(10) c. 24, 937 F. A lion. Kepler suggests that there was an old confusion between λῖς, a lion, and λᾶς, a stone.
(11) c. 24, 938 C. without mouths. The MSS. have εὐστόμους, but ἀστόμους is an old correction adopted by W. Pliny, N. H. 7, 2, 25, quotes Megasthenes for a mouthless people living near the sources of the Ganges. See also Müller, Fragm. Hist. Graec. 2, 427 (Adler). For the notion of living by smell cp. Heraclitus (Fr. 38).
(12) c. 26, 941 A. This interesting passage should be read by the side of De Defectu Oraculorum, c. 18, p. 19 F (p. 135 above), which has a close verbal resemblance, and is perhaps extracted from it (Adler). Briareus may have been named in the full text here, as the son of Cronus. In Hesiod, Theogon. 147, he is the son of Uranus, and so Eustathius on Hom. Il. 1, 403, but a little later on Eustathius mentions Cronus as his father on the authority of Arrian. παρακάτω κεῖσθαι of the MSS. is difficult. Adler would read Βριάρεων δὲ τὸν υἱὸν ὡς ἔχοντα φρουρὰν τῶν τε νήσων ἐκείνων καὶ τῆς θαλάττης, ἣν Κρόνιον πέλαγος ὀνομάζουσιν, παρακατῳκίσθαι. Dr. Purser points out that the Straits of Gibraltar were first called the Pillars of Cronus, afterwards the Pillars of Briareus, and lastly the Pillars of Hercules (Schol. ad Dionys. Perieg. 64 in Müller’s Fragm. Hist. Gr. 3, 640).
I have followed the reading of Emperius πέραν κατῳκίσθαι, but without much confidence. Cronus could not well, as Dr. Purser points out, have been in one of the islands, and also beyond it.
(13) c. 26, 942 C. I venture to suggest that the text may have run something as follows:
Πλεῖστον γὰρ ἐν Καρχηδόνι χρόνον διέτριψεν ἅτε δὴ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν μέταλλα ἔχων, ὃς καί τινας, ὅθ᾽ ἡ προτέρα πόλις ἀπώλλυτο, κτλ.
The long sojourn of the stranger in Carthage would be explained if he owned mines there.
In the sequel φαινομένων may perhaps stand for Φοινικικῶν and χρῆναι for χρηστήρια εἶναι.
408 F (p. 110, l. 19). πρὸς δὲ πίστιν ἐπισφαλὴς καὶ ὑπεύθυνος. If ἐπισφαλής stands, it should rather mean ‘liable to take good faith (like an infection)‘, a very common use of the adjective and its adverb in Plutarch. See e. g. 661 B, 631 C. This seems rather a forced oxymoron here. Wyttenbach doubted, and Madvig proposed ἀνεπισφαλής, a word said to be found in Themistius.
On the passage see J. H. W. Strijd in Class. Rev., xxviii, p. 219.