Plutarch’s Lives, Volume 1

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Plutarch’s Lives, Volume 1

Plutarch’s Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is undoubtedly his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory. Richly anecdotal and full of detail, Plutarch’s Lives, Volume 1 contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus and Theseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and also many more powerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome.

In 1864, the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough revised the original translation published in 1683 by John Dryden as A Life of Plutarch. This edition includes the notes and preface from Clough.

Plutarch (c.50-c.120 AD) was a writer and thinker born into a wealthy, established family of Chaeronea in central Greece. He received the best possible education in rhetoric and philosophy, and traveled to Asia Minor and Egypt. Later, a series of visits to Rome and Italy contributed to his fame, which the emperors Trajan and Hadrian officially recognized. His voluminous surviving writings are broadly divided into Moralia and the Parallel Lives of outstanding Greek and Roman leaders.

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