INTRODUCTION
intro
There seems to be no reason to discuss this little work in detail, since F. H. Sandbach Class. Quart. xxxiii (1939), pp. 198-202. G. Kowolski, De Plut. scriptorum iuvenilium colore rhetorico, Cracow, 1918, pp. 258 ff., also denied the authenticity. has shown conclusively that it cannot be genuine. Still more might be added to his proofs, sound and thorough as they are; but this is not the place to slay the slain. It is the more to be regretted that Ziegler, in the article on Plutarch in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, has not had access to Sandbach’s work,This is very puzzling since Ziegler later (936) cites the same article as authoritative on rhythmical matters. though he does refer to Xylander’s athetesis, only to reject it, and might have mentioned Meziriacus’ as well.
intro
Sandbach well observes: To write an exercise on the comparative utility of fire and water may seem so difficult to us moderns who do not have such tasks as part of our education, that we do not recognize how badly the topic is here handled While it is possible that Plutarch wrote this work as a parody, or when a schoolboy, or under some strange circumstances, yet the most probable view is that a miserable sophistical exercise on the subject Whether fire or water is more useful was fathered on the author of a diversion entitled Whether land- or water-animals are more intelligent, just as the Consolatio ad Apollonium was ascribed to the author of a consolation addressed to his wife, or the Lives of the Ten Orators to the author of some more famous biographies.
