Lucian, IV, Anacharsis or Athletics. Menippus or The Descent into Hades. On Funerals. A Professor of Public Speaking. Alexander the False Prophet. Essays in Portraiture. Essays in Portraiture Defended. The Goddesse of Surrye

by Lucian of Samosata

Lucian (ca. 120-190 CE), the satirist from Samosata on the Euphrates, started as an apprentice sculptor, turned to rhetoric and visited Italy and Gaul as a successful travelling lecturer, before settling in Athens and developing his original brand of satire. Late in life he fell on hard times and accepted an official post in Egypt.



Although notable for the Attic purity and elegance of his Greek and his literary versatility, Lucian is chiefly famed for the lively, cynical wit of the humorous dialogues in which he satirises human folly, superstition and hypocrisy. His aim was to amuse rather than to instruct. Among his best works are A True Story (the tallest of tall stories about a voyage to the moon), Dialogues of the Gods (a 'reductio ad absurdum' of traditional mythology), Dialogues of the Dead (on the vanity of human wishes), Philosophies for Sale (great philosophers of the past are auctioned off as slaves), The Fisherman (the degeneracy of modern philosophers), The Carousal or Symposium (philosophers misbehave at a party), Timon (the problems of being rich), Twice Accused (Lucian's defence of his literary career) and (if by Lucian) The Ass (the amusing adventures of a man who is turned into an ass).

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Lucian is in eight volumes.

Genres: Classics

432 pages, Hardcover

First published May 3, 2001

About the author

Lucian of Samosata was a Greek-educated Syrian rhetorician, and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.

Reviews

[jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume contains "Alexander the False Prophet" (150-170 AD) and for it alone the entire book is worth the purchase--every charlatan and huckster EVER is found an heir of Alexander's practices and heinous achievements. Lucian was an eyewitness to him, in a position to judge his notoriety, oppose him, and nearly meet death because of him. Having touted that one work, there is an equal, A Professor of Public Speaking, a satire worth a hundred hoots, that every one should read, not to mention the two works on Portraiture, Anacharsis, or Atheletics, Menippus, and On Funerals. The Goddesse of Surrye, was a disappointment to me, not for the content or even Lucian's style, but A. M. Harmon's translation, brilliant throughout the volume, adopts an old English mimicry to equivocate Lucian's adoption of the Ionic (rather than Attic Greek) dialect to mimic Herodotus--brilliant and impressive in itself, but cumbersome and interfering on other grounds. That didn't work for me, but muddled my appreciation of the fascinating details of the account which I desired to read for its historical insights into the ancient Assyrian rites and practices. For that, I read both Harmon's translation in conjunction with the (modern English) translation of H. A. Strong (easily available on the web) which Harmon himself commended in his introductory notes to the work on the Syrian Goddess. Both translations in conjunction with the Greek offer excellent (though dated) notes and commentary which are a valuable read in themselves. For that reason alone, a personal one, I gave the work four stars instead of five.