The Rise and Fall of Athens

Description

Nine Greek biographies illustrate the rise and fall of Athens, from Theseus through Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, and Alcibiades, to the razing of its walls by Lysander. The nine lives follow Athen’s history from the legendary times of Theseus, the city’s founder, to its defeat at the hands of Lysander, its Spartan conqueror. Included are the biographies of Themistocles, a brilliant but heavy-handed naval commander, Aristedes ‘the Just’ and Pericles, who was responsible for the buildings on the Acropolis. Plutarch’s real interest in these men is not in the greatness of their victories or achievemenets but in their moral strengths, and for him the responsibility for the eventual fall of Athens lay with the weakness and ambition of its great men.