Plutarch De sollertia animalium 3

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

De sollertia animalium. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold, and Helmbold, William C., translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Πότερα τῶν ζῴων φρονιμώτερα τὰ χερσαῖα ἢ τὰ ἔνυδρα Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. VI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1895.) — 3 focus
Translations (1)
Which are the most crafty, water-animals or those creatures that breed upon the land? Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 3 focus

Notes on the current edition

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer

1. 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.
2. Aristotle and Theophrastus passim; cf. also Mor. 646 c, 698 b.
3. Frag. 112, ed. Wehrli ( Die Schule des Aristoteles, v, p. 34).
4. 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.
5. The Stoics again; von Arnim, S.V.F. iii, p. 41, Chrysippus, frag. 173 of the Ethica.
6. Or elementary treatises: titles used by Chrysippus (von Arnim, op. cit. ii, pp. 6 f.; iii, p. 196).
7. 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.
8. Cf. von Arnim, op. cit. i, pp. 50 f; iii, pp. 92 ff.; see also Mor. 449 c.
9. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. xii. 44, 46; Antigonus, Hist. Mirab. 29.
10. Dolphins also are caught by music: Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 137.
11. 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.).
12. 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.
13. 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.