The Parallel Lives is a series of 48 biographies of famous men written by the Greco-Roman philosopher, historian, and Apollonian priest Plutarch, probably at the beginning of the second century. It is also known as Plutarch's Lives ; Parallels ; the Comparative Lives ; the Lives of Illustrious Men ; and the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. The lives are arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving Parallel Lives comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman of similar destiny, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes and Cicero. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.
Engraving facing the title page of an 18th-century edition of Plutarch's Lives
Third Volume of a 1727 edition of Plutarch's Lives, printed by Jacob Tonson
Plutarch was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and Moralia, a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus.
Modern portrait at Chaeronea, based on a bust from Delphi tentatively identified as Plutarch
Plutarch
Ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where Plutarch served as one of the priests responsible for interpreting the predictions of the Pythia.
Portrait of a philosopher and a hermaic stele at the Delphi Archaeological Museum