De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet

When I expressed surprise at this and asked for a clearer account, he said[*](Here Sulla begins to quote the stranger directly and continues his direct quotation to the end of the myth in 945 D.): Many assertions about the gods, Sulla, are current among the Greeks, but not all of them are right. So, for example, although they give the right names to Demeter and Cora, they are wrong in believing that both are together in the same region. The fact is that the former is in the region of earth and is sovereign over terrestrial things, and the latter is in the moon and mistress of lunar things. She has been called both Cora and Phersephone,[*](For identification of Persephone and the moon cf. Epicharmus, frag. B 54 (i, p. 207. 9-11 [Diels-Kranz] = Ennius in Varro, Lingua Latina, v. 68); Porphyry, Antro Nymph. 18; Iamblichus in John Laurentius Lydus, Mensibus, iv. 149; Martianus Capella, ii. 161-162. Plutarch in Iside, 372 D notices the identification of Isis and the moon and in 361 E that of Isis and Persephassa (cf. note c on 922 A supra for Athena). The Pythagoreans are said to have called the planets the hounds of Persephone (Porphyry, Vita Pythag. 41 = Aristotle, frag. 196; Clement, Stromat. v. 50 [676 P, 244 S]); and Plutarch in Defectu Oraculorum, 416 E refers to some who call the moon χθονίας ὁμοῦ καὶ οὐρανίας κλῆρον Ἑκάτης (cf. Iside, 368 E). cf. further, Roscher, über Selene und Verwandtes, pp. 119 ff.) the latter as being a bearer of light[*](cf. for the ancient etymologies of Φερσεφόνη Bräuninger, R. E. xix. 1. 946-947, and Roscher, Lexicon, ii. 1288; there seems to be no ancient parallel to the one given here, to which Plutarch does not refer in Iside, 377 D, where he mentions the etymology proposed by Cleanthes. In the Orphic Hymn to Persephone (xxix. 9 = Orphica, rec. E. Abel, p. 74. 9) the epithet, φαεσφόρος, is used of the goddess but not by way of etymology (cf. line 16); nor is she expressly identified with the moon, although she is called φαεσφόρος, ἀγλαόμορφε, εὐφεγγές, κερόεσσα.) and Cora because that is what we call the part of the eye in which is reflected the likeness of him who looks into it[*](cf.[Plato], Alcibiades I, 133 A. The word κόρη means girl, maiden, for which reason it was used of such goddesses as Athena and Persephone, and also doll, whence like Latin pupilla it came to mean the pupil of the eye; cf. English the baby in the eye. ) as the light of the sun is seen in the moon. The tales told of the wandering and the quest of these goddesses contain the truth

[spoken covertly],[*](i.e. the wandering of Demeter in search of Persephone after the abduction of the latter by Hades: cf. e.g. the Homeric Hymn 11 to Demeter and Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 5. In the myth, however, Demeter was the wanderer; but the earth, which she is here supposed to represent, is stationary. In the myth Persephone is in darkness when she is separated from her mother and with Hades, whereas Plutarch’s interpretation requires that Persephone, the moon, be in darkness and night when she is in the embrace of her mother, the earth.) for they long for each other when they are apart and they often embrace in the shadow. The statement concerning Cora that now she is in the light of heaven and now in darkness and night is not false but has given rise to error in the computation of the time, for not throughout six months but every six months we see her being wrapped in shadow by the earth as it were by her mother, and infrequently we see this happen to her at intervals of five months,[*](cf. 933 E supra and Genio Socratis, 591 C: σελήνη φεύγει τὴν Στύγα μικρὸν ὑπερφέρουσα λαμβάνεται δ᾽ ἅπαξ ἐν μέτροις δευτέροις ἑκατὸν ἑβδομήκοντα ἑπτά (177 days = one-half of a lunar year, 6 synodic months).) for she cannot abandon Hades since she is the boundary of Hades, as Homer too has rather well put it in veiled terms:

But to Elysium’s plain, the bourne of earth.[*](Odyssey, iv. 563 but with ἀλλά ς᾽ ἐς instead of ἀλλ᾽ εἰς.)

Where the range of the earth’s shadow ends, this he set as the term and boundary of the earth.[*](cf.Stobaeus, Eclogae, i. 49 (i, p. 448. 5-16 [Wachsmuth]) = frag. 146 β (vii, p. 176 [Bernardakis]), where Odyssey, iv. 563-564 is taken to indicate that the region of the moon is the seat of righteous souls after death (cf. Eustathius, Ad Odysseam, 1509. 18). There Ἠλύσιον πεδίον is said to mean the surface of the moon lighted by the sun (cf. 944 C s.v.) and πείρατα γαίης the end of the earth’s shadow which often touches the moon; but there is no mention of Hades, Persephone, or Demeter. In the present passage Plutarch does not say why his interpretation of Homer’s line justifies him in calling the moon τοῦ Ἅιδου πέρας, but the rest of the myth makes it certain that Hades is the region between earth and moon (cf. 943 C s.v.). This agrees with the myth of Genio Socratis, where (591 A-C) this region is the portion of Persephone and the earth’s shadow is Styx and the road to Hades and where (590 F) Hades and Earth are clearly identical (cf. Heinze, Xenokrates, p. 135; R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, p. 57 and n. 147). Probably then Plutarch here thought that, if Homer could be shown to have set the boundary of earth at the moon, it follows that he understood the moon to be the boundary of Hades. In Genio Socratis, 591 B the moon is expressly made the boundary between the portion of Persephone, which is Hades, and the region which extends from moon to sun. Nevertheless, in 944 C s.v. the Elysian plain is said to be the part of the moon that is turned to heaven, i. e. away from the earth; and, though this does not explicitly contradict the present passage, it might still seem to suggest the notion ascribed to Iamblichus by John Laurentius Lydus ( Mensibus, iv. 149 [p. 167. 24 ff.]): τὸν ὑπὲρ σελήνης ἄχρις ἡλίου χῶρον τῷ Ἅιδῃ διδούς, παρ᾽ ᾧ φησὶ καὶ τὰς ἐκκεκαθαρμένας ἐστάναι ψυχάς, καὶ αὐτὸν μὲν εἶναι τὸν Πλούτωνα, Περσεφόνην δὲ τὴν σελήνην. ) To this point rises no one who is evil or unclean, but the good are conveyed thither after death and there continue to lead a life most easy to be sure[*](Cf, Odyssey, iv. 565: τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν.) though not blessed or divine until their second death.[*](In Quaest. Rom. 282 A Plutarch cites Castor (cf. 266 E) for the notion that after death souls dwell on the moon, for which cf. in general P. Capelle, De luna stellis lacteo orbe animarum sedibus (Halis Saxonum, 1917), pp. 1-18 and n. b. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 18. 82; Varro in Augustine, Civ. Dei, vii. 6 (i, p. 282. 14-17 [Dombart]); S. V. F. ii, frag. 814.)