Periodization of state and legal development of Ancient Greece.
Lecture 3. Evolution of statehood in Ancient Greece
Questions:
1. Periodization of state and legal development of Ancient Greece.
Greek polis.
2. The evolution of the ancient Athenian state.
3. Social and state structure of Ancient Sparta.
Ancient Greece, or rather Hellas, occupied a vast territory that covered the south of the Balkan Peninsula, the islands of the Aegean Sea, the coast of Thrace, the western coastline of Asia Minor, Southern Italy and part of Sicily. The Greeks themselves called themselves Hellenes in honor of their deity Hellene, and the Romans later called them Greeks.
At the end of the 3rd millennium BC. Greece was conquered by the Achaean tribes. The Mycenaean kingdom became the first state association various tribes and clans. The presence of centralized power concentrated in the hands of the leader, a unified taxation system and administrative division were reminiscent of the organization of power of the ancient Eastern proto-states. However, under the onslaught of new (Dorian) conquests, the Myckenese civilization fell.
The process of the subsequent emergence of ancient states had a very important feature. Plutarch, the famous ancient Greek historian (1st century AD) in his “Comparative Lives” believed that the founding father of Sparta was the mythical Lycurgus, who became king by retra, i.e. according to an oral agreement between the Spartans and the deities. The same founder of Athens, as Plutarch believed, was the god-man Theseus (the son of an earthly woman and the god Poseidon, who gave him divine power), who accomplished a lot of supernatural feats. Thus, Plutarch considered the supernatural origin of ancient states to be an obvious fact. When studying ancient statehood, it is necessary to take this circumstance into account. Historical figures are often replaced by legendary ones, and their versions are offered instead of substantiated facts.
In science, it is common to divide the post-Mycenaean stage of ancient Greek statehood into three main periods:
· Homeric period – XI–IX centuries. BC.;
· archaic period – VIII–VI centuries. BC.;
· classical period – V–V centuries. BC.
The Homeric period (11th–9th centuries BC) was characterized by the dominance of tribal relations, when in the traditional sense there was no government system and primitive military democracy prevailed. By the end of this period tribal relations are finally disintegrating, and are being replaced by clan system the slave system comes.
During the archaic period, a strong Athenian state was created, which will be discussed below.
During the classical period, the ancient Greek slave society and the polis system flourished. In the 5th century BC. Greece defended its independence in the Greco-Persian Wars (500–449 BC). A great contribution to the victory over the Persians was made by the unification of the Greek city-states (Athens, Corinth and many others) into the Delian Maritime Union under the leadership of Athens. Therefore, the union actually turned into an Athenian maritime power - arche, which some scientists characterize as a kind of ancient confederation. The Peace of Callias was concluded in 449 BC. He became victorious for the Greeks and ended the Greco-Persian wars. Thus, the first Athenian Maritime League fulfilled the military-political task set before it.
The Second Athenian Maritime League was created in 378 BC. with the aim of opposing the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. The Peloponnesian League was a grouping of Greek city-states in which oligarchic orders prevailed and the aristocracy dominated. After the defeat in the Peloponnesian War, Athens forever lost its leading role in the history of Ancient Greece.
Note that the mentioned largest ancient Greek city-states: Athens, Sparta, Corinth - existed in polis form and were a city with adjacent rural areas. For the history of state and law, two policies are of greatest interest - Athens and Sparta - as the most prominent representatives of two state-legal “models”. In Athens of the classical period, a democratic regime prevailed, and in Sparta, an oligarchic regime.
What was the “polis” like? universal look the emerging statehood of the Dorians, and what was the status of the community members? Policy, according to Aristotle, was end result development of the family, village, and their unification. The polis was a small closed territory with a relatively small population. It had the institution of citizenship, which gave the right to a plot of land within the city. In addition, any policy had self-government bodies - people's assemblies and elected magistrates.
As the core of classical civilization and part of the civil community, the ancient Greek polis had its own characteristic features and properties. Its economic basis was the unity of the city and its adjacent villages. During its formation, the polis was formed from territorial communities; the center was a settlement, a temple, a sanctuary, where there was often a fortress. Nearby there was a market, a place of trade, where artisans also lived. Gradually this urban settlement turned into administrative center. Residents of the policy called themselves by the name of this center. The upper part of the city was called the acropolis.
In that era, any of the states of Hellas was small in size. The population of the policy was small, i.e. rarely exceeded ten thousand people. The polis could only survive with a small population and limited territory, and excessive birth rates were frowned upon by the authorities. From the walls of the city fortress one could look over almost the entire state, and the citizens of the polis knew everyone by sight. Formally, the polis was a kind of socio-political union of all citizens, regardless of their social and financial status. In fact, a fierce struggle was going on inside him between the demos and the eupatrides.
An important function of the policy is to maintain civil peace within the community. Therefore, the polis is also a kind of political and legal association, the citizens of which participate in the legislative and judicial powers. A full member of such a polis considered himself responsible for all the affairs of the civil community and was a socially active patriot of his city-state. He was obliged to serve in the militia, to defend the common cause of the policy. The main force of the militia were those who sat in people's assembly. The coincidence of political and military organization was peculiar form, in which the process of forming a slave state was underway. Rich citizens also bore financial responsibilities, organizing the liturgy at their own expense.
As mentioned, all citizens of the policy, represented by the heads of families, had the right to a plot of land (cler), and in principle, its size was equal for everyone. Private ownership of land in Greece was known back in the time of Homer. Land was divided into two categories: polis (community) and private. The ancient form of land ownership appears in a peculiar dual form:
a) as the property of the policy (therefore, land can be sold or donated only to a citizen of this policy) and at the same time
b) as private property.
The policy prohibited strangers and foreigners from any kind of transactions with land property. In addition, the community monitored citizens' transactions regarding land plots, approved the land maximum, controlled the fairness and validity of receiving land by inheritance, and in the absence of heirs, took escheated lands into its fund, etc. The loss of a plot of land undermined the social prestige of the community member. However, the customs and traditions of the polis did not prevent noble aristocrats from enslaving communal peasants and appropriating their plots of land. At the same time, it must be taken into account that the self-mortgage of a debtor did not become a common phenomenon in Attica, and the reforms of Solon in the 6th century. BC. it was banned altogether. Public consciousness condemned poverty, the ruin of one's fellow citizens, as well as excessive enrichment. In case of need, a community member could count on the support of his fellow tribesmen. The stability of the policy was achieved by establishing a maximum land allotment, restrictions on the purchase and sale of land, and additional taxation on wealthy citizens. These measures were intended to prevent the weakening of the cohesion of the civil collective; preserve a layer of free producers - owners. Small and medium peasants were the main social support of the policy. On the other hand, rich citizens had priority in occupying many positions in the polis.
So, the presence of a land plot, and later - a certain income from a land plot, was the main condition for a citizen to have not only military, but also political and civil rights. These included:
· the right to participate in the work of the national assembly;
· elect officials and control their activities;
· be called upon to administer justice.
By outward appearances, the polis seemed to be an almost ideal community of equal people, but upon careful analysis it was discovered that the polis was not just a large community, but a very stable political and social organism that served as the basis of ancient society. Otherwise, it is difficult to understand the reason for its survival over many centuries.
Andrey Teslya
STATE AND LAW OF ARCHAIC SPARTA
(IX – VI centuries)
Spartan soldier.
Sparta, along with Crete, is unique society, evidence of archaic Greek life that is of particular interest to the historian. We owe most of the information about Sparta to Xenophon and Plato, whose evidence dates back to the 4th century. BC, other historians - Plutarch, Strabo, Pausanias - described either a society that no longer existed, or recorded the little that was preserved in museum form in Laconia in Roman times. The conservatism of Spartan life and social structure allows us to use, in any case, the evidence of Plato and Xenophon, to reconstruct the social life of Sparta in its heyday - in the 7th - 6th centuries. BC, and through this he will become familiar with the general features of the archaic Dorian polis structure. It is important to note that later news is difficult to use for the reason that over time, Sparta became not only a conservative, but also a reactionary society. In Laconia, the desire to go against the “spirit of the times” prevailed, which led to attempts to restore the “good morals” of the time of Lycurgus, resulting in practice in many arbitrary restorations and pseudo-archaic reforms.
The traditional image of Sparta portrays to us a harsh society, entirely subordinated to the tasks of preserving the existing social order, dissolving the individual in the social whole, and placing the highest ideal of man in the image of a perfect warrior, superbly trained, enduring and fearless in battle - a person who is completely dissolved in his social function and not having other dimensions of its own existence.
This image is largely true in relation to the situation that developed in Sparta by the 4th century, however, even here it suffers from a significant simplification, reducing the already not very diverse Spartan life exclusively to one plane. The history of Sparta paints a much more complex picture for us. That society, which for classical Greece is the embodiment of conservatism, at one time acted at the head of the development processes of Greek society. Its frozen image is not an initially given state, but the result of prematurely (compared to other Greek policies) maturity, a stop in development, turned into an ideal. Since the 8th century, the arts have flourished in Sparta; the 7th century gives it pan-Greek meaning:
“In the archaic era of Sparta... large Cultural Center, who cordially accepts strangers, art and beauty - all that she will later begin to irreconcilably reject. In this era, Sparta is the capital of Greek culture, which Athens will become only in the 5th century."
At this time, the barracks drill that is traditionally associated with the image of Sparta is absent. Alcman, a Laconian poet of the 7th century, tells how the rich people of his day eat “select dishes,” while he himself prefers the simple food of the people and satisfies his hunger with bean porridge. In other words, those obligatory common dinners (fiditi) with their “black stew” are not here either.
The Spartan social order replaces the Homeric ideal. The latter is an image dictated by a “knightly” society - individual valor comes first, war is waged in the form of individual skirmishes, where the main thing is personal advantages, abilities, dexterity, dexterity and intelligence. Already in the early archaic era, the people's militia came to the fore - a foot mass, where the main qualities were discipline, perseverance, devotion to the common cause - even the readiness to sacrifice oneself. All these virtues are impersonal, requiring, first of all, to learn to restrain oneself, to be like everyone else, acting as a single phalanx. In the implementation of this image, Sparta achieves the highest possible perfection, forming a collective ideal policy, devotion whole. As Antonien Marroux notes, “this is a totalitarian ideal: πόλις - everything for its citizens, it is the state that makes them people.”
Tyrtaeus, an exponent of the Spartan spirit, perfectly reflects the change that took place in the military and social values of the Greek world:
The common good of all fellow citizens and the beloved fatherland
The husband brings when between the front fighters
Full of strength, he stands, forgetting about the shameful flight.
(Translated by V. Latyshev)
At this time - in the VIII - VI centuries. – Sparta forms, along with Ionia, a model of the Greek polis - a social whole that embraces a person and shapes him as a citizen, a phenomenon that cannot be reduced either to state power or to one or another individual social institution. The polis acts as that whole, which for an individual person acts as a natural habitat, a “society-state”, outside of which he is not conceivable for himself. Until the end of the 6th century, and in many ways until the beginning of the 4th century, Sparta remained a vibrant, multifaceted society, going a long way from an ideal for a large part of the Greek world to self-closure, from simplicity to spiritual narrowness.
Spartan kingship its roots go back to the Mycenaean era, which is manifested, in particular, in the fact that the Agiads - one of the two royal families - claimed their Achaean origin. There were two kings, as already noted, who came from different families (in legend, their ancestors were called brothers). Kings were forbidden to marry foreigners in order to prevent, as subsequent commentators explained, the entry of the Spartan kings into dynastic politics and to avoid inclinations towards tyranny. The status of kings carries a lot of archaic elements, which can include the marriage ban just cited, which from this point of view represents a kind of royal endogamy, the right to take wives only from among the Spartan clans. The Spartan kings used a double cup at feasts and had the right to double the amount of food during dinners.
Since ancient times, rules have been preserved according to which every citizen was obliged to give the kings a certain part of the offspring and harvest. The king disposed of the property of the only heiress, if she had no brothers, assigning her a husband at his discretion.
Just as after the death of a Spartan, access to the premises where he lived was closed for some time, so after the death of a king, access to city squares and streets was closed, as if he were their owner. In all likelihood, this provision can be interpreted in such a way that previously the king of Sparta was considered the owner of all the land of the state.
A number of norms preserved during the classical period indicate that the king of Sparta was once considered a divine being, and his power was unlimited. According to Spartan laws, in the event of unanimity between the two kings, the decision they made had unquestioning force. The kings themselves were called "archegetes"; besides them, this title was applied only to the gods, they were also called theotimetoi, i.e. "honored as gods." Upon the return of the kings from the campaign, they were greeted with divine honors, and after death, measures were taken to preserve the body - the kings were buried in honey. Also, the Spartan kings were considered the earthly embodiment of the Tyndarid gods: while both kings went on campaigns together, they carried a double wooden icon depicting the gods. After the decision was made that only one king could go on a campaign, the board on which the picturesque image was applied was sawed and the half corresponding to him went on a campaign together with the king.
Laws of Lycurgus. Towards the end of the 9th century, after the Spartans established control over all of Laconia, including the Achaean settlement of Amycles into their alliance, probably the first historically discernible changes in the state structure occurred. Apparently, the so-called belongs to this time. the oldest Spartan “constitution”, cited by Plutarch in his life of Lycurgus as a response to the Delphic oracle (so-called “Big Retra”):
“Build a temple to Zeus Gellania [Syllania] and Athena Gellania [Sillania], divide the people into phyles and obes, establish a council of thirty members, together with the leaders, and let the people gather from time to time between Babika and Knakion. You must propose laws and collect votes, but the final decision must belong to the people.”
The great antiquity of this answer of the oracle follows from the fact that in classical times no one knew Zeus and Athena under the names of Sillanies, and no one could establish which specific places were called Babika and Kiakion. Since this text speaks of the establishment of new obe, this should refer to Amykla, who was included in the Spartan state as the fifth obe.
According to this "constitution" the kings had already lost their ancient meaning and are included, along with the other twenty-eight members (geronts), in the council of elders (gerusia). The elders are in charge of the main issues of government and administration of justice, i.e. judicial and administrative power.
The question of the “laws of Lykugus” is one of the most difficult in the history of Sparta. This is due to the fact that a fairly early tradition, including that belonging to the Spartan society itself, began to link the establishment of the entire traditional structure of Spartan society with the name of Lycurgus, combining elements belonging to different eras. This tradition is presented in its most complete form by Plutarch in his biography of Lycurgus, although Plutarch himself admits that, “in general, none of the stories about the legislator Lycurgus deserves complete confidence. There are conflicting testimonies about his origin, travels, death, and finally, about his laws and political activities; but especially there is little similarity in the stories about the time of his life." In modern European historiography, on the basis of these discrepancies, a position has developed that completely denies the fact of the historicity of Lycurgus and sees in him a mythological character - a “cultural hero”.
At this stage of the development of historical knowledge, such a hypercritical approach was abandoned. The latter is due to the fact that many traditional evidence of ancient historiography about historical events of early eras received numerous confirmations in the course of subsequent research based on archaeological data and epigraphic materials. Nowadays, world antiquity is inclined to recognize Lycurgus as one of those great ancient legislators whose activities are associated with the transformation of the polis structure of their home cities, similar to Draco or Solon (albeit dating back to an earlier time).
If the late ancient tradition, known to us regarding Sparta mainly through Plutarch and Pausanias, cannot be considered adequate, then all the more important when studying the issue of the legislation of Lycurgus is the appeal to the first Greek evidence of the latter’s activities, which served as the main material for subsequent, already Hellenistic treatments.
The earliest evidence of Lycurgus belongs to Herodotus, who wrote in the first book of his History:
“Formerly the Lacedaemonians had almost the worst laws of all the Hellenes, so that they did not communicate either with each other or with foreign states. They received their present excellent state structure in this way. Lycurgus, a noble Spartan, arrived in Delphi to question the oracle. When he entered the sanctuary, the Pythia immediately spoke to him as follows:
You flowed, O Lycurgus, to the abundant temple with gifts,
Dear Zeus and all those who have a place on Olympus,
Are you mortal or god? To whom should I prophesy?
According to some, Pythia, in addition to this prediction, even predicted to Lycurgus the entire existing Spartan state structure. But, as the Lacedaemonians themselves claim, Lycurgus brought these innovations [to the political system] of Sparta from Crete. He was the guardian of his nephew Leobot, king of Sparta. As soon as Lycurgus became the king's guardian, he changed all the laws and strictly ensured that they were not violated. Then he issued decrees dividing the army into enomotii, and established triacadas and sissitii. In addition, Lycurgus established the office of ephors and founded a council of elders [geronts].
So the Lacedaemonians changed their bad laws to good ones, and after the death of Lycurgus they erected a temple for him and now reverently venerate him.”
The testimony of Herodotus is all the more important for us because, according to Charles Star, “Herodotus knew Sparta, and very well, even before the Peloponnesian War loomed on the horizon, i.e. before Athenian prejudices and Athenian idealization introduced serious distortions into this picture." . Without calling Lycurgus by name, essentially the same message is briefly repeated by Thucydides, noting that once “Lacedaemon... suffered more than any city, as far as we know, from internecine strife. However, since ancient times the city has been governed by good laws and has never been under the rule of tyrants.” Thucydides dates the ordering of the civil life of Sparta to a time 400 or more years “before the end of this war,” i.e. by the end 9th century.
Xenophon (“The Lacedaemonian Polity”, a treatise devoted primarily to the issues of education of the Spartiates), Ephorus (known to us primarily from extracts and references to his works in Strabo’s “Geography”), Aristotle (“Politics”) also wrote about Lycurgus and his laws. , the work is especially valuable for us, since Aristotle not only sets out general principles state legislation Sparta, but also refers, illustrating them, to specific historical events; Also, from references and some extracts, we know the “Lacedaemonian Polity” belonging to Aristotle, a work similar to the “Athenian Polity” that accidentally survived and was found in 1890). This circle of works is especially valuable to us because their authors lived at a time when Spartan society was a living and integral social entity, and often they could also observe it from the inside. Unlike them, subsequent authors (Polybius, Strabo, Plutarch, Pausanias) either observed a society that had already entered the stage of decay and archaizing reforms, or wrote from hearsay. The value of the works of these authors is determined primarily by how accurately and to what extent they reproduce an earlier tradition, often no longer directly accessible to us.
For us, the analysis of the ancient historiographical tradition in relation to the laws of Lycurgus is important in the sense that all the early authors, characterizing the laws, speak exclusively about the state structure, while the subsequent tradition (and primarily Plutarch) attributes to Lycurgus a comprehensive transformation of Spartan society, the creation of not only the original Spartan socio-economic system, but also the system of Spartan education, the formation of the foundations of the specific moral code of Sparta. Such a comprehensive nature of Lycurgus’s legislation raises some doubts among Plutarch himself. Thus, having described the institution of cryptia ( secret wars against the helots declared ephors), he notes: “But, it seems to me, the Spartans became so inhuman after... I at least do not dare to attribute the establishment of such a terrible custom as cryptia to Lycurgus, taking into account the gentleness of his character and his justice in everything - qualities attested by the oracle himself" . Although Plutarch's decisive criticism is on moral grounds, it is nevertheless significant that in at least one essential element of the Spartan social order he deviates from his general scheme of attributing it entirely to the decisions of Lycurgus. As noted by L.G. Pechatnova, “Lycurgus in the ancient tradition gradually turned into a kind of “god ex machina” (deus ex machina), with the help of which the entire strange and exotic collection of Spartan laws and customs could be explained.”
Literally, “retra” means “speech,” “saying,” “word.” But this meaning seems to be contradicted by the fact that the “Great Retra” (the law of Lycurgus) is known to us precisely as a written document. It should be noted that one does not contradict the other, even if one insists on the fact of recording the retra at the same time as its acceptance. The fact is that in Greek culture - especially in such a polis as Sparta, which was already prone to archaization from early times - oral laws enjoyed special respect due to the special antiquity and strength recognized for them, since, according to Lysias, in case of their violations “are punished not only by people, but also by the gods” (Lysias, VI, 10).
Moreover, in Sparta, the use of writing for any purpose other than the military-administrative sphere was of a “semi-underground” nature. Under these conditions, the term “retra” also spread to written laws, especially since their formulation in Sparta was usually deliberately short character, like the sayings of the ancient oracles. The last circumstance is important, among other things, allowing us to understand the use of the term “retra” in relation to Spartan laws. Sparta traditionally, and much more often than most other Greek city-states, turned to oracles (mainly the Delphic one) to sanction its own laws or obtain an answer in case of internal difficulties. Also, according to legend, it is from the Delphic oracle of Apollo that the “Great Retra”, presented to Lycurgus as the deity’s answer, comes from.
First of all, the “Great Retra” prescribes the division of the people into phyles and obes. This point should be understood in such a way that “Lycurgus either completely or partially replaced the tribal division of society with a territorial one. It is possible that the three traditional Dorian phyla were transformed in such a way that, without being formally abolished, they were nevertheless included in the system of the new territorial division of the civil collective." . Nevertheless, the available materials do not allow us to say anything unambiguously definite about what exactly the transformation of phil. According to Nicholas Hammond, a major specialist in the history of Sparta during the archaic period, the “Great Retra” is not about three clan phyla, but about the formation of territorial units of the same name, allocated along the boundaries of the already existing five oblasts, i.e. in relation to the laws of Lycurgus, we should talk about the “philo-obovian” system. Thus, the army was now organized on a territorial principle, and the goal of the entire reform was to divide the three clan phyla with a “transverse line” and include in each territorial phyle persons of different clan affiliation. However, it is characteristic of the compromise nature of Lycurgus’s legislation that the reform did not lead to the violent liquidation of clans - on the contrary, the latter retained their influence in many spheres of social life, especially in the religious and ritual area, which was so important for the Spartans, having lost their administrative significance . Thus, if N. Hammond's version is correct, then we are dealing with an early legislative reform, of a type very similar to the reform of Cleisthenes in late Athens VI century .
The “Great Retra” names the council of elders (gerusia) headed by kings as the main government body. We know nothing about the nature of gerusia before Lycurgus, but the very mention of it in the retra means the fact of a radical reform of this institution. First of all, its number was established - 30 people, which apparently goes back to the ancient division of Spartan society into three clan phyla. Probably, Lycurgus abolished the recruitment of gerusia on the basis of clan and introduced the principle of class recruitment of the highest state body of Sparta. Apparently, the legend reported by Aristotle and reproduced by Plutarch is reliable, according to which the comrades of Lycurgus initially entered the gerousia and supported him in reforming the state. After Lycurgus, the gerusia was staffed exclusively on the class principle - members of the same clans fell into it from generation to generation, regardless of their belonging to one or another clan phylum. With the establishment of gerousia in this form, Sparta turned into a polis with an aristocratic form of government. In all likelihood, the procedure for electing geronts, described by Plutarch, dates back to the same times:
“When the people had time to gather, the elected officials locked themselves in one room of a neighboring house, where they could not see anyone, just as no one could see them. All they could hear was the shouts of the assembled people: both in this case and in others, he decided the election by shouting. Those elected did not come out immediately, but one by one, by lot, and walked silently through the entire assembly. Those who were locked in the room had writing tablets in their hands, on which they noted only the strength of the cry, not knowing who it was referring to. They only had to record how much they shouted to the one who was taken out first, second, third, etc. The one to whom they shouted more often and louder was declared the chosen one.”
In addition to the Geronts, the gerusia also included two kings, named in the “Great Retra” by the name of “archagetes.” Perhaps in this way they were named precisely as members and chairmen of the gerusia - in this case, this title, meaning “founder”, “organizer”, indicates the status of the king in the gerusia - first among equals and nothing more. In this case, the meaning of this resolution of the “Great Retra” can be interpreted as placing kings as members of the gerusia under the authority of the civil community, which is also suggested by the sound final provisions retras.
Further we're talking about about the people gathering for an appella - a people's assembly. The indication of time (“from time to time”) and place (“between Babika and Knakion”) speaks of the transformation of the former gathering of warriors of Homeric times into a people’s assembly of a polis type. The reference to time - "from time to time" - cannot, in all likelihood, be interpreted as establishing any proper interval between meetings. This formulation should be interpreted as an indication of the permanent, orderly nature of meetings that become a feature of proper civil life, and not collected only in emergency or any extraordinary situations.
The People's Assembly acts as the highest authority, approving or rejecting issues proposed for its decisions. Plutarch in the following way describes the organization of the appella's work:
“In the People's Assemblies no one had the right to express their opinion. The people could only accept or reject the proposals of the geronts or kings."
Thus, the decisions prepared by the gerousia were presented to the People's Assembly - similar to how the draft resolutions of the People's Assembly in Athens were drawn up by Bule. But if in Athens, in the absence of a Bule project, an open discussion began and the text of the law was prepared along the way, then in Sparta the function of the appeal was solely to accept or reject the proposed project.
Probably, however, this prohibition of legislative initiative was not in the original legislation of Lycurgus - it arose only as a result of a much later interpretation of the “Great Retra”, due to its nature as a brief and undetailed act. In the initial conditions, very similar to a military meeting, each Spartiate, although he had the right to make proposals, practically did not use it, guided by the established tradition when proposals were formulated by the elders - later this practice acquired the form of a legal order.
Be that as it may, the laws of Lycurgus singled out the People's Assembly and, from a body subordinate to the kings and the council of elders (tribal), turned it into an institution with the highest state power.
None of the institutions listed in the “Great Retra” is an innovation of Lycurgus - they all belong to the traditional structure of archaic society. The significance of Lycurgus's legislation is not in institutional innovations, but in the consolidation of an archaic polis, thanks to which it was able to avoid difficult period both the extremes of oligarchic rule and tyrannies. The essence of the reforms was not the elimination of the political advantages of the aristocracy (as tyranny would later accomplish), but, on the contrary, the transformation of the entire Spartan people into the ruling class. But thereby, the process of closing off the class of full-fledged citizens from other social groups of the population began and began to progress quite quickly.
The legislative innovations of Lycurgus caused significant opposition in Spartan society, which ultimately led to the fact that Lycurgus was forced to go into exile, in which he died, and ancient tradition testifies to his deep concern for the fate of his reforms. Plutarch says about the death of Lycurgus:
“... Having taken an oath from the kings and elders, then from all citizens that they would firmly adhere to the existing government until he returned from Delphi, Lycurgus left for Delphi. Entering the temple and making a sacrifice to God, he asked him whether his laws were good and whether they sufficiently served the happiness and moral improvement of his fellow citizens. The oracle replied that his laws were excellent and that on his part his state would be at the height of glory as long as it remained faithful to the state structure given to him. He wrote down this oracle and sent it to Sparta, he himself made a secondary sacrifice to God, said goodbye to his friends and son and decided to die voluntarily so as not to free his fellow citizens from the oath they had taken. [...] He starved himself to death in the conviction that the death of a public figure should be useful to the state and that the very end of his life should not be an accident, but a kind of moral feat... [...]
According to Aristocrat, son of Hipparchus, when Lycurgus died..., his friends burned his corpse and, according to his will, threw the ashes into the sea: he was afraid that his remains would be transferred to Sparta, as a result of which the Spartans would consider themselves free from the oath and make changes to this their state structure under the pretext that he had returned to his homeland."
The consolidation of the polis gave Sparta internal stability and reconciliation of conflicts among the Spartiates, which in turn made it possible to strengthen its dominance over Lacedaemon and the strength to move on to external expansion, which resulted in the First Messenian War.
State reforms in Sparta after Lycurgus. The surviving evidence, primarily the remarks of Aristotle, suggests that the social and political system of Sparta after the death of Lycurgus was not particularly stable (by the way, the above legends about the death of Lycurgus speak of the same thing). Most likely, by the end of the 8th century, after the First Messenian War, a serious political crisis broke out in Sparta, accompanied by a conspiracy of the Parthenians , and some, “suffering disasters due to the war, demanded the redistribution of land.” In the 30s - 20s. VIII century The most significant amendment to the “Great Retra” is also adopted, the initiators of which Plutarch names the kings Polydorus and Theopompus. According to Plutarch, they “made the following addition: “If the people decide something bad, the kings and elders should go,” in other words, they were not supposed to approve it [i.e. people, appellas - A.T.] decisions, and generally dissolve the meeting, declare it closed, since it was causing harm by distorting and perverting their proposals.”
The adoption of this amendment changed the balance of power in the Spartan polity, bringing to the fore the gerousia, endowed with the right of veto. According to P. Oliva, such a reform became possible as a result of the First Messenian War, from which the aristocratic families gained the greatest benefits and increased influence - i.e. those who were represented in the council of elders. The amendment, according to legend, received the sanction of the Delphic oracle, as evidenced by the lines of Tyrtaeus that have reached us. The first six lines are known to us through Plutarch, who quotes them in the corresponding section of the biography of Lycurgus:
Those who heard Phoebus's speech in Python's cave,
They brought the wise word of the gods to their home:
Let the kings whom the gods honor in the Council,
The first will be; let dear Sparta be preserved
With them are elder advisers, behind them are men from the people,
Those who must answer the question directly with speech.
This fragment builds a seemingly quite clear hierarchy within the framework of Spartan society: in the first place are the kings, “honored by the gods,” then the geronts and then last place- “men from the people”, who have the right only to directly answer the question asked of them by the kings and geronts. However, the meaning of the fragment changes significantly if we add to it four more lines from Tyrtaeus, preserved by Diodorus Siculus:
“Let [the men of the people] speak only good things and do what is right,
I do not harbor evil intentions against my homeland, -
And then neither victory nor strength will leave the people.”
Phoebus showed such a will to our city.
If we agree that both fragments are genuine - and the largest domestic specialist on the history of Sparta during the archaic and classical periods, L.G. Pechatnova, together with a significant number of Western antiquists, adheres to this opinion - then the conclusion about the unambiguous nature of the hierarchy in Spartan society seems much more complex and the first order can rather be attributed to the order of ritual and sacred action, which has great, but not total significance and cannot be transferred to the general balance of power in the Spartan polis.
Tradition also attributes the establishment of the ephorate to King Theopompus. Aristotle's opinion is also confirmed by the fact that the “Big Retra” does not mention this institute. The opposite judgment is conveyed by Herodotus, an earlier author, classifying the ephorate among the Lycurgus institutions, however, referring only to the opinion of the Spartans themselves (“as the Lacedaemonians themselves claim”).
Prominent Russian antiquarian S.Ya. Lurie believed that the ephorate was a very ancient institution, dating back to pre-Curgus times. Already probably since Mycenaean times in Sparta, believed S.Ya. Lurie, there was a position of “stargazers”, “observers” (ephors). Just as in a number of other primitive societies, the Spartan kings, as sacred, “divine” figures, had their power limited in the form of “compliance” with the will of heaven, which had to be confirmed after a certain period. Every eight years in Sparta, the ephors went to the sanctuary of Pasiphae and watched the sky - if a falling star flashed in a certain direction, the king should be deposed. It is quite clear that in times of troubles the position of ephors should have acquired all higher value. Already in ancient times, kings, going on campaigns, transferred their judicial powers to the ephors. . Theopompus reform, in the opinion of S.Ya. Lurie, was that from now on they began to be chosen, and not appointed by the king, and received much greater autonomy in relation to him, which allowed them to later become the de facto leaders of Sparta.
Nevertheless, at this stage, historical science has returned to recognize as the most probable the version of Aristotle, who wrote that Theopompus compromised and agreed to limit royal power “by various measures, including the establishment of the office of ephors; by weakening the significance of royal power, he thereby contributed to the prolongation of its existence, so that in a certain respect he did not belittle it, but, on the contrary, exalted it. They say that it was he who answered his wife, who told him whether he was ashamed that he was transferring royal power to his sons to a lesser extent than he inherited from his father: “It’s not a shame at all, since I am transferring it to them more durable.”
Initially, a college of five ephors was supposed to perform the duties of the king during his absence. The number of ephors was apparently determined based on the number of Spartan obs, one from each. Ephors were appointed by kings from among their relatives or friends, i.e. only persons of noble origin could become them, by analogy with the Cretan cosms, with which Aristotle himself compared the ephors. When the transition to the election of ephors occurred, it is difficult to say based on the available data, but in all likelihood this event occurs during the Second Messenian War, the most complex and protracted military conflict in which Sparta was involved, which also gave rise to internal internal affairs that were also dangerous for the very existence of the polis. unrest. Having become elective, the position of ephors became isolated, as S.Ya. noted. Lurie, from the tsarist power, becoming the new “center of power”. This transformation, in any case, should have occurred much earlier than the middle of the 6th century, when the ephorate emerged as a completely independent force with its own interests and methods of action.
Reforms of the ephor Chilo. T.N. “Chilon’s reforms” are of key importance in the history of Sparta - they complete the process of the formation of the Spartan state structure, and in many ways social models of behavior, and lead to the creation of Sparta as a polis of the classical era.
We know quite little about Chilo himself. Classical tradition calls him one of the seven sages , and Diogenes Laertius, in his history of philosophy, provides some information of a biographical and anecdotal nature, which is characteristic of his work as a whole. We do not know for sure what exactly the reforms associated with ancient tradition with his name. This was probably the transfer of the presidency of the national assembly and the gerusia from the kings to the ephors, which consolidated the actual position of their power. A monthly oath was also established between kings and ephors, and, as Xenophon reports, the ephors swore on behalf of the civil community, while the kings swore on their own behalf. Such oaths were not uncommon in those Greek communities where royal power remained, however, apparently, nowhere were they carried out so often - monthly, which indicates the extreme distrust of Spartan society (or at least that part of it whose opinion was expressed by the ephors ) to the kings.
The so-called also may be associated with Chilon. “small retras”, which Plutarch reports, attributing their publication to Lycurgus. The latter attribution is now clearly recognized as incorrect, since it is contradicted not only by the content - the conscious archaization of Spartan society and the desire to establish external equality between its members - but also by the very form in which these decisions are contained. Plutarch conveys their content as follows:
“One of his [i.e. Lycurgus – A.T.] “retr”... forbade having written laws, the other was directed against luxury. The roof of each house could be made with only one ax, the doors with one saw; the use of other instruments was prohibited. [ …]
The third “retra” of Lycurgus is also known, where he prohibits waging war with the same enemies...”
If the “Great Retra” is formulated as a saying of an oracle, then the “small retras” in their form are more reminiscent of clear and precise rescripts aimed at regulating society in a certain direction. Unlike the early laws, they are unambiguous and at the same time laconic in their formulations, which is usual for Spartan documents. Although it is not known whether Chilon had anything to do with their publication, in any case, they appeared no earlier than the 6th century. on the initiative of the ephors.
Particularly indicative is the second of the “small retras”, aimed at regulating the appearance of Spartan housing. Limiting the tools used actually meant a ban on the creation of certain amenities that the relatively wealthier Spartiates could provide themselves with. All the dwellings of the Gomeans (wounds) were supposed to have the same simple, rural appearance of the archaic times, and in many ways this desire of the legislator was realized - in any case, we know nothing about the existence in Sparta of palaces or dwellings that stood out in any way in appearance and improvement.
The issue of “Chilon’s reforms” is closely related to the so-called theory of the “6th century revolution”, according to which during this period a holistic conservative reform took place in the Spartan polis, militaristic elements, determined to close Sparta from the outside world, took over and it was during this period that the those provisions that in the future (through artificial archaization or deliberate falsification, “lengthening” of the history of Sparta) will be associated with the name of Lycurgus.
Indeed, the 6th century marks the decline of the previously rather intense cultural and artistic life of Sparta. The change is felt even in the lists of winners at the Olympic Games. The victories of the Spartiates “abruptly stop” after 576 - “one can be noted only in 552, then twelve individual victories can be counted, evenly distributed over the period 548 - 400, and, finally, one in 316.”
If it is impossible to deny isolationist and, in many respects, xenophobic tendencies in Spartan society, then one cannot agree with the theory that asserts the abrupt and radical nature of the change that took place, as if it interrupted the gradual and completely traditional development of Spartan society, similar to other Greek city-states until that moment. In our opinion, it is more correct to talk about the gradual growth of this kind of processes, partly embedded in the early legislation of Lycurgus, and especially with those social traditions and values that were inherent in Spartan society already from the 8th - 7th centuries.
The more intensively the surrounding Greek world changes, the more noticeable the difference between Spartan society becomes and the more the latter - having chosen as a model of social development the stability and isolation of the ruling layer, based on isolationism from other groups and their forced displacement or suppression - even more so Spartan society begins to isolate itself from the surrounding world, begins to move towards both conscious and unconscious archaization. And a significant role in this process was played by the formation of the ephorate - an institution covering all aspects of civil life, capable of bringing them under its control, and first of all the process of educating the Spartiates.
General characteristics of Spartan society. Education system. Within Sprartan society there were no demos in the ancient sense of the word - i.e. “people” in the sense of contrasting the majority of the population with full civil rights to a small group of noble and wealthy people. The reform of Lycurgus and the private measures that followed led to the expansion of the aristocracy, in the legal sense, in such a way that it included the entire full population, the images of the class of Spartiates or Gomeans (equals).
As a result of the internal evolution of the 8th – 6th centuries, caused largely by the circumstances of the two Messenian wars, Sparta was transformed into a military camp, and its citizens into a military caste, on whose cohesion and unanimity the survival of the state depended. The ideology of brotherhood and cooperation became the main one in Spartan society, pushing into the background and completely placing such advantages as wealth or nobility under suspicion as social values. The latter was not disputed in Sparta, but was clearly not revered as a self-sufficient, decisive basis for primacy in society - the most noble Spartiate, in order to receive the rights of a citizen, had to successfully go through the entire required path of education. Nobility, of course, gave some advantages - and often quite significant - but in order to realize them, the Spartiate had to confirm his civic status with his entire lifestyle, behavior in accordance with the rules recognized as equally binding for everyone.
Definition
Biography
Essays
Comparative biographies
Other works
Literature
Plutarch in Russian translations
Quotes and aphorisms
Definition
Plutarch of Chaeronea (ancient Greek: Πλούταρχος) (c. 45 - c. 127) - ancient Greek philosopher, biographer, moralist.
Plutarch This(c. 46 - c. 120) - ancient Greek writer, author of moral, philosophical and historical-biographical works. From the vast literary heritage Plutarch, which amounted to about 250 works, no more than a third of the works have survived, most of which are united under common name"Moral." Another group - “Comparative Lives” - includes 23 pairs of biographies of prominent political figures of Ancient Greece and Rome, selected according to the similarity of their historical mission and the similarity of characters.
Biography
He came from a wealthy family living in a small town in Boeotia.
In Athens he studied mathematics, rhetoric and philosophy, the latter mainly from the Platonist Ammonius, but Peripates and Stoa also had a significant influence on him. In his philosophical views he was an eclectic; in philosophy he was interested in its practical application.
In his youth he traveled a lot. He visited Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, was in Rome, where he met with the Neopythagoreans, and also struck up friendships with many prominent people, including Lucius Mestrius Florus, a close associate of Emperor Vespasian, who helped Plutarch receive the Roman title.
However, Plutarch soon returned to Chaeronea. He served his city faithfully in public office. He gathered young people in his house, and, teaching his own sons, created a kind of “private academy”, in which he played the role of mentor and lecturer.
In the fiftieth year of his life, he became a priest of Apollo in Delphi, trying to return the sanctuary and the oracle to their former meaning.
Plutarch was not an original writer. Basically, he collected and processed what other, more original writers and thinkers had written before him. But in Plutarch’s treatment, an entire tradition, marked by the sign of his personality, acquired a new appearance, and it was in this form that it defined European thought and literature for many centuries. The richness of Plutarch's interests (they mainly revolved around family life, the life of the Greek city-states, religious problems and issues of friendship) corresponded to a significant number of his writings, of which less than half have survived. It is extremely difficult to establish their chronology. Thematically, we can divide them into 2 groups: the first, very heterogeneous, covers works created in different periods, mainly philosophical and didactic, uniting them under the general name Ethics (Moralia); the second consists of biographies. (All titles are usually quoted in Latin.) In the Ethics we find approximately 80 works. The earliest of them are those that are rhetorical in nature, such as praises of Athens, discussions of Fortuna (Greek Tychus) and her role in the life of Alexander the Great or in the history of Rome.
A large group also consists of popular philosophical treatises; Of these, perhaps the most characteristic of Plutarch is the short essay On the State of Spirit. IN educational purposes other essays were conceived containing advice on what to do in order to be happy and overcome shortcomings (for example, On excessive curiosity, On talkativeness. On excessive timidity). For the same reasons, Plutarch dealt with issues of love and marriage.
All these works reflect Plutarch’s pedagogical interests; it is not surprising that he also raised similar questions in his works How a Young Man Should Listen to Poets. How to use lectures, etc. Thematically close to them are the political writings of Plutarch, especially those that contain recommendations for rulers and politicians. Essays on topics of family life also include a consolidation (that is, a consoling essay after a bereavement), addressed to Plutarch’s wife Timoxena, who lost her only daughter.
Along with the most popular works in a dialogical form, the Ethics also included others - similar in nature to a scientific report, in which Plutarch, without going deeply into theoretical reasoning, nevertheless provides a lot of valuable information on the history of philosophy. These should include works on the teachings of Plato, such as Plato's Questions. or On the Creation of the Soul in the Timaeus, as well as polemical works directed against the Epicureans and Stoics.
Plutarch also wrote about the human soul, was interested in psychology, perhaps even in the psychology of animals, if writings about the intelligence and intelligence of animals really came from his pen.
Plutarch devoted numerous works to issues of religion, among them the so-called “Pythian” dialogues concerning the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The most interesting in this group is the work On Isis and Osiris, in which Plutarch, himself initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, outlined a wide variety of syncretic and allegorical interpretations of the mysteries of Osiris. Plutarch’s interest in antiquities is evidenced by two works: Greek Questions (Aitia Hellenika; Latin Quaestiones Graecae) and Roman Questions (Aitia Romaika; Latin Quaestiones Romanae), which reveal the meaning and origin of various customs of the Greco-Roman world (a lot of space is devoted to questions cult).
Plutarch's essay on the face on the lunar disk represents various theories Regarding this celestial body, at the end Plutarch turns to the theory adopted in Plato's Academy (Xenocrates), seeing in the Moon the homeland of demons. Plutarch's passions, so clearly manifested in his biographies, were also reflected in the collection of Lacedaemonian proverbs (another collection of famous sayings of Apothegmata, probably for the most part is not authentic). The most different topics such works as the Feast of the Seven Wise Men or Conversations at the Feast (in 9 books) are revealed in the form of dialogue.
Plutarch's Ethics also includes inauthentic works by unknown authors. The most important of them include: On Music, which represents one of the main sources of our knowledge about ancient music (Aristoxenus, Heraclides of Pontus), and On the Education of Children, an extremely famous work and translated during the Renaissance into many languages. However, Plutarch owes his fame not to Ethics, but to biographies.
In the introduction to the biography of Aemilius Paulus, Plutarch himself outlines the goals he pursues: communication with the great people of antiquity carries educational functions, and if not all biographies are attractive, then a negative example can also have an intimidating effect and lead one to the path of a righteous life.
In his biographies, Plutarch follows the teachings of the Peripatetics, who in the field of ethics crucial attributed to human actions, arguing that every action generates virtue. Plutarch arranges them according to the scheme of peripatetic biographies, describing in turn the birth, youth, character, activity, death of the hero and its circumstances. Wanting to describe the deeds of his heroes, Plutarch used the information available to him historical material, with whom he treated quite freely, since he believed that he was writing a biography, not history. He was primarily interested in the portrait of a person, and in order to visually represent him, Plutarch willingly used anecdotes.
This is how colorful, emotional stories were born, the success of which was ensured by the author’s talent of the storyteller, his craving for everything human and moral optimism that elevates the soul. However, Plutarch's biographies also have great historical value, for he repeatedly turned to sources inaccessible to us today. Plutarch began writing biographies in his youth. At first he turned his attention to the famous people of Boeotia: Hesiod, Pindar, Epaminondas - later he began to write about representatives of other regions Greece: about Leonidas, Aristomenes, Aratus of Sikyon and even about Persian king Artaxerxes II.
While in Rome, Plutarch created biographies of Roman emperors intended for the Greeks. And only late period he wrote his most important work, Comparative Lives (Bioi paralleloi; lat. Vitae parallelae). These were biographies of prominent historical figures Greece and Rome, compared in pairs. Some of these pairs are successfully composed, such as the mythical founders of Athens and Rome - Theseus and Romulus, the first legislators - Lycurgus and Numa Pompilius, greatest leaders- Alexander and Caesar. Others are compared more arbitrarily: the “children of happiness” - Timoleon and Aemilius Paulus, or a couple illustrating the vicissitudes of human destinies - Alcibiades and Coriolanus. After the biographies, Plutarch gave a general description, a comparison of two images (syncrisis). Only a few pairs lack this comparison, notably Alexander and Caesar. There were 23 pairs in total, presented in chronological order. 22 pairs have survived (the biographies of Epaminondas and Scipio have been lost) and four single biographies of an earlier one period: Aratus of Sicyon, Artaxerxes II, Galba and Otho. Plutarch devoted his entire life to social and political activities, and above all to pedagogy. He tried his best to show the cultural role of Greece. Until the end of antiquity and in Byzantium, Plutarch enjoyed great fame as the greatest educator and philosopher. During the Renaissance (XV century), the found works of Plutarch, translated into Latin, again became the basis of European pedagogy. The treatise on the upbringing of children was most often read until the beginning of the 19th century. considered authentic.
The biography of Plutarch is very meager and can be studied mainly on the basis of the writings of Plutarch himself, in which he often shares with the reader memories from his life.
First of all, the exact years of his life are completely unknown, and an idea of them can only be obtained from indirect data. According to these indirect data we can say with complete confidence that Plutarch was born in the late 40s of the 1st century AD and died between 125-130, that is, he lived about 75 years. His father was undoubtedly a wealthy man, but he was not an aristocrat. This gave Plutarch the opportunity to start school early and become a highly educated person at a young age. Plutarch's hometown is Chaeronen, in the Greek region of Boeotia.
All representatives of his family are necessarily educated and cultured, necessarily high in spirit and distinguished by impeccable behavior. Plutarch often speaks about his wife Timoxene in his writings, and always speaks in the highest tone. She was not only a loving wife, but she was disgusted by various women's weaknesses, such as dresses. She was loved for the simplicity of her character, for the naturalness of her behavior, for her moderation and attentiveness.
Plutarch had four sons and one daughter, who, like one of his sons, died in infancy. Plutarch loved his family so much that he even dedicated his writings to its members, and on the occasion of his daughter’s death, a tender and sublime consoling message to his own wife.
Many of Plutarch's travels are known. He visited Alexandria, the center of education at that time, received education in Athens, visited Sparta, Plataea, Corinth near Thermopia, Rome and other historical places in Italy, as well as Sardis (Asia Minor).
Available intelligence about the philosophical and moral school he founded in Chaeronea.
Even if we exclude the forged and dubious works of Plutarch, the list of completely reliable and, moreover, works that have reached us is, in comparison with other writers, huge. Firstly, works of a historical and philosophical nature have reached us: 2 works about Plato, 6 against the Stoics and Epicureans. In addition, there are works devoted to problems of cosmology and astronomy, psychology, ethics, politics, family life, pedagogy, and ancient history.
Plutarch wrote several treatises of religious and religious-mythical content. It is especially necessary to highlight his works of moralistic content, where he analyzes, for example, human passions such as love of money, anger, and curiosity. Table and banquet conversations, which can be said to constitute a special literary genre, as well as collections of sayings. All these works represent one general section, usually bearing the obscure title Moralia. In this section, moral works, however, are presented very widely, and Plutarch does not write almost a single treatise without this morality.
A special section of Plutarch’s works, and also a huge one, also very popular in all centuries, and perhaps even more popular than Moralia, is the “Comparative Lives”. Here you can find strictly historical data, moralism, a passion for the art of portraiture, philosophy, and fiction.
The ancient worldview and ancient artistic practice are based on the intuition of a living, animate and intelligent cosmos, always visible and audible, always sensually perceived, a completely material cosmos with a motionless earth in the middle and with the sky as an area of eternal and correct movement of the firmament. All this, of course, is predetermined by the very nature of the socio-historical development of the ancient world. While subsequent cultures first proceeded from the individual, absolute or relative, as well as from society, and only then came to nature and the cosmos, ancient thought, on the contrary, proceeded from the visual reality of the sensory-material cosmos and only then drew conclusions from this for the theory of personality and society. This forever determined the emphatically material, that is, architectural and sculptural imagery of ancient artistic structures, which we certainly find in Plutarch. So, sensory-material cosmology is the starting point of Plutarch’s worldview and creativity.
Since ancient literature existed for more than a millennium, it went through many different periods of development. The cosmology of the classical period, namely the high classics, is the doctrine of the universe in Plato's Timaeus. Here is a clear and distinct picture of the living and material-sensory cosmos with all the details of the material sphere of the cosmos. Therefore, Plutarch is primarily a Platonist.
Plutarch found in classical Platonism, first of all, the doctrine of divinity, but not in the form of a naive doctrine, but in the form of a thoughtful demand for being, and, moreover, a single being, which is the limit and possibility for all partial being and for all multiplicity. Plutarch is deeply convinced that if there is a partial, changeable and incomplete being, then this means that there is a single and whole being, unchanging and all-perfect. “After all, the divine is not plurality, like each of us, representing a diverse aggregate of a thousand different particles that are in change and artificially mixed. But it is necessary that the essence be one, since only one exists. Diversity, due to the difference from the essence, turns into non-existence " ("On "E" at Delphi", 20). “It is inherent in the eternally unchangeable and pure to be one and unmixed” (ibid.). “To the extent that it is possible to find a correspondence between a changeable sensation and an intelligible and unchangeable idea, this reflection somehow gives some kind of illusory idea of divine mercy and happiness” (ibid., 21). Such a reflection of divine perfection is, first of all, the cosmos. This is already stated in the treatise quoted here (21): “Everything that is inherent in one way or another in the cosmos, the deity unites in its essence and keeps the weak bodily substance from destruction.”
On the cosmological problem, Plutarch devotes two entire treatises in connection with his work with his comments on Plato’s Timaeus. In the treatise “On the Origin of the Soul in Plato’s Timaeus,” Plutarch develops in a purely Platonic spirit the doctrine of idea and matter, the eternal but disordered existence of matter, the transformation of this matter by the divine Demiurge into the beauty, structure and order of the now existing cosmos, the creation the eternal and unchanging movement of the firmament with the help of the ordering activity of the world soul and the eternal beauty of the living, animate and intelligent cosmos. Indeed, Plato himself, in his construction of an ideally beautiful cosmos, as we find in his dialogue “Timaeus,” was at the height of precisely the classical idea of \u200b\u200bthe cosmos. And the same classical idea is the dream of Plutarch, who praises in every way the beauty of a perfect, albeit completely sensual-material, cosmos.
But even here, at the height of his theoretical worldview, Plutarch begins to show a certain kind of instability and even duality in his general philosophical position. When Plato built his cosmos, it never occurred to him to contrast good and evil. For him, it was enough that the eternal divine Mind with its eternal ideas formed once and for all formless and disordered matter, from where the also eternal and also forever beautiful cosmos appeared. Plutarch brings a completely new shade to this classical optimism. In the aforementioned treatise on the origin of the soul according to Timaeus, he suddenly begins to argue that not all disordered matter was brought into order by the Demiurge, that significant areas of it remain disordered to this day, and that this disordered matter (being, obviously, also eternal) and now and always will be the beginning of all disorder, all catastrophes both in nature and in society, that is, simply put, the evil soul of the world. In this sense, Plutarch interprets all the most important old philosophers - Heraclitus, Parmenides, Democritus, even Plato and even Aristotle.
Behind the classics of the VI-IV centuries. BC followed by that reworking of the classics, which is usually called not the Hellenistic period, but the Hellenistic period. The essence of Hellenism lies in the subjective reconstruction of the classical ideal, in its logical construction and emotional and intimate experience and embrace. Since Plutarch acted in the Hellenistic era, his worldview and artistic practice were built not on pure Platonism, but on its subjectivist and immanent-subjective interpretation. Plutarch is a subjectivist-minded interpreter of Platonism in the context of the preservation of cosmological objectivism as a whole.
Plutarch lived not in the age of initial Hellenism (III-I centuries BC), but immediately after it. And yet, the stamp of this initial Hellenism turned out to be decisively characteristic of the whole of Plutarch. This initial Hellenism did not influence Plutarch with its three schools of philosophy - Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism. These schools arose as a protective measure for the then emerging individualism and subjectivism. It was necessary to educate a strict and stern subject and protect his inner peace in front of the then growing enormity of the Hellenistic-Roman empires. Plutarch turned out to be alien to the stern rigorism of the Stoics, and the carefree pleasure of the Epicureans, and the complete rejection of any logical construction by the skeptics.
Of all the aspects of the then growing subjectivism, Plutarch found himself closest to the small, modest and simple human personality with its everyday affections, with its love for family and native places and with its soft, heartfelt patriotism.
The initial period of Hellenism, with its three philosophical schools - Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism - turned out to be too harsh a philosophical position for Plutarch. As a Hellenistic philosopher, Plutarch, of course, also emphasized the human personality and also wanted to give a personally thoughtful and intimately experienced picture of objective cosmology. But the indicated three main schools of elementary Hellenism were clearly too harsh and demanding for him, too abstract and uncompromising. It has already been said above that the intimate human subject that emerged in those days was not as severe as among the Stoics, not as principled as among the Epicureans, and not as hopelessly anarchic as among the skeptics. The human subject showed himself here in a very unique way, starting from his everyday attitudes and ending with various forms of sentimentalism, romanticism and any psychological whims. There were two such tendencies of early Hellenism, which not only had positive influence on Plutarch, but often even exceeded other forms of subjective orientation of a person in Plutarch.
The first such tendency in Plutarch is everydayism and a completely philistine personal orientation. This everydayism filled Plutarch’s absolutely every mood and reached the point of complete ease, everyday limitations, meaningless verbosity and, one might say, chatter. But several centuries passed from Menander to Plutarch, and purely everyday analyzes in the time of Plutarch were already outdated. What, then, was the point of devoting tens and hundreds of pages to idle chatter on everyday topics and random anecdotes? And for Plutarch there was a very big meaning here. Psychology acted on the basis of such continuous everydayism little man, there was a tendency to protect oneself from grandiose and too severe problems. Or, more correctly, the severe problems were not removed here, but a psychological opportunity was created to experience them not very painfully and not very tragically. Menander is not a Platonist, but a painter of everyday life. But Plutarch is a Platonist, and along with Platonism loomed for him a long series of deep, often tragic and often intolerable problems. He managed to endure and endure these great problems, often significant and even solemn for him, but always demanding and responsible. The everyday life of a small person was precisely what helped Plutarch to maintain peace of mind and not to fall on his face before the insoluble and impossible. That is why even in his “Comparative Lives” Plutarch, depicting great people, not only does not avoid any everyday details, but often even attaches deep meaning to them.
Bytovism initial period Hellenism was of great importance both for the worldview and for the writing style of Plutarch. But in this initial Hellenism there was another, also new and remarkable and also enormous in its strength, tendency, which Plutarch deeply perceived, once and for all. This tendency, or rather this spiritual element, was what we must now call moralism.
This was unconditional news for Greek philosophy and literature because all classical, and especially all pre-classical, never knew any special moralism. The fact is that all classics live by heroism, but heroism could not be learned, heroism was given only by nature itself, that is, only by the gods. All ancient heroes were either direct or indirect descendants of the gods themselves. It was, of course, possible to perform heroic deeds only after undergoing preliminary heroic training. But it was impossible to become a hero. One could be born a hero and perfect oneself in heroism. But ancient Greek classical heroism is not a pedagogical, not educational, and therefore not moralistic area. Heroism in those days was a natural human phenomenon or, what is the same, divine. But then the classics ended, and then during the Hellenistic period, the most ordinary person appeared, not a descendant of the gods, not a hero by nature, but just a man. For his daily affairs, such a person had to be specially brought up, specially trained and trained, always consulting with the elders and the most experienced. And it was here that the moralism that was unknown to the classical hero arose. To become decent and worthy person, it was necessary to know thousands of personal, social and, generally speaking, moral rules.
Plutarch is a moralist. And not just a moralist. Moralism is his true element, the selfless tendency of all his work, never fading love and some kind of pedagogical pleasure. Just to teach, just to instruct, just to explain difficult questions, just to put your reader on the path of eternal introspection, eternal self-correction and relentless self-improvement.
In short, from this initial period of Hellenism, everydayism and good-natured moralism passed to Plutarch. In other words, Plutarch was a complacent Platonist, for whom literary-moralistic forms of everyday life turned out to be much closer instead of the grandiose and majestic forms of classical Platonism and with its interpretation in the spirit of a kind-hearted and sincerely minded writer of everyday life and moralist.
Finally, in addition to direct criticism of the three philosophical schools of initial Hellenism and in addition to the everyday-descriptive moralism of the small man, Plutarch inherited from early Hellenism also the courage of progressive subjectivism, which required serious consideration of evil in nature, personality and society, despite undivided cosmological optimism. It was the modest and philistine-minded Plutarch who demanded recognition of not only the good, but also the evil soul of the world. In this sense, he dared to criticize even Plato himself. So, Plutarch, a subjectivist-minded interpreter of Plato, used this interpretation to protect the small and modest person, for constant everyday life and moralism, and to recognize a colossal cosmic force behind evil (and not just one good).
Plutarch, who lived at the turn of the 1st-2nd centuries. AD involuntarily found himself not only under the influence of early Hellenism, but also under the influence of that later Hellenism, which in ancient science was called the century of the Hellenic Renaissance. It is necessary to be strictly aware of what this Hellenic revival is, in what Plutarch is similar to it and in what it sharply differs.
If we take the Hellenic revival as a principle, then this could not be a literal restoration of an outdated classic several centuries ago. This was the transformation of classics not into literal, that is, not into literally life, but only into aesthetic objectivity, into a self-sufficient and completely isolated contemplation of long-past beauty. Plutarch was never such a pure aesthetician, and such isolated, self-sufficient aesthetic objectivity was always deeply alien to him. He was not capable of the delicately sensual impressionism of the Philostratas, of the Athenaeus's choking on interesting philological trifles, the dry and methodical description of the mythographers, or the shameless humor of Lucian's mythological sketches.
Perhaps some distant result of the Hellenic revival, typically referred to as the second sophistry, was Plutarch’s very frequent verbosity, which sometimes amounted to some kind of idle chatter. This was not just talkativeness, but again a protective measure to protect the rights of an ordinary person to his existence, to his own, albeit small, but purely human needs and moods.
This true significance must be stated in the method Plutarch uses in his inclination towards the revivalist methodology. It is precisely this visually given, contemplatively self-sufficient and aesthetically isolated objectivity that Plutarch never used literally, was never “pure” art for him, was never art for art’s sake. In this aesthetically isolated self-sufficiency, seemingly completely disinterested and not interested in anything vitally, Plutarch always drew strength precisely for life. Such aesthetic self-sufficiency always revived him, strengthened him, freed him from vanity and trifles, always had a transformative effect on the psyche, on society, easing the struggle, enlightening the vanity and comprehending everyday hardships and tragic hopelessness. That is why Plutarch’s everydayism and moralism are always peppered with mythological and literary examples, legends, fables and arbitrarily invented situations, anecdotes and sharp words, which at first glance seem to violate the smooth flow of the presentation and seem to pointlessly lead to the side. All this mythology and literature, all these anecdotes and witty situations never and nowhere had independent meaning for Plutarch, and in this sense they were not attracted at all for the purposes of isolated narcissism. All this was introduced into real life practice acting person, all this exposed the low and mediocre nature of vicious human passions, and all this facilitated, refreshed, elevated and wised the most ordinary little person. Thus, the Renaissance-Hellenic theory of art for art’s sake, without depriving a person of his rights to everyday life, immediately and simultaneously turned out to be aesthetically self-oppressive and morally elevating, spiritually strengthening. Platonism in this sense underwent another new transformation in Plutarch, and classical cosmology, without losing its sublime beauty, became a justification for everyday man.
As a result of our examination of Plutarch’s extensive literary heritage, it must be said that at present it is a true fall for a philologist to reduce Plutarch’s work to any one abstract principle. True, its socio-historical basis, chronologically very precise, imperatively requires us to consider it as a transition from initial Hellenism, namely, to the Hellenic revival of the 2nd century. ad. But this is already too general a principle. A closer examination of his worldview and creative results indicates that Plutarch is an extremely complicated platonist who was unable to rise to Platonic monism, but used its numerous ideological shades, often contradictory, and making this platonism unrecognizable. In an approximate enumeration, in this form one could imagine all these contradictory and, in the full sense of the word, antinomian features of Plutarch with his synthetism, if not always philosophical, then always clear and simple, complacent and good-natured, naive and wise. Namely, Plutarch combined universalism and individualism, cosmologism and everyday life, monumentality and everyday life, necessity and freedom, heroism and moralism, solemnity and everyday prose, ideological unity and incredible diversity of images, self-sufficient contemplation and practical factography, monism and dualism, the desire of matter to perfection. The whole art of a historian of ancient literature and philosophy in relation to Plutarch lies in revealing and socio-historically substantiating precisely this antinomic-synthetic character of his worldview and creativity. Such art requires the use of enormous materials, and now this can only be remotely approached.
Plutarch was under strong influence Hellenic revival, although he used it to justify the rights of everyday people. But what Plutarch was certainly far from was the grandiose completion of all Hellenism in the last four centuries of antiquity, when the philosophical school of Neoplatonists arose, flourished and declined. These Neoplatonists also could not accept the theory of self-sufficient contemplation as final. They brought this purely poetic self-pressure to the end, thinking it through to that logical end when a poetic and purely mental image, instead of a metaphor, became a living reality, a living thing and an independently acting substance. But a poetic image, given as an independent material substance, is already a myth; and Neoplatonism of the 3rd-4th centuries. AD became precisely the dialectics of myth. Plutarch had a positive attitude towards myths, but not in the sense of recognizing in them the primary substances of existence itself. For him, myths, in the end, also remained at the stage of metaphorical moralism, although, of course, they still went into cosmological depths.
Essays
Most of his numerous works have survived to this day. As can be seen from the catalog of a certain Lampria, a supposed student of Plutarch, there were about 210 of them.
Plutarch's surviving works fall into two main groups:
Biographies, or historical works, and
Philosophical and journalistic works, known under the general name “Ἠθικά” or “Moralia”.
46 parallel biographies have reached us, adjacent to which are 4 more separate biographies (Artaxerxes, Aratus, Galba and Otho). Several biographies have been lost.
Comparative biographies
The combination of two parallel biographies - a Greek and a Roman - corresponded to the long-standing custom of biographers, noticeable even in Cornelius Nepos, and, moreover, was very consistent with the views of Plutarch, who was wholeheartedly devoted to the past of his people, but willingly recognized the amazing strength of the Roman state and had among his closest friends both Greeks and Romans alike.
In most pairs, the reason for the connections is clear in itself (for example, the greatest orators - Cicero and Demosthenes, the most ancient legislators - Lycurgus and Numa, the most famous generals - Alexander the Great and Caesar). For 19 couples, Plutarch gives, at the end of the biographies, a brief indication of the common features and major differences of the compared husbands. The author is nowhere a historian who critically examines the facts. Its purpose is to give philosophical characteristics, to present a given personality as comprehensively as possible, in order to paint an instructive picture, to encourage readers to virtue and to educate them for practical activity.
This goal explains a large number of facts from the private lives of the depicted persons, anecdotes and witty sayings, an abundance of moral reasoning, and various quotes from poets. The lack of historical criticism and depth of political thought did not, and still does not, prevent the biographies of Plutarch from finding numerous readers interested in their varied and instructive content and highly appreciating the warm, humane feeling of the author. As if an addition to the biographies are the “Apothegmas of Kings and Generals”, to which in the manuscripts is added a forged letter from Plutarch to Trajan and equally forged small collections of various other “apophegmas”.
Plutarch's main work, which became one of the most famous works of ancient literature, was his biographical works.
“Comparative biographies” have absorbed enormous historical material, including information from works of ancient historians that have not survived to this day, the author’s personal impressions of ancient monuments, quotes from Homer, epigrams and epitaphs. It is customary to reproach Plutarch for his uncritical attitude towards the sources he uses, but it must be borne in mind that the main thing for him was not the historical event itself, but the trace it left in history.
This can be confirmed by the treatise “On the Malice of Herodotus,” in which Plutarch reproaches Herodotus for partiality and distortion of the history of the Greco-Persian Wars. Plutarch, who lived 400 years later, in an era when, as he put it, a Roman boot was raised over the head of every Greek, wanted to see great commanders and statesmen not as they really were, but the ideal embodiment of valor and courage. He did not seek to recreate history in all its real completeness, but found in it outstanding examples of wisdom, heroism, and self-sacrifice in the name of the homeland, designed to capture the imagination of his contemporaries.
In the introduction to the biography of Alexander the Great, Plutarch formulates the principle that he used as the basis for the selection of facts: “We write not history, but biographies, and virtue or depravity is not always visible in the most glorious deeds, but often some insignificant act, word or joke better reveal the character of a person than battles in which tens of thousands die, the leadership of huge armies and sieges of cities."
Plutarch's artistic mastery made Comparative Lives a favorite reading for youth, who learned from his writings about the events of the history of Greece and Rome. Plutarch's heroes became the personification of historical eras: ancient times were associated with the activities of the wise legislators Solon, Lycurgus and Numa, and the end of the Roman Republic seemed to be a majestic drama, driven by the clashes of the characters of Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Antony, Brutus.
Without exaggeration, we can say that thanks to Plutarch, European culture developed an idea of ancient history as a semi-legendary era of freedom and civic valor. That is why his works were highly valued by thinkers of the Enlightenment, figures of the Great French Revolution and the generation of Decembrists.
The very name of the Greek writer became a household word, since numerous editions of biographies of great people were called “Plutarchs” in the 19th century.
Other works
The standard edition contains 78 treatises, of which several are considered not to be Plutarch's.
Literature
On the comparative merits of Plutarch's manuscripts, see the critical apparatus for the editions of Reiske (Lpts., 1774-82), Sintenis ("Vitae", 2nd ed., Lpts., 1858-64); Wyttenbach (“Moralia”, Lpc., 1796-1834), Bernardakes (“Moralia”, Lpc. 1888-95), also Treu, “Zur Gesch. d. berlieferung von Plut. Moralia" (Bresl., 1877-84). Dictionary of Plutarchian language - with the name. published by Wyttenbach. Svida gives scant information about the life of Plutarch. From new op. Wed Wesiermann, "De Plut. vita et scriptis" (Lpts., 1855); Volkmann “Leben, Schriften und Philosophie des plutarch” (B., 1869); Muhl, “Plutarchische Studien” (Augsburg, 1885), etc. From the translators of Plutarch to new European languages Amio enjoyed particular fame.
Plutarch in Russian translations
Plutarch began to be translated into Russian from the 18th century: See Pisarev’s translations, “Plutarch’s Instructions on Childrearing” (St. Petersburg, 1771) and “The Word of Persistent Curiosity” (St. Petersburg, 1786); Ivan Alekseev, “The Moral and Philosophical Works of Plutarch” (St. Petersburg, 1789); E. Sferina, “On Superstition” (St. Petersburg, 1807); S. Distounis et al. “Plutarch’s comparative biographies” (St. Petersburg, 1810, 1814-16, 1817-21); "The Lives of Plutarch" ed. V. Guerrier (M., 1862); biographies of Plutarch in a cheap edition by A. Suvorin (translated by V. Alekseev, vols. I-VII) and under the title “The Life and Affairs of Famous People of Antiquity” (M., 1889, I-II); “Conversation about the face visible on the disk of the moon” (“Philological Review” vol. VI, book 2). Wed. study by Y. Elpidinsky “The religious and moral worldview of Plutarch of Chaeronea” (St. Petersburg, 1893).
Best Russian edition " Comparative biographies", where most of the translation was done by S. P. Markish:
Quotes and aphorisms
The conversation should be the same common property feasting, like wine.
A chatterbox wants to force himself to be loved and causes hatred, wants to provide a service - and becomes intrusive, wants to cause surprise - and becomes funny; he insults his friends, serves his enemies.
Any matter between reasonable spouses is decided by mutual consent, but in such a way that the primacy of the husband is obvious and the last word remains with him.
The highest wisdom is to not appear to be philosophizing when philosophizing, and to achieve a serious goal with a joke.
The two main assets of human nature are intelligence and reasoning.
Movement is the storehouse of life.
If it is commendable to do good to friends, then there is no shame in accepting help from friends.
There are three ways to answer questions: say what is necessary, answer with friendliness, and say too much.
The wife is unbearable, such that she frowns when her husband is not averse to playing with her and being nice to her, and when he is busy with serious business, she frolics and laughs: the first means that her husband is disgusting to her, the second - that she is indifferent to him.
You should marry not with your eyes and not with your fingers, as some do, calculating how much the bride’s dowry will be, instead of finding out what she will be like in life together.
A wife should not make her own friends; She's had enough of her husband's friends.
Anger and hot temper have no place in married life. Severity suits a married woman, but let this harshness be healthy and sweet, like wine, and not bitter, like aloe, and unpleasant, like medicine.
A slanderous tongue betrays a foolish person.
Drinking poison from a golden cup and accepting advice from a treacherous friend are one and the same thing.
The wildest foals come out the best horses. If only they were properly educated and sent out.
A husband and wife and a wife and her husband should avoid clashes everywhere and always, but most of all on the marital bed. Quarrels, quarrels and mutual insults, if they began on the bed, are not easily put to an end at another time and in another place.
Either as short as possible, or as pleasant as possible.
Just as ravens swoop down to peck out the eyes of the dead, so flatterers, sifting through, steal away the wealth of the foolish.
One must beware of slander and slander, like a poisonous worm on a rose - they are hidden in thin and polished phrases.
When the sun leaves the world, everything becomes dark, and conversation, devoid of insolence, is all unhelpful.
When you scold others, make sure that you yourself are far from what you reprimand others for.
Whoever behaves too harshly with his wife, without deigning jokes and laughter, forces her to seek pleasure on the side.
Anyone who expects to ensure his health by being lazy is acting just as stupidly as a person who thinks to improve his voice through silence.
Flattery is like a thin shield, painted with paint: it is pleasant to look at, but there is no need for it.
Fishing with poison allows you to easily and quickly catch fish, but spoils it, making it inedible; Likewise, wives who try to keep their husbands with them through witchcraft or love potions, captivate them with sensual pleasures, but then live with the insane and insane.
Love is always diverse, both in many respects and in the fact that the jokes affecting it are painful for some and cause indignation in them, while others are pleasant. Here we must comply with the circumstances of the moment. Just as a breath can extinguish an emerging fire due to its weakness, and when it flares up, it gives it nourishment and strength, so love, while it is still growing secretly, is indignant and indignant against the revelation, and when it flares up with a bright flame, it finds food in banter and responds to them with a smile.
I don’t need a friend who, agreeing with me on everything, changes views with me, nodding his head, because a shadow does the same thing better.
People need courage and fortitude not only against the weapons of enemies, but also against any blows.
We often ask a question, not needing an answer, but trying to hear the voice and ingratiate ourselves with the other person, wanting to draw him into the conversation. Getting ahead of others with answers, trying to capture someone else's ears and occupy someone else's thoughts, is the same as going to kiss a person who is thirsty for the kiss of another, or trying to attract someone's gaze fixed on another to oneself.
Learn to listen and you can benefit even from those who speak poorly.
A wife should not rely on a dowry, not on nobility, not on her beauty, but on what can truly bind her husband to her: courtesy, kindness and compliance, and these qualities should be demonstrated every day, not through force, as if reluctantly, but willingly, joyfully and willingly.
Herodotus was wrong when he said that a woman carries with her shame along with her clothes; on the contrary, a chaste woman, taking off her clothes, puts on shame, and the more modesty between spouses, the greater love this means.
A few vices are enough to darken many virtues.
Constantly learning, I come to old age.
Not a single spoken word has brought as much benefit as many unspoken ones.
No body can be so strong that wine cannot damage it.
The winners sleep sweeter than the losers.
Like a fire that easily flares up in reeds, straw or hare's hair, but quickly goes out if it does not find other food, love blazes brightly with blooming youth and physical attractiveness, but will soon fade away if it is not nourished by the spiritual virtues and good disposition of young spouses .
Sometimes it is not without benefit to shut the offender’s mouth with a witty rebuke; such a rebuke should be brief and show neither irritation nor rage, but let her know how to bite a little with a calm smile, returning the blow; how arrows fly off a solid object back to the one who sent them. so the insult seems to fly back from an intelligent and self-controlled speaker and hit the insulter.
At first, newlyweds should especially beware of disagreements and clashes, looking at how recently glued pots easily crumble at the slightest push; but over time, when the places of fastening become strong, neither fire nor them are damaged.
A decent woman should not even show off her conversations, and she should be as ashamed to raise her voice in front of strangers as to undress in front of them, for the voice reveals the character of the speaker, the qualities of her soul, and her mood.
Honors change morals, but rarely for the better.
A true cause, if correctly stated, is indestructible.
Traitors betray themselves first of all.
A wife should talk only with her husband, and with other people - through her husband, and should not be upset by this.
The speech of a statesman should not be either youthfully ardent or theatrical, like the speeches of ceremonial orators who weave garlands of elegant and weighty words. The basis of his speeches should be honest frankness, true dignity, patriotic sincerity, foresight, reasonable attention and care. It is true that political eloquence, much more than judicial eloquence, allows for maxims, historical parallels, fictions and figurative expressions, the moderate and appropriate use of which has a particularly good effect on listeners.
The power of speech lies in the ability to express a lot in a few words.
A voluptuous husband makes his wife wanton and lustful; the wife of a decent and virtuous person becomes modest and chaste.
Courage is the beginning of victory.
To do bad things is low, to do good when it is not associated with danger is a common thing. A good person is one who does great and noble things, even if he risks everything.
A just husband commands his wife not as the owner of property, but as the soul of the body; taking into account her feelings, and invariably benevolently.
The marital union, if it is based on mutual love, forms a single fused whole; if it is concluded for the sake of a dowry or procreation, then it consists of conjugate parts; if it is only to sleep together, then it consists of separate parts, and such a marriage is correctly considered not as living together, but as living under one roof.
Severity makes a wife's chastity repulsive, just as untidiness makes her simplicity repulsive.
Those who are greedy for praise are poor in merit.
The person being punished has no reason to persist against correction if he realizes that he was punished not in a fit of anger, but on the basis of impartial exposure.
A woman is adorned by what makes her more beautiful, but what makes her so is not emeralds and purple, but modesty, decency and bashfulness.
A smart wife, while her angry husband screams and scolds, remains silent, and only when he falls silent does she start a conversation with him in order to soften him and calm him down.
Character is nothing more than a long-term skill.
A chaste wife should appear in public only with her husband, and when he is away, remain invisible while sitting at home.
A sane person should beware of hostility and bitterness.
Sources
Plutarch. Comparative biographies. In 2 volumes / Ed. preparation S. S. Averintsev, M. L. Gasparov, S. P. Markish. Rep. ed. S. S. Averintsev. (Series “Literary Monuments”). 1st ed. In 3 volumes. M.-L., Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences. 1961-1964. 2nd ed., rev. and additional M., Science. 1994. T.1. 704 pp. T.2. 672 pp.
For editions of ethical works, see the article Moralia (Plutarch)
Losev, “Plutarch. Essay on life and creativity.”;
Plutarch. Essays.
Kuvshinskaya I.V. Plutarch // Great encyclopedia Cyril and Methodius-2004
Botvinnik M.N., Rabinovich M.B., Stratanovsky G.A. Lives of famous Greeks and Romans: Book. for students. - M.: Education, 1987. - 207 p.
Famous Greeks and Romans / 35 biographies prominent figures Greece and Rome, compiled according to Plutarch and other ancient authors M.N. Botvinnik and M.B. Rabinovich. - St. Petersburg: Epoch, 1993. - 448 p.
Glory of distant ages: From Plutarch / From ancient Greek. retold by S. Markish. — M.: Det. lit., 1964. - 270 pp.: ill. - (School b-ka).
- (c. 40 120 AD) Greek writer, historian and philosopher; lived during the era of stabilization of the Roman Empire, when the economy, political life and ideology of ancient society entered a period of prolonged stagnation and decay. Ideological... ... Literary encyclopediaPlutarch Plutarch
(about 45 - about 127), ancient Greek writer and historian. The main work is “Comparative Lives” of outstanding Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The remaining numerous works that have come down to us are united under the code name “Moralia”.
PLUTARCHPLUTARCH (c. 46 - c. 120), ancient Greek writer, historian, author of moral, philosophical and historical-biographical works. From Plutarch's vast literary heritage, which amounted to ca. 250 works, no more than a third of the works have survived, most of which are united under the general title “Morals”. Another group - “Comparative Lives” - includes 23 pairs of biographies of outstanding statesmen of Ancient Greece and Rome, selected according to the similarity of their historical mission and the similarity of characters.
Biography
The ancient tradition has not preserved the biography of Plutarch, but it can be reconstructed with sufficient completeness from his own writings. Plutarch was born in the 40s of the 1st century in Boeotia, in the small town of Chaeronea, where in 338 BC. e. A battle took place between the troops of Philip of Macedon and the Greek troops. In the time of Plutarch, his homeland was part of the Roman province of Achaia, and only carefully preserved ancient traditions could testify to its former greatness. Plutarch came from an old, wealthy family and received a traditional grammatical and rhetorical education, which he continued in Athens, becoming a student at the school of the philosopher Ammonius. Back in hometown, he is with teenage years took part in its management, holding various magistrates, including the prominent position of archon-eponym (cm. EPONYMS).
Plutarch repeatedly went on political errands to Rome, where he became involved friendly relations with many statesmen, among whom was a friend of Emperor Trajan, consul Quintus Sosius Senekion; Plutarch dedicated “Comparative Lives” and “Table Talks” to him. Proximity to influential circles of the empire and growing literary fame brought Plutarch new honorary positions: under Trajan (98-117) he became proconsul, under Hadrian (117-138) - procurator of the province of Achaia. A surviving inscription from the era of Hadrian indicates that the emperor granted Plutarch Roman citizenship, classifying him as a member of the Mestrian family.
Despite the brilliant political career, Plutarch chose a quiet life in his hometown, surrounded by his children and students, who formed a small academy in Chaeronea. “As for me,” Plutarch points out, “I live in a small town and, so that it does not become even smaller, I willingly remain in it.” Plutarch's public activities earned him great respect in Greece. Around 95, his fellow citizens elected him a member of the college of priests of the sanctuary of Apollo of Delphi. A statue was erected in his honor in Delphi, from which, during excavations in 1877, a pedestal with a poetic dedication was found.
Plutarch's life dates back to the era of the "Hellenic Renaissance" of the early 2nd century. During this period, the educated circles of the Empire were overwhelmed by the desire to imitate the ancient Hellenes in both customs Everyday life, and in literary creativity. The policy of Emperor Hadrian, who provided assistance to Greek cities that had fallen into decay, could not but arouse among Plutarch's compatriots hope for a possible revival of the traditions of the independent policies of Hellas.
Plutarch's literary activity was primarily educational and educational in nature. His works are addressed to a wide range of readers and have a pronounced moral and ethical orientation associated with the traditions of the genre of teaching - diatribes (cm. DIATRIBE). Plutarch's worldview is harmonious and clear: he believes in a higher mind that governs the universe, and is like a wise teacher who never tires of reminding his listeners of eternal human values.
Small works
The wide range of topics covered in Plutarch's works reflects the encyclopedic nature of his knowledge. He creates “Political Instructions”, essays on practical morality (“On envy and hatred”, “How to distinguish a flatterer from a friend”, “On love for children”, etc.), he is interested in the influence of literature on a person (“How can young men get acquainted with poetry") and questions of cosmogony ("On the generation of the world soul according to Timaeus").
Plutarch's works are permeated with the spirit of Platonic philosophy; his works are full of quotes and reminiscences from the works of the great philosopher, and the treatise “Plato's Questions” is a real commentary on his texts. Plutarch is concerned with problems of religious and philosophical content, which are the subject of the so-called. Pythian dialogues (“On the sign “E” at Delphi”, “On the decline of the oracles”), the essay “On the daimony of Socrates” and the treatise “On Isis and Osiris”.
A group of dialogues dressed in traditional form conversations between table mates at a feast, is a collection of entertaining information from mythology, deep philosophical remarks and sometimes curious natural science concepts. The titles of the dialogues can give an idea of the variety of questions that interest Plutarch: “Why do we not believe autumn dreams”, “Which hand of Aphrodite was wounded by Diomedes”, “Various legends about the number of the Muses”, “What is the meaning of Plato’s belief that God always remains a geometer” . The “Greek Questions” and “Roman Questions” belong to the same circle of works by Plutarch, containing different points of view on the origin of state institutions, traditions and customs of antiquity.
Comparative biographies
Plutarch's main work, which became one of the most famous works of ancient literature, was his biographical works. “Comparative biographies” have absorbed enormous historical material, including information from works of ancient historians that have not survived to this day, the author’s personal impressions of ancient monuments, quotes from Homer, epigrams and epitaphs. It is customary to reproach Plutarch for his uncritical attitude towards the sources he uses, but it must be borne in mind that the main thing for him was not the historical event itself, but the trace it left in history.
This can be confirmed by the treatise “On the Malice of Herodotus”, in which Plutarch reproaches Herodotus for partiality and distortion of the history of the Greco-Persian Wars (cm. GREECO-PERSIAN WARS). Plutarch, who lived 400 years later, in an era when, as he put it, a Roman boot was raised over the head of every Greek, wanted to see great commanders and politicians not as they really were, but as the ideal embodiment of valor and courage. He did not seek to recreate history in all its real completeness, but found in it outstanding examples of wisdom, heroism, and self-sacrifice in the name of the homeland, designed to capture the imagination of his contemporaries.
In the introduction to the biography of Alexander the Great, Plutarch formulates the principle that he used as the basis for the selection of facts: “We write not history, but biographies, and virtue or depravity is not always visible in the most glorious deeds, but often some insignificant act, word or joke better reveal the character of a person than battles in which tens of thousands die, the leadership of huge armies and sieges of cities.” Plutarch's artistic mastery made Comparative Lives a favorite reading for youth, who learned from his writings about the events of the history of Greece and Rome. Plutarch's heroes became personifications of historical eras: ancient times were associated with the activities of the wise legislators of Solon (cm. SOLON), Lycurgus (cm. LYCURG) and Numa (cm. NUMA POMPILIUS), and the end of the Roman Republic seemed a magnificent drama driven by the clashes of characters of Caesar (cm. CAESAR Gaius Julius), Pompeii (cm. POMPEI Gnaeus), Crassa (cm. KRASS), Antony, Brutus (cm. BRUTUS Decimus Junius Albinus).
Without exaggeration, we can say that thanks to Plutarch, European culture developed an idea of ancient history as a semi-legendary era of freedom and civic valor. That is why his works were highly valued by thinkers of the Enlightenment, figures of the Great French Revolution and the generation of Decembrists. The very name of the Greek writer became a household word, since numerous editions of biographies of great people were called “Plutarchs” in the 19th century.
encyclopedic Dictionary . 2009 .
See what “Plutarch” is in other dictionaries:
From Chaeronea (c. 45 c. 127), Greek. writer and moral philosopher. He belonged to the Platonic Academy and professed the cult of Plato, paying tribute to numerous people. stoic, peri-pathetic and Pythagorean influences in the spirit characteristic of that time... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
- (c. 40 120 AD) Greek writer, historian and philosopher; lived during the era of stabilization of the Roman Empire, when the economy, political life and ideology of ancient society entered a period of prolonged stagnation and decay. Ideological... ... Literary encyclopedia
- (c. 46 c. 127) philosopher, writer and historian, from Chaeronea (Boeotia) The highest wisdom when philosophizing is not to seem philosophizing and to achieve a serious goal with a joke. Conversation should be as common property of the feasters as wine. The boss... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms
Plutarch- Plutarch. PLUTARCH (about 45 about 127), Greek writer. The main work “Comparative biographies” of outstanding Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The rest of the numerous works that have come down to us are united under the code name “Moralia”... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
And husband. Star. ed. Report: Plutarkhovich, Plutarkhovna. Derivatives: Tarya; Arya.Origin: (Greek personal name Plutarchos. From plutos wealth and arche power.) Dictionary of personal names. Plutarch a, m. Star. rare Report: Plutarkhovich, Plutarkhovna. Derivatives... Dictionary of personal names
Plutarch, Plutarchos, from Chaeronea, before 50 after 120. n. e., Greek philosopher and biographer. He came from a wealthy family living in a small town in Boeotia. In Athens he studied mathematics, rhetoric and philosophy, the latter mainly from... ... Ancient writers
PLUTARCH Dictionary-reference book on Ancient Greece and Rome, on mythology
PLUTARCH- (c. 46 – c. 126) Greek essayist and biographer, born in Chaeronea (Boeotia), studied in Athens, was a priest of Pythian Apollo in Delphi, traveled to Egypt, Italy, lived in Rome. Most of Plutarch’s works devoted to scientific,... ... List of Ancient Greek names
- (c. 45 c. 127) ancient Greek writer and historian. The main work: Comparative biographies of outstanding Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The rest of the numerous works that have come down to us are united under the code name Moralia... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
- (Plutarchus, Πλούταρχος). Greek writer who lived in Boeotia in the 1st century AD, traveled a lot and spent some time in Rome. He died about 120 AD. Of his works of historical and philosophical content, the most remarkable are... ... Encyclopedia of Mythology
“I don’t need a friend who, agreeing with me on everything, changes views with me, nodding his head, for a shadow does the same thing better.”
These words belong to the famous ancient Greek biographer, philosopher, and historian Plutarch. They allow us to understand why the name and works of this truly unique and interesting person are still known today. Although the facts of Plutarch’s biography have largely been lost, some information is still available thanks to Plutarch himself. In his own writings, he mentioned certain events that took place along his life path.
Plutarch's childhood
Plutarch was born in 46 in the Greek city of Chaeronea in Boeotia. Thanks to his parents, the future philosopher received excellent education, which formed the basis for his further activities. Family education had a great influence on his worldview, helped Plutarch to comprehend a lot of knowledge, and later become the author of numerous works.
His father Avtobul and grandfather Lampriy were well educated and smart people. They told him interesting things historical facts, about famous personalities, could support a conversation on any topic. The education of his father and grandfather allowed Plutarch to receive his primary education at home.
He had two more brothers - also enlightened people. It is known that despite the education of all family members, they were not aristocrats, although they were wealthy citizens. All this made their family very respected among those around them.
Plutarch's youth
Starting from the very early years, Plutarch studied constantly and, by the way, did this all his life. To receive a special education, he went to Athens, where he studied sciences such as rhetoric, mathematics, philosophy and others. His main teacher in those years was Ammonius, who played a significant role in the formation of Plutarch’s philosophical views.
Plutarch's activities
After completing his education, Plutarch returned to his hometown and devoted the rest of his life to serving Chaeronea. Thanks to his diverse knowledge, he has been working in management positions since his youth. Due to the nature of his activities, he often had to visit the Roman Emperor Trajan himself to resolve certain political issues.
During business visits to Rome, he still managed to attend philosophical and historical lectures, and actively spoke at them. During such conversations, he became friends with the consul Quintus Sosius Senecion - best friend Trajan. This friendship with Senecion, coupled with Plutarch's growing fame, served to propel him through career ladder. Until 117 he served as consul, and after the death of Trajan, under the new Roman emperor Hadrian, Plutarch served as procurator of the province of Achaia.
These positions were very responsible and important. To understand their full significance, it should be noted that not a single decision in the province of Achaia could be valid without the participation of Plutarch. This means that any event had to be coordinated with him. This or that decision was carried out only if it was approved by Plutarch.
In addition to politics, he also paid great attention to religion and social activities. So, around 95, Plutarch was elected priest in the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The priests at that time were chosen by society, and this fact testifies to the deep respect and veneration of Plutarch among the people. People even erected a statue in his honor.
Works of Plutarch
Plutarch left behind many significant works. He created more than two hundred essays on various topics. Mainly, they were historical and instructive in nature. Unfortunately, only a small part of his works has reached our century. Among them is his main work - “Comparative Lives”, where he described the biographies of famous people: Romans and Greeks.
The essence of “Comparative Lives” is that the author took the biographies of two individuals and made comparisons. So, in this work you can find descriptions of the lives of Alexander the Great, Gaius Julius Caesar, Theseus, Romulus, Cicero and others. This work is of great importance for us, as it contains reliable and most complete information about ancient personalities. The biographies of twenty-two couples have survived to this day, the rest have been lost.
Among the other works of Plutarch: “Political Instructions”, “On the Intelligence of Animals”, “On the Love of Children”, “On Loquacity”, “On the Maliciousness of Herodotus”, “On Excessive Curiosity” and many others on a wide variety of topics. Of great interest are the Pythian dialogues, where he discusses various religious and philosophical issues of his time.
Disciples of Plutarch
Despite the fact that he was a very influential politician and was active social activities, Plutarch was also a good family man and father to his children. It is not known for certain how many children he had. Some sources mention five sons.
Just like Plutarch's father, he taught his children himself. His house was never empty. Young people have always been welcome here. In this regard, Plutarch opened his own Academy, where he was the leader and lecturer. Thus, he had many students, but history, unfortunately, is silent about their names. It is only known that one of Plutarch’s followers is his nephew Sextus of Chaeronea, who raised Marcus Aurelius himself, the famous future emperor.
Plutarch died in 127. He lived eighty-one years. For that time, this was a very respectable age; few managed to live to such years. He always adhered to a healthy lifestyle and constantly warned his loved ones and all people in general with the words: “No body can be so strong that wine cannot damage it.” Indeed, “golden” words that have not lost their relevance through many centuries.