He returned home, we
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing
the fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_.
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing
the fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_.
Lucian
THE WORKS OF LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
Complete with exceptions specified in the preface
TRANSLATED BY
H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER
IN FOUR VOLUMES
What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren
domestic soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the
fewest are privileged to do. --_Sarlor Resartus_.
At each flaw, be this your first thought: the author doubtless said
something quite different, and much more to the point. And then you
may hiss _me_ off, if you will. --LUCIAN, _Nigrinus, 9_.
(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit. --
_Lord Macaulay_.
VOLUME I
PREFACE
The text followed in this translation is that of Jacobitz, Teubner,
1901, all deviations from which are noted.
In the following list of omissions, italics denote that the piece is
marked as spurious both by Dindorf and by Jacobitz. The other
omissions are mainly by way of expurgation. In a very few other
passages some isolated words and phrases have been excised; but it has
not been thought necessary to mark these in the texts by asterisks.
_Halcyon_; Deorum Dialogi, iv, v, ix, x, xvii, xxii, xxiii;
Dialogi Marini, xiii; Vera Historia, I. 22, II. 19; Alexander, 41,42;
Eunuchus; _De Astrologia_; _Amores_; _Lucius_ sive _Asinus_;
Rhetorum Preceptor, 23; _Hippias_; Adversus Indoctum, 23;
Pseudologista; _Longaevi_; Dialogi Meretricii, v, vi, x; De Syria
Dea; _Philopatris; Charidemus; Nero_; Tragodopodagra; Ocypus;
Epigrammata.
A word may be said about four pieces that seem to stand apart from the
rest. Of these, the _Trial in the Court of Vowels_ and _A Slip of the
Tongue_ will be interesting only to those who are familiar with Greek.
The _Lexiphanes_ and _A Purist Purized_, satirizing the pedants and
euphuists of Lucian's day, almost defy translation, and they must be
accepted at best as an effort to give the general effect of the
original.
The _Notes explanatory_ at the end of vol. iv will be used by the
reader at his discretion. Reference is made to them at the foot of the
page only when it is not obvious what name should be consulted.
The translators take this opportunity of offering their heartiest
thanks to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for undertaking this
work; and, in particular, to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University,
Dr. Merry, who has been good enough to read the proofs, and to give
much valuable advice both on the difficult subject of excision and on
details of style and rendering. In this connexion, however, it should
be added that for the retention of many modern phrases, which may
offend some readers as anachronistic, responsibility rests with the
translators alone.
CONTENTS of VOL. 1
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
THE VISION
A LITERARY PROMETHEUS
NIGRINUS
TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS
TIMON THE MISANTHROPE
PROMETHEUS ON CAUCASUS
DIALOGUES OF THE GODS
i, ii, iii, vi, vii, viii, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, xix,
xx, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvi.
DIALOGUES OF THE SEA-GODS
i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii, xiv, xv.
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI,
XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII,
XXVIII, XXIX, XXX.
MENIPPUS
CHARON
OF SACRIFICE
SALE OF CREEDS
THE FISHER
VOYAGE TO THE LOWER WORLD
INTRODUCTION
1. LIFE.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS.
3. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIME.
4. LUCIAN AS A WRITER.
It is not to be understood that all statements here made are either
ascertained facts or universally admitted conjectures. The
introduction is intended merely to put those who are not scholars, and
probably have not books of reference at hand, in a position to
approach the translation at as little disadvantage as may be.
Accordingly, we give the account that commends itself to us, without
discussion or reference to authorities. Those who would like a more
complete idea of Lucian should read Croiset's _Essai sur la vie et
les oeuvres de Lucien_, on which the first two sections of this
introduction are very largely based. The only objections to the book
(if they are objections) are that it is in French, and of 400 octavo
pages. It is eminently readable.
1. LIFE
With the exception of a very small number of statements, of which the
truth is by no means certain, all that we know of Lucian is derived
from his own writings. And any reader who prefers to have his facts at
first rather than at second hand can consequently get them by reading
certain of his pieces, and making the natural deductions from them.
Those that contain biographical matter are, in the order corresponding
to the periods of his life on which they throw light, _The Vision,
Demosthenes, Nigrinus, The Portrait-study_ and _Defence_ (in which
Lucian is _Lycinus_), _The Way to write History, The double ndictment_
(in which he is _The Syrian_), _The Fisher_ (_Parrhesiades_), _Swans
and Amber, Alexander_, Hermotimus_ (_Lycinus_), _Menippus and
Icaromenippus_ (in which _Menippus_ represents him), _A literary
Prometheus, Herodotus, Zeuxis, Harmonides, The Scythian_, The Death of
Peregrine, The Book-fancier, Demonax, The Rhetorician's Vade mecum,
Dionysus, Heracles, A Slip of the Tongue, Apology for 'The dependent
Scholar. '_ Of these _The Vision_ is a direct piece of autobiography;
there is intentional but veiled autobiography in several of the other
pieces; in others again conclusions can be drawn from comparison of
his statements with facts known from external sources.
Lucian lived from about 125 to about 200 A. D. , under the Roman
Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and
perhaps Pertinax. He was a Syrian, born at Samosata on the Euphrates,
of parents to whom it was of importance that he should earn his living
without spending much time or money on education. His maternal uncle
being a statuary, he was apprenticed to him, having shown an aptitude
for modelling in the wax that he surreptitiously scraped from his
school writing-tablets. The apprenticeship lasted one day. It is clear
that he was impulsive all through life; and when his uncle corrected
him with a stick for breaking a piece of marble, he ran off home,
disposed already to think he had had enough of statuary. His mother
took his part, and he made up his mind by the aid of a vision that
came to him the same night.
It was the age of the rhetoricians. If war was not a thing of the
past, the shadow of the _pax Romana_ was over all the small states,
and the aspiring provincial's readiest road to fame was through words
rather than deeds. The arrival of a famous rhetorician to lecture was
one of the important events in any great city's annals; and Lucian's
works are full of references to the impression these men produced, and
the envy they enjoyed. He himself was evidently consumed, during his
youth and early manhood, with desire for a position like theirs. To
him, sleeping with memories of the stick, appeared two women,
corresponding to _Virtue_ and _Pleasure_ in Prodicus's _Choice of
Heracles_--the working woman _Statuary_, and the lady _Culture_. They
advanced their claims to him in turn; but before _Culture_ had
completed her reply, the choice was made: he was to be a rhetorician.
From her reminding him that she was even now not all unknown to him,
we may perhaps assume that he spoke some sort of Greek, or was being
taught it; but he assures us that after leaving Syria he was still a
barbarian; we have also a casual mention of his offering a lock of his
hair to the Syrian goddess in his youth.
He was allowed to follow his bent and go to Ionia. Great Ionian cities
like Smyrna and Ephesus were full of admired sophists or teachers of
rhetoric. But it is unlikely that Lucian's means would have enabled
him to become the pupil of these. He probably acquired his skill to a
great extent by the laborious method, which he ironically deprecates
in _The Rhetorician's Vade mecum_, of studying exhaustively the old
Attic orators, poets, and historians.
He was at any rate successful. The different branches that a
rhetorician might choose between or combine were: (1) Speaking in
court on behalf of a client; (2) Writing speeches for a client to
deliver; (3) Teaching pupils; (4) Giving public displays of his skill.
There is a doubtful statement that Lucian failed in (1), and took to
(2) in default. His surviving rhetorical pieces (_The Tyrannicide,
The Disinherited, Phalaris_) are declamations on hypothetical cases
which might serve either for (3) or (4); and _The Hall, The Fly,
Dipsas_, and perhaps _Demosthenes_, suggest (4). A common form of
exhibition was for a sophist to appear before an audience and let
them propose subjects, of which he must choose one and deliver an
impromptu oration upon it.
Whatever his exact line was, he earned an income in Ionia, then in
Greece, had still greater success in Italy, and appears to have
settled for some time in Gaul, perhaps occupying a professorial chair
there. The intimate knowledge of Roman life in some aspects which
appears in _The dependent Scholar_ suggests that he also lived some
time in Rome. He seems to have known some Latin, since he could
converse with boatmen on the Po; but his only clear reference (A Slip
of the Tongue,) implies an imperfect knowledge of it; and there is not
a single mention in all his works, which are crammed with literary
allusions, of any Latin author. He claims to have been during his time
in Gaul one of the rhetoricians who could command high fees; and his
descriptions of himself as resigning his place close about his lady's
(i. e. Rhetoric's) person, and as casting off his wife Rhetoric because
she did not keep herself exclusively to him, show that he regarded
himself, or wished to be regarded, as having been at the head of his
profession.
This brings us to about the year 160 A. D. We may conceive Lucian now
to have had some of that yearning for home which he ascribes in the
_Patriotism_ even to the successful exile. He returned home, we
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing
the fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_. He may then have
lived at Antioch as a rhetorician for some years, of which we have a
memorial in _The Portrait-study_. Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius's
colleague, was at Antioch in 162 or 163 A. D. on his way to the
Parthian war, and _The Portrait-study_ is a panegyric on Verus's
mistress Panthea, whom Lucian saw there.
A year or two later we find him migrating to Athens, taking his father
with him, and at Athens he settled and remained many years. It was on
this journey that the incident occurred, which he relates with such a
curious absence of shame in the _Alexander_, of his biting that
charlatan's hand.
This change in his manner of life corresponds nearly with the change
in habit of mind and use of his powers that earned him his
immortality. His fortieth year is the date given by himself for his
abandonment of Rhetoric and, as he calls it, taking up with Dialogue,
or, as we might say, becoming a man of letters. Between Rhetoric and
Dialogue there was a feud, which had begun when Socrates five
centuries before had fought his battles with the sophists. Rhetoric
appeals to the emotions and obscures the issues (such had been
Socrates's position); the way to elicit truth is by short question and
answer. The Socratic method, illustrated by Plato, had become, if not
the only, the accredited instrument of philosophers, who, so far as
they are genuine, are truth-seekers; Rhetoric had been left to the
legal persons whose object is not truth but victory. Lucian's
abandonment of Rhetoric was accordingly in some sort his change from a
lawyer to a philosopher. As it turned out, however, philosophy was
itself only a transitional stage with him.
Already during his career as a rhetorician, which we may put at
145-164 A. D. , he seems both to have had leanings to philosophy, and to
have toyed with dialogue. There is reason to suppose that the
Nigrinus_, with its strong contrast between the noise and vulgarity of
Rome and the peace and culture of Athens, its enthusiastic picture of
the charm of philosophy for a sensitive and intelligent spirit, was
written in 150 A. D. , or at any rate described an incident that
occurred in that year; and the _Portrait-study_ and its _Defence_,
dialogues written with great care, whatever their other merits, belong
to 162 or 163 A. D. But these had been excursions out of his own
province. After settling at Athens he seems to have adopted the
writing of dialogues as his regular work. The _Toxaris_, a collection
of stories on friendship, strung together by dialogue, the
_Anacharsis_, a discussion on the value of physical training, and the
_Pantomime_, a description slightly relieved by the dialogue form, may
be regarded as experiments with his new instrument. There is no trace
in them of the characteristic use that he afterwards made of dialogue,
for the purposes of satire.
That was an idea that we may suppose to have occurred to him after the
composition of the _Hermotimus_. This is in form the most philosophic
of his dialogues; it might indeed be a dialogue of Plato, of the
merely destructive kind; but it is at the same time, in matter, his
farewell to philosophy, establishing that the pursuit of it is
hopeless for mortal man. From this time onward, though he always
professes himself a lover of true philosophy, he concerns himself no
more with it, except to expose its false professors. The dialogue that
perhaps comes next, _The Parasite_, is still Platonic in form, but
only as a parody; its main interest (for a modern reader is outraged,
as in a few other pieces of Lucian's, by the disproportion between
subject and treatment) is in the combination for the first time of
satire with dialogue.
One more step remained to be taken. In the piece called _A literary
Prometheus_, we are told what Lucian himself regarded as his claim
to the title of an original writer. It was the fusing of Comedy and
Dialogue--the latter being the prose conversation hat had hitherto
been confined to philosophical discussion. The new literary form,
then, was conversation, frankly for purposes of entertainment, as in
Comedy, but to be read and not acted. In this kind of writing he
remains, though he has been often imitated, first in merit as clearly
as in time; and nearly all his great masterpieces took this form. They
followed in rapid succession, being all written, perhaps, between 165
and 175 A. D. And we make here no further comment upon them, except to
remark that they fall roughly into three groups as he drew inspiration
successively from the writers of the New Comedy (or Comedy of ordinary
life) like Menander, from the satires of Menippus, and from writers of
the Old Comedy (or Comedy of fantastic imagination) like Aristophanes.
The best specimens of the first group are _The Liar_ and the
_Dialogues of the Hetaerae;_ of the second, the _Dialogues of the
Dead_ and _of the Gods, Menippus_ and _Icaromenippus, Zeus
cross-examined;_ of the third, _Timon, Charon, A Voyage to the lower
World, The Sale of Creeds, The Fisher, Zeus Tragoedus, The Cock, The
double Indictment, The Ship_.
During these ten or more years, though he lived at Athens, he is to be
imagined travelling occasionally, to read his dialogues to audiences
in various cities, or to see the Olympic Games. And these excursions
gave occasion to some works not of the dialogue kind; the _Zeuxis_ and
several similar pieces are introductions to series of readings away
from Athens; The _Way to write History_, a piece of literary criticism
still very readable, if out of date for practical purposes, resulted
from a visit to Ionia, where all the literary men were producing
histories of the Parthian war, then in progress (165 A. D. ). An
attendance at the Olympic Games of 169 A. D. suggested _The Death of
Peregrine_, which in its turn, through the offence given to Cynics,
had to be supplemented by the dialogue of _The Runaways. The True
History_, most famous, but, admirable as it is, far from best of his
works, presumably belongs to this period also, but cannot be
definitely placed. The _Book-fancier_ and _The Rhetorician's Vade
mecum_ are unpleasant records of bitter personal quarrels.
After some ten years of this intense literary activity, producing,
reading, and publishing, Lucian seems to have given up both the
writing of dialogues and the presenting of them to audiences, and to
have lived quietly for many years. The only pieces that belong here
are the _Life of Demonax_, the man whom he held the best of all
philosophers, and with whom he had been long intimate at Athens, and
that of Alexander, the Asiatic charlatan, who was the prince of
impostors as Demonax of philosophers. When quite old, Lucian was
appointed by the Emperor Commodus to a well-paid legal post in Egypt.
We also learn, from the new introductory lectures called _Dionysus_
and _Heracles_, that he resumed the practice of reading his dialogues;
but he wrote nothing more of importance. It is stated in Suidas that
he was torn to pieces by dogs; but, as other statements in the article
are discredited, it is supposed that this is the Christian revenge for
Lucian's imaginary hostility to Christianity. We have it from himself
that he suffered from gout in his old age. He solaced himself
characteristically by writing a play on the subject; but whether the
goddess Gout, who gave it its name, was appeased by it, or carried him
off, we cannot tell.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS
The received order in which Lucian's works stand is admitted to be
entirely haphazard. The following arrangement in groups is roughly
chronological, though it is quite possible that they overlap each
other. It is M. Croiset's, put into tabular form. Many details in it
are open to question; but to read in this order would at least be more
satisfactory to any one who wishes to study Lucian seriously than to
take the pieces as they come. The table will also serve as a rough
guide to the first-class and the inferior pieces. The names italicized
are those of pieces rejected as spurious by M. Croiset, and therefore
not placed by him; we have inserted them where they seem to belong; as
to their genuineness, it is our opinion that the objections made (not
by M. Croiset, who does not discuss authenticity) to the _Demosthenes_
and _The Cynic_ at least are, in view of the merits of these,
unconvincing.
(i) About 145 to 160 A. D. Lucian a rhetorician in Ionia, Greece,
Italy, and Gaul.
The Tyrannicide, a rhetorical exercise.
The Disinherited.
Phalaris I & II.
_Demosthenes_, a panegyric.
Patriotism, an essay.
The Fly, an essay.
Swans and Amber, an introductory lecture.
Dipsas, an introductory lecture.
The Hall, an introductory lecture.
Nigrinus, a dialogue on philosophy, 150 A. D.
(ii) About 160 to 164 A. D. After Lucian's return to Asia.
The Portrait-study, a panegyric in dialogue, 162 A. D.
Defence of The Portrait-study, in dialogue.
A Trial in the Court of Vowels, a _jeu d'esprit_.
Hesiod, a short dialogue.
The Vision, an autobiographical address.
(iii) About 165 A. D. At Athens.
Pantomime, art criticism in dialogue.
Anacharsis, a dialogue on physical training.
Toxaris, stories of friendship in dialogue.
Slander, a moral essay.
The Way to write History, an essay in literary criticism.
The next eight groups, iv-xi, belong to the years from about 165 A. D.
to about 175 A. D. , when Lucian was at his best and busiest; iv-ix are
to be regarded roughly as succeeding each other in time; x and xi
being independent in this respect. Pieces are assigned to groups
mainly according to their subjects; but some are placed in groups that
do not seem at first sight the most appropriate, owing to specialties
in their treatment; e. g. _The Ship_ might seem more in place with vii
than with ix; but M. Croiset finds in it a maturity that induces him
to put it later.
(iv) About 165 A. D.
Hermotimus, a philosophic dialogue.
The Parasite, a parody of a philosophic dialogue.
(v) Influence of the New Comedy writers.
The Liar, a dialogue satirizing superstition.
A Feast of Lapithae, a dialogue satirizing the manners of
philosophers.
Dialogues of the Hetaerae, a series of short dialogues.
(vi) Influence of the Menippean satire.
Dialogues of the Dead, a series of short dialogues.
He returned home, we
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing
the fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_. He may then have
lived at Antioch as a rhetorician for some years, of which we have a
memorial in _The Portrait-study_. Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius's
colleague, was at Antioch in 162 or 163 A. D. on his way to the
Parthian war, and _The Portrait-study_ is a panegyric on Verus's
mistress Panthea, whom Lucian saw there.
A year or two later we find him migrating to Athens, taking his father
with him, and at Athens he settled and remained many years. It was on
this journey that the incident occurred, which he relates with such a
curious absence of shame in the _Alexander_, of his biting that
charlatan's hand.
This change in his manner of life corresponds nearly with the change
in habit of mind and use of his powers that earned him his
immortality. His fortieth year is the date given by himself for his
abandonment of Rhetoric and, as he calls it, taking up with Dialogue,
or, as we might say, becoming a man of letters. Between Rhetoric and
Dialogue there was a feud, which had begun when Socrates five
centuries before had fought his battles with the sophists. Rhetoric
appeals to the emotions and obscures the issues (such had been
Socrates's position); the way to elicit truth is by short question and
answer. The Socratic method, illustrated by Plato, had become, if not
the only, the accredited instrument of philosophers, who, so far as
they are genuine, are truth-seekers; Rhetoric had been left to the
legal persons whose object is not truth but victory. Lucian's
abandonment of Rhetoric was accordingly in some sort his change from a
lawyer to a philosopher. As it turned out, however, philosophy was
itself only a transitional stage with him.
Already during his career as a rhetorician, which we may put at
145-164 A. D. , he seems both to have had leanings to philosophy, and to
have toyed with dialogue. There is reason to suppose that the
Nigrinus_, with its strong contrast between the noise and vulgarity of
Rome and the peace and culture of Athens, its enthusiastic picture of
the charm of philosophy for a sensitive and intelligent spirit, was
written in 150 A. D. , or at any rate described an incident that
occurred in that year; and the _Portrait-study_ and its _Defence_,
dialogues written with great care, whatever their other merits, belong
to 162 or 163 A. D. But these had been excursions out of his own
province. After settling at Athens he seems to have adopted the
writing of dialogues as his regular work. The _Toxaris_, a collection
of stories on friendship, strung together by dialogue, the
_Anacharsis_, a discussion on the value of physical training, and the
_Pantomime_, a description slightly relieved by the dialogue form, may
be regarded as experiments with his new instrument. There is no trace
in them of the characteristic use that he afterwards made of dialogue,
for the purposes of satire.
That was an idea that we may suppose to have occurred to him after the
composition of the _Hermotimus_. This is in form the most philosophic
of his dialogues; it might indeed be a dialogue of Plato, of the
merely destructive kind; but it is at the same time, in matter, his
farewell to philosophy, establishing that the pursuit of it is
hopeless for mortal man. From this time onward, though he always
professes himself a lover of true philosophy, he concerns himself no
more with it, except to expose its false professors. The dialogue that
perhaps comes next, _The Parasite_, is still Platonic in form, but
only as a parody; its main interest (for a modern reader is outraged,
as in a few other pieces of Lucian's, by the disproportion between
subject and treatment) is in the combination for the first time of
satire with dialogue.
One more step remained to be taken. In the piece called _A literary
Prometheus_, we are told what Lucian himself regarded as his claim
to the title of an original writer. It was the fusing of Comedy and
Dialogue--the latter being the prose conversation hat had hitherto
been confined to philosophical discussion. The new literary form,
then, was conversation, frankly for purposes of entertainment, as in
Comedy, but to be read and not acted. In this kind of writing he
remains, though he has been often imitated, first in merit as clearly
as in time; and nearly all his great masterpieces took this form. They
followed in rapid succession, being all written, perhaps, between 165
and 175 A. D. And we make here no further comment upon them, except to
remark that they fall roughly into three groups as he drew inspiration
successively from the writers of the New Comedy (or Comedy of ordinary
life) like Menander, from the satires of Menippus, and from writers of
the Old Comedy (or Comedy of fantastic imagination) like Aristophanes.
The best specimens of the first group are _The Liar_ and the
_Dialogues of the Hetaerae;_ of the second, the _Dialogues of the
Dead_ and _of the Gods, Menippus_ and _Icaromenippus, Zeus
cross-examined;_ of the third, _Timon, Charon, A Voyage to the lower
World, The Sale of Creeds, The Fisher, Zeus Tragoedus, The Cock, The
double Indictment, The Ship_.
During these ten or more years, though he lived at Athens, he is to be
imagined travelling occasionally, to read his dialogues to audiences
in various cities, or to see the Olympic Games. And these excursions
gave occasion to some works not of the dialogue kind; the _Zeuxis_ and
several similar pieces are introductions to series of readings away
from Athens; The _Way to write History_, a piece of literary criticism
still very readable, if out of date for practical purposes, resulted
from a visit to Ionia, where all the literary men were producing
histories of the Parthian war, then in progress (165 A. D. ). An
attendance at the Olympic Games of 169 A. D. suggested _The Death of
Peregrine_, which in its turn, through the offence given to Cynics,
had to be supplemented by the dialogue of _The Runaways. The True
History_, most famous, but, admirable as it is, far from best of his
works, presumably belongs to this period also, but cannot be
definitely placed. The _Book-fancier_ and _The Rhetorician's Vade
mecum_ are unpleasant records of bitter personal quarrels.
After some ten years of this intense literary activity, producing,
reading, and publishing, Lucian seems to have given up both the
writing of dialogues and the presenting of them to audiences, and to
have lived quietly for many years. The only pieces that belong here
are the _Life of Demonax_, the man whom he held the best of all
philosophers, and with whom he had been long intimate at Athens, and
that of Alexander, the Asiatic charlatan, who was the prince of
impostors as Demonax of philosophers. When quite old, Lucian was
appointed by the Emperor Commodus to a well-paid legal post in Egypt.
We also learn, from the new introductory lectures called _Dionysus_
and _Heracles_, that he resumed the practice of reading his dialogues;
but he wrote nothing more of importance. It is stated in Suidas that
he was torn to pieces by dogs; but, as other statements in the article
are discredited, it is supposed that this is the Christian revenge for
Lucian's imaginary hostility to Christianity. We have it from himself
that he suffered from gout in his old age. He solaced himself
characteristically by writing a play on the subject; but whether the
goddess Gout, who gave it its name, was appeased by it, or carried him
off, we cannot tell.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS
The received order in which Lucian's works stand is admitted to be
entirely haphazard. The following arrangement in groups is roughly
chronological, though it is quite possible that they overlap each
other. It is M. Croiset's, put into tabular form. Many details in it
are open to question; but to read in this order would at least be more
satisfactory to any one who wishes to study Lucian seriously than to
take the pieces as they come. The table will also serve as a rough
guide to the first-class and the inferior pieces. The names italicized
are those of pieces rejected as spurious by M. Croiset, and therefore
not placed by him; we have inserted them where they seem to belong; as
to their genuineness, it is our opinion that the objections made (not
by M. Croiset, who does not discuss authenticity) to the _Demosthenes_
and _The Cynic_ at least are, in view of the merits of these,
unconvincing.
(i) About 145 to 160 A. D. Lucian a rhetorician in Ionia, Greece,
Italy, and Gaul.
The Tyrannicide, a rhetorical exercise.
The Disinherited.
Phalaris I & II.
_Demosthenes_, a panegyric.
Patriotism, an essay.
The Fly, an essay.
Swans and Amber, an introductory lecture.
Dipsas, an introductory lecture.
The Hall, an introductory lecture.
Nigrinus, a dialogue on philosophy, 150 A. D.
(ii) About 160 to 164 A. D. After Lucian's return to Asia.
The Portrait-study, a panegyric in dialogue, 162 A. D.
Defence of The Portrait-study, in dialogue.
A Trial in the Court of Vowels, a _jeu d'esprit_.
Hesiod, a short dialogue.
The Vision, an autobiographical address.
(iii) About 165 A. D. At Athens.
Pantomime, art criticism in dialogue.
Anacharsis, a dialogue on physical training.
Toxaris, stories of friendship in dialogue.
Slander, a moral essay.
The Way to write History, an essay in literary criticism.
The next eight groups, iv-xi, belong to the years from about 165 A. D.
to about 175 A. D. , when Lucian was at his best and busiest; iv-ix are
to be regarded roughly as succeeding each other in time; x and xi
being independent in this respect. Pieces are assigned to groups
mainly according to their subjects; but some are placed in groups that
do not seem at first sight the most appropriate, owing to specialties
in their treatment; e. g. _The Ship_ might seem more in place with vii
than with ix; but M. Croiset finds in it a maturity that induces him
to put it later.
(iv) About 165 A. D.
Hermotimus, a philosophic dialogue.
The Parasite, a parody of a philosophic dialogue.
(v) Influence of the New Comedy writers.
The Liar, a dialogue satirizing superstition.
A Feast of Lapithae, a dialogue satirizing the manners of
philosophers.
Dialogues of the Hetaerae, a series of short dialogues.
(vi) Influence of the Menippean satire.
Dialogues of the Dead, a series of short dialogues.
Dialogues of the Gods, a series of short dialogues.
Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, a series of short dialogues.
Menippus, a dialogue satirizing philosophy.
Icaromenippus, a dialogue satirizing philosophy and religion.
Zeus cross-examined, a dialogue satirizing religion.
_The Cynic_, a dialogue against luxury.
_Of Sacrifice_, an essay satirizing religion.
Saturnalia, dialogue and letters on the relation of rich and poor.
The True History, a parody of the old Greek historians,
(vii) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: vanity of human wishes.
A Voyage to the Lower World, a dialogue on the vanity of power.
Charon, a dialogue on the vanity of all things.
Timon, a dialogue on the vanity of riches.
The Cock, a dialogue on the vanity of riches and power,
(viii) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: dialogues satirizing
religion.
Prometheus on Caucasus.
Zeus Tragoedus.
The Gods in Council.
(ix) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: satire on philosophers.
The Ship, a dialogue on foolish aspirations.
The Life of Peregrine, a narrative satirizing the Cynics, 169 A. D.
The Runaways, a dialogue satirizing the Cynics.
The double Indictment, an autobiographic dialogue.
The Sale of Creeds, a dialogue satirizing philosophers.
The Fisher, an autobiographic dialogue satirizing philosophers.
(x) 165-175 A. D. Introductory lectures.
Herodotus.
Zeuxis.
Harmonides.
The Scythian.
A literary Prometheus.
(xi) 165-175 A. D. Scattered pieces standing apart from the great
dialogue series, but written during the same period.
The Book-fancier, an invective. About 170 A. D.
_The Purist purized_, a literary satire in dialogue.
Lexiphanes, a literary satire in dialogue.
The Rhetorician's Vade-mecum, a personal satire. About 178 A. D.
(xii) After 180 A. D.
Demonax, a biography.
Alexander, a satirical biography,
(xiii) In old age.
Mourning, an essay.
Dionysus, an introductory lecture.
Heracles, an introductory lecture.
Apology for 'The dependent Scholar. '
A Slip of the Tongue.
In conclusion, we have to say that this arrangement of M. Croiset's,
which we have merely tabulated without intentionally departing from it
in any particular, seems to us well considered in its broad lines;
there are a few modifications which we should have been disposed to
make in it; but we thought it better to take it entire than to
exercise our own judgment in a matter where we felt very little
confidence.
3. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIME
M. Aurelius has for us moderns this great superiority in interest over
Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of society
modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own,
in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of "our
enlightened age" just as glibly as _The Times_ talks of it. ' M.
Arnold, _Essays in Criticism, M. Aurelius_.
The age of M. Aurelius is also the age of Lucian, and with any man of
that age who has, like these two, left us a still legible message we
can enter into quite different relations from those which are possible
with what M. Arnold calls in the same essay 'classical-dictionary
heroes. ' A twentieth-century Englishman, a second-century Greek or
Roman, would be much more at home in each other's century, if they had
the gift of tongues, than in most of those which have intervened. It
is neither necessary nor possible to go deeply into the resemblance
here [Footnote: Some words of Sir Leslie Stephen's may be given,
however, describing the welter of religious opinions that prevailed at
both epochs: 'The analogy between the present age and that which
witnessed the introduction of Christianity is too striking to have
been missed by very many observers. The most superficial acquaintance
with the general facts shows how close a parallel might be drawn by a
competent historian. There are none of the striking manifestations of
the present day to which it would not be easy to produce an analogy,
though in some respects on a smaller scale. Now, as then, we can find
mystical philosophers trying to evolve a satisfactory creed by some
process of logical legerdemain out of theosophical moonshine; and
amiable and intelligent persons labouring hard to prove that the old
mythology could be forced to accept a rationalistic interpretation--
whether in regard to the inspection of entrails or prayers for fine
weather; and philosophers framing systems of morality entirely apart
from the ancient creeds, and sufficiently satisfactory to themselves,
while hopelessly incapable of impressing the popular mind; and
politicians, conscious that the basis of social order was being sapped
by the decay of the faith in which it had arisen, and therefore
attempting the impossible task of galvanizing dead creeds into a
semblance of vitality; and strange superstitions creeping out of their
lurking-places, and gaining influence in a luxurious society whose
intelligence was an ineffectual safeguard against the most grovelling
errors; and a dogged adherence of formalists and conservatives to
ancient ways, and much empty profession of barren orthodoxy; and,
beneath all, a vague disquiet, a breaking up of ancient social and
natural bonds, and a blind groping toward some more cosmopolitan creed
and some deeper satisfaction for the emotional needs of mankind. '--
_The Religion of all Sensible Men_ in _An Agnostic's Apology_, 1893. ];
all that need be done is to pass in review those points of it, some
important, and some trifling, which are sure to occur in a detached
way to readers of Lucian.
The Graeco-Roman world was as settled and peaceful, as conscious of
its imperial responsibilities, as susceptible to boredom, as greedy of
amusement, could show as numerous a leisured class, and believed as
firmly in money, as our own. What is more important for our purpose,
it was questioning the truth of its religion as we are to-day
questioning the truth of ours. Lucian was the most vehement of the
questioners. Of what played the part then that the Christian religion
plays now, the pagan religion was only one half; the other half was
philosophy. The gods of Olympus had long lost their hold upon the
educated, but not perhaps upon the masses; the educated, ill content
to be without any guide through the maze of life, had taken to
philosophy instead. Stoicism was the prevalent creed, and how noble a
form this could take in a cultivated and virtuous mind is to be seen
in the _Thoughts_ of M. Aurelius. The test of a religion, however, is
not what form it takes in a virtuous mind, but what effects it
produces on those of another sort. Lucian applies the test of results
alike to the religion usually so called, and to its philosophic
substitute. He finds both wanting; the test is not a satisfactory one,
but it is being applied by all sorts and conditions of men to
Christianity in our own time; so is the second test, that of inherent
probability, which he uses as well as the other upon the pagan
theology; and it is this that gives his writings, even apart from
their wit and fancy, a special interest for our own time. Our
attention seems to be concentrated more and more on the ethical, as
opposed to the speculative or dogmatic aspect of religion; just such
was Lucian's attitude towards philosophy.
Some minor points of similarity may be briefly noted. As we read the
_Anacharsis_, we are reminded of the modern prominence of athletics;
the question of football _versus_ drill is settled for us; light is
thrown upon the question of conscription; we think of our Commissions
on national deterioration, and the schoolmaster's wail over the
athletic _Frankenstein's_ monster which, like _Eucrates_ in _The
Liar_, he has created but cannot control. The 'horsy talk in every
street' of the _Nigrinus_ calls up the London newsboy with his 'All
the winners. ' We think of palmists and spiritualists in the
police-courts as we read of Rutilianus and the Roman nobles consulting
the impostor Alexander.
Complete with exceptions specified in the preface
TRANSLATED BY
H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER
IN FOUR VOLUMES
What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren
domestic soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the
fewest are privileged to do. --_Sarlor Resartus_.
At each flaw, be this your first thought: the author doubtless said
something quite different, and much more to the point. And then you
may hiss _me_ off, if you will. --LUCIAN, _Nigrinus, 9_.
(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit. --
_Lord Macaulay_.
VOLUME I
PREFACE
The text followed in this translation is that of Jacobitz, Teubner,
1901, all deviations from which are noted.
In the following list of omissions, italics denote that the piece is
marked as spurious both by Dindorf and by Jacobitz. The other
omissions are mainly by way of expurgation. In a very few other
passages some isolated words and phrases have been excised; but it has
not been thought necessary to mark these in the texts by asterisks.
_Halcyon_; Deorum Dialogi, iv, v, ix, x, xvii, xxii, xxiii;
Dialogi Marini, xiii; Vera Historia, I. 22, II. 19; Alexander, 41,42;
Eunuchus; _De Astrologia_; _Amores_; _Lucius_ sive _Asinus_;
Rhetorum Preceptor, 23; _Hippias_; Adversus Indoctum, 23;
Pseudologista; _Longaevi_; Dialogi Meretricii, v, vi, x; De Syria
Dea; _Philopatris; Charidemus; Nero_; Tragodopodagra; Ocypus;
Epigrammata.
A word may be said about four pieces that seem to stand apart from the
rest. Of these, the _Trial in the Court of Vowels_ and _A Slip of the
Tongue_ will be interesting only to those who are familiar with Greek.
The _Lexiphanes_ and _A Purist Purized_, satirizing the pedants and
euphuists of Lucian's day, almost defy translation, and they must be
accepted at best as an effort to give the general effect of the
original.
The _Notes explanatory_ at the end of vol. iv will be used by the
reader at his discretion. Reference is made to them at the foot of the
page only when it is not obvious what name should be consulted.
The translators take this opportunity of offering their heartiest
thanks to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press for undertaking this
work; and, in particular, to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University,
Dr. Merry, who has been good enough to read the proofs, and to give
much valuable advice both on the difficult subject of excision and on
details of style and rendering. In this connexion, however, it should
be added that for the retention of many modern phrases, which may
offend some readers as anachronistic, responsibility rests with the
translators alone.
CONTENTS of VOL. 1
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
THE VISION
A LITERARY PROMETHEUS
NIGRINUS
TRIAL IN THE COURT OF VOWELS
TIMON THE MISANTHROPE
PROMETHEUS ON CAUCASUS
DIALOGUES OF THE GODS
i, ii, iii, vi, vii, viii, xi, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, xix,
xx, xxi, xxiv, xxv, xxvi.
DIALOGUES OF THE SEA-GODS
i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi, xii, xiv, xv.
DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI,
XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII,
XXVIII, XXIX, XXX.
MENIPPUS
CHARON
OF SACRIFICE
SALE OF CREEDS
THE FISHER
VOYAGE TO THE LOWER WORLD
INTRODUCTION
1. LIFE.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS.
3. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIME.
4. LUCIAN AS A WRITER.
It is not to be understood that all statements here made are either
ascertained facts or universally admitted conjectures. The
introduction is intended merely to put those who are not scholars, and
probably have not books of reference at hand, in a position to
approach the translation at as little disadvantage as may be.
Accordingly, we give the account that commends itself to us, without
discussion or reference to authorities. Those who would like a more
complete idea of Lucian should read Croiset's _Essai sur la vie et
les oeuvres de Lucien_, on which the first two sections of this
introduction are very largely based. The only objections to the book
(if they are objections) are that it is in French, and of 400 octavo
pages. It is eminently readable.
1. LIFE
With the exception of a very small number of statements, of which the
truth is by no means certain, all that we know of Lucian is derived
from his own writings. And any reader who prefers to have his facts at
first rather than at second hand can consequently get them by reading
certain of his pieces, and making the natural deductions from them.
Those that contain biographical matter are, in the order corresponding
to the periods of his life on which they throw light, _The Vision,
Demosthenes, Nigrinus, The Portrait-study_ and _Defence_ (in which
Lucian is _Lycinus_), _The Way to write History, The double ndictment_
(in which he is _The Syrian_), _The Fisher_ (_Parrhesiades_), _Swans
and Amber, Alexander_, Hermotimus_ (_Lycinus_), _Menippus and
Icaromenippus_ (in which _Menippus_ represents him), _A literary
Prometheus, Herodotus, Zeuxis, Harmonides, The Scythian_, The Death of
Peregrine, The Book-fancier, Demonax, The Rhetorician's Vade mecum,
Dionysus, Heracles, A Slip of the Tongue, Apology for 'The dependent
Scholar. '_ Of these _The Vision_ is a direct piece of autobiography;
there is intentional but veiled autobiography in several of the other
pieces; in others again conclusions can be drawn from comparison of
his statements with facts known from external sources.
Lucian lived from about 125 to about 200 A. D. , under the Roman
Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and
perhaps Pertinax. He was a Syrian, born at Samosata on the Euphrates,
of parents to whom it was of importance that he should earn his living
without spending much time or money on education. His maternal uncle
being a statuary, he was apprenticed to him, having shown an aptitude
for modelling in the wax that he surreptitiously scraped from his
school writing-tablets. The apprenticeship lasted one day. It is clear
that he was impulsive all through life; and when his uncle corrected
him with a stick for breaking a piece of marble, he ran off home,
disposed already to think he had had enough of statuary. His mother
took his part, and he made up his mind by the aid of a vision that
came to him the same night.
It was the age of the rhetoricians. If war was not a thing of the
past, the shadow of the _pax Romana_ was over all the small states,
and the aspiring provincial's readiest road to fame was through words
rather than deeds. The arrival of a famous rhetorician to lecture was
one of the important events in any great city's annals; and Lucian's
works are full of references to the impression these men produced, and
the envy they enjoyed. He himself was evidently consumed, during his
youth and early manhood, with desire for a position like theirs. To
him, sleeping with memories of the stick, appeared two women,
corresponding to _Virtue_ and _Pleasure_ in Prodicus's _Choice of
Heracles_--the working woman _Statuary_, and the lady _Culture_. They
advanced their claims to him in turn; but before _Culture_ had
completed her reply, the choice was made: he was to be a rhetorician.
From her reminding him that she was even now not all unknown to him,
we may perhaps assume that he spoke some sort of Greek, or was being
taught it; but he assures us that after leaving Syria he was still a
barbarian; we have also a casual mention of his offering a lock of his
hair to the Syrian goddess in his youth.
He was allowed to follow his bent and go to Ionia. Great Ionian cities
like Smyrna and Ephesus were full of admired sophists or teachers of
rhetoric. But it is unlikely that Lucian's means would have enabled
him to become the pupil of these. He probably acquired his skill to a
great extent by the laborious method, which he ironically deprecates
in _The Rhetorician's Vade mecum_, of studying exhaustively the old
Attic orators, poets, and historians.
He was at any rate successful. The different branches that a
rhetorician might choose between or combine were: (1) Speaking in
court on behalf of a client; (2) Writing speeches for a client to
deliver; (3) Teaching pupils; (4) Giving public displays of his skill.
There is a doubtful statement that Lucian failed in (1), and took to
(2) in default. His surviving rhetorical pieces (_The Tyrannicide,
The Disinherited, Phalaris_) are declamations on hypothetical cases
which might serve either for (3) or (4); and _The Hall, The Fly,
Dipsas_, and perhaps _Demosthenes_, suggest (4). A common form of
exhibition was for a sophist to appear before an audience and let
them propose subjects, of which he must choose one and deliver an
impromptu oration upon it.
Whatever his exact line was, he earned an income in Ionia, then in
Greece, had still greater success in Italy, and appears to have
settled for some time in Gaul, perhaps occupying a professorial chair
there. The intimate knowledge of Roman life in some aspects which
appears in _The dependent Scholar_ suggests that he also lived some
time in Rome. He seems to have known some Latin, since he could
converse with boatmen on the Po; but his only clear reference (A Slip
of the Tongue,) implies an imperfect knowledge of it; and there is not
a single mention in all his works, which are crammed with literary
allusions, of any Latin author. He claims to have been during his time
in Gaul one of the rhetoricians who could command high fees; and his
descriptions of himself as resigning his place close about his lady's
(i. e. Rhetoric's) person, and as casting off his wife Rhetoric because
she did not keep herself exclusively to him, show that he regarded
himself, or wished to be regarded, as having been at the head of his
profession.
This brings us to about the year 160 A. D. We may conceive Lucian now
to have had some of that yearning for home which he ascribes in the
_Patriotism_ even to the successful exile. He returned home, we
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing
the fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_. He may then have
lived at Antioch as a rhetorician for some years, of which we have a
memorial in _The Portrait-study_. Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius's
colleague, was at Antioch in 162 or 163 A. D. on his way to the
Parthian war, and _The Portrait-study_ is a panegyric on Verus's
mistress Panthea, whom Lucian saw there.
A year or two later we find him migrating to Athens, taking his father
with him, and at Athens he settled and remained many years. It was on
this journey that the incident occurred, which he relates with such a
curious absence of shame in the _Alexander_, of his biting that
charlatan's hand.
This change in his manner of life corresponds nearly with the change
in habit of mind and use of his powers that earned him his
immortality. His fortieth year is the date given by himself for his
abandonment of Rhetoric and, as he calls it, taking up with Dialogue,
or, as we might say, becoming a man of letters. Between Rhetoric and
Dialogue there was a feud, which had begun when Socrates five
centuries before had fought his battles with the sophists. Rhetoric
appeals to the emotions and obscures the issues (such had been
Socrates's position); the way to elicit truth is by short question and
answer. The Socratic method, illustrated by Plato, had become, if not
the only, the accredited instrument of philosophers, who, so far as
they are genuine, are truth-seekers; Rhetoric had been left to the
legal persons whose object is not truth but victory. Lucian's
abandonment of Rhetoric was accordingly in some sort his change from a
lawyer to a philosopher. As it turned out, however, philosophy was
itself only a transitional stage with him.
Already during his career as a rhetorician, which we may put at
145-164 A. D. , he seems both to have had leanings to philosophy, and to
have toyed with dialogue. There is reason to suppose that the
Nigrinus_, with its strong contrast between the noise and vulgarity of
Rome and the peace and culture of Athens, its enthusiastic picture of
the charm of philosophy for a sensitive and intelligent spirit, was
written in 150 A. D. , or at any rate described an incident that
occurred in that year; and the _Portrait-study_ and its _Defence_,
dialogues written with great care, whatever their other merits, belong
to 162 or 163 A. D. But these had been excursions out of his own
province. After settling at Athens he seems to have adopted the
writing of dialogues as his regular work. The _Toxaris_, a collection
of stories on friendship, strung together by dialogue, the
_Anacharsis_, a discussion on the value of physical training, and the
_Pantomime_, a description slightly relieved by the dialogue form, may
be regarded as experiments with his new instrument. There is no trace
in them of the characteristic use that he afterwards made of dialogue,
for the purposes of satire.
That was an idea that we may suppose to have occurred to him after the
composition of the _Hermotimus_. This is in form the most philosophic
of his dialogues; it might indeed be a dialogue of Plato, of the
merely destructive kind; but it is at the same time, in matter, his
farewell to philosophy, establishing that the pursuit of it is
hopeless for mortal man. From this time onward, though he always
professes himself a lover of true philosophy, he concerns himself no
more with it, except to expose its false professors. The dialogue that
perhaps comes next, _The Parasite_, is still Platonic in form, but
only as a parody; its main interest (for a modern reader is outraged,
as in a few other pieces of Lucian's, by the disproportion between
subject and treatment) is in the combination for the first time of
satire with dialogue.
One more step remained to be taken. In the piece called _A literary
Prometheus_, we are told what Lucian himself regarded as his claim
to the title of an original writer. It was the fusing of Comedy and
Dialogue--the latter being the prose conversation hat had hitherto
been confined to philosophical discussion. The new literary form,
then, was conversation, frankly for purposes of entertainment, as in
Comedy, but to be read and not acted. In this kind of writing he
remains, though he has been often imitated, first in merit as clearly
as in time; and nearly all his great masterpieces took this form. They
followed in rapid succession, being all written, perhaps, between 165
and 175 A. D. And we make here no further comment upon them, except to
remark that they fall roughly into three groups as he drew inspiration
successively from the writers of the New Comedy (or Comedy of ordinary
life) like Menander, from the satires of Menippus, and from writers of
the Old Comedy (or Comedy of fantastic imagination) like Aristophanes.
The best specimens of the first group are _The Liar_ and the
_Dialogues of the Hetaerae;_ of the second, the _Dialogues of the
Dead_ and _of the Gods, Menippus_ and _Icaromenippus, Zeus
cross-examined;_ of the third, _Timon, Charon, A Voyage to the lower
World, The Sale of Creeds, The Fisher, Zeus Tragoedus, The Cock, The
double Indictment, The Ship_.
During these ten or more years, though he lived at Athens, he is to be
imagined travelling occasionally, to read his dialogues to audiences
in various cities, or to see the Olympic Games. And these excursions
gave occasion to some works not of the dialogue kind; the _Zeuxis_ and
several similar pieces are introductions to series of readings away
from Athens; The _Way to write History_, a piece of literary criticism
still very readable, if out of date for practical purposes, resulted
from a visit to Ionia, where all the literary men were producing
histories of the Parthian war, then in progress (165 A. D. ). An
attendance at the Olympic Games of 169 A. D. suggested _The Death of
Peregrine_, which in its turn, through the offence given to Cynics,
had to be supplemented by the dialogue of _The Runaways. The True
History_, most famous, but, admirable as it is, far from best of his
works, presumably belongs to this period also, but cannot be
definitely placed. The _Book-fancier_ and _The Rhetorician's Vade
mecum_ are unpleasant records of bitter personal quarrels.
After some ten years of this intense literary activity, producing,
reading, and publishing, Lucian seems to have given up both the
writing of dialogues and the presenting of them to audiences, and to
have lived quietly for many years. The only pieces that belong here
are the _Life of Demonax_, the man whom he held the best of all
philosophers, and with whom he had been long intimate at Athens, and
that of Alexander, the Asiatic charlatan, who was the prince of
impostors as Demonax of philosophers. When quite old, Lucian was
appointed by the Emperor Commodus to a well-paid legal post in Egypt.
We also learn, from the new introductory lectures called _Dionysus_
and _Heracles_, that he resumed the practice of reading his dialogues;
but he wrote nothing more of importance. It is stated in Suidas that
he was torn to pieces by dogs; but, as other statements in the article
are discredited, it is supposed that this is the Christian revenge for
Lucian's imaginary hostility to Christianity. We have it from himself
that he suffered from gout in his old age. He solaced himself
characteristically by writing a play on the subject; but whether the
goddess Gout, who gave it its name, was appeased by it, or carried him
off, we cannot tell.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS
The received order in which Lucian's works stand is admitted to be
entirely haphazard. The following arrangement in groups is roughly
chronological, though it is quite possible that they overlap each
other. It is M. Croiset's, put into tabular form. Many details in it
are open to question; but to read in this order would at least be more
satisfactory to any one who wishes to study Lucian seriously than to
take the pieces as they come. The table will also serve as a rough
guide to the first-class and the inferior pieces. The names italicized
are those of pieces rejected as spurious by M. Croiset, and therefore
not placed by him; we have inserted them where they seem to belong; as
to their genuineness, it is our opinion that the objections made (not
by M. Croiset, who does not discuss authenticity) to the _Demosthenes_
and _The Cynic_ at least are, in view of the merits of these,
unconvincing.
(i) About 145 to 160 A. D. Lucian a rhetorician in Ionia, Greece,
Italy, and Gaul.
The Tyrannicide, a rhetorical exercise.
The Disinherited.
Phalaris I & II.
_Demosthenes_, a panegyric.
Patriotism, an essay.
The Fly, an essay.
Swans and Amber, an introductory lecture.
Dipsas, an introductory lecture.
The Hall, an introductory lecture.
Nigrinus, a dialogue on philosophy, 150 A. D.
(ii) About 160 to 164 A. D. After Lucian's return to Asia.
The Portrait-study, a panegyric in dialogue, 162 A. D.
Defence of The Portrait-study, in dialogue.
A Trial in the Court of Vowels, a _jeu d'esprit_.
Hesiod, a short dialogue.
The Vision, an autobiographical address.
(iii) About 165 A. D. At Athens.
Pantomime, art criticism in dialogue.
Anacharsis, a dialogue on physical training.
Toxaris, stories of friendship in dialogue.
Slander, a moral essay.
The Way to write History, an essay in literary criticism.
The next eight groups, iv-xi, belong to the years from about 165 A. D.
to about 175 A. D. , when Lucian was at his best and busiest; iv-ix are
to be regarded roughly as succeeding each other in time; x and xi
being independent in this respect. Pieces are assigned to groups
mainly according to their subjects; but some are placed in groups that
do not seem at first sight the most appropriate, owing to specialties
in their treatment; e. g. _The Ship_ might seem more in place with vii
than with ix; but M. Croiset finds in it a maturity that induces him
to put it later.
(iv) About 165 A. D.
Hermotimus, a philosophic dialogue.
The Parasite, a parody of a philosophic dialogue.
(v) Influence of the New Comedy writers.
The Liar, a dialogue satirizing superstition.
A Feast of Lapithae, a dialogue satirizing the manners of
philosophers.
Dialogues of the Hetaerae, a series of short dialogues.
(vi) Influence of the Menippean satire.
Dialogues of the Dead, a series of short dialogues.
He returned home, we
suppose, a distinguished man at thirty-five, and enjoyed impressing
the fact on his fellow citizens in _The Vision_. He may then have
lived at Antioch as a rhetorician for some years, of which we have a
memorial in _The Portrait-study_. Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius's
colleague, was at Antioch in 162 or 163 A. D. on his way to the
Parthian war, and _The Portrait-study_ is a panegyric on Verus's
mistress Panthea, whom Lucian saw there.
A year or two later we find him migrating to Athens, taking his father
with him, and at Athens he settled and remained many years. It was on
this journey that the incident occurred, which he relates with such a
curious absence of shame in the _Alexander_, of his biting that
charlatan's hand.
This change in his manner of life corresponds nearly with the change
in habit of mind and use of his powers that earned him his
immortality. His fortieth year is the date given by himself for his
abandonment of Rhetoric and, as he calls it, taking up with Dialogue,
or, as we might say, becoming a man of letters. Between Rhetoric and
Dialogue there was a feud, which had begun when Socrates five
centuries before had fought his battles with the sophists. Rhetoric
appeals to the emotions and obscures the issues (such had been
Socrates's position); the way to elicit truth is by short question and
answer. The Socratic method, illustrated by Plato, had become, if not
the only, the accredited instrument of philosophers, who, so far as
they are genuine, are truth-seekers; Rhetoric had been left to the
legal persons whose object is not truth but victory. Lucian's
abandonment of Rhetoric was accordingly in some sort his change from a
lawyer to a philosopher. As it turned out, however, philosophy was
itself only a transitional stage with him.
Already during his career as a rhetorician, which we may put at
145-164 A. D. , he seems both to have had leanings to philosophy, and to
have toyed with dialogue. There is reason to suppose that the
Nigrinus_, with its strong contrast between the noise and vulgarity of
Rome and the peace and culture of Athens, its enthusiastic picture of
the charm of philosophy for a sensitive and intelligent spirit, was
written in 150 A. D. , or at any rate described an incident that
occurred in that year; and the _Portrait-study_ and its _Defence_,
dialogues written with great care, whatever their other merits, belong
to 162 or 163 A. D. But these had been excursions out of his own
province. After settling at Athens he seems to have adopted the
writing of dialogues as his regular work. The _Toxaris_, a collection
of stories on friendship, strung together by dialogue, the
_Anacharsis_, a discussion on the value of physical training, and the
_Pantomime_, a description slightly relieved by the dialogue form, may
be regarded as experiments with his new instrument. There is no trace
in them of the characteristic use that he afterwards made of dialogue,
for the purposes of satire.
That was an idea that we may suppose to have occurred to him after the
composition of the _Hermotimus_. This is in form the most philosophic
of his dialogues; it might indeed be a dialogue of Plato, of the
merely destructive kind; but it is at the same time, in matter, his
farewell to philosophy, establishing that the pursuit of it is
hopeless for mortal man. From this time onward, though he always
professes himself a lover of true philosophy, he concerns himself no
more with it, except to expose its false professors. The dialogue that
perhaps comes next, _The Parasite_, is still Platonic in form, but
only as a parody; its main interest (for a modern reader is outraged,
as in a few other pieces of Lucian's, by the disproportion between
subject and treatment) is in the combination for the first time of
satire with dialogue.
One more step remained to be taken. In the piece called _A literary
Prometheus_, we are told what Lucian himself regarded as his claim
to the title of an original writer. It was the fusing of Comedy and
Dialogue--the latter being the prose conversation hat had hitherto
been confined to philosophical discussion. The new literary form,
then, was conversation, frankly for purposes of entertainment, as in
Comedy, but to be read and not acted. In this kind of writing he
remains, though he has been often imitated, first in merit as clearly
as in time; and nearly all his great masterpieces took this form. They
followed in rapid succession, being all written, perhaps, between 165
and 175 A. D. And we make here no further comment upon them, except to
remark that they fall roughly into three groups as he drew inspiration
successively from the writers of the New Comedy (or Comedy of ordinary
life) like Menander, from the satires of Menippus, and from writers of
the Old Comedy (or Comedy of fantastic imagination) like Aristophanes.
The best specimens of the first group are _The Liar_ and the
_Dialogues of the Hetaerae;_ of the second, the _Dialogues of the
Dead_ and _of the Gods, Menippus_ and _Icaromenippus, Zeus
cross-examined;_ of the third, _Timon, Charon, A Voyage to the lower
World, The Sale of Creeds, The Fisher, Zeus Tragoedus, The Cock, The
double Indictment, The Ship_.
During these ten or more years, though he lived at Athens, he is to be
imagined travelling occasionally, to read his dialogues to audiences
in various cities, or to see the Olympic Games. And these excursions
gave occasion to some works not of the dialogue kind; the _Zeuxis_ and
several similar pieces are introductions to series of readings away
from Athens; The _Way to write History_, a piece of literary criticism
still very readable, if out of date for practical purposes, resulted
from a visit to Ionia, where all the literary men were producing
histories of the Parthian war, then in progress (165 A. D. ). An
attendance at the Olympic Games of 169 A. D. suggested _The Death of
Peregrine_, which in its turn, through the offence given to Cynics,
had to be supplemented by the dialogue of _The Runaways. The True
History_, most famous, but, admirable as it is, far from best of his
works, presumably belongs to this period also, but cannot be
definitely placed. The _Book-fancier_ and _The Rhetorician's Vade
mecum_ are unpleasant records of bitter personal quarrels.
After some ten years of this intense literary activity, producing,
reading, and publishing, Lucian seems to have given up both the
writing of dialogues and the presenting of them to audiences, and to
have lived quietly for many years. The only pieces that belong here
are the _Life of Demonax_, the man whom he held the best of all
philosophers, and with whom he had been long intimate at Athens, and
that of Alexander, the Asiatic charlatan, who was the prince of
impostors as Demonax of philosophers. When quite old, Lucian was
appointed by the Emperor Commodus to a well-paid legal post in Egypt.
We also learn, from the new introductory lectures called _Dionysus_
and _Heracles_, that he resumed the practice of reading his dialogues;
but he wrote nothing more of importance. It is stated in Suidas that
he was torn to pieces by dogs; but, as other statements in the article
are discredited, it is supposed that this is the Christian revenge for
Lucian's imaginary hostility to Christianity. We have it from himself
that he suffered from gout in his old age. He solaced himself
characteristically by writing a play on the subject; but whether the
goddess Gout, who gave it its name, was appeased by it, or carried him
off, we cannot tell.
2. PROBABLE ORDER OF WRITINGS
The received order in which Lucian's works stand is admitted to be
entirely haphazard. The following arrangement in groups is roughly
chronological, though it is quite possible that they overlap each
other. It is M. Croiset's, put into tabular form. Many details in it
are open to question; but to read in this order would at least be more
satisfactory to any one who wishes to study Lucian seriously than to
take the pieces as they come. The table will also serve as a rough
guide to the first-class and the inferior pieces. The names italicized
are those of pieces rejected as spurious by M. Croiset, and therefore
not placed by him; we have inserted them where they seem to belong; as
to their genuineness, it is our opinion that the objections made (not
by M. Croiset, who does not discuss authenticity) to the _Demosthenes_
and _The Cynic_ at least are, in view of the merits of these,
unconvincing.
(i) About 145 to 160 A. D. Lucian a rhetorician in Ionia, Greece,
Italy, and Gaul.
The Tyrannicide, a rhetorical exercise.
The Disinherited.
Phalaris I & II.
_Demosthenes_, a panegyric.
Patriotism, an essay.
The Fly, an essay.
Swans and Amber, an introductory lecture.
Dipsas, an introductory lecture.
The Hall, an introductory lecture.
Nigrinus, a dialogue on philosophy, 150 A. D.
(ii) About 160 to 164 A. D. After Lucian's return to Asia.
The Portrait-study, a panegyric in dialogue, 162 A. D.
Defence of The Portrait-study, in dialogue.
A Trial in the Court of Vowels, a _jeu d'esprit_.
Hesiod, a short dialogue.
The Vision, an autobiographical address.
(iii) About 165 A. D. At Athens.
Pantomime, art criticism in dialogue.
Anacharsis, a dialogue on physical training.
Toxaris, stories of friendship in dialogue.
Slander, a moral essay.
The Way to write History, an essay in literary criticism.
The next eight groups, iv-xi, belong to the years from about 165 A. D.
to about 175 A. D. , when Lucian was at his best and busiest; iv-ix are
to be regarded roughly as succeeding each other in time; x and xi
being independent in this respect. Pieces are assigned to groups
mainly according to their subjects; but some are placed in groups that
do not seem at first sight the most appropriate, owing to specialties
in their treatment; e. g. _The Ship_ might seem more in place with vii
than with ix; but M. Croiset finds in it a maturity that induces him
to put it later.
(iv) About 165 A. D.
Hermotimus, a philosophic dialogue.
The Parasite, a parody of a philosophic dialogue.
(v) Influence of the New Comedy writers.
The Liar, a dialogue satirizing superstition.
A Feast of Lapithae, a dialogue satirizing the manners of
philosophers.
Dialogues of the Hetaerae, a series of short dialogues.
(vi) Influence of the Menippean satire.
Dialogues of the Dead, a series of short dialogues.
Dialogues of the Gods, a series of short dialogues.
Dialogues of the Sea-Gods, a series of short dialogues.
Menippus, a dialogue satirizing philosophy.
Icaromenippus, a dialogue satirizing philosophy and religion.
Zeus cross-examined, a dialogue satirizing religion.
_The Cynic_, a dialogue against luxury.
_Of Sacrifice_, an essay satirizing religion.
Saturnalia, dialogue and letters on the relation of rich and poor.
The True History, a parody of the old Greek historians,
(vii) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: vanity of human wishes.
A Voyage to the Lower World, a dialogue on the vanity of power.
Charon, a dialogue on the vanity of all things.
Timon, a dialogue on the vanity of riches.
The Cock, a dialogue on the vanity of riches and power,
(viii) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: dialogues satirizing
religion.
Prometheus on Caucasus.
Zeus Tragoedus.
The Gods in Council.
(ix) Influence of the Old Comedy writers: satire on philosophers.
The Ship, a dialogue on foolish aspirations.
The Life of Peregrine, a narrative satirizing the Cynics, 169 A. D.
The Runaways, a dialogue satirizing the Cynics.
The double Indictment, an autobiographic dialogue.
The Sale of Creeds, a dialogue satirizing philosophers.
The Fisher, an autobiographic dialogue satirizing philosophers.
(x) 165-175 A. D. Introductory lectures.
Herodotus.
Zeuxis.
Harmonides.
The Scythian.
A literary Prometheus.
(xi) 165-175 A. D. Scattered pieces standing apart from the great
dialogue series, but written during the same period.
The Book-fancier, an invective. About 170 A. D.
_The Purist purized_, a literary satire in dialogue.
Lexiphanes, a literary satire in dialogue.
The Rhetorician's Vade-mecum, a personal satire. About 178 A. D.
(xii) After 180 A. D.
Demonax, a biography.
Alexander, a satirical biography,
(xiii) In old age.
Mourning, an essay.
Dionysus, an introductory lecture.
Heracles, an introductory lecture.
Apology for 'The dependent Scholar. '
A Slip of the Tongue.
In conclusion, we have to say that this arrangement of M. Croiset's,
which we have merely tabulated without intentionally departing from it
in any particular, seems to us well considered in its broad lines;
there are a few modifications which we should have been disposed to
make in it; but we thought it better to take it entire than to
exercise our own judgment in a matter where we felt very little
confidence.
3. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TIME
M. Aurelius has for us moderns this great superiority in interest over
Saint Louis or Alfred, that he lived and acted in a state of society
modern by its essential characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own,
in a brilliant centre of civilization. Trajan talks of "our
enlightened age" just as glibly as _The Times_ talks of it. ' M.
Arnold, _Essays in Criticism, M. Aurelius_.
The age of M. Aurelius is also the age of Lucian, and with any man of
that age who has, like these two, left us a still legible message we
can enter into quite different relations from those which are possible
with what M. Arnold calls in the same essay 'classical-dictionary
heroes. ' A twentieth-century Englishman, a second-century Greek or
Roman, would be much more at home in each other's century, if they had
the gift of tongues, than in most of those which have intervened. It
is neither necessary nor possible to go deeply into the resemblance
here [Footnote: Some words of Sir Leslie Stephen's may be given,
however, describing the welter of religious opinions that prevailed at
both epochs: 'The analogy between the present age and that which
witnessed the introduction of Christianity is too striking to have
been missed by very many observers. The most superficial acquaintance
with the general facts shows how close a parallel might be drawn by a
competent historian. There are none of the striking manifestations of
the present day to which it would not be easy to produce an analogy,
though in some respects on a smaller scale. Now, as then, we can find
mystical philosophers trying to evolve a satisfactory creed by some
process of logical legerdemain out of theosophical moonshine; and
amiable and intelligent persons labouring hard to prove that the old
mythology could be forced to accept a rationalistic interpretation--
whether in regard to the inspection of entrails or prayers for fine
weather; and philosophers framing systems of morality entirely apart
from the ancient creeds, and sufficiently satisfactory to themselves,
while hopelessly incapable of impressing the popular mind; and
politicians, conscious that the basis of social order was being sapped
by the decay of the faith in which it had arisen, and therefore
attempting the impossible task of galvanizing dead creeds into a
semblance of vitality; and strange superstitions creeping out of their
lurking-places, and gaining influence in a luxurious society whose
intelligence was an ineffectual safeguard against the most grovelling
errors; and a dogged adherence of formalists and conservatives to
ancient ways, and much empty profession of barren orthodoxy; and,
beneath all, a vague disquiet, a breaking up of ancient social and
natural bonds, and a blind groping toward some more cosmopolitan creed
and some deeper satisfaction for the emotional needs of mankind. '--
_The Religion of all Sensible Men_ in _An Agnostic's Apology_, 1893. ];
all that need be done is to pass in review those points of it, some
important, and some trifling, which are sure to occur in a detached
way to readers of Lucian.
The Graeco-Roman world was as settled and peaceful, as conscious of
its imperial responsibilities, as susceptible to boredom, as greedy of
amusement, could show as numerous a leisured class, and believed as
firmly in money, as our own. What is more important for our purpose,
it was questioning the truth of its religion as we are to-day
questioning the truth of ours. Lucian was the most vehement of the
questioners. Of what played the part then that the Christian religion
plays now, the pagan religion was only one half; the other half was
philosophy. The gods of Olympus had long lost their hold upon the
educated, but not perhaps upon the masses; the educated, ill content
to be without any guide through the maze of life, had taken to
philosophy instead. Stoicism was the prevalent creed, and how noble a
form this could take in a cultivated and virtuous mind is to be seen
in the _Thoughts_ of M. Aurelius. The test of a religion, however, is
not what form it takes in a virtuous mind, but what effects it
produces on those of another sort. Lucian applies the test of results
alike to the religion usually so called, and to its philosophic
substitute. He finds both wanting; the test is not a satisfactory one,
but it is being applied by all sorts and conditions of men to
Christianity in our own time; so is the second test, that of inherent
probability, which he uses as well as the other upon the pagan
theology; and it is this that gives his writings, even apart from
their wit and fancy, a special interest for our own time. Our
attention seems to be concentrated more and more on the ethical, as
opposed to the speculative or dogmatic aspect of religion; just such
was Lucian's attitude towards philosophy.
Some minor points of similarity may be briefly noted. As we read the
_Anacharsis_, we are reminded of the modern prominence of athletics;
the question of football _versus_ drill is settled for us; light is
thrown upon the question of conscription; we think of our Commissions
on national deterioration, and the schoolmaster's wail over the
athletic _Frankenstein's_ monster which, like _Eucrates_ in _The
Liar_, he has created but cannot control. The 'horsy talk in every
street' of the _Nigrinus_ calls up the London newsboy with his 'All
the winners. ' We think of palmists and spiritualists in the
police-courts as we read of Rutilianus and the Roman nobles consulting
the impostor Alexander.
