Collection: Plutarch

Plutarch, roughly 46 to roughly 120 CE, was a Greek living under Roman rule, a priest at Delphi, and a man with an unusual method. He took a famous Greek and a famous Roman, told both lives in full, then wrote a short comparison of the two, so the reader could see for himself what made one last and the other fall apart.

He is not after dates and battles. He is after character, and he says so. A small decision, a private habit, the way a man speaks to someone who cannot help him: these tell you what the public record never will. Shakespeare built whole plays straight out of him, almost line for line in places.

Human nature has not moved an inch since. The same strengths still make men and the same flaws still sink them. You learn to read character before it costs you something.