The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch's Lives

ISBN-13: 9780199695904 / Angielski / Twarda / 2012 / 272 str.

Jeffrey Beneker

Opis

The Passionate Statesman explores the intersection of passion and politics in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, with special emphasis on how he represents the influence of eros, or erotic desire, on the careers of some of the most prominent statesmen from Greco-Roman antiquity.
Using Aristotle's notion of friendship and Plato's conception of the soul to describe the ideal marriage as based on a mutual love of character (philia), supported by an enduring erotic attraction, Beneker examines how Plutarch applied his system of ethics both to his reading of history and to his writing of biography.
With close readings focusing on the three pairs of biographies from Parallel Lives, namely the Greek kings (Alexander the Great, Demetrius "the besieger," and Agesilaus) and Roman statesmen (Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marc Antony), the book draws a general conclusion about how Plutarch uses the narration of his subjects' private erotic affairs to interpret their historical deeds.

Recenzje

eminently readable and mercifully concise ... Beneker presents a convincing analysis of Plutarch's treatment of eros in the Lives, with careful judgements on his treatment of source material, enlightening philological comments on individual passages, and, above all, an innovative, illuminating interpretative framework. As such, he has proven himself to be a worthy disciple of his supervisor Philip Stadter.

O autorze

Jeffrey Beneker is currently associate professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin. He has published several articles on Plutarch's Lives and on other aspects of the ancient biographical tradition.