Demonax

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 1. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913.

He made it his business also to reconcile brothers at variance and to miake terms of peace between wives and husbands. On occasion, he has talked reason to excited mobs, and has usually persuaded them to serve their country in a temperate spirit.

Such was the character of his philosophy—kind, gentle and cheerful. The only thing which distressed him was the illness or death of a friend, for he considered friendship the greatest of human blessings. For this reason he was everyone’s friend, and there was no human being whom he did not include in his affections, though he liked the society of some better than that of others. He held aloof only from those who seemed to him to be involved in sin beyond hope of cure. And in all this, his every word and deed was smiled on by the Graces and by Aphrodite, even; so that, to quote the comedian, “persuasion perched upon his lips.”1

Hence all Athens, high and low, admired him enormously and always viewed him as a superior being. Yet in office he ran counter to public opinion and won from the masses quite as much hatred as his prototype[*](Socrates.) by his freedom of speech and action. He too had his Anytus and his Meletus who combined against him and brought the same charges that their predecessors brought against Socrates, asserting that he had never been known to sacrifice and was the only man in the community uninitiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. In reply to this, with right good [*](Eupolis, quoted in the note on “Nigrinus” 7.)

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courage he wreathed his head, put on a clean cloak, went to the assembly and made his defence, which was in part good-tempered, in part more caustic than accorded with his scheme of life. Regarding his never having offered sacrifice to Athena, he said: “Do not be surprised, men of Athens, that I have not hitherto sacrificed to her: I did not suppose that she had any need of my offerings.’”” Regarding the other charge, the matter of the mysteries, he said that he had never joined them in the rite because if the mysteries were bad, he .would not hold his tongue before the uninitiate but would turn them away from the cult, while if they were good, he would reveal them to everybody out of his love for humanity. So the Athenians, who already had stones in both hands to throw at him, became good-natured and friendly toward him at once, and from that time on they honoured, respected and finally admired him. Yet in the very beginning of his speech he had used a pretty caustic introduction, “Men of Athens, you see me ready with my garland: come, sacrifice me like your former victim, for on that occasion your offering found no favour with the gods!”

I should like to cite a few of his well-directed and witty remarks, and may as well begin with Favorinus [*](An eunuch from Arles, of considerable repute as a sophist.) and what he said to him. When Favorinus was told by someone that Demonax was making fun of his lectures and particularly of the laxity of their rhythm, saying that it was vulgar and effeminate and not by any means appropriate to philosophy, he went to Demonax and asked him: “Who are you to libel my compositions?” “A

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man with an ear that is not easy to cheat,” said he. The sophist kept at him and asked: “What qualifications had you, Demonax, to leave school and commence philosophy?” “Those-you lack,” he retorted.