Moralia, Volume XIII: Part 1: Part 1. Platonic Essays (Loeb Classical Library) Book

This is, to me, the least interesting volume of his essays. The ten Platonic Questions were hit or miss, and the rest of the book-- On the Generation of the Soul in the Timaeus-- was mostly abstract, technical, and involved tossing a lot of numbers back and forth. Some of the cosmology was interesting; the best parts reminded me of the Silmarillion.

I guess I'm just not interested enough in Plato's Timaeus. Plutarch suffers from a hostile editor in this volume, who quotes with disgust another scholar's claim that "Plutarch fathomed the thought of Plato better than did Plato's immediate disciples." I don't know enough to judge that, but I will say this: what never made sense to me in Plato before, made much better sense coming from Plutarch. I never knew why Plato seemed to think that studying math was the way to compose your soul and be morally perfect. Plutarch doesn't say it is, but his commentary helps me understand why Plato thought so. (Plutarch was nowhere near the wingnut Plato was.)