Jeffrey Beneker's Reading List

"This is a modern structure. Plutarch wrote Parallel Lives : so he went after a Greek and a Roman that he could put together in a single book. At a scholarly level, we get angry when people rip these books apart and put the lives into new collections, as in, ‘here are Greek lives of the Athenians and here are Roman lives from the Republic.’ That said, this Penguin collection does a really good job of grouping lives that are useful to read together. So in The Rise and Fall of Athens , you get to see four stages in the development of Athens over time. In the early stages, Plutarch has to push back into legendary and mythological times, with the founders like Theseus and even Solon. Even there, we see resonances of the way we mythologize or turn the stories of our founding figures into legends. In the US, for example, we have George Washington, who cannot tell a lie. We have these little myths that we tell to demonstrate the character of our founding figures. That’s what Plutarch is dealing with in those early lives and he says it quite bluntly: ‘This is the quality of the material I’m working with. I’m trying to turn myth into history and write about these figures as if they were real.’ “If you’re thinking about how to be a leader, it’s the character of the individual that is most important.” Then we get into the lives of the earliest real historical figures, such as Themistocles and Aristides. They were living at the time of the Persian Wars, when Greece was under attack by this large power and managed to fight it off. The Greeks that were living at this time realized that things were different before and after the invasion of the Persians. This stage resonates with people who have lived through the 20th and into the 21st century, because for Athens, it was like the big industrial push that happened as a result of World War Two. Athens was left with a huge navy—we would probably call it a military industrial complex—and they used it to knit together an empire in the Aegean Sea. Ostensibly, it was to keep the Persians from coming back, but in fact they asserted their own authority over large areas and did much more than simply protect against invasion. So this is the period of empire-building and commercial domination that follows the Persian invasion. Then, in the age of Pericles, Nicias and Alcibiades—and even Lysander, who is the one Spartan included here—it’s about how the Greek cities got along and interacted in this new, globalized economy. The fact is they didn’t, and a 30-year chunk of the classical period of Greece is taken up by war. It’s waged by Athens and its empire or its allies on one side, and Sparta and its allies on the other. So these lives deal with leaders in that environment. That can be very instructive for the modern situation, seeing what Greeks were doing and how individuals responded. We see what sort of character worked in leadership in those days and what sort of character didn’t. Plutarch has examples of both. Plutarch really likes Pericles. It’s a hard lesson, perhaps, because the only way that Pericles is successful is by being something of a demagogue and a little bit too authoritarian. He realizes, for example, that the assembly at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War is going to make bad strategic decisions. So he refuses to call them to vote, to keep them from making a mistake. I was actually teaching a class on Greek civilization the very same week your prime minister, Boris Johnson, was refusing to call Parliament into session because he didn’t want them to make certain decisions about Brexit. To my mind, it was a very easy parallel. I could just grab newspaper headlines and put them on the screen for my students and say, ‘The stuff we’re reading about Pericles is not arcane; it’s happening right now again.’ So if you’re looking for examples of leadership, there’s an example of circumventing a democratic process because you’re wary of the outcome. The flipside is someone who was related to Pericles, Alcibiades. Here’s someone who, in Plutarch’s telling of the story, can never really subordinate his own interests to the interests of the state. It’s always about him. And bad things happen to the Athenians, to the whole state, because of his desire to be this larger than life figure. There is no distinction. In fact, Plutarch would argue that what you’re doing in your private life will predict what’s going to happen if we put you in charge of public life. If you can’t run the small economy of your household in a competent way, why would we put you in charge of the city’s economy? It’s that way of thinking. No, there’s another body of work that’s collectively called the Moralia, which are treatises on lots of different topics. Most of them are philosophical and some of them are political. As he’s writing the Parallel Lives, he’s also writing political essays that take the principles and use examples from the Lives in a briefer form, to reinforce or support the arguments he’s making about how to be successful in politics. There are parts about mentoring, that the best way to start in politics is to attach yourself to someone who’s experienced and learn by example. On the flipside, if you’re an experienced politician, you need to devote some of your energy to bringing the next generation along. You also need to be ready to step out of the way and give them a chance. We’re having that struggle right now in our own presidential election, where we have three candidates who are 70 years old or older. They’ve had a long career: shouldn’t they be stepping aside and letting another generation come through and take over? Why does the younger generation have to beat down the older generation to have a chance? That’s an issue Plutarch addressed pretty directly. He wants older politicians to remain engaged, but in a more relaxed way. So he would not approve of a 70-year-old man on stage debating and arguing back and forth with a 40-year-old man. He would like the 70-year-old to step back and be summoned by the people, who recognize his experience and want his help if, say, the ship of state runs aground. To name names, maybe Joe Biden has an argument here. He’s saying, ‘Our state is running aground and I need to come back to help right it. I’m the one with experience who can fix things up.’ He would be happy that he’s made himself available to lead, though he’d be a little bit nervous that it’s Biden who’s pushing himself forward. He’s become the frontrunner now, so perhaps the party is saying, ‘Joe, we need you, come back in!’ I think, though, that Plutarch might question whether Biden’s motives are pure or whether he just can’t resist trying to get access to that highest office that’s eluded him in his career. There’s no other way. Plutarch has an essay, ‘To an Uneducated Leader.’ It sounds like an insult, but it could have been entitled ‘How to Become an Educated Leader,’ and the answer is philosophy. It’s what allows you to realize that an enthusiastic crowd cheering you on is not a good thing in itself, or that gaining wealth or being put in charge of an army is not a good thing in itself: what’s valuable is the good that you can do as a result of wielding power or holding office. If you’re satisfied with doing good—as opposed to gaining glory and gaining wealth—then you can be a good leader. And the only way to develop that realization, to have that maturity of thought, is through philosophy. That’s where you learn what is really valuable, what is really good. That’s where you learn the self-control and the self-discipline and how not to be distracted by the cheering crowd or the ability to become rich. If you can develop that kind of maturity, then you can become a good leader. It’s a very elitist system. You have to be well-educated and it’s your family and your money that are going to allow you to learn to speak well and to have access to philosophizing. Our word ‘school’ comes from the Greek word schole , which means leisure time. If you’re able to be educated, it means you don’t have to work every day to live. So the only way you can reach that status is to come from a wealthy, aristocratic background. For Plutarch, school is a huge privilege, because the alternative is going out every day and scratching the field and hoping that your land returns you enough to live through this year so that you can repeat the process next year. It’s never-ending. Ancient Greek agricultural life is very dreary. It repeats every year and it never gets better. You never work your way up. So schole is a really big deal. It’s the same in Latin. Ludus is school, but it’s also the word for a game or an entertainment. If you have time for ludus and fooling around, you can become educated, but it’s the one per cent that have that opportunity. Another reason you have to have your own wealth as a leader is because, even in your own city, you’re going to have to pay for a festival or build a new portico on the front of the theatre."

"Yes, all the way up to modern times. Alexander was a huge figure in Greece, mostly because of the Romance and the different forms it took. It’s a romance in the sense of a novel, we might call it ‘the Alexander Fiction.’ It’s a whole other take on leadership, in terms of a great leader from the past. Alexander himself seems to have realized that he was great from an early age. We talked earlier about the Athenian leaders when the Persians attacked Greece. Alexander inserted himself right into that history. Both Alexander and his father conceived of uniting the Greek cities under Macedonian leadership and going eastward and attacking the Persian Empire, ostensibly in revenge for their invasions of Greece. We know there were two Persian invasions, but the Persians were a constant presence. The Greeks themselves didn’t know that they weren’t going to come back, and the Persians kept gaining control over Greek cities in Asia Minor. So Alexander took off to conquer the Persian Empire and get rid of the Persian menace once and for all. “What’s important is having the intellectual capacity and ability to control your own behaviour and to make good decisions.” Alexander understands that this is a huge undertaking. It’s got major historical implications. So he brings Aristotle’s nephew, Callisthenes, along with him as a historian. He wants to put himself into that historical tradition, but also the tradition of Achilles and Homer. Achilles had Homer to write his story, and his story has become eternal. Alexander seems to have wanted the same sort of thing. So he wants a historian/biographer/romanticizer travelling along with him to write about his exploits. Then what develops in the ancient tradition is that we have various histories that are histories as we would know them, but it’s these legendary stories that come to dominate Alexander’s reception. So he does all kinds of things in the fictional version—he flies on the back of a bird, he goes under the sea in a diving bell, he fights the Indian king Porus who is seven-and-a-half feet tall (Alexander defeats him in single combat). So he does all the things that a legendary/heroic/mythological figure might do. It’s sometimes described as an open text. People were adding things to it over time. There are different versions of the manuscript tradition. In this edition by Stoneman; he’s knit them together. For a long time, it was attributed to Callisthenes, and it probably has a historical core that started with him. But it’s been rewritten and augmented so much. For example, when the Greek world becomes a Christian world, Alexander is swept right along with that. He’s modernized and updated as time moves on. It was only this year that the question about the name of North Macedonia was settled, and Alexander was huge in that debate. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was using him as a symbol and the Greeks were using Alexander, too, to make their own claim. Just six months ago, they put a new statue of Alexander in downtown Athens, near the arch of Hadrian and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. So, right in the middle of those ancient monuments, there’s a new monument of Alexander on his horse. He’s been a symbol like that for 2,000 years. It’s a little of both. It’s a way of communicating just how big Alexander is, by talking about him in a discourse that was used for talking about someone like Hercules or Theseus or these other legendary founders who did larger-than-life things. If we tell Alexander’s story in that same mode, it elevates him and it says something about who he is. It doesn’t mean everyone believes these stories. The parallel I like to cite is in the dome of the Capitol in Washington DC. There’s a mosaic in the very top, which is the apotheosis of George Washington. He’s shown up in heaven surrounded by 13 young women who are the 13 original colonies and there are other figures that represent characteristics of the United States. No one believes that George Washington was deified when he died, but by putting him into this common scene of apotheosis, by making him divine in art, it allows us to say something about the stature of George Washington and the magnitude of his accomplishments and what we think of him in terms of the history of the United States. It’s a mode of discourse that has immediate resonance and lets everyone understand what the level of achievement of this person is. I think he did. There’s also a famous Alexander mosaic on the floor of a house in Pompeii. It dates from about 100 BC, but it seems to be based on a painting that was done perhaps in Alexander’s own lifetime or just after. So he’s also got artists working to recreate what he’s doing. He’s got authors writing things up. His general Ptolemy, who became king of Egypt, wrote one of the first histories. They’re all very aware of the propaganda value of what they’re doing as a way of creating a legacy in the ancient world."

"Yes, that’s one of its virtues; it doesn’t try your patience at all. It’s maybe a little too brief: it’s written for an audience who knows the history of the time and the individuals involved, so it can be a little hard to read when things are just mentioned and alluded to. The reason I think it’s interesting to read is because it’s written by a contemporary of Atticus. There’s a point in about chapter 19 where he writes, ‘I’d written up to this point while Atticus was alive. Now he’s dead and I’m going to put this little epilogue onto it.’ So it’s written by someone who was there to witness the events that were unfolding. In terms of people who study political history, this is one of the most interesting times in the history of Rome, because it’s right at the transition from Republic to Empire. It’s when the mechanism that allowed the Romans to run their government through a power-sharing system falls apart. It was an aristocratic elite, but they were sharing power among themselves. Atticus is famous because he doesn’t choose sides. He’s incredibly wealthy and he could easily—and perhaps should—have picked a side and stuck with it. He’s an example of someone who’s able to navigate these difficult times. He doesn’t end up proscribed and in exile. He doesn’t end up dead, like Cicero, one of his best friends, did. He doesn’t choose the wrong side. We talk a lot about polarization now: either you’re on one side or the other, and there’s no room for compromise in the middle. Atticus is an example—and again, not to say things are exactly the same—of someone who was living in a similarly polarized time and who found a way to navigate that middle. That’s right, and that could be a lesson as well, about how to get along in these times. Another lesson is that some Romans had a hard time learning that you need to stop at some point. Going back to Joe Biden, is the last big thing he is going to do is get rejected by his party? Is that going to be the end of his career? Or should he have stepped back, and said, ‘I was vice president under one of the most popular presidents we’ve ever had’ and let that be enough. Atticus is extreme in that he doesn’t want anything, or if he takes an office, he sets conditions on it such that it won’t involve him in politics in any larger way. A friend of his, Asinius Pollio, who has a family connection with Atticus and is mentioned in the book, seems to do a similar thing. He’s with Caesar during the first round of civil wars. He works his way up and goes on to become consul, which is the highest office in the state. He has a military triumph and then retires. I suspect that he looked around him and thought, ‘If I keep going, it can only end badly.’ Pompey, Caesar’s opponent, had three triumphs and he ended up beheaded in Egypt. So I think people who were savvy looked around and saw what happened to others. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . This is where we can make a connection back to Plutarch. Atticus is called Atticus because Attica is the region around Athens and he went to Athens to study. He has that philosophical background that allows him to see what’s really important. He avoids the stature, the glory and the wealth that he might have acquired by a political career and stays above and separate from it. Asinius Pollio sets a similar example. He goes to a certain point and stops. He becomes an intellectual figure. He writes a history. He creates the first public library in Rome. He is probably also someone who is educated and able to make an intellectual choice and not just be driven by the emotion and the excitement of politics. It could be. I don’t know the background for that claim, but it could go either way, because one of the principles of Epicureans was to be politically uninvolved. Plutarch criticizes the Epicureans for this. So it may be that people assume Atticus was an Epicurean because he was politically uninvolved. Or maybe there’s more to it, but it’s not something that the biography stresses for sure."

"On the surface, Agricola is a tribute to his father-in-law and it’s really nice to have this family connection. A lot of ancient literature can oftentimes seem so distant and cold that it’s hard to see the human connection, but it’s strong in this book. In the introduction and especially in the conclusion, you can feel the real bond that Tacitus must have felt with this person. It’s also a history of the times. So the dynasty that was established by Julius Caesar and Augustus died out in the year 69 with Nero. Then you have what’s typically called the Flavian dynasty, which ruled until 96. The third emperor in that dynasty was Domitian, who comes across in this biography as jealous of anyone who might be getting attention or might have a claim to power. Because he’s not part of the founding family and his dynasty has only just been established, he’s very protective. It’s therefore a difficult time to be involved in politics. Tacitus starts out with a discussion of how, in former days, if someone did something great, we would lift them up and we would tell their stories. But in Agricola’s day, we couldn’t do that because it would only cause danger, so that sort of thing was repressed. So, at the end of the biography, when Agricola comes back from Britain, he wants to keep a low profile. He doesn’t want anyone to talk about him. He doesn’t want anyone to thank him or raise him up. He wants to blend into the crowd because he’s worried that if he is seen as having done something too great or too important, he’ll be taken out. He manages to navigate that, and Domitian grudgingly gives him an honorary province at the end. “Plutarch has an essay, ‘To an Uneducated Leader.’ It sounds like an insult, but it could have been entitled ‘How to Become an Educated Leader’ and the answer is philosophy” By the time Tacitus is writing, Domitian is gone. There’s more openness; the leaders are more secure and not so jealous of other people. So Tacitus can write this story just like in the old days. He can lift up someone like Agricola, who had to be anonymous after all the great things he did in Britain. Tacitus is going to make sure Agricola gets his due for what he did and couldn’t talk about under Domitian. No, he dies of disease. But he’s young, in his 50s, so he doesn’t get a long life. Yes, the theme that comes out of all of these books is that if you want to do great in business or in government, study philosophy and the liberal arts, because that’s your foundation. That’s what gives you the mindset, the self-control, the sense of values that are going to allow you to succeed. The other thing that’s interesting in terms of leadership in this book is that when Agricola goes to Britain, he’s everywhere at all times. He’s working hard 24 hours a day. He’s putting the needs of his army and of his country ahead of his own comfort. The leaders before him were sitting back, saying, ‘I’m a general and I’m a big figure up here in Britain’ and then suffering losses and not doing well. Whereas Agricola puts his nose to the grindstone and gets it done, through hard work and self-sacrifice. Tacitus is highly trained in rhetoric, another part of a liberal arts education."