PLUTARCH’S TABLE TALK

Abstract

This volume concludes T.'s commentary on Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales; in my opinion it is noticeably superior to its two predecessors. Whether owing to the time elapsed (vol. 2 appeared in 1990) or because the author took seriously into account former reviews, this volume is both more readable and more diversified in its approach. To begin with, T. has now supplied each Talk with a brief but lucid and most useful introduction (omission of the titles of the individual Talks is, however, somewhat inconvenient). In each introduction he designates the place and the dramatic date of the Talk, gives information about the participants, summarizes the contents, and underscores the main points of interest or any relevant problems. The Commentary basically follows the methodological lines of the previous volumes, but here the author, apart from proposing interesting emendations and giving illustrative parallels, which testify to his solid philological background and scholarly expertise, also discusses with competence-and more extensively, I think, than before-the various philosophical, literary, and scientific topics of the Quaestiones. His comments on 7.5 (the pleasures from degenerate music), 7.8 (the appropriate dinner entertainment), 8.2 (God is always doing geometry), 8.8 (the Pythagorean fish taboo), 8.9 (the causes of new diseases), and 9.14 (about the Muses) are especially profound and illuminating. However, the lemmata could have been more concise had T. avoided some unnecessary repetitions. He did not need, for instance, to keep explaining why emendations or conjectures that have not passed muster are wrong or superfluous; he could have been more sparing in quoting lengthy passages and, perhaps, avoided altogether printing more than one parallel from the same work of the same author (pp. 81, 94 etc.). Occasionally, the same quotation is printed twice (a Theophrastean passage in two successive entries on p. 209, Galen 1.522 on pp. 292, 294); some lemmata are also unnecessarily repeated (e.g. 8atrv,ovaS, vol. II, p. 23 and vol. III, p. 103); the no doubt correct observation that Plutarch was fond of seafaring images occurs more than ten times (coupled with the reference to Fuhrmann's book). T. is very well-read in secondary literature (yet I saw no reference to Griffiths's commentary on De Iside, although several instances would call for it), but sometimes the bibliography he gives is clearly outdated (p. 134: Becker 1854; p. 247: Griechische Altertumer 1873; p. 256: Barth 1849) or disproportionately extensive for the significance of the subject (on p. 311 he gives eight books and articles about pentathlon). Further, several bibliographical references are printed in full time and time again (e.g. Babut's book on Stoicism, Martin's Symposion, etc.), whereas, incidentally, some obscure ancient authors are referred to in an abbreviated form (e.g. Nicomach. Geras. on p. 326; no full name in the indices). A separate Literatur Verzeichnis that would have lightened the lemmata is lacking. The book closes with two indices, one of English and one of Greek words, which, being short and deficient, do injustice, I am afraid, to the toil and contributions of the author. There is no separate index of proper names, and while there are superfluous names in both indices, many are missing altogether (e.g. Diogenianos, Protogenes,