This is a historical text with an outstanding quality of the narration.

Parallel Lives, also called Lives, influential collection of biographies of famous Greek and Roman soldiers, legislators, orators, and statesmen written as Bio by the Greek writer Plutarch near the end of his life. By comparing a famous Roman with a famous Greek, Plutarch intended to provide model patterns of behaviour and to encourage mutual respect between Greeks and Romans. Twenty-two pairs and four single biographies have survived. One of the better-known comparisons is that of the Greek orator Demosthenes with the Roman orator Cicero. Plutarch’s biographies of Alexander the Great and Caesar are also notable, though his comparison of the two is not extant.

Plutarch was not concerned with history so much as the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of men. Whereas sometimes he barely touched on epoch-making events, he devoted much space to charming anecdotes and incidental triviality, reasoning that this often revealed far more about his subjects than even their most famous accomplishments. In many ways, he must be counted among the earliest moral philosophers.