Plutarch

Author biography. Trumpet Publishing House Authors Directory.

Who he was

Plutarch historical author portrait in Trumpet house style

Plutarch was born at Chaeronea in Greece around 46 CE and died around 120 CE. He was a Greek living under Roman rule, held Roman citizenship, served for decades as a priest at Delphi, and declined to leave his small home town for a bigger stage. He traveled to Rome and lectured there, but he went home.

That position matters to the books. He belonged to a conquered people writing about their conquerors, and he was in a position to judge both without flattering either.

Why he wrote it

He says plainly that he is not writing history. He is writing lives, and the distinction is deliberate: a battle may tell you less about a man than a remark he made in private.

His method was to pair a famous Greek with a famous Roman, tell both lives in full, then add a short comparison of the two, so the reader could see for himself what made one last and the other come apart. Alexander with Caesar. Demosthenes with Cicero.

The books we publish, and why

Parallel Lives, Volume I, Hardcover

We publish the Parallel Lives in four hardcover volumes, because the method still works and because character is still the thing that decides outcomes.

Plutarch is after the particular moment where a man's nature shows: the decision taken when nobody was watching, the flattery accepted, the grudge nursed too long. Shakespeare built whole plays out of him, in places almost line for line. Human nature has not shifted since.

The benefit is unglamorous and permanent. You learn to read character before it costs you something, which is useful whether you are hiring, partnering, voting, or marrying.

His works

Two bodies of work survive, along with a catalog of titles now lost.

Parallel Lives. Twenty-three surviving pairs of Greek and Roman lives, plus four single lives. Some pairs have lost their comparisons, and some lives are lost entirely.
Moralia. Around seventy-eight essays and dialogues on everything from the education of children and how to tell a friend from a flatterer to the decline of the oracles and the eating of meat.

An ancient catalog lists well over two hundred works under his name. Rather more than half is gone.

General reference on Plutarch. External links open outside Trumpet Publishing House.