Tyrannizing the Tyrant: Philarchia and Plutarch's Ad principem ineruditum 779D–F

Abstract: This article examines Plutarch's concept of love of power ( philarchia ) as a vice and its implications for his political and ethical thinking. First, the analysis of its occurrences in the Lives and Moralia demonstrates that Plutarch systematically presents philarchia as a negative form of love of honor ( philotimia ), undermining the stability of kingdoms and empires. Next, the article situates philarchia as a vice within the framework of Plutarch's Seelenheilung treatises: a close reading of Ad principem ineruditum 779D–F reveals that Plutarch conceptualizes philarchia as a moral disease, subject to the same therapeutic strategies that he applies to other vices.