A Plutarch collection of short, pointed sayings by kings and generals from Cyrus to Augustus, arranged one figure after another as a portable gallery of character.
Regum et Imperatorum Apophthegmata ("Sayings of Kings and Commanders") is one of the shorter works gathered in Plutarch's Moralia, dedicated to the emperor Trajan. Rather than narrating full lives, as Plutarch does in his Parallel Lives, it strings together brief anecdotes and one-liners attributed to rulers and generals, arranged roughly by figure and loosely by chronology: Persian kings such as Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes; Spartan kings and Sicilian tyrants like Dionysius and Agathocles; Athenian statesmen and generals including Phocion, Iphicrates, and Timotheus; Macedonian and Hellenistic kings; and finally Roman figures running through Julius Caesar and Augustus.
Plutarch explains his method in the preface: sayings reveal a person's character and guiding purpose more directly than actions do, and unlike full biographical narratives they can be read quickly by a busy reader. Each entry is a self-contained vignette, usually a remark made under pressure, in defeat, at a feast, or in response to an insult, followed by the pointed reply that made it worth remembering. Cyrus on why the strong should rule, Xerxes' scheme to soften the Spartans by luxury, Phocion's icy composure before his own execution, Julius Caesar's exchange with Cato, and Augustus's dry remark to Piso about building a house that assumes Rome will last forever are typical of the range: political theory, wit, and gallows humor sit side by side.
The work matters both as a source and as a genre document. Many of its anecdotes are the earliest or best surviving versions of stories repeated by later historians and moralists, and the collection shows how ancient readers thought character could be captured in miniature -- a single retort standing in for a whole reign. It is less a history than a curated anthology of exemplary and cautionary behavior, meant to instruct through recognition rather than argument.
“it belongs to no one to rule who is not better than those he rules”
— Regum Et Imperatorum Apophthegmata · read this chapter →
“the sayings themselves, gathered by themselves, like samples and seeds of their lives”
— Regum Et Imperatorum Apophthegmata · read this chapter →
“Phocion the Athenian was seen by no one either laughing or weeping”
— Regum Et Imperatorum Apophthegmata · read this chapter →
“Cato, I begrudge you your death, for you too begrudged me the saving of your life”
— Regum Et Imperatorum Apophthegmata · read this chapter →
“You make me cheerful, building like this, as though Rome were going to last forever”
— Regum Et Imperatorum Apophthegmata · read this chapter →
It is a Plutarch collection, addressed to the emperor Trajan, of short sayings attributed to kings, tyrants, and generals from the Persian empire through Republican and early Imperial Rome. Instead of full biographies, it gives one vignette per figure -- a sharp remark made in a moment of pressure, wit, or defiance -- meant to show character quickly rather than narrate a life.
The Lives are extended biographical narratives comparing paired Greek and Roman figures; this work is a compressed anthology of one-liners and brief anecdotes, explicitly offered by Plutarch as a faster way to glimpse the same men's characters. Several figures who get full Lives elsewhere, such as Caesar, Phocion, and Dionysius, appear here only through a handful of sayings.
The collection moves roughly chronologically: Persian kings (Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, the Artaxerxes kings), Scythian and Thracian rulers, Sicilian tyrants (Dionysius, Agathocles), Athenian statesmen and generals (Phocion, Iphicrates, Timotheus, Chabrias), Macedonian and Hellenistic kings, and finally Roman leaders ending with Julius Caesar and Augustus.
In the preface he says a person's words reveal their mind and guiding purpose more clearly than their actions do, and that a reader without leisure for full biographical narratives can still get "samples and seeds" of these men's lives from their sayings alone.
Both. Although it opens with Persian and Greek material, it runs through to Rome, closing with an extended sequence of anecdotes about Julius Caesar and then Augustus, including Augustus's exchanges with Maecenas, Athenodorus, and Piso.
Moralia: Ad Principem Ineruditum · Moralia: Adversus Colotem · Moralia: Amatoriae Narrationes · Moralia: Amatorius · Moralia: An Recte Dictum Sit Latenter Esse Vivendum · Moralia: An Seni Respublica Gerenda Sit · Moralia: An Virtus Doceri Possit · Moralia: An Vitiositas Ad Infelicitatem Sufficia · Moralia: Animine An Corporis Affectiones Sint Piores · Moralia: Apophthegmata Laconica · Moralia: Aquane An Ignis Sit Utilior · Moralia: Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti