The Teacher of Plutarch (HSCP 1966)

Department of the Classics, Harvard University The Teacher of Plutarch Author(s): C. P. Jones Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 71 (1967), pp. 205-213 Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/310764 Accessed: 13-11-2017 22:01 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Department of the Classics, Harvard University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Harvard Studies in Classical Philology This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE TEACHER OF PLUTARCH C. P. JONES THE man of letters, rhetor or philosopher, who was also of political and social eminence is a familiar figure in the history of the Greek world under Roman rule. A. Stein long ago pointed out how many of these cultured men became heads of their provincial KOLVc; 1 recently the cardinal part taken by Areius of Alexandria, Nestor of Tarsus, and others in the settlement of Augustus has been studied by G. W. Bowersock.2 Ammonius, the teacher of Plutarch, belongs to this company. As a philosopher he is interesting mainly because of his more famous pupil. In the administration of Athens under the principate, however, he and his posterity held a position that is worth the attention of the historian.3 Plutarch gives little direct information about his teacher. There is an anecdote about one of his afternoon lectures, in which he rebuked " certain eminent people " (i7-iv yvwplwv 7LVS) among the audience who had lunched too heavily (quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur 7oE). One of Plutarch's fellow-pupils under Ammonius was certainly eminent: Themistocles, descended from the Athenian general (Themist. 32.6). Otherwise Plutarch depicts Ammonius only indirectly, by intro- ducing him as a speaker into certain of his dialogues--the de E delphico, the de defectu oraculorum, and three of the collection that make up the quaestiones conuiuales. In the dialogue de E delphico, which purports to have taken place when Nero was visiting Greece (385B) in 66-67,4 Ammonius is the chief speaker. At least three of the other speakers are young men, apparently present as his pupils: Plutarch's friend Theon, who asks Ammonius' permission to defend dialectic (386D ff), Plutarch himself, and Eustrophus, who together defend mathematics (387D ff) and are referred to by Ammonius as vioL (391E). Apart from the priest Nicander, the only other person present is Plutarch's brother Lamprias, whose age is not so clearly defined. He appears to be well known to Ammonius, who alone sees through a pseudoscientific argument that Lamprias advances as a joke (386A). He takes the discussion less seriously than the other youths, and so is presumably older than they; he seems at least to be older than Plutarch, since he is named after their grandfather. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 206 C. P. Jones Ammonius and Lamprias reappear in with their roles reversed. Ammonius from being the authoritative figure he is troubled by an &dropla (435A) an AEyEL ETEpov, 43IC). Lamprias also Lamprias of the other dialogue. He ta and like Ammonius before has the la If the depiction of the characters is at be later than that of the de E delphic thinking of a time in the 70's or early Three of the conversations include introduce Ammonius as an interlocutor. The dramatic date of the first of these (645D ff) cannot be far from that of the de E delphico. Ammonius is again the senior interlocutor. His rebuke causes the youths to lay down their garlands in shame (646A). Only Plutarch argues with him, but he too is a veos (646A, 649A). Another of the quaestiones is set at Ammonius' house; the occasion is his third tenure of the hoplite generalship in Athens (72oC if), which perhaps suggests that he was fairly old. The same conclusion can be drawn from the depiction of the philosopher Boethus as no longer young (720oF): he reappears in the dialogue de Pythiae oraculis, which is supposed to have taken place in Plutarch's later life.6 Moreover, a son of Ammonius is introduced, Thrasyllus, conversing in the manner of a mature person (722C ff). Ammonius still treats Plutarch as a junior, by telling him to refute Boethus (72ID), but the dramatic date appears to be later than Plutarch's student days and closer to that of the de defectu oraculorum. The last book of the quaestiones conuiuales is entirely occupied with a dinner given by Ammonius, again as hoplite general, to certain of the ephebes and their teachers (736D ff). The dramatic date of this book must be near to that of the de E delphico. As in that dialogue, Ammonius directs the conversation, urging Plutarch (738A) and Lamprias (74oA-B), or both (744C), to speak; Lamprias is a rras (747B) and again treats the topic of conversation humorously (74oB). Thus in all the dialogues of Plutarch in which he appears, Ammonius is either preeminent, while Plutarch and his brother are vE'oL, or else reduced in stature by comparison with his old pupils, who can now speak authoritatively before him. The earlier stage, that of the dramatic dates of the de E delphico and of the first and third of the quaestiones conuiuales in which Ammonius appears, is to be dated about 67; at about the same time Ammonius will have held his first or second This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Teacher of Plutarch 207 hoplite generalship. The later stage is that of the dramati de defectu oraculorum and the quaestio in which Boethus appear and Ammonius is hoplite general for the third t refer to the 70's or the early 8o's.7 The only writer other than Plutarch to mention A Eunapius, who records that he was "from Egypt" and, thi the authority of Plutarch, that he died in Athens (uitae p Neither of these facts is to be found in the surviving corpu but there is no reason to question them. Eunapius ma obtained them from works now lost; in particular, from the only from 77 KaKLa crvvEL.the catalogue of Lamprias, 'Atp+dCvtos, rj )TEpL To the evidence of Plutarch and Eunapius can be added that of an acephalous inscription from Eleusis published in i897. Since writers on Ammonius have either ignored this stone, or used it carelessly, it deserves reconsideration.9 The text is as follows, with the restorations of the first editor: ['Apzqzu'vtoS T7qv SELva] T7v yEVO.L4EV?7V &avIToi3 y[vvaZ^K(a] Kat 0 KpV~ 77 E 'e Apdov rd'[yov] flovAhg OpduvMos 'AtquW[viov] XoAA18vjsq T-qV Eav J o pa-[EVpa] VE.OrlKav apEr)S7 EVEKEv Kat 7TS 7Tp0S 7Tag OEaS EVUEfl[ElaS]. The lady honored for her piety to the goddesses of Eleusis was the late wife of a man whose name is lost. But since the other dedicant, Thrasyllus of Cholleidae, was her son, the bereaved husband will be his father Ammonius. And Ammonius of Cholleidae will have been the teacher of Plutarch. He also had a son called Thrasyllus; and the Thrasyllus of the inscription, who was herald of the Areopagus, belonged to the same rank of society as Plutarch's teacher, for the hoplite general and the herald of the Areopagus were among the chief magistrates of Athens.o1 Moreover, the deme Cholleidae, of which the epigraphical Ammonius was a member, is connected in other ways with Plutarch's circle in Athens. It included his friend Serapion, and perhaps Plutarch himself, since he was in the tribe to which Cholleidae belonged, Leontis.11 Besides providing the name of Ammonius' tribe and a magistracy for his son, this inscription enables both to be linked with an aristocratic family of first- and second-century Athens. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 208 C. P. Jones Before its discovery an Annius Thra been known: thereafter it was temptin him. Hence the lost name of Ammo Annius Thrasyllus' mother was Fla Demeter and Core mentioned in sev Ammonius might well have honored fo this reconstruction cannot be right. F to honor in a dedication, her great-gr archon about the middle of the second stretching of chronology could this de ca. I10. Ammonius, who survived h lived even beyond this date, an imp philosopher already of established rep cannot have been his wife, nor this An no obstacle, on the other hand, to iden an ephebe of 112/13, M. Annius Thrasy father was named M. Annius Pythodo have been the husband of Flavia La suited: as Flavia Laodameia was prieste Annius Pythodorus can be identified w was priest of Delian Apollo for sev Hadrian.15 Though the son of Ammonius must be distinguished from the son of Pythodorus and Laodameia, the existence of two Thrasylli in the deme Cholleidae in the early principate, both of them connected with Eleusis, need not be due to coincidence. To have a son born about 95, who was an ephebe in I12/13, M. Annius Pythodorus could have been born in about 70. Ammonius, it has been seen, was hoplite general and Plutarch's revered teacher about 67, and lived on into the 70's or 8o's. He could have been born about 20 and his son Thrasyllus about 45, an exact contemporary of Plutarch. If so, Pythodorus may have been Thrasyllus' son, and M. Annius Thrasyllus his grandson. In the stemma that follows this has been taken to be so, but the possibility that the two Thrasylli were connected in some other way, as uncle and nephew, for instance, is not excluded. Either supposition would account for the existence of two Thrasylli in Cholleidae and for their connection with Eleusis. The Roman names "M. Annius," that first appear in the nomenclature of Pythodorus, invite speculation. Although no M. Annius is known in the fasti of Achaea,16 chance has preserved record of an M. Annius who had contacts with Athens. An Athenian inscription reads: This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Teacher of Plutarch 209 ,E 'Apedov ~TrcOV, fl[ovA, KX] P fOVhj T1 -1WV 'KoaTlwV [Kcd] d 8^4t0os MpKov 'Avwo[v] "AfpEtvov V7raTov apETl-r [vE-] KEY K(al 77)s 7TOs 73-P I9ALY E[1vYolas}7'7 The date of Afrinus' consulate is usually taken to be abou this inscription may permit more precision. Afrinus' colleagu notorious C. Paccius Africanus, and the two were in office o July.'9 Now the inscription in question exhibits a peculiarit is honored as consul. In the many Athenian dedications Roman magistrates, it is very rare for the magistracy named other than that held by the honorand in the province.20 For be honored simply as consul appears to be unique. Agripp called 7rpls Va'-os, is not a true parallel,21 and the consul T Callippianus Italicus either was consular corrector or held the in absence.22 Is it possible that Afrinus also might have become consul in absence? The circumstances under which a man could have done so late in Nero's reign are easily imagined. On the 25th of September, 66,23 the emperor set out on his Greek peregrination with a retinue of senators - Cluvius Rufus, for example, and the future emperor Vespasian.24 Nero did not wish to leave possible rivals behind him, and the government of Rome was entrusted to the freedman Helius.25 Affairs were conducted from Greece. It was to Greece that Cn. Domitius Corbulo was summoned, and thence Vespasian was sent to crush the Jewish rebellion.26 Some, perhaps all, of those who became consuls while Nero was in Greece may have done so in absence from Rome. If Afrinus and Africanus did, it was in 67, since that was the only year that saw Nero in Greece during a July. The supposition gains force when it is remembered that Africanus brought about the downfall of the Scriboniifratres precisely during Nero's stay in Greece.27 The consulate may have been his reward. In 67, it may be concluded, M. Annius Afrinus was honored by the Areopagus, council, and assembly of Athens for his goodwill to the city. Ammonius is presented by Plutarch in the same year as the head of a philosophic group and, about the same time, as hoplite general. The likelihood is great that, among his benefactions to Athens, M. Annius Afrinus obtained the Roman citizenship for the prominent citizen and philosopher, and hence the names "M. Annius" borne by Ammonius' descendants. Afrinus' goodwill to Athens and his patronage of an eminent Athenian are not without a larger historical interest. The This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms (M. Annius) Ammonius, thrice hoplite general fl. 67 (M. Annius) Thrasyllus, herald of the Areopagus Cleitus 29 M. Annius Pythodorus, Flavia Laodameia, priest of Delian Apollo I13/14-125/26 = priestess of M. Annius Thrasyllus, Pat ephebe 112/13 exeget SI D. Junius (M.) Annius Pythodorus 31 Annia Aristocle C. Caelius Theoteles, = Annia Euphama D. Junius Men councillor ca. I8o (C. Caelius) Demetrius Nicostrate 3 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Teacher of Plutarch 211 emperor Hadrian, who likewise visited Athens and took a in its culture, may have been related to him.28 The accompanying stemma is that of Ammonius' posteri both from evidence already reviewed and evidence so far the argument as unproblematical. Annotation refers only To sum up. The philosopher Ammonius (no teacher parent) arrived from Egypt in Athens, and gathered abou of pupils socially and intellectually respectable.35 He hoplite general three times, a position that conferred grea demanded heavy expense.36 The Roman citizenship could delayed: the benefactor was apparently M. Annius Af when Nero visited Greece in 67. Ammonius' posterity followed him into civic life, but n into philosophy. His only known son,37 Thrasyllus, was Areopagus.38 Thrasyllus' grandson of the same name ma benefaction to his fellow ephebes in the year of Hadrian The younger Thrasyllus' daughter became the wife of an son's daughter, wife of a councillor. Similarly, the family generations active in public religion. Ammonius him devoted to Apollo, and his wife to Demeter and Core. Th was the munificent priest of Delian Apollo for many year an equally prominent priestess of the Eleusinian goddesses daughter of this devout pair, Annia Aristocleia, married exegete Boulon, and a girl born to them became hieroph The career of Ammonius thus becomes valuable evidence for the status of philosophy under Nero. The effect of that emperor on Greek culture was profound and enduring. More important than the soon retracted grant of independence, he gave unprecedented honors to the arts of Greece. In rhetoric he can be credited with setting on its gilded course the movement later known as the " Second Sophistic":39 Ammonius shows that philosophy was not neglected. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO NOTES A version of this paper was read at the meeting of the American Ph Association held at Providence, R.I., in December 1965. I am very gr Prof. G. W. Bowersock of Harvard, who has advised me throughout th of it, and to my colleague, Prof. J. M. Rist, who criticized an early dr I. A. Stein, Epitymbion Swoboda (1927) 3ooff. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 212 C. P. Jones 2. G. W. Bowersock, Augustus and chap. 3, "Greeks in the Imperial S 3. Cf. J. von Arnim, RE I.i86z n Trajan (1931) I50ff; PIR2 A 563 (wh 940C, misprinted as "490," should 4. Nero left Rome for Greece on CAH 10.735 n.i); he was still there 540, 542), and probably stayed a few 5. Mr. R. M. Ogilvie has kindly inf date to be the Pythia of 79 or 83, Phoenix. There is no sign that Am 21.652. 6. The clearest indication is the p as an interlocutor (395A). His fathe apparently a contemporary of Pluta 7. Therefore 66 and 81, dates commonly given for two of Ammonius' generalships (Graindor [above, n.31 78, followed by T. C. Sarikakis, The Hoplite General in Athens [1951] 40), may be right. 8. No. 84. The work may have been a dialogue in which Ammonius was the chief interlocutor (Ziegler, RE 21.652). 9. A. N. Skias, Ephemeris Archeologike (1897) 57 no. 35; IG 2/32 3558. Omitted from PIR2 A 563 and, less excusably, by Ziegler, RE 21.65Iff. The stemmata of Ammonius given by Graindor (above, n.3) 151 and J. Kirchner on IG 2/32 3557 are demonstrably erroneous. io. On the hoplite general see below, n.36. On the herald of the Areopagus, see Graindor, Athenes sous Auguste (1927) Ii o-ii, Athknes de Tibkre a' Trajan (1931) 65 (omitting Thrasyllus from n.3). ii. Serapion: J. H. Oliver, Hesperia Suppl. 8 (1949) 243ff. Plutarch's tribe: quaest. conuiu. 628A. The Menandrian actor Q. Marcius Strato, who can be identified with the comoedus Strato mentioned by Plutarch, ibid. 673C, cf. oL MEvav8pov V7TOKpLVOdfEVOL, ibid. 673B, was also of Cholleidae (IG 2/32 12664; cf. M. Bonaria, RE Suppl. 10.925). Cf. R. Flacelibre, REG 64 (1951) 325ff. 12. IG 2/32 3546, 3557, 3559, 3560, 4753, 475413. IG 2/32 3557, dedicated by Flavia Laodameia to Junia Melitine, daughter of D. Junius Patron. His archonship was dated ca. 138 by Graindor, who however took him to be the son of Flavia Laodameia (Chronologie des Archontes athkniens sous l'Empire [1922] I39f). 14. IG 2/32 2024, lines 2-4 (unaccountably made a son of Thrasyllus by Graindor and Kirchner). 15. Inscriptions de Ddlos 2535, 2536. On the dates (i 13/14-125/26) see Graindor, Athknes sous Hadrien (1934) 25ff. 16. M. Annius, quaestor of Macedonia in I19 B.C. (MRR 1.526), cannot be considered. 17. IG 2/32 4184. 18. "67 o poco dopo," A. Degrassi, Fasti Consolari (1952) 18; " c. 66," R. Syme, Tacitus (I958) 333 n.6 (but "c. 67," ibid. 792). 19. CIL 4.1544 (Pompeii), M. Vinicius Vitalis exit pr. non. Julias Afrino et Africano cos. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Teacher of Plutarch 213 20. Proconsuls: e.g., IG 2/3 2 4106, 4115, 4118. Legate of Mace Achaea: IG 2/32 4174. Quaestor pro praetore: IG 2/32 4120o. 21. IG 2/32 4122. 22. IG 2/32 4215; von Premerstein suggested that he was consul RE 4.1651. 23. CAH 10.735 n.I. 24. Cluvius: Dio 63.14.3. Vespasian: Seutonius Vesp. 4.4, Dio 66.11.2. 25. Helius: Suetonius Nero 23.1 (PIR 2 H 55). 26. Corbulo: Dio 63.17.6. Vespasian: Josephus Bell. Jud. 3.8. 27. Dio 63.17.2-4, cf. Tacitus Historiae 4.41. Paccii in Greece: IG 5.69, line 35 (not before I17), Mnemosyne 47 (1919) 166 no. I3. 28. Afrinus and Hadrian: Syme, Tacitus (1958) 792. 29. IG 2/3' 3557, 3559. 30. IG 2/32 3619. 31. Hesperia 33 (1964) 223f, no. 69, with Benjamin D. Meritt's commentary. 32. IG 2/32 3557, 3619. On his archonship, see above, n.I3. 33. IG 2/32 3557. As hierophantis: IG 2/3 2 3633. 34. IG 2/32 3647. 35. There is no evidence that he became scholarch of the Academy, despite von Arnim, RE 1.1862 no. 12, Graindor (above, n.3) 152. 36. On the importance and duties of this office, see Graindor, Athines sous Auguste (1927) I15 ff, T. C. Sarikakis (above, n.7) I iff. According to Philostratus, the sophist Lollianus 7rpoor? ... rov 'AOqvaclwv 8ltzov orparTyoaga avTrois Triv rL rVcov D rAowv (uit. soph. 526). On one occasion he used his earnings to help the city out of a financial difficulty (ibid. 526-27). 37. The supposed son Thrasybulus was created from a corruption in the text of quaest. conuiu. 747B, cf. Ziegler, RE 21.666. 38. It has been argued that Ammonius received the Roman citizenship in 67; the consequence might appear to be that, since Thrasyllus does not bear the names "M. Annius" in IG 2/32 3558, he was herald of the Areopagus before that year. But the absence of the Roman names is not a safe guide. Cf. the Athenian decree, Syll.3 796B (Claudius): the honorand is named Aaplrxplas TEqLOKp'TOUvg in a speech (line 26), TIvog 77lardALOs TITov 71raTELALov TELJLOKpdtTOUS vloE AatRxrpapl~ in an official text (line 38). In a private dedication like IG 2/32 3558 the Roman names could easily have been omitted. If the argumentation on p. 20o8 is correct, Thrasyllus was only about 22 in 67 and presumably too young to be herald of the Areopagus. A fortiori he cannot be identified with the archon Thrasyllus of 61/62 (IG 2/32 1990). 39. For Nero, not Nerva, as the emperor mentioned by Philostratus, uit. soph. 512, see A. Boulanger, Aelius Aristide (1923) 84 n.i. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:01:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms