The Greek and Roman Parallel Stories (sometimes called the Parallela Minora) are a puzzle. The use of some strange and barbarous forms, the substitution of the aforesaid ¹ for the usual pronoun of reference (though this is, to be sure, a prominent characteristic of the work of Polybius), and above all the atrocious style in which the work is written make it impossible that this could reasonably be regarded as the work of Plutarch, ² though some scholars, fortunately unknown to Hartman, have actually regarded this work as one of the sins of Plutarch’s otherwise stainless youth.

Yet a work of this name is included in Lamprias’s list, No. 128 under the title Διηγήσεις Παράλληλοι Ἑλληνικαὶ καὶ Ῥωμαϊκαὶ and several of these tales are quoted in full ³ in almost the exact words of our ms. text by Joannes Stobaeus. But the excessive ineptitude of the language quite excludes the possibility that the work before us can be Plutarch’s, if indeed he ever wrote a book of this sort.

S. Luria,in Rheinisches Museum, lxxviii. (1929) p. 94, has suggested that the Parallela and the De Fluviis ⁴ are parodies after the manner of Lucian’s True History; and both Hercher and Hartman have expressed the opinion that both works are by the same anonymous author, chiefly because it is difficult to imagine thato such fools as the author of each discloses himself to be could ever have lived ! The confusion that the author (ingeniously?) introduces, the forced simplicity of his glaring misnomers, his many references to authorities that Hercher ⁵ has attempted to show never existed, ⁶ all have been thought to suggest that the Parallela is a parody of the comparisons in the Lives; but J. Schlereth, in his excellent dissertation De Plutarchi quae feruntur Parallela Minora (Freiburg, 1931), has with great learning and acumen attempted to disprove this thesis. ⁷ His work may be consulted by anyone who may be curious about the sources, the language, or the purpose of the Parallela Minora.

Wilhelm Schmid ( Philologische Wochenschrift 1932, coll. 625-634) has reviewed Schlereth’s work with great care. Both Schmid and Nachstädt hold that the citations from otherwise unknown authors are genuine, not falsifications of the compiler. Nachstädt, accordingly in the Teubner edition of 1934, gives all the references, and also adds, for convenient comparison, the most important passages from Stobaeus, Lydus, and a gnomologicum Parisinum, published by Sternbach in 1893, which seem to have the same original as the text of the present work.

[0] The greater part of mankind think that tales of ancient events are inventions and myths because of the incredible elements which they contain. But since I have discovered that similar events have happened in this modern era, I have singled out crises of Roman history; and, to parallel each ancient happening, I have subjoined a more modern instance. I have also recorded my authorities.

Most people are apt to take the histories of former times for mere forgeries and fables, because of many passages in those relations that seem to be very extravagant. But yet, according to my observation, we have had as strange occurrences of a later date in the Roman times as any we have received from antiquity; for proof whereof, I have here matched several stories of the ancients with modern instances, and cited my authorities.