“… when Caesar’s men were in headlong flight, he met them, turned them back, forced them to stand and engage again their pursuers, and won the victory. These were not just gestures, Mark Antony being also an immensely able commander that frequently went into battle:

A true soldier, he was beloved by his men, eating, drinking, and joking easily with the troops. A hero on the battlefield, Caesar granted him command of his left wing at the Battle at Pharsalus in 48 BCE, where Pompey was defeated. Yet, unlike them, Antony failed to understand the importance of appearance. Antony was no greater a robber of men’s rights than any Caesar or Octavian. The accusation that Antony was arrogant, reckless, and lazy with men’s legal rights, mattered, especially among Roman citizens, who had known only the protection of the Republic. Complaints of a lax, and high-handed administration followed, and the foundations of “Mark Antony the villain”, started to be laid.Ī recurrent theme throughout his career, the notion that Antony cared nothing for Republican sensibilities, made for easy propaganda for his enemies. Well-liked by the soldiers, one of Antony’s earliest failures would manifest in his role as civil governor of Italy. While Caesar pursued a war in Spain, Antony administered Italy, his colleague Marcus Aemilius Lepidus acting as governor of Rome. The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Lives is in eleven volumes.Caesar’s Man Bust of Julius Caesar, 1400-1600 CE, via the Thorvaldsen MuseumĪs Caesar seized Italy and scattered Republican forces under Pompey, Mark Antony played a key role. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion. Plutarch’s many other varied extant works, about 60 in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers and orators. Most popular have always been the 46 Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons.

45–120 CE, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian.

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Plutarch life of antony