Plutarch

Plutarch was a Greek from the small town of Chaeronea who studied in Athens, visited Rome, held a priesthood at Delphi, and wrote the Parallel Lives, pairing a Greek with a Roman, Alexander with Caesar, Demosthenes with Cicero, to show character through action. Shakespeare took Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus from North’s translation, and the founders of the American republic read him as a manual of virtue. The Moralia collect his essays on everything from the education of children to the face in the moon. Montaigne said he could not do without him.