CLA233H1 Lecture : Plutarch, Life of Cato
Document Summary
Overarching themes like virtue and exemplary citizens discussed in terms of individual people or cases. People and events can come to represent categories. Application of a category to a person will dictate the historical facts that are collected in relation to him/it. Tell stories of glorious past at aristocratic dinner parties. Plutarch, like livy, uses exemplary figures to create his history. Common technique, orators would say he has the virtue of a _____ (like cato) Not to be confused with cato the younger (dies 46 bc) Exemplary stories also have family names attached to them. To be born a cato meant you had to live up to that name; be the next cato. New/old combination: radical self invention as an old man, very traditional and conservative, even though he is a new man in town. Interesting theme of body politics (e. g. soft bodies, hard bodies, luxurious bodies) Politics and morality are merged for cato www. notesolution. com.
