The Rise and Fall of Athens

Name: The Rise and Fall of Athens
Rating: 4.9 (38 reviews)

by Plutarch Book 27 in the Penguin Classics: Ancient World series.

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4.4(38)

This Plutarch collection gives biographical sources for Athens from legendary Theseus through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Alcibiades and Lysander. The lives cover the Persian Wars, the growth of Athenian power, the Peloponnesian War, Sicilian Expedition and the city’s eventual defeat. It is useful for readers who want people-centred accounts of battles, policies and public choices rather than a continuous chronological history.

Because Plutarch writes biography rather than continuous history, the collection repeatedly explains public events through character. The Persian Wars, democratic reform and the Peloponnesian conflict appear through leaders whose ambition, restraint or vanity becomes part of the causal argument. The volume is therefore valuable both for the events it preserves and for understanding how later antiquity interpreted Athenian political greatness and failure.

Historical Periods

Battle of Marathon490 BCE Naval Battle of Salamis480 BCE Sicilian Expedition415–413 BCE Athenian Democracy508–322 BCE Roman Biography and Moral Exempla100 BCE–150 CE

Genres

Classical Literature

Historical people

Themistoclesc. 524–c. 459 BCE Aristidesc. 530–468 BCE Periclesc. 495–429 BCE Cimonc. 510–450 BCE Lysanderd. 395 BCE Plutarchc. 46–after 119 CE Theseusmythological figure Solon Nicias Alcibiades