Sponsored by the International Plutarch Society.
Organized by Jeffrey Beneker, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The history of Late Republican Rome plays a large role in the corpus of Plutarch. Of his twenty-three Roman Lives, twelve narrate the careers of statesmen who were at the center of political and military events from the Gracchi to the second triumvirate, and his Moralia feature sayings, speeches, and problems that also illuminate this critical period. In addition to being a repository for countless facts and details, his writings have memorialized many significant events from this critical historical period, such as Sulla’s march on Rome, Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, the Battle of Actium, and Cleopatra’s suicide. Thanks to his breadth of coverage, his recourse to sources now lost, and his narrative style, his writings have served as sources and inspiration for a variety of later writers, from Byzantine historians to Shakespeare to modern scholars.
The International Plutarch Society invites abstracts for papers that explore all aspects of Plutarch’s engagement with the history, politics, and culture of Late Republican Rome. Topics that might be addressed include, but are by no means limited to, Plutarch’s conception of Roman politics, his role in the historiographical tradition, his influence outside the historical and biographical genres, and the impact of his own historical context on his representation of the Roman past.
Abstracts should be sent electronically, in MS Word format or PDF, to Jeffrey Beneker (jbeneker@wisc.edu). In preparing the abstract, please follow the formatting guidelines for individual abstracts that appear on the Society for Classical Studies web site, and plan for a paper that takes no more than 20 minutes to deliver. Abstracts will be judged anonymously. Membership in the International Plutarch Society is not required for participation in this panel, but all presenters must be members of the SCS. The deadline is March 1, 2015.