The second chapter touches more firmly on the philosophical debate and the arguments for human exceptionalism put forward over its course. The chapter puts Xanthus (the prophetic horse from Homer’s Iliad) as the first and prototypical speaking animal in the Western tradition in conversation with other famous speaking animals, including Plutarch’s speaking pig Grunter (Gryllus), a speaking rooster who claims to be a re-incarnation of the philosopher Pythagoras, and Kafka’s Red Peter. The chapter shows that the figure of the speaking animal is central to Western conceptions of the human. In classical antiquity, it features in stories that confirm the vertical relationship between humans (at the top) and animals (below). And yet, at the same time, right from the start of the conversation in the ancient world, the apparent anthropomorphism of the speaking animal was also used to critique the very idea of human exceptionalism. There is a direct line between how some modern animal fables point to man’s animal nature and the concept of the human explored in parts of the ancient evidence.

Plutarch is often seen nowadays as a champion of the animal cause, and virtually as a precursor of the modern pro-animal argument. It is important, however, to recognize that the prominence of animals in Plutarch’s work is symptomatic of the widespread and vibrant textual experimentation with animals in imperial Greco-Roman literature. The trend peaks in the second century AD, but animals were relevant within imperial philosophical thought too. Like many authors (and their ancient readers), Plutarch draws upon and responds to (a) the rich and abiding literary tradition of mobilizing animal imagery and themes and (b) the long-established philosophical debate on animal psychology and rationality, with far-reaching ethical implications about how animals should be treated. The chapter surveys the attitudes toward animals across the Plutarchan corpus and offers in-depth contextualization of the dialogues De sollertia animalium and the notoriously ironic Gryllus.

This chapter examines the reception of two Platonic texts, the Protagoras and the Statesman, in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers and Plutarch’s Gryllus. It argues that part of the reason for the success of this reception lies in the way that Plato’s texts are embedded in insolvable problems such as what constitutes nudity and how one distinguishes between animal and human. Embedding a text in a wicked problem is an effective way to ensure it afterlife. In the case of Plato, the difficulty of this problem is exacerbated by his decision to ground his distinction between animal and human in the presence or absence of body-hair. Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch, in different ways, draw attention to the simultaneous complexity, instability, and capaciousness of body-hair as a signifier. They are attracted to explore its potential, but are ultimately forced to reject it and the systems of thought that it supports as unsatisfactory.