Which Greek biographer wrote a Life of Caesar in Parallel Lives?

Which Greek biographer wrote a Life of Caesar in Parallel Lives? The answer is Plutarch.

Plutarch, a Greek philosopher and biographer from Chaeronea, wrote Parallel Lives in Greek during the early second century AD. The work arranged famous Greek and Roman figures in pairs, including Alexander the Great with Julius Caesar. Plutarch’s Life of Caesar is therefore part of a comparative biographical project rather than an isolated history of Rome.

The surviving collection contains 23 pairs, or 46 paired biographies, plus four surviving single Lives. Plutarch’s purpose was chiefly moral and ethical: he examined character, judgment, ambition, courage, and flaws. He famously emphasized that a small remark or private action could reveal personality more clearly than a huge battle.

His Caesar biography covers Caesar’s rise, military campaigns, political relationships, and assassination in 44 BC. It remains one of the principal ancient accounts of Caesar, along with Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars and Caesar’s own commentaries. A common mix-up is Herodotus, the earlier “father of history”; Herodotus wrote Histories, not Parallel Lives.