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Plutarch
The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch
Being Parts of the "Lives" of Plutarch, Edited for Boys and Girls
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664654724
Table of Contents
COMPARISON OF THESEUS AND ROMULUS
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS
THE ENGINES OF ARCHIMEDES FROM THE LIFE OF MARCELLUS
DESCRIPTION OF CLEOPATRA FROM THE LIFE OF ANTONY
ANECDOTES FROM THE LIFE OF AGESILAUS, KING OF SPARTA
THE BROTHERS FROM THE LIFE OF TIMOLEON
A ROMAN TRIUMPH FROM THE LIFE OF PAULUS AEMILIUS
THE NOBLE CHARACTER OF CAIUS FABRICIUS FROM THE LIFE OF PYRRHUS
FROM THE LIFE OF QUINTUS FABIUS MAXIMUS
THE CRUELTY OF LUCIUS CORNELIUS SYLLA
THE SCROLL-FROM THE LIFE OF LYSANDER
THE SACRED THEBAN BAND FROM THE LIFE OF PELOPIDAS.
FROM THE LIFE OF TITUS FLAMININUS, THE CONQUEROR OF PHILIP
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
Whom shall I set so great a man face to face?
Or whom oppose? Who's equal to the place?
(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; 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