Plutarch's Parallel Lives is a series of biographies, arranged in pairs illuminating virtues & vices. Surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with a Greek & a Roman life, & 4 unpaired lives. As explained in the opening of...Plutarch's Parallel Lives is a series of biographies, arranged in pairs illuminating virtues & vices. Surviving lives contain 23 pairs, each with a Greek & a Roman life, & 4 unpaired lives. As explained in the opening of his life of alexander, he wasn't concerned with history so much as the influence of character on life & destiny.