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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 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	Theseus	17‑37	Romulus	37‑39
39‑59	Lycurgus	59‑75	Numa	75‑78
78‑97	Solon	97‑109	Publicola	109‑111
111‑128	Themistocles	129‑152	Camillus	comparison not extant
152‑173	Pericles	174‑190	Fabius Maximus	190‑191
191‑213	Alcibiades	213‑233	Coriolanus	233‑235
235‑255	Timoleon	255‑276	Aemilius Paulus	276‑277
277‑298	Pelopidas	298‑316	Marcellus	316‑318
318‑335	Aristides	336‑352	Cato the Elder	353‑356
356‑368	Philopoemen	369‑381	Flamininus	381‑382
383‑406	Pyrrhus	406‑433	Marius	comparison not extant
433‑451	Lysander	451‑475	Sulla	475‑478
478‑491	Cimon	491‑520	Lucullus	521‑523
523‑542	Nicias	543‑565	Crassus	565‑567
583‑595	Eumenes	568‑582	Sertorius	595‑596
596‑619	Agesilaus	619‑662	Pompey	662‑664
664‑707	Alexander	707‑741	Caesar	comparison not extant
741‑759	Phocion	759‑794	Cato the Younger	comparison not extant
795‑824	Agis & Cleomenes	824‑843	Tiberius & Caius Gracchus	843‑845
846‑860	Demosthenes	861‑886	Cicero	886‑888
888‑915	Demetrius	915‑955	Antony	956‑957
958‑983	Dion	984‑1009	Brutus	1009‑1011

Additional Lives, unpaired:
1011‑1027	Artaxerxes
1027‑1052	Aratus
1053‑1066	Galba
1066‑1075	Otho

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.

Images with borders lead to more information.
The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)

My warm thanks to
Sherrylyn Branchaw • John McVeagh
for sharing in the labor of proofreading the Web transcription.

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A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer.