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Plutarch's Lives, Volume I by Plutarch
page 19 of 561 (03%)

From several passages in Plutarch's writings we gather that he studied
under a master named Ammonius, at Athens. For instance, at the end of
his Life of Themistokles, he mentions a descendant of that great man who
was his fellow-student at the house of Ammonius the philosopher. Again,
he tells us that once Ammonius, observing at his afternoon lecture that
some of his class had indulged too freely in the pleasures of the table,
ordered his own son to be flogged, "because," he said, "the young
gentleman cannot eat his dinner without pickles," casting his eye at the
same time upon the other offenders so as to make them sensible that the
reproof applied to them also.

By way of completing his education he proceeded to visit Egypt. The
"wisdom of the Egyptians" always seems to have had a fascination for the
Greeks, and at this period Alexandria, with its famous library and its
memories of the Ptolemies, of Kallimachus and of Theokritus, was an
important centre of Greek intellectual activity. Plutarch's treatise on
Isis and Osiris is generally supposed to be a juvenile work suggested by
his Egyptian travels. In all the Graeco-Egyptian lore he certainly
became well skilled, although we have no evidence as to how long he
remained in Egypt. He makes mention indeed of a feast given in his
honour by some of his relatives on the occasion of his return home from
Alexandria, but we can gather nothing from the passage as to his age at
that time.

One anecdote of his early life is as follows:--"I remember," he says,
"that when I was still a young man, I was sent with another person on a
deputation to the Proconsul; my colleague, as it happened, was unable to
proceed, and I saw the Proconsul and performed the commission alone.
When I returned I was about to lay down my office and to give a public
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