Ebook Plutarch's Life of Lucius Cornelius Sulla

There is not any more marvellous character in history; certainly none more prominent among the warriors and statesmen of the Roman Republic, than Lucius Cornelius Sulla, nor is there any among Plutarch's lives of Roman worthies that surpasses in importance and interest that of the great Dictator, based, as it undoubtedly is, upon the autobiographical memoirs, which occupied him in his retirement near Puteoli until a few days before his death. Yet, notwithstanding the interest attaching to the subject, it has shared the general neglect in which Plutarch's Biographies have fallen among scholars, nor has an editor been found to bestow any care upon this historical portrait of the foremost figure in a most eventful epoch - the deliverer of Rome and the accomplisher of Italian unity - since the year 1795, when E. H. G. Leopold published the first and only adequately annotated, though uncritical, edition of the Life of Sulla, combining with it those of Marius, Lucullus and Sertorius.

The educational value of the writings of Plutarch has been hitherto, I believe, unduly disregarded.