Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/59

Rh L U C I A N 45 her, but only impostors and pretenders under her name ( 15). He makes a long defence (pp. 598-606), abusing the philosophers in the sort of language in which some schools of theologians abuse the monks of the Middle Ages ( 31). The trial is held in the Acropolis of Athens, and the sham philosophers, dreading a verdict against them, throw themselves from the rock. A Cynic flings away his scrip in the hurry, and on examination it is found to contain, not books or loaves of bread, but gold coins, dice, and fragrant essences ( 44). The title of Fisherman is given to this witty treatise, because at the end Lucian baits his hook with a fig and a gold coin, and catches gluttonous strollers in the city while seated on the wall of the Acropolis. The Voyage Home (KarctTrAous) opens with the com plaint that Charon s boat is kept waiting for Hermes, who soon appears with his troop of ghosts to be ferried over the infernal river. Among them is a rvpai/vos, one Megapenthes, who, as his name is intended to express, mourns greatly over the life he has just left. Amusing appeals are made by other souls for leave to return to life, and even bribes are offered to the presiding goddess of dsstiny, but Clotho is, of course, inexorable. The moral of the piece is closely like that of the parable of Dives and Lazarus : the rich and prosperous bewail their fate, while the poor and afflicted find rest from their troubles, and have no desire to return to them. The rrpawos here is the man clothed in purple and fine linen, and Lucian shows the same bitter dislike of tyrants which Plato and the tragic writers display. The heavy penalty is adjudged to Megapenthes that he may ever remember in the other world the misdeeds done in life. The Sale of Lives is an auction held by Zeus to see what price the lives of philosophers of the rival sects will bring. A Pythagorean, who speaks in the Ionic, first undergoes an examination as to what he can teach, and this contains an enumeration of the doctrines usually ascribed to that sect, including metempsychosis. He is valued at 7s. 6d., and is succeeded by Diogenes, who avows himself the champion of truth, a cosmopolitan ( 8), and the enemy of pleasure. Socrates brings two talents, and is purchased by Dion, tyrant of Syracuse ( 19). Chrysippus, who gives some specimens of his clever quibbles, 1 is bought for fifty pounds, Aristotle for nearly a hundred, while Pyrrho the sceptic (or one of his school), who professes to &quot; know nothing,&quot; brings four pounds, &quot;because he is dull and stupid and has no more sense than a grub &quot; ( 27). But the man raises a doubt, &quot;whether or not he has really been bought,&quot; and refuses to go with the purchaser till he has fully considered the matter. Timon is a very amusing and witty dialogue. The misanthrope, once wealthy, has become a poor farm- labourer, and reproaches Zeus for his indifference to the injustice of man. Zeus declares that the noisy disputes in Attica have so disgusted him that he has not been there for a long time ( 9). He tells Hermes to conduct Plutus to visit Timon, and see what can be done to help him. Plutus, who at first refuses to go, is persuaded after a long conversation with Hermes, and Timon is found by them digging in his field ( 31). Poverty is unwilling to resign her votary to wealth ; and Timon himself, who has become a thorough misanthrope, objects to be made rich again, and is with difficulty persuaded to turn up with his mattock a crock of gold coins. Now that he has once more become rich, his former flatterers, who had long left 1 E.g., 25, &quot;A stone is a body ; a livrng creature is a body ; you are a living creature ; therefore you are a stone.&quot; Again : &quot;Is every body possessed of life?&quot; &quot;No.&quot; &quot;Is a stone possessed of life?&quot; &quot;No.&quot; &quot; Are you a body ? &quot; &quot;Yes.&quot; &quot; A living body ? &quot; &quot; Yes.&quot; &quot; Then, if a living body, you are not a stone.&quot; him, come cringing with their congratulations and respects, but they are all driven off with broken heads or pelted with stones. Between this dialogue and the Plutus of Aristophanes there are many close resemblances. Hermotimus (pp. 739-831) is one of the longer dialogues, Hermotimus, a student of the Stoic philosophy for twenty years ( 2), and Lucian (Lycinus) being the interlocutors. The long time forty years at the least required for climbing up to the temple of virtue and happiness, and the short span of life, if any, left for the enjoyment of it, are discussed. That the greatest philosophers do not always attain perfect indifference, the Stoic ultimatum, is shown by the anecdote of one who dragged his pupil into court to make him pay his fee ( 9), and again by a violent quarrel with another at a banquet (11). Virtue is compared to a city with just, and good, and contented inhabitants ; but so many offer themselves as guides to the right road to virtue that the inquirer is bewildered ( 26). What is truth, and who are the right teachers of it, still remains undetermined. The question is argued at length, and illustrated by a peculiar custom of watching the pairs of athletes and setting aside the reserved combatant (TrapeSpo?) at the Olympian games by the marks on- the ballots ( 40-43). This, it is argued, cannot be done till all the ballots have been examined ; so a man cannot select the right way till he has tried all the ways to virtue. But to know the doctrines of all the sects is impossible in the term of a life ( 49). To take a taste of each, like trying a sample of wine, will not do, because the doctrines taught are not, like the crock of wine, the same throughout, but vary or advance day by day ( 59). A suggestion is made ( 68) that the searcher after truth should begin by taking lessons in the science of discrimination, so as to be a good judge of truth before testing the rival claims. But who is a good teacher of such a science 1 ? ( 70). The general conclusion of this well-argued inquiry is that philosophy is not worth the pursuit. &quot; If I ever again,&quot; says Hermotimus, &quot;meet a philosopher on the road, I will shun him as I would a mad dog.&quot; The Alexander or False Prophet is a severe exposure of a clever rogue who seems to have incurred the personal enmity of Lucian (pp. 208-265). Born at Abonoteichus in Bithynia, a town on the southern shore of the Euxine, he is denounced as having filled all the Roman province of Asia with his villainy and plundering. Handsome, clever, and unprincipled, he had been instructed in the arts of imposture by one of the disciples of Apollonius of Tyana. Trusting to the natural credulity of Asiatics ( 9), he sets up an oracle in his native town, having buried some brazen tablets which pretended that ^Esculapius would be wor shipped in a temple there. A long account is given of the frauds and deceptions of this pretended hierophant, and the narrative ends with his treacherous attempt to drown Lucian off the coast of Amastris by a secret order given to the pilot, a design which was frustrated by the honesty of the man ( 56). The Anacharsis is a dialogue between Solon and the Scythian philosopher, who has come to Athens on purpose to learn the nature of the Greek institutions. Seeing the young men performing athletic exercises in the Lyceum, he expresses his surprise at such a waste of energy and the endurance of so much useless pain. This gives Socrates an opportunity of descanting at length on training as a discipline, and emulation as a motive for excelling. Love of glory, Solon says, is one of the chief goods in life. The argument is rather ingenious and well put ; the style reminds us of the minor essays of Xenophon. In all, one hundred and twenty-four extant treatises of Lucian (excluding about fifty epigrams and two iambic poems of no great merit) are considered genuine. We have given a brief account of