![]() Biography as Mirror and Invitationįirst, Plutarch does not see himself as the final word on many of these biographies. I also cover these answers in my podcast on the Lessons from the Lawgivers. I think there are at least two answers here, though I’d be interested in hearing another perspective if anyone wants to share in the comments. He dedicates only about 10% of the whole project to explicit comparison. If the point of Plutarch’s project was to compare these two great men, why spend so few words comparing the men? Granted, some of the lives have introductions that frontload the comparison, but that still leaves the majority of Plutarch’s project dedicated to the individuals. Plutarch studies both characters in about 1000 words. When I prepared the podcast on the lawgivers, I noticed that all the comparisons of eight men didn’t add up to the same as the average life. They assume you’ve read both the other biographies (in all but two cases, the Greek first and the Roman second), and they almost don’t feel long enough even to be essays. Of the 23 paired biographies Plutarch wrote, we still have a comparison for 19 pairs. ![]()
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