I know not by what fate it comes to pass, that historians, who give
immortality to others, are so ill requited by posterity, that their
actions and their fortunes are usually forgotten; neither themselves
encouraged while they live, nor their memory preserved entire to future
ages. It is the ingratitude of mankind to their greatest benefactors,
that they who teach us wisdom by the surest ways, (setting before us what
we ought to shun or to pursue, by the examples of the most famous men
whom they record, and by the experience of their faults and virtues,)
should generally live poor and unregarded; as if they were born only
for the public, and had no interest in their own well-being, but were
to be lighted up like tapers, and to waste themselves for the benefit
of others. But this is a complaint too general, and the custom has been
too long established to be remedied; neither does it wholly reach our
author. He was born in an age which was sensible of his virtue, and found
a Trajan to reward him, as Aristotle did an Alexander. But the historians
who succeeded him, have either been too envious, or too careless of his
reputation; none of them, not even his own countrymen, having given us
any particular account of him; or if they have, yet their works are not
transmitted to us: so that we are forced to glean from Plutarch what
he has scattered in his writings concerning himself and his original;
which (excepting that little memorial that Suidas, and some few others,
have left concerning him,) is all we can collect relating to this great
philosopher and historian.
He was born at Chæronea, a small city of Bæotia, in Greece, between
Attica and Phosis, and reaching to both seas. The climate not much
befriended by the heavens, for the air is thick and foggy; and
consequently the inhabitants partaking of its influence, gross feeders
and fat-witted, brawny and unthinking,—just the constitution of heroes,
cut out for the executive and brutal business of war; but so stupid in
the designing part, that in all the revolutions of Greece they were never
masters, but only in those few years when they were led by Epaminondas,
or Pelopidas. Yet this foggy air, this country of fat wethers, as Juvenal
calls it, produced three wits, which were comparable to any three
Athenians; Pindar, Epaminondas, and our Plutarch; to whom we may add a
fourth, Sextus Chæronensis, the preceptor of the learned Emperor Marcus
Aurelius, and the nephew of our author.
Chæronea, if we may give credit to Pausanias, in the ninth book of
his description of Greece, was anciently called Arnè, from Arnè, the
daughter of Æolus; but being situated to the west of Parnassus in that
lowland country, the natural unwholesomeness of the air was augmented
by the evening vapours cast upon it from that mountain, which our late
travellers describe to be full of moisture and marshy ground inclosed
in the inequality of its ascents; and being also exposed to the winds
which blew from that quarter, the town was perpetually unhealthful; for
which reason, says my author, Chæron, the son of Apollo and Thero, made
it be rebuilt, and turned it towards the rising sun, from whence the town
became healthful, and consequently populous; in memory of which benefit
it afterwards retained his name. But as etymologies are uncertain, and
the Greeks, above all nations, given to fabulous derivations of names,
especially when they tend to the honour of their country, I think we
may be reasonably content to take the denomination of the town from its
delightful or cheerful standing, as the word Chæron sufficiently implies.
But to lose no time in these grammatical etymologies, which are commonly
uncertain guesses, it is agreed that Plutarch was here born; the year
uncertain; but without dispute in the reign of Claudius.
Joh. Gerrard Vossius has assigned his birth in the latter end of that
Emperor; some other writers of his life have left it undecided whether
then, or in the beginning of Nero’s empire; but the most accurate Rualdus
(as I find it in the Paris edition of Plutarch’s Works) has manifestly
proved him to be born in the middle time of Claudius, or somewhat lower;
for Plutarch, in the inscription at Delphos, (of which more hereafter,)
remembers, that Ammonius, his master, disputed with him and his brother
Lamprias concerning it, when Nero made his progress into Greece, which
was in his twelfth year; and the question disputed could not be managed
with so much learning as it was, by mere boys; therefore he was then
sixteen, or rather eighteen years of age.
Xylander has observed, that Plutarch himself, in the Life of Pericles,
and that of Antony, has mentioned both Nero and Domitian as his
contemporaries. He has also left it on record in his Symposiacks, that
his family was ancient in Chæronea, and that for many descents, they
had borne the most considerable offices in that petty commonwealth; the
chiefest of which was known by the name of Archon amongst the Grecians,
by that of Prætor Urbis among the Romans, and the dignity and power
was not much different from that of our lord mayor of London. His
great-grandfather, Nicarchus, perhaps enjoyed that office in the division
of the empire betwixt Augustus Cæsar and Mark Antony; and when the
civil wars ensued betwixt them, Chæronea was so hardly used by Antony’s
lieutenant or commissary there, that all the citizens, without exception,
were servilely employed to carry on their shoulders a certain proportion
of corn from Chæronea to the coast over against the island of Antycira,
with the scourge held over them, if at any time they were remiss. Which
duty, after once performing, being enjoined the second time with the same
severity, just as they were preparing for their journey, the welcome news
arrived that Mark Antony had lost the battle of Actium;[5] whereupon
both the officers and soldiers belonging to him in Chæronea immediately
fled for their own safety; and the provisions, thus collected, were
distributed among the inhabitants of the city.
This Nicarchus, the great-grandfather of Plutarch, among other sons,
had Lamprias, a man eminent for his learning, and a philosopher, of
whom Plutarch has made frequent mention in his Symposiacks, or Table
Conversations; and amongst the rest there is this observation of
him,—that he disputed best, and unravelled the difficulties of philosophy
with most success, when he was at supper, and well warmed with wine.
These table entertainments were part of the education of those times,
their discourses being commonly the canvassing and solution of some
question, either philosophical or philological, always instructive, and
usually pleasant; for the cups went round with the debate, and men were
merry and wise together, according to the proverb. The father of Plutarch
is also mentioned in those discourses, whom our author represents as
arguing of several points in philosophy; but his name is no where to be
found in any part of the works remaining to us. But yet he speaks of him
as a man not ignorant in learning and poetry, as may appear by what he
says, when he is introduced disputing in the Symposiacks; where also his
prudence and humanity are commended in this following relation: “Being
yet very young,” says Plutarch, “I was joined in commission with another
in an embassy to the Proconsul, and my colleague, falling sick, was
forced to stay behind; so that the whole business was transacted by me
alone. At my return, when I was to give account to the commonwealth of
my proceedings, my father, rising from his seat, openly enjoined me not
to name myself in the singular number,—_I did thus, or thus I said to
the Proconsul_,—but, _thus we did, and thus we said_, always associating
my companion with me, though absent in the management.” This was done to
observe, as I suppose, the point of good manners with his colleague; that
of respect to the government of the city, who had commissioned both, to
avoid envy; and perhaps more especially, to take off the forwardness of
a pert young minister, commonly too apt to overvalue his own services,
and to quote himself on every inconsiderable occasion.
The father of Plutarch had many children besides him; Timon and Lamprias,
his brothers, were bred up with him, all three instructed in the liberal
sciences, and in all parts of philosophy. It is manifest from our author,
that they lived together in great friendliness, and in great veneration
to their grandfather and father. What affection Plutarch bore in
particular to his brother Timon, may be gathered from these words of his:
“As for myself, though fortune on several occasions has been favourable
to me, I have no obligation so great to her as the kindness and entire
friendship which my brother Timon has always borne, and still bears me;
and this is so evident, that it cannot but be noted by every one of our
acquaintance.” Lamprias, the youngest of the three, is introduced by him
in his “Morals,” as one of a sweet and pleasant conversation, inclined to
mirth and raillery; or, as we say in English, a well-humoured man, and a
good companion.
The whole family being thus addicted to philosophy, it is no wonder if
our author was initiated betimes in study, to which he was naturally
inclined; in pursuit of which he was so happy to fall into good hands
at first, being recommended to the care of Ammonius, an Egyptian, who,
having taught philosophy with great reputation at Alexandria, and from
thence travelling into Greece, settled himself at last in Athens, where
he was well received, and generally respected. At the end of Themistocles
his life, Plutarch relates, that being young, he was a pensioner in the
house of this Ammonius; and in his Symposiacks he brings him in disputing
with his scholars, and giving them instruction: for the custom of those
times was very much different from these of ours, where the greatest
part of our youth is spent in learning the words of dead languages. The
Grecians, who thought all barbarians but themselves, despised the use
of foreign tongues; so that the first elements of their breeding was
the knowledge of nature, and the accommodation of that knowledge, by
moral precepts, to the service of the public, and the private offices
of virtue: the masters employing one part of their time in reading to,
and discoursing with, their scholars, and the rest in appointing them
their several exercises either in oratory or philosophy, and setting them
to declaim and to dispute amongst themselves. By this liberal sort of
education, study was so far from being a burden to them, that in a short
time it became a habit; and philosophical questions and criticisms of
humanity were their usual recreations at their meals. Boys lived then as
the better sort of men do now; and their conversation was so well-bred
and manly, that they did not plunge out of their depth into the world,
when they grew up, but slid easily into it, and found no alteration in
their company. Amongst the rest, the reading and quotations of poets were
not forgotten at their suppers, and in their walks; but Homer, Euripides,
and Sophocles, were the entertainment of their hours of freedom. Rods and
ferulas were not used by Ammonius, as being properly the punishment of
slaves, and not the correction of ingenuous freeborn men; at least to be
only exercised by parents, who had the power of life and death over their
own children; as appears by the example of this Ammonius, thus related by
our author:
“Our master,” says he, “one time perceiving, at his afternoon lecture,
that some of his scholars had eaten more largely than became the
moderation of students, immediately commanded one of his freedmen
to take his own son, and scourge him in our sight: because, said the
philosopher, my young gentleman could not eat his dinner without poignant
sauce, or vinegar; and at the same time he cast his eye on all of us; so
that every criminal was given to understand, that he had a share in the
reprehension, and that the punishment was as well deserved by all the
rest, had the philosopher not known that it exceeded his commission to
inflict it.”
Plutarch, therefore, having the assistance of such a master, in few years
advanced to admiration in knowledge; and that without first travelling
into foreign parts, or acquiring any foreign tongue; though the Roman
language at that time was not only vulgar in Rome itself, but generally
through the extent of that vast empire, and in Greece, which was a
member of it, as our author has remarked towards the end of his Platonic
Questions. For, like a true philosopher, who minded things, not words, he
strove not even to cultivate his mother tongue with any great exactness;
and himself confesses, in the beginning of Demosthenes his life, that
during his abode in Italy, and at Rome, he had neither the leisure to
study, nor so much as to exercise the Roman language, (I suppose he
means to write in it, rather than to speak it,) as well by reason of the
affairs he managed, as that he might acquit himself to those who were
desirous to be instructed by him in philosophy: insomuch, that till the
declination of his age, he began not to be conversant in Latin books; in
reading of which it happened somewhat oddly to him, that he learnt not
the knowledge of things by words, but by the understanding and use he
had of things, attained to the knowledge of words which signified them:
just as Adam (setting aside Divine illumination) called the creatures
by their proper names, by first understanding of their natures. But for
the delicacies of the tongue, the turns of the expressions, the figures
and connections of words, in which consist the beauty of that language,
he plainly tells us, that though he much admired them, yet they required
too great labour for a man in age, and plunged in business, to attain
perfectly; which compliment I should be willing to believe from a
philosopher, if I did not consider that Dion Cassius, nay even Herodian
and Appian after him, as well as Polybius before him, by writing the
Roman History in the Greek language, had shewn as manifest a contempt
of Latin, in respect of the other, as Frenchmen now do of English,
which they disdain to speak while they live among us; but, with great
advantage to their trivial conceptions, drawing the discourse into their
own language, have learned to despise our better thoughts, which must
come deformed and lame in conversation to them, as being transmitted in
a tongue of which we are not masters. This is to arrogate a superiority
in nature over us, as undoubtedly the Grecians did over their conquerors,
by establishing their language for a standard; it being become so much a
mode to speak and write Greek in Tully’s time, that with some indignation
I have read his Epistles to Atticus, in which he desires to have his
own consulship written by his friend in the Grecian language, which he
afterwards performed himself; a vain attempt, in my opinion, for any man
to endeavour to excel in a tongue which he was not born to speak. This,
though it be digression, yet deserves to be considered at more leisure;
for the honour of our wit and writings, which are of a more solid make
than that of our neighbours, is concerned in it.
But to return to Plutarch. As it was his good fortune to be moulded first
by masters the most excellent in their kind, so it was his own virtue
to suck in with an incredible desire, and earnest application of mind,
their wise instructions; and it was also his prudence so to manage his
health by moderation of diet and bodily exercise, as to preserve his
parts without decay to a great old age; to be lively and vigorous to the
last, and to preserve himself to his own enjoyments, and to the profit
of mankind: which was not difficult for him to perform, having received
from nature a constitution capable of labour, and from the domestic
example of his parents a sparing sobriety of diet, a temperance in other
pleasures, and, above all, an habitude of commanding his passions in
order to his health. Thus principled and grounded, he considered with
himself, that a larger communication with learned men was necessary for
his accomplishment; and therefore, having a soul insatiable of knowledge,
and being ambitious to excel in all kinds of science, he took up a
resolution to travel. Egypt was at that time, as formerly it had been,
famous for learning; and probably the mysteriousness of their doctrine
might tempt him, as it had done Pythagoras and others, to converse with
the priesthood of that country, which appears to have been particularly
his business by the treatise of “Isis and Osiris,” which he has left
us; in which he shews himself not meanly versed in the ancient theology
and philosophy of those wise men. From Egypt returning into Greece,
he visited in his way all the academies or schools of the several
philosophers, and gathered from them many of those observations with
which he has enriched posterity.
Besides this, he applied himself with extreme diligence to collect
not only all books which were excellent in their kind, and already
published, but also all sayings and discourses of wise men, which he had
heard in conversation, or which he had received from others by tradition;
as likewise the records and public instruments preserved in cities
which he had visited in his travels, and which he afterwards scattered
through his works. To which purpose he took a particular journey to
Sparta, to search the archives of that famous commonwealth, to understand
thoroughly the model of their ancient government, their legislators,
their kings, and their Ephori; digesting all their memorable deeds and
sayings with so much care, that he has not omitted those even of their
women, or their private soldiers; together with their customs, their
decrees, their ceremonies, and the manner of their public and private
living, both in peace and war. The same methods he also took in divers
other commonwealths, as his Lives, and his Greek and Roman Questions,
sufficiently testify. Without these helps, it had been impossible for him
to leave in writing so many particular observations of men and manners,
and as impossible to have gathered them without conversation and commerce
with the learned antiquaries of his time. To these he added a curious
collection of ancient statues, medals, inscriptions, and paintings,
as also of proverbial sayings, epigrams, epitaphs, apophthegms, and
other ornaments of history, that he might leave nothing unswept behind
him. And as he was continually in company with men of learning, in all
professions, so his memory was always on the stretch to receive and lodge
their discourses; and his judgment perpetually employed in separating his
notions, and distinguishing which were fit to be preserved, and which to
be rejected.
By benefit of this, in little time he enlarged his knowledge to a great
extent in every science. Himself, in the beginning of the treatise which
he has composed of Content and Peace of Mind, makes mention of those
collections, or common places, which he had long since drawn together
for his own particular occasions; and it is from this rich cabinet that
he has taken out those excellent pieces which he has distributed to
posterity, and which give us occasion to deplore the loss of the residue,
which either the injury of time, or the negligence of copiers, have
denied to us. On this account, though we need not doubt to give him this
general commendation, that he was ignorant of no sort of learning, yet
we may justly add this farther,—that whoever will consider through the
whole body of his works, either the design, the method, or the contexture
of his discourses, whether historical or moral, or questions of natural
philosophy, or solutions of problems mathematical; whether he arraigns
the opinions of other sects, or establishes the doctrines of his own; in
all these kinds there will be found both the harmony of order, and the
beauty of easiness: his reasons so solid and convincing, his inductions
so pleasant and agreeable to all sorts of readers, that it must be
acknowledged he was master of every subject which he treated, and treated
none but what were improvable to the benefit of instruction. For we may
perceive in his writings the desire he had to imprint his precepts in
the souls of his readers, and to lodge morality in families, nay even to
exalt it to the thrones of sovereign princes, and to make it the rule
and measure of their government. Finding that there were many sects
of philosophers then in vogue, he searched into the foundation of all
their principles and opinions; and not content with this disquisition,
he traced them to their several fountains; so that the Pythagorean,
Epicurean, Stoic, and Peripatetic philosophy, were familiar to him. And
though it may be easily observed, that he was chiefly inclined to follow
Plato, whose memory he so much reverenced, that annually he celebrated
his birth-day, and also that of Socrates; yet he modestly contained
himself within the bounds of the latter academy, and was content, like
Cicero, only to propound and weigh opinions, leaving the judgment of
his readers free, without presuming to decide dogmatically. Yet it
is to be confessed, that in the midst of this moderation, he opposed
the two extremes of the Epicurean and Stoic sects; both which he has
judiciously combated in several of his treatises, and both upon the same
account,—because they pretend too much to certainty in their dogmas, and
to impose them with too great arrogance; which he, who, following the
Academists, doubted more and pretended less, was no way able to support.
The Pyrrhonians, or grosser sort of Sceptics, who bring all certainty in
question, and startle even at the notions of common sense, appeared as
absurd to him on the other side; for there is a kind of positiveness in
granting nothing to be more likely on one part than on another, which
his Academy avoided by inclining the balance to that hand where the
most weighty reasons, and probability of truth, were visible. The moral
philosophy, therefore, was his chiefest aim, because the principles of
it admitted of less doubt; and because they were most conducing to the
benefit of human life. For, after the example of Socrates, he had found,
that the speculations of natural philosophy were more delightful than
solid and profitable; that they were abstruse and thorny, and much of
sophism in the solution of appearances:—that the mathematics, indeed,
could reward his pains with many demonstrations, but though they made
him wiser, they made him not more virtuous, and therefore attained not
the end of happiness: for which reason, though he had far advanced in
that study, yet he made it but his recreation, not his business. Some
problem of it was his usual divertisement at supper, which he mingled
also with pleasant and more light discourses; for he was no sour
philosopher, but passed his time as merrily as he could, with reference
to virtue. He forgot not to be pleasant while he instructed, and
entertained his friends with so much cheerfulness and good humour, that
his learning was not nauseous to them; neither were they afraid of his
company another time. He was not so austere as to despise riches, but,
being in possession of a large fortune, he lived, though not splendidly,
yet plentifully; and suffered not his friends to want that part of his
estate which he thought superfluous to a philosopher.
The religion he professed, to speak the worst of it, was heathen. I say,
the religion he _professed_; for it is no way probable that so great a
philosopher, and so wise a man, should believe the superstitions and
fopperies of Paganism; but that he accommodated himself to the use and
received customs of his country. He was indeed a priest of Apollo, as
himself acknowledges; but that proves him not to have been a Polytheist.
I have ever thought, that the wise men in all ages have not much differed
in their opinions of religion; I mean, as it is grounded on human reason:
for reason, as far as it is right, must be the same in all men; and truth
being but one, they must consequently think in the same train. Thus it
is not to be doubted but the religion of Socrates, Plato, and Plutarch,
was not different in the main; who doubtless believed the identity of
one Supreme Intellectual Being, which we call GOD. But because they who
have written the Life of Plutarch in other languages, are contented
barely to assert that our author believed one God, without quoting those
passages of his which would clear the point, I will give you two of
them, amongst many, in his “Morals.” The first is in his book of the
Cessation of Oracles; where arguing against the Stoics, (in behalf of
the Platonists,) who disputed against the plurality of worlds with this
argument,—“That if there were many worlds, how then could it come to
pass that there was one only Fate, and one Providence to guide them all?
(for it was granted by the Platonists that there was but one;) and why
should not many Jupiters or gods be necessary for government of many
worlds?” To this Plutarch answers,—“That this their captious question
was but trifling; for where is the necessity of supposing many Jupiters
for this plurality of worlds, when one excellent Being, endued with
mind and reason, such as he is, whom we acknowledge to be the Father
and Lord of all things, is sufficient to direct and rule these worlds;
whereas if there were more Supreme Agents, their decrees must still be
the more absurd and contradictious to one another.” I pretend not this
passage to be translated word for word, but it is the sense of the whole,
though the order of the sentence be inverted. The other is more plain;
it is in his comment on the word EI, or those two letters inscribed on
the gates of the temple at Delphos; where, having given the several
opinions concerning it, as first, that ἐι signifies _if_, because all
the questions which were made to Apollo began with _If_; as suppose
they asked,—_If_ the Grecians should overcome the Persians,—_If_ such a
marriage should come to pass, &c.; and afterwards, that ἐι might signify
_thou art_; as the second person of the present tense of ἐιμὶ, intimating
thereby the being or perpetuity of being belonging to Apollo, as a god
(in the same sense that God expressed himself to Moses,—_I AM hath sent
thee_;) Plutarch subjoins, (as inclining to this latter opinion,) these
following words:—“ἐι ἔν (says he) signifies, _thou art one_, for there
are not many deities, but only one:” Continues, “I mean not one in the
aggregate sense, as we say—one army, or one body of men, constituted of
many individuals, but that which is, must of necessity be one; and to be,
implies to be one. One is that which is a simple being, uncompounded, or
free from mixture; therefore, to be one in this sense, is only consistent
with a nature pure in itself, and not capable of alteration or decay.”
That he was no Christian, is manifest; yet he is no where found to have
spoken with contumely of our religion, like the other writers of his
age, and those who succeeded him. Theodoret says of him, “That he had
heard of our holy gospel, and inserted many of our sacred mysteries in
his works;” which we may easily believe, (because the Christian churches
were then spread in Greece, and Pliny the younger was at the same time
conversant amongst them in Asia,) though that part of our author’s works
is not now extant, from whence Theodoret might gather those passages. But
we need not wonder that a philosopher was not easy to embrace the divine
mysteries of our faith. A modern God, as our Saviour was to him, was of
hard digestion to a man, who probably despised the vanities and fabulous
relations of all the old. Besides, a crucified Saviour of mankind; a
doctrine attested by illiterate disciples; the author of it a Jew, whose
nation at that time was despicable, and his doctrine but an innovation
among that despised people, to which the learned of his own country gave
no credit, and which the magistrates of his nation punished with an
ignominious death; the scene of his miracles acted in an obscure corner
of the world; his being from eternity, yet born in time; his resurrection
and ascension; these, and many more particulars, might easily choke the
faith of a philosopher, who believed no more than what he could deduce
from the principles of nature; and that too with a doubtful academical
assent, or rather an inclination to assent to probability, which he
judged was wanting in this new religion. These circumstances considered,
though they plead not an absolute invincible ignorance in his behalf, yet
they amount at least to a degree of it: for either he thought them not
worth weighing, or rejected them when weighed; and in both cases he must
of necessity be ignorant, because he could not know without revelation,
and the revelation was not to him.
But leaving the soul of Plutarch, with our charitable wishes, to his
Maker, we can only trace the rest of his opinions in religion from his
philosophy, which we have said in the general to be Platonic; though it
cannot also be denied, that there was a tincture in it of the Electic
sect, which was begun by Potamon under the empire of Augustus, and which
selected from all the other sects what seemed most probable in their
opinions, not adhering singularly to any of them, nor rejecting every
thing. I will only touch his belief of spirits. In his two Treatises of
Oracles, the one concerning the reason of their cessation, the other,
inquiring why they were not given in verse, as in former times, he seems
to assert the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration of souls. We have
formerly shewn, that he owned the unity of a Godhead, whom, according to
his attributes, he calls by several names; as Jupiter, from his almighty
power; Apollo, from his wisdom, and so of the rest; but, under him, he
places those beings whom he styles Genii, or Demons, of a middle nature
betwixt divine and human: for he thinks it absurd, that there should be
no mean betwixt the two extremes of an immortal and a mortal being; that
there cannot be in nature so vast a flaw, without some intermedial kind
of life, partaking of them both. As, therefore, we find the intercourse
betwixt the soul and body to be made by the animal spirits, so, betwixt
divinity and humanity, there is this species of demons, who, having
first been men, and following the strict rules of virtue, had purged off
the grossness and feculency of their earthly being, are exalted into
these Genii, and are from thence either raised higher into an ethereal
life, if they still continue virtuous, or tumbled down again into mortal
bodies, and sinking into flesh, after they have lost that purity which
constituted their glorious being. And this sort of Genii are those, who,
as our author imagines, presided over oracles; spirits which have so much
of their terrestrial principles remaining in them, as to be subject to
passions and inclinations; usually beneficent, sometimes malevolent, to
mankind, according as they refine themselves, or gather dross, and are
declining into mortal bodies. The cessation, or rather the decrease of
oracles, (for some of them were still remaining in Plutarch’s time,) he
attributes either to the death of those demons, (as appears by the story
of the Egyptian Thamus, who was commanded to declare that the great god
Pan was dead,) or to their forsaking of those places where they formerly
gave out their oracles, from whence they were driven by stronger genii
into banishment for a certain revolution of ages. Of this last nature
was the war of the giants against the gods; the dispossession of Saturn
by Jupiter; the banishment of Apollo from heaven; the fall of Vulcan,
and many others; all which, according to our author, were the battles of
these Genii, or Demons, amongst themselves. But supposing, as Plutarch
evidently does, that these spirits administered, under the Supreme Being,
the affairs of men, taking care of the virtuous, punishing the bad,
and sometimes communicating with the best, (as particularly the genius
of Socrates always warned him of approaching dangers, and taught him
to avoid them,) I cannot but wonder, that every one who has hitherto
written Plutarch’s life, and particularly Rualdus, the most knowing of
them all, should so confidently affirm, that these oracles were given
by bad spirits, according to Plutarch. As Christians, indeed, we may
think them so; but that Plutarch so thought, it is a most apparent
falsehood. It is enough to convince a reasonable man, that our author,
in his old age, (and that then he doted not we may see by the Treatise
he has written, that old men ought to have the management of public
affairs,) I say, that then he initiated himself in the sacred rites of
Delphos, and died, for aught we know, Apollo’s priest. Now, it is not
to be imagined that he thought the god he served a cacodemon, or, as we
call him, a devil. Nothing could be farther from the opinion and practice
of this holy philosopher than so gross an impiety. The story of the
Pythias, or Priestess of Apollo, which he relates immediately before the
ending of that Treatise concerning the Cessation of Oracles, confirms
my assertion, rather than shakes it; for it is there delivered, “That
going with great reluctation into the sacred place to be inspired, she
came out foaming at the mouth, her eyes gogling, her breast heaving, her
voice undistinguishable and shrill, as if she had an earthquake within
her, labouring for vent; and, in short, that thus tormented with the
god, whom she was not able to support, she died distracted in few days
after.” For he had said before, “that the divineress ought to have no
perturbations of mind, or impure passions, at the time when she was to
consult the oracle; and if she had, she was no more fit to be inspired,
than an instrument untuned to render an harmonious sound.” And he gives
us to suspect, by what he says at the close of this relation, “that this
Pythias had not lived chastely for some time before it.” So that her
death appears more like a punishment inflicted for loose living by some
holy power, than the mere malignancy of a spirit delighted naturally
in mischief.—There is another observation, which indeed comes nearer
to their purpose, which I will digress so far as to relate, because it
somewhat appertains to our own country:—“There are many islands (says he)
which lie scattered about Britain, after the manner of our Sporades. They
are unpeopled, and some of them are called the Islands of the Heroes, or
the Genii. One Demetrius was sent by the emperor [who, by computation of
the time, must either be Caligula or Claudius] to discover those parts;
and arriving at one of the islands, next adjoining to the fore-mentioned,
which was inhabited by some few Britons, (but those held sacred and
inviolable by all their countrymen,) immediately after his arrival, the
air grew black and troubled, strange apparitions were seen, the winds
raised a tempest, and fiery spouts, or whirlwinds, appeared dancing
towards the earth. When these prodigies were ceased, the islanders
informed him, that some one of the aërial beings, superior to our nature,
then ceased to live. For as a taper, while yet burning, affords a
pleasant harmless light, but is noisome and offensive when extinguished,
so those heroes shine benignly on us, and do us good, but at their death
turn all things topsyturvy; raise up tempests, and infect the air with
pestilential vapours.” By those holy and inviolable men, there is no
question but he means our Druids, who were nearest to the Pythagoreans of
any sect; and this opinion of the Genii might probably be one of theirs.
Yet it proves not that all demons were thus malicious; only those who
were to be condemned hereafter into human bodies, for their misdemeanours
in their aërial being.
But it is time to leave a subject so very fanciful, and so little
reasonable as this. I am apt to imagine the natural vapours arising
in the cave where the temple afterwards was built, might work upon
the spirits of those who entered the holy place, (as they did on the
shepherd Coretas, who first found it out by accident,) and incline them
to enthusiasm and prophetic madness: that, as the strength of those
vapours diminished, (which were generally in caverns, as that of Mopsus,
of Trophonius, and this of Delphos,) so the inspiration decreased by the
same measures; that they happened to be stronger when they killed the
Pythias, who being conscious of this, was so unwilling to enter; that the
oracles ceased to be given in verse, when poets ceased to be the priests;
and that the genius of Socrates (whom he confessed never to have seen,
but only to have heard inwardly, and unperceived by others) was no more
than the strength of his imagination; or, to speak in the language of a
Christian Platonist, his guardian angel.
I pretend not to an exactness of method in this Life, which I am forced
to collect by patches from several authors, and therefore without much
regard to the connection of times which are so uncertain.
I will, in the next place, speak of his marriage. His wife’s name, her
parentage, and dowry, are no where mentioned by him, or any other, nor in
what part of his age he married; though it is probable in the flower of
it. But Rualdus has ingeniously gathered, from a convincing circumstance,
that she was called Timoxena; because Plutarch, in a consolatory letter
to her, occasioned by the death of their daughter, in her infancy, uses
these words:—“Your Timoxena is deprived, by death, of small enjoyments;
for the things she knew were of small moment, and she could be delighted
only with trifles.” Now, it appears by the letter, that the name of this
daughter was the same with her mother’s; therefore it could be no other
than Timoxena. Her knowledge, her conjugal virtues, her abhorrency from
the vanities of her sex, and from superstition, her gravity in behaviour,
and her constancy in supporting the loss of children, are likewise
celebrated by our author. No other wife of Plutarch is found mentioned,
and therefore we may conclude he had no more, by the same reason for
which we judge that he had no other master than Ammonius; because it is
evident he was so grateful in his nature, that he would have preserved
their memory.
The number of his children was at least five, so many being mentioned by
him. Four of them were sons; of the other sex only Timoxena, who died
at two years old, as is manifest from the epistle above mentioned. The
French translator, Amiot, from whom our old English translation of the
“Lives” was made, supposes him to have had another daughter, where he
speaks of his son-in-law, Crato. But the word γαμβρὸς, which Plutarch
there uses, is of a larger signification; for it may as well be expounded
father-in-law, his wife’s brother, or his sister’s husband, as Budæus
notes: this I the rather mention, because the same Amiot is tasked for
an infinite number of mistakes by his own countrymen of the present age,
which is enough to recommend this translation of our author into the
English tongue, being not from any copy, but from the Greek original.
Two other sons of Plutarch were already deceased before Timoxena; his
eldest, Autobulus, mentioned in his Symposiacks, and another, whose name
is not recorded. The youngest was called Charon, who also died in his
infancy. The two remaining are supposed to have survived him: the name
of one was Plutarch, after his own; and that of the other Lamprias, so
called in memory of his grandfather. This was he, of all his children,
who seems to have inherited his father’s philosophy; and to him we owe
the Table, or Catalogue, of Plutarch’s writings, and perhaps also the
Apophthegms. His nephew, but whether by his brother or sister remains
uncertain, was Sextus Chæroneus, who was much honoured by that learned
emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and who taught him the Greek tongue, and the
principles of philosophy. This emperor professing Stoicism, (as appears
by his writings,) inclines us to believe, that our Sextus Chæroneus
was of the Stoic sect; and consequently, that the world has generally
been mistaken in supposing him to have been the same man with Sextus
Empiricus, the sceptic, whom Suidas plainly tells us to have been an
African. Now, Empiricus could not but be a sceptic, for he opposes all
dogmatists, and particularly them. But I heard it first observed by an
ingenious and learned old gentleman, lately deceased, that many of Mr
Hobbes his seeming new opinions, are gathered from those which Sextus
Empiricus exposed. The book is extant, and I refer the curious to it, not
pretending to arraign or to excuse him.
Some think the famous critic, Longinus, was of Plutarch’s family,
descended from a sister of his; but the proofs are so weak, that I will
not insert them: they may both of them rely on their proper merits, and
stand not in want of a relation to each other.
It is needless to insist on his behaviour in his family. His love to his
wife, his indulgence to his children, his care of their education, are
all manifest in that part of his works, which is called his “Morals.”
Other parts of his disposition have been touched already; as, that he
was courteous and humane to all men, free from inconstancy, anger, and
the desire of revenge; which qualities of his, as they have been praised
by the authority of other writers, may also be recommended from his own
testimony of himself:—“I had rather (says he) be forgotten in the memory
of men, and that it should be said, there neither is, nor was, a man
called Plutarch, than they should report,—this Plutarch was unconstant,
changeable in his temper, prone to anger and revenge on the least
occasions.”—What he was to his slaves, you may believe from this; that,
in general, he accuses those masters of extreme hardness and injustice,
who use men like oxen, sell them in their age when they can drudge no
longer. “A man (says he) of a merciful disposition, ought not to retrench
the fodder from his cattle, nor the provender from his horses, when
they can work no longer, but to cherish them when worn out and old.”
Yet Plutarch, though he knew how to moderate his anger, was not, on
the contrary, subject to an insensibility of wrongs; not so remiss in
exacting duty, or so tame in suffering the disobedience of his servants,
that he could not correct, when they deserved it; as is manifest from
the following story, which Aulus Gellius had from the mouth of Taurus
the philosopher, concerning him: “Plutarch had a certain slave, a saucy,
stubborn, kind of fellow; in a word, one of those pragmatical servants,
who never make a fault, but they give a reason for it. His justifications
one time would not serve his turn, but his master commanded him to be
stripped, and that the law should be laid on his backside. He no sooner
felt the smart, but he muttered that he was unjustly punished, and that
he had done nothing to deserve the scourge. At last he began to bawl out
louder; and leaving off his groaning, his sighs, and his lamentations, to
argue the matter with more shew of reason; and, as under such a master
he musts needs have gained a smattering of learning, he cried out, that
Plutarch was not the philosopher he pretended himself to be; that he had
heard him waging war against all the passions, and maintaining, that
anger was unbecoming a wise man; nay, that he had written a particular
treatise in commendation of clemency: that therefore he contradicted his
precepts by his practices, since, abandoning himself over to his choler,
he exercised such inhuman cruelty on the body of his fellow-creature.
“How is this, Mr Varlet, (answered Plutarch,) by what signs and tokens
can you prove I am in passion? Is it by my countenance, my voice,
the colour of my face, by my words, or by my gestures, that you have
discovered this my fury? I am not of opinion that my eyes sparkle, that I
foam at mouth, that I gnash my teeth, or that my voice is more vehement,
or that my colour is either more pale or more red than at other times;
that I either shake or stamp with madness; that I say or do any thing
unbecoming a philosopher. These, if you know them not, are the symptoms
of a man in rage. In the mean, (turning to the officer who scourged him,)
while he and I dispute this matter, mind you your business on his back.”
His love to his friends, and his gratitude to his benefactors, are
every where observable in his dedications of his several works; and the
particular treatises he has written to them on several occasions, are
all suitable either to the characters of the men, or to their present
condition, and the circumstances under which they were. His love to his
country is from hence conspicuous, that he professes to have written
the life of Lucullus, and to have preserved the memory of his actions,
because of the favours he conferred on the city of Chæronea; which,
though his country received so long before, yet he thought it appertained
to him to repay them, and took an interest in their acknowledgment: as
also, that he vindicated the Bæotians from the calumnies of Herodotus,
the historian, in his book concerning the malignity of that author. In
which it is observable, that his zeal to his country transported him too
far; for Herodotus had said no more of them than what was generally held
to be true in all ages, concerning the grossness of their wits, their
voracity, and those other national vices which we have already noted
on this account; therefore, Petrarch has accused our author of the same
malignity for which he taxed Herodotus. But they may both stand acquitted
on different accounts: Herodotus for having given a true character of the
Thebans, and Plutarch for endeavouring to palliate the vices of a people
from whom he was descended. The rest of his manners, without entering
into particulars, were unblameable, if we excuse a little proneness to
superstition, and regulating his actions by his dreams. But how far this
will bear an accusation, I determine not; though Tully has endeavoured
to shew the vanity of dreams in his “Treatise of Divinations,” whither I
refer the curious.
On what occasion he repaired to Rome, at what time of his age he came
thither, how long he dwelt there, how often he was there, and in what
year he returned to his own country, are all uncertain. This we know,
that when Nero was in Greece, which was in his eleventh and twelfth
years, our author was at Delphos, under Ammonius, his master, as appears
by the disputation then managed, concerning the inscription of the two
letters, E, I. Nero not living long afterwards, it is almost indisputable
that he came not to Rome in all his reign. It is improbable that he would
undertake the voyage during the troublesome times of Galba, Otho, and
Vitellius: and we are not certain that he lived in Rome in the empire
of Vespasian. Yet we may guess, that the mildness of this emperor’s
dominion, his fame, and the virtues of his son Titus, assumed into the
empire afterwards by his father, might induce Plutarch, amongst other
considerations, to take this journey in his time. It is argued from the
following story, related by himself, that he was at Rome either in the
joint reign of the two Vespasians, or at least in that of the survivor
Titus. He says, then, in his last book concerning Curiosity,—“Reasoning,
or rather reading once at Rome, Arulenus Rusticus, the same man whom
afterwards Domitian put to death out of envy to his glory, stood
hearkening to me amongst my auditors. It so happened, that a soldier,
having letters for him from the emperor, [who was either Titus or his
father Vespasian, as Rualdus thinks,] broke through the crowd, to deliver
him those letters from the emperor. Observing this, I made a pause in my
dissertation, that Rusticus might have the leisure to read the mandate
which was sent him; but he absolutely refused to do it, neither would
he be entreated to break the seals, till I had wholly made an end of
my speech, and dismissed the company.” Now I suppose the stress of the
argument, to prove that this emperor was not Domitian, lies only in this
clause, “whom Domitian afterwards put to death;” but I think it rather
leaves it doubtful; for they might be Domitian’s letters which he then
received, and consequently he might not come to Rome till the reign of
that emperor. This Rusticus was not only a learned, but a good man. He
had been tribune of the people under Nero, was prætor in the time of
Vitellius, and sent ambassador to the forces raised under the name of
Vespasian, to persuade them to a peace. What offices he bore afterwards,
we know not; but the cause of his death, besides the envy of Domitian
to his fame, was, a certain book, or some Commentaries of his, wherein
he had praised too much the sanctity of Thrasea Pætus, whom Nero had
murdered; and the praise of a good citizen was insupportable to the
tyrant; being, I suppose, exasperated farther by some reflections of
Rusticus, who could not commend Thrasea, but at the same time he must
inveigh against the oppressor of the Roman liberty.
That Plutarch was married in his own country, and that before he came
to Rome, is probable. That the fame of him was come before him, by
reason of some part of his works already published, is also credible,
because he had so great resort of the Roman nobility to hear him read
immediately, as we believe, upon his coming: that he was invited thither
by the correspondence he had with Sossius Senecio, might be one reason
of his undertaking that journey, is almost undeniable.[6] It likewise
appears he was divers times at Rome; and perhaps, before he came to
inhabit there, might make acquaintance with this worthy man, Senecio,
to whom he dedicated almost all these Lives of Greeks and Romans. I say
almost all, because one of them, namely, that of Aratus, is inscribed in
most express words to Polycrates, the Sicyonian, the great grandson of
the said Aratus. This worthy patron and friend of Plutarch, Senecio, was
four time consul; the first time in the short reign of Cocceius Nerva, a
virtuous and a learned emperor; which opinion I rather follow than that
of Aurelius Cassiodorus, who puts back his consulship into the last of
Domitian, because it is not probable that vicious tyrant should exalt to
that dignity a man of virtue. This year falls in with the year of Christ,
ninety-nine.
But the great inducement of our author to this journey was certainly
the desire he had to lay in materials for his Roman Lives: that was
the design which he had formed early, and on which he had resolved to
build his fame. Accordingly, we have observed, that he had travelled
over Greece, to peruse the archives of every city, that he might be
able to write properly not only the lives of his Grecian worthies, but
the laws, the customs, the rites, and ceremonies of every place; which
that he might treat with the same mastery of skill, when he came to draw
his PARALLELS of the Romans, he took the invitation of his friends, and
particularly of our Sossius Senecio, to visit this mistress of the world,
this imperial city of Rome; and, by the favour of many great and learned
men then living, to search the records of the capitol, and the libraries,
which might furnish him with instruments for so noble an undertaking. But
that this may not seem to be my own bare opinion, or that of any modern
author whom I follow, Plutarch himself has delivered it as his motive,
in the Life of Demosthenes. The words are these: “Whosoever designs to
write an history, (which it is impossible to form to any excellency from
those materials that are ready at hand, or to take from common report,
while he sits lazily at home in his own study, but must of necessity be
gathered from foreign observations, and the scattered writings of various
authors,) it concerns him to take up his habitation in some renowned and
populous city, where he may command all sorts of books, and be acquainted
also with such particulars as have escaped the pens of writers, and are
only extant in the memories of men. Let him enquire diligently, and
weigh judiciously, what he hears and reads, lest he publish a lame work,
and be destitute of those helps which are required to its perfection.”
It is then most probable, that he passed his days at Rome in reading
philosophy of all kinds to the Roman nobility, who frequented his house,
and heard him as if there were somewhat more than human in his words; and
his nights, which were his only hours of private study, in searching and
examining records concerning Rome. Not but that he was entrusted also
with the management of public affairs in the empire, during his residence
in the metropolis; which may be made out by what Suidas relates of
him:—“Plutarch,” says he, “lived in the time of Trajan, and also before
his reign. That emperor bestowed on him the dignity of consul; [though
the Greek, I suppose, will bear, that he made him consul with himself, at
least transferred that honour on him:] an edict was also made in favour
of him, that the magistrates or officers of Illyria should do nothing
in that province without the knowledge and approbation of Plutarch.”
Now it is my particular guess, (for I have not read it any where,) that
Plutarch had the affairs of Illyria, now called Sclavonia, recommended
to him, because Trajan, we know, had wars on that side the empire with
Decebalus, king of Dacia; after whose defeat and death, the province of
Illyria might stand in need of Plutarch’s wisdom to compose and civilize
it. But this is only hinted as what possibly might be the reason of our
philosopher’s superintendency in those quarters, which the French author
of his life seems to wonder at, as having no relation either to Chæronea
or Greece.
When he was first made known to Trajan, is like the rest uncertain; or
by what means, whether by Senecio, or any other, he was introduced to
his acquaintance; but it is most likely that Trajan, then a private man,
was one of his auditors, amongst others of the nobility of Rome. It is
also thought, this wise emperor made use of him in all his councils; and
that the happiness which attended him in his undertakings, together with
the administration of the government, which in all his reign was just
and regular, proceeded from the instructions which were given him by
Plutarch. Johannes Sarisberiensis, who lived above six hundred years ago,
has transcribed a letter, written, as he supposed, by our author to that
emperor. Whence he had it, is not known, nor the original in Greek to be
produced; but it passed for genuine in that age, and if not Plutarch’s,
is at least worthy of him, and what might well be supposed a man of his
character would write; for which reason I have here translated it.