The Afterlife of Plutarch

Plutarch's writings have had a varied
reception history from when he was writing in the second century BCE down
to today. This volume starts from what may be a translation into the
Syriac dialect of a lost Plutarch essay; continues with a tribute from a
leading scholar of the later Byzantine period; and follows the centuries of
sustained enthusiasm from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. This
period started once a translation into Latin had become available, and
ended when scholars in the nineteenth century lowered Plutarch's reputation as
historian, biographer, philosopher, and stylist. By the end of the
century, he came to symbolize in the eyes of Tolstoy precisely what
history should not be. Both the causes of the decline and the later
recovery of interest raise important new questions about how Plutarch should be
assessed in the twenty-first century. This is one of the early volumes in
the series of 'Afterlives' of the Classics, being produced jointly by
the Institute of Classical Studies and the Warburg.