How Plutarch's Lives drew on The Histories
A documented line of influence: Plutarch demonstrably engaged Herodotus’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Histories
Herodotus · c. 430 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
Plutarch's Lives
Plutarch · c. 110
Ancient GreeceRelevance
8/10
On Plutarch's Lives’s page
- The Persian-War Lives — Themistocles, Aristides — are built on Herodotus, who Plutarch used as his primary source even while reworking and omitting his details
- It's not quiet borrowing: Plutarch resented him enough to write On the Malice of Herodotus, a whole essay attacking the Histories
- Read Herodotus first and you'll see exactly what Plutarch was leaning on — and exactly what set his teeth on edge
On The Histories’s page
- The Persian-War Lives run on Herodotus — Plutarch mined the Histories for Themistocles and Aristides, trimming and reshaping as he went
- But he didn't trust his source: he named Herodotus in those Lives and then wrote an entire pamphlet, On the Malice of Herodotus, to pick the Histories apart
- The relationship is half debt, half feud — Plutarch can't write the wars without him and can't forgive him either