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How Souls Get ‘Steeled’ and Strengthened: A Textual Crux in Plutarch's De facie and Other Metallurgical Psychic Transformations

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The eschatological myth in De facie describes the soul’s purification and transformations after death through elaborate images, several of which use concrete physical terminology. A passage detailing a crucial stage of this process presents interpretive difficulties, due to its ambiguity and textual problems in the manuscript tradition, regarding the sequence περὶ δὲ τὴν ψυχήν ἄνω κουφιζομένην ὥσπερ ἐνταῦθα, connected to the implicit subject αἱ ψυχαί (943c-f). This crux is at the centre of a depiction of souls transforming into ray-like entities, and finally acquiring “tension and strength” through a process compared to iron steeling and quench-hardening—an image echoing Stoic ideas and analogies. Lesage Gárriga (2021) has discussed the emendations proposed by scholars for this locus vexatus, choosing for her critical edition those that are most appropriate on a grammatical and philological level. However, the details, meaning, and implications of Plutarch’s image in this passage remain understudied, especially their integration of the analogy with steelmaking. In my paper, focusing on parallels with other physical descriptions of souls’ alterations in Plutarch, and reconstructing how he likely conceived the process of steel hardening, I will propose a fresh interpretation of this problematic passage, also suggesting an original emendation. A core methodological assumption is that, given Plutarch’s familiarity with metallurgical procedures and frequent references to them (Brusuelas & Meccariello 2015), understanding them in detail, within Plutarch’s conceptual framework, is key to an accurate interpretation of his metallurgical metaphors and analogies (Morrone 2022). A careful consideration of parallel passages incorporating similar allusions to a doctrine of the ‘soul’s vehicle’ and its post-mortem and pre-birth alterations, like in De sera numinis vindicta, can then provide significant evidence for evaluating interpretations and textual emendations. Significantly, in De defectu oraculorum, Lamprias describes a two-stage physical transformation of the soul’s pneumatic substance, making it sensitive to divination: first, a thinning makes it “aethereal and pure”, and then a condensation strengthens it like steel receives quench hardening (432f-433a). The similarities with the passage in De facie extend to the integration of Stoic elements (terminology and rhetorical tendencies like quoting Heraclitus) and technical details. The same speech by Lamprias later includes a detailed reference to the quench-hardening process, reinforcing its technical relevance in the context. Focusing on these and other passages, I will show how the description of such psychic alterations can map to Plutarch’s understanding of steel treatments, thereby providing a solid basis for textual choices and new insights into his integration of technical knowledge within philosophical discourse. References Brusuelas, James, and Chiara Meccariello. 2015. ‘Plutarch’s Sympotic Forge and a Variant Reading in P.Oxy. LXXVIII 5156’. APF 61 (1). https://doi.org/10.1515/apf-2015-0004. Lesage Gárriga, Luisa, ed. 2021. Plutarch: De Facie Quae in Orbe Lunae Apparet. Leiden & Boston: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004458086. Morrone, Daniele. 2022. ‘Quenching Greedy Souls in Metal Lakes: A Metallurgic Image in Thespesius’s Vision of the Afterlife (Plutarch, De Sera Num. 30, 567c-d)’. ARYS 20:171–226. https://doi.org/10.20318/arys.2022.6856.
Source: Lirias
Author: Morrone, Daniele
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7111806987
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