intro
1. The authenticity of this dialogue has sometimes been questioned but without any plausible reason. cf. S. Günther, quoted by M. Adler, Diss. Phil. Vind. x (1910), p. 87, and R. Pixis, Kepler als Geograph, p. 105. Wilamowitz (Commentariolum Grammaticum, iii, pp. 27-28) suggested that the dialogue was published under the name of Lamprias; and this notion that Lamprias was in some sense either the real or the reputed author was adopted by Christ in the third edition of his Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898), p. 662, and by Hirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 185). On the other hand, despite statements to the contrary, it is certainly mutilated at the beginning,Mutilation was assumed by Xylander, Kepler, and Dübner and has been reasserted by Pohlenz (B.P.W. xxxii [1912], pp. 649-650), von Arnim (Plutarch über Dämonen und Mantik, p. 38), Raingeard (Le ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΠΡΟΣΟΠΟΥ de Plutarque, pp. 49-50 on 920 B 1), and K. Ziegler (Plutarchos von Chaironeia, 214). It was denied by Wilamowitz (loc. cit.), Hirzel (r Dialog, ii, p. 186, n. 6), and M. Adler (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, pp. 88-89). Wyttenbach contended that either nothing or no great part had perished. although one cannot tell whether much or little has been lost; this follows not merely from the abruptness of the opening as we have it, the lack of any kind of introduction, and the failure to identify the main speaker until two-thirds of the dialogue have been finished, but even more surely from the nature of the text in the opening sentences .Those who have defended ὁ μὲν οὖν Σύλλας ταῦτ εἶρε τῷ γ’ ἐμῷ μύθῳ προσήκει κτλ. as a possible opening apparently were unaware that the reading of E is Ὀαυνοσυλλας ταῦτα εἰρε. τῷ γὰρ ἐμῷ μύθῳ προσήκει κτλ.. and that B’s ὁ μὲν οῦν Σύλλας is in all probability a conjecture made by the scribe of that MS. This being so, it is unjustifiable to emend the γὰρ of τῷ γὰρ ἐμῷ μύθῳ, the reading of both E and B; and, if this γὰρ stands, it is certain that our MSS. do not preserve the beginning of the dialogue. The next sentence, ἀλλ εἰ δεῖ τι προσανακροῦσαθαι, πρῦτον ἡδέως ἄν μοι δοκῶ πυθέσθαι, which Wyttenbach needlessly emended, implies that some introduction of Sulla and his myth preceded the present beginning; and 937 C (Σύλλαν οἷον ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς ἀκροατὴν γεγενημένον) suggests what the nature of this introduction may have been. Even the tense of τί δ’ οὐκ ἐμέλλομεν implies some preceding reference to an earlier conversation or a conversation itself interrupted by the arrival of Sulla.
