In Plutarch's Convivium septem sapientium (CSS) a narration of the banquet proper is preceded by an account of the walk to the banquet of three of the participants: Thales, Diocles and Niloxenus, a messenger of the Egyptian pharaoh Amasis. Upon learning that Niloxenus brings a letter from Amasis to Bias, Thales says with laughter: εἴ τι κακὸν αὖθις εἰς Πριήνην· διαλύσει γὰρ Βίας, ὡς διέλυσεν αὐτὸς τὸ πρῶτον (CSS 146E–F: ‘if it is something bad – to Priene again! For Bias will solve it, just as he solved the first one’). Scholars have noticed that Thales’ words echo a Greek proverb, transmitted in Zenobius’ collection: εἴ τι κακὸν εἰς Πύρραν, ‘if it is something bad – to Pyrrha’. However, the purpose of Plutarch's reference to this particular proverb has thus far remained unclear. The aim of this contribution is to shed light on Thales’ words by examining the meaning of the Pyrrha proverb and suggesting an interpretation which explains the function of Plutarch's allusion to it.

I have deliberately left ζυγόν untranslated, for it is from this ambiguous noun that we will take our starting point. Two of the most prominent scholars to analyse this hymn have interpreted ζυγόν radically differently. According to Ewen Bowie in his survey of Antonine poetry, the word refers to the ‘balance’ or scales of justice with which Nemesis weighs men's fates. Tim Whitmarsh, on the other hand, believes that it refers to the ‘yoke’ of the chariot the goddess drives, and links the image to a wider leitmotif of deities as charioteers that he detects throughout Mesomedes’ hymnic poetry.