Proposal

On a whim I began to read “The Lives of the Notable Grecian and Romans” Dryden Translation. The book had popped up in a couple of bios I'd read, so it seemed an interesting subject to explore in a bit of detail. At first blush it's wasn't a particularly easy tome to engage. It's long, 50 individual chronicles. The translation is a bit archaic and difficult to follow. It's not a book that you sit down and read cover to cover. But I quickly became enthralled. The people, stories, events had everything you could want in a good yarn: intrigue, war, sex, power politics, bigger than life protagonist along with fascinating insights by the author into his subject's life and times. So much so that I began to jot notes in the margins. Something I haven't done since my days at school. This blog is a valiant effort to address all 50 but it is as much an effort to organize those notes and help make them a bit more memorable.

The musings seem to organize themselves into four categorizes which I'll use as rough outline for each commentary.

1. What was the character like? What motivated him? What were his primary personality characteristics.
2. What is his story? What was the era like? How did he impact his time and place.
3. Interesting asides. Observations about people, places and events tangential to the primary story.
4. What life lessons can we deduce from the character and his story. Things and issues that resonate still today.
   

In the past classic such as this were often part of a school's basic curriculum. Not so today. Seem a bit of a shame. As the old adage goes “ those who don't heed history are doomed to repeat it”.

Since I'm about have way through the book, I'll start there and swing around at catch the first half later. First up is a Greek named Pyrrhus.

This post won't be regular since this isn't my full time job. Speaking of jobs, I'm not a historian by trade so these comments should not be taken a last word. If anyone bothers to read this, I welcome any comments, observations, suggestions and/or corrections.