“he resolved to go back into Greece againe, there to end the rest of his daies in rest and honour among his citizens, of whom he was honourably welcomed home.  Some judge that he left Rome after the death of Trajan, being then of great yeares, to leade a more quiet life.  So being then at rest, he earnestly took in hand that which he had long thought of before, to wit, the Lives, and tooke great pains with it until he had brought his worke to perfection, as we have done at this present; although that some Lives, as those of Scipio African, of Metellus Numidicus, and some other are not to be found.  Now himselfe confesseth in some place, that when he began this worke, at the first it was but to profit others; but that afterwards it was to profit himselfe, looking upon those histories, as if he had looked in a glasse, and seeking to reform his life in some sort, and to forme it in the mould of the vertues of these great men; taking this fashion of searching their manners, and writing the Lives of these noble men, to be a familiar haunting and frequenting of them.  Also he thought, [said he himselfe] that he lodged these men one after another in his house, entering into consideration of their qualities, and that which was great in either of them, choosing and principally taking that which was to be noted, and most worthy to be knowne in their sayings and deeds."[A]

[Footnote A:  North’s ‘Plutarch,’ 1631, p. 1198.]

Of Plutarch in his domestic relations we gather much information from his own writings.  The name of his father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus, from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations.  His brothers Timon and Lamprias are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of in the most affectionate terms.  Rualdus has ingeniously recovered the name of his wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings.  A touching letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their only daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother.  The number of his sons we cannot exactly state.  Autobulus and Plutarch are especially spoken of as his sons, since the treatise on the Timaeus of Plato is dedicated to them, and the marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner-parties recorded in the ‘Table Talk.’  Another person, one Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch’s son, but this is nowhere definitely stated.  His treatise also on Marriage Questions, addressed to Eurydike and Pollianus, seems to speak of her as having been recently an inmate of his house, but without enabling us to form an opinion whether she was his daughter or not.  A modern writer well describes his maturer years by the words:  “Plutarch was well born, well taught, well conditioned; a self-respecting amiable man, who knew how to better a good education by travels, by devotion to affairs private and public; a master of ancient culture, he read books with a just criticism:  eminently social, he was a king in his own house, surrounded himself with select friends, and knew the high value of good conversation; and declares in a letter written to his wife that ’he finds scarcely an erasure, as in a book well written, in the happiness of his life.’”