Moralia

by Plutarch · Ἠθικά

Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only

Written
c. 80-120
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.

These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.

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.

Browse the 48 works that do have a guide →

Ἠθικά, Ethica, Moral Essays, Essays, Plutarch's Morals, On Listening to Lectures, On the Control of Anger, Consolation to His Wife, Isis and Osiris, Delphi, Montaigne, table talk, Plutarchus, Πλούταρχος, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus