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We now begin a journey through my Summer Reading Program. (What, did you think you’d escape the translations for a while?) I have chosen, somewhat irresponsibly, to do Plutarch’s life of Alexander for my summer Greek. It’d probably be far more responsible of me to go translate something from Euripides, but frankly, I am not up to that level of masochism. Plutarch it is. Alexander it is!
Just like with his account of Themistocles, this will be all anecdote-heavy. We start with the introduction from his collection of Alexander-and-Caesar, though I have no intention of translating the latter:
Plutarch - Alexander 1
[I am] writing in this book the life of the king Alexander and [the life of] Caesar, by whom Pompei was destroyed; because of the great number of deeds they left behind, I shall say nothing in advance other than begging of my readers that, if I recount not everything nor some of the very famous deeds precisely for each, but I abridge the majority, they not quibble.
For I am not writing histories, but lives; and the revelation of honor or evil does not lie entirely in the most famous deeds, but many brief and easy and childish deeds reveal character more in their occurrences than battles killing thousands and the greatest battle lines and sieges of cities.
So just as the artists who paint from life take up the likenesses from the face and from the expression in the eyes, which reveal a man's character, but consider the rest of [the body] less important, likewise I must be allowed to focus more on the signs of the personality, and through these describe the life of each man, leaving to others their greatness and battles.
Just like with his account of Themistocles, this will be all anecdote-heavy. We start with the introduction from his collection of Alexander-and-Caesar, though I have no intention of translating the latter:
Plutarch - Alexander 1
[I am] writing in this book the life of the king Alexander and [the life of] Caesar, by whom Pompei was destroyed; because of the great number of deeds they left behind, I shall say nothing in advance other than begging of my readers that, if I recount not everything nor some of the very famous deeds precisely for each, but I abridge the majority, they not quibble.
For I am not writing histories, but lives; and the revelation of honor or evil does not lie entirely in the most famous deeds, but many brief and easy and childish deeds reveal character more in their occurrences than battles killing thousands and the greatest battle lines and sieges of cities.
So just as the artists who paint from life take up the likenesses from the face and from the expression in the eyes, which reveal a man's character, but consider the rest of [the body] less important, likewise I must be allowed to focus more on the signs of the personality, and through these describe the life of each man, leaving to others their greatness and battles.