Plutarch Without Parallel:

'The ancient world’s first man of letters.'

Review essay by Joseph Epstein at the Claremont Review of Books.

"Throughout the Parallel Lives play prophecies, omens, and visitations from the various gods. In Plutarch’s pages flames leap from unknown sources, ravens eat their young, vultures aloft form strange patterns, mice gnaw consecrated gold in temples. Divination is required to interpret all these strange happenstances. Vast numbers of troops are stalled awaiting an encouraging interpretation of the arrangement of the entrails of a sacrificial oxen. Did Plutarch himself believe in such matters? Perhaps it is best to say that he did not altogether disbelieve in them."

See Plutarch, "Of Bashfuiness", from Moralia, Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 7, and "Contentment", from Moralia, Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 10; Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volumen 14, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 13.