De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet

Yet not forever do the Spirits tarry upon the moon; they descend hither to take charge of oracles, they attend and participate in the highest of the mystic rituals, they act as warders against misdeeds and chastisers of them, and they flash forth as saviours manifest in war and on the sea.[*](cf. Defectu Oraculorum, 417 A-B and Genio Socratis, 591 C; R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, pp. 29, 59, and 55-56. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. vi. 30 (p. 18. 4 Deubner]) says that some people considered Pythagoras to be such a Spirit from the moon. In the last clause of the sentence above Plutarch refers to the Dioscuri: cf. Lysander, 14 (439 C); Defectu Oraculorum, 426 C.) For any act that they perform in these matters not fairly but inspired by wrath or for an unjust end or out of envy they are penalized, for they are cast out upon

earth again confined in human bodies.[*](cf. 926 C supra (ἡ ψυχή τῷ σώματι συνεῖρκται), An. Proc. in Timaeo, 1023 C (τῷ σώματι συνειργμένη scil. ἡ ψυχή); for the misbehaviour of Spirits cf. Defectu Oraculorum, 417 B, 417 E-F, Iside, 361 A ff., where the punishment of these Spirits is mentioned in 361 C (cf. Defectu Oraculorum, 415 C).) To the former class of better Spirits[*](i.e. not those who for misdeeds are cast out upon earth again. The attendants of Cronus are the δαίμονες of 942 A supra. cf. Porphyry’s account of good and evil spirits in Abstinentia, ii. 38-39.) the attendants of Cronos said that they belong themselves as did aforetime the Idaean Dactyls[*](Cf. Numa, 15 (70 C-D); [Plutarch], Fluviis, xiii. 3 (vii, p. 305. 4-12 [Bernardakis]); Strabo, x. 3. 22 (c. 473); Pausanias, v. 7. 6-10; Diodorus, v. 64. 3-7.) in Crete and the Corybants[*](cf. Schwenn, R. E. xi. 2 (1922), 1441-1446, and Lobeck, Aglaophamos, pp. 1139-1155.) in Phrygia as well as the Boeotian Trophoniads in Udora[*](This place seems to be mentioned nowhere else; but, since Plutarch here refers to inactive oracles from which the Spirits have departed, the change to Λεβαδείᾳ cannot be right, for in Defectu Oraculorum, 411 E-F Lebadeia is said to be the only remaining active oracle in Boeotia where there are many others now silent or even deserted.) and thousands of others in many parts of the world whose rites, honours, and titles persist but whose powers tended to another place as they achieved the ultimate alteration. They achieve it, some sooner and some later, once the mind has been separated from the soul.[*](cf. 943 B supra.) It is separated by love for the image in the sun through which shines forth manifest the desirable and fair and divine and blessed towards which all nature in one way or another yearns,[*](Plato’s Republic, 507-509 is Plutarch’s main inspiration. It is a passage which he echoes or cites many times (e.g. Iside, 372 A, E, 393 D, Defectu Oraculorum, 413 C and 433 D-E, Ad Principem Inerud. 780 F and 781 F, Plat. Quaest. 1006 F 1007 A); and his references to it show that the image in the sun, τῆς περὶ τὸν ἥλιον εἰκόνος, here means the visible likeness of the good which the sun manifests and not, as Kepler suggests, the reflection of the sun seen in the moon as in a mirror. The last part of the sentence with the notion that all nature strives towards the good and the term ἐφετόν itself are drawn from Aristotle (Physics, 192 A 16-19 and the whole of Physics A, 9 and Metaphysics A, 7); cf. Iside. 372 E-F and Amatorius, 770 B.) for it must be out of love for the sun that the moon herself goes her rounds and gets into conjunction with him in her yearning to receive from him what is most fructifying.[*](The specific nature of this fertilization is described in 945 C s.v.; the conception of the sun as an image of god is connected with a reference to its fructifying force in E, 393 d. For sexual language used of the moon and sun see the references in note a on 929 C supra.) The substance of the soul is left upon the moon and retains certain vestiges and dreams of life as it were; it is this that you must properly take to be the subject of the statement

Soul like a dream has taken wing and sped,[*](Odyssey, xi. 222.)

for it is not straightway nor once it has been released from the body that it reaches this state but later when, divorced from the mind, it is deserted and alone. Above all else that Homer said his words concerning those in Hades appear to have been divinely inspired

1. Thereafter marked I mighty Heracles —
2. His shade; but he is with the deathless gods---[*](Odyssey, xi. 601-602. Similar interpretations of this passage are common among the Neo-Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists: cf. especially [Plutarch], Vita et Poesi Homeri, chap. 123; Plotinus, Enn. i. 1. 12; iv. 3. 27 and 32; vi. 4. 16; Proclus, In Rem Publicam, i, p. 120. 22 ff. and p. 172. 9 ff. (Kroll); Cumont, Rev. de Philologie, xliv (1920), pp. 237-240, who contends that the doctrine itself arose in Alexandria where Aristarchus became acquainted with it.)

In fact the self of each of us is not anger or fear or desire just as it is not bits of flesh or fluids either but is that with which we reason and understand[*](cf. Sera Numinis Vindicta, 564 C and Adv. Coloten, 1119 A. For the νοῦς as the true self cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1166 A 16-17 and 22-23, 1168 B 35, 1169 A 2, 1178 A 2-7. Plato usually speaks of the ψυχή without further qualification as the true self (e.g. Laws, 959 A, Phaedo, 115 C [cf. the Pseudo-Platonic Alcibiades I, 130 A-C and Axiochus, 365 E]), although such passages as Republic, 430 E 431 A, 588 C 589 B, 611 C-E can be taken to imply that he meant the rational soul only (cf. Plotinus’s use of the last passage in Enn. i. 1. 12). cf. also Cicero, Republica, vi. 26 (mens cuiusque is est quisque) and Marcus Aurelius, ii. 2 with Farquharson’s note ad loc.); and the soul receives the impression of its shape through being moulded by the mind and moulding in turn and enfolding the body on all sides, so that, even if it be separated from either one for a long time, since it preserves the likeness and the imprint it is correctly called an image.[*](cf. Sera Numinis Vindicta, 564 A, where the souls are described as τύπον ἐχούσας ἀνθρωποειδῆ, and [Plutarch], Vita et Poesi Homeri, chap. 123 (εἴδωλον ὅπερ ἦν ἀποπεπλασμένον [?] τοῦ σώματος); Porphyry in Stobaeus, I. xlix. 55 ( = i, p. 429. 16-22 [Wachsmuth]). The notion that the soul after death retains the appearance of the body was common (cf Lucian, Vera Hist. ii, 12), although Alexander Polyhistor in Diogenes Laertius, viii. 31 gave it as Pythagorean doctrine (but cf. Antisthenes, frag. 33 [Mullach]). With the special point of the present passage that the body is given its form by the imprint of the soul, which has itself been moulded by the mind, cf. Proclus, In Rem Publicam, ii, pp. 327. 21-328. 15 (Kroll); Plotinus, iv. 3. 9. 20-23 and i/ 10. 35-42; Macrobius, Somn. Scip. I. xiv. 8; Sextus, P. H. i. 85. In Laws, 959 a-b Plato calls the body an attendant semblance of the self and uses the word εἴδωλα of corpses. The notion that soul encompasses body instead of being contained by it comes ultimately from Plato, Timaeus, 34 B.) Of these, as has been said,[*](i.e. 943 A supra.) the moon is the element, for they are resolved into it[*](For later Neo-Platonic opinions concerning the dissolution of the lower soul see Proclus, In Timaeum, iii, p. 234. 9 ff. (Diehl) and cf. Plotinus, Enn. iv. 7. 14 (ἀφειμένον δὲ τὸ χεῖρον οὐδὲ αὐτὸ ἀπολεῖσθαι ἕως ἂν ᾖ ὅθεν ἔχει τὴν ἀρχήν)).) as the bodies of the dead are resolved into earth. This happens quickly to the temperate souls who had been fond of a leisurely, unmeddlesome, and philosophical life, for abandoned by the mind and no longer exercising the passions for anything they wither quietly away. Of the ambitious and the active, the irascible and those who are enamoured of the body, however, some pass their time[*](The expression correlative to αἱ μέν is ἐπεὶ δ᾽ αὐτάς, and the contrast between ἐπεὶ δ᾽ αὐτὰς ἐξίστησι and the present clause requires that διαφέρονται mean pass their time rather than toss about, be distraught, the meaning that it has in Genio Socratis, 591 D.) as it were in sleep with the memories of their lives for dreams as did the soul of Endymion[*](There seems to be no other reference to Endymion’s dreams; but Plutarch may here have been influenced by the story that Endymion’s endless sleep was a punishment for his passion for Hera (cf. Scholia in Apollonium Rhodium Vetera, iv. 57-58 [p. 265, Wendel]) and Scholia in Theocritum Vetera, iii. 49-51 b [p. 133, Wendel]).); but, when they are excited by restlessness and emotion and drawn away from the moon to another birth, she forbids them [to sink towards earth][*](cf. Sera Numinis Vindicta, 565 D-E, 566 A; Plato, Phaedo, 81 B-E, 108 A-B.) and keeps conjuring them back and binding them with charms, for it is no slight, quiet, or harmonious business when with the affective faculty apart from reason they seize upon a body. Creatures like Tityus[*](cf.Odyssey, xi. 576-581; Pindar, Pythian, iv. 90; Eustathius, Comment, ad Odysseam, 1581. 54 ff.) and Typho[*](cf. especially Iside, chaps. 27 and 30.) and the Python[*](Πύθων and Τιτυός are named together by Plutarch in Pelopidas, 16 (286 C); cf. Strabo, ix. 3. 12 (cc. 422-423) and Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 4. 1. 3-5 (22-23).) that with insolence and violence occupied Delphi and confounded the oracle belonged to this class of souls, void of reason and subject to the affective element gone astray through delusion[*](For the play on Τυφών - τῦφος cf. Plato, Phaedrus, 230 A, which is quoted by Plutarch in Adv. Coloten, 1119 B; and cf. also Marcus Aurelius, ii. 17 (τὰ δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄνειρος καὶ τῦφος . . .).); but even these in time the moon took back to herself and reduced to order. Then when the sun with his vital force has again sowed mind in her she receives it and produces newsouls, and earth in the third place furnishes body.[*](cf. 943 A and 944 E-F supra. In the latter passage ὀρεγομένην ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τὸ γονιμώτατον [δέχεσθαι] (cf. E, 393 D [τὸ περὶ αὐτὴν γόνιμον]] and Aqua an Ignis, 958 E [τοῦ πυρὸς οἷον τὸ ζωτικὸν ἐνεργαζομένου]) shows that τῷ ζωτικιῳ here is to be construed with the preceding words rather than with those that follow (so Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, pp. 320, 329). On Reinhardt’s treatment of this passage in general and his attempt to derive it from Posidonius (Op. cit. pp. 329 ff.) cf. R. M. Jones, Class. Phil. xxvii (1932), pp. 118-120, 129-131, 134-135; n.b. Timaeus, 41-42 where the demiurge is said to have sowed (ἔσπειρεν) in the earth, the moon, and the other planets the souls that he had fashioned himself, i.e. the minds (cf. 41 E, 42 d), and the interpretation of Timaeus Locrus, 99 D-E, according to which this means that the souls are brought to earth from the various planets (cf. also R. M. Jones, The Platonism of Plutarch, pp. 49-51, and especially Porphyry in Proclus, In Timaeum, i, p. 147. 6-13 [n.b. εἰς τὸ τῆς σελήνης σῶμα σπείρεσθαί φησιν ] and p. 165. 16-23 [Diehl]).) In fact, the earth gives nothing [in giving back] after death all that she takes for generation, and the sun takes nothing but takes back the mind that he gives, whereas the moon both takes and gives and joins together and divides asunder in virtue of her different powers, of which the one that joins together is called Ilithyia and that which divides asunder Artemis.[*](Cf Quaest. Conviv 658 f: ὅθεν οἶμαι καὶ τὴν Ἄρτεμιν Λοχείαν καὶ Εἰλείθυιαν, οὐκ οὖσαν ἑτέραν ἢ τὴν σελήνην, ὠνομάσθαι. Here, however, Artemis and Ilithyia are supposed to be names for two contrary faculties of the moon. In 938 F supra the identification of the moon with Artemis because she is sterile but is helpful and beneficial to other females implies that Artemis is Ilithyia, as she is in Plato’s Theaetetus, 149 B (cf. Cornutus, p. 73, 7-18 [Lang]). Artemis was associated with easy, painless death, however (cf. Odyssey, xi. 172-173; xviii. 202); and Plutarch probably connects this notion with the gentleness of the death on the moon (cf. 943 B supra). L. A. Post has suggested that he may also have intended ἀρταμεῖν as an etymology of Ἀρτεμις. Ilithyia and Artemis are sometimes sisters (cf. Diodorus Siculus, v. 72. 5), but then they have the same function.) Of the three Fates too Atropos enthroned in the sun initiates generation, Clotho in motion on the moon mingles and binds together, and finally upon the earth Lachesis too puts her hand to the task, she who has the largest share in chance.[*](In Genio Socratis, 591 B Atropos is situated in the invisible, Clotho in the sun, and Lachesis in the moon. The order there is the same as it is here and different from that in the Fato (568 E), where in interpretation of Republic, 617 C Clotho is highest, Lachesis lowest, and Atropos intermediate. Both orders differ from that of Xenocrates (frag. 5 [Heinze]), which was Atropos (intelligible and supracelestial), Lachesis (opinable and celestial), Clotho (sensible and sublunar). The order of Facie and Genio Socratis is that of Plato’s Laws, 960 C, where Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos are named in ascending order as the epithet of Atropos, Τρίτη σώτειρα, shows; here in the Facie it is the passage of the Republic, however, that Plutarch has in mind, for his συνζφάπτεται is an echo of Plato’s ἐφαπτομένην and ἐφάπτεσθαιι there. cf. H. Dörrie, Hermes, lxxxii (1954), pp. 331-342 (especially pp. 337-339), who discusses the relation of these passages to the pre-history of the Neoplatonic doctrine of hypostases and argues that in writing them Plutarch was inspired by Xenocrates.) For the inanimate is itself powerless and susceptible to alien agents, and the mind is impassible and sovereign; but the soul is a mixed and intermediate thing, even as the moon has been created by god a compound and blend of the things above and below and therefore stands to the sun in the relation of earth to moon.

This, said Sulla, I heard the stranger relate; and he had the account, as he said himself, from the chamberlains and servitors of Cronus. You and your companions, Lamprias, may make what you will of the tale. [*](cf. Sera Numinis Vindicta, 561 B, Genio Socratis, 589 f; Plato’s Phaedo, 114 D, Meno, 86 B, Gorgias, 527 A, Phaedrus, 246 A.)