Eunomia in heaven and on earth: Plutarch’s nomos between rhetoric and science

Abstract

Against the Epicureans, Plutarch holds that philosophy and religion are more important for society than statute laws. Given the analogy between the politician and the god-creator of the harmonious cosmos, rulers and their laws should, then, humbly imitate god and his divine law of Justice, thereby having only persuasion as a tool. It is argued that the rhetorical concept of persuasion plays an equally important role in the way the god, according to Plutarch (as a Platonist) has created the cosmos: divine persuasion overcame the laws of nature. The prescriptive character of this persuasion, however, conflicts with our modern concept of the descriptive character of physical laws.