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Bill Thayer

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Plutarch's Lives

The Text on LacusCurtius

The translation is that of the Loeb Classical Library edition (Cambridge, MA and London), by Bernadotte Perrin. Dating in its entirety back to before 1923, it is in the public domain. (Details here on the copyright law involved.)

As usual, I retyped the text rather than scanning it: not only to minimize errors prior to proofreading, but as an opportunity for me to become intimately familiar with the work, an exercise which I heartily recommend. (Well-meaning attempts to get me to scan text, if success­ful, would merely turn me into some kind of machine: gambit declined.)

In the table of contents below, all the Lives are shown on blue backgrounds, indicating that they've been minutely proofread; the header bar at the top of each webpage will remind you with the same color scheme. That said, errors are inevitable: should you spot one, please do report it, of course.

Further details on the technical aspects of the site layout follow the Table of Contents.

Background

For a summary of Plutarch's life and of the manuscripts, editions and translations of the Lives, see the Loeb edition's introductory material, by Bernadotte Perrin.

For another summary of his life, and a brief but careful assessment of him as a philosopher and historian, see the Plutarch section of Livius.Org.

Chapter and Section Numbering, Local Links

Both chapters (represented by large numbers embedded in the text) and sections (small numbers) mark local links, according to a consistent scheme; you can therefore link directly to any passage. In addition, the traditional numbering scheme, the page numbers in the 1624 Paris edition — Stephanus' textus receptus — are indicated in the left margin to the extent that the Loeb edition provides them (which is not often), and the Loeb edition's page numbers in the right; they too are anchors. Stephanus' page numbers are also provided in the table below, for look‑up purposes.

Greek Lives
Roman Lives
Comparisons

1‑17

17‑37

39‑59

59‑75

78‑97

97‑109

111‑128

129‑152

comparison not extant

152‑173

174‑190

191‑213

213‑233

235‑255

255‑276

277‑298

298‑316

318‑335

336‑352

356‑368

369‑381

383‑406

406‑433

comparison not extant

433‑451

451‑475

478‑491

491‑520

523‑542

543‑565

583‑595

568‑582

596‑619

619‑662

664‑707

707‑741

comparison not extant

741‑759

759‑794

comparison not extant

795‑824

824‑843

Tiberius
Caius Gracchus

846‑860

861‑886

888‑915

915‑955

958‑983

984‑1009

Additional Lives, unpaired:

1011‑1027

1027‑1052

1053‑1066

1066‑1075

Annotation

The Loeb translation includes a few notes; I put them online, and sometimes added further information. In the print edition, some notes are referred to a note to a previous Life; I found it simpler to do the same, although often enough that previous note is not thoroughly satisfactory: still, the diligent reader will probably not begrudge me the shortcut — and the superficial reader will never notice.

Other Texts of the Lives Online

A seeming myriad of other English translations of the Parallel Lives are online; since, however, — at least as of writing, May 2012 — every one of them is incomplete, sometimes wretchedly and deceptively so, I'm not recommending any; you're on your own.

There are on the other hand several complete Greek texts of the Lives online: the header bar of each of my pages for these English translations includes a link to the most convenient of them.


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Site updated: 2 Nov 22