INTRODUCTION There seems to be no reason to discuss this little work in detail, since F. H. Sandbach Class. Quart. xxxiii (1939), pp. 198-202. G. Kowolski, De Plut. scriptorum iuvenilium colore rhetorico , Cracow, 1918, pp. 258 ff., also denied the authenticity. 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, This is very puzzling since Ziegler later (936) cites the same article as authoritative on rhythmical matters. 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 Wegehaupt collated some 34 mss. for his edition, all of which he cites separately. apparatus in Χάριτες für 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. The new Teubner edition of this and the following essays appeared while this volume was in proof, so that only the most necessary changes and corrections could be made. In this essay (since Wegehaupt’s edition was already available) they have not been so plentiful as in the subsequent ones, for which Hubert has now provided the first truly critical edition that these works have ever had. Water is best, but gold is a flaming fire, says Pindar. Olympians , i. 1. He, therefore, bluntly assigns the second place to fire; and Hesiod Theogony , 116. 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 ). Etymologizing (as in Mor. 948 e-f supra ) chaos from chysis , diffusion of liquid. Yet the balance of witnesses on both sides seems to be equal. There are, in fact, some The Stoics; cf., e.g., von Arnim, S.V.F. i, p. 27 (Zeno, frag. 98); cf. Mor. 1053 a-b; 1067 a; 1077 b. 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. On the Universal Conflagration of the Stoics see von Arnim, op. cit. ii, pp. 183 ff.; on that of Heraclitus, Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of the Presocratics , p. 29, n. 108. Ignoring the authors, let us examine the arguments on both sides and see where they will lead us. Is not that element the more useful of which most of all, everywhere, invariably, we stand in need as a household tool and, I swear, a friend, ready to help us at any time, in any emergency? Yet fire is not always useful; sometimes, indeed, we find it too much and interrupt our use of it. But water is used both winter and summer, sick and well, night and day: there is no time when a man does not need it. That, of course, is the reason why the dead are called alibantes , meaning that they are without libas , moisture, Cf. Mor. 736 a; Galen, De Temperament. i. 3 (i, p. 522 K.). and for lack of that deprived of life. Man has often existed without fire, but without water never. Besides, that which, from the beginning, was coincidental with the inception of man is more useful than that which was discovered later; for it is obvious that Nature bestowed the one as vitally necessary, while the other was brought to light by luck or contrivance for a superfluous use. Now, none may tell of a time when water was unknown to man, nor is any god or hero said to be its discoverer; it was, in fact, at hand instantly when man appeared and was itself the cause of his appearance. But the use of fire, they say, As, e.g. , Aeschylus, Prometheus , 254. The following words in lozenge brackets are conjecturally supplied. was discovered only a day or twro ago by Prometheus; (consequently all our preceding life was deprived of) fire, though it was not without water. And that this is no poetic fiction is proved by present modes of living; for there are certain races of man who live without fire, with no house or hearth, under the open sky. And Diogenes This anecdote is told with rather more point and relevance in 995 c-d infra . the Cynic reduced the use of fire to a minimum, so that he even swallowed a squid raw, remarking, Thus, gentlemen, do I risk my life for you. But without water no one ever thought it good, or even possible, to live. And why do I split hairs by discussing merely human nature? For though there are many, or rather countless, sorts of creatures, man is practically the only one that knows the use of fire, while all the others live and feed without it: they subsist, whether they range abroad or fly or crawl, upon roots or produce or flesh, all without fire; but without water no creature of the sea or land or air ever existed. For even flesh-eating animals, some of which Aristotle Historia Animal. viii. 3 (601 b). says do not drink, nevertheless keep alive by using the fluids in the flesh. That element, therefore, without which no living nature can subsist or endure is the more useful. Let us pass from the people who use fire to the things that we use, namely plants and produce, This must be one of the most remarkable transitions in literature (Sandbach, op. cit. p. 200). of which some are completely devoid of heat, while others have an infinitesimal and uncertain amount. Moisture, however, is the element in nature that makes them all burgeon, growing and bearing fruit. And why should I enumerate honey and wine and oil and all the rest that come to us from the vintage, the milking of herds, or taking off of honey - and it is obvious where they belong That is, they must be classed as liquids. - when even wheat itself, though it is classed as a dry food, moves into the category of liquids by alteration, fermentation, and deliquescence? Cf. 968 a infra ; here, however, the author seems to be talking about beer.