Past Leaders, Present Lessons: Exploring Plutarch’s Lives

Many great minds like our Founding Fathers, renowned authors such as Shakespeare, Emerson, and Nietzsche, were captivated by Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, a collection of biographies chronicling the lives of ancient Greek and Roman leaders. These 48 compelling portraits are filled with daring exploits, acts of courage and justice, as well as betrayals and failures. They’re rich with stories of weeping statues, faithful omens, and some of history’s most brilliant military strategies.

Plutarch’s aim in this monumental 1,200-page work was to compare and contrast the characters of figures such as Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Pericles, Cicero, Mark Antony, Lycurgus of Sparta, Romulus, and Solon. His hope was that readers would be inspired to emulate their virtues and learn to avoid their flaws.

Over the past two years, our meetup group has read and discussed each of these Lives. Along the way, we created a ranking system based on four key factors: leadership, virtue and trustworthiness, the entertainment value of the biography, and each figure’s lasting legacy.

In this presentation, we’ll explore the common traits of great leaders, the flaws that led to their downfall, and the virtues that allowed some of them to thrive into old age. We will also share our fascinating stats.

———————————————————————————————————————

This talk is part of the 🧠 NYC Philosophy & Psychology Readers Conference 2025 (#NYCPPRC2025).
For full event details—including venue, schedule, and attendance info—visit:
👉 https://www.meetup.com/reading-philosophy/events/308631821/
———————————————————————————————————————