The other argument for the dramatic location is connected with the question of the dramatic date of the dialogue. At 931 d-e Lucius refers to a recent total solar eclipse, saying: if you will call to mind this conjunction recently which, beginning just after noonday, made many stars shine out from many parts of the sky δότε μοι, ταύτης ἔναγχος τῆς συνόδου μνησθέντες ἥ πολλὰ μὲν ἄστρα πολλαχόθεν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ διέφηνεν εὐθὺς ἐκ μεσημβρίας ἀρκαμένη GinzelF. K. Ginzel, Spezieller Kanon der Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse für das Ländergebiet der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Berlin, 1899), pp. 202-204; cf. also Plates X and XI for the paths of solar eclipses during the first and second centuries a.d. The data for the eclipses of 75 and 83, s.v., come from Ginzel’s tables, Op. cit. p. 78 and pp. 110-111. identified this eclipse with the one which occurred on 20 March a.d. 71, for he found that all other solar eclipses visible in Chaeronea during Plutarch’s lifetime fell too far short of totality to permit the appearance of stars. His conclusion was generally acceptedStruyck (cited by Ginzel, Op. cit. p. 203) appears to have come to this conclusion before Ginzel; and Ginzel’s identification was accepted by M. Adler (Zwei Beiträge zum plutarchischen Dialog, De Facie [Nikolsburg, 1910], p. 4) and by Fotheringham as cited by A. O. Prickard (Plutarch on the Face of the Moon [1911], p. 75, and Plutarch, Select Essays, ii, p. 253). Hirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 182, n. 1), following Volkmann, does not even mention the eclipses of 59, 71, and 75, which Ginzel held to be the only ones worthy of consideration. until Sandbach Op. cit. in note c, p. 8 supra. pointed out that, since this eclipse reached its maximum phase at about 11 A.M. local solar time in Chaeronea,10hr, 58m, 4 according to Ginzel (Op. cit. p. 204); 11hr, 4m, 1 according to Fotheringham as quoted by Prickard (Plutarch, Select Essays, ii, p. 253). Plutarch could not have referred to it as having begun after noonday. Ginzel had assumed that the place of observation was Chaeronea; Sandbach, having recognized that this assumption is unwarranted, was able to consider two other eclipses, that of 5 January A.D. 75 and that of 27 December A.D. 83. The latter was total at Alexandria shortly before 15 hours. The former was total in Carthage a little after 15 hours and in the latitude of Rome on the eastern side of the Adriatic at about 15 hours, 20 minutes; at Rome itself the maximum obscuration was 11 · 5 digits, so that, since according to Fotheringham Historical Eclipses (1921), cited by Fotheringham in a letter to Sandbach (22 January 1929); in this letter Fotheringham states that a certain number of stars were visible at Rome in 75. cf. Ginzel, Op. cit. p. 14: Bei den zentralen Sonnenfinsternissen einzelne Sterne treten mitunter hervor, bevor die Phase 11 zöllig geworden ist. stars other than Venus have been visible where the solar obscuration was 10 · 7 digits, it is perfectly possible that some stars would have been seen at Rome about 3.20 p.m. local solar time on 5 January A.D. 75. This eclipse of A.D. 75 as seen in Rome certainly fits the conditions of Lucius’ statement better than does the one of A.D. 71 as seen in Chaeronea, even though it was rather late to be described as beginning just after noonday.Its beginning, which would have been at approximately 13.50 hours, could not have been observed with the naked eye; but Plutarch was capable of calculating it roughly. In any case, whether the συνόδον ἣ ἀρξαμένη is to be taken strictly or in the sense of the time when darkness began, μεσημβρία, as Sandbach has said, is an extended period of time and not an astronomical moment; and Lucius means that the conjunction began just after noonday was over. It must be emphasized that there is no reason to assume that Plutarch himself saw the eclipse to which Lucius refers. He had undoubtedly heard that it had been seen in or near Rome; he almost certainly had seen the eclipse of A.D. 71 in Chaeronea and may have seen that of A.D. 83 in AlexandriaWe do not know when Plutarch visited Alexandria. In Quaest. Conviv v. 5 (678 C ff.) his grandfather is present at a banquet given for him after his return from Alexandria. Sandbach (loc. cit.) thinks that this could have been after 83; but, whether this is so or not, we do not know whether there may not have been more visits to Alexandria than this one.; and what he had seen during one or both of these eclipses he may very well have applied to the eclipse of A.D. 75, which he had not seen.If 932 B (περιφαίνεταί τις αὐγὴ περὶ, τὴν ἴτυν . . .) means, as has sometimes been supposed, that Plutarch had seen the corona, he must have had this experience in 71 or 83. No one in or near Rome would have seen it in 75. I doubt that these words apply to the corona at all, however, for the subsequent oὐκ εὦσα βαθεῖαν γενέσθαι τὴν σκιὰν καὶ ἄκρατον would be a remarkably tame way of describing that spectacle. If the passage refers to any observed phenomenon, it is more likely to have reference to an annular eclipse. We may then conclude that the dramatic date of the dialogue is later than A.D. 75, but how much later it is remains uncertain despite Lucius’ reference to the eclipse as recent. The word which he uses, ἔναγχος, like the English recent, has a meaning relative to its context, and in the case of anything so unusual as a total solar eclipse might refer to an event that had taken place at any time within a decade or more; it seems in this passage not to be used of the immediate past, for Lucius expressly reckons with the possibility that his audience may not recall the recent conjunction and may have to fall back upon literary evidence for the impression made by a total solar eclipse.931 E: εἰ δὲ μή, Θέων ἡμῖν τὸν Μίμνερμον ἐπάσει, κτλ. Of course, this is primarily a literary device to excuse the introduction of the literary references; but it shows that Plutarch does not expect his readers to remember what a total solar eclipse is like. The attempts to find a historical reference in 945 B which would help to fix the date of the dialogue are quite perverseHirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 182, n. 1) excised Τυφών in 945 B (Τιτυοὶ δὲ καὶ Τυφῶνες ὅ τε Δελφοὺς κατασχὼν καὶ συνταράξας τὸ χρηστήριον ὕβρει καὶ βίαλ Τυφὼν ἐξ ἐκείνων κτλ.), took ὁ συνταράξας βίαλ as a reference to Nero, and concluded that Plutarch must have written this after the devastation of Delphi and before the restoration of the oracle. Adler (Zwei Beiträge, etc. [see note a, p. 10], pp. 5-7) defended the text of the mss., which he interpreted to mean demons of the nature of Tityus and Typho and among these especially the Typhon who, etc., and followed Pomtow (Rhein. Mus. li [1896], pp. 377 ff.), who showed that the extinction of the Delphic oracle during the time from Nero to Hadrian was pure invention and who took Τυφών in Facie, 945 B, as a reference to the conflagration in 83 B.C. Adler then, assuming that after the ceremonious restoration of the temple in A.D. 84 Plutarch would not remind his readers of its devastation, concluded that the dialogue must have been written before A.D. 84. This argument was criticized by K. Mras (Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien, lxv [1914], p. 187), who in turn deleted Τυφὦνες from the text and read Τιτυοὶ δὲ καὶ ὁ Τυφὼν ὁ νφών Δελφούς βίαλ κτλ. This violent alteration is even less justifiable than Hirzel’s excision of Τυφών, with which it shares the fault of producing the hiatus βιάλ ἐξ; but the text of the MSS. is impossible despite Adler, for (a) one does not say in any language such creatures as Tityus and Typho and in particular Typho . . ., (b) nowhere else is Typho himself said to have done the deed here ascribed to him, and (c) a reference to the conflagration is at least as improbable as the supposed reference to Nero. Kaltwasser’s change of Τυφών to Πύθων, on the other hand, is practically certain. Confusion of π and τ and of θ and φ is easy and common, and πύθων coming after τυφώνες would very easily be assimilated to it. Moreover, in Defectu Oraculorum, 421 C, τὰ περὶ Πύθωνα are included among δαιμόνων πάθη along with τὰ Τυφωνικά and τὰ Τιτανικά. In 414 A - B the oracle at Delphi is said to have been long deserted in what is represented as ancient times; and, if it is denied that the beast (which is not here named but is certainly Pythons3) was the cause, that is done in order to ascribe the cause to Δαίμονες. Finally, Πύθων and Τιτυός are named together by Plutarch in Pelopidas, 16 (286 C) as they are by Strabo (ix. 3. 12 [cc. 422-423]) and Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, i. 4. 1. 3-5 [22-23]).; and we are restricted by the evidence at present available to the conclusion that the conversation was meant to have taken place in or about Rome some time and perhaps quite a long time after A.D. 75.
So much for the dramatic date. There is no reason at all for Hirzel’s assertion r Dialog, ii, p. 184, n. 1. that this and the date of composition coincide. Certain striking similarities between the Facie and the Defectu Oraculorum have often been observed, but from these can be drawn equally cogent — and equally hypothetical — arguments for the priority of either to the otherM. Adler (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, pp. 115-116) contends that in the Defectu Plutarch excerpts the Facie; but see Raingeard, p. xxviii of his edition of Facie.; and, since in any case the date of the Defectu is uncertain,Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 76, gives about 100 as the date; but cf. Flaceliére, Plutarque: Sur la Disparition des Oracles, note 4 and pp. 13-17. the relative chronology of the two if established would not determine the date of the Facie.
4. The structure of the De Facie is complicated. The whole of the work is narrated by Lamprias who speaks in the first person and quotes those who took part in the conversation, including himself, some few times in indirect discourse (e.g. 933 F) but for the most part directly. The last part of his narration (chaps. 26-30 [940 F 945 D] consists entirely of Sulla’s myth given in Sulla’s own words; this myth, Sulla himself says, is a story told to him by an unnamed stranger, whom he quotes first indirectly and then (942 D ff.) directly to the end. The second or eschatological part of the myth the stranger had told Sulla that he had himself heard from the chamberlains and servitors of Cronus (cf. 945 D). Hearing it from Lamprias now, the reader has this part at fourth hand and the geographical introduction of the stranger at third hand.Cf, Plato’s Parmenides and Shorey, What Plato Said, p. 287.
From 937 C it appears that Sulla had promised to tell his myth in return for an account of what had been said in an earlier discussion about the nature of the face which appears in the moon. Such a compact may have been expressly made in the beginning of the dialogue which is lost, where Sulla may have come upon the company already engaged in reviewing that earlier discussion (see note a, p. 3). So much is no more than conjecture. It is certain, however, that most of what Lamprias narrates from chapter 2 through chapter 23 is a conversation which is itself represented as containing a resume or report of what was said at an earlier conversation. This the beginning of chapter 24 (937 C) states explicitly: ἡμεῖς μὲν οὖν, ἔφην, ὅσα μὴ διαπέφευγε τὴν μνήμην τῶν ἐκεῖ λεχθέντων ἀπηγγέλκαμεν, and the ἐδόκει λέγεσθαι at the end of chapter 2 (920 F) implies that what Lamprias has hitherto said in that chapter had been used as an argument in the earlier discussion. The leader of that discussion, which is referred to as a διατριβή,By Lucius at 929 B: ὁ μὲν οὖν ἑταῖρος ἐν τῷ διατριβῇ τοῦτο ἀποδεικνὺς ἠυδοκίμησεν. was not Lamprias or Lucius, who here recapitulate it, cf. besides 937 C, 920 F, and 929 B, which have already been cited, especially 921 F, 930 A, 932 D, 933 C. but someone to whom Lamprias, Lucius, and Sulla refer as our comrade and who probably is meant to be Plutarch himself. cf. 921 F, 929 B, 929 F, and see note a on p. 48 s.v.. Lamprias and Lucius are, of course, presumed to have been present at that discussion with their comrade and Sulla to have been absent from it.The logic of the situation demands this; but it is also implied by Sulla’s question at 929 F. Of the others, Apollonides certainly was not present,This is implied by his question in 920 F and confirmed by that in 921 B: ἀλλὰ πῇ τὸν ἔλεγχον αὐτῷ προσῆγες; (in this latter passage Pohlenz [B. P. W. xxxii, 1912, p. 649] argued for retention of the MSS, reading, προσῆγε, understanding as subject ὁ ἑταῖρος, who he assumes was mentioned in the lost beginning of the dialogue; but surely this sentence is too far from even such a hypothetical antecedent, and Adler’s προσῆγες is an obvious and highly probable correction). nor was TheonThis is certainly implied by his interchange with Lucius in 932 D - E.; Pharnaces probably was notThis is the most reasonable inference to be drawn from 921 F, where Lucius requests that Pharnaces be given some consideration, and from Pharnaces’ comment in 922 F upon the attack of Lamprias. Nevertheless, Pharnaces’ words in the latter passage, ἐμὲ δ’ οὖν οὐκ ἐξλαξεσθε τήμερον κτλ., are open to the interpretation that he had been present at the earlier discussion and had there been drawn out by the Academic gambit.; and concerning Aristotle and Menelaus the text as we have it allows no clear inference to be drawn.Lucius’s one remark to Menelaus (930 A), αἰσχύνομαι σοῦ παρόντος κτλ., seems to imply that the latter had not been present at the earlier discussion; but this is not decisive, especially in view of the fact that Menelaus makes no reply. Aristotle’s silence when Lamprias addresses him in 920 F might be taken to mean that he had heard this before; and πρὸς Κλέαρχον, ὦ Ἀριστότελες, ἐδόκει λέθεσθαι τὸν ὑμέρτον could be interpreted as a reminder, although what follows, ὑμέτερος γὰρ ἁνὴρ κτλ., sounds as if this were something new. In 929 B Lucius in a speech addressed especially to Aristotle refers to what our comrade said ἐν τῇ διατριβῇ and adds that he will not repeat what he learned παρ ὑμῶν μεθ ὑμῶν, which might be taken to imply that Aristotle too had attended the διατριβή in question, although it might have a more general meaning. What these men other than Lamprias and Lucius say in chapters 2-23 is not, then, part of the report of that earlier discussion; but neither is all that Lucius says, for in several places his remarks or arguments are expressly declared to be his own contribution. cf. Lamprias’s comment, οὐχ οὕτως δ’ ὁ ἑταῖρος ἡμῶν, in 921 F and his καλῷ λόγῳ καλὴν ἀναλογίαν προσλεθηκας: οὐ γὰρ ἀποστερητόν σε τῶν ἰδίων (931 D). The latter marks the last sentence of Lucius’s preceding speech (δότε δή μοι γεωμετρικῶς εἰρεῖν κτλ.) as his own, while Lucius’s own subsequent statement (οὐκοῦν καὶ δεύτερον ἀναλογίᾳ προσχρητέον) makes the same claim for what follows. In 933 C (παρίημι δ’ ὅσα ἐλέχθη) and possibly in 929 B (ἐγὼ δὲ ταῦτα μὲν οὐκ ἐρῶ κτλ. [see note b supra]) Lucius indicates that he is not giving a full account of the earlier discussion. That earlier discussion cannot, however, be identified with any that Plutarch may have had with his friends or with any lecture that he may have given; it is primarily a literary fiction, part of the structure of the dialogue for which it provides a specious motivation.