Plutarch: Lives of Pompey, Caesar and Cicero: A Companion to the Penguin Translation

In the Lives, Plutarch intended to provide moral exemplars for his readers though biographical accounts of the great Roman leaders. It is this partiality that has led many scholars to cast doubt on his version and interpretation of historical events. In this companion to the Lives of Pompey, Caesar and Cicero, Michael Edwards argues that rigorous historical standards cannot be applied to Plutarch's work, indeed that attempts to do so are methodologically unsound. Without denying Plutarch's weaknesses as a historian, he suggests that these may have been exaggerated. Differences in literary technique and the use of one source of reach life, may account for the apparent inconsistency of their respective portraits of character and event.

In the English-speaking world most readers come to Plutarch through the Penguin translations, and this companion aims to give help to readers of this subtle and complex writer. The introduction gives brief details of Plutarch's life and works, his methods and aims as a biographer, and the character of these particular three Lives. The commentary, in continuous prose, gives citations from the Penguin translation in bold type. The book also contains family trees, maps, a chronological table, a glossary of Roman political terms, and a select vocabulary.