PLUTARCH'S LIVES, Translated From The Original Greek; With Notes Critical and Historical; and a New Life of Plutarch. By John Langhorne and William Langhorne

6 volumes. The third edition, revised and corrected. With a handsome, finely engraved frontispiece in each volume. Tall 8vo, full contemporary polished calf, the spines with gilt bands, lettering labels of contrasting red and green morocco lettered in gilt, volume numbers in gilt. A very handsome and complete set with only very minor evidence of age.

Edizione: a very fine set, handsomely bound at the time. a lovely set in full contemporary calf binding. the langhornes' translation is considered more correct than north's spirited version and more even than the translation called dryden's. lowndes considered it an ?accurate and elegant version?. this is a pleasing, gentlemanly and very well-preserved set.<br> plutarch continues to be one of our most important sources for the history of greece and rome and is also well-known as a primary source for the plots of shakespeare's classical plays and for numerous passages in the non-roman ones. the great bard relied almost exclusively on plutarch?s writings for the historical background of ancient rome.<br> the lives of plutarch (ca. ad 50 - ca. 125) was one of the most influential works of antiquity, and was the most popular work at the time of the renaissance. the lives illustrated the moral character of plutarch's subjects through a series of anecdotes; in england they served as a source-book for shakespeare's roman plays, a virtual gold mine of plots, as well as providing numerous passages in the non-roman ones. the bard relied almost exclusively on plutarch?s writings for the historical background of ancient rome. later plutarch provided the source for otway and addison. they also served as a model for isaac walton's ?lives? (1670); dryden gave a pioneer analysis of their style and structure in his life of plutarch (1683), and in america the founding fathers turned to them for models of republican virtue.<br> in this monumental historical work, plutarch relates biographies of 50 greek and roman luminaries, twenty-three pairs of lives (nineteen of them with comparisons attached) and also four single lives. they include lives of solon, themistocles, aristeides, pericles, alcibiades, nicias, demosthenes, philopoemen, timoleon, dion, alexander, pyrrhus, marius, sulla, pompey, mark antony, brutus, julius caesar, and cicero. of the later roman emperors, only the lives of galba and otho survive. plutarch's object is to bring out the moral character in each case, rather than to relate the political events of his time; hence his full treatment of the subject's education and natural disposition, and his relation of anecdotes calculated to reveal the nature of the man, 'a light occasion, a word, or some sport' which 'makes men's natural dispositions more plain than the famous battles won, in which ten thousand men may be killed'. although plutarch may have at times distorted the truth in order to exemplify virtue or vice, in general he is as reliable as his sources, and always very valuable. he shows no bias or unfairness in his treatment of greeks and romans, no flattery of the now dominant power of rome or vanity in the past glories of his own nation. he believed in the compatibility of rome the ruler and greece the educator.<br> the lives contain, besides interesting anecdotes, many memorable historical passages: the catastrophe in the peloponnesian war of the athenian expedition to syracuse (nicias), pompey's defeat by caesar and subsequent murder the death of the younger cato, and the suicide of otho. there are also great battle-pieces: the victory of the roman general marius over the german cimbri, the victory of the corinthian general timoleon over the carthaginians at the river crimisus, the siege of syracuse (when archimedes was there) by the roman marcellus; and striking descriptions of a quite different kind, of the happy state of italy under numa, of sicily pacified by timoleon, and of cleopatra sailing up the river cydnus on her barge to visit anthony.