Parallela minora

The Greek and Roman Parallel Stories (sometimes called the Parallela Minora) are a puzzle. The use of some strange and barbarous forms, the substitution of “the aforesaid” for the usual pronoun of reference (though this is, to be sure, a prominent characteristic of the work of Polybius), and above all the atrocious style in which the work is written make it impossible that this could reasonably be regarded as the work of Plutarch, though some scholars, fortunately unknown to Hartman, have actually regarded this work as one of the sins of Plutarch’s otherwise stainless youth.

Yet a work of this name is included in Lamprias’s list, No. 128 under the title Διηγήσεις Παράλληλοι Ἑλληνικαὶ καὶ Ῥωμαϊκαὶ and several of these tales are quoted in full in almost the exact words of our ms. text by Joannes Stobaeus. But the excessive ineptitude of the language quite excludes the possibility that the work before us can be Plutarch’s, if indeed he ever wrote a book of this sort.