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Plutarch, a Greek author who lived in the first
century AD, wrote many biographies about famous Greek and Roman men. He
focused primarily on men he considered virtuous and upstanding
citizens, or if they happened to fit his ideal for the "good
man." Plutarch relates the lives of various men to show how these
men exemplify virtuous behavior. Often, though, a life will have
elements that contradict strongly with the original reasons Plutarch
supposedly wrote about the individual. The question of why begs to be
asked in this situation. Why did Plutarch include damaging information
in the lives of his virtuous men? There is a simple answer to this
question, if one first analyzes what Plutarch believed to be virtuous,
and then look at how he describes the non-virtuous actions in the lives
of these so called virtuous men.
Plutarch tends to focus on the military actions, religious
observances, and the public image of his subjects. In the life of
Romulus, Plutarch describes the kidnapping and rape of the Sabine women
as "a design purely of forming alliance with their neighbors by
the greatest and surest bonds" (Plutarch, 35). Apparently, the
fact that the fathers of these women would not see this act as an
attempt to formulate an alliance did not occur to Romulus, if indeed an
alliance is what Romulus was trying to achieve. Plutarch conveniently
steps over the inherent wrong in kidnapping and raping the entire
female population of a culture. The rape of the Sabine women, since it
was not done "wantonly," was a virtuous act that encouraged
the growth and expansion of Rome (Plutarch, 35).
If military action seems to be a quality of virtue, then the
presence of Numa Pompilius among these other lives seems out of place.
Numa preferred the solitude and quiet of the country where he had
retreated from the bustle of the city after the death of his wife. He
strongly resisted the notion of becoming a king to the Romans whom he
considered a violent and warlike people. Plutarch creates dialogue for
Numa in which he replies to the absurd notion of being king:
"I should but be?a laughing-stock, while I should go about to
inculcate the worship of the gods and give lessons in the love of
justice and the abhorrence of violence and war, to a city whose needs
are rather for a captain than for a king" (Plutarch, 85).
Numa derides the Roman lust for war and conquest, a quality Plutarch
later applauds in the life of Marcellus. In fact, Plutarch states that
Marcellus was "by natural inclinations addicted to war," but
Plutarch also states the Marcellus was "strong of body, valiant of
hand?[and] modest and obliging" (Plutarch, 408). Both men are
written about as exemplifying the qualities that Plutarch believes a
"good man" should have. Numa desires peace and frightens the
populace into peace through omens and religious means. Marcellus
desires war and bullies the people into allowing him to go to war
numerous times. Either the contradiction is in Plutarch, or it is
because Rome developed and changed between the time of Numa and the
time of Marcellus.
Numa is known for his religious fervor, so the inclusion of it in his
biography is not startling. The oddity is why Plutarch includes
religious fervor in the lives of military men. There are lives in which
one would expect to see religious observances being honored, like
Romulus. After reading the life of Romulus, the cup of militarism (near
barbarism) was overflowing, as was the cup of public image, but
religion was left wanting. The life of Romulus leaves one seriously
questioning the man?s religious beliefs. His brother, Remus, saw a
flock of birds, and, after he told everyone, Romulus claimed that he
saw more birds. This leaves one feeling rather skeptical about the
outcome and Romulus? morals. Plutarch could have written the life of
Romulus to make it seem that Romulus was respectful of the Gods and
Goddesses wishes. Since Plutarch did not rewrite the story of Romulus
to include a sense of respect for the Gods, it stands to reason that
Plutarch did not believe that to be an important aspect of this life.
In the life of Romulus, religion did not play an important role in
making him a "good man," yet in the life of Numa it was
necessary.
If the qualities of a "good man" can be found through
religious observance, military victory, and public appearance, what are
the qualities of a "good woman" or can there be a
"good" woman? In the life of Coriolanus, women won the
victory over Coriolanus and the Volscians. A woman went to the temple
of Jupiter and was gifted with the knowledge of how to defeat the army
of the Volscians. A group of women who went out to meet with the Volscians,
and spoke eloquently with their leader Coriolanus to stop the impending
attack on Rome. Coriolanus was banished from Rome on spurious charges,
and then betrayed Rome by joining with the Volscians to do war upon
them. Coriolanus has his life told by Plutarch in a book that is
concerned with the lives of "good men," and yet he seems to
have been anything but a "good man." Prior to describing the
feat of these courageous women, Plutarch spends nearly a page and a
half describing the precedent for divine intervention! Can women only
do astonishing things if a deity is involved and guiding their steps?
This is not what Plutarch says. If one looks closely at the passage in
question (Plutarch, 316), one can see that Plutarch actually says that
the pathways for such an action must be present in a person for the
Gods to act through them. Plutarch makes a clear statement that
"goodness" is not absolutely excluded from women. This is
clear because they have to have the "goodness" pathways open
for the Gods to intervene through them.
Plutarch never openly commends women in his lives, though in every
life there is at least one female who handles affairs nobly. In the
life of Romulus, there are the Sabine women, in particular Hersilia,
who stop the battle between the Romans and the Sabines. In the life of
Numa Pompilius, there was both Numa?s wife and, supposedly, the Goddess
Egeria. Numa retired to the countryside after the death of his wife,
probably out of sadness, and the Goddess Egeria is said to have given
him divine wisdom. In the life of Poplicola, Valerius (also known as
Poplicola) left his wife to guard a witness to treason. There is even a
probability that the single statue of a woman on horseback was a statue
of Valeria, the daughter of Valerius. In the life of Fabius, the sister
of one of his soldiers helps to convince her lover, the commander of
Hannibal?s garrison at Tarentum. She helped to convince her lover that
he should deliver the town to Fabius without a pitched battle. The love
of a woman can move men to do powerful things. In the life of
Coriolanus, the woman was his mother. She raised him without the aid of
a man, but she raised him to be a "good man." His is also one
of the few lives with few, if any, contradictions. In the life of Aemilius
Paulus, his daughters were the virtuous women who were content with
their lives and their husbands, even though their father had been
consul twice and they lived rather poorly. In the life of Marcellus,
there is reference to the oracle at Delphi who was usually female. He
is also said to have a statue in the temple of Minerva. While there are
few women mentioned in his life, those that are mentioned are important
in their near deification (in particular Octavia, sister of Caesar
Augustus). This situation is similar to the life of Camillus where
there are again few references to women except deities. This can be
explained by the religious fervor of Camillus making this exclusion
clearly a portrait of higher feminine influence. In the life of Marcus
Cato, there is a single noble woman that fulfills his idea of what a
"good" wife and mother should be. He claims to have married
her because she was more noble than rich. Cato was so pompous about the
appropriate behaviors that it is odd that he later married a woman so
much younger and not even close in stature to him in the social
hierarchy.
Plutarch has obviously included non-virtuous actions in the
relations of these "virtuous" men?s lives because they
involved virtuous women. He was working against the constraints of a
society that believed women to be inferior and illogical. He uses the
lives of his virtuous men to implant ideas about the virtues and
"goodness" that women should emulate and those actions and
behaviors women should not emulate. Clearly, Plutarch was writing for a
much larger audience than the noble and "good" men in ancient
Greece and Rome knew.
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