Plutarch and Thucydides or the Free Use of Quotations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5120484 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jacqueline De Romilly (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1988 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 22 |
| Publication date | 1988-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Phoenix (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1088758 |
| OpenAlex | W2335033757 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
C OMPARING WHAT PLUTARCH wrote in his biographies with what he read in Thucydides would require a long analysis, which I shall not attempt to give here. Nor would the research be new. What I intend to do is to consider a few precise examples where Plutarch obviously uses, or even quotes, Thucydides, but where the difference in date or literary aim introduces into the text some remarkable distortions. This is made possible by the practice of ancient writers in matters of imitation and quotation. Plutarch knew his Thucydides quite well: no one doubts this any more today. He took much from him in the biographies of Pericles, Alcibiades, and Nicias. But, whenever he used him, he used him quite freely, as was the general custom with the ancient Greeks. They were much given to quotations; but they did not feel a quotation should be accurate to the very words, or should be accompanied by a reference.' They just tried to rewrite the passage they used in their own words. This applies to actual quotations, taken from a specific author; it applies even more to the use of historical knowledge, which was considered anonymous, and of admitted fact. Now the differences which appear in style between the two authors-the one who quotes and the one who is quoted, or the one who uses the material and the one who provides it-may be very slight and innocent, a simple matter of words. But these slight changes become illuminating, if the two authors belong to different periods or have different aims. For they show and reveal each one's tendencies. In the case of Plutarch and Thucydides, I should say
Art · Epistemology · Literature · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Joseph Conrad and Literature · Philosophy · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Citations per year | 0.3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |