Parallel Lives

A collection of paired biographies by Plutarch that compares notable Greeks and Romans through their characters and achievements.

Plutarch: A Greek biographer and essayist of the first and second centuries CE, best known for Parallel Lives. He composed the biographies and added comparisons that connect each Greek and Roman pair.
Alexander–Caesar: Plutarch’s paired biographies of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. The comparison sets two conquerors’ ambition and achievements against their different circumstances.
Character in ancient biography: The depiction of a person’s dispositions and moral qualities in ancient biographical writing. Plutarch treats small actions and sayings as evidence of character, not just public achievement.
Shakespeare’s Roman plays: William Shakespeare’s tragedies Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, set in ancient Rome. Shakespeare drew on Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch for central characters and episodes.
Ancient Greek biography: A literary tradition recounting the lives, deeds, and character of individuals in the ancient Greek world. Plutarch adapts this tradition to present lives as moral and political studies.
Pericles–Fabius Maximus: Plutarch’s paired biographies of the Athenian statesman Pericles and the Roman general Fabius Maximus. The pair contrasts civic leadership with patient military strategy.
Parallelism: A literary structure that places corresponding people, events, or ideas alongside one another. The paired lives use parallel structure to make comparison visible across Greek and Roman subjects.
Thomas North: An English translator whose 1579 version of Plutarch’s Lives became a major source for Renaissance writers. North’s English translation transmitted Plutarch’s biographies to Shakespeare and other writers.
Synkrisis: A rhetorical technique that compares two subjects to clarify their similarities and differences. Plutarch’s concluding comparisons make this technique an explicit part of the collection.
Demosthenes–Cicero: Plutarch’s paired biographies of the Athenian orator Demosthenes and the Roman orator Cicero. Their lives connect Greek and Roman political speech through parallel careers and contrasting temperaments.

Linked from 3 pages