SCS-34: Religious Beliefs and Practices in the Works of Plutarch and his Contemporaries

Dio Chrysostom devotes the bulk of his First Kingship Oration (Or. 1), notionally delivered before the emperor Trajan, to a retelling of Heracles’ choice between Kingship and Tyranny, a story which the speaker claims to have heard from an old woman. In this paper, I will argue that Dio portrays this character as a philosophical prophetess and thereby combines the wisdom of philosophy with the authority of religion. Previous scholarship has either ignored the woman’s philosophical character (e.g. von Arnim 1898: 331 and Desideri 1978: 310) or only hinted at it (e.g.

Croesus’ test and subsequent consultations of the Delphic oracle and his failure to understand the meaning of the Pythia’s words stand as some of the most famous examples of the Delphic oracle’s impressive divinatory ability as well as the enigmatic nature of the Pythia’s responses. The accuracy of the Pythia’s words and Croesus’ culpability for failing to understand her message underlie Herodotus’ Croesus logos. Herodotus does not question the Pythia’s divinatory powers or those of Delphic Apollo, and his tale is one of human failing, rather than divine malice or deception.

The paper reflects on taboos against entrance into sacred places, a theme that seizes Plutarch's interest in his two works in the genre of the Question-Literatur, the Quaestiones Romanae (3; 16; 20; 60), regarding sacred places in Rome, and the Quaestiones Graecae (27; 28; 39, 40) for some in Greece.

In the eleventh book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Lucius recovers his human form thanks to Isis’ intervention. The first contact between the goddess and the ass takes place in 11.2 when he prays to the moon. Scholars have focused on the prayer and on the relationship between Lucius and Isis but have seldom discussed whether Lucius in ass form pronounces the prayer out loud or not. In this paper I will argue that Lucius does not, in fact, pronounce the prayer.

My paper aims at exploring the multifaceted presence of the terminology of mystery cults in Plutarch’s works. Plutarch is familiar with and quotes Herodotus' warning about mystery rites: εὔστομά μοι κείσθω, “Let me maintain a religious silence!”. Nevertheless, allusions and direct references to the mystery cults abound in his work and help delineate his theology. The most scholarly attention has been devoted to specific aspects of Plutarch’s religious thought which the mystery religions could have contributed to, e.g.