Christopher Pelling

Characterization and individuality in Greek literature

Christopher Gill: The character-personality distinction Stephen Halliwell: Traditional Greek conceptions of character Oliver Taplin: Agamemnons role in the Iliad P. E. Easterling: Constructing character in Greek tragedy Simon Goldhill: Character and action, representation and reading: Greek tragedy and its critics Jasper Griffin: Characterization in Euripides: Hippolytus and Iphigenia in Aulis Michael Silk: The people of Aristophanes Lucinda Coventry: The role of interlocutor in Platos dialogues: Theory and practice D. A. F. M. Russell: Ethos in oratory and rhetoric C. B. R. Pelling: Childhood and personality in Greek biography C. B. R. Pelling: Conclusion

Plutarch's method of work in the Roman Lives

This paper is concerned with the eight Lives in which Plutarch describes the final years of the Roman Republic: Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Caesar, Cato, Brutus , and Antony. It is not my main concern to identify particular sources, though some problems of provenance will inevitably arise; it is rather to investigate the methods which Plutarch adopted in gathering his information, whatever his sources may have been. Did he, for instance, compose each biography independently? Or did he prepare several Lives simultaneously, combining in one project his reading for a number of different works? Did he always have his source-material before him as he composed? Or can we detect an extensive use of memory? Can one conjecture what use, if any, he made of notes? And can we tell whether he usually drew his material from just one source, or wove together his narrative from his knowledge of several different versions? I start from an important assumption: that, in one way or another, Plutarch needed to gather information before writing these Lives; that, whatever may be the case with some of the Greek Lives, he would not be able to write these Roman biographies simply from his general knowledge. The full basis for this assumption will only become clear as the discussion progresses: for example, we shall find traces of increasing knowledge within these Lives, with early biographies showing only a slight knowledge of some important events, and later ones gradually filling the gaps. It will become probable that Plutarch knew comparatively little of the detail of Roman history before he began work on the Lives, and that considerable ‘research’—directed and methodical reading—would be necessary for their composition.

Plutarch's adaptation of his source-material

The full-text of this book chapter is not available in ORA. Citation: Pelling, C. B. R. (1995). Plutarchs adaptation of his source-material. In: Scardigli, B. (ed.), Essays on Plutarchs Lives, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 125-154.

Speech and action: Herodotus' debate on the constitutions

When Mardonius sailed along the coast of Asia and arrived in Ionia, something happened that will seem very wondrous to those Greeks who find it impossible to accept that Otanes proposed to the seven Persians that Persia ought to have a democratic government: for Mardonius suppressed all the Ionian tyrannies and established democracies in the cities. (Herodotus 6.43.3)