This work is presented as an integral interpretation of Plutarch’s interesting treatise De facie quae in orbe luna apparet (“On the face which appears in the orb of the Moon”). It complements the edition of the same work – with introduction, English translation, and critical commentary – published in 2021 by the same author (Plutarch. De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet, Brill’s Plutarch Studies, 7). This new approach to the treatise, as the title says, breaks with a long tradition of scholars who have analyzed the De facie in a dichotomous and, I believe, outdated way.
The commentary is divided into three main chapters. The first chapter, “Introduction,” offers a meticulous formal analysis of the treatise from several different points of view. It begins with a discussion of the date of composition, which the author establishes to be about 98 ce; the date and location of the meeting of the wise men at which the action supposedly takes place is also 98 ce, in Rome; and the date of the eclipse on which the conversation focuses and which historically has provided the treatise’s date of authorship, 83 ce.
A new tripartite structure of Plutarch’s work is defended. While the conclusions of the previous sections are original, it is here that we see a clear departure from the scholarly tradition. Luisa Lesage divides the treatise by its contents, calling the three sections “The Discussion,” “The Transitional Dialogue,” and “The Monologue,” which in turn consists of four sub-sections. The Discussion deals with the nature of the Moon: its orography, its composition, its luminosity, and its eclipse. The Transitional Dialogue introduces the topic of the habitability of the Moon, among others. In the Monologue, one of the characters, Sulla, tells a myth he heard from a wise foreigner. The new central axis of the interpretation is the anthropological reinterpretation of the myth of Demeter and Persephone.
In the second chapter, “The Study of the Content,” the author carries out philological and philosophical analysis of the De Facie. She divides the work into three thematic sections, rather than the usual two. The core of this long and complex chapter begins with the “Nature of the Moon.” Here Lesage discusses the controversial question of the ontology of the Moon, from both an astrophysical and a mythological/philosophical perspective. Plutarch among others judge the Moon to be an animate being, though as a material object is rightly thought to be composed of earth and ether. The debate in Plutarch’s work continues with the question of its size; for this, Plutarch draws on an extraordinary variety of sources. Then the relationship of the Moon to different divinities is debated. Greek thought from its beginnings connected the stars with divinity, and a connection between the Moon and Artemis, Athena, Hecate, Persephone, or the Moirae appears in numerous sources, including Plutarch’s wider oeuvre. The next section within this second chapter is devoted to the Moon’s habitability and hypotheses of the work’s interlocutors about its possible inhabitants. Plutarch studies this familiar idea in great depth.
From this point onwards, the analysis of the text becomes even more complicated, as there are numerous references both to the astronomical conception of the Moon and to its mythological and philosophical significance, which have been transmitted through various currents of thought. The so-called selenography allows Lesage to conclude that, for Plutarch, Hades is situated between the Moon and the Earth. Finally, the subsection devoted to demography is focused on life on the Moon as a reflection of life on Earth and gives a description of the souls that dwell there. After talking about the possibility of the Moon’s falling, the author explains with a clarifying diagram the division of souls on the Moon into soul-intellects, daemons, and souls.
The third section of this large chapter, “Position of the Moon,” describes how Plutarch introduces a comprehensive cosmographical and anthropological investigation of the position of the Moon. The cosmography section focuses on the phenomena of illumination and obscuration, which reveal – according to the author – the symbolic relationship between the Moon and the Sun. The anthropology section explains that this position has a deeper cause, as the Moon is responsible, in Plutarch’s words, for the creation and dissolution of an essential part of man: the soul. Here Lesage introduces a rough synthesis of all Greek philosophical theories on the soul, from the earliest accounts, to show how Plutarch dissociates himself from Plato on this issue to defend a tripartite composition of the human being. This idea follows in the wake of later currents (such as Aristotle’s idea of the intellect, Middle Platonism, the Corpus Hermeticum, and Gnosticism). The tripartite conception of the human being involves the soul having a dual nature: one more passionate and the other more rational. It is the latter that must reign, since the salvation of the human being can be achieved only through an ethical regime both during the soul’s earthly sojourn and after what is called “the first death.” Throughout this highly complex argumentation, the author uses cross-references to other parts of the treatise to support her analysis. The result is a holistic view of the De Facie that unifies its parts, hitherto understood only separately.
In short, and as pointed out in the third and last chapter (“The General Conclusions”), the De Facie is shown to be a coherent treatise from beginning to end. The author provides a new hypothesis to explain what all scholars of the De Facie wonder about: Plutarch’s purpose in writing it. From this study it is clear that Plutarch speaks of two spheres: a microcosm (body, soul, and intellect) and a macrocosm (Earth, Moon, and Sun). The intermediate parts of these two cosmoses – soul and Moon – are the turning point for existence and are ultimately the central axis of Plutarch’s thought, inherited from other philosophical currents, in which virtue is “a mean between excess and deficiency” (p. 118). But we would be mistaken if we thought that Plutarch merely made a selection of earlier ideas and incorporated them into his work, since – as the author demonstrates – he usually incorporates his own thought. Lesage thus defends the originality and personality in the thought of this prolific author who set out to enrich his philosophical study with a cosmological allegory.
This study is therefore presented as a novel and original analysis based on a comprehensive study of the treatise from a thematic perspective. This point of view allows us to examine the presence of the two spheres, the physical and the allegorical, in the De Facie throughout the work and to rethink the underlying philosophical foundation. Luisa Lesage has quite skillfully integrated philological analysis of this intricate dialogue with philosophical study of its content, resulting in an extraordinarily complete and profound commentary that makes its conclusions as clear as can be.