Chapter 17

[185]Æschylus:Prometheus Vinctus, 210.[186]De Iside et Osiride, 352 A. We need not here trouble with Plutarch’s fanciful philology, almost as fanciful as that of some modern Aryanists. His meaning is clear—Absolute Being is the object of the worship of Isis—cf.Max Müller:Selected Essays, vol. i. p. 467: “Comparative philologists have not yet succeeded in finding the true etymology of Apollo.” (Plato’s derivations are given in theCratylus, 266 C.)[187]Iliad, xiii. 354. (Chapman’s translation.)[188]De Iside et Osiride, 351 E.[189]Neoplatonism, byC. Bigg, D.D. (“Chief Ancient Philosophies”), p. 216.[190]Cf. theDe Placitis Philosophorum, 881 B.[191]De Ε apud Delphos, 384 F.[192]386 E.[193]Alluding toHesiod—Works and Days, 735 sq.[194]De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 562 B.[195]De Ε, 393 A.[196]De Ε, 387 B, C.[197]Plato:Philebus, 39 E.[198]Aristotle:Ethics, viii. 12.[199]De Superstitione, 167 E.[200]De Defectu Orac., 423 E.[201]PlutarchonThe Delay of the Deity in Punishing the Wicked: revised edition, with notes, by Professors H. B. Hackett and W. S. Tyler. (New York, 1867.)[202]Sur les Délais de la Justice Divine dans la punition des coupables, par le ComteJoseph de Maistre. (Lyons et Paris, 1856.)—“J’ai pris,” says de Maistre, “j’ai pris quelques libertés dont j’espère que Plutarque n’aura point se plaindre;” and, speaking of thejeunesse surannéeof Amyot’s style, he adds: “Son orthographe égare l’œil, l’oreille ne supporte pas ses vers: les dames surtout et les étrangers le goûtent peu.” Another French critic justly remarks on these “liberties” of de Maistre: “C’est trop de licence. Plutarque n’est pas un de ces écrivains qui laissent leurs pensées en bouton” (Gréard, p. 274). Yet it is upon de Maistre’s “paraphrase” that Gréard bases his own analysis![203]Wyttenbach:De Sera Numinis Vindicta(Præfatio). It is pleasant to repeat the praise which Christian writers have poured on this tract. “Diese Schrift” says Volkmann, “gehört meines Erachtungs unbedingt mit zu dem schönsten, was aus der gesammten nachclassischen Litteratur der Griechen überhaupt auf uns gekommen ist.” (Volkmann, vol. ii. p. 265.) One may wonder a little, perhaps, at the limitation conveyed in thenachofnachclassischen.—Trench says that some of Plutarch’s arguments “would have gone far to satisfy St. Augustine, and to meet the demands of his theology.”[204]The Epicurean author of theDe Placitis, still inveighing against “that tall talker, Plato,” is bitterly emphatic on this point.—“If there is a God, and human affairs are administered by His Providence, how comes it that bareness prospers, while the refined and good fall into adversity?” And he instances the murder of Agamemnon “at the hands of an adulterer and an adultress,” and the death of Hercules, that benefactor of humanity, “done to death by Dejaniras drugs.” (881 D.)[205]Symposiacs, 642 C, 700 E.[206]Symposiacs, 654 C.[207]Thucyd., iii. 38. Cleon’s famous speech on the Mytilenean question.[208]“Hujus rei aut omnino Lycisci ne vestigium quidem uspiam reperi.”—Wyttenbach.[209]In allusion, of course, to the famous verse of an unknown poet:—Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτὰ.[210]540 E.[211]Deleting ἢ after ῥάδιον withBernardakis. 549 F.[212]Note the change of number: θεῶν—εἰδὼς.[213]Cf. the well-known passage in theTimæus(Timæus, 29 C, D).[214]550 D. “Etsi hæc sententia disertis verbis in Platone, quod sciam, non exstet, ejus tamen ubique sparsa sunt vestigia.”Wyttenbachadds: “Summam autem hominum virtutem et beatitudinem in eo consistere, ut imitatione Deorum eis similes evadant, communis fere omnium Philosophorum fuit sententia.”[215]Plutarch has another well-known passage of theTimæusin his memory here.—Timæus, 29 D.[216]“Neque hoc disertis verbis in Platone legere me memini; sed cum variis locis ... confer.”—Wytt.[217]551 D.[218]553 A, 553 F.[219]Laws, 728 C. The reference is toHesiod:Works and Days, 265, 266, though Plutarch quotes verse 265 in a form different from the vulgate.Goettling(Ap.Paley) thinks Plutarch’s version “savours more of antiquity.”Aristotle:Rhetoric, iii. 9, quotes the vulgate.[220]554 D. Literally, “they were not punished when they grew old, but grew old in punishment.”[221]555 E, F.[222]Stobæus:Anthologion, Tit. 79, 15.[223]557 D. Cf. the sarcasm of the AcademicCottain theDe Natura Deorum, iii. 38: “Dicitis eam vim Deorum esse ut, etiam si quis morte pœnas sceleris effugerit, expetantur eæ pœnæ a liberis, a nepotibus, a posteris. O miram æquitatem Deorum!”[224]558 F.[225]559 E.[226]560 C.WyttenbachquotesLucretius, iii. 437 and 456: “Ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai Naturam ceu fumus in altas aeris auras.” He might have added, iii. 579, sqq.: “Denique, cum corpus nequeat perferre animai Discidium, quin id tetro tabescat odore, Quid dubitas quin ex imo penitusque coörta, Emanarit uti fumus diffusa animæ vis?” Plutarch is probably thinking of Plato’s “intelligent gardener” (Phædrus, 276 B), although, as Wyttenbach says, “Horti Adonidis proverbii vim habent.” The English reader will think of Shakespeare’s beautiful lines—“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”Henry VI., Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.[227]560 F.[228]561 A.[229]564 C.[230]Cf.Timon of Athens, act iii. sc. 1: “Let molten coin be thy damnation.”[231]561 A.—In the long extract, preserved by Stobæus, from Plutarch’sDe Anima(Anthologion: Tit. 120, 28.—TheTauchnitzedition of 1838, however, ascribes this passage to Themistius, perhaps by confusion with extract No. 25), Plutarch allows his imagination to play freely with the fortunes of the soul in the afterworld. In a beautiful passage, Timon compares death to initiation into the Great Mysteries—an initiation in which gloom and weariness and perplexity and terror are followed by the shining of a wondrous light, which beams on lovely meadows, whose atmosphere resounds with sacred voices that tell us all the secret of the mystery, and whose paths are trod by pure and holy men. Timon concludes with Heraclitus that, if the soul became assuredly convinced of the fate awaiting it hereafter, no power would be able to retain it on earth. But Plutarch himself is not convinced: he is charmed and seduced, but Reason holds him back from accepting as certainties the “airy subtleties and wingy mysteries” of Imagination. Under the stress of a desire to console his wife for the loss of her little daughter, he reminds her that the “hereditary account” and the Mysteries of Dionysus—in which, he says, both of them were initiated—equally repudiate the notion that the soul is without sensation after death (Consolatio ad Uxorem, 611 D). In his polemic against the Epicureans he chiefly emphasizes the emotional aspect of the desire for immortality;—the Epicurean denial of immortality destroys “the sweetest and greatest hopes of the majority of mankind”—one of these “sweetest and greatest hopes” being that of seeing retribution meted out to those whose wealth and power have enabled them to flout and insult better men than themselves; it robs of its satisfaction that yearning of the thoughtful mind for unstinted communion with the great masters of contemplation; and deprives the bereaved heart of the pleasant dream of meeting its loved and lost ones in another world (Non posse suav., 1105 E). There is no doubt that Plutarch wished to believe in the immortality of the soul, but the evidence is not conclusive that he did; at the most it is with him a “counsel of perfection,” not an “article of faith.”[232]“It it not clear from the writings of Plutarch to what extent he was a monotheist.” This is the opinion of Charles W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., and it is supported by the irrefragable proof that Plutarch “uses θεὸς both with and without the article.” This judgment is given, of all places in the world, at the conclusion of a translation (a very indifferent one, by the way) of theDe Sera Numinis Vindicta. (“Between Heathenism and Christianity:—Being a Translation of Seneca’sDe Providentiaand Plutarch’sDe Sera Numinis Vindicta.” by Charles W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., Chicago, 1899.)[233]Plutarch himself is ignorant of its origin, and does not know whether it was Magian, Orphic, Egyptian, or Phrygian. (De Defectu Orac., 415 A. Cf.Isis and Osiris, 360 E, “following the Theologians of old.”) Those who believed, like Rualdus, that Plato had read the Old Testament (see note, page 45), had no difficulty in assigning the doctrine of Dæmons to a Jewish source. Wolff, speaking of the systematic dæmonology constructed by the neo-Platonists, alludes to this passage in Plutarch, and says:—“Hæc omnia artificiosa interpretatione ex Platonis fluxerunt fabulis; ex oriente fere nihil assumebatur. Namque Judæi aliis principiis, ac reliqui, profecti decem dæmonum genera constituerant; Chaldæi vetustiores non dæmonum genera, sed septem archangelos planetis præfectos colebant; nec credendum Plut.,De Defectu Orac., 415 A. Studebat enim Plutarchus,præsertim in Comm: de Iside et de Socratis dæmonio, Græcorum placita ad Ægypti Asiæque revocare sapientiam, et quum ab Orpheo et Atti sancta quædam mysteria dicerentur profecta esse, arcanis his ritibus summam de diis doctrinam significari suspicabatur” (Wolff,op. cit.).—Volkmann, who had carefully studied Plutarch’s relationship both to his philosophical predecessors and to foreign forms of religious faith, had previously arrived at a different conclusion from that embodied in the words italicized above.—“Er war darum kein Eklektiker oder Synkretist, und was man nun gar von seiner Vorliebe für Orientalische Philosophie und Theologie gesagt hat gehört ledeglich in das Gebiet der Fabel. Plutarchs philosophisch-allegorische Auslegung aber der Ægyptischen Mythen von Isis und Osiris geht von der ausdrücklichen Voraussetzung ausdass diese Gottheiten wesentlich Hellenische sind” (Volkmann, vol. ii. p. 23). But these varying views are simply two different ways of regarding the real fact, which is that Plutarch regards foreign myths and Greek alike as different expressions of the conception of Divine Unity—such Unity not being either Hellenic or Egyptian, but simply absolute (see subsequent analysis of theDe Iside et Osiride).[234]Diogenes Laertius, viii. 32.RitterandPrelleralso refer toApuleius’De Deo Socratis: “Atenim Pythagoricos mirari oppido solitos, si quis se negaret unquam vidisse Dæmonem, satis, ut reor, idoneus auctor est Aristoteles.” (Below this passage in my edition of Apuleius (theDelphin, of 1688) appears the note “Idem scribit Plutarch, in libello περὶ θαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτων.” ThislibellusI cannot identify with any enumerated in the catalogue of Lamprias.)[235]“Plato, ne Anaxagoræ aut Socratis modo impietatis reus succumberet, præterea ne sanctam animis hebetioribus religionem turbaret, intactos reliquit ritus publicos et communem de diis dæmonibusque opinionem; quæ ipse sentiat, significat quidem, sed, ut solet in rebus minus certiset a mera dialectica alienis, obvoluta fabulis” (Wolff,De Dæmonibus,loc. cit.). Is it permissible to suppose that the third consideration—that expressed in the italicized words—operated more strongly on Plato than either or both of the first two? Aristotle, at any rate, takes up a much firmer attitude in face of the popular mythology, which he regards asfabulously introduced for the purpose of persuading the multitude, enforcing the laws, and benefiting human life(Metaphysics, xi. (xii.) 8, T. Taylor’s translation). This famous passage is as outspoken as Epicureanism.[236]Plato:Politicus, 271 D. A similar “dispensation” is provided in theLaws, 717 A.[237]Plato:Symposium, 202 E.[238]Herodotus: ii. 53.[239]De Defectu Orac., 415 B.[240]Hesiod:Works and Days, 122-125 (Elton’s translation).[241]Works and Days, 253. Cf. the beautiful fragment from Menander preserved by Plutarch,De Tranquillitate Animi, 474 B:—“By every man, the moment he is born,There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall beHismystagoguethrough life.”[242]Works and Days, 141-2.[243]De Defectu Oraculorum, 445 B.—Pluto, too, though perhaps not quite with the innocent purpose of Homer, gives “dæmons” as an alternative to “gods”—Timæus, Sec. 16. (A passage charged with the most mordant irony against the national religious tradition.)[244]De Defectu Orac., 416 C.[245]Cf.Wolff: “Neque discrepat hac in re communis religio: multi enim dæmones mali Græcorum animos terrebant, velut Acco, Alphito, Empusa, Lamia, Mormo, sive Mormolyce,” &c.—Considering the numerous references made to the subject of Dæmonology by Greek poets and philosophers from Hesiod and Empedocles downwards, with all of which, as is clear from the citations made in our text, Plutarch is perfectly familiar, Prof. Mahaffy’s note on this point is a little mysterious.—“Mr. Purser points out to me that Plutarch rather popularized than originated this doctrine, and himself refers it to various older philosophers.” (Mahaffy, p. 313.)—It needs no very close study of Plutarch to see for one’s self that he does not claim to have originated the doctrine, and that he knows himself to be dealing with a long-standing and widespread tradition.[246]For a similar process, cf. the quotation from Dr.Jackson’sTreatise on Unbelief, given by SirWalter ScottinDemonology and Witchcraft, p. 175,note: “Thus are the Fayries, from difference of events ascribed to them, divided into good and bad, when it is but one and the same malignant fiend that meddles in both.”[247]Cf.Götte:Das Delphische Orakel: “In Zeiten, wo dasselbe keine Bedeutung mehr hatte, wo es nur dazu dienen konnte, den finstersten Aberglauben fortzupflanzen und zu erhalten, und die Menschen über die wahre Leitung der Dinge in der Welt, über die wahren Mittel, durch welche sich Jeder sein Glück bereitet, zu täuschen, wurde das Orakelwesen von den frommen Vätern unserer Kirche für die Ausgeburt des Teufels angesehen,” &c.—Cf. also, 1 Corinthians x. 20-22.[248]See, for these illustrations,Scott’sDemonology and Witchcraft,Pater’sApollo in Picardy, andHeine’sGods in Exile. (“Unter solchen Umständen musste Mancher, dessen heilige Haine konfisciert waren, bei uns in Deutschland als Holzhäcker taglöhnern und Bier trinken statt Nektar.”)[249]361 A. sqq.[250]The author of theDe Placitis(882 B.) gives a very vague and slight account of the history of Dæmonology, probably from motives of Epicurean contempt, if one may judge from the curt sentence which concludes his brief note:—“Epicurus admits none of these things.”—He merely says that Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics asserted the existence of spirits called “Dæmons,” and adds that the same philosophers also maintained the existence of Heroes some good, some bad. The distinction between good and bad does not apply to the Dæmons. The identical words of this passage in theDe Placitisare used by Athenagoras (Legat: pro Christ., cap. 21) to express a definite statement about Thales, who is asserted to have been the first who made the division into God, dæmons, heroes.[251]Plutarch has here preserved some very beautiful verses of Empedocles, in which this punishment is described. Another fragment of verse from Empedocles (De Exilio, 607 C) depicts with equal force and beauty the punishment by the Dæmons of one who has been handed over to them to atone for his crimes.[252]Here should be noted the tendency to assimilate the good Dæmons to the gods—a tendency to which reference has already been made.[253]De Defectu Orac., 419 A.[254]De Defectu Orac., 419 A.[255]419.—Mrs. Browning could hardly have read theDe Defectuwhen she stated that her fine poem “The Dead Pan” was “partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (‘De Oraculorum Defectu’),according to which, at the hour of the Saviour’s agony, a cry of ‘Great Pan is dead!’ swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners,—and the oracles ceased.” (It was one of the mariners who uttered the cry, “The great Pan is dead!” having been thrice requested by a supernatural voice to do so. But such errors of detail are unimportant in view of the fact that the whole spirit of the story is misunderstood by the poetess.)[256]So one may conjecture from the description given by Demetrius, who “sailed to the least distant of these lonely islands, which had few inhabitants, and these all held sacred and inviolable by the Britons.” Plutarch’s Demetrius has been identified with “Demetrius the Clerk” who dedicated, “to the gods of the imperial Palace,” a bronze tablet now in the Museum at York.—See King’s translation of theTheosophical Essaysin the “Bohn” series, p. 22.[257]420 B.[258]360 D.[259]361 E. We shall see elsewhere that, just as a good Dæmon may be promoted to the rank of a god, so a good man may be lifted to the status of a Dæmon, like Hesiod’s people of the Golden Age. (De Dæmonio Socratis, 593 D. Cf.De Defectu Orac., 415 B.)[260]361 F. 364 E.[261]Cf.Apuleius,De Deo Socratis.—“Neque enim pro majestate Deûm cælestium fuerit, ut eorum quisquam vel Annibali somnium pingat, vel Flaminio hostiam conroget, vel Accio Nævio avem velificet, vel sibyllæ fatiloquia versificet, etc. Non est operæ Diis superis ad hæc descendere. Quad cuncta” (he says elsewhere) “cælestium voluntate et numine et auctoritate, sed Dæmonum obsequio et opera et ministerio fieri arbitrandum est.”[262]De Ε apud Delphos, 394 A.[263]De Fato, 572 F, sqq.—Bernardakis “stars” this tract as doubtfully Plutarch’s. But the passage quoted, at any rate, is not discrepant from Plutarch’s views elsewhere, though expressing them more concisely, and with more appearance of system than usual with him. The similarity to Plato’s tripartite division of the heavenly powers in theTimæusis, of course, evident, but the text has a note of sincerity which is lacking in the Platonic passage.[264]De Defectu, 417 C. (For the verse quoted in the original, cf.W. Christ’sPindar, p. 232.)[265]417 D.[266]The nearest approach to this identification is made by the mysterious stranger whom Cleombrotus finds near the Red Sea, who appeared once every year among the people living in that neighbourhood, and who gave the pious traveller much information concerning Dæmons and their ways; which he was well fitted to do, as he spent most of his time in their company and that of the pastoral nymphs. He said that Python (whom Apollo slew) was a dæmon; that the Titans were dæmons; that Saturn may have been a dæmon. He then adds the significant words, “There is nothing to wonder at if we apply to certain Dæmons the traditional titles of the gods, since a Dæmon who is assigned to a particular god, deriving from him his authority and prerogatives, is usually called by the name of that same god” (421 E). But this somewhat daring testimony is, we are not surprised to find, preceded by a hint that in these matters we are to drink from a goblet of mingled fact and fancy.—(421 A.)[267]De Defectu Orac., 426 D.[268]Isis and Osiris, 360 E.[269]Isis and Osiris, 360 F.[270]Isis and Osiris, 361 C. The passage in the “Banquet” referred to has been already quoted (see p. 123).[271]It would be otiose to illustrate by examples the universal and splendid fame of the Delphic oracle. One may perhaps be given which is not commonly quoted. Pliny the elder, who in one passage sneeringly includes theoraculorum præscitaamong thefulgurum monitus, auruspicum prædicta, atque etiam parva dictu, in auguriis sternutamenta et offensiones pedum, by means of which men have endeavoured to discover hints of divine guidance, nevertheless, in another passage, quotes two wise oracles as having been “velut ad castigandam hominum vanitatem a Deo emissa.” (Lib. ii. cap. 5, and vii. cap. 47.)—The political, religious, and moral influence of the Delphic oracle has been exhaustively dealt with by Wilhelm Götte in the work already cited (see p. 127,note), and by Bouché-Leclerq in the third volume of his “Histoire de la Divination dans l’Antiquité.” On the general question of divination it would, perhaps, be superfluous to consult anything beyond this monumental work, with its exhaustive references and its philosophic style of criticism.[272]Juvenal:Sat.vi. 555.[273]Lucan, v. 111, sq.[274]—“Muto Parnassus hiatuConticuit, pressitque Deum: seu spiritus istasDestituit fauces, mundique in devia versumDuxit iter: seu barbarica cum lampade PythoArsit, in immensas cineres abiere cavernas,Et Phœbi tenuere viam: seu sponte DeorumCirrha silet fatique sat est arcana futuriCarmine longævæ vobis commissa Sibyllæ:Seu Pæan solitus templis arcere nocentes,Ora quibus solvat nostro non invenit ævo.”[275]The main argument of the third and shortest of the Delphic tracts has been already given. A brief description of its contents is added by way of note, to show its connexion with the two larger tracts. The tract takes the form of a letter from Plutarch to Serapion, who acts as a means of communication between Plutarch and other common friends. Its object is to ascertain why the letter Ε was held in such reverence at the Delphic shrine. A series of explanations is propounded, probably representing views current on the subject, varying, as they do, from those proper to the common people to those which could only have been the views of logicians or mathematicians. Theon, a close friend of Plutarch’s, maintains that the syllable is the symbol of the logical attributes of the God, Logic, whose basis is Ει (“if”), being the process by which philosophical truth is arrived at. “If, then, Philosophy is concerned with Truth, and the light of Truth is Demonstration, and the principle of Demonstration is Connexion, it is with good reason that the faculty which includes and gives effect to this process has been consecrated by philosophers to the god whose special charge is Truth.”... “Whence, I will not be dissuaded from the assertion that this is theTripod of Truth, namely, Reason, which recognizing that the consequent follows from the antecedent, and then taking into consideration the original basis of fact, thus arrives at the conclusion of the demonstration. How can we be surprised if the Pythian God, in his predilection for Logic, is specially attentive to this aspect of Reason, to which he sees philosophers are devoted in the highest degree?” This connexion of Reason with Religion, a familiar process in Plutarch, is followed by a “list of the arithmetical and mathematical praises of the letter Ε” involving Pythagorean speculations, and the culmination of the whole piece lies in the splendid vindication by Ammonius of the Unity and Self-Existence and Eternity of the Deity. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of his argument is the assignation to Apollo of the functions of the Supreme Deity: an easy method of bringing Philosophy and Mythology to terms; a mode of operation perhaps not unaffected by that Mithraic worship which, on its classical side, was to culminate in Julian’s famous prayer to Helios. The tract also furnishes, as already stated, a clear example of the method by which the literal terms known in the worship of Dionysus and Apollo are refined from their grosser elements and idealized by the subtleties of the philosophic intellect, which then accepts them as appropriate designations for the various functions of the God. The pleasant seriousness, too, of all the interlocutors is worthy of note, as presenting a type of religious discussion of whose calmness and dignity the modern world knows little. It would be interesting, for example, to hear a group of classical philosophers discuss the excommunication of Professor Mivart by Cardinal Vaughan, or of Tolstoi by Pobedonostzeff.[276]This Diogenianus does not appear to be identical with the Diogenianus of Pergamos, twice mentioned in theSymposiacs, although Bernardakis does not distinguish them in his Index.[277]Philinus was an intimate friend of Plutarch’s (Symposiacs, 727 B;De Sollertia Animalium, 976 B); and, except in this Dialogue and in theDe Soll. Anim., appears only as taking his part in the social intercourse of theSymposiacs, and as contributing his share to the discussion of the various quaint and curious problems forming so large a portion of the “Table Talk” of Plutarch and his friends. He has Pythagorean tendencies; eats no flesh (727 B); objects to a rich and varied diet, being of opinion that simple food is more easily digestible (660 F); explains somewhat crudely why Homer calls salt θεῖος (685 D); proves that Alexander the Great was a hard drinker (623 E); explains why Pythagoras advised his followers to throw their bedclothes into confusion on getting up (728 B, C); and tells a story of a wonderful tame crocodile which lay in bed like a human being (De Soll. Anim., 976 B). A very charming account of Plutarch’s friends has been given by M. A. Chenevière, in his “De Plutarchi familiaribus,” written as a Litt.D. thesis for a French University in 1886.[278]395 A.[279]396 D. Cf.Symposiacs, 628 A.[280]396 E. Boethus, a genial and witty man, with whom, notwithstanding his Epicureanism, Plutarch lives on terms of intimate social intercourse. InSymposiacs, 673 C, Boethus, now described as an Epicureansans phrase, entertains, in Athens, Plutarch, Sossius Senecio, and a number of men of his own sect. After dinner the company discuss the interesting question why we take pleasure in a dramatic representation of passions whose exhibition in real life would shock and distress us. At another time he appears, together with Plutarch and a few other friends, at a dinner given by Ammonius, thenStrategosat Athens for the third time, and explains, upon principles of Epicurean Science (Symposiacs, 720 F), why sounds are more audible at night than by day.[281]396 F.[282]See note, p. 149.[283]Cf.Cicero:De Divinatione, ii. 50.—“Quis est enim, qui totum diem jaculans, non aliquando collineet? Totas noctes dormimus; neque ulla fere est, qua non somniemus: et miramur, aliquando id, quod somniarimus, evadere? Quid est tam incertum quam talorum jactus? tamen nemo est quin, sæpe jactans, venereum jaciat aliquando, nonnumquam etiam iterum, ac tertium,”&c.Also ii. 971.—“Casus autem innumerabilibus pæne seculis in omnibus plura mirabilia quam in somniorum visis effecerit.”

[185]Æschylus:Prometheus Vinctus, 210.

[186]De Iside et Osiride, 352 A. We need not here trouble with Plutarch’s fanciful philology, almost as fanciful as that of some modern Aryanists. His meaning is clear—Absolute Being is the object of the worship of Isis—cf.Max Müller:Selected Essays, vol. i. p. 467: “Comparative philologists have not yet succeeded in finding the true etymology of Apollo.” (Plato’s derivations are given in theCratylus, 266 C.)

[187]Iliad, xiii. 354. (Chapman’s translation.)

[188]De Iside et Osiride, 351 E.

[189]Neoplatonism, byC. Bigg, D.D. (“Chief Ancient Philosophies”), p. 216.

[190]Cf. theDe Placitis Philosophorum, 881 B.

[191]De Ε apud Delphos, 384 F.

[192]386 E.

[193]Alluding toHesiod—Works and Days, 735 sq.

[194]De Sera Numinis Vindicta, 562 B.

[195]De Ε, 393 A.

[196]De Ε, 387 B, C.

[197]Plato:Philebus, 39 E.

[198]Aristotle:Ethics, viii. 12.

[199]De Superstitione, 167 E.

[200]De Defectu Orac., 423 E.

[201]PlutarchonThe Delay of the Deity in Punishing the Wicked: revised edition, with notes, by Professors H. B. Hackett and W. S. Tyler. (New York, 1867.)

[202]Sur les Délais de la Justice Divine dans la punition des coupables, par le ComteJoseph de Maistre. (Lyons et Paris, 1856.)—“J’ai pris,” says de Maistre, “j’ai pris quelques libertés dont j’espère que Plutarque n’aura point se plaindre;” and, speaking of thejeunesse surannéeof Amyot’s style, he adds: “Son orthographe égare l’œil, l’oreille ne supporte pas ses vers: les dames surtout et les étrangers le goûtent peu.” Another French critic justly remarks on these “liberties” of de Maistre: “C’est trop de licence. Plutarque n’est pas un de ces écrivains qui laissent leurs pensées en bouton” (Gréard, p. 274). Yet it is upon de Maistre’s “paraphrase” that Gréard bases his own analysis!

[203]Wyttenbach:De Sera Numinis Vindicta(Præfatio). It is pleasant to repeat the praise which Christian writers have poured on this tract. “Diese Schrift” says Volkmann, “gehört meines Erachtungs unbedingt mit zu dem schönsten, was aus der gesammten nachclassischen Litteratur der Griechen überhaupt auf uns gekommen ist.” (Volkmann, vol. ii. p. 265.) One may wonder a little, perhaps, at the limitation conveyed in thenachofnachclassischen.—Trench says that some of Plutarch’s arguments “would have gone far to satisfy St. Augustine, and to meet the demands of his theology.”

[204]The Epicurean author of theDe Placitis, still inveighing against “that tall talker, Plato,” is bitterly emphatic on this point.—“If there is a God, and human affairs are administered by His Providence, how comes it that bareness prospers, while the refined and good fall into adversity?” And he instances the murder of Agamemnon “at the hands of an adulterer and an adultress,” and the death of Hercules, that benefactor of humanity, “done to death by Dejaniras drugs.” (881 D.)

[205]Symposiacs, 642 C, 700 E.

[206]Symposiacs, 654 C.

[207]Thucyd., iii. 38. Cleon’s famous speech on the Mytilenean question.

[208]“Hujus rei aut omnino Lycisci ne vestigium quidem uspiam reperi.”—Wyttenbach.

[209]In allusion, of course, to the famous verse of an unknown poet:—Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτὰ.

[209]In allusion, of course, to the famous verse of an unknown poet:—

Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτὰ.

[210]540 E.

[211]Deleting ἢ after ῥάδιον withBernardakis. 549 F.

[212]Note the change of number: θεῶν—εἰδὼς.

[213]Cf. the well-known passage in theTimæus(Timæus, 29 C, D).

[214]550 D. “Etsi hæc sententia disertis verbis in Platone, quod sciam, non exstet, ejus tamen ubique sparsa sunt vestigia.”Wyttenbachadds: “Summam autem hominum virtutem et beatitudinem in eo consistere, ut imitatione Deorum eis similes evadant, communis fere omnium Philosophorum fuit sententia.”

[215]Plutarch has another well-known passage of theTimæusin his memory here.—Timæus, 29 D.

[216]“Neque hoc disertis verbis in Platone legere me memini; sed cum variis locis ... confer.”—Wytt.

[217]551 D.

[218]553 A, 553 F.

[219]Laws, 728 C. The reference is toHesiod:Works and Days, 265, 266, though Plutarch quotes verse 265 in a form different from the vulgate.Goettling(Ap.Paley) thinks Plutarch’s version “savours more of antiquity.”Aristotle:Rhetoric, iii. 9, quotes the vulgate.

[220]554 D. Literally, “they were not punished when they grew old, but grew old in punishment.”

[221]555 E, F.

[222]Stobæus:Anthologion, Tit. 79, 15.

[223]557 D. Cf. the sarcasm of the AcademicCottain theDe Natura Deorum, iii. 38: “Dicitis eam vim Deorum esse ut, etiam si quis morte pœnas sceleris effugerit, expetantur eæ pœnæ a liberis, a nepotibus, a posteris. O miram æquitatem Deorum!”

[224]558 F.

[225]559 E.

[226]560 C.WyttenbachquotesLucretius, iii. 437 and 456: “Ergo dissolvi quoque convenit omnem animai Naturam ceu fumus in altas aeris auras.” He might have added, iii. 579, sqq.: “Denique, cum corpus nequeat perferre animai Discidium, quin id tetro tabescat odore, Quid dubitas quin ex imo penitusque coörta, Emanarit uti fumus diffusa animæ vis?” Plutarch is probably thinking of Plato’s “intelligent gardener” (Phædrus, 276 B), although, as Wyttenbach says, “Horti Adonidis proverbii vim habent.” The English reader will think of Shakespeare’s beautiful lines—“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”Henry VI., Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.

“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”Henry VI., Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.

“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”

“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens,

That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”

Henry VI., Pt. 1, act i. sc. 6.

[227]560 F.

[228]561 A.

[229]564 C.

[230]Cf.Timon of Athens, act iii. sc. 1: “Let molten coin be thy damnation.”

[231]561 A.—In the long extract, preserved by Stobæus, from Plutarch’sDe Anima(Anthologion: Tit. 120, 28.—TheTauchnitzedition of 1838, however, ascribes this passage to Themistius, perhaps by confusion with extract No. 25), Plutarch allows his imagination to play freely with the fortunes of the soul in the afterworld. In a beautiful passage, Timon compares death to initiation into the Great Mysteries—an initiation in which gloom and weariness and perplexity and terror are followed by the shining of a wondrous light, which beams on lovely meadows, whose atmosphere resounds with sacred voices that tell us all the secret of the mystery, and whose paths are trod by pure and holy men. Timon concludes with Heraclitus that, if the soul became assuredly convinced of the fate awaiting it hereafter, no power would be able to retain it on earth. But Plutarch himself is not convinced: he is charmed and seduced, but Reason holds him back from accepting as certainties the “airy subtleties and wingy mysteries” of Imagination. Under the stress of a desire to console his wife for the loss of her little daughter, he reminds her that the “hereditary account” and the Mysteries of Dionysus—in which, he says, both of them were initiated—equally repudiate the notion that the soul is without sensation after death (Consolatio ad Uxorem, 611 D). In his polemic against the Epicureans he chiefly emphasizes the emotional aspect of the desire for immortality;—the Epicurean denial of immortality destroys “the sweetest and greatest hopes of the majority of mankind”—one of these “sweetest and greatest hopes” being that of seeing retribution meted out to those whose wealth and power have enabled them to flout and insult better men than themselves; it robs of its satisfaction that yearning of the thoughtful mind for unstinted communion with the great masters of contemplation; and deprives the bereaved heart of the pleasant dream of meeting its loved and lost ones in another world (Non posse suav., 1105 E). There is no doubt that Plutarch wished to believe in the immortality of the soul, but the evidence is not conclusive that he did; at the most it is with him a “counsel of perfection,” not an “article of faith.”

[232]“It it not clear from the writings of Plutarch to what extent he was a monotheist.” This is the opinion of Charles W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., and it is supported by the irrefragable proof that Plutarch “uses θεὸς both with and without the article.” This judgment is given, of all places in the world, at the conclusion of a translation (a very indifferent one, by the way) of theDe Sera Numinis Vindicta. (“Between Heathenism and Christianity:—Being a Translation of Seneca’sDe Providentiaand Plutarch’sDe Sera Numinis Vindicta.” by Charles W. Super, Ph.D., LL.D., Chicago, 1899.)

[233]Plutarch himself is ignorant of its origin, and does not know whether it was Magian, Orphic, Egyptian, or Phrygian. (De Defectu Orac., 415 A. Cf.Isis and Osiris, 360 E, “following the Theologians of old.”) Those who believed, like Rualdus, that Plato had read the Old Testament (see note, page 45), had no difficulty in assigning the doctrine of Dæmons to a Jewish source. Wolff, speaking of the systematic dæmonology constructed by the neo-Platonists, alludes to this passage in Plutarch, and says:—“Hæc omnia artificiosa interpretatione ex Platonis fluxerunt fabulis; ex oriente fere nihil assumebatur. Namque Judæi aliis principiis, ac reliqui, profecti decem dæmonum genera constituerant; Chaldæi vetustiores non dæmonum genera, sed septem archangelos planetis præfectos colebant; nec credendum Plut.,De Defectu Orac., 415 A. Studebat enim Plutarchus,præsertim in Comm: de Iside et de Socratis dæmonio, Græcorum placita ad Ægypti Asiæque revocare sapientiam, et quum ab Orpheo et Atti sancta quædam mysteria dicerentur profecta esse, arcanis his ritibus summam de diis doctrinam significari suspicabatur” (Wolff,op. cit.).—Volkmann, who had carefully studied Plutarch’s relationship both to his philosophical predecessors and to foreign forms of religious faith, had previously arrived at a different conclusion from that embodied in the words italicized above.—“Er war darum kein Eklektiker oder Synkretist, und was man nun gar von seiner Vorliebe für Orientalische Philosophie und Theologie gesagt hat gehört ledeglich in das Gebiet der Fabel. Plutarchs philosophisch-allegorische Auslegung aber der Ægyptischen Mythen von Isis und Osiris geht von der ausdrücklichen Voraussetzung ausdass diese Gottheiten wesentlich Hellenische sind” (Volkmann, vol. ii. p. 23). But these varying views are simply two different ways of regarding the real fact, which is that Plutarch regards foreign myths and Greek alike as different expressions of the conception of Divine Unity—such Unity not being either Hellenic or Egyptian, but simply absolute (see subsequent analysis of theDe Iside et Osiride).

[234]Diogenes Laertius, viii. 32.RitterandPrelleralso refer toApuleius’De Deo Socratis: “Atenim Pythagoricos mirari oppido solitos, si quis se negaret unquam vidisse Dæmonem, satis, ut reor, idoneus auctor est Aristoteles.” (Below this passage in my edition of Apuleius (theDelphin, of 1688) appears the note “Idem scribit Plutarch, in libello περὶ θαυμασίων ἀκουσμάτων.” ThislibellusI cannot identify with any enumerated in the catalogue of Lamprias.)

[235]“Plato, ne Anaxagoræ aut Socratis modo impietatis reus succumberet, præterea ne sanctam animis hebetioribus religionem turbaret, intactos reliquit ritus publicos et communem de diis dæmonibusque opinionem; quæ ipse sentiat, significat quidem, sed, ut solet in rebus minus certiset a mera dialectica alienis, obvoluta fabulis” (Wolff,De Dæmonibus,loc. cit.). Is it permissible to suppose that the third consideration—that expressed in the italicized words—operated more strongly on Plato than either or both of the first two? Aristotle, at any rate, takes up a much firmer attitude in face of the popular mythology, which he regards asfabulously introduced for the purpose of persuading the multitude, enforcing the laws, and benefiting human life(Metaphysics, xi. (xii.) 8, T. Taylor’s translation). This famous passage is as outspoken as Epicureanism.

[236]Plato:Politicus, 271 D. A similar “dispensation” is provided in theLaws, 717 A.

[237]Plato:Symposium, 202 E.

[238]Herodotus: ii. 53.

[239]De Defectu Orac., 415 B.

[240]Hesiod:Works and Days, 122-125 (Elton’s translation).

[241]Works and Days, 253. Cf. the beautiful fragment from Menander preserved by Plutarch,De Tranquillitate Animi, 474 B:—“By every man, the moment he is born,There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall beHismystagoguethrough life.”

[241]Works and Days, 253. Cf. the beautiful fragment from Menander preserved by Plutarch,De Tranquillitate Animi, 474 B:—

“By every man, the moment he is born,There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall beHismystagoguethrough life.”

“By every man, the moment he is born,

There stands a guardian Dæmon, who shall be

Hismystagoguethrough life.”

[242]Works and Days, 141-2.

[243]De Defectu Oraculorum, 445 B.—Pluto, too, though perhaps not quite with the innocent purpose of Homer, gives “dæmons” as an alternative to “gods”—Timæus, Sec. 16. (A passage charged with the most mordant irony against the national religious tradition.)

[244]De Defectu Orac., 416 C.

[245]Cf.Wolff: “Neque discrepat hac in re communis religio: multi enim dæmones mali Græcorum animos terrebant, velut Acco, Alphito, Empusa, Lamia, Mormo, sive Mormolyce,” &c.—Considering the numerous references made to the subject of Dæmonology by Greek poets and philosophers from Hesiod and Empedocles downwards, with all of which, as is clear from the citations made in our text, Plutarch is perfectly familiar, Prof. Mahaffy’s note on this point is a little mysterious.—“Mr. Purser points out to me that Plutarch rather popularized than originated this doctrine, and himself refers it to various older philosophers.” (Mahaffy, p. 313.)—It needs no very close study of Plutarch to see for one’s self that he does not claim to have originated the doctrine, and that he knows himself to be dealing with a long-standing and widespread tradition.

[246]For a similar process, cf. the quotation from Dr.Jackson’sTreatise on Unbelief, given by SirWalter ScottinDemonology and Witchcraft, p. 175,note: “Thus are the Fayries, from difference of events ascribed to them, divided into good and bad, when it is but one and the same malignant fiend that meddles in both.”

[247]Cf.Götte:Das Delphische Orakel: “In Zeiten, wo dasselbe keine Bedeutung mehr hatte, wo es nur dazu dienen konnte, den finstersten Aberglauben fortzupflanzen und zu erhalten, und die Menschen über die wahre Leitung der Dinge in der Welt, über die wahren Mittel, durch welche sich Jeder sein Glück bereitet, zu täuschen, wurde das Orakelwesen von den frommen Vätern unserer Kirche für die Ausgeburt des Teufels angesehen,” &c.—Cf. also, 1 Corinthians x. 20-22.

[248]See, for these illustrations,Scott’sDemonology and Witchcraft,Pater’sApollo in Picardy, andHeine’sGods in Exile. (“Unter solchen Umständen musste Mancher, dessen heilige Haine konfisciert waren, bei uns in Deutschland als Holzhäcker taglöhnern und Bier trinken statt Nektar.”)

[249]361 A. sqq.

[250]The author of theDe Placitis(882 B.) gives a very vague and slight account of the history of Dæmonology, probably from motives of Epicurean contempt, if one may judge from the curt sentence which concludes his brief note:—“Epicurus admits none of these things.”—He merely says that Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and the Stoics asserted the existence of spirits called “Dæmons,” and adds that the same philosophers also maintained the existence of Heroes some good, some bad. The distinction between good and bad does not apply to the Dæmons. The identical words of this passage in theDe Placitisare used by Athenagoras (Legat: pro Christ., cap. 21) to express a definite statement about Thales, who is asserted to have been the first who made the division into God, dæmons, heroes.

[251]Plutarch has here preserved some very beautiful verses of Empedocles, in which this punishment is described. Another fragment of verse from Empedocles (De Exilio, 607 C) depicts with equal force and beauty the punishment by the Dæmons of one who has been handed over to them to atone for his crimes.

[252]Here should be noted the tendency to assimilate the good Dæmons to the gods—a tendency to which reference has already been made.

[253]De Defectu Orac., 419 A.

[254]De Defectu Orac., 419 A.

[255]419.—Mrs. Browning could hardly have read theDe Defectuwhen she stated that her fine poem “The Dead Pan” was “partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (‘De Oraculorum Defectu’),according to which, at the hour of the Saviour’s agony, a cry of ‘Great Pan is dead!’ swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners,—and the oracles ceased.” (It was one of the mariners who uttered the cry, “The great Pan is dead!” having been thrice requested by a supernatural voice to do so. But such errors of detail are unimportant in view of the fact that the whole spirit of the story is misunderstood by the poetess.)

[256]So one may conjecture from the description given by Demetrius, who “sailed to the least distant of these lonely islands, which had few inhabitants, and these all held sacred and inviolable by the Britons.” Plutarch’s Demetrius has been identified with “Demetrius the Clerk” who dedicated, “to the gods of the imperial Palace,” a bronze tablet now in the Museum at York.—See King’s translation of theTheosophical Essaysin the “Bohn” series, p. 22.

[257]420 B.

[258]360 D.

[259]361 E. We shall see elsewhere that, just as a good Dæmon may be promoted to the rank of a god, so a good man may be lifted to the status of a Dæmon, like Hesiod’s people of the Golden Age. (De Dæmonio Socratis, 593 D. Cf.De Defectu Orac., 415 B.)

[260]361 F. 364 E.

[261]Cf.Apuleius,De Deo Socratis.—“Neque enim pro majestate Deûm cælestium fuerit, ut eorum quisquam vel Annibali somnium pingat, vel Flaminio hostiam conroget, vel Accio Nævio avem velificet, vel sibyllæ fatiloquia versificet, etc. Non est operæ Diis superis ad hæc descendere. Quad cuncta” (he says elsewhere) “cælestium voluntate et numine et auctoritate, sed Dæmonum obsequio et opera et ministerio fieri arbitrandum est.”

[262]De Ε apud Delphos, 394 A.

[263]De Fato, 572 F, sqq.—Bernardakis “stars” this tract as doubtfully Plutarch’s. But the passage quoted, at any rate, is not discrepant from Plutarch’s views elsewhere, though expressing them more concisely, and with more appearance of system than usual with him. The similarity to Plato’s tripartite division of the heavenly powers in theTimæusis, of course, evident, but the text has a note of sincerity which is lacking in the Platonic passage.

[264]De Defectu, 417 C. (For the verse quoted in the original, cf.W. Christ’sPindar, p. 232.)

[265]417 D.

[266]The nearest approach to this identification is made by the mysterious stranger whom Cleombrotus finds near the Red Sea, who appeared once every year among the people living in that neighbourhood, and who gave the pious traveller much information concerning Dæmons and their ways; which he was well fitted to do, as he spent most of his time in their company and that of the pastoral nymphs. He said that Python (whom Apollo slew) was a dæmon; that the Titans were dæmons; that Saturn may have been a dæmon. He then adds the significant words, “There is nothing to wonder at if we apply to certain Dæmons the traditional titles of the gods, since a Dæmon who is assigned to a particular god, deriving from him his authority and prerogatives, is usually called by the name of that same god” (421 E). But this somewhat daring testimony is, we are not surprised to find, preceded by a hint that in these matters we are to drink from a goblet of mingled fact and fancy.—(421 A.)

[267]De Defectu Orac., 426 D.

[268]Isis and Osiris, 360 E.

[269]Isis and Osiris, 360 F.

[270]Isis and Osiris, 361 C. The passage in the “Banquet” referred to has been already quoted (see p. 123).

[271]It would be otiose to illustrate by examples the universal and splendid fame of the Delphic oracle. One may perhaps be given which is not commonly quoted. Pliny the elder, who in one passage sneeringly includes theoraculorum præscitaamong thefulgurum monitus, auruspicum prædicta, atque etiam parva dictu, in auguriis sternutamenta et offensiones pedum, by means of which men have endeavoured to discover hints of divine guidance, nevertheless, in another passage, quotes two wise oracles as having been “velut ad castigandam hominum vanitatem a Deo emissa.” (Lib. ii. cap. 5, and vii. cap. 47.)—The political, religious, and moral influence of the Delphic oracle has been exhaustively dealt with by Wilhelm Götte in the work already cited (see p. 127,note), and by Bouché-Leclerq in the third volume of his “Histoire de la Divination dans l’Antiquité.” On the general question of divination it would, perhaps, be superfluous to consult anything beyond this monumental work, with its exhaustive references and its philosophic style of criticism.

[272]Juvenal:Sat.vi. 555.

[273]Lucan, v. 111, sq.

[274]—“Muto Parnassus hiatuConticuit, pressitque Deum: seu spiritus istasDestituit fauces, mundique in devia versumDuxit iter: seu barbarica cum lampade PythoArsit, in immensas cineres abiere cavernas,Et Phœbi tenuere viam: seu sponte DeorumCirrha silet fatique sat est arcana futuriCarmine longævæ vobis commissa Sibyllæ:Seu Pæan solitus templis arcere nocentes,Ora quibus solvat nostro non invenit ævo.”

[274]

—“Muto Parnassus hiatuConticuit, pressitque Deum: seu spiritus istasDestituit fauces, mundique in devia versumDuxit iter: seu barbarica cum lampade PythoArsit, in immensas cineres abiere cavernas,Et Phœbi tenuere viam: seu sponte DeorumCirrha silet fatique sat est arcana futuriCarmine longævæ vobis commissa Sibyllæ:Seu Pæan solitus templis arcere nocentes,Ora quibus solvat nostro non invenit ævo.”

—“Muto Parnassus hiatu

Conticuit, pressitque Deum: seu spiritus istas

Destituit fauces, mundique in devia versum

Duxit iter: seu barbarica cum lampade Pytho

Arsit, in immensas cineres abiere cavernas,

Et Phœbi tenuere viam: seu sponte Deorum

Cirrha silet fatique sat est arcana futuri

Carmine longævæ vobis commissa Sibyllæ:

Seu Pæan solitus templis arcere nocentes,

Ora quibus solvat nostro non invenit ævo.”

[275]The main argument of the third and shortest of the Delphic tracts has been already given. A brief description of its contents is added by way of note, to show its connexion with the two larger tracts. The tract takes the form of a letter from Plutarch to Serapion, who acts as a means of communication between Plutarch and other common friends. Its object is to ascertain why the letter Ε was held in such reverence at the Delphic shrine. A series of explanations is propounded, probably representing views current on the subject, varying, as they do, from those proper to the common people to those which could only have been the views of logicians or mathematicians. Theon, a close friend of Plutarch’s, maintains that the syllable is the symbol of the logical attributes of the God, Logic, whose basis is Ει (“if”), being the process by which philosophical truth is arrived at. “If, then, Philosophy is concerned with Truth, and the light of Truth is Demonstration, and the principle of Demonstration is Connexion, it is with good reason that the faculty which includes and gives effect to this process has been consecrated by philosophers to the god whose special charge is Truth.”... “Whence, I will not be dissuaded from the assertion that this is theTripod of Truth, namely, Reason, which recognizing that the consequent follows from the antecedent, and then taking into consideration the original basis of fact, thus arrives at the conclusion of the demonstration. How can we be surprised if the Pythian God, in his predilection for Logic, is specially attentive to this aspect of Reason, to which he sees philosophers are devoted in the highest degree?” This connexion of Reason with Religion, a familiar process in Plutarch, is followed by a “list of the arithmetical and mathematical praises of the letter Ε” involving Pythagorean speculations, and the culmination of the whole piece lies in the splendid vindication by Ammonius of the Unity and Self-Existence and Eternity of the Deity. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of his argument is the assignation to Apollo of the functions of the Supreme Deity: an easy method of bringing Philosophy and Mythology to terms; a mode of operation perhaps not unaffected by that Mithraic worship which, on its classical side, was to culminate in Julian’s famous prayer to Helios. The tract also furnishes, as already stated, a clear example of the method by which the literal terms known in the worship of Dionysus and Apollo are refined from their grosser elements and idealized by the subtleties of the philosophic intellect, which then accepts them as appropriate designations for the various functions of the God. The pleasant seriousness, too, of all the interlocutors is worthy of note, as presenting a type of religious discussion of whose calmness and dignity the modern world knows little. It would be interesting, for example, to hear a group of classical philosophers discuss the excommunication of Professor Mivart by Cardinal Vaughan, or of Tolstoi by Pobedonostzeff.

[276]This Diogenianus does not appear to be identical with the Diogenianus of Pergamos, twice mentioned in theSymposiacs, although Bernardakis does not distinguish them in his Index.

[277]Philinus was an intimate friend of Plutarch’s (Symposiacs, 727 B;De Sollertia Animalium, 976 B); and, except in this Dialogue and in theDe Soll. Anim., appears only as taking his part in the social intercourse of theSymposiacs, and as contributing his share to the discussion of the various quaint and curious problems forming so large a portion of the “Table Talk” of Plutarch and his friends. He has Pythagorean tendencies; eats no flesh (727 B); objects to a rich and varied diet, being of opinion that simple food is more easily digestible (660 F); explains somewhat crudely why Homer calls salt θεῖος (685 D); proves that Alexander the Great was a hard drinker (623 E); explains why Pythagoras advised his followers to throw their bedclothes into confusion on getting up (728 B, C); and tells a story of a wonderful tame crocodile which lay in bed like a human being (De Soll. Anim., 976 B). A very charming account of Plutarch’s friends has been given by M. A. Chenevière, in his “De Plutarchi familiaribus,” written as a Litt.D. thesis for a French University in 1886.

[278]395 A.

[279]396 D. Cf.Symposiacs, 628 A.

[280]396 E. Boethus, a genial and witty man, with whom, notwithstanding his Epicureanism, Plutarch lives on terms of intimate social intercourse. InSymposiacs, 673 C, Boethus, now described as an Epicureansans phrase, entertains, in Athens, Plutarch, Sossius Senecio, and a number of men of his own sect. After dinner the company discuss the interesting question why we take pleasure in a dramatic representation of passions whose exhibition in real life would shock and distress us. At another time he appears, together with Plutarch and a few other friends, at a dinner given by Ammonius, thenStrategosat Athens for the third time, and explains, upon principles of Epicurean Science (Symposiacs, 720 F), why sounds are more audible at night than by day.

[281]396 F.

[282]See note, p. 149.

[283]Cf.Cicero:De Divinatione, ii. 50.—“Quis est enim, qui totum diem jaculans, non aliquando collineet? Totas noctes dormimus; neque ulla fere est, qua non somniemus: et miramur, aliquando id, quod somniarimus, evadere? Quid est tam incertum quam talorum jactus? tamen nemo est quin, sæpe jactans, venereum jaciat aliquando, nonnumquam etiam iterum, ac tertium,”&c.Also ii. 971.—“Casus autem innumerabilibus pæne seculis in omnibus plura mirabilia quam in somniorum visis effecerit.”

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