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Document Details : Title: Plutarch and mos maiorum in the Life of Aemilius Paullus Author(s): TRÖSTER, Manuel Journal: Ancient Society Volume: 42 Date: 2012 Pages: 219-254 DOI: 10.2143/AS.42.0.2172293 Abstract : Plutarch’s Life of Aemilius stands out as an exceedingly favourable portrait of one of the leading figures of mid-Republican Rome. Above all, the biographer generously praises his subject’s qualities as a wise and traditionalist statesman in the city and as a philanthropic and philhellenic benefactor abroad. Although his policies are characterised as distinctly ‘conservative’, Aemilius admirably succeeds in winning universal popularity, thus bridging the common divide between Senate and people. Led astray by demagoguery, only his unruly troops temporarily disturb the general consensus. Throughout the narrative, Aemilius strives to educate the people around him: his sons and his peers, the Roman citizens and soldiers, foreign peoples and leaders. While many of these features can also be found in the historical tradition beyond Plutarch, the biographer adapts and reinforces them to suit his own interests and objectives. The same applies to his representation of political life in the Middle Republic, which sometimes resembles a golden age of ancestral virtue and at other times bears the foul marks of decay and indiscipline. On either reading, Aemilius is the man to uphold and enforce the political and moral standards cherished by Plutarch as well as by the Roman tradition of mos maiorum. |
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