Plutarch

Plutarch (46-119) was a Greek philosopher, historian, and biographer. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens, the same institution studied by Plato, and dedicated himself to politics, achieving high public offices. Plutarch wrote hundreds of texts, among them Parallel Lives, which consists of a collection of 64 biographies of prominent Greek and Roman figures. His work, "Moralia" (in Classical Greek: Ἠθικά Ethika; loosely...

These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire. Selected from Plutarch's Roman Lives, they include prominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles in Roman history, such as soldierly Marcellus, eloquent Cato and cautious Fabius. Here too are vivid portraits of ambitious, hot-tempered...

"In 336 b.c. Philip of Macedonia was assassinated and his twenty-year-old son, Alexander, inherited his kingdom. Immediately quelling rebellion, Alexander extended his father's empire throughout the Middle East and into parts of Asia, fulfilling the soothsayer Aristander's prediction that the new king "should perform acts so important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat to describe and celebrate him.""...

Complete Works of Plutarch - Volume 3: Essays and Miscellanies by Plutarch libreka classics — These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!

"The philosopher, statesman, and moralist Plutarch of Chaeronia (first and early second centuries CE) begins his essay Political Advice, wherein he advises a man about how to embark upon a career in government and how to become an effective leader by saying: 'First of all, let the primary motivation for political activity be a conscious choice based on judgment and reason, which serves as a firm and strong foundation, and let the choice not be rashly...

"An outstanding new edition of Plutarch, the inventor of biography, focused on five lives that remade the Roman world. Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Antony: the names still resonate across thousands of years. Major figures in the civil wars that brutally ended the Roman republic, they haunt us with questions of character and authority: how to safeguard a republic from the flaws of its leaders. Plutarch's rich, vivid profiles show character shaping...