PENGUIN CLASSICS : THE RISE AND FALL OF ATHENS PB

p b Plutarch traces the fortunes of Athens through nine lives – from Theseus, its founder, to Lysander, its Spartan conqueror – in this seminal work /b br / br / What makes a leader? For Plutarch the answer lay not in great victories, but in moral strengths. In these nine biographies, taken from his i Parallel Lives /i , Plutarch illustrates the rise and fall of Athens through nine lives, from the legendary days of Theseus, the city s founder, through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander. Plutarch ultimately held the weaknesses of its leaders responsible for the city s fall. His work is invaluable for its imaginative reconstruction of the past, and profound insights into human life and achievement. This edition of Ian Scott-Kilvert s seminal translation, fully revised with a new introduction and notes by John Marincola, now also contains Plutarch s attack on the first historian, On the Malice of Herodotus . /p