Poetry Codex

Ancient Greek & Roman

Plutarch

c. AD 46 – after 119

Plutarch (Mestrius Plutarchus) was born around AD 46 at Chaeronea in Boeotia, into a prosperous Greek family. He studied philosophy at Athens, travelled to Alexandria and Rome, and lectured and made influential friends in Italy, among them men of consular rank.

He spent most of his life in Chaeronea, where he held local office, and for many years served as a priest of Apollo at Delphi. Around fifty of his Parallel Lives pair a Greek with a Roman statesman or soldier and weigh their characters; the Moralia gathers some seventy essays and dialogues on ethics, religion and literature. His Lives became a chief source of Greek and Roman history for later centuries and furnished Shakespeare with the matter of his Roman plays.

Major Works (4)

  1. Parallel Lives, Part I — translated by John Dryden and others, revised by Arthur Hugh Clough (1859)
  2. Parallel Lives, Part II — translated by John Dryden and others, revised by Arthur Hugh Clough (1859)
  3. Parallel Lives, Part III — translated by John Dryden and others, revised by Arthur Hugh Clough (1859)
  4. Parallel Lives, Part IV — translated by John Dryden and others, revised by Arthur Hugh Clough (1859)

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