ABSTRACT
The second chapter, by Mallory Monaco Caterine, looks back to the inspiration for this volume, the immensely influential Parallel Lives of Plutarch, a Greek philosopher, writer, and political moralizer who lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries ce. The work consists of paired biographies of Greek and Roman statesmen (24 pairs in total, with 23 extant), from the mythic past to the recent historical past. While the content of the Parallel Lives is historical, the text’s primary function was practical pedagogy, aimed at a readership with enough direct experience of political life to be able to critically assess the decisions and characters of the protagonists. Not all of Plutarch’s biographical subjects are “heroes”, models of virtues worthy of imitation in all aspects. Indeed, Plutarch notes that two figures, the Hellenistic king Demetrius and the Roman Mark Antony, are negative exempla. The chapter closes by noting the influence of Plutarch’s Lives on American political thought and biography. Ultimately, the Plutarchan inspiration for Dead Precedents may not manifest itself so much in formal characteristics of paired comparisons but in the impulse to turn to pragmatic, comparative biography to make meaning of historical events and prepare us to live and lead better in the future.
