well worth the study of those who wish to become acquainted with
ambition of men unbounded, love of power excessive, endurance unwearied,
and forms of suffering infinite." Thus, the historian's object was to
trace the establishment of the Imperial power in Rome back to its
origin, to show that the contests of the rival heads of parties involved
the State in endless calamities, which resulted in a dissolution of all
the bonds that held society together, and rendered the assumption of
supreme power by one man a healing and a necessary event.

As already observed, it happens that thirteen of Plutarch's extant Lives
are the lives of the most distinguished of the Romans who lived during
this eventful period; and though Plutarch's Lives severally are not
histories of the times to which they respectively refer, nor
collectively form a History of any given time, yet they are valuable as
portraits of illustrious men, and help us to form a better judgment of
those who make so conspicuous a figure in History.

Plutarch was a native of the town of Chaeroneia, in Boeotia; the times
of his birth and death are not exactly known, but we learn from his own
works that he was a young student at Delphi, in the thirteenth year of
the reign of the Emperor Nero, A.D. 66. He visited both Italy and Rome,
and probably resided at Rome for some time. He wrote his Life of
Demosthenes, at least after his return to Chaeroneia: he says (_Life of
Demosthenes_, c. 2), that he had not time to exercise himself in the
Latin Language during his residence at Rome, being much occupied with
public business, and giving lessons in philosophy. Accordingly it was
late before he began to read the Latin writers; and we may infer from
his own words that he never acquired a very exact knowledge of the
language. He observes that it happened in his case, that in his study of
the Latin writers he did not so much learn and understand the facts from