The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch's Lives by Jeffrey Beneker. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012. Pp x, 258.

Abstract

440 PHOENIX study of later audiences has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent decades. Roselli does not hide the fragmentary and contradictory state of the evidence for ancient audiences, and he takes important steps towards reconciling and explaining much of it. Although he discusses some modern theoretical frameworks for understanding theater audiences, particularly in his introduction and first chapter, he does not allow unifying theories to guide the inclusion or exclusion of evidence. The result is a rich and winding path through a huge amount of material. Kathryn Bosher† The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch's LIVES. By Jeffrey Beneker. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012. Pp x, 258. Plutarch has been getting some well-deserved attention recently, with monographs appearing on less familiar works (e.g., L. Van Hoof, Plutarch’s Practical Ethics [Oxford 2010]), new commentaries on neglected Lives (e.g., F. Titchener, Plutarch’s Life of Nicias [Leuven 2013]), and with this work a new interpretative approach to some familiar material. Beneker’s aim is to examine “how eros can act as a lens both for his [Plutarch’s] interpretation of historical sources and for his composition of political biographies” (3). After a brief introduction, the first chapter sets the stage by examining Plutarch’s conception of eros, its relationship to philia, and the place of both within the bonds of marriage. Beneker carefully charts the complex philosophical roots of Plutarch’s understanding of moral virtue, focusing particularly on two of his treatises: the anti-Stoic tract On Moral Virtue and the Dialogue on Love. Beneker argues essentially for an Aristotelian basis with an overarching Platonism and there emerge two points which will be important for his interpretation of the role of eros in the Lives. First, Plutarch’s sophrosyne is, as it is for Aristotle, “a moderate emotional response to pleasures of the body” (16) and is distinguished from enkrateia by the fact that the enkratic man succeeds in his struggle against desires but it is always a struggle (this point emerges more fully in Chapter Five). Secondly, eros in a moderated form is an essential component of the philia of a marriage relationship. Here Beneker uses the Brutus/Porcia and Pericles/Aspasia relationships to show how Plutarch’s “ethics underlie the representation of these characters and their relationships” (54) and are important indicators of the psychological dispositions of the biographical subjects. Thus, such healthy relationships symbolise the subject’s capacity for rational response in the face of passions in whatever arena they appear, particularly in political/military matters. Chapter Two elaborates on how Plutarch’s understanding of moral virtue shapes his approach to history in the Lives and so helps him shape his source material to create a more realistic psychological portrait in which moral causes predominate over others. The Pelopidas/Marcellus pair is drawn on as an example: both were experienced generals who died rashly in battle. Plutarch’s sources do not, for him, adequately explain why this happened, but Plutarch, reinterpreting the material through an ethical lens, is able to argue that both men were not adequately trained and so their passion overwhelmed their reason. In the light of this broader discussion in the opening two chapters, Beneker then turns to examining the role of eros in three pairs of lives: Alexander/Caesar (Chapter Three), BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 441 Demetrius/Antony (Chapter Four), and Agesilaus/Pompey (Chapter Five). It is not coincidental that it is in the opening to the first pair that we find Plutarch’s well-known comments that he is writing lives, not histories, and that character is not always best observed in great deeds. No other characters in the corpus surpassed Alexander and Caesar in the greatness of their accomplishments but it is how they respond psychologically to various facets of desire which Beneker argues is key to understanding their characters. Alexander’s success is shown to be predicated upon his ability to control his bodily appetites and desires. Like Cyrus in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia he shows the utmost respect for captured noblewomen even in the face of overwhelming beauty and virtue. Further, his conduct in his erotic relationships mirrors the type approved of in the...