Who Is Plutarch An Innovator?

Plutarch
An Innovator

2/16/2014

Plutarch is one of the most well-known ancient Greek philosophers. Born around 45 CE in Chaeronia, a settlement in the region called Boeotia, he lived during the rise of both the Roman Empire and Christianity. Many historical events occurred during his lifetime, including the reign of the ruthless Roman emperor Nero, the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine, an eruption of Mount Vesuvious, and the Parthian War (Jones, “Roman History Timeline”). Plutarch was a well-known, wealthy citizen who acted as mayor and represented his homeland on several occasions when traveling abroad. Plutarch studied at the platonic Academy of Athens, was one of only two permanent priests at Delphi, and later became
His style of writing was confident, intelligent, logical, and thought-provoking. He was knowledgeable about many subjects, including history, politics, and philosophy. Plutarch reflected his authority on different subjects not only by the rhetoric he used, but also by citing sources. These qualities made Plutarch an engaging and persuasive writer. His works reflect his platonic ideas, which he was able to explain and defend well. One author describes Plutarch’s writing style as “decent, tolerant, knowing—the voice of a grown-up” (Morrow, "Plutarch 's Exemplary Lives"). On the other hand, as another author points out, “Plutarch tells us a story in a particular way to make a particular point. He tells us things that support his opinion, and often leaves out things that don’t” (Cotter-Lynch, "Plutarch: Life of Caesar"). Although the works of Plutarch were often biased toward his beliefs, they were credible enough that people have studied them for centuries. Plutarch was very well educated in a wide range of subjects. He took information written by past historians, such as biographical information and other records, and incorporated his own platonic ideas into them. In other words, his writings often built on the facts and ideas already written by others. He also wrote more along the lines of the moral rather than the historical. A common thread that runs
Herodotus, who many call the “father of history,” had no schooling or historical records to study as Plutarch did. The narrative he wrote consisted of stories he gathered from different lands that had been passed down from generation to generation. Also he was not biased toward the Greeks as Plutarch was (Dutton, Marchand, and Harkness, 37-39). Other ancient historians, such as Thucydides and Xenophon, wrote about events that occurred in their own time as opposed to the past. Like Herodotus, they did not have schooling or written historical records to study. Unlike Herdotus, they did not claim that gods had a hand in historical events (History.com, “Thucydides”). None of these ancient historians were educated in philosophy or rhetoric like Plutarch was. Plutarch also differed from these historians in that he was the first historian to use comparative analysis. He was also the first historian to write about the thought and behavior of his subjects, which added a new dimension to historical writing (Halkias, "Why Plutarch Matters"). Plutarch stretched the truth and distorted quotes in favor of his own arguments. He was more interested in getting his point across than being historically accurate, although his writing was undoubtedly much more accurate than that of