Whether fire or water is most useful (intro-1)

There seems to be no reason to discuss this little work in detail, since F. H. Sandbach[*] has shown conclusively that it cannot be genuine. Still more might be added to his proofs, sound and thorough as they are; but this is not the place to slay the slain. It is the more to be regretted that Ziegler, in the article on Plutarch in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, has not had access to Sandbach’s work,[*] though he does refer to Xylander’s athetesis, only to reject it, and might have mentioned Meziriacus’ as well.

Sandbach well observes: To write an exercise on the comparative utility of fire and water may seem so difficult to us moderns who do not have such tasks as part of our education, that we do not recognize how badly the topic is here handled ⋯ While it is possible that Plutarch wrote this work as a parody, or when a schoolboy, or under some strange circumstances, yet ⋯ the most probable view is that a miserable sophistical exercise on the subject Whether fire or water is more useful was fathered on the author of a diversion entitled Whether land- or water-animals are more intelligent, just as the Consolatio ad Apollonium

was ascribed to the author of a consolation addressed to his wife, or the Lives of the Ten Orators to the author of some more famous biographies.

The text is extremely bad, as may be seen by examining Wegehaupt’s topheavy[*] apparatus in Χάριτεςfür Friedrich Leo (Berlin, Weidmann, 1911)? pp. 158-169- It is possible, to be sure, that part at least of the difficulty of the text is due to the author. Less emendation than that admitted here might not seriously damage what is irreparable nonsense in any case. Some attempt has been made to reproduce the childish style of the original.

The work is no. 206 in the catalogue of Lamprias.[*]

Water is best, but gold is a flaming fire,

says Pindar.[*] He, therefore, bluntly assigns the second place to fire; and Hesiod[*] agrees with him in the words

And first of all came Chaos into being;

for most people believe that this is his name for water because it flows (chysis).[*] Yet the balance of witnesses on both sides seems to be equal. There are, in fact, some[*] who state that fire is the first principle of the universe and, like a seed, creates everything out of itself and receives all things into itself when the conflagration occurs.[*] Ignoring the authors, let us examine the arguments on both sides and see where they will lead us.