He set us ashore at Aegiali (which noble Homer mentions

Iliad, 2, 855.

), and then they went back again.

There I found some men from the Bosporus who were voyaging along the coast. They were going as ambassadors from King Eupator to Bithynia, to bring the yearly contribution.

Tiberius Julius Eupator succeeded Rhoemetalces as King of the (Cimmerian) Bosporus, on the Tauric Chersonese ; its capital was Panticapaeum (Kertch). The period of his reign is about a.d. 154-171. At this time the kingdom seems to have been paying tribute to the Scythians annually as well as to the Empire (Toxaris, 44).

I told them of the peril in which we had been, found them courteous, was taken aboard their vessel, and won safely through to Amastris, after coming so close to losing my life.

Thereupon I myself began to prepare for battle with him, and to employ every resource in my desire to pay him back. Even before his attempt upon me, I detested him and held him in bitter enmity on account of the vileness of his character. So I undertook to prosecute him, and had many associates, particularly the followers of Timocrates, the philosopher from Heraclea. But the then governor of Bithynia and Pontus, Avitus,

L. Lollianus Avitus, consul a.d. 144, proconsul Africae ca. 156, praeses Bithyniae 165.

checked me, all but beseeching and imploring me to leave off, because out of good will to Rutilianus he could not, he said, punish Alexander even if he should find him clearly guilty of crime. In that way my effort was thwarted, and I left off exhibiting misplaced zeal before a judge who was in that state of mind.

Of course Lucian’s case, as it stood, was weak, as Avitus tactfully hinted. But this does not excuse Avitus. The chances of securing enough evidence to convict Alexander in a Roman court were distinctly good, and fear of Alexander’s influence is the only reasonable explanation of the failure to proceed,