NOTES
(1) c. 1, 920 B. The opening of the Dialogue is abrupt; compare that of ‘On the Instances of Delay in Divine Punishment’. Many of the Symposiacs open as abruptly, and there a former conversation is sometimes resumed by the same speakers. It seems not impossible that there had been a previous Dialogue on the Face in the Moon, and, again, that the περὶ ψυχῆς preceded theDe Sera numinum Vindicta.
Wyttenbach reads τῷ γ᾽ ἐμῷ for the MSS. τῷ γὰρ ἐμῷ, but suggests τῷ παρ᾽ ἐμοί, which seems better. Sylla is not the author, but the depository, of the myth.
For εἰ δεῖ τι ... προσανακρούσασθαι he reads εἰ δή τι ... προσανεκρούσασθε. The past indicative is required by the τί δὲ οὐκ ἐμέλλομεν which follows, the reference being to the previous discussion (see Introduction). The combination εἰ δή or εἰ δή τι is a frequent one. If δή was altered to δεῖ, the further alteration of the verb would follow. Sylla’s language is nautical, as in c. 26, ‘Did you really stop rowing, and back-water on to the received views?’
(2) c. 3. 921 A.For our sight.ὄψις is an old correction for ἴτυς of the MSS., and is required by the context.
(3) c. 4. 921 C.Equal in breadth and length.Empedocles (Fr. 17, 20) has a line
καὶ Φιλότης ἐν τοῖσιν, ἴση μῆκός τε πλάτος τε.
καὶ Φιλότης ἐν τοῖσιν, ἴση μῆκός τε πλάτος τε.
καὶ Φιλότης ἐν τοῖσιν, ἴση μῆκός τε πλάτος τε.
καὶ Φιλότης ἐν τοῖσιν, ἴση μῆκός τε πλάτος τε.
This poetical quotation is introduced to indicate that the world is not a mere point, but has sensible dimensions. In literal truth, the habitable world was held to be twice as long as it was wide (i. e. N. to S.).
The words as to the earth occupying ‘a point central to the sphere (i. e. orbit) of the moon’ are quoted from the Second Hypothesis of Aristarchus (see Introduction). It has been proposed (by Dr. Max Adler) to substitute the name of Clearchus for that of Hipparchus. But the quarrel of Lamprias is not with philosophers but with astronomers and mathematicians, represented by Apollonides and Menelaus. The greatest of them is of absolute authority as to angles of reflexion, &c., not so when he propounds a physical theory ofvision, which many find unsatisfactory. For the theory itself see the quasi-PlutarcheanDe Placitis, 4, 13.
For the words καίτοι γε φίλε πρίαμ᾽ (omitted in the translation), Turnebus proposed καίτοι γε φίλε Λαμπρία, which is very attractive as to the letters, but impossible, unless the text be wholly reconstructed, because Lamprias is himself the speaker.
For discrepancies between the mathematically correct theory of reflexion and its physical application see chapters 17 and 23.
(4) c. 7, 924 B.That segments of beams....The sense intended by the translation is this: A beam is sawn into two segments on the earth’s surface. The two segments, which at first are separated by a short interval, move simultaneously towards the earth’s centre, but in converging, not parallel, lines, and jam each other long before they reach it. (This is suggested by Aristotle,de Caelo, 2, 14, 296 b 18.)
For ἀποκρίπτεσθαι Dr. Purser suggests ἀποθρύπτεσθαι, which I have rendered; ἀποκύπτεσθαι (Aristoph. Lysis. 1003), ‘to crouch aside’, seems possible.
(5) c. 9, 925 B. Perhaps the line of Empedocles may run ἅρματος ὡσπερανεὶ (L. C. P.) χνόη ᾄσσεται.
(6) c. 10, 925 E. The MSS. have ἀλλὰ καὶ κινητικὸ ταύτῃ διάστημα τὸ δέον, for which Madvig (Adv. Crit., vol. i, p. 665) makes the admirable correction: ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκείνῃ καὶ ταύτῃ δυίστημα δοτέον.
(7) c. 14, 927 F.The growth within.I read αὔξησιν, which is sometimes confused with ἕξιν. Cp. Ar.Eth. N.3, 14, 149 b 4.
(8) c. 19, 932 C. [the moon ... bodies also]. The words in brackets have been supplied from the substance of the passage of Aristotle mentioned in the footnote.
(9) c. 19, 932 C. Posidonius’ definition is introduced because it contains an admission that the moon casts a shadow, and is therefore an earthlike, not a starlike, body. It has been proposed to alter σκιᾶς into σκιᾷ, and the construction with σύνοδος could be justified by Platonic examples (see R. Kunze inRhein. Mus.vol. 64, p. 635), but the assumed corruption is improbable. E appears[375]to read οἷς not ἧς; the clause introduced by the relative seems to containa limitation of the phenomenon to ‘those who experience the obscuration’, i.e. those in the track of the shadow over the earth’s surface. In this case, the words may either have come from a marginal gloss on τόδε τὸ πάθος, or should be transposed with those words, as suggested by Dr. Purser. This will be consistent with the account of a solar eclipse given by Cleomedes (2, 3, p. 172), doubtless after Posidonius; it is not αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ πάθος ἀλλὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας ὄψεως, whereas an eclipse of the moon is αὐτῆς τῆς θεοῦ πάθος, irrespective of the place of the terrestrial observer.
(10) c. 24, 937 F.A lion.Kepler suggests that there was an old confusion between λῖς, a lion, and λᾶς, a stone.
(11) c. 24, 938 C.without mouths.The MSS. have εὐστόμους, but ἀστόμους is an old correction adopted by W. Pliny,N. H.7, 2, 25, quotes Megasthenes for a mouthless people living near the sources of the Ganges. See also Müller,Fragm. Hist. Graec.2, 427 (Adler). For the notion of living by smell cp. Heraclitus (Fr. 38).
(12) c. 26, 941 A. This interesting passage should be read by the side ofDe Defectu Oraculorum, c. 18, p. 19 F (p. 135 above), which has a close verbal resemblance, and is perhaps extracted from it (Adler). Briareus may have been named in the full text here, as the son of Cronus. In Hesiod,Theogon.147, he is the son of Uranus, and so Eustathius on Hom.Il.1, 403, but a little later on Eustathius mentions Cronus as his father on the authority of Arrian. παρακάτω κεῖσθαι of the MSS. is difficult. Adler would read Βριάρεων δὲ τὸν υἱὸν ὡς ἔχοντα φρουρὰν τῶν τε νήσων ἐκείνων καὶ τῆς θαλάττης, ἣν Κρόνιον πέλαγος ὀνομάζουσιν, παρακατῳκίσθαι. Dr. Purser points out that the Straits of Gibraltar were first called the Pillars of Cronus, afterwards the Pillars of Briareus, and lastly the Pillars of Hercules (Schol. ad Dionys. Perieg.64 in Müller’sFragm. Hist. Gr.3, 640).
I have followed the reading of Emperius πέραν κατῳκίσθαι, but without much confidence. Cronus could not well, as Dr. Purser points out, have beeninone of the islands, and alsobeyondit.
(13) c. 26, 942 C. I venture to suggest that the text may have run something as follows:
Πλεῖστον γὰρ ἐν Καρχηδόνι χρόνον διέτριψεν ἅτε δὴ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν μέταλλα ἔχων, ὃς καί τινας, ὅθ᾽ ἡ προτέρα πόλις ἀπώλλυτο, κτλ.
The long sojourn of the stranger in Carthage would be explained if he owned mines there.
In the sequel φαινομένων may perhaps stand for Φοινικικῶν and χρῆναι for χρηστήρια εἶναι.
408 F (p. 110, l. 19). πρὸς δὲ πίστιν ἐπισφαλὴς καὶ ὑπεύθυνος. If ἐπισφαλής stands, it should rather mean ‘liable to take good faith (like an infection)‘, a very common use of the adjective and its adverb in Plutarch. See e. g. 661 B, 631 C. This seems rather a forced oxymoron here. Wyttenbach doubted, and Madvig proposed ἀνεπισφαλής, a word said to be found in Themistius.
On the passage see J. H. W. Strijd inClass. Rev., xxviii, p. 219.
418 A (p. 132, above). ... πυθυμένου (Φιλίππου) τίσιν ἀντιμαρτυρεῖν θεοῖς οἴεται τοὺς ἀνταγωνιζομένους, Τούτοις, ἔφη, τοῖς περὶ τὸ χρηστήριον, οἷς ἄρτι τοὺς ἔξω Πυλῶν πάντας Ἕλληνας ἡ πόλις κατοργιάζουσα μέχρι Τεμπῶν ἐλήλακεν.
I have followed Amyot, whose version is perhaps more intelligible than the Latin, but involves the change of θεοῖς to θείοις (Turnebus) and the transposition of Tempe and Thermopylae. If θεοῖς can be retained, the reference will be to Dionysus and Apollo, the two gods connected with the sanctuary (pp. 67, 138, &c.) and the purgation of the latter at Tempe, commemorated by periodical rites. θείοις appears to correspond more closely to ἱεροῖς above.
926 C-D (pp. 271-2). διὰ τοῦτο οὖν σώματι ψυχὴν μὴ λέγομεν εἶναι μηδέν, οὐ χρῆμα θεῖον ὑπὸ βρίθους ἢ πάχους, οὐρανόν τε πάντα καὶ γῆν καὶ θάλασσαν ἐν ταὐτῷ περιπολοῦντα, καὶ διιστάμενον εἰς σάρκας ἥκειν καὶ νεῦρα, καὶ μυελούς, καὶ παθέων μυρίων μεθ᾽ ὑγρότητος. For διιστάμενον W. proposes διιπτάμενον. I have, with great hesitation, followed Herwerden’s μηδὲ νοῦν (Emperius μηδὲ νοῦ χρῆμα), as the substantive agrees with the participle, but the whole passage is difficult. ὑπὸ βρίθους ἢ πάχους seems to be out of place (can ὑπό stand for something equivalent to ἄνευ or to Madvig’s ἀθῷον ὑπό)?
In the paper mentioned on p. 54 Dr. Max Adler adduces an interesting passage from Maximus Tyrius (diss. 22, 6) closely parallel to this, as proving that Plutarch was drawing upon Posidonius. The participle διιπταμένη occurs.