CHAPTER VI

Plutarch's essays
Themes of ensuing chapters — Life of Plutarch — Superstition in Plu- tarch's Lives — His Morals or Essays — Question of their authenticity — Magic in Plutarch — Essay on Superstition — Plutarch hospitable toward some superstitions — The oracles of Delphi and of Trophonius — Divina- tion justified — Demons as mediators between gods and men — Demons in the moon : migration of the soul — Demons mortal : some evil — Men and demons — Relation of Plutarch's to other conceptions of demons — The astrologer Tarrutius — De fato — Other bits of astrology — Cosmic mysticism — Number mysticism — Occult virtues in nature — Asbestos — On Rivers and Mountains — Magic herbs — Stones found in plants and fish — Virtues of other stones — Fascination — Animal sagacity and reme- dies— Theories and queries about nature — The Antipodes.
ensumg chapters
Themes of HAVING noted the presence of magic in works so espe- cially devoted to natural science as those of Pliny, Galen, and Ptolemy, we have now to illustrate the prominence both of natural science and of magic in the life and thought of the Roman Empire by a consideration of some writers of a more miscellaneous character, who should reflect for us something of the interests of the average cultured reader of that time. Of this type are Plutarch, Apuleius and Philos- tratus, whom we shall consider in the coming chapters in the order named, which also roughly corresponds to their chronological sequence.
Plutarch flourished during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian at the turn of the first and second centuries, but The Letter on the Education of a Prince to Trajan ^ probably is not by him, and the legend that Hadrian was his pupil is a medieval invention. He was born in Boeotia about 46-48 A. D. and was educated in rhetoric and philosophy, science and mathematics, at Athens, where he was a student
^ De institutione principis epistola ad Traianum, a treatise extant only in Latin form.
Life of Plutarch
CHAP. VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 201
when Nero visited Greece in 66 A. D. He also made several visits to Rome and resided there for some time. He held various public positions in the province of Achaea and in his small native tov^n of Chaeronea, and had official con- nections with the Delphic oracle and amphictyony. Artemi- dorus in the Oneirocriticon states that Plutarch's death was foreshadowed in a dream. ^
With Plutarch's celebrated Lives of Illustrious Men, as Super- with narrative histories in general, we shall not be much piutarch's concerned, although they of course abound in omens and L.^'^es. portents, in bits of pseudo-science which details in his nar- rative bring to the mind of the biographer, and in cases of divination and magic. Thus theories are advanced to ex- plain why birds dropped dead from mid-air at the shout set up by the Greeks at the Isthmian games when Flamininus proclaimed their freedom. Or we are told how Sulla re- ceived from the Chaldeans predictions of his future great- ness, how in the dedication to his Memoirs he admonished Lucullus to trust in dreams, and how Lucullus's mind was deranged by a love philter administered by his freedman in the hope of increasing his master's affection towards him.^ Such allusions and incidents abound also of course in Dio Cassius, Tacitus, and other Roman historians.
But we shall be concerned rather with Plutarch's other His writings, which are usually grouped together under the title Essays. ^^ of Morals, or, more appropriately, Miscellanies and Es- says. Not only is there great variety in their titles, but in any given essay the attention is usually not strictly held to one theme or problem but the discussion diverges to other points. Some are by their very titles and form rambling dialogues, symposiacs, and table-talk, where the conversation lightly flits from one topic to other entirely different ones, never dwelling for long upon any one point and never re-
^ IV, 72. On the biography and ode," pp. 367fF.
bibUography of Plutarch consult ' See also the essay, "Whether
Christ, Gesch. d. Griechischen an old man should engage in poli-
Litteratur, 5th ed., Munich, 1913, tics," cap. 16. II, 2, "Die nachklassische Peri-
202
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Question
of their authen- ticity.
Magic in Plutarch.
turning to its starting-point. This dinner-table and drink- ing-bout type of cultured and semi-learned discourse has other extant ancient examples such as the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius and the Deipnosophists of Athenaeus, but Plutarch will have to serve as our main illustration of it. His Essays reflect in motley guise and disordered array the fruits of extensive reading and a retentive memory in ancient philosophy, science, history, and literature.
The authenticity of some of the essays attributed to him has been questioned, and very likely with propriety, but for our purpose it is not important that they should all be by the same author so long as they represent approximately the same period and type of literature. The spurious treatise, De placitis philosophorimi, we have already considered in the chapter on Galen, to whom it has also been ascribed. The essay On Rivers and Mountains we shall treat by itself in the present chapter. The De fato has also been called spuri- ous.^ Superstitious content is not a sufficient reason for denying that a treatise is by Plutarch,^ since he is super- stitious in writings of undoubted genuineness and since we have found the leading scientists of the time unable to ex- clude superstition from their works entirely. Moreover, many of the essays are in the form of conversations ex- pressing the divergent views of different speakers, and it is not always possible to tell which shade of opinion Plutarch himself favors. Suffice it that the views expressed are those of men of education.
Plutarch does not specifically discuss magic under that name at any length in any of his essays, but does treat of
* See R. Schmertosch, in PhiloL- Hist. Beitr. z. Ehren Wachsmuths, 1897, pp. 28ff.
' Language and literary form are surer guides and have been ap- plied by B. Weissenberger, Die Sprache Plutarchs von Ch'dronea und die pseudoplutarchischen Schriften, II Progr. Straubing, 1896, pp. I5ff. In 1876 W. W. Goodwin, editing a revised edition
of the seventeenth century English translation of the Morals, de- clared that no critical translation was possible until a thorough re- vision of the text had been under- taken with the help of the best MSS. Since then an edition of the text by G. N. Bernadakes, 1888-1896, has appeared, but it has not escaped criticism.
VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 203
such subjects as superstition in general, dreams, oracles, demons, number, fate, the craftiness of animals, and other "natural questions." Certain vulgar forms of magic, at least, were regarded by him with disapproval or incredul- ity.^ He rejects as a fiction the statement that the women of Thessaly can draw down the moon by their spells, but thinks that the notion perhaps originated in the fact or story that Aglaonice, daughter of Hegetor, was so skilful in as- trology or astronomy as to be able to foresee the occurrence of lunar eclipses, and that she deluded the people into believ- ing that at such times she brought down the moon from heaven by charms and enchantments.- Thus we have one more instance of the union of magic and science, this time of pseudo-magic with real science as at other times of magic with pseudo-science.
The essay entitled vrepl btiaibaniovlas deals with super- Essay on stition in the usual Greek sense of dread or excessive g^^^^jj. fear of demons and gods. We are accustomed to think of Hellenic paganism as a cheerful faith, full of naturalism, in which the gods were humanized and made familiar. Plu- tarch apparently regards normal religion as of this sort, and attacks the superstitious dread of the supernatural. He con- tends that such fear is worse, if anything, than atheism, for it makes men more unhappy and is an equal offense against the divinity, since it is at least as bad to believe ill of the gods as not to believe in them at all. Nothing indeed encour- ages the growth of atheism so much as the absurd practices and beliefs of such superstitious persons, "their words and
* The English translation of Plu- skill and impose upon him with
tarch's Morals "by several hands," subtle questions." But the cor-
first published in 1684- 1694, sixth responding clause in the Greek
edition corrected and revised by text is merely ol nh> cos aoinarov bta-
W. W. Goodwin, 5 vols., 1870- irtipav \ayL0a.vovTt%, and there seems
1878, IV, 10, renders a passage in to be no reason for taking the
the seventh chapter of De defectU' word "sophist" in any other than
oraculorunt, in which complaint its usual meaning. The passage
is made of the "base and villain- therefore cannot be interpreted as
ous questions" which are now put an attack upon even vulgar astrol-
to the oracle of Apollo, as fol- ogers.
lows : "some coming to him as a ' De defectu oraculorunt, 13. mere paltry astrologer to try his
2IH MAGIC AXD EXPERIMEXTAL SCIENCE chap.
motions, their sorceries and magics, their runnings to and fro and beatings of drums, their impure rites and their purifications, their filthiness and chastity-, their barbarian and illegal chastisements and abuse." ^ Plutarch seems to be in part animated by the common prejudice against all other religions than cHie's own. and speaks twice with dis- taste of Jewish Sabbaths. He also, however, as the passage just quoted shows, is opposed to the more extreme and de- basing forms of magic, and declares that the superstitious man becomes a mere peg or post upon which all the old- wives hang any amulets and ligatures upon which they may chance.- He further condemns such historic instances of superstition as Xicias's suspension of military operations during a lunar eclipse on the Sicilian expedition.^ There was nothing terrible, says Plutarch, with his usual felicity of an- tithesis, in the periodic reoirrence of the earth's shadow upon the moon; but it was a terrible calamitv* that the shadow of superstition should thus darken the mind of a general at the very moment when a great crisis required the fullest use of his reason. -:"tarch In the essay upon the demon of Socrates one of the
^;l"^"'*^ speakers, attacking faith in dreams and apparitions, com- mends Socrates as one who did not reject the worship of the gods but who did purify philosophy, which he had re- ceived from P}-thagoras and Empedocles full of phantasms and myths and the dread of demons, and reeling like a Bac- chanal, and reduced it to facts and reason and truth.* An- other of the company, however, objects that the demon of Socrates outdid the divination of P\thagoras.^ These con- flicting opinions may be applied in some measiu-e to Plutarch himself. His censtu"e of dread of demons and excessive superstition is not to be taken as a sign of scepticism on his part in oracles, dreams, or the demons themselves. To these matters we next tturu
'Cap. 12. *Cap. 9.
•Cap. 7.
• Cap. a * Cap. 10.
pe-fu:
VI
PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 20=
Plutarch's faith and interest in oracles in general and The
, . . , , oracles of
in the Delphian oracle ot Apollo in particular are attested Delphi and
by three of his essays, the De defectu oraculorum, De Py- '^X^^^ thme oracuUs and De Ei apud Delphos. At the same time these essays attest the decline of the oracles from their earlier popularity" and greatness. The oracular cave of Trophonius, of which we shall hear again in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, also comes into Plutarch's works, and the prophetic and apocal}'ptic vision is described of a youth who spent two nights and a day there in an endeavor to learn the nature of the demon of Socrates.^
Plutarch further had faith in divination in general, Divination whether by dreams, sneezes or other omens: but he attempted to give a dignified philosophical and theological explana- tion of it. Few men receive direct divine revelation, in his opinion, but to many signs are given on which divination may be based.- He held that the human soul had a natural faculty of di%-ination which might be exercised at favorable times and when the bodily state was not unfavorable.^ A speaker in one of his dialogues justifies divination even from sneezes and like trivial occurrences upon the ground that as the faint beat of the pulse has meaning for the ph}*sician and a small cloud in the sk}- is for a skilful pilot a sign of im- pending storm, so the least thing may be a clue to the truly- prophetic soul.^ The extent of Plutarch's faith in dreams may be inferred from his discussion of the problem. Why are dreams in autumn the least reliable ? ^ First there is Aristotle's suggestion that eating autumn fruit so disturbs the digestion that the soul is left little opportunity to ex- ercise its prophetic faculty- undistracted. If we accept the doctrine of Democritus that dreams are caused by images from other bodies and even minds or souls, which enter the body of the sleeper through the open pores and affect the mind, revealing to it the present passions and future de-
^ De genio Socratis, 21-22. * De genio Socratis, 12,
'Ibid.. 24.
* De dcfcctu orjcuhrum, 40. * Sympos. \TII. 10.
206
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Demons as mediators between gods and fnen.
Demons in the moon : migration of the soul.
signs of others, — if we accept this theory, it may be that the falling leaves in autumn disturb the air and ruffle these extremely thin and film-like emanations. A third explana- tion offered is that in the declining months of the year all our faculties, including that of natural divination, are in a state of decline. In the case of oracles like that at Delphi it is suggested that the Pythia's natural faculty of divination is stimulated by "the prophetical exhalations from the earth" which induce a bodily state favorable to divination.^ The god or demon, however, is the underlying and directing cause of the oracle.-
To the demons and their relations to the gods and to men we therefore next come. Plutarch's view is that they are essential mediators between the gods and men. Just as one who should remove the air from between the earth and moon would destroy the continuity of the universe, so those who deny that there is a race of demons break ofif all inter- course between gods and men.^ On the other hand, the theory of demons solves many doubts and difficulties.-'* When and where this doctrine originated is uncertain, whether among the magi about Zoroaster, or in Thrace with Orpheus, or in Egypt or Phrygia. Plutarch likens the gods to an equilateral, the demons to an isosceles, and human be- ings to a scalene triangle; and again compares the gods to sun and stars, the demons to the moon, and men to comets and meteors.^ In the youth's vision in the cave of Tro- phonius the moon appeared to belong to earthly demons, while those stars which have a regular motion were the demons of sages, and the wandering and falling stars the demons of men who have yielded to irrational passions.®
These suggestions that the moon and the air between earth and moon are the abode of the demons and this remi- niscence of the Platonic doctrine of the soul and its migra- tions receive further confirmation in a discussion whether
^ De defectu oraculorum, 44. ^bid., 48. Ubid., 13.
*Ibid., ID. ^bid., 13. *£?
VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 207
the moon is inhabited in the essay, On the Face in the Moon. A story is there told ^ of a man who visited islands five days' sail west of Britain, where Saturn is imprisoned and where there are demons serving him. This man who ac- quired great skill in astrology during his stay there stated upon his return to Europe that every soul after leaving the human body wanders for a time between earth and moon, but finally reaches the latter planet, where the Elysian fields are located, and there becomes a demon. ^ The demons do not always remain in the moon, however, but may come to earth to care for oracles or be imprisoned in a human body again for some crime.^ The man who repeats the stranger's story leaves it to his hearers, however, to believe it or not. But the struggle upward of human souls to the estate of demons is again described in the essay on the demon of Soc- rates,^ where it is explained that those souls which have suc- ceeded in freeing themselves from all union with the flesh become guardian demons and help those of their fellows whom they can reach, just as men on shore wade out as far as they can into the waves to rescue those sea-tossed, ship- v/recked mariners who have succeeded in struggling almost to land. The soul is plunged into the body, the uncorrupted mind or demon remains without.^
The demons differ from the gods in that they are mortal, Demons
though much longer-lived than men. Hesiod said that crows ^°^^^^ '■ .,
some evil.
live nine times as long as men, stags four times as long as crows, ravens three times as long as stags, a phoenix nine times as long as a raven, and the nymphs ten times as long as the phoenix.^ There are storms in the isles off Britain when- ever one of the demons residing there dies."^ Some demons are good spirits and others are evil ; some are more passive and irrational than others ; some delight in gloomy festivals, foul words, and even human sacrifice.^
^Cap. 26. «Cap. 22.
Cap. 29. " ]jg defectu oraculorum, 10.
Cap. 30. ' ii,id., 18.
Cap. 24. Ubid., 13-14.
208
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Men and demons.
Relation of Plutarch's to other concep- tions of demons.
Once a year in the neighborhood of the Red Sea a man is seen who spends the remainder of his time among "nymphs, nomads and demons." ^ At his annual appear- ance many princes and great men come to consult him con- cerning the future. He also has the gift of tongues to the extent of understanding several languages perfectly. His speech is like sweetest music, his breath sweet and fragrant, his person the most graceful that his interlocutor had ever seen. He also was never afflicted with any disease, for once a month he ate the bitter fruit of a medicinal herb. As to the exact nature of Socrates' demon there is some diversity of opinion. One man suggests that it was merely the sneez- ing of himself or others, sneezes on the left hand warning him to desist from his intended course of action, while a sneeze in any other quarter was interpreted by him as a fa- vorable sign.^ The weight of opinion, however, inclines to- wards the view that his demon did not appear to him as an apparition or phantasm, or even communicate with him as an audible voice, but by immediate impression upon his mind.^
Plutarch's account of demons is the first of a number which we shall have occasion to note. As the discussion of them by Apuleius in the next chapter and the rather crude representation of them given in Philostratus's Life of Apol- lonius of Tyana will show, there was as yet among non- Christian writers no unanimity of opinion concerning de- mons. On the other hand there are several conceptions in Plutarch's essays which were to be continued later by Chris- tians and Neo-Platonists : namely, the conception of a medi- ate class of beings between God and men, the hypothesis of a world of spirits in close touch with human life, the associa- tion of divination and oracles with demons, and the location of spirits in the sphere of the moon or the air between earth and moon, — although Plutarch sometimes connected demons with the stars above the moon. This occasional association of stars with spirits and of sinning souls with falling stars
^ De defectu oraculorum, 21. ^ Ibid., 20.
*De genio Socratis, 11.
VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 209
bears some resemblance to the depiction of certain stars as sinners in the Hebraic Book of Enoch, which was written before Plutarch's time and which we shall consider in our next book as an influence upon the development of early Christian thought.
As for the stars apart from demons, Plutarch discusses The the art of astrology as little as he does "magic" by that name. Tarrutms^. Mentions of individuals as skilled in "astrology" may sim- ply mean that they were trained astronomers. When a veritable astrologer in our sense of the word is mentioned in one of Plutarch's Lives,^ he is described as a fJLadrmaTiKos — a word often used for a caster of horoscopes and pre- dicter of the future. Here, however, it carries no reproach of charlatanism, since in the same phrase he is called a philosopher. This Tarrutius was a friend of Varro, who asked him to work out the horoscope of Romulus backward from what was known of the later life and character of the founder of Rome. "For it was possible for the same science which predicted man's life from the time of his birth to infer the time of his birth from the events of his life." Tarrutius set to work and from the data at his disposal figured out that Romulus was conceived in the first year of the second Olympiad, on the twenty-third day of the Egyptian month Khoeak at the third hour when there was a total eclipse of the sun; and that he was born on the twenty-first day of the month Thoth about sunrise. He further estimated that Rome was founded by him on the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi between the second and third hour. For, adds Plutarch, they think that the for- tunes of cities are also controlled by the hour of their genesis. Plutarch, however, seems to look upon such doc- trines as rather strange and fabulous.^ Varro, on the other hand, may have regarded it as the most scientific method possible of settling disputed questions of historical chro- nology.
Romulus, cap. 12. Slo. to fivdwdes ti'ox^'fi
AXXd ravra ixlv ictojs Kal to. roiavra. ras avrol^. Tcjj^eftf) Kal irtpiTTU) irpocra^eTai /LxdXXo;' i)
210 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
The A favorable attitude towards astrology is found mainly
^ ^^^°' in those essays by Plutarch which are suspected of being spurious, the De fato and De placitis philosophorum. Of the latter we have already treated under Galen. In the former fate is described as "the soul of the universe," and the three main divisions of the universe, namely, the im- movable heaven, the moving spheres and heavenly bodies, and the region about the earth, are associated with the three Fates, Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis.^ It is similarly stated in the essay on the demon of Socrates ^ that of the four principles of all things, life, motion, genesis or genera- tion, and corruption, the first two are joined by the One indivisibly, the second and third Mind unites through the sun; the third and fourth Nature joins through the moon. And over each of these three bonds presides one of the three Fates, Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis. In other words, the one God or first cause, invisible and unmoved, in whom is life, sets in motion the heavenly spheres and bodies, through whose instrumentality generation and corruption upon earth are produced and regulated, — which is substantially the Aristotelian view of the universe. Returning to the De fato we may note that it repeats the Stoic theory of the magnus anntis when the heavenly bodies resume their rounds and all history repeats itself.^ Despite this ap- parent admission that human life is subject to the move- ments of the stars, the author of the De fato seer^ to think that accident, fortune or chance, the contingent, and "what is in us" or free-will, can all co-exist with fate, which he practically identifies with the motion of the heavenly bodies,* Fate is also comprehended by divine Providence but this fact does not militate against astrology, since Providence itself divides into that of the first God, that of the secondary gods or stars "who move through the heavens regulating mortal affairs, and that of the demons who act as guardians
of men.^ *Cap. 2. *Caps. 5-8.
' Cap. 22. " Cap. 3. Cap. 9
VI
PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 211
One or two bits of astrology may be noted in Plutarch's Other other essays. The man who learned "astrology" among astrobgy. demons in the isle beyond Britain affirmed that in human generation earth supplies the body, the moon furnishes the soul, and the sun provides the intellect.^ In the Symposiacs ^ the opinion of the mythographers is repeated that mon- strous animals were produced during the war with the giants because the moon turned from its course then and rose in unaccustomed quarters. Plutarch was, by the way, in- clined to distinguish the moon from other heavenly bodies as passive and imperfect, a sort of celestial earth or terres- trial star. Such a separation of the moon from the other stars and planets would have, however, no necessary con- trariety with astrological theory, which usually ascribed a peculiar place to the moon and represented it as the medium through which the more distant planets exerted their effects upon the earth.
Sometimes Plutarch's cosmology carries Platonism to Cosmic the verge of Gnosticism, a subject of which we shall treat in a later chapter. The diviner who had communed with demons, nomads, and nymphs in the desert asserted that there was not one world, but one hundred and eighty-three worlds arranged in the form of a triangle with sixty to each side and one at each angle. Within this triangle of worlds lay the plain of truth where were the ideas and models of all things that had been or were to be, and about these was eternity from which time flowed off like a river to the one hundred and eighty-three worlds. The vision delectable of those ideas is granted to men only once in a myriad of years, if they live well, and is the goal toward which all philosophy strives. The stranger, we are informed, told this tale artlessly, like one in the mysteries, and produced no demonstration or proof of what he said. We have already heard Plutarch liken gods, demons, and men to different kinds of triangles; he also repeats Plato's association of the
^De facie in orbe lunae, 28. ''VIII, 9.
212
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Number mysticism.
Occult virtues in nature.
five regular solids with the elements, earth, air, fire, water, and ether.^ He states that the nature of fire is quite apparent in the pyramid from "the slenderness of its decreasing sides and the sharpness of its angles," ^ and that fire is engendered from air when the octahedron is dissolved into pyramids, and air produced from fire when the pyramids are compressed into an octahedron.^
These geometrical fancies are naturally accompanied by considerable number mysticism. In this particular passage the merits of the number five are enlarged upon and a long list is given of things that are five in number.!"* Five is again extolled in the essay on The Ei at Delphi,^ but there one of the company remarks with much reason that it is possible to praise any number in many ways, but that he prefers to five "the sacred seven of Apollo." ® Platonic geometrical reveries and Pythagorean number mysticism are indulged in even more extensively in the essay On the Procreation of the Soul in Timaeus. The number and proportion exist- ing in planets, stars and spheres are touched on,'^ and it is stated that the divine demiurge produced the marvelous vir- tues of drugs and organs by employing harmonies and num- bers.^ Thus in the potency of ntmiber and numerical rela- tions is suggested a possible explanation of astrology^and magic force in nature.
Plutarch, indeed, shows the same faith in the existence of occult virtues in natural objects and in what may be called natural magic as most of his contemporaries. At his symposium when one man avers that he saw the tiny fish echene'is stop the ship upon which he was sailing until the look-out man picked it off,^ some laugh at his credulity but
^ De defectu oraculorum, 31-32. The resemblance of the stranger's tale to the vision of Er in Plato's Republic is also evident.
^Ibid., 34.
"Ibid., 37.
* Ibid., 36; and see 11-12.
* Caps. 8-16. *Cap. 17. 'Cap. 31.
•Cap. 33.
' Symposiacs, II, 7. D'Arcy W. Thompson in his translation of Aristotle's History of Animals comments on II, 14, "The myth of the 'ship-holder' has been ele- gantly explained by V. W. Elk- man, 'On Dead Water,' in the Re- ports of Nansen's North Polar Expedition, Christiania, 1904."
VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 213
others narrate other cases of strange antipathies in nature. Mad elephants are quieted by the sight of a ram; vipers will not move if touched with a leaf from a beech tree; wild bulls become tame when tied to a fig tree;^ if light objects are oiled, amber fails to attract them as usual; and iron rubbed with garlic does not respond to the magnet, "These things are proved by experience but it is difficult if not quite impos- sible to learn their cause." At the Symposium ^ the ques- tion also is raised why salt is called divine, and it is sug- gested that it may be because it preserves bodies from decay after the soul has left them, or because mice conceive with- out sexual intercourse by merely licking salt. In The Delay of the Deity Plutarch again treats of occult virtues.^ They pass from body to body with incredible swiftness or to an incredible distance. He wonders why it is that if a goat takes a piece of sea-holly in her mouth, the entire herd will stand still until the goatherd removes it. We see once more how closely such notions are associated with magical prac- tices, when in the same paragraph he mentions the custom of making the children of those who have died of con- sumption or dropsy sit soaking their feet in water until the corpse has been buried so that they may not catch their parent's disease.
On the other hand, how difficult it must have been with Asbestos. the limited scientific knowledge of that time to distinguish true from false marvelous properties may be inferred from Plutarch's description ^ of a certain soft and pliable stone that used to be produced at Carystus and from which hand- kerchiefs and hair-nets were made which could not be burnt and were cleaned by exposure to fire, — a description, it would seem, of our asbestos, although Plutarch does not give the stone any name. Strabo also ascribes similar properties to a stone from Carystus without naming it.^ Dioscorides and
^ See above p. 77 for the some- *X, i (Casaub., 446) ; for this
what diflferent statement of Pliny and some other source citations
(NH, XXIII, 64). and a brief bibliography of mod-
' Symposiacs, V, 10. ern discussions on the subject see
^De sera numinis vindicta, 14. the article, "Amiantus" (3) in
* De defectu oraculorum, 43. Pauly-Wissowa.
214 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
other Greek authors, we are told/ apply the word "asbestos" to quick-lime, but Pliny in the Natural History ^ describes what he says the Greeks call aa^eaTLvou much as Plutarch does. He adds that it is employed in making shrouds for royal funerals to separate the ashes of the corpse from those of the pyre.^ But he seems to regard it as a plant, not a stone, listing it as a variety of linen in one of his books on vegetation. He also states incorrectly that it is found but rarely and in desert and arid regions of India where there is no rain and a hot sun and amid terrible serpents.* Prob- ably Pliny or his source argued that anything which resisted the action of fire must have been inured by growth under fiery suns and among serpents. Furthermore it obviously should possess other marvelous properties, so we are not surprised to find Anaxilaus cited to the effect that if this "linen" is tied around a tree trunk, the blows with which the tree is felled cannot be heard. It was thus that imagina- tions inured to magic enlarged upon unusual natural prop- erties.
* Article on "Asbestos" in the length. It is still preserved in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, nth edi- Vatican," (Bostock and Riley,
tion, which further states that note 45).
Charlemagne was said to own a * "On the contrary, it is found in
tablecloth which was cleaned by the Higher Alps in the vicinity of
throwing it into the fire, and that glaciers, in Scotland, and in
in 1676 a merchant from China Siberia even" (Bostock and Riley,
exhibited to the Royal Society a note 46). The article on "Amian-
handkerchief of "salamander's tus (3)" in Pauly-Wissowa incor-
wool" or linum asbesti (asbestos rectly assumes that in XIX, 4,
linen). See also Marco Polo, I, Pliny has it in mind. In XXXVI,
42, and Cordier's note in Yule 31, however, Pliny briefly de-
(1903), I, 216. scribes the stone amianthus, which
^XIX, 4. In Bostock and Riley's Bostock and Riley (note 52) call
English translation, note 44 states "the most delicate variety of
that "the wicks of the inextin- asbestus," as "losing nothing in
guishable lamps of the middle fire" and "resisting all potions (or,
ages, the existence of which was spells) even of the magi," — "Ami-
an article of general belief, were antus alumini similis nihil igni
said to be made of asbestus." On deperdit. Hie veneficis resistit
its use in lamp-wicks see also omnibus privatim magorum." In
Pausanias, I, 26, 7. XXXVII, 54, in an alphabetical
' "In the year 1702 there was list of stones, he briefly states that
found near the Naevian Gate at asbestos is iron-colored and found
Rome a funeral urn, in which in the mountains of Arcadia, —
there was a skull, calcined bones, "Asbestos in Arcadiae montibus
and other ashes, enclosed in a nascitur coloris ferrei." cloth of asbestus of a marvelous
VI
PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 215
A treatise upon rivers and mountains in which the mar- On rivers velous virtues of herbs and stones figure very prominently °^i„J"^""" has sometimes been included among the works of Plutarch, but also has been omitted entirely from some editions.^ Some have ascribed it to Parthenius of the time of Nero. It is made up of some thirty-five chapters in each of which a river and a mountain are mentioned. Usually some myth or tragic history is recounted, from which the river took its name or with which it was otherwise intimately connected. A similar procedure is followed in the case of the mountain. The writer, whoever he may be, makes a show of extensive reading, citing over forty authorities, most of whom are Greek and not mentioned in the full bibliographies of Pliny's Natural History. The titles cited have to do largely with stones, rivers, and different countries. It has been questioned, however, whether these citations are not bogus. ^
The properties attributed to herbs and stones in this Magic treatise are to a large extent magical. A white reed found ^^ ^' in the river Phasis while one is sacrificing at dawn to Hecate, if strewn in a wife's bedroom, drives mad any adulterer who enters and makes him confess his sin.^ Another herb men- tioned in the same chapter was used by Medea to protect Jason from her father. In a later chapter * we are told how Hera called upon Selene to aid her in securing her revenge upon Heracles, and how the moon goddess filled a large chest with froth and foam by her magic spells until presently a huge lion leaped out of the chest. Returning from such sorceresses as Hecate, Medea, and Selene to herbs alone, in other rivers are plants which test the purity of gold, aid dim sight or blind one, wither at the mention of the word "step-mother" or burst into flames whenever a step-mother has evil designs against her step-son, free their bearers from fear of apparitions, operate as charms in love-making and
* Ed. by R. Hercher, Lipsiae, and Mountains itself called a
185 1 ; and by C. Miiller in "Schwindelbuch," but these cita-
Geograph. Graeci Minorcs, II, tions are rejected as fraudulent.
637flf. 'Cap. 5.
' In Christ's Gesch. d. Griech. * Cap. 18. Litt., not only is the On Rivers
2i6 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
childbirth, cure madmen of their frenzy, check quartan
agues if appHed to the breasts, protect virginity or wither
at a virgin's touch, turn wine into water except that it retains
its bouquet, or preserve persons anointed with their juice
from sickness to their dying day.
Stones An easy transition from the theme of magic herbs to
found in .-.,,, . , . ,
plants that oi stones is afforded by a sort of poppy which grows
and sh. -^^ ^ river of Mysia and bears black, harp-shaped stones which the natives gather and scatter over their ploughed fields.^ If these stones then lie still where they have fallen, it is taken as a sign of a barren year; but if they fly away like locusts, this prognosticates a plentiful harvest. Other mar- velous stones are found in the head of a fish in the river Arar, a tributary of the Rhone. The fish is itself quite wonderful since it is white while the moon waxes and black when it wanes. ^ Presumably for this reason the stone cures quartan agues, if applied to the left side of the body while the moon is waning. There is another stone which must be sought after under a waxing moon with pipers playing continually.^ Virtues of Other stones guard treasuries by sounding a trumpet- stones, like alarm at the approach of thieves; or change color four times a day and are ordinarily visible only to young girls. But if a virgin of marriageable age chances to see this stone, she is safe from attempts upon her chastity henceforth.* Some stones drive men mad and are connected with the Mother of the Gods or are found only during the celebration of the mysteries.^ Others stop dogs from barking, expel demons, grow black in the hands of false witnesses, protect from wild beasts, and have varied medicinal powers or other effects similar to those already mentioned in the case of herbs. ° In a river where the Spartans were defeated is a stone which leaps towards the bank, if it hears a trumpet,
*Cap. 21. *Cap. 7.
* Cap. 6. ' Caps. 9, 10, 12.
•Cap. I. 'Caps. 16, 18, 24.
VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 217
but sinks at the mention of the Athenians.^ Certainly a mar- velous stone, capable of both hearing and motion !
Leaving the treatise on rivers and mountains, for the Fascina- occult virtue of human beings we may turn to a discus- **°"' sion of fascination in the Symposiacs.^ Some of the com- pany ridiculed the idea, but their host asserted that a myriad of events went to prove it and that if you reject a thing simply because you cannot give a reason for it, you "take away the marvelous from all things." He pointed out that some men hurt little and tender children by looking at them, and argued that, as the plumes of other birds are ruined when mixed with those of the eagle, so men may injure by their touch or mere glance. Plutarch, who was of the company, suggested effluvia or emanations from the body as a possible explanation, pointing out that love begins with glances, that no disease is more contagious than sore eyes, and that gazing upon the curlew cures jaundice. The bird appears to attract the disease to itself, and averts its head and closes its eyes, not, as some think, because it is jealous of the remedy sought from it, but because it feels wounded as if from a blow. Others of the company contended that the passions and affec- tions of the soul may have a powerful effect through the eyes and glance upon other persons, and argued that the sufferings of the soul strengthen the powers of the body, and that the same counter-charms are efficacious against envy as against fascination. The emanations which Democritus be- lieved that envious and malicious persons sent forth are also mentioned ; fathers have fascinated their own children, and it is even possible that one might injure oneself by reflection of one's gaze. It is suggested that young children may some- times be fascinated in this manner rather than by the glance of others.
Plutarch devotes two essays to the familiar theme of the Animal craftiness and sagacity of animals and the remedies used by ^n?*^^*^ them. In one essay ^ a companion of Odysseus refuses to remedies. * Cap. 17. 9 ; also Quaest. Nat., cap. 26, "Why
V, 7. certain brutes seek certain rem-
Bruta animalia rattone uti, cap. edies."
2l8
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Theories
and
queries
about
nature.
allow Circe to turn him back from a pig to human form. He boasts among other things that beasts know how to cure themselves. Without ever having been taught swine when sick run to rivers to search for craw-fish; tortoises physic themselves with origanum after eating vipers; and Cretan goats devour dittany to extract arrows and darts which have been shot into their bodies. In the other essay ^ on the cleverness of animals we find many familiar stories repeated, including some of the inevitable excerpts from Juba on ele- phants. We meet again the dolphins with their love for mankind,- the bird who picks the crocodile's teeth and warns him of the ichneumon,^ the fish who rescue one another by biting the line or dragging one another by the tail out of nets,^ the trained elephant who was slow to learn and was beaten for it and was afterwards seen practicing his exer- cises by himself in the moonlight,^ the sentinel cranes who stand on one foot and hold a stone in the other to awaken them if they let it drop.® More novel perhaps is the story how herons open oysters by first swallowing them, shells and all, until they are relaxed by the internal heat of the bird, which then vomits them up and eats them out of the shells. Or the account of the tunny fish who needs no astrological canons and is familiar with arithmetic, "Yes, by Zeus, and with optics, too." '^
Plutarch's essays bring out yet other interests and de- fects of the science of the time. One on The Principle of Cold is a good illustration of the failings of the ancient hypothesis of four elements and four qualities and of the silly, limited arguing which usually and almost of necessity accompanied it. He denies that cold is mere privation of heat, since it seems to act positively upon fluids and solids and exists in different degrees. After considering various assertions such as that air becomes cold when it becomes
* De solertia animaliunt. "* Cap. 25.
'Ibid., 36-37; also the closing ^ Cap. 12.
chapters of The Banquet of the * Cap. 10.
Seven Sages. ' Cap. 29.
•Cap. 31.
VI PLUTARCH'S ESSAYS 219
dark; that air whitens things and water blackens them; that cold objects are always heavy; he finally associates the element earth especially with the quality cold. In another essay ^ he states that there are no females of a certain type of beetle which was engraved as a charm upon the rings warriors wore to battle, but that the males begat offspring by rolling up balls of earth. He declares that "diseases do not have distinct germs" in a discussion in the Symposiacs whether there can be new diseases.^ Other natural ques- tions discussed in the treatise of that name and the Symposi- acs are : Why a man who often passes near dewy trees con- tracts leprosy in those limbs which touch the wood? Why the Dorians pray for bad hay-making? Why bears' paws are the sweetest and most palatable food? Why the tracks of wild beasts smell worse at the full of the moon? Why bees are more apt to sting fornicators than other persons ? ^ Why the flesh of sheep bitten by wolves is sweeter than that of other sheep? Why mushrooms are thought to be pro- duced by thunder? Why flesh decays sooner in moonlight than sunlight? Whether Jews abstain from pork because they worship the pig or because they have an antipathy towards it ? ^
Plutarch sometimes shows evidence of considerable The astronomical knowledge. For instance, he knows that the ^"^'Po^es. mathematicians figure that the distance from sun to earth is immense, and that Aristarchus demonstrated the sun to be eighteen or twenty times as far off as the moon, which is distant fifty-six times the earth's radius at the lowest esti- mate.*^ Yet in the same essay ® Plutarch has scoffed at the idea of a spherical earth and of antipodes, and at the asser- tion that bars weighing a thousand talents would stop falling at the earth's center, if a hole were opened up through the earth, or that two men with their feet in opposite directions
^ Isis and Osiris, 10. 10; IV, 5.
VIII, 9, l.bia.bkcrirkpu.aTa v6
«^^^^ De facte in orbe lunae, 9-10;
'Nat. Quaest., caps. 6, 14, 22, ""}'? 5^^ °P^"/"& chapters of De 2A ■xd > i- > ~t, , dejectu oraculorum.
* Symposiacs, II, 9 ; IV, 2 ; III, * Cap. 7.
220 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap, vi
at the center of the earth might nevertheless both be right side up, or that one man whose middle was at the center might be half right side up and half upside down. He admits, however, that the philosophers think so. Thus we see that Christian fathers like Lactantius were not the first to ridicule the notion of the Antipodes; apparently as well educated and omnivorous a pagan reader as Plutarch could do the same.