De Defectu Oraculorum

It was for this reason that among the people of olden time it was the custom to call counting numbering by fives, [*](Cf. 374 a and 387 e, supra.) I think also that panta (all) is derived from pente (five) in accord with reason, inasmuch as the pentad is a composite of the first numbers.[*](Cf. 374 a and 387 e, supra.) As a matter of fact, when the others are multiplied by other numbers, the result is a number different from themselves; but the pentad,

if it be taken an even number of times, makes ten exactly; and if an odd number of times, it reproduces itself.[*](Cf. 388 d, supra.) I leave out of account the fact that it is the first composite of the first two squares, unity and the tetrad[*](Ibid. 391 a.); and that it is the first whose square is equal to the two immediately preceding it, making with them the most beautiful of the right-angled triangles[*](Ibid. 373 f.); and it is the first to give the ratio 1 1/2: 1.[*](Ibid. 389 d.) However, perhaps these matters have not much relation to the subject before us; but there is another matter more closely related, and that is the dividing power of this number, by reason of its nature, and the fact that Nature does distribute most things by fives. For example, she has allotted to ourselves five senses and five parts to the soul[*](Cf. 390 f, supra; Plato, Republic, 410 b, 440 e - 441 a; and much diffused in Timaeus, 70 ff.): physical growth, perception, appetite, fortitude, and reason; also five fingers on each hand, and the most fertile seed when it is divided five times, for there is no record that a woman ever had more than five children together at one birth.[*](Cf.Moralia, 264 b; Aristotle, Historia Animalium, vii. 4 (584 b 33); since Plutarch’s time there have been a few authenticated cases of sextuplets.) The Egyptians have a tradition[*](Cf. 355 d-f, supra.) that Rhea gave birth to five gods, an intimation of the genesis of the five worlds from one single Matter; and in the universe the surface of the earth is divided among five zones, and the heavens by five circles, two arctic, two tropic, and the equator in the middle. Five, too, are the orbits of the planets, if the Sun and Venus and Mercury follow the same course. The organization of the world also is based on harmony, just as a tune with us is seen to depend on the five notes of the tetrachord[*](Cf. 389 e, 1028 f, 1138 f - 1139 e.): lowest, middle, conjunct, disjunct, and highest; and the musical intervals are five: quarter-tone, semitone, tone, tone and a half, and double tone. Thus it appears that Nature takes a greater delight in making all things in fives than in making them round, as Aristotle[*](Cf. Aristotle, De Caelo, ii. 4 (286 b 10).) has said.