GetPassage urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0062.tlg043.perseus-eng2:1-20 urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0062.tlg043.perseus-eng2:1-20

Is the report true, father, that someone threw himself bodily into the fire, in the very face of the Olympic festivities, quite an elderly man, not a bad hand at such hocus-pocus? Selene told me, saying that she herself had seen him burning.

The Olympic games were timed to come at the full of the moon, and the cremation took place at moon-rise (Peregr., 36).

Yes, quite true, Apollo. If only it had never happened!

Was the old man so good? Was he not worthy of a death by fire?

Yes, that he was, very likely.

By dividing Apollo’s question and emphasising the negative in the second part, the translation seeks to reproduce the ambiguity of Zeus’s reply, which in the Greek is sufficiently subtle to have misled more than one scholar into the notion that Zeus (and therefore Lucian) is praising Peregrinus. Nothing could be farther from his (or Lucian’s) real thought, that the fellow deserved death. The ambiguity is of course deliberate, to foil and annoy “Scarabee” and his sort; cf. below, § 7.

But my point is that I remember having had to put up with a great deal of annoyance at the time on account of a horrid stench such as you might expect to arise from roasting human bodies. In fact, if I had not at once gone straight to Araby, I should have come to a sad end, you may depend on it, from the awfulness of the reek. Even as it was, amid all that fragrance and abundance of sweet scents, with frankincense in profusion, my nostrils hardly consented to forget and unlearn the taint of that odour; why, even now I almost retch at the memory of it!

What was his idea, Zeus, in doing that to himself, or what was the good of his getting incinerated by jumping into the blazing pyre?

Well, that criticism, my boy, you had better address first to Empedocles, who himself sprung into that crater in Sicily.

A terrible case of melancholia, that! But this man—what reason in the world did he have for wanting to do it?

I will repeat for you a speech of his own, which he delivered to the assembled pilgrims, defending himself before them for putting an end to himself.

He said, if my memory serves me—But who is this woman coming up in haste, excited and tearful, like someone suffering great wrongs? Stay, it is Philosophy, and she is calling upon me by name, in bitterness of spirit. Why the tears, my daughter? Why have you left the world and come here? Surely it cannot be that the common sort have once again combined against you as before, when they put Socrates to death through a charge brought by Anytus, and that you are fleeing from them for that reason?

Nothing of the sort, father. On the contrary, they—the multitude—spoke well of me and held me in honour, respecting, admiring, and all but worshipping me, even if they did not much understand what I said. But the others—how shall I style them?— those who say they are my familiars and friends and creep under the cloak of my name, they are the people who have done me the direst possible injuries.

Have the philosophers made a plot against you?

By no means, father. Why, they themselves have been wronged in common with me!

At whose hands, then, have you been wronged, if you have no fault to find either with the common sort or with the philosophers ?

There are some, Zeus, who occupy a middle ground between the multitude and the philosophers. In deportment, glance, and gait they are like us, and similarly dressed; as a matter of fact, they want to be enlisted under my command and they enroll themselves under my name, saying that they are my pupils, disciples, and devotees. Nevertheless, their abominable way of living, full of ignorance, impudence, and wantonness, is no trifling outrage against me. Itis they, father, who have inflicted the wrongs that have made me flee.

This is a sad state of affairs, daughter. But in just what way have they wronged you?

See for yourself, father, whether the wrongs are trifling. When you observed that the life of man was full of wrongdoing and transgression because stupidity and high-handedness were ingrained in it, and disturbed it, you pitied humanity, harried as it was by ignorance, and therefore sent me down, enjoining me to see to it that they should stop wronging each other, doing violence, and living like beasts; that they should instead fix their eyes on the verities and manage their society more peaceably. Anyhow, you said to me in sending me down: “What men do and how they are affected by stupidity, daughter, you see for yourself. I pity them, and so, as I think that you alone might be able to cure what is going on, I have selected you from among us all and send you to effect the cure.”

I know I said a great deal at the time, including all this. But go on and tell me what followed, how they received you when you flew down for the first time and what has befallen you now at their hands. When I sped off, father, I did not head for the Greeks straightway, but as it seemed to me the more difficult part of my task to educate and instruct the foreigners, I decided to do that first ; the Greek world I let be, as possible to subject very easily and likely (I thought so, anyhow) to take the bridle and submit to the harness very soon. Making for the Indians to begin with, the most numerous population in the world, I had na difficulty about persuading them to come down off their elephants and associate with me. Consequently, a whole tribe, the Brahmans, who border upon the Nechraei and the Oxydracae,

The Nechraei are not mentioned elsewhere, unless, as Fritzsche suggests, they are the Nereae of Pliny (Nat. Hist., VI, 76). The Oxydracae made themselves famous by their resolute opposition to the invasion of Alexander; they lived in the Punjab.

are all enlisted under my command and not only live in accordance with my tenets, honoured by all their neighbours, but die a marvellous kind of death.

You mean the gymnosophists.

A generic name given by the Greeks to the holy men of India who lived naked.

Anyhow, I am told, among other things about them, that they ascend a very lofty pyre and endure cremation without any change in their outward appearance or their sitting position.

Apparently a correction of Peregrinus, where (p. 30) the position is spoken of as “lying.”

But that is nothing much. Just now, for example, at Olympia I saw the same sort of thing done, and very likely you too were there at the time when the old man was burned. I did not even go to Olympia, father, for fear of those detestable fellows whom I spoke of, since I saw many of them taking their way there in order to upbraid the assembled pilgrims and fill the back room of the temple with the noise of their howling.

The word is chosen because specially appropriate to Cynic “dogs.”

Consequently, I did not see how he died.

But to resume—after the Brahmans I went direct to Ethiopia, and then down to Egypt; and after associating with their priests and prophets and instructing them in religion, I departed for Babylon, to initiate Chaldeans and Magi; then from there to Scythia, and then to Thrace, where I conversed with Eumolpus and Orpheus, whom I sent in advance to Greece, one of them, Eumolpus, to give them the mysteries, as he had learned all about religion from me, and the other to win them over by the witchery of his music. Then I followed at once on their heels.

Just at first, on my arrival, the Greeks neither welcomed me very warmly nor shut the door in m face outright. But gradually, as I associated wit them, I attached to myself seven companions and pupils from among them all; then another from Samos, another from Ephesus, and one more from Abdera—only a few in all.

The seven were the Seven Sages, who as listed by Plato in the Protagoras (343 a) were Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens, Cleobulus of Lindos, Myson of Chenae, and Chilon of Sparta; but Periander of Corinth was often included instead of Myson. The three whom Philosophy acquired later were Pythagoras of Samos,. Heraclitus of Ephesus, and Democritus of Abdera.

After them, the Sophist tribe somehow or other fastened themselves to my skirts. They were neither profoundly interested in my teaching nor altogether at variance, but like the Hippocentaur breed, something composite and mixed, astray in the interspace between quackery and philosophy, neither completely addicted to ignorance nor yet able to keep me envisioned with an intent gaze; being purblind, as it were, through their dim-sightedness they merely glimpsed at times an indistinct, dim presentment or shadow of me, yet thought they had discerned everything with accuracy. So there flared up among them that useless and superfluous “wisdom” of theirs, in their own opinion invincible—those clever, baffling, absurd replies and perplexing, mazy queries.

Then, on being checked and shown up by my comrades, they were indignant and combined against them, at length bringing them before courts and handing them over to drink the hemlock. I ought perhaps at that time to have fled incontinently, no longer putting up with their company; but Antisthenes and Diogenes, and presently Crates and Menippus, ou know,

“This” Menippus, not because Lucian thinks of him as attendin Fhilpeop. y in her return to Heaven, or still less because he is carelessly adapting something by Menippus in which that was the case (Helm), but simply because when Lucian wrote these words Menippus enjoyed among the reading public a high degree of popularity, to which by this time Lucian himself had contributed significantly:

persuaded me to mete them out an additional modicum of delay. O that I had not done so! for I should not have undergone such sufferings later.

You have not yet told me what wrongs have been done you, Philosophy; you merely vent your indignation. But do listen, Zeus, and hear how great they are. There is an abominable class of men, for the most part slaves and hirelings, who had nothing to do with me in childhood for lack of leisure, since they were performing the work of slaves or hirelings or learning such trades as you would expect their like to learn—cobbling, building, busying themselves with fuller’s tubs, or carding wool to make it easy for the women to work, easy to wind, and easy to draw off when they twist a yarn or spin a thread. Well, while they were following such occupations in youth, they did not even know my name. But when they began to be reckoned as adults and noticed how much respect my companions have from the multitude and how men tolerate their plain-speaking, delight in their ministrations, hearken to their advice, and cower under their censure, they considered all this to be a suzerainty of no mean order.

Now to learn all that is requisite for such a calling would have been a long task, say rather an impossible one. Their trades, however, were petty, laborious, and barely able to supply them with just enough. To some, moreover, servitude seemed grievous and (as indeed it is) intolerable. It seemed best to them, therefore, as they reflected upon the matter, to let go their last anchor, which men that sail the seas call the “sacred” one;

Nowadays known as the “sheet’ anchor.

so, resorting to good old Desperation, inviting the support, too, of Hardihood, Stupidity, and Shamelessness, who are their principal partisans, and committing to memory novel terms of abuse, in order to have them at hand and at their tongue’s end, with these as their only countersigns (you perceive what a rare equipment it is for philosophy), they very plausibly transform themselves in looks and apparel to counterfeit my very self, doing, I vow, the same sort of thing that Aesop says the jackass in Cyme did, who put on a lion skin and began to bray harshly, claiming to be a lion himself; and no doubt there were actually some who believed him!

What characterises us is very easily attainable, as you know, and open to imitation—I mean what meets the eye. It does not require much ceremony to don a short cloak, sling on a wallet, carry a staff in one’s hand, and shout—say rather, bray, or howl, and slang everyone. Assurance of not suffering for it was bound to be afforded them by the usual respect for the cloth. Freedom is in prospect, against the will of their master, who, even if he should care to assert possession by force, would get beaten with the staff. Bread, too, is no longer scanty or, as before, limited to bannocks of barley ; and what goes with it is not salt fish or thyme but meat of all sorts and wine of the sweetest, and money from whomsoever they will; for they collect tribute, going from house to house, or, as they themselves express it, they “shear the sheep”; and they expect many to give, either out of respect for their cloth or for fear of their abusive language.

Moreover, they discerned, I assume, the further advantage that they would be on an equal footing with true philosophers, and that there would be nobody who could pass judgment and draw distinctions in such matters, if only the externals were similar. For, to begin with, they do not even tolerate investigation if you question them ever so temperately and concisely; at once they begin shouting and take refuge in their peculiar citadel, abusiveness and a ready staff. Also, if you ask about their works, their words are copious, and if you wish to judge them by their words, they want you to consider their lives.

Consequently, every city is filled with such upstarts, particularly with those who enter the names of Diogenes, Antisthenes, and Crates as their patrons and enlist in the army ofthe dog. Those fellows have not in any way imitated the good that there is in the nature of dogs, as, for instance, guarding property, keeping at home, loving their masters, or remembering kindnesses, but their barking, gluttony, thievishness, excessive interest in females, truckling, fawning upon people who give them things, and hanging about tables—all this they have copied with painful accuracy.

You shall see what will happen presently. All the men in the workshops will spring to their feet and leave their trades deserted when they see that by toiling and moiling from morning till night, doubled over their tasks, they merely eke out a bare existence from such wage-earning, while idle frauds live in unlimited plenty, asking for things in a lordly way, getting them without effort, acting indignant if they do not, and bestowing no praise even if they do. It seems to them that this is ‘life in the age of Cronus,’ and really that sheer honey is distilling into their mouths from the sky!

The thing would not be so dreadful if they offended against us only by being what they are. But although outwardly and in public they appear very reverend and stern, if they get a handsome boy or a pretty woman in their clutches or hope to, it is best to veil their conduct in silence. Some even carry off the wives of their hosts,

There is here an allusion to “Scarabee’’; see below, § 30.

to seduce them after the pattern of that young Trojan,

Paris.

pretending that the women are going to become philosophers; then they tender them, as common property, to all their associates and think they are carrying out a tenet of Plato’s,

Plato, Republ., V, 459E.

when they do not know on what terms that holy man thought it right for women to be so regarded.

What they do at drinking-parties, how intoxicated they become, would make a long story. And while they do all this, you cannot imagine how they berate drunkenness and adultery and lewdness and covetousness. Indeed you could not find any two things so opposed to each other as their words and their deeds. For instance, they claim to hate toadying, when as far as that goes they are able to outdo Gnathonides or Struthias;

Gluttonous parasites of the New Comedy. Struthias, whose name is evidently connected with the greediness of the sparrow, figures in the Toady (Colaz) of Menander. The play in which Gnathonides appeared is unknown, but Gnatho (“Fowl?) is mentioned by Plutarch to exemplify a typical rasite (Symp., VII, 6, 2), and in utilising part of the Toady for his Hunuchus Terence changed the name of the chief role from Struthias to Gnatho.

and although they exhort everyone else to tell the truth, they themselves cannot so much as move their tongues except ina lie. To all of them pleasure is nominally an odious thing and Epicurus a foeman; but in practice they do everything for the sake of it. In irascibility, pettishness, and proneness to anger they are beyond young children ; indeed, they give no little amusement to onlookers when their blood boils up in them for some trivial reason, so that they look livid in colour, with a reckless, insane stare, and foam (or rather, venom) fills their mouths.

And “may you never chance to be there”

The words are those of Circe to Odysseus, alluding to Charybdis (Odyssey, XII, 106).

when that vile filth of theirs is exuded! “As to gold or silver, Heracles! I do not want even to ownit. An obol is enough, so that I can buy lupines, for a spring or a stream will supply me with drink.” Then after a little they demand, not obols nor a few drachmas, but whole fortunes. What shipman could make as much from his cargoes as philosophy contributes to these fellows in the way of gain? And then, when they have levied tribute and stocked themselves up to their heart’s content, throwing off that ill-conditioned philosopher’s cloak, they buy farms every now and then, and luxurious clothing, and long-haired pages, and whole apartmenthouses, bidding a long farewell to the wallet of Crates, the mantle of Antisthenes, and the jar of Diogenes.