# Plutarch

The first fact about Plutarch in a public catalog is a later book, not a recovered Chaeronea diary. Perrin’s Loeb Lives (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674990524 and https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674991101) and Babbitt’s Moralia I (https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL197/1927/volume.xml) are the dated English. Archive scans at https://archive.org/details/plutarchslives01plutuoft and https://archive.org/details/plutarchs-moralia-vol.-1-loeb-197 are free files. Perseus Alexander (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0129), [Caesar](/people/julius-caesar) (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0130), Antony (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0007), and Cicero (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0016) are public HTML. Stanford at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/ and IEP at https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/ flag genre, chronology, and Delphi. Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch and Parallel Lives at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Parallel-Lives mark a remainder corpus and moral biography. Antony’s Cleopatra is a later English heading, not an Alexandrian register. Lycurgus is mixed legend. Slave property is not abolished in the printed file. War lives (Alexander/Caesar) are ethics without a casualty table. Isis and Osiris in Loeb (https://www.loebclassics.com/view/LCL306/1936/volume.xml) is antiquarian religion, later occult-captioned. How to Tell a Flatterer (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.+Mor.+48e) can train favour as easily as it names it. The offsets are URLs with later dates. UNESCO Delphi at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/393/ (1987) conserves the sanctuary landscape of the later priest-caption. Hellenic culture portal at https://www.culture.gov.gr/en/SitePages/default.aspx and Greek UNESCO monuments at https://www.greekunescomonuments.gr/en/monument/archaeological-site-of-delphi/ are public site doors. Cambridge companion neighbourhood at https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-plutarch/ is a classroom file. British Library Greek manuscripts at https://www.bl.uk/greek-manuscripts are the medieval path. Archive Moralia vol. 3 at https://archive.org/details/plutarchs-moralia-vol.-3-loeb-245 is another free carrier. What the score must not say: that he legislated Sparta; that 1914 is a unique composition year; that a Delphi ticket is a priesthood diploma; that Antony is a unique harm coefficient for Egypt; that On Superstition staffed a hospital; that lost pairs are hereby restored. Complex contribution is the honest type. Confidence is high on editions and listings, medium on flatterer-literacy and fear-reduction signs, low on unique modern indicator coefficients. 1914 is not 100. 1987 is not a Delphic diploma. Hostile vita slander is not upgraded. Off-family indicator padding is refused. Related people are Cleopatra as later Antony English, Cicero as a printed pair, [Herodotus](/people/herodotus) as a historiography neighbour, [Epicurus](/people/epicurus) as a later Moralia opponent-heading, Alexander and Caesar as Loeb pairs, Plato as school ancestry, [Socrates](/people/jose-socrates) as a Moralia interlocutor-heading, Lycurgus as a mixed Life, Antony as a pair, Suetonius as a later Latin lives neighbour. The useful question is which later public pages still move knowledge, polarisation, and civic staffing under this name without inventing Chaeronea mornings.

### Parallel Lives was an argument through comparison

Plutarch wrote during the late first and early second centuries CE, when Greece was firmly inside the Roman imperial world. His *Parallel Lives* pairs Greek and Roman statesmen and commanders not to produce modern archival biography but to compare character through action. The Alexander–Caesar pairing is one of the most influential examples: military conquest, ambition, clemency, anger and political power become material for moral judgment. The [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/) emphasizes that Plutarch was a Platonist philosopher as well as a biographer, and that ethical formation runs through his writings. That matters for how the *Lives* should be read. Anecdotes are selected because they reveal character, not because every detail can be treated as independently verified modern history. Plutarch's method therefore shaped later political memory while also requiring source caution: his biographies preserve traditions about Alexander, Caesar and others, but their organizing purpose is ethical comparison rather than neutral chronicle.

### The Moralia widened ethics beyond famous rulers

Plutarch's *Moralia* shows the same ethical project applied to ordinary conduct, education, religion and even human treatment of animals. In essays on anger he treats rage as a condition that distorts judgment and damages relationships, while works such as *On the Cleverness of Animals* question a simple human monopoly on reason. The [Stanford entry](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/) situates these writings within Middle Platonism and Plutarch's wider concern with the rational governance of passions. He was also a priest at Delphi and held civic responsibilities at Chaeronea, so the philosophical work was connected to institutions rather than written in isolation. Plutarch died sometime after 119 CE. His lasting influence comes from this combination: famous historical figures supplied case studies of power and character, while the essays supplied a vocabulary for self-command and moral education. The result is a corpus that shaped Renaissance and early modern readers not because it offered a single political theory, but because it made conduct observable through named events, decisions and personal habits.

## Dated facts

- 120: Handbook chronology places Plutarch's death about 119–125 CE; this catalog stores that as received dating. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-death-received. Sources: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.
- 120: No autograph Plutarch papyrus is the public English file; later manuscripts and Perseus are carriers, not 110 autograph HTML. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-no-autograph. Sources: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.
- 118: Plutarch's late work sits in a Hadrianic Greek revival weather he did not command as emperor. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-hadrian-weather. Sources: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.
- 115: On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance publicly defends late punishment of the wicked, including inherited taint. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-sera-numinis. Sources: https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/.
- 115: Roman Questions and Greek Questions issue antiquarian why-questions as a public comparative civic syllabus. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-roman-questions. Sources: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.
- 112: On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander argues publicly that Alexander's success was virtue not luck, a glamour brief. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-fortuna-alexander. Sources: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.
- 112: The Alexander-Caesar pair is issued as a public comparison of conquest and clemency, not as a second Parallel Lives project. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-alexander-caesar. Sources: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0129, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch.
- 110: The same Table Talk takes enslaved banquet labour as scenery rather than as a named political problem. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-table-labour. Sources: https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/.
- 110: Table Talk issues learned banquet conversation as a public elite syllabus, including diet and curiosity. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-table-talk. Sources: https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/.
- 110: The same statecraft precepts can be read as teaching Greeks to keep quiet and please Rome. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-precepts-quietism. Sources: https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/.
- 110: Precepts of Statecraft advises Greek notables how to hold local office under Rome without ruin. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-precepts-statecraft. Sources: https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/.
- 110: The same Isis and Osiris essay is also a public door onto Egyptian cult for Greek readers who would otherwise have none. https://factrail.ai/facts/plu-isis-access. Sources: https://iep.utm.edu/plutarch/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plutarch/.

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/plutarch