On The Origin And Characteristics Of Plutarch 's Comparative Ideas

The Romantic Plutarch was a famous biographer and moralist of the Roman Empire. As a biographer, his two works, the Parallel Lives and the Moralia are very popular in western world. Especially the Parallel Lives will be pushed to the peak of the classical history. In the work, it compares the Greeks and Romans, which contains a wealth of historical comparison concepts. According to the understanding of historical figures, the author describes the characters into the two categories of Greece and Rome, And in accordance with the character’s personality, ambition and destiny, the author divides it into different categories. It compares between a pair of Greece and Rome or both Greece and Rome. Compared with the previous historians, the comparison of Plutarch consciousness is intuitive and clear. He was the first historian who used compared method skillfully in the study of history. So we can see the author idea careful and delicate. The ideas of comparison in Parallel Lives represents outstanding achievement in comparative aspects and has a far impact. This paper will focus on studying Plutarch’s comparison concepts, characteristics and influence, using historical method and comparative history.This thesis includes three parts, which are introduction, text and conclusion.Part one is introduction. It introduces the research status of the problem of domestic and international academic and discusses the importance of this research.Part two is the text, which includes three chapters.Chapter one, It mainly analyzes the backgrounds of the formation of Plutarch’s comparison concepts in order to quest the origin of comparison concepts. From the traditional concept of classical historiography, we analyze the origin of Plutarch comparison concepts; From the glorious culture of ancient Greek and Roman, we know the cultural roots of Plutarch’s comparison concepts; From the classical tradition in history, we explore these ideas which promote generating of comparison concepts.Chapter two, It is the focus and core of this article. This chapter is mainly based on Plutarch’s Lives, It analyzes the concept of comparative content and features. First, From the Plutarch’s comparison concepts, content and purpose, we explore the connotation of the Plutarch’s comparison concepts. Second, By comparing the comparison mode, comparison thinking and moral, It can reveal the characteristics of Plutarch’s comparison concepts. Third, By using the historical comparison method, we compare the Suetonius’s the Twelve caesars and Plutarch’s Lives, and based on it we analyze the difference between them. By comparison, we have a clear idea of Plutarch’s comparison concepts.Chapter three, We mainly discuss the impact of concept of comparison, By analyzing the causes of Plutarch’s comparison concepts and its characteristics, It implies us to erect the comparison concepts and often use the methods of comparison. It provides us a new perspective and enrich the connotation of historical research.Part three is the conclusion. It is mainly the summary of the text and summarized the content and the significant of the research. On the basis of the this,we get two implications. First of all, as a historian he should study the history in the perspective of multi-disciplinary, such as the cross and the fusion of history, philosophy and ethics, etc. Second, we should set up the comparison concept, According to the comparability principle of history, we compare the comparable of both sides to deepen the understanding of the thing and enrich research of the history.