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Funny and action-packed? Well, yes. I wouldn't have guessed it before picking it up, but Plutarch is a page-turner. In this updated collection of Ian Scott-Kilvert's original translation of Spartan Lives for Penguin, Richard Talbert adds the Life of Agesilaus as well as revisions to the original translation. The result is a highly readable, not like the free translations you can find online that are often archaic and difficult to follow. (At least for this modern brain!) On Sparta includes the lives of Lycurgus, Sparta's lawgiver, Agesilaus, Agis and Cleomenes, as well as Spartan sayings and Xeonophon's "Spartan Society." The Lives themselves read like something out of George Martin's Song of Ice and Fire: political intrigue, assassinations, coups d'etat, manufactured wars, betrayals. But behind all the grittiness, Plutarch shows some examples of true honour. His approval of Spartan society is clear, and I have to admit, there's a lot to like (there's a lot not to like, as well, of course). Many of Lycurgus' laws strike me as many degrees more sane than our own, and it seems clear to me that whoever he was, he had a plan and knew what he was doing. This chapter alone provides much food for thought. The further Lives show the progressive downfall of Sparta, and this is where things get gritty.

The Sayings sections are a real treat as well. The Spartans were raised to express themselves in few words, so pithy witticisms abound. Some of them are laugh-out-loud funny. Take the Spartan men's tendency to wear their hair long, bearing in mind Lycurgus' statement that "it renders handsome men better looking, and ugly ones more frightening." And there's not a little manly bravado mixed in, like Leonidas' remark at the battle of Thermopylae, when the sky was invisible due to the number of Persians' arrows: "How pleasant then, if we're going to fight them in the shade."

On Sparta (****) is a classic worth reading. Don't let your bad high-school experiences with the old dead dudes turn you off. Plutarch is pretty awesome.