ABSTRACT
Plutarch embraced dialogue. Beyond the use of dialogue – taken in the literal sense of ‘conversation, verbal exchange’ (OED, s.v.) – as a rhetorical gambit that enlivens the narrative of his Lives and lends voice to his Moral Essays, Plutarch most importantly adopted the dialogue as a literary genre and produced a number of philosophical works set in the dialogue form. In fact, after Plato, who is hailed as the real inventor of the dialogue as a literary form,1 Plutarch is the next main surviving representative of the genre in ancient Greek literature, although this is partly owing to the vagaries of textual transmission: there were many other Greek authors who produced dialogues (most notably, Aristotle and his Peripatetic successors), but these are unfortunately no longer extant.2 Be that as it may, the fact remains that Plutarch stands between the master of the genre, Plato, and the Christian authors, who continued to cultivate the dialogue within the framework of theological, philosophical or political debates.3 Plutarch’s dialogues are, therefore, an inevitable bridge between the Platonic and the Christian tradition of dialogue, and as such can throw light on the development of the genre beyond antiquity.4
