Essays on erudite versatility in Plutarch's works. Plutarch was a brilliant Platonist, an erudite historian, a gifted author of highly polished literary dialogues, a priest of Apollo at Delphi, and a devoted politician in his hometown Chaeronea. He felt confident in the most technical and specialized discussions, yet was not afraid of rhetorical generalizations. In his voluminous oeuvre, he appears as a sharp polemicist and a loving father, an ardent pupil but also a kind, inspiring teacher, a sober historian and a teller of wondrous tales. In view of all these different personae, erudite versatility is without any doubt a major characteristic of Plutarch's works.A Versatile Gentleman is dedicated to Luc Van der Stockt, professor emeritus of Greek language and literature at KU Leuven and a truly versatile gentleman. The volume aims to do justice to his and Plutarch's versatility by discussing the Chaeronean from many different angles. As such, it sheds new light on the coherence of, and the tensions in, Plutarch's thinking and writing.Contributors:Frances B. Titchener (Utah State University), John Dillon (Trinity College Dublin), Rainer Hirsch-Luipold (Universität Bern), Jan Opsomer (KU Leuven), Paola Volpe Cacciatore (Università degli studi di Salerno), Ewen Bowie (Corpus Christi College Oxford), Frederick E. Brenk (Pontifical Biblical Institute Rome), Judith Mossman (University of Nottingham), Christopher Pelling (Christ Church Oxford), Mark Beck (University of South Carolina), Jeffrey Beneker (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Geert Roskam (KU Leuven), Simon Verdegem (KU Leuven), Philip A. Stadter (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Lucia Athanassaki (University of Crete), Heinz Gerd Ingenkamp (Universität Bonn), Delfim F. Leão (Universidade de Coimbra), Aurelio Pérez Jiménez (Universidad de Málaga)