With a novelist’s attention to psychological detail, a diarist’s love of personal history, and a moralist’s penchant for spinning parables, the Roman writer Plutarch created an altogether new kind of biographical history with his Parallel Lives, a series of paired portraits of major figures from classical Greece and Rome. In this program, Plutarch himself is held up for scrutiny, and he gives an extraordinary accounting of himself. Philosopher, priest of the Temple of Apollo, benefactor, and early advocate for the education of women, Plutarch practiced what he preached: “The virtues of these great men serve me as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life.” Passages from Parallel Lives are interspersed throughout the program, highlighting both Plutarch’s style and his substance. (22 minutes)