THE

LIFE OF PLUTARCH.

I KNOW not by what fate it comes to pass, that historians, who give immortality to others, are so ill requited by posterity, that their actions and their fortunes are usually forgotten; neither themselves encouraged while they live, nor their memory preserved entire to future ages. It is the ingratitude of mankind to their greatest benefactors, that they who teach us wisdom by the surest ways, (setting before us what we ought to shun or to pursue, by the examples of the most famous men whom they record, and by the experience of their faults and virtues,) should generally live poor and unregarded; as if they were born only for the public, and had no interest in their own well-being, but were to be lighted up like tapers, and to waste themselves for the benefit of others. But this is a complaint too general, and the custom has been too long established to be remedied; neither does it wholly reach our author. He was born in an age which was sensible of his virtue, and found a Trajan to reward him, as Aristotle did an Alexander. But the histo

rians who succeeded him, have either been too envious, or too careless of his reputation; none of them, not even his own countrymen, having given us any particular account of him; or if they have, yet their works are not transmitted to us: so that we are forced to glean from Plutarch what he has scattered in his writings concerning himself and his original; which (excepting that little memorial that Suidas, and some few others, have left concerning him,) is all we can collect relating to this great philosopher and historian.

He was born at Charonea, a small city of Baotia, in Greece, between Attica and Phosis, and reaching to both seas. The climate not much befriended by the heavens, for the air is thick and foggy; and consequently the inhabitants partaking of its influence, gross feeders and fat-witted, brawny and unthinking,-just the constitution of heroes, cut out for the executive and brutal business of war; but so stupid in the designing part, that in all the revolutions of Greece they were never masters, but only in those few years when they were led by Epaminondas, or Pelopidas. Yet this foggy air, this country of fat wethers, as Juvenal calls it, produced three wits, which were comparable to any three Athenians; Pindar, Epaminondas, and our Plutarch; to whom we may add a fourth, Sextus Charonensis, the preceptor of the learned Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the nephew of our author.

Cheronea, if we may give credit to Pausanias, in the ninth book of his description of Greece, was anciently called Arnè, from Arnè, the daughter of Eolus; but being situated to the west of Parnassus in that lowland country, the natural unwholesomeness of the air was augmented by the evening vapours cast upon it from that mountain, which our late travellers describe to be full of moisture and

marshy ground inclosed in the inequality of its ascents; and being also exposed to the winds which blew from that quarter, the town was perpetually unhealthful; for which reason, says my author, Charon, the son of Apollo and Thero, made it be rebuilt, and turned it towards the rising sun, from whence the town became healthful, and consequently populous; in memory of which benefit it afterwards retained his name. But as etymologies are uncertain, and the Greeks, above all nations, given to fabulous derivations of names, especially when they tend to the honour of their country, I think we may be reasonably content to take the denomination of the town from its delightful or cheerful standing, as the word Charon sufficiently implies.

But to lose no time in these grammatical etymologies, which are commonly uncertain guesses, it is agreed that Plutarch was here born; the year uncertain; but without dispute in the reign of Claudius.

Joh. Gerrard Vossius has assigned his birth in the latter end of that Emperor; some other writers of his life have left it undecided whether then, or in the beginning of Nero's empire; but the most accurate Rualdus (as I find it in the Paris edition of Plutarch's Works) has manifestly proved him to be born in the middle time of Claudius, or somewhat lower; for Plutarch, in the inscription at Delphos, (of which more hereafter,) remembers, that Ammonius, his master, disputed with him and his brother Lamprias concerning it, when Nero made his progress into Greece, which was in his twelfth year; and the question disputed could not be managed with so much learning as it was, by mere boys; therefore he was then sixteen, or rather eighteen years of age.

Xylander has observed, that Plutarch himself, in the Life of Pericles, and that of Antony, has mentioned both Nero and Domitian as his contemporaries. He has also left it on record in his Symposiacks, that his family was ancient in Chæronea, and that for many descents, they had borne the most considerable offices in that petty commonwealth; the chiefest of which was known by the name of Archon amongst the Grecians, by that of Prætor Urbis among the Romans, and the dignity and power was not much different from that of our lord mayor of London. His great-grandfather, Nicarchus, perhaps enjoyed that office in the division of the empire betwixt Augustus Cæsar and Mark Antony; and when the civil wars ensued betwixt them, Chæronea was so hardly used by Antony's lieutenant or commissary there, that all the citizens, without exception, were servilely employed to carry on their shoulders a certain proportion of corn from Chæronea to the coast over against the island of Antycira, with the scourge held over them, if at any time they were remiss. Which duty, after once performing, being enjoined the second time with the same severity, just as they were preparing for their journey, the welcome news arrived that Mark Antony had lost the battle of Actium;* whereupon both the officers and soldiers belonging to him in Chæronea immediately fled for their own safety; and the provisions, thus collected, were distributed among the inhabitants of the city.

This Nicarchus, the great-grandfather of Plutarch, among other sons, had Lamprias, a man eminent for his learning, and a philosopher, of whom Plutarch has made frequent mention in his Sympo

Fought A. U. C. 724.

siacks, or Table Conversations; and amongst the rest there is this observation of him,-that he disputed best, and unravelled the difficulties of philosophy with most success, when he was at supper, and well warmed with wine. These table entertainments were part of the education of those times, their discourses being commonly the canvassing and solution of some question, either philosophical or philological, always instructive, and usually pleasant; for the cups went round with the debate, and men were merry and wise together, according to the proverb. The father of Plutarch is also mentioned in those discourses, whom our author represents as arguing of several points in philosophy; but his name is no where to be found in any part of the works remaining to us. But yet he speaks of him as a man not ignorant in learning and poetry, as may appear by what he says, when he is introduced disputing in the Symposiacks; where also his prudence and humanity are commended in this following relation : Being yet very young," says Plutarch, "I was joined in commission with another in an embassy to the Proconsul, and my colleague, falling sick, was forced to stay behind; so that the whole business was transacted by me alone. At my return, when I was to give account to the commonwealth of my proceedings, my father, rising from his seat, openly enjoined me not to name myself in the singular number, I did thus, or thus I said to the Proconsul,-but, thus we did, and thus we said, always associating my companion with me, though absent in the management." This was done to observe, as I suppose, the point of good manners with his colleague; that of respect to the government of the city, who had commissioned both, to avoid envy; and perhaps more especially, to take off the

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