Plutarch (c. AD 46–c. 120)

Greek biographer and essayist. He is best remembered for his Lives, a collection of short biographies of famous figures from Greek and Roman history arranged in contrasting pairs (for example, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar are paired). He also wrote Moralia, a collection of essays on moral and social themes.

Plutarch had a profound influence on Renaissance thought and literature. This is most noticeable in two literary fields: biography, through his Lives; and the essay, through his Moralia. The Lives (which contains 50 short biographies: 23 pairs and 4 single biographies) appealed to the Renaissance emphasis on the individual. The Moralia (which contains over 60 short works covering a wide range of subjects) appealed to the prevailing interest in ethics – their fascination lay in the fact that they deal with the practical issues of everyday life (such as how to tell a true friend from a false one) rather than with abstract philosophical principles.

The translations of the Lives into French by Jacques Amyot and into English by Thomas North were enormously influential in their respective countries, and both Montaigne and Francis Bacon were deeply indebted to the Moralia in their development of the essay form.

Plutarch was born in Chaeronea in Boeotia, central Greece, and studied in Athens. He taught philosophy in Rome during the reign of Emperor Domitian (emperor AD 81–96), developing friendships with many eminent Romans and holding high office under Trajan and Hadrian. On his return to Chaeronea he served as a magistrate and a priest.

Lost to the Middle Ages, Plutarch's works first became accessible through summaries and then through the Latin translations of the Italian humanists Bruni, Guarino da Verona, and others, and these texts, of variable accuracy, became the basis for subsequent vernacular versions.

The editiones principes (the first Greek texts) were the work of the Aldine press, the Moralia appearing in 1509 and the Lives in 1519.