Quaestiones Graecae

In the Greek Questions, as in the Roman Questions, Plutarch endeavours to give the reason or explanation of fifty-nine matters concerned with Greek life. The vast majority of them are customs or names and, as the explanations are usually historical, they often go back to very early times. A full commentary may be found in W. R. Halliday, The Greek Questions of Plutarch (Oxford, 1928), an excellent work, embodying also much of the modern speculation in regard to primitive religion.

The sources for the information contained in this essay seem to be somewhat varied, but there is little doubt that Aristotle’s account of the numerous Greek Constitutions was Plutarch’s principal source. The matter is treated at length by Halliday.

J. J. Hartman (Mnemosyne, xii. p. 216, or De Plutarcho scriptore et philosophos p. 139) is the only modern scholar who has doubted the authenticity of the attribution to Plutarch of this work[*](Sed praeterea totus liber mera est doctrinae ostentatio,... Chaeronensi metium medico prorsus indigna.); the author was not primarily interested in ethical matters, according to Hartman, and hence cannot be Plutarch. J. B. Titchener[*](See The ms. Tradition of Plutarch’s Aetia Graeca and Aetia Romana (Urbana, Illinois, 1924), p. 9.) has promised a discussion of this

A few of the topics treated in the Greek Questions appear also in other works of Plutarch, but the number naturally is not large.

The ms. tradition is good; the few difficulties found are generally with single words.

The work is No. 166 in Lamprias’s list of Plutarch’s works, where the title is given as Αἰτάαι Ἑλλήνων.

Who were the dusty-feet and the directors in Epidaurus?

There were one hundred and eighty men who directed the State. From these they used to elect councillors whom they called directors. But the majority of the populace spent their life in the coun try. They were called dusty-feet [*](This was the serf-class liberated by the tyrants: cf. Cambridge Ancient History, vol. iii. p. 554.) since, as one may conjecture, they were recognized by their dust-covered feet whenever they carne down to the city.

Who was the woman that rode on a donkey at Cumae?

Any woman taken in adultery they used to bring into the market-place and set her on a certam stone in plain sight of everyone. In like manner they then proceeded to mount her upon a donkey, and when she had been led about the circuit of the entire city, she was required again to take her stand upon the same stone, and for the rest of her life to continue in disgrace, bearing the name donkey-rider. After this ceremony they believed that the stone was unclean and they used ritually to purify it.

The citizens of Cumae had also a certain office called the Guards. The man who held this office used to watch the prison most of the time, but he

Who is She that Kindles the Fire (hypekkaustria)[*](W. R. Halliday, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xxxvi. 165-177, suggests that cohen (= priest) may be contained in this word.) among the people of Soli?

This is the name which they give to the priestess of Athena because she performs certain sacrifices and ceremonies to avert evil.

Who were the Forgetful Ones (Amnemones) at Cnidus, and who was the Dismisser[*](Grote thus connected aphester with the Spartan apostater of Life of Lycurgus, chap. vi. (43 c); but the matter is very doubtful; cf. van Herwerden, Lex. Supp. Graec. ) (Aphester)?

They were wont to employ sixty men chosen from the nobles, and appointed for life, as overseers and preliminary advisers in matters of the greatest importance. They were called the Forgetful Ones, one might conjecture, because they could not be held to account for their actions; unless, indeed, it was because they were men who remembered many things.[*](On the lucus a non lucendo principle, as Halliday well suggests; or else ἀμ-μνήμονες, as van Herwerden supposes.) He who asked them their opinions was the Dismisser.

Who are the good among the Arcadians and the Spartans?

When the Spartans had come to terms with the Tegeans, they made a treaty and set up in common a pillar by the Alpheius. On this, among other matters, was inscribed: The Messenians must be expelled from the country; it shall not be lawful to make men good. [*](Cf.χρηστὲ χαῖρε on Greek tombstones.) Aristotle,[*](Frag. 592 (V. Rose); cf. 277 b-c, supra>.) then, in explaining this, states that it means that no one shall be put

Who is he that selects barley (krithologos) among the Opuntians?

For sacrifices of very ancient origin most of the Greeks used to employ barley, which the citizens offered as first-fruits of the harvest. Accordingly they called the officer who presided at the sacrifices and brought these first-fruits the Barley-selector. They had two priests: one appointed for sacrifices to the gods, the other for sacrifices to the spirits.

What were the floating clouds?

They used to call clouds floating which particularly threatened rain and were in constant motion, as Theophrastus has stated in the fourth book of his Meteorology. The passage reads thus: Since also these floating clouds and these compact clouds, which are immovable and very white in colour, exhibit a certain difference of substance which is filled neither with water nor with wind.

Who is the near-dweller (platioiketas) among the Boeotians?

This is the name they give in the Aeolian dialect to persons who dwell in the next house or occupy adjoining property, signifying that they hold land near at hand. I shall add one phrase from the Edict of the Guardians of the Law, although there are several more...[*](The copyist seems to have omitted the quotation.)

Who is the Consecrator (hosioter) among the Delphians and why do they call one of the months Bysios?

They call the victim that is sacrificed Consecrator whenever an Holy One[*](Cf.Moralia, 365 a, 437 a.) is appointed. There are five Holy Ones, who hold office for life; they do a great many things with the co-operation of the oracle-interpreters and with them take part in the holy rites, since they are thought to have descended from Deucalion.

The month Bysios, as many think, is the month of growth (physios); for it begins the spring and during it many plants spring up and come into bloom. But this is not the truth of the matter, for Delphians do not use b in place of ph (as Macedonians do who say Bilip and balacros and Beronicê), but in place of p; thus they naturally say broceed for proceed and bainful for painful. Accordingly Bysios is pysios, the month of oracular inquiry, in which men ask questions and obtain responses from the god; for this is the legitimate and traditional procedure. In this month, then, oracles used to be given and the seventh day of this month they consider the birthday of the god.[*](Ibid. 717 d; for the connexion of the number seven with the birth of Apollo see Callimachus, Hymn iv. 251 ff.) They call this day the day of Many Utterances (Polyphthoös) not because they then bake cakes (phthoïs),[*](cf. Athenaeus, 647 d, 502 b.) but because it is a day when many inquire of the god and receive many oracles. For only recently have monthly oracles been given out to inquirers; formerly the prophetic priestess was wont to give responses but once a year on this day, as Callisthenes[*](cf. Jacoby, Frag. der griech. Hist. 124 f 49.) and Anaxandrides have recorded.

What is the sheep-escaper?

It is one of the small plants that grow close to the

Who are the Men repulsed by slings?

Men from Eretria used to inhabit the island of Corcyra. But Charicrates sailed thither from Corinth with an army and defeated them in war; so the Eretrians embarked in their ships and sailed back home. Their fellow-citizens, however, having learned of the matter before their arrival, barred their return to the country and prevented them from disembarking by showering upon them missiles from slings. Since the exiles were unable either to persuade or to overcome their fellow-citizens, who were numerous and inexorable, they sailed to Thrace and occupied a territory in which, according to tradition, Methon, the ancestor of Orpheus, had formerly lived. So the Eretrians named their city Methonê, but they were also named by their neighbours the Men repulsed by slings.

Who was Charilla among the Delphians?

The Delphians celebrate three festivals one after the other which occur every eight[*](Cf.Moralia, 421 c.) years, the first of which they call Septerion, the second Heroïs, and the third Charilla.

Now the Septerion seems to be a representation of Apollo’s fight with the Python and the flight to Tempê and pursuit that followed the battle.[*](Cf.Moralia, 421 c.) Some indeed

The greater part of the Heroïs has a secret import which the Thyiads[*](Cf.Moralia, 249 e-f.) know; but from the portions of the rites that are performed in public one might conjecture that it represents the evocation of Semele.

The story of Charilla which they relate is somewhat as follows: A famine following a drought oppressed the Delphians, and they came to the palace of their king with their wives and children and made supplication. The king gave portions of barley and legumes to the more notable citizens, for there was not enough for all. But when an orphaned girl, who was still but a small child, approached him and importuned him, he struck her with his sandal and cast the sandal in her face. But, although the girl was poverty-stricken and without protectors, she was not ignoble in character; and when she had withdrawn, she took off her girdle and hanged herself. As the famine increased and diseases also were added thereto, the prophetic priestess gave an oracle to the king that he must appease Charilla, the maiden who had slain herself. Accordingly, when they had discovered with some difficulty that this was the name of the child who had been struck, they performed a certain sacrificial rite combined with purification,

What is the beggar’s meat among the Aenianians?

There have been several migrations of the Aenianians. For first, when they inhabited the region about the Dotian plain, they were expelled by the Lapiths to Aethicia.[*](cf. 297 b-c, infra.) From there they proceeded to take possession of the region of Molossia about the river Auas, from which they received the name Parauaei. After this they took possession of Cirrha. There, when they had stoned to death Oenoclus,[*](cf. 297 b-c, infra.) their king, at the command of the god, they descended to the country about the Inachus, which was inhabited by Inachians and Achaeans. Since an oracle had declared that if the Inachians gave away any part of their country, they should lose it all, and that if the Aenianians received any part of the land from willing givers, they should gain possession of it, Temon, a notable man among the Aenianians, donned rags and wallet and came to the Inachians in the guise of a beggar. In scorn and mockery their king gave him a clod of earth, which Temon accepted,

After this affair the two kings engaged in single combat, and Phemius, king of the Aenianians, observing the Inachian king, Hyperochus, advancing to meet him accompanied by a dog, said that Hyperochus was acting unfairly in bringing on a second combatant. But while Hyperochus was driving off the dog and had his back turned, Phemius hit him with a stone and killed him. The Aenianians gained possession of the country, driving out the Inachians together with the Achaeans, and they revere that stone as sacred, and sacrifice to it and cover it round about with the fat of the sacrificial victim; and whenever they pay the hecatomb to Apollo, they sacrifice a bull to Zeus; and they set aside a select portion of the flesh for the descendants of Temon, and this they call the beggar’s meat.

Who are the Coliadae among the inhabitants of Ithaca and what is the phagilos?

After the slaughter of the suitors the relatives of the dead men rose up against Odysseus; but Neoptolemus was sent for by both parties to act as arbiter.[*](cf. Apollodorus, Epitome, vii. 40.) He adjudged that Odysseus should depart from the country and be exiled for homicide from Cephallenia, Zacynthus, and Ithaca; and that the

What is the wooden dog among the Locrians?

Locrus was the son of Physcius, the son of Amphictyon. The son of Locrus and Cabyê was Opus. His father quarrelled with Opus and taking many of the citizens with him he went to seek an oracle concerning a colony. The god told him to found a city where he should chance to be bitten by a wooden dog, and, as he was crossing to the other sea, he trod upon a dog-brier.[*](cf. Athenaeus, 70 c-d.) Greatly troubled by the wound, he spent several days there, during which he explored the country and founded the cities Physcus and Oeantheia and the other cities which the so-called Ozolian Locrians inhabited.

Some say that the Locrians are called Ozolian because of Nessus; others say that it is because of the serpent Python, since their bodies were washed up

Lovely Macyna, wreathed with clusters of grapes and fragrant with perfume.

What is it that the Megarians call aphabroma?

When Nisus, from whom Nisaea acquired its name, was king, he took a wife from Boeotia, Habrotê, daughter of Onchestus, the sister of Megareus, a woman who, as it appears, was both exceptionally intelligent and remarkably discreet. When she died, the Megarians mourned her with one accord, and Nisus, wishing that her memory and her repute should be established everlastingly, ordered the women of the city to wear the garment that she used to wear; and because of her he called the garment aphabroma. Even the god seems to have furthered the repute of this woman, for often, when the Megarian women wished to make a change in their raiment, he prevented them by an oracle.

What is the spear-friend?

In days of old the Megarid used to be settled iri village communities with the citizens divided into five groups. They were called Heraeïs, Piraeïs,

What is return-interest?[*](cf. 304 e, infra.)

When the Megarians had expelled Theagenes,[*](cf. Thucydides, i. 126.) their despot, for a short time they were sober and sensible in their government. But later when the popular leaders poured a full and heady draught of freedom for them, as Plato[*](cf. Plato, Republic, 562 d.) says, they were completely corrupted and, among their shocking acts of misconduct toward the wealthy, the poor would enter their homes and insist upon being entertained and banqueted sumptuously. But if they did not receive what they demanded, they would treat all the household with violence and insult. Finally they enacted a decree whereby they received back again the

Which is the Anthedon to which the utterance of the prophetic priestess refers:

Drink wine turbid with lees, since thou dwellest not in Anthedon,

In days of old they used to call Calaureia by the name of Eirenê, from the woman Eirenê who, as legend has it, was born of Poseidon and Melantheia, the daughter of the Alpheius. But later, when the companions of Anthus and Hypera settled there, they called the island Anthedonia and Hypereia. According to Aristotle[*](Frag. 597 (ed. V. Rose); cf. Frag. 596 and Athenaeus, 31 b-c.) the oracle ran as follows:

1. Drink wine turbid with lees, since thou dwellest not in Anthedon,
2. No, nor in Hypera holy; for wine without lees thou didst drink there.

Drink wine turbid with lees, since thou dwellest not in Anthedon.