Plutarch's Lives of Themistocles, Pericles, Aristides, Alcibiades and Coriolanus and Demosthenes and Cicero, Caesar and Antony (The Harvard Classics, Vol. 12)

"The Parallel Lives of Famous Greeks and Romans have their name from the author's plan of setting side by side a Greek statesman, soldier, orator, and a Roman of eminence in the same field, in order to gain illumination from the comparison; and in this way he covered almost the whole history of Greece and Rome from legendary times to his own day. He collected his facts with care and at the expense of great labor, and for many periods he is the chief, sometimes the only, source of information now accessible." Excerpt Introductory Note