Imperial Latin authors as readers of Plutarch

What is it about?

The Greek Platonist philosopher and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 40 –125 CE) was a widely read author throughout the centuries. A truly impressive number of later writers, dating from imperial Graeco-Roman antiquity to the present day, actively engaged with Plutarch's legacy by citing, debating, adopting and refuting his ideas or adapting them to their own intellectual agenda. This chapter discusses Plutarch's early reception in the Latin-speaking world of the Roman Empire, during the 2nd century CE. It focuses on two imperial Roman authors and intellectuals, Aulus Gellius and Apuleius, for both of whom Plutarch was an important intellectual, philosophical and literary model. Aulus Gellius is the author of a miscellanistic compilation entitled The Attic Nights, which provides rich testimony on the activity, readings and interests of Graeco-Roman intellectuals during the second century CE. Apuleius is today most well-known for his novel The Golden Ass or the Metamorphoses, but he also wrote philosophical and oratorical works. Platonic philosophy seems to be the key link that ties both authors to Plutarch. As I show in my analysis, for Aulus Gellius Plutarch's name serves to affirm the status and usefulness of philosophical enquiry in life, as well as to furnish practical ethical guidance for his Roman audience; for Apuleius, Plutarch provides a genealogical link with the tradition of Platonism, and offers a key to interpreting his own distinctive contribution to it as a novelist and philosopher.

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Photo by Constantinos Kollias on Unsplash

Photo by Constantinos Kollias on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Any ancient author's reception history yields insights on how ideas travel through time, shaping subsequent generations of thinkers and leaving their mark on entire cultural systems. The manner in which Aulus Gellius and Apuleius read and interpret Plutarch as an author, philosopher and thinker, or the ways in which they seek to 'translate' some of Plutarch's ideas for their Roman readers, allow us to grasp how what we call 'reception' is shaped by the dynamics of cross-cultural interaction and communication.

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