Plutarch |
Biographer and author, born c. AD 46, in Chaeronea, Boeotia, died after 119 . Among his approximately 227 works, the most important are the Bioi paralleloi (Parallel Lives), in which he recounts the noble deeds and characters of Greek and Roman soldiers, legislators, orators, and statesmen, and the Moralia, or Ethica, a series of more than 60 essays on ethical, religious, physical, political, and literary topics. Plutarch was the son of Aristobulus, himself a biographer and philosopher. In 66-67, Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at Athens under the philosopher Ammonius. Public duties later took him several times to Rome, where he lectured on philosophy, made many friends, and perhaps enjoyed the acquaintance of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. According to the Suda lexicon (a Greek dictionary dating c. AD 1000), Trajan bestowed the high rank of an ex-consul upon him. Although this may be true, a report of a 4th-century church historian, Eusebius, that Hadrian made Plutarch governor of Greece is probably apocryphal. A Delphic inscription reveals that he possessed Roman citizenship; his nomen, or family name, Mestrius, was no doubt adopted from his friend Lucius Mestrius Florus, a Roman consul. Plutarch traveled widely, visiting central Greece, Sparta, Corinth, Patrae (Patras), Sardis, and Alexandria, but he made his normal residence at Chaeronea, where he held the chief magistracy and other municipal posts and directed a school with a wide curriculum in which philosophy, especially ethics, occupied the central place. He maintained close links with the Academy at Athens (he possessed Athenian citizenship) and with Delphi, where, from about 95, he held a priesthood for life; he may have won Trajan's interest and support for the then-renewed vogue of the oracle. The size of Plutarch's family is uncertain. In the Consolatio to his wife, Timoxena, on the death of their infant daughter, he mentions four sons; of these at least two survived childhood, and he may have had other children. Plutarch’s popularity rests primarily on his Parallel Lives, designed to encourage mutual respect between Greeks and Romans. By exhibiting noble deeds and characters, they were also to provide model patterns of behaviour. The general scheme was to give the birth, youth and character, achievements, and circumstances of death, interspersed with frequent ethical reflections. Plutarch’s surviving writings on ethical, religious, physical, political, and literary topics are collectively known as the Moralia, and amount to more than 60 essays cast mainly in the form of dialogues or diatribes. Plutarch’s interest in religious history and antiquarian problems can be seen in a group of striking essays, the early “Daemon of Socrates,” and three later works concerning Delphi, “On the Failure of the Oracles,” in which the decline of the oracle is linked with the decline in the population, “On the E at Delphi,” interpreting the word EI at the temple entrance, and “On the Pythian Responses,” seeking to reestablish belief in the oracle. Contemporary with these is “On Isis and Osiris,” with its mystical tones. That Rabelais’ knowledge of Plutarch is demonstrated by the frequency with which he quotes from both the Lives and the Moralia. Pantagruelion |