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The other argument for the dramatic location is connected with the question of the dramatic date of the dialogue. At 931 d-e Lucius refers to a recent total solar eclipse, saying: if you will call to mind this conjunction recently which, beginning just after noonday, made many stars shine out from many parts of the sky δότε μοι, ταύτης ἔναγχος τῆς συνόδου μνησθέντες ἥ πολλὰ μὲν ἄστρα πολλαχόθεν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ διέφηνεν εὐθὺς ἐκ μεσημβρίας ἀρκαμένη GinzelF. K. Ginzel, Spezieller Kanon der Sonnen- und Mondfinsternisse für das Ländergebiet der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Berlin, 1899), pp. 202-204; cf. also Plates X and XI for the paths of solar eclipses during the first and second centuries a.d. The data for the eclipses of 75 and 83, s.v., come from Ginzel’s tables, Op. cit. p. 78 and pp. 110-111. identified this eclipse with the one which occurred on 20 March a.d. 71, for he found that all other solar eclipses visible in Chaeronea during Plutarch’s lifetime fell too far short of totality to permit the appearance of stars. His conclusion was generally acceptedStruyck (cited by Ginzel, Op. cit. p. 203) appears to have come to this conclusion before Ginzel; and Ginzel’s identification was accepted by M. Adler (Zwei Beiträge zum plutarchischen Dialog, De Facie [Nikolsburg, 1910], p. 4) and by Fotheringham as cited by A. O. Prickard (Plutarch on the Face of the Moon [1911], p. 75, and Plutarch, Select Essays, ii, p. 253). Hirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 182, n. 1), following Volkmann, does not even mention the eclipses of 59, 71, and 75, which Ginzel held to be the only ones worthy of consideration. until Sandbach Op. cit. in note c, p. 8 supra. pointed out that, since this eclipse reached its maximum phase at about 11 A.M. local solar time in Chaeronea,10hr, 58m, 4 according to Ginzel (Op. cit. p. 204); 11hr, 4m, 1 according to Fotheringham as quoted by Prickard (Plutarch, Select Essays, ii, p. 253). Plutarch could not have referred to it as having begun after noonday. Ginzel had assumed that the place of observation was Chaeronea; Sandbach, having recognized that this assumption is unwarranted, was able to consider two other eclipses, that of 5 January A.D. 75 and that of 27 December A.D. 83. The latter was total at Alexandria shortly before 15 hours. The former was total in Carthage a little after 15 hours and in the latitude of Rome on the eastern side of the Adriatic at about 15 hours, 20 minutes; at Rome itself the maximum obscuration was 11 · 5 digits, so that, since according to Fotheringham Historical Eclipses (1921), cited by Fotheringham in a letter to Sandbach (22 January 1929); in this letter Fotheringham states that a certain number of stars were visible at Rome in 75. cf. Ginzel, Op. cit. p. 14: Bei den zentralen Sonnenfinsternissen einzelne Sterne treten mitunter hervor, bevor die Phase 11 zöllig geworden ist. stars other than Venus have been visible where the solar obscuration was 10 · 7 digits, it is perfectly possible that some stars would have been seen at Rome about 3.20 p.m. local solar time on 5 January A.D. 75. This eclipse of A.D. 75 as seen in Rome certainly fits the conditions of Lucius’ statement better than does the one of A.D. 71 as seen in Chaeronea, even though it was rather late to be described as beginning just after noonday.Its beginning, which would have been at approximately 13.50 hours, could not have been observed with the naked eye; but Plutarch was capable of calculating it roughly. In any case, whether the συνόδον ἣ ἀρξαμένη is to be taken strictly or in the sense of the time when darkness began, μεσημβρία, as Sandbach has said, is an extended period of time and not an astronomical moment; and Lucius means that the conjunction began just after noonday was over. It must be emphasized that there is no reason to assume that Plutarch himself saw the eclipse to which Lucius refers. He had undoubtedly heard that it had been seen in or near Rome; he almost certainly had seen the eclipse of A.D. 71 in Chaeronea and may have seen that of A.D. 83 in AlexandriaWe do not know when Plutarch visited Alexandria. In Quaest. Conviv v. 5 (678 C ff.) his grandfather is present at a banquet given for him after his return from Alexandria. Sandbach (loc. cit.) thinks that this could have been after 83; but, whether this is so or not, we do not know whether there may not have been more visits to Alexandria than this one.; and what he had seen during one or both of these eclipses he may very well have applied to the eclipse of A.D. 75, which he had not seen.If 932 B (περιφαίνεταί τις αὐγὴ περὶ, τὴν ἴτυν . . .) means, as has sometimes been supposed, that Plutarch had seen the corona, he must have had this experience in 71 or 83. No one in or near Rome would have seen it in 75. I doubt that these words apply to the corona at all, however, for the subsequent oὐκ εὦσα βαθεῖαν γενέσθαι τὴν σκιὰν καὶ ἄκρατον would be a remarkably tame way of describing that spectacle. If the passage refers to any observed phenomenon, it is more likely to have reference to an annular eclipse. We may then conclude that the dramatic date of the dialogue is later than A.D. 75, but how much later it is remains uncertain despite Lucius’ reference to the eclipse as recent. The word which he uses, ἔναγχος, like the English recent, has a meaning relative to its context, and in the case of anything so unusual as a total solar eclipse might refer to an event that had taken place at any time within a decade or more; it seems in this passage not to be used of the immediate past, for Lucius expressly reckons with the possibility that his audience may not recall the recent conjunction and may have to fall back upon literary evidence for the impression made by a total solar eclipse.931 E: εἰ δὲ μή, Θέων ἡμῖν τὸν Μίμνερμον ἐπάσει, κτλ. Of course, this is primarily a literary device to excuse the introduction of the literary references; but it shows that Plutarch does not expect his readers to remember what a total solar eclipse is like. The attempts to find a historical reference in 945 B which would help to fix the date of the dialogue are quite perverseHirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 182, n. 1) excised Τυφών in 945 B (Τιτυοὶ δὲ καὶ Τυφῶνες ὅ τε Δελφοὺς κατασχὼν καὶ συνταράξας τὸ χρηστήριον ὕβρει καὶ βίαλ Τυφὼν ἐξ ἐκείνων κτλ.), took ὁ συνταράξας βίαλ as a reference to Nero, and concluded that Plutarch must have written this after the devastation of Delphi and before the restoration of the oracle. Adler (Zwei Beiträge, etc. [see note a, p. 10], pp. 5-7) defended the text of the mss., which he interpreted to mean demons of the nature of Tityus and Typho and among these especially the Typhon who, etc., and followed Pomtow (Rhein. Mus. li [1896], pp. 377 ff.), who showed that the extinction of the Delphic oracle during the time from Nero to Hadrian was pure invention and who took Τυφών in Facie, 945 B, as a reference to the conflagration in 83 B.C. Adler then, assuming that after the ceremonious restoration of the temple in A.D. 84 Plutarch would not remind his readers of its devastation, concluded that the dialogue must have been written before A.D. 84. This argument was criticized by K. Mras (Zeitschrift für die österreichischen Gymnasien, lxv [1914], p. 187), who in turn deleted Τυφὦνες from the text and read Τιτυοὶ δὲ καὶ ὁ Τυφὼν ὁ νφών Δελφούς βίαλ κτλ. This violent alteration is even less justifiable than Hirzel’s excision of Τυφών, with which it shares the fault of producing the hiatus βιάλ ἐξ; but the text of the MSS. is impossible despite Adler, for (a) one does not say in any language such creatures as Tityus and Typho and in particular Typho . . ., (b) nowhere else is Typho himself said to have done the deed here ascribed to him, and (c) a reference to the conflagration is at least as improbable as the supposed reference to Nero. Kaltwasser’s change of Τυφών to Πύθων, on the other hand, is practically certain. Confusion of π and τ and of θ and φ is easy and common, and πύθων coming after τυφώνες would very easily be assimilated to it. Moreover, in Defectu Oraculorum, 421 C, τὰ περὶ Πύθωνα are included among δαιμόνων πάθη along with τὰ Τυφωνικά and τὰ Τιτανικά. In 414 A - B the oracle at Delphi is said to have been long deserted in what is represented as ancient times; and, if it is denied that the beast (which is not here named but is certainly Pythons3) was the cause, that is done in order to ascribe the cause to Δαίμονες. Finally, Πύθων and Τιτυός are named together by Plutarch in Pelopidas, 16 (286 C) as they are by Strabo (ix. 3. 12 [cc. 422-423]) and Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, i. 4. 1. 3-5 [22-23]).; and we are restricted by the evidence at present available to the conclusion that the conversation was meant to have taken place in or about Rome some time and perhaps quite a long time after A.D. 75.
