intro
Sandbach well observes: To write an exercise on the comparative utility of fire and water may seem so difficult to us moderns who do not have such tasks as part of our education, that we do not recognize how badly the topic is here handled While it is possible that Plutarch wrote this work as a parody, or when a schoolboy, or under some strange circumstances, yet the most probable view is that a miserable sophistical exercise on the subject Whether fire or water is more useful was fathered on the author of a diversion entitled Whether land- or water-animals are more intelligent, just as the Consolatio ad Apollonium was ascribed to the author of a consolation addressed to his wife, or the Lives of the Ten Orators to the author of some more famous biographies.
intro
The text is extremely bad, as may be seen by examining Wegehaupt’s topheavyWegehaupt collated some 34 mss. for his edition, all of which he cites separately. apparatus in Χάριτες für Friedrich Leo (Berlin, Weidmann, 1911)? pp. 158-169- It is possible, to be sure, that part at least of the difficulty of the text is due to the author. Less emendation than that admitted here might not seriously damage what is irreparable nonsense in any case. Some attempt has been made to reproduce the childish style of the original.
