ADULATION AND WAR IN PLUTARCH'S "LIVES"

In his treatise How to tell a flatterer from a friend Plutarch explores the nature of flattery and tries to explain this universal human behaviour on moral grounds, to help the reader to distinguish a real friend from a self-interested flatterer. In the Parallel Lives, too, flattery is well-attested, almost ubiquitous, but assumes a much more political and dangerous character, becoming sometimes a real cause of war, as this essays tries in its turn to make clear, collecting and discussing the pieces of evidence in the entire corpus of the Lives.