Plutarch’s Lives tells the stories of Roman statesmen paired with those of Greeks with whom Plutarch saw illustrative parallels. One of the best-known chapters is on Cicero.
Plutarch judges Cicero harshly. He portrays the Roman as a skilled orator whose poor grasp of political reality and aversion to necessary action rendered him ineffective as a statesman. It’s not clear Plutarch was fair to Cicero. But his critique is more apt for a modern-day American Senator: Ben Sasse.
Sasse has again gained national attention by aligning his voice with a broader media narrative, this time taking to the Atlantic to broadside fellow Republicans and evangelical Christians for a supposed failure to sufficiently denounce QAnon. Castigations of this sort have become perennial fodder for Sasse, typically accompanied by high-minded admonitions to return to conservative and Constitutional principles.
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