Plutarch on Grief

Massimo Pigliucci is moved by a 2,000 year old letter.

- 

The time is around 90 CE, and Plutarch of Chaeronea in Greece is travelling when news reaches him of the death of his two-year-old daughter Timoxena. Since Plutarch is unable to return home immediately, he decides to write to his wife, also named Timoxena, attempting to use his knowledge of philosophy to provide some consolation for her grief.

While this sad episode took place almost two millennia ago, similar situations of course occur today, reminding us just how difficult it is to be of comfort to our fellow human beings when they are distraught. But Plutarch, a Platonist, was one of many Greco-Roman intellectuals who thought that if philosophy isn’t going to be useful in practice then it’s not worth bothering with in the first place.

The letter displays a tender and personal tone, with Plutarch attempting to balance acknowledgment of the genuine grief he himself is experiencing as the father of little Timoxena with the delivery of philosophical counsel to the person with whom he has shared the most intimate moments of his life, including Timoxena’s birth. The challenge he faces is how to provide comfort to his wife without coming across as being condescending or, worse, denying the reality of her pain. One way Plutarch achieves this is by treating his wife as his intellectual equal - something certainly quite rare in those times.