Rusticus, who could not commend Thrasea, but at the same time he must inveigh against the oppressor of the Roman liberty. That Plutarch was married in his own country, and that before he came to Rome, is probable. That the fame of him was come before him, by reason of some part of his works already published, is also credible, because he had so great resort of the Roman nobility to hear him read immediately, as we believe, upon his coming: that he was invited thither by the correspondence he had with Sossius Senecio, might be one reason of his undertaking that journey, is almost undeniable.[6] It likewise appears he was divers times at Rome; and perhaps, before he came to inhabit there, might make acquaintance with this worthy man, Senecio, to whom he dedicated almost all these Lives of Greeks and Romans. I say almost all, because one of them, namely, that of Aratus, is inscribed in most express words to Polycrates, the Sicyonian, the great grandson of the said Aratus. This worthy patron and friend of Plutarch, Senecio, was four time consul; the first time in the short reign of Cocceius Nerva, a virtuous and a learned emperor; which opinion I rather follow than that of Aurelius Cassiodorus, who puts back his consulship into the last of Domitian, because it is not probable that vicious tyrant should exalt to that dignity a man of virtue. This year falls in with the year of Christ, ninety-nine. But the great inducement of our author to this journey was certainly the desire he had to lay in materials for his Roman Lives: that was the design which he had formed early, and on which he had resolved to build his fame. Accordingly, we have observed, that he had travelled over Greece, to peruse the archives of every city, that he might be able to write properly not only the lives of his Grecian worthies, but the laws, the customs, the rites, and ceremonies of every place; which that he might treat with the same mastery of skill, when he came to draw his PARALLELS of the Romans, he took the invitation of his friends, and particularly of our Sossius Senecio, to visit this mistress of the world, this imperial city of Rome; and, by the favour of many great and learned men then living, to search the records of the capitol, and the libraries, which might furnish him with instruments for so noble an undertaking. But that this may not seem to be my own bare opinion, or that of any modern author whom I follow, Plutarch himself has delivered it as his motive, in the Life of Demosthenes. The words are these: “Whosoever designs to write an history, (which it is impossible to form to any excellency from those materials that are ready at hand, or to take from common report, while he sits lazily at home in his own study, but must of necessity be gathered from foreign observations, and the scattered writings of various authors,) it concerns him to take up his habitation in some renowned and populous city, where he may command all sorts of books, and be acquainted