Plutarch biography on cleopatra and caesar

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Life of Caesar (Plutarch)

2nd century CE biography – part of Parallel Lives

The Life of Caesar (original Greek title: Καίσαρ; translated into Latin as Vita Iulii Caesaris) is a biography of Julius Caesar written in Ancient Greek in the beginning of the 2nd century AD by the Greek moralist Plutarch, as part of his Parallel Lives. In this book comparing Greek and Roman statesmen, Plutarch paired Caesar with Alexander the Great, the other grand victor of classical antiquity. Unlike most of the other Parallel Lives, Caesar's Life is more historical and secular, lacking the main features of Plutarch's works: moral judgement and relationship with the divine. Plutarch moved these elements of Caesar's personality to the lives of the other Roman contemporaries he wrote about, such as Pompey, Cicero, or Brutus.

Most of Plutarch's source was the lost Histories of Asinius Pollio, a contemporary of Caesar, who was critical of him. In turn, Plutarch's Life was the main historical source of Shakespeare for his play Julius Caesar, first staged in 1599.

Work

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At the end of the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96), Plutarch wrote a series of biographies of the first eight Roman emperors, entitled in modern editions the Lives of the Caesars,

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plutarch biography on cleopatra and caesar

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48.Caesar gave the Thessalians their freedom, to commemorate his victory, and then pursued Pompey; when he reached Asia he made the Cnidians also free, to please Theopompus the collector of fables, and for all the inhabitants of Asia remitted a third of their taxes. [2] Arriving at Alexandria just after Pompey's death, he turned away in horror from Theodotus as he presented the head of Pompey, but he accepted Pompey's seal-ring, and shed tears over it.¹Moreover, all the companions and intimates of Pompey who had been captured by the king as they wandered over the country, he treated with kindness and attached them to himself. And to his friends in Rome he wrote that this was the greatest and sweetest pleasure that he derived from his victory, namely, from time to time to save the lives of fellow citizens who had fought against him.[3] As for the war in Egypt, some say that it was not necessary, but due to Caesar's passion for Cleopatra, and that it was inglorious and full of peril for him. But others blame the king's party for it, and especially the eunuch Potheinus, who had most influence at court,²and had recently killed Pompey; he had also driven Cleopatra from the country, and was now secretly plotting against Caesar. On this account they say that from this time on Ca