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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch," Plutarch curates a selection of engaging biographies from his well-known works, aiming to inspire and educate younger readers. The text adopts a straightforward literary style, blending historical facts with moral lessons, making it an accessible introduction to significant figures from antiquity. Plutarch's narrative intertwines anecdotes and character insights, which not only bring these historical personalities to life but also foster a deeper understanding of virtue, ambition, and ethics within the context of ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Plutarch, a Greek biographer and philosopher of the late first and early second centuries AD, sought to bridge cultural divides through his works, emphasizing the shared human experiences of both Greeks and Romans. His dedication to moral philosophy often manifested in numerous biographies, showcasing the lives of notable individuals like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. By distilling these influential figures' virtues and failings, Plutarch aimed to instill a sense of moral character and civic responsibility in young minds. "The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch" is a compelling read for both educational institutions and individual curious minds. It serves not only as an introduction to important historical figures but also as a timeless guide to ethical living, making it essential reading for those interested in history, ethics, or the foundations of Western thought. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch
Table of Contents
Introduction
From the rise and fall of storied Greeks and Romans emerges a single lesson: true greatness lies less in the glitter of victory than in steadfast choices, measured under pressure, before the eyes of history and the quiet tribunal of conscience.
The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch offers a welcoming doorway into this lesson, presenting selections from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives in clear, engaging prose for younger readers. Instead of a dense chronicle, it gathers memorable scenes and profiles of leaders, lawgivers, soldiers, and citizens, arranged to illuminate character. Each portrait suggests how habits, mentors, and choices shape a public life, while leaving room for readers to form their own judgments. By emphasizing motives and turning points rather than dates and battles, the book distills the spirit of Plutarch’s biographical art and invites first encounters with the ancient world as a living conversation.
Its classic status rests on a double foundation: the enduring authority of Plutarch’s Lives and the long tradition of presenting them to the young as a guide to judgment. For centuries, these lives have trained imaginations to weigh ambition against duty and prowess against prudence. Their scenes and reflections shaped the vocabulary of character in Europe and beyond, and this adapted selection keeps that inheritance accessible. Because it preserves the book’s ethical inquiry while removing barriers of archaic language and sprawling detail, it has remained a staple in classrooms and family libraries, renewing a conversation that literature has sustained across generations.
Plutarch, a Greek writer from Chaeronea active under the Roman Empire, composed the Parallel Lives in the late first and early second centuries CE. He paired Greek and Roman figures to compare their deeds and dispositions, asking what conduct fosters a flourishing common life. The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch draws from this corpus, selecting and retelling episodes in modern, straightforward language while keeping the central question intact. The aim is not to glorify conquest, but to examine character where it is most revealing, in choices great and small. As in the original, anecdote and evaluation mingle to prompt thoughtful reading.
Few books have worked so quietly yet powerfully upon later literature. Shakespeare relied on an English translation of Plutarch for his Roman plays, shaping Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus from those portraits. Montaigne filled his essays with Plutarchan examples, treating biography as a mirror of moral inquiry. The modern art of life-writing—attentive to small incidents that disclose a soul—owes much to this method. By presenting these materials to young readers, The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch transmits a lineage: stories tuned for reflection rather than spectacle, and a sense that literature can test the worth of public and private action.
Part of the charm lies in the way narrative and judgment intertwine. Plutarch does not pile facts; he chooses telling moments, habits, remarks, and customs to sketch a figure’s temper, then pauses to consider what such details imply. The adapted versions retain this selective focus, trimming ritual and technical matter while preserving vivid incidents and the moral questions they raise. Clarity of language and steady pacing make the material approachable without flattening its nuances. Readers encounter not marble statues but recognizable people, seen at meals, in counsel, with friends and rivals, where a decision, a courtesy, or a lapse reveals the person.
The themes that emerge are perennial. Courage and prudence must be balanced; wealth and honor can amplify integrity or expose vanity; education and mentorship form a character long before command arrives. Friendship complicates politics; loyalty to city or law may conflict with private ties. Fortune can lift and cast down, but the same storm shows whose helm is steady. The book invites attention to such tensions, not to score winners or sinners, but to understand how circumstance and choice interact. In this way, its stories train readers to notice motives, weigh tradeoffs, and trace the moral curve of a career.
For young readers, the value is less in collecting names than in exercising judgment. The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch offers examples, not orders; it proposes questions, not conclusions. Which impulse deserves trust here—ambition or restraint, mercy or severity, caution or daring? What duty arises from office, gratitude, or law? By presenting actions alongside their reasons and consequences, the book invites debate among readers and within one’s own conscience. It also models how to learn from the past without idolizing it, treating revered figures as fallible and instructive, and using history as a workshop for moral imagination rather than a museum.
Another abiding strength is the bridge it builds between two civilizations. The paired approach of the Lives, echoed here in selection and emphasis, shows how Greek ideals of reasoned citizenship and Roman ideals of discipline and law sometimes converge, sometimes clash, and often inform one another. Customs, festivals, training, and institutions appear not as curiosities, but as forces shaping character. In comparing practices and outcomes, readers glimpse a broader human field, where different societies wrestle with similar questions about power, justice, leadership, and belonging. The book thus fosters historical sympathy while sharpening attention to the civic frameworks that form individuals.
That is why the book continues to feel timely. Our debates about leadership, service, and responsibility echo concerns that haunted ancient councils and assemblies. The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch brings those echoes close enough to hear, in language that welcomes readers beginning their journey with classics. Its scenes encourage conversations at home and in classrooms about honesty in office, the cost of courage, the dignity of law, and the uses of talent. Far from a relic, it functions as a toolkit for discussing today’s dilemmas, showing how clear thinking and steadied character can navigate pressure without losing sight of the common good.
Readers may profit by approaching the book as an invitation to dialogue. Read a life, then pause: What decision determined the course? What value was at stake? How did friends, rivals, or citizens respond? Compare one figure’s priorities with another’s, and test them against your own. Consider what habits prepared a person to meet crisis, and which indulgences undid them. Such questions turn anecdotes into mirrors. Families and teachers can frame discussions around these points, using the concise episodes to practice interpretation, argument, and empathy. The book thus becomes less a catalogue of deeds than a workshop for thoughtful citizenship.
In sum, The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch endures because it weds strong storytelling to moral inquiry and historical breadth. Drawn from a foundational classic, it preserves the vividness of lives while foregrounding the questions that make them instructive. Its portraits encourage admiration without credulity, critique without cynicism, and curiosity without pedantry. For contemporary readers, the result is both a path into the ancient world and a mirror for modern concerns. The book’s lasting appeal lies in this pairing: it entertains with memorable scenes and it equips the judgment, inviting each reader to consider what kind of life deserves to be called great.
Synopsis (Selection)
The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch is an adaptation of Plutarch’s Lives designed for younger readers, presenting concise biographies of notable Greeks and Romans. It follows the broad sequence of the original, moving from legendary founders and lawgivers to commanders, statesmen, and the conflicts that shaped their worlds. Each life highlights decisive actions, public service, private habits, and the consequences that follow. The narrative favors clear episodes over exhaustive detail, drawing attention to virtues and faults without extended analysis. Comparisons are sometimes implied through arrangement, helping readers observe similarities and contrasts across cultures. The book’s purpose is to introduce history through character, conduct, and civic responsibility.
The collection opens with founders and early exemplars whose actions establish communities and customs. In Greece, figures like Theseus are shown bringing order to scattered peoples and confronting dangers that threaten civic life. In Rome, traditional stories of origins appear through leaders who unite tribes, organize institutions, and set precedents for authority. These early chapters stress the creation of laws, the acceptance of duty, and the shaping of identity. They also describe the tensions between personal ambition and the stability of the state. The result is a foundation for later lives, where orderly government and public obligation become recurring measures of greatness.
Lawgivers follow, most notably Lycurgus of Sparta and Solon of Athens, whose reforms demonstrate different solutions to social strain. The Spartan picture emphasizes discipline, shared training, and the subordination of private luxury to public strength. The Athenian account highlights legal codes, debt relief, and efforts to moderate extremes between rich and poor. Both narratives trace how institutions mold citizens and how measured change can forestall unrest. The episodes show the challenges of enforcing reform and the patience required to make it lasting. These lives set a moral and political framework that later leaders either uphold, adapt, or reject.
Attention then turns to early Athenian leadership during external threats and internal rivalries. Themistocles’ naval strategy against invasion, Aristides’ reputation for fairness, and Cimon’s campaigns illustrate alternative paths to security and prestige. Pericles’ stewardship brings civic projects, cultural achievement, and a confident foreign policy, while also provoking debates about cost and influence. These accounts interweave battlefield choices with assemblies and courts, showing how rhetoric, law, and command combine to define a city’s direction. The narrative underscores recurring dilemmas: balancing prudence with boldness, managing allies, and sustaining prosperity without undermining the institutions that made it possible.
The Peloponnesian War era introduces leaders whose choices accelerate or restrain a protracted conflict. Nicias represents caution and a preference for negotiated outcomes, contrasted with Alcibiades’ daring, flexibility, and shifting allegiances. Spartan figures, including Lysander, exemplify persistence and organizational rigor, altering the power balance through disciplined strategy. The book recounts expeditions, reversals, and political swings that test civic patience and military resilience. Emphasis remains on character, showing how personal judgment intersects with fortune and public mood. The section closes on the theme that leadership in war demands steadiness under uncertainty and that success can be undone by overreach or division.
With the rise of Macedon, the narrative follows the widening scope of Greek affairs. Alexander’s campaigns illustrate ambition supported by planning, personal courage, and the capacity to inspire troops across unfamiliar lands. The text notes logistical feats, decisive battles, and encounters with diverse customs, while also recording strains within an expanding empire. In parallel, Athenian public men such as Demosthenes and Phocion appear as voices addressing changing power realities, weighing resistance against accommodation. These lives present the meeting of individual talent and historical circumstance, underlining how swift victories pose new tests of governance and how eloquence and prudence contend with martial success.
Roman stories begin with early republican virtues shaped by crisis and recovery. Figures like Camillus, Cincinnatus, and Fabius Maximus embody duty, patience, and strategic restraint in the face of invasion and internal stress. Accounts of conflicts with neighboring peoples, and later with Carthage, feature commanders such as Marcellus and Scipio Africanus, whose actions combine tactical skill with civic loyalty. The narrative emphasizes modesty after triumph, respect for law, and the deliberate pacing of war efforts. These episodes establish a Roman ideal of service, where personal renown is measured by benefits to the commonwealth rather than private gain or display.
The later Republic introduces reformers and strongmen navigating social change and competition. The Gracchi appear with proposals aimed at land and citizenship issues, showing how policy can arouse both hope and resistance. Marius and Sulla bring organizational reform and civil conflict, demonstrating the risks when military authority intersects with political ambition. Pompey’s wide-ranging commands, Crassus’s ventures, and Caesar’s campaigns expand Rome’s domains and unsettle balance at home. Cicero represents eloquence and constitutional concern amid shifting alliances. These lives trace the tightening knot of rivalry, popular support, and senatorial opposition, signaling pressures that strain the old frameworks of republican governance.
The closing sections follow the final contests for authority and the moral questions they raise. Brutus and Cassius appear in relation to the fate of Caesar, while Antony’s energy and alliances illustrate the volatility of postwar settlements. The narrative points toward the transition from republic to principate without dwelling on imperial detail, maintaining focus on decisions taken under pressure and their legacies. Throughout, the book reiterates its central message: character directs outcomes as much as fortune does. By arranging clear episodes in historical order, it offers young readers practical examples of leadership, restraint, integrity, and the consequences of neglecting them.
Historical Context
The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch presents selections from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, narratives set across the Greek and Roman world from roughly the eighth century BCE to the first century BCE. The stories unfold in city-states such as Athens, Sparta, and Thebes; in Hellenistic realms forged by Alexander; and in the Roman Republic as it expanded around the Mediterranean. Though the lives are ancient, they were compiled by Plutarch in the late first and early second centuries CE, likely in Chaeronea and during visits to Rome, reflecting a Roman imperial milieu that looked back to classical precedents for moral and civic instruction.
The social landscape depicted includes the Greek polis with its citizen assemblies, councils, and lawgivers, and the Roman res publica with consuls, senate, tribunes, and popular assemblies. These institutions are set against persistent tensions: aristocrat versus commoner; metropolis versus allied communities; and slave societies sustaining militarized elites, as in Sparta. Wars, alliances, and internal reforms provide the framework for the biographies. In a children’s compilation, these settings become accessible portraits of exemplary or cautionary figures—statesmen, generals, orators—whose actions in places such as Marathon, Syracuse, and Rome’s Forum illustrate the stakes of leadership, law, and public virtue.
The Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BCE) shaped the Greek sense of freedom and identity. Ionian revolts sparked confrontation with the Achaemenid Empire; Athens defeated Persia at Marathon in 490 BCE, and a decade later, Themistocles’s naval strategy brought victory at Salamis (480), followed by Plataea (479). These battles secured the independence of the Greek poleis and elevated Athens. In Plutarch’s Lives, Themistocles and Aristides embody contrasting virtues—cunning versus justice—while Cimon’s campaigns project Athenian power. The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch distills these episodes to show how individual prudence and civic loyalty shaped the fate of Greek democracy under existential pressure.
The rise of Athenian democracy and the age of Pericles (c. 460–429 BCE) saw the transformation of the Delian League into an Athenian empire, the building of the Parthenon, and the flourishing of drama and philosophy. Pericles’s long leadership, bolstered by pay for jurors and ambitious public works, redefined citizenship and imperial responsibility. Plutarch’s Pericles offers a portrait of measured authority, while Cimon represents aristocratic largesse and pro-Spartan sympathies. Children’s versions emphasize Pericles’s civic vision and the dilemmas of empire—how cultural achievement and expansion could coexist with tribute extraction and strategic coercion, issues that foreshadow the conflicts that followed.
The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) pitted Athens and its allies against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Major episodes include the plague in Athens (430–426 BCE), the fragile Peace of Nicias (421), and the disastrous Sicilian Expedition (415–413), which drained Athenian resources. Alcibiades’s defections, Lysander’s naval prowess at Aegospotami (405), and the final siege forced Athens’s surrender. Plutarch’s Lives of Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lysander capture the volatility of wartime leadership. The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch uses these figures to illustrate the costs of hubris, factionalism, and strategic miscalculation, underscoring how personal ambition can imperil a polity.
Sparta’s legendary constitution, attributed to Lycurgus, organized society around military discipline, communal education (the agoge), and rigid class divisions between Spartiates, perioikoi, and helots. Its stability depended on severe control of the helot population and austere civic norms. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus blends tradition and history to explain Sparta’s durable institutions, while Agesilaus exemplifies Spartan leadership in the 4th century BCE. For young readers, these accounts expose the trade-offs between collective strength and personal freedom, highlighting how institutional design can secure security yet perpetuate inequality and periodic violence against subject peoples.
The Theban hegemony (371–362 BCE) disrupted Spartan dominance. After the Boeotian victory at Leuctra (371), Epaminondas and Pelopidas dismantled Spartan control in the Peloponnese and founded Megalopolis and Messene to weaken Sparta. The decisive but costly battle of Mantinea (362) ended Theban ascendancy with Epaminondas’s death. Plutarch’s Life of Pelopidas focuses on courage and civic friendship, set against bold strategic innovations like the oblique phalanx. In children’s selections, Thebes’s brief rise illustrates how tactical ingenuity and political coalition-building can overturn entrenched power, yet also how leadership losses can swiftly reverse geopolitical gains.
Macedon’s ascendancy under Philip II and Alexander the Great reshaped the Greek world. Philip’s reforms and victory at Chaeronea (338 BCE) subordinated Greek city-states. Alexander’s campaigns (334–323 BCE) toppled the Achaemenid Empire with victories at Issus (333) and Gaugamela (331), founded cities such as Alexandria, and diffused Hellenic culture across Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Central Asia. Plutarch’s Alexander depicts ambition tempered by moments of magnanimity, while Demosthenes represents Greek resistance to Macedonian power. The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch uses these lives to probe leadership under empire, cultural encounter, and the temptations of conquest.
Early Rome moves from myth to history. The traditional founding by Romulus (753 BCE) and the expulsion of the last king, Tarquinius Superbus (509 BCE), frame the birth of the Republic. Early crises include the Battle of Lake Regillus (c. 496 BCE) against Latins and internal conflict prompting the First Secession of the Plebs (494), leading to the tribunate. The Twelve Tables (451–449) codified law. Plutarch’s Romulus and Publicola explore myths of foundation and republican virtue, while Coriolanus dramatizes patrician-plebeian tensions. For youthful readers, these episodes translate constitutional struggles into recognizable conflicts over honor, law, and popular rights.
Rome’s consolidation in Italy involved the Gallic sack of Rome (traditionally 390/387 BCE), from which Camillus’s leadership became emblematic, followed by the Samnite Wars (343–290 BCE) that secured central and southern Italy. The Pyrrhic War (280–275 BCE) against King Pyrrhus of Epirus introduced “Pyrrhic victory” into political vocabulary. Plutarch’s Lives of Camillus, Pyrrhus, and Fabricius present models of resilience, cunning, and integrity. In The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch, these narratives emphasize strategic endurance and incorruptibility, teaching how recovery from catastrophe and steadfast public service underwrite long-term political success.
The Punic Wars (264–241, 218–201, 149–146 BCE) defined Rome’s rise to Mediterranean hegemony. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps (218), victories at Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae (216), and Roman recovery under Fabius Maximus’s delaying tactics and Scipio Africanus’s victory at Zama (202) are pivotal. The Third Punic War ended with Carthage’s destruction (146). Plutarch’s portraits of Fabius, Marcellus, and Cato the Elder explore strategic diversity and moral austerity. For young audiences, these lives capture the tension between caution and audacity, and the debate over mercy versus annihilation in imperial policy.
Rome’s engagement with the Greek East brought both admiration and domination. After defeating Macedon at Cynoscephalae (197 BCE), Titus Quinctius Flamininus proclaimed Greek “freedom” at the Isthmian Games (196), while later victories at Pydna (168) under Aemilius Paulus and the sack of Corinth (146) ended major Greek resistance. Plutarch’s Lives of Flamininus and Aemilius Paulus juxtapose philhellenism with imperial necessity. The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch treats these encounters as lessons in cultural stewardship and the perils of rhetoric masking power, showing how promises of liberty could coincide with strategic subjugation.
The Gracchan reforms (133–121 BCE) attempted to redress land inequality exacerbated by war and latifundia. Tiberius Gracchus’s lex Sempronia agraria (133) sought to redistribute public land; his death in a riot set a violent precedent. Gaius Gracchus expanded grain subsidies, colonial projects, and judicial reforms, only to perish amid senatus consultum ultimum measures. Plutarch’s joint Life of the Gracchi examines motive and means, highlighting social fracture between optimates and populares. For children, the narrative underscores how reformist zeal, if paired with escalating tactics and entrenched opposition, can destabilize constitutional norms while spotlighting real grievances.
The Social War (91–88 BCE) erupted when Rome’s Italian allies demanded citizenship; the Lex Julia (90) and related laws extended it during the conflict. In the aftermath, rivalries between Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla ignited civil war. Sulla’s march on Rome (88), Oriental campaigns against Mithridates VI, and proscriptions (82–81) marked a brutal assertion of senatorial supremacy. Plutarch’s Lives of Marius and Sulla personalize systemic breakdown—charismatic soldiers, emergency powers, and vengeance. The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch translates these themes into warnings about militarized politics and cycles of retribution that corrode republican institutions.
The terminal crisis of the Roman Republic (60–27 BCE) receives particularly rich treatment. The First Triumvirate (60 BCE) allied Gaius Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus to dominate elections and legislation. Caesar’s Gallic Wars (58–50) expanded Rome to the Rhine and into Britain (55–54), amassing wealth and veteran loyalty. After the Senate, urged by Pompey’s faction, demanded he relinquish command, Caesar crossed the Rubicon (49), igniting civil war. He defeated Pompey at Pharsalus (48), pursued him to Egypt where Pompey was murdered, and intervened amid the Ptolemaic dynastic struggle, aligning with Cleopatra VII. Caesar’s dictatorship saw calendar reform (the Julian calendar, 46 BCE), debt measures, and urban transformations; his concentration of honors provoked fears of monarchy, leading to his assassination on the Ides of March (44) by conspirators including Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. The power vacuum produced the Second Triumvirate (43) of Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus, which issued proscriptions that killed thousands, including Cicero (43). After defeating the Liberators at Philippi (42), Antony ruled the East and allied with Cleopatra, while Octavian consolidated the West. Their rivalry culminated at Actium (31), where Agrippa’s fleet secured Octavian’s victory; Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide in 30, and Egypt became a Roman province. Octavian, styled Augustus (27), inaugurated the Principate. Plutarch’s Lives—Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Cato the Younger, Brutus, and Antony—offer multifaceted moral and political readings of ambition, rhetoric, and legitimacy. The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch distills these turbulent decades to illustrate how personal character, institutional fragility, and military power intertwined to end a centuries-old republic.
By presenting political lives as moral case studies, the book functions as a social and political critique of antiquity. It exposes the dangers of factionalism, demagoguery, and concentration of power, whether in Athenian imperial overreach, Spartan austerity supported by servitude, or Roman reliance on extraordinary commands. The emphasis on civic virtues—moderation, justice, prudence—implicitly criticizes systems that reward spectacle or violence. Through accessible narratives of trials, elections, reforms, and wars, it teaches that institutions depend on character and that public office demands restraint, accountability, and respect for law and custom.
The Boys’ and Girls’ Plutarch also draws attention to structural inequities—land concentration in Italy, the subjection of helots in Laconia, the precarious status of allies and provincials—highlighting how exclusion breeds instability. By contrasting reformers with reactionaries, and strategists of caution with champions of audacity, it critiques societies that ignore economic distress, weaponize legal norms, or glorify conquest without stewardship. The juvenile framing elevates ethical clarity: corruption, cruelty, and reckless ambition undermine commonwealths. In this way, the work invites readers to judge past leaders and, by analogy, to question contemporary injustices, class divides, and the seductions of charismatic power.
Author Biography
Plutarch was a Greek biographer, essayist, and moral philosopher active under the early Roman Empire. Born in Boeotia and working across the late first and early second centuries CE, he is best known for the Parallel Lives, paired biographies of notable Greeks and Romans, and the Moralia, a wide-ranging collection of essays and dialogues. His writings sought to illuminate character and ethical choice, using history as a guide to virtue. A cultivated observer of public life, religion, and education, he shaped how later readers understood antiquity’s statesmen, generals, and thinkers, and helped define biography as a vehicle for moral reflection.
Plutarch came from Chaeronea in central Greece, where he received a traditional education before studying in Athens. Ancient testimony associates him with the Platonist teacher Ammonius, and his works display deep engagement with Platonic thought alongside discussions of Aristotelian and Stoic ideas. He read widely in Greek historiography and rhetoric, and he cultivated a humane, didactic approach to philosophy that emphasized practical ethics over system-building. His essays frequently debate Stoic doctrines and argue against Epicurean positions, while affirming a providential cosmos and the formative power of paideia. This intellectual background furnished the methods and aims visible throughout his historical and moral writings.
After his studies, Plutarch returned to Chaeronea, where he held local magistracies and remained an active civic figure. He traveled to Rome on multiple occasions, giving talks on philosophy and forming ties with prominent Romans. He obtained Roman citizenship and adopted the name Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, reflecting a close connection to a Roman patron. Several of his prefaces address Sosius Senecio, a friend and addressee of many works. Plutarch also served for years as a priest at Delphi, participating in the revival of that sanctuary’s cultural life. His Delphic essays discuss oracles, ritual, and religious interpretation, revealing his interest in traditional cult within a philosophical framework.
The Parallel Lives pair Greek and Roman figures—such as Theseus with Romulus, Pericles with Fabius Maximus, and Alexander with Julius Caesar—to compare character, leadership, and civic virtue. Plutarch mined historians, memoirs, and public records, yet he insisted that small anecdotes could be more revealing of soul and intention than grand events. He wrote not as a strict annalistic historian but as a moralist interested in choice and habit. Many Lives include syncrises, concluding comparisons that weigh virtues and vices. The collection offered readers exempla for ethical emulation and political judgment, a purpose that made the Lives enduring classroom texts and a cornerstone of later biographical writing.
The Moralia gathers diverse treatises on ethics, education, religion, politics, and literary criticism. Essays such as On the Malice of Herodotus, On the E at Delphi, On the Decline of the Oracles, and On Isis and Osiris illustrate his range, from historiographical debate to theology and cultural interpretation. He composed a consolatory letter to his wife after the loss of a child, applying philosophical precepts to domestic grief. While the corpus includes works of debated authenticity, the core reveals a Middle Platonist committed to virtue, civic responsibility, and measured piety. Its tone is humane and practical, often offering counsel on friendship, self-control, and participation in public life.
Plutarch’s philosophical outlook blends reverence for tradition with rational critique. He defends divine providence against atheism and superstition, rejects fatalism, and urges moderation in politics and private conduct. His Precepts of Statecraft advises aspiring officials to combine integrity with pragmatism, epitomizing his belief that philosophy should guide action. In antiquity and the Byzantine era, his writings were widely read and excerpted, preserving a wealth of historical lore. He influenced ethical discourse by treating biography as a laboratory for character study, and he modeled a prose style that is learned, anecdotal, and conversational, designed to lead readers from curiosity about persons toward reflection on virtue.
Plutarch lived into the early second century CE, continuing his local service and priesthood while writing and revising. His long afterlife is remarkable: Renaissance humanists embraced him as a master of moral exempla, with influential translations by Jacques Amyot and, in English via Amyot, by Thomas North. Shakespeare drew on North’s Plutarch for Roman plays, ensuring his stories shaped early modern drama. Modern scholars value his testimony while assessing his aims and methods, treating him as a moralist rather than a strict chronicler. Today, the Lives and Moralia remain staples of classical and philosophical study, read for ethical insight, cultural history, and portrayal of character.
The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch
THESEUS
As geographers crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Seythian ice, or frozen sea, so, in this great work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off, Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions; the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. Yet, after publishing an account of Lycurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, I thought I might, not without reason, ascend as high as to Romulus, being brought by my history so near to his time. Considering therefore with myself
(as Aeschylus expresses it), I found none so fit as he who peopled the beautiful and far-famed city of Athens, to be set in opposition with the father of the invincible and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying processes of Reason as to take the character of exact history. We shall beg that we may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with indulgence the stories of antiquity.
Theseus seemed to me to resemble Romulus in many particulars. Both of them had the repute of being sprung from the gods.
Both warriors; that by all the world's allowed.
Both of them united with strength of body an equal vigor of mind; and of the two most famous cities of the world, the one built in Rome, and the other made Athens be inhabited. Neither of them could avoid domestic misfortunes nor jealousy at home[1q]; but toward the close of their lives are both of them said to have incurred great odium with their countrymen, if, that is, we may take the stories least like poetry as our guide to truth.
Theseus was the son of Aegeus and Aethra. His lineage, by his father's side, ascends as high as to Erechtheus and the first inhabitants of Attica. By his mother's side, he was descended of Pelops, who was the most powerful of all the kings of Peloponnesus.
When Aegeus went from the home of Aethra in Troezen to Athens, he left a sword and a pair of shoes, hiding them under a great stone that had a hollow in it exactly fitting them; and went away making her only privy to it, and commanding her that, if, when their son came to man's estate, he should be able to lift up the stone and take away what he had left there, she should send him away to him with those things with all secrecy, and with injunctions to him as much as possible to conceal his journey from everyone; for he greatly feared the Pallantidae, who were continually mutinying against him, and despised him for his want of children, they themselves being fifty brothers, all sons of Pallas, the brother of Aegeus.
When Aethra's son was born, some say that he was immediately named Theseus, from the tokens which his father had put under the stone; others that he received his name afterwards at Athens, when Aegeus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under his grandfather Pittheus, and had a tutor and attendant set over him named Connidas, to whom the Athenians, even to this time, the day before the feast that is dedicated to Theseus, sacrifice a ram, giving this honor to his memory upon much juster grounds than to Silanio and Parrhasius, for making pictures and statues of Theseus. There being then a custom for the Grecian youth, upon their first coming to a man's estate, to go to Delphi and offer firstfruits of their hair to the god, Theseus also went thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer says the Abantes did. And this sort of tonsure was from him named Theseis. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike people, and used to close fighting, and above all other nations, accustomed to engage hand to hand; as Archilochus testifies in these verses:
Therefore, that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair, they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason why Alexander gave command to his captains that all the beards of the Macedonians should be shaved, as being the readiest hold for an enemy.
Aethra for some time concealed the true parentage of Theseus, and a report was given out by Pittheus that he was the son of Neptune; for the Troezenians pay Neptune the highest veneration. He is their tutelar god, to him they offer all their firstfruits, and in his honor stamp their money with a trident.
Theseus displaying not only great strength of body, but equal bravery, and a quickness alike and force of understanding, his mother Aethra, conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father, commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left, and to sail to Athens. He without any difficulty set himself to the stone and lifted it up; but refused to take his journey by sea, though it was much the safer way, and though his mother and grandfather begged him to do so. For it was at that time very dangerous to go by land on the road to Athens, no part of it being free from robbers and murderers. That age produced a sort of men, in force of hand, and swiftness of foot, and strength of body, excelling the ordinary rate, and wholly incapable of fatigue; making use, however, of these gifts of nature to no good or profitable purpose for mankind, but rejoicing and priding themselves in insolence, and taking the benefit of their superior strength in the exercise of inhumanity and cruelty, and in seizing, forcing, and committing all manner of outrages upon everything that fell into their hands; all respect for others, all justice, they thought, all equity and humanity, though naturally lauded by common people, either out of want of courage to commit injuries or fear to receive them, yet no way concerned those who were strong enough to win for themselves. Some of these Hercules destroyed and cut off in his passage through these countries, but some, escaping his notice, while he was passing by, fled and hid themselves, or else were spared by him in contempt of their abject submission; and after that Hercules fell into misfortune, and, having slain Iphitus, retired to Lydia, and for a long time was there slave to Omphale, a punishment which he had imposed upon himself for the murder. Then, indeed, Lydia enjoyed high peace and security, but in Greece and the countries about it the like villainies again revived and broke out, there being none to repress or chastise them. It was therefore a very hazardous journey to travel by land from Athens to Peloponnesus; and Pittheus, giving him an exact account of each of these robbers and villains, their strength, and the cruelty they used to all strangers, tried to persuade Theseus to go by sea. But he, it seems, had long since been secretly fired by the glory of Hercules, held him in the highest estimation, and was never more satisfied than in listening to any that gave an account of him; especially those that had seen him, or had been present at any action or saying of his. So that he was altogether in the same state of feeling as, in after ages, Themistocles was, when he said that he could not sleep for the trophy of Miltiades; entertaining such admiration for the virtues of Hercules that in his dreams were all of that hero's actions, and in the day a continual emulation stirred him up to perform the like. Besides, they were related, being born of own cousins. For Aethra was daughter of Pittheus, and Alcmena of Lysidice; and Lysidice and Pittheus were brother and sister, children of Hippodamia and Pelpos. He thought it therefore a dishonorable thing, and not to be endured, that Hercules should go out everywhere, and purge both land and sea from the wicked men, and he should fly from the like adventures that actually came his way; not showing his true father as good evidence of the greatness of his birth by noble and worthy actions, as by the tokens that he brought with him, the shoes and the sword.
With this mind and these thoughts, he set forward with a design to do injury to nobody, but to repel and avenge himself of all those that should offer any. And first of all, in a set combat he slew Periphtes, in the neighborhood of Epidaurus, who used a club for his arms, and from thence had the name of Corynetes, or the club-bearer; who seized upon him, and forbade him to go forward in his journey. Being pleased with the club, he took it, and made it his weapon, continuing to use it as Hercules did the lion's skin, on whose shoulders that served to prove how huge a beast he had killed; and to the same end Theseus carried about him this club; overcome indeed by him, but now, in his hands, invincible.
Passing on further towards the Isthmus of Peloponnesus, he slew Sinnis, often surnamed the Bender of Pines, after the same manner in which he himself had destroyed many others before. And this he did without having either practiced or ever learnt the art of bending these trees, to show that natural strength is above all art. This Sinnis had a daughter of remarkable beauty and stature, called Perigune, who, when her father was killed, fled, and was sought after everywhere by Theseus; and coming into a place overgrown with brushwood, shrubs, and asparagus-thorn, there, in a childlike, innocent manner, prayed and begged them, as if they understood her, to give shelter, with vows that if she escaped she would never cut them down nor burn them. But Theseus calling upon her, and giving her his promise that he would use her with respect, and offer no injury, she came forth. Whence it is a family usage amongst the people called Ioxids, from the name of her grandson, Ioxus, both male and female, never to burn either shrubs or asparagus-thorn, but to respect and honor them.
The Crommyonian sow, which they called Phaea, was a savage and formidable wild beast, by no means an enemy to be despised. Theseus killed her, going out of his way on purpose to meet and engage her, so that he might not seem to perform all his great exploits out of mere necessity; being also of opinion that it was the part of a brave man to chastise villainous and wicked men when attacked by them, but to seek out and overcome the more noble wild beasts. Others relate that Phaea was a woman, a robber full of cruelty, that lived in Crommyon, and had the name of Sow given her from the foulness of her life and manners, and afterwards was killed by Theseus. He slew also Sciron, upon the borders of Megara, casting him down from the rocks, being, as most report, a notorious robber of all passengers, and, as others add, accustomed out of insolence and wantonness, to stretch forth his feet to strangers, commanding them to wash them, and then while they did it, with a kick to send them down the rock into the sea.
In Eleusis he killed Cercyon, the Arcadian, in a wrestling match. And going on a little farther, in Erineus, he slew Damastes, otherwise called Procrustes, forcing his body to the size of his own bed, as he himself was used to do with all strangers; this he did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned upon his assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him; sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in single combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces (whence, they say, comes the proverb of "a Termerian mischief"), for it seems Termerus killed passengers that he met by running with his head against them. And so also Theseus proceeded with the same violence from which they had inflicted upon others, justly suffering after the same manner of their own injustice.
As he went forward on his journey, and was come as far as the River Cephisus, some of the race of the Phytalidae met him and saluted him, and upon his desire to use the purifications, then in custom, they performed them with all the usual ceremonies, and having offered propitiatory sacrifices to the gods, invited him and entertained him at their house, a kindness which, in all his journey hitherto, he had not met.
On the eighth day of Cronius, now called Hecatombaeon, he arrived at Athens, where he found the public affairs full of all confusion, and divided into parties and factions. Aegeus also, and his whole private family, laboring under the same distemper; for Medea, having fled from Corinth, was living with him. She was first aware of Theseus, whom as yet Aegeus did not know, and he being in years, full of jealousies and suspicions, and fearing everything by reason of the faction that was then in the city, she easily persuaded him to kill him by poison at a banquet, to which he was to be invited as a stranger. He, coming to the entertainment, thought it not fit to discover himself at once, but, willing to give his father the occasion of first finding him out, the meat being on the table, he drew his sword as if he designed to cut with it; Aegeus, at once recognizing the token, threw down the cup of poison, and, questioning his son, embraced him, and, having gathered together all his citizens, owned him publicly before them, who, on their part, received him gladly for the fame of his greatness and bravery.
The sons of Pallas, who were quiet, upon expectation of recovering the kingdom after Aegeus's death, who was without issue, as soon as Theseus appeared and was acknowledged the successor, highly resenting that Aegeus first, as adopted son only of Pandion, and not at all related to the family of Erechtheus, should be holding the kingdom, and that after him, Theseus, a visitor and stranger, should be destined to succeed to it, broke out into open war. And, dividing themselves into two companies, one part of them marched openly from Sphettus, with their father, against the city; the other, hiding themselves in the village of Gargettus, lay in ambush, with a design to set upon the enemy on both sides. They had with them a crier of the township of Agnus, named Leos, who discovered to Theseus all the designs of the Pallentidae. He immediately fell upon those that lay in amuscade, and cut them all off; upon tidings of which Pallas and his company fled and were dispersed.
From hence they say is derived the custom among the people of the township of Pallene to have no marriages or any alliance with the people of Agnus, nor to suffer the criers to pronounce in their proclamations the words used in all other parts of the country, Acouete Leoi (Hear ye people), hating the very sound of Leo, because of the treason of Leos.
Theseus, longing to be in action, and desirous also to make himself popular, left Athens to fight with the bull of Marathon, which did no small mischief to the inhabitants of Tetrapolis. And, having overcome it, he brought it alive in triumph through the city, and afterwards sacrificed it to the Delphian Apollo. The story of Hecale, also, of her receiving and entertaining Theseus in this expedition, seems to be not altogether void of truth; for the townships round about, meeting upon a certain day, used to offer a sacrifice, which they called Hecalesia, to Jupiter Hecaleius, and to pay honor to Hecale, whom, by a diminutive name, they called Hecalene, because she, while entertaining Theseus, who was quite a youth, addressed him, as old people do, with similar endearing diminutives; and having made a vow to Jupiter that he was going to the fight, that, if he returned in safety, she would offer sacrifices in thanks of it, and dying before he came back, she had these honors given her by way of return for her hospitality, by the command of Theseus, as Philochorus tells us.
Not long afterwards came the third time from Crete the collectors of the tribute which the Athenians paid them upon the following occasion. Androgeus having been treacherously murdered in the confines of Attica, not only Minos, his father, put the Athenians to extreme distress by a perpetual war, but the gods also laid waste their country; both famine and pestilence lay heavy upon them, and even their rivers were dried up. Being told by the oracle that if they appeased and reconciled Minos, the anger of the gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the miseries they labored under, they sent heralds, and with much supplication were at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many virgins, as most writers agree in stating; and the most poetical story adds that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in the Labyrinth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they miserably ended their lives there, and that this Minotaur was (as Euripides hath it)
Now when the time of the third tribute was come, and the fathers who had any young men for their sons were to proceed by lot to the choice of those that were to be sent, there arose fresh discontents and accusations against Aegeus among the people, who were full of grief and indignation that he, who was the cause of all their miseries, was the only person exempt from the punishment; adopting and setting his kingdom upon a foreign son, he took no thought, they said, of their destitution and loss of their lawful children. These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to disregard, but rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow citizens, offered himself for one without any lot. All else were struck with admiration for the nobleness, and with love for the goodness, of the act; and Aegeus, after prayers and entreaties, finding him inflexible and not to be persuaded, proceeded to the choosing of the rest by lot. Hellanicus, however, tells us that the Athenians did not send the young men and virgins by lot, but that Minos himself used to come and make his own choice, and pitched upon Theseus before all others; according to the conditions agreed upon between, namely, that the Athenians should furnish them with a ship, and that the young men who were to sail with him should carry no weapon of war; but that if the Minotaur was destroyed the tribute should cease.
On the two former occasions of the payment of the tribute, entertaining no hopes of safety or return, they sent out the ship with a black sail, as to unavoidable destruction; but now, Theseus encouraging his father and speaking greatly of himself, as confident that he should kill the Minotaur, he gave the pilot another sail, which was white, commanding him, as he returned, if Theseus were safe, to make use of that; but if not, to sail with the black one, and to hang out that sign of his misfortune. Simonides says that the sail which Aegeus delivered to the pilot was not white, but
The lot being cast, and Theseus having received out of the Prytaneum those upon whom it fell, he went to the Delphinium, and made an offering for them to Apollo of his suppliant's badge, which was a bough of a consecrated olive tree, with white wool tied about it.
Having thus performed his devotion, he went to sea, the sixth day of Munychion, on which day even to this time the Athenians send their virgins to the same temple to make supplication to the gods. It is farther reported that he was commanded by the oracle at Delphi to make Venus his guide, and to invoke her as the companion and conductress of his voyage, and that, as he was sacrificing a she goat to her by the seaside, it was suddenly changed into a he, and for this cause that goddess had the name of Epitragia.
When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient historians as well as poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne, who had fallen in love with him, and being instructed by her now to use it so as to conduct him through the windings of the Labyrinth, he escaped out of it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back, taking along with him Ariadne and the young Athenian captives. Pherecydes adds that he bored holes in the bottom of the Cretan ships to hinder their pursuit. Demon writes that Taurus, the chief captain of Minos, was slain by Theseus at the mouth of the port, in a naval combat, as he was sailing out for Athens. But Philochorus gives us the story thus: That at the setting forth of the yearly games by King Minos, Taurus was expected to carry away the prize, as he had done before; and was much grudged the honor. His character and manners made his power hateful, and he was accused, moreover, of too near familiarity with Pasiphae, for which reason, when Theseus desired the combat, Minos readily complied. And as it was a custom in Crete that the women also should be admitted to the sight of these games, Ariadne, being present, was struck with admiration of the manly beauty of Theseus, and the vigor and address which he showed in combat, overcoming all that encountered with him. Minos, too, being extremely pleased with him, especially because he had overthrown and disgraced Taurus, voluntarily gave up the young captives to Theseus, and remitted the tribute to the Athenians.
There are yet many traditions about these things, and as many concerning Ariadne, all inconsistent with each other. Some relate that she hung herself, being deserted by Theseus. Others that she was carried away by his sailors to the isle of Naxos, and married to Oenarus, priest of Bacchus; and that Theseus left her because he fell in love with another,
Now Theseus, in his return from Crete, put in at Delos, and, having sacrificed to the god of the island, dedicated to the temple the image of Venus which Ariadne had given him, and danced with the young Athenians a dance that, in memory of him, they say is still preserved among the inhabitants of Delos, consisting in certain measured turnings and returnings, imitative of the windings and twistings of the Labyrinth. And this dance, as Dicaearchus writes, is called among the Delians, the Crane. This he danced round the Ceratonian Altar, so called from its consisting of horns taken from the left side of the head. They also say that he instituted games in Delos, where he was the first that began the of giving a palm to the victors.
When they were come near the coast of Attica, so great was the joy for the happy success of their voyage, that neither Theseus himself nor the pilot remembered to hang out the sail which should have been the token of their safety to Aegeus, who, in despair at the sight, threw himself headlong from a rock, and perished in the sea. But Theseus, being arrived at the port of Phalerum, paid there the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods at his setting out to sea, and sent a herald to the city to carry the news of his safe return. At his entrance, the herald found the people for the most part full of grief for the loss of their king, others, as may well be believed, as full of joy for the tidings that he brought, and eager to welcome him and crown him with garlands for his good news, which he indeed accepted of, but hung them upon his herald's staff; and thus returning to the seaside before Theseus had finished his libation to the gods, he stayed apart for fear of disturbing the holy rites, but, as soon as the libation was ended, went up and related the king's death, upon the hearing of which, with great lamentations and a confused tumult of grief, they ran with all haste to the city. And from hence, they say, it comes that at this day, in the feast of Oschoporia, the herald is not crowned, but his staff, and all who are present at the libation cry out "eleleu, iou, iou," the first of which confused sounds is commonly used by men in haste, or at a triumph, the other is proper to people in consternation or disorder of mind.
Theseus, after the funeral of his father, paid his vows to Apollo the seventh day of Pyanepsion; for on that day the youth that returned with him safe from Crete made their entry into the city. They say, also, that the custom of boiling pulse at this feast is derived from hence; because the young men that escaped put all that was left of their provision together, and, boiling it in one common pot, feasted themselves with it, and ate it all up together. Hence, also, they carry in procession an olive branch bound about with wool (such as they then made use of in their supplications), which they call Eiresione, crowned with all sorts of fruits, to signify that scarcity and barrenness was ceased, singing in their procession this song:
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question as to things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
Now, after the death of his father Aegeus, forming in his mind a great and wonderful design, he gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica into one town, and made them one people of one city, whereas before they lived dispersed, and were not easy to assemble upon any affair, for the common interest. Nay, the differences and even wars often occurred between them, which he by his persuasions appeased, going form township to township, and from tribe to tribe. And those of a more private and mean condition readily embracing such good advice, to those of greater power he promised a commonwealth without monarchy, a democracy, or people's government, in which he should only be continued as their commander in war and the protector of their laws, all things else being equally distributed among them;—and by this means brought a part of them over to his proposal. The rest, fearing his power, which was already grown very formidable, and knowing his courage and resolution, chose rather to be persuaded than forced into a compliance. He then dissolved all the distant state-houses, council halls, and magistracies, and built one common state-house (the Prytaneum) and council hall on the site of the present upper town, and gave the name of Athens to the whole state, ordaining a common feast and sacrifice, which he called Panathenaea, or the sacrifice of all the united Athenians. He instituted also another sacrifice, called Metoecia, or Feast of Migration, which is yet celebrated on the sixteenth day of Hecatombaeon. Then, as he had promised, he laid down his regal power and proceeded to order a commonwealth, entering upon this great work not without advice from the gods. For having sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the fortune of his new government and city, he received this answer:
Which oracle, they say, one of the sibyls long after did in a manner repeat to the Athenians, in this verse:
The bladder may be dipt, but not be drowned.
Farther yet designing to enlarge his city, he invited all strangers to come and enjoy equal privileges with the natives, and it is said that the common form, "Come hither all ye people," was the words that Theseus proclaimed when he thus set up a commonwealth, in a manner, for all nations. Yet he did not suffer his state, by the promiscuous multitude that flowed in, to be turned into confusion and be left without any order or degree, but was the first that divided the commonwealth into three distinct ranks, the noblemen, the husbandmen, and artificers. To the nobility he committed the care of religion, the choice of magistrates, the teaching and dispensing of the laws, and interpretation and direction in all sacred matters; the whole city being, as it were, reduced to an exact equality, the nobles excelling the rest in honor, the husbandmen in profit, and the artifices in number. And that Theseus was the first, who, as Aristotle says, out of an inclination to popular government, parted with the regal power, Homer also seems to testify, in his catalogue of ships, where he gives the name of "People" to the Athenians only.
He also coined money, and stamped it with the image of an ox, either in memory of the Marathonian bull, or of Taurus, whom he vanquished, or else to put his people in mind to follow husbandry; and from this coin came the expression so frequent among the Greeks, as a thing being worth ten or a hundred oxen. After this he joined Megara to Attica, and erected that famous pillar on the isthmus, which bears an inscription of two lines, showing the bounds of the two countries that meet there. On the east side the inscription is,-"Peloponnesus there, Ionia here," And on the west side,-"Peloponnesus here, Ionia there."
