and bad actions of men,[1] seem to have come from the same source, though the notion of a written catalogue of human actions to be used in judgment was familiar to Aeschylus and Euripides.
As a satirist and a wit Lucian occupies in prose literature the unique position which Aristophanes holds in Greek poetry. But whether he is a mere satirist, who laughs while he lashes, or a misanthrope, who hates while he derides, is not very clear. In favour of the former view it may be said that the two main objects of his ridicule are mythology and the sects of philosophy; in favour of the latter, his bitter exposure of imposture and chicanery in the Alexander, and the very severe attacks he makes on the “humbug” of philosophy,[2] which he everywhere assails with the most acrimonious and contemptuous epithets.
As a writer Lucian is fluent, easy and unaffected, and a close follower of the best Attic models, such as Plato and the orators. His style is simpler than Plutarch’s, and some of his compositions, especially the Dialogues of the Gods (pp. 204-287) and of the Marine Deities (288-327), and, above all, the Dialogues of the Dead (329-454), are models of witty, polished and accurate Greek composition. Not less clever, though rather lax in morality, are the ἑταιρικοί διάλογοι (pp. 280-325), which remind us somewhat of the letters of Alciphron. The sarcasms on the popular mythology, the conversations of Pluto, Hermes, Charon and others of the powers in Hades, show a positive disbelief in any future state of existence. The model Lucian followed in these dialogues, as well in the style as in the sparkling and playful repartee, was the Platonic conversations, founded on the drama, of which the dialogue may be called the prose representative. Aristotle never adopted it, perhaps regarding it as beneath the true dignity of philosophy. The dialogue, in fact, was revived and improved by Lucian,[3] the old traditions of the λογοποιοί and λογογράφοι, and, above all, the immense influence of rhetoric as an art, having thrown some discredit on a style of composition which, as introduced by Plato, had formed quite a new era in Greek prose composition. For rhetoric loved to talk, expatiate and declaim, while dialectic strove to refute by the employment of question and answer, often in the briefest form.
Lucian evinces a perfect mastery over a language as wonderful in its inflections as in its immense and varied vocabulary; and it is a well-merited praise of the author to say that to a good Greek scholar the pages of Lucian are almost as easy and as entertaining as an English or French novel. It is true that he employs some forms and compounds which were not in use in the time of Plato or Demosthenes, and, as one who lived under Roman rule, has a tendency towards Latinisms. But his own sentiments on the propriety of diction are shown by his reproof to Lexiphanes, “if anywhere you have picked up an out-of-the-way word, or coined one which you think good, you labour to adapt the sense of it, and think it a loss if you do not succeed in dragging it in somewhere, even when it is not really wanted.”
Lucian founded his style, or obtained his fluency, from the successful study of rhetoric, by which he appears to have made a good income from composing speeches which attracted much attention. At a later period in life he seems to have held a lucrative legal office in Egypt, which he retained till his death.
His extant works are so numerous that of some of the principal only a short sketch can be given. More than 80 pieces have come down to us under his name (including three collections of 71 shorter dialogues), of which about 20 are spurious or of doubtful authorship. To understand them aright we must remember that the whole moral code, the entire “duty of man,” was included, in the estimation of the pagan Greek, in the various schools of philosophy. As these were generally rivals, and the systems they taught were more or less directly antagonistic, truth presented itself to the inquirer, not as one, but as manifold. The absurdity and the impossibility of this forms the burden of all Lucian’s writings. He could only form one conclusion, viz. that there is no such thing as truth.
One of the best written and most amusing treatises of antiquity is Lucian’s True History, forming a rather long narrative in two books, which suggested Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Rabelais’s Voyage of Pantagruel and Cyrano de Bergerac’s Journey to the Moon. It is composed, the author tells us in a brief introduction, not only as a pastime and a diversion from severer studies, but avowedly as a satire on the poets and logographers who had written so many marvellous tales. He names Ctesias and Homer; but Hellanicus and Herodotus, perhaps other λογοποιοί still earlier, appear to have been in his mind.[4] The only true statement in his History, he wittily says (p. 72), is that it contains nothing but lies from beginning to end.
The main purport of the story is to describe a voyage to the moon. He set out, he tells us, with fifty companions, in a well-provisioned ship, from the “Pillars of Hercules,” intending to explore the western ocean. After eighty days’ rough sailing they came to an island on which they found a Greek inscription, “This was the limit of the expedition of Heracles and Dionysus”; and the visit of the wine-god seemed attested by some miraculous vines which they found there. After leaving the island they were suddenly carried up, ship and all, by a whirlwind into the air, and on the eighth day came in sight of a great round island shining with a bright light (p. 77), and lying a little above the moon. In a short time they are arrested by a troop of gigantic “horse-vultures” and brought as captives to the “man in the moon,” who proves to be Endymion. He is engaged in a war with the inhabitants of the sun, which is ruled by King Phaëthon, the quarrel having arisen from an attempt to colonize the planet Venus (Lucifer). The voyagers are enlisted as “Moonites,” and a long description follows of the monsters and flying dragons engaged in the contest. A fight ensues, in which the slaughter is so great that the very clouds are tinged with red (p. 84). The long description of the inhabitants of the moon is extremely droll and original. After descending safely into the sea, the ship is swallowed by a huge “sea serpent” more than 100 miles long. The adventures during the long confinement in the creature’s belly are most amusing; but at last they sail out through the chinks between the monster’s teeth, and soon find themselves at the “Fortunate Islands.” Here they meet with the spirits of heroes and philosophers of antiquity, on whom the author expatiates at some length. The tale comes to an abrupt end with an allusion to Herodotus in the promise that he “will tell the rest in his next books.”
Another curious and rather long treatise is entitled Λούκιος ἤ Ὄνος, the authorship of which is regarded as doubtful. Parts of the story are coarse enough; the point turns on one Lucius visiting in a Thessalian family, in which the lady of the house was a sorceress. Having seen her changed into a bird by anointing herself with some potent drug, he resolves to try a similar experiment on himself, but finds that he has become an ass, retaining, however, his human senses and memory. The mistake arose from his having filched the wrong ointment; however, he is assured by the attendant, Palaestra, that if he can but procure roses to eat, his natural form will be restored. In the night a party of bandits break into the house and carry off the stolen goods into the mountains on the back of the unfortunate donkey, who gets well beaten for stumbling on the rough road. Seeing, as he fancies, some roses in a garden, he goes in quest of them,
- ↑ Philopatris, 13. Aesch. Eum. 265, δελτογράφῳ δὲ πάντ᾽ ἐπωπᾷ φρενί.
- ↑ In Hermotimus (51) Hermotimus says to Lycinus (who must be assumed to represent Lucian himself), ὑβριστὴς ἀεὶ σὺ, καὶ οὐκ οἷδ᾽ ὄ τι παθὼν μισεῖς φιλοσοφίαν καὶ ἐς τοῦς φιλοσοφοῦντας ἀποσκώπτεις In Icaromenippus (5; see also 29) he says he always guessed who were the best physical philosophers “by their sour-faced looks, their paleness of complexion and the length of their beards.”
- ↑ He says (speaking as Σύρος in Bis accusatus, 34) that he found dialogue somewhat out of repute from the too numerous questions (i.e. employed by Plato), and brought it up to a more human and natural standard, substituting banter and repartee for dialectic quibbles and close logical reasoning.
- ↑ He says (p. 127) that he saw punished in Hades, more severely than any other sinners, writers of false narratives, among whom were Ctesias of Cnidus and Herodotus. Yet in the short essay inscribed Herodotus (p. 831), he wishes it were possible for him to imitate the many excellencies of that writer.
