This book is a collection of essays on the Parallel Lives of the Greek philosopher and biographer Plutarch which examines the moral issues Plutarch recognized behind political leadership, and places his writings in their political and social context of the reigns of the Flavian emperors and their successors.

In the introductory remarks to his Mulierum Virtutes, Plutarch notes the value of comparisons for establishing the diverse manifestations of the same virtue: ‘Achilles was brave in one way, Ajax in another; and the intelligence of Odysseus differed from that of Nestor, nor were Cato and Agesilaus just in the same way, nor was Irene loving of her husband () as Alcestis was, nor Cornelia high-minded in the manner of Olympias’ . All the examples are well known, and quite apposite, (...) except for Irene (). Who is this paragon of wifely love? A search through encyclopedias and mythological handbooks proves fruitless. Wyttenbach in his note ad loc. suggested the courtesan friend of a minor Ptolemy killed at Ephesus , yet this extremely obscure figure hardly merits mention in the same breath with Alcestis. The name must be corrupt. (shrink)

In the introductory remarks to his Mulierum Virtutes, Plutarch notes the value of comparisons for establishing the diverse manifestations of the same virtue: ‘Achilles was brave in one way, Ajax in another; and the intelligence of Odysseus differed from that of Nestor, nor were Cato and Agesilaus just in the same way, nor was Irene loving of her husband () as Alcestis was, nor Cornelia high-minded in the manner of Olympias’. All the examples are well known, and quite apposite, except (...) for Irene (). Who is this paragon of wifely love? A search through encyclopedias and mythological handbooks proves fruitless. Wyttenbach in his note ad loc. suggested the courtesan friend of a minor Ptolemy killed at Ephesus, yet this extremely obscure figure hardly merits mention in the same breath with Alcestis. The name must be corrupt. (shrink)

Stephanie West suggested in a note in this journal , 280) that the presence of an anecdote in Lodovico Guicciardini's sixteenth-century L'Hore di Ricreatione furnishes a parallel for the fable alluded to by Horace, Ep. 1.2.42–3: ‘Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis: at ille / labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.’ The parallels, and a third from nineteenth-century Sicily, allow her to imagine a tale, ‘part of Italian traditional lore’, already extant in Horace's time and presumably transmitted in rural regions (...) down to Guicciardini and the Sicilian story-teller. (shrink)