JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 155.69.
In his work On Proverbs, Clearchus writes that "the solution of riddles (griphoi) is not alien to philosophy, and the ancients used to make a display of their knowledge by means of them. For in propounding riddles in their drinking-bouts they were not like the people of today who ask one another, what is the most delightful form of sexual commerce, or what fish has the best flavour". Symposiastic riddles were in fact a very popular sub-literary genre, as is witnessed by some epigrams of the Greek Anthology (book 14 th ) and by the Latin Aenigmata Symposii or Symphosii, but in order to find the 'philosophical riddles' mentioned by Clearchus we must turn to literary banquets. The topics dealt with in Plato's and Xenophon's Symposia (the praise of the god of Love; the definition of the most beautiful thing in the world) are in fact philosophical questions (what is love? What is the most beautiful thing in the world?). This paper deals with Plutarch's position regarding the riddles (griphoi and aenigmata) banqueters were asked to solve in real symposia and the questions (problemata) banqueters were addressed in literary symposia; particular attention is devoted to two of Plutarch's works, the Quaestiones convivales and the Convivium septem sapientium.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.