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Plutarch

Plutarch's Lives, Vol. 1

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 100

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Background

Authorial Context: Plutarch

Plutarch was a Greek author, philosopher, and biographer. He was born in Chaeronea in central Greece in the ‘40s CE and died a little after 120. During his life, Plutarch seems to have traveled widely, spending time in Athens, Egypt, and Italy, and lecturing for some years in Rome. Plutarch was a fervent believer in the importance of ancient religion and religious rituals, serving as a priest at Delphi for 30 years. He also had a lot of influential friends in the Roman Empire, which controlled Greece during his lifetime and was even connected with the emperors Trajan and Hadrian.

Plutarch was an extremely prolific writer. One catalogue of his works lists 227 items. What survives of his works today are 78 miscellaneous titles (found in the collection known as Moralia) and some 50 biographies, or Lives. Plutarch’s works explore a range of subjects, including philosophy, history, religion, and politics. It is probably for his Lives that Plutarch is now best remembered. Plutarch’s Lives explores the ways personal character influenced historical events, with Plutarch drawing moral lessons about the universality of human nature.

Literary Context: Biography and Historiography

Plutarch’s Lives belongs to the ancient Greek literary tradition of biography and historiography. Historiography in the Greek world had its origins in the fifth century BCE, when figures such as Herodotus and Thucydides produced their pioneering historical works. For Herodotus, Thucydides, and their successors, the goal of the historian was to report events from the past as accurately as possible, drawing on eyewitness accounts and principles of reason and empirical evidence. Biography, on the other hand, was not a clearly defined genre in classical antiquity. Some early biographies or Livesbioi in Greek and vitae in Latin—were closer to legend, and indeed many ancient Lives of important literary or historical figures contain outlandish stories that most scholars regard as untrue. Other “biographies” were more expansive in scope: In the fourth century BCE, the author Dicaearchus even wrote a massive work titled Life of Greece.

Though the genre of biography was not rigidly defined, certain stylistic and thematic tendencies developed over time. By Aristotle’s time, biographers were increasingly interested in ethical and cultural questions, using the lives of famous individuals to explore the virtues and vices of an individual, community, or historical period. To do this, biographies often relied heavily on anecdotes, many of which had little historical validity but were effective at making a certain ethical or moral point. Biography was thus distinguished from historiography, for while historians employed a relatively strict methodology to uncover what really happened in the past, biographers were more interested in ethical and cultural trends than in historical facts.

Plutarch was probably the most famous ancient biographer. What sets Plutarch’s Lives apart is his deep interest in understanding human nature. Plutarch made a point of looking beyond the surface of historical events, seeking the motivations and moral dilemmas that drove his subjects. Plutarch believed that by studying the lives of great men, one could attain valuable insights into ethical conduct and leadership. His biographies therefore serve not merely as historical chronicles, but as guides for personal and political virtue. This was a revolutionary approach to biography that forever reshaped the genre.

The influence of Plutarch’s Lives extended long after Plutarch’s death. The Lives were always popular, inspiring thinkers, authors, and politicians throughout western history, including Shakespeare, Dryden, Rousseau, and Emerson.

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