a collection dedicated
to D. A. Russell, who has done so much for Plutarch studies, and recently has translated
some of Plutarch's most important works on sexual matters: Eroticus, Advice on
Marriage, Virtues in Women, and Gyllus, Russell (1993a).The title comes from Ages.
, Cim. 4.9.
20.9, & ~ o x o vb v ~ 7a0 ; s ~ P W T L K O ~ Scf.
Love-bites are uncommon in the Lives: I note only Lamia's at Demetr. 27.8.