Parallel Lives: Greeks and Romans Compared

Who were the greatest men of the ancient world, and what did their choices cost them? Walking the crowded streets of Athens, Delphi, and Rome, the Greek philosopher Plutarch set out to answer that question by pairing the towering figures of Greece and Rome side by side: Theseus and Romulus, Pericles and Fabius, Demosthenes and Cicero, Alexander and Caesar. In these sixteen vivid portraits, ambition, loyalty, envy, and honor play out on the battlefield, in the assembly, and at the banquet table. Men conquer empires and are undone by pride; liberators stain their hands with tyrants' blood. Plutarch writes with a storyteller's eye, drawing each life so closely that we recognize their virtues and their fractures in ourselves. This modern retelling unfurls his classic with all its drama and moral force intact, a mirror held up to character that still speaks clearly across two thousand years. Part of Timeless Classics.