Plutarch, De sollertia animalium, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 30

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[30] Schooling together has also given the bonitos their name of amia¹ and I think this is true of year-old tunnies as well.² As for the other kinds which are observed to live in shoals in mutual society, it is impossible to state their number. Let us rather, therefore, proceed to examine those that have a special partnership, that is, symbiosis. One of these is the pinna-guard,³ over which Chrysippus⁴ spilled a very great deal of ink; indeed it has a reserved seat in every single book of his, whether ethical or physical.⁵ Chrysippus has obviously not investigated the sponge-guard⁶; otherwise he could hardly have left it out. Now the pinna-guard is a crab-like creature, so they say, who lives with the pinna⁷ and sits in front of the shell guarding the entrance. It allows the pinna to remain wide open and agape until one of the little fish that are their prey gets within; then the guard nips the flesh of the pinna and slips inside; the shell is closed and together they feast on the imprisoned prey.

The sponge is governed by a little creature not resembling a crab, but much like a spider.⁸ Now the sponge⁹ is no lifeless, insensitive, bloodless thing; though it clings to the rocks,¹⁰ as many other animals do, it has a peculiar movement outward and inward which needs, as it were, admonition and supervision. In any case it is loose in texture and its pores are relaxed because of its sloth and dullness; but when anything edible enters, the guard gives the signal, and it closes up and consumes the prey. Even more, if a man approaches or touches it, informed by the scratching of the guard, it shudders, as it were, and so closes itself up by stiffening and contracting that it is not an easy, but a very difficult, matter for the hunters to undercut it.

The purplefish¹¹ lives in colonies which build up a comb together, like bees. In this the species is said to propagate; they catch at edible bits of oystergreen and seaweed that stick to shells, and furnish each other with a sort of periodic rotating banquet, as they feed one after another in series.

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

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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.) — 30 focus

[30]

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ἀμίαις δὲ καὶ τοὔνομα παρέσχηκεν ὁ συναγελασμός, 25 οἶμαι δὲ καὶ ταῖς πηλαμύσι. τῶν δʼ ἄλλων γενῶν ὅσα φαίνεται καὶ ζῇ κοινωνικῶς μετʼ ἀλλήλων ἀγεληδὸν οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι τὸν ἀριθμὸν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἐπὶ τὰς κατʼ ἰδίαν κοινωνίας αὐτῶν καὶ συμβιώσεις ἰτέον. ὧν ἐστι καὶ ὁ τὸ πλεῖστον 5 980b ἐξαναλώσας Χρυσίππου μέλαν πιννοτήρας, παντὶ καὶ φυσικῷ βιβλίῳ καὶ ἠθικῷ προεδρίαν ἔχων· τὸν γὰρ σπογγοτήραν οὐχ ἱστόρηκεν, οὐ γὰρ ἂν παρέλιπεν. ὁ μὲν οὖν πιννοτήρας ζῷόν ἐστι. καρκινῶδες, ὥς φασι, καὶ τῇ πίννῃ σύνεστι καὶ πυλωρεῖ τὴν κόγχην 10 προκαθήμενος, ἐῶν ἀνεῳγμένην καὶ διακεχηνυῖαν, ἄχρι οὗ προσπέσῃ τι τῶν ἁλωσίμων αὐτοῖς ἰχθυδίων· τότε δὲ τὴν σάρκα τῆς πίννης δακὼν παρεισῆλθεν, ἡ δὲ συνέκλεισε τὴν κόγχην, καὶ κοινῶς τὴν ἄγραν ἐντὸς ἕρκους γενομένην κατεσθίουσι. 15 τὸν δὲ σπόγγον ἡνιοχεῖ θηρίδιον οὐ καρκινῶδες ἀλλʼ ἀράχνῃ παραπλήσιον· οὐ γὰρ ἄψυχον οὐδʼ 980c ἀναίσθητον οὐδʼ ἄναιμον ὁ σπόγγος ἐστὶν ἀλλὰ ταῖς μὲν πέτραις, ὡς ἄλλα πολλά, προσπέφυκεν, ἔχει δὲ κίνησιν ἰδίαν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ καὶ εἰς ἑαυτόν, 20 οἷον ὑπομνήσεως καὶ παιδαγωγίας δεομένην· μανὸς γὰρ ὢν ἄλλως καὶ τοῖς ἀραιώμασιν ἀνειμένος ὑπʼ ἀργίας καὶ ἀμβλύτητος, ὅταν ἐμβῇ τι τῶν ἐδωδίμων, ἐκείνου σημήναντος, ἔμυσε καὶ κατηνάλωσεν· ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον, ἀνθρώπου προσιόντος ἢ 25 θιγόντος, διδασκόμενος καὶ χαρασσόμενος οἷον ἔφριξε καὶ συνέκλεισε τὸ σῶμα πήξας καὶ πυκνώσας, ὥστε ῥᾳδίαν ἀλλὰ δύσεργον εἶναι τὴν ὑποτομὴν αὐ τοῦ τοῖς θηρεύουσιν. αἱ δὲ πορφύραι συναγελαζόμεναι τὸ μὲν κηρίον, ὥσπερ αἱ μέλιτται, κοινῇ 980d ποιοῦσιν, ἐν ᾧ λέγονται γονεύειν· τὰ δʼ ἐδώδιμα τῶν βρύων καὶ τῶν φυκίων ἀναλαμβάνουσαι προσισχόμενα 5 τοῖς ὀστράκοις οἷον ἐν περιόδῳ κυκλουμένην ἑστίασιν ἀλλήλαις παρέχουσιν, ἑτέραν ἑτέρας ἔξωθεν ἐπινεμομένης.

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.) — 30 focus

[30] The fish amiae, which are another sort of tunnies, are so called, because they swim in shoals, as also the pelamydes or summer whitings. As for the rest that are seen to swim in shoals and to observe a mutual society, their number is not to be expressed. And therefore let us proceed to those that observe a kind of private and particular society one with another. Among which is the pinoteras of Chrysippus, upon which he has expended so much ink, that he gives it the precedency in all his books, both physical and ethical. For Chrysippus never knew the spongotera, for he would not have passed it over out of negligence.

The pinoteras is so called, from watching the fish called pina or the nacre, and in shape resembles a crab; and cohabiting with the nacre, he sits like a porter at his shellside, which he lets continually to stand wide open until he spies some small fishes gotten within it, such as they are wont to take for their food. Then entering the shell, he nips the flesh of the nacre, to give him notice to shut his shell; which being done, they feed together within the fortification upon the common prey.

The sponge is governed by a certain little creature more like a spider than a crab. For the sponge wants neither soul nor sense nor blood; but growing to the stones, as many other things do, it has a peculiar motion from itself and to itself, which nevertheless stands in need as it were of a monitor or instructor. For being otherwise of a substance loose and open, and full of holes and hollowness, by reason of the sloth and stupidity of it the sponge-watcher assists to give notice when any thing of food enters the cavities of it, at which time the sponge contracts itself and falls to feeding.

But if a man approach and touch it, being nipped and admonished by the sponge-watcher, it seems to shudder and shut up the body of it, closing and condensing it in such a manner as makes it no easy thing to cut it from the place where it grows.

The purple shellfish also, called porphyrae, clustering together in a kind of mutual society, build up little combs for themselves like bees, wherein they are said to generate; and culling out the choicest substance of the moss and seaweed that stick to their shells, they seem to be in a circular commons among themselves, feeding the one upon the other’s nourishment.

Notes on the current edition

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer

1. Similarly, Athenaeus (vii. 278 a; Cf. 324 d) quotes Aristotle as defining amia as not solitary, i.e. running in schools. Actually the term is probably foreign, perhaps of Egyptian origin ( Cf. Thompson, Glossary, p. 13).

2. Plutarch takes pelamys to be compound of pelein to be and hama with, with references to their running in schools. It was also anciently presumed to be a compound of pelos mud and myein be shut in or enclosed, because of its habit of hiding in the mud ( Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animal. 599 b 18; Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 47). Most scholars now regard it as a loan from the Mediterranean substratum, although Thompson ( Glossary, p. 198) suggests that it may be of Asiatic origin, since it was used especially of the tunny in the Black Sea.

3. See Thompson, Glossary, p. 202.

4. Von Arnim, S.V.F. ii, p. 208, frag. 729 b (Athenaeus, 89 d). Cf. also fragments 729, 729 a, and 730. On the place of the pinna in Chrysippus’ theology see A. S. Pease, Harv. Theol. Rev. xxxiv (1941), p. 177.

5. Cf. Mor. 1035 b, 1038 b.

6. A little crab that lives in the hollow chambers of a sponge. See Thompson, loc. cit.

7. On this bivalve shellfish see Thompson, Glossary, p. 200; Mair on Oppian, Hal. ii. 186.

8. Nevertheless, it is a crab, Typton spongicola.

9. Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. viii. 16; Aristotle, Historia Animal. v. 16 (548 a 28 ff.); Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 148; Antigonus, 83; Mair on Oppian, Hal. v. 656; Thompson, Glossary, pp. 249-250.

10. Cf. W. Jaeger, Nemesios con Emesa, p. 116, n. 1.

11. See Aristotle, Historia Animal. v. 15 (546 b 19 ff.) quoted in Athenaeus, 88 d - 89 a; De Gen. Animal. iii. 11 (761 b 32 ff.); Thompson, Glossary, pp. 209-218.

Plutarch De sollertia animalium 30

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

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