[161] Cf. the fate of Chæroneia under Antony, as told by Plutarch’s grandfather (see Life of Antony, 948 A, B).
[162] 814 A.
[163] Præcepta Reip. Ger., 813, et passim:—He insists, however (814 E, F), that subservience must not go too far, and he is also careful to point out such brilliant openings for political ambition as are left by the peculiar conditions of the time (805 A, B).
[164] Plutarch states that the aim of his political advice is to enable a man not only to become “a useful citizen,” but also “to order his domestic affairs with safety, honour, and justice” (De Unius in Repub., &c., 826 C).
[165] Præcepta Reip., 824 C.
[166] Præcepta Reip., 813 F.
[167] Propertius, iv. 11. “Hæc Di condiderant, hæc Di quoque mœnia servant.” Plutarch’s essay reads like an exposition of this text of the Roman poet.
[168] “Et hoc verbo monere satis est, Τύχης nomine contineri omnem rerum actionumque efficientiam, quæ a Virtute disjuncta, nec in hominis potestate posita est; sive illa ut casus et temeritas, sive ut divina providentia informetur.”—Wyttenbach. Schlemm says that this tract and the De Alexandri sive virtute sive fortuna are “meræ exercitationes rhetoricæ in quibus certam quandam philosophiam persequi in animo non habebat.” Yet the rhetoric of the De Fortuna Romanorum is in wonderful harmony with Plutarch’s mature opinion as deliberately expressed in the De Republica Gerenda.
[169] Virgil: Georgics, ii. 534; Plut: De Fortuna Romanorum, 316 E. This may be a conscious reminiscence of Virgil’s line. If Plutarch had not read Virgil, he may have heard so famous a verse quoted by his friends at Rome. He himself translates a passage from “the poet Flaccus” in his Life of Lucullus (518 C—Horace: Ep., i. 6, 45). The question of Plutarch’s acquaintance with Latin is very important for investigations into the historical sources of his “Lives;” but it lies beyond our present limits. It is fully dealt with by Weissenberger in his Die Sprache Plutarchs (1895). He exculpates Plutarch from some of the grosser mistakes in Latinity imputed to him by Volkmann.
[170] 317 B, C.