Historians, writers and artists who wanted to pay homage to Cleopatra once again, referred to and still refer to Plutarch’s Life of Antony, first and foremost. It can seem that this main, if not the only ancient work, being quite a compact story about the Egyptian queen, has been ultimately interpreted in numerous review editions and biographies of Cleopatra. However, Plutarch’s Cleopatra has not been analysed as a separate work — excerpts from Life of Antony have always been combined with (...) other sources in order to obtain a single picture. And in belles-lettres, the work of this ancient moralist have been exploited for centuries in such a way that it is no longer Plutarch’s property. Literary works from different epochs, in the form of interpretations, with Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the head of the list, have distorted the ancient moralist’s message. It turns out that when we reject Shakespeare’s prism that we usually use when examining Plutarch’s Cleopatra and we start to analyse Antony’s biography only in the context of other works written by the moralist of Chaeronea, considering them to be a peculiar comment on Life of Antony, we are able to see a completely different picture to the one we are used to. Divine powers, present on the pages of the ancient work and implicating gods and people in love and desire do not have access to the queen. However, everything suggests that in the case of “the romance of all time” we can see in the moralist’s work something he did not write at all. We refer to Life of Antony and we envisage the character of Cleopatra described by Shakespeare and his successors. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Am Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. hatte die gens Fabia – eine der ältesten und prominentesten patrizischen gentes – ein ganzes Spektrum von Strategien der Selbstdarstellung vor ihren Standesgenossen und dem Volk entwickelt, die besonders dicht miteinander vernetzt waren: Dazu gehörten einerseits die ambivalenten Mythen wie die Abstammung der gens von Herakles, der Untergang der Fabii am Cremera-Bach und ihre Verwicklung in das Desaster an der Allia; die diversen, von prominenten Mitgliedern geweihten Tempel wie diejenigen für Venus und (...) Honos; Monumente wie die Herakles-Statue des berühmten Lysippos, die der später als ‚Cunctator‘ gefeierte Q. Fabius Maximus nach seiner Eroberung von Tarent hatte nach Rom bringen und auf dem Capitol aufstellen lassen, und zwar in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft mit seiner eigenen Reiterstatue, sowie weitere visuelle Medien und andererseits die performativen Strategien wie spektakuläre Triumphe und andere pompae. Diese wurden durch ein neues Medium ergänzt und erweitert: Vor allem Fabius Pictors bahnbrechende Geschichte Roms sowie die schriftlich verbreitete laudatio funebris des erwähnten Cunctator auf seinen Sohn wurden ein integraler Teil des komplexen Repertoires der multimedialen Strategien der fabischen Selbstdarstellung. (shrink)

This paper aims to reexamine how traditions about the spolia opima developed with special emphasis on two crucial phases of their evolution, the time of Marcus Claudius Marcellus' dedication in 222 BC and the early years of Augustus' principate, following the restoration of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius on the Capitol. In particular, I will argue that Marcellus invented the spolia opima, that his feat shaped the entire tradition about such dedications, and that this tradition was later enhanced and "reinvented" (...) by Augustus, probably following upon renewed interest under Julius Caesar. Through an evaluation of the surviving evidence about the three canonical dedicators the possibility is explored that the spolia opima, rather than being an archaic ritual dating back to the regal period, represent a tradition invented by specific individuals at certain well-defined moments in Roman history. Augustus himself, beginning while he was still a child, was influenced by traditions about the career and achievements of M. Claudius Marcellus. Augustus' interest in Marcellus helps to explain his special focus on the spolia opima as a significant and hallowed Roman tradition. Consequently, in the late first century B.C., spolia opima were associated both with old-fashioned "republican" aspirations and also with the iconography and self-definition of the new ruling family. In this context other leading Romans of the age considered dedicating such spolia, notably M. Licinius Crassus, grandson of the triumvir, and the elder Drusus, brother of Tiberius. In addition, Virgil included the spolia opima as a recurring theme in the second half of the Aeneid. The poem reaches its climax when Aeneas kills his rival Italian leader Turnus in a duel which would have entitled him to dedicate spolia opima. (shrink)

This study focuses not on individual Lives or pairs of Lives, but on the book as a whole and its articulation across the full corpus. It argues that the Plutarchan book consists of up to four distinct sections: prologue, first Life, second Life, synkrisis. Each of these sections has a fairly consistent internal structure, and each has a distinct set of strategies for opening, for closure, and for managing the transition from one section to the next. Prologues provide an introduction (...) to both Lives, and are clearly delineated from them, even though in our manuscripts they appear as part of the first Life; in fact, there is often a stronger break between prologue and first Life than there is between the two Lives themselves. Prologues usually begin with generalized reflections, to be followed only later by the naming of the subjects and a statement of their similarities. Most Lives begin with a thematically organized section , which surveys the subject's life as a whole, not just their youth, and which is marked off with varying degrees of distinctness from the narrative that follows. Crucially, proemial openings do not narrate and the logic of their structure is not chronological. Closure in many Lives is signalled by ‘circularity’ and sometimes by a closural or transitional phrase, though first Lives are different here from second Lives. Synkriseis are structured both by a series of themes on which the two subjects are compared, and by a two-part, agonistic structure in which first one of the subjects is preferred, then the other. Synkriseis may also recall the prologue; both prologue and synkrisis operate at the level of the book, and between them frame and weld together the two Lives. (shrink)

This paper examines Plutarch's treatment of education in the Parallel Lives. Beginning with a close reading of Them. 2, it identifies two distinct ways in which Plutarch exploits the education of his subjects: in the first, a subject's attitude to education is used to illustrate a character presented as basically static (a 'static/illustrative' model); in the second, a subject's education is looked at in order to explain his adult character, and education is assumed to affect character (a 'developmental' model). These (...) two models are often associated with two different forms of discourse: anecdotal for the static/illustrative model and analytical for the developmental. The developmental model, furthermore, is closer to Plutarch's thinking in theoretical discussions of character in the Moralia; the static/illustrative model to Plutarch's treatment of character in the Lives more generally, where anecdotal treatments predominate. The coexistence of these two models is probably to be seen as the result of a tension between Plutarch's philosophical thinking and his biographical practice: those few passages in the Lives which assume a developmental model occur in contexts where either Platonic texts or the activity of philosophers are being discussed. (shrink)