Plutarch’s Life of Crassus and the Roman Lives

Abstract

Plutarch's Crassus appears to be a very weak Life, especially when considered alongside the other Lives of the Late Republic.  This paper examines the relationship between Crassus and the other five Lives with which C. B. R. Pelling argues it was very probably composed -- Caesar, Pompey, Cato Minor, Brutus, and Antony.  Crassus appears to have been an afterthought by Plutarch, but it does contribute in a significant way to the scope of the later Roman Lives.