PLUTARCH’S ESSAYS
Themes of ensuing chapters—Life of Plutarch—Superstition in Plutarch’s
_Lives_—His _Morals_ or _Essays_—Question of their authenticity—Magic
in Plutarch—_Essay on Superstition_—Plutarch hospitable toward some
superstitions—The oracles of Delphi and of Trophonius—Divination
justified—Demons as mediators between gods and men—Demons in the moon:
migration of the soul—Demons mortal: some evil—Men and demons—Relation
of Plutarch’s to other conceptions of demons—The astrologer
Tarrutius—_De fato_—Other bits of astrology—Cosmic mysticism—Number
mysticism—Occult virtues in nature—Asbestos—_On Rivers and
Mountains_—Magic herbs—Stones found in plants and fish—Virtues of
other stones—Fascination—Animal sagacity and remedies—Theories and
queries about nature—The Antipodes.
[Sidenote: Themes of ensuing chapters.]
Having noted the presence of magic in works so especially devoted to
natural science as those of Pliny, Galen, and Ptolemy, we have now to
illustrate the prominence both of natural science and of magic in the
life and thought of the Roman Empire by a consideration of some writers
of a more miscellaneous character, who should reflect for us something
of the interests of the average cultured reader of that time. Of this
type are Plutarch, Apuleius and Philostratus, whom we shall consider in
the coming chapters in the order named, which also roughly corresponds
to their chronological sequence.
[Sidenote: Life of Plutarch.]
Plutarch flourished during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian at the turn
of the first and second centuries, but _The Letter on the Education of
a Prince to Trajan_[912] probably is not by him, and the legend that
Hadrian was his pupil is a medieval invention. He was born in Boeotia
about 46-48 A. D. and was educated in rhetoric and philosophy, science
and mathematics, at Athens, where he was a student when Nero visited
Greece in 66 A. D. He also made several visits to Rome and resided
there for some time. He held various public positions in the province
of Achaea and in his small native town of Chaeronea, and had official
connections with the Delphic oracle and amphictyony. Artemidorus in the
_Oneirocriticon_ states that Plutarch’s death was foreshadowed in a
dream.[913]
[Sidenote: Superstition in Plutarch’s _Lives_.]
With Plutarch’s celebrated _Lives of Illustrious Men_, as with
narrative histories in general, we shall not be much concerned,
although they of course abound in omens and portents, in bits of
pseudo-science which details in his narrative bring to the mind of the
biographer, and in cases of divination and magic. Thus theories are
advanced to explain why birds dropped dead from mid-air at the shout
set up by the Greeks at the Isthmian games when Flamininus proclaimed
their freedom. Or we are told how Sulla received from the Chaldeans
predictions of his future greatness, how in the dedication to his
_Memoirs_ he admonished Lucullus to trust in dreams, and how Lucullus’s
mind was deranged by a love philter administered by his freedman in
the hope of increasing his master’s affection towards him.[914] Such
allusions and incidents abound also of course in Dio Cassius, Tacitus,
and other Roman historians.
[Sidenote: His _Morals_ or _Essays_.]
But we shall be concerned rather with Plutarch’s other writings, which
are usually grouped together under the title of _Morals_, or, more
appropriately, _Miscellanies and Essays_. Not only is there great
variety in their titles, but in any given essay the attention is
usually not strictly held to one theme or problem but the discussion
diverges to other points. Some are by their very titles and form
rambling dialogues, symposiacs, and table-talk, where the conversation
lightly flits from one topic to other entirely different ones, never
dwelling for long upon any one point and never returning to its
starting-point. This dinner-table and drinking-bout type of cultured
and semi-learned discourse has other extant ancient examples such
as the _Attic Nights_ of Aulus Gellius and the _Deipnosophists_ of
Athenaeus, but Plutarch will have to serve as our main illustration
of it. His _Essays_ reflect in motley guise and disordered array
the fruits of extensive reading and a retentive memory in ancient
philosophy, science, history, and literature.
[Sidenote: Question of their authenticity.]
The authenticity of some of the essays attributed to him has been
questioned, and very likely with propriety, but for our purpose it is
not important that they should all be by the same author so long as
they represent approximately the same period and type of literature.
The spurious treatise, _De placitis philosophorum_, we have already
considered in the chapter on Galen, to whom it has also been ascribed.
The essay _On Rivers and Mountains_ we shall treat by itself in the
present chapter. The _De fato_ has also been called spurious.[915]
Superstitious content is not a sufficient reason for denying that a
treatise is by Plutarch,[916] since he is superstitious in writings of
undoubted genuineness and since we have found the leading scientists
of the time unable to exclude superstition from their works entirely.
Moreover, many of the essays are in the form of conversations
expressing the divergent views of different speakers, and it is not
always possible to tell which shade of opinion Plutarch himself favors.
Suffice it that the views expressed are those of men of education.
[Sidenote: Magic in Plutarch.]
Plutarch does not specifically discuss magic under that name at any
length in any of his essays, but does treat of such subjects as
superstition in general, dreams, oracles, demons, number, fate, the
craftiness of animals, and other “natural questions.” Certain vulgar
forms of magic, at least, were regarded by him with disapproval or
incredulity.[917] He rejects as a fiction the statement that the women
of Thessaly can draw down the moon by their spells, but thinks that the
notion perhaps originated in the fact or story that Aglaonice, daughter
of Hegetor, was so skilful in astrology or astronomy as to be able to
foresee the occurrence of lunar eclipses, and that she deluded the
people into believing that at such times she brought down the moon from
heaven by charms and enchantments.[918] Thus we have one more instance
of the union of magic and science, this time of pseudo-magic with real
science as at other times of magic with pseudo-science.
[Sidenote: Essay on superstition.]
The essay entitled περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας deals with superstition in the
usual Greek sense of dread or excessive fear of demons and gods. We
are accustomed to think of Hellenic paganism as a cheerful faith, full
of naturalism, in which the gods were humanized and made familiar.
Plutarch apparently regards normal religion as of this sort, and
attacks the superstitious dread of the supernatural. He contends that
such fear is worse, if anything, than atheism, for it makes men more
unhappy and is an equal offense against the divinity, since it is at
least as bad to believe ill of the gods as not to believe in them at
all. Nothing indeed encourages the growth of atheism so much as the
absurd practices and beliefs of such superstitious persons, “their
words and motions, their sorceries and magics, their runnings to and
fro and beatings of drums, their impure rites and their purifications,
their filthiness and chastity, their barbarian and illegal
chastisements and abuse.”[919] Plutarch seems to be in part animated by
the common prejudice against all other religions than one’s own, and
speaks twice with distaste of Jewish Sabbaths. He also, however, as the
passage just quoted shows, is opposed to the more extreme and debasing
forms of magic, and declares that the superstitious man becomes a mere
peg or post upon which all the old-wives hang any amulets and ligatures
upon which they may chance.[920] He further condemns such historic
instances of superstition as Nicias’s suspension of military operations
during a lunar eclipse on the Sicilian expedition.[921] There was
nothing terrible, says Plutarch, with his usual felicity of antithesis,
in the periodic recurrence of the earth’s shadow upon the moon; but it
was a terrible calamity that the shadow of superstition should thus
darken the mind of a general at the very moment when a great crisis
required the fullest use of his reason.
In the essay upon the demon of Socrates one of the speakers, attacking
faith in dreams and apparitions, commends Socrates as one who did not
reject the worship of the gods but who did purify philosophy, which
he had received from Pythagoras and Empedocles full of phantasms and
myths and the dread of demons, and reeling like a Bacchanal, and
reduced it to facts and reason and truth.[922] Another of the company,
however, objects that the demon of Socrates outdid the divination
of Pythagoras.[923] These conflicting opinions may be applied in
some measure to Plutarch himself. His censure of dread of demons and
excessive superstition is not to be taken as a sign of scepticism on
his part in oracles, dreams, or the demons themselves. To these matters
we next turn.
[Sidenote: The oracles of Delphi and of Trophonius.]
Plutarch’s faith and interest in oracles in general and in the Delphian
oracle of Apollo in particular are attested by three of his essays,
the _De defectu oraculorum_, _De Pythiae oraculis_ and _De Ei apud
Delphos_. At the same time these essays attest the decline of the
oracles from their earlier popularity and greatness. The oracular cave
of Trophonius, of which we shall hear again in the _Life of Apollonius
of Tyana_, also comes into Plutarch’s works, and the prophetic and
apocalyptic vision is described of a youth who spent two nights
and a day there in an endeavor to learn the nature of the demon of
Socrates.[924]
[Sidenote: Divination justified.]
Plutarch further had faith in divination in general, whether by
dreams, sneezes or other omens: but he attempted to give a dignified
philosophical and theological explanation of it. Few men receive direct
divine revelation, in his opinion, but to many signs are given on which
divination may be based.[925] He held that the human soul had a natural
faculty of divination which might be exercised at favorable times and
when the bodily state was not unfavorable.[926] A speaker in one of
his dialogues justifies divination even from sneezes and like trivial
occurrences upon the ground that as the faint beat of the pulse has
meaning for the physician and a small cloud in the sky is for a skilful
pilot a sign of impending storm, so the least thing may be a clue to
the truly prophetic soul.[927] The extent of Plutarch’s faith in dreams
may be inferred from his discussion of the problem, Why are dreams in
autumn the least reliable?[928] First there is Aristotle’s suggestion
that eating autumn fruit so disturbs the digestion that the soul is
left little opportunity to exercise its prophetic faculty undistracted.
If we accept the doctrine of Democritus that dreams are caused by
images from other bodies and even minds or souls, which enter the body
of the sleeper through the open pores and affect the mind, revealing
to it the present passions and future designs of others,—if we accept
this theory, it may be that the falling leaves in autumn disturb the
air and ruffle these extremely thin and film-like emanations. A third
explanation offered is that in the declining months of the year all
our faculties, including that of natural divination, are in a state of
decline. In the case of oracles like that at Delphi it is suggested
that the Pythia’s natural faculty of divination is stimulated by
“the prophetical exhalations from the earth” which induce a bodily
state favorable to divination.[929] The god or demon, however, is the
underlying and directing cause of the oracle.[930]
[Sidenote: Demons as mediators between gods and men.]
To the demons and their relations to the gods and to men we therefore
next come. Plutarch’s view is that they are essential mediators between
the gods and men. Just as one who should remove the air from between
the earth and moon would destroy the continuity of the universe, so
those who deny that there is a race of demons break off all intercourse
between gods and men.[931] On the other hand, the theory of demons
solves many doubts and difficulties.[932] When and where this doctrine
originated is uncertain, whether among the _magi_ about Zoroaster, or
in Thrace with Orpheus, or in Egypt or Phrygia. Plutarch likens the
gods to an equilateral, the demons to an isosceles, and human beings to
a scalene triangle; and again compares the gods to sun and stars, the
demons to the moon, and men to comets and meteors.[933] In the youth’s
vision in the cave of Trophonius the moon appeared to belong to earthly
demons, while those stars which have a regular motion were the demons
of sages, and the wandering and falling stars the demons of men who
have yielded to irrational passions.[934]
[Sidenote: Demons in the moon: migration of the soul.]
These suggestions that the moon and the air between earth and moon are
the abode of the demons and this reminiscence of the Platonic doctrine
of the soul and its migrations receive further confirmation in a
discussion whether the moon is inhabited in the essay, _On the Face in
the Moon_. A story is there told[935] of a man who visited islands five
days’ sail west of Britain, where Saturn is imprisoned and where there
are demons serving him. This man who acquired great skill in astrology
during his stay there stated upon his return to Europe that every
soul after leaving the human body wanders for a time between earth
and moon, but finally reaches the latter planet, where the Elysian
fields are located, and there becomes a demon.[936] The demons do not
always remain in the moon, however, but may come to earth to care for
oracles or be imprisoned in a human body again for some crime.[937]
The man who repeats the stranger’s story leaves it to his hearers,
however, to believe it or not. But the struggle upward of human souls
to the estate of demons is again described in the essay on the demon
of Socrates,[938] where it is explained that those souls which have
succeeded in freeing themselves from all union with the flesh become
guardian demons and help those of their fellows whom they can reach,
just as men on shore wade out as far as they can into the waves to
rescue those sea-tossed, ship-wrecked mariners who have succeeded in
struggling almost to land. The soul is plunged into the body, the
uncorrupted mind or demon remains without.[939]
[Sidenote: Demons mortal: some evil.]
The demons differ from the gods in that they are mortal, though much
longer-lived than men. Hesiod said that crows live nine times as long
as men, stags four times as long as crows, ravens three times as long
as stags, a phoenix nine times as long as a raven, and the nymphs ten
times as long as the phoenix.[940] There are storms in the isles off
Britain whenever one of the demons residing there dies.[941] Some
demons are good spirits and others are evil; some are more passive and
irrational than others; some delight in gloomy festivals, foul words,
and even human sacrifice.[942]
[Sidenote: Men and demons.]
Once a year in the neighborhood of the Red Sea a man is seen who spends
the remainder of his time among “nymphs, nomads and demons.”[943] At
his annual appearance many princes and great men come to consult him
concerning the future. He also has the gift of tongues to the extent of
understanding several languages perfectly. His speech is like sweetest
music, his breath sweet and fragrant, his person the most graceful that
his interlocutor had ever seen. He also was never afflicted with any
disease, for once a month he ate the bitter fruit of a medicinal herb.
As to the exact nature of Socrates’ demon there is some diversity of
opinion. One man suggests that it was merely the sneezing of himself
or others, sneezes on the left hand warning him to desist from his
intended course of action, while a sneeze in any other quarter was
interpreted by him as a favorable sign.[944] The weight of opinion,
however, inclines towards the view that his demon did not appear to
him as an apparition or phantasm, or even communicate with him as an
audible voice, but by immediate impression upon his mind.[945]
[Sidenote: Relation of Plutarch’s to other conceptions of demons.]
Plutarch’s account of demons is the first of a number which we shall
have occasion to note. As the discussion of them by Apuleius in
the next chapter and the rather crude representation of them given
in Philostratus’s _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_ will show, there
was as yet among non-Christian writers no unanimity of opinion
concerning demons. On the other hand there are several conceptions in
Plutarch’s essays which were to be continued later by Christians and
Neo-Platonists: namely, the conception of a mediate class of beings
between God and men, the hypothesis of a world of spirits in close
touch with human life, the association of divination and oracles with
demons, and the location of spirits in the sphere of the moon or the
air between earth and moon,—although Plutarch sometimes connected
demons with the stars above the moon. This occasional association of
stars with spirits and of sinning souls with falling stars bears some
resemblance to the depiction of certain stars as sinners in the Hebraic
_Book of Enoch_, which was written before Plutarch’s time and which we
shall consider in our next book as an influence upon the development of
early Christian thought.
[Sidenote: The astrologer Tarrutius.]
As for the stars apart from demons, Plutarch discusses the art of
astrology as little as he does “magic” by that name. Mentions of
individuals as skilled in “astrology” may simply mean that they were
trained astronomers. When a veritable astrologer in our sense of the
word is mentioned in one of Plutarch’s _Lives_,[946] he is described
as a μαθηματικός—a word often used for a caster of horoscopes and
predicter of the future. Here, however, it carries no reproach of
charlatanism, since in the same phrase he is called a philosopher.
This Tarrutius was a friend of Varro, who asked him to work out the
horoscope of Romulus backward from what was known of the later life and
character of the founder of Rome. “For it was possible for the same
science which predicted man’s life from the time of his birth to infer
the time of his birth from the events of his life.” Tarrutius set to
work and from the data at his disposal figured out that Romulus was
conceived in the first year of the second Olympiad, on the twenty-third
day of the Egyptian month Khoeak at the third hour when there was a
total eclipse of the sun; and that he was born on the twenty-first
day of the month Thoth about sunrise. He further estimated that Rome
was founded by him on the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi between
the second and third hour. For, adds Plutarch, they think that the
fortunes of cities are also controlled by the hour of their genesis.
Plutarch, however, seems to look upon such doctrines as rather strange
and fabulous.[947] Varro, on the other hand, may have regarded it as
the most scientific method possible of settling disputed questions of
historical chronology
[Sidenote: The _De fato_.]
A favorable attitude towards astrology is found mainly in those essays
by Plutarch which are suspected of being spurious, the _De fato_ and
_De placitis philosophorum_. Of the latter we have already treated
under Galen. In the former fate is described as “the soul of the
universe,” and the three main divisions of the universe, namely, the
immovable heaven, the moving spheres and heavenly bodies, and the
region about the earth, are associated with the three Fates, Clotho,
Atropos, and Lachesis.[948] It is similarly stated in the essay on
the demon of Socrates[949] that of the four principles of all things,
life, motion, genesis or generation, and corruption, the first two
are joined by the One indivisibly, the second and third Mind unites
through the sun; the third and fourth Nature joins through the moon.
And over each of these three bonds presides one of the three Fates,
Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis. In other words, the one God or first
cause, invisible and unmoved, in whom is life, sets in motion the
heavenly spheres and bodies, through whose instrumentality generation
and corruption upon earth are produced and regulated,—which is
substantially the Aristotelian view of the universe. Returning to the
_De fato_ we may note that it repeats the Stoic theory of the _magnus
annus_ when the heavenly bodies resume their rounds and all history
repeats itself.[950] Despite this apparent admission that human life
is subject to the movements of the stars, the author of the _De fato_
seems to think that accident, fortune or chance, the contingent, and
“what is in us” or free-will, can all co-exist with fate, which he
practically identifies with the motion of the heavenly bodies.[951]
Fate is also comprehended by divine Providence but this fact does not
militate against astrology, since Providence itself divides into that
of the first God, that of the secondary gods or stars “who move through
the heavens regulating mortal affairs, and that of the demons who act
as guardians of men.”[952]
[Sidenote: Other bits of astrology.]
One or two bits of astrology may be noted in Plutarch’s other essays.
The man who learned “astrology” among demons in the isle beyond Britain
affirmed that in human generation earth supplies the body, the moon
furnishes the soul, and the sun provides the intellect.[953] In the
_Symposiacs_[954] the opinion of the mythographers is repeated that
monstrous animals were produced during the war with the giants because
the moon turned from its course then and rose in unaccustomed quarters.
Plutarch was, by the way, inclined to distinguish the moon from other
heavenly bodies as passive and imperfect, a sort of celestial earth
or terrestrial star. Such a separation of the moon from the other
stars and planets would have, however, no necessary contrariety with
astrological theory, which usually ascribed a peculiar place to the
moon and represented it as the medium through which the more distant
planets exerted their effects upon the earth.
[Sidenote: Cosmic mysticism.]
Sometimes Plutarch’s cosmology carries Platonism to the verge of
Gnosticism, a subject of which we shall treat in a later chapter. The
diviner who had communed with demons, nomads, and nymphs in the desert
asserted that there was not one world, but one hundred and eighty-three
worlds arranged in the form of a triangle with sixty to each side and
one at each angle. Within this triangle of worlds lay the plain of
truth where were the ideas and models of all things that had been or
were to be, and about these was eternity from which time flowed off
like a river to the one hundred and eighty-three worlds. The vision
delectable of those ideas is granted to men only once in a myriad of
years, if they live well, and is the goal toward which all philosophy
strives. The stranger, we are informed, told this tale artlessly, like
one in the mysteries, and produced no demonstration or proof of what
he said. We have already heard Plutarch liken gods, demons, and men to
different kinds of triangles; he also repeats Plato’s association of
the five regular solids with the elements, earth, air, fire, water,
and ether.[955] He states that the nature of fire is quite apparent
in the pyramid from “the slenderness of its decreasing sides and the
sharpness of its angles,”[956] and that fire is engendered from air
when the octahedron is dissolved into pyramids, and air produced from
fire when the pyramids are compressed into an octahedron.[957]
[Sidenote: Number mysticism.]
These geometrical fancies are naturally accompanied by considerable
number mysticism. In this particular passage the merits of the number
five are enlarged upon and a long list is given of things that are
five in number.[958] Five is again extolled in the essay on _The Ei at
Delphi_,[959] but there one of the company remarks with much reason
that it is possible to praise any number in many ways, but that he
prefers to five “the sacred seven of Apollo.”[960] Platonic geometrical
reveries and Pythagorean number mysticism are indulged in even more
extensively in the essay _On the Procreation of the Soul in Timaeus_.
The number and proportion existing in planets, stars and spheres are
touched on,[961] and it is stated that the divine demiurge produced
the marvelous virtues of drugs and organs by employing harmonies and
numbers.[962] Thus in the potency of number and numerical relations is
suggested a possible explanation of astrology and magic force in nature.
[Sidenote: Occult virtues in nature.]
Plutarch, indeed, shows the same faith in the existence of occult
virtues in natural objects and in what may be called natural magic as
most of his contemporaries. At his symposium when one man avers that he
saw the tiny fish _echeneïs_ stop the ship upon which he was sailing
until the lookout man picked it off,[963] some laugh at his credulity
but others narrate other cases of strange antipathies in nature. Mad
elephants are quieted by the sight of a ram; vipers will not move if
touched with a leaf from a beech tree; wild bulls become tame when tied
to a fig tree;[964] if light objects are oiled, amber fails to attract
them as usual; and iron rubbed with garlic does not respond to the
magnet. “These things are proved by experience but it is difficult if
not quite impossible to learn their cause.” At the Symposium[965] the
question also is raised why salt is called divine, and it is suggested
that it may be because it preserves bodies from decay after the soul
has left them, or because mice conceive without sexual intercourse by
merely licking salt. In _The Delay of the Deity_ Plutarch again treats
of occult virtues.[966] They pass from body to body with incredible
swiftness or to an incredible distance. He wonders why it is that if
a goat takes a piece of sea-holly in her mouth, the entire herd will
stand still until the goatherd removes it. We see once more how closely
such notions are associated with magical practices, when in the same
paragraph he mentions the custom of making the children of those who
have died of consumption or dropsy sit soaking their feet in water
until the corpse has been buried so that they may not catch their
parent’s disease.
[Sidenote: Asbestos.]
On the other hand, how difficult it must have been with the limited
scientific knowledge of that time to distinguish true from false
marvelous properties may be inferred from Plutarch’s description[967]
of a certain soft and pliable stone that used to be produced at
Carystus and from which handkerchiefs and hair-nets were made which
could not be burnt and were cleaned by exposure to fire,—a description,
it would seem, of our asbestos, although Plutarch does not give the
stone any name. Strabo also ascribes similar properties to a stone
from Carystus without naming it.[968] Dioscorides and other Greek
authors, we are told,[969] apply the word “asbestos” to quick-lime, but
Pliny in the _Natural History_[970] describes what he says the Greeks
call ἀσβέστινον much as Plutarch does. He adds that it is employed in
making shrouds for royal funerals to separate the ashes of the corpse
from those of the pyre.[971] But he seems to regard it as a plant,
not a stone, listing it as a variety of linen in one of his books on
vegetation. He also states incorrectly that it is found but rarely
and in desert and arid regions of India where there is no rain and a
hot sun and amid terrible serpents[972]. Probably Pliny or his source
argued that anything which resisted the action of fire must have been
inured by growth under fiery suns and among serpents. Furthermore it
obviously should possess other marvelous properties, so we are not
surprised to find Anaxilaus cited to the effect that if this “linen”
is tied around a tree trunk, the blows with which the tree is felled
cannot be heard. It was thus that imaginations inured to magic enlarged
upon unusual natural properties.
[Sidenote: _On rivers and mountains._]
A treatise upon rivers and mountains in which the marvelous virtues of
herbs and stones figure very prominently has sometimes been included
among the works of Plutarch, but also has been omitted entirely from
some editions.[973] Some have ascribed it to Parthenius of the time of
Nero. It is made up of some thirty-five chapters in each of which a
river and a mountain are mentioned. Usually some myth or tragic history
is recounted, from which the river took its name or with which it was
otherwise intimately connected. A similar procedure is followed in
the case of the mountain. The writer, whoever he may be, makes a show
of extensive reading, citing over forty authorities, most of whom are
Greek and not mentioned in the full bibliographies of Pliny’s _Natural
History_. The titles cited have to do largely with stones, rivers, and
different countries. It has been questioned, however, whether these
citations are not bogus.[974]
[Sidenote: Magic herbs.]
The properties attributed to herbs and stones in this treatise are to
a large extent magical. A white reed found in the river Phasis while
one is sacrificing at dawn to Hecate, if strewn in a wife’s bedroom,
drives mad any adulterer who enters and makes him confess his sin.[975]
Another herb mentioned in the same chapter was used by Medea to protect
Jason from her father. In a later chapter[976] we are told how Hera
called upon Selene to aid her in securing her revenge upon Heracles,
and how the moon goddess filled a large chest with froth and foam by
her magic spells until presently a huge lion leaped out of the chest.
Returning from such sorceresses as Hecate, Medea, and Selene to herbs
alone, in other rivers are plants which test the purity of gold, aid
dim sight or blind one, wither at the mention of the word “step-mother”
or burst into flames whenever a step-mother has evil designs against
her step-son, free their bearers from fear of apparitions, operate as
charms in love-making and childbirth, cure madmen of their frenzy,
check quartan agues if applied to the breasts, protect virginity
or wither at a virgin’s touch, turn wine into water except that it
retains its bouquet, or preserve persons anointed with their juice from
sickness to their dying day.
[Sidenote: Stones found in plants and fish.]
An easy transition from the theme of magic herbs to that of stones
is afforded by a sort of poppy which grows in a river of Mysia and
bears black, harp-shaped stones which the natives gather and scatter
over their ploughed fields.[977] If these stones then lie still where
they have fallen, it is taken as a sign of a barren year; but if they
fly away like locusts, this prognosticates a plentiful harvest. Other
marvelous stones are found in the head of a fish in the river Arar, a
tributary of the Rhone. The fish is itself quite wonderful since it is
white while the moon waxes and black when it wanes.[978] Presumably
for this reason the stone cures quartan agues, if applied to the left
side of the body while the moon is waning. There is another stone
which must be sought after under a waxing moon with pipers playing
continually.[979]
[Sidenote: Virtues of other stones.]
Other stones guard treasuries by sounding a trumpet-like alarm at
the approach of thieves; or change color four times a day and are
ordinarily visible only to young girls. But if a virgin of marriageable
age chances to see this stone, she is safe from attempts upon her
chastity henceforth.[980] Some stones drive men mad and are connected
with the Mother of the Gods or are found only during the celebration of
the mysteries.[981] Others stop dogs from barking, expel demons, grow
black in the hands of false witnesses, protect from wild beasts, and
have varied medicinal powers or other effects similar to those already
mentioned in the case of herbs.[982] In a river where the Spartans
were defeated is a stone which leaps towards the bank, if it hears a
trumpet, but sinks at the mention of the Athenians.[983] Certainly a
marvelous stone, capable of both hearing and motion!
[Sidenote: Fascination.]
Leaving the treatise on rivers and mountains, for the occult virtue
of human beings we may turn to a discussion of fascination in the
_Symposiacs_.[984] Some of the company ridiculed the idea, but their
host asserted that a myriad of events went to prove it and that if you
reject a thing simply because you cannot give a reason for it, you
“take away the marvelous from all things.” He pointed out that some men
hurt little and tender children by looking at them, and argued that,
as the plumes of other birds are ruined when mixed with those of the
eagle, so men may injure by their touch or mere glance. Plutarch, who
was of the company, suggested effluvia or emanations from the body as
a possible explanation, pointing out that love begins with glances,
that no disease is more contagious than sore eyes, and that gazing upon
the curlew cures jaundice. The bird appears to attract the disease to
itself, and averts its head and closes its eyes, not, as some think,
because it is jealous of the remedy sought from it, but because it
feels wounded as if from a blow. Others of the company contended that
the passions and affections of the soul may have a powerful effect
through the eyes and glance upon other persons, and argued that the
sufferings of the soul strengthen the powers of the body, and that
the same counter-charms are efficacious against envy as against
fascination. The emanations which Democritus believed that envious
and malicious persons sent forth are also mentioned; fathers have
fascinated their own children, and it is even possible that one might
injure oneself by reflection of one’s gaze. It is suggested that young
children may sometimes be fascinated in this manner rather than by the
glance of others.
[Sidenote: Animal sagacity and remedies.]
Plutarch devotes two essays to the familiar theme of the craftiness and
sagacity of animals and the remedies used by them. In one essay[985] a
companion of Odysseus refuses to allow Circe to turn him back from a
pig to human form. He boasts among other things that beasts know how
to cure themselves. Without ever having been taught swine when sick
run to rivers to search for craw-fish; tortoises physic themselves
with origanum after eating vipers; and Cretan goats devour dittany
to extract arrows and darts which have been shot into their bodies.
In the other essay[986] on the cleverness of animals we find many
familiar stories repeated, including some of the inevitable excerpts
from Juba on elephants. We meet again the dolphins with their love for
mankind,[987] the bird who picks the crocodile’s teeth and warns him
of the ichneumon,[988] the fish who rescue one another by biting the
line or dragging one another by the tail out of nets,[989] the trained
elephant who was slow to learn and was beaten for it and was afterwards
seen practicing his exercises by himself in the moonlight,[990] the
sentinel cranes who stand on one foot and hold a stone in the other to
awaken them if they let it drop.[991] More novel perhaps is the story
how herons open oysters by first swallowing them, shells and all, until
they are relaxed by the internal heat of the bird, which then vomits
them up and eats them out of the shells. Or the account of the tunny
fish who needs no astrological canons and is familiar with arithmetic,
“Yes, by Zeus, and with optics, too.”[992]
[Sidenote: Theories and queries about nature.]
Plutarch’s essays bring out yet other interests and defects of
the science of the time. One on _The Principle of Cold_ is a good
illustration of the failings of the ancient hypothesis of four elements
and four qualities and of the silly, limited arguing which usually
and almost of necessity accompanied it. He denies that cold is mere
privation of heat, since it seems to act positively upon fluids and
solids and exists in different degrees. After considering various
assertions such as that air becomes cold when it becomes dark; that
air whitens things and water blackens them; that cold objects are
always heavy; he finally associates the element earth especially with
the quality cold. In another essay[993] he states that there are no
females of a certain type of beetle which was engraved as a charm upon
the rings warriors wore to battle, but that the males begat offspring
by rolling up balls of earth. He declares that “diseases do not have
distinct germs” in a discussion in the _Symposiacs_ whether there can
be new diseases.[994] Other natural questions discussed in the treatise
of that name and the _Symposiacs_ are: Why a man who often passes near
dewy trees contracts leprosy in those limbs which touch the wood? Why
the Dorians pray for bad hay-making? Why bears’ paws are the sweetest
and most palatable food? Why the tracks of wild beasts smell worse at
the full of the moon? Why bees are more apt to sting fornicators than
other persons?[995] Why the flesh of sheep bitten by wolves is sweeter
than that of other sheep? Why mushrooms are thought to be produced by
thunder? Why flesh decays sooner in moonlight than sunlight? Whether
Jews abstain from pork because they worship the pig or because they
have an antipathy towards it?[996]
[Sidenote: The Antipodes.]
Plutarch sometimes shows evidence of considerable astronomical
knowledge. For instance, he knows that the mathematicians figure
that the distance from sun to earth is immense, and that Aristarchus
demonstrated the sun to be eighteen or twenty times as far off as the
moon, which is distant fifty-six times the earth’s radius at the lowest
estimate.[997] Yet in the same essay[998] Plutarch has scoffed at the
idea of a spherical earth and of antipodes, and at the assertion that
bars weighing a thousand talents would stop falling at the earth’s
center, if a hole were opened up through the earth, or that two men
with their feet in opposite directions at the center of the earth
might nevertheless both be right side up, or that one man whose middle
was at the center might be half right side up and half upside down.
He admits, however, that the philosophers think so. Thus we see that
Christian fathers like Lactantius were not the first to ridicule the
notion of the Antipodes; apparently as well educated and omnivorous a
pagan reader as Plutarch could do the same.