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Plutarch's Life and Legendary Writings Essay

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Plutarch was a well-known historian, biographer, and essayist. Also, Plutarch was a Greek scholar, and today is considered to be a Middle Protanist. Clyde Curry Smith, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, tells readers “Plutarch was born sometime around 46 A.D. in Chaeronea, Boeotia”(Smith). Plutarch was born “around the Roman imperial administration of Claudius I”(Smith). It is also believed that Plutarch died around the age of 74, “sometime after 120 c.e.”(Smith). Along with being a historian and essayist, Plutarch was also a priest, ambassador, mayor, and magistrate. Plutarch was born to a wealthy prominent family; he later married and is known to have at least two sons. During his time, Plutarch can be reflected as a celebrity …show more content…

Moralia contains “Plutarch’s surviving writings on ethical, religious, political, and literary topics and amount to more than 60 essays”(Walbank). Smith states, “of the seventy-eight essays, the average length is less than seven thousand words”(Smith). Though Plutarch has many recognizable and still existent writings, his style of writing is very important. Many people are intrigued with Plutarch’s writing skills, and find they are very important. Plutarch usually wrote to explain an aspect of, some even about military matters. Also, readers can relate his writing style as trying to teach and persuade the reader to attain their morality or respectability in their own life, also known as philosophical. Walbank informs the reader about Plutarch’s writing style “His style is predominantly Attic, influenced by the contemporary Greek that he spoke”(Walbank). Although Plutarch generally wrote about figures in the Greek and Roman society, some people believe his writing styles can be divided into four small groups. These four groups are depicted to be “at the request of his friends, for his own satisfaction, whose career may serve as a warning, and of the founding fathers and legislators of Greece and Rome”(Smith). Smith also tells us that “Plutarch understood d his main literary activity was to involve the education of men”(Smith). Finally we know that Plutarch also “gave attention to a great variety of topics, some of a traditional nature, some much more issues of the

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