intro
The essay is addressed (or dedicated) to Q. Sosius So spelled in the best MSS. of Pliny and in inscriptions. Σόσιος is found in Greek inscriptions. Senecio, one of Plutarch’s numerous Roman friends, who was twice consul in the early years of Trajan’s reign. It was at his request that Plutarch composed the Symposiacs, in which his name frequently appears, and to him are inscribed also the parallel lives of Theseus and Romulus, Demosthenes and Cicero, and Dion and Brutus. Plutarch had been with him much in Rome, and he had visited Plutarch in Greece. It is doubtless the same Sosius whom the younger Pliny addressed in two letters (i. 13 and iv. 4) which have come down to us. a So spelled in the best mss. of Pliny and in inscriptions.
