Plutarch

Plutarch (/ˈpluːtɑːrk/; Greek: Πλούταρχος, Ploútarkhos, Koine Greek: [plǔːtarkʰos]; later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Λούκιος Μέστριος Πλούταρχος); c. AD 46 – AD 120) was a Greek historian, biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works are believed to have been originally written in Koine Greek.

Early life

Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, which lies approximately eighty kilometres east of Delphi, in the Greek region known as Boeotia. His family was wealthy. The name of Plutarch's father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus (Nίκαρχoς), from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations. The name of Plutarch's grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in Moralia and in his Life of Antony.

His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, wherein Timon in particular is spoken of in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus, in his 1624 work Life of Plutarchus, recovered the name of Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their two-year-old daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. Interestingly, he hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation.

Parallel Lives

Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives, is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, written in the late 1st century. The surviving Parallel Lives (Greek: Βίοι Παράλληλοι, Bíoi Parállēloi) comprises twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.

Motivation

As he explains in the first paragraph of his Life of Alexander, Plutarch was not concerned with writing histories, but with exploring the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of famous men. He wished to prove that the more remote past of Greece could show its men of action and achievement as well as the nearer, and therefore more impressive, past of Rome. His interest was primarily ethical, although the lives have significant historical value as well. The Lives was published by Plutarch late in his life after his return to Chaeronea and, if one may judge from the long lists of authorities given, it must have taken many years to compile.

Characters of Half-Life

This is a list of characters in the Half-Life video game series, which comprises Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and their respective expansion packs and episodes.

Introduced in Half-Life and expansion packs

This section deals with characters that appear in Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Half-Life: Decay

Gordon Freeman

Gordon Freeman, Ph.D., is the silent protagonist of the Half-Life series, and the playable character in Half-Life, and all games in the Half-Life 2 series. He is a theoretical physicist, and holds a Ph.D. from MIT in that field. At the time of Half-Life, he works at Black Mesa Research Facility, a facility in New Mexico, conducting nuclear and subatomic research.

The G-Man

The G-Man (voiced by Michael Shapiro) is a mysterious recurring character in the Half-Life series of first-person shooter computer games. He is known to display peculiar behavior and capabilities beyond that of a normal human and his identity and motives remain almost completely unexplained. He plays the role of an overseer and employer, both observing the player as the games progress and pulling strings to control the outcome of specific events throughout the Half-Life saga. The G-Man's constant appearances in the Half-Life games, as well as his revealing monologues with series protagonist Gordon Freeman, imply he is of great importance and somewhat anchors the endeavors of the player. His mysterious nature has made him an icon of the Half-Life series.

The Great Courses

The Great Courses (TGC) is a series of college-level audio and video courses produced and distributed by The Teaching Company (TTC), a Chantilly, Virginia company, via mobile, tablet, and connected TV apps,CD, DVD, or MP3 and MPEG-4 download formats, and streaming media.

The series differ from most online learning platforms in that they are produced for enrichment purposes only and offered without schedules, homework, exams, or certificates.

Background

The company was founded in 1990 by Thomas M. Rollins, former Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Rollins had been inspired by a 10-hour videotaped lecture series he watched while at Harvard Law School, and began recruiting top professors and experts based almost entirely on customer feedback. As of 2016, the company offers over 550 courses ranging in length from six lectures to over ninety lectures in several subject categories: business, economics, fine arts, music, ancient and medieval history, modern history, literature and English language, philosophy and intellectual history, religion, science, mathematics, social sciences, professional development and better living. This latter category includes a range of topics such as health & wellness, food & wine, photography, drawing, travel, parenting, chess, mindfulness, tai chi, and yoga. In 2015, the company began offering its video courses as part of an unlimited subscription streaming service called The Great Courses Plus.

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas." It usually eschews the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, historically science fiction stories were intended to have at least a faint grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection has become tenuous or non-existent in much of science fiction.

Definitions

Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a wide range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it", a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography: you do not know what it is, but you know it when you see it.