Plutarch is one of the most famous of the Roman historians, primarily for his biographies of famous Greeks and Romans.

He was born in 46 in Chaeronea, on the Boeotian area of Greece. He was born into a wealthy family, and this enabled him to study at the famous Athens Academy. His specialty subjects were math, philosophy, and rhetorics. He went to Delphi for a time and was one of the interpreters of the pronouncements of the Oracle of Delphi.

Once he turned to writing, he didn't really stop, writing hundreds of works that made him famous. One of his most well-known was Moralia (Moral Writings). He wrote extensively on philosophy and ethics, favoring the life and works of Plato above all others.

Perhaps Plutarch's most famous works were a series of biographies known as the Bioi (Lives). They are the life stories of famous men who helped mold and shape Greece and Rome, and these writings are often referred as the Parallel Lives because Plutarch's device was to pair two men together and imply some things about them via comparison between the two life stories. What survives are 23 pairs. Among his pairings were these:

• Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar
• Demosthenes and Cicero
• Themistocles and Camillus
• Pyrrhus and Gaius Marius

Plutarch was known to have married and had four sons. He wrote throughout much of his life, also teaching at a school in his hometown of Chaeronea. He died in 120 at Delphi.