Editing Parallel Lives (section)

{{short description|Biographies of famous Greeks and Romans by Plutarch}}
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[[File:Plutarchs LIVES.jpg|thumb|Engraving facing the title page of an 18th-century edition of Plutarch's ''Lives'']]

The '''''Parallel Lives''''' ({{langx|grc|Βίοι Παράλληλοι}}, ''Bíoi Parállēloi''; {{langx|la|Vītae Parallēlae}}) is a series of 48 biographies of famous men written in [[Greek language|Greek]] by the Greco-Roman philosopher, historian, and [[Temple of Delphi|Apollonian priest]] [[Plutarch]], probably at the beginning of the [[second century]]. The lives are arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings.<ref>James Romm (ed.), ''Plutarch: Lives that Made Greek History'', Hackett Publishing, 2012, p. vi.</ref> 

The surviving ''Parallel Lives'' comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one [[ancient Greece|Greek]] and one [[ancient Rome|Roman]] of similar destiny, such as [[Alexander the Great]] and [[Julius Caesar]], or [[Demosthenes]] and [[Cicero]]. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.