Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 (of 4)

The Story

The narrative begins with Nikias, a man whose cautious piety and immense wealth serve him well in the corridors of Athenian politics but fail him catastrophically when he is thrust into command during the disastrous Sicilian expedition. His life provides a somber study in how a reputation for steady prudence can be undone by an inability to adapt to the cruelty of war, ultimately leading him to a desperate end in the stone quarries of Syracuse. This failure of judgment is paired with the story of Crassus, a Roman whose life is defined by a relentless, singular drive for wealth. Crassus builds a vast fortune through the cold exploitation of Rome’s frequent urban fires, yet his hunger for military glory leads him to lead an army into the Parthian desert, where his avarice and tactical incompetence result in a humiliating defeat and his own death.

Moving into the struggles of the Roman Republic, the text turns to Sertorius, a brilliant, exiled commander who builds a loyal power base in the wilds of Iberia. He wins the hearts of the local barbarians—and cements his authority—through a mix of genuine administrative fairness and calculated superstition, most notably his use of a white fawn he claims is a gift from the goddess Artemis. Despite his military genius, his life is a long, lonely defensive war against the encroaching central power of Rome. His contemporary, Eumenes, navigates the fractured, treacherous landscape left in the wake of Alexander the Great’s death. As a secretary-turned-general, Eumenes must constantly maneuver to keep his army loyal while surrounded by rival Macedonian commanders who despise his status as an outsider. His life is a relentless series of clever tactical ruses and narrow escapes, ending in capture and death, serving as a reminder that merit is rarely enough to survive the shifting loyalties of a collapsing empire.

The focus shifts to the titans of statecraft: Agesilaus of Sparta and Pompeius the Great. Agesilaus embodies the austere, disciplined Spartan ideal, yet he is caught in the complex web of Greek inter-state diplomacy and constant war, his life marked by his disdain for the superficial luxuries of his peers and his deep, unwavering commitment to his city’s power. Pompeius, by contrast, begins his career as a meteoric young favorite of Sulla, achieving public triumphs long before he is legally entitled to them. His life traces the arc of a man who becomes the center of the Roman world, only to find himself increasingly isolated by the Senate’s resentment and the rising, more dynamic power of Julius Caesar.

The volume culminates in the rise of the two men who would permanently alter the destiny of Rome: Alexander and Caesar. Alexander is shown as a youth of immense potential, guided by Aristotle, whose early victories serve as an opening to a life of unparalleled conquest. He struggles not with defeat, but with the corruption of his own inner circle as they adopt the very luxury he warns them will ruin their martial edge. Finally, Caesar emerges as a force of inevitable momentum. Whether he is hemming in enemies in Gaul or crossing the Rubicon with a handful of legions, he is depicted as a man of relentless, almost machine-like speed and strategic aggression. The volume concludes with Phokion, a man of uncompromising moral rigidity in Athens, and the uncompromising, stoic Cato, who finds the world under Caesar’s rule so antithetical to his principles that he chooses to end his own life rather than exist in a state he views as compromised and lost.

The People

• Nikias: A wealthy, cautious Athenian general whose desire for peace and reputation for prudence are overwhelmed by the brutal realities of the Sicilian expedition, leading to his ruin.
• Crassus: The wealthiest man in Rome, whose insatiable greed for gold drives him to exploit the city's miseries, only for his terminal lack of military intuition to lead him to destruction in Parthia.
• Sertorius: An intelligent, charismatic exile in Iberia who uses his tactical brilliance and a talent for myth-making to lead a persistent, principled resistance against the Roman establishment.
• Eumenes: A highly capable, adaptable strategist who struggles to hold his own among the proud, exclusionary Macedonian nobility after the death of Alexander, relying on intellect to survive political betrayal.
• Agesilaus: A quintessentially Spartan king, whose life of service is defined by intense military focus, a lack of interest in the performative aspects of fame, and a rigid, traditionalist worldview.
• Pompeius: A man of immense early success who represents the tension between rising, individual ambition and the traditional, skeptical power of the Roman Senate, ultimately caught in the shifting tides of Roman civil conflict.
• Cato: A staunch, uncompromising Stoic who acts as the moral conscience of the Roman Republic; his inflexibility eventually leaves him with no space to survive in a world dominated by Caesar.

In Its Own Voice

Plutarch captures the specific, often dismissive tone that leaders used toward their subordinates, such as when he records the Spartan king's reaction to an artist who expects to be recognized:

Agesilaus at this looked carefully at him, and enquired, "Are you not Kallipides the player?" for so the Lacedæmonians name actors.

The author also highlights the profound, sometimes desperate ambition that defined the Roman period, showing how a young general addressed the dictator Sulla:

Pompeius, however, was not cowed, but he told Sulla to reflect, that more men worship the rising than the setting sun, intending him to understand that his own power was on the increase, but that the power of Sulla was diminishing and fading away.

Finally, he notes the tension between the philosopher-tutor and his imperial pupil, which reveals much about the nature of power:

"I myself had rather excel others in excellency of learning than in greatness of power."

What It's Really About

These lives are not merely biographies; they are a sustained inquiry into the nature of political survival and the heavy cost of leadership. Plutarch is deeply concerned with the "parallel" between characters—pairing a Greek with a Roman—to discern how different cultures handle the same human flaws: avarice, indecision, vanity, and the intoxicating pull of power. The central argument is that the character of the individual is the ultimate architect of their destiny, even when that individual is caught in the crushing gears of large-scale geopolitical change.

The text repeatedly asks whether personal integrity can survive the exigencies of statecraft. In the lives of Phokion and Cato, the answer is a grim, though noble, "no." These men are depicted as moral anchors who are ultimately discarded by a society that has lost the ability to value their virtues. Conversely, the lives of Crassus and Pompeius explore the corrosive effects of success, showing how the acquisition of absolute power or wealth hollows out the character of the person who attains it. Plutarch shows us that success is often a more dangerous test of character than failure.

Another pervasive theme is the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. Whether it is Sertorius using the "supernatural" status of a white fawn to manage the superstitions of his soldiers, or Alexander warning his friends that luxury is for the vanquished, the book probes the psychological mechanics required to hold a collective together. It suggests that leadership is a performance as much as a practice, and those who lose the ability to manage the perceptions of others—or themselves—are quickly undone.

Ultimately, the volume is a meditation on mortality and legacy. It asks what a man leaves behind when his specific, tactical, or political maneuvers are stripped away. The recurring imagery of the "rising and setting sun" serves as a reminder that these figures exist in a cycle of constant, inevitable decline. By juxtaposing the triumphs of conquerors like Caesar with the quiet, tragic suicides of those who would not submit, the book forces a choice upon the reader: is it better to act and risk losing one’s soul, or to hold one’s principles and lose everything else?

Why Read It Today

Reading this volume is like stepping into a gallery of grand, high-stakes portraits. You will love it if you enjoy observing the human drama beneath the surface of historical events. It is not an academic treatise, but a psychological study of people who were forced by circumstance to be larger than life. The prose, while nineteenth-century in its translation, is remarkably clear, and the anecdotes are often startlingly vivid—from Crassus buying burning houses to Alexander rebuking his friends for wearing expensive shoes.

The primary difficulty for the modern reader is the sheer volume of names and the complex, often shifting alliances of the ancient world. You may find yourself needing to keep a notepad nearby to track who is currently allied with whom. Furthermore, Plutarch’s perspective is that of a moralist; he is constantly judging his subjects based on their virtues and vices, which can feel antiquated to a reader accustomed to the more detached, analytical approach of modern history. Some of his characterizations of "barbarians" or his handling of myths—such as the fawn—are reflective of his era’s biases and his own penchant for the anecdotal rather than the empirical.

However, the experience of reading these lives is deeply rewarding. There is something profoundly grounding about the way Plutarch lingers on the small, human moments: a king’s sarcastic reply to a physician who calls himself a god, or a general’s dream of wheat-crowned soldiers. What stays with you is not just the list of battles, but the sharp, often stinging insights into human nature that have not changed in two thousand years. If you want to understand how power affects the mind, how reputation is bought and sold, and why the most powerful individuals are often the most precarious, this volume provides a mirror that still reflects our own world with unsettling clarity.