This volume is the fourth in the new series dedicated to studies on Plutarch. It contains fifteen papers (mostly in English but five European languages are represented), which had their origin at a conference in Delphi in 2004. They are divided into four thematic sections and followed by a comprehensive bibliography, index locorum and English abstracts. The general aim is to shed some light on what is broadly termed Plutarch's ‘popular philosophy’, including a portion of writings which has remained somewhat neglected in the recent renaissance of Plutarchan studies: 21 works categorised by K. Ziegler (RE XXI.1 [1951], 636–962) as ‘popularphilosophisch-ethische’.

Section 1, ‘Virtues for the People’, contains six papers examining the meaning of ‘popular philosophy’, its rhetorical strategies, audience, social context and relevance. V. d. S. examines the rhetoric of the treatise On Having Many Friends and by comparing treatises on friendship by Themistius and Maximus argues that Plutarch relies on his audience holding the same views on virtue as he does – thus a limited audience. C. Pelling (in a paper that perhaps would have been better as the first in the volume) asks what exactly is popular about Plutarch's ‘Popular Philosophy’. Starting from the Lives and moving into different Moralia treatises, he observes that popular philosophy does not in fact appear to be aimed at the ordinary man in the street – and so it is not popular in that sense – but at pepaideumenoi. These notions are brought out in the next two papers. T. Duff argues that Plutarch expects his readers to hold the same moral stance as he does, but he expects them also to be an active audience, questioning multivalent perspectives and ‘closural dissonance’, which is evident not just in the Lives but in numerous treatises. Duff uses Plutarch's instructions in How Young Men Should Listen to Poetry to bolster this view of the critical educated reader. P. Desideri follows with a strong argument, which ties in well with Pelling's paper, that Political Precepts is a work aimed at the political classes and not at the man in the street, as it teaches how to manipulate the demos in order to maintain as much autonomy as possible for Greek poleis from Roman overlordship. J.C. Capriglione picks up on practical social and ethical issues raised in V. d. S.'s paper in her analysis of How to Profit from One's Enemies; like Desideri, Capriglione sees Plutarch's approach as above all dictated by practicality and the need to manage in a world where bad people and things exist. Finally, L. Van Hoof examines the rhetorical strategy at play in one particular treatise, Precepts of Healthcare. She shows Plutarch cleverly using the dialogue form to position the debate between medicine and philosophy in favour of philosophy. The audience again is select, and the aim is not to create philosophers but to show how philosophy more than medicine is important for health and well-being in any of life's arenas.

Section 2, ‘Some Theoretical Questions on Ethical Praxis’, contains three papers which focus on theoretical philosophising embedded in Plutarch's writings. The first two (H.M. Martin and J. Opsomer) cast their nets wide and draw out well Plutarch's awareness of how difficult it is to apply rigid theory to the unpredictability of real life; the contrast between the more theoretical treatises and theory-in-practice in the Lives highlights this. Both argue that what we might regard as contradictions in Plutarch's outlook are not to be viewed as problematic or ill-thought out but indeed as a strength in his moral outlook, predicated on a recognition of the complexity of moral action. R. by contrast focusses on a single dialogue, De amore prolis. He sets the central concept of philostorgia within its philosophical tradition and carefully shows how this treatise is not about animal psychology (as is sometimes assumed) but about humans and is firmly anti-Epicurean.

Section 3, ‘Virtues and Vices’, contains three papers on moral concerns and the role of reason in controlling the passions. The first two look at treatises which Ziegler categorised as popular philosophy. A. Nikolaidis examines De garrulitate, De curiositate and De vitioso pudore, showing that they have roughly the same structure, focus on the necessity to control the passions with reason, and show how destructive these passions can be in society. H.G. Ingekamp casts his gaze on De vitando aere alieno and looks at Plutarch's rhetoric and use of what he calls springboard arguments, which again suggests a learned audience (though he curiously gives a very literal reading of 6.829e–30b as suggesting a less-cultivated audience; contrast L. Van Hoof, Plutarch's Practical Ethics [2010], pp. 25–6). P. Stadter examines the concept of philonikia across the treatises and the Lives noting that it is invariably a negative quality in the former and only sometimes a positive quality in the latter. This paper ties in nicely with those by Pelling and Desideri: the treatises in which the concept is negative warn contemporary Greek elites to keep their competitiveness at bay; the Lives show, at one remove, how often, even among free states, such a quality leads to destructive behaviour among leaders.

Section 4, ‘“Popular Philosophy” in Context’, has three papers looking at treatises which deal with topics beyond moral edification. A. Pérez Jiménez examines Plutarch's thoughts on astro-meteorological matters and argues that he rationalises views found in popular belief. J. Mossman and F. Titchener examine the sophisticated rhetorical strategies in two of Plutarch's treatises on animals, De sollertia animalium (Mossman's contribution, in earlier form in Hermathena 2005) and Gryllus. The authors bring out the complexity of the rhetoric and of the literary allusions, as Plutarch uses these tools to attack the Stoic view that animals are devoid of reason. The final essay, by F. Frazier, again casts the net wide. She examines the imagery of the mirror in Plutarch and its role as a means towards self-knowledge (this paper will be profitably read in conjunction with A. Zadororojnyi's essay on Plutarchan mirrors in N. Humble [ed.], Plutarch's Lives: Parallelism and Purpose [2010], pp. 169–95).

The papers are on the whole of a fine quality (and the volume is well produced apart from some rather disorienting formatting in Nikolaidis' paper) and almost always live up to the aim of shedding new light on the material under discussion. Many thematic strands link them in different ways, allowing for different aspects to be viewed from multiple angles. A disappointment, however, was the lack of engagement by Nikolaidis with the issue of audience, particularly in light of the fact that almost all the papers argue for an elite readership, and in light of Pelling's concluding observation that though the more political tracts and Lives seem to be addressed to the elite, ‘the very ordinary are [also] faced with the need to restrain their anger, to reduce their debt … [etc.]’. The issue of whether or not treatises on these topics addressed a less elite audience is never seriously examined.

An opportunity was missed here to face down and break free from the tyranny of Ziegler's terminology. While there is some contextualisation of Ziegler's view (pp. 8–10, 19–21), given that his categorisation is problematic, this volume presented the perfect place for challenging and abandoning this straitjacket, particularly since many of the papers go well beyond this constricting categorisation. Given the near consensus that Plutarch writes for an elite audience and that he is concerned to situate much of his philosophising within specific political and social settings, whether in the past or his own day, perhaps ‘practical philosophy’ is a more appropriate term than ‘popular philosophy’, which seems to contain within it the misleading sense that it was aimed at Everyman.