nothing,” brings four pounds, “because he is dull and stupid and has no more sense than a grub” (27). But the man raises a doubt, “whether or not he has really been bought,” and refuses to go with the purchaser till he has fully considered the matter.
Timon is a very amusing and witty dialogue. The misanthrope, once wealthy, has become a poor farm-labourer, and reproaches Zeus for his indifference to the injustice of man. Zeus declares that the noisy disputes in Attica have so disgusted him that he has not been there for a long time (9). He tells Hermes to conduct Plutus to visit Timon, and see what can be done to help him. Plutus, who at first refuses to go, is persuaded after a long conversation with Hermes, and Timon is found by them digging in his field (31). Poverty is unwilling to resign her votary to wealth; and Timon himself is with difficulty persuaded to turn up with his mattock a crock of gold coins. Now that he has once more become rich, his former flatterers come cringing with their congratulations and respects, but they are all driven off with broken heads or pelted with stones. Between this dialogue and the Plutus of Aristophanes there are many close resemblances.
Hermotimus (pp. 739-831) is one of the longer dialogues, Hermotimus, a student of the Stoic philosophy for twenty years (2), and Lucian (Lycinus) being the interlocutors. The long time—forty years at the least—required for climbing up to the temple of virtue and happiness, and the short span of life, if any, left for the enjoyment of it, are discussed. That the greatest philosophers do not always attain perfect indifference, the Stoic ultimatum, is shown by the anecdote of one who dragged his pupil into court to make him pay his fee (9), and again by a violent quarrel with another at a banquet (11). Virtue is compared to a city with just and good and contented inhabitants; but so many offer themselves as guides to the right road to virtue that the inquirer is bewildered (26). What is truth, and who are the right teachers of it? The question is argued at length, and illustrated by a peculiar custom of watching the pairs of athletes and setting aside the reserved combatant (πάρεδρος) at the Olympian games by the marks on the ballots (40-43). This, it is argued, cannot be done till all the ballots have been examined; so a man cannot select the right way till he has tried all the ways to virtue. But to know the doctrines of all the sects is impossible in the term of a life (49). To take a taste of each, like trying a sample of wine, will not do, because the doctrines taught are not, like the crock of wine, the same throughout, but vary or advance day by day (59). A suggestion is made (68) that the searcher after truth should begin by taking lessons in the science of discrimination, so as to be a good judge of truth before testing the rival claims. But who is a good teacher of such a science? (70). The general conclusion is that philosophy is not worth the pursuit. “If I ever again,” says Hermotimus, “meet a philosopher on the road, I will shun him, as I would a mad dog.”
The Anacharsis is a dialogue between Solon and the Scythian philosopher, who has come to Athens to learn the nature of the Greek institutions. Seeing the young men performing athletic exercises in the Lyceum, he expresses his surprise at such a waste of energy. This gives Socrates an opportunity of descanting at length on training as a discipline, and emulation as a motive for excelling. Love of glory, Solon says, is one of the chief goods in life. The argument is rather ingenious and well put; the style reminds us of the minor essays of Xenophon.
The Alexander or False Prophet is the subject of a separate article (see Alexander the Paphlagonian).
These are the chief of Lucian’s works. Many others, e.g. Prometheus, Menippus, Life of Demonax, Toxaris, Zeus Tragoedus, The Dream or the Cock, Icaromenippus (an amusing satire on the physical philosophers), are of considerable literary value. (F. A. P.)
Bibliography.—Editio princeps (Florence, 1496); valuable editions with notes by T. Hemsterhuis and J. F. Reitz (1743–1746, with Lexicon Lucianeum by C. C. Reitz) and J. T. Lehmann (1822–1831). Editions of the text by C. Jacobitz (1886–1888) and J. Sommerbrodt (1886–1899). The scholia have been edited by H. Rabe in the Teubner series (1906). There are numerous editions of separate portions of Lucian’s works and translations in most European languages; amongst the latter may be mentioned the German version by C. M. Wieland (1788), with valuable notes and commentaries: English; one by several hands (1711), for which Dryden had previously written an unsatisfactory life of the author, by T. Francklin (1780) and W. Tooke (1820): and French; of The Ass, by P. L. Courier, with full bibliography by A. J. Pons (1887), and of the complete works by E. Talbot (1866) and Belin de Ballu (1789; revised ed. by L. Humbert, 1896). A complete modern English translation, racy and colloquial, appeared in 1905, The Works of Lucian of Samosata, by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler. On Lucian generally, the best work is M. Croiset’s Essai sur la vie et les 'œuvres de Lucien (1882); see also E. Egger, “Parallèle de Lucien et Voltaire,” in Mémoires de littérature ancienne (1862); C. Martha, Les Moralistes sous l’empire romain (1866); H. W. L. Hime, Lucian, the Syrian Satirist (1900); Sir R. C. Jebb, Essays and Addresses (1907); “Lucian,” by W. L. Collins in Blackwood’s Ancient Classics for English Readers; the Prolegomena to editions of select works with notes by Sommerbrodt; and the exhaustive bibliography of the earlier literature in Engelmann, Scriptores Graeci (1880). On some special questions see E. Rohde, Über Lucians Schrift Δούκιος ἥ Ὄνος (Leipzig, 1869); C. Buerger, De Lucio Patrensi (Berlin, 1887); J. Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker (Berlin, 1879); C. G. Jacob, Characteristik Lucians von Samosata (Hamburg, 1832); C. F. Hermann, Charakteristik Lucians (Göttingen, 1849); P. M. Bolderman, Studia Lucianea (Leiden, 1893); R. Helm, “Lucian und die Philosophenschulen,” in Neue Jahrb. f. das klassische Altertum (1901), pp. 188, 263, 367.
LUCIFER (d. 370/1), bishop of Cagliari (hence called Caralitanus), an ardent supporter of the cause of Athanasius. After the unfavourable result of the synod of Arles in 353 he volunteered to endeavour to obtain a new and impartial council. He was accordingly sent by Pope Liberius, with Pancratius the presbyter and Hilarius the deacon, but could not prevent the condemnation of Athanasius, which was renewed at Milan in 355. For his own persistent adherence to the orthodox creed he was banished to Germanicia in Commagene; he afterwards lived at Eleutheropolis in Palestine, and finally in the upper Thebaid. His exile came to an end with the publication of Julian’s edict in 362. From 363 until his death in 371 he lived at Cagliari in a state of voluntary separation from ecclesiastical fellowship with his former friends Eusebius of Vercelli, Athanasius and the rest, on account of their mild decision at the synod of Alexandria in 362 with reference to the treatment of those who had unwillingly Arianized under the persecutions of Constantius. Lucifer was hardly sufficiently educated to appreciate the real question at
issue, and the sect which he thus founded did not continue long after his death. It is doubtful whether it ever formulated any distinctive doctrine; certainly it developed none of any importance. The memory of Lucifer is still cherished in Sardinia; but, although popularly regarded there as a saint, he has never been canonized.
The controversial writings of Lucifer, dating from his exile, are chiefly remarkable for their passionate zeal, and for the boldness and violence of the language addressed to the reigning emperor, whom he did not scruple to call the enemy of God and a second Saul, Ahab and Jeroboam. Their titles, in the most probable chronological order, are De non parcendis in Deum delinquentibus, De regibus apostaticis, Ad Constantium Augustum pro Athanasio libri ii., De non conveniendo cum haereticis and Moriendum esse pro Filio Dei. Their quotations of Scripture are of considerable value to the critical student of the Latin text before Jerome. They were first collected and edited by Tilius (Paris, 1568); the best edition is that of W. Hartel in the Vienna Corpus, Script. Eccl. Lat. (1886). See also G. Krüger, Lucifer Bischof von Cagliari und das Schisma der Luciferianer (Leipzig, 1886); F. G. Kenyon, Textual Criticism, pp. 181, 221.
LUCIFER (the Latinized form of Gr. φωσφόρος, “light-bearer”), the name given to the “morning star,” i.e. the planet Venus when it appears above the E. horizon before sunrise, and sometimes also to the “evening star,” i.e. the same planet in the W. sky after sundown, more usually called Hesperus (q.v.). The term “day star” (so rendered in the Revised Version) was used poetically by Isaiah for the king of Babylon: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations” (Is. xiv. 12, Authorized Version). The words ascribed to Christ in Luke x. 18: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (cf. Rev. ix. 1), were interpreted by the Christian Fathers as referring to the passage in Isaiah; whence, in Christian theology, Lucifer came to be regarded as the name of
