In 17th-century intellectual life, the ideas of the Renaissance humanist Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) were omnipresent. The publication of his Politica in 1589 had made Lipsius’s name as an original and controversial political thinker. The sequel, the Monita et exempla politica (Admonitions), published in 1605, was meant as an illustration of Lipsius’s political thought as expounded in the Politica. Its aim was to offer concrete models of behavior for rulers against the background of Habs...

Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-120 CE) is the most prolific and influential moral philosopher in the Platonic tradition. This book is a fundamental reappraisal of Plutarch’s ethical thought. It shows how Plutarch based his ethics on his particular interpretation of Plato’s cosmology: our quest for the good life should start by considering the good cosmos in which we live. The practical consequences of this cosmological foundation permeate various domains of Greco-Roman life: the musician, t...