INTRODUCTION There can be little doubt that Plutarch composed this pleasant work from commentarii ( ὑπομνήματα ) derived not merely from Aristotle (mentioned specifically in 965 d and quoted often), but also from various other compendia, the remains of which are to be seen in Aelian’s and Pliny’s natural histories and elsewhere. On the sources see Ziegler’s article Plutarchos in Pauly-Wissowa, col. 738, and, of the authorities he cites, particularly Wellmann’s papers in Hermes , xxvi, xxvii, and li, and Max Schuster, Untersuchungen zu Plutarchs De Sollertia Animalium (Diss. Munich, 1917). There is also an amusing work of Philo, surviving only in an Armenian version, which is most conveniently accessible in Aucher’s Latin translation in vol. 8 of the Bibliotheca Sacra edition (Schwickert, Leipzig, 1830): De Ratione quam habere etiam Bruta Animalia dicebat Alexander . In the first part of this work Alexander presents the arguments for animal intelligence, which Philo himself attempts to refute in a somewhat summary fashion at the end. The occasional parallels with Plutarch will be cited as Philo, with Aucher’s section and page numbers. Antigonus of Carystus, Historia Mirabilium , will be cited from O. Keller’s edition of the Naturalium Rerum Scriptores Graeci (Teubner, 1877) and Aelian’s De Natura Animalium from R. Hercher’s Teubner (not Didot) edition. In fact, if one reads Plutarch and Aelian and Pliny side by side, one may acquire the impression that they had before them substantially the same sources, and that these were numerous. Whereas Pliny and Aelian appear to adopt nearly everything their authorities may have offered (for they were writing factual commentaries), Plutarch, as always, selects. It is possible, in some cases, that Plutarch’s mss. (which are not good and also contain lacunae) may have been interpolated from Aelian’s; and the reverse is likewise possible. This is a very difficult matter, but the hope may be entertained that some main sources of Plutarch and Aelian, if not of Pliny, and the as yet unassessed evidence of Philo, may eventually be disentangled for substantial sections, though this is not the place to attempt such a feat. The title is not well chosen, since the victory is awarded to neither side. The real point of the dialogue seems to be, in its second as well as its first part, that all animals of whatever provenance are intelligent. Schuster thinks, rather, that Plutarch’s chief aim is to make clear a moral and juridical relationship between man and beasts. The occasionally bantering tone may serve to indicate that we have before us something of a school exercise from Plutarch’s own academy, with perhaps the first draft of the second part composed by pupils. See Schuster, pp. 57 ff. Aristotimus and Phaedimus were doubtless actual pupils of Plutarch. Note the carefully established details: the contest will take place at a fixed time (960 b, 963 b) before their fellow-pupils and a specially appointed judge (965 c-e). More or less elaborate preparation has been made by the contestants (960 b, 975 d). Plutarch lays special emphasis on preparation: Mor. 80 d, 652 b. Because of the occasion the school has been granted a holiday. In the first part (chapters 1-8), the author demonstrates through the authoritarian voice of his own father that the Stoics, in so far as they affirm the irrationality of animals, contradict their own tenets. The second part proves that animals of all kinds are rational (chapters 9-36); the last small section, while refusing to award first honours in the debate, appears to contain Plutarch’s exhortation to his pupils to continue the fight against the Stoics. For an excellent summary with sympathetic comments see E. R. Dodds, Greece and Rome , ii (1932/3), pp. 104-105. D’ Agostino V. D’ Agostino, Archivo Italiano di Psicologia , xi (1933), pp. 21 ff., a useful summarizing article. and others have shown that there is little originality in Plutarch’s animal psychology, while not denying our author considerable vivacity in presentation. While it is true that whole sections, like 976 a-d, are drawn from the identical source that Aelian ( De Natura Animalium , viii. 4-6) used, yet one has only to compare the use these authors have made of precisely the same material to recognize the great superiority of Plutarch. The principal sources have been disputed Hirzel, Der Dialog , ii, p. 179, n. 1. All of Hirzel’s discussion is worth reading, though there are occasional slips, as when he affirms (p. 173, n. 2) that the story in 969 e f. goes back to Plutarch’s own experience. This is quite unlikely in view of Aelian’s version of the same story; nor has Aelian drawn from Plutarch as some, including Wyttenbach, have thought. : Chrysippus, Theophrastus, Hagnon, Alexander of Myndus, For the difficulty and danger involved in identifying the sources exactly see the lists of authorities furnished by Pliny in his first book. Alexander of Myndus, for example, does not appear at all as a source for books 8-11. Juba, Xenocrates have all been suggested, but there can be little doubt (as with De Tranquillitate See the introduction in the Loeb edition. and many other works) that a considerable variety of sources has been utilized. Now that Schläpfer Plutarch und die klassischen Dichter , Zürich, 1950, especially pp. 59-60. has demonstrated that Plutarch had himself read and meditated upon great sections of classical poetry, critics may perhaps be more willing to allow our author first-hand familiarity with a wider range of prose, and works of reference as well. It is by no means impossible that the work is incomplete in our mss.; there are, at least, several demonstrable lacunae and it is possible that it was considerably longer and may even have justified its title when it left Plutarch’s hands. As for the date of the dialogue, the terminus post quem is a.d. 70 (not 79, as it cannot be certainly inferred from 974 a that Vespasian was then dead); it is probably a work of Plutarch’s youth, preceding in any case the Lives and the Symposiacs . It may well date from Plutarch’s anti-Stoic period which produced the De Facie , the De Communibus Notitiis , and the other anti-Chrysippean polemics. It has much in common with the Gryllus and the fragments of De Esu Carnium and some correspondence with the Amatorius . But allowance must be made for exaggerated and partially false premises in Hartman, De Plutarcho , p. 567. A modified chronological scheme of Plutarch’s writings has lately been proposed by T. Sinko ( Polish Acad. Cracow , 1947), but it is too complicated to be examined here. It may, in fact, have been written during nearly the same period as that in which the elder Pliny (whose preface is dated a.d. 77) was compiling his own Natural History . The citations in D’Arcy Thompson’s Oxford translation of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium The Loeb edition of A. L. Peck is still awaited at this date of writing. It should be noted that quotations from the ninth book, in particular, are liable to peculiar suspicion and may not proceed from the great naturalist himself. are somewhat inaccurate and inconsistent, being, as he says, compiled at various times and at long intervals during many years. Nevertheless the work is of great value and it may be hoped that the notes in this edition that rely on it (and these are many) have been adequately sifted. Also to be constantly and gratefully consulted are Thompson’s A Glossary of Greek Fishes (Oxford, 1947) and A Glossary of Greek Birds (2nd edition, Oxford, 1936). There will be many references to Thompson’s Aristotle; but if the creature in question is a bird or a fish, it is to be understood that supplementary and often corrective material is to be found in the Glossaries. There is, further, a tribute of admiration due to A. W. Mair’s L.C.L. edition of Oppian, with its exhaustive notes. Even the extremely hostile review in Phil. Woch. li (1931), pp. 1569 ff., exempts the notes from censure. Rackham (L.C.L. Pliny, vol. Ill, books viii-xi) is very interesting on the text, but has almost completely denied himself the privilege of citing parallel passages. The debunking of many of Plutarch’s stories, if such a task is necessary, has been pleasantly done in the leisurely course of Bergen Evans’ The Natural History of Nonsense (New York, 1946). It should be added, however, that modern scientific speculation is approaching somewhat closer to one of Plutarch’s main tenets, if one may judge from such a work as W. C. Allee’s Coöperation Among Animals (New York, 1951: a revision of his earlier The Social Life of Animals ); and on the thesis of animal intelligence see Evans himself, p. 173, and the authorities cited there, note 1. Both the translation and the notes of this and the following essays have benefited immeasurably from an exhaustive criticism generously given them by Professor Alfred C. Andrews of the University of Miami, Florida. He has in fact supplied a number of valuable notes and also the Appendix, a classified zoological index. It must be understood, however, that any errors remaining are to be attributed solely to the editor. Since our text was formed and our translation and notes composed a year or more before the appearance of the new Teubner edition, almost no new references have been added which are not purely textual. The curious reader is referred to Hubert’s wealth of illustration to supplement our contributions. The dialogue is no. 147 in the catalogue of Lamprias. According to this document Plutarch wrote another work (no. 135) on the same subject: Do Beasts Possess Reason ? But no. 127, Περὶ ζώλων ἀλόγων ποιητικός , is probably the same as our Gryllus , the following dialogue in this edition. Abbreviations used in citing Modern Authors Brands = J. P. J. M. Brands, Grieksche Diernamen , Purmerend, 1935. Cotte = J. Cotte, Poissons et animaux aquatiques au temps de Pline , Paris, 1945. Keller = Otto Keller, Die antike Tierwelt , Leipzig, 1909-1913. Mair = A. W. Mair, Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus , L.C.L., 1928. Saint-Denis = E. de Saint-Denis, Le Vocabulaire des animaux marius en latin classique , Paris, 1947. Schmid = Georg Schmid, Die Fische in Ovids Halieuticon, Philologus , Supplementband xi (1907-1910), pp. 253-350. Thompson, Aristotle = D’Arcy W. Thompson, The Works of Aristotle, vol. IV, Historia animalium , Oxford, 1910. Thompson, Birds = D’Arcy W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Birds , rev. ed., Oxford, 1936. Thompson, Fishes = D’Arcy W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Fishes , Oxford, 1947. (The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus, Plutarch’s father; on controversial points connected with this identification see Ziegler in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Plutarchos, 642 ff. Soclarus, A friend of the household who appears in several of the Symposiacs and in the Amatorius also; he is not improbably the L. Mestrius Soclarus of Inscr. Gr. ix. 1. 61. Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon. A speaker also in De Defectu Oraculorum ( cf. Mor . 412 e). Of the other speakers in this dialogue, nothing definite is known except what may be inferred from the present work. ) AUTOBULUS. . When Leonidas was asked what sort of a person he considered Tyrtaeus to be, he replied, A good poet to whet the souls of young men, cf. Mor 235 f, where it is an anonymous saying; but the Life of Cleomenes , ii (xxiii = 805 d) also attributes it to Leonidas. on the ground that by means of verses the poet inspired in young men keenness, accompanied by ardour and ambition whereby they sacrificed themselves freely in battle. And I am very much afraid, my friends, that the Praise of Hunting The authorship of this work has been endlessly disputed, but present opinion ( pace Sinko, Eos , xv. pp. 113 ff. and Hubert, Woch. f. klass. Phil. xxviii, pp. 371 ff.) holds that it is Plutarch himself who wrote it (Schuster, op. cit. pp. 8 ff.). Bernardakis (vii, pp. 142-143) included this passage (959 b-d) as a fragment of the lost work. which was read aloud to us yesterday may so immoderately inflame our young men who like the sport that they will come to consider all other occupations as of minor, or of no, importance and concentrate on this. There canot be two passions more nearly resembling each other than hunting and philosophy (Huxley, Hume , p. 139), and see Shorey’s note on Plato, Republic , 432 b (L.C.L.); cf. , however, Rep. 535 d, 549 a. See also Isocrates, Areopagiticus , 43 f.; Xenophon, Cynegetica , i. 18; xii. 1. ff.; Cyr. viii. 1. 34-36; Pollux, preface to book v; the proems of Grattius, Nemesianus, Arrian, etc. As a matter of fact, I myself caught the old fever all over again in spite of my years and longed, like Euripides’ Cf . Hippolytus , 218 f. It follows from the fuller quotation in Mor. 52 c that Plutarch’s text of Euripides inverted the order of these lines as given in our mss. of the tragedian. Phaedra, To halloo the hounds and chase the dappled deer; so moved was I by the discourse as it brought its solid and convincing arguments to bear. SOCLARUS. . Exactly so, Autobulus. That reader yesterday seems to have roused his rhetoric from its long disuse Presumably an autobiographical detail. to gratify the young men and share their vernal mood. The word is found only here, but may well be right if Plutarch is in a poetical, as well as a playful, humour. I was particularly pleased with his introduction of gladiators and his argument that it is as good a reason as any to applaud hunting that after diverting to itself most of our natural or acquired pleasure in armed combats between human beings it affords an innocent spectacle of skill and intelligent courage pitted against witless force and violence. It agrees with that passage of Euripides Frag. 27 from the Aeolus (so Stobaeus); Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. pp. 370 f.; cf. Mor . 98 e. The text is somewhat confused. : Slight is the strength of men; But through his mind’s resource He subdues the dread Tribes of the deep and races Bred on earth and in the air. AUTOBULUS. Yet that is the very source, my dear Soclarus, from which they say insensibility spread among men and the sort of savagery that learned the taste of slaughter on its hunting trips Cf. Porphyry, De Abstinentia , iii. 20. and has grown accustomed to feel no repugnance for the wounds and gore of beasts, but. to take pleasure in their violent death. The next step is like what happened at Athens See 998 b infra and cf. Müller, Hist. Graec. Frag. i. p. 269, Ephorus, frag. 125; it is not, however, accepted as from Ephorus by Jacoby ( cf. Sallust, Catiline , li. 28-31). We must remember, during the following discussion, that zoology used to be the handmaid of ethics. : the first man put to death by the Thirty was a certain informer who was said to deserve it, and so was the second and the third; but after that they went on, step by step, until they were laving hands on honest men and eventually did not spare even the best of the citizens. Just so the first man Cf. 993 b infra . The Age of Cronus, when beasts were unharmed, is admirably described in Plato, Politicus , 270 c ff. to kill a bear or a wolf won praise; and perhaps some cow or pig was condemned as suitable to slay because it had tasted the sacred meal placed before it. That is, they put grain on the altar to make the animal volunteer, as it were, to die (Post); and the consent of the victim was secured by pouring water on it to make it shake its head. See Mor. 729 e and the article Opfer in RE , xviii. 612. So from that point, as they now went on to eat the flesh of deer and hare and antelope, men were introduced to the consumption of sheep and, in some places, of dogs and horses. The tame goose and the dove upon the hearth, as Sophocles Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 314, frag. 782; Pearson, vol. III, p. 68, frag. 866. says, were dismembered and carved for food - not that hunger compelled men as it does weasels and cats, but for pleasure and as an appetizer. Cf. 991 d, 993 b, 995 c infra . Or as meat to go with their bread ; for fowl is not ordinarily an appetizer. Thus the brute From this point to the end of chapter 5 (963 f) the greater part of the text is excerpted by Porphyry, De Abstinentia , iii. 20-24 (pp. 211-220, ed. Nauck). This indirect transmission, with its not infrequent changes, omissions, and variations, gives valuable evidence; but obvious errors on either side have not been mentioned here. and the natural lust to kill in man were fortified and rendered inflexible to pity, while gentleness was, for the most part, deadened. It was in this way, on the contrary, that the Pythagoreans, Cf. 964 f, 993 a infra , and Mor. 86 d, 729 e. The practice is correctly stated; the alleged motive is not. The taboo on meat stemmed from belief in the transmigration of souls (Andrews). to inculcate humanity and compassion, made a practice of kindness to animals; for habituation has a strange power to lead men onward by a gradual familiarization of the feelings. Well, we have somehow fallen unawares into a discussion not unconnected with what we said yesterday nor yet with the argument that is presently to take place to-day. Yesterday, as you know, we proposed the thesis that all animals partake in one way or another of reason and understanding, and thereby offered our young hunters a field of competition not lacking in either instruction or pleasure: the question whether land or sea animals have superior intelligence. This argument, it seems, we shall to-day adjudicate if Aristotimus and Phaedimus stand by their challenges; for Aristotimus put himself at his comrades’ disposal to advocate the land as producer of animals with superior intelligence, while the other will be pleader for the sea. SOCLARUS. . They’ll stand by their word, Autobulus; they’ll be here any minute now. Early this morning I observed them both preparing for the fray. But, if you like, before the contest begins, let us review the discussion of whatever topics are germane to our conversation of yesterday, but were not then discussed, either because no occasion offered, or, since we were in our cups, were treated too lightly. I thought, in fact, that I caught the reverberation of a material objection from the Stoa Cf. von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, pp. 49 ff., 172 ff.; and Pohlenz, B.P.W. xxiii (1903), col. 966, on Chrysippus, frag. 182. : just as the immortal is opposed to the mortal and the imperishable to the perishable, and, of course, the incorporeal to the corporeal; just so, if there is rationality, the irrational must exist as its opposite and counterpart. This alone, among all these pairings, must not be left incomplete and mutilated.