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THE ROMAN QUESTIONS
(QUAESTIONES ROMANAE)
INTRODUCTION
The Roman Questions is an attempt to explain one
hundred and thirteen Roman customs, the majority
of which deal with religious matters. The treatise
is one of three similar compilations of wThich two
have been preserved and one, the
Quaestiones Barbaricae
(No. 139 in Lamprias's list), has been lost.
Plutarch possessed a great desire to know the
reason why : besides the many discussions of a
similar sort contained in the
Symposiacs (
Table Talk),
there is extant a discussion of
Physical Causes, and
the titles of other writings of the same sort have
been preserved for us in Lamprias's list of Plutarch's
writings.
1
The Greek title, which means ‘causes’, is twice
mentioned by Plutarch himself in the
Lives,
2 and
we might call it ‘The Reasons Why.’ In nearly
every case at least two and often more reasons are
given ; of these presumably not more than one can
be right. Thus the other explanations will embody
the results of Plutarch's researches on the matter
or his own quaint speculations. Consequently the
book, which is an important source for Roman
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customs, especially for religious customs, has been
of the greatest service to students of early Roman
religion, a field in which so little is certain and which
provides (even as it provided for Plutarch) such
glorious opportunities for speculation that it has
been somewhat overtilled in recent years. Anyone
interested in such matters may observe the trend of
this scholarship if he will examine F. B. Jevons'
reprint of Holland's translation of the
Roman
Questions (London, 1892) ; or better, H. J. Rose,
The Roman Questions of Plutarch, a New Translation
with Introductory Essays and a Running Commentary
(Oxford, 1924). Professor Rose might, indeed, have
improved his translation by consulting some good
Greek lexicon ; but the essays and the commentary
are very valuable, for they contain, among
other matters of interest, a discussion of Plutarch's
sources and of early Roman religion ; the commentary
is fortified with abundant references to ancient
writers and to modern scholars. It is a scholarly
work and the most important contribution to the
study of the
Roman Questions since Wyttenbach.
This treatise could hardly have been written by a
person ignorant of Latin. Plutarch in his
Life of
Demosthenes, chap, ii., modestly disavows any profound
knowledge of Latin ; yet he had read a considerable
amount in the language and had spent
some time in Rome. Hence he was quite able to
use Latin works in compiling the
Roman Questions.
Some Roman writers he mentions by name, especially
Varro, and Verrius Flaccus, an antiquarian of
the Augustan age. Livy is specifically cited but
twice in the
Moralia, once in the present work and
once in
De Fortuna Romanorum; yet he is referred
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to no less than twelve times in the
Lives, most of
these citations being in the
Marcellus and the
Camillus. Perhaps Plutarch's more exact acquaintance
with Livy, if he ever acquired this, dates
from a time later than the period during which
he was engaged in the compilation of the
Roman
Questions.
Other Roman authorities are mentioned occasionally,
such as Cato the Elder, Nigidius Figulus,
Antistius Labeo, Ateius Capito, and Fenestella ;
but no doubt they and others are used in accounts
introduced by such expressions as ‘they say,’
‘some say,’
‘the story is told,’ and the like. Some
of these references have, in fact, been traced by
scholars to their originals. It has been remarked
of Cicero that any statement found in that author's
works appears, or has appeared, elsewhere. The
same affirmation might be made of Plutarch with
some confidence. Unless he specifically testifies to
oral tradition or hearsay, we may be certain that
his facts, like Cicero's, are drawn from his extensive
reading.
Critics lay stress on a few mistakes which Plutarch
made in interpreting Latin (these will be found
noted in Rose and in Hartman), but against them
must be set the unnumbered instances in which he is
right. He did not, however, have to depend wholly
on Latin writers, for he undoubtedly had at hand
the
Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus
(1st cent. b.c.) and the works of Juba,
3 the scholarly
king of Mauretania, who as a youth had been brought
to Rome in 46 b.c. to grace the triumph of Julius
Caesar. Juba became greatly interested in Roman
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customs, and wrote a book in which he paralleled
them with the customs of other peoples.
Many of the matters discussed in the
Roman
Questions are to be found treated elsewhere in
Plutarch's work, particularly in the Roman
Lives.
The Lives of
Romulus and of
Numa are especially
rich in parallel passages ; for very many of the
Roman customs were thought to go back to the
earliest period of Roman history.
The book was probably published after the death
of Domitian in a.d, 96, though this is a not quite
certain inference from the text (276 e). The work
is No. 138 in Lamprias's catalogue of Plutarch's
works. The . ms. tradition (on which see J. B.
Titchener,
University of Illinois Studies, ix., 1924) is
good.