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Plutarch’s method of work in the Roman Lives

This chapter is concerned with the eight Lives in which Plutarch describes the final years of the Roman Republic: Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Caesar, Cato Minor, Brutus, and Antony. It is not my main concern to identify particular sources, though some problems of provenance will inevitably arise; it is rather to investigate the methods which Plutarch adopted in gathering his information, whatever his sources may have been. Did he, for instance, compose each biography independently? Or did he prepare several Lives simultaneously, combining in one project his reading for a number of different works?¹ Did he always have his source-material before him as he composed? Or can we detect an extensive use of memory?² Can one conjecture what use, if any, he made of notes?³ And can we tell whether he usually drew his material from just one source, or wove together his narrative from his knowledge of several different versions?⁴

I start from an important assumption: that, in one way or another, Plutarch needed to gather information before writing these Lives; that, whatever may be the case with some of the Greek Lives, he would not be able to write these Roman biographies simply from his general knowledge. The full basis for this assumption will only become clear as the discussion progresses: for example, we shall find traces of increasing knowledge within these Lives, with early biographies showing only a slight knowledge of some important events, and later ones gradually filling the gaps. It will become probable that Plutarch knew comparatively little of the detail of Roman history before he began work on the Lives, and that considerable ‘research’ – directed and methodical reading – would be necessary for their composition.

This thesis must not be overstated: Plutarch would have read the standard Greek histories of the Roman world some time before he began the Lives. If (and it is a big ‘if’⁵) On the Fortune of the Romans is a youthful work, he already knew Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and probably Polybius, at that time.⁶ A knowledge of the outline of Roman history was a natural expectation in an educated Greek of the day. But at the same time it is clear that the Roman Lives have, in important respects, a different texture from the Greek; and one striking aspect of this is relevant here. No one can doubt that Plutarch had all his life read widely and sensitively in Greek literature, and that, even before he started work on the Lives, his memory was full of anecdotes concerning the Greek heroes he described.⁷ In writing Pericles, for instance, he could exploit his recollections of the comic poets, of philosophers (especially Plato), of Theophrastus, of Ion of Chios.⁸ In no sense had he read these authors ‘for’ the Pericles; he had read them for their own sake, and probably read them many years before. But they filled his mind with recollections and allusions, and these furnished some valuable supplements to his historical sources: he could fill a whole chapter with anecdotes of Aspasia which, he could say, ‘just came to mind’ as he wrote.⁹

Matters were different when he turned to Rome. He had learnt his Latin fairly late in life;¹⁰ he evidently did not read Latin literature for pleasure, and therefore had no such ready fund of Latin recollections. We might have expected some quotations from Augustan poetry in Antony – in the descriptions of Cleopatra, perhaps, or the notices of Roman public opinion;¹¹ there are none. Plutarch never mentions Virgil; nor Catullus, relevant for Caesar ; nor Ennius, though cunctando restituit rem would have been a useful ornament for Fabius.¹² Not only did Plutarch lack that general knowledge of the Roman past which a literary background could give: a man who had not read Ennius or Virgil would be unlikely to know his Livy, his Pollio, or his Sallust.¹³ It is reasonable to assume that the reading of the great Roman historians was work which still lay in front of Plutarch, reading which he would have to conduct ‘for’ the Roman Lives.

The first section of this paper will examine the possibility that several Lives were prepared simultaneously. Various arguments will suggest that six of these eight Lives – Pompey, Crassus, Caesar, Cato Minor, Brutus, and Antony – belong closely together, and were probably prepared as a single project. The second section will consider the manner in which Plutarch collected his information from the sources.

I. Simultaneous preparation

(a) Increasing knowledge

Lucullus and Cicero seem to be the earliest of these eight Lives. Demosthenes– Cicero formed the fifth pair in the series of Parallel Lives (Dem. 3.1), and it seems likely that Cimon–Lucullus should be placed even earlier.¹⁴ The Parallel Lives were clearly produced over a considerable period of time, and it is natural to think that Plutarch read more widely during their production; it is therefore not surprising that in Lucullus and Cicero he seems less knowledgeable than in the later Lives. The second half of Cicero, in particular, is scrappy and ill-informed, and leaves a very different impression from the detailed later accounts. It is sometimes possible to see specific cases of ignorance: for instance, Plutarch had presumably not yet discovered the item of Crass. 13.3–4 – Cicero inculpating Caesar and Crassus in the Catilinarian conspiracy, but in a work published after both were dead.¹⁵ Plutarch would surely have mentioned this in the context of Cic. 20.6–7, where he discusses Caesar’s guilt: he would have welcomed the erudite allusion to Cicero’s own works (cf. 20.3). Again, had he yet known of Cicero’s support for Pompey’s cura annonae (Pomp. 49.6), he would probably have included it; after underlining Pompey’s part in securing Cicero’s recall (Cic. 33.2–4), he would naturally mention Cicero’s grateful recompense. Lucullus offers fewer possibilities of comparison with later Lives, but at least the confrontation of Lucullus and Pompey in Cilicia is very curtly dismissed at Luc. 36.4: Plutarch is better informed by the time of Pompey (31.8–13). Finally, a very clear case is afforded by the accounts of the triumviral proscriptions. In the brief notice of Cic. 46.5, Plutarch clearly states that Lepidus wished to save his brother Paullus, but sacrificed him to the wishes of Antony and Octavian. By the time of Antony (19.3), Plutarch had discovered a different version: that Lepidus was the man who wished to kill Paullus, and the other two acceded to his wishes. That version came from a source which he could trust, and in Antony he prefers it, noting the Cicero version merely as a variant.¹⁶

Such signs of increasing knowledge are not surprising; it would indeed be odd if Plutarch had not read more widely as the series progressed. What is striking is that Cicero and Lucullus stand so firmly isolated from the other, later Lives. We should expect to discover that Plutarch’s knowledge continued to increase as his reading widened – that Pompey, for instance, showed more familiarity with the period than Caesar, for we know that Pompey was the later Life to be written;¹⁷ but it is very difficult, and probably impossible, to detect such a further increase in knowledge. The full support for this negative thesis cannot, of course, be set out here: only a detailed comparison of every parallel version in every Life could establish this. But it may be helpful to examine two specific examples, taking sequences of events which Plutarch several times describes in detail: first, the formation of the triple pact in 60 BC, and the ensuing consulate of Caesar; and, secondly, Caesar’s assassination.

(i) Plutarch accepted the view of Asinius Pollio: it was the pact of Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar which set Rome on the path to civil war.¹⁸ It was inevitable that several Lives should treat this alliance, and continue to narrate Caesar’s consulate: and Plutarch duly gives accounts at Luc. 42.6–8, Cic. 30.1–4, Caes. 13–14, Pomp. 47–8, Cato Minor 31–3, and Crass. 14.1–5. It is immediately clear that the four later accounts, especially those of Caesar, Pompey, and Cato, are better informed than those of Lucullus and Cicero. The Lucullus version is very skimpy: a brief and misleading reference to the formation of the pact, a mention of the fracas in the assembly, then a rather fuller treatment of the Vettius affair. All this is substantially different from the later accounts: Crassus is never again associated with Cato or Lucullus, as he is here (42.4); Vettius is never again mentioned. Cicero also passes swiftly over these events: no mention of the triple alliance, no formal treatment of the year 59 – though a place could easily have been found among the antecedents of Cicero’s exile, as Caes. 14.17 shows. Only a very few items are exploited, and those are misleading: the story of Cic. 30.3–5, Cicero’s request for a legateship in Caesar’s army, has something behind it, but this version is very garbled;¹⁹ the anecdote of Cic. 30.5, Caesar denouncing Cicero in the assembly, is another garbling, this time of the story of Dio 38.17.1–2. Neither item is exploited in the later Lives. Equally, Plutarch does not yet seem to know some material which he was later to exploit: he would surely have mentioned the story of Cato 32.8–10, Cicero prevailing on Cato to take the oath.

In the four later Lives, Plutarch is much richer in narrative detail, and he has evidently discovered a new store of material in the interval since Lucullus and Cicero. Moreover, these later accounts are extremely similar to one another – the similarities often extend to verbal echoes²⁰ – and all seem to be based on the same material. Naturally, different Lives select different material for emphasis, as Plutarch tailors his material to suit the Lives’ subjects and aims; but literary technique can explain all the variations, and there is no indication that he made any fresh discoveries during these Lives’ composition. Literary technique would naturally lead him to be fuller in Pompey than in Caesar on Pompey’s ill-judged remark in the assembly – Pompey finds room to speculate on his motives (47.6–8); while Caesar understandably emphasizes Caesar’s brushes with Considius and Cato, which were not relevant for Pompey. Caesar passes over the role of Lucullus, eschewing the complicating individual, but Pompey has made much of the Lucullus–Pompey feud and therefore includes the material (48.2, 7, cf. 4). In Caesar Plutarch finds it useful to treat the two agrarian bills together (‘he immediately introduced laws...’, εὐθὺς εὶσέφερε νόμους..., 14.2), but in Cato it is necessary to treat them separately, for each led to distinct acts of heroism on Cato’s part which Plutarch wishes to include:²¹ the first provoked Cato’s refusal to swear to the bill (32.4–11), the second the disgraceful episode of the imprisonment (33.1–4). In this Life, Cato himself dominates all the opposition to Caesar; the role of fellow-opponents – Bibulus, Lucullus, Considius – is abbreviated or suppressed. Finally, Crassus understandably has the briefest treatment. Crassus had the smallest (or least public) role in these events, and Plutarch is by then hurrying on to the more rewarding theme of the Syrian command. The complex events of 60–56 are dismissed in a single chapter.

One further point confirms the close connection of these accounts: all show similarities with the version of Cassius Dio (37.54–38.12), and the similarities are best explained in terms of shared source-material. Pompey and Caesar have the story of Pompey and Crassus in the assembly; Dio has it too, and gives a similar emphasis to Pompey’s outburst.²² Pompey and Cato have the assault on Bibulus; so does Dio, with similar details.²³ Caesar and Cato are close to Dio in the stress and interpretation given to the election of Clodius, and in the emphasis they lay on the attempt to imprison Cato.²⁴ Suetonius, too, shows some contact with this tradition: in particular, his versions of the attempted imprisonment and of the dynastic marriages are close to both Plutarch and Dio.²⁵ The natural explanation is to suppose that all Plutarch’s later accounts are informed by the same source or sources, and that this material was also available to Suetonius and Dio; and this supports the hypothesis that Plutarch’s four later versions are all based on the same store of material.

(ii) Caesar’s assassination is naturally treated most lavishly in Brutus (7 ff.) and in Caesar (62 ff.). Cicero had mentioned these events briefly (42); Antony (13–15) has a little material on the murder, then rather more on the immediate sequel.

Cicero adds little to this analysis. Its account is brief and shows no signs of great background knowledge; but brevity is only to be expected, for Cicero’s role was so small. Antony is more interesting, but here too the differences are explained by literary technique. For instance, it is no surprise that Brutus and Caesar omit the story of Ant. 13.2, Trebonius resisting the proposal to kill Antony, for this item is only a peg for the more interesting tale, drawn from the Second Philippic – Trebonius had earlier tried to involve Antony in the plot, and Antony had kept the secret.²⁶ This is an anecdote of some interest for Antony himself, but it tells us little of Caesar or Brutus, and is naturally omitted from their Lives. When Antony comes to the sequel of the assassination, Plutarch understandably wishes to simplify the confusing sequence of events. Here there is only one senate-sitting (14.3); in Brutus 19 there are two. The role of complicating individuals is suppressed: nothing on Lepidus, nor on Plancus, nor even on Cicero’s plea for amnesty. All three are mentioned in other Lives.²⁷ Nor does Plutarch mention the items of Brutus 20.1, Antony’s request for a public funeral and for the opening of Caesar’s will. But none of this abbreviation is hard to understand. Plutarch’s emphasis in Antony is simple: the brilliance of Antony’s conciliation, the nobility of the solution he could bring – these Plutarch describes in his most affective language (14.4). Yet this solution is swiftly and characteristically upset by Antony’s impulse to play for popularity at the funeral (14.5). Had the request for a public funeral been included, Antony’s demagogy might no longer seem a sudden impulse: it is therefore omitted. The other individuals who pressed for peace would equally complicate the picture, and they are therefore cut away. There is certainly no need to suppose that he is less well informed here than in Brutus or Caesar.

Brutus and Caesar themselves pose a more complicated problem. Again, the two accounts show close similarities of language and content where they overlap;²⁸ but these two Lives have very different interests and aims, and the selection of material differs greatly. Caesar is a very historical Life. It has explained Caesar’s career in terms of his popular support: from the beginning, he is the champion and the favourite of the demos, and he easily deceives the short-sighted optimates.²⁹ But as tyrant he loses his popularity, and it is then that his fortunes waver;³⁰ and he loses this less by his own errors than by the failings of his friends.³¹ This focus on the demos continues in the closing chapters. Their reactions are carefully traced in chs. 60–61 (where Plutarch seems to reinterpret and distort his source-material);³² then Caes. 62.1 makes ‘the ordinary people’ (οί πολλοί) turn to Brutus, whereas in Brutus itself it seems to be ‘the first of the citizens’ who give Brutus his encouragement.³³ Caesar, then, seeks the origins of the assassination in Caesar’s own actions and those of his friends, and the effect of these on the demos. Such a reading naturally reduces the interest in the peculiar motives and characters of the conspirators; indeed, an extended treatment of Brutus and Cassius is delayed to a point where Caesar’s fall already seems inevitable.³⁴ It is therefore natural for Caesar strictly to follow biographical relevance, and to suppress most of the material of Brutus which deals with the conspirators’ side of events. Caesar mentions the long-nurtured resentment of Cassius only briefly;³⁵ and the delicate approaches to possible conspirators, fully described in Brutus, have no place in Caesar.³⁶

Brutus, in contrast, is a more straightforwardly moralistic life than Caesar : ‘tyrannicide’ is the theme which links it to its pair Dion. It is less concerned with the historical background than Caesar,³⁷ and here Plutarch has nothing of the demos-motif, nothing even of the sequence of outrages such as the Lupercalia which provoked such unrest.³⁸ He here prefers more ethically promising themes: the anecdotes of Porcia, the thoughtful justice with which Brutus tried his cases on the morning of the Ides, or the constancy with which he bore ‘many disquieting things’ (πολλὰ θορυβώδη). The purer motives of Brutus are set off by the brooding resentment of Cassius, ‘more a hater of Caesar for his own reasons than a hater of the tyrant for the good of the state’ (μα̑λλον ὶδίᾳ μισοκαΐσαρ ἢ κοινᾑ μισοτὐραννος, 8.5) – and Cassius is a far more sinister and complex character here than in Caesar. This material could have had no place in Caesar : it is relevant to the conspirators alone, and Caesar is anyway not that sort of moralistic Life. There is no hint of increasing knowledge here.

The treatment of the Ides itself largely follows biographical relevance. Caesar describes events from Caesar’s own viewpoint: the warnings of the soothsayers, of Calpurnia, and of Artemidorus; then the visit of D. Brutus, with his cogent arguments that Caesar must attend the senate, despite the warnings: ‘what would his enemies say?’ How close Caesar came to escape! – and yet eventually he had no choice, the pressures of rule forced him to attend: that is the (tragic) emphasis of Caesar. Brutus has no such theme. The delay on the morning of the Ides is there narrated from the conspirators’ viewpoint, one of those ‘disquieting things’ which Brutus impressively overcame. The focus rests on the forum and the conspirators; a message is heard that Caesar is approaching (16.1), but the narrative switches to him only at the moment of his death. Plutarch here concentrates on Brutus’ own role in the killing: Caesar surrendered to his blows when he saw Brutus, too, among his foes;³⁹ Brutus, too, was wounded. In the sequel, Brutus naturally has more detail of the conspirators’ movements; Caesar stresses the general reaction to Caesar’s death – and, particularly, the recrudescence of the popular fervour which the Life has carefully traced.

A difficulty remains: the two Lives show one positive discrepancy. Both mention that Antony was delayed outside the senate-house: but who did the delaying? Brutus, correctly, says Trebonius (17.2), but Caesar says that it was D. Brutus Albinus (66.4). It is almost certain that Plutarch’s principal source here named Trebonius: that is the version of Appian, and his account is so similar to Plutarch that they must share the same source-material.⁴⁰ It is possible that Plutarch has deliberately distorted his narrative in Caesar by transferring the act to D. Brutus: such techniques are not unknown in his work.⁴¹ But it is easiest to assume that this is a simple error: perhaps an error of memory, if he did not have his source before his eyes when he wrote;⁴² perhaps one of those slips which find their way into the most careful writing. At least, this cannot be a case of increasing knowledge, or not a significant one: his main source seems to have contained the truth, and it cannot be the case that he first discovered the correct version later than Caesar. Whether misremembering or distortion, it at least seems to be misremembering or distortion of an accurate original.

As in the example of the accounts of 60–59 BC, biographical technique can explain the differences in the later Lives; and it could also again be argued that they rest on similar source-material. However, the analysis of the sources is here more complicated, and will be left until the second part of the paper.⁴³

No further examples will here be pursued, but in other parts of their narrative, too, close similarities among the six later Lives are abundant, and there are no hints of increasing knowledge.⁴⁴ Such differences and discrepancies as are found are always explicable, either as conscious literary devices or as simple and natural errors.⁴⁵ The impression is unmistakable: Plutarch’s knowledge of the period increases greatly between Lucullus and Cicero and the other Lives – and then it seems to stop, with all the later Lives being based on the same store of knowledge. If this is so, it is natural to suspect that the later Lives were prepared simultaneously.

(b) Cross-references

The suggestion of simultaneous preparation would be more plausible if it could be shown that Plutarch worked in this way elsewhere; and some indications of this are afforded by his cross-references – the fifty or so notices, normally in the form ‘as has been described in the Life of ...’ (ώς ὲν τοι̑ς περὶ.. .γέγραπται), which are scattered among the Lives.⁴⁶ In discussing these, we should first note that simultaneous preparation need not imply simultaneous publication – still less simultaneous composition of final drafts, as Mewaldt once proposed.⁴⁷ The final biographies are individual works of art, and Plutarch must have given his total attention to each in turn: if several Lives had been prepared together, he would presumably complete the final drafts one after another in fairly quick succession. Therefore no argument against simultaneous preparation can be drawn from Caes. 35.2, where Plutarch refers to his projected Pompey in the future tense. This shows only that the final draft of Pompey was written later than that of Caesar. Caes. 35.2 might rather support the notion of simultaneous preparation, for it shows that Plutarch has already considered in some detail the range of material and the presentation of the later Life: he can already refer to it as a justification for abbreviating his present treatment. It is no surprise that he can already regard himself as engaged upon Pompey as well as Caesar, and can a few chapters later refer to Pompey in the present tense: ‘we tell that story in Pompey’s own Life’, δηλου̑μεν ὲν τοι̑ς περὶ έκείνου γράμμασιν, 45.9.

This is relevant to the problem of the contradictory cross-references. The future tense of Caes. 35.2 and the present of Caes. 45.9 are the exception: nearly all the cross-references have perfect tenses, ‘it has been described’ (γέγραπται). Such references appear to provide evidence for the relative chronology of the Lives. For instance, from Cato Minor 54.9, ‘these things, then, have been described in the Life of Pompey’ (ταυ̑τα μὲν οὐν ὲν τοις περί ∏ομπηῒου γέγραπται), it seems to follow that Cato is later than Pompey ; Pomp. 16.8 should suggest that Pompey is later than Brutus ; and so on. But some of the references seem to contradict one another. Caes. 62.8 and 68.7 cite Brutus ; Brut. 9.9 cites Caesar. Tim. 13.10 and 33.4 cite Dion ; Dion 58.10 cites Timoleon. Cam. 33.10 quotes Romulus, and Thes. 1.4 and Rom. 21.1 quote Numa ; but Numa twice quotes Camillus, at 9.15 and 12.13. Simple excision or emendation does not seem adequate to solve the problem.⁴⁸ Nor does Mewaldt’s suggestion, that several Lives were published simultaneously, seem satisfactory;⁴⁹ that theory anyway implies a simplified idea of ancient ‘publication’, for it is hard to see why Plutarch should not have circulated a work among friends and pupils as soon as it was complete.

However, Mewaldt may still have been on the right track, for simultaneous preparation is more likely to afford an explanation. It certainly seems that the ‘publication’ dates of the three pairs Lyc.–Numa, Them.–Cam., and Thes.–Rom. were close to one another,⁵⁰ exactly as we should expect if they had been prepared together. This would be a sensible procedure, for Numa, Camillus, and Romulus would all involve research of a very similar type, perhaps based on the same sources.⁵¹ The same applies to Dion and Timoleon; and we have already noticed the close similarities between Caesar and Brutus, which suggest that they are based on the same material.

If each of these three groups was the product of simultaneous preparation, two alternative explanations of the contradictory cross-references are possible. (i) Suppose, exempli gratia, that Dion–Brutus was composed earlier than Alexander– Caesar. The second pair would then be issued only a short time afterwards; there might then be only a small number of copies of Dion–Brutus in existence, circulating among Plutarch’s acquaintances. It is quite possible that Plutarch himself subsequently inserted the cross-reference at Brut. 9.9; ancient publication is a much more continuous process than its modern equivalent.⁵²

The same would apply to the offending references in the other groups. (ii) But it is better to assume that the references were already included in Plutarch’s first ‘published’ version. By the time he wrote Brutus, he was fairly sure of what he would include in Caesar ; he may even have had some sort of draft for the later Life.⁵³ He might refer to this later treatment as easily as, in Caesar itself, he would refer to the planned Pompey – or as easily as a modern editor, producing a work in fascicles, would refer to a passage in a future volume with the same formula as for one already published. The use of the perfect ‘has been described’, γέγραπται, in such references is still odd, especially in view of the scrupulous future tenses at Caes. 35.2 (and at Mar. 29.12 and On Herodotus’ Malice 866b); but it is not really much odder than the characteristic epistolary use of past tenses, relating an action to the viewpoint of the reader.⁵⁴

It is worth digressing to point an important consequence of this. Whatever their explanation, the contradictory cross-references remain important; for (as Joseph Geiger observes⁵⁵) they greatly impugn the reliability of the other cross-references as a criterion for establishing the sequence of the Lives. On at least three occasions, the cross-references do not refer back from a later to an earlier Life; and it is hardly likely that these are the only such ‘forward-looking’ – or ‘sideways-looking’ – references. In these three instances, other cross-references happen to show that the natural chronological inference would be false. Most of the other references have no such control; many stand as the only such indication of the sequence of two Lives, with no references elsewhere to confirm or impugn the chronological inference. Cato Minor 54.9 uses a perfect tense to refer to Pompey : but there, too, Plutarch might have added the reference subsequently or (more probably) might be using a past tense to refer to a projected Life. It is likely that a past tense should refer to a Life which, if not already in circulation, was at least expected soon; but that is all. It is clear that the relative chronology can only be established within wide limits, and that attempts to establish a detailed sequence on this basis are not plausible.⁵⁶

A convenient solution, then, is afforded to the problem of the cross-references if we assume that Plutarch often combined his preparation of several Lives. If the contradictory cross-references were included in Plutarch’s original versions, it seems that when composing one Life he already had a firm idea of what a later Life would contain; in that case, the instance of Caes. 35.2, where Plutarch has already considered the content of the projected Pompey, would not be an isolated example. Even if some of the references are subsequent additions made by Plutarch himself to the text, they still confirm that he issued a sequence of closely related Lives in quick succession. This in itself does not prove that they were prepared together, but it is certainly just what we should expect if they had been so prepared. If he followed the procedure of simultaneous preparation elsewhere, for instance in the cases of Romulus, Numa, and Camillus, it is natural to suppose that he might do the same with Caesar, Pompey, Cato Minor, and the rest; and it is no surprise to find that one set of contradictory cross-references, those of Caesar and Brutus, relates to this group.

(c) ‘Cross-fertilization’

A further indication may be combined with that of the cross-references. It is natural to expect signs of ‘cross-fertilization’ in the Lives – Plutarch discovering an item when working for one Life, then remembering it and exploiting it in his later writings. For instance, it was presumably when working for Cicero that Plutarch came across the story of Cic. 34, Cicero’s attempt to destroy the records of Clodius’s tribunate: he remembered this, and repeated it, in the later Cato Minor (40). Cicero had mentioned the devotion felt by P. Crassus for Cicero: Publius even managed to reconcile him to his father Marcus (Cic. 33.8). That is remembered, and used, in Crassus (13.5). Numa had involved Plutarch in some reading about the complexities of the Roman calendar; he later exploited some of this knowledge at Caes. 59.3–4. There are a fair number of such cases, identifiable with some probability. Again, one would expect these to give an indication of the Lives’ relative chronology.

We duly find such cross-fertilization among this group of Roman Lives: for instance, Pomp. 10.7–9 makes an astute criticism (and one which suggests first-hand knowledge) of the writings of C. Oppius, a work which Plutarch surely read ‘for’ the Caesar.⁵⁷ But these indications are found in a very bewildering fashion, one which seems to exclude the possibility of ‘earlier’ and ‘later’ research. Take, for instance, two anecdotes included in both Pompey and Cato Minor. The first is the story of Demetrius of Antioch, with the popular courting of this freedman of Pompey and Cato’s dignified reaction (Cato 13, Pomp. 40). The second is the tale of Pompey’s offer of intermarriage with Cato. Pompey offered to marry Cato’s elder niece himself, and give the younger niece to his son; the women were delighted with the proposal, and they resented Cato’s refusal – but they later recognized that he had been wise (Cato 30, Pomp. 44). Both stories are likely to come from the reading for Cato : both focus on Cato as the wise and sober champion of political rectitude, while Pompey is in the first story incidental, in the second the butt and villain of the piece.⁵⁸ The items are presumably gleaned from that ‘Catonian’ literature which was abundant in the early Empire,⁵⁹ and the prominent role of Munatius Rufus in the intermarriage story suggests that it is ultimately drawn from his Memoirs, whether or not Plutarch knew them directly.⁶⁰ The natural conclusion would be that Pompey is later than Cato, and exploits material gathered for the earlier Life;⁶¹ yet, if the earlier analysis of the cross-references is correct, the reference to Pompey at Cato 54.9 shows that Pompey was at least already planned and expected soon, if not alreAdy written, and its range of material had already been considered. A similar case is found in Brutus : Brut. 33, telling the story of Theodotus the Chian, seems certainly based on material collected for Pompey (cf. Pomp. 77).⁶² This should suggest that Brutus is the later Life; yet Pompey refers to Brutus at 16.8, and it is anyway difficult to find room for Agesilaus–Pompey before Dion–Brutus, the twelfth pair to be published.⁶³

Even if the cross-references are neglected in this argument, the bewilderment is no less: for the last chapter of Cato exploits material on Porcia which seems to have been gathered for Brutus.⁶⁴ This poses a familiar type of dilemma: the Demetrius and intermarriage stories suggest that Pompey is later than Cato; the tale of Theodotus suggests that Brutus is later than Pompey ; yet the Porcia anecdote suggests that Cato is later than Brutus. The natural escape from the dilemma is to suppose that all three Lives were prepared together: in that case, each might exploit the whole range of the reading which Plutarch had undertaken. Let us take another example: the explanation of Caesar’s fall found in Brutus (35.4)⁶⁵ and again in Antony (6.7) – Caesar himself behaving in an equitable manner, but destroyed by the excesses of his friends. This seems to be taken over from Caesar, where it formed an important part of the Life’s political analysis;⁶⁶ and Brutus seems further to take over some material from the preparation for Antony (28.1, 50 = Ant. 22.6, 69.2), despite the cross-reference to Brutus at Ant. 69.1. This implies a sequence of Caesar, then Antony, then Brutus. Yet the last chapter of Caesar shows knowledge of material which seems certainly gleaned from the reading for Brutus; and some of the assassination account in Caesar seems informed by the work of Bibulus and the memoir of Brutus’s friend Empylus, both works which were surely read ‘for’ the Brutus.⁶⁷ The conclusion should again be the same: Caesar, Antony, and Brutus were prepared together, and then issued, together with their pairs, in quick succession. We cannot know what precise sequence their publication followed.

The conclusion should by now be firm. Nothing has been found to counter the assumption that Cicero and Lucullus were composed early in the sequence, and they stand apart from the six later Lives; but those six Lives – Pompey, Cato Minor, Crassus, Caesar, Brutus, and Antony – stand closely together, and show peculiarities which are best explained in terms of simultaneous preparation.⁶⁸ One last point: five of the six Greek pairs of these Lives – Agesilaus, Dion, Phocion, Alexander, and Demetrius – come from the fourth and very early third centuries. The earlier Greek Lives had been fairly widely spread, but had tended to concentrate on the fifth century and earlier. These are Plutarch’s historical interests of the moment: the fall of the Roman Republic, and the fourth century of Greece.

II. The collection of material

(a) The range of first-hand sources

However, it is still unclear what ‘simultaneous preparation’ really implies. If, for instance, most or all of the material of these Lives were derived from a single narrative source, ‘simultaneous preparation’ would simply be a grand way of saying that Plutarch read through the whole of this source before beginning to compose. If, on the other hand, it could be shown that he consulted a wider range of material – or even if the Lives were largely based on earlier biographies, as nineteenth-century researchers tended to assume – the hypothesis of simultaneous preparation would be far more substantial. It is not my concern to give a comprehensive discussion of the Lives’ sources, but it may be possible, even in a brief and selective study, to gain some notion of the width or narrowness of his research. He quotes some twenty-five sources by name in the six later Lives, and a further half-dozen in Lucullus and Cicero; but it is clear that he does not know all these authors at first hand, and no criterion will tell us exactly which sources he knows directly and which quotations are tralatician.⁶⁹ The purpose of this discussion will simply be to establish an inescapable minimum of types of literature which we must assume that Plutarch knew at first hand.

First, it is clear that the six later Lives are not based merely on a sequence of earlier biographies. The great similarities among these Lives, both of language and of content, have already been noted: these are odd in themselves, if Plutarch had consulted only a series of individual biographies, but perhaps not inexplicable. ⁷⁰ More important is the regular contact which these Lives show with the narratives of other authors. Time and again, we find an identical narrative structure and articulation in Plutarch and in another account; or a regular tendency to reproduce the same items; or even a series of verbal echoes. One example of such contact is Plutarch’s closeness to Dio in narrating Caesar’s first consulate.⁷¹ Similarly, from the year 58 onwards, Plutarch’s later accounts show regular contact with the version of Appian, both in the Civil Wars and in the fragments of Celtica. Most of the parallels between the two authors can be traced in Kornemann’s convenient tabulation, and there is no need to labour the point here.⁷² Dio, too, often shows contact with this tradition;⁷³ so, rather more rarely, does Suetonius.⁷⁴ One possible explanation of this systematic contact might be that the later writers had read Plutarch himself; and it is indeed quite likely that these authors, especially Appian, did know Plutarch, and that some of the verbal parallels arise from echoes of Plutarch’s own words.⁷⁵ It is, however, impossible to think that all the points of contact are explicable in this way, that Appian, Suetonius, and Dio all systematically used Plutarch as a historical authority. It is easy to show that both Appian and Dio would have to know all of Plutarch’s six versions. Such a combination of biographies would be an odd procedure for any historian; for both of them, independently, it is quite impossible. So regular a contact must arise from a shared inheritance from a common source, whether or not the later authors knew that source directly; and, again, it must surely be a historical source which Appian and Dio are using, not a combination of biographies.

This is one occasion where the source – at least, the ultimate source – can be identified: it is surely Asinius Pollio. It was suggested earlier that Plutarch encountered a rich store of new information after Cicero and Lucullus, but before the later group of Lives. This new material appears to begin with the years 60–59: it is natural to suppose that Plutarch has encountered Pollio’s work, beginning ex Metello consule, or at least a work based on this.⁷⁶ Many more indications point the same way: these have long been recognized, and there is no point in going over old ground here.⁷⁷ We shall never know whether Plutarch knew Pollio at first hand, or at least in translation;⁷⁸ but, even if he did not, it at least seems certain that he derived Pollio’s account from a historical, rather than a biographical, intermediary. All six of these Lives include material from this provenance, and it is hard to believe that Plutarch consulted six different biographies, each one of which chanced to be dependent on the same original account. It must be a historical source, and this seems to have been his principal authority for the fifties, forties, and thirties. For that period, something like three-quarters of his material shows contact with the detailed account of Appian, and seems to be owed to this source.

However, it cannot be this ‘Pollio-source’ alone which informs these Lives. Plutarch must have supplemented this, at the very least, from some biographical material. In cases where Plutarch has no such biographical source, it is normally the opening chapters of the Life which make this clear: for instance, Fabius, where he finds little to say about his subject’s early life, and reaches his first consulate by the beginning of ch. 2; or Camillus, which is similar; or Coriolanus, where his source’s few hints about Coriolanus’ youth are laboriously expanded.⁷⁹ In the present group of Lives, too, we occasionally find something similar: for instance, the early chapters of Crassus are unusually generalized and feeble, as Plutarch makes the most of a few odd tales – tales of his marriages, of his love of wealth, of his ambition, and so on. By ch. 4 we have reached the time of the Sullan civil wars, and material which could come from a historical source.⁸⁰ Antony, too, suffers from some early discomfort. Plutarch there wishes to introduce some dominant themes as soon as possible – in particular, military excellence compromised by debauchery and weakness of will; but, as we shall see, he can do no better than elaborate some hints from the Second Philippic.⁸¹ However, the other Lives are considerably richer in early detail. Caesar is one example: much of its early material has the flavour of a biographical source – the escape from Sulla, the trip to Nicomedes, the pirate adventure, the study under Apollonius, the early rhetorical successes at Rome. It is probable, too, that the initial lacuna contained some further details of Caesar’s boyhood.⁸² Some material later in the Life, especially in 17, appears to have a similar provenance: there Plutarch quotes the work of C. Oppius for one of the anecdotes, and seems to draw several more from the same origin. Plutarch elsewhere criticizes Oppius in a way which suggests first-hand knowledge of his writings, and it is likely that all this biographical material is drawn from him.⁸³ The other Lives are similarly rich in biographical items. Cato Minor is especially full of such personalia, and that material is likely to derive from the memoirs of Munatius Rufus; Munatius’ account was probably transmitted to Plutarch in the biography of Thrasea Paetus.⁸⁴ Pompey shows similar traces of the work of Theophanes.⁸⁵

Brutus, too, is rich in personal detail, but here it may be misleading to think of a straightforward biography as a source. This will become clearer if we revert to the example of Caesar’s murder, and try to detect the provenance of that material. A large proportion of Plutarch’s narrative shows contact with Appian, and the two authors are often very close indeed.⁸⁶ This is no surprise: the contact is presumably due, as usual, to a shared inheritance from Pollio. But the amount of non-Appianic material in Plutarch’s accounts is appreciably greater than usual – comparison, for instance, with the earlier chapters in Caesar leaves no doubt of this;⁸⁷ and this is odd, for Appian’s account of these events is impressively full and detailed. It seems that Plutarch is here contaminating his Pollio-source with a larger supply of extraneous information. It will be useful to list some of these extraneous items: they include the earlier quarrels of Cassius and Brutus (Brut. 7.1); the ‘Brutus will wait for this flesh’ story (Brut. 8.3, Caes. 62.6); Caesar’s especial fear for ‘those men who are thin and pale’ (Brut. 8.2, Caes. 62.10, Ant. 11.6); Cassius’ personal reasons for enmity with Caesar (Brut. 8.6–7, cf. Caes. 62.8); Caesar baring his neck to a hostile crowd, and bidding his enemies strike (Caes. 60.6, Ant. 12.6);⁸⁸ the stories of Porcia (Brut. 13, 15.6–9, 23.4–7); the version that it was Artemidorus who handed Caesar a letter revealing the conspiracy (Caes. 65.1–4, where the rival version of App. BC 2.116.486 is mentioned as a variant); and several details of the senatorial proceedings in the days following the murder – honours for the tyrannicides, Brut. 19.1; a separate session on the day after their descent from the Capitol, and the details of their provinces, Brut. 19.4–5; and the decision ‘to honour Caesar as a god’, Caes. 67.8.

Some of this material may have been transmitted by Appian’s source, and suppressed by Appian himself. It would surprise no one familiar with Appian’s technique if, after exploiting the story of Brutus’ contention with Cassius over the urban praetorship, he dispensed with the similar item of the pair’s earlier quarrels.⁸⁹ But one cannot believe that the source contained all these items. That source seems elsewhere to have had less taste for personalia and anecdote than this material suggests; in particular, Appian’s account of the senatorial debate of 17th March is too detailed and well informed to be reconciled with the errors and confusions of Plutarch’s extraneous material.⁹⁰ These mistakes surely come from elsewhere, and Plutarch has grafted them on to the more accurate version he found in the Pollio-source.

The nature of this extra material suggests a source favourable to the tyrannicides: particularly eloquent is the exaggeration of the honours and support they received from the senate. The Porcia stories seem to be drawn from the ‘small book of stories about Brutus’ (βιβλὶδιον μικρòν ἀπομνημονευμάτων Bροὐτου) written by her son Bibulus. Plutarch mentions and quotes the work in telling these very tales (Brut. 13.3, 23.7), and there is no reason to doubt that he knew this source at first hand.⁹¹ But Bibulus may not have provided all the items: the debate in the senate, the past of Cassius, the Artemidorus story – these seem alien to such ‘stories about Brutus’. Here we should rather think of the work of Empylus of Rhodes, mentioned at Brut. 2.4 in terms which strongly suggest first-hand knowledge: Empylus left a ‘small but not at all bad composition about Caesar’s killing, under the title “Brutus”‘  A work ‘about Caesar’s killing’ – even one entitled ‘Brutus’ – suggests a wider scope than those ‘stories about Brutus’.⁹² Plutarch seems also to have read Brutus’ own letters, or at least a selection of them: these would furnish some background material and some adorning quotations.⁹³ But Brutus’ letters hardly provided the mass of the picturesque and inaccurate extraneous material: that is surely owed to Bibulus and Empylus.

Elsewhere, too, Plutarch shows knowledge of similar memoirs; and he seems especially to favour such literature at the richest and most intense moments of his narrative – moments, indeed, of an intensity similar to the assassination of Caesar. These, of course, are precisely the moments when Plutarch might well be tempted to seek picturesque detail from elsewhere to augment Pollio’s account. The battle of Philippi is one example. As Brutus approaches the battle, we again find a sudden increase in non-Appianic material, and it again seems clear that Plutarch is supplementing the Pollio-source from other accounts. The extraneous material includes most of the omens of 39 and 48; Cassius and Brutus discussing the ethics of suicide, 40; the mission of Clodius, who just failed to warn Brutus of the vital success at sea, 47; most of the account of Brutus’ death, 51–2; and many details of the fighting in both battles. In at least one case this material is inconsistent with Pollio’s account.⁹⁴ It surely comes from elsewhere, and its provenance is not hard to guess. Plutarch quotes the memoirs of Messala Corvinus several times for the details of the fighting, and then the obscure work of P. Volumnius for the omens and the story of Brutus’ death; and both Messala and Volumnius have a tellingly prominent role in these events.⁹⁵ They, surely, were the sources (at least the ultimate sources). It is of course possible, if Plutarch drew Pollio’s account from a historical intermediary, that it was this writer rather than Plutarch who combined Pollio with Messala and Volumnius, but it is much more likely that the combination is due to Plutarch himself: this seems another instance in which he chose to supplement the Pollio-source with dramatic detail from elsewhere.

Plutarch’s two accounts of the Parthian Wars are likely to be similar instances: the campaign of Carrhae, described at Crassus 17–33, and the later war of Antony (Ant. 33–50). Pollio, whose concern was the civil wars, is unlikely to have been so detailed on Crassus’ war: it is more likely that Plutarch has consulted at least one supplementary source, though it is hard to suggest names.⁹⁶ Names are easier when it comes to Antony’s Parthian campaign, on which Plutarch again lavishes considerable dramatic art: the recurrent evocation of Xenophon’s Anabasis, in particular, is surely Plutarch’s own skilful addition.⁹⁷ Pollio, again, is unlikely to have treated the campaign in detail, and Plutarch has probably consulted at least one other version.⁹⁸ The most likely source is Q. Dellius, the infamous desultor bellorum civilium (‘circus-jumper of the civil wars’) – a man who always knew the time to change his allegiances. We know that he wrote of the war, and he was clearly an important authority: at Ant. 59.6 Plutarch refers to ‘Dellius the historian’ and expects his readers to recognize the man. It is not surprising that the one item attested for Dellius’ Parthian account is consonant with Plutarch’s version (Ant. 49.4–5 ~ FGrH 197 fr. 1). Once again, we shall never be quite certain that Plutarch knew Dellius at first hand, but it does seem very likely. Much of the rest of Antony, too, appears indebted to sources other than Pollio, particularly the imaginative final scenes. Pollio’s history may have concluded with Actium (if not before), and Plutarch might anyway now have to go elsewhere.⁹⁹ The physician Olympus is quoted at 82.4, and perhaps provided some of the material; but there are clearly other possible sources, and it is likely that Plutarch consulted several authorities for these moving events.¹⁰⁰ One of these may again have been Dellius: it is possible that he extended his history to include Actium and Alexandria, or wrote a further work on those campaigns.¹⁰¹ Few of the participants were better qualified – and it would be no surprise if some of the treatment were extravagant or scandalous.

It would be easy to extend this list. It seems likely, for instance, that Plutarch knew the work of Livy. At Caes. 47 he quotes Livy for some omens which accompanied Pharsalus: the item is unlikely to have been included in the Pollio-source, who had already finished with omens (cf. 43.4). Nor did Pollio exhaust Plutarch’s taste for portents when he approached the Ides of March: at Caes. 63.9 he adds, as a variant, Livy’s version of Calpurnia’s dream. In other Lives, too, traces of Livy can be found – in Pompey and in Crassus, at the very least.¹⁰² Perhaps Plutarch found these items in an excerpt of Livy, or in another writer’s quotation or adaptation; but elsewhere, in Plutarch’s treatment of earlier Roman history, it is likely enough that he knew Livy’s accounts at first hand.¹⁰³ In the present group of Lives, one could further suggest the use of Sallust, of Fenestella, and perhaps of others.¹⁰⁴ But it is more profitable to turn from these secondary sources to those occasions on which Plutarch seems to know some contemporary material of the period.

Here there is a contrast between the early Cicero and the later group of Lives. Cicero seems to show knowledge of many of Cicero’s own writings. A large portion of the account of Catiline seems to be based on Cicero’s essay ‘On his Consulship’ (περὶ ὐπατείας); there are also quotations from the letters and speeches; and there is more besides.¹⁰⁵ Nor is it just Cicero himself: Plutarch seems to know some of Brutus’s letters, and he also mentions Antony’s reply to the Second Philippic ; and it appears likely that part of the account is drawn from the work of Tiro, both the biography and the de iocis.¹⁰⁶ Once read for Cicero, this material might be recalled, and exploited, in later Lives.¹⁰⁷ Yet it is striking that Plutarch seems rarely to have felt the need to undertake any further research of this type. There is no sign, for instance, that he knew Caesar’s commentarii at first hand, though he certainly knew of their existence (Caes. 22.2).¹⁰⁸ He refers to the speeches of Caesar, of Crassus, of Cato, of Brutus, and of Antony – but there is no suggestion that he has read them, though many were in circulation. At Cato Minor 23.3 he notes only that ‘they say that this is the only speech of Cato to survive’.¹⁰⁹ Letters of Caesar and of Antony were available: Plutarch makes no use of them.¹¹⁰ (He does use those of Brutus, but these had probably been read for use in Cicero.¹¹¹) It may be that Plutarch did not have access to all this material (though this argument should not be pressed);¹¹² we should still have expected him to look up the works in a library during his visits to cultural centres, especially Athens. The reason is presumably a simple one – that Plutarch was so pleased with the Pollio-source that he excused himself from any further research into primary sources. Cicero clearly had no such satisfactory narrative source, and Plutarch must himself have felt the inadequacy of some of his material: hence, for instance, the unusual number of apophthegmata, which could usefully fill out the second half of the Life. It is very likely that, when preparing Cicero, he had undertaken this wide reading of primary sources for precisely that reason. There was no satisfactory chronological and synoptic source, and the narrative would otherwise have fallen to pieces. After he had read Pollio’s account, the problem was solved, and the later Lives could be built around this.

Only once do we find the later Lives making extensive use of primary sources.¹¹³ The first thirty chapters of Antony show a resounding similarity to the Second Philippic, so close that we should assume a direct use of the speech, and a use primed by recent re-reading.¹¹⁴ Here Plutarch naturally wished to foreshadow and introduce the Life’s important themes: themes such as Antony’s luxury, his weakness of will, and his susceptibility to subtle schemers, offset by his natural nobility and military brilliance, and by the popularity which these qualities could excite. Ability and popularity could emerge from the historical sources, when they touched on the first episodes of Antony’s life: the campaign in Syria, for instance, of ch. 3, or his authoritative demeanour after the Ides of March (14–15), or his command at Philippi (22); or even, with some straining, his exploits in the Pharsalus campaign.¹¹⁵ But the historical sources would have less to say about the more private themes; nor, it appears, did Plutarch know a satisfactory biography of Antony.¹¹⁶ He had probably read the Second Philippic some time ago, when preparing Cicero; if he recalled that it contained suitable material, he might naturally go back to it, and exploit its rich fund of obloquy. It is no surprise that he revises Cicero’s material in a way which will suit the economy of the Life. At 2.4–8, for instance, he represents Antony as far more of Curio’s dupe than Cicero (Phil. 2.44–7) had done: Cicero had portrayed Antony as no less debauched than Curio himself – but Plutarch will later make much of Antony’s vulnerability to others’ wiles, first to Fulvia (10.5–6), then of course to Cleopatra and her flatterers. It is useful to anticipate the theme here.

Again, some of the Second Philippic material is delayed until after Cicero’s death (Ant. 21, exploiting Phil. 2.67–9). No other account suggests that Antony’s excesses were especially evident at that stage, just after the proscriptions, but Plutarch finds it useful to exploit the themes here, with 22 proceeding to stress the glory of Antony’s command at Philippi and his noble treatment of Brutus’ corpse. Private excesses and yet brilliant ability: the contrast is programmatic, and excellently prepares the emergence of Cleopatra, Antony’s ‘final curse’ (τελευται̑ον κακóν, 25.1). Such adaptations of the Second Philippic are eloquent, for they suggest that Plutarch did know the work at first hand: the rewriting is so clearly tailored to the interests and themes of the present Life. Whoever revised the original material did so in the service of precisely those points which Plutarch will later stress, and the reviser is clearly more likely to be Plutarch himself than any intermediate source.¹¹⁷

These Lives, then, are not just informed by the Pollio-source; an admixture of biographies, memoirs, histories, and even first-hand contemporary material gives depth and colour to Pollio’s account. And two last types of material should be mentioned. First, there is a sense in which Plutarch, when composing the six later biographies, would sometimes be using his own earlier work as his source. Some points remembered from Cicero and Numa have already been mentioned,¹¹⁸ but there are times when the whole narrative of the later Lives is so close to the language and articulation of Cicero that we should assume that he looked again at his earlier version and perhaps the draft he had written for that version, and wrote the later accounts on that basis. One example might be the account of the final Catilinarian debate, and I shall explore that in the next chapter; another the account of the Bona Dea scandal in late 62.¹¹⁹

Secondly, it is very likely that oral traditions and sources played a considerable role. At the beginning of Demosthenes Plutarch lists the advantages to the historian of living in a great city: not merely an abundance of books, but also access to ‘those stories which the written sources have passed over, but which are still recalled in the popular memory’ (Dem. 2.1). He would have discovered some of these stories himself, during his visits to Rome and elsewhere; others would have been passed on to him by his Roman friends and acquaintances.¹²⁰ At Caes. 26.8 Plutarch tells an anecdote of Caesar’s final battle with Vercingetorix: at the beginning things did not go well with the Romans, ‘and the Arverni still point to a small sword hung in one of their shrines as a spoil from Caesar’  The Arverni ‘still point to’ the sword: that item cannot be derived from a source. Plutarch heard of the sword and its associated local tradition, and skilfully wove it into his narrative.¹²¹

The Antony is likely to be especially rich in this material:¹²² indeed, two substantial anecdotes are explicitly attributed to oral tradition within Plutarch’s own family, the sumptuous banqueting in 41 BC and the hardships of Greece after Actium (28.3–12, 68.6–8). ‘Greece’, indeed, plays an important role in Antony. Antony’s love for Greece is emphasized shortly after Philippi, ‘he behaved towards the Greeks in a way that was not at all out of the way or objectionable, at least at first’ (23.2), and the theme soon recurs (33.7). But that ‘at least at first’ (τó γε πρω̑τον) has introduced an ominous note, and the eventual sufferings of Greece, ‘Greece which had suffered so much’ (62.1, quoting Euripides), are given a corresponding emphasis in chs. 62 and 68. Antony’s love of Athens may remain unshaken (72.1), but to this extent has Greece, too, been reduced by Antony’s Eastern extravagance and luxury. Little of this Hellenic material or this emphasis emerges in the other ancient accounts. It is likely that the development of the theme is Plutarch’s own, with its material drawn from surviving oral traditions.

(b) The method of writing

This treatment has inevitably been selective, but it should be enough to suggest that Plutarch drew on a fairly wide range of material. Yet this conclusion poses its own problems. For it is still clear that the greater portion of these Lives is based on the Pollio-source alone: even on those occasions such as Caesar’s murder where Plutarch has other sources, it is still Pollio’s account which provides the basic narrative articulation, and Pollio’s account which provides most of the facts. The extraneous material is not more than one quarter of the whole of Plutarch’s narrative. This wide reading of other sources is surprisingly unproductive: it seems to provide only a few stray supplements and additions, and occasionally to replace the Pollio-source where that account was unsuitable. This is undeniably odd: if modern researchers had read so widely, they would weave items from all these sources into a composite and independent narrative, owing little more to any one account than to any other. As a matter of course, they would apply the technique of ‘breakdown and reconstruction’ (as T.J. Luce calls it¹²³) of their sources’ accounts. Plutarch has no hint of this.

Yet this problem is not confined to Plutarch, nor to biography. Time and again, we find Greek and Roman historians claiming a wide range of reading, and deserving to be believed; yet, time and again, we find them demonstrably basing their narrative of individual episodes on a single source. Cassius Dio is one example: he claims to have read ‘nearly every book’ on Roman history – but, as he goes on to say, he ‘did not write up all his material, but only a selection’.¹²⁴ We can see what he means. It is true that we can no longer regard him as a close and faithful follower of Livy in the Republican books; that thesis was demolished by Manuwald.¹²⁵ But there are times when Dio’s faithfulness to a source can be traced in detail: for instance, his accounts of Caesar’s campaigns are ultimately based on Caesar’s commentarii, and there is little indication of the use of any supplementary material;¹²⁶ while his account of Catiline shows contact with Plutarch’s Cicero, which is best explained if both authors derive closely from a common source (probably the ‘On his consulship’).¹²⁷

Or consider Livy. He claimed to have read widely: he can, for instance, speak of the ‘very many Greek and Roman authors’ whom he has read.¹²⁸ Nor is there any strong reason to doubt these claims.¹²⁹ Yet, when we can obtain some control of his use of sources, he has one principal authority for each section of his account, and uses the rest of his reading merely to supplement this principal narrative source. This is most clear in the later surviving books, when Polybius informs nearly all Livy’s account of events in Greece and Asia: there are intrusions from Roman sources into these Polybian sections, but those intrusions are very limited.¹³⁰ In the earlier books, too, we often see systematic contact with the version of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which demonstrates that, for individual episodes, they both depend on a single authority.¹³¹ Everything here supports Luce’s conclusion: Livy read widely, but nevertheless followed a single source for a single section; within these sections, he would occasionally add supplementary items from other sources, but he would not use a number of versions to weave together a coherent and independent account of his own.¹³² Moreover, the contact with Dionysius in the early books is as important for Dionysius as it is for Livy. Dionysius quotes widely among his authorities (some thirty names in the first few books) – but he, too, seems generally to be faithful to a single source in narrating an episode. And even Tacitus seems to be similar. He was quite evidently a conscientious and wide-ranging researcher; but, on the few occasions when we can control his own choice of items – most clearly in the first two books of the Histories¹³³ – he seems generally to draw the mass of his information from a single source at a time.

This seems less strange if we remember the circumstances in which these writers composed. It is known, and it is not surprising, that authors often collected all their material and read all their literature before beginning to compose.¹³⁴ What is more surprising is the lengths to which some authors took this procedure. Cassius Dio first spent ten years collecting his material, and then took twelve years to write it up; Dionysius took twenty-two years to familiarise himself with the Latin language and gather the material for his history.¹³⁵ If Plutarch chose to read all the materials for his six Lives before beginning to write, his methods were not unusual. The curious fidelity to a single source for individual episodes is most easily understood if we make a simple assumption: that, following this initial wide reading, an author would generally choose just one work to have before his eyes when he composed, and this work would provide the basis of his narrative. In Plutarch’s case, this work would normally be the Pollio-source; but when this was in some way unsuitable – for the early life of a figure, perhaps, or for the Parthian Wars – it would temporarily be replaced by another work, such as Oppius or Dellius. Items from the earlier reading would more widely be combined with the principal source, but a writer would not normally refer back to that reading to verify individual references, and would instead rely on his memory, or on the briefest of notes. Alternatively, it may be that an author, immediately before narrating an episode, would reread one account, and compose with that version fresh in his mind.¹³⁶ This procedure might better explain such cases as the confusion between Brutus Albinus and Trebonius at Caes. 66 (above, p. 7), which can now be a simple slip of the memory. On either view, the important point is to explain the peculiar position of one source by the peculiar use to which it was put. Stray facts and additions would be recalled from the preliminary reading, but it would be a very different matter to recall the detail of an episode’s presentation, and combine versions independently and evenly.

Such a procedure seems less perverse in view of the physical difficulties of working with papyrus rolls. These were hefty and unmanageable things; and indexing, chapter-headings, and even line- and column-numbering were rudimentary or non-existent.¹³⁷ It would be easy to read a roll continuously, at the stage of the preliminary reading; but reading was a two-handed business,¹³⁸ and it would be difficult to have more than one roll under one’s eyes during composition itself. Even if (for example) a slave held a second roll for an author to compare accounts, or the author himself used a book-rest, combining versions would still be awkward. If two accounts did not deal with events in the same sequence – if, for instance, one narrated chronologically, while the other ordered events thematically – it would be a cumbrous business to roll back and forth to find the parallel account. There were probably no chapter-headings to help. Systematic comparison of two accounts might still be possible; no doubt it was sometimes done.¹³⁹ But it would be very inconvenient, and it would not be surprising if authors preferred to rely on their memory.

And signs of the use of memory are duly found, especially when Plutarch exploits a non-chronological genre, such as speeches or letters – the sort of literature in which he had read widely before writing Cicero. In genres such as these, the relevant information might be found anywhere in the roll, and one would hardly expect a writer always to check his references. Plutarch’s memory is inevitably sometimes imprecise: thus a story from Pro Plancio is garbled and emasculated at Cic. 6.3–4, and the quotations from Brutus’ letters at Brut. 22 provide a pastiche of several different passages from two different letters.¹⁴⁰ We should not infer that Plutarch did not know the works at first hand,¹⁴¹ but he is certainly unlikely to have had them under his eyes when composing. Elsewhere, too, we can detect the use of memory when Plutarch seeks to supplement the material before him. In the Comparison of Nicias and Crassus (35(2).3) he mentions an anecdote which he had forgotten to include in the narrative of Crassus itself: ‘this escaped our attention during the narrative’  Had that story been included in the source before his eyes, he would hardly have forgotten it: this is rather an item culled from the wider preliminary reading. But for the slip of his memory, he would silently have inserted it into his main source’s narrative.¹⁴²

A different type of example is found in the account of the Gallic Wars. Caes. 22.1–5 tells of Caesar’s slaughter of the Usipetes and Tencteri: 400,000 barbarians were killed. Appian too has 400,000 dead (Celt. fr. 1.12, 18.1), and this was presumably the figure given in the shared source. But both Cato (51.1) and the Comparison of Nicias and Crassus (37(4).2) briefly mention the same incident, and both give the figure as 300,000. There is no need to emend; still less, to give the lower figure any authority.¹⁴³ In Cato and in the Comparison Plutarch has not referred back to the source, and has misremembered the detail. In writing Caesar, Plutarch presumably worked carefully through the Pollio-source’s account of the war, and had it before him in composing; in Cato or in Crassus, he would skim this part of the narrative, and wind through the roll quickly.¹⁴⁴ It is not surprising that he did not hunt carefully for the reference, but preferred to add it from memory. A similar case is Brut. 27.6, where Plutarch says that ‘two hundred’ were proscribed: this is apparently another misremembering, for Ant. 20.2 gives ‘three hundred’, and this was apparently Pollio’s figure (App. BC 4.7.28). In composing Antony, he presumably read Pollio’s version thoroughly; but the proscriptions were less central for Brutus, and he might again wind through the account more quickly.

Elsewhere, of course, his memory would furnish him with items recalled from much further back, items which he had encountered in a different context, and had probably known for years: perhaps from the reading for Cicero, perhaps from his work for other Lives or essays, perhaps simply from his general knowledge.¹⁴⁵

This reconstruction implies that he made little use of notes, for notes on different authors, made in a codex of parchment, of papyrus, or of wax-tablets, might easily be combined into an independent pastiche.¹⁴⁶ He might perhaps have taken such notes when working in libraries during his visits to cultural centres – enjoying that ‘abundance of every type of book’ which he talks about at Dem. 2.1. He would then have known that he might not use the material for months or years; note-taking would be a natural safeguard.¹⁴⁷ It is harder to believe that he took detailed notes when composing from books which were at hand.¹⁴⁸ He used the Pollio-source so extensively that note-taking would be superfluous: it would be far more convenient to have the account under his eyes during composition. It might seem more sensible to take notes on his preliminary reading, works such as Volumnius or Messala or Bibulus; but we should be careful not to exaggerate the time taken in composing these Lives, which (as we shall see) have their signs of haste. The whole process may have taken only a few months, and the preliminary reading would still be relatively fresh in his mind when he came to compose. Even in old age, he doubtless retained an extraordinarily good memory, and an extensive use of notes might well seem an unnecessary and time-consuming luxury. If he took notes at all, they would probably form the briefest aide-mémoire, with headings and a few important details of some good stories: it is possible, though not I think very likely, that some were similar to the extant Apophthegmata, whether or not those works are genuine.¹⁴⁹ Such notes were perhaps taken in notebooks of wax-tablets, rather than papyrus or parchment: so Quintilian advises his pupils, in the interest of speed and fluency;¹⁵⁰ and such notes would have only a temporary use, so that reusable tablets would be a sensible economy. (Writers such as Dio or Dionysius, and perhaps Livy, who needed more long-term notes, might more naturally use parchment or papyrus.¹⁵¹)

More extensive notes seem to belong at a later stage of composition, the production of the ὑπόμνημα, the ‘draft’. The most usual method of writing seems to be that reflected by Lucian How to Write History 47–8:¹⁵² the historian should first collect his material from the most reliable sources,

... and when the writer has collected everything or nearly everything, he should first weave together a draft, a body of material which is still inartistic and uncoordinated; then he should impose structure, give the work its beauty, use diction to add colour, and give form and rhythm.

This ‘inartistic and uncoordinated draft’ was clearly an important stage of the composition, but it is hard to know how close to the final version it would be. Its precise form surely varied from author to author. Some ancient writers speak of it as if it were a mere collection of chapter-headings, others as if it were a fairly finished version, merely needing to be ‘translated’ into the correct literary style.¹⁵³ Plutarch, too, doubtless wrote some sort of ‘draft’, ὑπóμνημα, before proceeding to the final versions of these Lives, but we cannot know its form. He may have written several ‘drafts’, one for each Life, but he may well have preferred to construct just one which would serve for all six works – almost a draft history of the period, though one peculiarly rich in biographical diversions.¹⁵⁴ We should certainly remember this stage of composition when we consider the extreme verbal similarities among the accounts. Some of them are doubtless inherited from Pollio, but the six Lives may also represent elaborations of the same draft, and it would be natural for the language of that draft to leave its mark on each of Plutarch’s versions.

It is interesting here to compare van der Stockt and van Meirvenne’s reconstruction of Plutarch’s methods in the Moralia.¹⁵⁵ They too posit a hypomnema stage, embodying ‘a more or less elaborate train of thought, involving material previously gathered and certainly written in full syntactical sentences... On the other hand, the ὑπóμνημα does not yet display literary finish (cf. Plutarch’s apology for the lack of καλλιγραϕία (‘fine writing’) in 464f–5a)’ (van der Stockt 1999a, 595). As van der Stockt goes on to comment, such a ‘rough draft’ is very similar to the historical hypomnema which I suggest here and in chapters 2 and 3. It may also be that we should reconstruct Caesar’s procedure similarly for the Commentarii. Thus Bömer suggested that first Caesar composed a preliminary, fairly elaborate commentarius, a ‘Dienstbericht’ or ‘Kriegstagebuch’, and this served as a draft for the more literary commentarii (in a different sense) which survive as BG and BC.¹⁵⁶

On this theory, then, there were three stages in the preparation of these Lives. (a) The preliminary reading, which would embrace the whole range of Plutarch’s sources. (b) The production of the ‘drafts’ (or ‘draft’): this would normally be guided by the Pollio-source, but when that account was unsuitable Plutarch might prefer another authority, such as Oppius or Dellius. (c) The writing of the finished versions. At the stage of the draft he would already have given thought to the narrative strategy of the Life and the pair, and so the draft would presumably already reflect the interpretative emphases on which he had decided; but the last stage of stylistic beautification would still be in the future. Doubtless this model, stated so baldly, is too schematic;¹⁵⁷ but, as a model, it may still serve.

The discussion has so far been simplified in an important respect, for Plutarch would certainly have his slave and freedman assistants. Pliny Ep. 3.5, describing how the elder Pliny spent his studious days, shows how greatly he exploited such aides: he would have a lector to read to him while he was in the bath, or taking a walk; a notarius would be at hand in case he wished to dictate. Pliny was perhaps exceptional, but Plutarch may well have enjoyed some similar assistance. It is likely that much of the first stage, the preliminary reading, was read out to Plutarch by a lector: this procedure might be less time-wasting than it seems.¹⁵⁸ It is likely that any preliminary notes, and then the draft itself, would be dictated to a slave or freedman; as reading a roll required both hands, dictation would be the most convenient method. It is likely, too, that the final version, after Plutarch had considered it carefully, was dictated as well.¹⁵⁹ And slaves, or more likely freedmen, might prove useful in other ways. Some authors used them very widely: Josephus exploited ‘helpers in the Greek language’ to aid the production of his final draft.¹⁶⁰ Plutarch did not need ghost writers, but he may certainly have used freedmen as research assistants, to consult the more recherché sources, report interesting stories from them, and perhaps produce epitomes.¹⁶¹ The sparse traces in the Lives of such writers as Livy and Strabo may well be owed to such helpers. A whole factory of work may lie behind every ancient writer’s production, and we should not expect a master to ‘acknowledge’ his servants’ help.¹⁶²

Such helpers would greatly ease the production of the Lives; and, artistically finished and systematically researched though they are, we should not exaggerate the diligence of Plutarch’s methods. Time and again, we find signs of hasty production: the confusions over the casualty figures or the numbers proscribed; the muddle over Trebonius and Brutus Albinus (above, p. 7); perhaps also the awkward intrusion of the item ‘which I had forgotten to include in the narrative’ in the Comparison of Nicias and Crassus. Sometimes he forgets what he has, or has not, included: at Brut. 13.3 he mentions Porcia, who ‘was Cato’s daughter, as I have said’  – but he has not in fact mentioned this at 2.1, though he doubtless meant to. A different type of example is found in Cato, which contrives to describe the triple alliance of 60 BC without mentioning Crassus; then Plutarch introduces Crassus into the account of Luca as if his role were quite familiar (41.1). Elsewhere, at Timoleon 13.10, he refers to a passage in Dion which does not exist. He probably meant to include the item in Dion, but finally omitted to do so (see n. 53). Other, more trivial, awkwardnesses are frequent: two examples will suffice. At Caes. 24.3 he does not make it clear that ‘Cicero’ is Quintus, not Marcus: the reader, or listener, unfamiliar with the period would flounder. And at Ant. 19.1 the mention of ‘the three’ coming just after a sentence which links Caesar, Antony, and Cicero, would bemuse an audience which did not know of the alliance of Caesar, Antony, and Lepidus.¹⁶³ Plutarch’s research for these six Lives was systematic, sensible, and quite extensive; but the whole production might still be a comparatively speedy process. Even allowing for the parallel composition of the pairs to each Life, the whole business probably occupied months rather than years.¹⁶⁴

Finally, I stress that this analysis has been confined to a few Roman Lives; and these anyway provide a special case, for so extensive a use of simultaneous preparation cannot be traced elsewhere. It is not at all clear how much one can generalize from this study to infer his procedures elsewhere, especially in the Greek Lives. Methodical reading was necessary before writing the Roman Lives, but at least some of their Greek counterparts could be produced much more easily. In many Greek instances, particularly those drawn from the fifth century, he might be able to dispense with the preliminary general reading, for he would already be sufficiently familiar with the material. He might still have a historical source before his eyes: in writing Themistocles, for instance, he seems to have been heavily dependent on Herodotus and Thucydides. He would certainly still exploit his memory to add supplementary items, but it would be more usual for these to be remembered from years before, and they would often be facts which he had known since his youth. The whole process of composing a fifth-century Life could be far less methodical, and it might be misleading to speak of ‘research’, or of ‘reading for a biography’, at all.¹⁶⁵ Equally, some of the later Greek Lives – Philopoemen, perhaps, or Timoleon, or Pyrrhus – might be more similar to the Roman biographies: periods where his general knowledge might carry him less far, where more systematic research would be necessary.¹⁶⁶ As so often in the study of the Lives, each group of biographies must have posed different problems, and may have been approached in different ways.¹⁶⁷

Perhaps this study has a more general application. Far too often, we tend to specify ‘the source’ of a passage, in Plutarch or elsewhere, with no further qualification; yet this tells us little. What sort of source, and how was it used? Was it a work read for the writer by an assistant? Was it a work read some time before, and perhaps noted, in a library? Was it a work read in the preliminary stage of general reading? Or was it before the author’s eyes in composition? All these classes of material contribute to Plutarch’s work, but all contribute very differently; and, until we know how an author used a particular source, we know very little indeed.

Postscript (1995)

This study first appeared in 1979, and on the whole provoked acquiescence rather than dissent. It was however strongly criticized by Hillard 1987 and by Steidle 1990, and the publication of Barbara Scardigli’s collection Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (Scardigli 1995) allowed me to make this brief reply.

My article argued for simultaneous preparation of six Lives, but acknowledged that Cicero and Lucullus belonged to an earlier stage, when Plutarch was less well-informed about the period. Hillard and Steidle attack different aspects of the thesis. Hillard rejects the notion of simultaneous preparation; Steidle takes issue with the idea of expanding knowledge, and claims that the Cicero shows the same awareness of the period as the later Lives. Both scholars rest part of their case on general considerations. Hillard feels that the notion of simultaneous preparation does not leave enough room for the independent artistic creation of each Life, Steidle suggests that the frequent cross-references imply that the series was conceived from the outset as a coherent entity, and that even when writing Cicero Plutarch was consciously assuming knowledge, or avoiding treatment, of material which he would treat elsewhere.

They are unlikely both to be right. The implication of Steidle’s argument would be to include Cicero in the group of Lives researched and prepared together, and it is precisely that notion which Hillard rejects. It is, I hope, also plain that the general arguments do not take us far. Simultaneous preparation is of course compatible with an acceptance that the finished biographies are individual artistic and thematic creations; the final drafts were presumably written separately and in sequence.¹⁶⁸ Most scholars are used to working on material which they will later write up in several separate papers or books. And Plutarch may well have already envisaged his early biographies as part of a series of works which would mutually supplement one another.¹⁶⁹ It does not follow that he already knew exactly which biographies he would go on to write,¹⁷⁰ still less that he had already completed all the relevant reading and research.

Steidle’s detailed criticisms centre on pp. 2–3 above, where I suggest that Plutarch’s knowledge of the period increased between Cicero and the later group of Lives. He is sceptical of arguments from silence from Cicero, arguing (quite correctly) that artistic reasons can often explain omissions;¹⁷¹ in particular, he claims (1) that Plutarch could already have known of the ‘work’ (λóγος) in which Cicero inculpated Caesar and Crassus, for in Cicero he already knows that both men were suspected, and he has the same view of Caesar’s long-term ambitions (Cic. 15, 20);¹⁷² (2) that in Cicero Plutarch could readily have passed over Cicero’s support for Pompey’s cura annonae (Pomp. 49. 6), for it does not illuminate Cicero’s character; (3) that the discrepancies over Paullus’ death between Cicero and the later Lives (p. 3) are of the same type as certain discrepancies within the group of later Lives (such as those I discuss on pp. 21–2); (4) that my description of the second half of Cicero as ‘scrappy and ill-informed’ is subjective and hasty, for Cicero is no more ill-informed than Brutus or Antony on the fifties, and Plutarch’s weight falls on the same high-spots of Cicero’s career as are stressed by other ancient authors – the consulship, the exile and the return, the final years. He adds (5) that Cicero shares some errors with the later Lives, which he thinks odd if Plutarch’s knowledge genuinely expanded.

I find these points unconvincing. (1) Of course Plutarch already knew about the suspicions about Crassus and Caesar; the Cicero account is already quite well-informed about the conspiracy, and Caesar’s long-term ambition was a familiar commonplace. The knowledge of Cicero’s own later inculpating ‘work’ is what is in point. My argument was that Cic. 20, discussing variant versions of Caesar’s guilt and Cicero’s attitude towards him, could naturally have mentioned that work if Plutarch already knew of it. It would have been a striking point to make, and it would have fitted the tone of the context. Notice that Plutarch has already referred to Cicero’s own writings once in that chapter, at 20.3 – presumably in that case the ‘On his consulship’.

(2) I do not understand why Steidle thinks Cicero’s support for Pompey would have cast no light on his character. It might evidently have illuminated his gratitude for Pompey’s part in his return, and could readily have contrasted with the vindictiveness towards Clodius (Cic. 34). It certainly seems to illuminate Cicero’s character more than Pompey’s, despite its appearance at Pomp. 49.6.

(3) There is some force in Steidle’s third point, but those discrepancies among the later Lives tend to be easier to explain, either in terms of slips of memory (pp. 24–5) or of the various compositional devices which I discuss below at pp. 91–6.¹⁷³ The Paullus instance seems different: at Ant. 19.3 Plutarch carefully calls attention to the existence of variant versions, and there is evidently no carelessness there; he prefers a different version in Antony and explicitly rejects the one he had followed in Cicero, but there seems no artistic or compositional reason why he should have preferred one version rather than another in either Life. As we know that Antony is the later Life, it seems most economical to suppose that he had simply come across a version which he thought more reliable.

(4) It is hardly surprising that Brutus and Antony are skimpy on the fifties; neither Brutus nor Antony was then a major actor. The ‘scrappiness’ of the second half of Cicero is different. It is not the concentration on the familiar high-spots which is relevant, but the perfunctory nature of the transition between them, for instance the speed with which he advances from 56 to 52 at Cic. 35.1 (cf. Moles 1988, 47 and 183). Steidle’s appeal to other ancient authors does not wholly support his case: Appian and Velleius are too thin on the fifties to allow any conclusions, but we might notice Dio 39.18.1 and 20.2, tracing through the saga of Cicero’s house and various clashes involving Cicero, Milo, and Clodius in the mid-fifties; or 39.59.2–60.1, on Cicero’s brushes with the triumvirs in 55; or 39.62–3, on his part in the various Gabinius trials.

(5) The persistence of certain errors in the later Lives is evidently inconclusive. Expanding knowledge need not mean perfect knowledge. In any case, not all of Steidle’s examples are cogent. He puts particular weight on the misdating of Octavian’s arrival in Rome at Brut. 22.1; Cic. 43.8 also misdates it, though not to the same point. But Steidle neglects Ant. 16.1, where the arrival is put in the correct chronological sequence. In fact, it is probably wrong to think of the Brutus and Cicero passages as ‘mistakes’: in each case the positioning of the item allows Plutarch to switch the narrative focus to Octavian, and he does this at whatever point seems most convenient in each Life. The procedure of Appian, BC 3.9.30 is very similar. In that case, the instance provides no evidence either way for the present issue.

Much of the rest of Steidle’s article is devoted to a treatment of Plutarch’s narrative in Cicero and Pompey, emphasizing his readiness to abbreviate and adapt for artistic purposes. We differ on several details, but his general point is common ground between us, and is, I think, no longer controversial.

The thrust of Hillard’s article is to stress that the character of each Life was largely determined by the available source-material. I think he underestimates Plutarch’s capacity to rewrite and remould material; but even if he is right, it does not affect the issue of simultaneous preparation. That thesis can still allow that particular material affects the texture of particular Lives; the available material on Cato, for instance, has certainly influenced Plutarch’s portrayal of the man in Cato Minor. My argument was simply that, even if such reading was conducted primarily ‘for’ one Life, we can often detect traces of it elsewhere, and in patterns which are most easily explicable if we think that all the preparation of the later six Lives was complete before any one of them was written up (cf. pp. 10–11). Hillard does not address this point.

Hillard argues that I underestimate the impact of biographical material on the Lives. It may well be that in 1979 I made too much of the Pollio-source, though this still seems to me the most economical thesis; but the persistent verbal contact with Appian, and to a lesser extent with Dio, anyway seems to point to an important mainstream historical source, whether or not this was Pollio.¹⁷⁴ How far an individual Life can be based on such a source will evidently vary; but it is misleading to speak as if the availability of biographical matter is the only factor to influence Plutarch’s choice of source-material. Just as important will be the question how far a person’s story intersects with, and in extreme cases is identical with, the central political and military history of the period. Plutarch may well have known just as much ‘biographical’ material on Pompey and Caesar as on Crassus and Brutus; but the story of Pompey and Caesar fundamentally is the central history of the period, and therefore biographical material leaves much less distinctive a mark on Plutarch’s version.

Hillard also points out that the arguments for simultaneous preparation are not equally strong for each of the six Lives; in particular, not many of the arguments bear on Crassus.¹⁷⁵ I accept that point, and the case for including Crassus among the six is less strong than for the others. In itself that is hardly surprising: Crassus’ part in the history of the period was less conspicuous than that of any of the others, and his Life consequently offers less material for direct comparison with the other Lives. The speed with which Plutarch passes from 59 to 56 (Crass. 14) allows no inferences as to his knowledge of the mainstream history of the period: Crassus’ own part in those years was simply too difficult to trace, no matter how much Plutarch knew.¹⁷⁶ Still, the Lives’ relative chronology suggests that Crassus was written at much the same time as the other relevant Lives,¹⁷⁷ and that might create a presumption in favour of including it among the six. If so, a negative argument becomes more telling: it is hard to see any material in the other Lives which might naturally have found a place in Crassus but is omitted, or any material in Crassus which might naturally have been included in other Lives but is not. In that case, it is easiest to assume that it rests on the same body of knowledge and research. That impression is confirmed by the series of verbal parallels between Crassus and the other five later Lives;¹⁷⁸ Crassus, like the others, shows some contact with the narrative of Appian, which suggests awareness of the same mainstream historical source;¹⁷⁹ there are even some signs of cross-fertilization, for Crass. 7.5 uses the story of the young Caesar’s adventure with the pirates, an item which would naturally come from the reading ‘for’ Caesar.¹⁸⁰ The cumulative case for including Crassus among the six is therefore a substantial one.

Notes

¹Simultaneous preparation is suggested by Gomme, HCT i. 83 n. 3, and Broźek 1963, 68–80; cf. Stoltz 1929, 18–19 and 67. Mewaldt 1907 had already postulated simultaneous preparation in arguing for simultaneous publication.

²A large use of memory is suggested by Zimmermann 1930, 61–2; cf. Russell 1963, 22 = Scardigli 1995, 359; Jones 1971, 87; Hamilton 1969, xliii–iv; Gomme, HCT i. 78–81; Stadter 1965, 138; Piccirilli 1977, 1010–1 and 1980, 1760; Heftner 1995, 13–14 and nn. 54, 61.

³For varying views of the importance of notes, cf. works cited in previous note. The whole issue of note-taking is now illuminated by a Herculeaneum papyrus (PHerc. 1021), which enables us to detect Philodemus’ preliminary note-taking for his History of the Academy: see Dorandi 1997, 2000, and below, n. 146. Plutarch does seem to have kept some commonplace book (hypomnemata) in his philosophical studies (Tranquillity of Mind 464f, cf. On Controlling Anger 457d). In the original version of this paper I suggested that this told us little of his methods in the Lives, but the important work of Luc van der Stockt and Birgit van Meirvenne has now illuminated the role of hypomnemata in the Moralia, and I now think this extremely relevant to the Lives as well: see chapter 3.

⁴A combination of different sources is strongly argued by Theander 1951, especially 42 ff.; cf. Stadter 1965, 125–40. – Since the original version of this paper was published in 1979, it has become much less controversial to hold that Plutarch regularly combined material from a number of sources: see for instance the survey of Scardigli 1995, 1–46 and the introductions to various commentaries, Frost 1980 on Themistocles, Pelling 1988 on Antony, Moles 1988 on Cicero, Sansone 1989 on Aristides and Cato Maior, Stadter 1989 on Pericles, Konrad 1994 on Sertorius, Heftner 1995 on Pompey, Shipley 1997 on Agesilaus, Georgiadou 1997 on Pelopidas, and many of the contributors to the Lorenzo Valla and Rizzoli series, including my own work on Philopoemen and Flamininus (1997a). (A lone dissenting voice is Delvaux 1988, 1989, and 1996, who assumes that Plutarch has taken over many quotations and much discussion at second-hand.) How Plutarch combined that material, and how thoroughly he interwove the items from different sources, is less agreed.

⁵That assumption of youthfulness is largely based on the work’s exuberant ‘rhetorical’ style, but it is arguable that this manner is appropriate to content and genre, and need not in itself point to any particular stage of Plutarch’s intellectual development: cf. Moles 1978, 80 and Frazier in Frazier and Froidefond 1990, 15–17. For a recent discussion of this ‘rhetoric’, see Cammarota 2000, who accepts an early date; in the same volume Prandi 2000 similarly accepts an early date for the essays on Alexander, which pose a parallel problem. Frazier prefers to make it a relatively youthful but not adolescent work, perhaps datable to Vespasian’s reign; similarly Brenk 1987, 158–9. Swain 1989b, 504 n. 3 is also inclined to accept an early date on grounds of content, but he stresses that many of the work’s leading ideas are not incompatible with the Lives if one takes into account generic differences. I now tend to the view that On the Fortune of the Romans may be quite a late work, dating from the time when Plutarch was already engaged on the Parallel Lives: below, p. 84 and n. 63.

⁶Most of that work is clearly drawn from Dionysius (note especially the inherited error at 318e–f); non-Dionysian material seems largely derived from oral traditions at Rome, especially those associated with surviving monuments. (On this type of material cf. Theander 1951, 2–32 and 1959, 99–131.) Plutarch quotes Polybius ‘in the second book’ at 325f, and elsewhere book-numbers seem to imply first-hand knowledge of a work: Jones 1971, 83.

⁷Cf. Frost 1980, 47–9; Stadter 1989, xlvii. Plutarch’s wide reading is abundantly clear: cf. especially Ziegler 1949, 277–91; Duff 1999, 8, with bibliography in his n. 37.

⁸Comic poets: Per. 3.5–7, 8.4, 13.8–10, 24.9–10, al. Plato: 7.8, 13.7, 24.7, Cf. 8.2, 15.2. Other philosophers: 4.5, 7.7, 27.4, 35.5. Theophrastus: 38.2. Ion: 5.3, 28.7. Some of these quotations may be inherited; it is hard to believe they all are. Cf. Meinhardt 1957, 9–22 and passim; Stadter 1989: lviii–lxxxv.

⁹ἐπελθóντα τῃ̑ μνήμῃ κατὰ τη̑ν γραϕήν, Per. 24.12. – Naturally, there is also literary artifice here, as Plutarch projects an impression both of Aspasia (the woman people told stories about) and of himself (the man who loved stories and knew a lot of them). But there was little point in constructing this narrator – this well-read ‘Plutarch’ – unless he could also deliver a text which was rich in such stories; and those stories must come from the well-stocked brain of the real person, Plutarch as well as ‘Plutarch’.

¹⁰Dem. 2.2. On the weary question of Plutarch’s Latinity, Rose 1924, 11–19, is still sound. For the contrast between the preparation for a Greek and for a Roman Life, see also Piccirilli 1980, 1763–4.

¹¹Cleopatra: Latin quotations would have been apposite especially (but not only) at 27.2–5, 56.6–10, and in the description of Actium (especially 66.5–8); note also 29.1, 36.1–2, and 62.1, where quotations from Plato and Euripides, rather than Latin poetry, lend stylistic height. Roman public opinion: e.g. 36.4–5, 50.7, 54.5, 55, 57.5.

¹²The reference to Horace at Lucull. 39.5 is an exception, so isolated that one suspects the quotation to be tralatician (Russell 1993, 427), but it at least shows that quotations from Latin poets were not excluded by any generic ‘rules’: cf. Zadorojnyi 1997b. Had Plutarch known his Horace, a mention of him might be expected in Brutus, perhaps at 24.3, perhaps in the account of Philippi. – The contrast between Caesar and Suet. Div. Iul. is here eloquent, for Suet. is rich with material similar to that used by Plutarch for Pericles: quotations from contemporary pamphlets and lampoons, Calvus, Catullus, Curio, etc. Plutarch has nothing like this in Caesar.

¹³He may have glanced at Pollio or Livy when engaged on his Life of Augustus, but even this is unlikely: ‘the Lives of the Caesars, to judge from the remains, were not the fruit of deep research’ (Jones 1971, 80).

¹⁴Jones 1966, 67–8 = Scardigli 1995, 108–11 places Cim.–Luc. in one of positions II–IV; Theander 1958, 12–20, in position IV; cf. Stoltz 1929, table at p. 135. The principal indication is that Pericles, which occupied position X (Per. 2.5), itself quotes Cimon (9.5); Dem.–Cic. occupied position V, and, on Jones’s analysis, positions VI–IX are already filled by other pairs. For reservations about this type of analysis, see p. 9; but the early position of Lucullus is adequately demonstrated by its content.

¹⁵Presumably the ‘Theopompean’ de consiliis: so e.g. Strasburger 1938, 108, Brunt 1957, 193; Marshall 1985, 287 ad loc.; Moles 1982: see n. 172 and p. 50 below.

¹⁶The Antony version is shared by App. BC 4.12.45 (cf. Dio 47.6.3), and probably derives from Asinius Pollio.

¹⁷Caes. 35.2 refers to the projected Pompey in the future tense, ὡς ἐν τοι̑ς περὶ ἐκείνου γραϕησομένοις τὰ καθ’ ἕκαστον δηλωθήσεται (‘as will be shown in detail in the work which will be written about him’): cf. pp. 7–8.

¹⁸For Pollio’s view, Horace Odes 2.1.1; cf. Caes. 13.4–6, Pomp. 47.4, Cato Minor 30.9. Henderson 1997, 59–65 = 1998, 109–14 implies that the ‘Metellus’ dateline of Odes 2.1.1 might summon up the consulship of Q. Metellus Numidicus in 109 as well as that of Q. Metellus Celer in 60: I find that harder to believe.

¹⁹Cf. Cic. Att. 2.18(38).3, 2.19(39).5.

²⁰Verbal similarities: e.g. Caes. 14.2 stigmatises the  cf. Pomp. 47.5,, and Cato Minor 32.2, ἃ γὰρ οἱ θρασυτάτοι δήμαρχοι καί ὀλιγωρότατοι πρὸς χάριν ἐπολιτεύοντο τω̑ν πολλω̑ν, ταυ̑τ’ ἀπ’ ἐξουσίάς ὑπατικη̑ς αἰσχρω̑ς καί τάπεινω̑ς ὑποδυόμενος τὸν δη̑μον ἔπραττε. Crass. 14.4, like Cato 33.5, speaks of the Gallic command establishing Caesar ὥσπερ εις άκροπολίν; Caesar and Pompey are close to each other in their descriptions of Pompey and Crassus in the assembly (Caes. 14.3–6, Pomp. 47.6–8); and so on.

²¹It is thus unnecessary to assume, with Taylor 1951, 265 (cf. Meier 1961, 72–3), that Plutarch went to a new source when composing Cato, and there found the distinction of two separate bills. Note the plural νόμους in Caesar ; but Plutarch there finds it stylistically useful to speak as if the bills were debated simultaneously. The procedure of Appian (BC 2.10.35) is exactly similar. Such conflations are common in Plutarch: I examine this technique below at pp. 91–2.

²²Pomp. 47.6–8, Caes. 14.3–6; Dio 38.4.4–5.5.

²³Pomp. 48.2, Cato Minor 32.3; Dio 38.6.3.

²⁴Clodius: Caes. 14.16–17, Cato Minor 32.10, 33.6; Dio 37.12.1–2. Cato’s imprisonment: Caes. 14.11–12, Cato 33.1–4; Dio 38.3.2–3. The two authors give this story a different context, but seem to reflect the same original item. It was probably narrated ‘out of time’ in the shared source, and both authors chose to exploit it where they thought best. Cf. Marsh 1927, 508–13 and Meier 1961, 71–9.

²⁵Suet. Div. Iul. 20.4 (imprisonment); 21 (marriages).

²⁶Cic. Phil. 2.34. For Plutarch’s use of this speech, see pp. 17–18; Pelling 1988, 26–7 and (on this passage in particular) 147–8.

²⁷Lepidus: Caes. 67.2. Plancus: Brut. 19.1. Cicero: Cic. 42.3, Brut. 19.1. Cf. Valgiglio 1992, 290. On the version in Antony see further n. 90 and Pelling 1988, 151–2.

²⁸Cf. Stoltz 1929, 75–81.

²⁹Caes. 4.4–5, 5.3, 5.8–9, 6.3–7, etc; deceived optimates at 4.6–9, 5.8, 6.7, 7.5, etc. Cato alone saw the truth (13.3), though Cicero had earlier felt suspicions (4.8–9). By 14.6 it is too late, and the optimates can only grieve. On the ‘historical’ texture of Caesar see also pp. 55, 103–5, 207–8, and ch. 11.

³⁰Caes. 56.7, 60.1, 60.5, 61.9–10, 62.1: below, n. 32 and p. 104.

³¹Caes. 51, where the ‘slander’ (διαβολή) earned by the friends – ‘the Romans were very unhappy about these things’, 51.3 – prepares for this loss of popular support; cf. also 57.2, 57.7, 60.8, 61. See also p. 11 and n. 66; and Pelling 1997e, 216–19.

³²The popular reactions to the regal salutation are traced at 60.3; to the excessive honours at 60.5 (rather uneasily, Plutarch represents them as shocked at the insult to the senate); to the Lupercalia affair at 61.6; to the tribunes’ imprisonment at 61.9–62.1. App. BC 2.107–9 and Suet. Div. Iul. 78–9, both apparently from the same source, have no such emphasis; nor does Ant. 12. App. 2.109.458 further gives a different reading of the people’s reaction at the Lupercalia. Plutarch stresses their resentment at the attempts to crown Caesar; for Appian, their dominant emotion was applause for his rejection of the crown. For the rather different account of Nic. Dam. (FGrH 90) Vit. Caes. 68–79, cf. Jacoby ad loc.

³³Brut. 10.6: this was apparently the version and emphasis of the source (cf. App. BC 2.113.472).

³⁴Caes. 62, using material treated earlier in the corresponding account in Brutus.

³⁵Caes. 62.8. As the text stands, a cross-reference directs the reader to Brutus for a fuller treatment, here as at 68.7; cf. Brut. 9.9, similarly referring to Caesar. See pp. 7–10.

³⁶Brut. 11–12.

³⁷Appian’s account suggests that the shared source (pp. 12–13) was much richer in historical analysis: e.g. BC 2.113.474, detail of the conspirators’ background and connections; 2.120.505–7, an analysis of the urban plebs. Plutarch here suppresses most of this: Brut. 12 is more interested in men who were not involved than in men who were. A terse μιγάδες (‘commingled’ of the mob, a mongrel, motley gathering) at Brut. 18.12 and a dismissive reference to ‘the masses who are prey to unstable and rapid impulses’ at 21.2 are the only reflections of the analysis of the plebs.

³⁸Brut. 9.9 refers to Caesar: see n. 35, and pp. 7–10.

³⁹Caes. 66.12 notes this item as a λεγόμενον, something people say; Brutus 17.6 is less punctilious. For a similar case, cf. Cinna’s dream: ὥς ϕασι (‘so they say’) at Caes. 68.3, but no qualification in the more excited Brut. 20.9.

⁴⁰App. BC 2.117.490: presumably from Pollio, cf. pp. 12–13.

⁴¹e.g. at Ant. 5.10 Antony and Cassius are given the rabble-rousing speech in Caesar’s camp, though at Caes. 31.3 Plutarch knows that Caesar made the speech himself (cf. Caes. BC 1.7). See p. 93, and for some possible further cases in the same context pp. 107–8. In the present instance, note that D. Brutus has already had a considerable role in Caesar whereas Trebonius has not been mentioned. Elsewhere we can see similar simplifications: for instance, the two names at 67.4 seem to represent a longer list in the principal source, as App. BC 2.119.500 suggests; and Plutarch may have felt that he had too many individuals already. Ant. 13.4 has a vague ‘some people’ (ἐνίους) in this context, though we should expect Trebonius to be named: he has already figured largely in that chapter. That looks like deliberate fudging, and may be the work of someone who is conscious of the inconsistency between his other two versions.

⁴²Cf. Russell’s explanation of similar errors in Coriolanus, 1963, 22 = Scardigli 1995, 359. On the possible use of memory, see pp. 20–2.

⁴³See pp. 14–15.

⁴⁴Other parallel accounts where we might expect to find increasing knowledge and do not: the accounts of Luca, Caes. 21.3–6, Pomp. 51.4–5, Crass. 14.6–7; the analysis of Roman kakopoliteia, Caes. 28, Pomp. 54, Cato Minor 47; the debates before the outbreak of the war, Ant. 5, Caes. 30–1, Pomp. 58–9; Pharsalus, Caes. 42–6, Pomp. 68–73.

⁴⁵The literary devices I analyse below in ch. 4; for the errors, cf. pp. 21–2, 24–5.

⁴⁶The full list is given by Stoltz 1929, 9. Study of the cross-references led Broźek, for reasons similar to those given here, to suggest simultaneous preparation of several Lives (1963, 68–80); cf. also Gomme, HCT i. 83 n. 3.

⁴⁷Mewaldt 1907, 567–8; refuted by Stoltz 1929, 63–8.

⁴⁸The analysis of Stoltz strongly defended the authenticity of the other, non-contradictory cross-references. Stoltz doubted the authenticity of Dion 58.10, Brut. 9.9, and Cam.33.10, but even here hesitated to delete. The language of these three cross-references seems no less Plutarchan than that of the others: cf. Mewaldt 1930. Note also the forceful argument of Geiger, below n. 55.

⁴⁹Stoltz 1929, 58–95; in particular, the aorist ἐκδόντες at Thes. 1.4 clearly implies that Lycurgus–Numa had already been published (cf. also n. 170 below, and, for what such ‘publication’ might mean, Easterling in Easterling and Knox 1985, 20). Flacelière’s defence of Mewaldt (1948, 68–9) is countered by Hamilton 1969, xxxvi–vii. Jones 1966, 67 = Scardigli 1995, 107–8 adopts a modified form of Mewaldt’s theory, but is not convincing.

⁵⁰So Piccirilli 1977, 1001–4 and 1980, 1753–4. The language of Thes. 1.4 seems to imply that Romulus was written soon after Numa: so Jones 1966, 68 n. 57 = Scardigli 1995, 111 n. 57 and Bühler 1962, 281. Nor can Numa and Camillus be far apart. Numa twice quotes Camillus; but Numa itself seems to be an early Life, for Pericles, one of the tenth pair (Per. 2.5), quotes Lysander, and Lysander quotes Lycurgus (Per. 22.4, Lys. 17.11, with Stoltz 1929, 101–2). If the argument of p. 9 is accepted, some reservations concerning this type of inference are necessary, and conclusions as precise as those of Jones 1966, 66–8 = Scardigli 1995, 106–11 are not possible; but this whole group of Lives does seem early. So also van der Valk 1982, 303–7.

⁵¹The Roman Questions, partly based on similar source-material, seem to have been composed at about the same time: Jones 1966, 73 = Scardigli 1995, 122. They are quoted at Rom. 15.7 and Cam. 19.12. Cf. p. 173 and n. 9.

⁵²Cf. Ziegler 1949, 264, with Ziegler 1931, 268–9.

⁵³For the possible nature of such a ‘draft’, see pp. 23–4 and ch. 3. This may help to explain the oddity of Tim. 13.10, referring to a passage of Dion which does not seem to exist. Plutarch may have included the relevant passage in an early version of Dion, but excised it from his final draft, forgetting to alter the reference in Timoleon: so Broźek, art. cit. 76–7. Plutarch may equally, if Tim. is the earlier Life, have intended at that time to include the passage in the planned Dion, but later have altered his mind or forgotten.

⁵⁴Plutarch elsewhere uses such phrases and tenses as ‘C. Marcius, about whom this work has been written’ (Γάιος δὲ Mάρκιος, ὐπὲρ οὐ τάδε γὲγραπταί) in the introduction to a Life (Cor. 1.1, cf. Cic. 1.5, Agis 3.3, Gracch. 1.7); but an epistolary flavour is there felt especially strongly (cf. Arat. 1.5). Flam. 16.6, in mid-Life, is a closer parallel. See Stoltz 1929, 86. – It is of course possible that Caesar was expected sooner after Brutus than Pompey after Caesar ; if a longer delay was anticipated in the second case, the future tenses at Caes. 35.2 are more explicable.

⁵⁵Geiger 1979, 61 n. 47: ‘The reader will have to decide for himself the statistical probability of Stoltz’s conclusions: some thousand folio pages contain 45 genuine cross-references; interpolators have inserted three more – each of which happens to be contradicted by one of the genuine references’.

⁵⁶Thus the detailed argument of Jones 1966, 66–8 = Scardigli 1995, 106–11 is not cogent.

⁵⁷For Oppius, see p. 13. A similar case may be Mar. 6.3, Marius’ fortitude under surgery, which may also come from Oppius (cf. Plin. N.H. 11.252): Marius seems later than Caesar (Mar. 6.4 with Jones 1966, 67–8 = Scardigli 1995, 110–1). Cf. Townend 1987, 329–31.

⁵⁸So Geiger 1979, 58–9, with additional arguments.

⁵⁹For such literature, see e.g. Afzelius 1941, 198–203.

⁶⁰So Geiger 1979: probably transmitted by Thrasea Paetus, cf. p. 13 and n. 84.

⁶¹Geiger tends towards this view, but prefers to think that the Pompey passages are based on notes taken for Cato, or a draft (not the final version) of Cato.

⁶²Presumably from Pollio, as the contact with App. BC 2.84–5 suggests.

⁶³Cf. Jones 1966, 66–8 = Scardigli 1995, 106–11, with the reservations expressed on p. 9.

⁶⁴Cato Minor 73.6 = Brut. 13, 53.5: some of this is apparently from Nicolaus of Damascus, as Brut. 53 suggests.

⁶⁵The Brutus passage is corrupt as it stands: (the Ides of March), ἐν αἷς Kαίσαρα ἔκτειναν, οὐκ αὐτòν ἄγοντα καί ϕἐροντα πάντάς άνθρώποὐς, άλλ’ ετερών ίδὐναμίν ντα ταὐτά πράσσοντων. It is important for the logic of the passage to have some reference to ‘friends’: cf. the point of 35.5, άμείνον ην τοὐς Kαίσαρος ϕίλοὐς ὐπομενείν η τοὐς εάὐτων περίοράν άδίκοὐντάς. Perhaps ετερων conceals ετάίρων. Ziegler’s speculative δὐνάμίν ὐπομενοντά τάὐτά πρασσόντων presumably captures the sense.

⁶⁶See pp. 5–6 and more fully Pelling 1997e. Neither Brutus nor Antony is so interested in political analysis, and in Brutus the notice is purely incidental. It is hardly likely that he would have elaborated this rather unusual analysis for those Lives alone; but, once it had been developed for Caesar, it might readily be taken over. For a similar instance in Brutus, cf. 18.3: Plutarch there refers to Antony’s ‘easy rapport with the soldiers’ (ὀμίλία καί σὐνηθεαά προς το στράτίωτίκον), which seems to be borrowed from one of the major themes of Antony.

⁶⁷See pp. 14–15.

⁶⁸Delvaux 1995, 108–11 on quite different grounds (which in themselves I find very impressionistic) puts these six pairs, along with Aristides–Cato Maior, in his positions 12–18. – I omit Sertorius from this analysis because it relates to the very beginning of the relevant period, and because its content affords little basis for comparison with other Lives. It may well be later than this group of Lives: Scardigli 1971, 33–41 argues for a late date, and a significant detail may confirm this. The early chapters of Demetrius point Demetrius’ ‘natural gift for clemency and justice’ (4.5), and Plutarch makes the most of what anecdotes he can find: note the expansive treatment of the tales of chs. 3–4. Yet he omits Demetrius’ pressure to save the life of Eumenes (early 316), an item which he knows at £um. 19.6. This looks like a case of increasing knowledge: if so, Sert.–Eum. should be later than Demetr.–Ant. Konrad 1994, xxvi–xxix also accepts a late date for Sert.–Eum.

⁶⁹Cf. Jones 1971, 84–6. Second-hand quotation is particularly likely at Caes. 22.1–5, citing Tanusius Geminus and Caesar’s commentarii: App. Celt. fr. 18, certainly from the same source, retails them in the same manner. Caes. 44.8 and Pomp. 69.7 provide a similar case: both again quote Caesar, but so does App. BC 2.79, clearly from the same source. See Peter 1865, 120–3, and on an oddity of the quotation see below, p. 88–9 n. 46. Note also Brut. 41.7 = App. BC4.110.463, both quoting Augustus. But even these cases are not certain, especially if Appian knew Plutarch directly as well as the source they shared (see n. 75): in that case Plutarch may be quoting first-hand and Appian tralaticiously. And in some cases authors might well quote the same source independently, especially when it added the authority of an eye-witness report. Thus Suet. Div. Iul. 30.2 and Caes. 46.1–2 both quote Pollio for Caesar’s remark on the battlefield of Pharsalus, ‘they would have it so’; Caes. 46.3, Pomp. 72.4, and App. BC 2.82.346 quote him for the numbers of dead (‘some exaggerating writers put the loss at 25,000, but Pollio.. .says 6000’, App.): Pollio himself may have noted that he was correcting exaggerated versions (including Caesar’s own figure of 15,000, BC 3.99?), in which case both authors could independently take over the notice in this way. It need not follow, as Delvaux 1988, 37–8 thought, that Pollio’s text was not known at first hand.

⁷⁰See the remarks on the ύπομνημα stage of composition, pp. 23–4, 52–3, and ch. 3.

⁷¹On this contact with Dio see pp. 4–5.

⁷²Kornemann 1896, 672–91; cf. Peter 1865, 125, and many works since then (bibliography at Schanz–Hosius 1914–1935, ii⁴ 28–9). Recently see esp. Gowing 1992, 39–50 on the implications for the criticism of Appian.

⁷³The following list is very selective: Dio 39.31–2 ~ App. BC2.17–18 ~ Pomp. 51–3, Crass. 15, Cato Minor 41–3; Dio 39.39.5–7 ~ App. 2.18.66 ~ Crass. 16.7–8; Dio 40.52–5 ~ App. 2.23–4 ~ Pomp. 55.6–11, Cato 48.5–10; Dio 41.41.1 ~ App. 2.40 ~ Cato 53.2–3, Pomp. 61.2; Dio 41.46 ~ App. 2.56–8 ~ Caes. 38; Dio 42.3–4 ~ App. 2.84–6 ~ Pomp. 77–80, Brut. 33; Dio 42.40.4–5 ~ App. 2.90.377 ~ Caes. 49.7–8; Dio 42.57 ~ App. 2.87.367 ~ Cato 57–8; Dio 43.10–12 ~ App. 2.98–9 ~ Cato 62–71; Dio 43.12.1, 13 .4 ~ App. 2.99.414 ~ Caes. 54, Cato 36.5; Dio 44.8–11 ~ App. 2.107–10 ~ Caes. 60–61, Ant. 12; Dio 44.12 ~ App. 2.112.469 ~ Caes. 62, Brut. 9–10 ~ Suet. Div. Iul. 80.3; Dio 46.49 - App. 3.95.392–3 al. ~ Brut. 27; Dio 47.47–8 ~ App. 4.114–17 ~ Brut. 44–5; Dio 48.38 ~ App. 5.73 ~ Ant. 32; Dio 48.39.2 ~ App. 5.76 ~ Ant. 33.6–7. The similarities will be inherited from Pollio, whether or not Dio knew Pollio at first hand. Two further points are worth making. (a) The persistence of the Dio–Plutarch–Appian contact well past Philippi supports the view that Pollio continued his history to include at least the mid-thirties, and probably Actium or even Alexandria as well: so Gabba 1956, 242–3 and Haller 1967, 96–105; contra André 1949, 46–51 and, tentatively, Morgan 2000, 54 n. 18. Hose 1994, 262 avoids committing himself, but accepts that the Plutarch–Appian contact is the vital point in deciding the issue. (b) Millar 1964, 56, tentatively suggests that Dio used Plutarch’s Brutus as a source. This will now be seen to be unlikely: Dio’s relation to Brutus is parallel to his relation to the other five later Lives, and is best explained as a shared inheritance from a historical source.

⁷⁴e.g. Suet. Div. Iul. 29.1 ~ App. BC 2.26.100–1 ~ Caes. 29.3, Pomp. 58.2; Suet. 30.4 ~ Caes. 46.2; Suet. 31–2 ~ App. 2.35 ~ Caes. 32; Suet. 36 ~ App. 2.62.260 ~ Caes. 39.8; Suet. 44.2–3 ~ App. 2.110 ~ Caes. 58; and many points of contact in the account of the assassination.

⁷⁵For Appian’s possible knowledge of Plutarch, Gabba, 1956, 225–8 and 1957, 340; Fehrle 1983, 29–32; Pelling 1997e, 231 n. 15. Such verbal parallels as App. 2.14.51 - Caes. 14.8 (the only two occasions where the word δίάμάστροπεὐεσθάί occurs in Greek, Delvaux 1998, 39–40) and App. 2.27.106 ~ Caes. 30.2 may thus be explained: see Kornemann 1896, 577 for further close verbal similarities. It is also possible that the elaborate comparison of Alexander and Caesar at the end of BC 2 indicates some relationship to Plutarch, either a debt to an epilogue of Alexander–Caesar which has been lost (on this question see pp. 377–82) or a response to the absence of such an epilogue in Plutarch’s original: in Pelling, forthcoming (a), I argue for the second of those possibilities.

⁷⁶Ex Metello consule (‘from the consulship of Metellus’, i.e. 60 BC, Horace, Odes 2.1): above, n. 18. Therefore it is odd that the contact with Appian only begins with the year 58. It is possible that Plutarch drew his accounts of Caesar’s consulate from a different source, one he shares with Dio (above, pp. 4–5). But it is more likely that Appian, who is capable of exploiting a variety of sources (Gabba 1956, 109–15), did not turn to the common source until 2.15.54. Barbu 1934, 28–40, 81–8, argued on different grounds for a similar view. In that case, Plutarch and Dio will both reflect Pollio’s version.

⁷⁷Cf. e.g. Kornemann 1896; Peter 1865, 124 ff.; Garzetti 1954, xxii–xxxiii; Gabba 1956, esp. 119–51, 229–49; André 1949, 41–66.

⁷⁸Sallust’s Histories were translated into Greek in the early second century (Suda s.v. Zηνóβιος, Adler, cf. Jones 1971, 86), and nothing precludes the possibility that Pollio was translated as well. But Caes. 46.2 should not be used as evidence for this: Hâussler 1966 is convincing (more convincing, I think, than Delvaux 1988, 45–7, but Delvaux too does not accept a Greek version of Pollio).

⁷⁹Russell 1963, 23–5 = Scardigli 1995, 361–5. For more on childhood, especially that of Coriolanus, see pp. 153–4 and ch. 14

⁸⁰Probably Fenestella: cf. Crass. 5.6. All the material of the first chapters may come from the same author: we know that Fenestella mentioned the fate of the Vestal Licinia (fr. 11 P; cf. Crass. 1.4–6). See Peter 1865, 109. A large use of Fenestella – to my mind, too large – is posited by Delvaux in several articles, especially Delvaux 1989.

⁸¹Cf. Pelling 1988, 26–7, 33–4, 137–8.

⁸²In Pelling 1973 I attempted to reconstruct some elements of the lost preface from Zonaras’ excerpt. Flacelière 1975, 130 suggests that Caesar is complete as it stands, but this is unconvincing: cf. Briscoe 1977, 178.

⁸³Oppius is quoted at 17.7; comparison with Suet. Div. Iul. 53 leaves no doubt that Oppius lies behind 17.9–10; and he is again mentioned in the anecdote of 17.11. Pomp.10.7–9 criticizes Oppius’ bias in a way which suggests that Plutarch knows his work. Oppius’ book is never precisely described as a biography (cf. Strasburger 1938, 30–3), but content is here more important than form. For the fragments of Oppius’ work, HRR 2.46–9, LXIII–IV; for discussion, Townend 1987.

⁸⁴Cf. Peter 1865, 65–9; Flacelière 1976a, 65–6; Geiger 1979; above, p. 10.

⁸⁵Cf. Peter 1865, 114–17: Flacelière 1975, 154–6; and esp. Heftner 1995, 53–7.

⁸⁶e.g. App. BC 2.109.455 ~ Caes. 57.7; App. 2.110 (cf. 3.25, 77) ~ Caes. 58; App. 2.107.445 ~ Caes. 60.4; App. 2.108–9 ~ Caes. 61; App. 2.112.466–7 ~ Caes. 62.4–6, Brut. 7–8; App. 2.115–16, 149.619 ~ Caes. 63.5, Brut. 14–16; App. 2.117 ~ Caes. 62.7, Brut. 9–10 (though in this case John Moles may be right in suggesting that App.’s account is itself indebted to Plutarch (cf. n. 75); if so, it is likely that App. is incorporating the items from memory, without having Plutarch’s words before his eyes).

⁸⁷Cf. Garzetti 1954, xxviii–xxix.

⁸⁸The item is given a different context in Plutarch’s two accounts. Caesar attaches it to the story of Caesar’s failure to rise before the approaching magistrates, while Antony links it with the Lupercalia episode. It may be that the item was given no context in the source; it is more likely that Plutarch deliberately displaces it in Antony, where he does not use the ‘approaching magistrates’ story. For such displacements cf. pp. 92–3.

⁸⁹Urban praetorship: BC 2.112.466–7. But Appian is interested in the conspirators’ motives, and does not portray them favourably: cf. 2.111. If he had had the story of Brut. 8.6–7 before his eyes he would have used it.

⁹⁰(a) Honours were not voted to the tyrannicides, as Plutarch claims: this apparently reflects the proposal of Ti. Claudius Nero (Suet. Tib. 4.1), but Appian knows that this was not carried (BC 2.127.530 ff. – apparently not put to the vote). App.’s version was doubtless that of the Pollio-source. (b) ‘They voted to honour Caesar as a god’ seems another error: there is no mention elsewhere of divine honours granted at this juncture, though many had already been voted during Caesar’s lifetime (Weinstock 1971, esp. 281 ff., 287 ff.). Plutarch seems to imply consecration, which was in fact decreed on or about 1st January, 42 (Weinstock 386). (c) Plutarch’s notice of the provinces granted to the tyrannicides (Brut. 19.5) is no less confused: Sternkopf 1912, 340–9. (d) Plutarch alone attests a separate session of the senate, held mainly in honour of the assassins and in the presence of some of them, on the day after their descent from the Capitol (Brut. 19.4–5). This is surely an error (so Sternkopf 1912, 348–9; Motzo 1933, 26–31; contra e.g. Gelzer 1968, 327). We should assume that Plutarch found, perhaps in Empylus, a notice of such an honorific session, and combined this as best he could with the Pollio-source. He knew from that source that the assassins had not been present at the 17th March session, for the sons of Antony and Lepidus had been sent as hostages to persuade the conspirators to descend from the Capitol, and the source had clearly placed this mission after the 17th March debate (Brut. 19.2, App. 2.142.594; misleadingly streamlined at Ant. 14.2–4). If these honours, voted in the assassins’ presence, were to be introduced at all, a separate session was inevitable. On all this see further Pelling 1988, 150–2.

⁹¹Cf. Theander 1959, 120–8.

⁹²Empylus: FGrH no. 191; mentioned as an orator by Quint. 10.6.4. He was a companion of Brutus (Brut. 2.4), and an enthusiastic treatment is to be expected. He may not have been reliable for the details of senatorial decisions; and a Rhodian orator might well be attracted by the role of the Cnidian ‘sophist’ Artemidorus (Caes. 65.1).

⁹³Cf. Brut. 2.4–8, 21.6, 22.4–6, 24.3, 28.2, 29.8–11, 53.6–7; Cic. 45.2, 53(4).4;Moles 1997. The information which Plutarch derives from these letters is independent of the historical tradition, and (at least in the case of the Latin letters) seems excellent: like Moles, I regard ad Brut. 24–5 (1.16–17) as authentic. Various collections of Brutus’ letters were published: Schanz–Hosius 1914–1935, i⁴ 397. Plutarch’s quotations, when comparable with extant letters, are close enough to suggest first-hand knowledge: esp. Brut. 22.4–6 ~ Cic. ad Brut. 24, 25 (1.16, 17); cf. Sickinger 1883, 81–3; Peter 1865, 140–1. The letters may have been read for Cicero, as argued at pp. 16–17; but there is no indication that Plutarch knew Cicero’s letters to Brutus – note ὥς ϕάσιν (‘so they say’) at Brut. 26.6. See also p. 21 and n. 140.

⁹⁴Ch. 47, the fine story of Clodius, cannot be reconciled with App.’s insistence that both sides knew of the sea-battle and its outcome, BC 4.122.513. App. and Dio agree that Brutus was forced into battle by the reproaches of his officers and men (an obvious reminiscence of Pompey at Pharsalus), and this was doubtless Pollio’s version. Plutarch might well prefer the Clodius anecdote: the tragic elements, both of Brutus struggling against an adverse destiny and of his coming so close to being saved, are important to him; and the picture of Brutus which Plutarch has favoured – e.g. ‘keeping his resolve upright’ (ορθιον την γνώμην.. .δίάϕυλάττων), 29.3 – would sit uneasily with Pollio’s description of a man persuaded into a civil battle against his better judgement.

⁹⁵For Messala, 40.1 ff., 40.11, 41.5, 42.5, 45.1, 45.7, 53.1, 53.3. For Volumnius,48.1–4, 51.1, 51.3–4, 52.2. For their works, Peter 1865, 137–9, and HRR 2.52–3, 65–7,and LXVII–LXVIII, LXXVIII–LXXXIII.

⁹⁶Suggestions have included Nicolaus (Heeren, Gutschmid); Strabo (Heeren); an unevidenced memoir of C. Cassius (Flacelière); Timagenes (Regling, arguing for a combination of Timagenes with Livy); and, implausibly, Dellius (Adcock): cf. now Zadorojnyi 1997a, 171–2. The possibility of two sources should certainly not be dismissed. Some aspects of Plutarch’s version show close contact with the Livian tradition, which may here include Dio: e.g. 17.8 ~ Dio 40.13.3–4; 17.9 ~ Oros. 6.13.1–2; 19, 23.1 ~ Obs. 64, Dio 40.18–19, Val. Max. 1.6.11; etc. Yet most of Plutarch’s details of the fighting cannot be reconciled with Dio or the Livian sources, even when we take into account Dio’s tendency to revamp battle-descriptions according to his own stereotypes. If there is some supplementation of Livy from another authority, it is more likely to be due to Plutarch himself than to any intermediate source. Such a combination was argued (though crudely) by Regling 1899.

⁹⁷Most obviously at the explicit 45.12, and at 49.5; but the impression is reinforced elsewhere. The description of the χωρά as ευδάίμων (49.6) uses a favourite Anabasis locution; so does the mention of κωμάς οίκουμενάς (41.3). The echoes need not be derived from Dellius (cf. Jacoby on FGrH 197 fr. 1): such allusion is very much in Plutarch’s manner. Cf. Pelling 1988, 221–2, 229–30, 233, 235, 239.

⁹⁸It is again possible that two versions are here combined: some of Plutarch’s details look like doublets. Cf. 41 ~ 46–7, 45.3–6 ~ 49.1 (Flor. 2.20.7 attaches the item of 49.3 to the context of 45); and perhaps 47.6 ~ 49.6. Cf. Pelling 1988, 235–6.

⁹⁹On the terminus of Pollio’s history, above n. 73.

¹⁰⁰Cf. Russell 1973, 140; J. Griffin 1977, 25–6 = 1985, 46.

¹⁰¹Strabo 11.13.3 (523) refers to ο Δελλίος (Casaubon: άδελϕίος codd.) ο του Aντωνιου ϕίλος, συγγράψάς την επί ∏άρθυάίους άυτου στράτείάν εν η πάρην κάί άυτος ηγεμονίάν εχων (‘Dellius [but the name rests on an emendation] the friend of Antony, who wrote of Antony’s Parthian expedition after taking part in it and holding a command’). Jacoby (on FGrH nr. 197) concludes that this historical work was limited to this campaign, but this is by no means certain: Burcklein 1879 had some reason to suggest that Dellius continued his work at least as far as Actium. Ant. 59.6–7 certainly seems to imply that the tale of Dellius’ desertion in 32 BC is drawn from his own work (note the present ‘he says’, ϕησίν – usually a sign of first-hand quotation, cf. Frazier 1988b): the item is more likely to come from a memoir or history than from the epistulae ad Cleopatram lascivae (‘naughty letters to Cleopatra’, Sen. Suas. 1.7). If Plutarch expected his readers to recognize ‘Dellius the historian’ (Δελλίος ο ίστορίκος) it seems unlikely that his historical fame rested on the description of just one campaign. Plutarch also mentions Dellius’ role in Antony’s first meeting with Cleopatra (Ant. 25–6): it is not unlikely that those splendid chapters are also indebted to Dellius himself. Cf. Russell 1973, 136; Pelling 1988, 28, 185.

¹⁰²For Crassus, see n. 96; for Pompey, Peter 1865, 117 n. 1 and 119; and note the suggestive similarities between Pompey’s closing chapters and Lucan, BC 8. Heftner 1995, 59–62 is more sceptical

¹⁰³Cf. Theander 1951, 72–8 and for Flamininus Pelling 1997a, 263–83. For a possible explanation of the sparseness of these traces of Livy in the present group of Lives, see p. 24.

¹⁰⁴Sallust seems to inform the early chapters of Pompey (cf. Peter 1865, 112–14, Heftner 1995, 48–53), and has clearly influenced the earlier Lucullus (and underlies most of Sertorius: Scardigli 1971, 33–64, esp. 41 n. 2; Konrad 1994, xliv–v, liii). For Fenestella, see n. 80. Of other secondary sources Nepos, Strabo, Nicolaus, Timagenes, and Valerius Maximus are the most likely to be known at first hand.

¹⁰⁵περί ὐπάτείάς: cf. ch. 2. Caes. 8.4 clearly implies that Plutarch knew the work at first hand, and Crass. 13.4 similarly seems to show him taking a pride in his own researches (pace Delvaux 1989, 132–3: cf. pp. 47–8). Letters: Cic. 24.6–9, 36.6, 37.3–4, 40.3. Speeches: 6.3, 24.6, 33.8, 48.6, 50(1).4. More besides: 5.6, 20.3, 24.4–6. Knowledge of Cicero’s Lucullus may possibly be traced at 40.2 (Babut 1969, 200 n. 1), or possibly not (Swain 1990b, 195–6 n. 10). In general, cf. Flacelière 1976b, 56–61; Moles 1988, 26–32; and Geiger 2000, 212–5 (more cautious, but on balance accepting first-hand knowledge of a speech in Cic. 6: cf. also p. 21 and n. 141). Valgiglio 1982 is much more reluctant to accept first-hand knowledge of Cicero, even for the Second Philippic.

¹⁰⁶Brutus: 45.2, 53(4).4 (cf. n. 93). Antony: 41.6. Tiro: cf. Peter 129–35; Flacelière, 1976b, 57; Moles 1988, 29, and below, p. 81 and n. 50.

¹⁰⁷Most clearly at Pomp. 42.13, 63.2 and Phoc. 3.2: I discuss these cases at pp. 62 n. 38 and 81–2. Cf. also n. 93 above.

¹⁰⁸The quotations at Caes. 22.2 and 44.8 seem inherited: above n. 69.

¹⁰⁹Caes. 3.2–4, Crass. 3.3–4, Cato Minor 5.3–4 and 23.3, Brut. 2.5, Ant. 2.8. For the survival of their speeches until Plutarch’s day, cf. Schanz–Hosius 1914–1935, i⁴ 336, 388–9, 396–7, 400, 490. On Plutarch’s lack of first-hand acquaintance with them, Geiger 2000, and on the case of Cato, Brock 1995, 212.

¹¹⁰For Caesar’s letters, Suet. Div. Iul. 56.6, Gell. 17.9.1–2; for Antony’s, Suet. Div. Aug. 7.1 al., Ov. ex. P. 1.1.23, Tac. Ann. 4.34.

¹¹¹Above, n. 93.

¹¹²Cf. Garzetti 1953, 80; Hamilton 1969, xliii n. 6.

¹¹³For a second, less important example, Crass. 13.4: above, pp. 2–3.

¹¹⁴For use of the Second Philippic in the early parts of Antony, Pelling 1988, 26–7,33–4.

¹¹⁵Ant. 8.1–3 seems to be making the most of slight information: 8.1 is a great overstatement of the items of Caes. BC 3.46 and 65, while 8.2–3 seems a simple inference from Antony’s command of the left wing at Pharsalus.

¹¹⁶Above, p. 13.

¹¹⁷If the preparation of these six Lives was simultaneous, it is not surprising that reflections of this rereading of the Second Philippic are found elsewhere, especially at Caes. 51.2; cf. also Pomp. 58.6, on Antony’s friendship with Curio.

¹¹⁸Above, p. 10.

¹¹⁹Catilinarian debate: pp. 49–53. Bona Dea: Caes. 9–10 ~ Cic. 28–9. The adaptation has two curiosities. (a) At Cic. 28.4 the codd. have Clodius indicted by an unnamed ‘someone’ (τις); Caes. 10.6 specifies εις τών δημάρχων, ‘one of the tribunes’, (whence Barton proposed τις < των δημάρχων > in Cic., which Ziegler accepts). But the Caes. version seems a mistake. The affair was raised in the senate by the praetorian Q. Cornificius, while Clodius’ formal prosecutor was L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, the pr. 58 and cos. 49. If Lentulus was now tribune, it is odd that this is not mentioned elsewhere (e.g. at Cic. Att. 1.14(14).6, 1.16(16).3). It is easier to assume that Caes. is here in error; in that case, we should retain the manuscript reading at Cic. 28.4. (Moles 1988, 175 agrees.) Plutarch has here carelessly misread his earlier account. (b) At Caes. 10.3 Plutarch uses the vigorous and rare word δίάπτοηθείσων; he had also used the word, in a quite different context, in the account of the 63 Bona Dea incident (Cic. 20.2). If he had recently re-read Cicero, the use of the same phrase in Caesar may unconsciously reflect that passage.

¹²⁰It is a great merit of Theander 1951, 2–32 and 1959 to emphasize this point. Plutarch will sometimes have picked up such oral traditions during his visits to particular sites, as he had visited Bedriacum when preparing Otho (cf. Otho 14): on this see Buckler 1992. In the Greek Lives he also exploits inscriptions, sometimes skilfully (e.g. Arist. 1 with pp. 144–5 below); he understandably uses these less for the Roman Lives, but Sulla 19.9–10, 34.4 and Flam. 16.5 exploit inscriptions which Plutarch saw in Greece, Otho 18.2 one he saw in Italy. On inscriptions and other documents in the Lives, cf. also p. 146 and n. 20; Hamilton 1969, xlix; Desideri 1992a; Stadter 1989, lxix–lxxi. – See also pp. 268–9, 271–2 where I approach several of these passages from a different angle, especially Dem. 1–2.

¹²¹Zecchini 1991 identifies the ‘little sword’ with the ‘sword of the Deified Julius’ offered to Vitellius in Gaul in 69 (Suet. Vit. 8.2): that sword had been ‘removed from a shrine of Mars’, where presumably it had been rededicated. Zecchini also found in this the origin of an anecdote in an extremely embellished and romanticized passage of Geoffrey of Monmouth (Hist. Reg. Brit. 4.3–4), telling of a sword of Julius which inevitably carried death to all it wounded, and was buried in Britain (not Gaul) in 54 (not 52). That, evidently, is less certain. I am most grateful to Professor Zecchini for correspondence and for sending me a copy of his article.

¹²²Pelling 1988, 29. For other examples cf. e.g. Rom. 15.3, Numa 8.20, Cimon 1.8, Otho 14.2–3 (n. 120 above), and for the milieu they convey see pp. 268–9.

¹²³Luce 1977, 143. It will become clear that my approach to Plutarch is very similar to Luce’s treatment of Livy.

¹²⁴Fr. 1.2 (Boissevain): < άνεγνωκά >(συνελεξά coni. Millar) πάντά ως ειπείν τά περί άυτων τισι γεγράμμενά, συνεγράψά δε ου πάντά άλλ’ οσά εξεκρινά. So at 53.19.6 he refers to ‘the many books which I have read’.

¹²⁵Manuwald 1979, 168–254. In the original (1979) version of this paper I was much too ready to accept that Dio derived regularly from Livy, as Rich 1989, 91 n. 19 observes. – Rich 1989, 91–2 and Gowing 1992, 43–4 are inclined to believe in a more thoroughgoing combination of sources in Dio. They may be right, and I accept that the case for my reconstruction is less strong with Dio than with the other authors. But I note that de Blois 1997, 2652–3 and Swan 1997, 2533 still find my original picture persuasive. I remain uncertain.

¹²⁶Cf. Pelling 1982, where I argue that nearly all the additions to, or revisions of, Caesar’s material can be explained by Dio’s own techniques.

¹²⁷See pp. 45–7.

¹²⁸29.27.13; cf. e.g. 6.12.2–3, 26.49.2–6, 29.25.2, 33.30.6–11. At 32.6.8 he refers to ‘the other Greek and Latin sources, at least those whose annals I have read...’ (ceteri graeci latinique auctores, quorum quidem ego legi annales...): thus he admits that he has not read everything, but evidently claims to have read several accounts other than that of Valerius Antias (quoted at 32.6.5 ff.). In general, cf. Steele 1904, 15–31.

¹²⁹Luce 1977, 158–84, has strong arguments to defend Livy’s wide reading. In particu- lar cf. Trânkle 1971, in defence of Livy’s first-hand knowledge of Cato.

¹³⁰Cf. Trânkle 1976, esp. 28 ff., 59–72.

¹³¹See e.g. Trânkle 1965 for the coincidences between Livy and Dionysius in their accounts of the early Republic. Plutarch offers a useful control: Romulus, Numa, and Poplicola are at times close to this tradition; elsewhere (e.g. in describing the birth of Romulus and Remus, Rom. 2–6) they show what divergences were possible.

¹³²Luce 1977, 139–84, esp. 143–50 and 172 n. 73; Cf. Trânkle 1976, 20: ‘ein kontinuierliches Verweben mehrerer Darstellungen wird man ihm höchstens in Ausnahmefâllen zutrauen dürfen’; Wiseman 1979, 50–1 puts more stress on the occasional supplementation from a second source to give alternative details or motivations, but accepts that ‘in the main’ Livy reproduces one authority.

¹³³Cf. esp. Syme 1958, 180–90, 674–6. Townend 1964 plausibly argues for the use of several sources in these books of the Histories; but the overwhelming predominance of a single source within a single expanse of narrative remains unimpugned.

¹³⁴Lucian How to write History 47–8, quoted at p. 23, with the passages collected by Avenarius 1956, 71–104, esp. 88.

¹³⁵Dio 72.23.5, with Millar 1964, 32^0 and Rich 1989, 91; D.H. Ant.Rom. 1.7.2. It is thus plausible to suggest that Livy, too, read widely in his sources before beginning to compose: Luce 1977, 188–93.

¹³⁶Cf. Russell 1963, 22 = Scardigli 1995, 359, who suggests a similar procedure for Plutarch in Coriolanus; Luce 1977, 210 ff., who makes a similar suggestion concerning Livy.

¹³⁷Cf. esp. Birt 1882, 157 ff.; Schubart 1962, 66–71. The relevance of such points was clearly seen by Nissen 1863, 78–9; cf. Briscoe 1973, 10.

¹³⁸Birt 1913, 303–4; Knox in Easterling and Knox 1985, 7.

¹³⁹e.g. Strabo 17.1.5 (790), who does seem to have collated two (closely similar) versions. And systematic comparison of texts was regular in the case of δίορθωσίς (‘correction’), with textual variants being noted in a margin. Cf. e.g. Allen 1910, 76–80. In such cases, either a book-rest or a slave’s assistance (e.g. by dictating one version) was presumably used. But comparison of versions must have been more complicated for a historian, who had to deal (a) with a wider range of texts, (b) with texts which might order their material in different sequences, (c) with variants which were generally more substantial, and (d) with variants which were more difficult to note. (This note is indebted to discussion with Peter Parsons.)

¹⁴⁰Cf. above n. 93. Brut. 22.4–6 has a medley of points taken from Brutus’ two letters, and these points recur in an order quite different from the original. Apart from one explicit quotation (οί δε προγονοί...), itself easily memorable, the passage may well be a paraphrase from memory. Moles 1997, 142 prefers to think of ‘conscious rewriting’, given the skilful structure of Plutarch’s version: perhaps both of us are right. – For some further signs of inexact memory in the Greek Lives, see p. 119.

¹⁴¹As Peter 1865, 130 and Valgiglio 1982, 293–5 argued in the case of the pro Plancio passage. Cf. Geiger 2000, 214–15 (above, n. 105), who cautiously accepts that the garbling is owed to Plutarch’s misremembering of Cicero’s original. Valgiglio considers this possibility, but prefers to think that the story was recast by an intermediate source to put Cicero in a bad light; but the story is not malicious enough to make that plausible.

¹⁴²This analysis takes the passage at face value: cf. Preface, xi. A sceptic might wonder whether Plutarch is being disingenuous, as there may have been good reasons for omitting the item at that point in the narrative: this ‘forgotten’ story tells of Crassus hitting an opponent in the face during the election disorders of 56 BC, and at Crass. 15 the emphasis had fallen on Pompey as the aggressive partner and Crassus as his milder foil. Still, even on that view Plutarch must be presenting a procedure which would strike his readers as plausible. They would find it more believable if they accepted that Plutarch would be working partly from fallible memory than if they assumed he was writing out material from a work before his eyes. This projection of ‘fallible memory’ is relevant to Plutarch’s self-presentation in the epilogues: see pp. 353 and 361.

¹⁴³As Gelzer 1961, 49 n. 19 does. The number may originally be derived from Caes. BG 4.15.3, who claims that the enemy had totalled 430,000. Pollio may have reasoned that very few escaped.

¹⁴⁴Or, if we assume that Plutarch composed just one ύπομνημα for all six Lives (pp. 23, 52–3, 79–80), he presumably worked carefully through this part of the ύπομνημα when composing Caesar, and turned the pages (or tablets) more quickly when writing Cato Minor or Crassus.

¹⁴⁵From the reading for Cicero or other Lives: pp. 16–18, 49–53. From general knowledge, or from research for other works: e.g. the digression on the Bona Dea festival, Caes. 9.4–8 (perhaps drawn from work for the Roman Questions; cf. 268d–e); and perhaps such cases as Ant. 33.2–4 and 53.5–9, absent from other ancient narratives of these events, but exploited by Plutarch in respectively On the Fortune of the Romans (319d–20a) and How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (61a–b). Cf. Pelling 1988, 29, 206–7, 245–6.

¹⁴⁶In that case his procedures will be rather different from those of Philodemus, as analysed by Dorandi 2000 (cf. n. 3 above), for his notes seem to have been excerpts, initially gathered as he read and then rearranged in a more convenient order. Hahm 1992, esp. 4079–82, reconstructs a similar procedure for Diogenes Laertius. Stadter (forthcoming) reconstructs Plutarch’s procedures in a way which brings him closer to Philodemus: cf. pp. 68–70. Inch. 3 I revisit this whole question of Plutarch’s ‘notes’.

¹⁴⁷Cf. Gomme, HCTi. 78.

¹⁴⁸Cf. Hamilton 1969, xliv. The elder Pliny’s studious practice, nihil enim legit quod non excerperet (‘he read nothing without excerpting it’), is noted as a peculiarity: Pliny Ep. 3.5.10.

¹⁴⁹Thus Stadter (forthcoming) suggests that the Apophthegmata Laconica are genuinely Plutarchan, and represent a sort of ὐπομνημά: he suggests that there may have been at least one further ὐπομνημά side-by-side with this, sketching the general narrative plan and perhaps including more discursive material. In ch. 3 I sketch an alternative interpretation, arguing that at least the Apophthegmata Regum et Imperatorum are not themselves a ὐπομνημά, but are based on the narrative, draft ὐπομνημά which I posit for the Lives.

¹⁵⁰Inst.Or. 10.3.31. In general, cf. Roberts 1954, 170–5.

¹⁵¹In these cases, however, the possibility of marginal jottings in the main source’s account should be considered – very much after the manner of δίορθωσίς: this is especially likely with Livy. The elder Pliny may be exceptional, but he not merely excerpebat but also adnotabat (Plin. Ep. 3.5.10), i.e. noted things in a margin, which would be a convenient way of assembling minor divergences, for instance in numbers. Livy’s (though not Plutarch’s) supplements to his main source are often of this type. But in this case the problems of using two rolls simultaneously would remain, and we should assume either a book-rest or some assistance from a slave. (This note is again indebted to Peter Parsons.)

¹⁵² See Avenarius’ collection of parallel passages, 1956, 85–104, with the remarks of Millar 1964, 33; on the ὐπομνημά stage see also below, pp. 52–3.

¹⁵³ The following references are drawn from Avenarius 1956, 85–9. Ammonius, CIAG iv 1887, ὐπομνηματικὰ δἐ καλοὐνται ἐν οις τὰ κεφάλαια μóνα ὰναγράφονται (‘writings are called hypomnematika when headings alone are noted down’) suggests a very unfinished version. But there seems to have been a theory that Thuc. 8 represents a ὐπομνημά rather than a final composition (Marc. Life ofThucydides 44), which suggests that a ὐπóμνημα could be much more finished; the same impression is given by Jos. Against Apion 1.50. Peter Parsons observes that FGrH 533 fr. 2 may be a ὐπομνημά: if so, it seems close to its final form.

¹⁵⁴ I return to this question in ch. 3 (pp. 79–80), and now incline to the view that Plutarch would write separate ὐπομνήματα for each Life rather than a consolidated multi-Life draft.

¹⁵⁵ See chapter 3.

¹⁵⁶ Bömer 1953, esp. 247–8.

¹⁵⁷ In ch. 3, p. 66 I put this qualification more emphatically.

¹⁵⁸ In 1979 I suggested that Plutarch himself might not have read silently, so that the reading-time of an item might anyway be the time it would take to read it aloud. That was incautious: on silent reading see Knox 1968, Gavrilov 1997, Burnyeat 1997, and Fowler forthcoming, intr. and ch. 4. But even though Plutarch would read silently, the time he might save by it would not be very great. Even an experienced reader might sometimes stumble over a manuscript, possibly erratic, possibly not very legible, and anyway written in scriptio plena so that the eye would continually have to divide words and sentences. It would be a very different process from scanning a modern printed text.

¹⁵⁹ On dictation, Herescu 1956.

¹⁶⁰ Against Apion 1.50; cf. Thackeray 1929, 100–24.

¹⁶¹ Cf. Quint. Inst.Or. 10.1.128, on Seneca: ingenium facile et copiosum, plurimum studii, multa rerum cognitio, in qua tamen aliquando ab iis quibus inquirenda quaedam mandabat deceptus est (‘a ready, fluent talent, a great amount of diligence, and a wide-ranging knowledge – but in that respect he was sometimes misled by those whom he had given questions to investigate’).

¹⁶² Jones 1971, 84–7 has a useful discussion of such assistants.

¹⁶³ It was understandable that Stegmann, followed by Flacelière, should conjecture < καὶ Λέπιδον> at Ant. 19.1; but that is more likely to correct the author than his text.

¹⁶⁴ I now think this an overstatement and an underestimate: see Preface, xi.

¹⁶⁵ In such Lives, the picture of Gomme, HCT i. 77–81, is likely to be more accurate; cf. above, pp. 1–2.

¹⁶⁶ This point is owed to Donald Russell.

¹⁶⁷ For further differences among the Lives, cf. ch. 4, esp. pp. 102–7, and Wardman 1971.

¹⁶⁸ Cf. pp. 7–8.

¹⁶⁹ The idea of a mutually supplementing series is plausible enough; cf. esp. Stoltz 1929, 42–55, who observed that a cross-reference to a second Life is often used to explain or excuse a brief treatment of a topic; see also pp. 187–8 below on Thes.–Rom.; Mossman 1992, 103–4; Harrison 1995.

¹⁷⁰ Thus Thes. 1.4 implies that he decided to write Thes.–Rom. only after publishing Lyc.–Numa. We need not necessarily take that literally, but such a picture of composition could not have seemed implausible to his audience. Cf also Aem. 1.1 and Geiger 1981, 88 = Scardigli 1995, 169.

¹⁷¹ But at 166 he misrepresents my argument about the triumviral chapters.

¹⁷² Moles 1988, 28, 1992, 247, and 1993a, 153–4 also thinks that Plutarch knew this work at the time of Cic., and indeed drew on it for Cic. 20.6–7, ‘anyone could see that they were more likely to form an addition to Caesar in safety than Caesar to them in punishment’: Moles insists that ‘they’ ought here to mean ‘Caesar’s friends’, Crassus in particular, rather than ‘the conspirators’. I am not convinced either by that interpretation of Cic. 20.6–7 (the notion of punishing those friends would be a jarring intrusion) or by the source-analysis: App. BC 2.6.20 suggests that such material figured in the mainstream historical tradition.

¹⁷³ Thus the discrepancy concerning the amnesty of 17 March 44 (Steidle 1990, 169) – was it urged by Antony (Ant. 14.3), by Antony, Plancus, and Cicero (Brut. 19.1), or by Antony and Cicero (Cic. 42.3)? – is easy enough to explain in terms of the ‘law of biographical relevance’, given that Antony’s role as consul had to be stressed in each Life, and Brut. had no reason to highlight any one of the proposers rather than any other.

¹⁷⁴ Cf. pp. 12–13.

¹⁷⁵ The same point is made by Scardigli 1991, 47. Cf. also Konrad 1994, xxviii n. 17, who feels that thematically Crassus does not belong with the rest of the group.

¹⁷⁶ It is therefore not parallel with the perfunctoriness of the second half of Cicero, pace Steidle 1990, 166.

¹⁷⁷ Jones 1966, 68 = Scardigli 1995, 111.

¹⁷⁸ Cf. Crass. 11.10–11 ~ Pomp. 21.3, 12.1–3 ~ Pomp. 22.1–3, 12.4–5 ~ Pomp. 23.1–2, 14.4 ~ Cat. Min. 33.5, Caes. 14.2, 15.2–4 ~ Pomp. 51.6–52.5, and the instances collected in the next note.

¹⁷⁹ The ‘Pollio-source’, in the terms of this chapter. Cf. esp. 15.6–7 ~ App. BC 2.17.64 as well as Pomp. 52.1–3, Cat. Min. 41.3–42.1; 16.4–8 ~ App. BC 2.18.66; 37(4).2–3 ~ Celt. fr. 18 as well as Caes. 22.4.

¹⁸⁰ Below, p. 76.