Plutarch (c. 46 - c. 120) was a Greek philosopher, biographer and essayist who lived under Roman rule and served for many years as a priest at Delphi. He is best known for the Parallel Lives, a series of paired biographies of eminent Greeks and Romans, and for the Moralia, a wide-ranging collection of essays and dialogues on ethics, religion and everyday conduct. [1] His writings became one of the main channels through which the ancient world reached the Renaissance and modern Europe. [2]
Life and background
Plutarch was born about 46 CE in Chaeronea, a small town in Boeotia in central Greece, into a well-established local family. Greece at the time was a province of the Roman Empire, and Plutarch's career reflects the position of an educated Greek who held Roman citizenship while remaining rooted in his own civic and cultural tradition. [1]
He studied at Athens, where his philosophical training was Platonist, and travelled to Egypt and to Rome, lecturing and forming friendships among the Roman governing class. Despite these connections he chose to spend most of his life in Chaeronea, holding municipal offices there and maintaining a circle of students and correspondents. He died in his native town around 120 CE. [2]
Delphi and philosophy
For roughly the last three decades of his life Plutarch served as a priest of Apollo at Delphi, taking part in the administration of the oracle and its sanctuary at a time when the shrine was being restored to prominence. Several of his essays address the theology and practice of Delphic religion directly. [3]
Philosophically he belonged to the Platonist tradition, interpreting Plato's dialogues while arguing against Stoic and Epicurean positions. His approach was practical and moralising rather than systematic: he treated philosophy as a guide to character and conduct, accessible to readers who were not specialists. [3]
Parallel Lives
The Parallel Lives arranges biographies of Greek and Roman figures in matched pairs, each pair usually followed by a short comparison. Subjects include Alexander the Great set beside Julius Caesar, and Demosthenes beside Cicero. Plutarch stated that his aim was not to write history but to reveal character, and he often preferred a revealing anecdote to a full account of a campaign. [1]
Moralia
The Moralia gathers some seventy-eight surviving essays and dialogues on subjects ranging from the education of children and the control of anger to questions about oracles, superstition, the nature of the soul and the behaviour of animals. Taken together they form one of the richest surviving records of the intellectual and social life of the early Roman Empire. [2]
Legacy
Plutarch's influence has been exceptionally durable. Sir Thomas North's English translation of the Lives, made from a French version in 1579, supplied Shakespeare with the material for Julius Caesar, Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra. Later readers including Montaigne, Rousseau and figures of the American and French revolutions drew on him for models of civic virtue. [4] Much of what is known about many ancient statesmen and generals survives only because Plutarch recorded it. [1]
