Rhetorum praeceptor

Lucian of Samosata

Lucian, Vol. 4. Harmon, A. M., editor. London: William Heinemann, Ltd.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925.

On the instant, then, you will be approached by a vigorous man with hard muscles and a manly stride, who shows heavy tan on his body, and is bold-eyed and alert. He is the guide of the rough road, and he will talk a lot of nonsense to you, the poor simpleton. In exhorting you to follow him, he will point out the footprints of Demosthenes and of Plato, and one or two more—great prints, I grant you, too great for men of nowadays, but for the most part dim and indistinct through lapse of time ; and he will say that you will have good fortune and will contract a lawful marriage with Rhetoric if you

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follow these footprints like a rope-dancer; but if you should make even a slight mis-step, or set your foot out of them, or let your weight sway you somewhat to one side, you will fall from the direct road that leads to the marriage. Then he will tell you to imitate those ancient worthies, and will set you fusty models for your speeches, far from easy to copy, resembling sculptures in the early manner such as those of Hegesias and of Critius and Nesiotes[*](Pre-Phidian sculptors, Hegesias famous for his Dioscuri, Critius and Nesiotes for their joint work, the Tyrant Slayers (Harmodius and Aristogeiton). ) —wasp-waisted, sinewy, hard, meticulously definite in their contours. And he will say that hard work, scant sleep, abstention from wine, and untidiness are necessary and indispensable; it is impossible, says he, to get over the road without them. What is most vexatious of all, even the time which he will prescribe to you for the journey will be very long——many years, for he counts not by days and months, but by whole Olympic cycles,[*](i.e., of four years. ) so that you will be foredone in advance as you listen and will forswear your project, bidding a fond farewell to the good fortune that you expected. Besides, he demands no small fee for all these hardships; in fact, he would not guide you unless he should get a huge sum in advance.

That is what this man will say, the impostor, the absolute old fogey, the antediluvian, who displays dead men of a bygone age to serve as patterns, and expects you to dig up long-buried speeches as if they were something tremendously helpful, wanting you to emulate the son of a sword-maker, and some other

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fellow, the son of a school-master named Atrometus,[*](The sword-maker’s son is Demosthenes, the schoolmaster’s Aeschines. ) and that too in times of peace, when no Philip is making raids and no Alexander issuing orders—situations in which their speeches were perhaps considered useful. He does not know what a short, easy road, direct to Rhetoric, has recently been opened. But do not you believe or heed him for fear he may give you a neck-breaking tumble somewhere after he gets you in charge, or may in the end make you prematurely old with your labours. No, if you are unquestionably in love, and wish to marry Rhetoric forthwith, while you are still in your prime, so that she may be fond of you, do bid a long good-bye to that hairy, unduly masculine fellow, leaving him to climb up himself, all blown and dripping with sweat, and lead up what others he can delude.

If you turn to the other road, you will find many people, and among them a wholly clever and wholly handsome gentleman with a mincing gait, a thin neck, a languishing eye, and a honeyed voice, who distils perfume, scratches his head with the tip of his finger,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Pompey, 48 fin. ) and carefully dresses his hair, which is scanty now, but curly and raven-black—an utter] delicate Sardanapalus, a Cinyras, a very Agathon (that charming writer of tragedies, don’t you know?). I am thus explicit that you may recognize him by these tokens, and may not overlook a creature so marvellous, and so dear to Aphrodite and the Graces. But what am I talking about? Even if you had your eyes shut, and he should come and speak to you, unsealing those Hymettus lips and releasing upon the air those wonted intonations, you would

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discover that he is not like us “who eat the fruit of the glebe,”[*](Iliad6, 142. ) but some unfamiliar spirit, nurtured on dew or on ambrosia.

If, then, you go to him and put yourself in his hands, you will at once, without effort, become an orator, the observed of all, and, as he himself calls it, king of the platform, driving the horses of eloquence four-in-hand. For on taking you in charge, he will teach you first of all—but let him address you himself.

It would be comical for me to do the talking on behalf of such an accomplished speaker, as I should be poorly cast, it may very well be, for parts of that nature and importance; I might fall down and so put out of countenance the hero whom I impersonated.

He would address you, then, somewhat in this fashion, tossing back what hair is still left him, faintly smiling in that sweet and tender way which is his wont, and rivalling Thais herself of comic fame, or Malthace, or Glycera, in the seductiveness of his tone, since masculinity is boorish and not in keeping with a delicate and charming platform-hero —

he will address you, I say, using very moderate language about himself: “Prithee, dear fellow, did Pythian Apollo send you to me, entitling me the best of speakers, just as, when Chaerephon questioned him, he told who was the wisest in that generation?[*](Socrates, in the Apology of Plato, says that when Chaerephon in his zeal “asked whether anyone was wiser than I, the Pythia responded that nobody was wiser ” (21 ). ) If that is not the case, but you have come of your own accord in the wake of rumour, because you hear everybody speak of my achievements with astonishment, praise, admiration, and self-abasement, you shall very soon learn what a superhuman person you have come to. Do not expect to see something that you can compare with

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So-and-so, or So-and-so; no, you will consider the achievement far too prodigious and amazing even for Tityus or Otus or Ephialtes. Indeed, as far as the others are concerned, you will find that I drown them out as effectively as trumpets drown flutes, or cicadas bees, or choirs their leaders.

“As you yourself wish to become a speaker, and cannot learn this with greater ease from anyone else, just attend, dear lad, to all that I shall say, copy me in everything, and always keep, I beg you, the rules which I shall bid you to follow. ‘In fact, you may press on at once; you need not feel any hesitation or dismay because you have not gone through all the rites of initiation preliminary to Rhetoric, through which the usual course of elementary instruction guides the steps of the senseless and silly at the cost of great weariness. You will not require them at all. No, go straight in, as the proverb says, with unwashen feet,[*](The saying in full was ἀνίπτοις ποσὶν ἀναβαίνων ἐπὶ τὸ στέγος (going up to the roof with unwashed feet), and so can hardly contain any reference to ceremonial purification. Perhaps going up on the roof was tantamount to going to bed, Cf. Song of Solomon, 5, 3. ) and you will not fare any the worse for that, even if you are quite in the prevailing fashion and do not know how to write. Orators are beyond all that!