Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2006
* An earlier version of this paper was given at the sixth international conference of the International Plutarch Society held at Hernen, Nijmegen, 1–5 May 2002. I am most grateful to the audience on that occasion for helpful and courteous criticism, to the anonymous CQ reader, to the Centre for Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and above all to Christopher Pelling. Translations of Plutarch are taken from the Loeb editions, adapted.