The Platonic Heritage by John Dillon

Author:John Dillon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351219204
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

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1

We need tο remind ourselves from time to time that, as a ballpark figure, about 5% of Greek literature remains to us — we hope the best 5%, but of even that we cannot be sure.

2

The first work in the corpus, On the Education of Children, is generally agreed not to be by Plutarch.

3

I borrow here the Loeb translation of F. C. BABBITT, with minor alterations.

4

‘Ω μηχάνημα λυγκός αίολώτερον.

5

Plutarch’s use of anecdote is another suitable subject for examination, I think.

6

This, by the way, constitutes a rather witty use of the well-worn ‘ship of state’ image!

7

Whether he is being quite fair to Melanthius in this is another matter; Melanthius was plainly a sort of court jester, and licensed to make self-deprecatory remarks.

8

Alexander was assassinated in 358 B.C., which sad event put Melanthius out of business. Plutarch seems hardly fair to Melanthius here, by the way; this seems to me a rather witty, self-deprecatory remark.

9

In his essay On Whether the Philosopher Should Discourse most of all with Rulers, 778Ε. — an essay which concerns a topic not dissimilar in some respects to the present one.

10

Plutarch quotes it again, in his Life of Alcibiades, ch .23, 6, by way of ironic comment on Alcibiades, but with no further light thrown on its provenance. It could perhaps derive from the Philoctetes of Euripides (which he produced in 431, along with the Medea).

11

I borrow here the Loeb translation of EDWIN L. MINAR, JR.

12

Α reference here, primarily, to the famous passage Timaeus 28C.

13

What, one might ask, is the precise relevance of this quotation, wherever it comes from? Miner, in his note ad loc., suggests that the hen’s ‘impregnation’ by the winds is being compared to the mysterious way in which a human female might be impregnated by a god. The only problem with that is, surely, that the winds precisely do not impregnate the hen — they only make her feel pregnant, and therefore broody — whereas the suggestion is that a woman may be impregnated by a god in some such way as this. But Plutarch plainly, by the exercise of some lateral thinking, did think the quotation relevant, so perhaps Minar is right.

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