Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

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Plutarch and the Greece of His Age
the salient features of a situation, and can place them
before the reader in the most effective light. A large
proportion of the anecdotes of illustrious men, belong
ing to a remoter antiquity, current in modern litera
ture, have found their way into it through the me
dium of his writings. He often reminds one of Hero
dotus notwithstanding his antipathy to this author,
and whose veracity he vigorously impeaches in one
of his essays assuming, of course, that De Malignitateis
really the work of Plutarch. Like Herodotus,
he often wanders from the main theme of his narra
tive, but never looses sight of it, and always returns
to it without unduly distracting the reader s attention.
Like Herodotus, he is often reminded of a
little
story" that he forthwith proceeds to tell; and, as in
the case of Herodotus, the reader feels that some
thing of value has been added to the narrative by the
story. Like Herodotus, too, he exhibits a strange
mixture of credulity with sterling good sense. So it
happens that the Father of History and the man
whom Jean Paul Richter calls the Biographical
Shakespeare of Universal History often meet on com
mon ground, in spite of the aversion of the one to
the other. Of course the canvas on which the his
torian paints is much larger; the interests he dis
cusses are much more momentous; but he does
not treat them with greater seriousness than does
the biographer and moralist.
j
Plutarch Perhaps the most succinct statement of
creed is a passage in Isis and Osiris. He says:
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