Since the
barbarian
war began, says Lucian, everyone is writing history.
Elizabeth Haight - Essays on Greek Romances
As he became
famous, he grew indifferent to her, for he was enamored of a bearded
man, Dialogue, said to be the son of Philosophy. Now he no longer makes
speeches, but has a strange way of using short questions. She sues him
for desertion. The Syrian replies that all her facts are true, but there
are others; she lost her modesty, made up like a courtesan, flirted
indiscriminately with many lovers. So he separated from her and went to
live with a respectable gentleman, Dialogue. The Syrian won the case.
Next Dialogue pleaded. His dignity, his cosmic thoughts, his tragic mask
have all been stolen from him. He has been forced to associate with
Jest, Satire, Cynicism, Eupolis and Aristophanes, “terrible men for
mocking at all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right,” finally
too even with Menippus. He has been transformed into a monster not
homogeneous but Centaur-like. The Syrian in reply showed the benefits
which he had bestowed on Dialogue: he taught him to walk like a man, to
clean up, to smile, to be yoked with Comedy. Dialogue resents that the
Syrian will not indulge in endless arguments on subtle themes. The
Syrian declares that he has not taken off Dialogue’s Greek cloak and put
him into barbarian garb: Dialogue is still dressed in his native Greek
costume. The Syrian was unanimously acquitted much to the delight of the
audience. This mock-trial picturesquely portrays Lucian’s change from
writing the philosophical dialogues in the style of Plato to the satiric
dialogue, influenced successively by New Attic Comedy, Menippus and Old
Attic Comedy. [298] Lucian here is writing an Apology for the new style
of satire-dialogue which he created.
With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes
now Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues
is _The Professor of Oratory_, _Nigrinus_, _Philosophies for Sale_, _The
Fisherman_.
In _The Professor of Oratory_ ironic advice is given to a young man on
how to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to
success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on
the top of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither
two roads lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an
easy slope amid flowers and fountains. Two guides will present
themselves to you. One, vigorous and manly, will point out to you the
hard way in the footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how
severe the training must be for their followers. He will wish, the
simpleton, to make you model yourself on the past.
The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed,
with an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can
become such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance,
boldness, shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and
always carry a book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a
few stock words, a few learned references for ornaments of your
discourse. He will teach you a high singsong chant and the art of always
beginning with stories from the Iliad.
Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your
audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must
live fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a
deuce of a fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will
be fitted to be the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the
winged chariot of which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out
of your way, for he was defeated when once you chose the primrose path.
This picture of _The Perfect Rhetorician_ has been thought by some
critics to be a personal satire of the contemporary lexicographer
Pollux. However that may be, it is certainly a satire of any
pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on cheap externalities
and superficial training.
At another time Lucian was to satirize pseudo-philosophers as he had
rhetoricians, but once, perhaps in the beginning of revolt against
rhetoric, he chose to picture a noble type in the dialogue on Nigrinus,
a philosopher unknown except through Lucian. His great tribute to
Nigrinus may be set as a companion piece to the mocking praise of _The
Perfect Rhetorician_. The dialogue is prefaced by an introductory letter
in which Lucian tells Nigrinus that he is not carrying owls to Athens in
offering him this book as if to display his use of words, but he is
sending it in thanks for Nigrinus’ words. In the dialogue itself one man
relates to another how by talking with Nigrinus he was made free instead
of a slave, poor instead of rich. For Nigrinus praised philosophy and
the freedom it gives and ridiculed what men in general exalt: wealth,
fame, power, honor. Nigrinus praised Athens because there Poverty and
Philosophy are foster-brothers; there life is free, noble, harmonious.
Rome is the city for those who love wealth and luxury, wine and women.
The Romans have given themselves over to the pleasures of the senses and
have every means of gratifying them. So Nigrinus in Rome leads a life of
retirement, conversing with Philosophy and with Plato, reflecting on the
ridiculous rich, the parasites, the pseudo-philosophers, the
will-hunters, the gourmands, the frequenters of the circus and the
baths. No wonder men come to him for healing.
The tribute to Platonism here, the tribute to Epicurus in _Alexander the
False Prophet_,[299] might tempt readers to affiliate Lucian with one or
the other of these philosophical schools. But as if to forestall being
labelled, in the spirit of Horace’s famous line
nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri,[300]
Lucian turns his satire on all the leading creeds of the time in his
_Philosophies for Sale_.
Zeus orders an auction of philosophies. Hermes acts as crier and
auctioneer. The buyer questions each person who is put up for sale on
his knowledge, on his creed, on his use. A Pythagorean is put up first
by Hermes who asks: “Who wishes to know about the harmony of the world
and re-birth? ” The Pythagorean attempts to expound to the buyer the
catharsis of the spirit, the need of music and of geometry, the flux of
the cosmos, the divinity in numbers, the transmigration of souls. An
Italian bought him for a brotherhood in Magna Graecia for ten minas.
A Cynic is next displayed, dirty, morose, ready to bark at everyone. He
declares that Hercules is his model and that like Hercules he is a
militant reformer, working to clear the world of filth. He declares that
he will teach his purchaser to discard luxury, to endure hardship, to
drink only water, to throw his money into the sea, to reject all family
ties, to live in a tomb or a jar. So he will feel no pain even when
flogged and will be happier than the Great King. He will be bold,
abusive, savage, shameless. For such a life no education is necessary.
The Cynic is sold for two obols.
The third called is the Cyrenaic, who appears clad in purple and crowned
with a wreath. Hermes announces that his philosophy is the sweetest,
indeed thrice blessed. As the Cyrenaic is too drunk to answer questions,
Hermes describes his virtues: he is pleasant to live with, congenial to
drink with, a companion for amours, and an excellent chef! There was no
bid for him!
Next two are put up together, the one who laughs and the one who cries.
The first explains his laughter on the ground that all men and all their
affairs are ridiculous; all things are folly, a mere drift of atoms. The
weeper pities men because their lives are foreordained and in them
nothing is stable; men themselves are mere pawns in the game of eternity
and the gods are only immortal men. No one bids for the pair.
An Academic next advertises his wares as a teacher of the art of love,
but claims that this love is of the soul, not of the body. He affirms
that he lives in a city fashioned by himself, where wives are held in
common, fair boys are prizes for valor, and realities are ideas, visible
only to the wise. He was bought for two talents.
A pupil of the laugher and the drunkard is now offered for sale, namely
Epicurus. The mere description of him as more irreverent than his
teachers, charming, fond of good eating, sells him for two minas.
The sad philosopher of the Porch is now announced by Hermes who
proclaims that he is selling virtue itself and that the Stoic is “the
only wise man, the only handsome man, the only just man, brave man,
king, orator, rich man, lawgiver, and everything else that there
is. ”[301] His talk about himself is full of hair-splitting dialectics
and subtle explanations of why man must devote himself “to the chief
natural goods . . . wealth, health, and the like”[301] and go through much
toil for much learning. In spite of all this he is bought for twenty
minas.
The Peripatetic is also sold for twenty minas because he knows
everything but the Sceptic brings in only one mina because he knows
nothing! The auction ends with the announcement by Hermes of another
sale the next day of plain men, workmen, tradesmen.
Inevitably this ironic treatment of the great philosophies of Greece
produced a storm of criticism. This was answered by Lucian in an apology
of sorts under the title _The Resurrected or The Fisherman_. In it the
satirist under the pseudonym of Frankness faces his accusers. For up
from the dead, led by a militant Socrates, come to Athens Empedocles,
Plato, Aristotle and other phantoms to execute worthy dooms on the worst
of maligners. Frankness by rhetoric and argument averts stoning or
crucifixion and secures a fair trial, presided over by Philosophy, who
is attended by Truth, Investigation and Virtue. After Diogenes makes the
speech for the prosecution, Frankness replies in defense of himself—and
Lucian! He wins a unanimous verdict for acquittal by his claim that he
auctioned off, not the great philosophers who now prosecute him, but
base impostors who imitate them. Syllogism now acts as herald and calls
from Athens to court all the philosophers to defend themselves.
Frankness by promising largess secures a crowd of them, Platonists,
Stoics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Academics. When Philosophy announces
that they are to be tried as impostors by herself, Virtue and Truth,
they all disappear in wild rout. To get them back, Frankness now becomes
a fisherman and, with bait of gold, hooks and hauls back the craven
cheats. The head of each school disowns his imitators and the discarded
are thrown down over the cliffs. Finally Philosophy dismisses the court
with an injunction to Frankness to keep investigating philosophers in
order to crown the true and brand the false.
The genial tone of _Philosophies for Sale_ has entirely vanished in the
essay on _The End of Peregrinus_. The influence of New Comedy and of
Menippus with their ironic raillery is superseded by Aristophanic
denunciation. Bitter mockery, cruel derision are loosed upon one creed,
the Cynic. Lucian directs his vituperation against the Cynic philosopher
Peregrinus, whose career had been meteoric. In his early life he was
converted to Christianity, and even went to prison for his faith. Later,
beliefs of India so possessed him that he immolated himself at Olympia
just after the Olympic games of A. D. 165. Such self-sacrifice by
cremation had been consummated at Susa by Calanus before Alexander the
Great and by Zarmarus after initiation into the mysteries at Athens in
the presence of Augustus.
Lucian saw only one possible interpretation of Peregrinus’
self-sacrifice, desire for notoriety, but there have been many critics
of this motivation as Harmon points out:[302]
“Lucian believes himself to be exposing a sham, whose zeal was not at
all for truth but only for applause and renown. Many notable modern
critics, including Zeller, Bernays, Croiset, and Wilamowitz, dissent
from his interpretation, discerning in the man an earnest seeker after
truth; for to them thirst for glory is not an adequate explanation of
his final act. ”
The piece is written as a letter to Cronius who is marked as a Platonist
by the formula of greeting εὖ πράττειν. Lucian begins with the fact of
Peregrinus’ self-imposed death and at once ascribes to him the motive of
love of notoriety. This, he says, is proved by the fact that Peregrinus
selected for the time of his suicide the Olympic festival, which draws
great crowds. Lucian knows that Cronius will have a good laugh at the
foolishness of the old man so he will write his friend just what he
himself saw as he stood near the pyre.
His method is clever. First Theagenes a Cynic proclaimed in the streets
of Elis the glory of virtue and the glory of her follower Proteus
(Peregrinus) and announced that Proteus was about to leave this life by
fire in the manner of Hercules, Aesculapius, Dionysus and Empedocles.
Theagenes’ justification of the deed went unheard because of the noise
of the crowd, but another orator (clearly Lucian) stepped forth and made
a speech reviewing Peregrinus’ career. Beginning with Democritean
laughter he narrated the life of Proteus accusing him of adultery as a
youth in Armenia, of corrupting a boy in Asia, of strangling his own
father, of becoming a Christian in Palestine, of resigning all his
property in Parium on the Hellespont, of practicing the ascetic life in
Egypt, of seeking notoriety in Greece by denouncing Herodes Atticus for
his aqueduct at Olympia and later recanting. Finally, says Lucian, this
Proteus has announced his intention of cremating himself. The motive is
love of fame though he claims that he wishes thus to teach men to
despise death and endure torture. He plainly hopes that myths and a cult
will arise around his memory. Indeed Theagenes has quoted a prophecy to
that effect, but Lucian can match that oracle with another which orders
all the Cynic’s disciples to imitate him even to the last leap into the
flames.
After these speeches, Lucian was on hand when the pyre was kindled at
Harpina near Olympia shortly after midnight. As an eye-witness he saw
the pyre in a pit six feet deep, Peregrinus in the dress of a Cynic
bearing a torch, men lighting the fire, how then Peregrinus stripped to
his old shirt and after crying: “Spirits of my mother and my father,
receive me with goodwill,” leaped into the flames to be seen no more.
Even when the other Cynics stood about the pyre in silent grief, Lucian
felt no sympathy, but taunted them brutally, and actually got into a
broil with them before he departed to meditate on how strange the love
of fame is. Lucian had to tell the story of Peregrinus’ death over and
over until to amuse himself, he invented a vulture that he saw flying
from the flames to heaven, crying: “I have left the earth, I am going to
Olympus. ” And this invention of his became part of the growing myth
about the hero.
“So ended (wrote Lucian) that poor wretch Proteus, a man who (to put
it briefly) never fixed his gaze on the verities, but always did and
said everything with a view to glory and the praise of the multitude,
even to the extent of leaping into fire, when he was sure not to enjoy
the praise because he could not hear it. ”[303]
Lucian concludes with anecdotes about Peregrinus sea-sick, in a fever,
having eye-trouble and trying to cure fever and correct vision as though
Aeacus in the lower world would care about either ailment. He was simply
furnishing Democritus with more cause for laughter. This heartless
ridicule of the Cynic’s action takes no account of the psychology of
fanaticism or the hysteria of martyrdom. Croiset points out that
Lucian’s insensitivity to all mysticism must be viewed with the
knowledge that the satirist believed Peregrinus was a sham and that he
was unveiling an impostor. Lucian’s consistent worship of veracity and
frankness then explain his derisive attitude towards the apotheosis of a
pretender. [304]
The savagery used in exposing a false philosopher was turned by Lucian
upon a religious fraud, Alexander of Abonoteichus. The piece is a letter
to a friend, Celsus, written after A. D. 180, ten years after Alexander’s
death. Lucian’s account gives almost all we know of this Alexander
although his existence and influence are attested by gems, coins and
inscriptions. The letter, however, as Croiset points out, contains more
satire than history, for it does not attempt to distinguish scrupulously
between the false and the true; rather it presents in lively anecdotes
and personal reminiscences a satiric portrait of an historical
prophet. [305] Cumont has commented on the unique features of
Abonoteichus’ version of the worship of Aesculapius: the giving a
serpent a human head and calling it the god incarnate; the issuing of
oracles and advice instead of using incubation or dealing particularly
with healing. [306]
Lucian exposes all Alexander’s shams and corruptions. He describes his
handsome appearance and education, his cleverness in purchasing a tame
serpent and in selecting the site of Abonoteichus for his oracle. He
describes the installation of the serpent, the invention of the human
head for it, the exhibition of it, the methods of giving oracles, the
prices, the publicity, the “autophones,” cunningly contrived to issue
from the serpent’s mouth, the spread of his fame even to Italy. Lucian
pictures too the perils that menaced any critics of the oracle, the
burning of the sayings of Epicurus, the personal danger to himself.
Lucian was advised by the governor of Bithynia and Pontus not to
prosecute Alexander for his attempted murder so after the prophet’s
death he wrote this account to honor Epicurus and to present the truth
to thinking minds. Personal revenge then as well as horror at religious
fraud motivated this biography. Lucian, who derided Epicureans in
_Philosophies for Sale_, chooses now to revere their founder!
One of Lucian’s greatest works bears the title _Parasites for Pay_. It
was written and undoubtedly read to the public in the last part of his
life before he went to Egypt. It is not only very distinguished as a
satire,[307] but in it as Gildersleeve points out[308] “his
sensitiveness for Greek honor, for the honor of the people as well as
for the honor of the literary class, manifests itself in a way to do
infinite credit to Lucian’s heart. ” Harmon calls it “a Hogarthian sketch
of the life led by educated Greeks who attached themselves to the
households of great Roman lords—and ladies. ”[309]
The satire is in the form of a letter addressed to a friend Timocles who
is thinking of taking such a post. The case, says Lucian, is the same
for philosophers, grammarians, rhetoricians, and musicians. The motives
which apparently led men to accept such positions are poverty and
pleasure, but their recompense is small and they have no share in the
luxury that dazzled them. They overwork; their expenses in clothing and
tips eat up their stipends. Moreover their humiliations are incessant.
The first dinner given in their honor brings the strain of observing
proper etiquette. Next morning the conference about salary disappoints
all hopes by the pittance offered. But a man sells himself and never
afterwards can feel free or noble: he is a monkey with a chain around
his neck. For he was not engaged to discourse on Homer, Demosthenes,
Plato, but because it looks well to have a distinguished Greek
philosopher with a long beard and a flowing robe in his master’s suite.
The day’s routine of service is exhausting and humiliating, and the
philosopher’s rivals for his lord’s favor are a gigolo, a dancing
master, an Alexandrian dwarf who recites erotic verses. The night’s
sleep is shattered by meditations on lost freedom and present servitude.
Such is life in the city, but a trip to the country is worse.
Thermopolis had to hold his lady’s puppy for her in the jolting carriage
and the miserable little dog kept licking his beard for relics of
yesterday’s dinner and finally laid a litter of puppies in the
philosopher’s cloak. Other services of the parasite include listening to
the rich man’s literary compositions and delivering a lecture on
philosophy to the lady while her hair is being dressed or at the
dinner-table. And in the midst of a discourse on virtue a maid brings
her a letter from a paramour which she answers at once with a yes.
In time, envy and slander or the disabilities of old age cause the
parasite’s downfall and he is discarded on the rubbish heap. Such a
career can best be depicted in a symbolic painting of a hill on whose
summit golden Wealth resides. Hope, Deceit, Slavery help the traveller
start on the ascent. But Toil then escorts him on. And finally Old Age,
Insolence and Despair lead him until he is ejected by a hidden back
door, naked, deformed, ruined. Repentance meeting him cannot save him.
Timocles is urged before making his decision about the post offered him
to meditate on this picture and on Plato’s famous words: “God is not at
fault; the fault is his who maketh the choice. ”[310] This essay alone
would justify Croiset’s great tribute to Lucian’s independence of
thought: “among his contemporaries Lucian stands alone as an
intelligence of a remarkable force and independence which nothing could
tame. ”[311]
It was natural that, when later Lucian accepted a post in civil service
in Egypt, he should anticipate reminders of his essay on _Parasites for
Pay_ on the part of his friends and foes. His _Apology_[312] answers
their imaginary criticisms of his inconsistencies. It is written in the
form of a letter to a friend. Lucian assures this Sabinus that he knows
Sabinus enjoyed his recent essay on Parasites, but now must be full of
amazement at his friend’s accepting a salaried post in Egypt. He
imagines receiving an epistle from Sabinus to this effect:[313]
“The difference between your precept and practice is infinitely more
ridiculous; you draw a realistic word-picture of that servile life;
you pour contempt on the man who runs into the trap of a rich man’s
house, where a thousand degradations, half of them self-inflicted,
await him; and then in extreme old age, when you are on the border
between life and death, you take this miserable servitude upon you and
make a sort of circus exhibition of your chains. The conspicuousness
of your position will only make the more ridiculous that contrast
between your book and your life. ”
Lucian in reply suggests various lines of self-defense: the compulsion
of Chance, Fate or Necessity; admiration of his patron’s character; the
drive of poverty, brought on by old age and ill health. But he rejects
all these pleas. His real defense is the difference between being a
parasite and slave in the house of a rich master and entering civil
service to work for the state. Lucian explains the dignity and the
responsibility of the post he has accepted in the service of the
Emperor.
“What better use can you make of yourself than if you join forces with
your friends in the cause of progress, come out into the open, and let
men see that you are loyal and zealous and careful of your trust, not
what Homer calls a vain cumberer of the earth? ”[314]
Even this brief review of the writings which make up Lucian’s literary
autobiography shows the conflicting forces which strove for dominance
over his life. Sculpture and the Education of a Sophist first contended
for his favor and his choice of the orator’s training never destroyed
his life-long interest in art. Oratory which secured his service soon
disillusionized him because of her cheap followers. Plato and his
philosophical dialogues for a while controlled his mind and style, but,
satire proving stronger in him than reflective thinking, he created a
new form of dialogue allied to Comedy and Menippus for his medium of
comment on the world. This form and the epistle he used for satirizing
sophistry and oratory, philosophy and religion, always pointing out the
counterfeit and the sham and distinguishing them from the tested gold of
verities. This same sort of touch-stone he applied in his _Apology_ to
his own life to vindicate his maintenance of personal freedom. The
traveller, the sophist, the satirist, now become civil servant of the
Emperor, admits no chain about his neck.
As regards his literary art he has revealed that his main ideals are
frankness, truth and freedom. In his works he establishes warm human
contacts with his hearer or reader. His Greek style achieves a pure
Attic simplicity of expression and by it, as Croiset says,[315] he
clothes abstract ideas in words which give them body and form. The main
qualities of his style, spirit and imagination, unite in the effective
descriptions and narrations which fill his works. His wealth of ideas
found expression in realistic details noted with keen observation and
assembled in realistic series to give vitality to his prose.
One work by Lucian is a specific treatise on writing and peculiarly
significant for his literary autobiography. That is the essay on _How
History Should Be Written_. It was composed as a letter to a friend
Philo in the time of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The occasion was
the sudden spawning of a whole shoal of would-be historians after the
Roman victories in the war with the Parthians (A. D. 165). Outraged by
these scribblers, Lucian sets forth his thoughts on the True Historian.
Since the barbarian war began, says Lucian, everyone is writing history.
It is just as when an epidemic of madness at Abdera made all the people
chant tragedies. It recalls too Diogenes, who, when Corinth was in
danger of a siege from Philip and the citizens were hurrying defense
measures, kept rolling his jar up and down hill that he might seem as
busy as the rest of the world. Lucian’s advice will include the faults
of historians which are to be avoided, the virtues to be cultivated.
History must not be written as panegyric. History must not be written as
poetry. Among the faults of contemporary historians are lack of taste,
over-abundance of details, purple patches, inaccuracies about facts.
“There are some . . . who leave alone, or deal very cursorily with, all
that is great and memorable; amateurs and not artists, they have no
selective faculty, and loiter over copious laboured descriptions of
the various trifles; it is as if a visitor to Olympia, instead of
examining, commending or describing to his stay-at-home friends the
general greatness and beauty of the Zeus, were to be struck with the
exact symmetry and polish of its footstool, or the proportions of its
shoe, and give all his attention to these minor points. ”[316]
Indispensable qualities of the ideal historian are political insight and
ability in writing. His “one task is to tell the thing as it
happened. ”[317] He will be “fearless, incorruptible, independent, a
believer in frankness and veracity; one that will call a spade a spade,
make no concession to likes and dislikes, nor spare any men for pity or
respect or propriety; an impartial judge, kind to all, but too kind to
none; a literary cosmopolite with neither suzerain nor king, never
heeding what this or that man may think, but setting down the thing that
befell. ”[317] Thucydides fulfills this ideal.
In diction and style, the marks of the true historian are frankness and
truth, lucidity and simplicity. The preface should be in proportion to
the subject. “The body of the history . . . is nothing from beginning to
end but a long narrative; it must therefore be graced with the narrative
virtues—smooth, level, and consistent progress, neither soaring nor
crawling, and the charm of lucidity. ” “Brevity is always desirable. ”
“Restraint in descriptions of mountains, walls, rivers, and the like, is
very important. ” If a speech is introduced, “the first requirement is
that it should suit the character both of the speaker and of the
occasion. ” “It may occasionally happen that some extraordinary story has
to be introduced; it should be simply narrated, without guarantee of its
truth, thrown down for any-one to make what he can of it. ” The historian
should write not for the present, but for eternity. He should hope to
have said of himself: “This was a man indeed, free and free-spoken;
flattery and servility were not in him; he was truth all through. ”[318]
Gildersleeve was probably right in calling the _True History_ “a comic
sequel to a brilliant essay entitled ‘How to write History. ’”[319] The
traditional manuscript order which places the _True History_ after _How
History Should Be Written_ seems so aptly prompted by Lucianic irony.
For this romance in two books is not history at all and has nothing of
Lucian’s primary requirement for history, that it should be true! It is
a work of pure imagination, one of the earliest accounts of fictitious
voyages and as such is part of the great tradition from the Odyssey to
_Gulliver’s Travels_. [320] Lucian’s preface explains both the nature of
the piece and his reasons for writing it. [321]
The _True History_ like many good stories is told in the first person by
Lucian himself. The author, moreover, preludes and interrupts the
narrative to get in direct touch with his reader. In his introduction,
he states that his purpose in writing is to furnish to students some
reading that will give relaxation, but at the same time “a little food
for thought. ” The story is bound to charm, Lucian thinks, because of the
novelty of the subject, the humor of the plan, the plausible lying
involved and the comical parodies of such authors as Ctesias, Iambulus,
and Homer in his Odyssey. Lucian confesses to being a liar with the best
of them, but affirms that his lying is unique in being honest because he
admits it.
“Be it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have
neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in
fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist.
Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them. ”[322]
In spite of this confession, Lucian here and there in his story tries to
create an atmosphere of veracity by protestations of it. As he never saw
the Corn Sparrow forces or the Crane Knights, he does not venture to
relate the marvellous and incredible stories told about them. [323] When
he describes the magic mirror over a well in the Moon which furnished
him television of his family and country he says that disbelievers by
going there will find he tells the truth. [324] In the Island of the
Wicked, Lucian finds all liars, both those who had told lies on earth or
written them, among the latter Ctesias and Herodotus. “On seeing them,”
he says, “I had good hopes for the future, for I have never told a lie
that I know of. ”[325] The last sentence of the romance is: “What
happened in the other world I shall tell you in the succeeding
books. ”[326] This, a Greek scholiast comments, is the greatest lie of
all!
Now after having seen what a wag Lucian is from his own words, we must
decide how we are going to take him. Are we to seek in him relaxation
and entertainment (the gift of all true romance) or are we going to
marshal our “little learning” to meet his and study all his sources, his
parodies of historians and philosophers, or search for allegories in his
fantastic worlds? The happy way will be along the path of the golden
mean. Gildersleeve put up a sign-board to it and inscribed directions
for future travellers.
“To enjoy the show properly, it is far better for the reader to give
himself up to this play of Lucian’s fancy than to endeavor to unriddle
whatever satire of contemporary literature may lie concealed in its
allegory. . . . There may be profound meaning in the war which breaks out
between the Sunburghers under Phaêthon, and the Moonburghers under
Endymion, which begins with the attempt of the Moonburghers to found a
colony on the desert planet of Lucifer, and which ends with the
victory of the Sunburghers, Lucifer being declared common property and
the vanquished compelled to pay an annual tribute of ten thousand
_amphoreis_ of dew. But so elastic are all such allegories that they
can be stretched to fit anything, and the war of these Heliotes and
Selenites would answer to describe the conflict between orthodoxy and
rationalism, and Lucifer would stand for the coming man. But how much
better to look with childish interest on the marshalling of
Horsevultures and Chickpeashooters and Garlickfighters and
Flea-archers and Wind-runners, and to watch the huge spiders spin
their web from the moon to Lucifer. ”[327]
So after realizing that we too may visit the Isles of the Blessed and
the Wicked, may soar up to Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland or dive under
the sea in the brother of Jonah’s whale, or see Sinbad’s roc, let us
begin at the beginning. Let the lights go out and the curtain go up. Let
us watch breathlessly an ancient Walt Disney fantasy rush across the
screen. The very names of countries and peoples add to the excitement as
the panorama unrolls. And so vivid are Lucian’s descriptions that as in
all good movies soon we find ourselves participating in his adventures.
Having set out from the Pillars of Hercules with fifty men on a good
ship, on the eightieth day we come to a wooded island. Here huge
footprints and an inscription reveal that Hercules and Dionysus were
here before us. And no wonder, for this is the Isle of Wines:
grape-vines produce springs of wine, springs feed rivers, rivers produce
fish that eaten make people drunk. And there is a species of vine that
is half grape and half lady like Daphne turning into a laurel and the
kiss of the Vine-woman brings intoxication and her embrace is a prison.
We lost two of our men to that captivity.
As we set sail, a whirlwind lifted the ship and she became a hydroplane,
sailing through the air for seven days and seven nights. The island
where then we landed proved to be the Moon. Endymion is the King so of
course he spoke Greek and we at once joined his forces for he had a war
on with the Men of the Sun, whose King is Phaethon. It was all about
which should colonize the Morning Star. Our fellow Moonites were as
strange as their names: Vulture Knights, Grass Plumes, Pea Shooters,
Garlic Warriors, Flea Bowmen, Wind Aviators, Corn Sparrows and Crane
Knights. And Phaethon’s Heliotes were as fantastic: Ant Knights,
Mosquito Aviators, Dance Aviators, Stalk Mushrooms, Dog-faced Knights,
Cloud Centaurs. A fierce battle we had and the Men of the Sun won
because they cut off light from the Moon so Endymion surrendered. We saw
strange marvels in our stay on the Moon: how men are the child-bearers;
how their clothing is made of glass or bronze; their eyes are removable;
they have a mirror over a well in which they can see what happens in far
distant lands.
As we voyaged onward, we came to many other countries: to the Morning
Star which was just being colonized, to Lamp Town where among the
inhabitants Lucian found his own Lamp which gave him news of home, to
Cloudcuckooland which Aristophanes described so truthfully. But after
such interesting scenes, disaster fell upon us. A monstrous whale bore
down upon us and in a trice swallowed us, ship and all.
When we recovered from our terror, we found that life inside a whale is
confined but not impossible. We discovered an island where we beached
our boat. The whale opened his mouth once an hour so we could mark time
and get the points of the compass. And we soon met other men there, a
Cypriote called Scintharus and his son. Scintharus told us about the
other inhabitants of the whale, who were savage barbarians, and always
ready to attack them. We thought best to join Scintharus in subduing
these enemies, but the fight was fierce for there were scores of these
Lobsters, Crabhands, Tunnyheads, Seagoats, Crawfish Coots and Solefish.
After our victory, we lived fairly well in the whale for a year and
eight months. In the ninth month, we saw through the teeth of our
monster the most terrifying battle, a sea-fight between men riding on
huge islands each of which carried about one hundred and twenty.
In spite of seeing such dangers outside, we decided finally that we must
escape from our prison. We used fire as a weapon, set the forest at the
tail-end aflame and after twelve days found that the whale was going to
die. Just in time we propped open his mouth with huge beams and the next
day when he expired, out we went on our good ship and felt once more the
wind in our sails. Fair weather did not last long. A terrible northern
gale descended and froze all the sea to a depth of six fathoms.
Scintharus, who was now our ship-master, saved us by directing us to
excavate a cave-home in the ice. In it we lived for thirty days,
building a fire and cooking the fish we cut out of the ice. When food
gave out, we dug out the boat and sailed over the ice as though it were
the sea until on the fifth day we came to open water. Now we kept coming
to various islands. We got water at one and at the next one milk, for
this island had grapes whose juice was milk, and its earth was cheese.
It was easy to subsist there! Next we passed the Isle of Cork where the
city is built on a cork foundation and the men have feet of cork so that
they can run over the waters as they will, buoyed up by their own
life-preservers!
Happiest of all our stays was that on the Island of the Blessed. Here it
is always spring. Every month the vines yield grapes and the trees
fruit. It is a land flowing with milk and wine. Glass trees furnish
goblets which fill automatically at the banquet. Baked loaves of bread
are plucked from trees. Beside the table are two springs, one of
laughter, one of joy, and with draughts from these the banqueters start
their revels. Famous men dwell there. I saw Socrates surrounded by fair
young men arguing with Nestor and Palamedes. Plato preferred to live in
his own Republic. The followers of Aristippus and Epicurus were
considered the best of companions, but Diogenes the Cynic had reformed,
married Lais and taken to dancing. The Stoics had not yet arrived for
they were still toiling up the steep hill of virtue. Conversation with
Homer was one of the greatest pleasures, especially as he settled the
matter of his birthplace by declaring himself a Babylonian and solved
the Homeric question by affirming that he had written all the lines
attributed to him. Beside literary talks, there were games for the Dead.
Even the Island of the Blessed could not be free from wars, for the
Wicked invaded it and had to be expelled by force. Homer wrote a new
epic on the fight of the dead heroes. The Island had its scandals too
all due again to Helen. For she bewitched Scintharus’ son and tried to
elope with him, but was caught. That episode caused our expulsion from
the Island of the Blessed. Before we left, Homer wrote a couplet for
Lucian which he had carved on a stele of beryl and Odysseus secretly
gave him a letter for Calypso.
We touched at the Isle of the Wicked and at the Isle of Dreams, where we
slept thirty days and next we put in at Ogygia. Lucian read Odysseus’
letter before he delivered it to Calypso and found he had always
regretted leaving her! For Odysseus’ sake, Calypso entertained us
royally.
Next we fell into danger from the Pumpkin Pirates and the Hardshell
Pirates and the Dolphin-Riders, but we escaped them all. One night we
ran aground on the marvellous and mighty nest of a king-fisher. And a
little further on in the sea we came to a forest of rootless trees which
we could not penetrate. There was nothing to do but haul the ship up to
their tops and take “a forest cruise” across. More marvellous still we
had to cross a water-chasm on a water bridge, a river-way between two
water precipices. After that we came to the Isle of the Bellowing
Bullheads, men like Minotaurs, and had some skirmishes with them. And
then we came to an Island of Fair Ladies who wished to take us to bed
with them, but Lucian discovered that they all had ass-legs and that
they ate strangers when they had cozened them to sleep. So we departed
in haste. At dawn we saw the land which is on the other side of the
world from ours and there we were shipwrecked. What happened there will
be another story.
This review of the two books of Lucian’s _True History_ reveals at once
its startling differences from the other Greek romances of the early
Empire. Romantic love does not figure in it. Religion has little or no
place in it. Adventures are its bones and sinews. These adventures
though described realistically are all figments of the imagination,
explorations of the Wonderful Things beyond Thule as much as those of
Antonius Diogenes must have been. The coloring of the pictures is an
amazing mixture of realism and fantasy. The veracity of sense
impressions almost converts doubting Thomases. Lucian comes to seem no
mean rival of Herodotus, the Father of Lies. Only occasionally some
satiric laughter betrays him.
It is perhaps easier for twentieth century readers to accept his wonders
than it was for his contemporaries of the second century. Science has
developed so many of his imaginative forecasts. The monstrous footprints
of Hercules and Dionysus might be rock-prints of dinosaurs. The plunging
whale is a submarine. His ship lifting from the ocean to sail through
the air has become the hydroplane. His island galleys bearing one
hundred and twenty men each are our battleships. The Cloud Centaurs who
fight in the air are our aviators. Arctic explorers have lived in huts
made of ice-blocks. Ice-sailing is a recognized winter sport. Clothing
is made not of glass or bronze, but of cellulose and steel. Removable
eyes suggest spectacles, contact lenses and field-glasses. The
Cork-footed Men must have resembled surf riders. And the magic mirror
over the well anticipated the perforated sphere of television.
But his contemporaries had the advantage of us in recognizing Lucian’s
sources and parodies more readily than we can. For us, Antonius
Diogenes, Ctesias and Iambulus are lost. Yet Photius records that the
romance of Antonius Diogenes, _The Wonders beyond Thule_, was the chief
source of Lucian’s _True History_. So many, however, are the sources
which Lucian used to forward his avowed purpose of furnishing relaxation
accompanied by some learning, that scholars have busied themselves for
years tracing parallels with Greek and Latin authors. [328] Allinson
remarks wisely: “In general, it seems safe to conclude that Lucian
regarded the writings of predecessors and contemporaries as an open
quarry from which he first built up his own style and then picked out
material to imbed, with an artist’s skill, in the parti-coloured mosaic
of his satire. ”[329]
Some idea of Lucian’s parody of his sources may be gained, even though
Antonius Diogenes is lost, from his incidental flings at great Greeks
and from his constant references to Homer which are a mixture of
admiration and irony. So when he saw Cloudcuckooland he remembered
Aristophanes the poet, “a wise and truthful man whose writings are
distrusted without reason. ”[330] On the Island of the Blessed he did not
find Plato for he preferred to live in the city of his imagination under
his own constitution and laws. Yet he might well have been in Elysium
for the inhabitants are most Platonic in sharing their wives. [331] The
solemn treaty which ended the wars between the Men of the Sun and the
Men of the Moon has a comical resemblance to the treaty between Athens
and Sparta which Thucydides records though it is signed by Fireman,
Hotman, and Burner, by Nightman, Moonman and Allbright. [332]
Herodotus comes in for more imitation, for he furnishes stories of ants
bigger than foxes,[333] of dog-headed men,[334] of men who feed on
odors,[335] of a feast of lanterns in Egypt,[336] of a floating
island,[337] of the sea freezing,[338] of a breeze that bears the
perfume of Arabia. [339] But when Lucian solemnly imitates these
exaggerations, we feel he has his tongue in his cheek and our suspicion
is confirmed when he consigns Ctesias and Herodotus to the limbo of
Liars in the Island of the Wicked. [340]
Lucian’s treatment of Homer shows his most genial irony. In his preface
he makes Homer’s Odysseus the guide and teacher of all historians of
imaginary travels, Odysseus “who tells Alcinous and his court about
winds in bondage, one-eyed men, cannibals and savages; also about
animals with many heads, and transformations of his comrades wrought
with drugs,” and with such marvels “humbugged the illiterate
Phaeacians. ”[341] But in the Island of the Blessed, Homer is the shade
in whose talk Lucian most delights. Homer indeed is most affable in
discussing all the literary problems of his epics, especially since he
had just won a lawsuit in which Thersites accused him of libel, through
the aid of his lawyer Odysseus. [342] Homer as a shade is still writing
for when there was war in heaven, he produced a new epic about the
battle of the shades of the heroes,[343] which Lucian unfortunately lost
on the way home, and on Lucian’s departure Homer composed a
commemorative epigram which described him as dear to the blessed
gods. [344]
Lucian introduces Homer’s characters into his scenes. Achilles is one of
the most honored heroes on the Island of the Blessed, serving as joint
judge with Theseus at the Games of the Dead. [345] Helen is the leading
lady in the court-room scene where Rhadamanthus had to decide whose wife
she should be in Elysium. She has forgiven Stesichorus for saying she
caused the Trojan War. [346] But she creates a new scandal by trying to
desert Menelaus again in an elopement with Scintharus’ son. [347] Calypso
on receiving Odysseus’ letter from Lucian’s hand weeps as she reads that
he always regretted giving up his life with her, and then with true
feminine curiosity asks how Penelope is looking now and whether she is
as wise as Odysseus used to boast. Lucian made such replies as he
thought would gratify her! [348]
Minor episodes are reminiscent of the Odyssey. Rhadamanthus gives Lucian
a talisman of mallow as Hermes gave Odysseus the moly. [349] To the Land
of Dreams Lucian must erect four gates in place of Homer’s two, one of
horn, one of ivory. [350] And the Singing Sirens that tried to beguile
Odysseus have been metamorphosed into fair young ladies in long chitons
which conceal the legs of she-asses. [351] But whatever changes are made
in the source-material taken from the Odyssey, Lucian’s gentle raillery
does not hide his admiration of great Homer. He gives the lie to the
myth that Homer was blind. [352] And in the contest of the poets at the
Games of the Dead in the Island of the Blessed, he ironically makes
Hesiod the victor though he affirms that in truth Homer was by far the
best of poets.
Lucian’s style in his _True History_ illustrates many of his own
criteria for writing history. The short preface is in proportion to the
short two-book _True History_. The narrative is concise, rapid, lucid
and shows consistent progress, one event following naturally and quickly
upon another without extravagant use of details. The few speeches are
short, lively and suited to the character of the speaker. The
descriptions are realistic and pointed. Extraordinary stories are told
simply with an appearance of veracity.
A few typical elements of the Greek Romances appear in the _True
History_. There is a suggestion of a court-room scene where Rhadamanthus
judges Helen’s accomplices in escape. One letter is inserted, Odysseus’
to Calypso, for the purpose of ironic satire of Homeric characters. An
inscription on bronze is discovered and a laudatory couplet in hexameter
is composed and inscribed on stone. But love and religion, the commonest
themes of the Greek Romances, are eliminated from this tale of
marvellous adventures.
Satire though this story is, it ranks easily first among imaginary
voyagings both in fantasy and style. In his narration Lucian pours all
his spirit, his liveliness of observation, his brilliant imagination,
his vivacious wit. His own enjoyment in his facile, marvellous
inventions is contagious. As he rushes his breathless readers over the
earth, through the air, under the sea, as he introduces us to
innumerable natural phenomena and monstrous beings, he convinces us that
this world of fantasy is a real world. He has made many others wish to
record similar travels, for the _True History_ is the model of all those
imaginary voyages with which Rabelais, Cyrano de Bergerac, Swift,
Voltaire and others amused their contemporaries. No work of Lucian found
so many imitators as this.
famous, he grew indifferent to her, for he was enamored of a bearded
man, Dialogue, said to be the son of Philosophy. Now he no longer makes
speeches, but has a strange way of using short questions. She sues him
for desertion. The Syrian replies that all her facts are true, but there
are others; she lost her modesty, made up like a courtesan, flirted
indiscriminately with many lovers. So he separated from her and went to
live with a respectable gentleman, Dialogue. The Syrian won the case.
Next Dialogue pleaded. His dignity, his cosmic thoughts, his tragic mask
have all been stolen from him. He has been forced to associate with
Jest, Satire, Cynicism, Eupolis and Aristophanes, “terrible men for
mocking at all that is holy and scoffing at all that is right,” finally
too even with Menippus. He has been transformed into a monster not
homogeneous but Centaur-like. The Syrian in reply showed the benefits
which he had bestowed on Dialogue: he taught him to walk like a man, to
clean up, to smile, to be yoked with Comedy. Dialogue resents that the
Syrian will not indulge in endless arguments on subtle themes. The
Syrian declares that he has not taken off Dialogue’s Greek cloak and put
him into barbarian garb: Dialogue is still dressed in his native Greek
costume. The Syrian was unanimously acquitted much to the delight of the
audience. This mock-trial picturesquely portrays Lucian’s change from
writing the philosophical dialogues in the style of Plato to the satiric
dialogue, influenced successively by New Attic Comedy, Menippus and Old
Attic Comedy. [298] Lucian here is writing an Apology for the new style
of satire-dialogue which he created.
With similar wit but in various modes Lucian in other pieces satirizes
now Rhetoric, now Philosophy. An illuminating series of such dialogues
is _The Professor of Oratory_, _Nigrinus_, _Philosophies for Sale_, _The
Fisherman_.
In _The Professor of Oratory_ ironic advice is given to a young man on
how to become an orator and a sophist. The quest is noble and the way to
success is not difficult. The Lady Rhetoric sits fair and desirable on
the top of a high mountain attended by Wealth, Fame and Power. Thither
two roads lead. One is a narrow, steep and thorny path, the other an
easy slope amid flowers and fountains. Two guides will present
themselves to you. One, vigorous and manly, will point out to you the
hard way in the footprints of Demosthenes and Plato and will tell how
severe the training must be for their followers. He will wish, the
simpleton, to make you model yourself on the past.
The other guide is a pretty gentleman, daintily groomed and perfumed,
with an alluring smile and a honey voice. He will tell you that you can
become such an orator as he is if you carry as equipment ignorance,
boldness, shamelessness; if you dress in bright, diaphanous robes and
always carry a book! Your course of study will be the memorizing of a
few stock words, a few learned references for ornaments of your
discourse. He will teach you a high singsong chant and the art of always
beginning with stories from the Iliad.
Your fame will be secured by a well-trained chorus of applauders in your
audiences and by slanders of all your rivals. In private life you must
live fast with dice, wine and women, so you come to be talked of as a
deuce of a fellow, and amours will increase your income. Thus you will
be fitted to be the bridegroom of Rhetoric by driving furiously the
winged chariot of which Plato wrote. Your adviser is already getting out
of your way, for he was defeated when once you chose the primrose path.
This picture of _The Perfect Rhetorician_ has been thought by some
critics to be a personal satire of the contemporary lexicographer
Pollux. However that may be, it is certainly a satire of any
pseudo-professor of rhetoric who bases oratory on cheap externalities
and superficial training.
At another time Lucian was to satirize pseudo-philosophers as he had
rhetoricians, but once, perhaps in the beginning of revolt against
rhetoric, he chose to picture a noble type in the dialogue on Nigrinus,
a philosopher unknown except through Lucian. His great tribute to
Nigrinus may be set as a companion piece to the mocking praise of _The
Perfect Rhetorician_. The dialogue is prefaced by an introductory letter
in which Lucian tells Nigrinus that he is not carrying owls to Athens in
offering him this book as if to display his use of words, but he is
sending it in thanks for Nigrinus’ words. In the dialogue itself one man
relates to another how by talking with Nigrinus he was made free instead
of a slave, poor instead of rich. For Nigrinus praised philosophy and
the freedom it gives and ridiculed what men in general exalt: wealth,
fame, power, honor. Nigrinus praised Athens because there Poverty and
Philosophy are foster-brothers; there life is free, noble, harmonious.
Rome is the city for those who love wealth and luxury, wine and women.
The Romans have given themselves over to the pleasures of the senses and
have every means of gratifying them. So Nigrinus in Rome leads a life of
retirement, conversing with Philosophy and with Plato, reflecting on the
ridiculous rich, the parasites, the pseudo-philosophers, the
will-hunters, the gourmands, the frequenters of the circus and the
baths. No wonder men come to him for healing.
The tribute to Platonism here, the tribute to Epicurus in _Alexander the
False Prophet_,[299] might tempt readers to affiliate Lucian with one or
the other of these philosophical schools. But as if to forestall being
labelled, in the spirit of Horace’s famous line
nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri,[300]
Lucian turns his satire on all the leading creeds of the time in his
_Philosophies for Sale_.
Zeus orders an auction of philosophies. Hermes acts as crier and
auctioneer. The buyer questions each person who is put up for sale on
his knowledge, on his creed, on his use. A Pythagorean is put up first
by Hermes who asks: “Who wishes to know about the harmony of the world
and re-birth? ” The Pythagorean attempts to expound to the buyer the
catharsis of the spirit, the need of music and of geometry, the flux of
the cosmos, the divinity in numbers, the transmigration of souls. An
Italian bought him for a brotherhood in Magna Graecia for ten minas.
A Cynic is next displayed, dirty, morose, ready to bark at everyone. He
declares that Hercules is his model and that like Hercules he is a
militant reformer, working to clear the world of filth. He declares that
he will teach his purchaser to discard luxury, to endure hardship, to
drink only water, to throw his money into the sea, to reject all family
ties, to live in a tomb or a jar. So he will feel no pain even when
flogged and will be happier than the Great King. He will be bold,
abusive, savage, shameless. For such a life no education is necessary.
The Cynic is sold for two obols.
The third called is the Cyrenaic, who appears clad in purple and crowned
with a wreath. Hermes announces that his philosophy is the sweetest,
indeed thrice blessed. As the Cyrenaic is too drunk to answer questions,
Hermes describes his virtues: he is pleasant to live with, congenial to
drink with, a companion for amours, and an excellent chef! There was no
bid for him!
Next two are put up together, the one who laughs and the one who cries.
The first explains his laughter on the ground that all men and all their
affairs are ridiculous; all things are folly, a mere drift of atoms. The
weeper pities men because their lives are foreordained and in them
nothing is stable; men themselves are mere pawns in the game of eternity
and the gods are only immortal men. No one bids for the pair.
An Academic next advertises his wares as a teacher of the art of love,
but claims that this love is of the soul, not of the body. He affirms
that he lives in a city fashioned by himself, where wives are held in
common, fair boys are prizes for valor, and realities are ideas, visible
only to the wise. He was bought for two talents.
A pupil of the laugher and the drunkard is now offered for sale, namely
Epicurus. The mere description of him as more irreverent than his
teachers, charming, fond of good eating, sells him for two minas.
The sad philosopher of the Porch is now announced by Hermes who
proclaims that he is selling virtue itself and that the Stoic is “the
only wise man, the only handsome man, the only just man, brave man,
king, orator, rich man, lawgiver, and everything else that there
is. ”[301] His talk about himself is full of hair-splitting dialectics
and subtle explanations of why man must devote himself “to the chief
natural goods . . . wealth, health, and the like”[301] and go through much
toil for much learning. In spite of all this he is bought for twenty
minas.
The Peripatetic is also sold for twenty minas because he knows
everything but the Sceptic brings in only one mina because he knows
nothing! The auction ends with the announcement by Hermes of another
sale the next day of plain men, workmen, tradesmen.
Inevitably this ironic treatment of the great philosophies of Greece
produced a storm of criticism. This was answered by Lucian in an apology
of sorts under the title _The Resurrected or The Fisherman_. In it the
satirist under the pseudonym of Frankness faces his accusers. For up
from the dead, led by a militant Socrates, come to Athens Empedocles,
Plato, Aristotle and other phantoms to execute worthy dooms on the worst
of maligners. Frankness by rhetoric and argument averts stoning or
crucifixion and secures a fair trial, presided over by Philosophy, who
is attended by Truth, Investigation and Virtue. After Diogenes makes the
speech for the prosecution, Frankness replies in defense of himself—and
Lucian! He wins a unanimous verdict for acquittal by his claim that he
auctioned off, not the great philosophers who now prosecute him, but
base impostors who imitate them. Syllogism now acts as herald and calls
from Athens to court all the philosophers to defend themselves.
Frankness by promising largess secures a crowd of them, Platonists,
Stoics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Academics. When Philosophy announces
that they are to be tried as impostors by herself, Virtue and Truth,
they all disappear in wild rout. To get them back, Frankness now becomes
a fisherman and, with bait of gold, hooks and hauls back the craven
cheats. The head of each school disowns his imitators and the discarded
are thrown down over the cliffs. Finally Philosophy dismisses the court
with an injunction to Frankness to keep investigating philosophers in
order to crown the true and brand the false.
The genial tone of _Philosophies for Sale_ has entirely vanished in the
essay on _The End of Peregrinus_. The influence of New Comedy and of
Menippus with their ironic raillery is superseded by Aristophanic
denunciation. Bitter mockery, cruel derision are loosed upon one creed,
the Cynic. Lucian directs his vituperation against the Cynic philosopher
Peregrinus, whose career had been meteoric. In his early life he was
converted to Christianity, and even went to prison for his faith. Later,
beliefs of India so possessed him that he immolated himself at Olympia
just after the Olympic games of A. D. 165. Such self-sacrifice by
cremation had been consummated at Susa by Calanus before Alexander the
Great and by Zarmarus after initiation into the mysteries at Athens in
the presence of Augustus.
Lucian saw only one possible interpretation of Peregrinus’
self-sacrifice, desire for notoriety, but there have been many critics
of this motivation as Harmon points out:[302]
“Lucian believes himself to be exposing a sham, whose zeal was not at
all for truth but only for applause and renown. Many notable modern
critics, including Zeller, Bernays, Croiset, and Wilamowitz, dissent
from his interpretation, discerning in the man an earnest seeker after
truth; for to them thirst for glory is not an adequate explanation of
his final act. ”
The piece is written as a letter to Cronius who is marked as a Platonist
by the formula of greeting εὖ πράττειν. Lucian begins with the fact of
Peregrinus’ self-imposed death and at once ascribes to him the motive of
love of notoriety. This, he says, is proved by the fact that Peregrinus
selected for the time of his suicide the Olympic festival, which draws
great crowds. Lucian knows that Cronius will have a good laugh at the
foolishness of the old man so he will write his friend just what he
himself saw as he stood near the pyre.
His method is clever. First Theagenes a Cynic proclaimed in the streets
of Elis the glory of virtue and the glory of her follower Proteus
(Peregrinus) and announced that Proteus was about to leave this life by
fire in the manner of Hercules, Aesculapius, Dionysus and Empedocles.
Theagenes’ justification of the deed went unheard because of the noise
of the crowd, but another orator (clearly Lucian) stepped forth and made
a speech reviewing Peregrinus’ career. Beginning with Democritean
laughter he narrated the life of Proteus accusing him of adultery as a
youth in Armenia, of corrupting a boy in Asia, of strangling his own
father, of becoming a Christian in Palestine, of resigning all his
property in Parium on the Hellespont, of practicing the ascetic life in
Egypt, of seeking notoriety in Greece by denouncing Herodes Atticus for
his aqueduct at Olympia and later recanting. Finally, says Lucian, this
Proteus has announced his intention of cremating himself. The motive is
love of fame though he claims that he wishes thus to teach men to
despise death and endure torture. He plainly hopes that myths and a cult
will arise around his memory. Indeed Theagenes has quoted a prophecy to
that effect, but Lucian can match that oracle with another which orders
all the Cynic’s disciples to imitate him even to the last leap into the
flames.
After these speeches, Lucian was on hand when the pyre was kindled at
Harpina near Olympia shortly after midnight. As an eye-witness he saw
the pyre in a pit six feet deep, Peregrinus in the dress of a Cynic
bearing a torch, men lighting the fire, how then Peregrinus stripped to
his old shirt and after crying: “Spirits of my mother and my father,
receive me with goodwill,” leaped into the flames to be seen no more.
Even when the other Cynics stood about the pyre in silent grief, Lucian
felt no sympathy, but taunted them brutally, and actually got into a
broil with them before he departed to meditate on how strange the love
of fame is. Lucian had to tell the story of Peregrinus’ death over and
over until to amuse himself, he invented a vulture that he saw flying
from the flames to heaven, crying: “I have left the earth, I am going to
Olympus. ” And this invention of his became part of the growing myth
about the hero.
“So ended (wrote Lucian) that poor wretch Proteus, a man who (to put
it briefly) never fixed his gaze on the verities, but always did and
said everything with a view to glory and the praise of the multitude,
even to the extent of leaping into fire, when he was sure not to enjoy
the praise because he could not hear it. ”[303]
Lucian concludes with anecdotes about Peregrinus sea-sick, in a fever,
having eye-trouble and trying to cure fever and correct vision as though
Aeacus in the lower world would care about either ailment. He was simply
furnishing Democritus with more cause for laughter. This heartless
ridicule of the Cynic’s action takes no account of the psychology of
fanaticism or the hysteria of martyrdom. Croiset points out that
Lucian’s insensitivity to all mysticism must be viewed with the
knowledge that the satirist believed Peregrinus was a sham and that he
was unveiling an impostor. Lucian’s consistent worship of veracity and
frankness then explain his derisive attitude towards the apotheosis of a
pretender. [304]
The savagery used in exposing a false philosopher was turned by Lucian
upon a religious fraud, Alexander of Abonoteichus. The piece is a letter
to a friend, Celsus, written after A. D. 180, ten years after Alexander’s
death. Lucian’s account gives almost all we know of this Alexander
although his existence and influence are attested by gems, coins and
inscriptions. The letter, however, as Croiset points out, contains more
satire than history, for it does not attempt to distinguish scrupulously
between the false and the true; rather it presents in lively anecdotes
and personal reminiscences a satiric portrait of an historical
prophet. [305] Cumont has commented on the unique features of
Abonoteichus’ version of the worship of Aesculapius: the giving a
serpent a human head and calling it the god incarnate; the issuing of
oracles and advice instead of using incubation or dealing particularly
with healing. [306]
Lucian exposes all Alexander’s shams and corruptions. He describes his
handsome appearance and education, his cleverness in purchasing a tame
serpent and in selecting the site of Abonoteichus for his oracle. He
describes the installation of the serpent, the invention of the human
head for it, the exhibition of it, the methods of giving oracles, the
prices, the publicity, the “autophones,” cunningly contrived to issue
from the serpent’s mouth, the spread of his fame even to Italy. Lucian
pictures too the perils that menaced any critics of the oracle, the
burning of the sayings of Epicurus, the personal danger to himself.
Lucian was advised by the governor of Bithynia and Pontus not to
prosecute Alexander for his attempted murder so after the prophet’s
death he wrote this account to honor Epicurus and to present the truth
to thinking minds. Personal revenge then as well as horror at religious
fraud motivated this biography. Lucian, who derided Epicureans in
_Philosophies for Sale_, chooses now to revere their founder!
One of Lucian’s greatest works bears the title _Parasites for Pay_. It
was written and undoubtedly read to the public in the last part of his
life before he went to Egypt. It is not only very distinguished as a
satire,[307] but in it as Gildersleeve points out[308] “his
sensitiveness for Greek honor, for the honor of the people as well as
for the honor of the literary class, manifests itself in a way to do
infinite credit to Lucian’s heart. ” Harmon calls it “a Hogarthian sketch
of the life led by educated Greeks who attached themselves to the
households of great Roman lords—and ladies. ”[309]
The satire is in the form of a letter addressed to a friend Timocles who
is thinking of taking such a post. The case, says Lucian, is the same
for philosophers, grammarians, rhetoricians, and musicians. The motives
which apparently led men to accept such positions are poverty and
pleasure, but their recompense is small and they have no share in the
luxury that dazzled them. They overwork; their expenses in clothing and
tips eat up their stipends. Moreover their humiliations are incessant.
The first dinner given in their honor brings the strain of observing
proper etiquette. Next morning the conference about salary disappoints
all hopes by the pittance offered. But a man sells himself and never
afterwards can feel free or noble: he is a monkey with a chain around
his neck. For he was not engaged to discourse on Homer, Demosthenes,
Plato, but because it looks well to have a distinguished Greek
philosopher with a long beard and a flowing robe in his master’s suite.
The day’s routine of service is exhausting and humiliating, and the
philosopher’s rivals for his lord’s favor are a gigolo, a dancing
master, an Alexandrian dwarf who recites erotic verses. The night’s
sleep is shattered by meditations on lost freedom and present servitude.
Such is life in the city, but a trip to the country is worse.
Thermopolis had to hold his lady’s puppy for her in the jolting carriage
and the miserable little dog kept licking his beard for relics of
yesterday’s dinner and finally laid a litter of puppies in the
philosopher’s cloak. Other services of the parasite include listening to
the rich man’s literary compositions and delivering a lecture on
philosophy to the lady while her hair is being dressed or at the
dinner-table. And in the midst of a discourse on virtue a maid brings
her a letter from a paramour which she answers at once with a yes.
In time, envy and slander or the disabilities of old age cause the
parasite’s downfall and he is discarded on the rubbish heap. Such a
career can best be depicted in a symbolic painting of a hill on whose
summit golden Wealth resides. Hope, Deceit, Slavery help the traveller
start on the ascent. But Toil then escorts him on. And finally Old Age,
Insolence and Despair lead him until he is ejected by a hidden back
door, naked, deformed, ruined. Repentance meeting him cannot save him.
Timocles is urged before making his decision about the post offered him
to meditate on this picture and on Plato’s famous words: “God is not at
fault; the fault is his who maketh the choice. ”[310] This essay alone
would justify Croiset’s great tribute to Lucian’s independence of
thought: “among his contemporaries Lucian stands alone as an
intelligence of a remarkable force and independence which nothing could
tame. ”[311]
It was natural that, when later Lucian accepted a post in civil service
in Egypt, he should anticipate reminders of his essay on _Parasites for
Pay_ on the part of his friends and foes. His _Apology_[312] answers
their imaginary criticisms of his inconsistencies. It is written in the
form of a letter to a friend. Lucian assures this Sabinus that he knows
Sabinus enjoyed his recent essay on Parasites, but now must be full of
amazement at his friend’s accepting a salaried post in Egypt. He
imagines receiving an epistle from Sabinus to this effect:[313]
“The difference between your precept and practice is infinitely more
ridiculous; you draw a realistic word-picture of that servile life;
you pour contempt on the man who runs into the trap of a rich man’s
house, where a thousand degradations, half of them self-inflicted,
await him; and then in extreme old age, when you are on the border
between life and death, you take this miserable servitude upon you and
make a sort of circus exhibition of your chains. The conspicuousness
of your position will only make the more ridiculous that contrast
between your book and your life. ”
Lucian in reply suggests various lines of self-defense: the compulsion
of Chance, Fate or Necessity; admiration of his patron’s character; the
drive of poverty, brought on by old age and ill health. But he rejects
all these pleas. His real defense is the difference between being a
parasite and slave in the house of a rich master and entering civil
service to work for the state. Lucian explains the dignity and the
responsibility of the post he has accepted in the service of the
Emperor.
“What better use can you make of yourself than if you join forces with
your friends in the cause of progress, come out into the open, and let
men see that you are loyal and zealous and careful of your trust, not
what Homer calls a vain cumberer of the earth? ”[314]
Even this brief review of the writings which make up Lucian’s literary
autobiography shows the conflicting forces which strove for dominance
over his life. Sculpture and the Education of a Sophist first contended
for his favor and his choice of the orator’s training never destroyed
his life-long interest in art. Oratory which secured his service soon
disillusionized him because of her cheap followers. Plato and his
philosophical dialogues for a while controlled his mind and style, but,
satire proving stronger in him than reflective thinking, he created a
new form of dialogue allied to Comedy and Menippus for his medium of
comment on the world. This form and the epistle he used for satirizing
sophistry and oratory, philosophy and religion, always pointing out the
counterfeit and the sham and distinguishing them from the tested gold of
verities. This same sort of touch-stone he applied in his _Apology_ to
his own life to vindicate his maintenance of personal freedom. The
traveller, the sophist, the satirist, now become civil servant of the
Emperor, admits no chain about his neck.
As regards his literary art he has revealed that his main ideals are
frankness, truth and freedom. In his works he establishes warm human
contacts with his hearer or reader. His Greek style achieves a pure
Attic simplicity of expression and by it, as Croiset says,[315] he
clothes abstract ideas in words which give them body and form. The main
qualities of his style, spirit and imagination, unite in the effective
descriptions and narrations which fill his works. His wealth of ideas
found expression in realistic details noted with keen observation and
assembled in realistic series to give vitality to his prose.
One work by Lucian is a specific treatise on writing and peculiarly
significant for his literary autobiography. That is the essay on _How
History Should Be Written_. It was composed as a letter to a friend
Philo in the time of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The occasion was
the sudden spawning of a whole shoal of would-be historians after the
Roman victories in the war with the Parthians (A. D. 165). Outraged by
these scribblers, Lucian sets forth his thoughts on the True Historian.
Since the barbarian war began, says Lucian, everyone is writing history.
It is just as when an epidemic of madness at Abdera made all the people
chant tragedies. It recalls too Diogenes, who, when Corinth was in
danger of a siege from Philip and the citizens were hurrying defense
measures, kept rolling his jar up and down hill that he might seem as
busy as the rest of the world. Lucian’s advice will include the faults
of historians which are to be avoided, the virtues to be cultivated.
History must not be written as panegyric. History must not be written as
poetry. Among the faults of contemporary historians are lack of taste,
over-abundance of details, purple patches, inaccuracies about facts.
“There are some . . . who leave alone, or deal very cursorily with, all
that is great and memorable; amateurs and not artists, they have no
selective faculty, and loiter over copious laboured descriptions of
the various trifles; it is as if a visitor to Olympia, instead of
examining, commending or describing to his stay-at-home friends the
general greatness and beauty of the Zeus, were to be struck with the
exact symmetry and polish of its footstool, or the proportions of its
shoe, and give all his attention to these minor points. ”[316]
Indispensable qualities of the ideal historian are political insight and
ability in writing. His “one task is to tell the thing as it
happened. ”[317] He will be “fearless, incorruptible, independent, a
believer in frankness and veracity; one that will call a spade a spade,
make no concession to likes and dislikes, nor spare any men for pity or
respect or propriety; an impartial judge, kind to all, but too kind to
none; a literary cosmopolite with neither suzerain nor king, never
heeding what this or that man may think, but setting down the thing that
befell. ”[317] Thucydides fulfills this ideal.
In diction and style, the marks of the true historian are frankness and
truth, lucidity and simplicity. The preface should be in proportion to
the subject. “The body of the history . . . is nothing from beginning to
end but a long narrative; it must therefore be graced with the narrative
virtues—smooth, level, and consistent progress, neither soaring nor
crawling, and the charm of lucidity. ” “Brevity is always desirable. ”
“Restraint in descriptions of mountains, walls, rivers, and the like, is
very important. ” If a speech is introduced, “the first requirement is
that it should suit the character both of the speaker and of the
occasion. ” “It may occasionally happen that some extraordinary story has
to be introduced; it should be simply narrated, without guarantee of its
truth, thrown down for any-one to make what he can of it. ” The historian
should write not for the present, but for eternity. He should hope to
have said of himself: “This was a man indeed, free and free-spoken;
flattery and servility were not in him; he was truth all through. ”[318]
Gildersleeve was probably right in calling the _True History_ “a comic
sequel to a brilliant essay entitled ‘How to write History. ’”[319] The
traditional manuscript order which places the _True History_ after _How
History Should Be Written_ seems so aptly prompted by Lucianic irony.
For this romance in two books is not history at all and has nothing of
Lucian’s primary requirement for history, that it should be true! It is
a work of pure imagination, one of the earliest accounts of fictitious
voyages and as such is part of the great tradition from the Odyssey to
_Gulliver’s Travels_. [320] Lucian’s preface explains both the nature of
the piece and his reasons for writing it. [321]
The _True History_ like many good stories is told in the first person by
Lucian himself. The author, moreover, preludes and interrupts the
narrative to get in direct touch with his reader. In his introduction,
he states that his purpose in writing is to furnish to students some
reading that will give relaxation, but at the same time “a little food
for thought. ” The story is bound to charm, Lucian thinks, because of the
novelty of the subject, the humor of the plan, the plausible lying
involved and the comical parodies of such authors as Ctesias, Iambulus,
and Homer in his Odyssey. Lucian confesses to being a liar with the best
of them, but affirms that his lying is unique in being honest because he
admits it.
“Be it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have
neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in
fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist.
Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them. ”[322]
In spite of this confession, Lucian here and there in his story tries to
create an atmosphere of veracity by protestations of it. As he never saw
the Corn Sparrow forces or the Crane Knights, he does not venture to
relate the marvellous and incredible stories told about them. [323] When
he describes the magic mirror over a well in the Moon which furnished
him television of his family and country he says that disbelievers by
going there will find he tells the truth. [324] In the Island of the
Wicked, Lucian finds all liars, both those who had told lies on earth or
written them, among the latter Ctesias and Herodotus. “On seeing them,”
he says, “I had good hopes for the future, for I have never told a lie
that I know of. ”[325] The last sentence of the romance is: “What
happened in the other world I shall tell you in the succeeding
books. ”[326] This, a Greek scholiast comments, is the greatest lie of
all!
Now after having seen what a wag Lucian is from his own words, we must
decide how we are going to take him. Are we to seek in him relaxation
and entertainment (the gift of all true romance) or are we going to
marshal our “little learning” to meet his and study all his sources, his
parodies of historians and philosophers, or search for allegories in his
fantastic worlds? The happy way will be along the path of the golden
mean. Gildersleeve put up a sign-board to it and inscribed directions
for future travellers.
“To enjoy the show properly, it is far better for the reader to give
himself up to this play of Lucian’s fancy than to endeavor to unriddle
whatever satire of contemporary literature may lie concealed in its
allegory. . . . There may be profound meaning in the war which breaks out
between the Sunburghers under Phaêthon, and the Moonburghers under
Endymion, which begins with the attempt of the Moonburghers to found a
colony on the desert planet of Lucifer, and which ends with the
victory of the Sunburghers, Lucifer being declared common property and
the vanquished compelled to pay an annual tribute of ten thousand
_amphoreis_ of dew. But so elastic are all such allegories that they
can be stretched to fit anything, and the war of these Heliotes and
Selenites would answer to describe the conflict between orthodoxy and
rationalism, and Lucifer would stand for the coming man. But how much
better to look with childish interest on the marshalling of
Horsevultures and Chickpeashooters and Garlickfighters and
Flea-archers and Wind-runners, and to watch the huge spiders spin
their web from the moon to Lucifer. ”[327]
So after realizing that we too may visit the Isles of the Blessed and
the Wicked, may soar up to Aristophanes’ Cloudcuckooland or dive under
the sea in the brother of Jonah’s whale, or see Sinbad’s roc, let us
begin at the beginning. Let the lights go out and the curtain go up. Let
us watch breathlessly an ancient Walt Disney fantasy rush across the
screen. The very names of countries and peoples add to the excitement as
the panorama unrolls. And so vivid are Lucian’s descriptions that as in
all good movies soon we find ourselves participating in his adventures.
Having set out from the Pillars of Hercules with fifty men on a good
ship, on the eightieth day we come to a wooded island. Here huge
footprints and an inscription reveal that Hercules and Dionysus were
here before us. And no wonder, for this is the Isle of Wines:
grape-vines produce springs of wine, springs feed rivers, rivers produce
fish that eaten make people drunk. And there is a species of vine that
is half grape and half lady like Daphne turning into a laurel and the
kiss of the Vine-woman brings intoxication and her embrace is a prison.
We lost two of our men to that captivity.
As we set sail, a whirlwind lifted the ship and she became a hydroplane,
sailing through the air for seven days and seven nights. The island
where then we landed proved to be the Moon. Endymion is the King so of
course he spoke Greek and we at once joined his forces for he had a war
on with the Men of the Sun, whose King is Phaethon. It was all about
which should colonize the Morning Star. Our fellow Moonites were as
strange as their names: Vulture Knights, Grass Plumes, Pea Shooters,
Garlic Warriors, Flea Bowmen, Wind Aviators, Corn Sparrows and Crane
Knights. And Phaethon’s Heliotes were as fantastic: Ant Knights,
Mosquito Aviators, Dance Aviators, Stalk Mushrooms, Dog-faced Knights,
Cloud Centaurs. A fierce battle we had and the Men of the Sun won
because they cut off light from the Moon so Endymion surrendered. We saw
strange marvels in our stay on the Moon: how men are the child-bearers;
how their clothing is made of glass or bronze; their eyes are removable;
they have a mirror over a well in which they can see what happens in far
distant lands.
As we voyaged onward, we came to many other countries: to the Morning
Star which was just being colonized, to Lamp Town where among the
inhabitants Lucian found his own Lamp which gave him news of home, to
Cloudcuckooland which Aristophanes described so truthfully. But after
such interesting scenes, disaster fell upon us. A monstrous whale bore
down upon us and in a trice swallowed us, ship and all.
When we recovered from our terror, we found that life inside a whale is
confined but not impossible. We discovered an island where we beached
our boat. The whale opened his mouth once an hour so we could mark time
and get the points of the compass. And we soon met other men there, a
Cypriote called Scintharus and his son. Scintharus told us about the
other inhabitants of the whale, who were savage barbarians, and always
ready to attack them. We thought best to join Scintharus in subduing
these enemies, but the fight was fierce for there were scores of these
Lobsters, Crabhands, Tunnyheads, Seagoats, Crawfish Coots and Solefish.
After our victory, we lived fairly well in the whale for a year and
eight months. In the ninth month, we saw through the teeth of our
monster the most terrifying battle, a sea-fight between men riding on
huge islands each of which carried about one hundred and twenty.
In spite of seeing such dangers outside, we decided finally that we must
escape from our prison. We used fire as a weapon, set the forest at the
tail-end aflame and after twelve days found that the whale was going to
die. Just in time we propped open his mouth with huge beams and the next
day when he expired, out we went on our good ship and felt once more the
wind in our sails. Fair weather did not last long. A terrible northern
gale descended and froze all the sea to a depth of six fathoms.
Scintharus, who was now our ship-master, saved us by directing us to
excavate a cave-home in the ice. In it we lived for thirty days,
building a fire and cooking the fish we cut out of the ice. When food
gave out, we dug out the boat and sailed over the ice as though it were
the sea until on the fifth day we came to open water. Now we kept coming
to various islands. We got water at one and at the next one milk, for
this island had grapes whose juice was milk, and its earth was cheese.
It was easy to subsist there! Next we passed the Isle of Cork where the
city is built on a cork foundation and the men have feet of cork so that
they can run over the waters as they will, buoyed up by their own
life-preservers!
Happiest of all our stays was that on the Island of the Blessed. Here it
is always spring. Every month the vines yield grapes and the trees
fruit. It is a land flowing with milk and wine. Glass trees furnish
goblets which fill automatically at the banquet. Baked loaves of bread
are plucked from trees. Beside the table are two springs, one of
laughter, one of joy, and with draughts from these the banqueters start
their revels. Famous men dwell there. I saw Socrates surrounded by fair
young men arguing with Nestor and Palamedes. Plato preferred to live in
his own Republic. The followers of Aristippus and Epicurus were
considered the best of companions, but Diogenes the Cynic had reformed,
married Lais and taken to dancing. The Stoics had not yet arrived for
they were still toiling up the steep hill of virtue. Conversation with
Homer was one of the greatest pleasures, especially as he settled the
matter of his birthplace by declaring himself a Babylonian and solved
the Homeric question by affirming that he had written all the lines
attributed to him. Beside literary talks, there were games for the Dead.
Even the Island of the Blessed could not be free from wars, for the
Wicked invaded it and had to be expelled by force. Homer wrote a new
epic on the fight of the dead heroes. The Island had its scandals too
all due again to Helen. For she bewitched Scintharus’ son and tried to
elope with him, but was caught. That episode caused our expulsion from
the Island of the Blessed. Before we left, Homer wrote a couplet for
Lucian which he had carved on a stele of beryl and Odysseus secretly
gave him a letter for Calypso.
We touched at the Isle of the Wicked and at the Isle of Dreams, where we
slept thirty days and next we put in at Ogygia. Lucian read Odysseus’
letter before he delivered it to Calypso and found he had always
regretted leaving her! For Odysseus’ sake, Calypso entertained us
royally.
Next we fell into danger from the Pumpkin Pirates and the Hardshell
Pirates and the Dolphin-Riders, but we escaped them all. One night we
ran aground on the marvellous and mighty nest of a king-fisher. And a
little further on in the sea we came to a forest of rootless trees which
we could not penetrate. There was nothing to do but haul the ship up to
their tops and take “a forest cruise” across. More marvellous still we
had to cross a water-chasm on a water bridge, a river-way between two
water precipices. After that we came to the Isle of the Bellowing
Bullheads, men like Minotaurs, and had some skirmishes with them. And
then we came to an Island of Fair Ladies who wished to take us to bed
with them, but Lucian discovered that they all had ass-legs and that
they ate strangers when they had cozened them to sleep. So we departed
in haste. At dawn we saw the land which is on the other side of the
world from ours and there we were shipwrecked. What happened there will
be another story.
This review of the two books of Lucian’s _True History_ reveals at once
its startling differences from the other Greek romances of the early
Empire. Romantic love does not figure in it. Religion has little or no
place in it. Adventures are its bones and sinews. These adventures
though described realistically are all figments of the imagination,
explorations of the Wonderful Things beyond Thule as much as those of
Antonius Diogenes must have been. The coloring of the pictures is an
amazing mixture of realism and fantasy. The veracity of sense
impressions almost converts doubting Thomases. Lucian comes to seem no
mean rival of Herodotus, the Father of Lies. Only occasionally some
satiric laughter betrays him.
It is perhaps easier for twentieth century readers to accept his wonders
than it was for his contemporaries of the second century. Science has
developed so many of his imaginative forecasts. The monstrous footprints
of Hercules and Dionysus might be rock-prints of dinosaurs. The plunging
whale is a submarine. His ship lifting from the ocean to sail through
the air has become the hydroplane. His island galleys bearing one
hundred and twenty men each are our battleships. The Cloud Centaurs who
fight in the air are our aviators. Arctic explorers have lived in huts
made of ice-blocks. Ice-sailing is a recognized winter sport. Clothing
is made not of glass or bronze, but of cellulose and steel. Removable
eyes suggest spectacles, contact lenses and field-glasses. The
Cork-footed Men must have resembled surf riders. And the magic mirror
over the well anticipated the perforated sphere of television.
But his contemporaries had the advantage of us in recognizing Lucian’s
sources and parodies more readily than we can. For us, Antonius
Diogenes, Ctesias and Iambulus are lost. Yet Photius records that the
romance of Antonius Diogenes, _The Wonders beyond Thule_, was the chief
source of Lucian’s _True History_. So many, however, are the sources
which Lucian used to forward his avowed purpose of furnishing relaxation
accompanied by some learning, that scholars have busied themselves for
years tracing parallels with Greek and Latin authors. [328] Allinson
remarks wisely: “In general, it seems safe to conclude that Lucian
regarded the writings of predecessors and contemporaries as an open
quarry from which he first built up his own style and then picked out
material to imbed, with an artist’s skill, in the parti-coloured mosaic
of his satire. ”[329]
Some idea of Lucian’s parody of his sources may be gained, even though
Antonius Diogenes is lost, from his incidental flings at great Greeks
and from his constant references to Homer which are a mixture of
admiration and irony. So when he saw Cloudcuckooland he remembered
Aristophanes the poet, “a wise and truthful man whose writings are
distrusted without reason. ”[330] On the Island of the Blessed he did not
find Plato for he preferred to live in the city of his imagination under
his own constitution and laws. Yet he might well have been in Elysium
for the inhabitants are most Platonic in sharing their wives. [331] The
solemn treaty which ended the wars between the Men of the Sun and the
Men of the Moon has a comical resemblance to the treaty between Athens
and Sparta which Thucydides records though it is signed by Fireman,
Hotman, and Burner, by Nightman, Moonman and Allbright. [332]
Herodotus comes in for more imitation, for he furnishes stories of ants
bigger than foxes,[333] of dog-headed men,[334] of men who feed on
odors,[335] of a feast of lanterns in Egypt,[336] of a floating
island,[337] of the sea freezing,[338] of a breeze that bears the
perfume of Arabia. [339] But when Lucian solemnly imitates these
exaggerations, we feel he has his tongue in his cheek and our suspicion
is confirmed when he consigns Ctesias and Herodotus to the limbo of
Liars in the Island of the Wicked. [340]
Lucian’s treatment of Homer shows his most genial irony. In his preface
he makes Homer’s Odysseus the guide and teacher of all historians of
imaginary travels, Odysseus “who tells Alcinous and his court about
winds in bondage, one-eyed men, cannibals and savages; also about
animals with many heads, and transformations of his comrades wrought
with drugs,” and with such marvels “humbugged the illiterate
Phaeacians. ”[341] But in the Island of the Blessed, Homer is the shade
in whose talk Lucian most delights. Homer indeed is most affable in
discussing all the literary problems of his epics, especially since he
had just won a lawsuit in which Thersites accused him of libel, through
the aid of his lawyer Odysseus. [342] Homer as a shade is still writing
for when there was war in heaven, he produced a new epic about the
battle of the shades of the heroes,[343] which Lucian unfortunately lost
on the way home, and on Lucian’s departure Homer composed a
commemorative epigram which described him as dear to the blessed
gods. [344]
Lucian introduces Homer’s characters into his scenes. Achilles is one of
the most honored heroes on the Island of the Blessed, serving as joint
judge with Theseus at the Games of the Dead. [345] Helen is the leading
lady in the court-room scene where Rhadamanthus had to decide whose wife
she should be in Elysium. She has forgiven Stesichorus for saying she
caused the Trojan War. [346] But she creates a new scandal by trying to
desert Menelaus again in an elopement with Scintharus’ son. [347] Calypso
on receiving Odysseus’ letter from Lucian’s hand weeps as she reads that
he always regretted giving up his life with her, and then with true
feminine curiosity asks how Penelope is looking now and whether she is
as wise as Odysseus used to boast. Lucian made such replies as he
thought would gratify her! [348]
Minor episodes are reminiscent of the Odyssey. Rhadamanthus gives Lucian
a talisman of mallow as Hermes gave Odysseus the moly. [349] To the Land
of Dreams Lucian must erect four gates in place of Homer’s two, one of
horn, one of ivory. [350] And the Singing Sirens that tried to beguile
Odysseus have been metamorphosed into fair young ladies in long chitons
which conceal the legs of she-asses. [351] But whatever changes are made
in the source-material taken from the Odyssey, Lucian’s gentle raillery
does not hide his admiration of great Homer. He gives the lie to the
myth that Homer was blind. [352] And in the contest of the poets at the
Games of the Dead in the Island of the Blessed, he ironically makes
Hesiod the victor though he affirms that in truth Homer was by far the
best of poets.
Lucian’s style in his _True History_ illustrates many of his own
criteria for writing history. The short preface is in proportion to the
short two-book _True History_. The narrative is concise, rapid, lucid
and shows consistent progress, one event following naturally and quickly
upon another without extravagant use of details. The few speeches are
short, lively and suited to the character of the speaker. The
descriptions are realistic and pointed. Extraordinary stories are told
simply with an appearance of veracity.
A few typical elements of the Greek Romances appear in the _True
History_. There is a suggestion of a court-room scene where Rhadamanthus
judges Helen’s accomplices in escape. One letter is inserted, Odysseus’
to Calypso, for the purpose of ironic satire of Homeric characters. An
inscription on bronze is discovered and a laudatory couplet in hexameter
is composed and inscribed on stone. But love and religion, the commonest
themes of the Greek Romances, are eliminated from this tale of
marvellous adventures.
Satire though this story is, it ranks easily first among imaginary
voyagings both in fantasy and style. In his narration Lucian pours all
his spirit, his liveliness of observation, his brilliant imagination,
his vivacious wit. His own enjoyment in his facile, marvellous
inventions is contagious. As he rushes his breathless readers over the
earth, through the air, under the sea, as he introduces us to
innumerable natural phenomena and monstrous beings, he convinces us that
this world of fantasy is a real world. He has made many others wish to
record similar travels, for the _True History_ is the model of all those
imaginary voyages with which Rabelais, Cyrano de Bergerac, Swift,
Voltaire and others amused their contemporaries. No work of Lucian found
so many imitators as this.
