Plutarch - biography, facts from life, photographs, reference information. Plutarch is

Plutarch Plutarch

(c. 45 - c. 127), ancient Greek writer and historian. The main work is "Comparative Lives" of prominent Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The rest of the numerous works that have come down to us are united under the conditional name "Moralia".

PLUTARCH

PLUTARCH (c. 46 - c. 120), ancient Greek writer, historian, author of moral-philosophical and historical-biographical works. From the huge literary heritage of Plutarch, which amounted to approx. 250 compositions, no more than a third of the works have survived, most of which are united under the general title "Moral". Another group - "Comparative Biographies" - includes 23 pairs of biographies of prominent statesmen Ancient Greece and Rome, selected according to the similarity of their historical mission and the closeness of their characters.
Biography
The ancient tradition did not preserve 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. there was a battle 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 the carefully preserved traditions of antiquity 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. Returning to his native city, from his youthful years he took part in its administration, holding various magistracies, including the prominent position of archon-eponym (cm. EPONYMS).
Plutarch repeatedly went on political assignments to Rome, where he struck up friendly relations with many statesmen, among whom was a friend of Emperor Trajan, the consul Quintus Sosius Senekion; Plutarch dedicated Comparative Biographies and Table Talk 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 testifies that the emperor granted Plutarch Roman citizenship, classifying him as a member of the Mestrian family.
Despite a brilliant political career, Plutarch chose a quiet life in his native city, surrounded by his children and students, who made up a small academy in Chaeronea. “As for me,” Plutarch points out, “I live in 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 the year 95, fellow citizens elected him a member of the college of priests of the sanctuary of Delphic Apollo. A statue was erected in his honor at Delphi, from which, during excavations in 1877, a pedestal with a poetic dedication was found.
The time of Plutarch's life refers to the era of the "Hellenic revival" of the beginning of the 2nd century. During this period, the educated circles of the Empire were seized by the desire to imitate the ancient Hellenes both in the customs of everyday life and in literary creativity. The policy of Emperor Hadrian, who provided assistance to the Greek cities that had fallen into decay, could not but arouse among Plutarch's compatriots the hope of a possible revival of the traditions of the independent policies of Hellas.
The literary activity of Plutarch was primarily of an educational and educational 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 teaching genre - diatribe. (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 writings 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 young men get to know poetry") and questions of cosmogony ("On the generation of the world soul according to Timaeus").
The works of Plutarch are imbued with the spirit of Platonic philosophy; his writings are full of quotations and reminiscences from the works of the great philosopher, and the treatise Platonic Questions is a real commentary on his texts. Plutarch is concerned about the problems of religious and philosophical content, to which the so-called. Pythian dialogues (“On the sign “E” in Delphi”, “On the decline of the oracles”), the essay “On the daimonia of Socrates” and the treatise “On Isis and Osiris”.
A group of dialogues clothed in traditional form conversations of companions at a feast, is a collection of entertaining information from mythology, deep philosophical remarks and sometimes curious natural science ideas. The titles of the dialogues can give an idea of ​​the variety of questions Plutarch is interested in: “Why do we not believe in autumn dreams”, “Which hand of Aphrodite was hurt by Diomedes”, “Various legends about the number of Muses”, “What is the meaning of Plato in the belief that God always remains a geometer” . To the same circle of Plutarch's works belong "Greek Questions" and "Roman Questions", containing different points of view on the origin of state institutions, traditions and customs of antiquity.
Comparative biographies
The main work of Plutarch, which became one of the most famous works of ancient literature, was his biographical writings. "Comparative Lives" absorbed a huge historical material, including information from the works of ancient historians that have not survived to this day, the author's personal impressions of ancient monuments, quotations from Homer, epigrams and epitaphs. It is customary to reproach Plutarch for an uncritical attitude to the sources used, 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. GRECO-PERSIAN WARS). Plutarch, who lived 400 years later, in an era when, in his words, a Roman boot was raised over the head of every Greek, wanted to see the great generals and politicians not as they really were, but the ideal embodiment of valor and courage. He did not seek to recreate history in all its real fullness, but found in it outstanding examples of wisdom, heroism, self-sacrifice for the sake of the motherland, designed to strike the imagination of his contemporaries.
In the introduction to the biography of Alexander the Great, Plutarch formulates the principle that he put as the basis for the selection of facts: “We do not write history, but biographies, and virtue or depravity is not always visible in the most glorious deeds, but often some insignificant deed, word or joke better reveal the character of a person than battles in which tens of thousands die, leadership huge armies and city sieges. The artistic skill of Plutarch made the "Comparative Lives" a favorite reading for young people who learned from his writings about the events of the history of Greece and Rome. The heroes of Plutarch became the personification of historical eras: ancient times were associated with the activities of the wise legislators of Solon (cm. SOLON), Lycurgus (cm. LYCURGUS) and Numa (cm. NUMA POMPILIUS), and the end of the Roman Republic was presented as a majestic drama, driven by the clashes of the characters of Caesar (cm. CAESAR Gaius Julius), Pompeii (cm. POMPEI Gnaeus), Krassa (cm. KRASS), Anthony, Brutus (cm. Brutus Decimus Junius Albinus).
It can be said without exaggeration that thanks to Plutarch, European culture developed an idea of ​​ancient history as a semi-legendary era of freedom and civic prowess. That is why his works were highly valued by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, the figures of the Great French Revolution and the generation of the Decembrists. The very name of the Greek writer became a household name, since in the 19th century numerous publications of biographies of great people were called "Plutarchs".

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

See what "Plutarch" is in other dictionaries:

From Chaeronea (c. 45 c. 127), Greek. writer and philosopher. Belonged to the Platonic Academy and professed the cult of Plato, paying tribute to numerous. stoich., peri pathetic. and Pythagorean influences in the spirit characteristic of that time ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (c. 40 120 AD) Greek writer, historian and philosopher; lived in 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, not seeming philosophizing and a joke to achieve a serious goal. Conversation should be as common to those who feast as wine. Chief... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

Plutarch- Plutarch. Plutarch (c. 45 c. 127), Greek writer. The main work "Comparative Lives" of prominent Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The rest of the numerous works that have come down to us are united under the conditional name "Moralia" ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

And husband. Star. redk.Otch.: Plutarchovich, Plutarchovna. Derivatives: Tarya; Arya. Origin: (Greek personal name Plutarchos. From plutos wealth and arche power.) Dictionary of personal names. Plutarch a, m. Star. rare Reporter: Plutarchovich, 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 the Pythian Apollo in Delphi, traveled to Egypt, Italy, lived in Rome. Most of the works of Plutarch devoted to scientific, ... ... List of ancient Greek names

- (c. 45 c. 127) ancient Greek writer and historian. Main work Comparative biographies of prominent Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The rest of the numerous works that have come down to us are united under the conditional name of Moralia ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Plutarchus, Πλούταρχος). A Greek writer who lived in Boeotia in the first century A.D., who traveled widely and spent some time in Rome. He died about 120 tons from R. X. Of his works of historical and philosophical content, the most remarkable ... ... Encyclopedia of mythology

ancient Greek historian, writer, biographer and moralist, author of more than 250 works, most of which are lost, the main work is "Comparative Lives"

Ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch, Plutarch's biography, Plutarch's writings, Plutarch's quotes and aphorisms, Plutarch's family, Plutarch's education, Plutarch's travels, Plutarch's social activities, Plutarch's writing activity, Plutarch and ancient literature, Plutarch's most famous works, Plutarch's comparative biographies, Plutarch's morals, works Plutarch, Plutarch's books, Aristotle and Plutarch

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Plutarch is, definition

Plutarch is ancient Greek writer, moralist, philosopher. No more than a third of the works have survived to this day, most of which are united under the general name "Moral". Another group includes "Comparative Lives", which includes 23 biographies of the famous Ancient and Rome, selected according to the similarity of their historical mission and similarity of character.

Plutarch is one of the most famous ancient philosophers of Greece, an outstanding biographer - author of biographies of the most famous people of his time and the ancient world, historian, public figure, moralist, politician, essayist, famous writer, author of more than 200 works, including Comparative Biographies, treatises “Instructions on state affairs”, “On the love of money”, “On curiosity”, the author of wise sayings. Plutarch's writings, for the most part, have not survived.

Plutarch is the author of "Comparative Biographies" - these are biographies of the great figures of the Greco-Roman world, combined in. They are of great importance for the knowledge of the ancient history of Greece and Rome, since many works of writers, from which he drew information, have not reached us.

Plutarch is an outstanding ancient Greek thinker, whose treatises cover moral and ethical issues - "Instructions on public affairs", "On the suppression of anger", "On the love of money", "On curiosity" and others, as well as some of the "Comparative Lives": "Agesilaus and Pompey "," Alexander and Caesar "," Demosthenes and Cicero ".

Plutarch is the famous ancient philosopher, historian and politician from Chaeronea, whose writings are treatises in which the tradition of Platonism and polemical writings are developed, aimed at refuting the positions of Stoic philosophy.

Plutarch is public figure, writer, historian and - one of the most famous and popular figures of the ancient world.

Plutarch is an ancient philosopher who was born in the 40s of the 1st century in Boeotia, in the small town of Chaeronea, where in 338 BC. e. there was a battle between the troops of Philip of Macedon and the Greek troops.

Plutarch is ancient Greek writer and historian. The main work is "Comparative Lives" of prominent Greeks and Romans (50 biographies). The rest of the numerous works that have come down to us are united under the conditional name "Moralia".

Plutarch is ancient Greek historian, writer, author of historical-biographical and moral-philosophical works.

Plutarch is the author of 250 works, but less than half of his works, about a third of his works, have survived. Most of the preserved works are divided into 2 groups: "Moral" and the second group of works that Plutarch created - "Comparative Lives".

Biography of Plutarch

OK. 46-ok. 127 AD Plutarch's date of birth

The exact dates are unknown. Estimated approx. 46 - ok. 127 AD Born in the 40s of the 1st century in Boeotia, in the small town of Chaeronea, where in 338 BC. e. there was a battle 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.

Known about Plutarch

Plutarch's education

Plutarch studied in Athens, was a priest of the Pythian Apollo in Delphi, traveled to Egypt, and lived in Rome. He received a traditional grammatical and rhetorical education, which he continued in Athens, becoming a student at the school of the philosopher Ammonius.

In addition to Ammonius, Plutarch had other teachers. He supplemented his education by reading books. Thanks to his extraordinarily good memory, he acquired in this way an enormous learning. Plutarch carefully read the writings of Greek poets, orators, historians and philosophers and thus studied the history and Russian literature. He also knew fine arts and music theory, natural sciences and medicine.

Travels of Plutarch

Many of Plutarch's travels are known. He visited Alexandria, the center of the then education, received education in Athens, visited Sparta, where he studied documentary sources on the history of this country, visited Plataea and Thermopylae, where the victory of the Greeks over the Persians was celebrated for several centuries, and Sardis, famous for its rich architecture temples.

I was in Eleusis, the famous Athenian suburb, where mysteries popular throughout the Greek world were performed. I visited Corinth near Thermopylae, Rome and other historical places in Italy. When visiting Alexandria, he got acquainted with the geography, customs and mythology of Egypt. Traveling along Malaya, he talked with old-timers, got acquainted with the life, traditions of the peoples, their legends about the distant past.

These travels for the work of Plutarch as a historian were of particular importance. He saw with his own eyes famous places associated with major historical events and people whose biographies he left to posterity. High education, breadth of knowledge helped him gain respect, find admirers and patrons.

Sayings and sayings of Plutarch

About values

A noble origin is a blessing, but it is the blessing of the ancestors.

Wealth is honorable, but it is a matter of happiness.

Fame is desirable but fickle.

Beauty is beautiful, but transient.

Health is valuable, but easily destroyed.

Strength is enviable, but it is destroyed by old age and disease.

Education is the only thing that is divine and immortal in us; and the two best things in human nature: reason and speech.

The wildest foals make the best horses, as long as they are properly trained and ridden.

When you scold others so that you yourself are far from what you reprimand others for.

About self-education

God is a hope for the brave, not an excuse for the cowardly.

Any delusion is harmful, but where passion is mixed with it, it is doubly harmful.

Schadenfreude is the enjoyment of someone else's grief.

Desire prevents us from enjoying what we have.

Animal is not as different from animal as man is from man.

When Solon was asked which state was the most comfortable, he replied: "The one in which the unoffended are prosecuted and the offenders are punished no less than the offended."

About people

Drinking poison from a golden cup and accepting advice from an insidious friend are one and the same.

The truth of the matter, once it is correctly stated, is indestructible.

Just as ravens swoop in to peck out the eyes of the dead, so the flatterer plunders the wealth of the foolish.

Slander and slander must be avoided, like a poisonous worm on a rose - they are hidden by thin and polished turns.

There are differences in remarks concerning bodily defects.

A hook-nosed or snub-nosed one will only smile if you make fun of his nose ...

But a hint of a bad smell from the nose or mouth is extremely painful.

The bald ones are condescending to making fun of their shortcomings, and those who have an eye injury are hostile ...

And in general, the attitude of people to their external shortcomings is different: one is burdened by one, the other by another ...

Therefore, whoever wants his behavior in society to be pleasant to those around him must take into account their character and mores in his jokes.

It is also necessary to take into account the composition of those present: what will cause laughter in the company of friends and peers will be unpleasant to hear in the presence of a wife, or father, or teacher ...

Flattery is like a thin shield, painted with paint: it is pleasant to look at it, but there is no need for it.

Fishing with poison allows you to easily and quickly get fish, but spoils it, making it inedible; so also the wives who try to keep their husbands with them by divination or love potions, captivate them with sensual pleasures, but then live with the insane and insane.

Honors change morals, but rarely for the better.

Traitors betray themselves first of all.

The speech of a politician should not be either youthfully ardent or theatrical, like the speeches of ceremonial speakers, weaving garlands of graceful and weighty words ...

Courage is the beginning of victory.

To do bad deeds is low, to do good when it is not associated with danger is a common thing. A good man is one who does great and noble deeds, even if he risks everything in doing so.

Those who are greedy for praise are poor in merit.

The punished person has no reason to resist correction if he realizes that he was punished not in a fit of anger, but on the basis of impartial exposure.

Character is nothing but a long-term habit.

A sane person should beware of enmity and bitterness.

A few vices are enough to cloud many virtues.

Constantly learning, I come to old age.

Not a single word spoken was as useful as many words not spoken.

No body can be so strong that wine cannot damage it.

I do not need a friend who, agreeing with me in everything, changes his views with me, nodding his head, because the shadow does the same better.

Courage and fortitude are necessary for people not only against the weapons of enemies, but also against any blows.

The victorious sleep sweeter than the vanquished.

About life

He who expects to secure his health by being lazy acts just as foolishly as a man who thinks in silence to improve his voice.

Small errors seem big if they are found in the behavior of those who are entrusted with power.

Medicine makes us die longer and harder.

There is hope for those who have nothing else.

It is the excess that makes us happy, and not what everyone needs.

Learn to listen and you can benefit even from those who speak badly.

One should never destroy anything without being sure of the possibility of replacing what is being destroyed with the same advantage.

The need to love creates fictitious attachments.

Why is it customary at Knossos for a debtor to steal his own? Maybe they did this so that they could be accused of robbery and the more severely punish the unpaid debtor?

Compassion is grief for someone else's misfortune, envy is grief for someone else's happiness.

Learning is the only thing in us that is divine and immortal; the greatest advantages endowed in human nature are reason and speech.

Among the Hellenes, smart people speak, but fools do things.

A disciple is not a vessel to be filled, but a torch to be lit.

Students - will build "tomorrow"

A person can only be who he is.

Although the boys stone the frogs for fun, but the frogs die for real.

I am surprised at the one who allowed the distorted forms of dead bodies on his table and demanded for his daily food what until recently were beings gifted with movement, understanding and voice.

A noble origin is a blessing, but it is the blessing of the ancestors. Wealth is honorable, but it is a matter of happiness. … Strength is enviable, but it is destroyed by old age and disease. Education is the only thing that is divine and immortal in us.

Conversation should be as common to those who feast as wine.

Chatterbox wants to force himself to be loved - and arouses hatred, wants to render a service - and becomes obsessive, wants to arouse surprise - and becomes ridiculous; he offends his friends, serves his enemies.

The highest wisdom is, when philosophizing, do not turn out to be philosophizing and reach a serious goal as a joke.

They say that nature has given everyone two ears and one tongue to speak less than to listen.

The two main assets of human nature are the mind and reasoning.

A blasphemous tongue betrays the reckless.

When the sun goes out of the world, everything is darkened; likewise, a conversation devoid of insolence is not all good.

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.

We often ask a question not in need of an answer, but in an effort 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 hearing and occupy other people's thoughts, is the same as climbing to kiss a person who longs for the kiss of another, or trying to attract the gaze of another to himself.

The power of speech lies in the ability to express a lot in a few words.

Sometimes it is not without benefit to shut the offender's mouth with a witty rebuke: such a rebuke should be brief and not reveal either irritation or rage, but let it be able to bite a little with a calm smile, returning the blow; just as arrows fly from a solid object back to the one who sent them, so an insult seems to fly back from an intelligent and self-controlled speaker and hit the offender.

About family

At first, newlyweds should especially beware of disagreements and skirmishes, looking at how recently glued pots easily crumble from the slightest push; but over time, when the places of fastening become strong, neither fire nor they are taken.

A decent woman should not even show off her conversations, and she should be just as ashamed to speak in front of strangers as she is to undress in front of them, because the voice betrays the character of the speaker, and the properties of her soul, and mood.

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 benevolent.

The marital union, if it is based on mutual love, forms a single fused whole; if it is concluded for the sake of dowry or procreation, then it consists of conjugated parts; if only in order to sleep together, then it consists of separate parts, and it is correct to consider such a marriage not as a life together, but as living under the same roof.

Any business with 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.

A wife is so unbearable 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.

Marrying should not be done with the eyes and fingers, as some do, counting how much a dowry is for the bride, instead of finding out what she will be like in life together.

Wives who prefer to push around with a stupid husband rather than obey a clever one remind those who on the way prefer to lead a blind man than to follow a man who can see and know the way.

A wife should not make friends of her own; Enough with her and her husband's friends.

A chaste wife should appear in public only with her husband, and when he is away, remain invisible, sitting at home.

What makes a woman beautiful is what makes her more beautiful, but it is not gold, emeralds and purple that make her so, but modesty, decency and modesty.

A smart wife, while an angry husband screams and scolds, remains silent, and only when he stops talking, starts a conversation with him to soften him and calm him down.

Herodotus was wrong when he said that along with clothes, a woman removes shame from herself; on the contrary, a chaste woman, taking off her clothes, is clothed in shame, and the more modesty between spouses, the more love this means.

Harshness makes a wife's chastity repulsive, as does untidiness her simplicity.

A wife should talk only with her husband, and with other people - through her husband, and let her not be upset by this.

A voluptuous husband makes his wife wanton and lustful; the wife of a decent and virtuous person becomes modest and chaste.

Husband and wife and wife and husband should be avoided everywhere and always, but most of all in the marital bed ...

Quarrels, squabbles, and mutual insults, once started in the lodge, are not easily put to rest in another time and place.

Anger and irascibility have no place in married life.

Strictness suits a married woman, but let this harshness be useful and sweet, like wine, and not bitter, like aloe, and unpleasant, like medicine.

A wife should not rely on a dowry, not on nobility, not on her beauty, but on what can truly bind a husband to herself: on courtesy, good-naturedness and compliance - and these qualities should be manifested every day not through force, as if reluctantly. but willingly, joyfully and willingly.

Whoever treats his wife too harshly, not deigning jokes and laughter, he forces her to seek pleasure on the side ..

Love is always diverse, both in many respects, and also in the fact that the jokes that affect it are burdensome and indignant for some, while others are pleasant. Here it is necessary to conform to the circumstances of the moment. Just as a breath can extinguish a fire that arises due to its weakness, and when it flares up, gives it nourishment and strength, so love, while it is still secretly growing, is indignant and indignant against disclosure, and flaring up with a bright flame, finds food in joking and responds to them with a smile.

Like a fire that flares up easily in reeds, straw, or hare hair, but quickly dies out if it does not find other food for itself, love ignites brightly with blooming youth and bodily attractiveness, but will soon die out if it is not nourished by spiritual virtues and good disposition of young spouses. .

Plutarch's family

The biography of Plutarch is very scarce 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.

Plutarch was the son of Aristobulus, who was himself a biographer and philosopher. Plutarch's father was undoubtedly a wealthy man, but he was not an aristocrat. Not being an aristocrat, Plutarch did not trace his family back to too much antiquity and did not bring any famous heroes from his ancestors.

It is only known that his great-grandfather witnessed the brutality of Antony's soldiers in the struggle of this leader with Octavian. But what position this great-grandfather held is unknown. Apparently, the whole family of Plutarch always belonged to the class of educated people, lovers of literature, mythology and various kinds of legends and legends, both from the history of Greece and Rome in general, and, in particular, from the history of Plutarch's native city - Chaeronea.

This town, Chaeronea, has always been a rather provincial and unpopular place. But there was one historical date, thanks to which this town became famous forever. The fact is that in 338 BC. under Chaeronea, that famous battle of the Greeks with the Macedonians took place, as a result of which the Greeks suffered a final defeat, and Greece forever remained subject to the Macedonian and subsequent rulers. In honor of the fallen soldiers, the Greeks erected a five-meter statue of a lion made of marble at the battle site.

The Greek region of Boeotia, where Chaeronea was located, was never famous for its culture or high morals. The Aeolians who inhabited it have always been distinguished by great moral freedom, a tendency to an unrestrained and sensual life, as well as rudeness and cruelty. It must be assumed that the cultural environment of Plutarch's childhood and the severity of morals in his family was the reason that Plutarch turned out to be a person quite far from these negative aspects of the public around him and even a direct moralist who actively fought against such traits.

The wealth and education of the family gave Plutarch the opportunity to start school early and become a highly educated person at a young age. He received a traditional grammatical and rhetorical education, which he continued in Athens, becoming a student at the school of the philosopher Ammonius.

Plutarch thoroughly studied mathematics, philosophy, fine arts, rhetoric, music theory, natural sciences and medicine. He was a favorite student of Ammonius, whose influence affected Plutarch's choice of philosophical direction. Returning to his native city, Plutarch took part in it from his youth, holding various magistracies, including the prominent position of eponymous archon.

Plutarch was repeatedly sent on political assignments to Rome, where he struck up friendly relations with many political figures. Proximity to influential circles of the empire and growing literary fame brought Plutarch new honorary positions: under Trajan he became proconsul, under Hadrian - procurator of the province of Achaia. Plutarch's hometown is Chaeronea, in the Greek region of Boeotia.

All representatives of the Plutarch family are necessarily educated and cultured, necessarily high in spirit and distinguished by impeccable behavior. His grandfather Lamprius was an enlightened man, a cheerful and witty conversationalist. Father Aristobulus knew history well, was familiar with philosophy, and the two brothers, Lamprius and Timon, were reputed to be educated people, organizers of feasts and discussions on various historical, philosophical and political topics. The environment in which Plutarch grew up had a great influence on the formation of his worldview, and family traditions about famous events and personalities aroused interest in history.

Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, was first mentioned in the writings of Ruald in 1624. titled "The Life of Plutarch". She is known only from letters addressed to her by Plutarch. Plutarch often speaks about his wife in his writings, and always speaks in the highest tone. She was not only a loving wife, but she was sickened by various feminine weaknesses like outfits. She was loved for her simplicity of disposition, for her natural behavior, for her moderation and attentiveness.

Plutarch had four sons and one daughter, who, like one of the sons, died in infancy. Plutarch loved his family so much that he dedicated even his own compositions to its members, and on the occasion of the death of his daughter, a tender and sublime consolatory message to his own wife. At least two of Plutarch's sons came of age and later, together with their father, organized a small academy, where other students of Plutarch also studied.

Public activities of Plutarch

Returning to his native city, from his youthful years he took part in its administration, holding various magistracies, including the prominent position of eponymous archon. Plutarch was repeatedly sent on political assignments to Rome, where he struck up friendly relations with many statesmen. Proximity to influential circles of the empire and growing literary fame brought Plutarch new honorary positions: under Emperor Trajan he became proconsul, under Hadrian - procurator of the province of Achaia.

In his native Chaeronea, P. founded a philosophical school, devoting himself pedagogical activity; was elected archon, was included in his declining years in the college of Delphic priests.

Plutarch's public activities earned him great respect in Greece. Around the year 95, fellow citizens elected him a member of the college of priests of the sanctuary of Delphic Apollo. A statue was erected in his honor at Delphi, from which, during excavations in 1877, a pedestal with a poetic dedication was found.

The time of Plutarch's life refers to the era of the "Hellenic revival" of the beginning of the 2nd century. During this time, the educated circles of the Empire were seized by the desire to imitate the ancient Hellenes both in the customs of everyday life and in literary creativity. The policy of Emperor Hadrian, who provided assistance to the Greek cities that had fallen into decay, could not but arouse among Plutarch's compatriots the hope of a possible revival of the traditions of the independent policies of Hellas.

The literary activity of Plutarch was primarily of an educational and educational 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 teaching genre - diatribe. Plutarch's worldview is harmonious and clear: he believed in a higher mind that governs the universe, and is like a wise teacher who tirelessly reminds his listeners of eternal human values.

Famous people Plutarch

Plutarch's writing activity

The works of Plutarch reflected the best aspects of a harmonious Hellenic worldview: good-natured sincerity, moral warmth, calm moderation in judgments, and an optimistic view of events and shortcomings of people that our contemporaries lack.

Even if we exclude the false and dubious writings of Plutarch, the list of quite reliable and, moreover, writings that have come down to us is, in comparison with other writers, huge. Works of a historical and philosophical nature have come down to us: 2 essays on Plato, 6 - against the Stoics and Epicureans.

In addition, there are works devoted to the problems of cosmology and astronomy, psychology, ethics, politics, family life, pedagogy, antiquarian history. Plutarch wrote several treatises of religious and religious-mythical content. It is especially necessary to single out his writings of a moralistic content, where he analyzes such, for example, human passions as avarice, anger, curiosity.

Table and banquet conversations, one might say, a special literary genre, as well as collections of sayings, can be attributed to very complex topics in their subject matter. All these works form one common section, usually bearing the obscure name of Moralia. In this section, moral writings, however, are presented very broadly, and almost no treatise in Plutarch can do without this morality.

A special section of Plutarch's writings, and also huge, also very popular in all ages, and perhaps even more popular than Moralia, is the Comparative Lives. Here you can find strictly historical data, and moralistics, and passion for the art of portraiture, and philosophy, and fiction.

Plutarch and ancient literature

The ancient worldview and ancient artistic practice are based on the intuitions of a living, animate and intelligent cosmos, always visible and audible, always sensually perceived, completely material cosmos with the motionless earth in the middle and with the sky as an area of ​​​​the eternal and correct movement of the heavenly vault. All this, of course, is predetermined by the very nature of the socio-historical 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 sensual-material cosmos and only then drew conclusions from this for the theory of personality. and society.

This forever determined the emphatically material, that is, the architectural and sculptural imagery of ancient artistic constructions, which we certainly find in Plutarch. So, sensory-material cosmology is the starting point of Plutarch's worldview and creativity.

Plutarch and the classical period of ancient literature

Since ancient literature existed for more than a millennium, it went through many different periods of its development. The cosmology of the classical period, namely the high classics, is the doctrine of the universe in Plato's Timaeus. Here is given a clear and distinct picture of the living and material-sensual 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 the deity, but not in the form of a naive dogma, but in the form of a thoughtful demand for being, and, moreover, a single being, which is the limit and possibility for any partial being and for any multiplicity. Plutarch is deeply convinced that if there is being partial, changeable and incomplete, then this means that there is being one and whole, unchanging and all-perfect.

“After all, the divine is not a multiplicity, as each of us, representing a diverse collection of a thousand different particles that are in change and artificially mixed. But the essential must be one, for there is only one. Diversity, due to the difference from the existing, turns into non-existence” (“On “E” in Delphi”, 20). “It belongs to the eternally unchanging and pure to be one and unmixed” (ibid.).

“As far as it is possible to find a correspondence between a changeable sensation and an intelligible and unchanging idea, so much this reflection gives in one way or another some kind of ghostly idea of ​​​​divine mercy and happiness” (ibid., 21). Such a reflection of divine perfection is primarily the cosmos. This is already mentioned in the treatise cited 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 whole treatises in connection with his writings 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 the idea and matter, of the eternal, but disorderly existence of matter, of the transformation of this matter by the divine Demiurge into the beauty, structure and order of the now existing cosmos, of 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, animated 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 ​​the cosmos. And the same classical idea is the dream of Plutarch, who praises in every way the beauties of the perfect, albeit quite sensual-material cosmos.

But even here, at the height of his theoretical worldview, Plutarch begins to show some kind of instability and even duality of his general philosophical position. When Plato built his cosmos, it never occurred to him to oppose good and evil. It was enough for him that the eternal divine Mind with its eternal ideas once and for all formalized formless and disordered matter, from where the eternal and also forever beautiful cosmos appeared. Plutarch brings a whole new twist to this classic optimism.

In the mentioned treatise on the origin of the soul according to Timaeus, he suddenly begins to argue that not all disordered matter was put in 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 any disorder, all catastrophes both in nature and in society, that is, simply speaking, the evil soul of the world. In this sense, Plutarch interprets all the main old philosophers - Heraclitus, Parmenides, Democritus, even Plato and even Aristotle.

Plutarch and Hellenism

Behind the classics of the VI-IV centuries. BC was followed by that reworking of the classics, which is usually called not the period of Hellenism, but the period of Hellenism. The essence of Hellenism lies in the subjective reconstruction of the classical ideal, in its logical construction and emotional and intimate experience and grasp.

Since Plutarch acted in the era of Hellenism, his worldview and artistic practice are not built on pure Platonism, but on its subjectivist and immanently subjective interpretation. Plutarch is a subjectivist-minded interpreter of Platonism while maintaining cosmological objectivism in general.

Plutarch and the early period of Hellenism

Plutarch did not live in the age of initial Hellenism (III-I centuries BC), but immediately after it. And yet the imprint of this early Hellenism proved decisively characteristic of the whole of Plutarch. This initial period of Hellenism did not influence Plutarch with its three philosophical schools of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism. These schools arose as a defensive measure against the then emerging individualism and subjectivism.

It was necessary to educate a strict and stern subject and protect his inner peace in the face of the then growing mass of the Hellenistic-Roman empires. Plutarch turned out to be alien to both the stern rigorism of the Stoics, and the carefree enjoyment of the Epicureans, and the complete rejection of any logical construction by the skeptics. Of all the aspects of the then growing subjectivism, Plutarch was closest to the small, modest and simple human personality with its everyday attachments, with its love for the family and native places, and with its soft, cordial 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 brought the human personality to the forefront and also wanted to give a personally thoughtful and intimately experienced picture of objective cosmology. But these three main schools of primary 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 peculiar 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 a positive influence on Plutarch, but often even exceeded other forms of human subjective orientation in Plutarch.

The first such trend in Plutarch is everydayism and a completely philistine personal orientation. This everydayism filled Plutarch with absolutely all his moods and reached the point of complete ease, to everyday narrow-mindedness, to meaningless verbosity and, one might say frankly, to chatter. But after all, several centuries passed from Menander to Plutarch, and purely everyday analyzes at the time of Plutarch were already outdated.

What, then, was the point of devoting dozens and hundreds of pages to idle chatter on everyday topics and random anecdotes? And for Plutarch, there was a very big meaning here. On the basis of such continuous everyday life, the psychology of a small person acted, there was a tendency to protect oneself from grandiose and too severe problems. Or, to be more precise, the harsh 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 large for him a long series of deep, often tragic and often unbearable problems. He managed to endure and endure these big problems, often significant and even solemn for him, but always demanding and responsible.

The everyday life of a small person just helped Plutarch to maintain peace of mind and not 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 a deep meaning to them.

Bytovizm of the initial period of 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 huge in its strength, a tendency that was deeply perceived by Plutarch, 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 everything classical, and even more so everything pre-classical, never knew any special moralism. The fact is that all the classics live on heroism, and 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 only the gods themselves. It was possible, of course, 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 improve in heroism. But ancient Greek classical heroism is not a pedagogical, educational area, and therefore not moralistic. Heroism in those days was a natural human phenomenon or, what is the same, divine. But then the classics ended, and then in the period of Hellenism, the most ordinary person appeared, not a descendant of the gods, not a hero by nature, but simply a man.

For his daily affairs, such a person had to be specially educated, specially trained and trained, always consulting with the elders and most experienced. And it was here that that moralism was born, which was unknown to the classical hero. To become a decent and worthy person, one had 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 enjoyment. If only to teach, if only to instruct, if only to clarify difficult questions, if only to put your reader on the path of eternal introspection, eternal self-correction and relentless self-improvement.

In short, everydayism and good-natured moralism passed to Plutarch from this initial period of Hellenism. In other words, Plutarch was a benevolent Platonist, for whom everyday writing and moralistic forms 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 soft-hearted and sincerely minded writer and moralist.

Finally, in addition to direct criticism of the three philosophical schools of primary Hellenism and in addition to the everyday moralistics of a small person, Plutarch inherited from early Hellenism that boldness of progressive subjectivism, which demanded that evil be seriously taken into account in nature, personality and society in spite of undivided cosmological optimism.

It was the modest and philistine-minded Plutarch who demanded the recognition of not only the good, but also the evil soul of the world. In this sense, he dared to criticize even Plato himself. Plutarch demanded recognition for evil, as well as for good, of great power

Plutarch and the Hellenic Renaissance ad

Plutarch, who lived in the I-II 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 revival. It is necessary to be rigorously aware of what this Hellenic revival is, in what Plutarch resembles it and in what sharply differs.

If we take the Hellenic revival as a principle, then this could not be a literal restoration of an obsolete classic several centuries ago. This was the transformation of the classics not into literal, that is, not literally life-like, but only into aesthetic objectivity, into a self-sufficient and completely isolated contemplation of beauty long gone. Plutarch was never such a pure aesthetician, and such an isolated self-contained aesthetic objectivity was always deeply alien to him.

He was not capable of the subtle-sensual impressionism of the Philostrates, of the Athenaeus' choking on interesting philological trifles, the dry and methodical description of mythographers, or the shameless humor of Lucian's mythological sketches.

Perhaps, some distant result of the Hellenic revival, characteristically referred to as the second sophistry, was Plutarch's very frequent verbosity, sometimes reaching some kind of idle chatter with him. It was with him not just talkativeness, but again a protective measure to protect the rights of an ordinary person to his existence, to his own, albeit petty, but purely human needs and moods.

The Real Significance of the Hellenic Renaissance for Plutarch

This genuine significance must be seen in the method used by Plutarch in his renaissance inclination. It is precisely the 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-satisfaction, seemingly completely disinterested and not interested in anything vital, Plutarch always drew strength precisely for life.

Such aesthetic self-satisfaction always revived him, strengthened him, freed him from fuss and trifles, always had a transforming effect on the psyche, on society, facilitating the struggle, enlightening the vanity and comprehending everyday hardships and tragic hopelessness. That is why everydayism and moralism in Plutarch are always interspersed with mythological and literary examples, legends, fables and arbitrarily invented situations, anecdotes and sharp words, at first glance, as if violating an evenly flowing presentation and, as it were, pointlessly leading away.

All this mythology and literature, all these anecdotes and witty situations never and nowhere had independent significance for Plutarch, and in this sense they were not involved at all for the purposes of isolated narcissism. All this was introduced into the life practice of a really acting person, all this exposed the low and mediocre nature of vicious human passions, and all this lightened, refreshed, uplifted and wised the most ordinary little person.

Thus, the Renaissance-Hellenic theory of art for the sake of art, without depriving a person of his rights to everyday life, immediately and simultaneously turned out to be aesthetically self-pressing and morally uplifting, spiritually strengthening. Platonism in this sense underwent a new transformation in Plutarch, and classical cosmology, without losing its sublime beauty, it became an excuse for everyday people.

Antinomic-synthetic nature of Plutarch's worldview and creativity

As a result of our examination of the extensive literary heritage of Plutarch, it must be said that at the present time it is a real sin for a philologist to reduce Plutarch's work to any one abstract principle. True, its socio-historical basis, chronologically very accurate, imperatively requires us to consider it as a transition from the initial Hellenism, namely, to the Hellenic revival of the 2nd century. ad.

But this is too general a principle. A closer examination of his ideological and creative results indicates that Plutarch is an extremely complicated Platonist who could not rise to Platonic monism, but instead used its many ideological shades, often contradictory, and made this Platonism unrecognizable.

In an approximate enumeration, in this form, one could present all these contradictory and in the full sense of the word antinomic features of Plutarch with his synthetism, if not always philosophical, then always clear and simple, good-natured 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 the historian of ancient literature and philosophy in relation to Plutarch consists in revealing and socio-historically substantiating precisely this antinomic-synthetic nature of his worldview and creativity. Such art requires the use of enormous materials, and at present one can only remotely approach this.

Plutarch was strongly influenced by the Hellenic revival, although he used it to justify the rights of everyday man. 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 the Neoplatonists was born, flourished and declined. These Neoplatonists also could not accept as final the theory of self-sufficing contemplation.

They carried this purely poetic self-pressure to the end, thinking it through to that logical end, when the poetic and purely mental image, instead of a metaphor, became a living reality, a living thing and an independently acting substance. But the poetic image, given as an independent material substance, is already a myth; and Neoplatonism III-IV centuries. AD just became precisely the dialectic of myth. Plutarch had a positive attitude towards myths, but not in the sense of recognizing in them the primary substances of being itself. Myths for him, in the end, also remained at the stage of metaphorical moralism, although, of course, still going into cosmological depths.

The most famous works of Plutarch

In total, about 200 works have come down to us.

Comparative Lives of Plutarch

The main work of Plutarch, which became one of the most famous works of ancient literature, was his biographical writings. "Comparative Lives" absorbed a huge historical material, including information from the works of ancient historians that have not survived to this day, the author's personal impressions of ancient monuments, quotations from Homer, epigrams and epitaphs. It is customary to reproach Plutarch for an uncritical attitude to the sources used, 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. Plutarch, who lived 400 years later, in an era when, in his words, a Roman boot was raised over the head of every Greek, wanted to see the great generals and politicians not as they really were, but the ideal embodiment of valor and courage. He did not seek to recreate history in all its real fullness, but found in it outstanding examples of wisdom, heroism, self-sacrifice for the sake of the motherland, designed to strike the imagination of his contemporaries.

In the introduction to the biography of Alexander the Great, Plutarch formulated the principle that he put as the basis for the selection of facts: “We do not write history, but biographies, and virtue or depravity is not always visible in the most glorious deeds, but often some insignificant deed, word or joke better reveal the character of a person than battles in which tens of thousands die, the leadership of huge armies and the siege of cities.

The artistic skill of Plutarch made the "Comparative Lives" a favorite reading for young people who learned from his writings about the events of the history of Greece and Rome. The heroes of Plutarch 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.

It can be said without exaggeration that thanks to Plutarch, European culture developed an idea of ​​ancient history as a semi-legendary era of freedom and civic prowess. That is why his works were highly valued by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, the leaders of the Great French and the generation of the Decembrists. The very name of the Greek writer became a household name, since in the 19th century numerous publications of biographies of great people were called "Plutarchs".

Plutarch. Selected biographies: In 2 volumes

Morals of Plutarch

The descriptions of the strange customs of the Romans and Greeks, borrowed by Plutarch from Varro, Aristotle and others, as well as several rhetorical experiments about the Athenians, Alexander the Great, and the Romans, have some relation to history. Philosophical writings of Plutarch are usually called "moral" (Moralia); among them, however, are religious, political, literary, and natural history treatises. Dialogues predominate between these treatises in form. We have here, first of all, a number of works in which pedagogical instructions and advice are given to young people embarking on the philosophical sciences.

Further, several essays are devoted to explaining difficult passages in Plato's dialogues and polemics with the Stoics and Epicureans. The dialogue “Against the Koloth” is very important for the history of Greek philosophy with its numerous excerpts from Heraclitus, Democritus, Parmenides, Empedocles and the Epicureans. Plutarch dedicated about 20 works specifically to ethics, which in most cases are like sermons, in which the author tries to “teach virtue” with many examples from life and quotations from poets. They are similar to some of the writings of Seneca.

On certain occasions, Plutarch wrote three “consoling speeches” (παραμυθικοί): one to his own wife on the occasion of the death of his daughter, the other to a friend expelled from his homeland, the third to a father who lost his son. Morality in Plutarch is always closely associated with religion; he strives to purify faith and worship and to harmonize them with philosophy. Plutarch rebelled against superstition, as well as against the atheism of the Epicureans and the pragmatic rationalism of the Euhemerists.

His own religious system is made up of demonology, mantic and allegorical explanation of myths. The dialogue “On the Late Punishment of the Atheist” is very deep in thought and rich in content, like Plato’s Polity, ending with a fantastic image of the afterlife. The theosophical writings of Plutarch also include the dialogue "On the demonion of Socrates." Of the natural history writings of Plutarch, the most significant is the dialogue "On the Face Visible on the Disk of the Moon", which contains curious news about Copernicus' predecessor, the astronomer Aristarchus of Samos.

Characteristic for Plutarch are his writings about animals, into whose spiritual life he tries to penetrate; he strongly rebels against human torture of animals. Plutarch was an enemy of the Epicurean principle "Λάθε βιώσας" ("live in silence") and insisted on the need for social and political activity. On this subject, he wrote several arguments, many of which are caused by random occasions.

Plutarch considered the family to be the basis of the state, the praise of which is dedicated to them in special works; of these, "Γαμικά παραγγέματα" stands out especially. Plutarch also owns comments on Hesiod, Aratus and Nicander, which have come down to us in fragments, a critical article on Herodotus, a comparison of Aristophanes with Menander. Pseudo-Plutarch's dialogue "On Music" (Περὶ μουσικής), written in line with the aristoxenic tradition, is a valuable monument of ancient musical historiography.

Most of all, Plutarch's personality was reflected in his "Table Talks" (Συμποσίακα), which in 9 books give unconstrained discussions on a wide variety of subjects: on the digestibility of food, on the abstinence of Jews from pork, on wreaths, on the number of muses, on types of dances, etc. etc., and all these arguments are intertwined with abundant and successful quotations from poets and prose writers. The “Feast of the Seven Wise Men” adjoins “Συμποσίακα” in the manuscripts of Plutarch, as well as the “Biographies of 10 Speakers”, “Biography of Homer”, the works “On the Dogmas of the Philosophers”, “On the Rivers” and many other works that were previously attributed to Plutarch, which clearly do not belong to Plutarch .

Plutarch was a characteristic representative of many of the best aspects of the Hellenic worldview; its distinctive properties are good-natured sincerity, moral warmth, calm moderation in judgments, and an optimistic outlook on things. The miserable state of the contemporary Land of Hellas was reflected, however, on him: he is far from freedom-loving dreams and ardent striving forward, conservative in all his views, judges everything from a one-sided ethical point of view and does not even try to pave new paths in anything.

Small works of Plutarch

The wide range of topics covered in Plutarch's writings reflects the encyclopedic nature of his knowledge. He created “Political Instructions”, essays on practical morality (“On envy and hatred”, “How to distinguish a flatterer from a friend”, “On love for children”, etc.), he was interested in the influence of literature on a person (“How young men get to know poetry") and questions of cosmogony ("On the generation of the world soul according to Timaeus").

The works of Plutarch are imbued with the spirit of Platonic philosophy; his writings are full of quotations and reminiscences from the works of the great philosopher, and the treatise Platonic Questions is a real commentary on his texts. Plutarch was concerned about the problems of religious and philosophical content, which are devoted to the so-called. Pythian dialogues (“On the sign “E” in Delphi”, “On the decline of the oracles”), the essay “On the daimonia of Socrates” and the treatise “On Isis and Osiris”.

A group of dialogues, dressed in the traditional form of conversations of companions at a feast, is a collection of entertaining information from mythology, deep philosophical remarks and sometimes curious natural science ideas. The titles of the dialogues can give an idea of ​​the variety of questions Plutarch is interested in: “Why do we not believe in autumn dreams”, “Which hand of Aphrodite was hurt by Diomedes”, “Various legends about the number of Muses”, “What is the meaning of Plato in the belief that God always remains a geometer” . To the same circle of Plutarch's works belong "Greek Questions" and "Roman Questions", containing different points of view on the origin of state institutions, traditions and customs of antiquity.

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Ministry of Education and Science Russian Federation

State educational institution of higher

vocational education

"Vyatka State Humanitarian University"

Faculty of Law

Test

By discipline: History of the state and law of foreign countries

Topic: Public and state institutions of Sparta (according to the works of Plutarch and Aristotle)

Is done by a student

distance learning

group: UB

Bushuev Alexey Yurievich

Teacher:

Introduction

1. Public institutions of Sparta (according to the works of Plutarch and Aristotle)

1.1 The social system of Sparta

2 Education of the Spartans

2.1 The highest bodies of state power in Sparta

2.2 Institute of royal power. Military positions

Conclusion

Introduction

The states of ancient Greece, which developed in successive contact with the most ancient civilizations, made an outstanding contribution to world culture. The heritage of antiquity, especially in the field of philosophy, art and law, formed the basis of European civilization. In this regard, the problem of the Greek states occupies a special place. The glory of Sparta - the Peloponnesian city in Laconia - is very loud in historical chronicles and in the world. It was one of the most famous policies of Ancient Greece, which did not know unrest and civil upheavals, and its army never retreated before the enemy. The military power and high organization of the Spartan troops were not in doubt, and the social life of Ancient Sparta was aimed at maintaining the constant combat readiness of the entire Spartan team. At the end of the VI century. BC. Sparta was the strongest state of Hellas, controlling the entire territory of the Peloponnese with the exception of Argos and the northern cities of Arcadia.

An object this study- social relations that developed in ancient Sparta, characterizing its public and state institutions. The subject of study of the work are the works of the ancient Greek historians Plutarch and Aristotle.

The aim of the work is to study the public and state institutions of Sparta based on the works of Plutarch and Aristotle. The subject of study of the work are the works of the ancient Greek historians Plutarch and Aristotle. Achieving this goal required solving the following tasks:

consider the social system of Sparta;

to study the upbringing of the Spartans;

explore the highest organs of state power in Sparta;

consider the institution of royal power and military positions in Sparta.

The main sources on the history of the Spartan state are the works of the ancient Greek historians Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon,
Aristotle and Plutarch. We are interested in the last two authors. Aristotle's "politics" is of a general theoretical nature. Aristotle. Politics. M., 1994. Plutarch (46-126 AD) in his "Comparative Lives" of famous Greeks and Romans gives a biography of the semi-mythical Spartan king Lycurgus and describes his reforms, which played an important role in the socio-economic life of Sparta. Extreme assessments of Sparta as a type of polis are generally characteristic of historiography. The main features of Sparta to students in the textbooks of the history of the Ancient World are revealed by the cruel attitude of the Spartans towards the conquered helots and the characterization of Sparta as a military camp, after which it is stated that in the VI century BC. Sparta became one of the most powerful cities in Greece. It is all the more important to take a deeper and more objective look at the society and state of ancient Sparta from the point of view of the contradictions that have developed in modern historiography: a halo of myths and legends has developed around Sparta back in antiquity. Some Greeks condemned and ridiculed Sparta. Others were surprised at the order and customs of the Spartans, admired the military power and fortitude. Plato and Aristotle saw in Sparta a model of stability worthy of emulation. This pattern was put by them as the basis for the concept of an ideal policy. In modern science, this perception of Sparta is usually called the "Spartan mirage".

In general, from the available literature, one can get a fairly clear idea of ​​the development of public and state institutions in Sparta.

In the course of writing this work, articles and monographs by Yu.V. Andreeva, K.M. Kolobova and others. The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

Public institutions of Sparta (according to the works of Plutarch and Aristotle)

1 The social structure of Sparta

In Sparta, a peculiar class slave-owning society developed, which retained significant vestiges of primitive communal relations.

The ruling class was the Spartans. Only they were considered full citizens. While maintaining the joint ownership of land by citizens, belonging to the ruling class was supported by providing each Spartiate with a land allotment (clerk) for use, along with slaves attached to it - helots, whose labor provided the Spartiate and his family with a livelihood. The land is divided into 9,000 roughly equal, indivisible and inalienable cleres. They could not be sold, donated or bequeathed.

The Spartans lived in the likeness of a city that united 5 villages and resembled a kind of military camp. Their life was strictly regulated. The main duty was considered military. Adult men united in age and other unions that determined the social status of their members. A select few citizens were included in the privileged corps of 300 horsemen.

In order to maintain unity, the Spartans had to participate in public meals - sissitia, organized at the expense of the established monthly contributions of the Spartans. The portions of the sessitia participants were equal. Honorary shares were received by officials. The clothes and weapons of the warriors were the same. The rules against luxury established by Lycurgus also contributed to maintaining the unity of the Spartans. The Spartans were also forbidden to trade; heavy, inconvenient iron coins were introduced for them.

However, these restrictions could not prevent the development of property differentiation, which undermined the unity and "equality" of the Spartans. Since land plots were inherited only by the eldest sons, the rest could only receive escheated plots. If there were none, they passed into the category of hypomeions (descended) and lost the right to participate in the national assembly and sissitia. The number of hypomeions steadily increased, and the number of Spartans decreased accordingly - from nine to four thousand by the end of the 4th century. BC.

Perieki - inhabitants of the peripheral mountainous barren regions of Sparta - legally occupied an intermediate position between the Spartans and the helots. They were personally free, had property legal capacity, but did not enjoy political rights and were under the supervision of special officials - harmosts. They were subject to military duty: they had to participate in battles as heavily armed soldiers. The main occupation of the perieks is trade and craft. In their position, they were close to the Athenian meteki, but unlike the latter, the highest officials of the state could execute them without trial.

Helots - enslaved inhabitants of Messenia - were the property of the state. They were placed at the disposal of the Spartans, cultivated their land and gave them about half of the crop (the Spartans used slaves from prisoners of war for domestic work). Although in Sparta, as in Athens, the exploitation of slave labor became the basis of social production, collective Spartan slavery was different from classical slavery. Helotia was a specific form of slavery. The helots ran their household practically independently, were not a commodity, like slaves, and freely disposed of the remaining part of their crop. Their economic and social position was close to that of serfs. It is assumed that they had a family and formed some kind of community, which was the collective property of the Spartiate community.

Helots participated in the wars of Sparta as lightly armed warriors. They could buy themselves free, but in other respects they were completely powerless. Every year, the Spartans declared war on the helots, accompanied by massacres. However, the killing of a helot was allowed at any other time.

The military nature of Spartan society contributed to the preservation of remnants of pre-class relations among the Spartans. Such a relic was the significant socialization of the life of the Spartans, associated with their complete elimination from economic activity and with their equally complete transformation into a military ruling class.

In the life of the Spartans, many customs dating back to ancient times have been preserved. For example, the archaic system of age classes, which is found in the bowels of the Spartan state apparatus. The most important attributes of this regime were such circumstances as the power of the council of elders, which extended to all state affairs, the political and even economic incompetence of younger citizens, the upbringing of the younger generation in the spirit of unquestioning obedience to elders, etc. .

Women were complete housewives in everyday life. “Their self-will and power are the result of frequent campaigns, during which the husbands were forced to leave them full housewives in the house, and therefore showed them respect ... and even called them “ladies”.

The family in Sparta is monogamous, but extramarital relations were allowed for both husband and wife - remnants of group marriage. The birth of a child by a woman from a valiant warrior - a friend of her husband was welcomed by both the state and society, because. "... children grow up good, as long as their origin is good."

Plutarch says this about it: “Lycurgus decided that children belong not to parents, but to the whole state, and therefore he wanted citizens to be born not from just anyone, but from the best fathers and materials.”

2 Education of the Spartans

The upbringing of children was subordinated to one task - to prepare a strong and hardy warrior, at any moment ready to oppose the helots.

Therefore, education and training was one of the main state concerns and was carried out on a voluntary basis. “According to the laws of Lycurgus, all newborns were subjected to a special examination by the elders of the phylum. If they found the child strong and healthy, then he was given to his parents for feeding, immediately assigning him one of the allotments. If the child had any defect that would prevent him from becoming a full-fledged warrior in the future, he was killed, throwing apothetes, believing that his life was not needed either by himself or by the state, since he was denied health and strength from the very beginning. » .

Parents were not in the right to dispose of the upbringing of the child. As soon as the boys reached the age of seven, they were taken away from their parents and distributed into units - agels, where they lived together, played and worked, and the word "work" meant doing gymnastic exercises. Agela means herd. In this name, traces of the pastoral economy of the Dorians before their resettlement to Laconia are survivingly preserved. Thus the co-education system probably goes back as far as the time before the Dorian invasion of Laconia.

Children were brought up and taught by pedonoms - state educators, elected from among the most worthy Spartans. The chiefs of the agel - agelarchs - were boys of older age groups, distinguished by their prudence, quick wit and courage in fights. The children had to look up to them in everything, follow their orders, silently obey and silently endure punishment. Thus, the habit of strict discipline was brought up, which was considered the highest virtue. “Follow your leaders wherever they lead you, observing above all discipline and vigilance, and always follow the orders of the military leaders exactly. There is nothing more beautiful and reliable for a large army than to obey a single will and a single order.

Thus, all education was reduced to the requirements of unquestioning obedience, steadfastly endure hardships and prevail over the enemy. "They learned literacy only to the extent that it was impossible to do without it."

Children were taught to speak laconicly and aptly (“laconicism”), so that in their words “a caustic wit was mixed with grace so that short speeches evoked lengthy reflections” .

Upon reaching the age of 20, the young men received the full armament of the warriors and became members of one of the sissies. The upbringing of the Spartan continued into adulthood. Continuous training and camp life, maintained in peacetime, continued into old age.

The state took care of the education of not only boys, but also girls, since the Spartan community was interested in the fact that children were born healthy and strong and could become full-fledged warriors in the future. Despite the fact that the girls were brought up by their mothers, they also had to perform the same exercises as the boys: run, wrestle, throw a disc, throw spears, so that “.. the fetus in a healthy body develops healthy from the very beginning, and women themselves giving birth , simply and easily coped with the torment.

Thus, the whole life of the Spartans was subordinated to the interests of the paramilitary state, which contributed to the preservation of archaic features in everyday life.

State institutions of Sparta (according to the works of Plutarch and Aristotle)

1 The highest organs of state power in Sparta

sparta education state power

In Sparta, the state system embodied the basic principles of the polis structure and was characterized by the following features: the concentration of political life within the framework of the civil collective, the presence of the ancient form of property as the collective property of citizens, the close connection between the political and military organization of citizenship, the republican character state structure. In addition, in Sparta, the state system had a pronounced oligarchic character.

The state institutions of Sparta were: the apella - a meeting of citizens of the policy, the gerousia council of elders, the ephorate board of 5 elected persons, two archaetes of the king.

supreme body state power in Sparta (as in any Greek policy) was the People's Assembly of all full-fledged Spartan citizens. The people's assembly - apella - approved peace treaties and a declaration of war, elected officials, military commanders, decided on the inheritance of royal power, if there were no legitimate heirs, approved the release of the helots. Major changes in legislation also had to be approved by the Spartan apella. Participants in the appeal could only accept or reject bills, but not discuss them. Plutarch describes the organization of the work of the appella as follows: “In the People's Assemblies, no one had the right to express his opinion. The people could only accept or reject the proposals of the elders or kings.

Only members of the Council of Gerontes and ephors had the right to introduce a bill. The Spartan apella met irregularly, from time to time and by decision of officials. Not discussed at the meeting financial questions, the activities of magistrates were not controlled, court cases were not dealt with. Such an order of activity of the People's Assembly created favorable opportunities for the Spartan oligarchy to influence its work, to direct its activities in the right direction.

The Council of Gerontes, or Gerussia, played a decisive role in the government of Sparta. It consisted of 30 members. 28 were persons over 60 years old (in Greek, gerontes - old people, hence the name of the Council). Gerontes were elected from among the Spartan aristocracy and held positions for life.

Plutarch describes the procedure for electing geronts: “When the people had time to gather, the elected ones locked themselves in one room of a neighboring house, where they could not see anyone, just as no one could see them. They could only hear the cries of the assembled people: in this case, as in others, he decided the election by a cry. The elect did not come out at once, but one by one, by lot, and walked silently through the entire assembly. Those who sat locked in the room had writing boards in their hands, on which they noted only the strength of the cry, not knowing to whom it refers. They only had to write down how much they shouted to the one who was taken out first, second, third, etc. The one who was shouted more often and more strongly was declared the chosen one.

In addition to 28 gerontes, the Gerussia included two Spartan kings (regardless of age). Gerussia was not subordinated to or controlled by any body. It existed along with the People's Assembly, but was not accountable to it. Moreover, Gerussia had the right to cancel the decisions of the People's Assembly if it considered them incorrect for any reason. As a sovereign body of state power, Gerusia had practically unlimited competence, it met daily and managed all affairs, including military, financial, judicial. Gerussia could sentence to death penalty, expulsion from the country, deprivation of civil rights, to initiate prosecution even against the Spartan kings who were part of it. Gerussia received reports from the almighty ephors when they completed their office. Almost all the threads of state administration were concentrated in the hands of the gerontes or were under their control.

No less authoritative body of the Spartan state was a board of five ephors ("guards"). Ephors were elected for 1 year by an apella from the entire composition of the Spartans, and not from a narrow circle of the Spartan aristocracy, like the gerons. However, this legal rule was by no means always respected; it was common to elect representatives of noble families to ephors. The election of the ephors took place in Sparta in the same way as the gerontes, which Aristotle calls childish.

The college of ephors had enormous power, Aristotle compares the power of the Spartan ephors with the power of tyrants, the sole rulers of the Greek policies in the 4th century. BC e. . The year in Sparta was named after the elder ephor. The College of Ephors was considered an independent body from the Appella and Gerussia. The ephors were responsible for the strength and stability of Spartan legislation in general and therefore had the power to control the actions of officials. Great importance was attached to control over the activities of the Spartan kings. It was the ephors who were supposed to prevent the strengthening of royal power and the development of the Spartan oligarchy into a monarchy. According to the Spartan laws, the ephors once a month took the oath of the kings to observe the existing laws. Two ephors were obliged to accompany the kings during military campaigns, they sought to cause disagreement between the kings, believing that mutual suspicion and enmity would force the kings to control each other. The ephors had the right to bring the kings to the court of the gerussia, they could negotiate with the ambassadors of other states, convene and preside over the meetings of the appeal and even the gerussia. A very important function of the ephors was to monitor the entire system of Spartan education - the basis of the life and behavior of the Spartans. If they found any deviations, they brought to justice both officials and individual citizens.

These were the bodies of the Spartan oligarchy, which led all aspects of the life of Spartan society. Their small number made it possible to bribe the gerontes, which took place in the history of Sparta in the 5th-4th centuries. BC e. Thus, Aristotle reports that the ephors "were easily bribed." Abuses of power on the part of the ephors and gerontes were also facilitated by the fact that they were practically uncontrollable, bound by mutual responsibility and it was impossible to bring them to justice.

2 Institute of royal power. Military positions

One of the influential political institutions of Sparta was the institution of royal power. Sparta was ruled by two kings belonging to two dynasties - Agiad and Eurypontides. The origin of these dynasties dates back to ancient times, back to the time of the final settlement of the Dorians in Laconia in the 10th century. BC e. In the V-IV centuries. BC e, these dynasties were the two most noble and wealthy families among the Spartan aristocracy. The Spartan kings were not the bearers of the supreme sole power, and the Spartan political system was not a monarchy. Each king enjoyed the same power. Unlike the monarchs, the Spartan kings were subject to the will of the apella, the decisions of the gerusia, of which they were members as ordinary members, but they were subjected to especially strict and daily control by the collegium of ephors. Nevertheless, the Spartan kings had quite a lot of power, and their role in state affairs should not be underestimated. The prerogatives of the kings were the supreme military command and the leadership of a religious cult, and these state functions in the society of Sparta were of particular importance.

During military campaigns outside of Sparta, the power of the king as commander-in-chief was completely unlimited. The tsars were members of the Gerussia and, as such, took a real part in the decision of all state affairs. In addition, even in peacetime, the units of the Spartan army (pestilence, suckers, enomotii) retained their structure and, of course, they were dominated, if not legally, then in fact, by the authority of their commander in chief.

When the king was retinue, which constantly supported his political authority. Two Pythia accompanied the king, were present at his public meals, and it was them that the king sent to Delphi to the famous Delphic oracle. The growth of the authority of the kings was also facilitated by the performance of priestly functions. At public meals, the king was given a place of honor, a double portion, they received on certain days as an honorary offering the best animal and a prescribed amount of barley flour and wine, they appointed proxens, married heiress brides who had lost relatives.

The high authority of royal power was also manifested in the provision of special honors to the deceased king. “As for honors,” Xenophon wrote in the 4th century. BC, e., - rendered to the king after death, then from the laws of Lycurgus it is clear that the Lacedaemonian kings were honored not as ordinary people, but as heroes. With such a position of kings in the state, there was always a real danger of strengthening royal power, up to its transformation into a real monarchy. That is why the kings were given so much attention.

Spartan society was a militarized society, and therefore the role of the military element in government was high. The Spartan apella, as the supreme body, was a collection of Spartiate warriors.

The Spartan army had a well-thought-out organizational structure, including a large command corps that enjoyed a certain political influence in society. One of the highest military positions was the position of navarch, commander of the Spartan fleet. The post of navarch was not permanent. Aristotle calls the navarchy "almost a second royal power", and considers the navarchs as commanders and political figures to be the real rivals of the Spartan kings. It should be noted that, like the kings, the Spartan navarchs were under the constant control of the ephors. For example, the noble Spartiate Lysander, according to Plutarch, “the most powerful of the Greeks, a kind of ruler of all Greece”, who controlled the fate of a huge fleet, an impressive army, many cities, strictly followed all the instructions of the ephors, on their orders dutifully returned to Sparta, where with with great difficulty he was able to justify his actions.

The structure of the ground forces provided for a permanent staff of various military commanders. According to Xenophon, the command staff in Sparta was quite numerous. It included the commanders of the units into which the Spartan army was divided: the polemarchs commanding the mora (from 500 to 900 people), the lohags commanding the loch (from 150 to 200 people), the pentecosters commanding the pentecostia (from 50 to 60 people), and the enomotarchs, enomotie commanders (from 25 to 30 people). The polemarchs made up the closest retinue of the king and his military council, they were constantly near the king and even ate with him, were present at the sacrifices. The royal retinue also included selected soldiers who performed the functions of modern adjutants, fortunetellers, doctors, and flutists. Here were the Pythians, as well as the commanders of the allied detachments, mercenary units, and the chiefs of the convoys. In managing the army, special officials helped the kings: various military crimes were analyzed by Hellanodic judges, special treasurers helped manage finances, and lafiropoles were engaged in the sale of military booty. The royal person was guarded by a detachment of 300 "horsemen" - young Spartans (in fact, they were foot soldiers, the name is conditional), its three commanders - hippagreta - were part of the king's inner circle. There is little information in the sources about who appointed the numerous military commanders in the Spartan army and how such a well-functioning system operated in peacetime. It can be assumed that they were elected in the appellation (in the assembly of the same Spartiate warriors), but on the recommendation of the kings. A special place among the Spartan commanders was occupied by harmosts, appointed as the heads of the garrisons of Laconica or to the nearest islands of strategic importance, for example, to the island of Cythera.

In general, the Spartan state system as an oligarchic system was a combination of civil and military authorities, in which the power of the Spartan oligarchy was balanced by the authority of military commanders headed by the kings, with whom the Spartan Gerusia and the ephorate were forced to reckon.

The aristocratic nature of the state structure of Sparta was not a coincidence, but grew out of the peculiarities of socio-economic relations. The dominance of natural production, the weak development of crafts and trade, the military nature of Spartan society determined the originality of the political structure of Sparta, the increasing role of military administration and education, and the small number of civilian administration bodies proper.

Conclusion

As a result of studying the available sources and educational literature, we can draw the following conclusions about the state and social structure of Sparta:

The process of the formation of the Spartan state was preceded by a period of conquest of the territories, which were quite densely populated by the arrival of the Dorians-Spartans. Due to the fact that the formation of the Spartan state took place in the conditions of aggressive campaigns, an extremely militarized state was formed, completely subordinated to the goals of capturing new lands and keeping those already captured in complete obedience.

How can one explain the features of the social and state system of Sparta? Let's point out the most important:

a) living surrounded by a numerically superior, sharply hostile mass of helots, the Spartans were forced to. turn your city into a permanent military camp. Power in the camp was to be held by a few;

b) the same danger was caused by the stubborn desire of the Spartan community to prevent the emergence of property inequality (and hence disagreements);

c) the agricultural nature of the community and the primitiveness of its internal structure prevented until a certain time the emergence of that social force that could take over the reorganization of society and the state on a democratic basis and accelerate the elimination of the remnants of the primitive communal system.

The political system of Sparta for its time, the time of the birth of the ancient Greek states, was a certain step forward, because it was a form of state organization of the dominant team. The main place in this organization was occupied by the military-political education of citizens.

List of used literature

1.Andreev Yu.V. Spartan "horsemen" // VDI. - 1969. - No. 4.

.Ancient Greece / Ed. Struve V.V. - Moscow: Science. - 1964. - 503 p.

.Kolobova K.M. Ancient Sparta in the XIV centuries. BC. Leningrad: Science. - 1957. - 440 p.

.Plutarch. Comparative biographies: In 3 volumes. Moscow: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. -1963. - T.2. - 546 p.

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, Biographer , Moralist

Plutarch(c. 46 - c. 120) - ancient Greek writer, historian, author of moral-philosophical and historical-biographical works. Of the huge literary heritage of Plutarch, which amounted to about 250 works, no more than a third of the works have survived, most of which are united under the general title "Moralia". Another group - "Comparative Lives" - includes 23 pairs of biographies of prominent statesmen of Ancient Greece and Rome, selected according to the similarity of their historical mission and similarity of characters.

The ancient tradition did not preserve 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. there was a battle 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 the carefully preserved traditions of antiquity 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. Returning to his native city, from his youthful years he took part in its administration, holding various magistracies, including the prominent position of eponymous archon.

They say that nature has given everyone two ears and one tongue to speak less than to listen.

Plutarch repeatedly went on political assignments to Rome, where he struck up friendly relations with many statesmen, among whom was a friend of Emperor Trajan, the consul Quintus Sosius Senekion; Plutarch dedicated Comparative Biographies and Table Talk 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 testifies that the emperor granted Plutarch Roman citizenship, classifying him as a member of the Mestrian family.

Despite a brilliant political career, Plutarch chose a quiet life in his native city, surrounded by his children and students, who made up 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 stay in it.” Plutarch's public activities earned him great respect in Greece. Around the year 95, fellow citizens elected him a member of the college of priests of the sanctuary of Delphic Apollo. A statue was erected in his honor at Delphi, from which, during excavations in 1877, a pedestal with a poetic dedication was found.

The time of Plutarch's life refers to the era of the "Hellenic revival" of the beginning of the 2nd century. During this period, the educated circles of the Empire were seized by the desire to imitate the ancient Hellenes both in the customs of everyday life and in literary creativity. The policy of Emperor Hadrian, who provided assistance to the Greek cities that had fallen into decay, could not but arouse among Plutarch's compatriots the hope of a possible revival of the traditions of the independent policies of Hellas.

Those who are greedy for praise are poor in merit.

The literary activity of Plutarch was primarily of an educational and educational 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 teaching genre - diatribe. Plutarch's worldview is harmonious and clear: he believed in a higher mind that governs the universe, and is like a wise teacher who tirelessly reminds his listeners of eternal human values.

Small works of Plutarch

The wide range of topics covered in Plutarch's writings reflects the encyclopedic nature of his knowledge. He created “Political Instructions”, essays on practical morality (“On envy and hatred”, “How to distinguish a flatterer from a friend”, “On love for children”, etc.), he was interested in the influence of literature on a person (“How young men get to know poetry") and questions of cosmogony ("On the generation of the world soul according to Timaeus").

They mourned the one who was born, who goes to meet so many sorrows; and if someone found the end of his sufferings in death, his friends endured him with greetings and joy.

The works of Plutarch are imbued with the spirit of Platonic philosophy; his writings are full of quotations and reminiscences from the works of the great philosopher, and the treatise Platonic Questions is a real commentary on his texts. Plutarch was concerned about the problems of religious and philosophical content, which are devoted to the so-called. Pythian dialogues (“On the sign “E” in Delphi”, “On the decline of the oracles”), the essay “On the daimonia of Socrates” and the treatise “On Isis and Osiris”.

A group of dialogues, dressed in the traditional form of conversations of companions at a feast, is a collection of entertaining information from mythology, deep philosophical remarks and sometimes curious natural science ideas. The titles of the dialogues can give an idea of ​​the variety of questions Plutarch is interested in: “Why do we not believe in autumn dreams”, “Which hand of Aphrodite was hurt by Diomedes”, “Various legends about the number of Muses”, “What is the meaning of Plato in the belief that God always remains a geometer” . To the same circle of Plutarch's works belong "Greek Questions" and "Roman Questions", containing different points of view on the origin of state institutions, traditions and customs of antiquity.

Comparative Lives of Plutarch

Immortality, alien to our nature, and power, which depends mostly on luck, we crave and covet, and moral perfection - the only one of the divine blessings available to us - we put in last place.

The main work of Plutarch, which became one of the most famous works of ancient literature, was his biographical writings. "Comparative Lives" absorbed a huge historical material, including information from the works of ancient historians that have not survived to this day, the author's personal impressions of ancient monuments, quotations from Homer, epigrams and epitaphs. It is customary to reproach Plutarch for an uncritical attitude to the sources used, 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, in his words, a Roman boot was raised over the head of every Greek, wanted to see the great generals and politicians not as they really were, but the ideal embodiment of valor and courage. He did not seek to recreate history in all its real fullness, but found in it outstanding examples of wisdom, heroism, self-sacrifice for the sake of the motherland, designed to strike the imagination of his contemporaries.

In the introduction to the biography of Alexander the Great, Plutarch formulated the principle that he put as the basis for the selection of facts: “We do not write history, but biographies, and virtue or depravity is not always visible in the most glorious deeds, but often some insignificant deed, word or joke better reveal the character of a person than battles in which tens of thousands die, the leadership of huge armies and the siege of cities. The artistic skill of Plutarch made the "Comparative Lives" a favorite reading for young people who learned from his writings about the events of the history of Greece and Rome. The heroes of Plutarch 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.

In his youth in Athens, Plutarch studied philosophy (mainly with the Platonist Ammonius), mathematics, and rhetoric. In the future, the Peripatetics and Stoics had a significant influence on the philosophical views of Plutarch. He himself considered himself a Platonist, but in fact he was more of an eclecticist, and in philosophy he was mainly interested in its practical application. Even in his youth, Plutarch, together with his brother Lamprey and teacher Ammonius, visited Delphi, where the cult of Apollo, which had fallen into decay, was still preserved. This journey had a profound effect on the life and literary activity Plutarch.

Shortly after returning from Athens to Chaeronea, Plutarch received an assignment from the city community to the Roman proconsul of the province of Achaia and successfully carried it out. In the future, he faithfully served his city, holding public positions. Teaching his own sons, Plutarch gathered young people in his house and created a kind of private academy, in which he played the role of mentor and lecturer. Plutarch was well known to his contemporaries both as a public figure and as a philosopher. He repeatedly visited Rome and other places in Italy, had students with whom he taught in Greek (he began to study Latin only "in his declining years"). In Rome, Plutarch met the Neo-Pythagoreans, and also struck up friendships with many prominent people. Among them were Arulen Rusticus, Lucius Mestrius Florus (companion of Emperor Vespasian), Quintus Sosius Senecion (personal friend of Emperor Trajan). Roman friends rendered the most valuable services to Plutarch. Having become purely formally a member of the Mestrian family (in accordance with Roman legal practice), Plutarch received Roman citizenship and a new name - Mestrius Plutarch. Thanks to Senekion, he became the most influential person in his province: Emperor Trajan forbade the governor of Achaia to hold any events without prior approval from Plutarch. Subsequently, this order of Trajan was confirmed by his successor Hadrian.

In the fiftieth year of his life, Plutarch became a priest of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In trying to restore the sanctuary and the oracle to their former importance, he earned the deep respect of the Amphictyons, who erected a statue of him.

Compositions

Plutarch was not an original writer. Basically, he collected and processed what others had written before him. However, the tradition of Plutarch influenced European thought and literature for many centuries.

The "Ethics" includes about 80 works. The earliest of these are those that are rhetorical in nature, such as praise for Athens, discussions about Fortune (Greek Tyche) and its role in the life of Alexander the Great or in the history of Rome. big group they also compose popular-philosophical treatises; of these, perhaps the most characteristic of Plutarch is the short essay On the State of the Spirit. Without going deep into theoretical reasoning, Plutarch often gives a lot of valuable information on the history of philosophy. Such are the works "Platonic Questions" and "On the Creation of the Soul in the Timaeus", as well as polemical works directed against the Epicureans and Stoics.

For educational purposes, other essays have been conceived containing advice on how to act 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. The compositions on the topics of family life also include a consolation (that is, a consolatory essay after a grievous loss), addressed to Plutarch's wife Timoxene, who lost her only daughter. Plutarch's pedagogical interests are reflected in many of his works (“How a young man should listen to poets”, “How to use lectures”, etc.). Thematically, the political writings of Plutarch approach them, especially those that contain recommendations for rulers and statesmen.

Along with the most popular works in the dialogic form, the Ethics also included others - close in nature to a scientific report. So, for example, the essay “On the face on the lunar disk” represents various theories regarding this celestial body; at the end, Plutarch turns to the theory adopted at the Academy of Plato (Xenocrates from Chalcedon), seeing in the Moon the homeland of demons.

Plutarch also wrote about the human soul, was interested in psychology, the psychology of animals (“On the ingenuity of animals”, “On meat-eating”).

Plutarch devoted numerous works to questions of religion, among them the so-called "Pythian" dialogues concerning the oracle of Apollo in 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 the most diverse syncretic and allegorical interpretations of the mysteries of Osiris and ancient Egyptian mythology.

Plutarch's interest in antiquities is evidenced by two works: "Greek questions" (Aitia Hellenika; lat. Quaestiones Graecae) ​​and "Roman questions" (Aitia Romaika; lat. Quaestiones Romanae), which reveal the meaning and origin of various customs of the Greco-Roman world ( much space is devoted to questions of worship). Plutarch's predilection for anecdotes, which also manifested itself in his biographies, is reflected in the collection of Lacedaemon sayings (another collection of well-known sayings, "Apothegms of Kings and Generals", is most likely not authentic). A variety of topics are revealed in the form of dialogue by such works as "The Feast of the Seven Wise Men" or "Table Talk" (in 9 books).

The Ethics of Plutarch also includes non-authentic works (by unknown authors, attributed to Plutarch in antiquity and widely known under his name). The most important of them are the treatises “On Music” (one of the main sources of our knowledge about ancient music in general) and “On the Education of Children” (a work translated into many languages ​​back in the Renaissance and considered authentic until the beginning of the 19th century).

A number of works previously attributed to Plutarch were written by unknown authors, in relation to which scientists now use the (conditional) name Pseudo-Plutarch. Among those - who lived presumably in the II century AD. e. unknown author of the works “Small comparative biographies” (another name is “Collection of parallel Greek and Roman stories”, abbreviated as ICJ) and “On rivers”, containing a lot of information on ancient mythology and history, which, as is generally recognized in science, are completely invented by him. In addition to these two, many other works not belonging to him have been preserved under the name of Plutarch, for example, the treatise On Music.

Comparative biographies

Plutarch owes his literary fame not to eclectic philosophical reasoning, and not to writings on ethics, but to biographies (which, however, are most directly related to ethics). Plutarch outlines his goals in the introduction to the biography of Aemilius Paulus (Aemilius Paulus): communication with the great people of antiquity has educational functions, and if not all the heroes of biographies are attractive, then a negative example is also valuable, it can have an intimidating effect and turn to the path of the righteous life. In his biographies, Plutarch follows the teachings of the Peripatetics, who in the field of ethics attributed decisive importance to human actions, arguing that every action gives rise to virtue. Plutarch follows the scheme of peripatetic biographies, describing in turn the birth, youth, character, activity, death of the hero. Nowhere is Plutarch a historian critical of the facts. The huge historical material available to him is used very freely (“we write a biography, not a history”). First of all, Plutarch needs a psychological portrait of a person; in order to visually represent him, he willingly draws on information from the private life of the persons depicted, anecdotes and witty sayings. The text includes numerous moral arguments, various quotations from poets. This is how colorful, emotional narratives were born, the success of which was ensured by the author's talent for storytelling, his craving for everything human and moral optimism that elevates the soul. Biographies of Plutarch have for us a purely historical value, because he had many valuable sources, which were subsequently lost.

Plutarch began to write biographies in his youth. At first, he turned his attention to the famous people of Boeotia: Hesiod, Pindar, Epaminondas. Subsequently, he began to write about representatives of other regions of Greece: the Spartan king Leonidas, Aristomenes, Arata of Sicyon. There is even a biography of the Persian king Artaxerxes II. During his stay in Rome, Plutarch wrote biographies of Roman emperors intended for the Greeks. And only in the later period did he write his most important work “Comparative Biographies” (ancient Greek. Βίοι Παράλληλοι ; lat. Vitae parallelae). These were biographies of prominent historical figures of Greece and Rome, compared in pairs. Currently, 22 couples and four single biographies of an earlier period are known (Arat of Sicyon, Artaxerxes II, Galba and Otho). Among the couples, some are well composed: the mythical founders of Athens and Rome - Theseus and Romulus; the first legislators are Lycurgus of Sparta and Numa Pompilius; the greatest generals- Alexander the Great and Gaius Julius Caesar; the greatest orators are Cicero and Demosthenes. Others are compared more arbitrarily: "children of happiness" - Timoleon and Aemilius Paul, or a couple illustrating the vicissitudes of human destinies - Alcibiades and Coriolanus. After each pair, Plutarch apparently intended to give a comparative description (synkrisis), a brief indication of the common features and main differences between the characters. However, for several couples (in particular, for Alexander and Caesar), the juxtaposition is missing, that is, it has not been preserved (or, less likely, it has not been written). In the text of biographies there are cross-references, from which we learn that there were originally more of them than in the body of texts that has come down to us. Lost biographies of Leonidas, Epaminondas, Scipio Africanus).

The lack of historical criticism and the depth of political thought did not interfere, and still do not prevent Plutarch's biographies from finding numerous readers who are interested in their diverse and instructive content and highly appreciate the warm humane feeling of the author.

Other works

The standard edition includes 78 treatises, some of which (according to modern science) do not belong to Plutarch.

Plutarch's translations

For editions of ethical writings, see Moralia (Plutarch)

Of the translators of Plutarch into new European languages, the French author Amyot enjoyed special fame.

Russian translations

Plutarch began to be translated into Russian since the 18th century: See the translations of Stepan Pisarev, “Plutarch’s Instructions on childcare” (St. Petersburg, 1771) and “The Word of Unceasing Curiosity” (St. Yves. Alekseev, "The Moral and Philosophical Writings of Plutarch" (St. Petersburg, 1789); E. Sferina, "On Superstition" (St. Petersburg, 1807); S. Distunis and others. "Plutarch's comparative biographies" (St. Petersburg, 1810, 1814-16, 1817-21); "Biography 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 "Life and deeds of famous people of antiquity" (M., 1889, I-II); "Conversation about the face visible on the disk of the moon" ("Phil. Review" vol. VI, book 2).

• reprint: Comparative biographies. / Per. V. A. Alekseev. M.: Alfa-kn. 2008. 1263 pages.

The best Russian edition of Comparative Biographies, where most of the translation was done by S. P. Markish:

• 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 Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1961-1964. - 2nd ed., corrected. and additional - M.: Nauka, 1994. - T. 1. 704 p. - T. 2. 672 p.
• Plutarch/ Per. G. A. Ivanova. Based on materials from the collection "Philosophy of Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages". Moscow: Progress-Tradition, 2000.

Research

For the comparative merits of Plutarch's manuscripts, see the critical apparatuses for the editions of Reiske (Lpts., 1774-82), Sintenis ("Vitae", 2nd ed., Lpts., 1858-64); Wyttenbach ("Moralia", Lpts., 1796-1834), Bernardakes ("Moralia", Lpts. 1888-95), also Treu, "Zur Gesch. d. Oberlieferung von Plut. Moralia" (Bresl., 1877-84). Dictionary of the Plutarchian language - under the name. Wyttenbach's edition. About the life of Plutarch, Svyda gives meager information.

From other Op. Wed Wesiermann, "De Plut. vita et scriptis” (Lpts., 1855); Volkmann "Leben, Schriften und Philosophie des Plutarch" (B., 1869); Muhl, "Plutarchische Studien" (Augsburg, 1885) and others.

• Yelpidinsky Ya. S. Religious and moral outlook of Plutarch of Chaeronea. - St. Petersburg, 1893. 462 pages.
• Averintsev S. S. Plutarch and ancient biography: On the question of the place of the classic of the genre in the history of the genre. - M., 1973.
  • reissue in the book: Averintsev S.S. The image of antiquity. Sat. - St. Petersburg: ABC-classics. 2004. 480 pages, 3000 copies.

Memory

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Links

• in ancient Greek
• in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• on ancientrome.ru
• about "Comparative Lives"

Compositions Plutarch Compositions Comparative biography 1 Unpaired biographies 2 Lost biographies

An excerpt characterizing Plutarch

“Yes, but it’s hard for us to imagine eternity,” said Dimmler, who approached the young people with a meek, contemptuous smile, but now spoke as quietly and seriously as they did.
Why is it so hard to imagine eternity? Natasha said. “It will be today, it will be tomorrow, it will always be, and yesterday was and the third day was ...
- Natasha! now it's your turn. Sing me something, - the voice of the countess was heard. - Why are you sitting down, like conspirators.
- Mum! I don’t feel like it,” Natasha said, but at the same time she got up.
All of them, even the middle-aged Dimmler, did not want to interrupt the conversation and leave the corner of the sofa, but Natasha got up, and Nikolai sat down at the clavichord. As always, standing in the middle of the hall and choosing the most advantageous place for resonance, Natasha began to sing her mother's favorite play.
She said that she did not feel like singing, but she had not sung for a long time before, and for a long time after, as she sang that evening. Count Ilya Andreevich, from the study where he was talking to Mitinka, heard her singing, and like a pupil in a hurry to go to play, finishing the lesson, he got confused in words, giving orders to the manager and finally fell silent, and Mitinka, also listening, silently with a smile, stood in front of count. Nikolai did not take his eyes off his sister, and took a breath with her. Sonya, listening, thought about what an enormous difference there was between her and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be in any way as charming as her cousin. The old countess sat with a happily sad smile and tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She thought about Natasha, and about her youth, and about how something unnatural and terrible is in this upcoming marriage of Natasha to Prince Andrei.
Dimmler, sitting down next to the countess and closing his eyes, listened.
“No, countess,” he said at last, “this is a European talent, she has nothing to learn, this gentleness, tenderness, strength ...
– Ah! how I fear for her, how I fear,” said the countess, not remembering to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that there was too much in Natasha, and that she would not be happy from this. Natasha had not yet finished singing, when an enthusiastic fourteen-year-old Petya ran into the room with the news that mummers had come.
Natasha suddenly stopped.
- Fool! she shouted at her brother, ran up to a chair, fell on it and sobbed so that she could not stop for a long time afterwards.
“Nothing, mother, really nothing, so: Petya scared me,” she said, trying to smile, but tears kept flowing and sobs squeezed her throat.
Dressed-up servants, bears, Turks, innkeepers, ladies, terrible and funny, bringing with them cold and fun, at first timidly huddled in the hallway; then, hiding one behind the other, they were forced into the hall; and at first shyly, but then more and more cheerfully and amicably, songs, dances, choral and Christmas games began. The countess, recognizing the faces and laughing at the dressed up, went into the living room. Count Ilya Andreich sat in the hall with a beaming smile, approving the players. The youth has disappeared.
Half an hour later, in the hall, among the other mummers, another old lady in tanks appeared - it was Nikolai. The Turkish woman was Petya. Payas - it was Dimmler, the hussar - Natasha and the Circassian - Sonya, with a painted cork mustache and eyebrows.
After condescending surprise, misrecognition and praise from those who were not dressed up, the young people found that the costumes were so good that they had to be shown to someone else.
Nikolay, who wanted to give everyone a ride on his troika along an excellent road, suggested that, taking ten dressed-up people from the yard with him, go to his uncle.
- No, why are you upsetting him, the old man! - said the countess, - and there is nowhere to turn around with him. To go, so to the Melyukovs.
Melyukova was a widow with children of various ages, also with governesses and tutors, who lived four miles from the Rostovs.
“Here, ma chere, clever,” said the old count, who had begun to stir. “Now let me dress up and go with you.” I'll stir up Pasheta.
But the countess did not agree to let the count go: his leg hurt all these days. It was decided that Ilya Andreevich was not allowed to go, and that if Luiza Ivanovna (m me Schoss) went, the young ladies could go to Melyukova's. Sonya, always timid and shy, began to beg Louisa Ivanovna more insistently than anyone else not to refuse them.
Sonya's outfit was the best. Her mustache and eyebrows were unusually suited to her. Everyone told her that she was very good, and she was in a lively and energetic mood unusual for her. Some kind of inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in her man's dress she seemed like a completely different person. Luiza Ivanovna agreed, and half an hour later four troikas with bells and bells, screeching and whistling in the frosty snow, drove up to the porch.
Natasha was the first to give the tone of Christmas merriment, and this merriment, reflected from one to another, grew more and more intensified and reached its highest degree at the time when everyone went out into the cold, and talking, calling to each other, laughing and shouting, sat down in the sleigh.
Two troikas were accelerating, the third troika of the old count with an Oryol trotter in the bud; Nikolai's fourth own, with its low, black, shaggy root. Nikolay, in his old woman's attire, on which he put on a hussar, belted cloak, stood in the middle of his sleigh, picking up the reins.
It was so bright that he could see plaques gleaming in the moonlight and the eyes of the horses looking around frightenedly at the riders rustling under the dark canopy of the entrance.
Natasha, Sonya, m me Schoss and two girls sat in Nikolai's sleigh. In the old count's sleigh sat Dimmler with his wife and Petya; dressed up courtyards sat in the rest.
- Go ahead, Zakhar! - Nikolai shouted to his father's coachman in order to have an opportunity to overtake him on the road.
The trio of the old count, in which Dimmler and other mummers sat, screeching with skids, as if freezing to the snow, and rattling with a thick bell, moved forward. The trailers clung to the shafts and bogged down, turning the strong and shiny snow like sugar.
Nikolai set off for the first three; the others rustled and squealed from behind. At first they rode at a small trot along a narrow road. While we were driving past the garden, the shadows from the bare trees often lay across the road and hid the bright light of the moon, but as soon as we drove beyond the fence, a diamond-shiny, with a bluish sheen, a snowy plain, all doused with moonlight and motionless, opened up on all sides. Once, once, pushed a bump in the front sleigh; the next sleigh and the following jogged in the same way, and, boldly breaking the chained silence, the sleigh began to stretch out one after the other.
- A hare's footprint, a lot of footprints! - Natasha's voice sounded in the frosty constrained air.
– As you can see, Nicolas! Sonya's voice said. - Nikolai looked back at Sonya and bent down to get a closer look at her face. Some kind of completely new, sweet face, with black eyebrows and mustaches, in the moonlight, close and far, peeped out of the sables.
"It used to be Sonya," Nikolai thought. He looked closer at her and smiled.
What are you, Nicholas?
“Nothing,” he said, and turned back to the horses.
Having ridden out onto the main road, greased with runners and all riddled with traces of thorns, visible in the light of the moon, the horses themselves began to tighten the reins and add speed. The left harness, bending its head, twitched its traces with jumps. Root swayed, moving his ears, as if asking: “Is it too early to start?” - Ahead, already far separated and ringing a receding thick bell, Zakhar's black troika was clearly visible on the white snow. Shouting and laughter and the voices of the dressed up were heard from his sleigh.
“Well, you, dear ones,” shouted Nikolai, tugging on the reins on one side and withdrawing his hand with a whip. And only by the wind, which seemed to intensify against them, and by the twitching of the tie-downs, which were tightening and increasing their speed, it was noticeable how fast the troika flew. Nicholas looked back. With a shout and a squeal, waving their whips and forcing the natives to gallop, other troikas kept up. Root steadfastly swayed under the arc, not thinking of knocking down and promising to give more and more when needed.
Nikolai caught up with the top three. They drove off some mountain, drove onto a widely rutted road through a meadow near a river.
"Where are we going?" thought Nikolay. - “It should be on a slanting meadow. But no, it's something new that I've never seen before. This is not a slanting meadow and not Demkina Gora, but God knows what it is! This is something new and magical. Well, whatever it is!” And he, shouting at the horses, began to go around the first three.
Zakhar restrained his horses and turned his already frosted face up to the eyebrows.
Nicholas let his horses go; Zakhar, stretching his hands forward, smacked his lips and let his people go.
“Well, hold on, sir,” he said. - The troikas flew even faster nearby, and the legs of the galloping horses quickly changed. Nicholas began to take forward. Zakhar, without changing the position of his outstretched arms, raised one hand with the reins.
“You’re lying, master,” he shouted to Nikolai. Nikolai put all the horses into a gallop and overtook Zakhar. The horses covered the faces of the riders with fine, dry snow, next to them there was a sound of frequent enumerations and the fast-moving legs were confused, and the shadows of the overtaken troika. The whistle of skids in the snow and women's screams were heard from different directions.
Stopping the horses again, Nikolai looked around him. All around was the same magical plain soaked through with moonlight with stars scattered over it.
“Zakhar shouts for me to take the left; why to the left? Nikolay thought. Are we going to the Melyukovs, is this Melyukovka? We God knows where we are going, and God knows what is happening to us – and what is happening to us is very strange and good.” He looked back at the sleigh.
“Look, he has both a mustache and eyelashes, everything is white,” said one of the sitting strange, pretty and strange people with thin mustaches and eyebrows.
“This one, it seems, was Natasha,” Nikolai thought, and this one is m me Schoss; or maybe not, but this is a Circassian with a mustache, I don’t know who, but I love her.
- Aren't you cold? - he asked. They didn't answer and laughed. Dimmler was shouting something from the rear sleigh, probably funny, but it was impossible to hear what he was shouting.
“Yes, yes,” answered the voices, laughing.
- However, here is some kind of magical forest with iridescent black shadows and sparkles of diamonds and with some kind of enfilade of marble steps, and some kind of silver roofs of magical buildings, and the piercing squeal of some kind of animals. “And if this is indeed Melyukovka, then it is even stranger that we drove God knows where, and arrived at Melyukovka,” thought Nikolai.
Indeed, it was Melyukovka, and girls and lackeys with candles and joyful faces ran out to the entrance.
- Who it? - they asked from the entrance.
“The counts are dressed up, I can see by the horses,” the voices answered.

Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broad, energetic woman, in glasses and a swinging bonnet, sat in the living room, surrounded by her daughters, whom she tried not to let get bored. They quietly poured wax and looked at the shadows of the coming out figures, when steps and voices of visitors rustled in the front.
Hussars, ladies, witches, payas, bears, clearing their throats and wiping their frost-covered faces in the hall, entered the hall, where candles were hurriedly lit. Clown - Dimmler with the mistress - Nikolai opened the dance. Surrounded by screaming children, mummers, covering their faces and changing their voices, bowed to the hostess and moved around the room.
"Oh, you can't find out! And Natasha is! Look who she looks like! Right, it reminds me of someone. Eduard then Karlych how good! I didn't recognize. Yes, how she dances! Ah, fathers, and some kind of Circassian; right, how goes Sonyushka. Who else is this? Well, consoled! Take the tables, Nikita, Vanya. And we were so quiet!
- Ha ha ha! ... Hussar then, hussar then! Like a boy, and legs!… I can’t see… – voices were heard.
Natasha, the favorite of the young Melyukovs, disappeared together with them into the back rooms, where a cork was demanded and various dressing gowns and men's dresses, which, through the open door, received bare girlish hands from the footman. Ten minutes later, all the youth of the Melyukov family joined the mummers.
Pelageya Danilovna, having disposed of clearing the place for the guests and refreshments for the gentlemen and servants, without taking off her glasses, with a suppressed smile, walked among the mummers, looking closely into their faces and not recognizing anyone. She did not recognize not only the Rostovs and Dimmler, but she could not recognize either her daughters or those husband's dressing gowns and uniforms that were on them.
- And whose is this? she said, turning to her governess and looking into the face of her daughter, who represented the Kazan Tatar. - It seems that someone from the Rostovs. Well, you, mister hussar, in which regiment do you serve? she asked Natasha. “Give the Turk some marshmallows,” she said to the bartender who was scolding, “this is not forbidden by their law.
Sometimes, looking at the strange but funny steps performed by the dancers, who decided once and for all that they were dressed up, that no one would recognize them and therefore were not embarrassed, Pelageya Danilovna covered herself with a scarf, and her whole corpulent body shook from the uncontrollable kind, old woman's laughter . - Sachinet is mine, Sachinet is mine! she said.
After Russian dances and round dances, Pelageya Danilovna united all the servants and gentlemen together, in one large circle; they brought a ring, a rope and a ruble, and general games were arranged.
After an hour, all the costumes were wrinkled and upset. Cork mustaches and eyebrows smeared over sweaty, flushed, and cheerful faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired how well the costumes were made, how they went especially to the young ladies, and thanked everyone for having so amused her. The guests were invited to dine in the living room, and in the hall they ordered refreshments for the courtyards.
- No, guessing in the bathhouse, that's scary! said the old girl who lived with the Melyukovs at dinner.
- From what? asked the eldest daughter of the Melyukovs.
- Don't go, it takes courage...
"I'll go," Sonya said.
- Tell me, how was it with the young lady? - said the second Melyukova.
- Yes, just like that, one young lady went, - said the old girl, - she took a rooster, two appliances - as it should, she sat down. She sat, only hears, suddenly rides ... with bells, with bells, a sleigh drove up; hears, goes. Enters completely in the form of a human, as an officer, he came and sat down with her at the device.
- A! Ah! ... - Natasha screamed, rolling her eyes in horror.
“But how does he say that?”
- Yes, like a man, everything is as it should be, and he began, and began to persuade, and she should have kept him talking to the roosters; and she made money; – only zarobela and closed hands. He grabbed her. It's good that the girls came running here ...
- Well, what to scare them! said Pelageya Danilovna.
“Mother, you yourself guessed ...” said the daughter.
- And how do they guess in the barn? Sonya asked.
- Yes, at least now, they will go to the barn, and they will listen. What do you hear: hammering, knocking - bad, but pouring bread - this is good; and then it happens...
- Mom, tell me what happened to you in the barn?
Pelageya Danilovna smiled.
“Yes, I forgot…” she said. “After all, you won’t go, will you?”