Plutarch

Born in the central Greek region of Boeotia, Plutarch lived in Greece but was also a Roman citizen, and may have held the local Roman post of procurator. He traveled, read, and wrote widely, and for the last 30 years of his life was a priest at the god Apollo’s shrine at Delphi. Plutarch embodies the Greek-Roman assimilation under the Roman Empire. Although he did not exactly write history, he happens to be a major source of information for events in the Greek world of around 600–200 B.C.E. This is due to one of his writings, known by the title Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, which in its surviving form consists of 22 paired short biographies (“Lives”), one of a Greek leader, one of a Roman.

David Sacks, Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World, rev. Lisa R. Brody, rev. ed. (New York: Facts On File, 2005), 273.