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3. From 937 C - D it follows that the interlocutors have hitherto been promenading as they talked and that now they sit down upon the steps, seats, or benches (ἐπὶ τῶν βάθρων) and remain seated to the end. No other indication of the scene or location is given in the work as we have it. It had generally been assumed that the dialogue was meant to take place in Chaeronea cf. Hirzel, r Dialog, ii, p. 184, n. 1, who discusses and rejects the suggestion that the scene is Delphi. Raingeard in his note on 939 C (p. 129 of his commentary) says that ὥσπερ ἄνω περὶ Θήβας there would allow the inference that the speakers are on the coast of Egypt. No such inference is justified by this phrase, of course; in fact, the preceding ὕλην δὲ καὶ καρποὺς αὐτοῦ (or αὐτόθι, as Raingeard conjectures) μὲν ὄμβροι τρέφουσιν and the subsequent παρ’ ὑμῖν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ (939 D 1) show that the scene of the dialogue is not anywhere in Egypt.; but nothing in the text requires this, and F. H. Sandbach has adduced strong arguments for believing that the dramatic location is Rome or the vicinity of Rome.F. H. Sandbach, The Date of the Eclipse in Plutarch’s De Facie Class. Quart. xxiii (1929), pp. 15-16; cf. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 73-74. I am indebted to Mr. Sandbach for sending me, along with copies of his publications, many of his unpublished opinions concerning points in the De Facie and copies of his correspondence with J. K. Fotheringham occasioned by the publication of the article cited above. The persons in the dialogue furnish one of these arguments. Apollonides, Aristotle, and Pharnaces occur nowhere else in Plutarch’s writings and are probably all fictitious characters. Plutarch nowhere else mentions Menelaus the mathematician either, but we know that Menelaus spent some time in Rome (see note a, p. 8). Sulla, Lucius, and Theon all appear together at a dinner given for Plutarch when he had returned to Rome after an interval of absence (Quaest Conviv. viii. 7-8); and none of these three is ever mentioned as being anywhere but in Rome or its vicinity (see § 2, supra). Lamprias alone belongs to Plutarch’s circle at Chaeronea; but it is by no means certain that he did not visit Rome as Plutarch did, though there seems to be no definite evidence either way.Lamprias at least pretends to be conversant with Latin (Quaest. Conviv 726 E ff.). On Plutarch’s visits to Rome cf. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 19-20.
