Epicurus at Plutarch’s dinner table: a tale of after-dinner sex and questionable polemics (Quaest. conv. III, 6)

Abstract

The present article deals with the sixth quaestio of Book III in Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales, which revolves around Epicurus' claim that it is physically harmful to have sexual intercourse after dinner. After an appraisal of the Epicurean dictum itself, I argue that Plutarch's final interlocutor, Soclarus, incorporates several polemical anti-Epicurean arguments into his speech, which can also be found elsewhere in Plutarch's anti-Epicurean writings. Ultimately, I try to establish to what extent Soclarus' response to Epicurus' theory conforms to the exigencies of intellectual honesty.