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E-book
Author Beneker, Jeffrey

Title The passionate statesman : Eros and politics in Plutarch's Lives / Jeffrey Beneker
Published Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 258 pages)
Contents Eros and Marriage -- Moral Virtue, Eros, and History -- Eros and Ambition in the Alexander -- Caesar -- Eros and the Fall of Marc Antony -- Eros and the Statesman
Summary The Passionate Statesman explores the intersection of passion and politics in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, with special emphasis on how he represents the influence of eros, or erotic desire, on the careers of some of the most prominent statesmen from Greco-Roman antiquity. Using Aristotle's notion of friendship and Plato's conception of the soul to describe the ideal marriage as based on a mutual love of character (philia), supported by an enduring erotic attraction, Beneker examines how Plutarch applied his system of ethics both to his reading of history and to his writing of biography. With close readings focusing on the three pairs of biographies from Parallel Lives, namely the Greek kings (Alexander the Great, Demetrius 'the besieger', and Agesilaus) and Roman statesmen (Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marc Antony), the book draws a general conclusion about how Plutarch uses the narration of his subjects' private erotic affairs to interpret their historical deeds
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes Print version record
Subject Plutarch. Lives.
Plutarch -- Criticism and interpretation
Plutarch -- Knowledge and learning
Plutarch
SUBJECT Lives (Plutarch) fast
Subject Politics in literature.
Eroticism in literature.
HISTORY -- Ancient -- Greece.
Biography
Greece -- Biography -- History and criticism
Rome -- Biography -- History and criticism
Greece
Rome (Empire)
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780191626364
0191626368
9781280685743
1280685743
9780191741319
0191741310