Plutarch (about 46 ~ 120) was born in Chaeronea, a city in central Greece, a well-educated family. His father, Aristo Bruce, is a biographer and philosopher. He received court training from an early age and developed a love for knowledge. When I was young, I studied in Athens and received training from the famous teacher Amonius in mathematics, philosophy, rhetoric, history and medicine. I also traveled all over Greece, went to the Aegean islands, and went to Egypt, Asia Minor and Italy. Wherever he went, he paid great attention to collecting local historical materials and legends passed down from mouth to mouth, thus becoming a well-read person. Later, he came to Rome to give lectures, study the history of Rome and met many celebrities. He experienced three dynasties of the early Roman Empire-Julius Claudius, Flavi and Antoine. It is said that he taught for two emperors of the empire, Trajan and Hadrian, and won their appreciation. Trajan granted him the high position of consul, and Hadrian later promoted him to the position of Greek financial supervisor. He spent most of his life in colonia. In his hometown, he wrote books, taught his disciples, served as a local governor and participated in political activities. It is said that he also runs a school in his hometown, which mainly teaches philosophy and ethics. In his later years, he became a lifelong priest of the temple of Apollo in Delphi, the holy land of Greece. Plutarch is a diligent and prolific writer. The titles of his 227 works are listed in the catalogue compiled for him by his son Lamprias. Most of the works listed in this catalogue have been lost, and now there are only 83 works left. Among the works handed down now, in addition to these 83 works, there are 18 works that were discovered later, and there is no catalogue, and 15 works have only remnants. Later generations divided his existing works into two collections: Ethics (also called Moral Leah) and Parallel Life. The Collection of Morality, which includes more than 60 papers and quotations, extensively discusses issues such as ethics, religion, philosophy, science, politics and literature, and is an important document for understanding Plutarch's life and thoughts. Accurately speaking, he is not mainly a historian, but a moralist. However, it is this biography, which contains 50 biographies, that is widely circulated and has made him famous for a long time, rather than the Collection of Ethics. Plutarch lived in the heyday of the Roman Empire. At that time, the exchanges and integration between different nationalities and cultures around the Mediterranean were increasingly strengthened. In particular, the dominant Greek culture and Roman culture influenced and combined with each other, gradually forming the "Greek and Roman culture" and ushered in another peak of European classical culture. Plutarch's academic achievements represent and reflect the trend and present situation of this cultural integration. The biography written by Plutarch, also known as the biography of Greek and Roman celebrities, is the concentrated expression of this cultural integration trend in him. This book obviously wants to emphasize a historical fact, that is, Greece and Rome have had glorious history, produced equally outstanding historical figures, and are all great nations. Because of this, Plutarch is unique and meaningful in the structural arrangement of his works. Among the biographies, except for four separate biographies of 1 person and 1 person, the other 46 biographies are all similar and combined into 23 pairs. He selected 1 characters with similar fate and temperament from the ancient great men in Greek and Roman history, and made biographies for them in the form of comparison and comparison. Finally, an article similar to a short comment is added to form the whole content of the joint biography. For example, he combined Alexander of Macedonia and Caesar of Rome into one, because he thought that both of them were outstanding militarists and politicians, with great ambitions, skillful tactics, determination and courage, daring to take risks and good luck, while ignoring their own disasters. As a Greek, Plutarch's biography of Greek celebrities is very successful; By contrast, the biographies of Roman celebrities are not well written. Although he has lived in Rome for quite a long time, he is still unfamiliar with the history, system and customs of Rome, and he can't read Latin literature skillfully (he learned Latin in his later years), which has affected his play. Supplement: Plutarch's philosophy is also a typical compromise of his time. He combined the theories of Plato, Aristotle, Stoicism and Pythagoras, and paid special attention to ethical issues. Plutarch believes that life should be based on morality, with acceptable moderation, humanity, no worship of glory and no false reputation. He wrote biographies of ancient celebrities in Greece and Rome, mainly not to write history, but to explain his ethical thoughts through ethical evaluation of biographies, with the ultimate goal of educating the world. In the preface to the biography of Alexander, he clearly wrote: "What I wrote is not a history book, but a biography. In many famous deeds, it is not necessarily possible to see the moral or immoral side of these heroes and great men, but some small actions and words can often show a person's character better than wars that kill tens of thousands of people, or large-scale disposal, or attacking and defending the city. ..... I leave the great deeds or the war part to others to write. I only write the psychological characteristics of the characters, and use this method to describe or describe the biography of each hero or great man. " Consistent with this writing purpose, Plutarch adopted the technique of "narrative with discussion" in his writing process, and often drew his ethical thoughts from the narrative of an event. For example, in Solon's biography, he described Solon's visit to Thales in Miletus. After learning that Thales didn't care about marrying and having children because he was afraid of losing his loved ones, he made a long argument: "If you don't get what you need because you are afraid of losing, it is neither reasonable nor expensive. Because according to this principle, a person will not be satisfied for fear of losing wealth, honor and wisdom. Indeed, even the most precious and lovely possessions in the world, such as virtue, are often taken away by diseases and drugs. Although Thales himself is not married, he still can't completely get rid of his worries unless he doesn't want friends, relatives and the motherland. ..... When a person has not been rationally trained and can't stand the blow of fate, it is not kindness but fragility that brings him endless pain and fear. Such people will not enjoy happiness even if they get what they desire; He will always be full of worries and struggles for fear of losing it in the future. In any case, we must never use poverty to prevent the loss of property, never live in isolation to prevent the loss of friends, and never use barren children to prevent the death of children; We should treat all misfortunes rationally. " Moral preaching like this can be seen in almost every biography. Supplement: This writing attitude makes it impossible for Plutarch to fully abide by the rigorous style he must have as a historian, thus affecting his position in historiography. In his view, whether it accurately reflects the historical truth, whether the historical age is accurate and so on are secondary. His purpose is only to collect and list some examples of morality and personality that can be a model for future generations by describing some life stories of the master. It is under the guidance of this principle that he vividly described the dialogue between Solon and Close again in Solon's Biography. Although he knew clearly in advance that it was untrue, he didn't want to give up, because the conversation was very educational. At the same time, he also wrote a defense for himself: "Some people tried to prove it is fiction according to the chronicle. But since a story is so famous, so well-founded, especially so in line with Solon's character, and so commensurate with his magnanimity and wisdom, I can't advocate denying it because I abide by any chronicle rules. " This has resulted in his one-sidedness in the choice of historical materials, his tendency to describe psychological details and anecdotes of characters, and his non-critical historical method. However, we should see with great certainty that most of Plutarch's biographies are based on facts, and even many ancient Greek poems and dramas that have been lost in the original works are retained. In addition, when he quotes these ancient works, he often marks the source, so his biography collection is still an indispensable reference for studying the history of ancient Greece and Rome. Moreover, because preachers are the most important figures of that era, we can see the epitome of that era through them. Most of the impressions of later generations on the great figures in ancient Greek and Roman history come from this biography. From the literary point of view, Plutarch is a master of portraying and describing characters. He is good at extracting one or two small things that can reflect his personality characteristics from biographies and many events, thus making the characters more plump and distinctive. At the same time, he is also good at using contrast to describe the appearance and temperament of characters, so he can leave a deeper impression on readers. Plutarch's beautiful and vivid writing contributes to the recitation of biographies and has a great influence on later generations. The ethical thoughts he preached also played a great enlightening role in the rise of humanism in the Renaissance. Plutarch's biography, in particular, perfected the style of biographical history books since Xenophon's creation, and finally established the position of biographical history books in western historiography, making indelible contributions to the development of western historiography.

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