Plutarch
Plutarch, 46-120 CE, Greek historian, philosopher, and
biographer.
Plutarch's most famous work is the Parallel Lives
of the Noble Greeks and Romans, usually known simply as the
Lives. They comprise, in all, forty-six biographies of Greek and
Roman statesmen and thinkers who are paired to emphasize similarities that
span their respective cultures and historical eras. In their emphasis on
morality as the central issue in both biography and history, Plutarch's
Lives constituted a source-book for British writers from the
sixteenth century on. They were an essential element in the traditional
classical education of young men.
