This paper was written in English for a conference in Madeira. The Consolation to His Wife is a short writing rapidly drafted by Plutarch in the span of a few days around the year 90 AD, in all likelihood at Tanagra, after learning about the death of his two-year-old daughter. From a punctual analysis of the incipit we gather that Timoxena’s messenger, whom she had sent to convey the news to her husband, travelled first from Chaeronea to Tanagra, then from Tanagra to Athens, while Plutarch was going from Athens to Tanagra. But, for some hitch, the two men did not meet on the way: the philosopher, therefore, only learned the bad news when he arrived at Tanagra, and was informed by another person, namely the messenger’s granddaughter. Plutarch, however, was not able to leave immediately for Chaeronea, clearly because of an engagement that held him at Tanagra for a few days (possibly a series of lectures). There, during those days, he wrote the Cons. ux., that he may have sent to his wife by a messenger (or possibly delivered in person as soon as he could get home). It was there, during those days, according to my further conjecture, that Timoxena’s messenger finally did catch up with him.