De sollertia animalium

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.):

1. Slight is the strength of men;
2. But through his mind’s resource
3. He subdues the dread
4. Tribes of the deep and races
5. 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.

AUTOBULUS.[*](There seems to be a great deal more anti-Stoic polemic in the following speeches than von Arnim has admitted into his compilation. See especially the notes on 961 c ff. infra.) But who ever, my dear Soclarus, maintained that, while rationality exists in the universe, there is nothing irrational ? For there is a plentiful abundance of the irrational in all things that are not endowed with a soul; we need no other sort of counterpart for the rational: everything that is soulless, since it has no reason or intelligence, is by definition in opposition to that which, together with a soul, possesses also reason and understanding. Yet suppose someone were to maintain that nature must not be left maimed, but that that part of nature which, is endowed with a soul should have its irrational as well as its rational aspect, someone else is bound to maintain that nature endowed with a soul must have both an imaginative and an unimaginative part, and both a sentient part and an insentient. They want nature, they say, to have these counteractive and contraposed positives and negatives of the same kind counterbalanced, as it were. But if it is ridiculous to require an antithesis of sentient and insentient within the class of living things, or an antithesis of imaginative and unimaginative, seeing that it is the nature of every creature with a soul to be sentient and imaginative from the hour of its birth, so he, also, is unreasonable who demands a division of the living into a rational and an irrational part - and that, too, when he is arguing with men who believe that nothing is endowed with sensation which does not also partake of intelligence and that there is no living thing which does not naturally

possess both opinion and reason, just as it has sensation and appetite. For nature, which, they[*](Aristotle and Theophrastus passim; cf. also Mor. 646 c, 698 b.) rightly say, does everything with some purpose and to some end, did not create the sentient creature merely to be sentient when something happens to it. No, for there are in the world many things friendly to it, many also hostile; and it could not survive for a moment if it had not learned to give the one sort a wide berth while freely mixing with the other. It is, to be sure, sensation that enables each creature to recognize both kinds; but the acts of seizing or pursuing that ensue upon the perception of what is beneficial, as well as the eluding or fleeing of what is destructive or painful, could by no means occur in creatures naturally incapable of some sort of reasoning and judging, remembering and attending. Those beings, then, which you deprive of all expectation, memory, design, or preparation, and of all hopes, fears, desires, or griefs - they will have no use for eyes or ears either, even though they have them. Indeed, it would be better to be rid of all sensation and imagination that has nothing to make use of it, rather than to know toil and distress and pain while not possessing any means of averting them.

There is, in fact, a work of Strato,[*](Frag. 112, ed. Wehrli (Die Schule des Aristoteles, v, p. 34).) the natural philosopher, which proves that it is impossible to have sensation at all without some action of the intelligence. Often, it is true, while we are busy reading, the letters may fall on our eyes, or words may fall on our ears, which escape our attention since our minds are intent on other things; but later the mind recovers, shifts its course, and follows up every

detail that had been neglected; and this is the meaning of the saying[*](A frequently occurring quotation, attributed to Epicharmus in Mor. 336 b (Kaibel, Com. Graec. Frag. i, p. 137, frag. 249; Diels, Frag. der Vorsok. i, p. 200, frag. 12); see also Mor. 98 c and 975 b infra. The fullest interpretation is that of Schottlaender, Hermes, lxii, pp. 437 f.; and see also Wehrli’s note, pp. 72 f.):

1. Mind has sight and Mind has hearing;
2. Everything else is deaf and blind,

indicating that the impact on eyes and ears brings no perception if the understanding is not present. For this reason also King Cleomenes, when a recital made at a banquet was applauded and he was asked if it did not seem excellent, replied that the others must judge, for his mind was in the Peloponnesus. So that, if we are so constituted that to have sensation we must have understanding, then it must follow that all creatures which have sensation can also understand.

AUTOBULUS. But let us grant that sensation needs no help of intelligence to perform its own function; nevertheless, when the perception that has caused an animal to distinguish between what is friendly and what is hostile is gone, what is it that from this time on remembers the distinction, fears the painful, and wants the beneficial ? And, if what it wants is not there, what is there in animals that devises means of acquiring it and providing lairs and hiding-places - both traps for prey and places of refuge from attackers ? And yet those very authors[*](The Stoics again; von Arnim, S.V.F. iii, p. 41, Chrysippus, frag. 173 of the Ethica.) rasp our ears by repeatedly defining in their Introductions [*](Or elementary treatises: titles used by Chrysippus (von Arnim, op. cit. ii, pp. 6 f.; iii, p. 196).) purpose as an indication of intent to complete,

design as an impulse before an impulse, preparation as an act before an act, and memory as an apprehension of a proposition in the past tense of which the present tense has been apprehended by perception. [*](That is, by sensation we apprehend the proposition Socrates is snub-nosed, by memory the proposition Socrates was snub-nosed. The literature on this complicated subject has been collected and analysed in Class. Rev. lxvi (1952), pp. 146 f.) For there is not one of these terms that does not belong to logic; and the acts are all present in all animals as, of course, are cognitions which, while inactive, they call notions, but when they are once put into action, concepts. And though they admit that emotions one and all are false judgements and seeming truths, [*](Cf. von Arnim, op. cit. i, pp. 50 f; iii, pp. 92 ff.; see also Mor. 449 c.) it is extraordinary that they obviously fail to note many things that animals do and many of their movements that show anger or fear or, so help me, envy or jealousy. They themselves punish dogs and horses that make mistakes, not idly but to discipline them; they are creating in them through pain a feeling of sorrow, which we call repentance.

Now pleasure that is received through the ears is a means of enchantment, while that which comes through the eyes is a kind of magic: they use both kinds against animals. For deer and horses[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. xii. 44, 46; Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 29.) are bewitched by pipes and flutes, and crabs[*](Dolphins also are caught by music: Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 137.) are involuntarily lured from their holes by lotus pipes e; it is also reported that shad will rise to the surface

and approach when there is singing and clapping.[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi, 32; Athenaeus, 328 f, on the trichis, which is a kind of thrissa (cf. Athenaeus, 328 e); and see Mair on Oppian, Hal. i. 244 (L.C.L.).) The horned owl,[*](Cf. Mor. 52 b (where the L.C.L., probably wrongly, reads the ape); 705 a; Athenaeus, 390 f; Aelian, De Natura Animal. xv. 28; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 68; Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 13 (597 b 22 ff.) and the other references of Hubert at Mor. 705 a and Gulick on Athenaeus, 629 f. Contrast Aelian, De Natura Animal. i, 39, on doves. Porphyry omits this sentence.) again, can be caught by the magic of movement, as he strives to twist his shoulders in delighted rhythm to the movements of men dancing before him.

As for those who foolishly affirm that animals do not feel pleasure or anger or fear or make preparations or remember, but that the bee as it were [*](A favourite expression of Aristotle’s; but it is the Stoics who are being reproved here (cf. von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, p. 240, Chrysippus, frag. 887). This seems to be the only appearance of the word in Plutarch, unless Pohlenz is right in conjecturing it at Mor. 600 f, or Rasmus at 1054 c in other Stoic quotations.) remembers and the swallow as it were prepares her nest and the lion as it were grows angry and the deer as it were is frightened-I don’t know what they will do about those who say that beasts do not see or hear, butas it were hear and see; that they have no cry but as it were; nor do they live at all but as it were. For these last statements (or so I believe) are no more contrary to plain evidence than those that they have made.

SOCLARUS. Well, Autobulus, you may count me also as one who believes your statements; yet on comparing the ways of beasts with human customs and lives, with human actions and manner of living, I find not only many other defects in animals, but this especially: they do not explicitly aim at virtue,[*](On animals possessing aretê see Aelian’s preface to the first book of De Natura Animal.; cf. also Mor. 986 f infra; al. ) for which purpose reason itself exists; nor do they

make any progress in virtue or have any bent for it; so that I fail to see how Nature can have given them even elementary reason, seeing that they cannot achieve its end.

AUTOBULUS. But neither does this, Soclarus, seem absurd to those very opponents of ours; for while they postulate that love of one’s offspring[*](See Mor. 495 c and the whole fragment, De Amore Prolis (493 a - 497 e).) is the very foundation of our social life and administration of justice, and observe that animals possess such love in a very marked degree, yet they assert and hold that animals have no part in justice. Now mules[*](Cf. Aristotle, De Generatione Animal. ii, 7 (746 b 15 ff.), ii. 8 (747 a 23 ff.); for Aristotle’s criticism of Empedocles’ theory see H. Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of the Presocratics, p. 143, n. 573. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 173, mentions some cases of the fertility of mules, see also Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 36; ii. 49; Herodotus, iii. 151 ff.) are not deficient in organs; they have, in fact, genitals and wombs and are able to use them with pleasure, yet cannot attain the end of generation. Consider another approach: is it not ridiculous to keep affirming that men like Socrates and Plato[*](Cf. Cicero, De Finibus, iv. 21.) are involved in vice no less vicious than that of any slave you please, that they are just as foolish and intemperate and unjust, and at the same time to stigmatize the alloyed and imprecise virtue of animals as absence of reason rather than as its imperfection or weakness ? And this, though they acknowledge that vice is a fault of reason and that all animals are infected with vice: many, in fact, we observe to be guilty of cowardice and intemperance, injustice and malice. He, then, who holds that what is not fitted by nature to receive the perfection of reason does not even

receive any reason at all is, in the first place, no better than one who asserts that apes are not naturally ugly or tortoises naturally slow for the reason that they are not capable of possessing beauty or speed. In the second place, he fails to observe the distinction which is right before his eyes: mere reason is implanted by nature, but real and perfect reason[*](Cf. Diogenes Laertius, vii. 54.) is the product of care and education. And this is why every living creature has the faculty of reasoning; but if what they seek is true reason and wisdom, not even man may be said to possess it.[*](Cf. Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 13. 34.) For as one capacity for seeing or flying differs from another (hawks and cicadas do not see alike, nor do eagles and partridges fly alike), so also not every reasoning creature has in the same way a mental dexterity or acumen that has attained perfection. For just as there are many examples in animals of social instincts and bravery and ingenuity in ways and means and in domestic arrangements, so, on the other hand, there are many examples of the opposite: injustice, cowardliness, stupidity.[*](Cf. 992 d infra.) And the very factor which brought about our young men’s contest to-day provides confirmation. It is on an assumption of difference that the two sides assert, one that land animals, the other that sea animals, are naturally more advanced toward virtue. This is clear also if you contrast hippopotamuses[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 71; Aristotle, Historia Animal. ii. 7 (502 a 9-15), though the latter passage may be interpolated. Porphyry reads contrast river-horses with land-horses. ) with storks[*](Cf. Aristotle, op. cit. ix. 13 (615 b 23 ff.); Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 23; Philo, 61 (p. 129).): the latter support their fathers, while the former kill them[*](And eat them: Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 19.) in order to consort with their mothers. The same is true if you compare doves[*](Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animal. vi. 4 (562 b 17); Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 45.) with partridges[*](Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 8 (613 b 27 ff.); Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 16, and Cf. iv. 1. 16; of peacocks in Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 161.); for the partridge cock steals the eggs and destroys them since the female will not consort with him while she is sitting, whereas male doves assume a part in the care of the nest, taking turns at keeping the eggs warm and being themselves the first to feed the fledglings; and if the female happens to be away for too long a time, the male strikes her with his beak and drives her back to her eggs or squabs. And while Antipater[*](Von Arnim, S.V.F. iii, p. 251, Antipater of Tarsus, frag. 47. We know from Plutarch’s Aetia Physica, 38 that Antipater wrote a book on animals. On the other hand, Dyroff (Blätter f. d. bay. Gymn. xxiii, 1897, p. 403) argued for Antipater of Tyre; he believed, in fact, that the present work was mainly directed against this Antipater. Schuster, op. cit. p. 77, has shown this to be unlikely.) was reproaching asses and sheep for their neglect of cleanliness, I don’t know how he happened to overlook lynxes and swallows[*](Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 7 (612 b 30 f.); Plutarch, Mor. 727 d-e; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 92; Philo, 22 (p. 111).); for lynxes dispose of their excrement by concealing and doing away with it, while swallows teach their nestlings to turn tail and void themselves outward.

AUTOBULUS. Why, moreover, do we not say that one tree is less intelligent than another, as a sheep is by comparison with a dog; or one vegetable more cowardly than another, as a stag is by comparison with a lion ? Is the reason not that, just as it is impossible to call one immovable object slower than another, or one dumb thing more mute than another, so among all the creatures to whom Nature has not given the faculty of understanding, we cannot say that one is more cowardly or more slothful or more intemperate ? Whereas it,

is the presence of understanding, of one kind in one animal, of another kind in another, and in varying degree, that has produced the observable differences.

SOCLARUS. Yet it is astonishing how greatly man surpasses the animals in his capacity for learning and in sagacity and in the requirements of justice and social life.

AUTOBULUS. There are in fact, my friend, many animals wliich surpass all men, not only in bulk and swiftness, but also in keen sight and sharp hearing[*](Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Fato, 27; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 10; x. 191.); but for all that man is not blind or crippled or earless. We can run, if less swiftly than deer; and see, if less keenly than hawks; nor has Nature deprived us of strength and bulk even though, by comparison with, the elephant and the camel, we amount to nothing in these matters.[*](Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 145, reports a singular deduction from this theme; see also Seneca, De Beneficiis, ii. 29. 1.) In the same way, then, let us not say of beasts that they are completely lacking in intellect and understanding and do not possess reason even though their understanding is less acute and their intellect inferior to ours; what we should say is that their intellect, is feeble and turbid, like a dim and clouded eye. And if I did not expect that our young men, learned and studious as they are, would very shortly present us here, one with a large collection of examples drawn from the land, the other with his from the sea, I should not have denied myself the pleasure of giving you countless examples of the docility and native capacity of beasts - of which fair Rome[*](See, for example, 968 c, e infra.) has provided us a reservoir from which to draw in pails and buckets,

as it were, from the imperial spectacles. Let us leave this subject, therefore, fresh and untouched for them to exercise their art upon in discourse.

AUTOBULUS. There is, however, one small matter which I should like to discuss with you quietly. It is my opinion that each part and faculty has its own particular weakness or defect or ailment which appears in nothing else, as blindness in the eye, lameness in the leg, stuttering in the tongue. There can be no blindness in an organ which was not created to see, or lameness in a part which was not designed for walking; nor would you ever describe an animal without a tongue as stuttering, or one voiceless by nature as inarticulate. And in the same way you would not call delirious or witless or mad anything that was not endowed by Nature with reason or intelligence or understanding; for it is impossible to ail where you have no faculty of which the ailment is a deficiency or loss or some other kind of impairment. Yet certainly you have encountered mad dogs, and I have also known of mad horses; and there are some who say that cattle and foxes also go mad.[*](So too, perhaps, wolves in Theocritus, iv. 11.) But dogs will do, since no one questions the fact in their case, which provides evidence that the creature possesses reason and a by no means despicable intellectual faculty. What is called rabies and madness is an ailment of that faculty when it becomes disturbed and disordered. For we observe no derangement either of the dogs’ sight or of their hearing; yet, just as when a human being suffers from melancholy or insanity, anyone is absurd who does not admit that it is the organ that thinks and reasons and remembers which has been displaced or damaged (we habitually say, in fact, of madmen that they are

not themselves, but have fallen out of their wits), just so, whoever believes that rabid dogs have any other ailment than an affliction of their natural organ of judgement and reason and memory so that, when this has become infected with disorder and insanity, they no longer recognize beloved faces and shun their natural haunts - such a man, I say, either must be disregarding the evidence or, if he does take note of the conclusion to which it leads, must be quarrelling with the truth.[*](The Stoics again; Cf. Galen, De Hippocratis et Platonis Placitis, v. 1 (p. 431 Kühn).)

SOCLARUS. Your inference seems quite justified. For the Stoics[*](Von Arnim, S.V.F. iii, p. 90.) and Peripatetics strenuously argue on the other side, to the effect that justice could not then come into existence, but would remain completely without form or substance, if all the beasts partake of reason. For[*](From this point to the end of chapter 6 (964 c) the text is quoted by Porphyry, De Abstinentia, i. 4-6 (pp. 88-89, ed. Nauck); cf. the note on 959 f supra.) either we are necessarily unjust if we do not spare them; or, if we do not take them for food, life becomes impracticable or impossible; in a sense we shall be living the life of beasts once we give up the use of beasts.[*](Cf. Mor. 86 d.) I omit the numberless hosts of Nomads and Troglodytes who know no other food but flesh. As for us who believe our lives to be civilized and humane, it is hard to say what pursuit on land or sea, what aerial art,[*](That is beasts, fish, and fowl in earth, sea, and air.) what refinement of living, is left to us if we are to learn to deal innocently and considerately with all creatures, as we are bound to if they possess reason and are of one stock with us. So we have no help or

cure for this dilemma which either deprives us of life itself or of justice, unless we do preserve that ancient limitation and law by which, according to Hesiod,[*](Works and Days, 277-279; Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 50; Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 43.) he who distinguished the natural kinds and gave each class its special domain:

1. To fish and beasts and winged birds allowed
2. Licence to eat each other, for no right
3. Exists among them; right, he gave to men

for dealing with each other. Those who know nothing of right action toward us can receive no wrong from us either.[*](This seems to have been Plutarch’s own attitude toward the question, at least later on in life; see Life of Cato Maior, v. 2 (339 a).) For those who have rejected this argument have left no path, either broad or narrow, by which justice may slip in.

AUTOBULUS. This, my friend, has been spoken from the heart. [*](Cf. Euripides, frag. 412 (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 486); quoted more completely in Mor. 63 a.) We certainly must not allow philosophers, as though they were women in difficult labour, to put about their necks a charm for speedy delivery so that they may bring justice to birth for us easily and without hard labour. For they themselves do not concede to Epicurus,[*](Usener, Epicurea, p. 351; see Bailey on Lucretius, ii. 216 ff.; Mor. 1015 b-c.) for the sake of the highest considerations, a thing so small and trifling as the slightest deviation of a single atom-which would permit the stars and living creatures to slip in by chance and would preserve from destruction the principle of free will. But, seeing that they bid him demonstrate whatever is not obvious or take as his starting-point something that is obvious, how are they

in any position to make this statement about animals[*](That they are irrational.) a basis of their own account of justice, when it is neither generally accepted nor otherwise demonstrated by them?[*](For this difficult and corrupt passage the admirable exposition and reconstruction of F. H. Sandbach (Class. Quart. xxxv, p. 114) has been followed.) For justice has another way to establish itself, a way which is neither so treacherous nor so precipitous, nor is it a route lined with the wreckage of obvious truths. It is the road which, under the guidance of Plato,[*](Laws, 782 c.) my son and your companion,[*](Plutarch himself; cf. Mor. 734 e.) Soclarus, points out to those who have no love of wrangling, but are willing to be led and to learn. For certain it is that Empedocles[*](Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok. i, p. 366, frag. B 135; and see Aristotle, Rhetoric, i, 13. 2 (1373 b 14).) and Heraclitus[*](Diels-Kranz, op. cit. i, p. 169, frag. B 80; Bywater, frag. 62.) accept as true the charge that man is not altogether innocent of injustice when he treats animals as he does; often and often do they lament and exclaim against Nature, declaring that she is Necessity and War, that she contains nothing unmixed and free from tarnish, that her progress is marked by many unjust inflictions. As an instance, say. even birth itself springs from injustice, since it is a union of mortal with immortal, and the offspring is nourished unnaturally on members torn from the parent.

These strictures, however, seem to be unpalatably strong and bitter; for there is an alternative, an inoffensive formula which does not, on the one hand, deprive beasts of reason, yet does, on the other, preserve the justice of those who make fit use of them. When the wise men of old had introduced this, gluttony joined luxury to cancel and annul it;

Pythagoras,[*](Cf. 959 f supra; Mor. 729 e; frag. xxxiv. 145 (vol. VII, p. 169 Bernardakis).) however, reintroduced it, teaching us how to profit without injustice. There is no injustice, surely, in punishing and slaying animals that are anti-social and merely injurious, while taming those that are gentle and friendly to man and making them our helpers in the tasks for which they are severally fitted by nature[*](Cf., e.g., Plato, Republic, 352 e.):

Offspring of horse and ass and seed of bulls

which Aeschylus’[*](From the Prometheus Unbound, frag. 194 (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 65; quoted again in Mor. 98 c.) Prometheus says that he bestowed on us

To serve us and relieve our labours;

and thus we make use of dogs as sentinels and keep herds of goats and sheep that are milked and shorn.[*](There are significant undercurrents here. Of the animals domesticated by man. Plutarch first mentions only the horse, the ass, and the ox, nothing their employment as servants of man, not as sources of food. Next come dogs, then goats and sheep. The key factor is that in the early period the cow, the sheep, and the goat were too valuable as sources of milk and wool to be recklessly slaughtered for the sake of their meat. The pig was the only large domestic animal useful almost solely as a source of meat (Andrews).) For living is not abolished nor life terminated when a man has no more platters of fish or pate de foie gras or mincemeat of beef or kids’ flesh for his banquets[*](Plutarch’s choice of examples of table luxury is apt. The enthusiasm of many Greek epicures for fish scandalized conservative philosophers. Pate de foie gras ranked high as a delicacy, more especially in the Roman period; the mincemeat mentioned is surely the Roman isicia, dishes with finely minced beef or pork as the usual basis, many recipes for which appear in Apicius (Andrews).) - or when he no longer, idling in the theatre or hunting for sport, compels some beasts against their will to stand their ground and fight, while he destroys others which have not the instinct to fight back even in their own defence. For I think sport should be joyful and between playmates who are merry on both sides, not the sort of which Bion[*](Bion and Xenocrates were almost alone among the Greeks in expressing pity for animals.) spoke when he remarked that boys throw stones at frogs for fun, but the frogs don’t die for fun, but in sober earnest.[*](See Hartman, De Plutarcho, p. 571; [Aristotle], Eud. Eth. vii. 10. 21 (1243 a 20).) Just so, in hunting and fishing, men amuse themselves with the suffering and death of animals, even tearing some of them piteously from their cubs and nestlings. The fact is that it is not those who make use of animals who do them wrong, but those who use them harmfully and heedlessly and in cruel ways.

SOCLARUS. Restrain yourself, Autobulus, and turn off the flow of these accusations.[*](Cf. Mor. 940 f supra. Possibly a reference to the water-clock used in the courts.) I see a good many gentlemen approaching who are all hunters; you will hardly convert them and you needn’t hurt their feelings.

AUTOBULUS. Thanks for the warning. Eubiotus, however, I know quite well and my cousin Ariston, and Aeacides and Aristotimus here, the sons of Dionysius of Delphi, and Nicander, the son of Euthydamus, all of them expert, as Homer[*](Odyssey, viii. 159.) expresses it, in the chase by land - and for this reason they will be on Aristotimus’ side. So too yonder comes Phaedimus with the islanders and coast-dwellers about him, Heracleon from Megara and the Euboean Philostratus,

Whose hearts are on deeds of the sea.[*](Cf. Homer, Iliad, ii. 614; Odyssey, v. 67.)

And here is my contemporary Optatus: like Diomedes, it is

Hard to tell the side on which he ranges,[*](Homer, Iliad, v. 85.)

for with many a trophy from the sea, many likewise from the chase on the mountain, he has glorified [*](Verses of an unknown poet, as recognized by Hubert.) the goddess[*](Artemis; on the combined cults see Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, ii, pp. 425 ff.) who is at once the Huntress and Dictynna. It is evident that he is coming to join us with no intention of attaching himself to either side. Or am I wrong, my dear Optatus, in supposing that you will be an impartial and neutral umpire between the young men ?

OPTATUS. It is just as you suppose, Autobulus. Solon’s[*](Life of Solon, xx. 1 (89 a-b); Mor. 550 c, 823 f; Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, viii. 5. A fairly well attested law, but the name of Solon is used as the collective term for the legislative activity of the past (Linforth, Solon the Athenian, p. 283). The penalty was disfranchisement. Lysias, xxxi. shows that this law was unknown in his time.) law, which used to punish those who adhered to neither side in a factious outbreak, has long since fallen into disuse.

AUTOBULUS. Come over here, then, and take your place beside us so that, if we need evidence, we shall not have to disturb the tomes of Aristotle,[*](The zoological works, such as the Natural History and the Generation of Animals, which once extended to fifty volumes (Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 44).) but may follow you as expert and return a true verdict on the arguments.

SOCLARUS. Well then, my young friends, have you reached any agreement on procedure ?

PHAEDIMUS. We have, Soclarus, though it occasioned considerable controversy; but at length, as Euripides[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 678, frag. 989; cf. Mor. 644 d.) has it,

The lot, the child of chance,

made arbiter, admits into court the case of the land animals before that of creatures from the sea.

SOCLARUS. The time has come, then, Aristotimus, for you to speak and us to hear.

ARISTOTIMUS. The court is open for the litigants---[*](Here follows a long lacuna not indicated in the mss., the contents of which cannot even be conjectured.) And there are some fish that waste their milt by pursuing the female while she is laying her eggs.[*](The milt is, of course, for the fertilization of the eggs, as Aristotimus should have learned from Aristotle (e.g., Historia Animal. vi. 13, 567 b 3 ff.))

There is also a type of mullet called the grayfish[*](On this type Cf. also Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 2 (591 a 23) and in Athenaeus, vii. 307 a, where variants of the name occur. The same name was applied to a type of shark as well as to a type of mullet, an apt application in both instances (Andrews).) which feeds on its own slime[*](See Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 643 (Cf. iii. 432 ff.). Pliny (Nat. Hist. ix. 128, 131) tells the same story of the purplefish.); and the octopus sits through the winter devouring himself,

In fireless home and domicile forlorn,[*](Hesiod, Works and Days, 524; Cf. 978 f infra and the note; Mor. 1059 e; Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 27, xiv. 26. See also Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. viii. 2 (591 a 5); Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 244; Lucilius, frag. 925 Warmington (L.C.L.).)

so lazy or insensible or gluttonous, or guilty of all of these charges, is he. So this also is the reason, again, why Plato[*](Laws, 823 d-e.) in his Laws enjoined, or rather prayed, that his young men might not be seized by a love for sea hunting. For there is no exercise in bravery or training in skill or anything that contributes to strength or fleetness or agility when men endure toil in contests with bass or conger or parrot-fish; whereas, in the chase on land, brave animals give play to the courageous and danger-loving qualities of those matched against them, crafty animals sharpen the wits and cunning of their attackers, while swift ones train the strength and perseverance of their pursuers. These are the qualities which have made hunting a noble sport, whereas there is nothing glorious about fishing. No, and there’s not a god, my friend, who has allowed himself to be called conger-killer, as Apollo is wolf-slayer, [*](For Apollo’s connexion with wolves see Aelian, De Natura Animal. x. 26; al. ) or surmullet-slayer, as Artemis[*](On Artemis, The Lady of Wild Beasts (Iliad, xxi. 470), see Mnemosyne, 4th series, iv (1951), pp. 230 ff.) is deer-slaying. [*](This accusation is answered in 983 e-f infra.) And what is surprising in this when it’s a more glorious thing for a man to have caught a boar or a stag or, so help me, a gazelle or a hare than to have bought one ? As for your tunny[*](See 980 a infra.) and your mackerel and your boriito ! They’re more honourable to buy than to catch oneself. For their lack of spirit or of any kind of resource or cunning has made the sport dishonourable, unfashionable, and illiberal.

ARISTOTIMUS. In general, then, the evidence by which the philosophers demonstrate that beasts have their share of reason is their possession of purpose[*](Cf. 961 c supra.) and preparation and memory and emotions and care for their young[*](See the essay De Amore Prolis, Mor. 493 a ff. passim.) and gratitude for benefits and hostility to what has hurt them; to which may be added their ability to find what they need and their manifestations of good qualities, such as courage[*](Plato, at least, held that, philosophically speaking, no beast is brave; Laches, 196 d; Republic, 430 b.) and sociability and continence and magnanimity. Let us ask ourselves if marine creatures exhibit any of these traits, or perhaps some suggestion of them, that is extremely faint and difficult to discern (the observer only coming at long last to the opinion that it may be descried); whereas in the case of terrestrial and earth-born animals it is easy to find remarkably plain and unanswerable proofs of every one of the points I have mentioned.

In the first place, then, behold the purposeful demonstrations and preparations of bulls[*](See Mair on Oppian, Cyn. ii. 57.) stirring up dust when intent on battle, and wild boars whetting their tusks.[*](Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 1; Philo, 51 (p. 125); Homer, Iliad, xiii. 474 f.) Since elephants’ tusks are blunted by wear when, by digging or chopping, they fell the trees that feed them, they use only one tusk for this purpose and keep the other always pointed and sharp for defence.[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 8; viii. 71 of the rhinoceros; Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 56; Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 102.) Lions[*](Cf. Mor. 520 f; Aelian, De Natura Animal. ix. 30.) always walk with paws clenched and claws retracted so that these may not be dulled by wear at the point or leave a plain trail for trackers; for it is not easy to find any trace of a lion’s claw; on the contrary, any sign of a track that is found is so slight and obscure that hunters lose the trail and go astray. You have heard, I am sure, how the ichneumon[*](See Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 a 16 ff.), where, however, the animal’s opponent is the asp. (So also Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 22; v. 48; vi. 38.) But cf. 980 e infra; Aelian, De Natura Animal. viii. 25; x. 47; Nicander, Theriaca, 201.) girds itself for battle as thoroughly as any soldier putting on his armour, such a quantity of mud does it don and plaster about its body when it plans to attack the crocodile. Moreover, we see house-martins[*](Cf. Thompson on Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 7 (612 b 21 ff.); Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 92; Philo, 22 (p. 110); Yale Class. Studies, xii. 139, on Anth. Pal. x. 4. 6.) preparing for procreation: how well they lay the solid twigs at the bottom to serve as a foundation, then mould the lighter bits about them; and if they perceive that the nest needs a lump of mud to glue it together, they skim over a pond or lake, touching the water with only the tips of their feathers to make them moist, yet not heavy with

dampness; then they scoop up dust and so smear over and bind together any parts that begin to sag or loosen. As for the shape of their work, it has no angles nor many sides, but is as smooth and circular as they can make it; such a shape is, in fact, both stable and capacious and provides no hold on the outside for scheming animals.[*](θηρία may be serpents here, or any wild beast, perhaps, such as members of the cat family that relish a diet of birds.)

There is more than one reason[*](For a collection of the loci communes dealing with swallow, bee, ant, spider, etc., see Dickerman in Trans. Am. Philol. Assoc. xlii (1911), pp. 123 ff.) for admiring spiders’[*](Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 39 (623 a 7 ff.); Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 21; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 79-84; Philo, 17 (p. 107); Philostratus, Imagines, ii. 28.) webs, the common model for both women’s looms and fowlers’[*](Commonly taken as fishermen, but this seems unlikely here.) nets; for there is the fineness of the thread and the evenness of the weaving, which has no disconnected threads and nothing like a warp, but is wrought with the even continuity of a thin membrane and a tenacity that comes from a viscous substance inconspicuously worked in. Then too, there is the blending of the colours that gives it an airy, misty look, the better to let it go undetected; and most notable of all is the art itself, like a charioteer’s or a helmsman’s, with which the spinner handles her artifice. When a possible victim is entangled, she perceives it, and uses her wits, like a skilled handler of nets, to close the trap suddenly and make it tight. Since this is daily under our eyes and observation, my account is confirmed. Otherwise it would seem a mere fiction, as I formerly regarded the tale of the Libyan crows[*](Cf. Anth. Pal. ix. 272; Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii. 48; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 125; Avianus, fable 27.) which, when they are thirsty, throw stones into a pot to fill it and raise the water until it is within their reach; but later when I saw a dog

on board ship, since the sailors were away, putting pebbles into a half empty jar of oil, I was amazed at its knowing that lighter substances are forced upward when the heavier settle to the bottom.

Similar tales are told of Cretan bees and of geese in Cilicia.[*](Cf. Mor. 510 a-b, which adds the detail that the geese’s flight is by night. Contrast Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii, 1, Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 60, of cranes.) When the bees are going to round some windy promontory, they ballast themselves with little stones[*](Aelian, De Natura Animal. v. 13; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 24, and Ernout, ad loc.; Dio Chrysostom, xliv, 7. Cf. 979 b infra, of the sea hedgehog; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 69.) so as not to be carried out to sea; while the geese, in fear of eagles, take a large stone in their beaks whenever they cross Mt. Taurus, as it were reining in and bridling their gaggling loquacity that they may pass over in silence unobserved. It is well known, too, how cranes[*](Cf. 979 b infra; Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 13; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 63, of geese; Mair on Oppian, Hal. i. 624; Lucan, v. 713 ff.) behave when they fly. Whenever there is a high wind and rough weather they do not fly, as on fine days, in line abreast or in a crescent-shaped curve; but they form at once a compact triangle with the point cleaving the gale that streams past, so that there is no break in the formation. When they have descended to the ground, the sentinels that stand watch at night support themselves on one foot and with the other grasp a stone and hold it firmly[*](Cf. 979 d infra; Aelian, loc. cit.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 59.); the tension of grasping this keeps them awake for a long time; but when they do relax, the stone escapes and quickly rouses the culprit.[*](Cf. the anecdote of Alexander in Ammianus Marcellinus, xvi. 5. 4; of Aristotle in Diogenes Laertius, v. 16.) So that I am not at all surprised that

Heracles tucked his bow under his arm:

1. Embracing it with mighty arm he sleeps,
2. Keeping his right hand gripped about the club.[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 919, Adespoton 416.)

Nor, again, am I surprised at the man who first guessed how to open an oyster[*](That is, by dropping it in hot water.) when I read of the ingenuity of herons. For they swallow a closed mussel and endure the discomfort until they know that it has been softened and relaxed by their internal heat; then they disgorge it wide open and unfolded and extract the meat.[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 20; another procedure is described in v. 35. See also Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 115, of the shoveller duck; Philo, 31 (p. 116); Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 41; al. )

It is impossible to relate in full detail all the methods of production and storage practised by ants, but it would be careless to omit them entirely. Nature has, in fact, nowhere else so small a mirror of greater and nobler enterprises. Just as you may see greater things reflected in a drop of clear water, so among ants there exists the delineation of every virtue.

Love and affection are found,[*](Homer, Iliad, xiv. 216.)

namely their social life. You may see, too, the reflection of courage in their persistence in hard labour.[*](Cf. Plato, Laches, 192 b ff.; we have here the four Platonic virtues, with Love added.) There are many seeds of temperance and many of prudence and justice. Now Cleanthes,[*](Von Arnim, S.V.F. i, p. 116, frag. 515; cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 50.) even though he declared that animals are not endowed with reason, says that he witnessed the following spectacle: some ants came to a strange anthill carrying a dead ant. Other ants then emerged from the hill and seemed, as it were, to hold converse with the first party and then went back again. This happened two or three times until at last they brought up a grub to serve as the dead ant’s ransom, whereupon the first party picked up the grub, handed over the corpse, and departed.

A matter obvious to everyone is the consideration ants show when they meet: those that bear no load always give way to those who have one and let them pass.[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii. 25.) Obvious also is the manner in which they gnaw through and dismember things that are difficult to carry or to convey past an obstacle, in order that they may make easy loads for several. And Aratus[*](Phaenomena, 956; Cf. Vergil, Georgics, i. 379 f.; Theophrastus, De Signis, 22.) takes it to be a sign of rainy weather when they spread out their eggs and cool them in the open:

1. When from their hollow nest the ants in haste
2. Bring up their eggs;

and some do not write eggs here, but provisions, [*](Not oia, but eia: What the ants really carry out in Aratus and Vergil is their pupas, but these are commonly called eggs to this day (Platt, Class. Quart. v. p. 255). The two readings in this passage seem to show that Plutarch had at hand an edition with a commentary; Cf. also 976 f infra, on the interpretation of Archilochus, and Mor. 22 b.) in the sense of stored grain which, when they notice that it is growing mildewed and fear that it may decay and spoil, they bring up to the surface. But what goes beyond any other conception of their intelligence is their anticipation of the germination of wheat. You know, of course, that wheat does not remain permanently dry and stable, but expands and lactifies in the process of germination. In order, then, to keep it from running to seed and losing its value as food, and to keep it permanently edible, the ants eat out the germ from which springs the new shoot of wheat.[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 109, and Ernout ad loc. )

I do not approve of those who, to make a complete study of anthills, inspect them, as it were, anatomically. But, be that as it may, they report that the passage leading downward from the opening is not at all straight or easy for any other creature to traverse; it passes through turns and twists[*](The intricate galleries of anthills were used for purposes of literary comparisons by the ancients: see the fragment of Pherecrates in Mor. 1142 a and Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, 100 (on Timotheüs and Agathon respectively).) with branching tunnels and connecting galleries and terminates in three hollow cavities. One of these is their common dwelling-place, another serves as storeroom for provisions, while in the third they deposit the dying.[*](Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 43 divides into men’s apartments, women’s apartments, and storerooms; see also Philo, 42 (p. 120), and Boulenger, Animal Mysteries, pp. 128 ff. for a modern account. On the social life of ants (and animals) as contrasted with that of humans see Dio Chrysostom, xl. 32, 40 f.; xlviii. 16.)

I don’t suppose that you will think it out of order if I introduce elephants directly on top of ants in order that we may concurrently scrutinize the nature of understanding in both the smallest and the largest of creatures, for it is neither suppressed in the latter nor deficient in the former. Let others, then, be astonished that elephants learn, or are taught, to exhibit in the theatre all the many postures and variations of movement that they do,[*](Cf. Mor. 98 e.) these being so varied and so complicated to memorize and retain that they are not at all easy even for human artists. For my part, I find the beast’s understanding better manifested in his own spontaneous and uninstructed feelings and movements, in a pure, as it were, and undiluted state.

Well, not very long ago at Rome,[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 6, which shows that Plutarch is drawing on literature, not personal observation; Cf. also Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii. 11, for the elaborateness of the manoeuvres; Philostratus, Vita Apoll. ii. 13; Philo, 54 (p. 126); see also 992 b infra.) where a large

number of elephants were being trained to assume dangerous stances and wheel about in complicated patterns, one of them, who was the slowest to learn and was always being scolded and often punished, was seen at night, alone by himself in the moonlight, voluntarily rehearsing his lessons and practising them.

Formerly in Syria, Hagnon[*](Of Tarsus, pupil of Carneades.) tells us, an elephant was brought up in its master’s house and every day the keeper, when he received a measure of barley, would filch away and appropriate half of it; but on one occasion, when the master was present and watching, the keeper poured out the whole measure. The elephant gave a look, raised its trunk, and made two piles of the barley, setting aside half of it and thus revealing as eloquently as could be the dishonesty of its keeper. And another elephant, whose keeper used to mix stones and dirt in its barley ration, when the keeper’s meat was cooking, scooped up some ashes and threw them into the pot.[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 52.) And another in Rome, being tormented by little boys who pricked its proboscis with their writing styluses, grabbed one of them and raised him into the air as if to dash him to death; but when the spectators cried out, it gently set the child down on the ground again and passed along, thinking it sufficient punishment for one so young to have been frightened.

Concerning wild elephants who are self-governing they tell many wonderful tales, particularly the one about the fording of rivers[*](Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 11, gives a different account; still different is Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 15, and cf. Philostratus, Vita Apoll. ii. 15.): the youngest and smallest volunteers his services to go first into the

stream. The others wait on the bank and observe the result, for if his back remains above water, those that are larger than he will have a wide margin of safety to give them confidence.

At this point in my discourse, I imagine that I shall do well not to omit the case of the fox, since it is so similar. Now the story-books[*](The authorities on Deucalion’s Flood are assembled by Frazer on Apollodorus, i. 7. 2 (L.C.L.), and more completely in his Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i, pp. 146 ff. Plutarch is the only Greek author to add the Semitic dove story, though Lucian (De Dea Syria, 12 ff.) was to add to the other major contaminations.) tell us that when Deucalion released a dove from the ark, as long as she returned, it was a certain sign that the storm was still raging; but as soon as she flew away, it was a harbinger of fair weather. So even to this day the Thracians,[*](Cf. 949 d supra and the note.) whenever they propose crossing a frozen river, make use of a fox as an indicator of the solidity of the ice. The fox moves ahead slowly and lays her ear to the ice; if she perceives by the sound that the stream is running close underneath, judging that the frozen part has no great depth, but is only thin and insecure, she stands stock still and, if she is permitted, returns to the shore; but if she is reassured by the absence of noise, she crosses over. And let us not declare that this is a nicety of perception unaided by reason; it is, rather, a syllogistic conclusion developed from the evidence of perception: What makes noise must be in motion; what is in motion is not frozen; what is not frozen is liquid; what is liquid gives way. So logicians[*](Specifically Chrysippus (Cf. von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, pp. 726 f.). Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, i. 69 (the whole passage i. 62-72 is worth reading); Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 59; Philo, 45 (p. 122).) assert that a dog, at a point where many paths split off, makes use of a multiple disjunctive[*](For the form of the syllogism see Diogenes Laertius, vii. 81.) argument and reasons with himself: Either the wild beast has taken this

path, or this, or this. But surely it has not taken this, or this. Then it must have gone by the remaining road. Perception here affords nothing but the minor premiss, while the force of reason gives the major premisses and adds the conclusion to the premisses. A dog, however, does not need such a testimonial, which is both false and fraudulent; for it is perception itself, by means of track and spoor,[*](Cf. Shorey on Plato, Republic, 427 e (L.C.L., vol. I, p. 347, note e).) which indicates the way the creature fled; it does not bother with disjunctive and copulative propositions. The dog’s true capacity may be discerned from many other acts and reactions and the performance of duties, which are neither to be smelled out nor seen by the eye, but can be carried out or perceived only by the use of intelligence and reason.[*](For the philosophic dog see Plato, op. cit. 376 b; the scholia of Olympiodorus add that Socrates’ famous oath by the dog was symbolic of the creature’s rational nature. See also Sinclair, Class. Rev. xlii (1948), p. 61; the parallel passages are collected by J. E. B. Mayor, Class. Rev. xii (1898), pp. 93 ff.) I should only make myself ridiculous if I described the dog’s self-control and obedience and sagacity on hunting parties to you who see and handle these matters every day.

There was a Roman named Calvus[*](See Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 10.) slain in the Civil Wars, but no one was able to cut off his head until they encircled and stabbed to death the dog who guarded his master and defended him. And King Pyrrhus[*](Cf. Aelian, loc. cit.; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 142.) on a journey chanced upon a dog guarding the body of a murdered man; in answer to his questions he was told that the dog had remained there without eating for three days and refused to leave. Pyrrhus gave orders for the corpse to be buried and the dog cared for and brought along

in his train. A few days later there was an inspection of the soldiers, who marched in front of the king seated on his throne, while the dog lay quietly by his side. But when it saw its master’s murderers filing past, it rushed at them with furious barking and, as it voiced its accusation, turned to look at the king so that not only he, but everyone present, became suspicious of the men. They were at once arrested and when put to the question, with the help of some bits of external evidence as well, they confessed the murder and were punished.

The same thing is said to have been done by the poet Hesiod’s[*](Cf. 984 d infra. A different account, omitting the dog, will be found in Mor. 162 c-f (where see Wyttenbach’s note); Cf. also Pollux, Onomasticon, v. 42 and Gabathüler on Anth. Pal. vii. 55 (Hellenistische Epigramme auf Dichter, p. 31).) dog, which convicted the sons of Ganyctor the Naupactian, by whom Hesiod had been murdered. But a matter which carne to the attention of our fathers when they were studying at Athens is even plainer than anything so far mentioned. A certain fellow slipped into the temple of Asclepius,[*](The same story in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 13, indicates a literary source. See now E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, p. 114 and n. 65.) took such gold and silver offerings as were not bulky, and made his escape, thinking that he had not been detected. But the watchdog, whose name was Capparus, when none of the sacristans responded to its barking, pursued the escaping temple-thief. First the man threw stones at it, but could not drive it away. When day dawned, the dog did not approach close, but followed the man, always keeping him in sight, and refused the food he offered. When he stopped to rest, the dog passed the night on guard; when he struck out again, the dog got up and kept following, fawning on the other people it met

on the road and barking at the man and sticking to his heels. When those who were investigating the robbery learned this from men who had encountered the pair and were told the colour and size of the dog, they pursued all the more vigorously and overtook the man and brought him back from Crommyon. On the return the dog led the procession, capering and exultant, as though it claimed for itself the credit for pursuing and capturing the temple-thief. The people actually voted it a public ration of food and entrusted the charge of this to the priests in perpetuity, thereby imitating the ancient Athenian kindness to the mule. For when Pericles was building the Hecatompedon[*](Better known as the Parthenon; cf. Mor. 349 d, Life of Pericles, xiii. 7 (159 e).) on the Acropolis, stones were naturally brought by numerous teams of draught-animals every day. Now one of the mules who had assisted gallantly in the work, but had now been discharged because of old age, used to go down every day to the Ceramicus and meet the beasts which brought the stones, turning back with them and trotting along by their side, as though to encourage and cheer them on. So the people of Athens, admiring its enterprise, gave orders for it to be maintained at the public expense, voting it free meals, as though to an athlete who had succumbed to old age.[*](Cf. Life of Cato Maior, v. 3 (339 a-b). Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 49, agrees in the main with Plutarch’s account; Aristotle, Historia Animal. vi. 24 (577 b 34), says merely that a public decree was passed forbidding bakers to drive the creature away from their trays. He adds that the mule was 80 years old and is followed by Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 175.)

[*](There is probably a lacuna before this chapter.) Therefore those who deny that there is any kind of justice owed to animals[*](Cf. 999 b infra; 964 b supra.) by us must be conceded to be right so far as marine and deep-sea creatures[*](Cf. additional sources cited by Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 43.) are concerned; for these are completely

lacking in amiability, apathetic, and devoid of all sweetness of disposition. And well did Homer[*](Iliad, xvi. 34.) say

The gray-green sea bore you,

with reference to a man regarded as uncivilized and unsociable, implying that the sea produces nothing friendly or gentle. But a man who would use such speech in regard to land animals is himself cruel and brutal. Or perhaps you will not admit that there was a bond of justice between Lysimachus[*](Mor. 821 a; the companion and successor of Alexander (c. 360-281 b.c.). Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 143; Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 25; and ii. 40 (cf. vi. 29), of eagles. It may be conjectured that ii. 40 was derived from an original in which ἀετῶν was confused with κυνῶν, as infra.) and the Hyrcanian dog which alone stood guard by his corpse and, when his body was cremated, rushed into the flames and hurled itself upon him.[*](Similar stories in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 40.) The same is reported to have been done by the eagle[*](Dog and eagle are again confused; but the hovering is here decisive. (Cf. also Wilamowitz, Hermes, lxiii, p. 380.) The dog reappears in Pollux, v. 42 (where it is King Pyrrhus), an eagle in a similar tale in Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 18, while Pyrrhus is the name of a dog in Pliny, viii. 144.) which was kept by Pyrrhus, not the king, but a certain private citizen; when he died, it kept vigil by his body; at the funeral it hovered about the bier and finally folded its wings, settled on the pyre and was consumed with its master’s body,

The elephant of King Porus,[*](Life of Alexander, lx. 13 (699 b-c), with Ziegler’s references ad loc. ) when he was wounded in the battle against Alexander, gently and solicitously pulled out with its trunk many[*](Each one of the spears in the Life of Alexander.) of the javelins sticking in its master. Though it was in a sad state itself, it did not give up until it perceived that the

king had lost much blood and was slipping off; then, fearing that he would fall, it gently kneeled and afforded its master a painless glide.[*](Other stories of humane elephants in Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 46; al. )

Bucephalas[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 154; Gellius, Noctes Atticae, v. 2; and see the parallels collected by Sternbach, Wiener Studien, xvi, pp. 17 f. The story is omitted by Plutarch in the Life of Alexander. ) unsaddled would permit his groom to mount him; but when he was all decked out in his royal accoutrements and collars, he would let no one approach except Alexander himself. If any others tried to come near, he would charge at them loudly neighing and rear and trample any of them who were not quick enough to rush far away and escape.

I am not unaware that you will think that my examples are rather a hodge-podge; but it is not easy to find naturally clever animals doing anything which illustrates merely one of their virtues. Their probity, rather, is revealed in their love of offspring and their cleverness in their nobility; then, too, their craftiness and intelligence is inseparable from their ardour and courage. Those, nevertheless, who are intent on classifying and defining each separate occasion will find that dogs give the impression of a mind that is at once civil and superior when they turn away from those who sit on the ground - which is presumably referred to in the lines[*](Homer, Odyssey, xiv. 30 f.; cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 146; Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 24; Aristotle, Rhetoric, ii. 3. 6 (1380 a 24).)

1. The dogs barked and rushed up, but wise Odysseus
2. Cunningly crouched; the staff slipped from his hand;

for dogs cease attacking those who have thrown themselves down and taken on an attitude that resembles humility.[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 48, of the lion.)

They relate further that the champion of the Indian dogs, one greatly admired by Alexander,[*](There are nearly as many emendations of this phrase as there have been scholars interested in Plutarch’s text. Van Herwerden’s version, as having the liveliest sense, has been preferred. It is by no means certain, however, though supported by Aelian, De Natura Animal. viii. 1; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 149; cf. also Pollux, v. 43-44 and the parallels cited by Bethe ad loc. See also Aelian, iv. 19 and Diodorus, xvii. 94.) when a stag was let loose and a boar and a bear, lay quiet and still and disregarded them; but when a lion appeared, it sprang up at once to prepare for the fray, showing clearly that it chose to match itself with the lion[*](Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 149 f., adds the elephant as a worthy match.) and scorned all the others.

Hounds that hunt hares, if they themselves kill them, enjoy pulling them to pieces[*](So break up; Xenophon, Cynegetica, vii. 9.) and eagerly lap up the blood; but if, as frequently happens, a hare in desperation exhausts all its breath in a final sprint and expires, the hounds, when they come upon it dead, will not touch it at all, but stand there wagging their tails, as much as to say that they do not strive for food, but for victory and the honour of winning.

There are many examples of cunning, but I shall dismiss foxes and wolves[*](Cf. Pindar, Pythians, ii. 84; Oppian, Cynegetica, iii. 266.) and the tricks of crane and daw (for they are obvious), and shall take for my witness Thales,[*](Omitted in Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok., not without reason. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 42.) the most ancient of the Wise Men,[*](See the Septem Sapientium Convivium (Mor. 146 b ff.).) not the least of whose claims to admiration, they say, was his getting the better of a mule by a trick. For one of the mules that were used to carry salt, on entering a river, accidentally stumbled and, since the salt melted away, it was free of its burden when it got up. It recognized the cause of this and

bore it in mind. The result was that every time it crossed the river, it would deliberately lower itself and wet the bags, crouching and bending first to one side, then to the other. When Thales heard of this, he gave orders to fill the bags with wool and sponges instead of salt and to drive the mule laden in this manner. So when it played its customary trick and soaked its burden with water, it came to know that its cunning was unprofitable and thereafter was so attentive and cautious in crossing the river that the water never touched the slightest portion of its burden even by accident.

Partridges[*](Cf. 992 b infra; Mor. 494 e and the references there; add Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 103; Philo, 35 (p. 117) (probably referring to partridges, though the Latin version reads palumbae); Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 39; Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 16; xi. 38; Aristotle, Historia Animal. 613 b 31.) exhibit another piece of cunning, combined with affection for their young. They teach their fledglings, who are not yet able to fly, to lie on their backs when they are pursued and to keep above them as a screen some piece of turf or rubbish. The mothers meanwhile lure the hunters in another direction and divert attention to themselves, fluttering along at their feet and rising only briefly until, by making it seem that they are on the point of being captured, they draw them far away from their young.

When hares[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. xiii. 11; vi. 47.) return for repose, they put to sleep their leverets in quite different places, often as much as a hundred feet apart, so that, if man or dog comes near, they shall not all be simultaneously in danger.

The hares themselves run to and fro and leave tracks in many places, but last of all with a great leap they leave their traces far behind, and so to bed.

The she-bear, just prior to the state called hibernation,[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 3; Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 126 f.; Mair on Oppian, Cyn. iii. 173 (L.C.L.).) before she becomes quite torpid and heavy and finds it difficult to move, cleans out her Iair and, when about to enter, approaches it as lightly and inconspicuously as possible, treading on tiptoe, then turns around and backs into the den.[*](These precautions seem to have been successful (though Cf. the implications of Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 128), since Aristotle (Historia Animal. viii. 17, 600 b 6 f.) says that either no one (or very few) has ever caught a pregnant bear. Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 95 and Amm. Marc. xxii. 15. 22, of the hippopotamus entering a field backwards.)

Hinds are inclined to bear their young beside a public road where carnivorous animals do not come[*](Aristotle (Historia Animal. ix. 5, 611 a 17) notes that highways were shunned by wild animals because they feared men. Cf. also Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 35 and Mair on Oppian, Cyn. ii. 207 (L.C.L.).); and stags, when they observe that they have grown heavy by reason of their fat and surplus flesh, vanish and preserve themselves by hiding when they do not trust to their heels.[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 113; [Aristotle], De Mir. Ausc. 5; Historia Animal. 611 a 23.)

The way in which hedgehogs defend and guard themselves has occasioned the proverb[*](See Shorey on Plato, Republic, 423 e (L.C.L.); Leutsch and Schneidewin, Paroemiographi Graeci, i, p. 147, Zenobius, v. 68; attributed by Zenobius to Archilochus (Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica, i, p. 241, frag. 103; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii, p. 174, frag. 118) and to Homer. Zenobius also quotes five lines from Ion, of which the last two are Plutarch’s next quotation.):

The fox knows many tricks, but the hedgehog one big one;

for when the fox approaches, as Ion[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 739; frag. 38, verses 4 f. (see the preceding note).) says, it,

1. Curling its spiny body in a coil,
2. Lies still, impregnable to touch or bite.

But the provision that the hedgehog makes for its young is even more ingenious. When autumn comes, it creeps under the vines and with its paws shakes down to the ground grapes from the bunches and, having rolled about in them, gets up with them attached to its quills. Once when I was a child I saw one, like a creeping or walking bunch of grapes Then it goes down into its hole and delivers the load to its young for them to enjoy and draw rations from. Their lair has two openings, one facing the south, the other the north; when they perceive that the wind will change, like good skippers who shift sail, they block up the entrance which lies to the wind and open the other.[*](Cf. 979 a infra; Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 6 (612 b 4 ff.); Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 133; Cf. viii. 138, of squirrels. On animals who predict the weather see Pliny, Nat. Hist. xviii. 361-364.) And a man in Cyzicus[*](Aristotle (loc. cit.) says Byzantium (and see infra, 979 b).) observing this acquired a reputation for being able to predict unaided which way the wind would blow.

Elephants, as Juba[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii, p. 474; Jacoby, Frag. der griech. Hist. iii, pp. 146 f., frag. 51 a, 53; Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 24; Aelian, De Natura Animal. viii. 15; vi. 61; and see the criticism in 977 d-e infra. On the mutual assistance of elephants see Philostratus, Vita Apoll. ii. 16.) declares, exhibit a social capacity joined with intelligence. Hunters dig pits for them, covering them with slender twigs and

light rubbish; when, accordingly, any elephant of a number travelling together falls in, the others bring wood and stones and throw them in to fili up the excavation so that their comrade can easily get out. He also relates that, without any instruction, elephants pray to the gods, purifying themselves in the sea[*](Cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 1 f.; Dio Cassius, xxxix. 38. 5.) and, when the sun[*](The moon in Aelian, De Natura Animal. iv. 10, but the sun in vii. 44; of tigers in Philostratus, Vita Apoll. ii. 28.) rises, worshipping it by raising their trunks, as if they were hands of supplication. For this reason they are the animal most loved of the gods, as Ptolemy Philopator[*](Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 44: Ptolemy IV (c. 244-205 b.c.), who reigned 221-205. The decisive defeat of Antiochus III was at Raphia in 217. For the gods loving elephants see Aelian, De Natura Animal. vii. 2; al. ) has testified; for when he had vanquished Antiochus and wished to honour the gods in a really striking way, among many other offerings to commemorate his victory in battle, he sacrificed four elephants. Thereafter, since he had dreams by night in which the deity angrily threatened him because of that strange sacrifice, he employed many rites of appeasement and set up as a votive offering four bronze elephants to match those he had slaughtered.

Social usages are to be found no less among lions. For young lions take along with them to the hunt the old and slow; when the latter are tired out, they rest and wait, while the young lions hunt on. When they have taken anything, they summon the others by a roaring like the bleat of a calf; the old ones hear it at once and come to partake in common of the prey.[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. ix. 1.)

The loves of some animals are wild and furious, while others have a refinement which is not far from

human and an intercourse conducted with much grace. Such was the elephant which at Alexandria played the rival to Aristophanes[*](Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 38 (Cf. vii. 43); Pliny, Nat. Hist. viii. 13.) the grammarian. They were, in fact, in love with the same flower-girl; nor was the elephant’s love the less manifest: as he passed by the market, he always brought her fruit and stood beside her for a long time and would insert his trunk, like a hand,[*](Cf. Mair on Oppian, Cyn. ii. 524 for additional authorities.) within her garments and gently caress her fair breasts.

The serpent that fell in love with an Aetolian woman[*](Told somewhat differently, and of a Jewish woman, in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 17.) used to visit her at night and slip under some part of her body next the skin and coil about her without doing her any harm at all, either intentional or accidental; but always at daybreak it was decent enough to glide away. And this it did constantly until the kinsmen of the woman removed her to a house at some distance. The serpent did not come to her for three or four nights; but all the time, we may suppose, it was going about in search of her and missing its goal. At last, when it had somehow found her with difficulty, it embraced her, not with that former gentleness it had used, but rather more roughly, its coils binding her hands to her body, and with the end of its tail it lashed the calves of her legs, displaying a light and tender anger that had in it more indulgence than punishment.

As for the goose in Aegium that loved a boy and the ram that set his heart on Glauce[*](Also a goose in Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 51. Both stories are in Aelian, De Natura Animal. v. 29 (cf. i. 6; viii. 11); for Glauce see also Gow’s note on Theocritus, iv. 31.) the harp-player,

since these are famous tales and I rather imagine you have had enough of such to spoil your appetite for more,[*](More in Aelian, De Natura Animal. xii. 37; al. ) I omit them.

As for starlings[*](Cf. Gellius, Noctes Atticae, xiii. 21. 25; Alciphron, Epp. iii. 30. 1; Philostratus, Vita Apoll. i. 7; vi. 36; al. ) and crows and parrots which learn to talk and afford their teachers so malleable and imitative a vocal current to train and discipline, they seem to me to be champions and advocates of the other animals in their ability to learn, instructing us in some measure that they too are endowed both with rational utterance[*](For the λόγος προφορικός see, e.g., Mor. 777 b-c.) and with articulate voice; for which reason it is quite ridiculous to admit a comparison of them with creatures who have not enough voice even to howl or groan.[*](Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animal. iv. 9 (535 b 14 ff.).) And what music, what grace do we not find in the natural, untaught warbling of birds ! To this the most eloquent and musical of our poets bear witness[*](e.g., Bacchylides, iii. 97; Anth. Pal. vii. 414.) when they compare their sweetest songs and poems to the singing of swans and nightingales. Now since there is more reason in teaching than in learning, we must yield assent to Aristotle[*](Historia Animal. iv. 19 (535 b 17); cf. ix. 1 (608 a 18); Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 40.) when he says that animals do teach: a nightingale, in fact, has been observed instructing her young how to sing. A further proof that supports him is the fact that birds which have been taken young from the nest and bred apart from their mothers sing the worse for it[*](Cf. 992 b-c infra.); for the birds that are bred with their mothers are taught and learn, not for pay or glory, but for the joy of rivalling each other in song and because they cherish the beautiful in their utterance rather than the useful.

On this subject I have a story to tell you which I heard myself from many Greeks and Romans who were eye-witnesses. A certain barber at Rome had his shop directly opposite the precinct which they call the Market of the Greeks.[*](Graecostadium (see Platner and Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Rome, s.v.) or Forum Graecorum.) He bred up a wonderful prodigy of a jay[*](Cf. Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iii. 2 (p. 191. 8, ed. Nauck); Gow on Theocritus, v. 136; Aristotle, Historia Animal. ix. 13 (615 b 19 f.). See also the talking birds in Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 118-134.) with a huge range of tones and expressions, which could reproduce the phrases of human speech and the cries of beasts and the sound of instruments - under no compulsion, but making it a rule and a point of honour to let nothing go unrepeated or unimitated. Now it happened that a certain rich man was buried from that quarter to the blast of many trumpets and, as is customary, there was a halt in front of the barber-shop while the trumpeters, who were applauded and encored, played for a long time. From that day on the jay was speechless and mute, not letting out even a peep to request the necessities of life; so those who habitually passed the place and had formerly wondered at her voice, were now even more astonished at her silence. Some suspected that she had been poisoned by rival bird-trainers, but most conjectured that the trumpets had blasted her hearing and that her voice had been simultaneously extinguished. Now neither of these guesses was correct: it was self-discipline, it would seem, and her talent for mimicry that had sought an inner retreat as she refitted and prepared her voice like a musical instrument. For suddenly her mimicry returned

and there blazed forth none of those old familiar imitations, but only the music of the trumpets,[*](This is also the accomplishment of a homonymous bird in Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 19.) reproduced with its exact sequences and every change of pitch and rhythm and tone. I conclude, as I said before,[*](See 973 a supra.) that self-instruction implies more reason in animals than does readiness to learn from others.

Still, I believe that I should not pass over one example at least of a dog’s learning,[*](Cf. the bears that acted a farce in Script. Hist. Aug., Vita Car. xix. 2.) of which I myself was a spectator at Rome. The dog appeared in a pantomime with a dramatic plot and many characters and conformed in its acting at all points with the acts and reactions required by the text. In particular, they experimented on it with a drug that was really soporific, but supposed in the story to be deadly. The dog took the bread that was supposedly drugged, swallowed it, and a little later appeared to shiver and stagger and nod until it finally sprawled out and lay there like a corpse, letting itself be dragged and hauled about, as the plot of the play prescribed. But when it recognized from the words and action that the time had come, at first it began to stir slightly, as though recovering from a profound sleep, and lifted its head and looked about. Then to the amazement of the spectators it got up and proceeded to the right person and fawned on him with joy and pleasure so that everyone, and even Caesar himself (for the aged Vespasian[*](Vespasian became emperor in a.d. 69 when he was 60 years old and died ten years later, so that this incident can be dated only within the decade.) was present in the Theatre of Marcellus), was much moved.