In an excellent passage in his Preface, Mr. Clough remarks that
"Much has been said of Plutarch's inaccuracy; and it cannot be denied that he is careless about numbers, and occasionally contradicts his own statements. A greater fault, perhaps, is his passion for anecdote; he cannot forbear from repeating stories the improbability of which he is the first to recognize, which, nevertheless, by mere repetition, leave unjust impressions. He is unfair in this way to Demosthenes and Pericles,—against the latter of whom, however, he doubtless inherited the prejudices which Plato handed down to the philosophers.
"It is true, also, that his unhistorical treatment of the subjects of his biography makes him often unsatisfactory and imperfect in the portraits he draws. Much, of course, in the public lives of statesmen can find its only explanation in their political position; and of this Plutarch often knows and thinks little. So far as the researches of modern historians have succeeded in really recovering a knowledge of relations of this sort, so far, undoubtedly, these biographies stand in need of their correction. Yet, in the uncertainty which must attend all modern restorations, it is agreeable, and surely also profitable, to recur to portraits drawn ere new thoughts and views had occupied the civilized world, without reference to such disputable grounds of judgment, simply upon the broad principles of the ancient moral code of right and wrong. …. We have here the faithful record of the historical tradition of Plutarch's age. This is what, in the second century of our era, Greeks and Romans loved to believe about their warriors and statesmen of the past. As a picture, at least, of the best Greek and Roman moral views and moral judgments, as a presentation of the results of Greek and Roman moral thought, delivered, not under the pressure of calamity, but as they existed in ordinary times, and actuated plain-living people, in country places, in their daily life, Plutarch's writings are of indisputable value."
Of all the biographies contained in his work, none might excite greater suspicion of incorrectness than that of Timoleon, on account of the extraordinary character both of the man and of the incidents of his career. His story reads like a romance of the ancient times, like a legend of some half-mythical hero, rather than like the true account of an actual man. There is, perhaps, none among his Lives which Plutarch has written with greater spirit, with livelier sympathies, than this. And yet, in spite of all its seeming improbability, there is little reason to question its essential truth. It corresponds, with some minor exceptions, with all that can be ascertained from other ancient authors who wrote concerning the deliverer of Sicily; and even Mitford, with all his zeal in the cause of tyrants, can find little to detract from the praise of Timoleon, or to diminish our confidence in the truth of Plutarch's account of him.
But, in addition to the interest that belongs to these biographies, from their intrinsic qualities, as affected by the character of Plutarch,—beside the interest which the common reader or the student of biography and history may find in them, they possess a still deeper interest for the student of human nature, in its various modifications, under varying influences, and in different ages, from exhibiting to him, in a long series, many of the chief characters of the heathen world in such form as fits them for comparison with the prominent men of Christian times. The question of the effect of Christianity upon the characters and lives of the leading actors in modern history is not more important than it is difficult of solution. Plutarch, better than any other ancient writer, affords the means of estimating the motives, the principles, the objects, of the men of the old time. We see in his pages what they were; we see the differences between them and the men of later days. How far are those differences exhibitions of inferiority or of superiority? How far do they result from the influence of secondary causes? how far from the change in religious belief?
No man who knows much of the course of history will venture to insist greatly on any essential change for the better having been wrought as yet by Christianity in the manner in which the affairs of the world are carried on. Christianity has not yet been fairly tried. Nations calling themselves Christian are still governed on heathen principles. Christianity has been for the most part perverted and misunderstood. The grossest errors have been taught in its name, are still taught in its name. Falsehood has claimed the authority of truth, and its claim has been granted. The stream which flowed out pure from its source has been caught in foul cisterns, has been led into narrow channels, has been made stagnant in desolate pools and wide-spread weedy marshes. The doctrine of Christ has had thus far in the world but very few hearers who have understood it. Many a modern creed might well go back to heathenism for improvement. This perversion of Christianity is a chief element in the difficulty of tracing the real influence of true Christian teaching upon character. It is this which compels us to draw a parallel, not so much between the actual characters of ancient and modern times, if we would rightly understand the differences between them, as between what we may assume to be the ideal standards of the heathen and the Christian. But to treat this subject with the fulness and in the manner which it deserves would lead us too far from Plutarch, and we have done enough in suggesting it as matter for reflection to those who read his Lives.
One of the most marked differences in the position of the ancient and the modern man is that which has been quietly and gradually brought about by science; but its effect is little recognized by the mass of men or the most wide-spread churches. It is the difference of his recognized relations to the universe. While this earth was supposed to be the central point and main effort of creation, while the earth itself was unknown, and all the regions of space were regarded as void and untenanted, save by the inventions of fancy, man may have seemed to himself a creature of large proportions and of considerable importance. He measured himself with the gods and the half-gods, and found himself not much their inferior. In reading Plutarch, one cannot fail to be struck with the manly self-reliance of his best men of action. Their piety had no weakness of self-abasement in it. They possessed a piety toward themselves as well as toward the gods. Timoleon, who was attended by the good-fortune that waits on noble character, erected in the house which the Syracusans bestowed upon him an altar to [Greek: Automatia], which, as Mr. Clough well remarks, in a note, "is almost equivalent to Spontaneousness. His successes had come, as it were, of themselves." The act was an acknowledgment of divine favor, and an assertion at the same time of his individual independence of action. This spirit of self-dependence was the grandest feature of Greek and Roman heathenism; and it is in this, if in anything, that a superiority of character is manifest in the men of ancient times. The famous passage in Seneca's tragedy, in which Medea asserts herself as sufficient to stand alone against the universe, contains its essence and is its complete expression.
Nutr. Spes nulla monstrat rebus adflictis viam.
Med. Qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil.
Nutr. Abiere Colchi; conjugis nulla est fides; Nihilque superest opibus e tantis tibi.