Ploutarchos

P. Musacchio, La ricezione del Marius di Plutarco nelle comunità culturali dell’impero romano (Trento: Università di Trento, 2024) (“Labirinti”, 198), 477 pp., ISBN: 9788855410823 (edizione cartacea), ISBN: 9788855410830 (edizione digitale), DOI: 10

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In memoriam Prof. Dr. Sven-Tage Teodorsson born 21 January 1934, died 7 April 2024

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In memoriam Prof. em. dr. Luc Van der Stockt, born 9 Marz 1952, died 13 May 2025

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An annotated bibliography 2021

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The Philosopher and the Care of the Soul: Plutarch’s Use of Medical Similes and Metaphors as a Didactic Strategy in Ethics

2025-04-22T17:12:54+01:00

This article analyses the rhetorical interpenetration between the semantic field of medicine and that of practical philosophy that can be found in plutarchean pamphlets on ethical and moral issues. This interpenetration contributes to the overlap between the two professional figures who normally deal in a unique way with each discipline, the doctor and the philosopher. Plutarch, indeed, using the rhetorical tool of comparison, aims to describe the vice that oppresses the soul through the illness that troubles the body. Because of this, he aims also to show the philosopher’s job through that of doctor and he aims to communicate the usefulness of the τέχνη περὶ βίον through the socially recognized usefulness of medicine.

Athenian Amazoneion and Amazonomachy in Plutarch’s Life of Theseus

2025-10-18T21:53:16+01:00

In the description of the battle that the Amazons fought against the Athenians in Athens, Cleidemus and Plutarch state that the left wing of the invaders’ formation stood next to the so-called Amazoneion. Based on the assumption that this toponym refers to the Amazons’ camp on the Areopagus hill, scholars have interpreted the description of the battle as confused and hard to understand. This problem can be resolved under the assumption that the Amazoneion was the monument of a fallen Amazon in the sanctuary of the Olympian Gaia.

Plutarch’s How to Profit by One’s Enemies: Transforming Conflict into Virtue in the Greek Tradition of War and Peace

2025-12-15T09:47:56+00:00

This paper explores Plutarch’s How to Profit by One’s Enemies as a moral reimagining of conflict within the ancient Greek tradition. Rejecting a simplistic opposition between war and peace, Plutarch presents enmity as a valuable force for ethical self-cultivation and civic discipline. Drawing on historical and literary exempla, he argues that enemies can serve as mirrors for self-awareness, motivating individuals to refine their conduct and overcome vice. Moral victory, in this framework, lies not in revenge but in surpassing one’s adversary in virtue. This reading is deepened through comparative analysis with How to Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend and On Having Too Many Friends, where false concord and superficial alliances prove more corrupting than honest opposition. Together, these treatises form a coherent philosophical program in which personal and political peace emerges not from eliminating conflict, but from mastering and transforming it through reason and character.

Lives of Cimon and Themistocles by Plutarch. Comparison between the Plutarchean Text and the Medieval Translation to Aragonese by Juan Fernández de Heredia

2025-10-19T21:53:28+01:00

The aim of this work is to provide a comparison between the Ancient Greek text of the Lives by Plutarch and the Medieval translation to Aragonese, which was created in the scriptorium of Juan Fernández de Heredia (14th century). For that purpose, some passages have been selected: 5.1-4 and 8.1-5 of the Life of Cimon and 11.2-5 and 14.1-16.5 of the Life of Themistocles. Afterwards, both texts are confronted and the resulting variarions are identified and analised in the Heredian translation. The extracted data provides useful information regarding the techniques and motivations in the Aragonese translation and some of the peculiarities of the textual transmision of the text.

Plutarch and the Triumph of Aemilius Paullus in Italian Renaissance Art. Part I: The Fifteenth Century and Sixteenth-Century Rome

2025-12-15T10:04:32+00:00

One of the most remarkable texts that Plutarch left us in his biographies is the ekphrasis of the triumphal procession of Aemilius Paulus following his victory over Perseus of Macedon at Pydna. Like other triumphs, it began its entry into Western culture through the inclusion—as a kind of calling card—in the triumphs of Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the codices that summarised Roman history. Its descriptive richness captured the artistic interest of rulers and merchants from the Italian republics, as well as ecclesiastical authorities, who adorned a variety of material supports from the 15th and 16th centuries—that is, throughout the Italian Renaissance—with representations of all the triumph, as it has been described by Plutarch (Aem. 32-34), or with selected individual scenes chosen according to the customers’ interests. In this First part of the article, I present and discuss (always using Plutarch’s Life of Aemilius as the primary text of reference) the iconography of this triumph as depicted on bridal chests and engravings (15th century) and, especially, in the frescoes adorning halls and façades of palaces in Rome (16th century).

Against those who accuse Plato of having claimed that liquids pass through the lungs (Quaestio convivalis 7.1, 697E-700B)

2025-12-15T10:08:45+00:00

In Quaestio convivalis 7.1, philosophy and medicine are intertwined. Nikias of Nikopolis, a doctor from the school of Erasistratus, accuses Plato in front of the grammarian Protogenes, Mestrus Florus and Plutarch himself of stating that fluids pass through the lungs and of not speaking about the glottis, but indicating a chest cavity that can distinguish the rational part of the soul from the irascible part. After a quotation from Homer, Plutarch, encouraged by Florus, takes the floor in a speech defending Plato. He highlights not only the role of the lungs, but also that of the stomach/ oesophagus, trachea and bladder. The Master’s lengthy defence, while rebuking Nicia’s arrogance, also suggests that the actions of creative nature are impenetrable.