Plutarch writes paired lives in quiet Chaeronea, Greek and Roman scrolls on his desk, Delphi's temple distant on the hillside.
Character revealed in a single gesture.
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Plutarch lived his whole life in the small Greek town of Chaeronea, served for decades as a priest at Delphi, and wrote the most widely read prose of the ancient world. His Parallel Lives pairs a Greek with a Roman and asks not what they did but who they were, because a single jest or gesture can reveal a soul more than a won battle. A Platonist by training and a moralist by temperament, he wrote essays on everything from anger to the silence of the oracles. Shakespeare built three plays on his pages.

Birth
c. 46 CE·Chaeronea

Born in Chaeronea

Born in the small Boeotian town that he would make his lifelong home.

Words

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”