Southern Branch of the University of California Los Angeles Form L I ?A 3kOC AU6 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 4<& i JUL ^ J/ S 1981 \ JUL 2 193* m Urn 4 1940 IJAN 5 APR 2 3 1962 Form L-9-15m-8'24 , 6 STATE KOitMAi. MnuuL, Los Angete, CaJ. Los Angeles, Cal. Ancient Classics for English Readers EDITED BY THE REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. LUCIAN CONTENTS OF THE SERIES. HOMER : THE ILIAD, HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, HERODOTUS, C/ESAR, . VIRGIL, HORACE, ^ESCHYLUS, By XENOPHON, CICERO, SOPHOCLES, PLINY, By A. EURIPIDES. JUVENAL, . ARISTOPHANES, ... By the Editor. By the Same. By George C. Swayne, M.A. ... By Anthony Trollope. By the Editor. . By Theodore Martin. the Right Rev. the Bishop of Colombo. . By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. By the Editor. By Clifton W. Collins, M.A. Church, M.A., and W. J. Brodribb, M.A. By William Bodham Donne. By Edward Walford, M.A. By the Editor. HESIOD AND THEOGNIS, By the Rev. James Davies, M.A. PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. ... By the Editor. TACITUS By William Bodham Donne. LUCIAN By the Editor. PLATO, By Clifton W. Collins. THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY, ... By Lord Neaves. LIVY By the Editor. OVID By the Rev. A. Church, M.A. CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, & PROPERTIUS, ByJ. Davies, M.A. DEMOSTHENES, . . By the Rev. W. J. Brodribb, M.A. ARISTOTLE, ... By Sir Alex. Grant, Bart., LL.D. THUCYDIDES By the Editor. LUCRETIUS By W. H. Mallock, M.A. PINDAR, ... By the Rev. F. D. Morice, M.A. LTTCIAN BY THE REV. VV. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. AUTHOR OF 'ETONIAN A,' *THK PUBLIC SCHOOLS,' ETC. PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO, 1875. A t, L^ CONTENTS. CHAP. I. BIOGRAPHICAL, .... " H. LUCIAN AND THE PAGAN OLYMPUS, " III. DIALOGUES OP THE DEAD, " IV. LUCIAN AND THE PHILOSOPHERS, " V. SATIRES ON SOCIETV, . . " VI. LUCIAN AS A ROMANCE-WRITER, " VII. LUCIAN AND CHRISTIANITY, • Page 1 12 50 83 138 158 167 L U I A K CHAPTEE I. BIOGRAPHICAL. Lucian (Lucianus, or Lychnis, as he sometimes calls himself) was born about a.d. 120, or perhaps a few years later, at Samosata, on the bank of the Euphrates, at that time the capital city of Commagene, and per- haps better known a century later from its heresiarch bishop, Paul. What we know of our author's life is chiefly gathered from incidental notices scattered through his numerous writings. Of his youthful days he has given what is probably a truthful account in a piece which he has entitled " The Dream." This appears to have been written in his successful later years (when men are most disposed to be open and honest about their early antecedents), and recited as a kind of prologue to his public readings of his works, before his fellow-citizens of Samosata. He tells us that his parents, who seem to have been in humble circum- stances, held a council of the friends of the family to consult what should be done Avith their boy. They a. c. vol. xviii. a 2 L UCIA N. came to the conclusion that a liberal education was not to be thought of, because of the expense. The next best thing, for a lad who had already no doubt given token of some ability, was to choose some calling which should af.ill Vc of an LiteUeotua.' rather than a servile character. This is his own account of what took place in the family council : — ■ "When one proposed one thing and one another, according to their fancies or experience, my father turned to my maternal uncle — he was one of the party, and passed for an excellent carver of Mer- curies * — ' It is impossible,' said he, politely, ' in your presence, to give any other art the preference. So take this lad home with you, and teach him to be a good stone-cutter and statuary : for he has it in him, and is clever enough, as you know, with his hands.' He had formed this notion from the way in which I used to amuse myself in moulding wax. As soon as I left school, I used to scrape wax together, and make figures of oxen and horses, and men too, with some cleverness, as my father thought. This accomplishment had earned me many a beating from my schoolmasters ; but at this moment it was praised as a sign of natural talent, and sanguine hopes were entertained th.it I should speedily become master of my new profession, from this early plastic fancy. So, on a day which was counted lucky for entering on my apprenticeship, to * The figures of Mercury so commonly set up in the streets and at the gates of houses were mere busts without arms, and could not have required any very great amount of art in their production. BIOGRAPHICAL. 3 my uncle I was sent. I did not at all object to it my- self : I thought I should find the work amusing enough, and be very proud when I could show my playmates how I could make gods, and cut out other little figures for myself and my special friends. But an accident happened to me, as is not uncommon Avith beginners. My uncle put a chisel in my hand, and hid me work it lightly over a slab of marble that lay in the shop, quoting at the same time the common proverb, ' Well begun is half done.' But, leaning too hard upon it, in my awkwardness, the slab hroke ; and my uncle, seiz- ing a whip that lay at hand, made me pay my footing in no very gentle or encouraging fashion ; so the first wages I earned were tears." " I ran off straight home, sobbing and howling, with the tears running down my cheeks. I told them there all about the whip, and showed the wheals ; and with loud complaints of my uncle's cruelty, I added that he had done it all out of envy, — because he was afraid I should soon make a better artist than himself. My mother was extremely indignant, and vented bitter reproaches against her brother." * Of course, with the mother in such mood, we readily understand that young Lucian never Avent back to the shop. " I went to sleep," he says, " with my eyes full of tears, and that very night I had a dream." This dream, which the author goes on to relate, is a repro- duction, adapted to suit the circumstances, of the well- known " Choice of Hercules." How far Lucian * " The Dream," 2-4. 4 LUC IAN, actually dreamed it, or thought he dreamed it, is impossible to say. He was imaginative enough, no doubt, to have pictured it all to himself in his sleep ; or a youth who had hit upon so ingenious an explana- tion of his uncle's beating him was equally capable of inventing a dream for the family edification ; or (and tins is the most likely supposition) the practised fabulist might have only adopted it as an appo- site parable for the audience before whom he re- lated it. The dream was this : Two female figures seemed to have laid hold of him on either side, and struggled so fiercely for the possession that he felt as if he were bein^ torn in two. " The one figure was of coarse and masculine aspect, with rough hair and callous hands, with her robe high-girt, and covered with dust — very like my uncle the stone-cutter when he was polishing his work; the other had a lovely face and graceful bearing, and was elegantly dressed." The first is " Statuary," who offers him, if he will follow her, an ample maintenance, good health, and possibly fame. He is not to be discouraged at her rough ap- pearance ; such, at first starting in life, were Phidias, Myron, and Praxiteles. The other graceful lady is " Liberal Education." She reminds him that he had already made some slight acquaintance with her : but much is still wanting- She will make her votary acquainted with all the noblest things which the noblest men in all times have done, and said, and written ; she will adorn his soul with temperance, jus- tice, gentleness, prudence, and fortitude ; with the love of the beautiful, and the thirst for knowledge. Nay, BIOGRAPHICAL. 5 she -will give him that which all men covet — immor- tality. Her rival can but offer him the work and position of a mere labourer, earning his living by his hands, one of the vulgar herd, obliged to bow before his superiors, and working according to his patrons' taste.* Lucian hardly waited, he says, for the termination of this divine creature's speech, before he sprang up, turned his back upon her rival, and threw himself into her embraces. " No doubt," he slyly observes, " the recollection of the flogging which my brief acquaintance with the other lady had got me the day before contri- buted not a little to my choice." The rejected claim- ant gnashed upon him savagely with her teeth, and then, "stiffening like a second Niobe," she was — very appropriately — turned into stone.t Whatever truth there might be in the vision, Lucian's choice was made. How he found the means for the further education that was needful, we are not told; but he got himself trained in some way as a Rhetori- cian. That science was not only very popular, but its professors, when once they had made themselves a name, were pretty well paid. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius was himself a most liberal patron of this as of other sciences, and j^untaincd public lectures on juris- prudence, with which "rhetoric was directly connected, both at Rome and in the provinces. * Wieland well remarks that the art of sculpture must have been very much on the decline, both in point of merit and repu- tation, to lead the writer to speak of it in such slighting temis. + "The Dream," 6-14. 6 LUC I AN. For some time after his education was completed, he seems to have wandered up and down Ionia, with very precarious means of support, exercising his profes- sion, among other places, at Antioch, where he must have come into contact more or less with the new sect called " Christians," — with what result we shall partly see hereafter. By degrees he got into some practice as an advocate : hut not meeting with the success which he hoped for in that line, he took to composing orations for others to deliver, and to giving lectures upon rhetoric and the art of public speaking. In this latter capacity he travelled a good deal, as was the custom for all professors in those days, and delivered his lectures and declamations in the towns of Syria, Greece, Italy, and Gaul. It was in the last-named country — always h rich harvest-field, as Ave gather from Juvenal,* for travelling orators and lecturers on law — that he seems to have been most successful, and he continued there for ten years. "Whether he eventually grew tired of his profession, as some, expressions in his writings would lead us to think, or whether he had made enough money by it to enable him to devote himself to the more strictly lite- rary life to which his tastes and abilities alike pointed, — he gave up the study and the practice of Rhetoric in about his fortieth year. He cast off' his old mistress, he says, because he had grown tired of her false ways : " she was always painting her face and tiring her head," and otherwise misbehaving herself, and he * See his Satires, vii. 175, and xv. 111. BIOGRAPHICAL. 7 would endure it no longer. She had led him a very- unquiet life of it, he declares, for some years. He makes poor Rhetoric, indeed, say in her defence in the same Dialogue, and with at least some degree of truth, that she had taken him up when he was young, poor, and unknown, had brought him fame and repu- tation, and lastly in Gaul had made him a wealthy man.* It is possible that the declining reputation in which the science, owing to the abuses introduced by unworthy professors, was beginning to be held throughout Greece, may have been one great reason for his withdrawing from it. He delivered his last lecture on the subject at Thessalonica, — where he would again meet with, or at least hear something of, the members of the Christian Church. Thence he returned to his native town of Samosata, found his father still alive there,t and soon removed him and his whole family into Greece. He devoted the rest of his life to the study of philosophy and to his literary work, living in good style at Athens. It was here, as he tells us himself, that he got rid of his " barbarous Syrian speech," and perfected himself in that pure Attic diction which is marvellous in a writer who was virtually a foreigner. For such Greek as was spoken in Syria during the Empire was, as Lucian confesses, little better than a 'patois. To these years of his life at Athens are naturally assigned those Dialogues of his which have in them so much of the Aristophanic spirit and manner. There also he enjoyed * " The Double Accusation," 27 and 31. t "Alexander," 56. 8 LUCIA If. the friendship of Demonax of Cyprus, who, if we may trust the character which his friend gives of him in the little biographical sketch which bears his name, well deserved to be called an eclectic philosopher. His philosophy, combining some of the highest tenets of the Socratic school with the contempt of riches and luxury affected by the Cynics, was, says Lucian, " mild, cheerful, and benevolent," and he lived re- spected to the end of his long life, " setting an example of moderation and wisdom to all who saw and heard him." * Lucian still travelled occasionally, and on one occa- sion paid a visit to the reputed oracle of the arch- impostor Alexander, at Abonoteiehos in Paphlagonia, of which he gives a very graphic account. This man exercised an extraordinary influence over the credu- lity not only of his own countrymen but of strangers * Lucian gives us a number of conversational anecdotes of Demonax, — one of the tew collections of classical ana. Perhaps tlie best is this. A certain sophist from Sidon, very fond of praising himself, was bonsting that he understood all systems of philosophy. " If Aristotle calls me to the Lyceum, I can follow him : if Plato invites me to the Academy, I will meet him there : if Zeno to the Porch, I am ready : if Pythagoras calls upon me, I can be silent." Rising up quietly among the audience — " Hark !" said Demonax, addressing him — " Pytha- goras calls you." There was evidently something in common between the two friends in their views upon religious questions. When a neighbour asked Demonax to accompany him to the temple of iEsculapius to pray for the recovery of his son, the philosopher replied— "Do you suppose that the god is deaf, that he cannot hear us where we are?" — Life of Demonax, 14, 27. BIOGRAPHICAL. 9 also. Lucian's zeal against such sham pretenders here brought him into some trouble, and went near to cost him his life. Alexander, who had specially invited him to an audience, held out his hand, according to custom, for his visitor to kiss ; whereupon Lucian, by- way of active protest against an imposture which he had already denounced, bit it so hard as actually to lame him for some time. The Prophet affected to treat the thing as a practical joke, but, when Lucian was leaving the country, gave private orders to the captain and crew of the vessel to fling the malicious unbeliever overboard — a fate Avhicli he only escaped through the unusual tenderheartedness of the Asiatic captain. He seems to have become poorer again in his later years, and to have occasionally taken up his old pro- fession. But at last the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (or, as Wieland rather thinks, Commodus) offered him an official appointment (something like that of Re- corder, or Clerk of the Courts) at Alexandria in Egypt. His chief duties were, as he tells us, to preside over the courts of justice and to keep the records.* He thought it necessary to write an "Apology" for accepting this position ; for it happened that he had just put forth an essay (which will come under notice hereafter) on the miseries uf a state of dependence on great men, and was conscious that his enemies might take occasion to sneer at so stout a champion of inde- pendence thus consenting to sell himself for office. He must have felt like Dr Johnson when he consulted his friends as to the propriety of his accepting the * "Apology," 12. 10 LUC I AN. pension offered by Lord Bute, after the Litter defini- tions of the words " pension " and " pensioner " which he had given in the first edition of his Dictionary. The promotion did not come until, as he says, he " had one foot already in Charon's boat," for he must have been above seventy years old when he received it : but the emoluments were iaiily good ; he was allowed to perform the office by deputy, so that it did not interfere with his busy literary leisure at Athens, and he lived many years to enjoy it. He is said to have been a hundred years old when he died, but nothing certain is known of the date or manner of his death. It has been conjectured with much probability that in his later years he was troubled with the gout, a dis- order to which he more than once makes allusion in his writings, very much in the tone of one who spoke from painful experience ; and he has left two humor- ous mock-tragic dramatic scenes in which Gout is per- sonified as the principal character. The torments of which she is the author to mankind are amusingly exaggerated. Philoctetes is made out to have been a sufferer, not from the bite of the snake or from the poisoned arrow, but simply from gout in his foot — enough to account for any amount of howls and lamentations, such as are put in his mouth by Sophocles ; and Ulysses must have died by the same enemy, and not, as was fabled, by the poisonous spine of a sea-urchin. It has been impossible, in the compass of this volume, even to notice all the works of this active and BIOGRAPHICAL. 11 versatile writer, a descriptive catalogue of which would alone fill some pages. Nor has the common order of arrangement been here followed, hut the Dialogues and other pieces have been grouped as seemed most convenient. Though Lucian was always a popular writer, he has not found many modern translators. The formid- able number of his works has no doubt been one reason fortius. Spence's translation (1C84) is termed by Dryden " scandalous." The version by " Eminent Hands," published in 1711, to which is prefixed a " Life " by Dryden, is very incorrect, though some of the pieces are rendered with considerable spirit. Tooke's translation (1820) is also full of the blunders of imperfect scholarship, though the English is often racy and good. Dr Franklin's is, on the whole, that which does most justice to the original. But no Eng- lish translator approaches in point of excellence the admirable German version by "VVieland. CnAPTER IL LUCTAN AND THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. The best known and the most popular of our author's multifarious writings are his " Dialogues," many of which would form admirable dramatic scenes, contain- ing more of the spirit of comedy, as we moderns understand it, than either the broad burlesque of Aristophanes or the somewhat sententious and didactic tone of Terence. The " Dialogues of the Gods," in which the old mythological deities are introduced to us as it were in undress, discussing their family affairs and private quarrels in the most familiar style, were composed with a double purpose by their writer. He not only seized upon the absurd points in religious fable as presenting excellent material for burlesque, hut he indulged at the same time in the most caustic form of satire upon the popular belief, against which, long before his day, the intellect of even the heathen world had revolted. It is possible that his apprentice- ship, brief as it was, to the manufacture of stone Mercuries helped to make him an iconoclast. The man who assists in the chiselling out of a god must know more or less that he " has a lie in his right THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 13 hand." The unhesitating faith in which (apparently) he accepts the truth of all the popular legends about Jupiter and his court, treating them in the most matter-of-fact and earnest way, and assuming their literal truth in every detail, makes the satire all the more pungent. To have sifted the heap of legends into false and true, or to have explained that this was only a poetical illustration, or that an allegorical form of truth, would not have damaged the popular creed half so much as this representation of the Olympian deities under all the personal and domestic circum- stances which followed, as necessary corollaries, from their supposed relations to each other. We need not wonder that the charge of atheism was hurled against him by all the defenders, honest or dishonest, of the national worship. Many as had been the blows struck against it by satirists and philosophers, Lucian's was, if not the hardest, the most deadly of all. The Dialogue called " Prometheus," though it stands alone, and is not classed among the " Dialogues of the Gods," is quite of the same character with these, and may be regarded as a kind of prologue to the series. As a punishment for the offence which he has given to Jupiter, Prometheus is being chained down upon Mount Caucasus, the idea of the scene being borrowed undoubtedly from the tragedy of -ZEschylus. The executioners of the punishment, however, in this case, are Vulcan and Mercury alone, without the aid of Strength and Force. The victim protests against the cruelty and injustice of his doom, and the mean and 14 LUCIAN. petty revenge taken by Jupiter (upon a deity of much older family than himself, too), just because he had been outwitted in the division of the sacrifice : for this he believes to have been the head and front of his offend- ing.* What would be said of a mortal who should crucify his cook for tasting the soup, or cutting a bit off the roast ? As for his creation of men, — the gods ought to be very much obliged to him : for where would be their temples, their honours and their sacri- fices, if the earth had remained untenanted 1 Even the beauty of the universe would have had no admirers.t If it be said that these same mortals are wicked, — murderers, adulterers, and so forth, — the gods had better hold their tongues on that point, considering the examples set by themselves. Then, as to his gift of fire to men — it is mere envy in Jupiter to grudge it them ; and gods ought surely to be widely benefi- cent, not envious and selfish. And, if the gods do not like to see fire used upon earth, at least they seem very much delighted with the smoke, when it comes up to them in the shape of incense. Mercury admits that his defence is, to say the least, very clever \ but, * Prometheus had cut up a victim, and divided the portions into two he:tps, of which he gave Jupiter his choice. Jupiter chose that which seemed to have the best share of fat at the top, hut found that beneath there was nothing but bones. + " ' What use could the Deity have for man,' said Epicurus, ' that He should create him ?' Surely, that there might be a being that could understand His works; that could have sense to admire and voice to proclaim His providence in arrange- ment, His plan of operation, His perfection in completing all." ■ — Lactantius, Div. Instit, b. vii. c. 5. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 15 he remarks, " you may think yourself very fortunate that Jupiter does not hear what you say, for he would surely send down a hundred vultures upon you instead of one." The change of dynasty in heaven presents of course a salient point, here and elsewhere, to the satirist. He makes Prometheus in his agony appeal to the ancient deities, — Saturn, Jupiter, and Earth, — not recognising any of the new introductions. In this, too, he has followed yEschylus, who makes the great Titan call upon Earth and Sea and Air, to witness his treatment at the hands of a usurper. Some of the shorter and more amusing of these " Dialogues of the Gods " are here given entire, and are a fair specimen of the humour of the rest. JUPITER AND CUPID. Cupid. Well, even if I have done wrong, pray for- give me, Jupiter; I am only a child, you see, and don't know any better. Jupiter. Child, indeed, Master Cupid ! you who are older than Iapetus ! Because you don't happen to have grown a beard yet, and because your hair isn't grey, you are to be considered a child, I suppose — old and crafty as you are. Cup. Why, what great harm have I done you — old as you say I am — that you should think of putting me in the stocks'? Jup. Look here, then, you mischievous imp ! is this a trifle — the way in which you have disgraced me? 16 LVCIAN. There is nothing you have not turned me into — satyr, bull, gold pieces, swan, eagle ; but you never yet have made a single woman fall in love with me for myself, nor have I ever been able to make myself agreeable in any quarter in my own person, but I have to use magic in all such affairs, and disguise myself. And after all, it's the bull or the swan they fall in love with ; if they see me, they die of terror. Cap. Yes, no wonder; they are but mortal, you know, Jupiter, and can't endure your awful person. J a p. How is it, then, that Apollo gets them to fall in love with him % Cap. Well — Daphne, you know, ran away from him, for all his flowing locks and smooth face. But if you want to make yourself attractive, you mustn't shake your aegis, and carry your thunderbolt about with you, but make yourself look as pleasant as you can, — let your hair hang down on both sides of your face in curls, — put a fillet round it, — get a purple dress, — put on gdded sandals, — walk with the fashionable step, with a pipe and timbrel before you : you'll see, the women will run after you then, faster than the Moenads do after Bacchus. Jup. Away with you — I couldn't condescend to be attractive by making myself such a fool as that. Cap. Very well, Jupiter, then give up love-making altogether ; [looking slyly at him) — that's easy enough, you know. Jap. Nay, I must go on with my courting, but you must find me some less troublesome fashion than that. And upon tins sole condition, I let you off once more. TEE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 17 VULCAN AND APOLLO. Vulcan. I say, Apollo — have you seen this young bantling that Maia has just produced 1 What a line child it is ! — smiles at everybody, and gives plain token already that it will turn out something wonderful — quite a blessing to us all. Apollo. A blessing, you think, eh, Vulcan 1 that child — who is older, in point of wickedness, than old father Iapetus himself! Vul. Why, what harm can a baby like that do to anybody ? Ap. Just ask Neptune, — he stole his trident. Or ask Mars, — the brat slipped his sword out of its sheath as quickly as you please ; to say nothing of myself, and he has gone off with my bow and arrows. Vul. What ! that infant 1 who can hardly stand ] the one in the cradle there 1 Ap. You'll soon find out for yourself, Vulcan, if he pays you a visit. Vul. Why, he has paid me a visit, just now. Ap. Well, have you got all your tools safe? none of them missing, is there 1 Vul. (looking round). No — they are all right, Apollo. Ap. Nay, look carefully. Vul. By Jove ! I can't see my anvil ! Ap. You'll find it somewhere in his cradle, I'll be bound. Vul. Why, he's as handy with his fingers as if ho had studied thieving before he was horn ! a. c. vol. xviii. B 18 LUCIAN. Ap. Ah ! you haven't heard him yet talking, as pert and as glib as may he. Why, he wants to run errands for us all ! Yesterday, he challenged Cupid to wrestle with him, and tripped up both his legs in some way, and threw him in a second. Then, when we were all applauding him, and Venus was hugging him after his victory, he stole her cestus ; and while Jupiter was laughing at that, he was off with his majesty's sceptre. Ay, and if the thunderbolt did not happen to be heavy, and considerably hot withal, he would have stolen that too. Vul. You make the child out to be a prodigy. Ap. Not only that — he knows music already. Vul. How did he find that out? Ap. He got hold of a dead tortoise somewhere, and made its shell into an instrument : fitted it with pins, and put a bridge to it, and stretched seven strings across it. Then he sang to it, — something really quite pretty, Vulcan, and in good tune : I was absolutely jealous of him, though, as you know, I have practised the lyre some time. Maia declares, too, that he never stays in heaven at night, but goes down into the Shades, out of curiosity — or to steal something there, most likely. He has got wings, too, and has made himself a rod of some miraculous power, by which he She draws her own conclusion at once as to the cause of this excitement. Plainly it is nothing more or less THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 25 than a new love-affair. Jupiter scornfully assures her that this is quite a different matter. It is a question which concerns the honour and status of all the court of Olympus ; men are actually discussing among them- selves upon earth whether they shall hereafter do worship and sacrifice to the gods at all. A council of the immortals must be held at once on urgent affairs; although Minerva, with a cautious prudence which will always lind imitators, suggests that it would be better to leave such questions to settle themselves, and that the safest way to treat scepticism is to ignore it. l>ut her counsel is overruled, and Mercury has orders to summon a general assembly of the gods forthwith. Mercury. yes, yes ! the gods are to come to council immediately ! No delay — all to be present — come, come ! upon urgent affairs of state. Jupiter. What ! do you summon them in that bald, inartificial, prosaic fashion, Mercury— and on a business of such high importance? Merc. Why, how would you have it done, then ? Jup. How would I have it done 1 I say, proclama- tion should be made in dignified style — in verse of some kind, and with a sort of poetical grandeur. They would be more likely to come. Merc. Possibly. But that's the business of your epic poets and rhapsodists — I'm not at all poetical myself. T should infallibly spoil the job, by putting in a foot too much or a foot too little, and only get myself laughed at for my bungling poetry. I hear even Apollo himself ridiculed for some of his poetical 26 LVCIAN. oracles — though in his case obscurity covers a multi- tude of sins. Those who consult him have so much to do to make out his meaning that they haven't much leisure to criticise his verse. Jup. Well, but, Mercury, mix up a little Homer in your summons — the form, you know, in which he used to call us together ; you surely remember it. Merc. Not very readily or clearly. However, I'll try:— " Now, all ye female gods, and all ye male, And all ye streams within old Ocean's pale, And all ye nymphs, at Jove's high summons, come, All ye who eat the sacred hecatomb ! Who sit and sniff the holy steam, come all, Great names, and small names, and no names at all"* Jup. Well done, Mercury ! a most admirable pro- clamation. Here they are all coming already. Now take and seat them, each in the order of their dignity — according to their material or their workmanship ; the golden ones in the first seats, the silver next to them ; then in succession those of ivory, brass, and stone, — and of these, let the works of Phidias, and Alcamenes, and Myron, and Euphranor, and suchlike artists, take precedence ; but let the rude and inartistic figures be pushed into some corner or other, just to fill up the meeting — and let them hold their tongues. Merc. So be it ; they shall be seated according to their degree. But it may be as well for me to under- stand, — supposing one be of gold, weighing ever so * A burlesque of sundry passages in Homer. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 27 many talents, but not well executed, and altogether common and badly finished, is he to sit above the brazen statues of Myron' and Polycleitus, or the marble of Phidias and Alcamenes 1 Or must I count the art as more worthy than the material 1 Jup. It ought to be so, certainly; but we must give the gold the preference, all the same. Merc. I understand. You would have me class them according to wealth, not according to merit or excel- lence. Now, then, you that are made of gold, here — in the first seats. (Turning to Jupiter.) It seems to me, your majesty, that the first places will be filled up entirely with barbarians. You see what the Greeks are — very graceful and beautiful, and of admirable workmanship, but of marble or brass, all of them, or even the most valuable, of ivory, with just a little gold to give them colour and brightness ; while their in- terior is of wood, with probably a whole common- wealth of mice established inside them. Whereas that Bendis, and Anubis, and Atthis there, and Men, are of solid gold, and really of enormous value.* Neptune {coming forward). And is this fair, Mer- cury, that this dog-faced monster from Egypt should sit above me — me — Neptune? Merc. That's the rule. Because, my friend Earth- shaker, Lysippus made you of brass, and consequently p 0or — the Corinthians having no gold at that time ; * Bemlis was a Thracian goddess, in whom Herodotus recog- nises Diana. The Athenians had introduced her, and held a festival in her honour. Atthis and Men (Lunus) were Phrygian deities: Mithras was the Persian sun-god. 28 LUC I AN. Avhereas that is the most valuable of all metals. You must make up your mind, therefore, to make room for him, and not he vexed about it; a god with a great gold nose like that must needs take precedence. (Enter Vends.) — Ven. (coaxingly to Mercury). Now then, Mercury dear, take and put me in a good place, please ; I'm golden, you know. Mere. Not at ail, so far as I can see. Unless I'm very blind, you're cut out of white marble — from Pen- telicus, I think — and it pleased Praxiteles to make a Venus of you, and hand you over to the people of Cnidus. Ven. But I can produce a most unimpeachable witness — Homer himself. He continually calls me "golden Venus" all through his poems. Merc. Yes ; and the same authority calls Apollo " rich in gold " and " wealthy ; " but you can see him sitting down there among the ordinary gods. He was stripped of his golden crown, you see, by the thieves, and they even stole the strings of his lyre. So you may think yourself well off that I don't put you down cpiite amongst the crowd. (Enter the Colossus o/Phodes.) — Col. Now, who will venture to dispute precedence with me — me, who am the Sun, and of such a size to boot 1 ? If it had not been that the good .people of Phodes determined to construct me of extraordinary dimensions, they could have made sixteen golden gods for the same price.* Therefore I must be ranked higher, by the rule of * Sixteen was the recognised number of legitimate gol>. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 29 proportion. Besides, lool;: at the art and the work- manship, — so correct, though on such an immense scale. Merc. What's to he done, Jupiter? It's a very hard question for me to decide. If I look at his material, he's only brass ; but if I calculate how many talents' weight of brass he has in him, he's worth the most money of them all. Jap. (testily). What the deuce does he want here at all — -dwarfing all the rest of us into insignificance, as he does, and blocking up the meeting besides 1 ? (Aloud to Colossus.) Hark ye, good cousin of Rhodes, though you may be worth more than all these golden gods, how can you possibly take the highest seat, unless they all get up and you sit down by yourself? Why, one of your thighs would take up all the seats in the Pnyx ! You'd better stand up, if you please, — and you can stoop your head a little towards the company. Mere. Here's another difficulty, again. Here are two, both of brass, and of the same workmanship, both from the hands of Lysippus, and, more than all, equal in point of birth, both being sons of Jupiter — Bacchus, here, and Hercules. Which of them is to sit first? They're quarrelling over it, as you see. Jup. We're wasting time, Mercury, when we ought to have begun business long ago. So let them sit down anyhow now, as they please. We will have another meeting hereafter about this question, and then I shall know better what regulations to make about precedence. Merc. But, good heavens ! what a row they all 30 l ucia nr. make, shouting that perpetual cry, as they do, — " Divide, 'vide, 'vide the victims ! " " Where's the nectar? where's the nectar? " " The amhrosia's all out ! the ambrosia's all out ! " " Where are the hecatombs ? ■where are the hecatombs ? " " Give us our share ! " Jup. Bid them hold their tongues, do, Mercury, that they may hear the object of the meeting, and let such nonsense alone. Merc. But they don't all understand Greek, and I am no such universal linguist as to make proclamation in Scythian, and Persian, and Thracian, and Celtic. It will be best, I suppose, to make a motion with my hand for them to be silent. Jup. Very well — do. Merc. See, they're all as dumb as philosophers. Now's your time to speak. Do you see? they're all look- ing at you, waiting to hear what you're going to say. Jup. {clearing his throat). Well, as you're my own son, Mercury, I don't mind telling you Iioav I feel. You know how self-possessed and how eloquent I always am at public meetings? Merc. I know I trembled whenever I heard you speak, especially when you used to threaten all that about wrenching up earth and sea from their foun- dations, you know, gods and all, and dangling that golden chain * * Lucian repeatedly brings forward, in these Dialogues, the gasconade which Homer put into the mouth of Jupiter, II. viii. 18— " A golden chain let down from heaven, and all, Both gods and goddesses, yo *r strength apply ; STATE NORMAL SUrtUOl, Lm Anf eks, Cai. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 31 Jup. (interrupting him). But how, my son, — I can't tell whether it's the importance of the subject, or the vastness of the assembly (there are a tremendous lot of gods here, you see) — my ideas seem all in a whirl, and a sort of trembling has come over me, and my tongue seems as though it were tied. And the most unlucky thing of all is, I've forgotten the opening paragraph of my speech, which I had all ready pre- pared beforehand, that my exordium might be as attractive as possible. Merc. Well, my good sir, you are in a bad way. They all mistrust your silence, and fancy they are to hear something very terrible, and that this is what makes you hesitate. Jup. Suppose, Mercury, I were to rhapsodise a little, — that introduction, you know, out of Homer 1 Merc. Which? Jup. (declaiming) — " Now, hear my words, ye gods and she-gods all " Merc. No — heaven forbid ! you've given us enough of that stuff already. No — pray let that hackneyed style alone. Rdther give them a bit out of one of the Philippics of Demosthenes — any one you please ; you Yet would ye fail to drag from heaven to earth, Strive as ye may, your mighty master Jove : But if I choose to make my power be known, The earth itself and ocean I could raise, And binding round Olympus' ridge the cord, Leave them suspended so in middle air." — (Lord Dertjy.) jupiter here dislikes Mercury's allusion to it. 32 LUC IAN. can alter and adapt it a little. That's the plan most of our modern orators adopt. His Olympian majesty begins his oration, accord- ingly, with an adaptation of the opening of the First Philippic. But he presently descends to his own matter-of-fact style ("here," he says, "my Demos- thenes fails me "), and relates how he had been present the day before, with some other gods, at a sacrifice of thanksgiving offered by a merchant-captain for his preservation from shipwreck — a very shabby affair, he complains it was, a single tough old cock for supper among sixteen gods. On his way home, he had heard two philosophers disputing, and, wishing to listen to their arguments, assumed a cloak and a long beard, and might, he declares, have very easily, for the nonce, passed for a philosopher himself. It was that rascal Damis the Epicurean, disputing with Timocles the Stoic, asserting that the gods took no heed to mortals or their affairs — in fact, practically denying their exist- ence. Poor Timocles had been making a stout fight of it on the other side, but was so hard pressed by his oppo- nent that Jupiter found him all in a perspiration and almost exhausted; he had therefore thrown the shadows of night round the disputants at once, and so put an end to the discussion. Following the crowd on their way home, he had been shocked to find that the ma- jority~were on the side of the atheistical Damis ; and lie had now summoned this assembly to take into their serious consideration the terrible results that would ensue if this opinion became the popular one. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 33 No more victims, and gifts, and incense-offering, — " the gods may sit in heaven and starve." Damis and Timocles are to meet again, he understands, for public discussion, and Jupiter verily fears that unless the gods give some help to their own champion, the other will get the best of it. lie begs that some one of the assembly will get up hi his place and offer some advice. Mercury invites any " who are of the legal standing in point of age " (we are to understand there are a great many newly-introduced deities in the council) to rise and deliver his opinion. To make the burlesque more complete, it is Momus, the jester of the Olympian conclave, who first rises in reply to Jupiter's invitation.* He has long ex- pected this, and is not surprised at it. The gods have brought it upon themselves, by neglecting their duties notoriously. Here, among friends and gods,- with no mortal to hear, he may venture to speak openly. Has Jupiter himself been careful to make distinction be- tween the good and the evil upon earth 1 Has virtue found any reward, or vice any punishment 1 What have any of them been caring for but their victims and their dues 1 "What shameful stories they have allowed the poets to tell of their private life ! — stories which, he * Lord Lyttelton, in his " Dialogues of the Dead," makes Lucian give his own explanation of this passage to Rabelais, who does not quite understand the introduction of Momus. " I think our priests admitted Momus into our heaven as the Indians are said to worship the Devil, — through fear. They had a mind to keep fair with him. For we may talk of the Giants as we will, but to our Gods there can he no enemy so formidable as he. Ridicule is the terror of all false religions." A. c. vol. xviii. 34 LUC1AN. admits, may possibly be true enough, yet not meet to be told to mortal hearers. And then the oracles, Avorse than vague, positively deceptive — witness those noto- rious productions of Apollo's about the empire which Crcesus was to destroy by crossing the Halys, and the sons of women who were to meet their fate at Salamis. No marvel if, when the gods are so remiss in their duties, men begin to grow tired of worshipping them. Jupiter protests against such ribald language. He quotes his Demosthenes to the effect that it is much more easy to abuse and to find fault than to offer sug- gestions under difficulties. » Then Neptune asks leave to say a feAV words. He lives, indeed, at the bottom of the sea, and is not in the habit of interfering much in affairs on land, but lie strongly advises that this Damis shall be silenced at once — by lightning, or some such irresistible argu- ment. But Jupiter replies, very fairly, that this would only be a tacit admission on the part of the gods that they had no other kind of argument to offer. Apollo gives it as his opinion that the fault lies in Timocles himself, who, though a very sensible man, has not the knack of putting an argument clearly. Upon which Momus remarks that the recommendation of clearness and perspicuity certainly comes with a curious kind of propriety from Apollo, considering the style of his own oracular utterances. He invites him to give them an oracle now, — which of the two disputants will get the better in this contest 1 Apollo tries to excuse himself, on the ground that he has no tripod or incense, or other appliances at hand, and THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 35 that he can do this kind of thing in much hetter style at Colophon or at Delphi. At last, urged by Jupiter to prove his art, and so put a stop to the jeers of Momus, he proceeds, with some apology for extempore versi- fying, to deliver an utterly incomprehensible oracle, which fully justifies the criticisms of his brother deity. Hercules offers to pull down the whole portico on the head of Damis, if the controversy should seem to be taking a turn unfavourable to the Olympian interests. But now a messenger arrives from earth, no other than the brazen statue of Hermagoras — Mercury of the Forum — who stands in front of the Pcecile at Athens. He comes to announce — adopting the new fashion of heroics set by Jupiter — that the duel of the philoso- phers has been renewed. The gods agree to go down to see the battle, and the scene of the dialogue is supposed to change at once to Athens. There Ti- mocles is trying to argue with his infidel opponent. He wonders, he says, that men do not stone him for his impious assertions. Damis docs not see why men should take that trouble : the gods, if gods they be, can surely take their own part ; they hear him, and yet they do not strike. But they will, replies Timocles ; their vengeance is sure though slow. They are otherwise occupied, retorts the scer)tic — gone out to dinner, perhaps, with those " blameless Ethiopians " — they often do, according to Homer ; possibly, some- times, even without waiting for an invitation. In vain dues his opponent argue from the harmony and order of creation, and from the general consent of mankind : the very diversities of national worship, the many 3G LUCIAN. absurd forms of superstition, are claimed by his oppo- nent as arguments on the other side. Timocles com- pares the world to a ship, which could not keep its course without a steersman. Damis replies that if there were, indeed, a divinity at the helm of this world's affairs, he would surely parcel out the duties of his crew better than he appears to do — putting the rascals and lubbers in command, and letting the best men be stowed away in holes and corners, and kept on short rations besides. Timocles, as a last resource, threatens to break the head of his opponent, who runs away laughing. Jupiter is in doubt, however, on which side the real victory lies. Mercury consoles him that the gods have still the majority on their side ■ — three-fourths of the Greeks, all the rabble, and all the barbarians. " ISay, my son," replies Jupiter, "but that saying of Darius had much truth, which he uttered of his faithful general Zopyrus : I, too, had rather have one man like Damis on my side than ten thousand Babylonians." * The satire, in its bold scepticism, seems to go much beyond the " Dialogues of the Gods." In those, it is but the absurdities of the popular mythology — always incredible, one cannot but think, to the educated in- telligence — which he ridicules and exposes ; a creed which, if it could be supposed to have any influence upon the moral conduct of men, could only have had an influence for evil. But in that which has now been sketched, he attacks the belief in a divine providence * The story is told by Ht-rodotus, iii. 154. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 37 altogether : and though most of the arguments against such government of the world are chielly taken from the manifest falsehood of certain items of the Greek popular creed, still the tone is too much that of pure materialism. THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS. In this amusing scene the ahsurdities of polytheism are put in the broadest light, and treated with the most admirable humour. The object of the Council, which is summoned by Jupiter's orders, is to institute a strict scrutiny into the right and title of the new gods — aliens and foreigners of all kinds and shapes — to a seat in the house of Olympus. They have lately found their way into heaven in such numbers that they are becoming quite a nuisance, as Ave have seen in the com- plaint made both by Neptune and Mercury in the dialogue just preceding. Momus is again the chief spokesman ; freedom of speech is, as he says, one of his main characteristics, and he is in the habit of giving his opinion without fear or favour. So, with Jupiter's permission, he will name some of what he considers the most gross cases of intrusion. Momus. First, there is Bacchus ; a grand pedigree his is ! — half a mortal, not even a Greek by his mother's side, but the grandson of some Syro-Phcenician merchant- captain, Cadmus. Since he has been dignified with im- mortality, I shall say nothing about himself, — his stylo of head-dress, his drinking, or his unsteady gait. You can all see what he is, I suppose — more like a woman 38 LUC IAN. than a man, half crazy, and stinking of wine even be- fore breakfast. But he has brought in his whole tribe to swell our company, and here he is with all his rout, whom he passes off as gods — Pan, and Silenus, and the Satyrs, a lot of rough country louts, goat-herds most of them, dancing-fellows, of all manner of strange shapes; one of them has horns, and is like a goat ail below his waist, with a long beard — you hardly can tell him from a goat ; another is a bald fellow with a flat nose, generally mounted on an ass — a Lydian, he is. Then there are the Satyrs with their little prick ears, bald too, they are, and with little budding horns like kids — Phry- gians, I believe ; and they've all got taiis besides. You see the sort of gods my noble friend provides us with. And then we are surprised that men hold us in con- tempt, when they see such ridiculous and monstrous guds as these ! I say nothing of his introducing two Avomen here — one his mistress Ariadne (whose crown, too, he has put among the stars, forsooth !), and the other a farmer's daughter, Erigone. And what is more absurd than all, brother deities, he has brought her dog in too : for fear, I suppose, that the girl should cry if she hadn't her darling pet to keep her company in heaven. Now, don't you consider all this an insult, — mere drunken madness and absurdity 1 And now I'll tell you about one or two more. Jupiter (interrupting him). Don't say a word, if you please, Momus, either about Hercules or vEsculapius — I see what you're driving at. As to those two, one is a physician, and cures diseases, and, as old Homer says, you know — "is worth a host of men;" and as to THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 39 Hercules, — why, he's my son, and earned his immortal- ity hy very hard work ; so say no Avord against him. Mom. "Well, I'll hold my tongue, Jupiter, though I could say a good deal. They're both as black as cin- ders still, from the fire. If you would only give me leave to speak my mind freely, I've a good deal to say about you. Jup. Oh, pray speak out, as far as I am concerned! Perhaps you charge me with being a foreigner too ? Mom. Well, in Crete they do say that, you know ; and more than that, they show the place where you were buried. I don't believe them myself — any more than I do what the people of iEgium say, — that you are a changeling. But I do say this, that you've brought in too many of your illegitimate children here. Momus goes on to tell the royal chairman some home truths, which Jupiter hears with great equanim- ity. Then he inveighs against the monstrous forms introduced from Eastern mythology ; Phrygians and Medes like Atthis and Mithras, who cannot even talk Greek ; the dog-faced Anubis, and the spotted bull from Memphis, apes and ibises from Egypt. And how can Jupiter himself have allowed them to put rani's horns on his head at Amnion? No wonder that mortals learn to despise him. A solemn decree is drawn up by Momus, in strict legal form, beginning as follows : " Whereas divers aliens, not only Greeks but Barbarians, who are in no wise entitled to the freedom of our community, have got themselves enrolled as gods, and so crowded heaven 40 LUCIAX. that it has become a mere disorderly mob of all nations and languages : and whereas thereby the ambrosia and the nectar runs short, so that the latter is now four guineas a pint, because there are so many to drink it ; and whereas these new-comers, in their impudence, push the old and real gods out of their places, and claim precedence for themselves, against all our ancient rights, and demand also priority of worship on earth ; it seemed good, therefore, to the Senate and Commons of Olympus, to hold a High Court at the winter equi- nox, and to elect as Commissioners of Privileges seven of the greater gods, — three from the ancient council of the reign of Saturn, and four from the twelve gods, of whom Jupiter to be one." The business of the Commission is to be the ex- amination of all claims to a seat in Olympus. Claim- ants are to bring their witnesses, and prove their pure descent ; and they who cannot make good their claims are to be sent back to the tombs of their fathers. Moreover, from this time forth every deity is to mind his or her proper business, and none to pursue more than one art or science ; Minerva is not to practise physic, nor iEsculapius divination ; and Apollo is to make his election, and either be a seer, or a musician, or a doctor — but not all three. Jupiter had intended to put this decree to the vote ; but, foreseeing that a great many who were there present would probably vote against it, he took the easier course of issuing it on his own royal authority. The dramatic sketch entitled " Timon " handles the THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 41 Olympian Jupiter in the same free spirit as the pre- ceding Dialogues, and is by some considered as the author's masterpiece. The character of Plutus, the god of Riches, introduced into the piece, is obviou.sly borrowed from Aristophanes's comedy of that name. T-imon is introduced after he has forsaken society, and is digging for his livelihood. TIMON. Timon (stopping his work, and leaning on his spade). O Jupiter ! — god of Friendship, god of Hos- pitality, god of Sociality, god of the Hearth, Lightning- flasher, Oath-protector, Cloud-compeller, Thunderer, — or by Avhatever name those moon-struck poets please to call you (especially when they have a hitch in the verse, for then your great stock of titles helps to prop a lame line, or fill a gap in the metre), — where be your flashing lightnings now, and your rolling thunders, and that terrible levin-bolt of yours, blazing and red-hot 1 Plainly all these are nonsense, — a mere humbug of the poets, nothing but sonorous words. That thunderbolt which they are always singing of, that strikes so far and is so ready to hand, — it's quenched, I suppose ] got cold, and hasn't a spark of fire left in it to scorch rascals. A man who has committed perjury is more afraid, now, of the snuff of last night's lamp than of your invincible lightning. 'Tis just as if you were to throw the stump of a torch among them, — they would have no fear of the fire or smoke, but only of getting besmirched with the black from it. Ah, Jupiter ! in your youthful days, when you were f 42 LUCIAN. hot-blooded and quick-tempered, then you used to deal summary justice against knaves and villains : never made truce with them for a day : but the lightning was always at work, and the aegis always shaking over them, and the thunder rolling, and the bolts continu- ally launched here and there, like a skirmish of sharp- shooters : and earthquakes shook us all like beans in a sieve, and snow came in heaps, and hail like pebbles, and — for I'm determined, you see, to speak my mind to you — then your rain was good strong rain, — each drop like a river. Why, in Deucalion's days, there rose such a deluge in no time, that everything was drowned except one little ark that stuck on Mount Lycoris, and preserved one little surviving spark of human life, — in order, I suppose, to breed a new generation worse than the other. Weil — you see the consequences of your laziness, and it serves you right. No man now offers you a sacrifice, or puts a garland on you, except at odd times the winners at Olympia ; and they do it not because they feel under any obligation to do it, but merely in compliance with a kind of old custom. They'll very soon make you like Saturn, and take all your honours from you, though you think yourself the grandest of the gods. I say nothing as to how often they have robbed your temples — nay, some fellows, I hear, actu- ally laid hands on your sacred person at Olympia ; while you, — the great thunder-god, — did not even trouble yourself to set the dogs at them, or rouse the neighbours, but sat there quiet, — you, the celebrated Giant-killer and Titan-queller, as they call you, — while THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 43 they cut your golden locks off your royal head, though you had a twenty-foot thunderbolt in your hand all the while. When does your High Mightiness mean to put a stop to all this which you are allowing to go on 1 ? How many conflagrations like Phaeton's, how many deluges like Deucalion's, does such a world as this deserve'? To pass now from public iniquities to my own case. After raising so many Athenians from poverty to wealth and greatness, — after helping every man that was in want — or rather, pouring my riches out wholesale to serve my friends, — when I have brought myself to poverty by this, these men utterly refuse to know me ; men who used to honour me, worship me, hang on my very nod, now will not even look at me. If I meet any of them as I walk, they pass me without a glance, as though I were some old sepulchral stone fallen down through lapse of years : while those who see me in the distance turn into another path, as if I were some ill- omened vision which they feared to meet or look upon — I, who was so lately their benefactor and preserver ! So, in my distress, I have girt myself with skins, and retreated to this far corner ; and here I dig the ground for four obols a day, — and talk philosophy to my spade and myself. One point I think T gain here; I shall no longer see the worthless in prosperity — for that were worse to bear than all. Now then, Son of Saturn and Ehea, wake up at last from this long deep slumber — for you've slept longer than Epimenides * — * The Rip van Winkle of classic story. He is said to have sought shelter in a cave from the heat of the sun, while keep- 44 LUCIA N. and blow your thunderbolt hot again, or heat it afresh in iEtna, and make it blaze lustily, and show a little righteous wrath, worthy of the Jove of younger days ; unless, indeed, that be a true story which the Cretans tell, and you be dead and buried too. Jupiter (in Olympus, disturbed by Timon's clamorous expostulations below). Who in the world, Mercury, is this fellow that's bawling so from Attica, down at the foot of Hymettus, — a perfect scarecrow, he looks, in a dirty goat-skin? Digging, I think he is, by his stoop- ing posture. He's a very noisy impudent fellow. Some philosopher, I fancy, or he wouldn't use such blasphemous language. Mercury. What do you say, father? don't you know Timon of Athens ? He's the man who so often used to treat us with such magnificent sacrifices ; that nouveau riclte, you know, who used to offer whole heca- tombs ; at whose expense we were so splendidly enter- tained at the Diasia. Jup. What a sad reverse of fortune ! That fine, handsome, rich fellow, who had used to have such troops of friends round him ! What has brought him to this ? — so squalid and miserable, and having to dig for his bread, I suppose, by the way he drives his spade into the ground 1 Mercury proceeds to inform his father that Timon's reckless generosity has reduced him to poverty, and that all the friends who shared his bounty have now ing liis father's sheep, and to have slept there for fifty-seven years. THE PAGAN OLYMPUS. 45 deserted him. Ho has left the ungrateful city in disgust, and hired himself out as a day-labourer in the country. Jupiter, however, is not going to follow the example of mankind, and neglect the man from whom, in his day of prosperity, he has received so many favours. He is sorry that his case has hitherto escaped his notice; but really the noise and clamour those Athenians make with all their philoso- phical disputes has so disgusted him, that for some time he has not turned his eyes in their direction. " Go down to him at once," he says to Mercury, "and take Plutus with you, with a good supply of money ; * and let Plutus take care not to leave him again so easily as he did before. As for those ungrateful friends of his, they shall have their deserts, as soon as ever I can get my lightning mended. I broke two of my strong- est bolts the other day, launching them in a passion against Anaxagoras the Sophist, who was teaching his followers that Ave gods were an utter impossibility in the nature of things. I missed him (Pericles put his hand in the way),t and the lightning struck the tem- ple of Castor, I am sorry to say, and destroyed it ; but my bolt was all but shivered itself against the * " Plutus, the god of gold, Is but his steward." — Shaksp., "Timon," act i. sc. 1. The introduction of Plutus's name into this tragedy makes one curious to know whether the author was acquainted (through any translation) either with this dialogue of Lucian's or with the " Plutus " of Aristophanes. t Anaxagoras, when accused of impiety and brought to trial, was protected by Pericles, who had been his pupil. 46 L TJC1A N. rock there. However, those rascals will be punished enough for the present, when they see Timon grown rich again." Merc. See now, what a thing it is to make a clamour, and to be impudent and troublesome ! I don't mean for lawyers only, but for those who put up prayers to heaven. Here's Timon going to be set up again as a rich man out of the extreme of poverty, all because of his noise and bold words attracting Jupiter's notice ! If he had bent his back to his digging in silence, he might have dug on till doomsday without Jupiter's noticing him. (He goes off, and returns icith Plutus.) Pluhis. I shan't go near that fellow, Jupiter. Jnp. How, my good Plutus, — not when I bid you ? Phi. No. He insulted me — turned me out of his house, and scattered me in all directions — me, the old friend of the family — all but pitched me out of doors, as if I burnt his fingers. What ! go back to him, to be thrown to his parasites, and toadies, and harlots? No: send me to those who value the gift, who will make much of me, who honour me and desire my company ; and let all those fools keep house still with Poverty, who prefer her to me. Let them get her to give them a spade and an old sheep-skin, and go dig for their twopence a-day, after squandering thou- sands in gifts to their friends. Jup. Timon will never behave so to you again. His spadedmsbandry will have taught him pretty well (unless his back's made of stuff that can't feel) that you are to be preferred tn Povertv. You're rather a TIIE PAGAN OLYMPUSt. 47 discontented personage, too : you blame Timon because be opened bis doors and let you go where you liked, and neither locked you up nor watched you jealously ; whereas at otber times you cry out against tbe rich, saying that they confine you with bolts and bars, and put seals on you, so that you never get so much as a glimpse of daylight. You used to complain to me that you were suffocated in the dark holes they kept you in ; and I must say you used to look quite pale and careworn, and your fingers quite contracted from the constant habit of counting ; and you often threat- ened to escape from such confinement the moment you had a chance. Plutus replies to Jupiter with some sensible remarks as to there being a mean between the prodigal and the miser; but ho consents to pay Timon a visit at Jupi- ter's command, though feeling, as he says, that he might as well get into one of the Danaids' leaky water- jars, so sure is he to filter rapidly through the hands of such a master. The god of Eiches, we must remember, is blind; and Mercury, who has to escort him to Athens, recommends him to hold fast by his coat-tail all the way down. Jupiter desires his messenger to call at iEtna on his way, and send up the Cyclops to mend his broken thunderbolt. They find Timon hard at work, in the company of Poverty. But she has brought with her a band of other companions — Labour, and Perseverance, and "Wisdom, and Fortitude, This is a stronger body- guard, as Mercury observes, than Plutus ever gathers round him. The god of Eiches confesses it ; he can 48 LUC1AN. be of no service to a man who has such friends about him, and he offers to begone at once. But Mercury reminds him of the will of Jove. Poverty pleads ill vain that she has rescued him from his old associates, Sloth and Luxury, and is now forming him to virtue in her own more wholesome school ; and though Timon asks with some roughness to be left still under her instruction, and bids Plutus begone " to make fools of other men as he has once of him," he is overruled by Mercury's appeal to his sense of gratitude to Jupiter, who has taken so much trouble to help him. Poverty reluctantly takes her leave, and with her depart Labour and Wisdom and the rest of her company. Digging on in the earth b} r direction of Plutus, Timon finds an immense buried treasure, and the sight at once reawakens his love of riches. But it now takes another and more selfish form. Henceforth he will live for himself and not for others, and become the enemy of men as he had formerly been their in- judicious friend. The name which he desires to be known by is that of " The Misanthrope." * The com- panions of his former days of splendour — who had been treated by him with such munificence, and had repaid him with such ingratitude — hear of his new wealth, and flock to him to make their excuses and apologies, to tender him all kinds of services, and to offer him public honours, if he will only give them a little of his new riches. Blows from his spade, and showers of stones, are his only answer. And in this * " 1 am Misanthropos, and hate mankind." — Shaksp., "Timon," act iv. sc. 3. TEE PAGAN OLYMPUS. „ 49 spirit the Dialogue (which concludes somewhat ab- ruptly) leaves him. Timon the Misanthrope was probably a real personage, round whose name many fictitious anecdotes gathered. Aristophanes refers to him more than once in his comedies as a well-known character ; Plato mentions him, and, if we may trust Plutarch, he lived about the time of the Peloponnesian war. This latter writer speaks of his intimacy with the Cynic Apemantus, introduced in Shakspeare's play,* and gives us an anecdote of him in connection with Alcibiades. Apemantus, we are told, asked Timon why he so much affected the com- pany of that young gallant, hating all other men as ho professed to do 1 " Because," replied Timon, " I fore- see that he shall one day become a great scourge to those I hate most — the Athenians." * Shakspeare's play is founded chiefly on the twenty-eighth novel in Painter's 'Talace of Pleasure." A. C. vol. xviii. CHAPTER IH DIALOGUES OP THE DEAD. Less original than the Olympian Dialogues, — for their idea must he allowed to he "borrowed from Homer, while the inclination to moralise upon the vanity of earthly riches, and honours, and beauty, and the work of that great leveller Death, is common enough, — these have perhaps heen even more popular. An imitation in great measure themselves, they have found imitators amongst the moderns, in their turn, who have shown considerable ability. The " Dialogues of the Dead '' of Fontenelle and of Lord Lyttelton still find readers, and these imitations have charmed many to Avhom the original was unknown in any other way than by name.* The Dialogues of Fenelon, composed for the instruc- tion of his pupil the Duke of Burgundy, were, again, an imitation of those of Fontenelle, hut are somewhat- more didactic, as we should expect, and less lively. Eut perhaps the most striking modern work for the * "The dead," says Fontenelle in his preface, "ought to speak wisely, from their longer experience and greater leisure; it is to he hoped that they take rather more time to think than is usual with the living." DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 51 idea of ■which we are indebted to the Greek satirist is the ' Imaginary Conversations ' of Walter Savage Landor. Some three or four of the most striking of this series must content our readers here. The following, although it does not stand first in the common order of arrangement, seems to form the hest introduction to the series. CHARON AND HIS TASSENGERS. Clmron. Now listen to me, good people — I'll tell you how it is. The boat is hut small, as you see, and somewhat rotten and leaky withal: and if the weight gets to one side, over we go: and here you are crowd- ing in all at once, and with lots of luggage, every one of you. If you come on hoard here with all that lumber, I suspect you'll repent of it afterwards — especially those who can't swim. Mercury. What's best for us to do then, to get safe across ? Cha. I'll tell you. You must all strip before you get in, and leave all those encumbrances onshore: and even then the boat will scarce hold you all. And you take care, Mercury, that no soul is admitted that is not in light marching order, and who has not left all his encumbrances, as I say, behind. Just stand at the gangway and overhaul them, and don't let them get in till they've stripped. Marc. Quite right; I'll see to it. — Now, who comes first here '] Menippus. I — Menippus. Look — I've pitched my 52 LUCIAN. wallet and staff into the lake ; my coat, luckily, I didn't bring with me. Merc. Get in, Menippus — you're a capital fellow. Take the best seat there, in the stern-sheets, next the steersman, and watch who gets on board. — Now, who's this fine gentleman 1 Charmolaus. I'm Charmolaus of Megara — a general favourite. Many a lady would give fifty guineas for a kiss from me. Merc. You'll have to leave your pretty face, and those valuable lips, and your long curls and smooth skin behind you, that's all. Ah ! now you'll do — you're all right and tight now : get in. — But you, sir, there, in the purple and the diadem, — who are you 1 Lampichus. Lampichus, king of Gelo. Merc. And what d'ye mean by coming herewith all that trumpery ? Lamp. How ? "Would it be seemly for a king to come here unrobed 1 Merc. Well, for a king, perhaps not — but for a dead man, certainly. So put it all off. Lamp. There — I've thrown my riches away. Merc. Yes — and throw away your pride too, and your contempt for other people. You'll infallibly swamp the boat if you bring all that in. Lamp. Just let me keep my diadem and mantle. Merc. Impossible — off with them too. Lamp. Well — anything more? because I've thrown them all off, as you see. Merc. Your cruelty — and your folly — and your in- solence — and bad temper— off with them all ! DIALOGUES OF THE BEAD. 53 Lamp. There, then — I'm stripped entirely. Merc. Very well — get in. — And you fat fellow, who are you, with all that flesh on you? Damasias. Damasias, the athlete. Merc. Ay, you look like him : I rememher having seen you in the games. Dam. (smiling). Yes, Mercury; take me on board — I'm ready stripped, at any rate. Merc. Stripped? Nay, my good sir, not with all that covering of flesh on you. You must get rid of that, or you'll sink the boat the moment you set your other foot in. Ami you must take off your garlands and trophies too. Dam. Then — now I'm really stripped, and not heavier than these other dead gentlemen. Merc. All right — the lighter the better : get in. [In like manner the patrician has to lay aside his noble birth, his public honours, and statues, and tes- timonials — the very thought of them, Mercury de- clares, is enough to sink the boat ; and the general is made to leave behind him all his victories and trophies — in the realms of the dead there is peace. Next comes the philosopher's turn. J Merc. Who's this pompous and conceited person- age, to judge from his looks — he with the knitted eyebrows there, and lost in meditation — that fellow with the long beard 1 Men. One of those philosophers, Mercury — or rather those cheats and charlatans : make him strip too ; you'll find some curious things hid under that cloak of his. 54 lucia jr. Merc. Take your habit off, to begin with, if you please — and now all that you bave there, — great Jupiter ! what a lot of humbug he was bringing with him — and ignorance, and disputatiousness, and vainglory, and useless questions, and prickly argu- ments, and involved statements, — ay, and wasted ingenuity, and solemn trilling, and quips and quirks of all kinds! Yes — -by Jove! and there are gold pieces there, and impudence and luxury and de- bauchery — oh ! I see them all, though you are try- ing to hide them ! And your lies, and pomposity, and thinking yourself better than everybody else — away with all that, I say ! Why, if you bring all that aboard, a fifty-oared galley wouldn't hold you ! Philosopher. Well, I'll leave it all behind then, if I must. Men. But make him take his beard off too, Master Mercury ; it's heavy and bushy, as you see ; there's five pound weight of hair there, at the very least. Merc; You're right. Take it off, sir ! Phil. But who is there who can shave me 1 Merc. Menippus there will chop it off with the boat-hatchet — he can have the gunwale for a chop- ping-block. Men. Nay, Mercury, lend us a saw — it will be more fun. Merc. Oh, the hatchet will do ! So — that's well ; now you've got rid of your goatishness, you look something more like a man. Men, Shall I chop a bit off his eyebrows as Avell 1 Merc, By all means ; he has stuck them up on his DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. „ 55 forehead, to make himself look grander, I suppose. What's the matter now? You're crying, you rascal, are you — afraid of death ? Make haste on board, will you ? Men. He's got something now under his arm. Merc. What is it, Menippus ? Men. Flattery it is, Mercury — and a very profitable article he found it, while he was alive. Philosopher (in a fury). And you, Menippus — leave your lawless tongue behind you, and your cursed independence, and mocking laugh ; you're tho only one of the party who dares laugh. Merc, (laughing). No, no, Menippus — they're very light, and take little room ; besides, they are good things on a voyage. But you, Mr Orator there, throw away your rhetorical flourishes, and antitheses, and parallelisms, and barbarisms, and all that heavy wordy gear of yours. Orator. There, then — there they go ! Merc. All right. Now then, slip the moorings. Haul that plank aboard — up anchor, and make sail. Mind your helm, master ! And a good voyage to us t — What are you howling about, you fools ? You, Philosopher, specially? Now that you've had your beard cropped? Phil. Because, dear Mercury, I always thought the soul had been immortal. Men. He's lying ! It's something else that troubles him, most likely. Merc. What's that? • Men. That he shall have no more expensive suppers 56 LUCIAN. — nor, after spending all the night in debauchery, pro- fess to lecture to the young men on moral philosophy in the morning, and take pay for it. That's what vexes him. Phil, And you, Menippus — are j r ou not sorry to die? Men. How should I he, when I hastened to death without any call to it? But, while Ave are talking, don't you hear a noise as of some people shouting on the earth? Merc. Yes, I do — and from more than one quarter. There's a public rejoicing yonder for the death of Lampichus ; and the women have seized his wife, and the boys are stoning his children ; and in Sicyon they are all praising Diophantus the orator for his funeral oration upon Crato here. Yes — and there is Damasias's mother wailing for him amongst her women. But there's not a soul weeping for you, Menippus — you're lying all alone. Men. Not at all — you'll hear the dogs howling over me presently, and the ravens mournfully flapping their wings, when they gather to my funeral. Merc. Stoutly said. But here Ave are at the land- ing-place. March off, all of you, to the judgment- seat straight ; I and the ferryman must\go and fetch a fresh batch. \ Men. A pleasant trip to you, Mercury. So we'll be moving on. Come, what are you all dawdling for? You've got to be judged, you know ; and the punish- ments, they tell me, are frightful — wheels, and stones, and vultures. Every man's life will be strictly in- quired into, I can tell you. DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 57 The Cynic Menippus, introduced to us in this amusing dialogue, — "a dog of the real old breed," as Lucian calls him, "always ready to hark and bite "* — is a great favourite with the author, .and re- appears very frequently in these imaginary conversa- tions. He was a disciple of Diogenes, and had been a usurer in earlier life, but having lost his wealth by the roguery of others, at last committed suicide. The banter with which he treats Charon in the little dialogue which follows is very humorous. CHARON AND MENIPPUS. Cliaron (calling after Menippus, who is walking off). Pay me your fare, you rascal ! Menippus. Bawd away, Charon, if it's any satisfac- tion to you. Cha. Pay me, I say, for carrying you across ! Men. You can't get money from a man who hasn't got ifc-=~-- --' Cha. Is there any man who has not got an obolus? Men. I know nothing about anybody else ; I know I haven't. Cha. (catching hold of him). I'll strangle you, you villain ! I will, by Pinto ! if you don't pay. Men. And I'll break your head with my staff. Cha. Do you suppose you are to have such a long trip for nothing] * The term " Cynic," applied to that school of philosophy, is derived from the Greek for "dog." 58 L UCIA N. Men. Let Mercury pay for me, then ; it was lie put rue on board. Mercury. A very profitable job for rne, by Jove ! if I'm to pay for all the dead people. Clia. (to Men). I shan't let you go. Men. You can haul your boat ashore, then, for that matter, and wait as loug as you please ; but I don't see how you can take from me what I don't possess. Cha. Didn't you know you had to pay it % Men. I knew well enough ; but I tell you I hadn't got it. Is a man not to die because he has no money 1 Cha. Are you to be the only man, then, who can boast that he has crossed the Styx gratis 1 ? Men. Gratis 1 Not at all, my good friend, — when I baled the boat, and helped you with the oar, and was the onty man on board that didn't howl. Cha. That has nothing to do with the passage- money ; you must pay your obolus. It's against all our rules to do otherwise. Men. Then take me back to life acrain. Cha. Yes — a fine proposal — that I may get a whip- ping from iEacus for it. Men. Then don't bother. Cha. Show me what you've got in your -scrip there. Men. Lentils, if you please, and a bit of supper for Hecate. Cha. (turning to Mercury in despair). Where on earth did you bring this dog of a Cynic from, Mercury? — chattering, as he did, all the way across, cutting his jokes and laughing at the other passengers, and sing- ing while they were all bemoaning themselves. DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 59 Mere. Didn't you know, Charon, who your passenger wus 1 ? A most independent fellow, who cares for no- body. That's Menippus. Cha. {shaking his fist at him as he moves off). Well, let me only catch you again ! Men. (looking bach and laughing). Ay, if you catch me ; but 'tis hardly likely, my good friend, that you'll have me for a passenger twice. MKUCURY AND CHARON SQUARING ACCOUNTS. Mercury. Let us have a reckoning, if you phase, Mr Ferryman, how much you owe me up to this present date, that we mayn't have a squabble here- after ahout the items. Charon. By all means, Mercury — nothing like being correct in such matters; it saves a world of unpleasant- ness. Merc. T supplied an anchor to your order — twenty- five drachmae. Cha. That's very dear. Mi re. I vow to Pluto I gave five for it. And a rowdock thong — two obols. Cha. Well, put down five drachma} and two obols. Merc. And a needle to mend the sail. Tive obols I paid for that. Cha. Well, put that much down too. Mere. Then, there's the wax for caulking the seams of the boat that Avere open, and nails, and a rope to make halyards of,— -two drachma? altogether. Cha. Ay ; you bought those worth the money. Merc. That's all, if I've not forgotten something in GO LUCIAX. my account. And now, when do you propose to pay me? Cha. It's out of my power, Mercury, at this mo- ment ; hut if a pestilence or a war should send people down here in considerable numbers, you can make a good thing of it then hy a little cheating in the pass- age-money. Merc. So I may go to sleep at present, and put up prayers for all kinds of horrible things to happen, that I may get my dues thereby ? Cha. I've no other way of paying you, Mercury, indeed. At present, as you see, very few come our way. It's a time of peace, you know. Merc. Well, so much the better, even if I have to wait for my money a while. But those men in the good old times — ah ! you remember, Charon, what fine fellows used to come here, — good warriors all, covered with blood and wounds, most of them! Now, 'tis either somebody who has been poisoned by his son or his wife, or with his limbs and carcase bloated by gluttony, — pale spiritless wretches all of them, not a whit like the others. Most of them come here owing to their attempts to overreach each other in money matters, it seems to me. Cha. Why, money is certainly a very desirable thing. Merc. Then don't think me unreasonable, if you please, if I look sharp after your little debt to me. When the Cynic philosopher has been admitted DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. Gl into the region of shadows, lie makes himself very much at home there. In another of these dialogues he cross-examines all the officials whom he meets, with the air of a traveller anxious for information ; and his caustic wit does not spare the dead a whit more than it had spared the living. He hegs iEacus to show him some of "the lions" in this new region. He professes great surprise at seeing the figures which once were Agamemnon, Ajax, and Achilles, now mere hones and dust ; and asks to be allowed just to give Sardanapalus, whom the Cynic hates especially for his luxury and debauchery, a slap in the face ; but iEacus assures him that his skull is as brittle as a woman's. Even the wise men and philosophers, he finds, cut no better figure here. " Where is Socrates 1 " he asks his guide. " You see that bald man yonder 1 " says ^acus. " Why, they are all bald alike here," replies Menippus. "Him with the flat nose, I mean." "They've all Hat noses," replies Menippus again, looking at the hollow skulls round him. But Socrates, hearing the inquiry, answers for himself ; and the new-comer into the lower world is able to assure the great Athenian that all men now admit his claim to universal knowledge, which rests, in fact, on the one ground of being conscious that man knows really nothing. But he learns some- thing more about the Master of the Sophists from a little dialogue which he has with Cerberus. MENIl'PUS AND CEKBEItUS. Menippns. I say, Cerberus (I'm a kind of cousin 62 LUC IAN. of yours, you know — they call me a dog), tell me, "by the holy Styx, how did Socrates behave himself when he came down among ye? I suppose, as you're a di- vinity, you can not only hark, but talk like a human creature, if you like ? Cerberus {growling). Well, when he was some way off, he came on with a perfectly unmoved countenance, appearing to have no dread at all of death, and to wish to make that plain to those who stood outside the gates here. But when once he got within the archway of tbe Shades, and saw the gloom and darkness; and when, as he seemed to be lingering, I bit him on the foot (just to help the hemlock), and dragged him down, he shrieked out like a child, and began to lament over his family and all sorts of things. Men. So the man was but a sophist after all, and had no real contempt for death 1 Cerb. Xo; but when he saw it must come, he steeled himself to meet it, professing to suffer not unwillingly what he must needs have suffered anyhow, that so he might win the admiration of the bystanders. In short, I could tell you much the same story of all those kind of people : up to the gate they are stout-hearted and bold enough, but it is when they get within that the trial comes. Men. And how did you think I behaved when I came down? Cerb. You were the only man, Menippus, who be- haved worthy of your profession — you and Diogenes before you. You both came here by no force or com- pulsion, but of your own accord, laughing all the way, DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD, 63 and bidding the others who came with you howl and be hanged to them. The reflections which Lucian has put into the mouth of the Cynic in the following brief dialogue are of a graver kind. MENIPPUS AND MERCURY. Menlppus. I say, Mercury, where are all the hand- some men and women? Come — show me about a little, I am quite a stranger here. Mercury. I haven't time, really. But look yonder, on your right ; there are Hyacinthus, and Narcissus, and Nireus, and Achilles, — and Tyro, and Helen, and Leda ; and, in short, all the celebrated beauties. Men. I can see nought but bones and bare skulls, — all very much alike. Merc. Yet all the poets have gone into raptures about those very bones which you seem to look upon with such contempt. Men. Anyway, show me Helen; for I shoidd never be able to make her out from the rest. Merc. This skull is Helen.* Men. And it was for this that a thousand ships were manned from all Greece, and so many Greeks and Trojans died in battle, and so many towns were laid waste ! * "Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come." — Hamlet, act v. sc. 1 G4 v. LUC I AX. Merc. Ay, "but you never saw the lady alive, Men- ippus, or you would surely have said Avith Homer,— " No marvel Trojans and the well-armed Greeks For such a woman should long toils endure : Like the immortal goddesses is she." * If one looks at withered flowers which have lost their colour, of course they seem to have no beauty ; hut when they are in bloom, and have all their natural tints, they are very beautiful to see. Men. Still I do wonder, Mercury, that the Greeks should never have bethought themselves that they were quarrelling for a thing that was so short-lived, and would perish so soon. Merc. I have really no leisure for moralising, my good Menippus. So pick out a spot for yourself, and lay yourself down quietly ; I must go and fetch some more dead people. DIOGENES AND MAUSOLTJS. Diogenes. Prithee, my Carian friend, why do you give yourself such airs, and claim precedence of all of us ] Mausolus. In the first place, my friend of Sinope, "by reason of my royal estate ; I was king of all Caria, ruled over much of Lydia, reduced several of the islands, advanced as far as Miletus, and subdued most part of Ionia. Then, because I was handsome and tall, and a good warrior. Most of all, because I have a magnificent monument set up over me at Halicar- * Horn., II. iii. 156. DIALOGUES OF TEE DEAD. 65 nassus, — no man that ever died has the like ; so beau- tifully is it finished, men and liorses sculptured to the life out of the finest marble : you can scarce find even a temple like it. Don't you think I have a right to be proud of all this 1 Diog. Because of your kingdom, you say ? — and your fine person, — and the great weight of your tomb? Maus. Yes; that is what I am proud of. Diog. But, my handsome friend (ha-ha!), you haven't much left of that strength and beauty that you talk about. If we asked any one to decide between our claims to good looks, I don't see why they should pre- fer your skull to mine. Both of us are bald and naked, — both of us show our teeth a good deal, — neither of us have any eyes, — and our noses are both rather flat. The tomb, indeed, and the marble statues, the men of Halicarnassus may show to their visitors, and boast of them as ornaments of their land ; but as to you, my good friend, I don't see what good your monument does you : unless you may say this — that you bear a greater weight upon you than I do, pressed down as you are by all those heavy stones. Maus. Are none of my glories to profit me, then? And are Mausolus and Diogenes to stand here on equal terms 1 Diog. No ; not exactly equal, most excellent sir ; not at all. Mausolus has to lament when he remem- bers his earthly lot, how happy he was, — and Diogenes can laugh at him. And Mausolus can say how he had the tomb built for him at Halicarnassus by his wife and sister ; while Diogenes does not know — and a. c. vol. xviii. E 66 L UCIA N. does not care — -whether his hody had any "burial at all, but can say that he left behind him the reputation among the wise of having lived a life worthy of a man, — a loftier monument, base Carian slave, than yours, and built on a far safer foundation. In another dialogue Diogenes talks in the same strain to Alexander, and recommends the "waters of Lethe as the only remedy for the sad regrets -which those must feel, who have exchanged the glories of earth for the cold and dreary equality which reigns among the dead below — a passionless and objectless existence, in which none but the bitterest Cynic, who rejoices in the dis- comfiture of all earthly ambitions, can take any plea- sure. So also Achilles, in a dialogue with the young Antilochus — a premature visitor to these gloomy re- gions — repeats the melancholy wish which Homer has put into his mouth in the Odyssey — \ l Rather would I in the sun's warmth divine ' Serve a poor churl who drags his days in grief, Than the whole lordship ol the dead were mine." * Such is the tone of these Dialogues throughout, — a grim despair disclosing itself through their cynical levity. Whatever the " Elysian Fields " of the poets might be, the satirist gives us no glimpse of them. All whom the new visitors meet are in tears, — except the infants. In one scene, Diogenes remarks a poor decrepit old man weeping bitterly. To him, one * Horn., Odyss. xi. (Worsley). DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 67 would think, the change could have been not so very sad. Was he a king on earth ? No. Or a man of rank and wealth? "No," is the reply; "I was in my ninetieth year, and miserably poor ; I had to earn my bread by fishing. I had no children to succour me, and I was lame and blind." "What!" says the philosopher, " in such a case, could you really -wish to have life prolonged?" " Ay," replies the old fisher- man, echoing the thought of the great Achilles — " Ay, life is sweet, and death terrible." THE TYRANT. Although this is not classed amongst the " Dialogues of the Dead," there seems no reason why it should not find a place among them. Charon and his ghostly freight are a favourite subject for Lucian's satire, and he has here introduced them again in a dramatic scene of considerably more length than any of the preceding. The sparkling humour of the introduction gives addi- tional force to the serious moral of the close. CHARON, CLOTHO, MERCURY, ETC. Charon. Well, Clotho, here's the boat all a-taut, and everything ready for crossing ; we've pumped out the water, and stepped the mast, and hoisted the sail — the oars are in their row-locks, and, so far as I am con- cerned, nothing hinders us from weighing anchor and setting ofF. And that Mercury is keeping me waiting — he ought to have been here long ago. The boat lies here empty still, you see, when we might have made three trips already to-day ; and now it's almost evening, and 68 LVCIAN. we haven't earned a penny yet. And I know Pluto will think it's all my laziness, whereas the fault lies in quite another quarter. That blessed ghost-conductor of ours has been drinking the waters of Lethe himself, I suppose, and has forgot to come back. He's most likely wrestling with the young men, or playing on his lyre, — or holding an argument, to show his subtle wit. Or very possibly my gentleman is doing a little thieving somewhere on the road, for that's one of his many ac- complishments. He takes considerable liberties with us, I must say, considering that he's half our servant. Clotho. You don't know, Charon, but that he has been hindered in some way ; Jupiter may have wanted him for some extra work up above ; lie's his master too, you see.* Clia. But he has no right to get more than his share of work out of our common property, Clotho : / never keep him, when it's his time to go. But I know what it is ; with us he gets nothing but asphodel, and liba- tions, and salt-cake, and such funeral fare — all the rest is gloom, and fog, and darkness ; while in heaven 'tis all brightness, and lots of ambrosia, and nectar in abund- ance ; so I suppose he finds it pleasanter to spend his time up there. He flies away from here fast enough, as if he were escaping out of prison ; but when the hour comes for him to return, he moves very leisurely, and takes his time on the road down. * The many offices of Mercury were a favourite subject of jest with Aristophanes as well as with Lucian. Some figures of the god represented him witli his face painted half black and hall' white, to signify his double occupation, above and below. DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. GO Clo. Don't put yourself in a passion, Charon ; look, here he comes, close by, bringing a large company with him — driving them before him, I should rather say, with his rod, like a flock of goats. But what's this? I see one of the party with his hands tied, and another laughing, and another with a wallet on his back and a club in his hand, looking very savage, and hurrying the rest on. And don't you see how Mercury himself is actually running down with sweat, and how dusty his feet are ; he's quite out of breath, panting, with his mouth open. — What's the matter, Mercury ? What are you so hurried about? You seem quite done up. {Enter Mercury, very hot, with a large comjjany of Ghosts.) M