Juppiter Tragoedus

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 3. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

Timocles Have a care, Damis; this is sacrilege, no less; what you say amounts to razing the temples and upsetting the altars.

Damis Ob, not all the altars; what harm do they do, so long as incense and perfume is the worst of it? As for Artemis’s altar at Tauri, though, and her hideous feasts, I should like it overturned from base to cornice.

Zeus Whence comes this resistless plague among us? ‘There is none of us he spares; he is as free with his tongue as a tub orator,

  • And grips by turns the innocent and guilty.

    • Momus The innocent? You will not find many of those among us, Zeus. He will soon come to laying hands upon some of the great and eminent, I dare say.