The Moralia include On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great — an important adjunct to his Life of the great general — On the Worship of Isis and Osiris ( a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites ), and On the Malice of Herodotus ( which may, like the orations on Alexander's accomplishments, have been a rhetorical exercise ), in which Plutarch criticizes what he sees as systematic bias in the Father of History's work ; along with more philosophical treatises, such as On the Decline of the Oracles, On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance, On Peace of Mind and lighter fare, such as Odysseus and Gryllus, a humorous dialog between Homer's Odysseus and one of Circe's enchanted pigs.

Plutarch states it to have been fear of her husband, together with hatred of his cruel and brutal character, and ascribes these feelings principally to the representations of Pelopidas, when she visited him in his prison.

Plutarch provides the most evocative version of this story: But when Egypt revolted with Athenian aid ... and Cimon's mastery of the sea forced the King to resist the efforts of the Hellenes and to hinder their hostile growth ... messages came down to Themistocles saying that the King commanded him to make good his promises by applying himself to the Hellenic problem ; then, neither embittered by anything like anger against his former fellow-citizens, nor lifted up by the great honor and power he was to have in the war, but possibly thinking his task not even approachable, both because Hellas had other great generals at the time, and especially because Cimon was so marvelously successful in his campaigns ; yet most of all out of regard for the reputation of his own achievements and the trophies of those early days ; having decided that his best course was to put a fitting end to his life, he made a sacrifice to the gods, then called his friends together, gave them a farewell clasp of his hand, and, as the current story goes, drank bull's blood, or as some say, took a quick poison, and so died in Magnesia, in the sixty-fifth year of his life ... They say that the King, on learning the cause and the manner of his death, admired the man yet more, and continued to treat his friends and kindred with kindness.

Plutarch disputed Heraclitus ' claim about stepping twice into the same river, citing that it cannot be done because " it scatters and again comes together, and approaches and recedes ".

In much the same way, we recognize the importance of Shakespeare's familarity with Plutarch and Montaigne, of Shelley's study of Plato's dialogues, and of Coleridge's enthusiastic plundering of the writings of many philosophers and theologians from Plato to Schelling and William Godwin, through which so many abstract ideas were brought to the attention of English men of letters.

Plutarch relates that Alexander worshiped the spear he slew his uncle with as if it were a god.

Plutarch gives a detailed account of it, with a lively picture of the palace.

Plutarch tells a story that at Bactra, in 327 BC in a debate with Callisthenes, he advised all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime, is with greater probability attributed to the Sicilian Cleon.

We know little more of the life of Andronicus, but he is of special interest in the history of philosophy, from the statement of Plutarch, that he published a new edition of the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which formerly belonged to the library of Apellicon, and were brought to Rome by Sulla with the rest of Apellicon's library in 84 BC.

Plutarch mentions that the Athenians saw the phantom of King Theseus, the mythical hero of Athens, leading the army in full battle gear in the charge against the Persians, and indeed he was depicted in the mural of the Stoa Poikile fighting for the Athenians, along with the twelve Olympian gods and other heroes.

Plutarch isn't sure exactly how Fabius came up with this number, although he believes it was to honor of the perfection of the number three, as it is the first of the odd numbers, and one of the first of the prime numbers.

Plutarch identified this Amphidamas with the hero of the Lelantine War between Chalcis and Eretria and he concluded that the passage must be an interpolation into Hesiod's original work, assuming that the Lelantine War was too late for Hesiod.

According to Plutarch, as Caesar arrived at the Senate, Tillius Cimber presented him with a petition to recall his exiled brother.

According to Plutarch, Antony threw her out of his house in Rome, because she slept with his friend, the tribune Publius Cornelius Dolabella.

Plutarch recounts one version of the myth in which Set ( Osiris ' brother ), along with the Queen of Ethiopia, conspired with 72 accomplices to plot the assassination of Osiris.

Plutarch identifies her with spring and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields.

During the height of the Roman Empire, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero and others provided us with examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars.

Eventually, this gifted student became dissatisfied with the level of philosophical instruction available in Alexandria, and went to Athens, the preeminent philosophical center of the day, in 431 to study at the Neoplatonic successor of the famous Academy founded 800 years ( in 387 BC ) before by Plato ; there he was taught by Plutarch of Athens ( not to be confused with Plutarch of Chaeronea ), Syrianus, and Asclepigenia ; he succeeded Syrianus as head of the Academy, and would in turn be succeeded on his death by Marinus of Neapolis.

Tacitus, a contemporary of Plutarch, was not concerned with whether a form of government could be analysed as a " republic " or a " monarchy ".

Plutarch further reports that Themistocles was preoccupied, even as a child, with preparing for public life.

Furthermore, Plutarch reports that at the next Olympic Games: " Themistocles entered the stadium, the audience neglected the contestants all day long to gaze on him, and pointed him out with admiring applause to visiting strangers, so that he too was delighted, and confessed to his friends that he was now reaping in full measure the harvest of his toils in behalf of Hellas.

Diodorus and Plutarch next recount a similar tale, namely that Themistocles stayed briefly with an acquaintance ( Lysitheides or Nicogenes ) who was also acquainted with the Persian king, Artaxerxes I.

Both Ephorus and Plutarch ( in his Banquet of the Seven Sages ) substituted Anacharsis for Myson.

An account of the battle was mentioned both by Diodorus and Plutarch, both based heavily on the report by Ephorus.

Plutarch puts the number of the Thebans at 300, and acknowledges three sources for the number of Spartans: 1000 by the account of Ephorus ; 1, 400 by Callisthenes ( c. 360 – 328 BC ); or 1, 800 by Polybius ( c. 200 – 118 BC ).

Ammonius asks Plutarch what he, being a Boeotian, has to say for Cadmus, the Phoenician who reputedly settled in Thebes and introduced the alphabet to Greece, placing alpha first because it is the Phoenician name for ox — which, unlike Hesiod, the Phoenicians considered not the second or third, but the first of all necessities.

Diogenes Laertius reports the story that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, but Plutarch says that Pericles sent his former tutor, Anaxagoras, to Lampsacus for his own safety after the Athenians began to blame him for the Peloponnesian war.

) Plutarch placed it in the 37th year from the foundation of Rome, on the fifth of our July, then called Quintilis, also states that Romulus ruled for 37 years.

Plutarch criticised Herodotus in his essay " On The Malignity of Herodotus ", describing Herodotus as " Philobarbaros " ( barbarian-lover ), for not being pro-Greek enough, which suggests that Herodotus might actually have done a reasonable job of being even-handed.

Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the Draconic code, Plutarch states: " It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.

In an account by Plutarch, the catastrophic failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides's lyrics to their enemies in return for food and drink ( Life of Nicias 29 ).

Plutarch is the source also for the story that the victorious Spartan generals, having planned the demolition of Athens and the enslavement of its people, grew merciful after being entertained at a banquet by lyrics from Euripides's play Electra: " they felt that it would be a barbarous act to annihilate a city which produced such men " ( Life of Lysander )

Plutarch mentions that ( for much later period ) two days after the beginning of the festival " the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water ... and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found ( or resurrected ).

Plutarch said the inhabitants of Caria carried the emblem of the rooster on the end of their lances and relates that origin to Artaxerxes, who awarded a Carian who was said to have killed Cyrus the Younger at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B. C " the privilege of carrying ever after a golden cock upon his spear before the first ranks of the army in all expeditions " and the Carians also wore crested helmets at the time of Herodotus, for which reason " the Persians gave the Carians the name of cocks ".

The main literary sources for Servius ' life and achievements are the Roman historian Livy ( 59 BC – AD 17 ), his near contemporary Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch ( c. 46 – 120 AD ); their own sources included works by Quintus Fabius Pictor, Diocles of Peparethus and Quintus Ennius.

In Plutarch, he consented to the kingship only at the death-bed insistence of Tanaquil, not for his own advantage but for the benefit of the Roman people.

Plutarch suggests that the rivalry between the two had more sordid beginnings, when they competed over the love of a boy: "... they were rivals for the affection of the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, and were passionate beyond all moderation.

It should be noted that both Diodorus and Plutarch considered that the charges were false, and made solely for the purposes of destroying Themistocles.

Thucydides and Plutarch say that Themistocles asked for a year's grace to learn the Persian language and customs, after which he would serve the king, and Artaxerxes granted this.

Leigh also provides historical and literary evidence for the comic construction of the relationship between the courtesan Clodia and her young lover Caelius, by referencing Plutarch ’ s discussion of this as erotic entertainment and its use as a rhetorical device.

In Fragment 6 ( Plutarch, Numa, 15 and elsewhere ) following the nymph's advice he summons Jupiter ( mythology ) | Jupiter from heaven and forces him to accept a remedy of onion and fish heads to counter the effects of a lightning strike, instead of the human heads proposed by the god.