This paper is concerned with the eight Lives in which Plutarch describes the final years of the Roman Republic: Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Caesar, Cato, Brutus, and Antony. It is not my main concern to identify particular sources, though some problems of provenance will inevitably arise; it is rather to investigate the methods which Plutarch adopted in gathering his information, whatever his sources may have been. Did he, for instance, compose each biography independently? Or did he prepare several Lives simultaneously, combining in one project his reading for a number of different works? Did he always have his source-material before him as he composed? Or can we detect an extensive use of memory? Can one conjecture what use, if any, he made of notes? And can we tell whether he usually drew his material from just one source, or wove together his narrative from his knowledge of several different versions?I start from an important assumption: that, in one way or another, Plutarch needed to gather information before writing these Lives; that, whatever may be the case with some of the Greek Lives, he would not be able to write these Roman biographies simply from his general knowledge. The full basis for this assumption will only become clear as the discussion progresses: for example, we shall find traces of increasing knowledge within these Lives, with early biographies showing only a slight knowledge of some important events, and later ones gradually filling the gaps. It will become probable that Plutarch knew comparatively little of the detail of Roman history before he began work on the Lives, and that considerable ‘research’—directed and methodical reading—would be necessary for their composition.

For 16 th-18 th c. plays and operas about Caesar, their authors and dates, see Appendix to chapter 25, pp. 392-396 For Roman names in 'J', see under 'I', except for Julian, Julius Celsus Constantinus, Jupiter, Juvenal accessus ad auctores (medieval student introductions) 318, 324

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In an earlier article, I argued that six of the Roman Lives—Crassus, Pompey, Caesar, Cato, Brutus, and Antony—were prepared as a single project, and rest upon the same store of source-material. If this is so, it affords a unique opportunity to investigate Plutarch's techniques. There are substantial variations among these six versions, both crude inconsistencies of fact and subtler differences of interpretation. It no longer seems adequate to assume that these are simply inherited from differing source-material; they must arise from Plutarch's individual literary methods. Their analysis should therefore illuminate those methods. How much licence did Plutarch allow himself in rewriting and manipulating detail for artistic ends? And what considerations would lead him to vary his treatment in these ways?In the first part of this paper, I examine the literary devices which Plutarch employed in streamlining his material: conflation of similar items, chronological compression and dislocation, fabrication of circumstantial detail, and the like. In the second, I turn to the differences of interpretation and emphasis among these Lives. These suggest some wider conclusions concerning Plutarch's biographical practice, which are developed in the final section: in particular, the very different aims, interests, and conventions which are followed in different Lives, and the flexible nature of this biographical genre.

When Mardonius sailed along the coast of Asia and arrived in Ionia, something happened that will seem very wondrous to those Greeks who find it impossible to accept that Otanes proposed to the seven Persians that Persia ought to have a democratic government: for Mardonius suppressed all the Ionian tyrannies and established democracies in the cities. (Herodotus 6.43.3)