Parallel Lives: Complete

Plato was born in 428-7 B.C., in the early years of the Peloponnesian War.

Equally intriguing a survival, and perhaps even more surprising, is part of a long poem that Cicero wrote to celebrate the achievements of his consulship; it is no longer complete, but it was famous, or infamous, enough that more than seventy lines of it are quoted by other ancient writers and by Cicero himself in later works. It includes one of th

Aux batailles si renommées de Miltiade, de Léonidas, de Thémistocle, qui datent de deux mille ans et qui vivent encore aujourd'hui aussi fraîches dans la mémoire des livres et des hommes que si elles venaient d'être livrées hier, en Grèce, pour le bien des Grecs et pour l'exemple du monde entier, qu'est-ce qui donna à un si petit nombre de Grecs, n

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, for example, who more than two millennia later gave his name to the American city of Cincinnati, is supposed to have returned from semi-exile in the 450s BCE to become dictator and lead Roman armies to victory against their enemies before nobly retiring straight back to his farm without seeking further political glory.