Plutarch

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Mestrius Plutarchus (Greek Μεστρίος Πλούταρχος), usually known in English as Plutarch, was a Greek historian, biographer and essayist, born in Chaironeia, Boeotia in the mid-1st century AD. He is known for his Moralia, a collection of essays on ethical and cultural subjects, and his Parallel Lives, biographies of forty-six prominent Greeks and Romans arranged in pairs, usually followed by a short comparison. The Lives were intended as moral lessons rather than as history,^[1] but are nonetheless valuable as historical accounts. Of the Moralia, the 113 Quaestiones Romanae (Roman questions) are particularly valuable as a record of Roman religious practices, marriage and other customs.

Most of what is known of Plutarch comes from his own work. He was a young man in the time of Nero.^[2] His father's name is not known, but his grandfather was called Lamprias,^[3] and his great grandfather Nicarchus.^[4] He spent some time in Italy, including in Rome where he taught philosophy, but did not master Latin until late in life, when he began to study it seriously.^[5] He tells us in the Moralia that he was a priest at Delphi, a fact confirmed by an inscription on the base of a statue of Hadrian there. The inscription also provides his Roman nomen, Mestrius, indicating he was a Roman citizen, probably enfranchised by the consul Lucius Mestrius Florus.^[6] According to the Suda he was himself raised to the consulship by Trajan (emperor 98-117),^[7] and had a son called Lamprias who wrote a catalogue of his works.^[8] The date of his death is not known.

External links[edit]

• Chaironeia: Plutarch's Home on the Web
• The Parallel Lives and selections from the Moralia at Lacus Curtius

References[edit]