Introduction

This work is a dialogue only in form, for the presence of Flavian serves merely to introduce Plutarch’s son, Autobulus, and lead up to the recital of Plutarch’s own part in the debate on love at the sanctuary of the Muses on Helicon. This took place years before, shortly after our author’s marriage and before his son’s birth, so that the latter knows of it only because his father remembered the scene vividly and repeated it often.

The recital is punctuated and sometimes motivated by a romantic upheaval in the town of Thespiae below. A rich young widow of the town is seeking to marry a handsome young man, somewhat her junior. His friends are divided about the wisdom of this alliance; the debate is at first between the adherents and the opponents of paederasty. But while both friends and enemies are arguing elsewhere, the widow takes control of the situation and abducts the boy. This recall from philosophy to life scatters both parties and Plutarch is left with the more serious members of the group to whom doctrinaire partisanship is unsuitable.

Now begins the apology for the god Love (Eros) in which his divinity is vindicated, his power affirmed, his benefits attested, and his apotheosis assured. But, in a part of the narrative now lost, conjugal love is