The Rise of Rome

The latest installment in our fully revised edition of Plutarch’s Lives of the great men of the ancient world, this volume focusing on early Rome

The biographies collected in this volume bring together Plutarch’s Lives of those great men who established the city of Rome, and his Comparisons with their notable Greek counterparts. As well as providing an illuminating picture of the first century A.D., Plutarch depicts complex heroes who display the essential virtues of Greek civilization—courage, patriotism, justice, intelligence, and reason—that contributed to the rise of Rome.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Plutarch (c. 45–120 A.D.), the Greek philosopher, lived at the height of the Roman Empire and is author of one of the largest and most important collections of writings to have survived from Classical antiquity.

Ian Scott-Kilvert (1917–1989) was the director of English literature at the British Council and the translator for Penguin Classics of Plutarch’s Rise and Fall of Athens and Makers of Rome.

Christopher Pelling is a professor of Greek at Christ Church, University of Oxford.

Jeffrey Tatum is a professor of classics at Victoria University of Wellington.