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Excerpt from Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 1 of 4: Translated From the Greek With Notes and a Life of Plutarch N O apologies are needed for a new edition Of so favourite an author as Plutarch. From the period Of the revival of classical literature in Europe down to our own times, his writings have done more than those Of any other single author to familiarise us with the greatest men and the greatest events Of the ancient world. The great Duke Of Marlborough, it is said, confessed that his only knowledge Of English history was derived from Shakespeare's historical plays, and it would not be too much to say that a very large proportion of educated men, in our own as well as in Marlborough's times, have owed much Of their knowledge Of classical antiquity to the study Of Plutarch's Lives. Other writers may be read with profit, with admiration, and with interest; but few, like Plutarch, can gossip pleasantly while instruct ing solidly; can breathe life into the dry skeleton Of history, and show that the life Of a Greek or Roman worthy, when rightly dealt with, can prove as entertain in g as a modern novel. NO one is so well able as Plutarch to dispel the doubt which all schoolboys feel as to whether the names about which they read ever belonged to men who were really alive; his characters are so intensely human and lifelike in their faults and failings as well as in their virtues, that we begin to think of them as of people whom we have ourselves personally known. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the