This little essay, or open letter to Favorinus, is not written in a controversial spirit, though a few sharp comments are made from time to time. Having established (chapters 5-7) that an element of Cold really exists, Plutarch proceeds to consider what that element may be. Since fire is obviously excluded, can it be air, as the Stoics believe (8-12), or water, as Empedocles, and an early Peripatetic, Strato, hold (13-16)? Or, indeed, may it be earth itself (17-22)? This latter opinion is apparently put forward by Plutarch as an original contribution to theoretical physics and there is no reason to believe it is not his. The essay closes, however, with a recommendation to scepticism, ¹ so that our author may not have regarded his attempted proof as cogent, as indeed it is not.

The work was probably written in Delphi ( cf. 953 c-d and e) after A.D. 107-(949 e, note) and addressed to the young philosopher Favorinus, ² the great lover of Aristotle ( Mor. 734 f), who is also a speaker in Symposiacs, viii. 10. Though Favorinus was in all likelihood some twenty years younger than Plutarch, the two men dedicated several works to each other. ³ In the present essay it is, perhaps, odd that of the three quotations from Aristotle one is a rebuke (950 b), one is apparently a partial miscitation (948 a, note), while the third is of no importance. No doubt it is in virtue of Favorinus’ youth that his idol is treated so lightly, and that the sceptical note is sounded so firmly at the end. The young Peripatetic was also quoted by Plutarch (for partial refutation) in Mor. 271 c; but Plutarch (if Tarn ⁴ and others are right) became much more favourable to Peripatetics later in his life (e.g. in the Life of Alexander).

Bernardakis’s text of this work is one of his most unsatisfactory; even for an editio minor it is careless and confused to a deplorable extent. Nor are the means of correcting and supplementing it at hand, the fifth Teubner volume being still, one fears, in the remote future. Then, too. the only photographs available were those of E and Β. which are not likely to add much to our knowledge. ⁵ Consequently the only course that seemed prudent was to return to Wyttenbach wherever there was a reasonable doubt. Bernardakis has been tacitly corrected (or altered, whichever it may be) in a good many places. This has been done consistently when both E and Β agree with Wyttenbach’s and Hutten’s silence; Bernardakis’s silence, unfortunately, appears to have no significance.

The work is no. 90 in the catalogue of Lamprias.