Excerpt from Lives, Translated From the Original Greek: With Notes Critical and Historical, and a New Life of Plutarch
As, in the progress of life, we first pass through scenes of innocence, peace, and fancy, and afterwards encounter the disorders of society, so we shall here amuse ourselves awhile in the peaceful solitude of the philosopher, before we proceed to those more animated, but less pleasing objects he describes.
Nor will the view of a philosopher"s life be less instructive than his labors. If the latter teach us how great vices, accompanied with great abilities, may tend to the ruin of a state; if they inform us how Ambition attended with magnanimity, how Avarice directed by political sagacity, how Envy and Revenge armed with personal valor and popular support, will destroy the most sacred establishments, and break through every barrier of human repose and safety; the former will convince us that equanimity is more desirable than the highest privileges of mind, and that the most distinguished situations in life are less to be envied than those quiet allotments, where Science is the support of Virtue.
Pindar and Epaminondas had, long before Plutarch"s time, redeemed, in some measure, the credit of B?otia, and rescued the inhabitants of that country from the proverbial imputation of stupidity. When Plutarch appeared, he confirmed the reputation it had recovered. He showed that genius is not the growth of any particular soil; and that its cultivation requires no peculiar qualities of climate.
Ch?ronea, a town in B?otia, between Phocis and Attica, had the honor to give him birth. This place was remarkable for nothing but the tameness and servility of its inhabitants, whom Athony"s soldiers made beasts of burthen, and obliged to carry their corn upon their shoulders to the coast. As it lay between two seas, and was partly shut up by mountains, the air, of course, was heavy, and truly B?otian. But situations as little favored by nature as Ch?ronea have given birth to the greatest men; of which the celebrated Locke and many others are instances.
Plutarch himself acknowledges the stupidity of the B?otians in general; but he imputes it rather to their diet than to their air; for, in his Treatise on Animal Food, he intimates, that a gross indulgence in that article, which was usual with his countrymen, contributes greatly to obscure the intellectual faculties.
It is not easy to ascertain in what year he was born. Ruauld places it about the middle of the reign of Claudius; others, towards the end of it The following circumstance is the only foundation they have for their conjectures.
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