Moralia
by Plutarch · Ἠθικά
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- c. 80-120
- Era
- Roman Empire
- Form
- Essay
- Language
- Greek
- Length
- Epic · 1000 ppover 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendEssays, translated by Robin WaterfieldPenguin Classics, 1992A well-chosen selection of the most read Moralia; the complete text is in fifteen Loeb volumes.
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The collective name for Plutarch's seventy-eight surviving essays, dialogues and lectures on everything other than biography. They include practical advice on listening to lectures, controlling anger, distinguishing a flatterer from a friend and consoling the bereaved, dialogues on love and on the decline of oracles, a defence of eating no meat, the education of children, essays on Isis and Osiris and on superstition, and the polemic On the Malice of Herodotus. Montaigne read them constantly.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Moralia are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.


