Roman biography

Genre of Greek and Roman literature

Ancient biography, or bios, as distinct from modern biography, was a genre of Greek and Roman literature interested in describing the goals, achievements, failures, and character of ancient historical persons and whether or not they should be imitated.

Subgenres

Authors of ancient bios, such as the works of Nepos and Plutarch's Parallel Lives imitated many of the same sources and techniques of the contemporary historiographies of ancient Greece, notably including the works of Herodotus and Thucydides.

There were various forms of ancient biographies, including:

1. philosophical biographies that brought out the moral character of their subject (such as Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers);
2. literary biographies which discussed the lives of orators and poets (such as Philostratus's Lives of the Sophists);
3. school and reference biographies that offered a short sketch of someone including their ances