es and the actions
of those whom he misjudged.

In an excellent passage in his Preface, Mr. Clough remarks that

"Much has been said of Plutarch's inaccuracy; and it cannot be denied
that he is careless about numbers, and occasionally contradicts his own
statements. A greater fault, perhaps, is his passion for anecdote; he
cannot forbear from repeating stories the improbability of which he is
the first to recognize, which, nevertheless, by mere repetition,
leave unjust impressions. He is unfair in this way to Demosthenes and
Pericles,--against the latter of whom, however, he doubtless inherited
the prejudices which Plato handed down to the philosophers.

"It is true, also, that his unhistorical treatment of the subjects
of his biography makes him often unsatisfactory and imperfect in the
portraits he draws. Much, of course, in the public lives of statesmen
can find its only explanation in their political position; and of this
Plutarch often knows and thinks little. So far as the researches of
modern historians have succeeded in really recovering a knowledge of
relations of this sort, so far, undoubtedly, these biographies stand in
need of their correction. Yet, in the uncertainty which must attend all
modern restorations, it is agreeable, and surely also profitable, to
recur to portraits drawn ere new thoughts and views had occupied the
civilized world, without reference to such disputable grounds of
judgment, simply upon the broad principles of the ancient moral code of
right and wrong. .... We have here the faithful record of the historical
tradition of Plutarch's age. This is what, in the second century of
our era, Greeks and Romans loved to believe about their warriors and
statesmen of the past. As a picture, at least, of the best Greek and
Roman moral views and moral judgments, as a presentation of the results
of Greek and Roman moral thought, delivered, not under the pressure
of calamity, but as they existed in ordinary times, and actuated
plain-living people, in country places, in their daily life, Plutarch's
writings are of indisputable value."

Of all the biographies contained in his work, none might excite greater
suspicion of incorrectness than that of Timoleon, on account of the
extraordinary character both of the man and of the incidents of his
career. His story reads like a romance of the ancient times, like a
legend of some half-mythical hero, rather than like the true account of
an actual man. There