Plutarch

Plutarch
Zde · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	Plutarch
Caption	Marble bust of Plutarch (Roman copy)
Birth date	c. AD 46
Birth place	Chaeronea, Boeotia
Death date	c. AD 119
Occupation	Biographer, essayist, moralist, priest
Notable works	Parallel Lives, Moralia

Plutarch was a Greek biographer, essayist, and moral philosopher of the early Imperial Roman period who produced influential works that bridged Greek and Roman cultural traditions. He served as a priest at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi and traveled widely across the Roman provinces, engaging with leading figures of the Flavian dynasty and the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. His writings, composed in Greek, became foundational texts for Renaissance humanists, Enlightenment scholars, and modern historians.

Life and Background

Plutarch was born in Chaeronea, in Boeotia, and was a citizen of the Roman province of Achaea under the reign of Emperor Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. He studied in Athens at schools associated with Plato, Aristotle, and later Platonic traditions linked to Middle Platonism and teachers such as Ammonius of Alexandria and contemporaries like Sosigenes. Plutarch's civic role included duties as a magistrate in Chaeronea and as a priest of Apollo at Delphi, where he interacted with delegations from Rome, Alexandria, and cities of Asia Minor such as Ephesus and Smyrna. His travels brought him into contact with figures from the Flavian dynasty and intellectuals connected to Hadrian’s circle, and he corresponded with politicians and rhetoricians of Athens and Rome.

Works and Writings

Plutarch's major compositions include the biographical series known as Parallel Lives and a diverse collection of essays and dialogues called the Moralia. The Parallel Lives pairs eminent Greeks and Romans—such as Theseus and Romulus, Lycurgus and Numa Pompilius, Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Alcibiades and Coriolanus—to draw moral comparisons, and includes notable subjects like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Demosthenes, Cicero, Themistocles, Mark Antony, Pelopidas, Lucullus, Sulla, and Antony and Cleopatra (as pairings involving Octavian/Augustus contexts). The Moralia contains essays on ethics, religion, education, and natural science, addressing topics such as the interpretation of Oracles, the virtues exemplified by Socrates and Pythagoras, and practical guidance referencing figures like Aristides and Cimon. Beyond biographies and essays, Plutarch produced works on chronography that intersect with Hellenistic and Roman historical frameworks, engaging with sources like Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, and Livy.

Philosophical Views and Influence

Plutarch's outlook reflects Middle Platonism with significant engagement with Stoicism and Peripatetic elements; he discusses the ethical models of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle while critiquing aspects of Epicureanism. He defended beliefs in providence, the soul's immortality, and divine intervention, often citing cases from the cults of Asclepius, the oracle at Delphi, and mythic exemplars like Heracles and Theseus. His moralizing biographies influenced later thinkers including Petrarch, Erasmus, Michel de Montaigne, Isaac Casaubon, and Edward Gibbon, and shaped historiographical and ethical discourses in the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment periods. His portraits informed mythographic traditions linked to Ovid and Christian moralists such as Augustine of Hippo in discussions of virtue and vice.

Historical Method and Sources

Plutarch employed a comparative method juxtaposing Greek and Roman figures to illuminate character rather than provide exhaustive chronologies; he used sources ranging from narrative historians like Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarchus of Chaeronea (as names appear in tradition), and Polybius to annalists and local archives in Athens, Sparta, and Rome. He consulted speeches and rhetorical collections linked to Demosthenes and Cicero, inscriptions from sanctuaries such as Delphi and Dodona, and oral traditions preserved in civic cults of Boeotia and Attica. While often criticized by later scholars for occasional anachronisms and reliance on anecdote, his method preserved otherwise-lost materials from authors like Duris of Samos, Aristobulus of Cassandreia, Hieronymus of Cardia, and Chares of Mytilene.

Reception and Legacy

Plutarch's works were transmitted through Byzantine manuscript traditions and were central to the curricula of medieval monastic schools and Islamic translators who engaged with Greek literature in Constantinople and Baghdad. Renaissance humanists recovered and edited his texts, influencing Shakespeare (notably in plays such as Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra), Ben Jonson, Goethe, and Rousseau. Enlightenment figures including Voltaire and David Hume drew on Plutarchian exempla, while nineteenth-century historians like Lord Macaulay and Theodor Mommsen debated his value. Modern scholarship in classics, comparative literature, and intellectual history—represented by scholars linked to institutions such as the British Museum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Vatican Library, and universities in Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg, and Harvard University—continues to reassess his contributions.

Editions and Translations

Key medieval and early printed editions include those produced in Venice and Florence during the Renaissance by editors connected to Aldus Manutius and Erasmus. The standard modern critical editions derive from the Oxford Classical Texts and the Teubner series, with major English translations by Sir Thomas North (indirect), John Dryden (adaptation), Bernard Knox, Robin Waterfield, and others. Important scholarly commentaries and translations are associated with publishing houses such as Cambridge University Press, Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press), Oxford University Press, and Brill, and continue to be produced in multiple languages including editions held at the Vatican Library and national libraries across Europe.

Category:Ancient Greek writers