In the first part of a chapter of his Quaestiones convivales (4.2,1-2) Plutarch seeks to explain
the popular belief according to which truffles are produced through the agency of thunder by
linking their appearance with the physical phenomena accompanying thunder and lightning.
This can be regarded as an example of the attempt – common in Hellenistic and Roman times
– to save popular beliefs through scientific, philosophical, or allegorical interpretations, as the
Stoics had done in the case of divination.