PLU'TARCH (Gk. Moirrapxos, Plouturchos) (c.46-c.125 An encyclopaedic writer and a charining type of the Greek gentleman and scholar of Roman times. He was born at C'hx ronea. in Bceotia, the country of Hesiod and Pin dar. to whom he often alludes. His writings in troduce us to a pleasant circle of kinsmen and friends, his grandfather Lamprias, his father, brother, and four sons, his wife, Timoxena, to whom he addresses a beautiful 'consolation' on the death of their little daughter, his Roman friends, Sossius Senecio, 1\letrius Horns, and Junius Arulenus Rusticus. Il is biography must he collected from his works. He was a student at Athens at the time of Nero's visit to Greece, A.D. 66. Later he traveled in Greece, Egypt, and Italy. He visited Rome more than once, and remained there for sonic time in the reign of Ves pasian, enjoying the friendship of prominent men, lecturing on moral philosophy and gathering the materials for his historical works. Real mas tery of the Latin language and genuine insight into Roman institutions he never attained. He established himself for the last of his life at Clcronea, paying frequent visits to Athens, and to Delphi, where he exercised priestly functions. At Cha•ronea he held the office of archon and that of building inspector, recording his experiences perhaps in the treatise on the precepts of go•ern nnent and the essay on the question whether an old man ought to take part in politics. Greek moral philosophy being at that time the best substitute for religion. he became to many friends and young people a guide, philosopher, spiritual director, and physician of the soul. a rule which a generation earlier Seneca had assumed with more self-consciousness and display at Rome. He recalled old memories of Rome and Athens in his `table talk.' He wrote out his old lectures and gave new ones to the young people of an informal school that gathered about him. He composed dialogues in the manner of Cicero rather than of Plato. He continued his historical studies and published his parallel Lires of Greeks and Ro mans. These, the best known of his writing,, have been called 'the food of great souls.' because of their power to kindle emulation in youth, and the enormous influence which, through Amyot, Montaigne. and Shakespeare, they have exercised upon modern literature. Forty-six of them are extant. arranged in twenty-two sets. They cover all classical antiquity from Theseus-Romulus and Lyeurgus-Numa to Demosthenes-Cicero and Alex ander-Ciesar. They were not composed in the order of chronology or of their present arrange ment. There are in addition four single biog raphies. The formal comparisons that follow most of the pairs are often somewhat forced. They stirred Shakespeare's sense of humor and provoked the delightful parody of Captain Flu ellen's comparison of King Henry to Alexander on the basis of the resemblance of Macedon to Monmouth. They may be spurious. as the com parison was a recognized form of rhetorical ex ercitation. The Lives are avowedly character sketches with a moral, rather than seNere histor ical studies. But they belong to the small category of the world's hooks which are read by all edu cated men, not merely consulted by scholars, and whose influence spreads in ever widening circles. Our knowledge of antiquity owes more to Plu tarch than to any other one writer. and in the loss of his sources it is hardly necessary to add that the Lire•s become our primary authority for countless facts of history.
hardly less interesting, though less known than the Lir(s, are the multifarious discursive or didactic essays and dialogues (some of them spurious) grouped under the title of Moralia. These comprise: The nine books of Table Talk or Symposiaca, a curious illustration of the play ful pedantry that was accounted good conversa tion in later cultured circles: edi fying moral disquisitions enlivened by anecdote and quotation on such topics as "How a Young Man Ought to Read Poetry." "How to Distin guish a Flatterer from a Friend," "On Exile." "On Superstition." "Rules for the Care of the Health." "Advice to the Married." etc.: more elaborate essays or dialogues on religious or philosophical topics—"The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men." "On Isis and osiris." a chief source of our knowledge of Egyptian religion: "On the Failure of the Oracles," "On the Genius of Socrates." "On the Contradictions of the Stoics." "On the Creation of the World Soul in Plato's Tinneus." Plutarch's intimate knowledge of Plato lends a certain unity and seriousness of tone to all this discursive literary productivity. He was widely read also in the literature of the Stoics and Epicureans. hut mainly to refute them when they diverged from Plato. Ili, religion, too. if we make allowance for the temper of the age and for suggestions derived from later phi losophies, is best characterized as a mild. vague Platonic• theism. Literal interpreters, insisting On the doctrine of demons and the allegorical mysticism, exaggerate his credulity and super stition. As a true Platonist. he is greatly con cerned for edification and shrinks from shocking any genuine religious faith. Hellenic patriotism required him to deal gently with Creek polythe ism and the Greek oracles. He makes extensive and fantastic use of the allegorical methods of the Stoics and Philo for the reconciliation of philosophy with both Hellenic and barbarian myths. Pint the method in his hands is often obviously a mere exercise of literary And in the final test he will he found, like all true Platonists, to affirm little if any rigid dogma. and to make no concessions to concrete superstition.
Pl(utarcL's•stt he is that of an intelligent widely read Mall. familiar with the vocabulary of phi losophy and the sciences, and more concerned for his iota, r than his manner. Ile does not affect Attie purism, and the tawdry rhetoric of his age has no attractions for him. Ile died somewhere between A.n. 120 and 130.
Ilinoo(ateny. The entire text may he found in the Tenliner series, and also in the Didot IPibliolloce with Latin translation. Wyttenbaeh's untinkhed 10 volume edition of the .fforalio with bide,e Grrrr•itafis (Oxford, 1795-1830) is indis pensable to the student. (;rear I's Dr In morale dr Ph:torque 1866) is a readable study.
Polkinann's Lawn, ri f ten viol Philosophic i/es P!nlinch ( Berlin. 1S73) is scholarly and ex haustive. See also, Trench..I Popular Introduc tion to Plutarch (London, 1873), and the account in the last volume (on the Provinces) of sen's History of now. The so-called Dryden's translation of the Lire.s revised in five volumes by A. II. Clough is a stock hook. North's version from the French of Amyot was rei:dited by Wynd ham in 1895. The lloralia may be read in the traditional translation revised by W. W. Good win (Boston, 1871-7S).