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/lit/ - Literature

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16353395 No.16353395 [Reply] [Original]

Is this guy the best classical non-fiction writer or what? Actually, I can't even think of modern historians that match his skill in entertaining the reader while keeping true to the sources. Imagine reading fucking MARY BEARD when you can read Chad primary sources like the Parallel Lives.

>> No.16353408

>>16353395
Herodotus is miles better
>muh Hippocleides
>m-muh dancing away the truth

>> No.16353436

Being a practicing Platonism priest initiator obviously demands the cream of the crop.

>> No.16353444

Rome had a streak of absolutely based historians (I know Plutarch isn't strictly a Roman but you know what I mean). Livy, Tacitus, and Sallust also have that uncanny skill to draw you in the moment your eyes linger on the page. Also Josephus wrote one of the most compelling narratives on his experience during the Jewish war against Rome.

>> No.16353456

What about his other writings? Are his essays good?

>> No.16353479
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16353479

>>16353408
True. Herodotus is infinitely more entertaining.

>> No.16353508

>>16353408
>>16353479
Damn Pluto btfo by based ant man

>> No.16353517

>>16353408
>>16353479
Herodotus is a pleasant enough read, but you haven't read both if you think he's better or even comparable to Plutarch

>>16353456
I'm only reading the Lives, but I do find his passages about virtue in it to be interesting and worth some contemplation:

One day in Rome, Caesar, seeing some rich foreigners nursing and petting young lapdogs and monkeys, enquired whether in their parts of the world the women bore no children: a truly imperial reproof to those who waste on animals the affection which they ought to bestow upon mankind. May we not equally blame those who waste the curiosity and love of knowledge which belongs to human nature, by directing it to worthless, not to useful objects? It is indeed unavoidable that external objects, whether good or bad, should produce some effect upon our senses; but every man is able, if he chooses, to concentrate his mind upon any subject he may please. For this reason we ought to seek virtue, not merely in order to contemplate it, but that we may ourselves derive some benefit from so doing.

I believe all of his works are on Gutenberg, so you can check if they're worth reading yourself.