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previous: §§ 18?25 This webpage reproduces a portion of The Face in the Moon by Plutarch published in Vol. XII of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1957 The text is in the public domain. This page has not yet been proofread. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

(Vol. XII) Plutarch, Moralia

p181 Concerning the Face
Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon

(Part 4 of 4 on this website)

(940F) 26 1 Almost before I had finished, Sulla broke in. “Hold on, Lamprias,” he said, “and put to the wicket of your discourse299 lest you unwittingly run the myth aground, as it were, and confound my drama, which has a different setting and a different disposition. 941Well, I am but the actor of the piece, but first I shall say that its author began for our sake — if there be no objection — with a quotation from Homer:300

An isle, Ogygia, lies far out at sea,301

a run of five days off from Britain as you sail westward; and three other islands equally distant from it and from one another lie out from it in the general direction of the summer sunset. In one of these, according to the tale told by the natives, Cronus is confined by Zeus, and the antique Briareus, holding watch and ward over those islands and the sea that p183they call the Cronian main, has been settled close beside him.302 The great mainland, by which the great ocean is encircled,303 while not so far from the other islands, is about five thousand stades from Ogygia, the voyage being made by oar, for the main is slow to traverse and muddy as a result of the multitude of streams.304 The streams are discharged by the great land-mass and produce alluvial deposits, thus giving density and earthiness to the sea, which has been thought actually to be congealed.305 On the coast of the mainland Greeks dwell about a gulf which is not smaller than the Maeotis306 and the mouth of the Caspian sea.307 These people consider and call themselves continentals and the inhabitants of this land p185islanders because the sea flows around it on all sides; and they believe that with the peoples of Cronus there mingled at a later time those who arrived in the train of Heracles and were left behind by him and that these latter so to speak rekindled again to a strong, high flame the Hellenic spark there which was already being quenched and overcome by the tongue, the laws, and the manners of the barbarians. Therefore Heracles has the highest honours and Cronos the second. Now when at intervals of thirty years the star of Cronus, which we call ‘Splendent’308 but they, our author said, call ‘Night-watchman,’ enters the sign of the Bull,309 they, having spent a long time in preparation for the sacrifice and the expedition, choose by lot and send forth a sufficient number of envoys in a correspondingly sufficient number of ships, putting aboard a large retinue and the provisions necessary for men who are going to cross so much sea by oar and live such a long time in a foreign land. Now when they have put to sea the several voyagers meet with various fortunes as one might expect; but those who survive the voyage first put in at the outlying islands, which are inhabited by Greeks,310 and see the sun pass out of p187sight for less than an hour over a period of thirty days,311 — and this is night, though it has a darkness that is slight and twilight glimmering from the west. There they spend ninety days regarded with honour and friendliness as holy men and so addressed, and then winds carry them across to their appointed goal.312 Nor do any others inhabit it but themselves and those who have been dispatched before them, for, while those who have served the god together for the stint of thirty years are allowed to sail off home, most of them usually choose to settle in the spot, some out of habit and others because without toil or trouble they have all things in abundance while they constantly employ their time in sacrifices and celebrations or with various discourse and philosophy, for the nature of the island is marvellous as is the softness of the circumambient air. Some when they intend to sail away are even hindered by the divinity which presents itself to them as to intimates and friends not in dreams only or by means of omens, but many also come upon the visions and the voices of spirits manifest. For Cronus himself sleeps confined in a deep cave of rock that shines like gold — the sleep that Zeus has contrived like a bond for him —, and birds flying in over the summit of the rock bring p189ambrosia to him, and all the island is suffused with fragrance 942scattered from the rock as from a fountain; and those spirits mentioned before tend and serve Cronus, having been his comrades what time he ruled as king over gods and men. Many things they do foretell of themselves, for they are oracular; but the prophecies that are greatest and of the greatest matters they come down and report as dreams of Cronus, for all that Zeus premeditates Cronus sees in his dreams313 and the titanic affections and motions of his soul make him rigidly tense until sleep restores his repose once more and the royal and divine element is all by itself, pure and unalloyed.314 BHere then the stranger315 was conveyed, as he said, and while he served the god became at his leisure acquainted with astronomy, in which he made as much progress as one can by practising geometry, p191and with the rest of philosophy by dealing with so much of it as is possible for the natural philosopher.316 Since he had a strange desire and longing to observe the Great Island (for so, it seems, they call our part of the world), when the thirty years had elapsed, the relief-party having arrived from home, he saluted his friends and sailed away, lightly equipped for the rest but carrying a large viaticum in golden beakers. Well, all his experiences and all the men whom he visited, encountering sacred writings and being initiated in all rites — to recount all this as he reported it to us, relating it thoroughly and in detail, is not a task for a single day; but listen to so much as is pertinent to the present discussion. He spent a great deal of time in Carthage inasmuch as Cronus receives great honour in our country,317 Cand he discovered certain sacred parchments that had been secretly spirited off to safety when the earlier city was being destroyed and had lain unnoticed in the ground for a long time.318 Among the visible gods319 he said that one should especially honour the moon, and so he kept exhorting me to do, inasmuch as she p193is sovereign over life and death, bordering as she does upon the meads of Hades.

27 1 When I expressed surprise at this and asked for a clearer account, Dhe said:320 ‘Many assertions about the gods, Sulla, are current among the Greeks, but not all tom are right. So, for example, although they give the right names to Demeter and Cora, they are wrong in believing that both are together in the same region. The fact is that the former is in the region of earth and is sovereign over terrestrial things, and the latter is in the moon and mistress of lunar things. She has been called both Cora and Phersephonê,321 the latter as being a bearer of light322 and Cora because that is what we call the part of the eye in which is reflected the likeness of him who looks into it323 as the light of the sun is seen in the moon. The tales told of the wandering and the quest of these goddesses Econtain the truth p195<spoken covertly>,324 for they long for each other when they are apart and they often embrace in the shadow. The statement concerning Cora that now she is in the light of heaven and now in darkness and night is not false but has given rise to error in the computation of the time, for not throughout six months but every six months we see her being wrapped in shadow by the earth as it were by her mother, and infrequently we see this happen to her at intervals of five months,325 Ffor she cannot abandon Hades since she is the boundary of Hades, as Homer too has rather well put it in veiled terms:

But to Elysium’s plain, the bourne of earth.326

Where the range of the earth’s shadow ends, this he set as the term and boundary of the earth.327 To this point rises no one who is evil or unclean, but the good p197are conveyed thither after death and there continue to lead a life most easy to be sure328 though not blesséd or divine until their second death.329

28 1 And what is this, Sulla? Do not ask about these things, for I am going to give a full explanation myself. 943 Most people rightly hold man to be composite but wrongly hold him to be composed of only two parts. The reason is that they suppose mind to be somehow part of soul, thus erring no less than those who believe soul to be part of body, for in the same degree as soul is superior to body so is mind better and more divine than soul. The result of soul and body commingled is the irrational or the affective factor, whereas of mind and soul the conjunction produces reason; and of these the former is source of pleasure and pain, the latter of virtue and vice.330 p199In the composition of these three factors earth furnishes the body, the moon the soul, and the sun furnishes mind to man for the purpose of his generation331 even as it furnishes light to the moon herself. As to the death we die, one death reduces man from three factors to two and another reduces him from two to one;332 Band the former takes place in the earth that belongs to Demeter (wherefore “to make an end” is called “to render one’s life to her” and Athenians used in olden times to call the dead “Demetrians”),333 the latter in the moon that belongs to Phersephonê, and associated with the former is Hermes the terrestrial, with the latter Hermes the celestial.334 While the goddess here335 dissociates the soul from the body swiftly and violently, Phersephonê gently and by slow degrees detaches the mind from the soul and has therefore been called “single-born” because the best part of man is “born single” when separated off by her.336 CEach of the two separations naturally occurs in this p201fashion: All soul, whether without mind or with it,337 when it has issued from the body338 is destined to wander in the region between earth and moon but not for an equal time. Unjust and licentious souls pay penalties for their offences; but the good souls must in the gentlest part of the air, which they call “the meads of Hades,”339 pass a certain set time sufficient to purge and blow away the pollutions contracted from the body as from an evil odour.340 Then, as if brought home from banishment abroad, they savour joy most like that of initiates, which attended by glad expectation is mingled with confusion p203and excitement.341 DFor many, even as they are in the act of clinging to the moon, she thrusts off and sweeps away; and some of those souls too that are on the moon they see turning upside down as if sinking again into the deep.342 Those that have got up, however, and have found a firm footing first go about like victors crowned with wreaths of feathers called wreaths of steadfastness,343 because in life they had made the irrational or affective element of the soul orderly and tolerably tractable to reason;344 secondly, in appearance resembling a ray of light but in respect of their nature, which in the upper region is buoyant as it is here in ours, resembling the ether about the moon,345 they get from it both tension and strength p205as edged instruments get a temper,346 Efor what laxness and diffuseness they still have is strengthened and becomes firm and translucent. In consequence they are nourished by any exhalation that reaches them, and Heraclitus was right in saying: “Souls employ the sense of smell in Hades.”347

29 1 First they behold the moon as she is in herself:348 her magnitude and beauty and nature, which is not simple and unmixed but a blend as it were of star and earth. Just as the earth has become soft by having been mixed with breath and moisture and as blood gives rise to sense-perception in the flesh with which it is commingled,349 so the moon, they say,350 because it has been permeated through and through by ether is at once animated and fertile and at the same time Fhas the proportion of lightness to heaviness in equipoise. In fact it is in this way too, they say, that the universe itself has entirely escaped local motion, because it has been constructed out of the things that naturally move upwards and those that naturally move downwards.351 This was p207also the conception of Xenocrates who, taking his start from Plato, seems352 to have reached it by a kind of superhuman reasoning. Plato is the one who declared that each of the stars as well was constructed of earth and fire bound together in a proportion by means of the two intermediate natures, for nothing, as he said, attains perceptibility that does not contain an admixture of earth and light;353 but Xenocrates says that the stars and the sun are composed of fire and the first density, the moon of the second density and air that is proper to her, and the earth of water and air and the third kind of density and that in general neither density all by itself nor subtility is receptive of soul.354 So much for the moon’s substance. As to her breadth or magnitude, it is not what the geometers say but many times greater. She measures off the earth’s shadow with few of her own magnitudes not because it is small but she more ardently hastens her motion in order that she may quickly pass through the gloomy place bearing away the souls of the good which cry out and urge her one because when they are in the shadow they no longer catch the sound p209of the harmony of heaven.355 At the same time too with wails and cries the souls of the chastised then approach through the shadow from below. That is why most people have the custom of beating brasses during eclipses and of raising a din and clatter against the souls,356 which are frightened off also by the so?called face when they get near it, for it has a grim and horrible aspect.357 It is no such thing, however; but just as our earth contains gulfs that are deep and extensive,358 one here pouring in towards us through the Pillars of Heracles and outside the Caspian and the Red Sea with its gulfs,359 so those features are depths and hollows of the moon. The largest of them is called360 “Hecatê’s Recess,”361 where the souls suffer and exact penalties for whatever they have endured or committed after having already become p211Spirits;362 and the two long ones are called “the Gates”,363 for through them pass the souls now to the side of the moon that faces heaven and now back to the side that faces earth.364 The side of the moon towards heaven is named “Elysian plain,”365 the hither side “House of counter-terrestrial Phersephonê.”366

30 1 Yet not forever do the Spirits tarry upon the moon; they descend hither to take charge of oracles, they attend and participate in the highest of the mystic rituals, they act as warders against misdeeds and chastisers of them, and they flash forth as saviour a manifest in war and on the sea.367 For any act that they perform in these matters not fairly but inspired by wrath or for an unjust end or out of envy they are penalized, for they are cast out upon p213earth again confined in human bodies.368 To the former class of better Spirits369 the attendants of Cronos said that they belong themselves as did aforetime the Idaean Dactyls370 in Crete and the Corybants371 in Phrygia as well as the Boeotian Trophoniads in Udora372 and thousands of others in many parts of the world whose rites, honours, and titles persist but whose powers tended to another place as they achieved the ultimate alteration. They achieve it, some sooner and some later, once the mind has been separated from the soul.373 It is separated by love for the image in the sun through which shines forth manifest the desirable and fair and divine and blessed towards which all nature in one way or another yearns,374 for it must be out of love for the sun that the moon herself goes her rounds and gets into conjunction p215with him in her yearning to receive from him what is most fructifying.375 The substance of the soul is left upon the moon and retains certain vestiges and dreams of life as it were; it is this that you must properly take to be the subject of the statement

Soul like a dream has taken wing and sped,376

for it is not straightway nor once it has been released from the body that it reaches this state but later when, divorced from the mind, it is deserted and alone. Above all else that Homer said his words concerning those in Hades appear to have been divinely inspired

Thereafter marked I mighty Heracles — His shade; but he is with the deathless god. . . .377

In fact the self of each of us is not anger or fear or desire just as it is not bits of flesh or fluids either but is that which we reason and understand;378 and p217the soul receives the impression of its shape through being moulded by the mind and moulding in turn and enfolding the body on all sides, so that, even if it be separated from either one for a long time, since it preserves the likeness and the imprint it is correctly called an image.379 Of these, as has been said,380 the moon is the element, for they are resolved into it381 as the bodies of the dead are resolved into earth. This happens quickly to the temperate souls who had been fond of a leisurely, unmeddlesome, and philosophical life, for abandoned by the mind and no longer exercising the passions for anything they quickly wither away. Of the ambitious and the active, the irascible and those who are enamoured of the body, however, some pass their time382 as it were in sleep with the memories of their lives for dreams as did the soul of Endymion;383 but, when they are excited by restlessness and emotion and drawn away from the moon to another birth, she p219forbids them <to sink towards earth>384 and keeps conjuring them back and binding them with charms, for it is no slight, quiet, or harmonious business when with the affective faculty apart from reason they seize upon a body. Creatures like Tityus385 and Typho386 and the Python387 that with insolence and violence occupied Delphi and confounded the oracle belonged to this class of souls, void of reason and subject to the affective element gone astray through delusion;388 but even these in time the moon took back to herself and reduced to order. CThen when the sun with his vital force has again sowed mind in her she receives it and produces new souls, and earth in the third place furnishes body.389 In fact, the earth gives nothing in giving back after death all that she takes for generation, and the sun takes nothing but takes back the p221mind that he gives, whereas the moon both takes and gives and joins together and divides asunder in virtue of her different powers, of which the one that joins together is called Ilithyia and that which divides asunder Artemis.390 Of the three Fates too Atropos enthroned in the sun initiates generation, Clotho in motion on the moon mingles and binds together, and finally upon the earth Lachesis too puts her hand to the task, she who has the largest share in chance.391 For the inanimate is itself powerless and susceptible to alien agents, and the mind is impassable and sovereign; but the soul is a mixed and intermediate thing, even as the moon has been created by god a compound and blend of the things above and below and therefore stands to the sun in the relation of earth to moon.’

p223 This,” said Sulla, “I heard the stranger relate; and he had the account, as he said himself, from the chamberlains and servitors of Cronus. You and your companions, Lamprias, may make what you will of the tale.”392

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The Loeb Editor’s Notes:

299 Cf. De Sollertia Animalium, 965B.

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300 On the text of this sentence cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), pp148?149.

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301 Odyssey, VII.244. On the geographical introduction to the myth see the Introduction, § 5, and especially Hamilton, Class. Quart. XXVIII (1934), pp15?26, who points out the parallel between Plutarch’s geographical scheme and Plato’s location of Atlantis in Timaeus, 24E?25A.

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302 Cf. De Defectu Oraculorum, 420A and on the text Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p149. For Briareus as a guard set by Zeus over Cronus and the Titans cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 729?735 and Apollodorus, I.7 (= I.2.1). The pillars of Heracles are said to have had the older name ??????? ?????? (cf. Aelian, Var. Hist. V.3 = Aristotle, frag. 678) and before that ?????? ?????? (cf. Charax, frag. 16 = Frag. Hist. Graec. III, p640); cf. also Clearchus, frag. 56 (Frag. Hist. Graec. II, p320) and Parthenius, frag. 21 (Diehl) = frag. 31 (Martin).

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303 Cf. Timaeus 24 E5?25 A5.

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304 Plutarch’s language really implies that the way is so long — not just that it takes a long time — because the sea is hard to traverse!

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305 Cf. Strabo, I.4.2 (c63): ?? (i.e. ??????) ???? ?????? . . . ????? ????? ??? ????????? ????????, and Pliny, Nat. Hist. IV.16 (104): “a Tyle unius diei navigatione mare concretum a nonnullis Cronium appellatur” n.b. that for Apollonius Rhodius [IV.327, 509, 546] the Adriatic is the Cronian sea); cf. Tacitus, Agricola, § 10 and Germania, § 45. Plutarch denies that the sea is really congealed as it is reputed to be and explains its nature in imitation of Plato (Timaeus, 25 D3?6, Critias, 108E?109 A2); but, since he cannot adduce as the cause of the muddy shallows the “settling of the island, Atlantis, under the sea,” he falls back upon alluvial deposits from the rivers on the great continent, a notion familiar from many sources(cf. De Exilio, 602D with Thucydides, II.102.6; Aristotle, Meteorology, 351 B28?32; Herodotus, II.10; Strabo, I.2.29?30 [cc. 36?37]). For the “congealed sea” cf. further K. Müllenoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, I (1890), pp410?425; E. Janssens, Hist. ancienne de la mer du Nord2 (1946), pp20?22; J. Thomson, Hist. of Ancient Geography, pp148?149, 241, and 54?55 (on Avienus, Ora Maritima, 117?129).

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306 The Sea of Azov, the size of which Herodotus had greatly exaggerated (IV.86); Strabo reduced its perimeter to 9000 stades (II.5.23 [C. 125]).

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307 The Caspian was thought to be a gulf of the outer ocean from the time of Alexander until Ptolemy corrected the error (Alexander, chap. 44; Strabo, XI.6.1 [C. 507]), though Herodotus (I.202?203) and Aristotle (Meteorology, 354 A3?4) had known that it was connected with no other sea.

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308 ?????? as the name of the planet Saturn occurs in De An. Proc. in Timaeo, 1029B (acc.: ???????); Aëtius, II.15.4 (where MSS. vary between ??????? and ????????, cf. Diels, Dox. Graeci, p344 ad loc.); [Aristotle], De Mundo, 392 A23 (?????????); cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II.20.52. There is a similar variation in the MSS. as between ????????? and ???????? (cf. Diels, Dox. Graeci, p345 on Aëtius, II.15.4), though at 925A supra the MSS. of De Facie agree on ?????????.

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309 Taurus is the sign of the moon’s exaltation (cf. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, I.20 [p44.2, Boll-Boer]; Porphyry, De Antro Nymph. 18), and it is for this reason that the expedition begins when Saturn enters this sign. For the “thirty years” cf. Aëtius, II.32.1 (Dox. Graeci, p363); Cleomedes, I.3.16?17 (p30.18?21 [Ziegler]; Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II.20.52.

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310 These islands lie out westward or north-westward from Ogygia, cf. 941A supra. It has not previously been said that they are inhabited by Greeks; in fact, 941B seems to imply that Greeks live only on the mainland.

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311 I have tried to preserve the ambiguity of Plutarch’s language, though he probably meant to say “less than an hour each day for thirty days” (so Kepler understood, who thought that the reference was to Greenland). For the length of summer-days in Britain and in Thule cf. Cleomedes, I.8.37?38 (pp68.6?70.22 [Ziegler]) and Pytheas and Crates in Geminus, VI.9?21 (pp70?76 [Manitius]). Pliny, Nat. Hist. IV.16 (104) says that in Thule at the summer solstice there is no night at all, i.e. while the sun is in Cancer; but he adds here, what he had before (II.75 [186?187]) ascribed to Pytheas, that some think that in Thule there is a continuous day of six months’ duration.

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312 Cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p149 and note 91.

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313 For the sleep of Cronus as his bonds and for the spirits who are his servitors cf. De Defectu Oraculorum, 420A. For the sleeping Cronus cf. also Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, frags. 149 and 155; in these “Orphic” or Neo-Platonic passages, however, Cronus prophesies, furnishes Zeus with plans, or thinks the world order before Zeus is aware of it (cf. Damascius, Dub. et Sol. 305V?306R [II, pp136.19?137.8, Ruelle] and Proclus, In Cratylum, p53.29 ff. [Pasquali]), which is the opposite of what Plutarch’s words imply. Because of Tertullian, De Anima, 46.10 (f. 156) J. H. Waszink (Tertullian, De Anima, p496) thinks it certain that the ultimate source of the side was one of Aristotle’s lost dialogues. Pohlenz (R.E. XI.2013, s.v. “Kronos”) supposes that Plutarch’s source was Posidonius and that Posidonius was inspired by Nordic legend!

The feature of the birds that bring Cronus ambrosia appears to have been adapted from the story of Zeus’s nectar: cf. Sept. Sap. 156F and Odyssey, XII.63?65.

Besides J. H. Waszink (Tertullian, De Anima, p496) see the same author’s articles in Vigiliae Christianae, I (1947), pp137?149 (especially pp145?149) and in Mélanges Henri Grégoire, II (1950), pp639?653 (especially pp651?653). Waszink mistakenly believes that in Plutarch’s story “special demons convey to Zeus [the thoughts that arise in Cronus’s dreams] who makes use of them for his government of the universe,” and consequently he overlooks the important difference between Plutarch’s version and the “Orphic” passages that I have pointed out in this note.

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314 Cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), pp149?150.

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315 This is the first mention of the “stranger,” unless he was referred to in the lost beginning of the dialogue. Hitherto he has merely been implied by the indirect discourse and ??? ??????? in 941A supra; cf. the reference in note c there.

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316 ?????????? . . . ???????? is highly condensed; it must be construed: ?????????? ?? ??? ????? (????????? ????), ???????? (???? ??? ????) ?? ?????? (??????? ?????). For the distinction between ?????????? and ?????? here referred to cf. Geminus’s quotation of Posidonius in Simplicius, Physica, pp291.23?292.9 (Diels).

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317 For the special position of Cronus at Carthage cf. De Superstitione, 171C, De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 552A; Diodorus, V.66.5.

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318 Nothing in the subsequent account supports the frequently expressed notion that the myth is supposed to have been discovered in these parchments, and 945D infra expressly invalidates any such assumption.

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319 Cf. Timaeus, 40D (?? ???? ???? ??????), 41A (???? ???????????? ??????? . . . ????); Epinomis, 985D (???? ????? ???? ???????? ????? ?????).

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320 Here Sulla begins to quotes the stranger directly and continues his direct quotation to the end of the myth in 945D.

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321 For identification of Persephonê and the moon cf. Epicharmus, frag. B 54 (I, p207.9?11 [Diels-Kranz] = Ennius in Varro, De Lingua Latina, V.68); Porphyry, De Antro Nymph. 18; Iamblichus in John Laurentius Lydus, De Mensibus, IV.149; Martianus Capella, II.161?162. Plutarch in De Iside, 372D notices the identification of Isis and the moon in 361E that of Isis and Persephassa (cf. note c on 922A supra for Athena). The Pythagoreans are said to have called the planets “the hounds of Persephonê” (Porphyry, Vita Pythag. 41 = Aristotle, frag. 196; Clement, Stromat. V.50 [676P, 244S]); and Plutarch in De Defectu Oraculorum, 416E refers to some who call the moon ??????? ???? ??? ???????? ?????? ?????? (cf. De Iside, 368E). Cf. further, Roscher, Über Selene und Verwandtes, pp119 ff.

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322 Cf. for the ancient etymologies of ????????? Bräuninger, R.E. XIX.1.946?947, and Roscher, Lexicon, II.1288; there seems to be no ancient parallel to the one given here, to which Plutarch does not refer in De Iside, 377D, where he mentions the etymology proposed by Cleanthes. In the Orphic Hymn to Persephonê (xxix.9 = Orphica, rec. E. Abel, p74.9) the epithet, ?????????, is used of the goddess but not by way of etymology (cf. line 16); nor is she expressly identified with the moon, although she is called ?????????, ??????????, . . . ????????, ????????.

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323 Cf. [Plato], Alcibiades I, 133A. The word ???? means “girl,” “maiden,” for which ra it was used of such goddesses as Athena and Persephonê, and also “doll,” whence like Latin “pupilla” it came to mean the pupil of the eye; cf. English “the baby in the eye.”

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324 i.e. the wandering of Demeter in search of Persephonê after the abduction of the latter by Hades: cf. e.g. the Homeric Hymn II to Demeter and Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, I.5. In the myth, however, Demeter was the wanderer; but the earth, which she is here supposed to represent, is stationary. In the myth Persephonê is in darkness when she is separated from her mother and with Hades, whereas Plutarch’s interpretation requires that Persephonê, the moon, be in darkness and at night when she is in the embrace of her mother, the earth.

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325 Cf. 933E supra and De Genio Socratis, 591C: ?????? . . . ?????? ??? ????? ?????? ??????????? ?????????? ?? ???? ?? ??????? ????????? ?????? ??????????? ???? (177 days = one-half of a lunar year, 6 synodic months).

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326 Odyssey, IV.563 but with ???? ?? ?? instead of ???? ???.

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327 Cf. Stobaeus, Eclogae, I.49 (I, p448.5?16 [Wachsmuth]) = frag. 146? (VII, p176 [Bernardakis]), where Odyssey, IV.563?564 is taken to indicate that the reign of the moon is the seat of righteous souls after death (cf. Eustathius, Ad Odysseam, 1509.18). There ??????? ?????? is said to mean the surface of the moon lighted by the sun (cf. 944C Infra) and ??????? ????? the end of the earth’s shadow which often touches the moon; but there is no mention of Hades, Persephonê, or Demeter. In the press passage Plutarch does not say why his interpretation of Homer’s line justifies him in calling the moon ??? ????? ?????, but the rest of the myth makes it certain that Hades is the region between earth and moon (cf. 943C infra). This agrees with the myth of De Genio Socratis, where (591A?C) this region is “the portion of Persephonê” and the earth’s shadow is “Styx” and “the road to Hades” and where (590F) Hades and Earth are clearly identical (cf. Heinze, Xenokrates, p135: R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p57 and n147). Probably then Plutarch here thought that, if Home could be shown to have set the boundary of earth at the moon, it follows that he understood the moon to be the boundary of Hades. In De Genio Socratis, 591B the moon is expressly made the boundary between “the portion of Persephonê,” which is Hades, and the region which extends from moon to sun. Nevertheless, in 944C infra the Elysian plain is said to be the part of the moon that is turned to heaven, i.e. away from the earth; and, though this does not explicitly contradict the present passage, it might still seem to suggest the notion ascribed to Iamblichus by John Laurentius Lydus (De Mensibus, IV.149 [p167.24 ff.]): . . . ??? ???? ??????? ????? ????? ????? ?? ???? ??????, ???? ? ???? ??? ??? ?????????????? ??????? ?????, ??? ????? ??? ????? ??? ????????, ?????????? ?? ??? ???????.

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328 Cf. Odyssey, IV.565: ?? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ???????????.

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329 In Quaest. Rom. 282A Plutarch cites Castor (cf. 266E) for the notion that after death souls dwell on the moon, for which cf. in general P. Capelle, De luna stellis lacteo orbe animalium sedibus (Halis Saconum, 1917), pp1?18 and n.b. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 18.82; Varro in Augustine, De Civ. Dei, VII.6 (I, p282.14?17 [Dombart]); S. V. F. II, frag. 814.

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330 Cf. De Virtute Morali, 441D?442A, De Genio Socratis, 591D?E. The ultimate source of Plutarch’s conception of the relation of mind, soul and body is such passages of Plato as Timaeus, 30B, 41?42, 90A; Laws, 961D?E, Phaedrus, 247C (cf. Thévenaz, L’Ame du monde . . . chez Plutarque, pp70?73). Plutarch himself ascribes the twofold division, soul and body, to ?? ?????? and so cannot intend a reference to any philosophical school; by those who make soul a ?????? ??? ??????? he might mean Stoics (cf. De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1052F ff., De Communibus Notitiis, 1083C ff.) but might equally well mean Epicureans or materialists generally. Against Adler’s argument (Diss. Phil. Find. X, pp171?172) that the first of the two notions rejected is Platonic and the second Stoic, so that Plutarch’s source must have been Posidonius, cf. Pohlenz, Phil. Woch. XXXII (1912), p653, and R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p55.

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331 Cf. De Genio Socratis, 591B, where motion and generation are linked by Mind in the sun and generation and destruction by Nature in the moon.

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332 For a “mortal soul” or “mortal part” of the soul cf. Plato, Timaeus, 42D, 61C, 69C?D.

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333 Cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p151.

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334 Cf. De Iside, 367D?E. Hermes appears in the myth of Persephonê as early as Homeric Hymn II, 377 ff. and is connected with Hecatê in the fragment of Theopompus in Porphyry, De Abstinentia, II.16. Cf. also Quaest. Graec. 296F and Halliday’s note ad loc.

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335 i.e. on earth, Demeter, which is why Plutarch refers to her with ????, though she is the former of the two mentioned.

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336 ?????????, which appears as an epithet of Hecatê and Persephonê (cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 426; Orphic Hymns, XXIX.1?2 [Abel]; Apollonius Rhodius, III.847), means “unique”; cf. Timaeus, 31B and 92C, to which Plutarch refers in De Defectu Oraculorum, 423A and C, where he interprets the word to mean “only born.” Here, however, he probably takes the final element in an active sense such as it has in ???????????, an epithet of Demeter, the moon, and the earth.

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337 This may mean only “whether the soul has been obedient to reason in life or has not but ??? ?????? ??? ????,” as De Genio Socratis, 591D?E puts it; but at 945B infra Plutarch speaks of souls which ???? ??? assume bodies and live on earth, and by ????? here he may intend to refer to the separation of such souls from their bodies. He cannot mean, as Raingeard supposes, souls whose minds have immediately passed to the sun, for he has just said that the separation of mind from soul takes place at the second death on the moon and neither here nor in 944F infra does he allow for any exception in the sense of the doctrine of the Hermetic Tractate, X.16, where ???? is separated from ???? at the moment when the soul leaves the body (cf. Scott, Hermetica, II, p265). In De Genio Socratis, 591D?592D Plutarch makes ???? and ???? not really two different substances as here in the De Facie but considers ???? to be a degeneration of ????.

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338 Cf. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 563E: ???? ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ??? ??????? . . .

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339 For the location of Hades cf. De Iside, 382E and the etymology in De Latenter Vivendo, 1130A (cf. Plato, Gorgias, 493B and Phaedo, 80D); for the identification of Hades with the dark air cf. [Plutarch], De Vita et Poesi Homeri, § 97; Philodemus, De Pietate, c. 13 (Dox. Graeci, p547b); Cornutus, c. 5 and c. 35; Heraclitus, Quaestiones Homericae, § 41. Reference to a mead (??????) or meads in the underworld is common: cf. Odyssey, XI.539, 573 and XXIV.13?14; Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, 32 F6 and 222; Plato, Gorgias, 524A, Republic, 614E and 616B. The Neo-Platonists argued that the ?????? in these Platonic passages is meant to be located in the atmosphere under the moon: Proclus, In Rem Publicam, II, pp132.20?133.15 (Kroll); Olympiodorus, In Gorgiam, p237.10?13 (Norvin); Hermias, In Phaedrum, p161.3?9 (Couvreur).

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340 Cf. De Antro Nymph. §§ 11?12 (p64.24?25 [Nauck]); Proclus, In Timaeum, III, p331.6?9 (Diehl); and in general on the pollution of the soul by association with the body Plato, Phaedo, 81B?C. Plutarch in a different context uses the words: . . . ???? ????? ??????? . . . ???? ??? ????? . . . ?????????? ????????? (De Tuenda Sanitate, 129C).

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341 For life on earth as the soul’s exile from its proper home cf. De Exilio, 607C?E; and for the comparison with initiates and what follows in this vein a few lines below cf. fragment VI (VII, p23.4?17 [Bernardakis]).

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342 Cf. De Genio Socratis, 591C, and Plato’s Genius, 248A?B, especially ?? ?? ?? ????? ?????????? ??? ?????? ??? ??? ???????, ??????????? ??, ?????????? ??????????????? ???.

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343 For life as an athletic contest and the soul as athlete cf. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 561A, De Genio Socratis, 593D?E and 593F?594A. The conception is Platonic (cf. Republic, 621C?D, Phaedrus, 256B); and it is irrelevant to cite oriental notions of life as a combat and immortality as a triumph as Soury does (La Démonologie de Plutarque, p189, n1) after Cumont. Soury follows Raingeard in misconstruing ????????? . . . ?????????? and supposing that ?????? ?????????? is an “expression mystique” (op. cit. pp189 and 191?192). ?????????? does not depend upon ?????? or vice versa; and Plutarch has simply woven the “feathers of the soul,” which appear throughout the myth of the Phaedrus, into a wreath that is given to the souls of the good for their steadfastness, just as the victorious souls in Phaedrus, 256B become ????????? because in life they were ????????? ????? ??? ???????.

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344 Cf. De Genio Socratis, 592A, and Plato’s Phaedrus, 247B (n.b. ?????? ???? ?????? ?????????).

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345 ????? for Plato was simply the uppermost and purest air (cf. Timaeus, 58D, Phaedo, 109B and 111B); but here the word is probably used under Stoic influence, for which see note d on 928D and note g on 922B supra and cf. [Plato], Axiochus, 366A (? ???? ?????????? ??? ???????? ????? ??? ???????? ???????). These last sentences of chapter 28 show several definitely Stoic traits, especially the conception of “tension,” nourishment of the soul by the exhalations, and the use of the quotation from Heraclitus. It has long been customary to compare with this passage Cicero, Tusc. Disp. I.19.43, and Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. IX.71?73 (cf. Heinze, Xenokrates, pp126?128; K. Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, pp308?313 and p323; R. M. Jones, Class. Phil. XXVII [1932], pp113 ff.).

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346 For the Stoic doctrine of ????? cf. De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1054A?B, De Communibus Notitiis, 1085C?D, and S. V. F. II, frags. 447 and 448. The metaphor of “tempering” was also commonly used by the Stoics in connection with the soul: cf. S. V. F. II, frags. 804?806.

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347 Frag. 98 (I, p173.3 [Diels-Kranz]). For the nourishment of disembodied souls cf. the passages of Cicero and Sextus cited in note e, p203. Here the argument of Lamprias in 940C?D supra is incorporated into the myth, which thereby appears to substantiate the argument.

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348 Plutarch certainly wrote ????? ??????? (or perhaps ????? ??? ???????) under the influence of Plato’s “true earth,” ???? ? ??, in Phaedo, 109 B7, 110 B6 (cf. 935A supra and 944B infra).

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349 Cf. Aristotle, De Part. Animal. 656 B19?21 and 25?26, 666 A16?17; and Plato, Timaeus, 77E on the connection of the blood-vessels with ?? ??? ????????? ?????.

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350 Not “the demons” who told the stranger the story, as Raingeard says, better human authors of the theory mentioned in the next sentence; cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), pp151?152.

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351 Cf. S. V. F. II, frag. 555 and Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p157, n105.

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352 The Greek does not imply, as Adler supposes, that Plutarch had any doubt about what Xenocrates had said (cf. R. M. Hones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p55).

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353 Timaeus, 40A and 31B?32C; cf. [Plato], Epinomis, 981D?E; Plutarch, De Fortuna Romanorum, 316E?F. Timaeus, 31B strictly requires ??? . . . ??? ????? here; but according to Timaeus, 45B and 58C ??? is the species of fire that produces visibility.

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354 Xenocrates, frag. 56 (Heinze); for text and implications cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p152.

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355 Plutarch here gives a “mythical correction” of the astronomical calculations in 923A?B and 932B supra (on the text and on the paralogism of this “correction” cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), pp152?153) and also a mythical explanation of the acceleration of which he had spoken in 933B supra. With this account of the effect of the lunar eclipse upon the disembodied souls cf. De Genio Socratis, 591C and for the harmony in the heavens cf. 590C?D there, De Musica, 1147, Plato’s Republic, 617B, Aristotle’s De Caelo, 290 B12?291 A18.

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356 Cf. Aemilius Paulus, 17 (264B); Pliny, Nat. Hist. II.12.9 (54); Tacitus, Annals, I.28; Juvenal, VI.442?443. The purpose of the custom is here made to fit the myth; in De Genio Socratis, 591C the moon herself flashes and bellows to frighten away the impure souls.

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357 Cf. Epigenes in Clement, Stromat. V.49 (= Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, frag. 33): ????????? ??? ??????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ????????. Cf. the notion that the face in the moon is that of the Sibyl (De Pythiae Oraculis, 398C?D; De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 566D).

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358 Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 109B.

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359 For the Caspian see note f on 941C supra. By “Red Sea” Plutarch means what we call the Indian Ocean plus the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea; in Quaest. Conviv. 733B he cites Agatharchidas who wrote an extensive work on the “Red Sea” (cf. Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 250 [pp441 ff., Bekker]).

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360 Cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p151 on 943E.

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361 For Hecatê and the moon see notes c on 937F and b on 942D supra; cf. Sophocles, frag. 492 (Nauck2) and Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, frag. 204. For Hecatê’s association with a cave cf. Homeric Hymn II, 24?25, and Roscher, Über Selene und Verwandtes, pp46?48. Plutarch himself associates ????? with the “punishments in Hades” (De Superstitione, 167A).

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362 This has been called inconsistent with the preceding statement in chapter 28 that only pure or purified souls attain the moon. Even the pure souls that reach the moon, however, still have the affective soul as well mind; and Plutarch has already said in chapter 28 (942F) that the life which they lead on the moon is ?? ???????? ???? ?????.

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363 Cf. Class. Phil. XLVI (1951), p153.

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364 They pass to the outer side on their way to the “second death” (944E ff. infra) and to the hither side on their way to rebirth in bodies (945C infra). In Amatorius, 766B the place to the souls come to be reborn in the body is called ?? ??????? ??? ????????? ????????.

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365 See 942F supra and note d there.

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366 Plutarch uses ???????? in the usual Pythagorean sense in De An. Proc. in Timaeo, 1028B (cf. De Placitis, 891F, 895C, 895E = Aëtius, II.29.4; III.9.2; III.11.3). Identification of the moon with the counter-earth is ascribed to certain “Pythagoreans” (but cf. Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy, I, p562) you Simplicius, De Caelo, p512.17?20 (cf. Asclepius, Metaph. p35.24?27; Scholia in Aristotelem, 505 A1 [Brandis]).

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367 Cf. De Defectu Oraculorum, 417A?B and De Genio Socratis, 591C; R. M. Jones, he Platonism of Plutarch, pp29, 59, and 55?56. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. VI.30 (p18.4 [Deubner]) says that some people considered Pythagoras to be such a Spirit from the moon. In the last clause of the sentence above Plutarch refers to the Dioscuri: cf. Lysander, 14 (439C); De Defectu Oraculorum, 426C.

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368 Cf. 926C supra (? ???? . . . ?? ?????? ??????????), De An. Proc. in Timaeo, 1023C (?? ?????? ??????????? scil. ? ???? . . .); for the “misbehaviour” of Spirits cf. De Defectu Oraculorum, 417B, 417E?F, De Iside, 361A ff., where the punishment of these Spirits in mentioned in 361F (cf. De Defectu Oraculorum, 415C).

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369 i.e. not those who for misdeeds are cast out upon earth again. The attendants of Cronus are the ???????? of 942A supra. Cf. Porphyry’s account of good and evil spirits in De Abstinentia, II.38?39.

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370 Cf. Numa, 15 (70C horsed); [Plutarch], De Fluviis, XIII.3 (VII, p305.4?12 [Bernardakis]); Strabo, X.3.22 (C. 473); Pausanias, V.7.6?10; Diodorus, V.64.3?7.

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371 Cf. Schwenn, R.E. XI.2 (1922), 1441?1446, and Lobeck, Aglaophamos, pp1139?1155.

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372 This place seems to be mentioned nowhere else; but, since Plutarch here refers to inactive oracles from which the Spirits have departed, the change to ???????? cannot be right, for in De Defectu Oraculorum, 411E?F Lebadeia is said to be the only remaining active oracle in Boeotia where there are many others now silent or even deserted.

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373 Cf. 943B supra.

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374 Plato’s Republic, 507?509 is Plutarch’s main inspiration. It is a passage which he echoes or cites many times (e.g. De Iside, 372A, De E, 393D, De Defectu Oraculorum, 413C and 433D?E, Ad Principem Inerud. 780F and 781F, Plat. Quaest. 1006F?1007A); and his references to it show that “the image in the sun,” ??? ???? ??? ????? ???????, here means the visible likeness of the good which the sun manifests and not, as Kepler suggests, the reflection of the sun seen in the moon as in a mirror. The last part of the section with the notion that all nature strives towards the good and the term ?????? itself are drawn from Aristotle (Physics, 192 A16?19 and the whole of Physics A, 9 and Metaphysics ?, 7); cf. De Iside, 372E?F and Amatorius, 770B.

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375 The specific nature of this fertilization is described in 945C infra; the conception of the sun as an image of god is connected with a reference to its fructifying force in De E, 393D. For sexual language used of the moon and sun see the references in note a on 929C supra.

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376 Odyssey, XI.222.

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377 Odyssey, XI.601?602. Similar interpretations of this page are common among the Neo-Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists; cf. especially [Plutarch], De Vita et Poesi Homeri, chap. 123; Plotinus, Enn. I.1.12; IV.3.27 and 32; VI.4.16; Proclus, In Rem Publicam, I, p120.22 ff. and p172.9 ff. (Kroll); Cumont, Rev. de Philologie, XLIV (1920), pp237?240, who contends that the doctrine itself arose in Alexandria where Aristarchus became acquainted with it.

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378 Cf. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 564C and Adv. Coloten, 1119A. For the ???? as the true self cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1166 A16?17 and 22?23, 1168 B35, 1169 A2, 1178 A2?7. Plato usually speaks of the ???? without further qualification as the true self (e.g. Laws, 959A, Phaedo, 115C [cf. the Pseudo-Platonic Alcibiades I, 130A?C and Axiochus, 365E]), although such passages as Republic, 430E?431A, 588C?589B, 611C?E can be taken to imply that he meant the rational soul only (cf. Plotinus’s use of the last passage in Enn. I.1.12). Cf. also Cicero, De Republica, VI.26 (“mens cuiusque is est quisque”) and Marcus Aurelius, II.2 with Farquharson’s note ad loc.

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379 Cf. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 564A, where the souls are described as ????? ??????? ???????????, and [Plutarch]. De Vita et Poesi Homeri, chap. 123 (??????? ???? ?? ??????????????? [?] ??? ???????); Porphyry in Stobaeus, I.XLIX.55 (= I, p429.16?22 [Wachsmuth]). The notion that the soul after death retains the appearance of the body was common (cf. Lucian, Vera Hist. II.2), although Alexander Polyhistor in Diogenes Laertius, VIII.31 gave it as Pythagorean doctrine (but cf. Antisthenes, frag. 33 [Mullach]). With the special point of the present passage that the body is given its form by the imprint of the soul, which has itself been moulded by the mind, cf. Proclus, In Rem Publicam, II, pp327.21?328.15 (Kroll); Plotinus, IV.3.9.20?23 and 10.35?42; Macrobius, Somn. Scip. I.XIV.8; Sextus, P.H. I.85. In Laws, 959A?B Plato calls the body “an attendant semblance of the self” and uses the word ?????? of corpses. The notion that soul encompasses body instead of being contained by it comes ultimately from Plato, Timaeus, 34B.

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380 i.e. 943A supra.

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381 For later Neo-Platonic opinions concerning the dissolution of the lower soul see Proclus, In Timaeum, III, p234.9 ff. (Diehl) and cf. Plotinus, Enn. IV.7.14 (. . . ????????? ?? ?? ?????? ???? ???? ?????????? ??? ?? ? ???? ???? ??? ?????).

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382 The expression correlative to ?? ??? is ???? ?? ?????, and the contrast between ???? ?? ????? . . . ???????? and the present clause requires that ??????????? mean “pass their time” rather than “toss about,” “be distraught,” the meaning that it has in De Genio Socratis, 591D.

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383 There seems to be no other reference to Endymion’s dreams; but Plutarch may here have been influenced by the story that Endymion’s endless sleep was a punishment for his passion for Hera (cf. Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera, IV.57?58 [p265, Wendel]) and Scholia in Theocritum Veterum, III.49?51B [p133, Wendel]).

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384 Cf. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 565D?E, 566A; Plato, Phaedo, 81B?E, 108A?B.

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385 Cf. Odyssey, XI.576?581; Pindar, Pythian, IV.90; Eustathius, Comment. ad Odysseam, 1581.54 ff.

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386 Cf. especially De Iside, chaps. 27 and 30.

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387 ????? and ?????? are named together by Plutarch in Pelopidas, 16 (28C); cf. Strabo, IX.3.12 (cc. 422?423) –> and Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, I.4.1.3?5 (22?23).

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388 For the play on ?????-????? cf. Plato, Phaedrus, 230A, which is quoted by Plutarch in Adv. Coloten, 1119B; and cf. also Marcus Aurelius, II.17 (. . . ?? ?? ??? ????? ??????? ??? ????? . . .).

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389 Cf. 943A and 944E?F supra. In the latter passage ?????????? ??? ????? ?? ??????????? ???????? (cf. De E, 393D [?? ???? ????? ???????] and Aqua an Ignis, 958E [??? ????? . . . ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????]) shows that ?? ?????? here is to be construed with the preceding words rather than those that follow (so Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, pp320, 329). On Reinhardt’s treatment of this passage in general and his attempt to derive it from Poseidonius (op. cit. 118?120, 129?131, 134?135; n.b. Timaeus, 41?42, where the demiurge is said to have sowed (????????) in the earth, the moon, and the other planets the souls that he had fashioned himself, i.e. the minds (cf. 41E, 42D), and the interpretation of Timaeus Locrus, 99D?E, according to which this means that the souls are brought to earth from the various planets (cf. also R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, pp49?51, and especially Porphyry in Proclus, In Timaeum, I, p147.6?13 [n.b. . . . ??? ?? ??? ??????? ???? ?????????? ????? . . .] and p165.16?23 [Diehl]).

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390 Cf. Quaest. Conviv. 658F: ???? ????? ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ??? ??????????, ??? ????? ?????? ? ??? ???????, ?????????. Here, however, Artemis and Ilithyia are supposed to be names for two contrary faculties of the moon. In 938F supra the identification of the moon with Artemis because she is “sterile but is helpful and beneficial to other females” implies that Artemis is Ilithyia, as she is in Plato’s Theaetetus, 149B (cf. Cornutus, p73.73?18 [Lang]). Artemis was associated with easy, painless death, however (cf. Odyssey, XI.172?173; XVIII.2902); and Plutarch probably connects this notion with the gentleness of the death on the moon (cf. 943B supra). L. A. Post has suggested that he may also have intended ???????? as an etymology of ???????. Ilithyia and Artemis are sometimes sisters (cf. Diodorus Siculus, V.72.5), but then they have the same function.

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391 In De Genio Socratis, 591B Atropos is situated in the invisible, Clotho in the sun, and Lachesis in the moon. The order there is the same as it is here and different from that in the De Fato (568E), where in interpretation of Republic, 617C Clotho is highest, Lachesis lowest, and Atropos intermediate. Both orders differ from that of Xenocrates (frag. 5 [Heinze]), which was Atropos (intelligible and supra-celestial), Lachesis (opinable and celestial), Clotho (sensible and sublunar). The order of De Facie and De Genio Socratis is that of Plato’s Laws, 960C, where Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos are named in ascending order as the epithet of Atropos, ????? ???????, shows; here in the De Facie it is the passage of the Republic, however, that Plutarch has in mind, for his ???????????? is an echo of Plato’s ??????????? and ?????????? there. Cf. H. Dörrie, Hermes, LXXXII (1954), pp331?342 (especially pp337?339), who discusses the relation of these passages to the pre-history of the Neoplatonic doctrine of hypostases and argues that in writing them Plutarch was inspired by Xenocrates.

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392 Cf. De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 561B, De Genio Socratis, 589F; Plato’s Phaedo, 114D, Meno, 86B, Gorgias, 527A, Phaedrus, 246A.

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