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Plutarch

Greek historian, biographer, essayist and priest (c. 46 – c. 120 AD), born in Chaeronea, Boeotia, a Roman citizen who lived during the golden age of the Empire under emperors such as Trajan and Hadrian, and simultaneously priest of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi for the last three decades of his life, a religious post he held with earnest, not merely honorific, devotion. His most famous work, the Parallel Lives, pairs biographies of eminent Greek and Roman figures — Alexander with Caesar, Demosthenes with Cicero, Theseus with Romulus — not primarily to write precise history but, as Plutarch himself explicitly declares, to exemplify moral character: 'I am not writing histories but lives,' he asserts, and 'a minor trait, a phrase or a jest, often reveals character more than battles with thousands of dead'. This obsession with ethical character and with human and psychological detail, rather than with rigorous political or military analysis, has made the Lives a historical source to be used with critical caution but also one of the most influential works ever written on the formation of character and civic virtue, read devotedly for centuries by statesmen, generals and revolutionaries — from Montaigne to Napoleon, from the American Founding Fathers to Beethoven. His other major work, the Moralia, is a vast collection of essays on ethics, religion, natural science, politics and literature, of a more personal and digressive tone, including such influential texts as On the Education of Children and On the Control of Anger. He also wrote Platonically inspired philosophical dialogues on superstition, friendship and happiness, and, unlike other ancient historians, his amiable, moralising prose has secured him a central place in the formation of early modern European humanism.

What are Plutarch's main ideas?What is Plutarch's most important work?How would you summarize Plutarch's thought?

13 works

Themes addressed

The self and self-knowledgeReason and passion

Quotes

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