Sign-In
Cart
Pyrrhus & Marius: A Plutarch Prep Book
Paperback
Series: Plutarch's Lives for Kids: Prep Books
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 27 2026
Pages: 74
Weight: 0.22
Height: 0.19 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Hannibal, the general who nearly destroyed Rome, once called a certain king the greatest soldier the world had ever seen, ahead of everyone, ahead even of himself. Most people today have never heard of him. He spent his whole life winning battles and ended with nothing to show for any of them.
Much of what we know about that king comes from the Greek biographer Plutarch. This book sets him beside a Roman who looked like his opposite: Gaius Marius, a farm boy with no name and no money who clawed his way up to save Rome from destruction, and then spent his last years turning that same Rome into a place of fear. Two of the most gifted soldiers of the ancient world. Both ended with almost none of what all that winning was supposed to buy. The whole book is built to let your reader work out why.
Plutarch wrote these two as a matched pair, a Greek beside a Roman, so that a reader would weigh one against the other and reach a verdict. He usually ended each pair with a short essay giving his own judgment. For Pyrrhus and Marius he wrote that essay too. It is the one piece of his writing on these two men that did not survive. There is no answer key, so the verdict your reader reaches is theirs alone.
So the book teaches your reader to do the weighing. It does not march through two lives and then crown a winner. It takes them one hard question at a time: where each man's gift came from, what that gift could never do, what their victories actually cost, and why neither could ever stop. It shows where the evidence leans hard in one direction, and it is honest about the questions that stay genuinely open, the ones a thoughtful reader could answer either way. It even weighs how well we know each man: the ugliest stretch of Marius's story reaches us through a memoir written by his bitterest enemy, while much of the ancient record of Pyrrhus is simply gone.
This is preparation for Plutarch, not name recognition. Your reader finishes this book able to hold two admirable, dangerous people side by side and argue about them with evidence, the habit Plutarch was trying to teach. And when they open the real Parallel Lives in a few years, Pyrrhus and Marius will not be new names. They will be an argument already in progress.
Have a younger reader too? The toddler book, picture book, and chapter book tell the same two lives, one reading level at a time. This is the top rung.
What this version does. It treats your reader as Plutarch's actual audience: someone old enough to weigh two lives, tell the difference between what we know and what we only think we know, and reach a verdict the lost page leaves open.
Ages 10-14 - about 8,300 words - written for a middle-grade reader - 15 original woodcut-style plates - includes the point-by-point comparison and a source note on how we know - reads solo, built as the on-ramp to Plutarch's own text.
Content note. This book is honest about ancient violence and cruelty, at a level suited to a middle-grade reader. There is war throughout, and both men die by the end. Marius's descent is the hard heart of the book: to hold power he allies with killers, an innocent man is executed on a false charge, and in his final rage he has Roman citizens hunted and murdered in the streets, one of them driven to take his own life. None of it is gratuitous, but the full moral weight is on the page.
Part of the nüNERD Learning System. Every Plutarch pair comes in four reading levels, each built for how children think at that stage, never a leveled-down rewrite. This is the level made to be read right before the real thing.
Also available for Ages 0-4, Ages 3-7, and Ages 6-10.
Also in
History
Disgustingly Delicious: The Surprising, Weird and Wonderful Food of the World
Mariño, Soledad Romero
Hardcover
Top Secret Files: World War II, Spies, Secret Missions, and Hidden Facts from World War II
Bearce, Stephanie
Paperback
Courage Under Fire: True Stories of Bravery from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines
Gunderson, Jessica
Miller, Adam
Otfinoski, Steven
Other
Revolutionary Friends: General George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette
Castrovilla, Selene
Hardcover
20th Century African American History for Kids: The Major Events That Shaped the Past and Present
Weston, Margeaux
Paperback
The Web of War (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #14): A World War II Tale Volume 14
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover
Terrifying True Tales: Haunting Histories, Creepy Cryptids, and Scary Stories from Around the World
Towler, Paige
Hardcover
Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp
Gutiérrez, Jolene
Tonai, Minoru
Hardcover
Weird But True! Usa: Expanded Edition: 350 Fascinating Facts about the Fifty States
National Geographic Kids
Paperback
Bones and Berserkers (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #13): 13 True Tales of Terror from American History
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover
Reading the Bones: Homo Naledi and the Mysteries of Human Evolution
Aronson, Marc
Mead, John S.
Hardcover
The Extraordinary History of the Fae: Fairies, Spirits, and Other Magical Beings
Atkinson, Hazel
Hardcover
This Is a Library Book: Check Out the Places and People Sharing Knowledge and Building Communities
Grant, Joyce
Hardcover
Cryptids: Uncover the Secrets Behind the World's Most Baffling Beasts and Curious Creatures
MacFarlane, Tamara
Hardcover
Treasury of Greek Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes & Monsters
Napoli, Donna Jo
National Geographic Kids
Hardcover
A World Without Summer: A Volcano Erupts, a Creature Awakens, and the Sun Goes Out
Day, Nicholas
Hardcover
The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity
Day, Nicholas
Paperback
Witches and Wizards: Explore the World of Magic, Witchcraft, and Sorcery
Neon Squid
Puca, Angela
Hardcover
Red, White, Blue and Uncle Who?: The Stories Behind Some of America's Patriotic Symbols
Bateman, Teresa
Hardcover
Greeking Out Tales from the Underworld: Ghostly Myths from Around the Globe
Hughes, Jillian
Curtis, Kenny
Hardcover
Follow the Water: The Unbelievable True Story of a Teenager's Survival in the Amazon
Cochrane, Ellen
Hardcover
America Celebrates: The Most Incredible and Influential People, Places & Events of the Last 250 Years
Andrus, Aubre
Hardcover
The Patriots and the Pox: George Washington's Battle to Save the Continental Army
Anderson, Beth
Hardcover
Beasts from Before the Dinosaurs: Extraordinary Forgotten Creatures from 250 Million Years Ago
Lerwill, Ben
Hardcover
My Bicentennial Summer: True Adventures from the Most Epic Family Road Trip of All Time
Neri, G.
Hardcover
When Paul Revere Rode: Voices from the First Night of the American Revolution
Thomson, Sarah L.
Hardcover
Historias interesantes para niños curiosos: ¡Una asombrosa colección de historias increíbles, divertidas y verdaderas de todo el mundo!
The Pooper, Cooper
Paperback
America as It Happened: A Moment-By-Moment Journey Through Time, from Prehistory to the Present Day
The Washington Post
What on Earth!
Hardcover
Baseball's Shining Season: America's Pastime on the Brink of War
Sandler, Craig
Sandler, Martin W.
Hardcover
The Big Book of Birthdays: How Birthdays Are Celebrated Around the World
Feunekes, Anna Lena
Hardcover
Above the Trenches (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #12): A World War I Flying Ace Tale
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover
Did You Hear What Happened at the Alamo?: The Texas Revolution of 1835-36 Volume 2
Kennedy, Katie
Hardcover
Glass: Looking In, Looking Out: (A Nonfiction Book about the Science, History, and Everyday Uses of Glass for Ages 7-10)
Theule, Larissa
Hardcover
Marvel's Captain America Across the Country (National Geographic Kids Readers, Level 2)
National Geographic Kids
Berne, Emma
Hardcover
Ruth Muskrat and the So-Called Indian Problem: The Fight for Native American Civil Rights
Loren, Jen
Hardcover
My Latin America and the Caribbean: A Celebration: (An Educational Nonfiction Picture Book about Cultures, Landscapes, and Biodiversity for Kids Ages
Goldin Marcovich, Gabriela
Hardcover
Big Bad Ironclad! (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #2): A Civil War Tale Volume 2
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover
Secrets of History Revealed: Incredible Stories of How We Rediscovered Our Past
Ralphs, Matt
Hardcover
Get Connected!: The Story of Communication from Hieroglyphics to Body Language
Barnham, Kay
Hardcover
Blades of Freedom (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #10): A Tale of Haiti, Napoleon, and the Louisiana Purchase
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover
A Supreme Friendship: The Unlikely Bond Between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia
Murphy, Debbie Rovin
Hardcover
What Ended the Golden Age of Airships? the Hindenburg Disaster: A Who HQ Graphic Novel
Who Hq
Kindred, Chris
Hardcover
Native American Stories for Kids: 12 Traditional Stories from Indigenous Tribes Across North America
Weso, Tom Pecore
Paperback
Raid of No Return (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #7): A World War II Tale of the Doolittle Raid
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover
Legends of Japanese Mythology: Meet the Heroes, Spirits, Monsters and Yokai of Japanese Folklore
Matsuura, Thersa
Hardcover
How the Word Is Passed (Adapted for Young Readers): Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America
Smith, Clint
Hardcover
Everything You Need to Ace World History in One Big Fat Notebook, 2nd Edition: The Complete Middle School Study Guide
Workman Publishing
Paperback
Chocolate Unwrapped: A Taste of the Science, History and Magic of Chocolate
Christensen, Alexandria
Hardcover
Weird But True! Dinosaurs: 300 Dino-Mite Facts to Sink Your Teeth Into
National Geographic Kids
Paperback
Fight for the Right to Read: Samuel Wilbert Tucker and the 1939 Sit-Down Strike for Library Reading Equality
Gottesfeld, Jeff
Green, Michelle Y.
Hardcover
Donner Dinner Party (Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales #3): A Pioneer Tale Volume 3
Hale, Nathan
Hardcover