Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos: Biographical Sources

Reading political history through individual lives

Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos wrote biographies: accounts centred on particular people. Their lives of Aristides, Themistocles and Miltiades help us investigate how Athens treated influential politicians as it developed its democracy. The central tension is that citizens needed capable leaders but could also fear that an exceptionally powerful man might become a tyrant.

These authors wrote in the Roman era, long after the events of the depth study, 546–483 BC. They were not eyewitnesses. Their interest in character also shaped their selection of material: a short story about honesty, ambition or envy could matter more to them than a detailed explanation of an institution. This makes their accounts valuable, but it requires us to distinguish the actions they describe from their judgements about why people acted.

Some prescribed passages look beyond 483 BC to the Persian invasion and Athens’ later reputation. Those later references show how the biographers assessed the consequences of earlier decisions; they should not be confused with events inside the study’s main period.

Plutarch’s contrasting portraits of Aristides and Themistocles

In Life of Aristides 2.1–2.2, Plutarch describes Aristides as a close friend of Cleisthenes, who reorganised Athens after the expulsion of the tyrants. Aristides admired the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus and favoured aristocratic government. Themistocles appears as his opponent and a champion of the people. Their rivalry therefore involved political outlook as well as personality.

Plutarch reports that they disagreed even as boys. He contrasts Themistocles’ daring, impulsive cleverness with Aristides’ firm commitment to justice and refusal to deceive, even in games. In Life of Themistocles 3.1–3.2, the contrast is similar: Themistocles seeks fame and an important position, while Aristides is gentle and conservative, concerned with safety and justice rather than popularity. Themistocles encourages innovations; Aristides tries to restrain his growing influence.

Plutarch also reports Ariston’s story that their rivalry began because both loved Stesilaüs of Ceos. He then argues that differences in their personalities increased their disagreement. The love rivalry is a reported explanation, not an established cause. Its inclusion shows his interest in connecting private relationships with public conduct.

These contrasts encourage readers to see two kinds of leadership: ambitious innovation and cautious integrity. However, character labels do not prove that every proposal by Themistocles was reckless or that every objection by Aristides was justified.

Friendship, rivalry and the public interest

In Life of Aristides 2.4–2.5, Plutarch contrasts the men’s use of political friendships. Themistocles builds a network of supporters and reportedly says that he would not want to sit in judgement if his friends received no advantage over strangers. Aristides avoids such alliances because he does not want either to assist wrongdoing or to upset friends by refusing favours. Plutarch presents independent, just conduct as a safer foundation for political authority than obligations to supporters.

Yet chapter 3 complicates the portrait of Aristides. He sometimes opposes Themistocles even when a proposal would benefit Athens, because he fears his rival becoming too powerful. After defeating a necessary measure, he declares that Athens would only be safe if both men were thrown into the death-pit. The dramatic remark acknowledges how their rivalry could damage the city.

Other incidents show Aristides correcting this problem. He withdraws his own proposal when opposing speeches reveal its disadvantages. He also sometimes presents measures through other men, so that Themistocles will not reject them simply because they are his. These examples make public service concrete: it can mean admitting error or surrendering personal credit.

Plutarch praises Aristides’ steadiness in success and adversity and his willingness to serve without financial reward or fame. When verses about a man who wishes to be just rather than merely appear just are performed in the theatre, the audience reportedly looks towards Aristides. The incident expresses his reputation, while also fitting Plutarch’s admiring portrait.

Justice in court and control of public money

In Life of Aristides 4.1–4.5, Plutarch illustrates justice through particular decisions. When judges want to condemn an enemy whom Aristides is prosecuting without hearing the defence, Aristides insists on the normal legal procedure. As an arbitrator, he refuses to let an injury done to himself determine another person’s dispute. Justice here means applying the same standards despite personal hostility.

As an official overseeing public revenue, Aristides exposes theft by officials, including earlier office-holders and particularly Themistocles. Plutarch reports Idomeneus’ account that Themistocles then organises a prosecution which secures Aristides’ conviction for theft. Leading citizens intervene, his fine is lifted and he is reappointed.

Aristides subsequently pretends to relax his supervision. Officials who can now steal freely praise him and seek his re-election. Before the vote, he exposes the contradiction: honest administration brought persecution, whereas allowing theft brought popularity. He rebukes the Athenians for valuing the satisfaction of corrupt men above the protection of public funds.

This story supports Plutarch’s image of Aristides as incorruptible, but it also criticises how public approval can be manipulated. Its carefully arranged reversal—from honest official condemned to apparently permissive official praised—makes it especially effective as a moral lesson. That effectiveness is not, by itself, proof of every detail.

Aristides’ leadership at Marathon

In Life of Aristides 5.1–5.2, Plutarch places Aristides second to Miltiades in reputation and influence among the ten Athenian generals facing the Persian force at Marathon. Aristides supports Miltiades’ judgement that they should fight, helping to secure agreement.

When his own day of supreme command arrives, Aristides hands it to Miltiades. The other generals follow his example. Plutarch interprets this as a lesson that following a wiser commander is honourable, not humiliating. It provides a practical contrast with destructive political rivalry: putting collective success before personal authority strengthens leadership.

Themistocles’ naval policy: persuasion and public resources

In Life of Themistocles 4, Plutarch describes a choice about income from the silver mines at Laurium. The Athenians usually shared this money among themselves. Themistocles proposes using it instead to build triremes for the war against Aegina.

The proposal asks citizens to give up an immediate financial benefit for collective military strength. Plutarch explains why the argument could succeed: Aegina was a dangerous nearby enemy with a strong fleet. Persia seemed too distant to inspire the same fear. Themistocles exploits hostility towards Aegina to secure 100 triremes, which are later used at Salamis against Xerxes.

Plutarch describes a wider change towards naval power. Themistocles argues that ships could allow Athens both to resist Persia and to lead Greece. Critics accuse him of turning citizens from spear-and-shield soldiers into rowers. This reveals competing assessments of the policy: military opportunity for some, an unwelcome transformation of civic life for others. Plutarch also reports Stesimbrotus’ claim that Miltiades publicly opposed the change; this is an attributed claim rather than an independently established detail.

Plutarch leaves the question of whether naval expansion damaged political life to philosophical judgement, but strongly endorses its military importance. He points to Xerxes’ withdrawal after the defeat of his fleet, despite his surviving land forces, as evidence that Greek safety depended on sea power. His account thus evaluates the earlier policy through its later consequences.

Nepos’ Themistocles 2 also connects mine income with naval expansion, but frames the problem differently. He claims that corrupt officials had been wasting the revenue and that Themistocles persuaded the people to build 100 ships. He credits the fleet with defeating an enemy, pursuing pirates, making the sea safer, bringing wealth and developing Athenian skill in naval warfare. Its wider importance became clear in the Persian War.

There is a specific error when evaluating Nepos: he calls the conflict the Corcyraean War, whereas it should be the Aeginan War. This weakens confidence in that detail without making his entire discussion useless. Both biographers associate Themistocles with converting public revenue into naval strength, but they offer different explanations of how the revenue had previously been used.

Themistocles’ reputation and lawful conduct

In Life of Themistocles 5.4, Plutarch describes Themistocles winning a dramatic competition as choregos, the citizen responsible for supporting the chorus. He commemorates the victory with an inscription naming himself, the poet Phrynichus and the archon Adeimantus. This gives a concrete example of public achievement and the display of reputation.

The same passage explains his popularity through his ability to remember citizens’ names and his fair handling of private disputes. When the poet Simonides requests improper favouritism while Themistocles is a magistrate, Themistocles refuses: just as a poet must keep to the proper metre, a magistrate must keep to the law.

This matters because it prevents an overly simple contrast between an honest Aristides and an entirely unscrupulous Themistocles. Elsewhere Plutarch depicts Themistocles favouring political friends; here he presents him defending lawful impartiality. The biography contains tensions which a balanced assessment should preserve.

Aristides’ ostracism: procedure and character

In Life of Aristides 7, Plutarch says that Themistocles spread the claim that Aristides was replacing public courts with his own private judgements and had effectively established a monarchy without a bodyguard. This allegation presents Aristides’ personal influence as a threat to collective government. It does not establish that he actually abolished the courts or became a monarch.

Plutarch also argues that the people, confident after victory, resented anyone whose reputation placed him above the rest. He interprets fear of tyranny as a cover for jealousy of Aristides. That is his explanation of the voters’ motives, not a demonstrated fact about every voter.

Sections 7.4–7.5 explain the procedure. A voter wrote a citizen’s name on an ostrakon and took it to an enclosed area in the agora. The archons first counted the total number of pottery ballots. In Plutarch’s account, fewer than 6,000 ballots in total made the vote invalid. They then sorted the names, and the man with the most votes was sent away for ten years, retaining the income from his property.

This was not a trial requiring proof of a crime. It allowed citizens to remove a prominent figure without imposing an irreversible punishment such as death. Plutarch interprets this temporary removal as an outlet for popular resentment.

His memorable illustration is the story of an illiterate voter asking Aristides himself to write ‘Aristides’ on a pottery ballot. The man admits that Aristides has done him no harm: he is simply tired of hearing him called ‘The Just’. Aristides silently writes the name and returns the ballot. Plutarch also describes him leaving with a prayer that Athens would suffer no crisis that forced its citizens to remember him.

The story makes Aristides appear restrained and public-spirited even when treated unfairly. It makes the voter appear resentful and unreasonable. These features explain its value to a character-focused biography, but they do not demonstrate that jealousy explains the whole result of the vote.

Comparing Nepos’ account of Aristides

In Aristides 1, Nepos presents Aristides and Themistocles as political rivals of almost the same age. He interprets Themistocles’ victory in the ostracism as an example of eloquence overcoming integrity: persuasive speaking defeated the supposedly more upright man.

Nepos tells a related story about a voter who does not know Aristides but dislikes his reputation for justice. Unlike Plutarch’s version, Aristides notices someone writing that he should be banished; he is not asked to write his own name for an illiterate voter. The accounts share a moral theme, but their narrative details differ. Agreement on the theme is not independent proof that the incident happened exactly as either author describes it.

Nepos says that Aristides was recalled by a decree of the people after Xerxes entered Greece, before serving the full ten years. His placement of the recall in almost the sixth year of exile is a claim within his account, not a secure chronological anchor. The important connection is that a community which had removed a leader could later decide that circumstances required his return.

Miltiades: from honour to prosecution

Nepos’ Miltiades 6 begins with the reward for the victory at Marathon. In the painting in the Poecile, the Painted Colonnade, Miltiades appeared first among the ten generals, encouraging his soldiers and joining battle. Nepos treats this modest distinction as especially honourable.

He contrasts it with the Athenians’ much later award of 300 statues to Demetrius of Phaleron. He also compares Athenian honours with Roman honours, which he claims had become extravagant and common. This is moralising: Miltiades’ reward becomes an example through which Nepos criticises the changing behaviour of communities, not merely a record of one man’s achievements.

In chapter 7, the Athenians entrust Miltiades with 70 ships to attack islands that had supported Persia. At Paros, negotiation fails and he lays siege to the city, cutting off supplies and approaching its walls using covered shelters and a protective tortoise formation.

Nepos explains the failure through an accidental night-time fire in a distant mainland grove. Both sides mistake the flames for a signal from the Persian king’s fleet. The Parians become unwilling to surrender, while Miltiades fears Persian intervention. He burns his siege works and returns to Athens with the same number of ships.

The Athenians accuse him of treachery, alleging that Persian bribery explains his withdrawal. This accusation differs from Nepos’ explanation of the retreat: a charge of bribery is not proof that bribery occurred. Wounds prevent Miltiades from speaking, so his brother Stesagoras defends him. Nepos says that he is convicted and fined 50 talents, equal to the cost of the fleet, rather than executed. Unable to pay, he is imprisoned and dies there.

Nepos’ explanation: fear of another tyrant

In Miltiades 8, Nepos argues that the failure at Paros was not the only reason for the condemnation. Memory of the Peisistratid tyranny made Athenians suspicious of powerful citizens. Miltiades’ previous permanent rule in the Chersonese, his influence and his military reputation made him appear dangerous.

Yet Nepos calls him a just tyrant, claiming that he gained power with the citizens’ consent and retained it through good conduct. He describes his courtesy and accessibility, and explicitly presents him as innocent. This is a sympathetic portrait: Nepos argues that the Athenians preferred to punish Miltiades rather than continue fearing him.

The passage illustrates why ‘tyrant’ should not automatically mean a cruel ruler. It also reveals Nepos’ judgement of democracy’s treatment of outstanding individuals. His admiration for Miltiades may lead him to understate legitimate concerns about an unsuccessful expedition or concentrated personal power.

Making a balanced assessment

These biographies are useful for investigating political rivalry, the use of public money, the treatment of successful leaders and later interpretations of Athenian democracy. Their strongest connection is the relationship between personal distinction and public suspicion.

Their limitations are specific rather than universal: reported anecdotes may have been shaped to illustrate character; motives such as envy are difficult to establish; Nepos makes an identifiable error about Themistocles’ war; and sympathetic or critical language steers the reader’s judgement. Plutarch’s references to named earlier writers also show that he drew on inherited accounts rather than personal observation.

A balanced assessment explains both what a passage helps us understand and which claims require comparison with other evidence. For example, Aristides’ surrender of command illustrates Plutarch’s ideal of public service, while his obstruction of useful measures exposes the harmful effects of rivalry—even within an admiring biography.