Cover; Half-title; Title page; Copyright information; Dedication; Table of contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Editions and abbreviations; 1 Introduction; Outline of the Argument; Plutarch Studies; Part I; 2 Ancients and Moderns; 1. The Decline and Renaissance of Classicism; Plutarch among "The Ancients"; 2. Plutarch's World; 3. The Parallel Lives as Political Philosophy; 4. The Politics of the Parallel Lives; 3 Ambition and Political Form; 1. Empire and Liberalism; Hobbes' Augustus; Hobbes' Legacy; 2. Democratic Honor; What Is Honor?; 3. The Idea of Political Form; Part II; 4 Lives
1. The Last Spartan2. The Life as Portrait; 3. Sparta and Rome; 4. The Last Roman; 5 Lycurgus's Sparta; 1. Plutarch's Interlocutors; The Sparta of the Philosophers; Plutarch's Sparta; 2. The Birth of Sparta; Lycurgus's Revolution; Lycurgan Timocracy; 3. The Spartan Crisis; Lysander; Agesilaus; 4. Rebirth; 6 Numa's Rome; 1. The Roman Stasis; 2. Philosophia and Philotimia; Philosophoi, as Seen by Philotimoi; Philotimoi, as Seen by Philosophoi; 3. Numa's Political Theology; Gods and Lawgivers; Senators and Priests; 4. Pythagorean Politics; The Pythagorean Connection; Numa's Pythagoreanism
5. The Twilight of Janus7 Parallels; 1. Parallelism and Pugilism; 2. Spartan Philosophy; 8 Conclusion; 1. Polis and Politeia; 2. A Political Science Altogether New; 3. The Renaissance of Spartan Philosophy; Bibliography; Index
Summary
Recasts Plutarch's Lives as a work of political philosophy emerging from the imperial encounter of Greece and Rome