Many will find this little jeu d’esprit as pleasant reading as anything in Plutarch. In part, this may be due to its (perhaps accidental) brevity; but its originality and freshness are undeniable. These qualities have, to be sure, puzzled a number of scholars who are still disputing whether the sources are principally Epicurean or Peripatetic or Cynic. Nothing quite like it is known elsewhere,But talking animals were not new (Hirzel, Der Dialog, i, p. 338 f.). which sad lack baffles the Quellenforscher. So, rather than allow a touch of spontaneous imagination to Plutarch, it has been confidently asserted that the dialogue must come from the school of Menippus, or be an attempt to turn the tables on Polystratus, and so on.
