Sublime

then to have done justice and never to have been compelled to do injustice through poverty, and never to have deceived anyone,

la conduite de Cyrus envers les Lydiens, après qu'il se fut emparé de leur capitale et qu'il eut pris pour captif Crésus, ce roi si riche. On lui apporta la nouvelle que les habitants de Sardes s'étaient révoltés. Il les eut bientôt réduits à l'obéissance. Mais ne voulant pas saccager une aussi belle ville ni être obligé d'y tenir une armée pour la

Cicero versus Catiline

There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.

Plato was the most important in early Christianity, Aristotle in the medieval Church; but when, after the Renaissance, men began to value political freedom, it was above all to Plutarch that they turned. He influenced profoundly the English and French liberals of the eighteenth century, and the founders of the United States; he influenced the roman

Gaius Gracchus

The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

Unlike Pericles, Octavian never tried to forge, from contingent events, causal chains.33 Instead he seized opportunities while retaining objectives. He saw next steps where Antony stumbled. Octavian stuck to his compass heading while avoiding swamps: it’s almost as if Antony sought out swamps, sank into them, and then got bored with them.