Plutarch closes his paired biography of Pompey the Great and the Spartan king Agesilaus II with a direct, point-by-point verdict on which man rose more justly, fought more wisely, and failed more forgivably.
This short synkrisis (formal comparison) is the capstone Plutarch attaches to the paired Lives of Pompey and Agesilaus, following the pattern used throughout Parallel Lives of setting a Greek and a Roman statesman side by side and then judging them against each other explicitly. Rather than narrate new events, it runs through a series of matched contrasts: how each man came to power, how each treated his patrons and allies, how family ties corrupted each man's justice, and how each behaved in the supreme crises of his career - Agesilaus at Sparta after the disaster of Leuctra, Pompey at Pharsalus against Caesar.
The comparison unfolds as a sequence of measured antitheses. Pompey rose by "the most just of means" alongside Sulla, while Agesilaus took his kingship by discrediting his nephew Leotychidas and evading a lameness oracle. Pompey honored Sulla in life and death; Agesilaus cast out his own patron Lysander. Plutarch credits Agesilaus with the finer political stroke - ordering the Spartan laws to "sleep for one day" after Leuctra so panicked survivors would not be disgraced - and faults Pompey for abandoning Rome to Caesar out of fear rather than fighting or negotiating from strength. The essay builds to its sharpest edge in the Pharsalus material: Plutarch all but indicts Pompey for letting jeers from subordinates like Favonius and Domitius goad him into battle, contrasting his conduct with Fabius Maximus, Marius, Lucullus, and Agesilaus himself, all of whom refused battle when refusal was the wiser course. It ends on the two men's parallel and pointedly unflattering trips to Egypt.
Historically, the comparison matters both as a specimen of Plutarch's method and as an argument in its own right. Parallel Lives was written not as neutral history but as moral instruction through biography, and the synkrisis is where that didactic purpose is most exposed: Plutarch openly ranks generalship, justice, and self-command, treating character as the real subject and battles as evidence. For readers of the era in which the New Testament and early Christian literature were also being written, this text is a data point for how a highly literate Greek author of the late first and early second century CE thought about virtue, fortune, and the deeds of great men - the same moral vocabulary (justice, fortune, endurance under crisis) that circulates in contemporary moral philosophy and, differently inflected, in early Christian ethical writing.
“Now that the Lives have been set out, let us run quickly over their points of difference, bringing them together side by side.”
— Comparison Of Pompey And Agesilaus
“no other political device has ever equaled it, nor do we have anything of Pompey's like it”
— Comparison Of Pompey And Agesilaus
“Now, what is the chief work of a good general — when stronger, to force the enemy to fight; when weaker in strength, not to be forced — this Agesilaus always did, and thereby kept himself ever unconquered”
— Comparison Of Pompey And Agesilaus
“his camp was what the Romans styled their fatherland, his tent what they styled their senate, while they branded as rebels and traitors those very men holding office and command back in Rome”
— Comparison Of Pompey And Agesilaus
“Into Egypt the one man sailed because he had no other option, a fugitive; the other went neither for an honorable reason nor because he had to, but for money”
— Comparison Of Pompey And Agesilaus
A synkrisis is the formal comparison Plutarch attaches to the end of most of his paired Lives, weighing the Greek and Roman subject against each other point by point. This one closes the paired biography of Pompey and Agesilaus, distilling the two full Lives into a direct moral and military verdict rather than retelling their stories.
The verdict is mixed but tilts toward Agesilaus on political judgment and Pompey on sheer scale of achievement. Plutarch credits Agesilaus with cleaner-handed generalship and the famous law-suspension after Leuctra, while acknowledging Pompey brought far greater armies and victories to bear, and reserves his sharpest criticism for how Pompey was goaded into the fatal battle of Pharsalus.
Plutarch argues Pompey was manipulated by taunts from subordinates such as Favonius and Domitius, who accused him of cowardice and comparisons to Agamemnon, into risking a decisive battle he did not need to fight. He contrasts this with generals like Fabius Maximus, Marius, and Agesilaus, who tolerated similar pressure and refused battle when it was unwise.
Plutarch is critical, saying Agesilaus obtained his kingship neither blamelessly toward the gods nor toward men, because he had his nephew Leotychidas declared a bastard and evaded a prophetic oracle warning against a lame king (Agesilaus himself was lame).
After Sparta's catastrophic defeat at Leuctra, many surviving Spartans faced disgrace or execution under law for having fled battle. Agesilaus ordered the laws to "sleep for one day," avoiding both the destruction of the law's authority and the ruin of the citizens, a solution Plutarch calls without equal and unmatched by anything Pompey ever did.
Both journeys to Egypt end badly, but for different reasons: Pompey went as a defeated fugitive with no other refuge, while Agesilaus went as a mercenary general seeking pay to fund further war against fellow Greeks. Plutarch notes the irony that Egyptians could accuse Agesilaus of the very betrayal Pompey suffered from them.
Yes. Caesar appears as the decisive counterweight to Pompey in the Pharsalus section, where Plutarch contrasts Caesar's willingness to avoid battle when weaker and force it when stronger with Pompey's failure to do the same, and notes Caesar's command of money, markets, and the sea as advantages that alone could have settled the contest without fighting.
Xenophon was the Greek historian and admirer of Agesilaus who wrote an idealized biography of him. Plutarch invokes Xenophon to concede that even Agesilaus's most partisan biographer would not claim his victories matched the scale of Pompey's campaigns, while still arguing Agesilaus surpassed Pompey in the decisive tests of a general's judgment.
Aemilius Paulus · Agesilaus · Agis · Alcibiades · Alexander · Antony · Aratus · Aristides · Artaxerxes · Caesar · Caius Gracchus · Caius Marius