1. Ἐνοχλουμένων δὲ τῶν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα περὶ τὴν τοῦ ποτοῦ χρείαν (καὶ γὰρ ὀλίγον καὶ πονηρὸν ἐπίδυε καὶ συνελείβετο παρ᾽ αὐτὴν τὴν θάλατταν), ὁρῶν ὁ Αἰμίλιος μέγα καὶ κατηρεϕὲς δένδρεσιν ὄρος τὸν Ὄλυμπον ἐπικείμενον, καὶ τεκμαιρόμενος τῇ χλωρότητι τῆς ὕλης ναμάτων ἔχειν ἀρχὰς διὰ βάθους ὑποϕερομένων, ἀναπνοὰς αὐτοῖς καὶ ϕρέατα πολλὰ παρὰ τὴν ὑπώρειαν ὤρυττε. 2. τὰ δ᾽ εὐθὺς ἐπίμπλατο ῥευμάτων καθαρῶν, ἐπισυνδιδόντος ὁλκῇ καὶ ϕορᾷ τοῦ θλιβομένου πρὸς τὸ κενούμενον.
3. καίτοι τινὲς οὔ ϕασιν ὑδάτων ἑτοίμων κεκρυμμένων πηγὰς ἐναποκεῖσθαι τοῖς τόποις ἐξ ὧν ῥέουσιν, οὐδ᾽ ἀποκάλυψιν οὐδὲ ῥῆξιν εἶναι τὴν ἐκβολὴν αὐτῶν, ἀλλὰ γένεσιν καὶ σύστασιν ἐνταῦθα τῆς ὕλης ἐξυγραινομένης· 4. ἐξυγραίνεσθαι δὲ πυκνότητι καὶ ψυχρότητι τὴν νοτερὰν ἀναθυμίασιν, ὅταν ἐν βάθει καταθλιβεῖσα ῥευστικὴ γένηται. 5. καθάπερ γὰρ οἱ μαστοὶ τῶν γυναικῶν οὐχ ὥσπερ ἀγγεῖα πλήρεις εἰσὶν ἐπιρρέοντος ἑτοίμου γάλακτος, ἀλλὰ μεταβάλλοντες τὴν τροϕὴν ἐν αὑτοῖς ἐργάζονται γάλα καὶ διηθοῦσιν, 6. οὕτως οἱ περίψυκτοι καὶ πιδακώδεις τόποι τῆς γῆς ὕδωρ μὲν οὐκ ἔχουσι καλυπτόμενον, οὐδὲ κόλπους ῥεύματα καὶ βάθη ποταμῶν τοσούτων ἐξ ἑτοίμης καὶ ὑποκειμένης ἀϕιέντας ἀρχῆς, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸν ἀέρα τῷ πιέζειν καὶ καταπυκνοῦν ἀποθλίβοντες εἰς ὕδωρ τρέπουσι. 7. τὰ γοῦν ὀρυττόμενα τῶν χωρίων μᾶλλον ἀναπιδύει καὶ διανάει πρὸς τὴν τοιαύτην ψηλάϕησιν, ὥσπερ οἱ μαστοὶ τῶν γυναικῶν πρὸς τὸν θηλασμόν, ἀνυγραίνοντα καὶ μαλάττοντα τὴν ἀναθυμίασιν 8. ὅσα δ᾽ ἀργὰ τῆς γῆς συμπέϕρακται, τυϕλὰ πρὸς γένεσιν ὑδάτων ἐστίν, οὐκ ἔχοντα τὴν ἐργαζομένην τὸ ὑγρὸν κίνησιν. 9. οἱ δὲ ταῦτα λέγοντες ἐπιχειρεῖν δεδώκασι τοῖς ἀπορητικοῖς, ὡς οὐδὲ τὸ αἷμα τοῖς ζῴοις ἔνεστιν, ἀλλὰ γεννᾶται πρὸς τὰ τραύματα πνεύματός τινος ἢ σαρκῶν μεταβολῇ, ῥύσιν ἀπεργασαμένῃ καὶ σύντηξιν. 10. ἐλέγχονται δὲ τοῖς πρὸς τοὺς ὑπονόμους καὶ τὰς μεταλλείας ἀπαντῶσιν εἰς βάθη ποταμοῖς, οὐ κατ᾽ ὀλίγον συλλεγομένοις, ὥσπερ εἰκός ἐστιν εἰ γένεσιν ἐκ τοῦ παραχρῆμα κινουμένης τῆς γῆς λαμβάνουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀθρόοις ἀναχεομένοις. 11. ὁρῶν δὲ καὶ πέτρας πληγῇ ῥαγείσης ἐξεπήδησε ῥεῦμα λάβρον ὕδατος, εἶτ' ἐπέλιπε. ταῦτα μὲν περὶ τούτων.
(Aem. 14)In his Life of Aemilius Paulus, Plutarch (quite naturally) rehearses the initial phase of Aemilius Paulus' campaign against Perseus, when the Macedonian had occupied a position on the northern bank of the river Elpeus so strongly fortified that any direct assault could only be disastrous for the attackers. Aemilius instead resorted to a cunning strategy of synchronized surgical strikes, while a detachment, the departure and direction of which were successfully disguised, managed to round the Macedonian camp. Perseus' position was thus compromised, and in reaction the monarch hastily retreated to Pydna, where in the end his luck was even worse. Embedded in this narrative is the report that, prior to Aemilius' dislodging of Perseus, the morale of the legions was sorely depressed. The reason was simple and straightforward: they were suffering from a shortage of satisfactorily potable water. This difficulty Aemelius resolved by digging wells.Footnote 1
This episode – Aemilius' digging of wells – though ostensibly unremarkable is none the less much attested in our sources: in addition to Plutarch, Livy records it, as did Cassius Dio (a notice of it subsists in Zonaras), and a possible trace of the tale remains in the fragments of Diodorus. Now it is far from immediately obvious why this episode is so frequently repeated, but it is unmistakable that Plutarch has put it to an extraordinary and ostensibly curious purpose in his Aemilius Paulus, where it occasions a lengthy and technical digression on meteorological disputations concerning the origins of subterranean waters – a feature conspicuously absent in the tale's other traces.
It is perhaps worth recalling the momentousness of the context – historical and historiographical – in which this incident takes place. Aemilius' victory in the Battle of Pydna signalled Rome's domination of the Mediterranean world and constituted, in what was at least initially the design of Polybius' great history, the culmination of her imperial destiny. It was an event of staggering consequence for subsequent Greeks and Romans alike. Thereafter the freedom of the Greeks could never again represent more than a polite fiction: in the neat formulation of P.S. Derow, ‘the war was over. With that the need for moderation was over, and the axe fell’.Footnote 2 On the Roman side, by way of compensation for those capable of thinking sub specie aeternitatis, lay the daunting prospect of the judgement of history: was Roman rule worthy of praise – or of blame? Hence Polybius' redesign of his historical project. And hence multiple rewritings of the Third Macedonian War from the time of its glorious conclusion until well into the weary days of the empire's decline. The resonance of Aemilius' triumph persisted.Footnote 3
This reality held implications for his imperial biographer. Aemilius' career, however splendid, included little of comparable significance beside the war with Perseus, and we can infer from the infrequency of anecdotes in Plutarch's Life that the man's lasting reputation was based almost entirely on his public career, itself largely defined by his destruction of the Macedonian monarchy.Footnote 4 It is no surprise, then, that the campaign at Pydna receives such extensive exposition by Plutarch: in no other episode of his life could the Roman's public good fortune be so effectively displayed in conjunction with his moral excellence and native Roman virtue, all, of course, assembled in order to exaggerate the shock of his personal misfortune, the patient bearing of which proved his essential fine qualities.Footnote 5 Even in so pedestrian a matter as the digging of wells, Plutarch finds a means of advancing his characterization of Aemilius as a commander whose victories are owed less to his good fortune than to his keen intelligence (Aem. 1.6) – and of advancing his representation of Aemilius as a Roman whose disposition was naturally philhellenic.Footnote 6 This, I will suggest, he accomplishes by way of his technical and, as we shall see, strikingly Platonic excursus on the nature of subterranean waters, a passage that associates Aemilius' actions as a general with a correct philosophical diagnosis of the Romans' physical circumstances.
The detection of water was obviously a crucial military matter. Roman armies included amongst their non-combatant staff aquileges (Dig. 50.6.7), whose exertions were vital to the logistical determinations and to the success of any campaign. Knowledge of this craft, however, was by no means beneath the dignity of the aristocracy: the cognomen Venox was believed to have been attributed to C. Plautius, the censor of 312, owing to his skill in discovering fresh springs (venae), or so we are informed by Frontinus and the Fasti Capitolini (MRR 1.160–1; Frontin. Aq. 1.15). It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that in ancient narratives, Greek and Roman alike, a commander's military acumen can be put on display through his discovery of an undetected water supply.
Plutarch does this straightforwardly in his Life of Pompey when he underlines Pompey's superiority to Mithridates by way of just this skill (Plut. Pomp. 32.2–3):
καὶ πρῶτον μὲν αὐτοῦ καρτερὸν ὄρος καὶ δύσμαχον, ἐν ᾦ στρατoπεδεύων ἔτυχεν, ὡς ἄνυδρον ἐκλιπόντος, αὐτὸ τοῦτο κατασχὼν ὁ Πομπήιος, καὶ τῇ ϕύσει τῶν βλαστανόντων καὶ ταῖς συγκλινίαις τῶν τόπων τεκμαιρόμενος ἔχειν πηγὰς τὸ χωρίον ἐκέλευσεν ἐκβαλεῖν πανταχοῦ ϕρέατα. καὶ μεστὸν ἦν εὐθὺς ὕδατος ἀϕθόνου τὸ στρατόπεδον, ὥστε θαυμάζειν εἰ τῷ παντὶ χρόνῳ τοῦτο Μιθριδάτης ἠγνόησεν.
[Mithridates], although he had made his camp on a strongly defensible mountain, abandoned the site believing it had no water. Pompey's first action was to occupy this very spot, and, inasmuch as he had determined, on the basis of the nature of the vegetation and configuration of the terrain, that the place had springs, he ordered his men to dig wells everywhere. And immediately his camp was supplied with an abundance of water, all of which provoked astonishment that, during all the time he was encamped there, Mithridates had been ignorant of this.
Here the Roman general, having occupied a strong position vacated by Mithridates on account of its apparent lack of water, infers from the site's foliage and terrain the presence of undiscovered springs, a feat that inspires wonder in others (ὥστε θαυμάζειν). This story presumably derives from Theophanes' account of Pompey's eastern campaigns and, if so, its function there was very likely more or less the same as what one finds in Plutarch.Footnote 7 The author of the Bellum Alexandrinum attributes the same competency to Caesar: in an early and lengthy episode, marked by a speech in direct discourse, Caesar is able to reassure his soldiers by giving the order to dig wells – when no one else thought it possible to do so.Footnote 8
It is to a similar purpose that Livy employs Aemilius' digging of wells, an event which in Livy advertises both the man's military credentials and his divine favour. In this account, Aemilius' discovery of water not only expands his fama and auctoritas, it also takes on a quasi-religious dimension: the water is like a gift from the gods (velut deum dono). This is no throwaway line: its solemnity is made clear by its use in Book 1 of Livy and by its parallels in Latin prose, and its presence here is all the more striking in view of Livy's choice, identified by David Levene, not to include religious elements in the vicinity of his account of Pydna.Footnote 9 In other words, Livy exerts himself to heighten the momentousness of this small moment.
It is by no means an accident that in Livy this discovery of a secure water supply comes at the head of a catalogue of Aemilius' military innovations.Footnote 10 All were prudent and advantageous to the effectiveness of his command, and their rehearsal is capped by Livy with a harangue to the troops in which Aemelius lays out for his men the nature of their varying military responsibilities, all of which, Aemilius insists, must remain subordinate to his sole authority. The effect of this speech, according to Livy, was to inspire the whole of the soldiery with a proper appreciation of military discipline and a robust appetite for glory.Footnote 11 In Livy, then, Aemilius' discovery of water is instrumental in establishing his superior generalship and military authority.
Presumably Livy draws here on Polybius' (now lost) account, as did Diodorus and Dio, though it is impossible to be entirely certain and in any case, even if all doubt on the matter were removed, that would not justify an inference that Polybius narrated this episode in the same way Livy did.Footnote 12 It will be obvious from what follows that Plutarch puts Aemilius' discovery of water to a purpose that is significantly different from Livy's – or from other instances in which a commander finds water for his men. Whether in doing so he in some degree recurs to Polybius' account, or whether Polybius' narrative looked very much like Livy's, must remain beyond ascertaining.Footnote 13 Even so, it is unmistakable that Plutarch's fashioning of this episode exhibits a high degree of originality.
Now Plutarch's Aemilius, like Livy's, is able to consolidate his assertions of superior leadership through his discovery of water: at Aem. 13.6, he instructs his troops to prepare themselves for the business of combat and to leave matters of strategy and command to him; immediately in the following chapter he puts them to work digging the wells that will release them from hardship.Footnote 14 Still, Plutarch seems less interested in emphasizing this implication of the episode than in seizing upon the same occasion to introduce a lengthy digression criticizing, in a somewhat technical register, one of Greek philosophy's theoretical explanations for the origin of subterranean waters. This unexpected juxtaposition is striking to say the least, and it is clearly Plutarch's unique contribution to the narrative of this event.
Plutarch's Aemilius discerns and discovers the presence of hidden waters by means very different from Livy's Aemilius and it is worthwhile to compare their accounts (Plut. Aem. 14.1–2 and Liv. 44.33.1–4):
ἐνοχλουμένων δὲ τῶν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα περὶ τὴν τοῦ ποτοῦ χρείαν (καὶ γὰρ ὀλίγον καὶ πονηρὸν ἐπίδυε καὶ συνελείβετο παρ' αὐτὴν τὴν θάλατταν), ὁρῶν ὁ Αἰμίλιος μέγα καὶ κατηρεϕὲς δένδρεσιν ὅρος τὸν Ὄλυμπον ἐπικείμενον, καὶ τεκμαιρόμενος τῇ χλωρότητι τῆς ὕλης ναμάτων ἔχειν ἀρχὰς διὰ βάθους ὑποϕερομένων, ἀναπνοὰς αὐτοῖς καὶ ϕρέατα πολλὰ παρὰ τὴν ὑπώρειαν ὤρυττε. τὰ δ' εὐθὺς ἐπίμπλατο ῥευμάτων καθαρῶν, ἐπισυνδιδόντων ὁλκῇ καὶ ϕορᾷ τοῦ θλιβομένου πρὸς τὸ κενούμενον.
His men were extremely upset owing to a shortage of water fit for drinking. Only a few feeble streams formed pools at the edge of the sea, and their water was of a very poor quality. Aemilius observed that the heights of Mt. Olympus, which was nearby, were covered with trees, and on the evidence of the forest's green foliage he concluded that there must be sources of water flowing deep beneath the earth. Consequently he dug numerous wells along the foot of the mountain which allowed these waters to escape. The wells were immediately filled with pure, flowing water, as the sheer force of the water's pressure pumped it into the emptied spaces.
… postremo sequi se utrarios ad mare, quod minus trecentos passus aberat, iussit et in litore alios alibi modicis intervallis fodere. montes ingentis altitudinis spem faciebant, eo magis quia nullos apertos emergerent rivos, occultos contineri latices, quorum venae in mare permanantes undae miscerentur. vix diducta summa harena erat, cum scaturigines turbidae primo et tenues emicare, dein liquidam multamque fundere aquam velut deum dono coeperunt. aliquantum ea quoque res duci famae et auctoritatis apud milites adicit.
… finally he ordered the water carriers to follow him to the sea, which was fewer than five hundred metres away, and to dig wells on the shore, in various places at close intervals. Owing to the presence of very steep mountains, and especially because none of them produced visible rivers, he hoped that there were hidden streams underneath them, the courses of which extended to the sea and mixed with seawater. Scarcely had the surface of the sand been dug through than water began to gush, muddy and meagre at first, but soon a clear and abundant supply of water began to flow, as if it were a gift of the gods. This event considerably enhanced the general's reputation and authority amongst his soldiers.
In Livy's telling of the story, Aemilius comes to the conclusion that water is available solely on the basis of his observation that mountains in the vicinity are very high. In Plutarch, however, although Aemilius takes notice of Olympus' height, it is his notice of the mountain's foliage that supplies the crucial clue. His wells are then dug at the base of the mountain, whereas Livy's Aemilius digs beside the sea – a spot that in Plutarch can yield only water of an unsatisfactory quality. Finally, Livy's wells produce water in two stages: first in a flow that is weak and turbid and only subsequently yields an abundance of clear water. By contrast, Plutarch's wells instantly pour forth in pure streams.
It is clear that Plutarch is rewriting – correcting – the tradition recorded in Livy.Footnote 15 But why? Now this episode represents exactly the sort of story that in principle must appeal to the biographer. After all, Plutarch's emphasis is on the character of his subjects, a reality too familiar to require even one more rehearsal here.Footnote 16 And, in the case of Aemilius, Plutarch needed every anecdote or small story he could lay his hands on.Footnote 17 Although this event was in itself inconsequential, it constituted evidence of Aemilius' personal quality – that much is obvious from Livy's treatment of it. But for Plutarch it is not enough simply to reinforce Aemilius' conventional talent as a general: here he lends his hero, by way of an oblique explication couched in the form of a philosophical polemic, a tincture of Hellenic erudition, for it soon becomes clear that Aemilius' diagnosis of hidden waters in Plutarch (unlike in Livy) is explicable in terms of Platonic physical science.
The theory attacked by Plutarch, routinely dubbed the condensation theory, proposes that subterranean waters are formed by the condensation of air in the cold depths of the earth (just as above the earth rain results from the condensation of cooled air). This theory originated with Aristotle and was widely diffused in antiquity, a conclusion of which we can be certain despite our less than complete record of meteorological philosophizing: Seneca, for instance, discusses the theory in Book 3 of his Quaestiones naturales, where he offers it his qualified endorsement.Footnote 18 An outbreak of meteorological theorization in the midst of Plutarch's narrative of Aemilius's campaign against Perseus is, to say the least, a little surprising. Unless Plutarch is simply showing off – and it must be admitted that Plutarch is anything but shy about displaying his erudition – this startling change in register and subject ought to mean something, and so ought to oblige us to dig a little deeper.
The exact object of Plutarch's polemic is not immediately obvious. Although Aristotle quite naturally prefers his own condensation theory, in the Meteorologica he by no means excludes the reality of underground reservoirs.Footnote 19 Nor does Seneca (nor, presumably, do other Stoic meteorologists) who, like Aristotle in this respect at least, accepts that there are multiple sources for underground waters.Footnote 20 It is Plutarch, in this controversy, who emerges as something of a fundamentalist reservoirian: apparently for him it is reservoirs and nothing else, which means that any qualification of or supplement to that dogma constitutes a rejection of it and therefore merits scourging. Still, the condensation theory, so far as we can tell, continued to be associated with Aristotle – it is far from obvious that it became normal Peripatetic doctrine – even if it found a place, as we have seen, in Stoicism because its argument was compatible with Stoic physical principles.Footnote 21 By contrast, the philosophical stream of the reservoir theory (let us so call it), the notion that great quantities of water exist beneath the earth, drew itself from Anaxagoras, whose model of a hollow earth filled with water was appropriated and elaborated in mythological detail by Plato in his Phaedo.Footnote 22 Even if Plato's story of the underground waters of Tartarus was intended to be playful or satiric, the account was nevertheless taken seriously by Aristotle who, although generally tolerant on the matter of underground reservoirs, rejected comprehensively the meteorological theory of the Phaedo, which he exerted himself to attack at the conclusion of Book 2 of the Meteorologica.Footnote 23 It is probably in response to this polemic that Plutarch pens his own. In view of his ardent Platonism, Plutarch's absolutist support of the reservoir theory and his extended polemic against the condensation theory were very likely inspired by Aristotelian criticism of the master's model in the Phaedo.Footnote 24 It cannot have helped matters, where Plutarch was concerned, that Aristotle's theory had proved so attractive to the Stoics.Footnote 25
But what prompted this outburst in this specific formulation at this point in his biography of Aemilius Paulus, which is not, perhaps, the obvious platform for hydrological debate? Let us return to Livy and his account of the discovery of fresh water, a tale, as I have said, too good for the biographer to pass up. Although Roman techniques for discovering water routinely took into consideration the elevation of nearby hills and mountains, this was hardly the most important indication of hidden springs. The nature of the surface rock and soil required consideration, and most pertinent of all in identifying the site of potable water was an inspection of foliage, the particulars of which were extensively discussed in practical literature.Footnote 26 Livy, however, had no time to rehearse all these matters in order to make his point about Aemilius' competence, nor was it his intention to provide a disquisition on the best means of diagnosing unseen water supplies. Consequently (and perhaps significantly) he ignores Roman practice and mentions only one symptom of underground water: tall mountains. But for a learned reader, predisposed to strong opinions on the theoretical divides regarding the origins of underground waters, this innocuous datum could become something of a red flag and stir a strong recollection of Aristotle's condensation theory. For, on Aristotle's view (cf. Gilbert [n. 18], 416–18):
… most springs are in the neighbourhood of mountains and of high ground (ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ αἱ κρῆναι αἱ πλεῖσται ὄρεσιν καὶ τόποις ὑψηλοῖς γειτνιῶσιν), whereas if we except rivers, water rarely appears in the plains. For mountains and high ground, suspended over the country like a saturated sponge, make the water ooze out and trickle together in minute quantities but in many places. They receive a great deal of water falling as rain (for it makes no difference whether a spongy receptacle is concave or convex and turned down: in either case it will contain the same volume of matter) and they also cool the vapour that rises and condense it back into water (καὶ τὴν ἀνιοῦσαν ἀτμίδα ψύχουσι καὶ συγκρίνουσι πάλιν εἰς ὕδωρ).
(Mete. 350a1–14, tr. E.W. Webster)Hence, I suggest, Plutarch's correction of Livy. For Plutarch's hero, it was not the elevation of the mountains that provided the essential clue but instead the extensive and green foliage, all nourished by streams that already existed underground, awaiting an opening through which to flood to the surface (Pompey, as we have seen, responds to similar evidence at Pomp. 32.2–3). This is why Plutarch – unlike Livy – will not allow Aemilius' wells to fill slowly at the start, accumulating dirty water that the misguided might mistake for the transformation of moistened earth into liquid. Instead, a fresh stream flows instantly, proof that it was always present – as water. All of this renders the experience of Plutarch's Aemilius absolutely compatible with the reservoir theory, which the biographer will go on to defend against the condensation theory. That theory, by contrast, would actually tend to suit certain particulars of Livy's narrative.
Now it should be clear that, in rewriting his predecessor, Plutarch is, by his own lights, correcting the historical record. In Plutarch's view, it was not scientifically possible for Aemilius to locate hidden water solely on the basis of his observation of the height of nearby mountains. Therefore, that will not have been the basis of Aemilius' diagnosis. Otherwise, he will have found the water only by sheer chance – a reality that would actually undermine Livy's point in introducing this story in the first place – and would vitiate Plutarch's insistence that it was Aemilius' ability and not his personal good fortune that won the war against Perseus. Consequently, Livy (and any writer who shared his view) could only be wrong on this point. But, in the habit of ancient historians generally and of Plutarch specifically, this correction is made without explanation.Footnote 27
Plutarch's meteorological reaction to Livy suffices to explain the content of his digression. It is an expression of Plutarch's philosophical commitment to Platonism, a commitment that insinuates itself into Plutarchan narrative elsewhere in the Lives.Footnote 28 That, however, is not the only function of this digression. By portraying Aemilius as a sensible student of the signs of underground waters, and by juxtaposing his correct diagnosis with a highly detailed and technical polemic on meteorologia, Plutarch implies that his subject possessed not simply a good Roman knack for sniffing out hidden springs but instead an informed and philosophical Hellenic comprehension of the natural world. Whereas the discovery of water marked out Aemilius as an excellent general in Plutarch's sources, here it designates him, by implication, as a man of Hellenic parts. To be sure, Plutarch does not make the claim explicitly, but it is hard to imagine that he did not expect his readers to make this connection.Footnote 29
By now it is well known that a fundamental concern of Plutarch's Lives is its examination of the connection between the moral excellence of its subjects and the level of Hellenic education – παιδεία – to which each had attained.Footnote 30 In the Aem.–Tim. Plutarch contrasts the Roman's composed and dignified reaction to his personal misfortune – the loss of his sons – with Timoleon's breakdown on the occasion of his (principled) fratricide, inappropriate remorse that Plutarch attributes to the Greek's lack of philosophical education (Tim. 5.2–4; 6; Synk. 10–11). The Aem. is replete with didactic sermons delivered by its hero on the mutability of fortune and on the prudence of its philosophical contemplation (Aem. 26.10–12; 27.2–5; 36.3–9). These sentiments Plutarch found in his sources, but he has multiplied their occurrence: Aem. 26.10–12, for instance, is Plutarch's own invention.Footnote 31 This redundancy has the effect both of emphasizing the importance of Aemilius' personal misfortune in this biography but also of underlining Aemilius' philosophical disposition in reaction to his successes and reversals. Aemilius' Hellenism is not entirely lacking in Livy (cf. Liv. 45.27.5–28.5; 45.32.8–33.7) and it is certainly an element of Polybius' characterization.Footnote 32 Still, Plutarch exceeds each of them by inventing for his hero an education which replicates elements of the philhellenic education that, Polybius reports, Aemilius secured for his son Scipio Aemilianus, the effect of which is once again to enlarge Aemilius' Hellenic stature.Footnote 33 Plutarch's Aemilius, then, excels the Hellenism of his Polybian and Livian predecessors, and the digression on theoretical meteorologia contributes to this exaggerated representation.
It is time to conclude. Plutarch's philosophical polemic in Aem. 14 strikes a strongly Platonist pose, one purpose of which is to sustain the author's authentic philosophical allegiance. It constitutes a blatant intrusion by Plutarch of his personal philosophical commitments into the narrative of his biographical subject. At the same time, by its juxtaposition with Aemilius' historical action and by means of its integration with his representation of that very action – Aemilius discerns water by way of indications and with results that conform with the meteorological theory defended in Plutarch's digression – Plutarch's polemic by implication advances his exaggerated portrayal of Aemilius' Hellenism. Put differently, the narrative is implicated in the polemic, and the polemic in the narrative, a condition that renders inexact the application of any designation of the polemic as a digression.Footnote 34 By comparing Plutarch's account of this episode with Livy's, we can see that the later writer has put Aemilius' discovery of water to a radically different purpose, and in doing so he has corrected what by his lights must be a factual error. Furthermore, he has deployed it instead to expand the Hellenic dimension of his characterization of Aemilius. In doing so, he has not actually transformed Livy's or even Polybius' representation of Aemilius: Polybius and Livy each tried to render the man suitably Hellenic in disposition. However, because in the moral universe of Plutarch it is crucial that great men be tempered by Hellenic education, the biographer sought an opportunity to illustrate, or at the very least to suggest, that Aemilius possessed not simply military acumen but the sensibilities of a natural philosopher.Footnote 35
