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The Date of the Eclipse in Plutarch's De facie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

Plutarch's dialogue De facie in orbe lunae contains a mention of an eclipse, the identification of which would give a terminus post quern, for the composition of the work. The speaker is the Etruscan Lucius, the Pythagorean friend of Sulla the Carthaginian, and his words are as follows (93ID): ‘Concede me this, remembering this recent eclipse, which, beginning immediately after midday (εύθùς έκ μεσηβρίας άρξαμένη), caused many stars to appear in many quarters of the sky.’ For such a phenomenon to occur the eclipse must have been nearly or quite total.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1929

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References

page 15 note 1 M. Adler, Zwei Beiträge zum plutarchischen Dialog, places the date of de facie in the years 75–80, relying on this dating of the eclipse, which is also accepted by J. K. Fotheringham (quoted byPrickard, A. O., Plutarch on the Face in the Moon, p. 75)Google Scholar, who, however, finds by his calculations that at Chaeronea the eclipse was not quite total. He says that ‘several’ stars would be visible there.

page 15 note 2 This is reckoned as the number of inches of the sun's diameter obscured, if the whole diameter is taken to be 12 inches. Thus at totality there is an obscuration of 12 inches.

page 15 note 3 E.g. έκ πορείας εύθύς(Brutus 999D) = ‘immediately after the march,’ and cf. Wyttenbach's note on Moralia 129E.

page 15 note 4 The idea that the name Lamprias was assumed by Plutarch as a literary alias after his elder brother's early death (cf.Prickard, A. O., Plutarch: Select Essays, p. 53)Google Scholar is untenable in view of the fact that Lamprias did not die an early death, but was archon at Delphi about A.D. 115 (Dittenberger, , S.I.G. II. 868Google Scholar c, n. 6), or a little later (Pauly-Wissowa, RE s.v. Lamprias).

page 15 note 5 At Rome itself, where the obscuration was 11'5 inches, the darkness would not be great enough for the stars to appear. The faćts about these eclipses are all taken fromGinzel, , op. cit., pp. 78Google Scholar, 111, and Plate X.

page 16 note 1 Q.C. 678c. If the return from Alexandria there mentioned took place in 84, Plutarch would then be between thirty-four and thirty-eight, and so there would be nothing impossible in his grandfather, who is present at the dinner, being still alive.

page 16 note 2 Sulla ό έταίρος, whom we meet in Q.C. II. 3, is probably to be distinguished from this Sulla ΚαρΧηδόνιος and identified with the Sulla present at a dinner of ‘οί ουνήθειςσυνήθεις’ Q.C. III. 3–5.

page 16 note 3 Consul suffectus in A.D. 69, was a patron of Plutarch, who took his name Mestrius. He is to be distinguished from a Boeotian Florus, who occurs in several of of the Symposiac Questions.

page 16 note 4 This Theon, ό γραμματικός, is an Egyptian, to be distinguished from Theon ό έταȋρος, an inhabitant of Chaeronea who appears in Q.C. VIII. 6, de E Delph., Pyth. Orac. and non posse suauiter.

page 16 note 5 Apparently not Apollonides ό τακτιός of Q.C. III. 3–5.

page 16 note 6 Ptolemy, , Μαθηματική Σύνταξις VII. 3, pp. 170Google Scholar and 171.

page 16 note 7 Life of Publicola, c. 15.