2. Work in Progress

Aims of the Project

For my doctoral project I am treating the work of Plutarch that goes by the name of Quaestiones Grecae (QG).^[1] The QG is an antiquarian work in 59 autonomous sections, in a question-and-answer format, that gathers elements peculiar to the culture – understood in Tylor’s broadest definition^[2] – of civic and ethnic communities of the Greek world and attempts to provide a definition that may clarify them or a causal explanation that may illuminate their origins and functions. This work, which belongs to the broader realm of Question-Literature, thus combines, in a unique way, features typical of lexicography and of the problemata genre related to the Peripatetic milieu (see Jazdzewska’s excellent 2018 contribution). We are unable to determine whether this collection was published by its author, whereas we can be certain that the Quaestiones Romanae were because of Plutarch’s explicit references in Rom. 15, 7 and, in part, Cam. 19, 12. The QG and the QR, together with the Quaestiones Barbaricae, were probably intended to form a significant triptych that would compare Greeks, Romans and Barbarians. This triptych was inter-related by literary genre and theme, in which each work, however, would retain a well-defined identity with its own characteristics. It is reasonable to think that the work had a long compositional phase, gradually taking up material that Plutarch might have considered worthy of attention and interest, either because it was useful to satisfy some personal curiosity, or because it was functional to the drafting of other works. The composition phase, therefore, preceded the writing of a large part of the Lives, but did not always take place in function of them.

First and foremost, the project will entail drafting an Italian translation and thorough commentary on the 59 Greek Questions following the example set by Halliday (1928) and never pursued again. Three distinct levels will be kept in mind as I comment on each Quaestio, though the levels will be in continuous and mutual dialogue: 1) a more strictly historical level that, where possible, aims to clarify the chronological contexts within which Plutarch’s objects of research are operating, emphasizing their possible continuity over time and the possible meaning of their selection by a πεπαιδευομένος at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE; 2) a level that would anthropologically examine the rites, customs, and usages described by Plutarch, when the subject matter of the Quaestio allows, and that would analyze Plutarch’s descriptive and interpretative schemes in fruitful comparison with those employed by modern scholars, distinguishing, when possible, the different emic and etic perspectives; 3) a third level, constituting the last section of each commentary, will aim to investigate the mechanisms of construction of the individual QG, analyzing each question and answer, case by case, both separately and in their mutual relation, in an attempt to identify the literary, documentary, and oral sources used by the Cheronaean for the drafting of each Quaestio. The research will also aim to bring out, if possible, the artificial or genuine character of the questions in relation to the answers, and to show the skillful work of decanting done in the transfer from the source’s literary genre to Q&A format of the target work. This Quellenforschung will allow a return to the vexata quaestio of Plutarch's use of materials from the 158 Πολιτεῖαι of the Peripatetic school that appeared as the backbone of the entire collection. It was a group of writings whose reading would have triggered the composition of the QG as a whole, partially determining their themes and characters, but also to consider the possibility of Plutarch's use of lexicographic and paroemiographic collections that were ready or in the process of being compiled. Thus, there will be an opportunity to return to an in-depth investigation of the Cheronaean smithery and its working, of Plutarch’s techniques of composition and reuse of materials, as well as to see the degree of his originality input in his use of sources, that appear, from time to time, discussed, enriched, or plundered.

Given the commentary and punctual analysis of the individual Quaestiones, it will be possible, following an inductive method, to address more general problems concerning the work. I propose to reflect on Plutarch’s selection of his objects of inquiry:  significantly, these seem to refer back to the Greek world prior to Hellenism and the arrival of Rome, to the world between Homer and Aristotle, a world in which one notes the conspicuous absence of Athens and Plutarch’s discreet interest in his native Boeotia. It will therefore be necessary to reflect on the purposes of writing this work, a problem intimately and constantly connected with the audience for which the author composes his work and his work’s intrinsic nature. We cannot rule out that the work may be a team effort and left ‘unfinished’, and a strongly hypomnematic character must be acknowledged. It may have served as a collector of materials elsewhere (re)used by Plutarch in his writings and probably on the occasions offered by everyday life. These features would suggest a work intended for personal use or for a small group; nevertheless, we can’t deny that it is written keeping in mind the educated contemporaries, Greeks and Romans, who must have found the topics covered of some interest. The antiquarian character of these, at a time when the claim of greater antiquity of community institutions served to impose and vindicate their prestige, win disputes, and obtain favors and privileges, will not be the reflection of harmless hobby, but will have acquired a particular political value. Accordingly, it will also be necessary to question the form of the work and its belonging to a specific literary genre that calls for discussion, insight, and inter-activity, and its possible expendability in other contexts, such as banquets and visits to great sanctuaries, contexts that serve as a background for other Plutarch’s works. Finally, I propose to return to the problem of the title of the work, not in a vain attempt to determine what it was originally (if there ever was one), but to meditate on aetiology among the ancients, analyzing what Greeks meant by αἴτια and αἰτίαι over time, from Homer to Plutarch.

Selected Bibliography

Barrow R.H., Plutarch and his Times, London 1967.

Boulogne J., 1992 Les Questions romaines de Plutarque, II, 33, 6 in W. Haase, H. Temporini-Vitzthum (hrsgg. von) ANRW, Hildegard 1992, pp. 4682-4702.

Boulogne J. (éd. par), Plutarque: Œuvres Morales. Conduites Méritoires de femmes ; Étiologies Romaines ; Étiologies Grecques ; Parallèles Mineurs, Paris 2002.

Brenk F.E., Plutarch the Greek in the Roman questions, in D.F. Leão, L.R. Lanzillotta (ed. by), A man of many interests: Plutarch on religion, myth, and magic: essays in honor of Aurelio Pérez Jiménez, Leiden-Boston 2019, pp. 240-254.

Carrano A. (a cura di), Plutarco: Questioni greche, Napoli 2007.

Chassignet M. (éd. par), L’étiologie dans le pensée antique, Turnhout 2008.

Giesen K., Plutarchs Quaestiones graecae und Aristoteles’ Politien, Philologus 60 (1901), pp. 446-471.

Halliday W.R., The Greek Questions of Plutarch, Oxford 1928.

Harrison G.W.M., Problems with the genre of problems: Plutarch’s literary innovations, Classical Philology 95, 2 (2000), pp. 193-199.

Jazdzewska K., Plutarch’s Greek Questions: Between Glossography and Problemata-Literature, Hermes 146 (2018), pp. 41-53.

Oikonomopoulou K., Plutarch’s corpus of quaestiones in the tradition of imperial Greek encyclopaedism, in J. König, G. Woolf (ed. by), Encyclopedism from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Cambridge 2013, pp. 129-153.

Oikonomopoulou K., Space, Delphi and the construction of the Greek past in Plutarch’s Greek Questions, in A. Georgiadou, K. Oikonomopoulou (ed. by), Space, Time and Language in Plutarch, Berlin-Boston 2017, pp. 107-116.

Payen P. (éd. par), Plutarque : Grecs et Romains en Questions, Toulouse 1998.

Payen P., Le recueils de Questions et la tradition «antiquaire» dans le corpus de Plutarque. Essai de synthèse, Pallas 90 (2012), pp. 217-233.

Polito M., Dagli scritti di Eraclide sulle costituzioni: un commento storico, Napoli 2001.

Polito M., Gli opuscoli sulla politeia della scuola di Aristotele: appunti e riflessioni, in Parola del Passato 72 (2017), pp. 11-43.

Preston R., Roman questions, Greek answers: Plutarch and the construction of identity, in S. Goldhill (ed. by), Being Greek under Rome: cultural identity, the Second Sophistic and the development of empire, Cambridge-New York 2001, pp. 86-119.

Schettino M.T., Le Πολιτεῖαι Aristoteliche nel Corpus Plutarcheo, in A.P. Jiménez, J.G. López, R.M. Aguilar, Plutarco, Platón y Aristóteles: actas del V Congreso Internacional de la I.P.S. (Madrid-Cuenca, 4-7 de mayo de 1999), Madrid 1999, pp. 643-655.

Schettino M.T., The Use of Historical Sources, in M. Beck (ed. by), A Companion to Plutarch, Chichester 2014, pp. 417-436.

Stadter P.A., Plutarch’s Historical Methods: An Analysis of the Mulierum Virtutes, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1965.

Tanga F., The Religious Landscape of Plutarch’s Quaestiones Graecae, in R. Hirsch-Luipold, L.R. Lanzillotta (ed. by), P. Lötscher (in collab. with), Plutarch’s Religious Landscapes, Leiden-Boston 2021, pp. 229-238.

Van der Stockt L., Plutarch in Plutarch: the problem of the hypomnemata, in I. Gallo (a cura di), La biblioteca di Plutarco, Napoli 2004, pp. 331-340.

Ziegler K., s.v. Plutarchos von Chaironeia, in RE XXI, 1, Stuttgard 1949, coll. 636-962.

[1] I shall not return here to the work’s title problem, referring to it by the title of the humanistic translations. It is impossible to establish what the original title was (Payen 2012, p. 230) – if there ever was one – due to the discrepancy between a discordant and unclear manuscript tradition; the references of Plutarch in Rom. 15, 7 and Cam. 19, 12 to the Quaestiones Romanae – a work related to the Quaestiones Graecae but not perfectly akin to them – as Αἴτια ῥωμαικά; and Lamprias’ catalogue referring to our work as Αἰτίαι Ἐλλήνων.

[2] “The complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society.” E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and Custom, London 1871.