Plutarch was born in AD 46 in Chaeronea, at a time when he was a citizen of Ancient Rome as well as a man rooted in the Greek-speaking tradition. He wrote in Ancient Greek and also used Latin. At some point he became a Roman citizen and took the formal name Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus.

His roles were varied and spanned both public and intellectual life. He worked as a philosopher in the Middle Platonist tradition, and also as a historian, a biographer, an essayist, and a writer more broadly. Alongside those pursuits, he served as a priest and as a magistrate — occupations that placed him squarely in the practical affairs of his community as well as in the world of ideas.

Two bodies of work stand out from what he produced. Parallel Lives is among his notable works, pairing the lives of figures from history in a comparative format. Moralia is a further substantial work, distinct in character from the biographical writing. Together they represent a writer who ranged across both biography and essay, working in more than one mode and leaving behind a substantial body of writing across both forms.

Plutarch died in AD 120 in Chaeronea, the same city where he had been born some seventy-four years earlier. He had lived as a Roman citizen, held religious and civic office, written in Ancient Greek and Latin, and produced work in philosophy, history, biography, and the essay — all of it centered on Chaeronea, where his life both began and ended.