That flatterers do not hesitate to lie for the sake of pleasing the objects of their praise, whereas those who really praise try to magnify what actually exists, is not the only distinguishing mark of each. They differ in a further point, and not a trivial one, that flatterers use hyperbole to the full extent of their powers, while those who really praise are discreet in precisely that particular and remain within their bounds.

These are a few out of many earmarks of flattery and of genuine praise which I give you so that you may not suspect all who praise you, but may distinguish between them and gauge each by his proper standard.

Come then, apply, if you will, both canons to my words, that you may discover whether they conform to this one or the other. If it had been some ugly woman whom I likened to the statue in Cnidos, I might indeed be accounted a liar, and a worse flatterer than Cynaethus. But since it was one whose beauty is known to all, the venture was not a salto mortale.

Perhaps, then, you may say—indeed, you have already said—that you concede my right to praise you for your beauty, but that I should have made my praise unexceptionable and should not have compared a mortal woman with goddesses. As a matter of fact (now she is going to make me speak the truth!) it was not with goddesses I compared you, my dear woman, but with masterpieces of good craftsmen, made of stone or bronze or ivory; and what man has made, it is not impious, I take it, to compare with man. But perhaps you have assumed that what Phidias fashioned is Athena, and that what Praxiteles made in Cnidus not many years ago is Heavenly Aphrodite ? Come now, would it not be unworthy to hold such beliefs about the gods, whose real images I for my part assume to be unattainable by human mimicry ?

But if I had actually compared you, as much as you will, with the very goddesses themselves, I should not have been doing it on my own responsibility and should not have been the first to open this road. No, there have been many good poets ahead of me, and above all your fellow-citizen Homer, whom I shall now call up to plead for me, or else there is nothing for it but that he himself will be convicted along with me!

I shall therefore ask him, or, better, ask you in his stead, since you know by heart—and it is greatly to your credit—all the prettiest of the verses that he composed, what you think of him when he says of Briseis, the captive, that as she mourned for Patroclus she resembled golden Aphrodite?

Iliad19, 282.

Then after a bit, as if it were not enough that she should be like Aphrodite only, he says : Then made answer, in tears, the maid as fair as a goddess.Iiad19, 286 When he says that sort of thing, do you loathe him and fling away the book, or do you permit him to enjoy full freedom in his praise? Well, even if you refuse permission, at all events Time in his long flight has given it, and nobody has found fault with Homer on that score, neither the man who made bold to flog his statue nor the man who marked the spurious lines by setting daggers beside them.

Respectively Zoilus the Homeromastix and Aristarchus of Alexandria, the grammarian.

Then if he is to be permitted to compare a foreign woman, and in tears at that, with golden Aphrodite, for my part, not to speak of your beauty because you will not listen, may not I compare with images of the gods a radiant woman, usually smiling, a trait which men have in common with the gods?

In the case of Agamemnon, moreover, see how parsimonious Homer was with the gods, and with what propriety he doled out his comparisons! He says that in eyes and head he was like to Zeus, in waist to Ares, and in chest to Poseidon,

Iliad 2, 478-479.

dismembering the man for the sake of comparing him with all those gods. Again, he says that someone is a match for devastating Ares ;

Notably Hector, Iliad 11, 295; 13, 802.

and just so with the rest of them—the Phrygian, the son of Priam, is beautiful as a god,

Paris, Iliad 3, 16.

and the son of Peleus is often godlike.

Achilles, Iliad 1, 131.

But I will return to the parallels that concern women. You know, naturally, that he says: Artemis she resembleth, or else Aphrodite the golden,Odyssey17, 37 (19, 54), of Penelope. also, Just so Artemis runneth adown the slope of a mountain.Odyssey6, 102, of Nausicaa.

Moreover, he not only compares human beings with gods, but likens the long hair of Euphorbus to the Graces, and that too when it was soaked with blood! In short, this sort of thing is so frequent that there is no part of his poetry which is not well adorned with comparisons of gods. Therefore you must either expunge all that, or permit us to be equally venturesome. So exempt from all accountability is the use of comparisons and similes that Homer actually did not hesitate to derive praise for the goddesses from things of lower degree. For instance, he likened Hera’s eyes to those of kine. And someone else called Aphrodite violet-browed.

The “Theban poet” of the preceding piece (p.271); i.e. Pindar.

As for “rosy-fingered,” who that has even the slightest acquaintance with Homer’s poetry does not know it?

As far as personal appearance is concerned, it signifies comparatively little if one is said to be like a god. But how many there are who have copied the very names of the gods, calling themselves Dionysius, Hephaestion, Zeno, Poseidonius, Hermes! And there was a Leto, the wife of Evagoras, king of Cyprus ; yet the goddess did not take on about it, though she might have turned her into stone as she did Niobe. The Egyptians I forbear to mention, who, though the most superstitious people in the world, yet use the names of the gods to their hearts’ content ; in fact, most of their names are derived from Heaven.

It is not incumbent upon you, then, to be thus timorous in respect of praise. If any offence at all has been perpetrated against divinity in that essay, you are not accountable for it—unless you think that to listen makes one accountable ; it is I whom the gods will punish, after first punishing Homer and the other poets! But to this day they have not punished the best of the philosophers for saying that man was God’s image !

Hardly Plato, though he has something similar in the Republic, 501. But to him the universe is God’s image ; see the end of the Timaeus. Perhaps Lucian means Diogenes, who said that good men were images of gods (Diog. Laert. 6, 51).

Although I might say much more to you, I shall stop for the sake of Polystratus here, so that he may be able to repeat from memory what has been said.

POLYSTRATUS I don’t know if that is any longer possible for me, Lycinus. Even as it is, you have made a long speech, far beyond your allowance of water. But I shall try to remember it all the same ; and, as you see, I am already making off to her with my ears stopped for fear that something else may pop in to confuse its outline, and then I may have the bad luck to be hissed by my hearers!

LYCINUS That is your concern, Polystratus, to act your part to the best advantage. As for me, now that I have once for all put the play into your hands, I shall withdraw for the present; but when they announce the votes of the judges, I shall be there in person to see what will be the outcome of the contest.