Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

Plutarch

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.

Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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Texto

[intro] 1. The authenticity of this dialogue has sometimes been questioned but without any plausible reason. cf. S. Günther, quoted by M. Adler, Diss. Phil. Vind. x (1910), p. 87, and R. Pixis, Kepler als Geograph, p. 105. Wilamowitz (Commentariolum Grammaticum, iii, pp. 27-28) suggested that the dialogue was published under the name of Lamprias; and this notion that Lamprias was in some sense either the real or the reputed author was adopted by Christ in the third edition of his Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898), p. 662, and by Hirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 185). On the other hand, despite statements to the contrary, it is certainly mutilated at the beginning,Mutilation was assumed by Xylander, Kepler, and Dübner and has been reasserted by Pohlenz (B.P.W. xxxii [1912], pp. 649-650), von Arnim (Plutarch über Dämonen und Mantik, p. 38), Raingeard (Le ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΠΡΟΣΟΠΟΥ de Plutarque, pp. 49-50 on 920 B 1), and K. Ziegler (Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 214). It was denied by Wilamowitz (loc. cit.), Hirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 186, n. 6), and M. Adler (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, pp. 88-89). Wyttenbach contended that either nothing or no great part had perished. although one cannot tell whether much or little has been lost; this follows not merely from the abruptness of the opening as we have it, the lack of any kind of introduction, and the failure to identify the main speaker until two-thirds of the dialogue have been finished, but even more surely from the nature of the text in the opening sentences .Those who have defended ὁ μὲν οὖν Σύλλας ταῦτ εἶρε τῷ γ’ ἐμῷ μύθῳ προσήκει κτλ. as a possible opening apparently were unaware that the reading of E is Ὀαυνοσυλλας ταῦτα εἰρε. τῷ γὰρ ἐμῷ μύθῳ προσήκει κτλ.. and that B’s ὁ μὲν οῦν Σύλλας is in all probability a conjecture made by the scribe of that MS. This being so, it is unjustifiable to emend the γὰρ of τῷ γὰρ ἐμῷ μύθῳ, the reading of both E and B; and, if this γὰρ stands, it is certain that our MSS. do not preserve the beginning of the dialogue. The next sentence, ἀλλ εἰ δεῖ τι προσανακροῦσαθαι, πρῦτον ἡδέως ἄν μοι δοκῶ πυθέσθαι, which Wyttenbach needlessly emended, implies that some introduction of Sulla and his myth preceded the present beginning; and 937 C (Σύλλαν οἷον ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς ἀκροατὴν γεγενημένον) suggests what the nature of this introduction may have been. Even the tense of τί δ’ οὐκ ἐμέλλομεν implies some preceding reference to an earlier conversation or a conversation itself interrupted by the arrival of Sulla.

2. In the dialogue as it stands the first speaker is Sulla. His chief function is to recount the myth which he mentions in the first extant words and which occupies the final fifth of the work; but he interrupts the dialogue proper at 929 E 930 A to ask whether a certain difficulty was treated in the discussion which Lucius is reporting. He is a Carthaginian (cf. 942 C), presumably the Sextius Sulla cited by Plutarch in his Romulus, chap. 15 (26 C), and the same as the Carthaginian Sulla who gave a dinner for Plutarch in Rome ( Quaest. Conviv. 727 B). He is probably the Sulla who appears as the interlocutor of Fundanus in the Cohibenda Ira (note b, 453 A) but probably not the same as the Sulla of Quaest. Conviv. 636 A (ὁ ἑταῖρος) and 650 A (one of τῶν συνήθων).

The second speaker, at once the narrator of the whole conversation and the leader of the dialogue proper, is Lamprias,His name is not mentioned until 937 D. There at the beginning of a section which serves as the transition from the main or scientific part of the dialogue to the myth Theon calls Lamprias by name, as Sulla does also at the beginning of his myth (940 F) and at the end of it (945 D). It is probable that in the lost beginning of the work Lamprias was similarly identified. who is also the narrator of the Defectu Oraculorum (cf. 413 D), a dialogue in which he plays the leading role. cf. Flaceliére, Plutarque: Sur la Disparition des Oracles (Paris, 1947), pp. 19-22. In the E apud Delphos, where Lamprias appears with Plutarch, Plutarch calls him brother (385 D); and he is frequently identified as Plutarchs brother in the Quaest. Conviv. (cf. 635 A, 726 D - E, 744 C [with 745 A], and possibly 626 A). He is characterized as a wit and a tease (726 D - E, 740 A), one accustomed to speak out in a loud voice (617 E-F), and capable of inventing a story as evidence to support his argument ( E 386 A); he is an expert in culinary matters (643 E, 669 C, 670 E) and in the dance (747 B) and shrinks from appearing as a kill-joy to younger men (704 E). He is made to emphasize his close relations with a Cynic ( Defectu Oraculorum, 413 B); but he is no Cynic himself, and he is mortified to think that he might be supposed to have used his skill in argument to discredit any pious belief (435 E). He is said to honour the school of Aristotle above that of Epicurus (Quaest Conviv. 635 A - B); but he does not hesitate to disagree with Aristotle in the Defectu Oraculorum (424 C ff.) and to espouse against him the doctrine of the Academy (430 E ff.). In the De Facie he is a vehement critic of Stoic doctrine and a supporter of the Academic position (cf 922 F). Lamprias bore the name of his grandfather; but this does not prove, as has sometimes been asserted, that he was older than his brothers, Plutarch and Timon. Defectu Oraculorum, 431 C - D, has been thought to show that he was a priest of the oracle in Lebadeia,Hirzel, r Dialog, ii, p. 189, n. 3; Flaceliére, Op. cit. p. 251, n. 233; Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 10. though this is not a necessary implication of that passage; and a Delphic inscription proves him to have been an archon at Delphi towards the end of Trajan’s reign or in the beginning of Hadrian’s. Dittenberger, S. I. G. ii. 868 C, n. 6; Stein, R. E. xii. 1. 586, s.v. Λαμπρίας 4.

Apollonides, the third speaker, is at once identified as expert in geometry (920 F), and Lamprias indicates that the scope and limitations of his specialty coincide with those of Hipparchus, the great astronomer (921 d, cf. 925 A). He puts forward objections to Lamprias’s explanation of the face based upon astronomical terminology and calculations (933 f, 935 d-e). An Apollonides appears at Quaest Conviv. 650 F along with Sulla; but he is called o( taktiko\s *)apollwni/dhs, and there is no compelling reason to identify the two.Ziegler (Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 34) says that the sentence at 927 B, οὐ γὰρ ἐν στρατορέδῳ τακτικῶν ὄφελος κτλ., is spoken obviously with reference to the interlocutor Apollonides; but this is pretty obviously not true. Lamprias is not here speaking in answer to Apollonides; and his subsequent words, οὐδὲ κηρουρῶν οὐδ’ οἰκοδόμων, certainly have reference to none of the present company. These are in fact stock examples of the argument from design. Prickard may well be right in saying that the name Apollonides here was used by Plutarch to mean one of the clan of Apollonius, i.e. a mathematician who, like Apollonius,Apollonius of Perga; cf. Hultsch, R. E. ii. 151-160. is interested in astronomical theory.

Certainly Aristotle, who puts forward the orthodox Peripatetic theory of the heavenly bodies (928 E ff.), is only a name chosen by Plutarch to signify the school that he represents (cf. 920 F), even as the representative Epicurean in Sera Numinis Vindicta is called Epicurus.There is no reason to change Ἐπίκουρος of the MSS. in 548 A to Ἐπικούρειος, as Fabricius did. Aristotle here supports Epicurus there.

The Stoic position is represented by Pharnaces. This name was borne by the son of Mithridates, of whom Plutarch tells in the Lives of Pompey and Caesar, as well as by several notable Persians mentioned by Herodotus and ThucydidesThere was also a city in Pontus named Pharnaceia ( Lucullus, 17 [502 F]).; and Plutarch probably chose it for his Stoic because of its Asiatic sound.Hirzel (Der Dialog, ii, p. 186, n. 4) says that Pharnaces is certainly a former slave, one who had shared the fate and sentiments of Epictetus. This, of course, is the merest fancy; not all Asiatics, not even all in Rome at this time, had been slaves. For Athenians named Pharnaces cf. I. G. ii². 1039. 84 and 202. 55.

After the role of Lamprias the largest in the dialogue proper is that of Lucius, who is probably the same as Lucius, the pupil of Moderatus the Pythagorean, from Etruria, a guest at the dinner which Sulla gave for Plutarch in Rome ( Quaest. Conviv viii. 7-8 [727 B ff., 728 D ff.]).Another Lucius, the son of Florus, appears in Quaest. Conviv vii. 4 [702 F]; cf. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 55. Early in the dialogue (921 F) Lamprias turns to Lucius for aid; he seems to think it appropriate that Lucius should set forth the strict demonstration of the Academic theory concerning the moon (cf. 928 D - E); and in fact the statement and defence of this position are shared by the two of them.It is Lucius who demands that the Stoic theory should not be passed over without refutation (921 F). It is he who replies when Pharnaces complains of Lamprias’s violent treatment of the Stoics (922 F). His speeches extend from 922 F to 923 F, where Lamprias takes over to give him time to collect his thoughts, from 928 F to 929 E, from 930 A to 931 C, and from 931 D to 933 E.

Theon, whom Lamprias asks to identify a quotation (923 F) and whom he later teases for admiring Aristarchus to the neglect of Crates (938 D), is recognized as the literary authority in the group (cf. 931 E, 940 A). He is probably to be identified with Θέων ὁ γραμμοτικός, who was a guest at Sulla’s dinner along with Lucius (Quaest. Conviv 728 F) and who also dined with Plutarch at the house of Mestrius Florus (Quaest. Conviv 626 E).This Theon, whose home was Egypt (cf. 939 C - D), is certainly not the same as Θέων ὁ ἑταῖρος ( Quaest. Conviv 620 A, E, 386 D), who is probably the Theon of Pythiae Oraculis, Non Posse Suaviter Vivi, and Quaest. Conviv 667 A and 726 A ff. In the Facie his chief contribution is a speech (937 D 938 C) which he makes after the main part of the dialogue has been concluded and which Lamprias praises as a kind of relaxation after the seriousness of the scientific discussion.

The last of the persons present is Menelaus the mathematician. Lucius addresses him directly once (930 A), but Menelaus makes no reply and neither speaks nor is spoken to elsewhere in the dialogue as we have it,Unless the plural ὑμῖν used twice by Lamprias at 939 C - D is meant to include Menelaus as well as Theon; cf. note a on p. 170 s.v.. He is not mentioned anywhere else by Plutarch either; but he is probably meant to be the Menelaus of Alexandria whom Ptolemy once calls ὁ γεωμέτρης and twice cites for astronomical observations which he made at Rome in the first year of Trajan (A.D. 98). Ptolemy, Syntaxis, vii. 3 (ii, p. 30. 18 ff. and p. 33. 3 ff. ([Heiberg]); cf. Orinsky, s.n. Menelaos 16 in Pauly-Wissosa, R. E. xv. 1. 834 f.

3. From 937 C - D it follows that the interlocutors have hitherto been promenading as they talked and that now they sit down upon the steps, seats, or benches (ἐπὶ τῶν βάθρων) and remain seated to the end. No other indication of the scene or location is given in the work as we have it. It had generally been assumed that the dialogue was meant to take place in Chaeronea cf. Hirzel, r Dialog, ii, p. 184, n. 1, who discusses and rejects the suggestion that the scene is Delphi. Raingeard in his note on 939 C (p. 129 of his commentary) says that ὥσπερ ἄνω περὶ Θήβας there would allow the inference that the speakers are on the coast of Egypt. No such inference is justified by this phrase, of course; in fact, the preceding ὕλην δὲ καὶ καρποὺς αὐτοῦ (or αὐτόθι, as Raingeard conjectures) μὲν ὄμβροι τρέφουσιν and the subsequent παρ’ ὑμῖν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ (939 D 1) show that the scene of the dialogue is not anywhere in Egypt.; but nothing in the text requires this, and F. H. Sandbach has adduced strong arguments for believing that the dramatic location is Rome or the vicinity of Rome.F. H. Sandbach, The Date of the Eclipse in Plutarch’s De Facie Class. Quart. xxiii (1929), pp. 15-16; cf. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 73-74. I am indebted to Mr. Sandbach for sending me, along with copies of his publications, many of his unpublished opinions concerning points in the De Facie and copies of his correspondence with J. K. Fotheringham occasioned by the publication of the article cited above. The persons in the dialogue furnish one of these arguments. Apollonides, Aristotle, and Pharnaces occur nowhere else in Plutarch’s writings and are probably all fictitious characters. Plutarch nowhere else mentions Menelaus the mathematician either, but we know that Menelaus spent some time in Rome (see note a, p. 8). Sulla, Lucius, and Theon all appear together at a dinner given for Plutarch when he had returned to Rome after an interval of absence (Quaest Conviv. viii. 7-8); and none of these three is ever mentioned as being anywhere but in Rome or its vicinity (see § 2, supra). Lamprias alone belongs to Plutarch’s circle at Chaeronea; but it is by no means certain that he did not visit Rome as Plutarch did, though there seems to be no definite evidence either way.Lamprias at least pretends to be conversant with Latin (Quaest. Conviv 726 E ff.). On Plutarch’s visits to Rome cf. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 19-20.