Plutarch, Charinus, and the Megarian decree

DESPITE MANY misgivings, scholars for years generally accepted the view of the Megarian decree framed at the end of the last century, that this decree closing the harbors of the empire and the market of Attica to the Megarians was passed only shortly before the conference at Sparta at which the Megarians protested it (Thuc. 1.67.4) and that the decree was a more or less open act of imperialism against Sparta and its allies.1 The decree of Charinus declaring an enmity without truce against the Megarians and calling for biennial invasions of the Megarid, which is mentioned by Plutarch (Per. 30.3), if accepted at all, was seen as a relatively unimportant and emotional act occurring immediately before the war broke out in spring 431

The Motives for Athens’ Alliance with Corcyra (Thuc. 1.44)

DESPlTE ABLE STUDIES of the Epidamnian affair, and in particular of the Corcyraean and Corinthian speeches at Athens reported in Thucydides 1.32-43,1 the rationale of the Athenian decision to enter a defensive alliance with Corcyra has been misunderstood. This decision, described by Thucydides in 1.44, is more pragmatic, indeed Machiavellian, than regularly supposed

Plutarch’s Compositional Technique: The Anecdote Collections and the Parallel Lives

OUR NOTION of Plutarch’s preparations for his Parallel Lives, as for many works of the Moralia, must recognize a certain flexibility and experimentation on his part. After he had decided to write on certain figures as biographical subjects, and reviewed his general historical knowledge, he no doubt began specific readings in the histories of the periods concerned and in the contemporary documents he had been able to discover. He would als\o have considered different possible interpretations of the heroes’ characters, and tried to identify specific anecdotes or incidents that he might be able to use. This applies particularly to his note-taking, whether in the form of anecdote collections or summary historical narratives, and to the manner in which he reworked these materials in preparing the Lives

The Form and Content of Thucydides' Pentecontaetia (1.89-117)

READING THE PENTECONTAETIA is both easy and difficult. The narrative runs rapidly, with little of Thucydides' customary density and grammatical strain, yet its principles of arrangement and selection have remained obscure. Discussion has centered on two major difficulties: chronology and omissions. A. W. Gomme noted that the Pentecontaetia seems to share the very faults for which Thucydides criticized Hellanicus: it is both 1Ot<; xPOVOt<; OUK aKpt~£<; and ~paxuchronologically imprecise and brief. Explanations vary: to take two extremes, Russell Meiggs suggested that the excursus was "late and hurried and much less well digested than most of the history," while Ernst Badian, starting from the assumption that Thucydides composed the excursus after the Peloponnesian War" in order to establish his thesis of Sparta's responsibility for the war and the correctness of Pericles' vision," has recently accused Thucydides of gross distortion of the historical record, through cunning omissions, innuendo, and outright falsification

The Proems of Plutarch's Lives

published or submitted for publicatio

Arrian's Extended Preface

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Pericles Among the Intellectuals

published or submitted for publicatio

The Motives for Athens’ Alliance with Corcyra (Thuc. 1.44)

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