Calumniae non temere credundum

Lucian of Samosata

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

Ptolemy is said to have been so ashamed of the affair that he presented Apelles with a hundred talents and gave him Antiphilus for his slave. Apelles, for his part, mindful of the risk that he had run, hit back at slander in a painting.

On the right of it sits a man with very large ears, almost like those of Midas, extending his hand to Slander while she is still at some distance from him. Near him, on one side, stand two women—Ignorance, I think, and Suspicion. On the other side, Slander is coming up, a woman beautiful beyond measure, but full of passion and excitement, evincing as she does fury and wrath by carrying in her left hand a blazing torch and with the other dragging by the hair a young man who stretches out his hands to heaven

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and calls the gods to witness his innocence, She is © conducted by a pale ugly man who has a piercing eye and looks as if he had wasted away in long illness; he may be supposed to be Envy. Besides, there are two women in attendance on Slander, egging her on, tiring her and tricking her out. According to the interpretation of them given me by the guide to the picture, one was Treachery and the other Deceit. They were followed by a woman dressed in deep mourning, with black clothes all in tatters—Repentance, I think, her name was. At all events, she was turning back with tears in her eyes and casting a stealthy glance, full of shame, at Truth, who was approaching.

That is the way in which Apelles represented in the painting his own hairbreadth escape.

Come, suppose we too, if you like, following the lead of the Ephesian artist, portray the characteristics of slander, after first sketching it in outline: for in that way our picture will perhaps come out more clearly. Slander, then, is a clandestine accusation, made without the cognizance of the accused and _ sustained by the uncontradicted assertion of one side. This is the subject of my lecture, and since there are three leading characters in slander as in comedy—the slanderér, the slandered person, and the hearer of the slander,—let us consider what is ukely to happen in the case of each of them. [*](This partition, derived from Herodotus (7, 10), is not at all strictly followed by Lucian in developing his theme.)

In the first place, if you like, let us bring on the star of the play, I mean the author of the slander. That he is not a good man admits of no doubt, I am

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sure, because no good man would make trouble for his neighbour. On the contrary, it is characteristic of good men to win renown and gain a reputation for kind-heartedness by doing good to their friends, not by accusing others wrongfully and getting them hated.