INTRODUCTION
intro
This essay is evidently only a fragment, as Wyttenbach long ago pointed out. The opening words indicate that the author delivers it as an address before an audience to which he has spoken on the day before, but nothing further is known about the circumstances. Few scholars now believe that the author is Plutarch, though who the writer was is not known. The substance of the fragment is derived chiefly from the Republic of Plato.
