Plutarch's short closing synkrisis weighs the Achaean general Philopoemen against the Roman liberator Titus Flamininus, awarding one the crown of generalship and the other the crown of justice and kindness.
This brief chapter is the formal comparison (synkrisis) that Plutarch appends after the paired Lives of Philopoemen and Titus Flamininus, following the standard structure of the Parallel Lives in which a Greek and a Roman statesman are set side by side and then explicitly judged against one another. Rather than retelling either man's career, Plutarch works through a series of paired categories — benefactions to the Greeks, the sources of their faults, their treatment of those they had helped, their conduct in war, and their behavior as private citizens versus commanders — scoring each man in turn.
The comparison unfolds point by point and does not flatter either figure uncritically. Plutarch credits Flamininus with liberating Greek cities from Philip of Macedon and with restrained, calculated leadership, noting that he preserved Philip's royal dignity and dealt reasonably with the Aetolians. But he faults Philopoemen for letting anger drive him to strip tribute-paying towns from his homeland's neighbors and to tear down the walls and constitution of Sparta after once having helped it. At the same time, Plutarch stresses that Philopoemen fought under far harder conditions, with Greece already in decline, and that he personally transformed Achaean military tactics and fought with his own hands, while Flamininus inherited Rome's established power and, according to the Aetolian critic Archedemus quoted in the text, stood praying with hands raised while Philopoemen charged into battle himself.
Historically, this chapter matters less for new information about either man than as a specimen of Plutarch's comparative method itself: the deliberate, symmetrical weighing of a Greek and a Roman exemplar that defines the entire Parallel Lives project and reveals what Plutarch, writing under Roman rule in the late first and early second century CE, considered the true measures of virtue in a statesman — skill in war and generalship on one side, justice and kindness on the other.
“In the magnitude of their benefactions to the Greeks, it is not fair to compare Philopoemen with Titus, nor indeed very many men better than Philopoemen.”
— Comparison Of Philopoemen With Flamininus
“Their faults, moreover, arose from different sources: the one from love of honor, the other from love of contention; and toward anger the one was quick to move, the other hard to appease.”
— Comparison Of Philopoemen With Flamininus
“In deeds by his own hand, then, Philopoemen accomplished many great things, the other none at all; indeed one of the Aetolians, Archedemus, mocked him, saying that while he himself, sword drawn, ran at a charge against the combatants and the massed Macedonians, Titus stood still with his hands raised palm-upward to the sky, praying.”
— Comparison Of Philopoemen With Flamininus
“Noble, then, were Titus's dealings with the Greeks, gentle and humane; but nobler still were Philopoemen's dealings with the Romans, firm and devoted to liberty; for it is easier to grant favors to those in need than to give pain by resisting the more powerful.”
— Comparison Of Philopoemen With Flamininus
“consider whether, awarding to the Greek the crown of skill in war and generalship, and to the Roman that of justice and kindness, we shall not seem to judge amiss.”
— Comparison Of Philopoemen With Flamininus
It is the short synkrisis, or formal comparison, that Plutarch attaches to the end of his paired Lives of Philopoemen and Titus Flamininus. Rather than adding new biographical narrative, it works through a series of categories — benefactions, faults, conduct in war, treatment of allies — and judges each man against the other.
Plutarch refuses a single winner. He closes by awarding Philopoemen "the crown of skill in war and generalship" and Flamininus "the crown of justice and kindness," splitting the honors between the Greek general and the Roman statesman.
He traces Philopoemen's failings to anger and love of honor, citing his destruction of Sparta's walls and constitution after once benefiting the city, and his quickness to strip tribute towns from neighbors out of temper. Flamininus's fault is love of contention, though Plutarch credits him with preserving Philip of Macedon's royal dignity and dealing reasonably with the Aetolians.
Because Philopoemen was fighting fellow Greeks in Greek wars, while Flamininus, though not Greek, fought on the Greeks' behalf against Philip and set free both nations and cities — a difference in kind that Plutarch says makes benefaction comparisons unequal from the start.
Plutarch quotes the Aetolian Archedemus mocking Flamininus by contrasting him with Philopoemen: while Philopoemen drew his sword and charged the massed Macedonians himself, Flamininus stood with hands raised in prayer. Plutarch uses it to argue Philopoemen accomplished great things "by his own hand," unlike Flamininus.
Plutarch notes that Flamininus used Rome's power while it was at its peak and commanded soldiers who were already good, whereas Philopoemen rose when Greece was already in decline and had to make his own men good through his command — a circumstance Plutarch treats as evidence of Philopoemen's greater personal achievement.
Plutarch says that as a private citizen, without holding command, Philopoemen drove Nabis out of Messene and freed the Messenians, and later shut both the general Diophanes and Titus Flamininus himself out of Sparta to save the Lacedaemonians — evidence, for Plutarch, that Philopoemen was as capable without office as with it.
No. It presupposes the two full Lives that precede it and functions purely as an evaluative summary, the standard closing device Plutarch uses across most of his paired Parallel Lives.
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