He lived several years at Rome and in other parts of Italy, where, according to the fashion of the age and the custom of the philosophic rhetoricians (of whom, probably, he was one of the very few whose _prælections_ were of any real value), he gave public lectures, attended by the most eminent literary as well as social personages of the time, among whom were Tacitus, the younger Pliny, Quintilian, and perhaps Juvenal. These lectures may have formed the basis, if not the entire matter, of the miscellaneous essays which he afterwards published. When in Italy he neglected altogether the Latin language and literature, and the reason he gives proves the estimation in which he was held: “I had so many public commissions, and so many people came to me to receive instruction in philosophy.... it was, therefore, not till a late period in life that I began to read the Latin writers.” In fact, the very general indifference, or at least silence, of the Greek masters in regard to Latin literature is not a little remarkable. It is asserted, on doubtful authority (Suidas), that he was preceptor of Trajan, in the beginning of whose reign he held the high post of Procurator of Greece; and he also filled the honourable office of _Archon_, or Chief Magistrate of his native city, as well as of priest of the Delphic Apollo. He passed the later and larger portion of his life in quiet retirement at Chæronea. The reason he assigns for clinging to that dull and decaying provincial town, although residence there was not a little inconvenient for him, is creditable to his citizen-feeling, since he believed that by quitting it he, as a person of influence, might contribute to its ruin. In all the relations of social life Plutarch appears to have been exemplary, and he was evidently held in high esteem by his fellow-citizens. As husband and father he was particularly admirable. The death of a young daughter, one of a numerous progeny, was the occasion of one of his most affecting productions--the _Consolation_--addressed to his wife Timoxena. He himself died at an advanced age, in the reign of Hadrian.