Greek Lives

So I picked this book up because I read somewhere that in a study done of folks in the 1920s, the two most commonly owned books were The King James Bible and Plutarch's Lives. I had never heard of Plutarch or Lives and so I figured I'd read it.

While I was reading this book, I found most other people do know what it is. Several folks had not just read it, but had an opinion about it. More than almost anything else I've read. I talked about this book with my buddy at the coffee shop and the founder of an activist hedge fund. And they both seemed to care deeply about it. Interesting.

Anyway, Plutarch does biography better than we do it now. He tells terse, tight, stories focused on the mindset of those he's studying. Speculative? Sure. But compelling. Plutarch takes a point of view - he tries to understand what's in the mind of these people. We know he's guessing, but he's provocative in guessing. And in that, he teaches us in a way those who never guess, but have reams of footnotes, do not. He also pointed out his subject's foibles in simple terms, as if he was unconcerned that these are just people with good and bad bound up inextricably together. Refreshing!

Anyhow, these are great stories.

Themistocles decided Greece should have ships. Wasn’t a popular opinion at the time. Led to an upset victory at Salamis which changed course of human history.

Pericles was a very good speaker. Sounds like he won a big political fight with thucydides during the Peloponnesian war and got the dude exiled from the city. I suppose those were the stakes.

Alcibiades seems to have been good looking and good at influencing people, though apparently sort of a mediocre speaker. Sounds like he buddies up with Socrates (who fought in wars and stuff - who knew?) and then went around making friends wherever he went by blending in with local customs. Though did not start out that way, started off somewhat off putting. Harder for me to get a read on what exactly Plutarch thought of this one.

Alexander, the best known subject, seems to me like a lunatic. Was he great? Sure, I suppose. He was apparently hard working, self sacrificing, and beloved to his troops while occasionally excoriating as susceptible to flattery, overly desirous of accomplishment and fame, and prone to ostentatious displays. I guess I got stuck at the moment where Alexander was worried his father would be so successful that he would have nothing left to conquer. Is that a guy we should admire? In my mind, obviously not. But Plutarch and folks in general seem to view this as a reasonable view. Huh.


But to me the star of this show, in an age of COVID, inequality, confusion, disiullusionment, was Lykurgus.


Lykurgus asserted the purpose of a city is to allow virtue in its citizens, not wealth or conquest. And with that premise, he reformed Sparta. Instituted a series of government and social reforms. Lykurgus had different ideas and he brought them into the world.

Here are some examples:

1) established a senate to check the monarch, which spared Sparta from revolutions against corrupt monarchs
2) redivided private property to achieve something close to equality among property holders
3) radically reformed social norms, expecting people to eat together in common rather than in their homes
4) reformed money, settling on a piece of iron that was not accepted in other states, thus making it impossible for Sparta to import luxury goods and making it independent
5) reformed gender relations, made it normal for women to exercise and participate in physical labor. Society more equal and productive than other areas.
6) viewed children as communal property of the state, not of their parents. Educated as such.


This is just a great book. I would like to see some modern writers take risks like Plutarch.

Four stars!