Character Change in Plutarch

Abstract

THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL worthwhile treatments of Plutarch's conception of character change.' It is agreed that most of his heroes have fairly stable characters: Plutarch assumes a personality from outset and maintains and/or develops it throughout biography. In this sense of development characters change; but it is only rarely that Plutarch admits possibility of a radical turnaround in a man's character, a complete departure from his earlier characteristics. It has been noted that this staticism is firmly located within Greek literary traditions. In following pages I want to consider more closely mechanisms of character change in Plutarch's thinking, and why it is that he envisaged one or two exceptional cases of real change in subjects of his biographies. What in Plutarch's eyes makes an individual? What does he mean when he talks of joqo?2 To start with there are inherited characteristics passed on in families (cf. De sera num. vind. 559d, U4vajiv twa ial icowmv av t Cato Minor 1 indicates ancestry of Cato's virtue. But environment is more important than heredity. Plutarch tells us that it is difficult to decide whether those who suffer from inherited faults will also turn out bad, because the involvement of human nature [hi 8' Avepd~mov qptoy] in our habits, attitudes, and regulations often makes it hide its failings and imitate rz KiaXd, result being that it either wipes out and escapes entirely from an inherited stain of vice, or else envelops itself in a cover of duplicity a long time (De sera num. vind. 562b). Correct can restore soul to its proper state (551d; therapy cf. De vit. pud. 530e, De gen. Socr. 584e), for tb pevraPliXXov of man has been labelled his 'pznoS and i0o0, since Ci'Oo [habit] sinks very deep, takes hold firmly, and wields greatest power (De sera num. vind. 551e). Character is determined by habituation. Plutarch has a good deal to say about this along Aristotelian lines in essay De virtute morali. By nature