Plutarch, << PLOO tahrk >> (A.D. 46?-A.D. 120?), a Greek biographer and essayist, became famous for his work Parallel Lives of Illustrious Greeks and Romans. This work consists of pairs of biographies, each comparing one Greek and one Roman statesman or general. The comparisons are often forced, but Lives is an important source of historical information. Twenty-three pairs of the Lives have survived.
Plutarch’s Lives became the basis of many stories and poems of the Middle Ages (about the 400’s through 1400’s). William Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists used a brilliant translation of the Lives by Sir Thomas North for material for many of their historical plays. The Lives contains sharply drawn character sketches and lively historical descriptions of Greece and Rome.
Plutarch also wrote essays and dialogues on historical, rhetorical, and philosophical topics collected under the title Morals. Among them is a curious account titled The Face on the Moon.
Plutarch was born at Chaeronea, in Boeotia, Greece, near the homes of Hesiod and Pindar. He studied philosophy in Athens and later lectured on this subject in Rome. In travels through Greece, Italy, and Egypt, he spent much time studying and collecting facts on the men of whom he wrote. He returned to Boeotia as a priest of Apollo at Delphi, and it is believed that he wrote his great works there.
