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So much for the dramatic date. There is no reason at all for Hirzel’s assertion r Dialog, ii, p. 184, n. 1. that this and the date of composition coincide. Certain striking similarities between the Facie and the Defectu Oraculorum have often been observed, but from these can be drawn equally cogent — and equally hypothetical — arguments for the priority of either to the otherM. Adler (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, pp. 115-116) contends that in the Defectu Plutarch excerpts the Facie; but see Raingeard, p. xxviii of his edition of Facie.; and, since in any case the date of the Defectu is uncertain,Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 76, gives about 100 as the date; but cf. Flaceliére, Plutarque: Sur la Disparition des Oracles, note 4 and pp. 13-17. the relative chronology of the two if established would not determine the date of the Facie.
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4. The structure of the De Facie is complicated. The whole of the work is narrated by Lamprias who speaks in the first person and quotes those who took part in the conversation, including himself, some few times in indirect discourse (e.g. 933 F) but for the most part directly. The last part of his narration (chaps. 26-30 [940 F 945 D] consists entirely of Sulla’s myth given in Sulla’s own words; this myth, Sulla himself says, is a story told to him by an unnamed stranger, whom he quotes first indirectly and then (942 D ff.) directly to the end. The second or eschatological part of the myth the stranger had told Sulla that he had himself heard from the chamberlains and servitors of Cronus (cf. 945 D). Hearing it from Lamprias now, the reader has this part at fourth hand and the geographical introduction of the stranger at third hand.Cf, Plato’s Parmenides and Shorey, What Plato Said, p. 287.
