The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

  

The Roman Questions

  

and

  

The Greek Questions

  

of Plutarch

  

Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt

  

Originally published in Plutarch's Moralia, volume IV, pp. 1-249.

  

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library.

  

[1936]

Scanned, Proofed and Formatted by John Bruno Hare at sacred-texts.com, September 2008. This work is in the public domain in the United States because the copyright holder, the author, was a US Citizen, and the copyright was not renewed in a timely fashion at the US Copyright Office. Furthermore, the verso does not have the copyright notice which was required by US copyright law at the time.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 1]

  

THE ROMAN QUESTIONS

  

(QUAESTIONES ROMANAE)

[p. 2]

  

INTRODUCTION

THE Roman Questions is an attempt to explain one hundred and thirteen Roman customs, the majority of which deal with religious matters. The treatise is one of three similar compilations of which two have been preserved and one, the Quaestiones Barbaricae (No. 139 in Lamprias's list), has been lost. Plutarch possessed a great desire to know the reason why: besides the many discussions of a similar sort contained in the Symposiacs (Table Talk), there is extant a discussion of Physical Causes, and the titles of other writings of the same sort have been preserved for us in Lamprias's list of Plutarch's writings. [*a]

The Greek title, which means "causes", is twice mentioned by Plutarch himself in the Lives, [*b] and we might call it "The Reasons Why." In nearly every case at least two and often more reasons are given; of these presumably not more than one can be right. Thus the other explanations will embody the results of Plutarch's researches on the matter or his own quaint speculations. Consequently the book, which is an important source for Roman

[p. 3]

customs, especially for religious customs, has been of the greatest service to students of early Roman religion, a field in which so little is certain and which provides (even as it provided for Plutarch) such glorious opportunities for speculation that it has been somewhat overtilled in recent years. Anyone interested in such matters may observe the trend of this scholarship if he will examine F. B. Jevons' reprint of Holland's translation of the Roman Questions (London, 1892); or better, H. J. Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch, a New Translation with Introductory Essays and a Running Commentary (Oxford, 1924). Professor Rose might, indeed, have improved his translation by consulting some good Greek lexicon; but the essays and the commentary are very valuable, for they contain, among other matters of interest, a discussion of Plutarch's sources and of early Roman religion; the commentary is fortified with abundant references to ancient writers and to modern scholars. It is a scholarly work and the most important contribution to the study of the Roman Questions since Wyttenbach.

This treatise could hardly have been written by a person ignorant of Latin. Plutarch in his Life of Demosthenes, chap. ii., modestly disavows any profound knowledge of Latin; yet he had read a considerable amount in the language and had spent some time in Rome. Hence he was quite able to use Latin works in compiling the Roman Questions. Some Roman writers he mentions by name, especially Varro, and Verrius Flaccus, an antiquarian of the Augustan age. Livy is specifically cited but twice in the Moralia, once in the present work and once in De Fortuna Romanorum; yet he is referred

[p. 4]

to no less than twelve times in the Lives, most of these citations being in the Marcellus and the Camillus. Perhaps Plutarch's more exact acquaintance with Livy, if lie ever acquired this, dates from a time later than the period during which he was engaged in the compilation of the Roman Questions.

Other Roman authorities are mentioned occasionally, such as Cato the Elder, Nigidius Figulus, Antistius Labeo, Ateius Capito, and Fenestella; but no doubt they and others are used in accounts introduced by such expressions as "they say," "some say," "the story is told," and the like. Some of these references have, in fact, been traced by scholars to their originals. It has been remarked of Cicero that any statement found in that author's works appears, or has appeared, elsewhere. The same affirmation might be made of Plutarch with some confidence. Unless he specifically testifies to oral tradition or hearsay, we may be certain that his facts, like Cicero's, are drawn from his extensive reading.

Critics lay stress on a few mistakes which Plutarch made in interpreting Latin (these will be found noted in Rose and in Hartman), but against them must be set the unnumbered instances in which he is right. He did not, however, have to depend wholly on Latin writers, for he undoubtedly had at hand the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st cent. B.C.) and the works of Juba, [*a] the scholarly king of Mauretania, who as a youth had been brought to Rome in 46 B.C. to grace the triumph of Julius Caesar. Juba became greatly interested in Roman

[p. 5]

customs, and wrote a book in which he paralleled them with the customs of other peoples.

Many of the matters discussed in the Roman Questions are to be found treated elsewhere in Plutarch's work, particularly in the Roman Lives. The Lives of Romulus and of Numa are especially rich in parallel passages; for very many of the Roman customs were thought to go back to the earliest period of Roman history.

The book was probably published after the death of Domitian in A.D. 96, though this is a not quite certain inference from the text (276 E). The work is No. 138 in Lamprias's catalogue of Plutarch's works. The MS. tradition (on which see J. B. Titchener, University of Illinois Studies, ix., 1924) is good.

Footnotes

^2:a (149) Aitiai tun periferomenun Stuikun; (160) Aitiai kai topoi; (161) Aitiai allagun; (167) Aitiai gynaikun.

^2:b Life of Romulus, chap. xv. (26 E); Life of Camillus, chap. xix. (133 E).

^4:a Muller, Frag. Hist. Gram. iii. 465-484.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 6] [p. 7]

  

THE ROMAN QUESTIONS

1-9.

1. WHY do they bid the bride touch fire and water?

Is it that of these two, being reckoned as elements or first principles, fire is masculine and water feminine, [*a] and fire supplies the beginnings of motion and water the function of the subsistent element or the material?

Or is it because fire purifies and water cleanses, and a married woman must remain pure and clean?

Or is it that, just as fire without moisture is unsustaining and arid, and water without heat is unproductive and inactive, [*b] so also male and female apart from each other are inert, but their union in marriage produces the perfection of their life together?

Or is it that they must not desert each other, but must share together every sort of fortune, even if they are destined to have nothing other than fire and water to share with each other?

 

2. WHY in the marriage rites do they light five torches, neither more nor less, which they call cereones?

[p. 8] [p. 9]

Is it, as Varro has stated, that while the praetors use three, the aediles have a right [*a] to more, and it is from the aediles that the wedding party light their torches?

Or is it because in their use of several numbers the odd number was considered better and more perfect for various purposes and also better adapted to marriage? For the even number admits division and its equality of division suggests strife and opposition; the odd number, however, cannot be divided into equal parts at all, but whenever it is divided it always leaves behind a remainder of the same nature as itself. Now, of the odd numbers, five is above all the nuptial number; for three is the first odd number, and two is the first even number, and five is composed of the union of these two, as it were of male and female. [*b]

Or is it rather that, since light is the symbol of birth, and women in general are enabled by nature to bear, at the most, five children at one birth, [*c] the wedding company makes use of exactly that number of torches?

Or is it because they think that the nuptial pair has need of five deities: Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, Aphrodite, Peitho, and finally Artemis, whom women in child-birth and travail are wont to invoke?

 

3. WHY is it that, although there are many shrines of Diana in Rome, the only one into which men may not enter is the shrine in the so-called Vicus Patricius?

[p. 10] [p. 11]

Is it because of the current legend? For a man attempted to violate a woman who was here worshipping the goddess, and was torn to pieces by the dogs; and men do not enter because of the superstitious fear that arose from this occurrence.

 

4. WHY do they, as might be expected, nail up stags' horns in all the other shrines of Diana, but in the shrine on the Aventine nail up horns of cattle?

Is it because they remember the ancient occurrence? [*a] For the tale is told that among the Sabines in the herds of Antro Curiatius was born a heifer excelling all the others in appearance and size. When a certain soothsayer told him that the city of the man who should sacrifice that heifer to Diana on the Aventine was destined to become the mightiest city and to rule all Italy, the man came to Rome with intent to sacrifice his heifer. But a servant of his secretly told the prophecy to the king Servius, who told Cornelius the priest, and Cornelius gave instructions to Antro to bathe in the Tiber before the sacrifice; for this, said he, was the custom of those whose sacrifice was to be acceptable. Accordingly Antro went away and bathed, but Servius sacrificed the heifer to Diana before Antro could return, and nailed the horns to the shrine. This tale both Juba [*b] and Varro have recorded, except that Varro has not noted the name of Antro; and he says that the Sabine was cozened, not by Cornelius the priest, but by the keeper of the temple.

 

5. WHY is it that those who are falsely reported to

[p. 12] [p. 13]

have died in a foreign country, even if they return, men do not admit by the door, but mount upon the roof-tiles and let them down inside?

Varro gives an explanation of the cause that is quite fabulous. For he says that in the Sicilian war there was a great naval battle, and in the case of many men a false report spread that they were dead. But, when they had returned home, in a short time they all came to their end except one who, when he tried to enter, found the doors shutting against him of their own accord, nor did they yield when he strove to open them. The man fell asleep there before his threshold and in his sleep saw a vision, which instructed him to climb upon the roof and let himself down into the house. When he had done so, he prospered and lived to an advanced age; and from this occurrence the custom became established for succeeding generations.

But consider if this be not in some wise similar to Greek customs; for the Greeks did not consider pure, nor admit to familiar intercourse, nor suffer to approach the temples any person for whom a funeral had been held and a tomb constructed on the assumption that they were dead. The tale is told that Aristinus, a victim of this superstition, sent to Delphi and besought the god to release him from the difficulties in which he was involved because of the custom; and the prophetic priestess gave response:

All that a woman in childbed does at the birth of her baby,
 When this again thou hast done, to the blessed gods sacrifice offer.

[paragraph continues] Aristinus, accordingly, chose the part of wisdom and

[p. 14] [p. 15]

delivered himself like a new-born babe into the hands of women to be washed, and to be wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and to be suckled; and all other men in such plight do likewise and they are called "Men of Later Fate." But some will have it that this was done in the case of such persons even before Aristinus, and that the custom is ancient. Hence it is nothing surprising if the Romans also did not think it right to admit by the door, through which they go out to sacrifice and come in from sacrificing, those who are thought to have been buried once and for all and to belong to the company of the departed, but bade them descend from the open air above into that portion of the house which is exposed to the sky. And with good reason, for, naturally, they perform all their rites of purification under the open sky.

 

6. WHY do the women kiss their kinsmen on the lips?

Is it, as most authorities believe, that the drinking of wine was forbidden to women, [*a] and therefore, so that women who had drunk wine should not escape detection, but should be detected when they chanced to meet men of their household, the custom of kissing was established?

Or is it for the reason which Aristotle [*b] the philosopher has recorded? For that far-famed deed, the scene of which is laid in many different places, [*c] was dared, it appears, by the Trojan women, even on the very shores of Italy. For when they had reached the coast, and the men had disembarked, the women set fire to the ships, since, at all hazards, they desired to be quit of their wanderings and their sea-faring.

[p. 16] [p. 17]

[paragraph continues] But they were afraid of their husbands, and greeted with a kiss and a warm embrace such of their kinsmen and members of their household as they encountered; and when the men had ceased from their wrath and had become reconciled, the women continued thereafter as well to employ this mark of affection towards them.

Or was this rather bestowed upon the women as a privilege that should bring them both honour and power if they should be seen to have many good men among their kinsmen and in their household?

Or is it that, since it is not the custom for men to marry blood relations, [*a] affection proceeded only so far as a kiss, and this alone remained as a token of kinship and a participation therein? For formerly men did not marry women related to them by ties of blood, just as even now they do not marry their aunts or their sisters [*b]; but after a long time they made the concession of allowing wedlock with cousins for the following reason: a man possessed of no property, but otherwise of excellent character and more satisfactory to the people than other public men, had as wife his cousin, an heiress, and was thought to be growing rich from her estate. He was accused on this ground, but the people would not even try the case and dismissed the charge, enacting a decree that all might marry cousins or more distant relatives; but marriage with nearer kin was prohibited.

 

7. WHY is it forbidden for a man to receive a gift from his wife or a wife to receive a gift from her husband? [*c]

[p. 18] [p. 19]

Is it that, Solon having promulgated a law [*a] that the bequests of the deceased should be valid unless a man were constrained by force or persuaded by his wife, whereby he excepted force as overriding the free will, and pleasure as misleading the judgement, in this way the bequests of wives and husbands became suspect?

Or did they regard giving as an utterly worthless token of affection (for even strangers and persons with no kindly feelings give gifts), and so deprived the marriage relationship of this mode of giving pleasure, that mutual affection might be unbought and free, existing for its own sake and for no other reason?

Or is it that women are most likely to be seduced and welcome strangers because of gifts they receive from them; and thus it is seen to be dignified for them to love their own husbands even though their husbands give them no gifts?

Or is it rather that both the husbands' property should be held in common with their wives and the wives' with their husbands? For anyone who accepts what is given learns to regard what is not given to him as belonging to another, with the result that by giving a little to each other they deprive each other of all else that they own.

 

8. WHY among the Romans is it forbidden to receive a gift from a son-in-law or from a father-in-law?

Is the father-in-law prevented from receiving a gift from his son-in-law, in order that the gift may not appear ultimately to reach the wife through her father? And is the son-in-law similarly prevented, since it is obviously just that he who may not give shall also not receive?

[p. 20] [p. 21]

9. WHY is it that, when men who have wives at home are returning either from the country or from abroad, they send ahead to tell their wives that they are coming?

Is it because this is the mark of a man who is confident that his wife is not up to any mischief, whereas coming suddenly and unexpectedly is, as it were, an arrival by stratagem and unfair vigilance; and are they eager to send good tidings about themselves to their wives as if they felt certain that their wives would be longing for them and expecting them?

Or is it rather that the men themselves long to hear news of their wives, if they shall find them safe at home and longing for their husbands?

Or is it because during their husbands' absence the wives have more household duties and occupations, and also dissensions and outbursts against those of the household? Therefore the notice is given in advance that the wife may rid herself of these matters and make for her husband his welcome home undisturbed and pleasant.

Footnotes

^7:a Cf. Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 61. The genders are those of ignis and aqua, not those of the Greek words.

^7:b Cf. Moralia, 650 n; Servius on Virgil, Aeneid, iv. 167; Lactantius, Institutiones Divinae, ii. 9. 21.

^9:a [p. 8] Cf. the Lex Coloniae Genetivae, column 62 (C.I.L. i.2 594 = ii. 5439), where it is specified that the aediles shall have the right and power to possess, among other things, "cereos".

^9:b Cf. Moralia, 288 D-E, infra, 374 A, 429 A, and 388 A with the note on the last passage; Lydus, De Mensibus, ii. 4.

^9:c [p. 9] Cf. Moralia, 429 F. A few authenticated cases of sextuplets have occurred since Plutarch's day. See also the passages of Aulus Gellius and Aristotle quoted in Classical Journal, xxx. p. 493.

^11:a Cf. Livy, i. 45; Valerius Maximus, vii. 3. 1.

^11:b Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470.

^15:a [p. 14] Cf. Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa, chap. iii. (77 B); Polybius, vi. 11a. 4; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 25. 6; Cicero, De Republica, iv. 6; Valerius Maximus. ii. I. 5; vi. 3.9; Pliny, Natural History, xiv. 13 (89); Aulus Gellius, x. 23. 1; Tertullian, Apol. vi.

^15:b Frag. 609 (ed. V. Bose).

^15:c [p. 15] Cf. Moralia, 243 E and the note ad loc. (Vol. III. p. 480).

^17:a Hatzidakis objects to the form syggenidas; but the very fact that Pollux, iii. 30, characterizes it as esxatus barbaron proves (as do inscriptions also) that it was in use.

^17:b Cf. Tacitus, Annals, xii. 5-7.

^17:c Cf. Moralia, 143 A.

^19:a [p. 18] Cf. Life of Solon, chap. xxi. (90 A); [Demosthenes] xlvi. 14; Hypereides, Against Athenogenes, 17, 18.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

10-19.

10. WHY is it that when they worship the gods, they cover their heads, but when they meet any of their fellow-men worthy of honour, if they happen to have the toga over the head, they uncover? [*a]

This second fact seems to intensify the difficulty of the first. If, then, the tale told of Aeneas [*b] is true, that, when Diomedes passed by, he covered his head and completed the sacrifice, it is reasonable and consistent with the covering of one's head in the presence of an enemy that men who meet good

[p. 22] [p. 23]

men and their friends should uncover. In fact, the behaviour in regard to the gods is not properly related to this custom, but accidentally resembles it; and its observance has persisted since the days of Aeneas.

But if there is anything else to be said, consider whether it be not true that there is only one matter that needs investigation: why men cover their heads when they worship the gods; and the other follows from this. For they uncover their heads in the presence of men more influential than they: it is not to invest these men with additional honour, but rather to avert from them the jealousy of the gods, that these men may not seem to demand the same honours as the gods, nor to tolerate an attention like that bestowed on the gods, nor to rejoice therein. But they thus worshipped the gods, either humbling themselves by concealing the head, or rather by pulling the toga over their ears as a precaution lest any ill-omened and baleful sound from without should reach them while they were praying. That they were mightily vigilant in this matter is obvious from the fact that when they went forth for purposes of divination, they surrounded themselves with the clashing of bronze.

Or, as Castor [*a] states when he is trying to bring Roman customs into relation with Pythagorean doctrines: the Spirit within us entreats and supplicates the gods without, and thus he symbolizes by the covering of the head the covering and concealment of the soul by the body.

 

11. WHY do they sacrifice to Saturn with the head uncovered?

[p. 24] [p. 25]

Is it because Aeneas instituted the custom of covering the head, and the sacrifice to Saturn dates from long before that time?

Or is it that they cover the head before the heavenly deities, but they consider Saturn a god whose realm is beneath the earth? Or is it that no part of Truth is covered or overshadowed, and the Romans consider Saturn father of Truth?

 

12. AND why do they consider Saturn father of Truth?

Is it that they think, as do certain philosophers, [*a] that Saturn (Kronos) is Time (Chronos), and Time discovers the truth? Or because it is likely that the fabled Age of Saturn, if it was an age of the greatest righteousness, participated most largely in truth?

 

13. WHY do they also sacrifice to the god called "Honor" with the head uncovered? One might translate Honor as "renown" or "honour."

Is it because renown is a brilliant thing, conspicuous, and widespread, and for the reason that they uncover in the presence of good and honoured men, is it for this same reason that they also worship the god who is named for "honour"?

 

14. WHY do sons cover their heads when they escort their parents to the grave, while daughters go with uncovered heads and hair unbound?

Is it because fathers should be honoured as gods

[p. 26] [p. 27]

by their male offspring, but mourned as dead by their daughters, that custom has assigned to each sex its proper part and has produced a fitting result from both?

Or is it that the unusual is proper in mourning, and it is more usual for women to go forth in public with their heads covered and men with their heads uncovered? So in Greece, whenever any misfortune comes, the women cut off their hair and the men let it grow, for it is usual for men to have their hair cut and for women to let it grow.

Or is it that it has become customary for sons to cover their heads for the reason already given? [*a] For they turn about at the graves, as Varro relates, thus honouring the tombs of their fathers even as they do the shrines of the gods; and when they have cremated their parents, they declare that the dead person has become a god at the moment when first they find a bone. [*b]

But formerly women were not allowed to cover the head at all. At least it is recorded that Spurius Carvilius [*c] was the first man to divorce his wife and the reason was her barrenness; the second was Sulpicius Gallus, because he saw his wife pull her cloak over her head; and the third was Publius Sempronius, because his wife had been present as a spectator at funeral games. [*d]

 

15. WHY is it that they were wont to sacrifice no living creature to Terminus, [*e] in whose honour they held the Terminalia, although they regard him as a god?

[p. 28] [p. 29]

Is it that Romulus placed no boundary-stones for his country, so that Romans might go forth, seize land, and regard all as theirs, as the Spartan said, [*a] which their spears could reach; whereas Numa Pompilius, [*b] a just man and a statesman, who had become versed in philosophy, marked out the boundaries between Rome and her neighbours, and, when on the boundary-stones he had formally installed Terminus as overseer and guardian of friendship and peace, he thought that Terminus should be kept pure and undefiled from blood and gore?

 

16. WHY is it that it is forbidden to slave-women to set foot in the shrine of Matuta, and why do the women bring in one slave-woman only and slap her on the head and beat her? [*c]

Is the beating of this slave but a symbol of the prohibition, and do they prevent the others from entering because of the legend? For Ino [*d] is said to have become madly jealous of a slave-woman on her husband's account, and to have vented her madness on her son. The Greeks relate that the slave was an Aetolian by birth and that her name was Antiphera. Wherefore also in my native town, Chaeroneia, the temple-guardian stands before the precinct of Leucothea and, taking a whip in his hand, makes proclamation: "Let no slave enter, nor any Aetolian, man or woman!"

 

17. WHY is it that in the shrine of this goddess they do not pray for blessings on their own children, but only on their sisters' children? [*e]

[p. 30] [p. 31]

Is it because Ino was fond of her sister and suckled her sister's son also, but was herself unfortunate in her own children? Or is it that, quite apart from this reason, the custom is morally excellent and produces much goodwill among kindred?

 

18. WHY was it the custom for many of the wealthy to give a tithe of their property to Hercules? [*a]

Is it because he also sacrificed a tithe of Geryon's cattle in Rome? Or because he freed the Romans from paying a tithe to the Etruscans?

Or have these tales no historical foundation worthy of credence, but the Romans were wont to sacrifice lavishly and abundantly to Hercules as to an insatiable eater and a good trencher-man?

Or was it rather in curtailing their excessive wealth, since it was odious to their fellow-citizens, and in doing away with some of it, as from a lusty bodily vigour that had reached its culmination, [*b] did they think that thus Hercules would be especially honoured and pleased by such a way of using up and reducing overabundance, since in his own life he was frugal, self-sufficient, and free from extravagance?

 

19. WHY do they adopt the month of January as the beginning of the new year? [*c]

The fact is that, in ancient days, March was counted before January, as is clear from many different proofs, and particularly from the fact that the fifth month from March is called Quintilis, the sixth Sextilis, and

[p. 32] [p. 33]

so on to the last, which they call December, since it is the tenth in order from March. Wherefore it has also naturally occurred to some to believe and to maintain that the ancient Romans completed their year, not in twelve months, but in ten, by adding more days than thirty to some of the months. Others state that December is the tenth from March, January the eleventh, and February the twelfth; and in this month they perform rites of purification and make offerings to the dead, since it is the end of the year. But the order of these months was altered, so they say, and January was put first because in this month on the day of the new moon, which they call the Kalends of January, the first consuls entered office after the kings had been expelled.

But more worthy of credence are they who maintain that it was because Romulus was a warrior and a lover of battle, and was thought to be a son of Mars, that he placed first the month which bore Mars' name. But Numa, in turn, who was a lover of peace, and whose ambition it was to turn the city towards husbandry and to divert it from war, gave the precedence to January and advanced the god Janus to great honours, since Janus [*a] was a statesman and a husbandman rather than a warrior. But consider whether Numa may not have adopted as the beginning of the year that which conforms to our conception of the natural beginning. Speaking generally, to be sure, there is not naturally either last or first in a cycle; and it is by custom that some adopt one beginning of this period and others another. They do best, however, who adopt the beginning

[p. 34] [p. 35]

after the winter solstice, when the sun has ceased to advance, and turns about and retraces his course toward us. For this beginning of the year is in a certain way natural to mankind, since it increases the amount of light that we receive and decreases the amount of darkness, and brings nearer to us the lord and leader of all mobile matter.

Footnotes

^21:a [p. 20] Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xxviii. 17 (60).

^21:b [p. 21] Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, xii. 16.

^23:a [p. 22] Cf. Jacoby, Frag. der griech. Hist. 250, Frag. 15.

^25:a Cf. Moralia, 363 D; Aristotle, De Mundo, chap. vii. ad init. (401 a 15); Cornutus, chap. vi. (p. 7 ed. Lang); Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. S. 7.

^27:a [p. 26] The first reason above: The father should be honoured as a god.

^27:b Cf. Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 22 (57).

^27:c Cf. 278 E, infra; Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa, iii. (77 C); Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, vi. (39 B); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 25. 7; Valerius Maximus, ii. 1. 4; Aulus Gellius, iv. 3. 2; xvii. 21. 44; Tertullian, Apol. vi., De Monogamia, ix.

^27:d Cf. Valerius Maximus, vi. 3. 10.

^27:e This is certainly not true of later times: cf. for example, Horace, Epodes, 2. 59.

^29:a [p. 28] Cf. Moralia, 210 E with the note (Vol. III. p. 257).

^29:b Cf. Life of Numa, xvi. (70 F); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 74. 2 ff.

^29:c Cf. Life of Camillus, v. (131 B-C); Ovid, Fasti, vi. 551 ff.  Frazer's note.

^29:d Ino is the Greek name for the Greek goddess Leucothea before her violent death and deification; Matuta is the supposed Roman equivalent of both Greek names.

^29:e Cf. Moralia, 492 D.

^31:a [p. 30] Cf. Life of Sulla, chap. xxxv. (474 A); Life of Crassus, ii. (543 D), xii. (550 D).

^31:b Probably an allusion to the Hippocratic maxim quoted in Moralia, 682 E, 1090 B, and often by Galen.

^31:c Cf. Life of Numa, xviii., xix. (71 E ff.); Lucian, Pseudologista, 8; Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 33; Ovid, Fasti, iii. 99-166.

^33:a Cf. 269 A, infra.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

20-29.

20. WHY is it that the women, when they adorn in their houses a shrine to the women's goddess, whom they call Bona Dea, [*a] bring in no myrtle, although they are very eager to make use of all manner of growing and blooming plants?

Was this goddess, as the mythologists relate, the wife of the seer Faunus; and was she secretly addicted to wine, [*b] but did not escape detection and was beaten by her husband with myrtle rods, and is this the reason why they do not bring in myrtle and, when they make libations of wine to her, call it milk?

Or is it because they remain pure from many things, particularly from venery, when they perform this holy service? For they not only exclude their husbands, but they also drive everything male out of the house [*c] whenever they conduct the customary ceremonies in honour of the goddess. So, because the myrtle is sacred to Venus, they religiously exclude it. For she whom they now call Venus Murcia, in ancient days, it seems, they styled Myrtia.

 

21. WHY do the Latins revere the woodpecker and all strictly abstain [*d] from it?

[p. 36] [p. 37]

Is it because, as they tell the tale, Picus, [*a] transformed by his wife's magic drugs, became a woodpecker and in that form gives oracles and prophecies to those who consult him?

Or is this wholly incredible and monstrous, and is that other tale [*b] more credible which relates that when Romulus and Remus were exposed, not only did a she-wolf suckle them, but also a certain woodpecker came continually to visit them and bring them scraps of food? For generally, even to this day, in foot-hills and thickly wooded places where the woodpecker is found, there also is found the wolf, as Nigidius records.

Or is it rather because they regard this bird as sacred to Mars, even as other birds to other gods? For it is a courageous and spirited bird and has a beak so strong that it can overturn oaks by pecking them until it has reached the inmost part of the tree.

 

22. WHY do they suppose Janus to have been two-faced and so represent him in painting and sculpture?

Is it because, as they relate, he was by birth a Greek from Perrhaebia, and, when he had crossed to Italy and had settled among the savages there, he changed both his speech and his habits? Or is it rather because he changed the people of Italy to another manner and form of life by persuading a people which had formerly made use of wild plants and lawless customs to till the soil and to live under organized government? [*c]

[p. 38] [p. 39]

23. WHY do they sell articles for funerals in the precinct of Libitina, whom they identify with Venus? [*a]

Is this also one of the philosophic devices of king Numa, that they should learn not to feel repugnance at such things nor shun them as a pollution?

Or is it rather a reminder that whatever is born must die, since one goddess presides over births and deaths? For in Delphi there is a little statue of Aphrodite of the Tomb, to which they summon the departed to come forth for the libations.

 

24. WHY have they in the month three beginnings or fixed points, and do not adopt the same interval of days between them?

Is it, as Juba [*b] and his followers relate, that on the Kalends the officials used to call [*c] the people and announce the Nones for the fifth day thereafter, regarding the Ides as a holy day?

Or is it rather because, since they measured time by the phases of the moon, they observed that in each month the moon undergoes three very important changes: first, when she is hidden by her conjunction with the sun; second, when she has escaped the sun's rays and becomes visible for the first time at sunset; and third, at the full moon, when her orb is completely round? The disappearance and concealment of the moon they call Kalendae, for everything

[p. 40] [p. 41]

concealed or secret is clam, and "to be concealed" is celari. [*a] The first appearance of the moon they call Nones, the most accurate since it is the new moon: for their word for "new" and "novel" is the same as ours. [*b] They name the Ides as they do either because of the beauty and form (eidos) of the full-orbed moon, or by derivation from a title of Jupiter. [*c] But we must not follow out the most exact calculation of the number of days nor cast aspersions on approximate reckoning; since even now, when astronomy has made so much progress, the irregularity of the moon's movements is still beyond the skill of mathematicians, and continues to elude their calculations. [*d]

 

25. WHY do they reckon the day that follows the Kalends, the Nones, or the Ides as unsuitable for leaving home or for travel?

Is it, as most authorities think and as Livy [*e] records, that on the day after the Ides of Quintilis, which they now call July, the military tribunes led out the army, and were vanquished in battle by the Gauls at the river Allia and lost the City? But when the day after the Ides had come to be regarded as ill-omened, did superstition, as is its wont, extend the custom

[p. 42] [p. 43]

further, and involve in the same circumspection the day after the Nones and the day after the Kalends?

Or does this contain many irrational assumptions? For it was on a different day that they were defeated in battle, [*a] a day which they call Alliensis from the river, and make a dread day of expiation [*b]; and although they have many ill-omened days, they do not observe them under the same names [*c] in each month, but each in the month in which it occurs; and it is thus quite incredible that the superstition should have attached itself simply to all the days that follow immediately after the Nones or the Kalends.

Consider the following analogy: just as they have dedicated the first month to the gods of Olympus, and the second, in which they perform certain rites of purification and sacrifice to the departed, to the gods of the lower world, so also in regard to the days of the month they have established three as festive and holy days, as I have stated, [*d] which are, as it were, fundamental and sovereign days; but the days which follow immediately they have dedicated to the spirits and the dead, and have come to regard them as ill-omened and unsuitable for business. In fact, the Greeks worship the gods on the day of the new moon; the next day they have duly assigned to the heroes and spirits, and the second bowl of wine is mixed in honour of the heroes and heroines. [*e] And speaking generally, time is a sort of number; and the beginning of number is divine, for it is the monad. But after it is the dyad, antagonistic to the beginning number, and the first of the even numbers. The even numbers are imperfect, incomplete,

[p. 44] [p. 45]

and indeterminate, just as the odd numbers are determinate, completing, and perfect. [*a] Wherefore, in like manner, the Nones succeed the Kalends at an interval of five days and the Ides succeed the Nones at an interval of nine days. For the odd numbers define the beginnings, but the even numbers, since they occur after the beginnings, have no position nor power; therefore on these days they do not begin any business or travel.

Or has also the saying of Themistocles [*b] some foundation in reason? For once upon a time, said he, the Day-After had an altercation with the Feast-Day on the ground that the Feast-Day had much labour and toil, whereas she herself provided the opportunity of enjoying in leisure and quiet all the things prepared for the festival. To this the Feast-Day replied, "You are quite right; but if I had not been, you would not be!" This story Themistocles related to the Athenian generals who succeeded him, to show that they would have been nowhere, if he himself had not saved the city.

Since, therefore, all travel and all business of importance needs provision and preparation, and since in ancient days the Romans, at the time of festivals, made no provision or plan for anything, save only that they were engaged in the service of their gods and busied themselves with this only, just as even to this day the priests cause such a proclamation to be made in advance as they proceed on their way to sacrifice; so it was only natural that they did not set out on a journey immediately after their festivals, nor did they transact any business, for they were

[p. 46] [p. 47]

unprepared; but that day they always spent at home making their plans and preparations.

Or is it even as men now, who have offered their prayers and oblations, are wont to tarry and sit a while in the temples, [*a] and so they would not let busy days succeed holy days immediately, but made some pause and breathing-space between, since business brings with it much that is distasteful and undesired?

 

26. WHY do women in mourning wear white robes and white head-dresses?

Do they do this, as men say the Magi do, arraying themselves against Hades and the powers of darkness, and making themselves like unto Light and Brightness?

Or is it that, just as they clothe the body of the dead in white, they think it proper that the relatives should also wear this colour? They adorn the body thus since they cannot so adorn the soul; and they wish to send forth the soul bright and pure, since it is now set free after having fought the good fight in all its manifold forms.

Or are plainness and simplicity most becoming on these occasions? Of the dyed garments, some reflect expense, others over-elaboration; for we may say no less with reference to black than to purple: "These be cheating garments, these be cheating colours." [*b] That which is naturally black is dyed not through art, but by nature; and when it is

[p. 48] [p. 49]

combined with a dark colour, it is overpowered. [*a] Only white, [*b] therefore, is pure, unmixed, and uncontaminated by dye, nor can it be imitated; wherefore it is most appropriate for the dead at burial. For he who is dead has become something simple, unmixed, and pure, once he has been released from the body, which is indeed to be compared with a stain made by dyeing. In Argos, as Socrates [*c] says, persons in mourning wear white garments washed in water.

 

27. WHY do they regard all the city wall as inviolable and sacred, but not the gates?

Is it, as Varro has written, because the wall must be considered sacred that men may fight and die with enthusiasm in its defence? It was under such circumstances, it seems, that Romulus killed his brother because he was attempting to leap across a place that was inviolable and sacred, and to make it traversable and profane.

But it was impossible to consecrate the gates, for through them they carry out many other objectionable things and also dead bodies. [*d] Wherefore the original founders of a city yoke a bull and a cow, and mark out with a plough all the land on which they intend to build [*e]; and when they are engaged in tracing [*f] the circuit of the walls, as they measure off the space intended for gates, they lift up the ploughshare and thus carry the plough across,

[p. 50] [p. 51]

since they hold that all the land that is ploughed is to be kept sacred and inviolable.

 

28. WHY do they tell children, whenever they would swear by Hercules, not to do so under a roof, and bid them go out into the open air? [*a]

Is it, as some relate, because they believe that Hercules had no pleasure in staying in the house, but rejoiced in a life in the open air and a bed under the stars?

Or is it rather because Hercules is not one of the native gods, but a foreigner from afar? For neither do they swear under a roof by Bacchus, since he also is a foreign god if he is from Nysa.

Or is this but said in jest to the children, and what is done is really a check upon over-readiness and hastiness to swear, as Favorinus stated? For what is done following, as it were, upon preparation produces delay and allows deliberation. Yet one might urge against Favorinus the fact that this custom is not common, but peculiar to Hercules, as may be seen from the legend about him: for it is recorded that he was so circumspect regarding an oath that he swore but once and for Phyleus, the son of Augeas, alone. Wherefore they say that the prophetic priestess also brought up against the Spartans all the oaths they had sworn, saying that it would be better and much more to be desired if they would keep them! [*b]

 

29. WHY do they not allow the bride to cross the threshold of her home herself, but those who are escorting her lift her over? [*c]

[p. 52] [p. 53]

Is it because they carried off by force also the first Roman brides and bore them in in this manner, and the women did not enter of their own accord?

Or do they wish it to appear that it is under constraint and not of their own desire that they enter a dwelling where they are about to lose their virginity?

Or is it a token that the woman may not go forth of her own accord and abandon her home if she be not constrained, just as it was under constraint that she entered it? So likewise among us in Boeotia they burn the axle of the bridal carriage before the door, signifying that the bride must remain, since her means of departure has been destroyed.

Footnotes

^35:a [p. 34] Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 12. 21-28.

^35:b Cf. 265 B, supra.

^35:c Cf. Life of Caesar, ix. (711 E), Life of Cicero, xix. (870 B); Juvenal, vi. 339.

^35:d No doubt this means "from eating it" since they used to eat all small birds.

^37:a Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, xiv. 320 ff.

^37:b Cf. 278 c, 320. D, infra; Life of Romulus, iv. (19 F), vii (21 C).

^37:c Cf. 274 F, infra; Life of Numa, xix. (72 F); Athenaeus, 692 D; Lydus, De Mensibus, iv. 2; Macrobius, Saturnalia i. 7. 21, and i. 9.

^39:a Cf. Life of Numa, xii. (67 E); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, iv. 15. 5; Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 47.

^39:b Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470.

^39:c Cf. Old Latin calare, equated with Greek kalein by Plutarch and by other writers.

^41:a Much is made of Plutarch's mistake in equating celare (mss.) with lanthanein rather than with kruptein, but the mistake is more likely that of a scribe.

^41:b This is true etymologically; but is Plutarch thinking of the syllable nou in noymenia and noaus?

^41:c Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 15. 14, where it is stated that Ictus is derived from the Etruscan Itis, said to mean "Iovis fiducia."

^41:d Cf. Life of Aristides, chap. xix. (331 A).

^41:e Livy, v. 37; and vi. 1. 11.

^43:a [p. 42] The traditional date of the battle was July 18, 390 B.C. 

^43:b Cf. Life of Camillus, chap. xix. 8 (138 D).

^43:c As the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides have the same names in every month.

^43:d 269 B, supra.

^43:e That is, the spirits of the men and women of the Heroic [p. 43] Age who dwelt after death in the Isles of the Blest or in Hades.

^45:a [p. 44] Cf. 264 A, supra, also Moralia, 374 A, 367 F, 429 A, 1002 A, 1012 E.

^45:b Cf. 320 F, infra; Life of Themistocles, xviii. (121 B). The context of 345 C, infra, makes it very probable that [p. 45] the essay De Gloria Atheniensium began with this favourite story of Plutarch's.

^47:a [p. 46] Cf. Life of Numa, xiv. (69 E-70 A); Propertius ii. 28. 45-46; see also Lewy in Philologus, lxxxiv. p. 378.

^47:b Apparently a misquotation of Herodotus, iii. 22. 1: otherwise misquoted in Moralia, 646 B and 863 E. Cf. also Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, i. x. 48. 6 (p. 344 Potter).

^49:a [p. 48] This apparently means: Naturally black wool may be dyed purple or any other strong dark colour. It is possible, however, that Plutarch wrote kekratai (and so several MSS.): "it is modified when combined with a dark colour."

^49:b Cf. Plato, Republic, 729 D-E.

^49:c Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. 498.

^49:d Cf. Moralia, 518 B.

^49:e Cf. Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 143, Res Rusticae, ii. 1.9; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 88; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 819 ff.

^49:f Cf. Life of Romulus, xi. (23 n).

^51:a Cf. Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 66.

^51:b Cf. Moralia, 229 B and the note (Vol. III. p. 372).

^51:c Cf. Life of Romulus, xv. (26 D-E).

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

30-39.

30. WHY do they, as they conduct the bride to her home, bid her say, "Where you are Gaius, there am I Gaia" [*a]?

Is her entrance into the house upon fixed terms, as it were, at once to share everything and to control jointly the household, and is the meaning, then, "Wherever you are lord and master, there am I lady and mistress"? These names are in common use also in other connexions, just as jurists speak of Gaius Seius and Lucius Titius, [*b] and philosophers of Dion and Theon. [*c]

Or do they use these names because of Gaia Caecilia, [*d] consort of one of Tarquin's sons, a fair and virtuous woman, whose statue in bronze stands in the temple of Sanctus? [*e] And both her sandals and her spindle were, in ancient days, dedicated there as tokens of her love of home and of her industry respectively.

[p. 54] [p. 55]

31. WHY is the far-famed "Talassio" [*a] sung at the marriage ceremony? [*b]

Is it derived from talasia (spinning)? For they call the wool-basket (talaros) talasus. When they lead in the bride, they spread a fleece beneath her; she herself brings with her a distaff and her spindle, and wreaths her husband's door with wool.

Or is the statement of the historians true? They relate that there was a certain young man, brilliant in military achievements and valuable in other ways, whose name was Talasius; and when the Romans were carrying off the daughters of the Sabines who had come to see the games, a maiden of particularly beautiful appearance was being carried off for him by some plebeian retainers of his. To protect their enterprise and to prevent anyone from approaching and trying to wrest the maiden from them, they shouted continually that she was being brought as a wife for Talasius (Talasio). Since, therefore, everyone honoured Talasius, they followed along and provided escort, joining in the good wishes and acclamations. Wherefore since Talasius's marriage was happy, they became accustomed to invoke Talasius in other marriages also, even as the Greeks invoke Hymen.

 

32. WHY is it that in the month of May at the time of. the full moon they throw into the river from the Pons Sublicius figures of men, calling the images thrown Argives? [*c]

Is it because in ancient days the barbarians who

[p. 56] [p. 57]

lived in these parts used to destroy thus the Greeks whom they captured? But Hercules, who was much admired by them, put an end to their murder of strangers and taught them to throw figures into the river, in imitation of their superstitious custom. The men of old used to call all Greeks alike Argives; unless it be, indeed, since the Arcadians regarded the Argives also as their enemies because of their immediate proximity, that, when Evander and his men [*a] fled from Greece and settled here, they continued to preserve their ancient feud and enmity.

 

33. WHY in ancient days did they never dine out without their sons, even when these were still but children?

Did Lycurgus introduce this custom also, and bring boys to the common meals that they might become accustomed to conduct themselves toward their pleasures, not in a brutish or disorderly way, but with discretion, since they had their elders as supervisors and spectators, as it were? No less important is the fact that the fathers themselves would also be more decorous and prudent in the presence of their sons; for "where the old are shameless," as Plato [*b] remarks, "there the young also must needs be lost to all sense of shame."

34. WHY is it that while the other Romans make libations and offerings to the dead in the month of February, Decimus Brutus, as Cicero [*c] has recorded, used to do so in the month of December? This was

[p. 58] [p. 59]

the Brutus who invaded Lusitania, and was the first to visit those remote places, and cross the river Lethe with an army. [*a]

Since most peoples are accustomed to make offerings to the dead at the close of the day and at the end of the month, is it not reasonable also to honour the dead in the last month [*b] at the turn of the year? And December is the last month.

Or do these honours belong to deities beneath the earth, and is it the proper season to honour these deities when all the crops have attained consummation?

Or is it most fitting to remember those below when men are stirring the earth at the beginning of seed-time?

Or is it because this month has been consecrated to Saturn by the Romans, and they regard Saturn as an infernal, not a celestial god?

Or is it that then their greatest festival, the Saturnalia, is set; and it is reputed to contain the most numerous social gatherings and enjoyments, and therefore Brutus deemed it proper to bestow upon the dead first-fruits, as it were, of this festival also?

Or is this statement, that Brutus alone sacrificed to the dead in this month, altogether a falsehood? For it is in December that they make offerings to Larentia and bring libations to her sepulchre.

 

35. AND why do they thus honour Larentia who was at one time a courtesan?

They record that there was another Larentia, Acca, [*c] the nurse of Romulus, whom they honour in

[p. 60] [p. 61]

the month of April. But they say that the surname of the courtesan Larentia was Fabula. She became famous for the following reason [*a]: a certain keeper of the temple of Hercules enjoyed, it seems, considerable leisure and had the habit of spending the greater part of the day at draughts and dice; and one day, as it chanced, there was present no one of those who were wont to play with him and share the occupation of his leisure. So, in his boredom, he challenged the god to throw dice with him on fixed terms, as it were: if he should win, he was to obtain some service from the god; but if he should lose, he was to furnish a supper for the god at his own expense and provide a comely girl to spend the night with him. Thereupon he brought out the dice, and threw once for himself and once for the god, and lost. Abiding, therefore, by the terms of his challenge he prepared a somewhat sumptuous repast for the god and fetched Larentia, who openly practised the profession of courtesan. He feasted her, put her to bed in the temple, and, when he departed, locked the doors. The tale is told that the god visited her in the night, not in mortal wise, and bade her on the morrow go into the forum, and pay particular attention to the first man she met, and make him her friend. Larentia arose, therefore, and, going forth, met one of the wealthy men that were unwed and past their prime, whose name was Tarrutius. With this man she became acquainted, and while he lived she presided over his household, and when he died, she inherited his estate; and later, when she herself

[p. 62] [p. 63]

died, she left her property to the State; and for that reason she has these honours.

 

36. WHY do they call one of the gates the Window, for this is what fenestra means; and why is the so-called Chamber of Fortune beside it? [*a]

Is it because King Servius, the luckiest of mortals, was reputed to have converse with Fortune, who visited him through a window?

Or is this but a fable, and is the true reason that when King Tarquinius Priscus died, his wife Tanaquil, a sensible and a queenly woman, put her head out of a window and, addressing the citizens, persuaded them to appoint Servius king, and thus the place came to have this name? [*b]

 

37. WHY is it that of all the things dedicated to the gods it is the custom to allow only spoils of war to disintegrate with the passage of time, and not to move them beforehand [*c] nor repair them?

Is it in order that men may believe that their repute deserts them at the same time with the obliteration of their early memorials, and may ever seek to bring in some fresh reminder of valour?

Or is it rather that, as time makes dim the memorials of their dissension with their enemies, it would be invidious and malicious to restore and renew them? Nor among the Greeks, either, do

[p. 64] [p. 65]

they that first erected a trophy of stone or of bronze [*a] stand in good repute.

 

38. WHY did Quintus Metellus, [*b] when he became pontifex maximus, with his reputation for good sense in all other matters as well as in his statesmanship, prevent divination from birds after the month Sextilis, which is now called August?

Is it that, even as we attend to such matters in the middle of the day or at dawn, or in the beginning of the month when the moon is waxing, and avoid the declining days and hours as unsuitable for business, so likewise did Metellus regard the period of time after the first eight months as the evening or late afternoon, so to speak, of the year, since then it is declining and waning?

Or is it because we should observe birds when they are in their prime and in perfect condition? And this they are before the summer-time; but towards autumn some are weak and sickly, others but nestlings and not full-grown, and still others have vanished completely, migrating because of the time of year.

 

39. WHY were men who were not regularly enlisted, but merely tarrying in the camp, not allowed to throw missiles at the enemy or to wound them?

This fact Cato the Elder [*c] has made clear in one of his letters to his son, in which he bids the young man to return home if he has completed his term of service and has been discharged; or, if he should

[p. 66] [p. 67]

stay over, to obtain permission from his general to wound or slay an enemy.

Is it because sheer necessity alone constitutes a warrant to kill a human being, and he who does so illegally and without the word of command is a murderer? For this reason Cyrus also praised Chrysantas [*a] who, when he was about to kill an enemy, and had his weapon raised to strike, heard the recall sounded and let the man go without striking him, believing that he was now prevented from so doing.

Or must he who grapples with the enemy and fights not be free from accountability nor go unscathed should he play the coward? For he does not help so much by hitting or wounding an enemy as he does harm by fleeing or retreating. He, therefore, who has been discharged from service is freed from military regulations; but he who asks leave to perform the offices of a soldier renders himself again accountable to the regulations and to his general.

Footnotes

^53:a [p. 52] "Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia."

^53:b "John Doe and Richard Roe."

^53:c Cf. Moralia, 1061 C.

^53:d Probably not the same as Tanaquil, wife of Tarquinius Priscus; but cf. Pliny, Natural History, viii. 48 (194).

^53:e We should probably emend to Sancus; the same mistake is made in the MSS. of Propertius, iv. 9. 71-74, where see the excellent note of Barber and Butler.

^55:a [p. 54] The traditional Roman spelling seems to be with -ss-.

^55:b Cf. Life of Romulus, xv. (26 C), Life of Pompey, iv. (620 F); Livy, i. 9. 12.

^55:c Cf. 285 A, infra, and Ovid, Fasti, v. 621 ff.; Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 45; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 3S. 2-3. Plutarch means the Argei, the origin and meaning of which is a mystery (see V. Rose's edition, pp. 98 ff.).

^57:a Who were Arcadians; cf. Virgil, Aeneid, viii. 52-151.

^57:b Laws, 729 C; also cited or referred to Moralia, 14 B, 71 B, 144 F.

^57:c De Legibus, ii. 21. 54.

^59:a [p. 58]136 B.C. Cf. Appian, Spanish Wars (72), 74; and Florus, Epitome, ii. 17. 12.

^59:b That is, according to Brutus's reckoning. For the common people February continued to be the month of the [p. 59] Parentalia, and February was once the last month (cf. 268 B, supra).

^59:c Cf. W. F. Otto, Wiener Studien, xxxv. 62 ff.

^61:a Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. v. (19 F ff.); Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 10. 11-17; Augustine, De Civitate Dei, vi. 7; Tertullian, Ad Nationes, ii. 10.

^63:a Cf. 322 F, infra; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 569 ff.

^63:b Cf. 323 D infra; Livy, i. 41.

^63:c That is, to move them away before they fell to pieces; for the ancients used to clear out their temples periodically.

^65:a [p. 64] As did the Boeotians after Leuctra: Cicero, De Inventione, ii. 23 (69); cf. Diodorus, xiii. 24. 5-6. Of course this means substituting for the impromptu suit of armour, set on a stake, a permanent replica; but memorials of [p. 65] battles had been popular for many years before this time. Cf. Moralia, 401 C-D.

^65:b Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius, consul 80 B.C.

^65:c Cf. Cicero, De Officiis, i. 11 (37).

^67:a [p. 66] Cf. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, iv. 1. 3; and the note on Moralia, 236 E (Vol. III. p. 420).

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

40-49.

40. WHY is it not allowed the priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) to anoint himself in the open air? [*b]

Is it because it used not to be proper or decent for sons to strip in their father's sight, nor a son-in-law in the presence of his father-in-law, nor in ancient days did they bathe together? [*c] Now Jupiter is our father, and whatever is in the open air is in some way thought to be particularly in his sight.

Or, just as it is against divine ordinance to strip oneself in a shrine or a temple, so also did they scrupulously avoid the open air and the space beneath the

[p. 68] [p. 69]

heavens, since it was full of gods and spirits? Wherefore also we perform many necessary acts under a roof, hidden and concealed by our houses from the view of Divine powers.

Or are some regulations prescribed for the priest alone, while others are prescribed for all by the law through the priest? Wherefore also, in my country, to wear a garland, to wear the hair long, not to have any iron on one's person, and not to set foot within the boundaries of Phocis, are the special functions of an archon; but not to taste fruit before the autumnal equinox nor to prune a vine before the vernal equinox are prohibitions disclosed to practically all alike through the archon; for those are the proper seasons for each of these acts.

In the same way, then, it is apparently a special obligation of the Roman priest also not to use a horse nor to be absent from the city more than three nights [*a] nor to lay aside the cap from which he derives the name of, flamen. [*b] But many other regulations are revealed to all through the priest, and one of them is the prohibition not to anoint oneself in the open air. For the Romans used to be very suspicious of rubbing down with oil, and even to-day they believe that nothing has been so much to blame for the enslavement and effeminacy of the Greeks as their gymnasia and wrestling-schools, which engender much listless idleness and waste of time in their cities, as well as paederasty and the ruin of the bodies of

[p. 70] [p. 71]

the young men with regulated sleeping, walking, rhythmical movements, and strict diet; by these practices they have unconsciously lapsed from the practice of arms, and have become content to be termed nimble athletes and handsome wrestlers rather than excellent men-at-arms and horsemen. It is hard work, at any rate, when men strip in the open air, to escape these consequences; but those who anoint themselves and care for their bodies in their own houses commit no offence.

 

41. WHY did their ancient coinage have stamped on one side a double-faced likeness of Janus, on the other the stern or the prow of a ship? [*a]

Is it, as many affirm, in honour of Saturn who crossed over to Italy in a ship?

Or, since this might be said of many, inasmuch as Janus, Evander, and Aeneas all landed in Italy after a voyage by sea, one might rather conjecture thus: some things are excellent for States, others are necessary; and of the excellent things good government is the chief, and of the necessary things facility of provision. Since, therefore, Janus established for them an ordered government by civilizing their life, and since the river, which was navigable and permitted transportation both from the sea and from the land, provided them with an abundance of necessities, the coinage came to have as its symbol the twofold form of the lawgiver, as has been stated, [*b] because of the change he wrought, and the vessel as symbol of the river.

They also used another kind of coinage, stamped

[p. 72] [p. 73]

with the figures of a bull, a ram, and a boar, [*a] because their prosperity came mostly from their live stock, and from these they also derived their affluence.

This is the reason why many of the names of the ancient families are such as the Suillii, Bubulci, Porcii, [*b] as Fenestella [*c] has stated.

 

42. WHY do they use the temple of Saturn as the public treasury and also as a place of storage for records of contracts? [*d]

Is it because the opinion and tradition prevailed that when Saturn was king there was no greed or injustice among men, but good faith and justice?

Or is it because the god was the discoverer of crops and the pioneer in husbandry? For this is what his sickle signifies and not as Antimachus, [*e] following Hesiod, [*f] has written:

Here with sickle in hand was wrought the form of rough Cronus
 Maiming his sire at his side, who is Uranus, offspring of Acmon.

[paragraph continues] Now abundant harvests and their disposal are what give rise to a monetary system; therefore they make the god who is the cause of their good fortune its guardian also. Testimony to support this may be found in the fact that the markets held every eight days and called nundinae [*g] are considered sacred to

[p. 74] [p. 75]

[paragraph continues] Saturn, for it was the superabundance of the harvest that initiated buying and selling.

Or is this a matter of ancient history, and was Valerius Publicola the first to make the temple of Saturn the treasury, when the kings had been overthrown, because he believed that the place was well-protected, in plain sight, and hard to attack secretly?

 

43. WHY do the ambassadors to Rome, from whatever country they come, proceed to the temple of Saturn, and register with the prefects of the treasury?

Is it because Saturn was a foreigner, and consequently takes pleasure in foreigners, or is the solution of this question also to be found in history? For it seems that in early days the treasurers [*a] used to send gifts to the ambassadors, which were called lautia, and they cared for the ambassadors when they were sick, and buried them at public expense if they died; but now, owing to the great number of embassies that come, this expensive practice has been discontinued; yet there still remains the preliminary meeting with the prefects of the treasury in the guise of registration.

 

44. WHY may not the priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) take an oath? [*b]

Is it because an oath is a kind of test to prove that men are free-born, and neither the body nor the soul of the priest must be subjected to any test?

Or is it because it is unreasonable to distrust in trivial affairs him who is entrusted with holy matters of the greatest importance?

Or is it because every oath concludes with a curse

[p. 76] [p. 77]

on perjury, and a curse is an ill-omened and gloomy thing? This is the reason why priests may not even invoke curses upon others. At any rate the priestess at Athens who was unwilling to curse Alcibiades at the people's bidding won general approval, for she declared that she had been made a priestess of prayer, not of cursing. [*a]

Or is it because the danger of perjury is a public danger if an impious and perjured man leads in prayer and sacrifice on behalf of the State?

 

45. WHY on the festival of the Veneralia do they pour out a great quantity of wine from the temple of Venus? [*b]

Is it true, as most authorities affirm, that Mezentius, general of the Etruscans, sent to Aeneas and offered peace on condition of his receiving the year's vintage? But when Aeneas refused, Mezentius promised his Etruscans that when he had prevailed in battle, he would give them the wine. Aeneas learned of his promise and consecrated the wine to the gods, and after his victory he collected all the vintage and poured it out in front of the temple of Venus.

Or is this also symbolic, indicating that men should be sober and not drunken on festival days, since the gods take more pleasure in those who spill much strong drink than in those who imbibe it?

 

46. WHY did the men of old keep the temple of Horta continually open?

Is it, as Antistius Labeo has stated, that since "to

[p. 78] [p. 79]

urge on" is expressed by hortari, Horta is the goddess who urges us on, as it were, and incites us to noble actions; and thus they thought that, since she was ever active, she should never be procrastinating nor shut off by herself nor unemployed?

Or rather do they call her, as at present, Hora, with the first syllable lengthened, an attentive and very considerate goddess, who, since she was protective and thoughtful, they felt was never indifferent nor neglectful of human affairs?

Or is this too, like many other Latin words, a Greek word, and does it signify the supervising and guardian goddess? Hence her temple was continually open since she neither slumbers nor sleeps.

If, however, Labeo be right in pointing out that Hora is derived from "parorman" [*a] (to urge on), consider whether we must not declare that orator is thus to be derived, since an orator is a counsellor or popular leader who stimulates, as it were, and incites; and it is not to be derived from "imprecating" or "praying" (orare), as some assert.

 

47. WHY did Romulus build the temple of Vulcan outside the city?

Was it in consequence of Vulcan's fabled jealousy of Mars because of Venus [*b] that Romulus, the reputed son of Mars, did not give Vulcan a share in his home or his city?

Or is this a foolish explanation, and was the temple originally built as a secret place of assembly and council-chamber for himself and his colleague Tatius,

[p. 80] [p. 81]

that here they might convene with the senators and take counsel concerning public affairs in quiet without being disturbed?

Or was it that since Rome, from the very beginning, has been in great danger from conflagrations, they decided to show honour to this god, but to place his temple outside of the city? [*a]

 

48. WHY is it that at the festival of the Consualia they place garlands on both the horses and the asses and allow them to rest?

Is it because they celebrate this festival in honour of Poseidon, god of horses, [*b] and the ass enjoys a share in the horse's exemption?

Or is it that since navigation and transport by sea have been discovered, pack animals have come to enjoy a certain measure of ease and rest?

 

49. WHY was it the custom for those canvassing for office to do so in the toga without the tunic, as Cato has recorded? [*c]

Was it in order that they might not carry money in the folds of their tunic and give bribes?

Or was it rather because they used to judge candidates worthy of office, not by their family nor their wealth nor their repute, but by their wounds and scars? Accordingly that these might be visible to those that encountered them, they used to go down to their canvassing without tunics.

Or were they trying to commend themselves to popular favour by thus humiliating themselves by their scanty attire, even as they do by hand-shaking, personal appeals, and fawning behaviour?

Footnotes

^67:b Cf. Aulus Gellius, x. 15.

^67:c [p. 67] Cf. Cicero, De Oratore, ii. 55 (224), with Wilkins's note.

^69:a [p. 68] Livy, v. 52. 13, says "not even one night." Cf. also Tacitus, Annals, iii. 58 and 71.

^69:b Cf. Life of Numa, chap. vii. (64 C); Life of Marcellus, chap. v. (300 c); Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 84; Festus, [p. 69] s.v. Flamen Dialis; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 64. 2. Varro's etymology is "Flamen quasi filamen"; Plutarch must have pronounced flamen "ph(i)lamen," with "ph" a true aspirate as in "uphill," else there would be no justification for the alternative derivation from pileus (Numa, vii.).

^71:a Cf. Athenaeus, 692 E; Ovid, Fasti, i. 229 ff.; Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 3 (45); Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 7. 21-22.

^71:b 269 A, supra.

^73:a [p. 72] Is Plutarch thinking of the suovetaurilia? Mr E. T. Newell, President of the American Numismatic Society, has been kind enough to inform me that no early Roman coinage bears these symbols.

^73:b [p. 73] Cf. Life of Publicola, chap. xi. (103 B); Varro, quoted by Nonius Marcellus, p. 189. 21 (ed. Muller).

^73:c Peter, Frag. Hist. Rom. p. 272, Annales, Frag. 5.

^73:d Cf. Life of Publicola, xii. (103 c).

^73:e Kinkel, Epicorum Graec. Frag. p. 287, Antimachus, Frag. 35.

^73:f Theogony, 160 ff.; cf. Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 984-986.

^73:g That is, the ninth day, by the Roman inclusive system of reckoning (cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 16. 34). 73

^75:a Presumably the quaestores aerarii.

^75:b Cf. Livy, xxxi. 50; Aulus Gellius, x. 15.

^77:a [p. 76] Cf. Life of Alcibiades, xxii. (202 F).

^77:b Cf. Ovid, Fasti, iv. 877 ff.; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 65; Pliny, Natural History, xiv. [p. 77] 12 (88), where the authority cited is Varro. Plutarch speaks of the festival of Vinalia (April 23) as Veneralia perhaps because Venus (together with Jupiter) was the protecting deity of the vine.

^79:a Plutarch here (in hora, horman, (h)orator), as often, makes havoc of etymology and quantity.

^79:b Cf. Homer, Od. viii. 266-359.

^81:a Cf. Vitruvius, i. 7. 1.

^81:b Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xiv. (25 D).

^81:c Cf. Life of Coriolanus, chap. xiv. (219 F-220 A).

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 82] [p. 83]

50-59.

50. WHY did the priest of Jupiter (Flamen Dialis) resign his office if his wife died, as Ateius has recorded? [*a]

Is it because the man who has taken a wife and then lost her is more unfortunate than one who has never taken a wife? For the house of the married man is complete, but the house of him who has married and later lost his wife is not only incomplete, but also crippled.

Or is it because the wife assists her husband in the rites, so that many of them cannot be performed without the wife's presence, and for a man who has lost his wife to marry again immediately is neither possible perhaps nor otherwise seemly? Wherefore it was formerly illegal for the flamen to divorce his wife; and it is still, as it seems, illegal, but in my day Domitian once permitted it on petition. The priests were present at that ceremony of divorce and performed many horrible, strange, and gloomy rites. [*b]

One might be less surprised at this resignation of the flamen if one should adduce also the fact that when one of the censors died, the other was obliged to resign his office [*c]; but when the censor Livius Drusus died, his colleague Aemilius Scaurus was unwilling to give up his office until certain tribunes ordered him to be led away to prison.

 

51. WHY is a dog placed beside the Lares that men call by the special name of praestites, and why are the Lares themselves clad in dog-skins? [*d]

Is it because "those that stand before" are termed

[p. 84] [p. 85]

praestites, and, also because it is fitting that those who stand before a house should be its guardians, terrifying to strangers, but gentle and mild to the inmates, even as a dog is?

Or is the truth rather, as some Romans affirm, that, just as the philosophic school of Chrysippus [*a] think that evil spirits stalk about whom the gods use as executioners and avengers upon unholy and unjust men, even so the Lares are spirits of punishment like the Furies and supervisors of men's lives and houses? Wherefore they are clothed in the skins of dogs and have a dog as their attendant, in the belief that they are skilful in tracking down and following up evil-doers.

 

52. WHY do they sacrifice a bitch to the goddess called Geneta Mana [*b] and pray that none of the household shall become "good"?

Is it because Geneta is a spirit concerned with the generation and birth of beings that perish? Her name means some such thing as "flux and birth" or "flowing birth." [*c] Accordingly, just as the Greeks sacrifice a bitch to Hecate, [*d] even so do the Romans offer the same sacrifice to Geneta on behalf of the members of their household. But Socrates [*e] says that the Argives sacrifice a bitch to Eilioneia by reason of the ease with which the bitch brings forth its young. But does the import of the prayer, that none of them shall become "good," refer not to the human members of a household, but to the dogs? For dogs should be savage and terrifying.

[p. 86] [p. 87]

Or, because of the fact that the dead are gracefully called "the good," are they in veiled language asking in their prayer that none of their household may die? One should not be surprised at this; Aristotle [*a] in fact, says that there is written in the treaty of the Arcadians with the Spartans: "No one shall be made good [*b] for rendering aid to the Spartan party in Tegea"; that is, no one shall be put to death.

 

53. WHY do they even now, at the celebration of the Capitoline games, proclaim "Sardians for sale!", [*c] and why is an old man led forth in derision, wearing around his neck a child's amulet which they call a bulla [*d]?

Is it because the Etruscans called Veians fought against Romulus for a long time, and he took this city last of all [*e] and sold at auction many captives together with their king, taunting him for his stupidity and folly? But since the Etruscans were originally Lydians, and Sardis was the capital city of the Lydians, they offered the Veians for sale under this name; and even to this day they preserve the custom in sport.

 

54. WHY do they call the meat-markets macella and macellae?

Is this word corrupted from mageiroi (cooks) and has it prevailed, as many others have, by force of habit? For c and g have a close relationship in

[p. 88] [p. 89]

[paragraph continues] Latin, and it was only after many years that they made use of g, which Spurius Carvilius [*a] introduced. And l, again, is substituted lispingly for r when people make a slip in the pronunciation of r because of the indistinctness of their enunciation.

Or must this problem also be solved by history? For the story goes that there once lived in Rome a violent man, a robber, Macellus by name, who despoiled many people and was with great difficulty caught and punished; from his wealth the public meat-market was built, and it acquired its name from him.

 

55. WHY is it that on the Ides of January the flute-players are allowed to walk about the city wearing the raiment of women [*b]?

Is it for the reason commonly alleged? They used to enjoy, as it seems, great honours, which King Numa had given them by reason of his piety towards the gods. Because they were later deprived of these honours by the decemviri, who were invested with consular power, [*c] they withdrew from the city. There was, accordingly, inquiry made for them, and a certain superstitious fear seized upon the priests when they sacrificed without flutes. But when the flute-players would not hearken to those sent to summon them to return, but remained in Tibur, a freedman secretly promised the officials to bring them back. On the pretext of having sacrificed to the gods, he prepared a sumptuous banquet and invited the flute-players. Women were present, as well as wine, and a party lasting all the night was being celebrated with merriment and dancing, when

[p. 90] [p. 91]

suddenly the freedman interrupted, saying that his patron was coming to see him, and, in his perturbation, he persuaded the flute-players to climb into wagons, which were screened round about with skins, to be conveyed back to Tibur. But this was a trick, for he turned the wagons around, and, without being detected, since the flute-players comprehended nothing because of the wine and the darkness, at dawn he had brought them all to Rome. Now the majority of them happened to be clad in raiment of feminine finery because of the nocturnal drinking-bout; when, therefore, they had been persuaded and reconciled by the officials, it became their custom on that day to strut through the city clad in this manner.

 

56. WHY are the matrons supposed to have founded the temple of Carmenta originally, and why do they reverence it now above all others?

There is a certain tale repeated that the women were prevented by the senate from using horse-drawn vehicles [*a]; they therefore made an agreement with one another not to conceive nor to bear children, and they kept their husbands at a distance, until the husbands changed their minds and made the concession to them. When children were born to them, they, as mothers of a fair and numerous progeny, founded the temple of Carmenta.

Some assert that Carmenta was the mother of Evander and that she came to Italy; that her name was Themis, or, as others say, Nicostrate; and that because she chanted oracles in verse, she was named Carmenta by the Latins, for they call verses carmina.

[p. 92] [p. 93]

But others think that Carmenta is a Fate, and that this is the reason why the matrons sacrifice to her. The true meaning of the name is "deprived of sense," [*a] by reason of her divine transports. Wherefore Carmenta was not so named from carmina, but rather carmina from her, because, in her divine frenzy, she chanted oracles in verse and metre. [*b]

 

57. WHY do the women that sacrifice to Rumina pour milk over the offerings, but make no oblation of wine in the ceremony?

Is it because the Latins call the teat ruma, and assert that Ruminalis [*c] acquired its name inasmuch as the she-wolf offered its teat to Romulus? Therefore, as we call wet-nurses thelonai from thele (teat), even so Rumina is she that gives suck, the nurse and nurturer of children; she does not, therefore, welcome pure wine, since it is harmful for babes.

 

58. WHY did they use to address some of the senators as Conscript Fathers, others merely as Fathers? [*d]

Is it because they used to call those senators originally assigned to that body by Romulus fathers and patricians, that is to say "well-born," since they could point out their fathers, [*e] while they called those who were later enrolled from the commoners conscript fathers?

[p. 94] [p. 95]

59. WHY did Hercules and the Muses have an altar in common?

Is it because Hercules taught Evander's people the use of letters, as Juba [*a] has recorded? And this action was held to be noble on the part of men who taught their friends and relatives. It was a long time before they began to teach for pay, and the first to open an elementary school was Spurius Carvilius, [*b] a freedman of the Carvilius [*c] who was the first to divorce his wife.

Footnotes

^83:a [p. 82] Cf. Aulus Genius, x. 15.

^83:b [p. 83] Cf. Cambridge Ancient History, vol. vii. p. 422.

^83:c Cf. Livy, v. 31. 6, 7; vi. 27. 4, 5; ix. 34.

^83:d Cf. Ovid, Fasti, v. 129 ff.

^85:a [p. 84] Cf. Moralia, 361 s, 419 A, 1051 C.

^85:b Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xxix. 4 (58).

^85:c [p. 85] An attempt to derive the name from genitus (-a, -um) and manare.

^85:d Cf. 280 C, infra.

^85:e Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. p. 498.

^87:a [p. 86] Frag. 592 (ed. V. Rose); cf. Moralia, 292 B, infra.

^87:b Cf. xreste xair on Greek tombstones.

^87:c [p. 87] So apparently Plutarch; but the Latin Sardi venales can mean nothing but "Sardinians for sale." Plutarch, or his authority, has confused Sardi with Sardiani (Sardians).

^87:d Cf. Life of Romulus, xxv. (33 E).

^87:e This is quite contrary to the traditional account (cf. for example, Livy, vi. 21-23), according to which Veii was not captured until 396 B.C.

^89:a [p. 88] Cf. 278 E, infra.

^89:b Cf. Livy, ix. 30; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 653 ff.; Valerius Maximus, ii. 5. 4; see also Classical Weekly, 1921, p. 51.

^89:c Consulari potestate.

^91:a [p. 90] Cf. Livy, v. 25. 9, and xxxiv. 1 and 8.

^93:a That is, carens mente.

^93:b Cf. Life of Romulus, xxi. (31 A); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 31; Strabo, v. 33, p. 230; Ovid, Fasti, i. 619 ff.

^93:c Cf. 320 D, infra, and Life of Romulus, iv. (19 D); Ovid, Fasti, ii. 411 ff.

^93:d Cf. Life of Romulus, xiii. (25 A).

^93:e Cf. Livy, x. 8. 10.

^95:a Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470.

^95:b Cf. 277 D, supra.

^95:c Cf. the note on 267 C, supra.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

60-69.

60. WHY, when there are two altars of Hercules, do women receive no share nor taste of the sacrifices offered on the larger altar?

Is it because the friends of Carmenta came late for the rites, as did also the clan of the Pinarii? Wherefore, as they were excluded from the banquet while the rest were feasting, they acquired the name Pinarii (Starvelings). [*d] Or is it because of the fable of Deianeira and the shirt? [*e]

 

61. WHY is it forbidden to mention or to inquire after or to call by name that deity, whether it be male or female, whose especial province it is to preserve and watch over Rome? [*f] This prohibition they connect with a superstition and relate that Valerius Swamis came to an evil end because he revealed the name.

Is it because, as certain Roman writers have

[p. 96] [p. 97]

recorded, there are certain evocations and enchantments affecting the gods, by which the Romans also believed that certain gods had been called forth [*a] from their enemies, and had come to dwell among themselves, and they were afraid of having this same thing done to them by others? Accordingly, as the Tyrians [*b] are said to have put chains upon their images, and certain other peoples are said to demand sureties when they send forth their images for bathing or for some other rite of purification, so the Romans believed that not to mention and not to know the name of a god was the safest and surest way of shielding him.

Or as Homer [*c] has written,

Earth is yet common to all,

so that mankind should reverence and honour all the gods, since they possess the earth in common, even so did the Romans of early times conceal the identity of the god who was the guardian of their safety, since they desired that not only this god, but all the gods should be honoured by the citizens?

 

62. WHY, among those called Fetiales, or, as we should say in Greek, peace-makers or treaty-bringers, was he who was called pater patratus considered the chief? The pater patratus [*d] is a man whose father is still alive and who has children; even now he possesses a certain preferment and confidence, for the praetors entrust to him any wards whose beauty and youth require a careful and discreet guardianship.

[p. 98] [p. 99]

Is it because there attaches to these men respect for their children and reverence for their fathers? Or does the name suggest the reason? For patratus means, as it were, "completed" or "perfected," since he to whose lot it has fallen to become a father while he still has a father is more perfect than other men.

Or should the man who presides over oaths and treaties of peace be, in the words of Homer, [*a] one "looking before and after"? Such a man above all others would be he that has a son to plan for and a father to plan with.

63. WHY is the so-called rex sacrorum, that is to say "king of the sacred rites," forbidden to hold office or to address the people? [*b]

Is it because in early times the kings performed the greater part of the most important rites, and themselves offered the sacrifices with the assistance of the priests? But when they did not practise moderation, but were arrogant and oppressive, most of the Greek states took away their authority, and left to them only the offering of sacrifice to the gods; but the Romans expelled their kings altogether, and to offer the sacrifices they appointed another, whom they did not allow to hold office or to address the people, so that in their sacred rites only they might seem to be subject to a king, and to tolerate a kingship only on the gods' account. [*c] At any rate, there is a sacrifice traditionally performed in the forum at the place called Comitium, and, when the rex has performed this, he flees from the forum as fast as he can. [*d]

[p. 100] [p. 101]

64. WHY did they not allow the table to be taken away empty, but insisted that something should be upon it? [*a]

Was it that they were symbolizing the necessity of ever allowing some part of the present provision to remain over for the future, and to-day to be mindful of to-morrow, or did they think it polite to repress and restrain the appetite while the means of enjoyment was still at hand? For persons who have accustomed themselves to refrain from what they have are less likely to crave for what they have not.

Or does the custom also show a kindly feeling towards the servants? For they are not so well satisfied with taking as with partaking, since they believe that they thus in some manner share the table with their masters. [*b]

Or should no sacred thing be suffered to be empty, and the table is a sacred thing?

 

65. WHY does the husband approach his bride for the first time, not with a light, but in darkness?

Is it because he has a feeling of modest respect, since he regards her as not his own before his union with her? Or is he accustoming himself to approach even his own wife with modesty?

Or, as Solon [*c] has given directions that the bride shall nibble a quince before entering the bridal chamber, in order that the first greeting may not be disagreeable nor unpleasant, even so did the Roman legislator, if there was anything abnormal or disagreeable connected with the body, keep it concealed?

Or is this that is done a manner of casting infamy

[p. 102] [p. 103]

upon unlawful amours, since even lawful love has a certain opprobrium connected with it?

 

66. WHY is one of the hippodromes called Flaminian?

Is it because a certain Flaminius [*a] long ago bestowed some land upon the city and they used the revenues for the horse-races; and, as there was money still remaining, they made a road, and this they also called Flaminian? [*b]

 

67. WHY do they call the rod-bearers "lictors"? [*c]

Is it because these officers used both to bind unruly persons and also to follow in the train of Romulus with straps in their bosoms? Most Romans use alligare for the verb "to bind," but purists, when they converse, say ligare. [*d]

Or is the c but a recent insertion, and were they formerly called litores, that is, a class of public servants? The fact that even to this day the word "public" is expressed by leitos in many of the Greek laws has escaped the attention of hardly anyone.

 

68. WHY do the Luperci sacrifice a dog? [*e] The Luperci are men who race through the city on the Lupercalia, lightly clad in loin-cloths, striking those whom they meet with a strip of leather.

[p. 104] [p. 105]

Is it because this performance constitutes a rite of purification of the city? In fact they call this month February, and indeed this very day, februata; and to strike with a kind of leather thong they call februare, the word meaning "to purify." Nearly all the Greeks used a dog as the sacrificial victim for ceremonies of purification; and some, at least, make use of it even to this day. They bring forth for Hecate [*a] puppies along with the other materials for purification, and rub round about with puppies [*b] such persons as are in need of cleansing, and this kind of purification they call periskylakismos ("puppifrication").

Or is it that lupus means "wolf" and the Lupercalia is the Wolf Festival, and that the dog is hostile to the wolf, and for this reason is sacrificed at the Wolf Festival?

Or is it that the dogs bark at the Luperci and annoy them as they race about in the city?

Or is it that the sacrifice is made to Pan, and a dog is something dear to Pan because of his herds of goats?

 

69. WHY on the festival called Septimontium [*c] were they careful to refrain from the use of horse-drawn vehicles; and why even to this day are those who do not contemn ancient customs still careful about this? The festival Septimontium they observe in commemoration of the addition to the city of the seventh hill, by which Rome was made a city of seven hills.

[p. 106] [p. 107]

Is it, as some of the Roman writers conceive, because the city had not yet been completely joined together in all its parts?

Or has this "nothing to do with Dionysus" [*a]? But did they imagine, when their great task of consolidation had been accomplished, that the city had now ceased from further extension; and they rested themselves, and gave respite to the pack-animals, which had helped them in their labours, and afforded the animals an opportunity to enjoy the general festival with no work to do?

Or did they wish that the presence of the citizens should adorn and honour every festival always, and, above all, that one which was held in commemoration of the consolidation of the city? Wherefore in order that they might not leave the City, in whose honour the festival was being held, it was not permitted to make use of vehicles on that day.

Footnotes

^95:d An attempt to derive the word from Greek peinu, "be hungry": see further Livy, i. 7; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 40.

^95:e [p. 95] The shirt anointed with the blood of Nessus which Deianeira supposed to be a love charm. She sent the shirt to Heracles and thereby brought about his death; hence Heracles may be supposed to hate all women; see Sophocles, Trachiniae, or Ovid, Heroides, ix.

^95:f Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 9. 3; Pliny, Natural History, xxviii. 4 (18).

^97:a [p. 96] Cf., for example, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, xiii. 3; Livy, v. 21 (the evocatio of Juno from Veii); Macrobius, Saturnalia, iii. 9. 7 and 14-16.

^97:b [p. 97] Cf. Diodorus, xvii. 41. 8; Quintus Curtius, iv. 3. 21.

^97:c Il. xv. 193.

^97:d Plutarch here mistakenly explains patrimus instead of patratus: contrast Livy, i. 24. 6; Tacitus, Hist. iv. 53.

^99:a [p. 98] Il. i. 343, Od. xxiv. 452; cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, iv. iv. 37; Shelley, Ode to a Skylark (18th stanza).

^99:b [p. 99] Cf. Livy, ii. 2. 1-2; ix. 34. 12; xl. 42.

^99:c Ibid. iii. 39. 4.

^99:d The Regifugium: cf. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 68.5 ff.: see the Cambridge Ancient History, vol. vii. p. 408.

^101:a [p. 100] Cf. Moralia, 702 D ff.

^101:b Cf. Horace, Satires, ii. 6. 66-67.

^101:c [p. 101] Cf. Moralia, 138 D; Life of Solon, chap. xx. (89 C).

^103:a [p. 102] The consul defeated at Trasimene. The circus was built circa 221 B.C.; cf. Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 154.

^103:b The Via Flaminia ran from the Pons Mulvius up the [p. 103] Tiber Valley to Narnia in Umbria; later it was extended over the Apennines to the Port of Ariminum.

^103:c Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xxvi. (34 A); Aulus Gellius, xii. 3.

^103:d Cf. Festus, s.v. lictores; Valgius Rufus, frag. 1 (Gram. Rom. Frag. i. p. 484).

^103:e Cf. 290 n, infra; Life of Romulus, chap. xxi. (31 B ff.); Life of Numa, chap. xix. (72 E); Life of Caesar, chap. lxi. (736 D); Life of Antony, chap. xii. (921 B-C); Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 13; scholium on Theocritus, ii. 12.

^105:a [p. 104] Cf. 277 a, supra, and 290 n, infra.

^105:b That the puppies were later sacrificed we may infer from the practice elsewhere and on other occasions.

^105:c [p. 105] On this festival see J. B. Carter, American Journal of Archaeology (2nd Series), xii. pp. 172 ff.; H. Last in the Cambridge Ancient History, vol. vii. pp. 355 ff.

^107:a "Nothing to do with the case": cf. Moralia, 615 A, and Lucian, Dionysus, 5, with Harmon's note (L.C.L. vol. i. p. 55); see also Moralia 388 E and 612 E.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

70-79.

70. WHY do they call such persons as stand convicted of theft or of any other servile offences furciferi? [*b]

Is this also evidence of the carefulness of the men of old? For anyone who had found guilty of some knavery a slave reared in his own household used to command him to take up the forked stick, which they put under their carts, and to proceed through the community or the neighbourhood, observed of all observers, that they might distrust him and be on their guard against him in the future. This stick we call a prop, and the Romans furca ("fork");

[p. 108] [p. 109]

wherefore also he who has borne it about is called furcifer ("fork-bearer").

 

71. WHY do they tie hay to one horn of vicious bulls to warn anyone who meets them to be on guard?

Is it because bulls, horses, asses, men, all wax wanton through stuffing and gorging? So Sophocles [*a] has somewhere written,

You prance, as does a colt, from glut of food,
 For both your belly and your cheeks are full.

[paragraph continues] Wherefore also the Romans used to say that Marcus Crassus [*b] had hay on his horn: for those who heckled the other chief men in the State were on their guard against assailing him, since they knew that he was vindictive and hard to cope with. Later, however, another saying was bandied about, that Caesar had pulled the hay from Crassus; for Caesar was the first to oppose Crassus in public policy and to treat him with contumely.

 

72. WHY did they think that the priests that take omens from birds, whom they formerly called Auspices, but now Augures, should always keep their lanterns open and put no cover on them?

Were they like the Pythagoreans, [*c] who made small matters symbols of great, forbidding men to sit on a peck measure or to poke a fire with a sword; and even so did the men of old make use of many riddles, especially with reference to priests; and is the question of the lantern of this sort? For the

[p. 110] [p. 111]

lantern is like the body which encompasses the soul; the soul within is a light [*a] and the part of it that comprehends and thinks should be ever open and clear-sighted, and should never be closed nor remain unseen.

Now when the winds are blowing the birds are unsteady, and do not afford reliable signs because of their wandering and irregular movements. Therefore by this custom they instruct the augurs not to go forth to obtain these signs when the wind is blowing, but only in calm and still weather when they can use their lanterns open.

 

73. WHY was it forbidden to priests that had any sore upon their bodies to sit and watch for birds of omen?

Is this also a symbolic indication that those who deal with matters divine should be in no way suffering from any smart, and should not, as it were, have any sore or affection in their souls, but should be untroubled, unscathed, and undistracted?

Or is it only logical, if no one would use for sacrifice a victim afflicted with a sore, or use such birds for augury, that they should be still more on their guard against such things in their own case, and be pure, unhurt, and sound when they advance to interpret signs from the gods? [*b] For a sore seems to be a sort of mutilation or pollution of the body.

 

74. WHY did King Servius Tullius build a shrine of Little Fortune, which they call Brevis? [*c]

Is it because although, at the first, he was a man of little importance and of humble activities and the

[p. 112] [p. 113]

son of a captive woman, yet, owing to Fortune, he became king of Rome? Or does this very change reveal the greatness rather than the littleness of Fortune, and does Servius beyond all other men seem to have deified the power of Fortune, [*a] and to have set her formally over all manner of actions? For he not only built shrines [*b] of Fortune the Giver of Good Hope, the Averter of Evil, the Gentle, the First-Born, [*c] and the Male; but there is also a shrine of Private Fortune, another of Attentive Fortune, and still another of Fortune the Virgin. Yet why need anyone review her other appellations, when there is a shrine of the Fowler's Fortune, or Viscata, as they call her, signifying that we are caught by Fortune from afar and held fast by circumstances?

Consider, however, whether it he not that Servius observed the mighty potency of Fortune's ever slight mutation, and that by the occurrence or nonoccurrence of some slight thing, it has often fallen to the lot of some to succeed or to fail in the greatest enterprises, and it was for this reason that he built the shrine of Little Fortune, teaching men to give great heed to events, and not to despise anything that they encountered by reason of its triviality.

 

75. WHY did they not extinguish a lamp, but suffered it to go out of itself? [*d]

Did they reverence it as akin and closely related to the inextinguishable and undying fire, or is this also a symbolic indication that we should not destroy

[p. 114] [p. 115]

nor do away with any living thing, if it does us no harm, since fire is like a living thing? For it needs sustenance, it moves of itself, and when it is extinguished it gives out a sound as if it were being slain.

Or does this custom teach us that we should not destroy fire, water, or any other necessity when we have enough and to spare, but should allow those who have need of these things to use them, and should leave them for others when we ourselves no longer have any use for them?

 

76. WHY do they that are reputed to be of distinguished lineage wear crescents on their shoes? [*a]

Is this, as Castor says, [*b] an emblem of the fabled residence in the moon, and an indication that after death their souls will again have the moon beneath their feet [*c]; or was this the special privilege of the most ancient families? These were Arcadians of Evander's following, the so-called Pre-Lunar [*d] people.

Or does this also, like many another custom, remind the exalted and proud of the mutability, for better or worse, in the affairs of men, and that they should take the moon as an illustration [*e]:

When out of darkness first she comes anew
 Her face she shows increasing fair and full;
 And when she reaches once her brightest sheen,
 Again she wastes away and comes to naught?

[p. 116] [p. 117]

Or was it a lesson in obedience to authority, teaching them not to be disaffected under the government of kings, but to be even as the moon, who is willing to give heed to her superior and to be a second to him,

Ever gazing in awe at the rays of the bright-gleaming Sun-god,

as Parmenides [*a] puts it; and were they thus to be content with their second place, living under their ruler, and enjoying the power and honour derived from him?

 

77. WHY do they believe that the year belongs to Jupiter, but the months to Juno?

Is it because Jupiter and Juno rule the invisible, conceptual deities, but the sun and moon the visible deities? Now the sun makes the year and the moon the months; but one must not believe that the sun and moon are merely images of Jupiter and Juno, but that the sun is really Jupiter himself in his material form and in the same way the moon is Juno. This is the reason why the Romans apply the name Juno to our Hera, for the name means "young" or "junior," so named from the moon. And they also call her Lucina, that is "brilliant" or "light-giving"; and they believe that she aids women in the pangs of childbirth, even as the moon [*b]:

On through the dark-blue vault of the stars,
 Through the moon that brings birth quickly;

for women are thought to have easiest travail at the time of the full moon.

[p. 118] [p. 119]

78. WHY of birds is the one called "left-hand" a bird of good omen?

Is this not really true, but is it the peculiarity of the language which throws many off the track? For their word for "left" is sinistrum; "to permit" is sinere; and they say sine when they urge giving permission. Accordingly the bird which permits the augural action to be taken, that is, the avis sinisteria, the vulgar are not correct in assuming to be sinistra and in calling it so.

Or is it, as Dionysius [*a] says, that when Ascanius, son of Aeneas, was drawing up his army against Mezentius, and his men were taking the auspices, a flash of lightning, which portended victory, appeared on the left, and from that time on they observe this practice in divination? Or is it true, as certain other authorities affirm, that this happened to Aeneas? As a matter of fact, the Thebans, when they had routed and overpowered their enemies on the left wing at Leuctra, [*b] continued thereafter to assign to the left the chief command in all battles.

Or [*c] is it rather, as Juba [*d] declares, that as anyone looks eastward, the north is on the left, and some make out the north to be the right, or upper, side of the universe?

But consider whether it be not that the left is by nature the weaker side, and they that preside over auguries try to strengthen and prop its deficient powers by this method of equalization.

[p. 120] [p. 121]

Or was it that they believed earthly and mortal matters to be antithetical to things heavenly and divine, and so thought that whatever was on the left for us the gods were sending forth from the right?

 

79. WHY was it permitted to take up a bone of a man who had enjoyed a triumph, and had later died and been cremated, and carry it into the city and deposit it there, as Pyrrhon [*a] of Lipara has recorded?

Was it to show honour to the dead? In fact, to other men of achievement, as well as to generals, they granted, not only for themselves, but also for their descendants, the right to be buried in the Forum, as they did to Valerius [*b] and to Fabricius; and they relate that when descendants of these men die and have been conveyed to the Forum, a lighted torch is placed beneath the body and then immediately withdrawn; thus they enjoy the honour without exciting envy, and merely confirm their prerogative.

Footnotes

^107:b Cf. Life of Coriolanus, chap. xxiv. (225 D).

^109:a [p. 108] Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 311, Sophocles, Frag. 764; or Pearson, no. 848; cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1640-1641; Menander, Hero, 16-17 (p. 291 ed. Allinson in L.C.L.).

^109:b [p. 109] Cf. Life of Crassus, chap. vii. (547 C); Horace, Satires, i. 4. 34 "faenum habet in cornu; longe fuge!"

^109:c Cf. 290 E, infra, and the notes on Moralia, 12 D-E (Vol. I. p. 58).

^111:a [p. 110] Cf. Moralia, 1130 B.

^111:b [p. 111] Cf. Moralia, 383 B; Leviticus, xxii. 17-21.

^111:c Hartman's theory that Plutarch is rendering Occasio = Fortuna Brevis) is very doubtful.

^113:a [p. 112] Cf. 273 B, supra.

^113:b Cf. 322 F, infra: the Latin equivalents here are perhaps [p. 113] Felix (?), Averrunca, Obsequens, Primigenia, Virilis, Privata, Respiciens, Virgo, Viscata.

^113:c Cf. 289 B, infra.

^113:d Cf. Moralia; 702 D ff.

^115:a [p. 114] Cf. Isidore, Origines, xix. 34; Juvenal, vii. 192.

^115:b [p. 115] Jacoby, Frag. der griech. Hist. 250, Frag. 16.

^115:c Cf. Moralia, 943 A ff.

^115:d Cf. Aristotle, Frag. 591 (ed. V. Rose); Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 264; scholium on Aristophanes, Clouds, 398.

^115:e Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 315, Sophocles, Frag. 787; or Pearson, no. 871: the full quotation may be found in Life of Demetrius, xlv. (911 c). Cf. the variants there and in Moralia, 517 D.

^117:a [p. 116] Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 162, Parmenides, no. 15.

^117:b Timotheus, Frag. 28 (ed. Wilamowitz-Mollendorff); [p. 117] Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 331; better Diels, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, ii. p. 152. Cf. Moralia, 659 A; Macrobius, Saturnalia, vii. 16. 28; see also Roscher, Lexikon der gr. and rom. Mythologie, vol. i. coll. 571-572.

^119:a Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 5. 5; Virgil, Aeneid, ix. 630, and Conington's note on Virgil, Georgics, iv. 7.

^119:b Cf. Life of Pelopidas, xxiii. (289 D-E).

^119:c Cf. Moralia, 363 E, 888 B.

^119:d Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 471.

^121:a [p. 120] Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. p. 479.

^121:b Cf. Life of Publicola, chap. xxiii. (109 D).

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

80-89.

80. WHY was it that when they gave a public banquet for men who had celebrated a triumph, they formally invited the consuls and then sent word to them requesting them not to come to the dinner? [*c]

Was it because it was imperative that the place of honour at table and an escort home after dinner should be assigned to the man who had triumphed? But these honours can be given to no one else when the consuls are present, but only to them.

 

81. WHY does not the tribune wear a garment with the purple border, [*d] although the other magistrates wear it?

Is it because he is not a magistrate at all? For tribunes have no lictors, nor do they transact business

[p. 122] [p. 123]

seated on the curule chair, nor do they enter their office at the beginning of the year [*a] as all the other magistrates do, nor do they cease from their functions when a dictator is chosen; but although he transfers every other office to himself, the tribunes alone remain, as not being officials but as holding some other position. Even as some advocates will not have it that a demurrer is a suit, but hold that its effect is the opposite of that of a suit; for a suit brings a case into court and obtains a judgement, while a demurrer takes it out of court and quashes it; in the same way they believe that the tribuneship is a check on officialdom and a position to offer opposition to magistracy rather than a magistracy. For its authority and power consist in blocking the power of a magistrate and in the abrogation of excessive authority.

Or one might expound these matters and others like them, if one were to indulge in the faculty of invention; but since the tribunate derives its origin from the people, the popular element in it is strong; and of much importance is the fact that the tribune does not pride himself above the rest of the people, but conforms in appearance, dress, and manner of life to ordinary citizens. Pomp and circumstance become the consul and the praetor; but the tribune, as Gaius Curio used to say, must allow himself to be trodden upon; he must not be proud of mien, nor difficult of access nor harsh to the multitude, but indefatigable on behalf of others and easy for the multitude to deal with. Wherefore it is the custom that not even the door of his house shall be closed, but it remains open both night and day as a haven of refuge for such as need it. The more humble he is

[p. 124] [p. 125]

in outward appearance, the more is he increased in power. They think it meet that he shall be available for the common need and be accessible to all, even as an altar; and by the honour paid to him they make his person holy, sacred, and inviolable. [*a] Wherefore if anything happen to him when he walks abroad in public, it is even customary for him to cleanse and purify his body as if it had been polluted.

 

82. WHY are the rods of the praetors carried in bundles with axes attached?

Is it because this is a symbolic indication that the temper of the official should not be too quick or unrestrained? Or does the deliberate unfastening of the rods, which creates delay and postponement of his fit of temper, oftentimes cause him to change his mind about the punishment? Now since some badness is curable, but other badness is past remedy, the rods correct that which may be amended and the axes cut off the incorrigible.

 

83. WHEN the Romans learned that the people called Bletonesii, [*b] a barbarian tribe, had sacrificed a man to the gods, why did they send for the tribal rulers with intent to punish them, but, when it was made plain that they had done thus in accordance with a certain custom, why did the Romans set them at liberty, but forbid the practice for the future? Yet they themselves, not many years before, had buried alive two men and two women, two of them Greeks, two Gauls, in the place called the Forum Boarium. It certainly

[p. 126] [p. 127]

seems strange that they themselves should do this, and yet rebuke barbarians on the ground that they were acting with impiety.

Did they think it impious to sacrifice men to the gods, but necessary to sacrifice them to the spirits? Or did they believe that men who did this by tradition and custom were sinning, whereas they themselves did it by command of the Sibylline books? For the tale is told that a certain maiden, Helvia, was struck by lightning while she was riding on horseback, and her horse was found lying stripped of its trappings; and she herself was naked, for her tunic had been pulled far up as if purposely; and her shoes, her rings, and her head-dress were scattered apart here and there, and her open mouth allowed the tongue to protrude. The soothsayers declared that it was a terrible disgrace for the Vestal Virgins, that it would be bruited far and wide, and that some wanton outrage would be found touching the knights also. Thereupon a barbarian slave of a certain knight gave information against three Vestal Virgins, Aemilia, Licinia, and Marcia, that they had all been corrupted at about the same time, and that they had long entertained lovers, one of whom was Vetutius Barrus, [*a] the informer's master. The Vestals, accordingly, were convicted and punished; but, since the deed was plainly atrocious, it was resolved that the priests should consult the Sibylline books. They say that oracles were found foretelling that these events would come to pass for the bane of the Romans, and enjoining on them that, to avert the impending disaster, they should offer as a sacrifice to certain

[p. 128] [p. 129]

strange and alien spirits two Greeks and two Gauls, buried alive on the spot. [*a]

 

84. WHY do they reckon the beginning of the day from midnight? [*b]

Is it because the Roman State was based originally on a military organization and most of the matters that are of use on campaigns are taken up beforehand at night? Or did they make sunrise the beginning of activity, and night the beginning of preparation? For men should be prepared when they act, and not be making their preparations during the action, as Myson, [*c] who was fashioning a grain-fork in wintertime, is reported to have remarked to Chilon the Wise.

Or, just as noon is for most people the end of their transaction of public or serious business, even so did it seem good to make midnight the beginning? A weighty testimony to this is the fact that a Roman official does not make treaties or agreements after midday.

Or is it impossible to reckon the beginning and end of the day by sunset and sunrise? For if we follow the method by which most people formulate their definitions, by their perceptions, reckoning the first peep of the sun above the horizon as the beginning of day, and the cutting off of its last rays as the beginning of night, we shall have no equinox; but that night which we think is most nearly equal to the day will plainly be less than that day by the diameter of

[p. 130] [p. 131]

the sun. [*a] But then again the remedy which the mathematicians apply to this anomaly, decreeing that the instant when the centre of the sun touches the horizon is the boundary between day and night, is a negation of plain fact; for the result will be that when there is still much light over the earth and the sun is shining upon us, we cannot admit that it is day, but must say that it is already night. Since, therefore, the beginning of day and night is difficult to determine at the time of the risings and settings of the sun because of the irrationalities which I have mentioned, there is left the zenith or the nadir of the sun to reckon as the beginning. The second is better; for from noon on the sun's course is away from us to its setting, but from midnight on its course is towards us to its rising.

 

85. WHY in the early days did they not allow their wives to grind grain or to cook? [*b]

Was it in memory of the treaty which they made with the Sabines? For when they had carried off the Sabines' daughters, and later, after warring with the Sabines, had made peace, it was specified among the other articles of agreement that no Sabine woman should grind grain for a Roman or cook for him.

 

86. WHY do men not marry during the month of May? [*c]

Is it because this month comes between April and June, of which they regard April as sacred to Venus and June as sacred to Juno, both of them divinities of marriage; and so they put the wedding a little earlier or wait until later?

[p. 132] [p. 133]

Or is it because in this month they hold their most important ceremony of purification, in which they now throw images from the bridge into the river, [*a] but in days of old they used to throw human beings? Wherefore it is the custom that the Flaminica, reputed to be consecrate to Juno, shall wear a stern face, and refrain from bathing and wearing ornaments at this time.

Or is it because many of the Latins make offerings to the departed in this month? And it is for this reason, perhaps, that they worship Mercury in this month and that the month derives its name from Maia. [*b]

Or is May, as some relate, named after the older (maior) and June after the younger generation (iunior)? For youth is better fitted for marriage, as Euripides [*c] also says:

Old age bids Love to take her leave for aye
 And Aphrodite wearies of the old.

[paragraph continues] They do not, therefore, marry in May, but wait for June which comes next after May.

 

87. WHY do they part the hair of brides with the point of a spear? [*d]

Does this symbolize the marriage of the first Roman wives [*e] by violence with attendant war, or do the wives thus learn, now that they are mated to brave and warlike men, to welcome an unaffected, unfeminine, and simple mode of beautification? Even as Lycurgus, [*f] by giving orders to make the

[p. 134] [p. 135]

doors and roofs of houses with the saw and the axe only, and to use absolutely no other tool, banished all over-refinement and extravagance.

Or does this procedure hint at the manner of their separation, that with steel alone can their marriage be dissolved?

Or is it that most of the marriage customs were connected with Juno? [*a] Now the spear is commonly held to be sacred to Juno, and most of her statues represent her leaning on a spear, and the goddess herself is surnamed Quiritis; for the men of old used to call the spear curis; wherefore they further relate that Enyalius is called Quirinus by the Romans. [*b]

 

88. WHY do they call the money expended upon public spectacles Lucar?

Is it because round about the city there are, consecrated to gods, many groves which they call loci, and they used to spend the revenue from these on the public spectacles?

 

89. WHY do they call the Quirinalia the Feast of Fools? [*c]

Is it because, as Juba [*d] states, they apportioned that day to men who did not know their own kith and kin? [*e] Or was it granted to those who, because of some business, or absence from Rome, or ignorance, had not sacrificed with the rest of their tribe on the Fornacalia, that, on this day, they might take their due enjoyment of that festival?

Footnotes

^121:c Cf. Valerius Maximus, ii. 8. 6.

^121:d The toga praetexta.

^123:a [p. 122] They entered upon their office December 10th: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, vi. 89. 2; Livy, xxxix. 52.

^125:a Cf. Livy, iii. 55. 6-7; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, vi. 89. 2-3.

^125:b Of Bletisa in Spain, according to Cichorius, Romische Studien (Berlin, 1922).

^127:a Cf. Cicero, Brutus, 46 (169); Horace, Satires, i. 6. 30, if the emendation is right.

^129:a Cf. Life of Marcellus, chap. iii. (299 D); Livy, xxii. 57.

^129:b Cf. Pliny, Natural History, ii. 77 (188); Aulus Gellius, iii. 2; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 3.

^129:c Similar foresight regarding a plough instead of a fork is reported by Diogenes Laertius, i. 106.

^131:a [p. 130] Long before Plutarch's day the Greeks had calculated the angle subtended by the sun with an accuracy that stood the test of centuries, and was not modified until comparatively [p. 131] recent times. Cf. Archimedes, Arenarius, i. 10 (J. L. Heiberg's ed. ii. p. 248).

^131:b Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xv. (26 D), xix. (30 A).

^131:c Cf. Ovid, Fasti, v. 489.

^133:a [p. 132] Cf. 272 B, supra.

^133:b The mother of Mercury.

^133:c From the Aeolus of Euripides; Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 369, Euripides, no. 23: cf. Moralia, 786 A, 1094 F.

^133:d Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xv. (26 E).

^133:e The Sabine women.

^133:f Cf. Moralia, 189 E, 227 C, 997 C; and the Life of Lycurgus, chap. xiii. (47 C); cf. also Comment. on Hesiod, 42 (Bernardakis, vol. vii. p. 72).

^135:a [p. 134] See Roscher, Lexikon der gr. and rom. Mythologie, ii. coll. 588-592.

^135:b Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xxix. (36 a); Dionysius of [p. 135] Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 48; Ovid, Fasti, ii. 475 ff.

^135:c Cf. Ovid, Fasti, ii. 513 ff.

^135:d Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 470.

^135:e Curiae.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 136] [p. 137]

90-99.

90. WHY is it that, when the sacrifice to Hercules takes place, they mention by name no other god, and why is a dog never seen within his enclosure, [*a] as Vargo has recorded?

Do they make mention of no other god because they regard Hercules as a demigod? But, as some [*b] relate, even while he was still on earth, Evander erected an altar to him and brought him sacrifice. And of all animals he contended most with a dog, for it is a fact that this beast always gave him much trouble, Cerberus, for instance. And, to crown all, when Oeonus, Licymnius's son, had been murdered by the sons of Hippocoon [*c] because of a dog, Hercules was compelled to engage in battle with them, and lost many of his friends and his brother Iphicles.

 

91. WHY was it not permitted the patricians to dwell about the Capitoline?

Was it because Marcus Manlius, [*d] while he was dwelling there, tried to make himself king? They say that because of him the house of Manlius was bound by an oath that none of them should ever bear the name of Marcus.

Or does this fear date from early times? At any rate, although Publicola [*e] was a most democratic man, the nobles did not cease traducing him nor the commoners fearing him, until he himself razed his house, the situation of which was thought to be a threat to the Forum.

[p. 138] [p. 139]

92. WHY do they give a chaplet of oak leaves to the man who has saved the life of a citizen in time of war? [*a]

Is it because it is easy to find an abundance of oak leaves everywhere on a campaign?

Or is it because the chaplet is sacred to Jupiter and Juno, whom they regard as guardians of the city?

Or is the custom an ancient inheritance from the Arcadians, who have a certain kinship with the oak? For they are thought to have been the first men sprung from the earth, even as the oak was the first plant.

 

93. WHY do they make most use of vultures in augury?

Is it because twelve vultures appeared to Romulus at the time of the founding of Rome? Or is it because this is the least frequent and familiar of birds? For it is not easy to find a vulture's nest, but these birds suddenly swoop down from afar; wherefore the sight of them is portentous.

Or did they learn this also from Hercules? If Herodorus [*b] tells the truth, Hercules delighted in the appearance of vultures beyond that of all other birds at the beginning of any undertaking, since he believed that the vulture was the most righteous of all flesh-eating creatures; for, in the first place, it touches no living thing, nor does it kill any animate creature, as do eagles and hawks and the birds that fly by night; but it lives upon that which has been killed in some other way. Then again, even of these

[p. 140] [p. 141]

it leaves its own kind untouched; for no one has ever seen a vulture feeding on a bird, as eagles and hawks do, pursuing and striking their own kind particularly. And yet, as Aeschylus [*a] says,

How can a bird that feeds on birds be pure?

[paragraph continues] And we may say that it is the most harmless of birds to men, since it neither destroys any fruit or plant nor injures any domesticated animal. But if, as the Egyptians fable, the whole species is female, and they conceive by receiving the breath of the East Wind, even as the trees do by receiving the West Wind, then it is credible that the signs from them are altogether unwavering and certain. But in the case of the other birds, their excitements in the mating season, as well as their abductions, retreats, and pursuits, have much that is disturbing and unsteady.

 

94. WHY is the shrine of Aesculapius [*b] outside the city?

Is it because they considered it more healthful to spend their time outside the city than within its walls? In fact the Greeks, as might be expected, have their shrines of Asclepius situated in places which are both clean and high.

Or is it because they believe that the god came at their summons from Epidaurus, and the Epidaurians have their shrine of Asclepius not in the city, but at some distance?

Or is it because the serpent came out from the trireme into the island, [*c] and there disappeared, and thus they thought that the god himself was indicating to them the site for building?

[p. 142] [p. 143]

95. WHY is it the customary rule that those who are practising holy living must abstain from legumes? [*a]

Did they, like the followers of Pythagoras, [*b] religiously abstain from beans for the reasons which are commonly offered, [*c] and from vetch and chickpea, because their names (lathyros and erebinthos) suggest Lethe and Erebus?

Or is it because they make particular use of legumes for funeral feasts and invocations of the dead?

Or is it rather because one must keep the body clean and light for purposes of holy living and lustration? Now legumes are a flatulent food and produce surplus matter that requires much purgation.

Or is it because the windy and flatulent quality of the food stimulates desire?

 

96. WHY do they inflict no other punishment on those of the Holy Maidens [*d] who have been seduced, but bury them alive? [*e]

Is it because they cremate their dead, and to use fire in the burial of a woman who had not guarded the holy fire in purity was not right?

Or did they believe it to be against divine ordinance to annihilate a body that had been consecrated by the greatest of lustral ceremonies, or to lay hands upon a holy woman? Accordingly they devised that she should die of herself; they conducted her underground into a chamber built there, in which had been placed a lighted lamp, a loaf of bread,

[p. 144] [p. 145]

and some milk and water. Thereafter they covered over the top of the chamber with earth. And yet not even by this manner of avoiding the guilt have they escaped their superstitious fear, but even to this day the priests proceed to this place and make offerings to the dead.

 

97. WHY is it that after the chariot-race on the Ides of December [*a] the right-hand trace-horse of the winning team is sacrificed to Mars, and then someone cuts off its tail, and carries it to the place called Regia and sprinkles its blood on the altar, while some come down from the street called the Via Sacra, and some from the Subura, and fight for its head?

Is it, as some [*b] say, that they believe Troy to have been taken by means of a horse; and therefore they punish it, since, forsooth, they are

Noble scions of Trojans commingled with children of Latins. [*c]

Or is it because the horse is a spirited, warlike, and martial beast, and they sacrifice to the gods creatures that are particularly pleasing and appropriate for them; and the winner is sacrificed because Mars is the specific divinity of victory and prowess?

Or is it rather because the work of the god demands standing firm, and men that hold their ground defeat those that do not hold it, but flee? And is swiftness punished as being the coward's resource, and do they learn symbolically that there is no safety for those who flee?

[p. 146] [p. 147]

98. WHY do the censors, when they take office, do nothing else before they contract for the food of the sacred geese [*a] and the polishing of the statue? [*b]

Is it that they begin with the most trivial things, matters that require little expense or trouble? Or is this a commemoration of an old debt of gratitude owed to these creatures for their services in the Gallic wars? [*c] For when in the night the barbarians were already climbing over the rampart of the Capitol, the geese perceived the invaders, although the dogs were asleep, and waked the guards by their clamour.

Or is it because the censors are guardians of the most important matters, and, since it is their duty to oversee and to busy themselves with sacred and State affairs and with the lives, morals, and conduct of the people, they immediately take into account the most vigilant of creatures, and at the same time by their care of the geese they urge the citizens not to be careless or indifferent about sacred matters?

But the polishing [*d] of the statue is absolutely necessary; for the red pigment, with which they used to tint ancient statues, rapidly loses its freshness.

 

99. WHY is it that, if any one of the other priests is condemned and exiled, they depose him and elect another, but the augur, as long as he lives, even if they find him guilty of the worst offences, they do not

[p. 148] [p. 149]

deprive of his priesthood? [*a] They call "augurs" the men who are in charge of the omens.

Is it, as some say, because they wish no one who is not a priest to know the secrets of the holy rites?

Or, because the augur is bound by oaths to reveal the sacred matters to no one, are they unwilling to release him from his oath as would be the case if he had been reduced to private status?

Or is "augur" a name denoting, not a rank or office, but knowledge and skill? Then to prevent a soothsayer from being a soothsayer would be like voting that a musician shall not be a musician, nor a physician a physician; for they cannot deprive him of his ability, even if they take away his title. They naturally appoint no successor since they keep the original number of augurs.

Footnotes

^137:a [p. 136] Cf. Pliny, Natural History, x. 29 (79).

^137:b Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 40. 2; Livy, i. 7. 12.

^137:c [p. 137] Cf. Apollodorus, ii. 7. 3 with Frazer's note (L.C.L. vol. i. p. 251).

^137:d Cf. Life of Camillus, chap. xxxvi. (148 D); Livy, vi. 20. 13-14.

^137:e Cf. Life of Publicola, chap. x. (102 C-D).

^139:a [p. 138] Cf. Life of Coriolanus, chap. iii. (214 E-F); Pliny, Natural History, xvi. 4 (11-14); Polybius, vi. 39. 6; Aulus Gellius, v. 6.

^139:b Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 31: cf. Life of [p. 139] Romulus, ix. (23 A-B); Pliny, Natural History, x. 6 (19); Aelian, De Natura Animalium, ii. 46.

^141:a [p. 140] Suppliants, 226.

^141:b Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xxix. 1 (16); 4 (72); Livy, x. 47, Epitome, xi.

^141:c The Insula Tiberina.

^143:a [p. 142] Cf. Pliny, Natural History, xviii. 12 (118-119); Aulus Gellius, x. 1.5. 12.

^143:b Cf., for example, Juvenal, xv. 9 "porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu"; Horace, Satires, ii. 6. 63; Epistles, i. 12. 21.

^143:c The numerous reasons suggested may be found in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie, vol. iii. coll. 619-620.

^143:d Plutarch elsewhere uses a similar expression (parthenos [p. 143] iereia) for the vestal virgins, e.g. in his Life of Publicola, chap. viii. (101 B) or Moralia, 89 E.

^143:e Cf. Life of Numa, chap. x. (67 A-C); Ovid, Fasti, vi. 457-460; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, ii. 67. 4, viii. 89. 5; Pliny, Epistles, iv. 11. 6.

^145:a Presumably an error of Plutarch's: he means the tenth month, October: cf. Festus, s.v. October equus, p. 178. 5.

^145:b Such as the historian Timaeus: cf. Polybius xii. 4b.

^145:c A verse made in imitation of Homer, Il. xviii. 337 (or xxiii. 23), blended with a part of x. 424.

^147:a [p. 146] Cf. Pliny, Natural History, x. 22 (51).

^147:b The statue of Jupiter Capitolinus: Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 7 (112).

^147:c [p. 147] Cf. 325 C-D, infra; Life of Camillus, xxvii. (142 D ff.); Livy, v. 47; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, xiii. 7-8: Diodorus, xiv. 116.

^147:d The high polish of the Roman statues is very noticeable in contrast with the duller surface of Greek statues. This is one of the factors in the controversy over the genuineness of the Hermes of Praxiteles at Olympia.

^149:a Cf. Pliny, Letters, iv. 8. 1.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

100-109.

100. WHY is it that on the Ides of August, formerly called Sextilis, all the slaves, female and male, keep holiday, and the Roman women make a particular practice of washing and cleansing their heads?

Do the servants have release from work because on this day King Servius was born from a captive maidservant? [*b] And did the washing of their heads begin with the slave-women, because of their holiday, and extend itself to free-born women?

 

101. WHY do they adorn their children's necks with amulets which they call bullae? [*c]

Was it, like many another thing, in honour of their

[p. 150] [p. 151]

wives, who had been made theirs by force, that they voted this also as a traditional ornament for the children born from them?

Or is it to honour the manly courage of Tarquin? For the tale is told that, while he was still but a boy, in the battle against the combined Latin and Etruscan forces he charged straight into the enemy; and although he was thrown from his horse, he boldly withstood those that hurled themselves upon him, and thus gave renewed strength to the Romans. A brilliant rout of the enemy followed, sixteen thousand were killed, and he received this amulet as a prize of valour from his father the king.

Or did the Romans of early times account it not disreputable nor disgraceful to love male slaves in the flower of youth, as even now their comedies [*a] testify, but they strictly refrained from boys of free birth; and that they might not be in any uncertainty, even when they encountered them unclad, did the boys wear this badge?

Or is this a safeguard to insure orderly conduct, a sort of bridle on incontinence, that they may be ashamed to pose as men before they have put off the badge of childhood?

What Varro and his school say is not credible: that since boule (counsel) is called bolla by the Aeolians, the boys put on this ornament as a symbol of good counsel.

But consider whether they may not wear it because of the moon. For the visible shape of the moon at the first quarter is not like a sphere, but like a lentil-seed

[p. 152] [p. 153]

or a quoit; and, as Empedocles [*a] thinks, so also is the matter of which the moon is composed. 

 

102. WHY do they name boys when they are nine days old, but girls when they are eight days old?

Does the precedence of the girls have Nature as its cause? It is a fact that the female grows up, and attains maturity and perfection before the male. As for the days, they take those that follow the seventh; for the seventh is dangerous for newly-born children in various ways and in the matter of the umbilical cord; for in most cases this comes away on the seventh day; but until it comes off, the child is more like a plant than an animal. [*b]

Or did they, like the adherents of Pythagoras, regard the even number as female and the odd number as male? [*c] For the odd number is generative, and, when it is added to the even number, it prevails over it. And also, when they are divided into units, the even number, like the female, yields a vacant space between, while of the odd number an integral part always remains. Wherefore they think that the odd is suitable for the male, and the even for the female.

Or is it that of all numbers nine [*d] is the first square from the odd and perfect triad, while eight is the first cube from the even dyad? Now a man should be four-square, [*e] eminent, and perfect; but a woman, like a cube, should be stable, domestic, and difficult to remove from her place. And this should be added,

[p. 154] [p. 155]

that eight is the cube of two and nine the square of three; women have two names, men have three.

 

103. WHY do they call children of unknown fathers spurii? [*a]

Now the reason is not, as the Greeks believe and lawyers in court are wont to assert, that these children are begotten of some promiscuous and common seed; but Spurius is a first name like Sextus and Decimus and Gaius. They do not write first names in full, but by one letter, as Titus (T.) and Lucius (L.) and Marcus (M.); or by two, as Tiberius (Ti.) and Gnaeus (Cn.); or by three, as Sextus (Sex.) and Servius (Ser.). Spurius, then, is one of those written by two letters: Sp. And by these two letters they also denote children of unknown fathers, sine patre, [*b] that is "without a father"; by the s they indicate sine and by the p patre. This, then, caused the error, the writing of the same abbreviation for sine patre and for Spurius.

I must state the other explanation also, but it is somewhat absurd: They assert that the Sabines use the word spurius for the pudenda muliebria, and it later came about that they called the child born of an unmarried, unespoused woman by this name, as if in mockery.

 

104. WHY do they call Bacchus Liber Pater ("Free Father")? [*c]

[p. 156] [p. 157]

Is it because he is the father of freedom to drinkers? For most people become bold and are abounding in frank speech when they are in their cups. [*a] Or is it because he has provided the means for libations? Or is it derived, as Alexander [*b] asserts, from Dionysus Eleuthereus, [*c] so named from Eleutherae in Boeotia?

 

105. FOR what reason is it not the custom for maidens to marry on public holidays, but widows do marry at this time? [*d]

Is it, as Varro has remarked, that maidens are grieved over marrying, but older women are glad, and on a holiday one should do nothing in grief or by constraint?

Or is it rather because it is seemly that not a few should be present when maidens marry, but disgraceful that many should be present when widows marry? Now the first marriage is enviable; but the second is to be deprecated, for women are ashamed if they take a second husband while the first husband is still living, and they feel sad if they do so when he is dead. Wherefore they rejoice in a quiet wedding rather than in noise and processions. Holidays distract most people, so that they have no leisure for such matters.

Or, because they seized the maiden daughters of the Sabines at a holiday festival, and thereby became involved in war, did they come to regard it as ill-omened to marry maidens on holy days?

[p. 158] [p. 159]

106. WHY do the Romans reverence Fortuna Primigenia, [*a] or "First-born," as one might translate it?

Is it because by Fortune, as they say, it befell Servius, born of a maidservant, to become a famous king of Rome? This is the assumption which the majority of Romans make.

Or is it rather because Fortune supplied the origin and birth of Rome? [*b]

Or does the matter have an explanation more natural and philosophic, which assumes that Fortune is the origin of everything, and Nature acquires its solid frame by the operation of Fortune, whenever order is created in any store of matter gathered together at haphazard.

 

107. WHY do the Romans call the Dionysiac artists [*c] histriones? [*d]

Is it for the reason that Cluvius Rufus [*e] has recorded? For he states that in very ancient times, in the consulship of Gaius Sulpicius and Licinius Stolo, [*f] a pestilential disease arose in Rome and destroyed to a man all persons appearing on the stage. Accordingly, at the request of the Romans, there came many excellent artists from Etruria, of whom the first in repute and the one who for the longest time enjoyed success in their theatres, was named Hister; and therefore all actors are named histriones from him.

[p. 160] [p. 161]

108. WHY do they not marry women who are closely akin to them?

Do they wish to enlarge their relationships by marriage and to acquire many additional kinsmen by bestowing wives upon others and receiving wives from others?

Or do they fear the disagreements which arise in marriages of near kin, on the ground that these tend to destroy natural rights?

Or, since they observed that women by reason of their weakness need many protectors, were they not willing to take as partners in their household women closely akin to them, so that if their husbands wronged them, their kinsmen might bring them succour?

 

109. WHY was it not permitted for the priest of Jupiter, whom they call the Flamen Dialis, to touch either flour or yeast? [*a]

Is it because flour is an incomplete and crude food? For neither has it remained what it was, wheat, nor has it become what it must become, bread; but it has both lost the germinative power of the seed and at the same time it has not attained to the usefulness of food. Wherefore also the Poet by a metaphor applied to barley-meal the epithet mylephatos, [*b] as if it were being killed or destroyed in the grinding.

Yeast is itself also the product of corruption, and produces corruption in the dough with which it is mixed; for the dough becomes flabby and inert, and altogether the process of leavening seems to be one of putrefaction [*c]; at any rate if it goes too far, it completely sours and spoils the flour.

Footnotes

^149:b Cf. 323 B-C, infra.

^149:c Cf. Life of Romulus, xx. (30 C); Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 1 (10); Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 6. 7-17.

^151:a The so-called togatae, of which no complete specimen has survived; the palliatae of Plautus and Terence, being based on the Greek New Comedy, would prove nothing.

^153:a Cf. Moralia, 891 C; Diogenes Laertius, viii. 77; Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 210, A 60.

^153:b Cf. Aulus Genius, xvi. 16. 2-3.

^153:c Cf. 264 A, supra.

^153:d Cf. Moralia, 744 A-B.

^153:e Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec., Simonides, Frag. 5 (or Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, in L.C.L. ii. p. 284).

^155:a Cf. Gaius, Institutiones, i. 64; Valerius Maximus, De Praenominibus, 6 (p. 590 of Kempf's ed.).

^155:b The MSS. have sine patris; did Plutarch, or some Greek copyist, confuse the Latin genitive and ablative, since they are one in Greek?

^155:c Cf. Petronius, Satyricon, 41, and Housman's commentary in Classical Review, xxxii. p. 164.

^157:a Cf. Moralia, 716 B.

^157:b Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 244; Alexander Polyhistor.

^157:c Cf. the inscription on the chair of the priest of Dionysus in the theatre at Athens, Iereus Dionusoy Eleythereus.

^157:d Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 15. 21.

^159:a Cf. 281 E, supra, 322 F, infra; Cicero, De Legibus, ii. 11; Livy, xxxiv. 53.

^159:b Cf. 320 B ff., infra.

^159:c Cf. Moralia, 87 F.

^159:d Cf. Livy, vii. 2; closely followed by Valerius Maximus, ii. 4. 4.

^159:e Peter, Frag. Hist. Rom. p. 314, Cluvius, Frag. 4.

^159:f In 361 B.C.

^161:a Cf. Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 19.

^161:b Homer, Od. ii. 355: "mill-slaughtered."

^161:c Cf. Moralia, 659 B.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 162] [p. 163]

110-113.

110. WHY is this priest also forbidden to touch raw flesh?

Is this custom intended to deter people completely from eating raw meat, or do they scrupulously repudiate flesh for the same reason as flour? For neither is it a living creature nor has it yet become a cooked food. Now boiling or roasting, being a sort of alteration and mutation, eliminates the previous form; but fresh raw meat does not have a clean and unsullied appearance, but one that is repulsive, like a fresh wound.

 

111. WHY did they bid the priest avoid the dog and the goat, neither touching them nor naming them?

Did they loathe the goat's lasciviousness and foul odour, or did they fear its susceptibility to disease? For it is thought to be subject to epilepsy beyond all other animals, and to infect persons who eat it [*a] or touch it when it is possessed of the disease. The reason, they say, is the narrowness of the air passages, which are often suddenly contracted; this they deduce from the thinness of its voice. So also in the case of men, if they chance to speak during an epileptic fit, the sound they make is very like a bleat.

The dog has, perhaps, less of lasciviousness and foul odour. Some, however, assert that a dog may not enter either the Athenian acropolis [*b] or the island of Delos [*c] because of its open mating, as if cattle and swine and horses mated within the walls of a chamber

[p. 164] [p. 165]

and not openly and without restraint! For these persons are ignorant of the true reason: because the dog is a belligerent creature they exclude it from inviolable and holy shrines, thereby offering a safe place of refuge for suppliants. Accordingly it is likely that the priest of Jupiter also, since he is, as it were, the animate embodiment and sacred image of the god, should be left free as a refuge for petitioners and suppliants, with no one to hinder them or to frighten them away. For this reason his couch was placed in the vestibule of his house, and anyone who fell at his knees had immunity from beating or chastisement all that day; and if any prisoner succeeded in reaching the priest, he was set free, and his chains they threw outside, not by the doors, but over the roof. So it would have been of no avail for him to render himself so gentle and humane, if a dog had stood before him frightening and keeping away those who had need of a place of refuge.

Nor, in fact, did the men of old think that this animal was wholly pure, for it was never sacrificed to any of the Olympian gods; and when it is sent to the cross-roads as a supper for the earth-goddess Hecate, [*a] it has its due portion among sacrifices that avert and expiate evil. In Sparta they immolate puppies to the bloodiest of the gods, Enyalius; and in Boeotia the ceremony of public purification is to pass between the parts of a dog which has been cut in twain. The Romans themselves, in the month of purification, [*b] at the Wolf Festival, which they call the Lupercalia, sacrifice a dog. Hence it is not out of keeping that those who have attained to the office of serving the

[p. 166] [p. 167]

highest and purest god should be forbidden to make a dog their familiar companion and housemate.

 

112. FOR what reason was it forbidden the priest of Jupiter to touch ivy or to pass along a road overhung by a vine growing on a tree? [*a]

Is this second question like the precepts: "Do not eat seated on a stool," "Do not sit on a peck measure," "Do not step over a broom"? For the followers of Pythagoras [*b] did not really fear these things nor guard against them, but forbade other things through these. Likewise the walking under a vine had reference to wine, signifying that it is not right for the priest to get drunk; for wine is over the heads of drunken men, and they are oppressed and humbled thereby, when they should be above it and always master this pleasure, not be mastered by it.

Did they regard the ivy as an unfruitful plant, useless to man, and feeble, and because of its weakness needing other plants to support it, but by its shade and the sight of its green fascinating to most people? And did they therefore think that it should not be uselessly grown in their homes nor be allowed to twine about in a futile way, contributing nothing, since it is injurious to the plants forming its support? Or is it because it cleaves to the ground? [*c] Wherefore it is excluded from the ritual of the Olympian gods, nor can any ivy be seen in the temple of Hera at Athens, or in the temple of Aphrodite at Thebes; but it has its place in the Agrionia [*d] and the Nyctelia, [*e] the rites of which are for the most part performed at night.

[p. 168] [p. 169]

Or was this also a symbolic prohibition of Bacchic revels and orgies? For women possessed by Bacchic frenzies rush straightway for ivy and tear it to pieces, clutching it in their hands and biting it with their teeth; so that not altogether without plausibility are they who assert that ivy, possessing as it does an exciting and distracting breath of madness, deranges persons and agitates them, and in general brings on a wineless drunkenness and joyousness in those that are precariously disposed towards spiritual exaltation. [*a]

 

113. WHY were these priests not allowed to hold office nor to solicit it, yet they have the service of a lictor and the right to a curule chair as an honour and a consolation for holding no office? [*b]

Is this similar to the conditions in some parts of Greece where the priesthood had a dignity commensurate with that of the kingship, and they appointed as priests no ordinary men?

Or was it rather that since priests have definite duties, whereas officials have duties which are irregular and undefined, if the occasions for these duties happened to coincide, it was impossible for the same man to be present at both, but oftentimes, when both duties were pressing, he had to neglect one of them and at one time commit impiety against the gods, and at another do hurt to his fellow-citizens?

Or did they observe that there is implicit in the government of men no less constraint than authority, and that the ruler of the people, as Hippocrates [*c] said

[p. 170] [p. 171]

of the physician, must see dreadful things and touch dreadful things and reap painful emotions of his own from the ills of other men? Did they, then, think it impious for a man to offer sacrifice to the gods, and to take the lead in the sacred rites, if he was concerned in pronouncing judgements and sentences of death upon citizens, and often upon kinsmen and members of his household, such as fell to the lot of Brutus? [*a]

Footnotes

^163:a Contrast Pliny, Natural History, xxviii. 16 (226), who says that goat's meat was given for epilepsy.

^163:b Cf. Comparison of Demetrius and Antony, chap. iv. (9597 B); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Dinarcho, 3.

^163:c Cf. Strabo, x. 5. 5, p. 684 (Meineke).

^165:a Cf. 277 B, 280 C, supra; Life of Romulus, xxi. (31 E).

^165:b February; cf. 280 B, supra.

^167:a [p. 166] Cf. Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 12.

^167:b [p. 167] Cf. 281 A, supra; Moralia, 727 C.

^167:c It clings to the earth, unless it finds support, and is therefore unacceptable to the higher gods.

^167:d Cf. 299 F, infra.

^167:e Cf. Moralia, 364 F.

^169:a Plutarch's fullest treatment of the properties of ivy will be found in Moralia, 648 B-649 F.

^169:b Cf. Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 4.

^169:c In the De Flatibus: vol. vi. p. 213 (ed. Chartier); vol. i. p. 569 (Kuhn); cf. Lucian, Bis Accusatus, 1.

^171:a The first consul, who condemned his own sons to death; cf. Livy, ii. 5; Life of Publicola, chap. vi. (99 E-F).

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 172] [p. 173]

  

THE GREEK QUESTIONS

  

(QUAESTIONES GRAECAE)

[p. 174]

  

INTRODUCTION

IN the Greek Questions, as in the Roman Questions, Plutarch endeavours to give the reason or explanation of fifty-nine matters concerned with Greek life. The vast majority of them are customs or names and, as the explanations are usually historical, they often go back to very early times. A full commentary may be found in W. R. Halliday, The Greek Questions of Plutarch (Oxford, 1928), an excellent work, embodying also much of the modern speculation in regard to primitive religion.

The sources for the information contained in this essay seem to be somewhat varied, but there is little doubt that Aristotle's account of the numerous Greek Constitutions was Plutarch's principal source. The matter is treated at length by Halliday.

J. J. Hartman (Mnemosyne, xli. p. 216, or De Plutarcho scriptore et philosopho, p. 139) is the only modern scholar who has doubted the authenticity of the attribution to Plutarch of this work [*a]; the author was not primarily interested in ethical matters, according to Hartman, and hence cannot be Plutarch. J. B. Titchener [*b] has promised a discussion of this

[p. 175]

matter, but stylistic considerations alone seem to make it uncertain whether the work is correctly attributed to Plutarch.

A few of the topics treated in the Greek Questions appear also in other works of Plutarch, but the number naturally is not large.

The MS. tradition is good; the few difficulties found are generally with single words.

The work is No. 166 in Lamprias's list of Plutarch's works, where the title is given as Aitiai Ellenun.

Footnotes

^174:a "Sed praeterea totus liber mera est doctrinae ostentatio, ... Chaeronensi mentium medico prorsus indigna."

^174:b See The MS. Tradition of Plutarch's Aetia Graeca and Aetia Romana (Urbana, Illinois, 1924), p. 9.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 176] [p. 177]

  

THE GREEK QUESTIONS

1-9.

1. WHO were the "dusty-feet" and the "directors" in Epidaurus?

There were one hundred and eighty men who directed the State. From these they used to elect councillors whom they called "directors." But the majority of the populace spent their life in the country. They were called "dusty-feet" [*a] since, as one may conjecture, they were recognized by their dust-covered feet whenever they came down to the city.

 

2. WHO was the "woman that rode on a donkey" at Cumae?

Any woman taken in adultery they used to bring into the market-place and set her on a certain stone in plain sight of everyone. In like manner they then proceeded to mount her upon a donkey, and when she had been led about the circuit of the entire city, she was required again to take her stand upon the same stone, and for the rest of her life to continue in disgrace, bearing the name "donkey-rider." After this ceremony they believed that the stone was unclean and they used ritually to purify it.

The citizens of Cumae had also a certain office called the Guards. The man who held this office used to watch the prison most of the time, but he

[p. 178] [p. 179]

came to the nocturnal assemblies of the council and led out the kings by the hand and kept them out, until by secret ballot the council had decided on their case, whether they had done wrong or no.

 

3. WHO is She that Kindles the Fire (hypekkaustria) [*a] among the people of Soli?

This is the name which they give to the priestess of Athena because she performs certain sacrifices and ceremonies to avert evil.

 

4. WHO were the Forgetful Ones (Amnemones) at Cnidus, and who was the Dismisser [*b] (Aphester)?

They were wont to employ sixty men chosen from the nobles, and appointed for life, as overseers and preliminary advisers in matters of the greatest importance. They were called the Forgetful Ones, one might conjecture, because they could not be held to account for their actions; unless, indeed, it was because they were men who remembered many things. [*c] He who asked them their opinions was the Dismisser.

 

5. WHO are the "good" among the Arcadians and the Spartans?

When the Spartans had come to terms with the Tegeans, they made a treaty and set up in common a pillar by the Alpheius. On this, among other matters, was inscribed: "The Messenians must be expelled from the country; it shall not be lawful to make men good." [*d] Aristotle, [*e] then, in explaining this, states that it means that no one shall be put 

[p. 180] [p. 181]

to death because of assistance given to the Spartan party in Tegea.

 

6. WHO is "he that selects barley" (krilhologos) among the Opuntians?

For sacrifices of very ancient origin most of the Greeks used to employ barley, which the citizens offered as first-fruits of the harvest. Accordingly they called the officer who presided at the sacrifices and brought these first-fruits the Barley-selector. They had two priests: one appointed for sacrifices to the gods, the other for sacrifices to the spirits.

 

7. WHAT were the "floating clouds "?

They used to call clouds "floating" which particularly threatened rain and were in constant motion, as Theophrastus has stated in the fourth book of his Meteorology. The passage reads thus: "Since also these floating clouds and these compact clouds, which are immovable and very white in colour, exhibit a certain difference of substance which is filled neither with water nor with wind."

 

8. WHO is the "near-dweller" (platioiketas) among the Boeotians?

This is the name they give in the Aeolian dialect to persons who dwell in the next house or occupy adjoining property. signifying that they hold land near at hand. I shall add one phrase from the Edict of the Guardians of the Law, although there are several more ... [*a]

 

9. WHO is the Consecrator (hosioter) among the Delphians and why do they call one of the months "Bysios"?

[p. 182] [p. 183]

They call the victim that is sacrificed Consecrator whenever an Holy One [*a] is appointed. There are five Holy Ones, who hold office for life; they do a great many things with the co-operation of the oracle-interpreters and with them take part in the holy rites, since they are thought to have descended from Deucalion.

The month "Bysios," as many think, is the month of growth (physios); for it begins the spring and during it many plants spring up and come into bloom. But this is not the truth of the matter, for Delphians do not use b in place of ph (as Macedonians do who say "Bilip" and "balacros" and "Beronice"), but in place of p; thus they naturally say "broceed" for "proceed" and "bainful" for "painful." Accordingly "Bysios" is "pysios," the month of oracular inquiry, in which men ask questions and obtain responses from the god; for this is the legitimate and traditional procedure. In this month, then, oracles used to be given and the seventh day of this month they consider the birthday of the god. [*b] They call this day the day of Many Utterances (Polyphthoos) not because they then bake cakes (phthois), [*c] but because it is a day when many inquire of the god and receive many oracles. For only recently have monthly oracles been given out to inquirers; formerly the prophetic priestess was wont to give responses but once a year on this day, as Callisthenes [*d] and Anaxandrides have recorded.

Footnotes

^177:a [p. 176] This was the serf-class liberated by the tyrants: cf. Cambridge Ancient History, vol. iii. p. 554.

^179:a [p. 178] W. R. Halliday, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xxxvi. 165-177, suggests that "cohen" (= priest) may be contained in this word.

^179:b Grote thus connected aphester with the Spartan apostater [p. 179] of Life of Lycurgus, chap. vi. (43 c); but the matter is very doubtful; cf. van Herwerden, Lex. Supp. Graec.

^179:c On the locus a non lucendo principle, as Halliday well suggests; or else am-mnemones, as van Herwerden supposes.

^179:d Cf. xreste xaire on Greek tombstones.

^179:e Frag. 592 (V. Rose); cf. 277 B-C, supra.

^181:a [p. 182] The copyist seems to have omitted the quotation.

^183:a [p. 182] Cf. Moralia, 365 A, 437 A.

^183:b Ibid. 717 D; for the connexion of the number seven with the birth of Apollo see Callimachus, Hymn iv. 2.51 ff.

^183:c [p. 183] Cf. Athenaeus, 647 D, 502 B.

^183:d Cf. Jacoby, Frag. der griech. Hist. 124 F 49.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

10-19.

10. WHAT is the "sheep-escaper"?

It is one of the small plants that grow close to the

[p. 184] [p. 185]

ground, whose shoots the grazing animals attack, cutting off the tops and injuring them and so spoiling the growth. But when these plants grow up and gain some size and escape injury from the flocks which graze upon them, then they are called "sheep-escapers." The evidence for this is Aeschylus. [*a]

 

11. WHO are the "Men repulsed by slings"?

Men from Eretria used to inhabit the island of Corcyra. But Charicrates sailed thither from Corinth with an army and defeated them in war; so the Eretrians embarked in their ships and sailed back home. Their fellow-citizens, however, having learned of the matter before their arrival, barred their return to the country and prevented them from disembarking by showering upon them missiles from slings. Since the exiles were unable either to persuade or to overcome their fellow-citizens, who were numerous and inexorable, they sailed to Thrace and occupied a territory in which, according to tradition, Methon, the ancestor of Orpheus, had formerly lived. So the Eretrians named their city Methone, but they were also named by their neighbours the "Men repulsed by slings."

 

12. WHO was "Charilla" among the Delphians?

The Delphians celebrate three festivals one after the other which occur every eight [*b] years, the first of which they call Septerion, the second Herois, and the third Charilla.

Now the Septerion seems to be a representation of Apollo's fight with the Python and the flight to Tempe and pursuit that followed the battle. [*b] Some indeed

[p. 186] [p. 187]

affirm that Apollo fled because he desired purification as a consequence of the slaughter he had done, others that he was following the wounded Python as he fled along the road which we now call the Sacred Way, and was only a little late for the monster's death; for he overtook him when he had just died from the effects of the wound and had been buried by his son, whose name, as they say, was Aix. The Septerion, then, is a representation of these matters or certain matters of a similar nature. [*a]

The greater part of the Herois has a secret import which the Thyiads [*b] know; but from the portions of the rites that are performed in public one might conjecture that it represents the evocation of Semele.

The story of Charilla which they relate is somewhat as follows: A famine following a drought oppressed the Delphians, and they came to the palace of their king with their wives and children and made supplication. The king gave portions of barley and legumes to the more notable citizens, for there was not enough for all. But when an orphaned girl, who was still but a small child, approached him and importuned him, he struck her with his sandal and cast the sandal in her face. But, although the girl was poverty-stricken and without protectors, she was not ignoble in character; and when she had withdrawn, she took off her girdle and hanged herself. As the famine increased and diseases also were added thereto, the prophetic priestess gave an oracle to the king that he must appease Charilla, the maiden who had slain herself. Accordingly, when they had discovered with some difficulty that this was the name of the child who had been struck, they performed a certain sacrificial rite combined with purification,

[p. 188] [p. 189]

which even now they continue to perform every eight years. For the king sits in state and gives a portion of barley-meal and legumes to everyone, alien and citizen alike, and a doll-like image of Charilla is brought thither. When, accordingly, all have received a portion, the king strikes the image with his sandal. The leader of the Thyiads picks up the image and bears it to a certain place which is full of chasms; there they tie a rope round the neck of the image and bury it in the place where they buried Charilla after she had hanged herself.

 

13. WHAT is the "beggar's meat" among the Aenianians?

There have been several migrations of the Aenianians. For first, when they inhabited the region about the Dotian plain, they were expelled by the Lapiths to Aethicia. [*a] From there they proceeded to take possession of the region of Molossia about the river Auas, from which they received the name Parauaei. After this they took possession of Cirrha. There, when they had stoned to death Oenoclus, [*a] their king, at the command of the god, they descended to the country about the Inachus, which was inhabited by Inachians and Achaeans. Since an oracle had declared that if the Inachians gave away any part of their country, they should lose it all, and that if the Aenianians received any part of the land from willing givers, they should gain possession of it, Temon, a notable man among the Aenianians, donned rags and wallet and came to the Inachians in the guise of a beggar. In scorn and mockery their king gave him a clod of earth, which Temon accepted,

[p. 190] [p. 191]

placed within his wallet, and was evidently satisfied with the gift; for he straightway withdrew without asking for anything more. The Inachian elders were astonished, but, recalling the oracle, they went to the king and told him not to make light of the fellow nor to let him get away. Temon, then, perceiving their intent, hastened his flight and made his escape after vowing a hecatomb to Apollo.

After this affair the two kings engaged in single combat, and Phemius, king of the Aenianians, observing the Inachian king, Hyperochus, advancing to meet him accompanied by a dog, said that Hyperochus was acting unfairly in bringing on a second combatant. But while Hyperochus was driving off the dog and had his back turned, Phemius hit him with a stone and killed him. The Aenianians gained possession of the country, driving out the Inachians together with the Achaeans, and they revere that stone as sacred, and sacrifice to it and cover it round about with the fat of the sacrificial victim; and whenever they pay the hecatomb to Apollo, they sacrifice a bull to Zeus; and they set aside a select portion of the flesh for the descendants of Temon, and this they call the "beggar's meat."

 

14. WHO are the "Coliadae" among the inhabitants of Ithaca and what is the phagilos?

After the slaughter of the suitors the relatives of the dead men rose up against Odysseus; but Neoptolemus was sent for by both parties to act as arbiter. [*a] He adjudged that Odysseus should depart from the country and be exiled for homicide from Cephallenia, Zacynthus, and Ithaca; and that the

[p. 192] [p. 193]

companions and the relatives of the suitors should recompense Odysseus each year for the injuries which they had done to his estate. Odysseus accordingly departed to Italy; but the recompense he formally transferred to his son, and ordered the inhabitants of Ithaca to pay it to him. The recompense consisted of barley, wine, honeycombs, olive-oil, salt, and beasts for sacrifice that were older than phagiloi; according to Aristotle's [*a] statement, a lamb is a phagilos. Now Telemachus bestowed freedom upon Eumaeus and his associates, and incorporated them among the citizens; and the clan of the Coliadae is descended from Eumaeus, and that of the Bucolidae from Philoetius. [*b]

 

15. WHAT is "the wooden dog" among the Locrians?

Locrus was the son of Physcius, the son of Amphictyon. The son of Locrus and Cabye was Opus. His father quarrelled with Opus and taking many of the citizens with him he went to seek an oracle concerning a colony. The god told him to found a city where he should chance to be bitten by a wooden dog, and, as he was crossing to the other sea, he trod upon a dog-brier. [*c] Greatly troubled by the wound, he spent several days there, during which he explored the country and founded the cities Physcus and Oeantheia and the other cities which the so-called Ozolian Locrians inhabited.

Some say that the Locrians are called Ozolian because of Nessus; others say that it is because of the serpent Python, since their bodies were washed up

[p. 194] [p. 195]

by the sea and rotted away in the country of the Locrians. But some say that these men wear fleeces and goatskins and for the most part spend their time with herds of goats, and thus became evil-smelling. [*a] But some, on the contrary, assert that, since the country has many flowers, it acquired its name from sweet odour. Among these is also Archytas [*b] of Amphissa, for he has written thus:

Lovely Macyna, wreathed with clusters of grapes and fragrant with perfume.

 

16. WHAT is it that the Megarians call aphabroma?

When Nisus, from whom Nisaea acquired its name, was king, he took a wife from Boeotia, Habrote, daughter of Onchestus, the sister of Megareus, a woman who, as it appears, was both exceptionally intelligent and remarkably discreet. When she died, the Megarians mourned her with one accord, and Nisus, wishing that her memory and her repute should be established everlastingly, ordered the women of the city to wear the garment that she used to wear; and because of her he called the garment aphabroma. Even the god seems to have furthered the repute of this woman, for often, when the Megarian women wished to make a change in their raiment, he prevented them by an oracle.

 

17. WHAT is the "spear-friend"?

In days of old the Megarid used to be settled in village communities with the citizens divided into five groups. They were called Heraeis, Piraeis,

[p. 196] [p. 197]

[paragraph continues] Megareis, Cynosureis, and Tripodiscioi. Although the Corinthians brought about a civil war among them, for the Corinthians were ever plotting to get Megara under their control, none the less, because of their fair-mindedness, they conducted their wars in a civilized and a kinsmanly way. For no one did any harm at all to the men working in the fields, and when anyone was captured, he but needed to pay a certain specified ransom; this his captors received after they had set him free, and did not collect it earlier; but he who took a prisoner conducted the man to his house and, after sharing with him salt and food, sent him home. He, accordingly, who brought his ransom, was highly regarded and continued thenceforward to be a friend of his captor; and, as a consequence of his capture by the spear, he was now called "spear-friend." But anyone who failed to pay the ransom was held in disrepute as dishonest and faithless, not only among his enemies, but also among his fellow-citizens.

 

18. WHAT is "return-interest"? [*a]

When the Megarians had expelled Theagenes, [*b] their despot, for a short time they were sober and sensible in their government. But later when the popular leaders poured a full and heady draught of freedom for them, as Plato [*c] says, they were completely corrupted and, among their shocking acts of misconduct toward the wealthy, the poor would enter their homes and insist upon being entertained and banqueted sumptuously. But if they did not receive what they demanded, they would treat all the household with violence and insult. Finally they enacted a decree whereby they received back again the

[p. 198] [p. 199]

interest which they chanced to have paid to their creditors, calling the measure "return-interest."

 

19. WHICH is the Anthedon to which the utterance of the prophetic priestess refers:

Drink wine turbid with lees, since thou dwellest not in Anthedon,

for Anthedon in Boeotia is not rich in wine?

In days of old they used to call Calaureia by the name of Eirene, from the woman Eirene who, as legend has it, was born of Poseidon and Melantheia, the daughter of the Alpheius. But later, when the companions of Anthus and Hypera settled there, they called the island Anthedonia and Hypereia. According to Aristotle [*a] the oracle ran as follows:

Drink wine turbid with lees, since thou dwellest not in Anthedon,
 No, nor in Hypera holy; for wine without lees thou didst drink there.

[paragraph continues] This, then, is Aristotle's version. But Mnasigeiton says that Anthus, the brother of Hypera, disappeared from home while he was still a child, and that Hypera, while she was wandering about in search of him, came to Pherae to the house of Acastus, where it chanced that Anthus was the slave appointed to be cupbearer. While they were feasting the boy recognized his sister, as he was bearing her cup to her, and said to her softly

Drink wine turbid with lees, since thou dwellest not in Anthedon.

Footnotes

^185:a Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 123, Aeschylus, Frag. 447.

^185:b Cf. Moralia, 421 C.

^187:a [p. 186] Cf. Moralia, 418 A-B; Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 1, for this festival.

^187:b Cf. Moralia, 219 E-F.

^189:a Cf. 297 B-C, infra.

^191:a Cf. Apollodorus, Epitome, vii. 40.

^193:a Frag. 507 (ed. V. Rose).

^193:b Eumaeus was the swineherd and Philoetius the cowherd of Odysseus.

^193:c Cf. Athenaeus, 70 C-D.

^195:a Cf. Pausanias, x. 38.

^195:b "Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina, p. 23.

^197:a [p. 196] Cf. 304 E, infra.

^197:b Cf. Thucydides, i. 126.

^197:c Cf. Plato, Republic, 562 D.

^199:a Frag. 597 (ed. V. Rose); cf. Frag. 596 and Athenaeus, 31 B-C.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 200] [p. 201]

20-29.

20. WHAT is it that is called in Priene "the darkness by the Oak"?

When the Samians and the Prienians were at war with each other, on the other occasions they suffered injuries and inflicted injuries to a moderate degree only; but when a great battle took place, the people of Priene slew one thousand Samians. Six years later they engaged the Milesians at a place called the Oak, and lost practically all the best and the foremost of their citizens. At this time also the sage Bias was sent on an embassy from Priene to Samos and won high repute. For the women of Priene this was a cruel experience and a pitiable calamity, and it became established as a curse and an oath in the most important matters to swear by "the darkness by the Oak," because of the fact that there their sons, their fathers, and their husbands had been slaughtered. [*a]

 

21. WHO are they that are called "burners" among the Cretans?

They relate that the Tyrrhenians who, at the time when they inhabited Lemnos and Imbros, carried off the daughters and wives of the Athenians from Brauron, later, when they had been expelled from there, came to Sparta and consorted with the women of the country even to the begetting of children. But again, as the result of suspicions and false accusations, they were forced to leave the Spartan country. With their children and wives they effected a landing in Crete with Pollis and Delphus as their leaders. [*b] There, while they were fighting

[p. 202] [p. 203]

the possessors of the island, they suffered many of the men who had been slain in the battles to lie unburied, because at first they had no leisure to bury them because of the war and the danger, and later because they shrank from touching corpses that had been decomposed and putrefied by the lapse of time. Accordingly Pollis devised certain honours, privileges, and immunities, and some of these he bestowed on the priests of the gods, others upon them that buried the dead. These honours he put in the keeping of the spirits of the underworld in order that they might continue for ever irrevocable. The one class received the name of priests, and the other that of "burners."

Then Pollis made a division by lot with Delphus, and they governed separate and independent states; and, along with other humane provisions which they enjoyed, they had freedom from the injuries which the other Cretans are wont to inflict upon one another through stealthy plundering and pillaging. For to the Tyrrhenian communities they do no injury, nor do they steal anything from them or dispossess them of anything.

 

22. WHAT is the "Children's Tomb" among the Chalcidians?

Cothus and Aeclus, the sons of Xuthus, came to Euboea to dwell at a time when the Aeolians possessed the greater part of the island. It had been prophesied to Cothus that he should have great success and get the better of his enemies if he bought the land. When he had landed on the island with a few men, he encountered little children playing by the sea. So he joined in their play, and in a kindly spirit showed them many playthings

[p. 204] [p. 205]

from foreign lands. But when he saw that the children were desirous of having them for their own, he refused to give them unless he too should receive some earth from the children. So they picked up some from the ground and gave it to Cothus, and then, taking the playthings, departed. But the Aeolians discovered what had happened, and, when their enemies sailed against them, they made away with the children under stress of anger and grief. The children were buried beside the road which leads from the city to the Euripus, and the place is called the Children's Tomb.

 

23. WHO is the "Associate-founder" (mixarchagetas) at Argos, and who are the "Averters" (elasioi)?

They call Castor the Associate-founder, and think that he is buried in Argive territory, but Polydeuces they reverence as one of the Olympians. Persons who have the reputed ability to turn away attacks of epilepsy they call Averters, and these are thought to be of the descendants of Alexida, the daughter of Amphiaraus.

 

24. WHAT is that which is called an enknisma (a roast) among the Argives? [*a]

It is the custom for those who have lost a relative or an intimate friend to sacrifice to Apollo [*b] immediately after the mourning, and again thirty days later to Hermes. For they believe that, just as the earth receives the bodies of the dead, even so Hermes receives their souls. They give barley to the priest of Apollo and receive some meat of the sacrificial

[p. 206] [p. 207]

victim; and when they have put out their fire, since they believe it to be polluted, and have relighted it from the hearth of others, they proceed to roast this flesh which they call enknisma.

 

25. WHAT is an alastor, an aliterios, a palamnaeos?

We certainly must not believe those who say that persons who, during a famine, set a watch upon the miller and plunder him are called aliterioi. [*a] But he who has done unforgettable (alesta) things, [*b] things that will be remembered for a long time, is called alastor; and he whom it were well to avoid (aleuasthai) and to guard against because of his wickedness is called aliterios. These things, according to the statement of Socrates, [*c] they have written on tablets of bronze.

 

26. WHAT is the intent of the custom by which the maidens who serve as an escort for the men who lead the bull from Aenis to Cassiopaea chant until they reach the boundary,

Never may ye return to the well-loved soil of your homeland? [*d]

When the Aenianians had been driven out of their country by the Lapiths, [*e] they dwelt first of all about Aethicia, and later about Molossia and Cassiopaea. But, since they had no benefit from the country, and, in addition, had to deal with ungentle peoples on their borders, they came to the Cirrhaean plain under the leadership of Oenoclus, their king. But great droughts befell them there, and, as it is related, in accordance with an oracle they stoned

[p. 208] [p. 209]

[paragraph continues] Oenoclus. [*a] Then they wandered on and came to this country which they now possess, a goodly country, productive of all manner of crops; wherefore it is with good reason that they pray to the gods that they may not return again to their ancient fatherland, but may remain here in prosperity.

 

27. WHY is it that among the Rhodians a herald does not enter the shrine of the hero Ocridion?

Is it because Ochimus affianced his daughter Cydippe to Ocridion? But Cercaphus, who was the brother of Ochimus, was in love with the maiden and persuaded the herald (for it used to be the custom to use heralds to fetch the brides), when he should receive Cydippe, to bring her to him. When this had been accomplished, Cercaphus fled with the maiden; but later, when Ochimus had grown old, Cercaphus returned to his home again. But the custom became established among the Rhodians that a herald should not approach the shrine of Ocridion because of the wrong that had been done.

 

28. WHY is it that among the inhabitants of Tenedos a flute-player may not enter the shrine of Tenes, nor may anyone mention Achilles' name within the shrine?

Is it that, when Tenes' stepmother [*b] falsely accused him of wishing to lie with her, Molpus the flute-player bore false witness against him, and because of this it came about that Tenes had to flee to Tenedos with his sister? But as for Achilles, it is said that his mother Thetis straitly forbade him to kill Tenes, since

[p. 210] [p. 211]

[paragraph continues] Tenes was honoured by Apollo; and she commissioned one of the servants to be on guard, and to remind Achilles lest he should unwittingly slay Tenes. But when Achilles was overrunning Tenedos and was pursuing Tenes' sister, who was a beautiful maiden, Tenes met him and defended his sister; and she escaped, though Tenes was slain. When he had fallen, Achilles recognized him, and slew the servant because he had, although present, not reminded him; and he buried Tenes where his shrine now stands and neither does a flute-player enter it nor is Achilles mentioned there by name.

 

29. WHO is the "Seller" among the Epidamnians?

The Epidamnians were neighbours of the Illyrians and perceived that such of their citizens as associated with the Illyrians were becoming corrupted; and, since they feared a revolution, they used to select one of the most reputable of their fellow-citizens each year to conduct such commercial dealings and barters. This man visited the barbarians and provided them with a market and an opportunity for all the citizens to display what they had to sell: thus he was called the "Seller."

Footnotes

^201:a [p. 200] Cf. Aristotle, Frag. 576 (ed. V. Rose).

^201:b Cf. Moralia, 247 A-F, and the note there (Vol. III. p. 496).

^205:a [p. 204] Cf. Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. p. 498.

^205:b For "Apollo" Halliday suggests with some plausibility "Pluto"; but Apollo, as the god who cleanses from pollution (katharsios), is almost a commonplace in Greek literature.

^207:a [p. 206] Cf. Moralia, 523 A-B.

^207:b Ibid. 418 B.

^207:c Socrates of Argos; cf. Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. v. p. 498.

^207:d Adapted from Homer, Od. xviii. 148 (= xix. 298).

^207:e cf. 293 F-294 C, supra.

^209:a Cf. 293 F-294 A, supra.

^209:b Cf. Apollodorus, Epitome, iii. 23-26, with Frazer's notes (L.C.L. vol. ii. pp. 193 ff.).

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

30-39.

30. WHAT is the "Beach of Araenus" in Thrace?

When the Andrians and Chalcidians sailed to Thrace to settle there, they jointly seized the city of Sane, which was betrayed to them; but when they learned that the barbarians had abandoned Acanthus, they sent out two scouts. When these were approaching the city, they perceived that the enemy had all fled; so the Chalcidian ran forward to take possession of the city for Chalcis, but the Andrian, since he could not cover the distance so rapidly as

[p. 212] [p. 213]

his rival, hurled his spear, and when it was firmly implanted in the city gates, he called out in a loud voice that by his spear the city had been taken into prior possession for the children of the Andrians. As a result of this a dispute arose, and, without going to war, they agreed to make use of Erythraeans, Samians, and Parians as arbitrators concerning the whole matter. But when the Erythraeans and the Samians gave their vote in favour of the Andrians, and the Parians in favour of the Chalcidians, the Andrians, in the neighbourhood of this place, made a solemn vow against the Parians that they would never give a woman in marriage to the Parians nor take one from them. And for this reason they called the place the Beach of Araenus, [*a] although it had formerly been named the Serpent's Beach.

 

31. WHY is it that at the Thesmophoria the Eretrian women cook their meat, not by fire, but by the rays of the sun; and why do they not call upon Calligeneia? [*b]

Is it because it happened that the captive women whom Agamemnon was bringing home from Troy were celebrating the Thesmophoria at this place, but when conditions for sailing suddenly appeared favourable, they put out to sea leaving behind them the sacrifice uncompleted?

 

32. WHO are the Perpetual Sailors among the Milesians?

When the despots associated with Thoas and Damasenor had been overthrown, two political parties came into control of the city, one of which was called Plutis, the other Cheiromacha. [*c] When, accordingly, the men of influence gained the upper hand and

[p. 214] [p. 215]

brought matters into the control of their party, they used to deliberate about matters of the greatest importance by embarking in their ships and putting out to a considerable distance from the land. But when they had come to a final decision, they sailed back; and because of this they acquired the appellation of Perpetual Sailors.

 

33. WHY do the Chalcidians call the neighbourhood of the Beacon "the Young Men's Club"?

They relate that Nauplius, when he was being pursued by the Achaeans, came as a suppliant to the Chalcidians; and on the one hand he defended himself in regard to the indictment brought against him, and on the other hand brought a counter-charge against the Achaeans. The Chalcidians had no intention of surrendering him; but, since they were afraid that he might be slain by treachery, they gave him a guard of young men in the prime of their youth and stationed them in this place, where they lived together and at the same time served as a guard for Nauplius.

 

34. WHO was the man that slew an ox for [*a] his benefactor?

Anchored off the island of Ithaca was a pirate vessel in which there chanced to be an old man with earthenware jars containing pitch. By chance a ferryman of Ithaca, by name Pyrrhias, put off to the ship and rescued the old man without asking for any reward, but because he had been persuaded by the old man and pitied him. He did, however, accept some of the jars, for the old man bade him do so. But when the pirates had departed and there was nothing to fear, the old man led Pyrrhias to the jars,

[p. 216] [p. 217]

and in them showed him much gold and silver mixed with the pitch. So Pyrrhias, suddenly becoming rich, treated the old man well in various ways, and also slew an ox for him. Wherefore men make use of this as a proverbial expression: "No one but Pyrrhias has slain an ox for his benefactor."

 

35. WHY was it the custom for the Bottiaean maidens to chant as they danced, "Let us go to Athens [*a]"?

They relate that the Cretans in accordance with a vow sent a consecrated offering of men to Delphi; but the men who had been sent, when they saw that there was no abundance there, set out from Delphi to found a colony. They settled first in Iapygia, but later occupied this region of Thrace. There were some Athenians included among them; for it appears that Minos did not destroy the young persons whom the Athenians sent him for tribute, but kept them by him as servants. Accordingly, some who were descended from these Athenians and had come to be considered Cretans were included in this company sent to Delphi. Wherefore the daughters of the Bottiaeans, in remembrance of their lineage, were wont to sing in their festivals, "Let us go to Athens."

 

36. WHY is it that the women of the Eleans, when they sing hymns to Dionysus, call upon him to come to them "with the foot of a bull" [*b]? The hymn [*c] runs as follows:

[p. 218] [p. 219]

Come, O hero Dionysus,
 To thy Elean holy
 Temple, with the Graces,
 To thy temple
 With thy bull's foot hasting.

[paragraph continues] Then they chant twice the refrain: "O worthy bull."

Is it because some address the god as "kine-born" or as "bull "? Or by "ox-foot" do they mean "with thy mighty foot," even as the Poet used "ox-eyed" [*a] to signify "large-eyed," and "bully" [*b] for "loudmouthed"?

Or is it rather because the foot of the bull is harmless, but the part that bears horns is harmful, and thus they call upon the god to come in a gentle and painless manner?

Or is it because many believe that the god was the pioneer in both ploughing and sowing?

 

37. WHY do the people of Tanagra have before their city an Achilleum, that is, a place bearing this name? For it is related that Achilles actually had more enmity than friendship for the city, since he carried off Stratonice, the mother of Poemander, and slew Acestor, the son of Ephippus. [*c]

While the territory of Tanagra was still inhabited in village communities, Poemander, the father of Ephippus, had been besieged by the Achaeans in the place called Stephon, because of his unwillingness to join their expedition. [*d] But he abandoned that stronghold by night and fortified Poemandria. [*e]

[p. 220] [p. 221]

[paragraph continues] Polycrithus the master-builder, however, who was present, spoke slightingly of the fortifications and, in derision, leaped over the moat. Poemander was enraged and hastened to throw at him a great stone which had been hidden there from ancient days, set aside for use in the ritual of the Nyctelia. [*a] This stone Poemander snatched up in his ignorance, and hurled. He missed Polycrithus, but slew his son Leucippus. According to the law, therefore, he had to depart from Boeotia and become a suppliant at a stranger's hearth. But this was not easy, since the Achaeans had invaded the territory of Tanagra. Accordingly he sent his son Ephippus to appeal to Achilles. Ephippus, by his persuasive words, brought to his father Achilles, as well as Tlepolemus, the son of Heracles, and Peneleos, the son of Hippalcmas, all of them interrelated. Poemander was escorted by them to Chalcis, and there at the house of Elephenor he was purified of the murder. Therefore he honoured these heroes and set apart sacred precincts for them all, and of these the precinct of Achilles has still kept its name.

 

38. WHO are the "Psoloeis" and who the "Oleiae" among the Boeotians?

They relate that the daughters of Minyas, Leucippe and Arsinoe and Alcathoe, becoming insane, conceived a craving for human flesh, and drew lots for their children. [*b] The lot fell upon Leucippe to contribute her son Hippasus to be torn to pieces, and their husbands, who put on ill-favoured garments for very grief and sorrow, were called "Grimy" (Psoloeis);

[p. 222] [p. 223]

but the Minyads themselves were called "Oleiae," that is to say, 'Murderesses.' And even to-day the people of Orchomenus give this name to the women descended from this family; and every year, at the festival of Agrionia, [*a] there takes place a flight and pursuit of them by the priest of Dionysus with sword in hand. Any one of them that he catches he may kill, and in my time the priest Zoilus killed one of them. But this resulted in no benefit for the people of Orchomenus; but Zoilus fell sick from some slight sore and, when the wound had festered for a long time, he died. The people of Orchomenus also found themselves involved in some suits for damages and adverse judgements; wherefore they transferred the priesthood from Zoilus's family and chose the best man from all the citizens to fill the office.

 

39. WHY do the Arcadians stone persons who voluntarily enter the Lycaeon; but if such persons enter through ignorance, they send them away to Eleutherae?

Is it because they were released and set free that this story gained credence, and is the expression "to Free Town" (Eleutherae) of the same sort as "to the land of Sans Souci" and "you will come to the Seat of Satisfaction"?

Or is it in accordance with the legend, since Eleuther and Lebadus were the only sons of Lycaon that had no share in the abomination prepared for Zeus, [*b] but instead they fled to Boeotia, and there is community of citizenship between the people of Lebadeia and the Arcadians, and do they accordingly

[p. 224] [p. 225]

send away to Eleutherae those who involuntarily enter the inviolate sanctuary of Zeus?

Or is it as Architimus [*a] relates in his Arcadian History, that certain men who entered through ignorance were handed over by the Arcadians to the Phliasians, and by the Phliasians to the Megarians, and, as they were being conducted from Megara to Thebes, they were stopped near Eleutherae [*b] by rain and thunder and other signs from heaven? Whence, in fact, some assert that the place acquired the name of Eleutherae.

The tale, however, that no shadow is cast by a person who enters the Lycaeon is not true, although it has acquired widespread credence. [*c] Is it because the air turns to clouds, and lowers darkly upon those who enter? Or is it because he that enters is condemned to death, and the followers of Pythagoras declare that the spirits of the dead cast no shadow, [*d] neither do they blink? Or is it because it is the sun which causes shadow, but the law deprives him that enters of the sunlight?

This too they relate allegorically: he that enters is called a "deer." Wherefore, when Cantharion the Arcadian deserted to the Eleans while they were at war with the Arcadians, and with his booty crossed the inviolate sanctuary, even though he fled to Sparta after peace had been made, the Spartans surrendered him to the Arcadians, since the god ordered them to give back "the deer."

Footnotes

^213:a [p. 212] Plutarch, or his source, imagined that this meant "Beach of Vowing."

^213:b The name of the third and last day of this festival at Athens; probably also a cult title applied to some goddess, perhaps to Demeter.

^213:c "Capital and Labour."

^215:a Possibly "sacrificed an ox to his benefactor"; but an animal sacrifice to a living man seems incredible.

^217:a [p. 216] Plutarch (Life of Theseus, chap. xvi. p. 6 E ff.) states that his source for this is Aristotle's Constitution of the Bottiaeans (Frag. 485 (ed. V. Rose)); cf. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca (in L.C.L. iii. 540).

^217:b For Dionysus as a bull cf. e.g. Athenaeus 35 E, 38 E.

^217:c [p. 217] The text is uncertain; Hartman has attempted a reconstruction in Mnemosyne, xli. 217; cf. also the other references in E. Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, ii. p. 206. Cf. also Moralia, 364 F; Pausanias, vi. 26. 1; Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 656, or Edmonds, Lyra Graeca (L.C.L. iii. 510).

^219:a Homer, Il. i. 551 and often.

^219:b boygaios, Il. xiii. 824: Od. xviii. 79.

^219:c A grandson of Poemander.

^219:d Against Troy.

^219:e Cf. Pausanias, ix. 20. 1.

^221:a [p. 220] These rites resembled those of the rending and resurrection of Osiris; cf. Moralia 367 F.

^221:b [p. 221] Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 42; Antonius Liberalis, Metamorphoses, x. Ovid's account (Met. iv. 1 ff.; 389 ff.) is rather different and omits the murder of Hippasus.

^223:a Cf. Moralia, 717 A; 291 A supra.

^223:b The serving of human flesh. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, [p. 223] i. 163 ff. and Frazer's note on Apollodorus, Bibliotheca iii. 8. 1 (L.C.L. vol. i. pp. 390 ff.).

^225:a Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. vol. iv. p. 317.

^225:b A town in Attica not far from the borders of Boeotia.

^225:c Cf. Pausanias, viii. 38. 6; Polybius, xvi. 12. 7, whose source is Theopompus.

^225:d Cf. Moralia, 564 D. See also Dante, Purgatorio, iii. 25-30, 94-97.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

[p. 226] [p. 227]

40-49.

40. WHO was the hero Eunostus in Tanagra, and why may no women enter his grove?

Eunostus was the son of Elieus, who was the son of Cephisus, and Scias. They relate that he acquired his name because he was brought up by the nymph Eunosta. Handsome and righteous as he was, he was no less virtuous and ascetic. They say that Ochne, his cousin, one of the daughters of Colonus, became enamoured of him; but when Eunostus repulsed her advances and, after upbraiding her, departed to accuse her to her brothers, the maiden forestalled him by doing this very thing against him. She incited her brothers, Echemus, Leon, and Bucolus, to kill Eunostus, saying that he had consorted with her by force. They, accordingly, lay in ambush for the young man and slew him. Then Elieus put them in bonds; but Ochne repented, and was filled with trepidation and, wishing to free herself from the torments caused by her love, and also feeling pity for her brothers, reported the whole truth to Elieus, and he to Colonus. And when Colonus had given judgement, Ochne's brothers were banished, and she threw herself from a precipice, as Myrtis, [*a] the lyric poetess of Anthedon, has related.

But the shrine and the grove of Eunostus were so strictly guarded against entry and approach by women that, often, when earthquakes or droughts or other signs from heaven occurred, the people of Tanagra were wont to search diligently and to be greatly concerned lest any woman might have approached the place undetected; and some relate, among them Cleidamus, a man of prominence, that Eunostus met them on his way to the sea to bathe

[p. 228] [p. 229]

because a woman had set foot within the sacred precinct. And Diodes [*a] also, in his treatise upon the Shrines of Heroes, quotes a decree of the people of Tanagra concerning the matters which Cleidamus reported.

 

41. FROM what cause was a river in Boeotia in the vicinity of Eleon called Scamander?

Deimachus, the son of Eleon and a companion of Heracles, took part in the expedition against Troy. But since, as it appears, the war was dragging on, he welcomed to his quarters Glaucia, the daughter of Scamander, who had fallen in love with him, and got her with child; then he himself fell in fighting against the Trojans. But Glaucia, fearing detection, fled for refuge, and told Heracles of her love and of her association with Deimachus. And he, both through pity for the woman, and for joy that the stock of a brave man who was his close friend should thus survive, took Glaucia on board his fleet; and when she gave birth to a son, he brought both the child and the mother, and delivered them to Eleon in Boeotia. The child was named Scamander, and he became the king of the country; and he named the Inachus river Scamander after himself, and the stream near by he called Glaucia from his mother. The spring Acidusa he named after his wife; and from her he had three daughters whom even to this day they honour under the name of the "Maidens."

 

42. WHENCE arose the proverbial saying, "This is valid"?

When Deinon of Tarentum, a brave soldier, was

[p. 230] [p. 231]

general, his fellow-citizens voted to reject a certain proposal of his. When the herald reported the prevailing majority, he held up his right hand and said, "But this is stronger." This is Theophrastus's [*a] version of the story; but Apollodorus has a supplementary version, that when the herald of the Tarentines proclaimed, "These are in the majority," Deinon said, "But these are better!" and validated the vote of the minority.

 

43. FOR what reason was the city of the Ithacans called Alalcomenae?

Because Anticleia, while yet a virgin, was violated by Sisyphus and conceived Odysseus. This is related by several authorities [*b]; but Ister [*c] of Alexandria in his Commentaries has in addition recorded that when Anticlea had been given in marriage to Laertes and was being conducted to his home, she gave birth to Odysseus near the Alalcomenium in Boeotia. And for this reason, as though referring the name to that of a mother-city, he states that the city in Ithaca acquired its name.

 

44. WHO were the "solitary eaters" in Aegina?

Of the Aeginetans who were engaged in the war against Troy many perished in the battles there, but even more were destroyed by the storm on the return-voyage. So there were but few who survived, and when their relatives had welcomed them home, and observed that the other citizens were in mourning and sorrow, they deemed it proper neither to rejoice

[p. 232] [p. 233]

nor to sacrifice to the gods openly; but secretly and separately in their own houses they received with feasting and good cheer those who had reached home in safety. They themselves waited upon their fathers and kinsmen, their brothers and relatives, and no one outside the family was allowed to enter. It is, then, in imitation of this that they hold a sacrifice to Poseidon, which is called thiasoi, [*a] in which they feast by themselves in silence for sixteen days, and no slave is present. Then, when they have celebrated the Aphrodisia, they terminate the festival. For this reason they are called "solitary eaters."

 

45. WHY is it that the statue of the Labrandean Zeus in Caria is fashioned holding an axe, but not a sceptre or a thunderbolt?

Because when Heracles had slain Hippolyte, together with her other arms he took her axe and gave it as a present to Omphale. The Lydian kings who succeeded Omphale used to carry it as a part of the sacred regalia, handing it down one to the other until it came to Candaules. He deemed it of little worth and gave it to one of his Companions [*b] to carry. But when Gyges [*c] revolted and was at war with Candaules, Arselis came from Mylasa with an army as an ally for Gyges and slew both Candaules and his Companion and brought the axe to Caria together with the other spoils. He therefore constructed a statue of Zeus and placed the axe in its hand, and

[p. 234] [p. 235]

called the god Labrandeus; for the Lydians call the axe labrys. [*a]

 

46. WHY is it that the people of Tralles call vetch "purifier" and make particular use of it for expiations and purifications?

Is it because the Leleges and Minyae in days of old drove them out and took possession of their city and their land, and because later the Trallians returned and prevailed, and as many of the Leleges as had not been slain nor had fled away, but had been left behind there because of their destitution and weakness--of these they took no account either of their life or of their death, and they established a law that any Trallian who killed a Minyan or a Lelegian should be free from pollution when he had measured out a bushel of vetch to the relatives of the murdered man?

 

47. WHY is there a proverb among the Eleans "to suffer more terribly than Sambicus"?

The story is told that a certain Sambicus, an Elean, at the head of a numerous group of confederates, cut many pieces from the bronze votive statues in Olympia and sold them, and finally he despoiled the shrine of Artemis the Guardian. This is in Elis and is called the Aristarcheum. Immediately, then, after this sacrilege, he was caught and tortured for a year, being interrogated about each of his confederates in turn; and in this manner he died and the proverb arose from his sufferings.

[p. 236] [p. 237]

48. WHY at Sparta is a shrine of Odysseus built near the shrine of the daughters of Leucippus?

Erginus, one of the descendants of Diomedes, was persuaded by Temenus to steal the Palladium from Argos; this he did with the knowledge and help of Leagrus, who was one of Temenus's friends. But later Leagrus became incensed at Temenus and removed to Sparta, taking the Palladium with him. The Spartan kings received it eagerly, and gave it a place near the shrine of the daughters of Leucippus, and they sent to Delphi to obtain an oracle concerning its safety and preservation. When the god gave oracle that one of those who had purloined the Palladium should be made its guardian, the Spartans constructed there the shrine of Odysseus, especially since, because of his marriage with Penelope, [*a] they reckoned that this hero had close relations with their city.

 

49. WHY is it the custom for the women of Chalcedon, whenever they encounter strange men, and especially officials, to veil one cheek?

The Chalcedonians were involved in a war against the Bithynians, to which they were provoked by all kinds of reasons. When Zeipoetes became king of Bithynia, the Chalcedonians, in full force and with the addition of Thracian allies, devastated the country with fire and sword. When Zeipoetes attacked them near the so-called Phalion, they fought badly through rashness and lack of discipline, and lost over eight thousand soldiers. It was only because Zeipoetes granted an armistice to please the Byzantines that they were not completely annihilated at that time. Since, then, there was a great scarcity of men

[p. 238] [p. 239]

throughout the city, most of the women were forced to consort with freedmen and resident aliens. But those women who preferred to have no husband at all rather than a marriage of this sort, themselves conducted whatever business they needed to transact with the judges or the officials, drawing aside one part of the veil that covered their faces. And the married women, for very shame, followed the example of these, who, they felt, were better than themselves, and also changed to a similar custom.

Footnotes

^227:a Cf. Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, iii. p. 3.

^229:a Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 78.

^231:a Frag. 133 (ed. Wimmer).

^231:b Cf. Sophocles, Philoctetes, 417, with Jebb's note; Frag. 567 (ed. Pearson), with the note.

^231:c Muller, Frag. Hist. Graec. i. p. 426.

^233:a Club-dinner.

^233:b Technically a Hellenistic court office, but Plutarch seems to assume such a relation in early Lydian history.

^233:c The many ancient variants of the Gyges legend are collected and discussed by K. F. Smith, American Jour. Phil., 1902, pp. 261 ff., 362 ff.; 1920, pp. 1 ff.

^235:a One is reminded of the many representations of the double axe on Cretan monuments.

^237:a The daughter of the Spartan Icarius.

The Roman and Greek Questions, by Plutarch, tr. Frank Cole Babbitt, [1936], at sacred-texts.com

50-59.

50. WHY is it that the Argives drive their sheep to the precinct of Agenor when they wish to mate them?

Is it because Agenor took most excellent care of his sheep and acquired more flocks than any other king?

 

51. WHY is it that Argive children in a certain festival call themselves, in jest, "Pear-throwers "?

Is it because the first men that were led down by Inachus from the mountains to the plain lived, as they say, on wild pears? They also say that wild pears were first discovered by the Greeks in the Peloponnesus at a time when that country was still called Apia, [*a] wherefore wild pears were named apioi.

 

52. WHAT is the reason why the Eleans lead their mares outside the boundaries of their country to mate them with asses? [*b]

Is it because of all kings Oenomaus was the most fond of horses, and, since he particularly loved

[p. 240] [p. 241]

this animal, he laid many terrible curses upon any that should thus mate horses in Elis; and it is in fear of that curse that they endeavour to keep clear of it?

 

53. WHY was it the custom among the Cnossians for those who borrowed money to snatch it?

Was it that if they defaulted they might be liable to the charge of violence, and so be punished the more?

 

54. WHAT is the reason why in Samos they invoke the Aphrodite of Dexicreon?

Is it because a sorcerer Dexicreon, making use of a rite of purification, freed the women of Samos from the unbridled licentiousness in which they indulged because of their great luxury and wantonness?

Or is it because Dexicreon was a shipmaster and sailed to Cyprus on a trading voyage, and, when he was about to freight his ship, Aphrodite bade him put into it water and nothing else, and set sail as quickly as possible? He obeyed and, putting much water aboard the ship, sailed away; after a time the wind died down and the ship was becalmed in the open sea. To the other merchants and shipmasters, who were athirst, he sold the water and amassed much money. Wherefore he fashioned an image of the goddess and called it by his own name. If this is really true, it appears that the goddess wished not to make one man rich, but to save the lives of many through one man.

 

55. WHY is it that whenever the Samians are engaged in sacrificing to Hermes the Giver of Joy they allow whoever so desires to steal from them and filch their clothes?

[p. 242] [p. 243]

Because in obedience to an oracle they changed their abode from Samos to Mycale and supported themselves by piracy there for ten years; and after this they sailed again to Samos and overcame their enemies.

 

56. FROM what does the place Panhaema on the island of Samos derive its name?

Is it because the Amazons sailed from the country of the Ephesians [*a] across to Samos when they were endeavouring to escape from Dionysus? But he built boats and crossed over and, joining battle, slew many of them near this place, which the spectators in amazement called Panhaema [*b] because of the vast quantity of blood shed there. And of the elephants [*c] some are said to have been slain near Phloeum, and their bones are pointed out there; but some relate that Phloeum also was cleft by them as they uttered a loud and piercing cry.

 

57. FOR what reason is the great hall in Samos called the Hall of Fetters?

After the murder of Demoteles and the dissolution of his monarchic government the Land-owners [*d] controlled the State, and at this time the Megarians made an expedition against the Perinthians, who were colonists of the Samians; as it is related, they brought with them fetters for their captives. When the Land-owners learned of this, they dispatched aid to the Perinthians with all speed, appointing nine

[p. 244] [p. 245]

generals and manning thirty ships. Two of these ships, as they were sailing out, were destroyed by a thunderbolt in front of the harbour; but the generals kept on with the others, defeated the Megarians, and took six hundred of them alive. Elated by their victory, they conceived the project of overthrowing the oligarchy of the Land-owners at home. Now the officials in charge of the government had provided an occasion for undertaking this, by writing to the generals to bring back the captive Megarians bound in their own fetters. The generals, accordingly, took the letter, and secretly showed it to certain of the Megarians and persuaded them to join with themselves and free the city. When they took counsel together concerning the deed, they decided to knock loose the rings that fastened the fetters, and in this condition to put them on the legs of the Megarians, holding them up with thongs to their girdles, so that the fetters might not slip down and fall off when their legs became relaxed in walking. Having thus equipped the men and given a sword to each, they sailed back to Samos and disembarked, and there they led the Megarians through the market-place to the council-chamber, where practically all the Land-owners were sitting together. Then, at a given signal, the Megarians fell upon them and slew them. When the city had thus been freed, they made citizens of those Megarians who so desired; and they constructed a great building and dedicated the fetters there; and from this the building was called the Hall of Fetters.

 

58. WHY is it that among the Coans the priest of Heracles at Antimacheia dons a woman's garb, and

[p. 246] [p. 247]

fastens upon his head a woman's head-dress before he begins the sacrifice?

Heracles, putting out with his six ships from Troy, encountered a storm; and when his other ships had been destroyed, with the only one remaining he was driven by the gale to Cos. He was cast ashore upon the Laceter, as the place is called, with nothing salvaged save his arms and his men. Now he happened upon some sheep and asked for one ram from the shepherd. This man, whose name was Antagoras, was in the prime of bodily strength, and bade Heracles wrestle with him; if Heracles could throw him, he might carry off the ram. And when Heracles grappled with him, the Meropes came to the aid of Antagoras, and the Greeks to help Heracles, and they were soon engaged in a mighty battle. In the struggle it is said that Heracles, being exhausted by the multitude of his adversaries, fled to the house of a Thracian woman; there, disguising himself in feminine garb, he managed to escape detection. But later, when he had overcome the Meropes in another encounter, and had been purified, he married Chalciope and assumed a gay-coloured raiment. Wherefore the priest sacrifices on the spot where it came about that the battle was fought, and bridegrooms wear feminine raiment when they welcome their brides.

 

59. WHENCE came the clan of "Wagon-rollers" among the Megarians?

In the time of the unbridled democracy which brought about both the return-interest [*a] and the temple sacrilege, a sacred mission of Peloponnesians passed through the Megarid, on its way to Delphi and

[p. 248] [p. 249]

had encamped, as chance dictated, in their wagons, with their wives and children, in Aegeiri beside the lake. But the boldest spirits among the Megarians, inflamed with wine, in their insolence and savagery rolled back the wagons and pushed them into the lake, so that many members of the mission were drowned. Now because of the unsettled state of their government the Megarians took no notice of the crime; but the Amphictyonic Assembly, since the mission was sacred, took cognizance of the matter and punished some of the guilty men with banishment and others with death. The descendants of these men were called "Wagon-rollers."

 

 

 

Footnotes

^239:a Cf. Pausanias, ii. 5. 7; Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 39.

^239:b Cf. Herodotus, iv. 30; Pausanias, v. 5. 2; 9. 2; mules were not bred in Elis because of a curse, and this, seemingly, should be the meaning here; but the corruption in the text of one word, which should have designated asses, has made the mules somewhat dubious.

^243:a [p. 242] Cf. Pausanias, vii. 2. 7.

^243:b "Allblood."

^243:c [p. 243] Wilamowitz and Halliday emend to elefantun. This has, at first view, some plausibility, but completely lacks corroborative evidence. Nonnus, Dionysiaca, xxvi. 326 ff. is not by any means parallel.

^243:d Thucydides, viii. 21, recounts the later struggles of the Land-owners and the People.

^247:a Cf. 295 C-D, supra.