Plutarch: Biography Of This Classic Thinker And Biographer

Plutarch is known in academic circles especially for his Parallel lives, the extensive work that he wrote in his adulthood and which includes several biographies of illustrious Greek and Roman figures. It is thanks to his magnificent compilation that, today, we know details of the lives of historical figures of the stature of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.

What people may not know is that Plutarch published another, lesser-known biographical work, The excellence of women, dedicated to Clea, a priestess of Apollo who was her friend and which constitutes a compendium of biographies of female characters whose bravery is on par with that of their male namesakes. And, without falling into the anachronism of saying that Plutarch was a feminist, we can affirm that he was a thinker quite interested in demonstrating that virtue did not and does not understand gender, and that he always advocated for intellectually educating women.

In this biography of Plutarch we will see the life of one of the great Greek thinkers who later achieved Roman citizenship under the name Lucius Mestrio Plutarch and who had an enormous influence on the philosophy and literature of modern Europe.

Brief biography of Plutarch of Chaeronea, the great classical thinker

Plutarch’s family was wealthy and came from the city of Chaeronea, in the Greek region of Boeotia, a peripheral territory that had a certain reputation for being uncultured and barbarian, at least, for the inhabitants of Athens. There was some truth in this consideration, ignoring the obvious derogatory charge that the Attics expressed in this idea. And it is that Chaeronea was a small provincial town, in which intellectual life was relatively scarce and where, in truth, it is surprising that a thinker of the stature of Plutarch decided to live his entire existence.

Born in this town around the year 50 AD, we know several names from his family, since he recorded them in his writings. Thus, we know that his grandfather’s name was Lamprias and that she meant a lot to the young Plutarch. As for his father, he received the name Autobulo or Aristobulo, a name that our philosopher would give to one of the children he had with Timoxena, his wife.

If something is evident in Plutarco’s character, it is his love for family and his respect for what marriage represented. It is known that his union with Timoxena was happy, even though they had to go through the misfortune of seeing several of her children die. On one of these occasions, after the death of the youngest daughter (named Timoxena after her mother), Plutarch wrote his moving Consolation to my wifea short text in which she tries to mitigate the woman’s pain in the face of such a tragedy.

In addition to his family, whom he adored, Plutarch gathered a large group of friends in his native Chaeronea, with whom he chatted and talked about philosophical topics and life in general. These meetings, together with the multitude of books that he brought back from his numerous travels, collaborated in expanding the cultural life of this modest provincial city that, on the other hand, was famous among the Greeks for having been the scene of two important battles. : the one that confronted Philip of Macedonia and the Athenians in the 4th century BC and the one that gave victory to Sulla over Mithridates of Pontus, in 86 BC

Plutarch’s travels

Although Plutarch spent practically his entire life in Chaeronea, it is no less true that He made several trips through Greece, Rome and Egypt His first departure from his hometown occurred in his adolescence, when he moved to Athens to study philosophy. There he received an education from Ammonius, who taught at the Academy and who imbued him with Platonic philosophy, from which Plutarch would never let go.

Around the year 67 he returned to Chaeronea to finish his studies, but immediately left for Alexandria and Asia Minor. His desire for knowledge has no limits; Very interested in the ancient Egyptian religion, his travels resulted in his work On Isis and Osiris. In the city of Smyrna (present-day Turkey) it seems that he came into contact with the second sophistical school led by Philostratus, who sought to recover and expand ancient Greek rhetoric.

He is also known to have made several trips to Rome, where he established friendships with different imperial officials and other important figures in the Roman world. Plutarch did not know Latin; He did not begin to study it until he was older, with the aim of reading the Latin sources that he used for his writings and, furthermore, he never spoke it completely well. However, the use of this language was not necessary for him to function in Rome, since the upper echelons of the empire knew Greek and the majority were completely bilingual. Let us remember that, still in imperial times, Greek was the language of prestige among Roman society.

Biographies and moral texts

Some authors consider that Plutarch was not exactly a brilliant philosopher. However, his undeniable literary talent makes him an essential figure. On the other hand, his moral texts, compiled under the eloquent name of Morality (a title imposed much later by the Byzantine monk Maximus Planudes) offer a relaxed vision of morality, and are, rather, a kind of friendly advice between friends, as their After-dinner talks. This lack of rectitude when it comes to expressing moral teachings gives an idea of ​​the open character and inclination towards dialogue of our character On the other hand, as Carlos García Gual points out, this collection of texts are clear predecessors of modern essays.

Of course, the text by which he is universally known is his Parallel lives, which consecrated it for posterity. It is a compilation of biographies of Greek and Roman characters, treated in pairs (hence the name, parallel), in order to better compare their virtues and defects. Thus, for example, the biography of Alexander the Great is compared with that of Julius Caesar, Pericles with that of Fabius Maximus, Theseus with Romulus, etc.

From what was said above, two things can be seen; one, that comparisons always pair a Greek character with another Roman. And two, that Plutarch includes in his Lives to characters of dubious historical existence , like Theseus and Romulus, legendary kings of Athens and Rome, respectively. However, Plutarch himself is critical in this aspect, since, precisely in the introduction of Life of Theseusthe author maintains that he cannot guarantee the veracity of the story, because it is in the world of legend…

A prolific writer, restless thinker, quite open-minded and a great lover of his friends and family, Plutarch’s work had enormous resonance in Europe in subsequent centuries, and powerfully influenced authors such as Montaigne in France or Shakespeare in England. And let’s not forget that, during the French Revolution, Plutarch was the go-to author for any aspiring writer. republicanand that Napoleon always carried it with him… along with the Werther Goethe, apparently.